So Lord may graciously help me,
I would turn your prayerful attention to the chapter that we read in
the Epistle of Paul to the Ephesians, chapter six, and verses 10 to
13. Ephesians six, verses 10 to 13. These verses speak at the beginning
of the armor of God that we are instructed to put on. Ephesians
6, verses 10 to 13. Finally, my brethren, be strong
in the Lord and in the power of his might. Put on the whole
armour of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles
of the devil. For we wrestle not against flesh
and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers
of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness
in high places. Wherefore take unto you the whole
armour of God, that ye may be able to withstand in the evil
day, and having done all, to stand. Ephesians 6 verses 10 to 13. Paul writing to the Ephesians
gives us a picture of how we are to be strong in the Lord
and in the power of his might. Paul no doubt was very familiar
with the Roman soldiers. He was with them a lot in his
latter part of his life. Sometimes at the end when he
was at Jerusalem and taken, he was nearly killed by the Jews
and it was the Romans that came and rescued him and stopped him
being killed and and brought him into that castle. He was
with the Roman soldiers quite a lot. And of course, we read
about two years at the end of his life, he was in his own hired
house with the Roman soldiers. So he was very familiar with
Roman soldiers and the way that they dressed. And here in this
passage, Paul is using that picture of the way a soldier is armed
and saying there is a spiritual analogy here, there is something
that the Christian needs to put on to protect them from the many
dangers that are surrounding them. Well let us first then
look at what is the necessity, why is there this battle Well,
who are we battling with, and what are we battling against? Well, right back in the Garden
of Eden, we have when Eve fell, and Adam with her, in the Garden
of Eden by eating of that forbidden fruit, God came and reasoned
with Adam and Eve, and questioned them, and then Adam blamed Eve
and Eve blamed the serpent and then we have these words spoken
to the serpent. This is in Genesis 3 verse 14,
And the Lord said unto the serpent, Because thou hast done this,
that is, deceived Eve, thou art cursed above all cattle and above
every beast of the field. Upon thy belly shalt thou go,
and thus shalt thou eat all the days of thy life. And that's
why we have serpents today, they crawl on the ground, they slither
on the ground, they don't stand up. And I will put enmity between
thee, that is Satan, and the woman, and between thy seed and
her seed, it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his
heel. and the necessity of it, and
that God has done this thing. And you might think, well, I
will put enmity between thee and the woman. You might think,
well, surely, don't we want peace, not enmity? Well, it depends
on who you're with. You see, the problem in the Garden
of Eden, there had been a union between Eve and Satan, a union. And it's God's mercy, you see,
if he comes to us and puts a break to that union, enmity. You see,
that union, if we're in union with the devil, we're going to
go and be where he's going to go, which is into that lake that
burns with fire forever and ever. And you see this is the great
thing that God in the first gospel promise that he would put enmity
between thee and the woman and between thy seed and her seed.
So God promised that there would be enmity between Satan and the
woman and her seed. And interestingly in Revelation
uh... we have similar uh... words revelation
chapter twelve and verse seventeen it says this and the dragon was
wrath with the woman often thought of as the church and went to
make war with the remnant of her seed which keep the commandments
of god and have the testimony of jesus christ so the the nature
of this warfare is because uh... we have an adversary the devil
you might say but surely Does this affect everybody? Well if
you're doing his dictates and in his kingdom and following
his ways then you see there's no attacking of Satan against
you in a sense because you're travelling with him and you're
going to go to where he is. He's not at war with his own
people in that sense. Jesus says, no kingdom fighting
against himself shall stand. You see, Satan is not going to
be firing arrows at you if you're following his dictates. If you're
going the way that he's going, then he's not going to be firing
arrows at you. You're already going in the way of destruction. So firstly, it's
a great mercy if we've come to realize that there is a warfare. You see, if we think, well, I
don't see any problem, we just drift along, well, that's the
way Satan would like you to think it was, just drifting along,
going. You see, we've been created in
the image of God to glorify God. This is what we were created
for, this is what we're here for. And you see, Satan wants
you to spend all your time doing everything else apart from worshipping
God and living to his glory. And provided you're doing that,
he doesn't worry how you're doing that, provided you're not worshipping
God, provided you don't put him as the centre of your affections,
provided you don't want to live to his honour and glory, then
he'll leave you alone. You can carry on going in that
road, that broad road. to destruction. And that broad
road includes the professing religious world as well as the
irreligious world provided that you're living to yourself in
a religious sense or in an ungodly sense. Satan's not too bothered. You see Saul of Tarsus was a
very religious man and yet he didn't know the Lord Jesus Christ.
