How Do I Put on the Armor of God? | Theocast

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Hi, this is Justin. Today on TheoCast, John and I are going to be talking about the armor of God.

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In particular, we're going to try to answer the question, how do I put on the armor of God?

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We assume, if you're anything like us, that when you've heard this talked about in the past, the emphasis and the focus has been on you and your discipline and your diligence to put on the armor properly.

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We're going to talk about that today, and we're going to seek to answer this question as well. When we're told to put on the breastplate of righteousness, whose righteousness is that?

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If you're interested in hearing our answers to those questions, stay tuned. We hope you enjoy the show. If you're new to TheoCast, we know that many people who start listening to us struggle with their assurance.

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What does it even mean to walk by faith or how do you rest in Christ? So we put together a free ebook called

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Rest, and it's where you can learn about the sufficiency of Christ and the differences between the law and the gospel.

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And that's an important distinction. If you'd like to learn more, just go to our website, theocast .org. Welcome to TheoCast, encouraging weary pilgrims to rest in Christ.

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Conversations about the Christian life from a confessional, Reformed and pastoral perspective. Here at TheoCast, we are seeking to clarify the gospel.

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In other words, to take the clutter off of it and reclaim the purpose of the kingdom of Christ. And your hosts today are

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John Moffitt, who is pastor of Grace Reformed Church there in Spring Hill, Tennessee. And I'm Justin Perdue, pastor of Covenant Baptist Church in Asheville, North Carolina.

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So yes, dear listener, this does mean that John and I typically do not record in the same location. We do not.

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Interfacing virtually, I guess is the right way to say it. And yeah, we talk, we see each other on a screen.

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We trust the Lord in all those things. We rejoice and enjoy the time that we always, we rejoice, that's stupid.

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That's very like Christianese. We enjoy the time that we get to spend together.

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Yeah, sorry. You thought it was safe. Just when you thought it was safe to listen to TheoCast in front of your children.

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We're going to have to put an E on this podcast. Excuse me. Let me, let me, let me, let me recant and say foolish.

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How foolish was that? That's a biblical word. For me to say, John and I enjoy the times that we get to record face to face, which happens, you know, on occasion.

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And we're going to see each other, God willing here in a few weeks for the Graceformed Network event. I figured just go and throw that out there. They're in Metro Nashville, Tennessee, October 3rd and 4th is open to everyone.

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So if you would like to come to a nice intimate gathering of like -minded people and hear some, some teaching on things that we talk about here regularly on TheoCast here,

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John and I preach sermons. We'll sing, we'll enjoy each other. We'd love to see you. All that by way of kind of welcoming people,

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John, we have a good conversation in store today. And we've been planning out our content for the next few weeks, more on that maybe in a minute, but this is an impromptu as it's often the case.

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I mean, John and I are, we're living, breathing human beings. We read things, we prep sermons, we're engaging people in our own local churches.

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And every now and then something happens. It comes across our screen, comes into our view and we read it and we can't help but talk about it.

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That's kind of what we're doing today. And yeah, that phrase we do, clarifying the gospel and reclaiming the purpose of the kingdom.

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These two absolutely apply in today's episode, which is how to put on the armor of God, which is part of kingdom work, right?

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We'll get into that. We're using all kinds of slogans today. Kingdom work, rejoicing.

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That's right. How do I put on the armor of God? I wonder if, I wonder if you've ever asked that question or if you've ever been in a context where that question is asked.

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That's right. I think it's something that most of us have engaged with, experienced, we've listened to stuff, we've read things.

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I mean, there are volumes written on this about putting on the armor of God and how to do it well.

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So we want to seek to answer that question, kind of, how do I put on the armor of God, that how do

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I and what do I need to do question is something we're going to pull apart a little bit and talk about what the armor of God even is, maybe, and how this matters quite a bit for our peace before the

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Lord and our protection against the evil one, John, go ahead. Yeah, I mean, I think 30 -second context is important here.

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You're never going to want to put on something that's protective if you don't believe there's a serious danger, right?

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You go into a hospital and everyone in there is sick with a deadly disease. You're going to be asking for a mask real fast, right?

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Because you want to protect yourself. So Paul starts it that way. He's like, hey, look, coming down to the end of the letter.

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You mean, Ephesians 6, 10, and Ephesians 6, yeah, armor of God. Paul starts it with a problem.

