SEP 1 2023 | Spiritual Warfare Workshop S1E3

Sea Change Church · Spiritual Warfare Workshop Ep 3 · September 1, 2023
Automated transcript. Not reviewed for accuracy.

And there we go. All right, well, welcome everyone to the third week of our, uh, holy Spirit course for this year. We are doing, uh, the topic of spiritual warfare, and it's really coming off the series in the book of Acts where Paul was in Ephesus. Ephesus is a city, as you know, that we believe that Satan actually lived in the form of Artemis. Uh, it said that she fell from heaven. Satan is known to have fallen from heaven, uh, and we know that Satan can only only live in one place at one time.

We believe that this is where he's set up camp and where he was at that time. Um, and as we look at this, we're also looking at the book of Ephesians. Ephesians is an interesting book because it talks a lot about spiritual warfare. I never really put the two together until this year where when I was doing the messages, I realized, Hey, this book on spiritual warfare, of course, Paul was in a city where there was massive spiritual warfare where we believe that Satan actually lived. He was fighting, and then he had to write a letter to the Ephesians. Well, what's he gonna write a letter about?

He's gonna write a letter about spiritual warfare and how to, um, effectively fight the enemy. And so we see this in Ephesians chapter six specifically, and that's where we're gonna be today as we look at the armor of God. And actually, this is a, a process on how to actually fight back. I said last week that if you're not, uh, fighting back, you're not in spiritual warfare, you're just under attack. Uh, warfare is when there's people battling back and forth.

And too often we just give up on our own. We don't even try. Uh, and so one of the things I realized is when I start feeling spiritual attack, first thing is to identify it. That was week one. And I even realized this last week. There was times where I identify it, I identify false thoughts, I identify things that happen, emotions that show up, just different things. We'll talk about those tonight, uh, some of those, uh, ways that he attacks us.

But I oftentimes will get frustrated that I don't get an immediate answer, and I kind of just give up, kinda as well. I'll just put a podcast on. I'll just go out to dinner. I'll go get a coffee, I'll go play basketball, do something. But I won't actually fight back in the way that the scripture tells us to fight back. And so today, I want to look at the spiritual armor.

But the thing that I think is gonna be the most helpful this weekend or tonight, is that when you look at the spiritual armor, how you actually apply it, like how do you put on a belt buckle of truth? Like, you know what I mean? So I can pretend to put it, I remember when we were kids, they'd say, put the belt buckle of truth on, and it's about being true.

I want to give you specific ways that you actually use each weapon or each part of the armor. One of the things you find about the armor is there's only one, uh, offensive weapon in the, in the armor. And it doesn't belong to you. It says it's the sword of whom spirit. Sword of spirit. So it's not your sword. We tend to, you get these people out there and they just, you know, uh, think they're amigo. You know, ango montoya, you know, from, uh, princess Bride.

It is the sword of the spirit, which is what the word of God. And so it's just employing the word of God. Got five tools on how do we employ the word of God? We'll look at that in all these different ideas. And I'm just gonna read straight from this. Um, and I'm tonight's called, equipped for Victory, unveiling spiritual warfare through Ephesians, unveiling spiritual warfare through Ephesians.

The book of Ephesians provides profound insights into the realms of spiritual warfare. That's key. Circle the word realm. I'm gonna be stopping here as we go. Realm. When you're in warfare, you're not in this realm. You're in a different realm. Ephesians says that. And so when you're warring, granted, there are ways we act in this realm, but the war is not against flesh and blood.

It says it's against the spiritual principalities. And so, you know, in this realm, you'll feel an emotion in this realm, you could possibly sweat because you were fearful. Those are tangible things in this realm. Someone could attack you physically in this realm. Things could happen. But the warfare doesn't happen in this realm.

And what the Bible calls us to do and is difficult for western Christians and Western people, is to live in a spiritual realm. To live in a, in a place that is beyond where we're from and in that place. But we won't, we don't want to be so worth, um, heavenly minded that we're of no earthly good. I wanna make this practical tonight. So the first thing is a realm. And it says, illuminating the unseen battles that believers face.

I wanna stop again right there. Unseen. Most of the battles are going to be unseen. The devil is a, a creature of the night. He's a creature of lies. He's a creature of deception. He doesn't like being in the light. He rarely will come into the light unless he has full victory. And then he loves being in the light. So there's certain areas of our culture right now where he is got so much victory. He's just out dancing in the light. You see it.

He's just out there doing his thing. There's other ways he's trying to sneak in. He's still using cover, ducking cover, ducking cover. And so he's gonna deceive you. He's gonna make things look true that aren't true. He's gonna come give thoughts, um, and we wanna be able to fight against those. So they're unseen battles. The Holy Spirit unveils these.

That's why they use the word unveiling. He unveils these and makes it aware to us. And so I, in week one, I talked about employing the Holy Spirit and asking the Holy Spirit to tell you why a certain thing is happening. Whenever you have pushback in your life, whether it be relational pushback, whether it be an emotional pushback, whether it be your computer doesn't work for over and over and over again, uh, eventually I'd say, is there something else going on here?

Is there some pushback? Yesterday I had some stuff that I had to get done. All of a sudden my Adobe wasn't working. Uh, the Adobe Creative Cloud thing that we use and for just went, it went on the fritz. I actually went on the fritz about two weeks ago, and I've been like trying to side work in and do other things. Eventually, I just had to use the program. So I got on the phone. Um, I was on the phone for an hour and a half with eight different people being sent from one person to the next, to the next, to the next, to the next.

I'm getting more stressed. I gotta get this done. I'm supposed to go do something with my, you and my wife. We're going out to dinner, whatever the whole thing was. And I'm getting more and more stressed. I'm getting more and more upset, frustrated. And I hadn't prayed. Final person's on there. It should be working. It should be working. I thought I hadn't prayed. So I said, Lord, just put my hands out. Just will you bless this program? Will you fix it? Da, da da. I just prayed. Literally, I rebooted. It started again.

The thing worked immediately, and I was able to cancel the phone call. Now, coincidence. Yeah, maybe, maybe a coincidence. Maybe. I, I tend to believe it wasn't that when I prayed, it opens doors. And so I want to be like Philip was. And the sermon on Sunday when Philip was talking to Nathaniel, Nathaniel was a, was a skeptic. Maybe he wasn't a cynic. Um, but he was a skeptic. And he said, can anything good come from Nazareth? And what did Philip say?

Come and see. Come and see. Come and see. We wanna have a, a, a come and see attitude. And so these are unseen realms. We wanna live in that realm. In Ephesians six, 10 through 18, the Apostle Paul employs, I love that word, the metaphor of a spiritual armor, to equip followers of Christ for struggles against physical, spiritual forces here, his believers to be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power.

