Standing in the Evil Day

Remember the Alamo? Okay, maybe that doesn't have the same patriotic fervor that it does in Arkansas, but I mean, if you're in Texas, or if you're from Texas, or born in Texas, don't hold that against me,

I was born in Texas. It strikes a patriotic chord. Two hundred or so Texans held out in that San Antonio mission against the

Alamo, against Santa Ana's army of some 6 ,000 people.

The Texans held out from February 23rd until March 6th, 1836, and on that day,

Santa Ana's army overran the Alamo, and the sad end of the story, killed every last fighting man.

Yet, it was the bravery of these men at the Alamo that not only helped stall the

Mexican army, but also inspired later Sam Houston's troops as they rallied around this phrase,

Remember the Alamo. Turn in your Bibles to Ephesians 6.

We have a much better phrase than Remember the Alamo. This morning, the exhortation is,

Stand your ground. Hold the line. The forces surrounding the church today are much greater in number and in evil than General Santa Ana's army.

And we must recognize this reality and do all that we can, the text says, to stand firm against our enemy.

Yet, we agree with that line from the Getty song there. When faced with trials on every side, we know the outcome is secure, and Christ will have the prize for which

He died, an inheritance of nations. We have a much better phrase than Remember the

Alamo. Stand firm. Take up today, by faith, the whole armor of God.

The church isn't massacred in the end. The church wins.

And today, we need to be exhorted to stand firm in the evil day.

Let's read Ephesians 6, 12, and 13. Would you stand with me as we honor the reading of God's Word?

This is, unapologetically, the inspired, infallible, inerrant Word of God.

Paul writes this, but he writes it under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit in such a way that we are reading today from the very mouth of God.

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 and 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.

Father, we thank You for the worship that has already been given to You today, and we thank You that we continue in worship now.

We haven't stopped worshiping. We continue now as we listen to Your Word being preached.

We hear from You, and we worship. We respond appropriately. May our response, even this morning as we begin the message, simply be, yes, yes!

We want to be a people submissive, and obedient, and willing. Thank You for the

Gospel. Thank You that this armor that we have is not dependent upon our efforts and such, but the armor is perfect because it's

Your armor, and it's what Christ has secured for us. We pray that You would bless.

Our time, as we hear what it is that You would have Your church to do. We thank

You for the work that You've been doing in this place, and we pray that You would continue. We pray that there would be not one person that would stand up and say, this is because of this person, or that person.

But we would just stand in awe of Your work, for Your glory. Let us remember,

Christ is worthy of a healthy church. And let us give forth our efforts towards such a glorious end.

We pray in Jesus' name. Amen. You may be seated. We began looking at this passage two weeks ago.

And so, this is week, I think, 121 in Ephesians, so we've taken a little bit of time.

But two weeks ago, we started out in verse 12, and we talked about the reality of our present state.

That's on your outline if you have one. And we just noted there that the state that we live in today is a state of warfare.

We are, remember, the church militant. We are continually wrestling, and we live in dark days.

I don't think I have to convince you of that. Secondly, the nature of the unseen world. We looked at that, and I wanted us to think about the existence of spiritual warfare.

Sometimes, as conservative Baptists or reformed Baptists, we don't think sometimes about spiritual warfare, but we ought to.

We need to understand today that we have an enemy, and we are at war with this enemy. And so, we took a moment to consider verse 12 there in the realm of demons, and we even talked about angels, because the text says that we're against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.

Now, if I can, as we kind of begin, let me give a three -fold summary on angels and demons.

A three -fold summary statement on angels and demons. First, I want to say this. Don't focus on them.

Okay? So, Paul's point here is not to lead us down a path where we are always focusing on the unseen world.

So, don't focus on them, and be careful. Don't tell someone, don't tell your wife, or your husband, or the church, or someone at work, well,

I sin because a demon made me do it, right? No, that's not true.

Don't focus on them. Number two, don't fret over them. That is, don't let pondering on the unseen world cause you to be inactive in the battle.

So, don't focus on them, don't fret on them, but the third summary exhortation I would say is this.

