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Dear God, I think it's an opportunity to come to church. Please just fill the pastor with your spirit. Help us to be edified by the sermon this morning, and give us ears to hear, and just stand and pray Amen. Amen. This morning, I'm preaching on the whole armor of God, this famous passage in Ephesians chapter 6, where he enumerates the different pieces of armor that we as Christians need to put on if we're going to stand against the wiles of the devil. The first thing I want to point out is the fact that armor is used because we are in a spiritual battle. Our lives are a continual fight. They're a continual battle. It's warfare all the time. And the rule is of the darkness of this world. Evil forces that are out there, spiritual wickedness in high places, are constantly trying to beat us down, and to get us away from the Lord, and to get us living a sinful life or an unproductive life, an unfruitful life for Christ. We've got to overcome that in order to do something for God in our lives. And it's a continual battle. Anybody who makes it out that the Christian life is easy is either not really doing anything for God, or they're just a liar, and they're just deceiving you. Because no one in the Bible claims that it's easy to spend a lifetime serving God. I mean, you look at the apostle Paul. He goes on and on about the difficulties, and the struggles, and the pain, and the suffering, and the burning that he goes through. And so that's normal for our Christian life to be challenging, for it to be a battle, for it to be a struggle. That's why we need to put on the whole armor of God. So the Bible says here in verse 10, finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord and in the power of his might. Now, that verse right there is actually the key to understanding the whole armor of God. Let me show you what I mean. Keep your finger here and go over to Romans chapter 13. Romans chapter number 13. So your finger's in Ephesians 6, but go to Romans 13. So notice that before we got into the armor of God, it said, be strong in the Lord and in the power of his might. Now let's compare that with what we find over in Romans chapter number 13. Well, in Romans 13, the Bible says in verse 11, and that knowing the time that now it is high time to awake out of sleep, for now is our salvation nearer than when we believed. The night is far spent, the day is at hand, let us therefore the works of darkness, watch this, and let us put on the armor of light. Let us walk honestly as in the day, not in rioting and drunkenness, not in chambering and wantonness, not in strife and envying, but put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ and make not provision for the flesh and fulfill the lust thereof. And so notice that putting on the armor of light is actually used interchangeably with put on the Lord Jesus Christ. So putting on the whole armor of God, you're really putting on the Lord Jesus Christ because of the fact that it's about standing in the power of his might, being strong in the Lord. It's not something that you can do on your own. These aren't attributes that you cultivate in your own life and then they're gonna protect you. No, it's about a spiritual dawning of the Lord Jesus Christ and putting on his righteousness, his salvation, et cetera. And we'll get into that in a moment. But it says here, put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ and make not provision for the flesh to fulfill the lust thereof. So if we are wearing the whole armor of God, then that doesn't leave an opening for the lust of the flesh to come in and get to us. Cause it says, you know, make not provision for the flesh. How do you make provision for the flesh? One way would be to leave a chink in the armor, leave something open or exposed in the armor. That's an opportunity for the lust of other things to enter in and for you to be defeated in your Christian life. So go back if you would to Ephesians chapter six with that in mind, that we're to be strong in the Lord in the power of his might and that putting on the armor of light, putting on the whole armor of God is about putting on the Lord Jesus Christ. So the Bible says in verse number 11, put on the whole armor of God, Ephesians 6, 11, that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. Now, wiles, that refers to trickery, right? That's not something that's being done out in the open. Being wiley has to do with creeping in and sneaking in and doing something unawares. And so the devil is not just gonna come at you and say, hi, I'm Satan, would you like to worship me? Would you like to, you know, sin against God? He's going to deceive you, he's gonna try to trick you, he's gonna try to fool you and he will successfully get to you if you're not wearing the whole armor of God. So you have to put on the whole armor of God so that you might be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. Meaning without the armor of God, you can't stand against the wiles of the devil. You're a sitting duck, you're exposed, you're an open target. Whereas if you put on the whole armor of God, you are able to, you can actually win this round if you're wearing the whole armor of God. For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, verse 12, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places. So our enemies are not physical enemies, carnal enemies, they are spiritual enemies. We're fighting against basically ideas. We're fighting against imaginations. We're fighting against the devil wanting to basically get into our heads and deceive us and tempt us and allure us into following his program instead of being on the Lord's program. So it says we wrestle not against flesh and blood. And then verse 13, wherefore, because of that, 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. Now I like what he says there about withstanding in the evil day. What does that mean, the evil day? Is that some specific day that's coming for all of us on the calendar? No, because the evil day for me could be different than the evil day for you. You know, we all have good days and bad days. We all have our ups and downs spiritually. And what the Bible is saying is that if we have the whole armor of God in place, we can even withstand in the evil day, meaning on our worst day, as it were. You see, it's pretty easy sometimes to serve God when everything's going well. And there will be days like that where everything's going well, and we wake up, we read our Bible, we pray, we go about our business, we go to work, and everything's fine. And it's not a big deal. And the Christian life feels easy that day. But every day is not going to be like that. There are going to be days where our cravings for sin become intense or extreme. And you know, you think about people who are recovering from various addictions, right? There are so many addictions out there in this world that end up ruining people's lives, whether it's alcohol, or drugs, or pornography, or gambling, or whatever. Now, the best way to avoid these addictions is to never try them in the first place. Because if you never try them in the first place, you're not going to crave them. I don't crave foods that I've never tried. I don't think to myself, I'm trying to think of a food that I've never tried. I've tried a lot of stuff, all right? What? Durian. I don't even know what that is. But I don't crave it because I've never tried it. You know, once you try alcohol, once you try drugs, once you go and get into gambling, or pornography, or whatever, now that door is always going to be open for you to go back to that because you've tasted it. And now there's a possibility for that addiction to develop in your life, right? But people successfully get over these addictions, don't they? I mean, there are probably lots of people in the room. I'm not going to ask for anybody's raise of hands. But I guarantee you, there are people in this room who used to be addicted to alcohol. They used to be