Know Your Enemy

Ephesians chapter six. After Japan struck Pearl Harbor. one of their Next targets was a tiny Pacific island called Wake Island. On Wake Island there were just fewer than 500 Marines there. They had little armor, they had little air support, they had little chances of reinforcement.

Well, within days, they were encircled by Japanese troops, which were backed by battleships and aircraft carriers. And although the Marines knew that they were outmanned, outgunned, and outnumbered, They fought ferociously. and eventually repelled two major assaults. and the sinking of many enemy ships. While they were eventually overwhelmed, they successfully defeated the first assault, which consisted of three light cruisers.

six destroyers, two patrol boats and three submarines.

Now amid this fight The overseeing commander, Commander Cunningham, radioed for help or sent a letter back for help.

Well, in the message, he says, send U.S. more Japs.

Well, the message was misunderstood. As send us more jabs. Uh which ended up spiked Sparking a massive morale boost among the U.S. Marines and actually went down as a legend among them. And what's remarkable is amid this invasion only 52 Marines were killed.

compared to the 930 Japanese uh casualties. And while that was the case, most of these Marines were taken as POWs.

Now, Wake Island, for myself, is a reminder that battles are often decided in this life not solely by courage. but by the strength of their supply. While those Marines did indeed fight bravely, no amount of grit can make up for the crushing superiority of the Japanese fleets. They were outnumbered. They were outpowered.

And in Ephesians 6, 10 through 13, Paul is going to tell us that our situation is actually far more desperate than that of the Japanese. Our enemy, he says, is not flesh and blood. Our enemy, rather, is spiritual. And we are outmatched. We are outmatched by forces that are older.

Forces that are stronger. forces that are more cunning than we are. And what he wants us to leave here understanding today Is that on our own, a Christian life is not merely difficult. It is thoroughly impossible. And that's why Paul begins by calling us to be strong in the Lord and in the power of his might.

Now in C.S. Lewis's book, The Screw Tape Letters, He writes, there are two equal and opposite errors. into which our race can fall as it pertains to devils. One is to believe in their or to disbelieve in their existence. And the other is to believe and to feel an excessive and unhealthy interest.

And them. And I think that as As I look at the evangelical church, on the one hand, we've got our charismatic brothers and sisters that tend to see the devils as being responsible for everything. They would, I think, sympathize with me, and I think I would agree with them. The devils were responsible for wherever I misplaced my notes this morning. And on our side of the road, as Reformed Christians, we tend to speak as though depravity is the sole enemy of the Christian life.

And we seem to completely ignore the reality of demonic warfare. And since that, I believe, is a problem in our camp. And since I am not a pastor of a charismatic church, I'm convinced that if we As reformed Christians do not recover a proper and biblical understanding of our enemy, then he will continue to wage war on us and to do it successfully. You've got to know your enemy.

So as we look at Ephesians 6 today, We will find that because our enemy is fierce We must first run to Christ. And then we must remember to walk in the way of Christ.

So, in that said, if we are going to wage a successful war, we must first recognize. Our enemy. Let's look at verse 11 and 12. The latter part of verse 11: put on the whole armor of God that you 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 age. against spiritual hosts of wickedness In the heavenly places. In verses 11 and 12, Paul is giving us a shocking jar to awaken us to the reality of the war that we are at. As a matter of fact, this is the only place in the New Testament where the Christian life is specifically spoken of in these kind of militaristic terms. And what Paul wants us to understand is that we are at war with a vicious enemy.

Notice the nouns, the descriptors, and the nouns that he is going to use here. He says, these are devils. Principalities and powers and rulers, spiritual hosts of wickedness.

So, what I want to do first is before I dive into what they are like, I want to first address what they are.

So, my first sub point for my note-takers is: these are personal beings. These are personal beings. Uh I'm a Star Wars fan. I I like Star Wars. Uh But we need to be careful to think about the spiritual realm, particularly as it pertains to the Holy Spirit or as it pertains to the demonic realm, as though they are impersonal forces.

