We're almost to the end of our
Ephesians study. Thank you, Art, for reading this.
Whenever God quickens and calls His child, He doesn't call us
and take us to heaven. He calls us and He puts us in
a battle. He says, fight the good fight
of faith. It's a dangerous battle. It's
a battle that where we are often wounded. And it's a battle in
which we fight against a supernatural enemy. And we need supernatural
weapons. He says here, first of all, the
thing we need for this battle is strength. He says, finally,
my brethren, be strong in the Lord and in the power of His
might. Believers don't have any strength.
We don't have any strength. We couldn't make ourselves believe,
repent. We couldn't bring ourselves to
Christ. We could do none of those things. We certainly couldn't
make ourselves righteous and put away our sin. We have no
strength by nature. I wish we could understand how
weak we are. Men talk about their will and
that's the weakest thing a man could even possibly boast of. I think one of the reasons that
God has allowed man to glory in his will, it being the weakest
thing he could possibly glory in, is to show just how utterly
weak we are. Our strength is the Lord Jesus
Christ. He says, brethren, you who believe,
be strong in the Lord. He says, in the power of His
might. Look over at 2 Corinthians chapter
12 and verse 9, just a few pages back, four or five pages back. The Lord gave Paul the thorn
in the flesh to buffet him, to humble him, to bring him down
so that he wouldn't be glorying in himself after God took him
up to the third heaven and showed him things he couldn't even utter.
And he says then, he prayed for this to be removed and he said
in verse 9, and he said unto me, My grace is sufficient for
thee. My grace is sufficient for thee. God will give us sufficient grace,
and that grace He gives will be sufficient. He gives us grace
for today. And He, you know, the problem
is, is we see our funds go down, we see us not having everything
to provide for ourselves for years to come, and we begin to
fret. But God said, I'm going to provide
everything as you need it, all the time. My grace is sufficient
for you, for my strength is made perfect in your weakness. That's
how I make my strength to be known, is through your weakness.
We're strong, he says here. He says, I'm going to gladly
therefore glory in my infirmities. I'm going to be glad for them.
I'm going to rejoice that I have things that make me weak. Why?
Because that the power of Christ may rest upon me. The power of
Christ. That's when we're strong. When
the power of Christ rests upon us. And then, look here, he says,
Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in
necessities, in persecutions, in distresses for Christ's sake.
For when I am weak, then I am strong. You take a son. He lives at home. Art, say one
of your children lives at home and you say to him, son, I'm
going to provide you an allowance. I'm going to feed you. I'm going
to close you. I'm going to, I'm going to give you a car to drive.
I'm going to put gas in the tank. I'm going to provide everything
you need. Now you go down there to the
firehouse and you sit and hear the gospel preached. Every time
the door opens, you go down there and hear the gospel preached.
And one day, Art decides, I'm going to cut back his allowance.
And he tells the son, but I'm going to give you grace today. I'm going to give you what you
need today. I'm going to feed you what you need today. I'm
going to give you just what you need for spending today. And
I'm going to give you everything else. Now go down there to that
house and hear the gospel preach. And let's say he said, and as
you go down there and hear the gospel preach, I'm going to just
load you down with riches. I'm going to load you down with
riches. Riches that you can't even, like you can't even imagine.
I'm going to load you, just load you down with riches. He said,
now go down there and hear that gospel preached. And what if
the son said, well, you know, I can't go down there and hear
the gospel preached because my dad cut my allowance back to
where all I've got is just enough for today. And he said, but if you don't
go down there that house, I'm gonna turn everything in your
life upside down. I'm gonna make sure that you
can't you can't ever succeed. And he said, Well, I'd
go down there. But I just all I gots enough
for today. The father told him, I'll give
you everything you need. I'm not gonna give you extra,
I'm just gonna give you what you need today. But I'm gonna give it to you
on a per need basis all the time. And when you as you go down in
here, I'm gonna load you up with riches. You'd say, that son is
crazy. What's the difference in that
and you and I getting our father cutting us back on our allowance,
but still saying, I'm going to still provide for you every day
as you need it. I go down there and hear my gospel
preach. And you say, well, I can't go because he cut my allowance
back. The one who said I'm going to load you down with all spiritual
riches, Not to mention, I'm going to provide every lesser thing.
