________________________________________________________________________

Nobody likes to feel like unprepared. Nobody likes to feel like they are overmatched. This is the reason that everyone cheers for the underdog, because they can remember a time when they were the underdog. Everyone loves it when the underdog wins but really nobody likes being the underdog. We like to be in control, to have everything figured out, to be prepared for what we face, to be stronger than our situation. One of the most beloved stories of the Bible is the story of David’s fight with Goliath. David was an underdog. He was a short teenager with a sling and stones against a giant of a man who was an experienced warrior and was equipped with full body armor, full array of destructive weapons, and an armor bearer to help him out. Goliath was more prepared for the battle, but God responded to David’s faith!

I know what it feels like to be in David’s shoes. (Story of Literary Rally in Spanish. Story of softball team. Story of golf team. Story of piano playing at JCM). Everyone of us has come through a situation where we felt a little like David did that day on the Battlefield. When you came to God, you really weren’t prepared to deal with your past. You weren’t skilled in the Word of God for the situations that you faced. You did not know the ins and outs of what it took for a miracle to happen. Some preacher taught you about the name of Jesus and how that God always responds to faith, and you just stepped out into battle, and the reason that you are here today is because God stepped in and even though you were severely overmatched, God rewarded your faith and His Word and gave you the victory in a bad situation! I’m talking about the times that God gave you healing in church when you had no idea why we prayed for people and anointed them with oil. I’m talking about the fact that God gave you the Holy Ghost, when you really had no idea how to really worship or praise. I’m talking to people that God washed your sins away even though you really didn’t understand at the time what it meant to live a righteous life. I’m talking about the fact that everyone of us can attest to the fact that sometime in the past, God has answered our prayers even when that was the first prayer that we had sincerely prayed in weeks. That’s God’s mercy. You wouldn’t be here today if it wasn’t because of God’s mercy in responding to your faith against the Giant!

I have no problem with God’s mercy. Thank goodness that you don’t have to completely understand every deep theological theme to have a move of God in your life! If that were so, then I wouldn’t be here. In fact, if you make it living for God, it’s going to be because you trusted God and were faithful even in times you didn’t necessarily understand God’s Ways or parts of His Word. The disciples didn’t understand Jesus’ parables anymore than the Pharisee’s did. The disciples didn’t understand why Jesus was always talking about dying any more than the ones who put Him to death did! In fact, one day Jesus was teaching and there were big crowds of people following Him, not because of the teaching but because of the miracles. Miracles draw people like flies to honey. You can draw a crowd by the spectacular, but you can’t build a church upon it. You build a church upon the Word of God, the only sure foundation! God still works miracles in our lives, and I’m not taking anything away from that, but the miracles should be a byproduct of the teaching and not the other way around. Jesus was teaching one day about “eating His flesh and drinking His blood.” He said “my flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed.” Nobody understood what He was talking about. It would be like me being the pastor of this church for 2 years and then get up one Sunday and begin to talk about how that there’s no steak like the steak of my flesh, and you haven’t had a drink until you’ve sipped from a cup of my blood. Most of you would be GONE! Why? Because you wouldn’t understand it. Now I know that Jesus was talking metaphorically and was talking about how that you must believe that Jesus came in the flesh and must spiritually partake of the blood that He would shed in order to be saved, but the disciples didn’t know that then; the crowds didn’t know that then. All they knew was that this miracle worker had started teaching that cannibalism was required to be saved!

From that time on, MANY disciples went back never to return. Then Jesus turned to the 12 disciples and said “are ya’ll leaving too?” Simon Peter answered Him “Lord, where can we go? You have the words to eternal life!” Let me make a point which some of you may have missed: Peter didn’t have the slightest idea what Jesus meant by drinking His blood either. The only difference between Peter and the many disciples that left never to return was that Peter was convinced that he had found the Messiah, and he was willing to trust God even when he didn’t understand God’s ways. He was willing to keep living and obeying the Word, even when he didn’t understand the Word. Many people have left serving God because of something that they didn’t understand. Because they allowed their lack of preparedness to create doubt in the power of God. But if you make it living for God in the long term, it will be because there were times that you remained faithful and committed even when you didn’t understand everything that God was doing in your life! Somebody get the attitude of a Peter: I may make mistakes, I may even fail God, I may not understand every part of God’s Word, and I may not even at times see how that God is moving in my life, but where can I go? I’ve had a revelation of who God is, and I know, that His Words, even if I don’t always understand them, are the words to eternal life!

