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The Armor of God – Purpose – Teaching
(The introduction to this series is a little light, and not very deep. The problem is we have so many teachers that aren’t anointed to teach; influencers, bloggers, and radio personalities that are putting junk out there that must be addressed with Holy Spirit wisdom.)
(There are questions at the bottom, “Has anyone ever heard…” It’s sometimes good to ask these questions to know if your class has been listening to bad teachings.)
(Opening Prayer: asking for spiritual wisdom and revelation)
We have a new series: Armor of God
- you’ll learn how to strengthen the armor, have a more effective prayer life, and walk closer to the Lord
- I’m expecting testimonies from everyone on a stronger prayer life that produces greater results
- today we’re going over: what it is, why you need it, and what it isn’t
If you’ve been in church any length of time, chances are you’ve heard some type of teaching or mention of the Armor of God. You might be tempted to think, “heard this,” but please bring a notebook for this series, because I promise that you haven’t heard all this before.
(Tell how you felt about the armor before you knew its importance- to lighten the mood)
(My true example is below if you need to use all or parts it)
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(Example) “When I was younger, I thought, “Yeah yeah we’re all soldiers for Christ.” But as I have grown in my spiritual walk, I am learning that the armor of God is literal in the spiritual realm, and far more important than I once thought. Do I really think I’m clunking around with invisible metal-bottom sandal boots? No, not at all. After feeling challenged by the Holy Spirit to research upgrading my armor, I realized Paul is trying to tell us we have real spiritual protection available that can also strengthen our prayer life. I realized I should have been taking these scriptures more seriously, and not like a cute song about being in Lord’s Army, Yes Sir. “
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Ephesians 6:11,18 NKJV Paul tells us exactly what the Armor of God is used for
11Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil.
18…praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit…
Strongs Concordance gives the word trickery as another meaning of wiles; stand against the trickery of the devil. This suit of armor is meant to guard against the trickery of the devil and a prayer suit, as Paul promptly mentions right after explaining each part. The majority of the teachings on the suit will say this suit is to make you immoveable against the attacks of the devil. While we must be immovable as Christians, it’s also important to acknowledge this suit is also an offensive suit in its function as a prayer suit. As we elaborate on each of the pieces, we'll see that they are offensive and defensive pieces, and also prayer and anti-trickery pieces. Many people get hung up on which piece is offensive and which piece is defensive. I don’t think it matters, because we can say the sword is offensive and we can say the sword is defensive (you can jab, and you can block a jab). If Paul named the pieces, we should just consider them all important and not get hung up on classification. When you’re in a dire situation, knowing if your salvation helmet is defensive or an offensive headbutting weapon just doesn’t matter.
Back to talking about Ephesians 6:10-13 NKJV
Have you ever prayed and didn’t receive any results? Have you ever prayed, and things got worse? Did you decide to double down and got nothing? Good news! All you might need is an armor upgrade! If you feel like that might be you, make sure to take some notes in this series.
10Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord and in the power of His might. 11Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the wiles (trickery) of the devil. 12For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places. 13Therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand.
“We do not wrestle against flesh and blood,”
(Give an example, my true one is below if you need it. If you have one, write it in the same style.)
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Example: You’re not arguing against your drunk neighbors who think nothing of almost running you over with their SUV multiple times.
“But against principalities,”
…that took root inside them and told them it’s no big deal to be drunk, drive home, almost hit you while you’re walking or use your driveway with you in it.
You shouldn’t fight against their flesh and blood, but “against powers” that rule their mind. This is where the armor of God functions as a very powerful weapon in prayer. These types of situations are thrust upon us, and our armor should be battle ready at all times to come against wickedness.
Instead of plotting how you would make a double row nail tack strip for the end of your driveway that would require new tires and hopefully bust the front of their SUV too, you go with what the Holy Spirit speaks to your heart, “Pray for them in love.” Not only should you forgive them and pray for them in love, but also deal with the spirits behind the matter.
Yes, this was a real example of what someone had to deal with. If your life is in danger call the police, but at the same time we still need to love, forgive, and deal with the spirit driving people in the wrong direction.
