(Disclaimer: This transcript is auto-generated and may contain mistakes.)

Now the part of the chapter that I want to focus on is the famous part dealing with the whole armor of God beginning in verse number 10 where the Bible reads, Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord and in the power of his might. Put on the whole armor of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. And the first thing I want to point out about that is that it's not going to be possible for you to stand against the wiles of the devil if you don't put on the whole armor of God. Put on the whole armor that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil, meaning that if you don't put on the whole armor, you're not going to be able. Now you've probably heard the saying that a chain is only as strong as its weakest link. And if you're going to battle with an enemy and you're missing a certain piece of armor, whether it's the helmet, whether it's the breastplate, that's exactly where the enemy is going to strike at that weak point. To think that you can have most of the armor and that you're going to be okay is folly. We have to have the whole armor of God to be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. Now he says in verse 12, 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. Now flip over to 2 Corinthians 10, we're going to be coming back to Ephesians 6, just a few pages to the left in 2 Corinthians 10, I want to point out the fact that it's not a physical battle that we're engaging in, it's a spiritual battle. And the nature of this spiritual battle is laid out in 2 Corinthians 10 verse 3, For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war after the flesh. We're not fighting physically. He says, For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, meaning fleshly, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strongholds, casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalted itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ, and having a readiness to revenge all disobedience when your obedience is fulfilled. Notice the words used in verse 5, we have the word imaginations, then we have the word knowledge, and then we have the word thought. Those all have to do with the mind. Those all have to do with thoughts and intents of the heart. The Bible says that God's word, the weapon of our warfare, is for pulling down strongholds. What are these strongholds? Deeply rooted imaginations, deeply rooted ideas that are contrary to God's word, thoughts that are against God's word. And the Bible says that our battle is a spiritual battle of thoughts, of ideas, of the truth versus lies, of a clean mind and a filthy mind. Now another thing that's emphasized in Ephesians 6-12 is darkness, because not only does he say that we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities and against powers, he says, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places. Now flip over to Romans 13, here's another scripture that covers the armor a little bit, Romans 13 verse 12. While you're turning there, let me read for you from 1 Thessalonians 5 verse 7. The Bible reads, For they that sleep, sleep in the night, and they that be drunken are drunken in the night. But let us, who are of the day, be sober, putting on the breastplate of faith and love, and for in helmet the hope of salvation. So here's another scripture talking about putting on the armor, the helmet of salvation, faith and love as a breastplate, and he says that it is that we are of the day that we put on this armor, to do battle with the forces of night, which would be darkness. Now look at Romans 13 verse 12, it says, The night is far spent, the day is at hand. Let us therefore cast off the works of darkness, and let us put on the armor of light. So when the Bible is talking about putting on the whole armor of God, he's talking about the armor of light, and the enemy is darkness. Now if you would, go to Ephesians chapter 5. Now darkness represents several things in the Bible. Obviously darkness represents ignorance, because if we're in a dark room, we're not aware of our surroundings, we don't know what's there. When the light turns on, we can actually see what's going on, and have knowledge. The Bible talks about those that are awake, and those that are asleep in 1 Thessalonians 5, and then in the next breath, he talks about those that are of the day, and those that are of the night. Those who know what's going on, those who don't know what's going on. So there's an enemy today that wants to keep us in darkness. We need to step out of that darkness, we need to put on the armor of light, so that we can battle the darkness of this world. 2 Corinthians 10 taught us, it's a battle of ideas. It's a battle of truth versus lie. It's a battle of wicked imagination and sin, and a battle of righteousness and cleanliness. Now in Ephesians 5, we see the aspect of darkness that has to do with sin and filth. So first of all, darkness represents ignorance and lies, but it also represents sin and iniquity and filth. Look at Ephesians 5 verse 1. The Bible reads, Be ye therefore followers of God as dear children, and walk in love as Christ also had loved us, and hath given himself for an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet smelling savor. But fornication and all uncleanness or covetousness, let it not be once named among you as becometh saints, neither filthiness, nor foolish talking, nor jesting, which are not convenient, but rather giving of thanks. For this ye know, that no whoremonger, nor unclean person, nor covetous man who is an idolater, hath any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God. Let no man deceive you with vain words, for because of these things cometh the wrath of God upon the children of disobedience. Be not ye therefore partakers with them, for ye were sometimes darkness, but now are ye light in the Lord. Walk as children of light. So when God says, you used to be darkness, now you're light, but you need to walk as children of light and don't continue to walk in the ways of those that are still in darkness, those that are the children of disobedience. What does he mean when he says to walk in the light? What does he mean when he says to put off the works of darkness and to put on the armor of light? What are these dark things that need to be done away with? He lists them for us as being fornication, uncleanness. You see it there? Verse 3, fornication, uncleanness, covetousness. Verse 4, filthiness, foolish talking, jesting. Verse 5, whoremonger, unclean person, covetous man, idolater. These are the works of darkness that the Bible is warning us against. These are the enemy. Fornication is the enemy. What is fornication? That's people who go to bed together before they're married, outside of marriage. These are people who are living together before they're married or they're just committing the marital act before they're married. That's the enemy today. That's what the devil wants to creep into your life, fornication. He wants to get through the chink in the armor so that he can bring adultery into your life. What's adultery? That's