"Armed for Battle: Know Your Enemy" Ephesians 6:10-11 Sunday Morning Worship Service

Ephesians 6, verse 10 and 11.

Ephesians 6:10

We will uh read this morning and over the next few months or so.

We're gonna take our time going through verses 10 through through 20.

It's a powerful passage of scripture, and I don't I don't want to rush it.

I'm sure that shocks all of you.

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.

If you follow the news, my apologies to you.

I did see on the news this week, though, some people calling for us to mobilize the Marines to, as far as I could tell, invade Canada.

I don't pretend to follow the nuances of who's on what side of Canadian politics or whatever, but uh invading Canada was a wake-up call.

I got my intention.

Uh I'm in favor of it, to be quite honest.

Many of the Canadians I know could use a good invasion, and I'm still bitter about the War of 1812.

So you burn the White House.

I think it's fitting that we send the Marines there, even if it is 108 years late.

You know, you're just minding your own business.

It's February.

It's snowing outside, and you find yourself in pitched battle with our enemies to the north.

This is kind of the jarring reality that you get in Ephesians chapter six.

You're just minding your own business here.

You're reading about very, I mean, they're intentionally mundane things.

Ephesians 6 is bringing you through just the normal household codes, the normal interaction of this world.

It's not talking about storming the castle.

It's not talking about political revolt.

Ephesians 6 is talking about, well, starting in Ephesians 5, it's talking about husbands who love their wives.

Wives who are submissive to their husbands, children who obey their parents, parents who love and raise their children, employees that work, they go to work and they work as if they're pleasing the Lord.

Bosses who are kind and recognize that their position of authority is a stewardship and they they want to be a manager who manages well.

I mean, that's the level that we're dealing with in Ephesians 5 and 6.

It's it's designed to be the basics of everyday human life.

And the next verse, you're in the middle of a battlefield.

It's like you just parachuted in.

Reading about family relations, and sometimes, granted, if you have teenagers, sometimes parenting can feel like war.

But you're just minding your business here, and then boom, you're on the battlefield.

Paul's gonna go, you're familiar with what happens in Ephesians 6, the next uh 10 verses or so.

Paul's describing the weapons of warfare.

The darts of the evil one, he says in verse 16, are coming at you.

Put on your helmet so you don't get knocked out.

This is the language of warfare.

Verse 20, Paul describes himself as held captive by it.

He's in chains.

And even though he's been taken captive, he's in chains, he's a captive for the sake of the gospel, and they can't get him to be quiet.

Where did this battle come from?

You may not realize it, but your generic bland vanilla approach to Christian living, being a good husband and wife, or father and mother, son or daughter, that puts you right in the middle of a cosmic war.

And Paul's already established back in chapter two that the whole world lies under the authority of the evil one.

So he he said that back there that the devil is the prince of the power of the air, and that we are spiritually dead and under his authority until the gospel rescues us.

But then kind of Paul moves on.

He talks about being rescued from the grave, how Jesus led the souls that were in Sheol, he led them to liberty and captivity, he ascends to heaven, he gives us spiritual gifts, and so you just kind of get the momentum of this.

You're we're moving on.

We're on to Christian living 101.

That's great, let's go.

But the devil who you were rescued from back in chapter 2, ransomed from back in chapter 1, he's not gone away quietly.

He wants his captives back.

So you think chapter 5 and 6 is just about the bland lead-to-spirit-filled life, you know?

Don't be drunk.

Instead, sing praise songs.

So we're not talking like radical Christian living here.

We're talking about don't be drunk, okay?

Stay away from sexual immorality.

Have a good marriage.

Like that's that's what we're talking about here.

But that is where the war is at, of course.

That's the kind of countercultural Christian living that is a threat to the world, is a threat to civil society.

It undercuts the worldview that has been so well established through the devil and his leadership of the earth, through our own sin.

You know, that war is against ourselves, our own flesh.

