I'd like for you to turn in your Bible over to Ephesians chapter 6. Ephesians chapter 6. We are beginning a series, several weeks we're going to be doing this. And I've entitled this, The Invisible War. You know, as we look at the news and watch video and all these kind of things, the wickedness, the war that's going on, the killing of innocents, just the absolutely horrendous and horrific things that are going on. And we're thinking in the physical realm, and in the physical realm there are some terrible things that are happening. But what's even worse is what is happening in the spiritual realm, the realm that we can't see with our eyes. While we cannot see the individuals involved in this invisible war, we can clearly at times see the evidence. of that war. And it's a very important war. If you're a believer, if you've trusted Christ as your Savior, you are in that war. You may be a good soldier. You may be a bad soldier. You may be somewhere in between. But nevertheless, God wants us to be good soldiers. Now, this spiritual war that is going on, if I could just put it down on a very simple level, and talk about what it's over. Now, we know generally it's Satan trying to be God. He's always had that ambition. We know that, we get that, okay? But on a practical level, what is he trying to do? Well, the scriptures are full of references having to do with this issue. And let me say very clearly that the spiritual war that is going on is for the souls of men, all right, and women. as well. It is for the souls of men. In other words, Satan, the devil, who is real. Oh, I don't believe he's real. Right there it shows that you're already a victim of this war because he is just as real as can be. Jesus dealt with him. Jesus knows he's real. And Jesus is God from all eternity. Who is Satan? Well, Satan was an angel among... many, many angels, we don't know the exact number of angels, but somewhere in history, alright, somewhere in the past, Satan decided he was going to, God evidently gave him the choice, as he did at one point all the angels, and Satan was going to rebel towards God. And of course his heart and his mind and his thoughts are in scripture where it says, I will be like the Most High. He wanted to be God. He wanted to basically be on the same level or if not above God himself. And what God did was he says, OK, you all you make a choice evidently this is the way it worked out I can't give you a specific verse on the details of this but God said you make a choice you either you know which way is it gonna go if Satan decided he's gonna go against God he went against God and God said okay who else is going with them now he didn't I don't know if he said exactly that hate to put words in God's mouth not a good thing to do But nevertheless, he gave them a choice. Many angels went with Satan, all right? So with Satan, he was an angel, beautiful angel, tremendous, gorgeous angel, very intelligent. He fell, and with him, he took other angels with him. Now, we call those fallen angels today, we call them demons. Demons. That's what a demon is, it's a fallen angel. And so you've got the forces of Satan. And then, of course, we have the Lord. And there's the good angels, for lack of a better term, Michael, Gabriel, and all the rest. And they are on God's side. Then you have Satan and the other angels on his side. And so you've got this conflict going on. And when it comes to the Earth, now, it's very interesting that the Bible in 2 Corinthians 4, as we will see, calls Satan the god of this world. the God of this world, little g, little g. He runs things. Now I know people say, well, God runs the world. Well, he does overall, but he lets Satan run things to an extent. You might say Satan's running things, but he's on a chain, right? And God is ultimately over that. And Satan can't do anything unless God would permit him to do it. Now, we're not going to get into all the details of why would God permit Satan to do this and do that. Maybe we'll do that another time down the road. But here's the point. There is a battle going on. There's a war going on, and it's for the souls of men. And Satan is trying to keep people from trusting Jesus Christ, the Savior. This is the whole idea. People say, well, why is there such thing as a teaching of evolution? To keep people from trusting Jesus Christ as Savior. Did you know that? That's really the bottom line. You might say, I don't get it. How does that work? Well, it's very easy. If evolution is true, then God is not. So you're not going to believe the Bible. If you're not going to believe the Bible, you're not going to believe the gospel that's in the Bible, the plan of salvation. If you don't believe the plan of salvation, you'll end up in hell when you die. It's a terrible thought, but that is the truth of it. And so there's that situation. There's all these other things that come up. But the bottom line is to get people to not believe in Christ as their Savior. That's