Let me welcome you this morning,
too. Good to see you here this morning,
and I want to share in our few moments together with you the
thought of the weapons of our warfare. If you want to turn
to 2 Corinthians chapter 10, the first three or four or five
verses there, we'll be looking at this subject by the Apostle
Paul to the church at Corinth, and it has application for us
today. I invite you to enter into our study here this morning. Since September the 11th, 2001,
Osama bin Laden has been public enemy number one on the FBI's
most wanted list. On May the 2nd of this year,
2011, Navy SEALs caught up with him in Afghanistan and ended
his almost 10-year claim to that title of most wanted distinction. This
religious fanatic who said he acted for God, in reality was
acting as God himself, but things didn't turn out the way that
he thought they would because God made a threat to all those
who take the sword, they shall die by the sword in Matthew chapter
26. And on May the 2nd, 2011, He
answered for his crimes against humanity and the American people
especially with his life. But we know that it's not over
yet because his followers will no doubt take up the charge that
he left them. But he has another judgment to
face. We know that it's appointed unto
man once to die and after that the judgment. And a far greater
judgment awaits him than what he experienced at the hands of
the Navy SEALs. Well, the church is engaged in
a warfare also, and that's what I want us to talk about this
morning, the weapons of our warfare. And this warfare, it's not a
carnal warfare. It's against spiritual wickedness
in high places. And our weapons are not carnal,
but the scripture says that they are mighty through God to the
pulling down of strongholds. This warfare is for the hearts
of God's elect, those already justified by christ blood yet
still in bondage and that's hard to realize for the natural mind
but that's the way we all are by nature though god has justified
his people through the blood and righteousness of the lord
jesus christ we all come into this world in bondage to satan
and his darkness That's what I want to talk about this morning.
Our unchangeable standing of justification was given us by
the Father in the everlasting covenant of grace. The responsibility
for our sins was laid on Christ, our surety and savior. And he
would come in time and satisfy all those conditions for our
salvation by his obedient suffering and death on the cross. When
we fell in Adam, we didn't fall from grace. We didn't fall out
of Christ, though we sinned against God and took sides with Satan,
really against God. The scripture says in Isaiah
53 that God laid on him the iniquity of us all, even though we sinned
against God. Though we joined with Satan and
opposed the God who loves us, who chose us and created us in
Christ Jesus, he never stopped loving us. As fallen creatures,
we need a deliverer, skillful not only in the word but the
work of righteousness, who can say with authority, as did Moses,
let my people go. So for the love of his elect,
God has appointed us a David to destroy our Goliath, not your
conventional army. with conventional weapons and
conventional tactics, but a single man with a simple sling and a
single smooth stone to destroy that person who kept us always
in bondage and fear of death. In other words, he took care
of Israel's Goliath and he takes care of his own Goliath. David was a type of a savior. This savior of whom David was
a type, this stone which the builders rejected, this rock
upon which Christ said, I will build my church, dealt a death
blow to sin when he died on the cross as a satisfaction to law
and justice for those he represented. As that single stone that David
hurled at the head of Goliath, so Christ, the chief cornerstone,
crushed the head of Satan when he dealt him that death blow
when he gave his life a ransom for many. That ransom paid in
his blood is the sinner's assurance that Christ will have everyone
for whom he died come to a knowledge of the truth of who he is, who
we are, and what he's done for his people. He will awaken every
soul for whom he died to this truth. Having reconciled God
to us by his blood on the cross. The work now is to reconcile
us to God by enlightening our minds and hearts to the complete
work that he finished on the cross for us. The battle now
is to change the hearts and minds of God's elect, those already
justified in Christ, and rest in him. So how does God accomplish
this change? Well, he enlists, or the scripture
says, he makes willing in the day of his power a number of
former rebels, which no man can number out of every kindred,
tongue, tribe, and nation. And he chooses them and commissions
them to, and he sends them to places like Joppa, where he sent
words of life to a Roman centurion whose occupation was a destroyer
of life. He sends words to the desert
to the heart of an Ethiopian eunuch in search of life. He
sends the words of life. To Philippi, where a jailer who
would take his own life is given eternal life. He sends them to
places like Nineveh, where the gospel Jonah reluctantly preached
was so powerful, the whole city repented. And last but not least,
he sends preachers to Albany, Georgia, the good life city. where we know that there's none
good, no not one, according to the scripture. And where when
the same gospel that Jonah preached to Nineveh brought a total repentance,
almost no one in Albany, Georgia repents over this gospel. But thank God, he came to a few. And we rejoice in that, that
he quickened some in time, redeemed us for all time by free grace,
and gave us a permanent and abiding fellowship in the household and
family of faith, and made us grateful warriors in the king's
army. And what is that mission of the
king? What is the mission of the church?
