We need to understand the name of each piece of armor and what it stands for, what it protects and what we are appropriating. Each piece of the armor we must deliberately put on. We put on an attribute of God as we identify with Him. It is not inherent in the human nature.
The armor is entirely transference from the Lord to us. To put on means to clothe ourselves with, this is talking about our spirit and our soul. About our mind, a mindset. About our emotions.
The attributes of God flow into our spirit and then into our soul so that we are conscious of them, and then they clothe us.
When we are a baby in Christ, the Lord puts a hedge around us, and we are protected. But as we grow up in Christ, He lowers the hedge and we have to put on the armor of God. The Lord will use the enemy for our growth in God. The enemy comes against us so that we must put on the Lord in order to grow in the attributes of God or get wiped out.
Jesus defeated Satan for us. Therefore, it is not a matter of our strength; it is a matter of our appropriation. To appropriate means to take possession of.
Our identification with the Lord releases the transference. We are strong in the Lord and in the power of His might. We war against principalities and powers, but we do it in His might.
Ephesians 6: 10 Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord, and in the power of his might. 11 Put on the whole armor of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. 12 For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places. 13 Wherefore take unto you the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand. 14 Stand therefore, having your loins girt about with truth, and having on the breastplate of righteousness; 15 And your feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace; 16 Above all, taking the shield of faith, wherewith ye shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked. 17 And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God: 18 Praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit and watching thereunto with all perseverance and supplication for all saints.
We put on the armor to stand against the methods of the devil, he comes to steal, kill, and destroy.
We must come into an understanding and a deep discernment of the schemes of Satan. The enemy will come in with his schemes to trip us up with just one little thing. But to be yielded to God and to learn that our strength is in the Lord, we can overcome him. It is in His might that we prevail against the schemes of the enemy.
How do we overcome the schemes of the devil? We withdraw into the Lord. Knowing that we fall short, we are not moved into action in ourselves, but we withdraw into the Lord and trust Him. We believe in Him. We draw His armor upon ourselves.
The wiles of Satan can cause people who have so much from God to use human reasoning, instead of following divine revelation at that critical hour when they could take a step on with God. This is a very important message to our hearts. We must appropriate the whole armor of God, that we may be able to stand firm against the schemes of the devil.
Eph 6: 14Stand (command now) therefore, having your loins (seat of generative powers, intense emotions) girt about (definiteness of action, wrapped around) with truth (the unveiled reality a manifestation).
The enemy comes with lying circumstance, a false reality to get us to accept it.
Every part of the anatomy of the body has a spiritual as well as a soulish significance. The loins refer to the upper and lower abdominal regions, a vulnerable area.
The loins are the seat of all manifestations of intense emotions. We are to, Gird up the loins of your mind. 1 Peter 1:13. The part of the mind which is given to emotions must be girded.
The loins are the seat of all manifestations of intense emotions. We are to, Gird up the loins of your mind. 1 Peter 1:13.
The loins, the bowels, the kidneys all speak of our emotions in the scriptures.
We must have protection against the satanic assault upon our emotions. Satan will come against the seat of our emotions, our loins.
The New Testament uses the word “bowels” instead of loins, which involves the same thing.
We are to put on the bowels of compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience. The bowels are the seat of these emotions, and this is where we need protection.
As soldiers in the army of the Lord we need adequate defenses. The first area of need is our loins; it is the most vulnerable area, even more so than our minds.
A lot of People do things wrong because they have been wounded in their emotions, it is not the intent of their heart, and their thinking agrees that it is wrong. It is the heart that is wounded and not the mind. It is in this area that people are defeated.
The armor of the Lord protects our emotions; our loins are to be girded with truth. This is not just talking about any truth. Divine truth is the only thing that has the power to control emotions. If someone is emotionally upset, it is not enough to just sit down with them and talk about the facts. The Holy Spirit must reveal the truth, the big picture, the reality lying at the basis of. We need to see the will of God for our lives, how He can turn it around for our good, to see it in the light of eternity.
