God's Armor and Unity

It is putting on the armor of God. And of course, the Bible study topic is related to that. In fact, if you'd like to turn over to Ephesians 6, verse 12, I know the seminars, I know the Sabbath lessons, the services are all revolving around this theme that's found in Ephesians 6. I'd like to begin in verse 12 because I think it sets the foundation for where we're at, for the challenges that we face and what it takes to put on God's armor. Ephesians 6 and verse 12 sets the stage. Let's notice what it says here. It says, For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in heavenly places. You see, the challenges we face that Paul records for us, these are serious challenges. This is a crucial, life-threatening, dangerous battle that we are fighting, in a sense that we've been called to. And we're fighting, not a physical battle, but he makes it very clear. This is a spiritual battle. And there's an interesting word he uses here in verse 12. He says, We don't wrestle against flesh and blood. That word for wrestling, he's referring to the Greek sport of wrestling, wrestling in ancient times. Now, this wasn't some namby-pamby, all-star wrestling, WWF fight. This is not what this is talking about here. Have you ever read anything about the ancient Greek wrestling? When they would wrestle, the loser, or ultimately the loser, would be pinned down by the neck and held by the throat until the victor was declared. Then they got up and just lived the rest of their life.

No, they didn't. You know what happened to the loser? The loser in a Greek wrestling match had their eyes gouged out and had to go through life blinded. Everyone realizing, there's the loser. There's the one who could not defeat the challenge.

So Paul's talking about something. He's making that comparison, telling us, this is serious. This is not even that kind of a battle, which is bad enough. This is something even worse, even more challenging. This is a spiritual battle against the darkness of this age, against spiritual wickedness in high places.

And it's a reminder to us where we live. Do we realize that we live on a rebel planet controlled by the devil?

That's my first point. We live on a rebel planet controlled by Satan himself. Don't we? Think about that. Have you ever considered where we live? We live in the devil's domain, in a sense, don't we? He's on the throne of this world. We rehearsed those scriptures at least once a year at Atonement, don't we? We know them. We're familiar with them. We're engaged in this spiritual conflict that's raging all around us. And every one of us are on the front lines. Every one of us has been called by God to active duty to fight and resist the challenges around us, because the God of this age has blinded the world. We know that passage, don't we? 2 Corinthians 4, 4. The God of this age. That's Satan the devil. And we know how he works. Right? 1 Peter chapter 5 verse 8. You don't have to turn there. You know it. What does he do?

He prowls around like a roaring lion looking for who he can devour.

You see, that's a scary battle that we've been called to. We know this is a powerful being. He is the prince of the power of the air. The New Living translation puts Ephesians 2, 2. New Living says he's the commander of the powers of the unseen world. We're fighting against something we can't even see. And yet sometimes, because we can't see it, we forget who we're fighting, don't we? We forget who the real battle is against. And boy, God lays it out. He calls things for what they are. He names things for what they are. He calls Satan throughout the Bible many different things. He labels him as the accuser. He says he's an enemy. He's the serpent. He's the dragon. He's the adversary. That's that spiritual wickedness in high places. And we know his mission. This isn't something that's surprising. We know what he's after. He wants to deceive. He wants to destroy. He wants to divide God's people and defeat the purpose of God. That's what we're up against. And you know, he doesn't fight fair.

He doesn't fight fair. It's kind of like the Texas politicians said. They asked this Texas politician, why did this candidate lose? We don't understand. How in the world could he have lost?

And this Texas politician said, you know, he lost because he forgot the first rule of knife fighting.

He said, really? What's that? The politician said, there ain't no rules.

