Leon Fontaine - Are You Battle Ready?
Hey! It is so good to have you with us today. I've got a very important topic that I wanna get through today. You know, in warfare it is better, this sounds really bad, but listen to me close, in warfare over the years it is better to wound the people on the lines than it is to kill them. That's what our enemies have down in World War I, World War II, is if you kill someone he lays there, and people walk by. But if that person is wounded, three or four friends gotta carry him off the field, medics have to look after him. He's gotta be transported back. And so if you're wanna, in warfare if you wanna really keep the enemy so he cannot overrun you and win, keep him busy looking after his own wounded. And I really believe this is one of the enemy's strategies for the church of Jesus Christ. If he can keep you, so that the promises of God are not in your life so that you are happy, fulfilled, and blessed. And now, able to go and get the job done that God has called you to do, then he keeps you focus on trying to get the promises working for you.
So today, we're gonna talk about something crucial that I find everyone talks about but very few seemed to understand, and that is the specific armor that is for a person of prayer and a person that is reaching out to the lost. You have an armor as you go into that territory because upon you all of God's promises work. Let me start explaining that. Jesus had an armor when He walked this planet and it's fascinating to see what the Bible has to say about it. In fact, let's go right now to that scripture and let me read it for you. In Isaiah 59:15-21, it's talking about Jesus and here's what it says, "And he who departs from evil makes himself a prey". In other words, when you try to live right, all of a sudden, you're the one being chased down and messed with. "Then the Lord saw it, and it displeased Him that there was no justice. He saw that there was no man and He wondered that there was no intercessor. Therefore, His own arm brought salvation for Him. And His own righteousness, it sustained Him. So He put on righteousness as a breastplate, and a helmet of salvation on His head. He put on the garments of vengeance for clothing and He was clad with zeal as a cloak".
This is Jesus he's talking about. He's got an armor that He wore. And I'm gonna talk about this. It says, according to their deeds, accordingly He will repay. Fury to His adversaries, recompense to His enemies. The coastlands He will fully repay. So shall they fear the name of the Lord from the west, and His glory from the rising of the sun. When the enemy comes in like a flood, the Spirit of the Lord will lift up a standard against him. "The Redeemer will come to Zion, and to those who turn from transgression in Jacob," says the Lord. "As for Me," says the Lord, "this is My covenant with them. My Spirit who is upon you, and My words which I have put in your mouth, shall not depart from your mouth, nor from the mouth of your descendants, nor from the mouth of your descendants' descendants," says the Lord, "from this time and forevermore".
This is so packed full of truths. First of all, it's talking about Jesus who came to set mankind free. And as He walked the planet, it says here He had a breastplate and it says of righteousness and a helmet of salvation, garments of vengeance for clothing. He came down here to make things right. He came down here to die for your and my sin. So that we can begin to function on this planet without being harassed. And we were gonna be harassed but without having to give in to sickness, disease, poverty, mental illness, early death. All of these things that have been promised to you and I. There is an armor that you and I are to wear. Because when Jesus came to this planet, He won the right for you and I to walk in health and walk in blessing. Now, when you go to Ephesians, it's something really interesting here. This incredible armor that Jesus wore. It says that it's ours. Let me read this to you.
In Ephesians 6:10-20, it says, "Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord and in the power of His might". We'll teach on this either today or tomorrow. It says, "Put on the whole armor of God, that you can stand against the wiles of the devil". All right. This armor is not an armor that is needed because the devil can physically manifest himself and punch you, put disease on you, kill you, etcetera. This armor has to do with wiles which is deception. And of course, deception come through words, ideas that the enemy is gonna shoot at you. And it says, "For we don't wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places".
I don't know what kind of pain and heartache you've gone through or how much your mind has come under assault where you begin to doubt your own sanity. The pain of wondering is my life meaningful? You know, am I gonna be able to make it through what I'm walking through right now? You need to know that the enemy is gonna attack you, but it doesn't say that when you talk about wrestling, he's not talking about a physical wrestling. He's not talking about you wrestling with disease. He's not talking about you wrestling with poverty. He's not talking about you wrestling with mental illness. Okay, or early death. This wrestling is against the wiles of the devil. It's against his thoughts. It's against his ideas. It's against his questions that begin to bombard your mind as he comes against your mind to get you in fear, to get you worried, anxious. I don't know about you but there are times in my life where I've had to run to God's Word and I've had to make sure and remind myself of the incredible armor that is mine. And when I got back into the truths of God's armor, all of this thought that was harassing my mind trying to bring despair, trying to bring depression.
This world if you don't know how to take it on could be an awful place, a horrid place, a place with incredible pain, darkness in so many areas of life. But Jesus has provided a way for you to get your head up over and to begin not just survived but to begin to win. To become the worst nightmare of the enemy because you're not only learning to get yourself going but you begin to go out and you begin to help others as you share the gospel of Jesus Christ. All right! You saw Jesus armor. Now listen to what it says about your and my armor. It says, "Take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand and withstand in the evil day". There will be specific times of attack against you. It will be an evil specific time and you'll have to know how to stand. And then it says, "Having done all, you just stand". There's not a thing you can do. So it says, "Stand therefore, having girded your waist with truth".
