to get away from the book of
Acts for a little while. I feel compelled, I've wanted
for some time to do a series of messages from this portion
of scripture. I've preached from it once before
with the same title, The Armor of the Lord. But each of these
pieces of armor that we find here in this text need to be
dwelled on individually. So we're going to look at this
in a series of messages from Ephesians chapter 6. The Lord Jesus Christ told Peter,
he said, you feed my sheep. Feed my sheep. Hosea chapter
4 says that people are destroyed for lack of knowledge. He says
that's what they need, knowledge. And then he says in another place,
in Jeremiah, he said, I'll give you pastors after my own heart,
which shall feed you with knowledge and understanding. So we need
knowledge and understanding. So tonight, what I want to do
in introducing this subject, what I want to do is warn you
and teach you of the ways of our archenemy, that you may know
them, his ways, and not be ignorant of him and his devices, and be
led captive by him at his will." That's what he says. I'm constantly
reminded of this by a plaque that a brother and sister gave
me that has this verse of scripture written upon it. I have it hanging
on my wall. It says, The servant of the Lord,
so on and so forth, says he must teach, be apt to teach, in meekness
instructing those that oppose themselves, if God, peradventure,
will give them repentance to the acknowledging of the truth.
Acknowledge means to have knowledge. and that they may recover themselves
out of the snare of the devil, who was taken captive by him
at his will." So what I want to do tonight
in this message and subsequent messages is to warn you of his
devices. and to show you where your strength
and your help lies from this passage. This has always struck
me. I've always loved this portion
of scripture. I remember reading as a young
believer, reading a book entirely written on these few verses by
William Grinnell, and it made a lasting impression upon me,
and I want to give you a few things out of that. hold your
attention tonight. I'm jumping ahead. Brother Chapman,
I'm going to go through the end of chapter 5 of Ephesians in
the Bible study on Sunday, and then John Chapman will be here
to speak to you from the first nine verses of chapter 6, and
then I'm going to the series through the end of this chapter. And like most of the scriptures
now, this is written to believers. I certainly want to make the
gospel clear in tonight's message for those who may not know it,
but like most of the scriptures, this is written to believers.
It's talking to believers. And he says there are six pieces
of armor that we are to put on that will enable us to stand
against the wiles of the devil. Now, I know this is, in our day
of educated, intellectual people, talking about the devil is so
ignorant and foolish and old-fashioned, you know what I'm talking about?
That they think it's just an excuse for ignorance. blaming someone else for whatever. But the fact of the matter is,
there is such one as this devil. And he has many demons. Okay? It's true. And we need to learn something
of his devices. To keep from, like I just quoted
to you from 2 Timothy 2, being captive of his. We need to know
something of his wiliness or his craftiness. I think we're
going to see clearly through these messages that all of these
pieces of armor are related to the Lord Jesus Christ. We're
going to see that the whole armor itself is faith in the Lord Jesus
Christ, that all of our strength, our courage, our defense, our
protection, salvation itself is in Christ. Do you know what
armor is used for? Years ago, men used to wear armor,
and they still wear armor to some degree, a helmet and so
forth, black jackets and all that. But what is that for but
to save that man's life? And where is salvation to be
found? Salvation is where? It's of the
Lord, the scripture says. It's totally 100 percent of the
Lord. It's not in our strivings. Martin Luther said, if we in
our own strength did confide, our striving would be losing.
