Join Rick Hughes on The Flotline as he takes a deep dive into the teachings of Ephesians 6 about putting on the full armor of God. This episode explores how believers can equip themselves with spiritual armor to combat the tactics of Satan. Rick emphasizes the importance of concentration, humility, and understanding biblical truth as integral elements in defeating the enemy’s strategic attacks. Whether navigating routine or facing adversity, learn how to maintain your spiritual fortitude and walk in the truth of Christ.
Welcome to the Flatline with your host, Rick Hughes. For the next 30 minutes, you’ll be inspired, motivated, educated, but never manipulated. Now, your host, Rick Hughes.
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Good morning and welcome to the Flatline. I’m your host, Rick Hughes, and for the next few minutes, I’d like to invite you to stick around. It’ll just be a short time of motivation, a lot of inspiration, some education, but we do it without manipulation. I say this every Sunday. It’s just my standard come across line. No gimmicks, no games, no appeals for money, not asking you to buy anything, not asking you to purchase anything, not asking you to join anything. We would just like for you to listen. If you can listen, if you can concentrate, if you can pay attention, then you have the opportunity to hear and verify, identify the plan of God for your life. And if you would like to orient and adjust to the plan, you’re free to do it. Concentration is a very hard thing for a lot of people to do. They’re not able to concentrate over long periods of time. And I’ve seen that in my life. When I first became a Christian, I had a hard time concentrating also. I made a couple of notes I wanted to share with you if I can dig this piece of paper out right here. Here it is right here. It says, one cannot understand the word of God unless he or she is capable of concentrating. Any child with attention deficit disorder has a hard time concentrating on a single subject. That was me in school, maybe you too, I don’t know. But many Christians have the same inability to focus, to be able to concentrate for long periods of time. This is exactly what Satan’s trying to do. And this is exactly why we had this message on putting on the complete armor of God. If Satan wants to make a casualty out of you, if he wants to defeat you in the battlefield, in the arena of contention, how does he do it? He does it by affecting your thoughts. He does it by affecting the way you think. And this is why you’re encouraged by Paul to put on the full armor of God so that you can stand against the strategy of Satan. We’ve just completed three shows on the armor of God. We want to review some of it for you here today before we move on to our next subject because we’re dealing with the strategy of Satan, what he can do to defeat you. As far as you and I are concerned, His objective is to frustrate the will of God in our lives, mentally to doubt we’re doing what we’re supposed to be doing, geographically to get us in the wrong place at the wrong time, and operationally get us to do the wrong thing in the wrong way. Remember that God has protocol. If you’re going to operate within the protocol plan of God, a right thing must be done in the right way. You can’t make the rules up on your own. That’s why we have those 10 unique problem-solving devices beginning with rebound, how you deal with sin and how you stay filled with the Holy Spirit. And then we dealt with the filling of the Holy Spirit and how it overcomes the lust of the flesh. We dealt with a faith-rest drill, how you stand on the promises of God. All of these 10 problem-solving devices are available for you. We have them in a bookmark if you’d like to get them, and we have them in a book if you’d like to have it that way. But without those 10 problem-solving devices, you’re a sitting duck in the angelic conflict, in the arena of contention. And that’s why one of Satan’s favorite techniques is to get you thinking that you’re doing something good, When you’re really not, and that just assuages your guilt complex, think you’re helping God, and you cannot help God. The only thing you can do is to reflect Christ, glorify the Lord Jesus Christ, and that’s exactly what God expects you to do, to begin to think like he thinks. And that’s why the Bible says, let this mind be in you that was also in Christ Jesus. Think like he thinks. That’s why the New Testament is called the mind of Christ. But we have to protect ourselves from his tactics. And that’s why Paul wrote this about putting on the armor of God, protecting ourselves from the tactics and the schemes that Satan has to sideline us. But it all depends on one simple thing. It all depends on humility. whether you have enough humility to obey what the Word of God says and whether or not you have enough willingness to learn what the Word of God says and apply it to your life. Because some people are just too dang lazy to do it. They’re not willing to spend the time necessary to renovate their thinking. And remember the Bible says in Romans 12, three, stop thinking of yourself in terms of arrogance beyond what you should think. but think in terms of humility as God has assigned to each one of us a standard of thinking from his word. So God’s got something he wants you to think. He wants you to think divine viewpoint. Why? So that you’re not overcome by the strategy of the devil, which would get you into, divert you, distract