You have all the resources, all the power. You have all the principles to live the Christian life. There's just one thing you need to know. In spite of all of resurrection power, in spite of all of the truths that you need to know being available, it will not be easy.
You take measures to protect yourself from burglars and identity thieves, enemies you may never face. So how should you defend yourself against a much more dangerous enemy, one who, if you are a Christian, you're sure to face? Find out today on Grace To You as John MacArthur continues his series, The Believer's Armor. It's an in-depth look at how Satan tries to discourage believers and how, through Christ, you can resist his attacks. So now open your Bible or use the Study Bible app and turn to Ephesians chapter 6, and here's John MacArthur with a lesson. We come to a brief kind of introduction, a look at the first section, verses 10 through 13.
Let me read it to you. Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord and in the power of His might. Put on the whole armor of God that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places. Wherefore, take unto you the whole armor of God that ye may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand. We will not exhaust all that's in those verses, but be coming back to them next time we study this and in following sessions. So we'll kind of look at it in an overview and pick out some key things.
But let me remind you of the context briefly as we begin. Paul has in this book presented to us the great realities of being in Christ, what it means to be a believer, what it means to belong to God, what it means to have the Spirit of God indwelling, what it means to become adopted into God's family, what it means to stand in Him, the position of the believer, who He is in Christ, who she is in Christ, where we stand, our identity, a definition of our character because of Jesus Christ, positional truth, who we are in Christ, the great realities that we are blessed with all spiritual blessings in the heavenlies, that we have been given adoption and love and predestination and forgiveness and enlightenment and knowledge and understanding and power. We have been taken out of the dominion of Satan and placed into the kingdom of Christ.
We have been made to do good works which God has before ordained. We have been moved, as it were, away from the style of living of the world and ushered into a whole new dominion, a union with God, a union with Christ, a union with the Spirit, a union with every other believer. Our attitudes change. We think different. We feel different. We talk different.
We act different. And all of these things are identified as marks of a believer in the first three chapters of the book of Ephesians. And all of it according to the tremendous purpose of God in the mystery of the church as He has made us one in Jesus Christ and filled us with resurrection power. Chapter 4, 5 and 6, our practice was discussed, our position who we are, our practice how we live, and the apostle delineated for us standards of living which we are to attain. The idea could be illustrated by a car. First three chapters describe the car, its engine, its power plant, its capability.
And then the second three, the roadmap on which the car is to drive. And we as believers are defined as high-powered individuals. And the second three chapters show us where we are to go with this power. The ignition switch is being strengthened by the Spirit in the inner man, being filled with the Spirit. As the Spirit controls us, we turn on the power plant and begin to move out in obedience to follow the roadmap God has given us. The way we are to live is different than the world. We are to walk worthy.
It is a walk of oneness, a walk of unity, a walk different than the world, a walk of love, a walk of light, a walk of wisdom, a walk in the Spirit. Our relationships are different. Our songs are different. Our marriages are different. Our families are different.
Our employment situations are different. All of these things, unique standards, principles by which the believer is to function in the world. Now, think of it then this way in summary. You have all the resources, all the power. You have all the principles to live the Christian life. There's just one thing you need to know. In spite of all of resurrection power, in spite of all of the truths that you need to know being available, it will not be easy.
And that is the way Paul wants to end his letter. Don't dare take anything for granted because you know how you're to operate on the job. It doesn't guarantee you'll pull it off. Because you know how you're to conduct yourself and your family doesn't mean you'll fulfill it. Because you know the truths about resurrection and about the power available doesn't mean you're going to apply it necessarily.
Because you know what God teaches about marriage is no guarantee that you'll see the fulfillment of it. Even though the power is there and the principles are there, something else is there. And that's the enemy, the adversary who wants to withstand any good thing God sets out to do.
The enemy will be there to thwart divine purpose in your life. And so, when you come to defining the Christian life, the best term is simply warfare, warfare. That's what Paul uses to speak of it in this passage. In fact, at the end of his life, he said, I have fought a good fight. In his ministry he said, I fight not as one who beats the air. To Timothy he said, be a soldier who endures hardness. Repeatedly in Scripture, the Christian life is seen as a warfare. When Jesus began His ministry, the initial thrust of His ministry was a war with Satan, a conflict with Satan after forty days of fasting in which Satan approached Him and tempted Him subtly three times. And the way His ministry ended was the same way as Satan began to besiege Him in the Garden of Gethsemane and he began to sweat, as it were, great drops of blood. That shows us a lot of things, but it shows us one thing I'd like to point out and that is that whether you're at the beginning of your experience or at the end of it, you're going to be in the same battle.
