We must attend to him. And I think that Rick could take
such a strange gift off of him. And you're one of them. R.I.P. Chef Six. He gives these last words of
exhortation and warning, and he says in verse 10, Finally,
my brethren, in the end, my dearly beloved brethren and sisters,
be strong, Trust Christ. Depend upon Christ. Believe in
Christ. Look to Christ. There's no place
else to look. No one else to turn to. Call
upon Him for help in your time of need. Surely you have many
times of need. Be strong with the Lord. That's
merely saying look to Christ. Depend upon Him. Call upon Him. And the power
of His mind. That is the means that the Lord
has given for you to seek his face, to find answers. The power
of his might is worth it. That's how he speaks to his people. This is a special moment of mine.
My wife told me that my mother said to her just the other day
that she was praying Lord, give me a greater desire to study
your Word. Give me a greater desire to look
into your Word and study it. Do something for me that would
cause me to really look into your Word and answer it." And
he did. She said it wasn't just the way
that she had wanted it, but it had caused her to really look
into His Word. Where else are you going to turn
in times like that? Huh? Or any time for that matter.
The Lord's Word. Man has no answer here. Christ
is the answer. His Word. So use the means He
says, Paul said. Be strong in the Lord. Trust
Christ. He's never let any of His people down. Be strong in
the Lord and in the power of His might. Use the means that
He's given. to us to seek His face and to
find answers, to find help in times of need, prayer, and the
study of His Word. And if the study of His Word
does not reap anything for you, then pray until it does, until
it gives you just a word and sees it. And then he says in
verse eleven, put on the whole armor of God. Put on the whole
armor of God. And this is a multi-faceted armor
like Joseph's. Many colored coat like Christ's
beautiful personality. That spotless robe. This suit
of armor has many pieces to it and they're all vital. And we're
going to see how they're all vitally connected too. They're
all intricately connected together. I've already enjoyed this and
I'm looking forward to going down through every piece And
every piece is necessary for God wouldn't have made it, God
wouldn't have told us it was. We need to take it and put it
on, the whole armor of God, not to be missing one vital piece
of that armor. To stand, look at verse eleven,
that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil, who is so prone to fall on me.
I mean, fall like that. And we need to stand because
our adversary, the devil, our Lord Himself said He's like a
roaring lion walking through the earth seeking whom He may
devour. And He is a wily, crafty, subtle,
powerful foe. No match for Him. We need to
heed what He's saying to us here. That's the reason I'm spending
so much time on this one portion of Scripture. One of the great
old writers, William Bernal, wrote a book that thick on seven
verses. And we need this. I need it. I need it. Put on the whole armor of God
that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil.
And he is wily. Verse 12, he said, We are not
wrestling against flesh and blood. principalities, and so forth.
Turn over 2 Corinthians 10, just back a few pages. 2 Corinthians
10, Paul says the same thing to the Corinthians here. The Holy Spirit, through the
Apostle Paul, says the same things to the Corinthian church as he
did to the church at Ephesus. It must be pretty important.
And if you will remember, the church at Ephesus, they got into trouble, didn't
they, John? And they left their first love. That was the plan,
wasn't it? So evidently, they did not heed what was said here. May we not be so unheeding. All right? Verse 3, the Apostle
Paul says in 2 Corinthians 10, verse 3, though we walk in the
flesh, And we struggle with the flesh and so forth. We do not
war after the flesh or with the flesh. It's that which is flesh. It's flesh. Scripture said we
need something more powerful than flesh. He said we may not
use weapons of flesh, fleshly means, whether it's a firm resolve
or positive mental attitude or, you know, flesh, human reasoning
or whatever. Keep yourselves occupied. Verse
four, the weapons of our warfare are not carnal or fleshly, but
mighty through or to or by God to the pulling down of strongholds. Any of you have something and
you feel like it has a stronghold of you? You have a particular things
that seem like they have a grip on you at times? That's what
he's saying. To the pulling down of strongholds. Read on. Casting down imaginations or
reasoning. What about that? Does your mind
run wild? Oh, my. Oh, my. That seems like an impossible
thing, doesn't it, to keep your mind in check, your thoughts
in check. Blasphemies and just all sorts
of horrible things run through your mind, and every high thing
that exalted itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing
into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ, and
having in a readiness, being ready to revenge all disobedience
when your obedience is fulfilled, obedience to the faith. Paul
said in one place, I keep my body in subjection. And once
again, I can't tell you how much I need this. How much I need
this. To you. Having a readiness or being ready.
