Welcome And Passage Setup

SPEAKER_00 0:02

Welcome to the Boundless Bible. My name is David Shapiro. Hey, I'm Javi Marquez. And I'm Jason Holloway. Hey guys, today we're going to go over Ephesians 6, 10 through 18. You better known it as the full armor of God. I'm really excited to kind of jump in today and talk about this armor, what it means, what it's about. And there's actually quite a bit of references from the Old Testament that we're going to talk about as well. But we're going to talk everything full armor of God today. Some spiritual warfare.

SPEAKER_01 0:34

Awesome. I love it. I love it. Armor of God is powerful. You know what's funny? Uh the armor of God. It's really powerful as you read it, as you know it as a Christian. And I would be honest. I do not run to it enough. I do not carry it on enough. So I have to be, I want to uh just share that and just be open and honorable. I mean open and vulnerable uh about it. And I'm glad that we're doing this episode because um this spoke to me. So same, same.

SPEAKER_02 1:07

I I you know I I can be really dense sometimes. And one of my deepest densities is that I can read these big, beautiful, elaborate metaphors and read them so literally. And even though, like it's funny, I find I find the metaphor in the literal, but I find the literal in the metaphor. And so I stared at this thing like unshakingly for years and was like, I don't get it. Like it's a nice thing to say, but I didn't get it. So it only recently did it kind of like open itself up to me. So I'm I'm interested to talk about today and see where you have to.

SPEAKER_00 1:36

Hopefully, after this, Javi, you'll you'll want to put it on daily. It'll be something a little bit different, it'll speak a little bit differently to you. So yeah, for sure.

God’s Own Armor From Isaiah

SPEAKER_00 1:44

Uh first part is cole Neshech Elohim. That is actually what full armor of God is, and it's not full armor of God, it's full obedience, preparedness of God. And that's the first thing is making sure we kind of know in context. Um, but it's very specific. It does not say the armor from God, it says the armor of God. Right. And what's really interesting, this is the part Javi, right off the bat, where I'm like, maybe you'll want to put it on every day. Is this actually comes, if you look at the Old Testament, Isaiah 59, 17, Isaiah 11, 5, this is God's personal armor that he puts on. So it's not like, hey guys, here's some armor I'm gonna give you to put on of your own. We're actually putting on God's armor. Right. So it's like your dad going, here's my armor, you get to put this on. Um, and man, what what a blessing we get to put on God's armor. Yeah, right. That's cool. So yeah, right right off the bat. If you didn't want to put it on before, I want to now.

SPEAKER_02 2:45

Yeah, right. I won't I we we we are that's that's the hand me down I want in life, right there. That's the hand me down. That's the if God wore it, it's I I'm it's I'm suited for it as well.

SPEAKER_00 2:58

So the the first part of the armor, I mean, if you don't guys don't mind, I'm just gonna jump into kind of link by link each piece of armor. And and the first one we have is this belt around your waist of truth. And if you actually look at the the spelling of the word, uh Aleph Mem Tov, it's the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet, the middle of the alphabet, and the very last letter of the alphabet, and it's done on purpose. This encompasses the reality of all of truth. This is all of the letters, all of the symbolism. He you're putting on the waist of truth. You're literally putting on all the letters of the Hebrew alphabet.

SPEAKER_01 3:39

That's incredible. That's cool. So okay. I I'm you know, but I'm thinking about it now. This is a belt, right? So I'm thinking about it like from beginning to end of the belt, right? The buckle to the end of the belt. It's it's it's so many imageries is kind of going on in my head right now. That's pretty cool to to to understand that as the beginning and end and it being the the truth. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 4:02

Yeah.

What “Put It On” Really Means

SPEAKER_02 4:03

But before we get into that that stuff, you know, I I just want to maybe I'm spoiling some of you some of your thoughts from later, but like before we even get to what they mean, like one of the things that was really a big deal for me is like, how do you put on an armor of God? Like, I don't I don't own that. I I it's not under my bed, it's not in my closet. Like one of the things I I struggle with for a long time, I was like, again, beautiful metaphor, but like, what do I what do you mean put on the full armor of God? And that's the one that like my density struck and I didn't know what to do with it. So you know, I don't know if you guys I I have an answer for it, but I mean, do you guys want to speak to how you look at that when we talk about putting on the full armor of God?