Don't forget them. What do I mean? We live in a world that's so rationalistic in the sense that we want to just explain everything away.

We leave no room in our world today, and even in some churches, for the supernatural. We must not do this, we must not forget that there is a supernatural realm, that 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.

Now, that's a bit of summary. The next thing I want to do with this text, specifically now, starting in verse 12, is to consider, thirdly really, if you're going back a couple weeks ago, our response to God.

Our response to God. 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.

Here's where I want your mind to go. As we think about spiritual warfare, as we think about the

Christian response to this truth, like, what should our response to God be?

I have a few thoughts for you, some application here. Number one, we should be in awe of God.

We should be in awe of God. Think about this, church. God is the creator of all things invisible and visible.

He is the creator of the natural and supernatural realm. And all of it, as we read in the confession today, all of it belongs to God.

God is sovereign over it all. He is not the author of evil, yet even over demons,

He possesses sovereign authority. We are reminded, if you read the book of Job, you are taught and reminded that Satan is, as it were, on God's leash.

All satanic attacks are ultimately under God's sovereign control.

And this should evoke awe from God's people. We should be in awe of God for His sovereign creativity and sovereign control over all things seen and unseen.

In other words, let me put it to you this way, very simply. Spiritual warfare should be another reason that we worship

God. And we may not understand, look, you want to ask why? I do too sometimes.

We don't understand all of the Lord's reasons for allowing Satan to rage so fiercely against the church.

And yet we know that God is in control and we know that in some way this is ultimately for the good of God's people.

Here's some ways I think about. Spiritual warfare keeps us sharp, right, and it humbles us, and it keeps us dependent upon the

Lord, keeps us close to the church. We should be in awe of God. Second response, we should trust

God. Based on verse 12, we should be in awe of God, we should trust

God. Now, these mysterious creatures here mentioned in verse 12, these angelic beings, some of them, the ones mentioned in verse 12, rebelled against God.

Yet, it was never God's plan ever, it never entered his mind to redeem these fallen angels.

They will receive the fires of judgment for their rebellion. But this is not true of all mankind.

Mankind also rebelled against God. We sinned against God in thought and in deed and in action.

Yet, this glorious God sent his Son, not to redeem fallen angels, but to redeem sinners on a rescue mission.

The Son of God took on human flesh and was born of the Virgin Mary. He fulfilled all righteousness.

He was obedient, the Bible says, to the point of death, even death on a cross. And then he died the death of sinners for God's people.

He bore God's wrath against our sins. And then he rose again, and we proclaim salvation, and no one else but Christ our

King. He didn't do this for the fallen angels, but he did it for us.

And in Ephesians 1 -7, it says, in him, in Christ, we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses.

Spiritual warfare is another reason to cherish the gospel.

Our hope is Christ. When Satan assaults the church, when he assaults you as an individual, our first refuge and response is always

Christ, and what he has done on our behalf. We should be in awe of God, we should trust

God. A third application here is, we should fear God. Now, I want to say something about verse 12.

This can be a bit scary, right? It's something to think about this time of year.

This time of year, with ghosts and goblins and all these kind of things around, people tend to make light of this, right?

But I want you to be careful, like, this is weighty. We don't 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.

This can be a bit terrifying. And if we dwell on it too much, it can be quite unsettling.

And I will just say this, it is bigger than most of us really know.

And it is a dangerous thing to play around with this angelic realm, as it were.

This is not something that we should take lightly. And yet, with all that being said, we believe what the

English preacher Charles Haddon Spurgeon once said, we believe resolutely that we should fear

God and nothing else. Nothing else. We should not be afraid of the supernatural, evil, angelic realm, the devils and his demons.

We should not be afraid of them. We should not be afraid of spiritual warfare. Why? I set my hope in God, and I will fear

God, not evil angels. I will fear God, because God has provided the means for our atonement, and God has provided the way of escape, and God is the one who is sovereign even over these evil beings.

Fear God. Fourthly, and now this will get us into verse 13, but we should be in awe of God, trust

God, fear God. Finally, in light of these truths, we should obey God. We should do what verse 13 says.

