We'll turn back then to Ephesians
chapter 6 and we're going to continue looking at these elements
of the whole armor of God that we've been given and I know I
feel the need each week to remind you of these things but I think
it's important that you get them clearly in mind. Why do we need
armor? Why in this life as believers
do we need armor? Well look at verse 16 taking
the shield of faith, wherewith ye shall be able to quench all
the fiery darts of the wicked." It's Satan's fiery darts that
give us a need for armor. As we, as believers, walk through
this life, we are subject in the will of God to the fiery
darts of Satan. And those fiery darts come in
all sorts of forms. They sometimes come as they did
to Job in very, very physical form, but mostly to us they come
in the form of subtle attacks on the faith. Challenging our
belief. Challenging our trust. Are you
not deluded in trusting in this way? You're sleeping safely and
soundly. Do you have a cause? Really?
Come on, you can't possibly, can you? Sowing seeds of doubt. Seeds of fear. Uncertainty. And as I said, they come in a
very subtle way. In a very persuasive way. that
appeals to the flesh it seems very reasonable the arguments
that satan brings in these fiery darts they seem so reasonable
to sinful flesh and they come with credibility he says in your
inner being he says look at your lack of fruit you should be bearing
the fruit of the spirit look at your lack of fruit look how
unworthily you live the christian life didn't Paul write to the
Ephesians that you be followers of God as dear children and walk
in love and that you walk worthy of the calling, of the gospel
calling. Verse chapter 4, I therefore the prisoner of the Lord beseech
you that you walk worthy of the vocation wherewith your called.
Look at your lack of fruit. He's spelled out the fruit you
should be bearing and you don't bear it, do you? Look how unworthily
you live the Christian life and so fiery darts come. And these
are the fiery darts of Satan that sow doubt and sow fear and
uncertainty in our hearts. And we need armor to protect
us as we walk through this life. We need armor against that. In
verse 10 we've been told not to look to ourselves but to be
strong in the Lord and in the power of His might. to do all
of these things don't be strong in yourself be strong in the
Lord where does that strength come from how does that strength
manifest itself it comes from the Lord you know the Apostle
Paul had a thorn in the flesh that afflicted him and he prayed
he says in 2nd Corinthians chapter 12 he says he asked the Lord
three times that it be taken from him and the answer he got
was this My grace is sufficient for you. My strength, be strong
in the Lord. My strength is made perfect in
fleshly weakness. Be weak in yourself, but be strong
in the Lord. Don't look to yourself for encouragement
that you're in the Lord. Look to Him. Look to Him alone. Be strong in the Lord. His strength
is made perfect in our weakness. As we have no confidence in the
flesh, said Paul to the Philippians, So we rejoice in Christ Jesus. We have no confidence in the
flesh. We worship him in spirit, have no confidence in the flesh.
I'll remind you again. I know I remind you many, many
times, but I'm not going to apologize for it. Happy Jack, who had this
as his testimony, I'm a poor sinner and nothing at all, but
Jesus Christ, he's my all in all. That's it. My strength is
made perfect in weakness. Where's your strength, Jack?
I'm a poor sinner and nothing at all. Jesus Christ, be strong
in the Lord. He is my all in all. So you're
powerless in yourself to resist the strength of Satan's accusations.
But here is the strength. If you remember, first of all,
Christ has promised to keep us. He's promised he won't lose.
if you're one of his believing children if you're one of his
sheep he's the good shepherd he won't lose you and the certainty
secondly the certainty and the effect of christ's victory for
he has defeated satan her warfare we read in isaiah 40 verse 2
earlier on her warfare is accomplished it's completed it's done he cried
on the cross it is finished and in so doing He completely disarmed
the one who now for a season is allowed in the will of God
to fire fiery darts at the people of God. Oh, think of that. He
may fire fiery darts at you to bring you to doubt, to cause
you to doubt, but he's defeated. He's totally disarmed in effect. He can't snatch you from eternity
from the hands of God because all of his accusations have been
completely blunted. by the death of Christ on the
cross when he bore the sins of his people the fire of the wrath
of God has already fallen on those sins in Christ on the cross
and then thirdly he gives this armor of God with which to be
strong take this armor of God take it and firstly we saw a
belt of truth that belt that we saw was to be unmixed with
rotten threads you know if you read the article I've put in
the bulletin by Pastor Charles Pennington I'm not going to read
it now because there's too much here to read but you look at
that and think about it those are the sorts of rotten threads
that he mentions there that people weave into that belt of truth
and in so doing like Jeremiah's belt that he had to go and bury
by Euphrates and then when God told him to go back and look
at it what was it like? It was rotten, it was fit for
nothing it was useless it looked viable at the time when he first
got it and took it. And it's because in these days,
in every day, but in these days especially, men are weaving these
rotten threads of truth that Charles Pennington mentions here
into the belt of truth of the clear, pure gospel of Christ.
