“All right. So I, I was tasked today with speaking on spiritual warfare and talking about the armor of God. And so there’s a lot to cover. So I’m just going to do my best to finish this quickly. And Ephesians 613 through 17, it says, therefore, take up the whole armor of God that you may be able to withstand in that evil day.

And having done all to stand firm, stand there for having fastened on the belt of truth and having put on the breastplate of righteousness and as shoes for your feet, having put on the readiness given by the Gospel of peace in all circumstances, take up the shield of faith with which you can extinguish all the flaming darts of evil one and take the helmet of salvation and the Sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God.

All right. So that’s our passage for today. And I just I’m just going to pray like, okay, thank you so much, God, for your word. I thank you that your word is mighty and powerful. Lord. And I thank you that we have your word, Lord, as a weapon to fight in this warfare. Lord, I thank you for the singers going before me.

Lord, today, as your word goes forth, Lord, and I just pray that you would just anoint your word, Lord, and that you would say what you need to say to your people today. Lord, I just thank you, God, in Jesus name. Okay, so Jeremiah and preach last week on spiritual warfare. He did a really good job. If you haven’t listened to his message, then make sure you listen to it.

And if you have listened to his message, then you should listen to it again, because it’s really, really good. And the main things I just have to cover really quick that he went into was basically that that we’re in a war. Okay? And as that was talked about a lot today, we definitely are in a war. And war is a state of usually open and declared armed hostile conflict between states or nations, a struggle or competition between opposing forces for a particular end.

So that’s the Webster’s definition. But we’re talking about spiritual warfare. And I just think it’s interesting that it’s usually open and declared. But the enemy of your souls Jeremiah talked about is secretive and he’s scheming and he’s charming, and he tries to try to get you to forget that you’re in a war. He doesn’t want you to know.

You are he doesn’t want it to be opened and declared because he doesn’t want you to fight. He wants you to be apathetic and he wants you to not realize what’s actually going on. And so he he’s not open about it. But we come to church, right? And here we are, we’re talking about it. So it’s open and declared.

If you’re in church, if you’re in the word, you know, there’s a battle on. So you have to be aware that that’s happening and that is for your souls and for it’s the souls around you. So we have to be reminded that going on. And it’s not like a legal battle where you can come to terms or come to a settlement.

He’s out for your death. He wants you out of the picture He’s not just trying to draw first blood. He is he has no mercy and he does not want you to succeed. He is not merciful. The enemy is spiritual. Jeremiah went over that. It’s not humans and it’s Satan and his demons and his forces. And it’s real.

And the battlefield is in our mind. And your thoughts and your thoughts govern your behaviors. So what you allow to go on in your mind, what you think about what you you don’t think about, all of those things are going to govern how you live your life and how you behave and the battle now. So this spiritual warfare that we’re talking about, it’s for now, it’s for the life you’re living right now.

So we are here physically on this earth as God’s church. We’re dual citizens in two kingdoms right now. We’re here on this earth as people, but we are part of God’s kingdom. And he is using his church on the earth right now to fight a battle. He’s won the battle. He’s given us all that we need to succeed, need.

But you have to use the equipment he’s given us and follow his instructions on how to use it. And that’s how you succeed. But it’s for now and for our lives right now. So when we’re talking about spiritual warfare, this isn’t about, you know, the end eternity. When we’re not here, it’s for now. That’s what we’re talking about.

So the biggest thing that God wanted me to talk about today is just preparation. Okay, So in any battle before the battle is fought, there’s a lot of things that happened to prepare before the battle. So they have to equip their soldiers. They have to make sure they have enough food to feed them. They have to make sure that they have the weapons that they need and the outfits that they need.

They have to train them so they to make sure that they are skilled and know how to fight the battle. And that takes time. They have to build fortresses or dig ditches or it is to make sure that they are prepared for the battle in that way. They also come up with a plan or a strategy to fight the battle and they look for the battlefield like where the battle should be fought.

So all of that has to happen before the battle is even fought. And if you don’t do that, then you’re likely to lose the battle that that is how you win a battle is the preparing before the battle is actually fought. And so God is calling us prepare. So there’s been an apathy that’s on the Christian church that I’ve seen and and had to overcome in my own life.