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He's like, look, there's a direct threat against you. And he's like, look, your threat is not physical.

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You're not going to be able to handle this by pulling out a sword and fighting against Rome, you know, writing to Ephesians, the

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Ephesus, the church, you know, almost the capital of Rome at the moment. He's like, you're not going to be able to wrestle against the evils.

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And there's even all kinds of false idols and worship going on in the city. It's very, it's a port city.

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He's like, you can't fix the issues through force of flesh.

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He goes, you're wrestling against something that you can't even see, which is principalities, powers, and areas.

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He names this really overwhelming sense of the spiritual warfare that's happening.

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In the kingdom of darkness. Yeah. Yeah. And it is overwhelming. And you should go, how am

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I to fight something I can't see, let alone half don't even understand. Paul's like, exactly. And where he doesn't spend a lot of time trying to explain to you the kingdom of darkness, he wants to explain to you something that's more important, which is

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Christ, right? Your protection against it. That's right. So we have some ideas and we'll get into this later of what the kingdom of darkness, but we do know its tactics is lies.

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It wants to destroy and it wants to absolutely wipe out the church. So Paul's writing at the end of his letter to protect the church.

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By the way, I will make this first observation, Justin, you individually don't put on the army of God.

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He's writing to a congregation. We, we do this together. Just going to stand there and just say that there's not an army of one.

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I feel like I've heard that before. It's not an I, it's a we thing. It's a we. So I'll just start with this.

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He says, stand in the strength of the Lord, right? Stand in the strength of the Lord and in his might.

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Before he gives you instructions of what to do next, the position is you're not going to fight this war.

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Dead giveaway. Dead giveaway. You're not going to do this. This is going to be the Lord doing it. That's right. And listen to where the armament is coming from.

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It's not put on armor or put on your armor. Whose armor? You're putting on God's armor.

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God's armor. Yes. That's what it said. Justin, can we just go negative for a second and how we've heard this in the past?

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Yeah. I mean, please. Are you going to quote a prominent evangelical at this point or later?

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Nope, that's later. I'll get to that in a minute. We're not going to name names, but we're going to quote somebody.

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But many of us have grown up and I know we're having fun here and Justin and I are pretty excited because we can't wait to get to the good part and that's what we're giddy about.

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But I don't know if grown men should ever say the word giddy. Apologize. There it is. Another explicit thing we shouldn't say.

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I don't even know, John, what we're doing at this point. Anyways, I'm just excited to be talking about this.

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Justin, in the past, when I've heard people talk about the armor of God, they mention it in a very, what

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I would say, pietistic manner where the emphasis becomes on the efforts of the individual, right?

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It's the focus on putting on the armor of God is almost a daily act of some sort of discipline.

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Yes, the focus, if I can just jump in and pile on here, the focus is on the believer.

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Yes. The focus is on the Christian and our diligence to, or like you use the word discipline, our diligence and our discipline to put the armor on properly.

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That's right. That is almost always the emphasis. I'm not saying that other things are not said about the gospel and about Jesus.

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Those things are said, but the emphasis and the takeaway is always on me and how well

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I am or am not doing in putting the armor on. Right. I think the obvious way that's done is

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Bible reading and prayer. I've heard people tell me, I have felt the attacks of Satan today and I felt like he got me because I didn't get up early enough to read my

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Bible and pray. I would say, well, I guess 1500 years of Christians just didn't know how to fight this war because individual

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Bibles didn't exist. Now, listen, I am not downplaying the joy and wonders of reading

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Scripture. And of having a Bible. Exactly. Personally. But there's no way that's what Paul meant because those people couldn't apply that.

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Well, just a brief comment here, because whenever you read in Scripture about meditating on the law of the

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Lord or meditating on the word of God, or in this case, taking up the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God, we'll talk more specifically about that in a minute.

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We should never, like you said, yeah, people didn't have their own copies of the Scriptures, but what were Christians doing?

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I mean, what have God's people been doing since forever? The word of God reverberates amongst his people because we talk about it.

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We reflect upon it. We sit under it, we pray it, we preach it. Exactly. We come and eat it.

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I mean, in the supper, you know, eat and drink it and receive it in baptism.

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The word of God is always reverberating around in the hearts and minds of God's people.

