Telling the Truth

Guest (Male): God has a plan for your victory. Today on Telling the Truth, Stuart Briscoe opens the book of Ephesians to help you see God's strategy for how you can walk in victory over the enemy. But first, your generous support keeps broadcasts like this one today going out around the world so you and others can experience life through the teaching and resources of Telling the Truth.

To thank you for your gift today, we'll send you Stuart and Jill's powerful new five-message series, Fighting Unseen Forces. It's all about how you can live victoriously and win the battles against your spiritual enemy when you stand in Christ and the power of His spirit. So call today to request your copy: 1-800-889-5388. That's 1-800-889-5388. Or you can give online at tellingthetruth.org. Now here's Stuart with his message, God's Plan for Victory.

Stuart Briscoe: Now then, we must be fair here, however. There are those who on the one hand simply ignore the evil one, and there are others who go to the other extreme and are obsessed by the evil one. C.S. Lewis says the devil doesn't really care whether you ignore him or obsessed by him. Either way, he wins.

What we need is a balanced understanding, and the balanced understanding is this: He is a malevolent force. He is real. He has been discredited. He has been defeated, but he's still powerful and still dangerous. But we have the means of standing against him. We'll see about this in just a moment.

The thing, however, that we need to remember is this: that sometimes the people who are obsessed by the devil attribute to him things that are quite frankly not attributable to him at all. Remember what Paul said earlier on in Ephesians? He said we've got to handle our anger, because if we don't handle our anger, we may give a foothold for the devil.

In other words, we can't just say, "The devil made me do it." That's Flip Wilson theology. What we have to be able to say is this: He's a real enemy. I've got to be on my guard against him, and I fully recognize that if I, through my own stupidity or ill-discipline or rank sinfulness, give him an opening, he'll take it. Know your enemy.

We are not only to be fully conversant with the devil, the evil one, we're also to recognize that on his side in the realm of invisible reality are all kinds of malevolent spiritual forces. Now you say, "Uh-uh. You were doing fine until you said you believe in a personal devil. Now you're not going to tell us you believe in demons, are you?" And the answer is: I'm terribly sorry to disappoint you. Yes.

I'll tell you why. Jesus did, and He was pretty smart. Or you say He was simply accommodating Himself to the thinking of the generation of which He was a part. Are you sure? In actual fact, one of the writers, Luke, who wrote the Acts of the Apostles and obviously the Gospel according to Luke, he was a trained physician. If you read him carefully, you will notice that he very carefully differentiated between sickness and illness and demonic activity. He was there, and he knew what he was talking about.

I would suggest to you that if you have simply lived your life on the North American continent, then it is highly probable that you've never really confronted demonic activity. But if you have been in third-world countries where people are all the time aware of demons and are spending their lives trying to placate the demons and are involved in all kinds of satanic worship and occult activity and all kinds of black art, I promise you you'll have come up against them. And I think it's probably true to say that the more we see American culture lapsing into the occult and Satanism, the more probable it is that there will be incidents of this kind of thing. Know your enemy.

Guest (Male): Now, if we're clear about the enemy, I think probably then it's appropriate for us to consider our assignment. The good soldier not only understands who the adversary is, the good soldier also understands and accepts his assignment. What is the assignment? The assignment is: "Be strong in the Lord and in His mighty power." Literally, be strengthened in the Lord.

The command is in the passive. In other words, this is a command addressed to you that you allow something to be done to you. This is very important that we notice that. The command is to be obediently responded to, but the obedience is that we allow something to be done to us. That points out, of course, on the one hand, the responsibility on our part to make sure we are being strengthened, but the responsibility on God's part through His power to do the strengthening.

Now He says that we are to be strong in the Lord and in His mighty power. You may want to check back to Chapter 1, Verse 19. You will notice those three identical words are used to describe the power and the might and the strength of the risen Christ. You can go from Chapter 1 to Chapter 3 and you'll find those same words again where the Apostle Paul is making the powerful statement that we are able in Christ to begin to discover His mighty power at work that is able to do abundantly above all that we can ever ask or imagine. We've got to understand our assignment is to allow the power of the risen Christ to strengthen us with all might.

We're sure going to need it. I promise you something. If we think the struggle is against flesh and blood, we'll be using flesh and blood to counter it. If we understand that the struggle is against these spiritual realities in the invisible realm, we'll be hungry for spiritual power. First command is "be strengthened." The second command is "stand against" the canny, cunning, crafty, angelic angel of light approach. In addition to that, be able to withstand the evil day when he comes against you like the roaring lion. And having done all this, at the end of the day when the dust settles and the smoke clears, to be standing—bloodied, battered, and unbowed. That's your assignment.

The top award for bravery in the British military is the Victoria Cross. By the way, I apologize for all these British illustrations and Second World War stuff, but that's my only personal experience of war, so forgive me. The Victoria Cross was awarded to the youngest person ever awarded the Victoria Cross. He was a teenager.

His assignment was to be on one of His Majesty's Royal Navy ships at the time that the Japanese kamikaze pilots were literally, physically crashing their planes in suicidal bombing raids, crashing their planes loaded with explosives into the ships. The task of this young man, this teenager, and the rest of his crew was to man one of the anti-aircraft guns on the side of this Royal Naval ship and try and shoot these planes down before they crashed into them.

