you so much. Take God's Word, please, this morning and open to the book of Ephesians chapter 6. We're going to look at verses 10 down to verse 13 today of Ephesians chapter 6. And I'm not going to make you stand today. You can be seated. We're going to get right into the text of Scripture. Ephesians chapter 6 verse number 10. And we begin a section in Ephesians called the Believer's Armor. Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord and in the power of his might. Put on the whole armor of God that you might be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. General Dwight Eisenhower once said, war is a terrible thing, but if you're gonna get into it, you've gotta get into it all the way. There are many Christians today who are defeated in their Christian life simply because they're not seriously engaged in the warfare to which we are called. They don't seem to understand that as followers of Christ, we are all called to engage in spiritual warfare. J.C. Rall wrote this, the saddest symptom about so many so-called Christians is the utter absence of anything like conflict and fight in their Christianity. And then he goes on to say that, you know, we go through the motions of attending religious service each week. And then he added, but of the great spiritual warfare, its watchings and strugglings, its agonies and anxieties, its battles and contests of all this, they appear to know nothing at all. Sooner or later, every believer has to understand that the Christian life is not a playground, it's a battleground. But Christians don't seem to understand that they're in a war. Perhaps it's because they came to Christ under false pretenses, maybe a false sales pitch. They were told that if you come to Jesus, he'll solve all of your problems. He'll give you everything that your heart desires. You'll have all roses and no thorns. You'll have the American dream. I mean, that's what you'll get if you come to Jesus. He promises you abundant life. And so people come, and then when they go through trials, they say, what's going on here? They expect all roses and no thorns. Now to be clear that God does have blessings for his children. There's no question that God gives us peace. There's no question that God gives us joy. There's no question that God gives us happiness and satisfaction. There are so many blessings about knowing Jesus Christ. But that's half of the truth. Jesus also said, I send you forth as sheep in the midst of wolves. He tells us that he gives us peace, but he also said, in this world, ye shall have tribulation. He assures us of his love, but he also says, look, the world does not love you. The world is gonna hate you, and the world is going to persecute you. And perhaps another reason why believers are not seriously engaged in the spiritual battle is because the wrong views that have been taught to them that are out there regarding their Christian life, regarding sanctification, regarding your process of being more like Christ. For example, there is a spiritual movement that gained popularity in the late 20th century that is still around, a lot of the remnants of it are still around, and it's a movement called spiritual quietism. Quietism is a doctrine that emphasizes a state of spiritual passivity. In other words, you really can't do much in your own Christian life as far as your sanctification. You're just to simply be quiet, be passive before the Lord. And so it emphasizes remaining quiet. It detaches itself from any inward or outward effort or actions. Quietism is really saying that all human effort with regard to your sanctification, with regard to your Christian life, all of that just gets in the way of God working. What you have to do is you have to let go and let God. You ever hear that expression? I can't, he can. Stop trying, start trusting. You just need to be quiet before the Lord. Now where did this quietism develop? It really came out of Roman Catholicism and it kind of gained notoriety under the teaching of Madame Guillaume. But it made its way into the branches of the evangelical church through the charismatic movement and a type of Christian mysticism that emphasizes all these mystical type activities. For example, one of them is called soaking prayer. What is soaking prayer? Well, it's supposed to describe something where you're just resting in the presence of God. For example, this is how you do it. You accomplish this by playing some gentle worship songs, either sitting or lying down, and praying short, simple prayers for an extended period of time, but otherwise keeping your mind free of thoughts. And that at some point, when you sense God's presence through some type of manifestation like tingling skin, or a sensation of heat or cold, or even a gentle wind seeming to blow through your body, you're to just soak in that presence. I would say if you feel all that, go see a doctor. Nowhere in the Bible is this soaking prayer mentioned or is there any model like this in scripture anywhere. Prayer in its simplest form is calling on the name of the Lord. It is speaking to God. Soaking prayer in all of its emphasis is really more like a new age type mysticism or something that will come out of Hinduism. Now, Paul will talk about prayer in Ephesians chapter six. After you put all your armor on, you are supposed to go to prayer, but he doesn't say just, you know, get your armor on and then, you know, and then just sit quietly before the Lord and