2 Corinthians 10, verse 3.

2 Corinthians 10:3

You're waging war in your Christian life.

You're destroying strongholds of the enemy.

So that's the most jarring thing about this transition in Ephesians 6, that we sometimes just let we forget how jarring it is because we know it's coming.

We know how Ephesians ends.

So we're just, as I mentioned, minding our own business, leading our Christian lives, and you open your eyes and you've parachuted right back into Eden, and there's the devil, and there's Eve, and you're at the first, the first battle of this war that has waged ever since the Garden of Eden.

So since you've parachuted into Eden here and you find yourself on the battlefield, you've got to get yourself oriented.

And so that's what we're gonna do this week and next week.

We're gonna get ourselves oriented to the battlefield.

And the first step, which is on your slide here, is to know your enemy.

You find yourself parachuted into this cosmic battle, and there you are.

Got to remember what you learned in basic training, you've got to remember your boot camp.

You have to get yourself oriented, what side is up and which side is down.

Northeast, southwest, where are you at?

Where are you headed?

But most basically, who is your enemy?

Who is your enemy?

You see this here in verse 11.

You might be able to stand against the schemes of the devil.

He's identified here as your enemy.

This is hearkening back to chapter 2.

If you remember at the very beginning of chapter 2, Paul says that you once walked following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of this air, who's now at work in the sons of disobedience.

And so that's the landscape here is you are fighting against the devil.

He is the prince of the power of this air.

2 Corinthians 2, 11.

You should study the devil so you understand his ways, so you're not outwitted by him.

Paul says we don't want to be outwitted by Satan, so we don't want to be ignorant of his designs.

There's no doubt that he is the enemy here, and so I want to talk about him this morning.

Uh, aware that you guys come to church to talk about Jesus, not about the devil.

I get that.

When I started in seminary, I really had very little clue who Martin Luther was.

I was aware he was a historical figure, but I didn't really understand the Protestant Reformation or much of that.

And one of my first chapel services at the Master Seminary, we sang a hymn, A Mighty Fortresses Our God.

And I saw that it was by Luther, but I didn't even make the connection to the Reformer.

And one of my friends afterwards asked me, What did you think of that song?

And I said, I feel like it's too much singing about the devil.

Like half of that song, if you look at it, is a singing is about the devil.

Now, granted, he falls at the end of it, you know, one little word will fell him.

I get it now.

But still, and I am in favor of a constitutional amendment mandating the churches sing that on Reformation Sunday in October, just so you know.

I'm not anti that song, but it should be jarring the focus of it on the devil, which is okay.

You don't want to be ignorant of his devices.

And that's where we are this morning in Ephesians chapter 6.

Ephesians 6 · chapter mention

You don't want to be ignorant of his devices.

You meet the devil back in Genesis chapter 3, although he's not identified as the devil there.

Genesis 3 · chapter mention

There, he's just known as the serpent, who is the most crafty of the animals in all of the world.

He's crafty.

Our security camera at our house right now, we have a ring camera, has picked up a strange cat that comes to our house every day to investigate our recycling.

Every day, like clockwork.

And so I have followed it.

I'm on the case.

And our neighbors have a new cat.

And so I went and asked them.

So, hey, I like your cat, looks kind of like mine.

That's why I noticed it at first, looks like my cat.

And I was like, Did my cat get out?

They're like, no, no.

They said, Don't worry about him, though.

He is a crafty cat.

Don't worry about him.

He's a crafty cat.

That's exactly the kind of cat you don't want to take your eyes off of.

A crafty cat.

This is the the devil, when you meet him in Genesis 3, is marked as the most crafty, the most cunning.

He's deceitful.

He knows where people's weaknesses are and he seeks to exploit them.

This is what it was with Adam and Eve.

He had an agenda with Adam and Eve to undercut man's authority on the earth.

And so he went after them.