And there is kind of just this nonchalant ness about it. Well, it’s like, you know, I’m saved and God loves me and but they’re not serious about how to walk that out every single day. And it’s serious. It’s a war. And so, yeah, if you don’t prepare, you’re not going to find success in your spiritual battles during this life right now.

And that is what he wants to change. That’s what he wants to change in your lives today. So get yourself ready. I’ve been reading the Gospels with my daughter Camille and I. It just has really been sticking out to me how many times Jesus says to get ready. He says it in so many different ways. And this is Jesus talking.

He’s telling them to prepare Jesus the one who overcame and did it all for you. He did it all, but he’s telling you to prepare you. So he was the one who said that. So in the Gospels, there’s several parables about preparation, and so I’m just listing them off really quick. But the parable of the Ten virgins and their lambs, they had to be ready.

They had to trim their rakes, they had to have the oil ready. The parable of the tenants. He came, he, he, they rented out the vineyard. He came and he wanted to know what the the product was. He wanted part of the the proceeds from that and the parable of the shrewd manager. They were given tenants and they were expected to get a yield from that.

The parable of the banquet, were they wearing the right clothes, the tree and its fruit. If you if there’s a tree, there should be fruit. And the wise and foolish and the parable of the sower, it says the seed went out, but when it was in the good soil, it produced a crop. So there was an evidence, there was something that happened after that seed was planted.

So in our scripture today, it says, therefore, take up the whole armor of God that you may be able to withstand that evil day having done all to stand. And the amplified it says, having done everything that the crisis demands to stand firm, your place fully prepared and movable and victorious. So that word there, it says done, done.

And that actually meant to work fully, to accomplish, to finish, to fashion, to perform, work out or achieve. So all of those terms are, you know, active. They’re not just laying around. You’re not just hanging out in your pajamas. Okay. It’s it’s going to you’re going to sweat. You’re going to have to get something done if you’re working, if you’re accomplishing something, if you’re finishing something.

And he’s talking about our spiritual warfare, okay? We have to do things in order to stand in order to be successful in standing, to stand. It means to bid to stand by, to place oneself and to be steadfast in mind of quality. One who does not waver or hesitate to stand and harm, to stand ready or prepared.

A figure who vanquished his adversaries and holds the ground, continue and abide. So I thought that was interesting. Continue and abiding because Jeremiah he talked a lot about humbling yourself in that position of prayer and humbling yourself. And that is how you stand, oddly enough, is in that relationship to God in the correct position, to him in submission to him.

And when we do that and we’re abiding in him, we are standing that is that is standing, not standing. You’re either dying, you’re a prisoner, you are running, you’re lying down, you’re hiding, you’re sleeping. All of those things are not standing. And all of those things don’t take much effort. So I know that we are saved by grace, but there is an effort that we need to put in to stand.

And that effort is through Christ what he’s accomplished for us. But we just need to walk in faith what he’s given us. Okay. So he does the work. He tells us how to get there. But that’s how we exercise our faith is by following his instructions, even if it may seem weird, like sending singers first or asking you to kill your son, that is the promise seed or taking a job that is a pay cut or whatever else it is that he’s asking you to do.

So sometimes it doesn’t make sense, but he wants to see that you trust him. He wants to see that you have faith in him. And when you do it the way that he’s telling you to do it, you’re going to find success. All right. So here is a picture of standing. These are blurry. That’s not Bob’s fault. It’s my fault.

Standing. And then not standing. This is our cat, Butterscotch. Okay. Sorry. I was going to do like a person on the couch, but it’s like our cats are so much cuter. All right? And standing. Okay. And not standing. So there is a gap, okay? And then standing and says his cats are Christian. Everyone, because of this picture and this guy, I love it because he’s reading his word.

Okay? And not standing. And then that’s cat. That’s goldfish, Camille’s cat and then standing and not standing. This is for, you know, I loved this, actually. Weapons of mass destruction. It’s like, yeah, remember, he doesn’t want you to remember that you’re in a fight. So this is like weapons of mass destruction and they work, right? And on top of that, he gets to like, like, throw in little things in there and commercials and stuff that going into your mind.

So, yeah, this is this is real. Okay. So we’re going to go over the armor of God and and bear with me because I had just one day to do all this and these could all be their own message. I’m just going to do a fly by on all these. And the first piece of armor is the belt of truth.

