Right, You just, you can just lie.
And what we got away with it, nobody ever know.
And we just go right on with our life.
And, you know, it's, it's one of those things that's very, very
important that we always make sure that we are telling the
truth. And there's a lot of different
things that he said there are #4 about the reasons why people
lie. It's caused by fear, It's caused
by hatred, It's caused by covetousness.
And I think the number one is it's probably caused by
selfishness and pride. We're trying to save face.
So if I've got to save face, I'll say whatever I have to say
to just get through this and make myself not look as bad.
And then we get to stand there for having your loins grid about
with truth and having on the breastplate of righteousness.
And that covers the heart. It's very important part of the
soldiers armor and you know just protecting our hearts and
protecting keep thy heart with all diligence.
The Bible says in Proverbs for out of it are the issues of
life. It's an important thing to
protect. Then we said in verse #15 and
your feet shod with the preparation of, of the gospel of
peace. And not only do we spend a lot
of time talking about that when we went through this, but also I
just preached a message on that on Sunday.
But it's important that we get the message of the gospel out.
Which brings us then to verse #17 actually it should be verse
#16 but above all, taking the shield of faith wherewith ye
shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked.
So three things that he mentions about this here that will that
we'll look at. But number one, it is a shield
of faith. And obviously it says that above
all, taking the shield of faith. But the important thing here is
that it's a shield and, and faith is that shield.
So there's a few things about that.
Number one, the devil attacks our faith with darts of
unbelief. And you would think, you know
that. OK, I, I, I know I'm saved.
I know I'm on my way to heaven. But there's, you know, maybe
you're one of these people as well, but there's a lot of
people that question that the devil is going to constantly
throw that unbelief back at you. Am I really saved?
Do I really know if did I really know what I was doing when I
accepted Christ as my Savior? The thing is, you go back, you
get it settled and it's settled. If you did what God said you
need to do, then let the devil throw those darts at you all the
time. It's that's why it's the shield
of faith. I have to believe that if I did
what God said I need to do in order to be saved, then He's
going to uphold his end of the bargain, right?
It doesn't rely on me. It doesn't.
It doesn't rely on me feeling saved or not saved, doesn't rely
on me being close to the Lord or not close to the Lord for my
salvation. If I did what God says I need to
do and I came to Him in repentance and faith, then He
saved me and He's going to take me to heaven.
And that's why when the devil throws those darts of unbelief
at us, we can stand against those things with the shield of
what? Faith.
I just have to have faith to believe that God's going to do
what he said he's going to do. So the diets, that the darts are
fiery, meaning they're cruel, hurtful, strong, persistent.
The devil attacks the believers faith in God.
He attacks God's character, as he did with Eve.
He wants to convince the believer that God doesn't love
him, that God will cast him away, that God won't forgive
him, that God won't answer his prayers, that God isn't
faithful, that God's promises aren't true, that it's not
possible, please God and live the Christian life.
That God is unreasonable, that he's a bully, that God just
wants to give us trouble. All right, all of those things
and, and, and maybe you haven't dealt with all of them that but
but chances are you've had at least one of them come along.
God doesn't really want to answer my prayers.
God doesn't really care about me.
He doesn't really see me right. I mean, those are those are
fiery darts of unbelief. John Bunyan in his
autobiography, he was the author of the Pilgrims progress.
He described his terrible battle with the devil's darts of
unbelief when he was a young Christian.
See, the devil also attacks God's word, just as he did with
Eve in the Garden of Eden. And I remember Pastor Andy
Almanza sharing his testimony. And I mean, I grew up with him.
I didn't know that he was dealing with this, but he
happened to read an article, I think in Time magazine.
That was, it was really a, it was an article about evolution.
And basically what it was, was, was extolling the, the virtues
of evolution and calling into question whether or not God
really created everything. Is it really possible for God to
have created everything? And basically saying it's much
more likely that evolution is true.
Well, here's a, here's a kid that grew up in church that that
was one of the good kids and always was.
And, you know, always seemed like he had really good
Christian character. Nobody ever would have thought
that Pastor Andy. I mean, he wasn't a pastor then,
but that Andy Almanza would be doubting whether or not God even
created the world, you know? But he said he read that article
and it really shook him. And he said for a long time, for
probably a year, he struggled with that is, is, is there
anything to this whole Christianity thing?
