truth, and having put on the breastplate of righteousness, and having shod your feet with the preparation of the gospel of peace, in addition to all, taking up the shield of faith with which you will be able to extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. And take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God. With all prayer and petition, pray at all times in the Spirit. And with this in view, be on the alert with all perseverance and petition. for all the saints, and pray on my behalf that utterance may be given to me in the opening of my mouth to make known with boldness the mystery of the gospel, for which I am an ambassador in chains, that in proclaiming it I may speak boldly as ought to speak. I would like you to imagine, to the best of your ability, how you would feel if you had been one of those men in one of those boats headed toward Normandy Beach on D-Day. In the moments leading up to it, I would think that some sort of thought would cross your mind to the effect of you wish you could go home. You wish you didn't have to be here. You wish the world were not this way. You wish that men could communicate. You wish that there wasn't an evil force. that had so overtaken mankind that this necessarily had to be resolved. They say that those who lived and survived it, to write about it, that it was like a typewriter, the bullets hitting the door that would open. According to the reason I want you to think about that and ask you to is I believe that the point of Paul in Ephesians 6 10 to 20 is that's how we should feel. However you would feel, that's how you should feel, but actually it's only an analogy and actually the analogy is higher Because the enemy that Paul is talking about is far worse than Vladimir Putin could ever be. Far worse than Hitler could ever be. He's the enemy behind them. Imagine how you would feel if this church building were metal, a metal shell almost, and you could hear the bullets hitting the door, and you know you're about to walk out the door. But it's actually worse than that. Paul is saying, imagine that your body is tin, or some sort of made of iron, thin iron, You can hear the bullets hitting you. And when you think to Normandy, you think the sad thing is there's no avoiding of it, that the gears are going to turn and that door is going to fall down and the bullets are going to come and something is about to happen. And in the same way, your eyes are like those doors and they're down. There are bullets coming in. Your ears are open. and they're coming in, you're unprotected from this enemy. So that's how He wants us to feel. And that raises, I don't know if it does for you, I hope it does for you, for me it raised an initial, an immediate first question. And that is why, why would Paul want us to feel like this? And we were hoping to have a nice Sunday and pick some flowers and go eat and have many other plans. Why should we think this way? Why would he want us to feel this way? Furthermore, it feels jarring. In the flow of the book, it seems like he was set up for a perfect ending. You know, I mean, he had said earlier, OK, this is the doctrine of this book. Chapter one, verse 10. God is summing up all things in Christ, everything fallen and broken and divided from Adam. He is restoring in Jesus. And then there come the responses to that. And it's a simple book. This is what God is doing, redeeming all things in Him, heaven and earth. And here's how you should respond. Number one, praise Him for it. That's first part of chapter one. Number two, You should pray to see it. That's the second half of chapter 1. And then chapter 2 and 3, you should preach about it. Like in moments like this, you should preach about it. And then number 4, beginning of chapter 4, you should push it out into the world. Because though it's begun, it's not yet done. And so we should be pushing the reunification of Christ into the division of Adam everywhere in the world that we go and see. And then finally, in chapter 5, verse 15, all the way to where we've stopped, He had said we should purpose it. It should be the single purpose in our mind, and the one thing that we're devoting ourselves to, when we're sinning, when we're thinking, when we're submitting wives to husbands, and so on and so forth. And all of these little areas of blame. So it seems like there's the doctrine, here's the ways to respond, and He ended it so well, you could almost take this out and just put on a condom, and now unto Him be the glory forever and ever. It would have flowed good. Instead, you get a unit on spiritual warfare. And it's like, wow, what kind of sense does this make? And I think the answer, give you an example of it first, can be seen in, you might remember if you've seen the movie, when they first meet Olaf, And he hears about that they're going to bring back summer. And he takes off. He's like, let's go bring back summer. And he goes running. And Christoph feels like this is a danger to him. He doesn't understand this is a danger to him. And it's something of that that he runs out in that naivety. unaware that the goal he's trying to achieve is a direct threat to him. And so that gives you something similarly in Paul's