How to Pray Yourself into Armor | Ephesians 6:10–20

Show Notes

Episode 788: 
In this episode, we dive into a discussion about the spiritual armor described in Ephesians 6:10-20. We emphasize the importance of being strong in the Lord and putting on the full armor of God to stand firm against the devil's schemes. We explore each piece of armor, discussing its significance and how it relates to our daily lives as Christians. The belt of truth, breastplate of righteousness, shoes of peace, shield of faith, helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit are all examined in detail.

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You're listening to The Bible Guys, a podcast where a couple of friends talk about the Bible in fun, in practical ways. That role in is so old, it is, it is I almost hate to change it. Maybe we can keep this, well, maybe we can keep the same music and Connor's voice, but maybe we can just change get a new video. Yeah, just get a new video. We should. Yeah, I think we should. We should, and maybe we can just grab it from maybe some of our podcast moments. I guess maybe we're getting We should talk to somebody about that. We could literally do it at anytime. We can have it done by next week. You want to, We just haven't done it. So anyway, Hey, we are welcome to the Bible guys. We're in the middle of a series called Dangerous Prayers. Actually, we're wrapping up this week and we're wrapping up this week with the with the prayers of perseverance, and today we're talking about how to rate yourself into the Armor of God. This is good. It's a good one like this one. I'm a fan of this one. Well. Hey, the segment that we have Desiree has for us today is called Guess the Word, and so taboo kind of like taboo. And so the question is, can Chris guess the keywords that I'm going to give clues to you about without using the taboo words? That's right? Okay, So I have five words that you need to guess. But hopefully if you're watching online, we're gonna put on the screen for. You that I'm not allowed to say on YouTube. Right, that's right, yep. And then and then you know your your goal is to race against me, and then guess them. That's right. And there's five of them. Yes, the uh sort of oh okay, okay, are you ready? Yes, Okay, here we go. We're gonna start right here. One, two, three. When you're riding a motorcycle, you need a helmet. There you go, very good. Wow. I wasn't allowed to say head protect, night wear safety okay, and I said you need a I didn't say you need to wear yeah, okay. Oh man. The next one is hard. Uh you need this to stop arrows shield. There you go, very good. It was allowed block defense round captain or protect so no captain America right right right? Different difficult one, Okay, this one is hard. You have to run the race, no, almost marathon no, when when it's a little difficult, it's difficult and dangerous. You've got to run the when when they're they're throwing things at you and trying to knock you down. You got to run the gauntlet. Yes, there you go, the gauntlet. They're very good. It's where we keep all the tools of war. Oh yeah, yeah, hand glove, thanos, iron and war. Oh that's hilarious. That's hilarious. Thing so exactly. So I almost said, uh, where you keep your infinity stones? I almost said that, but. Yeah, okay, okay, where you keep your tools of war? Just oh no, the room, No, the room, the building. I don't know. There there's there's there's one on Mound Road in Detroit. I don't know what this is, like an ammunition place or something. No, no, no, no, no, no, yeah, almost an ammunition place. It's called. I don't I don't know's. It's where all the guns would be stored. It's where all of the you. Know, I'm not a gun guy because I don't know these terms. Yeah no, no, this is their military terms, so I'm not allowed to say military. I just realized that messed up. Oh you blew it? What is it? Armory, armory, Yes, weapons storage, armory, armor military. Isn't that so funny? You would have gotten that hard. Yeah, well there's an armory down the road, like we have a bunch of people at hair districts at work at the armory. That's okay. And then last one, sorry everybody, then last one. Uh. In the Book of Revelation, yes, the devil is described as a as a thief, as a in the Book of Revelation, comes up out of the pit. The enemy. Oh come on, I'm so so the devil, the devil, he comes up. Out of the pit as a she whiz, I'm not as a flaming. A flaming, it's a it's a beast. Dragon. There you go. It's a hard one. He's a fiery dragon. Yeah, so say fire wings myth reptile or fantasy. Now, I know in Revelation they described Mary's birth and they talk about him being a dragon. But I didn't know that he comes up out of a fiery pit as a dragon. It is also the same thing. It's the same same beast. Well, I know it's the same beast, but I didn't know that. That's yeah. I'm thinking to myself, like he's described as a and I'm thinking, gee, whiz, isn't he described a lot of different ways. In revelation, but mostly as a dragon? Okay, dragon escaped me. Yeah, it's okay, that's okay. That was a good one. Yes, so are our I'm not as good at getting the hints out or. The clues out to you. No. I thought he did really good except for the military armory. You slipped on military. Yeah, the armory. But you know, so. Our listeners, because I messed up on that one, they got ten thousand points right there. Wow, that one, just on that one, y wow, So to be them and then and