Welcome to Gospel in Life. How hopeful are you about the future of the Christian Church? The book of Ephesians gives us an incredibly inspiring vision for the Church, showing how it has the capacity to be a new humanity. and a community of astonishing beauty. Join us today as Tim Keller preaches from the book of Ephesians. Tonight's scripture comes from the book of Ephesians chapter 6 verses 14 through 24.
Stand firm, then, with a belt of truth buckled around your waist, with a breastplate of righteousness in place, and with your feet fitted with a readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. In addition to all this take up the shield of faith with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God, and pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests.
With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the saints. Pray also for me that whenever I open my mouth, words may be given me so that I will fearlessly make note the mystery of the gospel for which I am an ambassador in chains. Pray that I may declare it fearlessly as I should. Tychicus, the dear brother and faithful servant in the Lord, will tell you everything so that you also may know how I am and what I am doing.
I am sending him to you for this very purpose that you may know how we are and that he may encourage you. Peace to the brothers and love with faith from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Grace to all who love our Lord Jesus Christ with an undying love. This is the word of the Lord. So we've been looking at the book of Ephesians for quite a long time, and this week and last week we come to the last section of it, and it's all about spiritual warfare. It's about the devil.
It's about conflict between... the supernatural forces of good and the supernatural forces of evil. Now one of the problems with a two-parter and I feel the frustration of it today, is that you can't do recapitulation. In other words, we don't have the time. to lay some of the groundwork I did last week. So for example, if you're here in the middle of New York City to say there really is a devil,
there really actually is a personal devil, is a little scandalous. And last week I made my case why I think it's eminently sensible, but I can't remake it. Instead, we have to proceed to the last part of this passage. The first part, last week, talked about Satan's weapons and strategies. This week, it talks about our part
the Christians' weapons and strategies in this warfare. Now, you might have heard what I said last week, the best book I know of ever been written on Satan's strategies and weapons is Thomas Brooks' Precious Remedies Against Satan's Devices, a book written in the 1600s, English pastor, 17th century. And in spite of the fact that it's so old, I was informed this week that you can download it for 99 cents as an e-book.
I'm not sure just how modernized the language is. It might not be very easy to read. On the other hand, the best book ever written on the Christian's weapons and strategies. It was written also by a 17th century English pastor named William Grinnell. It's called The Christian in Complete Armor. And it's an exposition of Ephesians 10, 6, 10 to 18, eight verses. That's 1,200 pages long. I don't think it's probably available for 99 cents.
I think it might actually break your Kindle if you try to download it. I don't know. But the reason why I mention these, and I don't usually... highlight books quite as prominently as I have here. You remember last week we mentioned C.S. Lewis says there's two equal and opposite mistakes you can fall into with regard to demons.
You can have an unhealthy interest in them. You can attribute too much to them. You can see them behind everything and ascribe evil to them that's beyond what they can do or what they do do. On the other hand, you could be totally skeptical and not believe in them at all. I have to tell you that if you're going to read books on this subject, almost the whole world breaks into these two.
mistakes now because either people don't believe in the devil at all or else they understand the devil in terms of they think the devil and demons express themselves through paranormal manifestations, exorcist stuff. And the way to deal with the devil is through exorcism. But if you go to these men who reflected a long time on the Bible and on their own experience and as pastors on the experience of other people,
And if you go through the Bible, go all the way back to Genesis 3, and what do you see Satan doing in the very beginning with Adam and Eve? He's not possessing them. He's lying to them. And one of these two, I forget if it's Thomas Brooks or William Grinnell, one of them says, Satan doesn't leave fang marks on your flesh. He leaves lies in your heart. He's a liar.
Now, on the basis of that, we're going to proceed. On the basis of that understanding, we're going to proceed. And we're going to look at what in verse 11 and verse 13 was called the full armor of God. If you want to defeat the forces of evil, if you want to be successful in the battles of life, You must put on the full armor of God. What is that? Well, here's what we're going to learn. When to put it on, what it is, how to put it on, and who to remember when you do.