Or is this just all something that's designed to get us all,
you know, going in the same direction or get us all
believing something And, you know, and it's not really
anything to it. And he and he struggled with it
for so long. And he finally came down to, and
he said, all right, God, you've got to show yourself to me,
reveal yourself to me. If you're real, reveal yourself
through your word. And he started reading the
Bible. And the next thing you know, he
was very convinced that what he had, what he had been reading in
God's word all along, what he had been taught all along was
actually the truth. And that this was just basically
a fiery dart of unbelief that was thrown at him.
But you know, a lot of times what happens is just, it's just
a little tiny seed that's planted from something that you
read or something that you see or something that that you hear.
And that little seed starts to grow and grow and grow and grow
and grow. And then something happens in
your life that really makes you question, does God really even
care about me? Is this even real?
Right. But again, that's why that's why
the Bible says study to show thyself approved unto God, a
Workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the
word of truth. You need to know what you
believe and why you believe it, because what happens when the
devil comes along and he'll use people to do it too?
You end up at work and this guy is saying, oh, why is this even?
You know, how do you know that that's true or why do you
believe this or why do you do that?
And you don't know because you haven't studied God's word for
yourself. It can shake your faith, right?
It's the same exact thing that we're trying to do to other
people who are believing in things that are not in the word
of God, right? And it's just simple questions.
Hey, why do you think this is the case?
You know, people who have believed in evolution their
entire life or have always been taught that evolution is true,
it doesn't take much to shake their faith in it because they
don't even know why they believe it.
They've just, that's just what they've always been taught,
right? And the same thing is true with
somebody who is not grounded in God's Word.
If you're not studying God's Word, if you're not memorizing
God's Word, if you're not taking the time to really read it,
you're not going to be able to stand against the fiery darts of
the wicked. And that's exactly why it's
important for us to do that. You have to know what the Bible
says. You have to know what you
believe because the devil is going to come at you with these
these darts of unbelief. And it's that shield of faith
that is going to protect us from the devil's fiery darts.
The second thing, so it not only does the devil attack our faith
with darts of unbelief, but the devil attacks with fiery darts
of temptation. And again, we could, we could
spend a long time talking about this.
He gives 2 passages here, and you don't have to turn there
unless you want to. But in First Chronicles chapter
21 and verse #1 the Bible says very plainly that Satan provoked
David to number the people of Israel.
And obviously you see what happened as a result of that.
But it was Satan that provoked David to do that, and the Bible
names him. It doesn't say that David just
woke up 1 morning and decided against God's will that he was
going to number the people. The Bible says Satan provoked
him to do that. Acts chapter 5.
Does anybody know what Acts chapter 5 is about?
The story that we find there at the beginning of Acts chapter 5,
Ananias and Sapphira, That's right, right.
And, and in verse #3 Acts chapter 5 and verse #3 the Bible
says that Satan filled Ananias, his heart to lie to the Holy
Ghost, right? Satan did that.
It was a fiery dart that Satan threw at Ananias.
And he didn't have that shield of faith up.
And it hit him and he fell. He fell to it.
And the lie, he lied to the Holy Ghost.
And you see what happened to him, It caused his death, right?
So the devil is going to attack with fiery darts of temptation.
The devil attacks with fiery darts of suspicion.
In fact, let's turn over to 2nd Corinthians chapter 2.
Second Corinthians chapter 2. But he uses suspicion and
slander to get us to think badly toward other people, even toward
our own loving relatives and closest friends and most
esteemed church leaders. We must remember that Satan is
the accuser of the brethren. By the way, that's what the
Bible calls him, and that's why it's in quotation marks there in
Revelation chapter 12, the accuser of the brethren.
But it's actually a really good verse because Revelation chapter
12 is saying that the accuser of the brethren is cast down.
That's the, that's the whole, the whole phrase that's being
used there in Revelation chapter 12.
But he is the accuser of the brethren.
He's going to come to God and he's going to accuse us to God.
But the way a victory is to test suspicion with truth.
Don't believe something without evidence that it is true,
whether that thing is your own thought or something you hear or
read. We also get victory over the
devil's fiery darts of suspicion by keeping our hearts tender and
merciful toward others. Second Corinthians chapter 2 and
verse #10 to whom you forgive anything I forgive also for if I
forgave anything, to whom I forgave it for your sakes,
forgave I it in the person of Christ, lest Satan should get an
advantage of us, for we are not ignorant of his devices.