then just soak it in. Can you imagine if the Baltimore Ravens put all their football equipment on, they went out on the field and they said, coach, what do we do now? And the coach says, oh, just be quiet out there on the field and just rest and just soak it in. I mean, the Pittsburgh Steelers would say, we got something for you to soak in right here. So what, we get all our armor on and we're just supposed to be quiet before the Lord? Look at Paul said in Ephesians 6, 18, praying always with all prayer and supplication in the spirit and watching thereunto with all perseverance and supplication for all saints. Sounds like it's anything but soaking. You're engaged in battle when you pray. That's where the spiritual warfare takes place. You're to pray with perseverance. You're to pray with watching. Prayer is work. But quietism basically says, no, you just rest. You just divorce yourself from any activity. And this has kind of infiltrated the Christian church. It's this favored way of being sanctified according to a lot of people. All you need to do is just surrender yourself to the Lord. And this quietest view really took root in England, in America, in a movement called the Keswick Movement. And there are still all kind of books out there that emphasize this, books by Ian Thomas, where you just, again, you just let go and you let the Lord do it all, and you're not really to put forth any effort at all in your own Christian life. Paul wrote this to the Philippians. He said, look, in Philippians 2 verse 12. Wherefore, my beloved, as you've always obeyed, not in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. You're to work out of you what God put in you. This is not working for your salvation. That's not what it's talking about. We know that we're saved by grace, not by works. But when we are saved, God puts into us his wonderful salvation, and now you know what you gotta do? You gotta work it out. You gotta figure it out. Some of you that take math or took math, you remember when you got into the higher math, like algebra or geometry or calculus, a teacher would put a problem on the board, and you'd have to work it out. You'd have to use all the principles and the laws that you learned and just work out that problem, and you'd try to work it out, and the teacher would say, that's not right, keep working at it. It's the same way in your spiritual life. God has downloaded into you a wonderful salvation and now you know what you got to do? You got to work it out. You know what that takes? It takes energy. It takes diligence on your part. You got to work it all out. The Bible tells us in Hebrews 12 that the Christian life is a race. And you're to run this race with perseverance. You're to run it with endurance. In 1 Corinthians 9, Paul said, look, the life is like a boxing match. Paul said, I fight, not as one beating the air. I'm not shadow boxing. I'm delivering real blows out there. It's a fight. In Titus 3.8, we're told to apply ourselves to good deeds, in fact, to be diligent to do that. We're told by James and Peter that we are to resist our enemy, the devil. In 1 Corinthians 9, Paul said, you know, I beat my body. I try to bring it into subjection. Why? Because I don't want to be a castaway. I've got to constantly work on disciplining myself. In Philippians 3.14, he said, I press towards the mark of the prize, the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. In 2 Corinthians 7.1, we're told to cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh, perfecting holiness in the fear of God. And then Peter says this in 2 Peter 1.4, that because God has given us precious and magnificent promises, we must apply all diligence to add to our faith virtue, and to virtue knowledge, and knowledge love, and to love kindness, and so on. And all of that takes diligence. All of that takes effort. In 1 Peter 1.13, Peter said, gird up your minds for action. Keep sober in spirit. All of this tells us that the Christian life is not passive. You can't just quietly sit by and say here. I am God sanctify me. No, it takes effort on your part. Now you might say well now, wait a minute. We've been studying the book of Ephesians and Paul compares the Christian life to a walk and a walk is not hard. I mean when you think about a walk you think about a nice beautiful day when you're out there just strolling through the park and that's not hard. That's relaxing. Yeah, well, when the New Testament uses the metaphor of a walk, it's emphasizing a walk has a consistent pattern. And as a Christian, you are to be consistent in the same pattern. It is a lifestyle, but it doesn't use the word metaphor, excuse me, the metaphor walk, because it's emphasizing that the Christian life is easy. That's not what he's saying. And just to make sure that you get the point, In the end of Ephesians 6, Paul closes the letter by saying, look, you're in a war and you need to develop a warrior's mindset. You need to wake up and realize that you are in a battle. And what you need to do is you need to put your armor on. You need to put your armor on and realize that every day is a war. a spiritual war. Listen to what Paul wrote in Romans 13, 11. And that knowing the time, that now is high time to awake out of sleep, for now is our salvation nearer than when we believed. The night is far spent, the day is at hand. Let us therefore cast off the works of darkness. Let us put on the armor of light. And so, Believers