We looked at this a few weeks ago, so I don't want to recap all of it, but if you do recall, the mystery that is celebrated in Psalms 8, Psalm chapter 8, is that God created the heavens and the earth and their beauty and their wonder, and then he put them under the authority of mankind.

Psalms 8 · chapter mention

What is man that you are mindful of him?

The Son of Man that you would concern yourself with him.

And the psalmist says, You made him lower than the angels.

Little lower than the angels.

People are less than the angels.

We can die, for example, we can't fly.

So the angels have advantages over us.

And God didn't give the earth to angels, he gave the earth to Adam.

And this has provoked the devil.

This has provoked that angel, the who has himself a legion of followers of other angels.

The devil, of course, is an angel, and he has an army of angels that follow him, that respected him.

And so the devil took his hostility out on mankind.

He desired the earth, and it was given to people that were made out of dirt.

Hebrews chapter 2 says that he takes his hatred of mankind out on people by making them slaves to the fear of death.

Hebrews 2 · chapter mention

He rebels in heaven, rebels against God.

In the Gospel of Luke, Jesus says, I saw Satan fall to earth.

And when he fell, he took a third of the angels with him.

A third, I don't think a third of the angels literally fell to earth with him, but a third of the angels rebelled against God likewise.

So the devil had a position of influence in heaven.

According to Isaiah 14, and repeated in Ezekiel 28, the devil was a prince in heaven.

He was charming.

He was well decorated.

He himself was esteemed in heaven.

And so when he rebelled and the other angels, a third of them rebelled with him, he was cast out.

And he goes to earth.

And he attacks mankind in the garden.

He attacks by lying.

He attacks by questioning God's word.

That was his modus operandi there.

He goes after Eve by asking, just, hey, it's just a question.

It's the start of the passive aggressive personality right there.

Just a question.

Did God really say?

I'm just asking questions here.

And that provokes Eve that undercuts Adam.

Adam was obviously too willing to abdicate his leadership.

He lets Eve act and eat the fruit, and then Adam, just the jarring phrase from Genesis 3, who was right there with Eve, joins in.

This is the first attack.

But it's not the only attack.

In fact, the word Satan is a word that means accuser.

It's a Hebrew word that means accuser.

It's used as a name in the Old Testament.

Because when you see Satan, he is often accusing.

For example, Zechariah chapter 3.

Zechariah 3 · chapter mention

He's standing in the very presence of God.

And he's accusing Joshua, the high priest, bringing accusations against Joshua in heaven.

He's accusing him of unfaithfulness and of sin.

And the Lord interrupts him, interrupts the devil, and rebukes Satan himself.

In fact, God speaks of himself in the third person there in Zechariah chapter 3.

Zechariah 3 · chapter mention

It's kind of a very fascinating encounter.

It says, you know, Yahweh speaks and declares, Yahweh rebuke you, Satan.

God's describing his own speech through the Holy Spirit through Zechariah.

And now to us.

This is where the name Satan comes from, that rebuke, by the way.

The Lord rebukes Satan for being a Satan.

He rebukes the accuser for being an accuser.

If you remember the story in Zechariah 3, it doesn't end with the rebuke.

God rebukes Satan, silences Satan, and then removes Joshua's filthy clothes from him and robes him in white and declares him to be righteous.

It's the dress code in heaven.

So you see why Joshua is being accused.

He was out of place.

He was wearing filthy garments.

He was a sinner.

Standing in the court of heaven in this vision, and the devil is accusing him, saying it's not right for him to be here.

And the Lord, rather than granting the case, rather than saying, yeah, Joshua does look like a sinner, silences the devil and purifies Joshua.

Robes him in white.

I mean, that's the battle right there with the devil.

He is opposed to righteousness, he's supposed to godliness.

I mean, that gets to the crux of the issue, isn't it?

That dirty, stinking people made out of dirt, have been given dominion over the earth, and they're now fit for heaven.

The very heaven that the devil was cast out of, God sanctifies Joshua the high priest and puts him in there.

