TOS020 Armor of God #6 Sword of the Spirit with Sheila Canup

TOS020 Sword of the Spirit with Sheila Canup (Part 6) ; for Audio

TS020 Truth of the Spirit; Sword of the Spirit with Sheila Canup

The Sword of the Spirit is part 6 of 7 of the series on the Truth of the Spirit Armor of God.  Ephesians 6:17 says, “And take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.”  During our darkest hours Satan will come to tempt us or torment us and attack us.  He doesn’t stop.  He tempts us to question the Father‘s will for us and his love for us.  He looks for every opportunity to lead us to discouragement and depression and despair.  The lies are overcome by the light of truth in God’s Word and the Sword of the Spirit. 

If we live without the Sword of the Spirit we will live a dark defeated life.   The Word of God is an offensive weapon that is for close combat. The enemy is not going to stand far off once he gets a toehold on you.  He will be “up close” making you miserable.  Death and life are in the power of the tongue (Proverbs 18:21). Hebrews 4:12  “Indeed, the word of God is living and effective, sharper than any two-edged sword, penetrating even between soul and spirit, joints and marrow, and able to discern reflections and thoughts of the heart.”  

See discussion questions and scriptural references at the end of the text of the talk.

Text of talk:

As you would know, I would show up with everything tacked together– pieces here and pieces there.  This is how we go.  In so far as being a great speaker I have nothing to do with this; I’m only a mouth.  The Lord says, “You have a mouth and I intend for you to use it but I will tell you what to say.   You’re not on your own ever!”  For me the privilege is being here.   I, and anyone who speaks here, will be accountable for what we say.  If we don’t speak the truth, if we don’t speak God’s word truthfully, we will be accountable.  We don’t have personal opinions or personal ideas; this is straight from the scripture and that’s how we like it to be.

Proverbs 18:21 declares: “life and death is in the power of the tongue.”  And that is certainly true.   We have what we speak– whether positive or negative.  Our whole ‘mind change’ toward spiritual ideas, get into it; that is the spiritual realm thing to me.  I’m just going to give you a little bit here at the beginning.  During our darkest hours Satan will come to tempt us or torment us and attack us.  He doesn’t stop.  He tempts us to question the Father‘s will for us and his love for us.  He looks for every opportunity to lead us to discouragement, depression and despair.  Unless the lies are overcome by the Light of Truth, God’s Word, and the Sword of the Spirit.  Without the Sword of the Spirit we can live a dark defeated life. We may go to the kingdom, sure enough because we suffered a long all our lives, but we don’t have the joy we could have.  We are over comers and Christ gave us full power on this earth to trample on Satan, to pick up serpents and not be poisoned by them, to touch and heal the sick, to discern spirits and to cast them out at his name and his word.   

The enemy will look for everything about you.  He’s done a real study on you; he knows your weak points.  He certainly knows mine!  He knows the weak points we all have. Christians have been in spiritual warfare since we became Christians.  Look at Jesus.  Every day of his life and especially when he came out to do ministry, when he began his ministry, everything in hell came against him.  His own people came against him; his own family came against him.  You think we don’t learn spiritual warfare from Jesus?  We do.  We need to know how to use God‘s word properly so as to demolish the strongholds of Satan.  He is the enemy.   The enemy has done his research on every one of us.   He knows where we stand with how we believe and with what we believe and what we don’t want to take as belief.  Now I’m just going to give you some of the scriptures that talk about the Word the Sword.  Genesis 3:24 says the fiery sword revolves around the tree of life –and that’s when Adam and Eve were cast out.  A sword of the truth was there.  They lied to God, they disobeyed God, so the Sword of the Spirit –which is the word of God– then began to protect that holy place.  In Leviticus 26:7,  you will route your enemy and lay them low with the sword.  And when we speak of the sword it’s always the Sword of the Spirit, the Word of God.   Psalms 45:5 “Gird your sword on your hip, mighty warriors.”  And Rebecca, which I never really thought about, talked about the Belt of Truth saying that without the Belt of Truth on you can’t hold up the sword.  It holds the scaffold for the sword.   So the word is present in the belt, it is present in the Word of God: the Sword the Spirit.   Nehemiah 4:18 every worker on the wall has a sword at his side on the Belt of Truth.  And we are workers on the wall.   Psalm 149:6 says “With praise on their lips and a two edged sword in their hands.”  In Isaiah 49:2 “He made me a sharp edge sword”. He made me, he made you, a sharp edge sword; God’s word living and effective and sharper than any two edge sword.  What does a two edge sword do?  It penetrates both ways. It cuts both ways. It says it cuts between muscle and tendon and bone.   It cuts both ways.  You’re not going to miss something at the bottom or the top if you are using God‘s word. Revelations 1:16 “A sharp two edged sword came out of his mouth.”  That would be Jesus.   Revelation 2:12, the one with the sharp two edged sword, Jesus, says this “I know that you live where Satan‘s throne is.”  He knew Satan well; he knew where he lived.  Revelation 2:16 “I will come quickly and wage war against them with the sword of my mouth” — Jesus again.   Revelation 19:15 “Out of his mouth shall come a sharp sword to strike the nations.” Revelation 19:21, “The rest were killed by the sword that came out of his mouth.” 

