Solid Food, Part 2: Spiritual Warfare - YouTube Snowmass Chapel

Solid Food, Part 2: Spiritual Warfare Sermon by Dr. Robert de Wetter Recorded at Snowmass Chapel on Sunday, September 02, 2012 Sermon Notes -- Solid Food -- Part 2 4. Next solid food has to do with recognizing where our real battles are. They are not with other people but with evil. See Ephesians chapter 6. 5. Billy Graham said, "we live in a perpetual battlefield...The wars among nations on earth are mere popgun affairs compared to the fierceness of battle in the spiritual unseen world. This invisible spiritual conflict is waging around us incessantly and unremittingly. Where the Lord works, Satan's forces hinder...We can find inscribed on every page of human history the consequences of...evil...Satan never pauses in his opposition to God..." 6. Evil is working against God and we are in the middle of it. Most challenging of all. If you sign up to follow Christ, you are enlisting in a fierce battle with evil itself. 7. The closer you get to Jesus, the more evil will try and mess with you, distract you, get you off track, and go after your vulnerable spots. Evil could care less about atheists. That's evil's goal. To lead us away from God and to destruction, misery, hopelessness, despair, and death. 8. This reality is not something to fear or freak out over. Rather we need to deal with it. When we are mature we are willing to take on hard things. And the good news is that Paul in his letter to the Ephesians gives us such great guidance as to how to confront evil. See chapter six of Ephesians. A. First Paul says to put on the belt of truth. Trust the voice of truth. Trust the truth of the Gospels as told in the Bible. Focus on this message. But it also means to be a truthful person. To tell the truth. To be truthful with ourselves. To avoid and not engage in un-truths or quasi-truths. To avoid spin. If we want to fight evil we need to live in truth. There is such a thing as truth. Not all truth is relative nor is all truth in the eye of the beholder. Evil hates truth because evil is a liar and wants us to distort truth or live by distorted truths. Evil is the great misleader. B. A second tool we have is to put on the breastplate of righteousness. Trust that you are made right with God through Jesus' death on the cross. It is mystery, hard to comprehend, tough to explain, but work on simply accepting that in an amazing way, you are right with God because of Jesus. The breastplate of righteousness also means to engage in right behavior. C. The third tool involves putting on shoes of peacefulness. Be a peacemaker. Take peace with you. Where there is conflict and dissension, offer another way. Offer peace. Live peacefully. Avoid fighting. D. Fourth, put on the shield of faith. Trust God. Accept that God is in you and in the midst of everything. Trust that God gives you strength. The same strength that God used to raise Jesus from the dead. Live for God. E. Fifth, remember the helmet of salvation. Yes there is cosmic warfare going on but the outcome is a done deal in the end. Evil is defeated. Evil lost on the cross. Eternal life is ahead for you. Evil wants to go after you with fears of all kinds. Deep worries. Visions of separation and aloneness. Shield yourself with the knowledge of salvation. Through Christ you are saved. F. Sixth, put on the sword of the Spirit. Out of the seven tools, this is a key offensive weapon. The sword of the Spirit is the word of God. The Word of God is scripture. The word of God is Jesus Himself. Simply stated, while it might sound odd, to put on the sword of the Spirit is to love. To love God and to love others. Evil hates love. There is no better way to confront evil than to love and to love in the places and the people where it is the hardest. G. Lastly, Paul reminds us to put prayer front and center in our arsenal against evil. Jesus, in His prayer, prayed for protection from evil. Want to fight evil. Pray. Then pray some more. Then pray some more and more and more. 9. Character and realizing where the real battle is are two marks of what it means to be mature in our faith and to walk the talk.

Solid Food, Part 2: Spiritual Warfare - YouTube
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