Arming Ourselves for Cosmic Warfare
A Reflection on Ephesians 6: 10-20
10 Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. 11 Put on the full armor of God, so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes. 12 For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. 13 Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand. 14 Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, 15 and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. 16 In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. 17 Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.
18 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 Lord’s people. 19 Pray also for me, that whenever I speak, words may be given me so that I will fearlessly make known the mystery of the gospel, 20 for which I am an ambassador in chains. Pray that I may declare it fearlessly, as I should.
When I was a little boy all the way to being a teenager going off to school, my mother would pray with me to put on the full Armor of God. We’d pray it on, piece by piece. She and my father knew, and they taught me to understand, that there is a spiritual war on, a cosmic spiritual battle between good and evil, and that battle takes place in each of our souls, whether we are going to be complicit in any given moment with good or evil. The God of the Universe, our Creator, and the Savior of the Universe, the one through whom all things came into being, has given us delegated authority to have a free will choice in every moment of our lives. So the cosmic battle between good and evil is a constant every day struggle between the desires of the flesh plus the sight of the eyes versus life in the Spirit and the promise of spiritual power to endure until the day of Christ. “Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. Put on the full armor of God, so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.” Paul in this letter to the Ephesians is talking about overcoming the sight of the eyes and the desires of the flesh, the Greek word “sarks,” which generally is a negative use of the word flesh, which means that human nature tendency toward self, self-righteousness, worldliness, and it is human effort unaided by faith or spiritual power.
If you know that there is a war on, a civil war, rather an uncivil war where, the enemy is set on your destruction, would you leave the house without the body armor and weapons available to us on the open market in the United States. While on a plane a few days ago, coming back from a wedding in Rhode Island, I watched the movie Civil War with Claire Danes. It was a very believable situation in which the State National Guards of Florida, Texas, and California were all advancing on the capitol of Washington D.C. to remove a President serving a third term and centralizing power using the American military against the American people. The lawlessness is astonishing. I have also been in Rwanda after the genocide when pure evil takes over one tribe in the country to the extent that they dashed babies against the wall, the bloodstains have been preserved, threw grenades into packed churches, and the skulls and massacre sites have been preserved, and still worse, neighbors who had previously lived peacefully alongside each other, hacked each other to bits with machetes. I have walked those massacre sites of the genocide, and I’ve spoken to thousands in Rwanda about it. Their mantra of remembrance is “Never Again,” but we know that the devil doesn’t really change his tactics. He is out to destroy us, our bodies, our souls, and our spirits, and rupture our relationship with, and knowledge of, God, to rupture our understanding of what a “self” has been given us for, and to rupture our relationship with others, downgrading our relationship with others into a use of others for the benefit of self, which is the upside down and backwards, as well as inside out OPPOSITE of what a self has been given us for. A self has been given to us to be God-like, and to be God-like, we must be unself-focused, but we’ll never know that until we are on the enlightening receiving end of the revelation of God about Himself, and He has always, obviously been making Himself known through Creation, through His divine intervention in the affairs of men through the Exodus, the Law, and the Prophets, as well as most perfectly in the obedient person, the incarnation, teaching, miracles, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
So…. What are we talking about here? We’re talking about there being a cosmic war going on. And my question to you is: are you in the fight? Or are we just a Christian NPC, which means “non-playable character” from video games? Are we just carnal Christians, dedicated to self, trying to preserve circumstances to our own liking, our own personal preferences? Or are we walking so constantly in prayer and power in the Spirit that we are healed up and participating in the fight, available to the Commander in Chief of the Angel Armies of the living God to reclaim desecrated spaces of this world?
Here is the reality: we are jars of clay, meaning that we are dust, made up of molecules, made up of atoms, made up of subatomic particles, made up of quarks. Now we’re down to loop theory, which is loops of light. So what is more real? Time and space in the Universe? Or the ageless spiritual reality beyond the edge of the Universe, time, and space? Well, obviously, by implication, what is more real is the spiritual reality, which is not to say that the material reality is unimportant, as we know by revelation that God so loved the cosmos that He gave His own only Son, that whoever believes in Him might have eternal life in the new heavens and new earth, in resurrected bodies. So even though we are just dust, God has seen fit to pour eternal heavenly treasures into these jars of clay. Now we know also from the Scriptures, which are the inspired and inerrant Word of God, that the Lord is the Spirit and where He is there is freedom. Freedom from sin and bondage to it. Our bodies and souls, our sarks and our psuke, tend toward death-dealing sin, even though the Spirit of the Living God has come to live in our spirit, due to our baptism into the death of Christ, so that we have access to the same power that raised Jesus from the dead to overcome our flesh. And even Paul says 15 I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. 16 And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. 17 As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. 18 For I know that good itself does not dwell in me, that is, in my sinful nature.[a] For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. 19 For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing. 20 Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it.
21 So I find this law at work: Although I want to do good, evil is right there with me. 22 For in my inner being I delight in God’s law; 23 but I see another law at work in me, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within me. 24 What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death? hanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord!