I mean, that's the greatest reversal imaginable.

The devil in all of his pristine, heavenly beauty, is silenced.

Meanwhile, Joshua, a son of Adam, this is not the same Joshua, the book of Joshua is named after.

It's a different Joshua, who's the high priest, son of Adam, with his own sin, is welcomed where the angel was thrown out of and cleaned and purified.

This isn't the only time we see Joshua.

I mean, the only time we see Satan in heaven accusing people, you see him back in Job chapter 1.

Job 1 · chapter mention

Job chapter 1 is a very interesting scene as well, because it's the day when all the hosts of heaven were assembled before God.

Job 1 · chapter mention

It implies some sort of regularity to this, that I don't think heaven keeps, you know, there's not recurring appointments in the calendar, but the language of Job 1 implies that there's some kind of recurring events, that it was, that God is summoning all of the angels, both exalted and fallen, even the demons, into his courtroom.

And of course, the Lord brings up Job.

The devil didn't start going after Job.

The Lord brings up Job and asks the devil.

He singles out the devil.

And what an incredible scene this would be.

All of heaven's angels there, and God speaks and addresses the devil.

Satan, have you considered Job?

It's God is bringing the name of someone to the accuser so that the accuser can accuse him.

Which Satan immediately does, per his character.

Yeah, the only reason Job likes you is because you've pampered him.

He's got everything.

And so God allows Satan to strip everything from Job.

And Job still serves the Lord.

I mean, it's got to blow Satan's mind if that's possible.

That he could do all he did to Job, and at the end of the book of Job, Job still worships the Lord.

It's incredible.

But that's typical God and typical devil right there.

The devil loves to defame God's people in heaven.

That's why he's called Satan.

But he doesn't merely accuse people in heaven.

He also accuses people on earth.

He also provokes people against one another on earth.

You think of 1 Chronicles chapter 21, Satan provoked David to do a census of the Israelites.

1 Chronicles 21 · chapter mention

All's going well at that point in 1 Chronicles.

All is well.

All the bad stuff has happened.

Things are humming in all cylinders.

The Vedic covenant has been established.

We're looking for a place for the temple.

He's about to buy the land.

You know, everything is just going swimmingly.

And the devil appears and provokes David to do a census.

This is a violation of God's word, of course, that prescribed when the census could be done.

There's all sorts of implications about David's motives.

They weren't good.

I know that his motives weren't good.

I don't know what exactly they were, but I know they weren't good because the devil made him do it.

And the devil does not have good motives.

So David's motive was not to just be so thankful to God for all that God has given him and just worship Yahweh.

That was not the motive.

Maybe it was pride, arrogance, maybe it was showing off to other nations, maybe it was boasting in what he has done for the Lord.

Who knows what it was, but it was bad, and the devil did make David do it.

And that story is critical because it shows you how much God hates people, uh Satan hates people.

And he hates God's people and he hates God's covenant.

It also shows that Satan is not some rogue-independent power out there doing his own thing.

There's no yin-yang here in the Bible.

You've got God on one side and the devil on the other, and it's a causing battle.

Because in that story, you see that the devil is, of course, God's devil.

When that same story is told in 1 Samuel, I'm sorry, 2 Samuel, it is the Lord who provoked David to do the census.

And so the scripture makes it very clear that the devil acts but under the authority of God.

And you see that so perfectly in Job chapter 1, if you just recall that story again, that the devil acted, but the devil acted under the sovereign and express authority of the Lord.

Job 1 · chapter mention

You see this in the New Testament, where Jesus tells Peter, the devil wants to sift you, but I have drawn the line.

The devil cannot act outside of the scope that God has given him.

How did the devil get on earth?

It makes sense when you think about it.

The Lord cast him out of heaven to earth.

And so the say the devil, Satan, operates underneath God's authority.

Although he hates God, he doesn't have the capacity to violate the bounds that God has given him.