When to put it on, what it is, how to put it on, who to remember first. When do you put it on? Now, why do you even bring that up? In the English it says, stand firm then, which means that the battle's going. Stand firm is something you say to a soldier when the battle's going. With the belt of truth buckled around your waist, it actually says having been buckled and actually with the breastplate of righteousness in place
The verbs through here refer to a single past action in the past that's complete. In other words, and this is the metaphor, you don't put your... armor on if you're a soldier in the middle of the battle. You don't wait for the onset. Before you say, I guess I better get on my shield and my breastplate. You don't have the arrows coming down at you. You say, gosh, I better go find my shield. Where did I put that thing?
You put your armor on before the battle starts. Now, why is that important? It's very important. If things are going okay in your life, if you don't feel like there's any battles going on, if, for example, there's no great disappointments or failures in your life, So you aren't being tempted to despair. Or there's no persecution or major criticism or attack. So you're not tempted to anger and resentment.
Or there's no seductive settings. In other words, if you don't feel, then there's any real battles going on. You spiritually come. That's what we do. When circumstances are good, we just coast. That means we don't have much of a prayer life. We don't work on our understanding of the scripture. It's very superficial. We have relatively light involvement with the church.
And you're not working on deep change in your life. You're not working on deep spiritual growth. When things are going well, you're busy. And when you do do religious activities, when you do come to church, when you do read, you're looking for inspiration and guidance. But then the arrows appear in the middle of the air. We're talking about old warfare. Now the arrows are on their way. And they've got flame on them. And you don't have your armor on.
Because you see, when things go bad and you suddenly have a struggle, all of a sudden you're in church every week, all of a sudden you're praying every day, you're trying to read your Bible, but it's too late. Because, as we're going to see, what they're talking about here, the fortification of your soul, the armoring of your soul, takes time, and you can't do it like that.
So how are you going to make sure you have your armors on? How are you going to make sure you're ready for the troubles that are going to show up? Here's what you have to do. You have to realize that even though things are going well in your life, you need to look at every single day. Look at tomorrow. Look at every single day. as a testing ground, because there actually are skirmishes going on. And there really are opportunities for you to become battle ready.
See, we have a tendency to say, oh yeah, this idea of spiritual battle, I understand it when the big things come. Do you realize there are little skirmishes happening and we're losing them every day? Because we haven't learned to put our armor. What do I mean? Okay, for example, you know, let me give you two temptations. There are two temptations that happen almost every day, and most of us are just giving in to them. We're losing the battle. One is impatience with people.
Impatience. Every day you've got people that just irritate you and that you're impatient with. The other one is worry. Now, remember, and I told you the whole idea of Satan doesn't leave fang marks on the flesh. He leaves lies in the heart. You have to look at the thoughts of the heart if you want to see where the battlefield is. So when somebody is irritating you and you're just so irritated.
You're so impatient. Listen to the thoughts of your heart. You know what it's saying? You're saying things like this to yourself. Imbecile. Idiot. No wonder she, no wonder he, oh my God. What are you going to do about that? What if you did this? What if you started talking and changed the thoughts of your heart and you started to say, Lord,
I wonder what I look like to you. I bet you I look as stupid as this. I bet you I look a lot worse than this. And yet you are patient with me. In the Garden of Gethsemane. You ask people to just stay with you and stay awake with you and they fell asleep and you still died for them. You are so patient with us.
If you're that patient with me, I can be patient with her, I can be patient with him. Do you do that? No, you don't. I don't either. In other words, I just let my heart go and say, idiot, stupid. And what ends up happening is, you lose. You become a little harder that day, a little more proud. You've lost the battle. It's a skirmish. That's all it is. You had an opportunity to put the armor on. You had an opportunity to recognize the thoughts of your heart and to change them.
Or what about worry? You know, you're worried, you're worried, you're anxious. Why are you anxious? When you're anxious, you're thinking something. You're saying, this has got to happen, this has got to happen, oh my gosh, this has got to happen, it's not happening. get a hold of yourself and say, Lord, I realize that my worry is really a form of pride. You know why? It's pride. Because worry basically means I know exactly how the day ought to go and I'm afraid God's not going to get it right.
Well how do I know how the day ought to go? I'm sorry, Lord. It's such a relief to say you know it's best. Now look, you can either... Ignore the thoughts of your heart. The thoughts of your heart are saying this has got to happen and God doesn't know what he's doing. And you don't even realize it. The thoughts of your heart are saying this person is an idiot. What an imbecile. No wonder.
