Put on God's Armor, Part 1

Sharon Hardy Knotts: Greetings, friends and new listeners, and welcome to the Sound of Faith. I'm Sharon Hardy Knotts, thanking you for joining us today because we know faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God. Today's message, "Put on God's Armor," is a Satan-stomping word of the Lord. Paul wrote that the church of Jesus Christ is in a cosmic wrestling match against the rulers of the darkness of this age. Anyone with an ounce of spirituality can attest to this, as Satan is ramping up his attack against the saints of God and all things Christian. But we are not outnumbered or out-armed. We have the weapons of warfare that are mighty through God, so we can put on God's armor.
R. G. Hardy: So, we're going to begin this morning in the book of Ephesians. Let's look at Ephesians 6:10. These verses are ingrained in our spirits. I know we've heard this message many times in the past, but it's been a long time. I just felt that the Lord put it in my spirit to revisit Chapter 6 of Ephesians and look at verse 10: "Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord and in the power of His might. Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil." So, he says, "Finally, my brethren," and after writing five and a half chapters, he's saying this is my final and most important admonition to you. That is to be strong in the Lord's mighty power. So, how do we do that? We put on the whole armor of God, and that means we put on all six pieces. This is how you become strong in God's mighty power. We see three important words right here in these first verses: power, strength, and might. The word "strong" in the Greek is *endunamoō*, and it means to be infused, infused with great inward strength. I don't know if you've ever experienced what that feels like, but I have. I have actually felt like God was just infusing my inner man with strength, and that is something that I have come to depend on because, in the natural and in the flesh, I would be weak. A lot of you know that many years ago, my spine was compromised through injury and then surgery. So, I don't have necessarily the strong backbone that I had prior to that time. But in the spirit, I have a strong backbone. I am so glad that I have a strong spiritual backbone and I have a strong spirit. The reason why I have a strong spirit is because I have been infused with the strength of God. My testimony is like Paul said, "When I am weak, I am strong." Because Your strength is made perfect in my weakness. So, my weakness becomes a showcase for God's strength. And so, I am strong in my inner man because of this enduement. You can hear the word *dunamis* in there, by the way. I'm sure you heard it, right? *Endunamoō*. You hear that the root is *dunamis*. We all know what *dunamis* means. We know that message well. So, we're being infused with that inward strength. He said, "be strong," and we already talked about that. "In the Lord and in the power of his might." The power. Now, most of the time we say, "Oh, I know the Greek word. We say it's *dunamis*." Many times it is, but it's not here. It's another Greek word here, and it is *kratos*. This is a demonstrative power. It is an eruptive power. It is a force. It is an explosive power. God endues us, gives us that power, that dynamo on the inside of us that allows us to replicate the works of the Holy Spirit. But here it's talking about when it's demonstrated. You know, someone can be powerful, but you haven't actually seen them in action yet. One day you see them in action and you're like, "Whoa!" It's like when Samson came upon that lion that attacked him. That's the first written incident of anything that Samson ever did. And what did he do? He grabbed it and ripped it apart like it was a stuffed toy. I'm sure he was shocked. He didn't know he was that strong. Sometimes when the devil attacks you and you don't know he's coming, it's a blindside and all of a sudden something rises up in you and you explode. Afterward, you're like, "Wow, where did that come from?" You know it was the Holy Spirit and not you. That's what this word means. Just hold your place and flip over to Chapter 1. We've got to read this because this is the same word *kratos*, and it shows you how it is put in action by no one other than Almighty God Himself. Chapter 1, verse 19 says: "And what is the exceeding greatness of His power to us-ward who believe, according to the working of His mighty power." You're seeing two powers there, but they're not the same word. "Which He wrought in Christ when He raised Him from the dead and set Him at His own right hand in the heavenly places, far above all principality and power and might and dominion and every name that is named, not only in this world but also in that which is to come." So, what Paul is saying here is, how did God show us His exceeding great explosive power? How did He demonstrate the ultimate power that He has? And he says, "Okay, I'll tell you how He did it. He did it when He raised Jesus up." And He doesn't just mean when He raised Him out of the tomb, raised Him from the dead, because other people had been raised from the dead too. Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead after he had been dead for four days and was already a rotting corpse. So, it's not just because He raised Jesus from the dead. Oh, He raised Him not only out of the tomb but far above, above all the powers and the rulers of the darkness of this age and the wickedness in heavenly places. He raised Jesus up and gave Him dominion over all these powers, and He set Him at His right hand, and that's a place of ultimate honor. When God wanted to show the awesomeness of His exceeding great power, that's what He did. Then He gave Him a name above every name. You know the power that raised Jesus out of the tomb? Even in a physical sense, it was so awesome that the Roman soldiers that were guarding that tomb, and if they did not guard that tomb, if they left or something, they would be put to death. But as they were guarding that tomb, the power of God raised Jesus out of that tomb and knocked them out. And they were paralyzed, and they couldn't move till it was all over. So, the third word we want to look at is "might." And the Greek word is *ischus*. It's the picture of a strong, muscular man, like Superman, Iron Man, one of those guys. And you're thinking of the bulky muscles. So, what this word "might" means, it is that ability, it is the force behind the power. Here's a good verse I'm going to read to you: 2 Peter 4:11. "If anyone ministers, let him do it as of the ability which God gives." Isn't that good? We don't hear that one much, do we? I really like that. If anyone ministers, he's not talking about the preacher, the apostle, the prophet, etc. Anyone who ministers, that simply means you serve the body of Christ in some way. If you're going to do it, let him do it with the ability that God gives. That's the only way I want to do it. It's the only way I can do it, is with the ability that God gives. And that's what the word "might" is. So, when he says, "be strong in the Lord and in His mighty power," he is saying you have this inward strength that God has infused in you. And you're going to do it in His power, this explosive power that demonstrates that you have this strength in you. And the reason why you can do it is because you're doing it with the ability that God gives. Amen. So, now he says, when you put on the whole armor of God, all six pieces, you're like a strong man who erupts in power against the enemy. And we're back in Chapter 6, of course. And he said that you might be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. The wiles. And that word in Greek is *methodeia*. We bring it right into the English, we see the word "method" right in there. But let me tell you what the literal meaning is. The literal meaning is "with a road." With a road. So, how does that fit? When you're going on a trip, you map out the best route to get you to your destination. You know, in the old days, we used to go to the gas station and get the map and we'd get our pen and we're doing, you know, we're going to go here. But today you get out your GPS, your smartphone, and it tells you the best route. Your smartphone is so smart, it will tell you, if you go this way, it technically is the shortest route, however, right now there's so much traffic, you're better to go this way. And it maps out a route for you. Well, now you've got to understand, in connection with Satan, he has a well-planned route, a well-planned road that he wants to take you on. And it leads to bondage and misery and ultimately to hell. He wants to snare us, to get us off of the road that God's mapped out for us and get us on his road. And he does so by trying to get in our heads. But we're able to stand against the wiles of the enemy. Paul said in 2 Corinthians 2:11, "We are not ignorant of Satan's devices." Now, he is not talking to brand-new baby Christians. He's talking to those that are established in the word and in the truth, even had the gifts of the Spirit in operation in this church. He said, "We are not ignorant of Satan's devices." The Greek word for "devices" is *noēmata*, and it means your thoughts, your mind, or your intellect. You see, Satan seeks to gain access to our minds. If he can gain access to our minds with fear, with lies, with confusion, with false perceptions, he'll use whatever he feels you are vulnerable to. He just wants to get in. He just doesn't care if he gets in just a little bit. If he can get in a little bit, once he gets in, he'll expand from there. But he's looking for that, and so he uses devices through our minds. That is the arena where Satan wages his battles. But I love what Paul said, you know these verses well, I will quote it to you: 2 Corinthians 10:4-6. "The weapons