Eventually, God will chain him up and throw him into the lake of fire.

In the New Testament, he has more names than merely Satan.

He's known as Satan and the serpent in the Old Testament.

But in the New Testament, there's practically a thesaurus of names for him.

Belzebuble, that comes from Matthew chapter 12.

Matthew 12 · chapter mention

The Pharisees identify him as Belzebel.

They say that Jesus cast out demons by the authority of Belzebel, the prince of demons.

Which logically doesn't make sense.

If Jesus were filled with the devil, he wouldn't be binding his own demons.

It just fails the basic smell test there, but that's what they accuse him of.

Paul calls him Belial, 2 Corinthians 6, verse 15, says, Those who walk in the light should have no partnership with darkness, nor should Christ with Belial.

2 Corinthians 6:15

Belial is just a word that's kind of darkness personified.

It's a name that just means darkness or evil, wickedness, personified into person.

Revelation chapter 12 and 20 refer to him as a dragon or serpent.

Revelation 12 · chapter mention

It's a similar word.

Both of them allusions back to Genesis chapter 3, where he was the crafty serpent.

Genesis 3 · chapter mention

But the most common expression in the New Testament for him is the word devil.

Devil is just a translation of the Old Testament word Satan.

It's translated into Greek as Diablos, which comes into English as the devil.

Jesus uses that name for him, Matthew 13, the parable of the seed in the sower.

The seed goes the word of God that falls in the ground, and some of the seed falls in rocky soil, and some of the seed falls in better soil.

But the devil comes in and snatches it, Jesus says.

So you learn from that that the devil doesn't want the gospel going forward in the world.

And the devil is capable of acting on the word of God to keep it from finding a place in people's.

It's worth thinking through how that happens.

The devil doesn't want the word of God to land in your heart, so how does he keep it from your heart?

Apparently, he has the ability to manipulate circumstantial things in the world to keep people away from where they would hear the gospel.

Paul says he wanted to go to Thessaloniki, but the devil intervened and wouldn't let him get there.

I don't know what that means.

Flying American air or something.

I don't know.

He was trying to get somewhere and the devil closed the path.

Couldn't pass.

And Paul was aware this was the devil.

I don't know if the devil left a calling card.

I doubt it.

More likely, Paul's on the understanding that God wants me to go here.

There's an opportunity to preach the gospel here.

It would be beneficial, but I am unable to do it through some providential twist.

In John's gospel, Jesus repeatedly calls the devil the God of this world, the ruler of this world.

2 Corinthians 4, verse 4, Paul calls him God of this world as well.

2 Corinthians 4:4

Ephesians 2, verse 2, we looked at that verse earlier.

Ephesians 2:2

He's called the Prince of this world.

What is he doing in the world right now?

He's oppressing people.

Acts 10, verse 38 describes a girl who is oppressed by the devil.

Acts 10:38

Luke 13, Jesus heals a woman on the Sabbath, if you remember this.

The Pharisees are upset that Jesus healed on the Sabbath.

Typical how they roll.

And Jesus says, you know, if you lost an ox on the Sabbath, you'd go fetch it.

What about this girl who is held under the captivity of the devil for 18 years?

Should I not fetch her on the Sabbath?

What can the devil do to Christians?

I don't think the devil can oppress Christians like that.

But the devil can certainly afflict Christians in different ways.

He attacks the church, 2 Corinthians 12.

Paul talks about a demonically inspired false teacher who's in the church, who's spreading his false teaching and division, spreading lies about Paul, undercutting Paul's leadership in the church, and it's spreading like gangrene throughout the church.

And Paul says he's a messenger of the devil.

And that word messenger there is a word that is used for angels, which makes sense.

This guy is an angel, an angel of the devil, by the way, is called a demon.

This guy is a demon.

The division in the church is being brought in by the devil or one of his demons.

So the devil causes division in the church.

