All right, thank you, music ministry.
I see the fly is back that was troubling Roger
Dell last Sunday.
He's still here.
He won't go away.
All right, let's turn.
I think I just heard myself.
Did y'all hear that?
That was an echo.
Maybe the fly is getting to me.
And let's begin by just reading this text for
today, starting in verse number 10.
Finally, that should tell you something.
Be strong in the Lord and in the strength of
his might.
Put on the full armor of God so that you will
be able to stand firm against the schemes
of the devil.
Our struggle is not against flesh and blood,
but against the rulers, against the powers,
against the world forces of this darkness,
against the spiritual forces of wickedness
in the heavenly places.
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.
Now, we won't get to everything in this text
today, but we're going to get the ball rolling
here.
I want you to just think about this.
It's been a minute since we've been in Ephes
ians, the absolute majesty of this epistle.
I want to remind you of the fact that Paul in
this one epistle has revealed to the church
for all of church history some of the most
profound truths of the Christian faith since
verse 1.
Think about some of the things we've learned.
I won't go over every jot and tittle, but just
some major themes.
Some of the fantastic realities we've learned
about what it means to be in Christ.
We spent some time studying what that phrase
means to be in union with Christ as believers.
We also learned what it means to be adopted by
grace.
What a great doctrine that is into God's
family.
At the very start of Ephesians, we learned
that tremendous truth that we have been
blessed
with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly
places in Christ just as He chose us in Him
before the foundation of the world that we
would be holy and blameless before Him.
We have learned how we have been taken out of
the kingdom of darkness that we're going
to learn about today and we've been
transferred into the kingdom of Christ.
We have learned not only how we are
individually in union with Christ, but we're
also in union
with every other believer.
Every one of us is in union with one another
because we have the same indwelling Holy
Spirit
in us all.
We have learned how when we come to saving
faith in Christ, the entire constitution of
our nature changes, our attitudes change.
We begin to think different.
We begin to feel different.
We begin to talk different.
We act different.
We're not perfect.
None of us are in this life, but we begin to
be in a process that makes everything in
our life totally different than what it was
before Christ in that process, as you know
we call sanctification.
All of that is just a brief, very brief
summary of what we learned in just the first
three
chapters.
And then remember, Ephesians is split in half.
We learn all that in chapters one, two, and
three.
And then Paul switches in chapters four, five,
and six.
And after learning all about Christ and our
position in Christ as believers, then Paul
takes a turn and he starts to talk to us about
what the Christian life looks like when it's
lived out in obedience to what I like to call
the gold standard of God's Word.
Remember?
Remember how chapter four, verse one starts
out, look at it again.
We get that therefore, therefore I, the
prisoner of the Lord, implore, remember that's
beg.
He's begging you to walk out in a manner
worthy of the calling, worthy of the calling
with
which you have been called.
And then what happens after that?
If you can think back, he goes on to unpack
what the worthy walk looks like in the
successive
verses after this.
And certainly don't have time to go back over
all that, but we'll be here tomorrow.
But except to say this, if right now you're
confused or you're not sure about what is
God's will for my life right now?
That's probably, I remember R.C. Sproul saying
that's the number one question that he always
got from people at conferences and after
church.
What's God's will for my life?
Well, in one dimension, I can tell you this,
just go back and read chapters four, five,
and six up to this point where we are today,
and you will absolutely get a very clear
understanding
of the very least of how God wants you to live
.
You'll get a very clear understanding of what
the Christian life looks like when it's being
lived out according to the will of God.
And remember, not in perfection, but in the
direction, right, of your life.
Now, before we go on to Paul's, what we're
getting in here today is the last great thrust
of instruction that the apostle Paul is going
to give us.
And before we get to that, I want you to think
of all that I have just said to you in that
summary, and I want you to apply it this way.
As believers, we all have all the power, all
the resources, and written down for us in
a book, all the principles necessary for us to
live the Christian life in such a way that
it brings glory to God.
We have all of that at our disposal.
And of course, as you know, that's the purpose
of breathing right now for Christians to live
in such a way that you bring glory to God with
how you live.
And starting here in chapter 6 verse 10, Paul
is making clear after saying all that that
he said in this letter, he's really saying, "
Look, there's just one more thing you need
to know before I close this letter out in
spite of all the resources and the power and
the
principles that we have written down in this
book that we can read every day that are ours.
Living as a Christian in this fallen world is
not going to be easy."
That's how Paul wants to end this letter.
He's basically saying to us, "Do not dare take
anything for granted."
Just because you know how to operate on the
job doesn't mean you'll automatically pull
it off, right?