We'll get to that in a minute. Uh, not your sword, not your power. Uh, and emphasizes the need to put on the full armor of God to withstand the schemes of the devil. The armor comprises the belt, buckle of truth, the belt of truth, the breastplate of righteousness, the shoes of the gospel of peace, the shield of faith, the helmet of salvation, the sword of the spirit, which is the word of God. Stop right there. Again. All these are defensive.

Everything is defensive. And every, uh, when they tell you to stand, when they tell you to attack the enemy, does he tell you to attack the enemy? He tells you to stand. And he says, when you have stood firm. And then he goes on, James, as we'll see in a moment, says, you know, resist the devil. So you re it's defensive. Resist the devil.

You will have sovereignty over him. Why? Because it says, if you resist the devil, he will flee from you. There we go. Nice. He will flee from you. That's a sovereignty thing. That's a promise. If you resist the devil, he will flee from you. And now, once again, that's defensive. So, um, we're not picking fights with the devil.

I think God did that for a reason. Demons are powerful. They're limited in their power. Um, but they are powerful and they have ways to attack. And the God says, we just stand. So once again, this is defensive. And the only offensive weapon is the, is the word of God, which is the sword of whom, the spirit. And so you speak the word and the spirit wields the sword for you.

But we're standing the question, you know, the thing is, is we oftentimes just don't stand. I woke up this morning and the stress was on, out of nowhere. The lies were coming in, and I was just stressed. And I thought, you know what? Clean the house. 'cause whenever I get stressed, I clean my house. I gotta control something. So I clean my house, I put a podcast on, I make a cup of coffee. And I enjoy that.

And it kind of pieces me out a little bit, but it doesn't fix the problem. And I thought, I'm not doing that. I'm gonna start putting on this armor. It took me an hour. It took me an hour to put the armor on. I I will say to you, if you're gonna be in spiritual warfare, you're gonna have to commit time to it. It, it, the, the some battles are a prayer and it's over.

Some battles are years. And so it's standing up and it's committing and putting time into it, uh, to, you know, to have that as part of your life every single day. And if you're gonna take karitas, which is territorial power, which you see, the word of God expanded in karitas was the word. Uh, we are going to have to be people that are willing to be in battle.

And when you feel battle coming, be able to sit down and actually fight it. I was tired out and I said, I'm gonna go for it. Then all of a sudden it lifted off me. I felt it lift. There was peace. Peace flowed like a river. Things were, you know, I felt great. And that was how my morning started. The armor comprises of those things. Now, if you continue to go on, Paul underscores the necessity of prayer.

And supplication is essential components of spiritual warfare. So after he mentions all of the things that you're wearing, all the things that you're wielding, he tags it and says, and pray. That's really important. Praying, having a strategic prayer plan, taking time. I, I want to, I wanna challenge you, and it's almost, um, difficult to challenge western Christians with this.

I wanna challenge you to spend an hour a day with God. I wanna challenge you to spend an hour a day. Uh, and I would spend at least 15 of those minutes, if not a half hour praying. Uh, when you pray, spiritual attack will assault you with every to-do list, every confusion of the mind. Uh, he will do everything he can to get you from praying.

He will remind you as you pray for your daughter, that she wanted something from Home Depot. And then you will be on the computer looking for something at Home Depot. I wanna say, set your clock and spend an hour and day with God. Uh, for Western people. That's very difficult. What I find is that hour a day will actually give you 16 hours or whatever you're up of, of victory, oftentimes.

And I wanna be able to sacrifice. So I wanna encourage you to, to start making an hour a day, spend an hour a day with God, and, uh, and begin to use these tools that we're gonna talk about. He exhorted believers to stand firm with the belt of truth bucking around their waist. Uh, the book underscores the importance of preparedness and vigilance, preparedness and vigilance against the spiritual forces that play in the world.

So I told you, I'm feeling peace got done with my quiet time, and it was time to clean the house. I didn't have to be to work till noon. Had a big day today. We had prayer meeting at noon. We had staff meeting at one. Had a meeting with Carmen, which was amazing. At two, we had three o'clock finance meeting, four o'clock, elder meeting, six 30 with you guys. Incredible day. So I had a couple hours. I'm like, I can organize. I'm going to Israel on Sunday after I preach.

And I was getting ready to pack, and I'm excited to get all ready, you know, get all ready for the trip. And my wife and I were having a great morning, and then all of a sudden I, something new. We weren't having a great morning. I don't know why we weren't having a great morning. And I, I, I went to her and I'm like, Hey, something happened. And, and she had some, some things that she wanted to share with me. And I was like, well, this is really interesting. Like, first of all, I was gonna go brood. I'm like, ah, I'm gonna go brood by myself in the kitchen. Got to the kitchen, and I, and this is like what I've had about an hour of peace. And I felt like this.

I felt the Holy Spirit said to me, um, this is an attack. And so go sort it out. So I went back in to my wife and I said, look, I, I wanna say I feel like this is a spiritual attack. Nothing, we haven't even really spoken in the hour since we were just having breakfast. And it was amazing. And then it's an hour later and we're all upset with each other. I, and there's been no new information. I haven't screwed up, I haven't broken anything. I didn't crash the car. Um, you know, and so I said, you know, can we just, can we pray about this and, and, you know, kind of use our tools? And so we prayed and I listened to what she had to say.

And, and then she came out. It was funny 'cause uh, things got better. And then when I got home, she goes, I really appreciate when she got home today. She's like, I really appreciate how you dealt with that. Like, it was spiritual attack. And you know, what would've happened is if I wouldn't have identified that as spiritual attack, we probably would've just gotten in an argument and then had ahor, and then that whole then I go into all those meetings today with having a fight or, or we don't really fight, but a disagreement, which is stressful. Like I, that doesn't lead me. I get in a disagreement with my wife. I don't, I can't like, compartmentalize it and not remember it all day. So for me, just identifying and then having the ability to go to her and for us to, like, we prayed together and it was great. It was a victory. Um, but I realized that Satan, he started his plan for my day was a bad day.

And messed these meetings up, mess up my meeting with my elders, mess up tonight, mess it all up. I got victory. And he's like, comes back a little bit later and, uh, and, and goes for it. And so we want to be aware of, of those things. So it's, that's the preparedness we're talking about. And sometimes your quiet time on Monday is gonna prepare you for an attack on Friday. It's being aware, being prepared.

And what I tend to do is, when I'm doing really well, I tend to stop praying. I pray better when there's sometimes attack. But when things are going really well, I tend to just kind of cruise, go into cruise mode. And so we want to do that 'cause there are spiritual forces at work in the world. Um, as we're on session one, it says, the battle unveiled spiritual warfare refers to the unseen struggle between forces of good and evil that take place in the spiritual realm, thus impacting the lives of individuals and communities.