Is it not to go into all the world and preach the gospel?
Preach this message of what Christ has accomplished, what he's done
for his people. Tell them that the work is finished.
Tell them that satisfaction is made. Tell them that righteousness
is established. and righteousness demands life
to all those for whom it is imputed. Why is the preaching of the gospel
so important? Why is it important to go into
all the world and tell people God has saved the people in his
son, Jesus Christ? Well, in 2 Corinthians 10, in
these first few verses, we have a view of God's mind on the importance
of preaching the gospel. And I submit to you three reasons
why the gospel delivered by former rebels turned warriors loyal
to the king of kings is vital to those yet under the bondage
of Satan, whom Christ has shed his blood for. First of all,
it's the power of God unto salvation. Paul says, I'm not ashamed of
the gospel, for it is the power of God unto salvation. For therein
is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith. And he said
in 2 Corinthians chapter 11, be careful because there comes
others preaching another gospel, another Jesus by another spirit.
And we need to be aware of them. So first of all, it's the power
of God and the salvation if it's the gospel, the true gospel.
Secondly, it unlocks the mystery of godliness. How God can be
just and justify the ungodly. You'll hear this message nowhere
else except where the true gospel is preached. of how God saves
sinners based on the imputed righteousness of Christ. And
then thirdly, it authorizes and motivates the recipients of it,
as 1 Peter 3.15 says, to sanctify the Lord God in your hearts and
be ready always to give an answer to them that ask you of the reason
and the hope that's within you, and do it with meekness and fear.
In other words, this gospel convinces the redeemed sinner that the
manner, the message, and the means which affected his salvation
It's that which affects the salvation of all whom God saves. It's the
same message. It has the same result. It says
the same thing. So, warriors in the king's army
are called on to fight. Paul wrote to Timothy in 1 Timothy
chapter 6 and verse 12 and he said, Timothy, fight the good
fight of faith. Lay hold on salvation. So what
is that faith? It's the gospel. Fight the good
fight of the gospel. The faith is the gospel. The
gospel is a good fight. It's worthy of our engagement
because in the gospel, in the preaching of the gospel and the
sharing of the gospel, there are three things that happen.
First of all, it exposes the enemy. We can't fight an enemy
if we don't know who the enemy is. So the gospel will expose
the enemy to us. Secondly, it engages the enemy. God told, Christ told his disciples
to go into all the world and preach. Don't wait for them to
come to you. You go. You engage the enemy. And that's
what we do. And thirdly, the gospel exercises
the enemy. It takes away his demon-possessed
mind and gives him a heart and mind for God. So let's look at
these three things briefly this morning. First of all, the gospel
exposes the enemy. From my experience with Osama
Bin Laden, for almost 10 years he was careful
not to expose his location. His defense was to keep America
off balance by moving around from place to place. knowing
that a moving target was harder to find than one stationary.