then you got four so blessed, So you got four correct ones. Is that right? Yes? Yeah, so you got four thousand points altogether. That's good. So it looks like our listeners beat us. Yeah, okay, that's what happened. So one mistake Calcassia, Yeah, yeah, that's the lesson one mistake. Can you lose to win with one mistake? Okay, there's no redemption, there's no second chances, everybody, that's right. So you gotta protect yourself, that's yeah, I guess, yeah, protect yourself, which you know, the best thing to protect yourself with his armor. Oh there, it is right. We need to put on the armor. There's the horrible transition. You gotta protect yourself against my penalty points that I made out. That's right. You know who else needs to protect themselves? Christians? Christians need the armor. Hey, you know what you could have done. You could have talked about arrows and shields. And was that allowed to say arrows? Remember you said you need this to protect against arrows and I said shields. That was one of the uh and we're talking about the shield of faith. Oh yeah, right, yeah, you. Could have done something like that. Yeah, but that's all right. I did say arrows. You did. You were allowed to say arrows. I was allowed to say arrows. Oh okay, yeah, okay. All right. So here we are and six verses ten through twenty. So he says a final word, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. Put on all of God's armor, so that you'll be able to stand firm against all strategies of the devil. For we are not fighting against flesh and blood enemies, but against evil rulers and authorities of the unseen world, against mighty powers in this dark world, and against evil spirits in the heavenly places. Therefore, put on every piece of God's armor so you'll be able to resist the enemy in the time of evil. Then after the battle, you will still be standing firm, stand your ground, putting on the belt of truth and the body armor of God's righteousness for shoes. Put on the peace that comes from the Good News, so that you'll be fully prepared. In addition to all these, hold up the shield of faith to stop the fiery arrows of the devil. And put on salvation as your helmet. And take the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God. Pray in the Spirit at all times and on every occasion. Stay alert and be persistent in your prayers for all believers everywhere. And pray for me too. Ask God to give me the right words so I can boldly explain God's mysterious plan that the good News is for Jews and gentiles alike. I'm in chains now still preaching this message. Is God's ambassador, So I pray that I will keep on speaking boldly for him as I should. M h. So uh. This is obviously one of the coolest passages. It's one of my favorites to teach kids. Is it one of your favorite of my favorites. Uh, it's it's one of the coolest passages to teach in children's church. You know, you can have a lot of fun with themes, and you know you can bring in, uh a piece of armor. You can you have like a you know, you can buy one of those things, which we of course, I've bought plenty of those just for this lesson here. I've dressed up in armor. I've bought battles in armor. I've done kids camps with armor. I've done all these sorts of things. And I've actually seen legitimate armor that I wasn't a part of in church, but actually I've seen it in the castle where you know, the actual uh you know, true you know thing that was created for battle and uh. And it's interesting how in the first entry, of course, Paul would have written this and every single person would understand what these mean. It's just so symbolic, right, Yeah, so that you know, the the shoes of the Gospel of peace. Wait a minute, no, it's what is it? The shoes of Yeah, is the gospel piece. And then the shield of faith, the helmet of salvation, the breastplate of righteousness, Uh, the gird about your loins with faith? And then what also am I missing? The sword of the Word of God? Right? Yes? So is that it? Did? That cover everything? Sounds like it. Faith is is your shield? Yep? Yeah, and and and so they're all symbolic because the functions of all of these things, uh, they really sort of mimic uh, you know battle, right, So faith is gonna is going to be your defense, right, just like a shield would would stop everything coming your way, the fiery arrows. You know, it takes it takes faith. And just talk about that alone. You could do an entire six week series one on each one of these things, which I'm sure you've done in the past. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah yeah. But you know, the show of faith just to be able to stop whatever's coming your way, it takes faith to say, submit yourselves therefore to God, resist the devil, and he will flee from you, right, even the devil, even the demons believe and they tremble to have that sort of faith is one of the coolest things. And it's so symbolic of a warrior, you know, keeping away the defense anyway, he just goes on and on the word of God being a sword. So I think it's interesting, he says to it's the final word. So he's already written. This is six chapters. He's written in this letter, and he goes, now, let me finish this up. Be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. So a lot of times I think we make a mistake of trying to be strong on our own power. Sure, right, we just feel like what I need to do is I need to be more courageous. I need to be tougher, I need to be better. He's