Not Today Satan Part 3 (2)

Welcome

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We’ve been made aware

There is spiritual warfare

It involves us

We have an enemy

He is not to be feared

We fight from victory not for it

We’ve been taught how to prepare

To stand on the ground that God has already given to us, we put on the full armor of God

Not once, not once a week, but always, continuously, put it on

This is how we are to live.

Now, I do want to add something here. And I meant to say this last week but I want to encourage you to Go back and read the beginning of Ephesians this week.

When you do that, you will get a better understanding of Paul’s thoughts and process of writing.

Boiled down, Ephesians is written to encourage us in the life we have in Christ but it’s primarily a book of unity

The whole book talks about our unity with God, first and foremost, and also our unity with one another

And so a lot of this section, Paul’s overwhelming thought is then, how do we protect against that?

Which is why he would start this section how he does and how he ends it how he does, which we will get to next week, but it’s important to know that this is the theme here.

Unity with Christ and one another

The enemy wants to divide us from Christ and divide us from one another

And Paul is saying, here is how you defend against it.

Today we want to talk about how to protect

So, we want to always be prepared. Always be on guard.

But what about when spiritual warfare is evident in our lives

Some days it may seem like things are good.

We are still putting on the armor of God

But there are good days, but what about when the battle seems to be at your backdoor

Like, it’s seems to be at every turn. The enemy is giving you everything he’s got

So I want to start by talking about when we can most expect these attacks

So that, when we go into these types of things, we can be protected and ready

Attacks can come whenever, but these are the times you can expect them to be most prevalent.

Spiritual growth

The enemy can’t stand when we grow closer to God

When we are seeking spiritual growth in our lives, we are strengthening our unity with God and His people and our enemy loves to divide so we can expect attacks

i.e. have you ever been trying to do something God has called you to do, maybe like serving someone

You know God has called you to serve someone and all of a sudden, just a terrible thought will enter your mind?

Evangelism

If we remember, this war is a war between kingdoms.

It’s a battle between the kingdom of light/God

And the kingdom of darkness/world

Evangelism is going into enemy territory and by the power of the Holy Spirit, bringing out a victim of darkness

If you are going to do that, which we are all called to, you can expect there to be some spiritual warfare

Seeking truth

Anytime we try to expose our enemy, he doesn’t like it

Anytime we seek truth, he doesn’t like it

remember that he is “the father of lies” john 8:44.

He wants us to believe in his lies so anytime we seek biblical truth, you can expect spiritual attacks

Breaking sin

truth brings light and it frees us from sin

Anytime that we are breaking away from sin, that we are fighting against sin, know that it is a spiritual battle more than it is anything else.

It may be mental, or emotional, or physical but it is first and foremost spiritual

When we are breaking away from our sin, we can expect spiritual warfare

Moves of God

Anywhere where God is moving and working, the enemy wants to destroy

This is why you see churches fall and fail.

Sometimes it’s because it just wasn’t built on the right foundation

But sometimes it actually begins with a work and move of God

God’s Spirit moves, life change happens, spiritual growth happens, and then the enemy creeps in and one thing leads to another

And men abuse power, take advantage of their position, seek glory for themself, elevate themselves to a place they were never intended to be and the church crumbles

Often times, it’s not because they set out on some deep dark path to do that, it’s because God began to move and spiritual warfare began to take place and they didn’t know how to defend against it or they didn’t want to defend against it

So wherever God is moving and working you can expect spiritual warfare to take place

So that then begs the question, what do we do then?

Well, Paul tells us. So let’s pick up where we left off in Eph and then I’ll pray and we can dive in some more

Ephesians 6:16–17 NIV

16 In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. 17 Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.

pray

Paul starts this with, “in addition to all this.” So, he’s moving into a little bit different of a thought.

So, we still have these pieces of armor in our everyday but this is when the “flaming arrows of the evil one” are being shot at you.

Here is what you do.

You put on

SHIELD OF FAITH

To the roman soldier, which is what the original readers would have had in mind, this shield was not a small round shield but a large, door looking shield

It was made of wood and wrapped in leather and it had the ability to be locked together.

It was doused in water

and made with tiny little slots in it

This was in effort to stop and extinguish penetrating arrows that were lit on fire

So in battle, the enemy would stand on one side and light there arrows and begin to shoot.

The roman soldiers would take these shields, lock them together, and create a wall to protect the army with.

it’s been recorded that there were times that men would come back from battle with hundreds of arrows in their shields

This is the picture

These flaming arrows that Paul has in mind would include direct demonic attack but even above that it encompassed that steady temptations of things like fear, bitterness, anger, and division.

So Paul states the way we defend against these things is by using our shield of faith.

The shield of faith indicates: “radical openness, obedience, and dependability to God that allows His Spirit to indwell in us in such a way that we get a deeper understanding of His sovereignty and unfathomable love for us.”

Taking up the shield of faith then suggests to us a deliberate holding on to God and the promises of His Word in a way that is firm and resolute.

It’s our dependence on Christ which quenches the fiery attempts of the enemy to harm, spread fear, and cause divisions.

So what do we do? bottom line - We depend on Christ

We step back and go, “I can not fight this alone, I need Jesus!”

I also think that you could biblically argue, that you also need others.

One man with a shield would stop arrows from a specific direction

But many men with many shields who could lock them together could build an impenetrable wall.

Helmet of Salvation

We probably don’t need to spend much time talking about what a helmet is and would look like but it was a piece of equipment that would defend against head shots.

If left open, it is perhaps the most deadly, easiest shot to take.

