Ready to Stand Firm? | Ephesians 6 | Rickie Jenkins

Of my years of preaching, I've never had to ask somebody, please move closer to the front.

You guys are good.

I appreciate that very much.

Thank you for moving closer.

We're going to begin our reading in first Ephesians chapter 6 for this breakout session.

Ephesians 6 · chapter mention

Ephesians chapter 6, where we're going to begin.

Ephesians 6 · chapter mention

This is ready to stand firm.

We're going to begin reading in verse 10 of Ephesians 6.

Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord and in the power of his might.

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

For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenlies.

Therefore, take out the whole armor of God that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all to stand, stand therefore, having girded your waist with truth, having put on the breastplate of righteousness, having shod your feet with the preparation of the gospel of peace, above all, taking the shield of faith with which you will be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked one, take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God, praying always with all prayer and supplication of the Spirit, being watchful to this end with all perseverance and supplication for all saints.

And for me, that utterance may be given to me that I may open my mouth boldly to make known the mystery of the gospel, for which I'm also an ambassador in change, that in it I may speak boldly as I ought to speak.

Three times in this reading, Paul will talk about stand, stand therefore, and having done all to stand, stand.

We think about ready, readiness to stand firm.

So just a thought question to get us going.

When's the last time that you really faced a challenge that required you to stand firm?

I'm talking about not talking about an inconvenience.

I'm not talking about whether it's a financial decision or not.

I'm talking about something where there was a right and there was a wrong.

There was a Christ and a no Christ that was at stake.

When's the last time you really face that challenge?

If I'm honest with you about that, I live with a silver spoon in my mouth.

It's quite obvious I don't work in the workaday world.

I do have an office at the building.

I probably spend 75% of my life there.

Across the hallway is my fellow preacher, Jordan Schauss.

He's the most inconvenient thing I face all day.

When brethren come, they either want to chat, they have nothing to do, they want to come share it with me, or they have something they want to ask me about.

I'm not in the workaday world that you men and you boys face.

So I have to be honest with you.

When I prepared this and was thinking about this, I was trying to think, when's the last time I was really challenged to make a decision that there was a right and there was a wrong, and I knew there was a price to pay for the decision I had to make.

Also work with a church that has 11 shepherds and there's 10 who are really good.

And they are sound and they're solid.

I never feel like when I'm preaching on something, okay, I'm gonna be challenged, I'm gonna be threatened.

Somebody's gonna be upset about something I say, and therefore I'm gonna be challenged about that.

I don't have that fear.

But my respect for you is that you live in a world and you face a world that you may be challenged to make a firm decision for something that is right or wrong.

And I respect that.

My heart goes out to you for that.

And I want to support you in all I can in that.

The truth of the matter is the Bible is filled with standards.

S-T-A-N-D-E-R-S.

The Bible is filled with standards.

Yeah, I don't know what it was like for Abraham.

We look at this and we think, well, he left Ur the Chaldees.

Okay, big deal.

No, it was a big deal.

He left culture, he left religion, he left security, he left identification.

All those things that we we cherish.

He left those things.

To be what?

To be a stander.

I think about Moses, especially when he comes called back by God to be the deliverer for the children of Israel.

And how throughout the years with this wandering group of people, he was challenged to stand.

Even against his own brother, his own sister on occasion, when they tried to mount an insurrection against him.

You take too much for yourself, like he asked for it.

Let me apply for that job.

No, God called him to that job.

There was an experiment done years ago.

True story, not a preacher story.

Dr.

Groppel was the man who did the experiment.

He was a human scientist.

And uh so he had called some men to the Everglades in Florida.

One group of men were a group of three uh of linemen, 300-pound linemen from NFL.

Another group was a group of trained CIA operatives.

And what he told them was, now you're gonna run from here to here when you touch the white picket fence, you turn around and you come back.

You're gonna run through the Everglades and you run from here when you touch the white picket fence, it comes back.

