Father, we thank you for that little child
so long ago.
We thank you that Mary said, Be it
unto me thy hand's servant, according to your
word.
We thank you for Joseph, who was willing
to continue with Mary, because at your word
you told him what was happening.
We thank you that Jesus lived a sinless
life, and that he died a sinner's death,
and yet he rose from that grave.
Oh, what a gift that Christmas brings, that
our soul can be cleansed and sin no
longer clings.
Oh, Lord, wash us white as snow.
Let your Spirit flow through us today, in
Jesus' name.
Amen.
Today we are beginning a series on the
war.
And it's not the war that you might
be thinking of, although I'm not sure what
war you are thinking of right now.
Maybe later you can tell me.
Maybe it's a national war, international war, or
just the one in your home.
I don't know, but we're going to talk
about the war today.
And before I begin, I want to refer
to a couple of newspaper articles that I
have referenced in the last few weeks.
And I'll tell you already that this is
an unusual type of sermon for me.
I usually just teach through the scripture, chapter
by chapter.
But we're going to do a topical study
on warfare.
And to illustrate the point, I read about
this airliner that was flying from Dubai in
the United Arab Emirates, I believe to New
Delhi or to a city in India.
It was Indian Airlines.
And the pilot needed somewhere along the journey
to leave the cockpit to tend to something.
And as he was out, the co-pilot,
a young fellow with not a lot of
training, only 25 years old, was left in
charge.
And as he was piloting the plane, he
decided that his seat wasn't just right.
And so I don't know what it's like
on an airline.
I'm not sure.
Maybe like on my Ford pickup, I just
reached down and pull up a little lever
and, you know, kind of scooched the seat
forward.
I'm not sure how it happened.
But when he did this, he bumped the
control column and sent the airliner into a
steep dive, the kind of dive that if
you don't recover from it quickly, you just
don't recover.
There's so many things that can go wrong.
And one of them is, is the velocity
increases as you go into the dive and
can cause the airplane to break up.
It's just not meant to go that fast.
And so the pilot makes his way back
up to the cockpit, punches his code in
and gets in there, has to get the
co-pilot to get his hands off the
controls.
He gets into his seat and he uses
his training to take all the steps necessary
to get the plane back to flying level
and then take it back up to the
normal altitude.
And everyone on board was probably scared to
death, but they were all alive.
And the reason that that airplane was saved
that day.
Well, I'm sure someone was praying, you know,
people start praying when this happens, right?
Loudly.
My wife prays loudly when things like this
happen.
But also that pilot had gone through training.
The pilot had been trained what to do
when something like this happens.
When the airplane goes into a dive, here's
all the steps that you take to get
the airplane back into the normal flying mode.
And then another incident that happened recently, it
was while Barb and I were in India
after we had flown about 13,000 hours
to get over there.
It was only 30, it just seemed like
13,000.
And we've landed.
And then we hear like the next day
that this big airliner from Australia had had
an engine completely explode and had taken out
some of the avionics and so forth.
And so the pilots were able to land
the plane.
And that's what we read the first day.
And then about a week later, I was
reading that there were five senior pilots in
the cockpit when that happened.
The reason was, is the senior pilot was
being evaluated, evaluated by another senior pilot who
was being evaluated by yet a third senior
pilot.
And the copilot had been a senior pilot.
He just happened to pull the card to
fly that day.
And then somehow there was another one in
there.
And they have 38 warning lights come on
all at once when that engine exploded, each
one of which had to be dealt with
and they need to be dealt with in
the proper order.
And I don't understand all these things, although
airplanes fascinate me.
But because there were five pilots on board,
each one was able to take the task
at hand and in just a couple of
minutes deal with each one of the warning
lights the best they could and then get
the plane to safety and not one person
was lost because of that.
And once again, the reason being, I'm sure
people were praying, but also training, training times
five, five senior pilots had knew what to
do.
Training got that airplane on the ground.
And then there's an incident where poor training,
improper training caused massive failure, where over 3000
people died when hijackers took over airplanes and
began to fly them into buildings.
And the training that the crew had on
those airplanes was if a hijacker takes over,
you just deal with it passively.
You don't aggregate things, aggravate things.
You just go along with them until you
can negotiate a settlement.
There was no negotiation.
The planes flew into buildings.
People died.
It was a horrendous thing.
Only one of the airplanes did the passengers
not follow the training or the script, and
they were able to crash the plane and
keep it from doing whatever it was planned
to do.
