The following historic recording by Dr. Martin Lloyd-Jones dates from the earliest days of tape recording, and was actually recorded on paper tape. However, it has been digitally restored, and although the quality is not to modern standards, we hope that you will find it to be a great blessing. As with all Dr. Lloyd-Jones sermons, its relevance for these modern times is undiminished. I should like to call your attention this morning to the words which are to be found in Paul's epistle to the Ephesians, the sixth chapter. And in particular, perhaps this morning, verses 10 and 11. Verses 10 and 11 in the sixth chapter of Paul's epistle to the Ephesians. Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord and in the power of his might, put on the whole armor of God. that he may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. Those two verses come, as you recall and observe, as the introduction to this statement which the apostle makes here at the end of this great epistle to the Ephesians. The matter runs from this tenth verse in reality to the end of the twentieth verse. The apostle, as you recall, in this great and mighty epistle, has been handling great and vital doctrine. He's been dealing with some of the higher reaches of the spiritual life and of the life of the Christian in this world. And then, having dealt with the great doctrines, he has proceeded to a number of ethical exhortations. He's been showing them how, in the light of his great doctrine, they must realize that being that they are what and who they are, they must live a life that corresponds to that. And so he's gone down into some minute details, even the matter of our conversation and things like that have been dealt with. But having finished it all, and just as he's on the point of ending his letter with a few words of farewell, he as it were stops for a moment and again takes up his pen and feels that there's still something further that he must impress upon them. And here we have it in these words that we're looking at. Finally, my brethren, having considered all I've said, having grasped the doctrine, having realized the importance of a life corresponding, in a sense above everything else, remember this. And here he proceeds to deal with this vital matter of our fight against the powerful forces that are arrayed against us. Now, I'm calling your attention to this this morning as a part of our consideration of a great theme that we've been considering together most of the Sunday mornings of this present year. Our theme in general has been what we've called spiritual depression. or the case of the so-called miserable Christian, the kind of person who finds his life constantly troubled and worried and more or less bound in shallows and in miseries. And we have seen that there are many causes of this condition. And we've been trying to look at them one by one and to analyze them and to apply the remedy that is provided for them in the pages of the scripture. And we have discovered, of course, that the number of causes is almost endless. But more and more have we been seeing that at the back of these varied manifestations there is a kind of common strategy. And we are brought in these verses this morning directly and immediately face to face with that particular strategy. It's important that we should consider this subject in the way that we have done. It isn't always wise to start with the ultimate cause. Sometimes the particular local symptom or manifestation may be so acute that it's your business to deal with that. If a man is in acute pain, in agony, well, you must remember that he's got that pain and must deal with it. You must, of course, discover the cause of it first, but Before you go back to ultimate causes, it is sometimes wise to deal with incidental matters as you go along, and we've been more or less adopting that policy. But now I say we come face to face with what is, after all, the central strategy that produces all the various local onslaughts and attacks which we've considered together in detail. And obviously, therefore, we are face-to-face with something that is of the profoundest importance. And there can be no doubt that there are large numbers of Christian people today who are in trouble and who are depressed and more or less defeated simply because of their failure to realize the truth that is taught us so plainly in this particular paragraph. Now let us, therefore, take it and this morning at Inuit try to look at the big principles that are enunciated here. You will see that and observe that the apostle does again go into detail in this whole matter of putting on the whole armor of God. We can't do all that this morning, but we can at any rate regard the big principles that control this matter. And the first is this, that there are many in trouble in their Christian lives simply because they have not awakened to a realization of the fact that we are all as Christians involved in a spiritual warfare. Now, this can be divided further in this way. There are some who don't seem to be aware of the fact that there is a conflict at all. And that is a very pathetic state to be in, but it's very true. There are people in that condition. We'll all agree, I take it, that One of the fundamental troubles with men as the result of the fall and as the result of sin is