So, Paul, when he wrote this ad, Greece and Jerusalem and a lot of the world was occupied by so the Roman soldiers were a sight that was common to see the military presence in all of these areas of occupation. So I think it’s pretty safe to say that the armor that Paul was looking at, which I think is really cool, these are his captors.

These are the people that are keeping him in prisons. And he’s like, I’m going to use that for my teaching. Like, look at this guy. I think that’s so crazy. He’s using it. So he is looking at Roman armor is my guess. So that’s the kind of the picture that I’m using. So the Belt of Truth. So the action were there.

It’s fashion on the belt of Truth. So that’s your job is fastening on the belt. In truth, the term the old fashioned term is good. Your loins which is a weird one. And the and Greek basically means to get dressed, to put it on, to put your belt around you. It goes all the way around and it’s an urgent call to get ready for immediate action or a coming event.

The phrases is related to the type of clothing worn in ancient times. Before any vigorous activity, the loose ends of clothing, tunics, cloaks, mantles had to be gathered up and tucked into the wide band worn around the midsection of the body. So the band usually about six inches wide, also served as a kind of pouch to carry personal items such as a dagger money or necessary things.

And the phrase is a call for mental or spiritual for a coming challenge. So that’s the term that Paul chose to use. And what’s important about this belt of truth is it’s the foundation of the armor. So when they put on the belts, they had to do that first to get ready for activity. They had to get rid of all the loose clothing that might hinder them from moving that they might stumble over.

That had to be out of the way. So this would secure all that in place. And they couldn’t put on the rest of the armor until that was there and the rest of the armor wouldn’t fit right or fit properly if that belt of truth wasn’t secured in the right place. So that was the foundation for the armor.

And Paul is saying that our foundation our armor is truth came. The word here in the

Greek means what is true in any matter under consideration opposed to what is feigned false or fictitious. So it’s reality, it’s fact and it’s certain. So we had fun. We did a camp on truth with the kids and. It was kind of a fun little call and response that we did.

We’d say Truth is, and the kids would say, Not an opinion. And we were trying to drive that home with the kids and. It’s something they teach in elementary school. The difference between fact and an opinion truth is facts. It doesn’t change based on someone’s opinion. It doesn’t changed.

based on how you’re feeling or your emotions. And it’s not going to change from person to person.

So people you hear it all the time. I’ve had patients say this, Well, that’s true for you. And I have my truth, you know. Well, it’s like my truth doesn’t change to you. Like truth is truth. And so if I think something’s true, then it’s always true. So truth, you know, is not subject to change that way. So, like gravity, I may not like gravity, but it’s still holding me to the ground and it’s still holding you to the ground.

It’s not going to change. Regardless of how I feel about it. That’s truth. And I’m a female. I can’t change that no matter how I feel. And it’s just is what it is. I can try so where do we get truth? Truth is from Jesus. It says in John 14 six, I am the way, the truth and the life.

So Jesus is our source of truth and also the Word of God is true. As John 1717 says, Sanctify them in your truth. Your word is truth. So his word is something you need to know. And you need to know that it’s true that you can rely on it, that it doesn’t change. The Bible has been through so many years of scrutiny, 2000 years.

People have tried to disprove it time and time again. And it has withstood all of that testing, all of that time. And it’s still the same Bible today that it was 2000 years ago. People will tell you that it’s changed, but it hasn’t. You can study the Dead Sea Scrolls and see that that Bible that they found 50 years ago is the same one that we’ve been reading this whole time.

So the Bible is reliable. It’s a reliable source of truth. But I came across this scripture first, John one eight through ten. It says, If we claim we have no sin, we are only fooling ourselves and not living in the truth. But if we confess our sins to him, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all wickedness.

If we claim we have not sinned, we are calling out a liar. We’re saying he is not true and showing that his word has no place in our hearts. So if the word of God is truth, it’s not in your hearts. You’re not wearing that belt of truth. If You are in sin and God. I was praying for our church in the fall, and he just kept putting this heavy burden on my heart about repentance and getting ready for this message.

I was reliving a time in my life where I had sin in my life, and it plagued me for about five years of my life where I was just in complete torment. I can’t describe it. I’m sure some of you have gone through this where it was dark and it was confusing, and I was I was depressed and I would I spent a lot of time crying.

