Ephesians chapter 6. I was thinking as we were singing
that last song, we could just use that for our outline. Stanza
by stanza, couldn't we? What a message just in the singing
of that song. There is a fountain filled with
blood. The title of the message tonight
is Be Strong in the Lord. Be Strong in the Lord. And the
Lord willing, I want to try to preach tonight, and if the Lord
gives us another week in life, to continue this message next
week. But let's read verses 10 through
20. Ephesians 6, verse number 10. The scripture says, finally,
my brethren, be strong in the Lord and in the power of his
might. Put on the whole armor of God
that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil.
For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities,
against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world,
against spiritual wickedness in high places. Wherefore, taken
to you the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand
in the evil day, and having done all to stand, Stand therefore,
having your loins girt about with truth, and having on the
breastplate of righteousness, and your feet shod with the preparation
of the gospel of peace. Above all, taking the shield
of faith, wherewith you shall be able to quench all the fiery
darts of the wicked. And take the helmet of salvation
and the sword of the spirit, which is the word of God. praying
always with all prayer and supplication in the spirit, and watching thereunto
with all perseverance and supplication for all saints, and for me, that
utterance may be given unto me, that I may open my mouth boldly
to make known the mystery of the gospel, for which I am an
ambassador in bonds. Therein I may speak boldly as
I ought to speak. Going back to verse number 10,
it says, finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord and in
the power of his might. I'm so glad that this verse doesn't
end this way. What if this verse just said,
finally, my brethren, be strong? I would not take any courage
from that. If the first stop right there,
finally, my brethren, be strong. You say, well, why not? That
would be discouraging to me. And why is that? Because with
the apostle, I find then a law that when I would do good, evil
is present with me. For I know that in me that is
in my flesh, there dwelleth no good thing. For to will is present
with me. But how to perform that which
is good, I find not. Can you say the same with the
apostle and with me tonight? And so if this verse only said,
finally, my brethren, be strong, I would be very disappointed. But it doesn't stop there, does
it? The verse says, finally, my brethren, be strong in the
Lord. Amen. There's some good news
for us to consider here tonight. Be strong in the Lord. Our spiritual
strength, our might, is from the Lord Jesus Christ, not in
ourselves. It's only by him and through
him that we have the strength to fight our spiritual warfare. It's so important that we start
with that. Our strength is from the Lord.
The Lord Jesus said, he said, abide in me. And I knew, as the
branch cannot bear fruit unless it abide in the vine, no more
can you except you abide in me." His words could not be any clearer,
could they? Let's say we had a beautiful
apple tree out here. And it was bringing beautiful
apples on all the branches. And we went out after the service,
and we cut a branch off, and we threw it to the side, took
all the apples off of it, and threw it to the side. And we
wouldn't come back next Sunday, would we, and go see if it sprouted
some more apples. Why? Because the life is in the
vine, the sap, that which enables it to bear fruit, that which
makes it Good for anything is divine. And that's what the Lord
Jesus said to us. He said, you know, we must abide
in him because if we abide in him, we can bring forth no fruit. We are to be strong in the Lord,
strong in the Lord. You know, the verse in Philippians. It says, the word here, strong,
is the same word that's used in Philippians 4, 13, where it
says, the apostle said, I can do all things through Christ
which strengtheneth me. That word strengtheneth is the
same word strong. And it's the same message there.
Be strong in the Lord. Paul said, look, I can do all
things. He doesn't stop there, does he? Through Christ, which
strengthened me. And all the great things that
God allowed the Apostle Paul to accomplish as an apostle, it wasn't through his own strength,
was it? It was as he abode in Christ.
Christ made him fruitful. So the word here is to be strong
in the Lord, and it goes on and says, and in the power of his
mind. How are we to be strong in the
Lord? We're to be strong in the Lord and the power of his mind.