And if you think it'll get easier, you're wrong. Jesus had a conflict at the beginning, but He didn't sweat great drops of blood in the wilderness. That was at the end when He was in the Garden. There was, if anything, an intensification of the efforts of the enemy as Christ came closer to accomplishing His goals. I remember when I was young, somebody said to me, you know, you ought to begin to witness because the more you do it, the easier it gets.
That isn't true. The more effective you become, the harder Satan works. You know, people say to me, you know, you've been preaching so long, it must be easy. It isn't any easier than it ever was.
It's the same. If anything, sometimes it's more difficult. You might be surprised to know that Satan would want to thwart me any way he possibly could from preaching. I fight more now to get the time to study than I ever fought in my life. I mean, it's early morning, late night and doing it wherever you can because there's so many things that Satan wants to do to undermine that priority of teaching the Word of God. But it isn't any easier because it's always a war.
It never stops being a war. And you always have a certain sense of weariness that goes along with a great sense of accomplishment because the longer you fight the battle, the greater the string of victories, right? And the greater the string of victories, the more the confidence you have in God and the more you know that God's going to take you through and the more thrilling it is as you see God's power working. I can understand what it means in Revelation when the saints die and it says they rest from all their labors. I think about heaven in those terms sometimes. But I'll tell you, as long as I'm here, the battle is there and I want to be in the midst of the battle.
The Apostle Paul said in 1 Corinthians chapter 16 and verse 8, he said, I must tarry at Ephesus. Why? Because a great door and opportunity is open unto me and there are many adversaries. He says, I've got to stay here because this is where the war is the hottest. And a lot of people in the Christian life say, I've got to get out of this. It's getting difficult. You've got to find an easy ministry. A lot of men in the pastoring, as soon as it gets tough, they're going to go, you see. You've got to leave.
And Paul says, I've got to stay here. This is where the battle is the hottest. This is where the greatest victory is potentiated. It's a war. It never ceases to be warfare.
Living for Christ is not waltzing through a meadow picking daisies. It's walking through a minefield with snipers all around you. Snipers you can't see or perceive because they belong to a supernatural realm beyond your ability to conceive. This is war and the enemy is bent on the destruction of every divine purpose. And so the believer has to view himself in that manner. We are sons, yes, and we are servants, yes, but we are soldiers too. And as Paul says in 2 Corinthians chapter 10, the weapons of our warfare are not fleshly, but they are spiritual and we are dealing with imaginations and we are dealing with high things, he says. And we are dealing with bringing our thoughts into captivity to the obedience of Christ. We are fighting a war that is not simply physical, not simply fleshly.
It can have that element. The battle against the enemy can come through human beings. It can come as it did to Jesus through the persecution of men. It can come in the form of spit. It can come in the form of mockery and cursing and abusive language. It can come in the form of blows to the face.
It can come in the form of nails and spears in the side. It can come to the Christian today as it did to the apostles in form of being beheaded or being killed for the sake of Christ. It can come in those ways and maybe as we continue to preach Jesus Christ faithfully in an increasingly godless humanistic society, it will come to that. But behind the physical, behind the hatred and the persecution we see from people, there is a domain of spiritual beings that are at war with a believer. And they simply use the physical world as a means to their ends. It is not so much that men hate Christ as that Satan hates Christ and uses men as his pawns. He is the force behind the warfare. And so we face an enemy that is so strong and so clever and so deceiving and so subtle that if ever we are to fulfill the potential of our position, if ever we are to live in practice what we are in position, if ever we are to know the fullness of Christian living, we must listen to what Paul says at the end of this book.
We can't be so foolish as to think now that we've got all this data we can run out and make it the way it ought to be. We're going to hit opposition at step one and all the way down the line as long as we endeavor to live in God's kingdom on God's terms because Satan will do his best to withstand us. And so as we look then at verses 10 to 13, let me share five things with you. The preparation, the armor, the enemy, the battle, the victory. First, the preparation.
And by the way, this is basic. You do not want the battle to begin when you're unprepared. You don't want to be just sort of lollygagging around and all of a sudden you're halfway defeated before you wake up and realize you're in the war. So preparation comes first, and this is Paul's word in verse 10. Finally, and he says that because it is the last of his major themes in the book, My brethren, he uses that term because he wants to identify with them in the struggle, be strong in the Lord and in the power of His might. As a general principle in living, depend on the strength of God.
