The Armor of God

Right, You just, you can just lie.

And what we got away with it, nobody ever know.

And we just go right on with our life.

And, you know, it's, it's one of those things that's very, very

important that we always make sure that we are telling the

truth. And there's a lot of different

things that he said there are #4 about the reasons why people

lie. It's caused by fear, It's caused

by hatred, It's caused by covetousness.

And I think the number one is it's probably caused by

selfishness and pride. We're trying to save face.

So if I've got to save face, I'll say whatever I have to say

to just get through this and make myself not look as bad.

And then we get to stand there for having your loins grid about

with truth and having on the breastplate of righteousness.

And that covers the heart. It's very important part of the

soldiers armor and you know just protecting our hearts and

protecting keep thy heart with all diligence.

The Bible says in Proverbs for out of it are the issues of

life. It's an important thing to

protect. Then we said in verse #15 and

your feet shod with the preparation of, of the gospel of

peace. And not only do we spend a lot

of time talking about that when we went through this, but also I

just preached a message on that on Sunday.

But it's important that we get the message of the gospel out.

Which brings us then to verse #17 actually it should be verse

#16 but above all, taking the shield of faith wherewith ye

shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked.

So three things that he mentions about this here that will that

we'll look at. But number one, it is a shield

of faith. And obviously it says that above

all, taking the shield of faith. But the important thing here is

that it's a shield and, and faith is that shield.

So there's a few things about that.

Number one, the devil attacks our faith with darts of

unbelief. And you would think, you know

that. OK, I, I, I know I'm saved.

I know I'm on my way to heaven. But there's, you know, maybe

you're one of these people as well, but there's a lot of

people that question that the devil is going to constantly

throw that unbelief back at you. Am I really saved?

Do I really know if did I really know what I was doing when I

accepted Christ as my Savior? The thing is, you go back, you

get it settled and it's settled. If you did what God said you

need to do, then let the devil throw those darts at you all the

time. It's that's why it's the shield

of faith. I have to believe that if I did

what God said I need to do in order to be saved, then He's

going to uphold his end of the bargain, right?

It doesn't rely on me. It doesn't.

It doesn't rely on me feeling saved or not saved, doesn't rely

on me being close to the Lord or not close to the Lord for my

salvation. If I did what God says I need to

do and I came to Him in repentance and faith, then He

saved me and He's going to take me to heaven.

And that's why when the devil throws those darts of unbelief

at us, we can stand against those things with the shield of

what? Faith.

I just have to have faith to believe that God's going to do

what he said he's going to do. So the diets, that the darts are

fiery, meaning they're cruel, hurtful, strong, persistent.

The devil attacks the believers faith in God.

He attacks God's character, as he did with Eve.

He wants to convince the believer that God doesn't love

him, that God will cast him away, that God won't forgive

him, that God won't answer his prayers, that God isn't

faithful, that God's promises aren't true, that it's not

possible, please God and live the Christian life.

That God is unreasonable, that he's a bully, that God just

wants to give us trouble. All right, all of those things

and, and, and maybe you haven't dealt with all of them that but

but chances are you've had at least one of them come along.

God doesn't really want to answer my prayers.

God doesn't really care about me.

He doesn't really see me right. I mean, those are those are

fiery darts of unbelief. John Bunyan in his

autobiography, he was the author of the Pilgrims progress.

He described his terrible battle with the devil's darts of

unbelief when he was a young Christian.

See, the devil also attacks God's word, just as he did with

Eve in the Garden of Eden. And I remember Pastor Andy

Almanza sharing his testimony. And I mean, I grew up with him.

I didn't know that he was dealing with this, but he

happened to read an article, I think in Time magazine.

That was, it was really a, it was an article about evolution.

And basically what it was, was, was extolling the, the virtues

of evolution and calling into question whether or not God

really created everything. Is it really possible for God to

have created everything? And basically saying it's much

more likely that evolution is true.

Well, here's a, here's a kid that grew up in church that that

was one of the good kids and always was.

And, you know, always seemed like he had really good

Christian character. Nobody ever would have thought

that Pastor Andy. I mean, he wasn't a pastor then,

but that Andy Almanza would be doubting whether or not God even

created the world, you know? But he said he read that article

and it really shook him. And he said for a long time, for

probably a year, he struggled with that is, is, is there

anything to this whole Christianity thing?

