General Wainwright was captured by the Japanese during World War II. He, along with scores of Americans and Allies, were put in prison camps. When Japan surrendered at the close of the war, the news was forwarded to the Japanese commandant where the general was held prisoner. The commandant, however, did not inform the prisoners, but continued to hold them captive and treat them with ill will and horrendous abuse.
One day, a small aircraft landed at the prison compound and informed the prisoners of Japanese surrender and that all of the prisoners were free now. General Wainwright walked into the commandant’s office and said, “My commander in chief has defeated your commander in chief and I am in charge now.” Hallelujah!
Dear Church, our commander in chief, the Lord Jesus Christ, has defeated their commander in chief, satan, and the church is now in charge. 1 John 3:8 says, “For this purpose the son of God was manifested, that He might destroy the works of the devil”.
Now, if the works of the devil are destroyed, how can he and demons do so much damage? Because destroyed does not mean annihilated, but rather rendered inoperative and ineffective. As long as a person is saved and following our Lord Jesus, the devil can’t have any effect on him or her; he can only throw glancing blows. It is when we sin in the old nature and stay there a while that satan is able to do us harm. The flesh (sin nature) is at enmity (hostile) with God. We must judge our sins, take God’s side against them by agreeing with Him that the act we committed or omitted is sin (1 John 1:9). Thus, a Christian by repentance and faith through the cross and the blood of our Lord Jesus is filled again with the Holy Spirit. At any given time, a Christian is either in the Spirit or in the flesh. We are to walk in the Spirit and thus not fulfill the lust of the flesh.
Yes, the Lord Jesus put satan and all of his demons (fallen angels) to an open show publicly on the cross. He defanged the devil, so to speak. But think of this: If a child runs away from home, the devil will destroy their life. As long as they are under dad or mom’s roof, they are provided for and protected. If they run away from home, however, they are on their own. The prodigal son is a good illustration of this principle. Through still a son, he had to go all the way to the pig pen to come to his senses. Then he arose and went back to his father, a son all the while, but no fellowship and no provision or protection. Oh, how the Christian needs to stay under our Lord Jesus and not run away from our Heavenly Father, which the prodigal son did, and almost lost his life. He did lose his fellowship with his father, but not his relationship. His father saw him coming from a long way off. He was looking for him, because he knew he would return. Have you run away from your Heavenly Father, and are you now living an independent, self willed life? Come to your senses, dear friend, repent and confess your sins through the cross and the blood of our Lord Jesus and come running back to God before the devil destroys your life and the lives of those you are influencing.
Perhaps you have never been saved. God is not your Father in heaven because you have never repented and received Jesus Christ as your Savior. There are only two things that you need to know in order to be born into God’s family. The first thing is that you are a guilty sinner, just like I was, lost and headed for a Christ-less hell. The Lord Jesus teaches us that the devil is our spiritual father when we are lost, without God and without hope (John 8:44). In the Word of God, the Bible, we read in Romans 3:19 that the law, the Ten Commandments, shows us that we are guilty sinners. Have you ever disobeyed your parents like me and every other human being that ever has lived, other than the Lord Jesus Christ? Have you ever lied? Have you ever hated anyone or have you ever looked on a woman with lust in your heart? These Ten Commandments are the schoolmaster that shows us we are guilty and brings us to Jesus Christ.
When you see that you are a guilty sinner, then you need to know that Jesus Christ, the virgin born Son of God, God in human flesh who never sinned, died for your sins on the cross, was buried dead and raised from the dead, the first born of a new creation.
Now, there are only two things to do. Repent to God. Change your mind. You are going away from God. Turn to Him and receive Jesus Christ as your Savior. This is explained fully on my website under “How To Go To Heaven.” When you receive the Lord Jesus as your Savior, you are really born again into God’s family and then God is your Heavenly Father.