SPEAKER_00 4:41

For me, again, that meaning of full obedience and preparedness is we've been giving, we've been given these pieces of armor by God through the spirit, and putting them on means knowing what each one of them is, knowing what truth really means. And we'll go through all the different pieces of it. Um, and it's it's truly being obedient to God and preparing myself for spiritual battle by using these different elements given to us. Um now he puts it in terms of because it's warfare, he to puts it in terms of armor and a sword for war. Uh, but for me, it is it is simply just the obedience in God and what he's asking us to do in each individual piece.

SPEAKER_01 5:22

Yeah. Yeah. What about you? Yeah, I love the the Hebrew explains it really well, you know, and I didn't know it before until you said it now, David, but that explains it really well. Yeah, just that that's how I see it as an obedience thing, and it's uh it's uh preparedness for what's to come. I think we we need to realize what Paul is saying here, right? It's we're there's a attack happening, there's a war that's happening that we need to prepare every single day. We need to put this on because there's arrows coming at us. There's this they're they're grabbing us by the heels, they're they're you know, they're getting you know, we're getting stabbed and whatever. So we need to get we need to put our shield up, we need to have our armor on, a chest plate on, you know, we need to have a helmet put on right. So, and I think that explains it really well to the fact that we need to be prepared to what's going out to the world, going out and doing life, um, of how we're gonna be attacked and how to how to combat that, how, how to attack that, how to def defend the attacks.

SPEAKER_02 6:19

Yeah. And I agree with both of those. And I think that the key word there is is preparedness, right? Like I think in order to get ready for your day, you have to choose how you're going to see your day before you start it. And this was like the practical thing that kind of opened it up for me. It's like, how do I put on the four-ball armor of God? It's well, I choose when I'm waking up in my morning, as I'm getting ready for my day, I have to choose to have faith in something, right? And I have to choose that if somebody attacks me with words that make me feel down, I'm gonna respond to that with the belief that, you know, I'm a child of God and I'm not the child of whatever that person has to say about me. You know, I'm I'm bigger than my shame, I'm bigger than my guilt, I'm bigger than my than any attack that comes my way. When when um temptation comes my way, I'm going to attack that or defend from that. One way all of these things, by the way, that we're gonna talk about are mostly defense, except for one of them. So it's all about defending yourself, right? Like 90% of this stuff is uh defending yourself from the attacks of the day. Like you both said, you're gonna get attacked. And so it's it's first and foremost like a decision that I'm gonna walk into my day with this mindset. I'm gonna walk into it with this truth. I'm gonna walk into it being righteous in this way or having faith in this thing. And when I realized that, it was almost like, I don't know, it's like I'm preparing myself for all the attacks are gonna come, and I'll be prepared when they do to defend myself from them. And and and now, now that's where for me, like what they are just like flourishes and tells me, like, okay, what does it mean to prepare myself with a belt of truth? What does it mean to prepare myself with a breastplate of righteousness and so forth and so on? So anyway, I just want to get that one out of the way early because that was, I guess that for me, for me, that was that was the open door.

SPEAKER_01 8:03

As you as you're talking about it, I'm thinking about the your past and and how you were, you know, certain things that was set to you, and you're you were always like, What, but why? Like you pray, but why? Right. And I think this sums it up, right? These are one of the big reasons why we do certain things, like knowing the word, why we pray, because there's a war going out there after us, and it wants to bring us down, it wants to attack us, it wants to not succeed, not to not to live the life that God attends for us, you know. So I think this is another reminder of having the armor of God, of why we do pray, why we do put those words in our hearts. So I love that you said that, Jason.

SPEAKER_02 8:39

But that's exactly right. And I mean that that's exactly right. It's the this is why we have those words in our hearts. So when somebody's when when the world says something opposite, we have a defense. Yeah. Well, the Bible says this. You know, well, Jesus says this, and this is what God says about me. And that's, you know, that's not true because that's what God said about me, right? And so to your point, even for all the years I look back, I think of the fact that now I have defenses against these things. And they're not, I'm not perfect with them, but I but I have defenses against them. For the majority of my life, every world attack that came after me, I was taking it full on right in the face, right in the chest, right in the arm, right in the knee. You know what I mean? Like every barb that came at me cut me. Every one, yeah, because I had I had no defense. I had nothing against it. It was like if the world tells me I suck, I suck. If the world tells me I'm not worthy, I'm not worthy. If enough things in this world happen that that show me that I'm a screw up, then I'm a screw up. But I didn't have any defense against. If I got cut, I was just getting stabbed. Yeah. So anyway, I I I think that that's the that's the beauty of this, is that when we when we talk about all that we're gonna talk about, like each one is is defending us against something in this world that will attack us.

