In Ephesians chapter 6, before we get to reading, when you're passionate about something, what do you do? You research it. You follow it online. First and foremost, this has nothing to do with the PTF tonight. It's a good day to be a Bronco fan. Sorry, Huggins family. Anybody from the state of Washington, anybody out there listening and watching from Seattle, I'm sorry. What is he talking about? Well, for those casual fans, the Broncos needed a quarterback. So they went and they snatched him from Seattle. And today, I got the news. You would think I would find out the news first. No, Brother Tyler sent me a text saying, check this out. They signed Russell Wilson, our new quarterback, to a multi-year contract. I wish I had that contract. Millions and millions of dollars. But I'm happy to be a Bronco fan because that means we have a stable position in quarterback. It means nothing to you, but to a Bronco fan, yeah. So you're passionate about something, you look it up. Second thing that I like to do is I like to find articles about education. I want to find out what's going on in the realm of education to be better informed as a teacher, as an administrator, as a person who, as one who takes phone calls about inquiries to our school. From, and Ms. Lydia Sleek can correct me if I'm wrong, but from the February to about May, we averaged about one or two calls a week about openings in our school. Some were just that little, okay, inquiry. They didn't work necessarily really serious. And I thought to myself, why are we getting these inquiries? Some of it's word of mouth from former students, current students, current families. Some of it is because the state that education is in. Think about this. Just recently, headlines. This is no news. The largest school district in Ohio went on strike. I guess they said they took care of it. From what I read, they said they took care of it. They came to an agreement. But why did they go on strike? And I quote, they went on strike because there's a lack of teachers, the staffing. Teachers are being nickel and dimed for all the hours they put in. They're expected to work hours that they didn't have to work before because of shortage. They were talking about low morale, that there's no support. I'm not getting any help. All I'm getting is there's 30 students in my class and that's it. Just deal with it. Maybe there's more to 30. You're talking about public school now. They're talking about shortage in pay. And if there's next to doctors and nurses, and I'm sure that could be debatable, the first responders probably the same thing, but your essential individuals in society are not getting their just due. Your teachers who educate children, who are on the front lines of helping children grow, helping children understand what it means to function in society, they're not getting paid. That was on there. What else was on there? The biggest thing was mentioned already, no support. I just don't feel like I'm appreciated. That was in Ohio. Another one in Ohio, this was in June. Growing concern over children's ability to read, write, and make sense with sentences. in high school, in, let me say that again, in high school, 9th through 12th grade, public education. They can't construct sentences. Oh, they can do it on the phone, text message code, but to sit there and write it on paper, or not even write it, type it out for a resume, for a college application, they can't. And parents are like, what? What's going on? Because public education has failed. Another concern. Here we go. Expiration of licenses of teachers and certifications of schools. These are just articles this summer about education that's affecting our society. Why is that? What happened to our school system? If you look through history, and I don't have time to do that, but if you go through history where public education started and the school system, it wasn't designed to what it is now. It was not meant to be that way. What happened is this, number one, parents gave up their right, no, delete that, their God-given duty to educate, teach, and train their children. The child does not belong to the state. The child does not belong to the school. Your child belongs to you. It is you as CBA is here to work in conjunction. We are not meant to override your authority, we're not here to supplant your authority, we're here to work with you. The ministry here is that we are working fellow laborers in the education, not just academically, but spiritually, of your child. It's not the government's job, it's not, and what happens, the parents say, okay, you know, go ahead and do it. But the second thing that people fail to realize is this, is that because the parents have done that, the church also has failed in that regard. While yes, it's not the church's responsibility to teach and train the child, it's the church's responsibility to assist the parents, to work with the parents in doing so. How do they do that? Giving out the gospel. Training and discipling. And when the church has failed in that area, when the church has turned into a social club, a social gathering, then it's no surprise that the family is a social club and a social gathering. It's no surprise that the school is a social club and a social gathering. So why do we have a Christian school? Why does CBA exist? Because there's a battle. Look at Ephesians chapter number six. Begin reading verse number 10. Very familiar portion of scripture says, Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord and in the power of his might. Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places. Wherefore, take unto you the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand. Stand, therefore, having your loins girded about with truth, and having on the breastplate of righteousness, and your feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace. Above all, take in the shield of faith, wherewith ye shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked, and take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God, praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, and watching thereunto with all perseverance and supplication for all saints. And for me that the utterance may be given unto me that I may open my mouth boldly to make known the mystery of the gospel. Let's pray. Father, thank you for the evening. Thank you for the gathering together of family, friends, staff members, church members. celebrating another school year beginning. Lord, we're thankful, first of all, that we have the ability and the freedom to have a Christian school. Thank you, Lord, for the staff members who have, excuse me, who have given a, if you will, statement of faith, their trust in you, and want to see that in their young people that they are mentoring, no matter what the age, no matter what class you're with. Thank you, Lord, that we have the ability to say, thus saith the Lord, without fear. I pray you would give me the words to say. Lord, you know my heart. You know my mind. I ask that you please guide my lips, guide my thoughts as only you can. In your name I do pray. Amen. Why have a Christian school? Because there's a battle. You see, it doesn't matter. We tend to point out it's the public schools. But you know, it has filtered from the public school to the private sector to the chartered schools, and in, I don't know what they're called in other states, I forget what they're called in Maryland, but in Ohio here, to our type of schools, the non-chartered, non-taxable schools. What's happened is sin, deception, the wiles of the devil has snuck in and has started at the top of public education and is seeping down. Why do we have CBA? Number one, because there is Satan's wiles. Look at verse 11. Put on the whole armor, God, that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. In 2 Corinthians 2, verse 11, we're told that we can't be ignorant of Satan's devices lest he gets an advantage of us. We have a school so that we can fight Satan. So we can fight his wiles. We can't be, number one, ignorant of his devices. You see, he just doesn't come right out and say, hey. No, what does he do? He's deceptive. That's why it's wiles. He's wily. He's cunning. And it started in the education, it started in the 50s and 60s when they wanted to remove prayer. I have here, in 1962, the Supreme Court declared that public prayer in public schools violated the Establishment Clause. In 1992, Lee versus Wiseman, the court held a five to four decision that claimed a teenage student in contemporary society has a real choice not to attend his or her graduation, was not all realistic. Basically what that court case was is that if you don't want, they wanted prayer, What do they call that? I'm going to bypass it. I'm going to get it wrong. But opening prayer at a graduation ceremony, and families are like, no, you can't do that. That's prayer in school. And the school board said, well, this is an event. Your child could choose not to attend. We're not forcing you to attend. Whereas it's class. Your child has to attend. So we can't force you to pray in that. But we're not in violation if it's at a ceremony and your child has a choice to attend. The Supreme Court in 1992 shot that down and said, no. That's still a violation. In 2000, prayer prior to the start of football games was being challenged. The court acknowledged that while student attendance at football games was mostly voluntary, the football players and cheerleaders did not have the option of leaving the premises during the reading of prayer. It all started back in 1962, a little bit before that. The small little thing of, hey, you can't have prayer in here. That's a violation of church and state. That's a violation of the Constitution. You're establishing religion if you allow us to pray in class. And then what happened? Satan got his wedge in, and it opened and opened, to now it went from prayer in school to no longer being allowed to read your Bible in school, to take your Bible to school, to where they were