In episode 61 of the "No Doubt, No Fear, Only Believe" podcast, host Greg Ryan continues his series on the Armor of God, concentrating on Ephesians 6:11‑14. He emphasizes that believers must "stand in the Lord" rather than engage the enemy with physical force. Using the Old‑Testament story of Gideon’s 300 men and the broken pitchers illustration, Ryan shows how humble preparation allows God’s spirit to fight for us. He argues that spiritual battles are won by relying on God’s power, not personal might, citing Zechariah 4:6 and the biblical principle that God chooses the weak to shame the strong. The episode also employs the Psalm‑1 tree metaphor, describing the believer as a tree rooted in living water, standing firm amid storms, and encouraging communal solidarity—locking arms with other believers—as a further illustration of spiritual standing. The tone is conversational and instructional, aiming to inspire listeners to trust God’s spiritual armor and remain steadfast.
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Welcome to episode 61.
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God, and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. Spending time in the Word of God is the best way to spend time with God. Welcome to No Doubt, No Fear, Only Believe podcast, where we will encourage, inspire, and empower you to live your best life in Christ. Here's Greg.
Welcome to episode 61. We are continuing our talk on the armor of God, and I guess we're talking about preparing to put on the armor of God because the, the first few episodes, actually the first 9 lessons in, in this, uh, podcast series has been getting us ready to put on the armor. Maybe at the end of this episode we might can gird our loins with the belt of truth, but I'm not making any promises. Let's go back to Ephesians. Our anchor scripture for this whole lesson is Ephesians 6:10-18, but I want to concentrate on 11 through part of 14.
Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places. Therefore, take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand. Stand therefore.
There's a lot of standing, and that's what I want to talk about today, is that we need to stand in the Lord. And while we're standing, if you remember 6:10 from the beginning of this teaching, is in the power of his might. So we're going to stand in the power of his might, and we have already talked about Gideon So we're gonna go back to Gideon and we're gonna picture, you remember when we broke the brokenness and the broken pitchers and we broke our pitchers and the thing that was on the inside, those torches, those flaming torches, that once the pitchers were broken, the flaming torches became visible to the enemy and they blew the trumpet. So they made a loud noise and then the torches were visible to the enemy. And they just started, they went crazy. Remember, they went, they pulled their swords out and started killing each other in the camp. And all Gideon and the 300 did was stand there. We've got to do something, but the thing that we did and the preparation that we did beforehand in the humbleness and the meekness, I think it prepares us to be able to stand. And because it is a battle, we need to put on battle gear, and that's where the armor of God's coming in, is that we are gonna put on the whole armor of God, but it's not necessarily to get in the battle and fight. The whole armor is so that we can stand against the wiles. And so we have to put this armor on, and it's spiritual armor. And so what we've got to do is we gotta know that this is a spiritual battle. Again, I've talked about this in previous episodes, but we are not to fight our enemy in the physical realm. If we start fighting, and that's another reason why they say, "We don't war against flesh and blood," because if we are battling in the physical realm against a spiritual enemy, we are gonna get our butts kicked every single time. I can't overemphasize that enough, is that if you fight Satan in the physical realm with your five senses, you are gonna get beat. That's just the bottom line. I believe that is— that it may be Gregology, but I think it's pretty backed up by scriptures that if we start trying to fight him in the flesh, which is carnal, which is our five senses, we are gonna get beat. And so what we need to do is we need to bring Satan— now he is a spirit, but the problem that Satan has is if we bring him in the spirit realm where Father God and the Holy Spirit and Jesus all are. Satan cannot stand against God. He just cannot. When we break our pitchers, we— with the brokenness and the Holy Spirit, that is God fighting for us. If we can learn to have God fight the battle for us, we will win every time. But a lot of times we get in a hurry, and present company included, with my ready, fire, aim mentality. I'll just jump at it. I'm like, oh, I got this. And so then I go taking off chasing after this battle when what I'm supposed to do based on this scripture is I'm just supposed to stand there. There's other scriptures that said not by might. We talked about where I had a problem saying Zerubbabel, and it is not by, not by power, not by might, but by my spirit, says the Lord. And I think that was in Zechariah, I think it's 4:6, Zechariah 4 something. But that is where it says not by might nor by power, 'but by my spirit,' says the Lord. Now that doesn't mean that the Spirit of God is not powerful. That, I believe, is talking about not by power nor by might that Zerubbabel has, or that you or I have. We are not to fight the enemy with our power and our might. Remember when we first started way back at the beginning, when I talked about, in the beginning of all of these episodes was my calling, and it said, 'You see your calling, brethren,' that not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble are called, but God has chosen the foolish things of this world to put to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of this world to put to shame the things that are mighty, and the base things and the things that are despised he has chosen, and the things that are not, to bring to nothing the things that are, that no flesh should glory in his presence. So we're, we are not to try to fight Satan with all of our goodness and all of our wonderfulness. We are to fight the demonic host and principalities and powers and all of those spiritual hosts of wickedness, all of that mess. We are to fight in the spirit realm with the Spirit of God. And I don't know if I told you, but in the— one of the symbolisms for men in the spirit realm are trees. And if you can symbolize— you know what a tree— if you've ever seen a tree in your yard or in a forest, you know the tree don't move around a lot. The tree puts its roots down and the tree stands and it stays where it's planted. We symbolize in the spirit realm men are like trees. And so if you can kind of picture yourself— it's not real sexy and you don't get to move around from country to country. And if you like traveling, you better be in a ceramic pot if you're going to be a tree, because if you put your roots down in this earth, you're pretty much going to be staying put. But I wanted to use tree here because we're told to stand.
So if we are going to be in the spirit realm as trees, a great scripture to illustrate that is It's Psalm 1, and you'll see where the tree analogy comes in. But we're going to start at verse 1. Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor stands in the path of sinners, nor sits in the seat of the scornful. But his delight is in the law of the Lord, and in his law he meditates day and night. He shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water that brings forth its fruit in its season, whose leaves also shall not wither, and whatever he does prosper.
Now, I, I just, I love that Psalm.
There's a lot in that Psalm, but it talks about a tree planted by the rivers of water. And, and the living water— Jesus told the woman at the well that if you knew who you were talking to, you would ask for the living water. And God, the Bible, and the Holy Spirit, that's the living water. And when we tap into the Word of God as a tree, you know, we dig our roots down and we start getting into the Word and we start getting into the water and washing ourselves in it and nourishing ourselves with it. We become strong and solid, and, and then we're talking about standing, you know. And it says, stand therefore. So we, we're— when we're told to stand, and I just, I kind of want to get you a picture of just standing firm, you know. I see a tree, you see those trees sometimes that are just standing in the storm. And you know, when a storm is blowing and the tree is just standing there, and the deeper and stronger the root system is, the less the storm affects it. And if you can hook into your root system with other trees, you know, you see some other trees that kind of root together, and I kind of see that picture as locking arms. If we would lock arms together with other believers. And there's a lot of other truths that go with locking arms and being together. That's not a rabbit I'm gonna chase, but I wanna go with the standing and the tree. And then the next episode, I'm gonna give one more illustration and one more, I gotta go back to the Old Testament. You know how I love using the Old Testament as a picture of things that God does in the spirit realm, and he can kind of, we can kind of see this play out in a story in the Old Testament.
Well, that's enough for now. I, I'm trying to stick it around 10. You know that, and I appreciate it. If you haven't subscribed to the podcast, this would be a great time to do it. Thanks again for listening. I look forward to talking to you in the next episode.
Thanks for listening to the No Doubt, No Fear, Only Believe podcast at www.nodoubtonlybelieve.com.
