THE ARMOR OF GOD: HELMET OF SALVATION & SWORD OF SPIRIT - EPHESIANS 6:10-20

Die for me. His goodness, his merit, his righteousness. The sinner's only plea. Oh foolish pride be crucified. The work is finished. Sing it out. All my boast is in Jesus. All my hope is his love.

And I will glory forever In what the cross has done.

Amen.

Now fully forgiven My life is filled with graces undeserved. For mercy that flowed down that sacred hill. Let praises now return. Rise up my soul and bless the Lord. Who else is worthy. All my boast is in Jesus.

His love will glory forever. What the cross has done He's the face of God. Boast is in Jesus. Shame Jesus Christ.

Our public reading of God's holy inspired word is in second Corinthians chapter four this morning. Starting in verse seven, Paul says, but we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us.

We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed. Perplexed, but not driven to despair. Persecuted, but not forsaken. Struck down, but not destroyed. Always carrying in the body the death of Jesus so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies.

For we who live are always being given over to death for Jesus' sake. So that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh. So death is at work in us, but life in you. Since we have the same spirit of faith according to what has been written, I believed and so I spoke.

We also believed and so we also speak. Knowing that he who raised the Lord Jesus will raise us also with Jesus and bring us with you into his presence. That's good news, isn't it, Saint? For it is all for your sake.

So that as by grace extends to more and more people, it may increase thanksgiving to the glory of God. That's the point, right, to the glory of God. So we do not lose heart, though our outer self is wasting away.

Oh, you feel that, don't you, Saint? I know I feel that. Our inner self is being renewed day by day. That's why we're gathered here, right? For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comprehension.

As we look not to the things that are seen, but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen, oh, they're eternal. Oh, what a great truth, guys.

You may be seated. I just wanna say welcome. Welcome to the Lord's Day gathering today where we, the saints, encourage one another all the more as we await the return of our Savior, where he is going to put that final enemy death under his feet, and all of this wasting away, and all of the suffering, and all of the stuff is over.

But in the meantime, we desperately need encouragement from one another, and that's one of the reasons that we gather to worship the Lord today. So thank you, covenant members, for being here. But we also wanna say a special thank you to those of you that are visiting.

We seem to have a lot of visitors every single Sunday, and that's a great thing. And our desire is for you to feel welcome. We want you to feel welcome in our midst, but we desire that even the members, the guests, the regular attenders, every single one of us today would grow in the fear and knowledge of the triune God.

Amen?

That's our desire. But before the service begins, I would like to encourage all of you parents of small children, if you were here Wednesday night, I kinda gave you a bit of a taste of kind of an announcement I really wanted to address.

If you can't tell, we're a family-integrated church. What does that mean? Meaning we don't offer nursery, we don't offer children's classes and childcare on the Lord's Day. We do on Wednesdays. If you come on Wednesdays, we have doctrinal training in here.

We've got children's classes in there. We've got nursery over there. We've got youth over at Shadrach's right down the street. We have that on Wednesdays. But on the Lord's Day gathering, we think it is important for the families to be together.

And for the little ones, even the babies in the room, to see mom and dad worshiping the one true God. That is vital. However, here's the thing, we know that's difficult. We know how difficult it can be for parents, especially with young children.

That's why we offer the nursing room in the back, right? So we have this room back there for any parents, particularly mothers, I know you carry the weight of that a lot, to be able to take small children back there.

We have a television back there. You can see what's going on in here. You can hear what's going on in here. The thing is, is little ones are gonna make noise, right? Little ones make noise, that's just part of life.

And that's a good thing.

We have life happening in the midst, and we see families coming, and that's great. But we do wanna ask, please, parents, to use discernment. And so when that noise becomes a distraction to those around you, little bits of noise, no big deal.

That's family integrated, we love it. We like children being in here. But sometimes it can get out of control, and it can become a distraction. Mothers and fathers, you know you're distracted with the child, you're not listening, and everyone around you, it becomes a distraction.

So mothers, we know this season of life is hard for you, and watching the sermon on the back TV in that back room is not the same as being in here, I totally understand. But that is why we as elders, we would like to walk alongside you.

So parents, this is a hard thing. There is actually things that you can do to train and prepare even your smallest, even young toddlers, to sit in the room. There's things that we can do. As a matter of fact, we've worked with a couple of families so far, and they're seeing tremendous growth and being able to, for that child to be able to sit through the service more.