Or is this just all something that's designed to get us all,

you know, going in the same direction or get us all

believing something And, you know, and it's not really

anything to it. And he and he struggled with it

for so long. And he finally came down to, and

he said, all right, God, you've got to show yourself to me,

reveal yourself to me. If you're real, reveal yourself

through your word. And he started reading the

Bible. And the next thing you know, he

was very convinced that what he had, what he had been reading in

God's word all along, what he had been taught all along was

actually the truth. And that this was just basically

a fiery dart of unbelief that was thrown at him.

But you know, a lot of times what happens is just, it's just

a little tiny seed that's planted from something that you

read or something that you see or something that that you hear.

And that little seed starts to grow and grow and grow and grow

and grow. And then something happens in

your life that really makes you question, does God really even

care about me? Is this even real?

Right. But again, that's why that's why

the Bible says study to show thyself approved unto God, a

Workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the

word of truth. You need to know what you

believe and why you believe it, because what happens when the

devil comes along and he'll use people to do it too?

You end up at work and this guy is saying, oh, why is this even?

You know, how do you know that that's true or why do you

believe this or why do you do that?

And you don't know because you haven't studied God's word for

yourself. It can shake your faith, right?

It's the same exact thing that we're trying to do to other

people who are believing in things that are not in the word

of God, right? And it's just simple questions.

Hey, why do you think this is the case?

You know, people who have believed in evolution their

entire life or have always been taught that evolution is true,

it doesn't take much to shake their faith in it because they

don't even know why they believe it.

They've just, that's just what they've always been taught,

right? And the same thing is true with

somebody who is not grounded in God's Word.

If you're not studying God's Word, if you're not memorizing

God's Word, if you're not taking the time to really read it,

you're not going to be able to stand against the fiery darts of

the wicked. And that's exactly why it's

important for us to do that. You have to know what the Bible

says. You have to know what you

believe because the devil is going to come at you with these

these darts of unbelief. And it's that shield of faith

that is going to protect us from the devil's fiery darts.

The second thing, so it not only does the devil attack our faith

with darts of unbelief, but the devil attacks with fiery darts

of temptation. And again, we could, we could

spend a long time talking about this.

He gives 2 passages here, and you don't have to turn there

unless you want to. But in First Chronicles chapter

1 Chronicles 21 · chapter mention

21 and verse #1 the Bible says very plainly that Satan provoked

David to number the people of Israel.

And obviously you see what happened as a result of that.

But it was Satan that provoked David to do that, and the Bible

names him. It doesn't say that David just

woke up 1 morning and decided against God's will that he was

going to number the people. The Bible says Satan provoked

him to do that. Acts chapter 5.

Acts 5 · chapter mention

Does anybody know what Acts chapter 5 is about?

Acts 5 · chapter mention

The story that we find there at the beginning of Acts chapter 5,

Acts 5 · chapter mention

Ananias and Sapphira, That's right, right.

And, and in verse #3 Acts chapter 5 and verse #3 the Bible

Acts 5 · chapter mention

says that Satan filled Ananias, his heart to lie to the Holy

Ghost, right? Satan did that.

It was a fiery dart that Satan threw at Ananias.

And he didn't have that shield of faith up.

And it hit him and he fell. He fell to it.

And the lie, he lied to the Holy Ghost.

And you see what happened to him, It caused his death, right?

So the devil is going to attack with fiery darts of temptation.

The devil attacks with fiery darts of suspicion.

In fact, let's turn over to 2nd Corinthians chapter 2.

Second Corinthians chapter 2. But he uses suspicion and

2 Corinthians 2 · chapter mention

slander to get us to think badly toward other people, even toward

our own loving relatives and closest friends and most

esteemed church leaders. We must remember that Satan is

the accuser of the brethren. By the way, that's what the

Bible calls him, and that's why it's in quotation marks there in

Revelation chapter 12, the accuser of the brethren.

Revelation 12 · chapter mention

But it's actually a really good verse because Revelation chapter

Revelation 12 · chapter mention

12 is saying that the accuser of the brethren is cast down.

That's the, that's the whole, the whole phrase that's being

used there in Revelation chapter 12.

Revelation 12 · chapter mention

But he is the accuser of the brethren.

He's going to come to God and he's going to accuse us to God.

But the way a victory is to test suspicion with truth.

