Art of War | Know Your Enemy: His Nature and His Tactics - Ephesians 6:10-18 | January 25

You are listening to Teaching from Mountainside Church in Boone,

North Carolina, where we live as real people who are a part of a real family

serving a real God in the high country.

To learn more about our church, stay connected, or partner with us, visit mcboone.com.

So, again, it feels like forever ago that we started talking about spiritual

warfare, and then we had ice, and then we had snow, and then everybody's been

sick, and then the Dearborns were sick again, and again, and again.

It's hard to not, at least in your mind, wonder if there's some spiritual warfare

going on as we begin this topic.

But we are going to continue that today. And I just want to remind you of where

we were since it's been so long ago that we started off this talking about just

the simple fact that the spiritual world is real.

And as a result of the fact that creation has an enemy, we are engaged in a

spiritual war and we don't have a choice about it.

So you don't get to choose whether you fight or not. If you're not fighting, then you're losing.

We are all engaged in this spiritual battle because creation has a real enemy who is vicious,

who is relentless, and he'll stop at nothing to turn your hearts away from God,

to blind you from his goodness, and for you to doubt his and trust his care and provision.

And although the victory is secure, we talk a lot about that in church,

the victory is already won.

Jesus has won the victory and it belongs to Christ.

Battle still exists because the enemy is still here.

And so while we are not fighting to secure the victory, we are fighting from

a place of victory. We are still fighting and the enemy is still active.

So we are still engaged in this spiritual warfare every moment of our lives.

And so that's where we started in a nutshell.

And I framed it in regard to the book, The Art of War by Sun Tzu,

which is a famous book that I've heard, I think, Isaac read before.

So he's more cultured than all of us. If that's not true, then I lied. But.

It talks a lot about warfare in a way that we wouldn't normally assume.

We typically in America, we are the force to be reckoned with.

So we come at it with all of our might, right?

Superior fighting power. But it's more about the strategy behind it and winning

victories small and large as a result of being prepared.

And so we talked about knowing the battlefield last week, this week,

and next week is going to be talking about knowing the enemy and knowing ourselves.

So next week is going to be really important in this discussion as well.

But Sun Tzu said, if you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear

the result of a hundred battles.

And so even though we shouldn't be obsessed with the enemy, we got to be familiar

and know what his tactics are, what his tools are to be aware and be prepared for the battle.

But before we do that, I want to invite you all to stand up again.

As part of this series, we're going to read together out loud Ephesians 6, these few verses.

And hopefully by just point of reading it together repetitively,

again, we had two weeks off, but hopefully it gets into us a little bit.

And God recalls that to mind when we need it most. So read this together with me.

Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of His might.

Put on the whole armor of God that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil.

For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers,

against the authorities, against the cosmic towers over this present darkness,

against the spiritual forces, evil and heavenly beasts.

Awesome. Let me pray while we're still standing. God, thank you for your presence

and your victory and your strength with the spirit that you have given us to

live in us and to fight for us.

And I just pray that whatever step that we can take towards you in obedience

and whatever step we can take to you in trust and faithfulness,

whatever lies that we're believing that seem so true that we can dispel and

fight against, whatever strongholds we can break up in our lives,

whatever wounds, whatever hurt that we've experienced,

whatever leaves us vulnerable to doubt and not trust in your provision and your

goodness, to believe in lies that you are not, you don't know what is best for us,

that you don't have our good in mind and that you, there's not enough for us, God.

Whatever lies it is that we're believing that are the root of all of this,

I just pray that you would dispel them in us, that we would be able to stand

firm and stand strong as these verses suggest.

That we would be able to push back and fight back and gain ground in our own

lives and the lives of those around us.

That we as disciples of Jesus might walk in freedom that you have promised and that you provide.

We love you, Jesus. Speak to us this morning. We want to hear you and we want

to come under the authority of your word. Amen. Go ahead and be seated.

So we'll consider the temptation of the first humans in a little bit,

as well as the temptation of Christ.