The battle was long and the battle was fierce. The Japanese came over in waves. Many of the ships were hit. The ship that this young man was on was hit by a kamikaze pilot. There was a vast explosion. The planes came over and machine-gunned them as they had little protection in their anti-aircraft gun on the side of the ship. One by one, the men in his crew were killed until, in the end, this young teenager manned the gun himself.

And he kept firing, and he kept firing. As the ship was sinking around him and the fire was blazing and the explosives were exploding around him, when it was all over, they found him mortally wounded with his fingers on the trigger, still firing. He withstood the evil day. And when the dust settled, when the smoke cleared, he still stood. That's your assignment.

Not only that, we begin to discover that we're strengthened with might as we take unto us the whole armor of God. Notice that it is God's armor that He loans you. It is that which God provides that you put on. And in addition to that, you make sure that you're living in an attitude of prayer, that you're constantly alert, and that you love Jesus with an undying love. It's all there. This is the assignment.

So now I trust we're clear about the adversary and I trust we're clear about the assignment. The only thing we need to talk about now in the closing moments is the armor that we're to put on. Let me just walk you through it. This is what Paul says, using the graphic picture of the Roman soldier. Verse 14: "Stand firm then with the belt of truth buckled around your waist."

The Roman soldier, of course, didn't wear the fatigues that the modern soldier wears. And when he went into battle, he needed to tuck the loose flowing robes and tunic into a belt around him. And that became that which got rid of all the things that would trammel him and trip him up, and it became the very basis upon which all his equipment hung. It was fundamental.

And fundamental to the Christian is the belt of truth. Paul, earlier in our epistle, has talked about learning Christ. He's talked about the truth as it is in Christ Jesus. You know, the angel of light has appeared even in the Church of Jesus Christ in America, and he's whispered in people's ears: "There isn't such a thing as absolute truth. It's all relative. It may be true for you, but it isn't true for him. But as long as it's true for you, it's true."

What we need is the truth as it is in Jesus—that He is the truth and that which is contrary to Him is error. So it might be politically correct to say, "Jesus is my truth, but I understand that He's not your truth, and we've got to understand that your truth is just as important as my truth." We don't have the freedom to do that, because you see, the angel of light has come with his diversionary and his deceptive tactics and has totally demoralized you. The belt of truth.

In addition to the belt of truth, we put on the breastplate of righteousness. Righteousness, of course, means to be right with God and to live rightly before God. If we're going to stand in the battle, first of all, we've got to make sure we're right with God. The only way we can be right with God is to recognize that all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags, and we divest ourselves of them, seek His forgiveness, and claim His imputed righteousness. In the strength of that, we live through the Spirit rightly before Him. And that becomes a breastplate that guards our vital organs. For the evil one would speak all kinds of doubts to us. But if we know deep in our hearts that we have buckled on the belt of truth as it is in Jesus and our heart is protected because we know that we're not basing our hope on our own righteousness but on the righteousness of Christ, the evil one cannot affect our heart.

In addition to that, we are to make sure that our feet are well shod. When I was in the Marines, one of the things they used to inspect regularly was our feet. Sounds gross, but they did. And if you got blisters on your feet when you were in the Marine Commandos, as I was, you were immediately put on a charge and shipped off to the brig because you had caused yourself harm that meant you couldn't go into action. Your feet were critical.

The Apostle Paul understood that the Roman soldiers had sandals with cleats on them so that as they stood in the mud and the blood of the battlefield, they weren't slipping and sliding. They were taking their stand, and on a firm basis, they could fight the good fight. This is what Paul says: You've got to make sure that your feet are shod with the equipping that comes from the Gospel of peace.

The Gospel of peace is the good news that things are right between you and God. So that you're able to say, in the hurly-burly of the battle: "When peace like a river attendeth my way, and sorrows like sea billows roll. Whatever my lot, You have taught me to say, it is well, it is well with my soul." There are my cleats. I'm in the battle. I'm girded with truth. I'm protected by His righteousness. I'm at peace with God and at peace with the world. Come hell or high water, I'm in the fight.

And in addition to that, we are to take the shield of faith—not the small shield, the large shield that was like a door made of wood, coated with leather. So that when the enemy would take their arrows and dip them in pitch and set fire to them and shoot fiery arrows, they would simply be embedded in the door and extinguished and the soldiers would be safe. The evil one will send his fiery darts, and we could bring people up here one after the other to testify about the fiery darts they're dealing with. But what they need to understand is this: that in utter dependence upon the all-sufficient power of Christ, they can take the shield of faith and extinguish those fiery darts.

And in addition to that, we're to take the helmet of salvation. Actually, writing to the Thessalonians, Paul slightly alters the statement, and he said, "Let us put on for a helmet the hope of salvation." The confidence of our salvation. This is not our past salvation; this is our future salvation. The hope and the confidence that one day our salvation will be complete and we will be safe home at last. And that becomes the helmet that guards your mind. For you go into battle and you say, "I don't know what's going to happen to me. Wow, this is scary. Why is this happening to me?" Then you put on the helmet of salvation, which is the confidence that is yours that God is in control. And confident that He is in control, you're also confident that He will complete what He started in your life.

