PUBLIC-DOMAIN CHRISTIAN BOOK
The Whole Armour of God
Jowett, John Henry · 49,408 words · 76 reading sections
The Whole Armour Of God
The following typos were fixed: page 11: Moffat -> Moffatt page 57: loathesome -> loathsome page 60: fellowmen -> fellow-men page 115: battle-fields -> battlefields page 145: baptised -> baptized page 153: multidudinous -> multitudinous page 225: today -> to-day page 233: pruninghooks -> pruning-hooks page 260…
289 wordsSECTION 2The Invisible Antagonisms
_Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church, New York City_ [Illustration: Logo of Fleming H. Revell Company] Fleming H. Revell Company Copyright, 1916, by FLEMING H. REVELL COMPANY New York: 158 Fifth Avenue Chicago: 17 North Wabash Ave. London: 21 Paternoster Square Edinburgh: 75 Princes Street _Eternal God, may no di…
301 wordsSECTION 3The Invisible Antagonisms
"Wherefore take unto you the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all to stand." Eph. 6:13. Let me give one or two other translations which devout scholars have made in the attempt to bring out the precise significance of Paul's original words. Many interpreting mind…
821 wordsSECTION 4The Invisible Antagonisms
And then, to name a third of their antagonisms, there was the pervasive power of popular customs and traditions. Every day this little handful of Christians were up against customs that were like invisible bonds. Yes, religious and social customs always thread the common life, and to oppose them is to run up against an…
823 wordsSECTION 5The Invisible Antagonisms
And then, in the second place, these spiritual antagonists work mediately upon the soul. They work upon the soul through the medium of human ministries--through the contagious power of crowds, through the gravitation of the age, through the general spirit of society, through the psychological climate in which our life …
736 wordsSECTION 6The Invisible Antagonisms
And then, our other great requirement is the ceaseless co-operation of our wills. The life of a Christian soldier is not a continuous reclining on "flowery beds of ease." Having obtained the strength we must ceaselessly exercise it in the practice of our wills. Listen to the divine challenge to the will: "Be made power…
285 wordsSECTION 7The Girdle Of Truth
_Holy Father, we humbly pray Thee to reveal unto us the unsearchable riches of Christ. Refine our discernments in order that we may behold them; and deepen our hearts in order that we may long to possess them. Unveil to us our poverty so that we may seek Thy wealth. Lead us through meekness and penitence to the re…
782 wordsSECTION 8The Girdle Of Truth
You may study the contents of that statement and find abundant illustrations in the lives of men like Lincoln, and Mazzini, and Gladstone, and John Bright, and John Morley, and James Bryce. All these men, whether we approve or disapprove their political programmes and ambitions, are men whose characters reveal no loose…
786 wordsSECTION 9The Girdle Of Truth
And I had other examples to offer you, but these must suffice. I had on my table David Livingstone, and John Woolman, and Josephine Butler, and Frances Willard, and Catherine Booth, and I wanted to give you glimpses of all these notable soldiers of the Lord girding themselves for the open field. But their names shall b…
684 wordsSECTION 10The Girdle Of Truth
There was something else in Ephesus for which these Christians needed the girdle of truth. Ephesus was a vast city, and these Christians were only a tiny and obscure fellowship. And even this small fellowship had to be broken up during the hours of labour, and in those hours each believer had to stand alone. One of the…
547 wordsSECTION 11The Breastplate Of Righteousness
_Almighty God, our Father, it is by Thy grace that we attain unto holiness, and it is by Thy light that we find wisdom. We humbly pray that Thy grace and light may be given unto us so that we may come into the liberty of purity and truth. Wilt Thou graciously exalt our spirits and enable us to live in heavenly pla…
746 wordsSECTION 12The Breastplate Of Righteousness
Let us then venture to lift this more accurate description into our text, "Put on righteousness like a coat of mail, wear it in all your comings and goings in the city of Ephesus, and in it meet all the malicious antagonisms of devils and of men." Now I wonder how the apostle's counsel affected these fearful struggling…
727 wordsSECTION 13The Breastplate Of Righteousness
And now let us assume that a poor penitent comes to this perfectly holy Lord. Let us make the sinner as nauseous and repulsive as you please. Let us make him a moral leper, the wretched victim of uncleanness, befouled by his own habits, consumed in his own sin, eaten without and within. That poor penitent sinner, laden…
863 wordsSECTION 14The Breastplate Of Righteousness
Yes, I admit that the figures all fail. The figure of a robe leaves the sinner and the Saviour in no vital relation. And so it is with the coat of mail. But in the blessed reality there is no detachment. There is union between the sinner and the Saviour of the most profound and vital kind. You must remember our assumpt…
697 wordsSECTION 15Ready!
