Trinity Baptist Church

The Strategies of Satan and the Armor of God

The Helmet of Salvation

Ephesians 6:17

 

We are looking at the resources for gaining the victory in the Christian life as we deal with temptation from Satan, and before we get into tonight's study, I want to apologize for the way this study has drawn out. It really deserves to be seen in its entirety and it's taken us several weeks with extended time between the studies and I'm afraid we've lost some of the continuity we needed. 

 

If you want to review or you've missed some of the studies, there are manuscripts posted on the website and you can review those if you choose. 

 

Tonight, we come to the next piece of armor, which is found in

 

Ephesians 6:17 

 

“the helmet of salvation”

 

That's all it says about it and the assumption is that there’s not much here.  The helmet of salvation, that's easy.  It's talking about being saved. But that doesn't begin to explore the subject of the helmet of salvation. 

 

Let's begin with a couple of general observations about the helmet itself.  A Roman soldier wouldn't dream of going into battle without a helmet.  That would be a foolish thing to do.  Every well-prepared, well-trained would be sure to get his helmet on before going into battle.

The helmets of this age were generally made out of one of two things.  Either they were leather with some patches of metal on it, or they were the molded solid metal kind. 

 

Either way, it had one purpose, and that was to protect the head.  And the primary protection it provided was from what was known as a broad sword. A broad sword was from three to four feet long, and it had a huge massive handle that you held with both hands like a baseball bat. And you just lifted it over your head and went around trying to create split personalities with it. 

 

That was the idea.  Soldiers would ride along on their horse flailing away at the foot soldiers down below. And in that regard, the broad sword was a tremendous weapon and you wanted to have a helmet to deflect a blow from a broad sword.  So the helmet was very necessary.

 

Now the helmet here is the helmet of salvation, but the reference is not primarily to being saved.  He's not saying now that you're fighting Satan and now that you've got the breastplate of righteousness on and now that you've got your shoes shod with the preparation of the Gospel of peace and now that you have the shield of faith, you need to get saved.

 

That's already happened. You aren't even in the army unless you're a believer, right? So I’m fairly confident “the helmet of salvation” is not getting saved.  So what’s it saying?

 

It helps to remember that salvation has three aspects, past, present and future. 

 

That means salvation has happened, is happening and will happen. Has, that's justification, is, that's sanctification, will, that's glorification. Now if it is past it is done. If it is also present then you can't lose it because it's continually going on. And if it is guaranteed in the future then you're absolutely secure.

 

So which part of salvation is protecting us from the attacks of Satan when we put on the helmet?  I think it is the future aspect of it. And I believe that because of what I read in  

 

1 Thessalonians 5:1-8

 

For the sake of our study tonight, pay particular attention to verse 8 where Paul says we wear hope as a helmet of salvation.

 

So what is the helmet of salvation of the helmet of hope? The helmet of salvation is confidence in a full, final, total salvation to come. It's confidence that someday the battle will be over. I couldn't fight if I didn't think there was a finish somewhere.  Could you? There's got to be an end.

 

So how is that a part of our armor?

 

Remember how the helmet provided protection for the Roman soldier.  It was protection against that that big, broad, two-edged sword that the opponent would use to try and split the skull of his enemy.

 

Did you realize Satan has a broad, two-edged sword also?  One side is discouragement and the other side's doubt.

Listen:  Do you know what Satan wants to do? He wants to split your skull with discouragement and doubt.  he knows he cannot destroy your salvation.  That is made secure through the blood of Jesus.

 

 But if he can convince you to doubt its reality or question its security, he'll use doubt to do that.  How do you know you're really a Christian? Are you sure you're really saved? You don't deserve it!  Look what you just did.  How could a Christina do the things you do?

 

Or he'll seek to discourage you in your salvation. He’ll tell you it’s not worth it to serve Jesus.  You give and never get anything in return.  You live the Christian life and lost folk are doing better than you.  He'll let you see all the hypocrites in the church and convince you nobody likes you.    

