All right, brethren, let's turn
in our Bibles to Ephesians chapter 6. Ephesians chapter 6. We saw how that the Lord has
provided armor for His people. I want to concentrate on one
piece of that armor this morning in Ephesians 6.15. He says here, "...and have your
feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace." We've
seen God's purpose in trials here lately. And the Lord said
that you must through much tribulation. He said you must. He said this
to the believer. You must through much tribulation
enter the kingdom of God. Satan's chief desire is to wound
the Achilles heel of the believer. And so Satan and his chihuahuas
are always nipping at the heels of a believer. And God has, in
order for us to walk to Christ, make straight paths for our feet
to Christ, in order for us to walk through the trial and walk
throughout the life of faith. God has provided shoes for the
believer. These are ready-made shoes. First of all, He speaks here
of your feet. He says, having your feet shot. What does God say in His Word
about our feet as we're born into this world? What does He
say about the feet of unbelievers? Let me give you some scripture.
Proverbs 116. He says, their feet run to evil. and make haste
to shed blood. He says in Proverbs 6.18, Their
heart deviseth wicked imaginations, and their feet are swift in running
to mischief. And then in Isaiah 59, 7, he
says again, their feet run to evil. They make haste to shed
innocent blood. Their thoughts are thoughts of
iniquity, wasting and destruction are in their paths. And Paul
quoted this again in Romans 3, 15, applying it to Jew and Gentile,
male and female, everybody born of Adam. And that's our case
by nature. That's what our feet are swift
to do. God has to bring us to the point
where we'll confess this about ourselves. And until we can say
this is so of myself, until I can be brought to the point where
I can say, yeah, my feet run to evil. My feet are hasty to
shed innocent blood. My feet are swift to run to mischief. Until I can say that about myself,
I can't be saved. Because I have no need of salvation
yet. I don't see my need. I don't
see the purpose for which God has sent Christ into the world.
We've got to be brought to this place. Look over to Luke 18. Until we're humbled and brought
down, we'll never enjoy God's free justification. Look at what
Christ said here. You know this parable, but look
at Luke 18 and verse 11. Let's begin in verse 10. Let's
begin at verse 9. Sorry. He says, "...he spake
this parable unto certain which trusted in themselves that they
were righteous, and despised others." And that'll always be
the case if we trust in ourselves that we're righteous. We'll despise
others. Because when you're trusting
yourself that you're righteous, you're always exalting yourself
over somebody else. This is what he's going to show
us in this parable. One of the things. He says there, two men
went up into the temple to pray. The one a Pharisee, the other
a publican. Pharisee outwardly looked righteous. He was a religious man. This
publican outwardly looked like a thief and a robber to everybody. Now watch this. Does God look
on the outward appearance? No. Look at this. The Pharisee
stood and prayed thus with himself. God, I thank Thee that I'm not
like other men. I'm not their extortioners and
unjust and adulterers, or even as this publican. I fast twice
in the week. I give tithes of all that I possess.
And the publican, standing afar off, would not lift up so much
as his eyes unto heaven, but smote upon his breast, saying,
God, be merciful to me, a sinner. I tell you, this man went down
to his house justified rather than the other. For everyone
that exalteth himself shall be abased, and he that humbleth
himself shall be exalted." Now that's the words of the Redeemer.
Look over again at Matthew chapter 9. We have to be brought down
to see what God says of our feet, that they run to mischief, they're
swift to shed blood, iniquity, And sin is all we are. We've
got to be brought to see that, to know that, confess that to
God. Look here at Matthew 9 and verse
10. Matthew 9 and verse 10. It says, It came to pass as Jesus
set at meat in the house, behold, many publicans and sinners came
and sat down with Him and His disciples. Isn't that this house
right here? Here we are. hopefully gathered
at the feet of Christ, and here you have a bunch of sinners and
publicans. That's all we are. And look at what religious folks
said. And when the Pharisees saw it, they said unto his disciples,
Why eateth your master with publicans and sinners? That's something
they would never do. Thank God he does. Aren't you
glad? Look. But when Jesus heard that,
he said unto them, They that behold need not a physician. You ever heard of a hospital
that didn't have any sick folks in it? You never heard of a church
that wasn't full of sinners either? Not a true one. Because this
is who He came to save. Look, they that are sick, that's
who need the physician. But go ye and learn what that
meaneth. I will have mercy and not sacrifice. God's not interested in our works
because our works are vanity. He's not interested in our sacrifice.
