Over the last several weeks, months really, we've been working our way through the last half of Ephesians. Most people look at Ephesians like the first three chapters are kind of like this doctrinal sort of groundwork teaching, and the last three chapters arguably are kind of like practical how to live the Christian life in light of the truths that he taught in the first part of the letter. For a few months we've been going through that, and we've been working through this practical teaching that Paul gives to this church in Ephesus. He tells them that they should walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which they were called. He's taught us how to grow up in every way into Him who is the Head, how to grow up into Christ, how to live as the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness, how to walk as children of the light. He's taught us what being filled with the Holy Spirit should look like in our lives, in our marriages, in our homes, with our kids, at work, right? If you go back and put everything in context, this is what He's been doing. And step by step, everywhere along the way, he makes these statements about what the goal is, and then gives us some ideas and some practical application about how to deal with it. And so, we want to do this. Christians should want to be doing these things. Walking in a manner worthy. growing up into Christ, living a new life, walking as children of the light, all of these things. And, you know, this teachings really been directed at how we should think and how we should act. It's really been about how each of us should view ourselves. And a lot of it is really about kind of an internal struggle, isn't it? about walking in the light, having your mind fixed on the right things, living a life worthy of Christ. It starts in the mind and it's a struggle. And a lot of it we talk about in the way of it's a struggle against sin. It's a struggle against our sinful inclinations, our old habits, The old way we used to do things. The way that the world tries to entice us to go back to those things. But we don't want to do that. We don't want to do it in the church. We don't want to do that in our marriages. Christians are the guys who want their families to be different. They want to be different in the workplace. And Paul's doing all of this and has been talking about this, actions in these ways. These ways that we talk about it and look at it, when we talk about things like marriage, we want to understand what a distinctly Christian marriage looks like. Right? Because Christians should be looking for, how is this different? What's the distinction that makes it distinctly Christian? And it's really looking at it according to the ways of God, following Christ as the example, and not letting the world lead us around about the way it thinks about things. You know, as these things have primarily been directed at this internal enemy of our Christian life, you look at it like that's been largely what's been taught. We're fighting an internal enemy. We have habits and thoughts, and we have to learn to put this stuff away and live a different life. Well, today we see a distinct transition in Ephesians 6.10, and Paul starts to talk about another aspect of the battle. It's not just the internal battle with sin, there's an external enemy. He starts talking about this right here in these verses about how it is that we have a different battle. It's really the same battle, but the battle occurs on multiple fronts. It's going on inside, outside, and above. If you look at the spiritual reality of the authorities and the powers and the rulers of the present darkness, that are on the offensive attacking the Christian where he lives. This is the external enemy. And there's a huge battle here. And many of us are familiar with this whole section as we work through verses 10 through about 20, maybe not quite, but about this armor of God, about how we put on the whole armor of God. And we're going to spend some time looking at these things, because this is a big topic, and Paul makes it clear that this is a big deal, that we need to be concerned about this. So much so that he tells us right in verse 10, "...be strong in the Lord and in the strength of His might." Sounds like it could be serious, doesn't it? So we're going to take this seriously, and we're going to look through these things, and we're going to look at this in light of what we have here. We'll try to keep it in context some, and then we're going to look at these verses. So let's pray and do that. Lord, I thank you this morning here that you'd allow us to be together again. Thank you for your word. Lord, I thank you that you tell us the truth about what we face, that you have by no means hidden these things from us. You've not left us on our own to figure out things on our own, but you've told us about things we could never know about, especially in verses like this, telling us that it's not only against flesh and blood that we wrestle, but against spiritual forces of evil. Lord, I pray that You'd help us to understand these things to some degree, that You would at least demonstrate to us the seriousness of the fight and teach us what it is to be equipped and how it is that we can be strong in You, Lord, and how we can be in the strength of Your might for this battle. Lord, teach us today about the war that we're in. Show