Now we, we pulled verse 11 out a lot and we use that lest Satan
should get an advantage of it. Well, what is he talking about?
If you look at it in the context, what's he talking
about? Slandering somebody else, right,
and not forgiving other people. Satan gets an advantage in that
way. So it's it makes perfect sense
to say that the devil attacks with fiery darts of suspicion.
Faith only comes by God's word. What is Romans 10/17?
So then faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the word of God,
right? That's why the believer must
have an intimate relationship with the Bible.
Reading, studying, hearing, memorizing, meditating, all of
those things are so important. The better you know the Bible,
the better you can fight the devil's darts of unbelief.
That's how Jesus overcame the devil.
What do we find in Luke chapter 4?
The temptation of Jesus, right. How many times?
Three times. Jesus said what it is written.
It is written well. What does that mean?
He knew the Bible. He knew what the Bible said, and
he quoted from the Old Testament.
It is written, man shall not live by bread alone.
It is written right. He said it three different
times. And so the more you know the
Bible, the easier it is in the and the better equipped you are
to stand against the fiery darts of the devil.
So not only is it a shield of faith, and it sounds redundant
to say that, but it's important to note it is a shield of faith.
You have to use that faith as a shield.
But #2 it's a powerful shield. The shield of faith can quench
all of the devil's fiery darts. Isn't that what the Bible says
in Ephesians chapter 6? Above all, taking the shield of
faith, wherewith you shall be able to quench all the fiery
darts of the wicked. It's powerful because it stands
on God's infallible Word. Romans 10/17 So then faith
cometh by hearing and hearing by the word of God, right?
It's a powerful shield. But then this is a very is a
very good point. The shield must be used.
What does it say in verse 16? Above all, taking the shield of
faith, right? It must be taken.
We're not supposed to be standing still and hiding.
We're to move out into the devil's territory and do hand to
hand combat with his minions and win victories for Christ.
That's what it means when it says taking the shield of faith,
right? It gives the the idea of picking
it up and going out to battle with it, right?
And that's that's what we're doing with the shield of faith.
We're going out, we're fighting, so it has to be used.
Then we come to verse #17 the Bible says in Ephesians chapter
6 and verse #17 and take the helmet of salvation, the helmet
of salvation. The helmet is is most important
because it protects the head or the mind.
Professional snipers are trained to shoot for the head because
it's the most effective point of attack, right?
You shoot somebody in the head, they're not probably going to
live very long after that, right?
You can get shot in the leg or the arm or, or a lot of other
places and still live, right, Get shot in the head, probably
not making it very, very far after that.
I mean, it's a possibility, I suppose, but it's a very, very
vulnerable place. And so the, the helmet of
salvation, the helmet is the believers know.
So salvation and the devil's fiercest attack is aimed at that
point. He wants to make us doubt our
salvation. God doesn't love you.
You're not secure in Christ. You're worthless.
God might cast you away if you're not careful.
God is tired of your sinning. The teaching that the born again
believer can lose his salvation weakens the helmet.
To put on his helmet properly, the believer must understand his
salvation. He must understand the great
price that was paid to assure that his salvation is full and
free. He must understand that his
salvation is a gift that is by God's grace.
He must understand what it means to be born again and must be
sure that he is. The better the believer
understands grace, faith, gift, justification, propitiation,
redemption, reconciliation, hope, the stronger is his
helmet. That's why we have dealt with
these things in this course and that's why I'm moving through
this pretty quickly because we have, we spent a long time
talking about eternal security, the fact that once you're saved,
you're always saved and you can know for sure that you're saved,
right? I had a conversation with
somebody just yesterday and I was, I was sharing the Gospel
with him and I said, you know a lot of people because he was, he
was coming from kind of a Catholic background.
I said, a lot of Catholics, when you ask them if they know for
sure if they're saved or not, they're going to say, well, I
hope so. Are you going to heaven?
Well, well, maybe I might, but they don't know until they get
to heaven and they stand before God and God judges them one way
or another. But the Bible very plainly says
in first John chapter 5 and verse 13 that ye may know that
you have eternal life. So if we know, if we can know
that we have eternal life, then obviously there's a way to get
there, right? And there is a plan of
salvation. And the Bible makes it very
clear what that is. And so you do again, you do what
God says about how to be saved, and you don't ever have to doubt
whether or not you're saved. And that's why that helmet of
salvation is such a such a vital part.
