Modern Christians often fall to one of two extremes. Either they basically ignore the Bible’s warnings about the hostile “spiritual forces,” or they are overly obsessed with them, seeing demons hiding under every rock. On this program, the hosts walk through Paul’s admonitions to prepare for spiritual battle by putting on the full armor of God—every piece of which relates to the objective gifts that God has granted us in Jesus Christ.
SHOW QUOTE
“There’s something insidious behind a lot of these dark cultural things that we see happening all around us. It’s the work of Satan. That might sound weird to the person who’s listening. In our enlightened age, we don’t want to talk about the devil and evil spirits and whatnot, but it’s clearly biblical. We look at Scripture and what Scripture says. We have a job as Christians to think about these things and most of all what Paul is going to get at in Ephesians 6, to pray and to stand firm in the solid truths that we’ve been getting throughout this entire book in order that we might not be deceived by some of these things.”
Adriel Sanchez
TERM TO LEARN
“Armor of God”
God bestows upon us the spiritual gear that will guard us against the enemies of God. The devil and his demons seek to make us fall and fail so that we will never get back up again. As Peter reminds us, “Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour” (1 Peter 5:8).
Even though we face horrible enemies, we can be strong and courageous in the Lord. We can fight. We can stand against the temptation to sin and the evils of Satan by the power of Christ’s Spirit, whether we are big or small. In Ephesians 6:10–20, the apostle Paul describes six pieces of much-needed armor God gives to all believers, so we can hold our ground against the devil.
Our armor is held together by the belt of truth. All we think, do, or say is to be governed by God’s truth. Without the belt of truth, Satan can easily strip us of our armor, making us useless and defenseless. Christ’s righteousness covers us like armor. The best armor covers our hearts, concealing our vital organs from Satan’s darts. Even though we sin daily and don’t obey God as we should, we have Christ’s perfect righteousness and holiness to cover our hearts from the bitter venom of the devil.
God continually grants us his abiding peace. Our Father in heaven gives us the shoes of peace. We can run across the rocky terrain of this world with his perfect shoes. The best shield is then given to us—the shield of faith in Jesus. The fiery darts shot at us are extinguished. Our shield of faith is a gift from God. Salvation crowns us and guards our minds in Christ Jesus. God places upon our heads crowns—the helmets of salvation—to guard our minds. Finally, the Word of God is in our hands as our weapon. God places the sword of the Spirit, the Word of God, into our hands, and his enemies shudder at the thought. We defend ourselves with the best weapons of this king of glory. With the sword of the Spirit in the power of prayer, we can subdue the enemy’s lies and deceptions that infect us. His Word brings this precious armor to us day and night, so we might stand like David before Goliath.
(Adapted from Timothy W. Massaro, “How to Fight Off the Devil’s Desperate Attacks”)