But it is important for us to note, as I mentioned just before,

that we are called to be aware without being fixated, without being obsessed.

And I know that there are probably people who have written doctoral statements

and books about this devil and demonology and all that kind of stuff and more power to them.

But as followers of Christ, we must be aware of the devil and his tactics,

of what comes under his authority and how he uses it without being obsessed with it.

Because it's important to notice that in the garden, when Eve was tempted,

and when we entered into the fall of humanity, it's not just because she ignored God's call.

It's not just because she took her eyes off of God.

Every time that we sin, everything that we fall into, every turn away from God

is a turn towards something else.

And so in that moment, the other half of equation is that Eve engaged the serpent,

that she, instead of just putting her fingers in her ears and running away,

she spoke to the serpent.

Now, as I've been kind of preparing and praying and looking in all of this and

preparing to kind of speak these words to you.

As we engage in the spiritual world, more and more, we're called to worship

God in spirit and in truth.

It's a call for us to engage spiritually, to engage that part of our being.

We are spirits that are embodied. So it is a fullness of us.

As we push into it, as we recognize the reality of it, there is always the temptation

or, I guess, the effect that it becomes more real.

We are aware of the reality behind everything.

And so in that, we might experience it more.

And as I've been preparing, that has been the case as well.

And this has been weeks now, but even preparing for this, I woke up one day

and in the middle of the night, as I do sometimes, and as I do sometimes,

there is a feeling of fear.

There's a feeling of dread and not necessarily like a presence of evil,

but still this present reality of the temptation to fear and the temptation

to dread, and in that temptation also to speak out against it.

And as I've been preparing for this, kind of all of this came to mind,

and instead of speaking out against it, I remembered to turn to God and have

a conversation with God instead of having a conversation with whatever dread

or feelings that were present.

And this is the same thing that we experience here with Eve,

that she gave the enemy, as Jenny's been reading this book, a seat at the table

to have a conversation and gave him an eager ear and intention to the lies that he spreads.

Instead, we see verses like James chapter 4, which says, it says,

James 4 · chapter mention

submit yourself therefore to God, resist the devil, and he will flee from you, right?

So instead, what we see is, don't waste your time speaking to the enemy.

Have a conversation with God. This is what Psalm 23 is all about,

which is what that book is that Jenny's been reading.

Have a conversation with God, even while the enemy is present.

Turn your attention to God.

We never need to speak to the enemy directly. We can speak to God.

Nevertheless, we must know who he is. And lucky for us.

The scripture is full of information for us to be aware of who he is and who he's not.

And as we just read in Ephesians chapter 6, and we'll read the armor of God

Ephesians 6 · chapter mention

part later, but piece by piece so that we learn it a little bit more as we go.

It says that we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, right?

That before we get to those verses about how to fight and what our instruments

of battle are and what's our armor, before we get to that, we are instructed of who to fight.

And even more importantly, perhaps who not to fight.

Because many of us might at times find ourselves exhausted, but not because

the enemy is too intense or too overbearing, but perhaps because we've been

fighting against the wrong thing.

We've been picking the wrong battles. So before he tells us how to fight.

He tells us who to fight and importantly, who not to fight because the enemy is not your mom.

The enemy is not your dad. The enemy is not your husband. The enemy is not your wife.

The enemy is not your children, no matter how rebellious or difficult they may

be from day to day, how frustrating they are, which was my day yesterday.

I'm not going to complain about that.

They're not your enemy, not your pastor, not your small group leader,

not the church that hurt you in the past, not your co-worker,

not some political party that you disagree with, not the guy who cut you off in traffic.

Hopefully that didn't happen this week because that would have been pretty life-threatening.

But not your neighbor. If you can put a name to it and it has skin and it has

flesh and it has bones and blood, it's probably not your enemy.

We do not war against flesh and blood, which means that every time that we turn people into the enemy,

every time that we fight these battles that are not real, in those moments,

the real enemy is winning.

Because the truth is that our enemy doesn't have to destroy us as long as he

keeps us fighting against the wrong things.

We'll destroy ourselves along the way.