being unfaithful to your spouse, going outside of the marriage vow there and being physical with someone other than your spouse. Covetousness, what is covetousness? It's the materialistic greed that actually just characterizes America today in so many ways. Just the desire for more money, the desire for more possessions, the desire to have things that you don't have and just never being content with the physical possessions that you have. Never looking at your house and just being happy with the house that you live in. Just being happy with the car that you drive or the bike that you drive or the shoes that you walk down the street in or the bare feet that you're able to walk in. Just always thinking that you need something different than what you already have. That's what covetousness is. When you're not happy with your spouse, you're not happy with your car, you're not happy with your house, you're not happy with the clothes that you wear, you just always want something else. These are the works of darkness that the devil would like to creep into our lives. He wants us to fornicate. He wants us to commit adultery. He wants us to be unclean and filthy. That's why he puts so much filth before us, to try to get us to get into it ourselves. And then also covetousness. He would love for us to live our lives in a way that would idolize money and idolize financial success and prosperity and he knows that we cannot serve God and mammon. So if he can get us wrapped up in the cares of this world, he knows that we'll be unfruitful when we're choked out by the care of other things entering in. And so when we understand what the enemy is, it'll help us to understand why it's so important to put on the whole armor of God. What is the enemy? Well first of all, it's wicked thoughts and imaginations and ideas that creep in. What's the enemy? It's darkness and ignorance and keeping us in the dark about what's really going on in this world and the nature of the world that we live in. What's the enemy? It's filth and uncleanness and sin that enters in. Let's keep reading. He said in verse 8, For you were sometimes darkness, but now are ye light in the Lord. Walk as children of light. Now look, just because we're saved, just because we're light in the Lord, we still need to make the effort to walk as children of light. We don't want to be children of light who are partakers with the children of disobedience. That's what he's warning us against. But he says in verse 9, For the fruit of the Spirit is in all goodness and righteousness and truth, proving what is acceptable in the Lord, and have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness. Remember how I said these things will make you unfruitful? But rather reprove them, for it is a shame even to speak of those things which are done of them in secret. You say, why is it that these are the works of darkness? Because they're usually done in secret. Because people want to hide these things because they're shameful or at least they ought to be shameful. Verse 13, But all things that are reproved are made manifest by light, for whatsoever doth make manifest is light. Wherefore he saith, awake thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light. Let's go back to Ephesians 6. So we want to know what our enemy is. What kind of a spiritual warfare are we engaged in? What are we battling against? Well first of all, we're battling against lies with the truth. We're battling against ignorance with knowledge. What are we battling? We're battling against sin and filthy living with clean, righteous, and godly living. That's the difference between light and darkness. Those are the different areas of our warfare. None of them involve us getting in a physical fight. The Bible does not teach that we should go out and engage in a physical fist fight or a physical gun fight. What the Bible's teaching is, a spiritual warfare, you say how do we fight this battle? By preaching the word of God. By living a godly and righteous life. By keeping the enemy at bay and out of our lives. By going out and winning souls to Jesus Christ. It's all a spiritual, excuse me, battle. Now look at Ephesians chapter 6 again. He tells us who the enemy is in Ephesians 6, 12, 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. Let me point out that our country and our world's descent into wickedness is not happening by accident or by coincidence, it's by design. Because the darkness of this world doesn't just happen on its own. It's not just on its own that fornication is on the rise and adultery is on the rise and covetousness is on the rise. The Bible teaches that there are rulers of the darkness of this world. You know what that means? Somebody's behind it. Somebody's behind it. Somebody is a ruler of the darkness of this world and the Bible says there is spiritual wickedness in high places. People that are very powerful people, that's what it means to be in high places. They have great power and they're rulers. These are not only the politicians that we could name, they're definitely included in this group. The leaders of our nation's government. But not only that, there are other people who have a different kind of power, financial power. People who are multi-billionaires who use their wealth and money to put out movies, to put out television programs, and to put out magazines that will promote everything that is spiritual darkness. And we are going to be defeated if we do not put on the whole armor of God. What does that defeat look like? That defeat looks like you beginning to believe the lies of this world. You beginning to lose faith in the teachings of God's word and believing in a lot of the lies that the world will tell you. You know what that defeat looks like? It looks like you getting into fornication and adultery and you living a materialistic, money-oriented lifestyle instead of living your life about serving Christ. That's what that defeat looks like. And many are defeated today as a result of not putting on the whole armor of God. Let's read about what that armor consists of. It says in verse 13, but all things that are reproved are made, I'm sorry, wrong chapter. Ephesians 6, 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. And therefore having your loins girt about with truth and having on the breastplate of righteousness and your feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace, above all taking the shield of faith wherewith ye 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. Now this armor is laid out in detail. Let's go over each piece of the armor because it's not enough for you to just have some of the armor. If you're going to be able to stand in the evil day, you've got to take unto you the whole armor. If one piece is missing, that's your vulnerability. That's where the devil knows he can get you. The first thing that's mentioned there, he says in verse 14, stand therefore having your loins girt about with truth. This is a central piece of armor because being girt about, it's right at the center of who you are. Having your loins girt about with truth. The truth is critical and the only source of truth is the