Episode Transcript
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If you're able to remain standing,
please do and and let's give our attention
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to Ephesians chapter six. I'm here
we come to the last of Paulse of
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the longer exhortations in the book of
Ephesians, very important section, I'm when
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which he helps us understand greatly,
or more and in greater ways. I'm
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who we are in Christ, as
we have on life in him. This
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is Ephesians chapter six, versus ten
through thirteen. I'll read. Finally,
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be strong in the Lord and in
the strength of his might. Put on
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the whole armor of God that you
may be able to stand against the schemes
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of the devil, for we do
not wrestle against flesh and blood, but
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against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present
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darkness, against the spiritual forces of
evil in the heavenly places. Therefore,
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take up the whole armor of God
that you may be able to withstand in
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the evil day and, having done
all to stand firm, I'm in you
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may be seated well here, as
we come to this final and in some
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ways concluding exhortation in Paul's a letter, we have a very important passage and
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one that we've already been considering,
as you, I'm sure, are well
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aware of now, in our hymns
and text and various things we've been considering
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this evening. I want to begin
by reading to the hymn that will sing
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after the conclusion of the sermon.
A mighty fortresses are God. This is,
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of course, a famous hymn,
one of the most famous, written
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by Martin Luther, but based on
Psalm Forty six, which we read this
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morning. And this is a good
reminder, as I read this, how
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important it is when we sing to
pay attention to I'm not just the words,
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but also the punctuation. There are
little things and phrases that help you
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by paying attention to those tiny little
dots that help you to understand the meaning.
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So mighty fortresses are God. This
is two hundred forty four. A
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Mighty fortress is our God, a
bulwark never failing, our helper, he
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amid the flood of mortal ills prevailing
for still our ancient foe. Right,
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who is a talking about? There? was talking about Satan, our ancient
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foe doth seek to work US woe
his that's the opposite of blessing his craft
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and power are great. Right.
Remind remember how Paul Talks about cosmic powers.
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Over this present darkness. His craft
and power, great and armed with
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cruel hate. On Earth is not
his equal right. So here in this
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verse, verse, we are reminded
that we have a very powerful and strong
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enemy. But of course, at
the beginning we remember that a mighty fortress
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is our God. Now that leads
to the second verse. Point two.
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Did we, in our own strength
confide, if we did this, if
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we rested in our own strength,
are striving, would be losing. This
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is a war. In other words, you do not want to fight in
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your own strength, as Paul says. As Paul says in verse ten,
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finally, be strong in the Lord
and in the strength of his might.
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So did we, in our own
strength, confide our striving would be losing.
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We're not the right man on our
side, the man of God's own
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choosing. Who is it? Or
I'm sorry, Dost ask who that may
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be. Christ Jesus. It is
he lord Sabbath Oath his name. Now
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that doesn't mean Sabbath. Those are
two different words. This is a Hebrew
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through transliteration, meaning Lord of hosts, and the idea is when it says
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hosts, it means angels. Right. So this is and not just angels,
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like you know, little a Jesus
with naked bottoms, right, lord
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of hosts, like the mighty angelic
army that stands ready to do his bidding,
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this fiery, flaming servants of his. We sang earlier, holy,
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Holy, holy chair of them,
and Sarahim right. We're talking about that
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heavenly throne room described and places like
revelation and Isaiah, where we have this
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picture of God mighty and ruling on
his throne, surrounded by these amazing and
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powerful mighty creatures. That's what it
means. They're Lord Sabbath, oath his
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name. He's the Lord of armies, the Lord of hosts, from age
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to age the same, and he
must win the battle. Then we come
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back to Satan, verse three,
and though this world with Devil's filled should
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threaten to undo us, we will
not fear, for God Hath Willed his
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truth to triumph, triumph through us, the Prince of darkness, grim we
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tremble, not for him his rage, we can endure for low. In
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other words, are here's why his
doom is sure. Were that's why we're
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not scared. One little word shall
fell him. That's all it takes.
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So Martin Luther accurately describes, using
various phrases from the word of God,
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Satan and his powers, with all
their strength and all their might, write
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the world is filled with devils.
He is armed with cruel freight, with
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hate. His craft and power are
great, and yet one little word shall
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fell him. Now here's where the
well so verse, for it describes that
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word in the last verse. That
word knows the capital w. There above
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all earthly powers, no thanks to
them. Those are the fun commas.
