It Starts Small

Satan and his minions are who we are at war with. Sure, he uses people as a pawn, but it is not those people we are at war with. Satan will take darkness & deception and put it in any realm you can think about. He will put it in the realm of religion. Paul warned Timothy that in the last days people are going to be believing doctrines of demons.

Now the Spirit explicitly says that in later times some will depart from the faith, paying attention to deceitful spirits and the teachings of demons,

1 Timothy 4:1

It doesn’t matter what pulpit Satan has, it can be the world or just your television set. It doesn’t matter where he is, he is just trying to get our minds. Once he gets our minds, he turns us upside down and the rest is history.

Do you remember the story of the two disciples who were discouraged on Resurrection morning in Luke 24:13-36? They were walking down the road to Emmaus. Emmaus was in the exact opposite direction. They should have been in Jerusalem celebrating, but they were not. They were walking down the wrong road. Well, Jesus came alongside them and said,

“Hey, guys. What’s going on?”

They said,

“You mean you don’t know what is going on.”

Well, yes, he knew about what was going on. But he said, “About what?” They said,

“About Jesus. We thought he was going to be the Messiah, the one who would come and bring in the kingdom. But now He is dead.”

The Lord Jesus answered back and said,

“O foolish men and slow of heart to believe in all that the prophets have spoken!.”

Luke 24:25

Do you know what Jesus was saying? He was saying, “You have built your lives on a lie. You have listened to the tradition of the elders. You have never listened to what the prophets have said in God’s Word.” As a result they were going in exactly the opposite direction they should have been going.

Disciples. Discouraged. Defeated.

They had not allowed truth to be the anchor of their life. I wonder how many of us are the same way. Maybe it is in your marriage or your family. Somewhere down the road, maybe ten years back, you departed from what God said. As a result it has been going downhill ever since. Satan is the mastermind of darkness and deception. That is an unseen enemy.

Let’s read together the passage again to sort of keep it in our minds. Verse 10 says,

¹⁰ Finally, be strengthened by the Lord and by his vast strength. ¹¹ Put on the full armor of God so that you can stand against the schemes of the devil. ¹² For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers of this darkness, against evil, spiritual forces in the heavens. 

Ephesians 6:10-12

Now we come to the structure of the whole teaching of spiritual warfare. Basically it is summed up in two things. One is found in v13, which also comprises v14-17. The second one is found in v18. If you will look at it correctly, they all fit together. You ca not disjoint verse 18 from what he is talking about here.

The first thing is that we stand and stand firm. The word in verse 13 means to stand firm in the face of all the aggression and the oppression of the enemy. That is the first thing we are to do to walk in victory. Then the second thing we are to do is to pray at all times and to pray in the Spirit. You cannot just stand there, you got to pray. The praying and the standing go together. You have to stand first because you cannot pray effectively until you are standing. Then you pray in the Spirit. Let’s work our way through that.

Paul says:

“Therefore take up the full armor of God,”

Whenever you see a “therefore,” always look to see what it is there for. It just hooked us up to verses 10-12:

“Therefore take up the full armor of God, so that you will be able to resist in the evil day, and having done everything, to stand firm

Alright, let’s take it apart. First of all,

“take up the full armor of God”

How can I stand in the face of the devil?

You stand being properly dressed. You have got to have on the full armor of God. The whole book of Ephesians is talking about how to get dressed in the righteousness of Christ, in the garment that we are to wear. That garment becomes our armor and enables us to stand.

Go back to Ephesians 3

that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in the inner man, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; and that you, being rooted and grounded in love

Ephesians 3:16

The word “dwell” means to be at home, to settle in, to be comfortable, to have access to every area of your life. So it is very simple what he is saying here—just learn to surrender to God.

What is your problem? Family issues? Marital issues? Job Issues? Health issues?

Take it to the Word of God. Take it to the will of God. Put it at His feet. Find out what God says and be willing to surrender that whole area of your life to Him and then you turn Him loose in your life and He begins to strengthen you in the inner man with His Spirit. Now, this is going to affect your lifestyle, and that lifestyle is like a garment.

and to put on the new self, the one created according to God’s likeness in righteousness and purity of the truth.

Ephesians 4:24

Some people get confused here. When you look at Colossians 3:9-11:

⁹ Do not lie to one another, since you have put off the old self with its practices ¹⁰ and have put on the new self. You are being renewed in knowledge according to the image of your Creator. ¹¹ In Christ there is not Greek and Jew, circumcision and uncircumcision, barbarian, Scythian, slave and free; but Christ is all and in all.

Colossians 3:9-11

Paul says we have already put off the old man and we have already put on the new man. He states in Romans 6 the old man is dead. But here Paul says, in Ephesians, put him off and put on the new man.

You are probably asking what I asked: Well, I thought I had already put on the new man.

