Spiritual Warfare (Part 2)

Welcome to No Compromise Radio, a ministry coming to you from Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston.

No Compromise Radio is a program dedicated to the ongoing proclamation of Jesus Christ, based on the theme in Galatians 2, verse 5, where the

Apostle Paul said, �But we did not yield in subjection to them for even an hour, so that the truth of the gospel would remain with you.�

In short, if you like smooth, watered -down words to make you simply feel good, this show isn�t for you.

By purpose, we are first biblical, but we can also be controversial. Stay tuned for the next 25 minutes as we�re called by the divine trumpet to summon the troops for the honor and glory of her

King. Here�s our host, Pastor Mike Abendroth. Welcome to No Compromise Radio ministry.

Mike Abendroth here. What�s new? Well, did you know my brother has a podcast? The Pactum? What�s the

Pactum? Well, that�s a good question. It�s shorthand for the Pactum Salutis, and that is the covenant of redemption.

The Father promising the Son, the Bride, the

Elect, the Son agreeing to go rescue said Bride, the

Elect, obviously the Spirit of God. He was there as a witness, and then he also empowered the

Son on the earth to do the Father�s will, and then to apply, the

Holy Spirit applies the Son�s great work to our account. Well, that�s the covenant of redemption, the

Pactum Salutis. So you can listen to Pat. Pat and I will be doing a conference together for my friend

John Tucker, John A. Tucker at Community Bible Church. I think it�s the Community Bible Church in Beloit, Ohio.

If you�re near Cleveland, south of Cleveland, I think last, two times ago I was there. I went to the

Rock and Roll Hall of Fame after the conference. I figured that was the only right thing to do. And what else is there?

I think they�ve got this really cool indoor bicycle park. I kind of am afraid to go, too, but I think

I�ll go, but I�m nervous. I�m not really a good mountain bicyclist, and a matter of fact,

I�m probably not even a good roadie anymore. I haven�t been on the bike for a long, long time. I think in the last, let�s see, since I�ve been out of the hospital, a couple of times

I coasted down the driveway when I was really sick, just as a victory, like I could coast down the driveway, and then

I have to walk my bicycle back up the driveway. But I�ve been on one ride since, let�s see,

August 31st, a 22 -mile ride, because in the hospital I could take 22 steps.

And so I thought I�d ride 22 miles. And it took me a long time. It was windy that day, and that was about a month ago. But it should be here in Massachusetts in the �70s soon, and therefore we�ll ride outside, and I look forward to that, but we shall see.

I did ride the LifeCycle in my basement. The owner of the gym, Ciccone�s, Dennis, brought over a

LifeCycle, and he�s loaned it to me since September something, probably mid -October he loaned it to me just to get better and pedal.

I used to pedal for two minutes, zero tension, at 40 RPMs, and now

I can go up to 14 tension, 80 RPMs, back off a little bit, but I was on the bike for two hours yesterday working on my

Ephesians 6 message. That�s one of the fun things. If you�re inside, at least you can do two things at once.

What else is going on? We�re thinking about going to Israel, Pat and I, next February 2023.

If you�re interested, please email me. We should have some more prices and all that stuff.

I would imagine like every place else, the prices are going up, but it�s still fun to go. Got one life to live.

Might as well go back to Israel with us, and if you call it the holy land around Pat, he might say something, but I�ll let him say it, not me, because I�m the nicer brother, right?

I�m the older, wiser, but Pat�s got me theologically.

I think he gets more downloads per show too, but he�s only like 65. I�m at 3 ,000. He studies more than I do for his shows.

I just talk on mine. I�m three and a half minutes in. What have I said? A whole lot of nothing. We�re talking about spiritual warfare today, and as I talked about last time in Ephesians 6, there�s that classic, that wonderful passage on armor, armor of God in Ephesians 6 verses 10 through 20, and essentially,

Paul is saying, don�t forget even though we�ve been talking about family life, there�s certainly spiritual warfare going on there, and also in general, you�re not strong enough, and God is very generous.

I mean, how generous is God? Do you ever want to know that question? Romans 8 .32 answers it, �He who did not spare his own son.�

That�s the language of Genesis 15 with Isaac being delivered over by the Father, �but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?

You think the Lord is going to save you and equip you, and then when it comes to battle, just leave you on your own?

Is, in fact, God, like David, who would send Uriah up to the front of the battle and then withdraw everything?

No, that�s not the way the Lord is. Therefore, since God, Ephesians 1 .3, has blessed you in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, wouldn�t he also bless you with the right kind of armor, metaphorically speaking, the right weapons, the right resources to deal with a real foe named

Satan? He uses a lot of war language here, and we need to come to grips with the fact that if the

Lord God, the triune God, loves you, loves the church, Satan hates you,

Satan hates the church. So Paul says, �Put on the full armor of God, the panoply of God.�

This is not just partial armor, full armor, battles fierce, you�re going to need the right kind of weapons, there�s going to be a lot of conflict, �pan all, opal arms, panoply, all arms, all hands on deck, all arms, all armories, everything that you need, you need to have the armory.