But I need to warn you about something.

There's a wild boar out there.

And you need to be aware of the wild boar.

What neither group knew was he had planted a cameraman out there.

And at a particular point, the cameraman sounded off like a wild boar.

The 300-pound linemen from the NFL, they were running, and the wild boar sounded off before they got to the white fence and they tucked tail and ran the other way.

When the CIA operatives heard the wild boar, this is a poor illustration, they assumed their position.

They stood firm.

Standing firm is going to be important for us because if we don't, it's just easier to go along.

To get along.

So we're going to work through this together, but I want to give the primary points and we'll work through these things together.

First of all, standing firm requires conviction.

Now, I want to ask you, because uh both AJ and Sam said I can do this however I want.

Noah said he tries to make it somewhat interactive.

And so I'm not interested in lecturing to you all day long.

I mean, I could do that, but that's not really what you want to hear either.

So let me ask you something.

When I when you hear the word conviction, what is that what do you think of when you hear the word conviction?

Something you've decided that you're not gonna change easily.

Okay, something you decided you're not gonna change easily, okay?

Somebody else?

Dedicated, okay.

Dedicated?

Pardon me?

Trust.

Trust, trust, okay, trust, trust.

Anyone else a thought?

Those those are good summations, those are good.

Yeah.

Convinced, absolutely convinced.

Convinced, absolutely convinced, dedicated, trust, okay.

Uh you have been judged.

Pardon?

You have been judged.

You have been judged.

Elaborate on that.

I'm not tracky with you.

I mean, was a convict?

Oh, oh, oh, conviction.

Convict, you have been judged, okay.

All right.

But yourself, you've got to.

I got you.

Okay.

I'm with you now.

Yeah.

Okay.

Very good.

Yeah, yeah.

Move to action.

Move to action?

Okay.

All right.

So then I came up with was a deep personal persuasion that's unyielding.

All of what you said, those are all synonymous with what we've said here.

So you think about this idea of conviction.

What's amazing to me is when the writer of this book that says, stand, stand, stand, he's in prison when he's writing this book.

He's not in an ivory palace.

He's in prison when he writes this book.

When I think of all the things you described, I think of Job.

I think of the call that Job had to stand in the time in which he was assaulted by Satan.

I think of Abraham and the stand, the conviction it took, as I alluded to a moment ago, to leave his homeland to come.

Now, let me draw a distinction, something.

Different is not conviction.

John the Baptist, I mean Pilate was different, but that was not conviction.

Just because someone's different doesn't equal conviction.

I think of conviction, I think of Nehemiah.

I love this scene in Nehemiah whenever Sambalat and Tobiah, they're in Onoh, and they call for him to come and visit him at Onoh, and he says, Oh no.

He's not going to go.

He's going to stay there and finish the task.

That's a conviction.

Now, conviction is not, I just haven't given up yet.

Well, I've enduring, I haven't given up yet.

Listen, a soldier in a foxhole can say, I haven't given up yet, but if he's not proactive, if he's not proactive in defending himself, he's going to be overrun.

And I know you realize this, but just because we come to a men's weekend, open our Bible, because we come Sunday morning, Sunday night, Wednesday night, and open our Bibles, we have prayer, we worship.

All those things aren't things that are going to sustain us in our conviction.

Those are going to be the things that are going to sustain us.

So when you think about the idea of conviction, you're thinking about a firm persuasion, dedication, determination.

You have been you are convicting yourself about you're convicted about something.

So this is a very general question.

What's some things you're convicted about?

Don't go broke.

Don't get sick.

I said it's a very general question.

There's no specific answer.

I said, What's some things that you you have a strong conviction about?

Family?

I love that.

Yeah, family, I love that.

Yeah.

Foundation.

I'm sorry.

Follow God.

Follow God?

Foundation of our country.

Foundation.

I love that.

Foundation of our country.

I love that.