The Spirit filled life for a Christian is commanded in Ephesians 5:18 and described in the verses following. Be being filled with the Holy Spirit as you sing Psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs. Give thanks in everything and for everything; submit yourselves one to another, wives to husbands and husbands loving wives as the Lord Jesus loved the Church and gave Himself for it. And then in Chapter 6, “Children, obey your parents; father, provoke not your children to wrath; work on the job under your boss, and boss, remember that you have a master also.” (See my booklet “The Spirit Filled Life”.)
Now, since you are being filled with the Holy Spirit, warfare is inevitable. In Chapter 6, verse 10, the Holy Spirit says, “Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord and in the power of his might.” Notice that God does not say be strong in your own power. Why? One reason is because the war we are in is not a natural war; it is a supernatural war, and we are only natural beings. We have three enemies: the world system, the flesh, and the devil. The devil works through the world system and the flesh, which is our old sin nature. The world system has humanism as its religion and evolution as its doctrine or teaching. There are no absolutes, and since we came from a dead glob of ooze, man is his own god. All of this is satan inspired and he is able to work through those who say, “There is no God.” What they are actually saying is, “No, God, you can’t have my life.” If you are one of those people, know this, God loves you so much that He nailed His only begotten Son to the cross for you. Your sins, which you do not believe that you have, are paid for. You can be saved, forgiven, and cleansed by the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. Again, check my website and click on “How to Go to Heaven.” God will speak to your heart and draw you to Himself through the Lord Jesus Christ.
And so, this is a battle against a supernatural enemy, and the Lord Jesus Christ lives within you, dear Christian, to fight that battle through you. Our fith is in Him and His strength. The Bible principle is when I am weak, then I am strong. The reason is that none other than the Lord Jesus Christ is our strength.
We are in a war and so we are to put on armor. God says the same thing in many different ways in His Word, the Bible. For example, put on the Lord Jesus Christ. You shall receive power after that. The Holy Spirit (the Spirit of Christ) has come upon you. You will see in this passage of scripture that the armor is the Lord Jesus Christ, and He is described in the next verses. We are to be clothed in God that we may be able to stand against the “wiles” or methods of the devil.
Remember that our enemy the devil and the fallen angels are very well organized. They know you and me very well. They have known us since we were born. These demons have been around during the past six thousand years. Lucifer was an angel of light, and I believe he was the choir leader of heaven. I believe that he led all of the angelic host to worship and praise God, and in particular to praise the Word of God, our Lord Jesus Christ ( John 1:1).
God created him a brilliant, beautiful, powerful being, and he began to look upon himself and forgot who created him (look at Ezekiel 28:12-19). In verse 13 you see that he was beautiful and musical. In verse 15 iniquity was found in him, and verse 16 he sinned. In verse 17 his beauty and his wisdom were corrupted.
This being, now satan, Beelzebub, that old serpent, the devil, has millions of demons (fallen angels), and they know how to set up methods (wiles) that will tempt you to get in the flesh (the old sin nature) and act natural and independent of the Lord God. They know how to get us to wrestle against flesh and blood, or human beings. If we fight the wrong enemy, we will get whipped every time. If we fight our wife, or husband, or children, or parents, or any other human being, we will be defeated. Why? Because the battle is not against flesh and blood. Who is it against? The battle is against very well organized fallen angels, demons, who have structure. They are principalities, powers, rulers of darkness of this world, spiritual wickedness in high places. This atmosphere is full of angels. Two-thirds are God’s angels, and one-third are fallen angels that the Bible calls demons or evil spirits. These beings never grow tired or weary because they are spirits. They scheme and plan to get you and your family into a position that they can destroy you.
