Ephesians 6:17
“And take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.”
We are continuing on with the spiritual armor. Today we’ll focus on the helmet of salvation. This is clearly protecting the head or one’s thought life. The head and the heart are the targets of the enemy.
We have three enemies, the world, the flesh and the devil. The world is the culture that is an enemy of God. It supplies the negative pressure to get us off track from following the world. It belittles God and His ways. The world’s anthem is the song, Imagine. While beautiful in melody, it’s lyrics are antichrist. “Imagine there’s no heaven
It’s easy if you try. No hell below us, Above us only sky.” And later, “and no religion, to”. It’s as if they circle together, edging out God. I just heard of someone famous who passed. This song was played at her funeral. It made me sad, for I heard she was a christian. She may have been, but those who organized her funeral weren’t.
The next enemy is the devil. The previous verse has him shooting flaming arrows at us. These are the thoughts and emotions meant to discourage, tempt and damage us. He attempts to dethrone God and kill and maim people.
The last enemy is our flesh which craves self fulfillment and ungodliness. Ephesians 4:22 says, “You are to have put off, concerning the former way of life, the old man, which is being corrupted according to its desires of deceit.” The flesh demands attention and to be fed. But we are to crucify it and to feed our new self. The one that came to life when we were born again.
All these enemies influence the mind. The helmet of salvation is to protect it. 2 Corinthians 10:5 says,”We tear down arguments and every presumption set up against the knowledge of God; and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.” “Taking captive” is a wartime phrase. Our war is rarely against people, but thoughts and emotions. We are to stand firm. Wrong and sinful thoughts compromise that. We can have a train of thought which leads to doubt, fear and sin. Ignore it or change the channel to get us in another direction.
Those thoughts come from the world, the flesh and the devil. They all send them. We are to put off the old self, to resist the devil and overcome the world.
What informs our minds is the Word of God, the bible. We are to read it and listen to sermons from it. We sing songs with words and themes from it. The world tells us to grab what’s ours and fight for it. God says to allow others to go first and to love them. The bible tells us to consider it joy. That is going through trials, being persecuted and so on. We can rejoice that we are on God’s side. He is with us and in us. He’s protecting us and loving us. We don’t have to worry about our portion. God will allow our cup to overflow. We don’t have to fight for it.
This is a completely different mindset than the one influenced by the world, the flesh and the devil. It’s more base and animal-like. Colossians 3:1,2 says, “Therefore, if you have been raised with Christ, keep seeking the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on the things that are above, not on the things that are on earth.”
Those not in Christ are entrenched in the earthly life. Jesus says they are slaves of sin. Because they have rejected Christ they are susceptible to error and perversion. It’s killing them, but they don’t want to leave it. God continues to reach them and so should we.
The world, the flesh and the devil seek to influence us toward evil. But the helmet of salvation deflects those thoughts. The helmet isn’t so much a piece of equipment to put on, but a defensiveness against evil. The peace of God fills our hearts and minds. A wrong thought is like acid to us. It’s foreign. It’s as if we’ve gained a sense of the godly and we reject that which is ungodly.
Hebrews 5:14 speaks of spiritual senses. “But solid food is for the mature, who by constant use have trained their senses to distinguish good from evil.” Solid food is the Word of God and it’s teachings. It includes doctrines. The bible in our lives builds those spiritual senses of which the helmet of salvation is a part. It’s that reflex that recognizes and expels the ungodly.
The phrase from the Lord’s Prayer comes to mind, “keep us from evil”. He assists in that, but by His development of this defense, we also attempt to keep ourselves from evil. It’s like our spiritual immune system. It recognizes the evil and destroys it.
Lord, thank You for the helmet of salvation. It’s use keep out much evil. You’ve assisted us in developing that sense of recognizing and expelling evil. You’ve spared us from much by it’s use. Thank You.