Well, good morning to everyone. Beautiful sunshine this morning after fall. I told Bobby last night I was out feeding the pigs, and that sunset was glowing on the trees. And I turned around, and it was all yellow. And I thought, wow, it is fall. I thought the leaves had turned overnight. So they are starting to turn. I see the soft maples. That's always disconcerting in the middle of August to see the red leaves. It's coming, in case you didn't know.

Well, last week, we began a message on Ephesians 6, verses 10 to 13. And this chapter is the final exhortation from Paul for the believers in Ephesus concerning who they are and how they now shall live as believers in Jesus Christ. We observed that the first three chapters of the letter consist of doctrine, truths about who we are, what we have in Christ. 

And then in chapter 4, Paul begins to exhort us to live according to who we are. We are to walk in consistency outwardly with who we are inwardly because of God's salvation work in us and the power of his life living in and through us. This is the basic structure and admonition of the book, as is the case with each of the New Testament epistles to the church. 

The exhortation to live a holy life, to be a witness, to bring glory to God in all that we do, is not contrary to who we are or inconsistent with who we are or something that we lack power or provision to do, but rather is logical and reasonable for the man in Christ. This is such an important truth for us to understand because there's so much teaching in the church today that is contrary to the very scriptural basis for our new life in Christ. 

The idea that I am a vile, wretched sinner, that I have two natures, that my heart's desire, my spirit, is somehow at odds with the spirit of God and his will for my life undermines the very essence of the New Testament teaching on the Christian life. In Romans 8, Paul wrote that the Holy Spirit witnesses with my spirit. I am new and regenerate in my spirit. I've been given a new spirit in this new covenant time. 

And what I most deeply want is what God wants for my life. And not only this, but he has dealt with the sin that dwells in me. He released me from the law, the bondage to fear of death. And I no longer live in the flesh, but by the spirit. In addition, the very power that raised Jesus from the dead, according to Ephesians 1:19, is at work in me to produce the fruit of holiness and God's will for my life. 

And it is the Holy Spirit of God that imparts strength to my inner man, Ephesians 3:14 to 21, the very life of Jesus that lives in me and works out through me for his purposes. I must see myself as in Christ. This is who I now am. And therefore, this is how I should expect, by his grace and power, to live. That's the message of this tremendous letter before us.

And in this last chapter, we find an illustration. Think of Paul as he writes this letter to his beloved friends and believers in Ephesus, where he spent so much time and effort founding that church. He's sitting chained to a Roman soldier in bonds. And as he writes, he's looking at that soldier. The book of Philippians tells us that he also is witnessing to that soldier. But he is observing the armor the soldier is wearing, and he's thinking about the fervent battle that is the Christian life. 

And he wants us to understand what we need in order to win this fight. He's told us about who we are. He's listed our resources, what we have in Christ. He's exhorted us to live in light of these truths, to reckon them to be so. And now he wants us to give us a sort of application of the application, how we practically work these things out in our lives. 

In the picture, the illustration that sits before him is rich with meaning for our understanding. Put on the whole armor of God. This is war. We fight against Satan and his demons in all their crafty ways. We need the full armor of God. Every piece available to us. 

And he's going to go down through all the elements of the soldier's armor and relate it to the spiritual protection and resource that we have in Christ. It's a beautiful picture. The main message, the emphasis is this. We must once and for all put on the whole armor. The emphasis is on the whole, all the pieces, the whole armor of God. 

If you look at verse 14, he says, "Stand therefore, having girded your waist with truth, having put on the breastplate of righteousness, and having shod your feet with the preparation of the gospel of peace. Above all, taking the shield of faith, with which you will be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked one. And take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the spirit, which is the word of God. Praying always with all prayer and supplication in the spirit, being watchful to this end with all perseverance and supplication for all the saints."

We said last week that this instruction here in chapter 6, most closely along with 3:14 to 21, approximates the how of the Christian life. We talk a lot about the why, why I can live a new life, all those truths that are the foundation for living a new life. But here we see the how to live the Christian life. 

