You can turn in your Bibles to Psalm 60. Psalm 60. Psalm 60 gives us a little introduction here. of the testimony of Midtown of David for teaching when he fought against Mesopotamia and Syria of Zobah and Joab returned and killed 12,000 Edomites in the Valley of Salt. Now, we're not necessarily connecting this sermon with this morning, but this is, they're fighting against the Edomites or they're bringing judgment upon the Edomites and returning what they've done on their head. So, just have that in mind as we read through. Maybe as we go through Obadiah, we'll connect to this psalm again, but just have that in your mind as we read through this psalm. Psalm 60. Oh God, you have cast us off and have broken us down. You have been displeased. Oh, restore us again. You have made the earth tremble. You have broken it. Heal its breaches for the shaking. You have shown your people hard things. You have made us drink the wine of confusion. You have given a banner to those who fear you, that it may be displayed because of the truth, sila, that your beloved may be delivered. Save with your right hand and hear me. God has spoken in his holiness. I will rejoice. I will divide Shechem and measure out the valley of Sukkoth. Gilead is mine and Manasseh is mine. Ephraim also is the helmet for my head. Judah is my lawgiver. Moab is my washpot. And over Edom, I will cast my shoe. Philistia, shout in triumph because of me. Who will bring me to the strong city? Who will lead me to Edom? Is it not you, O God, who cast us off? And you, O God, who did not go out with our armies? Give us help from troubles, for the help of man is useless. Through God we will do valiantly, for it is he who shall tread down our enemies. Amen. Let's pray together. O Lord, we again pray that you would open our hearts and our minds to understand your Word, to understand the teachings of your Word concerning who we are in Christ. I pray, Lord, that you would bless the preaching and you would fill with the power of your Spirit to preach your Word, that you would enable the hearer to listen and that you would apply it to the heart so that we might be greatly encouraged in our walk with the Lord. way to glory with you for eternity. Lord, we pray that you would bless us, now fill us with your grace, your mercy, give us strength. We pray this in Jesus' name, Amen. So, this week's sermon is sort of a part two to last week. If you remember last week, we looked at what I called was the greatest ever told, which really is the story of the death and the resurrection of Christ, his victory over death, and how that's portrayed and told to us in the Old Testament, and also in the New, but really in the Old Testament of a great dragon-slaying story, that Christ's victory over death was like him slaying a great dragon. We remember all the dragon-slaying stories that we hear, and read and come across, they're all very similar in nature. You have a nice peaceful community of people living peacefully, peace and happiness. Then one day a dragon comes along and then he strikes terror into the hearts of the people. They're in bondage to him as it were. He steals a fair maiden, a damsel. He brings her to his lair. He has her in his claws and he holds her there. And then until this night comes from afar. And the knight comes from somewhere, and then he hears about this dragon, and the damsel, and then he goes to the dragon, and he enters that dragon's lair, his cave, kills this dragon, rescues the fair maiden, marries her, takes her to his castle to be, you know, happily ever after, where they live together. And the Bible, we saw that last week, the Bible tells us this exact same story. It begins well in the Garden of Eden, And life is good until this, you know, the dragon he's described as a serpent in the garden story. He comes in and he trips them into sinning. Now he has them capped up in his claws. They're all deserving of death. He has the power of death over them, this dragon of death. And until along comes the promised one, Genesis 3, 15. dragon's lair. He destroys it. We saw it in Psalm 74. God, the dragon is described as the sea monster there that lives in the sea. That's his lair in Psalm 74. God comes, he tears apart the sea and he reaches in and he crushes the head of the Leviathan and the great Tanim, the dragons, the sea monsters that live there. Just, it's a glorious But Christ is the knight in shining armor. He comes from afar. He comes from heaven. He comes to us. And he frees us. He enters death itself. He enters the lair, death. He overpowers death. He rises in victory. And that's when he frees the fair maiden who's there. And that's us, the church. And we become his bride. And he takes us to live happily ever after. Jesus is the greatest dragon slayer there ever was. And that's what the writer of Hebrews, and I read this last time, Hebrews 2, 14 and 15, he took on flesh and blood, so he became a man, came down to us, so that through death, by entering death, he might destroy him who had the power of death, that is the devil, and release those who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage. That's the writer of Hebrews 2. this dragon slaying story and he gives it to us in basically systematic theology language here, but that's the imagery. So, but the problem is when we hear this story and we think, yes, okay, I'm Christ, I've been rescued, I've been rescued from death, death no longer has its hold on me, it