The helmet of Salvation is a layered analogy

It’s a remembering of our moment of salvation and all that is imparted on us in that moment

So we would call this justification

Again, it’s this thought of being brought into unity with Christ

It’s also realizing that, yes Jesus has saved you, but you are also continuously being saved

This is what we would call sanctification

And then resting in the fact that, because Jesus has saved you, (justified) He is saving you (sanctified) that you will also be saved once and for all (glorified)

So, when we put on our helmet of salvation we are remember that God has delivered us out of darkness but we are also believing that He is still saving me today!

That He is able to save me from the attacks of the enemy

Psalm 51:11–13 NIV

11 Do not cast me from your presence or take your Holy Spirit from me. 12 Restore to me the joy of your salvation and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me. 13 Then I will teach transgressors your ways, so that sinners will turn back to you.

Restore to me the joy that came with your salvation. It’s a prayer to remind me of all the accompanies salvation, so that I may find joy and bring others to it

We talked week one how spiritual warfare is a war over our minds

We talked about Rom 12:2

Romans 12:2 NIV

2 Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.

The helmet of salvation is that process of renewing our mind

When it comes to spiritual warfare, the front line happen between our ears

The enemy knows that if he can distort our thought life than he can affect every other area of our life

Paul says to his letter to the churches of phillipie

Philippians 4:8 NIV

8 Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.

So when the enemy is attacking, this is our defense.

We think about the joy of our salvation

We think about what is true and noble and right and pure and lovely and admirable

If you struggle with being a pessimist, like if you are the debby downer

Pray that God would give you joy and think on these things

I promise you, if you just wallow in self pity and only think about how rough you have it or how bad things are around you, you will be miserable.

If you allow the enemy to deceive you into thinking that you aren’t good enough, you won’t be forgiven, you have it the worst, God is out to get you, the world is out to get you

He will take you out thought by thought by thought

There is power in your thoughts. The more you focus on the negative, the more negative you are going to be.

The more you pursue joy, the more joyful you will be.

Restore to me the joy of your salvation. Think on these things.

these are the things we should be doing to fight these attacks of the enemy

Sword of the Spirit

This for the Roman soldier was a light smaller sword.

It was used for only hand to hand combat

In other words, it was the only weapon they had to use when to enemy was close

So they would spend hours and hours training themselves and swinging it around to be able to become proficient in using it

Paul says here the sword of the Spirit is the Word of God.

Now what’s interesting here is that, typically, the word of God in the NT is the word Logos

Here, Paul uses the word Rhema.

So Logos was used as an all encompassing word to define God’s word

Rhema was used to describe a specific, spoken word of God

So the difference would be like having a stockpile of swords and saying that they are a weapon

and having a sword in your hand and saying it is a weapon

So we could say that we apply God’s word (rhema) by making His word (logos) alive and active in our everyday lives

Paul says it’s not enough to know about the Bible when it comes to Spiritual warfare

You need to know the right Words of God to fight against the enemy

When certain specific attacks arise, you need the ability to know God’s Word in a way that you can specifically fight back.

Notice also that Paul calls it “sword of the Spirit.”

so two important take aways from that.

#1 we have to be in step with the Spirit of God to have the power of His Word.

This is a sword that we cannot wield on our own

So, remember, we have a commander and Paul is after unity here

We can’t run out in the middle of the battle field by ourselves without the command of our commander

When we are in step with the Spirit we are in tune with our commander

#2 this isn’t a weapon that we can just use as we want

It’s a power that is only made alive by God.

If we begin to depend on our own authority we are doomed

We are not the masters of demons and spiritual warfare.

We are empowered by the Master of all

We cannot work outside of His command

This week, was a tough one

Had some personal stuff happen Monday that the enemy was trying to deceive me was a bigger deal than it was.

Tuesday night our well pump went out, never done it like that before

Wednesday morning I was leading a devotional.

I had planned and prepped the days before

I showed up to the office Wednesday morning right before I was about to zoom in via video and lead it

I opened my computer and all of my notes were gone

Never happened to me before.

A few days ago I was sitting at the office and just had a thought that something terrible had happened to my daughter.

I sat in it so long that I had convinced myself that she was dead

Now, if you know me, I’m not a very anxious guy. I don’t have those kinds of thoughts very often and hardly ever allow them to grip me like this did

So you could chalk that up to a bad week. bad luck. a lot of coincidences at once

But I would say, that is spiritual warfare.

So what did I do?

well, honestly, it took me a bit to realize it, but when I began to have those thoughts about my daughter I knew what was going on

So I began to pray

I began to pray to a God that is bigger, greater, and grander than anything that I am facing

1 John 4:4 NIV

4 You, dear children, are from God and have overcome them, because the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world.

I began to pray over my daughter purpose, hope, future, and not harm

Jeremiah 29:11 NIV

11 For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.

I began to pray that God would reveal to me His perfect love because it casts out fear

1 John 4:18 NIV

18 There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.

I prayed that God would take away my spirit of fear and give me power to defeat it

2 Timothy 1:7 NIV

7 For the Spirit God gave us does not make us timid, but gives us power, love and self-discipline.

I prayed that He would remind me of His salvation and He would return to me it’s joy

Psalm 51:12 NIV

12 Restore to me the joy of your salvation and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me.

And I began to think about what I knew was true, noble, right, admirable, and lovely.

And I just began to say the name of Jesus and I’m telling you it was like something had been lifted off of me

So i tell you that to tell you, this is real

But we have what we need.

When we apply God’s Word, we have the power we need in Jesus to defeat our enemy.