Put On Your Armor

Good morning, Salt Church. How's everybody doing this morning? All right. All right. So before we get started, I just want to open up with a word of prayer and thank everybody for being here.

I know that summer is a busy time with everything right now. School's ending. There's graduations happening, everything like that. But thank you for being faithful to the house of God. So we're just going to open up in prayer.

Heavenly Father, we thank you for this day. We thank you for the worship that we've had this morning. Thank you for each and every person that's here. Thank you for your Holy Spirit that speak to us. And we thank you for your word.

Lord, we pray that you have blessed this time. We ask all these things in Jesus' name. We also ask that you would bless Pastor Leon when he's down in North Carolina with his father, Dwight Dunning. We ask for continued blessings for him, Lord, for this next chapter of his life that you would give him guidance and wisdom and discernment for the next phase of his ministry, Lord, that we know that it's not ending. So we thank you for all these things.

In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen.

So this morning, so this is a sermon on the full armor of God. And it's called the full armor of God because you really need, we need each piece of this to be effective. So if you don't know, every day we are facing a spiritual battle of some sort, no matter what it is. And there's spiritual battles raging all around us in the hearts and minds of people. It's not things you can see physically.

So if you have, if you have a situation that's going on with somebody, you're not fighting against that person. Okay. You're not, that person is not the problem. It's a spiritual battle that you're facing with whoever that is. You know, when whatever is going on in this person, that person's heart and mind.

So this is basically just going over the full armor of God, what it is, how we can use it every day for victory, for victory in the name of God. So Ephesians 6, 13 through 17 says, excuse me, therefore put on the full armor of God so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground. And after you have done everything to stand, stand firm then with the belt of truth, buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the spirit, which is the word of God.

So thanks be to God for his word. The first thing we do also, before you go into battle, you need to be on a spiritual exercise plan, and you also need to know your enemy. So you don't go into battle without first doing a little bit of research on who you're going to fight. And so it's imperative that we know who our enemy is. And the enemy has...

His battle plan involves different avenues. One of them, well three of them, are to steal, kill, and destroy, and the Word says this. He wants to steal the joy of our salvation. So when we get saved, He wants us to be robbed of that and to be, our attention to be diverted to other things. He wants to kill us.

He wants to destroy us physically and spiritually. So we need to remember that. He wants to destroy our witness, our marriage, our family, and the church. So everything about us, our enemy, He hates us. And He wants to see the people of God completely wiped out.

So this is why the Bible tells us in 1 Peter 5.8, Be alert and of sober mind. Your enemy, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. So that's kind of a, that's a sobering picture right there if you think about it. So God's Word tells us here that we have to be alert every day.

We have to be a sober mind every day. Because the devil is looking for somebody to devour. Right? So he's looking for people. So this is why we need to be alert and on the, on the, be sober minded so that we can be on the lookout for his attacks.

In Ephesians 6.11, the Bible says, put on the full armor of God so that you can take your stand against the devil's schemes. It doesn't say just to put on salvation, the helmet of salvation. It doesn't say just one piece or two pieces. It's saying to put on the full armor of God.

And it tells us why we put it on. So we can stand against the devil's schemes. And schemes is just a word that denotes trickery or, you know, things like that. Because the devil will use things to try to trip us up. But we have to use God's Word and His truth to fight back against those things.

Amen. So the first piece of spiritual armor that we have, so I was going to say, I was going to say, I was looking for pictures of different pieces of armor. I was like, oh, I need to find like a belt, like the, you know, a belt, a Roman soldier's belt. So I think we all know what a belt is. And when I searched anyways, I found this belt that is made by a company.

And it's a belt like this. And it says the belt of truth on it. And I was like, I really want that. I want that. But it's not a physical.

And the reason I didn't put pictures in here of the different pieces of armor is because it's not physical things we put on. These are spiritual truths. These are spiritual things that we use as our weapons. Ephesians 6.14 says, stand firm then with the belt of truth buckled around your waist.