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That is absolutely biblical and right. So do not ever hear us downplaying the significance of the word of God in the life of the individual

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Christian. But the word of God in the life of the individual believer, we would understand biblically, comes through the conduit of the corporate church and how we live together.

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So they have to be able to apply it in that manner. I grew up going to VBS as a child and you would win the set.

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I mean, I won a set of the armor of God. But what were they emphasizing? Now, go home and read your Bible and pray every day so you aren't taken out by Satan.

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If you win the Bible drill, you get the armor. That's right. And then, you know, the fear becomes, unfortunately,

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I'm only as safe as well as I perform. That's what this is saying. That's the takeaway. That's right. You're only as safe as well as you perform.

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My security is tied to how well I'm doing. Yeah, and I will bring at this point, I'm preaching through this.

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Justin preached through it a couple of years ago. And this being Ephesians and Ephesians, I'm preaching the whole book.

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I'm just doing the armor of God at the moment on a spiritual warfare series that I'm doing. And so I recently covered the breastplate of righteousness this week.

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And I like to do is I like to go online and just interact with history and what other pastors have said.

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And I'm just curious how they thought through it. And there's a very prominent evangelical on YouTube that I was watching.

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And I was just curious to see how he handled it. You know, what was his style? And to be clear, he's a Calvinistic guy.

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Yeah. Well, in the presentation of it, he mentioned that there are different kinds of righteousness because it says the breastplate of righteousness.

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There's imputed righteousness, which he then explained what that is. If you're new to that word, it literally means that all of the active works of Jesus, of him obeying the law, were then gifted on our behalf.

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Like when it says you wear a robe of righteousness, imagine all the good works that Jesus did were written on a robe, but then his name is crossed out and your name is put on it and you put that robe on and it belongs to you.

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Like that's your righteousness. That's what imputed righteousness means. Yeah. It explains that. It's go ahead.

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So I don't want to derail your train. You keep going. And then there's imparted righteousness, which then talks about the works we do.

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Right. So in this presentation, the conclusion was...

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And I trust in the imparted righteousness piece. He's going to caveat that by saying it's God's Spirit takes a residence within us and we're sanctified.

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And so our lives begin to change. That's right. Right. Yeah. So anytime we do any works of the

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Spirit, that's imparted righteousness. Like good, like legitimate fruit, good works that we were prepared beforehand to walk in.

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Which then the proceeding of it was when it says put on the breastplate of righteousness, you are putting on your own holiness.

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It's your own holiness. That's what this man said. That's what he says. And to quote, he says that if you're going to be effective in fighting against Satan, if you're not living a holy life, he will take you out.

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And that's the part of this armament. And that's the part of a lot of what

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Theocast wants to expose is that it is absolutely imperative to advance the kingdom of light into the kingdom of darkness that we obey, that we do, but that's not what protects us in the war.

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So when Paul says, if you don't want to be taken out of this war and you don't be taken out by Satan and his fiery darts, you have to have weaponry that is supernatural that will depend upon something other than your own strength.

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This is why just from an exegetical standpoint, Justin, just starting back in context, stand in the strength of the

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Lord and the power of his might. It can't be our righteousness. It sounds just like Exodus, like Moses in Exodus pops into my brain.

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Like all you need to do is basically stand still and be quiet because the Lord, your God will fight for you. I mean, it's that idea that the

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Lord will do it. That's right. That's clear from the jump. Yeah. Agree. Yeah. We've been kind of playing with this, Justin. So in essence, we'll make the statement and then prove it to you.

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But what is the armor of God then? If you're going to put it on, what is it? When I preached this text, my sermon title was

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Christ, the armor of God. That's right. Jesus. In short, I mean, we're not trying to be reductionistic and be those kids.

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Like you talk about VBS, you know, like waving our hands around. Like the answer to every question is Jesus. That's not what we're trying to do right now.

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But like legitimately to start out, Paul makes it very plain that this is something that God will do.

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And it is the armor of God. Like we've said, it's not our armor. It is God's armor that we would then put on by faith, which we'll get to in a moment.

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And who and what is our protection against all of the assaults and the schemes of the evil one?

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It is Christ for us. It could never be us. It could never be anything that we contribute or do or muster up.

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So that is obvious to you and to me at the outset. We can talk through the text a little bit more pointedly, maybe in a second.