If all this that I said is true, then we should listen to verse 13. Therefore, right, because all this is true, okay, so therefore, because we're not wrestling against flesh and blood, like if we're wrestling against flesh and blood, maybe

Paul would say something like, you know, go sight in your rifle or whatever, get ready. That's not what he says.

Since we're not wrestling against flesh and blood, since it's an enemy that is unseen in spiritual warfare, then this is what you should do.

And so the church should respond in faithful obedience. Therefore, take up the whole armor of God, not man's armor,

God's armor, that you may be able to withstand, that is, hold your ground in the evil day and having done all to stand firm.

I was reading some of Benjamin Keech this week. He writes, the city of God, this little city, is besieged.

He means by city, he's talking about the church. So he goes on, he cites

Isaiah 1 .8, which says, the daughter of Zion is left like a booth in a vineyard, like a lodge in a cucumber field, like a besieged city.

So he goes on to say this, listen to his points here. By whom is this city, that is, the church, besieged?

He answers, number one, by the devil, called a great king and the king of the bottomless pit.

Number two, by Antichrist, the firstborn of Satan. He hath far above 1 ,200 years laid siege against it, using all manner of engines, craft and cruelty to batter her down and finally to destroy her.

He's talking, by the way, there about Rome. Thirdly, she is besieged by the world, by wicked men, men of earthly and carnal principles who abhor

Zion. Fourth, she is besieged by sin and the flesh, a secret enemy who feigned in a clandestine way would betray her.

This enemy doth her the most mischief. Five, she is besieged by a multitude of false teachers.

These, likewise, have done great hurt and damage to the church of God, who labor by evil doctrine to poison all her inhabitants.

Six, and besides all this, there have been sad divisions within her also.

She has been a city divided, and yet she stands. Seven, there have been sad breaches made in her wall so that many have been let in that way who would have been kept out.

Eight, many that seem to be for her have deserted her and joined with the enemy, and yet still she holds out.

Nine, and which is worst of all, few of those who have been in the city have bravely acquitted themselves by zeal and holiness to defend her, and yet she still holds out.

Keats tries to give a biblical analogy there to let us see the reality of the church's position in the world today.

It's like we are a city on a hill. Sure, we're shining our light, but we're like a city that's surrounded and besieged.

This is powerful imagery here. And if this is true, and I believe it is, and if the church faces a great enemy today, and I believe we do, then the call of the text in verse 13, 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, is true today for the church.

That is, we must man the walls. We must encourage one another day after day as long as it's called today.

We must hold the line. We must do what the text says. We take up the whole armor of God.

Remember, I said a few weeks ago, first and foremost, it means we put on Christ. Now, if you're an unbeliever, you may think, well, here,

I'm in church, I'm safe, I'm in the walls, right? But really, if you're an unbeliever, you lie exposed outside the gates.

You have no hope of surviving this battle outside and apart from and without Christ.

Furthermore, and more pointedly, you need to understand this morning that if you are in here and you're not a

Christian, your greatest enemy is not Satan. Your greatest enemy, and it's not yourself, your greatest enemy is

God, who is angry with the wicked every day. God is the one who

Jesus says will destroy both your body and your soul in hell for eternity.

So, if you're an unbeliever, the exhortation to you is to flee the wrath that is to come, to repent of your sins and to put your faith now in the finished work of Christ, trusting

His atoning sacrifice and His victorious resurrection as your only way to be forgiven of sins and to stand before God with a righteousness that's not your own, but one that is imputed to you by grace alone, through faith alone, not faith in and of itself, but faith alone in Christ alone.

We're not merely to be people of faith, we're to be people of faith in Christ.

So, Christ has won the victory over sin, over death, over Satan, over hell, and it's our first response to look to our warrior king in faith.

But listen, Paul actually is not writing here in verse 13 to lost people.

So, he's writing to the church. So, when he says in verse 13, 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, he's talking to the church.

