Would you take your Bible off stage?
!
I would like Molly Collins.
Where are you, Molly?
Would you come here to the front, Molly, please?
I don't want you to touch this.
I don't want you to get close to this.
Stand right over here.
Does anybody know what this is?
What is it?
It's not a bear trap.
A bear trap is about 50 pounds, and they're illegal.
No, they are.
You're not allowed to trap bear anymore.
This is just a little old minor old foot trap.
But I'm going to use it as an illustration here.
Okay.
That's a smart girl.
I don't know.
I don't know what you think I'm going to do with that pencil, but it's not what you think I'm going to do.
Take your Bibles.
And turn in them to Ephesians chapter 6.
Stay with me, Molly.
Don't leave.
Okay.
Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of His might.
Put on the whole armor of God.
God.
That you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil.
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.
And Molly, what I want you to do is point from a safe distance.
Point at that trap.
There you go.
Ow.
There it is.
Thank you, Molly.
Thank you.
How many of you understand how serious our enemy is about destroying you?
Probably one of the tests of how seriously you take the enemy is whether or not this morning as you were getting up
and going through the responsibilities of your mourning.
For one, if you took the time to pray, to read the Scriptures, do you follow that?
If you don't think there is an enemy after you, you probably didn't do that.
In fact, one of the things that Jesus said, He said it in numerous different places,
but one of the things that He said when His disciples asked Him, teach us about prayer, He said,
pray this way, right?
Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name, kingdom come, all that kind of stuff,
and lead us not into temptation.
Elsewhere, Jesus, as He was talking to His disciples, as He went into the Garden of Gethsemane to pray,
prior to His crucifixion, He said, listen, pray that you don't enter into temptation.
That's what He said.
Let's pray.
Our Father God, we are so deeply blessed, we who know Christ,
to have the blessing of relationship with the Lord Jesus as our God and Savior,
and to have the Word that is given to us as this rich and incredible blessing,
that we might be completely furnished unto all good works,
and to have the indwelling Spirit who abides in us
and is our advocate and our ally and our enabler,
and who we may justly rely upon to not only understand the Scriptures,
but to put them into practice.
I'm thankful for the Spirit of God that
I am so deeply dependent upon in preaching.
and that same Spirit
who is actively at work in the lives of believers,
that they might
find the answer
in the prayer that we find in the Psalms
where it says,
Open my eyes that I might behold
wondrous truths out of thy law.
And so we want Your Spirit to work in us this morning
that we might be different as a result of hearing the Word.
And we ask this in Jesus' name. Amen.
Well, by this point,
you figured out that we're coming close to the end of the book of Ephesians.
And I have enjoyed this book tremendously,
but I have to tell you,
I'm beginning to kind of make that transitional shift
in my prayer life
and beginning to think about the book of John.
And Lord willing,
and should He tarry and you permit,
I intend to begin preaching in John sometime in the fall,
maybe late summer.
We have three other groups
that are going to be doing Scripture Memory.
Tom and Carrie, you're doing next week.
Am I correct with that?
And then after that,
I think Mary and the children,
you're doing six.
Are you not doing six?
Yeah.
You're doing six.
Isaac and company,
you guys are doing five.
Am I right?
See, there we go.
We got it all worked out.
And we're coming close to the end.
How many of you know how the book of Ephesians kind of begins?
Does anybody have one of those favorite verses
that you can lock in and say,
here's how it begins?
Let me help you with this.
It says in Ephesians 1, verse 3,
it says,
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,
who has blessed us in the heavenlies with all spiritual blessings in Christ Jesus.
We're blessed in Jesus.
It doesn't get any better than that.
And here, Paul opens up this unbelievable book that brings glory to Christ.
It causes us to look forward to the day that we're going to be home with Him.
And yet, as Paul comes towards the end of this book,
he goes into perhaps one of the more militant and challenging passages that we find in the New Testament
because he tells us that we're involved in conflict.
And here we are.
We're dealing with this and where Paul kind of reminds us that we're involved in warfare
and that we have a horrible enemy that is absolutely bent on our grief and our shame.
