The Helmet

By D. Brandt Berg -- 

Audio length: 7:30

Download Audio (6.8MB) 

“Take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.”—Ephesians 6:16–171

I had a dream in which I was a knight in beautiful shining silver armor. I was in the armorer’s shop having the armor fitted. I already had it all over me, clear up to my neck, and they were about to fit on the helmet. In the old days, they had a special shop where they made the armor, and they had to make it fit the man, just like clothes.

They were going to fit the helmet on, which was inlaid with gold and silver, and it was really beautiful. The armorer had a pretty female assistant and a big rough table that he worked on, and she had a rag folded up. She laid it down on the table and said, “Put your forehead down on this rag.” I didn’t know what they were doing, so I bowed my head and laid it on the table, sort of like when you’re praying.

And just then I felt a real sharp pinprick, and I raised up and said, “What was that?!” He had this sort of awl in his hand, like an ice pick, and a hammer, and he’d just tapped quickly on my head. He said, “That’s for the attachment for the helmet.” I said, “What in the world do I have to have an attachment for the helmet for?” And he said, “My goodness, you soldiers and tough guys and knights in armor make such a big fuss about a little thing like a hole in the head to keep from losing your helmet!”

In pondering this dream, it came to mind that helmets are like salvation. I figure God wants to make your salvation permanent so you don’t lose your helmet, you don’t lose your salvation. It costs something, maybe like a little hole in the head to attach it permanently. When you get saved, you’ve got to be willing to be saved forever, receive your helmet of salvation forever and wear it forever so you never lose it.

When we’re saved, God implants a bit of Himself, His Spirit and His love, in our minds and hearts to guide and direct and protect us and keep us guided by His will and leadings. His helmet of salvation is an integral part of our armor and our whole being so that we can never lose it. It’s attached and implanted in our heads forever, attached to our minds.

Once we put that helmet on, we are forever His children, and in a sense we can never take it off. We can never throw it aside or discard it no matter how hard we try, and some have tried! Some have gone back on the Lord, but found they didn’t stop witnessing even then. They felt compelled to witness to people who needed help and to urge them to have faith in the Lord and the Bible.

I found this too when I was out of fellowship with the Lord years ago and backslidden, and I had gotten myself in a mess from wanting to see the world. I landed in the army, but I couldn’t stop witnessing, I couldn’t deny my faith; it was just impossible! That helmet was permanently attached, that electrode of God’s guidance was buried in my brain, and my primary reactions were always to defend the faith and to give God’s answers of love and His Word. It didn’t matter if I was out of God’s will myself, in a sense, and that I had tried to take off the helmet of His salvation and His service and don the uniform of the U.S. Army—I just couldn’t take that helmet off!

That helmet was there to stay, and I continued to defend the faith and to stand up for God and His Word. I was a conscientious objector and refused to carry a gun, or at least to fight with one. I refused to kill my fellow man, when I felt I should be trying to save him and preach him the gospel, to love him and not kill him. So even when I was out of God’s will for me, I was still faithful to the faith.

Even when you do sin and make mistakes and get out of God’s will and go back on the Lord, the helmet is still there; it’s attached! That tiny electrode is embedded in your brain, and that helmet guides you and protects you and keeps you and makes you a constant testimony and a witness to being different and being saved. This is why Peter described how the old friends wonder why you can’t resort to the same wild behavior you used to indulge in with them. You come back different, and your family or relatives wonder what in the world has happened to you, there’s such a change.2

If you’ve gotten the real thing and are genuinely saved and have the Lord and His Spirit, you’ll never be able to take that helmet off. You are saved forever and that helmet of salvation is there to stay, and it’ll be forever visible to all.

Thank God for His helmet of salvation! Thank God for its electrode of the Spirit. And thank God it’s more powerful than any other influence, and we’ll never be able to take it off or get rid of it, and never be able to rebel for very long against its guidance and power over our minds and hearts and lives.

Once you’re saved and have donned that helmet of salvation and had it attached with its electrode of spiritual guidance, it’s there forever, and it’s for your good and your protection and your salvation and your daily guidance by God’s Spirit. Praise God!

God has got your mind, heart, spirit, soul, body, everything in His hands and His care—once you’ve taken His helmet of salvation—and He’ll never let you be taken away from Him! As Jesus said, “I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand.”3

Originally published in September 1981. Adapted and republished February 2016. 

Read by Simon Peterson. Anchor Link

1 NIV.
2 1 Peter 4:4.
3 John 10:28.