I gave you my son. I'm going to provide everything.
I can't go hear him preached. I can't honor my father knowing
he's going to provide this for me. When at the same time he
said, all I have to do is blow up on it, and you can't put your
next foot in front of the other, much less get ahead any other
way. You see what I'm saying? We can understand it when it's
our family and we look at it a little, but that's the same
way with God. That's how He's controlling everything. In all
things, we're more than conquerors through Him that loved us. He's
our strength. A branch gets all the strength
from the vine. And you take that branch and
you cut that branch off and you throw it over there to the side,
you can just sit and watch it. It's going to wither and die.
because it has no strength. It has absolutely no strength.
No sap coming into it, no life coming into it, no strength.
It's going to wither and die. And that's us, brethren. Christ
is our life and our strength. We have to be abiding in Christ,
abiding in the vine. He said, Abide in me, and I in
you. As the branch cannot bear fruit
of itself, except it abide in the vine, no more can you except
you abide in me. And that fruit, brethren, includes
spiritual fruit, it includes fruit in your everyday life,
it includes everything about your daily life. You can't bring
forth fruit in any way except Christ make you fruitful. Period. I can't either. Look at this.
I'm the vine, you're the branches. He that abideth in me and I in
him, he that abideth in me and I in him, the same brings forth
much fruit. Without me, you can do nothing. Nothing. And so the Holy Spirit here now,
through the Apostle Paul, turns us to our strength. He says in
verse 11, put on the whole armor of God. Now, our armor for this
fight that God has called every believer into is of God. The armor is of God. The armor
is of God. He just said our strength is
in the Lord and the power of His might. And He calls it here
the whole armor of God. God provides it. God gives it. God's the sum of it. And God's
the efficacy of it. This armor is of God. The weapons
of our warfare are not carnal. This happened to me and here's
my solution. Here's what I'm going to do.
It's a carnal weapon. That's a carnal weapon. Our weapons
aren't carnal. Here's what I'm going to do.
I'm going to flee to Christ. I'm going to get closer to Christ.
I'm going to abide in Christ more. There's your weapon. Our
weapons are not carnal, they're mighty through God to the pulling
down of strongholds. That's what they are. So first
of all, we got that, we need to understand this. Our strength,
our only strength is Christ Jesus in whom the triune God abides. He's our only strength. Alright,
now here's the second thing. To fight this battle, we have
to know who the enemy is. We've got to know who our enemy
is if we're going to fight this battle. All right? Verse 11. He says, Put on the whole armor
of God that you may be able to stand against the wiles, the
trickery 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. Now, we know that we wrestle
against our flesh from Romans 7. And we know that we have men
in this world who oppose us. But what it means right here
is our adversary, our number one chief adversary is not man,
but it's the devil, the wiles of the devil. When he says here
principalities and powers, He's speaking of unseen spiritual
demons, fallen angels. God made them and they sinned
against God. You can read about them in 2
Peter 2, 4 at your leisure. They sinned against God and God
cast them down to hell. But they're fulfilling God's
purpose. They're fulfilling God's purpose. And He calls them here
rulers of the darkness of this world. that the darkness is every
man, woman, and child who is in spiritual darkness, in spiritual
death. And they, these wicked spiritual
demons, these wicked spirits, are the rulers of them. Everybody who's an unbeliever,
unregenerate in darkness, they're the rulers of them. And they
rule all the darkness. And then he calls it here spiritual
wickedness or a better translation would be wicked spirits in high
places. Wicked spirits in high places. The high places means they're
celestial beings. They're wicked angels. Satan's
called the prince of the power of the air. Look over to Ephesians
2 verse 2. He says, we were dead in trespasses
and in sins. Verse 2, wherein? We walk. In time past, you walked according
to the course of this world. According to the prince of the
power of the air. That's Satan. The spirit, that
wicked spirit in celestial high places that now works in the
children of disobedience. That's who we're wrestling against. He right now, he's working in
the children of disobedience. The children of disobedience
are called in our text, the darkness of this world. They're dark,
they have no light, they have no life. And he's ruling them.