And one of the things that we should know from the very beginning is that we're not home yet.
You know, it would be nice, wouldn't it, to be home?
It says in the Scriptures, absent in the body, what?
Present with the Lord.
And I like the song that our choir sang this morning.
Man, what a, what a, that was good.
And just listening to you guys sing, I'm up here.
There's only one thing that goes along with our corporate singing,
and that is that I sometimes don't get some of the words right.
Am I right, young ladies?
They're sitting over here just having just a snickering time
because I sing different words than they do.
And it doesn't put me off so long as they can handle it.
But we're just, we're having a great time singing and rejoicing in the Lord Jesus Christ.
And yet the fact of the matter is, is that we're not home yet.
We're not home yet.
And Paul, this morning, wants us to understand just how serious this conflict is.
And so as you take up this passage, let me kind of set the broad picture,
and then we're going to come down into it a little more narrow, a little more specific.
But I want you to understand that for one thing, Christ commands,
and this is something that we have to understand,
what is given to us here is given by a very pointed fashion.
Christ commands a warlike mindset.
Now, you have to face it.
Nobody really likes war for long.
It's fun to play paintball, you know, I mean, it's as long as you're not getting hit, right?
But the fact of the matter is, is that war is really not something that is entertaining.
It's horrible.
It's brutal.
When I was younger, I remember just during the time, I was back during the Vietnam era,
and I remember working with a man who was a veteran of Iwo Jima.
Later on, I had a friend who actually was in Vietnam, and he was on long-range patrols by himself.
He was a forward observer for artillery, and he would be sent out into the jungles alone by himself,
only he and a dog, and they would spend a week out there scouting and then calling in shots.
One of the things that I discovered about combat veterans is that none of them sit around thumping their chest
talking about how neat it was.
In fact, I've got to tell you, neither of these guys were the least bit interested in sharing some of their old war stories with me.
They really didn't want to talk about it.
Combat was something that they hated, and even though they'd come out a winner in one sense,
they were not very pleased with what all had taken place, and so they were very cautious.
I want you to understand that we're at war, and so our Savior tells us here in this passage that we face an enemy
that is bent on our destruction, our harm.
And one of the things that goes with preparing to preach is actually,
and you would understand that this would be reasonable, that as I am preaching or as I'm studying in the study there,
and as I'm meditating and praying about it, I have your faces and your hearts before me in the study and in my private time.
Does that make sense?
One of the things that goes with being a shepherd in the same place for quite a few years
is that I know some of the things that have happened in your life,
and I know some of the things that the enemy is trying to do to unhinge and to harm you.
And I know some of you that are almost brain-dead to what he's doing.
And so it follows then that when I take up this passage prompted by the Spirit of God,
and I come to you, I say with a shepherd's sympathy, listen carefully.
This is for you.
I want you to understand as we look at this passage that one of the things that we should know at the very outset
is that we're not to fight in our own power.
We're not to fight in our own power.
It says, finally, there in verse 10,
Be strong in the Lord and in the strength of His might.
Put on the whole armor of God
that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil.
You know, I go back to what I said earlier that, you know, apart from video games and stuff like that,
real combat is not something that is entertaining and something that we take pleasure in.
It's hard and it's difficult.
And as we think about what is being spoken of here,
I want you to understand that the Spirit of God wants you to understand clearly
that this battle that we're involved in is something that has great risk and great harm
and you will not escape it until the day you draw your last breath.
My dad is 90.
I don't mean to overplay the fact that my heart's caught up in that,
but I want to tell you, I've watched my father over the last number of years
and on recurring occasions, I've spoken to him very explicitly and clearly and said,
Dad, you can't stop the fight.
I'm not talking about the physiological fight.
I'm talking about the spiritual conflict
where the enemy is very interested in allowing discouragement and despair
to breed over and eventually produce bitterness in the life of an individual
who has served with rich distinction.
And I say to him, Dad, you have to stay focused on the Lord Jesus Christ
and live your life for Him even as you live it,
doing nothing other than drawing breath where you sit.
