The Believer's Armor
The Shoes of the Gospel of Peace
Ephesians 6:15
verses 13-17
I know I don’t need to remind you that as a believer, you are in a mortal combat with Satan. In fact, verse 12 of Ephesians 6 says, "we wrestle" and the verb is a term describing a life, death, hand to hand combat.
Now God has such high and holy and lofty and grand and glorious purposes for the believer that He calls us to walk in a manner that sets us apart from the system. These are purposes which gain God His own glory. But on the other hand, Satan does and will continue to do all that he can to hinder us from realizing the purposes of God, consequently there's war in the life of a believer.
I believe the war really begins at the moment of salvation; in fact, I suppose in one way of looking at it, the battle begins before salvation as Satan works to keep us from hearing and responding to the Gospel. And then when we become a believer, he does everything he can to see that we don’t grow or mature or matter in kingdom work.
There's a war. And that is why Paul closes Ephesians the way he does. Satan is out to destroy; therefore put on the armor of God that you may be able to stand.
We are looking at the armor. Paul looks at the Christian and his war with Satan and sees in his mind a Roman soldier ready for battle, and all that the Roman soldier does to prepare himself suggests to the mind of Paul imagery that can be translated into the Christian's battle with Satan.
Just as a Roman soldier wears a belt with which he pulls together his loose fitting robe and gets himself ready for the battle, Paul says a Christian needs a belt also. It is the belt of truthfulness, "having your loins girded about with truthfulness," verse 14 says. And for a believer there must be commitment to the truth, there must be a commitment to fight the fight, to live the life, to make the necessary dedication and consecration to win the battle. And so we began our study with a look at the level of commitment required to win.
Secondly, and in our last study we saw the next piece of armor in verse 14 also, "and having on the breastplate of righteousness." We discussed that a Roman soldier would put on a breastplate to cover his vital areas. He didn't want to get hit here because it was fatal. And there were two areas he was protecting the heart and the bowels in Hebrew terminology.
The Hebrews saw the heart as the mind and the bowels as the feelings, and so the believer protects his mind and emotions because those are the areas where Satan tempts. And so we must protect those areas and the Scripture says that we protect those areas with the breastplate of righteousness, as we live a holy life and seek daily righteousness.
Tonight we’ll look at the third piece of equipment and it is having our feet shod with the gospel of peace.
verse 15
Now he comes to the soldiers shoes. Shoes have become a major part of our culture; originally shoes were used to protect feet, now they've become a fashion item.
Frankly we don't need that much protection for our feet any more. Our cars are carpeted, our streets have nice pavement and our churches and businesses are carpeted and even the places that aren't carpeted have fairly clean floors. We aren’t wandering over rough stone and wading through mud and tramping in dust or trying to stroll across thorny bushes and so forth.
We have pretty well paved and carpeted our world and shoes have become primarily a fashion item. So we might not necessarily get the picture as clearly as we should unless we understand how terrible the terrain was and how hard it would be to walk over the cobbles and the rocks and pebbles and everything else in those parts of the world.
Maybe we could get a little idea because we see today a special need for shoes if we're hiking or tramping across the desert or walking on a hot pavement or whatever, and this is the reason in those days for shoes.
You can buy shoes designed for running, and basketball and baseball or marathons or sprints or golf. Some are designed for rubber surfaces; others are for concrete; still others are for dirt.
Then we have dress shoes and casual shoes and sandals and boots and everything imaginable for whatever activity we are involved in.
We have reasons for the things that we have; the shoes provide a certain function. And this is especially true in war, if it would be important in athletics you can imagine how important it would be if you were fighting for your life. And a Roman soldier wouldn't get out in a battle with just a normal leather shoe with a slick bottom held be slipping and sliding all over every place. He'd be trying to climb a rock to fight a guy and he’d be slipping down the rock.
And so even as early as the first century, they had to have special shoes for warfare. In addition to function, they also had to think about durability.
In fact, as recently as our own American Revolution, inadequate shoes became an issue for our soldiers. You may have read about or seen the pictures of soldiers with their feet wrapped because the shoes were worn out.
In fact, history records for us the record of battles lost because they couldn't protect the feet of the soldiers from being frozen or injured or wounded.
Also, in the time of the Roman wars there was a common custom similar to the mine fields of today. In those days, knowing that an army was coming, they would plant in the grounds sticks sharpened to a razor point facing toward the army hoping to pierce the feet of the advancing soldiers.
