We Wrestle Not Against Flesh & Blood / Spiritual Warfare - Part 2

Moore's Corner Church

Subscribe

Download

Share

00

We Wrestle Not Against Flesh & Blood / Spiritual Warfare - Part 3

00:00

Thank you for listening to this message from the ministry of Morse Corner Church in Leverett, Massachusetts.

00:06

Morse Corner is a non -denominational church that is committed to the preaching and teaching of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

00:13

Our church was founded in 1896 by two students of the famous evangelist

00:19

D .L. Moody. We seek to encourage and edify the body of Christ through the proclamation of God's word through the ministries of the local church.

00:27

If you'd like more information, visit our website, morsecornerchurch .com. We hope you enjoy the message.

00:36

So when the world fights, here's the contrast, the weapons of our warfare versus the carnal weapons.

00:42

When the world fights, it's what? Flesh versus flesh.

00:47

When we fight, it's spirit versus spirit. Ephesians 6 verse 12, you know the verse, for we wrestle not against what?

00:59

Flesh and blood. But against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.

01:13

Now there are a few occasions when the disciples in the Bible, they decided they were going to fight physically.

01:22

You know, the most well -known I think is Peter when Jesus is being arrested.

01:27

Peter pulls out his sword and he's ready to fight for Jesus. And you remember what the

01:33

Lord said? He said, Peter, put your sword away. He who lives by the sword will die by the sword.

01:40

Why did he say that to Peter? Because he knew if Peter killed anybody, that was the end of Peter. They would have killed him right there on the spot probably.

01:49

At the very least, he would have been arrested, tried, and perhaps even crucified himself.

01:56

You see, if the early church fought physically, they would have lost.

02:03

Okay? And you know, Christians who decide we're going to fight physically, you'll lose.

02:09

You will lose. But the church, what did they do? They fought spiritually.

02:15

And then it was their enemies who said, these are they who have turned the world upside down.

02:23

Today the world's turned upside down for other reasons. And there's only one way to combat that.

02:32

Speak the truth. Be faithful. Be faithful to the truth. First John chapter five, verse four says, for whatever is born of God overcomes the world.

02:44

And this is the victory that has overcome the world. Our faith.

02:51

Our faith can and will overcome the world.

02:58

So when you look around and you're not pleased with the way things are around you, which is certainly true, you know, the devil would do what?

03:07

Have you discouraged? What's the use? You know, I might as well give up. If you can't beat them, join them.

03:14

Some people obviously take that approach because they're just gone. But if you remain faithful, that's how you win.

03:25

You win when you remain faithful. And when God's people remain faithful, we win.

03:34

What does the scripture say in Romans eight? We are accounted as sheep for the slaughter.

03:41

Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.

03:50

But with that said, we don't conquer the way other people conquer. Here's the difference between the carnal mind and the mind of Christ.

03:58

The carnal mind wants to destroy his or her enemies. You've been tempted by that,

04:04

I'm sure. You've had those thoughts. But the carnal mind, you know, they would do it if they could.

04:11

You know, there's a lot of things that would be – if people could get away with it, I'd hate to see the things that would happen.

04:17

But that's the carnal mind. The carnal mind wants to destroy all their enemies. The spiritual man wants his enemies to be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth.

04:27

You remember in Luke chapter nine when the disciples, they were with Jesus and he had set his face to go to Jerusalem.

04:34

And they were going to go through Samaria. And Jesus sent some people ahead to make plans.

04:43

And the Samaritans would not receive Jesus and the disciples. And James and John, you remember how they responded in a very spiritual way, didn't they?

04:52

Lord, can we call down fire from heaven and burn them all to a crisp? And Jesus turned and he rebuked them.

05:01

And he said, you don't know what spirit you are of. The Son of Man did not come to destroy men's lives.

05:07

He came to save them. James and John apparently had not been paying attention.

05:15

Jesus came in a rescue mission. The goal of the church is not to even condemn.

05:24

The goal is to convince. To convince people of the truth.

05:30

So the battle is over truth and faithfulness and righteousness. It's a battle over the souls of men.

05:38

Not over land and oil and God knows what else they're fighting about.

05:44

Now turn back to 2 Corinthians chapter 10. So some

05:53

Bible translations have this title, this section, the spiritual war.

06:00

And it's interesting. There's so many statements in the

06:05

New Testament like this. Metaphors, military metaphors in reference to Christian living and living out the

06:13

Christian faith. Philippians 2 .25. You can just make a note of some of these.

06:19

Philippians 2 .25. Paul calls Epaphroditus my fellow soldier.

06:25

He says the same thing in Philemon 1 verse 2. Then 2

06:31

Timothy 2 .3. We already referenced this. Paul tells the young pastor Timothy.

06:36

You therefore must endure hardship as a good soldier of Jesus Christ.

06:44

If you're a Christian, you're a soldier. You are a soldier in the

06:50

Lord's armies. And then obviously Ephesians 6. Put on the whole armor of God.

06:57

And you say, okay, I understand all that. I understand the metaphors. But how do

07:04

I fight? What do I do? You know how they fight.

