Keion Henderson - The Invisible Man

I want to discuss this thought for the next few moments: the invisible man. The invisible man. I’m sure many of you have read this scripture before, maybe not in part, but I know in whole because when you look at it, I promise you, when I read verse 13, you’re going to know exactly where I got this from. You ready? Verse 13. Here’s what it says: «Wherefore take upon you the whole armor of God.» I’m sure you’ve heard that before. This is the scripture where Paul tells us how we should be dressed as it relates to our spiritual fight against the evil one. When Paul wrote this letter to the church at Ephesus, I think it’s important for us to recognize that he did not partially tell us what we should wear; he was holistic, he was thorough. He made sure that we had everything we needed in order to combat against the enemy. Watch this description: he says, «I want you to put on the entire uniform, the full armor of God,» and here are the portions of the armor that are necessary in order to be completely dressed for your spiritual altercation. Here it is: number one, he says, «I want you to put on the belt of truth.» He says, «Not only do I want you to put on the belt of truth, but I want you to put on the breastplate of righteousness.» He says, «And when you’re walking, I’ve got your feet covered because I want you to put on the shoes of the gospel of peace.» He says, «And this was my favorite weapon before I read this text this week. He says, 'I want you to take the sword of the Spirit, ' and ladies and gentlemen, when he says 'the sword of the Spirit, ' the B part of that verse, watch this, says 'the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.' The sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.» I think that verse 16 is the most interesting verse in the entire canon of this text because if I were picking a weapon, I would have picked the sword of the Spirit. If it were me, and anybody said, «What do you want? Do you want a breastplate? Do you want shoes? Do you want a belt? Or do you want a sword?» If you’re in a fight, which one would you pick? I’m sure you would pick the sword just like I would. But I think that verse 16 is interesting because he says, «Above all, taking the shield of faith.» That baffled me when I read it, and that’s why I tell you all the time, when you read the scripture, make sure you go to the text empty so that God can speak to you anew and afresh. I looked at it: «Above all, taking the shield of faith.» It didn’t make sense to me because if the sword is the word of God, if the word is big on anything, the word is big on the word. The word became flesh and tabernacled among us, the Bible says. The word of the Lord is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path. He says in Psalms 101, «Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of the scornful.» Watch this, but his delight is in the word of God; and he doth meditate on it both day and night. With all of the things that the word has to say about the word and how important the word is, John 1:1 says, «And the word was God, and the word was with God, and there was nothing that was made that was made without that word.» And then the word, according to verse 14, came and tabernacled among us. Look at how important the word makes the word. Then if the word is so important and the word is a weapon, then why in the world would Paul say that above all I should take the shield? There is nothing in scripture that lets me believe or leads me to believe that the sword would be more important than the word. But according to Paul, above all I should take the sword of the Spirit. No, he says I should take the shield of faith. Now, I thought that was interesting because the word «shield» is the Greek word that’s translated «door.» That makes all the difference because a Roman shield in that time is not like Captain America; it’s not that small circular shield. It’s not like Iron Man’s shield. In the days of the Roman soldier, the shield would look like the front door of a house. It would be like the front door of a house, and they would make sure that the shield — listen to me — that the shield was big enough to cover the entire body of the soldier. It’s important that you get this because when you think of a modern shield, you’re probably thinking of some sort of shield like one of the heroes off of Marvel or the Justice League, but this is not that shield. This shield, according to the Greek context, was the shape of a door and the size of a door, which means that the soldier who had the shield would be completely covered from feet to head, and the width of his body by the sword he was holding. Now that’s important. That’s important because just like a door to a house — see, a door to a house is designed to separate inside from outside. The doors in a house are designed to make sure…