Ephesians 6:14

demons that we're gonna talk about today, will

rise up against the Lord at the end of time,

but the king of glory will

destroy them with the might of his coming.

You have your Bibles, turn with me to Ephesians,

chapter 6, and

verse number 14, and as

I said earlier, we're going to get back to our exposition

of Ephesians, and really

begin into the actual study of the armor today,

the verses leading up, we're preparing us, but

now we're really getting into the armor.

Let's begin by reading verse 14.

Stand

firm, therefore.

Having girded

your loins with truth, and

having put on the breastplate of

righteousness.

Now, the

depth of what we are dealing with here

is really far beyond my ability

to communicate properly to you.

But hopefully, we're gonna scratch the surface

enough to receive some

benefit and some growth for ourselves

out of this tremendous text.

We're talking about things here from

the spiritual realm that we can't even see with

our physical eyes.

And this is the final section, as

I've said before, of the Book of Ephesians,

and in our last two messages, we learned that all

believers are engaged in warfare.

A great continual

battle until Jesus

returns, or we go to glory ourselves.

And we also learned in this text, so 4,

that all believers are

engaged in this battle against

a very formidable enemy,

Satan, and all of his host,

of fallen angels.

And I need you to understand that

as a Christian, as you strive

to live for God's glory, you

will not be able to escape this war.

And in fact, the

more diligently, you

live for God's glory, the

more intense, the enemy will make

the warfare be for you.

So you can't escape these battles.

as a believer.

It's only a question as

to how it manifests itself.

And what specifics may

occur in your own personal part of

this warfare.

As I said last time, you are either in the tent?

Or you're out on the battlefield,

swinging your sword as a Christian.

Either way, the

collision is inevitable,

and it's very constant, it's very continual.

If you're in the

tent, you're getting beat

down by the enemy on the regular and you probably don't even know it.

If you're out on the battlefield,

you know, for sure, the intensity of the

fight, and you know, by personal experience,

how hard the adversary fights,

and how powerful and effective he is at

waging war, with all believers.

But we've also been learning,

since the very start of Ephesians chapter 1, all of

the tremendous resources that we possess in

in order to fight this war in addition to

the armor that we're going to start into to talk about today.

We've all received all spiritual blessings in

the heavenly places in Christ Jesus.

Remember from Ephesians chapter 1.

We've been granted forgiveness of all of our sins.

We've been adopted by grace into the family of God.

Think about what we've been given.

We've been given peace, the peace, that surpasses all understanding.

We've been given knowledge.

We've been made a part of this incredible mystery

that was planned from before the foundation

of the world.

Well, we've been given the Holy Spirit to indwell

us, and who has sealed us until

the day of redemption.

We've been made ambassadors of

the king of kings, of the universe.

We've been made soldiers in the Lord's army.

We are the people of God.

And we have been put in this

world to accomplish the

goals, and the plans, and the purposes

which Creator God himself has

designed for the advancement

of his kingdom, throughout church history, all

the way up to the Second Coming.

Let me ask you.

What greater purpose

in meaning in your life

could you possibly have than that?

We have the greatest sense of

purpose and meaning for why we're here, then anyone on

the Earth as the people of God?

And with all of that, we

are withstood, or sure, by

a very bitter enemy, who

hates our guts.

The very enemy, think of it.

who withstood God himself,

in his own heavens, and said, I will be like the Most High.

Can you imagine?

The very enemy who withstood

man in his innocence in the Garden of Eden, and

helped plunged the entire human race into a

state of sin and misery?

The very enemy who has tried multiple

times to wipe out the nation of

Israel, the very enemy.

Think of it, who tried to stop

the birth of the Lord Jesus Christ in

the slaughter of the innocents.

You remember the story?

He wanted to wipe out all

of Jesus' ministry, life, death,

bare resurrection and second coming when he worked

through King Herod to murder all those little babies.

That enemy.

The very enemy who is always at work.

trying to deceive and

rip the church apart at every chance he gets.

