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Ephesians 6. Let's start out,
we'll read verse 10 and we're gonna go through verse 13 for
our passage this morning. Ephesians 6, verse 10. Finally,
my brethren, be strong in the Lord and in the power of his
might. Put on the whole armor of God that you may be able to
stand against the wiles of the devil. For we wrestle not against
flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers,
against the rulers of darkness of this world, against spiritual
wickedness in high places. Wherefore, take into you the
whole armor of God that you may be able to withstand in the evil
day and having done all to stand. We spent some time last week
where we started in the Old Testament and we did a quick survey of
the enemy. And I think as we get to this
chapter, as we get to this portion, or tendencies to rust past it.
I mean, armor's right there, right? I mean, it's like I'm
the biggest kid. I'm gonna be like, ooh, something shiny and
metal. I wanna go grab it. I wanna suit up. I wanna put
it on. It's mine? Okay, I wanna get
it. I wanna go right there. But these verses are vital too.
And the more I meditate them on this week, the more I think
they're just as crucial. It's a mindset. These verses
are giving us a mindset for what we're about to receive. It's
an attitude that we are to adopt. We're about ready to put on armor.
We are about ready to be given armor to go out and face the
wiles of the devil and all these other spiritual forces that we
took time and we listed last week. We better know what we're
doing. You better know how to use what
we've got. So there's an attitude that we need to adopt, warfare.
We need to put that on and not just think, oh, this is fun,
this is cool, warfare. Like I said, we're talking warfare,
so we need to remember that. You remember being little? Long
before you could drive, I mean, you're a toddler. Remember begging
your parents to go to the fair? They get those little sparkly
cars that look like a bass boat, you know, going in a circle.
And you'd be like, ooh, I want to drive a car. And you're like,
ah, I want to drive that car. It's like, you know, you don't
have that same desire right now. And you go to the fair, ooh,
I can't wait for the little cars. Not after you've driven a real car,
right? But when you're little, you can't wait and you get in
and the parents, it's kind of like, we're trusting some guy
over here that's probably not trustworthy to have the power
switch and spinning you around in a circle as you drive this
buggy or whatever it is. And you get behind the wheel
and you're like, turning up for all it's worth. And you're going
left and right and you're hitting every button and you're hitting buttons
that aren't buttons. You know, the bolts that are in there,
cause you're driving. You remember that? I remember
crawling in there doing that. You're spinning the steering
wheel. You're not controlling it. And even when you're a little
older and you go to Holiday World and you get in the fun car, you
know, it's on a rail, because you like tag it this way and you
tag it that way, you tag it, because it's like, you don't
have the skills. You don't understand everything that goes with driving,
because you're little. What happens a few times when
your parents would let you get behind the wheel in your car, ours would
be a green station wagon with a bent seat, you know, and they'd
let you stand there and you'd get that wheel and be, hey, hey,
hey, hey, hey, hey, as much as you can, because you're driving
that car, you know, you're really doing it. And it doesn't spin
as easy as the one at the fair, You're trying, you're standing
up and you're thinking, ooh, I'm driving this car. That's not driving a car, is
it? That's what we thought was driving a car. You had no idea
really what went into driving a car. When you're little, you
just think it's turning the wheel and sitting in the seat, it's
in that spot. You just thought it was all that, but it was so
much more. Look with me real quick to 1 Corinthians chapter
13. 1 Corinthians 13. 1 Corinthians. Chapter 13, verse 11. 1 Corinthians
13, 11. When I was a child, when I was
a child, I spake as a child. I understood as a child. I thought
as a child. But when I became a man, I put
away childish things. For now we see through a glass
darkly, but then face to face. Now I know in part. but then
I shall know even as I am known. And now abideth faith, hope,
love, or charity. These three, but the greatest
of these is charity. Fortunately for you, I don't
drive like I did when I was a toddler. Maybe, I don't know. I see so
much more when I get behind the wheel. There's things that go
on and I've been driving for a long time. I'm checking my
mirrors. I have three different sets of
mirrors and making sure they're adjusted and they are there.
Is the brake pressure right? Is it supposed to be? Is it too
soft? Is there something going on with
that? Is the gas pedal working like it should? Do I have gas? I'm
looking at the gauges. I'm looking at the temperature gauge. I'm looking
at the check engine light. No, I'm not. I'm letting the check engine
light shine, shine, shine. I'm ignoring it like nothing there.
And I'm doing all these different things. I'm watching for who's
coming towards me, who's pulling out of the driveway, who's coming
up behind me. You've got all these things. As a kid, you just
thought you're just turning that wheel, but I do it a lot differently.
And some of those things are super in tune. I'm looking at
the road condition, how it is, how's the stop gonna be like?
Is there sand? Is there no sand? Is it ice? Is it snow? Is it
whatever? And you're applying all these things all at once.