You sitting here, I told you this last week I think, you sitting
here who don't know God, don't believe God, you're ruled by
the devil. And you can't, you're under his
power. It's just this idea. And believers,
you and I, brethren, we're wrestling against an innumerable, invisible
legion of wicked devil and his angels and spirits. That's what we're... And they're
all under the power of the devil. And this enemy is dangerous.
He's dangerous not only because he's invisible and you can't
see him. He's dangerous not only because
he's more powerful than you and I, but he's dangerous because
he's subtle. That's why he's dangerous most
of all. Somebody called the chains of the devil silk chains. They feel good. Chains that feel
good. Genesis 3.1 says, The serpent
was more subtle than any beast of the field, which the Lord
God had made. He didn't come to the man, because
the man was the head, and he came to the weaker vessel. He
came to Eve. That was a very wise thing for
him to do. He came to her. And he didn't
just come and trick her just in some blatant way. He very carefully, craftily tricked
her. He came up and he said, has God
said, you shall not eat of every tree of this garden? He questions. That's what, he puts a question
in your mind. A question in your mind. So you
question yourself right into hell and you never, never can
hear him speak. Questions, questions, questions,
questions. Oh, that God would shut our mouths
and deliver us from Satan's questions. So that's the enemy, alright? Because he's strong and invisible
and so crafty, wherefore were to take upon us our spiritual
weapons. Verse 13. 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. There was a picture
of this armory in the Old Covenant, under the Old Covenant. We read
about the Tower of David, which was built for an armory, whereon
there hung a thousand bucklers, all shields of mighty men. We
read about Hezekiah's house of armor. We read about the armor
of the house of the forest. We read about Solomon's three
score valiant men, the valiant of Israel who held swords, being
expert in war. Every man having his sword upon
his thigh because of the fear of the night, the fear of darkness. That's in the darkness. And that
earthly armor in earthly Jerusalem that was provided by earthly
David and earthly Solomon, it pictures our heavenly armory
in heavenly Jerusalem provided by our heavenly King David, our
heavenly King Solomon, the Lord Jesus Christ. Jeremiah 50, 25
says the Lord has opened his armory and has brought forth
the weapons of his indignation. So he says now take the whole
armor of God and put on the whole armor of God. Take it and put
it on, he says. The armor is whole. It's complete
and it's perfect. It's whole. We're to take it, we're not to
make it. It's whole. It's already completed. If you're taking something and
putting it on, are you going to go into the store and you
pick out your blouse, ladies, that you want? Are you going
to then take it in there and say, well, let me start sewing
on it. Let me add a sleeve to it. No, it's already made. It's
whole. Well, he says, this armor is
already whole. It's already made. Now, you take
it and you put it on. That's what he said. And he says,
and take the whole armor of God. Don't just take part of it. Put
all of it on. Remember the king, who was it? Was it Ahab that was shot with
the arrow? He ran back and shot an arrow. He shot his bow at a venture.
And it was, he had one little place where his armor wasn't
whole. It didn't, it was a crease in
it. And so that arrow found its way in that crease and struck
him and he lay there and he died. He bled to death. Well brethren,
this armor is whole. There is not a seam in this armor
anywhere. It's whole. so that no fiery
darts of Satan can get into it. And he says, and you take this
armor that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and
having done all, to stand. We're to withstand. That means
oppose. That means oppose. That means
fight back. That's what it means. And we're
to withstand standing with Christ Jesus, our captain of our warfare. We're to withstand standing with
the army, Christ's people, the church. There's no deserters
in this battle. We're not of them who draw back
unto perdition. We're of them who persevere to
the end in our Savior. We're not drawing back. We're
not deserting. We're not going AWOL. We're not trying to fight
this fight on our own. We're standing with His people. And He says that you might withstand
in the evil day. That's not some great day at
the end of this world when all of a sudden there's going to
be all this big Armageddon go on. No, that fight's going on
right now. That fight's going on right now.
