I'd like to have you take your Bibles this morning and turn to Ephesians chapter 6. I don't know if you have the same Bible that is on the pulpit here, but that's on page 1245 in this Bible. Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians. Ephesians 6. I want to thank the congregation and the council for allowing me to be here again today and to bring the word of God. What a blessing I had for 15 years to do that here. I see so many, I was going to say old faces, but I better say familiar faces. And we have such fond, fond memories of this congregation. And we thank you and we thank the Lord for that. This morning, we turn to Ephesians chapter 6 and at verse 10. Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might. Put on the whole armor of God that you might be able to stand against the schemes of the devil. By the way, children, the apostle who's writing this is probably in prison and chained to soldiers and is in Rome. And so he sees all these Roman soldiers and he knows what they're wearing. I mean, he knows how they're dressed. So that helps us understand a little bit what he's talking about when he said in verse 11, put on the whole armor of God that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil. For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in heavenly places. Therefore take up the whole armor of God that you may be able to stand in the evil day and having done all to stand. Here begins our text. Stand therefore having fastened on the belt of truth and having on the breastplate of righteousness and as shoes for your feet having put on the readiness given by the gospel of peace. In all circumstances, take up the shield of faith with which you can extinguish all the flaming darts of the evil one. And take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God, praying at all times in the Spirit with all prayer and supplication. We're going to stop at that point. I want you to notice that when I get to verse 18, It says, praying at all times in the spirit. That certainly could be included in terms of the armament. But this morning, I'm not going to deal with that. I just wanted to mention it, that I saw it there. I know it's there. I know prayer is important. So don't accuse me at the door this morning and say, well, what do you think of prayer? I think a lot of it. But I'm not going to speak about prayer this morning. But I do want to speak about the rest of that armor. When we look at this passage, I suppose we don't sense the urgency that the Apostle Paul has in mind here. After all, we live a pretty content, pretty prosperous, pretty carefree lives for the most part. Certainly we are not undergoing persecution and the devil's fierce work is certainly not very evident in our lives. And yet, if we are friends of God, we are enemies of the devil, are we not? And if we are enemies of the devil, we have a very formidable foe. I mean, the apostle speaks about it here in verse 12. For example, we are dealing with principalities and powers and world rulers. We are dealing with cosmic powers. I mean, this is no joke. He is a very formidable, a very frightening foe. and if we are not experiencing his accusations today or his temptations, we will. I mean, that has to be part of our life as Christians. We are enemies of the devil. We're enemies of everything that is holy, and as surely as the sun comes up tomorrow morning, so surely the devil will one day tempt us severely, and we better have this armor on, because when we are least able or least perhaps expecting it, he will be there. I've shared with you before the experience that my brother and older brother John had when he had experienced life-threatening near-death experiences twice in his life. My brother, by the way, is a Christian. He is reformed. He was a Gideon. He was catechized in the Heidelberg Catechism, So he was not an immature Christian because what he told me he was almost embarrassed or at least somewhat hesitant to tell me because what he was telling me sounded more like something that would be from snake handlers in the South than Reformed Christians in the North. But he said he woke up one morning in intensive care and he said he just sensed a darkness, an evil there that he had never experienced before. And so he rummaged around in his mind and tried to find a text that was pertinent. And he went to Job 19, he said, and he said, I use those words over and over again. I know that my Redeemer liveth, and in my flesh I shall see God. And then he said, as surely as you hear my voice today, he said, I don't know if it was in the room, I don't know if it was in my heart, but he said, I heard a voice saying, but you are no Job. And he said, after those frightening words, I went around again in my mind trying to find a passage of scripture and I went to Psalm 23 and there I began to recite that, the Lord is my shepherd, yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for thou art with me and you know how that goes. And he said, as surely as you hear my voice, so surely I heard a voice say, but you are no David. He said, I went to the New Testament, the 1 Timothy, or 2 Timothy, the first chapter, where it says something like this, I know whom I have believed and am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed to him against that day. And once again, I heard the voice saying, but you're no Paul. And so it is for that reason, when we often are weakest, Least able to deal with that kind of onslaught of the evil one that he comes. And that's what the Apostle Paul is speaking