And covered with the righteousness of Christ, that imputed righteousness becomes progressively mine in the appropriation of experience. His life flows into me like the life of stock into scion, and all through my days I am assimilating more and more the righteousness which covers me. His covering righteousness becomes …
517 wordsSECTION 16Ready!
"Your feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace." Ephesians 6:15. A little while ago an article appeared in one of the daily papers with this startling title: "Boots and shoes may be vital determining factors in the war." And contrasts and comparisons were made between the opposing forces in respect to th…
904 wordsSECTION 17Ready!
Let me give an example, and let it be taken from the book of the prophet Isaiah. Here, then, are people in exile, sitting in the cold shadow of oppression, and longing for freedom and home. And over the hard mountain tracks there come messengers, swift messengers carrying the glad tidings of emancipation. There they co…
672 wordsSECTION 18Ready!
Yes, but who is to take it? Messengers are wanted, messengers shod with "the readiness of the gospel of peace," messengers swift and ready to run these glorious errands as the ministers of eternal hope. Now, are we shod with that gospel readiness? Are our feet ready for the road? It is a noble and a gracious ministry. …
759 wordsSECTION 19Ready!
Look once more down the road, for there is another soul held in the bondage of ignorance. Let it be a man of Ethiopia. Let the road be the steep descent which leadeth down from Jerusalem to Gaza. "A man of Ethiopia, an eunuch of great authority under Candace, Queen of the Ethiopians, who had the charge of all her treas…
650 wordsSECTION 20The Shield Of Faith
_Most Holy God, Who lightenest every man that cometh into the world, enlighten our hearts, we pray Thee, with the light of Thy grace, that we may fully know our sins and our shortcomings, and may confess them with true sorrow and contrition of heart. Unveil Thy love to us, so that in its clear shining we may behol…
730 wordsSECTION 21The Shield Of Faith
Or look once more at his repeated failures. You can hear the wail of sadness as he frequently contemplates his ruined hopes concerning little churches which he had built, or concerning fellow-believers whom he had won to Christ. "Are ye so soon fallen away?" "Ye would have given your eyes to me but now--." "I hear that…
822 wordsSECTION 22The Shield Of Faith
Let me offer a simple illustration. A ray of white light is made up of many colors, but we can devise screens to keep back any one of these colors and to let through those we please. We can filter the rays. Or we can devise a screen to let in rays of light and to keep out rays of heat. We can intercept certain rays and…
694 wordsSECTION 23The Helmet Of Hope
And then, secondly, the faith-life puts first things first, and in its list of primary values it gives first place to the treasures of the soul. Faith-life is more concerned with habits than with things, with character than with office, with self-respect than with popular esteem. The faith-life puts first things first,…
410 wordsSECTION 24The Helmet Of Hope
"And take the helmet of salvation." Ephesians 6:17. "And for an helmet the hope of salvation." I Thessalonians 5:8. The helmet of hope! Who has not experienced the energy of a mighty hope? It is always a force to be reckoned with in the day of life's battle. Hope is a splendid helmet, firmly covering the head, and de…
755 wordsSECTION 25The Helmet Of Hope
Every sphere of human interest provides examples of this principle. Turn to the realm of invention. An inventor has a great hope shining before him as a brilliant vision of possible achievement. With what energy of will it endows him, and with what tireless, sleepless, invincible patience! Think of the immeasurable end…
680 wordsSECTION 26The Helmet Of Hope
