Thank you Music Ministry.
You have your Bibles turned with me or you can
look upon the screen.
Ephesians chapter 6 verse number 10.
As I said earlier, this is actually going to
be part two of the same text that we looked
at last week.
If you weren't here for that message, I
recommend that you go watch it online or
listen to it
because it will help you with the context of
what we're going to study today.
I don't like to try to repeat or try to make
too big of an in-depth review.
But one thing that should be clear from what
we learned last week is the fact that this
whole world is a battleground.
The whole universe, in fact, is at war.
There is a war that is occurring right now
between God and Satan, between good and evil.
Now make sure you understand that Satan is not
equal with God.
We understand that.
God allows there to be this war.
In fact, he has ordained that there be this
war.
We see this warfare in many places in
Scripture, maybe most clearly defined in the
book of
Job, where we find it's so fascinating God and
Satan are actually in a back and forth
verbally.
If you haven't read that account, please go
read that.
You will find it so interesting and for sure
throughout the history of man and definitely
in the revelation of God and his word, this
conflict between God and Satan is so clearly
seen.
It's just really wild to me and fantastic to
think about the conflict between God and
Satan, it includes this vast number of holy
angels and fallen evil angels.
It's happening right now and they too are at
war with one another in the unseen realm
and then a step down from that, we have men,
men and women on the earth and there's only
two types of people in the world.
There's the regenerate and there's the unre
generate and then amongst the unregenerate, you
have
quote unquote good people according to man
standard of goodness and you definitely have
evil people and they are at war with one
another too.
So since the fall of man, since the curse
entered into our world, we have been in a
serious
state of warfare.
Look at verse 12 here in Ephesians 6, the
Christian life is described there by the
apostle Paul
at the start of the verse as our struggle.
That's a strong word right there in the Greek,
our struggle and we really, really do exist
in a life and death struggle in this war and I
really don't think very many people even
in the church understand this, understand the
intensity of it, especially here in America.
Hear me talk about this all the time for all
our boning and groaning about how hard our
life is.
We really don't even grasp how easy we have it
compared to much of this world and especially
to the most of history in different time
periods.
I can prove that with air conditioning and
grocery stores alone.
Think about that for a minute.
So today, I at least want to help you to
understand better what I have learned in my
study about
this war that we are all of us in as believers
because it's so easy, especially because we
also have this struggle going on with our
flesh, not to mention with what we're going
to talk about today, it's so easy to get so
wrapped up in the things of this world because
our jobs distract us and of course the busy
ness of everyday life and the necessary things
that need to be done that we forget, we forget
that there is this intense warfare going on
all the time, every day, on average, around
150,000 people die every day on planet Earth.
Every 24 hours, 150,000 people die on this
planet.
That's 365 days a year.
That never stops.
And so many of them breathe their very last
breath of air in the death grip of Satan and
they step out of this world straight into
eternal darkness.
It's a staggering thought to think about.
But as a Christian, you mustn't run from that
thought just because it's such an overwhelming
thought.
In fact, you have to run to it and you have to
realize that it's part of the war that
we're in.
And maybe Satan's greatest attack on
Christians is the very subtle way that he lull
s us into
lethargy, apple, spiritual, busyness.
Just show up for Sunday's church, punch your
card and that's good enough.
That's my Christian life.
That's you.
You are like a soldier who just stays in your
tent while outside the battle is raging.
Your brothers and sisters are out there
fighting the battle, but you're indifferent,
or you're
taking a nap and you don't even realize the
war that's being waged right outside your
door.
This Christian is when Satan has you right
where he wants you to be, one less soldier
involved in the battle, because this warfare
is not just defensive only.
It's not just dealing with the attacks that
come at you on a regular basis from the
adversary.
It is that you're being attacked whether you
stay in that tent or not.
But in this great battle, what you need to do
is evaluate your life.
And there are questions that you can ask
yourself that will reveal to you what kind
of soldier for the king you really are, like
where and in what do you invest the most of
your time outside of necessary work that needs
to be done?
Where do you invest your money?
Where do you invest the most of your talent
and your abilities and your energy?
If it's all in the things that are going to
burn up like wood, hay, and stubble at the
judgment seat of Christ, then guess what?
You really don't even understand the warfare
that we're in right now.
You're just sitting in the tent.
You're losing the battle on the regular when
you're just sitting in the tent.