No, I don’t have a problem with God’s mercy or the way God has taken ill prepared people and given them the victory! I’m glad that God responds to faith even if it is in ignorance. I’m glad that David won that battle that day. But here’s the point:

The problem comes when people have one victory when God’s mercy comes through for them when they were unprepared and so they forever equate “true faith in God” with being unprepared when going into battle. I never find David fighting another battle with a slingshot! Never. Before he had gone into battle with Goliath, Saul tried to put his armour and weapons on David, and the Bible says that David was afraid to go into battle with Saul’s armour because he had not proved them. He had not tested them. He hadn’t learned to fight with those weapons. But David had some experience with the sling so he went in the battle perhaps a little unprepared but God gave him the victory. The key to this story is David never fought with a sling again. What would have happened if David would have approached his next battle with the Philistines with a sling. What would have happened if he would have tried to defend his family against the invaders with just a sling. “Here David, here’s a sword, you’re not a boy now, you’re a man, time to fight like one.” “No, thanks boys. I don’t want that stuff, I’ve got my trusty sling and only 5 stones.” “But David, we’re not going against one man, we’re going against an army.” “Do you doubt my faith boys? God will use the 5 stones to smite the enemy!” If David would have had that attitude, then we wouldn’t be reading about the boy that became the mighty king of Israel, we would be reading about the foolish boy who died young!

Unfortunately, what David didn’t do, is exactly the way many Christians do. God gave them the victory even though they really didn’t know how to worship. God stepped in and saved their soul, even though they really didn’t ever pray. God stepped in and gave them apostolic power in their lives before they ever fasted a day in their life. God gave them anointing to overcome their situation or proclaim God’s Word before they ever really had to submit to Apostolic authority. God gave them the right Word at the right time before they really ever learned to study or to set aside time for church and preaching and teaching. They were David with the sling, and it was a great victory, and they still talk about it! Anybody mentions revival or miracles and they are quick to bring up that great victory, the day that God gave the ill-prepared underdog the victory. But if you were to ask them what victories that they’ve had since, they’ll quickly grow quiet. Because in almost every area of their life since then, they’ve been spiritually whipped. Why? Because they went on to face bigger battles and failed to prepare for their enemy! And so they end up beaten down Christians, and it takes a powerful service and God doing a mighty work in someone else’s life in order to get them motivated. They don’t get excited about the Word of God because they really don’t believe that God will use them because of all of the past defeats! Some even become bitter and blame their failures on God, why didn’t He come through for them? But the problem wasn’t God, it was because they didn’t want to train, they didn’t prepare themselves for a stronger enemy. They were like David taking on a whole garrison of Philistines with an old belt and 5 stones, it just doesn’t work!

________________________________________________________________________

In II Corinthians, Paul gave a list of the things that he endured and how that he made it as a minister, as a missionary, and as a Christian:

Before Paul ever began His ministry, he spent some years by himself in Arabia, in the wilderness, training himself for service to Jesus Christ! Paul didn’t just go into the world with his testimony of what Jesus did for him on the road to Damascus, but equipped himself by being faithful and by studying the scripture. By allowing the power of God to shape him into a vessel of honor. Paul’s testimony was a powerful one, and their were times that he used it, but Paul didn’t attack hell with a water pistol, he armed himself with the principles of the Word of God. And because he did so, Paul didn’t just effect one or two people, he impacted the world. His teaching still governs our church today in Castroville, Texas. Every person that has been saved since has been impacted by not only the story of Paul’s conversion but by Paul’s teachings. Half of the New Testament is a testimony to the fact of what a Christian can do if they will arm themselves and go through some spiritual training and put the slingshot down!

