We’ve been looking these past several
weeks at the various pieces of our supernatural armor. Today we turn our attention to the
helmet and sword.
Roman soldiers’ helmets were usually of metal,
though poorer soldiers may have had leather helmets fortified with pieces of
metal. The most obvious value of the helmet was to protect against blows to the
head. Thus,
it would have been unthinkable for a soldier to go into battle without his
helmet.
It ought to be equally unthinkable
for the Christian to engage in our spiritual warfare without the helmet of
salvation which God designed to protect our minds against demonic lies that
disorient, discourage, or deceive the Christian.
That’s why Paul wrote to the church at Corinth:
“For though we walk in the flesh,
we do not war according to the flesh, for the weapons of our warfare are not of
the flesh, but divinely powerful for the destruction of fortresses. We are
destroying speculations and every lofty thing raised up against the knowledge
of God, and we are taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ . .
. (2 Corinthians 10:3-5)
St. Paul also refers to the helmet of salvation
in 1 Thessalonians 5:8-9. In that letter he calls the helmet "the hope of
salvation.” The Greek word for hope (elpis) as used by the New
Testament writers is not a ‘maybe’ hope as in, “I hope it
won't rain Saturday.” Elpis describes something much more definite than
a wishful hope. It often carries the idea of a ‘joyful and confident
expectation’ that something will, or already has, occurred.
Here
is how the New Living Translation correctly renders the verse: “But let us
who live in the light be clearheaded, protected by the armor of faith and love,
and wearing as our helmet the confidence of our salvation.”
Did
you catch that? “The confidence of our salvation” is our impregnable
head covering which is immeasurably stronger than those worn by Roman soldiers on the
battlefield. The helmet is our protection against all the blows of the evil
one. It shields us from his many seductive lies – one of which you may have
heard yourself: “You can never be sure of your salvation until you die.”
I can’t imagine living
my life with Christ without trusting God’s word that assures me of my salvation.
If I can't trust THAT promise, then what else in Scripture can I not trust?
Without such confidence, how can we bring the good news of salvation to others if we
ourselves aren’t sure of it? Here are only a handful of
God’s sacred promises regarding our salvation. Notice please, the verb tenses
in these following texts.
1 John 5:13 “These
things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, so that
you may know that you have eternal life.”
John
5:24 “Amen, amen, I say to you, whoever hears my word and believes in
the one who sent me has eternal life and will not come to
condemnation, but has passed from death to life.”
John 20:31 “[B]ut
these have been written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the
Son of God; and that believing you may have life in His name.”
Luke 10:20 (The Lord Jesus, addressing 70 of His followers
whom He sent to preach) “Nevertheless do not rejoice in this, that the spirits
are subject to you; but rejoice that your names are written in heaven.”
I could take the next several pages of one promise after another in which God assures everyone who believes and obeys Jesus Christ that we HAVE eternal life. So, why do we let anyone or anything cloud our minds with half-truths and ‘what-ifs’ that rob us of the joy of that salvation?
In a world where nothing is
permanent, God’s promise of salvation through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ never
fades. That promise is our stability in an unstable world. It gives hope in the
worst of circumstances, enabling us to fight against despair and
discouragement! The
assurance of salvation is our impenetrable defense against anything the enemy
throws at us.
Follower
of Christ! Put on that helmet of the expectant hope of heaven. And keep it on. If you believe the good
news of our Lord Jesus Christ, if you obey Him who is God from God, Light from
light, true God from true God, begotten – not made – and consubstantial (meaning, of the
same essence as the Father and the Holy Spirit), then your name IS WRITTEN
right now in the
Book of Life.
Those are not my words. Those are the words of the Holy
Trinity Himself.
So, now with our helmet securely
fastened, let’s pick up the next piece of our armor: “The
sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.” (6:17)
Here is Hebrews 4:12 “For the word of God is living and active and sharper than any
two-edged sword, and piercing as far as the division of soul and spirit, of
both joints and marrow, and able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the
heart.”
The Scriptures will always remain the
bedrock of the truth with which we gird our loins. They will always be the
strength of our shield with which we stave off the fiery arrows of the enemy.
The Bible is the vitality of our breastplate of righteousness which God imputes
to us by His grace. It is the impermeable material that forms our helmet. It is
the energy behind the reason we shod our feet with the preparation of the
gospel of peace we bring to others.