He wasn't living for God's glory. Not really. And he, in that sense,
was able to carry on and Satan left him alone because he was
going on in that wrong way. But you see, if the Lord has
put in our hearts the principle of grace, if the Lord has opened
our eyes to see that we're heading like Christian did in Pilgrim's
Progress, that we're living in the city of destruction, and
that we need to travel away from, to be under Satan's kingdom,
to be under a new king, even the Lord Jesus Christ, That's
when the fighting will start. That's when the arrows will start
flying because he doesn't want you to leave his kingdom. He
wants you. See, Satan is very, very evil and his desire,
his aim is to bring everybody, every human being that's ever
lived, he wants them to be with him in a lake of fire forever. That is what his desire is. And
you see, man, human beings have been made in the image of God.
Adam was the pinnacle of God's creation. He was made in the
image of God. He was made to glorify God. And
Satan wants man to glorify Not God, but Satan. He wants him
to worship Satan, not God. Satan is very proud, very selfish. It's incredibly selfish, isn't
it? If you've been destined to an eternity in suffering, it's
very, very selfish to then desire that everybody else should come
with you. What a horrible thought. But
that is what Satan is. And yet you say, well, if he's
that bad, why does anybody listen to him? because he's a liar and
he pretends that if you follow him he'll give you all the kingdoms
of the world and the glory of them so he told Christ but Christ
said get thee behind me Satan it is written thou shalt worship
the Lord and him only shalt thou serve so this is the this is
where the where the war starts as it were this is the problem
Satan wants all Christians to stop worshipping
Christ, to stop their allegiance and the way he does it so often
is to try and get them to think wrong thoughts about God, wrong
thoughts about his holiness, wrong thoughts about his love.
Well so in the Garden of Eden he tried to make out to Eve that
God, instead of saying, well, God's given you all the trees
of the garden, so much variety, but Satan focused on the one
tree that they weren't allowed to eat from, the knowledge of
good and evil, and focused in on that, and tried to make out
that God was in some way restrictive and unkind in not allowing them
to eat of that fruit, and then made out how wonderful it would
be if they did eat of that fruit. And you see, this is the fundamental
beginning of this battle. Well, we have then, that's the
nature of the battle. The battle is with Satan. And
Satan wants your heart. So may you, each of you young
people, remember this. He wants your heart. He wants your allegiance. He
wants you to spend your life He doesn't worry too much what
you do with your life, it's like Vanity Fair, there was all sorts
of things that could waste everybody's time and he didn't worry too
much which way you waste your time, provided you didn't travel
on to the city, the celestial city, that was the only qualification,
provided you didn't travel on to the celestial city, Satan's
happy. And that's so today, provided
you, as it were, spend your life in this world doing whatever
things that interest you, but not preparing for eternity. That's what he doesn't want you
to do. And that's what the Word of God is written to do, to tell
us to prepare for eternity. Life is short. Eternity is forever. You need to prepare. And you
see, this is the great clarion call of the gospel. And this
is what Satan hates. And Satan would seek to cause
you to do anything other than love the Lord Jesus Christ, and
follow him, and serve him, and more importantly, trust in his
finished work. So the battle, it's a fierce
battle. It says here in verse 12, for we wrestle. Wrestling
is close combat. Man on man, as it were. Very
close. It's not firing at your enemy
miles away. It's close. 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. This is the nature of
the battle. This is not fighting other humans as such. But it's
an ideology. It's seeking, are we those who
want to be humble followers of the Lamb? Are we those who want
to exhort Christ in our lives? Or are we people that are out
for their own ends? Out for their own glory? Out
for number one? Or have we a desire to glorify
God? You see, what is the purpose
of our lives? The Westminster Catechism has
this as an answer, to glorify God and to enjoy him forever. That's what you've been created
for, to enjoy God and to serve God
and to enjoy him forever. Well, may we then be given that
wisdom, for we wrestle not against flesh and blood. So to start with, in verse 10
it says, finally brethren, this is coming to the end of the letter,
be strong in the Lord. How are they going to fight against,
how are they going to be protected from all these wiles of the devil? And the devil's so powerful.