And this applies to our text. Go back to the text. Having a
readiness or being suited for battle. Right? When someone is ready for battle,
that means You know, a soldier, a good soldier, in fact, well
still, it's still true, a good soldier always slept with his
guns, didn't he? Right beside him, he didn't leave
it where he couldn't grab it real quickly. And, uh, many times
they'd sleep with their boots on. We're gonna see that, too. Shot with a gospel, we never
leave that. Always shot. Preparation, the
gospel of preparation. I'm really looking forward to
that one. I've enjoyed looking at that before. But a readiness
suited, suited up for the battle. Our foe is always ready, isn't
he? He's always ready. He's always
about the things of evil, isn't he? We should be about the Father's
business. We really should. This is why the Lord continually
says to us, pray without ceasing. Don't stop. Pray without ceasing. Be in an attitude of prayer.
And I said before that we can't always be down on our knees or
can't always be in a posture of prayer or uttering words out
loud. We have jobs to do. We have homes
to care for and children and responsibilities and so forth.
But you can have a heart and an attitude of prayer, can't
you? In everything that you do, We should, that's what he said
in Philippians, in everything. In everything. Prayer, supplication
with thanksgiving, everything. So this thing of praying without
ceasing if our adversary is seeking opportunities against us at all
times, what is our defense? Number one, it's that the Lord
keeps us. But it's also that we call upon him. To help pray
without ceasing and watching, watching in prayer and supplication
and so forth, the Scripture. Because, look at it in our text,
because it says our adversary is a wily one. He has the wows
of the devil. The wows of the devil. Now let
me just give you a few of these wows of the devil. We started
on this a little bit. Let me give you a few more of
them. Okay? And right now, he's wiling. Right now, he uses these things. Number one, I've said that his
principal objective is to keep you from hearing the gospel. If this right here, what you're
doing tonight, what I'm saying, what I'm saying is of eternal
value. If what Paul, if what the Holy
Spirit has written here, And we're reading it, and I'm commenting
on it. If it has eternal benefit and
temporal benefit and value and necessary things that we so desperately
need, the devil knows that. Doesn't
he know? We're the devil. He's smart. He knows. He knows just what
you need. He knows this right here is what you need. So what's
he going to do? Everything within his power to
keep you from hearing. Everything. And he uses any means
available. He's the master of this. He's
quiet. He's quiet. He'll use other interests. No matter what it may be. Other
interests. Your job. Your home. Your family. Your friends. Projects. anything. He'll use these things
to keep you from hearing the gospel, to literally keep you
away from the house of God, where you will hear it. He'll use that. And then, if you do come here,
he'll use distracting thoughts, the heat, that bother you. Let's take the whole church down
to Mexico, and you'll think this is downright cool. You'll think
this is the most comfortable place I've ever sat in. My eyes
are, boy, I tell you, The Spirit of the Lord is in those places. He's at work, because the distractions
are many. We sat there one night, and a
scorpion was hanging right over the top of the ceiling. Hanging
from the ceiling. And, uh, Mandy took, remember
her thing, that picture, that big spider on the wall? Huh? One night, uh, I forget who was
preaching years ago, we were down there. Frogs! The doors
were open on this side and that side, so you could get a cross
breeze. There are many breezes out there
in the middle of nowhere. And all of a sudden, a troop
of frogs came marching through. They marched right through and
just went on out the other door. But if the people can listen
against those odds, I think you can sit here and
put up with a little bit of discomfort and final discomfort and so forth.
