Dale Partridge - Real Christianity #55： How to Put on the Armor of God

00:00:00.420 Welcome to Real Christianity. Today we are talking about the armor of God.

00:00:05.420 Yeah, guys, this is a practical passage, I think, for a hostile world. 0.96

00:00:10.140 And I think this is something that Christians have leaned on through the ages. 0.74

00:00:14.100 And it's something that I think is practical to all Christians.

00:00:17.340 It's a universal doctrine, Ephesians chapter 6, which we're going to be going through today.

00:00:21.420 And I'm just excited to share this with you.

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00:00:52.100 Next thing is we finally finished the six-week program.

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00:01:31.780 knows, and you guys can be the first ones in. So we're going to jump in about the armor of God.

00:01:37.820 Veronica was kind of prompted to start studying this. I'll let her share that, and then we'll dive

00:01:43.240 in. Yeah, so I've been thinking about the armor of God for several weeks, maybe several months

00:01:48.340 now, and I was kind of praying about it and asking the Lord if this is something that he wanted me

00:01:55.200 to discuss in the women's small group in our church and then on Sunday at our church one of

00:02:02.900 the men was prompted to speak on the armor of God and so we had that there on Sunday and then we

00:02:10.700 came home and then you and I discussed it and you started diving into it so we've had some more

00:02:15.520 regular conversation about it throughout this week and so it's just encouraged me to look into it

00:02:21.540 even more yeah and i uh i had taken some notes from this sunday you know we have a house church

00:02:26.260 a small church and and um david the gentleman who was teaching on it i thought oh you know what

00:02:31.200 i had some notes it was fresh in my mind let's just deliver this content to those that follow

00:02:37.060 us on the podcast i think it'd be edifying for you guys so ephesians in my opinion is one of the

00:02:43.360 twin towers of christian theology the other being colossians and um now a lot of you guys might

00:02:50.720 thinking oh my gosh but what about Romans I love Romans but for me I just think about Ephesians and

00:02:56.060 Colossians have just these beautiful elements of the Christian theology and we're going to get a

00:03:01.600 chance to hear about some of that as we close up the end of this book in chapter six so I'll let

00:03:07.740 Veronica kind of introduce us into the conversation yeah so before we dive into chapter six let's

00:03:13.720 rewind a little bit um so Ephesians 5 discusses submission to one another in truth and in love

00:03:20.860 Then he addresses the wives and the husbands and then the children and the parents, bond servants and masters.

00:03:26.420 So he's addressing all of these different groups of people. 0.66

00:03:30.460 Then he concludes his exhortations with instructions for all Christians on how to sustain spiritual warfare using the Lord's resources and not our own. 0.80

00:03:40.560 Yeah. And so Ephesians is really like the first couple of chapters, first three chapters, four chapters are general theology.

00:03:46.440 Then he transitions into these categories of people in the church.

00:03:49.440 And then he moves on to this universal, like, I'm leaving you with this message and this idea.

00:03:53.720 And this is really the apostles teaching on the armor of God.

00:03:57.600 And I think it's quite beautiful and very useful and practical for the Christian life.

00:04:01.960 So I'm going to read to you guys Ephesians chapter 6, verses 10 through 20.

00:04:06.380 And this passage is a little bit long.

00:04:08.280 It's 10 verses.

00:04:09.440 And so it might take me a second.

00:04:11.300 And also, I'm going to read the New King James.

00:04:13.760 If you guys want to go back later and read it, if you're listening to this as a podcast on your drive or when you're working out,

00:04:20.020 it might be kind of hard to follow along.

00:04:21.740 Don't worry.

00:04:22.260 We're going to break this down verse by verse as we go back through it here just in a few minutes here.

00:04:28.260 So starting in verse 10, chapter 6, it says,

00:04:30.940 Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord and in the power of his might.

00:04:37.260 Put on the whole armor of God that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil.

00:04:41.500 For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places.

00:04:53.440 Therefore, take up the whole armor of God that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand.

00:05:00.780 Stand, therefore, having girded your waist with truth, having put on the breastplate of righteousness, and having shod your feet with the preparation of the gospel of peace.

00:05:08.960 above all take the shield of faith

00:05:11.460 with which you can quench

00:05:14.380 all the fiery darts of the wicked one

00:05:16.300 and take the helmet of salvation

00:05:18.360 and the sword of the spirit

00:05:19.280 which is the word of God

00:05:20.420 praying always with all prayer

00:05:22.620 and supplication in the spirit

00:05:23.840 being watchful to this end

00:05:25.260 with all perseverance and supplication

00:05:27.460 for all the saints and for me

00:05:29.100 that utterance may be given to me

00:05:31.620 that I may open my mouth boldly

00:05:34.600 to make known the mystery of the gospel

00:05:36.480 for which I am an ambassador in chains, that in it I may speak boldly as I ought to speak.