And as he points out, as soon as you start weaving one of those
threads, It's worthless. It's useless. It's not, oh, it's
99% the Gospel. It's not that, oh, it's four
and a half point Calvinism. It's absolutely worthless. It's
good for nothing. The truth, the belt of truth.
And secondly, the breastplate of righteousness, because where,
how are you going to stand righteous with that breastplate of the
imputed, the credited, the accounted righteousness of Christ? And
here come the fiery darts. Here come the fiery darts from
Satan, and he says this, Does the Bible, you know like he said
to Eve, what was the first thing that Satan was recorded as saying? Has God said? Has God really
said? Seeds of doubt. Does the Bible
really teach election? Does the Bible really teach sovereign
grace? Oh I'm prepared to believe in a God who is sovereign, yes
I'm prepared to believe in a God who is sovereign but does it
really teach particular redemption? Not universal redemption. Does
it really teach that? Surely, surely, doesn't God really
give everyone a chance to save themselves? Doesn't he? No, wear the belt. The belt of
truth. Girt about with the belt of truth.
Isaiah 8, 20, to the law and to the testimony. If they speak
not according to this word, there is no light in them. Here comes
another dart. Here comes another one. You need holiness. You need
righteousness, without which no man shall see the Lord, and
you are in a mess. You have no claim on the kingdom
of God. Don't be deceived. You've got
no claim on the kingdom of God. Just go back to living for self
like everybody else does. But no, here's a piece of armor.
Pick it up, put it on. It's the breastplate of the righteousness
of Christ. It's Christ's righteousness imputed
to all of his people. But there is more armor to take
and to use, and that's what we must do. So look at verse 15.
And your feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace. I've
called this message gospel footwear. You know, You know that all of
these pieces of armor, of course, are not meant to be taken literally.
It's not a literal breastplate, but a spiritual breastplate.
And these are spiritual. This is spiritual footwear. And
so I've called it gospel footwear. Your feet shod with the preparation
of the gospel of peace. Whatever you're doing, to be
ready for action, you need good, appropriate footwear. I think
we all agree with that. Absolutely. If you're going walking
in the hills, then you need strong boots. You need a good, thick
sole with a good grip on it. You need good, strong ankle support. I tell you what, you know you
need it if you've ever tried it without. When we were up in
Scotland a few weeks ago, we just went for a little walk up
a track from the car park to a viewpoint and we thought, oh
we don't need to put the boots on for this. And you get a few
feet up this little track in your ordinary everyday walking
shoes and you soon discover how much you need a pair of strong
boots on in those sorts of conditions. You need the right footwear for
whatever you're doing. The sports men and women need
the right footwear whether they're cycling or boxing or running
or whatever they're doing. Footballers, they need the right
footwear for the job that they're doing. ready to be nimble on
your feet, ready to dodge arrows and especially true of the military.
Remember what it said about the Falklands conflict where the
army marched 50 miles with an enormous pack on the back of
every one of them and they said what was the thing that got them
through was their footwear, good solid British army boots for
the job, the right footwear for the job. And so spiritually,
spiritual armor, we need spiritual footwear. And that spiritual
footwear is described here as the preparation of the gospel
of peace. Preparation of the gospel of
peace. preparation in the sense that
it's a readiness, a readiness with and a readiness in this
sense that it's what John Gill calls a firm and solid knowledge
of the gospel of peace. That's it. a firm, when you go
out, a firm and solid knowledge of the gospel of peace. Because
believer, you and me, we are commissioned to go out ready
for warfare into enemy territory. You say, this is not enemy territory,
I believe me. If we believe this book, we're
living in enemy territory. This is enemy territory where
we live. I'll tell you why. You'll see out there plain unbelief. Because the prince of this world,
Satan, has blinded the minds of everybody. Those who don't
believe. There's secularism everywhere.
