Hello church, if you would open to Ephesians chapter six. Ephesians chapter six will be reading verse 10 through verse 18. Hear the word of God. Finally be strong in the Lord and the strength of his might Put on the whole armor of God that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil. For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over the present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil and the heavenly places. Therefore, take up the whole armor of God that you may be able to withstand in the evil day and having done all to stand firm. Stand, therefore, having fastened on the belt of truth, having put on the breastplate of righteousness and as shoes for your feet, having put on the readiness given by the gospel of peace. all circumstances take up the shield of faith with which you can extinguish all the flaming darts of the evil one and take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the spirit which is the word of God praying at all times in the spirit and with all prayer and supplication to that end, to keep alert with all perseverance, making supplication for all the saints." Father, wake us up, Lord, to these realities. This letter written to the church in Ephesus might as well have been written to us in terms of its application on this point. The war rages on. There is spiritual warfare. We have an enemy and we have armor and help from you. And we pray, Lord, you would equip us to know these things and to go forth ready from here for the honor and glory of your son, Jesus Christ. We pray this in his name. Amen. Well, this is part two in just a two-part series on demonology we started last week. As I mentioned last week, in the study of the doctrine of God, which we've been doing for some time now, it is not uncommon to study the devil when you're studying God. And I think that's especially true for churches that hold highly the sovereignty of God, that they have a good demonology, lest we misunderstand many world events and evils. An example of this, a few weeks ago, my family and I were visiting some friends up north, and family up north, and we did a little American heritage history tour up there, going to a bunch of historical monuments and looking at original documentation and founding documents, and one of the things that we wanted to make sure to also look at and look into were the history of the wars, some significant wars in American history, and so we went to the Holocaust Museum. and very sobering. The way it's laid out is you go kind of from room to room and you get the propaganda that people would have received in that day. So whether you're in America, what the propaganda that you would have heard through the news cycles and things, or if you're in Germany, or if you're a Jew, and they help you see it from all these angles. And it's a very sobering experience and one of the things that I walked away thinking is this, the PR skills. that Germany displayed in how they propagated themselves and what they were attempting to do were a mastermind, not human, purely. There was a level of expertise and really putting people under a spell that made me kind of scratch my head wondering, this seems out of the ordinary, even when it comes to wars. Interestingly, later that day we're in the car driving and I was listening to a sermon by Martin Lloyd-Jones, one of my great heroes, and he preached in London back during the time of World War II. And he just kind of an offhanded comment in this sermon mentioned that he strongly believed that Hitler was demon-possessed. and said that's not my theological opinion, that's my medical and clinical opinion. Martin Lloyd-Jones was a doctor and he said based off of many things that I've observed, that's what I believe about Hitler. You know, one thing that I've noticed is that theologians who take seriously the demonic and the presence of the demonic are attempting to do what 1 John chapter 4 says that we should do, discern the spirits to see whether they are from God. So you look at a Martyn Lloyd-Jones regarding the Holocaust or you look at a Martin Luther, the demonic influences on the papacy and Catholicism of his day and how he assessed those things. You look at a Jonathan Edwards in early colonial America with the Great Awakening and looking at true works of the Spirit of God and these false manifestations of untrue works of God that are happening in that same time, and all these men were seeking to discern the Spirit of God from the Spirit of the devil in wars, in revivals, in false teachings in the church. And it all comes back to the language of Paul in Ephesians 6, 11, talking about the schemes of the devil. Or he says, we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. And it's not flesh and blood. that he's talking about. And so what I'm saying is, aside from the things I got into last week with more explicit demonic type things, many faithful men throughout history have seen Satan behind national events, progressive and secular ideologies. They've seen Satan behind political parties and policies, at the very least behind false teachings in the church. 1 Timothy 4 calls false teaching the doctrine of demons. And then he's been the source of many false religions. 