And it was it was just a horrible, heavy place. Okay. And I was carrying sin around with me. And I kept trying to talk myself out of it, like not being a big deal. Like it says, we’re fooling ourselves. I was fooling myself trying to act like I could just keep that with me. And as long as no one else knew, it didn’t matter.

And I was still going to church and different things like that, and I didn’t have to tell anyone about it. I could just confess it to God. I didn’t need to tell anyone else, but I never was able to get out of that dark place I was in and it was not good. And it was for the sake of my shame or my pride or whatever it is.

And so I, whatever that is, is still hasn’t lifted. And I know that there’s people in this room who still haven’t dealt with it, that there is something in your life, there may be a sin in your life that you are just holding on to for whatever reason. Maybe it’s something that is shameful, maybe is something that you’re just going to have to have, you know, severe consequences.

But I’m telling you, it doesn’t matter when you get rid of that thing, will experience freedom. You will experience light again in your life. He doesn’t want you to be free from that. He wants you to stay there. And it’s like you’re in a prison cell and you’ve got the keys in your hand and you’re just staying there.

That’s what it’s like. And you don’t have to do that. He he’s giving you freedom from that, and it’s through repentance. So repentance is part of the armor of God. The repentance is part of the spiritual warfare. And so admitting your sin, if you need to talk to your spouse, that’s what I did. If you need to talk to someone in our leadership, I can guarantee you they will not judge you.

They love you. All that they want is for you to be free. All that they want is for you to not have to deal with that. So it doesn’t matter what it is. And if you are, you know, if you were abused and you’ve never told someone and you’re dealing with eating disorders or if you you if you have homosexual thoughts, if that’s something that you’re struggling with and that is too embarrassing for you to talk to somebody, they want to help you.

You’re just staying in a prison. There’s there’s a way out. And he wants to help you. If if you have abused someone, if you need to go to jail. David, preach the most amazing message. And he was so vulnerable and so brave, telling all of you the wrong things he’s done up here so that one of you could be brave enough to tell someone else.

He’s just trying to help you have the courage to do the same thing because we don’t want to see God’s people down. We want to see people free. And you cannot move on in your spiritual walk. Every bit of spiritual warfare stuff I’m going to talk about today. It’s not going to do anything for you. If you are carrying your sin around with you, you’re not anywhere.

You’re not going to. We’re doing our study and Isaiah right now and Isaiah 46. I’m going to spoil what I’m going to talk about tonight. But I thought the scripture was so crazy and it says, Let’s see, can you put it up, honey? Okay. Both the idols and the owners are bowed down. The gods cannot protect the people and the people cannot protect the gods.

They go off into captivity together. I thought, this is so funny. So Isaiah is talking about the the Israelites being vanquished by Babylon. And so they have to pack up all their stuff and go into captivity with Babylon. So what they do is they pack up their idols, the gods of Babylon, and they place them on these carts and they’re so heavy that the animals are straining under the weight of these idols, and yet they didn’t save them from being vanquished.

But they’re like, We’re going to pack them up and take them into captivity with us. It’s like crazy, right?

And that’s that is what we do with our sin. We’re like, well, you know, I’m bound, but I just want to this with me wherever I go. It’s it’s worth, you know, saving my pride. I’m just going to keep carrying this around with me and you will stay in captivity.

And that’s that. So part of that, that belt of truth, the foundation for the rest of the armor is repentance. And if you want to be free, just do it. Just go talk to somebody. Okay? The next one is the breastplate of righteousness. So it says put on again action word there you do it, put on the breastplate of righteousness.

So the breastplate was a chest piece consisting of two parts and protecting the body on both sides from the neck to the middle. And so righteousness there was like two parts for this definition. I thought this was really interesting and equity of character act, especially Christian justification, which is a big word that I still kind of have a hard time wrapping my head around the state of him, who is such as he ought to be the condition that is acceptable to God as so scary righteousness is the condition that is acceptable to God.

That’s that’s like a tall order. And number two was integrity, virtue, purity of life, uprightness, correctness and thinking, feeling, acting. And I just kept thinking about us trying to do that, you know, like correctness and thinking, feeling and acting and purity of life, which we do try because we love the Lord and. We want to live a life that’s pleasing to him.

But which righteousness do you want to wear to protect you? Okay, I heard this testimony of this guy. He was an and really smart and his brother had become a Christian and was trying to get him to go to church and he just didn’t see the point. He’s like, I’m a pretty good person. Like I’m going to go to heaven.