You ever work with somebody like that?
Just because you've learned from the Word of
God and you know here how you're supposed
to conduct yourself and your family as a
Christian, that doesn't automatically mean you
're going
to fulfill it, does it?
Because even though you have the principles
and even though the principles and the power
are there, there's something else there, and
that is a very formidable enemy, the very
real adversary who hates us.
And since at the end of the day, this
adversary can't have us.
He seeks to wreak as much havoc as he can
while he still does have access to us before
we go to our heavenly home and terrorize, tear
up.
And so when it comes to defining the Christian
life, the very best term that we can use if
we are serious about our faith is warfare.
In fact, if you don't view the Christian life
that way, I'm here to tell you you're not
living it right.
You're coasting.
And if you're coasting, he's really tearing
you up and you don't even realize it.
But this is exactly how Paul presents the
Christian life in this last passage of Ephes
ians,
warfare.
In fact, at the end of his life, he wrote to
Timothy in 2 Timothy 4, verse 7.
Look at it there.
What did he say?
"I have fought the good fight."
That's an element of warfare.
In 2 Timothy 2, verse 3, one of my favorite
verses in the New Testament, he said, "Suffer
hardship with me as what?
A good soldier of Christ Jesus, repeatedly in
Scripture."
What's implied that the Christian life is seen
, thought of as warfare.
Just consider Jesus himself at the very start
of his ministry.
He finds himself in a very intense conflict
with Satan himself after 40 days of fasting.
Right?
You remember the story.
And if you think that the warfare gets easier
the longer you live, wrong you are, is what
I say to you.
Consider the scene at the very end of Jesus'
life and ministry in the Garden of Gethsemane.
Now even though Scripture does not record
Satan saying anything at all at the Garden
of Gethsemane, you can smell him there.
Through what Jesus was going through as he was
meditating on what was about to happen
to him at Calvary.
My point is this, Jesus had tremendous
conflict at the beginning of his ministry in
the wilderness
and the temptation, but he didn't sweat as it
were great drops of blood until the end
of his ministry in the Garden.
And the same here is true for us.
The longer that we live the Christian life,
the more spiritually mature we become, the
more sensitive to sin we become, the more the
war intensifies.
So it doesn't get easier, it's harder.
We're aware of more and if you're striving to
live the Christian life the way that God
intends you to, this is no different for me
than it is for you.
We're on level playing field.
Just because I happen to have a role and a
service of pastor, we're going through this
exactly the same way together.
Warfare is absolutely the best way to describe
what we are going through as we live out our
lives in this fallen world, but for all of the
difficulties and all of the battles that
we face in this war.
You want to hear something crazy?
This is some non-worldly thinking right here
in the very big picture view as a Christian.
You should want to be in the heat of the
conflict while you're here on this earth.
You should want to be every single day.
Why do I say that?
Why do I say you should want to be because
this is what God has ordained for us in his
process of conforming us to the image of
Christ?
It's what he's ordained for us.
And that reality gives us what no earthly
warrior ever has.
You know what no earthly warrior ever has?
Guaranteed victory.
We have guaranteed victory in the end, indis
putably we win.
Consider what Paul says about staying in this
city of Ephesus just a little while longer
in 1 Corinthians 16 and verse 9.
He says a wide door for effective service has
opened to me.
Now I could preach a whole sermon right there
on tracking the winds of providence and what
you're going to do with your life.
A wide door opened up and he's ready to go,
but look what he says next.
And there are many adversaries.
Paul is saying there are many adversaries at
this new wide door for effective service,
so guess what I'm doing?
I'm staying put.
I'm staying where the war is the hottest on
purpose.
Too many Christians here in the Lando plenty
say, oh, man, this is getting to be too much
for me.
I got to get out of this.
I want an easy ministry.
I want it easy as you can get.
That comes from listening to too much popular,
topical type preaching in our day.
In large measure, Americanized Christianity is
soft, weak.
It's always looking for ease, rest, relaxation
, easy life, no trouble, no confrontation,
plenty
of rest, R&R, plenty of prosperity.
Let me tell you something that don't even
spell like Christianity.
If that's what you're looking for, it ain't
the Christian faith.
You're not finding that in the Bible.
The genuine Christian life is warfare.
That's what I'm trying to get across to you.
And besides fighting our own flesh, which that
's a whole another topic for another day,
right?
I've got that to the side for right now.
We have an enemy who is literally hell bent on
destroying every divine purpose that God
has for us every second of every day.
So I'm telling you, yes, we are sons, yes, we
are servants, yes, do loss, but also we
are soldiers too.
