As followers of Jesus Christ, we are engaged in a war every day. A war against Satan and the fallen angels who follow him, their powerful spirit enemies who use many different methods and deceits to seek our defeat. They, in fact, seek the destruction of human beings, every human being, multiple levels, physical and spiritual, intellectual and emotional. Our Savior has not left us to fend for ourselves in this spiritual warfare. He has commanded us to strengthen ourselves in Him, in Christ, in the power of His might. And He has equipped us with spiritual armor and told us, having taken up that armor, to stand against Satan and his horde. For the past couple of weeks we have been training with this armor, learning what each piece is, how each piece can be used, the belt of truth, defends us against an idea that's become very popular in modern times, and that is that in regard to morals and in regard to spiritual truth, everybody can decide for themselves what is true. Oh, well, that's true for you, it's not true for me. It's a very modern idea. Rather, Scripture here teaches us that there is such a thing as true truth. True all the time, true for every person, true in every circumstance. Right and wrong, morality falls into this category. The truths that the Bible teaches about God and Christ and ourselves fall into this category. This true truth is the foundation for every other piece of armor. The breastplate of righteousness speaks of the complete and perfect righteousness of Jesus Christ that He puts on our account the moment we trust Jesus Christ. We are justified, which means that we are accounted right in God's eyes. Not because of anything that we have done or anything that we do, but simply because of Christ's perfect, sinless life, His righteousness that becomes ours, and His death to bear our sin and its punishment, dying in our place. So when we stand behind the breastplate of Christ's righteousness, that in particular keeps us safe from Satan's accusations when he would beat us down by accusing us. Last week we learned the importance of footwear. in winning battles, even spiritual battles. We are to be shod with the preparedness, with the readiness to share the gospel of peace. We need to be ready to share the gospel with others. We take people out of Satan's army and put them into Christ's army when we win them to Christ. And then we need to preach the gospel to ourselves day in and day out. This is another weapon with which we parry the accusations of Satan. And then the shield of faith is our dependence on the God who repeatedly promises to be our shield and our defender. Our faith is only as good as the person in whom we place our faith and of course that person is the true and living God who has given us many promises of protection and we need to claim those promises when Satan attacks us. This morning, we take up the last two pieces of armor described by Paul. Notice verse 17, here in Ephesians 6, and take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God. So this morning, we first of all focus on the helmet of salvation. Now the helmet worn by Roman soldiers, and I think this is a pretty good, I don't know if this is a replica or if it's an actual archaeological discovery. The helmet was made of tough metal like iron or bronze. It was normally lined with something to give it a measure of comfort. But you can see from the image, nothing short of an ax could penetrate. And by the way, I think this helmet had been penetrated. It has some patches on it. I'm not sure I would have wanted to have been the guy that wore this exact helmet. But it was designed specifically to fend off blows from a sword. You notice that it has a visor in the back that would cover the neck to keep a person's head from being chopped off with a sword. It also had flaps to protect a soldier's ears while allowing them to hear. And then notice in the front, it has extra protection from a sword blow that would come down directly on the helmet. Next to the breastplate that protected the heart and the vital organs, this piece of armor was the most vital for protection because it protected the brain. And of course, the brain, if it's damaged, can mean death just as easily as a strike to the heart. Now, Paul equates this helmet to our salvation. And I want you to think about it for a minute. You know, there are probably no words that we as Bible-believing Christians use more often than the words save, saved, and salvation. And because we use those words so often when we're talking to one another, when we're giving testimonies, when we're talking about our Christian life. Those words can be rather off-putting to people outside of the church. People that aren't familiar with the Bible. They're not familiar with Jesus Christ. They're not familiar with what we believe as evangelical Christians. I mean, if you think about it, these words are almost like a secret handshake. You know, people that know these words and use these words, they're kind of on the inside of the evangelical club. And when we say them to each other, you know, we're kind of given the secret handshake. Or, you know, when we use these words, when we understand them, it's kind of like knowing an inside joke, except there's no joke here when we talk about being saved and salvation. So here's what I want to do this morning. Salvation is the equivalent of our helmet, the protection for our head. I think it would be good to kind of step back this morning as if we didn't use these words all the time, as if they weren't the secret handshake, and kind of start at ground zero and make sure that all of us know exactly what these words