Man, Ephesians chapter six, beginning in verse number one, the Bible reads,
children, obey your parents in the Lord for this is right.
Honor thy father and mother, which is the first commandment with promise that it may
be well with thee and thou mayest live long on the earth.
Now, if you remember at the end of chapter five, we just finished up with the admonitions
for the husbands and the wives, that the wives were to obey their husbands and reverence
their husbands and that the husbands were to love their wives and be willing to give
their lives for them.
So now he begins to address the children with their responsibility.
He says, children, obey your parents in the Lord for this is right.
And then he follows it up with one of the 10 commandments, honor thy father and mother,
he says, which is the first commandment with promise, meaning that's the first of the 10
commandments that has a promise associated with it specifically that if you keep this
commandment, you're going to inherit a particular blessing that if you honor your father and
mother, that it will be well with you and that you may live long on the earth.
And those are obviously two very powerful blessings that we would all want to have in
our lives.
We all want things to go well for us and we all want to live long on the earth.
And so it's important that we honor our father and mother and that we obey our parents.
He said, children, obey your parents in the Lord for this is right.
Now the only time that we would ever want to disobey our parents is if they were to
command us to do something that is just outright sinful.
Like for example, if they were to tell us to go steal something or to commit some terrible
sin or, hey, drink this alcohol or whatever, then obviously at that point we ought to obey
God rather than men.
And the Bible says, let every soul be subject unto the higher powers for there is no power
but of God.
The powers that be are ordained of God.
And so there's a chain of command where God and his laws are supreme.
And then next for children would be their parents.
So as long as what the parents command does not conflict with what God commands, then
children should always obey their parents.
Now for example, let's say a parent were to forbid their child to attend Faithful Word
Baptist Church and they said, you may not attend Faithful Word Baptist Church.
Or let's say that a husband were to forbid his wife and say, you may not attend Faithful
Word Baptist Church.
Now you say, pastor, that would never happen.
Well, actually, believe it or not, that has happened before.
And here's what I always tell people is that God does not specifically command you to attend
Faithful Word Baptist Church.
God commands you to attend church but he doesn't command you to attend this particular church.
So I've always told people that if your husband or if your parents are forbidding you to go
to our church or to some other particular church, you know, I talked to a lady that
said my husband is forbidding me to attend Verity Baptist Church.
What do I do?
I talked to her when I was in Sacramento.
And I always tell them the same thing is that, you know, you go to another Bible believing
church that has the King James Bible that has soul winning.
You go to a different independent fundamental Baptist Church if they just have something
in particular against this church.
You want to try the best you can to get along with the authority figures in your life whether
that be your parents, your spouse, your boss at work, whatever.
But when it comes to not going to church at all, well, you know, that's where you have
to obey God and go to church.
So I would tell a wife or a child that, you know, you have to go to church.
And so you need to find a way to get to church no matter what.
And often we can resolve conflicts in our lives where we have, say, a parent or some
other authority figure telling us not to do something where we could make some kind of
an arrangement or make some kind of a deal with them like Daniel did in Daniel Chapter
1 where they want him to do something that's wrong.
And Daniel purposed in his heart that he would not defile himself with the King's meat nor
of the portion of wine which he drank.
Compromising was not an option for Daniel.
He wasn't going to drink the wine and he wasn't going to eat that meat that was presumably
sacrificed unto idols.
He wasn't going to do it.
But the Bible says that he requested of the prince of the eunuchs that he might not defile
himself.
So he went to his authority there.
He went to the prince of the eunuchs with hat in hand and worked out a deal with him.
He didn't come in there and, I'm not going to do it, you know.
He basically tried to be at peace and everything ended up working out great.
He was able to obey God and he was able to obey his authority.
And so that's always the ideal situation if you can work things out with your husband
or work things out with your parents where you can come to some kind of a meeting of
the minds, right?
But if not, then things like going to Faithful Word Baptist Church are not a deal breaker.
You can go to a different independent fundamental.
I know it's not as good, no, I'm just kidding.
But you know, you got to obey your parents or obey other authorities in your life.
So anyway, I just wanted to point that out because that's a situation that a lot of people
have brought to me or people have brought up to me.
And look, don't get me wrong, I want everybody to come here.
I think this is the best church in the area.
But at the same time, I don't want somebody to mess up their marriage over it or be in
disobedience to God's Word over it.
It is important that we obey our parents, okay.
The Bible says that it may be well with thee and that thou mayest live long on the earth.
Ye fathers, provoke not your children to wrath.
And this is very similar in Colossians chapter 3 when it says, provoke not your children
to anger.
Wrath and anger are two words that mean the same thing.
Wrath is just a stronger word.