If the devil can come at you and make you doubt whether or not
you're saved, make you think that while I'm not worthy enough
to to be a Christian or I'm not worthy enough to go to heaven,
then he's going to you're going to be ineffective to fight
anything that the devil is going to bring against you, right?
Because if you don't even know if you're saved, then then how
can you stand against the fiery darts when he comes at you with
this doubt or that doubt? Or how can you, you know, how
can you share the gospel with somebody else if you don't even
know for sure if you're saved yourself, right?
I mean, if, if you don't have that helmet of salvation or you
don't have that nailed down and you're not wearing that, when
you go out into battle against the devil, he's going to get you
in a lot of other ways too. So it's a very, very important
piece of the armor. And then in the second-half of
that verse, he says, and the sword of the Spirit, which is
the word of God. Turn over to Hebrews chapter 4.
Maybe you know this verse, maybe you don't.
Does anybody know it off the top of their head?
Hebrews chapter 4 and verse #12 sharper than any 2 edged sword,
piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit and
of the joints in Morrow and is a discerner of the thoughts and
intents of the heart, right? The word of God is quick and
powerful and sharp. That's, that's the word of God,
that's the sword of the spirit. And it's, it's, it's obviously
it's referred to that here in Ephesians chapter 6, the spirit,
the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God, right?
We, we, we read that there, but then we also read it there in
Hebrews Charter 4. But the sword is an offensive
weapon, right? You're not using your sword to
defend, right? You're using the sword to
attack. That's exactly what the Bible
is. This again reminds us that we
are to move forward against the enemy, rather than merely
standing still and remaining in a defensive posture.
So the sword must be sharp. The Spirit of God gave a
perfectly sharp sword in the Masoretic Hebrew Old Testament
and the received Greek New Testament.
Now our King James Bible is translated from those two texts
the Masoretic Hebrew Old Testament the Mazzarites.
OK, and this is I don't I don't have time to get into a very
deep discussion about the word of God and our translation of
the Bible. But the Mazzarites were a group
of Jews whose responsibility it was to make sure that the, the
original transcripts, if you will, the original copies of
God's Word were preserved. And so the Masoretic Text was
the text that that everybody used to base their copies on.
OK, we didn't have, we didn't have a computer where you could
print it out, make sure it's right, and then print as many
copies of it as you wanted, right?
You didn't have a printing press until the 1400s with Johann
Gutenberg. And that's one of the first
things that they started printing was, was copies of the
Bible, right? But all the way back then, they
didn't have that. And So what you had was faithful
scribes who would, who would take the the Masoretic text and
make a copy from that. And then they would take it back
to wherever they came from. And then they would use the copy
that they had to ensure that they were giving faithful copies
of the text. And then every so often they
would take one of those copies of copies of copies and bring it
back to the matter Masoretic text and make sure that they
hadn't made mistakes that were that we're giving them a corrupt
translation of God's word, right?
So when we talk about the Masoretic Hebrew Old Testament,
it is the preserved word of God, right in Hebrew.
But we have that translation and that's what the King James Bible
Bible translators use to make their translation of God's word.
And then of course, the received New Testament.
So we must have the sharpest possible translation in our
various tongues. A weak translation of the Bible
is a sword, but it's dull and it's not as powerful and as
effective as it should be, right?
And in the English language, the sharpest sword in is the King
James Bible, which is translated from the right Hebrew and Greek
text, and which is translated literally and carefully and
beautifully. Now, I'll say this as well.
It's just as important to use a translation that is faithful to
the original text in other languages as well.
Now for us, we, I don't know if there's anybody that speaks
well, I guess there's a few that speak other languages that could
read a different copy of the Bible and know if the Bible in
that language was faithful to the King James or not.
I'll be honest with you. Like what Brother Nitin does
there in Marathi, they have the Marathi language and what he
does is he knows English, so he reads it in the Marathi language
because that's all they have as far as the Bible.
And then he interprets it or, or maybe I should say exposits it.
He gives the expository explanation of that passage
based on what he knows from the King James Bible.
And they're using the best translation that is available to
them today. There's not very many
translations, period, but they're using the best 1.