The Catechism of the Catholic Church says
this about the Scriptures: "God is the author of Sacred Scripture
because he inspired its human authors; He acts in them and by means of them. He
thus gives assurance that their writings teach without error his saving
truth." (Catechism paragraph 136). In the same section of the
Catechism we read: In Sacred Scripture, the Church constantly finds her
nourishment and her strength, for she welcomes it not as a human word,
"but as what it really is, the word of God". "In the sacred
books, the Father who is in heaven comes lovingly to meet his children, and
talks with them." (Catechism paragraph 104)
As is true in any warfare, shrewd
military leaders engage in strategies of deception against their enemy. And Satan
is master at the game. He knows how critical God's sword is for the Christian, which
is why the devil diligently works to diminish the authority and the influence
of God’s word in our life.
Let me illustrate that point this way. In
the summer of 1990, I was deployed with the Navy to Iraq after Saddam Hussein
invaded Kuwait. Dressed in camouflage green, I stood with nearly fifty
other Navy and Marine Corps personnel in front of the warehouse at Camp
Pendleton in California to receive our chemical‑warfare
protective gear which included charcoal-impregnated overgarments and gas mask
with an attached rubber hood.
Of the known chemical weapons in Saddam’s arsenal, nerve agents caused the greatest concern because a droplet the size of a pinhead is sufficient to kill an unprotected person.
Of the known chemical weapons in Saddam’s arsenal, nerve agents caused the greatest concern because a droplet the size of a pinhead is sufficient to kill an unprotected person.
I still remember the supply sergeant
tell us to check our gas mask and hood. "Make sure it’s intact and free
from holes."
Holes? That caught my attention. I
carefully examined my mask and hood, turning it upside down and around in my
hands. Everything looked okay.
Then I noticed the sergeant hold
someone's hood up to the sun, inspecting it from the underside. A moment later
he tossed it into an already half‑full 50-gallon drum beside him. So, I looked
back at my own hood, giving it much closer scrutiny. What at first appeared to
be an intact hood revealed scores of tiny holes no larger than, well, no larger
than pinholes when held up to the light for closer examination.
One of Satan’s strategies in this
warfare is to introduce droplets of his toxins - pinhead size worms – by which he
intends to render the Scriptures by degrees impotent in the lives of
Christians. You may be familiar with some of those droplets, having read them
in magazines and books, or heard them promulgated in movies, the classroom, the
workplace – even in some churches. For example:
-The Bible is a compilation of moral
stories, but cannot be trusted to be the inerrant word of God.
-Because the stories were written by men
and copied time after time through the centuries, significant errors are sure
to have occurred in transmission.
‘There are no absolutes upon which we
may anchor our actions. Everything is relative.
-The Bible addresses the problems facing
today’s people with archaic and uselessly outdated methods.
-What was considered sin in Bible days
was rooted in the ignorance of a nomadic and intolerant people. Twenty-first
century humanity is far more knowledgeable and tolerant about what should be
considered wrong.
Had we been attacked with nerve gas my
defective chemical suit would have proven fatal for me. In the same way, we
dare not engage in spiritual battle without ensuring our spiritual armor is
intact. It is not the large gaping defects in doctrine which are the most
dangerous. They can be easily spotted and dealt with. Rather, it is the small
defects, the easily overlooked pinholes in the armor which allow the seeds of
death to take root.
The integrity of the Christian’s entire supernatural armor is rooted uncompromisingly in God's word. That’s why it is critical to examine every philosophy, every thought, every idea under the light of Scripture and the historic teaching of the church dating to the first century. There is too much at stake to be sloppy or casual about our spiritual gear. Pinholes can develop too quickly. And kill too easily.
The integrity of the Christian’s entire supernatural armor is rooted uncompromisingly in God's word. That’s why it is critical to examine every philosophy, every thought, every idea under the light of Scripture and the historic teaching of the church dating to the first century. There is too much at stake to be sloppy or casual about our spiritual gear. Pinholes can develop too quickly. And kill too easily.
During this series on spiritual warfare,
we’ve looked at our spiritual armor piece by piece. But please realize each
piece is an integral part of the entire armor of God. If the Roman soldier
entered the battlefield without any part of his armor, he was at increased risk
of serious injury or death. And so it is with our spiritual armor. If we
neglect any piece of it – the belt of truth, the breastplate of righteousness,
the sandals for our feet, the shield of faith, the helmet of salvation, the
sword of the Spirit – if we neglect any of it, we are at increased risk of
serious spiritual injury or even death.
Next time we will conclude this series
with the final piece of our armor – prayer.
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