(If you have curious people: Shortly after their Christian neighbor let go of their anger, forgave them, and stood against the evil spirit; the drunk-driving husband said of his drunk-driving wife, “she had to get a job because of a huge ticket she received.” The minimum drunk driving fine in their state is $2,000, and 3-6 days in jail. It’s been about 5 years, and neither of them have been seen driving drunk since.
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Most Christians think demons are somewhere in Iraq, Afghanistan, and maybe China too. Other Christians think murderers, robbers, and other scary people in jail have demons. There are even Christians out there that think Jesus did away with demons. I’m not sure how that’s even possible when Revelations is loaded with demonic activity; and we all see in the news how spirits are overtaking our young generation. What does that have to do with anything? Demons are here, no matter what people believe. Paul, after Jesus defeated the devil, gave classifications of different evil spirits right before he tells you about your armor.
In verse 12 of Ephesians Paul goes through a progression of evil to stand against.
1. Principalities
2. Powers
3. Rules of the darkness
4. Spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places (in the air)
Why does he tell us this? So we have to be afraid of any of these? NO! Never fear demons. They’re already defeated. It’s just our job to enforce the defeat, by giving them no place and standing against them. Our armor is what protects us as we stand and refuse to accept defeat. What Paul is trying to do is explain the different demonic forces and why there is a good reason to take your armor seriously.
What’s important to note in this scripture is that if there is a progression of evil, there is also a way to progress or upgrade your armor. The question is… What level of battle is your suit prepared to handle?
(Give an example of each level of evil. If you need an example, I have some below)
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- Principalities: Bob, the grumpy old man that doesn’t want the kids running in the street, walking in his grass, or you talking about Jesus?
- Powers: Is your suit ready to handle a situation that could be life threatening, like those neighbors?
- Rulers of darkness: Is your suit ready to disband the mafia or gangs in your city?
- Spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places: Is your suit ready to take on wickedness in the state and national government?
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I’m not saying you can’t pray for the national government, or to disband gangs in your town and it won’t do anything. What I am talking about is effective prayer where spirits have immediately drop it and walk away, not throwing 50 or 100 stones at a situation to break it up but just one stone to knock down your giant. David threw one stone at the giant, but some of us may have needed 5 or... forget the stones altogether and some people need a couple of bazookas. While that seems silly, often times our faith in our one stone is too weak! As we go on in this series, you’ll see how you chose to live your life will affect your prayer suit and prayer results. I’ll give you a quick example of what that means, but first let’s go over the suit pieces.
Ephesians 6:14-18 NKJV
14Stand therefore, having girded your waist with truth, having put on the breastplate of righteousness, 15and having shod your feet with the preparation of the gospel of peace; 16above all, taking the shield of faith with which you will be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked one. 17And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God;
We all have a basic understanding of what these pieces mean. How it affects your prayer life is this: If you’re in strife, you’re outside of peace and it will stop your prayer life. If you truly don’t understand righteousness, you’ll have a rollercoaster of ups and downs in your spiritual life. One day you’ll feel like spiritual Captain America and the next you’ll feel like a sinner. If your sword is a pocketknife, and you say, “I’m going to take down the spirits behind all the government corruption, ‘Spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places!’” That’s what I mentioned, how many stones will you have to throw or how many pocketknife jabs will it take to get that thing to move? We get to choose how much prayer power is available to us, not God! That’s what we will be learning about in this series.
Part of understanding your Armor of God is understanding what it isn’t. There are a lot of popular wrong teachings that we can just easily accept without thinking, because on the surface they sound good. We’re going to go through some of them.
“Put your armor on every morning.” I've heard this so many times. It’s probably on a coffee mug out there somewhere. Just like soldiers sleep in their armor, we are never supposed to take this armor off of our spiritual bodies. Paul says in 2 Corinthians 4:4 that Satan is the god of this world (or age). That alone should make us never want to take any piece of this armor off. Of course, it can be done, but not by sleeping in bed at night. If you think about it, sleeping is BEST time to wear your armor, right? You hear people say how they couldn’t sleep, because thoughts were running through their head all night. That’s the time to swing your sword, and sleep. For some people, if they used their peace sandals that day, they wouldn’t need to swing the sword at 1am.