I ought to be able to. And he uses these things. Don't
believe he doesn't. Don't believe he doesn't. Distracting
thoughts, cares, and so forth. It may be your thinking right
now about it. Something out there that just does not warrant your
thoughts right now. It's just not important to be
thinking about the price of gas. It might go up. It might not.
If you think about this, the Lord blesses you to worship,
you might go down ten cents. But you can't do anything about
it anyway, can you? Right now, this is what we need.
This is what we need. Distracting thoughts of care,
and we use those. And then once we get here, and
this is one of the things he uses mightily, is our attitude
when we get here. And I've said this many times.
When do you, husband and wife, seem to have your little spats?
Most of the time. Wednesday night? Or Sunday morning
or Sunday evening? Huh? It's uncanny. Isn't it uncanny? Why is that? We're not wrestling
with flesh and blood. It's not your husband that you're
battling. It's not your wife. Huh? Isn't that right? Isn't
it ironic? He knows. It gets you too pitted
against one another. Neither one of you will hear
a thing the preacher has to say. It'll get you mad at somebody
in the circle, or whatever. Most of all, it gets you put
out with the preacher. Or he does something, or says
something, or stumbles his words and all that, and you can't hear
anything. He says from there on out. I told you that story
about my dad one time preaching, and he said, And of course his
message, he said, britches and some woman came up to him, some
polished and aristocratic woman said, by the way, it's not britches,
it's trousers. And he said, well, what did I
say before I said britches? She said, I don't know, I don't
remember. He said, what did I say after
I said britches? She said, uh, I don't remember
that either. He said, if I had said, Bridges,
you wouldn't have gotten nothing, would you? Right? He's a master
at this time. And it's not funny, really. It's
sad. But he does. Critical spirit. Some people come to just to...
They came to catch the Lord up in his words, didn't they? And
many people come to hear the preacher like that, and I don't
think there's a soul in here that does that. I really don't.
But this is an old, uneducated railroader and construction worker,
and you can count on it, that I'm going to say, I'm going to
slip up. You open your mouth long enough, you're going to
get your foot in it. It just happens. The Lord will
do that, but you show you, you're a man, show the people, just
a man. And don't let those things distract you. All right? That's
his principal objective, is to keep you from hearing what's
said from his word. Keep you from hearing the gospel.
Secondly, one of his principal purposes is to tempt you to fall
into sin. To tempt you to sin. To entice
you. That's what he did to me. We
did that and he used the lust of the eyes, the lust of the
flesh, the pride of life to tempt her to sin. And he'll use any
means available to tempt us also. He's the master at that. He'll
use family, he'll use friends, he'll use anyone. He'll use particular
weaknesses and whatever may be a particular besetting sin, he'll
bombard you with it. And so, you men, need I tell
you, he bombards you with it, doesn't he? Particularly besetting
sins to the male animals. Absolutely will not let up, will
not relent. Bombards you with it. These besetting sins. You women,
so forth. Various things. He's the master
of this. We need help, don't we? We need help. Oh my, we need
help. And then, one of his wily, one
of the wily things that he does is once he has caused you to
fall into a particular sin, and we will, I love 1 John 2, don't
you? Verse 1. Brethren, I write unto
you these things, that you sin not, huh? If any man sin, and
you will. You're going to fall. You're
going to fall, aren't you? Because that which is flesh is
flesh is going to fall. He knows. I'm glad he remembers
our friend. I'm glad he doesn't expect too much of us. Don't
you? Aren't you? But our Heavenly Father knows
our frame. He knows our weaknesses, which is principally flesh. He knows we're in the flesh.
He knows we've never seen him with our eyes, never heard him
with these ears, never touched him with these hands. He knows
that. He's spirit, we're flesh. He remembers our praying. We're
diocese. I'm so thankful for that, aren't you? And he doesn't
expect nearly as much of us as some would have us to think. But, and we will fall. And this is what Satan relishes. Once getting you to fall into
sin, open sin, then he will accuse you. Ha! I thought you were a
Christian. I thought you were a Christian.