There's materialism in the thoughts and attitudes of everybody we
come into contact with. There's in the media, on the
television, the radio, in literature, in the education, in every aspect
of life in this world, there's a paradigm of godlessness. You
say, I don't know what paradigms are. What's a paradigm? A starting
framework. Let me put it that way. There's
a starting framework of godlessness. So you know all the science programs
on the television? Yeah? The conclusions that they
draw are all absolutely inevitable conclusions of the starting framework
that they come from. And what's the starting framework
they come from? Godlessness. Absolute godlessness. We don't need God. There's no
such thing as eternity. We don't need heaven. We're just
an accident of big bangs and molecules that collided in a
particular way and gosh look isn't evolution wonderful that
it's, you see this is enemy territory we're in enemy territory because
the minds of the people all around us those ones that are dear to
us in our families who know nothing of the truth of God have swallowed
hook, line and sinker this paradigm this starting framework of godlessness
it's just godless intellectualism Godless. It's hedonistic in that
it's just constantly pursuing pleasure for its own end. The
God of this world has blinded the minds of people all around
us. We go out into enemy territory. And then all around us as well
is the superstition of organized religion. It's rife with it. However good and impressive the
royal wedding was just over a week ago in terms of the pomp and
majesty of nobody, no nation on earth doing it better, I think
we can have a little boast about that. I think it is true. I think
most people would admit, you know, when we do state occasions,
we do them well. But did you see again, There
are all sorts of elements of religious superstition in it.
Did you see the archbishop take that bit of cloth off and wrap
it around their hands when their hands were together? Oh people,
oh they're specially married now because the archbishop wrapped
a bit of cloth around their hands. Superstition. And that's trivial. It's deep in the hearts and minds
of people everywhere. Superstition. Oh, I can't do
that. I must have a priest dressed
in a particular way, say a particular formula of words, and then I
know I'm okay. And then I know it'll be alright
with me. I don't want to trust this gospel thing that you're
preaching. You've got no credentials. Who's given you the right to
preach? No, this man dressed up in this frock with this funny
hat on, saying all of this mumbo-jumbo. He's got the right idea. Or all
of these others that are into works-based religion. You know,
the religions of the world, works-based. Oh yes, they talk about there's
an afterlife, and everybody wants to be alright in the afterlife,
and what makes the difference? How good are we in this life?
And it's works based. It's completely nothing to do
with the gospel declared in this book, which is not of works,
lest any man shall boast. For by the works of the law shall
no flesh be justified in his sight, but by the doing and dying
of a perfect substitute." That is what makes this book, this
religion, this truth absolutely unique. So completely different. All the others are exactly the
same when it boils down to it. They all believe that man saves
himself by his own efforts. But this says, look to another.
This says, as God says to his people in Isaiah 45, look unto
me, all ye ends of the earth, and be ye saved. For I am God
and there is no other. Don't look to yourself. Look
unto me and be ye saved. Superstition of religion. Darkened
minds. the paradigm, the starting framework
of godlessness and idolatry. Isn't there idolatry in a multitude
of forms? Not people bowing down to statues
and icons and things like that, though there's plenty of that.
I'm talking about the idolatry that is in the hearts and minds
of men and women that we know. Dear ones in our family, who
think that when it comes to eternity, when it comes to the day that
they pass from this life, they have an idol for a God. Because
the God that they worship is the one deep in their minds that
they say this, they say, ah, when I meet God, he'll say I'm
alright. I'll be fine. I've got this sense of eternity
in here. I know I'm not going to die when
my body dies, but God's going to count me as alright. Who's
your God? Who's your God? God of your own imagination or
a God of this book? For the God of this book says
that he cannot, cannot overlook sin. He cannot excuse it. He cannot sweep it under the
carpet. He's a God of justice and of holiness. And so, as we
go out into this world, we need appropriate footwear, appropriate
spiritual footwear. And that is what we have here
in verse 15, the readiness based on a firm and solid knowledge
of the gospel of peace. the gospel of peace you see you
know the truth if you're a child of God you know the truth and
the truth is this that by nature there is no peace by nature in
our natural state we are children of wrath even as the others we
know that in our natural state there is nothing other than a
state of enmity between God and man that the best of us in our
highest situation there is nothing other than enmity for God says
your sins have separated between you and me there is a gulf there
is a chasm that we by our efforts can never bridge can never close
but we know that that there is enmity but oh bless God we know
this that he's told us in the gospel of grace that there is
peace the peace of God which passes understanding the peace
of God keep your hearts and minds and what is that peace it's to
know that my soul is right with God. For my Savior has come and
has done that which we read in Isaiah 40 verse 2 this morning.
Our warfare is accomplished. We've received from the Lord
double for all our sins. He's paid one for one for every
sin. He's paid for it. And there is
therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus.