How do you think you can remove your armor?
(Answers: Refuse to stand in faith. Refuse to believe you’re righteous. Quit reading and speaking the Word of God. Exchange truth for a lie. Let your peace go while you take up offense and strife.)
“Make sure you pray over every piece of your armor every morning.” Has anyone ever heard this teaching? (There are sooo many prayers on the internet!)
Thankfully, Paul didn’t tell us to pray over our armor. All those with ADD/ADHD say, "Amen!" Well, you would if you were paying attention. The Greek word enduo is translated put on referring to the Armor of God. Strong’s Concordance gives the meaning of enduo as sinking into a garment. We really can’t pray our way into sinking into our armor. As we talked about, our armor is more of a reflection of how we choose to live our lives as Christians as opposed to asking the Lord to do the work for us. There are t-shirts, totes, Bible covers, stickers, and more with sayings about praying over everything, which is why there is confusion surrounding armor as well, “Pray more and worry less!” While that sounds great to pray over everything or pray more, it’s not Biblical. There is no scripture saying this! We can never shift responsibility off by prayer. You can’t replace reading the Word with prayer. You can’t replace showing up to church with prayer. You can’t act like hell and pray it away waiting for God to do it for you. I think you get the idea.
There are many specially written prayers floating around out there that are “daily armor prayers.” I have yet to read one Paul wrote as an example. Normally, these prayers are to the tune of, “I put on my whole armor… I put on my belt.” Let me break it down this way, if your remove your belt of truth it’s not a prayer to put it back on you need, but to repent for willingly accepting lies. For example, “Lord I repent for accepting evolution as truth as opposed to creation which I was taught.” Saying, “I put on my belt,” will never fix that situation with the Lord. There are prayers that even tell you to say, “God place Your sword in my hand.” Ephesians 6:11 starts off, “Put on the whole armor of God…” The subject is you understood. YOU are told to put every piece on yourself, not ask God to do it for you. It’s dishonorable to ask the Lord to put His Word in your hand when you’re supposed to be putting it in your own hand and reading it yourself. We don’t want to get down on people who are praying these prayers. Lord bless them, they’re taught to pray everything and truly don’t know better. We have to remember to respect the fact that they’re willing to pray. We just need to avoid following them down the wrong path, because they could be quite passionately convincing as they truly love God too.
“Armor is for Christians who do battle in the spirit.” When Paul said we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, he meant all of us. It doesn’t matter whether we initiate the battle or not, everyone will find themself in battles again and again. Sometimes it does feel like we wrestle against flesh and blood when we get emotionally or physically attacked. But the point is that we all get attacked. Some people are more vocal about their attacks than others. You can choose to fight back in the physical realm, spiritual realm, or both. That’s why we need to be led by the Spirit of God, so we know how to win every battle.
(Give two extreme examples of physical and spiritual fight. There are true examples below if you need one or two)
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Example: There is a pastor in Australia. None of us were there to see it, he loves God and preaches Jesus; so we’ll take him at his word. He said a young man came into his church an hour before service with his mother. He stormed to the front of the church where the pastor was getting ready for service. He said to the pastor, “I hate you. I want to pick up this chair, smash your head open and splatter your brains all over.” As I said, we need our suits battle ready at all times. He told his wife and kids to go home right away and looked to the Holy Spirit for help. He felt in his spirit to say, “Ok, I’d like to see my brains splattered all over. Pick the chair up and do it.” The young man went to pick up the chair and completely froze. He freaked out and accused the pastor of voodoo, “You voodoo-ed me!” They have a lot of voodoo and witchcraft in Australia. Thank God we live in the United States. The pastor told him “I don’t know what that means.” He insisted he had been voodoo-ed. The pastor explained to the young man that the Holy Spirit was holding him, and that he has come in contact with God. After a couple mins, the pastor prayed and asked God to release the young man. The young man ran out of the church scared. Next week, the young man sat in the back of the church for service. The following week, he sat in the center of the church. Finally, he sat in the first row. When the pastor gave the alter call, the young man raised both hands to be saved and was excited to give his life to Jesus.