mind. He is concerned that I and you would hear, God is summing up all things in Christ. He's bringing back summer. He's reversing the fall. And we're playing a part in it. And it's like, well, that sounds good. That's encouraging. Let's just go out here restore our families and restore our marriages and apply the gospel to here and let's engage in the arts and let's learn how to play the violin and let's do some painting and let's just go into the culture and have no idea what stands in the way of us achieving that goal And the fact that we need not just help, but supernatural help to achieve it. And without this supernatural help, I want you to listen to me carefully. Without this supernatural help, you can ruin your marriage. You can ruin your friendships. You can ruin your witness. You can ruin your children. You can stumble and fall and you become now a project for the church, a broken thing. And make not so much progress, but a lack of progress and bring ruin to this project. So, the proposition that he puts forth here, the doctrine that he puts forth here in this paragraph, could be essentially this. I'm going to read the full thing to you. This is essentially all that Paul is saying in this paragraph. Because there are forces against you achieving this goal, and because you cannot withstand these forces, and because only the Lord can, you need to rely on the Lord as you pursue this goal. Because there are forces against you achieving this goal. Very active in the world. And you are no match for them. And only the Lord is a match for them. You should rely on God like your life, and every life around you depends on it, because they do. As you seek to achieve this goal. That's it. That's the doctrine of this unit. And this general doctrine is put forth the way it divides in verses 10-13. He just speaks generally. Paul is a master teacher. He makes his general point first in verses 10-13. And then after he does that in verses 14-20, he then goes specifically into each individual piece of the armor. So for today, we'll just look at the first part, verses 10 to 13. Verse 10. Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of His might. I had a manager, EPS, one time come down there. We were working down in the unload, and we had to lift up these big heavy things, and it was yet two belts, and essentially it was easier to put it on the top belt later on in the process, but it wasn't good for your back, tear your back up. And he came down there, of course, we're trying to do the short cut, and he just said, guys, guys, guys, he got us around, he said, look, We don't need any heroes here. We're not looking for a hero. And there is a sense, we just need you to take your place and do your job. We don't need you to shine in a special way so that everyone knows that you're awesome. And there is a sense in which this is true spiritually. Turn to Acts 17.25. And you will see the Apostle Paul reminding the pagans that God is not served by human hands as though He needed anything. And if you were to go back to the book of Esther, you would find Mordecai telling her, yes, perhaps you have been queen for such a time as this, but do not suppose That it's all hanging on you as upon a nail. For if you apostatize and are disobedient, God will get it done through someone else. 1 Peter 4.11 says, if anyone speaks, like right now, let him speak as though he is sharing God's post. All my posts, if this were a Facebook page up here, is sharing someone else's post. I have no original post. I have no original thought. I have verses from him, and I'm talking about what he said. He says, let him who speaks speak as one who is speaking the oracles of God. And then everything else that happens in the church, he says, let him who serves, that covers all the actions of the church, speaking and serving, truth and life, both of them, he says, let him do it in the strength that God supplies, so that in all things God may receive the glory. to whom belongs the glory forever and ever. Amen. 1 Corinthians 4, 7 then. Memorable verse Paul addresses us and says, if then everything you have that is good and worthy is like Augustine, anything bad in me is due me, anything good in me is due to the Lord. So whether it's from common grace or special grace, if your genetic code got put together so that you can sit here and breathe, it was the common grace of God. If your eyes were a certain color so that your husband fell in love with you, your face and form were like Esther, so that He fell in love with you. Congratulations, you won the genetic lottery, which is a gift from God. That is common grace. And then you have on top of that, special grace. Special supernatural grace through salvation. So all of life is to be interpreted as grace. The very creation of the universe is grace because it wasn't owed, it was freely given. All the birds, all the trees, all the lands is grace. It's common grace. And then you have this special grace. And so Paul says since everything that you have that's actually helpful to anyone. Anything you have that's helpful. You're like the reverse of King Midas and the Golden Touch. You have like a hand of charcoal. Like everything you touch, you smear and