So he says, ye fathers, provoke not your children to anger but bring them up in the nurture
and admonition of the Lord.
Now what this is saying is that it's possible for a parent to be too harsh, too stern, too
mean to their child in their discipline, maybe in their zeal to discipline and run a tight
ship to the point where they could actually provoke their child to anger, provoke their
child to wrath by just going over the top, treating them like dirt and making them very
angry and upset.
And so obviously we should be kind unto our children but we also need to be strict.
We also need to have rules and so you have to find that balance of having rules, being
strict and forcing the laws of your house but at the same time not being a total jerk
to your children to the point where they're going to then rebel against you because they're
just so angry at the way that you treat them on a continual basis.
So we need to also show love and kindness to our children so we can balance out the
discipline with the love and affection and bring them up in the nurture and admonition
of the Lord.
See, nurture is a very positive word to feed, to take care of, to spend time with.
Admonition is telling them what they need to be doing.
So we want to have both sides of the coin there, the nurture and the admonition of the
Lord.
It says in verse 5,
Doing the will of God from the heart with good will, doing service as to the Lord and
not to men.
Now notice in three verses he brings up the same thing three times.
He says that you do it, in verse 5 at the end there, as unto Christ.
So servants, those who serve, this would be a worker who goes to their job, they work
for an employer and he tells them what to do, he's their boss, and he says that you
are to obey them and you're to work hard for them as unto Christ, as if you were working
for Christ, he's saying.
That's what he says in verse 5.
He says it again in verse 6 because he says, as the servants of Christ, that's how you're
supposed to work.
And then in verse 7 he says, with good will, doing service as to the Lord and not to men.
Now for God to say the exact same thing three times in a row, three verses back to back,
it must be pretty important.
It must be something that we should really pay attention to and focus in on because why
is he so repetitive?
Three times saying, do it as unto Christ.
I'll tell you why, because a lot of people get a bad attitude about their boss at work
and they think, well yeah, but you don't know my boss.
Well I know Christ and you're supposed to be doing it as unto Christ.
So forget your boss, don't get so focused on the pros and cons of your job or how nice
your boss is, get an attitude where you go to work and say my boss is Jesus and you do
your work as unto Christ, not as unto men.
And by the way, children are supposed to obey their parents because of Christ.
God is the one that ordained the powers that be.
God is the one that gave you your parents as an authority figure.
If you disobey your parents, who are you really disobeying?
At the end of the day you're disobeying God because God said children obey your parents.
And when he told the wives to be obedient to their husbands, if the wife disobeys her
husband, who is she really disobeying?
God.
And look, the children should do the work around the house as unto Christ.
The wives should do their work around the house as unto Christ.
The husbands, when they go off to their job, they should do their work as unto Christ and
not get a bad attitude about the boss no more than you would get a bad attitude about Jesus
Christ.
And you say, well, but, you know, if I do that, my boss will take advantage of me.
Well, a great example of this in the Bible is Jacob.
He had a boss that took advantage of him, lied to him, changed his wages seven times.
I mean, treated him terribly, but yet at the end of the day, Jacob walked away with tons
of cattle, tons of herds, tons of flocks.
He was blessed and he was paid for every hour that he worked, whether Laban intended to
pay him or not.
He got paid.
He got taken care of.
That's what it says in the next verse.
Here's the promise, verse 8, knowing that whatsoever good thing any man doeth, the same
shall he receive of the Lord, whether he be bond or pre.
So he says, you do your work as unto the Lord.
You do your work as unto the Lord.
You do it as unto Christ and then you receive payment from the Lord.
You got that?
Working for the Lord, you get paid by the Lord because it says, knowing that whatsoever
good thing any man doeth, whatever good work you do, whenever you go above and beyond at
the job, whatever extra work you put in and do a really good job and do your best, he
says, you will receive that, not from your boss, from the Lord.
God will make sure that you get paid for the work you do.
The Bible says in all labor there's profit, but the talk of the lips tendeth only to penury.
I remember I had a job earlier in my life and I had a job that I really liked, but it
didn't really have a future because I'd kind of learned everything that the job had to
teach and I talked to the guys who'd been there for many years that were really good
at their job and they weren't really making a lot of money.
So I thought to myself, you know, this place doesn't really have a lot of future even though
I really like the job.
So I ended up switching to another job that had a lot more promise of future advancement
and climbing of the ladder and learning a lot more complicated skills and going from
the residential alarm work to the commercial fire alarm systems and audio systems and other
low voltage systems.
So I decided to switch jobs to this commercial job and, you know, I regretted it almost from
the beginning because a lot of what they told me in the interview just flat out wasn't
true and these people just were constantly telling me things that weren't true.
