Use your sword! (The truth about the armor of God)

This is one of three pages in a series about learning to pray with an overcoming faith…

1. Use your sword! (The truth about the armor of God)
2. Four sample prayers – your daily sword!
3. May NO fruit EVER come from you again! (Matt 21:19)

These next three pages are additional informative information…

• God did it Sovereignly, for His own sake
• The faith that takes us over the Jordan into the promised land
• Christ Jesus Himself the chief Cornerstone

The actual post begins here… enjoy!

Based on the scriptures that you have just read, I have built up four composite prayers, pulling together scriptures that share a common theme. I have built four themes…

1. Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God took away sin (the Foundation, the Rock)
2. Jesus Christ reconciled and blessed this world
3. Jesus Christ brought me into right standing with God
4. Jesus Christ removed the power of death to harm me

The prayers are a compilation of scriptures, edited to make them flow easier. They are a powerful sword! These prayers are only a suggestion. Modify them, add to them and build your own sword which you use every day.

But to use your sword, you need to understand your sword… which means understanding the armor of God.

How I learned about the armor of God

Many people used to pray for me and then look at me and say “I can see all of your armor, but where is your sword?”. These people didn’t even know me, but they would say “you have a BIG belt of truth, but no sword. You need a sword!”. Again and again people would say this.

It caused me to dig deeper into the bible to understand what the sword was and how to use it – and that is how I came to write down lots and lots of scriptures and combine them into themes and speak them out several times a day – and watch them come to pass in the real world.

In these prayers every line is scriptural. Jesus used scripture to cause the devil to leave Him alone in the time of testing in the wilderness – and so can you! These four prayers are a ready made sword for you. So go ahead and use that sword and be an overcomer!

I admit that this is a bold faith. It’s a lot like Ultimate Fighting or Cage Fighting – a style of fighting in which there are no holds barred, everything is pemitted and nothing is held too sacred. The rules are simple and the goal is to win. If you hold back, you will certainly lose the fight. The fighters go all out and only one person remains standing at the end. THAT is the kind of faith I am encouraging you to have.

But you have to know who and what you are fighting against…

1Ch 21:1  Then Satan stood against Israel and incited David to number Israel.

Eph 3:10  so that through the church the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places.

We do not fight people. All people are trapped. Our sin is constantly being judged  by the law. The law takes note that we constantly fall short of God’s perfect standards. That is why the bible says “the power of death is the law”, because the law judges our sin and gives death the right to reign over us.

It is not people keeping us trapped under sin and death. Try not to fight with people, this is a spiritual problem and it is resolved spiritually – through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the cross for the whole world – if we will just believe!

Let’s confirm this one more time. We do not fight people and we do not fight for physical land. The promise of Isaiah was not that a Christ would come to liberate one nation from the Romans, but Isaiah prophesied that the Christ will restore ALL nations and people back to God and end the mourning, tears and wars in the world.

The armor of God

This is strictly a spiritual battle, so grab your bible and learn how to fight him…

Eph 6:10-17  Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might. Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil.

For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.

Therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand firm. Stand therefore, having fastened on the belt of truth, and having put on the breastplate of righteousness, and, as shoes for your feet, having put on the readiness given by the gospel of peace. In all circumstances take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming darts of the evil one; and take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God,

That is how to fight him, you put on the whole spiritual armor (including the sword). It is a spiritual armor, not an imaginary one. Here is how to understand the armor correctly so that it becomes useful to us.

• Sword: The scriptures are a sword. Constantly in my writing I’m showing you verses that you can look up in your own bible and believe! This is your sword. Use it! Remember, it is your faith that overcomes the evil of this world… so use that sword every day to overcome the evil of this world.
• Belt: The truth about Jesus Christ is likened to a belt. You bind the truth about Him onto yourself. When you do that, you are standing in peace with God. It is our constant sinning which angers God, and when we bind the truth that Jesus Christ is the Lamb of God onto ourselves like a belt, then we are standing in “shoes of peace” with God.
• Shield: The faith you have in Jesus Christ is like a shield to you. What Jesus Christ did for you on the cross protects you from the anger of God and brings you into a protective relationship with God. Your faith in Jesus Christ also extinguishes the attacks (firery darts) of the enemy, because when you accept and believe that Jesus Christ removed the sin of the world, then you extinguish the effects of death and law.

Let’s take another look at sin, death and the law and how we gain the victory…

1Cor 15:53-57 For this perishable body must put on the imperishable, and this mortal body must put on immortality. When the perishable puts on the imperishable, and the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written: “Death is swallowed up in victory.” “O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?” The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law.