And some of it's consciously, and some of it you've done so
many times, you're doing it unconsciously, but you're doing all these things.
You're taking it and making sure because you practice that you
can drive, that you can do that. You know, and then when the certain
area of your driving skills need to be there, they come alive.
You know, all of a sudden it's like, oh, I'm not stopping. I
need to do something. I can put it on neutral. I can do all these different
things to help your car. Yeah, I drive bad cars. I have
to do crazy stuff sometimes. But that's kind of how our armor
is. Back in Ephesians six, if you
look at that. As a pastor for 22 years now,
this Easter, And a Christian for 46 years, I see this passage
differently than I've seen it in the past. Before it was like,
whoa, a sword, a helmet, a shield. It's like, yeah, those things.
And I'm still that way a little bit. That's for sure. I mean,
guys like gear, right? It's gear, you know? And so we
like it. And guys like weapons, it's weapons. And so we like
it. And so it's kind of easy to run and rush towards it. But
there's a reason that when Paul gives us this gear, it's in chapter
six and not in chapter one. He's been trying to prep us for
it. He's been trying to get us ready. We should have some respect
for what he's about to give us. These are gifts that God is bequeathing
to you and I. We're just gonna be like, yeah,
I want a salvation. No, this is something that God has given
us to use in warfare against who? The adversary, against the
devil, against all these other spiritual forces, powers, and
principalities and things in high places. I should reverence this a little
bit. God has given me a weapon. There should be some reverence.
I should have a deep appreciation for these tools because I'm gonna
use them. But I think back, I'm thinking,
have I used them? Have I used them rightly? Have
I used them well? Have I left them at home? Do
I even bother to bring them out? So I'm glad that God is patient.
I'm glad we serve a patient God who's like, all right, Brian,
47 years, about time you get something. Kind of that way,
yeah, so it's good. In chapter six, verse 10, this
is the charge. I said, as we talked about some
last week, frankly, Or finally, sorry, my brethren, be strong
in the Lord and the power of His might. Be strong in the Lord
and the power of His might. This is a command. It's not a
request. It's not an ask. This is Him,
I think, kind of like bequeathing in a ceremonial way, power upon
us that we should be taking advantage of, that we should know. Be strong
in the Lord and the power of his might. This is key to the
armor's power. Now this is the thing that turns
the engine on. It's what lights it up and makes
it work. We gotta understand it's not by our might or not
by our strength. It's by his power and his might
that this works. If I'm wielding it as mine, I'm
no better than David putting on Saul's armor saying, I don't
know how to use this. I haven't tried it. No, this is God giving
us armor. He says it's an extension. It's
to be my power, but used upon you, with you, in concert with
you, in your strength, to accentuate those things and to make them
better. And so we need to realize it's not us when we do spiritual
warfare, when we go to war, it's not you. And I think that's the,
I think that's again, going back to David, that's why David could
be like this Philistine. David doesn't look, I'm just
a boy. He's like, God's with me. God's not gonna let him do
that. We need to realize that and not
be afraid of any Goliath. The God is the strength and the
power, not us. The strength of the armor is
God. It's not our ability to use it. It's him and our dependence
upon him and understanding that letting him do the heavy lifting. It's strong and useful in the
Lord. If we're trying to use it on
our own or by our own power or by our own might, it's not gonna
work. or it's not gonna work well. And he wants us to be victorious. He wants us to be good at using
this armor. And so we need to understand
it's by his strength, it's by his power, it's by his might. It has power. This gear that
we're about to get has power. It has enemy defeating power. And we're talking about the enemy
and his minions that we can go with them. It's power that comes
from God because I can't defeat the devil. God can, he has, will
and does. Verse 11 says, put on the whole
armor of God that you may be able to stand against the wiles
of the devil. Paul says, put it all on. Not
just your favorite or the flashy parts. We all want to run to
the sword. Woo, sword. Yeah, I got one hanging
in my office. I got two in my office. It's
a sword. It's the sword. It's the weapon.
We want to go over and lift that shield. We want to feel it. Yeah,
I want a shield. It's a big shield. I can hide
behind it. I want to try on the helmet. And I did great adventure
club at the school. I had my cardboard helmet that
I'd made and all the kids want to take some turns trying it
on. Woo, the helmet. We look right past the belt and the boots.
If it was up to us, we'd be like, who wants a belt? Boots, that's
a nominal piece of equipment until you're in a war. We need
it all. And God gives it to us in order
as well. And so we need it all and we
need it in order. We need it God's way. It's God's strength. It's God's power. It's God's
armor that'll help us stand against the wiles, the trickery of the
devil. Because the devil, if he had
his will, he would sift us like wheat. He made that request to
God about Peter, right? Oh, let me sift him like wheat.
