that Jesus saves. We'll dismiss the young ones to go to their class, our younger ones to go to class with Mrs. Shore and we can take our Bibles back to 1 Timothy chapter 1 and continue on there in our study of 1 Timothy. It's been a already a good study. I'm enjoying it and look forward to what the Lord has for us. as we study this together, all right? 1 Timothy chapter one. Our family enjoyed a holiday before Kaylee took off for the United States, and it was good just to get away, and we went to the West Coast, and not far from a place called Applecross, Scotland. And I think, Tommy, have you guys been there? Tommy, Brenda, Applecross? It's a great place to go. It's one of the scariest roads in the United Kingdom. It's one of that single track road that goes up and over, I think the sixth highest pass in the United Kingdom or something like that. Or maybe, no, actually it's the third, third highest pass in the United Kingdom. And it's beautiful. But then you come down the other side and you get to Applecross and really can only get there by going up over that pass or circling around this peninsula. And both directions are beautiful. But one of the special things God gave us on that day was to come around a corner and we've kind of been watching this aircraft that we didn't really know what it was. And what it was is something called an Osprey. And if you've never seen one, it's a double rotor helicopter kind of coming off the sides. And so we had seen it flying along, you know, and then we came around the corner and saw what was actually going on. It was coming in and guys were abseiling, soldiers were abseiling out of the back of it. I mean, just fast as could be, they'd empty off and then go out, reload. There was a warship that was out there. There was a landing craft and there were soldiers in that. They were coming to the beach, wading into the beach. And I mean, they're doing all these things out there. And it was fun to watch them practice, but you understand as you watch something like that, that it wasn't for our amusement, all right? They weren't selling tickets. There wasn't a huge crowd there. We just happened to be going past and it was really neat to see, but it's a lethal battle unit. that was preparing for war. And if our nation goes to war, these men are prepared at the risk of their lives to go in and to do battle and to seek to take the lives of their enemies. You know, for our sake and for the nation's sake, we want them to be battle ready. We want them to be ready to enter into that warfare. You know, our text tonight, when we look at it here, it's about being battle ready. So go again in your Bibles to 1 Timothy chapter one and down to verse 18. And Paul says to Timothy, this charge I commit unto thee, son Timothy, according to the prophecies which went before on thee, that thou by them mightest war a good warfare. Okay, he's talking about being a soldier, a Christian soldier. He said, hey, I want you to fight and I want you to fight well. I want you to war a good warfare. At the end of the letter, he comes back to this idea, chapter six, verse 12, the end of the epistle, he says, fight the good fight of faith, lay hold on eternal life, whereunto thou art also called and has professed a good profession before many witnesses. And again, he's telling him, be a soldier, right? And it's good language to say to somebody that's in the ministry or somebody that's serving God is to be there and to be in the battle. In his second epistle, he comes back to this idea of being a soldier. And so 2 Timothy chapter two, verse three, he says, thou therefore endure hardness as a good soldier of Jesus Christ. No man that woreth entangleth himself with the affairs of this life, that he may please him who had chosen him to be a soldier. If you're saved, all right, you accepted Christ as your savior, God has chosen you to be a soldier and you ought to be somebody that says, you know, I'm battle ready and I want to fight for the Lord Jesus Christ. As we fight for Christ, our adversary or our enemy is Satan and his fallen angels, okay? Last night we had our youth activity and you went to Ephesians chapter six and I thought, oh, you know, where is he going to go? Because I knew I'm coming to Ephesians chapter six tonight. We're going to see a lot of that this evening. I appreciate Daniel. sharing the challenge last night with the teens. And so we're looking at this passage, but there in Ephesians 6, verse 12, fight the, I'm sorry, let me see. Oh, where did I go in my notes here? I'm sorry, Ephesians 6, verse 12, for we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness." No, no, I mean think about that word against. It keeps saying against, against, against, against, and it's saying that we are against that, those principalities, those powers, those rulers of the darkness of the world. There is an adversary that is out against us