It's every day with every trial and every conflict and every
temptation that we encounter on a day-to-day basis. That's
the evil day. The day is... Christ said, sufficiently
full of evil every day. And He says, and having done
all is to withstand in the evil day and then having done all
to stand. One of Satan's crafty tricks
is he makes you think that you've won the battle. The battle's
over, you've won it. The temptation's come and it's
gone and you've won the battle now. And all of a sudden, you
find yourself so proud that you won the battle, and so happy
that you overcame, and you just step right into his trap, right
into his snare, and he's got you all proud and happy about
you, when you got nothing to be proud and happy about. Joseph
Hart. wrote a song. I'm going to quote
it as I read through here. He wrote a song about this whole
text. And I'm just going to quote the parts that go with each point.
But he said this. This is his first couple of verses. He said, gird thy loins up, Christian
soldier. Lo, thy captain calls thee out. Let the danger make thee bolder. War in weakness and dare in doubt. Buckle on thy heavenly armor.
Patch up no inglorious peace. Let thy courage wax the warmer
as thy foes and fears increase. How did God say that His strength
is made perfect? In weakness. The weaker you become,
the more valiantly you fight and show your strength because
your strength is Him. Alright, fourthly, let's look
at this heavenly armor now. First of all, the girdle. Verse
14, he says, Stand therefore, having your loins gird about
with truth. Now, this is the first piece
of armor. This goes on before anything
else goes on. This is the under armor. This
is the bulletproof vest that we have to have on. Without this,
the rest of the armor is not even going to fit you. It won't
even fit you right. Without this right here, this
is vital. This is most important. The loins speak of where the
strength is. The loins is where the strength
is. He says, gird your loins with
truth. Christ is the truth. Christ is
the truth. He said, I am the way, the truth,
and the life. This is life eternal, that they
might know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom Thou
hast sent. Here's what we need our loins
girded with. We need a true living union with
the true Christ. That's what we need. First, before
anything else, this is what we have to have. That's why Christ
said, without me you can do nothing. Abide in me and I'll be in you. And that's how you'll prevail.
We have to have this true living union with the true Christ. The
Christ who's God. That's who we need a union with.
The true Christ. The Christ who accomplished the
redemption of His people. not trying to do something, not
wanting to do something, not under the power of the devil,
not under the power of men, Christ who is successful and accomplished
the redemption of His people, that's who we need our loins
girded with. We need Christ who's now risen at the right hand of
the Father, who's reigning and ruling all heaven and all earth,
demons included. That's who we need. That same
one who said to the devil when he came in the worship service
with Job and the Lord said to him, Have you considered my servant
Job? And the devil said, You got an edge built around him.
How can I? I can't touch him. I can't do
a thing to him unless you give me permission. That's the Christ
I'm talking about. The one who's trumped over powers
and principalities and the one who's got a name above all powers
and principalities. That one who's the head over
all. That's who I'm talking about. Christ Jesus who sends His Word
where He will and accomplishes what He will with His Word in
His people, in His time, right on time. That's the Christ I'm
talking about. Christ who is successful in calling
out each of His sheep and who shall call out each of His sheep
and not one of them be lost. We're talking about Christ who's
God. We need a living union with the true Christ. The literal
translation says having your loins girt about in truth. Having
your loins girt about in truth. With the truth as it is in Jesus. That's where the truth is. It's
in Jesus. If you enter this spiritual conflict
and you enter this battle and you were ignorant and you were
doubting and you believe a lie, you would enter this conflict
lame and wounded already, mortally wounded already. You can't enter
this conflict, brethren, with your own speculations and looking
at traditions of men and wavering between this opinion and that
opinion and holding on to a dead system of doctrine. You cannot fight this fight with
that. Satan does his best work in religion. He wants you to have your armor
and all that mess, because that's playing right into his hand.