I'll grind him down. We'll wear him out. I think the devil would want
no less for us. The verse about him being a roaring lion, what's
it? It's seeking whom he may devour. Who's weak? Who's not
paying attention? Who's trusting in their strength
and not in his strength? Ooh, I'll go after them. I'll
knock them down a rung or two. We'll take them off the Christian
shelf for a long time because a defeat will keep you down,
you know, because then we'll blame God. Oh God didn't do what
he's supposed to. Was it God or did we not suit
up? Did we not do the things that we're supposed to? We need all the armor. because
we're gonna be battling things that we can't see. And we don't
understand how all that works. And God says, so I've got you
covered, but you need to put it on. Verse 12 says, for we
wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities,
against powers, against the rulers of darkness of this world, against
spiritual wickedness and high places. Spiritual wickedness. These are created above us in
God's family. So if you think of God's family,
you know, there's angels. And we looked at all the classes,
there's seraphs and there's cherubs. And we looked at the archangels
and we had a whole list of them that we had last week that we
went through. And then you get down to the demons and the non-corporeal
spirits and the things that they have and in God's family. And
then we're under that. David tells us, made a little
lower than the angels. We're a, high created being that
God has made to work in his family, to be over the earthly realm
that he's made us. And if we wouldn't have fallen,
we would still be in concert with him and see the heavenly
realm. But our job was the earth and maintaining and taking care
of it. But we gave it over to Satan. Jesus has purchased it
back and he will claim it again one day. But it says we're made
a little lower than the angels. And so we're above some classes,
we're above animals. We're above fish and birds and
reptiles and insects. So we got that, you know, but
we're under the angels. And yet we're called to battle
them. And he's getting ready to give
us the armor. He's like, you have a whole class of beans that
are higher than you. And you're gonna go to war with them. And
we're like, I'm gonna what? You're gonna go to war with them.
But I'm gonna give you my armor so that you'll be able to stand
against them. See how vital this is? Because if it was in our
flesh, we don't have anything. The devil is probably the highest
created being that was ever made. Let alone now, he's got all these
years of malice and study and learning to use against us. He's
crafty. So yeah, we better suit up. We
better be prepared because if it's just standing in ourselves, we'll be worse than the seven
sons of Sceva running away naked, whipped and embarrassed. Let
alone, not only is he stronger than us, not only does he have
more time under his belt, not only does he have learning underneath
him, he's evil. He will do things that you will
not think of. You're like, well, who would do that? He would,
he's evil. He will try to corrupt. He will try to pervert. He'll
try to cast out. He'll try to destroy. Praise God, we're not
evil. Praise God, we don't go there.
But we need to come to awakening and hear that there is evil and
that there are people who do things that you won't do and
that do things that you cannot imagine. We need to understand
that. We need to resist it. We need to hate it. We need to
despise it. We need to be aware of it. If not, that's gonna disarm
us. That's what gives us righteousness, right? So we understand wickedness.
He goes, you stand in righteousness. Because righteousness stands
and the wicked will flee. They'll call you names for, oh,
holier than thou, and holy Joe, and hey, church lady. But you
stand in it, in God's word, and watch the evil flee. We stand
up for the innocent. We stand up for those that are
hurting. We stand up for the weak. We're to do that. We're
to be the mouthpiece. We're to be the soldiers. And we got some
hard work. We gotta fight back because we've
let it go too long and we've not been soldiering. So it's
gonna be uncomfortable, but we need to. We need to. I kind of see this passage before us this morning,
verse 10 through 13, as pregame in a locker room. I spent a lot of my life in sports and was able to play different kinds.
None of them very well, but I could do all right. But I see Paul
here as the coach. We're the team. And as I've gotten
older, I can go back and see why I frustrated my coaches,
because there's a lot of things I didn't understand until I was older.
I'm like, oh, I just didn't get, I'm Brian playing Batman, you know? So
I didn't get all the, so I'm sure I did, but Paul here's coaching
us as the team. He is, this is, this is no silly
sport. This is real. This is warfare. The thing is, it's like, it's
a contact sport. You know, we are battling against
an enemy here that, is out to kill, to maim, destroy, a murderer,
a liar, one who wants to devastate your family, a country he wants
to lay bare. He's one that will go after and
kill innocents. I was listening to something
there in comparison to October attack on Israel. And people
compare it to Nazism up to a point. The Nazis hid what they did.
They put it in a camp. They put it far away. The locals
didn't know what was going on. That's why one of the first things
as allies, when we came in and we took over a concentration
camp, we made the townsfolk go march through it and say, this
isn't what we're saying. This is what you did. This is what
you allowed. This is what went on in your
own country by your own countrymen. And they were shocked. If you've
never seen that, as they go through, just weeping and crying, we did
this? When Hamas went in, They filmed
it. They showed you. Those in our
government have watched the film. Some of them have it. But they
filmed themselves as they choked babies till their eyes bulged
and all these things, put them in ovens and baked them, horrible
thing that they celebrated and their countrymen saw it. So is
it like Holocaust? Yeah, it is, but it's not, it's
worse. They celebrated it. Their country celebrated that
they've been taught to celebrate it. So it is evil and it is dark.