 

You've been reading your Bible every day and your wife is as cranky as she was before you even bought a Bible.  It hasn’t changed things a bit.  What's God doing in your life? You've been going to church for so many years, look at your kids, they don't respect you now anymore than they ever did. And you begin to get discouraged.

 

You teach that Sunday School class and nobody ever even says thank you. And you get real discouraged.  That's one of the things he uses.

 

Listen:  everyone gets discouraged and doubtful from time to time and the helmet of salvation is a protection against that double-edged sword of attack.

 

How so?  Well, let's think about

 

first of all.  As I said, everybody gets discouraged.  For some it seems to never end.  We talked about that this morning in the life of David.  And as we saw, unfortunately, at the time we need the Lord and His church the most is when we isolate ourselves away from them because we are discouraged. 

 

That’s why the Bible has so much to say about “keeping the faith, and running the race and not growing weary and pressing on. This enemy of discouragement is a constant foe. 

 

But the ultimate counsel of Scripture is, “Hang in there; be obedient.”

 

Whatever the situation:  Maybe you get discouraged because you have an unsaved husband and it never seems to change.  Nothing ever happens and you just get so discouraged. 

 

Or maybe you have a child that seems so resistant to all of your efforts you just don’t know what to do.  It could be you have a friend you've tried to witness and they’re unresponsive. 

 

Maybe you never get any recognition down there at the church for everything you do and Satan reminds you of it when other people get recognition. 

 

You might have some kind of physical ailment, a handicap of some kind, and you get so tired of struggling with that thing and it just seems to eat you up. 

 

I want to remind you of the third aspect of salvation.  This is not all there is to it.  Remember, the helmet of salvation is the helmet of hope and it is especially designed for that purpose.  Don’t lose sight of the fact that salvation has a third dimension. 

 

I love what it says in Romans 13:11, "Remember that our salvation is nearer than when we believed." We're getting close to the finish line; don't quit now.

 

I think about Jeremiah.  The Lord says to Jeremiah, you're My prophet Jeremiah I want you to spend your life preaching for Me and here's your message.   Jeremiah preach it with all you've got and preach it till you have no breath and P.S. no one will ever listen. No one will hear a word you say.

 

And old Jeremiah preached it all alone, listened to it all alone, all alone he said, "Thy words were found, and I did eat them, and they were the joy and rejoicing of my heart."

 

And then there was Job.  The Lord stripped Job as naked as any man has ever been stripped.  He took away everything he possessed, everything he owned, everything he loved, and yet he said, "Though he slay me, yet will I trust him."

 

And he hung in there and when it was all said and done he said, Oh God, he said, "I had heard of you with my ears, but now I can see you with my eyes.”

In other words, he says, I knew about you, but it was in the tough times, as I was faithful that I saw You as never before. 

 

 

Hang in there; don't let Satan hit you with discouragement. Jesus our Lord said in Luke 18:1, "Men ought always to pray, and not to (what?) faint." When you see yourself fainting, start praying.

 

Put on the helmet of salvation!  Don’t let Satan keep you discouraged.   Remember that one day your salvation will be completed!  

 

I read this week about a little, a little man in England named Reverend William Davie. He decided toward the end of his life he wanted to write a systematic theology encompassing the whole Bible.

 

He spent 12 solid years doing it. When he was done it was 26 volumes, but he couldn't find anybody to set the type.  This is 200 years ago.  So he set it himself, then printed 40 copies of the first three hundred pages and 14 copies of the remaining 26 volumes. Twelve years of work for 14 copies, and as far as we know there are no known copies in existence today. 

 

But you know what? Even though very few people know him, I'll bet you he died with a knowledge of God that very few have ever enjoyed.  One little man wrote a 26 volume theology that probably nobody ever heard of or ever read, but he pursued the knowledge of God and the knowledge of God's Word.  He stuck with it.

 

There was a little 5 year-old girl in London standing on the sidewalk in front of her house when the coal truck came by and dumped a ton of coal. 