about, surely. And he is telling us that we have to be prepared and we must be prepared with God's armor. It's not a reformed Christian's armor, it's not Calvin's armor, it's not Paul's armor, it's God's armor. And he says twice in this passage that we are to put it all on, put on the whole armor of God. We don't just put on a piece here and then later on put another piece, but we are to put it all on. And the first thing you notice that your outline shows on the back of the white sheet of paper this morning that it begins really with God's certain and powerful word. It begins and ends with that word. It begins with the belt of truth. Truth is God's word. God's word is truth. And it ends with the sword of the Spirit, which it defines as the word of God. We know how Jesus used that sword of the Spirit when he was in the wilderness, don't we? Because when the devil came to him and tempted him to make stones into bread, he didn't say to the devil, well, you know, I just kind of feel that that's not right right now. I just feel I should not do that. I kind of think this or kind of think that. But he went to the word of God and he said, it is written, You shall live, man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God. And that was the end of the argument. That was the sword of the spirit. Luther used that when he said, you know, here I stand. I can do no other unless proven by the word of God. But it's this belt that I want to zero in on a little bit because I think we can visualize the sword and how it's used. But the belt, boys and girls, is also important in our armor. Now, I suppose if you're under 14 or 15 or 16, maybe you don't think belts are very important because I see lots of teenagers walking down the street with their underwear showing and their crotch or their pants down by their knees. But, you know, you'll never find a soldier that way or a police officer that way because, you know, they have to hitch up their pants because they may have to run. And if you look at those belts on the police officers' trousers, you'll notice that they have their revolver there and they've got bullets there and they've got a billy club and they've got handcuffs and maybe mace or something else. It's all there, and in Paul's day, that belt held the armor together too. And now it's important to notice that this belt is the Word of God. And what makes that important is because, well, let me ask this question, children. How do you know that Jesus loves you? Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so, huh? That's how you know that, because the Bible tells you that. And that's what makes the belt of truth so important, because it is true. What the belt is holding together for us is God's word. It is reliable, it is trustworthy, it is effective. And so that's what makes that belt so important, and that's what makes God's word so important, and it must be buckled on, you notice that. It doesn't do any good on the coffee table. He doesn't say put it in the closet, hang it on the hanger, but he says buckle it on. I have an app on my smartphone. You wouldn't think somebody so old would have a smartphone, but my children forced me into it. I have an app on my smartphone with a Bible in it. And I have several different versions. But when I'm in intensive care, I can't use my apps. When I face a Mormon on the street, I can't quick look at my phone and try and find a text. It has to be in my heart. Thy word have I had in my heart that I might not sin against you. So it has to be a working knowledge. Don't pass up that belt too quickly. It has to be a working knowledge. When I visited a patient suffering some form of dementia in the hospitals when I was still active as a pastor, I would look in those dead eyes and sometimes wonder, what can I read? What can I say? and I wouldn't talk to them about the five points of Calvinism or pre and post and amil or the difference between grace and law. But I would read Psalm 23. And after reading Psalm 23, not all the time, but many times, I would see their lips start to move because there was something that resonated in them. And I would read John 3.16. Sometimes if there was no one around, I would even sing, Jesus Loves Me. Because those are things that they learned as children, and they put them to memory, and they were still there when all the other glimmers were gone. It was still there. And so my question is this morning, I'm going to challenge you about this. What are you committing to memory? We don't do much of that today because we have so many instant ways of finding out. We can Google this and Google that. But we must hide that word in our heart, that things become second nature to us. We must begin to memorize once again and to meditate on that word has to become precious to us. And if you are parents and able to stay home with your children, at least one of you, What a wonderful opportunity you have of training those children in the fear of the Lord and to teach them the songs of Zion and the creeds of the church, but Bible stories and Bible verses. And I have been at dinner tables where the little children have recited verse after verse after verse of psalms. Even though many of the words were beyond their comprehension, they would still memorize them. What a tremendous joy and blessing and opportunity you have as parents. You have souls of children in your hands. There is eternal life there or eternal death. You have the opportunity, the privilege, the duty to begin to learn with them the word of God so that when they are