Some say the White House.
Now, in that particular case, the training was
incorrect.
They followed incorrect training and therefore thousands upon
thousands of people died.
I can't honestly say that the outcome would
have been any different, but possibly it would
have and possibly even history would be different
today if they had the kind of training
that they follow now, which is not passive.
They get quite aggressive if somebody threatens to
blow up an airplane these days.
There are people all over this and they
don't give in so quickly to someone who's
threatening to do something on an airplane.
Now, because of that event, as you may
remember, our nation is at war.
It doesn't exactly feel like war, does it?
Unless you're flying and you go through TSA
and they do a pretty aggressive pat down
or something like that.
And I don't know if you've read the
horrendous stories.
On our trip, I only had one pat
down that was unnerving, and that was in
Germany coming on on the way home.
Well, I won't describe it.
It just was like, oh, my gosh, I'm
not sure I want to fly anymore.
But this describes that we're a nation and
in a sense we're a world at war
with terrorism and we're supposed to be vigilant,
right?
One of the things I think as Christians,
just like as we as Americans can easily
forget we're at war unless we hear about
it, unless maybe we're in the military or
we have family military that are tuned in
to what's going on, because our lives are
so normal, you know, we get up, we
go to work, if we still have a
job, we come home, we go to the
grocery store, we drive around, we go to
entertainment, we come to church, whatever, and life
just goes on.
And it's so easy for us to forget
that we're at war.
Before I was born, our nation was in
a war to survive.
It was called World War II.
And the entire nation got involved in that
war, including collecting metal to build ships and
all kinds of things.
There was rationing.
And there wasn't a day that went by
that our nation wasn't reminded that we were
at war and we lost hundreds of thousands
of soldiers, young men, part of an entire
generation during that time.
Now, I'm not here at all to debate
the politics of war.
I'm here to talk about the spiritual warfare
that we as Christians are involved with.
But interestingly enough, most of us have no
awareness of this warfare.
Most of us live as though it's not
real, as though it's not true, as though
it's irrelevant to us.
And so we just go on with our
life as though it doesn't matter.
I heard one fellow say quite a number
of years ago that most Christians live as
though they are atheists.
I mean, they profess a belief in God,
but they live their lives as though God
isn't real, as though God doesn't exist.
And if that's true in any degree whatsoever
in anyone's life, then you become unaware of
the spiritual warfare going on around us and
the strategies necessary to have victory in spiritual
warfare.
And so today, as we begin a series
on spiritual warfare, we're going to look at
the battle within, the battle within.
I won't be going verse by verse, but
we'll be reading a number of scriptures throughout
the Bible.
We'll have them on display, at least most
of them.
And we begin with the nature of the
spiritual battle within, which starts with the battle
for the soul.
Now, most of you would not argue with
me that we are made up of a
physical body and we also have a soul
or a spirit.
And in the Bible, by and large, it
starts off arguing the point or presenting the
idea that we're simply body and soul.
And you can read in Proverbs 11, verse
17, the merciful man does good for his
own soul, but he who is cruel troubles
his own flesh.
And so you can do good for your
soul or you can trouble your flesh.
What is the soul, by the way?
I think the best way to describe the
soul is it's your personality.
It's your person.
Have you ever considered oftentimes that your personality
can seem to project beyond yourself?
And I'm not talking about some weird spiritual
mysticism.
It's just that some people have a personality
that seems bigger than themselves.
They walk into a room, the whole room
changes somehow because they walk in.
The soul, I believe, is that part of
your person that not only is now, but
will continue on after this body is long
finished.
And so we have a soul, we have
a body.
Psalm 31, 9.
Have mercy on me, O Lord, for I
am in trouble.
My eye wastes away with grief.
Yes, my soul and my body.
Matthew 10, 28.
Jesus speaking and do not fear those who
kill the body, but cannot kill the soul,
but rather fear him, that is God, who
is able to destroy both soul and body
in hell.
And so the soul, that personality or personal
part of us, continues beyond this life.
And then as we're considering, and this again
is talking of the believer's life and being
at war, we have to understand who our
enemy is.
Who is our enemy?
The enemy is the one who hates our
soul.
1 Peter 5, 8 and 9, Peter warns
us to be sober, be vigilant.
Now, sober there means more than not being
drunk.
It means just to have a sober, real
look at life.
Be sober, be vigilant, because your adversary, the
devil, walks about like a roaring lion.
By the way, those two words fit very
well with being on guard duty.