ruin. And you're a dirty rag to help clean messes. You just make them worse. So anything... Paul says in Romans 7, I know that in me there is no good thing. That means everything coming out of you that's good. Everything that makes a Christian say, oh, that was encouraging, and oh, I needed to hear that, and oh, that really helped me. None of it came from you. And Paul says, if that's the way reality is, whatever you have that's good, you received, why do you boast? And so you had not received it. My mom gave me $20 one time. And I took someone to lunch right next door to the place. And they were so, oh, thank you so much for paying for my lunch. I was just convicted. I felt like I had to tell them, well, it really wasn't my money. I'm like, my mom just came by and gave me $20. And so, I mean, it really, you ought to feel like that if you preach and people are blessed, if you serve and people are blessed. and they start praising you. That's why Whitfield wrote in his journal one time, he says, such and such a day, today I went through a fiery trial, and then he dot, dot, dot, and it says, of praise. A fiery trial of praise. Why? Because it can get you to thinking non-reality thoughts. 2 Timothy 2.1, the life verse that came to my mind. I wasn't planning to even have a life verse, but I prayed for challenge. This is it. Be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus. Same thing. Be strong, but in grace. Look at Ephesians 1 and remember that. Now he's beginning to see that Paul is not really moving in a direction that he hasn't already mentioned. In chapter 1, verse 19, remember he's praying that we would know about some power. See, that's the issue. We always feel weak, don't we? The church is pretty weak. Let's just sit crooked and talk straight for a second. You've walked in the church before and been discouraged at all the limp noodles around you. And the deadness. and the lethargy and the lack of encouragement. And you think it's just draining and lading and heavy. Yes, yes. But this is what causes churches to think they need to go and prompt themselves up somehow. to do something, but Paul's talking to the Ephesians, no, no, no, no, no. Problem is power, but your problem is to not realize the power you already have. And so he said, what you need is a prayer meeting to become more Augustinian in your view of grace, that you may understand how this works. So he's praying. that you may know what is the surpassing greatness of His power toward us who believe." And then look what he says, "...in accord with the working of the strength of His might. Be strong in the Lord and in the strength of His might." He said this before. So you're starting to see it's not as jarring. And what strength is He talking about when He raised Christ from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly places? And then what? Far above all rule, authority, power, dominion. Same words used over here. That refers to all ungodly authority, human and demonic, both civil and spiritual, that He's over all and over every name that is named, over every incantation, every spell. And not only in this age, but in the age to come, nothing can pluck you from His hand. There will never arise a power in the universe out of some quadrant that has dominion above Christ. But this is the power that was unleashed in the resurrection, which is creation power. The power to create the world. The power to recreate a body and bring it up from corruption. This is the kind of power that is already at work. Why do we need a fancy slide show? The gospel is the power of God. Why do you need another power? You say, well, it just makes me look so weak. On purpose. God means, by the end of your life, for you to be a Samson, and everyone around you says, there must be a secret to His great strength. It's a problem with all the Samson movies, he looks like Conan, like Arnold Schwarzenegger. There's no secret there. That he's supposed to look, I was gonna mention one of y'all, that would be embarrassing. I won't tell you. It may have been myself, you don't know. By the end of your life, it should just be like, I thought he would have checked out by now. I thought he would have done given up. I thought he would have become a demon. It's just been too much that he's had to go through. And then yet, here he is. And that's why Amazing Grace is such a wonderful song. It's just, it captures the essence of the Christian life. That I've just been being carried this whole time. And so, Paul is saying you need to think back to how you became a Christian. Nobody staged, smoked you into this. That never saved anyone. No one conferenced you into this. Every single person who has ever been converted, it has been not .9999, a full one, 100% monergistic, alone God doing it. It wasn't your illustration. It wasn't how fervently you prayed even before, because our prayers without His power are nothing. It was His power and that He is the Lord. And He does whatever He wishes in the heavens and on earth. And when He's well ready to convert someone, He converts them even if they're Paul on the Damascus Road. No needing, no Sebastian to create the mood, none of that. So, every child understands what Paul is