In episode 52 of the “No Doubt, No Fear, Only Believe” podcast, host Greg Ryan introduces the lesson on spiritual warfare and the armor of God. He begins with a personal announcement about being "relentless" in 2021, expanding his ministry to short YouTube videos for more interactive dialogue. Ryan reads Ephesians 6:10‑18 in full, then breaks down key verses, emphasizing that true power comes from God’s spirit rather than human might. He references Zechariah 4:6, Revelation 4, and Isaiah 11:2 to illustrate the seven spirits of God, especially the spirit of might, and connects these to the believer’s need to stand strong in the Lord. Using vivid analogies—such as pulling Satan into the spirit realm like a child calling his dad—he offers practical advice on confronting spiritual attacks by relying on God’s power, truth, and the armor pieces (truth, righteousness, peace, faith, salvation, and the Word). Ryan also comments on modern, sometimes odd, expressions of spiritual warfare, asserting his focus is on “kicking the snot out of Satan” rather than spectacle. The episode ends with a promise to continue the series and an invitation for listeners to engage with future content.
Welcome to episode 52. This is a brand new week and a brand new lesson, but we gotta start as we always do in the Gospel of John 1:1.
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 Ryan.
Welcome to episode 52.
If you—
this is your first time to be here, we have covered a lot of ground, but we are starting a brand new lesson. It's on spiritual warfare and the armor of God. But before I get started, I want to tell you, I— and I want to encourage you to find a word, because I have— I don't know that I said this in the podcast, but I think I did on the Facebooks— that I— the word that I had for this year is relentless. And I am going to be relentless for 2021 on giving God glory and just getting after this thing. And I've— and, and, and as my ready, fire, aim mentality, I am going to start doing more on my YouTube channel. And you probably didn't even know I had a YouTube channel, but I'm trying to figure out how to talk to y'all. And the podcast, I'm talking to you, but I can't— it's hard for you to talk back to me. With YouTube, I like the idea of a short little 3 or 4 minute video on YouTube if you're into that sort of thing. I'm going to talk about different things that I've got going on It's going to be real similar to the podcast, but, but we'll be able to have a conversation on YouTube. Now that I've got the public service announcements out of the way, let's get to Ephesians 6:10-18, and I'm going to read it all through once, and then we're going to start picking apart each section, and we're going to go through it kind of not line by line, but we're gonna, we're gonna dig in a little bit deeper. Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord and in the power of his might. 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 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, having girded your waist with truth, having put on the breastplate of righteousness, having shod your feet with the preparation of the gospel of peace, above all, taking the shield of faith, with, with which you will be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked one, and take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God, praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, being watchful to this end with all perseverance and supplication for all the saints. And I know, I know you probably get tired of me reading all these Bible— I wish I read better, but the Bible is the Bible, and you've got it on your nightstand, or you've got it under your arm, or you have it on your phone. Pick it up and read it for yourself. Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God. We need to dig into this word, and this is, this is a big deal. So we're gonna We're gonna stand on the word, and again, we've used stand, Paul used stand 2 or 3 times, so I'm pretty certain we're gonna talk about standing. But right now, I wanna go back to 6:10. Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord and in the power of his might. I think this is critical, that we need to understand that it's God's power. That's where all of the power resides is with God. And if you remember back, I can't tell you the number, but it was when I was talking about spiritual realm and the physical realm. God is in the, in the spiritual realm. Satan is, is roaming around and trying to kick the snot out of us in the physical realm. So we need to come where God— we need to bring Satan into the spiritual realm, and that is where God is. That's where the truth is. That's where Jesus said, the words that I speak are spirit and they are life, and they're the truth. And God is the truth. You get it. You've probably heard me. If you haven't, go back and listen. The truth is what we're going to use to defeat the punk. And so we're gonna, we're gonna stand in his might. And, and then there's another scripture, a famous scripture that's in Zechariah 4:6. So he answered and said to me, this is the word of the Lord to Zerubbabel. 'Not by might nor by power, but by my spirit,' says the Lord. And I may have just tore up poor Zerubbabel's name. I don't know exactly how to pronounce it. Remember, English is not my first language. I want you to concentrate in the one that's most quoted is after that. I— the word of the Lord, he was speaking to Zerubbabel, but it said, 'Not by might nor by power, but by my spirit,' says the Lord. And when we try to do stuff in our own power, in our own might. And that— I'm gonna— again, we're gonna take that to the spirit realm, and we have got to be where God is if we're going to fight the punk. If we're going to win this battle, it is going to be fighting with God and where God wants us to fight. And Paul is reminding us that we are to be strong in the Lord and in the power of his might. And I want to take us to Revelation 4 In verse 5, and from the throne proceeded lightnings, thunderings, and voices. 7 lamps of fire were burning before the throne, which are the 7 spirits of God. All right, now hold on to that thought and we're going to skip on over to Isaiah 11:2. 11:2, Isaiah. This is where Isaiah reveals the 7 spirits of the Lord. This is the same 7 spirits that we just read in Revelation. And I'm gonna read 11:2 right now. The Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him, the Spirit of wisdom and understanding, the Spirit of counsel and might, the Spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the Lord. The first one I see is just the Spirit of the Lord, which gives him the reign and rule, but then the Spirit of wisdom, the Spirit of understanding, the Spirit of counsel, the Spirit of might, the spirit of knowledge, and the spirit of the fear of the Lord. So all of those are 7, and the first one's a little bit more subjective than the other 6. The one I wanna talk about is the spirit of might, and that's where Paul is saying to be strong in the Lord, and in the power of his might. God is, if you haven't figured it out, God is mighty. God holds the whole universe between his hands. God is not small. He's omnipotent, which means he is all-powerful, which means there's not one thing that God cannot do. Well, there's a couple things. He cannot lie and he cannot go against his word. Is he is powerful. God is mighty. When we're going to fight against the punk, have you ever been in a playground fight or when you were a little kid and, you know, someone was messing with you or whatever and then They said, I'm gonna go get my dad. If Satan starts messing with you, just pull them into the spirit realm. Go get your dad. Before, you know, you— if you were some tough guy, you weren't going to go get— run to your daddy. But God is powerful, and we are— we are still just children. So when Satan tries to come against you, it is not— if you can't fight him off, if you don't have the faith, and if you haven't— if you've still got doubts and fears, I'm telling you, I'm giving you permission to run to Dad, run to Abba Father, and just go bring Satan's butt to Father God and see what your dad said has to say about it. All right, I'm looking at the clock and it's starting to get close to the 10-minute mark and I am just getting started. But I wanted to introduce you— this is more of an introduction to the spiritual warfare that goes on and how we're going to win this battle. I think a lot of what we do as Christians sometimes might not— might, you know, it's called spiritual warfare, and you know, some of it looks a little bit— well, for lack of a better word, some of it looks a little weird. And I don't know if it works in the spirit realm or not, but when I look at it and see some of the, some of the crazy stuff that some people are doing, it kind of makes me put my eyebrow up and maybe cock my head a little bit to the right and go, wow. I don't know if people do that. Sometimes I think that they— people act strange, one, because maybe they are strange, but two, maybe they want to draw a crowd. And I, I don't want to draw a crowd. What I want to do is kick the snot out of Satan. And so that's what we're going to do. We're going to figure out how to win in the spirit realm. And spiritual warfare is a big deal. I don't want to say it's easy. It's simple. But it's not easy. Well, thank you for being part of this, and I look forward to talking to you on the next episode.
Thanks for listening to the No Doubt, No Fear, Only Believe podcast at www.nodoubtonlybelieve.com.
