Spiritual Warfare and How to Don The Armor Of God

Yes Dorothy, There Is A Spirit World

Spiritual Warfare, you can believe it is not real, but that will not protect you.  More and more people everyday fall under the influence of unclean spirits.  They are unaware of the influence, but it is all too real and not likely to go away by itself.

Think of them as parasites.  Parasites invade the body in such a way as to render you oblivious to its presence until it consumes you.  Once it consumes you, there is hardly a way to overcome its grip.  A leech prevents your knowledge of its attachment to you by an anesthetic in its saliva.  Other chemicals in its saliva prevent your blood from clotting, but this is just its way to feed fast and furious.

Unclean spirits feed fast and furious.  They invade you by giving you what you want, at first.  They feed you a little at a time until you become so involved with the end result, you cannot stop.  They take advantage of a bad trait humans have.  This trait is called "PRIDE".  Pride tells us to always seek more. Pride tells us to hate those who have (or we perceive to have) more...looks, wealth, property (including nice cars, big houses, more toys, lovelier spouses (always greener on the other side)), better job, better better, better better better and better better better better (and so forth and so on).  I think you see what I am trying to say, but pride is not always tied to gain and attribute, it also applies to nasty habits.  These habits consume us and pride puts us in such a state of denial, we find ourselves virtually unable to cope and with the need to say, "I can't do this alone".

An example is drugs.  You start a little innocent trial partaking and then it becomes, over time, so easy to do, well, you know the rest.

Romans 3:21-25

21 But now apart from the Law the righteousness of God has been manifested, being witnessed by the Law and the Prophets, 22 even the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all those who believe; for there is no distinction; 23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 24 being justified as a gift by His grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus; 25 whom God displayed publicly as a propitiation in His blood through faith.

Sin is part of our old nature.  We lived fully in this old nature before we found our salvation.  If you have accepted the Lord Jesus Christ as your personal Savior and professed it publicly, confessing to Him your sins and being truly repentant, you have a chance.  If you have not accepted The Lord into your life, please do this now by going to this page and praying the prayer of salvation.

Jesus Is The Answer

God, in all His Majesty felt enough compassion for His friends we know as humans, to manifest Himself into flesh and walk with us for a short while.  He did this by planting His Son into the womb of a young virgin named Mary.  Christ Jesus came and gave us the most wonderful gift that can be given, salvation.  It really isn’t that simple, but in a nutshell, He saved us from eternal damnation.

Jesus is not just a New Testament revealing; He was spoken of by the prophets of the Old Testament.  God told them that He was coming to be with us for a while.  They knew He was coming and told the people of that day, not only that Christ was coming, but exactly when.  Daniel foretold a timeline consisting of weeks of years.  He told that there would be 69 weeks of years until the Glory of The Lord.  This falls on April 6 of A.D. 32, which just happens to be that glorious day Jesus made His Triumphant Entry into Jerusalem on the back of a donkey (this reference is from The Teacher’s Commentary).  Isaiah foretold His coming throughout his book.  He wrote of Jesus’ life with the Apostles and also about the second coming of The Lord.

Isaiah 53:6

All of us like sheep have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; but the LORD has caused the iniquity of us all to fall on Him.

While in the flesh, The Lord performed many miracles, healing the sick, casting out unclean spirits, raising the dead and showing authority over nature.  He taught to all who would hear about life, The Father and about the teachings of The Word (we call it The Bible).  His teachings mostly came in the form of parables.  Parables were stories, which may have been and were likely real, but were told to be a metaphor or a likeness to a teaching so that those who would hear could understand the true meaning to which He was referring.  I have listed the Parables and Miracles of Jesus Christ on this page:

When you ask The Lord into your life, He fills you with The Holy Spirit.  The Holy Spirit does a good house cleaning and rids you of the unclean.  If one is not filled with The Holy Spirit, chances are they are consumed with the unclean spirit of this world.

Matthew 12:43-45

 43  “Now when the unclean spirit goes out of a man, it passes through waterless places seeking rest, and does not find it.  44 "Then it says, 'I will return to my house from which I came'; and when it comes, it finds it unoccupied, swept, and put in order.  45 "Then it goes and takes along with it seven other spirits more wicked than itself, and they go in and live there; and the last state of that man becomes worse than the first. That is the way it will also be with this evil generation."

