Pathway to Victory

David J. Mullins: Hey podcast listeners, thanks for streaming today's podcast from Pathway to Victory. Pathway to Victory is a nonprofit ministry featuring the Bible teaching of Dr. Robert Jeffress. Our mission is to pierce the darkness with the light of God's word through the most effective media available, like this podcast.

To support Pathway to Victory, go to ptv.org/donate or follow the link in our show notes. Now, here's today's podcast from Pathway to Victory.

Dr. Robert Jeffress: Hi, this is Robert Jeffress, and I'm glad to study God's word with you every day on this Bible teaching program. On today's edition of Pathway to Victory, one writer said it this way: falling off a platform is not a habit, but cultivated lusting, anger, and so on, are.

Generally speaking, those who say, "I cannot help it," are either not well-informed about life or have not decided to do without sin. Let me give you some great news today: you don't have to be a slave to sin any longer.

David J. Mullins: Welcome to Pathway to Victory with author and pastor, Dr. Robert Jeffress. You know, we've all experienced those moments when we know we should say no to temptation, but we say yes anyway, and then we suffer the consequences.

Today on Pathway to Victory, Dr. Robert Jeffress shares powerful principles for cultivating the habit of obedience so that you can be protected from Satan's destructive plans. But first, let's take a moment to hear some important ministry updates.

Dr. Robert Jeffress: Thanks, David. And welcome again to Pathway to Victory. Whether you realize it or not, we're all caught in the middle of an invisible war between God and Satan. And for the past few weeks, we've been exposing the realities of this epic battle and the tactics Satan uses to try to bring about our demise.

My teaching series is called The Divine Defense. In my book, which is also called The Divine Defense, I'll teach you how to put on the armor of God daily in order to protect yourself against your enemy's tactics. You don't have to become spiritual roadkill.

Using the powerful armor of Ephesians 6, I'll help you recognize and apply six practical strategies you can use every day to move forward in faith and defeat Satan's destructive plan for your life. A copy of my book, The Divine Defense, can be yours today when you give a generous gift to support Pathway to Victory. More details later. Right now, let's continue our study in Ephesians chapter 6 with a lesson on how to say no to sin. Today's study is titled Developing the Habit of Obedience.

Thomas à Kempis wrote, "The enemy is more easily overcome if he is not allowed to enter the door of our heart, but is resisted outside the gate at his first knock." Now, that's easier said than done. How do you say no to the enemy when he knocks on the door of your heart, not just sometimes, but every time?

And how do you say yes to God, not just some of the time, but all of the time? That is the essence of obedience, or as Paul calls it, putting on the breastplate of righteousness. If you have your Bibles, turn to Ephesians chapter 6. When he says put on the breastplate of righteousness, what he's saying is: do what you know you should do.

Obey the truth that you know you should obey. He's talking about practiced righteousness. How does that help protect us against Satan's attacks in our life? Remember last time we saw four ways that doing the right thing, obeying God, protects you from Satan's attacks.

First of all, obedience protects us from the consequences of sin. So many Christians get mixed up about this. They think when they trust in Christ as Savior, that it erases all of the consequences of their sin. No. Salvation, receiving Christ as your Savior, erases the eternal consequences of your sin.

You never have to worry about going to hell for all eternity and paying for your sin. Christ's blood erases those eternal consequences, but Christ's blood does not erase the temporary consequences of sin. Remember this: forgiven people, Christians, still experience divorces. They still go through bankruptcy. They still have broken relationships.

Becoming a Christian does not erase the temporary consequences of your sin. But here's what does erase those consequences: never committing those sins to begin with. Obedience protects us from the consequences, the painful consequences of sin. Secondly, obedience protects us from doubts about our salvation.

Thirdly, obeying God protects us from the loss of our rewards in heaven. That's one of the benefits. It protects us against rewards in heaven. Look, if Satan can't rob you of your presence in heaven one day—and he can't—he'd love to rob you of your rewards in heaven.

Remember we saw last time, heaven's not going to be the same experience for everybody. There are degrees of joy in heaven based on our faithfulness to Christ in this life. And finally, how does obedience protect us from Satan's attack? Obedience protects us from Satan's further entrance into our lives.

Remember James 4:7 says, "Resist the devil, and he will flee from you." But the corollary of that is: submit to the devil, and he'll keep coming back for more and more and more of your life. The more you sin, the more you make sin a habit in your life.

Remember my illustration last time about the string? This little flimsy piece of string, I can put it around my hand one time and be free of it without a second thought. But if I allow this tiny string to be wrapped around my fingers over and over and over again, it's not long before I can't get free, no matter how hard I try.

