The Armor of God

00:01 Good morning. Reach in the name of Jesus this morning. Want to give glory to God. Amen? That's what we've been doing here this morning in our worship time, giving Him glory, reflecting back to Him the truths about His nature. That is a way of giving Him glory, reflecting back to Him the truths about His nature, 00:22 who He is, and what He has done for us. Appreciate your prayers the last number of weeks as I was teaching down at EBI, and it's good to be home again. The term ended on Friday evening. And so we came home yesterday, and it's just always good to come home. And always good to come home to the home church as well. 00:44 And we had a very good term, about 53 students, 52, 53, something like that, and it's the biggest second term they've ever had. And interest coming in from various parts of the country, people that are finding the school online. One student said he discovered the school online, had never had any intention of going to Bible school, 01:05 and God stirred his heart, and there he was. And you could see that he was growing in his faith while he was there. I want to invite you this morning to turn in your copies of the Scriptures to Ephesians 6. Ephesians 6 was my privilege this past three weeks to teach the book of Ephesians. 01:25 And when I thought about what I might share from the Scriptures this morning, my mind went to Ephesians. And so I would like to have us look this morning at the armor of God. The armor of God, which is given to us as a spiritual armor for a spiritual fight, 01:47 a spiritual armor for a spiritual war. The Bible says, finally, verse 10, "My brethren, be strong in the Lord and in the power of His might. Put on the whole armor of God that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, 02:07 but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places. Therefore, take up the whole armor of God that you may be able to withstand in the evil day and having done all to stand. 02:28 Stand therefore, have engirded your waist with truth, having put on the breastplate of righteousness, and having shod your feet with the preparation of the gospel of peace. Above all, taking the shield of faith with which you will be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked one. And take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, 02:48 which is the Word of God, praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, and watching to this end with all perseverance and supplication for all saints. And for me, that utterance may be given to me, that I may open my mouth boldly to make known the mystery of the gospel for which I am an ambassador in chains, 03:08 that in it I may speak boldly as I ought to speak." I want to share with you this morning about the object of our warfare, who we're fighting against, the opportunity of our warfare, what we are fighting with, and the obligation of our warfare, what the goal is of this warfare. 03:29 Now, when we talk about spiritual warfare, a lot of things come to people's minds. Some of it is kind of way far out there. I remember reading a book many years ago by a fellow by the name of Frank Paretti, and he was really sensationalized spiritual warfare. And he tried to see into what it must be like in the spirit realm. And he had angels with all kinds of descriptions and swords and fighting. 03:51 And I thought, "Well, now that makes for some interesting reading. But is that really the way it is? It's rather sensational." And yet we dare not react to the other side and say that spiritual warfare is not real. Because it is. We know that we have an enemy. And no matter who is in the White House, 04:12 whether or who wins an election or what the direction of a culture is, we still have an enemy, and we have a Lord. And the battle is the same. And the battle belongs to the Lord. 04:23 I'd like for you to just preface some of my message this morning by having you turn over to chapter 1, 04:35 verse 20, to set the stage here for this war. Because we are not, I say, we are not dealing with a war that is between two equally matched opponents. We are dealing with a war where one is far superior to the other, where the death blow has already been rendered, 04:57 but 05:00 the battle, the playing field, has not yet seen the end of the war. It's a little bit like when the Civil War was won. There's still skirmishes. There's still skirmishes of war after the war had been won, after the turning point. 05:16 And you knew who was going to win the war, but then there's still skirmishes that must be fought in order to put down all opposition. And that is the way this war is. The war has been determined, brothers and sisters. And yet there are still skirmishes. 05:30 There are still fights that must be done in the life of the believer to put down the opposition so that in our lives we might apply and appropriate and walk in the victory of the Lord Jesus Christ. 05:45 So in Ephesians 1, it says that we would know what is the exceeding greatness of His power toward us who believe, according to the working of His mighty power, which He worked in Christ when He raised Him from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly places. 