word of God. Jesus said, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No man cometh unto the Father but by me, and we know that Jesus is the word. And the Bible says in John 17, 17, sanctify them through thy truth, thy word is truth. I mean thy word is truth. You say, what's truth? Well, it's the word of God. That's where truth comes from. And when we have the truth on our side, that's the first piece of equipment that we're going to need to do battle with the forces of evil in this world. We've got to know the truth. The Bible says you shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free. And we've got to know the truth. How are we going to know the truth? By reading the Bible. How are we going to know the truth? By going to church, which is the pillar and ground of the truth, and hearing the truth of God's word being preached. It's critical. But the next piece of armor that's listed after the loins girt about with truth, it says in having on the breastplate of righteousness, the breastplate of righteousness. Now the breastplate is protecting this part of your body, which what's probably the most important thing we could think of that's in this part of our body? The heart. And the Bible says keep thy heart with all diligence, for out of it are the issues of life. Now, keep means to protect. Protect your heart. When he says keep your heart with all diligence, he's saying protect your heart with all diligence, for out of it are the issues of life. And the breastplate of righteousness is going to protect our heart and keep our heart right with God. What does righteousness mean? In this context, it simply means right living. Living right. Just a righteous person is a person who does what's right. A person who is filled with right things. I mean that's what it means to be righteous. Someone who does right. And so a righteous lifestyle is going to be necessary. Look at the next piece of armor. It says your feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace. Now flip over to Romans chapter 10. Your feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace. And remember, if any of these things are lacking, you will fail. You will be defeated. You will not be able to stand in the evil day. You will no longer be here at some point. You'll quit church, you'll quit serving God, and you will be following after, whether it be fornication or adultery or covetousness, or you'll go back into the darkness of just not knowing what's going on, not caring, not living your life according to God's word. If any of these things are lacking. So let's think about this. What if you've got the truth? You know the truth. I mean you stand on the word of God, you've read it, you're familiar with its contents, and not only that but you've got your feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace, which has to do with soul winning, which has to do with you're using your feet to go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. What if you have the truth, and what if you're out doing the soul winning, but what if you don't have the breastplate of righteousness? You know what that looks like? That is a Christian who has the right doctrine, and they go out and even do the soul winning, but they're living a sinful life. They don't have righteousness. You look at their lifestyle, it's an unrighteous lifestyle. They will be defeated. They're not going to continue. Now there's a great movement in our country that you could call the New Evangelical Movement, and a lot of churches will call themselves evangelicals, and the reason that they're calling themselves evangelical is because evangelical means those who preach the gospel. And the evangelical movement is characterized by a desire to get people saved and to reach people. Now that's great. Reaching people is great. Getting the gospel out, evangelizing, is great. But a lot of times what characterizes this movement is that that's all that matters. That's all that matters is just reaching people with the gospel. And often you'll just see that everything that they do is geared toward that, but with complete disregard for righteousness. So basically they'll say, well you know we can get more people to come to church if we play worldly rock music. That's going to get more people to come to church. And if we have a bunch of women up on stage in miniskirts kind of oohing and aahing with the microphones and the worship team, that's going to get more people to come to church. And if we do a 20-minute sermon instead of a 60-minute sermon, that's going to get more people to come to church. And if we use the NIV instead of the KJV, that's going to get more people to come to church. And if we don't scream and yell about sin and tell people that they need to make changes in their life, and we preach more of a motivational, self-esteem, self-help type sermon, that's going to get more people to come to church. And if we can get more people to come to church, we can get more people saved. That's the logic of the New Evangelical Movement. And while you're preaching hard against sin and turning people away, and you're singing those old hymns that are turning people away, and you have these long doctrine-filled sermons that are turning people away, you know, we're reaching the multitudes. We're bringing all the people in. Now on the surface, you can look at that and say, well, you know, maybe they're right. Maybe it is just about reaching thousands of people with the Gospel. Maybe if we can just bring in crowds of thousands of people, I mean, nothing matters more than heaven and hell. Let's at least get these people saved. Let's just bring them in and get them saved. Quit talking, you know, what are you doing preaching through Genesis and Exodus and Leviticus? What are you doing talking about all this doctrine and anti-prophecy? Just talk about Jesus. Just Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, and just be positive, and you're going to reach more people because you catch more flies with honey. But here's the problem with that logic. They've completely removed one piece of the armor, righteousness. They don't care about doing right anymore. They don't care about living a clean life, because here's the thing, if you don't preach against sin, the church will be unrighteous, fact. The church will be an unrighteous church if you don't preach against sin. You see, I'm constantly getting up here and preaching, fornication, fornication, fornication, you know, right? At least once a month I just go off on it and just make a big deal about it. You know why? Because if I don't, there will be fornication in this church. It's a fact. Go to New Evangelical churches, they're filled with fornication. I've been, I spent five years as a teenager going to New Evangelical type churches, and there are people in the church who are just members of the church and they just live together and they're not married. And they have everybody come over to their house for a barbecue, they have church activities at their house, and they're just living together and they're not married. And it's just okay. Why? Because there's no preaching against it. The