The Lord Jesus says in John 10:10, “The thief came to steal, kill, and destroy. I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.” The Lord Jesus is that life and when He saves us through His cross and the blood that He shed, the more we know Him, the more of His life we experience. When He saves us, we literally are married with Him. Romans 7:4 tells us that we are dead to the law and married to Him that was raised from the dead, that we might bring forth fruit unto God, or that we might have spiritual babies. The Lord Jesus is the producer, and we are the bearers. He is the vine and we are the branches (John 15). When our love relationship grows and grows, we bear His fruit, which are spiritual children. We bring the lost to our Lord Jesus through His Word and the Holy Spirit. He saves them. They are born into God’s family, and the kingdom of God is advanced.
The devil can’t stop you from going to Heaven, because you are born into God’s family through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. His goal is to stop you from bringing others to the Lord Jesus, your family and your loved ones, your friends, and even your enemies. If satan can get you in the flesh acting natural to the degree that you are backsliding, he will be able to hide your gospel from those around you (2 Corinthians 4:3-4).
Remember, the angels and the fallen angels have known us since we were born. As we follow our Lord Jesus Christ, the holy angels minister to us. When we get in the flesh (the sin nature that is also in us), the fallen angels are able to trip us up. They know us well and they know how to set up situations (batttle plans) to get us to react with worry, fear, unbelief, pride, et cetera. we lose our temper and are harsh, rude, and negative to our loved ones. We claim our rights to a lost and dying world, and the devil hides our gospel from them.
A waitress told me one time that Sunday was her worst day of the week, because on Sundays the church people would come in. They would complain and be rude and unkind and negative, all dressed up in their best clothes, claiming their rights. Beloved, when the Lord Jesus saves us, He leaves us here for one primary reason, and that is to get others saved, not to make life nice and easy for ourselves.
I’ll say more about the schemes of these principalities and powers a little later on, but right now, let’s begin to look at the breakdown of the armor.
Taking On the Armor of God
We are to take on the whole armor of God that we may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand. Would anyone deny that we are living in an evil day? This evil comes from the evil one, satan. The killing of millions of babies by abortion; same sex marriages that are an abomination to Holy God who created man and woman and put them together and said be fruitful and multiply. Same sex can’t reproduce, they can only recruit, and the ones they go after are the children. Their behavior is demon empowered, as was Sodom and Gomorrah, and only the Lord Jesus Christ can deliver them and set them free. Thank the Lord God He can and will do it, when one turns to Him for mercy and receives the Lord Jesus as their Savior.
If you are caught up in this demonic lifestyle, turn to God. Admit you are a sinner and receive the Lord Jesus Christ as your Savior. Call on Him right now by praying to Him. “God, I am a sinner. I have broken your law and I’m guilty. Lord Jesus, you died for me and you were raised from the dead. You said if I would ask you, you would save me. I ask you now. Come into my heart and save me Lord Jesus. Thank you for dying for me. Thank you for saving me. Teach me how to love you, trust you, and obey you in Jesus name, Amen.
Now ask God to lead you to a Bible believing, soul winning church, and share with the pastor that you have accepted the Lord Jesus.
You see, folks, we are not lost and separated from God because of our sins. We are separated from God because we are sinners. And “All have sinned and come short of the glory of God.” The adulterer, murderer, homosexual, or self righteous hypocrite is not lost because of what we do, but because of what we are; a sinner who has earned death and hell. we are not sinners because we sin; we sin because we are sinners. It has well been said that sin is my claim to my right to myself. The whole human race is lost and separated from God. “But God commendeth His love toward us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8).
The Belt of Truth
When we are saved by the grace of God through faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, we are to put on this armor, who is none other than the Lord Jesus, starting with our loins. We are to girt our loins with truth. Now, the Lord Jesus is truth. Anything that contradicts Him is a lie, and the devil is the father of all lies and liars. The Lord Jesus says, I am the way, the truth, and the life. He is the Word of God made flesh, and the Word of God is and always has been alive and powerful and sharper than a two-edged sword, and is able to divide the soul from the Spirit and to discern the intent of the heart. Hebrews 4:12
Dear friend, it doesn’t matter who says it, how great their credentials, how well known they are. If what they say doesn’t live up with the Word of God, the Lord Jesus Christ, it is a lie. The Lord Jesus is TRUTH.
