I'm in the Lord's Army

[0:00] it's interesting and i'm just going to comment a little bit more do you ever remember he always used to say if so and so got saved what an impact that would have on the world whether it was an actor or a musician or someone famous that's kind of what's happened with kanye if you guys don't know him don't feel ashamed i really had to look him up too but he's a billionaire musician big into rap now he's a christian oh my kids now tell me oh yeah i listen to him all the time right so i put it on spotify to uh the other day and i've just got the the free spotify and his album is jesus is king and i put it on but what it does is it shuffles all the albums right if you're familiar so it started off with this great really good strong christian message and then it what you know i had to fast fast and you only get six skips so i gotta wait another hour before i can listen to him but uh it's been interesting the gent the talk that's been generated and he was just on jimmy kimball one of the late night shows and man he was pretty darn clear with his gospel presentation and it turned out there was this guy there who had won 300 million dollars in the lotto just kind of sitting and he actually just started addressing him as one black guy to another black guy and he says just let me give you some life advice and um what he's been learning from the lord so um you know most people for my son this was a really big time so he's looking up at article all the articles and people are mad now that he's now singing jesus christ what a twisted world we live in right they would rather hear the filth and the garbage that and he will rightly say i used to sing about and here they're ridiculing him for singing about this ultimate love that this god had great love for him and freed him from enslavement so um i'm interesting to watch how the world is going to respond to that so um please pray with him i know my friend has been interviewed he's been he connie has asked him to travel at church services and in brooklyn and detroit and my friend's white and he's now got these big these big black choirs with him and and in case you don't know who kanye west is he's actually married to kim kardashian how's that gonna work i've got no idea but she's claimed to made a statement and yesterday there was an article that brad pitt came to church to hear what he had to say so apparently he's got some voice and we're gonna see what happens in there but um knowing how my son was so encouraged by this i'm praying that um we would take courage and that we would continue god calls all sorts of sinners does he not all right turn with me to ephesians 6 if you are just visiting with us we are beginning a sermon series on spiritual warfare and what is called united we stand the key text we are going to be in is this ephesians 6 at the end of this wonderful uh epistle that he's given to us if you missed uh last week's sermon series the beginning i would encourage you to go to the website and listen to it because in that i'm laying the groundwork for the context which is actually going to drive our understanding of what we're going to be reading

[4:03] here okay and it's really important to understand that overall context not only is it going to drive our understanding about what happens here but i think it's going to drive your understanding perhaps destroy some of the paradigms you might have or thoughts you might have on spiritual warfare and this will give you an opportunity to understand it in understand them in the light of these people that Paul is writing this message to and one of the primary lessons that we learn is that spiritual warfare is not that extreme bizarre type of situations which we can't explain but Paul's message is that spiritual warfare is against unity and love it is against unity and love that occurs in the church which he's been preaching so strongly for in this letter the the he strives for unity in our homes we just been talking about our teenagers and our children you're the one as parents how you love your wife and wives how you love your husbands how you care for one another how you love your kids and you're consistent in that love can have an influence on them sometimes we feel we've lost that but there is an influence that we have and satan attacks that influence right there's that unity and love and respect that we gain in the workplace by being fair and honest employers and being fair and honest employees so do me a favor right now take a look at your bulletin in your bulletin on the front page and i'm going to do this for the whole part of the series i'm going to give you a four-part definition of what we're talking about in spiritual warfare and we introduced these these these four parts and they were actually provided by dave powelson dave powelson is a um recently graduated to be with our father but he's written very many um influential and powerful books on um biblical counseling i know dave's read many of his books they have great appeal and they're great help to the church but he gives us these four different aspects of spiritual warfare and i thought they really encompass them so we're going to kind of go with this as our working definition of what we think so take a look at the first one right spiritual warfare is a metaphor for standing on the lord's side in the epic struggles between the lord and his enemies right the fact of the matter is you were once a child of darkness and now you're a child of light dave just read that portion in colossians satan is not happy with that right you used to be his and now you're god's and he wants you back so there's that battle of good and evil to put it in common vernacular number two spiritual warfare is a moral struggle it is a conflict over who you are what you believe and how you live right we know those times when we want to give up on the christian faith i shouldn't be sick i shouldn't be struggling with this and those are all traps satan lays out to have a stumble back into the darkness the greatest biblical example we have that is job