He wants you to be covered in armor with all that vain stuff
that men are concerned about. If our inward man is not truly
girded with Christ the truth, when the day of evil comes, It'll
come. When it comes, instead of a girdle,
there shall be a rent. It's going to break. It's going
to break. So first, by God's power and
grace, lay hold of Christ the truth in truth. Lay hold of Christ
the truth in truth. In truth. And then he says here,
and take having the breastplate of righteousness. Ephesians 6.14,
having the breastplate righteousness now some people say this is practical
righteousness or integrity they say it's you're
doing that which is right and the integrity of your heart but
it can't be anything that's produced by us or maintained by us brethren
he started out saying go to go to you the Lord who is your strength
he started out saying the power of His might. We started this
thing saying it's the armor of God. You and I don't have any
strength. We can't maintain any strength. You sit there and you think,
if you think you can maintain your strength, you just pay attention
to how quickly your thoughts ramble and just go off in all
directions. You can't even control your thoughts.
You can't even control your thoughts. What match are you going to be
for Satan and his invisible army, blowing like the wind upon you,
moving you, moving men, moving popular opinions and political
correctness and peer pressure and all of these different things
that we succumb to so easily, brethren? You can't fight against
that if it was up to us. I read an old story about this
battle that went on against the Chinese. I don't even know what
war it was in. But this army came up to this
Chinese fort and it had walls around the fort and there were
some Chinese soldiers walking along the top of this wall all
around this fort. And as they sat there from a
distance looking at this fort, Man, the armor was shining on
these soldiers, you know, and they thought, man, these fellows
are, they're well fortified. They got bright armor and everything. And as they got closer, they
began to fight and they exchanged gunfire and everything. And this
approaching army came in and they captured the Chinese and
turned out that this armor that they thought was armor It was
just glittery paper that they had made to look like armor because
they really didn't have any armor. They were just trying to turn
away the enemy. Make them think they were well,
well shielded from all danger. Shiny to the eye, but weak as
water. Shiny to the eye, but weak as
water. That's what our righteousnesses
are. That's why we can't prevail by any righteousness of our own.
Now this breastplate of righteousness is Christ our righteousness.
The righteousness of Christ imputed to us through faith in Christ.
He said, Be strong in the Lord and in the power of His might.
This is the Lord we're talking about. Now indeed, there's no
doubt Christ is formed in us and when Christ is formed in
us, you and I want to do right. We want to obey the Lord. We
want to do that which is right according to Christ's Word to
us. Yet Satan could find plenty to
accuse us with in our works because sin's mixed with all we do, brethren.
And Satan's the accuser of the brethren. Look at Zechariah 3. Satan's the accuser of the brethren.
This is that passage I referred you to the other day when I was
talking to you about whenever Satan stood using the body of
Moses That's what he uses. Satan always uses the body of
Moses, the law of Moses to accuse us to God. That's what he uses. This is that body that's dead
because Christ put away our sin now, that body of Moses, as we
saw in Romans 8. But that's the body he uses to
accuse us. Look at this now. Zechariah 3.1,
And he showed me Joshua the high priest standing before the angel
of the Lord. There's Joshua. He's a believer.
He's standing there. He's a servant of God. And he's
standing there before the angel of the Lord. That's Christ Jesus.
Well, surely Joshua, being the high priest, surely he's a moral
man. Surely he's a righteous man.
Surely he's got plenty of ammunition to guard against Satan's accusations.
Look who Satan went to. And Satan stood at his right
hand to resist him. To resist him. He was going to
accuse Joshua to God using the law of Moses. That's what he
was going to do. And he was going to resist Joshua. He was going
to accuse Joshua in his own conscience. And look what happened. And the
Lord said unto Satan, The Lord rebuke thee, O Satan. The Lord
Jesus said unto Satan, The Lord God rebuke thee, O Satan. Even
the Lord that hath chosen Jerusalem rebuketh thee. That is, God the
Father. He's the one that did the choosing.
He'll rebuke thee. And Christ said, Is not Joshua
a bran plucked out of the fire? That's what you and I are, brethren.