The very enemy who is always at

work, trying to hinder our service to

the king, while we're here on the earth.

The very enemy, who I said earlier, will one day,

literally, go directly at God, in

war, and battle at the very end of time, and

any Christian, who doesn't understand these things.

Any Christian, who

doesn't understand the significance of these things,

is a Christian who is going to be victimized.

by the enemy.

He will keep you in the

tent, as I said.

And you are then what?

You are then one less soldier out on the

battlefield when you're in the tent.

This causes you

to forfeit rewards in heaven.

Strip you.

of your ability to bring

glory to God with your life.

And if you are genuinely a regenerate

Christian, you should want more

than anything to bring glory to God with your life.

That should be an automatic new desire for you when you come

to faith in Jesus Christ.

You want to live in such a way as to bring him glory, not

in the perfection of your life, but in the direction of your life.

Now, we

have to be aware of this war.

And we have to be ready for battle.

Every day.

And unless you're in some

kind of hurry to finish Ephesians.

Which I guess it doesn't really.

matter if you are or not.

Before we get any further

in this text, this is what I want

to do, I want to give you a little further explanation.

And added to last time, actually, of

the how and the why Satan attacked

believers.

Number one, he attacks a

believer, to undermine God's

character and God's credibility.

He wants to undermine God.

He wants

you to doubt God.

He did it in the garden with

Eve, you remember?

Has God really said?

He was impugning

God's motive at that moment.

He was saying, well, the real reason God doesn't want you to eat that,

is because God knows then you'll be like him,

and God can't stand competition, right?

So God really has selfish,

ulterior motives, and you really can't trust him.

You really can't believe God.

I mean, he may say one thing, but deep down inside,

he means something else.

So his word is not really totally believable.

The New

Testament makes clear, if you deny God his word, you make him a liar.

And that's what Satan wants to do.

He wants people to think that

God is the liar and that he is the one who's telling the truth.

You can't trust God.

You can doubt

God, and you should.

You can doubt God and his word and

his power, and guess what?

We all fall for this trap at times.

Very subtly.

We get tempted.

In a difficult situation, and what do we do?

We worry.

We fret, we get anxious, we get angry, we

lose our self control, and in those moments,

We are walking in our flesh,

and we stop believing in those

moments that God can actually get us out of the situation.

We're overcome with worry and fret

and doubt.

We doubt God's grace sometimes.

We doubt God's mercy sometimes.

It's nothing but a denial.

Of his promises to us, and thereby his word.

There are times when we also, we

also even doubt the love of God.

We think, How in the world could

God possibly love me

when he let this happen to me?

And

the enemy works really hard.

to push us to the place where we actually

doubt the love of God.

One time he attacked Peter, and

he caused Peter to doubt the

truth of God.

You remember what Jesus said to him?

Peter, be careful.

Satan

desires.

to sift you like wheat.

What a description from the Lord Jesus.

So Satan attacks us to undermine

God's character and God's credibility, and here's a pro tip.

As soon as you start to

doubt God.

at any point in

terms of his perfect character that

you know he has, and his perfect

credibility that you know he has, that

is perfect, consider the source.

That's all you have to do.

You know he's perfect in his character.

You know he's perfect in his credibility.

Consider the source of where that thought came from.

Number two, Satan attacks

us to make it hard to live the Christian life, as I said.

He knows that in the end, he can't have us.

He knows this perfectly.

So he wants to make things as

difficult as possible for us while we're here.

And he does this in a number of ways.

Number one would be persecution.

That's the most extreme way.

Just go ask the people in Nigeria right now.

Just go ask other people in Africa

and other parts of the Middle East who are being persecuted

for their faith right now.

In addition to that, he makes it hard to live the Christian life

in much lesser ways of what, that's

a shame to even call persecution, but think of

little subtle ways, being made fun of.

