In our morning service today we looked at Eph 6:10-17, at the ‘Blessing of the Armour of God.’ In these verses, Paul reminds us that we are all involved in a spiritual battle, contending not against flesh and blood (i.e. people) but against the rulers, authorities and powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. (Eph 6:12) No matter how much the devil may use people against us and against God’s church, the real enemy is not people. We may feel frightened and intimidated by this talk of a spiritual battle, feeling inadequate and helpless, but God has given us the blessing of spiritual armour to help us. He does not leave us to fight on our own!
The armour of God is God’s provision for us, enabling us to stand against all the devil’s schemes. If we want to be strong in God’s mighty power and keep standing, even in the heat of the battle, we have to put on the armour of God. We have to fight with God’s armour and God’s weapons and not with our own. (2 Cor 10:1-5) God’s armour is the blessing we need to overcome the enemy. He doesn’t send us into warfare defenceless (like the soldiers in the First World War who were effectively ‘cannon fodder’ in the trenches), but gives us His Holy Spirit to be with us and spiritual armour to defend and protect us as well as giving us the all-important sword of the Spirit to use to cut down the lies of the enemy.
