So our text this morning is Ephesians 6, 10 through 12. And I think embedded within these few verses is a principle that you can take with you for your life that will change your life if you think about it correctly. Ephesians 6, 10 through 12. Hear now the word of God. Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might. Put on the whole armor of God that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil. For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness. against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. The Word of God. At 7 a.m. on Sunday, December 7th, two US military officers, one naval and one army, were rising in their respective quarters. These two men had planned to play a round of golf together. And as they looked outside and saw the partly sunny skies, they thought, this is a beautiful morning for golf. They did not know that more than 175 enemy warplanes closed to within 1,300 miles of the Hawaiian island of Oahu. Everyone at Pearl Harbor was unprepared for what happened that morning. Most were still sleeping when the bombs fell. The day of infamy caught these two men by surprise. One was the Navy Admiral over the fleet stationed at Pearl Harbor. The other was the commander of all the military forces in Hawaii. Before they left for the course, the sky was split apart by an unexpected enemy, and the world was never the same. Today, we are still frequently blind to the way things really are. In today's world, we think no one should fight everything, Just go with it. Just chill. Fighting is not politically correct. Fighting is bad. We teach children through their sports games that nobody wins and nobody loses. And it's always a tie no matter what. And everyone did a great job. We want peace at all costs. Despite all our denial, ignorance, and blindness, there is a war going on, beloved, even right now. Neutrality is a myth. There is a culture war, but we're not talking about that. There's a warfare of much greater importance that was ever waged against humanity. It's a warfare which not only concerns nations, but every Christian man, and every Christian woman, and every Christian child in this world. The warfare for which I speak is spiritual warfare. It is the fight which everyone who would be saved must fight for his own soul and for the souls of other people. This warfare is a thing of which many know nothing. Talk to them about it. and they're ready to call you nuts. And yet, it is as real and true as any war has ever been. It has its hand-to-hand conflicts. It has its wounds. It has its watches and fatigues. It has its sieges and assaults, its victories and defeats. Above all, it has serious consequences for every Christian in the world. In earthly warfare, the consequences are for nations. They're often temporary and remediable. In the spiritual warfare, it's different. When the fight is over, it's unchangeable and eternal. It's the warfare that the apostle Paul spoke of when he said these words to his protege Timothy, fight the good fight of faith, lay hold on eternal life. Are you with me so far? Do I have your attention yet? I don't think so. The second premise is this, in all human relationships, conflict is sure to come. And in this conflict, what do we do? We blame another person for the issue. We play the blame game. Someone has to be the bad guy, and it ain't me. We tear down a person or persons by pointing out their sin in a situation. And what does this do? This charges us with emotion. Not only do we blame a person or a group for something, but then we triangulate. Two people get together and agree to blame that person. Happens all the time. It's human nature and it happens in every life. Whether you're a believer or not, people triangulate. Me and you against him. We can't agree on anything, but we do agree that we're mad at him. We do agree that he's wrong. We do agree that she's wrong, that she did the wrong thing, that she's in sin. We agree on that. And as we agree on that, we get ourselves all fired up with emotion. We're mad. And we form a human triangle pointing at the bad guy. Someone's gonna be the bad guy. One finger pointing, our finger pointing, is as old as the Garden of Eden. When the Lord questioned Adam, he blamed the woman. He not only blamed the woman, he blamed the woman you put here with me. He blamed the woman and he blamed God as it were. Our finger pointing is usually nothing else but a cover up for an idol of the heart that we are hiding. We really want something else. and we distract ourselves by saying, I can't do what you think, it's because of them. They did this, so I've gotta do this. But I really want to get my idol, and that's gonna help me get it, an idol of the heart. We avoid dealing with the idol by pointing elsewhere and distracting ourselves and others from the issues. Beloved, start with God, not with their sin. When Isaiah saw the glory of God in the temple, he cried, woe is me, for I am lost. For I am man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips. For my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts. When Simon Peter witnessed Jesus's miracle in catching so many fish, he begged, go