 

 

She picked up a little shovel, opened the cellar door, walked out, stuck her little shovel in the coal, walked across the sidewalk and down the cellar stairs and turned it over, dumping the coal in the basement. 

 

A neighbor man, standing next door, watched her repeat that process three times,.  After the third shovelful, he said to her, “My dear, you'll never get it all in”, to which she brightly replied, “Oh I will sir, if I work long enough.”

 

“If I work long enough.”

 

I guess the test of anybody's character is what it takes to stop them.  Lots of people hit the first line of defense and bail out. Lots of people go A.W.O.L. the first time they hear a shot. But then there are those who make a difference in the world because they go right on line after line after line after line of opposition. You know what?  You can to, if you work long enough. Don't be discouraged.

 

Listen, remember the Lord Jesus? "You have not yet suffered unto blood." Nobody crucified you yet. Hang in there, hang in there. The problem is not to faint but to stay at it.

 

Satan will discourage you every way he can. But the helmet of salvation protects me from fainting, from giving up, from growing weary, why?

 

Because I have a hope and my hope is that there's a light at the end of that tunnel and someday I'm going to burst into that glorious light in the presence of Jesus Christ.

 

Over and over again in the letters of Revelation 2 and 3 says, Jesus says, "to him that overcomes, to him that overcomes, to him that overcomes, to him that overcomes, will I give, will I give, will I give."

 

Peter says the same thing to those saints to whom he wrote who were in persecution.  He says, "Oh listen, hang in there with that well doing and if you suffer for well doing blessed and happy are you, oh if you suffer for well doing, commit your souls to a faithful Creator, be faithful."

 

You say, but sometimes you get weary. That's right, sometimes your legs get rubber like the last lap.  Listen, there's no reason to be discouraged.  The helmet of salvation says there's coming a great day of victory. 

 

Salvation is past yes, it's present yes, but it's also future. Don't let Satan discourage you and don't let him rob you of the anticipation of that thrill; don't let him take away the hope that makes you committed.

 

The other side of the sword is

 

 

You do realize that Satan wants you to doubt your salvation? And he’s really good at this method of attack.  Most people suffer from that at some point in their Christian life, and very often it is one of the first lines of attack we experience.  It often happens very early on in our walk with the Lord.

 

 

 

Now hopefully you'll grow in the Lord and get to the place where you perhaps don't doubt.  But none of us are ever totally invulnerable to Satan's temptations along that line.

 

Satan will come just after you've done something that's sinful, and say, “You couldn't be a Christian. Why would the Lord ever save you? You'll never make it, you're not good enough, you don't deserve to be saved, how do you know you meant it when you did it? Better try it again, see if it works any better.”

 

Satan really comes after people in that area. And there are people you know who go to certain churches that teach you can lose your salvation.  They live in constant fear.  And they want to argue with you about the eternal security of the believer.

 

But you’ve got to work hard to miss eternal security in the Bible.  In a sense that's what the helmet of salvation is all about.  And yet, in spite of all the Bible has to say on the subject, many people live in a constant state of insecurity. They believe you'll never know whether you've made or not it until you face the Lord.

 

Can you imagine living that way? All your life worried about whether or not you’re going to make it?  What a horrible existence.  In fact, that is the farthest thing away from what John wrote that I could imagine.  He said, "These things are written unto you that your joy may be full.”  You'd have to say the New Testament would say, these things are written unto you that you might be miserable.   You could never be happy knowing that eternal life is a guessing game.

Then there are other people who think every time you sin you lose your salvation. And if you sin a sin and you're a Christian and you forget to confess it before the rapture, you'll go to hell.

 

Now can you imagine living under that kind of fear? Satan wants us to be afraid we don't have salvation, and he wants us to doubt that we can keep our salvation.  You know why?

 

Because he wants us to doubt the promise of God, he wants us to believe God doesn't keep His Word, he wants us to believe that salvation isn't forever, that God can't hold onto us. He wants us to deny God's power, to deny God's resource, to deny that God can hold us, to deny that God speaks the truth.

 

And all of these things are simply denials of that. And so Satan comes against us making us doubt.