00:05:44.800 Wow, that's a long passage.

00:05:46.240 Yeah, I'm impressed.

00:05:48.020 All right, so one thing to mention about this passage is that it comes off the heels of chapter 4

00:05:54.160 where Paul tells us not to give the enemy a foothold for opportunity.

00:05:58.080 And in case you don't know, a foothold is a device in which you can leverage distance from.

00:06:03.560 So this passage is Paul's solution to preventing this from occurring.

00:06:08.980 And then we see the apostle mention seven items to harness for spiritual battle.

00:06:15.880 Five of them are offensive, which is leaning on God's work.

00:06:19.440 And two of them are defensive, leaning on our faithfulness.

00:06:23.820 And then you can see by emphasis alone that this battle is heavily focused on God's strength.

00:06:30.860 but we are called to play a part so we must be faithful and put these things on and adhere to

00:06:39.700 these instructions so dale is going to go ahead and walk us through this passage and then i'll

00:06:45.420 jump in here and there to give my own thoughts as we go yeah so let's go with verse 10 that's

00:06:50.820 where we started off um i'm gonna go verse by verse here and uh let's start off with verse 10

00:06:56.060 And it says, finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord and in the power of his might.

00:07:01.960 And so, one, the first point he's making is that it's God who provides the strength.

00:07:05.720 And so it's not your own strength.

00:07:07.840 It is God's strength.

00:07:09.260 And that truth just has to kind of resonate in the bones of Christians.

00:07:13.020 And it's very counterintuitive.

00:07:14.660 I think about 2 Corinthians, Paul says, for when I am weak, then I am strong.

00:07:19.280 and you know just this idea that weakness somehow makes the lord's ability to be amplified his

00:07:26.880 strength in us and we've seen this in our own life over this last year and a half to two years

00:07:31.480 of just being ill and having lots of spiritual tactics that's made us weak and i think the

00:07:40.660 ministry has probably been the strongest it's ever been we've grown the most we've ever grown

00:07:45.240 in this season and kingdom economics we have to remember are counterintuitive to the world system

00:07:51.780 they're just the opposite of what our flesh desires and you know paul says the wisdom of

00:07:57.100 this world is foolishness to god like everything you know oh you want to be first go be last you

00:08:02.260 know that kind of concept here so um we have to be strong in his might which generally means that

00:08:09.080 we need to be either incredibly humble and sometimes the Lord makes us even

00:08:13.720 weak so that we can lean on his might.

00:08:18.200 And what he's saying here,

00:08:20.320 be strong in the Lord and the power of his might,

00:08:21.640 because ultimately,

00:08:22.700 you know,

00:08:23.400 because we're made of flesh,

00:08:24.300 we cannot fight a spiritual battle with human resources.

00:08:27.560 Instead,

00:08:28.000 we need to kind of put on spiritual resources.

00:08:29.960 That's what he's leading into.

00:08:31.500 Verse 11 says,

00:08:32.560 put on the whole armor of God,

00:08:35.300 not part of it,

00:08:36.460 the whole thing,

00:08:37.180 whole thing.

00:08:37.680 And you've got to pay attention, people, to make sure that you're getting this stuff on every single morning.

00:08:43.480 It says, put on the whole armor of God that you may be able to stand against the wiles or the schemes or the plans or the strategies,

00:08:49.360 is what it might be saying, of the devil.

00:08:51.660 And Satan has a strategy for your life.

00:08:54.680 There's a map and there's a plan to take you out.

00:08:58.400 And it doesn't have to happen overnight.

00:09:01.020 Satan is a patient incrementalist, meaning that he'll take his time.

00:09:04.220 he doesn't care if you fall in 10 years or 50 years just as long as you fall and his plan is

00:09:11.940 the same goal for every christian draw to draw you away from the lord by shifting the focus away

00:09:18.280 from god and onto yourself and i'll tell you what people being sick the last year is very tempting

00:09:26.340 to do that to draw my focus away from god and on to me and to even bring my you know my questions

00:09:35.980 god why you know and so this these are really important um things to know about that strategy

00:09:43.360 understanding your enemy um and so if you know if you want to get a soldier to leave battle

00:09:50.460 all you need to do is shift his focus from the mission to himself and that's what you see when

00:09:59.100 you see somebody retreating generally as they've shifted the focus away from the mission and onto

00:10:03.680 themselves you know the moment kind of a soldier or an army prioritizes their own safety above the

00:10:09.840 fulfillment of the mission the battle is lost and so we have a bug killer in here and it always goes

00:10:19.360 off during one of these podcasts and it doesn't scare me at all but veronica flinches like like

00:10:27.200 there's an earthquake happening in the room so if you're watching the video that's what happened

00:10:30.500 um you're not like having a what like a like a twitching thing or something yeah um verse 12

00:10:39.080 so we've kind of moved on here from the strength put on the whole armor of god verse 12 it says

00:10:44.200 For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places.

