So he says above all taking the shield of faith wherewith you shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked and take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.
Now, this is one that always kind of perplexed me a little bit as I was reading this and you know, I knew this passage as a child the helmet of salvation.
Now, here's why this kind of perplexed me.
We're already saved.
So why do we need to put on the helmet of salvation?
Isn't it already on?
I mean, if we're saved, right?
I mean, he's talking to people that are saved.
He's talking to Christians.
Well, let me shed some light on this.
Go to 1 Thessalonians 5.
Keep your finger in Ephesians 6.
1 Thessalonians 5 will actually make this more clear
because it kind of confused me at first.
Why would I need to put on the helmet of salvation
because I'm already saved?
So wouldn't it just automatically be on?
Why would I need a commandment to put it on?
Okay, that was my thought.
I don't know.
Did anybody else kind of wonder the same thing
when you thought about that?
Now, one thing that I thought about was,
well, you know, your helmet is protecting your head.
So if you don't have your helmet on,
if you get hit in the head,
you're pretty much going to die.
I mean, that's pretty much the most important thing to protect,
if anything, right?
So if you're not saved, you're doomed.
But I just thought there must be something more to it than that
because otherwise, why would he tell you to put it on
when it should already be on, if anything?
But look what it says in 1 Thessalonians 5.
A lot of times when something confuses us,
the answer is somewhere else in the Bible
if we compare scripture with scripture.
So look at 1 Thessalonians 5, it says,
"But let us," verse 8, "but let us who are of the day be sober."
What does that remind you of?
Loins gird about with truth, right?
Gird up the loins of your mind, be sober?
He says, "Be sober, putting on the breastplate of faith and love,
and for a helmet," and see how it's a little different here?
"The hope of salvation."
For a helmet, the hope of salvation.
And then he rolls right into the next thought,
"For God hath not appointed us to wrath,
but to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us,
that whether we wake or sleep, we should live together with him."
So when the Bible says, "Put on the helmet of salvation,"
he's not just saying, "Be saved."
Because we're already saved, we already knew that,
or we wouldn't even be the church at Ephesus,
or whatever that he's writing to.
He says, "Put on the helmet of salvation."
He's talking about the hope of salvation.
And what that means is not just being saved,
but remembering that you're saved.
Remembering that you're saved.
Why is that important?
The hope of salvation, what does it mean to have hope?
Hope is when you realize, you know what?
There's brighter times ahead.
Isn't that what hope is?
Hope is when you realize that weeping may endure for the night,
but joy cometh in the morning.
See, a person who's hopeless
is one who feels that their situation will never improve.
I'm hopeless.
I'm doomed, right?
There's no way out here.
It's over.
Hope is when you see the light at the end of the tunnel.
You see a way out, right?
What's the hope of salvation?
The hope of salvation, look down at your Bible there in verse 10.
It's that whether we wake or sleep, and sleep there is referring to death,
whether we wake or sleep, we should live together with him.
What's he saying?
Hey, for me to live is Christ and to die is gain.
The hope of salvation is when you realize that look, even if I die, I'm going to heaven.
No matter how bad my life gets, it's going to be over.
There's going to be an end.
There's going to be a brighter day.
I'm going to go to heaven and the Bible says that the sufferings of this life are not worthy to be compared
with the glory which shall be revealed in us.
So the hope of salvation is when we realize, hey, no matter how bad things get,
no matter how even unto death, even if we die, it's okay.
Everything's all right.
This gives us peace.
Now, what's one of the worst things that could happen in battle?
You know, if you've read any kind of military histories or any historical documents that have to do with battles,
if you know anything about warfare, you know that the worst thing that could happen on the battlefield is the panic.
You know, when the enemy panics, you win.
Why? Because then it's a route.
They start running away.
They start breaking ranks.
It becomes confusion.
You know, the army that keeps it together and doesn't break rank, they win.
And the people who run away and get confused and panic, they're doomed.
I mean, that's one of the most basic principles of warfare is that you've got to keep it together.
What's the hope of salvation do for you?
You don't panic.
You don't freak out when things go bad because you realize, you know what?
God has not appointed us to wrath.
But to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ and whether we wake or sleep, we live
together with him.
To be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord for me to live as Christ and
to die as Gabe.
I mean, that's the hope of salvation.
You know, that helmet on your head, that's going to protect you from a lot of the devil's
attacks where he tries to get you depressed, hopeless, feeling like there's no way out
or scared of physical death.
But the hope of salvation tells you, hey, nothing can destroy me because I have eternal
life.
Amen.
So it's not just being saved, it's having the hope of salvation.
It's actually thinking about the fact that you're saved, realizing and understanding
what it means to be saved and actually, because think about it, we're all saved here at least,
you know, except Judas, you know, whoever he is, but you know, we're all saved here,
you know, or at least the vast majority of people are saved.
There might be a couple of people here that aren't saved, but the vast majority of us
are saved.
But you know what, that doesn't stop us from maybe getting caught up in the things of this
world and not really thinking about the fact that we're saved.
Don't you think it's possible for even us as saved believers to maybe go a couple weeks
going by without even thinking about the fact that we're going to go to heaven someday?
Just where we're not even thinking about that, we're just thinking about our job, we're just
thinking about our spouse, our kids, our bills, and maybe we just get caught up in those things
and we don't even realize, hey, we're going to heaven.
But that's something we need to think about and keep our conversation in heaven, the Bible
says.
We need to think and have our mind and our thoughts on Christ and on heaven and so forth.
So that's what it means to have the helmet of salvation.
Doesn't that make a little more sense with the helmet of salvation?
Why you need to put it on?
It's not already on, even though you're already saved.