So Paul here is using imagery to let us know, okay, it's a belt we can put on. All right. But putting on or being girded with God's truth, this is one of the first steps in putting on God's armor. Because we can't really put on the other things if we don't know the truth of God's word. We don't know those things.

So Satan uses lies to confuse us about ourselves and pretty much about everything in the world. And this is so that we'll be led down a path of, you know, once we're saved, he wants to distract us and get us off of our mission, right? Just like a soldier or somebody that gets sent out on a mission, you have an objective that you have to do. We have an objective, you know, every day when we get up that we need to do. And his agenda is to get us off mission, doing something completely out in left field or, you know, to distract us from what we really need to be doing.

Just so, in Jesus, he shows us Satan's character in John 8, 44. And the Bible says, He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies. So some of the ways that Satan today lies to us is through our culture and the things that our culture values today instead of, you know, the things that God values. So he says that possessions are more important than people, achievements are more important than relationships in our lives, and that beauty is more important than true character, godly character.

Excuse me. The enemy also lies to us about our identity and who we are. He tells us things like, We are not important to God, we are damaged beyond repair, and too broken for God to use, and God has forsaken and abandoned us. So I just want you to know, these are lies that are straight from hell, the depths of hell, and we have to use God's word to combat against these every day. And some of the scriptures we can use, one says, 1 John 3, 1, says it like this, See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God, and that is what we are.

So when the devil tries to tell you things like, God doesn't love you, God, you're not important to God, we need to fight back with these verses and let him know that that's not true at all. John 17, 17 says, Sanctify them by the truth, your word is truth. So, and that's so important for us to know, because sometimes today, we look out in society, and we see things that are going on, and everybody's saying, Oh, well, you do you, or you know, this is, well, that's their truth. And that's not the truth. The truth is found in God's word, and it doesn't change.

It doesn't change at all. Hebrews 7, 25 also says, Therefore, he is able to save completely. And this is specifically coming against the lie of, We are damaged beyond repair. So there's no part of us that Jesus can't heal. There's no part at all.

So He completely saves us. And when we believe that lie that God, that God is like, we're too broken, like, oh, I'm sorry, you're too broke. God will never be able to fix you. You're too messed up. You're not going to be able to be saved.

Quote that scripture. Hebrews 13 and 5 says, I will never leave you nor forsake you. This is one that I quote often because I hear those lies. And it doesn't matter how long we're alive, it doesn't matter how long we're saved, how long we've been walking with God, the enemy is going to try to trip us up, whatever we're doing. Especially if we're working towards reaching people for Him, the battle is going to intensify when that happens.

In John 14, 16, Jesus says, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. So to put on truth is literally to put on Jesus and the Word of God. And we can do this in three ways. The first one is we need to know the truth.

And that's why we have God's Word is so we can know the truth. We need to believe the truth. So it's one thing to know the truth. It's another to believe it. So it's kind of like steps.

You know, we can know about the truth. You know, we can know about the truth. But do we really believe the truth that's found in God's Word? We also need to live the truth found in the Bible. Because the devil wants to get us off of mission.

And the easiest way to do that, to stay where God wants us, is to live out God's truth in His Word. John 3, 21 says, But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what they have done has been done in the sight of God. So this tells us right here that when we live by God's truth, we come into the light. We come into God's light. And it's also for a witness to other people that what we're doing has been done in the sight of God.

The next piece of spiritual armor we have is the breastplate of righteousness. And Ephesians 6, 14 says, Excuse me. With the breastplate of righteousness in place. I think that part is very important. In place.

The purpose of the breastplate and the armor that Roman soldiers wore, or even like modern soldiers wear, the Kevlar vest, is to protect all of our vital, all the vital organs of the soldiers. So the heart, the lungs, the stomach, that's my most important, that's my most important organ. But those are all physical things. And so we... We have a spiritual heart as well, so this Kevlar Vest protects us from our physical heart, protects our physical heart.

