have to engage the enemy. Ephesians chapter six, we find the armor of God, verse 10. Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord and in the power of his might. Put on the whole armor of God that ye may be able to stand against the wiles or the schemes the attacks 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 and this age, against spiritual wickedness in high places. Wherefore, take unto you the whole armor of God. It's not our armor, it's God's armor, but we have to put it on, that ye may be able to withstand against those that are evil in the evil day. And having done all to stand, stand therefore having your loins girt about with truth. We know we need to dress for success this morning. If we're gonna defeat Satan, and if you're gonna defeat Satan, you have to be prepared. You have to put on the whole armor of God. And if we're gonna be able to stand and withstand, we need to put on the armor, the belt of truth, God's word. Stand therefore having your loins girt about with truth. Satan is going to attack the truth. The Bible is under attack. If we don't have the word of God, what do we have? We need the truth today. We need God's word. And the devil wants us to, he wants to get us to believe a lie. He's persuading many to turn from the truth and to turn to human philosophy. And the devil's gonna go to extraordinary lengths to limit our communication and our interaction with God and his word. Satan is not only gonna attack with error, he's gonna attack with sin and self-righteousness. That's why it says there in verse 14, stand therefore having loins girt about truth and having on the breastplate of righteousness. This is not our righteousness, this is the righteousness of Jesus Christ. See, so many are trusting in religion, their good works, their self-righteousness, their baptism, their church. I've got my religion. Have you heard that one before? I've got my own religion. Well, there's only one religion. That is the righteousness of Jesus Christ. There's only one way to heaven. It's not, this is the American way, this is the, you know, this is the Western way. No, my friend, that's why we're supposed to go into all the world and preach the gospel of Jesus Christ. that Jesus died, He was buried, and He rose again on the third day victorious over our sin and victorious over death. And that is the Gospel that is to go into all the world, not to just where Christians have been established, not to just where Christian people are, not just to where they're friendly to the message, but to all people, to Muslim countries, countries, to atheist countries, to communist countries. All the world is to be evangelized. Meaning we need to bring the Good News, the Gospel to all people. And it's the breastplate of the righteousness of Jesus. And And so this breastplate is important. But the devil's gonna attack with error. He's gonna try to take over the word and try to water down the scriptures. He's gonna try to attack with self-righteousness. He's gonna attack also with discouragement. We see here in verse number 15, and your feet shod, or literally shooed, literally in the Greek, having underbound the feet, having shoes on. He says, and your feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace. Literally put on the gospel peace shoes. Put on the good news shoes and let's pray today. Father, I pray that you bless your word. Lord, we thank you that your truth is for all people. It's for all people, not just us here in this building. We thank you that we have the word to help us as your church to realize that all that you have planned in this world revolves around the church. God, in this age, we have a responsibility to get outside the four walls of the church building and to take a message. and to be a herald of the truth, a herald of the gospel, the message that you have. We're not to be salesmen. Help us to realize we're not peddling anything. We are just telling people the way to God. Salvation. And I pray that you'd help us to do that. But in the meantime, help us not to forget that salvation is for all people, including ourselves. We thank you that you saved us from the penalty of our sin, and someday you're gonna save us from the presence of our sin with a new glorified body. But help us in the meantime, through our sanctification, that we would realize the good news is for us as well, that we would have peace in our life, that we wouldn't be overcome with all of the sins in this world. and be defeated by the world, the flesh, and the devil. But Lord, help us to realize that you are saving us right now from the power of our sin. In Jesus' name I pray, amen. And so we see that the word preparation there in verse number 15 implies readiness to move. We need to be prepared to go somewhere, prepared to move. The gospel of peace literally is the good news of peace. And by the way, there's only one other passage in the Bible where we find good news, peace, and feet in the same verse. And it's over in the book of Isaiah, chapter 57, verse 7. Isaiah 52, I'm sorry, verse 7. And Isaiah says, how beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him that bringeth good tidings, that publisheth peace, that bringeth good tidings of good, that publisheth salvation, that saith unto Zion, thy God reigneth. Now, feet aren't normally thought of as being beautiful. At least not in my culture. I don't know about where you come from or what you're used to, but at least where I'm from and what I've been used to is that feet aren't even something that look good. They're not beautiful. I praise God for feet. I'm thankful for them. But what they're saying here, what Isaiah is saying