10 Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his power.
11 Put on the whole armor of God, so that you may be able to stand against
the wiles of the devil.
12 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.
13 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.
14 Stand therefore, and fasten the belt of truth around your waist, and
put on the breastplate of righteousness.
15 As shoes for your feet put on whatever will make you ready to proclaim
the gospel of peace.
16 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.
17 Take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is
the word of God.
18 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.
19 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,
20 for which I am an ambassador in chains. Pray that I may declare it boldly,
as I must speak.
Look for the good. That’s what you’re supposed to
do right? No matter what happens you’re supposed to look for the good. You’re supposed to accentuate the positive. That
maybe true but you and I both know that isn’t always easy to do. Just ask the mother in Darlington, Indiana
who found herself in the middle of a predicament one day that quickly went from bad to worse.
John Haggai told her story in his book “Lead On.” It all started when the mother of eight came home one
day after doing her weekly grocery shopping. She wasn’t in the house very
long before she noticed that it was a lot quieter than usual. So, she started
to investigate. That investigation led her into the living room where the mother
was horrified to find her five youngest children playing with five of the cutest baby skunks you’ll ever see. Terrified,
the mother screamed, “Run children, run” and that’s exactly what they did. The only problem though is that
when the mother screamed each child grabbed one of the baby skunks and ran in a different direction. If that wasn’t bad enough not only did the mother’s scream scare the children, it also scared
the baby skunks and you can guess what happened next.
Sometimes it’s hard to look for the good. It’s hard
to accentuate the positive. That’s especially hard to do when you look at all the negative stuff that’s going
on these days. If you have any doubts about that just take a look at the newspaper
later this afternoon. The newspapers are full of shocking, sordid and shameful stories.
The headlines are enough to make you cringe.
Police officers in Boston
are selling drugs.
Terrorists in London
are planning to blow up planes.
Companies everywhere are canceling their pension plans and leaving
retirees high and dry and they’re doing that while giving the CEO’s big bucks for bonuses.
Pedophiles on the internet are stalking and talking to our children.
Yes, there’s a lot of negative stuff going on in the world
these days. By the way things weren’t any different when the Apostle Paul wrote his letter to the Ephesians. That’s why Paul wrote those words of warning to the Ephesians. As far as Paul was concerned there’s
a war going on out there; a war between good and evil. That’s why Paul
told the Ephesians to “put on the whole armor of God.” He told them
to put on the whole armor of God so they could “stand firm” against “the whiles of the devil” and
the “forces of evil.”
Now I want to be clear. I don’t believe there’s a
guy out there in a red suit with a pitch fork and a red tail running. I don’t believe there’s a sinister Satan
running around creating chaos and carnage and catastrophes here there and everywhere.
I do believe though that there is a supernatural evil that can at times take on a life of its own; a supernatural evil
that can exploit our fears and hatred and shame and pride and greed to bring about incredible pain and suffering.
Where ever all that pain and suffering is coming from, one thing
is clear. There’s a lot of evil behind those horrible headlines. It’s enough to make you long for the good old days. You remember the good old days right? It
was a time when life was a lot simpler. It was a time when life wasn’t quite so scary. I remember those good old days. There the same good old days that someone wrote about in an email that I received
a while ago. The person wrote,
Looking back, it's hard to believe that we have lived as long
as we have.
As children we would ride in cars
with no seat belts or air bags.
Riding in the back of a pickup truck
on a warm day was always a special treat.
We had no childproof lids on medicine
bottles, doors, or cabinets, and when we rode our bikes we had no helmets.
We drank water from the garden hose
and not from a bottle.
We would spend hours building our
go-carts out of scraps and then rode down the hill, only to find out we forgot the brakes. After running into the bushes a
few times we learned to solve the problem.
We would leave home in the morning
and play all day, as long as we were back when the street lights came on. No one was able to reach us all day and none worried
about someone taking us.
We played dodge ball and sometimes
the ball would really hurt when we were hit but I loved it.
We ate cupcakes, bread and butter,
and drank sugar soda, but we were never overweight; we were always outside playing.
Little League had tryouts and not
everyone made the team. Those who didn't had to learn to deal with disappointment.
Some students weren't as smart as
others so they failed a grade and were held back to repeat the same grade.
That generation produced some of
the greatest risk-takers and problem solvers.
We had the freedom, failure, success
and responsibility, and we learned how to deal with it all.