It is the expression of truth that sets us free. When God reveals the answer, when He shines in our heart, when we see the light, we need to walk in that light. We need to act on it immediately and determine to practice the truth revealed daily until it is written upon our heart and becomes our response.
When God speaks a word to our heart, that word becomes a liberating force within us to set us free from the intense emotions which can destroy us.
The real problems come through deception, a lie, or some intense experience in the emotional life. When we are emotionally disturbed most of the things we do are not generated by the reasoning of our mind. There is no reasonableness in what many people do. They act because they are involved emotionally. When our emotions are not under the influence of The Spirit of God we make wrong decisions.
When God gives us a word and it is confirmed to us, then we can gird ourselves with the truth in our emotional life. The moment we have a word from God and faith in that word is conceived in our spirit, we will find that we do not react emotionally if the circumstances appear different. We have faith in a truth that exceeds our reason that exceeds the appearance of the situation. It is a word from God, and the truth of that word girds us about. Now we can walk exactly the way we are supposed to walk before the Lord.
When emotions like loneliness, anger, jealousy, depression, frustration, fear or any other contrary emotion hit us. Then we must find out from the Lord what we are to do about it, and act accordingly.
It may be a lie and an illusion. If Satan has had access to hit us, he will always try and hit us below the belt. He hits us in the loins. He tries to paralyze us by hitting us in the loins, and that is why this piece of armor is designed for that area.
Our emotions will have to be controlled or protected so that they are not vulnerable. The only way we can protect ourselves is with the divine truth. It will solve these problems again and again.
Of all of the ways the enemy could come against us, we should be alerted to these wounds the most, if the enemy can get to our emotions, he can disable us.
Our protection is in the truth that God brings to our heart. Our protection is not our truth, but God’s truth. It is a word from the Lord that enables us to walk in the Spirit.
The pieces of armor are named; so that we know where each piece is supposed to go. The loins are the seat of our emotions, so we must have the truth of God’s Word to gird us.
The pieces of armor are named; so that we know where each piece is supposed to go. The loins are the seat of our emotions, so we must have the truth of God’s Word to gird us.
Having on the breastplate of righteousness.
The heart must be righteous, for it is deceitful and desperately wicked in its natural state. How can we keep it from the evil of circumstances round about us? We hide it by a breastplate which serves two purposes: it protects from what comes from without, but it also serves as a covering of righteousness over your own being to prevent unrighteousness from coming up and manifesting itself.
Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life. We must have something that keeps our 7heart and protects us. Out of it is the very thing that sustains life.
There is a strength and sustenance to the whole life through His righteousness. It is an upholding thing. “I will uphold you with the right hand of My righteousness” (Isaiah 41:10).
When our heart is right with God, we can feel the power of God in our spirit rising, it upholds us, lifts our head up into the heavenly places in Christ.
As the army of the Lord, we put on armor. Ephesians emphasizes putting on the whole armor of God. We must understand that it is His righteousness, and it is our prerogative to put it on.
This is not a righteousness that we manufacture; it is not something that we attain by our own efforts or discipline. It is something we acquire by faith. We put it on. He becomes our protection. He becomes the aura of immunity round us. It is a very real thing.
We must put on the whole armor of God; if one piece is missing it leaves us vulnerable. This armor is not manufactured by the old self, it has nothing to do with human attributes, it is divine. It is not something attained through our own efforts or self-discipline, it is acquired through faith and this faith is not of our selves it is a gift from God.
When the word speaks of putting on the armor of God it is talking about being clothed with the Spirit. When we are clothed with the Spirit, we are more aware of Him than anything else; whatever else may have been warring against us loses its power as we are caught up in the Spirit. It becomes insignificant (too small and unimportant to be relevant).
We put on His righteousness. This eliminates the feelings of guilt that come from the old self. Our heart is constantly aware of its problems, and unless we allow the Spirit of God to search it in deep repentance, our heart will condemn us, so that we are not fully armed. If we try to cover over, it is like painting a building that has tar on it, in time it sweats through the paint.
