Colleen and Nikki talk through Ephesians 6:10-24. Learn how born-again Christians have protective armor and one amazing weapon. Transcription by Gwen Billington.
Nikki: Welcome to Former Adventist podcast. I’m Nikki Stevenson.
Colleen: And I’m Colleen Tinker.
Nikki: In today’s episode, we’ll be completing our walk through Paul’s Letter to the Ephesians, and we’ll be discussing the armor of God and Paul’s concluding words to this church. In these amazing six chapters of Ephesians, Paul has detailed for us God’s eternal plan of redemption and His choice of us in Christ in eternity past. He’s explained that the very means of our salvation has been carried out in the work of the entire Trinity on our behalf for God’s glory alone. He’s made clear to us the security of our salvation and the sealing of the Holy Spirit Himself when we place our trust in the true gospel of Jesus. In this letter we’ve learned about our original human nature and the new nature we receive in Christ when He raises us to life in Him. We’ve learned about the nature of the Body of Christ and the headship of Christ, and we’ve also studied the imperatives given to us by the Holy Spirit on the basis of all of the previous indicatives about who we are in Him. We learned how we’re to grow in the Lord, live in the Body, and function in the home and in the workplace. And Paul will now conclude this letter with instructions on how we’re to stand firm in the strength of Christ Himself as we live through this age and wait for the age to come. We hope you’ll join us with your Bibles open and a fresh cup of coffee as we conclude this series. But before we get started, let me remind you that if you have any questions or comments for us, you can write to us at formeradventist@gmail.com. You can visit proclamationmagazine.com to view our online articles, sign up for weekly emails, and if you’d like to offer financial support to the ministry, you can find a donate tab there as well. If you believe this podcast is helpful, we’d love for you to leave a review on whatever platform you use to listen to podcasts. Your reviews, both stars and written, help to expand the reach of the ministry online. And last, we’d love for you to join us for our next series, beginning next week. In this series we’ll examine the 28 Fundamental Beliefs of the Adventist Church in the light of Scripture. Now, as an Adventist, I believed these fundamental beliefs were taught by Scripture alone and that they could stand with or without Ellen. In this series, though, we’ll show you that there isn’t one of them that truly can. So we hope you’ll join us. Now, Colleen.
Colleen: Yes?
Nikki: Since we’ll be talking about the armor of God, I have to ask, when you were an Adventist, what did you think it meant to put on the armor of God?
Colleen: Well, I’m not sure. This was a passage that was mostly metaphorical to me because I didn’t know if I could be saved or not, I didn’t know if I was good enough to be saved, so I always interpreted this passage as these are the things I have to do. I have to hold to the truth, which I believed was Adventism, and I have to work really hard to keep the law so I can be righteous, and the gospel of peace, the shoes of the gospel of peace, well, whatever that was, you know, it was Adventism that I had to spread.
Nikki: Um-hmm.
Colleen: The sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God, I guess I would have just understood that to be all my proof texts because I did believe Adventism, like you said, was entirely based on Scripture, and I had the texts to prove it. And the helmet of salvation, well, who knew? Because I couldn’t know until Jesus came again if I was saved.
Nikki: Um-hmm.
Colleen: So I would have to say it was metaphorical to me. I did believe that when he talked about “our struggle is not against flesh and blood but against rulers, powers, and authorities,” I did believe he was referring to demons. Ellen White made it very clear that demons were a part of our life and we had to protect ourselves against them. So even there, I didn’t have a biblical understanding of how to even think about the demons in relationship to me. I don’t have a very clear answer on that except one more big should and a metaphorical passage to tell me “get your act together.” [Laughter.]
Nikki: [Laughter.]
Colleen: What about you, Nikki?
Nikki: Well, I’d have to say kind of the same, that I’m not sure exactly what my answer would have been except that I would have definitely seen this as a text that supported the Great Controversy. I would have seen this as a call to take up my armor and participate in this great spiritual battle, working to vindicate the character of God before watching worlds. It would have been what I have to do, and as far as all the parts in the armor, they were a little enigmatic. I didn’t quite – I felt like there was mystery behind each of those that I had to figure out how to uncover.
Colleen: Yeah.
Nikki: I had no concept of just taking Paul at his word. I think I thought that there was mystery behind everything. I’m not entirely sure. I just knew it had to do with a spiritual battle.
Colleen: Right. And, like I was often told, Paul is hard to understand –
Nikki: [Laughter.]
Colleen: – even Peter said so, so my confusion shouldn’t surprise anyone. [Laughter.] Well, Nikki, this passage looks so different to me now.
Nikki: Um-hmm.
Colleen: And one of the things about this passage that I never used to put together with the armor is his instructions on praying in the Spirit at the end, which are just completely connected to wearing the armor of God. I didn’t understand praying in the Spirit either. So would you mind reading Ephesians 6:10-24, and then we’ll work our way through this from a biblical perspective.