The righteousness of God protects our spiritual heart, and makes it to where, sorry, it's okay. So when we receive Christ as our Savior, we receive, we come into a position of righteousness before God. See, we can't, we can't go about to establish our own righteousness. Without Christ, all of our righteousnesses are as filthy rags. We can't do all these things to please God and become righteous in His sight.

So we need the righteousness of Jesus Christ to be on us, to be put on us, so that when God looks at us, He sees Christ. Philippians 3.9 says, And be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own, of mine own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness that comes from God on the basis of faith. So this shows us right here that it's not our own righteousness that comes from what we do, but it's through our faith in Christ that the righteousness comes from Him for us. 2 Corinthians 5.

21 also says, For He hath made Him to be sin for us, who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him. So that part, in Him, is very important because we are made to be the righteousness of God in Christ. After we're saved, we are to practice righteousness, you know, and learn from Jesus what He did. And my next point is basically that we need to practice righteousness. So it's not enough to just, we get saved and then we put on the righteousness of Jesus Christ.

But if we just go out and we walk in any way that we want, we're leaving ourselves open to attack, to the attack of the enemy. So wearing this breastplate, the righteousness of Christ, it causes us to put into practice what we believe daily, like on a daily basis. So we don't just go out and forget, like, oh, I went to church on Sunday, and now I'm just, I don't know how to live the rest of the week. Making righteous, godly choices, it protects us from further temptation and deception. Trust me when I tell you that when you're a Christian, so if you're not saved, you're already in another camp.

You're already in the camp of the enemy. You haven't come to the camp. You haven't joined, you may not have joined the Lord's army yet. So you may not be coming under attack. Once you get saved, the devil doesn't want that.

He doesn't want you to be. He doesn't want you to have a witness for Christ to other people. So we become easy targets if we tolerate sin, if we refuse to forgive other people, if we have unbelief, if we abuse God's grace, then we can become easy targets and basically it'll cause our armor to be not as effective as it should be in our daily walk. After we're saved, we have to learn how to listen to the Holy Spirit so that we can walk the way that Jesus walked in His strength. This is nothing we do on our own strength.

So if we try to do this on our own, we're gonna fail. That's why we need God and His Spirit, Holy Spirit, to help guide us to the way that we should walk. Another thing that Jesus does once we're saved is He conforms us to His image. So it's not that we're going to do all these things on our own. As we pick up our cross daily and we follow Jesus, He is conforming us to His image day by day as we follow Him.

The next piece of armor that we have is the feet that are fitted with the readiness of the gospel of peace. So I thought about how to word this and I was like, the sandals of peace, the shoes of peace. And I even thought about wearing flip-flops, but I was like, no, that's not. Yeah, so yeah. Ephesians 6.

15 says, and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. And the Hebrew word for peace is shalom. And when I was looking at this word, when we think about peace, what do we normally think about? Yeah, the peace sign, other things like that. So peace is not just the absence of war or the absence of strife.

This word shalom means harmony, wholeness, completeness, and health. So God's peace is different than the world's peace. And He gives us His peace. Philippians 4.7 says it like this, So that right there tells you the peace of God guards our hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.

Excuse me, but we need to make sure that we're in Christ Jesus to have the peace of God. So there's a peace of the world, there's a peace that the world has, but it's a false peace. It's not the peace that God brings and that God gives. The gospel is the fact that God sent His only Son, Jesus, into the world. He was the one that lived a sinless life and died on the cross for us.

So the gospel of peace is... The gospel of Jesus that brings peace to everyone that believes. In the gospel of peace, it affects the spiritual battle in three different ways. First, we have peace with God, and that's salvation. The next thing we have is peace with others, and we also have peace with our circumstances.

So, the peace with God is important because it gives us assurance of our salvation. We don't have to wonder, when we have faith in Jesus, we don't have to wonder anymore about, am I saved? Am I a child of God? We know and we have peace with God through faith in Jesus. We also have peace with other Christians, and even not just Christians, but people that are not Christians.