And so it was at the end of Paul’s life. He is in jail again for preaching the Gospel, and here somehow Paul knew that the time was short for it was from within the Roman jail that Paul began to write some of his deepest letters, the letters to the Ephesians, Phillipians, Colossians and then a personal letter to Philemon. I would like to go to the longest of those letters, Ephesians and show you the advice of Paul on how to equip yourself for the spiritual battles. Keep in mind that as Paul writes, he is sitting in a Roman jail, with a Roman soldier in front of him, and as he looks at the now familiar site of the guard standing there arrayed in the finest armour of Rome. The Holy Spirit flashes revelation into Paul’s mind and he begins to see how that each piece of the armour corresponds to exactly what he has put on in the Spirit:

The first thing Paul realized is that a person has to make the decision to put on the armour of God. It’s not something that happens by accident. You don’t become a spiritual warrior because of some chance happening. If you become mighty in the Spirit it’s because there has been a deliberate attempt to put on the armour of God! Another point that Paul wanted you to know is that you will have to fight. We need to realize that the devil wants to destroy you. He wants to kill you. He wants to leave you spiritually and, if he can, physically dead. But it’s not personal. Don’t make the mistake that the devil hates you because of YOU. It has nothing to do with you. The devil hates God. The devil has been at war with God from the beginning. The devils wants to hurt God’s kingdom, the devil likes to embarrass the Most Holy God. That’s what drew Satan to the garden of Eden. Not because the devil hated flesh and blood so much but because man and woman were God’s most prized creation. They were the ones that God desired to have fellowship with and to have a relationship with. So Satan set out to deceive and hurt God’s most precious creation. He embarrassed and hurt God that day when Adam and Eve sinned. Oh, but I’m glad that God’s love wouldn’t let Him reject us then, because God did more than embarrass the devil on Calvary, He utterly humiliated him! God allowed Satan to seemingly have the victory and then used the very victory to become his worst defeat! And you and I are the blood-bought believers that are the spoils of that victory. When you are baptized in the name of Jesus, you become a constant reminder to the devil of his greatest defeat. Oh, you’re going to have to fight, because the devil wants to destroy you, not because of you but because of who you now belong to! This is why Paul points out that we must put on the WHOLE Armour of God. The one area that you leave out will be the one area where Satan attacks. “Wiles” are thought out and crafty and clever attacks. The Devil doesn’t just attack blindly to a saint of God because he doesn’t like losing any more than you and I do. So the devil studies us. He checks our lives with the Word of God and any area that he sees that we haven’t protected by obeying it, he attacks that area! Put on the WHOLE Armour of God. If you’re having trouble in one specific spiritual area of your life over and over, then you need some protection!

We shouldn’t have to wrestle against other saints. Spiritual warfare shouldn’t involve fists and guns! Men, you don’t beat your wife into submission, you love her into it! Women you don’t nag your husband into the man that you want him to be, you encourage and uplift him into it! We fight against principalities (high ranking hierarchy of demon powers) that means spirits of areas and towns. Against powers which are people invested with the powers of authority in the spiritual realm but use it against God’s true purpose. Against rulers of the darkness of the world, that is governmental decisions and a society that are not inline with God’s Word. Spiritual wickedness in high places represents the fact that we have to deal with non-God fearing people and spirits in places where they influence our culture, our schools, our thoughts, and our kids! Thank God for the God-fearing leaders that we do have, we need to pray for them, and not tear them down!

If my mother had to tell me something twice... Put on the whole Armour of God! I hate to tell you this, but we are not going to reach everybody in the world for Jesus. That’s not the will of God, but is the result of the evil that men are doing. God wishes that all would come to repentance, but it’s not going to happen. We’re never going to have true peace on earth brought on by men. That’s the very spirit of the Antichrist. We’re never going to have everyone in agreement on who God is. Since you will never change all of society that is lovers of pleasure, then what are you to do? What is the goal worth fighting for? You are fighting to stand against the enemy until the day that Jesus comes back! When Jesus comes back, there will be peace on earth! When Jesus comes back there will be good will toward men! When Jesus comes back, there won’t be a doubt that He’s the King of King and Lord of Lords, the Lord of Glory! It will be a glorious day, but your commission is to stand for truth, and not fall until He comes! Stand!!!!!!