Belt Of Truth Holds Everything

SPEAKER_00 9:42

And what's really great is you know, you talk about the things that you'd gone through, and we've all been through things where uh, you know, you hear it, I have my truth, you have your truth, and then there's the truth and all that. And um, what's interesting is you know, we kind of started about the the belt of truth. And right off the bat, when you start to look at beginning to end, what is truth, and and what a belt has to do with that, and the belt honestly holds everything together tightly. You can't wear a belt loose because your pants are gonna fall. Right. Uh, this is something that goes on top of the armor, holds it to you tightly. That belt is hey, my my truth, the truth of God from beginning to end is going to be tightened and fastened to me tightly so it doesn't get loose. It doesn't, I don't lose that that grip to it. Um, and I think it's just a beautiful just imagery of of what the the truth of God is going to be to our lives. And if we're gonna be obedient and prepared, we have to do that through God's word and through his truth, not ours. Uh and a lot of times we go, hey, this is my truth. No, there's really there's not your truth, my truth, some truth. Um, one of the things we have to look at is if we're looking at God from beginning to end, Emmett, if we're looking at that Emmet, that truth, then we have to look at the entire belt of God and going, hey, what am I gonna be fastened to? If I'm fastened to I'm not good enough, I'm gonna lose that war. Everything else is gonna fall apart. I like that.

SPEAKER_02 11:09

Why don't that's not gonna be that's it's all gonna fall apart. Right. Yeah. And I mean, like you said, it's funny that start that the belt of truth comes out first because you start to think, well, you would put it on first, right? But that's actually, like you said, it's actually the last thing that goes on. Like once you have everything else on, it's the one, you know, that breastplate is would just kind of hang from your shoulders if you didn't have something to to hold it all together. And so that's uh that's an interesting note. I'm glad I'm glad you put the the chronology of that in order for me because I think that one always got me a little bit, but that makes sense.

Breastplate And Guarding The Heart

SPEAKER_00 11:38

It is incredibly um important. Uh the second one we're jumping to is the breastplate. Uh the breastplate is really cool because it covers uh the Tazaka, that covers the heart. This is something that is covering the vital part of your body, uh, the lungs as well. Um, but this is having the right relationships, having people who are, you know, there with you in in your life with Christ. Uh, this is living in order with God. This is everything to do with your heart. God talks about the heart, you know, more and more and more. Uh, this is one of those moments where he needs to protect your heart after you get it right.

SPEAKER_02 12:18

Yeah. I think look, the heart, the heart is also the place where we traditionally talk about emotions. And, you know, a lot of let's just use the word, the opposite word for sake of making a point here, like unrighteousness comes from your heart. Like I anger comes from the heart, and you know, doing corrupt things or being bitter and angry, those are heart-oriented things, right? The the righteous, you know, right, righteous means to be in right standing with God. And you can't be in right standing with God if you are angry, if you are bitter, if you are doing corrupt things, if you are lying to protect your heart or protect the hearts of others. You know, there's that one, that one particularly gets me because I've been learning what righteousness means, and it means being holy and doing the right thing and being in right standing with God and doing what God would do, not what you would do. And those are mostly heart issues. They're they're they're mostly, you know, avoiding vanity or avoiding, you know, propping yourself up or you know, being humble, being humble. That's righteous, right? Being humble and not being prideful. And so this is one I find to be really interesting and probably one of the most practical that you can use on a daily basis to avoid becoming a bad person, becoming a non-righteous is saying I'm gonna be righteous by being more like that. And that's at the heart level.

SPEAKER_00 13:37

So um, we know that you know, when you talk about King David, he had a heart after God, and we know that the heart's very important. And then even when we look at the story of Solomon, and you know, we we're not going over Solomon today, uh, but everyone talks about him being the wisest man ever. He was asked for wisdom. Uh, but again, the the Jewish word originally was not wisdom from the brain, it actually meant a listening heart. That was the actual word used when he asked for the wisdom. It was, I'm asking for a listening heart. And God is going, once you have your heart right, once you have it aligned, once you're doing good, everything you said, once you have uh that moment where you're doing the things in line with God, you need to protect that. So here's that breastplate to cover that, to protect it so that way it stays. Because listen, even Solomon having the listening heart still fell into idol worship. So he's saying, after you, after you catch me, I don't want you to lose me. So here's that protection of your heart afterwards.

