And Take the Helmet of Salvation...

Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour. (1 Peter 5:8)

Shiran: Sobriety – what a virtue.

Zack: And I think the allegory in this verse is spot-on. You know Shiran I was just recalling lessons from a Safari experience the other day and the facts on the African lion, Simba, are very startling… of how the lion will wait around stalking its prey, waiting for that opportune moment while the prey is unguarded and then pouncing on them for the kill. And in others how the lion(s) will chase after a herd of prey and work hard to eliminate the one and finally pounce on them for dinner. Remarkable!

Shiran: Helmets are used to cover people’s heads when they go into battle, ride motorbikes, play sports. Without them, the risk of injury in such activities is much greater. Paul spoke about the helmet of salvation, but he did not literally mean it was to cover our physical heads. He knew the importance of the mind, and how tampering with it can affect our actions.

Zack: True there Shiran.

Eph 6:17(a): And take the helmet of salvation…

Shiran: Zack, I think the mind is more powerful than most people care to imagine. It is where everything we do begins. We spoke about truth in the last entry. Remember the garden of Eden? The serpent used a lie to convince Eve to partake of the fruit of the garden. He used words and played around with her mind and thoughts, twisting God’s words to convince her to directly disobey Him.

“Ye shall not surely die,” he said to Eve (Genesis 3:4-5). “Ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.” And Eve “saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise…”

And what an end to that story! Zack, I don’t think Eve really had a desire to eat of the fruit before she met the serpent and he got her thinking about it.

Zack: Eve, there, let her mind be penetrated by a non-truth, something other than what the Lord had commanded them. And so did her husband Adam when he too listened to and acted upon his wife’s coaxing to eat the fruit. I’d say this was also the beginning of the great battle over control of the minds of mankind.

Shiran: The minute we gave our lives to Christ, Zack, we became prime targets of the enemy. We became aliens in this world, “strangers and pilgrims” (Heb 11:13)… “for here we have no continuing city” (Heb 13:14). We became soldiers in Christ’s army. We know that this battle is not a physical one – it’s a spiritual one, “against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.” (Eph 6:12). We are not fighting against our fellow brothers and sisters, but against forces in the spiritual realm. The only way that these forces can attack Christians who cannot physically see them is by influencing their minds – their thoughts, beliefs, ideas, opinions – and therefore their actions.

Zack: You know Shiran, and that’s one of the biggest deceptions that the enemy would have God’s people and inevitably all the world to believe, that he is only myth or perhaps a creation of the minds of deluded Christians. Subtle. That’s how he works, that Satan. Using the mind as his battlefield only adds to his subtlety; there is nothing more satisfying to the devil than to be allowed to work his evil unannounced and undetected. But we are reminded not to be ignorant of his devices. "Lest Satan should get an advantage of us: for we are not ignorant of his devices." II Corinthians 2:11. He starts in the mind. He must have your thought life, then he slowly erodes your emotions and takes your will. After that, it's calamity unless you are delivered from him. He is a mastermind of destruction when you make a place for him to invade.

Shiran: Zack, this – the battlefield of the mind – is a topic that is very important, yet mostly ignored by many Christians. 24-7, 365, there is a war going on for the control of people’s minds. When you look at it like that, don’t many of the things going on in the world right now make a lot of sense? (Wait, let’s get to that later. )

Zack: Sure they do Shiran, make sense that is… the music, the entertainment, a lot of what keeps us occupied most of the time. And it’s amazing how we don’t seem to notice the time that goes by as we’re occupied by these things but notice the very moment or a few moments before for some, a pastor or anyone speaking the Word goes beyond his allocated time. Please go on…

Shiran: The obvious conclusion, therefore, is that our minds are to be protected at all times. Hence the helmet – but not just any helmet; it must be the helmet of salvation. Our Captain would not ask us to do something He does not think we can handle, and He, being our High Priest, lived as a man and was tempted like we are, but knew no sin. (Heb 4:15). He, too, wore the helmet of salvation upon His head (Isaiah 59:17).

Zack: And Shiran, not only people that do not know God are captive to the devil. True, they often are terribly in bondage and being utterly destroyed, but we mustn’t forget, that devil, “as a roaring lion that walks around seeking for him he may devour” never gives up. Satan is after every believer and every saint of God to turn you back and destroy your faith. The good news though is You can recognize your captivity and be free by the name of Jesus and partake of His Glorious Victory. Through salvation.

Shiran: Zack, what is salvation? And why would Jesus need to wear the helmet of salvation? The verses in Isaiah say He came to save us because there was no intercessor for us.

The words salvation and Saviour have the same root and concept behind them – to save.

To save from what?

The sin that Adam passed on to us, for which human beings, as his descendants, deserve punishment and damnation, because all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God (Rom 3:23). Without this salvation, all are headed for a fire prepared for the devil and his angels (note: it is NOT prepared for human beings! – Matt 25:41).

Zack: Go on there Shiran… but before you do, I think it’s important for us to know that no amount of self-righteousness too is enough to please God for we all have fallen short of His glory. But because God so loved us and knew about this hindrance of mankind from His love, “He gave his only begotten Son, that whoseoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life” John 3:16...

(Part II coming up soon)