06:05 Now get this, far above all principality and power and might and dominion and every name that is named, not only in this age but also in that which is to come. So where is Christ seated? He's seated far above the principalities and powers. Who are we at war with? 06:24 The principalities and powers and the rulers of the darkness of this world and spiritual wickedness in high places. But above all of that and every name that is named, whether human or angelic or demonic, above that is the authority of Jesus Christ. Now, 06:43 Ephesians also makes it clear that spiritually we are seated up there with Him. And while we walk down here, we are positioned in a place of access to that victory. And so beautiful pictures there in the book. 07:01 But finally, He comes down after He walks us through both the heavenly and the earthly in the book of Ephesians. He says, "Now finally, brothers, be strong. 07:15 Be strong in the Lord and in the power of His might, in the exceeding greatness of His power." And so we're saying, furthermore, there's something that you need to do, something you need to know that as we move from the heavenlies down here to waging war on the earth, 07:34 as we move from victory being secured spiritually to practically winning battles, we must remember that we fight according to His power and might. The word power means dominion, and might means strength and force. And so we have not only the dominion over Satan, 07:56 we have the authority and the force over Satan as we seek to wage war with the enemy wherever he shows himself. Now, I'm not one that sees a demon or an enemy behind every tree, but there are demons behind some trees. 08:14 And so we can't just throw it out and say that there's no opposition because there is. Not everything that comes our way is caused by a specific act of Satan or demons. Because we do carry with us the sin nature that causes much of our problems, especially our internal problems. 08:33 And yet we do know that we have an enemy and that he has a certain amount of strength and access into the life of the believer. And it is our responsibility to stand, to stand against him. 08:48 And he says, "Be strong in the Lord, in the power of His might." So I'd ask you a question this morning. Is God powerful enough and real enough to help you right here, right now? And I hope your answer is yes. Because He is. He's strong enough. He's powerful enough. He's in dominion enough. 09:08 He has authority enough. And He's made it available to us right here, right now to experience victory. 09:14 If you look over in chapter 2 of Colossians, he talks about what happened at the cross where he disarmed principalities and powers. By the way, that's who we're fighting again, principalities and powers. 09:31 And made a public spectacle of them triumphing over them in it, in the death of His on the cross, the death of Christ, the resurrection, and all that He has accomplished for our security and for our strength and for our victory. 09:50 So we will not give ground to the enemy. And the idea here is about staking out a position, staking out a position and standing, standing there undefeated, undefeated. 10:06 And I have the idea, kind of the mental picture that I see when I think about this is all of the dust and all of the chaos of warfare and the dust swirling and swirling. And when the dust is all settled and everybody is looking around to see who won this battle, 10:26 that the Christian is still standing. And so when it's all said and done, when all Satan has thrown at the church and at the believer everything that he has, including death, that when it's all said and done, that the Christian is still standing. And that's the way it's going to be. 10:46 When everything shakes down and the Lord Jesus returns again, there will be a group of people still standing, still standing, still being faithful, still serving God, still loving God, still appropriating the power of God, and still walking in victory. 11:03 But what we do today in our own personal spiritual life will determine whether we stand or fall. And so one of those things is take heed. If a man thinks to himself that he stands, take heed, lest he fall. So falling is a possibility, but standing is also a greater possibility. 11:23 So we're to put on the whole armor of God. The object of our warfare is the enemy of our souls. The object of our warfare is the enemy of our souls. So we're to put on this whole armor, not just armor light, but armor full force. Some people want light mayonnaise, 11:43 and they want light soft drinks, and they want light this and light that. But we want light coffee, light caffeine. But this is not armor light. This is armor full, full force. Put the whole thing on, nothing lacking if you want to be victorious in this area. 12:00 So it has the idea of staking out a position and maintaining that position and not giving ground to the enemy. How is it that we do give ground to the enemy? Well, there are a number of things that give ground to the enemy, one of which is rebellion. Rebellion gives ground to the enemy because rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft. 12:20 And witchcraft, of course, would give ground to the enemy. The occult gives ground to the enemy, being involved in spiritism that is not of God but is of the enemy, and power and control that is not of God but of the enemy. That will give ground to Satan. Unforgiveness, bitterness, 12:40 hatred, anger, unresolved anger will give ground to the enemy. The Bible says in Ephesians that we should be angry and sin not. "Let not the Son go down upon your wrath, neither give place to the devil." So if you have unresolved anger, that can give place to the devil. So we want to stake out a position. 