2 Timothy chapter 2, Paul tells Timothy, avoid foolish controversies, avoid arguing about silly things in the church.

2 Timothy 2 · chapter mention

Because you see people who are wrong in the church, Paul says, you've got to correct them with gentleness, not with arguing, but with gentleness, lest you fall into the snare of the devil.

There's a way to be right that's wrong, Paul says in the church.

And if you're that kind of person who's right while being wrong, if you're right, if you're teaching the right things to the right people, but in the wrong way, in a pugnacious way, in an argumentative way, in a divisive way, you got the devil's trap around your foot.

That's probably what Paul means in 1 Timothy 3 when he says elders can't be new converts.

Elders have to be more mature.

They can't be, you know, young men.

These young men are easily provoked to arguments.

They're easily arrogant.

They're easily divisive.

They're puffed up.

And then they fall into the snare of the devil.

This is what the devil is doing now.

He lies.

He keeps the gospel from reaching people's ears.

He keeps the gospel from taking root in people's hearts.

He closes paths for the gospel in the world.

He oppresses non-Christians.

I don't think he can oppress Christians with the kind of sicknesses and illnesses you see in the Bible because they're always attributed to people who don't have the gospel, who don't have the Holy Spirit.

The New Testament makes it clear that greater is he who is in you than he who is in the world.

2 Corinthians 6 makes it clear that the spirit of Belial or the devil cannot inhabit a person with the Holy Spirit at the same time simultaneously.

It means something when you say that God dwells with you through faith, that you're sealed with the Holy Spirit, that you're redeemed.

And in Ephesians chapter 1, the spirit resides in you as a guarantee of your salvation.

Ephesians 1 · chapter mention

I mean, that's that means something that the Holy Spirit dwells in you.

And the bare minimum that means is that the devil cannot also dwell in you.

But that doesn't mean you're safe from his attacks.

His attacks come on Christians through lying and division and pride and arrogance.

Anger earlier in chapter in Ephesians.

Don't let the sun go down in your anger so that you don't give the devil a foothold.

So Christians give the devil an opportunity by causing division, by false teaching, by lying, by pride, by arrogance, and by anger.

That's how he rolls.

And he gets away with it.

Because he looks, 2 Corinthians 11, 14, like an angel of light.

You think, man, that guy, he's got a Bible and everything.

He's got to be speaking the truth.

That's the devil's schemes.

That's back in verse 11 of Ephesians 6.

You want to stand against the schemes of the devil.

The devil has schemes.

Schemes is such a good word.

He works through anger, he works through sin, he works through accusations, he works through pride, and he works to make war in the church and war on the world.

He doesn't merely afflict Christians.

He hates all people, remember?

He hates anybody related to Adam.

That's those are his enemies.

This is why demonic activity is so prevalent, I think, around the world and outside of Christian nations.

But you definitely see it in Christian nations as well.

So that's your enemy.

But you're not, I mean, you think, man, the devil's been running around on the earth for thousands and thousands of years, and now I'm supposed to go to war against him?

Me.

I'm supposed to go fight the devil.

Yikes.

Don't bet on this war, you think I can't do anything to the devil.

I mean, if David was attacked, if Job was attacked, if Paul was attacked, if the devil is roaming about like a lion after Peter, what's the little old me gonna do?

And this is the command in verse 10.

This is the imperative.

Finally, be strong in the Lord.

And he uses finely, like I use the word finely when I'm preaching.

Finally, in other words, just another thing that comes to mind.

Be strong in the Lord.

It's a very strange imperative.

There's something obvious in the Greek that's hidden from the English here.

In English, it sounds like an imperative, be strong in the Lord.

In the Greek, it's it's a passive imperative, which we I don't even know how to articulate it in English, because it's a command for something to happen to you.

Like let yourself get hit by the bus.

That's how you would say it in English.

Like let that ball hit you.

You know, you tell the basketball player, take that charge.

It's something very passive.

You're gonna get drilled, but you better take it.