Psalm 119:42, “I trust in your word.”  If we don’t trust in God‘s word then we don’t have the truth in us. Psalm 119:43 says I hope in your word; if we don’t have hope we don’t have faith.  Psalm 119:89  “your word, Lord, stands forever”.  It will not change not one jot and not one line or one letter will be changed; the Word is the Word, now and forever.
Psalm 33:4 “for the word of the Lord is true we can never be let astray by God”.  True words spoken by the Holy Spirit who filled all the apostle and disciples, Paul; Jesus himself was filled by the Holy Spirit.  Ephesians 6:12 “The Lord is the man of war; Jehovah is his name, take the sword of the spirit which is word of God.”  To be a warrior the Roman soldiers had to have a weapon and they had to be trained in that weapon you don’t just pick up a weapon out of the Armory and go to battle.  You have the if you have the full armor which is the Helmet of Salvation,  the Breastplate of Righteousness, the Belt Of Truth, Shoes Of Readiness,  the Shield Of Faith and the Sword Of The Spirit ,which is the word of God.  We need all of them. We don’t want to go out anywhere uncovered because the enemy will find the points that he can get to: heart, mind, spirit, the body, children, family, ministry, and home.

The Roman’s weapons were made out of iron, double edged, sharp as a razor.  It was not a very long sword not like what people fence with. Not like the sword fights we see with Errol Flynn.  Some of you are not old enough to know who Errol Flynn is but I am–the movies–but it was short, about 18 inches long; it was meant for close battle. It was an offensive weapon. Training before battle was necessary. It was meant to be you had to have the training. You could go into battle and not know what the word says and know your battle cry and be defeated. You have got to know the word and know your power in Christ, your power in the blood, your power in the armor, and your power in his word.  His word!  The sword was very light and could be maneuvered quickly and with the ease. It was one handed which allowed the soldier to hold his shield with the other hand. Up until now the armor discussed has been mostly defensive. But the sword of the spirit can be both.  The word of God is an offensive weapon; remember, it’s for close combat. The enemy is not going to stand far off once he gets a toehold on you. He will be up close making you miserable.
And when the enemy attacks us, it is a close battle. We may have all our armor on but without our sword we’re most likely to be retreating. We have to have the word. Logos, a Greek word, means the written word of God. Logos is the totally, totally, totally inspired word of God! Totally!  Spoken by Jesus, the Bible is the logos.

Matthew 4:1–think of Jesus being tempted in the desert. Even the enemy came to tempt Jesus. Now, how much guts does that take? To come and tempt Jesus who is the word of God, who knows the word of God? And he tempted him with his own scriptures. Which scriptures tempted Jesus? But Jesus knew what the Scriptures meant. He spoke them back to him in the right frame in the right word in the commanding, “you have no power over me” the Word of God says. So he doesn’t give up. It tormented Jesus most of his years of ministry.  His people turned against him; his family turned against him.  They called him everything in the book. They tried to drive him over the mountain, in his own hometown, over the cliff.  He knew the enemy. He knew when his time came to fight the enemy and he knew what the word was.
Rhema word [a Greek word meaning spoken word, a word spoken by God versus the logos which is the written word], is like an “aha” moment for me, an “aha” moment for a current situation.  Words from Him give joy, hope, a sense of direction.  It is a particular verse with power to impale the enemy and your particular verses to impale the enemy. 