have to embrace a warrior's mentality. And that's really what Paul's emphasizing, I think, here in these first few verses of this section that we're going to be calling the Believer's Armor. And we're going to be going through this section in the next few weeks. And we're going to talk about every piece of armor and how we need it in this battle. And I'm going to try to slow down a little bit here. I'm not going to be too long. I know Martin Lloyd-Jones wrote a three-volume set on just these six verses right here. I'm not going to be that detailed, all right? But I do want to go through the armor with you. But before we do that, we need to introduce the armor of God in verses 10 down to verse 13 by giving you four important elements that you need to remember in spiritual warfare. Here's the first one, number one, the enablement. The enablement. God has given you the strength to stand. Paul is calling upon all believers to stand against the wiles of the devil. Look again in verse 10. Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord and in the power of his might. When he says finally, my brethren, Paul is concluding his letter here. And this really actually means as for the rest. Paul's already talked a lot about what you have as a believer. And really what he's gonna say now is really building upon what he's already said. that all the blessings that you have as a Christian, that's part of your might, that's part of your strength. And that's why it says finally. In other words, after everything that I've said already. I give this command. So remember what we studied in Ephesians 1? I'm going to quiz you right now. You remember? Have you been with us in all this, all the way through the book of Ephesians? So I'm going to give you a quick summary. In chapter 1, he shows us that we have all spiritual blessings in Christ. And he begins to unpack all of the blessings that we have. We've been chosen in him before the foundation of the world. He adopted us as sons. We have redemption through the precious blood of Christ. We have the forgiveness of sins according to the riches of his grace that he lavished on us. We've been given revelation into the understanding God's mystery, which is God bringing together, reconciling all things in Jesus Christ. building one church, bringing us all together in Christ. We have an eternal inheritance. We've been sealed by the Holy Spirit. We are one with Christ. Christ was raised from the dead far above all principalities and powers and the kingdom of darkness. And that's important for you to remember because he's going to refer to this in chapter six. It's also important for you to remember because you're one with Christ. And if Christ was raised above all these powers, what does that mean about you? You were also raised above all those powers with him. And since you are in Christ, you're one with Christ, all these things are under your feet, just as they are under the feet of Christ. That's part of your spiritual blessings. Then in chapter two, he talks about the wonderful blessing of salvation, reminding us that we were dead in trespasses and sins. We were made alive in Christ, that we are now his workmanship created in Christ Jesus under good works. We're fellow citizens of the kingdom, Christ being our king. We are all children in the household of God. Christ is the head. We're all living stones being placed in a temple built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ himself being the chief cornerstone. And then in chapter 3, Paul prays that we might be able to comprehend the breadth, the length, the depth, the height of all these blessings that we have in the love of God, in God's grace, this treasure chest of all these blessings that you have. Paul says, I just pray that you're able to comprehend all of this. And then chapter three ends on a doxology where he just praises God for all that we have. And then in chapter four, Paul, gets very practical, he talks about our walk, we're to walk worthy, we're to walk not as other Gentiles, we're to walk in love. Then we get into chapter five, we are to walk circumspectly. And then the central command in chapter five is in verse 18, where it says what? Be not drunk with wine when it is excess, but be filled with the Spirit. And if you're filled with the Holy Spirit, it's gonna affect every relationship in life. It's going to affect husbands and wives and children and parents and employers and employees. And based on all of that, Paul gives this command in verse 10, be strong in the Lord and in the power of his might. Notice he didn't say be strong in the power of our might, because we don't have any might. It's in the power of His might. And what is that might? It's all the blessings that He already talked about in the first five chapters. All of the spiritual resources and blessings that you have in Christ, you are now to stand in that. That is your strength. God's already given you the victory, that's the good news. You understand that? You already have the victory in Christ. You don't fight for victory, you fight from victory. Victory is not our destination, it's our point of origin. Why? Because if you're saved, you're in Christ. And again, if you're in Christ, then you've been already given a power and authority above all of these principalities and powers and so on. So you need to understand that. You're united to Christ. Someone might ask, are you afraid of the devil? And my answer