And because you're letting your heart go in that direction, you're grumpy, you're unhappy, you become more of an anxious person every day, you become more of a proud person, more of a hard person, you've lost the battle. Those are skirmishes. Do you recognize them as such? Do you know how to listen to the thoughts of your heart and to recognize the theological assumptions underneath them and deconstruct them and do something about them? That's spiritual warfare.
Not exorcism, so maybe that's sometimes necessary. But that's not routine spiritual warfare. Every single day there are skirmishes. You can be put your battle armor so when the big battle comes you're ready but we're not So that's when to put it on before the battle gets here. Now secondly, let's work on the concept. What does it mean to put on the full-armed battle? What the heck does that mean? And here's what it means.
Notice what is the armor. Take the helmet of salvation. Take the breastplate of righteousness. Take the shoes of the gospel of peace. Now wait a minute.
He's talking to Christians. These are people who already have salvation. They already have the righteousness of Christ. They already have the peace of the gospel. And he's telling them to put them on. What's going on here? And what Paul's doing is he's saying, I want you to take... what's true of you, and I want you to appropriate it as a helmet, as a breastplate, as a shield. What Paul is saying here is something like, it's not identical, but it's something like Ephesians 3.
In Ephesians 3, if you have been with us through all this, Paul prays for the Ephesians that Christ would dwell in their hearts by faith and they would know the love of Christ. And everybody immediately who's reading that thoughtfully says, wait a minute, he's talking to Christians. In fact, Paul says all Christians by definition have Christ living in them. And all Christians by definition know that Christ loves them.
well, what's Paul praying for? Here's what he's praying for. He is praying that what is objectively and externally true of Christians would become internally and subjectively true of them. He says, I don't want you to just know about Christ's love. I want you to actually experience it in the heart and have that joy. And that's about prayer. And I don't want to go any further with that. It's not identical, but it's similar to what he's saying here. He's saying, I know you're saved.
I know you have faith. I know you have the righteousness of Christ. I know you have the peace that comes from the gospel. But you're not using them. You're not appropriating them. You're not actually putting them on in order to fight the battles of life.
What does it mean? What he means is I want you to put them on, which is another way of saying I want you to take them in to the very center of your heart So that you don't just know in your head that you are accepted and loved by God through Christ at infinite cost. I want you to so take it on into yourself and so drill it in that when you're criticized or when you fail, You internally, instinctively think, feel, and act as an infinitely loved and safe person. Instinctively.
To put on the armor of God means to take the things that are objectively true of you as a Christian, the privileges and positions of being a Christian, to take what's externally and objectively true and so drill it into your heart that without having to tell yourself, you instinctively, reflexively respond. as a loved person. As an accepted person. as a safe person.
putting on the armor of God, is taking what's true of you, the privileges in the gospel, and putting them into your heart and creating new habits of the heart, new reflexes, new dispositions of the soul. Most people think Christianity is either incredibly inclusive or unbelievably exclusive. But the fact is, Christianity is both radically inclusive and radically exclusive. How can this be? In his short book, The Gospel on the Move, how the cross transcends cultural differences,
Tim Keller shows us how we can make sense of this apparent paradox. Through the New Testament story of Philip and the Ethiopian, we learn how the gospel allows us to humbly critique our own cultural biases while becoming a united people of God. This month we have an exclusive resource only available through Gospel and Life that we want you to share.
When you give to Gospel and Life in October, we'll send you three copies of Dr. Keller's short book, The Gospel on the Move, as our thanks for your gift. This short book is a great way to present the gospel to a friend or loved one. We hope you'll prayerfully consider it. you could give each copy to and that it helps you live more missionally. To receive your three copies of this short book, just visit gospelinlife.com slash give.
That's gospelinlife.com slash give. And thank you for your generosity, which helps us reach more people with the gospel. Now, what does that look like? That comes to our third point. How do you actually do that? There are seven items listed here, if you include prayer as one of the items. There's the belt of truth, the breastplate of righteousness, the shoes of the gospel of peace, the shield of faith.
the helmet of salvation, the sword of the word, and then he says pray in the spirit. Now that's not part of the metaphor of armor, but if you count that, seven things, seven items that Paul speaks of. I want you to see they're not exactly parallel. In fact, I think after many years of thinking about this, many sermons on it, and unfortunately many, many hundreds of pages read about it, I think it's best to break these into three categories.