that he tends to forget the spiritual realm altogether. Now that I think is fairly obvious in the case of those who are not Christians and who are outside the Christian life. The real trouble with the masses of mankind this morning who are not worshipping God anywhere is Not simply that they are not worshipping God, but that they don't realise that there is a spiritual realm at all. Now, we talk a lot about materialism, but our view of materialism tends to be much too superficial. It doesn't merely mean an interest in the things that can be seen and felt and touched and handled. Much more serious is this, that it is an entire forgetting of the spiritual. Not so much a denial of it as a forgetting of it. a failure to realize that there is a spiritual realm at all. That, I say, is undoubtedly the main cause of the modern irreligion and absence of Christianity. It isn't that these people deny things in particular so much as that to them the whole idea of an unseen spiritual realm seems to be quite ridiculous. They are only interested in the present, the seen, the temporal, that which is tangible. Now, there, I say, is the fundamental trouble. And it is very interesting to observe how that kind of fundamental difficulty tends to follow us even into the spiritual life. The difficulty, I say, of realizing the reality of the spiritual. Isn't that perhaps one of the main difficulties about prayer? that no man hath seen God at any time. People say, I find it difficult to pray, I find it difficult to concentrate, I can't go on praying. Why? Well, the difficulty is rarely the difficulty of realizing the reality of the unseen and the eternal, the spiritual. But what I'm particularly concerned about this morning is the way in which that great effect of the fall and of sin tends to follow us after conversion and after we've become Christians, in this respect, that we fail to realize the reality of the evil spiritual powers. It isn't merely this kind of difficulty and strangeness with regard to the realization of the presence of God, but still more, our failure to realize the evil powers. by which we are surrounded and with which we constantly have to do. In other words, there are many Christians who are in trouble and unhappy and lacking real joy and assurance and victory in their lives because they have made the fatal mistake of thinking that conversion is the end of a process instead of the beginning of a process. They seem to think that the moment they believe that they're converted that all is going to be well. All their troubles will be banished. There'll never be a problem left. Now, let's be quite clear about this. There are two main causes of that. One is, of course, a false evangelism, which deliberately gives that impression. Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and all will be well. You'll live happily ever afterwards. Nothing will ever go wrong. The whole world is going to be amazing and perfect, and you'll never have another problem or another struggle. We can understand it. The evangelist is so concerned about presenting the truth of salvation. He may be further concerned in results. However, in various ways, he gives that impression, and people believe it. And so, when they actually come to the living of the Christian life, and difficulties do arise, and problems, they don't know where they are, they begin to doubt everything, and they're in trouble, and they become depressed. But it isn't only due to a false evangelism. Perhaps a still more prolific cause of this is a failure to rarely grasp the teaching of the scriptures. I think we've been seeing that, as we've considered this question of spiritual depression, all along it seems to come back to this, our ignorance of the scriptures. Our failure to read them, or write them, to understand them, and to apply them, and to realize that they're speaking about us. And nowhere, I think, is that more evident than in this very matter with which we are dealing this morning. So I say there is nothing more important than to realize that the Christian life is a life of conflict with the powers of evil. Now that is taught everywhere in the Bible. If you want it in its supreme example, of course, you'll find it in the life of our Lord himself. Our Lord's life in this world was a life of battle and of conflict with the powers of the devil and of hell. Look at him in the garden. Look at him in the temptation in the wilderness. Look at him even on the cross. These forces, these powers, this tremendous spiritual conflict. But you not only find it in the life of our Lord, that ought to be enough for us, but it comes nearer to our own level in the life of the apostles. This apostle Paul particularly tells us about it. They all tell us about it. they were all aware of the fact that they were set in this context of this tremendous spiritual conflict. And ever since then, in the history of the Church, you will find that God's servants have testified to their consciousness of the reality of this tremendous spiritual fight and conflict. You see it strikingly in the life of a man like Martin Luther. But you get it, I say, equally in the life of a man like John Bunyan and in his writings especially, Read Grace of Bounding or Read Pilgrim's Progress, take that hymn of his which we've just been singing, it's there, it's