And you catch yourself saying the same thing, don't you? I
thought I was, too. I don't see how I didn't have
it. I can't believe I didn't have it. And he'll use scripture
to convict you about it. Remember me saying that? He'll
use scripture to convict you about it. And he'll try to do
this. Listen. This is the wildness
of it. He'll try to unsaint you. He'll try his best to unsaint
you. To make you feel like you're
not saved. You remember, what did he come
to the Lord saying? You remember what he said to
the Lord when he tempted him? Every time? said this, every time preceded
everything he said would end. If thou be the Son of God. If you were a Christian, Mark,
you wouldn't have thoughts like that. Hmm? Doesn't he do that? Sure he does. Sure he does. Well, Grinnell
said this, and I'm glad the Lord gave this man that much wisdom.
How do we know What is the Holy Spirit merely convicting
of our sins, and what is the devil accusing us and trying
to unsaint us? Now, good question. The Holy
Spirit uses Scripture. Well, Grinnell said this, whatever
accusation or whatever conviction or whatever it is that comes
at you, and goes against what the Holy Spirit has been doing.
That's the devil doing. A house divided against itself
cannot stand, right? Remember when they said to Christ,
you're casting out devils by Beelzebub? Remember that? He said that. He said a house
divided against itself cannot stand. And whatever the Holy
Spirit has been doing in you, Whatever comes against that or
goes against that work, that's the devil. The Holy Spirit's
work is to comfort you. Yes, he convicts us. Yes, he
convicts us. But every time he convicts, what
does he do? Every sinner he convicts, what
does he do? He wants them to cry straight away. You're guilty,
aren't you? You're a no-good, rotten sinner,
aren't you, Terry Kinslow? That's what the Holy Spirit,
through the Word, He convicts you. That your mouth may be stopped
and you become guilty. Right? Then what does He do?
He wants you to cry. You're guilty, aren't you? Need
an advocate? Oh, yes, Lord. There He is. He's with the Father, Jesus Christ
the Righteous. He's calling. He's your... Satan
never gets to that point. He just convicts, convicts, convicts,
accuses, accuses, never gives any comfort after that. And once
again, I remind you, it's the gospel where you're going to
get this coming from. The gospel. And then, Grinnell said this.
This is great. You got this down, Arthur. You
just... Oh, that these words were printed with a pin of iron
in this old rock-hard hunger. He said this. Whatever Satan
comes at you with, whatever sins he convicts you of, if they're
greater, than God's mercy and forgive the devil did it. If your sins are more are greater
than God's grace, the devil did that. The scripture says, mind
you, the scripture says where sin did abound, grace did. It's much more like that. Don't
you like that? So whatever sins he accuses you
of that are greater than God can forgive, that's the devil.
It ain't no... Christ did all manner of sin. Blessed we shall be forgiven.
Didn't He? Huh? You did it, whatever could
be done or said or thought. You did it before He saved you,
didn't you? Huh? He forgave you, didn't He?
Told you didn't I? You hear my English? He forgave
you, didn't he? Huh? He forgave you then, didn't he?
Now what can you do now? Huh? That he won't forgive. Huh? Huh? Except reject the gospel. You wouldn't do that, would you? Huh? I'm not. Huh? So... We're dealing, we're not
dealing with our own flesh and blood. We're dealing with a subtle
and a crafty foe who's stronger than we. But thank God there's
a stronger than he. A stronger than he who undertakes
on our behalf to deal with the devil for Christ himself is our
first line of defense. Our captain goes, I love that
scripture today where it says, and Jesus went before them. He
said, let's go to Jerusalem. He didn't say, John, you go first.
He said, let's go to Jerusalem. But Lord, Lord, wait up. He had
already hit it and said his thanks. But that's our captain. She said, in behind me, what
do you need to fear when your captain's out in front of you?