Church, you need to be reminded here that the whole armor of God that has been won for you in Christ, we're going to talk about Isaiah and those prophecies next week, but this whole armor of God that has been won for you and purchased for you in Christ, it's not given to you for a parade.

Have you seen those before, right? And they're neat, you know, like there's a parade, and maybe the

National Guard is marching in the parade. I like Christmas, there's a Christmas parade, maybe, and the

National Guard is marching in the parade or whatever. That's neat, right? All their suits, everything looks pristine, maybe they're carrying their guns, everything looks nice and cleaned up and pristine.

That's wonderful. But listen to me, church. Christ didn't give you this armor to march with in a parade.

He didn't give it to you to march for show. He didn't give you to march in celebration just of some sort of carnal or worldly thing.

The point is, this is not a parade, but a battle. Christ has not purchased this armor for a showcase.

Listen to William Grinnell. Satan is not challenging you to a mock battle. This war is a life or death struggle.

If you do not believe me, look what he has done to God's servants in times past.

Charging full speed ahead at many a dear saint, he has battered their armor until the grace of God in them was almost unrecognizable.

All this he does when he catches a saint off guard. Either you destroy the power of Satan in your life by putting on the whole armor of God and keeping it on, or Satan will destroy you.

The great saints of every century have been tried in the fires of temptation.

And to a man, they have been singed whenever Satan found the smallest chink in their graces.

Do not disregard what history has repeatedly shown to be true.

If you've been a Christian for any amount of time at all, let me say this, if none of this is like no concern to you, you're like, what, temptation?

That's no problem, you know. I will begin to question, like, are you a believer?

Because believers deal with this reality. Satan attacks the church, and we are to put on the whole armor of God.

Let me be more pointedly, pornography has entrapped men and women, pastors, deacons, online chat rooms or messaging have ensnared husbands or wives, idolatry, anxiety, greed, these things have found their way into churches, families have been ruined, finances have been ruined, churches have been rent asunder, communities have been affected, all of this and more, and I could go on and on and on and on, but you look and you see, you're not seeing a pristine battlefield anymore, you're seeing casualties all over the place, right?

Why? All of this and more are the casualties of this war, and so the church is called to obey

God in this matter, to take this very seriously.

Let me also mention before moving on, sin in the camp affects everybody.

Think in the book of Joshua. Do you remember, after the great battle, isn't Jericho, it's an amazing story, truth, right?

Amazing thing that happened in Jericho, the walls came tumbling down, right?

After Jericho, there was a smaller city, the city of Ai. They were like,

Joshua, we don't even need all the army, let's go and let's take over this little city.

So they go to do that, and the men of Ai defeat the army of Israel. Well, how is that?

How can that be? The way that they defeat them is because of the sin of one man, a man named

Achan. The sin of one man affects everyone. One church member's sin can open up a large breach in the church's fortifications to allow the evil one and his army to come through.

One little sin is like, I just left the door unlocked, that's all, that's no big deal, it's just affecting me and no one else, and yet that allows others to come in.

If you say to me, look, Quatro, what you say is important and I get it, but I'm going to keep going this way,

I'm going to keep ignoring this stuff, I'm going to do what I'm doing, you can't say anything, I'm going to think the way I want to think, my motivations and actions, all that stuff that I'm doing, it doesn't affect anyone else.

And I say to you, dear brother or sister, you're wrong, it does. Sin in the camp is going to affect all of us.

You've allowed a breach. So for the love of the Lord Jesus, for the love of your own soul, for the love of the church, don't play games with this battle.

Take off the whole armor of God that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand firm.

That phrase there in verse 13 also has already been used in 5 .16.

It's been a while, but go back to 5 .16. For me, I just look from one page to the other here. But in 5 .16,

Paul exhorts the church to make the best use of the time because the days are evil. The days are evil.

We have this idea about history, I think it probably comes from dispensationalism, but we have this idea that, you know, it's like, man, today, things are really bad.

Well, things are really bad, right? They are really bad today, okay? However, they were also really bad 2 ,000 years ago.

So bad that Paul calls the days that they lived in the evil day, the evil days.