It involves battles that extend beyond the physical world. Battles, encompassing spiritual influences, temptations, conflicts that seek to undermine a person's relationship with God and obstruct their spiritual growth. This concept of acknowledges believers are engaged in a continuous struggle against the powers of darkness, deception, uh, spiritual opposition aims, you hinder their pursuit of a close and vibrant connection to God.

The significance of spiritual warfare in the Christian life journey lies in a recognition of the multifaceted challenges believers encounter. And the call to engage in active spiritual preparedness. Also reliance on God's strength, which we'll talk about just a second. And the utilization of spiritual weapons as outlined in the Bible to overcome these challenges and experience spiritual growth, transformation, and ultimate victory. Now, why didn't God just say, Hey, go into the house of the, you know, the house of the Lord and hide.

And rather than give us all these spiritual weapons, we have to engage. Why doesn't he just protect me and I can't just hide and be safe in the house? Well, for some reason, God wants to employ us in overcoming the kingdom of Satan. He wants to work with us. He wants to partner with us. He wants us to grow, and we grow in maturity. It says in, um, the scriptures that it is through perseverance.

Perseverance leads to proven character. Proven character leads to hope. And this actually will lead us to maturity in Christ. And Christ is trying to mature us to move to that next level. So he's using these different things. Now, I wanna show you that the battle, the spiritual battle can manifest in many forms. And I actually had, I actually had to stop and think, where do the bat, where do I actually get attacked?

It's almost like you're a king and you're in the Middle Ages and you're in London and you're not aware of what's happening in Wales. You're not aware of what's happening in Scotland. You're not aware of what's happening on the, you know, in France. Uh, you know, you're just not unaware of where you're being attacked. And one of the things that we talked about the first week is just being aware where you are being attacked. And so I sat down and it, it actually took some, some actually some effort to sit down and think through this to make it tangible. Because this Ephesians passage has never been tangible enough for me.

It's been okay, put on the belt buckle of truth. That means I don't tell lies and God's truth in his word. Okay? Uh, I put on the helmet of salvation, okay, capture your thoughts. That's kind of as far as it went. But I think it can go further and it can, can go further when we know where we're being attacked. So I wrote down, this is what I came up with of how the battle actually that, that that unseen battle actually manifests itself physically in your lives and how you'll feel it. One is emotional turmoil, same will come and just give you emotional turmoil, depression, anxiety, fear. Uh, I will get that regularly. Um, today, uh, I was just walking. Things were normal.

I remember what I was doing middle of the day, and all of a sudden I got a, a little bit of information about a certain situation. It wasn't even that big of information. And like that panic feeling was like, it just hit me. It gripped my chest, it gripped my heart. And I was like, uh, now years ago when I had panic disorder and uh, anxiety disorder, actually that could mess me up for three weeks. Not being able to overcome that.

God has given me tools. And God can give you tools to overcome depression, anxiety, yes, some of it's chemical, um, some of it's not. So there is some that's chemical and there's, and I, you know, um, I don't wanna go too far into that, but a lot of, there's a lot of our depression that we do have control over. There's a lot of our anxiety.

I know with me a lot of the anxiety that I can actually push back and actually take some victory. Uh, you're not subjected to lose every battle to anxiety. You can actually win some. But we get into this lie from enemy, from the enemy of like, you're, you're gonna lose every battle to depression. You're gonna lose every time. I, I attempt you with fear. You're going down every single time. On occasion, I'm gonna stand up and start punching back.

And what I have found is I've been able to slowly strengthen as God has changed the neuro pathways I've healed. Things I didn't believe in, uh, that I did believe in. I had false truths about myself, about my worth. And there were things that I was in agreement with. And Satan had a plan. And so one of the ways is emotions. If you feel an emotion, just sweep in. Be aware of that. Pick it up. Be aware of it. And, and, and face it in the moment when that, you know, a lot of times I'll just kind of run from it. Oh, okay, I better go get myself.

If I'm anxious, I better go get myself some positive dopamine to get a run away from it. I try to get away from that emotion as opposed to standing firm and standing in the truth. So one way that Satan will attack you is through emotions. Now, he can do that immediately with like this. It just overwhelms you. And I've had that happen before.

You just get overwhelmed all of a sudden outta nowhere. He also, I found this week, 'cause I was being more aware, he will do it slowly. So I, I had this thought, uh, or, you know, uh, in the middle of the week and it was kind of like, oh, there's that. I remember that person. That person's upset with you. And it wasn't that big of a deal. I was like, well, I, I haven't seen that person for years. You know, I don't care if they're upset with me, fine. They're upset. I mean, and it wasn't, or whatever. I didn't really think I didn't care, but it wasn't like something I had to go fix.

And then a little bit later I had another thought, oh, that, that person, yeah, they're kind of upset with you and I, no, fine, fine, fine. Pretty pretty soon. It was like a little bit later, I was like, man, no one likes me. You know what I mean? And I realized, I looked back and I realized I had had five thoughts that started with one that was kind of innocuous. It was kind of benign. It was kind of just like, Hey, that doesn't really matter. And then the next one was a little bit more, got a little closer to home. Next one, a little closer to home. Next one, a little closer to home. The next one is like, no one's coming on Sunday.

No one is coming on Sunday. Everyone hates you. Um, and I realized, and I was like, and I caught it and I thought, that's not true. Okay, there's five people. Is there anything I need to work through? No. Is there any thing I need to address? No. And then all of a sudden it went away. Now that I felt that that was a spiritual attack, where the enemy was just like, I'm just gonna feed him a little bait. See him, feed him a little bait.

We'll see, they won't stand up to a little bait because he knows if he knows now, if I get the big emotion, we're gonna, we're gonna go after it. I'm gonna be like, no, I'm pulling out my Bible. Like that's where I wanna live. I have to live there, especially when I'm teaching this class for three weeks. Which if you want to get to experience some exciting spiritual warfare, teach the class. Um, so he was hitting me with all these big ones, right? All for the last three weeks he's been hitting me with these big ones.

And I'm getting to the point where like, I kind of got that figured. So then he is tried a new thing where it's like, we're gonna start with little ones. We're just gonna build it up. And so that was just one way that I was just aware and I was able to catch it because I want to be on the wall. I wanna be one of the watchers on the wall, especially for my own life and my life and my family.

So one is that battle can come in many forms. Emotional turmoil, uh, would be one of 'em. The other one's mental confusion. Just to confuse you, I was in a meeting recently and Noelle was there. Noelle was in a meeting with me, uh, with, with uh, Drea. And we were in the middle of the meeting and all of a sudden I was thinking, and I just got really confused. It was a really important meeting.

It was super important. And I just got really confused in the meeting. Uh, and on which direction. I forgot some things that I had already spoken to other people about, about the meeting. So I wasn't able to make promises or anything 'cause I'd had these other people I had already spoken to. I completely forgot about it, which is rare for me. Uh, maybe I got again on Joe Rogan's Alpha Brain or something, I don't know.