Just what we might call momentum ships. That is not what these are. These are real beings that have been created, that are sustained by the upholding hand of God. These are real personal beings. In Matthew 8, 29, Jesus is Dealing with two demon-possessed men that describe them as coming out of the tombs behaving.

ferociously or fiercely And when they see the Lord, it says they cry out. What have we to do with you, Jesus? You son of God. Have you come here to torment us before the time? And in verse 31, it says, So the demons begged him, saying, if you cast us out, permit us to go away into the herd of swine.

Now there's There was a lot in that text for us to unravel. Uh Pastor Kay has cover this in previous sermons out of Mark's gospel. But there are three things about these beings as far as their personality that are clear in that text. The first is that they have intellect. They have intellect.

They are intellectual beings. They know who Christ is. They know that Christ is powerful. They know that He will judge them on the final day. And they know that there is a timeline where it is approaching.

These are intellectual beings. The second thing we see is they have wills. They have wheels. These demonic beings were fiercely afflicting these men. They desired to enter into pigs, and they decided to run the pigs off a cliff when they entered them.

So They are capable of making decisions. As a matter of fact, in the other gospel, we see that there is an exorcism of sort that Jesus is referring to. You cast out one demon, and what is he going to do? He's going to go back and he's going to bring seven more with him, more deadly than the first. And so they have decisions, or they have wills that they make decisions with.

And third, they have emotions. Do they have Intellect? They have wills. and they have emotions. Verse 29 says they are crying.

Verse 31 says they are begging. And with that being said, I think the Bible makes it clear that our enemy today isn't simply just a series of unfortunate events, but rather these are real. personal beings that actually exist. outside of the plane where we can visibly see them.

So this is not the force. These are real created. Beings. Second, not only are they personal, But as we look back in Ephesians, they are powerful. They're powerful in two ways.

Paul describes them using words like their principalities. Their powers And they're rulers. There are two things that that's teaching us. First, it shows us that they have an ordered Hierarchical structure. We know that the angels, the heavenly abode, is structured with a hierarchy of sort.

What is Michael called? the archangel, and so there is a hierarchy in the heavens. And in the demonic realm they are similarly ordered in that same fashion. For instance, the word rulers here typically means literally the first ones, the leaders, the chiefs. It's used for a term to refer to a a high-ranking commander.

And the reason that this is important for us to understand about this is Is is Satan It's not omnipresent. Satan is not omniscient. Satan is not everywhere at once. I think I could have liberty to say that most all of us will never encounter Satan himself in this life. But Satan does have what Revelation describes as the tail of the dragon that drug down a third of the stars of heaven with him.

He does have an army of demons who are subservient to them, and seeking to be like the Lord God, he has them cascaded over creation to do his bidding for him. That he is the commander of evil forces. And so they are powerful in their structure. They're powerful in structure. Not only are they powerful in structure, They're powerful in nature.

These demons. These demons are a part of an angelic band that revolted against God with Lucifer and were cast out of heaven.

Now, one thing we know about angels in the scriptures is that they are incredibly strong. In 2 Kings chapter 19, verse 35, we read, And that night the angel of the Lord went out. and struck down one hundred and eighty five thousand in the camp of the Assyrians. And so w what we're gathering here is a picture What we call a systematic theology of what these beings are. They're personal.

And they're incredibly powerful. The next thing I want you to know about them. And we're getting into my sermon material. Is there wicked? They are wicked.

Ephesians 6:12 says, They are spiritual hosts or armies. of wickedness. While speaking with a brother the other day, he made mention about how demonic today's horror movies are. And the petrifying reality about horror movies is that they don't come close to capturing exactly how wicked these beings truly are. When I look around at the landscape of evangelicalism, And see how many ministers have fallen due to moral failure.

When I see how the name of Christ is besmirched and smeared by the failing of those who call themselves ministers, I personally am struck. With fear for the sake of my own soul, and likewise, I am angered at the enemies of hell which seek to tarnish the name of Christ. What I'm trying to communicate here is that these are real beings. They're extremely powerful, and they are not your friends. These are not agents promoting tolerance and diversity.