And that's the playing field that we have right now. But there
are those that are not like us just because we would never do
that. So what's the context for it? So my closest thing I can
associate with is football. And pregame wasn't just a rousing
speech. Come on, fellas. We're going
to give it the old college try. I never had a coach like that.
I had a coach with bad breath that would get up in your face
and yell at you. And he was a rousing speech. There was a lot of yelling,
spit yelling, like, rawr, in your face that way, before game,
let alone before any. I hadn't had a chance to be bad
yet. But just that kind of stuff, you know, it's in your face.
It was contact yelling in the fact that he would go by and
smack you on the helmet, you know, or he would hit you on
the shoulder pads, thump you in the chest. with your shoulder
pads on, you can grab it right there, shake you around that
way, grab you by the face mat and pull it down, hit you on
the side of the head. And I volunteered for this as an extracurricular
sport. But we get all the, and then, you know, after he would
do that with us, you turn to the other guy, you're like, yeah, why? And you
smack your teammate against the head, and you're going down,
you're punching each other in the back, and we're going down, smacking
and hitting each other to get us ready for some contact. Cause
we don't go out there like, I haven't hit in a while. Oh, I hope that
hurts you. No, no, we go out there like, oh, we've ramped
ourselves up and we're out there to go do some damage and hit
them hard. And we kind of rally each other up and get back to
the huddle. My brother's a quarterback. Come on, let's go. You'll get
you all going. We're going to go out there. We're going to
do it. You know, striving, pushing, working hard to do it. That's what Paul's doing here.
But we're so used to easy church that we don't read it that way.
That was all meant for the coach to wake us up. You're about ready
to be engaged. Come on. You're no longer in
fifth period on Friday. It's game time. Wake up. You've
been on the bus. Let's go. You got to get out there and
hit somebody. He's trying to stir you to battle as it was for football.
Prepare you for contact. Show you your gear is working.
See, I can hit you. It doesn't hurt. See, I can shake
you. I can thump you on the shoulder pads. You're okay. Kind of all
that. It's like designed to kind of
like, oh, yeah, I can do that. Yeah. It wakes all that up in
you again. That's what I see verse 13 as. Paul. Wherefore, taken to you the whole
armor of God. The second time he's told us
that. You got it all on? So first he's looking at it.
You got it all on? Have you left something off? If you don't have
a belt, he's gonna expose it pretty quick. If you forget your
boots, he's gonna step on a toe. He's making sure like the coach
thumping you in the helmet or hitting your shoulder pads. Doing
all those things. Paul's looking. Make sure you
got it all on. His eyes on you. He's inspecting your gear. He
smacked your breastplate. You wearing it? Is it covering
the front? Is it covering the back? Are
you closed to his righteousness? Do you have that? You put on
the whole armor of God, a fist against your helmet, boom, what
could happen on this day? The worst you could do is kill
you and send you home to be with our Lord, right? That's right. Boom,
he inspects your shield, pushes against it. Is that shield standing?
Is your face strong? Are you ready to go out and face
the enemy that you may be able to withstand on the evil day,
pushing against your shield? He does that. What's the evil
day? It's every day. It's every day. Today's battle.
Do you face evil every day? Yeah, I'd say we do. Sometimes
we embrace it. Sometimes it shocks us. Sometimes
we resist it, but it's there. The opportunity is there every
day. Do we face that battle every day? Today's fight. That's what
he's preparing us for here. We're to put on the whole armor
of God every day to go forth and fight in this battle. If
you remember in chapter five, verse 16, redeem the time, right? For the days are evil. The evil
day. Every day is evil. Are we purchasing back the time?
Are we buying it and claiming it for Him? Are we saying, I'm
gonna serve God today, reporting for duty, sir. I'm going forth
to stand forth and proclaim the good news of the gospel. Am I
gonna resist evil? Am I gonna stand up? Or is it
all gonna catch us off guard? Cause we haven't even thought
about those things yet. I haven't had my coffee. I don't know what's going
on. Are we gonna be in there and ready and prepared and ready
to go? Today, the day of evil, the evil day. The days are evil. Let's claim it back for Him.
There's coming a big day of evil. There's probably some big days
in each of our lives that some of us face as individuals. We
try to rally together as a church to help someone go through the
evil day. You're not alone, we're with you, we're praying for you,
we're fighting. There's a big evil day coming
where evil's gonna come out and it's gonna be exposed. There's
gonna be lies and deceptions that we have to fight against.
We live in a day of deception. I mean, who here is confident
in the news you heard this morning? Yeah, maybe. But we're confident
in God's word, right? That's where we stand upon it.