12:58 Don't let anything that would enter our lives that would compromise that position and be aware of the wiles, the wiles. Now, he says here that you may be able to withstand in the evil day and stand against the wiles, verse 11, the schemings. The word wiles there means schemings. 13:18 You see, Satan has nothing better to do than sit around, well, if you want to put it in that way, scheming how he can destroy the work of God and the people of God. That's his full-time occupation. He's been doing it for thousands of years, 13:37 scheming, plotting, conniving, manipulating so that he can destroy the work of God. And he's very crafty. He's very crafty. In fact, we hear a lot about sin. And in my 57 years plus of life, I think maybe I've heard about every sin you can imagine, 13:58 been involved in prison ministry even. And then sure enough, here comes another one that I never thought of because I don't think on that level. I don't scheme. We don't scheme as Christians. We think on the level of light and how we can glorify God. But the world and the devil and the flesh schemes on how it can destroy the work of God. 14:18 That's their full-time occupation. So the Bible says that we are not ignorant of his devices, but neither do we sit around thinking about them all day long. And so we want to be able to stand against the wiles of the devil, to have enough knowledge of his schemes so that we can recognize them and stand against them. 14:39 So what we have here in these principalities and powers and rulers of darkness of this age, spiritual wickedness in heavenly places, Adam Clark says, "We are to understand different orders of evil spirits who are all employed under the devil, their great head, 14:57 to prevent the spread of the gospel in the world and to destroy the souls of mankind." That's his business. And ours is to be able to stand against him by appropriating the resources of Christ. Christ, as we have shown already, has already defeated them. We may ask what this evil day is. Well, we're certainly living in an evil day. 15:18 We are certainly living in maybe the evil day. But I think this has the idea of the last day, the great day of unleashing of the devil's power. And I believe that we are coming into an era of unparalleled demonic assault against the people of God. And so it's going to behoove us to know how to fight. 15:38 And we're not talking about fighting physical forces. We're not talking about fighting governments and fighting politicians. We're talking about standing spiritually for the truth of the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ and of the interceding for the souls of men that God's will would be accomplished. 15:59 That's the object of our warfare. What about the opportunity of our warfare? Have you ever thought of the armor of God as being an opportunity? An opportunity? It surely is. An opportunity to receive God's support as it gives God an opportunity to shine through us. 16:20 We have an opportunity to represent God and to do that well and to apply his armor. And so we're to put it on. He says, "Put it on. Don't leave it lay. Don't just put it on on Sundays, but put it on. Put it on every day." You see, clothes that are left in the closet won't help you. 16:42 Clothes that are left folded neatly and nicely on the bed won't help you. The only way for clothes to help you or for an armor to help you or for an overcoat to help you is to put it on. And so put it on. Put on the whole armor of God and take the whole armor of God, verse 13. And then he lists six pieces of armor, six pieces of armor. 17:03 I believe this is a package. This is a package that if you can't just get by with five pieces or four pieces, you must have all six pieces in place to truly stand. 17:17 And so the first piece of the armor is the belt of truth, having therefore your loins girded about with truth, truth around your waist, truth as the support for your strength, where your strength comes from is from the waist. 17:37 As you move forward, as you fight, as you demolish strongholds, it's with the truth of God's word, to brace the armor tight against the body. And so when you go off of duty as a soldier, you loosen your belt. When you go on duty as a soldier, you tighten your belt. 17:58 When you come to the end of the day, when you kick your feet up or when you rest your head on the bed, you take off the belt. You're relaxed. But he says, "Put the belt on. This is not a time to relax. 18:10 This is a time to armor up." And so we gird ourselves with this leather belt, which is a belt that would have metal hooks on it, to attach other parts of the armor onto, such as a dagger, a sword, or a bow. It also helped to keep the breastplate in place. 18:30 You see, truth is so important that without it, you are unprepared, and the rest of the armor does not function well. It is the foundational and even maybe hidden piece of the believer's armor. 