As long as we're fighting against our spouse instead of fighting for our marriage,

then the enemy is winning.

If we're fighting against our children instead of praying for their hearts,

if we're fighting against a church or constantly speaking out against the church

instead of fighting for unity.

The enemy is already winning because we're going to be destroying ourselves in that.

Every person that we are tempted to war against is a person that Jesus died for.

And so as long as we are fighting people, what we're actually doing is actively

fighting against the mission of God and opposing the mission of God.

And because flesh is not our enemy and people are our enemy,

that's why Jesus could tell us to do hard things like love people,

love your enemy, pray for those who persecute you,

bless those who curse you, because no matter how much a person becomes the instrument

for harm in our lives, ultimately there's always something behind that.

There's always something behind every act of harm that comes from a human.

And it comes from these lies, fear, pride, their own hurt, accusation,

deception, always something else going on.

And Paul reminds us here to keep our eyes on where the battle actually is We

talked about this in group this last week because we were finally able to meet

again And we just wanted to get the pulse on how everybody was doing because

this is a topic that we can Severely disagree on right?

And part of the discussion was talking about how it really seems like engaging

in conversations online should be where the battle is because that's fighting for truth.

But like, we all know that that's not helpful or good. So as long as we fight

people online, even though we think we're upholding the truth,

we're really just distracted.

So Paul reminds us to where the real enemy is.

And so as we get further in, I just want to keep these questions in your mind.

Who have you been fighting lately? What have you been fighting lately?

Who have you been blaming?

Who has become the face of your frustrations?

What are you fighting? Because if you can name it, or at least in a human way,

put a name on it, has flesh and blood, it's probably not your enemy.

And spiritual warfare in general. Now, we can talk about the fact that.

That there are really three enemies that we have and not just one.

Our enemies are Satan, the accuser. That's what Satan means.

The devil, there's lots of names for him, right?

That would be one enemy. Another enemy is the world in the sense of the culture

that their values and system is opposed to God.

So the culture at whole, which is not people in general, but the belief system behind the culture.

That's another enemy. And the third enemy would be our own flesh.

And we're going to get a lot more into our own flesh next week,

really on this whole idea of if you want to remove the speck out of somebody

else's eye, you got to get the log out of your own eye, right?

We got to be able to walk in freedom to help other people walk in freedom.

And I love, I was reading in Romans this week, and Paul writes in Romans as well.

This incredible verse that I see in my members another law waging war against

the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members.

So there is this real truth battle going on in our flesh.

But Satan is able to use all of this to his advantage as well to turn the ties

and get us to not trust in God, to doubt him.

So these three enemies, even though we're kind of focusing on Satan and his

minions, are all working together. They're all reinforcing one another.

They're all pulling us away from God.

And as we get into Satan himself, the Bible calls him the croucher,

that he observes, he sets traps, he waits, he uses lies, he makes us doubt God

and his promises over us.

He watches, he studies, and he sets the trap.

And as we get into this further, again, not obsessing over it,

before we look at the tools specifically, I want to camp on just to be clear

before we get into who Satan is, who he's not.

Because we don't want to give authority to him that doesn't belong to him.

Satan is not omniscient, as

Miss Sandy reminds the kids almost every week what omniscience is for God.

God alone knows the depths of the heart of man.

And scripture confirms this over and over again that all knowing power is God's alone.

In 1 Samuel 16, we read that man looks on the outward appearance,

but the Lord looks on the heart.

In 1 Chronicles 28, it's written that the Lord searches every heart and understands every desire.

This is a unique attribute for God alone that when King Solomon prayed at the

dedication of the temple, he declared, for you alone know the hearts of men.

And that's in 1 Kings and all throughout the New Testament. Acts 15,

over and over again, it's clear and confirmed that God alone understands and

knows the depths of the human heart, that God knows our thought.

Satan is a created being, and in that, in that, he falls under the same hierarchy

and authority that all other created beings fall under, and he does not have

any additional power beyond that.