But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

According to those verses the “sting” of death is sin and the “power” of sin is… the law! There are our three spiritual problems which keep us trapped, with the law powering death because of our sin.

So how do we get the victory? In v57 it says “through our Lord Jesus Christ”, because on the cross He dealt with the world’s sin. This is the identical logic as Paul wrote in Rom 7:25. In the previous verses Paul was lamenting the state of his physical body. When he wants to do good, he ends up doing evil.

Rom 7:19 For I fail to practice the good deeds I desire to do, but the evil deeds that I do not desire to do are what I am [ever] doing.

Then in verse he writes

Rom 7:24-25 Who will release me and deliver me from [the shackles of] this body of death? O thank God! [He will!] Through Jesus Christ (the Anointed One) our Lord.

You see, in both cases the solution lies in what Jesus Christ has done on the cross. The key thing is what do you think Jesus Christ did on the cross? In that same way the effectiveness of your “spiritual armour” entirely depends on what you think Jesus Christ did for you on the cross. Having a poor understanding of His cross and His finished work means you have a poor ability to fight and protect yourself. Having a strong and well developed understanding of His finished work on the cross means that you will experience a powerful overcoming faith in your daily walk.

“Spiritual” clothing

Have you ever wondered what Jesus Christ’s spiritual clothing was? The bible tells us in Isaiah…

Isaiah 11:5  Righteousness shall be the belt of his waist, and faithfulness the belt of his loins.

And God also put on armor…

Isaiah 59:17  He put on righteousness as a breastplate, and a helmet of salvation on his head; he put on garments of vengeance for clothing, and wrapped himself in zeal as a cloak.

Job also put on spiritual clothing…

Job 29:14  I put on righteousness, and it clothed me; my justice was like a robe and a turban.

Hmmm… is righteousness a breastplate (Is 59:17) or the belt around your waist (Is 11:5) or does it clothe you (Job 29:14)? It doesn’t matter which one… what really matters is that you and I ARE made righteous by Jesus Christ.

The sword… of your mouth

Most Christians assume that Eph 6:17 is a hand held sword, but spiritual swords in the Bible are actually described as being in the mouth…

Job 5:15  But he saves the needy from the sword of their mouth and from the hand of the mighty.

Is 49:2  He made my mouth like a sharp sword; in the shadow of his hand he hid me; he made me a polished arrow; in his quiver he hid me away.

Rev 1:16  In his right hand he held seven stars, from his mouth came a sharp two-edged sword, and his face was like the sun shining in full strength.

Rev 2:16  Therefore repent. If not, I will come to you soon and war against them with the sword of my mouth.

Rev 19:15  From his mouth comes a sharp sword with which to strike down the nations, and he will rule them with a rod of iron. He will tread the winepress of the fury of the wrath of God the Almighty.

Rev 19:21  And the rest were slain by the sword that came from the mouth of him who was sitting on the horse, and all the birds were gorged with their flesh.

The armor is a visual picture of something that is true in the spiritual realm. We can see that from those verses that God shows it differently to different people: breastplate (God), or a belt (Jesus Christ) or clothing (Job). I think it depends on the culture of the time and what makes sense to the person listening, perhaps based on which scripture they are familiar with. But at the end of the day what He wants is for us to put it on!

I learned this truth one day when the Lord encouraged me to draw armor and put it on my wall and then stand in front of it. So I got paper and drew a breastplate and shoes of peace etc. and I placed the shoes on the ground and stood on them. I was now standing in front of the breastplate which was on the wall in front of me. I felt no different as I tried my hardest to believe that I had a breastplate of righteousness and the other bits and pieces. But absolutely nothing spiritual was actually happening and I was still being beaten up spiritually almost every day.

Then it occurred to me… hmmm… if Jesus Christ is my righteousness… then I am in fact standing in peace with God – almost as if I had shoes of peace. And bingo, suddenly I understood that the armor was a story or a parable to describe spiritual facts.

As I began to “put on” the things Paul writes about, I became freer and freer. I became an overcomer. All these things – righteousness, peace, shield etc. – point to something jesus Christ did for us on the cross which we can receive by faith.

We need to put it all on and in this way we put off the old.

Would you like to intercede for peace in your country or in the world? All you need to do is get a map of the area you want to pray for and get this list of scriptures (or download the MS Word version) and speak each scripture out over the area you are praying for. It’s as easy as that.