A Mighty Fortress Is Our God (pt-1) - [Ephesians 6:10-20]

Dungeons and dragons. Dungeons and dragons.

I believe in dungeons and dragons. No, I don't play the imbecilic board, excuse me, role -playing game.

But I believe in the dungeon, the dungeon of hell forever, and I believe in the dragon. And the great dragon,

Revelation says, was thrown down the serpent of old, who is called the devil and Satan, who deceives the whole world.

Do you believe in the devil? Do you believe in Satan? After all, it's 2005.

After all, this is the modern era. This is the technological era. Satan, please.

Didn't John Lennon say that was mind games? Satan, and what does it matter?

I have issues with health and bills and relationships and other things. Why bother with Satan?

I have enough problems on my own. Did you know you're in a battle?

Did you know if you're a Christian, Satan is after you? Did you know there's a warfare going on that's invisible right now?

And I think the easiest prey for Satan are those that don't know there's a battle going on.

The battle, the spiritual, supernatural battle that's happening right now.

And the next several weeks, it may be warm in here in terms of temperature, but I hope

I can keep your attention because we'll talk about Satan, demons, spiritual warfare.

Do we bind Satan? Do we cast him out? Do we send him to Fitchburg? What do we do?

What is spiritual warfare? Does it matter? And if you'll turn your Bibles to Ephesians, we want to deal with this issue this morning.

Ephesians 6, verses 10 through 20. A mighty fortress is our God that will point us to Christ, that will point us to his word, that will teach us how we need to live out what we know.

Matter of fact, let's not even go to Ephesians chapter 6 yet. Let's go to chapter 2 as we approach a little review.

It's one thing to go to little microscopic verses to study them, but we have to remember the overall theme before we just dive into any set verse or two.

Christianity these days, I'm afraid, recruits people like this. Come to Christ, he'll fix your marriage.

He'll fix your relationship. If you're single, he'll give you a spouse. If you don't have children, he'll give you children.

He'll give your borders and expand them. He'll give you expanded borders. He'll give you a real purpose in your life.

Come to Christ, smoothing, a smoothly sailing on the high seas of life.

Come to Christ. Now, it is true that when you come to Christ, God gives you life that's not just abundant, but more abundant.

But how about this for evangelism strategy? Come to Christ, and instead of Jesus fixing your marriage and giving your life purpose, come to Christ in God and he will draft you immediately into his army, place you on the front lines of the battle.

You will be in the battle not against other people, but against Satan and his hordes. And if you want the high life, the easy life, the life without cost, you've been drafted into the wrong army.

Come to Christ. How about that? How many people would line up? Come to Jesus Christ and all of a sudden you'll be in a war.

Well, if you're a Christian, there are no conscientious objectors. You are in a battle. And the thing that I want to impress this morning is if you don't think you're in a battle, you've already been duped by the deceiver.

This passage in Ephesians 6 in just a moment is all about war and battle and commitment and cost.

It's all martial. But before we dive in, go back to Ephesians chapter 2 and let me show you just a quick review of Ephesians.

And really we can answer the question in chapter 2, why does God save sinners? If chapter 1 is about God's predestining grace, if you will, why would he save sinners in chapter 2?

Let me give you several reasons. One found in Ephesians chapter 2 verse 4, he saves sinners like you and like me because he's rich in mercy.

But God, verse 4 of Ephesians 2, being rich in mercy, God saves people because he is rich in mercy.

He's rich in grace. It is his nature to save people. Called, matter of fact, in the pastorals,

God our Savior. Not only that, if you keep reading the verse, why does

God save sinners? He saves sinners not only because he's rich in mercy, but he has great love that he shows us.

Verse 4 says, because of his great love with which he loved us. The past tense love of Christ at Calvary.

The substitutionary lamb in our place, on our behalf, in our stead. Why does God save sinners?

He's rich in mercy. He has great love. Thirdly, if you look at verse 5, he's full of grace. Even when we were dead in our transgressions, he made us alive together with Christ, and there's that great refrain, by grace you've been saved.

By grace you've been saved. And he also saves sinners not just because of mercy and love and grace, it's to show his glory, to manifest his glory in his name.