is no, I'm not afraid of the devil because God's already given me victory over the devil. I'm more afraid of myself than I am the devil. I give myself more trouble than the devil gives me. You see, I hate the devil, but I love me. And I don't listen to the devil, but sometimes it's hard to say no to my flesh. And so that's my bigger problem. But the good news is you've already been given the power over Satan. And you need to be strong in that power. You say, how? Well, part of the reason or part of the way that we're strong in that power is to realize that you have that strength. that you have that power. Many Christians don't get it. You don't understand that it's part of your spiritual riches, that you have this authority, this power that Christ has given you. That's why Paul prayed in chapter 1, verse 18, that the eyes of your understanding might be enlightened, that God would open your eyes. Dr. Adrian Rogers used to tell this story. He said, have you ever seen a massive elephant at a circus where his leg is chained to a stake in the ground? And you look at that elephant, and you think, that elephant can move that stake anytime he wanted to. Why doesn't he? Well, because when he was a little baby elephant, they chained him to a stake, and he couldn't move it. He tried to move it, but he couldn't. However, as he grew into adulthood, he had it in his mind that he couldn't move that stake. And now as an adult elephant, he has a strength that he didn't have before, but still he has it in his mind that he can't move that stake. And so what he doesn't realize, he's actually free. And what really has chained him is not that stake and that chain, but it's his thinking and his mind. And you know, many Christians are just like that. It may be that before you knew Jesus Christ, you were chained, the devil chained you to an idea, a philosophy, a habit, some lifestyle. But now that you're in Christ, you have the ability to free yourself from all of that. But the problem is you don't even try because you don't realize that you have a new strength now that you didn't have before. And what's changed you is not that problem. What's changed you is that you don't get it, that you have a new strength that comes from Jesus Christ. And the way that you're strong in the Lord is to realize that you have this strength, and it's not of you, it is of Christ. And once you realize that, that's how you become strong in the Lord. So it starts in your thinking. By the way, Satan doesn't want you to know that. He wants you to be ignorant about that because if he can blind you, he can bind you. Ignorance is his biggest weapon. So you need to understand, number one, your enablement. have the strength to stand. God has given you that strength. But then here's number two, the equipment. You have the equipment needed. Look in verse 11. Put on the whole armor of God that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. This is the next commandment in this passage. The first commandment, be strong. The second commandment, put on the armor of God. Put on your armor. Now, when Paul wrote this, you have to remember he's in prison, right? And what does he have chained to him in prison? He has a Roman soldier chained to him in prison. For 24 hours a day, seven days a week, he's chained to a Roman soldier. That's why in Ephesians 6.20, he says, I'm your ambassador in bonds, or I'm your ambassador in chains. And the word for chains there speaks about some handcuffs that were about 18 inches long on a chain, and One part of it would be handcuffed to Paul. The other part would be handcuffed to a Roman soldier. And so maybe even when Paul's writing this, he's chained to this Roman soldier, and he's looking at what this Roman soldier is wearing. He's wearing his armor. And Paul's looking at that armor and saying, you know what, as believers, we have that spiritually. We have that same armor. And under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, Paul uses that as a metaphor, as an illustration of the weapons that God has given us in Christ so that we can stand against the devil. And Paul says, as believers, what we have to do is we have to put on that armor. We gotta put it on. The word put on here in verse number 11, it is the Greek word enduo, literally to clothe yourself with. Put this on, clothe yourself with your armor. This is an aorist tense verb. What does that mean? Once for all. In other words, it's not something that you put on just for a special occasion. Like, you know, I wear this suit on Sunday morning. I wear it on a special occasion when we come and worship God. But I don't go throughout the whole week wearing a suit, all right, this suit, all right. We put on special garments for special occasions. That's not what this is talking about. The Aorist tense means you put this armor on one time, and guess what? You leave it on. You put it on, and you leave it on. You sleep in it. You keep it on all the time. That's the whole idea here. The problem with some Christians is, first of all, they haven't put their armor on, and then some of them, when they put it on, they take it back off. Don't get caught without your armor. That's the idea here. The following story is told by Leroy Imes. It's about the time when he was serving in the Marines in the South Pacific during World War II. And he writes this, quote, shortly after we hit the beach, our armored amphibious tank took two artillery shells