is, how beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him that bringeth good tidings, that somebody that publisheth peace bringeth good news. What he's saying is, when somebody is coming to tell us the good news of the gospel, even their feet are beautiful. Those that are coming to share the truth with me, even their feet are beautiful. I'm not gonna get down and kiss their feet maybe, but their feet are beautiful. I'm thankful that somebody decided to leave where they were to go to where I am to tell me the truth. Now we should be prepared to go with the gospel. And Paul speaks of feet shod with the readiness of the gospel of peace. And there are many good applications in this verse. But I believe one of the best ways to understand this passage is that we need to be sure-footed in the gospel of peace. The Gospel is good news about salvation over the penalty of our sin, but sometimes we forget it's good news about the power over our sin. As we live the Christian life, we don't have to live defeated lives. We have victory in Jesus. We have victory over living in bondage in this world. We have victory over sin. We can have real peace in our lives. And yet, I see so many Christians do not have the real peace of Jesus Christ in our lives. They're living defeated. They're living discouraged. Yes, worry and anxiety do come and go in our lives, but we don't have to live in that mode. That shouldn't be where we are living. We need to live above the fray, as they say. We need to live with Jesus where he's at. Jesus was discouraged at times. There were times where he cried and he wept over things. There were times where he said, let this cup pass from me, but my friend, he always had peace in his life. We can have peace in ours too. He had peace and so should we. We don't have to live defeated. And an army moves on its feet. More so years ago than so today, but still in our U.S. military, footwear is very important. Footwear is very important. And a soldier's feet need to be taken care of. Because if your feet go out, You don't have much recourse if you're in the army, okay? You're a lame duck, as they say. And the Roman soldier in pause day wore boots which had nails and spikes on the bottom of those boots or those sandals, what they were wearing. And like cleats, many wore these nails, like you would see maybe like a football player or maybe in soccer or baseball, they had these nails that would give them traction or firm footing as they were engaging in battle. Could you imagine if you took the Green Bay Packers And I was going to say Chicago Bears, but I won't go there. And the Minnesota Vikings. And you gave one of them beautiful running shoes, like brand new. Just give them all, just give, let's say the Packers, OK, since we're in our hometown, basically. Green Bay's not that far. But let's say you give the Packers running shoes. But you give the Vikings cleats, football cleats. who do you think's gonna hold up when it comes time to defend the line And I know you wanna say Packers because that's probably true, but if we had two equally talented teams, they were perfectly matched against each other, one's gonna lose because they're not wearing the proper footwear. And those Roman soldiers, they had the ability to withstand the enemy. They could stand their ground because they had a firm foot on the battlefield. And in order for us to fight, Spiritually we need to be able to stand and Paul is talking about standing not slipping not falling but standing and Satan has put in the battlefield all kinds of thorns and briars and stones and stumbling blocks and And all kinds of things to get us to fall down in the Christian walk. And sad to say, many Christians don't have a firm footing. They're falling down, why? Because they haven't put on the shoes for battle. Now, if you walk through your house barefoot in the dark, you think you know what's on the floor. But once in a while, the dog surprises you. And we have a precious little puppy at our house. Little Heidi is about 12 weeks old. And my wife surprised me a few weeks ago on Father's Day, basically the week before Father's Day. But for Father's Day, she went and the kids got a Dachshund puppy. And I love dogs. And I love Dachshunds. I love all kinds of animals, but I really am partial to dachshunds because that's what I grew up with at our house. And my dad grew up with dachshunds at their house. And we have that little beautiful dog, and sometimes she can get underfoot. And sometimes she can leave little prizes around the house as well. We haven't really seen that too much with this dog, but I've had experience in the past with others. And sometimes that dog will leave a little surprise on the floor, or maybe one of the kids leaves a toy out. They leave out their Jacks or maybe Legos, which this morning, speaking of dogs, I actually pulled this out of our dog's mouth this morning, and I think that thing was on the floor. It was poised for a barefooted parent or mother-in-law to come along and step on this Lego, and these toys will hobble an adult. These will hobble you. They will cripple you. They could take you out. But this little Lego, my friend, will hobble a barefooted person, but if you're wearing shoes, you might not even notice it. You might say, what was that? Why? Because footwear is important. The enemy is trying to hobble us. He's trying to maim us and lame us. And that's why we need to have on our gospel shoes. Instead of limping through the Christian life, you and I can be leaping through the Christian life because we have Jesus Christ. And as they say, N-O, no Jesus, no peace. K-N-O-W, no Jesus, no peace. And it's not just a