The Text: Ephesians 6:10-24
Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might. Put on the whole armour of God, that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. For we are not contending against flesh and blood, but against the principalities, against the powers, against the world rulers of this present darkness, against the spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places. Therefore take the whole armour of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand.
Stand therefore, having girded your loins with truth, and having put on the breastplate of righteousness, and having shod your feet with the equipment of the gospel of peace; besides all these, taking the shield of faith, with which you can quench all the flaming darts of the evil one. And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.
Pray at all times in the Spirit, with all prayer and supplication. To that end keep alert with all perseverance, making supplication for all the saints, and also for me, that utterance may be given me in opening my mouth boldly to proclaim the mystery of the gospel, for which I am an ambassador in chains; that I may declare it boldly, as I ought to speak.
Now that you also may know how I am and what I am doing, Tychicus the beloved brother and faithful minister in the Lord will tell you everything. I have sent him to you for this very purpose, that you may know how we are, and that he may encourage your hearts. Peace be to the brethren, and love with faith, from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Grace be with all who love our Lord Jesus Christ with love undying.
Introduction: Two Discoveries
When you become a Christian, Pawson begins, you make two discoveries — one delightful, one deeply disturbing. The delightful discovery is a whole new circle of friends: Christian brothers and sisters everywhere, felt like old friends within minutes of meeting. The disturbing discovery is a whole new set of enemies. A girl once asked Charles Haddon Spurgeon how much of the world she should give up now that she was a Christian; he replied, don’t worry — the world will give you up. That is the real problem: keeping your old friends.
The Christian life is not merely a walk — it is a warfare. The whole mood of Ephesians shifts here. Paul’s word is wrestle: hand-to-hand fighting, front-line combat, not shells lobbed from a safe distance. Every Christian discovers this sooner or later — we are all at war, and to become a Christian is, in one sense, to lose whatever comparative peace one had before. It is dangerous to be a weak Christian; as in any battle, only the strong survive, and the weak are quickly overwhelmed by a struggle too great to sustain alone. There is only one hope of holding the line: to be strong in the Lord. You are weak in yourself — you discover this quickly enough, struggling and failing again and again to be a better Christian in your own strength. You will never win that fight alone.
God has never promised to remove you from the battle — not until death. What he has promised is the strength, the armour, and all the equipment needed to win. He wants soldiers, not merely servants — those who will fight for him, in the front line.
Never Retreat: Sit, Walk, Stand
The aim of a soldier is never to retreat. Roman soldiers treated this almost as a religion — when Julius Caesar’s troops landed in unfamiliar territory, the first thing they did was burn their own boats behind them, the origin of the phrase, so there could be no retreat; they simply had to conquer or die. That same resolve, Pawson says, ought to sit at the heart of every Christian soldier: I will never go back. I will never surrender an inch of ground gained in Christ.
This is why the word stand recurs so often in this passage. Watchman Nee’s brief exposition of Ephesians, titled Sit, Walk, Stand, names the three notes that together form the chord of the Christian life: we are made to sit with Christ in the heavenly places; we are called to walk worthily — in love, in light, as children of God; but in relation to the enemy, we are called to stand. Sit in relation to Christ. Walk in relationship with one another. Stand in the face of the enemy.
Identifying the Real Enemy
The first necessity is knowing who the enemy actually is — you could easily attack the wrong target, fight on the wrong front, while the real enemy slips around your flank unnoticed. The real enemy is not human at all. A Christian regards no man or woman as an enemy, and lives at peace with everyone so far as it depends on them. Relatives, former friends, colleagues, may make life difficult — but they are not the real enemy, and wrestling with them only wastes energy in the wrong direction, leaving you exposed to the true foe.
First: A Satanic Enemy
Paul first identifies the enemy as satanic. Pawson admits he cannot understand a Christian who doubts the existence of a personal devil — as soon as one finds God, one runs straight into his satanic majesty, who simply does not leave believers alone. Scripture teaches the devil’s existence as clearly as it teaches God’s — particularly at three points: Genesis at the beginning, the four Gospels in the middle, Revelation at the end. That is precisely why the devil dislikes people reading any of those three.