Nikki: “Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of His might. Put on the full armor of God, so that you will be able to stand firm against the schemes of the devil. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places. Therefore, take up the full armor of God, so that you will be able to resist on the evil day, and having done everything, to stand firm. Stand firm therefore, having belted your waist with truth, and having put on the breastplate of righteousness, and having strapped on your feet 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. With every prayer and request, pray at all times in the Spirit, and with this in view, be alert with all perseverance and every request for all the saints, and pray in my behalf, that speech may be given to me in the opening of my mouth, to make known with boldness the mystery of the gospel, for which I am an ambassador in chains; that in proclaiming it I may speak boldly, as I ought to speak. Now, so that you also may know about my circumstances as to what I am doing, Tychicus, the beloved brother and faithful servant in the Lord, will make everything known to you. I have sent him to you for this very purpose, so that you may know about us, and that he may comfort your hearts. Peace be to the brothers and sisters, and love with faith, from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Grace be with all those who love our Lord Jesus Christ with incorruptible love.”
Colleen: Quite an amazing passage, coming at this from the perspective of knowing that I’m saved instead of hoping I may be. [Laughter.]
Nikki: I know. [Laughter.]
Colleen: So when we look at these first couple of verses, “Be strong in the Lord and in the strength of His might.” And then, “Put on the full armor of God, so that you will be able to stand firm against the schemes of the devil.” What stands out to you most? Like in that first verse, “Be strong in the Lord and in the strength of His might.”? What does that make you think now? What does he say to us?
Nikki: Well, now when I read this, I have all of those other indicatives in my head that Paul has just given us. He front-loaded this letter with everything that was true of us, and we are in – we are created in Christ, raised up together with Him, and so that strength comes from being in Him. It is Christ’s strength, not mine. I’m not having to muster this up. I see this as saying to be strong in Him and in the strength of His might, not mine.
Colleen: And in that second verse, “Put on the full armor of God, so that you will be able to stand against the schemes of the devil.” What strikes you about that armor? When he says to put on this armor, whose armor are you putting on?
Nikki: It’s God’s armor. I’m not having to come up with this. He’s provided this.
Colleen: Isn’t that amazing?
Nikki: Um-hmm.
Colleen: And it belongs to Him.
Nikki: Um-hmm.
Colleen: He’s given it to us, and it belongs to Him. So this armor, whatever this is, which he’s going to talk about, is God’s armor that we stand in. And what’s the purpose of wearing this armor? I think it’s so interesting because when you think about it, you think about a soldier, and by the way, Paul is writing from prison, where he had a Roman soldier in his full view when he wrote, so he’s seeing an armed soldier in front of him, and he’s describing armor. So what’s the real purpose of armor, generally.
Nikki: It’s protection when you go to battle.
Colleen: Exactly! But what is he saying here? It’s protection so that we can what?
Nikki: Stand firm.
Colleen: Isn’t that interesting? He’s not asking us to actually go out.
Nikki: Yeah, we’re not looking for the battle. It’s going to come to us. [Laughter.]
Colleen: And our job is to stand, not to go out and fight –
Nikki: Um-hmm.
Colleen: – which is counterintuitive.
Nikki: Um-hmm.
Colleen: And yet when we are in Christ, everything’s counterintuitive because nothing we have is our own. It’s all Him. Even the battle is His.
Nikki: Um-hmm.
Colleen: So Paul is saying, “Put on the full armor of God so we will be able to stand firm,” and then, how does he characterize the things that we’re going to have to stand firm against? What does he call them?
Nikki: The schemes of the devil.
Colleen: What’s a scheme?
Nikki: It’s plotting.
Colleen: Yes! It’s a nefarious idea designed to deceive or distract or bring down. It’s not even like a great tumult, although it could be. But it can be something really subtle. I remember when our sons were young, they’d come up with schemes, either for each other or for us. They could be very distracting. You know, trying to have a discussion with one of them when they knew that they were trying to avoid what we were saying, they would be very scheming in the way they’d talk, trying to just get us slightly off course, divert our attention so that we’re forgetting our main argument. They were scheming, and it was subtle, and we had to be really alert and stay on topic so that they didn’t scheme us away from the point. [Laughter.]
Nikki: [Laughter.]
Colleen: And I think that this is really significant. He’s not saying, “So that you will be able to stand against the onslaught of the devil.” It’s the schemes, which can take us almost unawares.
Nikki: So as we were preparing for this podcast, I actually listened to another podcast about this passage, and one of the things that he brought out that I had never thought of before is the fact that putting on the armor of God is essentially the same as putting on Christ. If we look at each part of the armor of God, we can see Christ in that. He is our salvation. He is our breastplate of righteousness. He is the word made flesh. He is the truth. He is all these things, and when we put on Christ, we are essentially putting on the armor of God.
Colleen: Isn’t that amazing?
Nikki: Um-hmm.
Colleen: It’s Him. He is the one who clothes us with these things. He is the armor. That’s an amazing insight. And it helps us when we look at this next verse, which really identifies our true enemy. As an Adventist, these things – I knew Paul was telling the truth, but I wasn’t completely sure how to think about them. Do you mind rereading verse 12, Nikki, and we’ll talk a little bit about these things.
Nikki: “For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places.”
Colleen: The question that comes to my mind is, what are these things and how come, you know, Paul isn’t just saying “the devil” or “Satan”? He has four categories listed here.
Nikki: Um-hmm.
Colleen: Rulers, the powers, world forces of this darkness. I mean, I think it’s interesting that he doesn’t just say “forces of this darkness,” but “world forces,” so that it’s connected to things happening in the population of the world, apparently.
Nikki: Um-hmm.
Colleen: And spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places. So there’s some kind of force of evil that’s firmly connected to this world and some that are spiritual apart from this world but still interacting with us, apparently. So how are we to understand this?