teenagers, the young adults, they're committing fornication in the church. And the church is just filled with sin and fornication. Because if you don't get up and preach about it and stand against it and gird up that armor plate of the breastplate of righteousness, there won't be any righteousness. And if there's no righteousness, then you're vulnerable to the devil's attack, if there's no righteousness. You know, it's not enough. Well, but wait a minute Pastor Anderson, we've got our loins gird about with truth and we got the helmet of salvation. That's all we need. You know, you're going into battle wearing a helmet and you've got a great belt, but your chest is exposed, your chest cavity is exposed. It's a huge target. It's an even bigger target than your head for the enemy's fiery darts to pierce lung and heart and liver and whatever else. Because you're not protected. You don't have, and by the way, your heart's not going to be right because the devil's going to destroy your heart. Because the Bible says when iniquity and sin abounds, your love will wax cold, it says in Matthew 24. The most loving people are the most righteous people. The people who have the most sin and iniquity in their life, their love begins to wax cold according to the Bible. Now, this new evangelical movement is a failure. It fails. You say, oh, it succeeds, look at the big crowd. But go talk to those people and you find out most of them aren't saved. Because it's a misguided philosophy that says let's just bring in a bunch of unsaved people, let's just bring in all denominations and, you know, non-denominational, let's bring in all beliefs, all denominations, all types of unsaved people, let's gear it toward unsaved people. Here's the problem with that. Then the church begins to be filled with unsaved people and then those unsaved people start teaching Sunday school and then they become the pastor and pretty soon the whole new evangelical movement is just inundated with unsaved pastors, unsaved teachers, unsaved people. And then you go out soul-witting and knocking doors and if you don't believe me, just go out soul-witting with us and knock doors of the people who go to these big fun centers, is what I call them, these big giant new evangelical non-denominational rock and roll type churches and when you talk to them, you ask them if you know for sure you're going to heaven, I hope so, I'm a pretty good person. What in the world? Because there's no doctrine, there's no righteousness anymore. So what happened is once the breastplate was gone, it was pretty easy for the devil to fire a fiery dart and then that belt just came right off. Just pooh, the girdle of truth has been removed. But honestly, you can't take out part of the message and think you're smarter than God is what you think. Well I know God said I need the whole armor, but I think all I need is the helmet of salvation and the girdle of truth and that's all I need. And by the way, the new evangelical movement doesn't even have their feet shod with the preparation of gospel of peace because their idea is that everybody's got to come to them. They say let's make the church real worldly and sinful, we'll bring everybody in and they do bring in crowds, thousands, these churches spring up overnight, thousands of people come in. But here's the thing, they forgot to have their feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace, which means go out and get people saved. You say, wait a minute Pastor Anderson, how are you going to reach unsaved people if your church is not geared toward unsaved people? We go out and get them saved. Look at Romans 10 and I'll show you. It says in verse 9 that if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus and shall believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. For the scripture saith whosoever believeth on him shall not be ashamed. For there is no difference between the Jew and the Greek for the same Lord over all is rich unto all that call upon him. For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. How then shall they call on him in whom they've not believed? And how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher? And how shall they preach except they be sent? Watch this. As it is written, how beautiful are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace and bring glad tidings of good things, but they have not all obeyed the gospel. For Isaiah saith, Lord, who hath believed our report? So then faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the word of God. Notice verse 15. He said, how beautiful are what? The feet of them that preach the gospel of peace. The feet are always associated with preaching the gospel. The feet are always associated with soul winning. Why? Because the feet are what take you to the lost. Because he said, go and teach all nations. Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. He didn't say, wait until they come. He didn't say, you know, sit in the chair of the preparation of the gospel of peace. Above all, taking the chaps of the gospel of peace, you know, the leather pants of the gospel of peace, you know, where you could sit on your rear end and be nice and comfortable. Take the padded chair of the gospel of peace. No, he says, have your feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace. What's the point of having your feet shod? It's so that you can go a long distance. You don't even need shoes to go a short distance. If you're just going to walk across the street, you don't need to put your shoes on for that. And even when Jesus sent out the disciples, he said, hey, just put on sandals. You don't even need shoes. Be shod with sandals. Don't put on two coats. But here's the thing. You put your feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace, putting shoes on to actually go a serious distance. You know, you're actually doing some serious footwork where you're actually knocking a lot of doors and you're going to distant places bringing the gospel into every city, every village, every nation of this world. That's what it means to have your feet shod with the gospel of peace. Go back to Ephesians chapter 6. So when we look at what the whole armor consists of, yes, it consists of the helmet of salvation. Yes, it consists of having the loins girt about with truth. We've got to have the truth on our side. It also consists of having our feet shod with the preparation of gospel of peace. And it consists of having a breastplate of righteousness. Okay, now let's think about what would happen if we didn't have the feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace. You know, there are people in a church like ours, they've got that girdle of truth. They've got a King James Bible in their hand. They know what it says. They know the doctrine. They've been taught. They've read it on their own and learned from the Holy Spirit. And they've got the truth. Also they live a clean life. They're not out fornicating. They're not out committing adultery. They're not filling their minds with filth and iniquity. They're not out coveting material possessions and out lusting after cars and houses and fancy