It don't matter how old or how young in the faith we are. We're
a brand plucked out of the fire. You know what happens when you
pluck a brand out of the fire? It's smoking and smoldering and stinking. That's what it is. And that's
what we are. Pulled out of the fire, about
to be destroyed, pulled out by Christ. And Satan stands at our
right hand to resist us. I don't want to defend him by
my weapons, my carnal weapons. I want to be defended by my mediator,
by my Redeemer, by my Advocate with the Father, who said, who
said, my presence standing here means I don't even have to rebuke
you, Satan. My Father will rebuke you. Christ,
we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ, our righteousness,
our propitiation with the Father. And therefore, He intercedes
for us. Who shall lay anything to the
charge of God's elect? It's God that justifies. Who
is he that condemneth? It's Christ that died, yea rather
that's risen again, who's even at the right hand of God, who
makes intercession for us. On his song, Joseph Hart, on
this part, he wrote this. Righteousness within thee rooted
may appear to take thy part, but let righteousness imputed
be the breastplate of thy heart. I don't want to look to any righteousness
in me. And if you are truly recreated
in the righteousness and holiness of Christ by the incorruptible
seed, by the Word of God, the manifestation of it is you won't
be looking within, you'll be looking at Christ, your righteousness.
Christ Jesus is our only righteous. He put away our sin. He justified
us freely. He robed us in His righteousness
and put the breastplate of His righteousness upon us. And this
is the strength of our inward heart. That breastplate. This
is the strength. There is therefore now no condemnation
to them who are in Christ Jesus. To them who walk not after the
flesh but after the spirit. For the law of the spirit of
life in Christ has made me free from the law of sin and death.
Because Christ came and did for me what I could not do. He came
and He fulfilled the whole law so that the whole law of God
is fulfilled by me through believing on Him. That's what He did for
me. Now that, brethren, that will hold you up. That's a breastplate
that will protect you. Alright? Then he says this. Put
on the shoes of the gospel of peace. The shoes of the gospel
of peace. Ephesians 6 verse 15. And your feet shod with the preparation,
the preparedness of the gospel of peace. You remember what God
said that the devil would bruise on our Savior? He's healed. He's healed. And if possible,
the devil will bruise the heel of God's saints. He will tangle
us up in our walk and he will attempt to snare us and make
us lame altogether. But God in his infinite mercy
has provided shoes for the feet of his saints. He's provided
shoes for the feet of his saints. The good news of the gospel of
Christ Good news of the gospel of Christ gives peace by giving
us a firm foundation on which to set our feet. Look at Isaiah
28, 16. Isaiah 28, 16. He said, I lay in Zion for a
foundation, a stone. a precious cornerstone, a sure
foundation. And he that believeth shall not
make haste. And just in case we don't understand
who this foundation is, the Apostle Paul said, Other foundation can
no man lay than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. Look at Psalm 40. Look at Psalm
40. This is the gospel of peace right
here. And this is where our feet are
shod with. Psalm 40 verse 2. This is what
the gospel, this is our peace, this is what good news is brought
to us, and this is why our feet are safe and secure. Psalm 40
verse 2. He brought me up also out of
a horrible pit, out of the pit of sin and death, out of the
miry clay, and he set my feet upon a rock, and he established
my going. established on a rock. That's
the gospel of peace that shods our feet. In 2 Samuel 22, 34
it says, and setteth me upon high places.
Thou hast enlarged my steps under me so that my feet did not slip.
You ever seen those goats and those rams that live in the mountains
and in the rocks? And that's a hind. They can get
across that mountain and just rock is all it is. Nothing to
get a foothold on. He's made my feet like Heinz
feet. With their best habitat, their
most sure-footed place to be is on that rock. You put them
out there in a swamp, they couldn't do that. You put them on that
rock, they can do what you see them do. And that's where a believer,
He's put us on that rock, brethren. And that's where our feet are
sure. Sure footing. There's no stumbling
stones. There's a clear course that He
set before us. And He set the joy before us.
And He says, now you run the race set before you, looking
to Christ. Your feet are prepared. Run.
Lay aside the weight that besets you and run this race looking
to Christ. And so this gospel is written.
Remember he said write it so that he that reads it can run
with it. That's what you need these boots
for is to run with them. And we read this word and we
have this gospel of peace and he says now you run with it.
Run with it. Run into all the world with it
and preach this word. This is the gospel of peace.
All right. Then he says this. And take the shield of faith.
