3. The use to be made of it is, that we may be able to “withstand,” and to face the enemy. There is no armour for the back; he that fleeth is wholly defenceless, and must inevitably fall.
III. The necessity of putting on this armour.—Armour is of no avail, unless it is used. The application of the Gospel is that which proves our security.
IV. The inducement to put on this armour.—“That we may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil” (ver. 11). Many neglecting this armour have been foiled in the day of battle.—Theological Sketch Book.
Ver. 11. The Wiles of the Devil.
I. Some of those artifices by which the devil entices men to sin.—1. He often presents to man the pleasing advantages of sin, while its judicial consequences are kept in the background. Sin is often presented to man under the form of virtue or religion. The names of sins are changed in order that their natures may seem changed. Sin is thus recommended to the more tender conscience. The vileness and criminality of sin are often extenuated to man by plausible excuses. They need an apology—youth, old age, strong temptation, a desire to please, to prevent loss of place, provision for a family, etc. The inconsistencies of the acknowledged people of God are often pleaded as an apology for sin. The falls of God’s people have been recorded for good; but the record has been perverted to evil. A legitimate use of the record is to prevent despair on the part of God’s people who have fallen. But, by Satan, the beacon has been converted into a decoy.
2. The sinner is often freed from his difficulties in sinning by false views of God’s character and of the design of Christ’s work.—God is regarded as a Being of mere mercy. Christ is thought of as saving from sin’s consequences, rather than from sin itself. The individual is often persuaded to expose himself to temptation, under the impression that he will resist it.
II. Some of the artifices by which he entices men from the performance of positive duty.—1. Many are restrained from duties by a consideration of their hardness in themselves (Matt. x. 34–39). 2. Many are persuaded to let duty alone, on account of the sacrifices which a performance of it involves. 3. Argument against a full devotedness to the service of God may sometimes be drawn from the fewness and meanness of those who are engaged in it (John vii. 48). 4. An argument against the necessity of duty is drawn from the doctrines of grace (Rom. vi. 2, 3; Jas. ii. 17). 5. The worth and value of all performances are taken away by the trust in them for righteousness to which Satan prompts the heart.—Stewart.
Ver. 12. The Invisible Enemies of Man.
I. Spiritual forces are much greater, much more efficient, much more formidable than any mere material forces.—A strong will is a more formidable thing than the most highly developed muscle. An idea which appeals to the intelligence and heart of the multitude is likely to do more work and to wield a greater sway in the end than any number of batteries and parks of artillery. It is in the encounter, not of brute force with conscience and with thought, but in the encounter of ideas with ideas, in the encounter of wills with wills, that the destiny of the world is ultimately decided. St. Paul knew that the Church had to contend with the thought and the reason of paganism much more truly than with its proconsuls and its legions; and as he wrote to the Ephesians, he did not mean merely human principalities and powers, since he contrasts the beings of whom he is speaking with mere flesh and blood.
II. Behind all that met the eye in daily life the apostle discovered another world that did not meet the eye.—He discerned other forms hovering, guiding, marshalling, arranging, inspiring that which met the eye. “Do not let us deceive ourselves,” he cries, “as if we had only to encounter so many social or political forces, so many human minds and wills, so many human errors, human prejudices, human traditions, human passions; our real enemies are not human, they lie in ambush behind the manifold activities of man; they are really supersensuous. Two great departments of moral life among men are watched over, each one of them beyond the sphere of human life, by beings of greater power, greater intelligence, greater intensity of purpose than man in the world of spirits. These spiritual beings, good and evil, act upon humanity as clearly, as certainly, and as constantly as man himself acts upon the lower creatures around. It is not any mere disposition, inseparable from the conditions of human thought, to personify, to externalise passion, which has peopled the imagination of Christendom with demons. It is within ourselves that we meet now, as the first Christians met, the onset of the principalities and powers. It is in resisting them, in driving from us in the name of Christ the spirits of untruthfulness, of sloth, of anger, and of impure desire, that we really contribute our little share to the issue of the great battle that rages still.”