The Armor of God

Thank you. God bless you. Thank you.

Well, good morning. Good morning. Last week, if you remember, Brother Ephraim was here.

And he was sharing a little bit about his ministry. But before he shared about his ministry, he talked about Ephesians chapter 6. And I've been thinking about that this last week a lot. And I just felt like a good thing to do is to continue thinking on that.

He didn't have a lot of time to talk on it. He just did a quick brief overview. So I thought, let's go back there, Ephesians chapter 6 this morning, and let's do some more meditation and thinking on these things.

So if you would, turn to Ephesians chapter 6 in your Bibles. I just want to read a little bit of what he says in his Bibles. Right after he's done giving instructions to the family and servants and masters.

In verse 10, he says this, Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord and in the power of his might. Put on the whole armor of God that you may be able to withstand, to stand against the wiles of the devil. For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rule, against spiritual wickedness in high places, wherefore take unto you the whole armor of God, that ye may be able to withstand in the evil day.

And having done all to stand, stand therefore, having your loin skirt about with truth, and having on the breastplate of righteousness, and your feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace, above all, taking the shield of faith, wherewith ye shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked, and take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God, praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, and watching thereunto with all perseverance and supplication for all saints. Sometimes I think we get caught up in life and all of the things that happen in life, and in some ways, if we're not careful, it becomes our reality. Life becomes more of a reality than what's really going on as we just read behind the scenes.

You know, you watch some of these people and they play these games, you know, virtual games, virtual reality. They get in so involved, and I saw somebody was actually designing a car. He had these things on his eyes, and he's designing a car, and they look kind of goofy, but they're totally wrapped up in another world.

You know, there's books and there's movies that have been made of this concept of us living in a world where things are happening, but there's a bigger reality out there really happening, really controlling these things, and this is just virtual in a sense. And as we read these verses here in Ephesians, we kind of see this. We see a spiritual battle going on, a wrestling, powers and authorities that are happening, things we don't see.

What if we could have a revelation this morning? What if we could see with our spiritual eyes that the flesh and blood, the person maybe you're struggling with or the person that annoys you, is not truly your enemy, is not truly the person that is causing the problem? What if God would open your eyes this morning to the demons and the authorities that have authority in this world? What if he could open your eyes and you could see the angels that were fighting right now? What if you could see when that person was being rude to you, that just gets on your nerves? What if you could see right behind him was this demon whispering in their ear? What if you could see when you put your children to bed at night, out through the windows, you could see this lion roaring and looking around for somebody he could devour? If you would turn to Daniel in your Bibles, I just want to look at this a little bit, meditate on the spiritual battle that's taking place. Daniel chapter 10, and this is after Daniel's been fasting, he's been praying, he's been asking God to reveal things to him. And in Daniel 10 verse 12, an angel shows up and it says in verse 11 that, I stood trembling, Daniel stood trembling.

And in verse 12, this is what the angel says, he said, Then said he to me, Fear not, Daniel, for from the first day that thou didst set thine heart to understand and to chasten thyself before thy God. So he wanted to know what was going on. He wanted to hear from God, to understand what was going to happen with the people of God.

And he said, when you chastened yourself, when you humbled yourself before me, he said that from that very first day that God heard your words. So his humility and his sincerity were right. And God heard it and even dispatched an angel, it says here.

But it says he heard your words and I came for thy words. But then look in verse 13, the prince of the kingdom of Persia withstood me. And 20 days, but lo, Michael, one of the chief princes came to help me and I remained there with the kings of Persia.

So he says from the day you started praying, Daniel, this day you started setting your heart to understand, you chastened yourself. I came to help you. But this force, now the children of Israel were captives from my understanding in Persia at this time.

So this force over Persia, this prince, whatever this is, withstood me. He fought with me. And we think sometimes of God and we think he's more powerful than the devil, which he is.