All right. So there was a belt on the armor in the olden days. And it says this waist, this belt should be the belt of truth. "Put on the breastplate of righteousness". Well, that's what Jesus was wearing. And put your feet, it's a shod or wearing the preparation of the gospel of peace. Your feet are to be taking you to sharing the gospel with people. If your feet are taking you to just defending yourself, making yourself rich, looking after yourself, and you're so self-centered. It's just you. Your feet weren't shod with the preparation of the gospel to just look after yourself, okay. Then it says, "Above all, taking the shield of faith which you will be able to quench every fiery dart 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".
Now, this armor as you begin to read this for yourself, you'll notice there's a little bit of change from the way it talks about it in the Old Testament. In the Old Testament it talks about vengeance. It talks about the adversary's being messed with by Jesus. Because when Jesus came, He had to deal with the devil and He had to go in there to take the keys of death hell from him so that in the curse of the law deal with it. So that you and I could have these things for us. Much of the Christian world is busy trying to refight what Jesus has already won. They think the armor is to go fight the devil. And so we have involved teachings of intercessory prayer, where you're praying in the spirit and you're coming against the dark forces. You're coming against, you know, the head demons and you gotta figure out who they are in different places of, you know, on this side of the river and which is the crown prince, demon spirit.
I've heard so many crazy stuff. And many of these people as I follow their ministries will have a well develop teaching on it, but they really haven't begin to move the kingdom of God in their locale, their area. I haven't seen churches rise up, which is what Jesus said to do. Winning the lost in great numbers like what's done in the early testament. I don't see incredible miracles that go on generation after generation. There's kind of a little blip of excitement on something new that's a teaching and everyone rallies around it. But the key is in the years and the decades that follow. Does this teaching survive and bring the church to a place of victory and winning? And when it's not truth based in the Bible, it doesn't survive.
People will rally around it and they'll be excited and even seemed to have results for a while. But I'm not interested in one-year results or just a little bit of results. I'm interested in truth that I can build the church of Jesus Christ. Reach out to the lost and those and help equip my children and my grandchildren and the churches and the people that God has asked me to prepare and to train. I want them to win. I want them to stand strong through anything that goes on in their entire lives. I'm not interested in a little bit of winning. I want complete victory. So therefore, truth is crucial. So this is not talking about you and I going and fighting for the country as far as fighting the devil for the country, fighting the devil for healing. Jesus defeated him. "Oh, what is that mean, Leon"? It means we just share the gospel. The good news that Jesus defeated the devil. He died for mankind and that salvation is theirs for the asking.
Put your trust in Jesus. That once you do that, you're removed from the kingdom of darkness. You're in the kingdom of His dear Son. And the enemy we don't find in-depth things going on in the New Testament after the cross where the disciples are getting together for some kind of wild weird prayer meetings of warfare to dethrone Satan. Jesus dethroned him, defeated him, and Jesus his named has been given. So if you wanna really defeat the enemy and begin to win the lost and rise up in victory in your own personal life, there's gotta be an understanding of the armor and why the armor. All right. So the armor again is for you to wear because it's against the wiles. It's against the deceptions of the enemy. The thoughts, he's gonna mess with you. And the only way you will be able to make it in your world through every chapter of life and everything you deal with is to know God's Word. This beautiful Bible. In fact, when the Bible says you're to put on the breastplate of righteousness. Well, in fact, it's saying that there are Christians running around without the armor.
Can you imagine if you watch the movie of Roman legions fighting an armor against another group and out comes this guy in his Fruit of the Loom underwear. No sword, no shield, no armor. Nothing, just this guy with his shorts on running out into battle. Well, when arrows come in, it's gonna take him out. And the first guy that hits him, he's got nothing to protect him. So when it talks about the Word of God, is that it's the shield of faith or the breastplate of righteousness. You have the armor on when each piece you understand that doctrine, that principle. So the principle of righteousness you must know like in Romans chapter 5. That it's Jesus. When you believe on Jesus, you are righteous. Okay? When, and you are born again into His family and you are righteous. When my children were born in to the Fontaine family, they are righteously Fontaine. Now, they don't always act like a Fontaine. They don't always speak and talk like Fontaine, okay? And they can do better in some areas when I have to talk to them about it. But the fact they are Fontaine.
So when you are righteous, you are righteous as a born again believer is your state between you and God. Okay, you are righteous. You are in right standing with God as a family member having access to all of His benefits. Now, you might not act like that sometimes and God's Word should correct that in you. If you get God's Word on the inside of you, it will rise up and guide you away from wrong actions, wrong thinking, treating people incorrectly. And so this breastplate of righteousness is talking about you in right standing. Now, anytime the enemy shoots thoughts, "That, okay. You can't have this blessing because you have done things that are wrong and those wrong things you did disqualify you". It is the breastplate of righteousness that has to stop that.
