Roche Coleman Ministries: The Infusion Broadcast

Dr. Roche Coleman: He goes out there to fight him, after him and Saul had consulted. Saul says, "David, here, put on my armor." David was a young buck. Saul was a veteran and older. He had that grown man weight on him. David put that stuff on, probably couldn't see the eyehole. He's looking and the sword and trying to put it on and that stuff didn't fit.

David says, "I can't go out with these. I can't wear this armor. It doesn't fit." He hadn't tried. "I can't do this. This is not armor that is prescribed for me." And so what did he do? He says, "Saul, you take your armor what God has given for your battle, but this is not for my battle."

He says, "I'm just going to walk on down to the river and get me five smooth stones. I'm going to take my shepherd's pouch and I'm going to get my little sling, and I'm going to go out and fight my Goliath with what God has given for me to fight my battle." You see, too often we are trying to use other people's weapons to fight the battle. God has fitted you and has weapons for you for your battle, for your season. Somebody ought to say amen right there.

Guest (Male): Thanks for tuning into The Infusion, a broadcast of the Roche Coleman Ministries. Each week, Dr. Coleman is committed to bringing biblical teaching with practical application to our lives. Dr. Coleman also serves as senior pastor of the Impact Church of the Woodlands in The Woodlands, Texas.

If you live in the area, please stop by and visit us sometime. Sunday worship times are 8:00 and 10:45 AM, and the church is located at 5401 Shadowbend Place, The Woodlands, Texas. If you're listening to us online, we always encourage you to find a local church that you can be part of and attend regularly.

Let's go to today's lesson now. Our current series is titled From Bondage to Breakthrough, and Dr. Coleman takes us to Ephesians chapter six for the lesson, Facing Opposition God's Way.

Dr. Roche Coleman: We are in Ephesians chapter six continuing our trek through this whole theme of from bondage to breakthrough. We have a great text for you today. It's a text that's pretty familiar to a lot of us as believers, but there are always things we can glean from the text.

So one of the things I want you to do is don't tune out and say, "Okay, I know that one, I've heard this one." I want you to look at some finer nuances of this text today with me as we walk through it. It's a wonderful, wonderful letter the Apostle Paul has penned to the church at Ephesus. As he's writing, this is something that's very applicable to us today.

I just want to read a few verses here out of Ephesians chapter six, and then we're going to dive in here. I want you to slide down to verse 14. Stand firm therefore having girded your loins with truth and having put on the breastplate of righteousness and having shod your feet with the preparation of the gospel of peace. In addition to all, taking up the shield of faith with which you will be able to extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one and take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the spirit which is the word of God.

Father, we love you. We thank you for this day. Lord, we are delighted that you are our God, our redeemer. Lord, we ask that you be with us today as we look in your word. Illuminate our minds, our understanding, and Father, speak as only you can. For what you do, we will be certain to give you praise, glory, and honor. We love you. We ask it in Jesus' name. Rise up, oh Lord, and let your enemies be scattered. Let those who hate you flee before your presence. Amen.

We have now come to the armor that the Apostle Paul prescribes for the church at Ephesus. We have seen on our journey to this 14th verse all of the things the Lord has said. The first point that we see the Lord is going to talk about here is the way of the warrior, the soldier as he fights and she fights.

The Apostle Paul has been telling them repeatedly to stand. You look in verse 11, he tells them, "I need you to stand firm," in the panoply of God. The armor that the believer stands in, the panoply, is that of God's. It is not of the human. The armor that we wear is standard-issue by God for every believer.

He goes on in verse 13 and he says, "having done everything," again he says, "stand firm." Remember these verbs have the imperative force. It is not suggestions, it is a command. Now we come to verse 14 and he repeats it again for the third time right here in this section. He says, "Stand firm having girded your loins."

It is important as believers that we hear the clarion call from Paul as he used military language and imagery. As he encouraged the believer as the way of the soldier, we should stand firm. There should be no acquiescing. There should be no retreating, no fleeing from the battle. We are to face the opposition head-on. We are to stand with our gaze piercing forward.

We stand there because why? Because we understand that God is our champion and the Lord is the one who ultimately fights our battles. We must always remember that God is the one who fights our battles. He is the one who stands out in front of us and all we must do is obey the dictates and the precepts and the promises of God.

One of the things that should never characterize the believer is doubt, fear, and anxiety. Why not? It is because God is on our side. Because God is on our side, we already know that we have the victory through Christ Jesus. God has given us certain guarantees and when God gives a guarantee, he always brings it to fruition.