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I was like there that word above
all earthly powers, no thanks to them.
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Abideth. The word abideth. The
word is strong, not because of
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governments or powers in this world.
The word abideth despite them. The spirit
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and the gifts are ours. How
answer through him who with US sideth.
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So, conclusion, let goods and
kindred go, even or this mortal life
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also, even our lives. Let
it go, the body. They may
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kill. God's truth abide is,
abideth still. His Kingdom is forever a
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mighty fortress. Is Our God right. This is is, as Martin Luther
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summarizes these things, based out of
Psalm Forty six and you we could pick
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other psalms and texts as well,
like we've read and heard tonight. Teaches
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us, for the word of God
teaches us that our God is strong and
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we need not fear. Now I
remember that the Ephesians, who are first
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receiving this letter, are not people
who might occasionally think about spiritual powers.
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Right in most of the history of
the world, spiritual forces or very present
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reality in people's minds. It's a
fairly modern and new thing that we don't
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think about this very much. Not
so for the Ephesians, who walked around
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with amulets, who had magic books, who regularly were concerned about this cosmic
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powers that were all around them,
what they were doing, how they were
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acting, and in this they were
not wrong. According to scripture, we
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do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against rulers, against the authorities,
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against the cosmic powers over this present
darkness. We wrestle against the spiritual
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forces of evil. In the heavenly
places there is darkness, which Paul tells
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and he doesn't tell the Ephesians,
Hey, you stop all that superstitious stuff.
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Of course they're a superstitious stuff,
which they should stop and did stop.
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But there is also a recognition that
this world is not just electrons pulsing
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or computers or cars or flesh and
blood. There is more to God's creation.
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When he created heaven and earth,
He created that which is invisible and
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that which is visible. He created
spiritual, immaterial things and he created material
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things that we can see and touch. They are both just as real.
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One is not less real than the
other, even though they are different.
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But over all of them, whether
they are invisible or invisible, whether they
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are high and powerful or low and
weak, God is ruler of them all.
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He is the one who created the
heavens and the earth, all of
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it. And so when Jesus comes
we have this great psalm or hymnic passage
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or poem, however you want to
put it, in Colossians, which already
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too now Colossians one, verse fifteen, about Jesus. He is the image
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of the invisible God, the firstborn
of all creation, for by him all
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things were created in heaven and on
Earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones
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or dominions, or rulers or authorities, all things were created through him and
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for him this means that Satan and
his cosmic powers of spiritual darkness are not.
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Jesus is rivals right. This is
not a sort of God's in the
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Pantheon kind of Duking it out among
one another. Now Jesus reigned supreme over
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all, no matter how great forces
in the world that we can see or
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in the spiritual word that we cannot, doesn't matter. Jesus is strong over
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it all. For Seventeen and he
has before all things, and in him
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all things hold together. He is
the head of the body the church.
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He is the beginning, the firstborn
from the dead that in everything he might
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be pre eminent, for in him
well, the fullness of God was pleased
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to dwell and through him to reconcile
to himself all things, whether on earth
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or in heaven, making peace by
the blood of his cross. That's how
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this one is going to conquer.
That's how all things, both visible and
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invisible, in heaven and earth,
are going to be reconciled. Is through
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him and through, not through and
through, first and foremost his work on
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the cross. It's important to read
on just a few more verses here in
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Colossians one. I'm in Verse Twenty
One now, and you who were once
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alienated and hostile and mind doing evil
deeds, he has now reconciled in the
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body of his flesh by his death, in order to present you holy and
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blameless and above reproach before him.
If you've been following along and effusions,
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hopefully that reminds you of effusions five, in the language of the bride of
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Christ, and how he is washed
US clean and presented us before him.
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Twenty three, if you indeed you
continue in the faith, stable and steadfast,
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not shifting from the hope of the
Gospel that you heard, which have
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been proclaimed in all creation under heaven, of which I, Paul, became
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a minister. In and before this
passage, in verse thirteen, we are
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reminded that Jesus has delivered us from
the domain of darkness. He has transferred
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us to the Kingdom of his beloved
son, in whom we have redemption,
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the forgiveness of sins. And we
could go on reading from Colossians and other
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other letters as well. But back
to Ephesians. We have then, here
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this reminder, as we've been having
throughout Ephesians and throughout the rest of scripture,
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that in Christ we have this victory, this reconciliation that happens where we
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are no longer enslave to the dominion
of darkness, this Present Evil Age,
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these powers, your father, the
devil, as it is also put,
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remember how Paul puts it earlier,
in effusions, by nature, you were
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children of Wrath. No more.