[8:07] man that guy had a world of affliction brought upon him all so that he would deny god and die he held his ground the third part we read is spiritual warfare is a synonym for the struggles of the christian life that there are no special occasions where satan just shows up we're not supposed to look around for those special bizarre instances and then come in with spiritual warfare where we say the right word satan i bind you i cast you out no no no um spiritual warfare is actually a world view and it's an understanding that it exists all around us and ultimately if you look at point number four spiritual warfare is a battle for lordship who will you serve today so this morning i wanted us to take a look at paul's battle plan his call to arms on the instructions he gives us for this war and he outlines this in four different ways he gives us a command he gives us the means to follow the command or to bring about the command he then gives us uh reasons why he gives us the command and just in case we didn't get it the first time he gives us the command again all right so let's read with me we're going to start in verse 10 of ephesians 6 notice it begins with finally we talked about that last week finally actually means henceforth meaning going beyond all the teaching that i've told you and that's where we talked about the context all those things you learned before we're now going forward in this understanding it is not um simply uh this is the end of the letter i'm gonna get off now no no because of what i taught you this is what i need you to know all right finally be strong in the lord and in the strength of his might so here we are seeing the command finally be strong in the lord in the strength of his might how do we do that why and that's answered to us in verse 11 put on the whole armor of god that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil then then then he tells us the schemes are right for and he gives us this our present reality verse 12 for we do not wrestle against flesh and blood but against the rulers against the authorities against the cosmic powers over this present darkness against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places there's a lot of words that are being used there that we quite don't understand the the power that he's stating but we do get this satan is our enemy he has schemes and notice that last part we fight against the spiritual forces of the enemy every single ounce of power that he has he is going to use against us that shock right notice he started with the command put on the armor then he tells us what the enemy is

[12:12] i was kind of thinking about that because then we go to verse 13 the command again therefore take up the whole armor of god we've already seen this before that you may be able to withstand in the evil day and having done all to stand firm i kind of liken this to i don't know i know most of the people my age which means the very young people here will um you ever see those old videos of uh russian army military parades right we see it in china now right now just reading an article it was quite interesting um you know they put out those missiles those tanks and they put out hundreds of thousands of men and women and they actually are um the same height if you notice they they put them in all areas so the it looks like they're perfect okay that's kind of what god does with that first command so what the russians or the chinese or whoever does that the reason then that put out is we are so strong it doesn't even matter who we know the enemy is right just look at the power that we have but then paul switches and says oh yeah you're going against all the forces of evil we kind of step back a little bit right but now he's reminding us again don't worry i still got the nukes right i still have power beyond measure that you don't even have to worry about that but that's kind of the mindset what's going in here but i want you to pay particular attention to the word in verse 12 take a look at verse 12 make sure if you have your bibles if you don't have your bibles we will give you a bible because you need to see the words in the text that i'm preaching about but there's that word wrestle okay paul is using a word to describe the christian faith how many people here when you are asked about the christian faith do you say oh yeah it's wrestle match right nobody the word that he's actually using here is hand to hand combat right this is going in with the shield the sword and you are just fighting for dear life okay that's how paul is describing this christian life the last time you shared the gospel someone did you begin at this point yeah it is a wrestling match it's a fight every day to stay alive kind of doesn't sell very well does it too often fake peddlers of the word use ah man become a christian and your relationship will be fixed you know what jesus will fix your loneliness or jesus will fix your family dynamics or jesus will fix your finances matter of fact jesus can even fix you you're such a mess if you give jesus a chance he will fix you and there's some truth to those statements what happens is that once we're saved jesus gives us new eyes to see the reality of what we're dealing with so we might think he's going to fix our relationships or fix our finances or or or fix our relationships or even fixed us but no once we are saved we now have spiritually opened eyes and we see the reality of spiritual warfare before then you've got no concept of that except for maybe watching some show called the exorcist on late night movies right now you're seeing