And that's the way Satan fights. He is not. He will do anything. He'll do everything he can to bring us down. Everything! He doesn't care how he gets you. He just wants to get you. And his goal is to discourage us and bring us down and separate us and make us feel like, what is the use? What is the point of all of this? That's how he wants us to feel. He wants us to feel like this. And yet, God says it doesn't have to be that way. We don't have to be overcome. Look at verse 11. Let's get back just to verse. Verse 11, he says, put on the whole armor of God that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. Put it on. Put on the whole armor of God. Now, it's interesting. If you look up that phrase, put on the armor of God, that's not saying, wow, this would be nice if you thought about putting this armor on. It's not saying, you know, this might be helpful if you use this armor as you fight. He's not saying, you know, it would be a pretty good idea to get armed for battle. Now, if you look up that phrase, it's like a military command. And Paul's using that metaphor as military soldiers. He's saying, put it on! This is a command. This is a military command that should be obeyed. Yes, sir, right now, get it on. Put it on. Because it's the only way to stand against the wiles of the devil. And that's an interesting word. We don't oftentimes use that in modern English. You know, we don't talk about the wiles too much. But that's a very interesting Greek word. It means to be crafty or deceitful or to trick people. Cunning also fits in there with strategies and schemes and tactics. It's very interesting because that word is based on a word that refers back to a method or a methodology. Satan isn't out here, in other words, just hoping, well, I hope I can deceive them. I hope I can fool them. You know, I hope somehow I'm going to be able to hoodwink them. That's not what this is referring to. This is referring to the fact that he has a plan. He is scheming. He is strategizing. He is doing everything he can to map out and plan our destruction. That's what he wants. And yet, if we take up this armor, we can battle that. We can fight that and not only fight it, but we can win. He's not going to fight fair. He's not going to give us an even break. He's going to do everything he can to deceive us. He's going to even dress up like an angel of light and look like, oh, here's the answer. Here's the solution. Go this way when it's an outright lie. But he's going to look like that, and he comes in a thousand disguises, in a thousand ways, to tempt us and to fool us. Boy, we can't ever forget he is smarter than we are. He's smarter than we are. And so we've got to fight that battle. He knows probably our weak points better than we do. And he doesn't wait to attack. He can attack at any time. And I think these are things we know. But I think it sets the stage and the foundation for where we need to begin as we follow God's command to put on His armor. Remember, we live on a rebel planet that the devil himself controls.

And so the only way to win the fight is to put on that complete spiritual armor.

And so the Apostle Paul begins to paint that picture here in Ephesians 6. Have you ever imagined yourself like this? I know as a boy, we boys tend to picture ourselves as soldiers that are going to battle. And we can imagine ourselves. And I think Paul is helping us to imagine ourselves dressed up in this Roman military armor, ready to go forth and battle with the devil. And he describes these six different parts of a soldier's uniform. And we'll be hearing a lot about those different parts over the next few days. One I'd like to zero in on is in verse 16.

Notice verse 16. This is point number two. Take the shield of faith. Take the shield of faith. Ephesians 6, 16, it says, above all, taking the shield of faith with which you will be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked one. So in addition, some translations say, to all these other accoutrements of the armor that's mentioned, in addition, take that shield. Or if you read in the Amplified Bible, it says, lift up over all the covering shield of faith. So Paul establishes this metaphor, this image of the Roman army. And you know, the Roman army brought some amazing new ways to fight warfare. Things that they did had never been done before in history. And you know, one of those things that they did relates to the shield. And I think that's why Paul used this, to demonstrate to us how we need to be, what we need to do, what our mindset should be. They brought a new concept of warfare, and it was how they marched into battle with their shields. Now, if you were to look up this word for shield, it's the torios, is the word. It's a Greek word, torios. And it describes what that shield was like. It was this big, large oblong shield, four foot tall, by two and a half foot wide.

In fact, the word relates to the word for door, toro, a door, because this thing was huge. I don't know if I'd even be able to pick it up. It was huge. And it was made of wood, like a door. And they oftentimes covered them with hides. And so the Roman heavy infantry used that kind of a shield, the torios, to march into battle. Now, the soldier's shield was used in an interesting way.