Cartoon caricatures — a little horned figure with a forked tail — have done real damage by letting people treat the devil as a joke; if he genuinely looked like that, everyone would recognise and avoid him instantly. Scripture instead compares him to a lion, a dragon, a crocodile, an old serpent — creatures nobody takes lightly. Pawson recounts a British nurse in Africa seized by a crocodile and dragged toward a river, saved only when nearby Africans formed a human chain, one group holding her arm while the crocodile held the other, until it finally released her. Nobody laughs after living through that. The devil, Scripture says, possesses intelligence and strength superior to our own — he has the edge, and no one wins that fight alone.
He is described as the ruler, the prince, the god of this world — which is why he caused no trouble before conversion: unbelievers are born in his domain, under his complete grip, doing what he says and enjoying it, while he rubs his hands with satisfaction. But conversion changes everything. Christ saves a person from the devil’s power, translating them out of the kingdom of darkness into his own kingdom, the kingdom of his beloved Son — breaking chains, opening a prison door. And from that moment, the devil regards the convert as a traitor, to be dealt with as one. Since Satan is no match for God himself, he directs his whole attack instead against God’s people — the one way he can hope to delay the coming of the Kingdom.
Second: A Supernatural Host
Beyond a single devil stands an army of demons — supernatural hosts. Pawson recalls the once-fashionable view, forty years earlier, that biblical talk of evil spirits merely reflected pre-scientific ignorance of psychiatric conditions like schizophrenia or manic depression. He rejects this outright: genuine mental illness exists and has nothing to do with what is being described here. Perfectly healthy, well-balanced Christians — physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually sound — nonetheless find themselves contending with evil spirits.
Public opinion, Pawson notes, has shifted remarkably in the previous decade, as interest in spiritism and the occult floods back through newspapers, magazines, and television, and dabbling in black magic becomes almost commonplace. He himself regularly meets people who have been meddling with evil spirits — these forces are all too real, and people fall increasingly under their grip.
Paul describes these supernatural beings as governing entire spheres of human life — politics, commerce, science, art, education — all, according to Scripture, in the grip of principalities and powers. Pawson finds in this the real explanation for why human ingenuity, however well-intentioned, cannot resolve certain intractable conflicts. He takes Northern Ireland as his example: bold political decisions had just been made that week to address the crisis, decisions he genuinely respects — yet he doubts they will resolve anything, because the true cause of the trouble is not human at all.
His own diagnosis: Northern Ireland had been, proportionally, the most spiritually vigorous part of the United Kingdom — church attendance remained strong, and it sent more money and missionaries abroad, relative to its population, than anywhere else in Britain. And the devil hated it. Men there had come so completely under his grip that they would not even listen to reason, dragging the whole province into disrepute and bringing the very name of Christ into disgrace in the process. We wrestle not against flesh and blood — and so flesh and blood cannot put the situation right.
Wherever Christ grows strong, Pawson observes, the enemy grows active in response, seeking to shut the door on the gospel. This same dynamic, he suggests, explains why humanity’s repeated wars to end war never actually end war — he cites reports that Adolf Hitler began dabbling in spiritism and evil spirits as early as 1937, and asks whether it is any wonder that Europe was then plunged into holocaust and suffering. Even now, in peacetime, similar dabbling continues, and people imagine they will simply get away with it.
Third: A Spiritual Battlefield
These enemies cannot be fought with military weapons — an entire army could not touch the devil — nor purely with ideas, since this is not fundamentally a war of concepts. This is precisely what makes the fight so difficult: you cannot get hold of the enemy directly. Where are these evil spirits located? Paul’s answer: in heaven — not down in hell, but up in the heavenly places, a spiritual host of wickedness. The moment believers are seated with Christ in the heavenly places, they come into direct contact with this host, because that is precisely where it operates. The true conflict, of which earthly troubles are only an outcropping, is being fought in the heavenly places — earthly conflicts are simply the overspill. This is why these enemies can be neither seen nor heard; only spiritual weapons will do.