You're supposed to pay attention and you're supposed
to notice everything and take note of everything.
Be sober, be vigilant because your adversary, the
devil, walks about like a roaring lion seeking
whom he may devour.
Now that means he's looking for the weak
one.
He's looking for the one who doesn't stay
with the rest of them.
He's looking for the one who's wounded and
straggling and off by him or herself.
And that's the one.
The devil is not so interested in going
after the ones that are right in the
middle of things.
He's after the straggler.
It says here in the next verse, resist
him steadfast in the faith.
How do you resist the devil?
Do you do it in your own strength
in the flesh?
No, you do this steadfast in the faith.
You resist him in the faith, knowing that
the same sufferings are experienced by your brotherhood
in the world.
In other words, it's not surprising that as
a believer, that the enemy is after us
and he wants to cause us harm and
he wants to disable us so that we're
no longer fit for battle.
One of the things, the strategies that the
army has been experimenting with, or one of
the, I guess the military, is some sort
of a device that causes the soldiers, the
enemy soldiers, to become passive.
So the soldiers are out there and they
want to kill you, you know, if they're,
if they're the enemy and they got their
weapons or their tanks or whatever it is
they've got.
And with this device, if it's deployed, it
causes them to just kind of not care
about the war anymore.
In fact, they kind of see you as
a friend and, and they're not interested in
shooting you.
Somebody would say, well, let's turn that on
the whole world and stop all wars.
Interesting thought.
But you know what?
The devil has been using that same tactic
ever since the garden.
And his tactic is to get us distracted
so that we're no longer useful and so
that we're disabled and we're no longer a
threat to him.
And there's a number of ways that he
does that.
And we need to understand that there is
one who hates our soul and that we
need to understand his strategies in spiritual warfare.
And then there's the one who loves our
soul.
Do you know who that is?
God loves our soul.
Say this with me.
For God so loved the world that he
gave his only son that whoever believes in
him should not perish, but have everlasting life.
For God so loved.
Isn't that a wonderful verse for God did
not send his son into the world to
condemn the world, but that the world through
him might be saved.
There is the enemy of our soul.
It started in the garden of Eden when
he came to the woman and he beguiled
her to eat of the forbidden fruit and
to disobey God.
And that one sin brought separation between the
soul and spirit of man.
And between God, that fellowship was broken and
that is reconciled as we believe and put
our faith in God through his son, Jesus
Christ.
That reconciliation happens within our heart as we
do that.
And God so loved that he sent his
only son for our soul, for your soul.
When I was a little boy and it
was either Sunday school or vacation Bible school,
I grew up in a pastor's home.
So I was in meetings.
I even had to go to the ladies
meeting.
I was an honorary WCTU member.
And I think at one point I was
even a mission that that was like the
girls Boy Scouts or thing because I had
nowhere to go and I was being babysat.
So here I am.
You know, we are missing that.
And so I was always learning about the
Lord.
And I remember oftentimes the teacher would do
this when they would teach us that verse.
They would say, put your name in there
for God so loved Ron that he gave
his only son, that if Ron would believe
Ron would not perish, but Ron would have
everlasting life.
I can remember that from early in my
childhood, and I have no doubt that if
I believe that I have everlasting life, you
see, there is an enemy who hates my
soul, but there is God who loves my
soul and wants to redeem and wants to
save it.
But once I have given my life to
the Lord, it doesn't mean that the battle
is over.
There's two other verses that I really like
to deal with their salvation.
Psalm 119, verse 81.
My soul faints for your salvation, but I
hope in your word being in the word
is such an important part of our walk
with God.
And then I just love that the poetry,
this verse, Isaiah 61, 10.
I will greatly rejoice in the Lord.
My soul shall be joyful in my God
for he has clothed me with the garments
of salvation.
Just think about that for a moment.
He has clothed me with the garments of
salvation.
Now, those of you who enjoy clothes shopping,
you know, clothes, you go into the store,
you pick out some things, you go into
the little room, you close the door, you
try it on, you look in the mirror.
If you have friends, and this is more
of a girl thing, but if you have
friends, you have your friends, you open the
door and they go.
And if you're a guy, you call your
wife over, say, what do you think?
No, that's not you.
Take that off.
You know, should I go back in there
first?
Yeah, I go back in there first.
You know, so anyway, you love to go
clothes shopping and and imagine that God has
prepared a wardrobe for you.
And it's beautiful.
And it matches all your colors.
He has clothed me with the garments of
salvation.