saying right here. In being strong and awarding strength of his mind. Because every child has been lifted up by their dad to reach something. That's what he's saying. Interpret your whole Christian life. I mean, this is amazing. We have to renew our mind. You must be agreeing with me in your spirit that I need to renew my mind. Like coming to church even should be an experience of like a father lifting you up. Even that deed. You need grace. To walk in here with a certain line that you won't spoil other people's life. And so he's saying, yes, you do it. You work, you put out effort, but all the while relying on him. That's the exhortation. Finally, Paul says, last thing, like Steve Jobs, right? One more thing at the end of this announcement, one more thing, and he announced the new thing, you know, like, Paul is saying, one more thing, last thing before you go, let me say, I'll say the biggest point till last. As you go about working to achieve this goal, make sure everything you do is like a child being lifted up by another power. And every good thing you do can only be supernaturally explained. Now the imagery for this in verse 11 is the arm. put on the full armor of God, Paul says. So he's not talking about something different. This is an illustration. So I don't need an illustration. This is the illustration. If he had just said armor, that would have been enough. You know, it's pretty humbling to have to put on armor. You put on your mail and your helmet and you may need several layers of mail. and certain helmet and sword and everything just all of this speaks that I'm weak and puncturable and mortal and I need outside help so armor would have made the point enough And then the armor of like Maximus or something, right? Or Gabriel or something like that would have made us think, wow, I need supernatural help. But this is the armor of God. And then even the armor of God, he says, you need the full armor of God. I don't think anything could ever be spoken to make you feel weaker. This is the superlative. In order to greet someone and in exchange of grace, you need the full armor of God? We don't think that way. We think, oh yeah, I got Jeremy Sermon last week. We need divine branches. And so, yeah, you know, we kind of need the Lord, but you know, we can do a few things. That's pride. And that's why we still sin so much. William Grinnell had this analogy where he's like, you're not getting anything else in because you're too full. God can't pour empty anymore because you're so full of self. You have to be empty and to grow in your understanding of how empty you are. So, one piece, this is something, need the full armor of God. Think of a football player, his helmet comes off and he's just out there on the field with no helmet. It's just like this is vulnerable. Did any of you leave your house that way today? Thinking, I'm just vulnerable. What's going to happen to me today? We need to renew our mind and think like the Lord's apostle. Now, don't take this the wrong way, though, and lose what verse 10... As I've heard Christians talk about this over the years, and I'll study it, I realize there's an error. It's a slight error or fault, but it's significant when you pass from verse 10 to 11. And I think it puts us on a total wrong trajectory. And that is you can read verse 11, and kind of lose what verse 10 just gave us. You read verse 11, it just sounds like... I have often felt like this, that coming to church on Sunday, it's like some people are watching LSU hype videos or something. Like, I've got to play my hymns while I'm in the shower, and while I'm getting the kid, and I need to listen to the Piper Shane and Shane clip. And by the time you get here, you're like, now I'm ready. Like, it's this hype thing. And it's not dependent on human energy at all. So, the thing to get in our minds, when we read this, we think, yes, so you just lose the feel of verse 11. It can easily slide into, like, stand, you know? The kingdom suffers violence. I just need to grind and I just need to work and I just need to stand and I just need to put out effort. That's not it. That's not the intent of verse 11. That's what I'm getting at. We can miss the intent. The intent of verse 11 is to illustrate verse 10. And the intent of verse 10 is not to tell you to just grind and make it happen. The armor is a picture of God's strength. So not having the armor is not having His strength. Having the armor is having His strength. That's the way it's meant to work. To put it another way, it seems like sometimes we interpret these pieces to mean, oh, oh, oh, I see what you're saying. I need divine armor and then I'll use it in a fleshly way. Right? So I got the Bible, I studied it, but I'll handle the Bible in the flesh. I got prayer, and I got serving, but I'll handle all these things in the flesh. I have gifts, but I'll handle them in the flesh. No. No. We need grace for even to know how to handle them. Remember 2 Corinthians 10. Though we walk in the flesh, we do not battle according to the flesh, for the weapons of our warfare are not fleshly, but they are mighty to the pulling down of things. I want to show you the Old Testament background, I guess, in the book of