And he's been around a long time too. Been around from the times
of the Garden of Eden. Finally, my brethren, be strong
in the Lord. and in the power of his might.
Be strong in the Lord, not in yourself. He's not saying, Christians,
you've got to be so strong that in and of your own abilities,
you've got to fight Satan. He's saying, be strong in the
Lord. You see, we have a captain. We
have one that's gone before us. Be strong in the Lord, not in
ourselves, and in the power of his might. There's many enemies. There's many things to discourage.
but be strong in the Lord and in the power of his might. And
perhaps you might think that that's all we need to know is
verse 10. Strong in the Lord and the power of his might. He's
a strong God, he's able to protect us, that's it, we don't need
any armour. But that's not what the Apostle says. He then goes
on, you see, to put on the whole armour of God. So we need to
put on these things. So what is the formula for victory? If there's this great fight,
well, there's an encouragement, isn't there? In John's Gospel,
chapter 10, we read these words, verse 27, my sheep hear my voice,
I know them and they follow me and I give unto them eternal
life. And they shall never perish,
neither shall any man pluck them out of my hands." Here's a security
I mentioned to the children this morning. That in a sense we fight
a warfare where we, in one sense we know for certain what the
verdict will be. What the end will be, that Christ
will keep his people. Christ is, has, and why do we
know that? Because he has come head to head
with Satan himself. and he has gained the victory.
He didn't do it from heaven, as it were, he came down to earth
to make it, to be a man and die. He came to live a holy life. He was tempted, as it were, with
all the kingdoms of this world. He was tempted to do sort of
those stunts of jumping off the temple and trying to give a sensation
about his greatness, but he didn't come to do that. He came to save
his people from their sins. He came to take on Satan and
all his hellish hosts and he came to make a righteousness.
You see Satan fell and got cast out of heaven with all his demonic
angels. And you see human beings in the
Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve, fell. And Satan said, I fell, and I've
gone to everlasting punishment, or will go. And these have fallen,
and they must go to everlasting punishment too. Well, the soul
that sinneth, it shall die. But you see, the mercy of the
gospel is that God has made a way whereby that pinnacle of creation,
human beings, there's a way back for them to go back to God. There's
a way for them to find mercy and obtain mercy by what Christ
has done. So my sheep hear my voice they're
secure. But then we have another text
where in Hebrews 2 verse 14 it says, for as much then as the
children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise
took part of the same, that through death he might destroy him that
had the power of death, that is the devil. So what Christ
did at Calvary, he destroyed the power of Satan. He destroyed
that power that would hold, that would claim that human beings
cannot go to glory because they have sinned. Well, he satisfied
all the claims of justice. And you see, that's why we have
a captain, the captain of our salvation, the Lord Jesus Christ.
Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord and in the power
of his might. Then we come into verse 11. Put
on the whole armor of God. Put something on. It's not enough
to say, well, be strong in the law, but we are to put on the
whole armor of God. And this is how Paul is obviously
thinking about the armor that a soldier wears and the necessity
for wearing it. And he's saying, you've got to
put it on. You think of that. We have a lot today of personal
protective equipment, PPE. Well, it's no good if you don't
put it on, is it? If you've got a dusty environment
and don't actually put your face mask on. Or it's a very noisy
environment and you don't wear your earmuffs. Or things flying
around and you've got no goggles on. You might say, well, I've
got them in the car, I've got them in my bag. But they won't
protect you unless you've got them on. So it says here, put
on. the whole armour of God. This
is something that we've got to put on, it's something that we've
got to wear, it's something that we've got to know and of course
Paul uses this term elsewhere of put on the Lord Jesus Christ. So all these different aspects
of the armour really all point to the work of the Lord Jesus
Christ and we are to put these things on and when they're on
they're to give us that protection from all the Satan's fiery darts
and Satan's attempts to affect our minds and our hearts, you
see. There's protection for our head. There's protection from
our heart. The center of our affections.