The Breastplate of Righteousness
The next piece of armor covers our spiritual vital organs: the breastplate of righteousness. Remember that God says all our righteousness is as filthy rags before God. We do not have holy righteousness, which makes us right with God. The good news is that “Him who knew no sin was made to be sin so that we could have His righteousness.” The Lord Jesus never sinned, but on the cross, the Father of the Spirit put the sins of the whole world on the Lord Jesus so that He could put the righteousness of the Lord Jesus on us. God wills that all men everywhere be saved. (2 Timothy). Why then, isn’t everyone saved? Because one must receive the Lord Jesus, and those who reject Him as their Savior remain lost forever. Whosoever will may come. Whosoever won’t must sadly remain lost because the Lord Jesus is “the only name under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved.” Acts 4:12 And so beloved Christians have been made the righteousness of God in Christ. Put on the breastplate of righteousness.
Feet Fitted With Readiness
The next peict of armor is for our feet. Verse 15, “And your feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace.” Everywhere your feet go, make the Lord Jesus Christ known. The Holy Spirit is teaching us about the armor of God. Do you recall when the Lord Jesus washed the disciples feet and Peter declined? The Lord said to him that if he didn’t get his feet washed, then Peter had no part in Him. Peter then said, Lord, wash my whole body, but the Lord Jesus said all that was needed was to wash his feet. We get our feet dirty when we forget to put on our gospel shoes.
Think about it, dear saint, when we make Christ known in the power of the Holy Spirit, our feet stay clean and protected. We are on the offensive when we make the Lord Jesus known. When we confess Him, He confesses us to our Father in heaven (Matthew 10:32). when we confess Him, He confesses us to the holy angels (Luke 12:8,9). The Lord Jesus said, “If we are ashamed of Him in this adulterous generation that He will be ashamed of us when He comes to take us home” (Luke 9:21-26).
Now, dear saint,there are people we see in the course of the day that we can’t take an hour of their time to win them to Christ. They are to work unto their boss as if he were the Lord humself. We can, however, share a good salvation gospel tract with them. This is the Word of God, the seed of God, and we can plant it. Say something like this with kindness: “May I share a good word with you today?” The harvest is great (multitudes, multitudes in the valleyof decision), the laborers ore few. It is a white harvest, which means it is almos past ready. Let’s plant the seed of the Word of God everywhere, thus making Christ Jesus known. Ask your church to print some gospel tracts, and on the back page put your pastor, staff, time information, and a map to the building, along with phone numbers. The Word of God will not return void.
Be wise as serpents and harmless as doves in your witnessing or making Christ known to everyone. do not let anyone or anything stop you from wearing your gospel shoes and thus preparing the way for the Lord Jesus to save sinners. Realize that you have to die to yourself, your natural pride, fear of rejection, fear of folk saying you are a wierdo. The Apostle Paul went in fear and trembling and you will also. The moment you begin to speak, however, theHoly Spirit will join you in anointing (Acts 5:32). The word “witness” in Acts 1:8 is the word for martyr, and you will constantly be nailed to the cross so that you can die to self or let the Lord Jesus live through you. The flesh (old sin nature) is enmity against God or hostile to God. The last thing you naturally want to do is witness. As you die to self moment by moment and let the Lord Jesus use you, you will be greatly used of God.
Whenever possible, go two by two wherever you go. One puts a thousand, but two puts 10,000 to flight, and a three-fold cord is not easily broken. When we go alone, the Lord Jesus is in our heart through the Holy Spirit and He is upon us also. But when we go in pairs, He is in our midst. That is the three-fold cord: two saints and the Lord Jesus. All of God’s power is with you. Hallelujah!