SPEAKER_01 14:39

I think when we I don't know too much about anatomy, but you know, guard your heart, right? You hear this all the time. And I think it makes sense the heart, everything flows from there, right? Everything flows from your from your heart and kind of it's is the it's like the center point of your your body, of your core, and almost, right? And I think I think that's right. I think if if anything, if you ever wonder what to do at a certain moment, is just be righteous, be good, try to do good, right? And I think whether you you say the wrong things or whatever it is, if you think you do it from a good heart, I think God sees that and He wants you to, you know, He's He wants you to do those things. And I think maybe I'm a little off there, but I just feel like that means so much more if we think about it from that point of what the heart does physically and how the heart uh in this in a spiritual realm realm of being righteous, how that could flow out to so many other things.

SPEAKER_02 15:37

I the only thing I would mildly like twist on that one is that if you follow everybody follows their heart and they end up in real bad places. So it's not about following your heart, it's about following God's heart. So that that's a that's a a small correction there that I would add in because I think it's I I think that's one of those statements that's very easy for people to take the wrong way and think, oh, if I follow my heart, if I follow my emotions, right? And I think we all know that emotions, I mean, the Bible says some pretty clear stuff about emotions. The the the heart is a is a liar, the heart is you know mistrustful and so forth and so on. So it's not about following our hearts, it's about protecting our hearts by following the heart of God. That was David.

SPEAKER_00 16:14

David had the heart after the other thing real quick. David and he still went after Bathsheba and did wrong things. Um so yes, when you're in line, it's always alignment. If your heart is in alignment with God, then you follow your heart and you follow your heart with the crush rate.

SPEAKER_03 16:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 16:29

Then you follow your heart. Right. You mentioned Solomon too, and so I think Solomon's a really interesting uh example of somebody who, you know, asked for wisdom and asked for that listening heart. I love that idea of wisdom being a listening heart, right? Like you're open to um correction, is what that means, right? You're you're open to change when you see that the what goodness is out there. But the interesting thing is you said that he eventually lost it. And you know why? It's because he didn't put on his breastplate of righteousness every day. The the heart was corrupted because he wasn't putting on the righteousness. And so going back to this idea of like, how do you put these things on? You wake up in the morning and you say, When I'm faced with a choice between a God choice and a non-god choice, I'm gonna make the God choice. And even somebody like Solomon, who is wisdom and has a wise heart and who's open to you know correction, is uh is subsequent subsequently able to fall apart because he didn't put that on every morning and didn't decide to follow that. So anyway, I just think that you know you said obedience, sorry, you said obedience in the beginning too, and that's such a big part of it right. Like the obedience is waking up every morning and doing this and and consistently and constantly doing that.

SPEAKER_00 17:36

The scary part is, you know, we we hear about a hardened heart and we automatically think about the pharaoh and we go, okay, this was a bad pharaoh, bad guy, had a hardened heart. You know, we think of it, but we don't really think anything wrong about that. Uh, but then when you look at Solomon, Solomon's heart did get hard. He hardened a heart, and this is now a heart that was after God that was a listening heart that can harden also. And that it is a warning to us that even when we're trying to do the best for God, we can also stray by following the wrong things, following idols, following material things, following different people in this world, and that will ultimately lead to the hardening of even the wisest heart ever. Um, so it is a warning that this this breastplate is seriously necessary once we align ourselves with God.

SPEAKER_02 18:23

Yeah, to put it on every day, too, you know? Like it to have the breastplate and keep it in your closet doesn't help you. Like you have to be willing to put it on and live it. If I had God's armor, I'd be wearing it constantly. So, what about the shoes?

Shoes Of Peace And Holy Ground

SPEAKER_02 18:38

If you if you had physical armor, you would never take it off.