old it will not depart from them. Well, the Bible gives us certainly the authority or reminds us of other parts of God's armor as well. One of them, the next one is that breastplate of righteousness. It says, having put on the breastplate of righteousness. So once again, having put on, it's not like you put that on the coffee table or hang it in the closet, but it's got to be there working. So you ask the question, what righteousness is this that the Apostle Paul has in mind. Is it the righteous living or is it the righteousness that we have by faith? And as Reformed Christians, we are so quick to go to that ladder and say, well, it's by faith, of course, of course. But it's not of course, of course. There's also righteous living that's commanded of us. Without holiness, we will not see God. Flee evil, the Bible calls us. Pursue righteousness. Be holy as God is holy. And certainly without holiness, the Bible says no one will enter into heaven. And without holiness, we give the devil a foothold in our lives. Without holiness, we become like Samson and we begin to flirt with sin and think somehow or other that we can get so close and not fall. Not even Samson could hold up under the devil's attempts and temptations. and so certainly we must live holy lives. That's commanded of us. In fact, the Apostle Paul in the 5th chapter, in the 9th verse, he says, live as children of light, for the fruit of light consists in all goodness, righteousness, and truth. Without righteousness, there is no evidence of being saved, is there? Without good works, we have no reason to believe that we are born again. But the problem is our good works are never good enough. That's the problem with good works. They're never good enough. I am stunned sometimes when I think about when I am in my holiest activity, which would be prayer, that suddenly evil thoughts come or suddenly I'm completely distracted and I even have to repent of my prayers. And then I have to repent of my repentance because my repentance is so unholy. And the devil points his finger at me and he says, what are you talking about? Look at all your righteousness. It's as filthy rags. And so you see, my righteousness will not protect me. It is so pathetic. So there's only one righteousness that will protect us, and that is, as I show on your outline, that's the righteousness that is ours by faith. It's the righteousness of a position that we have, and a part that God, that Christ's righteousness has given to us, that he is fully satisfied for all of our sins, and as far as the law is concerned, I am innocent. I am absolutely innocent. I have been tried already. and you can't do double jeopardy on me. I have been tried already on the cross and paid for my sins there in Jesus Christ. That's what this righteousness of faith is all about. When I was a boy, I learned that it wasn't my condition that I was to think about, but it was my position. That was brought home to me many times, But especially when I was naughty, my condition wasn't so good. I think of a teacher that had some very bad habits. Every time you were naughty, you got your name on the board. And if you were naughty again, you got a check there and another check. And you couldn't do anything in their class. I mean, you couldn't talk out loud. You couldn't throw paper wads. You couldn't throw paper airplanes. You couldn't throw the girl's hair in front of you. You couldn't do anything. And when you got so many checks, you got a note that went home. And the problem was you had to carry that note home because she didn't have Internet. So you had the note in a sealed envelope, Mrs. and Ms. Reverend, Mrs. Camming or whoever, and you carried it home. It was like carrying your own stick. And on those days, I would take a long time getting home. I would zigzag, I would talk to my friends, go around the block a couple of times. It would take me forever to get home, but I always went home. Because even though my condition, even though I was guilty, that was my condition. Even though I knew I was going to be punished, I didn't know if it was for a day or a week. Even though my condition was bad, my position was I was still their child, you see. I was still, they were still mom and dad to me. They still love me in spite of all of my failures, in spite of all of my naughtiness, in spite of all of my disobedience. I was their child. That's how it is when it comes to the devil. The devil always points to our condition. He says to us, my, you think God is stupid or something? I mean, look at your life. Didn't you just talk about, you know, how sweet the word of God was? It's sweeter than honey, more precious than silver, and gold, and I meditate on it day and night. You don't do that. And he pokes holes in all of our righteousness. And he says to us, you are no Job, and you are no David, and you are no Saul, no Paul. But by faith I have their righteousness, you see. This God is still my God, who has promised that though my sins are as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow. my faith says my sin oh the bliss of that glorious thought not in part but the whole is nailed to the cross and I bear it no more and you see the devil always wants to point to my condition, my condition is rotten I must repent of my repentance but my position before God because of Jesus Christ is solid it will not change Paul says in Ephesians 2 verse 8 our sin we are saved by grace not of works lest any man should boast so that's the righteous righteousness that we must put on that breastplate of righteousness