God's going to save according to, by His mercy. That's how
He saves. For I'm not come to call the
righteous, but sinners to repentance. So we have to be brought to confess
this about our feet. They're swift to shed blood.
Alright? And secondly, our text speaks of having your feet shod.
having your feet shod. Verse 14, this word having is
a passive word. Look at verse 14. Stand therefore
having your loins girt about with truth, having on the breastplate
of righteousness. And you can add it to the last
part, having your feet shod with the preparation of the gospel.
That's a passive word. And then preparation, it means
it's already been made. It's already prepared. It's already
made. The believer, a true believer,
we're not cobblers. We're not in the business of
making these shoes. That's not our business, to make
the shoes that we're talking about here. Now, if you go to
a physician and you have a broke foot, And your physician tells
you, I can heal you. All I need you to do is, I need
you to set the bone. I need you to put some pins in
your foot. I need you to make your cast. I need you to make
you some crutches. I'll find another physician.
Because that's not good news to me. I'm broke. I'm broken. I need to be healed. And he can't
do it. He's telling me I got to help
him do it. Well, the Christ of this Bible doesn't require you
to help him make the shoes. He doesn't. These shoes come
already made. And that's the good news of the
gospel. Right now if you think you have some ability and some
righteousness and some some merit in you so that you can help Christ
make these shoes and put these shoes on yourself. You'll never
be shot with the with the these shoes at all. We have to, first
of all, the Christ of the Bible, this is what we've got to be
brought to see, the Christ of the Bible, the Christ of heaven,
the true and living God, prepares the shoes by himself. And he
puts them on his people himself. That's what we have to be brought
to see. Peter called it salvation ready. Salvation ready to be
revealed. These are ready-made shoes. When
you go to the shoe store, you find all different kinds of styles
of shoes and all different sizes of shoes and there's something
for everybody. That's the shoes that this world
preaches. We're gonna see that in the second
message. That's the type of shoe that
the religion presents. We got something for everybody.
We can satisfy you with something. Well, that's not the case with
God. There's one one shoe, one size, and it fits all his saints
because it's made just for them. That's true. So the first thing
Christ does when he saves us is he got to strip off whatever
it is that we're wearing, whatever it is we've made for ourselves.
He's got to strip it off. That's how he's going to use
his preacher. He's going to strip off his own shoes. Remember when
Moses, he came to the burning bush. that picture of Christ
who was burned and yet it never touched him and never hurt him.
There he stands and what did the Lord tell Moses? Put your
shoes off your feet. Take your shoes off your feet.
This is holy ground. Joshua walks out there and he's
going to spy out Jericho before he goes to attack Jericho. Picture
of us going forth preaching the gospel and Christ breaking down
the walls and delivering his elect people out of the midst
of the enemy city with the gospel. What was the first thing the
Lord, when the Lord met Joshua, the first thing He said to him
was, take your shoes off your feet. Take your shoes off your
feet. We've got to take anything that
we've made has got to be taken off. It's got to be removed because
we can't come with our shoes. We've got to come in His shoes.
And then once He's removed our shoes, then He puts the shoes
on our feet. The psalmist said in Psalm 40
verse 2, He brought me up out of the horrible pit. And he brought
me out of the miry clay, and he set my feet upon a rock, and
he established my goings. He maketh my feet like Hines'
feet, and he setteth me upon high places. This is the work
of our Redeemer. And that's because this is how
he sends forth his preacher. He strips him of his shoes and
then he puts the shoes that he's made upon his feet. That's the
reason that when he sends this preacher with the gospel of the
good news of the salvation that Christ has accomplished, his
preacher comes forth speaking dogmatically. He comes forth
speaking with authority. He comes forth speaking as one
that knows what he's talking about. I don't come up here and
speak and say, well now, maybe this is what this means or this
might mean this or could mean that. What good is that? If I
don't know what it is, I'm not going to preach it. I'm going
to wait until God gives me some understanding on it before I
speak it to you. But you come forth speaking that which you
know, that which you've experienced by His grace. And that's why
the scripture says, How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet
of them that bring good tidings and publish peace, that bring
good tidings of good, that publish salvation, that declare to you,
Thy God reigneth. You know how you're going to
know God reigns? When He's reigned in your heart. That's how you
know He reigns. Alright, what is it we're shod with? Alright,
back at our text, Ephesians 6, verse 15. He says, "...having
your feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace." The
gospel of peace. Every child Christ saves, He
finds us waging a very strange war. A very strange war. When God finds His child in our
defiled minds, We think that the true and living God is our
enemy. Now, we don't think the God of
our imagination is our enemy. The God that we imagine, we don't
think He's our enemy. We claim to love Him and cherish
Him and honor Him and we claim that He's saved by grace and
through faith when all along we're just trusting in our works.
