The Great Put On

We need to get tough because listen, we can be tough in Christ. It's His might, it's His strength, and we have been given the orders in the Bible to stand against the wilds of the devil. The reality is, Jesus said the devil is real, He's an actual entity. The awesome thing is we have been given the commission to stand against the wilds, the trickery, the schemes. You can get the outlines of this podcast by going to jackhibs.com slash podcast. Today, if this podcast lifts you up and encourages you to live a more fulfilled life in Christ, then make sure you leave us one of those five star ratings. To us, that's like saying amen or yes, then that rating will encourage others to listen. Now open your hearts to what God's word has to say to you. Here is Jackhibs. Whole armor of God. That's what's available to us and that's what we're going to do. We're going to do that very thing. The Bible tells us in Romans 13, verse 12, the night is far spent. I look at it this way. There's a healthy sense of anxiety. I don't mean bad anxiety. I mean the anxiety like, wow, this is an amazing time. I mean, I've got to go to college or I've got to do my job or I've got to do my thing. Yes, you do. And you keep doing that. But as you do that, be equipped to live a real Christian life. To get ready. And if you and I find ourselves starting to get stressed out and worried, then listen, we got some armor in the wrong place or we've left something off. We need to remember that. But the number one thing is that we see in Romans 13, verse 12, the night is far spent. The day is at hand, therefore, let us cast off the works of darkness. Think about all the stuff that we used to be involved in, that the Bible calls darkness. And let us put on the armor of light and let us walk properly, not as in the day, not in revelry or in drunkenness, not in ludeness or lust, not in strife and envy, verse 14 says, but put on the Lord Jesus Christ. And to do that, and I'm assuming I'm speaking in the positive, that you are going to get into your Bible and you're going to know that your Bible get all over you. And you're and you are going to be, as Paul said to the church at Ephesus, finally my brethren. That word finally is a powerful word because it actually means the remaining or this is what remains. It means from now on that word finally and Greek means from this time forward, looking into the future, the things that remain. Finally, my brethren, dedicate everything about your life to God. You need not carry this year on your own shoulders. It is his might, it is his strength. And you can trust him for that. He says to be strong in the Lord, the power of God, which is imparted. It's an empowerment that God gives. God has promised to give you his strength if you'll ask for it. Think about that. Well, with all the decisions that we're going to have to make as a people, what are we going to do? God knows. He says, don't worry about that. Just know my word. This is what's great about him. He's given us his answers right here and you and I are to be like miners with the light on and go find these great truths that are here for that very thing. And by doing that, you're putting on Christ. You're going to put them on and he's going to respond in your life by the Holy Spirit. He's promised to do that. When verse 11 says put on the whole armor of God, that this armor that we put on is something that is an armor that is all that we need. In other words, God says when I give you the whole armor, there's nothing lacking. Please listen to this. Are there things in life that's just beating you up? God says it doesn't have to be like that. I have given you all the armor that you need to fight the Christian fight and be successful in that. Against temptation, against thoughts. I don't know if we'll get to it tonight, but we'll certainly get to it by Sunday. The biggest thing that you and I need to be armored up for, I believe personally, at least this is my own experience. It's not so much things external. That doesn't happen so much to me. It's an external thing where somebody pulls the gun on me and they try to beat me up or stab me or whatever. That's big stuff, man. That's external stuff. It's not external temptation. It's not that somebody winks at me or says, hey, how you doing? You strong man, you? That doesn't happen. That doesn't happen for obvious reasons. Here's the thing. For me in this year ahead, I've noticed over the years that the temptations that come in attack, we need armor more than ever regarding our thought life. God's word will surround our thought life. And this is key. Just because of thought enters your mind. Does it mean you're supposed to go with it? You fight it and you need to know how to fight it. And I think the enemy because he's very smart and we're late, that he's going to throw the kitchen sink at us, so to speak, right? And the great thing is that we are going to have all the necessary armor regarding these things. You'll see a few of them or a couple of them tonight. But that whole armor means everything that we need. This is cute. Listen, I think it's awesome. The word means to be so armored up that it implies that every conceivable part of you has got weapon tree for battle. And from this term comes a word that you might, or a saying that you might remember from some good old like swashbuckler type of movie, maybe from Jack Sparrow, I don't know. But have you ever heard this term to be armed to the teeth? Do you know what that means? It's pretty cool. It means to have all of the armor that you have. You're going in the battle and you're going to, you're going to go into it to win. And this is how we as Christians need to approach this year. We're going to go in, walking with Jesus, putting on everything that he's given us. And I've got all of my armament. I've made myself already. Gosh. Oh, I still have a mouth. I can take this dagger or this sword and just put it in my mouth and I can carry it that way. Have you ever seen like pirate movies where the guys crawling under the ship and he's armed to the teeth? That's exactly what that word means. Is to have armament so at your ready that you'll, you'll even arm yourself to the teeth. You will get a knife or a dagger spiritually speaking and you'll bite it as you go into battle because you're going to need it. And I want you to think of yourself this year as a Christian like that against evil, darkness, the horrible things that are going on in our world and in our nation, in sanity, right, craziness, intimidation, violence, whatever it might be. Get arm to the teeth. It's all there. God says so. Number two is verses 11 to 12 and the great put on is that we would put on what is tough. We need to listen. We need to put on what's tough people. It says in verses 11 and 12 that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. This is your Bible speaking. Listen to this. Put on what is tough that