And we noted, most importantly, that the how is a who. The how to live this life is a who. It's only Jesus Christ. As he explains to us in John 15 in the illustration of the branch and the vine, it is only Jesus Christ that can live the Christian life. I thought of that verse this week as I studied about the battle against principalities and powers.

I thought of 1 John 4:4, where John says, "You are of God, little children, and have overcome them because he who is in you is greater than he who is in the world." It does not say you are greater than he who is in the world. It says he who is in you is greater than he who is in the world. The battle is the Lord's. I can't outsmart Satan. I can't do battle against the demonic realm. That's not my business. It's the Lord's. 

Even Michael the archangel, Jude tells us, when disputing about the body of Moses with the devil, did not fight against him, did not bring a reviling accusation, but said, "The Lord rebuke you." The battle is the Lord's. And what Paul is telling us in this passage is that we need to take up the whole armor of God. We need to put on the Lord Jesus Christ. 

We need to once and for all not only understand who we are and what we have in Christ and reckon it to be so, although this is vital, we also must commit ourselves to him. We must trust him and depend on him, stand in the truth of who he is and his ultimate and overwhelming power against all that might come against us. 

Put on, it's the word "enduo," to envelop in, to hide in, to clothe with. It's in the Aorist tense, meaning a one-time, once for all action. Paul is imploring us to stand in Christ, to stand in the truth of our salvation, to trust in the Lord for the battle, to hide ourselves, envelop ourselves, clothe ourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ, and to live in full dependence on him to win this battle one day, one moment at a time. 

Let's look at our text, Ephesians 6:10. Sort of an introduction to the section here. He says, "Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord and in the power of his might. Put on the whole armor of God that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places. Therefore, take up the whole armor of God that you may be able to withstand in the evil day and, having done all, to stand."

Well, we have five points. We began to look at those last week. Five points on your outline: be strong or be strengthened, the power of his might, this is war, the whole armor, and stand. 

Well, by way of review, I just want to reiterate what we studied last week in our first three points, and then we'll cover the last two points in our outline this morning. 

Well, first we see in verse 10, "Be strong in the Lord and in the power of his might." And this is such an important instruction; it sets the tone for the whole passage. "Be strong," this is the exhortation. But it's qualified by some important phrases here. It does not just say you, believer, be strong, as if it is my strength or power that's in operation here. 

When I was studying this again this week, a story came to my mind years ago when Anders Gehr, my hunting buddy from Stockholm, Sweden, used to bring his friends here from Sweden and Norway. One year he brought his young son, Olaf. Olaf was very excited to come bow hunt for a whitetail. And Niels, Anders' brother, came along on that trip as well. And one night after dinner, Niels was telling a story about when Olaf was little. And he came to Niels and he asked him, "How do I say I am strong in English?" And Niels, being the fine uncle he was, told him, "You say it like this, I am stupid." And so little Olaf was running around the house with his muscles flexed and his fists in the air, proclaiming in his best English, "I am stupid." 

I thought of this as an illustration of the trap that we so often fall into in the Christian life, as if I win this battle against demonic forces, against lies and errors in the schemes of the devil by my strength and my power, my wisdom, my ideas, my provision. When I fall into this way of thinking, looking to some law or some measure of my performance or my own ability to do or to fight, when I seek to take on the demons on my own to address them in battle, it is as if I'm running around shouting, "I am stupid." 

Because the exhortation is not be strong, but rather be strengthened. Remember? Passive. Be strengthened. Be strong, watch it now, in the Lord and the power of His might. It's present tense. Be continually strengthened. How? By the power of the Lord. 

I was thinking about this earlier this week when my friend Howard came to my farm with his bulldozer. Imagine back in the early 20th century when men logged this whole area and left those giant white pine stumps everywhere. And then the Finlanders who built that house that I live in back around the turn of the century sought to carve out a farm on those acres. I always wondered why you come all the way from Finland, you didn't just go to Wausau, you know? 