To be a Christian is to be a warrior.  We like the soft cushy life, of feeling good and gushy and emotional all the time.  And I loved that at the beginning because we were in a honeymoon with the Lord.   Up on the mountain we were in a honeymoon.  But then we come off the mountain and once you have begun to learn that the enemy wants to take it from you.  [Patti’s Note: this explains why Christians who grow close to the Lord have an upsurge in spiritual battle—you have gained something the enemy finds worthy of destroying!]  The enemy doesn’t want you to know what he knows:  That you are indeed a winner in Christ. 

We are in a battlefield; we live in a battlefield.  We must have all of our arsenal of weapons and swords at the ready.  This is really not a battle of compromise or concessions or being neutral or being agreeable.  He will eat you alive.   We can’t seek a truce with the enemy.  You will encounter him and he will seek to totally destroy you, your family, your entire being—body, mind and spirit.  He takes no prisoners when he gets the chance.   And we all say, “I go to mass and I lead a good life.  I go to scripture study and I’m a really good person.  You don’t think Satan knows that?  Do you think that is enough?  No!  I did for a long time because I was a “baby” and I needed all that until the Lord said, “it’s time for something else, girl.  You’ve had the easy life, now let’s get on with things that mean something.”    The enemy does not want you to know anything, because if you really believe the enemy is afraid of you then you can be free of addictions, pornography, drugs, even medications at times.  I am not advocating that anyone get off their meds, I am just saying there are times that he tells you, “I don’t want you doing this anymore.”  You can claim your families, you can claim yourself—your mind, your heart and your body.   No concessions!  He lies!  And he will lie and tell you that you are stupid to believe this stuff.  He will lie and tell you everything you would never want to know.  But you go to the scripture and see.  The only proving ground you have is the “Owner’s Manual” and that is the scriptures and the Catechisms speak a lot about this, too.    Jesus destroys Satan’s attacks with the Word in the desert.   A quick and powerful thrust of a particular verse sends him [Satan] fleeing.  2 Corinthians 10:3-5 tells us that the word destroys and will tear down the enemy’s strongholds.  Lots of strongholds—we all have a stronghold somewhere and the enemy has really taken hold and made us believe a certain thing. It is a lie.  They are false, they’re deceptive, and they are teachings spread by Satan who is already a defeated foe.  He knows it and now we need to know it.  The Word of God can pierce mere hearts and show them the truth about their own sins and the way of salvation.     You can’t win the battle without a sword, which is the word of God.  Acts 2:37, Hebrews 4:12, Romans 10:17 tell us that.  And I just want to give you some examples of using the Word, and this goes way back to when we were travelling with Rick and Patti and a team of 16.  We were doing Life in the Spirit Seminars in all the Catholic Churches who would have us.  Some didn’t want us around.   We went to the ones who would allow us in to teach.  And we were at Subiaco.  And Jim was very quiet; he doesn’t have an “outward spirit” like I do and he was giving his witness talk for the first time.  And he was literally sweating it.  He had it all down.  We had gone over it together.  We were sitting in the hall, it was like a little theatre; it had a little stage.  And he looks at me and says, “Sheila, I can’t see.  I can’t see; the words are gone, there gone off the page.”  So, the team hustled him off into a room, and Dennis Holt was our leader that time, still is in a lot of ways, and we began to pray over him with the word commanding the evil one to turn loose of his eyes, give him the courage, give him the faith, and give him the strength.   His eyes cleared.  He walked up on that stage and gave a beautiful testimony of his coming to the Church and how the Holy Spirit totally changed his life.  But you think he [Satan] can’t do things?  He can.  But the word of God defeated him. 

Now for me, I have scriptures for every situation.    Allergies:  I think everyone is going through allergies right now, any kind of illness.  The Psalm 121:6, “The sun shall not harm you by day nor the moon by night.  I was told when I had cancer, throughout all the treatments, that I was never to be out in the sun again because of all the lymph node things.  And I thought, “I don’t think so.”  I spoke this psalm because I am a yard person. “Don’t get any thorns, I don’t get any scratches”—any of this or any of that.  I prayed this particular verse every time I went outside.  I still do it.  I’ve never had a problem.  I have been scratched up by more rose bushes; I’m fine.  Illnesses: 1 Peter 2:24, “By his wounds, I am healed”.   And let me tell you what, I walked in that the whole year of treatment.  I still walk in it.  “By his wounds”, the stripes he took at the pillar, where he was beaten, and the blood and the flesh were flying, every one of those stripes is for healing something, for healing something, mind, body, or spirit.  And I lived on those words.  I walked around saying them.  Matthew, the whole book of Matthew, says, “And he healed them all.”  Anyone who came to him!  He healed them all.  For fear, 2 Timothy 1:7, the enemy would strike me to fear in the middle of the night, when you are not aware, and he would strike me with fear of the cancer and with dying, and happening to me what the doctors said was going to happen, my scripture, my sword was “God has not given me a spirit of fear but of power and of love and sound mind.”  And I might have to repeat it ten times before I went back to sleep—in peace.  We all get anxious and stressed, and in this day and time we live in, it surrounds us and we need to know how to live in peace.   John 14:27   this  is one of my most favorite.  “Peace I give you, my peace I leave you.”  And any time I feel stressed or losing control I can speak this.  I can speak it over myself as if Jesus is speaking it because it is his words.  And I calm. 