The Good News Translation puts the teachings of the Apostle John clearly in:

1 John 4:1-5

1 The True Spirit and the False Spirit:   My dear friends, do not believe all who claim to have the Spirit, but test them to find out if the spirit they have comes from God, for many false prophets have gone out everywhere. 2 This is how you will be able to know whether it is God's Spirit: anyone who acknowledges that Jesus Christ came as a human being has the Spirit who comes from God, 3 but anyone who denies this about Jesus does not have the Spirit from God. The spirit that he has is from the Enemy of Christ; you heard that it would come, and now it is here in the world already.

4 But you belong to God, my children, and have defeated the false prophets, because the Spirit who is in you is more powerful than the spirit in those who belong to the world. 5 Those false prophets speak about matters of the world, and the world listens to them because they belong to the world.

Please, don’t think I am saying you might be possessed and need the services of Father Merrin, Karras or some other exorcist to splash you with Holy Water and record your reverse babblings about his deceased mother or some bum he forgot to give a dollar.  These movies might be entertaining, but they mislead the world as to what the influence by unclean spirits really is.  Sure, if you are levitating in the middle of the night for no reason, taking a 360° panorama of your bedroom without moving your body and/or you start cursing others in Latin, Aramaic or ancient Samarian, you might be possessed.

Being an avid “Good Christian” can help you ward off the unholy, but this isn’t a guarantee.  Yes, if you are truly with The Lord, you’re safe, but most of us (me too) have weak moments and this can open the door for one of Satan’s minions to slip in and tempt you to sin.  Once they snag you, they keep urging you to see that other side of the fence and they dig in deeper and deeper.

Daily prayer, prayer throughout the day (I am talking about the heart to heart conversations with The Father, not some memorized verse or poem that makes you feel cozy) helps a lot.  This keeps you in the Throne Room and I doubt the evil ones are going to show up there.  Start your prayer in the morning.  This is a good time to say good morning to The Lord and discuss your day.  Ask God for forgiveness of your sins and a fresh start.  Give thanks, glory, honor, praise and worship to the Lord and God Almighty for all He has done and will do for you and all your friends and loved ones.  Ask that you be given the strength to resist temptation to sin. Ask God to heal your ailments and those of friends, family and anyone else to whom you wish God to give special attention (This is called Intercessory Prayer).  To save time, I have a small discussion about prayer if you will go to:

The other exercise is to be diligent in the study of The Word.  In other words:

 Okay, I hope you noticed that last phrase was a link as well.  I pointed to these discussions as they will tell you what you need to know and repeating all that in this study will waste space.  There is a link back to this point to help you find your way.

With all that understood and now that you are practicing the basics of good stewardship to The Lord, we will move on to the heart of Spiritual Warfare, knowing how to wear The Full Armor Of God.

How to Don the Armor of God

Don The Armor Of God; now, don’t run down to your local Goth Store looking for chain mail and a big shield, it will do you no good against The Army of Darkness.  We are fighting the spiritual world.  Their arrows are to pierce your soul, not your heart.  Their sword is used to cut your connection to God, not your head from your body.  The Armor of God is not seen with the eye, it is felt with the heart.  It weighs nothing, but can hold back the minions of Satan.

The Scriptural Reference is Ephesians 6:10-17:

10 The Armor of God:

Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. 11 Put on the full armor of God, so that you can take your stand against the devil's schemes. 12 For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. 13 Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand. 14 Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, 15 and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. 16 In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. 17 Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.

Let’s first discuss "The Belt of Truth".  The purpose for a belt is to hold your pants up.  I think the analogy for the Belt of Truth is just a little deeper than this.  Another use, at least in the day of hand to hand conflict, was to hold your weapon (sword, knife, mace, etc.).

The main attack weapons used by Satan (and hence, his minions) are lies.  Lies can cut you deep to the bone.  They can cleave your faith, dice your love for the truth and cause doubt in even the strongest of us.  Satan has even lied to himself all these years in thinking that he will prevail over God and finally set his throne above the Great Throne in Heaven.  So, what does girding your loins with the Belt of Truth do for you?  The truth is simply Our Lord Christ Jesus.  If you exclude Christ from the armor, you have nothing.  Without The Lord at your side, your armor is useless; it will only encumber you and be a falsehood, of which Satan will tear you to shreds.