mean. Now, we use the word save in English in many different ways. Save me a seat, or save me some pizza, or I saved the document to my hard drive, or I saved $3,000 to buy a car. Good luck. Now, none of these ideas is what the Bible means when we use these words, is it? Let me tell you a story. When my children were little, their grandparents were in town, and we took the kids to a swimming pool at a motel. And I was standing beside the pool, talking to Jeannie's father. when my son Justin, who was, I don't know, six or seven at the time, said, oh look, Lauren's swimming on the bottom of the pool. She had tried to get into one of those little inflatable rings, and she just went straight through. And instantly, I was in the pool, and I saved her life. I saved her life. The thought of that moment still takes my breath away to this day. Now when I say I saved my daughter from drowning, now we're getting much closer to how the Bible uses the word save and saved and salvation. Those three words teach us a very simple but profound truth. And that is that, like Lauren, every human being needs to be rescued. Because we are in danger of drowning forever in the lake of fire, in an eternal hell, because our sins, like huge weights wrapped around our necks, are dragging us under. These words also emphasize that we cannot rescue ourselves. No human being can be good enough to be right with God by means of his or her own efforts. We need to be rescued. Like a drowning man, we need to cry out, save me, rescue me, I can't swim, my sins are carrying me under. Sometimes we don't think about it, but we call Jesus our Savior. We call him our Savior because he's the only one who can save us from the penalty of our sin, from an eternal hell, because of what he did by dying on the cross and rising again. And when we cry out to our Savior, save me, and He does indeed save us from our sin and from hell, we call that moment, the moment that Jesus saves us from our sin and eternal punishment, we call that our salvation. just as Lauren might call that day, that moment, her salvation from drowning. Now, Paul teaches us here in verse 17 that this event in our lives is part of our defense against the attacks of Satan. And that's one of the reasons why it is so important that every believer, every one of us, is certain that this event has taken place in our lives. The New Testament teaches that we can know that we've been saved. 1 John 5.13, These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life, and you may continue to believe in the name of the Son of God. If Christ has saved us, If He's given us new life, eternal life, then there will be evidence of that in our lives. Anything that's alive, whether it's plant or animal, if it's alive, there will be evidence that it's alive. And if Christ has saved us, there will be evidence. We can know that we've been saved. Now, I've known people who struggled mightily to come to that assurance. that Jesus had indeed saved them. I myself struggled at one point during my college days. But I beg you, if you're not certain that Christ has saved you, please come and talk to me. You need to be sure of this. Or just go straight to Jesus and say, Savior, save me. Rescue me. Now, normally when we talk about salvation, we talk about salvation in the past tense. I've been talking in that very way for the last few minutes. But you need to understand that the Bible speaks of being saved in three tenses. Past tense, present tense, future tense. And all three of these tenses of salvation furnish a protection, a defense against the schemes and deceits of Satan. Now, there are many verses in the New Testament that speak of salvation in the past tense. Ephesians 2, 8 and 9, For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves. Titus 3, 5, Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us. Past tense. through the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit. 2 Timothy 1.9, God has saved us and called us with a holy calling. Now, salvation in the past tense is a matter of identity. Salvation in the past tense is a matter of identity. When you hear somebody say, I'm saved, they're telling you who they are. This is my identity. I'm a saved person. And it's this aspect, this past tense aspect, of salvation that Paul emphasizes here in this book of Ephesians. We don't normally say it, but we could just as easily say, I'm in Christ. That's who I am. That's my identity. We could also say, I'm a follower of Jesus. This is the word that's used in the Gospels. It uses the word disciple over and over again. The word disciple just means follower. So when I say I'm a follower of Jesus, I'm saying that's who I am, that's my identity. And listen, today identity is so important. The social upheaval in our society over the last 20 years has all been about identity. Whether it's the L, or the G, or the B, or the T, or the Q, or the plus plus plus, those are identities. Progressive is an identity. Conservative is an identity. For many people, Republican is an identity. Democrat is an identity. We, of all people, need to be willing to be identified. I'm saved. I follow Jesus Christ. This is who I am. I'm thankful that after Charlie Kirk was shot, that so many people are coming out and being willing to claim that identity. Now, identity is a wonderful motivator. And because of that, it's one of our weapons against Satan. I've used it as a motivator with my children. I've already embarrassed Lauren, so I won't embarrass her again. But with another one of my children, I was not performing academically up to potential. And I said, you're not dumb. You're a Girard. And that motivated. With all of my children, I said at one time or another, Girards don't do that. By the way, Scripture says that about our family of God. Believers don't do that. People who identify with Jesus don't do that. That is a weapon. When Satan comes to tempt us to do things that would bring dishonor and disrepute to the name of Jesus Christ and to the church of Jesus Christ, the helmet that protects our head is, I'm saved. Saved people don't do that. Saved people don't think like that. Saved people don't talk like that. That identity is part of our defense as a saved individual. Now, there are other verses that speak of salvation in the present tense. 