We're not the right man on our side, the man of God's own choosing. And in case you ask who that
may be, he goes on, the Lord Jesus Christ. It is he. He's
the Lord of Sabbath, the Lord of Hosts. He's the captain of
our salvation, as Scripture says. He's our David who went out to
face Goliath, and he doesn't need any armor. And he went out
to defeat our foe's force and cut his head off. where our salvation
is, it's in the Lord Jesus Christ. And when we talk about this armor,
all we're talking about really is Christ himself, every piece
of it. And we want to see that. And
this is the introduction leading into it. Verse 10. Let's begin
there. Verse 10. The Apostle begins
by saying, Finally, brethren, finally, my brethren. And like
I said, we haven't gone all through this chapter, but But we will,
and I'm going out ahead of you, okay, to get to this. But he's closing up. He gives
some final remarks, and it's like when you write a letter,
when I write a letter anyway, I try to end it up with something
special, by saying something special, something that will
stay with them, something that they won't forget. And this is
what he says, finally, my brethren, finally, in conclusion, now,
he says, Be strong in the Lord. Be strong in the Lord and in
the power of his might. The Lord Jesus Christ is all
our salvation. To be strong in the Lord doesn't
mean what the world is saying, that we learn how he lived and
we try to imitate him and therefore we become as strong as he is. Do you understand what I'm trying
to say? That's what some of these fools
like Kenneth Copeland and Kenneth Hagin and all of them are saying.
You're just as much a son of God as Christ is once the Holy
Spirit dwells in you and you can do as great a thing as he
can do and so forth. You're just as powerful as he
is. No, Christ plainly said, without me. You can do nothing,
ever. He said we're not even sufficient
to think anything. We talked about that not too
long ago, didn't we? That we can't even sit here and
think about spiritual things for thirty minutes, five minutes,
without the aid and the help of the Holy Spirit. So he's not
talking about to live like Christ and be strong like he was. No,
it's not talking about that at all. It's saying here that all
of our strength be strong in the Lord. All of our strength
is found in him. Like Christ said in John 15,
he said, I am the vine, and you are the branches. That is, anyone with faith in
Christ, anybody joined to Christ, they receive all of their strength,
all of their health, all of their nourishment, from Christ himself,
from him. It just keeps coming down from
him. The strength is not in themselves,
is it? There's no strength in a branch,
but the strength depends upon the trunk of the tree, doesn't
it? And where those roots go. So Christ, he said, I'm the vine,
you're the branches, and cut off from me, you're just fit
for the burning. And the only strength you'll have is as you're
connected to me. And what is that connection?
It's faith. It's faith. And we're going to
see how the prayer is that connection, too, and so many things. So he
says, Be strong in the Lord. So the Lord Jesus Christ is all
the believer's strength. He is all the believer's strength.
He is all the believer's courage. I told you before how Peter boasted
of his own strength and his own will and his own resolve, didn't
he? While the Lord was with him. When the Lord was standing there,
he said, Everybody may leave you, but I won't. And he was
the first one that did, when the Lord left. And when those
soldiers came out to get the Lord, and Peter was with the
Lord then, the Lord was with Peter, and Peter got real bold
then, too. He cut that fellow's ear off,
ready to fight the whole bunch with one sword. And the Lord
rebuked him and said, Put up your sword, Peter. We're not
fighting an earthly battle here. Our battle is not against flesh
and blood. If it were, he said, I'd call
twelve legions of angels down here. I wouldn't need your help. He said, Put up your sword. So he did, and it wasn't too
long after the Lord was gone that Peter was running scared
from a little girl. Right? Is that you? So the Lord
is all of our strength, all of our courage, all of our power,
all of our might. He said without me you can do
nothing. He calls us sheep, doesn't he? What can a sheep do against
a lion? What can a lamb do against a
lion? That's what he said Satan was
like. He said Satan is like a row of lions walking about the earth
seeking whom he may devour. What can a lamb do against a
lion? If left to himself, what could
a lamb do? Nothing. The only thing a lamb
can do is bleed. Bleed and bleed. That bleeding
is a type of calling upon the Good Shepherd, help, help. That's all a lamb can do. I tell
you what, the Good Shepherd can do something, can't he? Oh, my. Stronger than he, the scripture
says, is here. Stronger than our archenemy,
Satan. greater than Solomon is here, God himself, whom Satan
has to answer to. Do you know that? Satan does
the bidding of the Lord Jesus Christ. He can only do what the Lord
allows him to do. You'll find that in the book
of Job, chapter 1 and chapter 2, where Satan had to appear
before the Lord just like everybody else did. That's the Lord Jesus
Christ. So he says, without me, you can
do nothing. You can do nothing. But the scripture
says, also, I can do all things through Christ, which strengtheneth
me. Right? Never of our own. That's the reason our righteousness
is never our own. That's the reason our strength
is never our own. That's the reason we never should boast of anything,
because it's never our own. It's always given to us, isn't
it? What is it to be strong in the
Lord and the power of his might? What is it? It's many things. But chiefly, and I've already
said it, chiefly it means to depend upon him for everything. To be strong in the Lord means
to depend upon him for everything. Everything. I have a daughter. And one of the duties of a father
is that he takes care of everything, doesn't he? When we go out to
eat, I don't say to my daughter, now, you got any money? Are you
going to pay for that? It's just understood. I take
care of everything. I drive her there. I provide
the car, I provide her with a home, I provide her with food, I provide
her with protection. It just goes without speaking,
right? And all of her strength, all
of her help, all of her courage, all of her sustenance, all of
her provision, everything she has comes from me. And all of
her assurance, all of her safety, all of her courage comes from
me, doesn't it? Sometimes Daddy's not at home.