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Well, I just want to add to that, just to prove to your point, if you think about the words that Paul is using, put on God's armor, in my opinion,

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I think this armor has bloodstains on it from a war that has already happened because Jesus claimed victory.

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He rose from the grave. That's right. So he's saying here is sufficient armor

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I know works because the son wore it in victory, therefore it will protect you as well.

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I mean, I'm going to just go off this for a little bit because I'm hot on it. I've been preaching on it. But when he's talking about the breastplate of righteousness, the breastplate, from a military standpoint, protects the vital organs.

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And when he puts the title righteousness on there, Justin, what is God protecting in the believer?

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Their acceptance, right? Their acceptance, their security. Because their life before him, if we want to use it, yeah.

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Let me put it this way to not be guilty. Let's say I murdered someone and I'm standing before the judge and the judge says,

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I'm removing the sentence of guilt upon you. You are no longer guilty of murder.

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That doesn't mean I have righteousness. That just means I'm no longer guilty. I need acts of goodness to be righteous.

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And so when you put on the breastplate of righteousness, you're putting on God's acceptance from the judge saying, I fully accept you to be perfect and therefore

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I am safe in that. If I can really quick, I was going to say this earlier. I'm going to interject it now and we'll just keep trucking.

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So Heidelberg Catechism question 60 is excellent on all of this material, on imputed righteousness and what it is, but also on what you just said about how we need more than acquittal.

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We need more than just being, even to say that it is as though I've never sinned or been a sinner.

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We need more than that, actually. So Heidelberg 60, the question is, how are you righteous before God?

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The answer is only by faith in Jesus Christ. And the acknowledgement is, though I have broken every single one of God's commands and I've never kept a single one of them, yet God, by His sheer grace and mercy, counts me with the holiness, righteousness, and satisfaction of Christ.

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So it is as though I have never sinned or been a sinner, and it is as though I have been as perfectly obedient as Christ was obedient for me.

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So that last part is that active obedience of Christ and that perfect righteousness imputed, it's counted,

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His record for my record. So when my record will be pulled up, it will, like you said, it's as though I've put on the robes of Christ and His name is scratched out and mine is put on there.

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It is as though I have lived a perfectly obedient life in fulfillment of the law as He did, because He represented me in that way.

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So thinking in these terms about what the imputation of righteousness is and what justification even is and how we are righteous before the

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Lord, I think that helps us a ton when we come to a passage like Ephesians 6 and understanding what in the world is being discussed here.

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And how it is that we would have peace and security before God now, forever, in spite of the fact that Satan fires darts at us all the time and accuses us left and right.

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I mean, righteousness is a great way for him to take us out. I mean, there's two forms of this, Justin. There is the person who understands they're not righteous, and they're being pointed to their own efforts.

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When Satan goes, you're not very faithful, you're right, and they give up, they quit. Or there's the other side of it, where they feel like they're crushing it, and Satan just fuels that.

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And it sounds like this, wow, look at how well you're doing, and look at these people who don't take the gospel seriously and don't take

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God seriously. You should question their salvation. You should go teach them the law. It produces in us an imbalance of the law.

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Justin Perdue You should talk about law and duty all the time until these people get it in gear. And none of these things produce good things.

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And for the anxious soul, like you said, it's despair. It's like, man, Satan's right.

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Yeah. Jon Moffitt Well, it creates the person who has the self -righteousness. Because we think

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Satan's attacks are going to always be negative. Oh, no, they'll be to the affirmative. They will feed your pride so much.

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You'll get so high. When you topple over, it's a horrible fall. And we've both seen this in our ministries, where people in their self -righteousness build themselves so up that they walk away from the faith because the fall is so hard.

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So this is why the absolute pounding of the desk, that it's Jesus' righteousness on our behalf, protects us from our own pride.

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And it protects us from fear that we haven't done enough because Jesus did enough. Justin Perdue What's the antidote to despair and to self -righteousness?

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It's this. It's Jesus for us. And let's just survey some of the words that are in the text. I'm going to kind of just fly through this and rip for a second, and then you interact with anything you want.

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So I can remember, again, if you spent a few years ago now preaching this text, there's a section where I wanted rhetorically to just pull out, because how often have you heard this too, where teaching on this, and it's not illegitimate to do because you even,

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I think, are doing a little bit of this because you're zooming in on particular pieces. But there often, sadly, has been much more made about, well, here's the armor that a

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Roman soldier would have worn, and let's talk 12 points about the helmet, and 12 points about the breastplate, and 12 points about the sandals, and exactly how they were made, and why they were effective for battle.