But I was there and I just got confused. And then as soon as the meeting went over, everyone went away. And like two minutes later, I'm like, all of a sudden it came back to me. I'm like, what? What did I, what did I, what did I just promise to do? What have I, what have I, what, what was I doing? Like it was just, I was confused and it might have been the right thing to do.

The the decisions I was trying to make, they might be the right thing to do. But I just realized in that meeting there, it felt like there was something more going on. There was like this confusion, there was a lack of clarity and it was really, really important. And so what I did was I called both of the people in the meeting afterwards, I'm like, Hey, just immediately I just called 'em. I'm like, Hey, I just felt like I was a little, a little confused. I was a little off my, my game. Can we pray about this? And, um, they're very gracious.

And so it was awesome when you have gracious people around you and they're like, yeah, no problem. It's awesome. But mental confusion can be doubt, can also be disordered belief. Things that you believe about yourself, just disordered. You're no good. You're a liar. No one likes you, you'll never be any good just disordered beliefs or beliefs about, um, things that are just wrong.

So I have people, some people that I, I talked to, I was talking to somebody recently and they shared their opinion on something going on in culture. And it wasn't a godly opinion, but as they shared it with me, they shared a bunch of Godly stuff around it. Like, Hey, they, it's, you know, it, I'm sure it's pretty good because of this and this and this.

And I was just like, I don't want to, I don't wanna go, you know, down the rabbit trail with you. But I've just gotta say that that's not holiness. And I don't see, I don't, you know, well if you, if you really understood the bigger perspective, uh, and I was like, I think that's a disordered belief. And it, it comes from either the desire to really care for people or whatever it is, but it doesn't, it doesn't align with scripture.

We tend to do that ourselves. And I've probably done that myself as well, where I just get a disordered belief about something happening in culture. I think Christians, this happens a lot politically. I think if you're constantly the, you take off the, the helmet of salvation and you just put on the helmet of whatever news channel you like, and you're just thinking about it constantly and you remove God's protection and just start feeding all these things.

I've been seeing more and more believers just go down these, these rabbit trails of like, that you're getting further and further away from the gospel. And so they're disordered beliefs, disordered beliefs about what God's doing in our culture, disordered beliefs about society, about government, about history. They're just becomes disordered.

And Satan wants to do that as he tries to get us away from the word of of God. So there's disordered beliefs. Satan will use that. He'll attack your identity, he'll attack you with worldly influence. He'll show you the culture. He'll try to make that look beautiful. Remember he did that with Jesus. He says, you know, Hey, I'll give you all of this. Look at it. Look at how beautiful.

It's this whole world. I mean, he could have said, you created it all. Wouldn't you want it back? 'cause now it's under my control because of the fall. Little did he know, like I said last week, that he was fooled. Remember that scripture I read? It says that if, if the heavenly realms would've known what was gonna happen when Jesus was crucified, they wouldn't have crucified him. He got fooled, but he was, he was offering Jesus the world.

And we start looking at things in the world and we start wanting them, start looking at celebrities. We start looking at houses. We start looking at, there's nothing wrong with those things, but we start getting this disordered beliefs of like, what, what I think commercials try to do is tell you you're not what you need to be.

You need this. That's a disordered belief. You need to be a model. You need to look 30 when you're really 60. You need, you know what I mean? There's like, that's a big deal. You know what I mean? Like really caring about what we look like. Not knowing that there's a whole bunch of other cultures that if you look the way we're trying to look, you would be ugly in that culture.

But it doesn't matter to you 'cause you just care about this culture and things that are passing or whatever it would be. So we need to be really careful with this and the worldly influence, uh, how much money you need to have, what size your car you have to have, uh, how big your yard is. I've told parents many times, be careful when you're buying that house that you're buying something so your kid can have a yard and that experience. But mom and dad are never at home.

Like, what's the point? You know? So that could be a worldly influence. And he'll try to rob your kid's childhood from your presence. He'll try to rob things away. He wants to rob, kill and destroy, steal and destroy deceptive leadings. He'll distract you, wants to distract you. Hey, look over here. Look over here. Look what's happening in this place. Like, God really has a place that he wants you to focus. He's, you know, but you're looking over here. Whatever, whatever that thing is, I can usually tell where people have been putting their focus in a prayer meeting. We have a prayer meeting here every Tuesday.

And it doesn't happen often, but when someone comes in hot with something I saw in the headlines that day, and they're just, wow. Over this headline, you know what I mean? And it's, and fine, you can do that. But sometimes you feel, and I've, and I'm, I'm susceptible to it myself. Um, I can get really just, uh, you know, overly agitated about something that is happening in the world.

The Lord said, don't really care about everything that the world cares about, says, because the world has enough what cares of its own. It's just gonna keep having more problems. And so that is another thing just to get, you know, the amount of Christians that are so discouraged right now because oh, what's happening in our country? What's happening here? What's happening there, you know, are, and if it's for souls, then I love that We want to care for souls. We want to care for God's kingdom.

But sometimes it's a lot, it's about more than that. And so I have to ask myself that a lot because, um, I'm looking at the headlines a lot. 'cause I kind of feel like I'm in the tip of the spear during Covid. Do we stay open? Do we not stay open? How do we stay open during George Floyd? How do we deal with that? What's the response willing with everybody? Um, I'm constantly reading those headlines and I really gotta make sure I'm praying the headlines like John Stot said.

So when you get these like a real powerful emotion about some headline thing that can be a distraction, not saying that you should, some people are called to those things. You gotta make sure you're called to it in the passion that you, um, are, there's apathy. Just be apathetic. Just kind of give up. I know after, after Covid was over about, I had about a year where it was just like, whew, okay.

And then I realized it was a year and a half and I realized I'm not as close to the flame as I want to be, and I'm giving myself this excuse. And we, I needed a break. We all needed a break. We were tired. Okay? We, we were grinding here. We did everything we can to try to serve you guys. But I realized it kind of went into apathy, like, things are going well, it's cool. And I felt like the Lord was pressing me as I began to ask him, I wanna get closer to the flame. And, and, um, a a w tozer, uh, in his book, the Pursuit of God speaks about in the opening chapter to pastors that are content to be in the courtyard of the temple, the sacrificial courtyard, the courtyard where, you know, where the women are, or the foreigners.

There's all these courtyards in the Old Testament temple. Um, and he said, but few of them want to be in the Holy of Holies. And I realized I was convicted. I, and he says, you know, your people don't need more programs. They don't need better theology. They don't need cleaner sermons. They need people that are in the presence of God to lead them. And they're, they're starving in your pews. Uh, and I don't know if that was completely true.

That wasn't really true. I think good things were happening, but there was probably six months of throttling off a little bit more than I needed. And I kind of just got into that. And so by seeking the Lord and realizing in that book and deciding, Hey, I'm gonna start reading spiritual books again. Not just, you know, medieval history and all these other things and diving in, God did that.