The first of the seven is put on the belt of truth. And I believe this is the foundation for all the others. This is the foundation principle and all the other things are applications. And actually, the reason I believe that is because if you understand what this word means, it literally was the foundation. Belt is not a very good... We don't have a good... translation, the Greek word that's used here actually means a leather sheath
It was a thick thing. It went over the whole body. It came all the way down practically to the knee, which means it actually protected the thighs from swords and arrows. And it was underneath all the other armor. Forgive me, I did it this way. It was something like a slip, except I just ruined the whole...
You know, we're talking about blood and guts and veins in my teeth and stuff like this. Essentially, it was like a slip under a dress. It's actually like it was a thick leather sheath underneath all of the other armor. So it's the foundation for everything. And I think what Paul's getting across in the metaphor is this.
Everything else it talks about, it talks about righteousness, it talks about peace, it talks about these various things which are specific privileges that we have in Christ. But the foundation is this. You must learn how to do what Colossians 3.16 describes. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly. Bring these things into your center.
If you want an example of it, I can think of no better example than Luke chapter 8. It's the story of Jesus Christ and his disciples in a boat on the sea in a storm. You know the story. It's told in a number of different Gospels. Jesus is asleep. The disciples are in the boat and suddenly a storm comes up very very sudden and very very violent
And they are so scared, and they're panicking. And they run over at him, and maybe they shake him, and they say, in the Old King James, I like the Old King James, he says, Master, carest thou not that we perish? Don't you care, Master? You don't even care. You don't love us. We're going to die. How can you be there sleeping? And Jesus gets up, rebukes the storm, and then rebukes them. Stills the storm and then turns to them and says, where is your faith?
Now the reason I've always been amazed at that is he does not say to them, you need more faith. He doesn't say that. He says, where is your faith? Get it out. It ought to be here. You weren't putting it into practice. Here's what he means. How dare you say I don't care about you when you've already seen how much I've done. What in the world makes you think when I've told you...
When I've shown you my power, and when I've told you about my relationship with you, If you know who I am and if you know the relationship I have, And you've seen lots and lots of evidences of my power. You've seen lots and lots of evidences of my love. Why were you panicking? I'll tell you why you were panicking. You believe these things. If I asked you, you'd get it right on a test. Who is Jesus? Who am I? Does he love us? Does he have power?
but your heart instinctively is not shaped by that truth. Your instincts were to panic. Your instincts were to say, he doesn't care, I'm going to die, I'm going to die, I'm going to die. He says, where is your faith? He says, take the things that you know and believe and put them in there so the next time, automatically, reflexively, you act as an infinitely loved and safe person. That's putting on the armor.
And putting on the armor is, number one, above everything else, it's learning to take the truth. It's the foundation of everything else. It's learning to take the truth, and it's working it in like that. Let's take a look at the other armor just for a minute to give you examples. Just a couple. One, take a look at the next pairing.
and I would actually say the breastplate and the shoes of the gospel of peace. Now the breastplate And the shoes were not very, how do I say it, they were very important for routine operations. You're going out on the battlefield and you've got to make sure that you can move fast. That's why the shoes are important. They also have to grip well so you have to be able to be short-footed.
You might need to suddenly hike over a certain terrain. You need the breastplate on there because it's the one thing you cannot handle. You can get an arrow here, you can get an arrow here. You might even be able to get an arrow here, but you can't get an arrow here. And so it protects your heart. So those two pieces of armor, I would say they work with routine operations, but the other, the helmet,
And the shield is when the arrows are coming, you see, you can quench the flaming arrows of the evil one. Here's what I think this means. On the one hand, it means some, when you just walk around during the day. You need to be watching what your heart says. Because that's the field of satanic lies. Basically... The reason why this is called the armor of God, the armor of God, is it's not the same as willpower.
