Spiritual Warfare - Leland Zehr

Good morning. It's good to be with you. I want to also welcome

you visitors. I don't know all of you, but we're glad you're here.

We welcome you. I also notice that some of the school teachers are

back. Mister Brad, Jaden, Shana welcome here. Trust that Jaden and

Shana. I guess you're moved in, so we welcome you here, and

I hope that you can make yourself at home here. And also I'm glad

that brother David you mentioned something I thought about. Both you and TJB and

back been working on some health struggles. It's good to have you back with

us this morning. One thing a little bit off the subject before we go

into the message. Should just take this opportunity since I'm up here to let

the Home congregation know that I was asked to teach at the Cornerstone Bible School

this coming year. So if you haven't a thought or an opinion or encouragement

or discouragement, now's your time open myself up to you on that. I

don't want to reflect too much on the service, but I would say that

it in many of the parts of the service, it went well with what

I planned to talk on this morning, and Gerald didn't know it, but

his thoughts I think tied end well. Was Sunday School first, John.

Often the gifts in different people become if we're not careful, competition source for

ill will. And in Sunday School we talked about the necessity of love and

appreciation. And maybe sometimes it feels like or is Scott said, heavenly sandpaper.

So I think that that is a good reminder for us. I'm glad

all of you aren't like me. One of me is enough in this church,

I would say, And so I'm thankful that we have diversity, of

course, in the spirit of God and in His will. So I want

to get started here this morning on my subjects that we will go back to

Ephesians chapter six, and I plan to Lord Willing, I think this will

be the last message here on Ephesians have been working through, and so the

last. Starting at verse ten of each Ephesians chapter six, I want to

read verse ten to the end of the chapter here about the armor of God

and the spiritual warfare that we are in. Finally, my brethren, be

strong in the Lord and in the power of His might. Put on the

whole armor of God that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of

the devil. For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities,

against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against

spiritual wickedness in high places. Wherefore, take unto you the whole armor of

God, that ye may be able to stand in the evil day, And

having done all to stand, stand therefore, having your loins gird about with

truth, and having on the breastplate of righteousness, and your feet shod with

the preparation of the Gospel of Peace, above all taking the shield of faith,

wherein ye shall be able to quench the fiery darts of the wicked,

And take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is

the Word of God. 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 may open my

mouth boldly to make known the mystery of the Gospel, for which I am

an ambassador in bonds, that therefore I may speak boldly as I ought to

speak, but that ye also may know of my affairs, and how Tichiacus,

a beloved brother and faithful minister in the Lord, shall make known to

you all things whom I have set and sent unto you for the same purpose,

that ye might know our affairs, and that he might comfort your hearts.

Peace be to the brethren, and love, love with faith from God

the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Grace be with you with all them

that love our Lord Jesus Christ, and sincerity. Amen. As I was

up here this morning, and I was thinking about preaching, thus I wondered

how it would be for me to preach if Jesus Christ walked in the back

door and just sat on sat on the back and just watched, watched intently

and listened to the words that I say in His name, And of course

he could descern my heart and the thoughts, my motives, and I trust

that he is. But that thought brought a little clarity to my mind,

and I trust it would to you if he if he may be sat up

here where I'm at and just watched you and could see through your heart and

your mind. We invite him to come. We welcome each other in Jesus

name. But I think it's a good reminder for us to realize that what

that means, the seriousness of it, not to be playing games. And

I want to be careful this morning. And I it's a it's a message

on spiritual warfare, and I don't even know what all that means, but

I think it means more than we understand, and I think we need the

armor of God even now in this moment. In this passage, Paul the

author is writing to the Fusian Church over two thousand years ago, and it

applies all through the ages and today and to us individually and as a church

that as long as time stands and until Jesus Christ comes again, there is

going to be a spiritual battle in the hearts and lives of every person in

the church. And so that is what I want to do this morning,

is to remind us of that, and not only that, but to remind

us also that there's protection from that if we avail ourselves. I don't know

what you thought about this morning when you got up, or you walked into

this church and you sang and you sat here. Maybe you're sleepy, maybe

you're planning the rest of the day or next week. That's how we'd drift

into that normally as human beings. I'm not condemning you if you do that,

but that I'm challenging you to bring your mind back. There is a

battle that is raging around us, and Paul says, it's not a battle

of flesh and blood. It's a battle of the principalities of darkness and the

rulers that are beyond our physical sight. It's a battle for the souls of

man. It's a battle for your soul. Every one of your souls is

being weighed in the balance and will end up somewhere. There is no neutral

ground. There is no place in this battle for peacemakers and negotiators to try

to bring this together in some way. It's been set. There's two sides.