They are not here to show us a better way. They are not committed to the destruction of, they are committed to the destruction of your never dying soul. There is a term we could use called theological maximalism, which is this old understanding, which whatever I can say in theological categories to bring the most glory to God, then maybe I should say that.

Well, when it comes to the devils, there is no. There is essentially no cutoff to describing exactly how wicked these beings are. There is no redeeming quality to them. They are wickedness. These beings are the inventor of sin.

These enemies are the enemies of God who is himself goodness. And they have no redeeming qualities. in themselves. When uh when we read the Gospels We find that they possess people.

Okay. and they produce ailments such as blindness. and convulsions Self-destruction, personality splits, insane behaviors. Joel Beekey puts it this way. They show that there is no kind of affliction No kind of affliction, mental or physical, that Satan and his demons are unwilling to bring upon people.

people. They are Waiting. And that's who we're up against. Finally, They are cunning. They are cunning.

I once heard a story about a farmer. who grew tired of of watermelon thieves sneaking into his garden. And so he put up a sign. And his sign said warning. One of these melons has been poisoned.

And for the next few days, he began to celebrate because he thought that his idea had worked. Until a few days later he went out there and read his sign again and it said warning Two of these melons have been poisoned. And so, not knowing which one was poisoned, the farmer had to destroy his entire crop.

Well Like these thieves, The devil works similarly. Uh oh. It doesn't matter what sign you put up. It doesn't matter what scheme you've concocted. Satan seems to have a better plan.

Why? Because the devil is cunning. He's at least 10,000 years old, and beloved, while you certainly are unique in your own special ways, he has seen your kind before. He is a student of his craft. He knows how to bait the hook of sin.

to convince you to follow him. He's a mastermind at deception. He is Cunning. In verse 11, Paul commands us to put on the armor of God so that we may be able to stand, stand is a defensive term, against the wiles of the devil. The word wiles could mean schemes, his methods, his tactics.

So, when it comes to our war against Satan, we have to understand he is ancient. He has been studying this art for some 10,000 years at least now. And this means that he is a master at baiting sin's hook to fool us. And while we may indeed have our own similar struggles or individual struggles, he has seen our struggles before.

Now before I move on to give some examples of his work. I want to highlight that phrase down in verse 13. It says, the evil day. The evil day.

Now there are a few views on this. Um The first view is that the evil day is referring to a heightened Intensification. of demonic presence. before Jesus returns.

Now, the second view is that this actually, the evil day, is referring to the totality of the Christian's life. We are always at war. It is always the evil day, so we must be redeeming the time. The third is referring to um Heightened seasons of warfare where Satan seems to have us in, as it were, a spiritual chokehold. He pins us in the corner.

And I'm convinced that two and three are are are well wedded together. I'm convinced that the evil day that Paul wants us to think about It is that He is referring to the daily life. Where we face temptation as well as critical seasons of hostility where it reaches a fever pitch in the Christian life. And so, with that said, I believe that. That Paul wants us to be aware that we must be prepared.

for the everyday assaults from Satan, as well as increased times of blitzkrieg, these seasons where he is coming at us with a full frontal assault.

So with that in mind. Let's take a few minutes. I want to give you four broad examples of Satan's tactics in our lives. They're going to be broad to try and focus on different areas. First, While studying this, I I thought to myself, how can we understand The influences of satanic work upon our our minds, upon our thoughts.

How do we discern between what is a design of my depravity and my lusts in my mind and what has been a seed planted of Satan? And The reality is that Satan is such a brilliant opponent that he knows which temptations. to drop before us to capitalize on our fleshly lusts.

So in one sense, We are depraved, but we are sinfully marred by the fall, right? And we all deal with different temptations innately to us, these besetting sins, as it were, these struggles that we will war against. Satan knows what you war against. And the thoughts of your depravity, you might can think of it this way. or kindling.

And Satan in his brilliant tactics knows how to provide an object that will spark it and send it ablaze.

So he knows your temptations. And he knows what to dangle in front of you to ignite those lusts. and to capitalize on them. William Jenkins said, he has an apple for Eve. A grape for Noah.

