Spiritual Warfare - Standing Firm On The Gospel Of Peace

God Centered Theology

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So, everybody wears a bunch of different shoes, right? And I'm not even going to go there.

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But suffice it to say that in general, so nobody hang me out to dry later, in general, women tend to have more shoes than men.

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I don't know if that's true in all cases. I'm just going to throw it out there. See, when other people say it,

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I can't get in trouble. So it's on you. But we have different types of shoes for different purposes, right?

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What I would wear, these are my casual khaki dress shoes, but I also have more formal suit shoes.

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I have tennis shoes. I don't know if they have too much restrictions on your goodies, but I know at Food Lion you have a certain color, and so on and so forth.

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Different walks of life. If you're going hiking, or if you're going to climb a mountain, you probably don't need to wear flip -flops.

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I'm not going to point among us that their sole goal in life is to wear flip -flops year -round.

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I'm not going to say any names. I'm not going to point any elbows. And I would venture to say there may be more than one of us that would try such a thing.

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I'm just not a flip -flops guy. I don't know, it's just not me. Ah, you see, he gave himself away,

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Mr. Andy Lucy. Now look, you talk about being comfortable.

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I ain't got nothing wrong with that. I'm more of a tennis shoes guy. I pretty much wear tennis shoes just about year -round.

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I just, I don't know, never got on the flip -flop train. But you know what? Everybody's got their own thing they like.

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But aside from the comfort, aside from just preference, there's also purpose. And shoe wear.

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And each thing you put on your feet has purpose because, you know, even the flip -flop crowd,

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I think even they would have to admit you couldn't go barefoot 24 -7. Although, some may try.

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In general, going barefoot, there's rocks, there's uneven pavement.

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Now grass feels good, but you'd want to cover your feet with something, preferably something that will hold you firmly, that will have good stability, that will last longer than the tennis shoes

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I get at Walmart for $16 .99, which three months later I have to go back and buy the exact same pair of shoes.

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We're going outside. The tennis shoes I'm wearing regularly now, we're going outside to pick up limbs yesterday, and I go into the closet to get my quote -unquote old pair of shoes, and they're the exact same kind of shoes

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I was wearing. So apparently I've been buying the same color for years. I just didn't know it. But you have certain purposes, certain reasons for why you wear it.

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Now, Ephesians chapter 6, which we're looking at specifically, each piece of the armor of God, verse 10 says,

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

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We don't wrestle against flesh and blood, against powers, against spiritual forces, in high places. Verse 14,

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Stand firm, therefore, having girded your loins with truth. We've already covered the bell of truth.

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They would cinch it up when they were ready for battle. It was an element of being committed. It was an element of being ready.

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Now, keep that in mind, the element of being ready, because I think you're going to see throughout each piece of this armor that the consistent theme is readiness, commitment, having put on the breastplate of righteousness, which we covered last time.

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And today, verse 15, it says, Having, and notice this all implies and it's understood that you cannot fight a spiritual war without having already done these things.

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Having put on the breastplate of righteousness, having girded your loins with the bell of truth, and now having shot your feet or put on your feet with the preparation, and that word preparation in the

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New American Standard can also be translated with the readiness of the gospel of peace.

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The gospel of peace. Certain types of shoes have one purpose and couldn't be used in any other situation.

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Now, the same was true for the Roman soldier. Roman soldier couldn't go out and fight a war barefooted.

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He couldn't go out, now these didn't exist then, but he couldn't put on his Nikes and say, Just do it!

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Or as Ed's sermon goes, Just go! The Great Commission. He couldn't put on a pair of Nikes, which didn't exist back then, just go out and battle.

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Nikes are great, but they won't win you any wars. They're not fit for the purpose of fighting that type of war.

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Now, I'm sure if Nike existed back in the day, they would have had soldier -proof

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Nikes, and they would have had Jordan 3s and Jordan 4s and all kinds of versions of them. But they had to protect their feet.

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Everything else is great. I mean, the breastplate's good. It protects your innards, your organs, all those things here, your heart, you know, the belt of truth's great.

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All these things are great. But if you can't stand, if you can't walk, if you have nothing to protect your feet, you are going to be easy prey and you will be defeated.