And though we knew him to be our enemy, yet we couldn't expose
him. We couldn't quite find him. Every tape that they sent us
from him showed him in some mountainous region of Pakistan or in some
cave in Afghanistan, when in reality, he was within sight
of the American embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan. So exposing him
turned out to be a lot harder than destroying him. And it took
us almost 10 years to find him. But that's what the gospel is
about. It's about exposing who our enemy is. And my question
to you this morning is, has the enemy been exposed to you? Who
is the enemy of the church? Do you know that the enemy was
you? Or it is you? That's a pretty blunt statement,
isn't it? You are either Christ's enemy now or you were at one
time. Because we all come into this
world alienated and enemies in our minds by wicked works. We don't adhere to the things
of God. So the enemy was you or he still is you. And that's
a tough confession to admit my enmity against God, but at one
time I was at enmity against God. Everybody knows Satan is
the archenemy, but Satan was dealt a crushing blow by Christ
on Calvary. His power over God's elect to
hold in bondage and darkness and fear was broken, but his
influence has not diminished. He's still the accuser of the
brethren. The justified in Christ are still under his attack. The
remnant of God's elect, represented by Christ, redeemed by Christ,
righteous in Christ, are yet by nature alienated and enemies
in our minds by wicked works. And that's what the preaching
of the gospel is about. It's to change your mind about who
you are, about who God is, and about how he saves sinners. This
charge, alienated and enemies in our minds by wicked works,
is true, but it's unknown to us until we come under the sound
of the gospel. And the Holy Spirit in the preaching
of that gospel convinces us or exposes us of sin, righteousness,
and judgment. In other words, it exposes us
to be, by nature, the enemies of God. And the evidence of our
alienation from God is the nature of our wicked works. He said,
alienated in your mind by wicked works. These wicked works are
not immorality and lawlessness. They're religious in nature. They're our going about, our
doing good things, thinking that they recommend us to God. Really, it's our warfare that
he talks about. Look at 2 Corinthians chapter
10 in verse 4, if you would. He says, for the weapons of our
warfare, and this is after regeneration now, the weapons of our warfare
are not carnal, but mighty through God. By nature, we fight, but
we don't fight the fight of faith. We fight the fight of works.
We're all about works until God saves us. What are those wicked
works that we're involved in? Anything, going about, seeking
to be justified before God by what we do or what we don't do
or what God enables us to do. And these are the carnal works
that God calls wicked and evil. And these works come against
weapons, the weapons of the Lord, which are mighty through God
to the pulling down of strongholds. Look with me, if you would, at
Luke chapter 14. Here's a good example of those
who fight with the weapons of flesh and the weapons of God. Luke chapter 14 in verse 30 says
this. It's a parable. And Jesus said,
and what king going to make war against another king sitteth
not down first and consulteth whether he be able with 10,000
to meet him that cometh against him with 20,000. He consults
in the scripture. He looks at the scripture. What
does the scripture say? How can I stand against God, who is my
antebellum by nature, if he's got 20,000 and I only have 10,000? And Satan's advice is, yeah,
you can stand. Just keep on. You're doing OK. But he says, But only those fooled
or ignorant or diabolical would go with carnal weapons against
two to one odds by those equipped with weapons mighty through God.
But that's what we all do by nature. We seek to be justified
based on our terms, on what we can do instead of what God can
do. And look at the next verse. Or else while the other is yet
a great wealth, in other words, while God tarries in the age
of grace, while God waits, He sends an ambassador, a preacher,
someone who can tell, discern between the truth and the lie. And he desires what God's conditions. This other king who's coming
against him with 20,000, the king with 10,000, seeks an ambassador
to go and say, what are the conditions for peace? And of course, we
know that the conditions for peace are perfect satisfaction
to God's law and justice. rendered by Christ to establish
the perfect righteousness freely imputed by God to whosoever will. This is the message which reconciles
the sinner to God. Carnal weapons are no match for
those given by God. The truth of the word will always
prevail to deliver those saints who are in Christ, yet under
the dominion of Satan by nature. Satan cannot hold God's people
indefinitely. Sooner or later, God will call
them out of this darkness. So if we, according to Ephesians
chapter six and verse 12, wrestle not against flesh and blood after
regeneration and conversion, then it stands to reason that
before regeneration and conversion, we did wrestle. against flesh
and blood with the spirit. We sought to be justified before
God based on character and conduct, and that's all we could do. That's
all we knew to do. Until God saves us by his grace,
we are stuck in dead works. We can't produce anything but
dead works. Ignorant of grace, we engaged in battle against
the holy God with carnal weapons. Carnal weapons are those used
by false apostles such as eloquence of speech, fleshly wisdom, carnal
reasoning, great swelling words of vanity, anything that promotes
salvation by works, by faith and repentance or perseverance
or whatever you want to put there as a condition for your salvation.