Verse 7, so then in the ages to come he might show the surpassing riches of his grace and kindness towards us in Christ Jesus.

The book of Ephesians is about the glory of God found in Christ Jesus, and how he has a great eternal love, and that love shows itself in time as he saves sinners with his kindness, with his love, with his mercy.

And then he says, I want you to act like that person. That person that's been snatched away from the wrath of God, that's been snatched out of the fire, that's a different person because not only does

God save them, he changes them and transforms them. You could outline

Ephesians this way. Chapters 1, 2, and 3, who you are. Chapters 4, 5, and 6, how you should act.

Or here might be another way. Not in progression, but just easy to think about. Sit, walk, stand.

That's a good way to look at Ephesians. Have you ever heard it that way? Sit, walk, stand.

Could you give me the verses that show both of those, or all three of those? Ephesians 2, 6.

We skipped it right there. And raised up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ.

We're seated. So sit, where's the walk? You'll find five walks in Ephesians 2, 10, 4, 1, 4, 17, 5, 2, 5, 8, and 5, 15.

Here's who you are. Walk, live, it's called a lifestyle. And then now we come to the third one, which is found in Ephesians 6, 10 through 20.

Not just seated in the heavenly places. Not just living our life. But now comes the battle. Stand.

Sit, walk, and stand. Let's read this passage. And it is a passage that should just grab you.

It should just kind of shake you. I mean, after all, Paul's been talking about beautiful things, wonderful things.

Husbands loving their wives like Christ loved the church. And the wives responding to that. Parents who just want to raise their children up in the

Lord and nurture in admonition of the Lord and the children responding to that. Masters and slaves or employers and employees, just how they treat each other.

We're just walking around memory lane. Family, children, work.

Wake up, Paul! It's chapter 6. That's what it is. It's out of nowhere. I mean, we just go spiritual warfare, yeah, be strong.

But he just jumps right into it. This is like an alarm. It's so abrupt from the peace and tranquility of the earlier verses.

It just grabs you. Stott said, The abrupt transition of the previous paragraphs to the hideous malice and devilish plots in this section causes us a painful shock, but an essential shock.

What a great way to end the book. When we were kids, you'd get comic books. And when

Luke had surgery a while ago, I even went to the store because I thought, I'll get Luke a couple comic books to read. I started reading through them.

I thought, I can't give my kids comic books these days. I have to get the 1940s kind of comic books, you know, Woody Woodpecker kind of thing, because of all the themes and the language in half of these new comic books.

Maybe there's good ones. I don't know. When I used to get comic books, you could order that little thing that you put in your hand, and you'd wind it up, right?

And you'd say, Hi, how are you? And they'd shake your hand like that. That's exactly what this passage is.

You've just been kind of walking through Ephesians, Paul, the great apostle to the Gentiles, God's great love.

Here's how that love should express itself in the church, families, relationships. This great vertical love to God shows itself in horizontal ways.

And then, let me read the passage.

Chapter 6, verse 10, all the way through 20. It'll probably be, probably, I don't know, 14 -part series.

But today will be part one. Finally, words that preachers say that don't mean anything, but Paul meant something by it.

Be strong in the Lord, and in the strength of His might. Put on the full armor of God, so that you will be able to stand firm against the schemes of the devil.

For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the worldly forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places.

Therefore, take up the full armor of God, so that you will be able to resist in the evil day, and having done everything, to stand firm.

Stand firm, therefore, having girded your loins with truth, and having put on the breastplate of righteousness, and having shod your feet with the preparation of the gospel of peace.

In addition to all, take up the shield of faith, with which you will be able to extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one.

And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. With all prayer and petition, pray at all times in the

Spirit, and with this in view, be on the alert with all perseverance and petition for all the saints.

And pray on my behalf, that utterance may be given to me in the opening of my mouth, to make known with boldness the mystery of the gospel, for which

I am an ambassador in chains, that in proclaiming it, I may speak boldly as I ought to speak.

Let's just take a look at the first few verses, and as we get in, I want you to remember that everything in this passage has to do with plural community, not single individuals.