That's where we know it. When everything else is shifting sand,
we build our rock, our house upon this firm foundation. That
Jesus is the Christ, no matter what they say, it's who he is.
I trust God at his word. Every word in the Bible is absolutely
true. We stand upon it. You know, there's an evil day
coming and we better be ready for evil days, let alone the
evil days when there's a battle ahead and we come up and we're
suited as warriors coming over the crest of heaven on our white
horses, ready to do battle. Maybe we move up front if we
fought some now, right? Follow them. but you gotta be
ready for the big evil day, and you get ready for the big evil
day by the little evil days that you're fighting. It's like in
football, we had practice to get us ready for the other day.
Only thing, this isn't practice, it's real life. So we fight for
our family, you fight for your marriage, you fight for your
fellowship with God, we fight for time, we have so many devices. My wife and I talk about this
sometimes, about like, remember when we first got a microwave,
remember, and then we all made pizza bagels, you know, 100 of
them that week. Ooh, pizza bagel. We all stood there and watched
it go around and get hot, you know, for popcorn in here. Oh my gosh,
such a time saver. But back then, we'd visit my
cousins. Back then, we'd visit aunts and uncles. Back then,
we had time in the afternoon. Back then, we played shadow tag
and everything else out in the yard. Now it's like, oh, I hope
I can get a little bit of time to do something. We have all
these conveniences. We have so many things and no time, right?
This is war, because it's battling for our time. You have to carve
out time to be with family and friends and to visit one another
and to talk to them in person and not just on your phone. We
have to fight for all this. Evil day, we had to fight for
it all. Relationships, everything. Are we suiting up every day?
I say I doubt it because I, no, I don't. Shame on me. This is what this is for. This
is why Paul gives the speech. Come on, this is warfare, Brian. Suit
up. He's gonna coast on through?
Paul says here, the very end of verse 13, and having done
all to stand, he checks my boots. Are they tight and secure? Can
I step on your toes? Do you have a firm foundation?
Do you know, are you ready for the reason of the hope that lies
within you? Do you have all these things? Have I given my all truly
at the end of the day? I gave you my all. I gave you
my song. I gave you a little bit. Maybe
tomorrow I'll give you something. What's our honest answer at the
end of the day? What do we say? Here, He's expecting us. You're
gonna go out there, you're gonna leave it all on the field. We're gonna
go out there in the world on the evil day. We're gonna leave the sanctuary
of our home church, being at home or here this morning, and
we're gonna go out into the dark, evil world. And are you gonna
stand? Are you gonna fight? Are you gonna give it your all
to resist the devil and have him flee? Are you gonna fight
for what is right and righteous? Have you done all? Can you leave
at the end of the day? I did all I could. Tomorrow, Lord, maybe
I'll be stronger. Maybe I'll be better. and you
re-rehearse this replay on your way home, the things that you
could have said and the things that you should have done and that's the review
in your game film. What can I do better? What can
I do better? Have I fought a good fight? Is my armor on? Do I need to go work on my shield
of faith? Ooh, that guy had a good question. I don't know about
that. I need to go home and do some studying and work on my
shield so that I didn't have a hole in it. Have I pressed
towards the mark? Do I keep pressing on or do I
get tired and say, take me out coach. I want to sit on the bench
for a while. Where you're like, oh, I'll rest in heaven. It's
called a place of rest, right? I think he's assuming that we're
gonna be working while we're here. I'll give you rest. Enter
into my rest is what he tells us about heaven, eternity, work
right now. Press towards the mark. Again,
we're not working for our salvation, we're working for him. Have I
done all to stand? That's a good question, Christians. I wanna be a battleship church.
If I'm honest and sometimes I look at myself, it seems like I'm
a cruise ship soldier, right? I'm sitting on the edge. I'm
thinking about battle. Maybe I'm watching a movie about
a war or reading a book about some battle, but I'm not engaged.
I'm not engaging. I'm not quite stirred enough
to fight. Maybe tomorrow, maybe if I read a little bit more,
maybe if I have an answer for this, Pick a fight. Go out and witness
for Christ. Say something. Do something.
Invite the Jehovah Witness in. Tell the Mormons to come back. Fortunately, I don't watch network
TV too much, but I can remember when they would run and they're
like, hey, you can get this free Book of Mormon. I'm like, I wouldn't
mind having a copy of that. I'd like to read it and see what
they're saying. So I called them up, had them come over, and a few minutes
into the meeting, they're like, are you a preacher or something?
At that time, I wasn't. I'm a Sunday school teacher,
but I was wanting a copy of the Book of Mormon so I could poke
holes in it. But I had a chance to engage and to talk with them.
It made me study and prepare to be ready. We met with Jehovah's
Witnesses for a good while, trying to witness to them and trying
to use it back to the point in time where this was when we were
young. Fellowship told them not to meet with us anymore. And
I'm like, yes. But I wanted to win them. And I went to their
main headquarters downtown, asked for books that they had never
gotten out before and paid to have them copied from their copier.