broadside. We immediately evacuated our disabled vehicle and darted from hole to hole toward the enemy airstrip which we were to take. The sergeant began to check on us to make sure that we're okay. He crawled over to me and he said, you all right, Imes? I answered, yeah, I'm okay, Sarge. He looked at me and said, Imes, where's your helmet? I felt the top of my head and said, it must be in the tank, Sarge. Well, where's your duty belt? Our duty belts carried ammunition for our rifles, our canteen of water, our bayonet. It must be in the tank, Sarge. As a matter of fact, Imes, where is your rifle? He looked at me with disgust and pity. He said, here I was, dressed like I was going to a volleyball game, crawling from hole to hole, without any of my equipment. And I read that and I thought, that's a picture of the average believer in the church today. We're dressed more to play than we are to go to war. And Paul here is saying, look, put on your armor. Put it on, why? So that you can stand against the wiles of the devil. And notice he says, put on the whole armor. That is, put on all of it, every piece of it. Don't leave any of it off. Because you have an enemy that's going to come at you when you least expect it. That's why you always keep your armor on. Winston Churchill once said this, we must always be ready at our average moment to meet what the enemy will throw at us at his select moment. And Satan knows when to hit you. The goal here is to stand against the wiles of the devil. And by the way, the word stand is a key word. We see it in verse 11. We see it in verse 13. We see it in verse 14. Verse 13, withstand, that's a compound form of the word. It's a military term. It's the idea of standing against an attack. And Satan will attack. But God's given you the equipment that you need. So there's the enablement. There's the equipment. You've been given the equipment you need. Then number three, there's the enlightenment. You face a spiritual enemy. Look at verse number 12. For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places. Beloved, this is not a physical battle. This is a spiritual war, and it takes place in the spiritual realm. Our greatest enemy is an enemy that we cannot see. How do you fight an enemy that you can't see? Principalities, powers, rulers of darkness of this world, spiritual wickedness in high places. This is all, this is describing Satan's invisible army. It's organized, it's systematic, there are ranks. This is the army that he sets in array against the child of God. So again, the question is, how do you fight this enemy, this invisible enemy? Well, again, we don't use carnal weapons. That is to say physical weapons. You can't use a gun against Satan. You don't fight him with a sword. You can't hit him with your fist or throw something at him. Martin Luther, it is said of Martin Luther during the height of his battle when he was facing the onslaught of the Roman Catholic Church when he uncovered the purity of the gospel, that the spiritual war was so great with him, one time sitting at his desk, he picked up his ink horn and he threw it at the devil. And he made a big blotch of ink stain against the wall. They say you can go see it today in that castle there. I don't know if he hit him, evidently not. I don't know how he saw him. Maybe he was just expressing frustration, but I'll tell you this, you can't throw something at the devil to hit him. You can't use physical weapons to fight a spiritual enemy. Listen to what Paul said in 2 Corinthians 10.3, for though we walk in the flesh, we do not war after the flesh. That is, I live in this physical body, but the war that I fight and you fight, I don't use physical weapons for this war. for the weapons of our warfare are not physical, carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strongholds. And the strongholds represent fortresses where people are in prison. And what are these fortresses? These are ideas, these are philosophies, these are things that Satan has imprisoned people in, and the only way you can overcome those strongholds is with spiritual weapons. not carnal weapons. And what is it? What is our weapon? It's the Word of God. It's the truth of God's Word. And of course, Luther knows this because he would later write the song, A Mighty Fortress Is Our God, where he wrote, The prince of darkness grim, we tremble not for him. His rage we can endure, for lo, his doom is sure. One little word shall fail him. That is one little verse from God's word is enough to take care of our enemy because we need a spiritual weapons. So think about when Jesus faced Satan in the wilderness, the temptation, where did that battle take place? It wasn't really a geographical battle, because they went to different places. It wasn't really a physical battle. It was really a battle that was fought in the mind with ideas. And every time Satan would give a lie, what would Jesus do? He would confront that lie with the truth of scripture. He would apply God's word. It is written. It is written. It is written. This is how Satan lost the battle. This is how Christ overcame Satan was through the word of God. And so the battle begins really in the mind. It begins with the lies that Satan will try to tell. Let me give you this last point and we'll be done. The enablement, God's given you the strength to stand. The equipment, you have the equipment needed. The enlightenment, you face a spiritual enemy, you need a spiritual