We'll return to Ephesians chapter 4. Once again, we have been looking at this or starting off with this verse anyway over these weeks as we have been considering the battle that we are in and methods that we should be observing as we defend and as we attack against sin and against the devil. against our own selves also, because we have an old nature which strives and wars against the spirit. And as we have been considering these things, we've been looking at the starting point of verse 26 of Ephesians 4. So we'll just read a few verses from here, and I think that this time we will begin at the verse 20. Verse 17, this I say therefore and testify in the Lord that ye henceforth walk not as other Gentiles walk, in the vanity of their mind, having the understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart. being past feeling, have given themselves over unto lasciviousness, to work all uncleanness with greediness. But ye have not so learned Christ, if so be that ye have heard him, and have been taught by him, as the truth is in Jesus, that ye put off concerning the former conversation, the old man which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts, and be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and that ye put on the new man, which, after God, is created in righteousness and true holiness. Wherefore, putting away lying, speak every man truth with his neighbor, for we are members one of another. Be ye angry, and sin not. Let not the sun go down upon your wrath, neither give place to the devil. Let him that stole steal no more, but rather let him labour, working with his hands the thing which is good, that he may have to give to him that needeth. Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth, but that which is good to the use of edifying, that it may minister grace unto the hearers. And grieve not the Holy Spirit of God, whereby ye are sealed unto the day of redemption. Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and evil speaking be put away from you with all malice. Be kind one to another, tender-hearted, forgiving one another, even as God, for Christ's sake, hath forgiven you. Be ye therefore followers of God, as dear children, and walk in love, as Christ also hath loved us and hath given himself for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling savour. Amen. We thank the Lord for this reading of his word. Once again, we trust that he will bless it to our hearts. Let's unite our hearts now in prayer. Our gracious God, as we open up the scriptures this morning, we do pray that thou would minister thy grace to our hearts, giving us understanding and Lord comprehension of what by word is saying to us, what the Apostle is seeking to put across to us and what the Holy Spirit would have us to learn that we might stand in this evil day and having done all to stand that has provided us with that armor of righteousness and Lord we pray that we might learn to put it on day by day that we might be strengthened and protected and that we might learn to wield the sword of the Spirit and come before Thee in prayer, Lord, that we might be overcomers. And Father, we pray that Thou wouldst cause us to grow and be edified, even as the Apostle writes in this very chapter, that we might be edified, that we might edify, that we might build up one another also and encourage one another in the way. For there are many things around us, Lord, that would cause us to be cast down and to wonder concerning the way that we take. The Lord we pray that thou would bless our hearts that we might walk together as an army in the Lord and father that we might be comrades in battle and that we might recognize who the enemy really is. and not be striving one with another, but with sin and against the wicked one. So bless us, we pray thee, and help us this day as we again turn to these thoughts of the battle that we are in, that we should be angry and sin not, and let not the sun go down upon our wrath, and neither give place to the devil. We ask these things in Jesus' name. Amen. Well, we've been looking at this verse for a number of weeks. We've looked at it four times before and we've noted some certain things concerning the battle that we are in. Remember that the The thought here in this verse is not that we should not let the sun go down upon our wrath, or that is that we go to bed angry and so we wake up angry in the morning as well, but that we should be at peace with everybody before we go to bed, but rather, as you can see and as you read it, it says here, be ye angry and sin not. The apostle is actually saying be ye angry, not don't be angry, be ye angry and sin not. Let not the sun go down upon your wrath." And here, if we might use the terminology as the kicker, it says, neither give place to the devil. We need to be angry against the devil. We need to be angry with sin. We need to be angry with ourselves when we are sinning. And we don't want to be giving place to the devil, but we want to fight back. And that is the thought that we have been looking at. We have considered so far the meditating on the objectives. If you remember, we considered the happiness that we desire. We desire to be full of joy in the Lord and to be happy in the Lord. We considered their holiness also. That's an objective, that we should be holy. The Lord has given to us the Holy Spirit. And while many seek after the gifts of the Spirit, surely primarily the work of the Spirit in us is holiness, that we should walk in holiness, that we should live in holiness, separated from the world and from sin. Now we consider then also the harmony, and that is the harmony of God's people, but it's also our harmony with God, that we are singing, excuse the pun, from the same hymn sheet as God is, and that we are walking with Him. Meditate on the objectives. This is what we are seeking to take. This is the ground which is before us. This is where we want to be. And if we have our eyes on something positive, rather than just always on defense, then that encourages our hearts. We consider