And so we wanna walk with you. We're not just telling you, go back there every Sunday. We're telling you, come talk with me, come talk to Pastor Keith. Pastor Jeremiah's not here this morning, but you can usually talk with him.

And we would like to help walk with you, disciple you in child raising, and particularly what that looks like in a family-integrated church, because that's just not normal for our culture. Most churches, a lot of people are coming and using Sunday morning, the Lord's Day gathering for free childcare, right?

That's typically the way church functions. It's like, get my kids out of here, and I get my hour where I can really focus and pay attention. There's things that can be done, guys. I just wanna encourage you.

This is not a jab at anyone in the room for anything. We love the children. We love your children. We love you, and we want what's best for all of you. So please be encouraged. Come talk with us, and we can walk through that with you.

You on the same page? Everybody good?

All right.

It's a tremendous benefit to have the children in here. Well, before we go to our call to worship and officially start our service, let's pray for a local church. Well, this morning, we would like to pray for Emmanuel Southern Baptist Church in Salem, Arkansas.

And the reason is is because, as you can see, Pastor Jeremiah's not here. He is filling the pulpit there in Salem. And Pastor Jeremiah, this is actually his grandmother and his aunt's church. And so it's very near and dear to him.

What's that? Used to be your church. Hey, there we go. We got roots there, okay. And so from what I understand, the pastor that's there is a Reformed Baptist. And so he and Jeremiah have hit it off real well.

And so Pastor Jeremiah's over there preaching. So let's go to the Lord this morning and pray for that congregation before we start our service. Dear Heavenly Father, we bow before you this morning, and we thank you.

God, we thank you for Emmanuel Southern Baptist Church there in Salem. Lord, we pray that you would give their leadership wisdom, peace, comfort. God, I pray that you would give them discernment as they are under shepherds, under the good shepherd.

They would look to Christ, or they would lead well. Lord, we pray that you'd be with the people there, that you would grow them, Lord, that you would mature them. They would grow in the knowledge of you, but then not just a hearing of the word, but doing the word, an obedience to the word.

We thank you for them. Be with Pastor Jeremiah as he proclaims the word this morning to them. Lord, I pray that you give him boldness and clarity of thought. Lord, I pray that your words would go forth with power.

Lord, we know that anytime we read your word, speak your word, speak your truth, that it cuts through. And it either sanctifies and molds your children, brings people that are currently in spiritual death to life to see the beauty of Christ, or it furthers them in their condemnation and their enmity with you.

But it will do its work. And we ask that you would do your work in that this morning in Salem. We thank you in Christ's name, amen. Y 'all ready to start our service? You ready?

Come on.

Yes, yes.

Does anybody need some of Chris's coffee right now? Is that what's happening? Okay, are you ready to worship God this morning? There's an excitement to this, amen? Stan, let's go to the Lord in a call to worship.

Our call to worship comes from Psalm 119, starting in verse 113, where the psalmist says, we hate the double-minded, our hiding place and our shield. Depart from us, you evildoers. Uphold us according to your promise that we may live.

Hold us up that we may be safe. You spurn all who go astray from your statutes. All the wicked of the earth, you discard like dross. Our flesh trembles for fear of you. And all God's people said, amen.

We tremble in our flesh because he is altogether separate. He is, his judgments are perfect. His judgment is right. And if we are in Christ, we stand in no condemnation, right? But we pray that those that do not know Christ this morning would repent and trust in the work of Christ.

Not their works, not their ability to uphold his statutes. Because that's right, none of us in this room ever, ever, ever were able to uphold his statutes, were we? Not one of us. Christ did it for you.

We trust in his merits and in his perfect work. And then we stand fearless. We fear him and out of reverence and respect, but we have no condemnation. He is our father now. That is a beautiful thing. Let's go to our father in a prayer of adoration.

Dear heavenly father, we bow before you once again. God, we come to you asking that, that you would be honored in our worship. God, this flesh wars against us. It has the remaining old man in it. And we do the things that we don't wanna do and we don't do the things that we want to do, Lord, forgive us.

But we come into your throne room boldly right now. For you are the great judge. You are the creator and you will not allow even an ounce of sin in your presence. You will cast it into eternal judgment with a perfect, perfect judgment, perfect punishment that matches the crime.

Oh Lord, but you are holy. And because of your great goodness and love, you have saved us. You have made a way through the blood of Christ. We thank you for that. We thank you for your graciousness, your grace upon grace this morning.