We're involved in conflict and it won't stop until the day we're home.
And you've heard the passage where it says,
Be strong in the Lord and the power of His might.
In other words, don't try this alone.
You desperately need help for this daily battle.
Furthermore, I do want you to understand something as we look at this passage,
that this battle is defensive by design.
Defensive by design.
He is not calling us to be, you know, ninja turtles or navy seals.
You know, it's not a lot about, I'm out there doing my thing
and, you know, I'm a punching it out for Jesus kind of guy.
If you read the passage, you understand that the entire picture
is this defensive mindset.
Put on the whole armor of God that you may be able to stand
against the schemes of the devil.
The imagery that Paul relied on
was imagery that communicates
a defensive and protective environment
where we are resisting the adversary.
We're not out there duking it out with him on our own.
The word stand that Paul uses here
is a word that talks about kind of getting anchored in.
It's talking about getting set.
Probably there are a few of you here
that at one time or another in P.E.
before there were too many injuries,
played something called Red Rover, Red Rover,
Let Timmy Come Over.
Come on, anybody here?
Raise your hand and say, I did that.
Okay?
And, you know, what you did
was you picked on the wusses to begin with.
You know, the little guys that weighed 69 pounds
and you and whatever,
they would come running at you.
And what was the game?
If they broke through, what happened?
They took one back with them.
But if you held on,
they were toast and they were part of your line, right?
And the way in which you did that
is you said, you know, let Timmy come over
and Timmy would come running at you
with his little frame and not anymore,
but, you know, he'd come running at you
and as he was getting closer and closer,
what were you doing?
You know, and as the guy would bump into you,
kind of give a little bit.
How many of you learned that?
You know, give a little bit
and pretty soon his energy was dissipated
and you had him.
In ancient warfare,
I want to tell you something.
Ancient warfare was not like this.
We are on the other side of the country
playing with a video game
and we're going to drop a rocket
on somebody over in, you know, Afghanistan.
Ancient warfare was very personal,
in your face, right up.
Essentially, it was an armed shoving match
where you got real close
and here's the truth.
The ones who turned down, backed down,
turned around and ran
were the ones who got stabbed in the,
guess what?
The back.
And so what you wanted to do in warfare
was you wanted to get your shield out in front
and you wanted to get,
and the soldiers actually had leather sandals
with iron cleats in them.
They weren't for walking on the beach in.
They were for, you know,
digging their way in
and then here would come this horde
of, you know, unwashed enemies.
You know, whoo,
camping in the old days was really bad.
You know, they'd come running at you
and then bang, they'd slam into you
and then what were you doing
with your little spear
and your little sword?
What were you doing?
Does anybody have an idea?
You were sticking them
wherever place you could.
You know, I mean,
there's nothing wrong with
chopping off a guy's leg.
Do you understand that?
Or stabbing him in the thigh.
You know, wherever,
you were just flailing at him.
And your safety was in being locked
into a defensive,
protective environment
and staying there.
I want you to understand
that as you look at this passage
as we open up,
you have to understand
that we are to rely upon his power
and we're to rely upon his armor
and we're to stand firm in him
and we're to stand together
as a body
rather than as these solo secret agents
for the king.
Listen to me.
I think one of the things
that has really amplified
Satan's effectiveness
in contemporary Christian living,
in causing harm
to contemporary Christian living,
is that there's so many people
out there today
that I bump into
who call themselves Christians
that really have no ongoing connection
with a body of believers.
And they are out there
by themselves
trying to deal with an adversary
and they have no companionship,
no help,
no encouragement,
no people to depend upon
that are going to say to them,
hey, don't be doing that.
You're going to get hurt.
Well, I want you to understand
as we look at this passage
there in verse 11,
let me read it to you.
Put on the whole armor of God
that you may be able to stand
against the schemes of the devil.
So, one, we see that
we're to have this warfare mindset,
but second,
Christ wants us to understand
who our enemy is.
