Ephesians 6:10-20
These days, tragically, it happens several times a week: Reports that some US soldier or Marine in Iraq has been wounded or killed by an IED, an improvised explosive device. The stories have an awful sameness: A concealed device goes off just as US personnel approach it. The enemy, in the tradition of guerilla warfare, is unseen and simply blends in with his surroundings, only occasionally being exposed. Guerilla warfare is an example of what the tacticians call asymmetrical war because it’s typically used by those whose army or firepower can’t match a heavily-armed conventional foe. Without uniforms, with the silent complicity of fearful civilians, bombs go off which the guerilla hopes will wear down his enemy.
Our Bible lesson for today warns us that all believers in Jesus Christ are engaged in a war far deadlier and far more destructive than the terrible conflict going on in Iraq these days. Unlike human guerilla warriors, the enemy we fight is never seen. The explosions he sets off in our lives may seem harmless or, to the unwary, non-existent; but unlike the guerilla warriror’s bombs that can only take away our earthly lives, this enemy’s weapons can, if we aren’t careful, lead to eternal separation from God. And though our common enemy is more powerful than any of us, separately or together, he nonetheless engages in asymmetrical warfare, surreptitiously sneaking up on us and luring us, just as Adam and Eve were lured in the garden. Our enemy, the devil, is a vicious, heartless, miserable creature who thinks he can bring God down by destroying us, the children for whom Jesus Christ died and rose.
I know that saying this may cause some to tune me out. People may think that the very idea of the devil is an outmoded one, akin to believing that the earth is flat or that Pluto is a planet. Years ago, the Oxford University professor, expert on world cultures, and novelist, C.S. Lewis, gave a series of radio talks that became my favorite book other than the Bible, Mere Christianity. In one of his talks, Lewis told his listeners:
...someone will ask me, "Do you really mean, at this time of day [in other words, at this supposedly advanced stage of human development], to reintroduce our old friend the devil-hoofs and horns and all?" Well, what the time of day has to do with it, I do not know. And I am not particular about the hoofs and horns. But in other respects my answer is, "Yes, I do..."And so do I. I’m convinced that there is a devil and I’m not alone in that belief.
As a young pastor, I met weekly with a group of other clergy. Among our group was a theologically liberal guy, thirty years my senior, who once told me that he disagreed with my assertion that in the Church, we needed to make the Bible more central to our life.
Given that background, you can imagine how surprised I was at this liberal guy’s reaction when, one day, another member of our group spoke condescendingly of people who believed that there really are angels, demons, and the devil. My liberal colleague fixed this fellow with a gentle, but resolute expression and said, “John, you’ve been a pastor for twenty years already. Yes, people must take responsibility for their own sins. But, if in your lifetime or in your work, you haven’t seen evil that can only be described as inhuman, I don’t think you’ve been paying attention.” He paused and then said, “Whatever my skepticism about things in the Bible, the one thing I find easiest to believe is that there is a devil, that he wants to dominate us, and that he wants to use us for his own ends.”
We face an invisible adversary. According to the Bible, the Devil was, originally an angel. That word, angel, angelos in the Greek of the New Testament, means messenger. Angels are messengers, wordsmiths, great communicators meant to be God’s letter-carriers. (It was an angel, you’ll remember, who brought God’s message to the young Mary and told her not to be afraid, that she was going to be the mother of the Savior of the world.) The devil, resentful of the station God gave to His highest creatures, the only ones made in God’s image, you and me, led a rebellion against God.
Ever since then, the devil and his demons have engaged in a propaganda campaign, using their skills as messengers to sow discouragement, division, selfishness, and death among us, hoping perhaps, by bringing us down to bring God down. It’s the devil’s aim to lure us to hopelessness, to indifference to God and neighbor, and to self-absorption. It’s in that very state of isolation that he wants to keep us forever, never to experience the love of Christ or the touch of others.
Hell will not be a party where people do naughty things for eternity. It will be a place where those who have allowed themselves to be lured away from God will live in a perpetual state of absolute aloneness and constant regret. We would be fools to think that we can face such evil on our own. As Martin Luther writes in A Mighty Fortress is Our God: “No strength of ours can match his might! [That is, the devil’s might.] We would be lost, rejected.”
So, what can we do in the face of this evil? Our lesson for today begins with words of encouragement from the first-century preacher and evangelist, Paul:
Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his power.Paul isn’t telling Christians to grit their teeth or to exercise will power. Trying to be strong in the face of the devil will only result in our being “lost, rejected.” In the original New Testament Greek, be strong, is actually written in the passive voice, having more of the meaning: Be strengthened in the Lord. Now, consider what Paul is saying: Be strengthened by God in the strength of His power!
That helps us to make sense of what Paul writes next:
Put on the whole armor of God, so that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. For our struggle is not against enemies of blood and flesh, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers of this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. Therefore take up the whole armor of God, so that you may be able to withstand on that evil day, and having done everything, to stand firm.In other words, let the power, grace, and goodness of God that belong to all who follow Jesus Christ, cover you and your whole life.
When asked once how he overcame the devil, Martin Luther said, “When he comes knocking upon the door of my heart and asks, ‘Who lives here?’ the dear Lord Jesus goes to the door and says, ‘Martin Luther used to live here but he has moved out. Now I live here.’ The Devil, seeing the nail prints in His hands, and the pierced side, takes flight immediately.”
The Bible says that Christ lives in those who let Him in. It’s only when we let Christ in that the devil can be turned away.
The devil wants to discourage you, sow discord in your marriage, cause you to hold grudges, foster disunity and dissension in Christ’s Church, consider violence as an answer to life’s problems, and make us all think that we are left to live life in our own power, with no one to care for us.
But all of that is a lie! Jesus Christ, God in the flesh, died and rose for us and He’s living now, just waiting for you to invite Him to help you, help our Church, and help our world.
The only ways you and I can face down evil is to
- live in the supportive fellowship of the Church,
- regularly read God’s love letter to us,
- the Bible, and
- pray.
In 1861, a Shenandoah Valley farmer named Wilmer McLean saw one of the bloodiest engagements of the Civil War, the Battle of Bull Run, fought on his property. McLean cared little about the reasons for the war. He just wanted to get away from it. So, he sold his property and moved to a place he was sure the war could never find him. Four years later, General Ulysses S. Grant chased Confederate General Robert E. Lee throughout Virginia. In Appomattox County, Grant sent a message to Lee, asking the rebel general to meet and sign a truce. The place where they met to end the Civil War was an old house in Appomattox Court House, Virginia. The owner was Wilmer McLean. No matter how much McLean tried, the war that he wanted to avoid found him.
You may not think that you are a party to the war that the devil is waging for your soul, or against his greatest enemy on earth, the Church of Jesus Christ, including this congregation.
You may think that sort of thing may have happened back in the day, but not today.
Christians often think that, unfortunately.
One day, seminary professor Howard Hendricks was approached by a smiling student who announced, “Dr. Hendricks, it’s been at least three years since I can remember the devil tempting me to sin.” Hendricks replied, “That’s about the worst thing I can imagine hearing from a Christian.” It either meant, you see, that that student was so far from God that the devil wasn’t bothering with him or that he was so insensitive to the reality of evil that he had been sidelined as a purposeful Christian.
Followers of Jesus Christ have an enemy sworn to kill us. But we have a Savior, a God Who is greater than all our sin and death. When evil assails us, no matter what it’s form, we need to put on the power of God and withstand all that the devil throws our way.
And this is how we do it:
- We pray for each other
- We worship together
- We read God’s Word
- We pray for help
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