Paul says this in St. Corinthians 10, 3-4, "
For though we walk in the flesh," and you
got to be nuanced when you're not talking
about walking in the flesh as far as sin,
he's just talking about being human, "we do
not war according to the flesh," the weapons
by warfare, not of the flesh, but divinely
powerful for the destruction of fortresses.
So our warfare is not just physical, it
certainly can have a physical element to it.
Our battle against the flesh can come through
the use of the enemy using human beings, just
like with Jesus.
I mean, think about it, right?
He was beaten, spit on, crucified by men,
right?
But most certainly those men were influenced
from within a realm that we can't even see
that is occupied by our adversary, the devil.
Consider the apostles beheaded, beaten, stoned
, crucified, martyred for their faith in Christ
.
How about many places in Africa and the Middle
East, many Christians are being slaughtered
for their faith right in front of their
families right now, today.
It's terrible what's going on in Nigeria and
other places.
Do you really think there are only men
involved in that great wickedness that we see
going
on?
If you do think that, you better pay close
attention to every single solitary word in
this text that we're fixing to study.
Because behind the hatred for Christ and the
physical persecution that we see from people
in our world, there really is, there really is
an entire unseen by us domain filled with
spiritual beings, fallen angels who are at war
every minute of every day with every believer
that's living and breathing on the earth right
now.
And they simply use the physical world and the
people in it as a means to their hands.
Now, before we go any further, this is a good
spot for my devil disclaimer.
How many of you have never heard my devil
disclaimer?
Raise your hand.
Okay, we got enough for the devil disclaimer.
Here's the problem we have in the church, in
conservative churches and mainly the Forum
churches, we put these guys over here.
Yeah, I mean, you know, we're biblical and we
acknowledge, yeah, there is a devil.
There's no question.
I mean, you can't get around it.
You can't get around it.
The devil's all over the Bible, right?
He makes us a little uncomfortable to talk
about because one of these guys, man, it's
wild.
It's supernatural.
But the main reason why we kind of just kind
of shy away from talking about it is because
these folks over here in charismatic land,
over here in charismatic land, it's devil
here, devil there, devil there, devil
everywhere, right?
The devil of this and the devil of that, the
devil made me do it and the devil of parking
space and devil stopped my parking space.
I had somebody else texting with me and I've
been sick and I say, "I think it's the devil."
Somebody texts me that the other day and I say
, "Well, I might just need to go to the
drugstore and get you some sinus pills or
something that might help you."
So over here, we get a little bit like, "Ooh,
I don't want to be like these people over
here who are so extreme."
And then really what they wind up doing is
really blaming the devil for everything and
not their own sin is what really winds up
happening.
This is where we need to be right here in the
middle.
Think, use your brain that God gave you, okay?
Yeah, we don't want to be nuts, but yeah, we
don't want to, at the same time, deny.
It's a real devil.
There's real demons.
They really do wreak havoc in our lives.
They really do.
So we want to think about this biblically.
We want to come to scripture like this text
and unpack this scripture so we can understand
how to deal with this massive warfare that we
're in because you're in the war whether
you want to be or not if you're a believer.
And as we dive into this, with all those
things considered that I just said, I'm going
to
give you five points to get us through 10 to
13 and we might be in 10 to 13 again next
time.
I don't know.
Number one, the preparation.
Number two, the armor.
Number three, the enemy.
Number four, the battle.
Number five, the victory.
Okay, so those are the points we're going to
work our way through in this text.
And we're going to start first with the
preparation because you most certainly do not
want the
battle to start and you find yourself unpre
pared, right?
Look at how Paul starts off in verse 10 with
this word, finally, he says that because as
I told you earlier, this is the last of the
major themes here in this epistle and he says
next in verse 10, "Be strong in the Lord and
in the strength of his might."
Now there is a general principle here that we
all live our Christian lives totally dependent
on the strength of God, amen?
This is a way of life for us.
We depend totally and completely on God's
strength.
Notice here that two times he uses the word in
, I in, in the Lord and in the strength
of his might.
And that is a prominent reality in the whole
book of Ephesians, remember?
We are in Christ.
We are one with him.
There is a sense in which his life is our life
.
His power is our power.
His truth is our truth.
We talked about all of that when we studied
that.
So it is in Christ that we are strong and
guess what, only in Christ, never in our own
strength alone because our enemy, I hate to
tell you, is much, much stronger than us in
our own strength.
Now, he is in no way at all anywhere close to
the strength of King Jesus.
Get that straight, these fools that talk about
Jesus and Satan are fighting on some kind
of equal playing field, they are out of their
mind, they are not reading the Bible right.