Or maybe you're sitting in your cot in the
tent watching Netflix or scrolling on your
phone on your cot through an endless timeline
of useless posts that have no eternal value
while just outside the tent, the most intense
war in human history is being waged at a
cosmic
level and Satan, like a roaring lion, is dev
ouring as many souls as he possibly can and
making
sure that they literally go to hell when they
die.
I'm not saying it's a sin to watch TV.
I watch TV.
I'm not saying it's a sin to scroll on your
phone.
I scroll on my phone, but it sure can get out
of hand, can it?
Sure can consume your time with things that
are of no eternal value, and it sure can turn
into sin.
I don't know about you, but I can't sit in the
tent.
I cannot.
I love being a soldier.
I do.
Not only a soldier on the front line as a
pastor, but as a bivocational path.
I used to be like, man, what would be best for
me and best for the church?
I need to be full-time, so I can invest more
time in study and invest more time being able
to minister to the people.
But now 25 years in ministry this year, I've
embraced my bivocationalness.
This is what God has for me, and many times I
have heard to us the bivocational pastors
referred to by the full-time pastors as the
Navy Seals of Pastry, not in terms of ability,
but in terms of the effort that's required to
be a bivocational pastor.
And I'm here to tell you that's not a boast.
That's the truth.
My only boast is to boast in my kingdom, who
took me from being a felon to being a soldier.
What do I have to boast in?
What do I have that I didn't first receive?
I don't deserve this great privilege to be
able to be a soldier, no matter how small
our church is.
I'm still doing the work of a soldier on the
front lines, and I love it.
When I'm preparing sermons, when I'm preaching
the Word, when I'm going to the library to
stand up for children to get pornography out
of the library, when I work behind the scenes
in politics to come against transgenderism and
to try to make sure that non-Marxists
get elected to office, I am acting as a
soldier of the King in the heat of the battle.
And guess what?
I love every single minute of it.
I love what I do.
What a privilege it is to be a soldier of the
King of Kings.
And guess what?
If you're a Christian here today, you're a
soldier too.
All Christians are soldiers, not just pastors.
The question is, are you on the battlefield,
or are you sitting in the tent?
Those of you who go to Mary's house of bread
to serve, you're on the battlefield at that
moment.
Defenders of the line, both here in Central
and Walker, you're on the battlefield.
When you come to church, this is the place
where you get your sword sharpened for battle.
That's why it's important to come to church,
and then you go back out to war.
Same thing when you come to Sunday school.
Same thing when you come to the men's meeting
or the ladies' prayer meeting.
When you come to Wednesday night prayer
meeting, you're on the battlefield interceding
for
your fellow soldiers, and for those that the
adversary wants to bring with him, to join
him in his ending in outer darkness,
especially your family members, that he wants
right now.
This is not a game, folks.
This is real life.
You know C.T.
Studs quote, "Only one life will soon be
passed, only what's done for Christ will laugh
."
Are you on the battlefield, or are you in the
tent?
You're in the tent.
This means you're still breathing, at least,
and I'm telling you today, pull back the flap,
pull out your sword, and join the battle,
serving your king, who died for you.
That's what I'm telling you.
Do it today.
Start today.
John MacArthur said, "If you don't know there
is a war, you just lost a battle."
Now, I'll talk for a minute about where do we
turn as soldiers for resources in this war?
Isaac Watts wrote this, "From thee the over
flowing spring our souls shall drink a fresh
supply,
while such as trust their native strength
shall melt away and droop and die."
So we learned last time we cannot trust in
ourselves in this war.
Look at verse 10.
Remember this from last week?
Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the
strength of His might.
That's God's part.
His strength is the issue here.
God is our strength.
From thee the overflowing spring our souls
shall drink a fresh supply.
He is the resource.
But we have a part too.
Look at verse 11.
We saw it last time as well.
Put on, Christian, the full armor of God so
that you will be able to stand firm against
the schemes of the devil.
And here we come once again to that same
divine paradox that we find so often in
Scripture.
The strength is God's.
Yes, but at the same exact time, the
commitment and the carrying out of the
commitment has
to be ours, sovereignty and responsibility.
We've constantly run into this in our study of
Scripture.
We see it in the Christian life as a whole.
What did Paul say?
"I am crucified with Christ, and it is no
longer I who live, but Christ who lives in
me."
Well, which one is it?
It's both.
How does that work, Pastor?
I don't know.
I just know that it does.
It's the great divine paradox.
Same thing with Scripture.
Who wrote Ephesians?
Ephesians was written by Paul, and yet it was
written by the Holy Spirit.
You were saved by God's sovereign grace alone,
yet you committed yourself to Christ.
You acted in saving faith.