you, defeat you eventually into thinking you’re doing something good when really you’re not. And if you are one of these people that says, well, all I really need to do is pray that God help me prayer, then God will miraculously give me answers. Well, you’re kidding yourself. If you’re not prepared, you’ve got to learn the Word of God, apply the Word of God, and that becomes wisdom in your mind or in your heart. The Bible calls it wisdom in your heart so that you are ready for whatever comes your way. It’s foolish thinking that you can just pray a simple prayer and God’s going to make all your problems go away. God will miraculously give you the answer and miraculously give you the strength to handle the situation that you’re in, even though you personally neglected to prepare yourself for what was coming. You’ve got to train your mind to think correctly. You’ve got to train your mind to spot evil and avoid distractions and know when you’re being manipulated by the devil. And this is what Paul is teaching in Ephesians 6, 11 through 18, putting on the full armor of God so you can defend yourself against the strategy of Satan. That strategy is to conquer what you think, because if he can control what you think, he will control what you do. And if he controls what you do, then it’s not going to glorify God. It may be some kind of human good, but essentially it’s going to be cosmic vortex thinking or getting into evil, thinking it’s good. you know, trying to improve mankind. You can’t improve mankind. The only thing that can improve mankind is the gospel. And that way a person can be saved and believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. But you’re not going to straighten anybody out. The only thing that can straighten us out is once we believe in Christ is walk in the filling of the Holy Spirit and take and apply the word of God into our life so that we become witnesses in this arena of contention called the angelic conflict. So Paul challenged us to put on the full armor of God so we’d be able to stand against the strategy of the devil. And he told you in Ephesians 6, verses 12, we don’t fight against flesh and blood. We’re fighting against angelic process powers in the high. Therefore, because of this, we are told to put on every piece of that armor so we can resist in the day that we’re attacked. And there will be a certain day that Satan will test you, try you. He’ll run it by you to see if you bite. He’ll run like a fisherman would run a false lure, artificial lure in front of a bass. Will he bite it? Will he fall for that? And if you think about your life, you think about the times you fell for the gimmicks. You fell for the temptation when Satan ran it by you. That’s what you’re not supposed to do. You’re supposed to stand firm, resist him in the evil day and having done everything to keep standing, not be a casualty in the conflict. Stand firm, having the breastplate of righteousness and having your feet shod with the gospel preparation of peace, taking up the shield of faith, having on the belt of truth. My gosh, we need to run back through this again for you, though you’ll get it because there’s a reason for all this is here. The whole armor of God, the panoply of God, every piece of it. And the reason is that this is the wisdom of God. That’s because we’re not fighting against flesh and blood. We’re fighting against powers and spiritual wickedness in the high places. So let’s run over some of this one more time for you so you’ll be sure you understand what the armor of God is. And I want you to get this. The armor is listed in Ephesians 6, 14. Have your belt around your waist, the belt of truth. and having put on the breastplate of righteousness, and having your feet strapped with the preparation of the gospel of peace. In addition to this, taking up the shield of faith, which will be able to extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one, the heaven of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit. This is a picture of a Roman soldier in full battle array. And Paul used this military analogy to liken believers doing battle with angelic forces. So each piece of that armor is actually something that you think. Each piece of it concerns your mind. Each piece of it helps you comprehend truth in your mind. That’s where you live the Christian life. You have a mentality in your soul, and the mentality is where your stream of consciousness is. This is where you’d operate. This is where you store the Word of God. You have to learn it and use it and apply it into your life to be successful. If you’re ever going to have an impact in the devil’s world, not be defeated. Wounded, be a casualty. So we have that verse mandate to put on the belt of truth. This means we must learn what truth is. And to begin with, truth, Jesus said, I am truth. In John 14, six, I am the way, I am the truth. No one can come to the Father but by me. And in John 8, 32, if you know the truth, the truth will set you free. That belt of truth is aletheia, aletheia. And it’s a direct reference to the authenticity of the word of God. It’s truth. And the objective of the devil is always to get you in your mind to exchange the truth of God for a lie and thus worship the not true God, but worship Satan when he throws your way to be a deceiver. And this happens in Romans 1.25. Listen to how Satan was able to get them to change their mind. They exchanged the truth of God, Romans 1.25, for falsehood and worshiped and