And this exposed us to be the enemies of God. All the while,
we were claiming to be the friends of God. Well, my question is
to you, are your weapons today carnal? Are they mighty through
God? Have you been exposed as the
enemy of God? Have you considered the consequences
of war with this God? Have you sought his terms of
peace? At the judgment, will you offer your filthy rags, works,
religion, or plead his righteousness for all your salvation? I wonder
what Osama bin Laden pleads before God today. Dare we come against
the omnipotent God with carnal weapons? Well, thank God he exposes
the enemy. Thank God he came and exposed
the enemy in me, showed me my rebellion and my pride and my
self-righteousness, and convinced me of sin and righteousness and
judgment. And how did he do this? Well, that brings me to my second
point. Not only does he expose the enemy, but he engages the
enemy. Look back at 2 Corinthians chapter 10 in verse 4 and 5. He says, For the weapons of our
warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down
of strongholds, casting down imaginations, and every high
thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing
into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ. The
first action he mentions here is pulling down strongholds.
What is a stronghold? Well, a stronghold is any refuge
of lies, whereby a sinner takes refuge to escape the wrath of
God. So you see, by nature, we know
God's angry with us, and that God demands justice. So we look
for strongholds where we can hide from the wrath of God and
the punishment of God. And the first stronghold is the
mind. are the heart. The first stronghold
is the heart, and that's not that muscle that pumps blood.
The heart is the mind, the affections, and the will. The scripture says
that by nature we are alienated and enemies in our mind, evidenced
by our wicked works. Secondly, our heart is deceitful
above all things and desperately wicked, and then our wills are
in bondage to Satan. Jesus said to the leaders of
Jerusalem, how I would have gathered Thy children, together as a hen,
doth gather her brood on her wings, and you would not. So
here God engages the enemy. The enemy will not engage God
here, so we have to go and engage the enemy. And the first thing
we engage is the mind. Let's talk just a minute about
the mind, the affections, and the will, or the heart of the
sinner. He talks about casting down imagination. We define repentance as a radical
change of mind. And the first thing that God
convinces us of and brings us to repentance of is our thoughts
of him and our thoughts of ourselves. He says, you thought that I was
altogether such and one as you. Well, our mind has to be changed
on who God is. He's not like us, not in any
way. When did we first think that
God was altogether like us? You remember what Satan told
Adam and Eve in the garden? He said, when you eat of this
tree, you'll be like God, knowing good and evil. You'll be able
to discern between what's good and what's evil. In other words,
you'll be able to set your own standard. And that's what we
do by nature. We set our own standard and we
break the laws every day and we bend the law. We boast even
in this, but God knows no such standard. His standard is this,
do and live, disobey and die. The mind steeped in legalism
by nature imagines God to be lax in his law and large in his
love. God will accept us, we think,
if we just do the best we can. God wouldn't be just to charge
us with something we can't do. But we know that that's not God's
law and justice. Opposite of this imagination
is the reality that God does not grade on the curve. He judges
in righteousness. He's appointed a day in which
he will judge the world in righteousness by that man that he raised from
the dead. And in Ephesians chapter 4 and
verse 18, Paul describes the mind of all of us by nature.