There'll be one victory, and we choose where we fit into that.

Some of us don't like conflict and the Christian life. If you're going to

be a serious Christian, you can't work around that fact to just to bring

the sides together to battle between God and Heaven and Satan, the prince of

the power of the air, Prince of darkness. This summer, my wife

and I have been going out on the porch some mornings when it's nice weather,

and drink reading our bibles, drinking our coffee. There and out in

front of where we've sat some of the time, there's a flower garden.

It's beautiful flower garden that has I don't know all the names of it,

petunias and other tall flowers waist high, chest high, and it's just a

pretty pretty spot. And often in the early mornings, if the dew has

or the sprinklers have ran, and there's dew and water on the flowers,

and the birds come and they're all of over in that flower bed and chirping

and fluttering around. And one morning we were sitting there and I noticed that

our cat was walking across the yard towards that flower bed, and it kind

of it kind of got into that stealth mode. Of course, it was

in the grass, so it was sticking out, but it made its way

all the way across the lawn and disappeared into the flowers. The tall flowers

couldn't see it, just had seen it went in there. I didn't think

too much about it. I forgot about it, and I went on reading

thinking that. After a bit, I heard a little commotion and a rustle,

and just a few seconds of the birds scattered and the cat emerged out

of that flower bed and had a bird in its mouth. It was holding

it proudly, and it went trotting back out, and it's kitten met it

halfway out across but the driveway, and the mama cat dropped the bird down,

and the little cat just devoured that thing hungrily. And as I thought

about that scene, and since then, I've watched that cat go into the

flower bed different times, and one morning I've seen it go in there,

so I timed it and it didn't get a bird that morning, but I've

seen it leave about probably forty forty five minutes later. It had just sat

down in those flowers waiting. That is the picture as I thought about that,

A little bit like life, a little bit like us at times.

Versey Levin says, be able to stand against the wiles of the devil,

the trickery, the trap craftin us. You know, the devil isn't just

in Sodom and Gomorrah in Portland and downtown Eugene. The devil and his demons,

however that works his spirits, I believe where they can, they'll be

in flower gardens, they'll be in coffee shops, there'll be in church buildings,

places that we don't expect. A few other verses on the devil,

who want to bring out a little bit about him. First Peter five eight

and nine says, be sober, be vigilant, because your adversary, the

devil, is a roaring lion, walketh about seeking whom he may devour,

whom resists steadfast in the faith, knowing that the same afflictions are accomplished in

your brethren that are in the world. And we can think about the story

of Job and the negotiating that went on with God and Satan, as Satan

pursued Job a righteous man. And First Timothy three and Second Timothy twenty two

it talks about In first say, it talks about actually a bishop, or

the ordaining of a bishop, not to not ordain a novice. Being less

being lifted up with pride, he fall into the condemnation of the devil.

Moreover, he must have a good report of them which are without, lest

he fall into the reproach and the snare of the devil. My point mostly

there is that the devil lays snares. And Second Timothy two twenty six,

that they may recover themselves out of the snare of the devil who are taken

captive by him at his will. The devil is a master hunter. He's

a master trapper. That is his occupation. That's what he does in life.

That is what he's all about. That is the purpose he exists.