They'd promise you a raise and then you'd do what they said to get the raise and then
the raise doesn't materialize and you'd see them do other people in the company the same
way and people would come into the interviews and get told the same lies and it was just
not a good work environment.
I didn't like it and I worked there for a few years and I didn't like working there
and, you know, I felt like I was getting a bad deal but, you know, I kept these verses
in mind that I need to work as under the Lord.
I need to do a good job and everything like that.
And so even though I never made the money at that job that I was supposedly gonna make,
I never really got the opportunities that I was supposed to get.
I kept on doing what I was supposed to be doing and then even when I went to leave that
job, you know, because I had a lot of important responsibilities in the job, I decided to
not only give them two weeks notice, I'm gonna give them four weeks notice just to make sure
that we can get everything passed off to other people and get them trained and I told them,
hey, I wanna be considerate of you guys so I'm giving you guys four weeks notice that
I'm gonna be leaving and what did they do but reward me by just treating me poorly for
those four weeks and then in the final week after I'd gotten all the information passed
off and gotten everybody trained, they just told me, oh, just take your last two days
off.
Yeah, I really needed that, you know, financial hit of taking those days off.
Thanks a lot, you know, for giving them that note.
I could have just not given them any notice and made more money but that's the way these
people were.
They just didn't have integrity as business people that were running this company but
even though I felt like it was a big mistake, even being there, even though I felt like
I didn't get what was coming to me, even though they lied to me repeatedly, when I moved to
Chicago, then I was able to get a really good job with a good boss with the experience that
I'd gotten in those couple years at the job that was kind of a crummy job that I didn't
enjoy and so then when I looked back I could say, oh, you know, all things work together
for good to them that love God and then that are called according to his purpose.
Everything worked out great.
God had a plan for me that I got the knowledge and I got the training and then I was able
to make really good money at this other job.
So what I'm trying to say is that you're not always gonna get paid from your job when you
put in the extra work because some bosses are just fro word bosses and they're not gonna
give you what's coming to you and they're just kind of out to get as much work out of
you for as little possible money and they don't really care about you as a worker but
God can find other ways to reward you.
You know, you might get money from some other source just because God looks down and sees
you working hard and he'll reward you.
Maybe you'll get some other check in the mail that you didn't even expect or maybe
at the next job you'll make extra money and get a bonus and you never know what's gonna
happen.
The bottom line is God promises that we can know for sure, we can take it to the bank
that whatsoever good thing we do we'll receive of the Lord whether we be bond or free.
But at the same time, you know, if we go to our job and we're logging hours where we did,
where we were unproductive, where we weren't really working, where we were fooling around
and we're lazy and we don't give it our best and we just kind of do the minimum and just
kind of coast through and we're just mediocre and maybe even below average.
You know, God looks down and sees that too and he can find a way to take that away from
you because of the fact that you were supposed to be doing that as unto Christ and you're
not treating Christ very well, you're not doing a very good job for Jesus Christ.
So we as men need to understand that our job is a very important part of our lives.
It's critical.
A job is not just this necessary evil that we just have to have in our lives so we can
do the really important stuff.
No, no.
The job is our life.
That's amazing.
Look, God created us to work.
We're created by God to work and we're supposed to work by the sweat of our face all the days
of our life.
Now, is family important?
Absolutely.
Of course.
Is church important?
Absolutely.
All of these things are important.
I'm not downplaying those things and I'm not saying that work is more important than those
things but what I am saying is that work is also very important and we need to understand
that there are many things in our lives that are all important and we need to make sure
that we give all of them the attention that they need and a prominent place in our life.
You see, Hollywood and the television has been programming people for too long that
men who work hard or stay late or maybe they cancel an activity to go work an extra day
at their job, that they're bad people.
This is the plot and look, I used to watch a lot of TV, guys.
When I was growing up, I got rid of the television but when I was growing up, I watched a lot
of TV so I know the plot lines and it's always the sad child and the sad wife because dad's
got to work and he can't be there for every single sporting event or the dog Frisbee show
or he can't be there for every little party and every little outing and every field trip
and every PTA meeting and it's just, oh, I see what your priorities are, you know.
I mean, it's just so much junk I got on TV.
Well, you know what?
Men need to put their job in a prominent place in their lives and you know what?
Sometimes, listen to me, sometimes you do have to miss a church activity to go work
at your job.
Now I didn't say miss church for your job.
Now I put church above my job and I would never miss church to go to work, you know,
and I would always tell my bosses going in, I can't work Sunday morning, Sunday night
or Wednesday night and there's 168 hours in the week and the other 160 some hours, I'm
available for you but those three times, I cannot work and I stood by my guns on that
and I did not and I feel like God blessed me for going to church.
You know, every church activity, you don't have to just miss your job for every church
activity.