us the seriousness of the war and demonstrate it to us. Lord, I pray you'd help us to see it in light of your word. And I just thank you for your promise of being with us, and I thank you for being here today. Amen. So when we talk about this internal-external thing, just a small example. We talked about marriage a few weeks ago, right? Marriage, and you think about it, what's told us here in the Scripture in Ephesians 5, that the wife really should be submissive to her own husband as to the Lord, and that husbands, should love their wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, right? When you hear those sort of commandments and we consider this thing, Paul's been talking about it in the way of, isn't it difficult for the wife? That's the way we talked about it a little bit, right? There's a difficulty here, why? Because wives, like husbands, are selfish. And submitting to your husband as done to the Lord doesn't just come naturally. It's something that has to be taught even to Christians. It has to be taught again and again actually, right? And so this is a difficulty, there's a struggle, there's a war kind of with yourself if you're a wife to put yourself down and to submit to your own husband as to the Lord. Same thing with husbands. I'm naturally sinful and selfish. The last thing I'm inclined to do is give myself up for my wife because I love her as Christ loved the church, but I'm commanded to do so. I have to defeat self. I have to defeat flesh in order to get that done. I've got to fight off those sinful inclinations and habits in me. This is that distinctly Christian way of looking at marriage. But there's something more Paul starts to point out to us here. There's something more about every one of these topics that he's taught us about marriage, and children, and parenting, and jobs, and the unfruitful works of darkness, and sexual immorality, and lying, and all of the things that you go back in here that he's talked about, about the way the new life looks, not the old, right? All of these things that grieve the Holy Spirit. It's not just that there's an internal battle, but in marriage, there's somebody who works against me. There's forces at work who are trying to encourage me to live that selfish way of thinking about myself first and loving my wife second. There's an external enemy that approaches every wife and tells her, he's not worth listening to. He's not worthy. Don't bother. There's an external attack. It's not just that I have to fight off an internal flesh, but I have to fight off an external enemy. Right? It's not just selfish sin and pride, but there's somebody who comes at us. Paul says, there's all these cosmic powers over a present darkness, spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places that are against you. Look at the verses, it's starting in verse 10. Paul says, finally, finally be strong in the Lord and in the strength of His might. Put on the whole armor of God that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil. For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places." You see, this is what I'm talking about. There's an external enemy with an army of his own. that opposes everything that Paul's been teaching, who wants to see it all fail, especially in the lives of Christians, right? Do you see this battleground that we're in? Oh, we have to see this battleground. You have to see the battleground. It's what we're going to try to do today, at least a little bit. You've got to see it like Elisha was shown one time when God removed the covering over and Elisha saw that the hills were covered with a massive army, a spiritual battle front that was going on. And he didn't know about it, neither did anybody else, right? We see these few places in the Scripture where this is revealed. And Paul talks about it right here. And it's described to us elsewhere, right? Paul tells us that we do not wrestle against flesh and blood. Rather, we have an enemy who's plotting and scheming, working against us, trying to make us quit. It's not that just we're inclined by our sin to give up, but there's an enemy trying actively to make us quit being Christians. It's not just that it's difficult and I'm lazy, but there's somebody trying to push me out. This is this battle. I want us to look at this. Verse 12 says, We do not wrestle against flesh and blood. That one word in the ESV is translated wrestle. It's that way in King James. It's translated struggle. in the New American Standard, the NIV. But this word is only used one time in the New Testament here. And so to understand the word, they go out into common Greek, ancient Greek. How did the Greeks use it? The Greeks used this word to really signify a wrestling match, a bout, a boxing, like a fight. This is a fight. It's a wrestling match. It's a bout in this way. That's how it was commonly used. But we see in the verses around it here how Paul uses it. He says, we do not have a wrestling match against the flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over the present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. It's such a battle that you're going to have to take up the whole armor of God, he says, that you may be able to withstand the attacks. during this wrestling match, if you would so say. Right? You have to put on the whole armor of God, verse 11 says, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil. He