Now, you would think, you know, if I'm marching into battle, I'm going to cover myself with this shield. It's going to be making sure it's covering every inch of my body. But that's not the way the soldiers marched into battle. Do you know that the Roman soldiers only covered about two-thirds of their body with their own shield? When I read that, I went, what? That's crazy! That means a third of your body is going to be open. People are going to be shooting arrows at you and whipping spears, and one-third of my body is uncovered? That doesn't make any sense. It doesn't make any sense. Two-thirds of their shield covered themselves. The other third covered the soldier right to their left. Immediately on their left, the other third covered that soldier's chest. It covered him and protected him. And so, if you can imagine what that must have looked like as the Roman infantry came forward to battle in a line of soldiers, each covering the soldier next to them with a third of their shield. Now, that ensured something had to happen. You better stay close to the guy next to you, or you're going to die. That's what it meant. You have to stay right next. You have to march closely together. And, of course, when they did that, their shields were impenetrable. I mean, it set just a wall of shields in front of them. And so the strength of that army was marching close, tightly together, right next to one another. And so, as we read about taking up the shield of faith, it means that in faith, we must walk together as closely as these Roman soldiers did. And I think what happens is so often the imagery we have of warriors and soldiers in our minds get in the way. We think of a warrior like the gladiator, and he's out there and he's got his arms and he's whipping and he's hitting and he's got a sword, and he's out there by himself fighting the battle. But that is not what Paul's talking about. He's not talking about the gladiator or Robin Hood or Spartacus or any of those kind of images that might come to your mind. He's talking about the infantry marching together. So he's not writing just to individuals. He's writing to all of us as God's church, the called ones, the ones that are called out of the world. That's us. We're called out. He's writing to God's church, first in Ephesus, and then to us by extension as well. And he's writing to us as though we're one Roman military unit. So we're called to walk together. We're called to present a united front with each other. So we need to be close. We need to be together. We need to march against the foe.

We know who the foe is. We know who the opposer is. We need to march against the enemy together as one unit with the help of each other, each other's shields protecting us.

Because those fiery darts are flying all around us, aren't they? The fiery darts have been launched.

It's interesting that word for fiery darts can actually mean missiles. Missiles that have been projected at us. In fact, the way that's worded there, be quenching the fiery darts, it's worded as though it's a sudden attack, like a military attack on God's people. That brings strong emotions that causes us to tense up, to cause us to be ready for that battle. It could begin small because those Roman soldiers were never quite sure when the enemy would begin shooting those firing arrows. Never knew for sure. So they had to be ready. They had to be ready because they could come from anywhere at any time, in almost any situation.

So one of the things the soldiers did was very interesting. You know one of the ways they battled those fiery darts, those missiles or those arrows that were flaming towards them?

Yeah, they did it with their shields, but remember what their shields were made out of? Wood. Does wood burn? Yeah, usually burns pretty good. Unless I'm trying to stoke my fire in the fireplace at home, then it never seems to burn. But wood burns! So you know what the Roman soldiers did to counter that? They would drench and soak those shields in water before the battle. They would soak them and douse them in water. And of course, when you're walking with a soaked shield, hard to start on fire then.

Those hides even on the outside weren't going to start on fire. Now think about that image for a second. We're marching with the shield, the shield of faith. And if you tried to pinpoint a place where your faith began, you'd probably think of your baptism, wouldn't you? Was there a time when you were soaked? When you were doused for protection? And you were given God's Holy Spirit? Your sins were washed away? And you stood forth? You rose out of the watery grave to be protected by Christ himself? You see, that's what Paul intended here.

He wants us to imagine that new man, that new character, that new life in Christ, the mind of Christ dwelling in us, battling for us, as a shield of faith that's been doused in the waters of baptism. We can win that battle with those kind of armaments, can't we? We can win! And so we need to stand together as doused Christians with God's Holy Spirit as a cohesive unit, unified together.

Because when the devil comes to battle us, we're ready for him. We're ready for him because we've been called out by God and chosen to be a part of his army. Now, it's interesting. There's certainly our connections to who's fighting those battles for us. If you think back to the Old Testament, who was supposed to fight Israel's battles? We know God was. God wanted to fight their battles for them. But they said, oh, no, why don't you give us a king?

That would probably be better. And they lost out on God's protection in so many ways, at so many times. Even in the Old Testament, you might just write down Psalm 84 and verse 11. It draws a connection for us here to Ephesians 6. It tells us that Christ is our shield.

Christ is our shield. Now, it's also interesting that when you compare that word, remember we talked about the shield? It was like a door in the Greek. Who is the door? Jesus Christ is the door. John 10 verse 9 reminds us of that. He is the door. And so we begin to see that our unity lies in the fact that Jesus Christ is our Savior. We share faith in the Christ. In fact, the only way we can win, the only chance for victory over sin, over the devil, is through Jesus Christ.

He's the captain. He's our guide. He's the captain of our salvation. He's the one that's watching over us. So we can take the shield of faith, Jesus Christ, and enter the most fierce battle with confidence and assurance. Because if you begin to think about the greatest problem in God's church today, what comes to your mind?