These are all plurals. These are all plurals that talk about the Christian church. Will there be individual responsibility?

Yes. But this is a corporate matter. We kind of think, you know, very American, very individualistic.

It's kind of me and myself and I. This is to the group. This is going to be very important because you can't fight a battle.

You can't go in the infantry and just kind of be by yourself. Let me just give you a little teaser.

When you have shields, the shields that they used to have, there was a variety of them, but some of the shields they had, you could lock into the next guy's shield.

And some of the movies that you've seen, some of the epics probably show those shields locked in so when those fiery darts that have pitch on them are coming, you could all lock in together.

And if you're out by yourself, you're going to be mincemeat. And so this has a whole community, a whole continuity of plural, not singular, which is going to be very, very important.

And by the way, I also, before we jump into the passage, I can't help think about Ephesians and the people there at the church of Ephesus because how many years later, 20, 30, 40 years later,

Paul says you've lost what in Revelation chapter 2? The church at Ephesus. How would you like to have Timothy for your pastor?

Yeah, my pastor is Timothy, and by the way, he was personally discipled by Paul the apostle. And I can't help but think that this charge to the church at Ephesus was over time not regarded.

And over time, it wasn't really a battle, it really wasn't a fight, it really wasn't a big deal. And when everything starts slipping, your love for the

Savior slips, and it was not a big deal. I think this will be a great passage for our church because I think our church needs it.

Every church needs it. Here is who God is, here's how we should live, and by the way, finally we are in a battle.

Let me give you several strategies for our outline today to hold your ground against Satan and his desire to devour you.

That's the title really of my outline, several strategies to hold your ground against Satan and his desire to devour you since we are in a war.

Strategy number one. Strategy number one, you must not rely on yourselves. Let me put it simply, you can't trust yourself.

And of course, everything that I'm preaching to you, I've had to preach to myself this week. None of us can trust ourselves, but now I'm in the pulpit, so I'm preaching to you.

You can't trust yourself. You cannot live a victorious

Christian life on your own. Do you trust yourself? We have some seminary students now, several pastors on staff learning the languages, learning theology.

You've been a Christian for many years maybe, and maybe you're a senior saint, you've been a Christian for 50 years, and you just kind of know what to do and how to operate and what to do.

This opening exhortation in verse 10 has lights around it that says, do not trust yourself.

Verse 10, finally, for the rest, in closing, summary. Finally, be strengthened in the

Lord. Be strong in the Lord and in the strength of His might. The strength that you have, the strength that's available, is not in you.

It's in the Lord. You don't have enough strength. I don't have enough strength. And this is a command, by the way, but very interestingly, it is not something that you are to do.

It's not active. Make yourself strong. Go to the gym, work out spiritually.

This is be strengthened by God. Literally, it's a passive. You are to be strengthened by someone else. Be strengthened by someone else.

You are to be made strong. Translated in Romans 4 .20, yet with respect to the promise of God, Abraham did not waver in unbelief but grew strong in faith, giving glory to God.

Colossians 1 .11 has the idea, being strengthened with all power according to His glorious might.

This implies we have a need. You are not strong enough. I'm not capable enough. No matter what our pedigrees might be, we can't do it on our own.

We need to be continually strengthened, and this is the call. Be strengthened. I can almost hear

God saying to Joshua, can't you? Be strong and courageous.

Chapter 1 verse 6 of Joshua. Chapter 1 verse 7, only be strong and courageous.

Chapter 1 verse 9, have I not commanded you, be strong and courageous? Furthermore, if you look at the passage, be strong in the

Lord. Don't miss those three English words. God is our strength. God is the one who can provide this strength for us.

We cannot rely on our own ability. In the Lord. Let's put it this way.

You're in the Colosseum in Rome, and they let the lions out.

You're a Christian, and you're huddled in the middle with your family, and out comes the lions.

How do you defend yourself? Which kid do you guard first? And so you get ready to fight.

What would happen if you chopped off your arm, and then set that arm out?

All the hordes of the lions are coming this way. You put the arm out right there, just laying there, amputated.