Look, you may know I don't want to do these things because if I do these things, bad things are going to happen to me. So there's a way to be a good person through willpower, gritting your teeth. That's not what this is. That's mechanical. That's will only. That's basically not really dealing with your whole person. If you want to deal with a whole person, here's how you really are. The thoughts of your heart lead to the feelings of your heart. which leads to the actions of your will.
And therefore, if you want to get control of your actions and get control of your feelings, you've got to get control of your thoughts. And those thoughts of the heart are things that Satan is always trying to put lies and false beliefs in.
And instead of just saying, I'm just going to grit my teeth, I'm not going to do it, I'm not going to do it. Well, why do you want to do it? Why are you tempted? Why are the problems? Why are you angry? Why are you despairing? Why are you seduced? Find out what your heart is saying. So if your heart is saying, oh, I can do it. I know it's wrong, but God will forgive me. You need to say, hey, what about Hebrews 3.13?
Where it says you get hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. You say, well, I'll go ahead and do it. Then I'll just repent and God will forgive me. How do you know you're going to want to repent? Sin is the suicidal action of the will against itself. Every time you do something wrong, it makes it harder for you to resist doing it again. It makes it harder for you to even want not to do it again. You're arguing with yourself. You're talking to yourself.
You're doing what Psalm did in Psalm 103, Psalm 42. Psalm 103 says, bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits. Oh, I'm forgetting his benefits. Remember, soul, his benefits. Yes, that's what I have to do. Do you know how to do that kind of warfare? Or do you just drift? The breastplate of righteousness is reminding who you are in Christ. The gospel of peace is reminding you the joy you have in Christ.
The helmet of salvation is probably assurance. In other words, these are all different ways of taking things that you have in the gospel. And if I had the time, in fact, I could easily take, easily, you know, a couple weeks on every single one of these items. and go down deep. But are you getting the picture? But the last two items mentioned, where it says, take the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God, and pray in the Spirit.
are different again, they're in a different category. The belt of truth is the foundation. It's learning how to put the word into your heart to create new instincts. bits of armor are particular privileges and aspects of the gospel that you're supposed to be reminding yourself about, relishing, drilling in, thinking about, using on your heart to deal with the lies and with the false beliefs that are in there.
But then how do you actually do that practically? It says take the sword of the spirit, which is the word of God. And some people say that's repetitious. Isn't that the same as the bell of truth? No, I don't think so. The bell of truth is the basic principle. But now we're talking about the Bible itself and pray in the spirit.
Bible and prayer, Bible and prayer, Bible and prayer. Why did I say that? Should I do it again? Bible and prayer. You can't get more basic than this. At the individual level, how well are you doing? do you know how to read the word are you memorizing it are you meditating on it are you praying what kind of prayer life have you got next level spiritual friendship
Who do you have that's holding you accountable for the kind of life you ought to live? Who do you have that you're praying with? Who do you have that you're talking about the Bible with? Bible and prayer, individual level. Bible and prayer, group level. Bible and prayer. church level You can't do without the church. You can't do without what? You have Bible and prayer at this level. You have the preaching of the word.
That's the preaching of the word. It's not the only way you need the word, the Bible, but it's one of the ways you have to have it. The sacraments. This is a form of prayer. Except it's a means of grace. Bible and prayer up here. Bible and prayer here. Bible and prayer here. That's how you put the armor on. What is putting the armor on? It's creating new dispositions by taking the truth, working into your life and working into your heart to create new instincts.
Reflexes. Now lastly, that's when to put it on. That's what it is. That's how to put it on. But it's really important to, as you're doing all this, remember somebody. A lot of people get nervous about all this talk of Christians and warfare, spiritual warfare against the forces of darkness. Onward Christian soldiers marching us to war with the cross of Jesus going before. Boy, a lot of people shudder at that. And in a way, they should.
That's a hymn, by the way. A hymn we actually don't sing here. And it's partly because how easy it is to take all that out of context. How easy it is to take this out of context. You can't understand a verse unless you're taking the context of the whole book. And you can't understand a book unless you're taking the context of the whole Bible. And let me give you the context of the whole Bible with regard to the spiritual warfare. In the Old Testament, God is said to be a divine warrior.