Nikki: You know, this actually takes me back to Ephesians 2 when he talked about our depraved nature. And he says, “You were dead in your offenses and sins, in which you previously walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience.” There’s a collaboration between those who are dead spiritually and the leader, the ruler of this world.
Colleen: That’s a very important point. I had an email last week from somebody who’s followed Proclamation! and Life Assurance for a long, long time. And she had listened to one of our podcasts where we had talked about Ephesians 2 and that we were dead by nature and children of wrath, and she said, “I hope I’m misunderstanding you because I believe that we are not born spiritually dead. I believe that we are born and then we sin.” And I walked through the texts again, and you know, the fact is the Bible is very, very clear. We are born spiritually dead, separated from God.
Nikki: You know, one of the things that’s helped me with that, because I know that’s a difficult one, especially for formers, after Adam and Eve fell and sin entered and God gave out the curses, He cursed the snake, and He said, “On your belly you will crawl, and you will eat of dust.” And every snake that’s been born since then has been without legs or wings or whatever it had before.
Colleen: [Laughter.]
Nikki: And it has been in the dust. This has been the curse, the lineage of the snake. We are in the lineage of Adam. He was spiritually dead. And every human that has been born in his image since the curse, since the fall, has been born dead in our sins.
Colleen: That’s extremely important to know. We’re not born blank slates that start to sin. That’s what makes the salvation through Jesus Christ so amazing. He came, and that was the only way life could be returned to the human race. He didn’t come to make us good. He didn’t come to provide a way for us to be moral or to keep the law or to have better impulses. He came to make us alive. And when we’re alive, then we belong to God in a special way. We’re not just His creations; we’re His children, as Romans 8 says. So it’s really important to know that from the get-go that’s the start. We’re dead when we’re born. All of us are born into the domain of darkness under the rulership of the prince of the power of the air, the spirit, Satan, that’s now at work in the sons of disobedience. This is our natural condition. So when we read these texts that say we’re in a battle against rulers and authorities and principalities and powers, it shouldn’t terrify us. It’s the natural condition of man. And when we’re born again, we’re not immediately taken out of this broken world. We’re citizens of a new kingdom, we’re spiritually alive and connected with God now, but our bodies are still mortal, and we still move and live with people who are spiritually dead. So of course the spiritual forces of wickedness are going to oppose the kingdom of God, which is alive and well in believers. We comprise the Body of Christ, and of course we’ll have spiritual opposition. Another thing that I thought it’s probably worth mentioning here, because we didn’t learn this as Adventists, we get a real insight into this rulers of the world, powers of the world and of the air in Daniel. Now, I know Daniel sometimes makes former Adventists want to break out in hives, but when we read it as it’s written, understanding the audience, and interestingly, did you know as an Adventist, Nikki, that Daniel was written in two languages?
Nikki: I didn’t.
Colleen: Isn’t that an amazing thing to find out?
Nikki: Yeah.
Colleen: Do you remember what they are?
Nikki: Aramaic, and I don’t remember the other one. Is it Hebrew?
Colleen: Oh, Hebrew, yeah.
Nikki: Is it just Hebrew?
Colleen: Uh-huh.
Nikki: Okay.
Colleen: It’s Hebrew. Sure, like the rest of the Old Testament.
Nikki: Yeah, I knew it was like written for Jews and then written for Gentiles; right?
Colleen: Exactly! And the sections of the Book of Daniel that are written to Jews about their future and their life and their release from captivity and their ultimate victory in the Lord, those sections are written in Hebrew. And the sections that talk about the Gentile nations and the Gentile powers – remember Nebuchadnezzar’s image and Babylon and Medo-Persia and Rome and Greece? Those are written in Aramaic for a Gentile audience. That was just shocking to me when I found it out. And it changed the book.
Nikki: Um-hmm.
Colleen: In Daniel 10, Daniel writes about having prayed for God to come and show him what was going to happen to Israel. He knew the 70 years of captivity were just about up, and he was just mourning for his people. And he prayed, and nothing happened for 2 weeks. And then, in Daniel 10:10-14, we read what happens when God finally sent Daniel a literal person – well, it was an angel, an archangel, apparently, to talk to Daniel, and he said to him, in Daniel 10:10-14, “Behold” – this is Daniel speaking – “a hand touched me and set me trembling on my hands and knees. And he said to me, ‘O, Daniel, man greatly loved, understand the words that I speak to you and stand upright, for now I have been sent to you.’ And when he had spoken this word to me, I stood up trembling. And then he said to me, ‘Fear not, Daniel, for from the first day that you set your heart to understand and humbled yourself before your God, your words have been heard, and I have come because of your words.'” Now, here it comes: “The prince of the kingdom of Persia withstood me 21 days, but Michael, one of the chief princes, came to help me, for I was left there with the kings of Persia and came to make you understand what is to happen to your people in the latter days, for the vision is for days yet to come.” Well, Nikki, what’s in there that would have rocked an Adventist world?
Nikki: Well, we would have seen Michael. [Laughter.]
Colleen: Yes! [Laughter.] And who would that have meant to us as Adventists?
Nikki: That was Jesus, according to Adventism.