So then, I myself in my mind am a slave to God’s law, but in my sinful nature a slave to the law of sin. When I was looking up the sarks, or flesh, I came across the wonderful English word “sublunary,” which means that which is worldly, literally “under the moon,” and it’s definition and connotation are “belonging to this world as contrasted with a better or more spiritual one.” The example sentence given was "the concept was irrational to sublunary minds.” Well, the spiritual realm is irrational to sublunary minds, minds dominated by worldliness and the desire to please self. So, from Paul we know a few things: number 1, there is a cosmic war going on; number 2, WE have a body and soul that tend toward death, toward choosing sin because it is what we crave; and from the ancient church we have the seven deadly sins, and most of us can recite those better than the ten commandments or the corresponding virtues, and Christian doctrine incorporates into the Judeo-Christian tradition the deadly sins that we all know (and their demons), as well as the virtues that are supposed to defeat or at least neutralize: 1) pride / humility, 2) greed / generosity, 3) lust / chastity, 4) anger / patience, 5) gluttony / temperance, 6) envy / charity and 7) laziness / diligence; thirdly, we know from Paul that we have access to spiritual power from the Lord, but many of us are trying to do everything in our own strength, even though we cannot overcome sarks’ desires with sarks’ power. That would be like standing in a bucket trying pick ourselves up, or pulling ourselves up by our own bootstraps. Now we know from American history that what we most admire is a “self-made” man. But most of the Americans in history who did it were Christians depending on the power of God to overcome through giving Him margin to work through their spiritual disciplines focused on developing the virtues empowered by the Spirit. Going a little deeper into the word study of the Greek word “sarks,” (sarks) is generally negative, referring to making decisions (actions) according to self – i.e. done apart from faith (independent from God's inworking). Thus what is "of the flesh (carnal)" is by definition displeasing to the Lord – even things that seem "respectable!" In short, flesh generally relates to unaided human effort, i.e. decisions (actions) that originate from self or are empowered by self. This is carnal ("of the flesh") and proceeds out of the untouched (unchanged) part of us – i.e. what is not transformed by God.
So many of us Christians in the southeast have never really gotten into the spiritual fight, but rather we are what Paul calls “carnal” Christians, or people who do not walk in the Spirit sufficiently to overcome the worldliness or what Thomas Cranmer in the historic prayer book calls “the cares and occupations of this life.” We become so overwhelmed by trying to do life in unaided human effort, those efforts that originate from self or are empowered by self, and that is from the untouched part of us, that part which has NOT been transformed by God yet into the likeness of Christ. But we know that He will carry onto completion that work in us to make us like Christ, so we know that beyond the edge of time and space, we will be fully like Christ. To do that, we have to more fully root ourselves in the Spirit and in the priorities of the Kingdom of God rather than in the pursuits of worldliness.
Dear friends, disciples of Jesus Christ, I implore you not to try to do the Christian life in your own strength! It is how we go down to defeat! Rather, let us be more fully engaged in this cosmic spiritual war, beginning with our own souls! When we are under pressure, what comes out of us? Is it worldliness? Is it those things listed in our Gospel reading, that which comes out of man, or his flesh, or his sarks, or his carne? Or when we are under pressure does the peace of God which passes understanding come out of us? Does the fruit of the Spirit come out of us? We have been given power from on high to overcome the world, the flesh, and the devil, the three-fold renunciation of our baptism.
Let us put on the full Armor of God: with the belt of truth holding it all together; with the breastplate of CHRIST’s righteousness, not our own self-righteousness; with your feet fitted with the shoes of the Gospel; with the shield of faith with which you extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one; with the helmet of salvation; with the Sword of the Spirit. And by the way, in addition to arming ourselves for this cosmic battle between good and evil between the desires of the flesh and the fruit of rooting ourselves in the Spirit, Paul encourages us, that is he intends to GIVE US COURAGE to pray in the Spirit at all times with all kinds of prayer and requests. And I would like to suggest that if we are only praying for lists of people with needs, we are limiting the power of God because we are not pressing into adoration sufficiently enough in prayer to receive the heart of God for others. And his desire is not only to heal Aunt Marge’s pinky-toe hangnail, but also to fill this city of Madison with the light of His Gospel being preached and the light of the presence of the Spirit IN YOU, to bring transformation to this city full of more and more people for whom He died to liberate from sin and death! But first, WE OURSELVES need to be transformed in our minds, in our behaviors, and in our prayer lives. We are developing some new ministries and mission for this new season. It is time for congregations in America to transition to focus on ministry and mission outside of their walls and waaaaay off of church property, just like John and Charles Wesley did when they busted out of the systems of the bureaucratic Church--and the way things had always been done-- and the built new and relational means of giving spiritual vitality to their missional communities of the Kingdom of God. We will have a choice, whether to age and die within 10 to 15 years, or whether to hand the bloodied baton of the Gospel off to the next generation, growing through conversion due to the work of culturally sensible evangelism. The work is before us, but not before the work that must be done within us. Gone are the days of merely coming to church to be a passive recipient of the ministry of others. Coming now are the days of arming ourselves with Spiritual power from the throne of grace. May we all get in the fight for love to win out over hate, and for His light to shine in the darkness by our engagement with the world. To the glory of Jesus’ mighty Name, Amen.