The pressure of not wanting

to move on from that certain circle of

old friends who are not believers,

not wanting to be thought of, as different,

not wanting to be thought of, by others, as peculiar,

not wanting to lose out on being well

liked, by others, being

thought of, as a religious nut, or a

religious kook.

A third way, he makes it hard

to live, the Christian life is sometimes

making it too easy to live in.

That's another subtlety.

And this is a problem both inside and outside the

church in a very general way.

You've heard me say it many times.

We are way too comfortable here in America.

Way too comfortable.

So believers

start to think, well, why do we need to be so serious?

But, Philip, why are you so serious about all this?

Lighten up, dude.

Or for the unbeliever.

Why do I need Christ at all?

I mean, I got a nice house.

I got a nice car.

I got a boat.

I got a great salary.

I got a very secure retirement.

Things are going great.

What do I need Jesus for?

Right?

Now, societally

speaking, it's less easier to be a Christian in

America than in the past when cultural

Christianity coming to an end.

I mean, we did just see a Baptist worship service attacked

by leftist lunatics in Minnesota.

I've never seen that happen before in the way that it did,

but thankfully, arrests have been made.

Thank you.

Thank you, DOJ.

Came a little slow, but it came.

So, really, when you think

about it, I mean, we still have it pretty comfortable,

folks, here, in the USA.

And that brings about a temptation to

just coast in the Christian life.

Stay within the four walls.

Not feel the need to

impact the world outside these four walls

because we're just so comfortable in here.

Another attack

that Satan uses against believers is

that he confuses believers with false doctrine.

books, social

media, post, whole

worldwide ministries, all in

Jesus' name, can wreak havoc in

the minds of Christians who are not rooted and

grounded in sound doctrine.

And the enemy is very sleek.

Never forget, there

are always, always, elements

of truth mixed in with error

with professing Christian false teachers,

always.

Just like if you take a medicine dropper, and

squeeze one drop of arsenic into a

five gallon jug of Kentwood, spring water,

or 55 gallon drama, Kentwood, spring water,

The Bible says a little leaven.

Leavens the whole lump.

Right?

This is yet another reason.

You need to be at church.

Sitting under the expository

preaching of sound doctrine rooted

and grounded in sound theology.

You need to come to Sunday school.

Be discipled by sound biblical teaching.

You need to be exposing yourself to sound sermons

and sound books at home.

And we're here.

We're here to help point you in the right direction of

those books, and those sermons, and those teachers.

If you are consistently and

constantly immersed in

sound doctrine,

And you're putting that into your head, into your brain,

into your bloodstream, on a regular basis.

When something pops up on social media that's out

of line, immediately, your discernment antenna

goes up and says, Revert!

That ain't lining up with scripture.

The things that

people believe today in our

country, that are actual Christianity,

they think, and the millions of dollars, that

people sin to false teachers every year, is

a sad witness to the effectiveness

of our enemy, using false doctrine in

Jesus' name, to literally deceive millions

of people, every single day in this country, and around

the world.

Now,

fourthly, the enemy tries as hard as he can

to hinder our service to Christ.

He wants to stop

faithful, effective service.

I'm telling you, he wants to stop me

from serving here or anywhere else on

the planet.

I mean, I want you to think about what happened out at First Livingston.

Pure evil is

what happened at First Livingstone.

You're going to find out a little bit more about that as

the days go on, but what they meant for evil, what did God do?

He turned it for good in an amazing way.

at Salem Baptist.

Consider what happened, 16 years ago,

17 years ago, at Cedar Crest Baptist Church.

What they meant for evil.

God turned to good,

with a church that has lasted over

15 years now.

rooted and grounded and sound doctrine.

And yeah, we're small, but think about all the things coming

out of that evil that this little church has done over the past

15 plus years.

Think about the turkeys we fed in our community,

to people in need.

Think about the Christmas toys, to underprivileged children.

Think about the ministries Tracy and Dad have to the

police that we do.

Think about how we help support Mary's house of

bread and the Gideons and Ed Lacy Ministries.