He would love, you see, to have Christians going out, going lusting
after the things of this world and he'd love that. And how quickly
we can go that way. But we need to have that protection. and he will then when when Christians
do fall he would then try and say well now you've fallen now
there's no no way back you see but this armour is what Paul
has said is important put on the whole armour of God there's
a number of pieces we'll go through it in a minute the whole armour
of God that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the
devil. The wiles here, this is a word
of, he's a cunning person. You see, he will come to you
in a way that is tempting to you. In some things, you know,
we've each got different interests and different appetites for things
and he might not, I would not be likely to fall in areas that
others might be and vice versa. And so he knows our weaknesses.
And of course, that's the great thing when you're fighting an
enemy, is to find out where their weakness is. You only need to
get one arrow into them, you find out where the weakest point
is, and then you shoot just there. And you see, he's a wily foe.
He knows where our weaknesses are. So we are to put on the
whole armor of God, not our own armor. You see, if we say, well,
we've been brought up well, we're upright people, we won't fall.
No, put on the whole armour of God. It's God's armour. He provides it. He has provided
himself. He's provided himself a lamb.
He's provided himself to his people as that robe of righteousness
that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil.
You see, we're not to just go along with it. Say, oh, well,
everybody else is doing this. Well, everybody else may be doing
that that's going to a lost eternity. But do you want to go with them?
Do you want to be part of them? Do you also want to deny the
Lord Jesus Christ? Do you want to go away from his
truth? Well, and then in verse 12, it
explains, as we've already talked about, that it's talking about
Satan and his powers, that it's not just humans we're talking
about here, it's a man-to-man combat with those things which
would try and turn us away from God. Then in verse 13 he says,
wherefore take unto you the whole armour of God, the whole armour
of God, not just part of it. You think of that with a soldier,
he needs armour all over. that you may be able to withstand
in the evil day. So we're reminded here that,
and this is from the time it was written to the end of time,
Satan has not gone to sleep. He's not given up in trying to
turn people out of the way. He wants to turn people out of
the way. And he wants you and me. and
the higher that person, people stand, as it were, in a Christian
sense, a more prominent position, if he can make them fall, then
he knows he can make lots of other people fall around them.
Because they say, well, if so-and-so that's in a high position have
fallen, that's going to cause havoc to so many more. So how
much we need to be kept, wherefore take unto you the whole armour
of God, that ye may be able to stand in the evil day, and having
done all, to stand. Well then let's just look first
of all briefly then at what this armour is. We showed a picture
to the children this morning in the Sunday school of a Roman
soldier and their armour that they had on. Paul is speaking
of those things. Stand therefore having your loins
girt about with truth. So the first piece of armor he
talks about is this belt, this loins, your belt area, girt about
with truth. So the fundamental thing is the
truth. And how can we fight Satan? Remember
he's the master of lies. We need the truth, we need to
know the truth. The word of God is truth. All have sinned and
come short of the glory of God. That there is a coming, a judgment
day. This is truth. How are we going
to stand against Satan without that knowledge, without the word
of God, the truth? Fundamental. We can't stand if
we don't know what the truth is. You think of a soldier that's
fighting and he doesn't know which side he's on. He doesn't
know who's his friends and who's his enemies. Well, he's very
vulnerable, isn't he? You've got to know when you're
fighting who your allies are and who your enemy is. The truth. What is the truth? You see, Satan
is a liar from the beginning. God is truth. Jesus said, I am
the way, the truth, and the life. Well, the first point then is
truth. We need to have the word of God
as the truth of God. And we need to stand on it. And
that's based, it is the word of God. And we need the authority
of God's word, which never changes. Then we, just briefly looking
through these first, the breastplate of righteousness. We need protection,
you see, for our affections, and we need that breastplate
of righteousness. And it's interesting here, you
see, so quickly Satan could seek to change our heart and cause
us to go in a wrong direction, but we are to have the breastplate
of righteousness. Now that's not our own righteousness.