SPEAKER_00 18:40

The shoes are the the gospel of peace. Uh, this is what this is. This is again from Isaiah 52, 7. Uh, this is referring to God's reign and peace. And this is peace, this is shalom. This is a different kind of peace than we know as not just kind of, hey, relaxing, I'm taking a day off, and and the kids aren't making a lot of noise, and there's peace. This is peace beyond understanding. This is peace like I've never felt before, and this is what God wants for our life. And that comes from the gospel. And so these shoes are literally the gospel of peace.

SPEAKER_02 19:17

That's really interesting. I have a totally different interpretation of that one. So I'm interested to see that that how you guys go on that. Javi, where what where do you sit on the uh on the shoes of the gospel of peace?

SPEAKER_01 19:28

I don't really have too much thoughts on that. I think the first thing I think about when I think about shoes and the gospel of peace, I think about evangelism. I think about putting on your shoes and kind of uh you know, going out there and and hitting the ground, running and sharing the word and sharing the gospel. Um yeah, Isaiah 52 7 is gospel of peace. Uh so I I say that only I say that only because it says gospel and but gospel meaning good rather than gospel meaning Christians. But yeah, right. So I think, yeah, sharing the good, the goodness of God, the goodness and his peace, right? And taking, you know, you put on your shoes to go out there and and share it with other people. That's super interesting. I never thought of that.

SPEAKER_02 20:07

Yeah. Like movement, like movement. It's not even like standing, it's about the movement of that's really interesting. Yeah. I I always had a totally different interpretation, not always, I mean it's kind of recent. Like I said, I I was really dull on the subject until recently. It just kind of opened up for me. But the the the the shoes for me of peace, I would have been sharpening that sword, Javi. Um the the weird thing is peace. Again, I mean, I have so many experiences of being so unpeaceful, and it's because I didn't have anything to set my feet on, right? And I didn't have anything to stand on, anything to believe in. And so for me, the the peace, so it was everything was chaotic, you know, like when you don't have peace, everything is chaos. Everything, everything is chaos. Every little thing that happens in your life is the biggest thing that happens because you're so unbalanced that every little thing throws you so far off, it's like I don't know, it's like one of those toys that like is, you know what I mean? Like, so I think of the opposite of peace. And the opposite of peace is chaos. And it's uh, you know, letting these roller coasters of life get in in your way. And so for me, the peace is more like if you know that God's got your back, if you know that, you know, God is in charge, if you know that you have a vision for your future, you're walking towards that, you're gonna have more peace and you're gonna bring that peace to other situations. You're gonna bring it into conversations, you're gonna bring it into the daily life, you're gonna bring it into, you know, not you know, turning purple and your ears puffing out smoke when somebody, you know, cuts you off in traffic or in line. Like when you approach situations with peace, guess what you also get out of it? You get more peace or you have more opportunity to solve a situation or more clarity in situations. So for me, the piece was about approaching things with a level head. And when you have a level head, you have an easier walk in forward. So that's how I got it. It's interesting. All three of us had a different thing. No pun intended.

SPEAKER_00 21:58

Uh you have different moments where God is. Telling people when they're in his presence to take off your shoes, you're stepping on holy ground. It's very interesting. It's take off your shoes. And what you think about is hey, kick off the dirt to go step on some more dirt. It doesn't, to me, it doesn't make a lot of sense, except if you look at it symbolically and going, hey, the earthly stuff that you have on your feet, you're now on holy ground. You have to take that off and step on holy ground. So that way you're stable on holy ground and not bringing your earthly things to it. Now God is telling you to put shoes on, and it's the shoes of the gospel of peace. Okay. These are now the shoes rooted in me, rooted in the good news of Christ. So now I want you to step with these shoes because these are the stable shoes you need to be on holy ground. So before it was, hey, you can't be holy. I love that too. Because you have the earth on your shoe. So you need to be barefoot. And now here are the shoes I'm going to give you, which are the gospels, which make you holy. Now you can be stable in these shoes.

SPEAKER_02 22:59

That's solid fourth, solid fourth version. It's almost as if it's a shield of the five.

SPEAKER_00 23:08

So where are we going next? And if the shoes gotta be the shoes. It's gotta be the shoes.

Shield Of Faith Against Every Angle

SPEAKER_00 23:23

And I think that we always go to this blind faith. I think, especially when it comes to Christianity, people say blind faith all the time. Um this is actually the faith of what we believe to be true against the enemy's mind, against the identity. Same thing. You said this before. This is now not our desire and our thoughts on our identity. This is what the actual faith of what it says, which is we are children of God, we are loved, we are created. Yeah. So now this shield of faith is not the shield of faith that I have in God, but also a shield of faith of what He's created.