tonight. Peter warned about this adversary, 1 Peter chapter 5 verse 8, It says, be sober, be vigilant, because your adversary, the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour. I've shared before that I had some college students that were at our house, and we were driving them around, and they said to me, do you really think that we fight against Satan? And the argument, I've heard it, you know, Satan is not, can't be everywhere at the same time, but I would say this, the Bible does not tell us how fast Satan can move or how quickly he could get there, and obviously he's marshaling the troops, that are against us. So in fact, no matter what, however you look at that, the fact is, yes, we fight directly against Satan. That's what the Bible says. You're adversary. The devil is a roaring lion walking about, seeking whom he may devour. Jesus identifies Satan as the active enemy to God's work. Matthew chapter 13 verse 36. Then Jesus sent the multitude away, went into the house, and his disciples came unto him saying, declare unto us the parable of the tares of the field. Okay, so this is the wheat and the tares. He answered and said unto them, he that soweth a good seed is the son of man, the field is the world, the good seed are the children of the kingdom, but the tares are the children of the wicked one, the enemy that sowed them is the devil, the harvest is the end of the world, and the reaper. The reapers are the angels. So, I mean, here you got the Lord sowing the good seed. You've got Satan sowing the bad seed. He's active in that he's the enemy of the kingdom of God. He's gonna do everything he can to stand against us. As we think about that tonight, our captain is Jesus Christ in our battle. Hebrews 2, verse 10, for it became him for whom are all things, and by whom are all things, and bringing many sons into glory, to make the captain of their salvation perfect through suffering." Captain means chief leader. And so tonight, praise God, Jesus Christ, I will build my church, the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. Jesus Christ is actively marshalling the troops, he's actively organizing things, he's actively directing things. and does that through the word of God, through the ministry of the word of God to our hearts, through the preaching of the word of God and the teaching of the word of God, but he is actively organizing us as soldiers to fight in this battle. So Satan's the enemy, Jesus is our commander. We need to be battle ready against this great enemy. So let's pray. Ask the Spirit of God to help us as we come to the Word of God tonight. Father, we thank you for truth, and we thank you for light. If it wasn't for the understanding of the battle, we would wonder why it's so difficult to be a Christian. Our sins are forgiven through the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. We've been given God's gift of everlasting life. We've been brought into the family of God. We've been given inheritance in heaven. and we have a knowledge of the truth and we have an understanding of right and wrong. And Father, if it just ended there and we didn't understand that there's an enemy, an unseen enemy, an adversary that's against us, how would we process this idea that the Christian life could be difficult? that seems like a battle, that if you're gonna stand for God, that it's difficult. But that's the reality, and we understand it as we study this truth, even tonight. So I just pray, Spirit of God, encourage us, strengthen our hands, I pray tonight as we consider these things, that we just be encouraged, be a good soldier for Jesus Christ, do our best for Him. And so I pray, God, give us ears to hear tonight. I pray that you help me as I speak. I can't speak without your enablement, and I just praise you for your goodness to us tonight, allowing us the opportunity to come to your word. It's in Christ's name I pray, amen. All right, so back to our text this evening, verse 18. Verse 18, there's two reminders to Timothy as he gets ready for battle. And so the first reminder to him is keep your charge that you've been given. It says in verse 18, this charge I commit unto thee, son Timothy. Okay, he's gonna say, this is what it is. This is what I want you to keep. As a commander giving duty papers to a subordinate, Paul commits this to Timothy. And so, I mean, in a battle plan, you got Jesus as the captain. I don't know where Paul fits in in the lower levels, but he's a leader and he's marshaling the troops. And he says to Timothy, Timothy, this is a charge that I commit to you. Now, Timothy's in Ephesus and Paul is not. And so Paul is not there. Paul cannot physically take care of the situation with the battle that's there. But Timothy is there and Paul says to Timothy, he says, Timothy, hold ground for God and God's church in Ephesus and take ground for God and for God's church, right? I mean, this is