Simple Salvation Church of God

Posted by: Administrator on Sat, Jan 2, 2021

addressed to Christians, who have found the under spiritual attack, and need to understand, that the call to the Christian faith, is all called to a spiritual war against enemies that are not of this world.

Expository Sermon On Spiritual Warfare This sermon is addressed to Christians, who have found they are under spiritual attack, and need to understand, that the call to the Christian faith, is all called to a spiritual war against enemies that are not of this world.  “Welcome brothers and sisters in Christ.

My name is Robert McConkey, and I am the pastor of Gennao Anothen Ekklesia (Born Again Church). Today's message is one that is one that is vital of importance—especially because there are many of you here, that have found yourselves under spiritual attack by Satan and those under him, in one way or another, and you attempted to engage the spiritual enemy, only to find that you came to the battle completely unprepared for the fight at hand, and returned defeated.

As for those of who you are “veterans” in this spiritual war, and have been fighting the Enemy for a long time, and have had your share of losses and victories, this also applies to you. Because whether you are a veteran or not, if you are not prepared for the battle, and fully equipped to fight against Satan and his minions, the moment you engage the Enemy in it, you most likely be defeated and forced to retreat.

Having said that, please open your Bibles (if you have one), to Ephesians 6:10-18; I, of course, will be reading from my own Bible, which will be quite different from yours, bear with me, and read with me. 'For the rest, my brothers, be made powerful in the Lord and in the might of His strength. Put on all the armor of God, for you to be able to stand against the wiles of the Devil; because we are not wrestling against flesh and blood, bust against the rulers, against the authorities, against the rulers of this world, of the darkness of this age, against the spiritual powers of evil in the heavenly.  

Because of this take up all the armor of God, that you may be able to resist in the evil day, and having worked out all things to stand. Then, stand firm, having girded your loins with about with truth, and having put on the breastplate of righteousness, and having shod your feet with the preparation of the gospel of peace; above all taking up the shield of faith, with which you will be to quench all the darts of the evil one, the things having been made fiery, and also take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word Of God; through all prayer and petition, praying at every time in the Spirit, and watching with this same thing with perseverance and petition concerning the saints.

'Now, with that done, you should all know what this message is about, and that is spiritual warfare. That is what you should all know. For the call to the Christian faith, is a call to war, and there is no way to avoid it. When I joined Teen Missions International, we had a guest speaker, to talk to all the teens on this subject—James Hudson Taylor III.

I will never forget what he said, in the opening of this message; he said, 'Your call will be contested, for when God calls, you are entering into spiritual warfare. And that is absolutely true. If you on the side of God's kingdom, then that means that Satan will do that he can to win the fight, for he has already declared open war against all those that take to side with God.Now I am going, to begin with, the first part of this message, with the fact, that in this war, you cannot battle Satan and those that serve Him in the spiritual realm, in your own strength, not even in the strength of your soul, if you do so you will surely lose.

So how can you win against him?

The answer is simple, and it is found in verse 10 of Ephesians 6: “..be made powerful IN THE LORD, and in the might of HIS STRENGTH. We get the power to stand against Satan, only when we are in the Lord, meaning Jesus Christ, and when He is with us; we also must understand, as I have said before, we can't do so in our own strength, because our own strength is insufficient.

So this means, that we can only fight and win against him, in the might of the Lord's strength. That is why some of you here, have been defeated by him, you attempted to fight him, with nothing but your own strength, and unfortunately, simply because you have the “title” Christian. But let me tell you, that, Satan is not afraid of you personally, because, by yourself, you are no match for him.

This brings us another important thing, that is needed to win against him, and this falls into two parts. First is that we need to be fully armed and equipped with God's armor—with armor that He Himself wears, and second, we need to clad our-selves ourselves with so that we will not fall prey to Satan's trickery and deceitful tactics. Now, let us start with the first what is needed, and that is wearing God's armor, all of it.

This made is evident in verse 11 of Ephesians 6: 'Put on ALL the armor of God...' This means we are required to clad ourselves with every single piece of His armor, from head to foot, which all also includes the offensive and defensive weapons. Secondly, we have a good reason, why we should—so that we don't fall for any of Satan's evil tricks and tactics of deceit. Satan will use all of his tricks and deceits to attack us aware.

