Preparing
for
Rev Dr Mark Porizky
9/3/06
Ephesians
6:10-20
Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his power. Put on the whole armor of God, so that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. For our struggle is not against enemies of blood and flesh, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers of this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. Therefore take up the whole armor of God, so that you may be able to withstand on that evil day, and having done everything, to stand firm. Stand therefore, and fasten the belt of truth around your waist, and put on the breastplate of righteousness. As shoes for your feet put on whatever will make you ready to proclaim the gospel of peace. With all of these, take the shield of faith, with which you will be able to quench all the flaming arrows of the evil one. Take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.
Pray
in the Spirit at all times in every prayer and supplication. To that end keep
alert and always persevere in supplication for all the saints. Pray
also for me, so that when I speak, a message may be given to me to make known
with boldness the mystery of the gospel, for which I am an ambassador in chains.
Pray that I may declare it boldly, as I must speak.
In the last twenty years or so, quite a few denominations have come out
with new hymn books. And every time a new hymn book is prepared, committees have
to wrestle with the question of what hymns to put in and which ones to throw
out. And one hymn in particular hasn't been faring too well lately.
The hymn I speak of is "Onward, Christian Soldiers."
Despite the fact that most hymn book committees realize that
"Onward, Christian Soldiers" is a popular hymn with many people, many
of those committees have chosen not to include it in their hymnals, including
the Presbyterian Church hymnal. And the usual reason that is given is that
"Onward, Christian Soldiers" is too militaristic. Images of war and
fighting, they say, just don't have any place in a Christian hymnbook. And so in
recent years, most of the time "Onward, Christian Soldiers" just
hasn't made the cut.
But if images of soldiers and battles aren't acceptable to some people,
I'm not sure what some people would do with the Bible. Why?
Well first, the Old Testament, in just about every book, has some
reference to a war. And the New Testament isn't much better. The New Testament
instructs us to fight the good fight. We are told to struggle against the forces
of evil. And here in this passage that we just read, we are called upon to put
on armor.
To put on the armor of God, that is.
Now, the images of war that we find in the Bible and in hymns like
"Onward, Christian Soldiers" aren't meant to glorify bloodshed and
violence, though they certainly have been used for those purposes. Instead those
images are meant to remind us that in this world we are engaged in a real battle
against evil. And so we need to prepare ourselves accordingly. We need to
prepare ourselves for all the attacks that the forces of evil are going to
launch against us.
Are we up to that challenge? Are we prepared for that challenge like we
should be? In the last month or so, I've been reading article after article,
describing how basic training for the army just isn't what it used to be. For
instance, recruits are told that if climbing over an obstacle wall is too
difficult for them, that they can run around the wall instead. Or at army bases,
bayonet drills are called off if the weather is too hot. And even at the Marine
training base at
An army spokesman defended those "adjustments" to basic
training by saying that they're necessary, because for the most part the
volunteers who are enlisting these days aren't used to the kind of challenges
that were a regular part of basic training in previous generations. Thus, to
keep the recruits from quitting, the army has decided to make its basic training
a bit easier. But that raises another question: Will the current soldiers be up
to the challenge? If, and in our world today, when they go to battle, will such
modest training help them to be prepared for what they will face?
That’s a question for more than just the military.
Are we as Christians today prepared for the challenges that we're going
to face? It seems that, just like the army, we've tended to lower our standards
a bit. Not nearly as many people across the country attend church now as they
used to. Many Christians today don't read the Bible, they don't know what the
Bible says, and a financial commitment to a church is after all the necessities
and wants have been paid for.
The problem, of course, is that abundance often leads to decreased
diligence. We've become soft as a
nation. We live in the richest land at the richest time in all of history.
We have our television, music and internet…all on our cell phones!
From a material standpoint it is hard to argue with the truth that stares
us all in the face: Life is good. In
fact, it's so good, that when we hear the Bible tell us to prepare ourselves for
difficult times because for the most part we don't know what really difficult
times are like. But in the midst of
abundance, in the midst of good times, we end up not preparing at all.
But who among us would argue that preparation is the key to success in any venture we undertake, be it school, training for an athletic event, even an interview for a new job.
I grew up around the great UCLA basketball teams of the late 1960’s and
early 1970’s. Players gathering
for the first day of basketball practice at UCLA were full of anticipation. They
wondered how their coach, the legendary John Wooden, would set the tone for the
season. They didn’t have to wait long.
Veterans knew what was coming. But first year players were no doubt
perplexed by the initial lesson imparted by their Hall of Fame coach: He taught
them how to put on a pair of socks. He did not teach this lesson only once, but
before every game and practice. Why?
Wooden discovered many players didn’t properly smooth out wrinkles in
the socks around their heels and little toes. If left uncorrected, these
wrinkles could cause blisters that could hamper their performance at crucial
times during games. Many players thought the practice odd and laughed about it
then. Wooden knows some of them still laugh about it today. But the coach would
not compromise on this basic fundamental principle: “I stuck to it. I believed
in that, and I insisted on it.”
A small thing? Perhaps.
But the fundamentals are often in the details.