[16:18] these new eyes we we see our relationships different we even see our loneliness our our family dynamics our finances and our personality issues different and we see them in ways of bringing glory to god but here as you remember paul is writing to those people who came out of demonic bondage paul is writing to people who came out of that were dealing with magic and worshiping false gods okay that's the context of what he's dealing with you do not need to sell them on the reality of spiritual warfare or who the enemy is because they know who very well who that enemy was not only were they in the world they were a part of that perhaps they were possessed they knew people were possessed they were paying for exorcisms so there's this dynamic that paul and he doesn't need to sell them so when he tells them that the christian life is hand-to-hand combat they're like yeah it is and for some of you in this building you're probably not along with it this christian life is combat every day i feel like i'm going down i'm tired because the reality is there is a battle going on with spiritual dark forces it's a battle between god and satan it is a god battle between light and darkness it is a battle between truth and error holiness and unholiness and ultimate leads to either heaven or hell the christian message isn't your best life now there are no options in this battle you don't get to choose whether you're going to be civilian support force or the fighting force there is no draft so your number might not come up and you might not have to worry there is no off-ramp to this battle there is no i'm a conscientious objector there are no spectators there are no civilians there are only those who stand and those who don't now let's take a look at a word that is repeated four times in this passage so the first idea we have is it is warfare we wrestle it's hand-to-hand combat but notice he says in verse 11 you may be able to stand verse 13 you may be able to withstand again at the end of verse 13 to stand firm and then if you go just drop down to verse 13 first word you stand therefore so there's a lot of reasons why he is talking about this now paul's not talking about there's a last man standing at the end of the battle paul is actually going to be teaching us here that i want you to stand but only those who prepare for this warfare are those who will stand all right it's not luck of the draw you get hit or you don't get hit you either stand because you are prepared or you don't why because there is no sounding of retreat there will be no sounding of surrender there is no going back this passage is about you either live in the power of jesus christ or you don't

[20:22] now paul describes this christian life in various other verses and what you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses entrust to faithful men who will be able to teach others also and he says share in suffering as a good soldier of christ jesus what he's telling us there is that being a part of the lord's army means you have to endure you are called to endure you are going to be called to suffer hardship um being in the states i don't meet that many people here um but i had a pleasure of it was interesting my seminary attracts a lot of former military guys we've got chris here that i'm aware of um one of my buddies navy seal delta force special forces kind of guys um there's a lot of questions you want to ask them right you know the movie's true um you know can you really swim a hundred thousand miles and all underwater you know they're they're they're supermen right um they will tell you they have felt exhaustion like no other some have been wounded some have been in places of where they were besieged i have one guy and this is a friend in 1990 he was a marine recon unit they went in to kuwait before the american attack in iraq and they got lost for a while and said it was the scariest thing in the world for them they just didn't know they were ever going to come back or survive and that unit is a tight unit now to this day they all got hired by the same police department and they all try to work the same shift together because those are the guys they know they trust right but they have seen something that most of us do not know but they won that war okay that war wasn't even close but yet they were still soldiers in that battle who get tired who get exhausted and who get wounded and you will suffer and paul's saying you need to endure right these things are the reality of life yet we are called to endure in christ to stand firm the reality is following jesus is tough right and he told us beforehand count the cost take up your cross live with sacrifice persecution and ridicule you see to believe the christian life that is without hardships is like living as a soldier who just sleeps on the front line he's going to be destined to be shot in fact there's more no more dangerous position in life for him paul is calling us to stand to endure several weeks um i received a message ago about my preaching from someone that was visiting and uh they were very complimentary very polite very graceful but they said i i really want you to listen to my pastor because my pastor never talks about pain never talks about suffering and will never mention sin um and i was sharing that with dave dannery and dave dave's like i don't even know what i'd preach on then right like this is like casting an illusion over people about the realities of life but if you feel good and yet i can get you coming to church feeling good that maybe you'll slide into heaven