And if there's no condemnation, there's peace with God. And this
is it, to know the gospel of peace. To know peace because
I know every sin has been paid. I know the books have been squared.
I know the debts have been cancelled and blotted out as far as the
east is from the west. This is what it is, to know the
gospel of peace. To know I have peace with God.
To know not only have my debts been wiped out, but I've been
credited. with the righteousness of one of whom God has already
said audibly in the hearing of men and women this is my beloved
son in whom I am well pleased and so if I'm in him he said
that of me too I can hear that voice you know we must all stand
before the judgment seat of Christ and the child of God the one
who has faith says this I've heard that voice applied to the
son and I know I'm in the son so I know he says it of me This
is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased. He's made me righteous
in Him. We read about it in Revelation
19 verse 8. The robe that was given was granted
to be given. A white robe and it's the righteousness
of the saints but we know it's not their own that they've worked
to earn. We know it's that which was given.
We know from the parable of the marriage supper of the Lamb,
a robe was given and the one who came in without a robe in
his own strength and his own righteousness was banished from
that place. The righteousness of Christ is the absolute necessity
but that which God gives to every one of his believing people.
That's the gospel of peace. And so that's the footwear, the
gospel footwear, that we must go out with into enemy territory.
And I've got three ways in which we go out. Personally, as personal
individual believers, as preachers of the gospel of grace, and then
as churches. So I just want you to think of
these things with me for a few minutes now. Personal witness. Go out With your feet shod with
the preparation of the gospel of peace. Every believer, go
out. I know a lot of this is familiar
territory and we've covered it in other messages at other times
not too long ago, but nevertheless it's worth repeating. Personal
witness. Go out with that armor of your
feet shod with the readiness, the preparation of the gospel
of peace. As Peter says, 1 Peter 3.15,
be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you
a reason of the hope that is in you. Be ready to give a reason,
to give an answer to every man that asks for a reason. for the
hope that is in you. The implication being they're
going to see a hope that is not common to the natural man. The
hope is the hope of eternal glory because of peace with God. The
hope is that because I have peace with God based on the blood of
Christ and the righteousness of Christ then I have a hope
of glory, that death is not the end, and you lose one who's very
dear to you, and if that one is in the Lord Jesus Christ,
you're not afraid, you're not anxious, you know, you know of
a truth that they're in the bliss of eternal glory. and yet you're
at peace, that's the gospel of peace the gospel of peace, you
know that and so you have a hope and something happens somebody's
diagnosed, somebody in your workplace is diagnosed with a terrible
disease or it happens to somebody known to them and you're very
sad for them but you have an inner peace and perhaps somebody
will ask a reason you see where people in general have either
no hope of eternity or a completely groundless hope because it has
to be said that if you have a hope outside of the gospel of grace
in this book you have no hope you have a groundless hope but
in the face of that where people have no hope or a groundless
hope we as believers should evidence a solid hope We should evidence
a quiet confidence in the face of death and eternal realities. And some might just ask us, why? What's the reason for you having
that hope? And the response? What's the
response? It's what you've got on your
feet, on your gospel feet. It's your feet shod with the
preparation of the gospel of peace. It's that readiness with
a firm and solid knowledge of the gospel of peace. and you
can perhaps witness. And you say, oh, I stumble for
words. Well, even if you can't say anything
yourself, say, listen to this, or come and hear a man who will
tell you about it, or go there and listen to those things. You
see, the gospel of peace, you know that gospel of peace. You know that God is just. You know that there is sin and
God must condemn. The God of the scriptures must
condemn sin. You know from the scriptures
that God chose a people in Christ before the foundation of the
world. You know that God must punish sin. There's this glorious
news that God chose a people whom He has saved. You know that
God has redeemed them, has paid for their sins in the Lord Jesus
Christ. You know that He calls by His
Spirit and gives new life and faith. And I believe Him. I believe Him. And so that's
the only evidence I need to know that I'm amongst those whom He
has saved. And who knows? You might be among
them too. Will you not believe the Gospel
of Grace? That's it. That's it. I believe Him, so
I'm confident. I'm confident that I'm justified.
I'm confident that I'm saved and secured. And this is it.