Isaiah. And don't worry, we'll stop whenever we need to stop. I'm more interested in us having these things in our mind and helping us in our real life than perfectly in being my servant. So I want you to consider Isaiah 59 with me. Remember I had that teacher, Jason Myers, and then he filled in. I mean, it took over probably for years, but he used to always say, if you're reading something in the New Testament and you don't understand it, He said, you can pretty much always say, I bet Isaiah has something to say about that. And so, you turn to Isaiah 59, and it's hard for me, I won't read the whole thing, but just to get a feel, let's just start at verse 8. Let's start at verse 8. This is the chapter that begins with, his hand is not so short, and he goes in to talk about the problem. Verse 8, they do not know the way of peace, and there is no justice in their tracks. They have made their paths crooked. Whoever treads on them does not know peace. So I just want you to think about society. Isaiah is talking about every sinful relationship you've ever experienced, every argument, every attempt to communicate, and it didn't work, all of them. Verse 9, Therefore justice is far from us, and righteousness does not overtake us. We hope for light, but behold, darkness. For brightness, but we walk in gloom. We grope along the wall like blind men. We grope like those who have no eyes. We stumble at midday as in twilight. Among those who are vigorous, we are like dead men. All of us growl like bears and moan sadly like doves. This is anger and depression. We hope for justice, but there is none. For salvation, but it is far from us. For our transgressions are multiplied before you and our sins testify against us. For our transgressions are with us and we know our iniquities. Transgressing and denying the Lord and turning away from our God, speaking oppression and revolt, conceiving in and uttering from the heart, Lying words, justice is turned back, and righteousness stands far away. For truth has stumbled in the street, and uprightness cannot enter. Yes, truth is lacking, and he who turns aside from evil makes himself a prey. Now the Lord saw, and it was displeasing in His sight, and there was no justice. And he saw that there was no man and was astonished that there was no one to intercede. Then his own arm brought salvation to him and his righteousness upheld him. He put on righteousness like a breastplate and a helmet of salvation on his head. And he put on garments of vengeance for clothing and wrapped himself with zeal as a mantle. Isaiah does have something to say about this, doesn't he? This armor represents God doing something, not us. Or us in the strength that He supplies. This is His armor. It's not even our arm. It's His arm. And the text is clear, is it not? He alone could do it. There is no one who could do it. Remember, James, there is no one who can ever watch enough Jordan Peterson videos or meditate and sit in a circle of daffodils to become debonair and calm and have tamed the tongue. No man can, James says. Only grace can. Men need grace. So only God can do this. You cannot do this. Do we really believe that? Do we really believe when we go to a conversation, why does it always mess up when it messes up with me? Because I did not enter it thinking God alone could do it. I didn't enter into it. He says, pray at all times. That means when you're walking up to the meeting, like you're praying, Lord, help me. Like Spurgeon, when he walked to the pulpit, every single time says, according to his testimony, I believe in the Holy Spirit. I believe in the Holy Spirit. I believe in the Holy Spirit. That's real humility, real understanding that I need the Lord. It's not just something we say, it's something you do. I think of Bilbo comes to mind, being given a sword and chain mail to wear and all these things. Just everything suggests just this weak and pitiful person who's not up to snuff or the task. It's an amazing message in those stories. It's like even the smallest person can change the course of history. Yeah, they can if they're just equipped with a magical wizard and swords that glow when orcs are near and the providence of the author and everything else. In other words, yeah, they can with superior power. So verse 11 essentially says nothing different than verse 10. It just gives us the analogy. Looking in at the second half of verse 11 though, why is it necessary? Let me see where I'm at on my time. Why is it necessary is what he covers in 11B, let's say. That's what it's all about. After he says, take up the full armor of God, he says, so that you will be able to stand firm against the schemes of the devil. You're like a lone running back needing to get in the end zone and you don't have the power to do it. And more power must gather around you and shove you through the end zone. It reminds me, since I went to Lord of the Rings of Gandalf and Balrog, of course, some of you may have already thought about it. Remember what he told even Aragorn? This great pain. I mean, he just run. He says, swords are no more use here. This foe is beyond any of you. And what weapons did Gandalf use? I mean, supernatural weapons. And even he missed one, he didn't have the full armor and he went down with this thing. That's the idea, like I literally have nothing to fight this thing with. Of course, you think of Pilgrim's Progress, same image there. So this is why it's necessary that we fully rely on divine help, Paul says, because you have an opponent that is beyond you. And you have no weapons, or power, or grit, or strength, or peace, or meditation in the daffodils to defeat him. There's no retreat, no cruise, no nothing, no food you eat, no crystals, no essential oil, no state of mind that you can put yourself in to defeat him So now what? Verse 12 states and shows us that many of our problems that we think have to do with people have nothing to do with people. At all. Zero. Look at it. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers and against the powers. And notice this second part. Sometimes it makes me very uncomfortable with Satan this and Satan that. People, preachers even mess up on this. What are y'all talking about? Satan is in Asia and here and there and my bedroom and Amy's bedroom and he's talking to John. He's not omniscient. And he's not omnipresent. What are y'all talking about? That's terrible theology. But this makes sense if there are many demons, multiple demons. Remember Paul said, I had a messenger of Satan. And don't get all sidetracked into the hierarchy. We're not told that. I mean, of course, there's some kind of hierarchy. But there are these rulers and powers and world forces. Remember chapter 2? Verse 1, and you were dead in your trespasses and sins in which you formerly walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air. It's a very unsettling truth. But it was never just you sinning. You were held captive, 2 Timothy says, by the devil to do his will. There is a strong man and the other stronger man must come and release and pull off his grip. What are you talking about? You just made your decision. You're not free to just make your decision for Christ. You're under the dominion of darkness. And you have to be translated into the kingdom of the Son. What makes people think that they're not under the control of the devil is they're doing what they won't. I'm free, I'm doing, ain't nobody controlling me, I'm doing, and the way to think of it is like Scar and the hyenas, and they're like marching, you know, like it's like a Hitler illusion there, and he's up on the thing, and he's saying, kill Mufasa, kill Mufasa, kill Mufasa, and they're saying, yes sir, yes sir, yes sir, well, Satan is just saying, love self, love self, love self, and you're saying, yes sir, yes sir, yes sir. Go to Pleasure Island and you're saying, that would be fun. Go to Pleasure Island, this is fun. Both are true. He's ruling over you, guiding you to exactly what you want. So, he's not omniscient. He uses others. But think about how real this is. Who put it into Judas' heart to do the cross? Satan. Who put it into Peter's mind to say, it may never be that there will be a cross? Who put it into Eve's mind? Who put it into the mind of the man mentioned in 2nd Corinthians that was overcome with suicidal thoughts of depression? Paul said, we're not ignorant of who's behind that. Satan. John Piper one time got a call. A member of his church shot himself in the basement. He had to sweep up pieces of brain with another deacon into a broom pan. There's only one fault when you see something like that. Demonic. Satan. That's what he's aiming for. He is aiming to accuse and accuse and accuse and condemn and drive you so insane until you get to that point. And you're no match for him. It reminded me of the Hunger Games. I haven't seen those movies in years, but on the very last ones, I don't recall which one, but the guy before Katniss went out, he gave her one last phrase. He says, Katniss, remember who the real enemy is. And she got so turned around in there in the games, and she had her arrow, and she was about to shoot Finnick, And he knew to say that code thing. And he looked at her and he knew she was about to shoot him. And he was like, Katniss, remember who the real enemy is? And she realized at that moment she had forgotten who the real enemy is. We can argue with each other. It has nothing to do with us. Nothing to do with us. If we were, as 1 John 2 says, strong, and have the Word of God abiding in us and have overcome the evil one, we would be able to talk fine. So no, our struggle is truly not ever against flesh and blood. There's only one enemy of mankind. This is the error of Raya and the last dragon, by the way. It has no idea who the real dragon of chaos and evil is, the ancient serpent, the devil. That's why it says in the beginning, if any of you kids have watched it, I want you to pick up on this, it says, it should have been this great inspirational moment, and then what did it say? But people, being people, well, they all just acted wickedly. No. No. It's not the humanity that God gave to us that makes us sinful. There's not something inherently bent about being people. You see? That's the pagan worldview coming out in it. Because what are you going to do? Blame sin? I'm not going to talk about that one. Everybody knows something's wrong with the world. You've got