We're going to be, in these devotionals the next few days, taking a look at, usually I take a passage of scripture and just preach through the passage. But this is going to be a topical series, because that's what I believe the Lord wanted me to teach on. And the material is going to be very much in line with a book that my wife and I did a few years back that really is the least well edited and perhaps most important book that we did. It's called Discerning the Difference. I want us to start this morning in Ephesians chapter 6. Ephesians chapter 6. beginning in verse 10. Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. Put on the full armor of God so that you can take your stand against the devil's schemes. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world, and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. Therefore, put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand. Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. In addition to all this, 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, and pray in the spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the saints. Heavenly Father, please help us to understand and believe and obey this your word. You're wearing masks, and that's because there is a hostile virus that is spread in pockets throughout our country and around the world right now. And many people's immune systems have a very difficult time with that virus. And it is more contagious than a lot of other viruses. It's more easily spread. And so we've all been asked to wear masks, not because we're living in dread that we're all going to die, but because we don't want to make each other ill. And particularly when we sing, we put out more. If we laugh, we put out more. If we cough, we put out more. And it can linger in that vapor state long enough for other people to get it, particularly if we're indoors. And we don't want that to happen. So you're all wearing masks. There are those who believe that it's just silliness. Not only is the mask going to do no good, but this whole COVID thing is really just a hoax. And so, you know, the right thing for smart people and Christians to do is throw away the mask and go around and show that we're not afraid to die. I'm not afraid to die. But that's not why I don't have a mask on. I don't have a mask on because I'm standing behind a plastic shield. And so you don't have to be afraid of my vapor. It's, it's being trapped up here, rose back from you. There is a much more serious enemy. There is something much more dangerous than COVID-19. The Bible tells us that our warfare is not against flesh and blood. That's what God says through the Apostle Paul. Our warfare is not against flesh and blood, but it's against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world. and against spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. That's our warfare. Well, I'm really not concerned about it because I'm a conscientious objector. I just don't get involved in warfare. Oh, but you do. You are in a war zone, not just here at the ranch, but in life. And the fact of the matter is people who ignore the warfare are not immune. They get wounded. They get taken captive. They get killed. Lives are destroyed when people don't recognize that we have an adversary who is out to destroy. The Bible says that Satan goes about like a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour. The Bible tells us that we should not be unaware of the enemy's schemes. The Bible says that we need to stand our ground against the devil's schemes. Well, so if we're gonna do that, where do we get this armor? Just as briefly as I can, all the armor of God spoken of here is found in Christ Jesus. He is our victory. When it says the belt of truth, he is the way, the truth, and the life, John 14. He is the truth. When it says the breastplate of righteousness, 1 Corinthians 1.30 says that He is our righteousness. When it talks about the gospel of peace, Ephesians 2.14 says that He is our peace. When it talks about the shield of faith, Hebrews 12.2 says that He is the author and perfecter of our faith. When it talks about the helmet of salvation, Isaiah 12.2, Acts 4.12, 1 Thessalonians 5.9, and 2 Timothy 2.10 remind us that the Lord is our salvation. When it talks about the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God, we remember that in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. And the Word became flesh and lived among us. Jesus is the Word of God. Everything that we are told to put on is in Jesus, and therefore we're told elsewhere, put on the Lord Jesus Christ. If you want victory against the enemy, it is found in Christ. But how do we apply that? Well, for one thing, the Bible tells us we need to take every thought captive to the Lordship of Christ. because the battleground is most concentrated in our minds. And Satan is a liar and the father of lies. Jesus, speaking to the religious leaders who were opposing him, said in John 8, 44, You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out your father's desire. He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies. Yet because I tell you the truth, you do not believe me. Folks, the way that the devil works is principally through lies. Now, some people have misunderstood what Jesus says here and suggested that Satan can't tell the truth. Well, he can speak words that are true, but he will do it in a dishonest manner. He'll lie by telling you something that's true in order to deceive you into believing something that's false. whether it's the example of the adulterous husband whose wife says, where have you been? And he says, oh, I've been out with another woman, of course. Because he says something so boldly, she assumes he is joking, and therefore he hides his sin in plain sight. Or whether it is someone who tells this truth and then couples it with this lie, There is no clearer example that I can think of in the New Testament of someone who was saying true words but creating a false impression than in Philippi, where a demonized slave girl followed the Apostle Paul and his Companion Silas around, as they were seeking to bring the gospel, she shouted, these men are the servants of the Most High God and are bringing you the way of salvation. These men are the servants of the Most High