And so in order to protect themselves the Roman soldiers would wear a boot that had a heavy sole so that it couldn't be pierced. If their feet were pierced, they couldn't walk. If they couldn’t wlak, they couldn’t fight.
If they couldn’t fight, they couldn’t win. It’s just that simple.
Now Paul says the Christian needs to have shoes also. You can get out there and have your waist all cinched up and boy you're committed, and you can have your breastplate on and you have living a godly and righteous life as the Lord wishes, but unless you can stand on your feet you're going to fall over. And so you must have a solid base.
So let’s go back to verse 15 and look at the specifics. Your feet are to be shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace. First, let’s think about the word “preparation”. It's a little bit confusing because of our understanding of what preparation is.
But the way it’s intended, it simply means “made ready or equipped” And all he is saying is your feet should be made ready by being shod. They should be equipped; they should be prepared.
Now most people who read this and even many commentators who've written on it assume that it has reference to going along preaching the Gospel of peace.
I've got my shoes of the Gospel on and off I go to preach. And generally they link this verse to Romans 10:15 where Paul quotes Isaiah 52:17 where it says, “As it is written, How beautiful are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace, and bring glad tidings of good things!"
You have the same phrase there, the Gospel of peace. And so in Paul's message in Romans 10:15 when he says, how shall they hear without a preacher and how shall anyone preach except he be sent, and so therefore how beautiful are the feet of those who go and preach the Gospel of peace, there comes this logical link to our text..
Now the Gospel of peace is something to be preached, no daoubt about it. And that’s exactly what Romans 10 is talking about. However, that is not what Ephesians 6 is talking about. Ephesians 6 has nothing to do with preaching, it has nothing to do with going anywhere.
You say how do you know? What is the first word in verse 14? Stand. This is not going; this is standing. And the point here is not evangelizing the lost or preaching the Gospel.
The point here is fighting the devil. This is not evangelism for an unbeliever. This is conflict for a Christian. He is not talking about going anywhere and preaching, he's talking about standing where you are and fighting the devil.
So what Paul is saying is because our feet are shod with the Good News of peace we stand our ground, we don't slip, we don't slide, we don't fall when we're under attack.
Now let's look at the phrase “the Gospel of peace”. What is that? Well Gospel means what? Good News, and peace means what? Peace. It's the Good News of peace. And what is the Good News of peace?
Romans chapter 5:6-9
Now here is the basic picture of man.
Verse 6, "When we were yet without strength." Man is weak.
Verse 7, "For scarcely for a righteous man will one die." Which means for an unrighteous man nobody would ever die. So the implication is in verse 6 we are weak, in verse 7 we are unrighteous.
In verse 8, "While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us." So we're a sinner.
Verse 9, "Much more then, being justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath." That indicates we were unjustified, unsaved and the objects of God's wrath.
Now there's definition of man, verse 6, weak, verse 7, unrighteous, verse 8, sinful, verse 9, unjustified, unsaved and an object of wrath. Summing it all up that kind of man verse 10, "If, when we were enemies." That's the sum. You take a man who is weak, Unrighteous, sinful, unjust, unsaved, and what have you got? An enemy of God who is the object of God's judgment. God and man are on two different sides. Don't let anybody tell you that God is the Father of everybody, that God loves and tolerates everybody and everybody is in God's family.
We are the enemies of God and there’s nothing we can do to change our circumstances. If anything changes in that situation, God will have to initiate it. So what did God do?
Verse 6 again, "When we were weak, in due time Christ died."
Verse 7 we were unrighteous and for- "Scarcely for a righteous man will one die; yet perhaps for a good man some would dare to die. But God commended his love toward us in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us."
God says, you're enemies but I'm going to try to remedy this in the death of Christ. "And we then are justified" verse 9, "by his blood; we are saved from wrath through him. When we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son."
Now let me tie that to our text in Ephesians 6. We are to have our feet prepared for battle with the Gospel of Peace. What is the Gospel?
The Gospel is that man was at war with God but Christ made peace. Christ made peace, that's the Gospel of peace.
Now go back to verse 1 of chapter 5 of Romans.
That's the Gospel. The Gospel is that man and God were at war and God was on the opposite side against man and yet Christ comes and makes peace a reality. That's the Good News. Now God and I are not on opposite sides. We’re on the same side. God's on my side. That's the Gospel of peace. We are reconciled.
That means that a Christian who stands firm says, look Satan, you come against me all you want, I've got shoes that anchor me in the ground immoveable because God is on my side. That's what helps us stand. If I had to stand there and fight off the host of hell by myself, in my own strength, I'd lose.