Colleen: Absolutely. Ellen White identified Michael the Archangel as Jesus and Jesus as Michael the Archangel, and later Adventists, understanding the problem with that, have just said, “Oh, no, no, no, it’s just another name for Jesus.” But no, the Bible clearly identifies Michael. He’s not God. He’s identified here by this angel that came to Daniel as one of the chief princes. Now, Jesus is not one of any prince. He is God the Son. But he came, Michael did, to help this angel that’s talking to Daniel as he was contending with the prince of the kingdom of Persia. It appears that that prince of Persia was an angelic being, and it took another angelic being to help this angel quell that first one. And then we get a little bit more confirmation of this at the end of chapter 10, in 20 and 21, where this angel says to Daniel, “Do you know why I have come to you? But now I will return to fight against the prince of Persia, and when I go out, behold the prince of Greece will come. But I will tell you what is inscribed in the book of truth. There is none who contends by my side except Michael your prince.” So do you remember the vision of Nebuchadnezzar’s image, with the head of gold –
Nikki: Um-hmm.
Colleen: – and then the chest of silver?
Nikki: Um-hmm.
Colleen: Who did the head of gold represent?
Nikki: That was Babylon.
Colleen: Yes. And that was the empire that was in power when Judah was exiled for 70 years. They came and took Judah out of the land, marched them into Babylon, and took then into exile. So then, during the time that Israel was in Babylon, there was a change of power, and the next empire overtook Babylon. What was the next empire, according to that vision?
Nikki: That was Medo-Persia.
Colleen: Exactly. And that’s who was in power. Medo-Persia was kind of a double kingdom. Persia was more powerful and eventually sort of swallowed up the Medes, and it was during the end of the Persian Empire that this vision occurred to Daniel. So the prince of Persia that this angel is fighting against was in power then, the Persian Empire was in power, but then he tells Daniel he’s going to go out, finish fighting the prince of Persia, and after he goes, who’s going to come?
Nikki: The prince of Greece.
Colleen: Isn’t that fascinating? Just like the image said, Greece came and conquered Persia, and then we have the Greek Empire, and then we have the Roman Empire. So we see this vision confirming that sequence of empires in the Gentile nations, and there are princes, which are apparently angelic beings, but apparently fallen ones, that the angels from God are fighting against. We don’t understand how this is set up, but what we can gather from this is that there’s a highly organized system of authority and control and command among the demons, and this is by God’s permission.
Nikki: Um-hmm.
Colleen: But He doesn’t leave them to just fight it out and attack us on their own. He clearly has His own angels and archangels who defend His people and who protect the world according to God’s sovereign will, allowing these things to happen in their times God decrees.
Nikki: That’s incredible. You know, as we look at this structure, this spiritual structure and rulership, and we think about these wars and these battles in view of what Paul says here, that we’re to stand against these schemes, I see that part of the whole process here is skewing truth and what’s real about what’s going on. It’s kind of like the ruler of this world doesn’t want us to see the man behind the curtain –
Colleen: Yes.
Nikki: – and so, evil will take truth and skew it and distort it, and even when we’re talking about spiritual battles, I hear so many different interpretations of spiritual warfare. You have Christians, true Christians, who believe that it’s their job to pray against Satan. In their prayer, they’ll begin to speak to Satan. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been in a situation like that. It becomes very uncomfortable. But then even in Adventism, the whole structure and system and purpose of the spiritual battle is skewed. It’s not according to Scripture. It’s according to her Great Controversy worldview. So I would have read verse 12, and I would have said, “Oh, yeah, they’re all up there trying to prove that God’s Ten Commandments can’t be kept.”
Colleen: Yes! And that’s not what it says at all!
Nikki: Anywhere.
Colleen: No! Ever!
Nikki: [Laughter.]
Colleen: In fact, these powers and authorities that Paul is talking to the Ephesians about, and talking to us, by the way, he’s telling us this not to frighten us, but to let us know that as believers we can expect opposition.
Nikki: Um-hmm.
Colleen: The opposition isn’t always going to look like direct opposition to what we say. Sometimes it will look like distractions that try to take us off course. Sometimes it will be discouragement or maybe depression or maybe physical illness even, but God doesn’t allow anything to touch us that doesn’t first come through His love. He allows – like we learn in the Book of Job, He allows what comes to us, and it’s for His glory and His redemption of that moment. And Paul is telling us how to stand.
Nikki: Yes. And that, I think – I think that the armor that he’s about to detail clarifies for us exactly what it is the enemy is trying to do. This is where we’re going to begin to get a picture of what the actual attack is going to be about.
Colleen: I think that’s really true. At the personal level, this is what we can know, and this is why Paul tells us what armor to put on. Now, in verse 13, “Therefore” – because, in terms of the word “therefore,” it’s because of all this that I’ve told you about the spiritual forces – “take up the full armor of God, so that you will be able to resist on the evil day, and having done everything” – once again, to do what?
Nikki: “Stand firm.”
Colleen: It never tells us to go out there swinging, blazing weapons and fighting hand-to-hand combat with the devil, ever. We arm ourselves with defensive armor, and we stand when these evil days come. And they can sometimes be in our own heads or in our own emotions, or they could be raging around us in the Body of Christ, where there is misunderstanding or things that we don’t understand that come along that appear to threaten us. But we stand, because we know Jesus. So, Nikki, talk about verse 14. He quotes here from Isaiah 59, and he says, “Stand firm therefore, having girded your loins with truth, and having put on the breastplate of righteousness.” What does this tell us we’re supposed to do and what does it tell us about the battle that we’re facing?
