The Anatomy of the Conflict — Tim Conway

The Christian Warfare in Ephesians 6

Well, I'd have you turn in your Bibles to Ephesians 6. For the last several years, I've been preaching through the Epistle to the Ephesians church. And coming over here, I was midway through chapter 5, and then one of the elders at Grace asked me if I might try to finish the Christian warfare found in Ephesians chapter 6 before I left.

But I left sooner than I anticipated, and I was only able to do two of the messages there, which I did here via Zoom. And I'm wanting to pick this up. I recognize for some of you visiting, this is the fourth message that I'm bringing from this portion of Scripture, and there's likely going to be, I don't know, maybe six more, perhaps.

But we'll just remember, bring to our remembrance this portion of Scripture. Ephesians chapter 6, verses 10 through 18. We'll read that in its entirety. Finally, 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. 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.

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 firm. Stand, therefore, having fastened on the belt of truth and having put on the breastplate of righteousness and as shoes for your feet, having put on the readiness given by the gospel of peace.

In all circumstances, take up the shield of faith with which you can extinguish all the flaming darts of the evil one and take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God.

Praying at all times in the Spirit with all prayer and supplication. To that end, keep alert with all perseverance, making supplication for all the saints.". Any of you like John Piper? Probably a lot of you.

You know, he had a yearly pastor's conference and he got to the place where he began to have a fall conference that wasn't just specifically for pastors. I don't know if they still do that there at Bethlehem, but the first time they did it, Piper wanted the theme to be Jonathan Edwards.

Any of you ever heard any of the messages that came from that? There was a pastor from Oklahoma that he had speak, Sam Storms. Anybody know that name? You know that name. Sam Storms. When he preached there, every message was flowing from what Jonathan Edwards had done.

Sam Storms, addressing that conference, he told his largely reformed, somewhat Calvinistic crowd that if they wanted to study a subject that was largely ignored today, but that Jonathan Edwards spent a lot of time with, and if you read his works and you read his sermons, you'll find this to be absolutely so.

Angelic Powers and the Unseen Conflict

Sam Storms said, if you want to deal with something he dealt a lot with that doesn't get dealt with much today, subject of angels. Now look, we're dealing with rulers and authorities and powers and forces.

These are angels. These are a category of angelic being because they're the fallen ones. They're not elect. And yet, nevertheless, they're in that angelic realm. I want to read a few verses to you about the angelic realm.

There's going to be a common thread through here. So listen for what this is. Matthew 18 .10. You don't turn to these. Just listen to me. Well, you can turn there if you want, but I'm going to move through probably quickly.

Jesus said, see that you do not despise one of these little ones. For I tell you that in heaven, you got to love this pronoun here. They're angels. Now you don't want to despise one of these little ones, one of these Christians, because they're angels.

Not just angels. They're angels always see the face of my Father who is in heaven. And you know when I was here before, I went through the churches there in Revelation 2 and 3. We get used to it, but to the angel of the church at Ephesus.

The angel. I know. Some people want to argue that that's a pastor or something, but again, like I pointed out then, that word angel, everywhere through the book of Revelation, it is always speaking about what we regard as angelic beings, not men.

Listen to this. Daniel, now what was it? They're angels. And the angel, what you have is Jesus is saying that, okay, you take Christians, they have angels. When you take Ephesus, they have an angel. When you take Thyatira and Smyrna and Philadelphia and et cetera, they have their angels.

You get this idea of angels being specifically designated. This shows up as well in the book of Daniel. Listen to this. Fear not, Daniel, for from the first day that you set your heart to understand and humbled yourself before your God, your words have been heard, and I have come because of your words.

Now here's what it seems like is happening. Daniel prayed and he asked for light from God. And you know what happened? An angel was dispatched. And you know what the angel's telling him? You know what?

When you prayed that, God sent me. There was a problem along the way, however. I didn't get here as fast as I might have liked to have gotten here because something happened. What happened? He says, the prince of the kingdom of Persia withstood me 21 days.

But Michael, one of the chief princes, again, this is angelic realm, folks. This is not talking about princes and kings in an earthly sense, in a man sense. This is angelic beings. He's saying, I was dispatched to come to you to bring you this message.