You and I have to live out our lives with
diligence and commitment, and yet Jesus is
the author and finisher of our faith.
It's God's power alone seeing us through to
the end as we live it out this boat.
Just like all of that, here with this subject,
we see both sides too.
We are strong in the Lord, and it is the power
of His might, and yet we have to appropriate
His resources down here in Responsibility Land
at the same time.
You feel me?
The English military leader, Oliver Cromwell,
had it right.
He had solid theology, and he didn't even know
it when he said this.
"Trust in God, and keep your powder dry."
See?
John McArthur tells the story of watching a
boxing match on television when he was
a kid with his dad.
You ever watch boxing, you know, right before
the fight starts, and the announcer comes
out there, the boxers are going through their
rituals, right, they're kicking their legs,
and they're kind of stretching, and doing a
little shadow boxing, and they're watching
TV, and one of them knelt down and did the old
up and down side to side, and crossed
himself.
And John McArthur asked his dad, "Does that
help?"
And his dad said, "It does, if he can punch."
The reality is, if he can't punch, that there
ain't going to help him a bit, and that's
exactly how it is in the Christian life.
The strength is God's, the power is God's, and
does it help?
It does if we can punch, if we get out of the
tent, if we put the armor on and join
the battle.
It's a question of, on our part, availability
and appropriation.
So we know first we're in a war, we know
second the power is there, and we know third
you've
got to appropriate the power, and so Paul is
saying, "Yes, we are in a war, and know
well that our enemy is a formidable enemy.
You can't see him.
You can't touch him.
You cannot outwit him."
And it's an enemy in the unseen supernatural
realm, and it's literally maybe, maybe
millions
of demons.
We don't know exactly how many engulfed in a
system that is totally beyond our
comprehension.
There is no way that you can deal with that
system with your human intellect alone.
But hear this clearly.
God's power is available if you're trusting in
his power alone and if you put your armor
on, then and only then can you achieve victory
in the battles that I hate to tell you we're
going to face until the day we die.
It's really an incredible thought.
Creator God is our strength, but that strength
can only be appropriated in obedience.
In obedience takes action.
Now, I hope you know by now, theology is full
of nuance and making distinctions.
And so let's take a big picture view, okay?
Big picture.
All Christians are secure in God's power.
Look with me at John 10, 29.
You remember this?
Jesus is talking about his sheep and how
secure they are.
And look what he says, "My father who has
given them to me, the sheep, is greater than
all and no one is able to snatch them out of
the Father's hand."
Notice it doesn't say no man is able to snatch
them out of the Father's hand.
Some people try to make that argument.
No, it says no one.
This means if I'm a believer, I'm in the
Father's hand and no being, man or angel, has
the power
to snatch me out of his hand because he is
greater than all.
So big picture, you need to get that straight.
No power in existence can overtake us, can
snatch us, which means ultimately we win in
the end, guaranteed.
Can you get some of that down in your blood
stream for me, please?
So as far as the war is concerned, we can't
lose.
But the reality is, God has ordained many
battles for us along the way in this life.
And even though ultimately, yes, we win the
war, we can lose many battles along the way.
Why?
Because we're stubbornly not willing to do
things God's way in the battle.
We're not willing to follow Paul's instruction
here.
We're not willing to put on the armor.
Look at verse 12, "For our struggle is not
against flesh and blood."
That means our struggle is not against human
beings.
In the big picture, man is not really our
enemy.
Although man is used by the enemy, right, to
assault us in many different ways.
That's why we're not supposed to hate people
made in the image of God.
Jesus wept over sinners for one reason because
he knew they were duped.
Look at 2 Corinthians 4-4, "In whose case the
little G, God of this world, has blinded
the minds of the unbelieving, so that they
might not see the light of the gospel of the
glory of Christ, who is the image of God."
It's a double blindness.
Your own blindness of your depravity, your
total depravity, and it's also the blindness
of Satan as unbelievers walk through this
world, totally blind to the light of the
gospel.
They want nothing to do with it.
And yes I know, at the top of the list here,
it's hard, it's hard.
When we see leftist Karen's out there
protesting against the enforcement of the law
to not
get immediately angry when you see that on
television.
It's hard.
I have a rough time.
But then I have to stop and think, ultimately.
They are just pawns.
They're just being used by the unseen forces
of darkness to accomplish this chaos that
we see on our television sets.
What we really should feel toward them is pity
.
What sad, miserable lives.
I read one report where the lady you've all
seen that got shot in Minneapolis.