All those stumps, and imagine trying to remove those stumps with your hands and tools by your power. They had a baseball league up around Ashland and Gurney in those days. You know what the nickname of the Gurney team was? They were called the Stump Jumpers. Because the whole outfield was full of those stumps. That's how difficult it was to remove those stumps. They just left them there and jumped over them in the field and caught the balls in the outfield. 

But when Howard came the other day to open up a road for me back into the woods, he just laid that blade of that dozer to those trees and stumps and pushed them right out of the ground and into the woods. Power. Amazing power. Be strong, it says, in the Lord and the power of his might. Don't stand out there and lay your hands on the stump and push like some sort of Farside cartoon. That would be futile. 

But be strong in the power of his might, the strength of the Lord, his truth, the Logos, like a bulldozer plowing away the schemes and lies of the devil. So we see, first of all, that we need to be constantly and continually strengthened by the power of the Lord, the strength of his might, and this by the Holy Spirit in our inner man and the life of Christ in us. By his grace, as we look to him and trust him and believe him and reckon what he says is true. 

Therefore, he writes in verse 11, "Put on the whole armor of God that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil." The emphasis here, again, is on the word whole, all the parts lacking nothing, the whole armor of God. The purpose being that we may stand, that we may hold fast, hold our ground against the onslaught of the enemy. We are to stand on the truth. We are to hold our position, not to be moved or caused to flee away. 

It's a defensive position, holding our ground, speaking the truth against lies and error. Well, next, we saw the reality that this Christian life is a true and real battle, that this life is war. Verse 12, "For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places." 

This is such an important verse. This verse defines for us the battle, the war of the Christian life, and who the opposition truly is. The word translated wrestle is from the Greek tradition of wrestling, where the combatants battled sometimes to the death. The object was to place your hands around the neck of your opponent and pin his shoulders to the ground and ultimately his head. 

And if you pinned his shoulders to the ground, he lost, and they gouged out his eyes. If you pinned his head to the ground, then he was put to death. It's quite a serious term that Paul uses here to describe the battle that we have in the Christian life, a truly life and death matter concerning truth and the gospel and salvation, affecting not only the physical death of an athlete, but the eternal spiritual death of men held captive and blinded by the lies of Satan. 

Our battle is not against men, it's not against flesh and blood, but the powers behind the evil in the system of our world that entices and captures the hearts and minds of men, the spiritual forces of Satan and his demons. Turn over to 2 Corinthians 10 with me. 

2 Corinthians 10 at verse 4. Paul says, "For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty in God, mighty in God, for pulling down strongholds, casting down arguments, and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ." He says the weapons of our warfare are not carnal. The word carnal here means bodily, temporal, fleshly. In other words, the weapons of our warfare are not of the human realm from men, not earthly, but supernatural, mighty through God. 

It's the same thing we see in our text, the might, the power, the strength, and the weapons are from God, belong to God. They are not ours, they're not worldly, they're not carnal, so we cannot win the war with the demons and their doctrines by our means, our wisdom, our philosophies, or our power. 

I want to show you one more text before we come back to 2 Corinthians 10. I wrote that, but we're really going to look at three more texts before we get back to 2 Corinthians 10. First go to 1 Corinthians 10 at verse 19. 1 Corinthians 10, 19. Paul writes to the Corinthian church, "What am I saying then? That an idol is anything, or what is offered to idols is anything? Rather that the things which the Gentiles sacrifice, they sacrifice to demons and not to God. And I do not want you to have fellowship with demons. You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons, you cannot partake of the Lord's table and the table of demons, or do we provoke the Lord to jealousy? Are we stronger than He?" 

Here Paul's talking about idolatry; he's chastening the Christians in Corinth for participating in false worship. What I want you to see here is in verse 20, that behind these false religions, these doctrines of men, these lies against Christ and His gospel, every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, behind this are demonic forces. 