You can find the plan of salvation with explanation at my website under “How to Go to Heaven” page. You can glean from this in making your gospel tract, and be sure to include the prayer of repentance and faith and the instructions of what to do next after they have prayed; i.e. attend church, be baptized, study the Word, pray, and witness to others.
The Shield of Faith
When you have your gospel shoes on, you will need the shield of faith, wherewith ye shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked one. Have you noticed thoughts coming to your mind from the outside? The mind is the battlefield in these battles with principalities, powers, rulers of darkness of the world, against spiritual wickedness in high places. These fiery darts will come in the form of accusations, because satan is the accuser. He is not an accuser, he is the accuser. And he accuses us to God; he accuses God to us; he accuses us to each other; and he accuses us personally. Any accusing thought comes from the devil’s domain.
The devil is the father of lies and liars. Any lie comes from the devil. (When we believe a lie, the enemy is able to set up a stronghold in our life that he can run in and out of at his will (2 Timothy 2:26). Recall how the devil tempted Eve with innuendoes like, “God didn’t really mean what He said.” The devil was accusing God to Adam and Eve. The Lord Jesus used the shield of faith when satan tempted Him. He answered with the Word of God, and thus threw up the shield of faith.
Where do we get this shield of faith from? “Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God.” (Romans 10:17) Beloved, we must feed on the Word of God daily. When the Holy Spirit speaks to your heart, memorize and begin to meditate on that Word. When the devil accuses someone to you, throw up the shield of faith. He is tempting you to be judgmental, critical, and condemning against that person. You may say to that thought, “Judge not lest ye be judged.” Then take that thought captive to the Lord Jesus, which means give it to Him (2 Corinthians 10:5). I used to think that you gave bad thoughts to the Lord, but no, you give every thought to Him. Realize that the devil can give you a good thought that will set you up for a fall. Give them all to the Lord Jesus, remembering that God speaks from the inside out and the devil speaks from the outside in. Yes, above all, above everything that the Holy Spirit is saying in this passage, take the shield of faith.
The Helmet of Salvation
The helmet also covers the mind, which remember, is the battlefield. We must know by the Word of God that we are saved, beloved. Our enemy shoots many fiery darts at our minds accusing us personally, and the bottom line is to know that we are blood bought, born again, Spirit-filled children of the most high God. “By grace are we saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.” Ephesians 2:8-10. In 2 Peter 1:10 we read, “Wherefore the rather, brethren, give diligence to make your calling and election sure: for if ye do these things, ye shall never fall.”
God has elected to save sinners by grace. Did you come by grace or by works? If you came by works, dear one, you are not saved. Was there a time in your life that you knew you were a guilty, lost, hell bound sinner who could do nothing to save yourself? Did you turn from your self righteousness to God in repentance, and did you receive Jesus Christ as your Savior? Did you put all of your faith in Jesus Christ and His shed blood alone, or did you put some of your faith in doing better, joining a church, being baptized, etcetera, etcera? When you asked the Lord Jesus to save you, did He?
2 Corinthians 13:5 teaches us this: “Examine yourselves, whether ye be in the faith, prove your own selves. Know ye not your own selves, how that Jesus Christ is in you, except ye be reprobate.” A Christian is one who has the Spirit of Christ dwelling in HIm.
When He comes to live in you, the Lord Jesus gives you a second birth into God’s family. The entire human race was born of Adam and Eve, and all of us have sinned and come short of the glory of God. We must be born again in order to enter the kingdom of heaven. There are only two things we need to know in order for this to happen.
First, we must know we are a guilty sinner. We know this by the Ten Commandments. Have you ever disobeyed your parents, or told a lie, or disobeyed God on the Christian Sabbath, which is the day the Lord Jesus was raised from the dead; Sunday? Have you ever hated anyone in your heart or looked on a woman with lust in your heart? (Read Romans 3:19-23) Have you ever or do you now see yourself as a guilty sinner as described in verse 19?
