This Sunday, we continued the “Two Kings, Two Thrones”
series. In this part, I looked deeper at one aspect of the story of David and
Goliath. In 1 Samuel 17:37-38, Saul
(remember that he is a picture of the law) tries to clothe David in his armor
in preparation for facing Goliath. Goliath was a picture of the enemies in the land of Canaan
In order to fruitfully produce in the Kingdom and to
inherit all of the blessing attached to the New Covenant, we must work with God
to drive those giants out of our hearts.
Trying to face those giants “clothed” in the law’s armor
will cause us to fail. A few weeks back, we read about how Saul would put an
unnecessary disadvantage on his men by declaring rule and law that came from
him and by threatening punishment from God.
Saul’s armor was huge and clunky for little David, just
like the law is a huge weight on us in trying to overcome sin. Don’t we need
more law to help us stop sinning? NO!!! We need the Spirit in us, changing us
from the heart level. That is what gives us the power to overcome sin. Man’s
heart cannot be changed from the outside.
The armor of Saul sounds a lot like the imagery of the
Armor of God in Ephesians 6. This passage is often misunderstood. Spiritual
warfare goes on. There are demons that need casting out, but this Scripture is
not about those things. It is about taking control of and maintaining control
of your thought life. To prove this, we must look at what these verses actually
say and not what we think they say. We
are told that this armor is to protect us against the schemes of the enemy.
What are his schemes? They are lies. It may come as a shock to some, but Satan
cannot DO anything to anyone. All he can do is bring lies. People believe those
lies and act accordingly. If he could kill people outright, we’d all be dead by
now. He operates on a massive and elaborate web of lies. I’m not discounting
demonic activity on other levels, but this passage is talking about our thought
life. The enemy also brings lies that
are a slight twist of the truth, but they limit us and cause us to hurt others.
We not only need ALL the armor (not only a few pieces),
and we need them in a certain order. Each
gives us what we need to utilize the next piece properly. The armor we are told to put on begins with a
belt of truth. TRUTH is the most important weapon against lies. It is not a
defense against wicked actions or demonic activity. It is the ultimate weapon
against lies. What does a belt do? We don’t have to get all spiritual to answer
that either. Belts hold up pants. Put it this way. Without a belt of truth, we
are walking around with our pants falling down, embarrassing ourselves and
everyone around us.
Next is the breastplate of righteousness. What we see is
that these pieces of armor are discussed in a specific order for a reason. You
need the TRUTH about righteousness to be your breastplate or protection over
your life. Your breastplate better be made of HIS righteousness and not your
own. If you are fitted with a breastplate of your own righteousness, you will
be defeated or you may not even go into battle because you know just how weak it
is.
Next come the feet fitted with the gospel of peace. Now
that we have truth about righteousness, that should lead us to peace, and all
that needs to happen before we run off to battle. What is peace? It is not just
everyone getting along in harmony – everyone who disagrees with me chooses to
just change their minds. Peace truly
only comes about when all opposition of peace has been eliminated. That is
going to take war – or it took war. This is about the gospel of peace. Jesus
won that war. He removed every roadblock and hindrance to peace. When we know
the truth about righteousness, we can WALK in that peace.
Next comes the shield of faith, which I did not spend a
great deal of time on because it could be multiple sermons all by itself. Then
comes the helmet of salvation. After we’ve done all we can to renew the mind
and bring it into alignment with the truth, we need to wear this helmet to
protect the old ways and thoughts from returning. As soon as we fall into a
familiar situation or circumstance, we can easily fall back into old ways.
Protect your mind with knowledge of salvation.
Finally, after all of that, we get a sword. There are a
lot of Christians out there swinging a sword of the Word at people without the
grounding of a renewed mind. The military does not round up a bunch of guys and
give them guns and send them off to battle without first training them to think
the way they want them to think and react the way they want them to react. After we get the sword, we are not done. We
are told to then pray continually. Prayer is about staying in communication
with the General. When one army is set to attack another, one of the first
things they try to take out is communication. If you can break the lines of
communication, you create confusion. Who is the author of confusion? Satan. He
wants you to go into battle with confusion.
To summarize, here is our warrior’s checklist/toolkit:
1. Truth
2. Righteousness—His,
not yours
3. Peace
4. Boots
5. Faith,
shield
6. Helmet
protecting thoughts
7. Sword/weapon
8. Pray/maintain
communication
We finished with Romans 14, where Paul contrasts grace
and law followers and tells them not to judge and condemn each other. We read it in the message Bible also, and I
encourage you to do so this week also.