Governance? Is it an intellectual problem? Is it a personal problem? Is it an emotional problem? It's none of those things. It's a spiritual problem, isn't it? It's a spiritual problem. We haven't fought the adversary very well. We're all sinners, aren't we? We're all sinners and fall short of the glory of God. That's the facts. And the real enemy? We can't see it.

We can't see. He's unseen. And that causes the real battle, then, to lie within our hearts and in our minds. That's where the real battle is. So are you going to leave the battle? Are you going to go somewhere else? You see, when you keep that in mind, what we're really fighting against and the fact that we all need God's forgiveness, we all need to stay close to Him, we need to have Christ fight our battles, let me ask you, is a change of scenery going to accomplish anything?

Is that going to help? Change of circumstances? Does that accomplish anything? Changing appearances? Does that change relationships? Changing your job? Is that going to solve your problems at work? Changing leaders? So oftentimes that accomplishes nothing. Why not? Why not? Because we face the same enemy. We face the same battle. It's the same fight, even if those exterior things, even those things on the outside, if they change, we're still fighting the same enemy. It's still the same battle.

So you can move from Wichita to London. You can move from Cincinnati to Miami. Is that going to help, or are we still fighting the same enemy? Nothing will change unless you change on the inside. It's the only way possible. Christ has to live in us and through us, our only hope. And Paul says we have to put on the whole armor of God. And you know, that begins to help us understand what he means. Look at verse 13. He says, put on every piece. That's what the new living says. Take up the whole armor of God.

Put on every piece of God's armor so that your able to withstand in the evil day. Or new living says in the time of evil and having done all to stand. You see, because nobody's safe facing Satan with their own strength. And yet, on the other hand, no one can be more secure than going into battle wearing every piece of the armor of God. Because it's God's armor.

It's not my armor. It's not your armor. It's God's armor. And so we are to fight. We are to fight. But we don't fight alone. We are to fight. We don't fight each other. We're to fight. We don't fight in our own wisdom. We don't fight with our own strength. We're to fight in the name of Jesus Christ. And we're to fight with the name of Jesus Christ. And we are to fight for the unity that's only found in Jesus Christ. And I think that leads us to a remarkable point when you study Ephesians 6. And that is, Christ is the armor of unity.

Christ is the armor of unity. That's point number three. He says, put on the full armor of God. That's just a different way of saying, put on Christ. It's saying the same thing. So are we united with Christ? Have we truly put on Christ? Do we have His mind? Do we have His attributes? Do we have His attitude? That's the real question. The armor of God is putting on Jesus Christ.

Now, if you turn over to Romans chapter 13, verse 11, Paul writing to God's church in Rome, writing to us as well by extension here, Romans 13, verse 11, he ties the two metaphors together, putting on Christ and putting on the armor of God. Notice what he says here, Romans 13, verse 11. He says, and do this, knowing the time that now it is high time to awake out of sleep. For now our salvation is nearer than when we first believed. Verse 12, a new century version puts it this way, yours may be slightly different. Verse 12, it says, the night is almost finished. The day is almost here. So we should stop doing things that belong to darkness and take up the weapons used for fighting in the light. See how these two examples coincide? Verse 13, let us live in a right way like people who belong to the day. We should not have wild parties or get drunk. Good reminder, here we are at winter family weekend. There's not a whole lot of people supervising us at times. He says, hey, that is not fighting the fight.

That's letting the foe conquer us if we do those kinds of things. He says, there should be no sexual sins of any kind. Is that going to happen at winter family weekend? Boy, he shouldn't have any part of us. Then he goes on, there should be no fighting, no jealousy. Why? Because of verse 14.

He says, but clothe yourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ and forget about satisfying your sinful self. You see that phrase, clothe yourself, is the same phrase back in Ephesians. Put on the armor of God. Put on Christ. Clothe yourself. Just like when you get up in the morning and you get dressed and you get ready to go, whether you're going to school or you're going to work, you put on your clothes. Do we march out the door? And I forgot to put my pants on.

No. You say, put it all on. Put every part of the armor. Put on every part of Christ. We can't go out half naked. We're going to be defeated if we do that. And so he makes a direct connection here between spiritual warfare and putting on Christ, being unified in Christ. Because we know it's Satan's goal to cause disunity and disorder and dissent and confusion. We remember what Galatians 3, 27 says. It says, as many as you who were baptized unto Christ have put on Christ.