And he took every assault Satan could throw at him, didn't he? Yeah, and repulsed him. And that's
what we need to do like Michael, the archangel. Chiefly, when
he Is that bullying? The deaf one. I used to bleed. I had two older brothers coming
up through school. I was always little, still little.
Well, we will be little. I've got a good name. Paul means
small. But that's what it means. Well, you'll have to name me. But growing up through school,
I didn't worry about a thing. Didn't worry about a thing. Why? I had
two older brothers that went before me. My oldest brother,
oldest, oldest brother was the captain of the football team,
and Tut was his name. Means his name. Tutuk. His enemies,
anyway. And Tut, nobody would fool with
me. Because of my older brother.
When they graduated from high school, boy, I shook. Those last
few years. No, seriously. I could call on
my older brother. I could. And they would protect
me. Well, that's what we need to
do principally. When the bully gets after us,
which is always, Lord help me, your elder brother, your elder
brother, call on him. He said, I'll help you. And that's
what Michael did, even the angel, who could destroy himself a fourth
of the earth, maybe the whole earth for that matter. Michael
the archangel, the highest angel, with the most power, what did
he say? I'll take you on and save you. No. The Lord rebuked
you, he said. That's what I say. That's what
we need to say. Whatever is solved. The Lord rebuked the incompetent.
Bleed the blood and the righteousness of Christ. Bleed it. That's that
bugler. That bugler of the Scriptures
talks about the righteousness of Christ. The Holy Spirit talked
about it, didn't He? How the saint is really on the
offensive. He quoted that Scripture, that
the gates of hell shall not prevail against thee, He said, since
when did gates fight you? Since when did gates bombard
anybody? No, gates are right there. He
said that you go against gates, and there'll be obstacles in
our way. What are we going to use? We're not flesh and blood. We're not wrestling with flesh
and blood. Principalities of power. So weapons of our warfare
are spiritual. Mightiness, pulling down strongholds,
imaginations, and so forth. A buckler, and I'm getting ahead
of myself. All right, we're not dealing
with flesh, but with principalities, and we need to call upon He who
is stronger than our adversary and plead the blood and righteousness
of Christ. He'll plead everything against
you. So you need to plead, and the only thing you can plead
is the precious promises of Christ. The only thing you can plead. When He says to you, you're a
sinner. You are a sinner. Look at you. You're a sinner. You're a saint.
You're a sinner. Well, what are you going to say? Well, but this
is a faithful saint. And that's true. I am a sinner.
But this is a faithful saint. The Lord said that he came not
to call the righteous, not to call saints, but sinners. Faithful
saints. Yeah, but you're the worst. Well,
I've been around for thousands of years, and you're one of the
worst I've ever seen. Well, I agree with you. I'm the chief. Well,
you know, he said that in that same verse. That Christ came
to the world to save sinners, of whom I'm the chief. Yeah, but now you've sinned the
unpardonable sin. Have you ever thought that? The
unpardonable sin? I don't even know what that is.
Do you? I don't know what that is. That's the mercy of God. If you
don't know what it is, you can't do it. The strength of sin is
the law. If you don't do that, you'll
do it. I really don't know, unless it's
apostasy. And he said this, and here's
your only line of defense against reasoning like that. You sin
in unpardonable sin. I don't know about that. I don't
know about that. But I'll tell you what the Lord
said. He said He'd never leave me or forsake me. That's what
He said. And He said He'd never lie. He
said He'd give unto me eternal life, and I'll never perish.
He said all manner of sin, blasphemous, shall be forgiven me. He said
your sins and iniquities I will never know no more. No more.
That's what the Lord said. He said those that come unto
God by me, I'll never cast out. Never. That's what the Lord said.
