Verse 12, our struggle, this
is Ephesians 6, 12. For our struggle is not against
flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities,
against the powers of this dark world, and against the spiritual
forces of evil in the heavenly realms. Now anybody who spent
any significant time in the life of faith, knows that the life
of faith is a struggle. It is just a bold-faced lie when
preachers tell their listeners that if they'll just trust God,
if they'll just believe, everything will be easy. The fact is, the
more you believe, the harder it gets. That's just so. The more devoted or committed
you are to pursuing God and the things of God, the more difficult
things get. And that should not surprise
us, because we live in a world that is utterly opposed to the
things of God. It may be a very religious world,
it could even be a very moral world, but it's still opposed
to God. And if you have your face set
towards Him, towards His Son, pursuing those things, which
he holds out, you're going to be running across purposes to
the world. You're going to be rowing upstream. It is a struggle. The grace of
God that brings salvation does not bring a life of ease in this
world. I suppose the best example of
that is our Lord Jesus Christ himself, who had a tougher life
than he did. In faith, nobody believed God
like he did. I know he's God. I realize that,
but he lived as a man. And as a man, he said, I put
my trust in him. You find that in the book of
Hebrews. I put my trust in him. So Christ believed God, his father,
and he lived a life of faith and he lived a harder life than
anybody else has ever lived. So much that he was called the
man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. And if you would
walk like he walked, you're going to experience some of the things
he experienced. The grace of God ignites a lifelong
warfare. Look back here at Galatians chapter
5. It says in verse 17 of Galatians
chapter 5, for the flesh, now that's what you were born with.
Whatever you were when you were born, that's flesh. The flesh
desires what is contrary to the Spirit. Now, most translations
capitalize the word Spirit there, feeling that Paul was referring
to the Spirit of God. In the Greek language, there
were no capitals. At least at that time, they didn't distinguish
between capital and lowercase letters. So actually, I think
he's talking about that within the person, of a regenerated
man, a born-again person. There is flesh and there is spirit,
and these two natures are at war. The flesh desires what is
contrary to the spirit, and the spirit what is contrary to the
flesh. They are in conflict with each other so that you do not
do what you want. Now, our translation that we
normally use, the New International Version, I wish it had gotten
just a little bit stronger with that word, desire, because the
word translated there doesn't just mean like, you know, Well,
you know, I'd sure like a piece of apple pie. You know, admittedly,
I've had some pretty strong desires for apple pie, but not on the
level of this talking about. Often this word's translated
lust, and it refers to a desire that will not leave until it
is satisfied. And what it's saying here is
that in that regenerated person, that person who's been born again,
there are two natures. The nature he was born with and
the nature he was born again with, and both those natures
have desires, and neither one of them is going to give up until
those desires are fulfilled. And that means constant warfare. And because these two natures,
neither one will give up, neither nature is going to be satisfied.
The believer never lives as bad as his flesh would like him to
do, and the believer never lives as good as his spirit would like
him to. The flesh would have him live
altogether for self, and the spirit would have him live altogether
for God. The flesh would have him live
in selfish hatred. The spirit would have him live
in godly love. The flesh would love to hold
a grudge. The spirit would love to forgive. The flesh would love to get,
get, get. The spirit loves to give, give, give. And what happens? You end up in that situation
that Paul describes in Romans 7. Oh, wretched man that I am. Oh, there's none so wretched
as a believer in this world because he can never be satisfied here. The worldly can find some measure
of satisfaction in this world. But of the believer, it is written,
I shall be satisfied when I awake with seeing your likeness." When I awake from this lingering
death that the world calls life, and when I behold Him, and this
is true of every believer, then I'll be satisfied, and here's
why. John says this, that when we see Him, we'll be like Him. And that old flesh will be dead.