And you know for yourself and myself, greater
is he that is in us than he who is in the
world.
Right?
That is Christ.
So, infinitely greater is Christ that the
reality is the smallest amount of divine power
can
completely overcome the greatest amount of
power coming from anything that our adversary
and all of hell together could ever unleash.
So understand that, there is no equal playing
field between God and the devil here, okay?
The strength is ours, the strength in the Lord
and we have the greatest resource that
exists in this warfare anywhere, it is in us.
Remember in Colossians what Paul said, Christ
in you, the hope of glory, right?
Now Hebrews 2.14 says this, "Therefore, since
the children share in flesh in blood as us,
he himself, that's Jesus, likewise also part
ook of the same flesh in blood, that through
death
he might render powerless him who had the
power of death that is the devil."
Now, I'm going to tell you straight away, I am
not satisfied that I have fully understood
the depth of what that means, that Satan had
the power of death and all of that.
I mean that's an area of theology, I'll be
honest with you, I'm still studying that,
I'm still trying to grasp the depth of that.
But this is what I can tell you, what I do
understand about this verse is really the
best part of it, at the cross, Jesus delivered
a death blow to Satan.
Look what it says, "He rendered him powerless,
him who had the power of death that is the
devil."
Well, my question is, in what sense, how does
that really work out?
I still haven't got a complete explanation
that I'm satisfied with, but in one sense
for sure, this means for believers only, Satan
can lay no claim on us.
Satan can't ever have us, there is no charge
that Satan can ever bring to God about us
ever.
Because he's the great accuser of the brethren
, this is what R.C. Sproul writes, his note
on this verse in his study Bible.
He says this, "Having tempted humanity to sin,
the devil acts as an accuser, demanding
that a just punishment be exacted, and the
wages of sin is death."
In other words, the devil is up there saying,
"Hey, there are sinners, you said wages of
sin is death, kill them eternally, death,"
then Sproul writes, "the devil's power to
kill is destroyed only when our sin has been
punished in Christ's death, then his
accusations
have no ground."
And that helps me get at this deal a little
bit better.
So as Romans 8, 33 says, "Who will bring a
charge against God's elect?
God is the one who justifies."
So let me tell you, that's what this means.
If you have come to repentance and faith on
Christ's terms and God has done something
that is the most important thing that can ever
be done for a human being, God has declared
you just, right?
And he has not only declared you just, he has
forgiven all of your sins past, present,
and future, and he's not only forgiven all of
your sins, he's taken the righteousness
of Christ that he acquired while he was here
living a perfect life, and he's imputed it
to you, and he's put it on your account.
And all of your sins, every one of them were
imputed to Christ when you believed and
punished
in Christ on your behalf as your substitute on
the tree.
So guess what?
That means that Satan has no grounds at all to
lay any charge against any believer ever.
You understand that?
In the biggest picture, he has nothing to
accuse us of, because Jesus has paid for
everything
we've ever done that he could accuse us of,
and that is in the sense so far that I
understand
the reality that Jesus defeated Satan at the
cross.
This is what John McArthur writes, "If God has
declared me just, and if God has won
the battle, and if God has gotten me victory
in Jesus, then that victory is mine, and Satan
has no power to withstand the resurrection
resource that dwells in the life of every
believer."
Are you tracking with that?
You see?
Now, the point is this.
We are in a war in this life.
God allows Satan to come against us in this
war.
Go, Regio.
It's a perfect example.
But he's on God's leash.
He can only go as far as God lets him go no
further.
Well, God lets him rope out to sanctify us,
right?
Folks, what I want to get you, before we get
to, oh, Diablos, before we get to him, what
I'm trying to get you to see here, leading up
to explaining that, is in the ultimate
sense we cannot lose.
You get that?
There's no reason for you to be afraid of the
devil, none.
Paul says that Timothy God has not given us a
spirit of fear, but of power and of love
and of a sound mind.
So we can read these Bibles and we can
understand all this that we're dealing with.
There's no Christian at no time in his life
who ever needs to feel that he loses the war
to the enemy.
We know that we are going to win the war
because Christ has already achieved the
victory.
Now, can you keep all that tracking straight
in your mind?
But there are battles along the way.
If we're going to have some success in these
battles, there are some things that we are
going to have to know and put into practice in
our lives.
Number one, we have to have our strength in
the Lord, as we just read.
And number two, you've got to have your armor
on.
Now, we hear a lot today about the Christian
ministries that are in the business of
delivering
people from demons.
Go on YouTube and you'll see them there having
, it's just the most cheesiest fake lunacy that
you'll ever want to see.