And so that's another way he can do is deceptive, leading. So we have emotional turmoil. If you experiencing emotional turmoil, you can check these mental confusion, disordered beliefs. And then there's deceptive leadings like cynicism. I talked about that this week. Just cynical, you know, cynical, angry, um, deceptive leadings, making your negative thoughts about the politician that you, you actually hate. And you'd be happier if they were dead. Maybe. Um, you know what I mean?

There are Christians that are so far along on that political thing or whatever, that they actually have thoughts of murder in their heart. Now we got, that's a deceptive leading. And your whole thought is, well, you know, if they were gone, it would be for the kingdom and we could get them out of the way and we could just be spiritual. But you're harboring murder and you're harmed. Um, just a, I had a friend who's a pastor of mine, uh, he's passed away up at North Coast Calvary Chapel. And I asked him one time, I said, um, what do you, I mean, what do you really struggle with? Spirit?

What's your biggest spiritual struggle? He said, murder. I wanna kill people all the time. You know who that was? Um, um, and I said, really? He goes, yeah, I just have a problem with anger. And I was like, holy cru, that's gnarly. I didn't really, people deal with that. Um, but else raised a guy. He did raise a guy from the dead. Yeah, right? So, um, amazing guy. And thankfully he never, he never acted on it. So I was, I wasn't gonna out him, but, uh, even though he is dead, alright, so what are we gonna do about it? Here's just a few things.

Maybe you could spend some more time to see how you're being attacked. Maybe it's physically, um, who knows? You need to spend some time thinking about where you're being attacked. Now what do we do about it? We armor up. Okay, we gotta armor up. If you don't arm up, it ain't gonna get better. And you're not in spiritual warfare. You're just being attacked.

You're getting your butt kicked in an alley by Satan, and you're not even, you're not even fighting back. And so we wanna give you the tools. So here it is, out of, um, uh, Ephesians six. Finally be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power, put on the full armor of God so that you can take your stand against the devil's schemes. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world, against the spiritual forces of evil and the heavenly realms. Therefore, put on the full armor of God so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground. Stand your ground.

And after you have done everything to stand, then do what? Stand firm then with the belt buckle of truth around your waist, the breastplate of righteousness in place. Your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. And in addition to all this, take up your shield of faith so that you can extinguish the flaming arrows of the evil. One. Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the spirit, which is the word of God. And then there's this addendum.

And pray by yourself, with your own mind. No in the spirit with all kinds of prayers and requests with this in mind. Be alert and always keep on praying for all the Lord's. People pray also for me, that whenever I speak, words may be given to me, that I will fiercely make known the mystery of the gospel, of which I'm an ambassador in chains.

Pray that I may declare it fearlessly as I should. Woo, that's goodness right there. That is deep. Um, I want to hit a few things. The first thing is in verse 10, finally be strong in what the Lord. And in his mighty power, you have no power. Once you start getting a little feeling of some power, you are ready for the take down pride. Start doing it in your own power.

You start being, uh, people start telling you you're amazing. So when Satan starts losing, if he's, if he can't work with the jab, he's gonna start using the hook. Okay? So as soon as you start beating him with some power, some dunamis power, some cratos power, he's gonna change that. It is the Lord's battle. When you fight, when you put on the armor, say, God, this is your fight.

You're gonna do, I'm gonna, I'm gonna equip. I'm gonna put this arm, this on. I need you to fight. I need your mighty power. I am, I have no power. I am weak. All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. As I said in the Catholic church, when I was a kid, Lord, I am not worthy to receive you. And if you were Catholic, you say, but only say the words and I shall be healed. I pray that all the time.

Catholics have some great prayers, should look at some Catholic prayer. They have some great prayers. Pray that all the time I just come weak and I wanna show up. It's about his power. You've been fighting in your power. If you're, if you're noodling your problems a lot, probably fighting in your power, you ever get, you get a thought, you just keep noodling it. Noodling. I'm gonna figure that out.

I'm gonna figure that out. I'm gonna figure that out. And it's, then you get a piece 'cause you figured it out, but it's a piece of your understanding. And a Philippian says, we're gonna give you a piece. Does anybody know the key word? A piece passes that pa surpasses that is beyond your understanding. That's the piece you want where you're so peaceful, you're like, woo, where'd that come from? That's the Lord's power.

Stop fighting on your own. We're standing. Next thing it's about standing, put on the full armor of God. So you can take your, what your run towards the battle line. Know that you can take your stand against what the devil's schemes. He is a schemer. You know what a scheme is? It is a multifaceted plot to take you out. He'll come from all different directions.

He'll use a TV show that reminds you of something. Just get that in your head that, that that's agreement with some belief that isn't true about yourself. And then he'll have one of his people that's kind of on his side come and say something to you. Or maybe somebody won't say hi to you at church. And so no one likes me. And pretty soon you're down that rabbit trail. And then, you know, the boss gives you a report that you don't like. And on and on and on.

He's got a multifaceted scheme. And we wanna stand on the front foot of that. We want to be, have that readiness there. So it's about standing and realizing that there's schemes. Ask the Holy Spirit to show you the scheme. He will make notes. Um, Paul says, we are not unaware of the devil's plans or schemes. He's not unaware. Now the devil's unaware of God's, but we are not unaware because he makes the mysteries known.

What did he say there? At the end, it's about knowledge that I may be, it may be known, made known to me. Ask regularly, God, what's happening in my marriage? Why do I feel this way? Where is this feeling coming from? Why is this happening? Where am I being? Where am I being misled? Where am I on the wrong foot? And so asking God, and sometimes it'll just give you an answer. So I I, I came back from my vacation and I was like, Hey, there's some things I really want to get under control.

There's some things I feel that are outta control and I want to get 'em out in control. So I came back from vacation and I was ready to hit the ground running. And so I just started running and I had some great conversations and I said, this needs to change. And then I just dove right in. And then I didn't get the results I wanted. Uh, I wasn't getting the results, having some, some rub. And I was like, didn't feel like I was really doing great.

And I had a few people gimme some positive feedback. And it was kind of similar, but it wasn't great. And I realized that when I was gone, I believed the lie that everything's falling apart and I needed to take control, fix everything. So I realized that I was being attacked. And that is an attack that, uh, Satan wants to, to regularly give me that I gotta get in there and do everything myself. Um, and so when I was there, I said, God will tell me how to fix it.

So I told you this week, I, I was going through it. I got my new credit to listen to an audible book. So I listen to audible books regularly and I've been asking the Lord reveal to me, reveal to me, reveal to me how to do this. 'cause I don't know how to do it, because the only way I know how to do it is eventually to go in and do it myself. And so I came across the book How To Win Friends and Influence People.