Which is what is made obvious in verse 11 of Ephesians 6: “..for you to be able to stand against the wiles of the devil.” Without His armor, you are completely vulnerable, to his lies and his trickery. We also need yet another thing, to be victorious against, and that is, that we need to know who the real enemy is. Our real enemy is not the human adversaries of the Cross, such as cultists, false teachers, etc., for they are mere “puppets” of Satan who simply “pulling their strings,” to manipulate them. The real enemy is of the spiritual realm—which is made clear in verse 12 of Ephesians 6: “..because are not wrestling with flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, and against the rulers of this world, of the darkness of this age, against the spiritual powers of evil, in the heavenly.”

When Paul talks about rulers and authorities, he is not talking about human rulers and authorities, that have made themselves enemies of the Cross, but rather demonic forces controlling them, “behind the scenes.” For he also describes them as rulers of the world, of DARKNESS OF THIS AGE, and the SPIRITUAL POWERS OF EVIL in the heavenly.

Though whichever, translation has it worded differently. The real enemy is Satan and his demons, and since its says these spiritual powers of evil, are in the heavens, then it also referring to the fallen angels that followed him in his rebellion. However, the remainder of his minions, are demons, that he has sent into our world to influence human beings, in every part of their life, and unfortunately sometimes even ours as well, to get us back down and give up, or get us to do or say things that, that are hurtful and damaging.

It is very important that we know what we are really up against. And once we know who is really behind, the attacks against Body Of Christ, through human agents, and using those who are supposed to be Christians, to hurt and damage us emotionally, we will not be caught of guard or taken by surprise, when the attacks happen and be able to fight back spiritually.

Now we move on to something, that is just as vital, to win in spiritual warfare. In order for to us to be even more victorious against him and his servants, we to be take our stand and not waver—need to resist him and hold our ground against his attacks. Paul states this repeatedly in his letter to the Ephesians in chapter 6. In verse 11 we read, “..STAND AGAINST the wiles of the devil, and also it also repeated in verse 13: “..that you may be able TO RESIST in the evil, and having worked out all things, TO STAND.” We hear it again, in verse 14: Then STAND FIRM..”

This all points to standing your ground and resisting the Satan and his demonic servants. If you don't stand your ground and resist the Enemy, you will be overwhelmed by his forces, when the attacks, and you will fall for his ploys. In other words if you don't stand up for what you believe, or more importantly who believe, you will fall for anything, that the Enemy “throws” at you.

It is now time, for us to move on to the last but very important thing, in order to win our war against the Enemy—the importance of the pieces of the armor of God, and their uses. Before we do that we need to understand the significance of this passage. At the time that this was written, Paul was imprisoned in Rome, possibly guarded by Roman soldiers, so that he saw nothing but them, and he was writing to Roman hearers, when describing the armor, in terms that they could understand, that of the armor of Roman soldiers, so that they knew what he was talking about the helmet, breastplate, belt, shoes, sword, and shield.

You have heard me tell you before, that Paul says that we are to put on all the armor of God, in verse 11. But he also repeats that in verse 13: “Because of this, take up ALL the armor of God. Why does he repeat this? Because just as it would be fatal for a Roman soldier, to go into battle without every piece of his armor, it is just as spiritual fatal or at dangerous, for us to go into spiritual warfare without every piece of the armor of God.In the time we left, I will simply go through what I would like to call a “checklist” of the armor of God.

First their belt of truth. Truth is described as a belt, in verse 14: “..having girded your loins with truth. You put a belt around your loins or in other translations,waist. But the loins includes not only the waist but everything else below it. In ancient Rome, the belt had leather large leather strips to protect the waist and everything below the waist.

Truth does pretty much the same thing, in regard to your spiritual protection. If you are not truthful and honest, in your Christian “walk,” you will be “ as the saying goes, “caught with your pants down,” It all boils down, to be genuine, with no dissembling or falsehood, so that you can stand against Satan, who is described by Jesus as “a liar and the father of lies.

”The next piece of armor is the breastplate of righteousness, which Paul says outright in verse in 14 as well: “..having put on the breastplate of righteousness.” The breastplate of a Roman soldier consisted two pieces, that interlocked with each other to form one piece of one whole breastplate, that covered the whole armor front to back, to protect both the chest and back, to protect the heart from being pierced, because an enemy soldier wouldn't just try to pierce the heart from the front, but behind as well.