and mommy and child get scared. You may not think so, but they
think I'm big and strong. Nevertheless, that's the picture
I'm trying to show you, is that all of our strength and all of
our help and all of our courage comes from knowing that God is
our Father, and that God is our salvation, that Christ is our
our captain. Christ goes out before us, he
is our provider, the Lord that strengtheneth thee. So what it
is to be strong in the Lord is to chiefly depend upon him for
everything. Everything. For his strength
and his health, and the power of his might. His might and his
power, what is the power of God? Somebody tell me. Huh? Man, how many times have I quoted
Romans 1 and 16? The gospel is the power of God
unto salvation to everyone that believeth, to the Jew first and
also to the Greek. The gospel, the power of his
might, you start there in the gospel. The gospel, that's what
empowered all of the apostles to die. The prophets, you have
to start with them, don't you? They preached the gospel. That's
what empowered them to go out into a world of pagan, God-hating,
gospel-hating people and put their lives on the line. The
apostles did the same, the martyrs did the same, the early church.
I've been reading about the early church and all of the trials
they went through. What it was that empowered them
was not just some resolve, some strength or fortitude of you
know, and strength of mind and will and resolve, it was the
gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ firmly implanted in their hearts
and their minds. Paul said, I know whom I believe,
and I'm persuaded that he's able. He said, I'm not only willing
to be bound for Christ, but to die for him, to die for him. The gospel is the power of his
might, and all of those means that the Lord Jesus Christ has
given us to overcome with. All of these means, and we're
going to elaborate more on that as we go through the message.
Now look at verse 11. He says, verse 10, Finally, my
brethren, be strong in the Lord, and in the power of his might. Depend upon God, look to Christ
for all things, especially salvation. Look to him, don't look to yourself,
your own works, your own morality, your religion, whatever your
profession of faith, look to Christ and him alone, look to
his person, look to his work. And in the power of his might,
the gospel is the fire of God that changes, it saves, it regenerates,
it keeps up the power of his might, his mighty power, subdues
hearts, changes hearts, subdues whole nations. The gospel is
the power of his might and the means that he goes on to talk
about. 11. Put on the whole armor of
God. Put on the whole armor of God,
that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil.
Put on the whole armor of God, the whole armor, and we're going
to see how all of these things are necessary, that we can't
have one chink in this armor, one chink in this suit of armor.
And this armor, the first thing I want you to notice about it,
is it's the armor of God, isn't it? You see that? Put on the
whole armor of God. It's God's making. It's salvations
of the Lord, and all of the means that we're to use come from him. Not our own devices, not our
own thoughts, not our own ways, not our own gimmicks and tricks
and all of that, but it's what the Lord has ordained. It's his
armor. His armor. Our defense is of
God, Psalm 89 said. It's God's armor, it's good metal,
it will suit you well. It will suit you well, it will
fit you, and you'll need every piece of it. He says this, now
here's where I want to dwell for a few minutes. You need this
armor that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the
devil. Are you with me? He's already at work. You know
what Satan's chief wily is? He's a wily old devil. I know,
like I said, this world of educated intellectuals, when you talk
about the devil, they say he's a figment of your imagination.