And I just felt by that book, downloaded it, listened to it. First chapter. Anybody know the first chapter of that book? It says, if you want to get honey, don't what, don't kick over the beehive. And I, I realized I got back from my vacation. I'm like, that beehives gotta go, that beehives gotta go because we're gonna be kicking some beehives when I get home. And, um, I did that for about, I, I did that for about three days and I didn't get no honey.

And so about three days in, I've been back about three weeks now, I just decided, hey, um, after I got this word, I believe the Holy Spirit gave me that word. And the word was from Dale Carnegie, the opening chapter of a, of a chapter of a book. It was chapter one, and I took it as a word from the Lord. I knew it was a word from the Lord, I heard it and the Lord. And then he lays out a plan on how to get the honey.

And so I just said, I'm gonna, I want honey, I want broken beehives. And so for the last two and a half weeks, I just started trying to get that honey. And I'll tell you what, it's a lot sweeter to get the honey and do it the right way. And so for me, that was just one example of where I just became aware and I asked for that to be made known.

And so it's about standing that he may have these schemes. And that was a scheme what I was feeling. I think the lie was, if this thing doesn't succeed, this church doesn't succeed. You are not a success. And that's probably the deepest lie, or you're no good. What the other lie was is you really want the kingdom to take hold in La Jolla and you need to do it yourself to make sure that it happens.

So that's the thing, the lie of like, okay, I'm gonna get in there and do that. But it wasn't with God's. Uh, and maybe you do that yourself or you maybe the person who, Hey, I'm gonna come in and kick some beehives over because it's a righteous cause. So there was two lies going on there. One was about my identity and one was about how God wanted to expand the kingdom in this area, which I think the way in which I was trying to do it for a few days wasn't right.

So I've had a lot of experience with spiritual warfare in the last three weeks. It's been amazing. Um, and I've learned yourself. So James four seven says this as well, submit yourselves then to God resist the devil and he will flee from you. So it's standing, resisting. I want to challenge you to start resisting when you get a temptation.

Try to resist. Um, you know, try, I mean, maybe you've resisted for a day, an hour in the past. See if we can push it out to a day. I'm not saying that you celebrate and fall to the temptation after a day, but a lot of times a temptation that says if he flees the temptation will go away. You know, temptations go away. Um, he comes and tempts you resist temptation, resist the devil and he will flee from you. One of the, one of the big mistakes I had in college when I was trying to get set free from a lot of things, addictions and things like this, I would have some success.

Luckily I got sober pretty soon I'd have some success with sobriety. And then it would be like, well, I've had some success. I can celebrate now. Blow off some steam. Let's, you know, let's go drink. Uh, and so I then I'd go to celebrate my victory in Christ. I'd go get drunk, you know? Um, and it was like, you know, that's not virtue.

Virtue doesn't blow off steam. Um, there are healthy ways to rest, but the blowing off steam that I was doing was actually a lie. And I was, I was actually rewarding myself. The lie was, you've done really, really well. God's really pleased with it. You can kind of reward yourself now. Uh, which is just, and I knew it was a lie, but I wanted what I wanted. Um, and like many of us, okay, let's just go through these real quickly and then we'll finish the evening.

I want to talk about these different armor of God. It's described in Ephesians six, 10 through 18 metaphorical representation of the spiritual equipment that believers need to withstand and overcome spiritual challenges and warfare. Each piece of the armor serves a specific purpose in helping believers stand firm against the schemes of the enemy. Number one, belt of truth, purpose. The belt of truth represents a commitment to living in alignment with God's truth and righteousness.

It holds all the other pieces of the armor together, uh, which is awesome. It kind of holds, it holds the breastplate. The breastplate used to have, uh, like, uh, belt loops in it. So the breastplate and, and, uh, the loin cloth or whatever they would wear would've belt loops as well. Your sword would be there. Everything was connected except the helmet. Uh, and sometimes the helmet could even be connected to the brass plate, but it would all be this connected purpose. Um, my, my question then is how do you actually put that on how, on a Tuesday morning at seven 15 in the morning, do you put the belt buckle of truth on? Well, I think there's, I just have two things here. One, it's a commitment to write deeds and li and having no falsehood in you. So it's living according to the truth.

Um, I was a person who I always said that, um, when it came to honesty, it was, I played soccer, not tennis. Now, if you play tennis, and I think it's, I think it's tennis, um, and the ball hits the line, right? It's out. That's right. There's a volleyball where it's out, but it's like the ball's out if it hits the line. But in soccer, you can dribble on the line, right? You can kind of just, you know, you can kinda have a little bit of way, you know, a little bit of a, um, a leeway in, in the truth and honesty. And that got me in a lot of trouble. Uh, the amount of believers that will give me, um, advice to, um, be dishonest is, uh, really, really interesting. Especially during the 2008 housing crisis.

I was able to keep my home. It got really dicey there for a while. Got a little overextended, won't do that again. Um, and I was, I worked with three different Christians and all of them told me to do dishonest things. Uh, and it was funny because one was like, you need to declare bankruptcy. And I'm like, well, I'm not bankrupt. Well, you're gonna lose your house by Friday if you don't declare bankruptcy. I said, well then I'll lose my house. Uh, and I actually said, you should, you know, I told you, they said, you know, they were trying to tell me to do this thing that was dishonest. It was funny.

I said, no. And that was like on a Monday, I think. Um, the next day, this is true, the, the next day, if you remember that time, trying to keep your house and how hard it was, I was working two jobs and the whole thing, um, I got a phone call from Bank of America and they, they wouldn't call back like it was, if you remember that time, if you were in that system, it was really, it was crazy. Um, and they said, Hey, we want to redo your loan and, um, come down tomorrow, today.

They didn't have any brick and mortar places. Come down to this place tomorrow. And I went down and I signed the most glorious deal you could ever sign. It was like glorious. Um, what they were, what they were willing to do in 2008. I, I heard that I was part of 3% of the society that got that particular deal. Um, but here's the thing. I wasn't like, I'm not willing anymore at this point.

I hope it continues that way to sell my blessing for unrighteousness. Like the blessing that God has put on my finance or my family since then, or whatever. I'm just not willing to give it away. I'm not willing to give away the blessing that comes with tithing. Like, I'm, I'm, I'm terrified not to tithe. Uh, you know what I mean?

There's just these different things that I wanna live in agreement with truth. So the first thing is be true. Don't lie about what you know. Be you know, be wise. If, you know, if my wife says, how do I look in this dress? I'm gonna be wise as I answer, right? Um, I talked a few weeks ago about the difference between secrecy, uh, and then also just, um, wisdom in regard to how you share things.

But be truthful. Don't cheat. Don't cheat. Don't, don't lie to people about where you are. If you get caught in an untruth or if you get caught doing something, admit it. Ask forgiveness. Live in truth. If you don't live in truth, it's easier to be deceived. If you lie to others, it'll be difficult to remember the lies you told.