He is not conscient, he is not all knowing, even though his observational skills

in his, I don't know, centuries, millennium, I don't know, of study makes him

a pretty good student of humans.

And it might seem like he knows our thoughts.

Satan is not all knowing. And so this does raise within us a question as we

engage with scripture, as we engage with this topic of, can Satan actually put

thoughts into our minds.

And it's unfortunately not an easy question to answer, because it does seem

that way sometimes, I would say. I'll put it that way. It seems that way.

In the Bible, it says that Satan put it in the mind of Judas to betray Jesus.

But that also doesn't preclude that Judas was already not a disciple at that

point. He had already determined this is not my Messiah.

So did Judas' own desires succumb to the whispers of Satan?

How did it actually happen? But unfortunately, the thing that baffles us is

the Bible isn't always clear on how things happen.

We see that David is incited to number the people of Israel as Satan seemingly

whispers and puts it into his heart.

We see this in different places, and it seems to be confusing.

We see even in 2 Corinthians, Paul saying, I'm afraid that as the serpent deceived

Eve by his cunning, your thoughts will be led astray from a sincere and pure devotion to Christ.

So we don't know exactly how it is.

I think it's safe to say that our own sinfulness and our own desires play a role in this.

I think it's safe to say that as spiritual beings who are embodied and experience

the physical world way more presently than the spiritual world.

There is some spiritual interaction that we are not aware of.

I will say that as we walk in freedom more and more, and as we release our wounds

and our bondages and the strongholds that exist in our life,

and as we fight with truth and experience freedom,

it will become more apparent that these disordered thoughts and whispers seem

more external than they seem to.

But a lot of times they seem internal, as if they're originating from our own

minds, because through years of patterns of thoughts that we give into, and years of struggle,

and years of believing the lies, there's some interaction that happens that

we're unaware of that seems like it's more from within. So I will say that.

But Satan is not omniscient. He's not all-knowing. He doesn't know what you're

thinking. He is very aware of who we are as people.

And we'll leverage every opportunity to whisper in our ears,

whether it's him or a different force.

But with that, he's also not omnipotent. He's not all-powerful.

With that, he's also not omnipresent everywhere all at once.

He is a limited being.

And even though he has been granted some authority on this earth,

as Sandy mentioned in that activity, called the God of this world in some ways.

Not that he is a God, but that he has been given authority in some small way

over this world and for a very limited expiration.

There's an expiration date on that as well.

So he's not any of these things, but who Satan is, is a deceiver,

a tempter, and an accuser.

And there's verses that I could

give you for that, or we'll get into some specifics in just a second.

He is a strategist who thinks about God's kingdom or the kingdom of God way

more than we do, much to our detriment.

And when we think about.

I can't help but think of the reason this topic is so divisive at times is because

I don't think there's any of us who don't have within our minds some version

of a Hollywood idea of what spiritual warfare is,

of what exorcisms are or any of that, or when demons show up.

We all have been tainted by these visual images across the years of what to

expect with heads spinning.

I don't know. I don't watch that stuff because I'll have nightmares for the

rest of my life. We all have been tainted with some idea of a Hollywood version of this.

And while there is certainly an idea of deliverance, there's certainly an idea of legal grounds.

This is as much of a legal argument with Satan as it is anything else.

We are purchased, we are bought.

There is a legal aspect to the fact that we belong to God and we belong to Jesus.

So as much as there exists that, and as much as it exists the idea of breaking

up strongholds and this kind of idea of fighting back, and perhaps even the

casting out of demons, which happens a lot in the New Testament,

and we're like, yeah, that doesn't happen anymore.

Some of us might think that. certainly that still is a thing.

As much as we don't want to believe it is, spiritual warfare in general is dealing

with these three things.

It's not all of that drama. It's not all of the craziness that we expect it to be.

It's essentially dealing with these three things, the tools that Satan has.

It's dealing with temptations, it's dealing with deception, and it's dealing with accusation.

And Satan's goal is to disrupt our trust in God and lead us down a path of disobedience

that separates us from our creator.