the bottom line. And that is what drives all of this. Now, we are looking at the spiritual armor of the believer in the next few weeks. But understand this. Spiritual armor, the whole armor of God, many times it is taught as an end to itself. It's not. Soldiers put on armor to do battle, and the battle is for the souls of men. So let's understand that. It isn't so that we can live lives of success. That's not why God gives us the armor. But many times that's how it's taught. That's how it's thought of. Well, I'll put this on and that'll protect me from Satan. And the inference almost is that that way I'll be happy and comfortable. No, that's not what the armor is for. The armor is for warfare. That's what the armor is for. It is so we can be good soldiers and stay on track. Now we're here in Ephesians 6, verse 10, it says, finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord and in the power of his might. First thing we wanna see is this, we are to find our strength in the Lord, not ourselves. We are to find our strength in the Lord, not ourselves. Listen, none of us are a match for Satan in ourselves. We are not, okay? I get very uncomfortable when I hear of people who fool around and they'll say, come on, Satan, I'm ready for it. I'll take you on, all this kind of stuff. No, friend, listen, that is foolishness. That is foolishness. You don't see that in the Bible. You don't see any of the believers, the writers of the Bible, with that kind of an attitude. You just don't see it. Be strong in the Lord and in the power of his might. The issue in the following verses here, having to do with the armor of God, is not really written for a self-centered end, as I've already mentioned. The context here is spiritual warfare. Warfare, Christian life, not a playground. It's a battleground. Now this is clear, by the way, from verses 15 through 20. Look at it with me, Ephesians 6, 15 through 20. Look at the language. Here, wrapping up the armor, it says in verse 15, and your feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace, above all taking the shield of faith wherewith ye shall be able to quench all the fiery darts. of the wicked and take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the spirit which is the word of God, praying always with all prayer and supplication in the spirit and watching thereunto with all perseverance and supplication for all saints. It doesn't stop there. Paul says, and for me that utterance may be given unto me that I may open my mouth boldly to make known the mystery of the gospel, for which I am an ambassador in bonds, that therein I may speak boldly as I ought to speak." And so all the armor, before we even get to the armor, it's talking about spiritual war. After the armor, it's talking about spiritual war. and the tasks that we have. So again, the armor is not to be put on so that we are comfortable for ourselves. The armor is for us to put on so that we can do battle properly. We can suit up and be ready for the battle that is ahead. Now let's go to verse 11, Ephesians 6. Verse 11, finally my brethren be strong in the Lord and in the power of his might, verse 11, 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 the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness. in high places. You notice we don't wrestle against flesh and blood. Now flesh and blood can be manipulated by Satan, but that is really not the enemy, really. Now maybe on a lower scale, because there are wicked people, but how did they get wicked? You might say, well, they have a sin nature. Well, they do have a sin nature. But you know what else they've done? They have succumbed. They have given in to the wickedness of the wicked one and bought into his system because the world system is very perverse, if you haven't noticed, very wicked, very corrupt. And so we see that we are first to find our strength in the Lord, not in ourselves. But secondly, we are to put on the whole armor of God, the whole armor. That speaks of completeness. This is not some casual issue, okay? It is a matter of life and effectiveness as good soldiers. No soldier going into hand-to-hand combat would dare, nowadays, well, he may if he didn't have a choice, but no soldier in his right mind would not go into combat without weapons and without a helmet on. You just wouldn't do it. There's got to be protection. Why? Well, you're trying to not only survive, you're trying to conquer your enemy. Well, it's the same in a Christian life. We don't haphazardly do this. Oh, you know what? I really like that. I really like that thing about the helmet of salvation. I think that sounds kind of cool. Sword of the Spirit. Yeah, I'd like one of those, too. But you know, these other things are feet shot and breastplate of righteousness. I mean, that may weigh me down. That's going to be hot in the summer, a breastplate of righteousness. I mean, no, no. It's like, wait a minute. We're talking about something necessary, okay? Necessary. Now