I rarely forget the truth. Rarely, but I forgot my lies a lot. Oh, I thought you told me this. Oh, I guess I did. So the first thing is commitment to truth. Be committed to truth, and then be committed to the truth of God's word. Agree with his truth. Whether you feel it or not, God didn't ask you to feel it. He does promise that he will give feelings. Sometimes he asks you to believe it.

Faith is not a feeling. Faith is a belief in things that are unseen. And so we want to start believing. So that's the first thing. Those are two things you can do. One, are you being honest. If you're being dishonest, stop being dishonest. Stop it. Stop being dishonest. You will close doors that the enemy can attack you immediately, even if it costs you money, even if it costs you, your business.

Even if it costs you your house. You like be at any cost. Be honest. And I have found from a person that was extremely dishonest, I had someone take my s a t for me, paid 'em $50 in five cases of Miller, genuine draft, got me a great, got me into college. Um, you know, I was, I was dishonest. I stole things all the time. I would break into cars here in La Jolla, steal stuff just to do it.

I just stole because I wanted to steal. I didn't even need the money. My friend and I would just go out at night, we'd just break into cars and steal stuff. 'cause for the, the, the rush of it to go from that and to slow and to be getting caught over and over. And eventually even until, you know, probably about three years in, at North Coast Calvary Chapel, I finally had gotten caught enough doing little sneaky things with like where I was, was I really gonna be in the office? Oh, was I sick?

Was I not sick? About three years into that job getting caught enough, I just was done. And that's when I made a commitment to honesty. That's the belt buckle of truth. Next one's a breastplate of righteousness. Uh, the purpose, the breastplate of righteousness protects the heart, vital organs. It signifies living in righteousness and guarding one's heart against corruption of sin. Uh, the breastplate of righteousness is put on through a commitment to a couple things. You can do righteousness.

One of the ways you beget righteous is through the blood of Jesus when he forgives us. So through the blood of right, Jesus, we confess our sins. How do you put on the breastplate of righteousness? You confess your sins. That's how you get righteous. We confess, if we confess our sins, first John one, nine, he is faithful and just to what?

Forgive us of our sins and cleanse us of all righteousness. Correct? You wanna put on the breastplate of righteousness? Confess your sins. Confess your sins regularly before the Lord don't live. And I'm a horrible person. No, I'm a horrible person and God loves me. So I'm and his blood sesame free makes me a child of God. You gotta walk that bridge from confession into what you, the reward of confession.

What Satan wants you do is confess and then live in shame. Oh, I'm a miserable person. I'm a miserable sinner and I'm gonna stay that way. Well, if you confess it and ask his blood, no, you're not. All of a sudden you were set free. And so the, here's, here's how you live that out On a Tuesday morning, you confess your sins and you live according to holiness. Be holy.

Only go where God goes. Where you go, I want to go. Holy, holy, holy. Holiness and righteousness. Never need to justify themselves. They never need to say, but, and if, if you start, oh, it's okay, because, um, you'll find that holiness will never justify itself. It'll just be straight in your face. You know, people will tell, oh, you know, I talk about, you know, being pure and not having sex before you're married.

It's basic Christianity 1 0 1. Basic, basic Christianity. Um, and people will say, well, we're getting married. The devil will lie. You're getting married. You really love each other. Wouldn't you want two people to love each other? Uh, we can't afford to get married. So whatever. There's all these reasons. Holiness will never do that. Holiness will just say, no, not doing that.

And we have a lot of couples that are committing to that in this church. And just the numbers himself will tell you that, you know, you're way less likely to get divorced if you do that. So that's righteousness. Shoes of the gospel. Peace. I'm gonna keep flying through these. Purpose of the shoes is to provide firm footing and stability.

Symbolizing readiness to share the message of God's peace and readiness. Face challenge with a gospel centered perspective. The shoes of peace are put on through a commitment to these things. And it's a gospel peace, right? It's the gospel. So it's where it's, it's telling. Jesus died on the cross, but it's peace. And so the way you put this on is a few ways. The, the shoes on. One, um, there is a commitment to simplicity.

There's a commitment to rest. There's a commitment to margin in your life, to conflict resolution, to mediation, to stillness, to letting go of worries. Peace. We all want peace, right? But we make decision after decision after decision. If we buy something we can't afford. Now, I don't sleep at night, 'cause I gotta worry about, I didn't, but I, I wouldn't sleep at night because I gotta worry now. I, I don't mediate a conflict.

I say something I shouldn't say 'cause it felt good. But now I got no peace. I'm upset about that relationship. I'm upset about it. I'm thinking about it all day. I got no peace. The gospel of peace not only talks about the peace sharing the gospels, that's one thing we do. You're sharing the gospel of how we get peace. We only get true peace for Jesus. That's the first part. The shoes are put on.

Number one, by sharing the gospel, telling people about Jesus and who he is. And the second and third and fourth and fifth ways is making decisions that bring you rest, making decisions that give you peace. Giving simplicity in your life, making sure there's margin in your life. Not getting overtaxed, not getting so much media filter where your life is just becoming confusing.

Alright? So that's the ways to do that. Shield of faith offers protection against the enemy's attack, particularly the fiery arrows of doubt. Fear, temptation represents an unwavering trust and confidence in God's promises. They used to wet the shields so that the arrows would hit it and they'd be an extinguished. The shield of faith is used as a, um, through a commitment to God's word. It's a shield of faith, a commitment to God's word and actions that follow faith rather than fear or emotions. So two things. One, the word of God will represent, will work as it'll, it'll, um, make, it'll, um, it'll extinguish the, an, the enemy's arrows. Okay?

And it will do that as you bring truth. And you live in that, in the shield and the faith of what God says is true. The next way you live into it, as opposed to being fearful, make the faith-filled decision. You might still feel fear. Make the faith-filled decision. Um, you can, you start living according to faith. And so the shield of faith makes faith decisions. And like, well, I'm kind of, I don't know if I should go this way, but I, I'm, I think God might be calling me this direction. You make faith-filled decisions.

Your actions are filled with faith. I said on Sunday in one of the services that our, um, we expect in this culture, you have to have a feeling. And then the action follows the feeling. I'd say it's the other way around. Merton says, you do the action and, and the feeling will follow. And I'm finding that as well. Once I do conflict resolution, all of a sudden I feel it.

I don't need to feel real warm fuzzies to somebody to have res you know, the conflict resolution 'cause it might never happen. So two ways you do that is an un unwavering trust in God's word. Um, and then moving in faith away from those other things. Helmet of salvation, uh, the helmet guards the minds and thought. It signifies the assurance of salvation and the protection of one's mind.