For us and undeserving people, in Christ's name.

Are y 'all happy to be here this morning? Amen, yes. All right, let's be glad this morning, Saint. We have a reason to rejoice, amen. Let's sing out, let the nations be glad. I wanna hear everyone singing, amen.

Let the glory of the Lord forever be a joy, amen.

Of the Lord. Ever be a joy. For you should be our song.

For by grace.

For by grace we have been saved. And by grace we shall proclaim Christ as Lord. Nations before salvation be. Let the whole earth be filled with the praises of the Lord. For salvation be to our God. And the sword many saints and martyrs conquered.

Before they died. Church goes forth in the Holy Spirit's power. With the glories of the gospel to explain.

For salvation.

Father, so much for your salvation. For salvation belongs to you, Lord. We are so unworthy this morning, Lord. But we're so grateful. Lord, we praise your name this morning. Lift you on high. This worship is all about you.

Lord, bless this worship this morning. Father, we love you, we praise you. Ask all these things in Jesus' name. In the power and the powerful name of Jesus. In all of God's people's sin, amen.

Christ is our hope in life.

But is our hope in life and death.

Christ alone.

Christ alone.

Is our hope. That our souls. Holds our dead. Comes apart. Will keep us to the shore. Watch our eyes.

He confess Christ our hope in life and death. We're gonna go to him now in a prayer of confession. And assurance. Prayer of confession and assurance is our acknowledgement of our sin. As we've already done so far this morning.

But we just wanna acknowledge our sin personally. We wanna acknowledge our sin corporately. We wanna acknowledge sin for that wretched flesh that is in us. That continually wars against the spirit. And then we wanna also pray that prayer of assurance.

Because it is in Christ alone. He is our hope in life and death. So bow with me, let's pray. Great and holy heavenly father. We humbly come before you and we ask that you would grant us confession. Father, we sometimes hide behind our sin.

We sometimes wallow in the mud. And the sin and brokenness of this world and our flesh. Don't do as we ought to do. Because we just don't seem to have the power to do so. We harm our brothers and sisters.

We respond with hatred instead of love. Confess before you now that we are weak. And we fail you time and time and time again. And if it's left to us, we would be all lost. Lord, disunity. Even in a wonderful church like this, I see little pockets of disunity that the evil one just continually throwing those darts, those fiery darts in.

And then our flesh, God, just runs with it. It causes division. And we don't wanna be with that brother or that sister. We say, oh, I love them. But I'm just not gonna be that close to them. I'm not interested in going and spending time with them or sitting down at a meal with them.

I'm gonna avoid that particular person or those particular people, God.

Forgive us.

What godlessness. Forgive us, Father. Convict us. Let us see the beauty of your holiness and your righteousness and your perfection as we look and gaze upon our Savior, Jesus Christ. And then as we do, Lord, let that be a great abounding confidence and assurance in our hearts that it is not me that lives this out.

It is Christ that has done it for me. He is my hope. He is my lasting faith. He is our everything. And so when you look at us, you don't see our brokenness. You don't see our division and our hatred and our laziness and our indifference and the things that we think and the things that we do and the things that we say.

You don't see those. You see the perfect righteousness of Christ and Christ alone. Thank you, Father. Oh, help us to rest in that assurance for there is no condemnation now for those who are in Christ Jesus.

We thank you in Christ's name.

Yet thought I'd sinned that promised joy in life Had led me to you I had no hope that you would own us A rebel too And if you had not loved me first I would refuse Looked up on him so Jesus sinned

One more time.

And hallelujah.

Sing it out, Saint. Yes.

Hallelujah, Jesus sinned

The host of heaven, we praise you this morning. Your glory, Lord, it consumes like fire. What other power remains undefeated? Only you, God. You're the only Father, Lord, and we love you this morning.

We're offering, Lord, I just pray that you would bless us all. Bless, bless, gives, be yours in the first place. Lord, I pray this morning as Pastor Keith prepares to come and deliver your word, Lord, bring your truths.

Lord, I pray that you would just clear out all of our distractions, Lord. Any distractions that Satan may throw at us this morning, Lord, I just pray that you would just deflect them. Lord, open our hearts and our ears and our minds.

Father, we love you, we praise you. We ask all these things in Jesus Christ, precious and holy name.