But now, if all this is true of common hope and common experience, how is it with the supreme hope, "the hope of salvation?" What is this hope,--"the hope of salvation?" To whom is the apostle Paul giving this counsel? He is giving it to Christian believers in Ephesus: But were they not already saved? Why should he spe…
1,013 wordsSECTION 27The Helmet Of Hope
And here is another way the apostle has of describing the hope he wears, "the hope of salvation;"--"To present us spotless before His throne." Quietly and reverently repeat that phrase, again, and again, and again, until something of its grandeur begins to fill your soul as the advancing light of the rising sun fills a…
356 wordsSECTION 28The Sword Of The Spirit
_Heavenly Father, Who hast given Thy Holy Spirit to comfort and to guide Thy servants, teach us to trust His leading. Day by day we would listen to His consolation and direction. When we open Thy Word of Life we would rely upon His illuminating interpretation. When the story of the character and the depths of the …
650 wordsSECTION 29The Sword Of The Spirit
Or turn once more to another field of battle, to the Valley of Humiliation, where "poor Christian was hard put to it. For he had gone but a little way before he espied a foul fiend coming over the field to meet him; his name was Apollyon." "Then did Christian draw, for he saw it was time to bestir him; Apollyon as fast…
697 wordsSECTION 30The Sword Of The Spirit
I saw a photograph the other day from the European field of war, in which a company of soldiers were examining a load of hay. They were piercing it with their swords in the endeavour to find out if any foe lay hidden in the fragrant pile. And I could not but think of the warfare of the soul, and of the sweet and fragra…
676 wordsSECTION 31The Sword Of The Spirit
We have this sort of warfare most vividly described in the experience of the prophet Jonah. Let me set it before you. "And the word of the Lord came unto Jonah, saying, Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and cry against it!" Let us note the lines of this experience. The word of the Lord came to Jonah as an imperati…
750 wordsSECTION 32The Sword Of The Spirit
But sometimes the word of God is given to us, not through the medium of a book, not even the book of the Scriptures, but in a direct and immediate message to our own souls. Oh, yes, sometimes the Captain of our salvation gives me my sword without my having to make recourse to the written word. He speaks to me and hands…
548 wordsSECTION 33The Soldier'S Use Of Prayer
_Almighty God, Our Father, it is by Thy grace that we attain unto holiness, and it is by Thy light that we find wisdom. We humbly pray that Thy grace and light may be given unto us, so that we may come into the liberty of purity and truth. Wilt Thou graciously exalt our spirits and enable us to live in heavenly pl…
838 wordsSECTION 34The Soldier'S Use Of Prayer
It is imperative that we should lay hold of this teaching very firmly. It is of the utmost moment we should know what we are doing when we pray for the bracing and sanctifying energies of the Holy Spirit. Prayer then, I say, is first and chiefly the establishment of communion with God. Prayer is the clearing of the blo…
685 wordsSECTION 35The Soldier'S Use Of Prayer
If that is one reason why the Christian soldier should pray in order to maintain the bounding health of his own spirit, we are now faced with the second question as to when he should pray. And here is the answer of the veteran warrior Paul: "Praying always." Not at some time, but at all times! "Praying always." But can…
676 wordsSECTION 36The Soldier'S Use Of Prayer
Now this is a very wonderful privilege entrusted to the disciple of Christ. To every believer there is entrusted the marvellous ministry of helping others to receive the energies of divine grace, and to strengthen them in the fierce combats of their own "evil day." For the character of our evil days is very varied. You…
793 wordsSECTION 37"Watch Ye!"