then, And the second message, how that we need to militarise through ordinances. We drew the parallel with the word ordinance and the military word ordinance, which comes from the same root. And the ordinance, of course, is the guns and the weapons and the bullets and the shells and so on. But the ordinances are our weapons, for the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but they are mighty through God to the pulling down of strongholds. We consider there prayer, how important prayer is. The word of God, the scriptures and how important it is that we hide the word of God in our hearts as a psalmist says that we might not sin against God. We consider baptism also as a unifying principle as we come together, we join together in the Lord in a fellowship and we are really taking on the orders, if you like, of Christ and saying, yes, I accept Christ as my savior, I recognize that he has died for me, that the old nature is done with, that I am walking in newness of life, and I am risen with him, as well as buried with him in baptism. And then we consider communion, the fellowship that we have together around the cup of the Lord, in particular, but also the whole of the fellowship of the people, and I suppose that fits in with the harmony of God's people also. We were thinking then on the third week that we need to mind the opposition. We need to recognize who the opposition is. We could summarize that, I suppose, as know your enemy. Know your enemy. Know who you're fighting against. And of course, ultimately, we are fighting against principalities and against powers, against spiritual wickedness in high places. And we did make mention also of our own hearts and that we have this propensity to follow that way because we have an old nature even as we read in Ephesians here the apostle says in verse 22 that she put off concerning the former conversation or interaction or behavior the old man which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts and be renewed in the spirit of your mind so there is a change which needs to be in us But then we noted the subjection of sin and the control that it has over us, the captivity that it holds us in. We considered the strategy of the wicked one that he would seek to bring covetousness into us, that last commandment of the Ten Commandments, that the consequences that he would seek to bind us because of the consequences of past sins. And we considered the strategy of compromise also, that we might compromise ourselves by not actually getting right into the sin, but nevertheless dabbling with it. And that soon drags us into a deeper control of sin. And we consider also the psychology and how the devil would seek to use the psychology of our conscience to stop us from praying, from reading the word, because we remember the things that we have done, because we recognize that we did it willfully, or whatever else it may be, our conscience seeks to keep us, he will try to do that, remember his name, which is he is the accuser, the old accuser, He tries to make our conscience keep us from God, and also the psychology of confusion. He would seek to have us confused. And that's why it's very important that when we study the Word of God, we seek to understand the Word of God. There are so many Christians today who are confused and the whole of their doctrine is contradictory. They take one thing and it contradicts another part of their doctrine. There's a confusion. Is this allowed? Is this not allowed? Did Christ do this or did he not do this? Am I safe in my salvation or can I be lost in some time in the future? And the devil would seek to have us confused always and we need to know the word of God. and really think upon it. Last Saturday we were looking at the managing of the onslaught and we saw there the fatigue which can take us and how the fatigue, both spiritual and indeed physical, can make us irritable, insecure and incautious. I won't go into any detail there because it was only last week, so you should be able to remember that. I'm sure you can all remember every single point that I've told you so far because you've committed them all to memory, I'm sure, with Ephesians 4, as I was saying last week. I'm sure you've got all that down too. And then complacency, complacency, how soon we can become complacent. Oh, well, I've arrived. But the apostle says, if a man thinketh that he stand, let him take heed, lest he fall. It's considered pride and prayerlessness in this complacency that we might have. And then the propaganda also, the onslaught of propaganda, used in war, of course, all of the time. But there is much propaganda going around today in our society, which causes stress, fear, to make us sometimes feel superior and other times suspicious. So these things we have seen and how important it is that we meditate on the objectives, militarise through the ordinances, mind the opposition, manage the onslaught. And then I want this week to consider with you the maximising of opportunities, maximising the opportunities. The opportunities to fight against sin are seldom there for us. And so we need to recognise them, we need to take them. And those opportunities do manifest themselves all of the time, but sometimes they are just small opportunities which we miss. How many times perhaps we have met with someone and they have said something to us We have come home afterwards and thought, I know what I should have said. I should have said this to them, but we didn't do it because we weren't prepared at the time. Perhaps it even came to our minds, but we didn't quite know how to introduce the subject. And we need to be ready to maximise these opportunities. But the first one that I want to consider with you is the opportunity of suffering. So this is a strange one. The opportunity of suffering. I was saying to Carol this morning, I don't think we're going to get through this sermon in a week. It'll probably take three weeks, actually, one for each of the points. But the first one is the opportunity of suffering. The second is the