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Sermon preached on Ephesians 6:17 by Rev. W. Reid Hankins during the Morning Worship Service at Trinity Presbyterian Church (OPC) on 09/27/2026 in Petaluma, CA.
Sermon Manuscript
Rev. W. Reid Hankins, M.Div.
We continue working through this spiritual armor of God passage, coming today to the helmet of salvation. Let us set the context again of spiritual war. When you are in a war with an enemy, and that enemy is too strong for you, you need to be saved from that enemy. So, the need of salvation is clearly relevant here. Thankfully, we have such a savior in Jesus. This topic of salvation will thus be our focus today in three points. First, we’ll consider “Satan’s Tyranny” as why we need this salvation. Second, we’ll consider “Salvation as a Helmet”, dealing with the language here in verse 17. Third, we’ll consider “Christ our Salvation”. This message will encourage us in the confidence and hope that we have in Christ amidst the ongoing attempts of Satan to overcome us.
Let us begin by considering “Satan’s Tyranny.” In general, Scripture paints a picture in which Satan and his demons have exercised a certain evil dominion over fallen humanity ever since mankind’s fall into sin. In other words, before someone is born again, every human is born into a state of bondage to sin, folly, and spiritual darkness, under the evil power and influence of the devil. Colossians 1:13 describes this state as “the domain of darkness.” Ephesians 2:2 says that in such an estate we walk in sin, following “the prince of the power of the air,” referring to the devil. According to Acts 26:18, the natural man is under “the power of Satan.” 2 Timothy 2:26 describes people as being snared and captured by the devil to do his will. Hebrews 2:14–15 associates the devil with the power of death and speaks of people being subjected through the fear of death to lifelong slavery. And, as 1 John 5:19 says, “The whole world lies in the power of the evil one.” These passages speak to the terrible tyranny of the devil. For he not only exercises such power over fallen humanity; he is himself an evil tyrant, a murderous, lying serpent who seeks to keep mankind in sin, darkness, fear, and death.
Now, I’ve made the point that this is the state of fallen humanity before they are saved. But today’s message will be declaring the wonderful fact that Jesus saves us from Satan’s tyranny. He delivers us from the bondage of the devil. And if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed, John 8:36. But that is something I will discuss more in points two and three. For now, let us acknowledge that if you are a born-again Christian, Jesus Christ has already truly and decisively saved you from Satan’s tyranny.
And yet, our passage says that we still need to take the helmet of salvation. In our first point for today, I want us as professing Christians to realize that Satan still seeks to bring people back under bondage. That is one reason we are called to take up the helmet of salvation. You see, the Bible repeatedly warns us against the danger of apostasy. And strikingly, it sometimes describes apostasy in terms of being entangled again, overcome by the enemy, and brought back into slavery. For example, 2 Peter 2 describes such people as having escaped the defilements of the world, only to become “again entangled in them and overcome.” Peter explains, “Whatever overcomes a person, to that he is enslaved.” He then graphically describes such apostasy as a dog returning to its vomit. In a similar way, Galatians 4–5 warns against returning to any form of slavery, saying, “For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.” Remember, as well, how Jesus spoke in Matthew 12 of an unclean spirit going out of a person, only to return later with seven other spirits more evil than itself, so that the last state of that person is worse than the first. Satan would seek to subjugate afresh those who profess Christ. He would seek to bring liberated people back into bondage.
Now, I want to pause here and be very clear. According to God’s gracious election, none of the elect will finally apostatize. God will preserve every one of his chosen people unto everlasting salvation. Nevertheless, there is a category of people who outwardly profess Christ, and who in significant ways appear to have escaped the bondage of the enemy, but who are again entangled and overcome, with their latter condition becoming worse than the first. This is one reason 2 Peter 1:10 tells us to be diligent to confirm our calling and election. As we take up the helmet of salvation and withstand the devil’s attacks in Christ, our perseverance helps confirm the reality of God’s saving work in us. But if someone becomes ensnared again by the enemy and returns finally to the power of darkness, that apostasy reveals that the person never truly knew Christ and his salvation.
Let us then turn to our second point and more directly consider “Salvation as a Helmet.” Verse 17 calls us to “take the helmet of salvation.” Now this language of a helmet is what it sounds like. It describes some protective cap one wears to protect their head during military combat. This is again a primarily defensive piece of the armor. It should be obvious how important it is to protect your head. Protecting our head is so important that God made skulls, right? And yet, even though we have skulls, our head still is a very vulnerable part of the body. Modern sports equipment has increasingly acknowledged this as well, seeking to provide greater protection against concussion or even worse injury. In combat, a soldier might sustain various injuries to his body, but one blow to the head might take him out. By analogy, God speaks to how in our spiritual warfare, we have to be properly protected against the potentially serious or fatal blows our enemy may try to hit us with.