Proverbs 5:22 says we are held by the cords of our own sin. Obeying God keeps us from developing that habit of ungodliness that becomes like a cord by which we're bound. Ephesians 6:14 tells us to put on the breastplate of righteousness. But can I point out something to you?

Paul doesn't say, "Study the breastplate of righteousness," "Love the breastplate of righteousness," or "Appreciate the breastplate of righteousness." That's not the command. The command is to put on the breastplate of righteousness. How do you do that? We've done the exposition of the passage. Now, here's where the rubber meets the road: the application of it.

And so in the few minutes we have this morning, I want to share with you four principles, four keys for putting on the breastplate of righteousness. First of all, write this down: you have to appreciate the power of habits. Appreciate the power of habits.

Somebody has written: I am your constant companion. I am your greatest helper or your heaviest burden. I will push you onward or drag you down to failure. I am completely at your command. Half of the things you do, you might as well turn over to me, and I will do them quickly and correctly.

I am easily managed. You must merely be firm with me. Show me exactly how you want something done, and after a few lessons, I will do it for you automatically. I am the servant of all great people and, alas, of all failures as well. Those who are great, I have made great.

I'm not a machine, though I work with the precision of a machine plus the intelligence of a man. You may run me for profit or run me for ruin. It makes no difference to me. Take me, train me, be firm with me, and I will place the world at your feet. Be easy with me, and I will destroy you. Who am I? I am habit.

Always appreciate the power of habits. What is a habit? It is just a repeated pattern of behavior, doing the same thing over and over again. We've talked about the destructive power of habits. We can be bound by habit. Here's a good verse to memorize: 2 Peter 2:19. "For by what a man is overcome, by this he is enslaved."

You know what? You are a slave to whatever or whomever you can't say no to. If you want to know who your master is, it's whomever or whatever you cannot say no to. That's the person, that's the thing that is in charge of your life.

I hear people in addictive habits saying, "Why, it's not an addiction. I can stop anytime I want to." Oh, really? Then why don't you stop? People become ensnared. They become bound by their habits. I was talking to another congregation about this one time and trying to do it in a humorous way, and I gave my testimony of how I became addicted to Häagen-Dazs vanilla ice cream.

And it all started when I made the decision that on Sunday nights after church, I would reward myself for a day of preaching by eating a half pint of Häagen-Dazs vanilla ice cream. And I did that for a while. And then one week, Wednesday came along.

And I said, "You know, I've made it halfway through the week without any major mistakes. It's hump day. I think I'm going to give myself another reward." So I went for that last half of a pint of Häagen-Dazs ice cream. And then one day, it was a Friday afternoon.

I was driving home from church, and I thought to myself, "You know, there are a lot of men who are going out and carousing and getting drunk, and I'm going home to my family. I think I'll whip into the supermarket and get another pint of Häagen-Dazs ice cream."

And pretty soon, I had developed a rationale for eating ice cream every night of the week. Well, the congregation laughed. At the end of the service, I invited people to join the church. And down the aisle came this young woman who looked very familiar to me.

I had the microphone, which I vowed never to do again, and I said to her in front of our congregation, "You look familiar. Who are you?" She smiled and said, "I'm the cashier at Albertson's that sells you your ice cream every Friday." True story. You're a slave to whatever you can't say no to.

But here's the good news: habits not only work against you, they can work for you. Repeated patterns of behavior can have a powerful positive impact on your life. The late writer Dallas Willard used the analogy of a star athlete to illustrate the power of habit.

He said a teenage boy who idolizes a star baseball player may decide that the way to succeed in baseball is to mimic the actions of a star ballplayer during the game. Swing like he swings, slide into home like he slides. But does mimicking the actions of an athlete in the game lead to greatness?

Of course not. The star athlete didn't achieve his excellence by trying to behave in a certain way only during the game. Instead, he chose an overall life of preparation of mind and body, pouring all his energies into that total preparation to provide a foundation in the body's automatic responses and strength for his conscious efforts during the game.

Those exquisite responses we see during the game aren't produced and maintained by the short hours of the game itself. They are available to the athlete for those short, all-important hours because of a daily regimen that no one sees.

You know, too often we tell people when you're in the middle of a trial or a test, just whip out that question: WWJD, what would Jesus do? And just try to mimic the actions of Jesus and you'll be a success. The only problem is if we wait until we're in the midst of a temptation or trial to do what we're supposed to do, to do what Jesus did, it's too late to experience success.