I can't verify this, but it seemed to be
pretty credible that the reality is one of her
children
was taken because the wife there, that was
making all the noise with the guy before she
got in the car, used to abuse and beat up her
kids and put cigarettes out on their arms.
That's the kind of people we're dealing with
here.
That makes me angry to watch that.
And guess what?
We as soldiers of the King, we hold the only
hope for them to escape the kingdom of
darkness
that they are in, the gospel.
Can God redeem them?
Yes, He can.
Jesus, if He could redeem me, He could redeem
anybody.
So as I've said before, there's a sense in
which they're not the enemy, they're the
mission field.
If you're going to hate righteously, hate the
real enemy, not the poor people being used
by Him to accomplish His evil schemes.
Now, don't get me wrong, we have to fight
against what they're used by Satan to do.
We have to fight against that.
We have to go to the library and stop what
they're doing with transgenderism.
We have to be involved in politics and culture
in the community.
No doubt about that.
But ultimately, you just read it.
Ultimately, it's not flesh and blood humans
that our struggle is against.
Look next in verse 12, you'll find out who it
is, but against the rulers, against the
powers, against the world forces of this
darkness, against the spiritual forces of
wickedness
in heavenly places.
None of those phrases is describing a flesh
and blood human being, not one of them.
Because it's the contrast of what was just
said, we don't fight against human beings,
flesh and blood.
But against, you see that.
All of those phrases right there are
describing the demonic realm, every one of
them.
This reality is why Paul is so strongly
emphasizing here in Ephesians that we cannot
do this on
our own.
Our enemy is not human.
It's ultimately not a human battle.
We as human beings are fighting against a
supernatural superhuman force, and it's not
just one of
them.
It's beyond our ability to know exactly how
many, but it's a whole, a number so vast,
they are able to terrorize every corner of
this globe all the time.
Look at verse 12 again, notice the word
against.
It comes right before each of these phrases
describing demons, fallen angels, look,
against
the rulers, against the powers, against the
world forces of this darkness, against the
spiritual forces of wickedness.
This is so fascinating.
These are actually categories of different
kinds of fallen angels.
Now, you should know by now, our God is a God
of order, not a God of chaos, and when
God created angels, he had them organized to
be in different categories.
It appears best we can tell that they were all
created at one time.
They don't procreate with one another, and
they were all created at some point in
eternity
past, and we'll let the smart guys argue about
all that nuance when the angels came to be
and all that.
But just like people are different, angels are
different.
There are all different kinds of angels.
For example, we read about archangels, right,
in Scripture, and we read about cherubim,
and we read about seraphim.
We even know some names, Michael, Gabriel
earlier in Ephesians chapter one, verse 21,
where it's describing God's power over all the
heavenly beings that exist.
Look what it says, "Far above all rule and
authority and power and dominion."
All those words right there are describing
categorical differences between angels.
They all have different functions and
different capacities, and the point at that
versus God
is over them all.
Let me give you an example.
I don't have time to go all through it, but go
home and read for yourself tonight Daniel
chapters nine and ten.
You will find there that there is an angel on
his way to assist Daniel, and a fallen
angel confronts him and holds him up from
being able to get to Daniel to assist Daniel,
and Michael, the archangel, has to be disp
atched to handle this demon, which he does,
which
makes clear right there in that text that one
angel has greater abilities in dealing
with this fallen angel than this other holy
angel does.
So this other holy angel couldn't handle him,
so Michael had to come down.
So there you have that in the book of Jude,
you find Michael disputing and arguing with
Satan about the body of Moses, and that's all
you get, in no detail what was that
conversation
about?
How'd that work out?
Well, we know Satan didn't get to use Moses'
body, we know that.
I think Scripture would have let us know about
that.
And also, this makes clear that holy angels
and fallen angels battle with one another.
In the unseen realm, it's pure wildness to me,
when you get these little glimpses in
Scripture and you don't get any more, but you
know it's there, it's there enough for
you to understand it's there, go back to Ephes
ians 6-12, and I want you to see the
distinctions between these fallen angels.
Most conservative commentators of the Bible
come down on the same type of distinctions,
and I think about this, really, I mean, we can
only understand these in general because
there's no details.
And don't forget, I mean, God gives us what He
wants us to know, and that one was pretty
clear, you don't go any further than that,
which I wholeheartedly agree with, because
then we just start making stuff up in our
brains.
But verse 12, we see rulers and powers, okay?
This seems to be at the top end of the pecking
order of these fallen angels in, like, higher
level operations.
