Are You Fit to Fight Temptation?
- Message Excerpt by
- Scripture: Ephesians 6:14–17 Topics: Bible Reading, Spiritual Warfare
Audio Transcript
Do you feel tonight fit and ready to take down the devil? Cosmic powers of darkness, spiritual host of weakness in heavenly places, rulers and powers, supernatural beings that if you were to meet them, you wouldn’t have a chance, not a chance, they are so powerful — are you ready? Can you take them out tonight when you go home? They will be there.
We’re going to see in chapter two of Ephesians: “The prince of the power of the air.” Got any air in your house? Got any air? They’re there. It says so. The Prince of the Authority of the Air, in your bedroom. That’s where the powers are. Your bedroom. Your kitchen. Your den, right around the TV especially thick. Or maybe on the couch especially thick where the clicker is. That’s where they thicken.
What are you going to do to stand? Well, don’t just go to the sword of the Spirit. Don’t just go there and say, “Oh, we have to have the sword ready to joog him.” Yes, you do. If you think about all of the armors, they’re all word. Aren’t they? More or less.
Belt of truth, that was obvious. You got have the belt of truth, otherwise your clothes just start falling off, then you’re going to be embarrassed and shamed when you try to give the testimony of Jesus, your clothes are falling off. Or you won’t be able to run. Maybe that’s more likely. Put the belt on, you can run: “gird up your loins” (1 Peter 1:13).
Having put on the breastplate of righteousness, do you know anything about what that means apart from the Bible? Put on righteousness? Put on righteousness, like a breastplate right here. You wouldn’t have a clue what that’s talking about without the Bible.
Or as shoes, the readiness of the gospel? That’s the Bible. In all circumstances, take up the shield of faith, faith in what? Promises in the Bible, with which you can extinguish all the flaming darts of the evil one, thank God. Because there’s so many and they’re so violent and so powerful, so take the helmet of salvation. We don’t know anything about salvation apart from the Bible and reading.
So you can see, you don’t have a chance against the devil without reading, and knowing how to put on the armor, because these things are not magic. Christianity is not a magic religion, like “Here, here’s the book. Arm me. Arm me. Arm me.” That’s magic. God did not come to you that way. Words, subjects, verbs, prepositions, nouns, grammar, syntax — power. No other way. No other way. So, it really matters that we figure out how to read.
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