Put On the Whole Armour of God
Paul writes this letter chained to a Roman soldier, and as he looks up at that soldier — dressed with meticulous care that morning, prepared to yield not one inch, there purely to defend — the image supplies his metaphor. You have no armour of your own; you could never defend yourself against Satan unaided. But put on the armour of God.
Pawson recalls Pilgrim’s Progress, where Pilgrim, unfamiliar with armour, is fitted out piece by piece before facing the demon Apollyon in the valley shortly after — and needs every piece, because it is fought for his very life. Every element matters: it would be absurd to wear a helmet while leaving the chest exposed, or to carry a shield and nothing more. The enemy always attacks precisely where protection is missing. The phrase tempted at all points, Pawson explains, does not mean Jesus faced every specific temptation we face — point here means the exact spot where an attacker can break through, a weak link, a chink in the armour. Jesus was tempted at every such point, and so will we be; wherever a piece is left off, that is exactly where the devil will strike. Put on the whole armour — complete coverage.
The Belt of Truth
A soldier’s belt held sword, ammunition, and gear, and for a Roman soldier it was a wide, metal-studded leather belt from which the sword’s scabbard hung — gripping the tunic in, giving freedom of movement while still holding the man together. Pawson recalls an Irish farm labourer who, before lifting any heavy load, would tighten his belt one more hole, bracing himself for the effort. A soldier going on duty does the same first, before anything else. Paul’s first requirement is to be gripped by truth — held by reality itself, whatever comes: whatever is said to you, you remain in the grip of the truth, braced for battle.
The Breastplate of Righteousness
A soldier’s heart can fail mid-battle; morale can simply collapse. Pawson puts it directly: if you want to keep your morale high, keep your morals high — because the one thing the enemy can do to your heart is tell you that you are not worthy to fight, and the heart goes out of you. The breastplate protects the heart, and what protects it is righteousness, uprightness. The devil loves to point and say, you are not what you should be — and if your morals slip, your morale slips with them, and the breastplate becomes useless.
Feet Shod with the Gospel of Peace
Roman military sandals were fitted with spikes in the soles — not primarily for walking or running, but for staying planted: in hand-to-hand combat, a soldier dug both feet in and could not be moved, literally anchored to the ground. Paul’s instruction is startling: hold your ground by standing on the gospel of peace — using peace itself as a weapon of war. The aim, Pawson stresses, is never to stoop to the enemy’s own methods; remember always that your ultimate purpose is peace.
He tells the story of Toyohiko Kagawa, the Japanese Christian expelled from college for his faith — summoned before the professors and told to leave, he remembered that his feet were shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace, went up to those same professors, and kissed them, in love, without resentment or retaliation. Paul himself, a Roman prisoner chained to a soldier, never demanded to know why he was being held; instead he talked with that soldier, prayed for him, and won soldiers for Christ. That is the best form of defence: to attack with the gospel of peace, refusing to fight Satan with satanic weapons, refusing to hit below the belt even when struck that way.
The Shield of Faith
Pawson recalls the grim newsreels of the Northern Ireland Troubles — petrol bombs, bottles of flaming fuel thrown at people, explaining why police and soldiers carried shields. In the ancient world, the equivalent was the fiery dart: a short spear tipped with pitch-soaked material, set alight and thrown — every bit as dangerous as a Molotov cocktail. The devil is entirely willing to throw equivalent weapons at believers. The Roman soldier’s defensive shield was not metal but large, soft wood — big enough to crouch fully behind — because soft wood absorbs and extinguishes flaming missiles far better than hard material. Above all, Paul says, get behind the shield of faith: whatever the devil throws, respond simply, I believe, I trust — and whatever fiery doubts come, the same answer, my faith is not affected. Faith absorbs the attack.