1 Corinthians 10 says what pagan sacrifice they offer to demons and not to God. And so what's clear from Ephesians 6 is that there is a spiritual enemy at work. and not just in the more explicit ways, again, that we talked about that would need an exorcism or something like that. I'm not gonna get into any more of those. In fact, if you wanna hear more, I can privately maybe talk to you. I lived with a witch doctor in Malaysia for a month. That was quite interesting, but I'm not gonna share these things publicly because I think those type of things make up less than 1% of any interaction that we will have with the demonic. And so I wanna return back to something I mentioned last week that I think is far more important. I believe that we are all affected more than we realize by post-enlightenment modern rationalism type thinking from the last 150 years or so. And you say, what's that? Well, that's the ideological worldview that believes everything can be explained through natural causes or science. That there's no spiritual causes for things like God, or the devil, or demons, or angels, or miracles. I wanted to help one of my son, my oldest son, a few weeks ago when we were in Philadelphia. I wanted to take the time to go to Westminster Theological Seminary that's in Philadelphia. Anyone who knows the history of this particular seminary, it was birthed out of an attempt by men like B.B. Warfield and others in his day who were fighting against liberalism. which liberalism is an offshoot of modern rationalism or the denial of the supernatural. And so many of these men were in Princeton, they call it the old Princeton, trying to fight against the liberalism in that school, unsuccessfully could not hold back that swing of liberalism. And so they started Westminster Theological Seminary. And so we went up there to see this seminary and walk around that day and talk about men like Van Til and G. Gresham Machen. And the reason I bring this up is because these men talked about liberalism or the denial of the supernatural or miracles. They talked about it as another religion and as a demonic religion. And so the point is that even though liberalism has been and will continue to be called a different religion, heresy, I believe the residual effects of that are still affecting us as Western modern Christians in how we think about the supernatural. It is our cultural default to not factor in the demonic into things. It's uncomfortable for us to be reading the Bible and see how much in the New Testament Paul and Jesus himself talked about the devil. I don't know about you, but when Jesus is speaking to Peter, one of his closest friends, and says, get behind me, Satan, It seems like that is an extreme thing to say when he could have just said, don't hinder me from my death, Peter. Get behind me, Satan. Or Paul talking about a thorn in his side, which many, we don't know exactly what it is. Many think it was some sort of suffering that Paul endured. He calls it a thorn in his flesh. But what did he call that thorn in his flesh? A messenger of Satan to harass me. And we hear that and we go, why use the devil? Why bring him into this? And I think it's because Jesus and Paul are not ignorant of the schemes of the enemy. When you look back in church history, go to the medieval church, we look at Augustine and Aquinas, they wrote in depth on this topic. You read the Puritans and the Reformers. They gave in-depth theological treatment to the topic of evil and of Satan. You have three-fold encyclopedias on the nature of evil and sin. Puritan Thomas Brooks wrote a book called Precious Remedies Against Satan's Devices, where he gave 60 to 70 ways Satan attacks believers. And they thought deeply on these things. And I believe we often don't for two primary reasons. One, because of modern rationalism, the enlightenment effect on us, and two, because of the charismatic abuses that we've witnessed in the church in many circles. And so we'll simply see something that we go, well, that's not the spirit of God, that shaking thing, whatever that, that's not the spirit of God, that's something else, I'm going this way. we build a theology reactionary against what we see that's not true and we just swing the opposite direction, which is a natural impulse. It's just a bad way to do theology. It's not how you formulate a theory or a theology of demonology through reactionary processes, what we need to do is see what has God revealed in Scripture and work from there. This is why I appreciate a man who was a professor at Westminster Theological Seminary some years ago, David Poulsen, he's a biblical counselor, he started CCEF, Biblical Counseling Ministry, And he wrote a book a few, about 30 years back, called Power Encounters, Reclaiming Spiritual Warfare. In that book, I don't agree with everything in there, but what I do appreciate is that he basically says there's two approaches to spiritual warfare. And the first one he calls an exabalistic mode of ministry, exabolo is a Greek word, means cast out, So many, this is more popular maybe in charismatic churches where sometimes demons are believed to be responsible for people's sins. So they may talk about a demon of lust or a demon of pride or something. And if you cast that demon out of the person, then