served the creature rather than the creator, the one who’s blessed forever. If you read on in that, you’ll find out what that’s talking about. I’m not here to get into that, not to address that, but take Romans 1.25 and read through the end of the chapter. And you will see what the false is, what the lie is. Everything that’s evil is now good. And everything that’s good turned into evil for some reason or another. So what’s the mechanics of this? How do I strap on this belt of truth? Well, I grow, I learn, I apply. I’ve given you several verses in the past, like grow in the grace and the knowledge of your Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Study to show thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed. Even Jesus said, take my yoke and learn of me. My yoke is easy, my burden is light. The way you put on the belt of truth is to study, learn, grow spiritually so that you develop wisdom. Wisdom in the compartments of your soul is unbelievable wealth. We’ve talked about that before. This is how you’re wealthy based on what you know of God’s word. The wisdom of the word of God gives you great wealth and great strength and great insight. Sort of like I call it spiritual x-ray vision. You have insight and discernment that other people don’t have. But you have to acquire it. You don’t inherit it. If you don’t acquire it, if you don’t sit under a well-qualified pastor and learn the Word of God and quit going to church and just raising your hands and singing for about an hour, you’re never going to learn anything doing that. You’ve got to be taught. Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God. And who’s doing the hearing? If you’re singing, you’re not listening. So come on, let’s get with it. Let’s find a pastor that teaches God’s Word, sit under that man and learn the Word of God and apply it to our life. So we’ve developed this belt of truth that holds everything else in place. And then we attach to that the brush plate of righteousness. And that’s a reference to imputed righteousness. When we get saved, the Bible tells us clearly that we have the righteousness of Christ given to us. It’s imputed righteousness. It’s our equal standing, and it’s what God gives us. And in 2 Corinthians 5, 21, he, God, made him, Christ, who knew no sin, to be sin on our behalf. so that we could become the righteousness of God by means of him. That’s imputed righteousness. So at the moment of your salvation, God the Holy Spirit enters us into union with Christ, and we now share his righteousness. It’s wonderful. And it’s an amazing thing to get the blessings from God because of the righteousness of Christ in our life. We have divine protection to carry us during the time that we get saved until we become mature believers. And this is what God wants you to do, to have developed some capacity righteousness. for you to grow in grace, attain the filling of the Holy Spirit, metabolize the Word of God you hear, use the problem-solving devices, glorify God to the maximum, reflect Christ in your life. That’s what it’s about. Please, listen, put on the belt of truth. Put on the breastplate of righteousness. Put on the footwear that God’s talking about. The footwear, yes, the gospel strapped on your feet, the preparation of the gospel of peace, Ephesians 6.15. True peace comes from knowing Christ. That’s what it comes from. There is no peace for the wicked, the Bible says, but in Romans 5, 1, therefore, having been justified by faith, we can have now peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. So having strapped on your feet the preparation of the gospel of peace. There is a way to have peace. There’s a way to have contentment. There’s a way to have capacity for life. It all comes as you growing and maturing in Christ so that eventually you can have you be that sort of person so that you can do what Paul said. I’ve learned whatsoever shape I’m in to be content. You can’t have contentment. You can’t have capacity for life is what I want to say. You can’t have capacity for life until you’re content. If you’re not content with what you have, no matter what God gives you, you won’t be happy. But if you’re content with where you are, then God can pour more capacity into your cup. He can bless you over and over and over again because it won’t distract you or destroy you. If God gave you what you wanted right now, it would destroy you. He’s actually protecting you because he’s not pouring out the blessings on you. You won’t. The next piece of the armor is the shield of faith. And we have to remember that’s a reference to problem solving device number three, using the faith rest drill. You must understand how to use a faith rest drill. You must understand that your strength comes from the promises found in the word of God. And there are over 7,000 of them. learning promises, living by promises, claiming promises. This is the strength in the believer’s life during the time of testing because the promises will shield your thoughts from being captured by Satan’s illusions and Satan’s deceptions because those attacks will come to you like a barrage of fiery missiles and a continuous barrage designed to defeat you. If you get preoccupied with yourself and if you get into self-pity, which is exactly what happened in Matthew 8 where the disciples were in the boat with Jesus and a storm came up on the Sea of Galilee and they freaked out. And they woke him up and they said, we are going to die. Can you not get up and do