But there was someone called the prince of Persia that withstood me. And you know what? He kept withstanding me until Michael. And there's a debate about who this Michael is, but I mean, obviously he's, he's on the side of God.

One of the chief princes came to help me for, I was left there with the kings. Now it's plural. It was prince of the kingdom of Persia. Now it's the kings of Persia. And then a little later down in Daniel 10, it says, now I will return to fight against the prince of Persia.

And then I go out, behold, the prince of Greece will come. Who are these princes? You know what? It appears that what happens is you have, you have angelic beings. Namely, these are the fallen ones that have designations.

They have allotted areas and spheres and domains, which they have power, rulers, authorities. You know, when we hear rulers and authorities and powers and forces, when we apply that to man, rulers and authorities, what do we think?

We think of people that have power and they have certain domains. They have certain kingdoms. They have certain realms. It's the same in the angelic realm. And what you see is the good angels, they have designations.

They have churches that, that they have designated to them. They have their angels. I always see the face of my father. This idea of guardian angels is not necessarily foreign to Scripture, but the, the whole idea is angels being designated.

There's, you know, you can also read about the unclean spirit, the unclean spirit. He goes out from a person, he passes through waters, places, he seeks rest. He finds none. He says, I'm going to return to my house, my house.

In other words, there was a place where I used to dwell. You see, this is very specific. When Jesus encountered the man with the legion of demons, he said, what's your name? Legion were many, but you know, there was a given group of demons that held possession there.

They have homes. There's places where they abide. But my point is this, my message today is called the anatomy of the conflict. I want you just to think about how all of this works. And I would say this.

I, I think that just as much as God designates certain angelic beings to guard his people, they're all ministering spirits. And you know what? Sam storms is right. We don't like to deal with this. Reformed people do not like to talk about angels and demons, not a whole lot.

You won't hear it. And yet Jonathan Edwards, you know, 250 years ago, he had no problem with it. Why didn't he have any problem with it? Well, because he was a pastor that wanted to be biblical folks.

Angels are all over your Bibles. Have you ever noticed that? And yet listen for the reform preachers that do much talking about them. I'm not saying there aren't some, and I'm not saying that you can't find that, but what we have very likely is you have angels that God has designated to you to minister to you.

And I don't know how all that works, experientially experimentally. I don't know what that means. I don't know how that changes what we experience in this life, but you know, they're there and you know, they're ministering and you know that, that their angels is very much a biblical concept.

I think that angels are probably assigned to churches. I think that that is what is being said. The angel of the church at Ephesus. I do not think that it would be wrong to think that there is on the good side of things.

The elect angels, that there is that there are forces, there are powers, there are principalities on that side that have been assigned to this very church. I believe that you probably have dominions of power that are specifically assigned to Manchester on both sides.

I mean, there's a, there's a, there's a battle here. There's a, this is a battle ground. And I know that the world no longer believes in such things. I don't believe in angels, demons, the devil, but you know what scripture makes no apology for these things.

It just sets it forth how it is. And it, it seems that, that these, these forces are specifically giving their attention. I think that the, the reality is that there are probably specific demons that are, that are dispatched to you and to your family and to this church that we see this kind of network in scripture.

The Anatomy of the Conflict

Anyway, the title of my message, the anatomy of the conflict. What, what is the anatomy? Well, you start getting in there and you start looking at the organs. You're looking at the pieces and the parts.

You're, you, you take a car apart and you look at all the components. You look at all the, the different, that's what we're wanting to do with this, with this battle right now. What I want you to do is think, think what scripture says, let's, let's go beyond the veil.

Something is happening around us. We're, we're dealing with the anatomy of the conflict. And what I'm wanting us to really think about is the enemy. How is it that the enemy works? He's very real. He's very much here.

He's very much seeking to do what he does. And so here's the question that I have. We can talk about the fact that, Oh, you know what? There may be demons that are specifically focusing their attention on us right now.

Listen, the fact that the, the fact that when I said this before, you five to 10 years ago, you all had a testimony that reached us. And the T basically our church in San Antonio was very evangelistic, but you all had a reputation over here.

You're out on the streets and you're preaching. And I know God used that and, and things happened. And you know what? There's, there's a desire on my part to resurrect that and to fan flames into that.