And in our lives today, he's continuing to use these three tactics because they work.

So these are the things that we must be aware of at the very least.

And so deception in John chapter 8, it talks about how Satan is the father of lies, right?

John 8 · chapter mention

And when he speaks, he speaks out of his character.

So his character is that of lying. So he can't help but to lie.

And it is perhaps his main foundational tool within us. It's an attempt to deceive

us into believing something that is not true.

From the very beginning, Satan deceived Eve by helping her to believe that God's

word, for her to believe in that lie that God's word wasn't true.

That we read earlier, that he told her that you will not surely die in direct

opposition to God's word.

But Satan doesn't have to be that.

It doesn't have to end up in direct rebellion. All he has to do is twist, right?

Twist a truth into something that seems true.

And that's all he has to do. It doesn't have to be right rebellion.

But strongholds in our lives are built through deception.

They're formed when deception takes place in a human's mind, on a person's mind.

And when we start to believe more and more that truth or that untruth, I should say, that lie,

when it becomes solidified in our mind, and then we bought into that lie that

God doesn't love me, that God doesn't know what's best for me,

that God can't provide that there's not enough.

These are kind of the foundational lies that everything eventually goes back to.

Again, he starts with the truth and twists it until it becomes actually quite reasonable.

And that's when temptation comes in. Temptation follows deception.

So first the enemy tells us that, or helps us believe in the deception.

He tells Eve, you will not surely die.

He twists the truth and deceives us.

And then after that, then the fruit on the tree begins to look pretty appetizing.

It looks pretty good to us. And so.

Spiritual fruit. Once the lie is believed, sin looks pretty reasonable.

So that's when the temptation comes in. When we are enticed and we are encouraged

to sin in one way or another.

In James chapter one, it talks about how each person is tempted by their own desires.

So we all have these disordered desires within us that lead us astray,

that Satan uses, that are already have a proclivity away from truth.

So once we believe the lie, the sin is justifiable, the temptation comes.

And so as we look at this idea with James, when we're enticed and led astray,

there is in that verse, this idea of fishing.

Many of us have probably been fishing before that you throw out the hook,

but the hook has a worm on it.

So it looks appetizing for a fish. Maybe not for us.

It's being dragged along. We used to go crabbing at the beach.

If you've ever been crabbing with like a chicken bone, that's not a hook.

It's not going to catch them. But what you do is you throw it out, right?

And they grab onto it and they start eating it. And then you pull it slowly.

And before they can realize that they're caught, they're in a net.

So there is this idea in that verse as well, that we all have our own desires

that are prone to wander from God as we sing in songs.

And Satan exploits that by dragging us along with it and making it seem reasonable.

We believe in the lie and sin becomes reasonable. And then as a result of that

accusation, so the devil, one of the things he's known as is the accuser of the brethren.

And so what Satan does, after he gets us to believe the lie,

after he strings us along with temptation, that sin becomes reasonable.

And then after we commit the sin, then he brings it up over and over again.

He reminds us of it, of the past that has been forgiven, of our past that has

been dealt with, of whatever embarrassing or gross or whatever thing that it

is that exists in our past,

he rubs it in our face time and time again, that God can't really love you after

that, that you can't really be forgiven.

So he replays forgiven sin over and over again.

He uses shame to paralyze our obedience, and he tells you that defeat is your

destiny, that you've already lost. How could you possibly come back from this?

And all of this temptation, deception, temptation, accusation,

all of it serves to drive you away from God.

We see this as well with the temptation of Jesus. And this is where we're going

to just round it out by seeing that Satan's tactic with Eve is the same thing

that shows up in Matthew chapter 4 and Luke chapter 4.

Matthew 4 · chapter mention Luke 4 · chapter mention

He's still using the same tricks and we can extrapolate that to today,

it's still the stuff he does today for us because it works.

And because so many of us choose to be.

Blissfully ignorant. He doesn't even have to hide it that much in our world today.

We see the very same thing when Jesus is led away by the Spirit into the wilderness

to be tempted by the devil.

