If you want to carry on thinking about the things we heard yesterday from Ephesians 6:10-24 my top tip is this - get hold of a copy of 'The Pilgrim's Progress' by John Bunyan and read it.This is one of the greatest books ever written (a fact that is frequently recognised by non Christians as well as Christians). As well as being a great work of literature, it is massively helpful for equipping you to do what Paul tells us to at the end of his letter to the Ephesians. One reason for this is that Bunyan was himself someone who knew what it meant to 'put on the full armour of God'. This is what Charles Spurgeon, a pastor greatly used by God in the 19th Century and who was himself hugely helped by 'The Pilgrim's Progress', said about Bunyan:
Read anything of his, and you will see that it is almost like reading the Bible itself. He had read it till his very soul was saturated with Scripture; and, though his writings are charmingly full of poetry, yet he cannot give us his Pilgrim’s Progress - that sweetest of all prose poems - without continually making us feel and say, “Why, this man is a living Bible!” Prick him anywhere - his blood is Bibline, the very essence of the Bible flows from him. He cannot speak without quoting a text, for his very soul is full of the Word of God. I commend his example to you, beloved.If you've never read it yourself - you absolutely have to. If you have children and haven't yet introduced them to it, get hold of one of the great kids versions of it and read it with them. There are even a number of film adaptations of the story.
Here's a great section from the book where Apollyon (the Devil) comes face to face in battle with Christian, and is a great reminder of why the Christian life will be a battle to the end:
Apollyon: Whence come you? And whither are you bound?
Christian: I am come from the City of Destruction, which is the place of all evil, and am going to the City of Zion.
Apollyon: By this I perceive thou are one of my subjects, for all that country is mine, and I am the prince and god of it. How is it, then, that thou hast run away from thy king? Were it not that I hope thou may do me more service, I would strike thee now, at one blow, to the ground.
Christian: I was born, indeed, in your dominions, but your service was hard, and your wages such as a man could not live on. “for the wages of sin is death” (Rom. 6.23); therefore, when I was come to years, I did as other considerate persons do, look out, if, perhaps, I might mend myself.
Apollyon: There is no prince that will thus lightly lose his subjects, neither will I as yet lose thee…