when I think, when it talks about put on the whole armor of God, obviously God wants us to know what these things are, but I think there's a general truth that's over all of these pieces. You know what it is? be properly prepared, completely as a believer. In other words, if you're a Christian, if you're a believer, you be surrendered to the Lord, you are looking to God, you're walking by faith, you're depending upon Him. You are living the way you should be living as a Christian, confessing sin, not letting anything, not letting the weights of the world weigh you down because they're gonna slow you down. as you serve the master, the king of kings, the captain of our salvation. Isn't that a great phrase, by the way, from Hebrews? So we are not putting on armor to simply be protected so that we're comfortable, like dealing with cold weather, you know? We're putting it on to be protected while we engage in battle. And so be completely spiritually minded, I think is what Paul is getting at here. Third thing I want to mention is this. We are to do it so that we can stand against the wiles of the devil. The word wiles, that's an interesting word. When I was growing up, one of my favorite cartoons Some of you know where I'm going with this. Wile E. Coyote, okay, the roadrunner. Wile E. Coyote, he never learned, but his name was Wile E. Okay, why? Because he was always scheming. He was always strategizing. He was always trying to figure a way to get to the roadrunner, okay? It's very interesting, the word, the wiles here, the wiles of the devil, it means, The schemes are the strategies. Now, we admire people who have been through, I'll tell you what, a decorated soldier. Don't you love a decorated soldier? Somebody who's been through the battles, maybe a five-star general or something like this. And we just admire these people. Why? They're sharp, they're disciplined, they're focused, they're full of wisdom in their field. I mean, they're just, it's like, man, that person's so sharp. I think the world of him. Well, you know what, on the dark side, there's nobody as sharp as Satan. There's nobody as sharp as Satan. And folks, listen, he has been at it since he fell. Actually, before he fell, he was blessed with wisdom, but when he fell, he's using it for perverted reasons, okay? And he is using those abilities and all the knowledge he's acquired over time. all the learning, thousands and thousands and thousands of years and billions and billions of people that he has worked on over time. And listen, for lack of a better term, he knows every trick in the book. And so we need to understand he has schemes and he has plans. And can I tell you when it comes to you and me, if you've trusted Jesus Christ, the Savior, I believe this with all my heart. I can't give you an exact verse, but as I understand it, and this makes sense to me, I think Satan and his demons, what they do is they observe us. They can't read your mind. They can't read your mind. But they can observe, and they watch us, and they watch the way we live, and they watch what we do, and they watch what we say, and they know by watching us and observing us, they know where our weaknesses are, and that is where they attack. And you know, sometimes it's the same for two people, and sometimes there are different areas for those two people. Everybody's got their weak areas. Now the truth of it is, you probably know where your weak areas are. And if you do, I promise you it's going to attack you there. Now, why would he do that? Well, we're putting together the big picture here. But he is a brilliant enemy. Satan has an overall plan and many smaller plans. You notice it's the wiles of the devil, not the wile of the devil. He's got many strategies. He's got this plan to this point and then this plan to that point. He knows how to do it. Let's break this person down. I was sharing with somebody just the other day. You know, when Satan attacks, I get the view of a boxing ring, and the match gets out of control. And it's like Satan is one of the boxers, and you're the other one. And he hits you, and he knocks you down, okay? Well, in a regular boxing match, what happens? The referee steps in, holds the one boxer who's still on his feet back. He has to go to his corner while the other guy recovers. When we battle with Satan, he is so wicked, he is so ruthless that if he knocks you down, he's going to keep at it. He's going to just beat you as long as he can and do as much damage as he possibly can. Why? Because you've got the image of God on you as a child of God. He hates you. He hates me. And he wants to destroy our lives. And I believe with all my heart, one of the greatest victories Satan can have is when a born-again Christian commits suicide. It is a tremendous victory for Satan. All right? Is he behind the wickedness of this world? Yes, to some extent. You might say, what do you mean, some extent? Well, mankind's behind a lot of the wickedness