addicted to drugs, or porn, or gambling, or you name it, shopping addiction. You know, some of you ladies out there. But anyway, you know, these addictions are out there. And people do overcome them. But here's the thing about that. Let's say you successfully overcome an addiction. Let's just say drinking, right? And you say, I haven't had a drop to drink in six months, or nine months, or a year. Let me ask this. Why do people eventually fall off the wagon again? How can somebody go two years, or four years without drinking? They know it's bad. They know it's destroying their life. They know it's harmful. What is it that makes them fall off the wagon after a year of sobriety, or two years after sobriety? You know what it often is? It's that evil day. Something goes wrong in their life. They get under some kind of stress. Maybe they get depressed about something. Something bad happens that just kind of throws them for a loop. And then they revert back to that in the evil day. You know, we want to be able to stand in the evil day. We want to put on the whole armor of God. We want to put on the Lord Jesus Christ. We want to make sure that we are spiritually prepared so that when we receive that blow to our lives, where something goes wrong, or something horrible happens, or we're just depressed, or in a funk, or whatever you want to call it, we don't just go, okay, you know what, forget it. I'm just going back to the bottle. I'm just going back to drugs. I'm just going back to whatever. You know, we want to stand against the wiles of the devil in that evil day. Okay, the good days aren't really an issue. It's the bad days we have to worry about when we're under stress, when we're upset, when we're depressed, when something bad happens, because that's when the temptations are going to ramp up in our lives. And so we want to be able to withstand in that evil day, and having done all, to stand. Verse 14, stand therefore, having your loins girt about with truth. Now I love that triple repetition of the word stand, because at the end of verse 13, he said withstand, and then he said to stand, and then in verse 14, stand therefore, right? Three times, stand, stand, stand, right? We need to take a stand. We need to make our stand. Look, in our Christian life, we want to be advancing forward as much as we can, but sometimes you can't necessarily advance forward, but at least you can just stand. At least don't move backwards. At least maintain your position. There are times when we're growing and thriving in the Christian life, but when we hit that evil day, sometimes the best we can do is just to stand. Just, we're not running, we're not walking, but at least don't go backwards. At least maintain the progress that you've made in the Christian life, and stand firm where you are. At least don't go backward. Stand in the evil day, take that stand. Now how do we stand? It means drawing a line and saying, you know what? No matter how bad things get, I'm not gonna go back behind this line. You know, I wanna be growing, I wanna be moving forward, I wanna be thriving, I wanna be doing extra things, but basically having that backstop there that says, but you know what? Worst case scenario, no matter what happens, do or die, I'm not going to go back to that. I'm not gonna go over that. You know, here's the thing. Maybe you're out soul winning a bunch of times a week, and you're reading a bunch of chapters of the Bible, and you're doing a bunch of prayer, and you're doing a bunch of other service for the Lord, and so forth. You're going to a lot of church service and everything. That's great, and you wanna push yourself, and do great things for God, but you should have a basic minimum backstop in your life that says, you know what? I don't care how bad I feel. I don't care how messed up my life is. I don't care how busy I am. This is the minimum that I'm always gonna do. And you know, I've known some Christians that weren't necessarily super Christian. They weren't necessarily just really tearing it up for God in their Christian lives, but you know, they're Christian people that went to an independent Baptist church, but you know, one thing you could say about these people though, is that they made a decision that no matter what, the minimum is they're at least just gonna show up for church. You know, and that's a backstop that we should have in our lives that says, you know what? Even if I have to slow down on Bible reading, at least I can read one chapter every day at least. You know, maybe my Bible reading plan calls for five or 10 or something, but hey, I'm always gonna read the proverb of the day or whatever. You know, I'm always gonna read at least one, have that minimum that's just a do or die in your life where no matter how busy you are, no matter how bad you feel, no matter how sick you are or whatever, you can at least just drag yourself through that one thing. Hey, I can at least show up to church even if everything else in my Christian life suffering, I can at least just show up and just sit there and fold my arms and just get through it and just grind through Pastor Anderson's sermon, okay? Or whatever. You should have some minimum things that say like, okay, maybe I'm not gonna do as good on my diet as I was planning, but I'm dead sure not gonna go back to drinking. You know, so we should have goals in our life that are like a good, better, best. Like here's my ultimate goal. Here's my, okay, this would still be pretty good if I hit this and then have something of just like, hey, idiot, at least do this. You know, kind of like just a bare minimum, bottom level, like just I will not go below this threshold. Does everybody understand what I'm saying? You know, there's the running goal, the walking goal, and then the standing goal, right? You know, this just kind of popped into my head. I hope my son doesn't mind me using this illustration because it just popped into my head. But you know, we were doing a running race recently and it was super hot outside and he started getting cramps in his legs. And you know, when you're doing these really long races, there's times when you're running. These are like ultra marathons. There's times when you're running. There's times when you're walking, right? And then sometimes, you know, there's times when you just stop because you're in so much pain. But anyway, you know, he got to a point where basically his legs were cramping really bad because it was so hot outside and you know, he's trying to walk it off. But then he got to a point where it's like, he can't run, he can't walk. And so he basically, he stopped at an aid station and he told me, he said, dad, I basically just sat down and like ate a meal and just kind of hung out. How long were you there, son? 25 minutes. So he's there for like 25 minutes. But here's the thing, he didn't quit though. He didn't drop out, he just stood. Now a lot of people, at this exact point in the race, this was kind of a failure point for a lot of people. And a bunch of people dropped out at this exact mile because this was a hard part. And a bunch of people dropped out and he thought about dropping out. I think everybody thought about it. And by the way, everybody in their Christian life thinks about quitting or thinks about failure or thinks about these things because we're human. Doubts enter in, okay? But here's the thing, instead of just saying, get me out of here, I'm done, game over. You know what he did? He just said, you know what? Hey, I can't move forward right now. My legs are cramping, the electrolytes are depleted. I can't run, I can't walk, but you know what I'm gonna do? I'm just gonna basically stand. He basically, yeah, he was sitting, but don't let that ruin the illustration. The point is, he just said, you know what? I'm just gonna basically just stay here. I'm not quitting. I'm not out of the game yet, but you know what? I'm just gonna sit down. I'm just gonna eat. I'm gonna drink because you know, I can't really go much lower than I'm at right