And the people are screaming in the man, comes
over there and puts his hand on it.
It's pretty interesting to me that these
demons primarily only manifest themselves and
possess
people in the church services of these types
of ministries.
I mean, you never see this happening in a Re
formed Baptist Church anywhere.
You never see this happening in an Armenian
Southern Baptist Church or any other churches.
They just only seem to show up and shriek and
froth at the mouth where the preacher is there
to do that job.
It seems they should put a red flag up for you
when you're watching these videos.
And in addition to that, there is not one word
about Christian exorcism, Protestant
or Catholic, found anywhere in the scripture,
not one word.
Whenever Satan or his fallen angels are dealt
with, they are dealt with in terms of two
things.
One, in the strength of the Lord, and two, in
the provision that God has made for every
believer in Christ and the resources that are
clearly laid out in the scripture for us.
So we don't need man-made rituals.
We don't need man-made exorcisms.
We don't need Bob Larson ridiculously command
ing demons to go to the pit as if you could do
something like that, as if you could command a
spiritual being that's been here for centuries
since the Garden of Eden to do anything, which
is insane to me that people believe that.
But anyway, the resources that God has
provided are available for every single
believer in
this war.
In Ephesians 1.19, it talks about what kind of
power is at our disposal.
Look at it.
And what is the surpassing greatness of his
power toward us who believe?
Well, here they are.
These are in accordance with the working of
the strength of his might.
What more power could you possibly want?
And what kind of power are we talking about?
Well, it's the kind of power to raise Christ
from the dead, kind of power that set Christ
at the Father's right hand in the heavenlies,
far above all principality and power and might
and dominion in every name that is named, not
only in this age, but in the age to come,
that kind of power.
What kind of power we have?
The kind of power to conquer death at the
cross, the kind of power to conquer death
in the grave, the kind of power that exalted
Christ to the right hand and set every single
angel, demon in the universe under his feet,
that's the power that we have.
That's the power toward us, Ephesians 1.19 is
talking about.
So every believer has the resource within us
that enables us to deal with whatever Satan
throws at us, but on certain conditions, one,
that our strength is in the Lord, not
ourselves.
Number two, that we fulfill the conditions of
armor that we're going to talk about.
That's the provision that God has made in this
war for all of us.
So number one point, preparation means in
general, okay, this is the bedrock, recognize
that in the Lord only, the power is available.
That's what I'm trying to get across to you
before we get a look at the fierceness of
our enemy.
There is absolutely no believer who cannot
deal with Satan and his fallen angels in
terms of the power that is available to every
believer in Christ.
You just have to know and understand and
appropriate it.
And that's what we're going to try to get to
in this study at the last part of Ephesians.
Look at what 1 Corinthians 10-12 says, "There
fore let him who thinks he stands take heed
that
he does not fall."
You know when you're the most vulnerable, when
you think you're not.
When you think you've achieved theological
mastery, when you think that you can handle
Satan on your own, I got all the necessary
equipment, I got all the doctrine of data,
I know what to do, when you think that you can
handle these fallen angels who have been
here since the dawn of creation and they exist
in a realm that you can't even see with your
eyeballs.
Let me tell you, you're doomed before you even
get started.
But on the other hand, when you depend
completely on God, there's nothing that
adversary can
do that can cause you to lose the victory.
Look at 1 Corinthians 10-13, "No temptation
has overtaken you but such as is common to
man and God is faithful, who will not allow
you to be tempted beyond what you are able
but with the temptation will provide the way
of escape also so that you will be able to
endure it."
And the point is, there will never be a time
in this warfare that we're talking about when
you need to lose.
There will never be a time when you cannot
overcome with Christ in you if you depend
and follow his instructions and that's a big
if.
If you depend on him and follow his
instructions, that if is on us.
You understand that?
We have to submit to God's way of dealing with
this issue, or guess what, we'll be sifted
like wheat, like Jesus told Peter.
Remember Paul talking about his thorn in 2
Corinthians 12-7?
Remember what he called it, a messenger of
Satan.
There's a demonic involvement God allowed and
remember he prayed three times for it
to be taken away.
You remember the response in verse 9, "And he
has said to me, 'My grace is sufficient
for you, for power is perfected in weakness.'"
And then at the end of verse 10, Paul says, "
For when I am weak, then I am strong."
He got it, right?
We can't hand on this on our own, I promise
you, but when we would depend on the King
completely in him, we can.
Let me give you an example.
If you were a soldier up on the wall and you
're guarding a fort and you're the guard on the
wall and all of a sudden coming through the
woods, you see the enemy forces approaching
the fort.