This is Luke chapter 4. It shows up in Matthew chapter 4 as well.

Luke 4 · chapter mention Matthew 4 · chapter mention

This is an intentional moment.

So when Satan approaches Eve in the garden, it is an intentional moment.

It is a purposeful time that he engages in that.

And so when he shows up with Jesus, it is an intentional time,

not just because Jesus has been fasting for 40 days, not just because he's hungry,

he's weak, but for other reasons as well.

It is an intentional time at the onset of his public ministry where Satan shows up.

So it's a different setting, same strategy.

Satan always begins with the lies. And in Genesis chapter 3,

Genesis 3 · chapter mention

he starts with questioning God's word. Did God really say?

And in Luke chapter 4, he does the same thing, but perhaps more subtly.

Luke 4 · chapter mention

He twists God's word. He misuses it. He pulls it out of context.

He quotes scripture. It makes it seem reasonable.

Maybe we'll talk about this next week, but the very

fact that Satan can use your Bible reading to twist your thoughts so that you

get stuck on something and it becomes all that you think about or perhaps an

accusation in there that you read and it reminds you of your past and he uses your Bible reading,

he uses scripture to accuse you and to tempt you.

Side note, but crazy. During the wilderness temptation conversation with Jesus.

Each question he asks hides this inferred mistrust, this inferred lie about God.

God, he can't take care of you. Throw yourself down. God can't take care of

you. Turn this rocks into bread.

He can't take care of you. God won't show up when you need him.

God is withholding good things from you. So each one of these accusations in

the wilderness comes with this twist of truth or this flat-out lie that God doesn't care for you.

He instills doubt, that God's goodness is real, that God's promise is applied

to you, that God might be holding out.

And the lie underneath it all, that God can't be trusted.

So he shows up, twists the truth, and he tries to implant that lie.

And every question you ask Jesus, and once that lie is thrown out there,

then the temptation follow.

So with Adam and Eve, you'll be like God. You can control your own destiny.

Decide for yourself what is good.

With Jesus, turn these stones into bread. Cast yourself down.

I'll give you the kingdom of the world.

Each temptation pointing in the same direction. Independence from God.

You don't have to go through God's plan.

You can circumvent that. If you just bow to me, I'll give you the kingdom in

the world. I'll give you all these people.

Independence from the Father, shortcuts without obedience, self-rule instead

of trusting in God and submission.

He makes temptation look harmless. And in our modern day, he uses all sorts

of things, busyness, technology, entertainment, lots of things that seem neutral

just to distract us away from the truth.

He makes us think that he's on our side he makes us think that God is restrictive

he whispers that God's holding back our blessing and at its core each temptation

holds that lie or perhaps that

thing we all want to believe that we should have some sort of control over our

life and we all we all want something like that and so he uses that that you

should be king of your life to breathe that into that temptation.

You can't trust God. You should be king of your life.

And after the temptations come the accusations. So this is a detail that perhaps we overlook.

When Jesus is tempted in the wilderness, what happened just before that?

He was baptized, right? So what happened at Jesus' baptism?

Heaven's opened, the Spirit descended, and then there's an audible voice.

And what does the audible voice say?

What does Satan say in the temptation in the desert? What is almost the first thing he says?

If you are the son of God. So God says, this is my son with whom I'm well pleased.

Right after that, Satan says, if you are the son of God, are you sure?

Because if you do this, then you would really know.

Part of me thinks, like many of us have been at conferences before, right?

Satan's probably not going to show up at the conference while you're singing

and praising. He might, but he's probably going to show up a week later and

go like, that's not the real you.

Life's not really like that. You're not like those people, right?

Whether it's at the conference or not, depending on whatever you're going through

in life, he's going to show up at the opportune time.

He's an incredible student of our lives and he knows exactly when to show up for each of us.

It might be different, but he targets identity and worth and value.

He instills that question. If you are the son of God, you're not the son,

implying you're not the son of God.

Here's that accusation. If God really loved you, this wouldn't be happening.