A change of raiment for Gehezi. and a bag of money. for Judas. He knows. How to capitalize.

on your lusts. There was once a father who was searching for a driver to take his children to school and back. While interviewing each candidate, he asked, while you're driving to the school, there's a road that runs along the edge of a cliff. How close can you get to the edge without going over it?

Well the first candidate Responds, I can get within 12 inches. of the edge of that cliff.

Well, the next candidate probably says, I can get within six inches. of the cliff.

Well, the third candidate beginning to sit there shyly whispers out every time I see a cliff edge It makes me want to hug the inside that much more. I think you could probably assume which one of the candidates the father went with. of them all. When it comes to sin, beloved, we must never play a game of inches because where we give Satan an inch, he is going to give us a mountain of temptation. Satan knows your besetting sins, and he knows what to sit before you to make you fall over the cliff edge.

And so, beloved, the best thing for us to do is don't look over the edge at all. Do not tinker. With sin. Kill it. Kill it.

Second.

Now these are broad, so now I want to look at the church. Satan seeks to corrupt the unity of God's people. By sowing discontentment. and disagreeableness among the body.

Now, my last sermon I preached last month. covered the subject of unity and Bearing burdens with one another out of Psalm 133. And beloved, Satan hates the unity of the church. The whole gospel is the message of reconciliation both to God and to man. And Satan's work is causing division between God and man.

That's what we find in the garden. Satan brings a severing tie between all meaningful relationships. I don't think. There is just a mere coincidence that Paul talks about spiritual warfare immediately after dealing with marriage, children and parents, and the workplace. These relationships and events that are most central to our life, your marriage, your family unit, or your relationships, and your workplace.

And immediately after that, he goes, Oh, and by the way, the problem isn't your parents, and it isn't your wife, oh, and it isn't even your workplace. The problem is. Satan's at work. Satan's at work. Satan hates the unity of people.

He hates the unity of God's people, and one way he clearly destroys it is by cultivating in us an unforgiving spirit. In 2 Corinthians 2, verse 10 through 11, Paul warns the church of Corinth. He says, Hey, Unforgiveness, an unforgiving heart, makes us vulnerable to being outwitted by the devil. An unforgiving heart is a chink in our armor where the devil can aim his arrows. And beloved, I've been a Christian long enough to tell you that there is no limit to the damage that a disagreeable congregant can bring upon the body.

Satan will often convince these people who often come across as dissatisfied nitpickers that they are the only ones who have it right. And they manifest a smug attitude of superiority in the church. And beloved, this is a powerful way for us to become an instrument of Satan for the church's division and for the destruction of your soul. Why? Because the devil is as a wolf.

He seeks to isolate little lambs from the flock that he might devour them. And if he can get in your head, if he can make you a nitpicker who's pedantically looking for a reason to get mad, he'll segregate you off and he'll devour you. He'll devour you. The purpose of the church is not for everyone to look like you and to act like you and to like the things that you like. The purpose of the church is for Christ to receive glory, knowing I have taken so many different people who would never get along and I've united them in Christ.

So I get the glory. Christ's gospel gets the glory. Not my hobbies, not my fashion, not my preference. The gospel. And Satan doesn't like that.

So he says, if I can make you a nitpicker, If I can make you what I like to call them connoisseurs of churches. Then I can make you. An instrument of Satan for the destruction not only of the church. Because you're going to begin to whisper to see if you can build up an army to follow you. But I'm also going to segregate you and I'm going to devour you.

Be careful. Be careful. The most despicable thing in the American church today, which is popularized and it grieves me deeply, is church hopping. church hopping. is bad.

Because the reason that church hoppers typically like to church hop is. There's no accountability because you leave before people get to find out who you really are. And if your undershepherds know who you are, they can begin to speak into your life with grace and accountability and to see you brought up in the maturation of the Lord Jesus Christ. Praise God for the church. This is Christ's bride.

Well, third, Satan will seek to rob you of your joy in the Lord. The devil is regularly called the accuser of the brethren. the scriptures for him If he cannot damn your soul, He will seek to crush your joy. by bringing up past sins. He will curate and cultivate a condemning conscience in us.