Secondly, as a guilty sinner, have you ever received the Lord Jesus Christ as your Savior? (“Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved.”) When you receive Him, you are committing your life to Him. You are literally becoming married with the Lord Jesus. Romans 7:4, “We are dead to the law and married with Him who was raised from the dead, that we might bring forth fruit unto God.” And in 2 Timothy 1:12b, “I know in whim I have believed, and am persuaded that He is able to keep that which I have committed unto him against that day.” When you receive Him or believe on Him, you commit your life to Him believing that He can and will save you.
When the Lord Jesus Christ saves you, God makes you a new creation (2 Corinthians 5:17.) This doesn’t mean that you will never sin again, but it does mean that you will not want to sin. You are now born into God’s family, and the seed of God that you were born again by is incorruptible. You have to get in the old sin nature in order to sin, and since you do not belong there any longer, you will be miserable.
As a newborn baby in Jesus Christ, God will begin to conform you into the image of the Lord Jesus Christ. This is a lifelong process in which you become less like Adam and more and more like the Lord Jesus. As you begin to grow up in the Lord God, you will see things as sin that you didn’t know until the Holy Spirit revealed it to you. You see this through the Bible, the Word of God.
As you repent and trust Jesus in this instance, you are more like Him, or you are growing in grace and in knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. Beloved, let’s examine ourselves whether Jesus Christ lives in us or not. This is one thing that we can’t be wrong about.
“If thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and believe in thine heart that God raised Him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. For with the heart, man believeth unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.” (Romans 10:9-10, 13) Yes, the helmet of salvation is an important part of the armor of God. Knowing you are saved by the Word of God is the one constant in the Christian life. No matter what you go through or what the devil throws at you, you are still saved.
Fred Roan was known as the “world’s largest Dodge dealer,” and his company was in Mobile, Alabama. Fred has been a soul winner for many years, and was at that time in the late ’60s and early ’70s. Through some financial reversements, Brother Fred went broke financially. Mr. Belk offered Fred a nice house in the mountains and told Fred he would send him around the world preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ. Fred was impressed of God to stay right there in Mobile where he has lost his very fine home on a hill overlooking the city. Fred and his wife moved down into the low-rent district, and all he had to drive was a Jeep station wagon with the windows knocked out. From the world’s largest Dodge dealer to poverty, but Fred said, “I am still saved.” And he continued to follow our Lord Jesus in fishing for men. All Fred had left was a small amount of acreage outside of Mobile, and a couple of years later they struck oil on it, and the Lord God gave him back his material wealth.
Beloved, you can lose health, wealth, family and friends, but you can’t lose salvation that was bought and paid for by the blood of Jesus Christ. Glory to God! Do you have on the helmet of salvation? The Holy Ghost tells us in 1 Timothy, chapter 2, verse 4, that “God will have all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.” He will not force you or anyone else, but if you will repent of sin and receive the Lord Jesus Christ as your Savior, He will save you, and you can wear the helmet of salvation in these battles against the world system, the flesh (old sin nature), and the devil.
The Sword of the Spirit
In our hand, in our heart and in our mouth, we need the Word of God, which is the Sword of the Spirit. “For the Word of God is quick (alive) and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even unto the dividing asunder of the soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.” (Hebrews 4:12) Again, in Isaiah 55:11, “So shall my Word be that goeth forth out of my mouth. It shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereunto I sent it.”
You can believe in and count on the Word of God. The Word of God is alive my friend, and when you share it, God accomplishes through it what no other book can do. Use the Word of God in your own life. Hear it preached and taught in your own life that is hid with Christ in God. Read it for yourself on a daily basis because it is your spiritual food. When you get saved by the Lord Jesus Christ you are just born again, a little baby in the family of God, regardless of your physical age. The Word of God is your milk and you need it daily, even more so than your physical food. “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.” Make the opportunity to feed on His Word. And when the Holy Spirit feeds you, work out what He says by faith, by trusting the Lord Jesus Christ, who is the Word of God made flesh.