So it is with righteousness, which not refers to righteousness we receive from Christ, but also to righteousness reflected in our character through our actions. If we are not secure in our right stand with God, through Jesus, and if it is not reflected in our character, through our actions, then the Enemy can pierce, our “heart, and crush our spirit either by attacking from the front or from behind, by “stabbing us in the back,” because he is also back-stabber, and doesn't fight fair.

The third piece of the armor, are the shoes, which Paul describes the gospel of peace as, in verse 15: “..and having shod your feet with the preparation of the gospel of peace.” Everyone knows that you put shoes on your feet. The shoes of a Roman soldier, were special studded sandals, that he wore when trekking across rough and sometimes hazardous terrain to protect his feet from being cut, bruised or battered, particularly the soles.

It is the same when we prepare to bring the Gospel to others, in our Christian walk. The trek to bring the gospel to others is rough and sometimes hazardous, and we need to have “sure footing,” so our Christian walk won't be hindered by the Enemy, in order to stop us in our tracks. If that happens it is all over—the battle has ended before it has begun.

The last piece of wearable armor, at least, is the helmet. Paul describes salvation as a helmet, in verse 17: And take the helmet of salvation..” The helmet of a Roman soldier, was worn not to protect the head, also to intimidate the enemy, for sometimes it had a high plume. It also the same way with salvation. Not only it is the assurance, that we have been saved grace and delivered from Hell, but the confidence, that God will not only deliver out of whatever terrible circumstances we find and ourselves but through them as well, which in turn intimidates the Enemy.

If you don't have this “helmet” on your head, your thought life is vulnerable to attack to a “blow to the head,” and you will either be confused, or spiritually knocked unconscious.”The last two are weapons, so I am put these two together—the sword and the shield.

The first of these weapons is the shield. The reason for this is because Paul describes faith as a shield. This is found in verse 16: “above all taking up the shield of faith..” Now you hear the word shield, you are probably thinking, of the portable shields of Medieval European countries like England or France, carried by knights. However, the Roman soldier's shield was just about the size of a door, that has protected him completely, from arrows shot by archers, because before the hand to hand combat began, the enemy would archers to rain of arrows down, to thin out the ranks of the army opposing them.

The same thing goes with faith, where we are called to hold our ground against and “arrows” that Satan's forces shoot at us. There is also one more thing, that you need to know the Roman soldier's shield, didn't just protect him against ordinary arrows, but specifically against flaming arrows, by saturating it with water, and probably first coating it with a special oil, so that water, remained saturated from them without and from within, so that when the shield by the arrows, it wouldn't catch on fire, because the enemy archers would have these special arrows that they did in pitch and then light the piercing part with fire.

It also the same with the fiery “arrows” of Satan, which is described also in verse 16: “.with which you will be able to QUENCH all the darts of the evil, the things having made fiery. Satan will have his “archers” shoot “fiery arrows” at you to make things fiery at to heat things up, to destroy your means of defense, and leave you vulnerable. That is why your shield of faith needs to be anointed with the oil of prayer and saturated with God's Word so that your shield won't catch on fire. And sometimes that is all can be done, you stand to firm in your faith until the Enemy's archers have exhausted their volley.

Which now brings me to last weapon, the sword. The Roman soldier's sword was a short sword for close hand to hand combat and was also a stabbing and piercing weapon. And the word of God is described as a sword in verse 17 as well: “..and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. And we are not just talking about the Bible, but a specific word in the Scriptures, to be spoken at a certain time and situation, to destroy false arguments. Because God doesn't want to just to stand and defend ourselves but to go on the offensive in this spiritual warfare, use that sword which is that is not any sword but the sword of The Holy Spirit.

There is one more thing, that is absolutely important to be victorious in the war, and that is prayer. No matter how well armed you and armored you are, each and every saint needs spiritual support by unceasing prayer, because it both our means of communicating with God, our Commander, to send reinforcements from Heaven, and spiritual supplies to aid us in this war. This is made clear, in verse 18: “praying at every time in the Spirit, to this same thing WITH ALL PERSEVERANCE AND PETITION concerning all the saints..” Now, brothers and sisters, I end by saying, may always and continually be made powerful in the Lord, and in the strength of His might.”  e-mail  [email protected]

Robert McConkey

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