On the basis of God's Word, the knowledge of the truth of eternity,
the reality of sin and judgment, the fear of accountability and
the certainty of accountability, in the face of that comes the
gospel of justification and the promise of eternal life. And
whatever you can say or wherever you point, who knows, but God
might use it. Maybe the Holy Spirit will open
a heart here or there to hear and inquire further. So that's
personal. We go out with our feet shod
with the preparation of the Gospel of Peace. Oh, sometimes it seems
very few and far between that such opportunities arise. But
oh, let's pray that God will make us alert to them when they
do arise. And not to be standing on a soapbox
and be sounding like a religious maniac, constantly going on,
ranting on at people, and making ourselves very unpopular for
no good reason. But just this. When? When? What does it say? Be ready always
to give an answer to every one that asketh you for a reason
of the hope that is in you. When they ask you, be ready to
give a reason. That's going out with your feet
shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace. And secondly,
preaching the truth. Preaching the truth. We have
a high regard for preaching. a very high regard for preaching.
It's absolutely central. It's absolutely key. It's the
means by which God is pleased to save those who believe, by
the foolishness of preaching. Foolishness as the natural man
perceives the rationality of it, because to the natural man
the gospel is foolishness, and so by the foolishness of the
message preached it pleased God. to confound that foolishness
that worldly reasoning of man that says it's foolishness it
pleased God to confound it and to save people by that message
preached What is preaching? It's an ordinary man. It's not
somebody that's been specifically, specially trained in a certain
way. It's an ordinary man who is a sinner like anybody else,
but given a message from God to men. Like Jeremiah, as a young
man, was given a message. You will go and you will preach.
I knew you before you were born. You will go and you will proclaim
a message to these people. Our Lord, you don't understand.
I can't go for I am a young man and I can't speak. I've never
been trained in any... You go. You're my instrument.
You go and you say it and you do it. And this is what God does.
He raises up men to preach the message of the gospel of His
grace. A message of justice, that God
must be just, but a message of glorious salvation. And that
message comes as A man studies the Word of God, seeks to get
a message from the living God, because this is what preaching
is, it's an ordinary man seeking a message from God to pass on
to the hearts and minds of people. An ordinary man. gets this message,
a message of justice and just condemnation, but a message of
glorious salvation in the gospel of grace. And so that message
comes to those who hear with faith as a beautiful message. I don't know what you think of
me as a preacher or less what you think of my feet, but you
know what the Word of God says? how beautiful on the mountains,
Isaiah 52 verse 7, how beautiful on the mountains are the feet
of those who preach the gospel of grace. Do you know what it
means? You know, feet are not really known as beautiful things,
are they? I suppose some women glamorize their feet and paint
their toenails and all sorts of stuff and try to make a, you
know, put nice shoes on and try to make try to make something
attractive that inherently is not that, you know it's not the
prettiest part of the body I don't know I may be speaking out of
turn but it doesn't seem to me as though it's the prettiest
part of the body but the scripture says it's beautiful you know
I bet there are days that you can think of let's say you were
going on holiday but your passports have run out I know somebody's
had an experience of this. This isn't what I was referring
to. But let's say you're going on holiday and you just remembered
a bit late in the day that your passports have run out. And so
you've sent away to get them renewed, but there isn't really
enough time. And you're going to be going tomorrow and you
still haven't got your passport. And it's panic. and the postman
comes up the path and he's got a package in his hand with your
new passports in it. I bet you think that postman's
feet are beautiful that day, don't you? Don't you think they're
good, good feet? He's brought what I really needed.