Now, in that verse,
it says that you may be able
to stand against the schemes
of the devil.
Let me give you a little bit
of translation here,
and I'm not all about the Greek
kind of piling on you
so that you go home
and know the recipe.
I want you to know the cake,
but here's the deal.
That word scheme
is the word methodea.
Hmm.
What does methodea sound like?
Does anybody have an idea?
Come on, give me the English word.
Method.
And when Paul tells us
that there is a methodea,
what he is telling us
is that Satan actually has a plan
and is working according
to a systematic pattern
to try and hurt you.
That's what he's saying.
Look at it again.
It says,
that you may be able
to stand against the schemes
or the methodic attack
of Satan against you personally.
David Jeremiah makes a statement
that,
and it's sanctified imagination.
How many of you understand
what sanctified imagination is?
It's kind of like speculation,
okay?
But in his sanctified imagination,
he talks about the fact
that you could probably go
into the devil's office
and you'd find a filing cabinet
and there in the filing cabinet
was a file with your name on it.
And Satan has an idea
of how to mess you up.
You personally.
He's got a file
that says Tim Knoyer on it.
He's got one that says
Henry Covert on it.
He's got one that says
Gordy Hickey on it.
He's got one that says
Saul Green on it.
He's got one that says
Bob Consul.
He knows us.
And he's after us.
I want you to understand
something about Satan's strategies.
For one,
they're insanely repetitious.
Don't take pleasure
in the fact
that he's so repetitious
because we are
incredibly foolish.
I mean,
you know what?
I'm not going to set it again,
but you know,
I could set this trap
and just put a little bit
of rancid meat on it.
Do you follow that?
And then just cover
a little bit of grass
and stuff like that
and set it out in my lawn
and guess what would happen
within a day or two?
There would be something in it.
Not something I'd eat,
but it would be something in it.
Okay.
And I could take the same trap
this fall.
It was pretty cold.
You know that.
Pretty cold.
And I went out in my garage.
My wife has a pathological
hatred for mice.
And I am the family
mousetrapper.
Okay.
And in fact,
I bought like about
six bags of them
and she said,
honey,
why did you do that?
We have three left over
from last year.
I said,
never hurts.
And if my wife
has anything about
mousetraps,
it just use them.
So I'm out there
setting these mousetraps
all over the place.
You know what?
A couple times
I could catch the same,
two or three mice
on the same trap
with the same
peanut butter bit.
Now how deceptive
is a little blob
of peanut butter
on a mousetrap?
Very?
No.
But it works.
Just so long
as they don't eat much of it,
I just reset the thing.
Do you follow that?
Just kind of bend
the spring back
and clean the other one off
and don't even have
to lay it far away
and ready to go.
Now look here.
It says Satan
has a strategy.
He's got a strategy.
And he's after you.
I want you to understand
that he has classic attacks
that have succeeded
since the garden.
And he also knows
your particular weakness.
Look in your Bible
just for a moment.
Go over to Hebrews 12,
verse 1.
Hebrews 12,
verse 1.
There are minor differences
in the way this verse
is translated,
but I want you to look
in particular
at what it says there.
And the sin
which clings so closely.
King James says
the sin that does
so easily beset.
And one of the things
that I would understand
is that sin does cling
closely to all of us,
but there are some sins
that cling more closely
to one of us
than the other of us.
Let me give you
a couple of illustrations.
Satan did not use wine
or the barber chair
to get Samson.
Do you understand that?
But Satan had Samson
figured out, didn't he?
Satan had Samson figured out.
And from early on
in Samson's life,
he began to show
a pattern of immorality,
and at the end of the day,
it was his lack
of discretion
and obedience
to the Scripture
in relationship
to the matter
of immorality
that led him
to give away
the secret.
And he ended up
having his eyes
poked out.
Lot didn't fall
to the wiles
of a seductive woman.
Do you realize that?
Lot was not snared
the same way
that Samson was.
Lot wanted prominence.
Lot wanted property.
Lot wanted significance,
and he was willing
to put himself
wherever it would pay out
to his advantage.