they can grow in holiness. And so someone isn't really going to grow in holiness until the demon of whatever particular moral sin is cast out of their life. Besetting sins are viewed often as demons that have gained a foothold, and the only way to get deliverance is to pray and bind the demon and then cast it out. And the problem that Paulson exposes about that particular view is that we have no biblical support for any moral sin being treated as a demon, and then when you cast the demon out, the moral sin goes away. We have no biblical basis for that type of ministry. So what he argues for is what he calls a classical mode spiritual warfare that he roots in Ephesians chapter 6 that he says involves the embracing of the Word of God by faith, especially the gospel, obedience to God, fervent and focused prayer, and the aid of fellow believers. And what Paulson does is in his treatment of Ephesians 6, as he says, Ephesians 6 is a prescribed and regulated way for addressing real spiritual evil manifested both morally and situationally. So here's what he's trying to get at. He's saying we can read the Bible, we can see Jesus, and we can see descriptive passages of Jesus where he comes to a demon or a demon to this person and deals with it. And it's describing what happened historically. And maybe we can learn something about that for ourselves. But he says a more sure way to deal with spiritual warfare is to go to prescriptive passages where we're actually taught explicitly how we as the church are to deal with these things. And he says Ephesians 6 is that type of passage, not descriptive, but prescriptive. It's giving actual instructions for how to deal with these things. Now, Ephesians 6 is also the basis for why people have talked about the church in two states. Sometimes we talk about the church victorious and the church militant. The church victorious being the church in heaven. the one who's worshiping Christ right now, but not on this earth. They've overcome by the blood of the Lamb. They've conquered all their enemies and are in heaven with the Lord. That's the church victorious. The church militant would be those of us still in this fallen world, in these fallen bodies, dealing with these things that we're talking about today. And so Paul is speaking to the church militant in Ephesians 6 and giving a war speech. I think it's abundantly clear. I'll argue for it in a few different ways, but look at that first in verse 10, that word finally. So finally shows this is a conclusion, a culmination of what he said before. It's helping us understand who his audience is also. He's not speaking to tactically trained military soldiers in the Lord's army. He's speaking to husbands and wives, to employees, to citizens, to fathers, to children. Remember, Ephesians 5 is what led up to this. So his audience are regular church members like you, who are single, who are married, who are grandparents, who are children. and he's saying you're one in Christ and he's giving almost a William Wallace type battle speech before the church militant heads out and to do the work that they're to do. He uses the word stand four times in the passage, strength twice, can is a repeated word, able, you're able to stand against the schemes of the enemy. This is a war speech. call them to awareness to the battle that they are in and to give an impassioned reminder, you are strong in the Lord, in the strength of His might, and you can stand against the schemes of the enemy as God helps you. And that word, stand, Antihistamine, we can get the word antihistamine from this Greek word that he's using for stand. It's an offensive word. So we have antihistamines that are offensive medication against an allergic reaction. So I know a number of years ago, one of my sons was helping me lay sod in our front yard. and he's just picking up the sod and a hundred ant bites later he's swollen up and we're rushing him trying to figure out what to do his face is swollen his hands are swollen all these ant bites and we give him an antihistamine benadryl right which actively fought against the allergic reaction, to bring down the allergic reaction. That's the same word in a histamine that he's using for the word stand. It's an offensive word. It is a word to push back something that is enemy to the body. And so here's what we can't say, guys. You can't sit there and think to yourself, I don't have an enemy. Yes, you do. You are either at enmity with God or at enmity with the devil. The scripture is very clear that before we are Christians, we are at enmity with God or enemies of the cross of Christ. After we become Christians, we are made to be at peace with God and therefore, because we're at peace with God, we become enemies of the devil and even more so, he becomes an enemy to us. That's why for me at least, I'm sure this is true for many of you, my life got very difficult when I became a Christian. That narrow path is called hard for a reason. And many of us have seen that before we came to Christ, we were kind of swimming with the current of the world, the flesh and the devil, this broad path that's easy, that leads to destruction. But as soon as you come to Christ, you take a turn and you swim upstream against the world, the flesh, and the