And you say, okay arm, defend him. Give him like the

Vulcan pinch. Or choke him. Don't give me any kind of cheesy science fiction movies with like the hand going around.

It's disconnected from the body. Here we are in Christ, but when it comes to spiritual warfare, somehow we want to have an

OBE, an out of body experience, where somehow we're fighting on our own. It's just like an amputated hand trying to ward off any kind of enemy.

It can't be done. Why would he spend chapter 1, 2, and 3, here's who you are in Christ. Here's what he's done. The Spirit of God has sealed you.

The Son has redeemed you. The Father has chosen you. Here's who you are, this mystic communion with Christ.

How could it be that he baptizes us into his body? And by the way, one for all and all for one?

Fight. No, just all for one. I'll just fight on my own. No, you just can't be. 1 Samuel 30 verse 6, but David strengthened himself in the

Lord his God. Zechariah 10, 12, and I will strengthen them in the

Lord. The whole passage has to do with relying on Christ's power. And he's going to try to nail that home soon because if you really realize how powerful

Satan is, can you imagine? We kind of have all this WWF stuff going on.

It's like the cage match. Yeah, get me in the ring with Satan. I can do it. I'm going to just do a power walk around the church and I've got my oil and I've got my six -shooter by my side and when in doubt, cast it out.

This passage is very humbling and it should make all of us say, no matter what kind of degree we have, no matter if we know

Greek or Hebrew, no matter how long we've been a Christian, no matter what, we should say, we are having a war with Satan and we have to be very, very careful on how to fight this war.

And he begins to pile up words to make the point. You see the word strength there? Strength and might? I just love that because he's trying to convince us that it's

God's power, it's Christ's power, it's not our own. And you see it right there in the strength of his might.

Strength has to do always in the Bible, negative or positive, but always with supernatural power.

Supernatural power, in the supernatural power that is inherent in God.

That's what the word strength is. The first word, excuse me, that's what the word might is. Strength is the supernatural power, dominion, might, mastery.

And then the next word has to do with, it's almost like kinetic power, potential energy.

It's power that's inside, power that's inherent. So rely on the Lord. That's what the whole passage is talking about.

We can't trust ourselves. We'll sing a song soon, a mighty fortress is our God. Did we in our own strength confide our striving would be?

Losing. Now I almost want to start telling you what to do, how do you rely on the Lord, but I can't do that yet because that's in verses 18, 19, and 20 that talks about prayer.

So let's just kind of keep looking at this. Let me push it even farther. Adam, pre -fall, sinless, perfect human righteousness, left to his own.

What happened to Adam who didn't even have a sin nature when he was confronted by Satan? If Adam left to himself needs the

Lord's power, how much more do we? Or are we like Peter? Even though all may fall, yet not

I. Jesus said, apart from me in John 15, you can do.

Turn to Acts chapter 19 for a moment. Let's see what happened in Ephesus. This is an illustration of what not to do.

If you'd like to be engaged in spiritual warfare, this is what not to do. By the way, I should rescind what

I just said. You are engaged in spiritual warfare, whether you know it or not. Here is

Acts 19. This was at Ephesus. And here's what happens when you try to be strong in your own power, your own techniques, your own theology, your own accord, and you try to attack

Satan. Acts 19 .13.

Great illustration of what not to do. You probably know the story. But also some of the

Jewish exorcists who went from place to place attempted to name over those who had the evil spirits the name of the

Lord Jesus. By the way, if you knew someone's name, that was thought to have great power. Oh, I know your name.

And so it was as if you had some hair for someone to put on the voodoo doll because it was some kind of intimate knowledge.

So this name thing was big. I've got the name. I adjure you by Jesus whom

Paul preaches. We've got his magical name. We've got the magical potion. We've got the ABC guides to casting demons.

You think I might be laughing about it, but you go to almost any Christian bookstore and you will see the demon section. Huge. Seven sons of Sceva, a

Jewish chief priest, were doing this. And the evil spirit answered and said to them,

I recognize Jesus and I know about Paul, but who are you? And the man in whom was an evil spirit leaped on them and subdued all of them.

How many were there? And overpowered them so that they fled out of that house naked and wounded. Their tail between their legs running.