clothes. No, they live right. And they've got the truth. And you better know they have the helmet of salvation. But when it comes time for soul winning, no soul winning. They're vulnerable. And you might look at somebody like that and think they've got it all together. Oh man, they're going to succeed. They're going to stay in the fight. They're going to win the battle. Why? They've got the truth. They're saved. And they're living a clean and godly life. And they're faithful to church. But when it comes time for the feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace, they're barefoot. They've got nothing. And it's a vulnerability. Now, look, I like to spend a lot of time barefoot. Whenever I take a walk, I always walk barefoot. A lot of times lately, Boaz, our baby boy, has been a little fussy at times. And I'll volunteer to take him for a walk a lot of times. Because I like to go on walks. And so I'll take him for a walk barefoot, always. I go running a lot, always barefoot. But here's the thing. I'm not going into battle barefoot. I mean, going into battle barefoot would be a foolish thing to do. Because if you go into battle barefoot, you know, your feet are going to be vulnerable to all kinds of shrapnel that you could step on in a battle type of a scenario. Somebody could stomp on your feet. You know, it's not a good idea. When swords and knives and guns and bombs, you know, you're going to want to have something protecting your feet. You know, who's been in the military before? What was the footwear like? Boots? Brother Segura, what kind of boots were they? Tough leather boots. Yeah, exactly. Why? Why did you wear those? Would you have ever gone into combat barefoot? Did you ever see anybody go into combat in Iraq barefoot? No. All right. But I thought all the Muslims are barefoot. That's what everybody tells me. Okay. All right. The point is that, you know, you don't want to go to war barefoot. And you know what a lot of Christians are doing? They're going to war barefoot. Why? Because there's no soul winning in their life. And they might say, well, you know, sometimes I give people the gospel at work. Sometimes I give the gospel to a friend or a family member. You know, once in a blue moon. And that's a lot of people, that's the extent of their soul winning. It's just, well, when an opportunity comes up, and a lot of times that's going to be pretty rare. But you know what? That's not the feet shod anyway. Because if that's people coming to you, if that's people that you're in contact with anyway, that's not really the feet shod. See, the feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace implies that you're going out and reaching people. You're going out into the highways and hedges as Christ commanded us and compelling people to come in that God's house might be filled. You're going out and preaching the gospel to every creature. You're winning the loss, you have your feet shod and notice with the preparation of the gospel of peace. Why? Because preaching the gospel of peace requires preparation. Have you ever been caught off guard where somebody maybe wanted to talk to you about the word of God and you didn't have your Bible with you, you didn't have the verses memorized and you're kind of, you're at a loss. You have the opportunity to get somebody saved and you can't really fully capitalize on an opportunity because you weren't really prepared. You didn't, and here's the thing, people who go out soul winning every week and knock doors every week, they're prepared to give the gospel. Why? Because it's second nature to them. They have all the verses memorized. You don't even have to try to memorize the verses. If you go soul winning every week, you'll eventually have all the verses memorized. I don't think, you know, there are a lot of scriptures that I've memorized and sometimes I struggle with retaining them. John 3.16 is not one of them, Romans 3.23 is not one of them, Romans 10.9 is not one of them. Why? Because the verses that you use for soul winning are so deeply ingrained in your memory. I'll take my kids out soul winning with me, they have all those verses memorized without having tried just because they've heard them over and over and over again. Look, when you go out and knock doors and when your feet are shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace and you're going out and winning people to Christ, you'll be prepared to give the gospel any time because you've done it hundreds of times. You know the material, you know the verses, and you're ready. And by the way, there's always a prepared place for a prepared person. When you're ready, God will bring you more opportunities because he knows, well, if I bring people across his path, he'll be ready to do it. Why would God bring you opportunities to give the gospel when he knows you're not even prepared? It'd be a waste. He'd rather bring them across somebody else's path. And so if you think that the Christian life consists of you just living righteous and knowing the truth and being saved, but you don't have this thing of going out and getting people saved, you're missing something. And you're vulnerable unto Satan's attack. And it could just be a matter of time where you give in to the powers of darkness. Whether that's fornication, whether that's adultery, whether that's covetousness, whether that's getting out of church, whether that's just quitting on God and being choked out by the cares of this world. Whatever that looks like, it's coming your way if you don't have the preparation of the gospel of peace. But look at verse 15, I'm sorry verse 16, Ephesians 6 16, above all. Now when we see the words above all, that means this is the most important thing, right? So is the helmet important? Yeah. Is the girdle important? Is the breastplate important? Those things are all important. Is the preparation of the gospel of peace? Everything's important. But above all, he says, above all, taking the shield of faith, wherewith ye shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked. So a critical component of the armor is the shield of faith. Why is it so critical? The darts of the wicked. Well, let's look at Psalm 11. Keep your finger in Ephesians 6, but let's go to Psalm 11. Because in Psalm 11, we see a scripture that's kind of similar to the fiery darts of the wicked. Because remember, he said, above all, taking the shield of faith, wherewith ye shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked. So we think of the fiery darts of the wicked. Now look at Psalm 11 one, in the Lord put I my trust. And by the way, trust is synonymous with faith, the shield of faith. How say ye to my soul, flee as a bird to your mountain? For lo, the wicked, sound familiar, bend their bow, they make ready their arrow upon the string that they may privily shoot at the upright in heart. So in Psalm 11, we have the wicked shooting arrows at the upright in heart. And in Ephesians 6, we had the fiery darts of the wicked. Pretty much the same thing, right? And then look at the next verse in verse 3. He says, if the foundations be destroyed, what can the righteous do? If the foundations