Ep 19: Xtreme Faith – Part 3

how exciting that we know that the bible deals with every aspect of life and that we are now looking at this Extreme Faith series and the Book of Ephesians talks about how we will be filled with the spirit would be walking in the spirit of God and be free of any uh drunkenness and drugs and all this other stuff. And then it talks about how we were to be submitting ourselves to one another with joyfully singing and uh thankful. And it gets down to all the personal relationships. The husband and wife relationship, wives to your husbands, husbands, to your wives, love your wives like christ loved the church and gave himself for her. And then it talks about fathers and Children and servants. And finally it comes to this area of spiritual warfare and how faith gives us the ability to fight the demonic forces all around us by taking on spiritual weapons. It calls it uh panoply leah, all the weapons of God. And that’s what we want to talk about today with spiritual warfare, Vicki uh to go to Ephesians chapter six, you’re in 2nd Corinthians chapter 10 where also has the parallel passage, but this passage deals with the power of God. Finally, it says be strong in the Lord and the strength of his mind. Look at all those greek words for power. Power. Power God is talking about power and what he’s talking about is that he has given us enough power to be able to stand and be able to fight against the spiritual demons and satan himself and how to actually overcome uh look at those words and the more is a strong being wrapped up literally in the, in the dynamite of God and then in the strength keratosis, which comes from the idea to create out to hold and uh Dominion literally right. And then of his might is his, which is inner strength that gives us force and that’s what he’s saying. He would finally be strong in the Lord and the strength of his might. And then he talks, I’m putting on the panoply a the full armor of God. So maybe you can go down this first so that you will be able to able dina me all right to stand he steamy. And we learned in one of our former lessons, the word firm videos right against the schemes, method, method, idea, methods, methods of the devil of the avalos. So this is an incredible versus scripture that he’s telling us that not just to take part of the armor. Right? Put it all on, put all the arm and he repeats this twice. By the way he repeats this two times. You’ll notice in the next uh passage of scripture here from verse 12 on for our struggle. Our poly poly level means I fight Polly is the fight, okay, is against cross. Like in john 11 in the beginning was the word, the word was with God of prostate auntie on face to face. You know, facing God. This is facing against the flesh and blood for our struggle is not against the flesh and blood but against the rulers. That this is an interesting thing for me. You have the various uh descriptions and and ranking system of the spiritual world. It talks about how he right talks about uh powers. Excuse CIA, which translates into authority. Are he is the rulers or the first he is the beginning. The first ones were on the top and then excuse to the the delegated power against uh world forces cosmo crater that those forces that hold the globe the world, the cosmos, you know like there are, there are demonic forces Vicki like and daniel that we’re over certain geographic locations and of this darkness scott owes you know, so and then against the spiritual forces that never Mattie cause Mattie cause the spirit just calls it the matter because the spiritual forces of wickedness. Panaria in heavenly Pomerania places. Now it’s interesting this word wickedness. What do we have from that word here? Panaria? We also, we also have the word pain bono’s so it’s how satan and his demons, They want to Put pain on people. You know, it’s not enough. You know, they want to kick your teeth in. They wanna club you on the head, they wanna he’s a murderer from the beginning. He’s a thief. He comes to steal and kill and destroy Jesus said in John 1010. This is bone area its wickedness with the purpose to make pain and then it goes on further to say therefore via which means it goes from one end like diameter to the other. You know uh the complete thing take up an alarm, Bonneau, the full armor again panoply a the all of the weaponry of God right, What do you say about that? I mean it’s not one thing that you do in the christian life, it’s several things and he covers us from head to foot from the top of our head to the bottom of our foot. And and he and remember with the shot from the top of our head with the helmet to our feet shod with the gospel of peace all the way down. So where God has given us the equipment, the real the tools, the weapons, the panoply eta for every part of our body and he says the full armor of God so that you may be able to resist and Anthony steamy huh in the evil day and having done everything to stand then be firm and stand firm. Now this is interesting because some people, you know, you meet believers, you meet christians and you wonder why are they having such a tough time? Why can’t they overcome this? Why can’t they overcome