Just you, by yourself, guarding on the wall,
do you take your gun and run down there and
confront the enemy?
No, not if you got any sense.
What do you do?
You report to the commander.
That's what you do, the commanding officer.
That's what we need to learn about this war
that we're in right here.
When the enemy attacks us, don't go straight
at him to the fight, immediately report to
the commanding officer.
David said to the Philistines, "The battle is
the Lord's."
Ephesians 6-10 is telling us we can be strong
in the Lord and in the strength of His might.
We can be the Holy Spirit.
I just read it last week, "I sproke through
the prophet to Jehoshaphat in second chron
icles."
He said, "For the battle is not yours, but God
's."
Get that.
Learn this.
This is the proper preparation.
This is what we're building on top of and that
leads us next to the second way we have
to deal with the enemy.
Look at verse 11.
It starts out, "Put on the full armor of God."
Stop right there.
Even with the proper preparation, we also have
to have the armor on in this war.
Oh, we're not going to have any victory.
And the dependence upon God's power and the
obedience to put on the available armor, both
of those things are absolutely necessary or we
're going to get beat down on the regular,
I promise you.
And we're going to get into detail about what
this armor is all about and some sermons
to come.
But right here, verse 11, look next at that
phrase, "Put on."
In the original, the full meaning is to put on
once for all.
It's not like in your football uniform, you
put it on only on game day.
We are to put this armor on and leave it on
for the rest of our lives.
That's what to put on is.
This is intentional Christian living as we're
going to see.
And any time you lay that armor down, you are
completely vulnerable because at that
point you're on your own and you can't do
anything on your own and neither can I.
So the message here is this, "Depend on the
Lord, put the armor on and leave it on."
That's the message, being doctrinally sound,
having a grasp of biblical theology.
There's very good and very necessary things
for us to have.
But without having the armor on, having all
your theological facts straight alone, that
ain't going to do nothing to help you when he
comes at you.
The armor goes beyond the facts in your head
to the response of living right.
That's what we're going to see in this text.
John MacArthur again says, "If you want to win
in the Christian life, get the armor
on, get your life right because it's going to
be a battle to the day you die."
If you're truly a Christian, it's going to be
a battle no matter what.
You're going to get smoked every day or you're
going to put the armor on.
That's the question.
This brings us to thirdly, the enemy.
Look next.
So that you will be able to stand firm against
the schemes of the devil.
We always need to be standing firm because
guess what?
The enemy is always attacking.
We don't need to go find the enemy.
He's always scheming against us.
There are not many bigger idiots in the world
than the demon hunters.
We're going hunt the demons.
Those people are idiots.
They don't know their Bible.
We are never told in the Bible to attack the
devil ever.
You know what we're told?
Resist him and he'll flee.
We're told, stand firm, hold our ground and
yes, he is absolutely real and no, he's not
a little red man with horns and a pitchfork.
No.
You can read about his fall in Isaiah 14, Ezek
iel 28 talks about him, originally the
top anointed angel.
You know the story.
He got the eye disease.
I will ascend up.
I will be like the most high and Lucifer, the
highest of angels fell and one third of
all the angels that God ever created fell with
him and they all became the demonic enemy.
Now, as I said earlier, do you have a problem
here in the 21st century believing he exists?
Well, let me tell you something.
Jesus believed he exists.
Jesus talked about him multiple times in the
gospels.
Jesus talked to him in Matthew 4.
The apostles believed he's real.
Paul talks about him.
Peter talks about him.
He tempted even Genesis 3.
He tempted Jesus in Matthew 4.
He hindered God's servant in 1 Thessalonians 2
.
He's an angel of light in 2 Corinthians 11.
He fights with the archangel Michael in the
book of Jude.
He has the whole world lying in his lap in 1
John 5.
He's been here since the very start of human
history.
He has personal titles.
Ezekiel 28 calls him the Anointed Cherub.
John 16, the ruler of the world.
Ephesians 2, the prince of the power of the
air.
2 Corinthians 4, the God little G of this
world, Luke 11, the ruler of demons.
Fifty-two times he is called Satan, which
means adversary.
Thirty-five times he's called devil, Diablos,
which means slanderer.
He's called the old serpent.
He's called the great dragon, the roaring lion
, the evil one, the spirit now working
in the sons of disobedience.
He is also described by Jesus as a murderer
and a liar and the father of lies.
He works in our world with doctrines of devils
and seducing spirits.
He is a formidable enemy and you cannot say
that you believe that the Bible is God's
Word and at the same time say you do not
believe he exists.
You can't say both of those things at the same
time and be honest.
He is in charge of a fast host of fallen
angels, demons who have been here as long as
he has.