00:10:56.360 This is like one of the most beefy ideas in scripture.

00:11:01.920 And so there's so much here.

00:11:04.160 And so one thing I want to point out is that it's not just one entity that we're battling.

00:11:08.100 um this is there's one enemy in kind of like several allies or several complexities uh you

00:11:16.460 know with this we don't know exactly what this looks like um we we know what scripture tells us

00:11:21.820 but it's a multi-dimensional battle that's for sure and there are adversaries for sure that are

00:11:29.100 human but they're they're actually motivated or you know pushed by this kind of supernatural

00:11:35.660 natural evil behind them um and i think a lot of us can sense that like what's going on with the

00:11:41.160 public school system like what's going on with the culture today like what's going on with drugs and

00:11:46.680 pornography and marriage being attacked and like there's something behind it and we can like as a

00:11:53.140 christian church we can sense that there's something there um secondly the battle is not

00:11:58.760 just outside of us it's also inside of us the christian has three enemies right we have the

00:12:03.820 world system we have the flesh and we have the enemy himself and so there's really a three

00:12:08.700 enemies that we have uh that we're fighting against us um but the enemy that's in us is our

00:12:15.560 flesh like we're pretty much partially like redeemed our bodies are not fully redeemed yet

00:12:22.580 it's kind of like our spirits dragging a corpse with it and we're just going like oh you you have

00:12:29.180 these desires like paul says like i don't know why i do the things that i don't want to do and

00:12:32.800 i don't do the things that i do want to do like he's just you got this element of the flesh he

00:12:37.120 also says in galatians for the for the flesh wars against the spirit and the spirit wars against the

00:12:41.380 flesh and these are contrary to one another so that you do not do the things that you wish there's

00:12:46.020 this war going on even inside of us and we need to put on these this armor in order to protect

00:12:52.440 ourselves even from our flesh uh you want you want to not fulfill the desires of the flesh then walk

00:12:57.620 in the Spirit is what Galatians will tell us. So the battle is still active, but really the Lord

00:13:05.280 has already won the war. And so the battle is still active, but the war has been won. And in

00:13:10.340 Colossians chapter 2, I think it's verse 17, I forgot to write down the reference, but it says

00:13:14.840 that Jesus, having disarmed the principalities and powers, he made a public spectacle of them

00:13:20.680 triump for triumphing over them in it um jesus has already won this war um and it's just a it's

00:13:29.560 just a matter of a battle that's still going on right now yeah so thank you for sharing that i

00:13:35.900 appreciate it um i think that it's important to note uh that at the end of the scripture here

00:13:42.300 where it says in heavenly places um so there's a very real spiritual battle going on in the

00:13:50.320 heavenly places and wherever you want to or whether you want to partake in it or not uh is not a

00:13:56.860 choice the battle is happening um so how are we to engage in this battle that is taking place in

00:14:05.060 heavenly places while we are living here on earth well we have the word of god right don't we um

00:14:12.880 and paul drops little hints all throughout ephesians for us to reference and learn how to

00:14:18.400 partake in this battle. So, um, for example, in Ephesians one, three, blessed be the God and

00:14:24.680 father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly

00:14:30.580 places in, in Christ. So to live victoriously, all spiritual blessings that we need are in the

00:14:39.900 heavenly places. Our, um, our weapons, our armor, our chance for victory, all of those things are

00:14:46.300 in the heavenly places and we have access to those spiritual blessings through our relationship with

00:14:51.580 jesus christ so ephesians 120 says which he worked in christ when he raised him from the dead and

00:14:58.720 seated him at the right hand in the heavenly places so there's like all these references of

00:15:03.980 these like heavenly places heavenly places heavenly places he's preparing you in ephesians

00:15:08.520 for this idea that comes later in six yeah so yeah now we know that christ is seated in heavenly

00:15:13.560 places three uh ephesians chapter 3 verse 10 to the intent that now the manifold wisdom of god

00:15:19.540 might be made known by the church to the principalities and powers in the heavenly

00:15:24.680 places okay so now we know that paul is telling us that uh there are demonic influences in the

00:15:31.080 heavenly places as well um so going back to ephesians chapter 2 verse 4 through 6 but god

00:15:37.640 who is rich in mercy because of his great love with which he loved us even when we were dead

00:15:43.320 in our trespasses made us alive together with christ by grace you have been saved and raised

00:15:49.000 us up together and made us sit together in the heavenly places in christ jesus so yeah you have

00:15:56.200 so you have like four references to heavenly places yeah and if you keep reading i've just

00:16:00.780 like underlined all of heavenly places all throughout ephesians in my bible yeah so it's

00:16:04.560 giving you these reference points of like context of what the heavenly places are so when you hear