The shield of faith. Verse 16. And above all, or covering
all, take the shield of faith wherewith you shall be able to
quench all the fiery darts of the wicked. Do you believe our
Redeemer? Do you believe Him? He said,
He that believes on me has eternal life. I believe Him. That's what faith does. Faith
believes on Him. Christ promised us, My sheep
shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of My
hand. My Father which gave them Me is greater than all, and no
man is able to pluck them out of My Father's hand. By the gift
of faith, we believe Christ. I believe His Word. The promise God made to the Son
was this. He said, His seed also, that means you and I who believe,
His children. His seed will I make to endure
forever in His throne as the days of heaven. Do you believe
Him? Faith believes Him. You know
how Abraham overcame all the fiery darts of Satan? He was
old. His wife was old. And God tells
him, you're going to have a child. You can't do anything good. You
can't. You can't. And yet God says you're
righteous. God says you're going to inherit
eternal glory with Christ forever. And yet all you see is this earth
and this temporal and all this stuff. Well, all Abraham saw
was his dead body. But all he looked at when he
saw his wife was her dead womb. And God says you're going to
have a child. How did he get How did he quench all those fiery
darts that Satan would fire at him and make him to die? It says,
He staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief, but
was strong in faith, giving glory to God, being fully persuaded
that what God promised he was able also to perform. There's
the shield that will quench all the fiery darts. Flee to Christ
wherewith you shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of
Satan. This shield, did you see those
fellows over there in Paris when they were walking up there to
try to shoot those terrorists? And they had that shield, and
that shield went from the top of their head to the bottom of
their feet. And he was walking little steps like this behind
that shield. We're talking about a shield.
We're talking about a shield that covers you from head to
toe. It's right here. Peter knew better
than anybody. And he said this, Humble yourselves
unto the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you in due
time. What's our first desire and our
first impulse whenever we come into temptation or trial or danger
or harm? What's the first thing we try
to do? Fix it. We try to fix it. We try to exalt
ourselves. Save ourselves. Set our nest
up on high. and make this all go away and
be fixed by our own hand. That's the first thing we do.
He said God resists the proud. He resists the proud. God sent the trial and you and
I think the trial is tremendous and it's the worst thing that
we've ever encountered in our life. But it's like a... It's like it's nothing to God.
It's nothing to God. He can send a tsunami. He can send an earthquake. Whatever
little trial we have, it's nothing to God. And He sent it, brethren,
so that we humble ourselves under the mighty hand of God, that
He might exalt us in due time. Peter said, Cast in all your
care upon Him, for He careth for you. He says, being sober
and being vigilant, that means turning from this world's drunkenness
and their darkness and being vigilant to take this armor and
put this armor on as the Spirit of God enables you. And He says,
because your adversary the devil as a roaring lion walks about
seeking whom he may devour, whom resist steadfast in the faith. He knew better than anybody.
Joseph Hart said this, When dangers closer threaten, And thy soul
draws near to death, When assaulted sore by Satan, Then object the
shield of faith. Fiery darts of fierce temptations
Intercepted by thy God, There shall lose their force in patience,
Sheathed in love and quenched in blood. I like that verse. And then he says, take the helmet
of salvation. Take the helmet of salvation.
Verse 17. Take the helmet of salvation.
Turn over to 1 Thessalonians 5.8. I'm almost finished. I want you to see this. It shows
us what it is. The devil is going to aim at
your head. Going to aim at your head, your intellect, your reason.
Paul said, I fear this by any means as the serpent beguiled
Eve in the garden, so your minds should be corrupted from the
simplicity that is in Christ. He's going to use the order of
things in this world. And what your friends all think
about that, he's going to use that to make you think, well,
what God says is not right. He aims to make you reason that
it's not fair for God to choose whom He will. He's going to make
it so that your mind begins to think that it's not right for
Christ to give eternal life to as many as the Father gave to
Him. And worst of all, He's going to make you start doubting that
you're saved. And He's going to do that so
that He can get you to try to start adding something to Christ's
finished work to make sure you're saved. That's what he'll do. But look
at this. 1 Thessalonians 5.8 He said,
Put on the helmet of salvation. What's that mean? Let us who
are of the day be sober, putting on the breastplate of faith and
love, and for a helmet, the hope of salvation. For God hath not
appointed us to wrath, but to obtain salvation by our Lord
Jesus Christ. There's your helmet. Put that
on and don't listen to the world. Don't listen to Satan. Don't
listen to any objections whatsoever. Listen to Mr. Hart. Shod with
gospel preparation in the paths of promise tread. Let the hope
of free salvation as a helmet guard thy head. And then we have
an offensive weapon. It's a sword. Verse 17, and the
sword of the spirit, which is the word of God. This is the
weapon that, now it's not the spirit wielding the sword, it's
us wielding the sword. But it's the spirit that makes
the sword effectual. It's the sword of the spirit.