A good representation of this is the Seven Sons of Sceva.  Sceva was a Jewish chief priest and his sons were going around driving out demons while trying to invoke the name of Our Lord.  The Scripture explains it better so it is found here:

Acts 19:13-16

13 Some Jews who went around driving out evil spirits tried to invoke the name of the Lord Jesus over those who were demon-possessed. They would say, "In the name of the Jesus whom Paul preaches, I command you to come out." 14 Seven sons of Sceva, a Jewish chief priest, were doing this. 15 One day the evil spirit answered them, "Jesus I know, and I know about Paul, but who are you?" 16 Then the man who had the evil spirit jumped on them and overpowered them all. He gave them such a beating that they ran out of the house naked and bleeding.

These men were lying to themselves.  They were attempting to manipulate the spiritual world on a premise in which they themselves had little or no faith.  Long story short, they had a hard time convincing Satan of a faith of which they fell short.

The Truth is Christ, Who is the Incarnation of The Holy Word.  We must gird ourselves with this Truth to repel the lies with which Satan will bombard you.  The Belt of Truth is the truth of The Lord Christ Jesus and His Word which is His Incarnate Form.

John 3:16

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.

I threw this in here just in case you forgot.

So, The Helmet of Salvation; this salvation which gives you authority over death and Hades, with it you are given your ticket to Heaven.  This Helmet of Salvation protects your mind from the pressure subjected by Satan.  He will try, in every way, to dismantle your faith, convict your sins, play your past against you and ensure you give up on The Lord to make sure he carries you to that fiery pit known as Gehenna.  Your faith in The Lord has no bounds. 

Matthew 17:19-20

19 Then the disciples came to Jesus in private and asked, "Why couldn't we drive it out?"

20 He replied, "Because you have so little faith. Truly I tell you, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, 'Move from here to there,' and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you."

Faith has more power than anyone can imagine.  With it, God has given you a tool to heal, save and carry and any other thing you need to serve Him.  We Serve The Lord.  That is the one thing Jesus asked that we do for one another.  At The Last Supper, Jesus stripped to His undergarment, took a bowl of water and towel to each of the Apostles and washed their feet to show them that no one is too high and mighty to serve another.  The Helmet of Salvation protects this mindset because it is our salvation at work.  Basically, you must be born again.

 John 3:1-8

 The New Birth

1 Now there was a man of the Pharisees, named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews;

2 this man came to Jesus by night and said to Him, " Rabbi, we know that You have come from God as a teacher; for no one can do these signs that You do unless God is with him."

3 Jesus answered and said to him, "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God."

4 Nicodemus said to Him, "How can a man be born when he is old? He cannot enter a second time into his mother's womb and be born, can he?"

5 Jesus answered, "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. 

6 "That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. 

7 "Do not be amazed that I said to you, 'You must be born again.' 

8 "The wind blows where it wishes and you hear the sound of it, but do not know where it comes from and where it is going; so is everyone who is born of the Spirit."

Next, let’s discuss the Feet Shod With The Gospel of Peace.  Doesn’t this just explain itself?  We are to carry The Gospel everywhere we go.  Christ rebuked Satan by simply reciting The Word to him.  The Gospel cannot be refuted as it is The Truth.  Christ is The Way and The Truth and The Life, no one comes to The Father except through Him (Matthew 14:6)

Also, don’t be in a hurry to get into a battle; all things come in God’s time.  Jesus told us to take the Truth to others, but if they will not welcome you or refuse to accept The Truth, then shake the dust from your feet as you leave that home or town. (Matthew 10:14).  Shake the dust from those Feet, Shod with The Gospel of Peace.

As I said, it explained itself so I consider this “Enough Said”.

