Dressed for Battle

 Greetings to you all in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ,

     Ephesians 6:1-12 says, “Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord, and in the power of his might.  Put on the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil.  For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.”. 

     When I joined the U. S. Navy, I had to take all of my clothes off and stand naked with a piece of paper hanging out of my mouth with my sizes written on it and a large mattress cover.  As I moved through the line, shoes, socks, uniforms of navy blue, white and dungarees, neckerchief, hats, and underwear were all thrown into the mattress cover, even a winter sweater and P-coat.  I would now dress the navy way after I had washed every stitch of new clothing and tied it up on a clothesline with neat little square knots.  The clothing was attractive and functional, whether on land or on the sea.

     During the first war with Iraq, I noticed a news clip of some soldiers from Iraq that had been captured and noticed that they were wearing what I called “penny loafers” on their feet.  They were not dressed for battle nor for walking or running.  It is important to have the right  equipment on if you expect to do battle with the enemy.  Paul reminds us that our battle is not with flesh and blood like we would normally think, but against the powers and rulers of the darkness of this world.  Who is that?  That  is the forces of evil under the  command of Sat an himself who controls about one third of t he angels.  Now, we don’t know the exact count of angels but there are a lot of them and those fallen angels, or demons as we might refer to them today, are all at work and our battle is with them on a daily basis.  The apostle goes on to describe each piece that we must have in order to wage war with them.  We see the helmet of salvation, the breastplate of righteousness, feet shod with the gospel, the belt of truth and the shield of faith.  Then, there is the sword, which in this case is the Word of God.  It is also necessary for us to make sure the armor is on each morning and not piled in a heap on the front porch.  The fight is going to be the strongest when you ae are trying to dos something to further the preaching of the gospel or reaching someone to lead them to Christ.  Satanic forces will use all kinds of subtle tricks to try to keep you from testifying of Christ or trying to lead someone to a saving knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ.  It might be a TV that is too loud, or a therapist that comes in to do their job, or a phone that is turned off when it should have been on or vice versa.  When Satan hinders progress, he “chops up the roadway” so to speak  and tries everything he can to prevent you from doing your mission or at least  to slow you down.  Praise God today for the fact that He has given to us His armor to use in battle.  Make sure you have it on.