And I think that's, you know, especially, especially for some
of these languages who maybe had one person who did the best that
they could to translate the Bible, you know, God's Word into
that, that native language. And they're still, I mean,
they're still, they're still hundreds and hundreds of
languages out there that don't even have any portion of, of
God's Word. And so there are some people,
some missionaries who go to these fields and they're, and
they're burdened so much by the fact that these people don't
have God's word, that they just do the best that they can.
And they're not going back to Hebrew and Greek because they
don't know Hebrew and Greek. They're going to the King James.
They're translating it from the, from the English version into
this language. And sometimes mistakes are made
in the process. They're getting the best thing
that they have. But then when you have a group
that can actually go back and, and faithfully translate it
really from Hebrew, Greek and the King James, it gives you the
best translation. So in Spanish is a great example
of that. There's a nineteen O 9 version
of Spanish. There's a 1960 version of
Spanish. And by the way, the 1960 version
of the Spanish Bible is very similar to our NIV.
It's not a faithful translation. It's got a lot of errors in it.
The nineteen O 9 is closer to the King James Bible.
But there's a guy by the name of Umberto Gomez that just, I say
just, I think he finished his translation in 2008, but he,
it's called the RVG, the Reyna Valera Gomez think it was
finished in 2008 somewhere right around there.
But he, he translated that using the Hebrew Masoretic text, using
the received Greek text and using the King James Version of
the Bible. And there was a lot of Spanish
language speakers, I guess you could say, who were faithful to
the King James version of the Bible that actually used that
and, and collaborated with, he collaborated with a lot of
people. He had, he had a lot of
different people that were looking at these translations
with him, looking at his translation with him and, and
every suggestion that they made, he went back and he was, he was
very faithful to the text. Exactly the same way that the
King James Bible translators translated our Bible into
English. But it's a very definitive
translation. It, it, it keeps the, the beauty
of the Spanish language and it keeps the beauty of the King
James Bible at the same time. And by the way, so many people,
in fact, Dean Bergan with the, it's the Dean Bergan Society.
Dean, Dean Bergan has been dead for a long time.
But DA wait, who was a very, very staunch defender of the
King James Bible, his group Bible for today highly, highly
recommends the the RVG chick publications that you know all
the all the chick tracks that they have in Spanish.
They have been going back and redoing all of theirs and using
the, the, the RVG in their Spanish translations of the
chick track, the chick publications.
So a lot of people that really highly respect this and feel
that it's very faithful to the originals.
And I think it's just as important.
You know, I mean, obviously most of us, in fact, really none of
us speak Spanish. I don't think there's anybody in
here that really speaks Spanish other than, you know, close.
You know, I know some Spanish and I can, I can listen to a
conversation and kind of tell what's going on, but I can't
read the Spanish version of the Bible and say this is wrong.
You know, so I have to, I have to do my research and, and get
to the bottom of, you know, how to figure out the best way
possible. I want something as going to be
as faithful to the originals as possible.
And this one is a very, very good translation.
So if we ever end up doing something like that, that's what
we're going to go with. In fact, I, I bought a copy of
the RVG so that I would have it in the Spanish language if it
ever, you know, if we ever needed it for some reason, I
could share that with somebody and, and give them that.
But you know, yes, it's newer, but it's a lot more faithful to
the original Greek and Hebrew and to the King James Version of
the Bible. So it's important that we have a
Bible that is translated from the right Hebrew and Greek text.
By the way, again, I don't, I don't want to take a long time
to go back and, and talk about why the other versions of the
Bible are not faithful to the originals.
But when you go back to the, the NIV, the ESV, the NASV, and
really every other alphabet soup of translation, I mean, there's
so many of them out there now and they're coming up with new
ones every month it seems like that they're putting out.
But almost all of them, almost all of them, maybe with the
exception of like the new King James, even though that was,
that was not 100% done from the same text that the King James
Bible was translated from. It's a little bit closer to the
originals, but a lot of those other ones are translated from
the Westcott and Hort text. And you've probably heard that
before. Well, Bishop Wescott and Bishop
Hort, they were two guys who were, I mean, they lived in the
1800s and they, they came to the conclusion that the, that the
text that they were using were good translations because they
were the oldest translations. And now that even that has been
called into question by quite a few different people, whether
they were actually the oldest or not.
But oldest doesn't always mean best, right?