Think of it like managerial, right, just as a
human term, but then look next at particularly
world forces of this darkness, and most
commentators would agree that this would be
demons that
have infiltrated the political structure of
this world, the world forces of this darkness.
Now let me ask you, looking at the geopolit
ical situation in our world, this one is not
too
hard for us to believe, right?
In fact, you will find in Daniel chapter 10,
the demon giving the trouble is called the
prince of Persia, like he was a demon over
that land, Persia.
And the phrase darkness, now multiple places
in the New Testament, 1st Colossians 1, Coloss
ians
113, it refers to all believers as being
rescued from the domain of darkness.
And Jesus himself refers to hell as outer
darkness.
When Jesus is arrested, he said to the Jewish
leaders in Luke, but this hour and the power
of darkness are yours, the demonic realm of
the darkness from which they come, and its
satanic power, we're working behind the scenes
through flesh and blood humans to arrest the
Lord Jesus and the Guardian.
Now back to verse 12, and the world forces of
this darkness, now the internet is full
of conspiracy theories, you have to be careful
with this, and there are many of them that
have some type of a version of a worldwide
conspiracy of a small group of people who
run the world, and it's referred to in many
different ways, the Illuminati, the Masons,
the World Economic Forum, and there's many
others, they can't all be true at the same
time.
And while, listen to me, there is no possible
way that us commoners down here on Hooper
Road could ever verify any of those conspir
acies on the internet, there's no way that you
can, I love it here, people say I did my
research, all you did was read all those
conspiracy
theories, you don't have, you didn't do no
research, you just read a bunch of stuff and
you think that's research, but it's not.
I believe one thing we can be sure of, no
matter what's going on with all of that, is
that demons are involved in high political and
governmental places shaping geo and national
politics to their own ends.
That's what we're talking about here with the
world forces of this darkness.
In Deuteronomy and Psalms it says the gods of
the nations are demons.
In 1st Corinthians Paul says the idols that
the Gentiles sacrifice to are demons, behind
those idols, behind those gods, and you know
what they do, all through history this has
been true.
The demons act out the part of the imagined
gods.
All through history they've done this.
Christy can tell you, I've watched enough
Hitler documentaries to be convinced that
he was being guided and controlled by demons.
No question in my mind, and of course there's
a long list of world leaders that we could
easily see being in the same situation, I mean
Stalin, Pol Pot, you just go down the
list.
Too interesting to me, John 1231, what does
Satan call there?
By Jesus himself, the ruler of this world.
Jesus called Satan the ruler of this world.
Yes, he's on God's leash, but ruler of this
world, prince of the power of the air.
That's a whole lot of leash, wouldn't you say?
He is running this evil world system, can't
you tell?
For now, but his time is going to come to an
intense and eternal end one day, and all
you have to do is just sit back and observe
our world, and nobody should have to twist
your arm to convince you about who's running
things right now down here in Responsibility
Land.
And he's allowing it in his all part of his
plan, but effectively he is running the world
system.
So this warfare that we're in, it is something
else.
This warfare can get down in the dirt with the
chicken blood and Haiti, all the way up
to the halls of the United Nations and every
social strata in between.
That's how clever they are.
Lastly, look in verse 12, it says, "Lastly in
verse 12, not nicely in the sermon, the
spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly
places."
John MacArthur Study Bible says, "This
possibly refers to the demons who are over the
most
as depraved abominations, wickedness,
including extreme sexual perversions, occult
ism and
Satan worship."
This is the worst of the worst.
And you go on the internet right now, and you
can find witchcraft, cultism, and outright
satanic content that will give you nightmares
for the rest of your life.
You don't even have to go to the dark web.
If you go to the dark web, it's 10,000 times
worse.
Now I'm just here to tell you, and I've been
telling you, get ready for the role that AI
is fixing to play, artificial intelligence in
our culture.
We're fixing to enter into a real paradigm
shift.
I believe we're just in the beginning stages
of what I have no doubt that the enemy is
going to use in this artificial intelligence.
I believe he's going to use it in ways that we
can't even imagine.
This enemy, again, that we can't touch, we can
't see, we can't outthink, we can't outwit
is so beyond us, so powerful, and so
supernatural, it's just mind numbingly stupid
that anybody
can fall for the charade that a preacher can
command a demon to go to the pit.
How dumb is that?
How dumb do you have to be?
Do that.
Go on the internet and see that, too.
There is an intense war being raised, is it
right now?