But the true and living God, that God we despise. That God
is our enemy and our wicked mind. That's how Christ finds his people.
That's the case with every one of us. And the fact of the matter
is, the true and living God's not our enemy. Satan, sin, death
and hell's our enemy. But we think the true and living
God's our enemy. By nature, that's us. And in the sinner's defiled
heart, he thinks he's well fortified for the battle. And he thinks
he's fighting against Satan. But the truth is, Satan in his
wiles has closed this poor sinner. And his loins, instead of being
girt about with truth, they're girt about with a lie. His breastplate
is his own unrighteous works instead of being the righteousness
of Christ. His feet are unshod and they're filthy while he walks
in his own vain way. His flimsy shield is faith in
his faith. And I'll tell you something about
Satan. He won't ever fire a fiery dart at that shield. He loves
that shield. Faith in your faith. Oh, he wants
you to hang on to that. And his helmet, it's not salvation. It's the helmet of condemnation.
Because as long as his conscience is not purged by the blood of
Christ, he never has confidence that he's done enough so that
he can rest. It's the helmet of condemnation.
And his weapon is this dull butter knife called, this is what I
think. Or this is what my false preacher
told me. Instead of the sword of the spirit,
which is the word of God. The word of God. And so Satan's
got him decked in hell's most flammable armor. And he thinks
he's ready for war. Then that's why, with every vain
work that the sinner does, whereby he thinks he's hurling, launching
rockets at Satan, what he's really doing, and all of his works,
and all of his self-righteousness, and all of his self-sanctified
works, is he's hurling weapons and waging war against the true
and living God, against Christ Himself. Do you get what I'm
saying? You understand what I'm saying?
That's how we are until He comes and saves us. We think we're
waging war against Satan and we're waging war against God
Himself. And yet, this is what Christ will do for His child.
In sovereign mercy, He's going to send him an ambassador of
peace to declare the truth to him, to preach the gospel to
him. Turn over to 2 Corinthians 5. Here's the gospel of peace
right here. There's the poor sinner Christ
has redeemed. He's already reconciled him to
God. Now he's going to send the message to him and let him in
on it. And he says here in 2 Corinthians
5.18, Paul stands up and he preaches and he says, All things are of
God. Oh boy, we get that right there.
That's a good place to start. All things are of God. That means
nothing is of you and me. All things are of God. And he
says, Who hath reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ? That's what I'm sitting here
telling you now. I didn't reconcile myself to
Christ, to God. God was in Christ and he reconciled
me to himself. He made peace between me and
him by Christ Jesus. And Christ made that peace. He
reconciled his people to God. And he's given us this ministry
of reconciliation. This word we're preaching is
the preaching of reconciliation. Here it is. To wit, God was in
Christ, reconciling the world unto himself. Let me tell you
something about this word world. Whoever this word world means,
What it says right there in that text is God and Christ reconciled
every one of them to Himself. And that can't be undone. God has made peace between Him
and them. Every one of them. Every one
of them. That's the world of His elect.
That's the world of those whom Christ represented on the cross.
Because you look at what Christ accomplished to determine who
they are. He reconciled them to God. And that can't be undone. They're reconciled. Look at this.
Not imputing their trespasses to them. God won't ever charge
their sin to them. Ever. Not ever. Not imputing
their trespasses unto them. And hath committed unto us this
word of reconciliation. So then we're ambassadors for
Christ. You know what an ambassador is?
He's an ambassador of peace. an ambassador of peace. And so
Christ's ambassadors come preaching the gospel of peace. Christ said,
here's what you preach. Comfort ye, comfort ye my people. Cry unto Jerusalem. Tell her
her warfare is accomplished. The Lord's rewarded her double
for all her iniquity. Her sins are pardoned. This is
the message we come to preach. So he says here, it's as though
God did beseech you by us. by his ambassador, by his preacher.