devil. And all sorts of opposition arises. And so notice I'm saying world, flesh, and devil together. Why? First John 2.15-17 puts them together as you could call them joint forces of the kingdom of darkness. The world, the flesh, and the devil are always working together. The world and the flesh can't be separated from the devil in how they work together. Now somebody may say, Pastor, I thought what you preached last week, you said that we overcame the devil. I thought the devil has been defeated. Didn't you quote from Genesis 3.15 that prophesied that Satan's head would be crushed at the death and resurrection of Christ? Didn't we read passages like John 12, 31, that moments before Jesus' death, he said, now is the judgment of this world. Now will the ruler of this world be cast out. 1 John 3, 8, the son of God appeared to destroy the works of the devil. Hebrews 2, 14, Christ took on human nature that through death, he might destroy him who has the power of death, the devil. Colossians 2.15, He, Christ, disarmed the principalities and powers, putting them to open shame, triumphing over them. We talked about Matthew 12 last week, the binding of the strong man, that in the death of Christ, the strong man has been bound so that Christ can plunder his goods, which Revelation 20 shows is the Gentile nations. And so here's what I'm saying. Has Satan been defeated? He has been defeated. The mortal blow has been given in his death and in his rising, but he's still fighting. There's an already not yet reality happening here. This is why in Revelation 12, 12, it shows the church victorious who's rejoicing in heaven because they've overcome the enemy by the blood of the lamb. And then it shows the church militant still left on the earth with the devil. And it says, woe to you, O earth and sea, for the devil has come down to you in great wrath because he knows that his time is short. When the dragon saw that he had been thrown down to the earth, he pursued the woman. which I believe is the old and new covenant believers, who had given birth to the male child, Christ. Verse 17, then the dragon became furious with the woman and went off to make war on the rest of her offspring and on those who keep the commandments of God and hold to the testimony of Jesus Christ. So in the church age, between the first coming of Christ and the second coming of Christ, Satan is a defeated foe. yet still fighting against the woman, the dragon against the woman. Revelation 12 makes clear. So maybe a helpful way to understand this is you think of a war. You can have a battle that's won, a war that's won even. The white flag is flying. The enemy commander says, we lose, we surrender, we have been defeated. But if that enemy understands that death awaits them, a sure and final death, they're not going down easily. They will bite and scratch and fight and shoot and take out everything they can on their way to their fate. This is very much what is happening to the church militant left on earth with this defeated enemy. And therefore we have no chance or no choice, no option, but to go in hand-to-hand warfare with the enemy. Verse 11 says, you must be able to stand against the schemes of the devil. You, Christian, must be able to stand against the schemes of the devil. Verse 12, we do not wrestle against flesh and blood. That word wrestle, it's the only time it's used in Greek. Interestingly, it's not a military term that he's using. It's a term used for Olympic wrestling, emphasizing kind of a more personal one-on-one combat. And think about this word usage that Paul could have picked by inspiration of the Spirit any word. He picks the word wrestle. It has those type connotations. He's showing this battle isn't, you know, modern warfare where you're sitting in an office in Washington D.C. playing video games basically of drones dropping bombs on enemy forces off very far removed. This is ancient warfare where the enemy is attempting to put his hands around your neck and wrestle you. It's that type of intense and personal fighting. Defense strategies are necessary, and offensive strategies are necessary. I want to break up this in these two parts regarding warfare, the defense of being the full armor of God, the offense of being the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God in prayer. Let me just walk us through these, starting with the defense of armor. Now, if you're going into war, what's the first thing you're doing? Other than maybe hopefully doing some training, you are putting on your armor. You're putting on your protective battle armor. Now, there's been debate as to what type of armor that it's even speaking about here. Is this Levitical priestly armor for the priests? Is this Roman military armor? And I would just point out that text doesn't explicitly say which one it is, but you have the belt, the helmet, the shield, the breastplate, protective gear, is that Jewish priestly gear or Roman military gear? Again, I say it's serving the same purpose either way, and it's not literal armor. It's figurative pieces of armor that represent the way to protect ourselves from the schemes of an unseen enemy. And so let's walk through these five pieces of armor. We start with the belt of truth, verse 14. the belt of