removing the Ten Commandments. You couldn't post the Ten Commandments in public schools. Be not ignorant of his advice unless he gets an advantage. Why is it important to have Christian education? So we're gonna teach our children not to be ignorant of Satan's devices. That Satan is out to get them, but he's not gonna flat out come up in front of them and say, hey, come on, kid. He's gonna start with subtlety. We can't be ignorant of his devices, but we can't be ignorant of his deeds. What does the Bible say that he's done? Just a short list here. Don't forget that in Genesis 3, he deceived Eve. Yea, hath God said. Don't forget in 1 Chronicles chapter 21, he tempted David with his pride to number the people. Don't forget in Luke 22, it says that he entered into Judas to betray Christ. And more importantly, don't forget Matthew chapter 4, where he himself challenged Jesus Christ, our Savior, in tempting. If Satan could do that, if Satan can get Eve, to doubt God's Word. If Satan could get David, a man after God's own heart is what the Bible says, to fill himself with pride to number the people. If he can get Judas, one of the twelve, to betray Christ. If he himself can stand before the Savior and attempt him, who are we to think, oh, I could stand up to him. My child knows better. They could do that. No, they can't. They cannot. So we need to teach him. We have to understand that Satan is wily. We can't be ignorant of his devices and we can't be ignorant of his deeds. Number two, we have a school, not because of Satan's wiles, but because there's a spiritual warfare. 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. Paul there lists four different areas. That's a spiritual battle. You see, the church. Government. Individuals have misplaced the battle. It says we don't fight against flesh and blood. We're not fighting against each other, we're fighting against spiritual wickedness. Look at who he lists, he says, first of all, principalities, Satan's crown dignitaries. When Satan fell, when God kicked him out of heaven, took a third of the angels with him. Crown dignitaries, he has his army, principalities, powers. He has his conquering deputies. Think about this for a moment. Satan, the world would like to paint Satan like God. He is not. Our God's all-powerful, all-knowing. He's everywhere. Satan is not. Satan is limited in his power. He's limited where he can be. He can't be in all places at once. So how does he create the havoc that he has done in our world and in our society? He's got his deputies doing work for him. And we can't be ignorant of that. Okay? He goes on and says, rulers of darkness, his capable deceivers. Think about this. Satan's plan to conquer the world, Satan's plan to assert, if you will, the authority of God comes down to one word. Deception. He wants to deceive our young people. Why is it, why is it that public education, the school boards are arguing the definition of what gender is? Why is it that the public school board of education, not just in Ohio but across the country, is arguing and debating how many genders there are? Because Satan has deceived them. When we have the truth right here that says, He created male and female. God's word is absolute truth. We'll get to that in a moment. One of the principles in the hope ministry is this, if you're gonna recover from an addiction, if you're gonna recover and change your mind, you have to understand that God's word is absolute truth. What he says here is true. And God said in Genesis, he created male and female. Enough said. But Satan has, yay, did God really say that? He's deceived people's minds. And his whole plan comes down to deception. And it comes down to it because he has capable deceivers. The last part of that in verse 12 says, spiritual wickedness in high places. He has countless demons. Well, for sake of time, but if you were to look at Mark chapter 5, verses 1 through 17, you have the account of the man there who was possessed by legion. Many. Not just one demon, many demons. And if that's one man who was possessed by many demons at that one point in time, how many more does Satan have in another area? We have a Christian school because of Satan's wiles. because there is a spiritual warfare. It's unseen. All these things, those four things that Paul listed there are all unseen. There's a spiritual battle going on right now. What we're doing, preaching from the word of God, what we're doing in preparing your children to receive the word of God each day and to receive Christian education that's based from the Bible, What does the Bible say? I love every time that someone asks a question to Brother Burke, he always says, well, what does the Bible say? Because it's not a matter of what I say. What does the Bible say? What does God say? I love it because they try to, you know your children. They go and ask Mom something. Mom says one thing, and they go ask Dad, try to get Dad to, okay? Students are no different. They'll go ask Brother Burke. What does the Bible