SPEAKER_02 24:03

Yeah. Amen.

SPEAKER_00 24:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 24:06

I mean, that that's I have nothing to add to that. I mean, it's fa it it's it's it's perfect. I mean, faith is believing that what God has said is true. It's believing God over all other things. It means when you are accused, when you are tempted, when you are tempted tempted, tempted, tempted. There you go. There's a word. Uh when you have a fear, when you feel attacked, you believe that God didn't do any of those things. So that's just the world. And you're putting up a separator between the world and yourself. And I think that's that's it, right? Like I'm putting up a shield between myself and God. Or I hope not. Uh a shield between myself and the world, right? Like the the world's out there, I'm protected behind this, and and it's the faith in God that's separating me from the world. The other cool thing I'm just pointing.

SPEAKER_01 25:01

You made me think about go for it, Hobby. Go for it. No, he was making me think about, you know, because it's when you put out something like that, right? You put up, if you put up your faith, right? You put up the shield from the attacks, you know, sometimes people could look at it, oh, you just you just you can't see it no other way, you just stuck in your ways and what you believe in in Jesus or or God and this thing, right? There's miracles, whatever it is. And it's like there's truth behind that. And it's like, if we don't stand on anything, you know, you don't stand for something, you don't stand for, you know, you stand for anything, right? So it's like, so I really feel like putting up your shield, putting up your faith up whenever you are being attacked, you are, you know, being lied to, and whatever it is, it's coming in different ways. You could hold, you know, you could hold you, you you have something to stand on, you have something to protect you, which is your faith to go, no, I believe that God will do that. I believe God loves me and cares for me. You know, so I'm just seconding what you're saying, Jason, because I think you said it brief beautifully. And I think it's it's it is what it is, is that you know, it's just yeah.

SPEAKER_00 26:03

The other thing is really interesting about this, and I'll just touch on this real quickly, is this is the only defensive uh armor that we have that is mobile, that is moved. The helmet stays in place, the belt stays in place, the breath stays in place, yeah. But with our faith, it can be attacked from the side, from the back. This is now a shield to be able to turn and move and protect my faith uh with something that can move. And I think it's really important to also point that out is you know, this shield, if something is attacking me from the side, I don't have to just hold it here, I can turn and all of a sudden it's protecting me over here as well. Um, and and I just think it's it's not coincidence that the shield is a mobile protective and the faith gets attacked from so many different directions. That's good. Every angle.

SPEAKER_01 26:50

One of my one of my fairy shields are the Roman shields. Those shields are pretty dope, they're really cool. Those well, that's what this is based off of.

SPEAKER_00 26:58

Originally based on the Old Testament, so that's from the Roman shields yet. But yes, when he speaks about it in Ephesus, now he is the visual is the Roman armor.

SPEAKER_02 27:08

Right. He's visualizing the Roman shields, which this is kind of a later one, but anybody notice the fact that there the Roman uh armor has nothing on the back, there's nothing to protect your back. And do you know why? Because you have to face your attacks. You have to face your attacks. You can't run and hide. If you run and hide, you're gonna get stabbed in the back. Uh so I thought I this is one of my interesting things that I really thought. I I really thought that was super fascinating. And I don't know if it was intended or if it's just one of those things we made up afterwards, but it's pretty strong either way. Like you have to literally face forward the attacks that are coming at you. Because if you turn and hide, you're getting you're getting an arrow in the back. Anyway, so so helmet

Helmet Of Salvation Restores The Mind

SPEAKER_02 27:47

of salvation.

SPEAKER_00 27:47

We have a helmet and listen, salvation. If you don't know, the word of salvation is Yeshua. Um, so this is the helmet of Yeshua. Is it?

SPEAKER_02 27:55

So just well, let's open up a couple more Pandora boxes while we're at it.

SPEAKER_00 28:00

Again, putting this out there, this is something protecting your thoughts, protecting uh it's restoring you. Uh, we we mentioned before about Solomon. There's also a great story right after Solomon about Elijah being restored by God. Uh, he was tired and God gave him rest and then food and then rest again. Uh, this is the restoration of our minds, and I can't think of anything better of the restoration part than Yeshua. So, yes, this is the helmet now protecting us and restoring us. Wow.