But these demons seem to put up a fight according to this passage. They seem to, the angel had to fight this demon of Persia and actually had to call for, who was it? Michael? Michael came to help me. And if you look down in verse 20 or verse 21, he says at the very end of that verse, it says, but Michael, your prince, he says, and there is none that holdeth with me in these things, but Michael, your prince, as if there's a prince for Israel or something.

And so this Michael comes and helps this other angel fight. But we see clearly that it was a battle. We see clearly it took 21 days to get through.

And maybe during that time, Daniel was, Lord, are you even hearing me? Lord, why isn't things changing? Lord, I'm fasting. I'm praying. I'm humbling myself before you.

Look in verse 20 of the same chapter. Then he said, Seems to be another authority, some principality that he's having to go back and fight. This principality of Greece.

Sometimes, like I said, we get caught up in our life and we get caught up with our daily tasks. We get caught up with all the things, getting the dishes done, getting the laundry done, getting the yard mowed. And we forget that there's a raging battle going on behind the scenes.

According to this, they're fighting up in the heavenlies. What if the Lord could open our eyes this morning like in Zechariah 3? And we won't turn there. But in Zechariah chapter 3, it says there was a man.

He was the high priest. His name was Joshua. And it says he stood before the angel of the Lord.

And then it says this. And the devil, Satan, standing at his right hand, his right side to accuse him. What if we could see that vision that there could be accusing going on? Satan himself is called the accuser of the brethren.

Right before the Lord as we pray, he's standing there accusing. What if you could see, like I said earlier, at night when you put your children to bed, that you could see this devil, demons going around to devour who he could? And as in Job, when he comes into God's presence, he says, Where have you been, Job? Oh, I've been all over the earth looking. I've been going to and fro.

What if we could see that? What if we could see that with our spiritual eyes? In Revelation, he's called the accuser of the brethren. And what if we could see, like Jesus said to his own disciples, he said, Simon, Simon, Satan has asked to sift all of you like wheat. What if we could actually realize what they're up to and what they're after? Turn to 1 Kings, sorry.

1 Kings chapter, sorry, I think it is 2 Kings. Chapter 6. I'll just briefly tell you, we don't have time to really go into this, but this story, the king of Syria is trying to take down Israel. And the king of Israel keeps evading somehow the king over and over and over.

And finally, the king of Syria is trying to figure out, How does he get all the secret information? Do we have spies among us? Who's telling him how to get away from me? And finally, one of the servants says, Nobody among us is telling him. In fact, it's the man of God. He keeps telling him.

He keeps telling all the secret information to the king of Israel, how to evade you. And so finally, this king of Syria sends his massive army. It says a great host.

And they go to the city where, is this Elisha? I think it is. Goes to that city where he's dwelling and they can pass about the entire city. And his servant looks out and sees this mighty group of army outside of the city ready to take on Elisha.

And look in verse 17 of chapter six. Let's back up one verse. And he said, this is the servant, sorry, actually one more.

And when the servant of the man of God was risen early and gone forth, behold, a host come past the city, both with horses and chariots. And his servant said to him, Alas, my master, how shall we do? The fear in his voice. In verse 16, and he answered, don't fear for they that be with us are more than they that be with them.

That took some faith. Then verse 17, and Elisha prayed and said, Lord, I pray thee, open his eyes that he may see. And the Lord opened the eyes of the young man and he saw and behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire round about Elisha.

There was a battle. It was a spiritual battle. And Elisha asked if his servant could see what was actually happening.

So let's go back to Ephesians chapter six. If you would, we're thinking about this battle. This thing we don't necessarily see every day with our own physical eyes, but that nonetheless is really happening because God's word says it.

It's happening. Verse 12 says this, for we actually, let's go to verse 10. Finally, my brother be strong in the Lord and in the power of his might, put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil.

For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities and powers against the rulers of the darkness of this world and against spiritual wickedness in high places. As we see in this verse 12, there seems to be rank here. There seems to be structure.

There seems to be generals. There seems to be commanders. There seems to be battle plans and it seems to be organized.