Look, I want you to participate in church activities but if your boss says, hey, I really
need you to work, you got to work on, you know, June 24th and you're like, no, I'm going
to the Albuquerque Soul Waning Marathon.
Here's the thing, you can go soul winning here in Phoenix, you don't have to go to Albuquerque
to go soul winning on that day, you can go soul winning another day, another place, right?
You can move things around, be flexible, you know, sometimes, you have to make sacrifices
for your job and, you know, I saw this thing online where they were talking about how men
make more money at their job than women and, you know, women are constantly complaining
about this and saying that it's not equal rights and that it's an affront to their feminist
sensibilities and so forth.
You know what I'm talking about, right?
So, it's not fair that men make, and this guy said in the video that someone had posted,
this guy said, well, part of the reason for that is because men approach work differently
than women because for women, you know, the children and their activities and all the
other things that are going on with family always come first whereas men tend to realize
that sometimes the job has to come first and so there's a difference there in the way
that we approach work.
Why is that?
Because women were not created to go work at a job in the first place so they're not
in their natural habitat, they're not in their natural element there whereas men were created
to go work and serve and usually to be an employee of someone else and so we're wired
as men to want to do our best at our job, to take pride in our job, to do a good job
and to do it as unto Christ, do it as unto the Lord.
Whereas women, their job was created by God to be a wife and a mother so that's why they
have a tendency to always be like, I got to be at that T-ball game, you know, I got to
be at that play, I have to be at that piano recital, I have to be at, you know, whereas
men are sometimes like, well look, I got to do my job, I got to put money on the bank
account, I got to put food on the table.
So we need to understand that Hollywood and the TV has this agenda of trying to act like
men who go to work and work hard are somehow a bad guy and he needs to just be just at
his wife's beck and call for 16 hours a day and he's only at work for that 8 hours and
God forbid he should ever stay a little late and get something done.
I don't believe in it.
You know, I think sometimes it's great to tell your job, hey, I can work late, hey,
I can work Saturday.
Now look, do some people go overboard and then neglect family?
Of course and obviously our family is critically important, church is critically important
but you know what, it just seems like there's just a downplaying of our jobs all the time
that we need to fight against today.
It's out there.
I mean today people are talking about we need a 35 hour work week or some garbage.
Oh, let's be like Europe, let's be like Denmark, let's be like all these stupid liberal, socialist,
European countries and you know what, I've been there, okay.
I've been to Europe, I've seen their little paradise, their utopia and you know what,
they do not live as good as we do, fact.
They do not have the standard of living we have, period.
People here earn more money, live in a better dwelling, have more spare cash, more opportunities.
I would much rather be an 18, 19, 20 year old starting out in the United States of America
than over in Germany or any of these other commie socialist places any day of the week
and I've been there, I've talked to people, I've known them, I've relatives over there
through my wife's, you know, the in-laws and I know their situation and I know what it's
like over there and you know what, over there, the life that I've lived over the last 17,
18 years of my adult life would not have been possible over there.
For me to just get married when I was 19 and start having kids right away, that doesn't
even come into their mind, okay.
They have to work hard to get to that point maybe in their mid to late 20s and then they're
living in a high rise apartment and everything else.
They do not live the lifestyle that we live in the United States and they do not have
the opportunities that we have.
You have to be thankful that you live in the United States of America.
There are a lot worse places to live, believe me and we should not be patterning ourselves
after these socialist foolish countries.
Have you noticed that they're having 1.6 children over there or 0.9 children over there?
Is that what you want?
Is that the life that you want to live?
Not me.
I want to have nine of them and then I want to have more.
Well there's a reason why they're not doing it over there folks and part of it has to
do with money and yeah it costs money here too but here it's humanly possible.
There it's very difficult to live that lifestyle.
And so you know don't buy into this propaganda of oh what we really need is a 35 hour work
week.
What we really need is a 30 hour.
We need to have more time with family.
How much time do you need with your family?
Your family is going to get sick of you.
I mean seriously if you only work 40 hours and you spend the rest of the time with your
family that's enough family time.
They're going to be sick of you if you're home more than that.
They're going to be like don't you have somewhere to go?
Don't you have somewhere to be right now?
And you know it's not more family time it's more lazy sitting on your butt time.
It's more TV time.
More video game time.
It's more just whatever time.
It's not more quality family time.
There's only so much quality family time that you're going to spend realistically.
You need to go to work.
OK.
And you know in the Bible they work six days a week.
You don't need to be downsizing to these little Danish levels of work or whatever.
But let me move on with the sermon but I just wanted to park it there a little bit because
we just have an epidemic of people who refuse to go to work.
We got people who go to their work and they don't do a good job.