tells us in verse 10 that we have to be strong in the Lord. We have to be strong in the strength of His might. This is no little wrestling match that's just for sport. There's much more at stake than an Olympic gold medal. Right? The word seems awkward almost to me. wrestling match. Talk about this some more as we go on here, but he tells us that this is something that we have to be super strong for, and we know it's no normal match because of the enemy we face. It's not like I'm equally matched. We're similarly sized in the weight category, and we both have been practicing the same and have about the same level of experience the way most Olympic athletes in the wrestling have it, or boxers or MMA fighters, or take whatever kind of fight you want, right? No, we're so outmatched that it's not just the devil, but it's all the rulers, all the authorities, all the cosmic powers over the present darkness, against all the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. This is who the enemy is in the wrestling, in the bout, in the fight, right? The enemy of our souls could not be more serious about killing us. He couldn't be more tireless in his preparation and scheming. He couldn't be more well-trained if he wanted to be. He's an expert at fighting Christians in that ring. And he brings with him a whole host of different kinds of weapons and different kinds of beings, it sounds like even, who are working for him against the saints of God. There's this book that I got a hold of. It's called The Christian in Complete Armor. It was written by an old Puritan guy in the 1600s, William Gurnall. And he points out some characteristics of wrestling that make it an appropriate description for this battle. He says, wrestling is appropriate because wrestling is so individual. You think about wrestling or a boxing match or an MMA fight or something, it's one-on-one. It's personal, right? It's just me and them. It's a personal fight, it's individual. Not only are these cosmic powers of evil directed at the whole of Christianity in general, that's true, but those cosmic powers of evil we're taught here and the devil himself have something against each and every one of you personally and individually. Just as much as you recognize that God loves you personally, Satan and his minions, you'd say, hate you personally. They know something of you, especially if you're a Christian. But not only if you're a Christian, but especially if you're a Christian. They know something of you. This is a personal fight. This isn't so much the battlefield where the Israelites and the Philistines face each other and hundreds of thousands die. No, this is David and Goliath one-on-one. This is a personal battle with a lot at stake. This is really true for everybody whether you like it or not. Whether you're the guy who wants to be in the forefront of the battle or hides back behind everybody else, they have your number and they're coming for you. Do you see that in Paul's description? We don't wrestle against flesh and blood, but against these guys. We, every one of us. That's true. It's personal. Wrestling is really this one-on-one, hand-to-hand combat. Right? In the battle, one-on-one, think about the fight in the ring. The cage, the fence, the atoll, right? Chain link around it or something? Who's in there? Can your coach help you? Your coach can try to coach you, but he's not in there with you. In this fight against the devil and all of his powers, it's just you and them, him. Him or them. It's just you. Your pastor ain't going to help you. You can't get strengthened for that fight. Your pastor can't fight for you in this one. Your spouse can't fight for you. Your mom and dad can't fight for you. This is you. I can't rely on the spiritual fervor of anybody else in this battle. It's me and them. And we know it. Paul says this, and he includes himself in there. The verse says that we wrestle against flesh and blood. Paul knows this experience personally, too. He puts himself in here, and every Christian's in here. Now, it's true that the war involves a whole battlefield. There's a whole battlefield where there's an entire war going on. We don't sense it most of the time because of our blindness and our stupidity, frankly. But it's going on. It's a huge battle and involves everybody, but on that battlefield, the battles are individual fight to the death, one person against all of them. That's what's described. Wrestling is kind of an appropriate description, this one-on-one bout. In this word here, and by the way that it's written, that we wrestle against flesh and blood, we can see that this is a present fight and it's continuous. We wrestle. We do it now and we will continue to do so. Christians will be in this fight until the day they die. Until the day the Lord takes them out. No matter how it is that they die, they will eventually die and be taken out of the fight. But until then, the Christian life Paul describes here is we wrestle against these powers. That's the fight. The Christian life over and over again in the Bible is actually described this way, right? We wrestle and we'll continue to wrestle. And as long as the Lord puts air in your lungs and makes your heart pump, you're in this battle. And if you don't know it, it's because you're ignorant of it. Which means you're losing, probably. Because this fight is present