1 Corinthians 1.18 For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. 2 Corinthians 2.15 For we are to God the fragrance of Christ among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing. Now salvation in the present tense is a matter of progress. Just as I explained that salvation as an event in the past determines our identity, we can rightly view salvation as an ongoing process, something that happens bit by bit, inch by inch, day by day. Oftentimes we use the words grow and growth to talk about that ongoing process. If you want a big theological word, the word sanctification is used of that process of growing more and more to be like Jesus Christ. Now this present tense side of our helmet offers us protection from a different set of attacks of Satan. As I've mentioned a number of times in the past few weeks, Satan is the accuser. And he will beat us down with accusations when we sin. He will try to make us feel like Jesus would never want to hear from such a failure again. Discourage us. But here's the truth of the matter. Until we die, or until Jesus returns, Our progress may be slow, but Jesus Christ will not give up on us. I love this verse. Being confident of this very thing, that He who has begun a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ. My progress may be slow. You know, at times my progress is three steps forward and two steps back. You ever feel like that? Christ says he won't give up. Now may the God of peace himself sanctify you completely. That's what we're talking about. This process, this progress. He's going to complete that. And may your whole spirit, soul, and body be preserved blameless at the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. So this doesn't stop before Christ returns. And then I love that last verse. He who calls you is faithful, who also will do it. So the next time Satan comes to you and says, you big sinner, Jesus doesn't want to hear from you. You need to go hide in a hole. You need to say, He who has begun a good work in me will continue to do it until the day of Jesus Christ. I am going to repent. I'm going to take up the sword and the shield again, and I'm going to go forward. That's the helmet that protects our head. And then there's salvation. in the future tense. And there are many verses that talk about salvation in the future tense in the New Testament, but they don't actually use the word saved or saved or salvation. But probably the one passage that does is here in Romans 5. Much more than having been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him. And verse 10 repeats it. For if when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life." In other words, by His resurrected life. Now, salvation in the future tense is a matter of hope. Salvation in the future tense is a matter of hope. In fact, in 1 Thessalonians 5, Paul compares the helmet not just to salvation, but to the hope of salvation. Let us who are of the day be so. We're putting on as a helmet the hope of salvation. So salvation in the future tense speaks of all that we're going to experience when Christ returns. Our souls are going to be perfected. We will be sinless. We will be resurrected with glorified bodies like Christ had after His resurrection. We will rule and reign with Christ. We will live forever with God in the new Jerusalem, the new heaven, the new earth. And often I remind you of our future salvation with this simple motto, in the end we win. That's our future salvation. And again, this is indeed a defense against the attacks of Satan, particularly in a couple of ways. Does Satan not ever tempt you to just simply quit? This whole Christian life, this whole Christian endeavor, you're not getting anywhere. This whole Christian thing is a sham. Why don't you just quit? We get tired, don't we? We feel like we need to quit. Well, we don't need to quit when we have the blessed hope. When we know that this is what Christ has in store for us. And then, this is the defense when we suffer. You know, Satan's able to Cause us to suffer, don't you? That's what the whole book of Job is about. And Paul says something in Romans chapter 8. The sufferings of the present time, and believe me, Paul had suffered. He knew what he was talking about. The sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us. Not worthy to be compared with salvation in its future tense. So these are protection. These are our defense when Satan attacks us. But we need to move on to the final piece of equipment that Christ furnishes to His Christian soldiers. The sword of the Spirit. Now the sword carried by The Roman legions was not a broadsword. It was not a scimitar. It was not a saber. The word used by Paul refers to the Roman gladius, which was a short sword. The blade was about two inches wide. The blade was about 18 to 24 inches in length. The most important thing about this piece of armor is that it's the only offensive piece of armor that Paul talks about. Now, most Roman soldiers carry javelins, but Paul doesn't