That's exactly what they were doing. This became known to all, both Jews and Greeks, who lived in Ephesus.

And fear fell upon them all and the name of the Lord Jesus, the real name, was being magnified.

Our sufficiency is found not in ourselves, not in some kind of special incantation, not in some kind of little prayer book that talks about exorcisms, but in God alone.

Very, very important to know. Well, let's go back to Ephesians chapter 6.

I wonder if those guys cast any more demons out. We're just kind of building.

We're putting the foundation down for spiritual warfare. You're probably wanting to get to the helmet of salvation. I am too, but there's this good stuff we've got to get to first.

It's a very complex subject. There's a great book by William Guernal called The Christian in Complete Armor.

And I have the three volume abridged set. It's this huge book. The short title is

A Christian in Complete Armor, A Treatise of the Saints' War Against the Devil. We like kind of short titles in America.

Let me give you the real title of the Puritan book, The Christian in Complete Armor. A Treatise of the

Saints' War Against the Devil, wherein a discovery is made of that grand enemy of God and his people, and his policies, power, seed of his empire, wickedness, and chief design that he against the saints and against the magazine is opened from whence the

Christian is furnished with spiritual arms for the battle. Helped on with his armor and taught the use of his weapon together with the happy issue of the whole war.

Google that. It's very complex. There's a battle. And Paul doesn't just jump in right away and say, cast this demon out.

Do this. Use this slogan. He's setting it up and saying, listen, you're in Christ and all your sufficiency is found in Christ and you just can't do things on your own.

Don't forget that. Second strategy. You must rely on God's weaponry.

If you can't rely on yourselves, that's the negative slant. The positive slant is you've got to rely on the weapons that God has given you to use.

Verse 11. And this is almost how to be strong, verse 10.

But for the sake of the outline, what not to do, verse 10, what to do, verse 11. This is basically how to carry out this being strong in the

Lord. Verse 11. Put on the full armor of God that you may be able to stand firm against the schemes of the devil.

And Paul here doesn't say, here's the connective word, therefore, it's almost like a general.

It's almost like a drill sergeant where he just goes from one order to the next. Rat -a -tat -tat, he just gives the next order.

Put on the full armor of God. And we need to because if Christ loves the church,

I wonder what Satan must think of the church. Think Satan loves the church? Satan is out to destroy the church.

So, Paul, inspired by the spirit of God, says, I want you to put on the full armor of God.

Clothe yourself. This is language to do something to yourself. It's a middle. It's to clothe yourself, to put something on yourself.

To wear something. As Charles Wesley said, but take to arm you for the fight the panoply of God.

Use God's weapons. The full armor. And I loved it when Dr. Barak was here. He said, fix this, he said, panoply, full armor, is pan -hoply.

Pan -hoply. What's a hoply? Here a hoply, there a hoply. There's hoplys everywhere. Pan -hoply. Pan means all.

Hoply comes from the word hoplite, that little Roman soldier. It wasn't so little, but the Roman soldier.

I'm thinking about the little picture of one. Put on the full armor of a Roman soldier. It's panoply.

So when you sing that word, that song that's got the panoply of God, you realize that's the full armor. Panoply, the full armor of God.

And he's going to start talking about this as Christian virtues, by, you can imagine Paul, how many times was he in jail?

How many times was he guarded by a Roman soldier? He knew about battle, he knew about soldiers, and when

Paul got to town, what did he do? He just asked where the jail was, because he knew he'd be there soon enough. On my trip to Rome, I was in two of the cells where Paul was, just from place to place to place he'd go.

So he knew what these Roman soldiers were like, he knew what combat was like, and so now Paul, to help us remember, just starts talking about all this armor that one of these

Roman soldiers would have, and he says, put on the full armor, with the point, you've got to have all the armor. The completeness of the armament is what he's striving for.

Put on the whole armor of God. And if you see it, the text, it's of God's armor.

It's the source of God. The origin is of God. It's called God's armor, because it's His armor, we'll learn next week in Isaiah 59, and He bestows that armor as well.