Something that gets used all the time breaks down quicker than
something that just sits on a shelf and never gets used.
Right. So they found these manuscripts
in an, in a monastery. In fact, they've, they've found
a bunch of them were actually found in the trash pile.
They would, they would, you know, they would go through and
clean things out and they would burn, you know, use paper to
burn the wood. I mean, back in the 1800s, they
didn't have heat, so they would use obviously they had
fireplaces and everything else. And these guys were visiting
this monastery, and they actually found these old
manuscripts in the pile that was set to be burned or thrown out.
And they started reading through them and they said, wow, this is
an older translation. This is an older version of what
we have now. So these obviously have to be a
better translation. And so they took it and they
started using it. The reason it was in the trash
is because they didn't even consider them to be faithful
enough translations or faithful enough copies of the original
translation to even keep. And now these guys take it and
they say, wow, these are older. And so they start translating
from it. But what you have to understand
about Wescott and Horde is that both of these guys were very,
very, very strong Bible critics. They had gotten their education
from Germany, which in the 1800s, late 1800s especially,
but even into the early 1900s, it was called, it was, it was
what's known as higher criticism.
And a lot of it was coming out of Germany.
But these, these educational institutions that that were
supposedly Christian education institutions were very, very
highly questioning the Bible and questioning the miracles in the
Bible and questioning whether the characters in the Bible were
even real people, you know, David.
And and that was one of them. I mean, of all people, the
question David is just a figment of your imagination.
And we don't see not a figment of your imagination, but just
say a like a like a fairy tale type figure.
We don't see anything in the, in the archaeological record that
there ever was a David that existed.
And so this is just stories that were made-up and Noah's ark.
Everybody has a story about Noah's ark in their culture.
And so these are just made-up stories.
And, and these are the guys Westcott Horton and, and
hundreds of others that were, that were all part of this at
the same time that were questioning whether or not the
Bible is even real literature or if it was or not literature, but
real, you know, real words from God or if it was just literature
that was written to be entertaining and so on, right.
So these guys find this and they're the ones that are
translating these, these, you know, these versions of the
Bible, if you will, And that's where a lot of those versions
got their start. And so you have either the
Textus Receptus, which is the received text that it's
translated from, which is what our King James Bible comes from,
or you have the Westcott and Hort text, which is what all of
these modern translations are coming from.
So you can dig into it a lot deeper.
In fact, I believe that the book that that we've been
recommending for the last couple months has has a good bit of
that information in it. And and that's one of the
reasons why I like that book so well is because it's pure words
is the name of the book. But it's why I like it so well
is because it explains a lot of those things.
You start getting into this stuff, it gets really, really
deep and and it starts getting way above your head and you have
to really be concentrating on what you're reading to try to
understand what you they're talking about and everything
else. This is written in a very easy
to understand way that will explain a lot of those things
for you and help you to understand.
This is why we use the King James Version of the Bible.
It's not just a preferred version.
It's not just we like the way it's worded better or we've had
this for a long time. So we're, we're keeping it, you
know, no, it is translated from the, the, the original
manuscripts that were faithful to what was written from the
very, very beginning. And many of them are the oldest.
Not all of them are. And so because of that, you
know, some have gone back and said, well, these are the
oldest, so they're better. Not always the case.
In fact, it's not the case. But anyway, so all that to say
that the sword must be sharp. And when you're using a version
of the Bible, can somebody get saved from a version of the
Bible other than the King James Version of the Bible?
Well, probably, right, because it still has God's word in it.
It's just not a sharp sword. And when you try to fight with a
dull sword, you're still going to do some damage, but you're
not going to you're not going to slay the enemy.
And, you know, a lot of these versions have Bible verses that
are missing. They have passages that are
completely taken out. You know, and some of it says,
well, the, you know, a lot of them have notes in there that
say, well, the, the most reliable manuscripts take this
portion of the Scripture out. You know, even if they do decide
to put it in there, but, you know, go to one of these new
versions and and look at Mark chapter 16.
The whole second-half of that chapter is gone.
It's just not even there. All the original manuscripts
don't include this, right? I mean Romans chapter 8 where it
talks about the Ethiopian eunuch and you know, he says see here's
water. What doth hindered me from being
baptized? Verse 37 says if thou believe
this with all thine heart, thou mayest.
And he said, I believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of
God. I'm paraphrasing.