talk about this. This is the only piece of offensive armor there is, which to me makes this the most important piece of armor. Now, what is the sword of the Spirit? Well, first of all, I need to make clear that it's not the Holy Spirit. I mean, if Paul named this like he named all the others, I mean, the helmet of salvation is what? It's salvation. The breastplate of righteousness is what? It's Christ's righteousness. Here, the sword of the Spirit is not the Holy Spirit. The grammar here is different. The sword of the Spirit, Paul tells us, is the Word of God. Well then what does the Holy Spirit have to do with it? I think most of us understand that it is the Holy Spirit who inspired the Scriptures, the Word of God. The Holy Spirit who led each of the authors of Scripture to write precisely the words that God would have them to write so that we have the Word of God. And then it's also the Holy Spirit who gives us the ability to understand the Bible, to understand the Scriptures. 1 Corinthians 2.12 says, now we have received not the Spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, the Holy Spirit, that we might know the things that have been freely given to us by God. What are the things that have been freely given to us by God? They're right here in the Word. So it's the Holy Spirit that enables us to understand this book, particularly when we read it and when we study it. So the sword of the Holy Spirit, the sword that the Holy Spirit provides to us as Christ's soldiers is the Word of God. Now in the original language of the New Testament, there are two Greek words that can be translated word. Many of us are familiar with the first of those words, the word Logos. And normally in the New Testament, when we read about the Word of God, it is the Logos of God. Okay? But that's not the case here. Here in this passage, Paul uses a second word. It's the word rhema. The rhema of God. And rhema usually means the spoken word. The sword that the Holy Spirit gives us is the spoken word of God. Now get what I'm saying. Until you can know the word of God well enough, grasp it for yourself, understand it for yourself, so that it can come out of your mouth, you're not ready to use this weapon. It's the Word of God that you are ready to speak. Ready to speak when Satan attacks you. Ready to speak when there's so much falsehood and deception out there. Now if you want to understand what I'm trying to say, I think I can illustrate it by reading the account of Christ responding to the temptations of Satan in Matthew chapter 4. I won't have you turn. I don't know, can you read that? Is that big enough to read? Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. And when he had fasted forty days and forty nights, afterward he was hungry. Now when the tempter came to him, he said, If you are the Son of God, command that these stones become bread. But Jesus answered and said, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God. He quoted from the book of Deuteronomy. Then the devil took him up into the holy city and set him on the pinnacle of the temple and said to him, if you are the son of God, throw yourself down. For it is written, he shall give his angels charge over you, and in their hands they shall bear you up, lest you dash your own foot against a stone." Look at that. Even Satan can quote scripture. But what did Jesus do? He said, It is written, again, you shall not tempt the Lord your God. By the way, Jesus right there claimed to be God. Did you notice that? Then again, the devil took him up on an exceedingly high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory. And he said to him, all these things I will give you if you will fall down and worship me. Then Jesus said to him, away with you, Satan. Notice it wasn't just enough to say away with you, Satan. For it is written, you shall worship the Lord your God and him only. You shall serve. Satan tempted Jesus three times and three times Jesus responded, it is written. And in each case, Jesus spoke the perfect response to Satan out of the word of God. The question I have for you is, are you prepared to do the same thing? That's your most important weapon. The only offensive weapon that you have, the only weapon that can put Satan on the run. Now, the only way that you're going to get to be able to speak the Word of God as Christ did is with a great deal of training. Some of you will remember, two, three, four weeks ago, I think three or four weeks ago, I talked about training to use the armor of God. And I emphasized in that sermon that it will require self-discipline. And that observation is particularly true with regard to the Sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God. So what I want to do in the time that I have remaining is I want to talk on a very practical level now on how you can get a hold of the Sword of the Spirit. How you can get a hold of the Word of God so that it will come out of your mouth at the right time. Okay? I'm going to give you three or four steps here. First, this training simply means reading the Bible. Reading the whole Bible. Some of you have been Christians for years, but you have never exercised the self-discipline to read through the whole Bible. Shame on you. Ten minutes a day for a year. It's what it takes to read through the Bible, unless you're a really slow reader. But if you can't read very fast, listen to it. Ten minutes a day listening to Scripture. You can read or hear the entire Bible. Yes, you can do that. Now, that's the most basic form of training to use the Scriptures. It's the equivalent of taking the sword out of its sheath. Practicing that kind of reminds me of