doesn't have power on me, I've been freed, but yet the problem is, it's so obvious, when we look around at and the effects of the curse, maybe we could say, they're still around us everywhere. It still feels like Satan and all his snaky agents that he has are all alive and well and very active. It almost seems though, did Christ really overpower them and destroy them? You know, we read, We read these updates from Myanmar and we hear of the chaos and the absolute debauchery and the most horrific, beastly things that are going on there. And it's shocking. There's so much death, so much destruction yet. The abortion industry, that devouring dragon, he's still hard at work. And that's just, that might be out there, but personally, we feel the effects of that as well. We still suffer, we still face hardships, we still have sorrow and sighing and tears and all that's associated with the curse. We might face people who are hostile against us because we're Christians. We might maybe not so much personally, but it's still out there. We know there's, It feels like this isn't over yet. There's the curses there. We're still tempted to sin every day. That's devious, the sneaky serpentine, the tempter, as he's called. He's still whispering in our ear all day long. So are we then to conclude that perhaps Christ hasn't overpowered death? Perhaps he didn't slay the dragon and hasn't won the victory? We're not supposed to include that. Of course not. We know he has. He rose from the dead. He has the power. He's conquered death. He's risen in victory. But in this great dragon slaying story, it's sometimes in the Bible, it's presented two different ways. Sometimes it's presented, it's already happened. It's done. It's over. His head is crushed. It's over. But also sometimes it's presented as, it's not yet fully accomplished, it will be fully accomplished in the future, so it's sort of a two-step process, we might say. And that's really how we ought to see it, perhaps more so than just as a one-time slaying of the dragon, but a two-step process. And the first step was the resurrection of Christ and then the final, ultimate victory and final destruction of death and Satan and all that goes with the curse of death, all the sorrow and sighing and suffering, that's all done away with for good at the end of the age. When Christ returns, he judges the living and the dead and Satan and all of his angels and everything is judged that is Christ and His and the blessing and the abundance goes on to dwell together with God in new heavens and new earth. So it's a two-step process and that explains why we still experience the effects of death and the curse all around us even though Christ has overcome and has rescued us from it. And the way that the Old Testament describes this for us in this dragon story is that the first step rather than killing the dragon right away and destroying him for good right away. Instead, Yahweh, the Lord, renders the dragon powerless. He becomes a powerless entity. And usually the way that's described as him being defanged. His teeth being broken. Excuse me. And no longer, yeah, no longer his teeth being broken. So we have to get back And Job, we read a good description of the Leviathan, and this dragon, the Tannin, the sea dragon there. And Job says, who can open the doors of his face with his terrible teeth all around? So the dragon's mouth, by which he swallows up people, he has these teeth. Nobody can get in there and to let anyone out who's in there. That's the imagery here. The dragon has great teeth that hold on to his prey and prevent them from being freed. Prevent them from escaping. That's how he can hold on to them with his teeth. He holds on tight. They're like bars of a prison. And so he's got, the imagery then is that this dragon has come and he's swallowed up people and they're in his mouth and he's gnashing at them with his teeth. We find that phrase many places in the Bible. That idea, being held in the dragon's grasp is like being gnashed on. He's chewing on you. You're in his mouth and he's, Job 16. For one example of this, he tears at me in his wrath and he hates me, he gnashes at me with his teeth. My adversary sharpens his gaze on me and they gape at me with their mouth. They strike me reproachfully on the cheek and they gather together against me. God has delivered me over to the ungodly and turns me over to the hands of the wicked. I was at ease but he has shattered me, has taken me by the neck and shaken me to pieces and set me a rat and he's gnashing at him with his teeth, he's stuck in his mouth. Psalm 35 as well, another example of this, verse 15. Psalm 35 verse 15, in my adversity they rejoiced and gathered together, the attackers gathered against me and I did not know it. They tore at me and did not cease. With ungodly mockers at feast they gnashed at me with their teeth. Lord, how long we look on, rescue me from their destruction and my precious life from the lions. So his attackers here, David's attackers described as a beast, tearing him, chewing on him, he's in their mouth and he's oppressed, he's held there by them. So that's the picture that we have here. Ultimately this picture is showing us those who've sinned against God, teeth, you cannot escape those teeth that are like the bars of a prison holding you there. So the first thing then, the first stage we could say of freeing his people from the dragon is to break those teeth so that the people