now. And guess what? After 25 minutes, he rallied and he was able to get back to walking. Then he's able to get back to running. Then he's able to finish the race that a lot of people couldn't finish because of the heat and because of the extremes. And so the point is, sometimes that's what you do in the Christian life. Don't just bail out on the Christian life and don't just quit. And I've seen people, they're not even in that bad of a shape. And they're just like, oh, you know, I'm not really getting as fast of a time in this race as I wanted. So I'm just gonna go ahead and quit because my time's not that good. And it's like, dude, you can still walk. I'm watching you walk. As you're talking about quitting, you're walking. Why don't you just keep going? Well, cause I ruined my time. Now look, you might go into a race like that with an idea of this is the time I wanna hit. I went into that race with a time that I wanted to hit. And then like another time that I would like to hit. And then, well, at least I wanna hit that time. And you know, I didn't hit any of those three times cause it was so hot. It was way hotter than anyone expected. And so you know what my backstop became is just finish. Just finish. It doesn't matter how long it takes. It doesn't matter what time. It doesn't matter what my ranking is. I just want to finish. And you know what? That's how the Christian life is. Sometimes you go into the Christian life with some pie in the sky ideas of, hey, I'm gonna read the Bible this many times. I'm gonna pray this much. I'm gonna go soul-witting this much. I'm gonna do this. I'm gonna do that. But you know, when reality hits you, when the heat gets turned up, when things go bad, you get to a point sometimes where all you can do is just stand and just say, you know what? Hey, everything's falling apart, but you know what? Here I am, it's Sunday morning and I'm here. It's Sunday night. I'm sitting here. I'm in church. Okay, maybe I'm not on track with my Bible reading, but you know what? I'm still gonna read a chapter. I'm still reading my Bible. Here I am praying. Maybe it's not ideal. Maybe it's not the ultimate goal. I'm not running like I wanted to. I'm not walking, but you know, at least I can stand. And if you can stand, if you can wait that 25 minutes, guess what? You're back. You're back in business whereas somebody else is saying, take me home, I'm out, it's over. And I guarantee you that he's super glad that he didn't bail out just because he, well, I can't even walk. Okay, but then stand. Wait, wait on the Lord. They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength. And so do not quit on the Christian life. Have that backstop where you've done everything, having done all, you've done everything, you've tried it, you know what? You just stand. And you say, you know what? I'm not gonna go across that line. And you need to decide where that line is in your life that says, hey, no matter what, I'm at least gonna do X. You know, I'm at least gonna stay married. I'm at least gonna stay in church. I'm at least gonna read one verse in the Bible. If I'm not doing my normal Bible reading or whatever, at least do something to keep yourself from just spiraling out of control where it's just, if you have no line, if you have no backstop, if you have no minimum, then you can just, it's just a bobsled, you know, into the gutter of just total failure. Whereas some people, you know what they do? They just grit their teeth and just hang in there and at least stand. So that's what the Bible's saying. Having done all to stand, stand therefore. Now he gets into the actual pieces of the armor that are gonna help us to stand. Having done all to stand, 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 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 what are these elements? What do they represent? Well, we talked about the fact that putting on the Lord Jesus Christ is related to putting on the whole armor of God because if you think about it, all of these things actually flow from the Lord Jesus Christ because when the Bible says, have your loins girt about with truth, I mean, Jesus Christ said, I am the truth. He said, I am the way, the truth and the life. No man cometh unto the Father but by me. Jesus is the truth. Obviously, he is the one who is our righteousness and the gospel is all about Jesus. Faith is in Jesus. The helmet of salvation, that's salvation through Christ obviously but let's go into each of these things one by one. First of all, he says, you need to have your loins girt about with truth. So having the loins girded, our modern equivalent of this would be wearing a belt, right? We wouldn't wear like a girdle. We wouldn't call it that. We would basically gird our loins with a belt. Having your loins girt about with truth, all right? So truth is what keeps your pants from falling down as it were, okay? Truth means here that you basically have the truth on your side. You know, if you have the truth on your side, that is a powerful protection against whatever lies and whatever deceits and whatever temptations the devil throws at you. When you believe and know that the word of God is truth, you know what the Bible says, you have the truth on your side and you have that as an assurance, then that basically is gonna protect you from being ashamed, from being exposed in that way. Now you say, well, how is that really a piece of armor? Well, again, we don't really know exactly what the loins girt about with truth is as far as like armor, but I will say this, you know, in battle, this is an area right here where you don't wanna get hit. You know what I mean? And so having some kind of a protection in that zone sounds like a great idea. Having your loins girt about with truth and having on the breastplate of righteousness. Now we've talked about this before, but righteousness in the Bible has two different meanings. There are two different ideas with regard to righteousness. One of these is the fact that we as Christians, we don't really have our own righteousness, but it's Jesus' righteousness that is imputed unto us. That we have been declared righteous in the eyes of God, even though in reality we are not righteous in and of ourselves, right? The Bible says there's none righteous, no, not one, for all of sin and come short of the glory of God, but it's Christ's righteousness that is imputed unto us. It says in the next verse, I'm gonna come back to that thought about the breastplate of righteousness. The other idea of righteousness would be us just doing right things in our lives, okay? Which that's also a legitimate use of righteousness in the Bible. And then in verse 15 it says, and your feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace. Now, why the preparation of the gospel of peace? Well, because the Bible says we should be ready, we should be ready to give an answer to every man that asketh us concerning the hope that we have in Christ Jesus. What if you were in a situation where you had the opportunity to give someone the gospel and to tell them about Jesus? Maybe they're even asking you, like hey, how do I get saved? What must I do to be saved? Wouldn't it be a shame if then you're kind of just struggling, like oh, well, I, ah, ah, ah, ah. Oh, where's my Bible? Oh, I don't have a Bible. I don't have any verses memorized. I don't know what to say. And then that opportunity passes you by. Or you just kind of tell them something dumb. You give them some platitudes about, you know, having a relationship with Jesus or something and you're just like, I don't, you know. And you're not able to, you know, you want to be able to effectively give somebody the gospel. Now, let me explain to you how you can be prepared for this. How do you have the preparation of the gospel of peace? The way you get prepared is by doing it. It's just like anything else, right? How do you get good at something? By doing it. So the way that you get good at giving the gospel is by going out soul winning. And you can