and then it talks about the gospel of peace the shoes of the gospel verse 15 there's been a lot of discussion a lot of words read a lot of ink spilt on this part of Ephesians, this text about the shoes of the gospel. I want you to just notice a couple of things. First of all, it talks about the readiness. By the way, children for shoes in those days, they didn't have roadside bombs, you know. So what did they do? Well, they put little sticks in the ground, little pointed sticks so that when the soldiers walked over them, it would poke poked through their sandals and into their feet and they would get infection and then they could not march or they could not fight anymore. And so they had to make sure they had good shoes on, not just flip-flops, but like army boots, you know, that sort of thing. And that's what the Apostle Paul is speaking about here. He says, make sure you've got the shoes of the gospel on. And then he calls it, he said, the shoes that the gospel which gives readiness. You see that word readiness there. The New King James Version says preparation. Another word could be courage. So we connect shoes and we connect the gospel and we connect that with the word courage or readiness or preparation. And it gives you some idea of what Paul has in mind here because you know, children, you don't put your shoes on when you go to bed, do you? No, you take your shoes off when you go to bed, but you put your shoes on when you go outside. And your mom and dad put their shoes on when they go to work. And so that's the idea of the shoes of the gospel here as well. Now, in some ways, I suppose it could mean that when you go live your life, you should have courage because of the gospel of peace. Lord's Day 1, our comfort is that we belong to our faithful Savior, Jesus Christ. So when we're going out, we live with that kind of confidence. But I think there is another meaning here, perhaps a better meaning, and that is that our calling is to witness, to promote the kingdom of God. And we promote the kingdom of God with the gospel, with the gospel of peace. And you mustn't belittle that because, as Paul said, he said, I'm not ashamed of the gospel because it's the power of God. So we don't, if I can put it this way, we don't have to become apologists, philosophers about why Christianity is right and all the rest of them are wrong. No, we have the gospel. The gospel itself is power. And the gospel itself can be known by the smallest child in this congregation. And that's the gospel that Paul used. He says in 2 Corinthians chapter 10, For though we walk in the flesh, we are not waging war according to the flesh. For the weapons of our warfare are not flesh, but have divine power to destroy strongholds. He was using the gospel. In the first chapter of Corinthians, he says, you know, some want signs and some want wonders, but we preach the cross. And it is the gospel that makes us ready to confront those who are living in darkness. Like I said, you don't have to be a philosopher or a big theologian to know these things. You know the gospel, and it is one of peace. Peace with God. And a whole sermon, I suppose, could be and should be developed on this, but when you are out sharing the gospel with people, you're not asking them to make big sacrifices. You're not asking them to carry heavy crosses. You're confronting them with a good news, a peace. And I would submit to you today that everyone, everyone wants what you have. Everyone wants what we have. We have peace with God. When our last word is said in this earth, heaven awaits us. Our sins are gone. Who doesn't want that? And I would say to you that if people mock you and challenge you, say, all right. It's fine, but I'll tell you what, after you get done chasing all of your goals, all of those empty things that you've been sitting with, when you find out that everything you have been looking for and striving for ends up to be nothing, then come back to me and I will tell you about the good news of Jesus Christ. That is the effective shoe of the gospel. And then he talks about the shield of faith that we also need. Children, those shields in Paul's day weren't like a big frying pan cover. They were like a small door that they would hide behind. There would be a whole row of those doors. They'd all be ducking behind those doors so that the arrows would come and the stones would come and they would just bounce off. Well, we have a shield also, and it's a shield of faith. and once again you ask the question well what does that mean what is it talking about my faith I mean you know I got such great faith I'm going to go I'm going to plow right through this I got such great faith I'm going to beat this cancer I got such great faith I'm going to win this argument I got such great faith I'm sure I'll be able to withstand the devil's charges is that what it's about you know there are some people that talk that way the reason that you're not cured is because you don't have big enough faith. It's the reason those prayers aren't answered is because you don't have big enough faith. What you need is more faith. But Jesus doesn't talk about more faith. He talks about little faith. He talks about faith like a mustard seed. And he said, if you have that teeny-weeny-weeny faith of a mustard seed, you can say that mulberry tree be cast into Mission Bay and it would go. And we think about that. We say, my, what great faith you've got that you could take that mulberry tree and cast it into Mission Bay. No, I have a great God. I believe God can do that. It's