SPEAKER_02 28:31

That was a shock. Yeah, I I I'll be honest, I struggled with this one for a while. I mean, the helmet of salvation, I mean, it it in my head it was more of like, I know I'm gonna be saved, so just remember that. Like, remember that even when I screw up, you know, that I'm I'm still protected and I still have another chance. Like, that's how I saw it, but yours is far deeper. I mean, it's your your mind, I mean, look, we're we're protecting our head now, right? That's what we're doing. We're protecting our head. We're protecting, we're protecting mostly our brains. We're keeping, we like brains inside head, not outside head. So uh, so we're we're protecting the brain. So I always thought it was more of an intellect thing. Like intellectually, we know that um you know that we know that we're gonna be saved. And no matter what happens to us physically, uh, spiritually, whatever, mentally, whatever, we we need to know in the brain, beyond all other things, that that we're saved and that there is redemption when we screw up. So that's where I thought, but yours is way better.

SPEAKER_00 29:31

Um, and then we'll get to the final one, which you mentioned this earlier, Jason.

Sword Of The Spirit And Spoken Scripture

SPEAKER_00 29:36

This is my favorite the only non-defensive item uh in this armor, and this is the sword of the spirit. And uh it's so beautiful because the word he uses is Rhema in this one, and it's very specific because this is the spoken word. This is living, living power uh is what he's saying. So we're we're striking back with living power with the spoken word. Um so I just think it's a beautiful, again, imagery of of what we have as our defense um with attack.

SPEAKER_02 30:12

With attack. And it's I mean, when you say word of God, remember we're talking scripture. We're talking scripture. Your your way to attack back at the first of all, we have to defend ourselves, right? There's going to be attacks on us that are internal and from the external to our internal, and we have to protect our interior from that. That's the one thing it's the easiest way to say all this from the beginning, right? Is like when we get attacks from the outside, where we suffer is internally. We have these feelings and emotions and and we doubt, and doubt is an internal thing, and fear is an internal thing. So all this stuff was attacked, so we don't want our outside to become, you know, penetrated to our inside's hurt, right? That's the first thing. But now we have a chance to fight back against those. And the way that we fight back against all those things that are fighting us is through the word of God. It's through the it's through the word of God, through scripture, through knowing what, you know, greater is he who is within me than who is within the world. That one, you know, Proverbs 423, guard your heart, you know, all these, you know, Timothy, the the uh God will never you know tempt me beyond what other men have been tempted. And like these are the things that protect you, and and they're not protections, they're defense, go away, like attacks. And I and I the more I learn scripture, the more I realize that I'm horribly, horribly bad with remembering scripture, but I'm trying it really hard because it does help. When you when you have those things locked in your head as mantras, and you're able to not just run away or or hide from your defenses or and defend yourself, but actually attack back and go, no, that's not what it says. That's not what I believe. I love that. And this is my favorite one.

SPEAKER_00 31:46

Spoken word. And just just pointing that out, the reason why the word Rama says says spoken word is we can say, Well, the world become the word became flesh and became Jesus. And we can say, Well, our sword is Jesus, and it's not, it actually says specifically the spoken word. So you're 100% right. This is the word of the spoken one, right?

SPEAKER_01 32:03

That's cool. I would I have you as I was looking um looking into it and stuff like that. I heard somebody say that was really cool and really interesting. You're probably like this, Jason. Um, so like the sword, it's the word, right? And the belt, the sword usually rests on the belt, right? And the belt is the truth. So the God's word rests on the belt of truth, which I thought was kind of like really cool to think about, and that like God's word is truth, and um we could rest on that. We could really rest on that. And I think I love this part about she's saying before that this is this is how we could attack back and using those words to attack back and knowing that it's truth, knowing that God will will get you through it, right? Will give you the strength for it uh to get through these attacks. And it's beautiful. I this armor of God is just a beautiful analogy of how how to live day by day, daily, and how to go about to um to the world, you know, it's it's a daily

Pray Always And Wear It Daily

SPEAKER_01 33:03

thing.

SPEAKER_00 33:03

Yeah, and then it says after it says, pray always, and it talks about the whole armor, they all work together. You can't use one piece and not the other. So you pray daily, you put all of the armor on daily, they all work together, and that's the other part that people miss is they look at it and they go, Wow, you know, growing up, I love the sword and I love the shield. And and what he's saying is pray always, put on the entire armor because they all work together.