The moment we set our heart to let His Spirit cleanse us, His righteousness will clothe us. His righteousness is the answer, to the unrighteousness that remains in our heart, or what is left of the old nature that comes to the surface. As His righteousness comes upon us through God’s Spirit coming upon us it has a penetrating effect where it cleanses us.
The moment we set our heart to let His Spirit cleanse us, His righteousness will clothe us. His righteousness is the answer, to the unrighteousness that remains in our heart, or what is left of the old nature that comes to the surface. As His righteousness comes upon us through God’s Spirit coming upon us it has a penetrating effect where it cleanses us. The Lord is our provision. He becomes our righteousness. It is not something we produce; it is the infilling of Himself into us.
When we come and stand in His presence, the Lord looks upon us and sees His own righteousness. He looks upon His own purity and covers us in our unworthiness. It is a great defense in battle.
It is as we press into God where we are filled with the Spirit, that we receive the cleansing of the Spirit and are clothed with God’s righteousness. The infilling of the Spirit displaces any unrighteousness in us.
Now we come to verse 15: and having shod your feet with the preparation of the gospel of peace; … Do you know what a greave is?
A greave was a piece of armor that fastened at the knee and extended to the foot, so that it gave protection to the front of the feet. At the time of battle, the shins could be the most vulnerable point of the body.
In the Scriptures the feet are given a symbolic meaning. There must be that which protects us. Our greatest defeats come from the fact that we wander into dead ends, that we are not directed as we should be. We fall into the traps and snares that are laid for our feet.
One device used in ancient ways of battle was to attach large sickles to the hubs of chariots, so that as the chariots came through, they cut the legs off the men on the field of battle. Once a man was crippled, he was out of the fight. No matter how strong he was elsewhere, if he was disabled in his feet, he was in a dangerous position.
What is it that gives a man endurance, that gives him immunity from misdirected effort, from walking into traps, from failing, from being crippled in the hour of battle so that he finally falls? It is the preparation of the gospel of peace.
Notice that it is a preparation. This is not speaking about the Lord giving peace in the hour of testing, but about something that comes beforehand.
It is the ingredient that keeps your heart and mind. The peace of God that passeth all understanding is the guardian over your heart and your mind (Philippians 4:7). The preparation of the gospel of peace is that which God does in our lives that protects us and prepares us for the battle before we ever get to it.
We are striving in our walk with God to be able to predetermine our reactions to a problem before we encounter it, instead of resolving them at the moment of encounter. In other words, it is as though we have already fought through the situation. A good soldier does that.
The success or the failure of battle depends a great deal upon the feet. The old warrior, David, in his great psalm of praise in 2 Samuel, refers to his feet as a protection and as the means of moving into a new position. Predetermination, the peace that fills your heart, is the action by which you position yourself in the battle. You move into it, and everything is all right.
For by Thee I can run upon a troop; by my God I can leap over a wall. 2 Samuel 22:30. His source of strength is always “by my God.”
… And my feet have not slipped. I have pursued my enemies and destroyed them, and I did not turn back until they were consumed. And I have devoured them and shattered them, so that they did not rise; and they fell under my feet. For Thou hast girded me with strength for battle; Thou hast subdued under me those who rose up against me. Thou hast also made my enemies turn their backs to me, and I destroyed those who hated me. 2 Samuel 22:32–41.
This was his prerogative and his requirement: to eliminate those enemies of the kingdom. There is something here that God is trying to get through to us. You see, your feet become a symbol of triumph, because it is under your feet that it is God’s pleasure to bruise Satan (Romans 16:20). From the Garden of Eden, it was ordained of the seed of the woman that Satan would bruise his heel, but that he would bruise Satan’s head (Genesis 3:15).
The feet are a symbol not only of standing in the battle, but also of the ultimate triumph over all the enemy. It is significant that we call this a walk with God; again, we are talking about the feet. We do not call it a meditation, but a walk, because the feet are how we progress from one point to another from one level to another.