and continuous, we have to be vigilant. Have you guys become familiar with that word lately? Since about September 11th, 2001. Did I get the year right? Okay, I didn't write it down, I should have. Yeah, so since September 11th, which a day that is another day in the history of our country that lives in infamy, right? It's another famous day like Pearl Harbor. In fact, we know the date of 9-11 much better because the name is in the date. The date's in the name, but be vigilant. That's what we've been told, right? What does vigilant mean? Vigilant means that we keep watch. We're told to be careful, be watchful, watch out for the danger. Be aware of what's going on around you. This is the word that we've been given in the fight against terrorism. We got special forces out there, and we got military guys, and they're on the boots on the ground fighting out there in the battle. But we're told that we're part of this battle against terrorism, aren't we? Haven't we been told that? Every one of us is in this. We have to work together, and we have to be vigilant. This is the average American's part in the war The war, however, is always being waged, and we don't really know who our enemy is in this war on terror, right? But we know this, that the enemy is opportunistic and is willing to indiscriminately kill any one of us given the opportunity. Don't take this like I'm lumping all Arabs or Muslims or something into one group. That's not true. But those who are active in the role of waging the war of terrorism against us, this is true of them. Right? You know, how much more is it true of the spiritual war that's described here? that we have to be vigilant, be strong, be ready, be on the defensive, be ready to go offensive. We'll read this as we go through. What's it mean to put on the whole armor of God? How much more true is it of the Christian in the spiritual battle that we must be vigilant? We have to be watchful, careful, know that our enemy is coming. He's scheming. I don't care who's in charge of ISIS or Al Qaeda. They're no match for the scheming of the devil. None are more opportunistic than these spiritual forces of evil. And they never sleep. They never tire. They're always out for you. Every chance they get. Does it sound like a serious battle? I want it to sound like a serious battle because that's just how the verses read. Right? This is how we're supposed to be. In the spiritual realm, we fight an enemy who is much wiser than the terrorists of our day. Where should our focus be as a Christian? At first, we looked at this term wrestling and it kind of seemed like it was a tame kind of battle. But Paul in the rest of the Bible describes it nothing like that. Right? Have you ever noticed how much time and focus is given to war in the Bible? If you take the whole Bible? Yeah, a whole lot, right? Especially when you get into ancient Israel, we read about ancient Israel as they came out of Egypt into the Promised Land, battle after battle, then they took the land and then they had to defend it and then they tried to attack some more, and then they attacked each other, right? There's all this battle and war talk all throughout the Old Testament and these descriptions about ancient Israel versus the Canaanites and the Philistines and the Jebusites and all the Ites and against each other, the two kingdoms after they divided fought against each other. Right? The Bible's got all of this sort of war in it. How does the last book of the Bible end? War. Right? There's a huge war at the end of Revelation. Most of the book of Revelation describes something of the coming of the war or the war itself. Right? The end of the world ends this way, where there's a final future defeat of evil. We've got the guy, what's his name again, who rides in on the white horse. With the sword? Christ, the Lord of glory. These are the sort of war-like battle sort of descriptions. You think about the Christian life and you put it in context of the Bible, and the Bible has all this stuff about war. And then the description of the Christian's life against sin is described as a fight, right? In Romans 8, 13, we're told that if you live according to the flesh, you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. What's the method of living if you're a Christian? War against your flesh to such a degree that you put it to death. It's a very violent, war-like description. Now, is that because Paul just lived in much more barbaric times than we? No, start to finish the Bible is this way. And the Christian life is said to be this war. And the Christian life is always put together this way. In general, the Christian life, Paul describes to Timothy, in 1 Timothy 6, 12, Paul tells Timothy to fight the good fight of the faith. In 2 Timothy 2, 3, he tells him, Share in suffering as a good soldier of Christ Jesus. No soldier gets entangled in civilian pursuits, since his aim is to please the one who enlisted him. Have you ever considered that? God has an army, and He's enlisted some into it. It's a very militaristic term, isn't it? Enlisted into the army of God. Fight the good fight of the faith. You're a soldier of Christ Jesus. These descriptions are all throughout the Bible. Not just the Old Testament where they were really like fighting and killing. There's fighting and killing going on now. Fighting and killing my sin. Fighting and trying to kill off