Think about the men's meeting that has developed here over the

course of the last year with men from as many seven different churches here coming every month.

The ladies meeting with different people from different churches coming here.

Think about all the ways that God has used Providence

Baptist Church to affect our community.

Let me tell you.

It's noticed.

You may not know this, but the mayor and the

leaders of our town, they know about us, that we help in the community.

And that's not just to say, hey, look at us.

No, we're following scripture.

We're helping those in need in the name of Jesus.

But all of these things.

Do not deter the enemy.

One bit, from

continuing to try and take us out.

He wants to shut us down.

Especially, these here we stand churches that we are a part of.

Another ministry that wouldn't have

probably happened without Providence Baptist Church.

Think of it.

He would love to take us down.

Examples abound with

preacher friends of mine.

It's part of the warfare that

we have to expect that we don't run from,

that we run two with

our sword, ready for battle.

Here's another attack that he's constantly happens on the regular.

Satan does all that he can to try to stir

up division inside churches.

We've all seen it.

We've all experienced it, right?

Praise God for his work here at

keeping us unified in the way that he has.

That's why Jesus was so clear when he said, If you have anything against your

brother, go and be reconciled to your brother before you come back and worship.

So Paul said, in Ephesians chapter

4 and verse number 3, being diligent to

preserve the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.

We have to be sure to never, ever take our unity

that we have here in our church for granted, ever.

We have to be diligent to keep our unity in check.

Because the enemy always

wants to tear it all up.

And then there are some subtle attacks that come at us,

really, in a myriad of ways.

I mean, we could just go on for days here.

How about get to chunking

up all the theological knowledge you've learned?

We've read all the right books.

We listen to all the best sermons

from all the best preachers in the world.

We know all the principles for Christian living.

We've been taught by the best Bible teachers, and

so I can handle the problems in my life.

Because I go to church all the time, and I've got all

my theological ducks in a row.

So now I can lean on my own understanding.

I can depend on my own wisdom and knowledge

and learning to live the Christian life.

That's a place the enemy can get us to out of the number one sin of all sins.

Pride.

Pride.

Instead of being like Isaiah.

Woe is me.

Woe is me.

I'm a man of unclean lips.

That's the right attitude, before God.

He understood so well that he had no resource apart from God.

And neither do we.

Here's another

subtle way the enemy attacks.

A believer.

Show up to church, Sunday

after Sunday, interact with people.

Like everything's fine all the time.

I don't have any problem put on the mask.

All is well, so good, I just

never allow brothers and sisters to minister to you.

and bear your burdens and pray for you, praying for one another's knees.

Another attack, the relentless attack, to

appeal to our flesh,

to make us worldly.

And this was a big one.

And this would be tricky.

I want you to listen.

Because there can be worldly things that we

engage in that are not sinful in and of themselves.

We can participate in these things without

sinning, but at the same time, we

can fall into being sinful in

them in a very worldly way.

Remember what John says.

He says, Love

not the world.

The issue is, do

you love the things of the world in

such a way that they consume you?

That's what the issue is there.

For example, Chrissy can tell you.

I don't really care

much what's on TV except during football season.

All right?

During football season, when I have time to

watch the games, or on TV.

I used to have a special room.

where I watched the games, but

there's a certain feline who has commandeered that room.

So I have had to move to other spaces

in the home in order to watch football.

But if my

football watching took priority over

my necessary work and study and ministry,

that would be sinful, in a worldly way.

You understand what I'm saying?

That's just a dumb, practical example.

And you can come up with an endless

list here of these kind of examples, materialism,

keeping up with the Joneses, on

and on and on and on and on.

You can go with this list.

What I want you to understand is that the enemy never

stops trying to entice us, to

draw us away in a sinful way.

And I'll stop with one more.

And remember, this is not an exhaustive list.

I mean, if you want to really see how subtle the

demons can be, go read C.S. Lewis screw tape letters, and

he really gets down in the weeds of all the subtleties

of the ways the enemy can attack us.