And so they went down into the water, the two of them, and he
baptized him. That whole verse is missing.
It's gone. It's not even in those modern
versions. And there's a lot of other
verses that are missing too. First John 513, first John, what
is it, 51757? There you go.
And these that there are three that bear witness in heaven, the
Father, the Word and the Holy Ghost.
And these three are one that verse is gone.
It's missing. That's about the clearest verse
you can get for the Trinity, God the Father, God the Son, God,
the Holy Spirit. And these three are one.
You know that that you can, you can combat basically the entire
Mormon doctrine with that one verse because they don't believe
that God and Jesus and the Holy Spirit are one.
They believe that they're, they're distinct deities.
They believe that they're all deities who have made it to
godhood. One verse is enough.
If you have a sharp sword, you can stab a hole right through
the middle of that argument. The Father, the Son and the Holy
Ghost and these three are one. How do you deny that, right?
But if you don't even have it in your Bible, you're using a dull
sword. And you can't use that as as
something that's going to poke a hole in a Mormon argument,
right? So a lot of other things that we
can say about it, but #3 and this is important, then the
sword must be skillfully used. Can you imagine trying to go out
against a trained sword fighter if you don't know how to use the
sword? You'd be cut to pieces.
And again, that's, that's what happens with many, many people,
right? And then go out knocking on
doors. And I'm going to, I'm going to
tell somebody who, that what they believe is wrong and what I
believe is right from God's word.
And they start cutting you up to pieces and you have no way to
answer their argument because you don't know what God's word
says about this and that and the other thing, right?
So we must learn how to use the word of God skillfully.
Second Timothy chapter 2 and verse 15.
Study to show thyself approved unto God, a Workman that needeth
not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth,
right? Hebrews chapter 5 and verse 12
through 14, same thing. But we must remember that the
sword belongs to the Holy Spirit.
It's the Spirit who enables us to interpret the Scripture.
All right. If we study the Bible in our own
ability, we will not interpret it correctly.
We must study the Bible in fellowship with the Spirit and
trust Him to lead us and He will, right?
And, and, and, and I can't remember exactly where the
passage is, but the Bible says, don't think about what you're
going to say before you get out there, right?
You go out there and you do it. You're faithful to what God?
If you study God's word and you know God's word and you have his
word memorized, I'll be honest with you.
I've had it happen 1000 times when somebody asked me a
question and initially I kind of panic a little bit because I'm
like, oh man, how do you answer this?
And you start to answer the question and God just brings one
verse after another to your mind.
It's, it's the Holy Spirit that's doing that.
But he's not going to bring it to your mind if you don't know
it, right? He's not going to bring it to
your mind if you've never studied it.
He's not going to bring it to your mind if you've never read
that passage before, right? So you have to be able to
skillfully handle God's word. And how do you do that?
Only by using it, right? Only by practicing with it.
That's how you get good with a sword.
And then I don't want to take a long time on this because we've
already spent a whole lesson. I think we think we split it
into two lessons. But praying Ephesians chapter 6,
back there in verse #18 praying always with all prayer and
supplication in the Spirit, and watching thereunto with all
perseverance and supplication for All Saints.
And for me that utterance may be given unto me, that I might open
my mouth boldly to make known the mystery of the Gospel for
which I am an ambassador in bonds, that therein I may speak
boldly as I ought to speak. And again, some great verses
that that just remind us of the necessity for us to get out
there and share the message of the gospel with everybody that
we can, but praying always with all prayer and supplication.
So prayer is an important part of our spiritual armor.
It's the covering protection. So we must pray always.
That means to pray throughout the day, right?
And the Bible says in First Thessalonians, pray without
ceasing. What does that mean?
It means everything we do all the way throughout the day.
We ought to be having a constant conversation with God, right?
We ought to be in constant contact with him.
Everything that comes up, God brings somebody to your mind,
you pray for him. You, you go into a situation
where somebody's asking you a question and you're asking God
for wisdom. It's just, it's just a constant
conversation with God. And really that ought not to be
something that's hard for us to do.
It really shouldn't. And I suppose maybe if you're
not in the habit of doing it, you, you, you got to have music
playing constantly or you got to be listening to something
constantly and you know, every, every dead second is filled with
some kind of noise. Then maybe you're not going to
be in the, in the habit of doing that and you're not going to
pray often. But, and everything we do ought
to be done with prayer. We must pray in the Spirit.