I haven’t murdered anybody, you know? So he’s like, That’s good enough, right? Well, he went for a job for the government that had really high security clearance and they he couldn’t have any things in his life that might be held over his head for blackmail or anything like that. That could come up later. So part of the on he had to go through a whole day with a lie detector tests and confessed every wrong thing he’d ever done his whole life like anything he could think of that was wrong that he did.

And he said by the end of the day, he was you. You realize I’m a horrible person. Like, wow. Like, look at all this stuff that I had to confess today. Like, I am not going to heaven. And so he became a Christian. After that, he realized, like his need for a savior. And so if you really, really want to try to go off of your own integrity and your purity of life and your uprightness, I mean, you can go stand before God’s judgment seat with that if you want, but that’s a lot of holes in your breastplate of righteousness, and that’s not really the one I want.

Protecting me. So this righteousness is Christ’s righteousness. It’s the only righteousness that will cover you and that will protect you. And Jeremiah, I loved the illustration he gave last week. He talked about being before the judgment seat of God, that the accuser is saying all these things about you. And quite honestly, they’re probably true. The sins you’ve committed, the things you’ve done wrong, the things that you tell yourself that you can’t you can’t follow God because of this and that and that.

But Jesus is on the other side saying, my blood is covering them. And all God sees is that perfect blood of Christ. So His righteousness, his that covers you is this breastplate of righteousness. Okay? And because of what he did, we can walk a life that is pleasing to him and it feels good when you do what is right.

Listed a message on like the cozy blanket of holiness. I totally get that because that’s how we’re were designed. And so it feels right when we’re walking the way God designed us to walk. Okay? It’s not like this heavy burden. It feels good to do what he’s designed you to do. Okay, so that’s of righteousness next to him.

This one was called Preparation of the Gospel of Peace and as shoes for your feet. Having put on the readiness given the gospel of peace. So and every time I’ve read through the armor of God, I just hear gospel. And I was like, yeah, okay, salvation. That’s what this one’s talking about. But then I was like, studying this out and it was not what I expected, actually.

So Isaiah 52 seven says, How beautiful on the mountains are, the feet of the messenger who brings good news, the good news of peace and salvation, the news that the God of Israel reigns. So this piece of armor was all about readiness and preparation. So at our house, when we’re leaving to go in the morning, we’re running around brushing our hair, brushing your teeth, and we get all going.

And like the last thing we do before we go out the door is grab our shoes and half the time is carrying his shoes to the car. So it’s like the last thing we do. So once you get your shoes on, it’s go time. Like, that’s, that’s it. We’re going. And so he’s talking about shoes on your feet is like getting, get your shoes on.

That’s what he’s saying here. And being ready, the preparation of the gospel of peace. And so preparation, the act of preparing the condition of a person or thing, so forth, as prepared readiness with the prompt attitude and alacrity which the gospel produces. I had to look. There’s a prompt. A dude is ready and quick. I love that quick to act as the occasion demands and alacrity was promptness in response.

Cheerful readiness accepted the invitation. So I was thinking about this. He’s talking about the readiness to share the gospel, the readiness to use your mouth, to share the gospel, to talk about Christ, to spread the word. Okay. One of the pieces of our armor is sharing the word, sharing their testimony, sharing the gospel. That’s actually part of your armor.

That’s part of our spiritual warfare, is not just keeping it to ourselves, but opening your mouth and using it first. Peter 315 it says, but in your hearts, honor Christ the Lord as Holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you prepared, see the word prepared. Okay. And for a reason for the hope that is in you.

Yet do with gentleness and respect having a good conscience so that when you are slandered those who are vile, your good behavior in Christ may be put to shame. So how do we get ready to act like so? That were quick to act as the occasion demands. So you have to study the word. You have to have experienced it yourself.

Obviously, you have to have experienced the blessings and the good news of the gospel. Right. So you have a testimony and that is quick and ready to share. So when it says accepted the invitation, I think about all the times when someone says

something to me and I didn’t say something, you know, God put something on my heart and is like, I could have I should have, you know, and I don’t.

And that’s spiritual warfare. Okay. And that’s what he’s talking about here is when you are given that invitation, someone brings up a spiritual topic or whatever, give your testimony, tell them a scripture that makes you think of or the kids, your your the scriptures your kids are memorizing, right? You guys can memorize those with them things like that.