No, he's not. He's a very real character written from the pages
of God's book. Some people are actually under
his captivity, and they are his children. You have your father
the devil," he said to some people. You don't want to be that, do
you? As many as are led by the Spirit of God, they're the sons
of God. Other ones are the sons of the devil. Is that right?
Is that scriptural Rick Williams? I don't want to be, do you? Sometimes
I feel like it. Well, I need to know something
about his wows, don't you? That we may recover ourselves?
That's what Paul said. All right? The wows of the devil. Like I
started to say, one of his chief wows, and I'm getting ahead of
myself, is to blind your minds to the gospel. Look over 2 Corinthians
4. He's a wily fellow. He's a wily
and a crafty fellow, and his first chief craft or design or
purpose is to blind your minds to the gospel. How do you blind
somebody's mind? Huh? How do you blind somebody's
mind? Well, how do things get into
the mind? How does anything get into the mind? Huh? Where does
it go? Through the ears. The hearing,
right? So how's it going to blind your
mind? By stopping your ears. You're not hearing what's being
said, right? Like I said, he begins his work
just immediately when we sit down. And the book is open, he
begins to blind your mind, to stop your ears, to blind your
mind from hearing what you need to hear, and what he does, how
he blinds that. You don't have to stick your
fingers in your ear, he'll just stick thoughts in your head.
any thoughts, trivial thoughts, ridiculous thoughts, worldly
thoughts, wild thoughts, right? You know it's so. You've already
had them since you've been sitting here, right? Now, look at 2 Corinthians
4. It says, verse 3, If our gospel
be hid, it's hid to them that are lost. Now, I've already pretty
much preached the gospel to you. I've pointed you to Christ. told
you that salvation is in Christ and him alone. It's in him coming
and living a righteous life and imputing it to a people and giving
it to those people, and God Almighty can accept them because of that
righteousness. And he shed his blood to pay
the penalty of that law they broke, their sins, and that God
gives this salvation to all who ask for it. That salvation is
in Christ and him alone. If our gospel be hid, it's not
because I haven't preached it. It's not because it hasn't been
proclaimed. It's hid to them that are lost. In whom, verse
4, the God of this world hath blinded the minds of them which
believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ,
who is the image of God, should shine unto them. The God of this
world, he's called. Not a capital G. You see that? He's not the God of this world.
in the sense that he reigns and rules over it. Oh, no, no, no,
no, no. Satan doesn't reign over this
world. No, this is God's world. Psalm 24 says, The earth is the
Lord's, and the fullness thereof. The earth and the fullness and
all that dwell therein is the Lord's. It's not Satan. Never
has been, never will be. It's the Lord's. The earth is
the Lord's. When he talks about the God of this world, it means
he's the God, he's the one that the world is worshiping and following.
Do you understand that? But he's not in charge of this
world. Nevertheless, he has some power, not all power. And his
main objective is to blind your mind to the gospel. Blind you,
keep you from hearing the gospel. He'll let you hear all sorts
of good sermons and good messages and make you feel real religious
and give you signs and wonders and all of that to be taken up
with in anything but the gospel. He'll let you get religion. He'll
let you turn over a new leaf. He'll let you get real good moral.
He'll let you be baptized. He'll let you join the church.
But just don't go trusting Christ and Christ alone. Just don't
go believing that gospel. Anything but that. He'll let
you be religious so that you'll be twofold more the child of
hell. You have a false religion. He's a wily fellow, and that's
his chief and main design. His main purpose is to blind
us to the truth and to propagate false gospel. He does that through
false preachers. Lies and, like I said, feelings
and signs and wonders. Turn over to 2 Thessalonians. Let's look at that too. 2 Thessalonians
2. This also talks about the working
of Satan, his power and signs and lying wonders. 2 Timothy
2. It's not what the world is saying.
Satan is not necessarily at work in the honky-tonks, though he's
got them. They're laying in the gutter.