00:16:10.700 this verse that we're talking about it doesn't catch you off guard if you've read the chapter

00:16:14.800 or the way it was intended to be read or the book the way that was intended to be read

00:16:17.640 yeah so we get to partake in heavenly places anytime anywhere through prayer because we have

00:16:25.900 a relationship with jesus christ and so when i one thing i i wrote down as a note here is

00:16:30.900 kind of to help someone make some distinctions here of a battle that's happening in heavenly

00:16:35.760 places or a war that's happening in heavenly places and then also like the results that are

00:16:41.140 occurring here on earth um i was thinking about i watch world war ii stuff guys like i love that

00:16:48.300 stuff i've been watching a netflix uh documentary from ken burns it's like eight two-hour episodes

00:16:54.700 and i'm like almost done with it now um and so uh you know world war ii we think that the war

00:17:01.960 was fought in Bastogne or Hiroshima or Pearl Harbor.

00:17:08.360 That's the kind of the places we think about the war being fought.

00:17:12.200 But the results and the casualties of the war were there.

00:17:16.820 There were some battles that were fought there,

00:17:18.820 but the war actually occurred at the desks and on the phone lines

00:17:24.180 and on the letters of the higher powers in Berlin and Stalingrad in Washington, D.C.

00:17:31.640 that's where the war was happening and so it's kind of a similar idea that paul's saying here

00:17:38.200 is there's a war going on in the spiritual places now the battle we see down here marriages are

00:17:44.320 falling apart men are getting addicted to pornography people are dying from drug abuse

00:17:48.220 you know children are being trafficked like there's there's there's all this influence

00:17:53.740 that's happening and we're seeing the results but we can't see the cause well that that war

00:17:58.940 that battle's occurring in another place and that spiritual warfare that we can fight with it you

00:18:05.400 know prayer through truth through getting all these things this is there there's just a big

00:18:08.980 connection here of kind of this spiritual warfare here and it comes sometimes can even feel a little

00:18:14.620 like mythical or mystical but it's not this is actually what the scriptures say and so moving

00:18:21.740 to verse 13, it says, therefore, uh, which really means since this is all true, that's what therefore

00:18:29.740 means. So you just talk about all this battle in the spiritual places. Then he says, therefore,

00:18:34.680 since, since this is all true, it says, take up the whole armor of God, all of it, um, that you

00:18:41.180 may be able to withstand in the evil day, having done all to stand. Um, so there's this kind of

00:18:48.160 command to the whole armor of god to done all like you you better be wise in this matter don't

00:18:56.620 slack here is what the apostle is saying um and because this battle is both spiritual and complex

00:19:04.760 don't be a fool take up take up all of the armor that's available to you and um you know again 0.89

00:19:12.560 And having done all to stand, a partial armor will put you at risk. 0.99

00:19:17.640 And I see all the time people that just pray.

00:19:22.100 Cool, that's one part of it.

00:19:24.360 They just use their Bible.

00:19:27.720 That's it.

00:19:29.560 They just, you know, walk in righteousness and Jesus is righteousness.

00:19:35.720 But like that's it.

00:19:36.840 They're not really putting on the whole armor of God.

00:19:40.420 And I think the emphasis is there.

00:19:41.760 And so this is a warning, and I really encourage you to kind of evaluate if you're actually listening to the apostles instructions in regards to putting this armor on.

00:19:52.600 And this is something that you got to put on every day, every day.

00:19:56.240 And you almost want to, like, draw a picture on your mirror to, like, remind yourself, like, OK, what are these truths as you put these on?

00:20:04.120 And we're going to go through these elements here in a minute.

00:20:06.520 Yeah, it's kind of like a Sunday school teaching to yourself every day, drawing a picture.

00:20:11.760 you do it with your kids and like draw your helmet and your shield and your sword and i know and it's

00:20:16.560 it is it sounds like elementary but like but we need that reminder yeah and paul's writing this

00:20:21.020 to like the universal church so yeah so now we're going to discuss the uh seven protections of

00:20:28.040 spiritual armor um the belt the breastplate the footwear the shield the helmet the sword

00:20:34.060 and the mindset so um first off praise god that he has not left his people defenseless

00:20:40.820 yeah right oh yeah what what a terrible thing for us to be kind of trying to figure this out

00:20:46.600 on our own yeah so second um i want you to imagine kind of like what dale said uh yourself

00:20:56.460 standing in front of a mirror putting on each one of these elements every morning

00:21:00.720 And this war is constant. And the day you decide to leave your armor at home is the day that you open yourself to spiritual attack, to fear, to anxiety, to worry, to depression, to ignorance and foolish thinking, to weakness and sin.