that? And the reason for it is they’re not taking the full armor of God. So the full armor of God has uh you know seven different components here in this passage. There are seven specific weapons that God provides for the panoply etA to throw the panoply the full armor of God. And so I was gonna say like in the church, when the church started out, I remember when I first became a christian and I was in too deep into satanism and which all kinds of chanting krishna’s and eastern religions and drugs and you know the Ching, Khalil, gibran, tibetan book of the dead, all these things. And all of a sudden now we’re reading the bible, we, we heard that jesus died was buried rose again that he wanted, he gave himself a sacrifice force to forgive us to connect us to reconcile us back to the father. And now all of a sudden we’ve got all this information from all the dark side, The Scardino says it caused an inscription and then we’ve got now the light and God has given us his word and his promises and they go contrary to what satan was telling us, it says, therefore take up the full armor of God so that you will be able to resist in the evil day and having done everything to stand, stand firm. It’s interesting that he tells you, Ana means up lava, no means to, to take so we have to take up all of the pieces of the armor of God for the head for the feet, for the chest, the sword, the shield, all of it, you can’t just leave one piece, That’s why it says twice. It mentions in this portion of scripture, the full panoply of armor of God. It’s so important. Uh, when I was first a believer, I became a believer. It was not just enough to pray. You need to have the bible, you need to have fellowship, You need to all of the various things that God provides in the church. It was he, they continued steadfastly in the apostles doctrine and fellowship and breaking bread and prayer. There were things that they were doing. And then of course individually you have to take up the full armor of God. You cannot just leave one piece of the armor. Then it’s a stand, therefore stand having girded your loins with truth notice now, Vicky the different parts of the armor, okay, you just read the english parts and then and explain in greek truth Alethea and having put on the breastplate, the thorax of righteousness, Dia cassini, having shod people veil your feet with the preparation et Macia, right? The preparation. So a lot of the time that you know, you go out to speak to someone, you have to prepare to do that. You have to, you know, it just doesn’t happen by accident. We need to know what we’re going to say. We need to understand our message. We need to be able to understand, it’s a message of peace, we’re going into peace and love and joy. It’s not, we’re not going in a bad way with anything that that this is what precedes what we do. It’s the piece of the gospel so important there and and then it continues to talk about uh the in the armor in addition to all. And this means that beyond all those three things. In addition, everything has got to be done together. An alarm Bonneau taking up the shield of faith of of which you will be able to uh extinguish is vending me all the flaming arrows of the evil one. And then again Bonnie rose those flames in arrows are there to create pain. The devil is shooting his arrows spiritually you can’t see him but he’s shooting them and in order to be able to have power against him, we’ve got to take up the shield, which is like the word for door. The shield is the word for door in greek, it looks like a door, it’s able you’re able to hide behind it and it extinguishes those flames because uh there were all different uh leathers of leathers, four pieces of leather and then they would so let them before the battles and then it had a steel rim all around it. But it was able to protect the whole body. Yes, the fiery darts that is talking about, they were able to be quenched with the water. Exactly the full armor of God the panel player And that is the 7th pieces of that armor just go down the list there and uh I’ll go ahead and help you. Okay it has truth Alethea goes to is to be girded on our loins, it goes around us. Then the breastplate of righteousness, the deconcini is attached with a clip to the field of the truth. So truth and righteousness they go together okay and our feet shod with the Gospel of peace Illini and then we have so you know these are all spiritual qualities but yet God says they are pieces of the armor. Okay next then we have the shield of faith serios the helmet of salvation. So teary on very careful leah around our head. Very good. So the so the faith that protects us the flaming missiles of the evil one because he’s shooting these darts and uh they used to wet down that shield as we said and so that it would extinguish them and then Salvation and they’re all connected And in the in the grammar construction it’s the shield of faith and the helmet of salvation and then the word of God which is the sword, the rema, the word of God which is the sort of the spirit, the word of God. And then you go to prayer. Now all of these are the weapons. Well what do you say about prayer and the word the rima and the and