the charge that I'm giving to you. These are your orders. This is your opportunity to stand here for God. You remember as a child, growing up, and it's kind of a neat thing as a parent, and Mac's at a fun age, because he likes responsibility, he likes to do something. We're here setting up, he wants to set up the stand for the Mevo, or something like that, or the clock. He had to fight against Callum tonight to get the clock. to the back. He said afterwards, he goes, I'm going to make sure you do it right or something like that. You know, he's got this idea of duty, right? He wants to do it right. My first job that I kind of remember growing up is we had a large church and school property and dad hired us, three of us, to sweep the the pavements that were there. And he paid us quite well. I still think it's quite well. Even in this day, it's quite well what we got paid. But you know, I remember mine was the courtyard that was at the church. And I wanted to get it cleaned. Why? Because I want to do it right. I wanted to please dad that chose me to be a sweeper in that area. You know, again, with the duty that God gives us as a soldier, this is our area that God wants us to work. He wants us to take it and do it and fulfill it for His glory. There's a great man of God named C.T. Studd, that he was the cricketer that was from a wealthy family that gave up so much. to go as a missionary to China and to some other countries as well, Africa I believe as well, some other nations that he went into with the gospel. But C.T. Studd said this, every true soldier is a hero. A soldier without heroism is a chocolate soldier. who has not been stirred to scorn and mirth at the very thought of a chocolate soldier. In peace, true soldiers are captive lions fretting in their cages. War gives them their liberty and sends them like boys bounding out of school to obtain their heart's desire or perish in the attempt. Battle is the soldier's vital breath. Peace turns him into a stooping asthmatic. War makes him a whole man again and gives him the heart, strength, and vigor of a hero. And he's not a warmonger saying, you know, we got to go to battle, we got to go to war. He's going to make an application of Christianity, but he's saying, back in the day, I mean, if you're going to fight and you're just a fighting man that is fighting for your nation, you want to be in it. You want to be doing something like that. And then he says this, every true Christian is a soldier of Christ, a hero par excellence. Braver than the bravest, scorning the soft seductions of peace and our oft-repeated warnings against hardship, disease, danger, and death, whom he counts among his bosom friends. The otherwise Christian is a chocolate Christian, dissolving in water and melting at the smell of fire. Sweeties they are, bonbons, lollipops, living their lives on a glass dish or in a cardboard box, each clad in his soft clothing, a little frilled white paper to preserve his dear little delicate Constitution. All right. I mean, he's pretty descriptive in the way that he says that, but he's basically saying, you know, if you're not, if you're not fighting for Christ, what are you as a Christian? And I mean, that analogy is very good. A chocolate soldier. I mean, God didn't call us to be a chocolate soldiers where everything's gotta be easy. And if it's not easy, we complain and we can't handle it. If it's a little bit tough, God called us to be people that would go up and fight the battle for the Lord Jesus Christ. And so, As he speaks to Timothy, he says, Timothy, this charge I give you. These are your duty papers. This is your area. This is your responsibility. And for us tonight, we're not in Ephesus, but we are in, I'm not really sure where we are. We are in Lonehead, Bilston, Roslyn, Midlothian. I do know where I'm at, but you get what I'm saying. We're moved out a little bit from our primary area where God has put us. But that's our area, south side of Edinburgh. It's our area, this county, and even we've gone beyond this county by God's grace, but we ought to look at that and say, hey, it's my territory. I need to do something to impact that territory for Christ. So keep your charge, keep your charge. And then remember your commission. Remember your commission. It said, according to the prophecies, which went before on thee, that thou by them mightest war a good warfare. Here's your duty papers, but I want you to remember that you were commissioned by a group of people that looked at you and prophesied and said, God's hands on this man. God's going to use this man. This man is set apart by God for this ministry who identified in you that very calling. which you have. You know, it's a great thing for us to remember tonight that God has called us, that God has called us to salvation, that God has called us to evangelism, that God has called us maybe to the ministry, but remembering that God has called us and that who God calls, God equips. 