For those of you who are baptized into Christ, have clothed yourself with Christ, Galatians 3 .27.

Colossians 3, �Put on the new self who is being renewed to a true knowledge according to the image of the one who created him.�

We need this full armor, why? Because Satan�s smart, and instead of running backwardly, going

AWOL, we need to stand firm. That�s what he says in chapter 6, stand firm against the schemes of the devil.

We don�t want to retreat, after all the Lord has provided this armor for us, and we don�t need to run, we don�t need to be cowards.

You say, �Yeah, but Satan is powerful, he had enough power to bring down a third of the stars of heaven with a sweep of his tail.

What did Satan do to Eve, Adam, Noah, Moses, Peter, David?

Well, he�s after me too, isn�t he? He�s going to try to sift me like wheat too, isn�t he?

He�s roaring like a lion seeking to devour me too, isn�t he? Well, he is after you, that�s true.

He does have organized strategies, that�s true. He is a great enemy, that�s true.

But you have the armor of God, and we want to talk about that today on No Compromise Radio. I do like it in the

Greek language, where you have a word sometimes where you, if I say the Greek word, you would automatically know what

I�m saying. The schemes of the devil, the wiles of the devil, methodeos, methods.

He has methods, he has schemes. He sneaks and prowls and lurks just like a lion would.

He�s got strategies, he�s got attacks in a cunning, crafty way, cunning, crafty way.

He knows what to do. He disguises himself as an angel of light, right? He sins from the beginning.

He is tricky. He tempts Eve, he tempts Christ, he opposes the work of God. He hinders servants.

He snares the wicked. He has the whole world in his lap. And he�s got these methods.

I could say, if I wanted to joke around, the first Methodist was Satan. No disrespect intended.

Methods. We�ve got a lot of methods. When did all this start, by the way? I�ll tell you when it started,

Genesis 3. And I will put enmity between you and the woman and between your seed and her seed.

He shall bruise your head and you shall bruise his heel. That�s when spiritual warfare started.

And he�s got methods. And by the way, we�ve got one life to live, right? And then eternal life, of course.

But on earth, one life to live. And he�s practiced on a lot of people. He�s been around for a long time.

And so, we�re at a disadvantage left to ourselves. We�d really be in a sad state.

But of course, we have the Lord�s armor and we don�t have to worry, even though we have a foe who loves to counterfeit and distort and masquerade.

He loves to mix truth with error. He loves it when we question God�s goodness.

If God really loved you, he wouldn�t let you suffer like that. He loves to misquote scripture. He loves to take error and jam it into truth.

He loves to get you to doubt God�s providential hand. He loves to get after you and persecute and infiltrate and divide.

And oh, he loves to tempt you to sin and make you to be self -reliant, oppose God. He loves to make you think, oh, death is a long way off.

He loves to put false doctrines in the church. Oh, he loves to divide up the church.

He loves to make people have their worship deviate from God with demonic idolatry.

That�s all true. And oh, it�s hard. I mean, if you think, be one thing to wrestle against flesh and blood.

One time I walked past Mr. T. He was at a Lakers game and so was I. And before I checked into the game,

I was at the scores table. Just kidding. I dreamt about that though. No, I just, we were both in the stands and I thought,

I think I could take him. He�s kind of short. And he actually says he�s a Christian. I looked at his Twitter account and he has a lot of Bible verses there.

But anyway, it�d be one thing if you had to fight Mike Tyson. There�s a boxing rink in our gym, the gym that I go to.

And I just thought, what if I had to go into that thing and fight Mike Tyson from 1983, that Mike Tyson.

But they�re not flesh and blood. Rulers, authorities, cosmic powers, spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.

This is bad. Calvin said Paul impresses their danger on them by telling them the nature of their enemy.

Hmm. I mean, you�re going to struggle and wrestle. This is going to be difficult.

And Paul just parades all these powerful warriors that are after you. And you probably say to yourself, this is going to take me my whole life.

I�m going to be at a battle until I die. That�s true. Say, well, these kind of, maybe

Satan and his demons, maybe they�re kind of like good ghosts, good spirits.

One commentator was talking about Casper, the friendly ghost. Maybe they�re like that.

They just kind of trick you once in a while. Ha, ha, ha. No, this isn�t it at all.

George Swinick said, Satan, indeed, that cruel jailer, secures his captives in the dark dungeon of ignorance.

