Sound of Faith

Sharon Hardy Knotts: Greetings, friends and new listeners, and welcome to the Sound of Faith. I'm Sharon 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: The third in the echelon is rulers of the darkness of this world. It's actually two Greek words: cosmocrators. Cosmo 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. 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 of ministering spirits versus hindering spirits. 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. Amen? So he says, first of all, you've got to take on the whole armor of God that you can withstand.

The word is anthistemi. We get the word antihistamine that we bring over into the English. You buy antihistamines when you've got a sinus infection in your head because it'll stand against that infection and fight it off. Amen? 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. Amen? 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. Amen? 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. Amen? Stand. We have to realize the only way we're 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. Amen?

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.

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 enemy. Now, the loin belt, we call it a girdle sometimes, but it's really a loin belt.

Think of a belt that goes all the way around your waist. That's what it was. But it also had a piece that came here and a piece fell down that hung here, and that was to protect the loins. That's why it's called a loin belt. Amen? Now it doesn't seem as fancy as the shield or the sword or even the breastplate, but it was essential, and it's why he started off with it because the loin belt held all the other pieces together.

Amen? So you see, he had on this loin belt, and on one side would have been where he could put his sword. And on the other side, he could have attached his shield. And in the back, there would have been a pouch for his arrows. So the loin belt was very important because it held the other pieces of the armor together. And it also, the loin belt, in some spots, the breastplate of righteousness was hooked onto the loin belt.

So that's why it is so central and so important in the armor. It is the first and most important piece that he put on. He put the loin belt on first before anything else because the other pieces were attached to it. And we also put on the loin belt. And Paul said our loin belt is the truth. Boy, do we need our loin belt today. The truth. And he was talking about the settled written Word of God. And then the teachings of Jesus Christ.

So he spoke of the Old Testament, the written Word of God, and then he spoke of the teachings of Jesus. Because by the time that Paul was writing his book, the Gospels were written. Amen? And so it is the central part of our armor. The word truth here, as I said, refers to biblical truth, the written Word of God. So after putting on that loin belt, often it was made out of really heavy-duty leather, and it would have the little loops and things for him to hook other things on.

And it gives you support because it's going to support the small of your back. Amen? And how many know when you're going to be wearing this heavy-duty breastplate we're going to talk about in a second and all this other heavy stuff's hanging on that, that's a lot on your back. But that loin belt is what supported him. When someone has a very serious back injury, they put them in a corset because while those muscles and things are damaged, they need strength.

You can get to the point where you can't hold your own body up when your back is really damaged. So they put a corset on you so that you're able to be upright while it's healing. So that's why the loin belt is so important. But after the loin belt, he said, "Stand therefore with your loins girt about with truth and having on the breastplate of righteousness." The breastplate was made of bronze, and that's a heavy metal.

And it had leather straps that covered the body. This breastplate covered the body from the neck to the navel. Therefore, it covered all the way down to where the rib cage ends. And it wasn't just in the front. I want you to understand, it was a two-piece breastplate. It covered the front and in the same way, it covered all the way down the back. This heavy-duty bronze. And it was impenetrable from almost all hits.

Its main purpose was to guard the heart. To guard the heart. Righteousness is what guards our heart. Amen? In a very broad sense of the word righteousness, because you can get into a very in-depth study of righteousness, you could be days studying this word. But let's look at it in a broad sense. It describes the condition of being acceptable in God's sight, to be in a right relationship with God, and having and possessing integrity, virtue, and correctness in your thinking and in your actions.

And we all know that there's no way we can manufacture that on our own. Amen? This is not something that we can self-make ourselves to be. Our righteousness is as a filthy rag, is what Isaiah said. But praise God that He has made Him who knew no sin to become our sin-bearer, that we might become the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus. Amen?

And all we have to do is believe in our heart and confess with our mouth the Lord Jesus Christ. And then we know that we believe unto righteousness. And God sees us as righteous because He sees us in Christ. Amen? And now the thing that alienated us and made us enemies of God so we're off from God, can't get near to God, is removed. When sin is removed, there's no longer any alienation of affection.