away from me, Lord. I am a sinful man. In both instances, Knowledge of who we are comes with knowledge of God first. And we look at God, we see our own sin. And when we see our own sin, we should take and retract the pointing finger. Amen. Because if we don't, we'll be quite satisfied with our own self-righteousness. And usually at the point you judge somebody else, you're in sin too. And you're really judging yourself. Paul says, be strong in the Lord. These things will happen in every life. but be strong in the Lord. We Christians are in union with Jesus Christ and every blessing there is in Christ flows from our union with Christ. And we can be strong in the Lord because we have access to a power that's greater than us and greater than our sin. Be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. And the power he's talking about is the power that raised him from the dead. Resurrection power. It's the power that truly saved your bankrupt soul and one day will raise you from the dead in the cemetery or from the urn of ashes. Resurrection power we have. Why which? to overcome the sin and the finger pointing we all love so well. It was him. He did it. It was her. It was my mom. It was the church. It was the pastor. It was my husband. It was my wife. My kids, they did it. It was the government, of course. Of course it was the government. I would never be like this if it wasn't for the government. So, here is something to remember, short and sweet. Are you ready? Don't stew, follow Matthew. Don't stew, follow Matthew. Should Christians call out sin in other Christians, we have to be very careful before we do. We need to make sure we've checked ourselves, our own sin, our own motivation, and our desired outcome. We must be sure we're addressing things scripturally and not just based on our own preferences or biases. And ultimately, to do that, we need a relationship with that person based on trust. The scripture says, judge not that you be not judged. For with the judgment you pronounce, you will be judged. And with the measure you use, it will be measured to you. Why do you see the speck that is in your brother's eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, let me take the speck out of your eye when there is a log in your own? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother's eye. Matthew 7. Jesus says, if your brother sins against you, Go and tell him his fault. Between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you've gained your brother. Matthew 18. Do not stew about it. Do not rehearse their sin over and over again in your heart until you've built up a formidable wall of offense that cuts off your relationship for years or perhaps forever. There should be no grudges in any Christian church. None. Jesus taught us to pray, forgive us our debts as we have also forgiven our debtors. Beloved, we have been committed with a message and a ministry. We have been committed with the message of reconciliation and the ministry of reconciliation. And our job is to reconcile people with God. We tell them about Jesus. We teach them about Jesus. So they'll come to Jesus and be reconciled through Jesus to God. It doesn't get more simple than that. But beloved, If we're not reconciled to each other, are you a credible witness of Jesus Christ? If you can't get it together in your own church or in your own family, how do you think you're gonna show people that Jesus is great and can reconcile us to God? They're not gonna believe you. And guess what? You're a poor advertisement for the gospel of God. Sometimes we need an illustration. Listen to this one. In Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, in October of 2006, A man named Charles Roberts entered into an Amish one-room schoolhouse, dismissed the boys, shot 10 Amish girls, killing five of them, and then killed himself. The families of the injured and the killed girls forgave the shooter. They attended his private funeral service. They shielded the family from the reporters. They came and offered condolences and offered friendship to various members of the shooter's family. The Amish community and individuals grieved over the loss of these dear sweet girls. Over the trauma of all the students and what they experienced and for some of the students continue to experience. But these Amish families reached out immediately to the Shooter's family and love. and in forgiveness and in friendship, in the midst of grief, and they continue to do so today. Paul calls us ambassadors for Christ. We are to give the world around us the message of reconciliation through the ministry of reconciliation. God has forgiven every one of us a great deal, and we need to look beyond our own hearts, our own fears, so that we can show compassion and love to other people. Remember the scribes and the Pharisees? They caught a woman in the act of adultery, and they brought the woman to Jesus, And they said, Jesus, what do we do? Stoner? That's the penalty in the law for committing adultery. Where the guy was, nobody knows, but the girl was there. And Jesus said, he who is without sin may cast the first stone. And not a single one did, but dropped