This is just very general.

The enemy wants us to to act

in disobedience to

what we know, without a shadow

of a doubt, is disobedience to God's word.

I'm talking about directly.

Whether it's social, sexual,

any manner of headings that you can come up with, where we

know for sure that this right here, what

I'm doing is direct disobedience to God's Word,

and the enemy comes in, and he tempts it, go ahead and do it anyway.

Just go and do it anyway.

I think of an example here.

women pastors, okay?

This is an example that just made me think of this.

With two eyeballs and

a brain, and an ability to read,

you can easily understand that the Bible

is very clear that the office of pastor is ordained for men only.

Very easy to understand.

OK?

It doesn't have anything to do that men are more intelligent.

Men are more elevated, anything.

Remember, we studied this.

It has to do with the authority structure that God has laid down.

And yet, many people read that and say...

I see that, but I don't think that that's

really what it means for this time.

It just means it for back then.

I think women pastors are okay.

Come on, Lady Jones, or whoever, come up here and be our pastor.

Let me tell you something.

That is just direct willful

disobedience to the word of God for

a church to have a woman pastor.

And the results of that kind of thinking have wreaked havoc

in the church, especially in America, because what has it led

to in many of the mainline denominations?

Well, if you can have a woman, pastor, you might as well have a homo pastor.

You might as well have a sodomite up here being your pastor.

That's what it's led to.

And so, again, we

come back to how do

we deal with all of this?

Well, that's a lot of different kind of

attacks, Brother Philip.

Well, that's many more.

And I will remind you of

what we've already started to look into.

Here is the

overarching answer that's going

to lead us into the details over the next few Sundays of time.

Look at verse 13 before we get to 14.

Let's remember what 13 says.

Here's the overarching answer.

How do you deal with the attacks of the enemy?

Therefore, take up the full armor

of God, so that you will be able to resist in

the evil day, and having done everything to

stand firm.

How in the world?

Do you possibly think that

you are going to be able to resist all

of the subtlety and the cleverness and the schemes

of the devil on your own?

You're a fool, if you think that.

You can't?

I can't.

None of us can.

I'm telling you, we have to have this armor.

And let me tell you to start with, you

don't concentrate on what he's doing.

That's not what your focus is supposed to be on.

You need to concentrate on what you're doing.

It really doesn't matter that

much that you can categorize all those

attacks that I just laid out for you.

I mean, it's good to know them.

It's good to be aware of them.

That's why I gave them to you.

But it doesn't really matter that you get down all into the

weeds of the definition of each one, because in the big picture,

you can't begin to grasp the subtlety

of what he's doing in each one of those types of attacks, and

many other tactics that he's constantly employing against us.

The actions of this, this unseeing realm.

It's far too sophisticated, far too

supernatural for us to be able to deal with it on our own.

What does matter is that we get our overall.

That we keep our armor on.

So that whenever the battle starts,

it doesn't matter what the tack is.

I don't care what the attack is that he brings.

If you've got the armor on, you're able to defend yourself.

If we have our armor on, it doesn't matter

where the enemy's attacks come from.

It doesn't matter how subtle his attack is.

When he gets there, you're already ready for him.

With your armor on.

The believer, with his armor

on, will be able to state and defend

himself, no matter what the attack is.

The issue is not, whether or not he's coming.

Because he always is.

Constantly, the issue

is not what kind of attack is he bringing?

The issue is, are you ready?

Are you ready for him when he comes?

Because if you have your armor on,

you can handle it.

trusting in God's power and strength and not yours.

Now, the rest of our time today I want to just look at the

first piece of armor, look at verse 14.

It starts out with stand

firm.

And then look at how verse 13 ends.

And having done everything to stand firm.

And the idea there, of course, is to stand firm

against the attacks of Satan, to be standing firm

already when the onsoughts come.

But if you're going to stand firm,

you have to have what it says next, starting in

verse 14, having guarded your loins with truth.