Isn't one of his names the mighty God? You know it is. One of the names of the Lord
Jesus Christ is the mighty God. Scripture says, for unto us,
a child is born. Unto us, a son is given. And the government shall be upon
his shoulder. And his name shall be called,
first of all, wonderful. Wonderful. You know what that
word actually means? A miracle. His name shall be
called a miracle. Isn't the Lord Jesus Christ a
miracle? Fully God and fully man? Truly,
if anyone should be called wonderful, it's him. But his name also shall
be called Wonderful Counselor. Do you need counsel tonight?
I find that I constantly need counsel. Constantly, the Lord
Jesus Christ, his name is Counselor, the mighty God. See, we can have
courage tonight because we are to be strong in the Lord, the
Lord who is almighty. And in the power of his might,
we find might. The mighty God, the everlasting
Father, the Prince of Peace. I hope this example I'm about
to give you is OK. I tried to think about how to
illustrate this. Let's say that I told you that
I could lift a semi-truck. You'd laugh at me. Well, yeah,
you can't do that. You don't have the strength to
lift a semi-truck. And you would be right. I don't
have the strength in myself to lift a semi-truck. But if you
saw that I had a hydraulic lift, you would believe me, wouldn't
you? That lift doesn't have any problem whatsoever lifting up
a semi truck. You see, we are to be strong
in the power of his mind. We are perfect weakness. I feel
like Reuben. Unstable as water. That's who
I am in myself. But in the Lord Jesus Christ,
As the scripture says, we can do all things through Christ,
which strengthens us. Just like that lift can lift
up that truck through, you say, well, that's not your power.
No, it's not. But I'm lifting it. I'm lifting
it through the power of that lift's might, right? I think that is an illustration
of this verse here. We are to be strong in the power
of his might. And he is almighty. He's the
almighty God. You know, look at if you would
look at Psalm 46 with me. Psalm 46. I've read before that whenever
Martin Luther found himself in a really bad situation and discouraged,
or he and the congregation were in some type of real problem
and they had plenty, that he would say, let us read Psalm
46. This is where he would turn.
Psalm 46. Notice what it says. God is our
refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore will
not we fear. And it's like the psalmist thinks
of the very scariest and worst things that we could see happen,
and that's what he uses here. Therefore we will not fear, though
the earth be removed, and though the mountains be carried into
the midst of the sea, though the waters thereof roar and be
troubled, though the mountains shake with the swelling thereof.
There is a river. The streams whereof shall make
glad the city of God. The holy place of the tabernacles
of the Most High. Isn't that our Lord Jesus Christ?
That river that makes glad the city of God, his church? God
is in the midst of her. She shall not be moved. God will
help her, and that right early. The heathen raged, the kingdoms
removed. He uttered his voice, the earth
melted. The Lord of hosts is with us.
The God of Jacob is our refuge. Come, behold the works of the
Lord, what desolations he hath made in the earth. He maketh
wars to cease unto the end of the earth. He breaketh the bow
and cutteth the spear in thunder. He burneth the chariot in the
fire. Be still. God says, be still and know that
I am God. I will be exalted among the heathen.
I will be exalted in the earth. The Lord of hosts is with us. The God of Jacob is our refuge. The Lord of hosts, the Lord of
the army is with us. Now, back in our passage, let's
go on to the next verse. Ephesians 6, verse number 11. Scripture says, we are exhorted,
believers, put on the whole armor of God that you may be able to
stand against the wiles of the devil. This armor, it's the armor
of God. It's the armor of his provision.
100%. This whole armor, every bit of
it, that we will look at the Lord willing over the next two
weeks, it's all of his provision. It's the armor of God. You wouldn't
think much of an army that recruits their soldiers to have to come
up with their own weapons, would you? Absolutely, we wouldn't
think of that as a very powerful nation, would we? Well, we serve
a great king, and we serve a great God. And he provides 100% of
the weapons that we need for this warfare that we are to fight. Put on the whole armor of God. But we can't lose sight of this.