And I'll guarantee you this, that the devil is very aware of this church and has been the whole time. This church has existed very aware that, that I've come here very aware of each of you individually.

So how does he work? We see, Paul is telling us that we wrestle against these forces. And so the question is, what can they do to us? Okay. They're here. We're told that they're here. We're told even in heavy duty language, like cosmic powers and spiritual forces, that's heavy language.

So they're here, but what can they do to you? I mean, how did they get to us? We know the real, we know they're here. We know that they scheme. We that's, that's here in the text. You see it right there in verse 11.

We stand against the schemes. We know they scheme against us. We know there, but how do they engage us? How do we know that they're there? I mean, what's the difference in life, whether they were there or whether they weren't there?

What would that look like? I mean, the truth is Christian. We don't really understand properly our own personal experience apart from this, because things happen to us that are, that are precisely a result of these forces.

We just look, lay it down. If you're a Christian and you walk through this world, you are engaging this, but what is it? What is it that we engage? What is it that happens? What is it that is real in our experience?

See, that's what I want us to recognize. I want us to be, there are some people, you know, this, there are some people that the devil made me do it. The devil, this, the devil. It seems like, it seems like you get into charismatic circles.

You get into Pentecostal circles. It's, it's, everything is blamed on the devil. It's like a lot of personal responsibility gets shifted, but what is it? I'm afraid that in the reformed community, there tends to be more of a, if not a denial, just kind of an ignoring.

So what is it? How can we identify and say, Ooh, I think that's devilish and I need to respond appropriately. So what is it that we actually experienced? Look at verse 16, Ephesians 6, 16, in all circumstances, take up the shield of faith with which you can extinguish.

Now, this is what I want you to see. The flaming darts. These are fiery arrows of the evil one, a flaming dart. Now picture this. See, this is, this is metaphor. It's not an actual fire and it's not an actual dart or arrow or javelin.

It's metaphor. It means something's happening in the spiritual realm. That is like a fiery dart. So imagine the devil. He's hurling something at you with an intent to hit you, to stick you with this arrow that's on fire.

This is real. But what does this look like in real life? What is this? I mean, the flaming dart is not an actual flaming dart. It's something in the spiritual realm. That's like that, but it's not, it's not physically actually that an understanding of this is a vital importance to us with regards to spiritual warfare.

It doesn't matter if you're young, if you're old, if you're male, you're female. It doesn't matter if you have an office in the church or you don't. I'll tell you this. You name the name of Christ, you are a target of this.

So if we want to figure out what these fiery darts are, perhaps, perhaps it can be helpful for us to figure out what sort of armor protects us from these fiery darts. And we're told it's, it's kind of like telling me that, I mean, look, I, Sam has a, has a World War II bomb shelter out in his side yard.

Anybody ever seen that? That's the first bomb shelter. I think, you know, they didn't bomb the U .S. So we didn't have those. Now we have tornado shelters is what they have. But, okay, if you tell somebody, you know, your bomb shelter needs to have thick walls.

Well, see, that's the defense, right? The bomb shelters, the defense, the offensive aspect is the bomb. But if you tell somebody it needs to be thick, that gives you an idea. Oh, these are things, you know, that drop out in the sky and they've got the ability to blow things up.

And so I need to have it so thick to protect me. It tells me something about what I'm dealing with. If you simply come in and you say, hey, that sport, you need a helmet. You know what? That immediately tells me something about the offensive nature of, of what that sport is like.

It tells me this is probably a contact sport. I mean, something's happening here. So if I look at what defends me from these fiery darts, what is it? Well, you see it there in the text, the flaming darts of the evil one.

Paul pictures, the devil are not the that's excuse me, that the shield of faith, the shield of faith is the defensive aspect here. Faith. Now here's, here's what I want to ask you. What does faith extinguish?

We say from the text, well, it extinguishes fiery darts. Well, yeah, yeah. I mean, we see that there, but what does faith quench? I mean, ask it another way. What is faith against? What is faith opposed to?

What is it? What is it that it counters? What does it contradict? What does faith contradict? What is it opposed to? What is it against? Unbelief. Of course. Unbelief. So if we're thinking about the fiery doubt, fiery darts, doubt.

See, this is the thing as you're walking through life, doubts come in. That's what faith addresses. That's what it answers to. If there's anything the devil wants to hurl at us, it's doubts. He wants us to question.