That is surely the imputed righteousness of Christ. That he is so that
when Satan seeks to turn us off course and seeks to reel to us
all our sins and all our shortcomings, that we say, yes, we have those
shortcomings, but we have a breastplate of righteousness. We have a justification
in our captain. And then in verse 15, it talks
about the feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of
peace. If you are going to fight, your
shoes are very important. If you slip over when you're
fighting, you're very vulnerable to your enemy. But you see, your
feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace. It is the gospel of peace. You
might think, well, if there's all this armour, it doesn't sound
much like peace. But you see, this armour and
fighting in this battle, is to know peace. There is no peace,
saith my God, to the wicked. There is no peace. You think
of what Jesus said after he came to those 11 on the upper room
after his resurrection. He said, peace be unto you. Everything that I've gone through,
Gethsemane, Calvary, being in the grave, Peace be unto you. This is the gospel of peace.
This is the way to peace. Christ is the prince of peace.
And we are to, in this warfare, we are to the preparation of
the gospel of peace. You see, it's not a gospel of
hatred. It's a gospel of peace. And yet,
you see, we have to hate that which is against peace. That
which is, we have to know who the enemy is. And the enemy is
Satan. And if we become friends with
Satan, he will take us away from the ways of truth. He will take
us away from peace. He will not lead us in the ways
of righteousness. And then the fourth piece of
armour in verse 16, above all taking the shield of faith. Here we have a shield, something
that protects you when you have particular arrows coming. The
shield is something that can take the blow of the arrow and
instead of it piercing through it can be stopped and you see
faith the shield of faith and we speak here of that shield
but so is faith our shield well yes but it's the object of faith
isn't it Jesus God said to Abraham in Genesis 15, I am thy shield
and thy exceeding great reward. You see, faith looks to the Lord
Jesus and lay hold, faith is a thing that lays hold upon these
truths and the Lord Jesus Christ is really the shield. And you
see, he is between us and Satan. He is the one that takes those
blows. He is the one that is able to
protect us, above all, taking the shield of faith, wherewith
ye shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked. Satan sending his darts to try
and wound us, try and stop us, try and stop us following Christ.
above all, taking the shield of faith, wherewith ye shall
be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked. So that's
the shield, the fourth element. And then in verse 17, we have
the fifth element, or the fifth piece of armor, which is the
helmet of salvation. Yes, obviously a very important
thing to protect is your head, a helmet of salvation. And spiritually
thinking of that is also linked with Thessalonians, which calls
it the helmet of salvation, linking it with hope. Hope. You see, if we lose hope, if
you have a soldier that's lost hope, they're going to give up. that you see we need the helmet
of salvation to remember that we are in a battle that ultimately
our captain has stood, our captain has conquered, and we are there
to be followers. You see there's always in the
Christian life, there's looking to that final rest and
yet we haven't obtained it yet, there's still much to be done,
there is still the fighting and yet we are to at times look to
that rest and realize that he has accomplished all, that this
is a hope. You see, if you're fighting and
you're busy and you think there's no hope, I'm never going to win,
I'm never going to gain the victory, we are to look up and to see
our glorious Christ that has gone before and that has gained
the victory, has despised all the powers of hell. You see in
Colossians we have those. Just look at those. In Colossians 2 verse 15 we have
this, speaking of the Lord Jesus, and having spoiled principalities
and powers, he made a show of them openly, triumphing over
them in it. That's what Christ did at Calvary. He showed that he ultimately
had gained the victory. And we need to remember. We need
that helmet of salvation to remember, yes, this foe is very mighty. This foe is doing me great damage. And another aspect of that is
if you think of, if you take the Second World War with our
fighting against Germany, we ultimately, by God's grace, did,
were on the winning side. But did that mean that every
day we were winning in every skirmish? No, we weren't. There
were times when the enemy, as it were, came in like a flood,
and it seemed that all hope that we should be saved was lost.