Overwhelmed—sometimes we get ourselves so stressed that you just feel “I just can’t get all this done!”   Patti knows what that feels like.  And you do, too.  Philippians 4:13, “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me!” 

Blue or sad?  That’s an attack.  Psalm 28:7 “The joy of the Lord is my strength and my shield.”   And I say this before I get out of bed in the morning.  “The joy of the Lord is my strength and my shield!”   And I also pray Psalm 118:20, “This is the day the Lord has made, and I will rejoice and I will be glad in it!”   

When you are under attack for failure read 1 John 4:14, this is a powerful one, “Greater is he who is in me than he who is in the world.”  Who dwells within us but the Holy Spirit sent from the Father and the Son?  Power, power is like a light switch.  When you turn on that switch you don’t know how it’s coming on, but those lights come on!  You turn it off it goes off.  That’s the power of the Spirit.  We have it!  Deuteronomy 28:13, I like this too.  “I’ve made you the head and not the tail”.  You’re not going to be jerked around anymore.  “You will rise higher and not decline.”  For our family and my kids, I like this one, too, Deuteronomy 5:10 “He bestows mercy down to the 1000th generation on the children of those who love him and keep his commandments.”  And I am going to say that one again because it’s really important in this day and age.  “…bestows mercy down to the 1000th generation on the children of those who love him and keep his commandments.” 

 I broke a foot and I didn’t know it was broken.  I was going to take care of a very unpleasant woman and I was not looking forward to it and I stepped off the step into my den and when I did I heard a crack.   Immediately I stuck it straight up in the air and I said, “The angel bears me up lest I dash my foot against a stone.”  I put an ace bandage on it I went.  Years later, I had a full bone body scan and the tech said, did you know you had a really badly broken foot?  I just thought it was cracked. And he said, “No, it was badly broken.”  He said, “Did you not have trouble with it?”  I said, “No, not really.  It was a little painful but not like what you said.”  You’ve got to know these things.  “Angels will bear you up lest you dash your foot against a stone.”  Or get run over by a car!  It’s good, good for everything.    

We turn to the Gospel of John seeking the truth.  And seeking, we never stop seeking.  And if we think we have it, we are already fooled by the enemy.   We will never stop growing and seeking God’s word, his love, his will.  John 16:12-13, “The Holy Spirit will lead you to the truth.”  All truth! 

The only way the Sword of the Spirit is going to work for you   is to spend time in the word: in scripture study, in the word privately, private time or praying with your spouse, before the Blessed Sacrament—let Him speak to you in the word.    Read it, study it, and memorize it.  Talk about it to yourself and pray about it.  That sword must be strong and ready.   Learn your “God phrases”.  Those are your fighting words, your weapons.  Our sword cannot be made of wood or hung over the fireplace; it needs to be with us always, always, always sharp sword.  The Spirit will lead you to your own scriptures; those that speak to you, to your situations.  Write them down.  Learn them for those situations.  They don’t always come easily.  It took me a long time, and still does, to recognize “oh, that’s what’s happening”.    Today, I was under a great physical attack; it attacked my mind–a great physical attack–until I realized what it was by noon and began to pray.  It left.  I began to use my Sword in the Spirit.

The Spirit will lead you to your own scriptures to use in every attack.  Build your armory of weapons.  Think about the army and what they have got.  They have tanks, they’ve got bombs, they’ve got missiles, and they’ve got stuff that we wouldn’t believe!  This is what we need, something that the enemy can’t handle, they’ve got weapons of all types, swords to be quickly drawn from a belt of truth.  John 16: 13-15 tells us the Holy Spirit will help us to remember the things we have learned.   We can’t possible cram into our heads everything and remember everything, but the Holy Spirit will bring it to our minds, will help us remember what we have learned.  1 Corinthians 2:10-13, “The Holy Spirit will enlighten our minds to understand the word of God in scripture. 