They did not walk in the wilderness; they wandered. A walk takes you from someplace to someplace.
Now we come to another piece of armor, a very beautiful one: … in addition to all, taking up the shield of faith with which you will be able to extinguish all the flaming missiles of the evil one. Ephesians 6:16. We need to learn how to put out the fires from the flaming missiles which come from the enemy.
Now, let us get into a description of the flaming missiles that come against us and see how faith can be brought to stand against them. The flaming missiles coming at us are things that burn, things that torment.
But when we come to this defense piece of armor, we understand that Satan is doing what he can to create as much misery, as much torment as he possibly can. Satan is going to hell, but he does what he can now to create a hell for those who serve God. It is the same burning type of missile that comes against us.
These flaming missiles can come in many ways. Psychic and demonic assault continually comes against the Body of Christ. You can know the hostility of thoughts coming against you. You are aware of the demonic assault that comes, but sometimes it goes beyond that: it becomes a matter in which you have failed. Your conscience will burn, and you cannot get rid of it. It torments you; it burns.
Some of the flaming missiles of the enemy are doubt, discouragement, mistrust, jealousy, delays of promises of God coming to pass in the natural realm, the evil person prospering.
How do we extinguish the fiery darts, the things that burn and you can’t seem to stop the burn? A burn is a sustained pain that bothers you. When you burn your hand on the stove, it seems as if it keeps burning. And there are things which Satan brings, like flaming missiles that burn and will not stop.
This piece of armor can be moved to cover whatever is coming against you. It is a little more versatile than the other pieces you have because anything could come at you.
The shield of faith isn’t faith to keep them from hitting you; the Word says, “faith to extinguish all the flaming missiles.” It is a shield of another kind, it is a shield that prevents your spirit from rising up in a situation and being defeated; after its full impact has hit you, your faith can still deal with it, extinguish it, end the torment of it.
Faith to extinguish all the fiery darts of the wicked is a “putting-out” operation, because I do not think there is anyone who is not vulnerable. You cannot say they will never hit you, because they deal with the internal processes of your thinking, what you are as a person, your reaction to everything round you. All Satan is doing is trying to get at a thing in your flesh, something in you that causes you to react this way.
Faith is both defensive and aggressive. Faith defends us when the enemy comes against us, but faith also aggressively appropriates all that God has and seizes from the hand of the enemy that which he tries to prevent us from having.
Faith is the most aggressive weapon we have, because once we visualize the promises of the Lord and they are confirmed to us, our faith moves us into the position of appropriating.
In Ephesians 6:17, the first part of the verse, we find additional armor for soldiers of the Lord: And take the helmet of salvation. There are words for helmet in both the Old Testament Hebrew and the New Testament Greek. But the Greek word, perikephalaia, could just as well be a hard hat. It means literally, “something that is wrapped around the head.” Encirclement of the head.
Ephesians 6:17, 1 Thessalonians 5:8: But since we are of the day, let us be sober, having put on the breastplate of faith and love, and as a helmet, the hope of salvation. Here it is called “the hope of salvation.”
Salvation is a matter of faith … by grace you have been saved through faith, Ephesians 2:8—yet the whole experience of our salvation is sustained by maintaining a hope of salvation.
We are saved-spirit, we are being saved-soul and we shall yet be saved-body.
Various ones in the Body are confronted with the problem of utter despair, of facing so many circumstances and problems without this living hope that God gives to the mind. It is like a helmet that protects it. If they do not have it, they become vulnerable to very great depths of despair, depths which can shatter them.
In Romans 4:18 we read of Abraham, Who against hope, believed in hope that he might become … Apply this to yourself. The Scripture continues, “that he might become the father of many nations,” but “against hope.” In other words, when there was no basis of hope at all, he believed in hope, that he might become.
If you want to become something in God, there must be a hope like Abraham had, a hope based on faith, which fills your mind. That hope absolutely is not a human hope, because you will come to the place of utter despair on the human level.
But you must have faith that there is an answer for that continuing, exasperating circumstance, that problem which won’t go away; it is right there to haunt and oppress you.