The people in the Honky Tonks, they're under his influence,
no doubt. But that's not his chief work.
He doesn't have to do anything with them, just leave them alone
to their own will and their own desires. That's where they want
to be. Right? His chief work is fighting against
that which is his enemy, the truth. Didn't Christ say the
truth, you'll know the truth, and the truth will do what? It
will set you free. Set you free from what? From
Satan, being captive to him. Set you free from your sins,
set you free from ignorance, superstition, being captive of
his will, subject to his every whim, subject to his wildness
and his craftiness and his wisdom and his power and so forth, his
temptations. The truth. See how important
it is? The truth. And you're not hearing
it today in the churches today, so-called churches today. Here's
what you see, and look at it. 2 Thessalonians 2, it says, verse
9, Him whose coming is after the working of Satan with all
power and signs and lying wonders, he said he's at work. Verse 7,
in the mystery of iniquity, he's already working. Verse 9, Him
whose coming is after the working of Satan, the spirit of Antichrist
he's talking about. Verse 10, and here's what he
does. He uses all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that
perish. That's deceitfulness of sin,
that's unrighteousness, isn't it, Dan? Deceitfulness of sin,
that's unrighteousness. But I know another unrighteousness. It's self-righteousness. And
that's deceivable too, isn't it? It's so deceivable that Christ
said that many are going to stand right in front of him someday
and say, hey, we did wonderful works. We did this and we did
that in the name of Jesus. And he said, you've got a self-righteousness
on you. I smell it. I see it. It's a filthy rag. You're getting
the credit. You're getting the glory for
what you have done. You're not looking to me and trusting me,
and you're not believing in me. You're believing in yourself. You don't have faith in me, he
says. You've got faith in your faith. in your decision, your
religion and all that. Self-righteousness. It's deceivable. And that's what Satan, he'd just
as soon give you that, like I said, religion, as to leave you in
the honky-tonk. Because he's got you in double
darkness there. The man down in the bar, he's
in darkness all right, but the Lord delivers that kind. Right? Out-and-out sinners. He said,
I've come not to call righteous, but sinners. Those in religion
are much harder won, because they're in double darkness. They're
in darkness to the truth, and then they've got a light. And
Christ said, if the light that be in you is be darkness, oh,
how great is the darkness! It's double darkness. And none
so blind as those that think they see, he said. All right,
all deceivables and some unrighteousness, and them that perish because
they receive not the love of the truth, that they might be
saved. Give us something else, preachers. All we hear out of
you is gospel, gospel, gospel. All we hear is Christ, Christ,
Christ. There's more in the Bible than
that. Oh, no, there isn't. Colossians
3 says, Christ is all. All. In him dwelleth all the fullness
of the Godhead in the body. In him are hid all the treasures
of wisdom and knowledge, right? It says he preached to his disciples
and said, beginning at the books of Moses and in the Psalms and
the Prophets, he expounded unto them all the things concerning
himself. That's the whole Bible, isn't
it? The love of the truth, the love
of hearing Christ proclaim. the love of hearing the gospel
over and over and over. Is that all you know? Oh, yeah,
just the way to bath. You remember that? What about
this? What about that? I don't know
much about that, but I know how to get to bath. And I may not
know much about this and that, the issues of the day, but I
tell you, I know how to get to God. There's only one way. Christ and him alone. That's
the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. So help
me, God. I'm going to hand on the Bible
right here. Verse 11. And for this cause,
since they don't want the gospel, since they're above that, since
that's not good enough, since they've risen above that, they
accepted that a long time ago, they believed that a long time
ago, they're going on to higher things. Verse 11, God says, I'll
send them strong delusion. God says this, that he will send
them strong delusions that they should believe a lie, that they
all might be damned who believe not the truth of that pleasure
and unrighteousness. He goes on to say, We are bound
to thank God always for you, brethren, beloved of the Lord.