00:21:22.420 It just you know the list can go on and on

00:21:24.700 So if you want to guard yourself from these attacks in your life

00:21:28.260 This is god's instructions on how to protect yourself. So we're going to go ahead and read

00:21:33.140 Verses 14 through 18 and then i'll have dale jump back in. Yeah, so it's a reread

00:21:39.680 We've already read these once but we're just going to reread them to you to kind of get your mind on it again

00:21:42.800 Stand therefore having girded your waist with truth having put on the breastplate of righteousness having shod your feet with the preparation

00:21:51.460 of the gospel of peace above all taking the shield of faith with which you will be able to

00:21:57.740 to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked one and take the helmet of salvation and the sword

00:22:03.720 of the spirit which is the word of god praying always with all prayer and supplication in the

00:22:09.540 spirit being watchful to this end with all perseverance and supplication for all the saints

00:22:15.920 so yeah this is the the kind of very practical uh section here and i think a lot of people miss

00:22:22.440 um you know that this is actually jesus's personal armor and the only way you would catch that

00:22:30.140 is if you're an old testament person and um meaning we all need to be old testament people

00:22:37.180 um you understand the new testament when you've read the old testament and you understand the

00:22:44.420 old testament or the the old testament when you understand when you read the new testament they

00:22:48.080 are one story they're all constantly cross-referencing yeah and that's how so what's

00:22:52.900 really going on here in isaiah 59 17 it says for he put on righteousness as a breastplate and a

00:22:59.740 helmet of salvation on his head so i think what a lot of people miss in this passage is that this

00:23:06.700 is actually jesus's personal armor that we're talking about here paul knows this because he's

00:23:11.440 an Old Testament scholar, just like all of us should be, because you can't understand the New

00:23:16.100 Testament fully without understanding the Old Testament. And it's all one unified story. And so

00:23:21.880 when you understand what's really happening here is that Paul's saying, oh no, you get to put on

00:23:27.920 Jesus's armor in a real sense. And I'm going to read Isaiah 59, 17. It says, for he put on

00:23:35.460 righteousness as a breastplate and a helmet of salvation on his head. Like these are references

00:23:40.800 back to truths about God. And so there's some really unique beauty that you wouldn't catch if

00:23:48.280 you hadn't read or understood the Old Testament. And so this also really solidifies the idea that's

00:23:54.240 in 1 John that he who is in you is greater than he who is in the world. When you get to put on

00:24:00.780 the person who already lives in you in terms of these elements of truth and righteousness

00:24:05.940 and salvation this is kind of what the apostles leading into so we're going to walk through these

00:24:12.000 things i should even say i'm going to walk through these things veronica might jump in here a little

00:24:16.820 bit but really there's five elements that we're going to talk about it's the belt of truth the

00:24:20.660 breastplate of righteousness protecting your feet with the gospel of peace the shield of faith and

00:24:25.600 the helmet of salvation so this is like also what a regular soldier in the year 2019 that it is right

00:24:33.400 now um would put on you're going to put on a belt you're going to put on a breastplate it might be a

00:24:37.280 bulletproof vest you're going to put on you know something to protect your feet uh you're going to

00:24:42.360 have a shield if you look at SWAT teams they have a shield and you're going to put on a helmet and

00:24:47.520 you know so this is very practical you know imagery for us here so the belt of truth um it says kind

00:24:54.480 of gird yourself that's a weird old testament kind of king james type word um it means to kind

00:25:00.320 to secure yourself um if you secure yourself with truth it'll allow you to move freely and quickly

00:25:07.520 it's like girding up your loins is like grabbing your your like pants so they don't fall down in

00:25:13.020 a way and like so you can run quickly um you you know when you have when you've kind of girded

00:25:18.880 yourself with truth or the belt of truth you're not going to be slow in your decision making or

00:25:23.380 your reflexes. And practically speaking, you know, you know, read and study the Word of God

00:25:30.160 is what this is, I think, really saying. Being capable of having God's mind on the matter that

00:25:36.040 you're actually confronted with. As someone who's fighting in war, it starts with truth. You've got

00:25:41.900 to know what's true. And the idea is that if you believe wrong, you never live strong, you're never

00:25:46.980 going to be strong. You've got to believe correctly. You've got to replace the lies of the enemy and

00:25:51.120 put it with truth. You got to have a right mindset to be able to move quickly because you can

00:25:56.160 understand the circumstances because you have truth. And so this is a first thing of just go

00:26:00.740 and read your Bible and study it and know God's word. That's part of this element. And it's not

00:26:07.060 the sword of the spirit, which we'll talk about later. It's really talking about just preparing

00:26:11.200 yourself this way. Number two, the breastplate of righteousness. A breastplate covers your vital

00:26:16.780 organs especially your heart that's kind of i think again some of the imagery that we're we're

00:26:22.760 assuming that the apostle is trying to intend here um proverbs 4 23 says watch over your heart

00:26:28.820 with all diligence for from it flow the springs of life and so this idea of protect your heart