And they're like, why are you doing this? I'm like, oh, just
looking for an answer where it says here you're a prophet and
you've been false and that is wrong. I didn't tell them exactly
what I was doing, but I was finding the work, you know, before they
hid it, which showed them to be false prophets. So I could
show it to these people because we were trying to reach them.
Man, that was war. That was too long ago. It's time
to wake up. It's time to suit up. It's time
to get our swords out and our weapons drawn. Let's go, sword
drill, Romans 13, here we go. Let's do a lot of flipping, how's
that? Flipping with our swords, Roman 13, I hope you have your
Bible with you. If you're using your digital Bible,
we'll count that this time. Romans 13, verse 12. Romans 13, 12. The
night is far spent. I can see Paul telling us this.
The night is far spent. The day is at hand. Let us therefore
cast off the work of darkness and let us put on the armor of
light. We have armor of light. Let's quit messing around with
the darkness. Let's put on the armor of light.
Verse 13, let us walk honestly as in the day, not in rioting
or drunkenness, not in chambering or wantonness, not in strife
or envy, but put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ and make no provision
for the flesh to fulfill the lust thereof. Let's put on Christ,
let's live for him and make no provision for the flesh. Like,
well, I'll take a break later. I'll take a little break from that
and I'll only do so much. No, let's just make no provision for that.
I'm yours today, Lord. Use me, move me, help me to do
what I can for you. And if it's at work, you're saying,
I'm at work. I don't have time to witness during that. That's great.
You know, if you have a job for them, you have to do it. Do it as if
you're working for him. That's what the Bible tells us.
Do it as if you're working for the King. That gives you a testimony
as well. That helps when you're worst
plight of righteousness, but then you have lunch breaks and
other times when maybe you can. Look at verse 11 of the same
chapter. And that knowing that the time is now high time to
awake out of sleep for now is our salvation nearer than we
first believed. Come on, fellow soldiers, let's wake up. Let's
suit up. It's later and the days are more evil than we can even
think. The battle is real. We need to wake up. We need to
stand up. We need to suit up and we need to engage the enemy.
We need to resist the devil. We need to find things that are
wrong and oppose it, get it out and be irate about it. Right
now, I'm afraid we're so Laodicean that we're like, yeah, that's
bad. Somebody should do something. Someone should say, yep, I'm
just one person. Lieutenant Governor told us, he said, he goes, if
you have one, if one person calls about something, they count that
as equal to at least 1,000. Because if you were moved enough,
so your call is actually 1,000 calls, let alone if a bunch of
us call, then it's like a landslide. They said 13 calls on any given
bill or topic or subject is a landslide. Well, that's 13,000 people, even
though it might only have been 13 people. So we can say stuff. We can kind of steer the control
of Indian Creek or Franklin or whatever it is by saying, no,
we don't want that in here. We don't want that to go on.
We want this to be decent and holy and right. We don't want
those things. By being a voice and by standing up, I can remember
being on a deacon board where they started having practices
on Wednesdays. And we went to the school, this was a Franklin
school, but we went to them and we're like, hey, we don't like you having practices
on Wednesdays. It affects youth group, it affects times we have
in church. And they're like, you're the only church in the community to complain.
So practice as it is. Tell you what, we're even gonna
have game on Sunday. Didn't used to, but the church
was quiet. So we need to battle. We need
to fight and get things back. And if they say, well, you never
said nothing before, saying, well, shame on me, I'm saying something now.
We're not doing that. Just lost my note, there we go. Let's look at some more. I think,
look at 1 Thessalonians chapter five. Like I said, sword drills. We're practicing, we're seeing
where it is in scripture to be stirred. First Thessalonians
five, verse seven. For they that sleep, sleep in
the night, and they that are drunken are drunken in the night.
But let us, whoever the day, be sober, putting on the breastplate
of faith and love, and for a helmet, the hope of salvation. There,
he reminded us, put your helmet, you know, put your equipment
on. Verse nine, for God has not appointed us to wrath, but obtained
salvation through the Lord Jesus Christ. We don't get God's wrath. We have salvation. And so what
are they gonna do? The worst they could do is what?
Nothing, kill us? We go on to be with him, but
chances are we won't. Verse 10. who died for us, that
whether we wake or sleep, we should live together with him.
Wherefore, comfort yourselves together and edify one another,
even as also ye do. He says, so we're to encourage
one another, we're to suit up, we're to battle up, we're to
be going. Look at verse 14. Now we exhort you, brethren,
warn them that are unruly, comfort the feeble-minded, support the
weak, and be patient towards all men. This is how we treat
one another. Some people you need to warn. Hey, you're kind
of going down a bad path. Some people you need to support.