But you see, and sometimes in the Christian pathway, it can
seem, you see, that we've been overcome. That 37th Psalm is
precious there. Just turn to it. The steps of
a good man are ordered by the Lord, and he delighted in his
way, though he fall. He shall not be utterly cast
down for the Lord upholding him with his hand. You see, we have
a merciful God. In politics today, there doesn't
seem any mercy. If somebody says the wrong thing
and says something that's politically incorrect, they've got to go.
They've got to go. Whatever they've done, however
many years they've worked to get to that position and studied
and all the things that they've done, if they say one word out
of line, that's it. You've got to stand down. Well,
we don't have a God that's like that because we have a God that's
merciful. And where would we be if we put
one step out of line and that was it? Where would we be? We'd
be all lost, wouldn't we? Surely we come short. Sin is
mixed with all that we do. But you see, we have one that
is able to show kindness and mercy, the helmet of salvation. So in the difficulties that we come
to, that we're able to remember that ultimately we have a high
priest, we have one in, the picture of the Christians also is the
idea of the head and the body. We are the body, the church is
the body, Christ is the head. The head's in heaven, the body
must follow. You see in this that take the
helmet of salvation. And then the sixth piece of armor
is the sword of the spirit. So here, which is the word of
God. So we are to use the word of
God. We are to know the word of God. That's why it's really
important to know the word of God and to read the word of God
and to meditate on the word of God. Because how are we going
to reply when Satan comes in? Because Satan came in and tried
Jesus, after those 40 days and 40 nights in the wilderness,
he came and tempted Jesus to try and, first of all, turn stones
into bread, and then to cast himself off the temple, and then
took him to show him all the kingdoms of the world and the
glory of them, and said, all these things will I give thee
if thou bow down and worship me. he made it so presentable
didn't it so so seeming desirable. and may we be given then that
grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. And he just went straight and
said, get thee behind me, Satan, for thou shalt worship the Lord
thy God, and him only shalt thou serve. We're not to worship Satan.
That's what he wants us to do. He wants us to give our allegiance
to him and to his kingdom. But if we faithfully do that
for all our lives, we would just be with him in everlasting burnings. You see, it's really like, you
can think of it like this. Think of the troubles that were
in the Second World War with Hitler and the Nazi regime. You
see, all the time you just went along with the regime and just
believed in Hitler and believed in what they were doing and thought
what they were doing was fine and good, then the Nazis, as
it were, wouldn't give you too much trouble. You would just
go along with them. in their evil pursuits. But if you dare
to stand and say, why are we doing this? Why are we having
these concentration camps? Why is all this wickedness? What's
wrong? Why are we doing all these terrible things to the Jews?