And what he's going to do to you is, he is going to begin to whisper past sins into your mind incessantly. You ever come to church? You're about to start singing the hymns. Your soul is being stirred. And then the devil begins to whisper, you hypocrite.

You hypocrite. And so your worship is tainted and your soul is grieved and you feel like you must segregate yourself from the worship because you don't want to be a hypocrite. That's the accuse. That's the accuser. What this effectively does, this whispering of past sins to grieve and to destroy our joy, is it effectively convinces us that Christ's atonement is not sufficient.

Christ's atonement is not sufficient. Beloved. If we are grieved with a pricked conscience over sins that are in the past, Do we believe that Christ's atonement is sufficient to wash away sins or not? And I'm I'm I'm gonna end up I'm getting rid of one of my letter points. But one of the ways that Satan is a servant of God There's two ways this is going to go is he's either going to remind you of your past sins and you are going to navel gaze and you're never going to look at Jesus and his gospel is not sufficient and your gospel is me doing better.

But another way that this can be used for good is you look down and you realize how sinful you are, and you know what sinners need. They need a Savior. And Satan can be God's most unwilling servant by reminding us of past sins. Luther said that Satan does me a great service when he reminds me that I am a sinner. Do you know why?

Because Christ died for sinners. Fourth. Satan will seek to hinder the furtherance of the gospel. by creating cowardice in our heart. In 2 Timothy 1:7, Paul reminds Timothy.

That his calling, or of his calling, tells him that God has not given us a spirit of fear. As a matter of fact, what does Paul ask you to pray for at the end of this very paragraph? He says, And for me, you pray, that utterance may be given to me, that I may open my mouth boldly to make the mystery of the gospel know. No. Satan hates the furtherance of the gospel.

One powerful tool that Satan waves in front of us is what we call the fear of men rather than God. And in our mob-ruled culture today, it is a powerful thing. Satan knows that fear will paralyze our. Witness. Silences evangelism.

It turns soldiers into deserters.

So we must see that when we cave to fear in speaking the gospel and standing upon what we know to be true, we are not merely being shy, we are yielding ground to the enemy who trembles at the advance of the gospel of Jesus Christ. The truth of the matter is is that Satan today can present temptations to us. But Satan cannot force us to follow through with these temptations.

However, since he is a master of his craft, and since we are so weak, we often fall for his schemes. And since that's true, we must listen to Paul's invitations. He's going to give you two of them. The first thing that Paul wants us to do is, he wants us to rest in our union with Jesus Christ. He wants us to rest in our union with Jesus Christ.

Look with me in verse 10, please. Finally, my brethren. Be strong in the Lord. and in the power of his might.

Now in verse 10 the word be strong It's what we call a present-passive verb. It's a passive verb. This means that Paul isn't saying hunter. You're at war? And what you need to do is, you need to muster up your own strength.

It's your last name, isn't it? And she can muster it up, or you're going to go to war. That's not what you're calling you to do. It's a present it's a present Passive verb. And so he isn't saying, muster up your own strength.

Instead, he's saying, you need to receive strength from a source outside. Outside of yourself. For my friends carrying the CSB or the NET today, it's translated. Be strengthened by the Lord. And that is a quality rendering of that passage.

Be strengthened by the Lord and by his vast. Strength. The goal that Paul has in this text It is to provoke us to greater dependence on God. How? By showing us the danger that our enemy poses to our soul.

God is trying to, Paul is trying to, as it were, scare you to God dependence by showing you how scary your rival is.

So what are he trying to do? Paul is not calling us to try and do this alone. He knows that we will be destroyed, and so instead he calls us to receive our strength from the Lord. And then he says, and the power of his might. It's as though Paul's saying Go to the Lord for your strengthening, and just in case you forgot, this is a mighty Lord.

This is a mighty Lord. And Paul has already addressed what is might in Ephesians. If you will turn back to me to Ephesians chapter 1, the very beginning of this book. Ephesians chapter 1, verse 15 through 23. It reads, Therefore, I also, after I heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all the saints, do not cease to give thanks for you, making mention of you in my prayers, that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you the spirit of wisdom and revelation, and the knowledge of him, the eyes of your understanding being enlightened.