even go out as a silent partner and learn from other people. And that's how we start people here. If they show up at a soul winning time, they've never gone out before, we just pair them up with someone else. Someone else does the talking. They just come along, learn the ropes. And here's the thing, by going out and talking to strangers in soul winning, you'll actually get the hang of it. You'll get good at it. Then when you have opportunities in your personal life, the people that you really care about and you really want to get saved, you'll be able to do it because you already have the preparation from going out and practicing and watching other people do it, learning from them. You get good at it and then boom, now you're able to actually win the loved ones and the friends. Before I went soul winning, I wanted to win friends and loved ones, the Lord, and I just always failed at it because I just wasn't good at it. I wasn't using Bible verses. I was just kind of explaining things in my own words and I wasn't even good at that. Then I got into a church that actually taught me how to give the gospel when I was around 17 years old. Then all of a sudden, I started taking what I learned out there in the field and using it on family and friends and actually having success winning people to Christ. Whereas in the past, I'd always failed in the past. So we need to have that preparation and notice it's your feet that are shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace because the gospel being preached is always associated with the feet because we're supposed to go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. This could have been some kind of a mouth guard or a COVID mask or something of the gospel but instead it's the feet because of the fact that we go, we go out there and give people the gospel. That's how we get prepared to do this. And so I submit to you that if the preparation of the gospel of peace is missing from your life, you are exposed to the danger of crashing and burning in your Christian life. You're not wearing the whole armor of God. So here's what I'm saying. If you don't ever give anybody the gospel, if you don't know how to give somebody the gospel, if you don't know how to take your Bible and show someone how to be saved, you're not wearing the whole armor of God. Right away I can just tell you. You say, well, but I got everything else straight. Okay, great. But you don't have your barefoot though. You might be all armored up, but your barefoot, you got that Achilles heel exposed, right? Paris is gonna fire an arrow and shoot you in the heel because of the fact that you are not soul winning, okay? So this is not something, some people will say, well, soul winning is not my spiritual gift. That's great for you, pastor. You're extroverted and you like to talk to people and you give people the gospel, but it's just not me. It's not my gift. But I mean, I thought the whole armor of God is for everybody. I didn't think the whole armor of God was just for some kind of an elite special forces. I thought this is just for all the brethren to put on the whole armor of God. That's how I've always heard this passage taught my entire life. I thought we all knew that this is the whole armor of God for every Christian to wear, not every pastor to wear, not only men to wear, but for women to wear, for children to wear, for all believers to wear. The preparation of the gospel of peace is not an optional add on to the armor of God. It's a part of the outfit, okay? And so you need to learn how to give the gospel. And you say, well, how do I do it? I don't know where to start. Well, okay, let's go back to the announcements and pull out the bulletin. And there's a whole bunch of opportunities for you to get in there and get out and get some practice and do some soul winning. We try to make it easy around here to get you started. Says above all, taking the shield of faith where with you shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked. So as the devil is throwing things at you, different ideas and temptations, the way that you quench the fiery darts of the wicked is with the shield of faith, basically believing the promises of God, believing God's word, believing that what he has told you is true. Now here's the thing, everybody who's saved obviously had enough faith to get saved because we're saved by faith. So the way that you got saved is by believing that Jesus is the son of God, that he died on the cross, was buried and rose again, and trusting him as your savior. That's the faith that gets you saved, is believing the gospel and trusting Jesus as your savior. But then here's the thing, after you're saved though, there are all these other things that God tells you in the Bible that you continually need to exercise faith about. So if God's telling you that if you wait on the Lord, if you trust in him, if you do good, that he'll give you the desires of your heart, well, if you have faith that obeying God is gonna bring me blessings and disobeying God is gonna bring me chastisement, that's gonna affect the choices that you make in your life. The devil comes at you with some temptation and you're gonna say, wait a minute, I believe God when he said that he'll chasten his children. I believe God when he said that if I resist the devil, he'll flee from me and that I should not give in to these temptations. The faith in God's word protects us and shields us from some of those attacks. And then it says, take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the spirit, which is the word of God. Now let's talk for a moment about the helmet of salvation. The helmet of salvation. Now this seems a little odd at first because if we're saved, how could we not be wearing the helmet of salvation? You know what I mean? Because he's talking to brethren. He says, finally my brethren be strong in the Lord and in the power of his might. He's talking to people that are already saved. But he's saying, put on the helmet of salvation. Now I thought we're already saved, right? So why do I need to put on the helmet of salvation? But what I believe this is referring to because obviously he's talking to people that are already saved, can't lose our salvation. And so what's this about? I believe what he's saying is that putting on the helmet of salvation is basically the knowledge that you're saved, realizing that you're saved and believing that you're saved because many saved Christians do what in regard to their salvation? They doubt their salvation, right? I deal with it all the time as a pastor. All the time I'll have people come to me and say, I'm doubting my salvation, okay? People contact me from other cities and states, help me pastor Anderson, I'm doubting my salvation. So this is a thing amongst Christians that they would sometimes doubt their salvation. Putting on the helmet of salvation, and it's interesting that it's near the mind as well, is knowing that you're saved, being confident that you're saved, and not doubting your salvation, okay? Now to support what I just said, I would also point to 1 Thessalonians chapter five. And you don't have to turn there, but in 1 Thessalonians 5 eight it says, 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 notice the helmet of salvation in Ephesians six, in 1 Thessalonians five it calls it, the helmet of the hope of salvation, right? So having that hope, having that assurance, believing that you're saved, and not doubting your salvation is a protection. It is part of the whole armor of God. God wants us to know that we're saved, and doubting your salvation is not good. You don't want to doubt your salvation, or I don't want you to doubt your salvation. And so when people come to me with this attitude, I don't say to them, oh, you're doubting your salvation? Well, be afraid, be very afraid. You ought to be. You know, now there are some people who want to get you to doubt your salvation, but this is not of God. Salvation is easy. Okay, salvation is not hard. And here's