Now, listen to this: Jesus' amazing and automatic obedience in the middle of a crisis was the result of His habit of solitude, prayer, meditation on God's word, and obedience in the smallest details of life. The Christian who expects obedience to come easily when under attack is doomed to failure, as the athlete who ignores the disciplines of diet, exercise, and training, yet expects to perform well in the game.

Isn't that good? Appreciate the power of habits. It's necessary if you're going to put on that breastplate of righteousness. Number two: choose discipline over deliverance. 1 Timothy chapter 4, verses 7 and 8. Paul said, "Discipline yourself for the purpose of godliness; for bodily discipline is only of little profit, but godliness is profitable for all things, since it holds the promise for this present life and for the life to come."

Now, let's all be honest for a moment. We all prefer the miraculous to the mundane. We look for quick fixes to our problems. If we're having a difficulty, we want to look for that one-time prayer I can offer to God that will forever solve the spiritual struggles I'm involved in.

Or we want to have a special deliverance service where we get delivered forever and ever and ever from this addiction or problem that's plaguing us. Or we want to make this bold declaration where we're going to bind the power of the demons of lust and anger and laziness.

Now, even if there were demons assigned to lust and laziness and anger—even if there were—there's nothing you and I can do to make them leave. Even Jesus and the apostles, who had the power of exorcism for a period of time, didn't keep the demons from coming back.

In fact, sometimes more demons came back to the person than left the person. No, it's not a one-time experience that is going to forever solve your struggle with obedience. It's discipline. But we want to think we can make these declarations and bind the power of Satan forever and ever.

In a modern version of the C.S. Lewis classic, The Screwtape Letters, Randy Alcorn relates a letter from the senior demon he calls Foulgrin to his demonic student named Squaltane. And this is what he writes, his word of advice: Let the humans cast us out or imagine they have, as long as the vermin keep making the daily choices that invite us back in.

Let them name and bind us for their heart's content, as long as they entertain the thoughts and engage in activities that give us the power over them. It's not power plays and sweeping declarations of our defeat that frighten me. It's the quiet prayers for personal holiness and greater yieldedness to the enemy, that is God.

Far better that the humans focus on us than look to their own hearts and ask the enemy to cleanse them. Never be frightened by their grandstanding. You know, cultivating the disciplines of prayer, reading God's word daily, confessing our sins—developing those disciplines do more, do more to destroy Satan's plan to destroy us than any grand declaration or one-time experience we can have.

That's why it's important that we value discipline over deliverance. A third key for putting on the breastplate of righteousness is this: perform an obedience inventory. Perform what I call an obedience inventory. It was the great evangelist Charles Finney that said, "The man who is convicted of one sin is convicted of all sins. But the person who's convicted of all sins is convicted of none."

Do you understand what Finney is saying? If you say, "I'm guilty of all sins," then you're really not being specific enough to correct any sin. Find that one specific sin you need to repent of and do so. You know, so many times we say, "Lord, I've sinned. Help me to do better in Jesus' name. Amen." That doesn't cut it.

We need to let God know exactly what sin we are turning from and exactly what we're going to do differently in our life to put on that breastplate of righteousness. Repentance, turning from sin, requires specificity. Exactly what are we going to start doing and stop doing?

To help you think through that, I've put on your outline what I call a life grid. And I want to encourage you just to think through this life grid: your family, your finances, your spiritual life, your work, your health, your friendships. And just say, "Lord, what's one thing I could start doing in my family that would please You?

Something I'm not doing right now with my family. What's one thing? What's one thing I could stop doing that would make my family more pleasing to You? What about in my finances? You've entrusted a certain amount of money to me. What should I start doing that I'm not doing with my finances?

What am I doing that I need to stop doing?" And thirdly, your spiritual life. What about your time with God? What about your time in the word? What's one thing you could start doing there that would please God? What's one thing you need to stop doing?

Now, I would encourage you tonight, before you go to bed, take 20 minutes and just ask God to reveal one thing to start doing and stop doing in each of these areas. Now, I know what you're thinking. You're thinking, "Pastor, that's not just one thing. I've got 10 things I need to start doing and stop doing."

I understand that. But remember: he who is convicted of all sins is convicted of none. Start with that one thing in each of these life areas that you know would be pleasing to God. You know, I remember reading the biography of Benjamin Franklin. Benjamin Franklin was not a Christian.

He was a deist. But even he understood the importance of habits. He had a practice of looking at his character, examining his character and determining one character quality that he needed to work on each week. And so every week, he would work on self-control, or speaking in kindness, or managing his time better.