We are exhorted to put it on. He provides 100% of it, but we
are exhorted. Put it on. Put the armor on. This passage is not the only
passage of scripture that speaks of the Christian armor. In fact,
our pastor read a passage at the beginning of the service
that speaks a part of this armor in that passage. In the book
of Romans, it's called the armor of light. We're told to put on the whole
armor of God. In Romans, it's called the armor
of light. And I'd like us to look at that
passage, if you would. Look with me in Romans 13. Having
us turn to a few more scriptures tonight than I typically do. Romans chapter 13, in verse number 12. The armor of
God, the armor of light. Romans 13, verse number 12. Scripture
says, Paul wrote to these believers, he said, the night is far spent,
the day is at hand. Let us therefore cast off the
works of darkness and let us put on the armor of light. Let us walk honestly as in the
day, not in rioting and drunkenness, not in chamberling and wantonness,
not in strife and envying, but put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ. and make not provision for the
flesh to fulfill the lust thereof." What is it to put on the Lord
Jesus Christ? He tells us we're exhorted here
to put on that armor of light, the armor of the Lord Jesus Christ. And then he says, put on the
Lord Jesus Christ. What is he speaking about there? That would be a message all to
itself, but let me just mention three things that I believe that
means. First of all, it means when we say put on the Lord Jesus
Christ, it's to receive him, to believe in him, and to rest
on him and in him for all of our acceptance, for all our salvation
with God. That is one way, I think it's
one thing this means, put on the Lord Jesus Christ. Also,
I believe it means to profess and to try to imitate him. You
say, try to imitate him. Yes, that's what we as believers
should be trying to do in this world. We should be trying to
imitate the Lord Jesus Christ. You say, well, we have no chance
of ever being successful, but that doesn't stop us from that.
That is what our calling is. He is our Lord. We are to follow
him. We are to follow as we can in
his steps. And thirdly, it is to be strong
in the power of his mind. That's what it means to put on
the Lord Jesus Christ. It's to be strong in the power
of his mind. In Corinthians, we won't turn
there, but we're told it's referred to there as the armor of righteousness. So we have the armor of God,
the armor of light, the armor of righteousness. But in the
passage we're looking at, we have the greatest, the most descriptive
description that we have of the armor of God. Now, notice going
on here in verse 11, in Ephesians 6, verse 11. He said, put on the whole armor
of God that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the
devil. That is, what is that, you know,
wiles, we don't use that word very often, do we? What is that
talking about? It's talking about trickery, against the trickery,
the strategies, the schemes of the devil and of his angels of
darkness. Someone may think, does the devil
really use trickery and lay traps for the people of God to dishonor
God, to dishonor our Savior? Does the devil really do that?
I'm sure if there's anyone here today and you're outside of Christ,
you think this guy that's up here trying to bring this message
is crazy. The devil try to trick us, try
to trap us, Well, you know, we don't need to look any further
than the scripture to see that he does. In 1 Chronicles 21 verse
1, the scripture says, and Satan stood up against Israel and provoked
David to number Israel. If he could trick David, the
man after God's own heart, the man who wrote most of these Psalms,
if he could trick him, Do you not think that he and his ministers
of darkness would trick and try to trap us? Of course he would. Of course he does. That's why
we're exhorted to put on the whole armor of God, that we may
be able to stand against the trickery, the wiles of the devil. You may be here thinking, well
this message is for someone else, it's not for me. This message
is for everyone here. Starting with me. Satan and his
servants do scheme against us and they lay traps against us
to make us fall. And the greatest desire, I'm
convinced of this, his greatest desire is that we would dishonor
the Lord Jesus Christ. There's nothing that would please
him more. And he will lay traps and trickery
and lie to us, just like David. Here was David. David had conquered
all those nations. And he knew he had more than
a million armed soldiers. But pride entered into his heart. He wanted to know just how many. people were bearing the sword
for him, right? And so the scripture says Satan
stood up against Israel, but then he provoked David to number,
to sin, to fall, to dishonor God. And you remember 70,000
Israelites died because of that sin. Yes, Satan will try to trick
us. Now notice verse 12. Scripture says, notice, for we
wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities,
against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world,
against spiritual wickedness in high places. I'm concerned that way too often
We fail to realize as believers that we are in a spiritual war. We fail to realize that. We fail
to realize we are in a spiritual war. And our enemies, they're
not flesh and blood, as it says here. I think Satan loves to
get believers focused on fighting other people. But the apostle
here said we don't wrestle against flesh and blood. Now, we do wrestle
against principalities and against powers and against the rulers
of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness
in high places. And Satan and his followers,
the other angels that fail, yes, they do impact what people do
in this world. But the apostles said, look,
we're not fighting against flesh and blood. Someone much greater
than that. No, we fight against these spiritual
wicked beings. You know, as I was preparing
this message, I thought about how to illustrate that from the
scripture, and I could think of no better example than of
Elisha and his servant. You remember the king of Syria,
he was determined to capture Israel. And he kept sending out
his escapades to go and try to capture the king and to defeat
Israel. But every time he did, by the
time he got there, the king already knew what he was doing. He said,
what is going on here? There must be someone in my bedchamber
that is an enemy of mine who's telling the king secrets. You
remember that case. And I won't go through all of
that. But you remember his advisors,
his counselors, told him the problem is not the king. It's
Elisha. He's telling him everything that
we're going to do. God's telling the king through
him what you're going to do. So he sends his armies out to
capture this prophet. And when he gets there, his servant
wakes up, goes out there, and he sees that the hill's just
covered with soldiers and horses and spears. And there's Elisha
and him. And I don't know about you. I
think I would have been a little bit nervous, just like he was.
And you remember what Elisha, the scripture says, Elisha prayed. He said, Lord, I pray thee, open
his eyes. Open his eyes that he may see.
And that's my prayer tonight, that God would open our eyes,
that we could see. The mountain was full of horses
and chariots of fire round about Elisha. Thank God there's just
not the evil spirits. and the evil principalities,
there's God's angels, his servants, and they filled the mountain
and they way outnumbered the wicked ones. But the point that
I'm trying to illustrate and what the scripture teaches us
there is that this spiritual world is not something subjective,
it's objective, it's real. This battle that we're in is
real. This war that we need to fight is real. Most of the time I spend my life
duped. Not realizing, not realizing
that I'm in this war. And I'm afraid that that's true
of a lot of believers. And that's why we have this exhortation
here. If we don't realize this, we're
gonna spend much of our time confused and falling. If we don't realize that we're
in this spiritual warfare and we have true spiritual enemies,
we're gonna spend most of our time confused and falling. Have you ever noticed that the
most dishonoring thoughts of God that you ever have Or when you're trying to either
read the scripture, or try to pray, or try to come preach a
message. This battle is real, and a lot
of times we blame our flesh, and oh, our flesh is corrupt,
our flesh. Who shall deliver me from this
body of death? And there's no question about
that, but we have more enemies than just the flesh. We have
Satan, and we have those fiery darts that he casts upon us,
that he throws at us, that he shoots at us. And you can be
sure of this. that Satan would like nothing
more than for us to stay away from the preaching of the gospel
of the Lord Jesus Christ. You say, well, yeah, that's true
of the lost. No, that's true of all of us, including believers. You ever notice that it's easy
to get up in the morning, get ready to go to work? Maybe you
get up 4 in the morning, 4.30, 5 in the morning, and don't ever
question whether you need to go to work. But when it comes
time to come to the worship service, you're committed to want to go.
But all of a sudden, there's all these reasons that come into
your head as to why maybe you shouldn't go today or couldn't
go today, right? And sometimes there's real reasons.
I know that. Well, we can't. There's health
reasons. There's things that happen, no
doubt. But there's a lot of times that
there is no reason other than that Satan will try to lay a
trap for us to keep us away from the preaching of the gospel of
the Lord Jesus Christ. You say, well, does the scripture
teach that? Yes, it teaches that. Look at 2 Corinthians chapter
10 with me. I can see I'm not gonna get very
far tonight, but that's okay. I'm gonna get as far as I can.