Nikki: Well, I really appreciated how this gentleman in the podcast that I had listened to about this spoke about the belt of truth. And he described what armor looked like back then, and he said that the belt of truth, the belt, held everything else together. And if you lost the belt, the armor was unstable. And so when we think about the belt of truth, that just takes me all the way back to Ephesians chapter 1. “When you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed, you were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit.” This truth is how we even start to wear the armor. It is what everything else is built on. It’s the doctrine. It’s what’s real, it’s reality. And so we begin there, and it holds everything else together. And that breastplate of righteousness, that righteousness isn’t ours. This doesn’t mean “be righteous.” The breastplate of righteousness that’s worn by the believer, that’s God’s armor, that’s His righteousness. When we know the truth and when we understand that we are covered by the righteousness of Christ Himself, that it is apart from us, we are beginning now to walk in security and in safety.
Colleen: That’s right, security. I love that word. Um-hmm. And the truth is the thing that transforms us from being subject to these rulers of the darkness and being in the kingdom of the beloved Son. It’s truth. When I think about leaving Adventism, I realize it was the truth of the gospel of Jesus, that He lived a sinless life, born a sinless human, He died a sinner’s death without ever having sin according to Scripture, He was buried and He was raised on the third day according to Scripture, that truth shatters the worldview and the soteriology of Adventism. It’s truth that has to start – like you said, it’s the basis for everything else. And until we know the truth, these other pieces of armor aren’t even in the picture for us. They are the result of knowing truth.
Nikki: Seeing what the armor is helps us understand what the enemy wants to do. He’s going to want to dismember that truth. He wants to rip that off of you so he can get at the rest of your armor. So protecting ourselves from false teaching, from false doctrines, by rooting ourselves in the word of God is how we wear that truth.
Colleen: He wants us to doubt that these things are true of us.
Nikki: That breastplate of righteousness, very often that breastplate had the emblem of the person you’re there fighting for, the owner, you know. That is our identity. And he goes after that, and he tries to discourage us and cause us to question our standing before God.
Colleen: Yes. And Paul is reminding us, “You know who you are because you know the Savior. These things are true no matter what happens around you, no matter how unlikely circumstances seem.” I heard somebody say recently, “How could this happen to me? Why did God allow this to happen to me? What have I done that God allowed this thing to hit me?” When we are His, it’s not punishment when things happen to us. We live in a sinful world, and the Lord allows us to suffer in the world, as He suffered in the world, but it’s for His glory. He reveals Himself to us in new ways. His strength becomes made perfect in our weakness, and Paul is reminding us that these sufferings we face are things that we can know are in God’s hands, and He’s redeeming them, and our standing is sure.
Nikki: One of the other things that this gentleman said about the breastplate that I really appreciated is he said that it covers and guards the vital organs. There’s no more condemnation for those who are in Christ. Nothing can be done to destroy that. And we also have to be careful not to try to substitute God’s righteousness with our own.
Colleen: That’s a great point. He goes on, in verse 15, and says, “Having shod your feet with the preparation of the gospel of peace.” This is another quote from Isaiah, this time from Isaiah 52:7. And it’s interesting because this armor that Paul is using to describe what we wear when we’re in Christ, these things are images that come from Messianic prophecies of Jesus in the Book of Isaiah. I didn’t understand that in the past, but a commentator that I listened to when I was preparing for this podcast pointed out that these are things that Isaiah used to describe the coming Savior, and this particular verse, Isaiah 52:7, is so beautiful, and any of you who know Handel’s Messiah will recognize these words. “How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him who brings good news, who publishes peace, who brings good news of happiness, who publishes salvation, who says to Zion, ‘Your God reigns.'” And that’s the image that Paul is using here when he talks about us being alive in Christ, having our feet shod with the gospel of peace. He’s added shoes. Now in the Old Testament the runners generally ran barefoot, but Paul, sitting in prison with that Roman guard in front of him, undoubtedly saw his sandals, and he’s put the gospel of peace on our feet. Now, why would he say that, Nikki? What does this suggest, that we have the gospel of peace on our feet? How does that protect us?
Nikki: Well, it’s provision. It readies us for the work that He’s called us to do in spreading that gospel to the world.
Colleen: And we’re protected by that gospel from the obstacles, the barriers, the brambles, the rocks of the world. The gospel protects us, as – it’s an interesting thing that the gospel is both our protection and the protection we offer to the world that we’re walking through. Well, then we move to verse 16, where Paul says, “…and 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.” Well, what does the shield do, Nikki? And what’s the shield of faith? How does that work?
Nikki: The shield is another thing that we use to protect ourselves, but it’s a little bit more offensive because you can use it to push and, you know, you aim, and you’re focused with it. It’s not just sitting there; right? You have to be able to use it.
Colleen: Right.
Nikki: And so it’s fascinating to me to think of these flaming arrows that the enemy is throwing at the shield of faith. It makes me think of the faith in Ephesians chapter 2 that is given to us as a gift –
Colleen: Yes.
Nikki: – by God Himself.
Colleen: Yes.
Nikki: And that’s the faith that causes us to enter into salvation, that’s believing faith. And the enemy goes after that; he attacks that with flames –
Colleen: He does.