That's this kind of implication in the Greek.

Be strong, but it's a passive command.

In other words, be made strong is probably how you would render it in English.

It's got something that'll happen to you.

Very awkward English phrase.

How can you be made strong?

Well, the phrase after it should be the clue.

Be made strong in the Lord.

And in his might.

The devil has schemes.

Notice the contrast.

The devil has schemes, the Lord has strength.

The devil has attacks, the Lord supports.

The devil tears down, the Lord props up.

The devil weakens the church, the Lord strengthens the church, builds it up.

Be made strong.

That's the imperative.

You no longer fall under the tyranny of the prince of the power of this heir from Ephesians 2.2, but rather you are strengthened in the Lord.

That's language from Ephesians 3.

That you have access to the riches of his glorious grace.

Ephesians 3.16, I think, says, be strong in the Lord.

It's the same command.

And you're strong by your love for the Lord Jesus and back in Ephesians 3 and your knowledge of his riches.

Ephesians 3.16, according to the riches of his glory, he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith.

You'd be rooted and grounded in love.

So you're made strong by growing in love.

You're made strong by growing in faith.

You're made strong by growing in hope.

That's how you are made strong.

And you see why it can be rendered passive.

You are stronger when you grow in love.

Love other people.

Love believers.

Of course, love the Lord is Ephesians 3.17.

Love the Lord more and you're stronger in your faith.

You want to be strong to take on the devil?

Increase your faith.

And faith is putting your faith not in yourself, but in some external object.

So the more passionately you believe in the truth of the Bible and the truth of the resurrection of Jesus Christ, the stronger you are.

We even use that kind of idiom.

We talk about somebody who's weak in faith.

A person weak in faith is being thrown this way and that way by doubt.

Somebody who's strong in faith is convictions and the integrity to act on them.

Moses' last words to Israel before he died.

Do you remember?

Be strong.

Moses' last words to Joshua.

Be strong.

Four times Yahweh speaks to Joshua as Joshua takes over.

Starting in Deuteronomy 30 31.

And Yahweh tells Joshua, be strong and courageous.

Three times at the beginning of Joshua, chapter 1.

Joshua 1 · chapter mention

Joshua 6, Joshua 1.6, Joshua 1.7, Joshua 1.9 is Yahweh speaking to Joshua.

Be strong and courageous.

Be strong and courageous.

Be strong and courageous.

What does that mean?

Well, in the middle of that, I think it's verse 8 of Joshua chapter 1, be strong and courageous by keeping my commands.

Joshua 1 · chapter mention

Do all I've commanded you.

Perhaps my favorite illustration of this is David back in 1 Samuel chapter 30.

1 Samuel 30 · chapter mention

He arrives back in Ziklag.

Ziklag is the place where David had hit his wives and his children and his mighty men.

They all stashed their wives and their children there.

And then David went away in an array.

He was a kind of a double agent at the time.

He comes back to Ziklag and he finds that the Amalekites had looted the camp, stole everybody, stole all the wives, stole the children.

They didn't put him to death, but David didn't know that.

Just he's everything gone.

And it says in 1 Samuel 30 that they fell down and they wept until they had no strength to weep anymore.

And then the next verse.

David remembered to be strengthened in the Lord.

And he prayed.

I mean, that's the kind of that's what this is after.

Think about that.

Your family gone, and you weep, but then you remember to be strong in the Lord.

So this is not just the normal circumstance.

I got in a car accident, lost my job, the wrong team won the Super Bowl.

It's not that we're not talking that kind of trial.

We're talking my family has been taken, but I will be strong in the Lord.

And you can be strong in the Lord because God grants you the riches of his power.

So you think of all the devil's attacks, and then your mind should go to all the battles in the Old Testament that the Lord wins.

David and Goliath.

I mean, who was stronger?

Not David.

He was like a boy with the stick.

And yet the Lord made him strong for the battle.

Think of Gideon and all of his army, and the Lord says that's too many.