That means to be under the Spirit's control, to follow his
guidance, not to not grieve him. The Bible says in John that the
Holy Spirit will tell us what to, what to pray for.
We know not what to pray for as we all, but the Spirit itself
maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be
uttered. That's the Holy Spirit, That's,
that's, that's praying in under the Holy Spirit's control,
praying for things that that that he is pleased with.
When we pray right? That's why we pray in Jesus
name. We say that often.
I and I pray all these things in Jesus name.
What is it? Why do we pray in Jesus name?
It's because I'm going to to to Jesus, I'm going to God in that
way. And all of these things, I'm
praying in the name of Jesus Christ because I believe all of
these things are things that he can take to the Father on my
behalf, right? He is a mediator.
There's 111 mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus,
right. So we pray to and, and, and
Jesus takes those things to God the Father on our behalf.
And we pray those things in Jesus name because those are
things that he can take to the father.
Well, if you're praying for things that you ought not to be
praying for or praying, you know, outside of the will of
God, those are not. That's not praying in the spirit
#3 we must pray with watching an intercession for others.
It's an important part of spiritual protection for
ourselves and for others. We must pray perseveringly
without growing faint and quitting.
That's one of the most important principles of effective prayer.
And #5 we must pray with plain requests.
Intercessory prayer is asking for specific things, right?
Well, if I pray specifically and God doesn't answer it, then I'm
going to know that God didn't answer my prayer, right?
Pray specifically, ask God for specific things, praying always
with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit and watching
thereunto with all perseverance and supplication for All Saints,
right? That's that's the distinguishing
things in prayer. What's prayer and supplication?
He's not saying pray with all prayer and prayer, right?
So there's a difference between prayer and supplication in the
Spirit watching thereunto with all perseverance and
supplication for All Saints. There's and again, I don't have
time to go into a lot of those things tonight.
We've already talked about some of those things.
But you know, it's it's it's an important part of our armor or
he wouldn't have mentioned it there right.
Praying always with all prayer and supplication in the spirit.
So the armor of God, something very, very important for us to
understand if we are going to fight against the devil, right?
And so many Christians just run out there and like Samson,
right? They just think that this is
what I've always done, so I'm going to do it again and
everything's going to be fine. And the devil just chews you up
and spits you out and you wonder what happened, right?
Because you're not, you don't have the armor of God.
Put on the whole armor of God. He says in verse #11 that you
may be able to stand against the Wiles of the devil.
So what happens when you you run out there and you've got the
feet shod with the preparation of the gospel peace, and you got
the, the breastplate of righteousness and the helmet of
salvation and, and the sword of the Spirit, and you run out
there with no sword, right? I mean, maybe you can protect
yourself from getting attacked, but you're not going to do much
on the offensive side of things, right?
Why are you even out there? If you don't have the sword of
the Spirit and using those, the word of God, then what's the
point? Or you have those other things,
but you don't have your head protected or you're not, you're
not wearing a shield or you have no breastplate of righteousness,
right? I mean, that's why the Bible
says put on the whole armor of God that you may be able to
stand against the Wiles of the devil.
Because we don't wrestle against flesh and blood.
We wrestle against principalities, against powers,
against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against
spiritual wickedness in high places.
He says it again, Wherefore take unto you the whole armor of God
that you may be able to withstand in the evil day and
having done all the stand think it's important to have the whole
armor of God said it twice in three verses, right.
Put on the whole armor of God. Hopefully that's a little bit
more, you know, a little bit of an explanation of what those
things are. But we'll move into the next
lesson next week. But we'll probably do some
questions over these next week too.
By the way, I'm going to take the you know, I didn't do the
questions off of the first part because it was only a small
section of it. But we'll do we'll do some
questions next week over all of that, and then we'll move on to
talking about the church next week.
All right, let's pray. Father, again, we thank you so
much for your goodness to us. Thank you for an opportunity we
have to discuss the the importance of the armor of God.
May you help us all to have the armor on.
May you help us all to use it in a way that's skillful.
May you help us to to know how to handle the sword of the
Spirit, which is the word of God.
And may you help us to be on the offensive against this this this
dark and wicked world. And may you help us to win
victories in the name of Jesus Christ.
Thank you again for all you do for us in Jesus name, Amen.