We see also in Daniel that there are demons behind the rulers and politicians of our world, the governments of men, that there's a battle between angelic and demonic forces. There's a fascinating account, a glimpse into this world in Daniel chapter 10, if you want to turn there with me, we'll read that at verse 2. 

Daniel 10:2 says, "In those days I, Daniel, was mourning three full weeks. I ate no pleasant food, no meat or wine came into my mouth, nor did I anoint myself at all till three whole weeks were fulfilled. Now on the twenty-fourth day of the first month, as I was by the side of the great river that is the Tigris, I lifted my eyes and looked, and behold, a certain man clothed in linen whose waist was girded with gold of Euphaz. His body was like beryl, his face like the appearance of lightning, his eyes like torches of fire, his arms and feet like burnished bronze in color, and the sound of his words like the voice of a multitude. 

And I, Daniel, alone saw the vision, for the men who were with me did not see the vision, but a great terror fell upon them so that they fled to hide themselves. Therefore I was left alone when I saw this great vision, and no strength remained in me, for my vigor was turned to frailty in me, and I retained no strength. But I heard the sound of his words, and while I heard the sound of his words I was in a deep sleep on my face, with my face to the ground. 

Suddenly a hand touched me, which made me tremble on my knees on the palms of my hands, and he said to me, O Daniel, man greatly beloved, understand the words that I speak to you and stand upright, for I have now been sent to you. While he was speaking this word to me, I stood trembling. Then he said to me, Do not fear, Daniel, for from the first day that you set your heart to understand and to humble yourself before God, your words were heard, and I have come because of your words. 

But the prince of the kingdom of Persia withstood me twenty-one days. And behold, Michael, one of the chief princes, came to help me, for I had been left alone there with the kings of Persia. Now I have come to make you understand what will happen to your people in the latter days, for the vision refers to many days yet to come." 

My friends, there's a battle going on in the spiritual realm. We don't talk a lot about that here. We don't talk a lot about Satan and demons because our focus is on Jesus. But there is a battle going on behind the scenes in the spiritual realm. Now here Daniel's praying, and he wants to understand God's revelation, and an angel is sent to him to give him understanding. 

But there's a battle to hold that angel up. A demonic force called the prince of Persia, apparently there's a demon or demons that are assigned to Persia, a country, a kingdom, a government, meant to influence the affairs of men. And there's a real battle. I don't know what this is, but it went on for twenty-one days. And the angel had to get reinforcements in the form of Michael, for he was left alone with the kings of Persia. It says, apparently, multiple demonic forces. 

This gives us a glimpse into the battle that's going on for the hearts and minds of men. And what I want you to understand, most of all, is that it's a battle of truth versus error. Please understand this, my friends. The battle of the Christian life is a battle of the mind, of truth versus error. Satan and his forces lie. Jesus said in John 8, he's the father of lies. He's been a liar from the beginning. He pushes these lies by all of his various means, his schemes and cunning craftiness and deceitful plotting. 

He does this through religion and philosophy and humanism and Satanism and anything that is false that sets itself against Christ. He does not care. He just wants men to believe lies so that they will not come to the knowledge of the truth. It's our job to tell the truth. That's your job. Your job is to tell the truth and to live a life that doesn't undermine that truth, that brings glory to God, that shows the transforming power of the gospel. But it's our job to tell the truth. 

And do you think it's powerful to tell the truth? I think of Jordan Peterson, some of you are familiar with him, and I don't know that he's a believer. He's been trying. But I don't know that he's a believer, but he stood, he was a professor of psychology in Toronto, and the Canadian government now has gone full communism and have these morality boards. 

And anyway, they were upset with him because he wouldn't be compelled to speak certain words. It wasn't that he was forbidden to speak some words. He was compelled to speak certain words, and that was the essence of the battle. But he spoke the truth, and it's blown up just simply by speaking the truth, something that makes sense, something you understand. Speaking the truth. 