Listen to sermons. I love listening to apologetic conversations or people’s testimonies on YouTube. I love listening to that kind of stuff. Memorize scripture that’s ready. It’s on the tip of your tongue. You don’t have to like, look it up, you know, have these things ready so that you can be quick to act. When there’s an invitation to talk about Christ, talk about the Lord.

And that’s part of our spiritual warfare. And then in the first scripture it said, therefore, take up the whole armor of God that you may be able to withstand in that evil day. And this was another surprising thing to me, withstand it meant to stand against, oppose, resist, or to set against. And it’s only used 14 times in the Bible.

And almost every single time when I was I read through all the scriptures it was used in it was talking about talking. It was talking about like speech and testimony and preaching and those kinds of things. It wasn’t talking about like fighting someone ever really the one scripture kind of was was. Matt 539 But I say to you, do not resist.

That’s the same word. Resist the one who is evil. But if anyone slaps you on the right cheek, then turn to him. The other also. But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you so that you may be sons of your father who is in heaven. So he’s actually saying the opposite. So like when someone physically is coming at you or in this natural realm, he’s saying, don’t resist in that way.

You don’t resist, right? And act 610, it says, And they were not able to resist the wisdom and the spirit by which he spoke. So this is talking about Stephen. So, Stephen, at this time when when the scriptures said Stephen is actually in captivity of the Jews who didn’t like him because he was preaching the gospel, okay? And as he’s being carried out, they want to stone him.

He’s preaching the word to them. He’s in captivity physically, but he’s preaching the word. He’s using his words. Right. And they couldn’t resist it. So right after that, they killed him. Okay, He died. But it says they were not able to resist the wisdom and the spirit by which he spoke. So who that battle. They killed Stephen, but they couldn’t resist the words by which he spoke.

His words cut to their hearts. His words got into their mind. And it says that Paul was present there. So who knows? It could have been his words that were part of what brought Paul to Christ. Right. So every time that you feel the leading of the spirit, you should say something that is spiritual warfare, that’s having those shoes on ready to go share the gospel.

And it’s it might be life or death for someone else in eternity in heaven or hell, whether or not you speak those words. So it’s a spiritual warfare, maybe not for your life, but for someone else. So you’ve got to say it. And Luke 21, 12 through 15, it says, But before all these things, they will lay their hands on you and persecute you, delivering you up to the synagogues and prisons.

You will be brought before kings and rulers. For my namesake, but it will turn out for you as an occasion for testimony. It’s it’s a great opportunity. Therefore, settle it in your heart, not to meditate beforehand on what you will answer for. I will give you the mouth and the wisdom which all your adversaries will not be able to contradict or resist.

That’s that word can’t withstand it. So we use our words, the Word of God by the Spirit to withstand the enemy. But He also can’t withstand it. Does that make sense? So he can withstand it? We use it to withstand him. It’s pretty amazing. And that’s our words. I loved it. So yeah, expect to be mistreated. Expect not to fight back.

It’s going to be crazy. The only weapon he tells you to use is the Word of God to use it. Your testimony speak of the things of Christ and you’re going to be fighting the battle. Okay? Shield of faith in all circumstances. Take up the shield of faith which you can extinguish all the flaming darts of the evil one.

So the first three, the three I just did. So the breastplate and the shoes and the belt they are, it says, to have those on all the time. Like just always be ready to go with those things. And then the next three, the shield and the helmet and the sword, it says, Take them up. So in those ones, the word take, it’s like receive it, accept it, learn to use it.

It talks about bearing it, making it your own, embrace it. So the shield of faith, the helmet of salvation, the sort of spirit are meant to be used that way. So the shield that they’re talking about here, there’s two words for shield. There’s like the round shields that you see. I remember seeing him in like Lord of the Rings or there’s the big one that is in the picture here.

So I like that one because the guy’s like hiding behind it. And that’s what they said. You could hide your whole body behind the shield of faith that kind of wrapped around you. And then the Romans would actually link them together and then like, proceed on to the enemy offensively with this shield. They called it the tortoise shell, like hiding under those shields.