And you know especially when they name the name of Christ that's a really bad testimony.
You know you're a good testimony to the Lord when you go to your job you do a great job
and people say man we love those workers from Faithful Word.
And we have some employers in this area that do love workers from Faithful Word Baptist.
If you tell them hey I'm from Faithful Word Baptist that means something to them that
oh you're hired.
But you know they'll ask the other people that already work there what kind of person
you are you know and hopefully they'll tell the truth if you're a bad worker if you're
a lazy kind of a guy.
So anyway let me move on but we need to be a good testimony on our job.
We need to do it as unto the Lord.
And don't worry about your boss who's a crook because God's going to reward you God's going
to take care of you.
God will settle the score.
You can trust that and take you to the bank.
Then he says in verse 9 and ye masters do the same things unto them forbearing threatening
knowing that your master also is in heaven neither is there respect of persons with him.
So here he tells the bosses to be a good generous boss thoughtful boss a good boss not to be
a jerk not to just be this overbearing type boss.
So verse number 10 the Bible says finally my brethren be strong in the Lord and the
power of his might put on the whole armor of God that you may be able to stand against
the wiles of the devil for we wrestle not against flesh and blood but against principalities
against powers against the rulers of the darkness of this world against spiritual wickedness
in high places where foretake unto you the whole armor of God.
So the Bible is saying that we're in a battle it's not a battle with flesh and blood it's
not a physical fight but it is a fight nonetheless and there's a battle going on there's a war
going on it's a spiritual battle and he's saying you must put on the whole armor of
God because if you don't then you will not be able to withstand in the evil day in order
to be able to stand you must take unto you the whole armor of God to stand against the
wiles of the devil what are the wiles of the devil that would be his tricks.
So he's out to trick you to fool you to deceive you to trap you to ensnare you to beguile
you and you must take unto you the whole armor of God so that you don't fall for it so that
you don't get sucked into it.
He says we wrestle against principalities that's referring to devils demons.
He says powers the rulers of the darkness of this world against spiritual wickedness
in high places wherefore take unto you the whole armor of God that you may be able to
withstand in the evil day and having done all to stand stand therefore more repetition
verse 11 says stand verse 13 says withstand and then it says stand and then it says verse
14 stand therefore so three times it says stand one time it says withstand.
So God is making the point here that we need to stand our ground and not let the devil
and his minions back us up right see the last thing you want to do in a war is to be backing
up and losing ground you know you want to stand your ground you want to hold the position
hold the position and not be backing off and giving ground to the enemy where they then
get the momentum on their side and they begin to win the battle.
We don't want the devil to win the battle in our lives so we need to not give him an
inch we need to stand our ground and withstand and stand stand stand and only move forward
not be backing off and taking steps back.
You see a lot of people they think that if they back off a little they can sort of compromise
with the devil like they can do a parley with the devil that they can basically come to
kind of an agreement where they can find a balance in their life or peace in their
life where they can get along with both God's people and get along with the wicked.
But the truth of the matter is that the sons of Belial the sons of the devil the children
of the wicked one as the Bible calls them the tears of this world they are implacable
according to the Bible.
The Bible says in Romans 1 that those that are reprobate those that are the sons of the
devil those that are the children of Belial it says they are implacable now that word
implacable if you're not familiar with it it me it comes from the word placate and to
placate someone is to appease them right.
So what does it mean to appease someone OK.
It means to give them what they want just to get them off your back right.