If God cared for you, you wouldn't be struggling. If you were really faithful

like you thought you were, this would be easier.

Whatever truth and identity God is speaking to you, better to believe that he's

going to show up and start getting you to question that in that moment.

He still uses these same tactics.

And the war is not about drama, and it's not about demons even.

What it's about is what you believe, who you trust, and how you respond.

So as much as we're talking about the enemy, as much as we're talking about

Satan and demons, as much as I don't want to say those words because it feels weird to me.

That's not what the battle is really about. It's about what you believe,

who you trust, and how you respond.

And there's a detail at the end of Jesus's temptation.

It's in Luke 4, it's not in Matthew 4, but it says at the very end,

right, that Satan left him for an opportune time.

Satan's not omniscient, he's not omnipotent, he's not omnipresent,

but you better believe that,

the spiritual forces that are work against creation, against God's mission,

you better believe that they'll know when to show up and when you're going to be most vulnerable.

They watch for those opportune times, those moments of vulnerability,

when you're tired, when you're hurting, when you're lonely, when you're isolated,

when you're discouraged, when you're emotionally worn down,

when you've just experienced success, when you're growing in your faith,

they're going to show up to remind you of all the things you've done in the past.

Moments when clarity is low, when your defenses are down, moments when lies

sound reasonable, moments when shortcuts feel justified.

All I really want to say is don't underestimate the enemy.

We don't have to think about Satan and demons 24-7.

We really need to be aware though.

How he, the things that he uses to attack us.

And we need to be aware of those things so that we can fight back.

With truth encounters, power encounters, the fact that, just the very fact that,

there is an enemy who thinks more about the kingdom of God than we do,

who has been studying and observing and has a proven method of trying to turn us away from God.

So our goal is just to recognize him when he's at work, not to go hunting for him.

To know that he hasn't forgotten. To know this truth that we just talked about

to drive it home in 1 Peter 5. This is a verse that probably all of us have heard before.

And it's probably one of the ones that if somebody's going to talk about Satan,

they're going to bring this verse up, right?

That Satan roams around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour.

He's observing, he's watching, he's crouching, and he shows up.

At the most opportune time for us to turn and not believe.

He wants us to believe that we're stuck, that your situation is hopeless,

that defeat is your destiny, even though that's not the truth.

Because the truth is, what we need to remember even more is God is stronger than the world.

God is stronger than the flesh. God is stronger than the devil.

And so while battles exist, we don't fight afraid.

We don't fight confused. We don't fight to win the victory.

We fight clothed in Christ, standing in what he has already won.

Next week we're going to talk about knowing ourselves because being aware of

how this, the tools that Satan uses is one thing, but if we are not aware of who we are,

then we will not be aware of when he's trying to use those tools against us.

So knowing our, our points of vulnerability, knowing our wounds,

knowing all those places that the enemy can attack.

So I think we've mostly moved on from the weird.

The weird part of spiritual warfare and we're going to be kind of moving more into the,

the part that gives me at least less anxiety but it's equally important to know

who we are as it is to know who the enemy is and then as Sun Tzu said because

then you don't have to fear,

thousand battles because you'll be prepared you'll be ready and we'll be fighting

in the strength and spirit of the God who's already won.

So go ahead and stand with me.

Lord, we thank you for who you are. We want to celebrate who you are.

We want to sing to you. We want to pray to you. We want to turn to you.

We want to fight in your power and strength that your spirit provides,

Lord, as it says time and time in the Old Testament, what that really looks

like often is that you are the God who fights for us, that you are the God of angel armies.

I was reminded and I was talking to Canaan the other night that there's that

part in the Old Testament, and I'd have to look it up to get all the details,

but a prophet prays for the eyes of the people to be open so that they can see

that there are more fighting with them than against them.

And that's the truth for us as well. It says in 1 John that he who is in us

is greater than he who is in the world.

You have no rival. You have no equal.

And as we fight, we fight from that place and that position as your chosen and

beloved sons and daughters.

I thank you, Lord, for all that you are, and in it we rejoice.