We have peace with the world also because of Christ. And the last one I like also is, we have peace with our circumstances. So, even when Paul and Silas were in prison, they were singing, and they were filled with joy. So, they didn't let their circumstance dictate to them the peace that they had. They still had the peace of God in their hearts, and some people today, their lives are great.

They have, you know, cars, they have money, they have all of these things, but they don't have any peace in their hearts. Because that can only come from God. That's the only place that comes from. And so, that's the thing is, don't let the enemy steal your peace just by letting you look at your circumstances around your life and say, Look, oh, this thing is going on. This must be, you know, we have the peace of God in our lives and in our hearts no matter where we are and no matter what we're doing.

And that's something we have to remember, is that God's peace will sustain us no matter where we are. So, how do we strap on the gospel of peace? First, as I talked about earlier, we have confidence in our position. Once we know the prince of peace, who is Jesus Christ, we know that we are his. And it will help us to stand firm.

So, the devil knows that, you know, when you have shoes on, the shoes that Roman soldiers wore, I did read this, they had studs in the bottom. So, they could basically stand and dig their feet in so they wouldn't be knocked over. And that's the thing is, the devil wants to knock us over and get us on our backs. So, we have to have this gospel of peace on so that we'll be able to stand firm. We need to keep our attention on Jesus, the prince of peace.

Isaiah 26 and 3 says, and this is from the message Bible, people with their minds set on you, you will keep completely whole. And there are other versions that say, I like this one, but there are other versions that say, he who has his mind stayed on thee, you will keep in perfect peace. So, perfect peace and completely whole, we know that God alone can do that. . We also need to share the gospel of peace.

1 Peter 3.15 says it like this, Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect. So we are supposed to spread the gospel of peace to other people, but we do it in a way that's gentle and respectful. We don't, you know, we don't take this, we don't take this and, you know, receive the gospel of peace, you know, do that.

So we need to make sure we have the attitude and the way Jesus was with people. He was so meek and so humble and loving and compassionate when He came to people. He was not afraid to speak the truth, and there were times that He spoke up, you know, in a loud manner when it was time to do so. So we need to do that and follow the leading of the Holy Spirit and know that there are times that we can speak up, you know, with force if needed. But He never did it in a way that was disrespectful or unbecoming, you know, of our Lord.

The next piece of armor that we have is the shield of faith. Excuse me. Hmm. That's good water. Okay.

So Ephesians 6 and 16 says, in addition to all this, as if there's more, there's more to the armor, what God gives us for these battles. In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. So, and that's some powerful imagery. If you think about that, you know, an enemy shooting arrows at you that are on fire, it's like the movie Gladiator, you know, and we have the shield of faith, you know, protecting us. Galatians 2 and 20 says, I have been crucified with Christ, and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me.

The life I now live in the body, our physical body, I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave Himself for me. So this tells us right here, we live, he says, I live by faith in the Son of God. That there is the shield of faith. Okay. We live in the body, but spiritually we live in faith in the Son of God, in Jesus.

And that's why it says, I have been crucified with Christ. So we need to answer three main questions. What is faith? Hebrews 11 and 1 answers this question for us. And it says, now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see.

So faith is not a fable. It's not mythology. It's not blind faith, as some people would lead you to believe. Like, well, you Christians, you only have, you have blind faith. That's not true.

When you walk outside your house, you have faith that you're going to be held to the ground, right? And you're not just... It's not going to fly away up into space because there's something called gravity, right? So we can't see gravity, but we have confidence and assurance that we are going to be held to the earth. Even when we're in like Australia, that's at the bottom of the earth, that we're not going to fall off, you know.

So just because we can't see it, we know that these things are true because of God's Word here, because this alone here is enough for anybody to believe. Everything that's contained in this, this is a history book. It's a history book. This is alive. This is not a dead book.

It's alive and it's sharper than any two-edged sword. Sometimes I think it's good that we have our phones, it's good we have all these things, but I'm telling you there's something about sometimes picking up the Word of God and holding it for yourself when you read. I find it's different. I have to wear my glasses when I read it now, so it is different. But faith is substance and evidence.