The Breastplate of Righteousness protects your soul from the attacks made by Satan and his many minions.  The Bible says it extinguishes the flaming arrows of the evil one (Ephesians 6:16).  I’ve not seen these arrows, but I’ve sure felt plenty of them.  Satan and the evils ones are constantly bombarding your soul with lies, accusations and temptations looking for any gap in your armor to convict you to hell.  That was a little blatant, but I know of no better way to put it.  In ourselves, we fall a little short of righteousness, but by The Grace of God, we are saved.  He provides us with the righteousness to enter the Gates of Heaven.  This righteousness is not only our ticket to Heaven, but it is also an impenetrable barrier to the minions of evil.  In fact, they run from its presence as it is clad with The Blood of Christ.  This Blood was shed for us to wash us clean from our sins.  It doesn’t cover the sin as the blood of sacrificed animals did for our Jewish brothers, it washes our sins away, gone, nixed, nil, nadda, no trace, no stain, thrown into the deepest sea and as far as the east is from the west.

 This said, I think you can say that the Righteousness obtained from The Lord when we receive our salvation protects us from attacks by “the enemy”. 

The Breastplate of Righteousness is the reward received with our salvation.  We accept The Lord Christ Jesus as Our Personal Savior and He, not by our lives, but by His Blood, declares us righteous and accepts us before The Father.  He shields us from the unclean spirits and claims us as His own.

The Shield of Faith is the most powerful of our defenses.  Faith, as stated before, can move mountains.  With pure faith, there is no way the evil ones can affect our life.  This shield is like an electric fence.  The mere presence of our faith sends the unholy minions running with their tails tucked between their legs.

The Shield of Faith is the Light of Christ that shines from us when we have proclaimed and earned our rank as Children of Light (Ephesians 5:6-13).

The only offensive weapon given to us as Children of Light is the Sword of the Spirit, which is The Word of God.

The Shield of Faith is the Light of Christ that shines from us when we have proclaimed and earned our rank as Children of Light (Ephesians 5:6-13).

The only offensive weapon given to us as Children of Light is the Sword of the Spirit, which is The Word of God.

When confronted by Satan, Jesus only quoted Scripture to shut him down (Matthew 4:1-11).  When The Lord returns to claim His Kingdom, He will ride down on a white horse with a sharp sword coming out of his mouth with which to strike down the nations (Revelation 19:11-16).  This sword is The Word of God.  It is the Spirit which calls us all to praise and worship Him in all fashions of our lives.  This Sword is not seen, but when wielded, it cleaves the unholy into shards of nothingness.  The Word of God is the most powerful weapon in all the arsenals of man and spirit.  The Word of God is Truth.  When wielded, it gives the wielder the Power of Heaven and the Truth of God.

I think the Sword of the Spirit has explained itself and needs no other analogy to show its worth.

How do we don this Armor correctly?  It is worn and used by diligent Study of the living Word and by Prayer to Our Lord and Father throughout the day and everyday.  In Prayer, ask God to give you these attributes.  They are not free.  You must follow His commandments and work to know The Lord’s Face, His Voice and His Way.  Never let your guard down.

If you think the unholy are not watching for you to lower your guard, you are drastically mistaken.  They watch day and night, second by second for just the moment to tear you down and try to instill enough guilt and shame in you that you fear the Face of God.

Remember Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden when they partook of the Fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil.  They hid from God when He entered the Garden for the shame and guilt they had for disobeying His Commandment.  They knew they were naked.

Conclusion

I hope this study on “Spiritual Warfare And How To Don The Armor Of God” has been of significant benefit to you.  Please remember, do not go out into the spiritual world looking for a fight.  This work was intended to help you in the event you become ensnared in a spiritual battle.  To look for this sort of battle as a whimsy or sport is committing spiritual suicide.  It takes great preparation to battle in the spiritual world.  Raising your flag in a field of evil minions not only endangers your own soul, but the soul of your friends and loved ones.  Remember, if the satanic darkness can’t get into your mind and soul, they will attack your loved ones to get to you.  The evil in this world will attack you in any way they can and they have no honor.

There is one rule, however, that they cannot go around, Our Lord Christ Jesus.  He has squashed the head of the snake and given all authority to His children.  The evil minions have no power against Him and they know this.

Always call on His Holy Name and He will save you from any spiritual injustice.  All you have to do is accept Him as you Lord and Savior.  There are instructions on doing this at:

Please, if you have comments or questions, write me and let me know.  I don't claim to be an expert, I am a Servant of God and a Student of the Word.  I welcome all thoughts, positive or negative.  If you share your knowledge with me, it makes me a better Student of the Word.

Reverend David Halford