They are wily, they are clever, they are
highly intelligent, they are subtle and
cunning and
incredibly deceptive.
They are invisible, they are supernatural.
And listen, important point, when we refer to
our enemy or our adversary, it's really
shorthand for referring to all of them because
Lucifer is not omnipresent.
He can only be in one pace at one time and I'm
pretty sure right at this moment he's
dealing personally with bigger fish to fry
than any of us over here on Hooper Road.
But all the rest of them, okay, all the rest
of them are way more than we can handle in
our own power and strength.
So when we say enemy, adversary, understand,
we are really referring to the whole, even
when we say Satan, we are really referring to
the whole demonic realm.
And how do they operate?
Well, they operate, look at Ephesians 6, 11.
Here's how they operate.
On the basis of, look at that phrase, the
schemes of the devil.
And they have many screams.
They work in and through people, politics, all
of the realm of media, social media.
They are eating young people alive on the
internet, eating them alive.
There's a whole show, I don't command you to
watch, I've got a lot of cussing in it,
but it's about this 764 group.
I can't even begin to tell you the terrible
things that they are extorting young people
to do and those making young people kill
themselves, making young people, it is
horrible.
If you've got young grandchildren, nieces and
nephews, get them off of social media.
I'm talking about all of it, Instagram, TikTok
, get them off.
There are predators out there that are
unbelievably doing the most wicked things.
If you want me to give you the show and send
it to you, if you can stand it, you can't
hardly even listen to what they're doing, get
them off of that.
They're working through Hollywood, they work
through the music industry, their schemes,
are most wickedly, deceptively demonstrated in
false doctrine and false religion.
They have deceived mankind throughout history
with many different false religious systems.
They are incredibly, again, intelligent,
creative, and sophisticated in doing this.
They can go from totem poles to the Vatican
and everything in between and just deceive
everybody that falls into their trap.
And guess what?
They know us better than we know ourselves.
You know why?
Think about it.
They have been observing and studying human
nature since the very beginning of human
history.
Oh, they know us.
Let me tell you, from the lowest IQ person in
the world to the most brilliant IQ person
that this world has to offer and all the
spectrum in between in every single situation,
they
know exactly how to work on and to tempt and
to deceive everybody.
You want a good example of that?
Go read C.S. Lewis' screw-tape letters.
I commend it to you highly.
They have people all over the world in pulpits
professing to be Christians, but denying
the inerrancy of Scripture, denying the deity
of Christ, denying salvation by grace through
faith alone, and at the same time promoting
abortion on demand, homosexual marriage, and
transgender rights all the while with the
rainbow stole claiming to be Christian.
In the mainline denominations of America,
something I thought I'd never see in my
lifetime.
But here it is.
Here we are.
It's demons behind all of that.
You have to understand that.
Satan and his minions infiltrate churches to
split them up.
We can tell a story about that, but the church
was, I was there before it is.
And many other ones, they are always at work
in Christians' mind to create doubt about
your salvation.
Look at what you did.
Look at how you acted.
They tempt us at all levels using the allure
ments of this fallen, evil world system.
And they use men to persecute the church.
Look at how verse 12 starts out.
"For our struggle is not against flesh and
blood, humans, but against the rulers, against
the powers, against the world forces of this
darkness, against the spiritual forces of
wickedness in the heavenly places."
And we're going to see when we go more
thoroughly through that.
All of that right there is describing demons.
So if you're going to say you believe the
Bible and you can't get around it, our real
enemy is not flesh and blood, but the demons
who use flesh and blood, men, to accomplish
their evil warfare against us.
It's just wild to consider the reality that we
live in.
There's a totally invisible unseen realm of a
demon empire all around us.
And there's a very real enemy that's invisible
that we wrestle against.
It's just so wild.
Let me tell you something, they know their B
ibles.
They have their theological ducks in the road
far better than any of us.
Do you know what else they know?
They know their end.
They know that there is an eternal lake of
fire prepared for them that will be their
reality forever.
And therefore, they hate our guts more than
you can possibly imagine, because they know
our end too, and they are filled with evil
hatred.
They know they can't have us.
They know that we win in the end.
So while they do have whatever access God
allows to have to us, because they're filled
with this evil hatred, they never stop being
at war with us until the King returns.
But guess what?
The minute he comes back, war's over.
War's over.
They lose.
So instead of the beginning, if you're really
going to live the Christian life as God int
ends
it to be lived, it's not going to be easy.
This year marks 25 years of serving in the
ministry for me, and I could tell you
countless
stories of the very many, many ways that the
enemy has tried to take me out of the ministry
and take every single one of my pastor friends
out of the ministry.