Yeah, somebody last night was it Kenneth, I think, was the had the hat on from serving them in the Navy.

Yeah.

Foundation of our country, yeah.

Defend the truth.

Defend the truth.

Okay, defend the truth.

Yeah.

I love that.

Although just something that requires a dedication, a loyalty, a trust, a confidence, a conviction for something, for someone.

And so when we think about that, conviction is not survival.

Success is not about survival.

When we think about this idea of conviction, you think about it's easy to be convicted until you have to pay the price.

It's easy to be convicted about something until I am required to pay a price for it.

Then maybe it's not so easy to be convicted.

And when I think about that, I think of different people in the Bible.

I identify with a lot of Bible characters in my teaching and preaching and in my life.

They help me see things.

They may put flesh on the bones of things.

And when I think about Bible characters that have conviction beyond the ones I just mentioned earlier here, think of some Bible characters that had that demonstrated strong conviction for us when they had to pay the price.

That's what was truly measured.

They had to pay the price.

Who are some people in the Bible that you could think about that would be illustrative of having paid the price for something, paid the price for conviction?

Paul, can you explain a little bit?

Okay.

Yeah, that 2 Corinthians 11th chapter is pretty powerful, isn't it?

You know, I've never been shipwrecked.

Almost drowned once, but I've never been shipwrecked.

That's bad enough.

I've never been beaten by brethren.

I haven't been deceived by brethren before, but nobody's ever stuck their tongue out at me while I'm preaching.

Nobody's ever thrown rotten tomatoes.

I haven't been whipped.

Haven't been left for dead, stoned left for dead.

But you think about Paul, and the persecutor became the persecuted.

I love Paul's one I had on my list.

Who's somebody else that you think about?

When we think about putting some flesh on the bones of conviction when you have to pay the price for something.

Abraham.

Abraham?

Yeah.

A lot of people wouldn't think about what I think about Jude when he tells us that we need to permanently content content for the faith.

Yeah.

And if he was willing to do that, and if we do our research, it would cost him his life.

Okay.

Very good.

I had not thought of Jude, but that's a very good good good illustration of that.

Yeah.

Jude.

How about some women?

Yes, sir.

Oh, we will not bow down.

Uh, even if you throw us.

Shad Red Meshach and Benego.

Yeah.

How about some women that were willing to pay the price?

Yes, sir.

Jesus the ultimate.

Ultimate.

Okay, and all this, Jesus is the ultimate.

Jesus is off the table.

Yes, he's there.

He's got it.

We got him.

We got him there.

He's good.

Yeah.

So uh everybody's got Jesus.

We're good, yeah.

How about some women that you can think of that that were willing to pay a price?

Esther.

Yeah.

Esther's what I thought of.

Yeah.

Esther was what I thought of.

I think of all I think of Ruth, too.

You think of what she she accomplished in having uh Seed of Christ coming through a Moabite, kind of a weird thing to think about.

So you think about those people like that, and now let's put ourselves here.

We live, would you agree we live in kind of benign times, so to speak, that nobody's threatening us here.

We have freedom to do this.

Okay, I know we can get exaggerated and all the wickedness of the world, all the things that are coming down that are crazy.

I get that.

But listen, as brethren in Christ, we are blessed to live where we live.

And you think about the gift that we have in this world, in this United States of America, the foundation of the country and everything.

We're not having to pay a real price today.

It's easy for us as a result of that to take some things for granted that our forebears did not.

Book of Ricky thing.

Just a book of Ricky thing.

Sidebar.

I grow a little weary of attacking previous generations.

And we look back at previous generations and the regard for truth and the struggles and the fights they had to fight to give us churches like we have today.

And we look back and we point fingers at them and said, they misbehaved, they did this wrong, they did that wrong.

I wasn't there, you weren't there.

And we don't know the conviction it took for doing that.

We sit with a silver spoon in our mouth relatively speaking of that.

We live where we live today.