So once again, let us hear the apostle's counsel, and keep it in our hearts. "Praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, and watching thereunto with all perseverance and supplication for all saints; and for me, that utterance may be given unto me, that I may open my mouth boldly, to make known the m…
269 wordsSECTION 38Watch Ye!
"Watch ye, stand fast in the faith, quit you like men, be strong." I Corinthians 16:13. This is the counsel of a brave warrior, experienced and weather-beaten, writing to raw and comparatively untried recruits. One is reminded of the veteran Lord Roberts when he lately spake to young English recruits who had not yet …
674 wordsSECTION 39Watch Ye!
But it is not only the "fightings without" which trouble us. There are also "the fears within." Many of our venerable assumptions are lying in ruin. Our spiritual world has suffered an upheaval as though with the convulsion of an earthquake, and many of us are trembling and confused. What then shall we do in this terri…
768 wordsSECTION 40Watch Ye!
But there is a further word to say about our vigilance. We must keep awake and watchful, not only to detect the busy lurking, ambushed foes, but also to see all the bright and wonderful things of the hour, all the splendid happenings which are favourable to the holy will and Kingdom of our Lord. What should we think of…
696 wordsSECTION 41Watch Ye!
"Stand fast in the faith!" What faith? "The faith once for all delivered to the saints." Stand fast in the faith of the atoning Saviour as the secret of the reconciliation of mankind. Stand fast in the faith of the risen Lord as the secret and promise of racial union and brotherhood. Stand fast in the faith of the Holy…
656 wordsSECTION 42Enduring Hardness
"Stand up, stand up for Jesus! The trumpet call obey; Forth to the mighty conflict In this His glorious day. Ye that are men now serve Him Against unnumbered foes, Let courage rise with danger And strength to strength oppose. "Stand up, stand up for Jesus! Ye soldiers of the Cross. Lift high His royal banner,…
279 wordsSECTION 43Enduring Hardness
"Thou therefore endure hardness as a good soldier of Jesus Christ." 2 Timothy 2:3. Any military metaphor which is used to-day will surely have a very arresting significance. Many of our hymns are crowded with military terminology. In the Wesleyan Methodist Hymn-Book there is a whole section entitled "For Believers Fi…
728 wordsSECTION 44Enduring Hardness
Our immediate circumstances do not offer the soldiers of Jesus an easy parade ground where we can just loll and sing our lilting songs; they rather offer us a fearfully rugged and broken field which demands as heroic and chivalrous virtues as ever clothed a child of God. What shall we do? Is it the hour for craven fear…
745 wordsSECTION 45Enduring Hardness
Let me open one or two windows in the apostolic record which give us glimpses of this conquering life. Here, then, is a glimpse of the hostilities: "Let us straightly threaten them that they speak henceforth to no man in this name." There you have the naked tyranny of carnal power, and there you have the threat that bu…
834 wordsSECTION 46Enduring Hardness
I might go on telling you these glorious exploits of grace, but I hasten to say that it is our privilege to continue the story. To-day carnal strength is stalking in deadly stride through a whole continent. And to-day the Church must do something so splendid and so heroic as will outshine the glamour of material war. T…
713 wordsSECTION 47The Invisible Commander On The Field
_Eternal God, we rejoice in the security that is offered to us in our midnights and in our noons. Thou wilt not leave us to the loneliness of self-communion, but Thou wilt hold fellowship with us along the way. Come to us as the Lord Jesus came to the men who were journeying to Emmaus, and make our hearts burn with…
752 wordsSECTION 48The Invisible Commander On The Field
And now perhaps we shall be able to feel something of the astounding effect of the prophet's words. "And the Lord shall lift up an ensign to the nations from far." Far-away peoples are to move under the impulse and inspiration of the Lord, and in the light of His guiding command. "The Lord shall hiss for the fly that i…
857 wordsSECTION 49The Invisible Commander On The Field