In our desire to grow as Christians, we can easily forget about the
fundamentals of our faith, wanting to soar in the spirit before we’ve even
tied our spiritual shoes properly. When
seek to soar before dressing properly, we run the risk of developing painful
spiritual blisters that can hurt us as we run our race.
Of course, that raises another question: What
kind of Christians are we? Are we the kinds of Christian that are prepared for
whatever circumstances we might find ourselves in? Or are we the kind of
Christians who are only prepared to be Christians as long as it's comfortable
and easy?
Are we prepared for when the
slings and arrows of life’s outrageous fortune land on us for no other reason
it would seem than we just happen to be in the way of tragedy?
Maybe it’s not persecution. Maybe
it’s illness. Maybe it’s not
injustice. Maybe it’s the
once-in-a-century, catastrophic storm.
This passage in Ephesians tells us to prepare for the worst.
Furthermore, we should remember that the enemies we battle will likely be
unseen. Because, as the passage
says, the battle is not against flesh and blood, that is, the battle is not with
other human beings. No, our ultimate battle is with the devil himself. And
that's an important thing for us to realize. Because so often when we see
someone else engaging in what we would consider evil, often our first reaction
is to strike out against them. And that's exactly what the devil hopes we'll do.
For example, a while back the KKK had a rally in front of the
Another example of that would be from the news many years ago, but the
name of the person is still quite famous. Paul
Hill was a man in
Or take hurricane Katrina. I
just finished Douglas Brinkley’s book on the hurricane called The Great
Deluge. While the book
exhaustively details heroic efforts by rescuers, it also speaks about evil:
bureaucratic incompetence and individual civility lost as normal citizens
became criminals: looters and rapists.
That, my friends, is how evil wins against us. Evil wins by getting us to
take part in evil ourselves.
One of the most-watched movies of all time is Star Wars, which was then
followed by two sequels. And one of the main plots in the Star Wars trilogy is
the effort of the Emperor and the evil empire to try and get Luke Skywalker, the
good and virtuous Jedi knight, to become like them and turn to the dark side.
And in the one movie, there is the final showdown between the Emperor and Luke
Skywalker. At one point, the Emperor gives Luke the opportunity to strike him
down. The Emperor says: "Go ahead, Luke. I can feel the hate surging
through your body. Go ahead and kill me, and at last you will have come to the
dark side."
Instead, Luke Skywalker lays down his weapon and refuses to fight any
further. He realizes that refusing to fight is the only thing he could do to
keep himself from becoming like the evil ones he had spent his life opposing.
And at the point, there is an interesting parallel between what Luke
Skywalker did in that movie and what Jesus Christ did in reality. As Jesus was
being taken away to the cross, his disciples begged him to call for an army of
angels to come and blow his enemies away. But Jesus refused to do that. Even as
he was being beaten and spit upon and abused, Jesus refused to lower himself to
the level of his enemies. Instead, from the cross, one of the last things that
Jesus said was: "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they're
doing."
So what are we to do when the forces of evil began to lash out against
us?
As you read through the items of armor that are listed in this passage -
the helmet and shield and shoes and so on - you notice that none of them protect
the back. In other words, the armor that God gives us isn't meant to be used to
run away from evil.
But another thing to notice about the armor of God is that it's primarily
defensive. It's designed to protect us. It's not an arsenal of weapons to
destroy the opposition. In fact, only one item of armor that's listed here is an
attacking weapon. And that is the sword, which is said to be the Word of God.
And I believe that what this all means is that as Christians, our mission is not
to attack and destroy those who oppose us. Because that's the goal of the evil
powers, to get us ourselves to engage in evil. To return evil for evil.
Instead our mission is simply to stand fast. To hold the ground
that God has given to us. But in order to do this we are asked to put on the
whole armor of God, not just the parts we like or are most comfortable with.
The whole armor is for our protection.
Spiritual armor does not always protect us as we think it ought to, but
it does protect us as we need to be protected.
If we are prepared.
While
many cities and villages along the Indian Ocean suffered catastrophic losses
from the December 2004 tsunami, the port city of Pondicherry, India, and its
300,000 inhabitants were spared. Just beyond city limits, 600 people were killed
by the devastating tidal wave, but Pondicherry withstood the tsunami. Why were
they protected?
The answer began 250 years ago when France colonized the city. The French
built a massive stone seawall. Year after year, the French continued to
strengthen the wall, piling huge boulders along its 1.25-mile length. The French stopped building Pondicherry's seawall in 1957, but their
work prepared them for a disaster that would occur five decades into the future.
A Christian’s preparation for battle is not about a love of militarism
or thirst for violence. No, a
Christian preparing for battle is about recognizing that this world is a place
of struggle and that we cannot avoid the struggle.
The struggle may not occur for months, years or even decades.
Pray today, worship today, learn Scripture today.
Someday you will need it desperately.
Put on the armor
of God. Prepare for the battle which
someday will come into your life. Onward,
onward Christian soldier.
Will you pray with me now?
St.
Andrew Presbyterian Church,
Web Site: SAPC-CT.HOME.ATT.NET
Office Email: SAPC-CT@ATT.NET
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