Now we are citizens so the Kingdom of
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God. Now we belong to Christ, and he rules over us, and
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that's why, in light of all
of this and light of this work,
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God has done, a work that
began from before the beginning. He then
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says Effusian six. Finally, then, be strong in the Lord Right,
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be stable, be steadfast, like
Paul says in Colossians, and in the
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strength of his might, put on
the whole armor of God, that you
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may be able to stand right,
stand against the schemes of the devil,
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for we do not wrestle against flesh
and blood. This is a reminder to
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us, beloved, that without the
Lord we are powerless, without standing in
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his armor, in his strength,
we are exposed. We are captives of
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the enemy. I wonder if you've
ever been in a situation where you felt
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weak and helpless, unable to do
something that was important. Maybe your life
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wasn't at risk, or maybe it
was. Maybe it was a situation at
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work, maybe it was a situation
in a relationship. We are all from
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some time. At some time or
another, we find ourselves in these places,
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really can't do anything, we really
need to, and then someone steps
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in and advocates for us. A
nurse, lawyer, friend, they stand
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in and we say now I've got
someone fighting for me, I'm going to
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be okay. Right, that's what's
going on here. What he's saying is
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that when we are what what this
passage reminds us of, is that without
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him, we are fighting against an
extremely powerful enemy and we will fall.
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We have fallen. We already were
fallen before we were saved. But when
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Jesus fights for us, when we
stand in his strength, the game changes.
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It's not a game, the war, the battle, the place in
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which we stand, the one in
which we stand changes. In fact,
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no longer are we weak and exposed, but, as those who were formally
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members of the dominion of darkness,
we weren't just sort of their pitiless,
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sort of or pitiful saying help me
right, we were there warring against God.
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Right, we were there warring against
him and all the things that are
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lovely and true. We were on
the wrong side, not just captives,
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we were enslaved by nature to our
sin, and Jesus rescued from us from
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that. So that's why Paul says
be strong in the Lord. With the
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Lord we are as strong as he
is when we put on the armor he
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wears. This is the right time
for me to remind you about Isaiah fifty
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nine. Isaia Fifty Nine, sixteen
through twenty seven, talks about this divine
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warrior who's going to come into the
world and rescue God's people. And this
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passage again Isaia fifty nine, we
read not sixteen through two seven, sixteen
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through seventeen. We read another sort
of armor of God passage, but here
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we recognize that the armor of God
is the one that God himself is wearing.
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So we read this. He saw
that there was no man and wondered
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that there was no one to intercede. Then his own arm brought him salvation
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and his righteousness upheld him. He
put on righteousness as a breastplate and as
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a helmet of salvation on his head. He put on garments of vengeance for
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clothing and wrapped himself in zeal as
a cloak. If I could put it
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in very colloquial that's all right.
Would say that even the terms is not
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someone you want to mess with.
Right. These pictures are meant to terrify
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the Lord's enemies, right, someone
this, this Lord, that God himself,
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wrapping himself in zeal as a cloak. or read any of the passages
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of judgment or like the passage we
read in in a psalm seven earlier,
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when the Lord Pictures Himself and tells
us who he is in his judgment,
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his arrows being fiery shafts, never
missing and all their rest. It is
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meant to terrify the dominion of darkness, Those Who are not upright, those
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who are evil. The Lord promises
that in the Messiah He will come as
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this divine warrior, and he does, but he accomplishes that great battle on
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the Cross. This paradox of paradoxes. Write. This one who is infinitely
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strong, who comes to defeat death
itself, conquerson forever, is hanging on
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a cross, is suffering and dying
at the hands of the government, at
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the hands of religious leaders and rulers
and authorities. It would seem as though
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always lost. I won't take you
there now, but if you go back
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to Colossians, you'll read that it
was on the cross that he put them
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all to open shame. The Lord
did not lose, he won, because
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he did not die for himself.
He was not sort of the great divine
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warrior who failed in his task.