And the thing about it is you hear and you read bucks. I've heard

this recently. A person really perfects what he does, his occupation or the

sport that he plays. They talk about the ten thousand hour threshold. When

a person invests ten thousand hours, he often becomes very good at what he

does. But the devil has been doing this for many, many, many

years, thousands of years, if you go back to even the garden and

Job and the time of the New Testament. He has a huge advantage over

us in that sense. We are just one generation. We pass off,

and the next one come along, and all the boys have to learn it

again. They can try to learn from other generations. But the devil knows

so much about human beings. He knows our tendencies are traits, our reactions

are appetites, much better than we often know our own selves. You know,

to be a good hunter hunter little bit. I have more in the

past and trapped a little bit to beat. But I wouldn't count myself to

be a great hunter or a trapper, but enjoyed some of that and some

of you have two. But to be a really good hunter and a good

trapper, at least with archery where you have to get closer to them.

A huge part of a successful hunter is the ability to outsmart and to deceive

your prey. It's about deception. A lot of the time you think about

ducks. It involves camouflage and hiding and decoys and fake calls that you're trying

to bring those ducks that you have no ability to that really, if they

know you're there, you have no chance of getting But if you can trick

them with an appeal to their eye and to their ear and to the surrounding

environment, you can get those ducks to come right in within the range of

shotguns. To set a trap, cut you carefully dig a hole, you

set the trap in it, you cover it with vegetation that matches, maybe

put sent and bait. It's all about deception. If you want to be

successful, you got to be able to deceive and outsmart the prayer. And

that is something that our devil, the devil, not our devil, the

devil or foe, is a master. He's a father of lies. He's

a I guess, the inventor of deception. And he has many, many

tactics to try to lure us away from truth and from God to if he

if he cannot get us to fall with all kinds of hard things, maybe

our loved one dies, maybe we go broke, maybe our friends reject us,

financial hardships, relationship struggles, maybe in the home or in the church,

or just just a lot of ways hard things we talk about. And

when people get discouraged and sometimes they walk away from their faith because it is

just so life is so hard. That is one tactic. But if the

devil can't get us that way, he tried that on Joe, He tried

that on Jesus offered him the world. But the opposite of the hard times

is the good times. If he can't get us that way, he could

get us through peace, through prosperity, through freedom, through an abundance to

where we're just self sufficient. We don't need each other, we don't hardly

need God. We got good health, we got good strength. Everything is

just going and flowing for us. And that's what it seems like. Jesus

in the parable about the rich man in Luke twelve, maybe the point he

was making. There was a rich man that he made an abundance of increase

and his barns couldn't hold it. And he said, man, what should

I do? And he decided, all, if I tear down all my

barns and build really big ones, then I can just sit back and enjoy

the rest of my life with all my abundance. And God said, thou

fool this night, thy soul shall be required of thee You know, we

live in a land, and I'm grateful in so many ways that we're not

in so many other countries. But we do live in a land of much

peace and of much prosperity, of much ease. And the reality what that

does. The blessings come with that. But the reality of the negative side

is that it is hard to remember that we are in a spiritual warfare,

will warfare and a battle on a daily basis. I don't know if you

think about that much. When you get up in the morning, you have

your list of things to do, and you go out that you are.

You are conscious, and you are alert at what you might see, what

you might hear, what you might be asked, what you might be tempted

with, who might make you mad? Just all through the day, to

be able to see a spiritual battle behind the physical things and people and circumstances.

We know that mentally, I can tell you and we all agree,

but on a daily and an hourly basis, to really be in tune with

that is is sometimes that whole thing is pretty abstract, at least for me,

to where it seems far away and barely revelent. I had to wonder

if somehow the veil could be pulled back and we could see all that battle

raging in the d Eamon scheming and talking and targeting an individual or a church,

or a marriage or a relationship, and all that's going on behind the

scenes. What that would do to us. I think it would drive us

to our knees and to God. Now I've given a little bit about the

devil. Maybe that's a negative picture, Maybe that's scary, and it is

in a sense, it very much is. But I want to also say

that the point of the passage here is not just about how bad the devil

is and how hopeless it is. It's rather the opposite that we are not

left defenseless, we are not left without hope of this, this enemy of

ours. In fact, it's the opposite. He encourages us. You can

stand strong, you can stand firm. And I like the verses in Psalm

ninety one. Here I just want to read these few of them will skip

around He that dwelleth in the secret place of the Most High, shall abide

under the shadow shadow of the Almighty. I will say of the Lord,

he is my refuge and my fortress, my God. In him, will

I trust? Surely he shall deliver thee from the snare of the fowler and

from the noisome pestilence. He shall cover thee with his feathers, and under

his wings. Thou shalt thou trust his truth shall be thy shield, and

butler, thou shalt not be afraid for the terror by night, nor the

arrow that flieth by day. For he shall give his angels charge over thee,

to keep THEE in all thy ways. And I I like how he

says there that he should God, if you come to him, will cover

THEE with his feathers, and a feather isn't very much of a piece of

armor. We don't think of that as a defense. But the feathers of

God are are more than enough to hold off the enemy and all his tactics.