Now for us, we speak spiritual truth. We speak the truth about the condition of men, the need of man, who Jesus is, who God is, the sin that indwells us and enslaves us, the lies of Satan, of religion and humanism and so forth. And we speak the gospel. We tell men the good news about Jesus' death, burial, and resurrection, and my place for my sins, and that through faith in Him alone, He will impute to me His righteousness and my sins to the cross, and that I can be saved forever if I trust in Him alone. 

It's our job to tell the truth, to reject Satan's lies, tear down his lies, and stand on the truth. 2 Corinthians 11, with me please. 2 Corinthians 11, 2. Listen to Paul's words here. He says, "'For I am jealous for you with a godly jealousy, for I have betrothed you to one husband, that I may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ, but I fear lest somehow as the serpent deceived Eve by his craftiness, so your minds may be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ. For he who comes, if he who comes preaches another Jesus whom we have not preached, or if you receive a different spirit which you have not received, or a different gospel which you have not accepted, you may well put up with it.'" 

The issue here in this chapter in the church in Corinth was that false apostles were presenting as from Christ, preaching another Jesus and attacking Paul and his ministry, calling him a false apostle. In verse 12, he says, "'But what I do, I will also continue to do that I may cut off the opportunity from those who desire an opportunity to be regarded just as we are in the things of which they boast. For such are false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into apostles of Christ. And no wonder, for Satan himself transforms himself into an angel of light. Therefore, it is no great thing if his ministers also transform themselves into ministers of righteousness whose end will be according to their works.'" 

My friends, Satan works to deceive. His ministers work to deceive, and they have an endless list of religion and philosophies of strongholds and fortresses of thought to use to poison the minds of men and keep them from the truth. 

My brothers, my sisters in Christ, we have a list in our text in Ephesians 6 of defensive armor meant to keep us standing, solid and immovable in our own hearts and minds, strengthened by the power of God, the Holy Spirit, the life of Christ in us. But we only have one offensive weapon, one way of beating back the lies of Satan. And it is the sword of the Spirit, the word of truth. 

Forget about fighting this war by carnal means, by manipulation, by the weapons of war or the scheming of deception and human power or forces. The only way that we can win the war with demonic lies, the battle for the souls of men, is by God's clear and pure truth, by His revelation to us, His word. 

Now go back to 2 Corinthians 10, and let's look at that important text. 2 Corinthians 10:3, again, Paul says, "For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh, for the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds, casting down arguments, and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God." What is the knowledge of God? How do you know anything about God? How do you know anything about Jesus? 

It is by His revelation to us and His word. The knowledge of God comes from this book. That's why we study this book, verse by verse, chapter by chapter, book by book, continually. And we immerse ourselves in it and we seek to know what He says. We don't have an agenda, we don't have a denomination and a hierarchy telling us what to do. We go to this book to form our system of thinking and continually tweak it so it's consistent with the word of God. 

Because we want to know Jesus. Anything that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, against the word of God, must be rejected. We must bring every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ. That means when I have a thought, an emotion, a temptation, an evil thought, what do I have to do? I have to bring that into captivity. I have to assess that, discern that. Someone tells me something, they try to persuade me of something. What do I do? To search the scriptures to see if what men say is true. 

He says, "Being ready to punish all disobedience when your obedience is fulfilled." Paul uses the language of war here, a stronghold is literally a fortress or a castle. But Paul defends what he means in verse 5. The word arguments is "logosmos," and it here refers to the reasoning, the thinking, the philosophies of man. 

So the idea here is that in this world, in this age, in the system of Satan, he has established strongholds of thought. He works according to the nature of man, which he knows very well. He uses the sin that dwells in him to convince him by lies and deception of false foundations and premises of thought. An example of this would be humanism, the ability of man to work his way to righteousness, to solve the problems of the world through intellect and philosophy and psychology, or evolution in the scientific realm. 