There's some of you
sitting here this morning
that in the course
of your lifetime
are going to find
over and over again
that Satan is going
to tempt you
with certain advantages
and certain advances
in your career
that seem on the surface
they make sense,
but they draw you
closer to the
pit
and to Sodom
and Gomorrah.
Judas
was never tempted
that we know of
by immorality,
by drunkenness.
He was never tempted
by some of the things
that some of you
sitting out here
this morning
have found yourself
in conflict with
over and over again,
but I want you
to understand
that it tells us
that Satan got
the best of Judas
and his life
was destroyed
by the temptations
that came.
So here's the deal.
If you're wondering
what Satan may have
in your file
as shortcuts
to attacking Tim
or shortcuts
to attacking
Brenda
or whatever,
you know,
here's how you can
kind of figure it out.
Find out
where you've fallen
most often.
Do you follow that?
And by this time,
most of you here
are old enough
to have had enough
recurring incidents
in particular areas
where you say,
ah,
I'm a guppy there.
How many of you
follow what I'm saying?
It's like,
got me again.
If you're a
repetitious powder,
do you know
what a repetitious powder is?
Everybody smile.
It's someone
who does it often.
Or if you're
a person
who is often
offended,
easily offended.
You know what an individual
is who's easily offended?
They're constantly,
somebody's got them
worked up about something.
Or if you're a person
who finds yourself
snared by
subtle suggestions
to immorality
over and over again.
Or you're just not
satisfied with
the things that God's
provided.
I don't know what it is.
If you find yourself
in this repetitious pattern,
here's what you can figure out.
Satan's got your number.
He's got it.
Now,
I want you to recognize
something else
in this passage.
He has
a strategy.
But I also want you
to understand
that this warfare
is not about
us or others.
It's really stunning
to stop for a moment
and look at what it says
there in verse 12.
It says,
For we do not wrestle
against flesh and blood.
You know what most of us
believe?
Honestly,
truthfully,
we believe that the
biggest problems
we have in our life
are what?
Other people.
Huh?
Other people.
In fact,
you wouldn't want
to do it publicly,
but the truth
of the matter is
if I ask you
to make a short
mental list
of who you really
would like God
to change,
you're not first
on the list.
Not because you are
so spiritually perceptive,
but because you're
so dull.
Now,
there it is.
For we do not wrestle
against flesh and blood.
What?
Well,
that is the Bible,
so I've got to trust it.
Okay.
And it says,
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.
Now,
this Bible verse
is not undermining
the doctrine
of the battle
we have with indwelling sin,
and I've got enough
problems with me.
But the Bible tells me
there's an enemy
that I have
that's out to destroy me.
Out to harm me.
Out to ruin my life.
I've shared with you before
that there was a time
in my life
where,
largely because of
my own sin,
Judith and I went through
an incredibly difficult time.
And in that time,
I remember
how close I came,
this is the truth,
to one sin after another.
I was almost overwhelmed
by a desire for revenge.
I was almost overwhelmed
by anger and bitterness.
It consumed me.
I had an hour drive to work,
and I can tell you that
somewhere along,
about 30 minutes into that drive,
I would often,
by the way,
how many of you know
that I'm an emotional person?
I can get worked up,
you know,
it's like,
about 30 minutes into the drive,
I was crying,
driving my pickup truck,
and slamming the metal dashboard.
This was before
people had the intelligence
to wrap dashboards
with something
a little more protective,
you know.
And my thumb,
my back of my hand
was black and blue,
you know.
I was beating that dashboard
in my,
and I remember one day
kind of stopping,
pulling over to the side
of the road,
and said,
what is going on?
And out of the clear blue,
my Aunt Lou,
who's with the Lord now,
called me.
She said,
Tim,
don't give in
to bitterness.
And when Aunt Lou
told me that,
I thought she had a right
to tell me,
because I knew
how she had trashed
her life
because she'd given in
to sin.
Paul says to us,
he says,
listen,
the problem you're having
is not people.
You have an enemy
who wants
to destroy
your soul.