God can cover us if we're there and he wants to cover us.

We don't need to run and hide. We don't need to stay in our

closet and be afraid to go out into the world. But we are too.

As he says, here put on the whole armor of God, so

that we can stand against the onslaught of the devil. Now Here we read

and he gives us a word picture of a man with all the different pieces

of armor. And so this morning I bought a It's not a high resolution

picture, but I bought a picture I just want to have here as a

backdrop of a soldier with the armor that hopefully with the word picture in the

by I want a visible picture. It'll just out or help. And that

there is what what Paul is, that is us, not the devil.

That is us. That is what we are to go out in life looking

like spiritually. And so that's not something to be afraid of, but that's

something to strive for to put on and there, and there's there's six pieces

of armor here that I want to look at in a little bit, But

I want to point out, first of all, just a little bit.

In verse twelve, he says, we wrestle not against flesh and blood,

but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of darkness of this world,

against the spiritual wicked us in high places. What does that mean that

we wrestle not against flesh and blood? Because I kind of struggled with a

little bit of that, but I think I know that, I feel like

I know what that is saying. They're over in Ukraine right now. We

all know that there is much bloodshed going on. There is a battle raging.

And someone exposed me to a few clips of that that probably aren't a

good diet, but close up of combat underground in tunnels. These soldiers moving

through, they're full of armor. But these soldiers meet in those tunnels and

you can't see more than maybe for me to Gerald or Randall in some of

those places, and those guys are just shooting each other at point blank range.

It's just like shooting gophers, and they're just falling and it's just it's

heartbreaking. There is thousands and thousands of men over there fighting right now,

just killing each other, real men, as real as me and you,

with real families, real wives, and real children. That is a battle

of flesh and blood, that is against two enemies of flesh and blood.

In that sense, Paul is saying, that is not our battle. That's

not what I'm telling you to go out and fight against. Our enemy is

not an enemy that we can even usually see. He doesn't have flesh and

blood that we physically try to kill. But it's a spiritual warfare. It's

actually a battle with much more at stake. It's not just we might die

in this life, but it's a battle of eternal life and eternal death.

Now, having said that, I think it's good and necessary that we remember

not to over spiritualize this thing to where our flesh doesn't matter, because we

also known a lot of other places in the Bible that our flesh is very

much entwined and related to an intermingled with our battle here on earth for a

spiritual in the spiritual battle in Glacians five, we see that in other places

about the lust of our flesh. Glatians sixteen and seventeen. I'll just read

those two verses. This, I say, then, walk in the spirit,

and ye shall not fulfill the lusts of the flesh, for the flesh

lust us against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh. And these

are contrary the one to the other, so that you cannot do the things

that you would, so I think. And then in Clautian Sria talks about

putting off, putting off the old man and putting on the new so very

much our fleshly desires. It is a battle in that sense, and it's

part of the spiritual battle. Okay, so let's move on to a few,

just briefly, on some of these pieces of armor. I'm going to

take them in the order that the Bible presents him here the belt of truth.

And normally, at least today, we don't think of a belt as

a piece of armor. I don't, but in the old days, in

those times, I guess understand that the way the armor went on, the

breastplate and the shoes and the different pieces, the belt was what girded and

tied different of those pieces together so that they weren't falling loose or off.

You read that, and then they test them out, girding up the loins

of your mind, or girding up men wore skirts in those days sometimes,

and so to gird them up so they weren't tripping and being a hazard,

to be ready to fight the belt. And he talks about this being wrapped

around our waist and the small of our back. Truth is so so vital.