There's principalities and authorities. There's rulers of the darkness. There's spiritual wickedness in high places.

This word rulers comes from the word cosmos in Greek. Cosmos and then another word to take hold of. In the ESV, it's translated cosmic rulers or cosmic powers.

But anyway, these demons and these angels, these angels of darkness are trying to take hold of the world. And we are wrestling. Notice it's not just a battle that's taking place, but the action to the Christian is for us to wrestle in it, for us to take part in this battle.

But what's interesting, if we go back a couple of verses, it's not just our own strength. It says, put on the whole armor of God. Be strong in the power of his might, not our might, his might, his strength.

So we're commanded here to take part in this battle. Look in verse 14. Yes, verse 14.

Verse 13 says, we're to take the whole armor of God that we may be able to withstand the evil day. And having done all to stand, stand therefore, having your loins girt about with truth. I want to talk about that some this morning.

In fact, I don't have time to really go on to any of the rest. Let's just talk about this first weapon, truth, this first line of defense. It says that we should have our loins girt about with truth.

Pilate asked the question, what is truth? We seem to be among a generation that is at battle with the truth. It seems as if truth is relative everywhere we go. Do what, you know, what's truth for you? I was talking to a guy yesterday and trying to tell him to read the Bible, and he said, I'm a pagan.

I said, what is that? And he explained, oh, he worships the Nord God. And he was going, you know. And it's just it was interesting talking to him.

He says, I offer my sacrifices to this Nord God. And anyway, it was, you know, it. Truth is just like what's good for you and what's good for me.

Let's just leave each other alone. But according to this verse, the first thing, the first piece of armor is the belt of truth. We're to girt our loins about with truth.

Now, if you think about your loins, it means hips. That's a very soft area between your ribs and your legs. It's a very right into your intestines.

It's an area in battle that you would want to have protected. And so they would generally wear a pretty big, thick belt, soldiers would. And not only that, but that belt would carry a sword.

It would hang off. That would would be a place to store your sword. So as we see here, it's a place to hang your weapon off of.

It's a place of protection. And it's a place for you to gird up. Now, this would be if I ever preach a sermon someday.

A modesty. I'll mention this again. So just keep remembering it.

But, you know, there's there's a phrase in the Old Testament that's gird up your loins like a man. You think, well, what does that mean? Well, I don't know of any passage that says for women to gird up their loins. It's true.

Look it up. But a soldier or somebody running would take their robe and they would pull it up and tuck it into their pants, kind of. I think they'd pull it from back and bring it up in their pants.

And it would kind of make into their belt, sorry. And it kind of make like pants so they could run. It wouldn't get caught up as they ran.

They could fight. They could work. And these are things men would do.

They would fight in battles. And so they would need to gird up their loins. They would need to pull them up the robe and tuck it in.

And it would provide a place to do that. It would also provide a place to hang their sword. It also would provide, since it was leather and sometimes there was some leather hanging off, a place of protection.

But this belt, it says, is the belt of truth. And so in our minds, we think we see this image of a soldier and he has a belt on. And we think, what is that? What is this belt of truth? Well, in Peter, he says, gird up the loins of your mind.

If you notice, many of these things in the weapons here are weapons that start in our thoughts. It's a reckoning. It's a deciding.

So here, the truth is where we are starting in our thoughts. As Peter said, gird up the loins of your mind. So in the same way a soldier would gird up his robe for battle.

We would gird up our minds. We would gird them up in a way as readiness. There's a passage, and I have it written down somewhere.

But Jesus says, have your loins gird about and your light shining, talking about when he returns. And that's an idea that you're ready. You know, when your robe's down, you're kind of more relaxed.

You're not ready to work. You're not ready to fight. But when your loins are gird up, you're ready to do those things.

You're light shining. Your loins gird up. So Peter's telling us that this idea starts in our mind.

We must gird up the loins of our mind. And so this battle starts there. Now, the devil himself has been after truth from day one.

You can remember. What did he say? Yea, hath God said. Right? He's been after it, and that seems to be his thing.