I want you to understand
that
the Bible wants us
to understand
that this is
spiritual warfare.
It was spiritual warfare
that destroyed Samson.
It was spiritual warfare
that just absolutely
trashed Saul's life
and David's family
and Solomon's life
and caused Ahab's death.
By the way,
not have you go there,
but you'll remember
the little passage
where Ahab the king
is kind of debating
whether he ought to go
to battle with another king,
and we get a picture
into heaven,
you know how that's going,
and in heaven,
God says,
well,
I wonder how we can
deal with Ahab,
and a little devil
comes up and says,
hey,
how about I do this?
And it worked.
Remember also
when Jesus
says to Peter,
he says,
hey,
Satan has desire
to sift you.
Satan wants
to trash your life,
Peter.
And then some
of the sweetest verses
in the Bible,
but I have prayed
for you.
I love that one.
I have prayed
for you.
So what is
our spiritual
enemy's
strategy?
Now remember
I said that he is
insanely repetitious?
So if you get it
right from the beginning,
you should be able
to figure out
how it goes.
Does that help you
a little bit?
It doesn't mean
that you can fight
this battle
on your own,
but at least
if he is strategic
and he has
a settled plan
to go about it,
you ought to know
how that goes.
So turn in your Bible
as we close
to Genesis chapter 3.
Genesis chapter 3,
and I'm going to tag
four quick points.
In Genesis chapter 3,
we have the story
of Adam and Eve
falling into sin,
and let me just kind
of spin this out
quickly for you.
Number one,
he came in created form.
Now the serpent
was more crafty
than any other beast
of the field
that the Lord God
had made.
He said to the woman,
did God actually say,
now who do we know
is actually employing
the serpent?
Who is it?
It's Satan.
The strategies of Satan.
He uses physical entities
and physical circumstances.
And by the way,
he won't come with horns.
I tell you,
I've had more people
tell me,
well, it was an open door.
Have you ever heard that one?
It was an open door.
I'll never forget
hearing a pastor say
that when the door
pushes open,
you want to find out
whether the hoof is cloven
or the hand has a nail
pinned in it.
Do you follow that?
I want to know
who's behind that.
He came in created form,
and he will attack you
using people
as his agents.
And by the way,
I wouldn't go up
to your wife
the next time
she's not cooperating
with you and say,
you are Satan's instrument.
Not a good idea.
Follow that.
I know some of you
are going to try it.
It's not a good career path.
I speak with experience.
Your wife is God's agent.
She's there to help.
So,
God's going to use people.
Admit that.
Secondly,
he came with a challenge
to God's Word.
He came with a challenge
to God's Word.
He said,
did God actually say?
He's going to do that
with you.
Incidentally,
if you're largely ignorant
about God's Word
and what it has to say,
you are even more vulnerable.
Do you follow that?
God has given us
His Word
for our protection.
So,
Satan comes to you
and said,
did God really say
and some of you
are sitting there,
I don't know.
I'm not real sure.
Well,
you leave it open
for Satan
to help you figure out
the way he wants you
to figure it out.
Know the Word.
Know the Scriptures.
Know what it has to say.
And don't be sitting there
just kind of thinking,
well,
no big deal.
Let me tell you something.
The Word
is your great ally
in helping you
not be overwhelmed
by the enemy
of your soul.
Third,
He came with a denial
of God's warning.
Now,
look at what it says there.
Verse 4,
but the serpent said
to the woman,
you will not surely die.
Now,
listen,
if you don't catch
anything else,
I want you to understand this.
God tells us the truth
about how the story ends.
I want you to hear that.
God is in the business
of being truthful.
He'll tell you
how the story ends.
Satan doesn't do that.
He will tell you
that if you trust in Him,
your life
will be spent
in His presence
in all of eternity,
and the end
will be good
even though
the journey
will be tough.
I can't help
but think this morning
about
a Chinese couple
that Judith and I
picked up at the airport
about three years ago
and brought to our home,
and subsequently
they came to Christ.