We put on Christ. We're protecting our brother, our sister, with that third of our shield. That is Jesus Christ. We're unified as a military spiritual unit, marching forward into battle. We're going onward as Christian soldiers. We're not allowing anything to shatter the unity of our battalion. And that's exactly what Satan's trying to do. Shatter the unity of the church. And he doesn't stop there. He wants to shatter the unity in our marriages. Between parents and children, unity in our family, he wants to shatter any sense of godliness that he can. And so, as the prince of the power of the air, as the commander of those unseen forces, we know he's broadcasting attitudes. He's broadcasting anger. He's broadcasting discontent.

He's broadcasting disillusionment and discouragement. And so, when we look around, Satan will stop at nothing. Not just attacking the whole church, but he's going to attack individuals. He's going to attack you. He's going to attack me. And when you weaken individuals, you weaken the whole. Points towards unity, doesn't it? Stay together. Romans 6, 5. You can turn over there. Romans 6, verse 5.

Now, here's a passage. Normally, as ministers, this is a nice section of Scripture we turn to oftentimes when we're counseling people for baptism because it maps out what it means to enter into a spiritual contract with God. And so, he's talking about this awesome blessing of baptism here in chapter 6. And in verse 5, he talks about the outcome of baptism. He says, For if we've been united together in the likeness of his death, because Christ died for me, he shed his blood, so my sins could be forgiven, it unites me with Jesus Christ and other believers as well. And since we've been united together in his death, he says, Certainly, we shall also be in the likeness of his resurrection. So, there's a unity of the faith that he talks about here. And that unity of the faith is what Satan is out to destroy. So, we should step back and ask ourselves, how has Satan attempted to destroy unity in my life? You see, he thinks, boy, if I could break up relationships, if I can put a monkey wrench in the good things that are going for you, if I can cause conflict between friends and the church, if I can shade your view of things, if I can put division between friends, then I've got a foothold. If I can distract you and hit you when you least expect it and where you're most vulnerable, then Satan knows your faith, your trust in God may falter. Because once he gets his foot in the door, we're easier to pray. Easier to pray for more temptations, for more attacks, for more vulnerability. That's what Satan's after. You see, he's not necessarily just trying to beat us over the head with a hammer and conquer us in one full swoop. That's not necessarily the way he works. Remember, he's sly and deceitful and cunning. If he can get us a little here and a little there, that's good enough for him. He'll take advantage of that. He challenges us in our outlook, even.

Have you ever thought about it that way? It brings me to point number four. Perception versus reality. Because I believe Satan attacks our perception of things.

You see, just because we see an issue in a particular way, well, this is the way I look at it.

Ask yourself, does that make it so? Because I see it this way. From my experience, this is how I view this particular event. Does that make it so? There's an interesting saying in the Talmud. Talmud says this, we see the world not as it is, but as we are.

Did you catch that? We see the world not as it is, but as we are. The fellow that wrote the book, Highly Successful Habits of Successful People, Stephen Covey, he used that and said it a little bit differently. He said this, each of us tends to think we see things as they are. Well, I know, because I'm right. Yeah, I'm right about everything that I see, of course. Right? That's my perspective. It must be right. So that's what Stephen Covey said. Each of us tend to think we see things as they are, that we're objective. But he writes, this is not the case. We see the world, he says, not as it is, but as we are, or as we are conditioned to see it. I think about that for a second. Is it possible that my perspective of what is right isn't necessarily true? Is it possible that we shape our own reality by what we already believe, by what we already think?

One writer put it this way. He said, it's not so much that we believe what we see, but that we see what we already believe.

Is that true? It's not so much that we believe what we see, but that we see what we already believe. Can we see a trap that Satan's setting up through that type of thinking?

Or have you ever been in this kind of a situation? Is it possible for two people to experience the same event and come away with totally different perspectives on what just happened? Is that possible? Are they both liars? Are they both deceiver? Or was their perspective different? Was their perception different? Maybe you've been in the same meeting or had the same discussion or certainly never with your wife or your husband had a discussion and then come out with totally different ways of thinking about something. Has that ever happened?

Think about it this way for a minute. A sequence of events. An event occurs.