funny little cliche, that's a truth. If you know Jesus, you can know peace. And so many don't know Jesus. And so many Christians act like they don't know Jesus. You know what it's like when things make us feel unstable in the life that we're living and a little bit shaky? Maybe you've lost your job, maybe your job's a little bit unstable, maybe somebody has passed away, maybe your money situation's a little tight. Maybe you have a relationship problem. And we can get shaky and we can become defeated sometimes. We go through all those trials, we face all of those things, right? But we get a little shaky. Tony Evans say having your feet shod with the preparation of the gospel piece creates a stability that even Satan cannot undo and when we get on the gospel shoes when we have the peace of Jesus Christ Applied to our life just like his righteousness and we carry his truth when we have all of those elements. We are ready to to walk through the life that God has given to us. Of course, there's other pieces of armor that we need to add on, but just those three right there give us a good start into what God wants us to do. In order for us to wear God's peace, we need to know God's peace, amen? The Greek word translated peace is a word that embodies completeness, wholeness, and an inner resting of the soul that doesn't fluctuate based on outside influences. Go with me to Philippians chapter 4, verse 7. It's just a few pages towards the back of your Bible. We looked at this on Thursday night. Philippians 4, 7. And the peace. There's so much in the Bible about peace. You think we should know it all, right? We should be at peace in our hearts. Well, the reason there's so much in there is because we need so much of this. We need this. We need constant reminders. We struggle on this battlefront so much. So many Christians are not at peace. They're not at peace. Verse seven, Philippians 4.7, and the peace of God which passeth all understanding, which means it doesn't make human sense. It doesn't make human sense. It means it's supernatural. And the peace of God which passeth all understanding shall keep. shall guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus. The truest manifestation of peace is one that resonates from within. We got so many different alternatives to the peace of God out in the world. There's all kinds of drugs and alcohol and there's pills that you could take. There's all kinds of relationships that you could get involved in. There's so many people chase after work. They live to work. They live to maybe even work out. They live for sports. They live for all kinds of things. But those are all external pieces and they don't last. We need the peace from within, the peace that comes by having the God of this universe, the Holy Spirit residing within us, the peace of God, and to have that in our life and let it, allow it to keep our hearts and minds. I want you to look at Colossians 3.15. This peace is so powerful that we're instructed to let it control us so that we are guarded from the enemy's attacks. We need to let peace control us. So many of us don't want to submit, and that's where we come to this problem. We don't want to let go of our worry. We don't want to let go of our anxiety, because we've lived with it so long, we don't know anything else. Colossians 3, verse 15, Paul says here, and let. And let the peace of God rule in your hearts. And let the peace of God rule in your hearts. The Greek word used for rule essentially means umpire, umpire. What does an umpire do? An umpire calls balls and strikes and out and safe. An umpire is the one that makes, he calls the shots. We need to allow the peace of God, let the peace of God rule in your hearts. Rule in your hearts. God says that when we allow peace to be our umpire, he will call the shots. We say, I wanna be worried about this. I think that there's gonna be some problems here, and I don't know what's gonna happen. I'm concerned about this. But we need to let God's peace rule in our hearts, his rule. Allow our thoughts and desires to be under his rule. Every area of our life, allow him to calm our minds, allow him to have control. We don't wanna let go, but we need to have that faith to say, Jesus, This is not mine to worry about. I belong to you. I shouldn't be all worried about my life. God, you're in control. You know what's best. You see the beginning from the end. I don't know what tomorrow holds, but I know who holds tomorrow. We're holding on to the hand of Jesus Christ when we say I'm gonna let you rule I'm gonna let your peace have control you can call the shots in my life Many times we want to stay in control because that's where our security comes from but that's a false security We think that we know better than God But that's not faith that's living where we can see and You know, I can't really see what's going on here. I need to just wait till I have a better understanding. And sometimes we'll never have a better understanding. By the way, a lot of things that we worry about never come to pass. A lot of things that we're concerned about, it doesn't even happen. But we spend all of that time and all that energy in worry. And God says, let. Let the peace of God rule. Let him rule in your heart. If the peace of Christ is ruling, that means the peace of Christ is present even in the midst of a storm. John chapter 14, if you will, let's turn there. It's not just good enough to be saved, God left us here to do a work, and in order for us to be productive, we have to be partaking in His grace through every single day. And He gives us grace to be saved, praise God, for heaven as my home. I'm so glad that many of