We don't live where they lived, and we can't judge where we live by where our forebears lived and how they lived.

Commentary over.

Book of Ricky closed.

For the time being.

He may open it later.

So you think about that.

Standing is hard.

Standing is hard.

And again, I think of you think about Shedrap, Meshach, and Abednego, I think of Daniel.

But you also think that standing requires courage.

Okay, I ask you about conviction.

Give me a definition of what you think, what you think about courage.

How would you define courage?

Overcoming fear with actions.

Overcoming fear with actions, okay.

Does it mean no fear?

No.

No.

Okay, overcoming fear with actions.

I love that.

Somebody else, how would you define courage?

Doing the right thing, even when it's scary and hard.

Okay, that's right.

Right.

Courage is not fearlessness.

So I told you I have a grandson here.

He's got an older brother.

That when we go snow skiing, in the past when we've gone snow skiing, he has not found a hill that he's scared of yet.

Especially when he was younger.

It didn't matter whether it was on a snowboard or skis.

He was fearless.

Now, fearlessness is not courage.

Fearlessness may be boring on the edge of being stupid because you don't take into consideration things that can be dangerous here.

But also we can take into things, consideration things that are dangerous so much we don't act either.

So courage is standing even in the face of fear.

I don't know if you've ever heard of the martyr by the name of Polycarp.

He was said to be a disciple of the Apostle John.

At least that's what secular history says.

I don't know how to debate that.

But he did make this statement: 80 and six years I have served the Lord.

The threat was deny Christ and live, confess him and burn.

And his response was, eighty and six years I have served the Lord.

He has never forsaken me.

I will never forsake him.

And he was burned at the stake.

It wasn't that he had no fear, it's that his courage was like what Sam said.

He was going to do what was right.

The Lord's never denied me.

I'm never going to deny him.

Conviction requires courage.

It requires courage.

And that courage operates sometimes in the face of fear.

Now, the second point I want to deal with you is, going out of Ephesians 6, is we need to know who we're standing against.

Number two, we need to know who we're standing against.

I think that's really important.

Paul says, we're not standing against flesh and blood.

Satan is real good at camouflaging things for us.

We can say bitterness is just being fair.

We can say compromise is being kind.

Fear is just being cautious.

He can use wisdom and prudence and self-control as excuses.

It's interesting to me how Satan often works.

And this is a repetitive approach.

Satan often doesn't come at people frontal face.

Did you ever notice in the story with Eve in Genesis chapter 3, he never accuses Eve?

Genesis 3 · chapter mention

He never accuses her.

He just asks a question about God.

Did you ever notice with Job, he never openly accuses Job?

He just asks a question about Job.

Now, they are indicting questions.

There are questions that, yeah, God is this and he's unfair to you.

Or yeah, Job is doing this because you've bought him off and you've hedged him about.

He doesn't just come and say, Job is doing this because, and God's doing this because.

He simply raises the questions.

And that's to be an interesting approach that Satan has to us.

And when I say we need to understand who we're fighting against, Satan is very strategic.

And as you know, he's very crafty.

He has a stratagem by which he operates.

And when you think about how he operates in things, we need to understand, first of all, who we're fighting against, and who we're fighting against is not each other.

We're not fighting against brother or sister.

We're not enemies of each other.

And I'm not suggesting you have that problem here at Milwaukee.

Not at all.

I'm not suggesting that at all.

I don't know you that well, so I'm not trying to impose something here.

But I don't farm many, too, too many places, and too often, even among our own brethren, the enemy is seen as our brother or our sister.

No, we're not fighting against each other.

Even in families, even in families where we don't agree on things.

We're not fighting with each other.

I have two children, and I love them.

I prize them.

Neither my son nor daughter always make decisions I agree with, but they're not my enemies.

My dad and I occasionally don't see eye to eye things, but he's not my enemy.

We're not fighting flesh and blood, and I think we need to emphasize that.

And so when we think about who we're fighting against, I think that's important.