When they cross the Red Sea and they get out of Egypt and God liberates the children of Israel from slavery. Miriam, Moses. sister, sings a great song and says, God is a divine warrior and he fights against evil and injustice and he has liberated us and he's won the great battle of the Red Sea. Bye.
But as the history of Israel goes on, it gets clearer to see that when Israel becomes evil, when Israel becomes corrupt, when Israel becomes oppressive, God goes to war against them. He fights against them, which shows that God is not a tribal deity. He's against evil, whoever does it. He's against injustice, whoever does it. And by the end of the Old Testament, the prophets... because the Jews were now again under the boot of the oppressor under the Romans.
They were yearning for a time in which the divine warrior would show up the way he did and led them out of Egypt and liberated them. That some divine warrior would show up and liberate them from the Romans. And then comes Jesus. And he calls himself a son of man And the Son of Man was a figure mentioned in Daniel chapter 7 that would lead the hosts of the Lord, the armies of God, to defeat evil on the earth.
And when Jesus shows up and he says he's the son of man, wow, the disciples said, finally, we've got the divine warrior here. He's going to fight against evil and injustice. And he doesn't act that way, does he? He doesn't wound. He heals. He doesn't raise an army. He wanders about teaching and feeding and loving people. And at the climax of his life, when the soldiers are after him, Peter gets out his sword and Jesus says, put it away.
What kind of divine warrior is this? And the answer is, the only kind we need. Because if Jesus had come back to put down the Romans, that wouldn't have changed the human condition, right? And secondly, if Jesus had come back to destroy all evil, None of us would have been left. Because evil's in us. We're the problem. Evil's in us. But what did he do? Jesus Christ did not come with a sword in his hands. He came with nails in his hands.
He didn't come to bring the sword of God's judgment on evil. He came to bear the sword of God's judgment on evil. It fell on him. Yes. Jesus Christ overcame evil with good. He gave himself. He died on the cross for our sins so he could not just end the Romans, the empire, to end sin and death and evil itself. And he did that by forgiving his enemies and saving his enemies and dying for his enemies so that someday he can come and end all evil without ending us.
That's the battle. That's the warfare that we should be participating in. Look carefully. Jesus Christ loved his enemies. That's how he overcame evil. He forgave his enemies. That's how he overcame evil. He died for his enemies. That's how he overcame evil, and so should you. In other words, the only person you should really hate is Satan.
You should be aggressive towards Satan. You should be assertive towards Satan. It doesn't say you're supposed to choose other human beings. In fact, let me point this out. If you hate humans, if you are vengeful and angry toward humans, if you say those are the bad people and you go and you try to hurt them, Satan wins. Because if they're doing evil to you and you just do evil back and you become angry and bitter and vengeful,
The evil's poison spreads into you. You become hard. You become part of the vehicle for spreading it all around. Don't you see, if you hate Satan and if you battle against Satan, You win over evil. If you hate people and you battle against people and you fail to forgive people and you're not gracious to people, even when you're pursuing justice in this world, Satan wins. Fight like Jesus. Overcome evil with good. Die and forgive. You're in this.
Because actually here's Christian warfare, not with swords loud clashing, nor a roll of stirring drum. With heavenly deeds of love and mercy, the heavenly kingdom comes. Let's pray. Our Father, we thank you that you've made it possible for us to Hear the word and pray as a body.
in the assembly of your people. We ask that, Lord, right now you would help us to put a little bit more of that armor on, that we would develop deeper habits of the heart that would help us stand firm and on the evil day to stand. Teach us how to overcome the temptations and accusations of Satan. Teach us how to fight the good fight, not by fighting other people, but by fighting really the forces of darkness and doing it the way Jesus did. It's in his name that we pray.
Thanks for listening to today's teaching. We trust you were encouraged by it and that it gives you a deeper appreciation for God's grace and helps you apply his word to your life. You can find more resources from Tim Keller by subscribing to our quarterly journal at gospelandlife.com.
When you subscribe, you'll receive free articles, sermons, devotionals, and other valuable resources. We also invite you to stay connected with us on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and Twitter. Today's sermon was recorded in 2012. The sermons and talks you hear on The Gospel. and Life podcast were preached from 1989 to 2017 while Dr. Keller was senior pastor at Redeemer Presbyterian Church.