But to what end? To what goal? Why does He want you to put on the right kind of armor? That you may be able, look at the text, to stand firm against the schemes of the devil.

Flipped around negatively, if you don't have this kind of armor, you will not be able to withstand these schemes.

You need preparation. The Prince of Darkness, grim. He's very, very powerful.

But if you do what God says, you will be able, you're capable to stand firm, to hold your position. Now, all this stand language, in NAS it says stand firm, it's just one word that says it means stand.

It doesn't mean just like the stand of detention. It almost means to stand your ground. You've accomplished this hill, you've taken that hill, now hold that hill.

Keep your ground. Christ has defeated Satan at Calvary, and now you're in Christ, hold on to what he's already done before the final reckoning of Satan.

Maintain your ground by God's gracious provision. Don't surrender.

Don't retreat. Don't take a nap. Because there's schemes of the devil. Do you see that in your Bible? The wiles of the devil, some translate it.

Really, the word is Methodist. Did you know Satan was the first Methodist? That's just to get your attention.

Charles Wesley and John Wesley did a lot of good things. Their religion was methodical. But hear that word

Method. Satan has a method. Satan is a Methodist in the sense that he has a method to try to get to people just like you, just like me.

This word Method is not a neutral term in Greek culture, never neutral, it's always negative, and it's always unfavorable, and it has to do with military ploys and methods.

I'm going to trick that person. I'm going to get that person with clever stealth. You can just imagine, as you see kind of female lions stalking through the brush, and you see that poor little innocent little gazelle, that little thing just bounding through, just that little fawn, and you can just tell they know what they're doing.

That's what Satan is trying to do to you. Now, you think he'd say something about Satan, but they already know about Satan.

If you lived at Ephesus when people, the seven sons of Sceva were running around trying to cast people out, and there's

Artemis, everybody yelling, great is Diana, great is Diana, and there's this huge statue of her, one of the seven old wonders of the world, and all just the debauchery that was going on there, you wouldn't go,

I wonder if there's Satan or not. Could there be any kind of demonic things happening? They already know there's a demon, he knows that they know that, and so he doesn't even say, now let me tell you about the devil.

He just says, these are schemes of the devil, no explanation, no origin, no biography, no nothing. And by the way,

Satan and his demons do not subscribe or ascribe to the Geneva Convention.

I studied the Geneva Convention this week. First convention in 1864, treatment of battlefield casualties.

1906 was the second. It extended the principles from the first convention to apply also to war at sea.

Third convention, 1929, POWs and their treatment. 1949, treatment of civilians during wartime in enemy hands.

And then they had two protocols that they needed to add, relating to protection of victims of international armed conflicts.

The second protocol related to protection of victims of non -international armed conflict. Satan doesn't care at all.

Satan's after you. Satan wants to get you. And I don't know about you, but every night when I go to bed,

I just go check all the doors, make sure the sliding glass door's got its little lock, make sure the basement's got its lock, and I just lock everything up, and then

I just walk around going, Satan can't get after me, there's no big deal, there's no Satan around, there's no demons, and Satan only cares about Mormonism anyway, and so why do

I need to bother? He's got schemes.

And he's honing his craft after at least 6 ,000 years. And as 1

John 3 calls him, the original or the oldest sinner. Literally, it says, he who practices sin is of the devil, for the devil has sinned from the beginning.

And he's tempted Eve, and he's tempted Christ, and he's opposed God's work, he's fought with Michael, he has the world in his lap, and you're next, but for the grace of God.

And that's why I love the revelation of God. He tells us, here's how to be safe. Can you imagine Adam and Eve? Adam and Eve sin.

God said, well, from here on, pal, it's you and your wife against Satan. Hold my breath, hope it works out.

But God, in his mercy, in his kindness, in his providential giving, he says, you know, there is an enemy, you can't handle that enemy, and let me help you.

Now you say, well, it doesn't really hit me at home, all the Satan stuff, and I haven't been up to Salem and the

Witchcraft Museum for a long time, and it's no big deal. Let me give you three methods, three tricks, three passages in the

Bible that allude to Satan, where Satan could actually trick you where you live.

Right in your own home. Matter of fact, right in your own bedroom. Let's go to the first one, back up to chapter four.