of our warfare are mighty through God." Mighty through God. That means that they are divinely able to make us able with God's ability. And we're able to pull down strongholds. And now we're going to find out what kind of stronghold we're talking about. It's the stronghold in the mind. "Casting down imaginations and every high and exalted thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God and bringing into captivity to the obedience of Christ every thought." So, we see that again the battle is waged in the mind. But we've got the spiritual weapons that are greater and are able to make us able to defeat the devil in the arena of our mind when he comes against us with thoughts, because the mind is the control center of your life. And I've said this before, but I'll repeat it, what the Spirit of the Lord led me to see for myself when I take these verses I just quoted to you and I reverse the order. It tells me how I can have victory. First of all, if I will take every thought captive, as soon as a thought comes that is of the enemy, and we recognize the enemy. When that thought comes, if I will resist it immediately and take it captive, I've got to make it obey. I'm saying you're going to obey what God's word says. This is the devil, this doesn't sound like my Father talking. This doesn't sound like my Jesus talking. This doesn't sound like the Spirit of God talking. You've got to obey what God's word says. Now, if I will do that when it's a thought, it will not become an imagination. An imagination goes further, it's fallacious reasoning. And once you get into that snare of reasoning, the devil's got his hook in there. And he can cause you to rationalize all kinds of things. And then as you rationalize that reasoning, it begins to exalt itself against the knowledge of God, and you don't even let the knowledge of God now come in and fight that battle, you're becoming hostile to it because you're in your head reasoning. And when that occurs and it goes on, it becomes a stronghold. That's a fortress that's created from bad thought upon bad thought and carnal reasoning, building up a fortress. Saints, it's a lot easier to take a thought captive than to tear down a stronghold. Now, you can tear down a stronghold, but you're going to have your work cut out for you. It's better to take it when it's a thought. And that's what Paul is telling us, we have the spiritual weapons that we need. Ephesians 6:12: "For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places." So, we're in a wrestling match. Can I tell you that in the ancient time of Paul's day, wrestling was an extremely violent and bloody sport? We don't think about that today, do we? I'm not talking about the WWEF guys. I'm talking about the kids in high school and college that wrestle, the real thing, or in the Olympics. We don't think of it as being a bloody, violent sport. But in Paul's time, it was. It had no rules. There were no rules. It allowed choking, gouging the eyes out, breaking the fingers, breaking ribs. Many times wrestlers fought to the death. And let me tell you something about Satan, if you haven't already figured it out, he's a dirty fighter. He'll use any tactic available to him to try to take us out. So, we have to understand we are in a wrestling match, and we can't think of the real benign kind that we see in high school. We've got to think about the kind that Paul was alluding to. It's a bloody, violent sport because we are wrestling against the ranks of Satan's kingdom. And we see what they are: principalities. The Greek word is *archē*. It means the highest rank of authority. Satan is called in the word of God by Jesus Himself, the prince of this world. And that's why we look in the world and we see just chaos and trouble and sorrow because Satan is the prince of this world. And in another place, Jesus called him the god of this world. We're told by Paul right here in Ephesians, he's the prince of the power of the air. So, we are fighting against none other than the prince of darkness, the prince of evil himself, Satan. The second echelon is powers. Now, here the word "powers" is that other word we all know well, *exousia* in the Greek. And we know that means authority. And not only does it mean authority, it means delegated authority. It means someone gave you that authority. And we know that Jesus said in Matthew 28:18, "All power and authority are given unto Me in heaven and in earth." And we know that He said in Luke 10:19, speaking to His people, "Behold, I give you, I give you authority." Your King James says "power," but the word there is "authority" in Greek. "I give you authority over all the power of the enemy, and nothing by any means is going to hurt you." The third in the echelon is rulers of the darkness of this world. It's actually two Greek words, *kosmokratōr*. *Kosmo*, it refers to the order of the universe. How many know that the universe has an order? Every