The Helmet of Salvation
The head is where thinking happens — beliefs, doctrines, one’s whole understanding of God — and it is protected by salvation. It is entirely possible to get lost in theology or philosophy, with the devil twisting one’s thinking round and round until beliefs themselves become uncertain. The single safeguard is to centre all thinking on salvation, on the Saviour himself, on the things that make for salvation — keep that at the centre, and the devil cannot successfully attack the head.
The Sword of the Spirit
Every previous item is defensive — belt, breastplate, shield, sandals, helmet. Only the sword is offensive: a short, broad Roman blade with a cutting edge on both sides and a ridge down the centre. This is precisely why Scripture so often uses this image for words: the word of God is sharper than any two-edged sword, and Revelation pictures Jesus with a cutting tongue. The sword of the Spirit, Pawson explains, is the Christian’s tongue — though it is easy to confuse the sword of the Spirit with simply quoting the Bible at someone. It means something more specific: letting the Spirit guide what you say in the moment of attack, whether that turns out to be a verse of Scripture or other words entirely. That is exactly what Jesus used against the devil in the wilderness — “have you not read... you shall not tempt the Lord your God” — his own tongue, wielded by the Spirit, and the devil did not care for that sword at all.
Standing back from the whole passage, Pawson observes what Paul has really been saying throughout: put on Jesus. Jesus is the truth. Jesus is our righteousness. Jesus is the author and perfecter of our faith. Jesus is our salvation. Put on Jesus — and you are more than a match for Satan.
Verse 18: Alertness
A soldier without armour is useless — and equally useless is a soldier who falls asleep on duty. Sleeping at one’s post ranks among the most serious offences in any army, punishable by court martial. Edinburgh Castle, seemingly impregnable, has twice in its history been taken — both times because a sentry failed to keep watch. The devil, likewise, will take you if you are not watching.
How does a Christian keep watch? Curiously, Pawson says, by closing the eyes. There is no point watching for the devil with physical sight — he is a supernatural, spiritual being, invisible to human eyes in this life. But close your eyes, especially in prayer, and you begin to see. Prayer is the greatest weapon available against Satan — watching and praying together. Pawson notes that the version of the Lord’s Prayer most commonly used mistranslates Jesus’ actual words: not merely deliver us from evil, but deliver us from the evil one — he wishes it could simply be corrected back.
Satan trembles, the old hymn says, when he sees the weakest saint upon their knees — no weapon causes him greater anxiety. It follows that Satan’s own top priority, whenever possible, is to stop believers praying altogether; he knows that succeeding there guarantees weakness everywhere else.
Paul’s strategy is total: pray at all times — a phrase distinct from praying all the time. No one can maintain conscious prayer every waking moment without neglecting other duties; you cannot pray, for instance, while asleep, or during tasks demanding total concentration. Pawson describes Christian surgeons he has known who step into a quiet corner to pray, already gowned and gloved, immediately before entering the operating theatre — then give the patient their full concentration once inside. They have still prayed at all times, in the sense that matters: whenever a need or situation arises. The devil, Pawson notes wryly, rarely attacks on Sunday mornings or evenings — Monday morning is his favourite, as though he takes the weekend off and clocks back in when everyone else does, arriving always at the least expected moment. Christ has opened a door into the throne room of the universe that Satan cannot shut, and prayer remains the fastest way to deal with him.
Paul specifies praying in the Spirit — the opposite of praying in the flesh. Pawson offers two brief distinctions: praying in the flesh usually happens after trouble has already struck, a reaction; praying in the spirit is preparation, offered beforehand. And praying in the flesh tends to use one’s own words; praying in the spirit uses the words the Spirit gives. He highlights the repeated word all running through the passage — all times, all prayer, all the saints. Someone’s prayer today could genuinely keep another believer out of Satan’s hands; this is precisely why the Lord’s Prayer says lead us, not simply lead me — praying for fellow Christians is itself a way of helping them win their own battle. And it must be pursued with all perseverance — battles are rarely won in a single moment; sometimes it is simply a long, hard grind that must be sustained, not always glamorous or spectacular.