This is a major bulwark, a fortress of thought. I'm so grieved when I hear some person who's trying to explain some biblical truth, but they've been deceived into thinking that evolution is true, and they go on and on explaining, trying to understand something that is true that the Bible teaches, and yet they're working from a false premise, an old earth, the evolution of man, etc., and because of this false premise of thought, they cannot come to the reality of God's truth. 

Jesus said, "If you do not believe the writings of Moses, how can you believe my words?" Powerful statement. The point is that Satan's means, whether religious or secular, consist of false premises, lies upon which he builds a whole edifice of deception. How about this one? God helps those who help themselves. Whenever I tried to witness to Bobby's grandpa, he'd always say, "God helps those who help themselves, that's what the good book says." No, it's not what the good book says. The vain imagination, the stronghold of thought, is this. God requires that we work our way to salvation. God saves the good people, so we have to work our way to goodness by doing good things. 

God helps those who help themselves. Self-righteous religion encompasses this idea, and that is all religion, my friends, apart from biblical Christianity. Or perhaps you're a universalist, all roads lead to Rome, just believe. Doesn't matter what you believe, just it's good to have a religion, it's good to have faith, just believe all roads lead to Rome. Or maybe atheism, there is no God. When we die, it's over, we just rot. 

Satan has an endless supply of lies to work with. You could hear these any day, any time, in your workplace, Thanksgiving dinner, right? There's only one truth, there's only one truth, so the essence of the battle is always truth versus error. But I want to propose to you that this is sort of twofold in application, okay? 

First, for ourselves, for me, individually, my mind and my heart and my thinking, the truth matters. I have to be grounded, founded. And second, for our battle for the edification and strengthening of the church, our brothers and sisters, and the battle to go out into the world and win souls for Jesus Christ. 

By the truth, the whole armor of God, we stand, personally. By the truth, the whole armor of God, we stand corporately as a body against the wiles of the devil. And by the truth, we fight and beat back the lies of Satan and bring truth to lost men for their salvation and God's glory. And this is what we'll see fleshed out as we work through these next several verses. 

We need, first of all, the whole armor of God in order to stand so that we are not personally defeated, rendered useless to the cause of Christ, which is Satan's goal for the believer. He can't take us out of God's hand, he can't take us away, steal our salvation, but he can render us useless, he can make us become damaging to the cause of Christ, to bring confusion. 

Sometimes you talk to Christians and it's like that, isn't it? I mean, I think about that sometimes, you have a conversation and they're kind of over here and over there and all tossed to and fro by everyone, and I think, how does an unbeliever know? How does an unbeliever look at this landscape and say, this is true and this isn't? Someone has to bring them clear truth from the Word of God, and they have to live a life that shows that transforming power, that shows the love of Christ. 

So we must take up the whole armor of God, we must know and reckon, believe what God says is true about us in Christ, about our salvation, the belt of truth, the breastplate of righteousness, our feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace, the shield of faith, the helmet of salvation. This is the teaching of Ephesians 1 to 3, of Romans 5 to 8, the truths of our salvation in Christ. 

For ourselves, our own mind and thinking, we must know and understand these things so that we are not moved, so that we can stand, so that we can be effective in encouraging the brethren and reaching the lost. And when Satan brings his lies against us, when an indwelling sin seeks to control our members, when temptations and emotions rise up in us, we have to know how to deal with that, we have to know how to win that battle. 

And this is what Paul means when he says we must take captive every thought to the obedience of Christ. James talks about this as well in James chapter 1 at verse 14. He says, "But each one is tempted when he's drawn away by his own desires and enticed, then when desire has conceived it gives birth to sin, and sin, when it is full-grown, brings forth death." James likens temptation and sin to conception. 

You see, the battle happens in the mind. When emotions and feelings or temptations rise up within us, we have a choice, we have a choice right here to rationalize and yield to those enticements in our mind and conceive that sin, which then will be borne out through our members, or to reckon what God says is true, to take that thought captive to the obedience of Christ, to go to Jesus in prayer for help and affirm the truth, speak the truth to ourselves, and reject sin and error and then see the fruit of righteousness worked out through our members. 