[24:26] but i don't read that in scripture right in first timothy 118 paul says this i charge i entrust you timothy my child in accordance with the prophecies previously made about you that by them you may wage the good warfare holding faith in a good conscience the reality is there is a battle going on and what he's calling to timothy to do is to uphold sound doctrine and to live holy lives try talking truth truth today and the reality and i've talked about this guys and i i pray mightily for you guys that have kids i do um just this week in the big sky conference of college athletics in montana the ncaa uh woman athlete of the week is what a man that's who won a man basically he's one on the he's been on the male team for several years he was never any good he converted he said he converted he did nothing to his body he took hormone blockers and now he's dominating all the women and everybody thinks this is great as one commentator says this is mass delusion that we see that is going on on a wild wide scale um and if you didn't read the news this week there was a a a court battle for uh custody of a seven-year-old twins uh the mother wanted to transition the one seven-year-old to a woman and wanted to chemically castrate him at seven years old they went to court and they lost 11 to 1 the father is pushed out and he's got no part of the decision what's interesting is mainstream media did not report this however there's been when people did read the report that came through there's been such a surge of saying are we insane that we're letting a seven-year-old determine this for themselves so the governor of texas has now stopped stepped in to look at it and whether or not to stop it so the one commentator was asking why is the main press this should be a victory for them because they believe that a person should be able to make that choice and the medical community is just going along with it and he says they want they they don't want people to know that it's gone this crazy why else when they report it we have to uphold truth and as this man did it even cost him his kids there is a spiritual battle going on out there whether we recognize it or not and it is a battle for truth let's take a look at verse 10 right at the very beginning be strong in the lord and in the strength of his might notice this is a command there is no option but it's an interesting command he doesn't say be strong in your own strength be strong in your own wisdom be strong in your own experience be strong in your bible knowledge the tense and the voice of the voice of this verb indicates that this isn't a strengthening we do to ourselves but a

[28:33] strengthening that comes from an outside source right and that's why it continues on with the strength of his might being god's might so the strength that we are we come into situation of spiritual battle it's not to rely on who i am what i know what my experience is it is on to my god that's the first rule of spiritual warfare it is his might that i have and it the strength is found in the son of god amen now let's be honest spiritual warfare is not a fair fight do you do you get that you can never outwit satan you cannot outsmart him you are not cunning enough you are not experienced enough it's not even close he wins every time and some of you know it you have thought it's on your strength you could fight that battle he is beyond our strength our wisdom our experience our aptitude our ability the fact that we need to understand is we bring no greatness to this battle there is not a single one of us is a great warrior you see when we try to fight on our own we only make it worse so several years ago i'm having a closet being built in my house and a guy at the church was very gracious he's a carpenter very skilled carpenter he comes over and i'm trying and i'm what can i do to help you right i'm already going to cook a mistake but i'm very thankful he's here because i got this big closet i need to do something and he says you know what the biggest thing you can do for me is leave me alone right there was nothing i could add to his ability because when he says get me the screwdriver which one what do you mean metric or stand you know just whatever i slow him down and it's the same thing when we try to involve ourselves we're just messing up the game plan right and this enemy we're going to learn a lot more about next week we're going to go through i'm going to i'm going to teach you who satan is the powers that he has and he is to be greatly feared we're going to cover those areas so we're to give this battle over to god the best illustration for spiritual warfare that i have ever heard and i can't remember which pastor shared this he said it's like we are on a lookout of a castle and we're there late at night and the enemy is approaching that lookout doesn't go down and get his bow and arrows and start shooting at the thousand man army that's coming against the castle his role is to run back to the king wake him up and it's the king who fights that battle because the king has the generals the king has the armies he's got the power right it's not me out there the only thing i can do is communicate with god