Don't believe something without evidence that it is true,

whether that thing is your own thought or something you hear or

read. We also get victory over the

devil's fiery darts of suspicion by keeping our hearts tender and

merciful toward others. Second Corinthians chapter 2 and

2 Corinthians 2 · chapter mention

verse #10 to whom you forgive anything I forgive also for if I

forgave anything, to whom I forgave it for your sakes,

forgave I it in the person of Christ, lest Satan should get an

advantage of us, for we are not ignorant of his devices.

Now we, we pulled verse 11 out a lot and we use that lest Satan

should get an advantage of it. Well, what is he talking about?

If you look at it in the context, what's he talking

about? Slandering somebody else, right,

and not forgiving other people. Satan gets an advantage in that

way. So it's it makes perfect sense

to say that the devil attacks with fiery darts of suspicion.

Faith only comes by God's word. What is Romans 10/17?

So then faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the word of God,

right? That's why the believer must

have an intimate relationship with the Bible.

Reading, studying, hearing, memorizing, meditating, all of

those things are so important. The better you know the Bible,

the better you can fight the devil's darts of unbelief.

That's how Jesus overcame the devil.

What do we find in Luke chapter 4?

Luke 4 · chapter mention

The temptation of Jesus, right. How many times?

Three times. Jesus said what it is written.

It is written well. What does that mean?

He knew the Bible. He knew what the Bible said, and

he quoted from the Old Testament.

It is written, man shall not live by bread alone.

It is written right. He said it three different

times. And so the more you know the

Bible, the easier it is in the and the better equipped you are

to stand against the fiery darts of the devil.

So not only is it a shield of faith, and it sounds redundant

to say that, but it's important to note it is a shield of faith.

You have to use that faith as a shield.

But #2 it's a powerful shield. The shield of faith can quench

all of the devil's fiery darts. Isn't that what the Bible says

in Ephesians chapter 6? Above all, taking the shield of

Ephesians 6 · chapter mention

faith, wherewith you shall be able to quench all the fiery

darts of the wicked. It's powerful because it stands

on God's infallible Word. Romans 10/17 So then faith

cometh by hearing and hearing by the word of God, right?

It's a powerful shield. But then this is a very is a

very good point. The shield must be used.

What does it say in verse 16? Above all, taking the shield of

faith, right? It must be taken.

We're not supposed to be standing still and hiding.

We're to move out into the devil's territory and do hand to

hand combat with his minions and win victories for Christ.

That's what it means when it says taking the shield of faith,

right? It gives the the idea of picking

it up and going out to battle with it, right?

And that's that's what we're doing with the shield of faith.

We're going out, we're fighting, so it has to be used.

Then we come to verse #17 the Bible says in Ephesians chapter

Ephesians 6 · chapter mention

6 and verse #17 and take the helmet of salvation, the helmet

of salvation. The helmet is is most important

because it protects the head or the mind.

Professional snipers are trained to shoot for the head because

it's the most effective point of attack, right?

You shoot somebody in the head, they're not probably going to

live very long after that, right?

You can get shot in the leg or the arm or, or a lot of other

places and still live, right, Get shot in the head, probably

not making it very, very far after that.

I mean, it's a possibility, I suppose, but it's a very, very

vulnerable place. And so the, the helmet of

salvation, the helmet is the believers know.

So salvation and the devil's fiercest attack is aimed at that

point. He wants to make us doubt our

salvation. God doesn't love you.

You're not secure in Christ. You're worthless.

God might cast you away if you're not careful.

God is tired of your sinning. The teaching that the born again

believer can lose his salvation weakens the helmet.

To put on his helmet properly, the believer must understand his

salvation. He must understand the great

price that was paid to assure that his salvation is full and

free. He must understand that his

salvation is a gift that is by God's grace.

He must understand what it means to be born again and must be

sure that he is. The better the believer

understands grace, faith, gift, justification, propitiation,

redemption, reconciliation, hope, the stronger is his

helmet. That's why we have dealt with

these things in this course and that's why I'm moving through

this pretty quickly because we have, we spent a long time

talking about eternal security, the fact that once you're saved,

you're always saved and you can know for sure that you're saved,

right? I had a conversation with

somebody just yesterday and I was, I was sharing the Gospel

with him and I said, you know a lot of people because he was, he

was coming from kind of a Catholic background.

I said, a lot of Catholics, when you ask them if they know for

sure if they're saved or not, they're going to say, well, I

hope so. Are you going to heaven?