And we're reconciled, and we can come right to the bosom of the Father and say, "Abba Father." So righteousness and knowing that we're righteous, you know, when you know that you're righteous, that is a wonderful, blessed feeling because you know it's not anything you could attain or deserve, but God for Christ's sake gives it to us. It guards our heart. Proverbs 4:23 says, "Keep your heart with all diligence, for out of it are the issues of life."

Jesus said in Matthew 12:34, "Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks." And we're going to see in a minute why this is so important. You know, let me just quickly say this. Everybody, all of us have a bad day and we speak things sometimes impulsively, or we might speak because we're under a lot of pressure, or we might speak and say something because we're under fear or we're angry. That's not what this verse is saying.

Just because you had a bad day one time and got really angry and said some really angry things, it doesn't mean you have a wicked heart. What it's saying is if the abundance of the things that come out of your mouth, if the majority of that which comes out of your mouth is always angry, is always mean-spirited, is always antichristian, then that is what's coming out of your heart. You have a heart problem. Amen?

We can, how many know you can overlook an occasional out-of-character remark that someone says? You can overlook it when once in a while they say something negative or angry or ugly. You know, you overlook it. But when that's all that ever comes out of their mouth and that's the abundance of what's coming out of their mouth, they are not right. They're not right. And because they're not right, their heart is not guarded with righteousness.

They don't have a breastplate on and the enemy can get a shot in. So we'll just munch on that in our own time, okay? Let's move on to the next one, verse 15. "And your feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace." Now, we can't overlook the feet. You know, I looked at a lot of pictures of Roman armor and all that they have. But a lot of times I wasn't happy with the feet because they had these little sandals that you would wear to Ocean City.

And let me tell you something, you don't want to be wearing them if you're in a battle on the battlefield. I want you to get the right picture what we're talking about here with these feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace. One Bible teacher calls them killer shoes. Killer shoes. Because the shoes of the Roman soldier were vicious weapons. They weren't just to protect his feet, but they were weapons.

Now, they actually started up here at the knee and they covered all the way down to the feet. Think Gladiator. Amen? But I don't want you to think of the fancy little ones that ladies like to wear for fashion. I want you to realize that they were made of metal and they were shaped to the calves of the legs. And that part that goes from the knee down to the ankle is called greaves, by the way, G-R-E-A-V-E-S, greaves.

They were made of metal. Boy, were they uncomfortable. But they protected the soldier's legs, even just going through battlefields from rocks and thorns and things like that. But they also kept his legs from being broken in battle. Because if someone came up with a big bat or club and banged him on his legs, it could break his legs and then he's out of commission. But those heavy metal greaves covered his legs and protected them.

Now, the foot part was made of leather and sometimes with metal. And here's the thing about them. They were not slip-ons and slip-offs. They were tied tightly, bound tightly to the foot. They weren't coming off. And here's the thing: the bottom of them had metal spikes coming out of the bottom. And these spikes were extremely important because they allowed the soldier to plant his feet and not be moved. And not be knocked down and not be pushed around by the enemy.

He could plant his feet and take his sword and do what he was doing, and he wasn't worried about falling over. Now, we can get an anemic idea when we think of golfers and ballplayers that wear cleats. They wear those cleats so that they won't fall, so that it'll get into that ground, they can plant it and they won't lose their balance or lose their stride. Amen? But I want you to think more of it as a weapon than just a sports cleat. It's a heavy-duty spike that kept them.

Now, if they did get an opponent down on the ground, those spikes were weapons. Here's the other thing that I want you to understand. Not only did it have the spikes on the soles, but protruding out of the toe of the shoe were long, dagger-like spikes. And that was an offensive weapon because you know how it feels if someone just accidentally kicks you in your shin with a tennis shoe on. Amen? But to have someone come with those spikes protruding out of that front of that shoe, it did great damage and could even kill an opponent, especially if they got them down. Amen?

Killer shoes. And where it says shod, I've told you it means to bind tightly. So this means for us in the spirit, when we have the peace of God, the devil cannot push us around. Oh, we might get hit hard with a bad report. We might get hit hard with a sickness or with an accident or an injury or some other thing can hit us. But it doesn't knock us down because our feet are shod and we're dug in.