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And that's what we discuss rather than actually talking about what in the world would these things be for the believer.

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So, all right, fasten on the belt of truth. Whose truth? The truth about what?

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Next, put on the breastplate of righteousness. Again, like we've been alluding to, whose righteousness is that?

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Yours, John? Mine? It's like, we're going to wage war against the devil and all the principalities of darkness with our righteousness?

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I do not think so. Or your truth? You want people to say, live your truth? Next, put on the gospel of peace.

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Now, whose gospel is that? And who did it? We talk about that all the time, too. Believers don't do the gospel.

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One person did the gospel. His name is Jesus, and he accomplished it. Right, next, take up the shield of faith.

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Ah, faith. What's faith? Faith is, by definition, it's an empty hand, and it is looking away from oneself to another.

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That is what faith is. It's in the object of something outside of yourself. It has nothing to do with you or anything that you have ever done or might do.

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It has everything to do with Jesus and the object of your faith. Take up the helmet of salvation.

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Again, whose salvation? Who accomplished it? The scripture says salvation belongs to the

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Lord. Salvation is of the Lord. Right? All right, now, take up the sword of the Spirit.

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All right, now, which is the word of who? God. God. And who is that word about?

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Jesus. It's about Christ. So Paul's like, look, we don't battle against flesh and blood, right?

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We battle against the rulers, the authorities, the cosmic powers of this present darkness, the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.

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And it's like, look, we are in, y 'all, we in over our heads. We better put on Christ, right?

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Christ for us is the armor of God. And Paul writes like this in other places, man. Hey guys, real quick, some of you are listening to this and it's encouraging to you, but you have questions.

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So where do you go? How do you interact with other people who have the same questions and share resources? We have started something called the

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Theocast Community. We're excited because not only is it a place for you to connect with other like -minded believers, all of our resources there, past podcasts, education materials, articles, all of it's there, and you can share it and ask questions.

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You can go check it out. The link is in the description below. If you've been listening to Theocast for a while, you'll understand that the emphasis is on the power of God.

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I mean, what does he say in 2 Corinthians chapter 10, for we do not fight with what the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but of divine power.

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Well, he weapons. That means every piece of that armor is divinely inspired with power.

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And so it can't be related to us in our efforts. This is why we put it on because our own efforts, our own capacities, we could not save ourselves.

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We cannot sanctify ourselves and we cannot protect ourselves as we wait for glory. So what

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I love about this, Justin, I want to go back and I emphasize this in my sermon. I'm going to use a different passage.

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This is 1 Corinthians chapter 16, verse 13, but it emphasizes the same idea as Ephesians 6.

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He says this, be watchful. Well, Justin, when are you aware when there's danger, right?

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Be watchful. So he's telling the believer, be watchful. Second phrase, stand, 1

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Corinthians 16, 13, stand firm in the faith, right?

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Faith in what? Well, he was a preacher of Jesus. So we know that's what he means.

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Stand in the firm faith of trusting in Jesus. Then he says this, act like men, be strong.

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Now that phrase Americans cringe at, it's just a colloquialism that means be courageous. That's all it means. Act like men, be strong.

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It's exactly right. So notice the flow. You're in danger. Be watchful. Now, because of the fear, where do you look?

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To Christ. From Christ, you find confidence and strength. If you go back to Ephesians chapter 6,

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I think he uses this word like seven times, stand, stand. When you're in battle and you're afraid, you go into a foxhole and you hide.

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He's like, yeah, that's where you probably want to be. He's basically saying, stand, hold the line. That's right.

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You can fight back. You can charge forward because you have a strength that is not your own.

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So when we talk about putting on the armor of God, Justin, he's saying, if you're looking to the confidence that I provide you, the protection

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I provide you, you have every reason to stand when Satan comes and goes, but you're not holy, I know

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I'm not, but you have no strength, I know I'm weak. It's just like the dialogue in the Bruce Reed by Richard Sibbes between the weary believer and Satan.

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It sounded almost identical to what you just said. It's like, yeah, you're exactly right. I only have a flicker of faith and love, but Christ is going to cherish it and he's going to fan it until he turns judgment into victory.