can get out. He's not killing the dragon right away, he's first defanging him, breaking those teeth so now the dragon has nothing with which to hold on to anyone or his people in his grasp. They can get out of that devouring mouth now because the teeth have been broken there. So, and we'll see that, but the first, we'll look at a few verses in a moment, but the first, what we should, maybe it's helpful to understand that the Bible does not always use the image of a dragon. devil or ungodly men who are agents of the devil, doing beastly things. Sometimes it's not always the dragon. Sometimes it's the serpent. The serpent is one way. A lot of times we have various other beasts. Again, sort of like we saw this morning with Edom and that wilderness. It's beasts that live in the wilderness, things like jackals or lions. Lions with their sharp fangs, their mouths, they tear their prey. That's a very common image of it. Or bears. Bears also, just like lions, are these beasts that live in the wilderness and they have sharp mouths and they grab onto their prey with their fangs. Snakes, I already said that. Fiery snakes, that's often, you think of the wilderness, deadly poison. The wilderness, the Israelites in the wilderness is a good example of that. They sinned against God, they broke God's law and they were revolting against God so God sent the serpent and the serpents bit them and injected them with deadly poison. It's the imagery of we sin against God, we deserve to die but that imagery as well. It's another desert creature. It's got the stinger on it that injects deadly poison. So those are the different images we need to see that are all different ways of looking at death and or the devil who has the power of death. Psalm 58 is one. Let's look at that to see what is Yahweh going to do Children are estranged from the womb. They go astray as soon as they are born, speaking lies. Their poison is like the poison of a serpent. They are like the deaf cobra that stalks its ear, which will not heed the voice of the charmers, charming ever so skillfully. Oh Lord, let them flow as waters, which run continually, when he bends his bow, lest his arrows be as if cut in pieces. Let them be like a snail, which melts away as it goes, like a stillborn child of a woman, that they may never see the sun. just for our sake here, for this message. Verse six, break their teeth in their mouth, oh God. Break the fangs of the young lions. We can see already in the previous verses, he's using the serpent analogy. These are serpents that are deadly. They refuse to be charmed, he says here. They're deadly serpents, deadly cobras. And then he just turns to talking about lions, but he says, break their fangs. Break their fangs in their mouth, Lord, so that they don't have, Remove their power. A lion with no fangs or no teeth is a powerless lion. He can't do anything. He can roar all he wants, but if he's got no teeth, there's not really much he can do. Psalm 3, verse 7. One more here. Psalm 3, verse 7. Arise, O Lord, save me, O my God, for you have belongs to the Lord. Your blessing is upon your people, Sila. So the way in which Yahweh releases his people from death is not by immediately destroying death and that dragon, but it's by first breaking its teeth. so that his people can escape its grasp. So Yahweh defangs the dragon. He de-venoms him and makes him powerless against his people. That's the first stage of that destruction. He turns that dragon into just a toothless old dragon. Just imagine that for a moment. A dragon, his only power is to hold people in his teeth or a lion, it's the only way he can inflict harm. When he's got no more teeth, when he looks like someone who's, you know, forgot to put their dentures in, he's just some gums. He's not really, he's not, he's not much of a threat anymore. That's how we need to, that's how we need to see the Satan, what's happened to him and death and the power of death. It's been removed, it's been taken away. He's just a toothless dragon. He's a cobra with no fangs. He's a scorpion with no stinger left in his tail. Think of Hosea. We looked at that. Death, where is your sting? It's gone. That's the image we have of a stinger, of a venom. Your stinger is gone. Where is it? It's taken away. You have no more power anymore. Job 29, 17 says, I broke the fangs of the wicked and plucked the victim from his teeth. That's what God is doing for us. That's where we are now. The wicked one, the dragon, his fangs, his teeth have been broken. We've been plucked out of those deadly fangs of the dragon of death. Death has no more power over us. So the dragon is not dead. The curse is still there. It just has lost its power over you. when Christ returns. In Revelation chapter 20, we see that. You can turn there, Revelation 20, chapter 10. Sorry, 20 verse 10. The devil who deceived them was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone where the beast and the false prophet are. They're tormented day and night forever and ever. Verse 14. Then death and haze were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death. We might say the ultimate death, the final death. The first death, was the defanging, where death lost its power. The second death is the ultimate death, where death is a summation of everything that, of the curse, everything that sin brought into the world, done away with, cast into the lake of fire forever. We're not there yet. We are, right now, we're