In fact, he is the father of what? Lies. Right. He is against truth.

By nature, that is what he does. He is a deceiver. So this idea is that we're watchful.

We're girding up the loins of our mind. The battle begins right here. You've probably heard that said before.

But how many know that the battle begins right here in our minds, in our thoughts? And so we need to talk about that. I want you to analyze your life, where you're at right now. Are you a person of faith, or are you a person of doubt? Are you a courageous person, or are you a fearful person? Are you a loving person, or are you hateful? Are you generous, or are you selfish? Are you forgiving, or are you full of revenge? Okay.

You are what you are because of the way you think. What you have allowed your mind to take you down brings an output of these things. So if you're this way, if your output is full of hate or full of unforgiveness, then we can go back and look at our thoughts.

I heard of an interesting story. A millionaire, he was a man, he wanted to prove to the world that it's not about money. So what he did is he went out, and he drained all of his money out of his account, put it somewhere else.

He had a really nice house, and he gave it to somebody, gave his key away. And he walked away from his business, put other people in charge, and he said, I'm going to go live homeless. And he did, and he set up some rules.

He said, I can't let anybody know what I'm doing in this project, or else I can't interact with them anymore. And I heard he was spending, I think, $25,000 a month to produce this. People filmed it and everything.

And it was rough. The first little while, he was living on park benches and trying to find a way to make a dollar. And it was rough.

And somebody was kind to him. They brought him in to let him live in a trailer for a little while. And so he got on his feet.

And the first thing he did was he started getting on Craigslist, taking couches that were for free and putting them on Marketplace and make for $100. And so he was just a go-between, and he was starting to make money, starting to make money. And slowly but surely, he was making cash.

And so then he came up with another idea. I think the next idea was he could sell these coffee beans in a special niche market, and he started doing that. And then he came up with another idea.

And pretty soon, he was back into making more and more money. Within a very, I think it was 200-something days, he was already, I can't remember the number. But anyway, he was on his way.

Same kind of test. Somebody took and gave a homeless man, not the same people, but I read of another test. And they gave him $100,000.

They gave him $100,000. And they first analyzed if this guy was, looks like he could really, like he wasn't on drugs or anything like that. They checked those things.

They gave him $100,000. And after they did, he was even given a financial advisor. And so he slowly started spending the money.

And pretty soon, spending more of it. And his financial advisor was saying, you really need to go, you know, this and this and this with your money. And pretty soon, he started distrusting the financial advisor, thinking he was after his money and axed him out.

And then he bought himself, he was given $100,000. He bought himself a $35,000 truck and leased a luxury apartment. And when his family started taking care, they said, hey, you should really get a job and use this boost in your life to make, oh, no, this $100,000 will last me to the end of my life.

He burnt through the $100,000 in six months. And so the idea here is that, I wrote this down, I was reading it somewhere, but a millionaire is more of a state of mind than a state of finances. Think about that.

It takes a certain kind of mindset that says, I can do these things, I can go out and do this, and as an entrepreneur, I'll do this and I'll flip these couches and I'll do this. Now, this isn't a blanket statement for everybody, but it tends to be this way. It's a state of mind.

And so in the same way, I read something here. You can put lipstick on a pig, but it's still a pig. It's true.

It's true. And why am I saying all this? I'm saying even if you are given all this money, if your mindset's wrong, if your thoughts are wrong, the money is just a Band-Aid. It doesn't fix the problem.

The real problem is your mind. And in the same Christian walk, we have to learn how to take our thoughts captive. We have to learn how to use and think healthy thought patterns.

So God says in Romans 12 this, how do we get to have a transformed life? Anybody tell me? How do we get to a transformed life? The renewing of our mind. It says in Romans 12, be ye transformed by the renewing of our mind. Right? Are we all in favor of that verse? Is that right? Okay.