I got so wrapped up in watching my little grandchildren help Papa that I forgot, thank y 'all. Well, I tell you, it's hard not to get caught up in worship in this church. I mean, I was just over there, just wrapped in the love of God, praising him.

And I wanna thank, and I've done this before, but the worship team, I mean, I don't know if everybody realizes the time that they put in to preparing to lead us in worship every week. And it's such a sacrifice.

And you know, the Lord says that he blesses those sacrifices and I think we see this, we see this in the church. So thank y 'all. As you can probably tell, I'm preaching on two of the pieces of the armor of God today.

So I've been given a twofer. So as such, I'm asking for a little mercy and a little grace because, Mike, the runway is out there somewhere and I'm gonna go looking for it. But I guarantee that I'll find it.

So anyways, today we're in Ephesians 6, 17. If you wanna go ahead and turn to Ephesians 6, we're gonna read the whole section of scripture that details the armor of God before we get started. So if you'd like to go ahead and turn there.

And what a trip it's been through the book of Ephesians. And we're getting close to the end and it just seems like, Pastor Nathan, I was talking the other day, that we just started not too long ago, but I believe it has been so beneficial for the church and I know for the leadership of the church, for parents, children, for everybody, it's been such a blessing.

But let's get started in Ephesians 6, 10 through 20. It starts off strong saying, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of His might. Put on the whole armor of God that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil.

For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.

Therefore, take up the whole armor of God that you may be able to withstand in the evil day. And having done all to stand firm, stand therefore, having fastened on the belt of truth, having put on the breastplate of righteousness and his shoes for your feet, having put on the readiness given by the gospel of peace.

In all circumstances, take up the shield of faith with which you can extinguish all the flaming darts of the evil one. And here's our verse, and take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the spirit, which is the word of God.

Praying at all times in the spirit with all prayer and supplication. To that end, keep alert with all perseverance, making supplication for all the saints and also for me, that words may be given to me and opening my mouth boldly to proclaim the mystery of the gospel, for which I am an ambassador in chains, that I may declare it boldly as I ought to speak.

Let's pray. Father, we're just so thankful for the many truths that you've given us, the many promises, the many assurances that you've given us in this book of Ephesians. And now you're instructing us how we can resist evil, how we can stand in your might and in your strength.

Lord Jesus, please speak to us. Speak to us concerning our responsibility with what you've given us. I pray this in Christ's name, amen. Well, as a Christian, I'm sure most of you realize that there's gonna be seasons that you go through in your life that's gonna require great effort on your part.

These seasons will involve conflict against the powers that we just read about here in Ephesians. And we cannot regard this conflict that we're gonna be facing as merely as something between reason and conscience on one side of the battle and evil on the other side of the battle.

We are told that it's a spiritual battle that we're fighting. And the one thing we cannot rely on in this battle is our own strength. In fact, the very six words in the section we just read says, finally, be strong in the Lord.

I think that is one of the major keys to this whole section. To be successful in this fight, we must be able to rely on his strength. So how do we rely on his strength in our life? How do we have this power that Paul is talking about to us?

Does it just suddenly appear when we become justified, when we receive salvation? Or does sanctification play a major role in it? Well, in John 15, I think Jesus gives us a clue. He tells us that he is the true vine.

And he states that apart from me, you can do nothing. And if you look up the Greek and nothing, it means zero. We have to be able to rely on him. He states, he goes on to state that to produce much fruit, you must what?

Abide in me. That is our responsibility. That is our part, what we must do. He gives us the strength, but we still must make this effort to abide in Jesus Christ. This is what happens after we become in Christ.

We then abide in Christ. Now, Jesus uses this word abide as an imperative verb, which literally means to remain, to stay in, to rest in, or to reside in. This is in reference to living in close fellowship with our Lord and Savior.

It means to be in the word on a constant basis. It means to not be distracted or lose focus on the main thing, and that is our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. It means to trust in Christ for all our needs.

This is how we are strong in the Lord. This is how we're to live in a world that constantly is in conflict with us, by abiding in him. So, to get started on the first armor of God, which is gonna be the helmet of salvation, I have several points that I would like to make.

The first being the purpose of the helmet of salvation. In the first century, the Roman soldiers, mainly the line soldiers, the rank and file, wore helmets that were strengthened leather, and they would be covered with metal plates to give it strength.

Now, we have this helmet up here that Chris Gross loaned us, and I appreciate that, Chris, along with a lot of information on it. But this is something similar to it, but it's more of what an officer, maybe a centurion, would wear in the Roman soldier.