I talked about the whole the devil and being a good hunter is all

based on deception, the world of deceit and untruth and all of that that

is the devil's game. And so and the Bible is saying here the belt

of truth we must have, that it is so viral. We must hang

on to truth at all costs. Truth is the way that it really is.

Lies are the way that it isn't, not how we want it to

be, not what we wish it would be. We know God is truth,

Jesus is truth. We know truth and life go hand in hand.

Light and life. And John eighty four Jesus says this, ye about the

devil, and some of the followers, Ye are of your father the devil,

and the lust of your father, ye will do. He was a

murderer from the beginning, and vote not in the truth, because there was

no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his

own, for he is a liar and the father of it. So the

whole the devil has no truth in him. The Bible says, he's just

full of deceit, the devil's program. Of course, none of us want

to lie, none of us want to be bought into it. But the

truth usually isn't just a blatant lie. It's twisted, it's slanted, it's

shaded to not be a full truth. There's hundreds of shades of gray and

lies and spirituality, and so this seems like such a basic principle, but

it's actually something that I've been thinking of some even before this, of like

just definite, honest truth in every area of my life, from my motives,

for sure, what I say, but in what I think, maybe

more importantly about myself, the justifications that I kind of try to give myself,

or the shifting of my story to represent something else, to cushion it,

to make myself look a little better. There's a lot of ways that

we can kind of gradually get sucked into just a falsehood, very very minute

and little but it creeps in if we aren't really diligent about it. We

need to be, as we say, brutally honest, especially with ourselves because

our own horror. Always tell the truth, you know, honesty. One

thing about honesty, and that's why we sometimes fudge on it is because sometimes

honesty is uncomfortable in the moment, it's painful, it's embarrassing. Sometimes we

feel vulnerable. I could ask a direct question, and if I just say

that plain truth, it sounds bad, and so it's I'm tempted to shade

that or adjust the truth a little bit, just a little bit. So

untruth and fudging on the truth helps us in the short term. It relieves

the immediate pressure. Okay, we're not in trouble. We move on.

But telling the truth, even when we're uncomfortable, even when it hurts,

even when it's embarrassing, even when it makes me look foolish bad, is

the way to live the long term. It is what gives us a moral

compass. It is what gives us a foundation to stand on, because once

we start fudging at we start getting lost in the wilderness of our logic and

our memory and trying to make sure all our bases are covered. Truth is

so important. It's the devil's game to get us away from a truthful and

an open person. That is why when we have been living in sin or

sneaking around or whatever it might be, that when we quit that and we

quit hiding, and we get out of the darkness and we open our lives

up and we become transparent, and the light shines in and we repent.

But that is when we often find strength and the ability to live in victory

because we're coming to the light. And as long as we stay in that,

under that shadow of darkness, we are often bound in strongholds. The

devil cannot thrive in just pure clear light, open honest situations, because he

is revealed. He's comfortable in the darkness. So the belt of truth is

the first piece of armor. The second one is the breastplate of righteousness.

Comes across the chest, across the vitals. Our heart is here, our

lungs are here, all our internal organs that are so again, so so

important, and so this breastplate is to protect that from any of those getting

damage. We have a rib cage and natural breast armor that for the normal

bumps and bangs of life, protect that. But in a battle one you

have an enemy that's trying to actually pierce that takes more than a rib cage.

But I would think of that as the integrity of our heart. To

keep our heart. The Bible talks a lot about our heart. That's again

not what I say and how I impress you with my clothes or my words,

but just everybody else aside me before God, my heart, keeping it

pure, keeping it clean, keeping it protected from getting contaminated and damaged.

But you know that where the devil gets us often on the breastplate of righteousness

is the little things. Just a little bit of unrighteousness, just a little

bit of music, movies, whatever, the impurity, a little bit of

no not hardcore pornography, but you know, you know what I mean,

not good. We'll get technical about it, but it gets into our heart.