SPEAKER_02 33:32

That's good a hundred percent. Yeah, I mean, uh, who wants to have one piece of armor on when you're getting shot at from all angles, right? You have to, you have to put it all on, right? And you have to be prepared for all these things. And I I mean, for me, that's what it all comes down to. And I've I've been using this a lot lately in my daily life because it's it's made me realize, you know, obedience to the word. But part of the thing that the the Bible says pick up your cross daily. It doesn't say pick it up occasionally when it's convenient, it says pick it, take up your cross daily, and this is part of that. You have to wake up in the morning and you have to set your mindset. We're about to go into spiritual warfare on a daily basis. You're gonna get attacked on all sides from fear and doubt and and disease and physical things and mental things. And if you're not prepared for that, it's gonna break you down. But this is the antidote to that breakdown. And so wake up, pray, remind yourself of each one of these individual things, and you're gonna be more prepared for it. And I just I think that's such a beautiful thing.

SPEAKER_01 34:32

It's reality, and I love this. This is like the reality part of our faith, you know, and what we believe in. It's this is happening every day. This is happening now. And I just said it before, but it's just we we all have to realize that as we walk in faith, you know, it's not just going to church and hearing happy songs or hearing this worship. It's like we're being attacked, you know. This is a different war out there, people are coming after us spiritually, and and Paul speaks about that. It's exactly what he's pointing out. Like, this is a spiritual war happening, and you need to prepare for it.

SPEAKER_02 35:04

You know what I also think, and not to keep this conversation going longer than it needs to, but one of the things I've been struck with a lot lately is the truth of the Bible is so inherent in the writings of the Bible. Like, we all know that this attack happens on a daily basis. We not mean we may not use these words, but whether you're a Christian or not, you know that we're being attacked by these things. And people 2,000 years ago were being attacked by things too. It's like there's some universal truths that are just so true that you can't help but look at them and go, yeah, yeah, I get like it must be true. You know, like it's I don't know. I'm I'm just struck by the fact that people 2,000 years ago were going through the exact same things we are, and we're looking at them sometimes and going, they don't know what they're talking about. Like, wait a second, they're going through the same life we are now. Like, literally, they're writing about it, and here we are questioning.

SPEAKER_00 35:54

And thank God that this was written. This is too universally true to not be written that way because I wouldn't benefit from yeah something that they had, you know, uh years ago.

Silence In The Noisiest Generation

SPEAKER_00 36:03

I I heard this the other day, and uh same thing, not not for purposely keeping this longer, but the other day, I what I heard was this is the noisiest time of life, the noisiest generation that has ever existed uh in humanity for sure with all the different things we have, technology and noise and stuff like that is the noisiest thing. So we start look talking about Solomon's listening heart and the protective gear we have around us and everything that that's there for our protection uh and the word of God to defend back with, it really brings it brings us to a time of, you know, what are we afraid of with silence? Why are we so afraid of taking a moment and being quiet and realizing that sometimes the holiest thing you can do is to take a break, to to be silent and to have your armor on protecting you. Um, but there's no need, I don't need to scream out, I don't need to scroll, I don't need to do anything other than just be present with God. And that's what he's saying at the end of all this, pray to me daily, put on everything, and that's it. You don't have to do anything else. And uh, I just love that moment of like, let's just have some peace and some calm and some shalom, some peace beyond understanding, and just sit in the quiet.

SPEAKER_02 37:18

Yeah, there's a reason there's no uh air pods of enlightenment, right? I'm so glad that's that's not in there, that's not in there for a reason. Uh me too. So so guys, armor, armor of God is very cool. It's entirely practical, no matter how many years it took me to figure that out. Um, but it's entirely practical, and it has been it has been really enlightening to hear uh what you guys have said today. So I appreciate that and always do.

Listener Responses And Goodbye

SPEAKER_02 37:50

So for those of you who got something out of this, we'd love to hear about it from you. What did you get? If do you have another interpretation? Have you heard something different? We'd love to find out. So hit us up on the uh on the socials at our emails. We'd love to hear your comments, questions, concerns, and feelings. Uh, and we look forward to talking to you again next week. Thank you. Bye. See you guys.