He has covered me with the robe of
righteousness.
I mean, I love it when clothes fit
well and look good.
And these clothes are going to fit well
and look good because this is what he's
done for me.
And he describes it even more as a
bridegroom decks himself out with ornaments.
Now, you know, here it's the funny looking
tux with ruffles that most bride, you know,
most grooms put on when they go to
a wedding.
But in India, where we just came, the
grooms are magnificently arrayed with gold embroidered throughout
their their gown that they wear.
And they have a turban with jewels in
it.
And if you think he's amazing to look
at, you should see the bride because she
is really amazing.
She she she looks like a gift ready
to be unwrapped.
She's amazing.
And so here's how he describes this robe
that he puts on us.
He's covered me with a robe of righteousness
as a bridegroom decks himself out with ornaments
and as a bride adorns yourself with jewels.
In other words, that's how much God loves
you.
The enemy is after your soul to destroy
you, to kill you, but God loves you
so much that he wants to cover you
with salvation.
He wants to give you a robe of
righteousness.
He wants to deck you out with ornaments.
He wants to adorn you with jewels.
That's how much he loves you.
And we know that Christ died for us
in Romans chapter five, verse six, when we
were still without strength in due time, Christ
died for the ungodly.
And in Romans 14, verse seven, for none
of us lives to himself and no one
dies to himself, or if we live, we
live to the Lord.
And if we die, we die to the
Lord.
Therefore, whether we live or die, we are
the Lord's.
For to this end, Christ died and rose
and lived again, that he might be Lord
of both the dead and the living.
We have we have died with Christ, which
really brings us to the thrust of what
I want to talk about in this.
That's this battle that's within us.
And the Bible describes this as the old
man versus the new man.
Now, when he's talking about the old man,
he's not talking about the old guy who
lives down the street.
It's interesting that as time is going on
for some of our neighbors, I'm now the
old guy that lives down the street.
There's so much younger than me.
For the longest time, I've always known the
old guy that lived down the street.
But that's not what we're talking about.
We're talking about the inner man and the
old you, your old soul, your old person
and the new you.
When you come to Christ, there's a change
that begins to take place as you surrender
your life to the Lord.
We begin a new life.
We read in Romans chapter six, for if
we have been united together in the likeness
of his death, certainly we also shall be
in the likeness of his resurrection, knowing that
our old man was crucified with him.
And when you come and give your life
to the Lord, it's as though you are
crucified, your old self, your old person, the
old you.
Make it personal.
The old Ron, the old Jim, the old
Bob, crucified with Christ and the body of
sin that the body sin might be done
away with it.
We should no longer be slaves to sin.
What is the purpose of the crucifixion of
our identifying ourselves with Christ?
It's so that we are no longer slaves
to sin.
Now, think back to before you were a
believer and how that sin just had you
by the throat and led you around by
the nose.
And even when you didn't want to do
it anymore, you found yourself doing that.
But then when you come to Christ and
you crucify the old man and sin is
done away with, you're no longer a slave
to it, for he who has died is
free from sin.
That's God's plan.
And then in Colossians three, verse eight.
Now, you yourselves are to put off all
these.
Who is supposed to do this here in
this verse?
You yourselves.
This isn't something somebody does for you.
You put these things off.
Anger, wrath, malice, blasphemy.
Starting with anger.
We live in such an angry world.
And it's interesting how many people have anger
issues.
We as a society maybe have given up
on doing away with anger.
And so we're learning to manage anger.
You can actually take anger management classes so
that you can channel your anger in constructive
ways.
But what does the Bible say we're supposed
to do with it?
Put it off.
It's interesting that the Greek word there that's
translated put off here in the scripture actually
means to disrobe.
So remember the changing room, you're there buying
the new clothes.
You have to take off the old clothes
to put on the new clothes.
And it's the same way you take off
anger.
Now, a lot of people, when they come
to Christ, disguise anger.
They put lights, bows, bulbs, a little star
on top and try to make it look
good.
But it's always there.
And you know, you might be able to
go the longest time without anger even being
exposed.
But somebody somewhere is going to come along
and they're going to push that button.
Anybody able to push your button like that?
And anger comes rolling out of you like
a, I don't know, like a volcano.
Last service, somewhere along here, when I was
talking about putting off anger, we developed a
hum in our sound system.
There's a lot that I can deal with
as a speaker.
I can put up with all kinds of
interruptions and it doesn't throw me.
I can't deal with hums.