By the way, do you see how essential it is that we have right doctrine about the eternal security of the believer? How are you going to stand if you don’t know whether or not you’re saved? How can you stand if you don’t have the shoes on?
Let me give you an illustration: In John 18, Peter is there in the Garden when the soldiers come to arrest Jesus. There are probably five hundred or so marching from Fort Antonius and they have torches to light the night.
They've got clubs and staves ready to beat Him into submission and ready to fight off His disciples, and Jesus steps out and meets them and says, "Whom seek ye? And they replied, Jesus, of Nazareth. And they fell over on their backs like a bunch of dominoes laying in the dirt.
The whole crowd goes down like dominoes. Then they all crawled back up and dusted themselves off and "He said, Whom seek ye?" Again, and "they said, Jesus, of Nazareth." Now watch this: They had fallen flat on the ground, and here stands Peter thinking to himself, no doubt, “Man what power! Just His name and the whole Roman army collapses and he gets an idea, if He's this powerful there's no sense in being taken”.
So what does he do? The Bible says he grabs his sword and he chops off the ear of the servant of the high priest. He was not trying to chop off Malchus' ear. I'm convinced he was going for his head and Malchus ducked. You say how do you know that? I’ve been in enough fights to know cutting off an ear doesn’t disable anyone!
He was going for the kill! Now think about that: Here they are 12 to 500, and Peter’s going to fight the whole Roman army. What motivated him to do that? He had just seen that whole army fall flat in the dirt at the very name of Jesus, and he's saying to himself, If I get in any trouble I'll just say, get 'em Jesus, zap,down they go.”
He has such a confidence in the strength of the Lord that he is convinced there’s nothing that can ever defeat him because he's seen the power of God displayed already, and he takes the sword and he begins to defend the Lord. He knew who was on his side and that's where the resource came.
I think about the host of Midian. They come to assault and attack the children of Israel and God moves upon the hearts of Israel to fight against the Midianites and so the people in Israel decide to get the army together and they have thirty-two thousand soldiers.
The Lord says, I don't need thirty-two thousand soldiers. Get rid of everybody who's not serious, and so He tells Gideon to work a little system and finally Gideon does and they wind up with three hundred guys and the Lord says, all right you three hundred are going defeat the host of Midian. Everybody get a pitcher and a candle and a trumpet.
If I'd have been there I'd of said, that's a little weird. You get up on a mountain and bring the host of Midian down in the valley and when I give you the word blow the trumpet, bust the pitcher and light the torches and we'll win the battle, and you know what happened? They did and the host of Midian got up and killed each other.
Listen, Gideon knew who was on his side.
Peter and John walked into the Sanhedrin and they said, it doesn't matter to us what you say. We’re going to serve God. They had no fear they knew who was on their side.
The Apostle Paul did the same thing, boldly preached Jesus Christ because he knew his resources. He was at peace with God. God was on his side.
And in that strength, we stand, and I can say to Satan, bring it on! Whatever you want, whenever you want, I can say, whatever you have to cast against me I have absolutely no fear, because God's on my side.
Listen, you can stand in absolute confidence.
John MacArthur tells about an event in jr high with a friend named Roger who was a little pudgy nerdy kid. Bullies kept picking on Roger and John until finally Roger had enough an told his older brother, Steve who was middle linebacker on the football team. Steve hid in the bushes the next day, and when the bullies started picking, he came out, picked one guy up by the shirt, and with one punch knocked four teeth out. Then turned to the other one, and threw him in the shrubbery and told them to leave Roger and John alone.
John said, “You want to know what happened at our Junior High? Roger ruled. No question about it. Roger ruled North Downey Junior High. You know why? Because Roger had resources.
It's tremendous to know that Jesus Christ said, "I am not ashamed to call you my brothers." It's a great thing to know that He's on our side, amen? And when Satan comes to attack our feet are rooted firmly on the solid ground of the Gospel of peace which says, God's on my side, because of Jesus Christ. And so no matter what Satan brings I can as verse 10 says, "Be strong in the Lord, and in the power of his might."
That's the confidence of having your feet shod with the preparation of the Gospel of peace.
Listen, victory is available in your life as a Christian;but here’
1. You have to wan to win, therefore you put on the belt of commitment.
2. You have to live a holy life, therefore, I put on the breastplate of righteousness.
3. You have to be bold in the battle, therefore, my feet are firmly rooted in confidence in God.
If you're running around doubting the Lord and His strength, you're going to lose. But if you put on the armor, God's going to do exciting and revolutionary things with your life for His own glory.
Let's pray.