On the flip side of this, we all probably heard about the gunman that walked into Lakewood Church (Pastor Joel Osteen) with a young child and opened fire. The officers guarding the church immediately fired back. The gunman and child were the only ones that lost their lives. I don’t mean to start a why did it happen. It’s just……
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We need to know when and how to fight at all times, when to fight and when to yield. Life doesn’t always offer us one of those time-out-on-the-field moments to pray and listen. We all need to be ready at all times.
“Jesus is the Armor of God. All you need to do is put on Jesus.” Has anyone ever heard this one? It would be funny if it weren’t sad, because often times they feel like they dug up some deep revelation.
Personally, I wouldn’t argue or split hairs over this with anyone. Let them think they’re onto something. If they want to believe this, that’s fine. It won’t wreck their faith. The Bible says that Jesus is our Advocate, which means He’s in Heaven, but we’re not told to wear Jesus. Ephesians 6:10 our armor scriptures, says in Greek, a direct translation, “be strong in the Lord (supreme authority) and in the power (dominion might) of His might (forcefulness).” I cannot say that this specifically describes wearing Jesus like clothing. The Bible does say in Ephesians 2:6 NKJV
…and raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus.
If we reason this out, Jesus is in Heaven. Is He coming down to Earth before the trumpet sound to surround us? If this comment is only meant figuratively, then that means we have no literal protection. It’s dangerous for a Christian to ignore armor or make it figurative. Through the years, I’ve seen Christians not take the pieces seriously. Trouble comes and they point their finger at God, “Why did You…?” So, let’s take it literally as we’re supposed to be doing.
Jesus obviously wore this armor, and we as Christians are supposed to be Christ-like. Jesus didn’t put on Jesus.
Jesus wore or was the 7 pieces:
Belt of Truth - Jesus said to him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.” John 14:6
Breastplate of Righteousness - But of Him you are in Christ Jesus, who became for us wisdom from God—and righteousness and sanctification and redemption 1 Corinthians 1:30
Shoes, Gospel of Peace - Peace I leave with you, My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid. John 14:27
Shield of Faith - And again: “I will put My trust in Him.” Hebrews 2:13 (Greek trust is persuade, means faith)
Helmet of Salvation - Nor is there salvation in any other, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved. Acts 4:12
Sword of the Spirit/Word of God - But He answered and said, “It is written, ‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.” Matthew 4:4
Looking at this written out, we can see where people get confused and say that you’re wearing Jesus. But like we already went over, Jesus is in Heaven NOT on Earth. We’re wearing God’s Armor to look like Jesus. Essentally that’s what being a Christian is all about, looking like Jesus, Christ-like. The more you look like Jesus in the spiritual realm, the more cause the enemy has to be afraid of you.
“The gospel of peace sandals means spreading the gospel that Jesus saves.” Gospel means good news, so gospel of peace means “good news of peace.” Our armor is a prayer suit for warring against the devil. If you get peace sandals simply by spreading the news about Jesus, then it wouldn’t be listed in Galatians 5:22 as a fruit of the spirit. People get the true meaning of the word gospel confused, because of the saying, “share the gospel,” and think it only means telling others about Jesus. After praying about the peace sandals, the revelation I received from the Lord was this, “The peace sandals are a walking motion, because we are supposed to be spreading peace wherever we go.” Once we get into this study, you’ll better understand how choosing peace is a powerful weapon for stomping out the enemy’s plans. Yes, of course, sharing Jesus is always included in spreading the gospel of peace as well. Let’s not forget that the scripture actually says, “preparation of the gospel of peace,” which means it’s something that you must be prepared in or better said trained in not just lock on our feet for life.
“Prayer is the last piece of the suit, or prayer activates your suit” Neither of these are true. We already went over this a little. Has anyone heard either of these?