And they would actually get them wet. They would soak them with water so that when the flaming darts come because they literally would shoot fiery arrows at them and it would get extinguished by the moisture in the shield. It wouldn’t catch the shield on fire. So that’s image that Paul was conjuring up for them to compare. But he’s talking about the shield of faith.

Okay. So faith is persuasion, credence, moral conviction, assurance and belief. So really what this comes down to, are you persuaded, are you convinced that God is real, that God is good, that God has good plans for you? Are you persuaded, like I said, that the Bible is true? Are you convinced of that? Because if you’re not, then you’re going into warfare without a shield.

You need to be convinced of his truth, convinced that he is God and that he is there for you, that his way is best. So if you’re not convinced of those things, then you need to increase your faith so that way you can go into spiritual warfare with a shield. And how do you do that? I’ve talked about it.

Okay, So faith comes by hearing and hearing through the word of Christ. The word of So you guys are getting a common thread through each and every one of these spiritual warfare tactics, and that is the word of God. Okay. So you have to know your Bibles. You have to spend time in the Bible reading the Bible. If you’re not, then you’re really going to put yourself at a disadvantage in this life trying to warg in the spirit.

And so faith is increased by spending time in word and again, go, go look at the history of

the Bible. Go look at if you’re not convinced the Bible is the one true word of God, then go look and see. You know, all the different information about that is really interesting. Read the apologetics stuff like do what it takes to convince yourself to strengthen your faith so that you can have boldness and that you can have confidence in your faith in the truth of God so that you’re going to be much more effective in fighting okay, Helmet of Salvation.

It says, Take the helmet of salvation. So the helmet covers our head and that’s where the war fleet warfare is taking place is in our mind. So salvation here, it’s not talking about salvation like being saved again. Every time I read through this, I’m like, salvation. There it is again. Gospel Salvation is talking about being saved, but actually it’s not the word salvation.

Here is a different word that means defender or defense. Okay, so he’s talking about creating a defense for your head as defense for your mind. Okay. Chuck Smith, he says if we leave our minds unprotected, Satan will kill them with all kinds of filth that will defile us. So remember the weapons of mass destruction. Okay, What are you filling your mind with?

All right. It’s it’s like a huge part of our spiritual warfare. And I just have to say, like, when I’m talking about that sin that was in my life that, like, kept me in bondage for, like, five years. I remember when that started and it was when I was watching a movie with my family, with my parents in in my house, with my family.

And I had an unclean spirit that got entrance into my life from that movie with my parents. So I mean. What are you allowing to go into your mind? What are you allowing your eyes to see? Okay. And what are you allowing in your kids lives? Okay, I. I have been so this is one of my fears. I’m so scared of my kids having something like that happen to them because it happened to me, you know, And I’m, like, worried about it, you know?

So, I mean, me and Mark, have we got rid of Disney? Plus, I highly recommend you get rid of Disney. Plus, I highly recommend you get rid of Netflix. You know, there’s so much trash on there. I have not been strong enough to get rid of Amazon yet. But but I am going to tell you a great it’s called Unplugged.

It’s by Focus on the Family and any movie you’re about to watch with your family, look it up and it will give you a breakdown of, you know, if there’s any sex scenes in it, it’s going to tell you, is there any violence in it? Is there any language in it? Is there any spiritual components to it? It’s all like right there for you.

So don’t expose your kids to something and then afterwards be like, well, sorry, you know, blah, blah, blah. It’s like, don’t let that into their mind, protect it, you know? And so that’s a thing. And then I listen to this one speaker. He went into seminary and he said, Are you thinking solely of how you let my kids watch a movie that.

So those are funny. My kids went to our pastor’s house and they they don’t use unplugged. And then Jonathan, he like, gives me back my kids with like his tail between his legs and he’s like, you might have to do some damage control. So yeah, don’t just like let your kids watch something. And the funny part about it is I have trained my kids so meant the whole time was telling Jonathan there are some bad in this movie, so I don’t know if we should be watching this movie.

So anyways, yeah, plugged in. Okay, so I was listening to this one speaker and he went to seminary and he was talking about his teachers, He was talking to the class and the teacher asked everyone like, Have any of you looked at porn? And of course, no one raised their hand because they’re in seminary and they don’t want to admit that, you know.

But he said, you pretty much all of you have. He’s like, have you ever seen a sex scene in a movie? I mean, that’s what it is. Okay. So we really got to, like, be real about this stuff. Like, are you allowing these things in your house, in your minds, in your kids mind? Like, you got to take it seriously because that is your mind and you got to fill it with good things.