00:26:36.160 um and you know this isn't like talking about physically protect your heart um it's talking

00:26:42.040 about a spiritually protect your heart protect your the things that are make you vital to the

00:26:47.380 spiritual life and um you know the breastplate of righteousness refers to the righteousness

00:26:52.920 purchased for us by jesus on the cross it's not our own righteousness that he's talking about

00:26:58.220 don't put on your own good works our good works are filthy rags to the lord um but it's jesus's

00:27:04.320 good works it's almost like the breastplate of righteousness like has a like christ's name

00:27:09.200 stamped on this like metal chest breastplate and it's kind of like he said your righteous isn't

00:27:15.800 sufficient to protect you why don't you wear mine and that that's kind of that idea of of that the

00:27:20.960 ultimately or ultimately um it helps us kind of conform to the image of christ we're wearing his

00:27:26.500 righteousness um it in some way it protects us from the wrath of god um because that's one element

00:27:34.600 here um so we got again the belt of truth the breastplate of righteousness so put on christ's

00:27:41.120 righteousness um lean on his righteousness in that capacity uh it doesn't mean that you don't

00:27:46.980 also have to put on your own righteous be holy as i am holy is what the passage says in uh second

00:27:52.860 peter gosh i hope it's second peter it's first peter if it's not uh number three protect your

00:27:57.500 feet with the gospel of peace and um you just got to think about your feet for a second your feet

00:28:03.200 are what keep you moving take your feet away and let's just see what your life what happens your

00:28:08.640 life like you stop especially if you're in battle yeah like you just stop you just stop you just lay

00:28:13.300 down you don't go further you don't push the mission forward you can crawl maybe um but your

00:28:19.240 feet are what keep you moving and in a way he's saying allow the gospel to keep you moving allow

00:28:24.940 the gospel to keep you moving so this is something you're putting on in the morning right putting this

00:28:29.240 on in the morning you're putting the breastplate of righteousness you're putting on the belt of

00:28:32.560 truth. You're reading the word of God. You're understanding these things. You're letting the

00:28:36.040 gospel be the thing that carries you and motivates you to keep moving. And as a soldier, you got to

00:28:41.800 keep the mission, or in our case as Christians, the commission, the great commission, in view.

00:28:46.580 If you lose the kingdom vision, the gospel vision, your feet will stop moving towards kingdom

00:28:53.360 economics or kingdom vision. And so that's really important. And additionally, I also think this

00:28:59.320 could mean move in the strength of the gospel and not in your own strength so um it could be saying

00:29:05.400 that um but you got to really protect your feet because they're the thing that keeps you moving

00:29:10.480 and uh then it's the apostles telling us to grab a shield and what is it it's a shield of faith

00:29:17.360 and it says that um you know to extinguish the flaming darts the flaming darts are intended to

00:29:25.120 burn and destroy wooden shields that's why you would have a flaming dart shooting at shields back

00:29:31.800 in especially this time when it was written and the text says that the shield of faith will quench

00:29:37.080 or extinguish the fiery darts of the devil right um it'll actually put them out the interesting

00:29:45.180 thing is that it's not going to stop them from being fired it's not saying that that you're

00:29:50.440 going to have a shield and the darts are going to stop you're still going to get shots fired

00:29:54.300 The thing is that you have a shield, and it's of faith, and it'll actually quench or extinguish those fiery darts.

00:30:02.680 It's actually our faith that reminds us of the invisible truths of God, even when we cannot see them.

00:30:11.480 That's what faith is, and by faith, we can kind of deflect the lies of the enemy.

00:30:17.040 There's been so many times where I feel like I'm being spiritually attacked, and what does it—I have to bring myself back to?

00:30:22.800 is man do i really believe in god do i really believe the truth that is in his word

00:30:29.360 and it is a testing of my faith when i am in spiritual battle and so faith is a shield man

00:30:36.700 when you have faith you can get hit with some crazy stuff and be fine because your faith

00:30:42.280 extinguishes that fiery dart um number five last thing you're gonna kind of put on as you walk out

00:30:50.460 the door is like a helmet. And if you watch soldiers get ready, they're not putting their

00:30:55.440 helmet on after they put their socks on. They're putting their helmet on last. Again, there's this

00:30:59.420 beautiful order here that's going on. And so, you know, as we wear the helmet of salvation,

00:31:04.960 our minds become more insulated against kind of the suggestions, the desires, the guilt.

00:31:12.980 Satan, man, he loves to make you feel guilty for things that you've repented of.

00:31:15.640 and the traps of the enemy that lay before us.

00:31:19.400 And we choose to kind of guard our minds

00:31:22.520 from this excessively world wisdom

00:31:26.600 and instead kind of think of the things that honor Christ.

00:31:29.780 Philippians 4, it talks about just think on good things.