The first thing you had better put on is truth. The girdle of a soldier was a wide belt that went around the stomach area. It was fastened securely and was not trivial, because it provided a place to carry your weapons such as the sword. And Paul said that we were to be girt with TRUTH! The first truth that you must realize is the truth about Jesus Christ! He is God in Flesh, the great Creator come to die for our sins, and is the express image of the invisible God. Jesus is not a part of some triune Godhead, but ALL the fullness of the Godhead dwells in Him bodily! (Col 2:9) If you get the identity of Jesus wrong, then you’ll lose your weapon. The sword, as we will see later is the Word of God. When somebody doesn’t know who Jesus is, they lose the ability to properly use and carry the Word of God! The other part of truth that you better have, is the truth about yourself. You are nothing in yourself. Without Christ you are just a piece of clay. But with Christ you can do all things! This is the truth, who Jesus Christ is and who He is to us! Without those foundational things you have no place to carry a weapon but also so much more.

The girdlebelt around the soldier was also there to hold all the rest of the armour together. Without that belt, the armour would shift in battle and fall off. It particularly was there to hold up the breastplate. How many Christians have gone into battle with all of the other pieces of the armour but in battle they lost their protection because they did not have it all together with the truth of who Jesus Christ was or how they needed Him!

The breastplate was important because it shielded the heart and the lungs. Without a breastplate, the enemy would easily be able to strike a quick defeat-bringing blow! Paul said that a Christian must put on righteousness. That means holy living. Righteousness is doing what is right. It is changing your lifestyle to match God’s Word. And doing so protects you most precious spiritual parts! It protects the ability to have blood applied to wherever you need it. It keeps you breathing praises to God! When a Christian continues in willful sin, they are literally killing the work of Calvary and their purpose for existing in their life! To be holy, and to praise Him!

If a football player had all of the pads on that he needed but no shoes, he wouldn’t be very well prepared. As a Christian we must have the proper footwear. What are you quick to go run and do: spread mischief? Are your feet quick to go spread gossip? Are your feet quick to go do things that would cause you to stumble? What spiritual shoes do you have on? Are your feet quick to carry your eyes where they should not be? When you leave a situation is it resolved, or enflamed? Does the peace of God go with you? We should have our feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace! Are you quick to spread the news that people HAVE THE WONDERFUL OPPORTUNITY to be BORN AGAIN? It may upset some people, but the only way that they will truly have peace is to become a true, born-again, believer of the one true living God!

Our shield is faith. Faith is not just positive thinking. Faith is meeting a situation with complete assurance in God’s Word! Some people think that Faith is twisting God’s arm to do something. They think that if you have real faith then whatever you want to happen in a situation will always happen. That’s not faith, that’s playing God. True faith is when you remain faithful to God and believe His Word even when you don’t see the result. True faith is being sick and not being healed but still knowing and believing that God is a healer! True faith is trusting in God so that even when tragedy strikes my life, I still know that He has blessed me enough in my lifetime that I’ve been blessed. True faith is having the attitude of the three Hebrew children that were being cast into the fiery furnace: “God is able to deliver us, BUT IF NOT, then we will never bow to an idol!” If God delivers me, then Hallelujah! If God doesn’t, then old Job said “Blessed be the name of the Lord.” If you base your faith upon whether or not you get a miracle or the answer exactly like you want it, you won’t keep it for long, because life will disappoint you! But I know my redeemer lives! I know my God loves me even in the times when I can’t feel Him, and that’s my shield!

You see, the shield can be moved to protect whatever part needs protecting! The devil is persistent with his fiery darts. Every day, you may not be fighting an all out blitz of hell, but you will have to deal with some temptations. You can be going along having a normal day and all of sudden something comes up which causes a doubt in your mind, or causes a troubling in your spirit. That’s a dart! You’ve got to raise your faith to meet it! Don’t let that doubt take over your mind. Meet it with your faith. Let’s say that you are talking to someone and they are very unscriptural. That dart goes toward your mind and tries to lodge there, but you raise your faith up and quench it and say, No I believe God’s Word. Let’s say that there is temptation to do something that’s against God word that you really would like to do. Don’t let that dart stay there, raise up your faith and say, “no, I’m going to live according to God’s Word because I have FAITH that God will reward those who live according to His Word.” I’m not going to date a worldly person, I have faith that God will give me a Godly person. I’m not going to lie to cover up somebody at work or to get ahead, I’m going to have faith and tell the truth. I’m not going to cheat somebody in order to make a few more dollars, I’m going to do right and let God bless me 100 fold. The dart came in, but you raised up your faith in God’s Word to quench it.