opportunity of service. And the third is the opportunity of support. So the opportunity of suffering. Turn with me in the word of God to James and chapter 1. James chapter 1. Now we're thinking about maximizing opportunities. What those opportunities may be. This is one which springs up a lot. one which is utilized greatly by the devil in his psychology as well and in his propaganda. So suffering. James chapter 1 and verse 2. James is writing here and he says, my brethren, count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations. Knowing this, that the trying of your faith worketh patience. But let patience have her perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting or lacking in nothing. Diver's temptations, that is not mermaids sitting on rocks as the diver comes out of the water, but all kinds, diverse. Of course, we're sticking an E on the end of it these days, but it's diverse temptations. And the word temptations there is a Greek word, pirasmos, which also means trial. So this can be taken either way. And I prefer it in the idea of a trial rather than as a temptation. But of course, trials are temptations, aren't they? So it is actually both. When we go through trials, we are tempted to not trust God. We are tempted to take our own path through the trial. We are tempted to take shortcuts. We are tempted in all kinds of ways. So the two things come together. But this word does mean a trial also and the apostle says here my brethren count it all joy when you fall into divers temptations knowing this that the trying of your faith worketh patience. So here is an opportunity then When trials come, when difficulties come, when sickness comes, when injuries come, when death perhaps visits the family or illness or whatever else it may be, losing a job or losing some possession which is useful or important to you and you can't afford to replace it, whatever it may be, all those trials, the Apostle says, the trying or the proving of your faith worketh patience or endurance. The word there, again, it can be translated endurance or patience. So it works patience. Here is an opportunity. If only we could see the troubles and difficulties of this life as being opportunities rather than things which get us down, then we could take hold of them and use them positively. There are opportunities as they cause us, or they should cause us, to pray and seek the Lord's face. There are many people who go through all kinds of trials, all kinds of difficulties in life, and it drives them to the Lord. There are far more people who, when everything is going well, stop praying because they don't need to pray. I wonder, as we are considering Jonah also in the evening, how many times the Lord has brought trials and difficulties upon us because we are no longer in communion with him, because we're not talking to him, because we're not reading the scriptures, because we have wandered off somewhere thinking that we've arrived and that we have all that we need and we don't need to be praying anymore. We certainly don't need to be praying that prayer which Jesus taught us, do we? Give us this day our daily bread we find that there are mountains of bread. In this terrible tragedy in London, we saw there that there was bread there and enough to spare. And in fact, we hear quite often that in places where some of the supermarkets give their surplus, the thing that they have the most of is bread. So why do we need to pray that prayer, give us this day our daily bread? Because we need to be praying daily. We need to be praying daily. and more than once a day. We need to be in constant communion with the Lord. And temptations, these trials which come upon us so often drive us to the Lord. We begin then to pray. We pray about that sickness. We pray about that loved one. We pray about that situation. We begin to bring it before the Lord. And we know that the devil will attack us at such a time. And perhaps he will come and he will attack our conscience and he will say, wait, you're praying now. You don't usually pray. God's not going to answer your prayer. He's not going to answer you because you don't normally talk to Him. You talk to Him when you're in trouble. But we're not to listen to that propaganda. We're not to listen to that psychological nonsense. But we are to seek the Lord's face. It could be that the Lord has brought this trial, this difficulty upon you for this very purpose, to bring you to Him in prayer. So don't think that He's not going to hear you when you pray. Seek to consecrate yourself to the Lord. It worketh endurance, it says. And verse four, but let patience or endurance have her perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing or lacking in nothing. So we are to grow, we can use. This is an opportunity. This is an opportunity to grow. Take hold of it with both hands and seek the Lord. Then turn back to that chapter that we read from earlier in Romans in Chapter 5. Romans Chapter 5. I preached through Romans in Lindsley, the whole of the book, and I can tell you that there were parts there which were very hard to get hold of. But as I was reading this in this context, something else came to my attention which I hadn't seen before. Romans Chapter 5, beginning at the beginning, It says, therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom also we have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand and rejoice in hope of the glory of God. Here we have this rejoicing and access, the place of prayer, of coming to the Lord, we have this access to him. Verse 3, and not only so but we glory in tribulations also, knowing that tribulation worketh patience or endurance, again the same word, and patience, experience, and experience, hope, And hope make us not ashamed because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us. Remember the word hope is not the word, well I hope it will happen. Some people buy lottery tickets and they hope they'll win. That's not the word which is used here. But it's an expectation when you say that, well I hope my mum's