He says, we have the understanding darkened, being alienated from
the life of God through the ignorance that is in them because of the
blindness of their heart. And the psalmist had the same
description of us in Psalm chapter 2 and verse 1. He says, why do
the heathen rage? Why do you oppose God? And the
people imagine a vain thing. What is that vain thing? Somehow,
someway salvation is conditioned on me, the sinner, and I must
do something. Well, we do it in ignorance.
That's why we rage against God. That's why we imagine a vain
thing. And casting down imaginations is needful. It's inevitable,
and it's profitable for God's people. You see, the mind is
our door, the door to our being, as a man thinketh in his heart. So is he. So our minds have to
be changed. And secondly, our affections.
The mind governs the affections. Men with darkened minds love
darkness. Men with enlightened minds love
light. And the answer to a love of darkness
is the truth. Look with me, if you would, at
John 3, 6, John chapter 3 in verse 18, beginning in verse
18. Here he describes the natural
mind and the enlightened mind. He says in verse 18 of John chapter
3, He that believeth on him, the sinner that believes on Christ,
is not condemned. But he that believeth not is
condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name
of the only begotten Son of God. And this is the condemnation.
that light is coming to the world, and men love darkness rather
than light. Why? Because their deeds were evil.
For everyone that doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh
to the light. Now this evil here is not, again,
it's not lawlessness and drunkenness and debauchery. It's seeking
to be justified by something other than the imputed righteousness
of Christ. That's evil and wicked in God's
sight. And he that doeth this evil hateth the light. because their deeds were evil.
Everyone that doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to
the light, lest his deeds should be reproved. But he that doeth
truth cometh to the light, that his deeds may be made manifest,
that they are wrought in God. You know, men love their God,
whether it be the true and living God or an idol of their imagination.
They love their God. I love the God that I worship
before God saved me. And I attributed to him every
blessing of life I had. Although the true and living
God was blessing me, I was attributing it to an idol of my imagination.
And that's where the sin is. So until the Holy Spirit of God
sends a warrior with these mighty weapons, with the gospel of grace,
which 2 Corinthians 10, 5 says, cast down every imagination and
high thing that exalts itself against God, our affections are
toward an idol of our imagination. until the Spirit of God convinces
us. How strong is that affection?
Well, for Osama Bin Laden it was death. He was willing to
die for his God. And he died because he exalted
himself above the knowledge of God. And that's what he made
himself to be more than God says of men like him. That's what
it is to exalt yourself above the knowledge of God. God's Word
says of us. We're sinners. Nothing more than
sinners. And anytime we exalt ourselves
to be above the sinner, then we're exalting ourselves above
what God says of us. He imagined God, on the other
hand, to be what God himself wasn't. So, Bin Laden loved his
idol, just like we did by nature. Our minds, being darkened, chose
an idol, and we worshiped that idol. We had affections toward
that idol. And then the will If the mind
is dark and the affections of the heart are dark, then the
will is in subjection to evil. And that's what we are by nature.
We love this darkness. Why? Because the scripture says
in John 3, 20, our deeds are evil. Paul wrote this in Romans
6, verse 17, but God be thanked. that you were the servants of
sin, but you have obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine
being delivered you. Being then made free from sin,
you became the servants of righteousness. Free will, you know, is a myth.
Everybody talks about free will. We have a free will to do what
we want to do. The problem is we don't have
a free will to do what God wants us to do and what we ought to
do. And therefore, We will not come to the light. Jesus said,
you will not come to me that you might have light. Well, why
not? Because my will's in bondage to Satan by nature. Our freedom
is not what we do but what we want to do. It's not what we
ought to do. This is the bondage that we're
in. So casting down imaginations
begins with a change of mind concerning who God is and who
we are by nature. It is successful when it stirs
up the affections to disown and abandon our idol. And it is accomplished
in the elect when God, using the gospel, engages the enemy
to examine the truth. Remember what Christ said, if
you continue in my word, then are you my disciples indeed,
and you will know the truth, and it's the truth that will
set you free. So God does not leave his children alone. Those
whom he foreknew, those whom he gave to Christ, He will not
abandon, he will not cast away his people whom he foreknew.