like, Hey, you don't have any chance to win in this battle if if it's in your own if it's in the flesh. So you have to be strong in the Lord. And then he says, so, then put on all of God's armor so that you'll be able to stand firm against all the strategies of the devil. He doesn't say, put on some of God's armor. Well, I've got lots of faith. What about the helmet of salvation? You're exposed without the helmet, what about the belt of truth? Right, just because you have faith, if your loins aren't good about with truth, then you're vulnerable. If you don't have on the you know, the the shoes of the gospel, the piece of the Gospel, then you're going to be vulnerable. So he says, put on the whole armor of God. And so how the Christian life, how God's designed his word, the presence of the Holy Spirit, the challenge and the encouraging accountability of other believers in our life, the keeping our lives wholly and clean, all these things are part of that. They all work in conjunction together to protect us. And so he's saying, put on all of God's armor. Don't just put on the moment and run out there, because without the shield, you're going to get wiped out, right, right, You're not going to win without a sword of the spirit. Right. And so I think that sometimes we as Americans were so independent, we love to kind of make the Christian life be an a la carte thing. I really like the faith thing, don't really like sharing the gospel thing. I really like the helmet of salvation. But I don't like to just put on the belt of truth. Right, And so it's not an oli cart it's put on the whole armor of God. And a lot of times we want to go halfway and then we wonder why we get completely defeated because we're only go in halfway. Yeah, that's really good. And you know, verse number twelve says, for we are not fighting against flesh and blood enemies, but against evil rulers and authorities and the unseen world, and against mighty powers in the dark world, and against evil spirits and the heavenly place. Well, clearly Paul didn't know about Republicans and Democrats because the Christians that listen on our popcast. No, we are fighting against other people, right, Okay. I wonder how you're going with that. We are fighting against other people that we we don't like each other. People are bad, right, and people on the other side of the aisle, they're horrible, and Paul saying, man, it's not the issue, you know, it's it is interesting because that one verse summarizes so much, right because if you think about it, like, you know, here, here are the Jewish people. They're under, you know, oppression by the Romans. So constantly there's people walking around who who are you know, they've already taken your country captive. You're sort of under their regime, and and and everybody, and of course everybody when they think of a Roman soldier. That's what they think of. They think of the hats with the big fluff and the swords and the armor and big red capes, right right, So you already know that, like this is a part of their everyday existence and language, and so they have constant enemies with armor, they have you know, uh threats. Paul himself is you know, definitely been. He's been threatened constantly with death. They've seen, they've seen what happened to their savior, who you know, was crucified and mobbed against. And so he's saying, the enemies aren't It's not Kyphas, it's not the Roman army, right, your enemies? Yeah, I mean there are things that are going to oppose you, and there's persecution of Christians currently, but that's not your real enemy. Your real enemy happens in the unseen world. We're not fighting against flesh and blood. And so it's interesting because sometimes we think our enemy is, you know, our boss is persecuting us for being a Christian. Have you ever had that? Have you ever been actually persecuted or pointed out or discriminated against because of your faith in a situation. Yeah, I lost the job over the fact that I was a Christian. Yeah, yeah, like and where tell us? I mean, you don't have to name the company? Yeah, I had, I had two. No, it was a small business. And the guy hired me and then found out that I was a Christian. Let me know, he hated working with Christians and that I wasn't going to last there very long. And then just a few probably two months later, he fired me. Wow, he just couldn't stand me. Yeah, I got I got bench. So you know, I played a lot of baseball as a kid and a teenager, and I was good and my dad and I my dad came to me after we became Christians, and he said, hey, you know, are we going to make God first? Or are we going to make baseball first? And you know, Matthew six thirty three seek first his kingdom and his right living and all these other things to be added to you. My dad said, you. Know, maybe we should make a decision about church. Are we going to play on Sundays just because the team's playing on Sundays? Whatever? And I was playing on teams that played a lot of tournaments, so you know, you had to try out for the team, and then we played tournaments and they'd be like Friday night, Saturday and Sunday championship game. And there were a lot of times where I would I would not play on Sunday morning, right, so I would I would help the team get to the championship game, but then wouldn't play the championship game. And I was the leadoff batter and the shortstop, so pretty critical both on offense and defense. Pretty critical spots. And then we had our youth group