what I always tell people when they're doubting their salvation. You know what I tell them? I say, you know what? God wants you to be saved just as much as you want to be saved. God's not up in heaven trying to make it hard, trying to nail you on a technicality. Like he's just going to shut the door of heaven to you because of some technicality. You didn't cross the T and dot the I, so you're damned. Last time I checked, God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life. So God wants you to be saved. God will, meaning wants to, have all men to be saved and to come into the knowledge of the truth. God is not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance. If people are not saved, it's not because they didn't cross the T or dot the I and God's just ready to just nail you, sucka. You know, oh, you think you're saved? Ha! You forgot part of it. Ah, go to hell! That's not who God is. God loves you. Jesus died on the cross for you because he loves you. He's not going to mess with you. He's not just going to damn you over something stupid. No, he wants you to be, you want to be saved? Well guess what, he wants you to be saved too. So if you want to be saved and he wants you to be saved, you know, this shouldn't be too hard. But yet, most people are unsaved, aren't they? But let me explain something to you. People are unsaved not because of a technicality. There's something intrinsically wrong with them spiritually. Don't miss that. There is something wrong with them spiritually that's keeping them from getting saved. It's not a technicality, okay. Either they just don't care or they're so filled with pride that they want to trust in their own works. They want to trust in their own righteousness. They want to work their own way to heaven. Or they just, they actually in their heart secretly scoff at the Bible and don't really believe in it. Or perhaps they're unsaved because maybe they're just going to church to please other people. And look, there are people who they just go to church because their spouse takes them to church or their parents take them to church. And maybe they just don't really care. And they just haven't really. But here's the thing, when somebody comes to me and says, I'm doubting my salvation, they're not that person who doesn't care because the fact that they're coming to me shows that they do care. Am I right? Somebody's coming to me saying, I'm doubting my salvation, help me pastor. They clearly care. They're not trying to please other people. They actually are thinking about it, they're worried about it, they care. So I can get rid of that possibility that they're basically just going through the motions to please other people. But rather, I would look at the other option and say, okay, is this person filled with pride where they're trusting in their own deeds, their own works, they believe that they have to live a certain way or they're going to lose their salvation because it's really them that it depends on. And typically the people that I talk to, that's not the case with them, right? So then what else could be the problem? And typically there is no problem. Usually when people come to me doubting their salvation, they're saved. And they are just doubting their salvation because they're human and the devil can deceive us in this manner through bad teaching or bad preaching or just in our flesh we're human and so we're doubtful creatures by nature and whatever. So we don't want people who are truly saved to doubt their salvation. Now, somebody who's not saved, the answer isn't for them to doubt their salvation. The answer is to basically show them why they're not saved from the Bible and show that here's why you're not saved because you're trusting in works. You don't have all your faith in Christ or whatever, or you're not saved because you don't believe that Jesus is the Son of God or whatever that we could point to and say, this is why you're not saved. This is what needs to change. This is what you need to believe, okay? But trying to get people to doubt their salvation is not something that we should do as preachers or as Christians because salvation's easy, God wants us to be saved and the sincere person who just believes in Jesus and calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. Okay, it's that simple. Doesn't mean you're not gonna doubt yourself. I've doubted my salvation. I think every single Christian, if they were honest, would say I've doubted my salvation at some point in my life. That's just a normal human response. Now sometimes, so I believe that what the Bible's saying here when it says to put on the helmet of salvation is being solid on what it takes to be saved, knowing that you've done that, knowing that you've done what it takes to be saved, that you have believed, and this goes back to the girdle of truth as well, right? Knowing what the truth is, knowing that you believed it, knowing that you're saved, having that confidence, that's the helmet of salvation is that confidence of I'm saved. And you could even tie that in with the breastplate of righteousness saying, you know what, I know that I am righteous in the sight of God. The awareness of the righteousness that you already possess in Christ, okay? Because of the fact that many people today, they start being down on themselves. And they're saved Christians, but in that evil day, they start thinking, man, I'm a loser. I'm constantly falling into sin. I don't even know if I'm even saved. And I'm just trash, so I might as well drink. I might as well take drugs because I'm a failure anyway, right? If you despair like that, you're very likely to go right down the devil's path when you despair. You see, Christians who make it in the Christian life, even when they commit a big sin, even when they goof up, you know what they do? They confess it to the Lord and they trust that God will forgive them and that they can move forward. People who are continually beating themselves up about their past or even beating themselves up about what they did three days ago are not gonna make it in the Christian life. Okay, it seems like, oh, well, you know, if I'm really hard on myself, I'll be more likely to do better in the future, but that's not really the way it works for some reason. You don't wanna be too hard on yourself. You know, realize I'm human, I sinned, I'm sorry, confess it to God, forsake it, and always realize that, you know what, I'm still righteous in the sight of God. I'm still saved. I can still be the Christian that he wants me to be. Tomorrow, even if yesterday, I blew it. That's an important thing to realize. And so these are the things that the devil is gonna hit us with, doubting our salvation, also just, he'll kinda just make us feel like we're trash, that we're unrighteous, that we can't succeed. Maybe we're not even saved. You're a failure, whatever. That's the kind of stuff he'll hit us with. We need to know the truth. We need that breastplate of righteousness, right? Knowing in our heart that Christ's righteousness has been applied to us, knowing that we're saved, faith in the promises of God, the sword of the Spirit, the weapon is the word of God, and this is how we're gonna get through these things. All these things are really related, aren't they? It really all boils down to, you know, knowing what the Bible says and believing it and applying it. That's really what ends up protecting us from this onslaught of the devil. Now, let me just stop and talk a little bit more about this idea of doubting your salvation, okay, about the helmet of salvation, which is the hope of salvation, right, actually believing that your salvation is there and trusting that it's there. What makes people doubt their salvation? I think one thing that makes people doubt their salvation is the fact that they have sin in their life. So people have sin in their life, and then they wonder, like, why do I have this sin in my life? Why do I keep giving in to temptation? Why do I keep failing? It must be because I'm not