God hath from the beginning chosen you, but there is election in
it. They don't want that. through sanctification of spirit
and belief of the truth, whereunto he called you by our gospel."
And he keeps calling you by the gospel. One of these strong delusions
that God sends, well, signs and wonders. Isn't that what's going
on in religion today? What's religion all about today?
What are people all taken up with and all excited about today?
The gospel, hearing Christ proclaim, the people go out of church talking
about the majesty and the glory and the beauties and the excellences
of the Lord Jesus Christ, his person, his character, what a
great work he did on Calvary's tree. He's satisfied substitution,
satisfaction, that blood atonement that people are going to be singing
about throughout eternity and never grow tired. Is that what
they're singing about? Is that what people are getting all excited
about in churches today, so-called? No. They're getting excited about
the power you can have. You can have power. Just exercising power. You can overcome your problems.
You can get rich. You can get a job. You can be
free from arthritis. You can! Don't you know it? And they're getting excited,
boy. And it's like a big ball game. They're getting real excited.
Signs and wonders. Lying wonders. God sends them. He says you don't
want the gospel, you don't want the truth. I'll send you signs."
Christ said, an evil, adulterous generation seeketh after a sign.
A sign. He gives signs. You know what
he gives his people? The truth. The gospel. So they won't be taken by those
signs. Right? Some new thing comes down. Some new wind of doctrine. And
everybody's got one. Some new preacher comes on the
scene. Some wild and ridiculous fellow, you know, goes off the
scene. They put him in jail. And you think, well, surely nobody
will fall for the likes of him again. Jim Baker, you know. Surely, if we got rid of that
guy, nobody's going to fall for him. And along comes a named
one. Robert Tilton. Two-fold more
ridiculous. And some new fella, some new
wind of doctrine comes along, and those that aren't grounded
and settled into what? Truth. They'll be taken by him. Oh, wow, did you hear that? I
never heard that before. If you read the scriptures, you'd
have seen it was false to begin with. You don't want something
new. Like the scripture says, search,
stand, and see. And search and look for the old
paths, wherein is the good way, the old, old story, wherein is
the good way, and walk in that." And the people said, no, we don't
want to walk in that. We're tired of that. That's old-fashioned.
We've gotten above that. We want something new, something to give
us something new. What do you got to offer? That's
what they said to Christ, isn't it? What sign do you show? Moses
gave us a sign. Give us a sign. Christ was the sign, wasn't he? Show us the kingdom of God."
He said, the kingdom of God is among you, and you don't even
know it. The King is standing in front of you. And that's what
the scriptures are. The scriptures talk about the
King. Christ, the King. And men and women read the scriptures
but don't see what the scriptures are talking about. I've told you before, if you
don't see the Word of God in the Word of God, then you're
ignorant of the Word of God. Did you follow me? If you don't
see the Word of God as being the Word of God, then you don't
know the Word of God. Christ said you're ignorant of
the scriptures and the power of God. What are the scriptures?
What is the Word of God? What is the name that was given
to the Lord Jesus Christ there in Revelation 19 is written on
him that nobody knew save his people. The Word. Does that make
sense, John? The Word. Only his people see
that this book, the Word, is talking about Christ, the Word.
In the beginning was the Word. The Word was with God and the
Word was God. Christ is the Written word, Christ is the incarnate
Word. Christ is the Word. He is the revelation of God.
All that God has to say to us is, Christ, Christ, Christ. And
Satan's main purpose is to show you, give you anything to keep
you from seeing Christ. Seeing Christ. Well, let me just
real quickly, when did I begin? Who cares? You think we care. I have some things that are important
here, and I'll try to wrap this up real quickly. He says, put
on the whole armor of God that you may be able to stand against
the wiles of the devil, the wiles of the devil. And Satan, two things, two main
purposes other than blinding from the gospel. Now, I'm talking
to believers now. I'm going to talk to believers.