planet, star, and being is in its proper orbit, and everything is orderly, and if it wasn't, then we wouldn't even be existing here today. If the sun just moved a half a degree, we'd either be an ice ball or a fireball. So, there's an order to the universe. And the word *kratos*, I already told you what that means. It's that demonstrative power. So, we know that we're fighting against some great explosive demonstrative power of the evil one that he has harnessed, and he's brought it into an order. In other words, they obey Satan. They're great powers, they have great ability, but he's brought them under his authority and they obey him. A few weeks back, I ministered on the subject "Ministering Spirits versus Hindering Spirits." And if you recall, I explained to you where those hindering spirits originated. And so, we see that here. They comprise the spiritual wickedness, and your King James says "in high places," but the Greek word is *epouranios*, and that means heaven. It refers to the atmosphere where the stars and planets are, refers to where Satan rules, and refers to the third heaven where God rules. Amen. So, that's what we're fighting against. We have got some fierce enemies. And because of that, Paul said in verse 13: "Wherefore," or on account of this, because of this, "take unto you the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all to stand." What are you going to do? Stand. So, he says, first of all, you've got to take on the whole armor of God that you can withstand. The word is *antistēmi*. We get the word "antihistamine" that we bring over into the English. You go buy antihistamines when you've got a sinus infection in your head because it'll stand against that infection and fight it off. Well, that's what the word means. It means to oppose, to resist, set yourself against something. And "having done all" means you've already done all that is necessary on your part. You've done everything you need to stand. So, after you've done everything you need to stand, you can just stand to uphold and sustain the authority or force of anything. We're upholding the authority Jesus gave us. We're upholding the power that Jesus gave us, that we are able to stand against the enemy. Now let's look at verse 14: "Stand therefore, having your loins girt about with truth, and having on the breastplate of righteousness." For the fourth time, Paul tells us to stand. Stand. We have to realize the only way we are going to be able to stand against these principalities, powers, and the rulers of the darkness of this age, the only way is if we have on the whole armor of God. Saints, let me tell you this. You are no match, I am no match, we are no match for these powers and forces of Satan without the whole armor of God. So, we have to have the armor on. And the first part of the armor that he talks about here where we are, he said is your loins are girt about with truth. So, we're looking at the Roman soldier. Picture in your mind the Roman soldier that Paul would have been very well acquainted with because they were guarding him all the time. He had soldiers all the time when he was in jail there with him. And so, he would have studied their armor head to toe, and he used that to bring it into the spirit and show us how in the spirit we too must have on armor. Because the Roman army was ferocious. They just went through conquering. Their art of warfare was so tremendous that their enemies could not stand against them. And that's why Paul wanted to use that to show us how we stand in the spirit against our enemies.
Sharon Hardy Knotts: Amen, I hope you're being stirred by this devil-trouncing message, "Put on God's Armor." We're in a cosmic warfare against satanic forces entrenched in the heavens. On our own, we're no match against their powers and the wiles of the devil. But we have supernatural weapons that are divinely powerful. When we put on all six pieces of God's armor, we can stand. Paul studied the armor of the Roman soldiers who guarded him 24/7, and he received revelation of the spiritual armor given to the church. Each of its six parts is integral to our protection defensively and offensively in putting Satan under our feet. It's not the whole armor of God if it's missing any piece. It creates a vulnerability that Satan sees as opportunity to strike a wounding blow. Don't give it to him. Familiarize yourself and your spirit with each of these parts of the armor of God, what they stand against, and how to use them victoriously. Order "Put on God's Armor" on CD today for a love gift of $10 or more for the radio ministry. Request SK-211. Mail to: Sound of Faith, PO Box 1744, Baltimore, Maryland, 21203. Or order from our e-store online at soundoffaith.org where MP3s are available. But to order by mail, send your minimum love gift of $10 to: PO Box 1744, Baltimore, Maryland, 21203. Request SK-211. Till next time, this is Sharon Hardy Knotts saying, "Maranatha!"