And part of the reason is I've been
a sound man since I was 12 and
I'm compelled to deal with it.
And so it really interrupted the flow of
things.
We were able to put it back together
and the Lord blessed it anyway.
But I had immediately a lesson.
Am I going to be angry and wrathful
and show malice about this or curse?
Well, the Lord put me to the test
right on the spot in front of everybody.
Put off anger, wrath, malice, and blasphemy.
One thing leads to the other by the
way, and then filthy language out of your
mouth.
Do not lie to one another since you
have put off the old man with his
deeds and have put on the new man
who has renewed in knowledge, according to the
image of him who created him.
And so in the one case put off,
that means to disrobe of the old man,
these old ways, anger, wrath, malice, malice, by
the way, means the intention to do harm
to somebody else.
Put that off and then put on the
new man.
And then in second Corinthians 5, 17, if
anyone is in Christ, he's a new creation.
Old things have passed away.
Behold, all things have become new.
If you're in Christ, if you're in Christ,
if you're in Christ, you're a new creation.
If you find that you're not in Christ,
you'll find that the old man has resurrected
himself in your life.
Sin has resurrected itself in your life.
And you're a slave again to that which
Christ died to set you free from.
How did it happen?
It's because instead of leaving the old man
crucified on that cross, you began to dress
his wounds and you began to give him
water and food and nourish him until he
came back to life again.
And the old man will always lead you
back to slavery and back to sin.
So put off the old man, old things
are passed away.
Now, I would like to describe three voices
to you that almost all of us deal
with, although maybe not everyone is aware that
we deal with those.
The first one I would describe as the
inner voice, and that is sort of like
when your personality talks to you.
And then also there is the voice of
the Lord that might be speaking to you.
And there's also the enemy's voice who also
might be speaking to you.
And you might be at this point thinking
in your mind, and you can hear it
clearly, this guy is whacked.
But the very fact that you're thinking that
in your mind means that I'm right.
At least one of those voices is talking
to you.
Now, the inner voice, the inner voice can
be loud.
I remember one time the inner voice was,
I was having some sort of an argument,
I think with myself about something, I don't
know.
And I was afraid that everybody around me
could hear it because it was so loud.
And the inner voice is that which, well,
I think pulls you aside and distracts you
the easiest.
It's your own inner voice, more so even
than the voice of the enemy.
It's your own inner voice that can cause
you to stumble and be distracted and become
useless as a believer, more so than anything
else.
And it's tied very much with these things
we're supposed to put off back there in
Colossians chapter three, anger being the biggest one.
And so one of those things that I
described with the inner voice, and this is
one I finally recognized about two years ago.
I mean, you'd think that I would have
picked it up sooner, but I recognized that
I have these phantom arguments with people that
I'm unhappy with and I'm angry with people
that done me wrong, you know.
And so I'll be driving or sitting or
watching TV.
I even had one time where I was
preaching while I'm having an angry voice argument
with somebody, these phantom fights.
And I'm so clever in these phantom fights
as I'm arguing with my enemy, whoever it
might be.
I say the most clever things and they
just kind of sit there and they have
nothing to say because my enemies in my
mind, I just make them stupid so they
can't say anything.
And this goes on and on and on.
And you know what?
If that's you, if you're filled with anger
and wrath and malice, you're continually going to
be having an argument with somebody in your
head.
And this will be your way of life.
In fact, you'll find it really hard to
turn that voice off so that you can
go to sleep because it's just always there
with you and you've grown accustomed to listening
to it and arguing with it.
And it's so much a part of you
that you would feel lost without it.
That's the inner voice.
And one of the problems with the inner
voice is it's supposed to be hooked to
our conscience.
And so if we're about to do something
wrong, it says, don't do that.
Everybody is born with a conscience, I think.
But over time, as we keep ignoring the
conscience, we train the inner voice to begin
to say what we want to hear.
And so then we convince ourselves, well, I
can only be happy if I do this.
My happiness lies in taking these actions, which
I know is wrong for most people, and
ordinarily I would even think this is wrong
for me, but you know, my happiness is
at stake here, and so I've got to
do it.
And so your inner voice convinces you, you
know.
And that sort of thing happens without the
enemy doing anything.
He's not there at all.
It's just you and your little voice and
your seared conscience leading you away from God.
That's one voice, the inner voice.
And then there is the Lord's voice.
In John chapter 10, verse 26.
But you do not believe because you are
not my sheep, as I said to you.