Let me give you three subtle methods or schemes or wiles that Satan is going to get into homes with, even at this church.

And I don't mean, worship Satan with Anton LaVey, and I don't mean, get a Ouija board out.

These are things that are going to be much more common, and you might ask yourself, are you being strong in the

Lord when you allow these three things to happen? The first method is found in verse 26 and 27 of Ephesians 4.

We know the passage when we were there four and a half years ago. Number one, do not go to bed with single anger.

Or in other words, you have anger, sinful or not, deal with it before you go to sleep.

Now each one of these passages will have Satan or the devil in them. Be angry, verse 26, and do not sin.

There's a righteous anger, there's a non -righteous anger. Do not let the sun go down on your anger, and do not give the devil an opportunity.

All the stewing and brewing having anger, either righteous anger and then not doing anything about it, which can turn into non -righteous anger, or having sinful anger and just going to bed because when you wake up, all the things that happen regarding that.

I could ask you the question, do you ever go to bed angry? I can't believe that it actually says that you give

Satan an opportunity. You think you've already got troubles with your spouse or with your roommate or somebody at work, let alone going to bed angry would even make it worse.

How about this commitment? God, by your grace, I'll never go to bed mad even if I have to stay up all night. No matter what the other person did to you.

Who wants Satan in there? Let's turn to 1 Corinthians 7 and let me give you another one that's even more personal, that's even more amazing, and this also has

Satan involved. We'll get to casting out demons, we'll get to binding and loosing and all that kind of stuff, but here are three methods that I chose because they all have

Satan in them and they're tricky, they're crafty. You don't think of, oh, this is really satanic warfare, but going to bed with sinful anger is dealing with spiritual warfare.

The demon of cough this week. Just joking. Bad joke.

1 Corinthians 7, you know where I'm going. Here's a way for Satan to get into your home. Now concerning the things about what you wrote, it is good for a man not to touch a woman.

Doesn't mean just can't touch him, this is talking about sexual intimacy, this is talking about sexual intercourse.

But verse 2 says, but because of immoralities, all sex outside of marriage, that's those immoralities, let each man have sexually his own wife, is the context, and let each woman have sexually her own husband.

Where's this going with satanic warfare? Verse 3, let the husband fulfill his sexual duty to his wife, let also the wife fulfill her sexual duty to her husband.

The wife does not have authority over her own body when it comes to that realm, but the husband does, and likewise also the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife does.

Exclusive rights that the others have over the other body. And then now to put it all back in here so we can see the scheme of Satan.

Here's the scheme of Satan. If you're able and you're married not to have sex for weeks and months and years, and it's just the standoff when there's a,

I've read about those people that they put a line right down the middle of their house and they never talk to their spouse and they always have to stay on that side of the line.

And how tragic it is for people to be duped by Satan and they have that same line except it goes right down the middle of the bed and that line is basically the door that opens up the keys to Satan to attack them more.

Verse 5, stop sexually depriving one another is the context except by agreement.

And that's not just the spouse saying, the wife or the husband by themselves saying, enough already.

For a time, there's a designated time. Maybe there's an emergency in your family. Maybe someone dies and that's just not on your minds.

That you may be able to devote yourselves to prayer and come together again sexually. Here's the punchline.

Lest Satan tempt you because of your lack of self -control. If you get married, it means you don't have the gift of celibacy.

And if you don't have the gift of celibacy, guess what? God gave men and women sex drives. And for them to now say, here's the one avenue that will, the gift of sex can be used and then for one of the spouse to say, no, you've got to jump through these hoops and I'm mad at you and I'm this and I'm that and so that's just shut off.

Here comes Satan into the relationship. Thirdly, not only when it comes to going to bed angry, not only does it have to do with agape self -giving of your own body to your spouse, but thirdly, turn to 2

Corinthians 2. This one is withholding forgiveness to anyone who asks.

The context will be Paul. The context will be willing to forgive the sinner in a local church, but certainly the principle,

I think, is good for us to see. And again, we will see how Satan can get in through people not resolving conflict, through people not having intimacy and then also here withholding forgiveness.