A little bit of ill will, a little bit of bitter and a

a little bit of evil thoughts, a little bit of jealous of jealousy and

gossip, maybe a little bit of pride. The devil is a liar,

and he's the father, he's a pride. Pride is another main attribute of

the devil. And so when we as Christians are prideful in little areas of

our life, whatever that might be, from my demeanor to my thoughts,

to thinking I'm better than other people, to the way I doll up my

hair, my pick up. Those are little things that seem even foolish to

mention sometimes, But you know your heart, and you know when you're doing

that, and I know when I'm doing that. And so when I do

stuff that is motivated by pride, I'm letting in the little things. I'm

letting in a bit of what the devil would want me to have. And

once we get start accumulating a half a dozen little things, we become vulnerable.

We become weighed down, We become an easy target, and the devil

can finish us off. The devil rarely takes us down like that cat I

described in One Swell Fell Swoop. Just take someone out like that. Rarely.

Sometimes it seems that way, But usually I think it is a breaking

down, a wearing down, a process downhill. Keep thy heart with all

diligence, for out of it are the virtue or the issues of life.

Proverbs four twenty three. OK, let's move on to the shoes of peath.

Now the shoes in that time. I don't know exactly how they were,

but they went on up the leg protected more than just like our normal

shoes, and the shoes in a way you don't think about that as armor,

but they definitely were, especially in those days. They talk to talk

about shoes that maybe had some brass or some really hard lining, and part

of the reason for that was to protect the feet from being pierced by golf

traps and sharp sticks. Today they put in like hidden minds to slow down

tanks. Back then, they would put in these sharp objects made out of

I don't know at all, that would sit in the ground, have maybe

sharp prongs sticking up, and animals, horses, camels, people that would

come marching through there and would step on these things puncture through the bottom of

the feet. You imagine how that is. You are immobile when your feet

get poked through. And so that is a one reason. It's very much

a defense. It was part of the defense and as well. But and

we know how important our feet and our legs are if especial actually if you're

in a battle, especially if you're trying to do something, it's it's what

you move forward with and move back and side shift. You're quick on your

feet, very very important to be productive in life without without feet. If

your feet or damaged or broken or wounded, really bad your life. A

turtle on its back or a fish out of water, you just you're helpless,

especially if an enemy is after you. So the shoes were very important.

But here he talks about also the primary primary thing he says here is

that the feet shod with the preparation of the Gospel of peace. And so

although it was a defensive piece of armor, it seems like he's emphasizing here

maybe a little bit more the offense of the shoes to take the gospel of

the Good meth, which is the good message, the message of jesus Man's

redemption, the good news of salvation, to take the Gospel of peace,

to go to promote peace. You know, a lot of our world is

very resistant immediately if you've tried to pass out tracks and they know it's religion

and all that, they have nothing to do with it, sometimes oftentimes.

But one thing that our world for the most part has in common most people

is we want peace. We want to enter peace, we want to peace

in our relationships. And peace is a fruit of God. It's a fruit

of the spirit. And so I think the Gospel of Peace, when people

see it, when they hear it, when they watch it, it is

appealing to them. Yes, they might not want a lot of the other

package, but there's a pull of peace, the peace of God. Sometimes

we can get on this thing of defense and offense. We can become so

defense oriented to where you know, we're guarding against thing. We don't do

that, and we don't do that, and we don't go there, and

we don't do a lot of things. We stop, we wait, we

hold our ground. But and we can create. We can, almost subconsciously,

if we're not careful, create a Christian life built out of what I

don't do. And people and churches can fall into that. We measure ourselves.

We don't do what they do and what they do and what they do,

and so then we feel good because we don't do all these bad things.