And again, folks, while this war is happening,
150,000 people a day are dying and stepping
out into eternity every day, and most of them
get there to that point on the broad way that
leads to destruction, which is found in the
kingdom of darkness.
Most of that 150,000 a day are dying and going
to hell.
Are you in the battle, or are you in the tent?
You can change that today if you're in that
tent.
Now, what are we supposed to do if we get out
the tent and we join the battle?
Well, think about what we've already learned.
We have to be strong in the Lord and in the
power of his might.
We have to put on the full armor of God so
that we will be able to stand firm against
the schemes of the devil.
And then look, starting in verse 13, we begin
to get into what is this armor.
He goes on 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.
This is serious.
If this armor is so necessary and this enemy
is so formidable, we better learn how to get
the armor on, right?
And when is the evil day?
Well, I told you last time the evil day is
today and every day, until Jesus returns as
the evil day.
What's going on with all these nationally
known pastors falling into sin and being dis
qualified
and doing anything but finishing well, I can
tell you what's going on, trying to be in
the ministry without their armor on?
This war has us both on offense and defense,
as I said before.
When we get to studying about the armor, look
down in verse 16, we're going to get there,
talks about the shield of faith, with which
you will be able to extinguish all the flaming
arrows of the evil one.
The enemy is always shooting, is shooting
flaming arrows of temptation and all manner
of deceptions at the Christian.
That's when we're on defense and there is no
human being who can ever get anywhere close
to being as cunning and deceptive and
intelligent as our enemy in this war.
But if you've got the armor on, when the
flaming arrows are coming, all manner of those
flaming
arrows will be extinguished, guaranteed.
That's what this book is promising.
And I'm telling you, even as a believer, if
you don't keep your armor on, you are in
danger of falling one day yourself.
Look at 2 John verse 8, watch yourselves, that
you do not lose what we have accomplished,
but that you may receive a full reward.
Imagine decades of faithful service in the
ministry and then right near the end, falling
in the deep grievous sin and just ruining your
reward and heaven.
As I said, this year marks 25 years,
incredibly, I can't even believe it, in the
ministry
for me.
I'm telling you, I want more than anything to
finish with.
I want to finish like R.C.
I want to finish like John MacArthur, I want
to finish like Ed Lacy, and Boaty, and Brother
Moeke, and David Miller.
I remember being in Brother Moeke right near
the end of his ministry, he kept preaching
about finishing well, finishing well.
You want to pray something for me?
Add to your list, pray that I finish well.
We all need to pray that for one another.
In fact, here in Ephesians 6, 10, we learn the
Lord is the strength.
Verse 11, we put the armor on because verse 12
says the enemy is so strong.
And then verses 13 to 17 go on and we're going
to see to define the armor and even when we're
trusting in God's strength.
Even when we've got the armor on, look what
Paul says next in verse 18 with all prayer
and petition.
Pray at all times in the Spirit.
That's folks, that's how dependent on God we
have to be.
He says next, look, be on the alert with all
perseverance and petition for all the saints.
We need to be praying for one another on a
regular basis while we are engaged in this
warfare.
It's critical.
We only get one shot to fight this war.
One life.
We have no idea at all when our number is
going to be called.
We go home to headquarters.
And when we are, it's over.
It's done.
And what you did and how you fought as a
soldier in the timespan that God gave you, it
's down
in the record book at that point, no changing
it.
We will all be called to account for every day
that we live through the war from the moment
of salvation to our very last breath on the
earth.
What will the record say about your time, val
iant warrior fighting and resisting and
standing firm in the strength of God, a tent d
weller, no fighting, no armor on.
And the record reflects beat down by the enemy
on a regular basis.
Now, we're going to have a whole lot more to
say about this armor that we have to have.
But I want you to think about the things that
I have said today.
You're going to get the tools coming up.
You're going to get the definition of what the
armor is and exactly how you have to put
it on and exactly what you do with it and
exactly what it means.
But it doesn't mean anything for you if you
don't get out of the tent and put it on.
Let's pray.
Father, we thank you for this day deeply,
deeply convicting passage.
I'm convicted most of all.
So easily we get distracted.
We forget about this war that's raging.
Thank you for your word.
Let's put us back on track to understanding
these monumental, massive realities that we
don't fight against flesh and blood, but the
spiritual forces of darkness and wickedness.
But in your strength and with your armor, we
can have victory in these battles.
Help us as Christians to understand how
important this is, to make application of it
in our
lives as we go back out into the war today.
We pray that everything we've done here today
and done in such a way as to bring you all
the glory.
Jesus' name we pray.
Amen.
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