Therefore, he will trouble us no more. And new flesh will be
given us. Heavenly flesh. Flesh like the
Lord Jesus Christ possesses. Flesh which works in cooperation
with the spiritual nature. And for the first time in the
existence of the believer, he will be satisfied. Until then, though, watch out. It's a struggle. It's no easy
struggle. This word I read here, it means
to vibrate. I suppose that means it's going
back and forth all the time. You feel that? Going back and
forth? Today, all excited about the things of God. Tomorrow,
all excited about the things of the world. Today, full of
zeal for Christ. Tomorrow, full of zeal for self. You might say, well, I wouldn't
put it like, you know, a whole day of zeal for God. It seems
to me if I can get just a few minutes gathered together, that's
all I can get in zeal for God. The rest of it seems just as
though I'm on the mat. It is a word that they would
use for wrestling. Don't you often seem as though
you're on your back on the mat? That you're not the one in the
superior position? We wrestle. We do struggle. The problem is we often don't
fight the right enemy, or we don't perceive who the enemy
really is. Since we are still flesh and blood, we tend to think
that our struggles lie with the world of flesh and blood. We
see wars, political intrigue, social ills and injustices, religious
upheaval. We experience trials of all sorts
and feel within our flesh and blood These motions of sins,
we feel those things, so it's easy for us to think that the
battle goes on in the realm of what we can see. It's going on
in the realm of what we can touch. That our enemies are made up
of the people and organizations and influences that we can sense. It's only natural for us to think
that way, but that ought to clue us in. Generally speaking, what's
natural is not good. You know, the very fact that
our Lord Jesus inspired the Apostle Paul to write these words, to
say, we don't struggle against flesh and blood. He wrote those
words because it's our tendency to think that that's where our
warfare is. When someone is especially zealous
for a false religion, and then the Lord saves him. Or someone
was abused by some false religion, and then the Lord saved him out
of it. It's very easy for such people to look back at the religion
they came out of and think that's the enemy. But brethren, all those people
from our background, they are not the enemy. They're the victims. Just like you were. Just like
I was. Oh, it may be from their mouth
that we heard the false religion. They may have, from the hatred
of their own heart, made our lives tough. But they are not the enemy. Well, where is the place of our
struggle? It says here that our struggle is not against flesh
and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities. against
the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces
of evil in the heavenly realms. Now, what is meant by the heavenly
realms? And actually, it was this that brought me to this
text of scripture. I was reading the blog type stuff on the Internet
and somebody quoted this scripture and evidently quoted it from
the New International Version. And someone protested that translation
and said, well, if you'd use the right translation, you'd
know what it meant. It doesn't say that there's evil
in the heavenly places. It says there's evil in high
places. And I wrote back and I said,
if you look in the Greek language, this word appears five times
in the book of Ephesians. The King James Version translates
four of those times, heavenly places. And on this one occasion
called it high places. But it is a common word for the
heavens. It was the word that the Greeks
used to describe the sky. and outer space. You see, they
figured that was heaven, because after all, that's where their
gods were. They looked up and, oh, there's Jupiter, there's
the moon, there's the sun, and here's this star, and we see
this constellation, and that's this god, and all this. And so
they looked up into the sky and said, that's the abode of the
gods, that's the heavens. In truth, our English word heaven
simply means the heaved up places. the high places. But the Bible speaks similarly,
also, of heaven being up there. Look over here at 1 Thessalonians
4.16. Now, hang on, we're going to
come to an understanding, I believe, of what this word is, what it
means when it talks about our struggles with those in heavenly
realms. You see, we tend to think of
heaven as being some geographical location way out there somewhere. But I think we'll see from the
Scriptures that heaven is not a way out there at all. Not the
heaven the Scriptures speak of. The Scriptures use that Greek
word which we describe way out there, but it has in mind something
else. But it does say here in 1 Thessalonians
4, verse 16, It says the Lord Himself will
come down from heaven with a loud command and with the voice of
the archangel, with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in
Christ shall rise first. And you know, He comes down because
when He left, He went up. But now let's notice some other
things the Scriptures say about heaven. Look over at Hebrews
chapter 9. In Hebrews 9, verse 11, we read
this, When Christ came as a high priest of the good things that
are already here, he went through the greater and more perfect
tabernacle that is not man-made, that is to say, not part of this
creation. Now what does he mean by that?