was on Wednesday nights at the time, and so I had gone to one of the coaches and I said, hey, you know, my youth group's on Wednesday night, and my faith is really important to me. I can make it to all the other practices, but I need to leave practice at five o'clock on Wednesdays. And so I had one coach was okay, that's no problem. You know, we'll support it. I wound up getting traded to another team. I wound up being as other coach, and he said it was okay when I got traded. But then after a few weeks he came to me said, no, I think it's a bad precedent. You have to be at the practice. You're not to practice every time. That you leave a practice early, you're going to miss the first three innings of a game. I'm like, okay, And so he started benching me, and then it started. It was first three innings, and it was the first four innings. Finally, an old coach of mine, we were playing against Demna tournament, came out and goes, hey, how come you're not how come you set out the first half the game? I said, oh, I was coach. Kip decided that was what was best. He goes, is it because it's the church thing practice? Said yeah, you know, okay, and he traded his center fielder for me right then and put me on it and we went undefeated. The rest of the season. On thember the team. It was great, but I had so I had a coach who benched me over church attendance, and I had a boss fire me over. Over the thing. But you know what, I moved into one of the best jobs I ever ever had after I got fired there. So the Lord works things out. But in the moment, man, you know it's going to cost you a lot. Yeah, and uh, I had. I had a teacher that that publicly opposed me, ridiculed me, and made fun of me. Because I was a Christian in a public school, by the way, and uh and pointed out and laughed. I mean just everything, and it was just it was like, this is the worst thing in the world. But I remember reading this verse and I remember thinking to myself, like, she's really not the enemy, no, right, like there's a spiritual battle that's happening, and uh and and and it's and it's really trying my faith. It's trying my patience, it's trying my testimony, it's trying my you know, courage, is trying everything and uh. And then she ended up giving me an F. By the way, she gave me an F. And I had to go to my my mom and my dad and we fought it. And then turns out that she changed the rules of her grading system just to make sure that she was able to give me an F. Well, and she goes, no, these are my rules. This counts for this much. And they're like, that's not what you said at the end of the year. She's like, no, that's that's this year. I know I haven't done that in the past, but that's what I'm doing this year. And she changed it just to give me an F. And my parents who supported me said, hey, take it with pride. Yeah, well yeah, where it is a badge, ye, So that idea of standing, he says, so that you'll be able to resist the devil in the time of evil, and then after the battle, you'll still be standing firm. That's the same challenge to be strong in the Lord and his mighty power. Both of those things you just have decide. Hey, regardless of the consequences, I'm not fighting. People are not the enemy. Satan is the enemy. Now Satan uses people, he does things, but it's not the people. The people aren't the enemy. People who vote different than you aren't the enemy. It's how Satan is working in the world around us that's the enemy. So this is why the very first thing he tells us to do is put on the armor of God so be able to stand. And then we're not fighting. Its fresh and buddy, he says, so put on every piece of God's armor so to be able to stand and resist the enemy in the time of evil. And then he says, put on the belt of truth is the first thing. Right. So in the Life Application study Bible, there's this whole segment on the armor, and it says we're engaged in spiritual battle. All believers find themselves subject to the devil's attacks because they're no longer on the devil's side. I love that phrase. The reason why the devil hates us, You're not on the side anymore. And so so thus Paul tells us to use every piece of God's armor to resist these attacks, to stand firm, staying true to God in the midst of them. So with the belt, he says, put on the belt of truth. Right, that's going to sense everything up, that's going to hold everything together. Is God's truth. It's not our opinions, it's not the world philosophies, it's not our best ideas or strategies. Whatever holds everything together is God's truth. And so the devil fights with lies, and sometimes his lies sound like the truth. But believers have God's truth in his word, and God's truth will always defeat Satan's lies in the end. Right, So that's why we need God's truth. And then the body armor is what he says, the King James says, the breastplate of righteousness, right, and this it writes righteousness. The devil often attacks our hearts, and so our heart determines, you know, out of the bunch of heart. That's where the mouth speaks. Out of the bunch of heart, that's what we decide to do. Our heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked. Who can know it. That's why we need protection, and it determines the course of what Proverb says, above all else, guard your heart, because out of it comes the issues of life right and so man alife. There's nothing more important. Your life is determined by what your heart is driving you to be and do, and so you need the