So then, this helmet described here is one consisting of salvation. Our soul must be protected by our salvation. The word here for salvation can also be translated as deliverance, rescue, and liberation. As I will expand on in our third point, it is Christ who saves us. So, when we talk about taking up salvation to protect us, we are not talking about saving ourselves from the enemy. No, we are talking about taking up Christ, our savior.
What does this salvation entail? In the context of conflict with Satan, we can say it involves saving us from Satan’s tyranny, as we’ve already noted. But our salvation is even more comprehensive. Let’s think through what all this salvation entails. First, we are saved from our state of spiritual death. We are born again and made alive in Christ. The domain of darkness is lifted as the light of Christ shines into our hearts. We begin to see things as they are, including our need for Christ. This salvation from spiritual death results in our turning in faith to Jesus. At that point, we become justified and adopted. In our justification, we are saved from our sins and the penalty they bring. In our adoption, we are saved to enjoy an eternal inheritance of everlasting life with God as our heavenly father. All this is the salvation we already have come to enjoy, if we are a born-again Christian.
But we know there is more. Our salvation also has both a present and future component to it. Right now, Jesus is sanctifying us, working to cleanse and purify our lives that we would grow in walking in holiness and righteousness. That means we are being saved from the power of sin. But that will be a battle until the end. When we go to be with the Lord, he will finish the work in our hearts. He will perfect our souls. Then we will be saved from all the remaining corruption and fully delivered from the power of sin. When he returns, he will also put a final end to Satan and all his enemies. Then he will even destroy death as the last enemy. All this includes what we will be finally saved from.
I hope this brief description of our salvation clearly explains that there is a part of our salvation that is already complete. And there is a part that is not yet complete. When we put on the helmet of salvation, we are putting on all of it, the salvation that is complete and the salvation that will eventually be completed. This means that putting on the helmet of salvation gives us two related benefits of our salvation. For the ways our salvation is already complete, it gives us confident assurance. For the ways our salvation is not yet complete, it gives us hope. This is important to understand because it is instrumental to how the helmet of salvation functions as a defensive piece of armor. Let’s consider each for a moment.
First, the helmet of salvation promotes confident assurance in our hearts. Ephesians 1 spoke so boldly of all the spiritual blessings of salvation that we already have in Christ. Ephesians 2 powerfully described how we were delivered from Satan, made alive in Christ, saved by grace through faith, and no longer in enmity with God but part of his heavenly household. All this gives us confidence of who we now are in Christ. Bring that to bear with regard to this spiritual warfare. If you had to overcome such a formidable enemy like Satan yourself, you would not have this confidence. But Jesus has already delivered you from Satan’s grip. Jesus said in John 12:31, “Now will the ruler of this world be cast out.” Likewise, because we have been saved from sin, we now have confidence to draw near to God in prayer and seek his help for this spiritual warfare, Hebrews 4:16 and 10:19. Because we have been saved, we can reject Satan’s accusations, knowing that no accusation can overturn the justification we have in Christ. Satan would have you give up your Christian faith, but the fact that so much of our salvation has already come to pass, encourages us to not believe his lies. So, in confident assurance, we don the helmet of salvation and know that nothing can separate us from the love God has for us in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Second, the helmet of salvation promotes hope. In a previous sermon, I mentioned that 1 Thessalonians 5 also has a very short version of the spiritual armor of God, with some minor differences. That passage also mentioned a helmet, but says that it is the helmet of the hope of salvation. So, that parallel passage on spiritual armor explains how hope is an important aspect of how salvation functions as a helmet. Now, while our passage broadens it by just calling it a helmet of salvation, clearly hope is part of what we put on when we take this helmet. This hope is about the aspects of our salvation that have not yet come to pass. As Pastor Miller liked to say, this hope is not a “hope so” hope. It is what he called a “biblical hope”. What he meant is that the hope of our salvation is not that maybe, hopefully, possibly, the rest of our salvation will happen. Rather, it is a hope of firm conviction, that we know it is a certainty, just a matter of time, that the rest of our salvation will come to a conclusion. This biblical hope is so important to put on because Satan wants to attack us with despair and hopelessness. He wants to do things like mock us and say, “Where is the promise of his coming?” But our hope knows that Jesus will return in his perfect timing. Likewise, Satan will gladly put on your things like persecution and tribulation and distress to try to make you want to give up because the Christian life is so hard. As Revelation 2:10 says, “The devil is about to throw some of you in prison.” But our hope knows that this “light momentary affliction is preparing us for an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison.” So, for the joy set before us, we don our helmet of salvation with the hope that Christ our victor will finish that which he began, and bring our salvation to its completion.