weapon, God's word. And then number four, the engagement. You need to be ready for battle every day. Look at verse 13. Wherefore take on you the whole armor of God, that you might be able to stand in the evil day, having done all to stand. Again, having done all. This is not passive, this is not being quiet. It's gonna take everything you have, You need to put on your armor, and you need to be ready. When he says whole armor of God, the Greek word is panoplia, where we get the word panoply. And again, it has the idea of all the equipment. When a Roman soldier had his panoply, that means he had all the defensive armor on, he had all of his offensive weapons, he had all of it, none of it was lacking. That's the idea here. We need to put on all the armor so that we can stand in the evil day. You say, what day is the evil day? It's today. And tomorrow, it's going to be tomorrow. It's not talking about some future day of eschatology. No, this is talking about every day, every day has been the evil day since Adam fell in the Garden of Eden. And it will be until Jesus Christ comes again. So you have to be ready every day for the battle, not just one day, but every day. And that's the whole point here. You've got to stay ready. But sadly, most believers in the church are AWOL. I'm surprised to see so many Christians that were once faithful just be AWOL. Most churches consist of a handful of people who are standing in a battle and they're battle-weary, while others don't seem to realize that this is a spiritual war. This is a war. This is a battleship. This is not a cruise line. And we need to be at our battle stations. Let me close with this. Years ago, a missionary in the jungles of New Guinea wrote the following letter to his friends and family back home. And I want to read this letter. This is what he wrote. He said, man, it is great to be in the thick of the fight, to draw the old devil's heaviest guns, to have him at you with depression and discouragement and slander and disease. He doesn't waste time on a lukewarm bunch. He hits good and hard when a fellow is hitting him. You can always measure the weight of your blow by the one you get back. When you're on your back with fever at last ounce of strength, when some of your converts backslide, when you learn that your most promising inquirers are only fooling, when you get mail that, when your mail gets held up and some don't bother to answer your letters, is that the time to put on mourning? No, sir. That's the time to pull out all the stops and shout hallelujah. The old fellow's getting it back in the neck and hitting back. Heaven is leaning over the embattlement and watching. Will he stick with it? As they see who is with us, as they see the unlimited reserves, the boundless resources, as they see the impossibility of failure, how disgusted and sad they must be when we run away. Glory to God, we're not going to run away. We are going to stand. And that's what Paul is calling us to do. Stand. Be strong in the Lord and the power of his might. Put on the whole armor of God that you might be able to stand. Let's bow for prayer together. Father, thank you for your word and how it encourages us by showing us all of the resources that you have given us in Christ. So Lord, would you please help us to be awakened, to hear the words of Scripture as the Apostle Paul prayed that our understanding would be opened, that our minds would be enlightened to know all of these resources power and blessing and strength that you've given to those that belong to you. And that there's no reason for us to run. There's no reason for us to be defeated because, Lord, you have indeed given us the victory. So, Father, help us to develop this warrior mindset. Help us to realize that we're in a battle every day, every day, and we need to be anything but quiet. Yes, Lord, we do need to depend upon you for your strength. We do know that, Lord, it's you that works in us both to will and to do of your good pleasure. But, Lord, we also have a responsibility to fight, to put forth effort, to realize that we're in a war. and to not be lazy. So Lord, help us in this. I pray for every soul here today, Lord, that you'll just do a great work in every heart in life. Give victory, Lord, for those who have been defeated with certain areas. Lord, help them to realize the strength and the victory that you've already given. May they claim that victory that they have in Christ. And Lord, as we go through this passage, teach us how to be good warriors for Christ. And with heads bowed and eyes closed, I just want to invite you, friend, if you're here today and you've never put your faith in Christ, I invite you to do that today. Jesus Christ on the cross took all of your sins upon himself. He satisfied the wrath of God against sin, your sin specifically. When he died on the cross, God's wrath was satisfied. He paid your penalty. Salvation is now a gift purchased by Jesus. He offers it to you today if you'll reach out in faith. And if you've never done that, I encourage you right now, would you just pray this right where you are and mean it? God, be merciful to me, a sinner, save me, forgive me for my sin. I turn from my sin, I turn to you, Lord Jesus, save me. And friend, if you pray that and you mean it, He will save you. And let us know because we want to encourage you along in your Christian walk. Thank you, Father, for your Word. May we apply it, we pray in Jesus' name. Amen.