[32:37] there's a battle i need help right that's the best way to look at spiritual warfare it's to let god know there's a battle that i'm having right now so um the first step in this fight to answer this question so how do we fight the first step to spiritual warfare is to recognize that i can't win it it's to humble ourselves for some of you you know it you got it for others you need to be humbled a bit that you're not going to be able to be the one to battle what does paul tell us about uh youthful people what are they supposed to do with temptation all right looks like i gotta do a lot more teaching here all right what are you supposed to do with temptation flee right run away get away anybody who lived my life in university you're going on a date with a girl and your hormones are raging hey let's just pray that god would reduce our hormones here right that i would really respect you for who you are right now and i would only hear the words coming out of your mouth right no get out of there you can't beat it you know i think we've all been there we know we think we're going to resist no no we need to be humble we got to run this goes for you quest people right you might think you're strong he's not that attractive then you think well maybe neither am i but he still finds me cute right get out the reality is we will fail and it's actually sinful of us to presume that god will save us even when we're being stupid and sinful you know that and what i mean by that is well god loves me god's all going i'm still going to walk into this dark area i'm still going to go out on this date with someone i'll be honest with you i'm merciless with my kids it is one of my kids kind of a pretty girl paying attention to him wasn't a believer oh that's going to go great right she's going to really help you step up your love for the lord isn't she right well she's really nice oh yeah i'm sure she's nice and she's got special sins right what do you think is going to happen and sure enough he doesn't come and tell me that he canceled the date but he's still hanging out with mom and i right thought you had a date oh yeah i canceled it you know because he's he they're cluing in they want the lord's blessing in their life right they want their relationships to be blessed and they're cognitive of these things and they know that they can't stand because man none of us can now the second step to winning the battle the scene in verse 11 notice he says put on the whole armor of god that means there is nothing to be left behind you see satan wants to mess us up by thinking we can do without certain parts of the the the armor to fight the battle of god against satan under god's designed means and i need us to understand there's no special prayers

[36:37] there's no special words here but he's calling us to live a life of preparedness with the armor on i'll tell you one of the greatest stories that's going i say greatest it's sad but it gives us a true reality of our lives uh you know the duggars do you guys all know about the duggars and the woman who's got like 57 kids or something like this right 18 kids no i think it's like 21 or something right anyhow they're a spinoff now about their kids having but there was a news article that one of them is deciding to wear pants it was in the news one of the old i know can you believe it she's out of the house she's married and she's now going to wear pants and the other one's made a decision she's got a nose ring okay part of their thinking is if i can protect all my kids from the world and i can keep them hold in it'll protect them from satan and there's something to be true they're cutting off influences but we also know what happened a couple years ago it came out the older son had molested some of his younger sisters where's the sin come from the outside or the inside wendy yes inside isn't that what jesus christ taught the pharisees whitewashed tombs they clean up the outside they look really good but it's the inside where the battle is so when he's telling us to put on the armor as we're going to learn here in verse 11 it's actually living a life of preparation with the armor on it is a once for all action that this is a way of living this is a way of thinking this is developing a world view and we are strong and paul's words here to be strong means to be strengthened to be made powerful to be enabled and we are done so by putting on the whole armor of god how powerful is this armor wow dave wrote one of the most powerful testimonies of jesus christ in colossians it's the power to take us from light into darkness jesus christ raised lazarus not only did he raise lazarus he calmed storms he healed sick he there was men that had withered hands and he completely healed the gospel of mark is full of these stories but the greatest miracle is that he went on this cross and god poured out his hatred of sin on his perfect son jesus christ experienced the wrath of god of all sins of all people that ever existed including all the sins of all the people going forward do you get that all of the sins of mankind were poured out on jesus christ but he got up he was raised again well raised once right he he rose three days later and not only that but he is now seated at the right hand of god that my friends is the power we have to depend on so when he's getting into this whole satan stuff the power that you have