be destroyed, what can the righteous do? Now what does it mean to have the shield of faith? Because if it's that important to where he would put the words above all, we need to pay very close attention to what this is. Faith is when we trust and believe what God has said in his word. When it comes to salvation, what is faith? Because we know we're saved by faith, right? The Bible says, for by grace are you saved through faith, and that not of yourselves it is the gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast. It shouldn't really surprise us that faith comes above all, since faith is even what saved us in the first place. Faith in Christ. What does faith in Christ mean? Well, go to Ephesians chapter 1. You might have a finger in Ephesians 6, Ephesians 1 is right there. And look what it says in verse number 12, it says that we should be to the praise of his glory who first trusted in Christ. Do you see that? We trusted in Christ. Verse 13, in whom ye also trusted, after that ye heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, in whom also after that ye believed, ye were sealed with that Holy Spirit of promise. So notice how trusting in Christ is equivalent with believing in Christ. So when the Bible says that we're to believe in Jesus to be saved, believe on Jesus to be saved, you know what that means? We're trusting Christ. And what does it mean to trust him? It means that we're relying on him to save us, not relying on ourselves. So a person who says, well I believe in Jesus, but I think I'm going to heaven because I'm a good person, their trust is in themself. They're not trusting in Christ. They might believe Jesus existed, but they don't have trust in Christ. They don't have their faith in Christ. They're not relying on Christ. So when the Bible talks about faith in regard to salvation, it's trusting Jesus' death, burial, and resurrection to get you to heaven, not trusting in your own works, not trusting in your own goodness or any good life or leaf that you've turned over or what have you. But is that where faith in our life ends? Do we have faith to get us saved and then faith just never comes into play again in our lives? No, the Bible says in Romans 15 that we go from faith to faith in our life. And the Bible says that as we've trusted Christ, that's also how we walk in Christ. So getting saved is a one-time thing. We put our faith in the gospel of Jesus Christ as our only way to heaven. But wait a minute, aren't there other areas that we need to trust Christ in also going forward? Now to get to heaven, we just need to trust Christ in that one area, trust him with our soul, trust him with the death, burial, and resurrection as our only way to heaven. But as we live our lives, we will find many other promises in God's word that tell us if you live right or if you do this, I'm going to bless you, for example. You know, God said, seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness and all these things will be added unto you. You know, all these promises of God, the question is, are we going to trust the promises of God? Are we going to rely on that? Now we've already relied on Jesus for salvation, but wait a minute, are you going to rely on God to give you your daily bread? Are you going to rely on God when he tells you how your marriage should be? Are you going to trust what God said about your marriage? Or are you going to go with what the world says? Because the world, you know what the world's going to tell you? That the Bible's methods don't work. The world will tell you that the Bible's way of marriage is wrong. The world will tell you, oh yeah, the Bible tells you to spank your kids, but that doesn't work. We've got studies to prove that spanking doesn't work, right? That's what they'll say. Who are you going to trust? Are you going to trust the word or are you going to trust what the world says? Okay. The world is going to tell you all kinds of things that are contrary to the Bible and they're going to try to destroy your faith in the Bible. And I'm not talking about your faith in Jesus. Once we're saved, we're always saved. You know, we have the Holy Spirit of promise. But wait a minute, what about all the other areas where God gives us advice and gives us counsel? Are we going to follow that advice and counsel or are we going to walk in the counsel of the ungodly? Now when it comes to the shield of faith, why is the shield of faith going to quench the fiery darts of the wicked? Because the devil is going to fire these fiery darts at us and what is the goal of those fiery darts? Well in Psalm 11 3 we got some insight into that, to destroy the foundation. If the foundation be destroyed, what can the righteous do? The very foundations of what we believe in, the very foundations of how we live our lives are under attack by the devil. And we need the shield of faith to quench the fiery darts of the wicked. What do I mean? The devil is going to constantly be attacking us and trying to, what is it, imaginations? And thoughts, it said, let me just quickly go back to that, you don't have to turn there. But he said in 2 Corinthians 10 5, casting down imaginations and every high thing that exalted itself against the knowledge of God. And bring into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ. Different competing ideas, competing ideas about how to live your life. Competing ideas about what's right. Other ideas that tell you, well no, this is a better way to have a marriage or this is a better way to raise your kids or this is a better way to run your business or this is a better way to do nutrition or this is a better way of building a church or this is a better way. And it's the world's philosophies that are constantly attacking us and trying to get us to give in and trying to take the foundation of God's word out from under us, that rock that everything that we believe is based upon. We need the shield of faith wherewith we shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked. If you look at Job, and I know we're kind of done looking at Job for a while, but if you look at Job and think about this, he stayed firm. Did he not stand in the evil day? I mean you want to talk about the evil day. He stood. He was not defeated. That tells me he had the whole armor of God. He had to have or he would have fallen. He would have been defeated. I mean he did some serious battle and he stood all the way to the bitter end because he had the shield of faith. And what did Job say, one of the most famous quotes in the whole book of Job, though he slay me, yet will I trust him. He had that shield of faith, didn't he, and that's why he was able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked. Trusting God. Have faith in God. What does that mean? That means that when you're doing things God's way and they don't seem to be working, you keep doing it God's way. Ah, but it's not working. The world's got a better way. Keep trusting God because God's ways don't always work overnight, but they do work. You know God doesn't necessarily give you all the blessings that he promises tomorrow or a week from now, but if you hang in there and