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You stand no chance. None. None at all. Every piece of this armor, the reason

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Paul runs through them so quickly is because I believe, and I won't know until I get to Heaven and ask him this, but I think a lot of the reason the

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Holy Spirit inspired him to run through these elements without spending a whole lot of dissertation on explaining them, is

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He didn't want us to get too focused on any one of them at one time. He said, oh, this one's important, but not this one.

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No. He wants you to take all of it. It says put on the full armor.

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And it says, having put on this, having put on that, having put on this. Why? The Christian also seeking to engage in the spiritual war.

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The Christian seeking to stand firm in the battle will not be able to do so if they are not properly prepared.

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Just as sure as a real soldier needed to protect their feet in real battles, we as Christians need to protect our spiritual feet, if you will, and we do that by putting on a specific piece of footwear so that we can stand firm.

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In order to stand firm, we need to cover our feet with the preparation or readiness of the gospel of peace.

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Just putting on any old pair of shoes won't work. We need the gospel of peace to protect us and help us win the battles.

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John MacArthur, who I quote often because as I've said many times, when you've already said it this well, there's no need to try to reinvent the wheel.

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I'm going to say it like he said it when speaking on this. He said, the gospel of peace is the marvelous truth that in Christ we are now at peace with God and are one with Him.

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Therefore, when our feet are shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace, we stand in the confidence of the gospel of peace.

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We stand in the confidence of God's love for us, His union with us, and His commitment to fight for us.

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Why the gospel of peace? Why is peace needed?

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Because we are sinners. See, a lot of churches don't like to talk about sin. They don't like to talk about, you know, error or as the word that's translated sin in Romans 8,

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I can't pronounce it, but it's a word that means missing the mark. Romans 3 23, for all sin comes short.

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All have sin, past tense, in Adam we all have sin. Therefore, continuously comes short of the glory of God.

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We're rebels. Another word, another thing that people don't like to talk about. Pre -salvation, we're enemies of God.

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There's no neutral ground. We're not just bored and we're just floating through life. You know, we just have to get around to it.

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We want to have a personal relationship with Jesus. We all get around. No! We're hostile.

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We're enemies. Jeremiah says, the heart is more deceitful than all else and is desperately sick.

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That's not a neutral thing. Who can understand it? Obadiah says that the arrogance of your heart has deceived you.

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So many people, now Christians we can be prideful, we can be arrogant, but it's a whole different ball of wax or ball of yarn than when you're dealing with a non -Christian, an unsafe person, an unregenerate person.

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Their heart, see, because I believe what we call a trichotomy, body, soul, and spirit.

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You ever notice any zombies running around? I have. You know that you can physically exist and not actually be alive?

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You may be physically alive and we have a body. Every person has a body and soul regardless, right?

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So we have a body. We're physically alive. We all have a soul. There is no annihilationism.

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When it's over you don't just go to the ground and cease to exist. Your soul will live on in eternity either in heaven or in hell.

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It's the spirit that needs to be raised to spiritual life. Every person when they're born before they're saved has a body and a soul but they're spiritually dead.

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You can't resuscitate them. You can't pound on their chest and make them come back.

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It's not that they passed out or are in a coma. They're dead. Ephesians 2 you were dead in trespasses and sin.

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You must be raised to spiritual life. Why? Because the arrogance of your heart has deceived you.

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There's so many people walking around today that think they're okay or think, well my good will outweigh the bad in the end.

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Or I'm not as bad as that guy down the street or my neighbor or that evil Ed Connor. I haven't done as much as he has.

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So surely God will let me in, right? It's arrogance in their heart and it's deceived them.

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The devil loves to deceive the unsaved. He loves to deceive the saved for that matter.

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We're going to spend some time in the Old Testament. I love it. The book of Nahum chapter 1 verse 1 it says, the oracle of Nineveh the book of the vision of Nahum the

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Elkoshite, a jealous and avenging God is the Lord.

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The Lord is avenging and wrathful. Now look, God is love.

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That's true. But God is just. He is holy. He is perfectly righteous.