And I'll tell you what he wants you to question. He often wants you to question whether you're saved. He wants you to question whether Christ has any interest in you. He wants you to question whether you're a Christian.

He wants you to question whether God loves you. He wants to put these doubts in there. He wants you to doubt God's promises. He doesn't want you to depend on him. He doesn't want you to think you can step out in faith and do this.

He wants you to question God. You know, he came along in the beginning. You know, put that little spin on who God is. Oh, God, God, he doesn't want you to eat the fruit because he's got an ulterior motive.

He knows that when you eat it, something good's going to happen. He's trying to withhold that from you. You see, God isn't for you. These are the things he wants to put that doubt out there. Let me ask you something.

The Battle for the Mind

Where do doubts happen? Yeah, not in your feet. They happen up here. They happen in the head. Listen to this. You probably know this text. Just hear it. The apostle Paul says to Christians, and I mentioned this text in one of the former messages here, but I'm afraid that as the serpent deceived Eve by his cunning, now listen, an apostle to Christians, I am afraid that your thoughts are going to be led astray.

Oh, now you want to get that. Because you know what? These doubts that come in, they come into the thoughts. And you know what the devil wants to do with your thoughts? He wants to lead them somewhere.

That's what these fiery doubts, fiery darts, when they come, they can be very alarming. They can stagger you. But I'll tell you what they're always meaning to do. They're always meaning to take your thoughts to the fear, to the anxiety, and make you distrust and doubt God.

It is meant to move the thoughts away from God. And that's how he did it in the garden. Oh, God doesn't have your best interests in mind. God wants to keep you down. Look, that fruit over there would do you so much good.

And you see, subtly what he's wanting them to do is not think so much about what God said. Because after all, God can't really be thought so highly of anymore. I can put him out of my thoughts as I'm deciding whether I'm going to eat from this tree.

Because I've just been enlightened to the fact that he doesn't really care about me. If he really cared about my greatest good, he'd let me eat that fruit. And the devil just told me so. And you see, this is what he's trying to do.

Move it away from a sincere, a pure devotion to Christ. I'll tell you this. Jesus said, abide in me. Have you ever considered where that happens? You're not plugged in by a cord. You don't have a rope tied around you that ties you to him.

Do you know how you abide in Christ? Right here. You abide in Christ by thinking on Christ, by gazing at the glory of Christ here in your thoughts, coming off of a page of Scripture. You're communing with him.

You're keeping him and his promises, his person, his character here. And you know what the devil does? He shoots these. Bang! And he hits you. And as you go through your day, when you find things happen in the thoughts, look, I don't know how it happens, but you see it does happen.

You know what Scripture says in 2 Corinthians 4? It says he blinds the minds of unbelievers. Now I know that's talking about unbelievers, not Christians. But my point is this. He operates in the realm of the mind.

You say, oh, he comes to attack the church. He comes to attack us as individuals. Even in having a guy come up front. Oh, there's been times I've had to have people sit down. You wouldn't believe all the things that have happened through the years that I've experienced.

But you know what? Things like that, they're suddenly a distraction. They move you off. They take the mind. This is where his craft is. He's constantly moving, trying to take us away. Now listen, I want to show you the subtlety of this.

I want to show you this in action. Because sometimes it's almost imperceptible. I had Sam read from Matthew 4. I want you to turn there because of course this is the temptation of Christ. Matthew 4. Matthew 4.

Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. Now, if I simply asked you this question. Of course, where we are and what we're talking about, right? At this very moment, this dead giveaway.

But if I said, what was the devil's greatest challenge? It wasn't Adam. It wasn't David we saw last week. He numbered Israel. What was his greatest challenge? The Lord Jesus Christ. The Son of God Himself.

Greatest challenge, because you know what happens when he gets to the end of the ministry and he's getting ready to go to the cross? He said, the ruler of this world is coming and he what? You know what it says?

He has nothing in me. In other words, the devil could never even find a crack. Nothing. Nothing. But here's the thing. You can be certain that in trying to bring Christ down, he knew it. He was not dealing with a lightweight.

You know how easy he's gotten us to fall? But when he came up, you can be certain he brought out his hottest arrows. The most flaming, the most sinister, the most dastardly, the most devious and deceptive fiery darts he's ever produced.