not my faith that's big. It's my God who is big, and that's where I have to focus my attention. God has promised. When the devil comes to me, I must remind him that God has promised that though my sins are scarlet, they shall be as white as snow. I have to remind him that God has promised that the work he began in me he will complete, that God has promised I will be your God. And if God is for me, who can be against me? You see, that's where our faith must rest. It's not faith in faith, but it's faith in God. I have the same God of Job. I have the same God of David and the same God as Paul. And if that God is for me, who can be against me? That's the point. And then don't forget the helmet of salvation. Boys and girls, you know the importance about helmets. Your mom always tells you to make sure your helmet is on when you're riding a bike. And why do they do that? Well, because if you break an arm, the arm will heal. But if you break your head, the brains don't heal very good. And so you have to have that helmet on. And we have a helmet, too, in terms of salvation. And then you ask yourself the question, what does Paul have in mind here? Is he talking about the helmet of forgiveness of sins? And then if you look in your Bible, you'll find that same expression of the Apostle Paul in 1 Thessalonians 5, verse 8. And in 1 Thessalonians 5, verse 8, he adds the words, the helmet of the hope of salvation. That helps us understand what Paul is talking about. It's the hope of salvation. Along with Hebrews chapter 11, I think we come to understand that if you turn to Hebrews chapter 11, you'll find there that that talks about all those saints. You know, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Daniel, Samson, Jephthah, Rahab, all of them. Gideon. And then you say, how did they do what they did? How did they keep their focus? How did they endure the struggles? You see that, for example, in verse 33. They conquered kingdoms, they shut the mouths of lions, they quenched the fury of the flames, they escaped the edge of the sword, they became powerful in battle, they routed foreign armies, they were stoned, sawed in two, put to death by the sword, and went about in sheepskins and goatskins, destitute and persecuted and mistreated. How did they do it? How did they keep their head? How did they keep their focus? They had a helmet of the hope of salvation. Verse 35, they were looking for a better resurrection. Verse 16, they were looking for a better country. Verse 10, they were looking for a city with foundations, whose architect and builder is God. They had the helmet of salvation, of the hope of salvation. That's how they kept their vigil. That's how they kept faithful. That's how they kept their minds straight when the devil was tempting them. They thought about the promises of God. Do you do that? Is that something that we meditate on day and night? The promises, the hope of salvation, that which God has promised us, that city whose maker and builder is God? You know, the devil comes to us and he wants us to think about his country. He wants us to think about carnival cruises and days at Disney and what Home and Garden TV is presenting to us, all these changes and all these things. These are the things that the devil wants us to think about all the time. He doesn't come to us and say, you know, God doesn't exist and so on and make a mockery of it. But he just wants us to set our heart on something else. He wants us to set our heart on the things that we see instead of the things that we are promised. He wants to get our mind so that in getting our mind, he has our heart. In getting our mind, we begin to love that which we ought not love or at least love that which will not last. Mrs. Nemes, Memorial Service, Tuesday, Dr. Godfrey, quoted from Shakespeare, and he says, Shakespeare said something like this, that the only thing we own is death, unless we are in Jesus, but the only thing we own is death, and the devil wants us to forget that. Every ad, every yuppie ad that we see, every yuppie device that is enticing us to think about everything that's going to perish, It's an attempt by the devil to keep our mind off from that which God has promised. And to live for this day instead of that day. To live for this city which has no foundations except God said, I have prepared for you a city with foundations. And there will be a new paradise and a new tree and another city. And that city will have on its, blazoned on its side, the city of no more. There's no more death and no more sin and no more sorrow and no more deception and no more disappointments and no more doctors coming and saying, sorry, we did all we could. And no more abortions and no more rest homes and no more minds that are going blank. All things will be made new. That's what God wants us to think about. That's the helmet that will keep us focused and remind us that all the devil offers us is a sham, it is a waste, and what does it matter if you gain the whole world and lose your own soul? May God give us grace to put on the whole armor of God that in the day of evil we may stand and stand and stand. Amen. Heavenly Father, we thank you for the hope that is ours and for the armor that you provide for us through your word. For your word is truth. The things that we've heard this morning are true. We have a shield of faith. We have a hope of salvation. We have shoes of the gospel. We have the belt of truth and the breastplate of righteousness. Lord, you have provided that for us. May we put it on. For Jesus' sake, amen.