So much more so, even today, we would also echo this sentiment. The days that we live in are not holy days so much as they are evil days.

Are you taking seriously the evil of our day? And are you putting on the whole armor of God?

When one soldier is affected, we're all affected. Listen, pointed application.

You must not just come to church and have things in order. And then when you go to your home or to your job or to your free time, you're armorless and you're succumbing to the evil one.

That affects your soul and it affects the whole church. Many a professing

Christian in the Bible belt opens his or her Bible on Sunday if they even bring their

Bible on Sunday. But they leave it unopened the rest of the week.

They talk about Christian virtues of honesty or selflessness or humility.

But they don't cultivate these graces during the week. They're not putting on Christ.

What I'm telling you church this morning is we must take this warfare seriously. Let me move on now.

So we've considered the reality of our present state, the nature of the unseen world, our response to God. Fourthly, I want us to consider this fleshly opposition with spiritual forces.

Now, we're going to do something I don't do a whole lot. We're going to go backward. So we've already covered verse 13, but now we go back to verse 12.

I kind of want to make this plain to you because I don't want you to get confused. It says we do not wrestle against flesh and blood.

That may make you think that there are no flesh and blood enemies of the church today.

But that's just not true. When Paul says 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, he does not mean that there are no flesh and blood enemies.

He means that what stands behind the flesh and blood enemies are these true enemies, these greater enemies, the spiritual warfare.

So what I'm saying here is we must look past the flesh and blood, according to Paul, see the enemy at work behind the scenes.

But I also want to encourage us this morning that we need to recognize the church's enemies in the flesh as they are being used by Satan today.

And we must hold our ground against them. We don't fight against them as in physical warfare.

Paul says that clearly. But we do stand against them. How? With the spiritual armor, clothed in the spiritual armor of Christ.

Let me give you five examples. It's not exhaustive. I could give you so many more. Let me give you five examples and maybe that will help you understand what

I'm talking about. Okay, so number one. Some flesh and blood enemies that Satan uses.

Number one, evil governments. Interesting passage in Matthew 4.

Turn there, will you? Matthew 4, this is the temptation of Jesus. And listen to what Satan says in Matthew 4.

Satan says to our Lord, he offers our

Lord a gift, if you will. A gift that it seems Satan has the right to give in this sense.

Matthew 4, 8 and 9. Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory.

And he said to him, all these I will give to you, if you will fall down and worship me.

It's interesting because it appears there that the worldly kingdoms and wicked regimes of the world are under the influence of Satan today.

They are used by Satan to attack the church, to pass wicked laws, or to bring persecution, or wicked regimes or terrorist organizations like Hamas are used to bring death and destruction.

Don't think that just because we wrestle not against flesh and blood, that Satan is not using flesh and blood as part of his strategy against the church.

Number two, worldly systems. Here I just want you to think of like vain philosophies in our day, like critical race theory or social justice, or think about the professors who promote these things.

Think of, for example, the idea of transgenderism. Like that should just be normal, right?

Like you should just receive that and you should just believe that and if you don't then you're just backwards and a bigot or whatever.

I'm just trying to get you to think about the evil that stands behind these things. Thirdly, false churches.

So, evil governments, worldly systems. We're looking at some flesh and blood realities, if you will.

False churches. Don Johnson writes this, this invisible evil spirit, talking about Satan, who opposes

God and everything good and holy has his own form of incarnation by means of powerful earthly anti -Christian governments, evil politicians, kings and emperors, and powerful false state churches.

The point is that spiritual forces of evil and the heavenly places show their influence in real life, everyday, flesh and blood way.

Government, world systems, false churches. False churches have plagued the land.

The false churches of Jehovah's Witnesses or Mormons, false churches who, these churches specifically, name the name of Christ, but they don't preach the biblical

Jesus. Or, it's Reformation month. You know we're going to highlight the false church of Roman Catholicism.

They preach a triune God, but they get the gospel wrong.

They are not a true church. And we cannot lock arms with Rome.

Rome is a tool of the devil. Let me be even more pointed with this.

The Pope is not a holy man. The Pope is not a good man.