1 Thessalonians 5, 24 says, faithful is he that calleth you who also will do it. Now, because tonight God called our church to this area, God's gonna do it. God's got it. God's gonna marshal the troops. Jesus is gonna give us instruction. Jesus is gonna give us guidance. He's gonna help us achieve his objectives. My wife and I saw a great verse in our reading of Psalms, I think it was recently. But it says God has pleasure in the prosperity of his servants. God desires us to succeed. God desires us to fight and stand, having done all the standards we'll talk about even tonight. But in doing so, in calling us to that, he equips us to do it. So Acts 1.8 says, but ye shall receive power. After that, the Holy Ghost is come upon you. And you shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem and in all Judea and in Samaria and unto the uttermost parts of the earth. So, tarry ye in the city of Jerusalem till ye be endued with power from on high. But the promise of the Holy Spirit was not just to the apostles, but Peter preached at Pentecost and said the promise of the Spirit of God is to you and for all those that would get saved. All those that would trust in Jesus Christ. And we can rejoice tonight that we have the person of the Spirit of God equipping us, gifting us with abilities that we could use for God's glory, giving us the boldness that we don't possess of ourself, giving us the confidence to get the word out, and blessing the word when the word goes out. So he begins by saying, To Timothy, okay, Timothy, keep your charge. God has commissioned you. He will equip you, all right, to fight in that battle. Now, that's kind of introduction to where I wanna go tonight, as well as next week, at least, in our consideration of this idea of the Christian and warfare. And so the main idea is this. You need to war a good warfare, okay? Need to war a good warfare. So are you a good soldier for Jesus Christ? Are you a soldier? I mean, do you think about it like that? That I'm in the battle and I need to be fighting for truth. Ephesians 6, 13, again, coming back to Ephesians 6, and also written by Paul and written to Ephesus, which is where Timothy is, right? And he's telling him, be a good soldier. Ephesus is where he's at. And so in Ephesians 6, verse 13, Paul says, So stand and fight as a good soldier. In Sunday school we looked this past Sunday at three key areas that as a Christian If I'm a servant of the Lord Jesus Christ, I stand strong in these areas. And I would ask you, but it might put you on the spot to try to remember those areas. It was doctrine, it was practice, and it was evangelism. Okay? So truth, how I live the truth, and also with how I live the truth, getting the gospel out. for Jesus Christ. You'll see those again tonight as we consider this idea of fighting good warfare for the Lord. So you need to war a good warfare, so get ready to fight for your faith. Get ready to fight for your faith. It says in verse 19, holding faith, okay? The faith is the body of truth which God has given to us, all right? It includes what brings us to salvation, it includes what leads us on in the Christian life, but that is the faith and that's what our Christian life and experience is all about. Acts 6-7, I'm just gonna give you a bunch of scripture that speaks about this idea of faith or the faith. Acts 6-7. It says, the word of God increased, and the number of the disciples multiplied in Jerusalem greatly. And a great company of the priests were obedient to the faith. Okay, that's what it's speaking about. That is the doctrine, right? The truth, they submitted to it, they embraced it, they accepted it, and they followed it. Acts 13 verse eight, but Elamus the sorcerer, for so is his name by interpretation, withstood them seeking to turn away the deputy from the faith. Acts 14.22 says, confirming the souls of the disciples and exhorting them to continue in the faith and that we must, through much tribulation, enter into the kingdom of God. Again, I mean, he's encouraging even there to be good soldiers, fight, stand for the faith. Acts 16.5, and so were the churches established in the faith and increased in number daily. Acts 24, 24, and after certain days when Felix came with his wife, Drusilla, which was a Jewess, he sent for Paul and he heard him concerning the faith in Christ. Romans 1, 5, by whom we have received grace and apostleship for obedience to the faith among all nations for his name. Romans 3, 3, for what if some did not believe? Shall their unbelief make the faith of God without effect? Okay, so the faith is the body of truth that we believe, right? It's that which brings us to salvation. It's that which changes other people's lives. And so it is vital, it is vital that we fight for the truth. Our commander's name, you might recall, is the truth. Jesus said, I'm the