Here is something that helped me to understand what Paul was saying. Think for a moment that you have a factory, and this factory is filled with workers. On the top floor of the factory you have the management. Every day for 30 or 40 years the management has sent down little memos to tell you how to do your job. You are used to listening to what the memos have told you. Some people have been on the job 30 years and are going to do it a certain way. One day somebody buys the factory and moves out the management. They are no longer there. They come in and completely renovate the floor with different offices, different carpet, everything. A brand new management moves in. Well, all of a sudden they start sending their memos down, and it is different than the way they used to do it. The workman down at the end of the factory is saying, “Are you kidding me? I have been doing this for 30 years of my life. I am going to do it my way!” Uh oh. Look out. There is going to be a conflict somewhere. He has been so trained to do it one way and is not listening to what the new management has to say.

Colossians 3 is talking about the management. The old management has left and the new management has walked in. Romans 6 is the management. The management is dead. It ceases to have power over us. But in Ephesians it is talking about the factory. Paul states that you need to take off your old manner of living and put on a new manner of living. The thing that bothers us is we still have the flesh to deal with. All the lusts of the flesh of the unredeemed body are still pulling us to do it the old way. The Spirit is telling us, “No, no, no! You do it this way.”

So to me, sin could be said not to be of an unregenerate nature, in the sense that we have a new nature in Christ. It could be of an unrenewed mind. We have not learned to line up. Now obviously, perfection will not be reached down here, but sanctification is lining up our minds with the new management that is in our life. That may fall short, but that might give you a little bit of difference here. Each passage talks about something different. We are talking about a manner of life.

So I put on this new garment. Now, underneath this garment, underneath this new lifestyle, are the armored attitudes of 6:14-17. It is a person who is standing. How do you stand? (Ephesians 6:14)

“Stand firm (Aorist Imperative ~ often expresses note of urgency ~ the idea is to definitely, decisively do this now! Stand firm!) therefore, HAVING GIRDED YOUR LOINS WITH TRUTH AND HAVING PUT ON THE BREASTPLATE OF RIGHTEOUSNESS, “

That is the only way you can stand. The armor and the garment are the same. One is the underlying attitude which affects the garment on the outside. It is Christ in us, strengthening us in the inner man.

So look back at Ephesians 6:13:

“take up the full armor of God,” The full armor means until Christ has taken the areas of your life and is walking and ruling and reigning in them. It goes on, ” so that you will be able to resist in the evil day, and having done everything, to stand firm.”

Our SUBMISSION to Christ is our RESISTANCE to the devil

Our submission to Christ is our resistance to the devil. Look at what it says: “take up the full armor of God, that you may be able to resist.” I cannot resist until I have submitted to Him. How do I put on the full armor? It is inward, not outward. It is something that is a relationship. It is surrender. It is obeying Him.

Therefore, submit to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.

James 4:7

Why? Because he can’t handle the presence of the One living in you. My submission to the Lord is my resistance to the devil.

In verse 13 he uses the term “in the evil day.”

“Evil day” basically refers to the time period. We know that is limited and temporary because one day God is going to come and take all that away from him. While we are living in a day that is evil, we know that he (satan) surrounds us in the universe. We know he works in people. We know he is the mastermind of deception. While we are doing that we need to stand, we have to be clothed in the righteousness of Christ. We have to be clothed in the armor and the garment.

Paul goes on in verse 13 and says,

“and having done everything, to stand firm..”

“Having done everything” means having accomplished putting on the full armor of God, having accomplished being surrendered in the inner man, strengthened in the inner man.

Having accomplished that, now he says, “stand firm” The term “stand firm” means immovable in the face of everything Satan can throw at you. If I am going to walk in the victory which I already have in Jesus, I had better get dressed in His righteousness. That righteousness of Christ within me becomes my armor against the devil. The Word of God is so much implied there.

You know, I wonder why Paul doesn’t stress the Word of God. I think I know why. He spent three years with the Ephesians driving that into their heads. In Colossians he said,

¹⁵ And let the peace of Christ, to which you were also called in one body, rule your hearts. And be thankful. ¹⁶ Let the word of Christ dwell richly among you, in all wisdom teaching and admonishing one another through psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs, singing to God with gratitude in your hearts.

Colossians 3:15-16

They know that. They know the Word has to be there. You do not know the will of God if you do not know the Word of God.

Therefore, how am I going to stand?

Monday morning rolls around too quickly for me. What is the first thing I need to do? Make sure my heart is surrendered to the Lord Jesus Christ. That is all. I don’t have to worry about getting up and saying, “Oh, do I have my breastplate on? My loins girded? My sandals? What else?” That is not it. Put Christ on. Christ is our warrior, and He will take care of all the rest of it. The full armor of God is all in one piece. It is all in the Lord Jesus Himself. As I put Him on I know I can stand firm, immovable, unshakable.