say? And he'll give them a biblical answer. Maybe not that same day, but a little bit, they'll come to me. Brother Price, we were talking in class about this. What is it? I know what you're doing, kid. I was your age once. What does the Bible say? Oh, that's what Brother Burke said. Well, that's because that's what God says. What does God's word say? We can't be deceived by Satan's spiritual warfare. Why do we have a school? Satan's wild spiritual warfare, but also because we want to teach our children how to use the soldier's weapons. Verses 13 on down. Wherefore, take unto you the whole armor of God. See, first of all, there's a demand. Whether you realize it or not, the moment you get saved, you're enlisted in the army. You're enlisted. It's automatic. There's no if answer. What's about it? There's no physical exemption. There's no mental exemption. You're it, bud. You're in it. And he says, wherefore, take unto you. That's an imperative. Take unto you. It's a command. The whole armor of God. So there's a demand for it. Our children need to, no matter the age, we don't have any kindergartners, so from first grade on up, the first, second graders in Mrs. Price's class, they may not be able to, they are not at the, they're on the, they have their, what's I wanna say? Retract the statement here. Their level of understanding is not what Rose's would be as a senior. But both children, when they leave this school, when they leave the day, they should understand Who loves them? They should understand who they belong to. Who shed this blood for them? And when a child comes to the understanding of salvation, then they know, I'm a child of God, and as a child of God, I need to fight. Well, how do you fight? You have some weapons. He says, take unto you the whole armor of God. Well, what's that? There's a description, number two description. It says, take unto you the whole armor of God. Verse 14, stand therefore having your loins girded about with truth. I like to call it the belt of truth. The loins, the lower regions, that belt helped keep your armor on. When the soldiers went out to battle, they pulled up, if you will, their robe and fought. That belt was necessary. But it's interesting, it says, gird about with truth. We need more than ever to make sure our young people understand what truth is. Pilate had Jesus Christ stand in front of him, and he says, what is truth? The world out there is saying, what is truth? Jesus prayed in John 17, sanctify them. Thy word. Thy word is truth. God's word is absolute truth. You want answers, boys and girls? You want answers to life's problems? You want answers to should I or should I not? What does God's word say? Because you know what? I may have a thought. Your parents may have a thought, but if it's not rooted and grounded in God's word, it can lead you astray. So we need to have your loins girded about with truth. He says in that same verse, in heaven on the breastplate of righteousness, the loins with truth and the breastplate of righteousness, those two pieces of armor, they guarded the lower extremities and the upper extremities. What's the breastplate of righteousness? It covers the heart. Proverbs, excuse me, Proverbs 4, 23. Keep that heart with all diligence. Why? For out of it are the issues of life. If you don't have that breastplate of righteousness protecting your heart, young people, adults, The issues of life will overwhelm us. Our heart will dictate us. The worldly philosophy of follow your heart is hogwash. Because it's gonna lead you astray. Because you know what? Let's go back to Satan's wiles. He can get your heart. Get that breastplate on and protect your heart. But not only is the heart the lungs. What's important about the lungs? If you don't have lungs, if you don't have ability to breathe, you're dead. Spiritually speaking, what do you have? You have the breath of life. Why are we God's crown in His creation? Because all other pieces of creation, He spoke into existence, except for mankind. He breathed the breath of life. So we need to protect our spiritual organs, if you will, having the breastplate. He moves on, he says, breastplate righteousness, your feet, shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace. Let's be honest here, okay? I almost hesitate to ask this question, but I'm gonna ask anyway. How many of y'all like to look at feet? Of course, Dylan. I don't even like to look at my own feet. How many don't like feet because you're ticklish? You can be honest with that. Yeah, okay. All right. Feet are nasty. They're smelly. I'm talking about myself, okay? I'll tell it myself. I remember one time, we were in Thailand, and it's the culture in Southeast Asia there that when you enter someone's home, you take your shoes off. You don't dare walk in their house with your shoes on. And they forgot to tell us that. The first trip that we took, they forgot to tell us that. Okay. Let's just say when we left, there was some smells going on. But have you noticed that some of the most