Armour of God

Mother Theresa once said ‘I know God will not give me anything I can’t handle – I just wish he didn’t trust me so much !’ In the passage that we have heard this evening Paul is coming to the end of his letter to the Ephesians (6:10-20). He has written a letter of instruction, of thankfulness, of the need for prayer, and he leaves them with some incredible words of inspiration that are as important today as they were for the young Church to which Paul was writing.

And these words of Paul, taken to heart since by people like Mother Theresa, make essential reading for us all. Today we live in a society with so many advantages and benefits. We are wealthier than a large majority of other people in the world. We have far more in terms of material goods. We have the ability whether through transport or simply through television to see the whole world around us.

And as we look at the world we realise also a need for God and a need for the peace that he can bring, and it is a way of attaining that peace that Paul is writing about as he tells his readers to put on the whole armour of God.

The first item, says Paul is the belt of truth. Truth is a notoriously difficult quality to show at all times. A father once said to his son, ‘I want an explanation and I want the truth’, and the son replied, ‘make up your mind dad, you can’t have both !’

The belt that was worn by the Roman soldiers and which would have been well known to the people of the day was wide and was designed to protect part of the lower body. The Hebrew bible (which Paul knew backwards) speaks of both the truth of God and "truth in our inward parts". Our inward parts, are the very things which the leather belt protects. The substance of the gospel, truth, lends us substance in our lives; and this in turn strengthens us.

Once when someone was arguing with Abraham Lincoln, Lincoln said, ‘Well how many legs does a cow have ?’ ‘4 of course’ came the reply. ‘That’s right’ agreed Lincoln, ‘now suppose you call the cow’s tail a leg, then how many legs does it have?’ ‘Well then it has 5’ came the confident reply. ‘Now that’s where you’re wrong’ said Lincoln, ‘because calling a cow’s tail a leg, doesn’t make it a leg !’

As Christians we must be careful of the dangers of bending the truth to suit our own purposes or ideas because as soon as we do that there is weakness in our defence, and the gospel message is open to criticism.

The second piece of armour Paul writes about is the breastplate of righteousness. The breastplate protected the soldier's heart. According to biblical metaphor our heart is the control centre for willing, feeling, and discerning.

In World War II all submarines were apparently equipped with a gyrocompass. It spun at startling speed: thousands of revolutions per second. When the submarine was submerged, without radio contact, the gyrocompass kept it on course. If the submarine was depth-charged and knocked about violently, the gyrocompass reset the course automatically. Without it the submarine would be lost. One hundred men cramped in a steel tube 300 feet down - and everything depending on a small item which maintained constant orientation however violent the turbulence.

Our hearts may be a small part of our bodies but they control so much of the way we feel. Righteousness comes from our hearts, and those hearts and that feeling must be protected.

And then Paul talks about shoes, the third item in the Christian's armour. The best-trained foot-soldier is only as good as his shoes. What good is a foot-soldier whose feet hurt so much that he can't walk?

Roman soldiers were known for their endurance, their long marches. One of Caesar's most effective tactics was to keep his men marching when everyone else thought his men would be crushed, and soaking their blistered feet in a basin. But the feet of Caesar's soldiers didn't blister; neither did the men become unduly tired. Their footwear was better than that. Roman soldiers wore sandals, lightweight sandals, which were light, flexible and resilient.

The shoes, which the Christian wears, are "the gospel of peace", and Paul recognised the need to exercise these qualities in a search for peace. We must sometimes tread softly in our search for peace, we must be flexible and understanding, and ready to mediate, but we must be resilient as we seek what is right, and that is the peace which provides, not just an end to world conflict, but the sort of peace that offers hope to individuals in the middle of despair, and the sort of peace that encourages a person to realise that life, however dark and difficult it may sometimes be, is a gift to be treasured and lived to the full.

Next we have the shield of faith. It quenches the flaming arrows, says Paul. Every soldier carried his shield on his left arm. It protected 2/3 of his body, plus 1/3 of the body of the man on his left. In other words, every soldier was responsible for offering some protection to his colleague.

We must take faith as our shield, not only because faith extinguishes the flaming missiles by which we are assaulted, but also because each person's faith affords a measure of protection to others in the congregation. In the family of the Church, here and further afield, we owe each other as much protection as we can give each other. We are not isolated strugglers; we are a congregation, a community, a fellowship.

And we wear the helmet of salvation. The helmet of course protects the head. A soldier's head is vulnerable. Even in modern battles 90% of fatal wounds are head wounds. A soldier is more likely to perish through head wounds than through any other kind of injury. The head is crucial.

It is the head which thinks. Paul tells the Christians in Rome that they must not be conformed to the mindset of the world around them; they must be transformed by the renewal of their mind. J.B.Phillips wrote, "Don't let the world around you squeeze you into its own mould, but let God remake you so that your whole attitude of mind is changed." One of the great complications of life is that we have choices to make ! And one of those choices is whether we allow ourselves to be renewed at the hand of God or be stuck in a mindset which continues to justify the world in which we live today, with all of its problems and conflicts.

And finally, we have the sword of the Spirit, the word of God. The sword, as Paul knew well, is an offensive weapon, not just a method of defence. The sword of the Spirit is the most offensive weapon the Christian has, in every way. It is offensive because of the challenge it presents to the listener, and it is offensive to those who don’t want to listen to it.

And these words remind us that the Christian community must never be huddled in a corner, or hidden behind the thick walls of a Church building. The sword of the Spirit, the word of God, is life changing… When Paul wrote the letter to the Ephesians he was in prison. He probably didn’t like it much there, but he also knew that the gospel can be announced and preached in any setting, and he wasn’t about to waste the opportunity.

When the Soviet government rounded up thousands of Christians and packed them off to Siberia, the people didn't laugh. It wouldn’t have been what they chose, but once in Siberia, hardships and all, they joked with each other that the Russian government, vehemently atheist, had finally funded a Christian mission to the Russian north. The gospel-witness which those cheerful Christians bore there has since borne fruit beyond anything anyone could have imagined.

When Paul was imprisoned in Rome the Christian community there was tiny. Maybe as little as 75 Christians in a city of one million people. Yet Paul had wanted to get to Rome for years just because Rome was the seat of influence throughout the civilized world. At last he got to Rome, and his accommodation wasn't exactly what he had in mind ! But at least he was in Rome. And there he would wield the sword of the Spirit, the gospel.

Paul, and others like him, have shown the power of the armour of God through different centuries, armour that is both defensive and offensive. Today we must wear our defensive armour to face the challenges of a world that’s often angry, or ready to knock us, but having put on our defensive armour we must also go on the offensive with the sword of the gospel, a sword which has won and will continue to win greater victories than any Roman army ever imagined. AMEN