E76 - Hope’s Harbor Gritty Bible Devotions - Armor of GOD - Helmet of Salvation - 6 of 7
Hope’s Harbor
Gritty Bible Devotions
Episode #76
Title: Armor of GOD – Helmet of Salvation – 6 of 7
Date: October 17, 2022
Contact: info@hopesharbor.net
Key verse(s): Ephesians 6:17a – ‘And take the helmet of salvation…’
Intro: When writing the notes for this episode the message took a direction I did not expect. But always asking GOD to guide my efforts for each episode I was not surprised, GOD should always get the credit, the glory, for any good that comes from this podcast. Any errors or omissions are mine, alone.
Here we go…
The Helmet of Salvation protects our minds from the lies and deception of our mortal enemy, Satan. When fiery darts are shot at our hearts is when the Shield of Faith protects us.
However, it is common in the spiritual war we’re engaged in to experience an attack on our minds first. So why the shield first, then helmet? I believe faith, what we chose to believe makes up the shield and also the helmet.
Also, faith comes through hearing the word of GOD and this gives us grounds for believing, for having faith enough to save us, but then we must protect our minds from being deceived. If we fall prey to satanic deception through our minds, our faith is weakened. A weak faith leads to inestimable suffering.
Devotion focus: A protected mind gives peace – Hope is that protection
Paul used the analogy of a soldier’s helmet to help us understand the necessity of protecting our minds. Let’s examine two of the words from the key verse of Ephesians 6:17a – ‘And take the helmet of salvation…’
The definition of take is similar to taking in vs 16. The idea is to receive protection offered by this piece of armor. We receive it by taking it up as in reading the Word of GOD and studying it until we have a firm grasp of the essential teachings of Jesus.
And then there is a helmet. It is defined in Strong’s concordance as an encirclement of the head, or mind. Satan will attack our minds to cause a number of problems, chief among them hopelessness leading to despair. A discouraged Christian is not much threat to Satan and his kingdom.
The helmet is made up of salvation, the next word to study in vs 17. First of all, salvation is the rescue of GOD when we trust our souls to safe keeping by Jesus’s love for us, This happens after we yield our wills to GOD’s will and are saved from the penalty of sin.
Having this salvation and believing in this salvation gives us hope. (If we understand it at all.) Did I mention that salvation includes adoption into GOD’s family? That’s right; we’re GOD’s adopted children. Can you imagine any more powerful Father to protect us than Almighty GOD?
If you will study the benefits of salvation, of being saved as Jesus declared is essential to obtain eternal life in John 3:16 & 17, you will have peace of mind concerning your eternal destiny as Jesus promised in John 16:33 – “These things I have spoken to you, that in Me you may have peace. In the world, you will have tribulation, but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world."
Now, let’s hear Jesus’s words as part of donning the helmet of salvation:
John 3:16 – “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.
John 3:17 – “For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved.”
This is a once for all time act, faith/belief on our part and then yielding our life to GOD’s will for as long as we draw breath, then setting aside the penalty for sin because Jesus paid that penalty, and adopting us as forgiven children.
Jesus said clearly in John 17:11 & 12 that GOD keeps us. In vs 11: we don’t keep ourselves saved. And in vs 12 Jesus said He lost none but “the son of perdition,” and we know that man was Judas who never was saved because Jesus said so in John 6:70 - ‘Jesus answered them, "Did I not choose you, the twelve, and one of you is a devil?" (Judas had a choice to be saved but chose instead to betray Jesus.)
John 17:11 – “Now I am no longer in the world, but these are in the world, and I come to You. Holy Father, keep through Your name those whom You have given Me that they may be one as We are.
John 17:12 – “While I was with them in the world, I kept them in Your name. Those whom You gave Me I have kept; and none of them is lost except the son of perdition, that the Scripture might be fulfilled.”
There is a commonly taught heresy that we can lose our salvation. This false teaching implies that although GOD saves upon faith expressed in Jesus’s death, burial, and resurrection, we must then keep ourselves saved. This is impossible. If I had to keep myself saved I would have to live a perfect life at all times. This heresy of losing salvation, therefore, appeals to human pride.
Now listen to this carefully because this is where your own helmet of salvation will protect you against this false teaching: At what point of sinning does one lose salvation? I’ve asked numerous people trapped in that bondage this question, including a beloved grandfather while having lunch at a Waffle House. But he couldn’t answer the question. No one has ever been able to.
I asked my grandfather if there is a point a person comes to while living in sin and that is when salvation is lost or taken away. He said yes. I shoved our plates back to clear the table, put both hands down on edge, and told him one hand represented him and the other hand me and placed my hands in line with one another and pointed at him across the table.
Then I began sliding both hands toward the edge of the table to my right and said the edge represented the point of sinning at which we would drop off to hell. As I slid my hands closer I said “We are both sinning,” and kept both hands in line with one another as if we were both sinning at the same rate and now approaching the table edge. Then I slid the hand representing me a little more ahead until it dropped off just ahead of the hand representing him and stopped that hand short of the edge and said, “Now I committed one sin more than you before you stopped sinning and I’ve now in hell but you are not. Is that fair?”
He just looked at me for a few seconds then said, “David, I don’t know about all that,” pulled his plate back and finished eating.
His wife, my grandmother who loved me without condition and without measure when I was a child, suffered immeasurable misery, and mental pain, all because of this heretical teaching that salvation can be lost.
She once told me she was condemned to hell because she had two abortions in the 1940s. That GOD would not forgive her because she killed her babies. When I was born in the mid-50s she loved me despite the anguish she suffered in her mind. In the sixties and seventies, she tried to commit suicide several times, all the while believing she was doomed to hell and seeing suicide as her only way to end the pain.
At the end of her life in 2007, as she was dying of cancer, she told me GOD had given her peace through assurance her salvation was safe. She was safe. She died several months later, at peace.
Summary: As I mentioned in the introduction to this episode the message took a turn I didn’t expect, but a turn that explains the need for a helmet of protection around our minds if we are to survive the spiritual war waged against us.
Only GOD through His Word is able to keep us from the utter despair Satan will rain down upon us if we don’t take the time and make the effort to know GOD’s Word sufficiently enough to recognize the lies coming at us from all sides.
Action to consider: Do you study GOD’s Word on a regular basis? If not do you now see the spiritual danger you’re in?
Each one of us should ask GOD daily for an understanding of His Word, to understand and apply the principles Jesus taught. He promised in John chapter 10 seven things that make up a strong helmet. Pick out these 7 things on your own, the things He promised in these two verses, write them down on a 3x5 card and begin to memorize them. They will give comfort to those who do the work.
John 10:27 – “My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me.
John 10:28 – “And I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; neither shall anyone snatch them out of My hand.”
Next week’s devotion: The Sword GOD
Ephesians 6:17b – ‘And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God;’