this present evil darkness, the spiritual forces, the devil himself, right? We see how serious the battle is when we're told in the Bible how ferocious the adversary is. That word ferocious describes the devil. When you read something like 1 Peter 5.8 that says the devil prowls around like a roaring lion seeking someone to devour. Not the tame kind that they make do tricks in the circus. No, He's a prowling, ferocious lion looking for every opportunity to devour whomever He may. Jesus Himself in John 8,44 says He was a murderer from the beginning. He's a murderer. He's trying to kill, destroy. And He has an army that we're told about here. He has rulers and authorities and cosmic powers, spiritual forces of evil, that He uses for what purpose? To kill the enemy. That's who our enemy is. He's the enemy of our souls. What's He trying to do? He's trying to kill your soul. He's trying to get God to condemn you to eternal death. By how? All of his schemes in figuring out how to get you to give up, to quit, to sin, to disobey, to make God look like a fool. Anything he can. Schemes of the devil. He's attacking every day, putting thoughts in your head. And if he's not personally doing it, because he's not God, he's not everywhere all at the same time, he has a whole host in heaven, in the heavenly realms, in the spiritual way, who are working for him, doing exactly what he wants to try to get at you. No offense, you're probably not important enough to get Satan's personal attention. But he runs a really tight ship. The five-star general on the main battle cruiser out in the ocean directs the soldiers individually to go house to house to house in the days of guerrilla warfare that we live in. One guy can run an entire army from where he sits. And we're talking about an enemy who's in a different realm, who looks down on ours, and has much information at his hand, right? So we're told here by Paul in verse 10, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of His might. You know what's implied by that? In no uncertain terms. When we're told to be strong in the Lord, it implies that we are weak. If you have to be told to be strong, what does that mean about you? You are weak. The truth is in this battle that human willpower will not get it done. I can make resolutions and promises to myself and even to God, and I can try hard and try harder and try harder, but I can't even defeat my own flesh, let alone the devil who's using my flesh against me. I have no hope if I don't make myself strong in the Lord." We need the strength of His might, we're told by Paul. It's His might in a battle that's really for His name and for His glory. You see, this battle that's waging is His. We're just enlisted into the army, just like Paul told Timothy. We're soldiers in a battle. We're enlisted over there. And we need to have His might in the battle. Remember back in Ephesians 3.20 that Paul was praying for the Ephesians, that he prayed that they would know something of Christ who is able to do far more abundantly than all we ask or think according to the power at work within us. He mentions this. He prays this so that these guys would know this, that they would be able to use God's power. There's a power from Christ that can work in the Christian. It can work within us. It's His power at work in us that allows us to wage this war. It's the strength of His might. He's the one who gives power. We'll learn in the weeks to come about the ways that He gives the power through the equipment that He makes available to us, this armor of God. He makes this armor of God available to us, not only for our defense, but for our offense, that we can wage a war effectively. I'm not going to try to rush this at all. We're going to take these things and look at them real carefully because the battle is serious and we need to understand what He's given us correctly. We need to know what's going on here. So this will be coming. Hold on. We'll touch on these things only today to tell us that He gives us these things. He gives us the belt of truth, a breastplate of righteousness. He gives us a readiness by the gospel of peace. He gives us a shield of faith to extinguish the flaming darts of this evil enemy. He gives us the helmet of salvation and the sword of the spirit, which is the word of God. He encourages us to pray all times in the spirit. Why should we pray all times in the spirit? Because of this, we need to be strong in the Lord because we're weak. We need the power of His might. We need the strength of His might. We know that He has strength for this battle because we read in the Bible that He has already won. Yeah? Places like in Hebrews 2.14, it says, "...Since therefore the children share in flesh and blood, He Himself, Christ, likewise partook of the same things." He became flesh. Right? "...That through death He might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil, and deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery." What did Jesus do? He became flesh and blood and then He died. Why? Because in His death He defeated death and He defeated the enemy. It's already done. He knows how to defeat the devil. He already did it. And he tells us here, Paul tells us that we can be strong in the strength of His might. We can have that power of Christ at work within us. And we absolutely must have it. I wouldn't last a day on the battlefield