I love what the Lord told the apostles who were with him and they were preparing to go to the other side of the sea. He said in Mark 4:35, "Let us go to the other side." When he told them that, there was no question about whether they would arrive at the destination. He told them we were going and therefore when the storm came, when the winds were blowing, when the water came into the boat, no matter how dire it looked, if God has promised he's going to take you to the other side, you will arrive there.

I love what he said in John 11:23. He tells Mary and Martha, "Your brother will rise again." He promised them. He says he's going to live again and if the Lord has declared it, we can rest assured in it. We can trust the promises of God are yes and amen.

When we get to the second point here, I want you to see the weapons of the soldier. The weapons of the soldier are the weapons that our God possessed first. We saw this earlier in this series. Yahweh is the one who also possessed each part of the weapons that are given to the believer in Ephesians 6:14 through 17.

Yahweh in Isaiah 59 outlines many of these aspects. We pick up on the others that are not included in Isaiah 59 as we see that our Lord here has the belt. We attribute to him also the breastplate. We attribute peace to our God. He is the God who gives us peace. He's also our shield. He's also the helmet of our salvation because he gives it to us and above all, he is truly the sword of the spirit.

But if you look at number seven, that component is not given to the believer. What is it? It is the garments of vengeance. The believer, the person who's placed his faith and trust in Jesus Christ, the one who declares that God has redeemed him from his sins and her sins, must understand that we are never given the right nor the authority to take vengeance against our enemies.

You and I who place our faith and trust in Jesus Christ alone for salvation have been instructed to put on the armor of God, yet the divine armor belonging to God the Father has not been given to the believer when it comes to vengeance. Deuteronomy chapter 32 verse 35, our Lord inspired Moses to write these words and he says, "Vengeance is mine and retribution in due time their foot will slip."

God says it looks like they're standing. It looks like they're victorious. It may appear they're winning. Their eyes, the psalmist says, are bulging out. It appears they don't have the problems like we do. He said, but you just wait. He said in due time their foot will slip. For the day of their calamity is near and the impending things are hastening upon them, for the Lord will vindicate his people. Anybody know God is your vindicator?

He will have compassion on his servants. You say, but they lied on me. I know. They slandered. Yeah, I heard. They were gossiping. Yeah. They put a stumbling block in front of me. Someone molested me, someone raped. Yeah. Someone stole some things from me, things I can never gain back. We know.

But because God has been merciful, because God has forgiven you, because God has been gracious, and because there were times that you lied, you stole, there were times that you were, fill in the blank, and the same God who was gracious to you is telling you don't you try to take vengeance. He says, "I will repay," thus says the Lord.

I'm trying to help you go from bondage to breakthrough. Many of us are still in bondage to our past. We are still in bondage to what someone said, what someone did. But I'm here to tell you today that if you entrust it to God, if you give it to God, you cast your cares upon him and allow God to do, God will do it in his time and in his season. We have to trust the Lord to deal with our enemies. It's not part of our armor, it's God's armor.

Why? Because God understands the beginning from the end. God sees the whole matter and he says it even again in Romans 12:19, never take your own revenge, beloved, but leave room for the wrath of God, for it is written vengeance is mine, I will repay. The Apostle Paul picks up from Deuteronomy and this is why you have to know your Old Testament because you can't appreciate the New unless you understand the Old Testament.

He's trying to get us to truly conform to the image and likeness of Christ Jesus. The way we do this is by submitting and putting on the armor that God has given us. See, oftentimes we're trying to wear armor that God has never prescribed for us. I love the story when David goes out as the little shepherd boy to fight that nine-foot-tall Goliath in 1 Samuel 17.

He goes out there to fight him, after him and Saul had consulted. Saul says, "David, here, put on my armor." David was a young buck. Saul was a veteran and older. He had that grown man weight on him. David put that stuff on, probably couldn't see the eyehole. He's looking and the sword and trying to put it on and that stuff didn't fit.

David says, "I can't go out with these. I can't wear this armor. It doesn't fit." He hadn't tried. "I can't do this. This is not armor that is prescribed for me." And so what did he do? He says, "Saul, you take your armor what God has given for your battle, but this is not for my battle."

He says, "I'm just going to walk on down to the river and get me five smooth stones. I'm going to take my shepherd's pouch and I'm going to get my little sling, and I'm going to go out and fight my Goliath with what God has given for me to fight my battle."