to blame something. So you're not going to blame us. You find something. I don't know. You didn't sleep. That's it. Whatever. It's the humanity that you have. It's anything but. Sin. We're not supposed to be like that. We're supposed to know the origin of evil. So what's the conclusion to the overall general proposition here? Verse 13. Conclusion is, therefore, take up the full armor of God so that you will be able. Notice the term, so that you will be able. What's the implication? You are not able. Remember Joshua? You are not able to follow the Lord. We will follow the Lord and we will be obedient. No you won't. Lord, I don't want to die for you. I'll follow you. You cannot follow me. And a man told me one time about his daughter, like, I was like, this is not a good idea. This is not the way this works. I know this is a dinosaur view, but you know, What else is called foolish in the Bible? The gospel. Two young people coming together. That's meant to lead somewhere. You draw aside from the pack. That's meant to lead somewhere. That's meant to turn things on and start gears rotating that lead somewhere where marriage So and there are things that are going to happen in marriage that are going to happen in marriage. And guess what happens if you turn all that on and you say, oh, well, marriage pretty close. Is it even in the. Can you see it out there on the road? Oh, no, no, no. We're just dating. Mark it down. Immorality. Mark it down. It's not if it's when. Oh, they just went up to Dairy Queen. You are a naive parent and know nothing of human nature and sin. If you thank two post-pubescent lost people, even Christians would struggle with this. But lost people are going to be together alone and have opportunity and nothing will happen. This is a fairy tale of parents because some parents are just too... They don't want to have... They got their own life and they don't want to be burdened with parenting their kids. And then some of them are struggling with some internal thing about thinking their kids could do anything wrong. But this particular parent told me, Oh, I trust my daughter. She wants to please me. She doesn't want to disappoint me. And I said, yeah, you ever heard of the garden where Jesus told disciples the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak. I'm not doubting that she wants to. I'm just doubting that she's able to. The Bible says she's not able. Those are in the flesh cannot please God. So you flee that you don't fight it. So anyhow. Not able is the implication. To say put on the full armor so that you will be able means without it, you're not able. So stop thinking you're able without it. And just how I did there, you have to reject any idea that people are able without the armor. This means, here in conclusion we put this amazing thing that Paul is teaching us here. This means Fight and holler and scream. This is full effort. Stand. Having done everything to stand. Stand firm, therefore. It's like, I get the point, Paul. But this is like Will Smith on Independence Day trying to get out of the parachute. Like, just ahhh. And he's just slinging this thing. Trying to get... Act like that to read your scripture. Like, throw the sheets off like that, that you can read the Bible in the morning. That's the battle he's talking about. It's a straining to be weak. It's a putting out effort. It's a striving to not strive. Do everything to be weak. Overcome your problems. It looks like coming to church and coming in here because why are you in here? I need to be here. How come you can't just go chill and this? How come you just got to read all the time? You got to pray. You can't do that stuff without looking unimpressive and weak. And it's like, yes, put out all of the effort to appear weak. So having done everything to rely for everything on the board is the point. So let me end. We'll go into the specifics maybe next week, but I began with Normandy. You think back to after Normandy Beach, the success of that day, and then there was VE Day to come because the war was still many, many battles. And so, how would you feel then? You've won the decisive victory, but there's still many, many battles to come before the final one. And Paul would be saying, however you feel then, that's how you should feel in the Christian life. Because it's true that the decisive victory has already been won on the cross. But it's still not yet. It's still incomplete. There's the reunification of all things that has already been done. And then there's a lot of reunifying of all things that is not yet done and to be done. And the powers, the dark forces, are still loose and still able to wound you. Not to lose your salvation, but to ruin your life in the meantime. To ruin your marriages, ruin your insurance, ruin your children, ruin your church. To do damage to you, very real damage to you and the people you love. Therefore, yes, go run out there like Olaf, excited. But first of all, be putting on the armor as You do. Let's pray. Lord, thank You for today and Your Word and Your Scripture and life and everything You've given us. We just pray You would help us to do this sermon, this text that Paul is laying out here for us. In Jesus' name, Amen.