But sometimes we believe the opposite. Sometimes we think that if just our circumstances would change, if I wouldn't have been upbringing like this, I mean, we're all tempted with these thoughts, right? Let's just all be honest. If these people weren't here or if I wasn't raised in that church or if I didn't lack these opportunities, then I would have not have these problems.

Right? That thought process says if these things would change, I'd have a renewed mind. A transformed life, sorry. The right process is we renew our mind to have a transformed life.

Am I getting across what I'm trying to say? And so we want to go down the path of if these things would be different, I'd have a transformed life. And God says, if you want to transform life, it's not the opportunities. It's not the people in your life.

It's not the all of those things. It's renewing your mind. That's what changes your trend to transforms you to a new life.

If you were a sheep and a lion wanted to eat you, what would be your best line of defense? If you were a sheep and the lion wanted to eat you, what would be your best line of offense defense? How about karate? Weight training? Okay. Would it help to go buy a gun? We're never called super sheep. Does anybody have a really good guess now? What would be the best line of defense? Yes.

Thank you. Get as close as you can to the shepherd. Stay as close as you can to the shepherd.

Right? We're sheep. Do you think Satan knows he's a roaring lion? I think so. And that we're helpless sheep.

So one of his most basic strategies is to separate you from the shepherd. Simple, right? Pretty simple. And how does he do that? Lies.

He's the father of lies. So if he can get you to believe lies, whatever they are, he can get you away from the shepherd and then he can devour you. His goal is to get you to believe lies about the shepherd or about yourself.

Lies about the shepherd or about who you are. And if he can, he's going to get you to avoid the shepherd. That's his goal.

So remember, we're talking about this battle that Brother Ephraim brought up last week. We're wrestling, and the first thing is the belt of truth. And what is he? He's the father of lies.

So how does he get us to get away from the truth? If he can do that, he can get us away from the shepherd. He brings thoughts like, I'm a disappointment to God or God is angry with me. We blame him.

How close to the shepherd will I want to be when I'm having those kind of thoughts? Jesus told us the thief comes to, does anybody know the three things? What does he come to do? Steal, kill, and destroy. So the battle begins in our mind. Now, I have a heading here.

How can we identify his lies? Well, to identify lies, what do we first have to identify? The truth. We have to first identify the truth. Now, according to the scriptures, what is truth? Where do we find truth? Somebody.

Jesus. Jesus, okay. So we can look at Jesus, the way he lived, and we can look at what he taught.

And we can always say he is the truth. In fact, he was the truth personified. It says, I am the way, the truth, the life.

So he is the truth. What else is true? Thy word is truth. Jesus said, sanctify them by your truth.

And then he says, thy word is truth. So God's word is truth. Now, Jesus was the word of God.

So we can come back to that as him is truth. But he also calls the scripture the word of God. In fact, he says, Jesus himself said this.

And don't forget that he said the scripture cannot be broken. So even Jesus looked at the scripture as something very important. He said it cannot be broken when he was, I think he was speaking to the Pharisees.

So we have to identify the truth. Now we can look at Jesus. We can look at scripture.

Now, I'd like to talk about some of the lies the devil brings. Now that we know where to go for truth, one of the lies that the devil brings is condemnation and accusation. And I talked about this earlier.

But, you know, something like, I'm never going to be able to do this. I'm not good enough. I'll always have this problem.

God doesn't love me. God wants me to be unhappy. I'm going to read you a story here.

Well, it's really more like a real-life testimony. Lies are powerful things. What we believe drives the way we feel and guides the way we behave.

In my years as a pastor trying to help people with wounded hearts, one of them committed suicide. He showed up at my office saying, you are my last hope. If you can't help me, I'm going to kill myself.

Can you imagine being the pastor with being told that? As I listened to his story, I found out he believed he had a demon and wanted me to drive it out. He was undoubtedly right, but you can't just evict demons who have permission to be somewhere. You have to remove their rights first.

In this case, that meant dealing with the wounds and the lies this man had in his life. His core problem was that he had grown up in an extremely legalistic family. He had also some obsessive compulsive tendencies.