We’ll have small battles, today’s was aggravation.  Aggravation is one of my biggest enemies.  It’s one of the weapons the enemy uses against me more than anything.  Aggravation, impatience, –what’s the other one Jim? You ought to know it!  Aggravation and impatience, and if we don’t recognize it right away it can cause problems in your family, with your husband or whoever you are dealing with.  But they are just attacks.  We can’t ignore the little things during the day that steal our peace and build up to bigger attacks because if he gets away with that one then we are aggravated about everything.   We are not at peace about anything.  We are cranky and we do not recognize why we are this way.  And I would think, “What is going on?”   Well, that’s what is going on!   It can make you “ewe”.  We cannot ignore the little things during the day that steal our peace and build up to bigger attacks.  Some battles are major:  attacks against our faith, our health, and our families.  We may need a prayer of others.  Look at all the swords out here!   We don’t fight alone.   We have people praying over us if we are sick or if we are having troubles, if we need deliverance, if we need words from the Lord.  The word of the Lord the sword of the Spirit dwells within all of us through the scriptures.     I really look forward to the time I have people praying over me.  I look forward to it!  It feels good.  (Amen.) Amen.  Think of all the swords right here.  Think of all the ones who don’t know the sword.  And we need to tell them.  We need not battle alone.  We have an army at the ready.  We never have to battle alone.  The best place to battle is with your husband, or your mate, or a good friend, before the Blessed Sacrament, with your prayer group, with people who believe like you do.  It’s hard for those who do not understand this yet to understand what you are talking about.  Sometimes I get in a little deep before I realize that I am in it and it takes a little longer to battle.  And sometimes, there are some things that will be daily battles for me.  Impatience and aggravation—I will always probably battle these, I battled them this morning!   Take courage and keep your sword at the ready. 

Attacks on the speakers here—we’ve all had attacks, not on just our physical selves but our families, our children; we’ve had attacks on trying to get here sometimes.  Philippians 1:6 says, “He who began a good work in you will be faithful to complete it, until the day of Christ Jesus”.   Well, it must be something good, what He has started in each one of us.  He’s going to make sure He completes it.  He has a plan for every single one of us.   It may involve that we touch one single person.  It may mean that we touch many.   But His plan is for us individually to bring in the kingdom.     He will bring about that which we allow Him to do in us. 

Mark 16 tells us we will tread on serpents, we will drive out demons.  Now, you know,  this come to me this afternoon, and I thought, you know, I’m going to put it in here because I have heard it often.  “Little foxes spoil the grapes”.  It doesn’t take a big bear to spoil the wild grapes or the grapes in the vineyard.   Little foxes can do it for you.  That’s what we have.   For me, the little foxes are ignored:  aggravation-I’m ignoring it; irritations or impatience.  If I ignore that, the little foxes –it grows.   Daily, it seems piddly, but not in the spiritual realm.   As I said, Satan does study us.  He knows our personalities, he knows our weaknesses, and he knows our emotions.      He knows where to start small and build.  So we don’t detect him right away sometimes.  Little gets bigger, bigger until we are really irritated, really aggravated or really impatient, not always recognized in an attack, not always discerned.     

Now, this is something, I know some of you don’t know Joyce Meyer, she taught me a lot in the early days.  Matthew 16 tells us, she says, “You can be pitiful or you can be powerful.  You can choose.”  You can choose life or death with the power of the tongue.  You can’t choose both.  You better choose to be powerful instead of pitiful!   Thank you!

Discussion Questions

1. In Catechism # 133 it states “The Church “forcefully and specifically exhorts all the Christian faithful . . . to learn ‘the surpassing knowledge of Jesus Christ,’ by frequent reading of the divine Scriptures.  “Ignorance of the Scriptures is ignorance of Christ.’”     What causes ‘ignorance of the Scriptures”?   How can that be remedied?

2.  In Catechism #131 it says, “And such is the force and power of the Word of God that it can serve the Church as her support and vigor and the children of the Church as strength for their faith, food for the soul, and a pure and lasting font of spiritual life.”  Share a time that the Word of God provided to you strength, food, or a font of grace.