So when anybody talks to you about that, you can say, no, faith is not something that I'm just following blindly, it's evidence. It's a substance in what I'm hoping for and that that we don't see. Where does faith come from? Romans 10 and 7 says, So then faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the Word of God. Faith is something concrete produced only by God's Holy Word.

So we need to have faith in the right things. We need to have faith in God and His Word. So how do we take up the shield of faith? Hebrews 12 and 2 says, Looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith. Sorry, I thought there was more to that.

That was it. So we keep our eyes fixed on Jesus because He's the one that began. We have faith in Jesus. We are saved. So He is the author of our faith.

He wrote it. He wrote the Word. He is the Word. And He's the finisher of our faith. And He's also in the middle also.

So He's not just the author and the finisher, but finisher means to bring to completion. So when He finished the good work in us, He's going to finish it. He's not going to leave us to anything that we encounter in life. So during our spiritual battles, we're going to come up through a lot of things. Doubt, unbelief, temptations, trials, fear, anxiety, all of these things.

And all of these things are able to be overcome by the Word of God and through every piece of the spiritual armor that we have. And this war, it's going to rage around us. It's going to rage around us and people that we have. And I'm telling you, the more that you get in line with God's will, the more that you say, okay, God, I am going to live for you. I'm going to go out every day and reach people for you.

I'm telling you, the battle is going to intensify. Okay? If you're, if you're not, the enemy is not going to shoot at people as much that they know are not a threat. So if the enemy sees you're a threat, you're going to be under attack from this. So you have to be ready, okay?

You can't go into Fallujah and just have your armor on your backpack as you're walking through a battle zone like that, all right? So we keep our eyes fixed on Jesus to take up the shield of faith. We believe. We believe and we trust in God and His promises. So as we believe in His promises, and we, we, we can quote those promises too out loud sometimes.

Sometimes we need to do that in a battle that's going on. It's a, we can pray in our spirit, but sometimes out loud we need to say, He will never leave me or forsake me. Okay? Because, and, and you know, we'll get to this later, but Jesus used the Word of God to fight the devil, to fight the enemy. And He's our great example.

We need to remember we have been justified by faith. Romans 5 and 1 says, therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. All these verses, as you can see, they all intertwine with each other. So it's almost like we're putting on these pieces of armor and they're strapped to each other, right? And when they are all strapped together in battle, we are going to be strong.

We're going to be victorious when we come out. Okay? The helmet of salvation. The helmet of salvation is found in Ephesians 6 verse 17. And our spiritual helmets are salvation.

And salvation is found in a person, Jesus Christ. Um, salvation is not found in, um, uh, being a member of a church. Salvation is not found in doing good works. Salvation is not found in tithing. Salvation is not found in getting baptized.

It's not in any of these things. Uh, it's only through Jesus Christ. Uh, and when you, we can have all of these things and they're good things. It's good to do. It's, we need to have good works in our life, um, to provide, you know, to, to bear fruit for God, but those things don't save us.

Um, so we need to make sure that we have the right perspective on salvation. Acts 4 12 says it like this. Salvation is found in no one else for there is no other name under heaven given to mankind by which we must be saved. And so that right there is powerful. Salvation is found in no one else.

There is no other name under heaven by where, whereby we must, we must be saved. And if anybody says so, they're not living by the truth of God's word. Um, these other, there are other religions and I've met many. People, and they're from other religions and all around the world, and they're very, they're very loving people. They're very kind, but they don't have Jesus.

And that's the thing we need to remember is salvation is found in him alone. So to put on the helmet of salvation, how do we do that? It's literally to put on Jesus Christ when we're saved and we wear the helmet of salvation. And we do this in a couple of different ways. We repent.

We must repent. This isn't a, this isn't a, this isn't a, this is a non-negotiable. Jesus says in Luke 13 and 3, I tell you no, but unless you repent, you too will all, you too will all perish. So to repent just means to change our mind. So when we come to faith in Christ, we may have had unbelief or we may have believed something before.

about him that was not right. So we need to repent of that and say, okay, God, I agree with you. I agree that I'm a sinner that needs, that needs salvation. I can't, we can't do this on our own. We can't be saved on our own.