We pray you, in Christ's stead, be you reconciled to God. You
quit waging war against God because God's already reconciled his
people to himself. What does it mean that he wouldn't
impute trespasses to them? Look at the next verse. He hath
made him sin for us who knew no sin. that we might be made
the righteousness of God in Him. Now, it doesn't mean that God
possibly made him sin. It means He made him sin. It
made him sin. It doesn't mean that we might
possibly be made righteous in Him. It means everyone for whom
He made him sin shall be made righteousness in Him. They have
and they shall because of what Christ did. This is the good
news of the gospel. This is why he didn't impute
the trespasses unto his people. It's because he laid our iniquities
on Christ and imputed all our trespasses unto him rather than
unto us. That's how he paid the wages
of sin, which is death. He justified his people. He reconciled
his people to God by his blood, by what he did at Calvary. And
that way, They've been made the righteousness of God in Him.
And when you've been made righteousness, now God is at peace with you. God's got nothing else against
you because He's put your sin away. This is the news that His
preacher comes and preaches. And I don't know who He's reconciled. I have no idea. But as this message
is preached, we're telling you Christ has made peace through
the blood of His cross, that He's reconciled all His people
unto Himself. And we tell you this, you that
were sometime alienated and enemies in your mind, Some of you sitting
right here now know you were alienated and God was your enemy
in your mind. And yet now has He reconciled
you in the body of His flesh through death to present you
holy, unblameable, unreprovable in His sight. If you continue
in the faith, trusted in the hope of this gospel which you've
heard preached. Now, through this gospel, here's what Christ
does. Turn to Isaiah 57. Isaiah 57. I don't know who they
are. I just preached this message
telling you what Christ has done. What God's done in Christ. This
is the gospel of peace. He's reconciled His people to
Himself. He won't impute their sins to
them. He laid them on Christ and charged
them to Him. So their sins put away, they're
purged and God's at peace with them. And now we're calling on
His people saying, now you be reconciled to God. Now what's
going to make you lay down your weapons and throw away all your
gunpowder and all your ammunition and quit shooting at God? What's
going to do that? For Isaiah 57, 21. Christ comes
and He speaks to you and He starts stripping off your little filthy,
flimsy costume armor. He starts speaking affectionately
in your heart and He says this, There is no peace, saith my God
to the wicked. Christ speaks into your heart
and He says, you don't have any peace. You know you don't have
any peace. Turn over to Isaiah 59 verse
8. I'm going to apply this like
Christ applies it to us when He speaks affectionately in our
heart. He says, the way of peace you know not. There is no judgment
in your goings. You've made you crooked paths.
Whosoever goeth therein shall not know peace. This is what
Christ speaks in our heart. It makes us begin to understand
for the first time that I'm a real sinner. For the first time I
understand my feet are not walking in a straight path. They're walking
in crooked ways that I've made for myself. Look at Isaiah 54.10. Christ puts real armor upon us. Let me give you something He
said over in Ezekiel. He said, moreover, I'll make
a covenant of peace with you. This is what Christ speaks through
this Gospel. I'll make a covenant of peace
with you. It shall be an everlasting covenant with you. And I'll place
you and multiply you and I'll set my sanctuary in the midst
of you forevermore. I'm going to make a covenant
of peace with you. Look here at Isaiah 5410. This is what
he speaks to his child. The mountains shall depart, the
hills be removed, but my kindness shall not depart from thee, neither
shall the covenant of my peace be removed, saith the Lord that
hath mercy on thee. And I'll tell you, when he starts
speaking this word in your heart, you're going to hear him. You're
going to quit thinking this is such a bad thing that he chose
a people and died for a particular people and has to regenerate
a people. Then you start hearing him. And look at Isaiah 55, 11.