unless I put on the armor and fight." As much as it's His battle and it's His power, we fight using it. This is no teaching in here about how it's God's power and so therefore we just sit back and let go and let God. And He does everything and we do nothing. No, Paul couldn't be more direct to these guys and say, we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against these rulers, against the devil himself. We have to be able to stand. We have to put on the armor of God. We have to get out there and get on the battlefield. You're on the battlefield now. It's not like you have to get on there. You just got to get better at being ready. The battle's already going on. Don't you feel the attack already? Think about it. Just when you think that you've gotten close to the Lord, just when you think that you've figured out how to control your thoughts, thoughts come into your head that you thought you had gotten rid of. You're defeated. Where do those come from? The enemy. The enemy has this power. These are the flaming darts of the enemy that he's able to shoot at you. See that? Oh, we have to be the ones who are fighting. This is the way it is, right? It's no sitting back and letting God do all the fighting, but we must fight with His power, with His strength. It must be His fight that we're in, but we must fight using His power. In James 4, 7 we're told, submit yourselves therefore to God, resist the devil and he'll flee from you. Think about that word resist. You guys heard about this from World War II? There was the Germans came and they occupied France, right? And then there was the French resistance. It was the French people who organized opposition to the occupying force of the German army. Resist does not mean passively sit back and don't give in. No, the resistance are those who organize a counteroffensive. Get that? Resist the devil. We could teach this entirely wrong and say, resist the devil means just don't give in to him. Oh no, there's much, much more when you turn that into a military term and you use it the way that it's intended here, the resist the devil. You defend yourself and then you launch a couple of attacks back at the devil that we'll learn how to do here using the Word of God and things. He'll flee from you, so we're told. He doesn't flee from those who just passively sit back and do nothing. There's no reason for Him to flee. But when I go after the devil in a counterattack in the strength of Christ's might, now He may flee. He will never flee from you alone. Oh, but He'll flee from you if He sees Christ behind you. This is the kind of battle that we have. Resist the devil. The resistance is those who actively defend themselves against the attacks and organizes and plans and executes the counterattack. This is the type of the resisting of the devil that will make him flee. When we do this individually, we begin to have a front that's organized corporately too. When Christians do this in their own lives, then churches of Christians do it together. And then churches do it together. And this is how Christ fills his battlefield, how he organizes his army, right? The hand-to-hand combat with the devil and his forces is how the battle is waged. And we know this that when Jesus returns riding on that white horse in Revelation 19, he does so with the army of heaven arrayed in white linen. Those who have purified themselves in the righteous acts of the saints. Who is this army that he comes back with? Now it's a spiritual battle, then it'll be both. It'll become both spiritual and physical, I'm convinced. And who does the fighting? Oh, he comes back with an army. How well trained do you want to be on that day? Do you want it to be your first battle that you've ever recognized that you're fighting? Oh no, Christians are supposed to be well trained in this. Familiar with every piece of the armor of God. Strong in the Lord and the strength of His might. Able to stand against the schemes of the devil. Able to resist. Even able to launch the counterattack. In 2 Corinthians 10, Verse 3, Paul tells the Corinthians that, for though we walk in the flesh, we're not waging war according to the flesh. See how similar this sounds? The weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but they have divine power to destroy strongholds. We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God and take captive every thought to obey Christ, being ready to punish every disobedience when your obedience is complete." It's the same sort of description. We're waging a war. It's not a war against flesh. Though we are in the flesh, the war is not according to the flesh. It's according to a different principle. It's not that we can use swords and guns and grenades and aircraft carriers against this enemy, right? Buy as many guns as you like. You can't wage this war that way. But our weapons have a divine power because they're from God. Because we've made ourselves strong in the Lord and it's His armor, this armor of God, the things that He's equipped us with. What are these strongholds? They have divine power to destroy strongholds? It says we destroy arguments and every lofty opinion. Primarily, this is the place where the scheme of Satan is brought against the believer is arguments and thoughts. That's how He makes us. He's the adversary of God. And He uses this against us, making even our thoughts in this way kind