Well, well, maybe I might, but they don't know until they get

to heaven and they stand before God and God judges them one way

or another. But the Bible very plainly says

in first John chapter 5 and verse 13 that ye may know that

1 John 5 · chapter mention

you have eternal life. So if we know, if we can know

that we have eternal life, then obviously there's a way to get

there, right? And there is a plan of

salvation. And the Bible makes it very

clear what that is. And so you do again, you do what

God says about how to be saved, and you don't ever have to doubt

whether or not you're saved. And that's why that helmet of

salvation is such a such a vital part.

If the devil can come at you and make you doubt whether or not

you're saved, make you think that while I'm not worthy enough

to to be a Christian or I'm not worthy enough to go to heaven,

then he's going to you're going to be ineffective to fight

anything that the devil is going to bring against you, right?

Because if you don't even know if you're saved, then then how

can you stand against the fiery darts when he comes at you with

this doubt or that doubt? Or how can you, you know, how

can you share the gospel with somebody else if you don't even

know for sure if you're saved yourself, right?

I mean, if, if you don't have that helmet of salvation or you

don't have that nailed down and you're not wearing that, when

you go out into battle against the devil, he's going to get you

in a lot of other ways too. So it's a very, very important

piece of the armor. And then in the second-half of

that verse, he says, and the sword of the Spirit, which is

the word of God. Turn over to Hebrews chapter 4.

Hebrews 4 · chapter mention

Maybe you know this verse, maybe you don't.

Does anybody know it off the top of their head?

Hebrews chapter 4 and verse #12 sharper than any 2 edged sword,

Hebrews 4 · chapter mention

piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit and

of the joints in Morrow and is a discerner of the thoughts and

intents of the heart, right? The word of God is quick and

powerful and sharp. That's, that's the word of God,

that's the sword of the spirit. And it's, it's, it's obviously

it's referred to that here in Ephesians chapter 6, the spirit,

Ephesians 6 · chapter mention

the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God, right?

We, we, we read that there, but then we also read it there in

Hebrews Charter 4. But the sword is an offensive

weapon, right? You're not using your sword to

defend, right? You're using the sword to

attack. That's exactly what the Bible

is. This again reminds us that we

are to move forward against the enemy, rather than merely

standing still and remaining in a defensive posture.

So the sword must be sharp. The Spirit of God gave a

perfectly sharp sword in the Masoretic Hebrew Old Testament

and the received Greek New Testament.

Now our King James Bible is translated from those two texts

the Masoretic Hebrew Old Testament the Mazzarites.

OK, and this is I don't I don't have time to get into a very

deep discussion about the word of God and our translation of

the Bible. But the Mazzarites were a group

of Jews whose responsibility it was to make sure that the, the

original transcripts, if you will, the original copies of

God's Word were preserved. And so the Masoretic Text was

the text that that everybody used to base their copies on.

OK, we didn't have, we didn't have a computer where you could

print it out, make sure it's right, and then print as many

copies of it as you wanted, right?

You didn't have a printing press until the 1400s with Johann

Gutenberg. And that's one of the first

things that they started printing was, was copies of the

Bible, right? But all the way back then, they

didn't have that. And So what you had was faithful

scribes who would, who would take the the Masoretic text and

make a copy from that. And then they would take it back

to wherever they came from. And then they would use the copy

that they had to ensure that they were giving faithful copies

of the text. And then every so often they

would take one of those copies of copies of copies and bring it

back to the matter Masoretic text and make sure that they

hadn't made mistakes that were that we're giving them a corrupt

translation of God's word, right?

So when we talk about the Masoretic Hebrew Old Testament,

it is the preserved word of God, right in Hebrew.

But we have that translation and that's what the King James Bible

Bible translators use to make their translation of God's word.

And then of course, the received New Testament.

So we must have the sharpest possible translation in our

various tongues. A weak translation of the Bible

is a sword, but it's dull and it's not as powerful and as

effective as it should be, right?

And in the English language, the sharpest sword in is the King

James Bible, which is translated from the right Hebrew and Greek

text, and which is translated literally and carefully and

beautifully. Now, I'll say this as well.

It's just as important to use a translation that is faithful to

the original text in other languages as well.

Now for us, we, I don't know if there's anybody that speaks

well, I guess there's a few that speak other languages that could

read a different copy of the Bible and know if the Bible in

that language was faithful to the King James or not.

I'll be honest with you. Like what Brother Nitin does

there in Marathi, they have the Marathi language and what he

does is he knows English, so he reads it in the Marathi language

because that's all they have as far as the Bible.