Well, the creation you and I can see. The creation made up of
this earth right out here, you know, the ground and the trees
and the sky and all that. Things made out of wood. This
is our creation. It's the world and the universe
we live in. And said that Christ did not go to a tabernacle of this creation. Now, where
did he go? Look down here in verse 24. For
Christ did not enter a man-made sanctuary, a man-made holy place,
that was only a copy of the true one. He entered heaven itself. Now to appear in the presence
of God for us. Now, when's he talking about
here that our Lord entered heaven? Well, he's talking about him
entering heaven as a high priest. Talking about him entering heaven
as in offering sacrifice. He's talking about when our Lord
Jesus Christ died. Well, you say, well, when he
died, he's right here on earth, wasn't he? Yes, he was. He was
nailed to a tree. He was nailed to a cross. Right
over there, and though we don't know the exact spot, we know
kind of close where it was. And we could go there and we
could see it. And yet, even as he was there on the cross, he
was in heaven. What does that tell us? Heaven's
not really way out yonder. Heaven isn't even a part of this
creation as we understand it. It would appear that heaven's
not another place geographically, but another place metaphysically.
Now, we don't use the word metaphysics very often. In fact, the last
time I think I had anybody say it to me was in philosophy class
back in college. But metaphysics deals with the
subject of reality. What's real? And when you talk
about something being different metaphysically, you mean it's
of a different order of reality. We have the reality that you
and I see all the time. And we say it's right here. Well,
friends, so is heaven. So far as here is concerned,
but it's just another reality. And when our Lord raised from
the dead, He raised not as an earthly man, as a heavenly man. That's why He could walk right
through the door. We might put it this way. He
was here, and He wasn't. They could see Him. He could
participate in the things of this creation, yet He was a man
of another creation. He was the Lord from heaven. Another indication that heaven
is not so much a place way out yonder is this, Stephen. There's
stone in him. He's a martyr, and he's about
to die, and he says, I see heaven standing open. And the Son of
God standing at the right hand of God. Now wait a minute, if
heaven's way out there, how'd Stephen see it? If heaven's out
there beyond all the stars, well, we found out there's a lot of
stars out there, isn't there? Heaven was right there. God opened
his eyes to see what was there all along. Do you remember when
the servant of the prophet, as they come up on the city there,
and he sees enemies surrounding the city, and he's afraid, and
the prophet says to him, don't be afraid, there's more with
us than against us. He says, what do you mean? I
don't see anybody for us. And then his eyes were opened that
he could see that the Lord God had sent myriad angels to protect
that city. heavenly beings. So now we go back to this. Our
struggle is not against flesh and blood. You and I aren't in
a struggle with this world. Now it may be in a struggle with
us, but we're not struggling against them. Why? Because they're
not the enemy. And we are not part of this world. Our Lord said, my kingdom is
not of this world. You know, one of the reasons
that I know that this whole, as they call it, the religious
right in politics, why it is not of God. All these professed
Christians trying to put Christians in places of power and make a
Christian nation and all that Because the Lord's kingdom is
not of this world. Washington's of this world. It's
a part of this creation. And yes, I hope that some decent
men would be put in there, some men that show a little integrity
and some wisdom and write some laws, because even though I'm
not of this world, I got to live here and I'd much rather live
in a free portion of this world. But my fight's not with them. The fight of the church is not
with them. The fire of the church is not against all the corruption
of this world. Friends, the world has been corrupt
ever since Adam sinned, and it's going to be corrupt until the
day God burns it with fire. And all of us, we aren't going
to change that. In fact, we contributed heavily
to its corruption. So we've got to take a stand
against all the evil. Well, go ahead. Take a stand
if you want to. Do you think you'll stop it? Think you can put an end to it? No, that's not where our fight
lies. Yes, we try to behave ourselves decently in the world, but the job of the church is
not to moralize this world. The job of the church is to go
into this world, and with the gospel that has been given to
us by the Lord Jesus Christ, to call His sheep out of the
world. When our Lord comes back, He
will not come to save the world. He'll come to destroy it. And He will take out of it all
of His people. And in a sense, that's what we're
doing in the preaching of the gospel. We're on the trail of
God's sheep. We're trying to find them and
tell them about the Good Shepherd. and in hopes that the Good Shepherd
will go with us and call them home. Our struggle is not with
this world. No, we wrestle against spiritual
wickedness in the heavenly realms. Now, all these descriptions,
I believe they're the same people. You know, it says our struggle
is against rulers and authorities and powers of the dark world
and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.
He's talking about the same group there. And I'm not going to pretend
to understand all that's out there. Because the Bible doesn't
say a lot about it. But here's one thing we know.
There's evil in the heavenly places. Well, that can't be.