18:45 So the belt of truth, one of the things that Satan will do to try to get us defeated is to lie to us. And I'm not even talking just about lying to us about the cardinal doctrines of the faith, but talking about personal lies that are against the word of God that Satan will plant in our minds. 19:07 We do believe that Satan has the ability to plant thoughts in our mind. I don't believe Satan can read your mind, but he can plant thoughts there. And we have to be vigilant with our minds. That when a thought enters our mind that is contrary to the word of God and contrary to the truth of God, 19:26 then we have to act as a traffic director and say, "That thought is not welcome in this mind." Have you ever done that? You ever actually? I do that sometimes. I see myself as a traffic director when thoughts come, and I'm directing traffic. You stop, you go, you stay, 19:46 and direct those thoughts so that we're active and disciplined in our thought life, in our thought life. 19:54 Such things as being something as simple as maybe thinking that, "Well, I guess just nobody loves me. Nobody loves me." You know that's a lie from the enemy. That's a lie. And that will take you into self-pity. It'll take you into doubt. It'll take you into worry. 20:13 It'll take you into fear. Just nobody loves me. I guess I can't do anything right. Don't ever tell your children they can't do anything right. That's a lie. It's not true. They can do a lot of things right. Now, can they do everything right? No. But we don't want to lie to our children. We don't want to lie to our spouse. 20:32 We don't want to lie to ourselves. We certainly don't want to lie to God. And so put on the belt of truth. And then he says, "I want you to put on the breastplate of righteousness, righteousness, righteousness based on the truth of God's word, the truth, the faith, 20:51 and individual truths that we believe or we don't believe, the lies in our hearts and in our minds." So the breastplate of righteousness is that standing before God from the neck to the thighs to protect the heart and lungs and vital organs. 21:12 Now, you can get hit in your hand. You can get hit in your arm. You can get hit in your foot. You can get hit in your leg. You can get wounded. You can still live. But if you get hit in the heart, you get hit in the lungs, you get hit in the liver, you get hit in the spleen, or wherever those vital organs are, you're in trouble. 21:32 And so we want to make sure that we have that covered. 21:34 We want to make sure we have our coat of mail on. And it was usually made of bronze. And although the wealthy wore a coat of mail, which would be a leather cloth or coat that was covered with 700 to 1,000 small metal plates to protect the torso. 21:54 And I think that's probably the kind of armor God has given to us. God does not skimp on his armor that he gives to us. And so this coat of mail is such that will protect the heart, to protect the heart. Think about that. What is guarding your heart? What is protecting your heart? It's our righteousness. It's our righteousness in God, 22:15 in Christ, being clothed in the righteousness. 22:18 Righteousness is uprightness and character and holiness and rightness, rightness before God in our hearts and in our minds, in our lives, that we would stand upright before the Lord rather than cower in guilt or shame or fear. 22:39 We are standing righteous before God through the merits of Christ and Christ alone. 22:46 When people begin to compromise in their moral life, compromise in their heart, what they allow in, what they don't allow, what they don't put out, then we begin to compromise in our practical areas of holiness. And so we don't want to do that because we don't want to give Satan ground. 23:04 We don't want him to have any ground to penetrate that armor and that breastplate of righteousness. And then he says, "I want you to put on your feet the preparation of the gospel of peace." And so the boots, the boots of readiness in the gospel, the boots of the gospel, the gospel boots, if you will. 23:25 Now, these are not flip-flops. We don't wear spiritual flip-flops. You cannot win a war in flip-flops. You cannot wear a war in sandals. You may walk in sandals, but you can't win a war. When you're going to really do serious battle with the enemy, you must have your feet shod with the gospel. It is the gospel that propels us forward. 23:47 And in history, the boots of the battle have many times made the difference between winning and losing. The boots, Julius Caesar and Alexander the Great had great victories because their armies were well shod. They had good boots. 24:06 And these boots would be from the shin down to the sole of the feet. And the soles were then studded with nails like cleats to dig in and give extra speed and traction in rough terrain, in rough terrain. When you recently saw a documentary from the library on climbing, 24:25 mountain climbing, climbing Mount Everest, fascinating, fascinating. You don't go out there without good climbing boots. You're climbing in ice. You're climbing in snow. You're climbing in rock. You're climbing in mud. And you don't go out there without good shoes. 24:44 And the gospel is our primary message that propels us forward and gives a message for the world. It is the gospel, the blood, the cross, the resurrection, the person of Christ, the second coming, the plan of salvation is what makes us so threatening to the world. 