you know Jesus Christ as your personal Savior, but He's wanting to be a personal Savior every single day through every single trial, amen? He cares enough about, sometimes we don't think God cares. Does Jesus care? Yes, he cares. Verse 27, John 14, 27, here's the words of Jesus, and he says, and by the way, this is when he is. He is basically heading towards Calvary at this point. A lot of the Gospels are written just in that period right up before the crucifixion. But here in verse 27, chapter 14, Jesus talks about the Comforter, amen, the Holy Ghost. And the Father's gonna send that comforter. And the Bible says he'll teach you in all things. He'll bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said to you. But then he says in verse 27, peace I leave with you. My peace I give unto you, not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid. How many of you, if you're honest, you're tempted to be fearful. I spent some time yesterday looking at crime statistics for our city, more or less just to educate myself on what's going on. But if I'm spending my life in the news and looking at statistics and dealing with the people in this world, and people are so messed up, people are so unhappy, people are angry, And they're getting what they want. They're getting what they want, and yet they're not happy. It just makes them more anxious and more angry and more upset. It's a vicious, vicious cycle. And it's because they don't know Jesus. But I can live my life worried. And if we're honest, we many times get anxious and worried. about all that's going on around us. But we need to remember that that is not the kind of life that Jesus intended for us to live. He wants us to be at peace. You know, there's a great attractive quality to having peace in your life. People become jealous of that. They say, wow, I wish, maybe a coworker, I wish I had the peace that you have. How do you get through all that you're going through? By the way, some of the greatest exhibitions of peace have been through hard times. I've seen some people go through losing children, go through losing their spouse, and yet they're at peace. They can lose the dearest ones in this world, and yet they're at peace. Why? Because they're holding onto Jesus' hand. And what a great testimony it is to the world for people to look at us and say, how is it that you have such peace in this time? And all the glory belongs to Jesus when we can say, look to my Savior. He saved me from my sin and he's saving me from the power over worry and fear and anxiety. And he'll give you peace and he'll give you true joy. Joy is not found in drugs, joy is not found in alcohol, joy is not found in relationships with people as much as it is found in Jesus Christ. It's always found when we come to Jesus. With every head bowed this morning, every eye closed, if you don't know Jesus as your personal Savior, I want you to come and we can show you from the Bible how you can be saved. How you can know that heaven is your home. Jesus is your Savior from sin. I want you, as soon as we hear the piano play, let Mrs. Hoover play something so she can go ahead and start playing. But as we're talking here, I want you just to get out of your seat as soon as I pray, and as soon as I say amen, that's your signal. You come and you talk to someone down here in the front, either myself or Brother Larry, and we'll show you from the Bible how you can be saved. I have a couple questions this morning. If you can honestly raise your hand and say, I have been forgiven my sins by Jesus. I'm not trusting my good works or baptism. I'm not trusting in self-righteousness. I know that Jesus is my Savior. If you can honestly raise your hand this morning, you go ahead and raise your hand as a testimony of your salvation. Praise God. Everyone that just raised their hand this morning, you can put your hand down. But why don't you, why don't you come and pray and say, God, God, give me the peace that I need. I don't have what I need. I know you want to give it to me. Your grace is sufficient. You can help me, but I'm not at peace in my life right now. And if I'm honest, that's a sin against you. If you can pray a prayer like that, if you know that Jesus is your Savior from your sin, He's given you eternal life. Let's live in peace. You come and pray to Jesus. In just a moment, we'll pray. And when I say amen, you come to the altar. You can pray as well. But if you're not honestly able to raise your hand, don't wait around until a more convenient time to get saved. You may never get the chance. You come and pray. If you're saved and you're not baptized, we can come, we counsel you, show you scripturally the need for baptism, as well as church membership. If this is not your home church, you'd like to put your membership here, be a part of what God's doing at Souls Harbor. We'd love to talk to you about that. Let's all stand to our feet with every head bowed and every eye closed. Father, Lord, I pray that you bless this time of invitation. God, I pray that you'd help us to live a victorious life, to not be defeated, to not be discouraged at every turn. Although, Lord, those temptations come along, it's a normal part of life. Help us to realize that we have all victory in Jesus. I pray that you'd help those that are needing to be saved this morning that they would trust you as their personal Savior because we're all sinners we deserve to go to hell but we thank you for your son Jesus who died on the cross may they put their faith in you today all that you've done and nothing that we could bring I pray that you bless all that is said and done I pray for each and every Christian help them