way, the truth, and the life. So as we talked about before in our study of Proverbs, we just came across that verse, buy the truth and sell it not, that to sell out the truth is to sell out Jesus Christ. And so Paul says to hold it, all right? He says in verse 19, holding faith. I'm to hold the truth. In a wedding, one of the jobs of the best man is that he holds the rings. He might have them overnight, even the night before the ceremony takes place. He's supposed to have them with him when he comes. It's a common joke at a wedding. for the best man to kind of go, you know, where is that, right? And that's kind of funny and everyone kind of laughs, but they stop laughing if the man's serious, right? If he is seriously, he was given those rings to hold and he had that responsibility. At the very least, he's gonna lose a friendship probably. You know, the bridegrooms there, I mean, this is big day. I mean, the guy should have held that as a sacred trust, something that, I mean, his life or the rings, right? He's got to hold it with everything that he's got. You know, God's given us a responsibility, and this is what Paul's emphasizing, to hold the faith. That it's vital that we hold on to it. It's vital that we stand for it, that we fight for the faith and hold on to these things. So, first of all, hold fast to the doctrine, okay? As we think about to fight for the faith, hold fast to the doctrine. Again, holding faith. And one aspect of that is we're gonna look at this in light of Ephesians chapter six. is that we gotta put on the belt of truth, okay? So we're gonna hold on to the faith, we're gonna hold to truth, put on the belt of truth. It says in verse 14 of Ephesians 6, stand therefore, having your loins girt about with truth and having on the breastplate of righteousness. Okay, the truth is what holds everything together. It's what glues it all together and keeps it all together. It's a Christian's belt. And so tonight, if it's a question of truth, then we fight. So if something comes up, whether in society, in my family, in my life, and it's a question of truth, then I fight for the truth. and I stand for the truth. That is the Christian's armor, his belt that he puts on. Jude put it this way in Jude chapter one, verse three. It said, beloved, when I gave all diligence to write unto you of the common salvation, it was needful for me to write unto you and exhort you that you should earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints. Okay, and Judah's a book written about untruth and the untruth that's coming in and standing for the truth. And so earnestly contend for the faith. Look at your life and think, you know, as I hold onto the belt of truth, do I earnestly contend for the faith? Do I stand for the truth? You know, if the church doesn't stand up for the truth, who does? Does that make sense? I mean, our world is gonna be pumping out lies, pumping out lies, pumping out lies, the school's pumping out lies. Even sadly, unsaved parents are pumping out lies and all these kids are gonna grow up believing lies unless somebody stands up and says, you know what, that's not true. That's not true. This is what God says in his word. This morning when I was running, I was listening to the book of Jeremiah and Jeremiah is preaching that, you know what? Yield to the King of Babylon. God has sent him in judgment. Yield to him, be put into captivity. God's gonna take care of you in captivity, but captivity is his judgment. This is what's gonna happen. The only way you can succeed in this is by yielding and going into this captivity willingly. If you fight, you're gonna be destroyed. God's gonna destroy you with famine. All these other things are gonna take place and war and treachery against you. And so you need to do what's right. There are other false prophets that would stand up and say, that's not true. God's gonna bless us here. God's gonna save us. God's gonna rescue us. And Jeremiah's lying. And Jeremiah says, no, I'm not lying. And he's arguing the truth of God against these false teachers. Jeremiah 20, verse six, Jeremiah says, Thou passure and all that dwell in thine house shall go into captivity, and thou shalt come to Babylon, and there thou shalt die, and shalt be buried there, thou and all thy friends, to whom thou hast prophesied lies. Listen, the world is speaking lies, but who's refuting them? Who's standing up? And I'm rebuked about this, I wonder how clear we ought to be in our literature. We try to be wise as serpents, harmless as doves. But we're standing in a day where ungodliness and false teaching is being declared with authority from all levels of society, including the false church that has stood up and joined hands with the world. And so for us, we gotta say, you know what, by God's grace, I'm gonna put on the belt of truth. In my sphere, I'm gonna stand for truth, and I'm gonna fight for truth, because