2 Corinthians chapter 10. 2 Corinthians chapter 10 and verse
number one. Paul wrote to the Corinthians
and he said, now I, Paul, myself, beseech you by the meekness and
the gentleness of Christ, who in presence am base among you,
but being absent and bold towards you. I beseech you that I may
not be bold when I am present with that confidence, wherewith
I think to be bold against some. which think of us as though we
walked according to the flesh. For though we walk in the flesh,
we do not war after the flesh. Let me just pause there for a
second. Those who God has called to preach the gospel, pastors,
missionaries, teachers of the word of God, they walk in the
flesh, They have to, just like you and I do. They have to get
up, they have to do things, we have to pay our bills, we have
to do, that's true, that was true of the apostle, and it's
true of every minister of the word of God. But notice he says,
we do not war after the flesh. Yes, we have to walk in the flesh,
but we do not war after the flesh. For the weapons of our warfare
are not carnal, but mighty through God, through the pulling down
of strongholds, casting down imaginations, you see that word
in the marginal reading, casting down reasonings, and every high
thing that exalted itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing
into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ. What's
that talking about there? You say, is that talking just
about to lost people? No, that's talking to us believers. It's so important for us to come
and hear the message that the Lord lays upon the heart of our
pastor and upon those who preach the word to us and teach the
word to us. Why? Because these imaginations
rise up in our minds as well. And they have to be cast down.
They have to be cast down and brought under subjection. to
the obedience of the Lord Jesus Christ. You say, is that part
of, yes, all scripture is given by inspiration of God and it's
profitable for reproof, isn't it? To cast down those imaginations. The worship service in many ways
for the believer is a re-centering It's being brought back in, being
brought back into the path, bringing our minds back under subjection
to the obedience of the Lord Jesus Christ. But if we don't
realize we're in this spiritual warfare, we've lost already. We've lost already. As Martin
Luther wrote, We sang this hymn a couple weeks ago. He said,
a mighty fortress is our God, a bulwark never failing. Our helper, he amid the flood
of mortar eels prevailing. For still, our ancient foe, he
does seek to work us woe. His craft and power are great.
And armed with cruel hate, on earth is not his equal. I can see Luther sitting there
under candlelight writing that. Those are some shivering words,
aren't they? But he didn't stop. He wrote another verse. Did we
in our own strength confide? Our striving would be losing.
We're not the right man on our side. The man of God's own choosing. You ask, who that may be? Christ Jesus, it is he. Lord
Sabbath, his name. From age to age the same. And he must win the battle. We are to be strong in the Lord
and in the power of his might. That's what Luther was writing
about in that hymn. And I'll quote one other verse
that we sing sometimes from the, I think it's the third verse
in that hymn, Abide With Me. That verse says, I need thy presence
every passing hour. What but thy grace can foil the
tempter's power? Who like thyself my guide and
stake can be? Through cloud and sunshine, oh,
abide with me. And let's finish here with verse
13. I'll stop for tonight. Verse 13. Wherefore, taken to you the whole
armor of God, because of who your enemies are, because of
what we've looked at so far, wherefore, taken to you the whole
armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil
day, and having done all, to stand." Is it possible for the
believer to stand? I think that's what this verse
exhorts us to do, to stand. I like the way one of the other
translations translates this verse here. It says, Put on every
piece of God's armor so you will be able to resist the enemy in
the time of evil. Then after the battle, you will
still be standing. There's so much more that I...
I wanted to say tonight, but I pray the Lord gives me another
week of life, and you too, so that we can continue in this
passage here. And look at the armor. Look at
this armor that God has provided for us. It's one of the things
that, you know, as you read all the commentators, one thing that
they all point out is that there is no protection for the backside.
In this armor, we are to be active in this spiritual warfare. We're
not in it by accident. Our great God has put us in it.
And he's given us an armor to fight with. Of course, not in
our own strength, in the strength of the Lord. May the Lord bless
this word, and the Lord willing, next week we'll get to the armor. May the Lord bless you. Thank
you.