You say, “I am being bombarded by feelings and emotions, by thoughts I can’t control.” Circumstances, oppressions, demonic forces can help contribute to it, but put on that hard hat (or that crash helmet), because it is the best thing there is for soft heads!
When the enemy would get to you, and the oppression would become an obsession and you cannot get away from it, this is the only protection.
The helmet of salvation is a piece of armor for everyone going into battle. It keeps the devil from getting to you and obsessing your mind with some problem.
We must bring the mind in complete subjection to the Lord, because even when revelation comes to the heart, the mind is constantly assailed by the fiery darts, the fiery missiles of the wicked one.
“Now put on the whole armor of God—this piece for your head, this piece for your heart; this piece for your feet go in and battle.” He means, “Appropriate the attributes of God!” The hope of salvation as a helmet is not a human ability.
What is the hope of salvation? It is the Lord’s hope! It is the Lord’s great expectation! He is seated at the right hand of the Father, henceforth expecting till his enemies be made the footstool of his feet. Hebrews 10:13. Christ is so active; our blessed Lord is believing for us. He has hope and an anticipation, and He conveys that to us as we pass through these days.
Isaiah 59:16Now the Lord saw, and it was displeasing in His sight that there was no justice. And He saw that there was no man and was astonished that there was no one to intercede (what is he saying? that no one was capable of bringing the victory to the believer); then his own arm brought salvation to Him; and His righteousness upheld Him. And He put on righteousness like a breastplate, and a helmet of salvation on His head. We see that Isaiah is the basis by which Paul saw the Christian armor. This is what we are speaking of now.
Take the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. With every piece of armor, you are reaching into attributes of God to replace the vulnerable attributes of man.
What we are short, we appropriate from God. We put on the armor of God and are literally encased with His divine nature; this becomes our protection.
It is not something apart from God, for He is never separated from His attributes. God’s attributes can be communicated, for God is a Spirit, not having limitations or restrictions.
Now we come to one part of armor that I think is extremely important. It seems to be the only aggressive weapon in all the pieces of equipment here. Take the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.
The sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God, is the sword of the Spirit; it is not your sword. The Word of God never should be handled carelessly or lightly. It is not a sword to stick other people, but to bring the enemy down.
The sword should be an anointed bringing forth the Word of God in our spirit. You have the word in your heart, but “The Holy Spirit comes to bring to mind,”
Jesus said, “the things which I have spoken unto you” (John 14:26). At the moment the Holy Spirit reaches into the deep memory banks and brings forth that sword, and the anointing of the Holy Spirit is upon your lips for that word to come forth, oh, it could drive the enemy to his knees in complete surrender. He surrenders if it is in the Spirit. But if it is not in the Spirit, it does no good at all.
I want to show you something of the nature of the sword of the Spirit and why it is called a sword. It does pierce. Every time a message like this comes, even though its context is seemingly unrelated to your thoughts and your personal need, you feel as though something is cutting you up. It reaches down to motivation, it penetrates to the deep things in your life, and you say, “Lord, do something about all this. He says you do something, put on the whole armor of God.
The sword of the Spirit reaches deep, dividing asunder even of soul and spirit. It separates between that soulish activity which is so repulsive to God—that religious thing, that legalistic thing that God abhors—and comes to the spirit, for God is seeking men to worship Him in spirit and in truth (John 4:23). It comes right down and divides, telling us, “Now, here: that is soulish, and this is spiritual.”
18 Praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit and watching thereunto with all perseverance and supplication for all saints.
Praying in the spirit is the last thing mentioned. When we pray in the spirit, pray in tongues we are praying the perfect will of God. This becomes a weapon because it releases the will of God in our lives, builds up our spirit, and binds the enemy.
With all prayer, literally prayer of God. We pray with God not towards Him. We find out the will of God and speak it into existence. Supplication refers to the needs we have and others making request of God.
All- including all the forms of descent, any area falling short in our lives and others.
Watching- keeping awake, for all the saints.