in this between the two stages. We're living where the dragon has been defanged, but yet he's still there, he's still, doing dragon-y things. He's still the lion, going about like he's a roaring lion, seeking who he may devour. But the only problem for the dragon, for the devil, for the lion, is that he's lost his power over you. He has no power over you. He's toothless. He's fangless. He can't do... He has no power. He can do all the roaring he wants. He can employ all the beastly agents to carry out his desires, but he has no power over Christ and therefore he has no power over you. His teeth have been broken. He can roar, you know he's there, you feel the effects of it, we experience the effects of it, but ultimately that power is gone. And then, what we need to realize is when, because Satan has That means when we're in Christ, we are on the side that has victory. We have the power over the dragon now. That's what we need to realize. We have the power over the dragon. Turn to Psalm 91. Psalm 91, verse 11. This is David. by David, but the author is looking to recognize him, Yahweh is his defender, his protector. Verse 11, he shall give his angels charge over you to keep you in all their ways in their hands. They shall bear you up lest you dash your foot against a stone. myself off the pinnacle of the temple and let's see if God's gonna actually protect you. Now the interesting thing is, and I sometimes chuckle to myself when I picture the devil started reciting this verse to Jesus and then coming to verse 13 and also being, oh, I better stop, because look at verse 13. You shall tread upon the lion and the cobra and the young lion and the serpent you shall trample underfoot. The devil conveniently left that out, and as I said, sometimes I feel he got to that verse and quickly had to go silent because exactly what this passage is saying is that he's going to be destroyed. Now, ultimately, this is pointing us to Christ, crushing the serpent, but this is for each one of us, being in Christ. You shall tread on the lion and the cobra, the young lion and the serpent you will trample under 10, this is Jesus' own words, Luke chapter 10. Behold, verse 19, Luke 10 verse 19, Behold, I give you the authority, or the power, to trample on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy, and nothing shall by any means hurt you. Nevertheless, do rejoice in us, that the spirits are subject to you, but rather Sorry, do not rejoice in this, that the spirits are subject to you, but rather rejoice that your names are written in heaven. So, he says here, giving you authority to trample on serpents and scorpions and over all the power of the enemy. Nothing shall by any means hurt you. Now, go turn back to Mark chapter 16, verse 18, verse 17. All these signs will follow those who believe. In my name they will cast out demons. They will speak with new tongues. Both of those things are a way of showing power over the dragon. Casting out the demons, power over that. But, that's for another time maybe. Verse 18, they will take up serpents. and they will recover. Think of the Apostle Paul. We have a good example, a historical situation, the Apostle Paul, that teaches us what's happening on a spiritual level in fulfillment of this verse here. Paul on the island of, I think it's Malta, it's called. He grabs a bundle of firewood to throw it on the fire and a viper comes out and bites him. that you have power over the serpents. This verse here, verse 18, and also in Luke, does not mean we should bring rattlesnakes and cottonmouths into our church services and jump around with them and drink whatever the poison that they, very diluted poison that they drank in those, because this really happens, by the way, if you, in those areas that people literally do this. You hear this all the time of pastors getting bit by a rattlesnake and dying. So it's not obviously working out for them, but they're taking this literally, not understanding the significance of what does this mean here? This means we have the power over over death, over the curse. That's what it means. It doesn't mean that we're never gonna suffer as a result of the curse or we're never gonna feel the effects of the curse. It's not what it means. It means we have the power over death. We have the power over anything connected to the curse, to death. So, it means that we will never go back to being held captive in the teeth of this devil. He has no teeth. He cannot hold us captive anymore. So, we may feel the effects, for sure. We may hear the roarings of the lion and all that, but we will never be held by its power. Now, in very simple terms, Or one way we could look at this is this teaches us that we will never lose our salvation. When Christ sets you free, whom the son sets free, he is free indeed. Very clear in the scriptures. We cannot lose our salvation. Christ has rescued us from the jaws of the lion, broken its teeth, and we can never be held captive there again. But there's a lot more to it than just that. Just wondering how much we should go through here. So we'll go through this quickly. There, having power of the dragon means that when the devil comes roaring, as Peter says, when he comes seeking whom he may devour, and when Peter talks about that, it's the devil is the tempter. He's coming to tempt you to sin. That's his roaring. It's tempting you to sin. to sin, you have the power to resist that temptation. You can either choose