Well, remember, the first sin was committed in heaven. Satan
rebelled against God. First sin wasn't on earth, it
was in heaven. And those guys, those beings,
whatever their nature is, those beings still inhabit that place
called heaven. That's why there's going to be
a new heaven. Because the old heaven, just like the old earth,
has been corrupted. But right now they're there and
they work in the spiritual world. And that's who we fight against. We don't fight against the people
of this world. We're fighting against in the
preaching of the gospel and taking the gospel to the four corners
of the earth. We are not fighting against the people of this world.
We're fighting against those who hold this world captive. These spiritual forces, whatever
you want to call them, demons, fallen angels, Satan, they're
all involved, and I don't know, there might be others. As I said,
the Bible doesn't tell us a whole lot about it, but there are beings
who are wicked, opposed to God, and they are opposed to the people
of God and the truth of God. And they do all they can to destroy
the people of God and to silence the truth of God. And that's
who we're fighting against. That's who our inward struggles
are with. No matter what shape those struggles may take. You
know, Job had no idea what was going on in heaven between God
and Satan. He had no clue that Satan had
accused him before God of being a hypocrite. and of loving God
only because God made His way easy. He had no idea that God
had given Satan permission to make his life miserable. And
when the earthquakes and the whirlwind and all that kind of
stuff came and wiped out his family, and he lost all of his
wealth, and he lost his health, it probably looked to him Like
his enemies were the natural forces of creation. But that's not who his enemy
was. And that's not where the warfare was really going on.
The test was not the boils on his skin. The test was not fresh
graves filled with his sons and daughters. The test was not a
nagging wife. The test was not three so-so
friends. The test was this. Would he continue
to trust God in the middle of all this? The struggle was inward. The struggle was in his soul.
The pain was outward. The fight was inward. The forms it took were natural. The one who brought them to pass
was from the spiritual world. And you know, if you are a believer,
you're going to struggle with a lot of things. You're going
to have to put up with trials. You're going to have to put up
with trials of circumstances, trials of sickness, trials of
the body, trials of the mind. You're going to have to put up
with trials of people. You've got to put up with all
of this, but let me tell you where the fight's going on. Peter
said, these trials of your faith. That's what's being put to the
test. And that's where the war's going on. When God allows trial
to come your way, when providentially He brings trouble to you, the
struggle is not with regard to your natural self, even though
that's where you may feel it. The struggle is here. The test
is here in the spiritual world. Will you be removed or will you
be moved from your confidence in Christ? Let me ask you this, and you
children of God, you answer this in your own heart. Temptation,
that's trial, isn't it? Something's set before you, and
I'll tell you, Satan and his minions, they know how to tempt. They know you. And they know
what things can make you fall into sin. And when temptation
comes your way, you're engaged in a struggle. But you're probably
like me. In that part of the struggle,
you generally fail. Temptation? Sometimes you resist it. But
then you give in a lot of times too, don't you? Now let me ask
you, what's the more serious fight? Over whether or not you
commit the transgression? Or is it this, that when you
have failed, that you do not from that failure begin to doubt
the grace and mercy of God? You know something? Satan doesn't
care whether you lust or not. He doesn't. It means nothing
to him, whatever. But he would sure like to get
a believer to do one of two things. Fall to lust and therefore cast
doubt on whether or not God loves him and has accepted him in Christ. Or have him resist the lustful
temptation and his heart be filled with pride and self-righteousness.
And friends, that's where the battle's going on. The battle
is not in your flesh, it's in your heart. Don't get me wrong.
I'm not saying it's of no consequence whether or not you resist temptation.
I'm just saying that's not where the really big battle is going
on. That's not where the real struggle is. The real struggle
is that we always, with singleness of heart, look to Christ and
to Him alone for all righteousness before God. For all of our standing
before God. There will be temptations. of
all sorts in your heart to depart from the simplicity which is
in Christ. Paul said to the Corinthians,
I fear for you, just like Satan deceived Eve in the garden, so
you should be deceived and removed from your simple trust in Christ. That's the battle. And while
the people and the things of this world may be the mouthpiece
of our enemy, they're not the real enemy. We're fighting a
spiritual battle, and for that we need spiritual armament. He says in verse 13, Therefore
put on the full armor of God. Now this warfare is going on
in the heavenly places, and therefore we need something
heavenly to deal with it. Now here in the heavenly places,
look what we find. We know that there are enemies
there, that there's spiritual wickedness in the heavenly places,
but let's look what else is in the heavenly places. Look back
at Ephesians chapter 1 and verse 20. Speaking of God's mighty power
at work for us, and he said that's the same power which he exerted
in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him
at his right hand in the heavenly realms. Here's the same place.