Listen to me. Sit up straight now. Come on.
These needful points are two main purposes that Satan uses
against God's people. Number one is to draw you into
sin. He wants to tempt you to sin. Right? He's the author of it,
and that's what he's good at, tempting to sin. Right, Deborah?
And what he did to Adam and Eve? And again, I say, if man in his
perfection was no match for Satan. Eve was a lot better woman than
you are, a lot smarter. You'll never attain to her wisdom
and knowledge and perfection until you're made like Christ,
and it'll be higher. But if she was was deceived in
the transgression, tempted to sin. What match are you, Deborah?
None. Does that tell you where your
power is going to have to come from? Be strong in the Lord and the
power of his mouth. His chief thing is to draw into
sin and, secondly, to accuse and vex us once we do sin. To accuse and vex us once we
do. To draw us into sin. And he does this in different
times, says everything is a season, Scripture says. Well, he uses
seasons too. Listen now, listen carefully. He especially goes after a new
convert. Oh my. He goes after a new convert,
easily influenced by those things. You know, a new convert doesn't
know much about the Scriptures. And so they're easily impressed,
Joe Park, easily impressed. I remember reading everything
I could get my hands on and being impressed with all of it. I remember listening to every
sermon I could listen to. I remember going to hear every
preacher. I remember being taken with everybody
I thought was pious and holy. And now I look back and see how
foolish I was. Some wrong characters. I read
some bad books. I got some bad material that
wasn't worth reading. Like old Brother Scott said,
there's some books not worth reading. And I read them. And a new convert is easily influenced,
and that's where Satan heads. They're weak and fickle and a
little unstable. Secondly, when somebody's in
affliction or trial, When somebody's in a weakened
or lowly condition, sorrow or trouble or sickness or whatever,
he's called the wolf, isn't he? And wolves prey on the weak and
sickly, elderly, older people get. The older they get, the
more their mind begins to fade, and that's who Satan goes after. Another thing is when they're
doing something like this right here tonight, when they're about
the things of God, he's especially at work then. And I'm especially
talking about those who do this thing of preaching. And Moses was hindered on every
hand. Joshua, it says that Satan resisted
him on the right hand. Christ, Satan tried to kill him at his
birth, didn't he? Didn't try to put him away at
birth? In all the days of his life,
he infiltrated people. to try to kill him, and finally
he got him. He got him, didn't he? He finally killed him, didn't
he? And Satan said, I got him. I
finally got him. And after him all these years,
yeah, you got him all right. You killed him all right. You
just crushed your own head in doing so. You cut off, you spotted
your own face. Bruised his heel, but he crushed
your head. Huh? Paul and Barnabas, you remember
when they were on the road evangelizing and they got in a fight? Out
there preaching the gospel, some rifts between them and so forth.
Satan is at his work at times like that and in people like
that. After a time of great blessing,
I always have to watch out after Wednesday night and Sunday It's going to be the greatest
times of temptation for man, especially if the Lord has blessed
the service. When you're up on the mountain, there ain't no
place to go but where? Down. Down. After a time of blessing,
that's when he really goes to work. Let me show you a few of
the means that he uses to tempt us with sin. He'll disguise himself. He's the master of disguises.