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And His wrath for sin will and must be quenched. Period. See, so many churches and so many preachers get this stuff wrong because they focus on one element of God and who

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He is at the expense of everything else. God is love, yes.

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But His love does not outweigh His justice. It does not outweigh His righteousness. And while He is love and does gracefully and freely save those who have placed their faith and trust in Jesus Christ like our dear sister

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Lloyda who was baptized this morning and all of you that have put your faith in Christ, those that are unsaved, they will receive the wrath of God for their sin.

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It wasn't done to them. They're not victims. They will pay the price for their own sin.

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Period. Isn't something Andy came up with? It's what the Bible says. It's good to have a consistent, a normal interpretation, and a correct understanding of who

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God is so that we can understand who we are. And this idea that God is some puffy magician that you put the coin slot in, tell

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Him what you want and He gives it to you, and if you're good, you'll get it. If you're bad, you don't. That's not what God is.

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Excuse me, it's not who God is. It's not what the Bible says God is. He's love.

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You want to know what love is? Look at that cross over there. But He's also an avenging and wrathful.

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He takes vengeance on His adversaries. He reserves wrath for His enemies. I've said very often, it's a good thing

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I'm not God. And some of you, I think you'll know what I mean when I say this, because God is merciful.

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God is eternally patient. If I was God, those four bowls of wrath you read about in Revelation, I would have already poured every one of them down on my enemies.

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And people have done me wrong in my life from day one, the littlest to now. We're not patient.

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Now we can increasingly become more patient. But my friends, think about this.

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We can exhibit or demonstrate characteristics of God. We can be patient.

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We can be merciful. We can even, if we're saved to have the Holy Spirit indwelling us, we can be righteous. We can even demonstrate moments of justice.

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But we don't do it consistently and perfectly as God does. So guess what?

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Even though we can demonstrate moments of patience, moments of mercy, there's going to be other times where you're going to say, rain down the wrath of God on that person.

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How many of you hate to see people riding in the left lane on the interstate? I'm one of them. Does it not drive you crazy?

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Boy, if I had a bowl of wrath at the moment, I'd have to repent for it later. But I would certainly turn that joker over and pour it on them, because you're not supposed to ride in the left unless you're passing.

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If anybody does that, sorry. Come yell at me later, but I can't stand it. The Lord is slow to anger.

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Thank God for that. Because you know, we think so often that we're so good, and God needs us so much.

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And look, yeah, the Lord loves us. He created us. He died for us. He wants to use us. He wants to have us in Heaven with Him.

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All that goes without saying but if you ever stop to think about the fact of how patient God is with you,

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I'm just going to let that one marinate in y 'all's minds, and I'm not going to go any further. Because let me tell you something, the

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Lord, the same Christ that died on the cross for this man has been utterly patient with me.

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I know me. As much as Gina knows me, she don't know me as well as I know me.

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I know my thoughts. I know my sin and shortcomings. And the first time

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I ever sinned, God would have been perfectly just and right and wiped me off the face of the planet and sent me to Hell right then. But He didn't.

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Why? The Lord is slow to anger and great in power. And the Lord will by no means leave the guilty unpunished.

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Verse 6, Who can stand before His indignation? Who can endure the burning of His anger?

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His wrath is poured out like fire, and the rocks are broken up by Him. The Lord, now watch this now, all this about wrath, all this about us avenging, so on and so forth, not the

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Avengers, that was Iron Man, that was last week. Verse 7, The Lord is good no matter what

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He's doing, even if He's pouring out wrath on His enemies, those that have sinned against Almighty God, the

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Bible says He's still good. A strong hold in the day of trouble, and He knows those,

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He knows those who take refuge in Him. This verse is looking forward to a day in time when

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Jesus Christ would die on a wooden cross and those that placed their faith and trust in Jesus Christ would both literally and in a very real and eternal spiritual way take refuge in God.

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Verse 14 of Nahum chapter 1, the Lord has issued a command concerning you, your name will no longer be perpetuated,

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I will cut off idol and image from the house of your gods, I will prepare your grave for you are contemptible.