And he says this, So shall my word be that goes forth out of
my mouth. It won't return to me void. It shall accomplish
that which I please. It shall prosper in the thing
whereto I send it. For you shall go out with joy
and be led forth with peace. With peace. It's all about peace
when he begins to speak. Look at Isaiah 57, 19. You thought
you had done something and you had created peace for yourself
with God, and then He speaks this to you. Isaiah 57, 19. I
create the fruit of the lips, peace, peace to him that's far
off, and to him that's near, saith the Lord, and I will heal
him. You don't create peace. You don't
create this fruit of the lips. Christ said, I do. I do. And
you know what He, then He says this to you, what He said to
him in John 16. He said in John 16, 33, These things have I spoken
unto you, that in me you might have peace. That in me you might
have peace. In the world you're going to
have tribulation. But be of good cheer, I've overcome
the world. And then look at Daniel 10 and
verse 19. Daniel 10, 19. This is what Christ does for
His child. Then there came again one and
touched me, one like the appearance of a man, and he strengthened
me. And he said, O man, greatly beloved, fear not. Peace be unto
thee. Be strong. Yea, be strong. And here's the result. And when
he had spoken unto me, I was strengthened. and said, let my
Lord speak for thou hast strengthened me. That's when we hush and we
want to hear Christ speak. That's when we hush and we want
to hear what He has to say because the Lord now has given us true
strength. And then that's the first time
that you hear this. Now back there in 2 Corinthians
6. When He's done all that in your
heart, stripped you, Told you you don't know the way of peace.
And then spoke in His everlasting covenant of peace in your heart.
Told you that His word won't return void. You're going to
be led forth with peace. He's created the fruit of the
lips. Peace, peace unto you. made you strong by touching you
and strengthening you then when all that's happening and this
gospel is going forth for the first time you will hear Christ
speak through the preaching of the gospel I'll be up here just
rambling like I do every week and for the first time all of
a sudden it becomes real it becomes real and here's what you hear
here's what you hear 2 Corinthians 6 we then as workers together
with Him, beseech you also that you receive not the grace of
God in vain. For He saith, I have heard thee
in a time accepted, and in the day of salvation have I succored
thee, I have comforted thee. Behold, now is the accepted time. Behold, now is the day of salvation. And you began to find yourself
believing on God. And scripture says, therefore,
being justified by faith, we have peace with God. That's how he shods our feet
with the gospel of peace. And when we have peace with God,
it's not only that we have peace with God. Look at Ephesians 2.
We have peace with our brethren. Before, the preacher that he
used to preach this message, You thought he's my enemy. He
don't ever prophesy anything good to me. He don't tell me
anything good about myself. He just preaches evil against
me. And you hated his preacher. And you hated the brethren that
supported that preaching because you think they all against me
too. But when He's made this peace in your heart, not only
are you at peace with God, He makes peace between your brethren.
You love them because they preached the truth to you and supported
that truth. Look here, Ephesians 2.14, For
He is our peace, who has made both one and broken down the
middle wall of partition between us, having abolished in His flesh
the enmity, even those law of commandments contained in ordinances
whereby you thought you were righteous. that you thought made
you have peace with God, you see now Christ took those out
of the way. And so, He's made in Himself of two, one new man,
so make in peace. You know what we are right here,
every believer right here? We're just one man. We're just
one man. There's feet, and hands, and
arms, and legs, and a torso, and Christ is the head. Because He's taken us all and
just made one new man. One new man. And that one new
man, Christ's body, His people, His church. That's how we come
to have our feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of
peace. Now, from that day, we have confidence through the gospel
of peace. Now we have on that breastplate
of righteousness, Christ's righteousness. Now we have our loins girt about
with the truth of the gospel. Now we have the helmet of salvation
on our head. Now we have the shield of faith,
the God-given faith. Now we have Christ, our righteousness,
on our breastplate. All of it, and our feet are shod
with the preparation of the gospel. And from that day forward now,
we have confidence through this gospel of peace. And Christ tells
us this, in 1 Samuel 2, 9, He said this, He said He'll keep
the feet of His saints. He will keep the feet of His
saints. And the wicked shall be silent
in darkness, for by strength shall no man prevail. That's
God's promise to His people. Look at Philippians 4, 7. And the peace of God, which passeth
all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through
Christ Jesus. That's how we're kept, brethren.
The peace of God. which passes all understanding,
shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus. It's not
our heart and our mind that's keeping us, because this peace
passes our understanding. It's the peace of God. He's keeping
us. Who's the peace of God? It's
Christ. And He keeps us. He keeps us. Look here now at Romans 16, 20. That's how we got these ready-made
shoes. And there's one last thing He's going to do for us. He's
going to keep us this whole walk of faith, keep us walking toward
Him, following Him. He's going to continue to lead
us. That's what these shoes are for. And look, here's one last
thing He's going to do for us. Romans 16, 20. It won't be very
long either. The God of peace shall bruise
Satan under your feet shortly. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ
be with you. Amen. Isn't that good news? Isn't
that good news? That's the gospel of peace. That's
what it is to have your feet shod. All right. Amen. Let's stand together, brethren.