We're fighting against a foe.

We're fighting against a person.

But it's not me and you.

We're fighting against the person of Satan.

Satan's not a thing, he's not an it.

You know, sometimes we insult the Holy Spirit by saying it.

No, he's a he.

He's a person.

And Satan's not an it either, he's a person.

And we're fighting against a person that is dead set on our evil and on our undoing.

And I think that's something we really need to get our arms around.

Because too many times I'm afraid we misdefine our enemies.

I don't know that I fully understand everything that Paul says, principality, the power, and all those things.

I have an opinion about that.

But really what Paul is doing there is he's tripling things.

He's saying the same thing three different ways.

He does that earlier in chapter four, too.

In fact, that's a peculiar Pauline thing.

He'll say a lot of things, but sometimes he's saying the same thing three different ways.

You know, it's kind of like my wife was on the phone with my daughter one time when she's at Florida College and she was sick.

And my wife said that, well, why don't you take some Tylenol, honey?

And we're a long while ago.

Why don't you take some Tylenol, honey?

She said, Well, why don't you take some Tylenol?

Cam said, Mom, I did after the first time you mentioned it.

Well, it's like Paul will say it two or three times different ways.

It's almost like, did you take the Tylenol yet?

Yeah, Paul, get your point.

Whatever that means, he says, we're not wrestling flesh and blood.

And so when we think about knowing who we're fighting against, I think defining our enemy is really, really important for us.

And then third thing is we need to make sure to stand firm our standing with God is right.

Make sure our standing with God is right.

Perhaps the hardest person to deal with is the person we see in the mirror.

It's the person we see reflected back of us.

To me, some of the most poignant personal words in all the scriptures in the 139th Psalm.

Search me, O Lord, and try my ways.

How many of us really want to pray that prayer?

Search me, O Lord, and try my ways.

Now, when I think about this idea of knowing who we're standing against and standing right with God, I think about this in several different avenues, and some of them have been mentioned.

I think about in our homes.

Recognizing being right with God in our homes.

We know the story of Joshua in chapter 24.

He drew the line.

As from here, my house, we will serve the Lord.

You know, growing up, of course, my dad's a preacher.

I never really gave much thought to that until I started preaching some years after preaching.

We never worried about where we were going to go, what we're going to do, and how this was all going to turn out.

Dad already had that figured out.

As leaders in our homes, we set the path.

We're not followers in the home, we're leaders in the home.

That doesn't mean we're ogres in the home.

That doesn't mean we're authoritarians in the home.

That means we sacrifice ourselves for the good of our home.

I think about the idea of purity.

We set the path in purity.

Job said, I made a covenant with my eyes.

I think one of the most pernicious stratagems that Satan uses today is not the female standing before us that is scantily clad.

But that device we carry in our pockets and that we have on our desktops that makes the click of a mouse so easy that portrays images before us that are not just indecent, but they're pornographic.

And homes are being destroyed even among brethren, even among good, thoughtful people, because of Satan's stratagem with pornography.

And impurity has invaded the home because of it.

We are responsible for keeping our homes pure.

I think about our church.

I think about Antipas in the book of Revelation.

He's called faithful.

We think about our churches and we think about faithful people.

We're just thinking about good, solid folks who have conviction and courage to stand firm.

And who have a firm standing with God and know where they're right with God.

And they're just faithful.

When I say just faithful, I'm not just underscoring, I'm not minimizing that.

They're faithful to God.

It's not the preacher standing before you or the elder standing before you.

That has conviction and courage to stand.

And then all two stand, therefore stand for what is right.

We need congregations with people that are like Antipas.

They're faithful.

They're faithful in this world.

And so Paul gives us some help here in Ephesians chapter 6.

Ephesians 6 · chapter mention

And so turn there just now and we'll go back to our text and read some of this.

And look at this.

Now I want to work through this with you.

So we think about this standing before God, and we think about knowing who we're standing against here.