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Look, we don't need to be out of balance, we certainly don't need to preach and talk about this kind of stuff all the time, because there's other parts of the

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Bible to talk about as well, but we believe in Sola Scriptura and Tota Scriptura, only

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Scripture, all of Scripture, and the Bible is very clear that those that have sinned against Christ, sinned against God, which is every single human being that has ever lived, their sin is contemptible in the sight of God.

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My sin was never going to be paid for by Andy Cain. I've always said works based salvation fascinates me because how do you know how much to do?

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And if you get to a point where you've made up for the sins you've done, what if you sin again? Do you start over? How much do you have to do?

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That's scriptural, okay? It's just not. It says, By grace you've been saved by faith, not of yourselves.

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It is the gift of God. God has given us something by His grace, and He's given it to us freely that we didn't deserve, and we certainly could never have earned.

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Sister Lourdes' baptism is a representation this morning that she has been saved by the free grace of God Almighty.

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Not by anything her mom and daddy did, or her brother, her cousins, her aunts, her uncles, grandmas, granddaddies, or whoever you want to throw in the pile.

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Not even because of anything her pastor did. Me ducking into that water did not save her, it was her faith in Christ.

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That merely the demonstration of baptizing her is the public demonstration that she has identified with Christ.

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She has union with Christ, and now Christ is the power that resides in her. He indwells her, and when she, as she grows up, and engages in the spiritual battle,

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Christ will defend her. Just like He'll do the same for you and for I as well.

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Another quick stop along the way, Zephaniah, the book of Zephaniah. I've always wanted to reference Zephaniah in a sermon.

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Today's the day. Zephaniah chapter 1, verse 1. Oh, sorry,

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I'm sorry. Chapter 1, verse 14 in Zephaniah, had the wrong reference there. Verse 14 it says, "'Near is the great day of the

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Lord, near and coming very quickly.' Listen, the day of the Lord, in it the warrior cries out bitterly.

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A day of wrath is that day, a day of trouble and distress, a day of destruction and desolation, a day of darkness and gloom, a day of clouds and thick darkness, a day of trumpet and battle cry against the fortified cities and the high corner towers.

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I will bring distress on men, so that they will walk like the blind, because, why?

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Because they have sinned against the Lord, and their blood will be poured out like dust, and their flesh like dung.

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Neither their silver nor their gold will be able to deliver them on the day of the

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Lord's wrath.'" I love me some Old Testament.

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I love me some New Testament. But guess what? The Lord doesn't change. The book of Hebrews tells us the Lord is the same yesterday, today, and forever.

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The same God of the Old Testament, the same God of the New Testament. And when the day of the Lord comes, when the

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Lord Jesus Christ returns a second time, and all of us that are saved will be ushered into eternity with Him, and all those that were not saved sit in front of the great white throne judgment, and all their sin is laid bare before them, and they are judged, and they are sentenced to lake of fire.

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It says neither their gold or their silver, meaning your possessions, your wealth, who you were in this life, how much of a role you had in church, none of it will save you before an

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Almighty God. Only one thing will save you, and that is the Gospel of Peace. The Gospel that Jesus Christ died for sinners.

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One last stop of the way in understanding why the Gospel of Peace, before we turn our attention to close.

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Romans chapter 1 verse 18 says, for the wrath of God, same terminology in the

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New Testament we get in the Old Testament, for the wrath of God is revealed from Heaven against all ungodliness, all unrighteousness of men who, what?

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All men are just basically good, right? You hear that all the time on TV, you hear that everywhere you go, well you know everybody is just basically good, and we are just trying to do our best in this world.

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No, it says you suppress the truth in unrighteousness. You don't believe it?

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Try debating with someone that is an atheist, believes in evolution, or believes there is no God, and you clearly show them that there is one, and they suppress the truth.

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They may even in an honest moment tell you, I don't want to hear it! Don't tell me about it!

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Because they suppress the truth in unrighteousness. Verse 28, and just as they did not see fit to acknowledge

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God any longer, notice God gave them up to a depraved mind to do those things which are not proper, being filled with all unrighteousness, wickedness, greed, evil, full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, malice.

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They are gossips, slanderers, haters of God. Doesn't sound very neutral, does it?

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Insolent, arrogant, boastful, inventors of evil.

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It's just not good enough to do what the tried and true thing is. We'll invent all new ways to sin.