The reason that you can’t allow the dart to hit and stay is because it is a fiery dart. If you allow that temptation to become foremost in your mind. If you don’t meet it with that shield of faith, then it will begin to burn you and consume you. The breastplate of righteousness will be burnt up! The other protection will lose it’s impact! When the devil sends the fiery dart of wickedness, raise your shield of faith!

There’s more Christians going around without helmets than any other part of the armour. I’ve known people who were carrying the shield of faith, were trying to put on the breastplate of righteousness, but didn’t bother with the helmet of salvation! The helmet protected the head and the mind! The mind affects every other part of the body! Your salvation experience is important! What you believe is necessary for salvation is important! Paul wrote:

What Gospel did Paul preach? Go read Acts 19, he preached Repentance, Water Baptism in Jesus’ name, infilling of the Holy Ghost with the evidence of speaking in a heavenly language as the Spirit gives the utterance. Then continuing in the Apostle’s doctrine. You better get your salvational formula right, because if it’s not there, your mind is vulnerable to any little wind of doctrine that comes along.

When a person comes to God there are three major areas of their life that need fixing. 1. Their attitude about where they stand with God and their need for God. 2. Their past sins which are legally hanging on to them. 3. Their sinful nature which is in control of their lives. Think about that for a moment.

When a person Repents, they are acknowledging that they are a sinner and that they need God. It’s important, but it does not take care of the past sin problem. When a person is baptized in the name of Jesus, Peter said that it was for the “remission or forgiveness or pardoning of our sins.” Paul taught that without the shedding of blood there is no remission. When you are baptized in Jesus’ name, the blood of Jesus is being applied to your past! Your sins are “blotted out,” that’s legal language. God no longer holds you responsible for your past sins! That is great, but it does not deal with the sinful nature in you that is in control of your life. When a person receives the Holy Ghost and yields to the place where the Spirit of God takes control of their tongue, then their is a regeneration, a new birth taking place, because your spirit man is being reborn! No longer is your flesh in control, but now the spirit that is within you is empowered by the Holy Ghost and you are equipped to overcome sin. The flesh is still there, but now it has competition. Jesus said that the Holy Ghost would come to reprove us of sin! Jesus said that it would lead and guide us into all truth. The Holy Ghost experience is not optional for salvation but is needed to live for God! Jesus said unless you are born of the water AND the Spirit, you cannot enter into the kingdom of God. You then must continue in the Doctrine of the Word of God and feed your spirit spiritual food or it will be crushed by your flesh. You must do more than receive the Holy Spirit, you must continue in the Holy Spirit.

Notice that all of those things affect the way that we think. We must realize in our mind that we are sinners and have need of God. When reminded of our past, we can smile and say, Yes, but God washed my past away. When faced with temptation, the Holy Ghost will quicken the word of God that we have learned and make it available to us so that we can choose right! Just as the helmet protected the warriors mind and ability to think straight, so does salvation protect our mind day after day!

Our Sword is the word of God, and we in order to use it correctly, we must have our mind protected! Jesus came against temptation by effectively using the Sword of the Word of God. We must use the Word of God to fight our spiritual battles. Unfortunately, we do not practice enough using our sword. How many times have you ever been in a situation where everyone was confused until someone said “the Word of God says in... that...” And suddenly everyone had clear direction. Our sword must be sharp and must be used with skill and practice!

Then Paul looking at the Roman guard realized that we have something that the guard does not! We have a secret weapon! That guard had all of his armour on and had his weapon but the one thing that he did not have was instant communication with Caesar. He couldn’t talk to the King anytime he wanted and couldn’t even approach the king without going through the proper channels! We as Christians can talk to our leader at any moment! We are constantly a prayer away from talking to the King of Kings! We can “boldly go before the throne of Grace.” We can always appeal to Jesus Christ! Let’s use our secret weapon! Let’s learn to pray in the Spirit. Not as empty repetitions, but as talking directly to God. Prayer is the secret weapon that will enable you to stand when all else fails!

I’ll choose to fight with more than a slingshot!