That's the time when you needed some armour, wasn't it? If you
stand up against the regime, that's the time the bullets start
firing. And you see it so with Satan and his kingdom, all the
time we just keep quiet and just go along with his way, go along
with his lies, go along with his wickedness, which ends, as
you can see, with the regime of Hitler. What a disaster it
was, what a wicked regime it was. And yet Satan, you see,
is far more wicked than Hitler. Satan is far more sinful and
wicked. And this is the regime that by
nature we're all part of. By nature, the children of wrath,
even as others. And therefore, you see, we need
to put on the whole armor of God. We first of all need that
new heart. We need to be born again so that
we start to realize what sin is. and realise what God is. You
see, if we look first of all, perhaps in more detail now, in
that the first part of the armour is the truth. The truth. Having
your loins girt about with truth. You see, what is it, you can
just read the word of God, but when you actually read it and
then you say, I've experienced that, that's really true. When
Solomon says, vanity of vanities, all is vanity, you see something
in the heart of a child of God says, that's true. That's true,
I've seen it myself. I've seen the emptiness of a
life without God. That there's nothing under here,
under the sun that really satisfies. It's true. And you see, when
we come to realize the soul that sinneth it shall die, we say
it's true. And we start to realise that
the Word of God is true. And you see, the Bible tells
us we can learn a lot from nature, and nature can teach us a lot,
but the Word of God is going to teach us about sin and salvation. Sin and how to be saved, how
to get right. that all the chaos that there
is in the world, all flowing from sin and all the ways it
manifests itself. But how do we find peace? How
do we find peace? We need to, the word of God is
so important. Therefore stand having your loins
girt about with truth. The idea here is that with that
belt they would pull up their garments so they wouldn't be
in the way and they would be able to run and hold the shield
and their sword in their hands, they wouldn't be using their
hands to hold up their lower garments, they could be able
to run and be able to be ready for warfare. And to gird about
with truth. This is the first piece of the
armour. One of the things I didn't mention
was in verse 18, praying always with all prayer and supplication.
These things are to be done with prayer. All this armour, it's
all to be done, as it were, to put them on by prayer. that we
may pray that the Lord would give us that living faith and
enable us to use it, to be able to use that truth that God has
given us in his word. Because you see, we have to know
the truth and then we have to walk out the truth. You see,
if we don't walk it out, it's, well, we're like Jesus said to
those that were listening to him on the Sermon on the Mount,
if you hear what I say but don't do it, then you're like the people
who built their house on the sand. It won't stand. Just to hear what the truth is
and then not to put it into practice in our lives will not benefit
us. You see, we need to do, we need
to be doers of the word and not hearers only. Finally, my brethren,
be strong in the Lord. There's a clarion call here to
a battle. You see, Satan would love to say, well, we're just
living in this life and make the most of it and just enjoy
it. You're only young once, and so on, and seeking to just let
us drift along with what this world calls good and great. Or
are we amongst those who've come to realize that we are sinners
that need a savior? that we have sinned and come
short of the glory of God, and that there is one who out of
kindness and love, God so loved the world that he gave his only
begotten son, he gave a saviour for sinners, he gave a way that
sinful men and women, boys and girls, can know the Lord Jesus
Christ. There is a way back to God, you
see, from the dark paths of sin. And this is the great thing that
we need to know. We need to know that there is
a fight, and we need to be involved in it. If we say, well, I just
go along with whatever goes along, well, I'm sorry, you're just
gonna go along. The Bible tells us you're just
gonna go along in union with Satan. But you see, it's God's
promise in the Garden of Eden, I will put enmity between thee,
Satan, and the woman. That unity that is in our hearts
by nature, between, we love sin by nature, but God has come to
put enmity, the work of the Lord Jesus Christ, to break that chain
of union that there is between us and evil, and turn us into
the kingdom of his dear son, make us amongst those that love
the saviour, love his appearing, love to serve him, and have a
true desire, you see, what is the purpose of this battle? The
purpose is this battle that I may know him and the power of his
resurrection. That we may know the Lord Jesus
better and that we may be prepared, you see, for glory. You see,
all the others are going to a lost eternity and Satan doesn't shoot
at them because they're already doing his bidding. that they're
traveling on to a lost eternity. But you see, if we want to hunger
and thirst after righteousness, Jesus said, blessed are they
that hunger and thirst after righteousness. And you won't
find it from Satan. You won't find food in the world
for that. You need the word of God. The
word of God that lives and abides forever. The way of salvation,
the way to be right with God, the way to have our sins taken
away, the way to love, the way to serve, and the way to honor,
and the way to live. all in the word of God. Well,
put on the whole armour of God. Finally, my brethren, be strong
in the Lord, and in the power of his might. Put on the whole
armor of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles
of the devil. For we wrestle not against flesh
and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rule
of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness
in high places. Wherefore take unto you the whole
armor of God, that ye may be able to withstand in the evil
day, and having done all, to stand. May the Lord add his blessing. Amen.