But it gives us a really good idea of the protection it involves. We can see neck guards, ear guards. We see this big plume up on top, and Chris told me that one of the main reasons for that was so that the rank and file could see their leader in front of them.

They could see where he was and which direction he was going. If this big ornament or plume turned one way or the other, they could see it, and then they could follow him in that direction. But you can see it is well-armored, and that's for a good reason.

That's for a very good reason. The armies that the Romans were fighting at the time mainly used these long broadswords, spears, pikes, and axes, in attempt to maim and to kill the soldiers. And one thing a Roman soldier would never, ever do is to go into battle without his helmet.

That was one of the main pieces he had to have because a head wound almost ensured death. And often an agonizing death, too. So it's no surprise that this is one of the places that Satan tries to attack us.

He tries to attack us where he knows we're gonna be the most vulnerable. And that is why Paul is drawing attention to our head. The helmet of salvation goes on our head. Satan wants to attack our mind.

He wants to attack our understanding. He wants us to believe that we are not in Christ. He wants us to believe things that are not true. And so, therefore, he is attacking our mind. This helmet of salvation is to deflect the blows from Satan.

He wants to attack our security and our assurance in Christ Jesus. Now, these blessings of security and assurance deal with the promises that are ours when we become in Christ. They are given to us. But I want to cover two of the means that Satan uses to attack our mind and thoughts to get us to retreat, to give up ground in this battle.

One of those is to cause us to become discouraged in our life. The second one is to foster doubt about what is taking place in his promises. The first one is discouragement from circumstances. Satan is clever.

Scripture tells us that he's cunning. If he cannot have you as his own, he will seek to discourage you to the point that you become incapacitated or useless as your walk as a Christian. Paul tells us this in 2 Corinthians 10, 11.

He says, but I am afraid that as the serpent deceived Eve by his cunning, your thoughts will be led astray from a sincere and pure devotion to Christ. He's telling us exactly what Satan wants to do, the same thing he did to Eve.

He wants us to think on other things that are not true. He wants to lead them astray. And from where? From the truth of Christ. That's what he wants us to do. Have you ever been tired, exhausted, plane wore out in the constant stress and battle of making it through this life?

You've been fighting for a long time, striving to do what's right in this spiritual battle, but you don't ever seem to gain any ground. This is one of Satan's favorite ways to discourage us through the trials of life.

Or perhaps things have been going great in your life. You've had one success after another. They're going wonderful, and then all of a sudden you find yourself under constant attack. A string of disappointments that never seem to want to end.

You can't seem to crawl out from underneath the pressure. Oftentimes, that's when we're most vulnerable to discouragement, when we've been experiencing successes. But there is one arena of discouragement that seems to be Satan's favorite playground, and that is the church.

When he can get members in a church quarreling with one another, then he knows that he can assure the victory that he wants. Without a doubt, Satan is most happy when he can cause strife within the kingdom of God.

When we're busy quarreling amongst ourselves, our focus is taken away from the main objective of the church, and that's exactly what the evil one wants. He wants to fertilize these discouragement with our pride, with our gossiping tongue, and with unforgiving hearts, so that they grow into disunity.

That's one of his main things he loves to do, cause disunity in his church. And through experience, I can give testimony. Nothing discouraged the leadership and the members of a church more when they are constantly having to deal with disunity.

You see, Satan's gonna use every means possible to try to discourage us. He will set every obstacle in our path that he can to weaken our assurance in Christ. We see this in the book of Job. The Lord allowed Satan to strip Job of everything that was dear to him.

Yet, what did Job declare? Though he slay me, I will hope in him. And there's the key word right there, hope. See, the book of Job tells us it's not our career, it's not the car we drive, it's not our benefits, our possessions that a person has that gives us joy or our peace in life.

It's the hope that comes from true saving faith that gives us our true character in this life. It was Job's helmet of salvation that deflected the blows Satan threw at him. In 2 Corinthians, Paul's lists of beatings, setbacks, persecutions, trials, the dangers he's faced, and the list goes on as legendary.

If there was anybody that could justify giving up ground in this fight, you would think it would be Paul with everything that he went through. But his answer to all these things we find in an earlier section of this same letter, and it's nothing short of amazing.