And he would devote all of his activities to correcting that one area in his life. That's a powerful concept. Now, Benjamin Franklin didn't have the Holy Spirit of God like Christians do to help him. But just think between your decision and resolve and God's power what you can do to make a difference in your life.

Have a spiritual inventory of your life. And then fourthly, to put on the breastplate of righteousness, decide once and for all that obedience is both possible and profitable. You know, many Christians think of obedience like they do the law of gravity.

They think just as gravity is inevitable, they think sin is inevitable. They think, "I've got this sin nature in me and I can't help it. I have to sin." No, you don't. One writer said it this way: falling off a platform is not a habit, but cultivated lusting, anger, and so on are.

And generally speaking, those who say, "I cannot help it," are either not well-informed about life or have not decided to do without sin—mostly likely it's the latter. Let me give you some great news today: you don't have to be a slave to sin any longer.

The same power that raised Jesus from the dead, the same Holy Spirit power is available to you right now to break the cycle of sin and death. Here's another great verse to memorize: Romans 8:2. The Living Bible says, "For we know that the power of the life-giving Spirit—and that power is mine through Christ Jesus—has forever freed us from the vicious circle of sin and death."

You've got to decide that obedience is possible. But you also need to decide that obedience is profitable. That's what it comes down to. Do you think it really pays to obey God? Let me ask you a couple of questions. Have you come to the place in your life where you believe—you really believe—that the short-term pleasure of disobeying God is far outweighed by the pains of disobedience?

Have you come to the place in your life where you believe with all of your heart that God's plan for your life is really better than Satan's plan for your life? Are you ready to start putting on the breastplate of righteousness by doing that one thing in each of these life areas that you know would bring the most pleasure to God?

If you've come to that place, it is God who is giving you the willingness, the power to change. All you have to supply is the decision. Put on the breastplate of righteousness.

Yes, God's plan for your life is far better than Satan's plan. And right now, at this very moment, God's inviting you to put on the garments that will shield your heart from sin. All you need to do is wear the breastplate of righteousness. Well, I hope you'll decide to dig deeper into this topic on your own.

As I mentioned earlier, I've written a book for you. It's called The Divine Defense. Look, Satan is waging a relentless war on every Christian, doing whatever he can to lead you away from God. And the best way to protect yourself against Satan's attacks is to prepare.

In my book, The Divine Defense, I'll explain how you can put on the armor of God and use it to win your spiritual battles. I'd be pleased to send you a copy of my book when you give a generous gift to support the ministry of Pathway to Victory.

If you're among those who have given generously to Pathway to Victory, I want to commend you for investing in people's lives, especially in this critical season of our nation's history. America celebrates her 250th birthday this year.

And in that spirit, we're doubling down on our efforts to flood our country with the light and love of Jesus Christ. He's our only hope for America, and we couldn't accomplish this goal without friends like you. So please join us. Your generous gifts are needed, and God is working through you to pierce the darkness with the light of His word. Here's David with all the details.

David J. Mullins: Today when you support the ministry of Pathway to Victory by giving a generous gift, we'll say thanks by sending you The Divine Defense. That's Dr. Jeffress's best-selling book on spiritual warfare. You'll get that book along with the Equipped for Battle brochure. Call 866-999-2965 or visit online at ptv.org.

Now, you can also support this ministry by texting PTV to 78800. And when your gift is $100 or more, we're also going to send you the new Divine Defense teaching series on audio and video disc, the companion study guide, and the children's book titled Suit Up for Kids.

This book is a fun, interactive way to teach kids how to put on the armor of God and to stand strong against the enemy. To request the complete package of resources, call 866-999-2965 or visit ptv.org. You could write to PO Box 223609 Dallas, Texas, 75222. Again, that's PO Box 223609 Dallas, Texas, 75222.

I'm David J. Mullins. Are you searching for purpose? Learn how finding it can help you win your spiritual battles. That's Tuesday on Pathway to Victory. Pathway to Victory with Dr. Robert Jeffress comes from the pulpit of the First Baptist Church of Dallas, Texas.

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Your monthly gift will empower Pathway to Victory to share the gospel of Jesus Christ and help others become rooted more firmly in His word. To become a Pathway Partner, go to ptv.org/donate or you can follow the link in our show notes. We hope you've been blessed by today's podcast from Pathway to Victory.

Oh, and one last thing before we go: have you reserved your spot yet for the 2026 Pathway to Victory cruise to Alaska? You've been hearing me and Dr. Jeffress mention it, so what are you waiting for? Just picture yourself on the deck of Holland America's elegant Koningsdam and stepping out on deck to witness nature's grandeur.

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