Remember, I said, if you are in Christ,
if you really belong to the Lord and
you're his sheep, you'll hear his voice.
The next part of the verse, next sentence.
My sheep hear my voice and I know
them and they follow me.
And I give them eternal life and they
shall never perish, neither shall anyone snatch them
out of my hand.
And so the sheep, those who belong to
Christ, know his voice.
Now, let's see what the voice of Christ
is like or the voice of God is
like.
We find Elijah encountering God and hearing from
God.
And somehow God says to him, go out,
stand on the mountain before the Lord.
And behold, the Lord passed by in a
great and strong wind, tore into the mountains
and broke the rocks and pieces before the
Lord.
But the Lord was not in the wind.
And after the wind, an earthquake.
But the Lord was not in the earthquake.
And after the earthquake, a fire.
But the Lord was not in the fire.
And after the fire, a still, small voice.
What is the voice of the Lord?
It's a still, small voice.
And, you know, sometimes the voice of the
Lord can sound so much like your little
inner voice that it takes a tuned ear
to know the difference.
But here's one of the ways that you
can tell the difference.
The Lord will never encourage you to do
wrong.
The Lord will never disagree with his word.
If you find yourself arguing with the word
of God, you read something.
Well, I don't agree with that.
Well, that's not the Lord's voice in you.
That is either your voice or the enemy's
voice, because whenever you find yourself disagreeing with
the word of God, then you're in rebellion
against God.
And you're either listening to your own inner
voice and you're a rebel and you need
to repent if you are, or you're listening
to the devil and you become a slave
to his voice and you still need to
repent if that's true.
But you're not hearing from the Lord.
If it's the still, small voice of the
Lord, he's not going to go against his
word.
He's not going to tell you to do
something that's wrong, that's immoral, that's against the
law.
He's going to instruct you in the ways
of righteousness.
And most often, here's how the Lord speaks
to you when you read his word.
Now, I'm going to speak parenthetically.
We're going to put the little parentheses up
here and I'm going to go off on
a short rant.
This might hurt.
Brace yourselves.
In our modern times, so many Christians do
not have a devotional life.
And what do I mean by that?
That's where you find a time, sometime during
the day, where you are with the Lord
and you're opening the word and you're reading
it and you're praying and you're talking to
him.
And so, his word, he's speaking to you.
Your voice, you're praying and talking to him.
And then among Christians who do have a
devotional life, there are so many who substitute
the word of God and prayer for devotional
books like Our Daily Bread, John Corson's devotional,
Chuck Smith, Chuck Missler, Chuck Swindoll and all
the other Chucks.
And you know, these guys write great stuff,
most of them anyway.
I really trust Chuck Smith and I trust
mostly Chuck Swindoll.
But I have to tell you this, that
too many times when you read someone's devotional,
they're not actually telling you what the word
of God says.
When they read that, it made them think
of something.
And so, they write about the something they
think about.
And so, you read that and you like
it because they're a good writer.
And you say, I think that's great.
And so, you go away with the impression
that that verse that they just quoted or
put in their little devotional was about what
they had just written.
And the fact is, it had nothing to
do with it.
It was just something that they thought of.
And so, they wrote something down to encourage
you.
Now, I think devotionals are great because I
think they can be very encouraging as long
as you're not using them as a study
tool.
Because the best kind of devotions is when
you're with the word of God and you're
just soaking it in.
And you're just reading it over and over
again.
And you're pulling it into your mind with
the deliberate idea that throughout the day you
want to think about what you just read.
So, if you're a brilliant person who can
read 40 verses, memorize them throughout the day,
read them in your mind and meditate on
them, go ahead and do the 40 verses.
If you're like me, try one verse or
two.
Pull that into your mind and meditate on
it.
Find what you want to be thinking about
that day and think about it all day
long.
Get into the word of God and have
a life of prayer.
Now, end of parenthesis.
We have our inner voice, we have the
voice of the Lord and then we have
the enemy's voice and I would say that
I would call this the inner voice versus
the enemy's voice.
We might even say the inner voice and
the voice of the Lord versus the enemy's
voice.
Now, here's what the enemy is after.
He's after your soul.
He's seeking whom he may devour, right?
That's what he wants to do.
And so the enemy is there to resist
us when our inner voice wants to do
what's right.
Or when the Lord is speaking to us
to do what's right.
I describe this oftentimes when we're doing when
I'm giving opportunity for someone to receive Christ.
I'll say, look if there's something happening in
your soul or your spirit right now that's
saying yes, yes, yes, I want to respond.