of the thing that works against us. But we can make our thoughts obedient and captive. We can grab our thoughts. Why? Because of the strength of the argument of the Gospel truth. The Gospel can defeat any argument, any scheming argument of the devil that Jesus has already won. that I am a new creation in Christ. that He died to pay for my sins, that I'm no longer held captive as a slave to my sin, that I have a new life, that I no longer live in the darkness. All of these things that are the truths that we've learned here, and the Bible presents to us, and Paul's been teaching us, and teaching us not only the doctrinal theological truth, but the application in the Christian life, all of those things can defeat any sort of argument that Satan can bring against me. I used marriage before as an example. Satan can come and tell me, Your wife is not lovely. She's not worthy of your love. She's acting in this way, and she has to act better first before you love her. Anybody ever had thoughts like that? The Gospel can take those thoughts captive. And you can reject those things. This is not of Christ. This is from somewhere else, right? We destroy these arguments. We have to be ready even to punish our own disobedience, it says, and wage war with the weapons we learn about when we get into these things here. We'll talk about these things. In the coming weeks, we're going to learn about the enemy. We haven't talked much about the enemy and who he is and how he operates a little bit, but we're going to talk about the enemy. We're not going to do that today in depth. We'll talk about our defenses and our weapons, right? We'll see how the glorious victory of the Lord will look for us in the battle. You know, I have to say that this battle cry here in Ephesians 6 is given to Christians, right? The whole letter is written to Christians. however, is not exclusively waging a war against believers. You've got to get this. The devil is not only fighting against believers, he's attacking everybody. It's not just a Christian battle. Christians are the only ones who can fight in it. They're the only ones who have been given a spiritual life and weapons to use in the fight for their defense and for the attack. But the devil is prowling around like a lion looking for any soul to devour. He's the one who has said that he comes to kill and to steal and to destroy. And he's willing to do it to anybody he gets his hands on. In fact, he's successful with a great many. More than that, the devil is successful in devouring and killing everybody who is not a Christian. He's not only capable of it, but he actually does it. The devil actually devours every unbeliever like the prowling lion. He is victorious over those who will not enlist themselves in God's army. You have already lost if you are not a Christian. He has already beat you. And you didn't even know there was a battle probably. It's already over. Oh, if you're alive, you can enlist. You can be given weapons. Right? But He's so successful over every believer, unbeliever, that when He accuses you, when He accuses me of being a sinner, He's right. That's all He has to be. When He accuses you of being a sinner before the throne of God, all He has to be is right. That's not a very big scheme, but it's successful against everybody. It would be successful against me, if not for the fact that Jesus became my sin, and that He paid the penalty for my sin. And He took the wrath of God for me, so that when Satan accuses me, Jesus says, oh no, I paid for that one. Oh, talk about extinguishing the fiery darts of the devil. The blood of Christ shed on the cross is the only hope that we have of that, right? This passage warns about his schemes. Another favorite scheme of his is lying to you. He lies to everybody. It's not just Christians he's trying to deceive. He's trying to deceive everybody. Oh, if you're not a believer, if you're not a Christian, He's lied to you and you believed Him when He said you don't need God. He lied to you and believed Him when He said there is no God. Or He doesn't care about you. Or He's not fair. Or He's too mean. Or whatever thought is in your head that makes you reject God and not be a Christian, those thoughts, are not only from your flesh, but they're part of the attacking schemes of the devil in your life. Every one of them that makes you doubt whether you're a believer or not. Every one of them that makes you look at that Bible and say, well, I'm not sure about that. Those are all the schemes of the devil. He's masterful at this thing and he's attacking everybody. And you know what the truth is? If you are not a Christian aware of this battle, putting on the armor of God, you cannot fight this battle. You cannot win against the schemes of the devil on your own. Even Christians who don't put the armor of God on, as we talk about, can't do it. The only hope of your surviving the assault of the devil and all of the evil forces in the heavenly realms is to align yourself with the Lord who will give you His strength and the power of His might. That's your only hope. Think about it like this. Imagine that you're at home in your house or your apartment or wherever you live, and there's an army coming against you with 10,000 soldiers and 100 tanks. I don't care how many AK-47s and AR-15s you have, you are in a hopeless situation. 