Nikki: – not just arrows, flaming arrows. [Laughter.]
Colleen: Right. [Laughter.]
Nikki: He does not want us to believe unto salvation.
Colleen: No! You’re so right. And it’s interesting that Paul uses this image, which is right out of Roman warfare, because the Romans had shields that were covered with leather. The leather could be soaked in water, and it was typical in battles of those days for people to send flame-tipped arrows towards the enemy. And those Roman soldiers could take those soaked leather-covered shields and extinguish those arrows before they set fire to them, before they pierced them and burned them. It’s a very interesting imagery taken right out of that Roman soldier’s armor, but he’s applying it to our trust and life in Christ that He gives us and protects us from blindsided things. Like you said, the shield is a little bit more offensive, in that we can move it around –
Nikki: Um-hmm.
Colleen: – and aim it and push back. And we can see something in our peripheral vision, fling ourselves around, and we can put that shield of faith up in front of it before it gets to us. And it’s an amazing picture of what it means that we trust Jesus.
Nikki: Um-hmm. And don’t you find that the longer you walk with the Lord and the more you learn how to trust His word, the sooner you begin to recognize those flaming darts?
Colleen: Yes.
Nikki: You recognize the areas of weakness where the enemy is coming in with the questions and the doubts –
Colleen: Yep.
Nikki: – and whatever it is that he uses to cause you to question your faith. You’re able to wield that shield faster and better.
Colleen: And sometimes those doubts come in from comments or misunderstandings, even from fellow believers. I mean, I’ve had things happen where I started to doubt myself just based on the reaction of a believer that I had respected. God gives us His assurance that we are His and what anybody says is not our identity.
Nikki: Um-hmm.
Colleen: Our identity is Him, and our faith in Him can extinguish that doubt. I just – I really do love that image, that the shield protects us from things that startle us. And finally, this is one of my favorites, “Take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.” Now, the helmet of salvation is a quote from Isaiah 59:17, where again Isaiah used this imagery to describe what God Himself dons when He protects His people. But what I love about the helmet of salvation is that it protects our heads.
Nikki: Um-hmm.
Colleen: And my head is my own worst enemy a lot of the time. I can have doubts. I can have questions. I can have even anxious thoughts that accelerate on themselves. I can drive myself crazy with my what-ifs and my catastrophizing and my self-doubt, and the helmet of salvation, knowing that I am saved, which is something that the Holy Spirit assures me of, as it says in Romans 8:14-17, His Spirit testifies with my spirit that I am a child of God, an heir with Christ, and that certainty that I am saved protects me from my own head.
Nikki: Yeah. God wants us to know that we’re saved. That’s why we have texts all over the New Testament that let us know that we can know. And this is one of them. We are to put on this conviction, this certainty that we have eternal life. That is a shield for our head, and the enemy tries to make us doubt this. And he even uses Scripture to do it. Have you noticed?
Colleen: Yes, yes I have. [Laughter.] I mean, just like Jesus in the wilderness, I keep thinking it’s so interesting that Satan tempted Jesus in the wilderness by using out-of-context Scripture. He took Jesus’ own words, He’s God, he tempted God the Son with His own words out-of-context, twisting them.
Nikki: And look at what happens when you lose one piece of the armor. If you take the certainty of salvation off of your head, now suddenly the sword has a different purpose and the shield has a different purpose. You’re fighting for salvation now; you’re not fighting from it.
Colleen: That is such a great point. Which brings us to this last piece of armor. What is our only offensive, truly offensive weapon in this armory of ours?
Nikki: It’s the word of God.
Colleen: Isn’t that amazing?
Nikki: Um-hmm.
Colleen: So our job as believers is to stand, with the battle raging around us, wearing the armor of God, which is all of the assurance and the identity that is ours when we are in Christ. He Himself has covered us, has shielded us, has placed us with Himself in God. This battle is raging, and our only offensive tool, truly offensive tool, is the word of God, and we don’t have to go out there and grapple with Satan hand-to-hand, but we stand behind the word of God, under the word of God, using the word of God, defeating the lies with God’s word.
Nikki: Yeah, and I want to share something that this podcaster said that I thought was pretty interesting. He said, “A swordsman becomes so with practice, time, and familiarity. It requires spiritual conditioning so we can know our weapon and how to use it rightly. We need focus and confidence in the text. You don’t swing a sword sporadically; you swing tactfully and with precision.” And he commented on how, as we familiarize ourselves with Scripture, and as we learn a proper hermeneutic, we’re able to use it to answer the distorted accusations the enemy uses with Scripture. We can correct it.
Colleen: Dealing as we do in this ministry with Adventism, I have really had to come a long way in my own thinking because I believed my Adventism was based entirely on Scripture, and I actually read an email just today, that came today, from a lady who said she’s a former. She’s a very fresh former, and she has an Adventist husband who is trying to use a portion of Scripture to prove annihilation, and it’s a portion of Scripture that is part of a vision and a prophecy in the Old Testament, which is not the way we make doctrine anyway, but that’s another podcast. But she said, “Reading Scripture with an Adventist is like PTSD. I suddenly get afraid, and I have to be so alert and so careful because something’s going to be off, and I’m not necessarily going to know what it is.” I’ve had to learn that Scripture means what Scripture says, and Scripture actually does have the answers and the antidotes to the twisted understandings that Adventism gave me. It answers the Great Controversy. It tears it apart.