God and are bringing you the way of salvation. These men are the servants of the Most High God and are bringing you the way of salvation. And she did it over and over loudly for days. until finally the apostle Paul turned and cast the demons out of her. Now, what she said was true, but it was motivated by evil forces. Why would the devil want to do that? Because he was discrediting the gospel by confusing it with her sorcery, her witchcraft, her fortune telling. Years ago, I heard a famous preacher, as he was becoming famous here in America, who said, don't be envious of those of us with big ministries. He said, I sometimes think that a lot of our success and publicity is not so much the work of God blessing us as it is the devil setting us up for a spectacular fall. Those words proved prophetic in his life. His life was not what it should have been. His marriage was not what it should have been. And so the devil thought, that's a good guy to put in a prominent place where everybody will see him. Let me just tell you something. We have an adversary. He's real. And if you don't recognize that and take it seriously, you are making a huge mistake. God wants us to be aware of the warfare to recognize that Satan is a liar and a father of lies, and therefore to take every thought captive to the Lordship of Christ. We're gonna talk about five couplets this week, God willing. We're gonna talk about the difference between conviction versus condemnation. We're gonna talk about the difference between real guilt versus false guilt. We're gonna talk about the difference between temptation and sin, the difference between attraction and lust, and the difference between forgiveness and trust. Those are five key areas where Satan works very hard to confuse believers. This message is not for people who don't know Christ. It is a message to believers about how to stand against the lies of the enemy. And the first area that I want us to look at is the difference between conviction versus condemnation. Now the first thing I would ask you to realize is that Conviction is the work of the Holy Spirit, and condemnation is a lie from the enemy. Does that mean no one stands condemned? No, it does not mean that. The end of John chapter 3 tells us that those who do not trust in Christ, those who do not obey Christ, are under God's wrath. They stand condemned. And that is where all of us once were. Until we came to Christ, until He regenerated us by the power of the Holy Spirit, took the blinders off our eyes, gave us eyes to see Him, gave us the gift of repentant faith. Until that happened, we were condemned. but God in his mercy took enemies like us and reconciled us to himself through the blood of Christ. But we need to be clear that the reason we're reconciled to him is on the basis of Jesus' righteousness, not on the basis of something we did. Apart from Christ, there is condemnation. But Romans 8.1 tells us, there is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. Got it? There's no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. Well, so not really much condemnation anymore for us. No, it doesn't say there's very little condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. Got that? Let's say that together. You can say it through your mask. There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. Isn't that wonderful? We're not condemned. We are not condemned. Hallelujah. But what about conviction? Conviction is the work of the Holy Spirit. Conviction is God showing us that we have messed up and that we need to change. Now, if the devil can confuse you as to which is which, He's going to really mess you over. So how does that work and how do I recognize the difference? If one is the work of the Holy Spirit and the other one's the work of the devil, how am I going to know which is which? Well, I'm going to pick on Abby because she's seated right here. And Abby, I just want you to tell me if you've ever had thoughts like this. That was wrong of you. You should not have done that. You messed up, okay? Have the rest of y'all ever had thoughts like that? Okay, all right. Let's go further. You're always messing up. You are just a mess up. How can you call yourself a Christian? How can you think that God would ever be pleased with someone like you? You are no good. You might as well just hang it up. You might as well just quit trying. You ought to give in and realize this is just who you are. You're never going to change. Go ahead and give yourself over to sin. Have you ever had thoughts like that? I have. Have the rest of you ever had thoughts like that? Because we all mess up. 1 John 1 says, if we say that we're without sin, we're only deceiving ourselves. If we think, oh, well, I would never do such a thing. Yeah, well, you've just told the devil a great spot to trip you up, OK? Now. That's condemnation from the enemy. He's not just attacking what you did. He's attacking who you are. He's trying to tell you there's no hope for you. You can't change. This Christianity thing may work for others, but it doesn't work for you. You might as well just give up. That is condemnation and it is a lie from the enemy. Okay? So what does conviction look like? Well, conviction starts out similarly. Abby, that was wrong of you. You shouldn't have done that. Okay? You need to repent. God doesn't want you to continue in that. He loves you too much to just leave you in that condition. You are a child of God. His Holy Spirit lives in you. He will give you the power to live a holy life. He is calling you to continue the process of being conformed to the likeness of Christ. And Abby, one day, when you see him face to face, you're gonna be like him. He has guaranteed that the one who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion at the day of Christ Jesus. So don't live like that anymore. You don't have to do that again. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Oh, but I have messed up so many times. I've even done the same thing more than once. I've done something I said I'll never do again. I ended up doing it again. That's why we need a Savior. That's why it's His righteousness, that alien righteousness that needs to be applied to our account. We said earlier that The armor is all found in Christ. And one of the aspects of the armor is the fact that he is the word of God. Let me tell you something else about the one who's living in you, who is our armor. He is God. I quoted this from John chapter 1, in the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was God. All things were made through him and not anything was made without him. Did you know I just read a survey yesterday, Lifeway did it on behalf of Ligonier Ministries and the results show that Over half of Americans do not believe that Jesus is God. Well, that's disappointing, isn't it? But what do you expect from people who don't know him? Right? That wasn't nearly as distressing as the next line. 30% of self-identified evangelicals do not believe that Jesus is God. What? No, not kidding at all, I'm nauseous. 30% of people who call themselves evangelical Christians do not believe that Jesus is God. What's going on? We have tons of people who think they're evangelical Christians, who've been in so-called evangelical churches for a long time, who were part of evangelical parachurch ministries, and going to evangelical youth groups, and evangelical Christian schools, who have never learned the most elementary truths about Jesus. Let me just tell you, Satan's primary weapon is lies. And the way that you counter those lies is with the word of God. Do you know how I know that Jesus is God? Because Jesus' best friend during his time on this earth, was a guy by the name of John, who wrote this thing that we call the Gospel according to John. It's the fourth of the Gospels in the New Testament, and it starts out with the words that I have now quoted twice. In the beginning was the Word, Logos. And the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by Him. The first thing John wants us to know about his friend Jesus, the first thing he wants us to know, not something he's going to spring on us later and after a while, listen, you know, I've been kind of reluctant to tell you this because it's kind of a wild claim, but you know, I'm going to go ahead and tell you, since you've read into chapter nine, it, it turns out that Jesus is actually God. Well, let me tell you something. The devil doesn't want you to know that. He doesn't want you to know who Jesus is. Right now, we have brothers and sisters around the globe who are dying at the hands of Muslims because they believe something that the Muslims find blasphemous. You know what it is? Jesus is God. He's God. Now, in our country, we have denominations, so-called, that are heretical, That is to say they have embraced lies and rejected the truth, and they do not believe that God is one God who exists as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. They don't believe that. But folks, we have people in so-called evangelical circles who haven't rejected that truth. It's not like they said, well, you know, I was always taught to believe that Jesus is God. But as I've studied the Bible more, I've come to the conclusion that that's not the case. No, that's not what happened. They didn't study the Bible more. They didn't really study the Bible much at all. And nobody bothered to tell them in any emphatic way that Jesus is God. I guess it just wasn't as important as having five steps to a happier life. Nine things you can do to improve your marriage. 12 important principles regarding personal finance. all kinds of things that we think are so important because it helps people. You know what helps people? Jesus. Well, does that mean we shouldn't give principles regarding marriage? No. Well, what about personal finance? You think it's not good to do that? No, we can do all that. But if you try and build a house without building on the rock, you are going to get wiped out when the storms come. And Satan is a liar and the father of lies. And one of the ways that he does it is he's a judo expert. You will hear me say this from time to time because I want you to know that the one who is at war with us is very much like a Judo expert. Why would you say that? Is this some kind of slam on Asians? No. No, I'm not saying Asians are more demonic than Westerners. Here's what I'm saying. The way judo works is you take your opponent's momentum and use it against him. You take your opponent's energy, his force, and you add to it to throw him off balance. That's why a little guy who knows judo can beat the stuffing out of a big guy who doesn't. That big guy has muscles, he's got power, he's got strength and he throws a punch and just keeps going and he's airborne. Okay? Because that little guy knows how to use leverage and harness that big guy's energy and use the big guy's energy to defeat the big guy. throws him off balance time and again. And I've seen it. It's amazing to watch a little guy beat a big guy because the big guy is using his force and the little guy is too. That's what the devil does. How does that work with this particular couplet? The difference between conviction versus condemnation. Well, if a person is inclined toward holiness. And they really want to please God. They really want to live a life that is honoring to Him. The devil is gonna hit them with all kinds of condemnation. Because when the Holy Spirit convicts and says, you shouldn't have done that, The devil will chime right in and say, you certainly shouldn't. What kind of Christian are you? I don't think you're a Christian at all. You are no good. You are worthless. God is very, very, very unhappy with you. You have messed up once again. Do you remember the time you did this? And do you remember when you said that? And do you remember this? And do you remember that? And he'll bring up all this stuff that's already under the blood. that God says He has buried as far as east is from west. It's in the bottom of the deepest sea. He'll bring up all that stuff again. He will heap condemnation on the person who is seeking to follow the Lord. So, what do I do? You go back to the Word. You remember that You have messed up, but that Jesus died to save sinners. He came for you. He has called you by name. He has made you his child and he has promised you, whoever calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. That's his promise. And you stand on his truth against the lies of the enemy who's trying to tell you that you're hopeless. But not everybody is really focused like they should be