And he helps us understand how we can stand with conviction and how we can be successful in that.

And so he says, notice, notice what he says, first of all, in verse 10.

Find my brethren, be strong in the Lord, in the power of his might.

Notice he doesn't say in the power of your might.

This is not something we provide, this is something God provides.

In the first chapter, he will say of the resurrection of Christ, the power that raised Christ from the dead is also to you who believe.

I don't think we should minimize that.

The power that raised Christ from the dead is to you who believe.

And that power said, When you're dead, I'll make you alive.

The power that was in Christ to raise him from the dead is in you who believe.

We have the power of God in our lives.

And I don't think we ought to make God so calm when we miss that.

And then he says, stand strong in the power of his mind.

It's in the power of his mind, not in the power of our mind.

It's in his power we do that.

And then he gives us assistance because he will come now and he will say, put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand in the evil day, having done all to stand, stand therefore.

Stand therefore, girded, having girded your waist with truth.

When you see that expression, having girded your way with truth, I'm asking you, how would you describe that?

How would you say that?

Girded with truth?

How would you say that?

If you were to put it in your words, how would you say that?

I'm sorry?

Grounded.

Grounded?

Grounded in truth?

Okay.

What else?

Rapped.

I'm sorry?

Rapped.

Rapped?

Rapped.

Okay.

Alright.

What else comes to your mind?

We say girdie with truth.

We don't use the word girded much, do we?

Do you know what that imagery is?

Now he's going to talk about the belt in just a moment, so I'm going to jump ahead just a little bit.

So the idea of girded for truth is you got the long flowing robe, and they take that robe and they grab it and they form a breach.

And they stick it in the belt, and what that means is they're ready for action.

The idea of girded for truth is now you're ready for action.

Here there's a foundation.

We talk about a foundation where there's a foundation that is immovable.

And so you have the truth of God.

So he says, girded with truth.

And then notice what he says.

The breastplate of righteousness.

When you think about the breastplate of righteousness, what's the imagery that's portrayed there in the breastplate of righteousness?

Think about a breastplate.

What do you think about the breastplate?

What's it protecting?

The vitals.

The vitals.

It tells about the shield of faith, the fiery darts.

The shield of faith doesn't keep the darts from coming, it keeps the darts from penetrating.

So you got the breastplate of righteousness, and you got the shield of faith that's there.

Okay.

And notice what he says further.

Let's see, find my place back here.

Having your feet shod with the preparation of the gospel.

When you think about that, feet shod of the preparation of gospel.

What does that imagery project to you?

Gives you traction.

Traction.

All right.

What else?

Feet shod with the preparation of the gospel.

Traction.

Standing firm.

I go back to the CIA illustration earlier.

They took their position.

So the feet shaw with the preparation of gospel.

Golf shoes with cleats on them are a thing of the past almost.

And it's not really a good illustration, but it's the best I got.

But you have these shoes with nail projections sticking out of them, and then plant their feet, and they're now ready and they're solid, they're fixed for battle.

Standing firm with conviction and courage.

You got your feet firmly planted and now ready for action.

And then he says, the shield of faith we talked about to quench the fiery darts, the helmet of salvation.

Why is the helmet of salvation important?

What's the helmet protecting?

Can't do anything without the head.

It's protecting the head.

Whereas that's the heart.

That mind is the heart.

It's the seed of everything.

It deals with hope.

The helmet of salvation deals with hope.

And so you're standing firm with courage, with hope, the helmet of salvation.

And then he says the sword of the spirit, which is the word of God, the sword of the spirit.

The Hebrew writer will say it's a double-edged sword.

It cuts both ways.

It sees here and it sees there.

The sword of the spirit.

So now then, as a soldier, you're, have you ever noticed all these are ready for action pursuing?

There's nothing that's protecting back here.

The only thing protecting back here is you.

You got two men in a foxhole, they sit back to back.