He will expose their enmity, he will engage them, the enemy,
to come let us reason together, saith your God, though your sins
be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow. So God uses
the gospel in the hands of one of his warriors to expose the
enemy, to engage the enemy, and thirdly, to exercise the enemy,
to free him of that evil spirit that's within him. Look at the
latter part of 2 Corinthians 10 verse 5. He says, and bring
into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ. Well,
here again, we see the importance of knowledge. By nature, our
loftiest notions of God are secondary to ours. We think more highly
of ourselves than we ought to and less of God than we should.
We exalt our imaginations of self above the knowledge of God. This knowledge of God is that
which he hath revealed concerning himself and us, what the word
says of him and what he says about us. And we see evidences
of this in our walk before God saved us. We thought our obedience
is what recommended us to God. We implied that Christ's obedience
to suffering and death on the cross was nothing more than an
attempt to save us, that he didn't really save anybody. We saw his
work as nothing more than a platform whereby we might finish the work
that he came to do. Such thinking implies that God's
plan of salvation is flawed. And if it were true, it would
be flawed, making it possible for some for whom Christ died
might not perish. Even worse, it attributes to
the sinner's free will is that which seals the deal on my salvation. So until this evil spirit is
exercised, every thought will be to the sinner's obedience
and not to the obedience of Christ. This exorcism comes only by confrontation
with the truth of the gospel and the power of the Holy Spirit.
Saving faith, that faith of believers administered to sinners at regeneration
and conversion immediately looks to Christ and his obedience as
their only source of all grace here and all glory hereafter.
Our emphasis on believing or repenting or persevering or whatever
condition our denomination puts on our acceptance before God
is gladly rejected for our acceptance of his obedience and what he
did and what he accomplished. Look, if Christ satisfied law
and justice, and he did, If he established a perfect righteousness
and freely imputed it to his elect, which he did, if he sends
a preacher to declare the gospel to sinners, and he does, if he
has begun that good work in you, then he will show you Christ
in every scripture. He will bring into captivity,
he will capture every thought and show you of Christ. Jesus
himself said this, search the scriptures, for in them you think
you have eternal life, and they are they which testify of me.
It is the scripture which testifies of his obedience and not the
sinner's obedience that stands us in an unchangeable righteousness.
So the weapons of our warfare, which are the word of God, the
sword of the spirit, and the word of truth are sufficient
and necessary to engage and subdue the enemy. Those truths which
convince the fathers of sin, righteousness, and judgment are
the same truths whereby you and I were convinced of sin, righteousness,
and judgment. and they are the same truths
which will bring those yet in darkness to a knowledge of the
truth that is in Christ Jesus. So the
need for warriors and weapons mighty through God are as needed
today as they ever have been because God has a most wanted
list also. My question is, are you on that
most wanted list? See, God's going to have his
people. He's going to have them. Christ has already redeemed them.
They must come. And he needs warriors to go and
tell them that Christ has already redeemed them. And there's only
one thing that will end their rebellion. Those mighty weapons
of God will end their rebellion and rest their hope on his obedience
alone. My hope is in him. I recommend
him to any center at enmity with God. So the weapons we employ
in spiritual warfare are those used by others to our conversion. We faithfully discharge our duty
as soldiers in the King's Army knowing the people that sat in
darkness have seen a great light, and that includes us. Some who
sit in darkness will see the light. That's why we preach it.
The gospel warrior with his mighty weapons All products of Christ's
obedience is God's means to that end. So, in Ephesians 6, Paul
said, put on the whole armor of God. Stand, therefore, having
your loins girded by all truth, having on the breastplate of
righteousness, and your feet shod with the preparation of
the gospel of peace. And take the helmet of salvation
and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God, and
stand. And that's what we do. Mark,
come and lead us in a closing hymn.