truth, which is not the belt of listening to your heart, which is what many do for truth. They go to their heart, not realizing that that's a very quick way to begin to listen to the enemy, because the enemy deceives many hearts and leads people astray through their turning to their own heart for guidance. Those type of subjective guidances will certainly fail. We need objective guidance, a real commander-in-chief who girds up the loins of our minds with truth. With truth, the belt of truth. Then he goes on to second the breastplate of righteousness. The breastplate of righteousness. You say, whose righteousness? Is it our own? Hope not. That's usually what gets me in trouble, is my own righteousness or lack thereof. That leaves us open and vulnerable to the enemy's attacks. What we need is what some might call an alien righteousness, a righteousness that is not our own. A perfect and pure righteousness that comes from Christ. So the moment in battle you look away from your own righteousness, you look to the righteousness of Christ, at that moment you can taste victory. And your shield, your heart, the breastplate of righteousness is impenetrable. There is a real clothing that happens by faith when we think of and believe in the imputed righteousness of Christ. We are covered by the flawless, pure, holy garments of Christ, shielded from the lies that cannot penetrate our hearts. Martin Luther, I believe, is right when he said that our hearts, they're hardwired for works righteousness. This is what they naturally do. They seek to justify us before God apart from Christ. By my own doing, I can earn God's grace is what our heart naturally says. Ephesians 2.8 says, by grace, you've been saved through faith. This is not of your own doing. It is a gift of God, not a result of works so that no one may boast. which leads to the third piece of armor, verse 15, shoes for your feet, having put on the readiness given by the gospel of peace. So there's a readiness for this war that comes when you put on those shoes for the gospel of peace. There is objective peace with God. You're ready when you understand and embrace that reality. So this is a person who's not stumbling all over the place, tripping up everywhere over their own subjective emotions and feelings. Does God hate me? Does he love me? Am I his friend or his enemy? Am I going to hell or heaven? No, this person is standing confident Romans 5.1 says, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Through him we have also obtained access by faith and to the grace in which we, what? Stand. Stand, those shoes for your feet giving you a stability to stand because you know I have peace with God. Objective peace with God. Real peace with God through Jesus Christ. It leads us to verse 16, the fourth piece of armor here. It says, in all circumstances, taking up the shield of faith, which can extinguish the flaming darts of the evil one. That's real protection. Without defect or flaw. You know, many soldiers die in battle, even though they have armor on. Happens all the time. Because the armor isn't always meant to give you full and absolute protection. Sometimes there's defects or flaws in the armor. Sometimes it's not even designed to protect you from everything. Sometimes it's just made to help you feel safe. Gives you some emotional confidence to go into battle when you're wearing something that could protect you, but may not fully protect you. But this armor, the shield of faith, it says can extinguish all the flaming darts of the evil one. And Jesus demonstrates the effectiveness of this protection, this shield of faith in the wilderness with the temptations with Satan. Satan comes at him with these flaming darts, which are lies. Flaming dart equals lie. And Satan is shooting these at Christ. Christ takes up the shield of faith, not just blocking the lies so that they go back, but extinguishing them. Faith does that. Faith in what? Faith in what God has said in His Word, especially regarding His Son. And the same is true for us. Christ is showing us in His wilderness temptations how we are to deal with Satan and his lies. The flaming darts he shoots at us. Lies, lies, lies. I know something about your week ahead. without knowing all your schedule and itinerary. I know you're gonna be lied to many times by the enemy himself. That's his native language, Jesus said. That's why I have an old mentor who held up a water bottle like this one day and he said, John Mark, if you want to stand against temptation, you need to see through the lies of sin like you can see through this water bottle. You need to be able to discern them when they come at you or you will not stand against them. You have to discern the lies and be able to know the truth And it's not just lies, it's personalized temptations. There are things you will be tempted with this week that would not tempt me. And there are things I will be tempted with this week that you would think, that's a temptation for you, pastor? He knows what he's doing. He knows exactly how to lie to us and how to tempt us in the ways that are particular to us. He's also an accuser. Revelation calls him an accuser of the brothers. In fact, that's his name. Satan means accuser of the brothers. This is what he does. He