00:31:32.580 Think on things that are edifying to one another.

00:31:37.020 Don't ponder on these terrible things with your mind.

00:31:40.380 And in doing so, we wear our salvation as a protective helmet.

00:31:43.240 We wear this kind of, this saving, this thing that saves us on our head.

00:31:49.600 And it's going to guard our hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.

00:31:54.600 And so there's so much cross-referencing here throughout the scriptures.

00:31:58.600 But really, it's true.

00:32:00.860 You want to kind of put that helmet of salvation on.

00:32:03.980 2 Corinthians 10, 4-5 says,

00:32:05.920 For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, they're not, like, fleshly, but mighty in God.

00:32:13.020 And what are they for? For pulling down strongholds. Verse 5, casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ.

00:32:25.360 This is a theme, guys, as you guys go through the scriptures, the New Testament, that it's a spiritual battle. You need to have spiritual truths that you kind of equip yourself with in the morning.

00:32:36.020 And that's why a lot of people read the word of God in the morning. They start praying in the morning, start understanding what's truth.

00:32:40.340 they prepare themselves for the day because you know what the enemy's got a plan to take you out

00:32:44.500 so what we just went over were the five offensive pieces of armor um listed in this passage but uh

00:32:53.580 now paul moves to the two defensive pieces of armor the sword of the spirit which is the word

00:32:58.980 of god and the action of prayer where we can communicate and receive strength from um essentially

00:33:05.820 our commander um the text says and the sword of the spirit which is the word of god praying always

00:33:12.520 with all prayer and supplication in the spirit being watchful to this end with all perseverance

00:33:17.600 and supplication for all the saints yeah so there's offensive and then there's defensive

00:33:23.020 and so uh you know a shield is offensive you know a sword is defensive and so there's

00:33:29.520 five offensive and two defensive and so the the first defensive element you got here is the sword

00:33:35.080 of the spirit and you know if a soldier standing before me like if i'm about to fight somebody and

00:33:41.480 a soldier standing before me i'm most threatened not by his shield i'm most threatened by his sword

00:33:49.400 um and it's not just his weapon but how good he is at using it and so if a guy has a gun

00:33:57.720 and he's 150 feet away from me,

00:34:00.580 I'm wondering if he can hit me.

00:34:04.460 But if the guy is a trained marksman

00:34:07.740 and an experienced soldier,

00:34:09.940 I don't care if I'm 150 away,

00:34:11.700 I'm worried because he can hit me

00:34:13.240 because he knows how to use that weapon well.

00:34:15.980 And so I want to ask you,

00:34:17.780 are you a novice

00:34:18.600 or are you an expert

00:34:19.920 in wielding the sword of the spirit?

00:34:23.240 The word of God is what it says.

00:34:25.060 Do you practice often

00:34:26.680 or do you rarely pick it up?

00:34:29.300 If you get yourself into a conversation,

00:34:31.920 someone's trying to exalt knowledge

00:34:34.580 against the word of God,

00:34:35.620 someone asks you a question,

00:34:37.080 someone shames Christianity,

00:34:39.340 someone attacks you with some sort of lie,

00:34:41.940 someone puts you in a situation

00:34:43.580 that's kind of puts your reputation at stake

00:34:45.820 or puts you in a risky situation.

00:34:47.980 Are you able to access the word of God,

00:34:50.580 the truth of God in that moment,

00:34:52.660 use it, pinpoint the lie and take it out?

00:34:56.680 You got to figure out, can you wield the spirit?

00:34:58.560 Are you defensive in that capacity?

00:35:01.240 Number seven is the power of prayer in the spirit.

00:35:05.660 And so this is kind of, this is a big deal.

00:35:09.600 They close, Paul closes this out with prayer.

00:35:14.400 Like, hey, you know what?

00:35:15.640 At the end of the day, prayer kind of seems to be the most important battle

00:35:20.080 or most important element of this battle.

00:35:22.320 and so the armor of a soldier without the kind of vigilance and care of a soldier is worthless like

00:35:30.040 man you got to be vigilant and in a spiritual warfare that's prayer that if you want to care

00:35:34.820 about the mission man that's that's prayer so there's actually seven pieces of armor yeah it's

00:35:39.320 not six it's seven this is another piece of the defensive you get to use the word of god and you

00:35:44.640 get to pray use the word of god and you get to pray and i believe this is kind of the main weapon

00:35:49.480 of spiritual warfare is prayer because that's where you get to actually change the war

00:35:55.120 you know because we have the the king who's sitting on the throne listening to those things

00:36:00.020 and um this is really allowing the spirit of god to lead your prayers this isn't you

00:36:05.000 um you know praying for your well-being this is actually for you being led by the spirit

00:36:10.640 praying for god's will to be done and whatever the spirit has prompted you to pray about romans

