EPHESIANS 6:10

The Bible says in Ephesians 6:10, “Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord, and in the power of his might.” Starting in Ephesians 5:21 and going all the way to Ephesians 6:9 we were told to submit one to another in all of the circumstances of life. In the husband-wife relationship, in the parent-child relationship, and in the workplace we should have a submissive and obedient spirit. That is true concerning our relationship with human beings and concerning our relationship with God, but it is not true concerning our attitude towards the evil forces that will come against us. It certainly is strange that so many human beings have it all backwards. So many human beings resist those humans around them, but then surrender to the dark forces of life.

The emphasis starting in Ephesians chapter 6:10 is that we who are believers are engaged in a spiritual battle. That battle is not against flesh and blood. It is against spiritual forces of evil. In order to fight an enemy you must be strong. If you are weak in any area, the enemy will find that weakness, exploit it, and attack you at your point of weakness in order to weaken your faith and to even destroy your capacity to serve the Lord. Of course, the Lord Jesus Christ does not want you to be weak in faith or to be destroyed. If you are one of His believers, He wants to be able to use you in His army. “Soldiers of Christ arise, and put your armor on.” Jesus is the greatest of all managers and a great general. He is not going to send His soldiers out to battle without a plan for how they can be properly equipped and prepared for the battle.

The emphasis of Ephesians 6:10 is reminding us of where the strength comes from for the spiritual battle. It comes from the Lord. Jesus has the power. He said to the disciples, “All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth.” We are weak, but He is strong. Those who rely upon their own strength are doomed to fall. Ephesians 6:10 says, “Be strong in the Lord, and in the power of his might.” Three separate words are used here to describe the great capability that Christ has, and that you therefore have access to by faith in Him: “strong,” “power,” and “might.” Do not forget that we serve a mighty God, a powerful God, a strong God, and His name is Jesus. There is nothing too hard for Him. That which has been broken down, He can build up. That which is weak, He can make strong. That which is dead, He can bring to life again; and He will. He will restore all things. That which is impossible with man, is possible with God.

Ephesians 6:10 reminds us of who is on our side: the all-powerful Lord Jesus Christ. Ephesians 6:11 reminds us of who is the enemy. It says, “Put on the whole armor of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil.” The “wiles” of the devil speaks of the fact that he has a method and a plan that he works at and studies and prepares. He will study you to try and determine any weakness and then the devil will put forth a plan to bring your weakness into contact with some circumstance that you cannot handle and that will cause you to fall and to lose faith. “He walks about as a roaring lion seeking whom he may destroy.” He is much more intelligent than you are and he will put into effect a multi-year plan to destroy you, if that is what it takes.

Your spiritual enemy is called “the devil.” That word means slanderer. He is the accuser of the brethren, and he attempts to use accusations against you. One of the reasons to have an upright life is so that you do not give an occasion to the enemy to slander you. Make him use lies if he is going to use anything at all. The devil will try to use the critical spirit of unspiritual people to condemn you. He is very good at that. The devil will try to get you to condemn yourself in your own conscience. If you know Jesus as Savior you should be able to keep the devil from causing that to happen. Just remember who you were when you came to Christ that first time. Jesus accepted you and welcomed you when you were nothing and when you deserve nothing. How much He loved you then, and how much He still loves you. The way to overcome the devil’s attacks against you because of any failure on your part, is to remember that the grace of God through Christ is your only hope and has always been your only hope. That is why Revelation 12:11 says, “And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony; and they loved not their lives unto the death.” Jesus shed His precious blood so that my sins could be forgiven. That is just as true today as it was when I first fell at the feet of Jesus. The devil cannot condemn me. I have been forgiven and received by the Christ.

Ephesians 6:11 says, “Put on the whole armor of God…” When Paul wrote this, he was a prisoner in a Roman prison. All around him were Roman soldiers. Roman soldiers went into battle properly equipped for the battle. Their battles were often violent, hand-to-hand combat. Can you imagine what would happen to a Roman soldier if he went into battle with just one part of his armor missing? Without his shield, or without his sword, or without his helmet he would be in great peril and likely would not survive. If you miss putting on any part of the armor that Christ has furnished you, then the enemy will find your weak spot and you will not stand. Instead of standing, you will fall and great will be the fall. The reason that you need all of the armor of God is expanded upon in verse 12. Ephesians 6:12 says, “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.”

Four different terms and phrases are used to describe the authority, the organization, and the effectiveness of the powers of evil who are the enemies of mankind. Remember these are angelic beings. They are well-organized. They are more powerful than human beings. That is why we must rely upon the power of the Lord. The power of the Lord is our only hope against such creatures. It is important to remember the first phrase of this verse that says, “we wrestle not against flesh and blood.” Ephesians 5:21 told us what our attitude should be toward flesh and blood. It says, “Submitting yourselves one to another…”

Ephesians 6:12 tells us that our opposition is made up of powerful creatures and well-organized creatures, and it also tells us where their power exists, which is very revealing. They are “the rulers of the darkness of this world.” They may have some access to heaven (we know that Satan does), but they have no power there. Their power is limited to this world. In contrast, we who believe have great power in heaven because of our heavenly Father and our Savior who is Jesus Christ. We have no power in ourselves, but we have access to the Almighty God, whose name is Jesus Christ, through prayer. No wonder that in Ephesians 6:16 Paul will tell us, “above all taking the shield of faith…,” and in Ephesians 6:18, “Praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit…”

