The Revivalists: Helmet Of Salvation
Ephesians 6:10-18 (NIV)
“Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. Put on the full armor of God, so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand. Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.”
The helmet that a Roman soldier would wear into battle served a few purposes. It protected his neck, his head and his face. When Paul talks about the helmet of salvation, he’s telling us to wear a protection over our minds. It’s so common that the enemy will lie and sow doubt in our minds in order to make us question our salvation, and once you start questioning the Word of God, it puts you on a path that is hard to come back from. Without our helmet of salvation, our minds can overthink, question what we believe and have been taught.
Illustration of a helmet used by a Roman soldier
Anyone in any position – we have to take captive! We take every thought captive to the obedience of Christ and put on the helmet of salvation that reminds us that death cannot defeat us because Jesus died on the Cross for each and every one of us. We are God’s children – not lost and not forgotten.
“We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.”
There is a story about Billy Graham that they detailed in the movie about him. He had a friend, a mentor, someone he looked up to as an evangelist. His name was Chuck Templeton and he was a revivalist. He would travel around the world and speak to people in stadiums about Jesus. Unfortunately, after seeing what happened in the World War, he began to question God, whether He was good and whether He was real. With a great deal of time spent dwelling on these thoughts, he finally decided that God wasn’t real and publicly declared that he no longer believed God existed. This shook Billy Graham to the core as it made him question his own faith. He decided to go to God. In his own private time, he got down on his knees and opened his Bible and said, “God, You need to speak to me!”
Billy Graham (1918-2018)
In that moment, if we could have seen what was going on in the spiritual world, it would have been that the devil was trying to take both Chuck Templeton and Billy Graham’s helmet of salvation of by sowing doubt and confusion. But, what did Billy Graham do? He went to the Word of God. God spoke to him in that moment in a significant way. He stood up from that encounter and never wavered again and because of that, millions of people got saved.
Remember, let us take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ, and put on the helmet of salvation daily!
Coming up next: The Revivalists: Sword Of The Spirit
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*Extracted from ‘The Dresscode’ sermon by Jemima Varughese
Jemima is married to Mark and leads Kingdomcity Communications Ltd. They have two sons, Zeke and Caleb.