Barney Fyfe doing the fast draw. It's on that level. This is the most basic. Next, you need to get a handle on specific passages of Scripture. All scripture is given by inspiration of God is profitable. But some of it's more profitable for you in the battles you have with Satan. So where does Satan attack you? Not me. Where does Satan attack you? Where does Satan tempt you? Is it with regard to lust? Then you need to find what scripture has to say with lust and you need to focus on that passage of scripture till you get a handle on it. Do you have a problem with anger? Then you need to find what scripture has to say about anger and get a hold of that. Is it worry? Anxiety? Then you need to get hold of what Scripture says about worry and anxiety. Do you see what I'm saying? You need to get a hold of the specific passages of Scripture where Satan is attacking you. And here's how you can do that. The first step, does anyone have a gun with them? I don't want anybody to shoot me. The next step is to memorize that passage. Now, some of you are saying, I'm too old. You can't teach a new dog new tricks, blah, blah, blah. Listen, I can give you a way to memorize scripture that can be used by anyone, even Don Dobbs. Anybody. All right, let me show you what you have to do. Can you see that? First, write the verse on one side of a three-by-five card. Make sure you include the reference. Why the reference? The most important thing you can memorize about any verse is the reference. Why? Because if you forget exactly what the verse says, you can still remember where to find it and look it up in your Bible. So you write it out on one side of a 3 by 5 card. And then here's what you put on the reverse side. You write the first letter of every word in the verse, including the reference. You use capitals. You use numbers. You use punctuation. OK? So now you've got a simple tool. So here's what you do. On the first day, you say the verse four times looking at the words. At this. Then the fifth time, you say it looking at that. The next day, you say it three times looking at that side, two times looking at that side. You get where I'm going now? Okay. Until you ought to be able on the last day of the week, I'm giving you a couple of days off, on the last day of the week, you should be able to say it five times looking just at that. Then the next week, you say it four times, the first day, four times looking at that. And the fifth time, you say it looking at the back of your eyelids, looking at nothing. And then the next day, you say it three times, looking at just the letters, and two times, saying it completely from memory. And you continue on down until you are saying it the last day completely from memory. How many of you can do this? Everyone raise your hand. How many of you can do this? Every one of you can do this. I memorize scores of verses this way. This is the easiest way there is to memorize. Thy word have I hid in my heart that I might not sin against thee. This is a weapon. You want to get a hold of your weapon, first step, memorize the passage where Satan is attacking you. And then second, You need to learn to meditate. Now, meditation freaks people out. A lot of people, they just don't understand what meditation is. It scares them. Let me tell you what meditation is. It's just thinking about the Word of God. That's all it is. It's just thinking. Well, that's pretty scary for some people. See, a lot of us don't actually think that much. I'm serious. Many of us have jobs where we do pretty much the same thing every day. We just go through the motions, do the same thing. We don't really have to think about it that much. And then when we come home, we really don't think anymore. We sit in front of a screen passively. We let the screen just put everything in. So for many of us, actually thinking is a little bit difficult. You want to know where I do my best thinking? When I'm completely bored. I'm sitting in a doctor's office. I don't have a book. I don't have a magazine. There's nothing I can do. And you know what I begin to do? I begin to think about scripture. I begin to think. And that's when I have the best seasons of thinking about God's word because I'm forced to actually think. So meditation is just thinking about the word of God. How many of you can do that? Josh didn't raise his hand, I'm not sure why. Yeah, we all can do that. Now, to help you understand, to give you some food for thought. Sometimes we don't have enough to think about. Let me teach you how to research a passage of scripture. Are we going to get there? We're not going to get there, Josh? OK. I was hoping I could do this live. I have wanted to do this live. And we just can't seem to get the technology cooperate with us. So here's just the most wonderful tool that you can use. And here's what's wonderful. You want to know where the headquarters of Blue Letter Bible is? It's in Greenville, South Carolina. Yeah. It has nothing to do with Bob Jones University. It is just the most wonderful free tool. So you can just type Blue Letter Bible into your And that's the first site that it'll bring up. Or if you type in blueletterbible.org, it'll take you right to the tool. So the tool looks something like this. So it has a search at the top. And you can just put in the passage that you're wanting to focus on. I used Philippians 1.6. And then you hit that little button that looks like a magnifying glass there. And it will take you to that passage. And then what you want to do is you want to use the tools. And you do that by hitting the little tool button. See the blue tools button? You just hit that little button next to the