 

So how do are we to defend against that?  We put our helmet of salvation on and it reminds us if you have a past salvation, then you also have a present one and a future one. 

 

Listen:  there's no other kind of salvation seen in the Bible.  A proper understanding of salvation must include all three elements.  Listen to how Paul said it to the Romans in Romans 8:28-30 .  "Whom he called, He justified; whom He justified, He glorified." And there is nobody who ever fell through the gaps. 

 

So let me just walk you through some Scriptures with which you can pad your helmet, and they will help you if you ever doubt, and maybe help you help someone else to see the truth. Let's begin with

 

John 6:37

 

Now what the Lord says is if you come to Him He will in no wise cast you out.  “In no wise” means under no circumstances.  In other words, there are no circumstances in existence in the universe whereby Christ would cast out somebody who came to Him. 

 

If you come to Him in the manner that He requires, under no circumstance, under no condition, in no case, in no wise would He cast you out. Why?

 

Because the only ones who come are the ones the Father gives.  And if God gives you to Christ then you have the decree of God to eternal salvation and you have the response of Christ to eternal salvation and there is no way to lose.

 

And the way that is illustrated is in terms of the Father, God, rewarding His Son, Jesus.  The Son has done well in going to the cross and accomplishing redemption, so the Father gives Him gifts. And the gifts are the souls of men.

 

You and I, who know Christ, are gifts from the Father to the Son, tokens of the Father's love, and the Father loves the Son so much He gives these kinds of gifts, and conversely the Son loves the Father so much that He holds tightly to such precious gifts.

 

See what is said about that?  All that the Father gives shall come and when they come under no circumstance would I turn them away.  Why not? Why wouldn’t Jesus ever turn us loose?  After all, sometimes we act like we don’t love Him and we don’t obey and honor Him. 

Why shouldn’t He just throw us away? Because it’s not about you and me.  Listen:  He’s not hanging on to us because we’re the greatest gift He’s ever received.  He’s hanging on to us because He loves His Father Who gave us to Him way too much to ever lose anybody that was a love gift from the Father to the Son. Jesus treasures the gifts given to Him by His Father!

 

Now look at the next verse, 38

 

Here was God’s plan all along.  The whole plan of the Father was to redeem some people, give them to the Son and have the Son keep them. 

 

"And this is the Father's will who hath sent me," What is His will? "that of all that He hath given me I should lose none, but should raise him up again at the last day." How many does Jesus lose? None!

 

There is no loss between the decree of the Father, the gift to the Son and the resurrection of the last day. So that you have justification, sanctification, glorification, past, present, future without loss.

 

Now with that background in mind, move over to John 10.  There are seven strands in the rope that bind us eternally to Christ listed here. 

 

Notice verse 27

 

Notice the first two words of the verse: “My sheep”

 

 

Whose sheep are you? You're Christ's sheep.

 

Now listen, if you are Christ's sheep it is His duty as Shepherd to care for you and protect you.  If He loses you that is in effect a terrible reflection against His own ability as a Shepherd.  If you are His sheep, and the Shepherd is to care for the sheep then for someone to be lost reflects upon the character and quality of the Shepherd.

 

There's a second strand that binds us to Christ,

 

 

"My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me."

 

Listen, Christ’s sheep follow Christ.  There are no exceptions. They will not listen to strangers, they listen only to Him.

 

So true Christians are kept by the power of the great Shepherd, they will follow the Shepherd’s voice.

 

Third strand: verse 28

 

 

Now eternal life lasts how long? Forever, it is eternal life. To speak of it as ending is a contradiction in terms. Eternal life is eternal. So we are bound by the character of the Shepherd, we are bound by the character of the sheep as they follow, we are bound by the very definition of the gift of eternal life, it is forever.

 

Further,

 

It is a gift, "I give unto them eternal life." You didn't do anything to earn it, you can't do anything to keep it. 