That's that's good. We need to not do bad things. But that

is not what makes it Christian only to just be a statue that doesn't do

anything. It's offense. It's to go, it's to move forward, to

take the Gospel of Peace, to live it, to offer it to others

to minister. Stop signs are good, they're safe. We need to stop

at it. But you know, no one ever got anywhere by just parking

at a stop sign, and so we need to go forward and going and

doing takes risk. There's always risk with that. To take on a project,

there's risk of failure, there's risk of criticism. But God calls us

to go to do to share. Okay, the shield of faith, the

fourth one, always carrying the shield of faith so that you can quench the

fiery darts of the enemy. And this shield, as I understand, back

then, was a shield. I don't know what the core was made out

of it. It was wrapped in the animal hide and a leather, and

the enemy would shoot fiery darts, and as understand, they were arrows like

we would know, or darts with maybe a rag or something on the end

of them where they could light them on fire and they could shoot them at

the enemy into the city or whatever, and this flaming dart would land and

hopefully catch fire and cause all kinds of problems and the enemy's side, and

so they would take these shields. As I'm told, I wasn't there,

and they would soak these leather shields and water, so that if these fiery

darts were coming, they could hold them up. Their shields wouldn't catch on

fire. They'd hit this wet shield, and the fire the dart would go

out. And so the shield of faith. As we think about that,

the Bible is comparing the shield of faith these shields quenching the fiery darts as

the shield and the Christian life and the fiery darts. We could name all

kinds of things that come in and try to come into our life. And

there's darts of doubt. There's darts of fear, doubt that God, the

Bible is that really so fear, all the fear that could happen around us

in this world and here locally, government or church, or family or friends.

Darts of evil thoughts, darts of pride or shame. I'm not worth

anything, nobody likes me, darts of jealousy. All those things, if

they land in our hearts without flame, they cause havoc, and they're hard

to get out. Once they get burning in our hearts, they can be

extinguished with help from God to remove them. But the shield is there for

that, an additional guard against the darts that are coming. So you think

about thoughts and things that we think about. Okay, then moving on to

the helmet of salvation, and that is color. And of course the head

and the head is the most vital part of the body by far the heart.

The head is where our brain is, our nervous system down our back

of our head and into our neck and attach our spinal cord large blood veins

that feed the brain. Very very It takes very little to kill someone with

it with a puncturing the head in some way, and so the helmet of

salvation was there to protect that. Not only is our head have all those

things, it says, our eyes and our ears and our nose, and

that's where we take in our senses where a lot of what we see and

hear and do is what is actually what gets into our heart and gets into

our mind. That is the source. And so our head is all part

of that salvation. What is salvation the helmet of salvation. Salvation is I

guess, the fact of a person, a Christian being saved, being delivered.

We were lost or are lost, and then salvation saves us. It's

salvation. We were saved from something and so there's a sense where that is

as a beginning, but it's progressive. We have to continue to be sanctified

as we live through life, and that takes humility to know that we're vulnerable.

Yes, we're trying to walk in the faith as best that we can,

but we've got to always be careful. The devil is wanting to rob

us of doubt salvation, to take us away from that. The mind is

the primary place where the spiritual battle is fought, and it is the place

where the battle is one or it is lost. Most of the time is

right in the mind. It gets very practical. Even right now with you

sitting here, I have no idea what's going on in your mind, what

thoughts are coming to you. There was running out of time here. But

I've been reading a little bit out of the book C. S. Lewis's

book, The screw Tape Letters. I don't know if any of you have

read that book. That book is it's interesting, a little some of it's

kind of hard to follow, but it's a book of imaginary conversation of screw

Tape, which is a seasoned senior demon counseling his nephew demon Wormwood on how

on how to take down believers. And there's all these letters that C.

S. Lewis wrote back in the forties or fifties that were published and made

into a book. And of course some of it may it's his imagination,

but much of it is I think, very possible practical ways that we don't

think about. That these demons are checking in with each other, and the

seniors coaching this one how to take down a new Christian. And I want

to read you just a few excerpts from it. It won't be very much

out of the one letter. Dear Wormwood, I note with grave displeasure that

your patient has become a Christian. There is no need to despair. Hundreds

of these adult converts have been reclaimed after a brief sojourn in the enemy's camp.

The enemy camp is God's in this writing, and are now with us.

All the habits of the patient, both mental and bodily, are still

in our favor. One of our greatest allies at present is the Church itself.

Do not misunderstand me. I do not mean the Church as we see

her spread out through all time and space and rooted in eternity, terrible as

an army of banners that I confess is a spectac spectacle which makes our oldest

tempters uneasy. But fortunately it is quite invisible to these humans. All your

patient sees is a half finished sham Gothic erection on the new building estate.