That's the Lord.
Make sure that you respond to it.
But if there's something happening with you that's
angry and says no, no, no, then that's
the voice of the enemy and he's trying
to keep you from responding to what God
wants to do in your life right now.
Now, that's really what the devil's about.
He stirs anger and disappointment and bitterness.
Or he'll cause you to think about something
so bizarre right at the most inopportune time
that totally takes your mind away from what
you need to be doing at that very
moment and thinking about.
And he is trying to destroy your soul.
He's trying to devour you.
And if you've ever seen it yourself, I
grew up in Wyoming.
I've seen a few occasions where coyotes or
wolves were stalking animals.
And I've seen how that, especially if they're
working in packs, how that they'll work together
to get, you know, one of the animals
off by themselves.
And if they can do that, then they
go attack that animal and take it out.
And that's really the strategy of the enemy
is one by one to cut us out
of the flock and to attack us and
to destroy us.
And one of the strategies of the enemy
is to get into our mind and to
stir up anger or suspicion or speculation.
Now, speculation.
I think this is the most evil and
diabolical tool that the enemy has.
Speculation is when somebody does something or says
something or you think they did something or
said something.
And then you begin to think in your
mind about what that meant that they did
or said that.
And then you make this whole scenario about
what that means.
And then you get really mad at it
about it.
And you have this big phantom argument going
on in your mind.
And then when you actually see them, you're
already really ticked off at them.
For some of you, I'm describing your marriage,
aren't I?
Anyway, you're really ticked off at them and
they have no idea what you're even angry
about.
And you know what?
It was just speculation.
You thought that they thought that they said
that you said that she did, that she
didn't, that he went and he didn't.
And it probably was at Home Depot anyway,
and it doesn't matter.
You just thought that.
And speculation is evil.
I mean, even speculation in our economy has
devastated us.
You know, one of the reasons we're in
such a mess is because speculators began to
buy up different kinds of instruments having to
do with mortgages, playing one side against the
other, and the whole thing fell over like
a house of cards.
And people are out of work and losing
their homes to do over.
And you know what?
One of the things that caused was people
speculating.
Well, spiritually, speculation is a tool of the
enemy that will always sidetrack you, always defeat
you, and always take you away from the
plan of God for your life.
And it's one voice that you must never
listen to.
As soon as a phantom argument starts in
your mind for anything, but especially based on
speculation, you've got to shut it off.
You have to say, I'm not going to
go there.
I'm not going to listen to this.
I'm not going to participate in this.
Because it will only tear you apart inside.
And basically what it does is it singles
you out, cuts you off to the side,
sets you off by yourself, and you're no
longer effective in the kingdom of heaven.
The devil has won simply by causing you
to get into an argument with yourself.
He's totally disabled you.
Now, John 10.10, the thief does not
come except to steal, to kill, and to
destroy.
Jesus said, I have come that they may
have life and that they may have it
more abundantly.
Now, this will be an ongoing series, and
we're talking about the battle within.
Next week, the Lord willing, I plan to
take this up again, but I want to
leave you with this.
Some of the strategies that you can use
to fortify yourself against the strategies of the
enemy.
And I've got to tell you a short
story.
This won't take long.
When we were in India, and I had
to buy a suit.
I had to have one tailored, as you
know.
And whenever I went in, they would look
at me and either laugh out loud or
just shake their head, no, we don't have
clothes your size.
And one of the things I had to
buy with the suit and the shirt was
an undershirt.
And so I'm out looking for an undershirt,
and it turns out in India, because here
we call that stuff underwear, you know.
Here it's underwear.
There, in India, it's called innerwear.
In fact, I saw the sign, innerwear.
I thought, that's interesting.
I wonder what innerwear is.
And then, sure enough, as we're shopping, or
Barb figured it out before, I don't know,
but sure enough, it's the stuff you wear
underneath your clothes.
You put your outside clothes over the inside.
And so this is the innerwear.
And I'd like to give you some innerwear
for your soul, for your spirit.
I want to tell you how you can
fortify this new man to defeat the strategies
of the enemy.
And I want you to remember this, because
this is real important.
Now remember, you have to take off the
old stuff, the anger, the wrath, the malice,
the blasphemies, all those things.
You've got to take that off and lay
it aside and don't put it back on.
And this is the new wardrobe that you're
about to put on.
And it's found in that same place in
Colossians.