In some ways, I guess I don't know why he's saying this, but it began when he lost his job a few years before. The thought came to him that God was punishing him, but he didn't know why. Once that lie took root, it became a pattern to think this way.

Everything that went even remotely wrong in his life was further proof that God hated him and used any excuse to punish him. So he started believing this lie. I burnt the toast.

Oh, God hates me. The tractor doesn't work because God hates me. Pretty soon, he allowed these lies from the devil to take place in his heart.

If he even overslept, he thought that God was punishing him. If he burnt his toast, he believed it was an act of divine judgment. It was a terrible way to live.

We were starting to make some progress in understanding the root of his issue when I had to be gone for a weekend event. When I got back, I found out he had killed himself. I was stunned and very sad.

It had seemed like we were on the verge of a breakthrough. The tragic event stands as a monument to me of the incredible power of lies to destroy life. The thief really does come to steal and kill and destroy.

I want to read one more story. Jeff is a good friend of mine. We go to the same church, and he spent some time on staff.

Part of his testimony is that he bought into the lie that everyone expected him to be bad. So he made the vow that he would simply go that direction with his life. As a high school student, he got in with a party crowd, and he did lots of bad things.

At one point, he got a girl pregnant. Suddenly, his life changed. A few years later, his son came to live with him, and Jeff realized it was time to get his act together.

He went to AA, which is Alcohol Anonymous, and became a very faithful member. One day, he was sharing his story at church, and he began with the familiar words, My name is Jeff, and I'm an alcoholic. After the sermon, a man who had gone through our ministry training went up in front and challenged him, You aren't an alcoholic.

Jeff, you're a saint. You have a new identity in Christ. The words sounded like heresy.

He even told his wife, Can you believe what that guy just said to me? But Jeff did something really important. He went home, he opened his Bible, and he prayed. God, please show me the truth, who I really am.

He read through Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, and Colossians, and took lots of notes. He also paid attention to the promptings he got from the Spirit, pointing out first this truth, and then that one. When he finished, he came to the startling revelation, I am a saint.

Alcohol is part of my old identity. I am a new creature in Christ. Today, Jeff is married and raising a family.

He is on fire for God and loves to tell people about the transforming power of understanding their new identity in Christ. How many times does the book start out, To the sinners, in Colossians? It's the saints, you are washed, you are cleansed, you are justified. Sometimes we let these lies take part in our heart, and we let the devil take them places.

Those are condemnation and accusations. Now, I want to talk a little bit about lies that we have in our hearts that the devil will say, and about assumptions. Sadly, I think we do this a lot.

I just did it yesterday, and I'll share that in a minute. But I would define assuming, and what I'm talking about in my own terms, as this. Trying to discern heart motives of others, and then speaking it out.

Trying to discern why somebody did something without really knowing why, but you try to discern it, and then you go on to say it out loud, in front of people. Assumptions. Very dangerous.

And I think we all need to work on doing... In fact, my challenge is to every one of us. This week, go through your life as you're walking, and see how many times do you make assumptions about others. I'll tell you about my story.

So, I hope I don't embarrass my children, but... I always do this, but... They were fighting yesterday, and I won't say who. I only have three left, though. It's getting smaller.

And two of them were not happy with each other. And one of them was pounding on this thing to get a rise. Well, now I'm assuming already.

I thought he was pounding to get a rise. And this is how bad it is. Right there is how bad it is, and how ingrained it is into us.

So, if I could please get this across. And I saw, and I knew there was this animosity, and I said to this child, I said, You were pounding on him and making a face at him. I never saw his face.

His back was to me. But I imagined in my mind that he must have been doing it to just get a rise out of him. And he's just like, like this.

Because it was his stuff, you know. And I, and the child said, I didn't make a face. And then I realized, I just assumed and spoke it out as if it was fact.

And I felt like the Lord taught me so much on this. And yet, sometimes my children say, Papa, that's an assumption. They have to tell me.

But I'm telling you, it is ingrained in us. And the Bible says we are to cast down imaginations. So we have these imaginations.