that's what a Christian does. It's warfare. Hold fast to the doctrine, put on the belt of truth, but then put on the shield of faith. Put on the shield of faith. Again, holding faith. Verse 16 of Ephesians 6, above all, taking the shield of faith, wherewith ye shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked. Okay, a shield is a defensive weapon. It's what the soldier lifts up, and you read the Old Testament, you might see a shield and buckler. The buckler is kind of like a little shield, and the shield is the big shield, right? All right, so you got those two things that you could kind of defend yourself with against the adversary. You know, Satan does not just want to stop you from standing for truth. Satan wants you to believe his lies. That make sense? Satan doesn't just want to silence us. Satan wants us to accept that what the world's saying is true. that everybody's saying this. And therefore, because everybody's saying it must be right, and so he doesn't want just to silence us, he wants to accept the lies that he has given. You know, sometimes you might be working on a project, you might get an Ikea flat pack, or something like that, and you're putting it together, and it just doesn't look right. But you've been following the instructions, you know, going along, well, let's say you're a lady putting it together, if you're a guy, maybe you're not following the instructions, right? It's best to follow those instructions. And you get looking at it and you think, that just doesn't look right. I mean, I'm trying to follow the instructions, but it doesn't look right. And there's that doubt that's in your mind. And so what do you do? You go back to the instructions. You look at it and go, no, no, no, that's what it says. I know it doesn't look right. It doesn't seem right, but it must be right because that's what the manual says. So for us as believers, Satan comes, he goes, hey, it doesn't look right in your family. It doesn't look right in your church. It doesn't look right in your society. And he tries to give us his lies. And we might look at it and think, I'm not sure. I'm not sure how that looks. But we go back to the truth and we see that that's what the manual says. And we just lift it up and say, you know what? I'm just gonna trust God. That's what God says. As a parent, you might say, hey, discipline doesn't work. It doesn't look right. And our world says it doesn't look right. But that's what God says. So we go back to the Bible and stand with the truth. So what we do, we grab that shield, we put that shield up and say, no, I'm just gonna believe the word of God and take that hold of faith, holding faith, the word of God. One other aspect of that, again, from Ephesians chapter six, is to grip the sword of God's word, okay? Grip the sword of God's word. It says, and the sword of the spirit, which is the word of God, okay? A sword, I suppose, is defensive as well as offensive. And it's the offensive weapon that God's given to us. We've got the shield of faith to lift up, but then we can also move forward. We can cut down our adversary by God's grace with the sword as we fight with it. James 4, verse seven says, submit yourselves therefore to God, Resist the devil and he will flee from you. Okay, Jesus, Jesus did this all three times in the temptation that's recorded in the word of God. When Satan comes against him, what's he say? It is written. So what's he doing? He's just taking the word of God. He's resisting that. We'll say, no, no, this is what God says. And he grabs hold of faith. He holds, he's holding the faith. Again, Satan is seeking to paralyze believers into not speaking against falsehood. They'll keep quiet because nobody agrees, but God wants us to fight and stand. God doesn't want us just to defend ourselves. God wants us to take ground for him. So how do we do that? You know what? We might have to share our pro-life views, right? With somebody that's speaking about abortion. And we need to stand up for the rights of that baby in that womb. We gotta stand up for biblical views on marriage. and say, you know, this is what God says about that, say the truth about marriage, one man, one woman for life, our views on the gospel, that it is exclusive, that it's only through Christ, our views on creation, our views on absolute truth, our views on God. So if I'm a soldier, I take a stand against the enemy, and I say, that's not true, and I use that weapon against them, again, for our encouragement, we gotta fight. What happens if the church is silent? What happens if the church stops speaking up about the untruth that's being pumped out? All of a sudden we're not soldiers anymore. We might lose some to unbelief and other things, even from our own ranks if we don't stand up for the truth. And so the first thing, holding faith, hold fast unto that doctrine, the body of truth. But then along the same lines, hold fast