That's what he's saying. As a way of life, my brethren, depend on God's strength. You'll notice two times he uses the word in, in the Lord and in the power of His might.
And that is a cardinal reality in the book of Ephesians. We are in Christ. We are in Christ. We are one with Him. His life is our life. His power is our power. His truth is our truth. We are one with Christ in Him. And so it is in Christ that we are strong. It is in Christ that His might becomes our might.
And by the way, no matter how strong our enemy is, and we'll see how strong in a moment, his strength is superior. I can't help but think of the church at Philadelphia in Revelation chapter 3, and it talks about this church as a good church. In fact, it's one of the two out of the seven churches to which no condemnation was given. This was a righteous community of faith. And our Lord says to them, you have an open door before you.
This was a church that was reaching out, a church that was blessed by God. And then in verse 8 it says, and you have a little strength. And you know what's beautiful about that is the fact that even a little strength preserves the church. God is so much more powerful than Satan that a little of his strength is enough to overcome all of the enemies.
You see? Greater is he that is in you than he that is in the world, and so infinitely greater that the smallest amount of divine power can overcome the greatest amount of the power of hell and the enemy. And so the strength is ours in the Lord. In Philippians 4 13, Paul says, I can do all things through Christ who strengtheneth me. Again, the resource is ours.
Beloved, I believe that we have that resource. To deny that to me is to deny a basic fundamental reality of the Christian life, to say nothing of playing havoc with the thought of Paul in Ephesians chapter 6. I believe at the cross Jesus Christ gave a death blow to Satan as recorded in Hebrews 2 14. He destroyed him who had the power of death.
And I believe all we need to do is enter into that victory. Listen, if Christ defeated Satan at the cross and I was in Christ, then I defeated Satan at that same cross. And as Satan is now subject to Christ, so is Satan subject to me. As he is under his feet, so as Romans says, is he under my feet. I believe he is a vanquished foe. I believe he can lay no just claim to a believer. Romans 8 says, Who shall lay any charge to God's elect? It is God that justifies. And if God has declared me just and if God has won the battle and if God has gotten the victory in Jesus Christ, then that victory is mine. And Satan has no power to withstand the resurrection resource that dwells in the life of every believer. The point is this. We are in a war, but there is no reason to lose and there's no reason to be afraid.
Divine resource belongs to us. Timothy, as a young man in the ministry, had grown fearful. He had grown timid. He had been besought by the lusts that come to young men, young men. He had been besieged by people who were telling him false doctrine and they were pretty strong at what they were doing. He was being inundated by his own fearfulness so that he literally became ashamed of the testimony of Jesus Christ. He became ashamed of his companion in the gospel, the beloved Apostle Paul who had discipled him. And in the midst of these terrible feelings of timidity, of fear, a lack of love, shame, lust and all of these things, the Apostle Paul calls to him in 2 Timothy 2, 1 and says, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus.
Timothy, there's no reason for this. You claim the strength that is yours. And in chapter 1 he said, God has not given us the spirit of fear but of power and of love and of a sound mind. The point is this, there is no Christian, no time in his life who needs to feel that he loses the battle to the enemy. God has given us in Christ the resource for victory.
Now unto him who is able to do exceeding abundantly above all, you can ask or think according to the power that works in us. Now the fact is, we can win. We know we're going to win the war in the end because Christ has gotten us the victory.
There's no sense losing the battles along the way. But there are some things we have to know. First, we have to have our strength in the Lord and secondly, we have to have the armor on. We hear a lot about demon problems today. Christians are supposedly worrying about how do you deliver each other from demons. There's a lot of what is known as Christian exorcism going on, which is totally foreign to Scripture. There is no word about that in the Scripture. In fact, there is no incident in all of the Scripture where demons are ever cast out of a believer anytime, anyplace. Whenever Satan is dealt with, he is dealt with in terms of two things. One, the strength of the Lord and two, the provision God has made for every believer in Christ.
It's always that way. Rituals and exorcisms and all of that are foreign to Scripture. Why? We don't need that because the resource is there. That's what I want to get across to you.
It's there. In Ephesians chapter 1 and verse 19, it talks about the power toward us who believe. What kind of power? Great power, mighty power, how strong, power that raised Christ from the dead and set Him at His own right hand in the heavenlies, far above all principality and power and might and dominion and every name that is named not only in this age but in that which is to come. What kind of power do we have? The power that conquered death on the cross, the power that conquered death in the grave, the power that exalted Christ to the right hand and set every angel and demon in the universe under His feet. That's the power we have. That's the power toward us. So that I say to you that every believer has a resource within him with which he or she can deal with Satan no matter what onslaughts the devil may bring.