And you know most of my pastor friends, and
here we stand, group.
We got battle stories that we don't share with
people, we don't want to burden you.
But I went to look about, I used to hear a big
number, huge number, that 17,000 pastors
leave the ministry every year because it just
gets to be too much.
Well, part of that is just a constant
relentless attack on pastors.
He doesn't want me up here doing this.
He does not want me up here doing this,
especially expository preaching.
But the best, and I even checked with Grock,
who's pretty, some things he's right on, but
I double checked him, on average about 3,000
evangelical pastors quit the ministry every
year.
About 150 pastors every month, every year quit
, give up, and just can't handle it anymore.
And only, only by the grace of God am I
fortunate enough to still be hanging in here
after 25
years with a group of men who will be quick to
tell you that that's the only way that
they do too, the only way.
And believe me, we don't take anything for
granted at all.
Every day, folks, all of us, all of us, have
to remind ourselves who is our strength and
that we have to keep the armor on, and for
today, we're going to end on a victory note.
How about that?
You want to do that?
We can.
In verse 13, we've gone from the preparation
to the armor, to the enemy, to the battle,
to the victory.
Verse 13, "Therefore, take up the full armor
of God so that you will be able to resist
in the evil day, and having done everything,
stand firm."
That's what we're called to do.
We got all the power.
We got all the resources that we need to be
able to resist him.
He flees and stand firm.
If the armor is on and the confidence is in
the Lord, there's victory.
Guaranteed.
When is the evil day that this verse is
talking about?
Every day.
It's every day until Jesus comes back.
So report to the commander when the fiery d
arts come.
Victories yours, resist the devil.
He'll flee.
Now, we're going to, we're going to proclaim
and we're going to celebrate the greatest
reality right now that gives us the victory,
that is the Gospel, the person and work of
Jesus Christ proclaimed in the bread and the
cup.
So as we always do, turn over to 1 Corinthians
chapter 11.
And I want you to, I don't want to repeat
myself, although I do that quite often.
The older I get, the more I find myself
repeating myself.
But I think that goes with the, with the
territory.
But remember what I said at the beginning
about worthiness.
Okay.
I want to read this for the sake of gravitas,
weightiness was what we're fixing to do.
This is a magnet.
This is one of the most magnificent things you
'll ever do in your life is celebrate the
Lord's Supper.
And Paul writes therefore, and you remember
now the context, the Corinthians were acting
like fools in the supper and he had to step in
, Paul did and correct the situation.
So the very context here is that, but it's, it
's a, it's a broader context for us when
we consider how serious we are to take the
supper, therefore, whoever eats the bread
or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy
manner shall be guilty of the body and the
blood of the Lord, but a man must examine
himself and in so doing, he is to eat of the
bread and drink of the cup for he who eats and
drinks, eats and drinks judgment to himself
if he does not judge the body rightly.
For this reason, many among you are weak and
sick and a number sleep, died, they died.
He took, the Lord took them out.
They were Christians and he disciplined them.
They were good and so stupid with what they
were doing, he took them out and I serious.
That tells me this is serious now at the same
time that you understand the seriousness.
You're a believer at the same exact time that
you understand the weightiness.
You should be brimming with joy.
You should be overwhelmed by the fact that
because of salvation, you have all these
resources
at your disposal to fight against the sure
attacks of the devil.
You have Christ in you the hope of glory.
You've got the principles written down for how
to do it.
You know what's going on.
People who are not Christians don't even know
what's going on.
I only did not believe it, they're not even
aware, they don't even think about it at any
time but we have all of these great gospel
benefits and privileges.
So at the same time that you recognize the
weightiness here with great joy, bubbling
over with thanksgiving, thank you Lord that
you saved me.
Thank you Lord that you plucked me as a brand
from the fire, I didn't deserve it at all.
I deserved to go into the fire of hell is what
I deserved and you plucked me out by
your grace and for your glory for reasons
known only to you.
I don't want to worry about you and me of all
people, I have no idea.
I won't know that hopefully until I get to
heaven, I'll know it.
You don't know it now and I'm sure you can say
the same about yourself.
So with great joy we come to celebrate
together as a church this great ordinance,
this great
celebration that Jesus has commanded us to do.
Now as always you know this table is open, if
you have genuinely repented of your sin
and placed your faith in Jesus Christ and
proclaimed that publicly in baptism, come
on down and receive the supper and we do it
together, we pray in a way that brings God's
glory.
Before we do that let's bow our heads, close
our eyes, oh man just think about the
magnitude
of the things that you have heard this day.