verse that you want to study. And it will bring that little drop down there. And the first way that I would encourage you to study a verse is to look at all the ways that it is translated in many of the modern versions. So if you do that here, this is what it'll do. And then you can read that. Notice the NLT says, I am certain that God who began a good work within you will continue that work. You can see other ways that it was legitimately translated. It will help you to understand. So that's the first way that you can come to understand this passage better. The second way is if there's a word or a phrase in the in the text where you don't understand exactly what that word or phrase means, you can work on that. Go back to that Tools button up there, hit the Tools button, and then hit the little selection that says Interlinear. And it will list every word or phrase in this verse going down the left-hand side, okay? And in the middle column, it has a number called the Strong's Number. That number is a link, okay? And if you hit that link, it will take you to a page where it gives you the top of this is every way that that word is used in the New Testament. And then the bottom will give you the definition that comes from the old Strong's Concordance. And so you should be able to get an idea of what that word means. Now, I would give you a little bit of warning about the usage here. Sometimes there's usages of words that scripture doesn't use. Remember, we talked about this with the word save? OK? In Scripture, saving $3,000 isn't what saving is about, OK? And there can be usages that a passage that you're studying, it's not using that passage. So don't think that all of those meanings are being used. Just like when you look up in a dictionary, there are meanings for words that you're not interested in because they don't fit in the sentence that you're trying to use your word in. As you learn how to think about scripture, and particularly as you read the entire Bible two or three or four times, here's what's gonna begin to happen. As you read and think about that verse, you're gonna start connecting that verse to other verses. You can say, oh, now I see what this means. And oh yeah, this connects to that thought from that passage. That's called a cross-reference. Now, if you aren't thinking that way, if those cross-references don't come to mind, you can get help here, okay? You can go back. And by the way, to do this, you'll need to hit the back button at the top, you know, up at the top. Oops. And then you want to get back to the tools button and you want to hit cross-refs. And then it will bring it down, and notice in red that you have five different cross-references here to this passage. If you'll hit the first one, it will list all of the cross-references. Notice where the phrase confidence or confident is used. And it will cross-reference that idea everywhere that that's found in Scripture. And sometimes, Those cross-references can really help you to understand the meaning of a phrase or a verse. But remember, this is just research. Now you need to do the hard thing. You need to think. You've gotten food for thought. Now you really need to think. And particularly, you need to think about, how does this verse apply to me right now? A way to help that along is put the verse in the first person. Okay, so the verse that we were studying, being confident of this very thing, that he who has begun a good work in you will perform it to the day of Jesus Christ. We can say, I am confident of this very thing. That Jesus has begun a good work in me. And he will continue to perform it until the day of Jesus Christ. What does the day of Jesus Christ mean? You better go look it up. And you learn to apply it to yourself. And then the final step that many of us forget. God has spoken to you. He has started a conversation. When someone starts a conversation with you, what do you do? I hope you speak back. So then's the time to pray. And say, thank you, Lord. I can be confident that you're going to continue this good work in me. I claim this promise. I claim this promise that you will continue this work until Christ returns. You can get a hold of the only offensive weapon that God has given us to put Satan on the run. So as I close, Here's my challenge. This takes self-discipline, doesn't it? It takes time. Let me ask you, is it a better use of your time to sit and scroll through all of the posts made by people on Facebook, to look at all the cat videos, to watch television shows that are just recycling the same jokes and plots from years ago. Is that the best use of your time? Or is it thinking about the Word of God and what it means to you and how you can use it against Satan? Here's my challenge. If you've never read the Word of God through, will you make a commitment right now to do that? If you've read the word of God through, where is Satan attacking you? Would you make a commitment right now to find the passages of scripture that talk about that problem, those temptations, the way that Satan attacks you, to find the verses, if you need help, come to me, and begin to memorize and meditate on them. Will you do that? We make a commitment to do that. It may only be two or three or four passages. It may be a whole chapter. I've memorized entire chapters when Satan was attacking me in a certain way. But we make that commitment to get a hold of the sword of the spirit, which is the word of God, so that the word of God can come out of your mouth and out of your heart. Would you just close your eyes for just a moment? Would you respond to the Holy Spirit? Respond to this challenge, and then we'll close.