What is he praying for? that you may know what is the hope of his calling. What are the riches of the glory of his inheritance and the saints? And what is the exceeding greatness? This could be also translated, the might.

of his power towards us who believe. According to the working of his mighty power, which he worked in Christ, what did he do in Christ? When he raised him from the dead. And he seated him at the right hand in heavenly places. Far abro above what?

Principalities and powers and might and dominion and every name that is made, named.

Now only in this age But also And that which is to come. And verse 22 is just a blessing. And he put all things under his feet. and gave him to be head over all things to the church. which is his body.

the fullness of him. who fills all. And all. What a precious passage. What we see in in Ephesians 1 is that the might of Christ has been demonstrated to the whole world in the finished work of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Jesus has conquered death. He has conquered hell. He sits at the right hand of the Father, where He rules over everything. And in Ephesians 1. Paul prays that we might get a hold of that reality and that our hope.

Might be strengthened by the fact that Jesus really has been raised from the dead and rules over all things.

Now at the end of this book, Paul. Paul is circling back to that again and bringing it up. And what he's meaning to do here now is by bringing it up again. He wants us to know that this power has now been directed toward us, and if we get a hold of it, it's going to do two things: it's going to kill despair. and it's going to destroy self-confidence.

Why? Because you are in union with the mighty Lord. What Paul wants you to know, beloved, is you don't have to be crippled with despair in this war against Satan because you are in union with Christ. You are in union with Christ. We we I won't use that illustration, that's not a good one.

We are in union with a mighty and powerful Lord, and so our boasting is not in our self-sufficiency. Rather, seeing how fearful the situation is, we run to Christ who we are in union with, and boy, is he mighty. Boy is he mighty. One way it kills despair. It's about reminding us today That Satan is not a free acting or sovereign being.

Satan is not a free acting and sovereign b sovereign being. Satan is a conquered enemy. Satan is an unwilling slave of God. The old timers used to say, the devil is God's devil. There is no hardship today.

There is no trial. There is no affliction. That will fall upon us that has not first been permitted by the loving hand of God. What do we see in the book of Job? Have you considered my servant Job?

What does the Lord say to Peter? The devil has requested to sift you like wheat, but hey Peter, I have prayed for you. There is not a hardship. There is not an illness. There is not an ailment in this life.

Which is not being First, passed by the hand. of a loving person. Providence. The Song of Solomon gets this picture perfectly. I've really wanted to preach it today, but I didn't get to.

It says this. The whole Who is this? coming out of the wilderness. Leaning on her. Beloved.

the afflictions of this life are meant to bring us To greater dependency on the Lord. There's two things in that, and I'm preaching my sermon for whenever the Lord allows me to get to it. There's two things there. Not only are we leaning upon the beloved, but we are because we need support. Do you ever see two couples walking in public?

The wife is leaning upon her spouse. She's doing that because he is her. Beloved, not only is it dependence, but there is delight. These afflictions coming out of the wilderness is this greater dependency on my beloved. and delight to him.

He is Precious.

So, Satan's not out here running free and amok. There is a God who is sovereign. And there is not one molecule in the universe over which God does not declare, that is mine. You are the church of Christ. And the gates of hell wish they could prevail against you, but they can't.

We are on the winning side of the sovereign God of heaven and earth. And there is not one affliction that will fall upon us. There is not one hair that will fall from your head. without the God of heaven and earth saying, Have you considered? When I was um Living in South Carolina, I was 19, one of my best friends had just recently gotten married and he went off to a police academy and came back and his brand new bride had ran off with a high school sweetheart.

And he called me. And while we were talking, he said, I can't help. but they have some sort of hope. in celebration that perhaps in this time of affliction the Lord has said, have you considered? My servant.

That the Lord has used this affliction to make me present the glory of Christ and the loss of my bride. And that maybe in this I might give glory to the Lord in this affliction. Yes, he might sift us like wheat. But Jesus Christ is praying for me. And these trials will be used to make me love Jesus.

and to look more like him.

So First, I want you to rest in your union with Jesus. Second and finally, I want you to remember to walk in his way. I want you to remember to walk in his way.