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I mean, that's the answer. You already mentioned some other writings of Paul. Romans chapter 13, verses 12 to 14, read that sometime, where Paul is saying, the night is far gone, the day is at hand, so then let us cast off the works of darkness and put on the armor of light.

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And then a verse later, he explains the metaphor. He says, put on the

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Lord Jesus Christ. So put on the armor of light, and then a sentence later, put on Jesus Christ.

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So when Paul exhorts us to put on the armor of God, in effect, he is saying, put on Christ by faith, like everything that he has accomplished for you and on your behalf.

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I said this to you before we recorded, I'm going to say it, we were interchanging. You mentioned the thing that you had read, just your prep and your research on Ephesians 6 and stuff, and we were talking about it, and that's when we were planning to, let's record this today.

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I said, you know what's funny about this whole thing? Funny, not really haha, but funny, ironic in a way, right?

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Is if I went on Twitter or X or whatever in the world we're supposed to call it these days, if I went on that social media platform today and I wrote something like this, our righteousness was not the grounds of our acceptance before the

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Lord to begin with, nor will it ever keep us in His favor.

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If that's all I put, it's true biblically as far as I'm concerned, I know you agree. The reaction that that would get from many people that are familiar at all with Theocast is it would just be dismissed.

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These guys are antinomians, they don't care about obedience, they're just trying to make room for laziness and licentiousness and whatever.

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That would be the response. They're assuming things about us or about me in putting up a post like that.

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Again, what I want to say is the reason that I or John would go on Twitter and post something like that today is because there are people out there with huge platforms that are saying the exact opposite, that are saying quite literally, on the one hand, it's true that our righteousness could never have been the ground of our acceptance before the

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Lord to begin with, and they're going to preach Jesus, but then out of the other side of their mouths, verbatim, explicitly, are going to say, like you read earlier, that the breastplate of righteousness that we put on is our holiness.

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It's our obedience. So, thus, I want to start subtweeting everything

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I put online with a parenthesis. Our righteousness, our obedience, was never the ground of our acceptance before God to begin with, and it will never keep us in His favor, parenthesis.

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I'm tweeting this because there are people out there who actually say such things. We are not just coming up with this stuff out of thin air, making up straw men to just burn down.

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I know our listeners understand this, but if you're newer to the pod, we're not just saying this stuff to gain a following or to comfort the lazy, licentious believers out there.

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We want to set those free by the law. We're saying this because people are being put back in chains, and they're having their assurance taken from them.

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They're having their comfort robbed from them, and they're becoming ineffective and unfruitful, to use the language of 2

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Peter 1, because they're being pointed in on themselves all the time rather than being pointed to Christ for them.

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Justin Perdue, J .D., is a resurgence of dispensationalists who are now again rejecting the imputation of the active works of Jesus, the active obedience of Christ.

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It's on the internet right now, and it's really frustrating. But Justin, I want to go to something on that.

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No, that's fine. I think what you said is important. Well, there's a resurgence of all kinds of things, John. I mean, even like the

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Romans 7 debate. I know that's not what we're talking about right now, but there's a resurgence of guys, Calvinistic, serious -minded evangelicals who are convinced that Romans 7 was written by Paul in an unregenerate state and are writing about his unregenerate state rather than acknowledging that this text is the most beautiful pointed depiction of the saint -centered reality ever penned.

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That's right. The imputed righteousness of Christ makes you the saint. Yeah, I know. We're not trying to turn into these old men, you know, like the sky is falling.

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But it's like, man, these things are under assault. And this is nothing new.

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I mean, we're not alarmed, but we're going to stand and pound the desk for this stuff. I want to go two minutes of dark and then three minutes of light here, as we think about this podcast goes.

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But Justin, again, this threat is the armor of God is only appropriate if there's a legitimate threat.

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And I'm telling you, you and I, bro, I know for a fact, I white knuckle that stuff, man.

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I hold on to the armor of God for dear life, because without it, I have no life. It is what protects me waking up every day, realizing that yesterday is not the sum of my existence.

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I am not who, listen, the world will tell you, you are what you do, or you are what you have not done.

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Your identity is derived from what you do. That is not the gospel. If you are what you have or have not done, you have no hope.

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That's not good news. That's bad news. You are a damnable sinner. So this is how it works in the kingdom of darkness.