Now, the Greek word here for

truth can be translated truth as

content, like truth as

opposed to falsehood, truth as defined

in the word of God, and it also, though,

can be translated as attitude,

an attitude of truthfulness,

of sincerity, or honesty, or integrity.

So let's deal first with the understanding of truth as content.

Most translations include,

in some way, there in verse 14.

Girded with the belt of truth.

Now, that's implied here in the new American standard with

having girded your loins with truth.

And I'm going to explain that in just a moment.

And we need this belt of truth,

because Satan is going to come at us with his schemes,

which is the same word translated at the end of

Ephesians 4:14 as deceitful,

scheming.

And in the context of that verse, it's

referring to every wind of doctrine, so the enemy comes blowing

the winds of the doctrines of demons, and they

use the trickery of men in cunning craftiness, in deceitful

scheming, Paul says, and the only way that

we can resist all of this is to have the truth

having girded our loins with

the belt of truth.

That's why it's so important to

preach, and teach, and preach, and teach, and preach, teach,

the word of God on a regular, consistent basis.

That's why I'm doing this right here today.

That's why I'll be doing this as long as the Lord gives me breath.

Now, John MacArthur gives us some imagery

to this belt of truth with the following.

Back in Paul's day, everybody,

including Roman soldiers, wore a tunic.

Now, a tunic was just a big square piece

of material, and had a hole for your hit, and

two holes for your arms, and it draped

down, and that was it.

But a soldier wouldn't

go into battle with all that material flying around,

and he's swinging his sword, and he's got his shield.

I mean, you wouldn't even take a journey in that situation with

the robe hanging all down.

I mean, in Exodus, when God told the

people, Get ready to leave.

Egypt, he said, Gird up your loins.

So girding up your loins, as an

expression has found, both in the old and New Testament, that meant to

gather up all that loose flowing material, so

you could be ready to go, whether it was on a journey or even to war.

And the phrase really means readiness.

Preparedness.

And the belt was

the key ingredient to the...

Again, the soldier couldn't fight with all that material flying around.

These guys weren't shooting people from 100 yards away.

They were engaged in hand to hand combat,

so what would they do?

They would tighten up all that material.

They would literally pull the

cloak, the cloak, the tunic

up above their knees, and wrap it

all up tight, and put the belt around there, and

that would keep everything tight, and that would improve their

ability and their agility, and make them better be able to fight.

That's an example of what Paul is talking about.

That's what girding up your loins meant.

Now, attached to that belt.

They would have a stripe, a strap,

that would go across your shoulder,

would attach here in the front, go over the shoulder,

and it would also attach in the back to the belt.

And the Roman soldier would

attach his sword on there, with

a sheath on the strap.

And later on, we're going to see the sword of

the spirit, which is the word of God, is

attached to the belt of truth.

And we'll get more into that when we get to the sword

of the spirit here at the end of the armor.

So, the belt of truth,

especially connected with the sword of

the spirit, is referring to truth in terms of content,

but also, as I said earlier, the Greek word can

be defined as attitude.

An attitude.

And this is what, from that understanding, Paul is saying.

He's saying in this armor.

First put your belt on.

Put on the belt

of truth.

That shows an attitude of readiness, an

attitude of commitment, it

shows an attitude of, hey, I'm ready for battle

with the enemy.

This is an attitude that says,

Hey, you are serious about this.

When a soldier put that belt on.

And he put that strap over his shoulder, and

he put that sword in his sheep, he was saying, hey,

Hey, I'm ready to fight right now.

One of the reasons that

our nation is in the state that it's in today is

because too many Christians for too many

years have had no interest in putting the

belt on, much less the strap, much less

swinging their sword in the Christian life.

That's why we're in the state we're in today.

And Paul is saying, Hey, you've

got to realize, whether you like it or not, you're in a war.

And you've got to get serious about it.

Look at the state of our nation.

Think about what

we see happening in our day.

People who actually think

that men can be women.