all of it is just connected mm well you can put on the armor but if you don’t have the power of God’s Spirit and you don’t have the word of God in you which is your sword then we won’t be able to win the battle. It’s an in prayer is so important with all of this armor. We still have to personally take up the word of God the sword of the spirit. We have to know it in time of temptation in time of battle. That’s why God says hide my word in your heart that you might not sin against me. And so then we also have to cover ourselves with prayer because we need to be alert because the enemy is battling us. He does not love us, he hates us. He’s the father of lights. He’s gonna come to you and put thoughts into you or let you see something or hear something or think something that is not true. And that is why he talks about the process of heat prayer which is general prayer and the specific you know, they say this prayer in this passage because yeah we pray about a lot of things but we need to take all of our personal needs right to God And every one of these things is a weapon for us to use against the enemy when he attacks us. So let’s take the whole armor of God, not just part of it and be faithful and obedient and really take what we have available to us so that we might be victorious in the spiritual warfare against the enemy. Hi there Tom Harris and you’ve just listened to Vicky and I talking about spiritual warfare using the Ephesians 6, 10 through 20 verses concerning all the panoply of the armor of God, the seven pieces of armor. And then uh you know, we, we want to look deeper now again as I begin to open up some other passages of scripture that are so clear in the word of God, we have right here. The spiritual warfare from Ephesians six, we talked about the being strong and how it talks about various different words for strength, Vietnamese keratosis keys and how we need to focus on the Lord because that’s where we draw all the strength that we need from. It’s from the Lord, jesus christ. And then when we take all of the armor of God, not just some, but all of it, not five pieces, not three pieces, seven pieces, we need all of the armor of God. God tells us. And when we’re gonna fight this is a real enemy that we have was trying to steal and kill and destroy our life to kill our body to steal our soul to take us to literally hell if he could, but he can’t those of us who know the Lord jesus christ but he wants to inflict pain. It says take the full armor of God so that in the evil day you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. Now there are other passages of scripture that deal with the categories of demonic forces in the armor of God. We have uh these seven powerful weapons, the truth, righteousness, peace, Uh faith, salvation, the word of God and prayer, all of them are important and we can’t just take one and forget about the others. There are passages of scripture, like in in the book of Ephesians in Chapter one that deal with the various ranks and demonic forces that we have to deal with. He talks about in verse 21 of chapter one, it says above all, rule, authority, power, Dominion every name that is named not only in this age, but also in the one that is to come. So listen, this is so complete that jesus christ, the king of kings and the Lord of Lords is far above all of these various powers and angelic categories of ranks that that you have just heard look what it says. In verse 20 chapter 1 20 Ephesians which he brought about in christ when he raised him from the dead. He seated him in heavenly places at the right hand of God, Far above all the rules are he and authorities extra CIA and not in every name that is named Enema, not only in this age, but also in the wants to come. That means there’s no place in this universe, in past, present or future, that there is anyone ever going to be above the name of Jesus christ. In fact, in chapter two of Philippians, it says that every tongue will confess and every knee will bow and declare that jesus christ is, jesus, the man restores the messiah is GTOs Lord to the glory of God the Father. Just a fantastic understanding that we’re talking about the ultimate, the most ultimate, highest power in the universe. There is no one else. There is no secret alien coming around from any other galaxy, any other dimension in this age and in any others that are going to come, it’s incredible. So here we have truth. And the only way you can battle the lie is with the truth. There are other passages of scripture That make it so clear. Like for instance, in 2nd Corinthians, in chapter uh in second Corinthians, chapter 10 verse three, it says we walk in the flesh, we’re not fighting a physical war. The weapons of our warfare are not carnal but spiritual. To the pulling down of the strongholds, casting down imaginations and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God. The word, They’re literally as fortresses that have been built and they’ve been built there because we received thoughts from the enemy that have controlled us and we gave credit to them. And so we’ve been deceived and have been held captive by the enemy’s lies and falsehoods that we believed and