gonna come in soon to cook the dinner. She's usually in by five o'clock. You're expecting her in at five o'clock. and so you're getting hungry. So it's an expectation, that's the word which is used here. So here we have then this, the tribulation worketh patience, patience, experience, experience, hope, and hope maketh not a shame because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us. And then note these words, for when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly. Now there is a connection here which I didn't notice before because I wasn't looking at it from this viewpoint and I've said this on a number of occasions to you, sometimes you come to a scripture with something else in your mind and you see something else there that you didn't see before. and that is that he is glorying in tribulations, he glories in the Lord, he rejoices in God, he rejoices in the hope of the glory of the Lord and then he says but we glory in tribulations also, we glory in trials and difficulties also. And the connection is this, when we were yet without strength in due time Christ died for the ungodly. when we had nothing, when we had come to the end of ourselves, when we were not righteous, but unrighteous, when we were under conviction of sin, when we recognized that we were lost and going to hell, it was then that we recognized the greatest sin that we had ever recognized in our life, it was then, as the ungodly, that Christ died for us. And I think the connection here is that when he is in tribulations and trials, God draws near to him, particularly. It is when he comes to the end of himself, when the trials and the troubles and the tribulations are pressing upon him to such an extent that he doesn't know which way to turn, then he finds that God is his strength. Again, in verse eight, but God commendeth his love toward us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Much more then, being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him. For if, note the words, for, so drawing a comparison here, for if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his son, Much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life, and not only so, but we also joy in God through our Lord Jesus Christ by whom we have now received the atonement or by whom we have now received the reconciliation. Better to use the word reconciliation in the sense that it fits in with the other reconciles and so it gives you the connection just there. So it is when we are at our weakest that God draws near to us. When all seems bad, when everything seems to have gone wrong, when everything is falling over one after another, that is when we are the closest to the Lord. The Lord draws near to us. The Lord is our strength. We've seen in Jonah how the Jonah had run away from the Lord. He had gone down to Tarshish. We've seen how that he went onto the ship and he was bidden by the ship master to pray, but there was no prayer forthcoming. And he was cast overboard. And he is swallowed of a great fish. And the first thing we read of him after he is swallowed by the great fish is that he prayed. Suddenly he prayed. And where was the Lord? The Lord heard him. The Lord heard him. He was there waiting. See if we can maximize this opportunity of troubles, of difficulties, of trials which come upon us. If you turn then to 2 Corinthians, 2 Corinthians and chapter 12, to Corinthians chapter 12 and reading from verse 7. And lest I should be exalted above measure, through the abundance of the revelations there was given to me a thorn in the flesh, the messenger of Satan to buffet me, lest I should be exalted above measure. For this thing I besought the Lord thrice, that it might depart from me. And he said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee, for my strength is made perfect in weakness. Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me. therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses for Christ's sake for when I am weak then am I strong. Now the Apostle was just been talking about being caught up to the third heaven, exalted out of measure and then he has this thorn in the flesh. Now here is a man who, when we look at this and consider it, here is a man who is closer to the Lord than we have ever known. I think there is not a Christian in the world that wishes that they could have the experience of which the Apostle speaks here, caught up to the third heaven. To see things, revelations, which no one has seen. To be so highly blessed and exalted. And then there's this thorn in the flesh and Paul says, I besought the Lord for it. Now if there's any time, surely when we can go before the Lord in prayer is when we have just been caught up to the third heaven, when we have been exalted in such a way and seen such wonderful things in such a close communion of fellowship with the Lord. Surely then is the time we can come to the Lord and we can pray for anything God will give it to us. But three times he prays, Lord, take away this thorn in the flesh from me. And the Lord says, My grace is sufficient for thee, for my strength is made perfect in weakness. maximizing our opportunities when troubles and difficulties come? Is that not the time when the Lord's strength is made perfect in weakness? Is that not the time when the Lord comes and picks us up and carries us and blesses us, spiritually speaking? Are we not to be dead to the world anyway? And if the things of the world are going wrong, is that not a good thing? So that we don't put our affections upon those things, but we draw near to Christ. I've been affected myself just over this last week and I've been thinking about what I've been preaching on. It's a good thing. I've been praying that the Lord would speak to me, and the Lord has spoken to me, even through my own preaching, which is a great blessing. It's no different, of course, just that I'm saying it, and it's no different to you, reading the Scriptures, and the Lord blessing you from the Word of God, because the Lord speaks to you also. I may not be up here telling