saved, right? This is how people think. This is not the case. That does not make you unsaved. It makes you human, because even the Apostle Paul in Romans chapter seven said that he was constantly doing things that he hated. There were things that he wanted to do, and he didn't do them, and then there were things that he hated, and he would do those things, and he said, oh, wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death? And so the Apostle Paul was struggling with sin in his life in Romans seven. So let me ask this. If he struggled with sin, do you think maybe you're gonna struggle with sin? Do you think maybe I'm gonna struggle with sin? Was the Apostle Paul unsaved? Of course not, but yet he said that he did things that he hated, okay? That's one of the biggest reasons I think people doubt their salvation. Now, I've been in churches where people get, like, resaved, even after they've been in the church for many, many years. So people have been in church, they're a Christian, they're living the Christian life, they're doing everything, and then all of a sudden, like, five years later, it's like, oh, I just got saved. They get resaved, and, you know, I don't wanna paint with a broad brush and put all of these people in the same category because there are some situations where this is legitimate and some where it is not legitimate, okay? Let me give you some examples, okay? Here's where I think this is legitimate. I think that there are a lot of people who go to church to please someone else, and they don't actually believe in Jesus Christ in their heart. So they could come to a church like Faith Forward Baptist Church for years and still be unsaved because they're just going through the motions. They're going to please their husband, their wife, their children, their parents, whatever. I mean, that's pretty easy to understand, isn't it? Now, for that person to go to church for years just because they're just going with their husband. They're going with their kids. They're going with their wife. They're going for the social aspect. They're just going to please other people, whatever. For that person to then, later on, realize, wait a minute, I'm not saved. I actually need to believe this myself. You know, I actually need to put my trust in Christ for real, not just outwardly. That makes sense to me. And I've seen that happen. And that is legitimate, where someone is going through the motions and pleasing other people, and then they actually decide, you know what? Wow, I do believe this. I do need to get saved. Maybe like a near death experience happens and they say to themselves, whoa, I need to quit playing around here. This is real. I better make sure that I'm saved. I better receive the Lord Jesus Christ as my savior and put my personal faith and trust in him. Hey, that makes perfect sense to me. Amen? But then you have other situations where, because of maybe gray areas of teaching and kind of murky preaching, or maybe a confusion of the issue of salvation, teaches people this wrong idea that says, well, if you're struggling with sin, you must not be saved. Or you have to repent of all your sins to be saved. And so, you know, did you really do that? So these wrong teachings will come in and put this idea to it, and then you'll have a bunch of people in Baptist churches getting resaved, you know, just to make sure or whatever. Now, here's what I think is going on. I'm gonna try to explain this the best that I can. Is that I think some people have an unrealistic idea of what salvation is going to do for them. And again, this is sometimes reinforced by preachers giving these unrealistic ideas. You know, bless God when I got saved. I never craved a cigarette again. I never even craved a drink of alcohol again. I mean, who's ever heard that kind of preaching before? Folks, that is garbage. Now, I would say 99% of these guys are just lying. Just lying through their teeth. But yet, that's what they say, okay? They're lying. Even if maybe one of them is telling the truth. Maybe there's a guy out there who says, no, honestly, Pastor Anderson, the moment I got saved, I never wanted to smoke again. I never wanted to drink again. Okay, fine. But you know what that is? That's an anomaly. Okay, let's give you the benefit of the doubt that you're telling the truth. You're an anomaly, and I'll bet you that there are other sins in your life that didn't just immediately go away the moment that you got saved. So by you getting up and bringing up this aberration, this anomaly, this outlier, you're just confusing people. You're confusing people. Because the same, it isn't amazing how sometimes these guys will be obese. I never craved a cigarette. Well, what did you crave, buddy? What did you crave, White Castle? What did you crave? Dairy Queen? You were craving something, buddy. You know, it's always easy to just single out these certain sins that we don't do. Yeah, I don't drink, I don't do drugs, but what do you do? Because you know what? Every single one of us is a sinner. Nobody is perfect. Everybody is fighting something. Look, I don't struggle with drug and alcohol addiction. I never have, and I never will. But does that mean that I'm really saved and you're not? No, because I'm struggling with some other sin that you're not struggling with. You see what I mean? So I could get up and just say, oh, these people are addicted to drugs, they're addicted to alcohol, it's because they're not safe. You know what? That'd be easy for me to say that, because, well, I'm saved and I don't struggle with those things. That's because everybody's different. Different people struggle with different things. And so a lot of people, they're too hard on themselves, or they're looking at themselves and holding themselves to basically such a high standard that basically they're not living up to that, and then they're saying, why am I not living up to this? It must be because I'm not saved. And I don't want to get too psychological here, but let me tell you what I think is going on psychologically in these people who feel the need to get re-saved. And I'm not talking about people who legitimately, like I said, they were going with someone else and now they've actually made it personal to them. That's a legitimate. But I'm talking about these people who get re-saved because of sin in their life. I'll tell you what's going on, I believe psychologically in their mind, is that basically they want to believe that they're not saved. They want to believe that they're not saved because then it kind of explains their failures. Because it's kind of an easy thing to point to of like, oh, well, this is why I failed, it's because I wasn't saved. And now that I am saved, and here I am getting re-saved, getting re-baptized, they feel like somehow it's going to fix everything in their life. But I'm here to tell you that getting saved is not going to fix everything in your life. Otherwise, everybody in here's life will be fixed. Who's saved? 