And then he interprets it or, or maybe I should say exposits it.

He gives the expository explanation of that passage

based on what he knows from the King James Bible.

And they're using the best translation that is available to

them today. There's not very many

translations, period, but they're using the best 1.

And I think that's, you know, especially, especially for some

of these languages who maybe had one person who did the best that

they could to translate the Bible, you know, God's Word into

that, that native language. And they're still, I mean,

they're still, they're still hundreds and hundreds of

languages out there that don't even have any portion of, of

God's Word. And so there are some people,

some missionaries who go to these fields and they're, and

they're burdened so much by the fact that these people don't

have God's word, that they just do the best that they can.

And they're not going back to Hebrew and Greek because they

don't know Hebrew and Greek. They're going to the King James.

They're translating it from the, from the English version into

this language. And sometimes mistakes are made

in the process. They're getting the best thing

that they have. But then when you have a group

that can actually go back and, and faithfully translate it

really from Hebrew, Greek and the King James, it gives you the

best translation. So in Spanish is a great example

of that. There's a nineteen O 9 version

of Spanish. There's a 1960 version of

Spanish. And by the way, the 1960 version

of the Spanish Bible is very similar to our NIV.

It's not a faithful translation. It's got a lot of errors in it.

The nineteen O 9 is closer to the King James Bible.

But there's a guy by the name of Umberto Gomez that just, I say

just, I think he finished his translation in 2008, but he,

it's called the RVG, the Reyna Valera Gomez think it was

finished in 2008 somewhere right around there.

But he, he translated that using the Hebrew Masoretic text, using

the received Greek text and using the King James Version of

the Bible. And there was a lot of Spanish

language speakers, I guess you could say, who were faithful to

the King James version of the Bible that actually used that

and, and collaborated with, he collaborated with a lot of

people. He had, he had a lot of

different people that were looking at these translations

with him, looking at his translation with him and, and

every suggestion that they made, he went back and he was, he was

very faithful to the text. Exactly the same way that the

King James Bible translators translated our Bible into

English. But it's a very definitive

translation. It, it, it keeps the, the beauty

of the Spanish language and it keeps the beauty of the King

James Bible at the same time. And by the way, so many people,

in fact, Dean Bergan with the, it's the Dean Bergan Society.

Dean, Dean Bergan has been dead for a long time.

But DA wait, who was a very, very staunch defender of the

King James Bible, his group Bible for today highly, highly

recommends the the RVG chick publications that you know all

the all the chick tracks that they have in Spanish.

They have been going back and redoing all of theirs and using

the, the, the RVG in their Spanish translations of the

chick track, the chick publications.

So a lot of people that really highly respect this and feel

that it's very faithful to the originals.

And I think it's just as important.

You know, I mean, obviously most of us, in fact, really none of

us speak Spanish. I don't think there's anybody in

here that really speaks Spanish other than, you know, close.

You know, I know some Spanish and I can, I can listen to a

conversation and kind of tell what's going on, but I can't

read the Spanish version of the Bible and say this is wrong.

You know, so I have to, I have to do my research and, and get

to the bottom of, you know, how to figure out the best way

possible. I want something as going to be

as faithful to the originals as possible.

And this one is a very, very good translation.

So if we ever end up doing something like that, that's what

we're going to go with. In fact, I, I bought a copy of

the RVG so that I would have it in the Spanish language if it

ever, you know, if we ever needed it for some reason, I

could share that with somebody and, and give them that.

But you know, yes, it's newer, but it's a lot more faithful to

the original Greek and Hebrew and to the King James Version of

the Bible. So it's important that we have a

Bible that is translated from the right Hebrew and Greek text.

By the way, again, I don't, I don't want to take a long time

to go back and, and talk about why the other versions of the

Bible are not faithful to the originals.

But when you go back to the, the NIV, the ESV, the NASV, and

really every other alphabet soup of translation, I mean, there's

so many of them out there now and they're coming up with new

ones every month it seems like that they're putting out.

But almost all of them, almost all of them, maybe with the

exception of like the new King James, even though that was,

that was not 100% done from the same text that the King James

Bible was translated from. It's a little bit closer to the

originals, but a lot of those other ones are translated from

the Westcott and Hort text. And you've probably heard that

before. Well, Bishop Wescott and Bishop

Hort, they were two guys who were, I mean, they lived in the

1800s and they, they came to the conclusion that the, that the

text that they were using were good translations because they

were the oldest translations. And now that even that has been

called into question by quite a few different people, whether

they were actually the oldest or not.