Paul says, take up the whole armor of God. Take up the whole armor of God.

Now, the big thing that I want to talk about today on No Compromise Radio is, if I�m going to not give ground as a

Christian, if I�m going to try to obey God out of gratitude for this, if I want to act in a way commensurate of my calling, if God can be for us, who can be against us,

I�m going to need help. I�m going to need what Paul calls armor, armor that comes from him, armor that is provided by him.

And what Paul does, here�s the punchline, here�s the main thing for the show today, if you get nothing else out of it, here�s what it is.

Paul uses language from the Old Testament. Hey, that should not surprise us.

Did you know Paul is going to use Isaiah 11, Isaiah 49, Isaiah 59, these

Messianic chapters, and those chapters all have something in common. They talk about the

Messiah�s armor. Oh, this is going to be cool. The whole time we�re thinking, oh,

Paul was next to a Roman soldier. Paul was incarcerated by the

Roman soldiers. Sometimes he was handcuffed to a Roman soldier. Paul has seen

Roman soldiers walking around Jerusalem. Paul�s in Roman jail seeing

Roman soldiers. Hmm. I wonder if there�s some other soldier

Paul is thinking about. Certainly thinking about Roman soldiers. I don�t want to say categorically he�s not, but way beyond Roman soldier.

Paul is thinking this great man of God who knows his Old Testament, Isaiah, Christian warrior, the

Messiah, right from the Old Testament. In these Messianic chapters about the

Messianic king and Messianic kingdoms and great servants, Jesus the warrior king.

If you�re going to fight Satan, think about it, big picture, simple. If you�re going to fight Satan, you�re going to need

Jesus. Look back and see what Adam did without the

Lord. On his own, just going to try to do it by himself. You see when Israel was tempted in the wilderness, well, what happened to when

Jesus was tempted in the wilderness? Well, Jesus, the last Adam, of course we know, was victorious over Satan.

If you�d like to be victorious over Satan, you�re going to need Jesus. You�re going to need what

Paul calls his armor. You�re going to need Jesus�s strength and power and authority and righteousness.

That�s what you�re going to need. Divine warrior who is mighty in battle,

Psalm 24. What I�m going to do now in this section of this message is

I�m just going to read to you what Paul has been thinking about and what he derives this armor from.

What I want you to understand, dear listener, is when we look at, for instance, the breastplate of righteousness, if your default is live a righteous life so you don�t have a hole in your breastplate,

I don�t want that to be your default. I want that to be a derivative. I want you to be thinking,

I have Christ� armor, therefore I have Christ� righteousness. I�m going to have to need something around my chest, right, my thorax, to use the

Greek word. I need something to guard my lungs and my heart and my liver and those things.

I need something to be guarded. And therefore, who�s going to guard me? How will I be guarded?

And if it�s my own righteousness, I think we�re going to oversell our own righteousness.

Just how righteous are we? I mean, if you think of righteousness, there�s imputed righteousness. God credits

Christ� righteousness to our account. That�s what he�s after here. There is imparted righteousness because of God�s righteousness that he positionally gives me,

Christ� perfect law -keeping merited and given to me by reckoning, by imputation, by crediting.

Well, in light of that, now I�d like to live a righteous life. But it�s what causes self -righteousness.

This causes depression, depending on what side of the spectrum you�re on. No, no, this is armor, the armor of God.

This is right from Isaiah 11 49 59. I�m going to keep saying it over and over and over so you remember.

11 49 59. In the year 11 49 59.

Number 9. Number 9. So, if I were to ask you, pop quiz, what�s

Paul thinking about? When you think of warriors, victory, you think of God the

Son. Messianic, Isaiah what? 11 49 59. 11 49 59.

Isaiah 11. There shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse, and a branch from his root shall bear fruit.

And the Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him, the Spirit of wisdom and understanding, the Spirit of counsel and might, the

Spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord. And his delight shall be the fear of the Lord. He shall not judge what his eye sees, or decide disputes by what his ears hear.

But with righteousness he shall judge the poor, and decide with equity for the meek of the earth.

And he shall strike the earth with the rod of his mouth. And with the breath of his lips he shall kill the wicked.

Here we go. Righteousness shall be the belt of his waist, and faithfulness the belt of his loins.

That�s Isaiah 11. I haven�t got into the different parts of armor, but do those things sound familiar?

Belts. Isaiah 49. Listen to me,

O coastlands, and give attention. And you peoples from afar, the Lord called me from the womb.

From the body of my mother he named my name. He made my mouth like a sharp sword. In the shadow of his hand he hid me.

He made me a polished arrow. In his quiver he hid me away.

And he said to me, �You are my servant, Israel, in whom I am glorified.� Justice is turned back, and righteousness stands far away.