But on conditions. One, that his strength is in the Lord, not himself. Two, that he fulfills the conditions of the armor, the provision God has made. And so preparation, beloved, means we recognize that in the Lord the power is available. Colossians 1 10 says that you may walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing, being fruitful in every good work and increasing by the knowledge of God, strengthened with all might according to His glorious power. We have all might according to His glorious power. Christ who has delivered us from the power of darkness and translated us into the kingdom of His dear Son has given us this power. There is no believer who cannot deal with Satan on terms of resurrection power available in Christ. And recently I have heard about a Christian who supposedly has demons and doesn't have the resource to get rid of them so people are doing it for him. That is foreign to Scripture.
There is within every believer the resource in the power of God to free that individual from any satanic involvement whatever, no matter how simple or complex it may be. In 1 Corinthians I want you to notice the word of Paul in chapter 10 and verse 12. It says this, Wherefore, let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall. You know when you're vulnerable? When you think you're not. When you think, I've got all the information, I've mastered the book of Ephesians, I've even memorized it, I have all the doctrinal data, I'm all right, I know what to do, I've got the principles. Or when you think you can handle Satan. I can handle that.
I've got all the necessary equipment. The point is this, when you think you can do it, you can't. But on the other hand, when you depend upon God, there is nothing Satan can do to you that needs to cause you to lose the victory. This is Grace To You with John MacArthur.
Thanks for being with us. The title of John's current study, based on Ephesians 6, is The Believer's Armor. Now John, as I listen to your teaching in this series, it amazes me the amount of detail that you bring out.
For example, we talked yesterday about the historical context of the churches in Asia Minor. There's a lot of work that goes into preparing a message like this, and of course there are some people who would say about this teaching method, well, this doesn't really work for everyone in every age group and every culture, so let me ask, when it comes to making God's Word relevant, does this one teaching method work in every context? Well, it's not a matter of whether it works. I mean, what do you mean works?
I mean, it's attractive or entertaining? No, it has to be done this way. It's the only way you can get to the meaning. An ancient truth, ancient revelation, has an ancient context. You do no service to Scripture if you don't deal with that context.
This is the thing that I hear. The story of Goliath is an illustration. David puts stones in his sling, kills Goliath. What stones do you have in your sling that will kill the Goliaths in your life? This is an abomination.
This is a travesty. What was going on between Goliath and David had nothing to do with your spiritual struggles. It had to do with the honor of God being protected when it was being assaulted in the abominable religion and action of the Philistines. So, but this is common stuff where you take a story in the Bible and you ignore the meaning, you ignore the history, you ignore the context.
You can't do that and come to an accurate interpretation. You prostitute the Scripture and you literally substitute your own interpretation for the one that God himself ordained. We're so grateful that the Lord has led us to do the hard work so that you can be protected from wrong understanding so that you're not tossed here and there by waves and winds of doctrine, trickery of men, craftiness and deceitful scheming. God's Word doesn't need new methods, fresh techniques. It doesn't need your clever ideas.
It doesn't need your creativity. Listen, it doesn't need you at all to do anything but set yourself aside and find out what God meant by what he said. Grace to you has always been committed to that.
It'll never change. We thank you for your partnership. If you haven't gotten in touch with us before, contact us. Start receiving our monthly newsletter and learn to be a part of a group of folks who interpret the Word of God accurately so that they can receive the full revelation God intended. Yes, friend, by receiving John's letter you'll stay informed on how you can pray for us and you'll also receive offers for free copies of John's latest books and other resources month after month. Ask to start receiving John's letter when you contact us today. Send an email with your mailing address to letters at gty.org or drop us a note at Grace to You, Box 4000, Panorama City, California, 91412. Or call us toll-free, 855-GRACE, and ask to start receiving John's monthly letter. Our number again, 855-GRACE. And if you're looking for a particular resource that will deepen your study of Scripture, let me suggest our flagship resource, the MacArthur Study Bible.
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One more time, gty.org. Now for John MacArthur and the staff at Grace to You. I'm Phil Johnson reminding you to watch Grace to You television Sundays on NRB-TV. That's DirecTV Channel 378. Or check your local listings for Channel and Times and be here tomorrow as John continues to help you recognize Satan's attacks and deal with them powerfully. It's another half hour of unleashing God's truth one verse at a time on Grace to You.
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