Ephesians 6:18
praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit
Right after Paul tells you all the pieces, he tells you to pray. Saying prayer is a piece of armor, that Paul never mentioned, means if you stopped praying at any point, let’s say on a busy Monday, you’re not protected. That’s not fair! We don’t see that anywhere in the Bible, where someone didn’t pray one day and BOOM, down they went. Of course we should pray always, but skipping a day won’t wreck your life like removing a piece of armor. This puts too much weight on your prayer life and will generate fear, as opposed to peace and protection. Let’s take a quick look at Psalm 91. If you want to say something every day with purpose, read Psalm 91 over yourself, your family, your friends, your pets, and your goldfish.
We are just going over a couple quick verses…
1He who dwells in the secret place of the Most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty.
9Because you have made the Lord, who is my refuge, even the Most High, your dwelling place, 10No evil shall befall you,
The Lord speaks through David..
14“Because he has set his love upon Me, therefore I will deliver him; I will set him on high, because he has known My name. 15He shall call upon Me, and I will answer him; I will be with him in trouble; I will deliver him and honor him.
There is a lot more in this Psalm and it’s a great one to memorize! But just from this little bit, we can see that it wasn’t prayer that generated protection. It wasn’t even prayer that generated deliverance, answers, or being honored. It was dwelling in God’s presence, loving God, and knowing His name (Jehovah). Don’t let anyone scare you into thinking you have to pray constantly for everything, because if you don’t there’s hell to pay. That could happen to someone because of their lifestyle.
(Give an example where prayer didn’t work but armor would have, true story below)
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Example: There was a man having trouble sleeping. He kept asking for prayer, and it wasn’t working. Then he claimed that creepy things were happening in his house. He kept praying and asking for more prayer, but nothing helped. Eventually, someone questioned him and figured out the problem. The man was coming home from work, and his method of de-stressing was to watch a horror movie. He had been doing it for so long he didn’t think anything of it. Prayer in this situation wasn’t the answer. He removed his peace sandals and opened himself up to the fruits of horror. When horror comes knocking to a Christian with armor on, *tink-tink* it hits the armor and has to keep walking.
We aren’t even told to pray to de-stress. We’re supposed to just produce fruits of joy. How? Get over into the spiritual realm. If this man just put Christian radio on while driving home and sang a couple songs, then wanted to zone out by watching comedy none of it would have happened. The enemy would have hit his armor and left. Truthfully, that enemy wouldn’t have even come. Demons can’t reap a harvest on something you didn’t plant, and nurture.
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For example, no one here is going to reap a harvest on alcoholism, pornography, horror movies, murders, and espionage. No one here is afraid of that. Why? No one sowed into it. But people sow into things like gossip and reap a harvest on it regularly. Then they’re confused as to why something bad happened to them. Prayer won’t fix that, but repentance and cleaning up your armor to look like Jesus will.
That is the reason we are NOT told to pray about everything. Our lifestyle choices have a great impact on our spiritual life. I’m sure we all have stories of being protected by God in situations we never prayed about, especially while driving. If prayer was the only way to activate the suit, then we wouldn’t have been protected.
Last one, and it’s my favorite…
*CLICK* I have seen people put their armor on like a mime, and even use sound effects. Bless their heart, it was already on their spiritual body! You don’t have to mime anything. That probably looks a little silly to the angels watching.
This week was a little on the light side. We had to get through the “what it’s not,” because we have so many well-intentioned people trying to make us safe from the enemy. It can be stressful thinking you have to pray over each piece every morning over yourself and your family or else… The point of the armor is to keep it on and keep it strong so you can rest in peace.
You don’t want to miss next week! We’ll start breaking down each piece, in ways you haven’t heard before. Bring a notebook! There is a lot of good information!
(Prayer points:
- Thank You, Father, for your wisdom and revelation concerning our armor
- Open our spiritual eyes and teach us to look like Jesus
- Reveal to all of us where we need to grow
- Train us so that we’re prepared to handle every spiritual battle that comes our way
- Thank You ahead of time for testimonies that will come in
In Jesus’ name, Amen!)