99% of the people in here are saved. You know, whose life is screwed up? Raise your hand. No, I'm just kidding. But anyway, the point is, if salvation just fixed you, then every Christian would be fixed. And when we look around, do we see every Christian's life just right where it needs to be? No. And so I think a lot of people, they want to get re-saved or think that they weren't saved, and then get saved because they feel like if they can just push that darn reset button, you know, it'll fix their life. But let me tell you something, getting saved isn't what fixes your life. Because Paul didn't say in chapter six, hey, get saved, and then you'll just automatically be wearing the whole armor of God. Farewell, bye, Epistle's over. Could have been a really short chapter six. No, he's telling Christians, put on the whole armor of God. Okay, you're saved, but guess what you have to do every day? Put on the Lord Jesus Christ every single day. Didn't Jesus say that if any man will come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross, don't miss it, daily. Daily, are you gonna get re-saved every day? Right? Take up your cross daily and follow me. Every single day, you have to deny self, crucify self, mortify self, put on the Lord Jesus Christ, put on the whole armor of God, remind yourself of those truths that are in God's word, right? Girding your loins with truth. You know, every time you read your Bible in the morning, you're girding your loins with truth, you're gaining new truth from the Bible, you're reminding yourself of existing truth that you already knew, you're girding your loins with truth, okay? You remember what salvation is, you're prepared to give it to someone else. You're prepared to talk about Christ with others. You got the breastplate of righteousness knowing, you know what? Sorry, I'm not a loser, I'm not trash, I'm not worthless, I'm a child of God, I've been declared righteous by God. I got the breastplate of righteousness, shield of faith, I know that what the Bible has said is true, and that protects me. The helmet of salvation, I know I'm saved because guess what? Salvation is through faith, I believe in Christ, and guess what? God wants me to be saved just as much as I want to be saved. He's not trying to make it hard or complicated, and since I sincerely have fully my faith and trust in him, what in the world would be a reason for me not to be saved? I mean, God's just gonna look at me and say, well, I know you're fully trusting in the finished work of Christ, but you didn't pray it the right way. That's not what God's trying to do, folks. You didn't believe it hard enough. Hey, a little faith of a grain of mustard seed could move mountains, folks. You just have to believe in your heart and just call upon Christ, and that's it. It is nothing complicated about being saved, but your trust has to be fully in him and not in yourself. It's that simple. So you put on the whole armor of God every single day, but you don't get saved every day. You get saved once, and then once you're saved, you're saved forever. Nothing can separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. He'll never leave us or forsake us, but people doubt their salvation because of that. Now, I wanna say one more thing while I'm on this subject, because like I said, there are people who come to church with a loved one who aren't actually saved, and maybe that's you this morning. Maybe you're here this morning, and you're just here because you're with a brother or a sister or a friend, and you're here, and maybe you even pretend to be saved because you're just kind of going along to get along. Let me tell you something. You're gonna split hell wide open unless you make Christ your own savior and believe on the Lord Jesus Christ as your savior, so don't play with that, and you could get saved today. You could grab myself, Brother Segura, Brother Daniel, any of us, and pretty much anybody around here can show you how to be saved and can help pray, or if maybe you already know how to be saved because you've been here and you've heard it, you need to just get on your knees and settle that with God today if that's you, because I do believe that there are people like that, teenagers, children, spouses, parents, whatever, who are just going through the motions. I get that, but so if that's you, then yeah, you do need to get saved, but if you're just doubting your salvation because you struggle with sin, well, join the club. Everybody struggles with sin every day. That's why it's called denying self. If self wasn't piping up, I wouldn't have to deny self, would I? You deny self because self is like, hey, buddy, let's go commit sin, and you have to deny self and take up the cross and follow Christ daily. So it's not a once for all. Salvation's once for all, denying self is daily, maybe even multiple times a day. You know, you might even need to renew the, you know, as long as you put on the armor of God in the morning, you might even need to re-put it on around noon or maybe put it on one more time around 7 p.m. I'm serious, you know? Just get out the Bible again, you know, get on your knees again, pray a little more just to basically refresh that thing. Because we're human, we're weak, right? Now, I wanna clarify a statement that I've made in the past because some people have taken a statement that I made in the past and sort of twisted it to mean something that I never intended it to mean, okay? So I wanna make sure we're clear on this. You know, in 2 Corinthians 13, and let's turn to this and we'll close and be done. What's the takeaway from the sermon on the back of a postage stamp is here, if I just had to summarize the sermon for you in just one or two sentences, I would say this. You know, every single day, you need to read your Bible and pray and put on the new man and sort of remind yourself what the gospel is so that you'll be able to share it with someone else and so that you'll be able to remember that you're saved and believe that you're saved and understand what it means to be saved. That's what's gonna protect you and help you to be a better Christian. Every day, you're reading your Bible and you're secure in your salvation. That's the helmet, that's the shield, that's the girdle, that's the sword. You're putting on Christ, you're walking in the new man. That's what you need. And if any of these things lack in your life, if you're doubting your salvation, you're vulnerable. If you feel like trash, you're not wearing the breastplate of righteousness, you feel like a loser and you're a failure, you're down on yourself, you're vulnerable. If you're believing lies because you're not girding yourself with the truth of God's word, you're vulnerable. If you doubt what the Bible says, you're opening yourself up. So you need to build your faith by reading the Bible every day. Look, you don't read your Bible for a month, I guarantee you doubts will creep in about whether the Bible's true, about whether you're saved. You gotta read it every day because faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God. But I wanna clarify something that I've said in the past because some people have twisted it to mean something it's not. 2 Corinthians 13 five says this, examine yourselves whether you be in the faith, prove your own selves, know ye not your own selves have that Jesus Christ is in you except you be reprobates. Now, the way that I have preached this verse and the way that I'm gonna preach it to you now is that what the Bible's saying here is that he's basically talking to people at Corinth who are serious Christians at Corinth, leadership, people that have been there and he's telling them, he's basically doubting some of their salvation and saying are you even in the faith? And he says either Christ is in you or you're reprobates. Now, we don't wanna misunderstand this because obviously there are lots of people out there who are not saved but that doesn't mean they're a reprobate because reprobate means rejected, like rejected by God beyond hope of salvation. And here's what I've said about this verse in the past is that basically people who come to a church like ours and are serving in a church like ours for years and then turn out later not to be saved that those people are most likely reprobates because if they're going to our church and they're soul winning and going through and then all of a sudden they turn around and turn out not to be saved, I said those people are reprobates. Based on what this verse is saying and just based on a little bit of common sense as well that if you've heard the gospel a ton of times and you're around it all the time and you're not saved, you're probably a reprobate. But here's what I wanna clarify or give a caveat with that is that I'm not talking about children. I'm not talking about children because this is what's so stupid. Sometimes I've approached a parent with a concern about their child or their teenager in a loving way and said, you know what? I heard your child say something or I heard your teenager