When you have been around a Christian you probably already have heard of a spiritual world that is merged with our physical world. Then you also have heard about the spiritual war that is going on right now everywhere around you. Here I hope to explain a little bit more of that. I won’t go into details about the spiritual world, but I will mainly talk about how to defend yourself and how to strike back. We will look to Jesus, how he fought his spiritual battles and with that, we are going to find out together how to fight a spiritual battle.
Let’s start with reading some bible scriptures. The two bible scriptures we are going to read are Ephesians 6:10-18 and Luke 4:1-13. Read them for yourself in your bible. When you are done reading, we shall start to dive into the scripture and see what it says.
About Ephesians
In Ephesians, you read what the spiritual armor is existing out off. A shield, a sword, a breastplate, etc. Let’s dive deeper into the armory. When Paul wrote this letter to the Ephesus churches it was approximately 70-80 AD. Paul wrote the letter because at that time the city where the Ephesus churches were located was well known for its occultism and magic. Paul wrote them the letter to help them to protect themselves against these spiritual forces around them. Paul gave them an explanation which would be easy to understand. He did this by comparing the spiritual armor with the armor of the Roman soldiers who everyone knew those days. He gave them 6 parts of the armor and 1 exercise. Let’s sum them up quickly:
- The belt of truth
- The chest plate of right living
- The shoes of the good news
- The Shield of faith
- The helmet of Gods’ salvation
- The sword of the spirit, Gods’ word
- Pray all the time
What does the armor mean?
It’s great that Paul gave the people of Ephesus a simple to understand example. But what did the different parts mean at the time? For this, we must dive into the history of the armor of Roman soldiers. Let’s do this part by part and then let’s look to what it could mean in the spiritual world.
The belt of truth
The belt of truth was called the beteus. This belt showed the status
of this soldier. The soldiers back then would wear the belt all the time. It
wouldn’t matter if they were on or off duty. This is amazing, it means that we
always wear the belt of truth. It shows that we are children of God. It shows
who we are and what authority we have in Jesus.
The chest plate of right living
In the time the soldiers would need and chest plate it would cost them a
lot of money which was a great sacrifice. The benefits of the chest plate were;
that the plates were manufactured in such a way that they were impenetrable. It
would protect their vital organs like their heart. This makes it very important
to wear the chest armor. When you gave your life to Jesus (if you haven’t don’t
that then do it, it will help you) you told him you would do everything He
would ask you. This means we sometimes must make sacrifices. But these sacrifices will make us stronger
and create an impenetrable chest plate.
The shoes of the good news
The shoes the Romans used were called Caligea. These shoes were very
good for long walks and with good socks, they would be warm enough during the
winter. The shoes would protect their feet from all the gravel and rocks they
had to walk over. This will help us too. Because Jesus told its disciples to go
out into the world and bring the gospel. For this, they had to leave everything
behind. This meant they had to trust God. When they trusted God, He would
provide the protection they needed to go to the places God told them to go to.
Which made that they could bring the gospel. Because of their trust, they would
stand firm onto the foundation. By bringing the gospel they would bring Gods
peace around the world.
The shield of faith
The shields used in the Roman army were very varied. Some were big some
were small. The most well-known one is, of course, the Scutum, This
shield is a big rectangle that protects the full body of the soldier, with
these they also made their famous testudo formation.
In the spiritual world, I believe that the shield is as big as your faith is.
Why you might ask? Well, what I think is that when your faith is big in a
certain area it helps you to stay strong against attacks. Because of this, the
arrows of the enemy won’t hit you. But if your faith is small, then you can be
very quickly thrown off your guard. Great faith has a great shield, which can
protect your whole body against the arrows of the enemy. The shield could of
course break when they got attacked. This is also with your faith. If you don’t
maintain your faith to keep it strong, it will slowly fade away, this makes
your shield weaker.
A good way to fight in this spiritual battle is by fighting together. As with
the testudo formation, the soldiers would be fully surrounded by shields which
gave them more protection from arrows. This is the same in the spiritual world.
If you fight together with people you will be stronger defended.
The helmet of Gods’ salvation
The helmet in the spiritual armor represents the protection of your mind.
The helmet would deflect arrows when fired upon, so is it with this helmet too.
God will help you to protect your mind from evil thoughts to come into your
mind. But keep in mind that you must put the helmet on your head, otherwise
there is no protection.
The helmet also showed what your position was in the army. For example, if you
had a red plume on your helmet it showed that you were a centurion (head of an
army division). So, what rank do you have, what does your helmet show to the
people around you?
The sword of the Spirit, Gods’ word
For this one I want to take a closer look at what the bible really writes
down in Ephesians 6:17:
And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.
When we read the scripture here, we say ‘Take your sword and
fight back against the devil’, But it is not your sword. It says the sword is
of the Spirit. This means that the Spirit must give you the sword to use it.
Also, in the Roman time, people engraved the name of the owner into their
swords. If Paul really was detailed in his words, he used in the letter, it
must mean that the sword we use to fight a spiritual battle is not ours and has
the name of the Spirit in the metal engraved.
Since the sword that was used in the Roman army (called a gladius) was
small there was training needed to be able to use the weapon. It is small but
deadly if used right. Therefore, it is important to read the bible; this will
train you on how to use the sword of the Spirit. This way when an attack comes
you know how to fight it and the Spirit can give you the right verses to fight
with.
Pray all the time
Prayer is very important; it is a way that we can communicate with God our
King. It is important to stay in contact with Him because He knows when attacks
come, and He can prepare you for it.
As we see the spiritual armor has a lot to it. A big suggestion I would give you is read the chapters again and see if it is different now you know these things. Do you know what is awesome? Roman soldiers would give their armor to their children as an inheritance. Think about it. God our Father gave us His armor to protect us. Isn’t that awesome?
How to use the spiritual armor
This is a question which has an answer. The answer you can find in Luke 4:1-13. Here Jesus is being pursued by the devil and tested. As you can read Jesus uses His spiritual armor. He uses the shield to deflect what the devil tries to tell Him. Jesus tells the devil that what he says is not true. But after that, it doesn’t stop. After pulling up His shield Jesus strikes back with a direct hit of the sword. How? Jesus tells the devil that what is written in the bible. The devil knows it’s true and can’t fight back. So, the devil tries something else. Again, Jesus defends and strikes back. Finally, the devil starts using scripture in the hope that that would scare of Jesus. But it didn’t scare of Jesus contrariwise Jesus defends and strikes back again and wins the fight, the devil leaves Him and then Jesus could take some rest and talk with the Father.
We have gotten the authority over the devil and his forces. This means that what we say he must obey. This means that when we use are spiritual armor correctly the devil won’t be more than an annoying fly with a big mouth. Because we have God to our side which is no match for satan.
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