Okay. Um In verses 11 and 13, Paul calls us to put on the armor of God.

Now, you may be wondering today: why are you preaching it like this? Why aren't you just going 10 through 13?

Well, For my nerves here, this is what's called a chiastic structure. There's a literary mountaintop here, and the very middle of it is Paul's really wanting you to get there's an enemy, and then he's going to give you things around it.

So that's why I'm doing things that way. This chiastic structure is there.

Now, we're seeing in verse 11 through 13 on the opposite sides of the mountain peak here. Is that he wants us to put on armor?

Now, since our warfare is spiritual, we know that we will need spiritual armor, which isn't something that we can provide for ourselves. Rather, it is something that is both provided by God And it is something that has been already put to use. By God.

Now I don't have time to explore each one of the the pieces of armor there. Uh I don't think any of you brought your bag lunch with you, so we're not going to keep you that long. But I do want us to see that Paul gets this idea of spiritual armor from Isaiah. And what Isaiah is doing in his work is he is prophesying the Lord. And so Paul is applying this to the church.

Let me show you right quick, if you will. In Ephesians 6:14, we are told: put on the belt of Alethea, or the belt of truth.

Now, in Isaiah chapter 52, verse 5, or excuse me, Isaiah 11, verse 5. We read, Christ will come, and righteousness shall be the belt of his loins, and faithfulness. Alethea. will be the belt of his waist.

So the prophecy here is that Jesus is going to come and he's going to have this belt of truth already around him. And Paul says, we look in the life of Jesus and we see how he puts it to use. And now you, imitating him, you wear the same thing. He does this. A few more times in Ephesians 6:15, we are told to shod our feet with the gospel.

Isaiah 52, 5, we are given a prophecy of Jesus, and it says, How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him who bring good news. And third, and that'll be the end of the examples I'm going to give. In Ephesians 6:17, we are told to put on the helmet of salvation. We are also told to put on a breastplate of righteousness in these texts.

Well, in Isaiah 59, 17, we read, For he. Jesus? Put on righteousness as a breastplate. and a helmet of salvation. On his head.

Now, why do I think this is worth seeing? Because what Paul is doing here is he is telling us That if you're going to fight Satan. This isn't going to come from your own strength, and it's definitely not going to come from your own tactics. You're not going to be able to concoct a scheme to win this fight. Instead, if we are going to make any progress, if we are going to live life and fight this fight, we are going to do it by his strength and by his example.

This isn't going to be walking by the wisdom that Hunter thinks is right. You're going to walk by the way of the Lord, or you're not going to walk at all. G.K. Bill says. Paul transfers the whole armor of God from God himself to God's people.

Because he knows that the victory of God's people over the devil is not yet complete. God has certainly struck a fatal blow. But the flaming arrows of this doomed regime continue to assail God's people. He continues. Between the time of Christ's victory And the consummation.

of God's purposes in Christ. We must imitate God. in his role. as divine warrior.

So In conclusion, beloved, when Satan comes to capitalize on our fleshly lusts, what must we do?

Well, we don't Reach down deeper into yourself. For strength. Instead, we fasten on the belt of Christ's truth around us and we cling to His promises. We see this depicted in the life of Jesus, particularly at his. his wilderness temptations, don't we?

Satan comes. Jesus is weak. Satan tempts him. Satan is tempting him with Very. agreeable terms, right?

Just make those rocks into bread. You're hungry. I'm just trying to get you to feed yourself, right? And what does Jesus respond? to the devil with Except for Scripture.

Except for scripture. When Satan tells you to listen to your fleshly desires because life is short and meant to be enjoyed, you tell him that sin only brings joy for a season, but there is everlasting joy in the Lord. And we fight the temptations of the evil one with the word of God. It is our sword. When Satan magnifies petty grievances, when he breeds unforgiveness in your heart and convinces us that people that we are clearly more equipped than others.

Let's remember to put on the shoes of the gospel of peace. Instead of walking around with a proud heart. And a smug personality lets imitate Jesus by walking in peace. Instead of nitpicking, we're going to spread the good news. Instead of holding grudges, remember that we have been reconciled to God and to men.