Okay. So again, we’ll go over that again. What do we fill it with? The word of God? Listen to sermons, worship it again, memorize scripture, all these things. I just keep saying it. Okay. All right. So the key to our position in Christ to remain alert and prepared and engage the enemy by exercising his authority, his strength and power, knowing our victory rooted in what Jesus did and not what we do.

And it’s not that there’s not doing on our part. So I’m telling you about the doing on our part, but are doing, you know, the application of what Jesus did and then following his instructions on how to do that. So these are the instructions. Okay. So sort of the spirit. Okay. Trying sorry, the sort of the spirit, the word of God, and take the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God.

So this is my favorite the Word of God. And it’s the only defensive weapon that’s given here. So all the other one, I mean, offensive weapon, all the other ones are defensive in nature and then this one is offensive. So on my first thought, I was thinking, okay, well, maybe our fight is more of a defensive fight. Like we really have to be on the defense.

But then God was like, No, I’m giving you the sword of the Spirit, the Word of God because it’s mighty and it’s able, it’s powerful and it’s the only weapon you need. That’s what he was saying. It’s like you don’t need a bunch of other weapons because this one is awesome and the best one and there’s nothing that can withstand the word of God.

All right. And it’s used for this fight, tailor made for spiritual warfare. Okay. God himself, Jesus Christ, When he was confronted by the enemy, he used the word of God. He used the old testament. He had scripture memorized, and he had it ready to fight the enemy with that. And we have to do the same. So the sword is needful for attack.

It will not suffice for the Christian to guard against sin and ward off temptation from himself. He has to assail powers of evil. In our case, the best method of defense is an attack. Carry the warfare into the enemy’s territory. If you want to defeat the enemy, you have to fortify yourself with the Word of God. So here we go again Join the Bible study.

You know, start a Bible study. Study the Bible. All these people tell me that they think it’s boring and it’s like it’s not boring. The Bible is seriously one of the only things. The more you eat, the hungrier

get. Like the more you get into it, the more you like explore its depths and like, look at things like when I studied this armor of God, that was not what I expected to find but is so interesting, right?

So once you start to get into it, you start getting sucked in and then you start going to more things. But it really helps to have so and join a Bible study because then you have to do your homework, you know, it’ll make you do it, but then you’re going to start like getting into it and then you’re going to really like to Bible study and you’re growing with your brothers and sisters.

We have such wonderful, like discussions and we pray for each other and it’s like a really cool thing to be in a Bible study. So you need accountability. Join a Bible study. I know Brian Wittmer has one. If there’s guys you’re looking for and we’re doing our one on Isaiah for over a year now, we’ve been doing we’re only on Isaiah 46, but it’s been so good.

And or maybe you need to start one and maybe do it with your spouse. Like how cool would that be for your marriage? Like to do a Bible study together and memorize scripture? Like I said, you know, the kids are memorizing Psalm 90 right now. It’s all spiritual warfare. So like, help them memorize it and you maybe memorize it yourself, you know, might be a good idea.

Ask someone to, mentor you, maybe you need someone to to meet with you weekly to make sure you’re doing it. Lorraine meets with me at the gym every week, and if Lorraine didn’t meet, I probably wouldn’t go because she would know if I don’t go. So anyways, it helps to have accountability. My husband listens to the Bible in the car while he’s driving.

It’s so easy to just have the the word going into your head, you know? And it’s such a easy way to do it. Yeah. Christian YouTube channels and podcasts are really great. I watch YouTube all the time, but I’m watching Christian stuff. I love watching people’s testimonies. Like I said, there’s so many cool things that I hear about.

There’s so many awesome testimonies. Yeah. So I was at my Bible study. I had them all listen to this one. There was a man who was in one of those mass shootings and like how it changed his life. Like, it was amazing to hear his testimony. Like, that stuff’s on YouTube and it’s so encouraging and it builds your faith to hear these things.

So listen to that stuff and you feel so much better when you listen to that instead of listening to a stupid show or like music something. So I do watch shows, but I’m just saying, like the balance of these things in your life, like, how much are you filling your mind with the good things? Okay, so but number one is the Bible, and if you’re not in the Bible, you’re you’re pretty much screwed.