Guest (Male): You're listening to Stuart Briscoe today on Telling the Truth. He's coming right back with more from today's message. But before he does, listen to what Tracy wrote in to say. She listens to Telling the Truth online. "I can't thank the Briscoes enough for their help in bringing me closer to Christ. I am so appreciative." Thanks for sharing, Tracy.

That's the kind of blessing you can bring into people's lives through your gift of support today, as you help share God's word around the world so more people can experience life through Telling the Truth. And when you give this month, we'd like to bless you with a copy of Stuart and Jill Briscoe's new five-message series, Fighting Unseen Forces.

Every day, you are locked in a battle with your spiritual enemy, one that threatens your spiritual, emotional, and relational well-being. But you're not alone, and you're not without help. And in this powerful series, the Briscoes will show you straight from God's word how you can live victoriously each day. You'll gain confidence in knowing that you'll never be overpowered in your spiritual battles as you discover that the fight's not even fair when you have Christ and His Spirit.

Fighting Unseen Forces is our thanks for your gift to help more people experience life through the teaching resources of Telling the Truth. So request your copy when you call 1-800-889-5388. That's 1-800-889-5388. Or give online at tellingthetruth.org. Now here's more from Stuart with today's message from the series Fighting Unseen Forces.

Stuart Briscoe: So like the Apostle Paul, you face each day with this kind of mentality. There are two possibilities today. Possibility number one: I will live. Possibility number two: I won't. That about covers it. Would you agree with me? That about covers it.

Then he goes a step further. Possibility number one: If I live today, Christ is my life. Possibility number two: If I don't, listen, death is my gain. Helmet of the hope of salvation. Come on, enemy. You're mean and you're ugly. You're totally, diametrically opposed to all the purposes of God that He wants to work out in my life and my marriage and my business and my parenting and my church. I know. I know you. I know what you're up to. Sometimes the roaring lion, sometimes the angel of light. But come on. Come on.

Belt of truth. Breastplate of righteousness. Feet shod with the readiness that comes from the assurance of peace. Utter dependence on God that He will quench the fiery darts of the evil one. My mind stayed on Him with the helmet of salvation. And look out, evil one, because I've got in my hand the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. This great defensive weapon—and be careful because it's also a pretty good offensive weapon, too.

And I'm going to acquaint myself with it, and I'm going to know how to use it. And I will learn how to defend myself with it, and I will know how to go on the offensive with it, because it's sharper than any two-edged sword. And so in the morning, I'm going to get up and I'm not just going to think in terms of getting ready for the day. I'm going to think in terms of checking the armor is in place. And then we go into battle.

Oh, by the way, praying with all supplication, that we can call on the Lord to be in the fight with us. Oh, and by the way, thoroughly alert to what's happening in our lives so that at the end we're drawing upon the grace that is available to all those who love the Lord Jesus with an undying love. What a wonderful, wonderful epistle is Ephesians. God has a plan—cosmic, eternal—and we're part of it.

That's the good news. The bad news is there's a devil who is diametrically opposed to it, and we are caught in the middle. But the good news is: He's a roaring lion on a short leash, and He appears as an angel of light but we've ripped off his disguise, and he's beaten. For greater is He that is in you than he that is in the world. Ask yourself, if you will, three questions. Am I identifying the real enemy? Am I fighting the right fight? Am I using the proper weapons? Let's pray together.

A mighty fortress is our God, a bulwark never failing. Our helper He, amidst the flood of mortal ills prevailing. For still our ancient foe doth seek to work us woe. His craft and power are great and armed with cruel hate, on earth is not his equal. Did we in our own strength confide, our striving would be losing? Were not the right man on our side, the man of God's own choosing? Dost ask who that may be? Christ Jesus, it is He. Lord Sabaoth His name, from age to age the same, and He must win the battle.

And though this world with devils filled should threaten to undo us, we will not fear for God has willed His truth to triumph through us. The Prince of Darkness grim, we tremble not for him. His rage we can endure, for lo, his doom is sure. One little word will fell him. That word above all earthly powers, no thanks to them, abideth. The spirits and the gifts are ours through Him who with us sideth. Let goods and kindred go, this mortal life also. The body they may kill, God's truth abideth still. His kingdom is forever. Amen.

Guest (Male): Thanks so much, Stuart. We hope today's message encouraged you. Now before we go, remember that when you give today to help keep Telling the Truth broadcasts like this one going out around the world, we'll send you Stuart and Jill Briscoe's new five-message series, Fighting Unseen Forces, to help you discover how you can live victoriously each day, knowing that with Christ and His Spirit, you're never alone. So call now to give and remember to request your copy of Fighting Unseen Forces with our thanks: 1-800-889-5388. That's 1-800-889-5388. Or you can give online at tellingthetruth.org. Thanks so much for joining us today on Telling the Truth. Join us next time as Stuart and Jill Briscoe share more powerful truth from God's word. Listen in and experience life on Telling the Truth.