[40:39] if you can really understand it is far greater than you will ever know today i want to i want to talk a little bit about the battlefield so what is the battlefield and i made allusion to this last weekend there's three ways that i understand the battlefield or what's taught in this world okay the first way of looking at the battlefield is usually if you grew up catholic you would see satan as an external power who comes against you all right so we need to keep satan back we practice lent we go to mass we have certain works that we're going to do and those things in special occasions we can even call a priest to do an exorcism all right but satan is an enemy outside we can we bring our rosary but there's an idea that there's holy things holy prayers and even holy places that protect us and so that's the one way that we see satan now there's another way to see satan that is very common in christian communities we've seen this i made allusions last week to the vineyard or some charismatic type backgrounds and some are they're very actively engaged in spiritual warfare they have a manual you join the church they actually have a whole thing we're going to teach you classes we need to bind satan we need to control satan and this comes from this idea that jesus christ had authority and jesus christ gave it to the apostles and now we have it okay so because we see quite clearly in scripture the apostles had authority over demons now we will know in first peter and jude actually now those spiritual beings are actually higher on the ladder than we are in forms of authority all right so they're saying we're going to use jesus christ and their view is we're going to take back god's territory all right satan's here we're going to fight it that's the the mindset that exists and it has and there's a reason for that and it has to do with a kingdom god's kingdom god has declared he's invaded this world with his son and the words going forth but we are now partnering with jesus to make that battle okay so there's a theological viewpoint and makes very good sense in that framework now the framework that i come from is undermined by two spiritual truths one we are depraved people because we are depraved people we began far off from god okay ephesians makes that quite clear and i've talked on that several times far off and then we're brought forth into this kingdom the second theological principle that undermines undermines everything is that god is sovereign this is his world i asked you that question thank you very much there was 52 people who filled out the survey for me and i asked one question to you does satan rule over hell he doesn't actually god is god of hell as much as god is god over heaven god is the supreme being satan is not a god he has no god powers he is not omnipresent all-knowing right so we understand that because we're depraved you know what we come from depravity you know what that does that gives satan

[44:39] a launch pad in our hearts for sin do you know what i mean by that and you guys know if you've been saved a little bit older if you were saved those temptations that draw you it's kind of the same thing right he's drawing you because you have within you this position where he can attack it's like a chink in your armor so now when we have those understandings of total depravity and god's sovereignty we need to see satan as part of god's eternal plan right he's a part of god's eternal plan as one of the puritan writers said satan's is god's satan and there is a purpose for what he does we see this in job and we're going to talk more about it but the battle is won satan is a defeated foe and the reality is satan is a squatter with no legal rights to wherever he is and wherever he is is usually because people allow him to be but satan by any stretch does not have legal authority to be where he is and we're going to see why that matters but I want to take you back to

[46:03] Joshua one commentator made this great observation and it was kind of funny my friend was going through the same thing he's doing his devotions in Joshua and I'm going to you're going to notice some very familiar sayings Joshua 1 5 to 7 says no man shall be able to stand before you all the days of your life just as I was with Moses so I will be with you I will not leave you I will not forsake you that is the promise that is ours through Jesus Christ amen says he's never going to leave us and he's never going to forsake us so he says in verse 6 be strong and courageous for you shall cause this people to inherit the land that I swore to their fathers to give them God has taken over this world whether we like it or not he's going to do this only be strong and very courageous being careful to do according to all the law that Moses my servant commanded you do not turn from it to the right hand or to the left that you may have good success wherever you go there again truth and holiness as we walk as