too, right? Mankind is sort of like his minion many times. He tempts us, but we have to take the bait, and then we run with it. He's the great salesman. By the way, he never shows you the price tag. So yes, he is behind the wickedness of this world. Does he want people destroyed by drugs? Yes. Disease? Yes. Evil thoughts? Yes. But it's much bigger than that. It's much bigger. What is the war about? Again, it is Satan's plan to keep mankind blind to the gospel. It is to keep man from trusting Jesus Christ alone as Savior, because what does a person have to do to end up in hell? Nothing, absolutely nothing. If Satan can simply keep us blind to the gospel and we die lost, we'll spend forever separated from God. John 3.18 says that we are condemned already if we have not believed in Christ as our Savior. We've not trusted him as our payment for sin. And so what is his chief goal then? Listen, he has the world where he wants it. He has lost people where he wants them. Now is he working in those lives? He's working in those lives. But folks, I don't believe for a minute that's his main focus. I'm glad you're sitting down. His main focus is you and me, not the lost. You and me, that's his focus. I believe if you could call them man hours, we'll call them demon hours. If you were to look at all the demon hours being invested in the work of Satan, you would find a vast majority of that time is on believers, not lost people. Why? Well, turn with me to 2 Corinthians chapter 4. Hold your place in Ephesians, we'll be back. 2 Corinthians chapter 4, it says this in verse 3, but if our gospel, our plan of salvation, our message, but if our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost, in whom the God of this world, there he is, little g, in whom the God of this world hath blinded, the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them." What does he blind them with? Can I tell you how he blinds them? He blinds them with a false message. That's how he blinds them. He blinds them with a false hope. He blinds them with wrong ideas. How can he keep lost people blind? Well, here you go. He can do it by keeping Christians from sharing the true gospel of grace. And this is where it gets sticky for us, because this is where he's working the hardest, okay? We are the ones with the answer. And just take an example here. Let's take Blaine, all right? And I appreciate you sharing Christ on your last flight, and that's awesome. But can I tell you this? Blaine has the answer. I know Blaine's trusted Christ as Savior. Now when Satan looks at Blaine, he says, okay, what I have to do is I have to get some ideas in his mind that'll either get him sidetracked, ashamed, confused or so tied up to where whatever it takes, I need to get him to shut his mouth. Because if I can get him to shut his mouth, people will never hear the gospel from him. And if they never hear the gospel, they'll never be saved. So I'll get more people in hell if I can just keep the mouths of the Christians shut. And so what can I do? to accomplish that. This is where he's hard at work. Romans 10, 17 says this, so then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God. Faith comes by hearing. The Bible says, for by grace are you saved through, what? Faith, and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God, it's not of works, lest any man should boast. A person is saved when they realize they are lost, they cannot save themselves, okay? And then they believe that when Jesus died on the cross, he paid for all of their sin when he died there. Every bit of it was paid in full. He rose from the grave to prove it was done. And anybody who puts their faith in Jesus Christ as their one and only Savior, God gives them that very moment. He gives them everlasting life. They are safe and secure forever. They're a child of God forever. God says he'll never lose us. He'll never cast us out. Nothing will ever separate us from the love of Christ. We have reservations reserved in heaven for us. We are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation. I mean, the wonder of our salvation, our eternal life. We are forgiven forever. We're justified from all things. We shall not come under condemnation, but we've passed from death unto life. And Satan thinks, if I can just keep the world from hearing that, I can get more people in hell. But wait, to keep the world from hearing that, I have to keep the Christians from telling them. because if they never hear it, they'll never know, and they'll end up lost forever. So he will try to keep people blind through proven methods in the lives of Christians, all right? These are the methods I think he uses. There may be more. I have four that I want to give you here. The first is this, fear, fear. This is by getting us to be too afraid to share the gospel. We'll talk a billion words a minute about anything. But when it comes to the gospel, all of a sudden we get sweaty, we get clammy, we get scared. Why is that? Well, I