And yet, I have a feeling that when you've read these temptations, if you've ever really thought about them, you probably thought, seriously, devil? This is the best you had to throw at him? But see, you only think that if you don't really see what's going on.

Satan’s First Temptation: Distrusting the Father

Look here. I'm only going to deal with the first one in any depth. But look at this. Look at verse 2. After fasting 40 days and 40 nights, he was hungry. And the tempter came and said to him, if you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread.

Now, here's one thing I find interesting. Both with Adam, through Eve I recognize, and with Christ, he dealt with food. Now that is interesting. And I'll tell you this, where's the battle take place? Here.

But bodily appetites affect our thought life a lot. And you know that's true. They're tied together integrally. And notice, so here's our Lord. He's a man. He's fasted for 40 days, and he's hungry. It says he's hungry.

He is 40 days hungry. But what's wrong with eating? What's wrong with eating? Certainly he'd eaten. He'd eaten with tax collectors and prostitutes and sinners. I mean, what's wrong with eating? Now, I'll tell you this, Adam and Eve were strictly told not to eat from that tree.

So when the devil comes along, he's like, eat of the tree, you won't die. But God, we don't really see where God ever told His Son, and there may have been some private communication between them, but never told them you can't eat bread.

Not even that you can't eat bread that was created miraculously. You know, He did turn five loaves and two fish into enough to feed 5 ,000 men, plus the women and children. And undoubtedly, He ate of that too.

Was there really anything wrong with eating bread? Was there really anything wrong with eating bread that had been made miraculously? Certainly, He had done that. But what's going on here? Listen, if you are the Son of God, He doesn't say since you are, if you are.

What's happening there? Was Jesus the Son of God? Certainly, He was. Did He have the power and the ability to turn stones into bread? I mean, the whole universe is upheld by the word of His power, we read in Hebrews 1.

So certainly, He's capable, He's able to do that. What's the devil doing here? And I'll tell you this, in just a few minutes, the angels come and minister to Him. You see that right here in the text. It says that when the devil left Him, in verse 11, behold, angels came and were ministering to Him.

And what is that? I mean, He's hungry. If they came to minister to Him, they came to serve Him. They undoubtedly fed Him. And so, here's the thing, He's fasted for 40 days, now He's right at the end, in just a few moments, after this little ordeal goes on here, well, it's really a major ordeal.

I say little in probably the amount of time that it took. He's at the end of fasting for 40 days. God, His Father, is going to send these angels to minister to Him and feed Him anyway in just a few minutes.

He is the Son of God. He can turn stones into bread, and it would be bread that He made. How is this... It's like, I remember as a young believer, I'd read through these, and I felt like, wow, I've felt much worse temptations than this.

Yeah, that's only my ignorance speaking. One of the things that I want you to recognize, and you will not grasp what's happening here unless you recognize this. Oftentimes, very well-meaning theologians, they will say, oh look, He calmed the storm.

You see, His divinity came out. Well, undoubtedly you've been exposed to this truth, but I'm going to hammer this again. I'm going to go through a number of verses. You don't have to turn to all these, but just listen to them because it's going to help you see something.

In Matthew 12 .28, this is, you remember, they said Jesus casts out demons by the prince of demons, Beelzebul. Beelzebub. Jesus responded by saying this, if it is by the Spirit of God that I cast out demons, then the kingdom of God has come upon you.

In the Luke's account, He says, if it is by the finger of God that I cast out demons. Now, have you noticed this? When Jesus said, you're right, I do cast out demons. But He said, I want you to know this, I do it by the finger of God.

I do it by the Holy Spirit. Now, that's key. Because when Jesus came into this world, it says He emptied Himself. It says He does not count equality with God a thing to be grasped. That doesn't mean that He gave up His deity.

It doesn't mean that He stopped being God. But what it means is that He does not take His deity as the prerogative to simply do what God can do. He emptied Himself. He humbled Himself in becoming a man.

What you need to recognize is He became a man. In Hebrews 2, it specifically says of Christ that He puts His trust in the Father. If you've never read that, you can go there and read it. In Hebrews 5, it speaks to us about His weeping and His tears and His prayers to His Father as one who could keep Him from death.