These heavenly places. Now, there's spiritual wickedness
in the heavenly places, but what else is there? Christ is. Don't
think that you engage yourself in this struggle of faith all
by yourself out there alone in the wilderness. Friends, the
battle goes on in the heavenly places. Spiritually speaking,
We're going to see we're in the heavenly places. But even though there's spiritual
wickedness there, our Lord Jesus Christ is there. He is there
to be our champion. He is there that even though
we're in the struggle and feel the struggle, yet He's the one
that's really doing the fighting. Christ is in the heavenly realms.
Look back at verse 3 of Ephesians chapter 1. Here's what else is
in the heavenly realms. Praise be to the God and Father
of our Lord Jesus Christ who has blessed us in the heavenly
realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. All of our blessings
are in the heavenly realms. That's why it's just crazy for
us to be looking for our blessings here and thinking that the world's
going to give it to us. I'm glad that God gives me some
nice things in this world. And really, I'm not averse to
calling them blessings. I've got a nice house and a nice
pickup truck. I've got family that loves me,
is healthy. I've got friends. I've got all
these things that have to do with this life. And in a way,
I'll call them blessings. And I don't want to act like
those are of no consequence. But here's what I'm saying. Those
blessings given to us in the gospel are in the heavenly realms. And we may not experience them
here in the earthly regions. But they are there, and I suppose
that's why the battle's going on there. If the enemy would
like to deprive us of blessings, that's where they're going to
have to go and do it. After all, what was the old, there was a
bank robber, I can't think of his name now, but he was, I think
back in the 30s and 40s. And he robbed a lot of banks,
and he'd get caught, and he'd get out, and he'd rob some more.
And finally he said, how come you keep robbing banks? He said,
because that's where the money is. Why are they going to do
battle with us in the heavenly places? That's where our blessings
are. That's where Christ is, our captain. That's where our
blessings are. And then look over here at chapter 2, verse
6. Ephesians chapter 2, verse 6. Now there's these enemies in
the heavenly places, but Christ is in the heavenly places. Our
blessings are in the heavenly places. And in verse 6 of Ephesians
2, and God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him
in the heavenly realms. In Christ Jesus. We're there. You say I'm in heaven? Spiritually
speaking. I know that with these eyes,
we don't see it. That's why I believe that we're
going to find out when we die that death is not nearly so big
a deal as we thought it was all along. We live with one nature in the
earth and one nature in heaven, and all that's going to happen
when we die is that nature on the earth is going to drop off. Stephen didn't have to go anywhere
to get to Christ when he died. Heaven was opened, and there
he was. We're there. Our souls are safe
with Christ already. We already live in communion
with Him. We're already in the presence
of God, seated with Him. Let us then have the whole armor
of God to stand in these struggles as we live out the remainder
of our day. Verse 14, stand firm then with the belt of truth buckled
around your waist. Now, this is not the kind of
belt that you wear to hold your pants up. That's not the belt
he's talking about. Remember, he's using the picture
of a Roman soldier, because that's what everybody knew what they
looked like when those guys went out to battle. Back in those days,
people wore robes, and the soldiers, if you recall, they actually
looked like a skirt is what they wore. recommend going to one of those
Roman soldiers and saying he looks like a sissy because he
wears a skirt. But that's what they had on. They didn't wear
a belt to hold that up. They wore a belt to give strength
to the abdomen and to protect it. And what gives us strength? I mean, imagine, we're not talking
about warfare with guns now. We're talking about warfare with
swords and a shield in one hand. And you're doing a lot of moving
and twisting. And there's a lot of work going on down here. And
they would put on these belts, kind of like a weightlifter's
belt, and cinch it up tight to hold them all together. And here's
what holds us together. And here's what protects us.
The truth. Is it any wonder? that we see
believers having terrible struggles, spiritual struggles, and they're
down all the time, and it seems as though they can't win the
battle, when they're never around to hear the truth. You meet on a Sunday like this.