From doubts, deceptions attacks on our identity. The helmet of salvation is put on this way through identifying negative and harmful thoughts, taking them captive and replacing them with thoughts aligned with God's scripture and truth. Sean, would you do me a favor? Would you turn this air conditioner on? I'm getting warm up here. Thanks buddy.

Yes. So one of the things we want to do is with that helmet of salvation, when you put that helmet on, you want to realize and become aware of your thoughts. You want, you want to be really aware of your thought, and you'll know when you get a thought that hits you with a feeling or an emotion, a lot of times the thoughts that are from the enemy will be, will correspond to an emotion. So whether it's a temp attempting thought, it would come with perhaps lust or it's a thought of anger, you know, or, or against somebody. It would come with a thought of anger, a feeling of anger.

It's identifying this thoughts, looking at your thoughts and saying, is this a godly thought? Looking at your thoughts about politics, looking at your thoughts about your neighbors, looking at your thoughts about yourself, looking at your thoughts about your future. Look on and on and on. It is, is identifying your thoughts and really shepherding your thoughts. Guys, this takes work. This is not easy.

And Satan's gonna keep coming back and forth until he can. He can wear you out. But James four says, uh, seven says, if you resist the devil, he'll what? And then, look, you might get a whole day of peace. You know, I had spiritual warfare today. In my mind it was attacked full of anxiety, not full of anxiety, but I had anxiety. Spent an hour, it finally broke.

I got 45 minutes or an hour of peace. And then all of a sudden had that issue, you know, with my wife, had to go back into the battle, came out of that, had victory over that, and the rest of the day had a, had a fantastic day. It was a long day, but a fantastic day because I was able, something I haven't been doing for a while was identifying, I was able to identify that I was kicking the beehives over because I've been asking the Holy Spirit, show me if you're not getting the results you want, ask the Holy Spirit to show you, he's a counselor.

Show me how to win my wife's heart. Show me what to do in business. Show me how to speak to this person all day long, asking the Holy Spirit. Show me. Show me, show me. So that's the helmet of salvation. It's put onto identifying negative and harmful thoughts, taking them captive and replacing them with thoughts aligned with scripture and truth. When I was having anxiety disorder, I remember I was in Australia and I was getting thought after thought, and I just had to picture myself tying it up and saying, no, I was in battle.

It was like an hour and a half. And it was just I, the, the, the feel. There was never any peace that came in that hour and a half. It was anxious and I just wanted to run away and go do something, you know, try to get away from the thoughts and flee. But I just kept doing it. I just kept doing it. I wanna say that those feelings that day never went away.

It was probably a few days later. It was, and it was a little bit difficult. If you're going to take your thoughts captive, it's not easy, don't, it's, it's difficult to over and over again to take your thoughts captive. I just wanna finish here, uh, with two more of the sword of the spirit's. Both, uh, an offensive and defensive weapon. It represents the word of God, which is powerful tool for the discernment and counteracting deception and defeat. Spiritual enemies. The sword is weirded wielded through, um, a few things. I'm gonna give you five tools for using the word of God.

You want to use these five Most Christians only use two. One, uh, it, it would be immersion in the scripture. Immerse yourself in the scripture. Binge listen to the Bible. Binge read the Bible. Go read. Spend an afternoon and read 40 chapters of Jeremiah. Read. Read the Psalms for two and a half hours. Take a break in the middle.

Get yourself a cup of coffee. Like, try scriptural immersion. Jump in the pool. Most of us don't do that. You know, sometimes I'll just put the headphones on and I'll just listen to 50 Psalms as I'm cleaning the house. So immerse yourself as number one. Number two, memorization. Memorize the scripture. Committed to memory the neuro pathways in your head. It'll always be there.

You want to have your mind bet towards Christ. And memorizing scripture. Does that number three, study scripture. So it's immersion of scripture, memorization of scripture, the study of scripture. So this just four, not five. Study the scriptures. Go to the blue letter Bible. If you have never gone online to the blue letter Bible, it is phenomenal.

Put in your favorite chapter of the Bible. You'll see what will happen. Just go to the blue letter Bible, put in Ephesians six and go have fun. It'll, it is awesome. You'll see all these things. You can click, you can learn Greek words. Super fun. Study the scripture. You know how, you know how teachers of the scripture become teachers of the scripture?

They study the scripture. And so we want to study the scripture. And then the final one is speak the scripture. Speak it. Speak it to your family. Speak it to yourself in the mirror. Speak it out loud, speak it to the devil. Speak it to people as they walk by. You know, I say that all the, you know, I'll speak scriptures to people that don't even know it. Hey, they'll say something nice and you'll say, thank you so much.

You know what words have the power of life and death, I think. And you just spoke life over me. And they'll be like, whoa. You know what I mean? Speak scripture. You don't have to give 'em a verse. Reference, immersion, memorization, study, speaking of scripture. That's how you wield the scripture. That'll change your life. And then the final one, and I'll get you guys outta everyone a little bit long prayer and supplication.

This is his addendum at the end, though not a physical piece of armor. Prayer and supplication are an integral part to warfare. They allow believers to communicate with God, seek guidance and request his intervention in battles. You can go on and read the rest of it. Lemme just say with regard to that, each of you needs to experiment with prayer to find the kind of prayer that works best for the way God has created you. Some of you that's walking, you get a prayer walk. Some of you that's sitting, some of you, it's an hour praying in tongues. Maybe you have that gift.

You want to find what works best for you. For me, I've been having these prayer beads and I just have these prayer bess, 'cause I need something tactile. And I will find that if I have a hundred prayer beads that I take from one and I just get another prayer, get another, I'll do 10 for the family, 10 for the staff, 10 for this, 10 for that. I can, I don't know why I could sit there for like two hours. It's amazing.

Call to weakness when I don't have my beads. It's way harder. It just works for me. I light a candle is what I've been doing. I like, I get a real smelly, nice candle, go to Marshall's and I go buy one of those candles with a weird name. I wanna name candles as a living. That would be so fun. Um, and they're always leather in something. Um, but nonetheless, I light a candle, get up in the morning before my family gets up and I've been just, I read the word of God for about a half hour and then I just start cracking through these beads. Um, there's nothing magical about the beads.

I don't think that they're, whatever. They just organize my mind. It's a, a spiritual abacus for me. Maybe you're praying, maybe you should write, but a lot of believers have never experimented with prayer. Like, just experiment with prayer to the point where you can actually, you know, you know what works for you and you start getting addicted to it.

And that's how Paul talks about. So those are the, the, uh, the, uh, spiritual warfare that, um, tools and the weapons that God has given us. I hope that this class has been helpful. I will be up here afterwards to answer any questions you might have. Bruce has his coin if you'd like to see his cool coin from Ephesus. Um, and we just want to bless you guys and thank you.

If you have any more questions, let me know. Uh, go out and get 'em and keep reporting to me how it went. Amen. Alright guys. God bless you guys. Donuts and decaf donuts and decaf.