Well, why is it too many?

Because you're too strong.

Get weaker, and then you can be strong in me.

So this is the spiritual trajectory of the gospel.

You become aware of your own sin.

You recognize you're not strong in and of yourself.

You can't be strong enough to take on the devil yourself.

You can't be a good enough husband to lead the Ephesians 5 kind of family.

You can't be a good enough wife to lead the Ephesians 5 kind of family.

You can't be a good enough son or daughter or parent to lead the Ephesians 6 kind of family.

You can't be a good enough worker to be the Ephesians 6 kind of worker or a good enough boss to be the Ephesians 6 kind of boss.

You are deficient.

You are weak in yourself.

So you confess your sins to the Lord, and then you are made strong in the Lord, as by faith you believe in his death and resurrection on the cross.

You believe that Jesus died on the cross for your sin, rose from the grave, and so you draw strength from that reality, not from your own capabilities.

That's what it means to be strong in the Lord.

The gym you're going to here is the gym of faith.

You're straining your heart to love the Lord more.

You're straining your faith to grow in your faith.

You want to passionately believe the gospel.

That's what makes you strong to stand against the devil.

That's where the devil is attacking.

He's trying to keep the gospel from growing in your heart.

He's trying to keep opportunities for the gospel to go into the world.

So as you demonstrate love and faith, you are getting strong, and that strength will help you stand against the devil.

That's spiritual power.

Acts 1, verse 8.

Acts 1:8

You will receive power.

This is Jesus and the angels rebuking the disciples.

You will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem's day and Samaria.

You get power when you get the Holy Spirit.

He comes upon you and he strengthens you to lead the spirit-filled life.

Christ came into this world to destroy the work of the devil.

Hebrews 2.14 says that.

And he does that by freeing you from the fear of death.

How does he free you from the fear of death?

Through faith in the resurrection.

The chains fall off at that point.

And then you grow in your strength of faith, your strength of love, and that increases your ability to practically apply the commands of the Bible through Christian living.

Not in your own strength, but because you're strengthened in the strength of his might.

Next week we'll look at the battlefield and orient ourselves there.

Lord, we're thankful that the gospel gives us strength that when we repent from our own sins, you forgive us as you forgave Joshua, the high priest.

We think of Joshua in heaven, robed in sin, rebuked by the devil, aware of his own shortcomings, and yet you declared him to be righteous through his own faith.

That's us, Lord.

We are sinners.

We have been taken captive by sin, and the truth is we are like Hosea's wife.

We sold herself into sin.

We can blame Adam, but we were willing participants.

And yet you rescued us through faith in Jesus Christ.

So Lord, now we pray that as we've been rescued, we'd be rehabilitated, we'd be strengthened, and we'd grow in grace and love and the knowledge of the riches of your mercy that you've given to us in Christ, so that we can be strong in faith to stand against the devil's schemes.

I pray for this congregation.

I pray for Emmanuel Bible Church.

I beg you, Lord, I beg that we would be men and women who are marked by strength of faith.

That we would not fall prey to division that is sown in so many other churches.

But that you would make us strong, not in anger, but in faith.

Not in division, but in the love that unifies.

We know that whoever makes a practice of sinning is of the devil, because the devil has been a sinner since the beginning.

And we know the reason the Son of God appeared is to destroy the works of the devil.

And so, Lord, we're thankful that through faith in the Son, we are on the side of Christ, the one who destroys the work of the devil.

And it's in his name we pray.

Amen.

And now, for a parting word for Pastor Jesse Johnson.

Thanks for joining us.

If you're in the Washington, D.C.

area, I would love to see you at Emmanuel Bible Church.

For more information on our church or our current service times, go to IBC.church.

For more information about the Master Seminary and their Washington, D.C.

location, go to TMS.edu.

I hope this resource has been a blessing to you and it helps you seek the Lord daily, serve others around you, and share the gospel with boldness.