embraced. That’s what it’s saying Here, We are destroying verse five speculations second Corinthians chapter 10 and and every lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God. And we are bringing taking captive every thought to the obedience of christ. Listen, the warfare is in the mind according to this, this word lawyers Moss, which are speculations in in in in this passage of scripture, it says, these are speculations, Louise ma to write the word lodges MMA is you reckon something or you credit something, put something in your account or take something out of your account. Abraham believed God and it was credited to him as righteousness. Well, you can also believe in the devil. You can believe that satan is so powerful that he wants you to do this or that. And you become now a slave of those thoughts that he’s putting in your mind. He’s able to plant thoughts in our minds and tempt us. He’s called the Tempter, he’s called. There’s so many evil names for the devil. There’s all, there’s over 20 names that we can identify that Satan has the serpent of all, the dragon, uh, the Avalos, the devil. Uh Sattana satan the enemy, the slanderer. There’s so many names but he comes and he will put these thoughts and God says, cast those thoughts down their lives. They’re no good and you have the power to do that with the word of God. And it says, bring every one of those thoughts to the obedience of christ. How do you do that? Well, you have to know the word of christ. You have to read the bible and when the light comes to you, you have to throw it down rejected and not allow the enemy to creep into your mind. That’s the negative stuff. But on the positive end with this word Louise. Oh man, you go to the Book of Philippians in chapter four, you go to that book, incredible book and in the Book of Philippians in chapter four, it says this, I love this passage of scripture because it begins with faith. Uh it begins with uh the peace of God and it ends with the God of peace right before it and after it. So look what it says here, Chapter four, beginning with verse uh eight Finally, my brethren, whatever is true and honest and just and pure and lovely and good report. If there is any virtue or anything worthy of praise, Loizeaux may think on these things. In other words reject the thoughts of Lucifer because we’re not fighting flesh and blood with fighting these spiritual forces that are creating these fortresses in our mind and then receive and submit to the thoughts that come from jesus christ. These are the thoughts from jesus christ, whatever is true and honest and just and pure and lovely and good report. If there is virtue. If there’s praise, think about these things. Now there’s one more passage I want to look at and that’s found in colossians in chapter to listen to what it says here. Having canceled out verse 14 of chapter two Colossians 2 14 Having canceled out the certificate of debt consisting and decrease the word is volume a to decrease against us and that which were hostile to us. These are the sins that we’ve committed the accusations and they will hostile to us and taking it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross. This is why the cross of jesus christ is so important. Everything that you thought about yourself, everything that other people have said about you, things that you’ve done that are wrong, that nobody knows about all of that has been nailed to the cross. And the bible says here that he has taken it out of the way, Nailing it to the cross verse 15 when he had disarmed. I love that literally. It means to strip down to actually totally ripped down any structure there and make it bear. He has disarmed the rulers noticed the ranks of angels again and demons, the rulers, the authorities that he made a public display of them having triumph over them through him. Now we could go on. But this is such a fantastic word from God that we have that this armor that we put on that is able to protect us and it is it is in our the truth were girded about with truth. That’s why this Word of God. My word is truth righteousness that is that we take the breastplate the cassini of righteousness and we take the shield the faith and and we have to take the shield of faith the piece that we have in our feet hip odo the feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace and then is the shield of faith these heroes which is the theater is a is a doorway and the helmet for our head to cover our head. Perry kifaya that that it totally goes around our head so that the darts and the evil thoughts will not penetrate the word of God. The rema of God the sword of the spirit and then we go to prayer. These are the weapons that we have to fight against the enemy who is protecting you. Are you letting God in his spirit, are you letting the word of God? And are you trusting in the blood of christ and that you have a testimony that you have come into a knowledge of the Lord, jesus christ. If you don’t it’s really simple to cry out to God and say God I feel I feel I’m under attack. Help me forgive me please Lord I need you God bless you have a great night and day and we’ll see you next time here with it’s all greek to me.