So there is this individual battle to know and believe the truth, to affirm it in our minds, to look to Jesus for strength in the battle against error and lies and temptation, and then there's the corporate battle in the body. Our church, to speak truth to one another, to encourage, to rebuke if necessary, to point each other back to Jesus so that our church might be a bulwark of truth, a stronghold of witness, speaking the truth in love, and then there's the battle outwardly in the world. 

And we are equipped for this battle by the truth, by what we do here corporately; this is an equipping center for Christians to go out into the world and speak the truth to the lost. And we are strengthened to do this by the grace of God. Be strong in the Lord. It's the imparting of strength by the Holy Spirit to the inner man, the life of Jesus in us, working out through us as we abide in Him by faith. 

This is how we stand, my friends. We must understand the battle, the nature of it, and we have to speak the truth. The onslaught is real. You know how communism fell in Russia? People spoke the truth. I'm not saying we have a political battle, obviously, I'm just saying when people won't go along with the lie, the same thing in our ministry. Someone says, "Well, you know, all roads lead to Rome," and we just don't say anything. 

No, I'm sorry, but all roads don't lead to Rome. There's only one way, the way, the truth, the life, and only by faith in Jesus can a man be saved. We have to speak that truth in order for men to have the veil lifted and no longer be trapped in the lies of Satan. That's our weapon. 

The forces of wickedness are strong. The church is affected by the culture in our thinking, our living. The lies of Satan have established strongholds in this world. The sword of the Spirit, the truth of the Word of God is our only weapon against these things, to persuade men to come to Christ, to stand individually, to not be moved, to stand as a church. 

My friends, the truth matters. Truth matters. And we must know it. We must believe it. We must continually renew our minds to it, let it dwell in us richly and speak it every chance we get to everyone who will listen as we trust in the power and provision of God to work out His will in our lives. 

There will be a cost to speaking truth. We see that coming now in our world. The world wants you to lie. The world wants you to go along with the delusion. You understand how important this is? We've had some lessons on this, haven't we, in recent years? The world wants you to lie. When you speak the truth, it's powerful and it will be met with opposition from the enemy. But God is faithful and we can trust Him. 

That's what this is about. We can depend on Him. We can know that He brings the victory. I'll just close with a few encouraging verses, 1 Corinthians 9, 1-9, "God is faithful by whom you were called into the fellowship of His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord." 1 Corinthians 10:13, "No temptation has overtaken you except such as common to man, but God is faithful who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will also make the way of escape that you may be able to bear it." 

That's a good promise, isn't it? 1 Thessalonians 5:24, "He who calls you is faithful who also will do it." 2 Thessalonians 3:3, "But the Lord is faithful who will establish you and guard you from the evil one." 2 Timothy 2:13, "If we are faithless, He remains faithful, He cannot deny Himself." Hebrews 10:23, "Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful." Ephesians 3:20, "Now to Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think according to the power that works in us." 

Now to Him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you faultless before the presence of His glory with exceeding joy. He is able and He is faithful. He that is in me is greater than he who is in the world. Don't fret, don't wring your hands, don't let your heart be troubled. I can do all things through Him who strengthens me. Be strengthened, my brothers and sisters, in the power of His might in order that you may be able to stand in this evil day. 

Let's close in prayer. Father, we're so thankful for Your Word, Your truth, we're thankful for Your Holy Spirit who guides us into truth and teaches us, and we're thankful for Jesus who is our life, who is our salvation, our promise, our hope, who lives in us, who produces fruit like a vine working up through the branch. 

Help us to understand, Lord, what it is to abide, to look to You, to trust You, to need You every day so that we might have fruit, we might have fullness, that we might bring glory to You and men to Christ, and help us to stand in this evil day. In Jesus' name, amen.