You see, too often we are trying to use other people's weapons to fight the battle. God has fitted you and has weapons for you for your battle, for your season. You can't use mom and dad's armor, it won't work. It's a new season. You can't get grandpa's and grandma's, you can't do it. God has armor that is specifically prescribed, custom-fit, nothing off the rack. Custom-fit for you and for your battle.

Then he gives them to us here. Point number two: the weapons for the warrior, for the soldier. The Apostle Paul outlines each aspect and he used something that his audience would understand. They were well acquainted with the Roman soldiers. They had seen them around. Not only Roman soldiers, if you go back in the history of Israel, they were always battling these foreign entities, these individuals who had soldiers who probably wore some type of garments very similar to this.

The first one he begins with here in verse 14 is the belt. Some call it, he says, "gird your loins," but it is the belt of truth around your waist. I love this because one of the things one of the commentators noted is this: He says that the belt that the Roman soldiers would use was strategic because it held together each piece of the garment that they wore as they prepared to go and fight in a battle.

The belt was central and essential because it was the centerpiece, but as the centerpiece of the body, it held together every portion. All of it fit together tightly as the trousers or pants would come up, as some of the mail would come down and their undergarments. All of it fit together there and it was fastened at the waist.

He tells us first of all to put on the belt that is around our waist to hold everything together. In that belt also was the sheath for the sword. Certain generals will have daggers or maybe a knife in there. In the event the sword was no longer available, then they could reach for a dagger for a close hand-to-hand combat or knife.

It was essential that their belt as fighters, as warriors, was girded tightly to hold everything in the right place. He used that analogy and he says this is how the truth of scripture is for the warrior who is fighting spiritually for God. He said if you are without the essential component of truth around your waist, you are not going to be able to fight in the spiritual battle.

One of the key components when it comes to the Christian faith is that we all must stand on the truth of scripture. Many people are wondering, well why truth? Why is it so important? Because there's so much false teaching and false doctrine that is present in churches in America today.

I expect those who are without not to know the Bible. I'm aware that they misquote the scripture. I expect them to turn and take the Bible to fit their perspectives, their political persuasions, their cultural ideology, their social philosophies.

But when it comes to the church of Jesus Christ, when it comes to those who proclaim to have been redeemed by his blood, I expect you to stand on the truth of scripture even when it's uncomfortable. Truth has to be that centerpiece that holds it all together. You and I must understand we have to stand on truth. Uncomfortable truth, inconvenient truth, truth that calls for us to have to change.

But we must stay with the truth. Buckle it, wear it, don't deviate from it. After he goes to truth, he goes to the second one here. He lets us know we have to put on the breastplate, the breastplate of righteousness. We have been sanctified in truth, John 17:17, as he says, "Sanctify them in your word which is truth."

Now he goes on and he says we have to put on the breastplate of righteousness. The breastplate you and I do understand covered the vital organs, usually from the neck down to the waist. There were some images of the breastplate maybe extending a little further, but predominantly this was the area. Why? So all of the vital organs in the body are not able to be pierced or injured in the fight.

The heart, the lungs, the liver, they are protected by the breastplate. The Apostle Paul says, "I need you to put that on in your spiritual war fighting against the dark forces of this world." Who are the dark forces sent by? Satan is the arch-enemy. He is the ruler of these dark forces and he sends them out.

The thing that Satan desires is to puncture, to injure the believer in those areas that are so vital to your existence. If he can take out the heart that pumps the blood that's so vital to your existence, if he can puncture or injure the lungs to injure you so you're no longer in the spiritual battle, it will be crucial, very detrimental to your existence as you are in the battle for the Lord.

He says you have to be covered and protected. How is that? You have to stand in what is right, that is righteousness. Righteousness is so important because at the core of the word righteousness is right living and correct behavior. It functions like a breastplate to protect you and to secure your existence. Amen.

Guest (Male): This armor is a standard which has been issued by God for every believer, and having put it on, he calls us to stand firm. As Pastor Coleman has just shared, God fights for us and has these expectations of us as well to not fear, to put on the armor, and not take vengeance into our own hands.

Now friend, if you don't know what this is about, spiritual warfare and armor, and you don't have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, please call us. Our number's 346-386-4621 or you could leave us a message at rochecolemanministries.org. Feel free to share a prayer request too and you can be certain we'll uphold you in prayer.

Be sure to join us tomorrow. Dr. Coleman picks up on this, providing teaching on each piece of armor. As he's been urging us these past few weeks, trust God. Break free from any bondage in your life. Put on the armor of God and stand firm.