something? And the Lord Jesus Christ looked at them and called them short-time trusters. Short time, you trust me as long as everything’s good. As soon as things go south, you quit trusting me. And he spoke and everything got calm and they were amazed. See, they still had not began to comprehend yet that Jesus was God. It took a while for them to understand that. So if you understand this, we have to have on the belt of truth, the breastplate of righteousness, the shield of faith, and the helmet of salvation, the helmet of salvation. This protects our thoughts, and this is something that Satan tries to do again to cause doubt and thus lack of trust in God’s word. We’re going to talk about that here in just a minute because I want to go into some of this with you. But this is what God wants you to do. He wants your thoughts to be protected. He wants what’s circulating in your stream of consciousness, the Word of God you’ve learned, to be normal for you to live a normal spiritual life and not preoccupied with disaster and testing and not preoccupied with politics. Look at the politics of today. It’s easy to get preoccupied. It’s easy to talk about what we like or don’t like. And that’s one of the ways that Satan can distract you from the spiritual life, getting you into the vein of political life. If you’re going to strap on the helmet of salvation, you’ve got to protect your thoughts. And it starts with you believing in Christ because that’s where it all starts. Satan can try to get you to doubt your salvation, and he will if he can. So you have to have that. And then the Bible goes into talking about the… Sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God, and that’s an amazing thing. The Word of God, the machaira, two-edged sword, the machaira. This is what God has used here to go on our offensive weapon. The sword is a common weapon. You see it used in war all the time. God’s judgment is called a sword, by the way. In Ezekiel 21.3, I say to the land of Israel, thus says the Lord, I’m against you, and I will draw forth my sword out of its sheath, and I will cut off from you the righteous and the wicked. That’s divine judgment on a nation. So swords are found throughout the Bible. And I told you in our earlier study that the disciples carried swords with them. They had weapons with them to protect themselves and the Lord. You say, oh, they would never have weapons. What does Luke 22, 36 say? Where Jesus told them to sell their cloak and buy a sword due to the impending crisis they were about to face. So Paul uses that sword as a symbol of our ability to defeat the enemy, to defeat him. And we can because the Bible is alive and powerful, sharper than a two-edged sword. He cannot stand against the truth of the Word of God. And when you have the sword of the Spirit, the Word of God in your soul, there’s no way that you’re going to be defeated by Satan if you use it and if you apply it into your life. Because one of most Satan’s most, I would say one of his best tactics is to get you to get your eyes on yourself because it neutralizes your thoughts. If you get your eyes on yourself, that’s just plain arrogance because you’re preoccupied with yourself. and what’s going on in your life and how bad it is. In the face of adversity, a Christian cannot afford to be without an understanding of God’s provisions of grace. If you don’t understand your grace provisions and grace assets and live by grace orientation, you can never successfully experience the joy the Christian life provides. In Proverbs 3.13, happiness belongs to the one that finds wisdom and to the one that gains understanding. Wow, there it is. Wisdom is the word of God circulating in your stream of consciousness. That’s the wonderful treasure that God promises you. And it gives you understanding, insight, discernment, the ability to see what’s going on. In Isaiah 40, verse 31, they that wait, patience, they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength. They shall mount up with wings like eagles and they shall run and not be weary and walk and not faint. mount up, lifted over the adversity, wings like eagles, be able to soar over the cosmic battlefield, run, success and fast and increase circumstances, and walk, and that means to live the routine situations in life and not be overcome. A lot of people can’t handle routine. It really drives them nuts. Same thing every day, same thing. But that’s how you grow, under routine. So if you’re going to be effective against the army of Satan, Remember Psalm 119, verse 52, I have remembered your ordinances from old, O Lord, and I comfort myself in them. And then Psalm 119, verse 76, O may your loving kindness comfort me according to thy word to thy servant. So don’t listen to the roar of Satan if you put on the armor of God. Don’t be intimidated by that. I guess Paul should have talked about putting in some earplugs so you don’t have to listen to all Satan’s lies. Because he’s always roaring, 1 Peter 5.8. He goes around like a roaring lion trying to intimidate. Lions roar for the purpose of intimidation. And this is exactly what Satan does. He’s always on the move, looking for the advantage to press the attack. And he is always seeking or looking for the weak, for the vulnerable, those that are scattered out from the flock. And he devours, consumes them in his system or in their own fleshly desires so they become dysfunctional in the plan of God. So again, listen carefully. If you have only armor of God, you