Armor of God Seminar 2024
Part 4
Estimated reading time: 12 minutes
Get Ready to Walk
Bind [as a sandal] on your feet the goodness of the gospel of peace
The part of this piece of armor that we do is bind as a shoe upon our feet. The sandals of a soldier covered not only the bottom of the feet but also were laced up the ankles and provided support for the calf and leg. This gave a firm platform for fighting in any battle.
Spiked with nails on the bottom – e.g. Israel with the rocks and my sandals
The binding is our job. What do we put on? The preparation of the gospel of peace is also difficult to understand here because we are remembering that every part of this armor has to do with the power base we have in our Lord Jesus Christ. God prepared a firm platform for us to walk on as part of who we are in Christ. What that platform is called is the gospel of peace.
We need to understand what the word preparation means first. In Aramaic, preparation is the word tiba which comes from the root, to be good. It can be translated goodness, willingness, preparation, readiness. The Aramaic translation of Ephesians 2:10 says, “For we [are] his own creation, who were created in Jesus Christ for good works, those [works] which God prepared previously that we should walk in.” God has prepared the works for us to walk in. We do not manufacture the works, but only have to have our shoes on to walk in them.
This is further explained in understanding what is the gospel of peace. This gospel is the good news of the mystery of the one body of Christ, the good news that breaks down all barriers and brings peace between the Jews and Gentiles, between men and women. This is the good news that every member of the body of Christ is special and particular and has a function to perform. No person in the body is without purpose and each one is set in exactly the right place at the right time. The head of the body is Christ. The head energizes the whole body unto the building up of itself in love. We are members one of another. It’s the gospel which brings peace.
Eph 2:14 APNT
for he was our peace treaty who had made the two of them one and has broken down the wall that stood in the middle.
In the temple, there was actually a literal wall around the courtyard that separated out the court of the Gentiles from the court of Israel. And it actually had a sign that anybody who passes through here who is not a Jew should be put to death. And the sign was set up periodically along this whole wall. After the day of Pentecost, wall between the Jews and the Gentiles was broken down. But there was more than just that one wall.
There was also a wall between the men of Israel and the women. There was a court of the women where the women could go. And no woman could go into the court where the men were allowed. So that was another barrier. And then there was a barrier of the people of Israel. And only a priest could go into the Holy Place. But then there was also another barrier where only the high priest could go into the holy of holies. There were all these barriers just even in the picture of the temple.
Now think about the other barriers that there are. Like bondslave versus someone who is free. Someone who is old versus someone who is young. An employer versus an employee. How about someone who is educated versus someone who isn’t?
In our culture even today, we do all these separations between people. In the gospel, what happens is that every single person, no matter how young, how old, how educated, how not, whether a priest, whether a minister, whether not, any of those things, male or female. Every single person has a specific function in the body of Christ. And there is no difference.
And what that does is it actually brings peace. It brings a harmony and unity which is organic to the fact that we are all given the full measure of the anointing of Christ. Every single person from the youngest to the oldest is given the full anointing of Christ.
Now, the principality that is defeated by this particular piece of the armor is the dragon. This dragon is not the one with the horns and wings and a tail and fire-breathing mouth.
Dragon/Leviathan — Being Unoffendable
The dragon’s main tactic is pride. And in Job, for example, there’s actually some really interesting verses throughout all of chapter 41 that describe Leviathan.
Job 41:1ff. CSB
1 “Can you pull in Leviathan with a hook
or tie down his tongue with a rope?
2 Can you put a cord through his nose
or pierce his jaw with a hook?
3 Will he beg you for mercy
4 Will he make a covenant with you
to take him as a slave for life?
8 If you lay a hand on him,
you will remember the battle and never repeat it!
15 His rows of scales are his pride,
16 One scale is so near to another
that no air can pass between them.
17 They are joined to one another;
they clasp and cannot be separated.
22 Strength resides in his neck,
23 The folds of his flesh are tightly joined;
24 His chest is as hard as a rock,
33 Nothing on earth is his equal—
a creature devoid of fear!
34 He looks down on all the haughty;
he is king over all the proud.”
Leviathan Exposed Robert Hotchkin
And when that comes into the church, it manifests itself as a kind of a domination. It starts often with jealousy or a stubborn desire to be “right.”
You recognize what pride is. But we don’t always recognize it in ourselves. That’s where it gets a little tricky.
The purpose of all the weapons of pride is to divide people. It causes division. So you see how it’s against the gospel of the mystery. Because if I think I’m better somehow than somebody else, then I will lord myself over them.
An example of how pride worked is in the record of Saul and David.