Um, so it's a change of mind that leads us to action and a different direction in our lives. Uh, we need to believe Romans 10, 9 through 10 says, if you declare with your mouth, Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. Doesn't say you may be saved. It says you will be saved. So if you are doubting your salvation, if you have done these things today, if you've declared with your mouth that Jesus is Lord, you believe in your heart, God raised him from the dead.

The Bible says you will be saved for it is with your heart that you believe our spiritual heart and are justified. And it is with your mouth that you profess your faith and are safe. So it's okay to make a, we need to make a professional, uh, sorry, a public declaration of our faith. Uh, once we're saved, we don't need to keep it hidden to the world. We need to be identified.

And that's one reason we get baptized afterwards is out of obedience to Christ, because that's a public declaration of our faith. And we're being obedient to Jesus when we do it. Uh, and we also need to renew. This allows us to, uh, win the battle of the mind because today that is the primary location of the battle today of the spiritual, that's the spiritual battle that is taking place today. First Corinthians two and six 16 says it like this, but we have the mind of Christ.

So we need to renew our minds daily through spending time with God, reading God's word, letting his word soak into our heart and mind so that he can renew us through the power of the Holy spirit. We have to remember that Christ's victory, excuse me. Wow. Christ's victory has become our victory. So when Jesus died on the cross, here is the end of time.

The victory has been won, and we're here. Okay, in between where we're at and where we are headed to, because we're still going through time. Okay, we don't have one of those infinity stones, you know, in endgame where we can just put it on the glove and say, I'm going to go to the end of time. We, we are traveling through time. So there are battles between where we are and where, where the, the victory has already been won, but the battles are still taking place.

The, the victory was won preemptively by Christ on the cross, but we are still responsible for battles each and every day. For our lives, for the lives of each and one, every one of your family members, for your friends, anyone that you know is going through a battle. If they're not saved, they're going through a battle of having their eyes open. If they are saved, they're going through battles every day. of doubt, fear, of doubt, fear, temptation, all of these things we'll have throughout our lives.

But thanks be to God, he gives us the victory through his spirit and through Jesus. We also have, the next piece of armor we have is the sword of the spirit. Excuse me. Yeah. Hebrews, sorry.

Ephesians 6, 17 says, take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the spirit, which is the word of God. Hebrews 4 and 12 also says, I'm not sure if I have a slide for this. Yeah. For the word of God is alive and active, sharper than any double-edged sword. It penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow.

It judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart. The last part, the last part is, that always gets me because this here, God's word is alive. That means that I can open this today and I can read a scripture and I can say, okay, what do you have for me from this scripture today? And God gives me something. And God gives me something.

And then guess what? The next day or the next week, if I read the same scripture, I will get something else from that scripture or God may give me something else. So it's never, this is never stagnant. It's alive. Maybe sometimes the reason why we don't want to pick this up is because of this last part of the verse is because it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.

And that's hard sometimes is to read it and know that God is speaking directly to me or to you and saying, oh man, that just cut me to the heart. Look what I just read. But we need to let it do that because the sword of the spirit, we want to take this up whenever we can. We need to study it because that's how we put on the sword of the spirit. We don't just pick this up on Sundays, and we're at church with it, and then we go back home, excuse me, and we put it down, like, okay, I'm just going to go watch Netflix now, and sit down, and then, you know, we don't pick that up again or read it until the next Sunday.

We can't do that. The battles are too intense today. I'm not sure if you realize this, but the battles are only getting more intense as every day goes on. So that means that this, God's Word, it needs to be sharpened every day. We should read and memorize God's Word, but that's so we can know how to apply it in our lives.

Just because we don't have it with us, I don't mean you need to carry this around with you everywhere you go. You can, but we need to know God's Word. We need to carry it with us in our hearts. 2 Timothy 2.15 says, Study to show, or shew, thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.