25:04 You see, it's not the fact that we are a lot of people that makes us threatening to the world. It's the fact that we have the gospel that makes us a threat to the world. You can have many people, and they don't have the gospel. 25:20 They're just a voting block. But you have many people with the gospel of Jesus Christ. And that's the group of people that will still be standing when the dust settles. It is those who have embraced the gospel, who have trusted in Christ, who have known the gospel, 25:40 who have committed their life to the gospel, the fact that the rule of Christ in the lives of those who by repentance and living faith in the risen Lord Jesus are disciples and transformed by the grace of God. That message is what propels us forward and keeps us from slipping, 26:02 keeps us from slipping back into our old ways. 26:08 Then we have the shield of faith, the shield of faith. The shield is interesting. It's different than a buckler. When you think about a buckler in the Old Testament, he talks about the buckler and the shield. A buckler was a small handheld shield. 26:26 And you could see if something coming and move it so that you're protecting yourself. But a shield was large enough, and it was created in the outline of a body so that you could actually get behind the shield and be protected from advance. 26:48 You could protect your whole being back there behind that shield. It was so large that a soldier could hide behind it because it was adapted to form, to the form of the human body. It was a wooden frame with or wicker work overlaid with leather and sometimes with gold, silver, and bronze. 27:09 And the fiery darts of the wicked or of the enemy would hit that shield and bounce off or be extinguished. And that's what he says. He says, "Above all, taking the shield of faith, above all." Now, that word "above all" can have the idea of a priority, or it can also have the idea of in every situation, 27:31 in every situation, make sure you have your faith intact and that you have the Lord as your object of your faith. The faith of the believer is his response to the promises of God. 27:45 And so one of the ways that you can tell whether or not you have the shield of faith is when you leave this morning and you say, "I think I can do that. I believe that I can be victorious because Christ is my shield." That's what we're talking about. If you walk out this morning and say, 28:05 "Well, it's a nice little sermon, but I don't think it works for me," then you don't have your shield in place. You don't have your shield in place. Our shield is our confidence in Christ. Are you confident in Jesus today? Have you seen him meet your needs? Have you seen him answer prayer? Have you seen him fulfill his obligations to you? 28:24 It is the assurance of our place, our position, and our commander's presence and protection. The armor of the shield would oftentimes have an armor bearer or an assistant that would come and carry the shield into battle. 28:43 Who is our assistant who carries our shield into battle? He is the Comforter. He is the Holy Spirit. He is the one called alongside to help, the Paracletos from God, the Comforter. 28:58 And he carries that shield and positions it that we might hide behind it. He is our assistant. He is our strength. He is the one who equips us for battle. And then we have this helmet of salvation, 29:21 the helmet of salvation. I'm so glad for the helmet. Are you not? So glad for the helmet to protect the head, to protect our brain, to protect our mind because, like I said, you get hit in your vital organs in your midsection, you're toast. You get hit in your head, you're toast. 29:42 You are in trouble. You get a shot to the brain. You get a shot to the head. You get a blow to the head, and you're in trouble with the enemy. And so here we have the helmet of salvation. 29:56 We have the leather or metal or brass headgear to protect the head. And it served several functions. One was to protect the head. The other was for a function of identity. And so your commanding officer could be on a hill and looking down, 30:16 and he could tell where his soldiers were by their headgear. And there would have maybe a crest or some kind of apparatus on the head to identify the different regiments and different parts of the military. And so they would wear different helmets. 30:34 And the commander could easily identify his soldier from a higher vantage point. In close hand-to-hand combat, he could also identify his comrades. And he could also identify them by what was on their shield, the insignia on their shield in close hand-to-hand combat. 30:51 The Christian must have his salvation secure to keep his mind focused and free from clutter. Your mind cluttered today? Does it get bogged down with many things, many thoughts, many worries, many concerns, many cares? 