think he shoots darts at us. I think he's invested in our thinking and our thought patterns. He's gotten us to think about ourselves. He's gotten us to think all kinds of things. Our imaginations run wild. The person's not going to accept it. We know that they're most likely not going to punch us out or shoot us with a gun or stab us with a knife, but we act like they're going to because we're so scared. He uses fear. You notice in Ephesians back there in Ephesians 6, 19, Paul says, And for me, that utterance may be given unto me that I may open my mouth boldly. He says, Would you pray for me that I would open my mouth boldly? I say, Paul never had a problem, did he? Oh, yes, he did. Oh, yes, he did. He talked about it. First Corinthians chapter 2, he said he was with them in meekness and in fear and in much trembling. The Lord had to appear to him in jail to comfort him and encourage him because he was discouraged in ministry. Listen, he wasn't Jesus. He was like us. He says in verse 20, for which I am an ambassador in bonds, that therein I may speak boldly as I ought to speak. 2 Timothy 1, 7, Paul said to Timothy, for God hath not given us the spirit of fear, but of power, love, and a sound mind. When we are afraid, folks, to share the gospel, we are being attacked. Barriers are being thrown up in our face by Satan to stop us. from doing it, and anything he can throw at us. Just pulverize that Christian, anything, get him to be quiet, get him to turn his back, get him to walk away. And then when he walks away, shoot some fiery darts in his head to where he kicks himself and he's down on himself, and he swears that he'll never witness again. This is how he works. See, remember, to get us down is one thing, but he's gonna kick us while we're down. Anything to discourage us. First Thessalonians 2, 4 says, but as we were allowed of God to be put in trust with the gospel, even so we speak, not as pleasing men, but God which trieth our hearts. So he works by making us afraid or by encouraging us, that sounds funny, encouraging us to be afraid. Sounds funny, doesn't it? Satan saying, I'm encouraging you to be afraid. How about this? Discouraging us with fear. Scared to death. Why are we afraid? You know, it makes no sense. Really, it makes no sense. Secondly, remember he's working on Christians to keep their mouths shut. So he will try to keep people blind through these proven methods, one by fear, secondly by perverting the gospel, by perverting the gospel. He wants to get Christians to pervert the gospel and tell people something that can't save them. Such as lordship salvation. I heard another term for lordship salvation the other day. It was great. Now you always have to explain it because most people wouldn't note it. Lodeship salvation. Lodeship salvation. You load people. You put all kinds of stuff on their back and then here's what you have to do. You have to do this and you have to be faithful to the end and you have to persevere and you have to surrender all, and you have to promise God you won't do it anymore, and you have to make this commitment, you have to mean business with God. If you're not faithful to that commitment, you're never saved. You'll never make it. You have to go back, and back, and back again. Faith alone in Christ alone is not enough, they'll say. You must also have to persevere and be faithful if you want to go to heaven. That is a false gospel. That is Satan's gospel. It is mixing grace with works, which ends up being a works for salvation message. It is straight from hell, folks. It is straight from hell. Lordship salvation, legalism, just works. What do you have to do to be saved? Well, you have to be a good person. You'll never go to heaven. Where'd they get that message? Hey, can I tell you where they got it? One, it's the natural man thinks that. But secondly, that's how they've been taught their whole life. Where? Where? Church. Church. Many churches are one of the main tools Satan is using to keep people blind. Because people go to church and figure, well, this is a righteous place. And the guy who's going to get up in the pulpit, he's going to be a righteous man. Or nowadays, a woman gets up there. I'm not saying I approve, but that's what happens. And they'll say, they're going to be a righteous person. They're going to tell me the truth. Oh, yeah? Oh, yeah? How do you know they're going to tell you the truth? How can you know it's the truth? There's only one way, it's by knowing this. But this is how Satan works. Paul said to the Galatian believers, I marvel that you are so soon removed from him that called you into the grace of Christ and to another gospel, which is not another. But there be some that trouble you and would pervert the gospel of Christ. That word pervert means to twist, to change into that which is of opposite character. It's like from darkness to light, okay? That's the idea. Perverting, twisting it. In other words, changing it from a message that