So, and this is the King James Version, which I still love some verses because I memorized verses in the King James, and it was easier for some reason. Some of them weren't, but this was only one I found that says to study, to show thyself approved. We can read God's Word, and it's good to read, but there's a difference. So if we read His Word, we're kind of reading it to get an overview of what God's talking about throughout the entire narrative of Scripture. But when we study God's Word, we're studying it to learn and apply it to our lives, and that's what we need to do.

So we need to make sure we're not just reading it, you know, but we're studying it. The better we know the Word, the more equipped and the better equipped we'll be to use our spiritual sword in battle. We need to saturate. So we need to saturate our lives with the Word of God. Deuteronomy 11, 18 through 19 says it like this.

The best, fix these words of mine in your hearts and minds. Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Teach them to your children, talking about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. So that verse says that we're to fix these words in our hearts, not just read them on a page, but make them part of who we are. The Israelites now today, they take these words literally and they actually take these things and they actually put these things.

I forget what they're called, but they actually do put these things on their foreheads and their hands. So they take it literally, but God means that we need to put these things into our hearts and minds so that we know it. So the Word of God, it has to be the central focus of our lives above everything else. God has to be the center of our life. We also need to fight.

So we study God's Word. we sat. We don't want to saturate our hearts and minds with it, but we need to realize there's a time when we're going to use it to fight against the enemy. A sword is no good if it just stays on your side in its sheath all the time. It can be as sharp as you want, but if you never take it out and grab it and fight with it, it's not going to do you any good.

So you need to know how to fight. Jesus used God's Word to fight against the devil in the wilderness. And bear with me, I'm going to read this. I don't have a slide for this. So this is when Jesus was in the wilderness.

So he went into the wilderness in the desert for 40 days to go through a time of trial and temptation to be tested. And it says he went full of the Holy Spirit. So that's one thing we have to do. We have to be full of the Holy Spirit. That's what he did.

He went into the wilderness full of the Holy Spirit. The last thing, so the devil tried to tempt him twice already, right, by telling him to turn these stones into bread. And he said, you know, it is written, man will not live by bread alone, but by every word which proceeds from the mouth of God. He tempted him again. The third time, Satan says, or the Word says, sorry, and he took him to Jerusalem and set him on the pinnacle of the temple and said to him, if you are the Son of God, that's where he tries to throw doubt in his mind, if you are the Son of God, throw yourself down from here, for it is written.

He will command his angels. And there, if you notice, the devil used scripture against Jesus. For it is written, he will command his angels concerning you to guard you. And on their hands, they will bear you up lest you strike your foot against the stone. Jesus responds with, it is written, you shall not, so he said, okay, okay, you want to, you want to, you want to come against me with my word that I help, that I am the Word of God.

He's like, okay, it is written, you shall not put the Lord your God to the test. That was the third time that the devil had tempted Jesus or tried to test him. And every time he replied with, it is written. So that should give us a very strong indication of what we need to do in our spiritual battles. And I think one of my professors, he said, look, sometimes I just have to say, look, it is written.

He will never leave me nor forsake me. If you have to say that out loud, that's what you need to do. And the next thing that happens is after Jesus does this the third time, the devil, it says, the Bible says, fled from him. He fleed, waiting until another opportune time. So we need to remember, okay, fight the enemy off a couple times, but there is going to be another time when he comes back.

And we need to be ready. We need to be ready for that. So this morning, we've looked at each piece of the armor, but this morning I have a question just to see where you're at. And that's, what kind of soldier are you today? And where are we at today?

Are we, maybe you're AWOL today, and that's an acronym from the military. I have a thousand of these stuck in my head, and it means absent without leave in the military, but maybe today this means absent without the Lord for you. Maybe you joined, but you left. Maybe things were too hard, or maybe you just, you thought this wasn't for you, but maybe you're wounded today. Maybe you've been hurt by somebody in the church or somebody, someone in your family.