But oldest doesn't always mean best, right?

Something that gets used all the time breaks down quicker than

something that just sits on a shelf and never gets used.

Right. So they found these manuscripts

in an, in a monastery. In fact, they've, they've found

a bunch of them were actually found in the trash pile.

They would, they would, you know, they would go through and

clean things out and they would burn, you know, use paper to

burn the wood. I mean, back in the 1800s, they

didn't have heat, so they would use obviously they had

fireplaces and everything else. And these guys were visiting

this monastery, and they actually found these old

manuscripts in the pile that was set to be burned or thrown out.

And they started reading through them and they said, wow, this is

an older translation. This is an older version of what

we have now. So these obviously have to be a

better translation. And so they took it and they

started using it. The reason it was in the trash

is because they didn't even consider them to be faithful

enough translations or faithful enough copies of the original

translation to even keep. And now these guys take it and

they say, wow, these are older. And so they start translating

from it. But what you have to understand

about Wescott and Horde is that both of these guys were very,

very, very strong Bible critics. They had gotten their education

from Germany, which in the 1800s, late 1800s especially,

but even into the early 1900s, it was called, it was, it was

what's known as higher criticism.

And a lot of it was coming out of Germany.

But these, these educational institutions that that were

supposedly Christian education institutions were very, very

highly questioning the Bible and questioning the miracles in the

Bible and questioning whether the characters in the Bible were

even real people, you know, David.

And and that was one of them. I mean, of all people, the

question David is just a figment of your imagination.

And we don't see not a figment of your imagination, but just

say a like a like a fairy tale type figure.

We don't see anything in the, in the archaeological record that

there ever was a David that existed.

And so this is just stories that were made-up and Noah's ark.

Everybody has a story about Noah's ark in their culture.

And so these are just made-up stories.

And, and these are the guys Westcott Horton and, and

hundreds of others that were, that were all part of this at

the same time that were questioning whether or not the

Bible is even real literature or if it was or not literature, but

real, you know, real words from God or if it was just literature

that was written to be entertaining and so on, right.

So these guys find this and they're the ones that are

translating these, these, you know, these versions of the

Bible, if you will, And that's where a lot of those versions

got their start. And so you have either the

Textus Receptus, which is the received text that it's

translated from, which is what our King James Bible comes from,

or you have the Westcott and Hort text, which is what all of

these modern translations are coming from.

So you can dig into it a lot deeper.

In fact, I believe that the book that that we've been

recommending for the last couple months has has a good bit of

that information in it. And and that's one of the

reasons why I like that book so well is because it's pure words

is the name of the book. But it's why I like it so well

is because it explains a lot of those things.

You start getting into this stuff, it gets really, really

deep and and it starts getting way above your head and you have

to really be concentrating on what you're reading to try to

understand what you they're talking about and everything

else. This is written in a very easy

to understand way that will explain a lot of those things

for you and help you to understand.

This is why we use the King James Version of the Bible.

It's not just a preferred version.

It's not just we like the way it's worded better or we've had

this for a long time. So we're, we're keeping it, you

know, no, it is translated from the, the, the original

manuscripts that were faithful to what was written from the

very, very beginning. And many of them are the oldest.

Not all of them are. And so because of that, you

know, some have gone back and said, well, these are the

oldest, so they're better. Not always the case.

In fact, it's not the case. But anyway, so all that to say

that the sword must be sharp. And when you're using a version

of the Bible, can somebody get saved from a version of the

Bible other than the King James Version of the Bible?

Well, probably, right, because it still has God's word in it.

It's just not a sharp sword. And when you try to fight with a

dull sword, you're still going to do some damage, but you're

not going to you're not going to slay the enemy.

And, you know, a lot of these versions have Bible verses that

are missing. They have passages that are

completely taken out. You know, and some of it says,

well, the, you know, a lot of them have notes in there that

say, well, the, the most reliable manuscripts take this

portion of the Scripture out. You know, even if they do decide

to put it in there, but, you know, go to one of these new

versions and and look at Mark chapter 16.

Mark 16 · chapter mention

The whole second-half of that chapter is gone.

It's just not even there. All the original manuscripts

don't include this, right? I mean Romans chapter 8 where it

Romans 8 · chapter mention

talks about the Ethiopian eunuch and you know, he says see here's

water. What doth hindered me from being

baptized? Verse 37 says if thou believe

this with all thine heart, thou mayest.