everywhere. His whole conception of the Christian life was in a sense this, that one always has to realize that there are these unseen spiritual powers attacking us, watching for our weak moments and ever ready as it were to pounce upon us and to make us captive again. And so I say that you find it everywhere in the teaching of the scripture and in the long history of the Christian church. Very well then, can anything be more fatal than not to realize this? Is there anything more dangerous than a glib and a superficial view of Christianity? The view that assumes that conversion is everything, that now we're Christian and all is well and we can sit lightly and loosely to the church and to preaching and to the scripture and our reading of it and to prayer, that all is well, that everything's been done, the thing's completed, we've signed the card or we've done this or that or been received into church membership and all is perfect. My dear friends, to believe that, I say, is to shut our eyes to something that's proclaimed constantly and loudly in the pages of scripture and in the long record of God's people in this earthly pilgrimage. Very well, then, we have to realize that in addition to the sin that remains, as we were seeing the last three Sunday mornings, in our mortal bodies, this law that is in my members dragging me down, this sin that is within me, as it were, There is this terrible power of temptation and of evil that attacks me from the outside. And the apostle here, in this final word, I can almost see him underlining it. Oh, not that the other things are not important, they are, every one of them, and all the ethical details, it's all tremendously important, but here it is, finally, underline it. Finally, my brethren, remember this. Be strong in the Lord and in the power of his might. Put on the whole armor of God that he may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. Here is the last order of the day from the great Generalissimo. He's concerned about the whole campaign. He's concerned about us. And he wants us, I say, secondly, to realize the character of this fight. not only the reality of the fight, not only the mere fact that there is such a fight, but we must understand increasingly the character of the fight. Now that comes out, doesn't it, in the very words that he uses. I don't know how you feel, but I never read these words without being conscious of a great dramatic intensity. I seem to hear a kind of bugle call, a trumpet is being blown. I feel that the forces are gathering, and that here am I as a little Christian involved in all this. Don't you feel that as you read the words or as I read them to you? Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord. He's keying us up to something. He's awakening us. He's rousing us. Why? Well, because of the character and the nature of the fight. What is that? Well, it is all that he describes here in this twelfth verse. We wrestle not against flesh and blood, Our struggles and our problems are not merely with men. Well, with what then? Principalities and powers? The rulers of the darkness of this world, spiritual wickedness in the heavenlies, in high places? Or it's just the great biblical teaching about the devil? And about all the evil spirits and forces that are marshaled and arrayed and controlled by the devil. The doctrine concerning the devil and his power and his forces is as vital in the scriptures, I say it without any hesitation, as the doctrine of salvation itself. Because its whole teaching, in a sense, is that until we can overcome this enemy, there is no true salvation. And a part of our salvation is the overcoming of this particular enemy. So the scripture teaches us about it. It tells us about his terrible power. It teaches us something about his origin, that he was a bright angelic spirit, created by God, but who rebelled against God and fell. But you see, he felt he had sufficient power to do that. And his power is mighty. Read your book of Job, the first chapters alone are enough, and you'll see something of his power. Especially, I say, read again the accounts of the temptation of our blessed Lord, and there you'll see one who feels confident that he can bring down even the Son of God. And you and I, my friends, are concerned with such a being. And all his forces, here they are described here, his battalions, all these mass legions of his, that he uses and deploys against God and his church and his people. You and I are confronted by all this. We wrestle against such powers and against such might. And you notice his words, the wilds and the subtlety. Oh, the scripture, I say, is full of this kind of thing. And it talks about this evil day. Well now, I'm very anxious to be practical this morning because there is no point in considering all this theoretically. To have a theoretical knowledge of these things and yet not to detect them in practice to be in the saddest position conceivable. Rather like a physician I once watched, who had his head full of theoretical knowledge of medicine, but wasn't able to diagnose the very patient that was in front of him. That's of no value at all. We must deal with this thing practically. How, then, do these forces attack us? Why is it important for us to be strong in the Lord and to put on the whole armor of God? What are the forms