How Do You Wear The Armor Of God

Hello, this is Matt Slick from the Matt Slick Live Podcast, where I defend the Christian faith and lay out our foundations of the truth of God's Word. Your chosen Truth Network Podcast is starting in just a few seconds. Enjoy it, share it, but most of all, thank you for listening and for choosing the Truth Podcast Network. This is the Truth Network, encouraging prayer. God offers an open invitation for His people to talk with Him at any time about anything.

On encouraging prayer, Dr. James Banks, author of the bestselling Prayers for Prodigals and many other books on prayer, provides weekly biblical insight to help you learn to love to pray. And now, here's James. So, we're going to start today with this scenario. Imagine that you're about to head into battle and you're not alone. There are others with you in the fight and you're wearing body armor that could save your life. But before the fight, a friend, a veteran, who's been in several battles before, comes to you and he says, you're wearing the armor wrong. And if you do it that way, you could be a casualty.

You would listen to that friend, wouldn't you? Because that's what today's talk is about, right? How do you wear the armor of God, James? Some years back, we talked on this program about how much the armor of God, talked about in Ephesians 6, matters when we pray.

And here's the quote I shared then from Oswald Chambers' book, So I Send You. The armor is for the battle of prayer. Take up the whole armor of God, stand for the, stand therefore, and then pray. The armor is not to fight in, but to shield us while we pray. Prayer is the battle. So he paints this picture of the armor of God being there to help us for one main reason. Wow, yeah, I find that fascinating because we don't want, we don't tend to see it that way, right? We tend to put on the armor of God as this general sense, as if it's for a normal Christian life, but you're pointing really to so much more.

Yeah, that's right. And if you think about it, it does make sense because prayer is one of those areas where we all know we can do better and we may feel like we're just beaten at it again and again. Just think of how often we say things like, oh, I just don't have the time to pray. And prayer is so much more about spiritual warfare than we realize because that's what's going on then.

Because if the devil can keep us from prayer, he can render us ineffective because we're fighting our battles and our strength and not God's. And honestly then, when we look at Ephesians 6, we tend to only read part of the passage, not the whole. And other parts of the passage make it really clear that we're talking about prayer.

How's that? Well, we need to remember that verse 12, before you get to the armor, tells us our struggle is not against flesh and blood, right, but against spiritual forces in the heavenly realms. And then after Paul goes into the pieces of the armor in verse 18, he says this, and I'm going to read it because it's important, and pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the people. Pray also for me that whenever I speak, words may be given to me, so I may fearlessly make known the mystery of the gospel, for which I am an ambassador in chains. Pray that I may declare it fearlessly, as I should. So you see the word that occurs over and over again?

Pray, pray, pray, pray. But in a lot of Bibles, all of that actually starts with a new paragraph, but it shouldn't. There's no break in the original Greek. Paul's whole point in mentioning the armor is to get us there, that we need to be armored in order to pray. Wow, that's a great point.

So let's talk about how to put that on, right? Because, you know, we don't want to be a casualty. Yeah, yeah, exactly. So what the Bible makes really clear is that the armor of God is His armor. He gives it to us. And most of the time, when Paul is writing about the armor, he's actually borrowing from other Old Testament references.

How so? Well, Isaiah 59, 17 says about God, he put on righteousness as his breastplate, and a helmet of salvation on his head. So Paul's starting point isn't an emphasis on ourselves, but on God, and how we are to turn to Him. The armor is His, as is the strength we need. And there's only one way to get it.

We have to go to Him. Yeah, that makes sense. And if I think I'm going to save myself, or that the righteousness in my life is my own and not Christ's, you know, there would be a lot of gaps in my armor.

Exactly. So next, the belt of truth is actually Jesus' truth. Paul describes this in Ephesians 4, 18 and 21 about Jesus' truth. But the point is that that Jesus gives us new identity at our core. And Isaiah 11, five prophesies this about Jesus. So I'm reading from the New Living Translation. He will wear righteousness like a belt, and truth like an undergarment.

So an undergarment basically kind of, again, a larger belt type thing. Underneath it all, in other words, it's His truth that keeps us and holds us together. Wow, it's amazing to see those Old Testament links.

Yeah, yeah. I mean, another is the shield of faith. Remember what God told Abraham in Genesis 15, one, I am your shield.

You're a very great reward. And, of course, Peter writes about Jesus, through faith in Him, we are in First Peter, one, five, shielded by God's power. Shielded by God's power.

Wow, that is so good. Because, as you're saying, it's God's power. So when the devil tells us, you can't pray, just look at you, why would God listen to you, right? It helps to remember that it is Jesus' righteousness and the salvation He gives that we're wearing, right? It's His truth that surrounds us and gives us a new identity.

Yeah, that's just it, Robbie. And we take our stand in all that Jesus is, accepting the truth that we're completely forgiven and have peace with God because of Jesus, from Romans 5, 1. And when we do this, here we come to another part of the armor, feet fitted with the gospel of peace. And, you know, think about what Isaiah 52, 7 says about feet, how beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news. Yeah, it really is amazing to see how links, how many links there are that keep pointing us back to God.

Yeah, because it's His good news. So as we wrap up today, let's do that. Let's pray about it now and just put on each piece of the armor as it occurs in Ephesians 6, starting with verse 14. So Father, we put on your truth. It is your truth that saves us through Jesus. And we put on His righteousness, recognizing that our own righteousness accomplishes nothing, but yours saves us.

And so we stand in that good news. And we thank you that you are our shield so that no matter what the evil one throws at us, we can stand in you because of your kindness to us. So we put on the helmet of your salvation and we stand with the sword of the Spirit in our hand that your word and your truth will keep us. Father, we just thank you that we are yours and that you who began a good work in us will carry it through all the way. We praise you for it. In Jesus' name, amen. You can hear more from Pastor James by visiting his website, jamesbanks.org, or by visiting Peace Church in Durham, North Carolina. May God bless you and encourage you as you pray. This is the Truth Network.