say something and it makes me think that they're not saved because of what they said. So it's probably a good idea to talk to them because I doubt their salvation. You're calling my kid a reprobate because you said that if they go to church, they're like blah, blah, blah. No. Obviously kids and teenagers, they're growing up in church, they did not choose to come here. That's the difference. They didn't choose to come here. So here's the thing. Why are the kids in the service today? Because their parents brought them. Why are the teenagers in the service today? Because their parents brought them. Now, I hope that all of our teenagers and kids that are here under the sound of my voice right now have made their own personal decision to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, their savior. But guess what? That's their own personal decision that they have to make for themselves and mom and dad can't make it for them. I cannot force my kids or your kids to be saved. They have to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ as their savior. And again, somebody who comes to the church because they're just going to please someone else or because they're being dragged there or brought there by parents, I'm not saying that that person is a reprobate if they're not saved. If I'm doubting their salvation, I'm just saying, hey, you know, maybe we should pray for this person, talk to this person, help this person get saved because they appear not to be saved based on what they're saying. Now, look, I mean, that's something that a parent should want to be told. You know what I mean? Like, hey, there's some signs here that your kid's not saved. You should talk to them about this and maybe exhort them to be saved and make sure that they make that decision. And again, we can't force people to make that decision but we can pray for them, we can preach to them, we can try to help them, whatever. But here's the thing about that is that, if someone is coming here with their spouse for years and years and years pretending to be saved, that doesn't mean that they're a reprobate. It just means that they don't care or they don't believe in it but they're just going along to get along. Hopefully down the road someday the penny will drop and they will actually realize the importance and get saved. Does everybody understand what I'm saying? Now, let's contrast that with someone who actually makes the conscious decision on their own. I'm gonna go to Faithful Word Baptist Church because I love Faithful Word and I love Pastor Anderson's preaching and I wanna get involved in soul meeting. And they come here and they show up and they participate in our ministry for years and then it turns out they don't believe in the Trinity, they believe you can lose your salvation, they believe you have to get baptized in order to be saved or do other works in order to be saved. That person's a reprobate, my friend, because that is like a Judas Iscariot coming in and basically with no reasonable motive, like, oh, I'm just doing this for mom or dad or does anybody see the difference? So I just wanted to clarify that real quick because people have twisted what I said on that. I wanna make that clear. Infiltrators tend to be reprobates, right? Judas Iscariots, people coming in and pretending to be saved when they're not, why would they do that? Because they're a reprobate, okay? But the caveat to that is, yeah, kids, teenagers, spouses, parents, you know what? They might just be going through the motions but they haven't actually believed in their own heart, they haven't actually trusted in Christ as their savior. That's two different things. And so I hope that that helps a little bit with maybe you're doubting your salvation because I want you to have the whole armor of God. You need to put on that helmet of the hope of salvation because you're gonna be a much more effective Christian when you settle it. You settle what salvation is and you know you're saved and you believe you're saved and you understand that you've been declared righteous in the eyes of God. You're never trash, you're never a failure because you can always get back on the horse. You can today, I don't care what you do, I don't care how many drugs you took yesterday or how much you drank yesterday or whatever you did yesterday, if you're saved and you know it, you got the truth, you can today put on the whole armor of God and move forward in your Christian life. And I also wanna just remind those of you who've been at it for a long time, serving God for a long time, maybe you're going through a dark place right now, maybe you are in a place spiritually where it's the evil day for you. Well, here's the thing to fall back on is you know what, I'm saved. I'm a child of God, I've got the Holy Spirit living inside of me, maybe I've messed up everything else but I know this, I know whom I have believed, I've got this straight, I've got a Bible and you know what, maybe I'm not gonna be living my best days in the Christian life but I'm not gonna quit, I'm at least gonna do the minimum. I'm at least gonna show up to church, read some Bible, pray and I'm gonna sit at that aid station and if it's 25 minutes, so be it, but I'm not getting out of this race. I'm gonna stay in it, I'm gonna finish. Let's bow your heads in that word of prayer. Father, I pray that the sermon Lord would speak to the hearts of those that are here. Whatever the need is Lord, maybe there are some people here that are doubting their salvation Lord, I pray that they would be able to get that settled with your word. Maybe there are those who are at a dark place spiritually Lord, I pray that they would just decide, you know what, maybe I'll have to slow down, maybe I even have to stop but I'm not quitting. I'm gonna stand, I'm not gonna go backwards and Lord for all of us, even if we're not doubting our salvation, even if we're not in that evil day right now Lord, help every single one of us to get up every single morning and put on that whole armor by reading your word, thinking about our salvation, putting on the helmet of salvation, having faith in what you say, knowing that the Bible is truth and being ready to talk about Christ with others so that we can be able to stand against the wiles of the devil and in Jesus' name we pray, amen. Hey man, let's do one more song. Song 356, I Must Tell Jesus. Song 356. Three voices. I must tell Jesus of my trials. I cannot bear his birth alone. May my distress be kindly fulfilled. He ever loved me. I cannot bear his birth alone. I must tell Jesus. I must tell Jesus. I cannot bear my burdens alone. I must tell Jesus. I must tell Jesus. Jesus can't help me. Jesus alone. I must tell Jesus all of my troubles. He is the kind of passion and prayer. If I might ask him, he will deliver. Make up my troubles, put me in hand. I must tell Jesus. I must tell Jesus. I cannot bear my burdens alone. I must tell Jesus. I must tell Jesus. Jesus can't help me. Jesus alone. Tended and tried, I'd be a great savior. One who can't help my burdens to bear. I must tell Jesus. I must tell Jesus. He in all my cares and sorrows will share. I must tell Jesus. I must tell Jesus. I cannot bear my burdens alone. I must tell Jesus. I must tell Jesus. Jesus can't help me. Jesus alone. Oh how the world to evil abhors me. Oh how my heart is tempted to sin. I must tell Jesus and he will help me. Over the world of victory to win. I must tell Jesus. I must tell Jesus. I cannot bear my burdens alone. I must tell Jesus. I must tell Jesus. Jesus can't help me. Jesus alone. Thanks for having me here. It's good to see you. Thank you. If we're not in that evil day right now, Lord, every single one of us to get up every single morning and put on that whole armor by reading your word, thinking about our salvation, putting on the helmet of salvation, having faith in what you say, knowing that the Bible is truth, and being ready to talk about Christ with others so that we can be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.