You want them to just leave you alone you want to get them off your back so you just
kind of give them what they want shut them up and get them off your back it reminds me
of when I was a child my older sister Ronnie used to babysit me and my parents would go
out on a date and then my older sister Ronnie would babysit us and she just wanted to talk
on the phone a lot because she was a teenager and she wasn't supposed to be talking on the
phone when she was babysitting she wasn't allowed to use the phone so but you know she
wants to talk on the phone and so sometimes we would go in and ask her for things because
we knew that she would placate us and just kind of give us what we want just to get us
on so Ronnie can we have cookies can we have cookies and she just got yes how many can
we have how many as many as you want so leave me alone shut the door you know she wants
to be on the phone so she would placate us by just giving us whatever the cookies we
want and so forth so that's what it means to placate someone it means you appease them
okay if someone has a certain demand and they're coming to you with that demand and they're
not leaving you alone and finally you just say just give it give them what they want
you know let's say you got a parking ticket or something it's $15 and you keep getting
stuff in the mail $15 $15 give us our $15 and you're just like fine here's the $15 you're
placating them you're appeasing them you're giving them what they want to get them off
your back right well here's the thing about the reprobates that the the the sons of the
devil of this world the bible calls them implacable meaning that they cannot be placated they
will never be placated if you give them a finger they take the whole hand you give them
an inch they take a mile they will not be placated you can't just kind of throw them
a bone and get along with them no they just want more they just want more so if the devil
gets you to back up a few steps he's all right are you happy now no no he'll push you further
he won't be satisfied until he just will never be satisfied he'll just keep it and look at
for example the sodomites how their agenda is they're never satisfied you can sit there
and and make it legal in 50 states to be a homo which we've already done now in the US
then you can make it legal in all 50 states for them to marry each other or whatever which
all 50 states have done you can sit there and put it in the school curriculum to teach
how wonderful homos are you can bring the homos into the military you can have you know
training in the military how we need to get along with homos and how great they are and
homo history month and homo pride month and homo awareness month and march them down the
street but here's the thing if you teach them if you teach the children about being a homo
in third grade right I mean brainwashing and perverting and polluting these young eight
year old minds that's not enough they'll push for second grade that won't be enough they
want it taught in first grade and if being homos legal well that's not enough let's bring
the age of consent down to 16 and then let's bring it down to 14 and then let's bring it
down to 12 and you know what their place in Europe where it's down to 12 and that's what
they want they want it to be here like it is over in your your little liberal left-wing
paradise over there in Europe where a 50 year old man can be with a 12 year old boy
and pervert him and corrupt him and they'll say oh it's consensual because the age of
consent's 12 over there there are places where it's 12, 14, 16 look that's what they want
and they'll never be satisfied if it's 12 they'll push it to 11 they will never be satisfied
so it's ridiculous how Christians today want to placate them they're implacable you have
to stand you have to withstand you don't give them an inch I mean that's why these bakeries
are so foolish where they say sure we'll bake cupcakes for you but we just won't bake a
wedding cake for you you think they're gonna be happy with that you think you're scoring
any points with them you're scoring zero points with them you might as well just say hey no
fags turn around there's the door because you know what they didn't hate you any more
or less before after you said that they hate all of God's people they hate Christians so
whether you say here's a cupcake here's a Bund cake here's a German chocolate cake here's
a pineapple upside-down cake then they'll say well give us the wedding cake and then
if you give them the wedding cake they'll say now we want you to write on it how wonderful
we are and how great it is to be a fag or whatever so they'll never be satisfied so
you might as well just draw the line where God draws the line and that's why our church
does nothing to try to placate them nothing to try to get along we don't even throw them
the smallest little bone we just say no because they hate us but they'll hate us anyway because
you'll never do enough to please them never never but that's how it is in all areas of
our life when we start to compromise it's just a slippery slope because if the devil
can back us up a little bit he'll back us up a little more he'll back us up look when
you go from the King James to the New King James as some kind of a compromise you know
what it's only a matter of time before it's the NIV before it's the ESV where you go even
more wrong on the version next thing you know you're going to be on good news for modern
man or something so you got to just stand your ground withstand now how do we withstand
well we got to have on the whole armor of God meaning that if any piece is missing we're
vulnerable if there's any piece of the armor that's not there we're vulnerable let's see
what the pieces are it says stand there for verse 14 having your loins gird about with
truth this would be like the belt the girdle that which gird you he says the loins gird
about with truth you've got to have the truth having on the breastplate of righteousness
I believe that in this context righteousness referring to right living living right he
says the breastplate of righteousness and then he says your feet shod with the preparation
of the gospel of peace above all taking the shield of faith above all meaning this is
the most important component the shield above all taking the shield of faith wherewith you
shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked and take the helmet of salvation
and the sword of the spirit which is the word of God so we have these different components
and if any of them is missing then we're vulnerable especially if the most important components
missing missing which is the shield of faith now why is the shield of faith so important
why is it the preeminent piece of spiritual armor because the bible says that the shield
of faith will allow us to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked and faith is referring
to believing God's word now obviously all of us have faith or we wouldn't even be saved