[47:18] Joshua every part of Canaan that he put his foot on it was already given to him and it's his as soon as he places his foot on you see to the charismatic and the catholic view satan is an outside for and he may persecute us he may we use that word demon possession we're going to break that word down demon possession we sometimes think it means that the demon comes in and takes control of us the word actually is demon influenced that we are being influenced by a demon doesn't mean he's got possession but he's got power over us okay we're going to talk about that later but demons may cause affliction as we saw with Job yes there are occultic and witchcraft issues boys Troy lim acerca of Bisous and Victoria and I cannot tell just in those five years the crazy stuff that happened at our church and the only answer was certainly demon influence witchcraft influence but all these take attacks take a far second place to satanic primary means to attack us which is temptation it's temptation any attack that satan does on a believer he needs god's permission do you know that peter satan has asked that i that he may sift you what's really interesting about persecution affliction demon influence and all that that takes god's special permission to do but what's interesting about temptation and driving us to sin satan is looking for our permission do you get that the sin that temptation when it comes against us is satan trying to get us to follow him in the moment he can't force us but he can ask for our permission and we give it that trial that test that temptation becomes sin if you don't kind of get that listen to the sermon again we're going to be covering that theme quite a bit but we have a role there is a battle inside of us and there is a battle outside of us and god is calling us one thing here that our role is to stick with god satan will attack your resolve to trust god satan will attack your faith in god satan will try to cause you to doubt god satan will try to get you to no longer believe as soon as you add something to your faith that god hasn't prescribed it is a crack in the armor that satan exploits now look at verse 13 notice he uses this word it's called withstand the evil day there's been a great argument about what this day is it is a specific day is it a day that is coming there's a day in the past um i believe there is a specific day that is coming in the future but i also believe there is special days upon which we are attacked more than normal the puritans and we're going to get into them a little bit more they actually put a lot of time to in to identify those times of special temptation

[51:21] attack satanic attack one is conversion when someone becomes a new believer expect as a coordinated attack the second time is during times of affliction when we are under times of affliction we want to doubt god we want to doubt his promises we no longer want to believe we want to take the off ramp the third time is he says before or after some great work for god's glory god happens to choose you for a work of his glory pride is one of the number one sins that can come in and god could use that i've got a sad story of a friend over sook uh hundreds and hundreds of church plants and then he said it was because of him all gone all destroyed and this is within the last five years um another when he attacks is after some great expression of love by god we experience his love and goodness satan comes at us and this one i never believed until i was a pastor at the hour of death at the hour of death great satanic attack comes against a believer i've been there holding hands with saints in their 90s who've lived a life how do i say it hundred times more glorious than i have have seen and witnessed to many scared to death whether or not they were going to be saved and go to heaven and i never understood it until i started reading studying that that was one of the pivotal pivotal times that they want them to deny god i want to close out today by speaking up about one of the greatest errors that we make as christians when we have kids or children and we see scripture telling us that we are to grow in the faith be mature in the faith right be strong in the lord we begin to um grow we become more mature we become more experienced we have wisdom and say if this was god we feel a little bit more comfortable going like this right hey i can handle this every single parent knows there was a time when your child did not want you to hold their hand right right you get that hey mom dad i want to do it on my own i've experienced that with my little nephew it just he's he wants his independence that is not what god means by maturity that is not what god means by when we become more wise remember a child starts close to his parents we actually started way far off from god and then he inherited us right and he brings us close the mature believer is the one who clings to god the mature believer is the little child that doesn't let his daddy's leg go that is the maturity it was interesting just dave and i were just talking about it this week you know just through counseling some people they think they've got that idea then they want to run away from that dependence on god so what we're going to learn through this battle of spiritual warfare which is really tough

[55:21] is that when it calls us to put on the armor of god it means for us to cling to god it means never letting go and letting him do the fighting the protecting and the caring that is the message we might as well forget the rest of the series right it's all wrapped up in that let me pray for you for us for giving me apart for giving me and welcome to your W to your we we we if