gnarly looking feet are the Asians? You know why? Because they walk everywhere. They use their feet. But Paul says in Romans, he says, how beautiful are the feet. Thank you. Yeah, that preached the gospel. Notice that the feet correspond with the gospel. Why is that? Because Jesus said in Matthew 28, go! We're gonna have missions conference here. You know, one of the things I enjoy is we get to have our missionaries, whoever they are, last year, was it Brother Hanna last year? I had to wait time. Yeah, Brother Hanna was here last year. Two or three times during the day, he came and sat and had lunch with us. And he got to know some of the kids in the schools, got to know the students. You know what that is? It's not just like, oh, here's a missionary. When we have missionaries, they come by and preach chapel for us. Okay, we had the family that's going to England. Dice, yes. He came and preached. We took up a love offering for him. Man, did the kids ever come through with that. Woo, he went home with a lot of change. Okay, he went home with a lot of change. But why do we do that? Because we want the children to know this is what ministry is. It's not just the Elam family going out to Russia. It's not just the Hodnits going to Scotland. It's not the Harris' to Mexico. It's us to Goshen, Ohio. It's us to Morrow. It's us to Blanchester. It's to Cincinnati. Our young people need to understand. Protect your feet, because if the devil can get you to make an excuse about your feet to not go, you're not protecting your feet. Preparation Gospel piece, the shield of faith. Why is that? Taking the shield of faith, wherewith you shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked. When I read that today in studying, a thought came to me that my pastor told me when I was a young person. At the beginning of the passage, we talk about the wiles of the devil, how he's cunning, and he's sly. But you know, there are times where he's just outright in his attack with the fiery darts. Notice it doesn't say he has invisible darts. It says fiery darts. Now, obviously we're not talking about, we're gonna see a fiery dart here, boink! But you get the idea. What kind of darts does Satan throw at you? If he could throw the dart of doubt, doubting God's word. If he could throw the dart of discouragement, nobody loves me, everybody hates me, I'm gonna go eat worms. The dart of deceitfulness, oh, I'll just tell one little lie, it's okay. The dart of destruction. Those are all things that young people are dealing with today. And what I mean by destruction is this, self-destruction. The cutting. The taking of drugs. The immorality. Self-destruction. If he can get our young people with those darts, it's because we have failed in introducing to them and teaching them what the shield of faith does. But then I like the last one. He says here, or the second last one, he says, take the helmet of salvation. Protecting our minds. What was our crusade about transforming? By the renewing of your mind. And then he says, and the sword of the spirit, which is the word of God. All those work together. If you're missing one, if you're missing one, you're gonna get hit. It's important. that we work together as teachers and parents, teachers and family members, students who are in our school, homeschool students who come and participate in our athletic activities, in our Friday activities. It's important that we all work together to tell our young people there are weapons, there are things that you can do to defeat Satan. Why do we have a school? because the Satan's wiles, because there's a spiritual warfare, because there's a soldier's weapon, but lastly, most importantly, it's because the Savior's work. Look at verse 19. Paul here says, we'll just back up to verse 18. Praying always with all prayer and supplication in the spirit and watching there into with all perseverance and supplication for all saints. He says, pray, pray for yourself, pray for each other. And then he says specifically, and for me, the man who's on the front lines, if you will. That the utterance may be given to me, that I may open my mouth, what? Boldly. to make known the mystery of the gospel. The world out there, the gospel is a mystery. It's hidden. Why? Because Satan has done his best to blind those who are out there, to deceive their minds, to hide things from them, especially our young people. Why do we have a school? We want to, first and foremost, reach every child for Christ. There's no secret that my heart is with young people. It's no secret that I love working with young people. I don't know how many young people over the course of the summer came in for Kids of Palooza and they were still trying to reach. They heard the gospel. They know that Jesus loves them. How much more should we get our own? That's why we have a school. Because the gospel's important, it's powerful, it's precious. Well, what is the gospel? Go to 1 Corinthians, please. And we'll wrap it up here in a moment. 