which these attacks take? Well, you can subdivide them, if you like, roughly in this way. Sometimes the attack comes purely along the physical level. There is no doubt, according to the teacher of the scripture, that the devil is able to influence our bodies. He can actually produce illnesses. I'm not saying that every illness is produced by him, but he certainly can do it. But he certainly does a great deal of this in producing certain physical conditions in which we may be lacking in energy and in vigor, and well, as the phrase puts it, enjoying ill health. A great deal of that is due to the attack, the subtle attack of these forces and powers with which we are concerned. And there are many such people who are dismissed, perhaps scientifically, as neurotics. or neurasthenics, which in reality are nothing of the sort, especially Christian people. But the devil in his subtlety is influencing this depressing power upon such people without their knowing it. And of course, as long as it is regarded in a purely physical manner, he is perfectly content, because the right and appropriate remedy will not be applied. Well, I could elaborate that, but let me just leave it at that, and you can work that out for yourselves. Let me rather come to the mental, the mental line. Now here the devil of course may attack us by producing directly what is actually called by us depression. Depressed mental states and conditions. Let me make it perfectly clear that I'm still talking about the Christian, not about the unbeliever. I'm talking about the Christian. He can do it still more in the case of the unbeliever, But my point is that this can happen even to the believer, and that the believer is so often not aware of this. But the devil can come and depress us. He can get us into a state of worry and concern about ourselves, about our work, about our relations, about our associations in life. Everything becomes a problem and a weight and an oppression, and we become, as a result, depressed. I could very easily illustrate all I'm saying by innumerable examples. I don't know whether I've ever said this before from this pulpit, but I assure you, my friends, that if I allowed it to happen, I could very easily spend the whole of my time and my life in this world in doing nothing else but interviewing and trying to help and to treat depressed Christians. I could easily allow it to become my whole-time work. I'm not going to do so, because I believe that the work of preaching is much more important. I do as much as I can of this. But I'm saying that to show you how frequently this takes place. People have come to me and have said that they have the most horrible thoughts. A man was telling me, a fine Christian man, only the other day, he said, if you but knew the blasphemous thoughts that come into my mind, and the foul language Where's it come from? The devil is insinuating it. Blasphemous thoughts and words and ideas and terms. Then another very common form is that it takes is that it comes in the form of various fears. What they call phobias, but that's just another name for fears. Fears of various things. Fear of thunder and lightning. How often have I had to meet that? in such people. A fear of accidents, a fear of confined spaces. You know about them. Now Christian people are afflicted by these things and they torment them and their lives are depressed and they're unhappy Christians. And then of course the devil can work powerfully in the imagination. Some people much more so than others. But he can conjure up pictures in front of them, that what if such and such a thing happened. And it's amazing to notice the number of people who are depressed and unhappy, not because of anything that is happening, but because of things that they imagine as possible happening. Various contingencies. They go ahead and meet them. the death of some dear one or something like that, or they're being left in such and such a situation or position. And these things can grip them and hold them. Now, the devil, I say, works up on the imagination in this way. And these people become slaves to such things. And then, to sum it all up, perhaps I could put it like this. Everything that is covered by the terms introspection and morbidity, a morbid self-concern, constantly watching oneself physically, mentally, emotionally, imaginatively, and in every other respect, introspection and morbidity. And so the devil may keep us in that way. Well, there is just a rough idea of how he does it along the mental line. Let me say just a word about the spiritual. Here, of course, it comes in the form of doubts. Doubts about the very reality of truth itself. not only doubting the authority of the scripture, but doubting the ultimate facts on which our whole position is based. He may attack us vigorously along that line. Some of God's greatest saints have testified to that. Doubts. We saw many Sundays ago that the very presence of doubt does not mean that there's no faith. In a sense, you can't have a doubt unless you have faith. However, we don't go back to that. Doubts and uncertainties. And then, temptations. Temptations in various forms. I needn't elaborate this, but the devil suggests things, presents pictures in front of us, suggests we ought to do something. And then, on top of all this, there is a phenomenon which is