In 2 Corinthians 4, 8, Paul says, "'We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed, "'perplexed, but not driven to despair, "'persecuted, but not forsaken, "'struck down, not destroyed, "'always carrying in the body the death of Jesus "'so that life of Jesus may also be manifested "'in our bodies.'".

He's speaking of the death of Jesus Christ and what he accomplished on the cross, carrying that in our bodies, our hope in Christ. One of the things we must understand, and I will repeat this through our life, is that Satan, our adversary, will not stop attacking us.

Paul's life is a perfect example of this. Only when we're ready to step into glory, we can say with Paul, I have fought the good fight. I have finished the race. I have kept faith. Henceforth, there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will award me on that day.

And not only to me, but also to all who have loved his appearing. So Satan wants to discourage us. He wants us to get frustrated with our life and start blaming other people on what is taking place. But the second means that he loves to do is to cause us doubt, and that is doubt from insecurity.

Often Satan's most troubling assaults against God's elect is to get them to believe that they have lost or they could lose or never had their salvation. This assault revolves around Satan's tactic to cause you doubt about God's plan, his sovereignty, his power, his goodness, his purposes, and his promises for your life.

Most importantly, Satan wants you to believe that God may not have the willingness or the ability to keep you saved. He wants you to think just as easily as God adopted you as his hair. He can cut you free and set you adrift in a boat of your own.

This is another way that Satan wants us to lose hope, to cast doubt, to worry about God's sovereign love for us. This is the same way Satan used the scoffers to attack the early Christians. If you've read in 2 Peter, go to chapter three, verse four, Peter is talking about these scoffers.

He says, they will say, these scoffers will say, where is the promise of his coming? For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all things are continuing as they were from the beginning of creation. He's wanting them to think that, oh yeah, Jesus came and he was good, but he accomplished nothing, nothing has changed.

Everything is still continuing as it has since creation. And in the case of the Christians that Peter was writing to, they had lost hope in Christ's second coming. They had thought that they had missed it.

They were having a hard time. Many were persecuted. Some were even being killed. They were discouraged. And now Satan gives them a second blow in getting them to doubt Christ's promises. They were falling prey to these scoffers, losing hope, but Peter is writing them to give them assurance that God's promises and assurances still stand and no power, no power in the heavens or the earth can change them.

Have you ever had doubt about your salvation? Does Satan whisper in your ear at times, you behave like that? Your thoughts are focused on that? What is wrong with you? You can't be saved or you've lost your salvation.

You see, when Satan does this, he is mocking your savior's sovereignty and power with these thoughts. He is telling you, oh, he surely, he surely can't keep you. This is without a doubt, one of Satan's most diabolical attacks against the elect.

He wants you to believe that you've lost or that you've never had it. Few things are more paralyzing, unproductive or miserable than thinking that you are not secure in Christ. It is one of Satan's most vilest lies to us.

He wants you to ignore the promises of Jesus when he has stated unequivocally, all that the father gives me will come to me and whoever comes, I will never cast out for I have come down from heaven not to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me.

And this is the will of him who sent me that I should lose nothing, nothing of all that he has given me. And notice that is past tense. He has given me, but raise it up on the last day. Hallelujah. It is this promise, it is this knowledge, this understanding that prompted Paul to say in Romans 8, for I am sure that neither death nor life nor angels nor rulers nor things present nor things to come nor powers nor heights nor depth nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus.

And I want to point out, it says here, nor powers nor anything else in all creation, Satan as a created being falls into these two categories. So we've talked about the purpose of the helmet of salvation.

I want to talk about the protection from the helmet of salvation. So in the face of Satan's attacks of discouragement and doubts, Paul is telling us to take the helmet of salvation and to place it on our heads.

But what does he mean by salvation in this context? What is the connection to the helmet? Well, in this context, Paul is not referring to becoming saved by taking the helmet of salvation. What he is addressing is Christians.

So they're already saved, so he couldn't be talking about that. They are already in Christ. But what he is addressing is our present position in Christ Jesus, where we are in our salvation. And he explains this in his letter to the Thessalonians.

In 1 Thessalonians 3 .8, Paul states, but since we belong to the day, let us be sober, having put on the breastplate of faith and love, and for a helmet, the hope of salvation. Now, once again, Paul is not talking about hoping that we have salvation, or hoping that we will have salvation.

He is talking about the hope of our salvation. So let me explain by detailing the three parts of our salvation. And Jeremiah talked about this, too, I think it was two or three months ago, so I'm kind of repeating what he said, but I think it's important.