It's the word of God. And this is that sword, this
is that spiritual weapon that Christ said the gates of hell
won't prevail against this one. They can shut up their gates
and lock them tight. They can call me a, oh, you don't
want to have anything to do with him. He's in that camp of, that
cultish camp. He's in that camp that teaches
you salvation is all of grace. You don't want to be there. And
the word just goes right into that camp, right into the midst
and penetrates the gates of hell and brings his child right out
of it. I've seen it happen. You've seen it happen. This is
the gates. This is the... So brethren, this
is... Read the Word of God. Read the
Word of God. Start reading the Word of God
every day. Every day. Turn the TV off and
read the Word of God and heed the Word of God every day. Read
it to your children and teach it to your children. This is
nothing more important than this. This is the sword, brethren,
the two-edged sword. It pierces to the thoughts and
intents of the heart. This is the sword. Satan can't
prevail against it. Listen to this. When beset with
various evils, wield the Spirit's two-edged sword. Cut thy way
through hosts of devils while they fall before the Word. And
then here's one more weapon. It's prayer. prayer. You mean if I just pray, that's
going to make Satan go away? No. It's the one to whom we pray. It's our strength in all of this.
Look at this, verse 18. Praying always with all prayer
and supplication in the spirit. Don't you find that you pray
always? I find that I walk around now in just this Just feeling
it's alright to just start thanking God for something. You just have it always in that
spirit. That's what true prayer is. It's
a state of being is what it is. It's a state of worship. Prayer
and supplication in the spirit, watching there unto with all
perseverance and supplication for all saints. and for me that
utterance may be given unto me that I may open my mouth boldly
to make known the mystery of God of the gospel for which I
am an ambassador in bonds that therein I may speak boldly as
I ought to speak. Paul was in prison when he wrote
this and I have a feeling as he was writing this letter to
the Ephesians there was a soldier standing outside his door and
he had on a helmet and he had on a breastplate and he had a
shield and his feet were shod and Paul was sitting there writing
and just using all that as an illustration of what God's done
for his people and so if he shot us and he shielded us and he's
armored us and he's put a helmet on us and all that then I'll
go to him and ask him Lord make it effectual make it effectual
in my brethren make it effectual in my in my preacher, make it
effectual in all of them. Make it effectual. Make it effectual. Joseph Hart, I'll end with this.
Let me tell you what our advocate said first. He said this, if
you abide in me and my words abide in you, you shall ask what
you will and it will be done unto you. Because if his words
abide in you and you abide in him, what your will is going
to be is this, Lord, I will be done. You'll get that answered
every time. I guarantee it. I guarantee it. Alright, here's Joseph Hart wound
it up with this. Though to speak thou be not able,
always pray and never rest. Prayer is a weapon for the feeble.
Weakest souls can wield it best. Ever on thy captain calling,
Make thy worst condition known. He shall hold thee up when falling,
or shall lift thee up when down. All right, brethren, let's stand
together. Father, we thank You that You've
provided us full armor, that You're the power of that armor,
that you put it on us, that you keep us protected by the efficacy
of your strength. Lord, thank you. Thank you for
truth. Thank you for righteousness.
Thank you, Lord, for faith. Thank you for salvation. Thank
you, Lord, that we have the ability to come into your throne room
and access your presence in prayer. Lord, we pray that you'll keep
us and provide for us. Call out your sheep. Penetrate
the gates of hell. Call out your people. And Lord,
give yourself all the glory and all the honor. We pray in Christ's
name. Amen.