will not be intimidated by the roar of Satan. He’s looking for people that are not armed. He’s looking for the weak, like the lion looks for the weak zebra in the herd of zebras. Satan’s looking for the weak and vulnerable. Who is that? That’s the person that just doesn’t go to church very often, the person that doesn’t study the Word of God, the person that’s got a Bible in their back window to make them look like they’re some spiritual Christian driving around town, but all it’s doing is getting sunburned. Looking for the vulnerable. Those that aren’t mature, those that don’t go to Bible class, those that don’t stick with the plan of God, they’re easily distracted, scattered from the flock. They’ve broken away from other believers. They don’t want to be around other believers because it embarrasses them to have to admit, well, I’m just not the person I should be. And then if he can do that to you, if he can cut you out of the crowd and get you alone, he can devour you. That doesn’t mean you won’t be saved anymore. It just means you’ll be swallowed up into his system. You’ll follow the desires of your flesh. You’ll become a dysfunctional believer in the plan of God. You will be neutralized, and that’s not God’s plan for you ever to be neutralized. So there are some ways that you can overcome Satan and what he’s trying to do. I have a few ways here, some way you can do it. 1 Peter 5, 8, be sober, be alert, resist him, humble yourself, cast your cares on him because he cared for you. 1 Peter 5.8, 5.9, 5.6, 5.7, read that. Be sober is the Greek word nepho, and it’s an imperative mood command from God. It talks about mental stability, not being intoxicated with your sin, not being intoxicated with your arrogant lust. And be alert, the Bible says. Gregoreo is the Greek word. It means to stay awake, and it’s another imperative mood. It’s a command from God. Stay awake, stand guard, keep that uniform on. And resist him, 1 Peter 5, 9. Anhistomi is the Greek word. Stand against him. That means you’re properly prepared, you’re wearing your armor. You have a defensive command based on a previous victory in your life using the word of God. Knowing this, knowing this, the Bible says in 1 Peter 5, 9, that you understand this, those 10 problem-solving devices. And humble yourselves, 1 Peter 5, 6. Humble yourselves. Tap, I know, oh. Tapano’o, and that’s the word for humility. And humility is the enemy of arrogance. God said you need to be humble. In Philippians 1, 5, 6, and 7, the Lord Jesus Christ, 2, 5, 6, and 7, the Lord Jesus Christ humbled himself and made himself of no reputation, took upon himself the form of a servant. So when you have some humility in your life, that doesn’t mean you’re weak and round-shouldered wimp, and that’s not what it means. It means you orient to authority. If you cannot orient to authority, you can’t handle life. Authority orientation is critical if you’re going to live the Christian life. The authority of your pastor, the authority of the Word of God are the two most important authorities that you have to face in your life, and that comes from the authority of God. And so once you’re able to humble yourself and submit yourself to God’s authority, then you can cast your cares, the Bible says, 1 Peter 5, 7, Cast your cares on him. Turn it over to him. That’s the faithless drill. Walking in faith, living by faith, enjoying faith. So submit yourself to your pastor. Submit yourself to the word of God. Live by faith. Be on the alert. Be on the guard because you have an adversary and it’s the devil and he’s prowling around like a roaring lion seeking who he can devour. So resist him with the word of God to send your soul and understand that your brothers are facing the same adversity. This is what it’s all about. That’s what I’m looking for, some winners, believers in the Christian life that want to join God’s army. Not a political movement, but a spiritual movement, a spiritual movement that will deliver this nation from what we’re about to face, because as goes the nation’s believers, so goes the history of the nation, and God is looking for a few well-qualified believers. People like Gideon could call, 300 that delivered the nation. Are you one of those deliverers? Are you one of those people that can replicate the life of Christ? Are you one of those serious believers that’s growing in grace? I hope so, because that’s what I’m looking for, looking for people that are willing to submit to the plan of God, put on the armor of God, and be victorious in the day that they’re attacked in the reign of contention. That’s what God’s looking for. Is there one good man among us that can take the floor? Is there one good man among us that can stand in the gap? That’s what God’s looking for. Not somebody seeking publicity, not somebody selling their autograph or selling their appearance if they’re a Christian, but someone that will humbly live for the Lord Jesus Christ, represent him to the maximum in their life. I hope you’re listening. I hope you’re paying attention because I’m throwing a lot at you today. And I hope you’ll come back next week, same time, same place. Until then, this is your host, Rick Hughes, saying thank you for listening to The Flotline.
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Thank you for listening to The Floodline with your host, Rick Hughes. If you’d like to contact Rick, please write to him at P.O. Box 100, Cropwell, Alabama, 35054, or online at www.rickhughesministries.org.