Actually, it started with jealousy. Where David was up and coming and really ministered to Saul. And Saul saw that people followed him and really liked him. And then he won a lot of battles against the Philistines. And people were saying well Saul slayed his thousands and now David his ten thousands. And he got jealous. Saul was so upset about the whole thing that he actually chased David around the country and into the Philistines and everywhere for almost nine years. Nine years he tried to kill him. Every once in a while, he would feel sorry for it and go back to his palace. And then something else would happen for him. No, but David’s trying to take over my kingdom! So I’m going to get him.
Walking Free – Micah Tyler
The opposite of pride is humility. In James it talks about humbling yourself under the mighty hand of God. And then he will lift you up. It doesn’t ever work for us to lift up ourselves. But it actually does work if we humble ourselves.
Well, is there any jealousy or offense in your life? Well, that’s a good question. The antidote to it or how we put on these sandals is to forgive.
If we get offended by something at any point the answer is always to forgive and to be meek. Remember Peter asked Jesus how many times should I forgive? And he said seventy times seven. Well, it’s trouble counting up to seven let alone four hundred and ninety. So it basically means just keep doing it. Keep forgiving. Don’t even try to count it because by the time you get to even a hundred maybe you’ve lost track. Right? So the point is keep on forgiving. And then in Matthew 18 there’s a really interesting reference here. We’ll just take a peek at Matthew 18.
This is where it says that you should forgive seventy times seven. So he tells a parable. And I wanted to just read the parable.
Matt. 18:23-35 ESV
23 “Therefore the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who wished to settle accounts with his servants.
24 When he began to settle, one was brought to him who owed him ten thousand talents. – [Seven billion dollars]
25 And since he could not pay, his master ordered him to be sold, with his wife and children and all that he had, and payment to be made.
26 So the servant fell on his knees, imploring him, ‘Have patience with me, and I will pay you everything.’
27 And out of pity for him, the master of that servant released him and forgave him the debt.
28 But when that same servant went out, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred denarii, and seizing him, he began to choke him, saying, ‘Pay what you owe.’
29 So his fellow servant fell down and pleaded with him, ‘Have patience with me, and I will pay you.’
30 He refused and went and put him in prison until he should pay the debt.
31 When his fellow servants saw what had taken place, they were greatly distressed, and they went and reported to their master all that had taken place.
32 Then his master summoned him and said to him, ‘You wicked servant! I forgave you all that debt because you pleaded with me.
33 And should not you have had mercy on your fellow servant, as I had mercy on you?’
34 And in anger his master delivered him to the jailers, until he should pay all his debt.
35 So also my heavenly Father will do to every one of you, if you do not forgive your brother from your heart.”
So let’s just say today someone made 100 dollars a day. That’s only 10,000 dollars. So he would not forgive his fellow servant 10,000 dollars when he had been forgiven of 7 billion dollars.
When we harbor offenses, we play into the field of the dragon who always wants to cause war and division. And we allow that to become a bait. Or it leads us into a trap. And the trap is that we have not remembered what God has forgiven us for. Every sin that we ever had was cleansed by the blood of Jesus Christ. So what right do we have to stand up and point fingers at anybody else for what they did not do? That’s where offense takes a hold. And then the dragon uses it to divide people and separate them and say, I’m only going to fellowship with these people over here because they have whatever. So to stand against this and to put these sandals on your feet, you put them on your feet to make a firm platform where you are not going to get rolled over by the rocks or the comments that somebody makes or the thing that you got offended about when someone didn’t allow you to play music at a particular time or whatever the situation is.
It can be something so small and it starts really small like that and then it ends up being this huge deal. Like, well those people are all messed up. And effectively we set up another wall where Jesus came to break down the wall and to allow us to have this very firm standing where it has nails studded in it.
Now we can see the practical application of this piece of armor. Attacks in the wrestling match that have to do with inferiority, rejection, self-righteousness, self-rejection all are handled by binding on our feet the GOODNESS of the mystery of the one body of Christ. We each have a special place, a special function and no one person is any less important or more important than anyone else. That is the total goodness of God to provide us with such a wonderful place to function and to give.
This piece of armor is especially important for ministers and leaders. One of the biggest tricks of the enemy for leaders is that they take control and rule in the sense of manipulating other people to follow them. Leaders already usually do have the ability naturally to motivate others to follow them, but this can be used detrimentally. One has only to look at a variety of ministries in our day and time and see this tendency. Jesus Christ said, that the greatest leader needed to be the greatest servant. He washed the disciple’s feet and showed them this by example. Basing the platform on which we stand on the unity of the body of Christ will negate the strategy of the Dragon and allow the goodness of the plan that God wanted with the Lord Jesus Christ as head of the body to shine forth.
Example: Carl vs. code of honor, Blending
The first three pieces of armor are kept on all the time we are clothed or dressed as a soldier. The last three are taken up as needed in a confrontation or battle. We need to have the last three ready at all times there is an attack.main use pattern
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