You must build your own armour

In June of 1961, in a Baccalaureate speech at BYU, President Henry D. Moyle said:

Never be afraid. Your hearts are brave, your arms are strong, and God is your defense. Put on the whole armour of God.

In D&C 27:15-18, the Savior counsels (similar words can be found in Ephesians 6:11-18):

Wherefore, lift up your hearts and rejoice, and gird up your loins, and take upon you my whole armour, that ye may be able to withstand the evil day, having done all, that ye may be able to stand.
Stand, therefore, having your loins girt about with truth, having on the breastplate of righteousness, and your feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace, which I have sent mine angels to commit unto you;
Taking the shield of faith wherewith ye shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked;
And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of my Spirit, which I will pour out upon you, and my word which I reveal unto you, and be agreed as touching all things whatsoever ye ask of me, and be faithful until I come, and ye shall be caught up, that where I am ye shall be also. Amen.

May I humbly add to Paul’s, Elder Moyle’s, and the Savior’s admonitions: “We cannot put on the Armour of God until we have constructed it."

But I think that the construction process is different from construction of the kind of temporal armour that protects armies. It seems to me that even beginning the process results in considerably more protection from the adversary’s darts than making no effort at all. I think that as soon as we begin to seek the Lord in prayer and through study and association with others who are about building their armour, we are clothed in spiritual armour. It may not be at full strength, or as burnished as it might be later in life, but it’s there.

In the September 1883 issue of the Contributor, Jedidiah M. Grant was eulogized as follows:

As a citizen, as a friend, a son, a husband, a father, and above all as a Saint, and in every station and circumstance of life, whether military, civil, or religious, he everywhere, and at all times, shed forth the steady and brilliant light of lofty and correct example, and died as he lived and counseled, with his “armour on and burnished."

.Where do we get the “armour of God?” We can’t go to the Bishop and get our armour issued out of the ward armory. I think that as with all other facets of the Great Plan of the Eternal God (Alma 34:9) we choose whether we will put on the armour or face the adversary with no divine protection. The Savior expects us to construct it ourselves. He has provided the blueprints. He has provided the tools and defined the methods of construction. So the choice is ours. President Hugh B. Brown, in his book, The Abundant Life, has said:

I should like to call your attention to a statement made by the Apostle Paul… (Ephesians 6:11-18) He refers to the kind of armour which will fit women as well as men and without which neither women nor men can subdue the enemy we must meet.

The Great Plan of the Eternal God (Alma 34:9) is a plan of action. The Lord’s gospel is not a gospel of complacency and relaxation, but one of personal effort and constant spiritual development.

For, behold, this life is the time for men to prepare to meet God; yea, behold the day of this life is the day for men to perform their labors. (Alma 34:32)

We cannot be true Disciples of Christ until we have at least begun this lifelong construction and reinforcement process for our own armour. Satan is truly a formidable opponent, with all the pleasures of the earth and all his subtleties of deception and counterfeit in full array against us in the war for our souls.

You and I must mine the ore, extract the bright and durable metal from it, and construct our own armour from the wonderful deluge of talks, magazine articles, books, and scriptures that are available to us in ways that seem almost miraculous.

We can take comfort in the fact that the ore has never been richer – in fact, it is nearly pure in its present form – and the tools for mining: prayer, fasting, pondering and study, have been augmented with the hydraulics of books and magazines, computers, satellites, the internet, and the spirituality that pervades our wards, stakes, and the entire Church.

Bruce R. McConkie, in his final address in April 1985 General Conference, described a lifetime of this kind of spiritual mining. He said:

In speaking of these wondrous things I shall use my own words, though you may think they are the words of scripture, words spoken by other Apostles and prophets.
True it is they were first proclaimed by others, but they are now mine, for the Holy Spirit of God has borne witness to me that they are true, and it is now as though the Lord had revealed them to me in the first instance. I have thereby heard his voice and know his word.

Elder McConkie devoted his life to understanding the gospel, and so could claim to have made the words of scripture and prophesy his own. He constructed his armour from the scriptures, the words of the prophets, the testimony of others, his own inspiration, and an overwhelming desire to understand what his Father-in-Heaven wanted him to accomplish while he was here on the earth. His armor was "on and burnished."

President Hugh B. Brown, in his book, The Abundant Life, has said:

Although in this age science has made available to us almost miraculous material equipment in the use of which you will develop some skills, you will find that courage, fortitude, faith, and constancy are basic and indispensable in the continuing and relentless struggle which is life.

The Lord is calling great leaders to help each of us to construct our own armour. They offer their combined insights in ways that strengthen each of us and the entire Church as never before.

The blacksmith who constructs temporal armour uses tools that consist of muscle developed through long years of hard work and sweat, fire and heat sufficient to make the hard metal malleable, a hard surface upon which to place the red hot metal, various implements and hammers to shape the hot metal, and water to quickly cool the metal so that it will hold its shape. The Lord has given us the same kinds of tools with which we may construct our own armour.

Study and pondering of the word of God and his prophets gives us the blueprint.
The scriptures give us the method for its construction.
Faith exercised provides the spiritual muscle strength we need to build our armour.
Adversity is the forge upon which our armour must be heated and strengthened.
Trial is the blacksmith’s hammer and anvil.
Prayer is the Catalyst. The alloy which keeps our armour strong. Any army needs good communication with its leader. Gospel study is the polish which keeps our armour strong.


But make no mistake. It is not your armour, but God’s armour that you construct. He is the designer and author of its plans. In fact He is the armour. He is the alloy; He is the breastplate; He is the shield in whom we have faith; He provides the helmet of salvation. God’s armour is infinitely strong, yet strangely, it needs constant polishing to remain strong. As soon as we begin to neglect the components – truth, righteousness, faith, study, prayer, courage, fortitude, and constant vigilance, the armour begins to lose its luster – it tarnishes and becomes weak. In a discourse called “Parable of the Talents”, Bishop Orson F. Whitney said:

Their weapons are dull, their armour is rusty, and they are unable to cope with him [the adversary] effectually. Why? Because they themselves are not standing upon the Rock, and he blows them about like feathers before the breath of a playful boy.

Do not allow your armour to lose its strength. Stand on the Rock.