We have these thoughts. We have these ideas. And we're to cast them down if they don't, if they're not to the obedience of Christ.

And so, let me ask this. If we don't know what somebody's heart is, and we just say, well, he did that because. Or he was thinking when he said this.

Is that your place to know? I mean, it says man looks on the outward appearance, but God looks on the heart, right? So who are you setting yourself up to be if you somehow know what they were thinking in their heart? Have you ever thought about that? Even to say this, even to say, you're lying. I try to tell my children not to say this. Because to say, you're lying.

Unless they say they're lying, how do you know if they're lying? Maybe it was a mistake. Maybe it was an accident. We have to be so careful with these things.

So let's go back to what we're trying to get through here. We're trying to not allow these thoughts. Remember, we're girding up the loins of our mind, and we're girding it up with truth.

We're trying to not let these thoughts come in, these lies from the devil. One of them is lies towards God, lies toward our relationship with God. And another one of them is lies towards others, where we assume things and then we spread it.

And that would be called gossip at the end of the day. And what's really bad is when that gossip isn't even true. Because you were going off of what you assumed.

We naturally always assume to the positive, right? No. We naturally always assume to the negative of people. We do not naturally give people the benefit of the doubt.

It takes maturity to give people the benefit of the doubt. Because it's not in us, naturally. Okay, so those are some ideas and thoughts about assumptions.

I'll ask this. This may be a good time to ask. What are some thoughts that you have, or you have had, or lies that the devil will put in your mind at times? Just say one.

Somebody say one. Okay. Okay, that's good.

They're whispering. That's really good because it's an assumption, right? They're whispering. That's a fact, right? But how do you know it's about you? That's an assumption.

Okay, remember, we're taking our thoughts captive. We're renewing our minds. How do we take that captive? Do you want to give us a thought, brother? How would you take that thought captive? Okay.

That's definitely giving the benefit of the doubt. Good job. Somebody else.

What's another thought you might struggle with or have had come in your mind? I've already blown it. I might as well continue. Now, how would you take that thought captive? Yep.

Yep. I would take that thought captive. A righteous man will fall seven times, and he'll get back up.

You see, what we're doing is we're going back to the truth. What's the truth? What's the truth? His word is truth. We are made partakers of the divine nature by what? How do we become partakers of the divine nature? His precious promises.

So, he makes promises in scripture, and it says we can become partakers of that divine nature by those promises. So, here's a question. What if this thought comes to you? I just can't do it.

How would I battle that thought? How would I wrestle? He's given us everything we need for life and godliness. Thank you. What's another one? I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.

Okay. Anybody else? Great. Those are things, and this is why the power of reading our Bibles and memorization come in handy.

Because in the moment of this battle, we have to go back to truth, right? According to what this says, we have to gird up the loins of our mind. We have to put on, wrestle against this whole thing going on out there with the belt of truth. Okay.

What's another one? Nobody likes me. How would you battle that? How would you take that thought captive? Okay. Whosoever.

Whosoever will may come. Yeah. Okay.

Good. Amen. Sometimes we just have to give our soul a little sermon.

You're being selfish, right? Okay. What else? Another thought. Another thought that might come to you.

No one will know. Okay. Who can give me, other than Brother Bob, how you would fight that, wrestle that with truth? The eyes of the Lord are in every place.

Okay. What else? Isn't there one? Well, that's a problem. Isn't there? Be sure your sin shall find you out.

Okay. One more. Give me some assuming ones.

Another assuming. Roger gave one. Give me a good, juicy one.

I mean, watch your life this week, and just really watch. How many times do I assume? You know how many times this kind of stuff has happened? I remember when Timothy first got his light bar, I was like, oh, this is just for pride. You know what I mean? And I was like, he just wants to be seen all over.

I didn't say it to anybody. Thankfully, he's not here. And then we went out on a trip to Montana, and we broke down.