Now, this breastplate of righteousness simply means that a thought comes in. All right, I need the power of God to move in that area. But the enemy shoots a thought, "But you can't have it today because you did some wrong things this morning and those wrong things have disqualified you. You're not righteous. You're a sinner". So these kinds of words. Now the breastplate of righteousness for those who understand righteousness. That it's a gift that Jesus won it and then He gave it to you. That that once you know that, that all those thoughts that are dealing with your righteousness, they just fall. They hit that armor and they just fall down. When they're wearing a breastplate in the old days when an arrow hit that breastplate, it just crumpled to the ground. If anything hit it from a thrown knife to an arrow, to a sword coming out of the crowd and it hit the breastplate, it just could not penetrate that.
So anytime the enemy is got you worried about things that deal with, "Are you good enough? Have you been good enough? Did you not do things good? Did you do wrong things today as a Christian"? He will try to get you disqualified because you haven't been good enough. This is the entire area of being in right standing. And so the breastplate, this beautiful piece of armor is about being righteous. Then it talks about, you know, your waist with truth put around it. I like how he mentions the truth actually first before the breastplate because truth is crucial. So many people in our world and Christians think they can believe whatever they want and that it's okay just as long as you believe. No, the Bible is incredibly empathic. You must know truth. Know the truth and believe truth. That's what sets you free. Anything else that you believe, okay, will actually cause you heartache.
If you believe something that's not true, then it will be able to take you off course. When the enemy begins to come at you with his wiles. This wrestling that goes on is you getting your mind back on God's Word as thought after thought, dreams and daydreams and imaginations and other people's words and comments and other preachers preaching and things that could go on. That your mind is kind of wrestling with all these concepts. When God's Word gets anchored on the inside of you about righteousness, the enemy is finished winning that battle. Okay, there are many of you that can't seem to get miracles in healing, miracles in finance. Or it seems to be delayed and you begin to think, "How come"? One of the areas could be the enemy is attacking you in the area of, "You actually can't access it because you're not living perfect enough". So get the truth on this. And that's what the armor is. It's getting the truth on that area.
Now, let's move on. Then it says, that your breastplate of righteousness, and having shod your feet with the preparation of the gospel of peace. This is an important thing to understand. All of this armor, okay, is to go against the enemy. It's not to run from the enemy. Okay, we don't find a piece of armor here that is designed for you to run away. It doesn't say this is a butt piece to protect your butt. This is a back piece to protect your back. No. But we know that when God is our rear guard, the Bible says. If we're in the battle and the enemy is sneaking up on us. All of this armor is for you to begin to move forward and to share Jesus with people. Now, let me just say this for a minute. The gospel of peace. The gospel is not a gospel of fear to scare the hell out of people, become mean and angry and yet. No, it's a gospel of peace. And the gospel works the best when peace is brought to people.
So as you look at this armor and you begin to understand that when you share Jesus with people, it should be that He loves them, died for them, their sins are already forgiven. They just need to believe on Him and trust in Him and ask Him into their hearts. That everything they need in life has been prepared for them with His loving Father. This gospel is a gospel of peace. And that you can have a relationship with Him and that He loves you. He loves you so much. This gospel is a gospel of peace. And when people hear it and they give their lives to Jesus, there's a peace. You know what, lots of stuff my dad told me this one time. I pastored with him for a number of years before he went to be with Jesus. And he said, Leon, in your worst day as a born again believer, your worst day he said is still better than the majority of the world's best days. He said, yes, you might have lost someone. You might be going through things. You might be feeling pain. But he says in the world where they do not know the peace of God, there's unsettledness in their mind and deep in their stomach. And this unsettledness is because their spirit man is not alive with the life of Jesus.
There's no peace that passes understanding that Jesus talks about that is with them. This armor is incredibly important for you to understand because as you look at these different pieces you must know what those doctrines, what those principles are, and you must settle them in the heart. Through in the attack of the enemy comes against, are you good enough? Righteousness, the breastplate will shoot that down. When it tries to attack your peace and make you, your life is not that great. You know, yeah, you're bawling during at the church. Or, you know, you're giving in tithing. And, you know, you've been following Jesus, but things haven't been going good for you and He didn't heal you as fast as you thought, and people have left you and you lost your job. He's trying to rattle you with your peace.
So that you get off track with your feet from the place that He's called you, to the church He's called you, to the purpose for your life that He's called you to. This gospel of peace is crucial that you understand that when you know the gospel and that this must go to the world and that you are commanded by Jesus to go into the world and preach the gospel. That wherever you have to go, whether it's your job, your business. Don't worry about losing your job. Your feet brought you to this career. Your feet brought you to this situation. Speak about the beauty of Jesus and do it in the Spirit Contemporary way.