He was the great divine warrior who is
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also a sacrifice for our sin so
that he could save us all. That's
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why, in Romans thirteen eleven through
fourteen, Paul talks about putting on the
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armor of light, or, to
put it another way, putting on Christ
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himself. I'll read Romans thirteen eleven. Besides this, you know the time
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that the hour has come for you
to wake from sleep, for salvation is
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nearer to us now than when we
first believed. The night is far gone,
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the day is at hand, Paul
says to the Roman church, there
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to us as well. So then, let us cast off the works of
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darkness and put on the armor of
light. Let us walk properly as in
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the daytime, not an orgies and
drunkenness, not in sexual immorality and sensuality,
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not in quarreling and jealousy, but
put on the Lord Jesus Christ and
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make no provision for the flesh to
gratify its desires. He's talking about the
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same thing here. To put on
armor of God, then, is to
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put on Jesus Christ himself. It's
to stand, as he says, in
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his strength, in him as the
divine warrior who has himself put on righteousness.
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It's not your righteousness that is going
to counteract the flaming darts of the
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evil one, it's his. It's
his. will spend some more time in
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the coming weeks looking at various aspects
of this armor, and what you'll find
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out is it's not merely a defensive
armor, but it has offensive, in
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the words attacking, elements as well. And as we go through that as
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well, I'm you will also come
to see that there's this great reminder that
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as we stand in Christ as citizens
of this Kingdom of light, this heavenly
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kingdom, those wearing the armor of
light is we stand in the grace of
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God. As we put on Jesus
Christ, we stand in a salvation that
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is complete. There's no sort of
Achilles heel, something that the Ephesians right
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would have been very aware of,
homer being just the language of the day,
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something that was very they're very sensitive
to this language of battles and war
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and this armor of God. There's
no missing peace, there's no weak point,
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because it's Jesus who died on the
cross, accomplishing a perfect sacrifice of
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sins forever, and then rose from
the dead. God has not forgotten anything,
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and the promise, then, is, though, that the death though
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the devil may be cunning and crafty, he is an opponent that can and
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has been beaten. You need not
fear him, though this world, with
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Devil's fear old should threaten to undo
us. We will not fear, for
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God has willed his truth to triumph. Try Why can't I say it?
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Truth to triumph through us, for
we do not wrestle against flesh and blood,
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but against rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this
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present darkness, against the spiritual forces
in the heavenly places. Take on the
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whole armor of God, he says
in verse the Thirteen, and you may
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be able, will be able to
withstand in the evil day. We stand
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firm in God, despite hat to
the struggle against the powers that God speaks
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of, because one there's nowhere else
to stand too. He's offered himself to
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us in this way. And three, the battle is intense, and I'll
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finish with this point. Notice that, Paul, the word he uses in
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verse twelve is wrestle. That's a
good translation. There on, some translates
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and translations. It's translated struggle,
not a bad word, but he does
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mean in particular of wrestle, which
is perhaps an odd thing. You know,
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if you imagine wrestling with armor,
it would be sort of difficult to
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do, and talk to Aaron more
about that. I guess they're various reasons
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why I think he puts it that
way. M I won't get into all
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of them now, but I do
want to point out that he uses this
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very specific word, a word that
indicates close hand to hand combat. Right.
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This is not, you know,
sort of lobbying of those things called
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catapults and rocks or shooting arrows at
a distance. This is grappling, right
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wrestling, touching, writhing, and
that's where all this language, I think
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it happens three different times, of
standing, firm takes comes up here.
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Right the the goal in wrestling is
not to be pinned right too, but
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to remain strong and even upright,
ideally to be strong against the powers that
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happen or the powers that are this
battle that we face with these cosmic powers
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in this present darkness is not any
easy one. It's not an easy one.
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We are warned of this. We
are told to be aware of this
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fact. Peter Says Satan prowls around
like a roaring lion seeking some to devour.
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You can't take passages like that and
say well, you want them.
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These are warnings. Right, be
aware of them, but don't be scared,
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be strong. Ignoring the reality of
this battle, to ignore the the
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closeness of it, is to ignore
a warning and to put yourself in danger.
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But to ignore the reality of the
Cross and the victory that Christ is
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one is also to put yourself in
grave danger, because that is the only
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hope in which we stand. We
stand firm, we stand strong in the
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strength of the Lord, in the
strength of his might. So get to
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know him, put your faith in
him, put on the whole armor of
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God and you will be saved.
Let's pray