1 Corinthians. In junior church, we're going over the alphabet. And in the letter G, we talked about the gospel. We had this passage of 1 Corinthians, chapter number 15. I just gotta get to the right one. Starting in verse number one, the Apostle Paul here writes to the Church of Corinth, he says, Verse 3, For I deliver unto you, first of all, that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the Scriptures. That's the gospel. The gospel is the death, the burial, and resurrection of Christ. You know what? Okay, follow me here for a moment. Satan does not mind if you instruct people, tell people about Jesus' death. He's the mastermind that was behind it. He's the one that got people riled up. I mean, what it says in Luke, he entered into Judas to betray Jesus. What was the whole premise of betraying Jesus? So that he could be captured and taken to death. He doesn't mind that. I would go a step further and say, I don't think he minds that you talk about that Jesus was buried. Because when you talk about death to the world, when you ask about death, Most people think, well, it ends when you're into the ground. But here's where Satan, if you will, not to sound, not to sound, I can't think of the word. Sacrilege, that's the word. But what gets Satan trembling in his boots is this, when you talk about the resurrection. Because it's the power of the resurrection that gave victory over sin, that gave victory over death, that gave victory over hell, that gave victory over Satan. And it's our young people who need to understand, yes, Jesus Christ died on the cross. There are churches who still have Christ on the cross. That's not right. My Savior is not on the cross. It's important that we teach our young people that, yes, Jesus died on the cross. He shed his blood. but that he was buried. And on the third day, rose again. And how do we know that? Well, because God's word says it, but yes, but look at the next verse there. Verse number five. And that he was seen of Cephas, and then of the 12, and after that he was seen above 500 brethren at once. He arose, he arose, he arose. He's alive. He's up in heaven. What did he do? He was with the disciples, and he began to rise up into the sky. And they were like, whoa. You men of Galilee, why stand? He gazed in. This same Jesus, the one who died, the one who was buried, the one who rose again, is coming again. And you know what? We need to reach our young people with the gospel. Why do we have a school? Because Satan's wild. He is out to get our young people. Because of the spiritual warfare. Satan has an army and we ourselves cannot fight it. Why do we have a school? Why do we need to? We need to teach young people about the soldiers' weapons. Put on the whole armor, God. But most importantly, why do we have a school? Because of our Savior's work. I have failed as a teacher if my students leave this year and they don't know how to multiply. I have failed as a teacher if my students leave this year and they didn't get anything out of science and their science test scores go down. I have felt as a teacher if, name it, their penmanship doesn't improve. And my wife's smiling, because you don't want Brother Price teaching your child penmanship. I got chicken scratches. You know why that is? I firmly believe I know what it is. When I was growing up, I wanted to be a doctor. Can anybody read a doctor's? I'm dead serious. I am dead serious. I wanted to be a doctor. So you know what I did? I practiced writing prescription things. What does that say? I don't know. Take two of these, call me in the morning. I firmly believe that's what it is. That's my story, and I'm sticking to it. But I failed as a teacher if my class doesn't want to enjoy reading. I failed as a teacher in those academic things, but you know what? More importantly, I failed as a minister of the gospel if my students, not just my four in my classroom, But the 32 we have enrolled in school, I have failed as a minister of the gospel if one, does not come to the saving knowledge of Christ. I don't do the saving. I don't do the prodding. I don't do the pushing. It's the spirit. But I have failed if I don't present it. And that's why we have a school. That's why it's an important ministry of our church. because we want our young people to know who Jesus is. That's why I know it's Christian education, but that's why we have those buses. That's why we're going to have a meeting next week. That's why we have junior church. We want our young people to know Jesus saves. Don't be ignorant of his devices in wrapping it up. In conclusion. Brother Price, why do you spend hours, why do you and your staff spend hours in grading and prepping your rooms, going to games, having these activities? Because we want our young people to know Satan is wild. We want them to know there's a spiritual warfare. We want them to know that they can fight that warfare because there's a soldier's weapon. But the most important thing is we want them to know that our Savior's done the work for them and who He is.