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Disobedient to parents without understanding, untrustworthy, unloving, unmerciful.

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And although they know the ordinance of God, man can pretend all he wants that he doesn't believe there's

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God, doesn't think there's a law of God. The Bible says they know there's an ordinance. They know there's a law of God.

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It isn't just social convention. It isn't just something that came about. Thus saith the

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Lord, that those who practice such things are worthy of death.

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They not only do the same, but also give hearty approval to those who practice them.

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Now we're not going to go and read it for the sake of time, but you know Romans 3 very well. None not righteous, no not one.

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They do not seek after God. No one does. Romans 8 says those that are of the flesh and not of the spirit.

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They're at enmity towards God. They're not able to subject or submit themselves to the law of God because they're not able.

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Because they're enemies, they're rebels. Colossians, which we will eventually get back to, we're going through the book of Colossians.

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In Colossians, somewhere around 119 -20, somewhere in there, it says you were hostile towards God.

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Engaging, actively engaging in evil deeds. This paints a very dark picture, doesn't it?

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Very dark. Thank God there's more to this sermon than what does it just in here.

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Because y 'all would go away thinking, oh my goodness, I'm questioning my salvation. Trust me, you don't have to doubt it.

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It's secure in the death and the blood of Jesus Christ. But I want you to understand what an unsaved person is.

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What each and every single one of you and myself were. The Bible says such were some of you, but you've been washed by the regeneration of the

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Holy Spirit. This is why we need a gospel of peace.

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Because all those things I read are true, and it's true of the human condition. But the

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Bible also says this, the gospel of peace says in Romans chapter 3 and verse 24, being justified as a gift by His grace.

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As a gift by His grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus.

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Chapter 5, one of my favorite chapters in all the Bible, Romans chapter 5, it says in verse 1, therefore, having been justified by faith, we have what?

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Peace. Peace. The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life.

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When John 3, 16 says that all the believing ones will have eternal life, what it means is that the believing ones, those that have placed their faith in Jesus Christ, have as a current possession eternal life.

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Yes, eternity in heaven is something in the future, but the eternal life that Jesus Christ died on the cross to give us, to purchase for us is a current possession.

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And this gospel of peace, we stand firm in the gospel. We stand firm in His grace.

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We stand firm in His peace. We stand firm in His power.

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We stand firm in His mercy. We stand firm in His love.

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Notice that all those things are God's, not ours, and they are given to us as a gift of His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.

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It is by His grace that it is free that the good news of the gospel of peace is that we are saved and have peace with Almighty God.

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We're not enemies no more. I want to finish up the quote

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I had from MacArthur earlier about the gospel of peace. He says, a believer who stands in the Lord's power need not fear any enemy, even

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Satan himself. When he comes to attack us, our feet are rooted firmly on the solid ground of the gospel of peace through which

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God changed from our enemy to our defender. We who were once His enemies are now

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His children, and our Heavenly Father offers all

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His resources so that we can be strong in the

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Lord and in the strength of His might. I'm not going to go and read the verses.

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I'm just going to summarize so we can wrap this up and get you all out of here. But in Matthew 7, I encourage you to go back and actually read these verses later.

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Matthew 7, 24 -27. Very familiar. Remember the account of how the one man did as the

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Lord commanded, and it was said he was like a person building on the rock? And the other one built on the sand?

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And you remember when the winds came and the rain came? The one that was built on the sand, it fell!

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It fell! And how great a fall it had! And the one that built on the rock, the foundation of Jesus Christ, it stood!

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It stood! And it will not fall because it's built on Jesus Christ!

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My friends, that's the gospel of peace. And if you want to be able to stand firm in the battle, stand firm in the spiritual war, don't put on your shoes, don't go out barefoot, put on your feet the gospel of peace.

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No one listen to this now. Watch this. We close with this.

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Listen very carefully. No one will hold up under the pressures of the battles of the spiritual war if they are not firmly rooted and built upon the rock of Jesus and His gospel of peace.

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What are you building on? What are you rooted in?

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Rock or sand? Are you saved?

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Is Jesus Christ your Savior? In your Christian life, are you seeking to build upon the principles and the rock that is