to climb back into his mouth and experience the curse again and the effects of the curse and choose that side or you have the power to resist that temptation. You have that power now, you've been broken free from from his power. And you can choose, as I said, you can choose to climb back into the dragon's mouth, to fall for that temptation, to go there again, but you will feel the effects of choosing that way, choosing to climb back into the dragon's mouth. To resist that temptation is to tread of that lion, Peter says resist him and he will flee from you. When he comes roaring, when he comes with his temptations and he says click on that and you're scrolling on your phone and there's something there and the temptation to click on that and you have the power to resist that in you and when you resist it, it's like you're stepping on his head and you're crushing his head and you're treading upon his head when you do that. Paul uses this exact same argument in Romans chapter six. Verse 7, Romans chapter 6, verse 7. For he who has died has been freed from sin. For now if we die with Christ, we believe we will also live with him. Knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, dies no more. Death no longer has dominion over him. And for the death that he died, he died to sin once for all. And for the life he lives, he lives to God. Reckon yourselves to be dead indeed to sin. That means dead to the power of sin, that you have been freed from that. And reckon yourselves to be dead to sin, but alive to God. Therefore, do not let sin reign in your mortal body, that you should obey it in its lusts. So, Christ has freed you from death, from the curse. and the temptation is there, you have the power to resist that. That is how you can, that is one way in which you exercise your authority over the dragon, how you tread on serpents and scorpions, when you resist the temptation to sin. This also means that having the power of the dragon also means that when wicked men rise up against you and seek to harm you, seek to do harm to you, the last chapter, 31, King Lemuel, which may be Solomon, but it, chapter 30, sorry, Ager. Verse 14, there's a generation, there are people, he says here, whose teeth are like swords and their fangs are like knives and they seek to devour the poor The agents of the serpent, like those who have teeth, teeth like swords and fangs like knives, they're still out there, they're still trying to destroy. Wicked leaders are a prime example of this. Proverbs 28 verse 15, like a roaring lion and a charging bear is a wicked ruler over poor That seems to be one of the favorite tactics of the devil is putting his agents in places of power and using them to attempt to crush the people of God. But we have to recognize we have the power over that. Try as he might, the devil cannot succeed. He does not have the power. We have the power to crush And again, this isn't going to war, okay? This is not what I'm preaching here. We have to realize they do not have the power over us to harm us ultimately. Anything, this is what we need to realize, anything, anyone, any ideology that tries to promote anything that is contrary to God's plan for this earth, it cannot prosper. God's plan for this earth is a universal kingdom over which Christ is king, Christ rules over the entire world and the absolute destruction of anything that is wicked and associated with the curse, it's gone. That's God's plan. So any leader or any person, any plan of any one world government idea, whatever it may be, it will not succeed. Perhaps it will for a time in this age, maybe it will. But it cannot replace the universal rule and dominion of Christ over this world. So we do not need to fear it. We are on the winning side. We sang that hymn. My brother picked it this week. Perfect Hymn. We are on the Lord's side. Why would we worry? We don't need to fear. We have the power in Christ. Anyone, anything, contrary to God's plan for this world will not will not ultimately succeed, will be done away with. As I said, any ideology that's contrary to God's will, God's design, God's determination of what is good and right, any ideology, the gender movement we see today, wokeism, feminism, Marxism, all of it, it's all contrary to God's will. and it is just destined to fail. So having power over the dragon, having the power, the authority to tread on serpents and scorpions, it means we do not need to fear those things. We can resist them. As I said, this is not a call to war. We're not going literally to go fight. We can resist the ideology That's fine, we're not literally tramping on them, we're not literally stomping heads of homosexuals and feminists and transgenders, that is not at all what we're to get from this. How do we exercise our power? Over them? You know, is it poke fun at them on social media and ridicule them? No, we call them out for being wrong, we present to them the truth, the gospel. We use the sword of the spirit, which is the word of God, Ephesians chapter six, and to resist the schemes of the devil. We turn to Romans chapter 16. Romans 16. When it comes to people pushing different ideologies, different doctrines, different, what their statements of truth, which are false according to the scriptures, when we resist that with truth, and we Proclaim the gospel to them. That is how we are exercising our power over that. Romans 16, verse 17. I urge you, brethren, note those who cause divisions and offenses contrary to the doctrine you have learned and avoid them. For those who are such do not serve our Lord Jesus Christ, but their own belly by smooth words and flattering speech deceive the hearts of the simple. Notice the serpent language there. Smooth words, flattering speech and deception. obedience has become known to all. Therefore, I am glad on your behalf that I want you to be wise in what is good and simple concerning evil. The God of peace will crush Satan under your feet shortly. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. Amen. So, very clear here, resisting that which is contrary to truth is a way in which, and living in truth and declaring truth. It's a way in which we exercise our power and how God crushes Satan under our feet. We proclaim the gospel to those who are in darkness. That's how we exercise our power over the dragon, against those who have different ideologies. Jesus says, after his resurrection, raised from the dead, he says, all authority has been given to me in heaven and in earth. Satan has lost his power. Jesus has all the authority. Go, therefore, make disciples of all the nations. It's that call to go and preach the gospel. That's how you exercise Jesus's authority over all things. That's how we exercise our authority over the curse, over all that is associated with death and the curse. Or what Jesus said to Paul on the road to Damascus, as Paul recounts that in Acts 26, I'm sending you to the Gentiles to be a witness of the things that you have seen. And he says, and the things that I will show you. And to turn them from darkness to light, from the power of Satan to the power of God. That's how we exercise power over the devil. That's how we undo the works of the devil, we might say. That's how we tread on serpents. We go and we take the gospel to the nations. the tidings of peace, those feet that are trampling, the serpents are the ones who are bringing the Gospel to the nations. And then we also exercise our power when we're willing to die for our Saviour, willing to take that same path that He did and with the idea from doing our duty of living out and treading on serpents in that way of resisting sin and preaching the gospel and not living in fear of those with different agendas to try and seemingly take over this world. When we do that, we do all that, the thought of death, the thought of standing strong till death, till physical death, doesn't frighten us. because we know death has no power over us anymore. Think of the martyr Stephen, the first martyr in chapter seven, where is it? Verse 54, when they heard these things, so he's preaching to them, when they heard these things, they were cut to the heart and they gnashed at him with their teeth. Notice that language there, the enemy, they are on the devil's side, the enemy's side, the side of death. They gnashed at him with their teeth, but he, being full of the Holy Spirit, gazed into heaven, saw the glory of God, Jesus standing at the right hand of God, and he said, look, I see the heavens open and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God, and then they killed him. He was willing, he was with, He put to death, did not stop him from proclaiming the truth and the power of Christ over the devil. Revelation 12 is probably the most classic line of it all. I think I mentioned it already this morning, perhaps. Verse 10. Sorry, I'm in the Romans, that's why it didn't make sense. Now I heard a loud voice saying in heaven, salvation and strength and the kingdom of our God and the power of his Christ has come for the accuser, that's the satan, that's the Hebrew word satan, Satan, means accuser. The accuser of our brethren who has accused them before God, day and night he's been cast down and they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony that they did not love their lives to the death. So the threat of death does not hinder us at all from living out our lives as victors in Christ. Resisting sin and not being anxious by fearful, wicked men, wicked leaders, wicked ideologies, not allowing that to scare us, to hinder us, To proclaim God's truth, to preach the gospel, the thought of death does not hinder us from doing any of that because we know physical death has no power over us. The body they may kill, God's truth abides still. His kingdom is forever. We can die and it doesn't matter. We pass into glory because His kingdom is forever. with us. The victory is ours in Christ and we are in Him and He is fighting along with us, working in us, working through us. We're not alone. Psalm 60, that's what I read at the beginning. I'll close with that. Psalm 60, verse 12, through God we will do valiantly because it is He down our enemies. I know it's not as exhilarating and fun to think that we're going around stomping the heads of our enemies. That's not, that's, as Jesus said, my kingdom's not in this world, otherwise my soldiers would fight. These are spiritual things, teaching us to, pointing us to spiritual realities, that we can exercise our power over the devil when we promote the kingdom of Christ. We preach the gospel, we promote the kingdom of Christ, and we resist All that is associated with sin and with death, whether it's temptation, whether it's false ideologies, we don't cave to it, we're not scared by it, we resist sin, we proclaim the gospel, proclaim the sovereignty, the lordship of Christ, and we do so where we're not scared of dying for it.