He did that in the garden. He did that in the garden. He
was beautiful. Satan is not like you see on these science fiction
movies, some gargoyle, you know, with a forked tongue and little
horns in his head and a forked tail and a pitchfork and shooting
out venom and his tongue a mile long. That's not Satan. He's
beautiful. Well, he's got on a three-piece
suit and his hair and every hair in place. And he's got a smooth
tongue, and boy, he can preach with the best. He can sing the
best song with tears running down his face, with his eyes
toward heaven. He can quote scripture after
scripture until everybody's just amazed at that smooth-tongued
devil. He'll disguise himself. He's
a master of disguises. And he'll get you going out of
that place feeling so good, and you didn't hear a word of the
gospel. You see, when the Holy Spirit
comes, that's the evil spirit, Satan. When the Holy Spirit comes,
the first thing he does is make you feel real bad. Because there
ain't no good news until you've heard the bad news. Right? The desire of the gospel is to
first make you feel real bad about yourself so that Christ
will seem real good to you, so that the gospel will sound real
good to you. Sin. See that? Satan's work is in
religion today to make people feel good about themselves. Robert
Shuler said the next great awakening, the next great revival, is going
to come not by preaching of sin, man's sinfulness, but by preaching
of man's worth. This is the man that's listened
to by more people than any other religious broadcaster all over
the world, the only man in Great Britain on television. And he
says, the next great awakening is going to be the preaching
of man's worth, and everybody is going to go right up to God
and say, You need me, don't you? Don't you love me? I'm not worth
something. Aren't you glad to see me? God's going to spew them out
of his mouth. true preacher of the gospel always has been, always
will become, preaching sin. Repentance toward God and faith.
What do you need Christ for if you're not a sinner? If righteousness
comes by the law, Christ died in vain, didn't he? If you're
not a sinner, he didn't come for you. And he's a disguiser. He disguised himself in that
way. He disguised himself in the form of a friend. He'll do
that, and I'll quit with this. I've got a lot more I want to
tell you. I'll carry it on another time. He'll disguise himself
in the form of a friend. I've warned you about this before.
Peter, good intentions. Lord, don't go to Jerusalem.
Don't go up there. Get behind me safely. Remember
that? His mother. He was up preaching
the gospel. His mother was outside. Tell
my son I want to see him. Who is my mother? Huh? They're going to keep me from
preaching the gospel so I can go attend to my mother? Let me
first bury my father. Let the dead bury their dead.
He'll follow me. He'll disguise himself. He'll use people. He uses people.
Satan uses people. People. People. And like I said, principally
he'll use false preachers of the gospel and people of of influence
upon you, maybe even relation. He said a man's enemies should
be those of his own household, right? How many of them go to
church tonight? You love me, don't you? Spend
some time with me. Christ said you love me, don't
you? Spend some time with me. You haven't spent it all week. He says that you may be able
to stand against the wiles of the devil, and we could go on
for hours about these wiles of the devil. He says we're not
wrestling against flesh and blood, against principalities and against
power, the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual
weakness in high places, who is a master of deception, who
is a master of human nature. He deceived the greatest man
to ever live on the face of the earth beside Jesus Christ, and
he can deceive us. So where is our help? Huh? What are we going to do? What
are we going to do? Finally, brethren, we go right
back where we started. You're very strong in the Lord
and the power of his might. And he says he's given us some
armor to put on, that we may be able to stand against the
wiles of the devil and have him done all to stand. Are you interested? Is this whet your appetite to
come back and see what this armor is? Huh? I'm interested. I don't
want to fall prey. The Lord knows I've done it too
many times. I need this armor and I need
this Lord. I need to know what it is to
be strong in him, the power of his might. Number 36, I quoted it in the course of the
message, and I'd like to do like that preacher after every time he preached,
he would quote Our Lord's parable of the sower. He quoted that
parable. He said, Some fell on good ground,
some fell on stony ground, some fell by the wayside. And he says,
Let's not be like those wayside hearers where the fowls of the
air came and plucked it away. May the Lord plow our hearts
with his word and not take away these things that are so hard
impressed upon us. It's so hard, so hard. It's not hard for the Lord, but
it's hard for us to learn a lesson in. It's hard for us to learn
anything. It's so easily taken, so easily plucked away. Let's
not be as others, but rehearse these things over and over in
our mind. Read the passage. Go back and read it again. And the Lord calls that incorruptible
word, seed, to go down and take root. All right? Number 36. Stand with me and we'll sing
a couple of verses there. Our health burning amid the floods
of mortal history, Bailey, o'er still our ancient home. The seat to which the throne
is present, how brave and armed with proof On earth is now his ego. Verse 2 is the last. Did we in
our own stricken power Our striding foot be losing? We're not the bright men on the
sun, the men of our country. God Bless.