It does not say that I wake up tomorrow morning and go after the devil. Have you ever heard somebody say that? “We need to get on the offense.” I hear that all the time. “We need to get on the offense. Let’s go down and crash hell’s gates.” I do not see that. He tells me just to stand immovable and when the conflict is over and all the hurtful cries of battle have finished, I will still be standing in the presence and in the power of the Lord Jesus Christ. Just stand firm.

That command to stand firm takes us all the way down through verse 17. Look at the last few words of verse 13: “having done everything, to stand firm.” Now watch v14:

“Stand firm therefore”

Then Paul tells you how to stand firm. We know that to be the full armor of God. Go down to verse 18. They are all connected. The first thing in spiritual warfare is to stand. That involves the armor, the garment.

The second thing is to pray at all times in the Spirit. Standing and praying, that is the way we walk into the battle that we are in every single day. Verse 18 says,

With all prayer and petition pray at all times in the Spirit, and with this in view, be on the alert with all perseverance and petition for all the saints,

Ephesians 6:18

First of all, when he mentions prayer here, he is saying, “Trust God in everything.” The word “prayer” is proseuche. That is not the word for petition. That comes up next. The word “prayer” is the word that means to make a vow to. It is an attitude. It is an attitude of trusting Him. “Well, I don’t always trust Him.” That is right. You do not trust unless you are standing. Remember, standing comes first. Standing is being strengthened in the inner man. Once I am standing I can pray. My attitude must be, “God, I am going to trust you whatever comes my way. I am going to trust you. It doesn’t matter. I know you somehow are in control and I am going to put all my trust in you.”

A man can always know how much he is trusting God by his prayer life

As much as you pray is as much as you trust. If you do not pray, then you must not trust. If you are not praying, you must not be standing because if you are standing, you can not help but pray. It is that constant communication with God by the means of prayer in the Spirit.

Well, he mentions the word petition (deesis). The word petition means exactly that, request. He says, “With all prayer and petition pray at all times in the Spirit.” Now what does he mean, pray at all times in the Spirit? I don’t have any trouble with “at all times.” The word “times” (kairos) means every opportunity. It means to seize the opportunity as it comes up. This does not mean just having a prayer time in the morning with a long list of things to bring before the Lord. Pray at every opportunity.

SEIZE THE OPPORTUNITY…NOT…JUST…A PRAYER TIME IN THE MORNING…PRAY AT EVERY OPPORTUNITY

So many people have that messed up in their minds. You ought to start your day that way, but make sure you are standing BEFORE you are praying because the way you pray is in the Spirit. It is not just a random, throwing everything before God with your grocery list and hope that He will do it before the day is over. Pray at all times. Every opportunity. Then Paul says, “in the Spirit.” Now what in the world does he mean by that? “in the Spirit.” simply means that you are in touch with Him, under His control and you have got a prayer partner who is leading you at every opportunity in prayer.

“Well, I have never experienced that before.”

Well, maybe you are not standing. I keep telling you that standing has got to be before praying. You can not pray in the Spirit unless you are controlled by the Spirit. That kind of thing hinges together.

Pray in the Spirit. Let the Spirit lead you in how to pray. That is probably the weakest area of any believer’s life. It is the weakest area in my life. One of the reasons is I have had so much difficulty understanding it.

What does it mean to pray in the Spirit?

We used to think that getting requests from everybody in the church was the answer. I remember one night someone was praying and he was saying, “Lord, bless ah…” That is what we were doing in our prayer time. This is really the way a lot of people do it. That is why they are so discouraged. That is why they are so defeated.

Get up early in the morning, but once you get up, it starts a process all day long. You’ve got to be standing before you can pray in the Spirit. The Spirit will lead you in how to pray. Then you enter into an adventure of praying that you’ve never been in before.

YOU’VE GOT TO BE STANDING BEFORE YOU CAN PRAY IN THE SPIRIT

Paul goes on to say, “for all the saints” I think the reason he says that is because when you are being led of the Spirit to pray, it is not about everything you need. God is going to start putting people on your heart for the first time and you will start seeing people and you will start praying for them. You have no clue what God in His sovereignty is doing in that person’s life.

Then Paul goes on and says,

“and with this in view, be on the alert with all perseverance and petition for all the saints,.”

The word “perseverance” (Proskarteresis) is not your normal word for perseverance. It basically has the idea of staying awake, to lie sleepless, to be watchful, to be vigilant. He says, “be on the alert” (agrupneo) The word “alert” there means exactly that, be on the watch, on the guard.

How are we to walk into battle? Standing firm.

How do you stand firm? You have to have on the full armor.

How do you put on the full armor? Strengthened in the inner man by the Spirit of God with the underlying motivations of everything that is armored found in verses 14-17. You have to stand first.

Now pray in the Spirit. We war not against flesh and blood. You and I are not our enemies so we need to learn to let the Spirit lead us in praying for each other.

Led by the Spirit of God.
Standing firm.
Praying at all times in the Spirit.

If you are standing, praying is a natural. You can’t have one without the other. But you have to have standing before you have the praying, armed with the garment and the armor of Christ.