31:08 Well, let's ask the Lord to place that helmet securely on our heads, to declutter our thought life, and to take captive every thought. The Bible says that the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but are mighty through God to the pulling down of strongholds, 31:28 casting down where are the strongholds? The strongholds are in the mind, casting down every imagination and every vain thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of Christ and bringing every thought into captivity of the obedience of Christ. One of the reasons that Christians are defeated in their lives, 31:48 in their moral lives, in their emotional lives, in very many areas of life is we don't take that thought captive and make it obedient to Christ and say, "This thought may stay. This thought must go. This thought glorifies God. 32:04 This thought helps me walk in obedience to God and in security with the Lord Jesus Christ." And if we're going to be victorious, brothers and sisters, we have to take control of our thoughts and our minds. And God has given us the apparatus to do that by salvation, 32:24 the helmet of salvation, and then the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God. This was probably not a spear or a javelin. It's not something that you just throw at the enemy. It's not something that you just slash and thrash at the enemy. 32:45 But it's more like a hand-to-hand combat sword, a short sword to be wielded in close company with the enemy. The Christian now must be skillful in the Word. He must know how to take the utterances of the Spirit, the words of God, 33:06 the Word of God, the Scripture, and skillfully pierce the heart of an issue to bring down imaginations, arguments, and every thought that exalts itself against God. That's what Jesus did in his temptations. It is written. And then Satan would come back with another verse. 33:27 "No, you're wrong. That's not the way you interpret Scripture. It is written." And so Jesus was masterful about exposing error through the written spoken Word of God. We need that as well. 33:47 Now, to bring this message to a close this morning, well, I want to look just here briefly, quickly about the last point of our warfare. And that is prayer, the obligation of our warfare. We have an obligation. 34:05 We have an obligation to pray for one another, to pray for our families, to pray for our marriages, to pray for our lost loved ones, to pray for each other, to pray, pray, pray. 34:19 He says in verse 18, "Praying always with all prayer and supplication," request the word supplication means requests or intercession, to intercede and to request and to pray to God, and being watchful to the end, 34:40 to this end with all perseverance and supplication for all the saints, praying for everybody that God lays on our heart. Lord gives us impressions many times of people that we should pray for. And we need to do that. And as well as when you put this on, this armor, how do you get it on? 35:00 You put it on by prayer, by prayer. Now, bringing this to a conclusion this morning, there's two things I want to remind us about this armor. Number one is this armor protects pretty much every part of the Christian struggle. 35:20 Think about where we struggle as Christians. We struggle with lies, believing lies. So we need the truth. And so the truth, that belt of truth, just kind of cinches it for us and clenches it for us. 35:36 When we take God's Word as his Word and take the truth, we'll overcome the lies of deception, of deception. We do not want to be deceived, especially in these last days. There is much opportunity for deception. And so the truth will keep us from being deceived. 35:58 And then the breastplate of righteousness is to take care of the heart. Another place where Christians struggle is with a divided heart. We have divided loyalties. We kind of want this, but we know we should have this. We know we should go after God, but we kind of want our own way, 36:17 and we kind of want the things of this world. And so we've got a divided heart. And the enemy can exploit that division and drive a wedge between your heart, the desires of the flesh, and the desires of the Spirit. 36:36 And so a sin and a divided heart starts in the heart and the mind. And so we're being protected against those things. So it will defend us. And then another area where Christians struggle is the whole area of witnessing, witnessing, speaking up for God. I would suspect that if we had a poll here this morning, 36:55 that every one of us probably would say we have some sort of hang-up or inability or fear or concern about witnessing to others. It just doesn't come naturally for us, it seems like. And so when we are shod with the preparation of the Gospel, 37:17 the Gospel of peace, that gives us something to share. It gives us something to move forward with. It gives us a security in our faith and a security in our witness. And then the shield of faith, the shield of faith, we oftentimes struggle as Christians with doubt, 37:39 discouragement, depression, and fears and worries. And if I were to take a poll again this morning, which I won't, probably many of us know what it is like to struggle with doubts and discouragements and fears and worries and depression. And so how do you overcome those things? With the shield of faith, 38:01 faith in the promises of God, faith in the person and work of Jesus Christ, and faith in the Word of God that shows us that he is above all dominion and authority and every name that is named. And then we struggle with the mind, unholy thoughts, unholy feelings, unholy imaginations, 38:21 unholy beliefs at times that need to be brought under the authority of the Lord Jesus Christ. And it is that helmet of salvation which has the potential, which gives us the potential now to think God's thoughts instead of man's thoughts. You see, we don't have that before we have salvation. 