Share It
When you hear the Word of God in your heart, share it with folk all around you. Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God. As you share what the Holy Spirit has revealed to you, it is established in your heart. What you believe in your heart, confess with your mouth. Speak what you believe in the Word of God (Romans 10:9). As you share it and live it, trusting the Lord Jesus as previously stated, you are working out your own salvation. What God has put in, you are working out by faith in Christ our Lord.
Remember that our Lord Jesus Christ spoke the Word of God when satan tempted Him. This sword of the Spirit is a vital piece of the whole armor of God.
Prayer is Part of the Armor
“Praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, and watching there unto with all perserverance and supplication for all saints.”
A Christian at any one time is either in the flesh (the natural, the old sin nature) or in the Spirit. If there is no unconfessed sin in your life, you are in the Spirit. When we regard iniquity in our heart, God will not hear us. The Holy Spirit will convict us (make us aware) of sin. It is very important to take God’s side against sin immediately that you are aware of it. Judge it, and agree with God that it is sin and that you are the sinner. Because of the shed blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, we are cleansed and filled again with the Holy Spirit. Now we can pray in the Spirit, yielding to Him, because we do not know how to pray as we ought.
Our body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, the house of prayer, and when we pray in the Spirit, the things of God will come out of heaven into earth. And so, beloved, we are to watch, and whatever we see in the saints lives and circumstances, we are to pray about. Notice the Holy Spirit did not say, “Watch and say;” He said, “Watch and pray.” Whatever we see, we are to pray to our Father about. Of course, if we see a brother sin, we are to go to him or her knowing that we are capable of the same thing, and ask them to repent and get right with God through the cross and the shed blood of our Lord Jesus Christ (Galatians 6:1).
Pray For Preachers
The last piece of armor is prayer for preachers. I believe that we should begin with our pastor and staff. Our prayer, first of all, is that utterance may be given Him and them and that they may open their mouth boldly to make known the mystery of the gospel (verse 19). We, our children, our grandchildren, all of our family, and everyone else needs to hear what God has to say today. This comes through prayer. I prayed this for my present pastor while I was still pastoring a church myself. The reason was that my children and grandchildren were under his ministry. I wanted them to hear the Word of God proclaimed boldly and in much faith. We must heare today what we need to hear, and not just what we want to hear. We need the whole counsel of God. We need to hear that heaven is worth going to, hell is worth missing, sin destroys us, and that there is a lost, dead world out there in desperate need of the gospel of Jesus Christ.
When a preacher studies and prays and seeks God, there is much warfare by the enemy. All kinds of things come up to prevent this close time, which is his most important ministry. Prayer of and by the people enable the preacher to do the main things: pray and minister the Word of God (Acts 6:4).
Pray for the preacher and pray for his family. Remember, the leader is under great attack in this war. A praying people will be used of God to stop the enemy’s advances.
Dear saint, we are fighting a defeated for, but we must remember that the war is still on. The four stages of the Christian life are:
1.A baby Christian who only knows that their sins are forgiven.
2.As they start to grow in grace and knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ, they become a young child where they get to know that God is their Father.
3.As we continue to grow, we become a young man where we learn how to fight the devil, the world system, and the flesh (the old sin nature) in this war we are in.
4.And finally, a mature Christian, a father who hasn’t arrived, but who is well on the way (1 Corinthians 2:12-14).
May God raise up more spiritual teenagers, young men as God says in His Word, who will fight in this war that we are in. You do not send children to war, you send young men. You do not send the old, you send the young. The old, or father in this case, knows how to do it, and they lead the young men, but the young men, spiritual teenagers, do most of the combat.
Our commander in chief is the Lord Jesus Christ. Church, let’s stay under Him and knock down the gates of hell and set the captives free and turn the prisoners loose until our Lord Jesus comes back to get us.