brings salvation to one that brings damnation. Yet many people are adding works to the gospel. Folks, listen, it doesn't matter how many works. One work perverts the gospel. If there's any amount, somebody gives you any amount of faithfulness that you must accomplish to go to heaven, that is a false gospel. You've perverted grace. Because grace is unmerited, it is undeserved. And yet we are saved by grace through faith. Okay? Paul says, anybody who perverts the gospel, it's an accursed message. He says, let that person be accursed. This is the bottom line. But these false gospels, Satan is using them. Big names in Christianity today are preaching a false, perverted gospel. Is everything they say wrong? No. Chances are the majority of what they say is right. That's the heartbreak of it. They're good on a lot of stuff until they get to the gospel, and then they mutilate it. But people don't know any better, so they figure, well, they're right on this, so they must be right on the gospel. And so they say, OK, well, what is this people they say John 3, 16 is enough to go to heaven? Well, Dr. So-and-so says that's not enough. There's also all these other things, too, you have to do. And so they believe a false gospel. Hey, I got news for you. If a person's believing a false gospel, they're not saved. They're being blinded by the devil. Number three, by the sinful living of believers. This is how Satan is working in our lives to keep lost people blind by the sinful living of believers. He wants to get our lives, those of us who are believers, he wants to get our lives so carnal and so sinful that we are ashamed. to share the gospel. Because we know we're living a wicked life. We know we're living in sin. We know we're not living the way we should. And so we're so ashamed of that, we won't share it. Or if we, listen, if we do share it, people think we're crazy. Here we are living obviously a worldly sinful life and even the world knows it. And we come and say, Jesus will save you, he'll deliver you. And they look and they say, I don't know if I want that Jesus. I don't see much in that person's life. He wants to get our lives so carnal and so sinful that we're ashamed to share the gospel. If he can't ruin our message, then he'll try to ruin our testimonies. He will tempt us so that we will choose sin, and we will fall, and we will be so humiliated and ashamed that we will shut our mouths, because we're ashamed. Because we figure, you know, if I share the gospel with that person and they know what has happened to me, they're gonna throw it back in my face. And therefore we don't say anything. See, that's Satan working on the life. Remember, he's got a long-term goal, right? To keep our mouth shut. So he starts working on us here, working on us here, leading us on, getting us to fall. There you go, now I've accomplished what I wanted in that life. But it took a while, it took a while. And the last one, number four, by getting believers to adopt false priorities for their lives. Recreation, family, work, hobbies, image, self-image. Listen, even Christian causes that may have some importance but are not priority. Can I say this? Now, there's a lot of good causes, but can I say this, folks? There is no greater cause than the gospel. There's no greater cause than sharing the gospel with lost people. There's no greater cause. You can be pro-life, okay? You can be conservative. You can be for family values. You can be all these things. And you know, there's plenty of lost people who are that way. They're not saved, and when they die, they'll be lost forever, because you're not saved by good works. You're saved by grace. And there will be Christians who will say, yeah, I'm really going to get involved in that. And we'll get involved in this movement. And now I'm going to go march for this cause. And there will be lots of people who will march for a cause. But very few of those same people will ever explain a heaven track to a lost person. Now listen, Satan's got you exactly where he wants you to be, if that's the case. Exactly where he wants you to be. Folks, there's an invisible war going on and it is for the souls of men. I'd like you to take these four things we've looked at tonight, I'd like you to pray over them, think about them, and don't think about them for anybody else but yourself. Where am I on this stuff? Has Satan gotten me? Is he pulling my strings? Am I sort of like a puppet in a show to where he's just manipulating me and he knows exactly where to get me? And the problem is I'm going along with him. Anything he can do. You've heard me say it often, time is life. Let's be wise. Well, friends, that concludes this edition of Voice of Assurance. Thanks so much for listening. And would you share this ministry with a friend? To contact us or learn more about our ministry, please visit www.northlandchurch.com. Your prayers and support for this ministry are greatly appreciated. Thank you so much, and God bless you.