right because it took the faith in Christ that saved us to even get us saved he's talking
to Christians he says in verse 10 finally my brethren be strong in the Lord he's talking
to people that are in the Lord there's brothers in Christ and he's saying to you you know
yeah okay I know you have faith that you believed on Christ that you confessed with your mouth
the Lord Jesus and believed in your heart that God raised him from the dead but that's
not really that doesn't take a lot of faith that's just a beginning of faith that's a
start thankfully it doesn't take a lot of faith to be saved it just takes putting all
your faith in Jesus to be saved but just because you've trusted Christ as your savior does
that mean that from then on you just are maxed out on faith all the time and you always
believe every promise of God and you're always fully trusting in him all the time no because
the bible says trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not unto thine own understanding
even after we're saved and we trusted Christ with our salvation there are times when we
lean on our own understanding instead of trusting in the Lord with all our heart so
with the shield of faith has to do with reading what the bible says about any subject any
topic any situation and believing what God says and saying you know what here's what
God said I'm going to trust that he's right and I'm not going to lean on my own understanding
see the devil is going to throw all these fiery darts at you these tricks at you he'll
try to get you to think that the world's way is better than God's way and so we have
to know the bible well enough to even be able to trust in the word of God you have to have
something to trust in something to put your faith in and then we have to believe God's
word take him at his word and if we do we can quench all the fiery darts of the wicked
it's like a shield that we put up when we when we read the bible and it tells us for
example that we're supposed to spank our children you know we read that we believe that we implement
that that's a shield right there where when Dr. Spock comes along and says that it's going
to damage their psyche or something you know and he throws all these wily little studies
and all these wily different philosophies of why we should do attachment parenting or
or aha parenting or all these different new fangled ideas that don't involve disciplining
your children you know we have that shield up that says no I know what the bible says
I believe it's true I'm going to trust God I'm not going to lean on my own understanding
even if somebody comes along with a really slick pitch on why the world's way is better
you know and the devil's wily he can come at you with some tricky stuff and and try
to make you doubt yourself and doubt what you're doing in all areas of life you got
to hide behind that shield of faith quench those darts but I'll tell you the one piece
of armor that that most people today are missing amongst God's people thank God not in our
church but in most churches is the feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace
they're not prepared to preach the gospel they don't have that preparation of the gospel
of peace they're not prepared I mean you could you could throw a situation in their lap where
they have the chance to witness to someone they wouldn't even know what to do with it
they wouldn't even know how to do it you see by going out soul winning every single week
you're keeping your sword sharpened you got your soul winning skills sharpened when somebody
comes along that you need to preach the gospel to them you're ready to go I mean this is
just another day at the office for you you've done this over no you've wielded that sword
for so many thousands of hours it's a piece of cake for you but you know what what about
when you're not a soul winner what about when you don't do the door-to-door thing well the
opportunity comes on oh you don't know what you're doing or you do it wrong you don't
use the verses you don't know the verses you don't have a Bible with you you can't quote
them you don't even know where to turn you're flipping through the vial it's in here it's
in here somewhere you know person loses interest or thinks well this guy doesn't know what
he's talking about I'm gonna go ask I'm gonna go ask my buddy who's a Jehovah's Witness
or a Mormon or a Roman Catholic or you know whatever we need the preparation of the gospel
of peace the feet shod the Bible says how beautiful are the feet of them that preached
the gospel of peace that bring glad tidings of good things so the gospel is always associated
with our feet because we're to go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature
and that involves your feet going out there getting out there and doing it we need to
be a soul but if you're not a soul winner if you don't win souls to Christ if you've
never won somebody the Lord you're vulnerable you're exposed right now you say well I've
never won somebody the Lord myself you are exposed you do not have the whole armor on
imagine going to battle with all the armor but you're barefoot now any soldier could
tell you and I've never been in the military but any soldier could tell you that your footwear
is a critical component of your gear the socks the shoes the boots I mean it's critical
you your feet can destroy you if you're if you don't take care of your feet you don't
take care of your shoes you don't take care of your socks that could literally end the
battle for you you might not even get to the battle and think about this when you're in
a battle I mean you're you need every advantage you can get you don't need to be out there
barefoot there are a lot of hazards there are a lot of things that can go wrong on a
battlefield there are a lot of things that could hurt your feet and that you know going
to war is not a time that you want to be found barefoot but today 99% of Christianity is
barefoot today I mean look at all the Baptist churches and how many of them do soul winning
and it's not and look just because they say soul winning on the website unfortunately
that's not always the case because you know what happens when you show up you show up
and it's a barefoot style soul winning it's a soul what you know and here's what I mean
by that it's a tract on the door it's a door hanger or it's just an invitation to churches
hey I just want to tell you about my church hey just want to invite you to my church hey
hope to see you there there's no preparation of the gospel to be preached it's a barefoot
style soul winning instead of having the feet shod with the preparation of the gospel
peace that's 99% of and I'm talking about people that are actually saved they have not
even got their shoes on they're not ready to go the Bible says praying always with all
prayer and supplication in the spirit and watching there unto with all perseverance