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Look, I'm just going to quote scripture. You can do with it what you want. But Paul says that Satan comes in as an angel of light.

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Yeah, dude, spewing out, not like obvious lies where you're not obvious blasphemy, but he's he's crafty.

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Right now, just think for a moment, because some people think angels of light, like, well, he's like this. Listen, you do know that there were two angels with Abraham and they washed his feet.

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And then when they went to Sodom and Gomorrah, they want angels can take physical form. I'm just saying even Paul says you have entertained angels unaware.

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And then first, John says, test the spirits to make sure anything that you hear that's coming from the

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Bible, from the voice of a guy who sounds biblical, you better examine that against all of scripture.

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That's all we're saying is that Satan is so crafty, he has people twisted up in their minds and their hearts, questioning whether they belong to God's army or not, to his kingdom, whether he loves them.

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And I'll just hand this over to you, Justin, you need to wrap yourself in the armor, because it's the only way that your heart and mind will be able to stand against that junk because it will destroy you.

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Yeah, I'm going to say something. We're probably going to lose half of our audience. That's fine. Yeah, bro, heresy is born in the soil of biblicalism.

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And so what we mean here is that proverbially, if you're the kind of person that is just going to come in and quote chapter and verse left and right, read the temptation of Jesus.

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I mean, Satan quotes scripture. It can be done, and you can make it say a lot.

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This is why, as confessional dudes, we care about a tradition of orthodoxy, and we care about the regula fide, the rule of faith, and the history of interpretation, because you don't do theology in a vacuum.

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That's right. You don't come to the scripture as though you're the first person to ever read it, because then you are absolutely open to Satan's manipulations left and right.

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That's just kind of a side comment, like I said, to just alienate everyone. But bro, yeah,

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Satan in his tactics, he's wily, he twists the scriptures, he twists the word of God, and uses even the very scriptures themselves to cause us to question our standing and to make us ineffective and unfruitful and to get our focus on all the wrong stuff.

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Again, how does the enemy operate? Well, I mean, I can even speak autobiographically.

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When I'm going through difficult things, there are times if I'm having a hard day or a hard week, hard season, whatever, and just stressed.

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I mean, like I was telling you even before, there's just a lot going on in life right now, and I feel like I'm always just kind of gasping for oxygen in terms of margin in my schedule between ministry and family life and all the things we've got going on.

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I think there are times where the Lord is very gracious to me, and I am prayerful, and I am aware of my weakness, and I'm crying out to him, and I'm just talking to him.

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Like, Father, I need help. I need mercy. This is so far beyond me and above me. I don't know what to do, and I'm asking for...

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I don't even know what to voice, but I trust that you know what I need. The Spirit intercedes for me. I mean, this is what I say, right? But then there are other times, bro, where I am not even consciously, but I think just by default, subconsciously,

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I'm just kind of trusting in Justin. I'm just trusting in myself. Like, I'm not mindful of God directly.

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I'm not prayerful like I should be. I'm in the midst of it, and I'm like, well, you know, I'm just going to figure out how to handle this stuff, and I'm thinking about a mixed bag.

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I'm thinking about the things that I can do to make it better. I'm thinking about all the things that are going away that I don't like, and I'm frustrated, and why

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I'm justified in being frustrated, and this is where my focus goes. Instead of my focus being on, man, yeah, this is spiritual warfare.

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This is life as a fallen sinner in a fallen world that's difficult sometimes, and my only hope is found in the heavens.

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I mean, the fact that my Lord reigns, and He's died for me, and He is my righteousness, and He intercedes for me even now, and the

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Spirit of God intercedes for me when I don't even know what to pray, and He groans with me. That's where the confidence and the hope is found, not in my ability or no, or not even in my own justifiable frustration or not.

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So the point of everything I'm saying right now is that not only will Satan twist the Word of God, Satan will take your—his project always—take your eyes off of Christ and put them on you.

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Take your eyes off of Christ. Put them on your circumstance. If he's able to do that through reasonable means, that is his

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M .O., rather than what we need to continue to do is go back yet again, and again, and again, and again to the gospel, to what

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Christ has accomplished for us, remind ourselves of the hope to which we've been called, and be otherworldly in our perspective, right?

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Jon Moffitt Yeah. I mean, Peter even tells the believer—I can't seem to find the passage at the moment—he goes, do not be surprised at the fiery trials when you face them.