I don't know, I don't know what it is, but maybe, maybe you need to be healed today. So today is the day to come back to Jesus. Today is the day to come back home. No matter what's happened, He can heal, He can bind up any wound. Don't let the enemy make you doubt, or fear, or be anxious, or get you to believe the lies that you're too broken to come back to the house of God, to come back to Him.

Or are you trained and ready? Are you spiritually fit? Do you have your arm, do you have the armor of God on fully and using it? I think most of us can say that we have some area in our life that needs to be strengthened. So I pray today that, that you would strengthen whatever, whatever area of your spiritual life you need to strengthen.

Today is the day to do that with God's help. Or there's one more maybe, have you not enlisted yet? When you enlist in the military, your entire way of life changes. So at one time, you're a civilian. The next time you sign that paper, you're in the military.

You're a soldier. You're a sailor. You're, you know, an air, you know, you're in the Air Force. I don't want to say airman, airman or airwoman. You're a Coast Guardsman.

You're a Space Force person. I'm not sure. I'm not sure how that goes because I haven't met anybody in the Space Force yet. But, um, um, so maybe today you haven't enlisted yet. And I just want to say that today is the day that you need to enlist, uh, in God's army.

So it's not, it's not a physical army. It's a, it's a spiritual army. And I'm telling you, I know that you may be fearful about the attacks, uh, you know, what we've talked about today, but you have no reason to fear because God is with you. God is with you. When you believe and you walk in his ways, you walk in obedience to his word and you claim, you, uh, claim scripture and God's promises, he will protect you.

He will protect you from. from harm. So we need to be on a spiritual exercise program as members of Christ. We need to spend time with God alone in his word. We need to pray.

We need to study his word. We need to be active members in the body of Christ. We need to be together as a family because we're stronger. Look, the Bible says that iron sharpens iron. So, you know, we can sharpen each other as we come together and we fellowship together.

So I just want to pray today. If you don't know God and you haven't come to know Jesus yet, we just want to pray a salvation prayer for anybody today. Lord God, we thank you for this day. We thank you for your word. Thank you for salvation, Lord.

We thank you for the blood that you shed for us on the cross, Lord. We know that we can't save ourselves, Lord. We know that you paid it all on the cross for us. And we pray, Lord, if there's anybody here today or listening online that does not know you, Lord, we ask that today would be the day of salvation, Lord. Please let today be the day that they enlist and they sign that piece of paper.

It's the best decision. And it's the only decision that matters. Lord, all of these other decisions in life are secondary, Lord. So we pray that if there's anybody here under the sound of my voice that's not saved, they would call upon your name in faith, Lord, and that you would save them today by your precious blood. Lord, we thank you for all these things.

We give you all the honor and glory and praise to you. And it's in Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Test one, two. Yeah.

Hi. Okay. Welcome back, everybody. Man, what a powerful message about the power of Jesus Christ. We move and have our being because of him.

Amen. Amen. So right now I'm going to, I'm filling the Queen of Salt Churches, Miranda Dunning's spot. So anyways, right now, this is our time. Another act of worship, a prophetic act of worship is giving.

For any first-time visitors, before I start with that, though, we have blue cards in our seats. If this is your first time visiting with us and worshiping with us, please fill that card out. And our leadership team will get in contact with you. We're not going to bug you or sell your information. It's just, you know, we want to thank you and just establish contact.

And for everybody else who are givers and worshipers here on a regular basis, obviously, you know, we don't pass around a plate or a bucket or a container. We have one receptacle outside as you're walking out. You can also text. I can't read the number from here. But you can also scan it as well or online and through the Church Planning Center app that we all utilize as members of Salt Church.

And once again, we just want to thank you for coming out today, worshiping Jesus in spirit and in truth. We hope and pray that His Spirit has touched your life today. And you've come in here with a need, and that need has been fulfilled through the power of the gospel of Jesus Christ, and His own Holy Spirit, and the washing of the water of the word that it says in Titus chapter 3. And we wish you peace, and may the Lord bless you in the days to come. Amen.

Thank you for coming out, guys. Hallelujah.