very difficult to put into language and to describe, and yet it's something that's very well authenticated. The devil sometimes makes an unusual, direct onslaught and attack upon certain of God's saints. You've read of some of them. You've heard of some of them. You've been shocked at first to hear that a particularly saintly man, who'd lived a saintly life all his life and had taught others and helped them, suddenly, perhaps, when he becomes an old man, is the victim of a most terrible, terrifying, satanic attack. You'll find it in the life of a man like John Newton, the writer of these hymns that we are so fond of singing. I say again, you get it with Luther, you get it with Bunyan. Some may know it in this congregation from their own personal experiences. If you've never known it, you'll find it very difficult to believe it. But believe me, my friend, the devil can come and make a direct personal onslaught upon you in a way that almost baffles description. Well, now then, we are exposed, I say, to all this, and we are subject to all this. And the tragedy is that many do not understand this, and they don't realize it. And this is where the danger arises. Not realizing that all this is but a part of their spiritual warfare, they attribute it all to themselves or to their own sinfulness. And of course, the moment they do that, they're defeated. If all that I've been trying to describe is regarded by you as something that is in yourself and that you are producing and that's the result of your own sinfulness, well of course you'll feel utterly depressed, you'll doubt whether you're a Christian at all, you'll wonder what's happening to you, and your whole life spiritually will be ruined for the time being. Others attribute it to their physical condition, and they consult physicians of the body, And they try to treat them, but with no good result, of course. The patient doesn't improve, and then the depression becomes still greater. Others regard it as something psychological, and they rush after psychologists. That's one of the favorite things to do today. All these spiritual problems are being regarded as psychological. And as I think I have pointed out before, why this has become the prevailing mood amongst evangelicals, I find it extremely difficult to understand, but it has. The first reaction seems to be, if a man has a problem, it must be psychological. Whereas, I say, in the vast majority of these cases, the problem is purely spiritual. Very well, says someone, how do you recognize, how do you draw the distinction? How am I to know that these things that do afflict me are indeed a part of the attack of the devil and the forces of evil upon me? Well, I would suggest the following lines as being valuable in drawing this distinction. All depressing thoughts in a Christian undoubtedly come from the devil. Now, I don't hesitate to say that. My friend, my Christian friend, any depressing thought you get, make certain that it comes from the devil. It is his great concern to depress us. He can't prevent our becoming Christians. Yes, but he can rob us of the joy of our Christianity. He can make us depressed Christians, and he likes doing that. In addition, all concern about self in any form, I would attribute to the same source. In other words, if you find yourself tending to spend a great deal of your time in self-concern, anxiety and worry and concern about yourself and everything connected with yourself or concerned about yourself, I don't care whether it comes from the physical or the mental or the spiritual, make sure I say that that probably comes from the same source. A morbid self-concern. Doubts certainly all come from the devil. He is a liar and the father of liars, and he insinuates doubts, he hurls the matters, these fiery doubts that Paul is talking about, which we'll come to deal with in detail later. That's a part of his mechanism, he hurls the matters, these doubts, they come from the devil. Another very good way, I think, and I find, of detecting and drawing this distinction is this. If you have a definite consciousness that all these things are coming from outside yourself, be quite sure that you're right. They are coming from outside yourself. I mean by that something like this. You go to bed perhaps at night You've had a particularly happy and blessed time in prayer and in meditation. And you sleep, and you wake up in the morning, and the first thing that happens to you is that some terrible doubt comes, or some ugly thought, some foul imagination. And you feel it's come to you. Well, it has come to you. It isn't you. Now, I'm not hesitating to say this. You have this kind of awareness that it comes in from somewhere, and it does come in from somewhere. It comes from the devil. He's trying to master your mind before you yourself can grip it and control it. And another very good test is this. If you can say very honestly and truthfully to yourself that you hate these things, and that you dearly wish that they didn't bother you and worry you, you can be quite certain that they all come from the devil. In other words, you are aware of this distinction, that you are being worried and harassed and attacked, and it's the truth, you are. Well, very well, I say, if you realize that, don't become depressed about it. Don't attribute it all to yourself and