They're living in China today.
He's a PhD.
His specialty
is in
computer
software.
Always a little curious
what he did
for the government,
but I won't go there.
You know,
he got saved.
His wife got saved.
How many
good Christian churches
do you think
he can find
in the gargantuan country
where he's set?
Not very many.
His name,
English name
is Sam.
His wife's name
is Alice.
Daughter is Ariel.
I still hear from them.
You know what?
Life here,
regardless of where we are,
is going to be short.
And God tells us
that those who trust in Him
will enjoy eternity
forever in His presence.
Satan says,
hey,
it's not going to work out
that way.
No,
God tells us the truth.
Fourth,
he came with a denial
of God's goodness
and God's heart.
You see,
Satan always lies
about not only
how the story ends,
but he also lies
about God's intentions
and His challenge
in your life.
Do you follow that?
Oh.
Chasing that boy
is going to end up good
even if he is an unbeliever.
Even if you ought not
to be involved
in that behavior.
Lying
about something
at work
is going to protect
your job
and you'll
come out ahead.
Just being a little
dishonest
is to your benefit.
Being involved
in
personal gratification
is
understandable.
in every step,
Satan lies
about God's goodness
in his heart
and you can track
every one
of your temptations
back to those things.
So,
let me close with this.
Satan is
a strategist
who's out
to trash
your life.
Everybody here
would say,
I got that.
Right?
I got that.
And,
he has a strategy
actually that's got
you in mind.
I got that.
how can you tell
where he's
working
by repetition?
Hmm?
How do you
then respond
to this passage?
what you do
is say,
if you love me
enough to tell me
about the adversary
and how he wants
to destroy me,
then I
should
respond
with
defensive,
protective
covering
in the
ministry
of the
Word of God
and in the
Spirit of God
that I am
not a
spiritual
casualty
going forward.
Listen to me.
You're going to
fall into
one of three
categories this
morning and I'll
close with this.
There are going
to be some of you
here that through
the prompting of
the Spirit of God
you're going to
say,
I don't want to
keep on being
a spiritual
casualty to
an enemy who
hates my soul.
I know
Jesus.
and I want
to take
spiritual
conflict and
spiritual warfare
more seriously
and I am
prayerfully going
to humble
myself and
say,
Lord Jesus,
work in me
through your
Spirit to
teach me
all that I
need so that
I am not
being bulldozed
by my
enemy.
There are going
to be some of
you sitting here
right now saying,
I wish this
sermon would be
over so I
could leave
because I
just really,
it gives me
the creeps to
listen to this
and there are
some of you
sitting here
that do not
know Christ
who someday
will stand
before him
as the judge
of the whole
earth
and he will
say this,
I died to
pay the
penalty for
your sins
and I
made the
issue of
the darkness
of your soul
clear
and you
in your
pride
hung all
kinds of
excuses
around the
subject of
your soul's
need
and I
think about
what it
says in
2nd
Corinthians
it says
we in
Christ's
stead
plead
with you
be
reconciled
to Christ
and if
you're here
this morning
and you do
not know
Jesus Christ
I would
plead with
you in
Jesus'
place
lay aside
your pride
and your
stubbornness
and quietly
confess the
bankruptcy
of your
soul
and say
I believe
Jesus died
for my
sins
and I
trust him
to be my
savior
let's close
in prayer
our
father
God
we are
so very
thankful
for the
blessing
of your
word
and
for the
clarity
with which
you tell
us
that
we
as
your
children
do
have
an
enemy
who
wants
to
harm
us
but
thank
you
so
very
much
that
you
have
given
us
salvation
through
the
Lord
Jesus
and
you
have
given
us
protection
and
enabling
through
the
word
of
God
and
the
sweet
spirit
that
dwells
within
and
help
us
to
be
a
people
that
are
well
armed
and
really
sensitive
to
this
battle
so
that
we
may
live
joyful
productive
lives
for the
brief
time
that
we're
here
for
the
sake
of
the
King
we
ask
this
in
your
precious
name
Amen
we're
going