10,000 soldiers in body armor and M-16s and 100 tanks, and they're coming for you personally. You have no hope. Do you know the one who knows about this battle, hears about it today, and decides to not come to the Lord is the one who would hole up in his home, take out his pea shooters and spitball guns, and shoot back at that army, thinking he could win. It's a ridiculous thought. It's a ridiculous thought, right? But did you know that there's an army of opposition who can be sent to rescue you It has a million soldiers, a thousand tanks, an entire air force. Those 10,000 soldiers and a hundred tanks don't seem so dangerous now, do they? But they will kill you if you don't have that support. This is what the battle is like, except for now translated into a spiritual realm that you can't see, with an enemy who is more powerful than a guy with a tank, and a Christ who will work in you and through you to defeat that enemy because he already beat him. Now why would you ever reject such a message of an invitation to enlist in such an army? The battle's coming. There's a hundred thousand on their way to the rec center. And at best, we got a couple of guys who maybe have some big muscles in their arms. Maybe we got more than that. But anyway, the army's coming. The battle's here. You're already in the middle of it. If you believe the descriptions of the Bible, it's going on in this room. You can't see it. We're dumb to it. But it's going on. And the devil and his minions, his group, his henchmen are after you. They're after you now. The only hope is to be a Christian. And then there's victory, and the victory is the Lord's. Today, we can't stop without recognizing the good news of all of this is that the victory will be God's. The battle wages, the war is at hand. You're in the middle of it, whether you know it or not. The devil and his people, his guys are attacking you. They're trying to kill you, destroy you, devour you. But in the end, Christ will be victorious with all of his people. There is a victory. You can hardly read that book of Revelation without seeing all of the rejoicing. about the final victory of Christ, the victory of the Lamb. So we're told here in Ephesians 6, 13, take up the whole armor of God that you may be able to withstand that evil day and having all done all to stand firm. Today, today is that evil day. And the Lord can enable you to stand today. We have to be those who are doing all that the Lord has commanded us so that we're empowered to wrestle with these powers, to fight the good fight, to endure, to be the good soldier, right? You have to see this at least today that the Christian life is this never-ending fight to the death against all the spiritual forces of evil who want nothing but to see your soul destroyed. You've got to get that today. The Christian life is a never-ending fight. The non-Christian life is a never-ending fight, too, but you're just, like, not aware of it. John 10.10, Jesus says that the thief, the devil, comes to steal and kill and destroy. But I came that they may have life and have it abundantly. And He says later in that chapter in verse 28, He says, I will give them eternal life and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of My hand. That's the victory. Jesus won't let you be snatched out of His hand. If you come to Him and you are strong in the Lord, and you come to Him for the strength of His might, and you recognize this war, and you go to battle. It's time now to wage war. This today, this is God's battle cry to rally the troops. Just like those movies where they give the speech and everyone goes, yeah! Whether you like it in the fighting the aliens version or the guys in the kilts version. I can't remember either of those movies. You know what I'm talking about? Braveheart and the other one. The point was that it's time to wage war because you're already under attack. Oh, it's not being prepared for war. The battle's here. The battle's in your life. We have to seek the Lord's power and His strength and get to it. Go to war. Today is the day. Go to war. Come to war. Be on the Lord's side. Be strong in the strength of God and the power of His might. And we'll defeat the enemy. Let's pray. Lord, we see this, Your call to battle today. Oh Lord, I know that the eternal security of our very souls is at stake here. Lord, Teach us what it means to be empowered by You for the battle. Teach us how to fight the enemy of our souls. Lord, make us to be good soldiers. Bring us the victory over evil, both the evil that's inside of us and the evil that's outside. Oh Lord, so many recognize that we live in evil days and there's an evil in the world. Even unbelievers recognize this, but oh, they don't know half of the evil. The Christian knows a little bit more of the evil, Lord. I thank you that you teach us these things. You show us these things that we wouldn't otherwise be able to see. Lord, I pray that you're glorified as we stand and fight. Lord, I pray that you teach us this. Rally us to you, Lord. Give us your power and your strength. Make us to be strong in you, Lord. Teach us to put on the whole armor of God. Lord, above all things, teach us to stand against the schemes of the devil so that we might, when everything's said and done, be those who have been found to have stood and withstood everything of the evil days that we live in. Lord, help us, I pray. Give us these things in Jesus' name. Amen.