These evil forces are the “rulers of the darkness of this world.” They spend most of their time in this world, but they do not control the whole world. They only control the darkness of the world. If you are in Christ, then you are in the light and not the darkness. Everyone is either in the light or in the darkness. Jesus is the light of the world. The only way to be enlightened is to be enlightened by Jesus. The reason that the rulers of the darkness of this world are against us is because they are against the light. They are for darkness and against light. They are for the lies and against the truth. You can see the results of their work. Great human philosophies and false religions have been developed that have captured the minds of men and kept them in darkness. The masses of humanity have been captured by such false teachings. The reason that it has all worked so well is because of the great power of these spiritual forces. But the thing for believers to remember is that the power of these dark spiritual forces is over darkness and not over light. If you are in the light, who is Jesus, then you have been already delivered from the powers of darkness. They can do nothing against your spirit, if you are rightly related to Jesus. “Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.”

Once you are delivered from the powers of darkness, Jesus wants to use you as a soldier in his army in the battle against darkness. This passage in Ephesians chapter 6 tells you all the things that you need in order to be properly equipped for the battle, the great spiritual battle that is raging all around us. When we get into describing the armor, one thing to notice is that there are seven distinct things that make up the spiritual armor. Make sure that you have all seven of them so that you have the whole armor of God. If you do not have all of it, your weakness will be found out and your defeat in the battle will be certain. The seven things are: truth, righteousness, the gospel, faith, salvation, the Word of God, and prayer.

Concerning these seven things the Bible says in Ephesians 6:13, “Wherefore take unto you the whole armor of God, that ye may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand.” There are at least three things to notice in this verse. The first thing is that it says once again “the whole armor of God.” The same phrase was used in verse 11. Anything written in the Bible is important. Anything written twice must be very important, and this is critical: “the whole armor.” If any part is missing, you are in spiritual danger. It is “the whole armor of God.” The armor comes from God. The idea of having this armor comes from God. God created this armor for the believer. God knows what you need in order to not be overcome by the devil.

The second phrase that we want to look at a little more closely in Ephesians 6:13 are the words, “in the evil day.” In your life not every day will be an evil day. You will not have a great spiritual attack against you every single day because for one thing the devil and his demons are not infinite. But one thing that you can be sure of is that some days will be evil. There will be certain days in your life when great spiritual forces will come against you. You must be prepared for such days or you will be destroyed by them. There are many who started to follow Christ and who followed him for a time, but there are not as many who are still standing and still following because they fell when an evil day came against them. What does it take to follow Christ? The ability to stand firm in faith when everything is falling apart around you. That will be possible only if you have the whole armor of God. Do you know of someone who has fallen? It would not have happened if they had taken upon them the whole armor of God.

In Ephesians 6:14-18 the seven things are listed that make up the whole armor of God. Those seven things once again are truth, righteousness, the gospel, faith, salvation, the Word of God, and prayer. The first part of Ephesians 6:14 says, “Stand therefore, having your loins girt about with truth…” The first thing mentioned as part of the armor is truth. That is what the battle is all about: truth against error. The devil was a liar from the beginning, and he is still a liar. He keeps people in darkness by his lies. Listen to the wrong voices, to the wrong teachings, to the wrong philosophies and you will be held in darkness. In order to be successfully armed against the devil, you must be a lover of truth. You must love hearing the truth. You must have an ear for the truth and an abhorrence of error and deception. Jesus said, “I am the way and the truth…” Your journey into truth must bring you to Christ, or you will never know the truth that you need to know, and you will never be free from the powers of darkness that have a hold on your mind. Jesus said, “You shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free.”

Of course, if you love hearing the truth, then that means that you will love saying the truth also. Always speak the truth. You do not have to tell anyone everything, but when you do speak, make sure that what you say is the truth. If you do not speak the truth, then you are joining forces with the powers of darkness. If you do speak the truth, then you have the first part of the armor that is needed to fight against evil in this great battle of truth against error.

The second part of the armor is righteousness. The last half of Ephesians 6:14 says, “and having on the breastplate of righteousness.” Without a doubt this is referring to both imputed righteousness and practical righteousness. If you have faith in Christ, then God has imputed the righteousness of Christ to your account. David wrote in Psalm 32:1-2, “Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. Blessed is the man unto whom the Lord imputeth not iniquity.” God gave these words to Paul in Romans 4:5, “But to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness.”

Just because God accounts righteousness to us by faith alone does not mean that we have no responsibility for practical righteousness. It is God’s will that we do the right thing always. Salvation by faith is not a license to do wrong. We are saved by faith, but then we are expected to start following the teachings of Christ and to put into practice that which we claim to believe. That is what Paul was talking about in Ephesians 4:22: “That ye put off concerning the former conversation the old man, which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts.” Any wrong thing that we do can have very bad consequences, but the worst may be that it plays right into the hands of the devil who wants to make us look bad so that we will not have a light to shine for Christ in a dark world. You become defeated by the powers of darkness when you do the things that the powers of darkness want you to do. Always do the right thing, and in so doing you are winning the spiritual fight.

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