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Why? Because you're standing up for truth. Justin Perdue I think that's 1 Peter 4 .12. Jon Moffitt Thank you. 1 Peter 4 .12. Justin, I'm going to end with this, and then

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I'll let you end in the podcast, however you want. But I was thinking through this on Sunday, and so I'll shorten it down.

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Justin Perdue Yeah. Jon Moffitt I think it's no mistake of a sovereign God who controlled the writing of Scriptures and history, church history, that the men who would end up having the most profound effect on the believer in Scripture are the men who really lacked in the areas of self -righteousness and had to stand strong in the faith that they had in God's promises.

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Abraham being an example of this, Moses being, David being an example of this. Jon Moffitt You go to Paul.

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I mean, Paul is a murderer and an imprisoner of Peter. But I want to go to a modern day example. Justin, the most famous song probably that I think everybody in the world, at least even unbelievers, sing this song, and everyone knows it,

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Amazing Grace. Justin Perdue Everyone knows that song. Jon Moffitt John Newton. Justin Perdue John Newton, a slave driver, a guy who worked in the slave trade, known by his ship as the

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Blasphemer. I mean, the man had a horrendous life who then almost died in a shipwreck, which

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God used to shake up his faith. By the way, he still believed he was a believer at that time, who repented and ended up writing these words, and I'll just close with these words because I think they're so precious, to remind us of why it is so important in this fight for truth and in this fight for understanding the gospel and wearing

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Christ's righteousness on our behalf. It was grace that taught my heart to fear and grace my fears relieved.

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How precious did that grace appear the hour I first believed. Through many dangers, toils, and snares,

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I have already come. This grace that brought me safe thus far, and grace will lead me home.

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Where was his dependence? Justin Perdue Completely on God and his grace. Jon Moffitt That's right. Justin Perdue That's right. Justin Perdue And so Newton, I quote him all the time, where he says,

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I'm a riddle to myself and a heap of inconsistence, and he says that I'm cold and lifeless as normal and private, yet he permits me to speak for him in public.

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I bring that up because you mentioned men in Scripture. You mentioned Newton. This is my closing comment, and we'll shut this down.

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I've said this many times lately to people in my own local church context or talking with my wife or whatever.

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Even as I look through church history, let's just even talk the last 500 years, some of the most useful men in the providence of God in the

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Protestant Reformation and thereafter, all were those who had anxious souls. Martin Luther was famous for his anxiety, in terms of his standing before the

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Lord in addition to hypochondria and a whole host of things. But there's a reason why his conscience is so sensitive.

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He's like, he knows I could never do enough, and look what that produced in the providence of God.

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John Calvin, same way, anxious soul, perfectionist. We've talked about Newton.

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Horatius Bonner, another Scottish minister and hymn writer, same way. We could go on and on and on.

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It's interesting that the Lord uses people often who struggle mightily with anxiety of the soul before him to do things that are important for the gospel and the cause of Christ in their generations.

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I think it's just a good word to all of us that whenever we're looking to ourselves and trusting in ourselves, our faith and our confidence is misguided.

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We would never look to our own righteousness to protect us from anything. We would look only to Christ and to his righteousness, and in looking to him, we know that we're safe today and forever.

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If you've heard anything today, let that be the kind of landing note of this podcast, and we're grateful that you've tuned in and that you've listened.

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It looks like John has one thing to say. Yeah, well, brand new, if you haven't heard about it, The Community. If you want to interact with us on this particular subject or just want to be a part of a community that likes to discuss

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Reformed theology, all of our resources are available in this app. You just go to theocast .org and you can learn about The Community.

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Excellent. So we leave that to you. You guys are intelligent people. You're probably pretty tech savvy too, probably more than I am.

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Anyway, we are grateful that you've joined in on this conversation. We hope sincerely that you've been encouraged in the Lord Jesus Christ today.

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He is your righteousness, so look to him. And God willing, we'll talk with you all again next week. Grace and peace.

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Hey, everyone. Before you go, Justin and I first wanted to say thank you, and if this has been encouraging to you in any way, please feel free to share it.

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But we also need your support, and it's when you give that it really helps us financially reach more people.

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So the next time you consider giving to a ministry, we hope that you would pray about Theocast and partner with us as we share the gospel around the world.