When he goes inside, he sees a local grocer with rather an oily expression

on his face, bustling up to offer him one shiny little book. When

he gets to his pew and looks around him, he sees just that selection

of his neighbors, whom he has hitherto avoided make his make his mind flit

to and fro between the expressions like the body of Christ, and the actual

faces in the next pew. It matters very little, of course, what

kind of people that next pew really contains. You may know them, You

may know one of them to be a great warrior on the enemy's God's side.

No matter, your patient, Thanks to our father below, the devil

is a fool. Provide that any of those neighbors sing out of tune,

or have boots that squeak, or double chins or odd clothes, the patient

will quite easily believe that their religion must therefore be somehow ridiculous work hard then

on the disappointment of anti climax, which is certainly coming to the patient during

the first few weeks as a churchman finishes and then says, your affectionate uncle

Screwtate. And the reason that I bring that up is I don't know if

wormwood works on you or not. He has on me occasionally to where and

it goes with our Sunday school. The devil is it doesn't play fair.

He doesn't live in Eugene in Las Vegas. But all it takes is coming

into the church and starting to look around the backs of heads and people and

what they're doing and what they were thinking and what they did and said and

just be kind of irritating and the whole morale of church life, and it's

just and all those things start to get going in our minds if we're not

careful. And I think that is a temptation. The helmet of salvation we're

talking about, the helmet of salvation in church needs to be on at times.

And so I just share that as something that maybe we don't think about

coming to church and being tempted at the devil, But I think the devil

tempts us wherever he can in any way he can to divide and to destroy

it. And one little tip I just say on that particular temptation is the

further you sit up front, the less temptation you have. It's a blessing.

Okay. The sword of the Spirit, the sword is both a defense

and an offensive weapon. It's when I when a person was coming at you

could him off, or if you're going forward, the sword was to fight

and to kill and to ward off. About mine and paper mixed up.

When Jesus was tempted in the wilderness, you will, let me back up

the word the sword of the Spirit. It says, which is the Word

of God. And I want to emphasize that because I think that the Spirit

of God, and like was said in Sunday School, the spirit is not

complicated. It aligns with the Word of God. It is his spirit working

in unity with the Bible. And so if we're unsure about what the spirit

and the voices are saying, you know, read the Bible, listen,

listen to its words, and we see that Jesus used that when he was

tempted in the wilderness, when the devil came and tempted him those three times

he replied back with the words of the scripture, and the Satan fled.

And so we see that as kind of a both a defense and an offense.

Is the way that that worked. The devil is coming at Jesus,

tempting him, and Jesus just held out the word of God, and after

a few times of that, says the devil fled. He couldn't withstand the

truth of the scripture and the spirit of truth. We must rely on God's

words, spend time in it, study it, soak in it, and

prepare ourselves for the battle. Okay, So in closing, I would just

mention yet prayer, but I'm not going to sail out on that. I

think prayer he talks about prayer. Prayer is an avenue in which a lot

of this putting on happens. I believe in the spirit of prayer, praying

that God would give us this helmet of salvation, praying that we could have

the shoes that would go and spread the gospel, praying that we'd have a

pure heart. Time on our knees, I think is where the armor gets

put on. It isn't just rushing through life. It is time in God's

word. Time on our knees, we become equipped, ready to go out

into the world and live as God wants us to. Prayer takes humility in

this world. But that's the whole point. The buy it. The God

blesses and gives grace to the humble, not all of it, not when

we have it all together and when we're self sufficient. But when we're humble,

we get on our knees and we acknowledge that God's grace comes and it

is there for us. So in conclusion, to repeat, we are in

a spiritual battle, whether we remember it or not. There are two sides,

two leaders, two destinies. There's no neutral ground, there's no place

where peacemakers and negotiators. You and I are in it one side or the

other. And if you're not feeling it, then we're probably drifting down stream.

There are rewards and consequences, and God has provided us the armor for

the power, for victory and for safety. We our part is just to

put it on, put all of it on. I'll end with the verse

and first Timothy six twelve fight the good fight of faith lay hold on eternal

life, whereunto thou art also called and hast professed a good profession before many

witnesses. God bless you. Let's have a sankey.