tells you, you don't need to come to church because of this week. Nobody loves, nobody cares for you. You're not righteous, you're not whatever. When you hear that in your head, you've got Satan over your ear. and then he'll slander God to us. He'll lie about God. He'll seek to devalue God in our minds and cause us to doubt God's good promises. Did he not do this with Eve? Did God really say that you'll die if you eat the fruit? You'll not die. God's a liar. God's not good. He's holding something back from you. Obedience to his commandments isn't the path of life, it's the path of misery. He will seek to devalue the worth of God in your mind. He will seek to devalue the value of obedience and 10,000 more schemes to devalue God, to bring God down in your mind. Therefore, Christians must take up the shield of faith in which they can extinguish. All the flaming darts of the evil one. Fifth, helmet of salvation. Last time I checked, those go on the head to protect our minds, to protect our thinking, is what's getting at here. Think about this armor, okay? Put on helmet of salvation. Put on truth. Put on righteousness. Put on gospel. Put on faith. Do these relate to each other? Are these random? No, this is the gospel. It's using imagery of armor to tell us the gospel is not just what makes you a Christian, it's what keeps you a Christian. The gospel isn't just what saves you from going to hell with Satan, it's what keeps and protects you from Satan's ongoing attacks in your life. We must ongoingly put on Christ, put on his righteousness, put on his truth, put on his salvation, put our faith in what he accomplished for us. That's where the spiritual power comes from, which is why we call our liturgy, meaning how we order a service on Sunday like this, gospel liturgy, because we're infusing the gospel into the songs, into our prayer of confession and assurance of pardon. into the preaching, when we come to the table, the gospel, all of it should be putting on armor, a putting on of armor for the week ahead. We are suiting up. This is what city groups do. When we renew our minds with the gospel catechism and we bring our children and they learn the gospel, they're being protected. Private devotions, family worship, is it not a meditation on the gospel? Is that not a suiting up with the armor of God? One commentator said, Ephesians is about power for Christian living in Christ. And the passive form of the verb, be strong, indicates this empowering is something done to Christians, not something they do to themselves. So we don't make ourselves strong. We're called to put our faith in the Lord who makes us strong. When that commentator goes on, he says, the present tense shows that this empowering is continual. It's not a one-time quick fix. It's a life spent drawing strength from Christ. And I'll quickly, very quickly, have us look at these offensive weapons, starting in verse 17. We could talk about these a long time. It says, take the sword of the Spirit which is the word of God. Verse 18, praying at all times in the spirit with all prayer and supplication to that end, keep alert with all perseverance, making supplication for all the saints. What are the two weapons, church? Prayer and the word of God. Prayer and the word of God. These are offensive weapons. I think about the Word of God as a sword. Some of you have been to my office, my home office, and noticed on my shelves, all the kids notice this all the time, that I have all these swords from different countries, 10 or 12 different swords from different countries I've been to. What do they do? What do I do with these swords? I leave them there and they collect dust, okay? Nothing happens with these swords. They're worthless. That's symbolic of many Christians' Bibles. They're on the shelf and collecting dust and of no practical value throughout the week because they're not touching them. They're not holding them. They're not picking them up and swinging them. Now, somebody may say, well, I read my Bible almost every day. I still get defeated. And I would say, well, what is your prayer life like? Because if there's no urgency in prayer, of course you're being defeated. Listen to what John Piper said. Prayer wields the power that wields the sword. What is he saying? He's saying, just because you have a sword and you can read it and pick it up, do you know how to swing it? And do you know how to swing it effectively to strike down the exact attack that's coming your way? That's what prayer enables you to do. Prayer wields the power that wields the sword. Urgent wartime praying is what gives power and accuracy to our fight. This is why I say, I'll keep saying this to us, church, because I really believe this is vital and doable for everybody in this room. Pray the Lord's prayer every morning. Think about the words to that prayer. and warfare type terminology. Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. Forgive us our debts as we have forgiven our debtors and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. Look, you pray that prayer, you're not gonna have a sinless life going forward, but I can guarantee you if you really pray that, Your life won't be like it was if you wouldn't have prayed that. Some grace and help will come to you. And you should not just pray one time in the morning. We must continually call on the Lord for more reinforcements throughout the day. According to verse 18, praying at all times, praying at all times in the spirit with all prayer and supplication to that end to keep alert with all perseverance. I want to try to summarize this in closing. I have, for the last few months, been reading through an Old Testament, a portion of the Old Testament, which is very difficult. It's all the different wars. So 1st and 2nd Kings, 1st and 2nd Chronicles, war after war after war after war. what I've been reading. Those are actual historical wars, but what I want to point out is that they were spiritual as well. There are physical historical wars that there are unseen demonic and angelic forces at work in. Scripture tells us this. Therefore, we can see a pattern emerge that when God's people fully surrender wholeheartedly, undivided obedience to God, praying and calling on Him, when these soldiers would do that before a war, when Israel's soldiers would call upon the Lord with all their heart, fully surrender before Him, winning, winning, winning, winning. When they have divided hearts and they're not fully devoted to the Lord, They lose and they lose and they die and they lose. I think one of the undeniable realities that I've experienced in my Christian life is that half-hearted obedience to the Lord is gonna be followed with defeat. I will be defeated. I will fall with half-hearted obedience to the Lord. but wholehearted surrender and dependence on God in prayer and in worship and engagement with scripture is sure to bring spiritual power. It's undeniable. Many of you have experienced this. The blessed spirit-empowered life always follows a wholehearted seeking after God. Psalm 119, blessed are those whose way is blameless, who seek Him with their whole heart. Right after that, how can a young man keep his way pure? by guarding it according to your word. With my whole heart I seek you. The wholehearted seeking of God leads to not sinning against him. Listen to what I read this morning. 2 Chronicles 14, a massive million soldier army is about to come against a small tribe of Judah. King Asa cried to the Lord, his God, O Lord, there is none like you to help between the mighty and the weak. Help us, O Lord, our God, for we rely on you and in your name we have come against this multitude. O Lord, you are our God. Let not man prevail against you. So the Lord defeated Asa. The Lord defeated the enemy before them. And then I read this also today. We don't know what to do. This is the prayer they pray. We don't know what to do, but our eyes are on you. And it says, the Lord won the battle. Listen, we'll close with these words from Martin Luther. I cannot preach on this topic today and not end with the lyrics of a mighty fortress is our God. A mighty fortress is our God, a bulwark never failing. Our helper, he amid the flood of mortal ills prevailing. Listen to the devil. For still our ancient foe does seek to work us woe. His craft, his power are great and armed with cruel hate. On earth is not his equal. Did we in our own striving, our strength confide, our striving would be losing. We're not the right man on our side, the man of God's own choosing. You ask who that might be? Christ Jesus. It is he. The Lord Sabbath his name from age to age the same, and he must win the battle. Amen. Hebrews 2 calls him the captain of our salvation. I wanna dine with him, I hope you do at the table today. This is a celebratory feast because our king, the commander of our salvation has won. He has defeated our enemies, sin and death and hell and Satan and he has won that victory on our behalf and is dying and rising and he will return again, the Bible says. He will come a second time, and Romans 16 says, He will soon crush Satan under your feet. under your feet. And so we eat and drink to that reality, putting our faith in what Christ has done for us. If you are one who has trusted Christ by faith, he is your salvation. You've been baptized into his name. Please come take the supper with us today. Christ gives this meal to you and invites you to it. If you'll be refraining, you can find on page two in your bulletin some very meaningful prayers. that you can pray in this time. I'm going to make this comment a week or two, but not always. You'll see here some new signs here for the drinks, for wine and for grape juice. So notice those as you come to the table today. Let's prepare our hearts, church, to take this together. Father, we praise you. You alone are worthy to be praised, Lord. You did not come down and just teach things. You came down and you did things. You conquered our enemies. You destroyed all the enemies that stood against us. And we praise you that you were successful, that you said on the cross, it is finished. That in your rising, you showed you had power over that enemy of death. And so Lord, as we come to the table, would you strengthen our faith in the gospel? Would you help us to think about all that you are for us in Christ? Lord, strengthen our faith. Help us to put on the armor by faith, even as we come to the table. Lord, help us as we go from here to give you glory and honor. We pray it in Jesus' name, amen.