We're moving forward, but you're behind moving forward.

Somebody else is behind moving forward.

I love the language that Paul gives in 1 Corinthians 15, verse 29, baptized for the dead.

1 Corinthians 15:29

I know that's a challenging passage.

My take on that is in old Civil War movies, in old Civil War fighting, you have the front line.

And that front line would go, and you know they're going to get mowed down.

And you have the next line that steps up, and the next line that steps up, and the next line that steps up.

And so you have the line behind you that steps up.

And so the protection is who's protecting you from behind?

Because you're pursuing.

But then there's one other element here.

He says, and praying with all prayer and supplication.

Praying with all prayer and supplication.

We can't enter the battle.

Paul said, I may speak boldly.

I will tell you every Sunday, I bow my head before I get up and I ask the Lord, please give me words to speak, to speak boldly and speak in a way that will be understanding and speak in a way that will help people.

I prayed that this morning.

Paul said, I may speak boldly the things that need to be said.

Speak with conviction and courage.

Let me give one more point, and then we'll close this out.

There's three things I want to close with here, because this standing firm gives us hope for the future.

And there's three things I think that relate to that.

Number one, because the promises of God.

Go back to that Revelation 8, I mean that Roman 8 passage we talked about in the last hour.

For the glory that shall be revealed.

For the promises of God.

You think about Abraham and the promises of God, looking for a city whose builder and maker is God.

Do you ever give much thought in your contemplative moments about the tremendous value and strength and encouragement, reflecting on the promises of God gives us?

They are rich to contemplate.

There's not a promise save one that God has given that has not yet happened.

And that promise in his time will come true.

And that's when he comes again.

You think about the invaluable promises of God that we see all the way through Scripture that God has answered for man.

You think about the promises that God has made for you in your life that have brought you to this moment today.

They help us with the future.

The second thing I think of is the power of the resurrection.

Paul speaks about that in 1 Corinthians 15.

You're familiar with that.

But I think about that soaring message in Revelation.

We have that resurrection and we shall be with him, no more tears, no more crying, no more suffering, no more pain.

I don't know about you, but that has a great appeal to me.

And the older I get, the more it has a deeper appeal.

I know in my youth I didn't appreciate that a lot.

You think about the power of the resurrection.

This mortal will put off immortality, this corruptible will be put off, had incorruption.

And because of that, we can be steadfast and movable in the work of the Lord.

We have his promises.

We have the resurrection.

And third, as we spoke last hour, we have a home.

We love that song, Oh, the home of the soul.

We've seen this earth is not my home.

I'm just passing through.

We think about the home that we have that's awaiting us.

It transcends.

It transcends anything that we could ever dream of.

In our wildest imagination, it doesn't touch the hem of the garment.

Let me close with this story.

True story, by the way.

In the 1800s, the Cheyenne had six different units of soldiers.

The Cheyenne Indians had six units of soldiers, and one was called the Dog Soldiers.

There's a book written about them.

And they were called the Spartans of the Plains.

And what the dog soldiers would do is they would have a rope that was tied around their waist with a with a small sharp pointed piece dangling through it, or from it.

And the point was they would take that and they'd tie the horse up to it, and they'd put that spike in the ground, and the horse would be anchored to it, and the horse would wander away.

One purpose.

Second purpose was in time of battle, the dog soldier would take that sash, that rope, and he would stretch it out and put that stake in the ground, and he would stand there defending his tribe.

And he could not leave.

Whatever the surrounding area was that he would cover with the length of the rope would be his area of defense.

And he could not leave until all of those in the tribe had passed by safely.

And he had to stand there, even if it required his life to protect his people.

Think about that.

Who from your family, who from your church are the dog soldiers?

We are.

Until everybody passes by safely.

Even if we have to give our life.

And that stand firm.

Ready to stand firm.

I'm not asking you to respond, except for yourself.

I have to ask my question, myself this question.

Am I ready to stand firm like that?