So we pulled over and flipped those lights on, and I was shocked. There was a two-lane highway. Every car would come over the bridge, and then all these trucks were getting over into the fast lane and, like, giving us that whole lane.

And I'm thinking, I want one of these flashers. And so easy we do this. We assume the worst, and really, maybe he really just wanted it for that kind of thing.

The other day, we were out looking at Amos's little grave placed by the road, and Larry, what's his name? I was going to say Stadley. Yeah, Warfel, came driving up into the oncoming lane, flips his lights on, you know. Wow, we got, like, escort here, no car.

It was at the nighttime, and it was nice. The point is we don't really know what their heart is when they did those things, and we have to be so careful because that's the natural way. He did it for pride.

He did it, you know, maybe somebody's saying something convicting to you that you should really take to your heart, and you just excuse it away like, oh, well, he just this, you know, and fill in the blank. He's just afraid of this, and that's why he said that to me. And we can just place assumptions on people, and they're really lies from the devil.

So how do we do these things? How did Jesus do it? How did Jesus take every thought captive? And I'm especially thinking when the devil came to him, and we're putting his lies into his heart, what did he do? He used Scripture. If Jesus used Scripture, and he is the way, the truth, and the life, then what should we do? I think we should follow his example. Because somehow, he was able to bind something in the principalities and powers with Scripture.

So, this is a great sermon. Memorize. Memorize Scripture.

Know it. Study it. And in this verse, I already read it once, but casting down imaginations and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ.

I had it. Oh, here it is. Yeah.

We capture rebellious thoughts and teach them to obey Christ. That was how another translation put it. We capture rebellious thoughts, and we teach them.

We put them under subjection to obey Christ. Kind of like a conveyor worker, you know? He's sitting there all day long, and they train these people. They bring them into factories, and stuff just flies by them all day long.

And they see impurities, and they just push it off as it goes through. You know, they know how to judge everything that comes by, and we're to do the same thing. As this thing comes by, this thought, if it isn't, if it's a lie from Satan, whether it's an assumption like we've talked, or whether it's a lie about our relationship and identity in Christ, a lie about where we are or what God is, according to what this says, we need to learn to push it off.

So, what lies are you facing? How can you take it captive and renew your mind? Remember, we don't have a transformed life just because we change our circumstances. We have a transformed life when we renew our mind, when we take those thoughts captive. We are in a battle.

We cannot see it with our physical eyes. We are commanded to fight. We need to put on God's armor and fight in His strength.

And the first piece of armor here is the belt of truth. Pretty important, I think. And what's interesting is what's hanging off of it? The sword of the Spirit.

And what is that? The Word of God. Somehow this truth is interconnected with the sword. That's hanging right here, the Word of God.

So my challenge to every one of us is in this week, actually, I have one more story to read. Jeff is a good friend of mine. Oh, that's the wrong one.

I'm really scattered today. Hopefully you guys get it. A man involved with spiritual warfare ministry in Florida told a story at one of our training events about a time he invited an occultist to his home for dinner.

He knew the man was involved with dark magic, but he didn't realize he was the chief warlock for the entire region in which he lived. The Christian leader decided to do some warfare praying. He asked God to surround his property with many holy angels, as many as were necessary to keep this man from bringing any demons with him when he came for dinner.

He asked God to demonstrate his power and bring glory to himself. When the night came for the dinner to occur, the warlock showed up right on time. The first words out of his mouth were, Whatever power you have, I want it.

This caught the minister off guard and he asked, What do you mean? There is an angel that goes with me everywhere. He gives me my power. He tells me what to do.

And right now he is stuck outside in the street throwing a big fit because something isn't allowing him onto your property. This situation reminds us that this warfare is real and so is the victory we have in Christ. So my challenge to you is this battle starts here.

Watch your thoughts this week. See how many times you assume things about others. Please try it.

I'm still seeing where I do it. And see where you believe these lies that the devil puts in that go against scripture. You can't do it or whatever.

And learn to capture them and bring them under the obedience of Christ. Thank you for your time.