on seeking to live a godly life. There are a lot of people who are happy to receive forgiveness, and then they pretty much want to go on and do their own thing. And as Paul warns against in Romans 6, their attitude is, oh, let's just continue in sin that grace may abound. Let's just keep doing what we're doing. I mean, this is a good arrangement. I like to sin. God likes to forgive. This is great. And I really don't think that this sin is such a big deal. I mean, I know there are some things that are bad, I mean, really bad. And I would not want to do that. But the stuff I'm involved in is really not such a problem. Sin's not that bad. And by the way, we've got a lot of folks who preach that. I literally heard a preacher. at a large church of my own denomination, an evangelical church. It was graduation Sunday, and they had all the high school graduates in their academic regalia sitting down front. And it was a lot of them. They had a big youth group. They were seated down front, and the pastor started talking with them. about the fact that it was important to be, well, he didn't say important. Basically, that it was good to be morally pure. That sex is not something you're supposed to be engaging in outside of marriage. And I thought, well, it's good that he's telling them that, because they're at an age when many of them are going away from home, off to college, and various other places. And the temptation is going to be even greater when there's less supervision and accountability. So I'm glad he's telling them that they need to seek to avoid that. And then he said, but I realized that some of you are sitting there and you're thinking, I've already messed up. I've already sinned sexually. And I thought, this is perfect. He's going to share the gospel now. He's going to talk about how Christ died for our sins and you can come to him for forgiveness. And he not only forgives, but he makes us new. Isn't that where you would want to go with that? Here's what he said, and I quote, some of you may be thinking, I've already messed up. I've already sinned sexually. And I would just say to you, Don't worry about it. That's just one area of your life. That's what he said. I took him out to lunch. I said, listen, I said, I'm sure I've said many things that I didn't even realize I said. I want to encourage you to go back and listen to that message, because here's what I heard you say. He didn't say, oh, you're kidding. Oh, surely not. Oh, I'm so sorry. He said, OK, let me ask you something. Do you know a good tape series or something? This was back in the day of tapes. Do you know a good tape series, like some preacher that you really find helpful that I could get hold of? And I said, well, I've really enjoyed listening to Chuck Swindoll over the years. And he said, oh, I'm afraid my people would have heard those. He was asking me for some preacher whose work he could plagiarize and get away with it. I wonder why there are so many American, quote, evangelical, close quote, Christians who don't even know that Jesus is God. Let me tell you something. We're in a war zone. And you and I need to take every thought captive to the Lordship of Christ. Because there's no other hope except in him. Satan will twist the scriptures. And if you are one of those folks who just tries to think that sin is no big deal, When the Holy Spirit comes to convict you and say, that was wrong of you, you shouldn't have done that, the devil will quote the scriptures to you. You know what he'll say? His favorite verse for you will be Romans 8.1. Oh, no condemnation, no condemnation. There's no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. You don't have to listen to this. Don't let anybody bring you down. You don't need to slide back into some sort of depression. You need to realize God's for you. And if God is for us, who can be against us? No condemnation. There's no condemnation. No condemnation whatsoever. Seeking to drown out the still small voice of the Holy Spirit who is calling you to repentance. The call to repentance is not a negative thing. It is a positive thing. It is a positive thing. The fact that God calls us to repent is a message of hope that says you do not have to keep doing what you've been doing. You do not have to continue in this way. You can change by God's grace. You can live a life that is victorious. You can live a life that is abundant. You can live a life that honors God. That is a message of hope. Conviction is the work of the Holy Spirit. Jesus said that the Spirit would be sent in part to convict the world of sin. And five of the seven churches in Revelation are called specifically to repentance. Condemnation in the life of a believer is the work of the enemy. Condemnation says there is no hope. Or, one more little twist, because he's a judo expert, Okay, okay, you wanna get over this? The way to do it is self-salvation. Okay, you need to do this, you need to do this, you need to do this. You gotta follow these rules. And if you follow those rules, then you can work your way back to God. You know how you get back to God? You say, God have mercy on me. God, forgive me. I'm so sorry I blew it. Please forgive me and change me and make me holy. And you know what? Jesus came to save people like us. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Let's pray. Father, we thank you so much for your faithfulness, your trustworthiness, and the power of your word. We thank you that everything we need for victory over the enemy is ours in Christ Jesus. We thank you that because of what you have done, we can be reconciled fully to you. Thank you that when Jesus died on the cross, he didn't just lower the interest rate, he paid the debt in full. And thank you that because of him, we can have confidence and come to you with the spirit of adoption, calling you our daddy. Boldly, coming before the King of the universe because you have already proved your love for us. We thank you, we praise you, I pray your blessing on these folks. I ask Lord God that you would protect us from every attack of the enemy and that you would teach us how to discern the difference by listening to your voice believing your word and taking every thought captive to the Lordship of Christ. And we will give you the praise in Jesus' name, amen. God bless you folks.