38:41 But when salvation comes, now for the first time in our lives, we can begin to think like God and think after God and his ways. And then finally, we struggle in the area of the tongue. Do we not? What do we speak? What do we say? 39:00 How do we say it? Sometimes we say too much when we should say less. Sometimes we say too little when we should say more. We're always, it seems like, struggling with that little four-inch or six—I don't know how long it is—four-inch member in our body. The Bible says in James that that is the hardest item of our body to control. 39:19 It is so out of control many times that it sets churches on fire. It sets communities on fire. It sets homes on fire. And it just destroys relationships. And God give us a substitute for speaking our own way. And that is to speak the Word of God, 39:41 to speak the Word of God, the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God. Now, the second thing I wanted to bring up in closing and wrapping this message up is that all of these things come when we put on Christ. Putting on Christ is the issue here. 40:02 Putting on Christ, taking the person of Christ and applying him to every area of our lives, submitting to his lordship, coming under his authority. He is the truth. And when we learn of him and his ways and put on Christ, we put on the truth. He is our righteousness, 40:23 1 Corinthians 1:30, "But of him are ye in Christ Jesus, who is of God, is made unto us wisdom and righteousness and sanctification and redemption." It's Jesus that is those things, that is each of those items. He is our righteousness. He is our readiness. He is the Gospel. He is our salvation. 40:45 He is our faith. "The Lord is my light and my salvation. Whom shall I fear? I am crucified with Christ. Nevertheless, I live yet not I, but the life that I now live in the flesh. I live by the faith of the Son of God," not just the faith in the Son of God, but the actual faith of the Son of God, 41:05 putting that on, putting on Christ. 41:09 And he is our Word, Revelation 19:13, "And he was clothed with a vesture dipped in blood, and his name is called the Word of God." So when we talk about taking these individual aspects of our armor, they all come to us in the person of Jesus Christ. 41:30 And in prayer and supplication and watchfulness and perseverance, we put on Jesus Christ and make no provision for the flesh. So that's the discipline that we must learn to put on Christ. How do you put off the old man in Ephesians 4 and 5? 41:52 And you put on the new man. How do you do that? It's by being renewed in the spirit of your mind. It has all to do with what we care about, what we want, and what we think, what we believe, and how we obey. Put on Christ. 42:12 How do we do that? By faith in the heart and confession with the mouth, that if a man believes in his heart that God has raised him from the dead and confesses his mouth that Jesus Christ is Lord, he shall be saved. You see, there's faith in the heart. There's confession with the mouth. And by the way, that is one of the areas, 42:32 one of the ways that we defeat the enemy. I made a statement a minute ago that the enemy is under no obligation to obey our thoughts because he doesn't know our thoughts. I do not have an enemy, a devil, as an enemy that is all-knowing. There is one that is all-knowing, and that is God. But he is an expert student of human behavior. 42:53 And he knows when we've bought into his lies. And so what do we do? We must declare the Word of God. I'm not one—you know me good enough to know—I'm not a Word of Faith person that believes you create your own reality by speaking into existence things that are not. 43:13 But we do not negate the fact that we are people of confession, that we must confess with our mouths the Lord Jesus and believe in our hearts. And it is with the confession of your mouth that salvation comes when it's in agreement with the faith in the heart. 43:35 "And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and the" what? Word of their testimony. 43:46 Testimony. 43:48 Taking what is true in here, planning it in the heart, and speaking it with the mouth, defeat the devil. Oh, may God make us good warriors, not fighting physical battles, not fighting flesh and blood, not fighting against each other, 44:07 not even fighting against elections and against Washington, but fighting the good fight of faith. Let's pray. Father, we bring that good fight of faith into every area of our lives, into our thought life, into our hearts, 44:28 into our words, into our beliefs. And we want to be victorious. And thank you, Lord, that you have given us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Faith is the victory, as we sing those songs many times. 44:46 Father, I pray that if there's someone this morning that's struggling with doubts and fear and worry and unbelief and maybe even struggling with sin, habitual sin, I pray, O God, that they would put on Christ, that they would learn the truths of putting off the flesh, putting on Christ, and having it all rooted in the Gospel. 45:09 And so, Lord, thank you for the victory. In Jesus' name, Amen. Shall we sing?