Mutilating children's

bodies deceiving them into thinking they

can be something other than what God created them.

How did we get here?

Part of the reason is because Christians have left

the strap and the belt and the sword in the tent.

And have it put it on.

And having got engaged in the fight,

embraced the soldier mentality, is what Paul is saying here.

I love 2 Timothy.

2:3.

Suffer.

Hardship with me

as a good soldier of

Christ Jesus.

I've told you before, I love being a soldier.

I love being in the fight.

And with every year that goes by, I'm

realizing my days as a soldier are moving by fast.

And I want to finish strong.

I want to go down swinging.

That's what I want.

the kind of soldier I want to be, and you should want to be that type of soldier.

Look at what Paul said in 1 Corinthians 9.24.

Do you not know that those who run a race,

all run, but only one receives the prize, run

in such a way that you may win?

I want to win.

And yeah, we're going to win in the

end, but I want to win in the now.

I want to win in the battles right now.

I wanna be in the fight.

I mean, if we're going to be in

this fight, if we're going to be in this Christian life,

why not go hard at it is what I'm saying to you.

This country needs Christians

who are willing to go hard, to go

to the libraries, where they have pornography for children,

to go to the school board meeting, and stand up in

Jesus' name for what is right, to stack up

crowds, that we get to lay at the feet of King

Jesus when we die.

God has given

us, church, the most magnificent, greatest

gift in all of the human

experience, salvation, by grace

alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone.

And what kind of life is it that pleases our king?

Look at Romans 12,1.

Therefore, I urge you, brethren,

by the mercies of God, to present your bodies,

a living and holy sacrifice acceptable to God,

which is your spiritual service of worship, and

do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed

by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what

the will of God is, that which is good and

acceptable and perfect.

God doesn't want us on the bench.

He wants us in the game.

God doesn't want you in the tent, Christian.

He wants you on the battlefield, living a

life of voluntary sacrifice and suffering

when the battle gets hot.

So go back to that first part of Ephesians.

6:14.

Stand firm therefore.

Having girded your loins

with truth again.

This is content, as well as

attitude.

Stand firm.

Gird your loins.

This is war.

We're in war in this country,

a spiritual warfare.

This is Paul giving us a call

to a serious Christian commitment with our life.

So the call to

put on the armor for a believer.

It starts with

commitment, commitment at the very start.

You, again, again, you

are not going to beat the adversary

on your own.

He will beat you down, if

you're on your own, in many more ways than I just gave you today.

You have to have this armor on.

So I'm telling you, don't

be content with mediocrity in the Christian life.

Don't be content with lethargy

and apathy in the Christian life.

Life is going by us at light

speed, and please,

I implore you.

Don't let your

first audience, with the

king of kings, finds you

standing next to a big old pile of

wood, hay, and stubble at the judgment seat

of Christ, having done nothing to live

for his glory during the time he gave you to be a Christian.

Because all that you did as a Christian will be evaluated at

the judgment seat of Christ, and those wood, hay,

and stubble, that's useless things.

That's not just sinful things.

That's useless things that you did in your Christian life.

Don't let that be your 1st audience with your king.

Start today.

Commit yourself to laying

up palates of gold, and precious stones that

you can present at that first audience with your king

when you die.

Where do you start?

You start by putting on the belt of truth.

In our scripture for today.

And next time, we

won't even get out of this verse.

Verse 14, next.

The breastplate of righteousness.

Let's pray.

Father, we thank you, Lord, for this day.

What an incredible reality you have given

us in salvation.

What a privilege to be ambassadors and

soldiers in this great warfare that's raging

about us in the unseen realm, Lord.

Thank you, Lord.

That you have given us the armor to

put on to be able to wage this war and

not be continually beat down by our adversary.

Lord.

Take this word today and plant it in our hearts and minds

and help us all, starting with me, to make

a fresh commitment to be a soldier who

endures hardness as a good soldier in

Jesus Christ, all for your glory.

In Jesus' name we pray.

Amen.