their stones and went away. Jesus said, woman, where are they that condemned you? She said, they're not here, Lord. He said, neither do I condemn you. Go and sin no more. If we believe someone has sinned against us, the first thing we need to do is examine our own hearts. We can't see clearly until we've dealt with our own stuff. Psychologists know it. The truth is, we tend to hate most the things about other people that we hate most about ourselves. Beloved, we are all sinners. You therefore have no excuse. You who pass judgment on another, for on whatever grounds you judge the other, you are condemning yourself because you who pass judgment do the same things. Romans 2 verse 1. Now, the next point is this. Yeah, someone has to be the bad guy. But the real bad guy is the devil and his minions. That's what our text is telling you. Paul tells us that the nature of the struggle And this is a crucial point to understand. He tells us that our conflict is not against flesh and blood. It's spiritual warfare. And the struggle of man against man, it's not a political struggle, a social struggle, an economic struggle. It's not a struggle between human beings. It's a struggle against the devil and his minions. The devil is an instigator. The devil masquerades and hides in the shadow. He deceives, he stirs up ill will, he incites your emotions and we should not be his puppets. I am 64 years old and I have been directly in probably four serious church divisions. And guess what? As I look back on every one of them, when I was writing this sermon, I said to myself, wow, everybody was really tuned up with emotion, but I really can't think that that was very serious at all. It could have been handled with a simple conversation. I've had whole youth groups leave a church. than it could have been handled with a simple conversation. Splits. I've had a whole deacon board leave a church. Not a church that I was pastoring, but a church that I was a deacon on. A whole deacon board leave a church after a public meeting. And of course, in my other work, I have spoken with hundreds of pastors involved in church conflict, and folks, it's never as serious as the devil makes it. Never. And as you get over the emotion and the emotion fades, you sit there and say, what were we thinking? Why did we do that? Why did we all get so incited? Because the devil and his minions did it. Instigated and incited good people to fight amongst themselves. You go fight and I'll watch. I'll watch a church burn. Happens all the time. You've got to realize that our enemy is not people. It's not flesh and blood. They are not our true enemy. The true enemy is the devil behind the people, inciting those poor people to be his pawns. And we need not to tear them apart, but to gently show them after we have dealt with our own selves, what the enemy is doing. Let us not be outwitted by the enemy. Sometimes people don't have a clue what they're doing and who they're being used by, but they keep on to the great injury of people and in the Christian world, churches. One serious church conflict can take a whole church down. It's true. In 1917, Aqaba in Jordan seemed impregnable An enemy vessel approaching the port would have to face the battery of huge naval guns above the town. Behind Aqaba in every direction lay barren, waterless, inhospitable desert. To the east lay the deadly anvil of the sun. The Turks believed Aqaba to be safe from any attack. But they were wrong. Lawrence of Arabia led a force of a regular Arab cavalry across the anvil of the sun. Together, they rallied the support of the local people. And on July 6, 1917, the Arab forces swept into Aqaba from the north, from the blind side. A climactic moment caught in the magnificent film, Lawrence of Arabia, where they panned shots of Arabs on their camels and horses with Lawrence at their head, galloping past the gigantic naval guns. You know why? Because the guns were pointed in the wrong direction. The guns were facing the wrong direction. Aqaba fell, and the Turkish hold on Palestine was broken to be replaced by the British mandate. And what came of that? In 1948, the State of Israel. The Turks failed to defend Aqaba because they made two mistakes. They did not know their enemy. And they did not have the right weapons. We must be careful not to make the same mistakes. Our struggle, says Ephesians 6.12, is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, the authorities, against the powers of this dark world. And what are the stakes? Eternal souls. That's the stakes. Maybe your soul is saved. but maybe the person you love, their soul isn't. Family, friend, neighbor, coworker, child, grandpa, grandma, their souls are not saved. Adrian Rogers, the once wonderful and famous Baptist preacher said this, We are at spiritual war. The church is not a cruise ship with the pastor as the master of ceremonies. Indeed, it's not a showboat. It's a battleship. Recall to see Satan's strongholds crumble under the power of heaven's artillery. were not to have the luxury of neutrality, we must engage in the fight. A truce will never be called. God's will for his saints is not that we merely survive, but we thrive in