The Pope is a wicked man, standing in opposition to Christ and his glorious gospel.

We reject. And we understand that these false churches are tools of the evil one.

But even closer to home, there are false evangelical churches.

Just because a church has the name, so we thought it was important when we changed our name, we wanted to keep

Baptist in our name. Like, we're not ashamed of being Baptist, right? But just because a church has, and I don't think that every church, by the way, makes that clear.

You don't have to have the name Baptist in your church. This is where we chose to have Baptist in our name.

The point I'm trying to make is, you can have Baptist in your name, you can have Redeemer in your name, you can have

Grace in your name, you can have Bible in your name, you can have church in your name. None of that guarantees that that place is a true church.

There are too many places that call themselves a church and they look more like a nightclub. There are too many places, let's go the opposite, because we usually like to think of like the megachurches.

But you can go out and you can go on a rural dirt road, 17 miles in rural Arkansas, and you can find a place that calls itself a church, and it's not a church, it looks like a museum, and not a church, right?

What I'm saying is this transcends boundaries here. There are false churches in our day.

And these are not by accident. They are used as tools in the hands of the evil one.

Fourthly, governments, evil governments, worldly systems, false churches, corrupt teachers. Fourthly, corrupt teachers.

Turn in your Bibles, I want you to see this to 1 Timothy 4. This is just explicit. Paul is very explicit here, and this goes directly with the idea of demons that we're talking about in our text.

Paul says in 1 Timothy 4 .1, Now the Spirit expressly says that in later times, some will depart from the faith by devoting themselves to deceitful spirits and teachings of demons.

So friends, one of the flesh and blood influences in our world today that Satan uses is corrupt teachers.

Corrupt teachers are those within churches who teach falsehoods, or teach half -truths.

They are a hindrance to, and an enemy to true churches. Some of these corrupt teachers are the smiling, nationally known, best -selling authors, right?

The Beth Moores, the Joel Osteens. But listen, some of these false and corrupt teachers are your run -of -the -mill

Sunday school teachers in a conservative little church.

You have Mr. So -and -so, Mrs. So -and -so. Oh, they're so nice.

They're so nice. But decades of teaching has been corrupt.

It's been false. The Gospel has been hidden. Don't think corruption just sneaks into the church by the nationally known, best -selling authors.

Satan has much more different ways to infiltrate churches.

I'm just trying to give application here of the text. So we've understood, or we've considered evil governments, worldly systems, false churches, corrupt teachers.

There's so many other things I could mention, but I had this thought as well. So let me give you a final fifth example of Satan's use of people.

Now, carry this thought with me. Please, let me just leave you here at the beginning. I want you to think it through and see it through to the end.

Fifthly, I want to say ignorant sheep. Now, ignorant,

I mean in the actual usage of the word. Sheep that don't understand. Ignorant sheep.

This is a unique one because the previous four examples I gave have been of unbelievers.

But here, I am referring to people who actually are born again. But listen to me here.

Satan seems to have a way and a strategy so as to keep them in the dark, to keep them ignorant of so many things in the

Christian life. So let me give you an example, tangible. Put this pen to paper, as it were.

Think through this. I think that there are well -meaning, genuine Christians out there today who really just have no idea what the church is to be.

They have no idea God's full plan.

They cannot grasp the beauty of the church. So here's what they do. They go to church because they love

God. And they participate in the things of the church because they love

God. But in the churches that they are in, they're not privy to or understanding of the true beauty of the church.

So they know they should be in church. They're there. They see it, but they just don't understand.

They don't see the full beauty of it. They don't understand the worship of the church, the leadership of the church, the mission of the church.

They feel maybe there's something missing, but they've just accepted the church's impotency.

And then when they begin to see a healthy church, sometimes their first reaction is not embracing like, oh, this is what

I've always missed. Sometimes their first reaction is, that's weird.

That's not what I know. And what I'm saying is, they can actually be a hindrance.

They can actually be a roadblock at times. And I bring up this example.