We come here to belt on the truth, to cinch it up. The truth of God, who He is,
the Sovereign Creator of the heavens and the earth. The truth
of Christ who He is, God manifest in the human flesh. The truth
of what we are, sinners without the ability to do any good or
to make any positive move toward God. The truth of how God has
chosen a people for the glory of His name and has assigned
them to salvation and has sent His Son to die in their place
that He might be just and bless them with all the blessings of
the righteous. The truth that any sinner who
desires may, without one work of righteousness, lay hold of
all blessings in Christ Jesus by faith. I'll tell you, that will give
you strength in the struggle. The truth of God's grace, the
truth of His sovereign grace. I grew up under free willism.
There's no strength in it, because it isn't the truth. And that old free will, those
free will thoughts, that it's all up to me, they still rattle
around in my brain and every time they do, they weaken me.
I sit here and prepare messages and I'm just going to give you
a little view into my own experiences here. I've tried to study and
preach to you, and you know what's going on in my mind? You've been
a sinner. God's not going to honor your preaching. While you
sin this week, there ain't going to be many people show up at
church. God's going to destroy the church on account of your
sin. You say, where'd you get all that? It was told to me.
It was taught to me in my youth that that's the way God did things,
that my blessings depended on my righteousness, and the battle
for me is to ignore all that. And with
the truth of His sovereign grace, persevere on and continue to
study. And to come here not in the confidence
that God will bless me because I'm good, but that He'll bless
me in my preaching because He's good. And that's where the strength
comes from. Let me quickly go through these
here. Stand firm with a belief of truth. Buckle around your
waist with a breastplate of righteousness, not your righteousness. You don't
want a breastplate made out of your righteousness. You might
as well make one out of papers. Do that. This is a righteousness
of Christ. Here's the vital organs of the
heart and the lungs. And those soldiers knew that.
If you want to kill somebody, stab them in the heart. And they would
put steel over there. A steel breastplate on them. If there's anything that will
be able to preserve you, it would be the righteousness of the Lord
Jesus Christ. with your feet fitted with the
readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. If my feet have shoes on them made out of
the gospel that says being justified by faith I have peace with God,
they'll not be feet that make me run from God, they'll make
me run to Him and bow before Him and call Him my Father. If
I have the gospel shoes on, I'll be able to stand." And these
shoes he's speaking of there were not a pair of loafers. They
were boots, laced up tight to give strength to the ankles in
the day of battle. The writer of Hebrews says, strengthen the ankles that have
been turned, lest they become utterly sprained. And you strengthen
them with the gospel. In addition to all this, take
up the shield of faith with which you can extinguish all the flaming
arrows of the evil one. Here is that evil one that is
our enemy, that is the chief among our adversaries. It was
said in warfare back then, they liked to shoot with flaming arrows.
And the Roman soldiers, their shields were made, many of them,
made out of wood and leather. And they would soak that leather
in water. There was a little round sword
about that. It wasn't the great big ones you see in the movies.
This was just a little round close combat shield. And they
could put that in front and that flaming arrow would hit and he'd
go... That was it. It was out. Faith, the gift of God, is given
to God's people to withstand the fiery darts of the devil.
What's that? Your sins. Your sins. Nothing like your
sin will destroy your heart. I don't mean that you fall into
it. I'm talking about the guilt that comes from it. He is called the accuser of the
brethren. And with his fiery darts, he comes at your sinner.
You're going to hell. You're a sinner. You're damned.
You're a sinner. God hates you. And with the faith
that comes by the grace of God, those arrows just go and they're
out. But you absent yourself from
the truth. Absent yourself from the word of God which is the
gospel and your faith flags and those arrows start to get through
and all how they hurt All right Take the helmet of salvation
and the sword of the Spirit which is the word of God Protect your
thinking With God's salvation And go to battle not with the
armaments of this world. Don't try to entangle with the
world. No use going into politics. No use trying to cure the social
ills. We got one thing. We got the word of God, which
the Bible, that's the Bible term for the gospel. And we go forth
to conquer in this world with the gospel, with nothing more
than declaring the truth of Christ and him crucified. And with such
armaments, the church by the grace of God is unstoppable.
So long as she'll remember who her enemies are, and where her
struggle is, and who her captain is, she'll do well. Heavenly Father, thank you for
your word, and we pray that we would learn this truth and be
sealed to our hearts. Indeed, let us put on these armaments,
that we may be protected, and that we may be useful. in this
world, even as we are not of the world. In Christ's name we
pray. Amen.