And when we have been wronged by others and refused to forgive them. But we expect that God's forgiven us of our wrongdoings. What we're essentially saying is the wrong that you've afflicted against me is worse than the sins I've committed against an all-holy God. That's humiliating. And that God has come and has been crushed.

That we might be reconciled to God and to men. It since he has done that. I think we can have a forgiveness of heart towards those who have wronged us. Jesus has taught us that blessed are the peacemakers. Third, When Satan comes to rob you of your joy by accusing you of sins that are under the blood?

You put on the helmet of salvation. Jesus wore that helmet into battle to secure our redemption with his own blood. And when Satan comes to condemn you, beloved, you respond with Romans 8.1. There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk according to the flesh. according to the spirit.

Is Romans 10.13 a lie? Does the scriptures not promise us that whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved? When Satan comes to torment you and to cause you to doubt and to cause you to think the Lord is not faithful, you bring up the word and you say the Lord is faithful. And the Lord has promised me. That if I call upon him with faith, that he will save sinners.

And he has forgiven my sins. And he is an all-sufficient sacrifice. And he is a faithful Lord who has sealed me by his Holy Spirit. Christ has not forsaken me. Yes, I am a sinner, but Christ died for sinners.

Christ died for sinners. Luther said, So when the devil throws your sins in your face and declares that you deserve death in hell, tell him this. I admit that I deserve death in hell. What of it? For I know one who suffered and made satisfaction on my behalf.

His name is Jesus Christ, the Son of God. And where he is, There I soon shall be. Awesome. Fourth, when Satan stirs up fear in our hearts to silence the gospel, we put on the breastplate of righteousness. Our Lord lived.

a life of unwavering righteousness, didn't he? No matter what men did to him. The Lord was faithful. And when Satan attempts to silence us, remind yourself that you are clothed in Christ, that you follow the Lord who reigns supreme. And so what can men do to me?

We fear God rather. Then mirror.

So this morning, I believe that Paul is calling us to be scared into God-centered dependence into march into war. When the devil when Paul speaks of the evil day Notice he does not give you an out. The evil day is coming, whether you're prepared or not. It's coming. And since we cannot stand on our own, Paul calls us to rest in the Lord and to imitate Him in the face of spiritual warfare.

I'll leave you with this quote. It's called The Whole Armor of God. It's a book by Ian Duga. He writes: The armor God gives us to defend and protect us against Satan's onslaught. is the armor that he had already worn in the decisive battle on our behalf.

We fight and stand firm against Satan. only in the strength that comes from the victory that Christ has already won. for us. Christian? Are you overwhelmed by the devil's schemes?

Look to Jesus. Look to Jesus who stared Satan in the face. Jesus who overcame a tsunami of temptation where you fall underneath a drop. That Jesus That one who overcame and crush Satan on the cross, looks at you when you are struggling, and he sympathizes with you, and he intercedes with you, and he promises to give you grace, because his grace is sufficient in our time of weakness. The Lord is all sufficient for us.

as we go to war. against our enemy. This is the Word of God. for the people of God. Let us pray.

Dear kind and gracious Heavenly Father, I pray today. that you might sanctify this word to our hearts. I pray that amid all the distractions and temptations that are around us to cause us to. have our uh attention pulled away from the word that you would allow your truth to be uh Made a viable seed upon our hearts, and that you, by the Spirit, would churn up and till up this ground that we might receive it, and that it might bear fruit in our lives. Lord, I am not content.

to merely live a passive life. I want to die on this battlefield, Lord. I want to wage war for the cause of Christ. Not because I want to have a great legacy, but because Christ is worthy. You are worthy, Lord, of our killing of sin.

You are worthy, Lord, of us resting not in our own sufficiency, but in the sufficiency and the wisdom of God in Christ. You are worthy, Lord, to receive honor and glory and power and dominion. Lord, you are worthy. And so, Lord, let us go to war. Against the evil one today, to resist his temptations by looking to you for sufficiency and for example.

We ask this in Christ's name. Amen.