total victory. MacArthur, General Douglas MacArthur, spoke rightly when he said, in war, there is no substitute for victory. We must be aware of our enemy. If we would have the victory, we need to learn of our infernal foe. And if you're a Christian this morning, you're on the hit list. The satanic hit list. The devil and his minions are coming for you. And if you're really living the Christian life, white hot, they're really coming for you. You know, they don't usually bother too much with the lukewarm professors, nominal people who are already had, but the people that are really trying to do something in the kingdom of God, that's the subject of the devil's special attention. you can still go to Germany and see an ink stain on a wall. And you might say, pastor, who cares about an ink stain on a wall? It's the ink stain where Martin Luther threw his inkwell at the devil while he was translating the scriptures into the vernacular. He was doing the will of God. He was translating the Bible into a language it had not been translated in. And the devil was so real that it was like the devil appeared to him and he threw the inkwell against the wall. The stain is there today. The point, even when you're doing everything right and you're living nice and clean, You have those stretches in your life, right? Sin's not a problem, you're really serving God, everything's going right, boom. You're gonna take a hit. But don't be afraid because we have a mighty power of God in us. And Luther wrote later, and though this world with devils filled should threaten to undo us, we will not fear for God has willed his truth to triumph through us. If we trust to ourselves, we will fall. But if we know our own weakness and therefore turn to God as our necessary defense against Satan, then we'll be able to stand against the devil's schemes. The Bible says this, simply put, submit yourselves then to God, resist the devil, and he will flee from you. He who is in you is greater than he who is in the world. 1 John 4, 4. What is our job? Our job is to open their eyes and turn them from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God. And how do we do that? Jesus said this, a new commandment I give you, that you love one another, Just as I've loved you, you're also to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples if you have love for one another. If you're reconciled and on the same page and you love people, people out there will see it and they will come to know that something happened inside your heart and it was real. something you can't get at Walmart or anywhere else. The stakes are high, eternal souls. Listen to this, listen to this. This is Isaiah 58, one of my favorite passages. Listen. If you take away the yoke from your mist, The pointing of the finger and speaking wickedness. If you pour yourself out for the hungry and satisfy the desire of the afflicted, then shall your light rise in the darkness and your gloom be as the noonday. And the Lord will guide you continually and satisfy your desires in scorched places and make your bones strong. And you shall be like a watered garden, like a spring of water whose waters do not fail. And your ancient ruins shall be rebuilt. You shall raise up the foundations of many generations. You shall be called the repairer of the breach, the restorer of streets to dwell in. You want to see God work in your midst? C.T. Studd said this, a great missionary, if Jesus Christ is God and died for me, then no sacrifice can be too great for me to make for him. People thought he was a zealot. He said, how could I spend the best years of my life and living for the honors of this world when thousands of souls are perishing every day. We see it so clearly. There are people killing themselves all over the place. We don't even hear about it anymore. I have ridden in cars with funeral directors who say it's unbelievable the amount of removals they're called to do because young people are just overdosing on drugs or committing suicide. A whole nation of people are being destroyed and are on their way to hell. and we're pointing fingers at each other. I'm done with that. C.T. Studd ignited my friend Steve Camp and he wrote a song which I think says it so succinctly as we close. Listen to the lyrics. Some people want to live within the sound of chapel bells. But I want to run a mission, a yard from the gates of hell. And with everyone you meet, I'll take them the gospel and share it well. And look around you as you hesitate, for another soul just fell. Let's run to the battle. Do you have your armor on? Or in the middle of a raging war, We've been training for so long. Have we learned to use his sword? We may not be ready, but we serve a mighty Lord and he's made us more than conquerors. So what are you waiting for? Let's run to the battle. Amen. our Father and our God. As even now, this message punctuates the ending of one chapter and the beginning of another. Our trust is in you. And we pray that our decisions would be yours and that we would not be charmed by the deceits of our own hearts, but guided by the principles of your fixed word. In Christ's holy name we pray and everybody said.