 

Fifthly, another strand that binds us to Christ is

 

 

If one Christian ever did then Christ didn't tell the truth.  If Christ didn't tell the truth, throw away your Bible, forget Christianity, it's all wrong.

 

Further, it says

 

 

"No man is able to pluck them out of my Father's hand." There is no power in the universe stronger than God, and if God wants to hold on that's the way it's going to be. Nobody can take us out of the Father's hand.

 

And further He adds, verse 29,

 

 

"My Father, who gave them to me, is greater than all, and no man is able to pluck them out of my Father's hand." Notice in verse 28 He says, My hand, in verse 29 My Father's hand. Double protection.

 

Now what I'm trying to show you in these two passages, John is simply that Jesus Himself by His own words confirms the fact that a past salvation includes a future one as well, that eternal life is just that, they never perish, they never fail, that He never loses any of them.  

That's the way Jesus spoke of it.  One final thing, kind of the icing on the cake, from the little book of Jude.  Now, because we don’t spend much time in Jude, let me remind you that the Book of Jude is written to deal with apostasy or a departure from the faith. It is primarily concerned with false prophets and false teachers.

 

Notice verse 4

 

Then verse 8

 

then verses 11-12

 

These are the apostates. And here's a little group of Christians as it were sort of in the midst of an apostate age, not unlike us today, who might be saying to themselves, “What's going to happen to us?”

 

They see everything going down the drain, like in our society, liberalism and all of the garbage that coming along in the name of Christianity, seems to be selling us right down the river and we say, well what about us, are, are we going to fall by the wayside in this deal?

 

And so at the beginning of Jude verse 1, at the end of Jude verses 24 and 25 Jude reiterates the fact that we don't have to fear, no matter how bad the day gets, no matter how vile the world around us, we're okay.

 

Verse 1

 

He says in the midst of all the rot around you, you will be “sanctified and preserved”  by Jesus Christ.

Listen:  when you were saved you were given a rock solid guarantee. The Bible talks about the fact that we've been given the earnest of the Spirit, and the earnest is a down payment.  When you were saved God gave you the Holy Spirit as a guarantee that someday you'd be glorified in the presence of God, even in the toughest times.  And that's the helmet of salvation.  You don't need to listen to Satan's doubts. 

 

Then go to verse 24 of Jude

 

The word “able” there is is dunameo, dynamite, power.  He is powerful enough to keep you from falling.  It isn't just that Christ doesn't want you to fall; it's that He's able to prevent it.

 

"And he's able to present you," without a spot, without a blemish, faultless. By the way the same word us here to describe us is used by Peter to describe Christ. 

 

He is able to keep you from stumbling, keep you from falling and present you as pure as Christ is pure, someday in the presence of God the Father. That's the keeping power of Christ.  And the word here “keep you” is not the same word as the earlier one of watch, guard, keep, but it's a word which means to secure in the midst of an attack.

 

So no matter what all the hosts of hell throw against you. no matter how many times Satan hits you in the head with his sword of doubt, the truth never changes that Christ is powerful enough to keep you from falling and present you as spotless as Jesus Christ in the presence of God.

 

No wonder the Psalmist said, "Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life;" he knew it, and ultimately, "I will dwell (where?) in the house of the Lord forever."

 

See he knew that the salvation God gave him was a past, present, future salvation. "Surely," he said, goodness and mercy will follow me all the days of my life;" and ultimately, "I'll dwell in the house of the Lord forever."

 

And so it is that confidence that makes us defend ourselves against Satan's blows.

 

When Satan comes with discouragement, when he comes with doubt be assured there's a glory day coming, there's a victory day coming, fight the good fight, have confidence in the salvation God gave you and know that you'll be there for that crowning day.

 

I love the words of “Stand Up, Stand Up for Jesus”. 

 

"Stand up, stand up for Jesus, the strife will not be long, this day the noise of battle, the next the victor's song. To him that overcometh a crown of life shall be, he with the King of glory shall reign eternally."

 

Don't give up, don't let Satan victimize you with discouragement and doubt, because you're going to win in the end. just keep your helmet on!

 

Let's pray.