I don't know about this part of Him. I don't know if I committed
or not, but I know He keeps convicting me. He keeps pointing me to Christ,
and I keep going back, and I keep feeling forgiven. So I must not
have done it yet. Huh? That's the only thing you
can believe. Well, someday, someday you'll die, and you're
going to be damned. You're going to be damned. This
is what's going to happen. You're going to think you're
a Christian, and all your life you're going to think that, and
when you come to your deathbed, you're going to die, and you'll
be mine. You'll be mine. We are in a perilous time. Could there be any worse? No
way. We need this now. We may be able to stand in this
evil day. We have seen some fall to the
wayside in our midst already. We have seen some go. We have
seen some come, thank God. We may yet see some God. I hope
not. I hope not. And this is the reason
we need to hold on. Is this important? It sure is.
Having done all to stand. Having done all or overcome to
stand. And what did he say in 1 John
5 that would overcome the world? Huh? Somebody say it. Faith. Faith. He was either overcoming
the world, or he didn't believe that Jesus is Christ. Simple
faith in a person. So he says, take unto you the
whole armor. Put it on. Put it on. Put on this armor.
Take unto you the whole armor of God, that you may be able
to stand, having done all, to stand. Put this armor on. Do you remember when David was
going out to fight the Philistine? He was just a boy. I don't know
how old he was. Some say he was about 15 years
old. And he was just, he said, this is not a cause. You remember
that? And he ran, he was going to run
head on into that big giant and saw and all of it. Whoa, whoa,
wait a minute. Whoa, you can't. Here, take this armor. And they
began to put a man's armor on it. Remember that? A man's suit
of armor. They'd load him down. He was
15 years old. Saul was about 6'5", weighed
270 pounds. You know, big. Head and shoulders
above everybody else. Maybe at 70 pounds. Saul. They
put Saul's arm on this 15-year-old boy. Helmet went down to his
ear, you know. And, you know, everything. It's
so weird. He could barely pick it up. They'd send him out. All
right, now go. Now you can fight. And they'd
say, Drake, I can't take this. I've never proved this. And the scriptures have proven
that man's armor, it won't fit. It won't work. It won't replace
anything. You can't wear it. It'll weigh
you down. Your weapons aren't carnal anyway.
Man's reasoning and so forth. David took them off and he put
on another one. What was that? I don't know. Perfect fit. Perfect fit. It wears well. And you know,
every saint from Adam or whoever was the first, Abel, Tom, wore
this same arm. It'll wear well. It suits you
well. It's a suit of arms. It's been
proven as sheer defense and offense. Offensive. against our adversary. The next verse, and we'll get
into this Sunday night. Now, he says, put on this girdle of truth.
The first thing is the girdle of truth. The truth. The truth. How many times have we looked
at that? Give me an eyewash. We can just tear right into that
guy. The girdle of truth. Wear it. It holds everything
up. It holds everything together. truth. We'll look at that Sunday.
Stand with me and I'll dismiss this. Our Heavenly Fathers, your word
is like honey to the taste. We thank you for it. We esteem it greater than all
the riches of earth, of Egypt. Great treasure, great was the
one that found it, great spoil. It's like honey. It's like bread
with butter and honey on it. I would thank you for it. We
ask that you would nourish our souls by it and give us spiritual
strength and sustenance. Keep us, Lord. We've got a whole
week now to go through, to go out there in the midst of evil
days. The world, we above all, we have
to fight that evil man ourselves. And we don't want to do it by
ourselves. We need your help, dear Lord. May we use the means
you've given us. You, may something said tonight
be recalled. May we be like cattle, fleeing
animals. Part with the hoof, part with
our sin. Chew on the cut of the gospel. May you bring it back up to us,
Lord. May we chew upon it, feed upon it, go to strength of it,
several days. May we gather our own manna freshly
every morning. We'll find your mercies anew
every morning. Lord, may we use these names, the power of your
might. Enable us, Lord. Give us the
will, the desire, and then bless us through the use of them in
Christ's name. Above all, may we look to thee. our great Redeemer and Helper
and Keeper and Sustainer, Christ Jesus, our Lord and Master. In
His name we pray and let together. And it's been good. Amen.