The Ambassador’s Request
In verses 19 to 22, Paul turns humbly to his own need: will you pray for me? I am an ambassador for Christ, he says, yet I am in chains. His two concerns here are worth adopting as our own model for intercessory prayer.
First, he asks for courage — not safety, not comfort, not health, not even release, but simply the courage to speak boldly for the Lord exactly where he is. Pawson tells the story of Daniel Poling, whose son served as a military chaplain in the war. Each night, Poling and his wife knelt and prayed, Lord, keep our boy safe, bring him home to us — until they recognised this as praying in the flesh, an entirely natural, instinctive wish shared by believer and unbeliever alike, effectively asking that the bullets strike someone else instead. They changed their prayer: Lord, give our boy courage — courage to witness for you whatever happens, whether he returns to us or not.
Poling’s son was one of the four military chaplains aboard a troopship torpedoed in the mid-Atlantic, with too few life jackets for everyone aboard; all four removed their own life jackets, gave them to other men, linked arms, and went down with the ship singing “Nearer, My God, to Thee” — an act later commemorated on an American postage stamp. Their prayer for courage, not safety, was answered exactly as prayed.
Soldiers should not pray for safety, comfort, or ease — a cowardly soldier is as useless as a weak one. Pray instead for boldness; note how often Paul repeats the word — boldly, boldly, boldly — even from chains. Pawson recalls Martin Niemöller, held in solitary confinement in a concentration camp cell, with seemingly no one to speak to and a guard visiting only once or twice daily. High in one wall he discovered a small ventilation grate opening onto the exercise yard where other prisoners walked, and whenever he heard them below, he would climb onto his bed and recite Scripture texts through the grille, one after another, so that a word of God reached each prisoner as they passed. That same courage, Pawson notes, stayed with Niemöller even after his wife was later killed in a car accident — a bold soldier carried through one trial after another.
Paul’s second concern is for his readers” own courage: he is sending Tychicus, the beloved brother, precisely to encourage them — literally, to put courage into them — aware that news of his imprisonment might otherwise have discouraged the church, leaving them wondering whether they might be next. Tychicus comes to report that Paul remains well and is still winning people for Christ even in chains, and to strengthen the believers in turn. Hearing accounts of remarkable Christian courage, Pawson suggests, ought to expose just how petty, selfish, and fleshly our own prayers can sometimes be by comparison — a reason to pray in the Spirit instead, that boldness, encouragement, and bravery might mark us as good soldiers.
Closing: Peace, Grace, and Love Undying
Paul closes the letter as he opened it, with the order simply reversed: grace and peace at the start, peace and grace at the close — the two great longings of Jew and Gentile alike. A Jew would greet a fellow Jew with peace; a Gentile would greet a fellow Gentile with grace. In Christ, Paul says, you may have both together.
His final phrase is lovely: to all who love the Lord Jesus Christ, with love undying. A soldier fights for love of country; a Christian soldier fights for love of Jesus — a love that does not die. This reflects Christ’s own love for his people: he loved his own, and he loved them to the very end. A believer may die in Christ’s service, but that love itself should never die — undying love may still be willing to die in other ways: to self, even to life itself, while the love that motivates it remains eternal.
Pawson closes with the account of Monier Williams, professor of Sanskrit at Oxford, lying on his deathbed in the south of France in April 1899. Asked whether there was anything more he wanted, he replied simply: Jesus loves me, and I love Jesus. What more do I want?
Closing Prayer
O God, it is a battle. Sometimes it is a struggle. We pray that you’ll make us brave soldiers, that we may not yield an inch to the adversary, that the devil may be foiled in his attempts to rob us of the blessings you’ve given. Lord, we stand on holy ground — holy ground in Christ — and we’re not going to move an inch, by your grace. Father, help us to fight on, to fight the good fight until we lay down our weapons and enter into the joy of our Lord. Grant that we may move like a mighty army. We ask it in the name of him whose love for us was undying, and who has called us to love him with an undying love, even Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
© David Pawson Ministry CIO
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