And he said, I believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of

God. I'm paraphrasing.

And so they went down into the water, the two of them, and he

baptized him. That whole verse is missing.

It's gone. It's not even in those modern

versions. And there's a lot of other

verses that are missing too. First John 513, first John, what

is it, 51757? There you go.

And these that there are three that bear witness in heaven, the

Father, the Word and the Holy Ghost.

And these three are one that verse is gone.

It's missing. That's about the clearest verse

you can get for the Trinity, God the Father, God the Son, God,

the Holy Spirit. And these three are one.

You know that that you can, you can combat basically the entire

Mormon doctrine with that one verse because they don't believe

that God and Jesus and the Holy Spirit are one.

They believe that they're, they're distinct deities.

They believe that they're all deities who have made it to

godhood. One verse is enough.

If you have a sharp sword, you can stab a hole right through

the middle of that argument. The Father, the Son and the Holy

Ghost and these three are one. How do you deny that, right?

But if you don't even have it in your Bible, you're using a dull

sword. And you can't use that as as

something that's going to poke a hole in a Mormon argument,

right? So a lot of other things that we

can say about it, but #3 and this is important, then the

sword must be skillfully used. Can you imagine trying to go out

against a trained sword fighter if you don't know how to use the

sword? You'd be cut to pieces.

And again, that's, that's what happens with many, many people,

right? And then go out knocking on

doors. And I'm going to, I'm going to

tell somebody who, that what they believe is wrong and what I

believe is right from God's word.

And they start cutting you up to pieces and you have no way to

answer their argument because you don't know what God's word

says about this and that and the other thing, right?

So we must learn how to use the word of God skillfully.

Second Timothy chapter 2 and verse 15.

2 Timothy 2 · chapter mention

Study to show thyself approved unto God, a Workman that needeth

not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth,

right? Hebrews chapter 5 and verse 12

Hebrews 5 · chapter mention

through 14, same thing. But we must remember that the

sword belongs to the Holy Spirit.

It's the Spirit who enables us to interpret the Scripture.

All right. If we study the Bible in our own

ability, we will not interpret it correctly.

We must study the Bible in fellowship with the Spirit and

trust Him to lead us and He will, right?

And, and, and, and I can't remember exactly where the

passage is, but the Bible says, don't think about what you're

going to say before you get out there, right?

You go out there and you do it. You're faithful to what God?

If you study God's word and you know God's word and you have his

word memorized, I'll be honest with you.

I've had it happen 1000 times when somebody asked me a

question and initially I kind of panic a little bit because I'm

like, oh man, how do you answer this?

And you start to answer the question and God just brings one

verse after another to your mind.

It's, it's the Holy Spirit that's doing that.

But he's not going to bring it to your mind if you don't know

it, right? He's not going to bring it to

your mind if you've never studied it.

He's not going to bring it to your mind if you've never read

that passage before, right? So you have to be able to

skillfully handle God's word. And how do you do that?

Only by using it, right? Only by practicing with it.

That's how you get good with a sword.

And then I don't want to take a long time on this because we've

already spent a whole lesson. I think we think we split it

into two lessons. But praying Ephesians chapter 6,

Ephesians 6 · chapter mention

back there in verse #18 praying always with all prayer and

supplication in the Spirit, and watching thereunto with all

perseverance and supplication for All Saints.

And for me that utterance may be given unto me, that I might open

my mouth boldly to make known the mystery of the Gospel for

which I am an ambassador in bonds, that therein I may speak

boldly as I ought to speak. And again, some great verses

that that just remind us of the necessity for us to get out

there and share the message of the gospel with everybody that

we can, but praying always with all prayer and supplication.

So prayer is an important part of our spiritual armor.

It's the covering protection. So we must pray always.

That means to pray throughout the day, right?

And the Bible says in First Thessalonians, pray without

ceasing. What does that mean?

It means everything we do all the way throughout the day.

We ought to be having a constant conversation with God, right?

We ought to be in constant contact with him.

Everything that comes up, God brings somebody to your mind,

you pray for him. You, you go into a situation

where somebody's asking you a question and you're asking God

for wisdom. It's just, it's just a constant

conversation with God. And really that ought not to be

something that's hard for us to do.

It really shouldn't. And I suppose maybe if you're

not in the habit of doing it, you, you, you got to have music

playing constantly or you got to be listening to something

constantly and you know, every, every dead second is filled with

some kind of noise. Then maybe you're not going to

be in the, in the habit of doing that and you're not going to

pray often. But, and everything we do ought

to be done with prayer. We must pray in the Spirit.