For the truth is stumbled in the public squares, and uprightness cannot enter. Truth is lacking, and he who departs from evil makes himself a prey.

All right, here we go. Isaiah 11, now 49. The Lord saw it, and it displeased him that there was no justice.

He saw that there was no man, and wondered that there was no one to intercede.

Then his own arm brought him salvation, and uprightness upheld him. He put on righteousness as a breastplate, and a helmet of salvation on his head.

He put on garments of vengeance for clothing, and wrapped himself in zeal as a cloak.

Hmm, did you get that? Helmets, garments, breastplates. Finally, what's

Paul thinking about? Isaiah, divine messianic warrior. Isaiah, class what?

Chapter 11. Isaiah, chapter what, class? 49. And Isaiah now, chapter what, class?

59. Isaiah 59.

Where is it? Where's my notes? Where's my notes? I didn't put it here.

Something happened in my notes. That is amazing. That is wrong. Good thing

I'm checking this right now. All right, so now I have to turn my Bible to Isaiah 59.

Well, that was not good. I did something wrong there on my notes, and therefore

I'm admitting now in front of everyone, even though I know the passages. Oh, you know why?

You want to know why? This is another episode of I Am Dumb.

So, I did Isaiah 49, one to three. Then on the bottom of my notes,

I didn't see Isaiah 59, 14 to 21. So, what

I did was I put 49 and 59 together when I read them, even though 49 doesn't have helmet and garments and breastplates, that's 59.

So, if I had to summarize besides I Am Dumb, here's the summary. Jesus is a warrior king.

The description is the armor of the Lord Jesus. And Paul is thinking about Isaiah 11, where Isaiah 11 talks about things that we understand.

Righteousness shall be the belt of his waist, faithfulness the belt of his loins. Isaiah 49, he made my mouth like a sharp sword.

And then finally, Isaiah 59, where there is righteousness as a breastplate and helmet of salvation on his head, garments of vengeance for clothing.

That's what I'm after. Why does Paul use this armory imagery? Well, because he knows

God is the warrior who's going to deliver his people and wears the breastplate of righteousness and a helmet of salvation and has the sword of the

Spirit, etc. Therefore, when you think of fighting the enemy, well, then you have to think about Jesus.

And you could stand, therefore, confidently in Christ. Here's another way I could say it, since you're in Christ, act like it.

How many times in chapter one, in Christ, in Him, in Christ Jesus, in the Lord Jesus Christ, in Jesus.

And therefore, we stand. And now he's got those six pieces of armor that he talks about right from Isaiah, what class?

11 and then 49, 59 completed. Maybe I could put it this way.

Let me read you a passage from the New Testament and tell me if it sounds kind of like this. Do this knowing the time that it is already the hour for you to awaken from sleep.

For now salvation is nearer to us than when we believed. The night is almost gone and the day is near.

Therefore, let us lay aside the deeds of darkness and put on the armor of light.

Let us behave properly as in the day, not in carousing and drunkenness, not in sexual promiscuity and sensuality, not in strife and jealousy, but put on the

Lord Jesus Christ and make no provision in the flesh in regards to its lust.

Doesn't that sound like put on armor, put on the Lord Jesus Christ? That's exactly what it sounds like. And that is

Romans chapter what? 13, conflated with 49 and 59. Romans 13, verses 11, 12, 13, and 14.

Paul could have said it in Ephesians 4 this way. As a matter of fact, he did. He said that in reference to your former manner of life, you've laid aside the old self, which is being corrupted in accordance with the lust of the deceit and that you're being renewed and you've been renewed in the spirit of your mind and you put on the new self.

That's not the ESV, but that's the right way to think about it in terms of interpretive translation. My name is

Mike Ebenroth. This is No Compromise Radio. Spiritual warfare. We're not on our own. We can have confidence.

Why? Because we have Jesus, the divine warrior. And that's why our eyes regularly need to go away from self, go away from the problem, go away from Satan, go away from the temptation, go away from the trial, go away from the health concern, no job, can't afford this, that, and the other, and think of the

Lord Jesus. He's the warrior and he will make sure that Satan gets his ultimate due, not just what happened to him at the cross, but the ultimate throwing in the lake of fire.

And so you can be confident. The Lord is good. Isn't the Lord good? Aren't you glad to have such a mighty warrior like the Lord Jesus Christ?

No Compromise Radio with Pastor Mike Ebenroth is a production of Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston.

Bethlehem Bible Church is a Bible teaching church firmly committed to unleashing the life transforming power of God's word through verse by verse exposition of the sacred text.

Please come and join us. Our service times are Sunday morning at 1015 and in the evening at six. We're right on route 110 in West Boylston.

You can check us out online at bbchurch .org or by phone at 508 -835 -3400.