Therefore, as the elect of God, holy and
beloved, put on tender mercies, kindness, humility, meekness,
long-suffering, bearing with one another, forgiving one
another.
Can you see how this unravels every strategy
of the enemy?
You see how this mutes even your inner
voice when you want to have these phantom
battles?
Because it's pretty hard to yell at someone
that you have tender mercies toward.
I was in a, well I shouldn't admit
this out loud, but many years ago I
was in a big fight with my wife.
I don't even remember what it was about.
And I think she was probably right, whatever
it was, but I wasn't winning.
And I just knew that me being angry
back was the wrong thing to do.
And I said, Lord, I'm just praying, Lord,
what do I do?
And the Lord said, reach up and touch
your cheek and just tell her that you
love her.
So I reached up and I touched her
cheek and I said, I just love you.
And she fell apart weeping and we hugged
and we've been married 21 years, so it
worked out.
I put on tender mercies.
I put on kindness.
I had to humble myself to do that
because I was in the fight mode.
I had to put on meekness.
I had to put on long-suffering.
At the moment, I didn't want to put
up with whatever it was we were arguing
about.
And I wanted to be right and I
wanted my rights to be stated soundly.
And it wasn't working out near as good
as one of my phantom fights, but I
wasn't ready to quit.
I had to bear with Barbara.
I had to forgive her.
It's all here.
I had to humble myself before God.
I had to take the long view that
our marriage isn't about this fight.
Our marriage is about something much bigger than
that.
And forgiving one another, if anyone has a
complaint against another, even as Christ forgave you,
so you must do.
But above all these things, put on love,
which is the bond of perfection, and let
the peace of God rule in your hearts,
to which also you will call to one
body and be thankful.
Let the word of Christ dwell in you
richly.
See, this is the inner armor.
We're going to explore this in depth, but
I want you to take this home with
you that you need to put on the
inner armor.
You are not self-righteous.
That's only filthiness.
You have to humble yourself before the Lord.
Take off the filthy, wretched old man and
lay it aside and put on the new
man and take up a new conversation.
You see, the conversations I have in my
heart most of the time now are Lord,
will you help that person?
Lord, would you bless that family?
Lord, would you save our city?
Lord, would you keep that one from going
to hell?
Lord, would you let us reach our city
for Christ?
And this is what I'm talking about all
the time in my my little voice inside
me.
I'm talking with the Lord.
And when I find a phantom fight coming,
I just resist it because I know it's
from the devil.
The Bible says to do that.
Resist it.
Resistance is not passive.
Resistance is active.
And you have to say I will not
go there and I will not put up
with this and I will not say that.
Then you're having a not a phantom conversation,
but a spiritual conversation where you having done
all your standing against the strategies of the
enemy.
And when you do that, my friends, you
have victory.
Amen.
As we conclude our time together this morning.
I want you to remember the examples we
started with this morning where two airliners with
hundreds of people in them did not crash
because the pilots or in one case the
pilot was able to follow his training.
I want you to remember that four airliners
crashed three of which very much because they
had the wrong training.
You need the right training.
You need to understand the right strategies to
win this war that we're in.
The spiritual war.
You need the inner armor.
The old armor does not fit with the
new armor.
The old stuff of the old man does
not work with the new armor.
You've got to put that off.
And then you need to ask the Lord
to help you to have the discernment to
recognize the strategies of the enemy even before
he gets started.
Just like I was praying for Gabe.
Lord, help him to see the enemy before
the enemy sees him.
Ask the Lord to help you to see
what the enemy is doing before he even
knows what he's going to do so that
you can pray and seek the Lord.
Amen.
This morning we're going to open our altars
and I invite you to come and spend
some time in prayer.
If you've never received Christ, tell us that.
We'd love to pray with you.
If you just need fortification or deliverance, maybe
you've given yourself over to that inner voice
so much that you're in torment and that
you're in bondage and you want Jesus to
set you free.
Come up and we want to pray with
you.
And let's see a victory today.
Worship team, would you come forward?
As you come and pray, we're going to
be worshiping.
I would like to read the scripture that
I brought earlier out of 2 Peter.
Be sober.
1 Peter 5, 8, 9.
Be sober.
Be vigilant because your adversary the devil walks
about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he
may devour.
Resist him.
Steadfast in the faith, knowing that the same
sufferings are experienced by your brotherhood and the
world.
Remember to resist him this week.
Amen.
The front is open for prayer if you'd
like to come.
If not, as you go, go quietly, respectfully,
and worshiply.
God bless you.