He's brought what was absolutely essential, my new passport. Well,
a trivial little example, illustration of it. But this is what's in
mind. To the soul who is yearning for peace with God, for the soul
who knows nothing other than the realization of the eternity
of God of the holiness and justice of God of the condemnation that
that God in his nature must, must exact upon me as a sinner
without hope and then one comes with a message of peace and how
beautiful is that message to the one who hears it ah, this
peace that burden falls off Pilgrim's back at the foot of the cross
and rolls down into that deep tomb because that burden's gone
because he sees he's paid it, it's released, it's gone and
so it's beautiful how beautiful are the feet of those that bring
that message we're to go everywhere not without exception that's
impractical absolutely impractical but everywhere without distinction
that God leads take it take that message proclaim it proclaim
the gospel of peace and he gives gifts to the church of evangelists
to take that message wherever it might be And that message
is not the duty of law, though obviously the law is in the word
of God, but the law is the schoolmaster to bring us to Christ. And he
alone, Christ alone, is the message. And that message of comfort is
the message that we must bring. Comfort ye, comfort ye my people,
says your God. Comfort my people because they're
out there. Wherever you go, they are there. As God told Paul about Corinth,
don't be afraid for I have much people in this city. And who
believed? In Acts 13 verse 48, those who
were ordained to eternal life believed. When the message was
preached, God opened eyes and ears and some believed. You know
it says again and again, and these objected and those raised
a riot, but some believed. Oh that we might see some believe
here. Oh how blessed we are, we might
not see anybody physically coming in from Nebworth, but how blessed
we are, the contacts that we have over Free Grace Radio. and
the encouragement that that is to keep going and keep doing
this because God has his people in the most unlikely places in
places that would never have been possible fifteen years ago
and now the gospel is reaching them in their ones and their
twos and their little tiny little companies just one here and another
one there and he's reaching them his seven thousand his perfect
completeness of people it's reaching them So we don't, in this preparation
of the Gospel of Peace, in preaching it, we don't try to persuade
men in the flesh of the reasonableness of the Bible. I really have a
problem with this in these days. These who make it their object
and their end, to persuade men in their natural condition of
the reasonableness of believing the Bible, it's a complete waste
of time. We don't appeal to the innate
goodness in man to believe that which is reasonable. Do you know
why? Because man hasn't got any innate goodness with which to
believe that message. We simply do what God says. What
is it? preach we declare it we declare
the gospel to whoever will listen and we trust God to speak to
his elect I don't know if you got the latest edition of New
Focus in the last day or so but on the back of it it quoted Zechariah
10 verse 8 I will hiss for them I will whistle for them God says
you know like when I was growing up we had a dog that was a very
obedient dog it used to go off up the fields but you could stand
at the back door and you just used to whistle And as you whistled,
the dog would come charging down the fields. It would hear, and
it would come. And God says, I will whistle for my people. I will whistle for them and gather
them. Why would he do that? He says,
for I have redeemed them. I've bought them. I've paid for
them. I'll whistle for them, and I'll redeem them. I have
redeemed them, and they will come. And so you know this passage
well, Romans 10, 13 to 15, for whosoever shall call on the name
of the Lord shall be saved. And how then shall they call
on him in whom they have not believed? And how shall they
believe in him of whom they have not heard? And how shall they
hear without a preacher? how shall they hear without somebody
going with feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of
peace and how shall they preach except they be sent they must
be sent to preach as it is written how beautiful are the feet of
them that preach the gospel of peace and bring glad tidings
of good things they shall call on my name says God again in
Zechariah 13 they shall call on my name and I will hear them
and so he does that calling by the public preaching, by the
free grace radio preaching, in all sorts of ways. There may
not be much in the way of earthquake, wind and fire, of mass revival
and belief, but God still speaks in that still small voice. Look
at verse 19. Paul's asking for prayers. He's
saying prayer is another one of these elements of the armor. And he says, and pray for me,
a preacher. that utterance may be given unto
me that I may open my mouth boldly to make known the mystery of
the gospel." Well then, finally, very, very quickly, very briefly,
church witness. go as a church with your feet
shod with the preparation you see Paul is writing to a church
he's writing to the body of believers that are at Ephesus and he tells
them as a church and he tells us as a church to have our feet
shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace not just
in personal witness not just in the public preaching but as
a corporate witness as a an albeit small body of his believing people
but nevertheless a valid body of his believing people and what
are we to do? This is just very practical.
Advertise our existence, maybe we ought to look again. and see
how we're advertised. Websites, newspapers, posters,
notice boards. Are we doing what we can with
those channels to make ourselves known? And not just to make ourselves
known that people might come, but to make it clear what we
believe and preach and to make sure that we preach it. Make
sure that it is always proclaimed. and then to align you know we
don't we don't believe in any sort of ecumenical associations
we don't believe in any denominationalism there's not a hint of denominations
in the bible not a hint of it it's just all the inventions
of man we don't have any denominational hierarchy that we show allegiance
to Christ is the head of this church and he's given gifts to
the church but Christ is the head of it but nevertheless we
align with those who stand clearly on the truth of scripture and
that alone and we don't give credibility by association to
those who clearly wear a belt of truth mixed with the rotten
threads of error we look out for that we beware of it and
we stand back from it and we don't associate with it and we
don't give it credibility and we do very practical If God permits
us, if we're allowed to do it, we do what we can to host the
next New Focus Conference. And together with other little
groups of believers around this country, we publicly declare
our firm and solid knowledge, our preparation of the Gospel
of Peace. We have the true Gospel of Peace. We have it ready in our hands,
that firm and solid knowledge of the gospel of peace. Let's
wear it on our feet, individually, in preaching, and as a church,
and go out to the enemy. Amen.