Hey, I'm here with you. You're not standing on your own. I'll stand
with you. Some that are weak, we need to strengthen their faith.
We have classes. Can we have a Bible study together? And I
can work on that with you. We're to do that. Verse 17, pray without
ceasing. That's one of the weapons of
armor that we usually forget about, but we're to be praying.
We're to be lifting up, communicating with headquarters, with the heavenly
father. Verse 21, prove all things, hold fast to that which is good.
We're to test and examine everything. And we stand what is good and
we call out what is not good. And we oppose it. Verse 22, abstain
from all appearances of evil. We wanna be righteous. And we
wanna abstain from those things. We wanna stand what is good.
We wanna encourage what is good. And we need to resist the evil.
Verse 23, and the very God of peace. Very God of peace, sanctify
you holy. And I pray God, your Holy Spirit
and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of
our Lord Jesus Christ. He's expecting us to be busy
and active and doing this until the Lord Jesus comes to take
us home. And he's like, ah, I gotta take them. And we're out there
being a change agent in the world. Look at Psalm 91, Psalm 91, the
warrior Psalm. Come on warriors, let's go read
the warrior Psalm. This is one that our soldiers,
I mean, as American soldiers read often that is brought before
them. So yes, us as well. Psalm 91,
the warrior Psalm. Now notice as a warrior poet
here tells us some things. Notice what his confidence is
in. He's not confident in his skills
and his ability and his strength and his might and his experience
as a soldier. Look and see where it is. Verse
one of Psalm 91. He that dwelleth in the secret
place of the Most High shall abide under the shadow of the
Almighty. He's already saying that God is his protector, that
we're under his shadow. He's the iron dome that we have.
Verse two, I will say of the Lord, He is my refuge and my
fortress, my God, and Him will I trust. He goes, I'm not trusting
in myself, I'm trusting in the Lord. It's like being safe in
a castle. It's like being behind a locked
door. It's like being there, you know, tucked up in my room
with an AK-47, whatever it is, it's like, God is my safety net,
I'm trusting Him. Verse three, surely he shall
deliver thee from the snare of the fowler and from the noisome
and pestilence. If there's disease out there, we trust the Lord.
If there's somebody laying traps for us, the noisome fowler, we
trust the Lord. Verse four, he shall cover thee
with his feathers and under his wings shalt thou trust. His truth
shall be thy shield and thy buckler. We trust his truth, the Lord's
truth. We stand behind it no matter
what evidence, no matter what they pull up, no matter what
they say. They fear about the great, that
in the last days there'll be a falling away. And one of the
theories is that they're gonna find something in the desert
that they're gonna claim undermines the Bible. Oh, here's a new text
that we didn't know we had before. And it says that Jesus was a
charlatan and none of this is to be believed. It's old, it's
in the desert, we must believe. It'll shake people's faith. Or
do we trust what we have? Do we trust God's word that's
been preserved in our laps, in our hands, that we can be reading,
that when the Dead Sea Scrolls were found, Isaiah was not changed
at all. Are we gonna take whatever's
new and found? No, we're gonna trust in his word. It's gonna be a
shield and a buckler, his truth, a shield and a buckler. Verse
five, thou shalt not be afraid for the terror by night, nor
by the arrow that flyeth by day. Can you see how a soldier would
want this? I mean, when you don't know, those bullets flying around
and you're like, I don't know where they're going, but to be
resting in the Lord. Verse six, nor by the pestilence
that walketh in darkness, nor by the destruction that wastes
at noonday, a thousand shall fall at thy side and 10,000 at
thy right hand, but it shall not come nigh unto thee. Only
thine eyes that shall behold and see the reward of the wicked.
The only destruction you're gonna see is falling on the enemy because
you're standing in the midst of the Lord and who he is and
what he is doing. Everything else is falling down around you.
Verse nine, because thou has made the Lord, which is my refuge,
even the most high thy habitation. He lives in the Lord. That's
where we dwell, in his presence. That's the secret of understanding
the armor that we're given. Verse 10, there shall no evil
befall thee, neither shall any plague come nigh thy dwelling,
for he shall give his angels charge over thee, to keep thee
in all thy ways. They shall bear thee up in thy
hands, lest thou dash thy foot against the stone. He's saying
that angel protection around us. The devil tried to use this
verse to trap Jesus, didn't he? He's like, oh, jump off the temple
here. Lest you dash your foot against the stone, the angels
will come and get you up. And he's like, don't you tempt and test the Lord your
God. But know that there's more things going on than just us
fighting. That there, yes, there are supernatural forces out there
that are our enemy, but there's supernatural forces on our side
as well. That's battling and fighting for us, that are shielding
and guarding and protecting. We don't pray to them, but God
has them there. And sometimes we have war stories
and say, hey, I think, maybe, that might've been. Like with Elijah, I don't know
that Elijah ever saw all those fiery chariots. I just think
he knew that God had them there. And he's like, my servant needs
to see it. Could you show him? Yep, there they are. They're there. They're there. And they're probably
blushing right now saying, don't talk about us, talk about him.