First, let me say this. Let me pause. Pause button. Don't actually hit the pause button,

Colton. If you're honest, most of us were once that way.

You were there too. It seems to me that Satan has a great strategy of just keeping some

Christians in a perpetual loop of ignorance when it comes to the beautiful things of God.

And so I bring up this example, this application, because it's really one of the things that we're trying to do here to stand our ground.

We preach, and we teach, and we lead Bible studies, and we go out on the streets, and we go to places like Mexico, and we go to preach at other conferences and such, and we fellowship with other churches even and other pastors, all because we're trying to promote

God's truth, because we believe an ignorant church is an impotent church. And so it is our desire here to focus on this.

This is what we are doing, and this is why we are doing it, right?

This is what we are to do here as a church, and then look at the Bible. Here's why we're doing it.

And everything that we do here must have a ground in God's word, and we want to equip the saints.

Because what can happen, as I said, is sometimes ignorant sheep can actually be a hindrance to the church.

The church is unable to move forward because of those who wind up finding themselves in opposition, at least initially, to the very things of God.

And what I'm saying is we must be patient. Get out of my way! No, no, no. We must be patient.

We give our best efforts here to put on the whole armor of God, and in so doing, teaching and preaching the truth of God in its full counsel so as to present everyone here maturing

Christ. This is just one of the reasons, so much more

I could have said there, that sound doctrine is so important. 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.

Church, have you weighed these matters carefully? There are seasons of our life that we come to and we look back on.

We think back to when we played football maybe, or when our children were young, or when we had this or that job, or that opportunity we had and we just invested a little bit of money and maybe we could have done more.

We come to a point in our life and we look back and we think, man, what would have happened if I could have just done more?

What if I would have given more effort? What if I would have been more careful here?

What if I would have tried harder here? What if I would have just spent a little more time with my kids here or my loved one here?

And we kind of get lost in this daydream of nostalgia. But today, we have an opportunity.

This morning, listen church, you have an opportunity not to look backward, but to look forward.

Not to look hopelessly back and feeling the powerlessness to change anything, because you can't change anything back.

But we have an opportunity this morning to consider our present state. We can consider this morning the glory that is to come when our

King returns and when we walk through the gates of that celestial city. We can look forward this morning and we can think of verse 13.

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.

We can think of that phrase, having done all. This is one Greek word. It's defined in one lexicon as to accomplish, to perform successfully, to do thoroughly.

Now, you do this in other areas, right? Before a vacation, you make a plan.

You service the car. You set a budget. You rent the hotel. Before hunting, you sight in your gun.

You lay out your camouflage. You prepare the stand. Before shopping, you make a list.

You compare prices. You make a plan. Before cooking, you set out the ingredients.

You make sure that you have all the supplies that you need. You get out the recipe. You get the picture of what

I'm trying to say. Beloved, will you treat the Christian life more thoroughly?

The stakes are so high. And so often, we're just going through our lives on autopilot.

We have not done all to stand firm. We have not actively put on our armor.

We have left it to gather dust and rust. Now, and I mean this.

I close with this. Our ultimate hope in this armor.

This is important. Look in here. I got some people putting away their stuff. Okay. This is important.

Don't miss this one. We put our hope in God's armor because it's

God's. God has done it. All these pieces we're going to go through.

The belt of truth. The breastplate of righteousness. The readiness for our shoes for the gospel of peace.

All these things. The shield of faith. The helmet of salvation. The sword of the spirit. Why are all these things great?

They're not great because you make them great. They're great because they're God's. God has done it.

God has provided it. It's not about your ability. So the text says, take up God's armor.

Take up His armor and believe it is what God says it is. It is enough. I'm telling you this morning,

Christ is all we need and Christ is all we have. Put Him on.

Believe. Go to Christ. Will you consider what we've seen this morning in these verses and will you repent of any area that the

Holy Spirit has shown you you've been lacking? And will you remember the gospel? That your ground of acceptance with God is not your obedience, but Christ's obedience and His death and His resurrection and run again to our great and holy

King in His grace. Trust that His word is given to us for our good and will you stand your ground together in this evil day.