07:09

How do we fight? You know, to say this is a spiritual battle, it sort of sounds a little nebulous.

07:18

So what do I do? Well, think of an actual war effort with a physical military.

07:26

It's not just the soldier on the battlefield. That's what you might think of first. The war effort is much bigger than that, right?

07:35

There are recruiters. There are people who deal with paperwork.

07:41

There are those who train soldiers, potential soldiers in basic training.

07:48

There are cooks. There are people working in factories making uniforms and weapons.

07:54

There are people involved in transport. There are medics. There are more responsibilities than we can possibly cover this morning.

08:05

You think of World War II. There was the hot battle that was raging overseas.

08:11

But then there was the effort here on the home front. Here's the point.

08:17

Whatever you are doing for the kingdom of God, be faithful and do it to the best of your ability.

08:25

You are part of the war effort. You've seen the posters of Uncle Sam.

08:31

I don't think they have these anymore, do they? I haven't seen them. I want you, right? That's what

08:38

God's saying. I want you and you and you and you. I want you.

08:46

The church needs people to sing, play piano, read scripture, cooking, cleaning, encouraging people, handing out bulletins, preparing for communion, helping with the video equipment, handing out tracks, praying for one another, giving money, keeping the books, teaching, preaching, doing programs on the radio, visiting someone at home or in the hospital.

09:11

When you do any of these things, and there's so many more things, you are contributing to the war effort.

09:22

Now back to the text. So the false teachers and the ones led astray by them were accusing the

09:29

Apostle Paul of walking according to the flesh. Look at 2

09:34

Corinthians 10, verse 3. Paul admits this much.

09:40

He says, For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh.

09:46

For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty in God, for the pulling down of strongholds, casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ and being ready to punish all disobedience when your obedience is fulfilled.

10:11

Now in Corinth with this rebellion, they had a potential crisis on their hands.

10:17

And Paul was ready when he went back, he was ready to go in there and just clean house.

10:24

And you can imagine that not everyone was going to be happy with that. But in verse 6,

10:31

Paul is warning them because the welfare of a church is a very, very important thing.

10:38

That's an understatement. It's very important. So when a church is under attack, especially from false teachers, wolves and sheep's clothing looking to devour the flock.

10:51

And you know how wolves and sheep's clothing devour the flock. They start teaching things that aren't right.

10:58

And then it just has this effect of turning people because people, that's not right. And then the sheep start to devour one another.

11:07

It starts this division and an argument. You know, sometimes people, I don't think they realize how critical false teachers, the subject of false prophets are.

11:18

False prophets lead people to hell. False prophets lead people to hell.

11:25

At the very least, they harm a person's spiritual walk, cause them to stumble, getting messed up on all sorts of different things.

11:33

You remember the compromising church at Pergamos. Jesus said this in Revelation chapter 2,

11:39

Thus, you also have those who hold to the doctrine of the Nicolaitans, things which

11:45

I hate, repent, or else I will come to you quickly and we'll fight against them with the sword of my mouth.

11:53

Can you imagine having Jesus speaking to your church and saying, you better repent or else I'm going to come and I'm going to fight against you.

12:01

Jesus is going to fight against a church. Yeah, that is serious.

12:11

When a group of Christians are negatively influenced by false teachers or vain philosophies or godless ideologies, that has a real effect on individual people.

12:25

Going back to this idea of fighting spiritual war with truth.

12:31

Truth is our weapon. The gospel, the word of God, this is our weapon.

12:37

Why do we preach through the Bible, chapter by chapter, verse by verse? Sunday morning,

12:45

Sunday night, Wednesday night, whoever is on the radio, Tuesday, Wednesday.

12:51

It's always verse by verse through the Bible. It's like, don't you people at Morris Corner Church do anything else? It's just the

12:57

Bible, the Bible, the Bible, the Bible. That's all we got. We have the

13:02

Bible and the Spirit. That's all we have. That's all we need. You know, when there's something in the culture, some issue arises, what do we do?

13:13

We compare it to what the scripture teaches. And our lives should be lived in line with what the scripture teaches.

13:22

Because when it's not, then we open up an opportunity for the devil to attack.

13:27

We can be spiritually hamstrung. So we should be diligent because this is what, this is what we're in a spiritual battle.

13:42

Be diligent because even when you're doing the right things, accusations can still come.

13:50

I mean, you know, this is true. If you believe the Bible, you can be a very nice person and you're doing everything right.

13:57

But still be accused of being all sorts of different things. You're a bigot. You're a sexist.

14:03

You're a, you know, you have all these phobias that you didn't even know you had. Thank you so much for telling me about these things.

14:09

I didn't even know. You know, you can be the most kind person around.

14:15

It doesn't matter. The truth does not matter to people who are not interested in playing fair.

14:22

Thanks for listening. I'm Pastor Michael Grant from Morris Cornick Church. If you'd like to listen to the complete message, or if you'd like more information about the ministry, visit our website,

14:32

MorrisCornickChurch .com. And we'd love to have you join us some Sunday morning here in Leverett.