Nikki: Um-hmm.
Colleen: But like you said, you have to know it well so that you can spot the places where you use it.
Nikki: Which really highlights our desire for this podcast, to read the word of God and to correct our false understandings of it and our false worldview.
Colleen: Yeah. I pray so often that God will call people out of Adventism, expose it to them, break its spiritual power over them, but not just take them out, but plant people deeply in His word. Because if we’re not planted in His word, we’re going to just be sort of hanging out of there, no longer Adventist, but vulnerable to other deceptive teachings. It’s only God’s word that keeps us from moving into some other false cult.
Nikki: Yes, exactly.
Colleen: Well, we now come to this last part of what we do as we stand there in our armor. We stand with all prayer and petition, and we’re to pray at all times in the Spirit, with perseverance and for the saints. Nikki, talk to me about this verse. What is Paul telling us here?
Nikki: Prayer is to be the pattern of our life. This is how we function. I love one of the things this gentleman said. He said that this is where we meet our general. Every soldier has a general, and this is where we meet our general, in prayer.
Colleen: That’s a great picture. We make our requests known to Him. He’s saying here, do this with perseverance and with petition for all the saints, and it reminded me of Philippians 4:6 and 7, which has kind of become a life verse for me. “Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.” So he tells us to pray in the Spirit. Now, that’s always been something that’s been hard for me to define. What does it mean to pray in the Spirit? I’ve heard some Christians say it means having a prayer language, speaking in tongues, and yet Paul isn’t saying anything about that in this context at all. He’s talking about standing in the armor of God, fully equipped, with all of the identity and righteousness and power and strength that is ours in Christ, equipped with His word. He’s talking about a believer who is sealed by the Holy Spirit, placed in Christ in God, and we are in His power, and when we pray, we pray according to His Spirit, His will, His intentions for us, and we learn these things by knowing Him and by being in His word. Nikki, you were telling me some of the things that you think of when you think of praying in the Spirit. What does it suggest to you?
Nikki: Well, we know that we are indwelled by the Spirit. We saw that back in Ephesians 1. He’s our seal. And so all of our life is lived in the Spirit. When I think of this, I think about praying with an awareness that we are in the Spirit, that we have been sealed by the Spirit, and praying according to the will of God. Kind of like what we’ve talked about in past podcasts, where we give more of ourselves to the Spirit. It’s not that we get more of Him –
Colleen: Right.
Nikki: – that we conjure Him up in our prayer life, but that we give more of our own hearts and lives in awareness to Him and to His will and that we pray from that place.
Colleen: I agree completely. I like to think about this in context with the armor. Jesus reminds us, when we stand in His armor, that we’re loved children, we’re counted righteous, we’re forgiven, we’re saved, and we’re hidden with Him in God, and when we know who we are, depending on God to fight for us and protect us as we trust Him, our prayers then will reflect the truth that God is sovereign, He’s with us, He will glorify Himself, and He won’t waste whatever it is we endure. He is our strength. And then Paul moves into this business of “pray for me, that I’ll have the utterance and the opening to speak the things I ought to speak.” Now, that’s something I never really thought much about as an Adventist, but prayer is for one another, not just for ourselves. And it’s for the sake of the gospel. It’s praying that our brothers and sisters will be faithful, will know the peace of Jesus, will know the will of God, and will be able to stand clearly for Him, no matter what happens. And you know, as former Adventists, we find ourselves in a lot of situations where it’s hard to stand for the Lord and for the truth because of the intimidation we face.
Nikki: Um-hmm.
Colleen: I was looking up some of these phrases from this passage in the online ellenwhite.org site because I know this passage made no sense to me as an Adventist. It just felt like a bunch of “shoulds” and things that I couldn’t quite measure up to. And I found some quotes that explain why, and I want to read a couple of them because her worldview of the Great Controversy shaped everything about the way we understood Jesus, the Holy Spirit, the Father, and our own position. Now, as we look at this, we’ve just seen that this prayer he asks us to do is in the context of being saved and being equipped with His righteousness, all of His armor, but listen to what Ellen White says here. This is in Counsels to the Church, page 248: “For the outpouring of the Spirit, every lover of the cause of truth should pray. As far as lies in our power, we are to remove every hindrance to His working. The Spirit can never be poured out while variance and bitterness toward one another are cherished by the members of the church. Envy, jealousy, evil surmising, and evil speaking are of Satan, and they eventually bar the way against the Holy Spirit’s working.” Nikki, does that even sound like she’s talking to believers?
Nikki: No. [Laughter.]
Colleen: I mean, Satan at work in the church? That’s – well, Satan is out there prowling, but she’s describing something that the Bible doesn’t describe.
Nikki: Um-um.
Colleen: And she’s saying the Holy Spirit can never be poured out while we have bad feelings in us. It’s not our job.
Nikki: She didn’t know the God I know.
Colleen: No.
Nikki: She didn’t know the Spirit I know.
Colleen: No.
Nikki: It’s a completely different God.
Colleen: Yes, it is! And it’s a completely different salvation.
Nikki: Um-hmm.