Let us then turn now to our third point, and consider “Christ our Salvation”. We’ve been declaring this throughout the sermon, for how could we not. But this last point will again remind us that taking the helmet of salvation is not about finding the strength in ourselves to stand against Satan. Remember, this passage says we are to be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might. We don’t put on a helmet where we do the saving. We put on the helmet where Christ does the saving. It is not a helmet of self-salvation. It is a helmet of Christ-salvation.
This point can again be made by recognizing that Paul here alludes to Isaiah 59:17. He already alluded to that same verse when talking about the breastplate of righteousness. Remember, that was a chapter in Isaiah where God’s people were seen as so unrighteous, but there was no one to save them. So, Isaiah 59 says that God’s own arm then brought salvation and righteousness. That’s when it goes on to describe God as coming down to them wearing a breastplate of righteousness and a helmet of salvation. In the light of the New Testament, it is clear God did this in his Son. Jesus came to seek and save that which was lost.
Let me further explain Jesus’ role as a savior with a reference to the book of Judges. On Wednesday nights, we have been studying that book. There, we see that God’s people would sin and to chasten them God would allow a neighboring people to subjugate them until the people cried out to God to save them. That is when God would raise up a judge to deliver them. In our study, we’ve noted that, while the judges are often called “judges”, the book also refers to them as deliverers or saviors when it comes to how they would liberate Israel from the people who were subjugating them. Do you see how that role of the judges is typological of what Jesus does for us regarding Satan? Satan had subjugated humanity in our sinful fallen natures. But Jesus comes as the savior and deliverer to liberate us from such bondage. Jesus is our salvation in how he delivers us from the tyranny of Satan. As Jesus colorfully described in Mark 3:27, to plunder from a strong man, you must first bind him. That is what Jesus came to do. Christ has bound Satan. Even now, through the gospel, Jesus is plundering the strong man. He is rescuing souls from Satan’s domain of darkness, and delivering them to the glory of his kingdom, Col 1:13. Jesus is opening eyes to turn people from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan to God, Acts 26:18.
Now that is how Jesus has already saved us. But we remember that he will complete his salvation at his return. That means when he returns, he will save us by bringing a sword of vengeance against all those who remain his enemies at his coming. Then, every spirit still opposed to him, and every human who hasn’t received his salvation, will find the judgment of the eternal fire of hell. That may sound sobering, but for us who are saved, we know it is Jesus finishing what he started and bringing our salvation to completion. Then, he will usher us into the age where there is no more pain, sorrow, death, curse, sin, and certainly no more satanic affliction.
I hope my point is clear in this third point. While we are talking about putting on the helmet of salvation, I want us to see that it is ultimately Jesus who wears this helmet. This is God’s armor! Christ does not just model how to wear the armor, he is the divine warrior who has already fought and conquered. And so, Christ is our savior and our salvation. In him, we can have a confident assurance of what he has already accomplished. In him, we hope in the coming salvation that he will yet bring at his coming, and that is not a misplaced hope. May our taking up the helmet of salvation mean finding our salvation in him and not in ourselves.
Trinity Presbyterian Church, may we all take up the helmet of salvation. Satan is a conquered foe. May we all be confident and sure of our salvation, even as we hope in Christ’s return. Satan will yet try to return us to slavery. In matters of faith, Satan might try to get you to turn back to all those forms of man-made religion, where we try to save ourselves in some way. But the helmet of salvation knows that true freedom is only found in following Christ our Savior. In matters of living, Satan might try to get you to return to the defilements of the world with its carnal pleasures. But the helmet of salvation knows that Christ came to deliver us from such sinful filth to walk now as children of light. While the Bible would have us take seriously the threat of apostasy, as we don the helmet of salvation, we can have confident assurance and sure hope in Christ who is mighty to save!
Amen
Copyright © 2026 Rev. W. Reid Hankins, M.Div.
All Rights Reserved.