and supplication for all saints and for me that utterance may be given unto me that I
may open my mouth boldly to make known the mystery of the gospel so Paul is saying pray
for me that utterance will be given unto me utter means to speak words with your mouth
to open my mouth boldly to make known the mystery of the gospel so look if the apostle
Paul felt that he needed this prayer pray for me to have boldness pray for me to have
utterance you know what that tells me that tells me that there's a tendency to quit soul
winning even for a great man of God like the apostle Paul even for me even for you even
for other great soul winners that we admire we need to make a point to stay soul winning
because there's a there's a tendency not to give utterance and there's a tendency not
to have the boldness to get out there and do it so we need to make sure that we take
heat unto that piece of equipment the feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of
peace the Bible says that there and I may speak boldly as I ought to speak what does
it mean to be bold it means to be courageous the opposite of this would be timid shy being
bold now we don't want to be rude or obnoxious when we talk about being bold we're talking
about being fearless and by the way when you go soul winning boldness is one of the best
attributes you could have as a soul winner again we're not talking about being obnoxious
being rude being a jerk I'm talking about boldness now you say well what do I do how
do I get both well number one you pray for boldness that's what the prayer request is
here you pray for boldness and also you just go soul winning a lot and the boldness will
come because when I first started soul winning I didn't have a lot of boldness but at least
I was getting out there and doing it and you get out there and do it and you you grow in
boldness over time you pray for boldness you grow in boldness you get around others who
are bold the boldness rubs off on you and look the reason that this makes you an effective
soul winner is that when you show up to a door and you're scared and you're timid and
you're really shy and awkward it tends to make people uncomfortable they feel that shyness
or timidity or awkwardness and I've noticed that when I get around people that are really
awkward it makes me feel a little awkward and I'm not a shy person at all but I get
a little awkward or weird around people because that it's like we tend to mirror the people
around us so if you show up to a door and you're confident and you're bold and you're
not like apologizing all over yourself for even being there then you know I went soul
winning in some in some of the southern states and sometimes my soul winning partner was
so I don't know just falling all over themselves to be polite and apology I was just wondering
like is it just because I'm not used to being in the south people are just really polite
here or is this just too much polite cut to the chase you know so I wasn't really sure
I'm still not sure but the point is that you know at least for Arizona yeah you want to
show up and look again I'm not saying to be arrogant to be prideful to be obnoxious
you got to be able to differentiate these things between boldness you could be bold
and still be meek you can have both of these attributes and you got to learn how this works
but what I'm talking about is when you go up to the door and you have confidence and
you're looking them in the eye and you have the boldness then basically that makes them
more comfortable to talk to you and it makes them feel like well this guy knows what he's
talking about this guy's got these guys on a mission this guy's got something to say
not like oh well you know you wouldn't want to hear the gospel would you yeah you want
to get and look another thing to keep in mind is that even though sometimes when you go
so many people act like you're a disturbance or or you're a pain in the neck or leave us
alone right I mean some people act like you know you're bothering me but don't let that
get to you to where you actually start to believe that you're a pain in the neck or
that where you actually believe that that you're actually somehow imposing on them you're
not imposing on them at all they're on their way to hell you've got the good news they're
dying of a terminal disease and you've got the cure so don't get this attitude like oh
I feel so bad you know because it was dinner time look the bottom line is you have every
right to be there the god of the universe sent you there you're an ambassador for Christ
so if you're an ambassador for Christ you know I mean you think ambassadors for foreign
countries are like you know is it alright if I sit here when they show you know let's
say they show up to meet with the president or they show up to meet with members of Congress
or something like I mean I'm really sorry to take your time right now you know that's
all they look they represent an important force an important power they're there for
an important reason they have every right to be there and that ought to be our attitude
when we're soul winning and again look if people don't want to hear it then it's hey
look have a great day see you later there's no reason to force it down people's throat
because you'll end up just wasting a lot of time with people that aren't interested I'm
looking for people that are interested if people aren't interested great then I can
just get to the next door faster great thanks for not wasting my time you know but the point
is you need to be bold you need to be courageous and you don't want to trim the message because
you're afraid to offend them like well I don't want to bring up hell it needs to be addressed
needs to be brought up but a lot of people won't bring up anything negative like that
because they're just so afraid of offending people that's the lack of boldness he says
in verse twenty one but that you also may know my affairs and how I do take a kiss a
beloved brother and faithful minister in the Lord shall make known to you all things whom
I've sent unto you for the same purpose that he that he might know our affairs and then
he might comfort your hearts peace be to the brethren in love with faith from God the Father
and the Lord Jesus Christ grace be with all them that love our Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity
amen and that you know don't just read over that because that's the closer that we have
a love our Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity what does sincerity mean it means that we're
for real we ought to have real deep love for Jesus Christ in our hearts and this is a special
blessing that Paul is giving grace be with all them that love our Lord Jesus Christ in
sincerity amen so if you want you know there's a special blessing for those who love our
Lord Jesus Christ in all sincerity meaning deep down in the bottom of their heart they
really love the Lord Jesus Christ that ought to be us let's bow our heads and have a word
of prayer