to the truth that saves souls. Hold fast to the truth that saves souls. It says in verse 15 of Ephesians 6, and your feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace." True doctrine is the only thing that's going to save somebody. Somebody's not going to get saved by me being kind to them. I want to be kind to them. They're not going to get saved by me building a really good, strong relationship with them. I want to build a strong relationship with them, but that's not going to save them. The only thing that I could give them that could possibly save them is again, the gospel that salvation is by grace through faith in Jesus Christ alone. Repent and accept Jesus Christ as your savior, right? And so I've got to hold onto that gospel truth. Satan says tolerance. Again, I'm just speaking from what's going on in our society. Tolerance, you gotta be tolerant of other religions and what their views are and how they think about God and how they feel about religion. But is tolerance really a good thing? Is that really a virtuous thing? Let's think about it like this. Is tolerance of criminality a good thing? No, of course not. It leads to abuse. Tolerance of radicalization? leads to terrorism. Tolerance of infectious diseases. I mean, obviously in a pandemic, that's the last thing that we want to say is we're tolerant of, you know, a lab, for instance, that isn't careful about an infectious disease escaping the lab, right? We'd say that kind of tolerance is not a good tolerance. Obviously, a tolerance of false religion is only ever gonna damn somebody to eternity in hell. Jesus took a stand against it. He did not tolerate it. Matthew 23 verse 15 says, You know, in our day, I mean, if you stand up and say, Islam is false, Catholicism is false, if you follow the doctrine of work salvation, it's gonna lead you to hell. And you stand against all these false religions. The world says, oh, you know, you're a villain, but God says you're standing for truth. And Jesus, Jesus went at him. In fact, when Jesus cleansed the temple, what did he say? You've made my father's house a house of merchandise. You're making profit off of religion. And he overthrew the tables of the money changers. Why? Because he was holding faith. And so if we're gonna hold to faith, obviously we stand tonight upon the absolute truth of the gospel, unapologetically, that there is absolute truth, that Jesus Christ is the way, the truth, and the life. No man cometh unto the Father but by him. So as we think about that tonight, and again, that's an introduction into what we'll look at next week as well, but do you think about yourself being a soldier? Is there a discipline that's in your life as you think about, you know, I need to be in the word of God. I need to be in prayer. I need to be advancing the cause of Christ. Are you keeping your charge? You know, do you have any burden that this is my area? This is my place that I need to fight for the Lord. I need to take a stand here. I stand here for truth. I hold the faith. I put on the doctrine, the belt of truth, the shield of faith, the sword of the spirit. And so that means I'm going to be vocal for truth. I can't be silent. Not be a soldier, I'm not fighting if I'm not standing, and I'm not standing if I'm not speaking, right? I need to speak up about the truth, and then with that as well, I speak up with the gospel, right? I take the gospel to people because I want to be a good soldier for Jesus Christ. So like Timothy tonight, we need to war a good warfare. And if we're not, we're chocolate soldiers. and chocolate soldiers are not gonna win the battle, and we're not gonna succeed, and we can't succeed because we're not fighting. Our Savior's here, he's willing, he's got the ability, he's marshaling the troops, if we'll take our sword, our shield, our belt, and the other aspects of that, and say, you know what, I'm gonna hold faith. I'm gonna hold faith for the Lord Jesus Christ. War, good, warfare. All right, God, help us do that. Let's pray. Father, I just prayed tonight, may the Spirit of God remind us of the privilege of having the truth. And Father, if the truth fails, really it's on the church's account. Father, we're the soldiers that stand for truth. We're the soldiers that fight for truth. The world doesn't, teachers don't, educators don't, not unless they're Christian educators. So I just pray tonight, remind us of the responsibility that we've been given. Nobody else is gonna give the gospel. If the church doesn't give the gospel, nobody else is gonna stand for the absolute truth of the salvation by grace through faith in Christ alone. But Father, it's the truth. And Father, somebody that follows the devil's lies are gonna perish in hell. God, help us to tell others about Christ. Would you bless the word of God to our hearts as we've heard it tonight? Thank you for it. It's in Christ's name we pray, amen.