I recently received a book recommendation from a friend: “The Christian in Complete Armor” by William Gurnall. Published in 1862, it is a lengthly and dense book, chock-full of encouragement in our walk with the Lord. It is basically a treatise on Ephesians. However, it is also in (older) English and a bit clunky to read nowadays. I wanted to write through a more modern paraphrasing, along with examples and verses as they rose to my mind. And I wanted to share this bit of a patchworked writing with you as well, in portions at a time. (His book is REALLY LONG!)
Let’s skip the formalities and jump right into the message: “Be strong.” In simple terms, that means, “Be brave and full of courage.” It’s a phrase we see often in Scripture, like in 2 Chronicles 32:7: “Be strong and courageous,” or Isaiah 35:4: “Say to those with a fearful heart, ‘Be strong.’”
The Christian needs courage, resolution, and perseverance. Everything we do as believers—absolutely everything—is an act of bravery. A cowardly attitude doesn’t suit a Christian. “God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind”. Joshua encourages Israel to “be strong and very courageous”. But for what? To fight against all the warlike nations around them? No, that they may be “careful to do according to all the law that Moses my servant commanded you. Do not turn from it to the right hand or to the left, that you may have good success wherever you go”. It requires character, prowess, and strength of spirit to serve God faithfully. And this is not accomplished through our own efforts- we need to pray for a courageous spirit, God’s power, love, and soundness of mind. God encourages us to “approach the throne of grace with confidence”. Take hold of Him, wrestle with Him, and do not let Him go without a blessing. Our boldness comes from the forgiveness of sins and Christ’s righteousness that is upon us. Our confidence comes not just from salvation from punishment, but our salvation to close, loving relationship with God. Those who are dominated by the sinful nature think about sinful things and are hostile towards God and alienated from Him. More than that, someone who doesn’t have the Holy Spirit living inside of them cannot please God, no matter how much they try. Without acknowledging their sins AND accepting Jesus’ free gift of salvation, they cannot experience God’s perfect love or live in right relationship with Him. As such, they are filled with fear when confronted with a Holy God. They run and hide, like Adam and Eve ran from the Lord in the garden and tried to cover their shame with fig leaves. Or, even more dangerous, they may think themselves saved or even call themself a Christian, not realizing the danger of their true separation from the Lord.
There is no duty in a Christian’s walk with the Lord that isn’t lined with many difficulties. The enemy shoots flaming arrows at us as we march towards heaven. Satan would fight us for every inch of ground that we take. This is why “the way is wide, and there are many who go down the path of destruction, but narrow is the gate which leads to life, and few are those who find it”. There are few souls who are fit for this calling. And why is this? Because of the battles that Christians face on their journey through this life with Jesus.
One of the hardest battles? Waging war against our own sins—the ones held closest to our heart. They must now be trampled without mercy under our feet- like squashing a cockroach we see scuttling across the floor. David’s heart was in this fight, as he wrote, “I have kept myself from my sins”. Now, what kind of courage and resolution does this require of someone? How easy do you think it was for Abraham when God called upon him to take his son Isaac, his only son who he loved, and offer him up as an offering with his own hands? God asked him to kill his own son. He didn’t promise Abraham a ram stuck in a bush nearby beforehand. “By faith Abraham, when God tested him, offered Isaac as a sacrifice. He who had embraced the promises (of God) was about to sacrifice his one and only son, even though God had said to him, “It is through Isaac that your offspring will be reckoned.” Abraham reasoned that God could even raise the dead, and so in a manner of speaking he did receive Isaac back from death”. In the same way, God calls us to take our dearest love, the sin that has brought us the most joy, profit, laughter, pleasure- the very thing we look to for comfort, and destroy it! God says, “Give it up, freely and joyfully. Lay it down before me, no excuses, no delays.” God is looking to strengthen our faith as we are obedient to His calling, even when that seems scary.
In The Lord of the Rings, Frodo went through countless hardships and mental struggles, trying to destroy Sauron by casting the One ring back into Mount Doom. However, after this long and perilous journey, just as he was standing at the edge of the volcano with the ring dangling from its’ chain over the lava, Frodo was not able to resist the ring’s temptations. He made the wrong choice. In the end, the One ring had to be wrested from his hand. We can’t fight our sins with our own strength. And this feels like really rough news to us, especially in Western culture that prizes self-sufficiency so highly. Apart from the Holy Spirit, we are slaves to our sin.
Our sins will not lie so patiently on the altar as Isaac, “like a lamb that is brought to the slaughter, like a sheep that before its shearers is silent”. Our sins will roar, shriek. to rend our heart with their hideous outcries. The battlefield is definitely in the mind for the believer. There is a very real war between our sinful, fallen nature and the Holy Spirit which indwells us as we bring our hearts to this work. Paul struggled with this on a regular basis, writing,
“I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. For I know that good itself does not dwell in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it. So I find this law at work: Although I want to do good, evil is right there with me. For in my inner being I delight in God’s law; but I see another law at work in me, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within me. What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death? Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord!Our lusts will plead with us. They will hem and haw. They will make excuses or minimize how much this sin actually impacts you. Sin will whisper, it’s not that big of a deal. This one little thing won’t kill you. Nobody else has to know. You won’t be able to succeed without this. You won’t be safe without this in your life. Or, if that can’t be granted, Satan will try to delay us, as Jephthah’s daughter begged of her father to stay his hand for two months, and then she would do his will (Judges 11). Satan knows that a delay in dealing with sin and lust may result in our forgetting about it entirely. Or even worse, letting our defenses down and accepting it back into our hearts and our minds without even realizing that it’s happening. He knows that humans are forgetful and fickle creatures, that our motivation tends to wax and wane. There are layers upon layers of spiritual warfare and strategies meant to keep us in bondage to our sin. Here, even the bravest soldier might prove to be powerless. It’s one thing to bravely fight for your country and earn fame and renown, it’s another thing to wage war with God against our secret sin. Many are conquered by their apathy toward their lusts and secret sins, viewing them as “harmless, little sins” or viewing themselves as powerless against these thoughts, desires, and urges. We are not left powerless in this regard.
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