keep that shield of faith out there saying I trust God, I trust what God has said, the Bible said trust in the Lord with all thine heart and lean not unto thine own understanding. And all thy ways acknowledge him and he shall direct thy path. And when we know the Bible and we know the promises of God and we believe that God's way is the best way and that God's going to bless us if we do what's right and that if we hang in there weeping may endure for the night, but joy cometh in the morning. And if we know the patience of Job that he withstood and stood all the way to the end and God blessed the latter end of Job, then we know that like Job when we're tried we'll come forth as gold and we need to just stay with it and have the faith that says you know what I know that if I do what's right God's going to bless me. I know that if I commit sin I'm going to be cursed. I know if I commit fornication God's going to mess up my life. I know if I commit adultery it's going to ruin my life. I know that covetousness will eat me up from the inside and turn me into a wicked ungodly person because the love of money is the root of all evil. Do you believe that? Because if you don't trust that promise that says the love of money is the root of all evil which while some coveted after they've earned from the faith and pierced themselves through with many sorrows the clear statement that says they that will be rich fall into temptation and a snare and into many foolish and hurtful lusts which drown men in destruction and perdition. If you don't believe that you'll be tempted by the Donald Trump book, the Coyote Kawasaki book. What's that guy's name? Somebody help me out. Come on who's got the book? You know that Japanese guy? His face is everywhere like how to get rich and everything. You know what it is? What is it? I knew somebody would know. So Robert Kiyosaki, I'm just going to call him Kawasaki it's easier. That's easier for me to remember because I used to ride a Kawasaki dirt bike when I was a kid. So you know this Robert Kawasaki or Donald Trump or these people who try to entice you with words of covetousness and the desire to be rich. Here you know what the shield of God's going to throw that dart at you. Hey you could have this really nice house and you could drive fancy cars and you could wear fancy clothes and you could be wealthy and rich. You know or the Dave Ramsey. You know and if you haven't heard my sermon on Dave Ramsey exposed but you know the Dave Ramsey who says oh it's all about giving to charity after you become filthy rich. First you become filthy rich and then you'll be able to give it away except here's the problem with that Dave Ramsey you'll have already become a horrible person by the time you become filthy rich and you'll have already destroyed yourself and he says become a very wealthy that's one of the points on Dave Ramsey's plan become very wealthy. That's not what the Bible teaches as it should ever be a goal of our life. But see it's easy where the devil is throwing these darts of Donald Trump's book and Kawasaki's book and Dave Ramsey's book you know and he's right but the shield of faith just says no the love of money is the root of all evil. We brought nothing into this world and it's certain we can carry nothing out having food and raiment let us be there with content and the shield of faith says you know what I trust God he's going to provide my needs if I go out and work hard at a trade work hard at a job where I'm producing something you know what God's going to bless my hard work and I'm going to be able to feed myself and my family and God's going to provide my needs. I don't need to go out and do some rich get rich scheme you know call this one nine hundred number for a conference call and this package you know I was making ten thousand dollars a month from my one bedroom apartment and you know you can do the same thing. You know I had a guy at my work who called that number you know this guy's on a boat and he's got he's surrounded by bikini babes and he's telling you you know I made twenty thousand dollars a month you know from my eight hundred square foot apartment and you know call the number on the screen. You know so I knew a guy at work he called the number on the screen and he got the package and you know what it was all about basically it was getting him into the pornography business. So that's you know but they did there's no mention of that on the advertisement it's just oh yeah you just put these ads in newspapers and oh yeah it's just you know but then you call and they want you to get involved in the worst kind of sin. You know so what I'm saying is that the shield of faith is where we trust God and trust that God's way is always the best way. Everything God warned us against we just trust God hey we just stay away from that stuff because God said no. And that's how we quit all that the come on you know yeah he'll just try to attack at the foundations of what we believe in when it comes to marriage child rearing business just every aspect of our lives. The shield of faith will quench that let's keep reading says in verse seventeen and take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the spirit which is the word of God. Now you say how is a sword armor you know you say a sword is a weapon and it's true that a sword is a weapon but you know a sword also works as defense. Anybody who knows anything about sword fighting knows that a sword is not just an offensive weapon it's also a defensive weapon because you'll use the sword to block another sword thrust. I mean you watch people sword fighting one of them is attacking one of them is defending at various points. I'm not an expert on it but you know anybody can see that the sword is used to block as well as it's used to thrust or attack. So what we see here is another defensive weapon here a defensive piece of armament which is the sword of the spirit which is the word of God. How is the word of God going to defend us? Well if you look at Jesus when he was under the attack of the devil and he's being tempted he kept quoting scripture and the devil would come at him and he would say it is written man shall not live by bread it is written thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God it is written thou shalt worship the Lord thy God him only shalt thou serve. The word of God is a powerful tool to protect us from the devil's attacks. Now how does this work in practical means? Well when the devil tempts us we need to have scripture ready to defend that blow and notice it says the sword of the spirit so who's wielding the sword here? You know the spirit is wielding the sword that tells me that we need to get the word into our spirit you know and we need to get the word into us so that the Holy Spirit can bring the word to our remembrance because Jesus said of the Holy Spirit that he said he will take of mine and show it unto you. So it is a biblical concept that the Holy Spirit will bring scriptures to our mind. You ever just have a scripture pop into your mind and maybe you're witnessing to someone and just the perfect scripture pops into your mind for what they need