3. Per Catechism #107 “The inspired books teach the truth.  “Since therefore all that the inspired authors or sacred writers affirm should be regarded as affirmed by the Holy Spirit, we must acknowledge that the books of Scripture firmly, faithfully, and without error teach that truth which God, for the sake of our salvation, wished to see confided to the Sacred Scriptures.””   Why did Satan try to twist the meaning of the scriptures to tempt Jesus?  How did Jesus respond?

4.  Discuss key points from tonight’s talk.

References from Sacred Scripture for Sword of the Spirit

Proverbs 18:21 Death and life are in the power of the tongue; those who choose one shall eat its fruit.

Genesis 3:24  “23 The LORD God therefore banished him from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from which he had been taken. 24 He expelled the man, stationing the cherubim and the fiery revolving sword east of the garden of Eden, to guard the way to the tree of life.” 

Matthew 4:1-11  “The Temptation of Jesus. 1 Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the desert to be tempted by the devil.  2 He fasted for forty days and forty nights, and afterwards he was hungry.   3 The tempter approached and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, command that these stones become loaves of bread.” 4 He said in reply, “It is written:  ‘One does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes forth from the mouth of God.’”  5 Then the devil took him to the holy city, and made him stand on the parapet of the temple, 6 and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down. For it is written: ‘He will command his angels concerning you’ and ‘with their hands they will support you, lest you dash your foot against a stone.’” 7 Jesus answered him, “Again it is written, ‘You shall not put the Lord, your God, to the test.’”  8 Then the devil took him up to a very high mountain, and showed him all the kingdoms of the world in their magnificence, 9 and he said to him, “All these I shall give to you, if you will prostrate yourself and worship me.” 10 At this, Jesus said to him, “Get away, Satan! It is written:  ‘The Lord, your God, shall you worship and him alone shall you serve.’” 11 Then the devil left him and, behold, angels came and ministered to him.”

2Cor 10:3-5 “3 For, although we are in the flesh, we do not battle according to the flesh, 4 for the weapons of our battle are not of flesh but are enormously powerful, capable of destroying fortresses. We destroy arguments 5 and every pretension raising itself against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive in obedience to Christ”

Acts 2:37 “Now when they heard this, they were cut to the heart, and they asked Peter and the other apostles, “What are we to do, my brothers?”

Hebrews 4:12  “Indeed, the word of God is living and effective, sharper than any two-edged sword, penetrating even between soul and spirit, joints and marrow, and able to discern reflections and thoughts of the heart.”

Romans 10:17 “Thus faith comes from what is heard, and what is heard comes through the word of Christ”

John 16:13-15 “But when he comes, the Spirit of truth, he will guide you to all truth. He will not speak on his own, but he will speak what he hears, and will declare to you the things that are coming. 14 He will glorify me, because he will take from what is mine and declare it to you. 15 Everything that the Father has is mine; for this reason I told you that he will take from what is mine and declare it to you.”

1Corinthians 2:10-13 “10 this God has revealed to us through the Spirit. For the Spirit scrutinizes everything, even the depths of God.  11 Among human beings, who knows what pertains to a person except the spirit of the person that is within? Similarly, no one knows what pertains to God except the Spirit of God. 12 We have not received the spirit of the world but the Spirit that is from God, so that we may understand the things freely given us by God. 13 And we speak about them not with words taught by human wisdom, but with words taught by the Spirit, describing spiritual realities in spiritual terms.”

Putting On the Full Armor of God

Finally, I will be strong in the Lord, and in the strength of His might:  I will put on the full armor of God, that I may be able to stand firm against the schemes of the devil.  For my struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places.  Therefore I will take up the full armor of God, that I may be able to resist in the evil day, and having done everything to stand firm.  I will stand firm therefore, having girded my loins with truth and having put on the breastplate of righteousness, and having shod my feet with the preparation of the Gospel of Peace.  In addition to all, I will take the shield of faith with which I will be able to extinguish all the flaming missiles of the evil one.  And I will take the helmet of salvation, and the Sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God, with all prayer and petition.  I will pray at all times in the Spirit, and with this in view I will be on the alert with all perseverance and petition for all the saints; I will pray that utterance may be given to me in the opening of my mouth to make known with boldness the mystery of the Gospel.  In the name of Jesus Christ.                                                                                                             Ephesians 6:10-19