00:36:16.560 8 26 says likewise the spirit also helps us in our weakness and our weaknesses for we do not know

00:36:23.340 what we should pray for as we ought but the spirit himself makes intercession for us with groanings

00:36:30.180 which cannot be uttered and so it's like getting before the lord going oh gosh this world is so

00:36:35.560 broken our city is so broken father just sit before the lord quietly what do you want me to

00:36:42.300 pray for bring to me your will let me understand let me see and battle that thing out with prayer

00:36:50.860 and with the word of god and with all the other pieces that we talked about earlier

00:36:55.400 yeah and so in matthew uh 21 verse 13 where jesus says my house shall be called a house of prayer

00:37:01.440 he's actually talking about his house the church the christians believers you and i

00:37:06.320 um and ephesians is written to christians so the church can really only be effective as the

00:37:13.700 individual members of it um so the lord has armed us and we have got to pray um

00:37:21.200 so that way we can access the spiritual blessings and resources provided um to us

00:37:27.480 so that way we can stand against the enemy um so it's it's so important to pray we've got to

00:37:33.520 be praying about that yeah and it's not that jesus like needs us to win this battle oh no um but but

00:37:39.740 it is we are part of we're you know living stones a part of this building in which he is the

00:37:44.560 cornerstone we're part of this building which is his body the the church the bride of christ there's

00:37:50.380 all these beautiful word pictures and he does he equips us for some purpose uh for this capacity

00:37:57.400 to protect ourselves and to protect his commission and to do his work in the world and so it is it's

00:38:01.580 important it's such a critical part of this battle it allows us to engage in the activity in the

00:38:08.120 heavenly places yeah it does it allows us to engage in the things that matter uh for for his

00:38:12.940 plan and so guys we want you to just be watchful um in this capacity and that's what it closes out

00:38:20.940 with in this passage it says be watchful to this end with all perseverance just like all

00:38:29.420 perseverance like you don't stop you endure and then it says and supplication for all the saints

00:38:37.040 how many of the saints all of them okay stop praying just for your local thing you there's a

00:38:45.480 got to get a universal picture of the church here and we got to start praying for all the saints

00:38:49.500 and for me and this is paul talking about in the context of his focus that and what does he want us

00:38:56.340 to pray for he says right here that utterance may be given to me that i may be or that i may open my

00:39:02.440 mouth boldly to make known the mystery of the gospel for which i am an ambassador in chains

00:39:08.160 that in it i may speak boldly as i ought to speak the prayer is to go be bold for paul paul is like

00:39:15.340 just pray for me so i could go be bold and so i just want to apply that to your own life lord

00:39:20.600 help me be bold I'm tired of being quiet or sitting when you told me to stand

00:39:25.740 I'm tired of being afraid of the fear of man I'm tired of not saying

00:39:29.720 truth when I have an opportunity I'm tired of not knowing I'm tired of being

00:39:33.820 weak these kind of things the Lord has given us these things

00:39:37.580 for a reason for us to be strong in him and so

00:39:41.960 the victims of warfare are always the untrained

00:39:46.260 the unprepared and the unwilling and so if you're sitting there and you're struggling with depression

00:39:52.940 you're struggling with anxiety you're struggling with fear you're struggling with addiction you're

00:39:56.260 struggling with whatever besetting sin or besetting attack um ask yourself are you prepared

00:40:06.260 are you willing and are you trained and i think this passage of scripture should really encourage

00:40:12.360 you. And if you're tired of being wounded by spiritual attack, this is really the solution

00:40:17.380 that the scriptures give. It's a kind of a full picture of that. And again, how do we practically

00:40:23.680 do this? I think make it part of your routine. I think you just kind of start off in the morning

00:40:27.500 and you kind of go through that checklist. You go, okay, the belt, the breastplate, right, the feet,

00:40:33.500 the shield, the helmet, you know, the word of God, the sword of the spirit, praying, like, okay,

00:40:40.160 like let's just put this together in some sort of routine learn about this study about this

00:40:44.480 equip yourself every morning so you can go out for battle all right you good on that i'm good

00:40:51.880 okay we're gonna close out guys um if you want to listen to this episode again or if you want

00:41:00.780 to look at the show notes we got some of the things that we mentioned here some of the quotes

00:41:04.060 that we said all the scripture references that we made um you can always do that at relearnchurch.org

00:41:09.840 forward slash listen you can also listen to this on youtube you can listen to it on spotify and

00:41:14.380 google play and um you can watch it on youtube as well yeah you can watch it on youtube so

00:41:19.920 on that note we are excited for we have some really great shows coming up for you

00:41:24.420 um in the next couple weeks and thank you guys for just being dedicated listeners to the

00:41:29.660 real christianity podcast we will see you guys next week see ya

Dale Partridge - July 24, 2019

Real Christianity #55： How to Put on the Armor of God

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