I'll tell you, some people take that and they go to the Garden of Gethsemane. I think that's only one example. I think what you have is Jesus... You need to recognize what's happening. The devil's trying to take Him down because if he can take Him down, he defeats all of us as well.

All of our salvation is wrapped up in His being victorious. Our very souls hang on Him winning this battle. Christ lived by faith as a man. And Scripture speaks this way everywhere. Remember when the man was lowered down through the roof?

He said this, the power of the Lord was with Him to heal. It doesn't say the power of God came out of Him. The power of God was with Him to heal. It speaks this way in Acts. You know, this is to Cornelius, how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit, with power.

It says that Jesus went about doing good and healing for God was with Him. You see how He did His healing? Because God was with Him. Because the Spirit had been given Him. How is it we do miracles? How is it that we do anything?

Growth in the Christian life, sanctification in the Christian life, being used as a fish for men, making disciples. You have to recognize that Jesus came to live just like all the offspring of Abraham as a man.

And He emptied Himself of His divine prerogatives to step in. And He said, Jesus Himself said, I can do nothing on my own. He said that in John 5. In John 6, He says, I have come down from heaven not to do My will, but the will of Him who sent Me.

Jesus is a man. And He emptied Himself and He humbled Himself. And what you have to recognize is a man who came taking the position of lowliness, a position of suffering, a position of obedience. He came to do His Father's will.

And see what the devil's doing is what he always does. He wants to take Christ off from a full trusting of His Father. If you're the Son of God, oh, men cannot take that. All you have to do is take the guy on your Manchester city.

They're the second best, right? Take the guy on the team that can kick the ball the furthest. Let's say he's kicked the ball all the way across that football field. And you know he can do it. Do you know what men can't tolerate in this world if somebody comes along and says, oh, I don't think you can do that.

You see, that's what the devil's saying. If I don't think, Jesus, show me your power. Show me what you can do. You see what he's trying to do? Jesus came and said, I can do nothing of my own. I came trusting my Father.

I will do nothing. I am not laying hold of my deity. I am God. But that is where He let go. He did not lose His deity in doing that, but He definitely gave up His prerogative as God. Could He have turned those stones?

Yes, but He came. Do you know what the devil's doing? The devil's saying, do what you can do. It doesn't matter that the angels... It doesn't matter your father's going to send that angel in a little bit to feed you.

Do what you can. If you're the Son of God, if you're really this, I mean, come on, come off that path of lowliness and suffering and obedience. I mean, God's going to understand your hunger. You've been fasting for 40 days.

Certainly, your father will approve of this. I mean, he's going to send food in just a little bit anyway. What would be wrong with you doing this? After all, I have doubts you can even do it. You see, if you said that to a guy in Manchester United or Manchester City, you said to them, I don't think you can really kick the ball that far.

What's he going to do? You know, we've got this... They do this thing over in the U .S. I don't know if they do it here. They'll take a really famous and very gifted basketball player, and they'll put one of those stretch bald heads on him, and they'll put wrinkles all over his face, and they'll do them all up, and they'll make him look like he's a 60-year-old man.

And, you know, he kind of walking hunched over, and he's taking short steps, and he comes out on some neighborhood basketball game. He's like, I want to play. And you know everybody's laughing because they're filming this thing secretly, and they make commercials.

They've done different things like this. You know what? That professional basketball player that's now made himself look old, do you think they could possibly... he could go out there and act like an old man the whole time?

Of course not. He would never do that. Men wouldn't do that. They got to go out there, and what's he going to do? He's going to start dunking. He's going to start out dribbling all the other guys. He's going to put on a show because that's what men do.

You come along, and now Christians I recognize are in a different category. There's a humility that God has breathed into us. Still, we're very vulnerable to this, but you have to see this for what it is.

In every single one of these, he is trying to very craftily move Christ off, even if just the slightest, from trusting his Father. Now look, we're talking about the battle. We're talking about the anatomy of this thing.

Where does it happen? It happens here. How does it happen? It happens through fiery darts. What are we supposed to respond with? We respond with faith. I'll tell you this. The Lord Jesus Christ, he answered three times from the book of Deuteronomy, and if you have eyes to see, every answer brought his Father squarely into focus.