Armed With Salvation Series

I. Be Aware

II. Be Alert

III. Be armed & aggressive

A. Be fully empowered

B. Be fully armed (Put on / Take up God’s complete armor)

C. Stand firm – engage the enemy

1. Stand firm having girded your loins with TRUTH

2. Stand firm armed with RIGHTEOUSNESS

3. Stand firm prepared with PEACE

4. Stand firm shielded by FAITH

5. Stand firm protected by SALVATION

Truth enables an accurate overall perspective on life and demolishes Satan’s lies.

Righteousness enables godly thinking and living and defuses Satan’s condemnation.

Peace guards relationships with our inner and outer world and dissolves Satan’s chaos.

Faith insures courage n battle and deflects Satan’s flaming darts.

Paul then instructed all believers to take up a protective shield.

in all these things, taking up the shield of faith with which you will be able to extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. And take THE HELMET OF SALVATION, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. Ephesians 6:16-17

Why do we need this piece of armor? Again, as with all the other pieces of armor, salvation is something supplied by God that we must personally apply or appropriate.

In order to confidently march against the gates of hell’s fortresses, we must be absolutely secure in what God has done for us and in us. We must trust in the armor provided to us by God. The enemy will do everything possible to break our confidence in not only our salvation but our Savior. The more protected we feel the more bold we become against the enemy. If Satan manages to break our confidence in the salvation provided by God, He can bring big time defeat. Since he is a defeated foe he must resort to intimidation.

So often, people back off from spiritual warfare for fear of Satan’s retaliation. It was because they don't understand the glorious power of their salvation or their Savior.

Without confidence in our salvation and our Savior we will cut and run every time.

THE CONCEPT OF SALVATION

Just how key is this term in the Old Testament? It is the name given to Jesus.

“Yeshuah” Yahweh saves!

There are 353 occurrences of the Hebrew root in the OT.

The noun is translated “deliverance, help, salvation, victory, security”

The verb is translated, “avenge, deliver, preserve, help, save, savior”

The base meaning is to “make wide or sufficient”. The term presupposes a problem or predicament that requires outside intervention. It implies that one has encountered a problem requiring something or someone outside their personal resources to rescue them.

It is used to describe rescue from national or individual distress, enemies, sickness and natural disasters like plague or famine. It can describe a rescue from personal distress like worry, fear, confusion, etc. In a spiritual context it describes a deliverance from God’s eternal judgment, Satan’s bondage, and sin’s hold.

Salvation has been the cry of the human heart ever since the fall. The promise of a Savior came smack dab in the middle of the pronouncement of the curse. God’s plan to save mankind has been unfolding ever since. The Psalms are particularly full of references to salvation and a Savior. That is particularly significant in light of the fact that many of the Psalms have to do with spiritual warfare. Since we have a formidable foe that is out to destroy us, we need the hope of a forceful Savior who has promised to rescue us.

Psalms 27:1-3 Psalms 20:6-9 Psalms 25:5 Psalms 62:5-8

The promise and picture of a Savior and salvation is all through the Old Testament.

In a real sense, all the roads of the Old Testament led to Jesus. In the New Testament we read about the announcement of the angel.

"Do not be afraid; for behold, I bring you good news of great joy which will be for all the people; for today in the city of David there has been born for you a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. Luke 2:8-11

Paul declared…

It is a trustworthy statement, deserving full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, among whom I am foremost of all. 1 Timothy 1:15

As one might expect, the Greek term translated to save, recover, rescue, restore is all through the New Testament. The concept is pretty simple. It describes the act of rescuing someone from a difficult or desperate situation.

“Save” describes the act of saving.

“Savior” describes the one who rescues.

The word salvation is a broad term used to describe what Jesus did in order to deliver us out of a state of desperation and hopelessness into the hope of eternal life.

It is used in reference to a settled past occurrence -- you have been saved.

It is used in reference to a present unfolding reality -- you are being saved.