That means to be under the Spirit's control, to follow his

guidance, not to not grieve him. The Bible says in John that the

Holy Spirit will tell us what to, what to pray for.

We know not what to pray for as we all, but the Spirit itself

maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be

uttered. That's the Holy Spirit, That's,

that's, that's praying in under the Holy Spirit's control,

praying for things that that that he is pleased with.

When we pray right? That's why we pray in Jesus

name. We say that often.

I and I pray all these things in Jesus name.

What is it? Why do we pray in Jesus name?

It's because I'm going to to to Jesus, I'm going to God in that

way. And all of these things, I'm

praying in the name of Jesus Christ because I believe all of

these things are things that he can take to the Father on my

behalf, right? He is a mediator.

There's 111 mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus,

right. So we pray to and, and, and

Jesus takes those things to God the Father on our behalf.

And we pray those things in Jesus name because those are

things that he can take to the father.

Well, if you're praying for things that you ought not to be

praying for or praying, you know, outside of the will of

God, those are not. That's not praying in the spirit

#3 we must pray with watching an intercession for others.

It's an important part of spiritual protection for

ourselves and for others. We must pray perseveringly

without growing faint and quitting.

That's one of the most important principles of effective prayer.

And #5 we must pray with plain requests.

Intercessory prayer is asking for specific things, right?

Well, if I pray specifically and God doesn't answer it, then I'm

going to know that God didn't answer my prayer, right?

Pray specifically, ask God for specific things, praying always

with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit and watching

thereunto with all perseverance and supplication for All Saints,

right? That's that's the distinguishing

things in prayer. What's prayer and supplication?

He's not saying pray with all prayer and prayer, right?

So there's a difference between prayer and supplication in the

Spirit watching thereunto with all perseverance and

supplication for All Saints. There's and again, I don't have

time to go into a lot of those things tonight.

We've already talked about some of those things.

But you know, it's it's it's an important part of our armor or

he wouldn't have mentioned it there right.

Praying always with all prayer and supplication in the spirit.

So the armor of God, something very, very important for us to

understand if we are going to fight against the devil, right?

And so many Christians just run out there and like Samson,

right? They just think that this is

what I've always done, so I'm going to do it again and

everything's going to be fine. And the devil just chews you up

and spits you out and you wonder what happened, right?

Because you're not, you don't have the armor of God.

Put on the whole armor of God. He says in verse #11 that you

may be able to stand against the Wiles of the devil.

So what happens when you you run out there and you've got the

feet shod with the preparation of the gospel peace, and you got

the, the breastplate of righteousness and the helmet of

salvation and, and the sword of the Spirit, and you run out

there with no sword, right? I mean, maybe you can protect

yourself from getting attacked, but you're not going to do much

on the offensive side of things, right?

Why are you even out there? If you don't have the sword of

the Spirit and using those, the word of God, then what's the

point? Or you have those other things,

but you don't have your head protected or you're not, you're

not wearing a shield or you have no breastplate of righteousness,

right? I mean, that's why the Bible

says put on the whole armor of God that you may be able to

stand against the Wiles of the devil.

Because we don't wrestle against flesh and blood.

We wrestle against principalities, against powers,

against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against

spiritual wickedness in high places.

He says it again, Wherefore take unto you the whole armor of God

that you may be able to withstand in the evil day and

having done all the stand think it's important to have the whole

armor of God said it twice in three verses, right.

Put on the whole armor of God. Hopefully that's a little bit

more, you know, a little bit of an explanation of what those

things are. But we'll move into the next

lesson next week. But we'll probably do some

questions over these next week too.

By the way, I'm going to take the you know, I didn't do the

questions off of the first part because it was only a small

section of it. But we'll do we'll do some

questions next week over all of that, and then we'll move on to

talking about the church next week.

All right, let's pray. Father, again, we thank you so

much for your goodness to us. Thank you for an opportunity we

have to discuss the the importance of the armor of God.

May you help us all to have the armor on.

May you help us all to use it in a way that's skillful.

May you help us to to know how to handle the sword of the

Spirit, which is the word of God.

And may you help us to be on the offensive against this this this

dark and wicked world. And may you help us to win

victories in the name of Jesus Christ.

Thank you again for all you do for us in Jesus name, Amen.