And so do I urge that we think in vaster orbits of the divine inspiration of nations. Let us reject the atheism of incredulity, and let us encourage ourselves in the boundless hope of an all-encompassing God of the human race. The great God journeys on in His tremendous orbit, and who knows from what unlikely peoples t…
772 wordsSECTION 50The Invisible Commander On The Field
March forward across the centuries. Here is slavery in the American republic. In spite of the noble words of the Declaration of Independence: "That all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness"--in spit…
764 wordsSECTION 51The Soldier'S Fire
And so, my friends, our God is still moving in these vast orbits. He hisses for a disappointment, and it comes and throws its shadow upon our life, but the shadow is purposed to be one of the healing shadows of grace. "I will command the clouds, saith the Lord." Yes, even our cloudy experiences move under command. They…
459 wordsSECTION 52The Soldier'S Fire
"He shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost and with fire." Matthew 3:11. Such is the divine promise. Let me read the story of its fulfilment. "And when the day of Pentecost was fully come they were all with one accord in one place. And suddenly there came a sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled …
689 wordsSECTION 53The Soldier'S Fire
First of all I think I should look for the holy fire on the common hearthstone of human love. If the fire of God does not warm up the affections I fail to recognize what its heat can be worth. The first thing to warm up is the heart. The intimate friend of the Holy Spirit is known by the ardour of his affections. He lo…
672 wordsSECTION 54The Soldier'S Fire
"Kindle a flame of sacred love In these cold hearts of ours." You find and feel the glow of that love-fire throughout the New Testament Scriptures. They who have the most of God's Spirit have the most of the fire. There was Barnabas, who was declared to be "full of the Holy Spirit," and he is also described as "the s…
759 wordsSECTION 55The Soldier'S Fire
And that same holy fire gives the same terrific power to-day, the same driving enthusiasm, the same patient, dogged, invincible perseverance. If a man declares that he has received the fire of God's Holy Spirit, I will look eagerly for the impetus of his sacred enthusiasm. If he be a preacher I will look for labour in …
677 wordsSECTION 56The Soldier'S Fire
But if a man suffer a personal injury, if some wrong is done to him, what kind of fire shall I expect to see in his life if he is filled with the Holy Ghost? Yes, if some one has done an injury to another, and the other has been baptized with the Holy Ghost, what kind of fire will he reveal? Listen to this: "If thine e…
310 wordsSECTION 57Victory Over The Beast
_Heavenly Father, we thank Thee for our knowledge that all our springs are in Thee. Wilt Thou deliver us from any sense of self-dependence, and lead us into an intimate fellowship with the ministers of Thy grace. If any triumph has made us self-confident, if any earthly success has made us proud, may Thy Holy Spir…
755 wordsSECTION 58Victory Over The Beast
Let us spend a little while in first of all examining this beast who claims the control and mastery of our souls. Everybody has a vivid experience of his power, but it may help to clarify our minds if we consider what has been said about him by the recognized masters and counsellors of the soul. Let us turn, then, to t…
712 wordsSECTION 59Victory Over The Beast
"And lo! just as the sloping side I gained, A leopard, subtle, lithe, exceeding fleet, Whose skin full many a dusky spot did stain; Nor did she from before my face retreat; Nay, hindered so my journey on the way, That many a time I backward turned my feet." The leopard which confronted Dante was the symbol of sen…
871 wordsSECTION 60Victory Over The Beast
"I asked them whence their victory came, They with united breath Ascribed their conquest to the Lamb, Their triumph to His death." And the second secret of their triumph is to be found in their continual warfare. They drank his blood to fight his fights. It is a fight that knows no armistice. It acknowledges no fla…
661 wordsSource & rights
Public domain in the USA; original historical text digitized by Project Gutenberg.
Project Gutenberg source record →
Historical Christian writing; not Scripture.