The peace of God keeps us. The peace of God that passes understanding firmly keeps us standing on our feet. I won't say it because I've told it many times before, but you know how I've told you that when I got the breast cancer diagnosis, how that in that moment this supernatural peace came on me and carried me for six months through all of the surgery and treatment, that I never even cried one time. That was the peace of God.

That could have knocked me for a loop. But I was able to stand because of God's peace. But it says it's not only the peace, but it's the preparation of the gospel of peace. And the word preparation there means readiness. That means you've got to be ready for anything. You've got to be ready at all times for anything because you never know when a blow is coming here or a blow is coming there. But when you've got the peace of God, you are ready.

You are prepared. You didn't know you were prepared. How many have ever been through a bad spot and hindsight look back and say, "Boy, I see how the Lord prepared me for that." I didn't see that one coming. But now that I think about it, yeah, what about that message so-and-so preached right before that happened? That really prepared me. What about this thing that occurred right before that happened? That really prepared me.

Amen? It's being ready at all times. When you've got your shoes on, when they're bound tightly to your foot, you're not slipping them on and slipping them off, but you've got them bound to your foot. Then it means that you are ready for anything at any time when that attack comes. Let me quote to you one of my favorite verses, Romans 16:20. "And the God of peace," there's that word again, "the God of peace shall bruise Satan under your feet shortly."

The God of peace is going to bruise Satan's head. Now I want you to think about those spikes you've got on your killer shoes. Amen? And God allows you to get in a place where Satan is under your foot, and you're bruising his head. That word there, bruise, it means to smash. You know, you've ever seen videos of people how they used to make wine by putting a big vat of grapes and they get in there and smash them with their feet? Well, that's what the word means: to smash, smash, smash.

Let me tell you a good place in the New Testament that that word's used: about Legion. How many remember who Legion was? And said that he was so fierce that when they bound him with chains, he just broke the chains right off. Same word: crush and break those chains. My God, break every chain, break every chain, break every chain. When you crush Satan under your foot, you're breaking the chains of fear off of your life.

You're breaking the chains of discouragement and bitterness and unhappiness and all of those things. They begin to fall off of your life because you're crushing Satan under your feet. How? Because you have the peace of God. The word "shortly" is a military term, and it describes specifically the soldiers when they're in formation and they're marching. And when they're marching in formation, and think about how that we see on movies we've watched, World War II movies and things like that over in Europe, when the soldiers are in formation and they're marching on those cobblestone streets.

And how many know they make a loud noise? A loud noise. And the people knew long before they saw them the soldiers were on the way because the military word means how they lift their knees up in unison and put them down. Lift this one up and put it down. And when they all do it in unison, it's a loud noise. It says the soldiers are on the way.

Well, I'm telling you, when you are the church of Jesus Christ, the body of Christ, when we get in formation and we are marching together and we've got on our killer shoes, amen, the devil hears us coming. He knows we're on the way. He knows he's about ready to get his head stomped. He knows he's about ready to get his head bruised. You can't get out of formation. You've got to stay in formation.

But the devil tricks people. He gets them out of church, and they think I can stay home and watch Christian videos and Christian TV. But what about your spot that's missing? You belong on the front lines. You're a soldier in the army of the Lord. Paul said, "Endure hardness as a good soldier." Amen? He's called us to be soldiers. You know what they do to AWOL soldiers? They put them in prison.

And that's what the devil wants to do to people when they go AWOL. He wants to put them in a prison of bondage, and they get so bound then they can't come to church. My God, that's not in my notes. But imagine all of them with their spiked shoes. Here they come, marching in formation. You know, when I used to teach Sunday school, one of our favorite little songs we always sang was "We're going to roll the gospel chariot along."

And if the brother's in the way, we're going to stop and pick him up. And then if the sister's in the way, we're going to stop and pick her up and roll that gospel chariot along. And the kids loved this part: "But if the devil's in the way, we're going to roll right over him." We're going to roll right over him. Amen? We're going to stomp him.

Sharon Hardy Knotts: Amen. I hope you're being stirred by this devil-trouncing message, "Put on God's Armor." We are in a cosmic warfare against satanic forces entrenched in the heavens. On our own, we are 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 an 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 SK211. 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 SK211. Until next time, this is Sharon Knotts saying Maranatha.