belt of truth holding it all together. But you need this breastplate of this body armor protecting your heart all the time and trusting. And he says that's righteousness. Righteousness is right living. So our heart also determines what kind of lifestyle we're going to live. Right, If our heart is really with the world, we're going to live wordly lifestyle. If a heart is really with God, we're going to live a right living kind of thing. And then the shoes piece that comes from the good news. The devil wants us to think that others telling others the good news is worthless and hopeless. But he says, man those shoes are for running into battle. And the battle you're running into is not just protecting your own life. The battle you're. Running into is to set captives free, right with the good news of the Gospel and then the shield of faith. Yeah, he said, you know, the devil's going. To take the book, right to take the gospel. Yeah, shoes, shoes that I love. Connectsed the shoes, yeah yeah. And combat shoes are designed for running forward. Yeah, right, they are. They're designed for you. Think of like armor. It's going to be protected up to your up to your knee caps. It's going to be good, good grip to be able to run. The Romans developed a shoe pattern on the bottom so that they got better grip. Than their enemies. Did you know that it was one of the advantages that the soldiers had that the Romans had that others didn't have. They protected their feet. Their feet were a better situation. They were able to run faster because of the thing. And so he's writing, the people who know about Roman fighters, sure, right, And so it's about running forward. It's a forward moving mission. By the way, none of the armor is on the back, all the armors out in front, right, it's an offensive thing, so that's kind of cool. And then you have the helmet of salvation. The devil wants to make you doubt, right, So salvation is a heart thing. But where the devil gets at you about your salvation is. In your thinking. Right, he wants to make you doubt, So you just need the helmet of salvation. It protects your minds from doubting God's work. And then the sort of the spirit. It's the only offensive weapon we have in this armor, and it's the word of God. And a lot of. Times I think we try to win our arguments by our We try to win people over by our best typed argument, and we're not using God's words. We try to lead people to Jesus, just talking about faith and talking about our feelings about Jesus and how he answers all of our prayers, but we don't ever take the time to learn scripture. Well, it's Sunday's message, yeah, right, Jesus said, and being tempted by the devil, his offensive weapon was the word of God. That's right, right. The only way he could he could fight Satan back was with the word of God. And so I'm always challenging people. Man, if you want to lead your friends and family, you want to lead your children to Jesus, it's not just your religious feelings or opinions that those are not going to lead people to Jesus. God's words lead are what cuts and and is what brings the victory. Right, You need God's word in order to defeat the devil in your life and in the lives of others. Yeah, and then I think Chield of Faith is the last one. Yeah, we already had Shield of Faith already said it. Then that's the six week sermon right there there, it is so and it's right there. So Hey, I definitely think that this passage, if it's new for a lot of us, it is a great passage to go back and read through. And just to contemplate, you know, what does this mean for my life? Do I pray every day in the morning? Do I get dressed before I leave? Because getting up and walking into a battle naked is probably not going to It's a rough way to fight. So therefore, you know, do I get up in the morning and do I spend time in God's word? Do I take the time to pray? Do I make sure that God is gonna you know, I go to God for strength, right, and you know, get dressed. Before you leave, before you get. Into the battle of the day. Go back and read it. I encourage you, especially if it's a brand new passage for you, and it'll be a good thing. I was in a just finished up real quick. I was in a castle in Austria and they had I think a Schomburne castle, one of the castles in Vienna, and they had all these armor, you know, like you're talking about all these coats of armor. But then they had a battled a set of armor that had gone through a battle, so all the other I'm shiny and polished. It was supposed to be for art, yes, and then some emperor, some king somebody that had lived in that palace had gone to battle and it was just dented and beat up all over. And I'm telling you that was way cooler, because that's what I think of when I think of this. You're going, he says, you're going into battle, so stand firm. And then he says, when you're done, you'll still be standing strong. Isn't that what he says? Put on there? He says, to resist a doubt, the devil in the time of evil. Then after the battle you will still be standing firm, and so there might be dense all over that armor, but thank god you had. If you've been running naked, one arrow would have taken that guy out. One hit from a mace would have taken that guy out one sort instead, though he had all that armor on, and he apparently survived. Apparently. It's pretty great. Yeah, that's really awesome. Okay, well, hey, that's a great place to end, and hopefully we'll see you tomorrow on the Bible. Guys,