There's your strength, but we're not alone. Verse 13, thou shalt tread upon
the lion and the adder and the young lion and the dragon. Thou
shalt trumple under the feet. That's what we teach him at camp.
Stomp and truly stomp him underneath our feet. Verse 14, because he
has set the love upon me, therefore will I deliver him. I will set
him on high because he has known my name. He shall call upon me
and I will answer him and I will be with him in trouble. I will
deliver him and honor him. With long life will I satisfy
him and show him my salvation. That's the warrior Psalm. Look
at Psalm 18. Psalm 18, verse two. The Lord is my rock
and my fortress and my deliverer, my God, my strength, and whom
I will trust, my buckler and my horn of my salvation, and
my high tower, the horn of my power. That's the power, that's
the strength of his salvation. Verse three, I will call upon
the Lord who is worthy to be praised, so shall I be saved
from mine enemies. The sorrow of death compassed
me and the floods of ungodly men made me afraid. The sorrow
of hell compassed me about, and the snares of death prevented
me. In my distress, I called upon the Lord and cried unto
my God. He heard my voice out of the temple, and my cry came
before him, even into his ears. Then the earth shook and trembled,
and the foundations also of the hills moved, and were shaken
because he was wroth. There went up a smoke out of
his nostrils, a fire out of the mouth, and devoured his coals,
were kindled by it. He bowed the heavens, or he bowed
the heavens also, and came down, and darkness was under his feet.
He rode upon a cherub and did fly. Yea, he did fly upon the
wings of the wind. He made darkness his secret place.
His pavilion round about him were the dark waters of the thick
clouds of the skies. at the brightness that was before
him. As thick clouds passed, hailstones and coals of fire.
The Lord also thundered in the heavens and the heights. He gave
his voice, hailstones and coals of fire. Yea, he sent out his
arrows and scattered them. And he shot out lightnings and
discomforted them. Then the channels of the waters were seen and the
foundations of the world were discovered at thy rebuke, O Lord."
At... at the blast of his breath of
his nostrils. He sent from above, he took me and he drew me out
of many waters. He delivered me from the strong
enemy and from them that hated me, for they were too strong
for me. They prevented me in the day of calamity, but the
Lord was my stay. He's like, when I got desperate,
I called on the Lord and he rescued me. And David was a soldier.
There's so many more. Psalm 27, Psalm 33, Psalm 35,
Psalm 138, Isaiah 54. No weapon has formed against you shall prosper. Job knew he had to suit up. First he started out with a relationship
with God and then he sought to go out and he put on righteousness
like a robe and he went out and he pursued the enemy and he fought
against them. Now Isaiah 59 is almost a parallel of Ephesians
6 of putting on the same armor of God. So let's suit up. Let's stand up against evil,
against the wiles of the devil, Psalms, like I said, are full
of all these things, of a battle cry, of something that we are
to read and to kind of get pumped up before you put on your armor
for the day. Yeah, it's like him going and hitting your helmet,
smacking your pads. You've got them on and it was
trusting in the Lord. It's by his strength and by the power
of his might. David knew it was the Lord's strength. It was the
Lord's might. It was the Lord who gave him speed. It was the
Lord who gave him cunning. It was the Lord who helped him
to lead and to guide the children of Israel. It was him who helped
him leap over a wall. The Bible tells us that he would
have all these fall down beside him and he would come out unscathed.
He trusted in the Lord. He trusted in God's power. And
it's the same power that you and I have to be tapped into
today. It's the same power that resurrected Jesus Christ, Ephesians
chapter one told us. It's the same power that we have
available to us, but we got to ask for it. We got to use it.
We got to do it. We got to stand up. And so yeah, same access,
same God, same thing. And if you don't have him, that's
where you need to start. You need to repent of your sins
and ask Jesus Christ to save you, join the team. He does all
the saving, He does all the keeping, and then we can do a battle for
Him. But if you do know Him, are we trusting Him? Are we getting
up and ready to do battle each and every day? From this point
forward, we go through and we look at each of these elements,
and hopefully we gain a respect and a reverence for what they
are. And we understand and we appreciate what it is He's telling
us that we have to be able to use when it comes to the evil
day, to be able to stand and to resist. that it's not by our
might, it's not by our power, but it's His that we're able
to stand and resist and to fight. I call you to fight with me as
we resist.
Primed For Battle
Series Ephesians Verse by Verse
Paul pumps us up before giving us our armor!
| Sermon ID | 317251248162882 |
| Duration | 43:28 |
| Date | |
| Category | Sunday Service |
| Bible Text | Ephesians 6:10-13; Psalm 91 |
| Language | English |
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