to sin that is still in you. Realize that, in addition, there is that from the outside. This is the whole strategy of defeating the devil, that we have to draw these distinctions. As I said at the very beginning, There are large numbers of Christians who are in a depressed and unhappy state simply because they've never realized this teaching. Oh, again I say I could so easily illustrate it. Let me give you one illustration of a lady who came to see me years ago. She was a Sunday school teacher, very gifted in many ways, had an excellent singing voice, and she'd been doing excellent work in her Sunday school. She'd handed in her resignation. and was thoroughly unhappy. And what was the trouble? It was this. She said the most terrible thoughts were in her mind and she couldn't get rid of them. And you see, on the basis of that, she had decided that she wasn't fit to be a Sunday school teacher. She had assumed that they were her thoughts, that she was generating them. And all that was necessary in the case of that good woman was to get her to see that it wasn't her, it was the devil who was attacking her. And the moment she saw it, she resented it and rejected it, and turned upon the devil in the way we are told here, and went back and continued with her Sunday school work. But you see, her trouble was this. She hadn't realized all this, and had assumed, and the devil gets us to assume, that all this is something in us, and we are unworthy therefore, and we must resign, we can't go on. hence the depression. Well, very well, I say, there are certain tests which we can conveniently apply to ourselves. Well, now, all this is just to illustrate that first principle of mine, that there are many Christians who are depressed and unhappy simply because they have not realized the reality and the nature of this spiritual conflict in which we are set. Let me hurry to a word on the second principle, which is this one. It is the failure to realize how complete our victory can be in the Lord and in the power of his might. Of course, if we don't realize what's happening and what it's all due to, well then we shall certainly be trying to deal with it ourselves and automatically we are defeated. There is not one of us who is strong enough to withstand the devil. Read your Old Testament. See the saints, the patriarchs, those mighty men of God, they were all defeated by him. No man can withstand the devil in his own strength and power. He's defeated before he starts. So that I say, if we don't realize that, we will never realize our need of the thing that the apostle is here advocating. But you see, A very subtle danger comes in at this very point. The first step, I say, is to realize something of the forces that are arrayed against you. Then, the moment you realize that, the devil takes advantage of that and terrifies you. And frightens you and alarms you. Yes, you say, it's quite right, I am face to face with the devil. And who am I? And how can I ever do it? You're perfectly right. And at once, you lie down in utter defeat. Or John Bunyan as depicted this again very perfectly, hasn't he? In the case of the two lions that Christian has to pass. And how can he? There's that one, there's this one. What can he do? The tendency is to turn back or to lie down. But you just have to go straight on in between and you're quite safe. Yes, but the devil terrifies at first. And it's just at this point the apostle brings in his teaching. The answer is the Lord and the power of his might. The whole armor of God. Be strong, says the apostle, in the Lord. What's he mean? Well, it means this, doesn't it? In principle. There has only been one person in this world who conquered the enemy and routed him in single combat. And that was the Lord Jesus Christ himself. He defeated him. He routed him everywhere, every time. in the wilderness, in the garden, on the cross, everywhere. He has routed him. He's strong enough and he's defeated him. And the Apostle's teaching is that he can enable us to defeat him. Well, here's the great principle, isn't it? The principle that we've been considering for a number of Sunday mornings. We as believers, as Christians, are in Christ. We are joined to him. We are made one with him, and his mighty power comes into us. And it is with that power, and with that power alone, that we can triumph and prevail. We think of it, if you like, in terms of our Lord's own image of the vine and the branches. There it is. Without me he can do nothing, but with him we can do everything. We are linked to him, we are joined to him. The apostle has been teaching it in the third chapter of this epistle to the Ephesians. We are to be filled with all the fullness of God, Christ dwelling in our heart by faith. That's the teaching. And as we appropriate that and believe that and act on that, well then I say, we shall be able to conquer. Yes, the devil, the principalities and powers, the rulers of the darkness of this world, spiritual wickedness in high places. In this might and power, as he conquered, we'll conquer. We shall be more than conquerors. And so, you see, the scripture gives us its exhortations. James 4, 7. Resist the devil and he will flee from you. Do you realize that it's speaking? of one of whom the Lord said to Peter, Satan hath desire to have thee and to sift thee. And he can do it. Take these mighty pictures of the devil and his power. We are not to bring a railing accusation against him. We are told even Michael the archangel does not bring a railing accusation against him. The devil's not one to be laughed at or to be joked about because of his terrifying power. And yet we are told, resist him and he will flee from you. Yes, not in your own strength, you see, but because you're in Christ, because of the power, because of the vigor or the energy of His strength. What a phrase that is. Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord and in the power of His might, the vigor of His strength. And in the same way, the Apostle Peter puts it in this way in his first epistle in the fifth chapter, verses eight and nine. He tells us to be vigilant and to be sober. Why? Well, because your adversary, the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about seeking whom he may devour. A roaring lion. My friends, is it surprising that the Church is as she is? We don't realize this. We're not vigilant. We're not sober. We're having a good time. We're sitting back. We're enjoying ourselves. We're not watching unto prayer. We're not vigilant. We're not sober. We don't realize this conflict. It all seems so easy, doesn't it? Yet that is what the apostle says. Your adversary, the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, roameth about, seeking whom he may devour. What about it? Whom resists? Steadfast in the faith. And as long as you do so, you'll conquer him. They overcame him by the blood of the lamb and the word of their testimony. It can be done in the power, the vigor of his strength and of his might. Just a word on my last principle. I suppose that in many ways our greatest failure of all is our failure to realize how we are to avail ourselves of this very strength that is offered. And that's the thing that the Apostle rarely expounds in this paragraph. Let me put it hurriedly in a word like this. Did you notice the order in which Paul puts these things? Or let me put it to you in this way. Say somebody came to you with one of the troubles or the problems that I've been describing to you this morning. What would you say to him? Well, I think I can tell you what most people would say. I've conducted many discussion meetings in my life and often times this kind of question and problem has come up. And almost invariably the first speaker says, pray about it. As if that is all that is necessary. That's the answer that always comes. Any problem or difficulty or perplexity, what do you do about it? The answer is pray about it. And no more. But you know the Apostle Paul doesn't say that. And this is a most important problem. Yes, he does talk about prayer, but did you notice where he put it? As we are confronted by all these powers, we wrestle not against flesh and blood, etc. What are we to do about it? Pray about it. No, not first and foremost. Wherefore, take unto you the whole armor of God. And he even goes right through the details. And then, having said all that, he says, praying always with all prayer and supplication in the spirit and watching thereunto with all perseverance and supplication for all saints and for me. Several times recently I've said in this pulpit now at the risk of being misunderstood I am going to say that the first thing you do is not to pray and I say it again you see and that's exactly what I mean. It seems to me that we are guilty of bypassing the scriptures, and that this glib and easy teaching has gained currency that all the Christian has to do now is to pray about it. My dear friend, the apostle tells you that you've got to put on the whole armor of God, and knowing us as he knows us, he goes into details. He won't take any risks with us. He divides it right up this bit, that bit, this bit, and the other, and we both have got to go right through it. Then, he says, praying always. Are we not guilty of ignoring the scriptures and of oversimplifying the Christian life to such an extent that it's dangerous to us? God has provided the whole armour and we must put it on. Well, says someone, are you saying that all this must come before prayer? No. You see, the apostle says, praying always. These things go together. It isn't prayer only. It isn't the armour only. It's putting on the armour, praying always. Our hymn, which we are going to sing, puts it quite perfectly, I think. Put on the gospel armor. Each piece put on with prayer. That's it. So that we have to observe, I say, the order and the sequence and the arrangement and the emphasis. So much of our spiritual life, it seems to me, if it were true, makes all these epistles quite unnecessary. The teaching is, you see, that once you're converted, all you have to do is to pray and to look to the Lord. But the apostle goes into all these details. Why this elaborate teaching? My dear friends, we mustn't deny the scripture, we mustn't ignore it. That's not spirituality, that's an absence of spirituality. We must take the word of God as it is and observe the order, observe the details and the arrangement of the prescription, and apply each piece with prayer. Well, there are the principles which seem to me to be enunciated in this great paragraph. God willing, we will go on to consider the various parts and portions of this armour again in detail.