to hear? Or perhaps you're about to commit sin and then a scripture pops into your mind and you say oh I better not do this. Wait a minute that scripture says no. That's the sword of the spirit right there defending you and protecting you from falling into sin. Okay so the more scripture we can memorize that's why David said thy word if I hid in my heart that I might not sin against thee because having the word hidden in our heart keeps us from sinning against God. How? Because the sword of the spirit is a defensive weapon also to defend and having that word in us. Look if you don't know any Bible verses if you don't read the Bible how much of a sword of the spirit is really even going to be there to defend you? I mean it'd be almost like you just have like this tiny little dagger or something you know but think about if you memorize a lot of Bible you've got like this huge broadsword to be able to defend against a lot of attacks because it's just more scriptures in the Holy Spirit's arsenal to bring to your mind the more verses that you've memorized and meditated on and read and learned so that's going to protect you as well and then of course he says praying always not necessarily a piece of armor but he says praying always with all prayer and supplication in the spirit and watching there unto with all perseverance and supplication for all saints. Why bring up prayer? Well let me close by saying this I think the reason prayer is being brought up is that God's trying to impress upon us in this passage that if we are going to succeed in the Christian life we must have all areas of the Christian life as they should be because what is he saying when he says take the whole armor? He's saying don't be a great Christian in one area and then completely neglect another area and look there are so many churches like that there are so many people like that and they're just open to the devil's attack. For example we talked about the new evangelicals they're supposedly all about evangelism right but they lack the breastplate of righteousness you know and then they end up eventually lacking everything they end up lacking salvation they end up lacking the truth and everything else but think about this there are a lot of churches out there who have great doctrine and they have the truth and they live a righteous life but there's no soul winning program they don't have the whole package together. Okay there are other churches that are very righteous and they have a great soul winning program but they don't know the doctrine they're very lean on doctrine the preaching is really shallow I mean I've known a lot of churches like that the preaching is really shallow nobody really knows the Bible very well when you talk to people about Bible doctrine they're a little confused you bring up obscure stories from the Old Testament they're like I've never even heard that story. They got their feet shot I mean they're out winning souls they've got the breastplate of righteousness but here's the thing the girdle of truth they're caught with their pants down because they don't have the girdle of truth meaning that they're amiss on a lot of doctrine because they're just not studying they don't know the word they don't know the Bible any of these areas will be a downfall I don't care how good you are at soul winning if you're out living a sinful unclean life you're going to fail at life you're going to fail as a Christian and I don't care how clean you're living and how much Bible you know if you're not out soul winning you're going to be a failure and I don't care if you sit there and say well you know what I know the Bible really well and I'm out soul winning and all this stuff look if any if there's no prayer that's that's a problem you're missing something you need prayer you need Bible reading you need soul winning you need clean living and you need the faith some people might have great Bible reading great prayer great knowledge great soul winning living a clean life but here's what they're lacking the shield of faith and what does that mean they always want to play it real safe meaning they never want to step out in faith and do anything that could be a huge issue they don't trust the promises of God so they always their finances they always have to do it all in their own strength and have it all lined up by their own understanding and when it comes to you know going out and starting a church or anything well that's a little too risky they don't have the faith they don't want to trust in the promises of God they do things in their own understanding any of these areas can be a downfall the moral of the story this morning and the whole point of this sermon is to tell you that if there's any area of weakness in your life spiritually that's what you need to work on so that you have the complete package and you need and it's gonna be different for everybody some people it's soul winning some people might say you know what I haven't been so winning in years I haven't been so winning in months I'm not giving people the gospel on a regular basis then that's what you need to work on that's what you need to fix other people say you know what I've been letting a lot of sin and uncleanness enter into my life you know it's time to reattach the breastplate of righteousness and get that thing shored up and protected other people might say you know I've been making a lot of decisions where I'm just not trusting in God I'm not trusting the Lord I'm doing things on my own understanding you know I'm not following the Bible's guidelines whether it's marriage child rearing finances whatever you know I've been doing stuff just based on my own logic or maybe Bible reading has been slipping or maybe you just never had a lot of Bible reading in the first place and it's time for you to say you know what I think my weakness is knowledge I need to learn more because one of the major aspects of spiritual warfare according to 2nd Corinthians 10 was knowledge what's darkness represent ignorance what's light represent knowledge some of you need to increase your knowledge some of you need to increase your soul winning your righteousness your Bible read your prayer whatever the case may be but it's not enough to say yeah but I'm an awesome soul winner you'll be gone in a few years if you don't have these other things in your life I've seen some awesome soul winners get out of church because they had other vulnerable areas in their life that the devil is able to just fire into that breach and the chain is only as strong as his weakest link let's borrow it's not a word of prayer father we thank you so much for your word Lord and thank you for for equipping us with the equipment that we're gonna need Lord and forgiving us the tools that we need with the whole armor of God and Lord help every single one of us to install every piece of the armor because if any of these pieces are missing Lord we're we're gonna be an easy target for the enemy and we know that the devil is seeking whom he may devour he's looking for that chink in the armor Lord help us to be armored from head to toe in the whole armor of God in Jesus name we pray