other people what the Lord said to you, but nevertheless, the Lord speaks to you from the Scriptures. No difference, I'm not boasting here, or any like thing, I'm just saying, the Lord has spoken to me just this week I was on my computer in the kitchen which is where my computer is and I was doing some work on it and all of a sudden it went off and it wouldn't start so I took it to the computer shop and they looked at it and they said the power supply is gone and we think he's taken out the motherboard And we don't know whether it's taken out the drives as well, or whether it's taken out the processor or the memory. We don't know quite how far the power surge may have gone and how much of it was destroyed. So that was my PC, which is now defunct. And then this morning I got up and I turned on the laptop, for I have a laptop as well. So the Lord's blessed me in that way. I have a laptop as well, upon which I do my work and print the sermons off. So, I had my work on this laptop and I turned it on this morning and it said, Windows Boot Manager has failed. And I thought, now what am I going to do? Fortunately, I could remember most of what I'd written anyway, so I got out my pen, because pens are far better, you know, than computers. They don't fail. Except in my case, I quite often lose the bits of paper that I've written on, so they do fail in that way. So I got that, and it failed. I said, the computer's gone. It won't work. So I turned it off, and I turned it on again, and it just went to a blank screen. So I turned it off, and I was writing in the book, and I thought, I'll just try it again, and pushed the button, and this time it came on. I thought, I need to back up my data quick before I lost it all. But then I was thinking, you know, these troubles come, and how much time do you waste on computers? How much time do you waste looking up things that you don't really need to know? Doing word studies, perhaps, which, in preparing for a sermon, you might want to do a word study, but one word suggests another word, and then you look up that one, and it suggests another word, and you look up that one, and you're miles away from what you're doing by the time you've finished. You spend about three hours looking at words which have got nothing to do with your actual work. And I thought, is the Lord saying something to me here? that I need just to put the things aside and be about the Lord's work. See, the Lord sends troubles, he sends affliction sometimes that we might grow in grace. The apostle learned the lesson, and the apostle says, most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities that the power of Christ may rest upon me. I wonder if we've recognised suffering as an opportunity? Or are we like the murmurers who were with Moses in the wilderness? Oh, there's no water. Oh, there's no food. Oh, we're fed up with this manor. Or do we draw near to the Lord? When you think about those, men and women, children in the wilderness, what things they saw. When Moses struck the rock and water came from it. When Moses prayed and the quail came into the camp. When the Lord sent manna from heaven every day. Their shoes lasted 40 years. I have a pair of shoes. They cost more I'm sure than the shoes which the Israelites had on their feet, coming out of Egypt as slaves, might have lasted about a year and a half. Forty years their shoes lasted. They saw miracle after miracle, blessing after blessing, joy after joy. The moment, they didn't recognize the afflictions for what they were. Not being mixed with faith, the writer to the Hebrew says, in those who saw them. But all that we might mix with faith, every trouble, every trial, we might glorify God. One last reference in Philippians. Philippians chapter 3. Philippians chapter 3 in verse 8. The apostle says here, Yea, doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but done. That is awful. that I may win Christ and be found in him, not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith, that I may know him and the power of his resurrection. And note these words, and the fellowship of his sufferings being made conformable unto his death, if by any means I might attain unto the resurrection of the dead. Not as though I had already attained, neither were already perfect, but I follow after, if that I may apprehend that for which also I am apprehended of Christ Jesus. You see, we are saved to be sanctified. We are saved to be changed, to be transformed. The Lord has delivered us from sin. He has raised us again from the dead. in newness of life, that we might be transformed, that we might be made into the image of his son, conform to that image. And suffering is one of the ways that it comes about. We need to maximise the opportunity of suffering, of trouble, of trial. We need to turn to the Lord. The Apostle says, Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended but this one thing I do. Forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. Let us therefore, as many as be perfect or full grown, be thus minded, if in anything ye be otherwise minded, God shall reveal even this unto you. Nevertheless, whereto we have already attained, let us walk by the same law, let us mind the same thing." Pressing forwards, maximizing the opportunities, the sufferings, the troubles of life. Let's use them rather, rather than them getting us down. Let us see that every attack makes us stronger. That we may overcome in time to come. The apostle rejoices in these things. Well, if we had time we would go on and consider the service and the support which will connect, but we have to wait until next Lord's Day to look into those things as we see the maximising of opportunities. May the Lord bless his word to us this day. We're going to sing together our last hymn. which is 381, 381. What bow clouds are hovering o'er me, and I seem to walk alone, longing mid my cares and crosses for the joys that now are flown. If I have Jesus, Jesus only, then my sky will have a gem. He is the sun of brightest splendor and the star of Bethlehem.