2 Corinthians 2 .10 But whom you forgive anything, remember he's writing to the church at Corinth, I forgive also for indeed what

I have forgiven. If I have forgiven anything, I did it for your sakes in the presence of Christ. When it comes to people sinning against me,

I grant it forgiveness. And if I didn't grant forgiveness, if Christ has forgiven me two billion sins and I can't forgive one, what must that be?

Help me to forgive God like you have forgiven me? What would that be? Well, if God wants us to grant forgiveness, if God is by nature a forgiving

God who grants forgiveness all the time, and you don't grant that forgiveness to someone else, are you acting more like God?

Are you acting more like... That's exactly this point. In order that no advantage be taken of us by Satan.

The advantage is when you don't grant forgiveness. You've been granted forgiveness freely and you won't give it to someone else.

Please forgive me. I've sinned against you. I'm sorry. And it either can be, no,

I won't forgive you. Or it can be, I forgive you, but I don't act like I've forgiven you. Both of those, you're being taken advantage by Satan.

And look what it says. For we are not ignorant of his schemes.

That's not the word method there. It's a different word. But the idea is the same in the sense that he's got this little thing that he's doing and he's just taking truth and he's contradicting it.

And if God is a God who is only righteously angry, if God is a God who only gives his love to his own bride, the self -sacrificial love, and grants forgiveness, then what about us?

So I was thinking about this this week. I wanted to kind of get into the passage where what do we do if someone's demon -possessed?

What do we do about all that stuff? But I don't know how many of you have met demon -possessed people, but I've dealt with a lot of people who have had issues.

Of which I'm one. I have issues of anger, issues with bedroom issues, and issues with forgiveness and either granting it or not giving it.

I mean, does that hit us where we live? Absolutely. I don't want to be ignorant of his schemes.

You say, well, everything's fine. I'm not dealing with any of those and by the grace of God I'm doing well and my life's just kind of on cruise control now.

Everything's fine. No problems. Samuel Rutherford said,

The devil's war is better than the devil's peace. Suspect dumb holiness.

Not dumb here, but dumb here. When there's no action going on, when there's no battle going on, should you be happy or should you be saying, maybe

I'm not in the front lines, maybe I'm not in the battle, maybe I've retreated. I almost wonder sometimes when things go super well at the church, are we making an impact?

I don't know about you, but I do not want to be duped by Satan. I hate to be tricked by anyone. I hate to be conned by people.

It just so drives me crazy because I think, you know what? I'm too smart for that. But my same attribute that doesn't want me to get conned by someone else can get me conned by my own self because as I think

I'm too smart to be conned by the people of the world, my own intellect and my own theology and my own smarts can get me conned in this world because I'm not strong enough.

You can have John MacArthur and all his elders and say, well, we're just going to stand arm in arm and we're going to battle with Satan.

We do not have the strength in ourselves. We can't do it on our own. And that just smacks against my pride.

I don't know about yours. You can't live your Christian life as a warrior on your own.

That doesn't really feel that good to me, but I know it's true. I have to embrace it. And Paul's going to go on to say as we look next week that we're going to have to be dependent on the

Lord because our enemies are numerous and they're superhuman. Well, in the back of your song sheet, do you have your song sheets anywhere?

In the back of your song sheet, we're going to close this way today. You have a song sheet and that song sheet has three songs that Charlie helped us sing.

The final one is A Mighty Fortress Is Our God. Now, it's got the original lyrics by Martin Luther.

The lyrics that we have now are pretty good and most of them are Luther -esque, but these have the original ones with the first line has the word doughty.

That word means to be strong and to be valiant. This song pretty much summarizes

Ephesians 6, 10 through 20. So my summary is not going to be let me give you those two strategies we looked at.

Our summary is going to be let's sing this song. We'll sing it again, I think, next week and the week after as we go through this so we understand that we are weak, the enemies are numerous, and God is our only strength.

And then we'll get into do we cast out demons and all that stuff in weeks to come. So we're going to stand and sing this.

And Mark, if we don't do a great job singing, maybe we just don't know the words we'll have to sing it again or something. All right?