we might stand against the wiles of the devil. Verse 12 for we do not wrestle against flesh and blood but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual host of wickedness in the heavenly places. What does that mean? That believers fight against spiritual entities that are not human. That just should freak you out. The Bible teaches this throughout and we need to get tough. We need to toughen up. And what I mean by that is this. We need to get tough so that we don't sound like this. Why did this happen to me? My weeks been going really rough. I don't know what's going to happen. You need to get tough. You need to get tough to realize that we're in a war, we're in a fight. You could be just sailing down Newport Bay on the outside. Everything's perfect. And inside you can be engaged in a radical spiritual war. You think about that. I don't know if I shared this with you guys recently or I shared it with somebody else. I lose track of where I'm at all the time. Can't keep up with it all but have you ever noticed that there's places where you just feel that this is a dark area you want to leave? Many times and we thank God for this. People will pull onto the campus and they'll tell us, I don't know what's going on here but I just felt this incredible piece when we pulled into the parking lot. Well listen, in the reverse there's places where you can drive into or walk into or there's people that you can meet and you know something's wrong here. Now you don't go, ho! Put some garlic on but you sense something's wrong. You need to get tough to that. That's how we're going to be strong against deception when somebody offers us a contract or a statement or an opportunity. Watch out. We need to get tough against our own thoughts, tough against the thoughts of others and the words of others. I understand that. We're all human but we're living in a day now when we say that we're a follower of Jesus and it's going to cost you something and that's okay. I do believe that God is preparing this church and He has been for some time now but we need to get tough and I wrote some thoughts down about getting tough against the wiles of the devil and what that might mean. We need to get tough about what's going on in our lives. We need to get tough about what's going on in the lives of those that we live with. When I say get tough, I mean get into truth. Be filled with love and light and the armament. Fight for your families. Go to your kids' rooms. Get on your knees. Let them hear you. Train for them. Out loud, dad. Mom, do it. Well, I'm going to feel silly. Get tough. Go to war. Pray over those little souls. Pray for them. Fight for them. We need to get tough regarding what's called church these days. My goodness. I understand it. I get it. There's a massive exodus of people leaving California to greener pastures. I get that. If I wasn't anchored to this place, I'd probably be going to. I understand that. But here's what I'm listening. You know it too. People then call us back or they write us back. We can't find Bible teaching churches anywhere. So you got to pick something here. You got to have a lunatic for a governor and a church or go somewhere and not have a church. I don't know. It's tough out there. Here's the thing. We got to get tough. We got to get strong. And God's Word will strengthen us for that. First John says that we need to get tough against the spirit of this world. And all these things imply invisible wars. The believers involved in invisible wars. Regarding invisible wars. He media what comes to my mind. I don't know if you remember this guy's name. But you remember Elijah in the Bible. You got Elijah and Elijah. And Elijah with an S, he had a servant by the name of Gehezai. And funny guy, anyway, you can read about him. But Elijah's out like a light sleeping and Gehezai goes and looks and he sees just a massive military gathering of enemy forces that have assembled to destroy Israel and certainly Elijah and Gehezai's freaking out. And you could just see Elijah. I mean, this is awesome. You got to admit you are looking at absolute certain defeats. Because you can see these guys. And come on. We're talking about an era in a time. These are gnarly looking people. They've got blood painted on their faces. You know, they haven't been to a dentist because dentistry had not been invented. That's scary enough. They're stinky. They're killers. I mean, they are an army. Massive. And Gehezai goes, we're going to die. It's over. And you can see Elijah just kind of wiping sleep from his eyes. Lord, will you open his eyes to see what's really going on here? Okay. And can you imagine Gehezai? The Bible says that he could see, but he couldn't see what mattered. Could you imagine? So Elijah prays and Gehezai blinks and he opens his eyes. And the Bible tells us that he sees a massive, massive host of heavenly forces and jealous creatures that are in position to destroy that invading army against God's people. Think about that. So, man, I don't see it. Well, you know what? First of all, ask God to open your eyes. Now, you need to be careful, though. I mean, I don't know if I want to see it. I just want, how about this? God, I don't need to see it. Let's just get the victory. Let's just do this. You know, I don't know if I want to see this, but he saw it. And you need to remember that. We need to get tough because, listen, we can't be tough in Christ. It's his might, it's his strength. And we have been given the orders in the Bible to stand against the wiles of the devil, a real personal devil. You know, you may think that's a fairy tale silly thing. And that's sad because he's got you where he wants you. The reality is, Jesus said the devil's real. He's an actual entity. The awesome thing is we have been given the commission to stand against the wiles, the trickery, the schemes. The word wiles is where there is this secret clandestine plotting. In other words, the enemy of us is always trying to figure out how to get to you. That's why I'm a big fan of God's grace because if you and I knew what was pointing at us every day from the spirit realm, we'd probably pass out, but God's grace gets us through each day. You know, remember Bugs Bunny? Have you ever watched Bugs Bunny for those deep theological illustrations? Do you remember him Bugs Bunny's sleepwalking and he walks through the construction site? That's like us, man. He's sleeping, he's stepping off a beam. The crane's going up, fix him up, take some over there. He lands on the wheelbarrow, goes down the thing, goes over there and defend another. Oh my goodness, that's, we don't know what's going on. And God's got it. We need to remember that. And we're able to stand against the wiles. This Jack Kemp's podcast, as well as all the broadcast outreach opportunities, our listeners supported. Will you consider partnering with us through a special gift? Go to jackhivs.com to learn more and stay connected.