Colleen: It’s a self-salvation. Here’s another one from Testimonies to Ministers and Gospel Workers, “Watch and pray always. A connection with the divine agency every moment is essential to our progress. We may have had a measure of the Spirit of God, but by prayer and faith we’re continually to seek more of the Spirit.” That’s nowhere in Scripture.
Nikki: No, it’s not.
Colleen: The Holy Spirit is Jesus’ gift to us, the Father’s gift to us when we believe, and He seals us, and He never leaves us.
Nikki: Um-hmm.
Colleen: We don’t get our act together and pray, pray, pray so He’ll give more of Himself to us. This is something completely false. She has another quote here from Testimonies to Ministers and Gospel Workers, “We should pray for the Holy Spirit, as did the disciples at Pentecost.” Well, right there there’s a problem. We’ve had Pentecost, and as we’ve learned before, the planting of the church is a one-time, unrepeatable event. God poured out His Spirit on the believing Jews in Acts 2, on a group of believing Samaritans in Acts 8, on the first group of believing Gentiles in Acts 10, and from then on, every person who comes to Christ in trust and faith is given the Holy Spirit. We don’t pray for Pentecost, we don’t pray as the disciples did before they received Him. When we know Him, we have Him. She says, “The heart must be emptied of every defilement and cleansed for the indwelling of the Spirit. It was by the confession and forsaking of sin, by earnest prayer and consecration of themselves to God that the early disciples prepared for the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on the Day of Pentecost. The same work, only in greater degree must be done now.”
Nikki: That’s wicked. That’s absolutely wicked. And it’s contrary to everything I’ve read in Scripture.
Colleen: Absolutely!
Nikki: We’re told in Ephesians chapter 1 that when we believe the true gospel, we’re sealed with the Holy Spirit, nothing about us asking for Him. And in Ephesians 2, while we were dead in sin, He raised us up.
Colleen: Yes.
Nikki: Nothing about purification. This is fabrication, and it’s coming from the angels she spoke with, and I can’t help but think of 2 Corinthians referring to Satan disguising himself as an angel of light. This is the gospel of angels. This is Galatians 1, “If even an angel comes and teaches another gospel, let him be accursed.”
Colleen: So it’s no wonder that we didn’t understand this passage as Adventists because anything related to praying and the Holy Spirit involved a horrible feeling of “I have to work hard, I have to pray hard, I don’t have what I need because I haven’t confessed and made myself pure,” and that is completely false. We have the Holy Spirit when we know Jesus, and we pray because we have Him, because we know the heart of God, because we understand His word. It’s completely inside-out. If you’re a former Adventist and you’re listening to this podcast and reading this passage of Ephesians, I want you to understand something. This is not a command to become good and to demand that you get what God said you’ll get if you’re good. This is God’s promise. This is how you act when you have the Holy Spirit. This is not “get your act together so you can pray right.” This is “pray because you have the Lord.”
Nikki: What I keep thinking is that Ellen and her teaching in Adventism is a perfect example of what the enemy does to attack us and why we need the armor of God. Our spiritual warfare is centered around the truth of who Jesus Christ is, the gospel, and who we are in relation to all of that.
Colleen: Yeah.
Nikki: And those are all the things that she attacks, all the things that Adventist doctrine, the unique teachings of Adventism, attack. And then repurpose.
Colleen: Yes! Yes! We are saved when we trust Jesus, and these things are our privilege, not our command to become worthy. And then Paul ends this epistle in the most tender way. He says, “I’m going to send my beloved fellow worker, Tychicus, to let you know how things are with me.” He knows that this church that he spent so much time with, and all the other churches in the area who will also read this letter, he knows they’ve been worried about him. They know he’s in prison, and he’s sending someone that they know, that has been a beloved fellow minister with Paul, who’s been ministering to Paul in prison, and he’s sending Tychicus to let them know how Paul is and to bring them comfort, as he says in verse 22. And then finally, Nikki, how does he end this letter in 23 and 24?
Nikki: He says, “Peace be to the brothers and sisters, and love with faith, from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Grace be with all those who love our Lord Jesus Christ with incorruptible love.” I love that phrase, “incorruptible love.” That is a love that you can only have when it’s given to you by God Himself.
Colleen: And if you don’t know this incorruptible love, if you don’t know that you love God, there is a way you can know. You can admit that you are born dead in sin, as this epistle has told us, that you are by nature a child of wrath and you’re not able to come to Christ on your own, you can’t clean yourself up, you can’t pray enough to avoid sin, like Ellen White taught us we could. But you can come to Jesus, who hung on the cross, bore your sins in His body, shed His perfect, sinless blood, and paid for your sin, which was an eternal sin against an almighty God, and the almighty God the Son paid for it with His human blood. He was buried, and He rose from death and broke its curse over you, and when you trust Him and know that He did this for you, you’ll never be the same. You will know this incorruptible love, and you will be His child.
Nikki: If you have questions or comments for us, you can write to us at formeradventist@gmail.com. You can visit proclamationmagazine.com to view our online articles, sign up for weekly emails, or give a donation to the ministry. Don’t forget to like and follow us on Facebook and Instagram, and leave a review wherever you listen to podcasts, and join us next week as we begin our new series examining the 28 Fundamental Beliefs of Adventism in the light of Scripture. You won’t want to miss this.
Colleen: We’ll see you then.
- Inspecting Adventism’s Beliefs—God the Holy Spirit | 114 - October 17, 2022
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