Based on our experience, we attach certain thoughts to that particular event. Now, based on those thoughts, we have an attitude or a feeling about that particular event. Now, based on those attitudes or those feelings that we have, there's a response. We respond to that event. And so you may feel that those feelings, your attitude, your response, is a direct result of that event. But what Covey is saying, what the Talmud is saying, what that writer was saying is it's actually a result of our perception to that event. All right, what in the world am I getting at? Practical. Think of it this way. Sven has a daughter. In Minnesota, we often use Ollie and Sven. So I'm going to go back home. And because I'm Scandinavian, I can use this without any prejudice. So Sven has a daughter. She's on the basketball team. She doesn't get to play very much. His daughter works hard, and yet she never complains. Sven believes that the coach wants to win and most likely plays the girls that will help him win the most games. Now Sven, he feels very proud that his daughter is committed to the team. And so Sven offers to help his daughter to improve, to get better. And so he practices with her so that her skills will be that much better.

That was scenario number one. Let's look at number two.

Ollie, on the other hand, has a daughter on the basketball team who doesn't get to play very much. His daughter works hard, and she doesn't complain at all. Ollie believes this is yet another injustice in his life, and that his daughter is not getting a fair shake. Ollie gets mad about the situation, and so he confronts the coach at practice and totally embarrasses his daughter.

Same event. What shaded their reactions?

Their perception. It wasn't the event itself. It was their perception going into the event. It was the same event in both cases. So the critical factor was their perception. Ollie's was, boy, life is unjust. It's unethical. It's awful. It's everywhere.

Sven believed in fairness. And so, reality or our perception?

Read an interesting book a while back. It was called Mind Over Mood, written by a couple of PhDs that you don't really care about anyway, so I won't mention their names. But they said something very interesting that really startled me, took me by surprise. I had to really think about this.

They wrote this. They said, once an attitude is present, it's accompanied by additional thoughts that support and strengthen it.

They wrote, angry people, think about ways they've been hurt.

Depressed people, think about how unfortunate life has become. Anxious people see worry and danger everywhere.

They went on to write, this doesn't mean that our thinking is wrong when we experience an intense mood, but we're more likely to distort, discount, or disregard information that contradicts our moods and beliefs. Did you hear that? We're more likely to distort, discount, or disregard information that contradicts our moods and beliefs, our perception, in other words. Don't apply that. So, for us, probably 99.9% of us have never been in an executive session. Do we have a perception of what those things were all about? Where did that come from?

Where did that come from? Not too many of us have ever been on the council.

Where did our thoughts and our feelings and our attitudes and our thinking come from when it comes to that? What are our beliefs based on? Perception or reality? I read it on the web. It must be true.

Perception or reality? Do we look for things that support what we already believe? Somebody told me this. Someone I trust. My friend, my dear friend, would not set me wrong. But were they in that same meeting that people came away with different accounts? Is that possible? I think it is.

And most of that, when I step back and think about it, somebody told me that.

If you took that to a court of law, what would the judge say? He or she doesn't belong in my court.

So what do we do about all of that? What do we do?

You know, it's interesting because I think there are some direct connections throughout the Bible. I want to look to the Bible. The Bible is the only source for the real answers. I think that's where our foundation has to be. And I found something interesting throughout the Psalms.

Throughout the Psalms, being a musician, the Psalms are something that have always been near and dear to me. Because these, on the whole, are songs that David wrote and sang. And you know, a vast majority of them were written when he was running in the wilderness away from Saul, who wanted to kill him. Interesting scenario. Remember the scenario of King David? David had been anointed as the next king. He was next in line. Saul was the reigning king, an evil king. Here's David running around as Saul's trying to whip spears at him and shoot arrows and try to kill him, assembling his army to kill David. Because Saul hated David. And so David mounted his army and attacked Saul and killed him. Oh, no, he didn't. David wrote over 20 times in the Psalms, wait, wait. You see, David, even when he had the opportunity, it's such an interesting story, he had the opportunity to kill Saul twice. Could have justified it. In fact, it's interesting, on both occasions, one in the cave where Saul was relieving himself, he cut his garment and his friends, his fellow soldiers said, look, the Lord has delivered him into your hand! Kill him! And then later, David repents just for cutting his robe. Wait on God. Later, he and some of the soldiers walked right into Saul's camp. They're all asleep. He could have taken the spear. Once again, the soldiers yelled out, look, the Lord's delivered him into your hand!

Run him through! David walked out of that camp, putting it in the hands of the authority in his life. He said, wait and hope and look to God. Do we sing those words? We sing them maybe more often than we really realize because maybe we don't concentrate on it that much. One of my favorite hymns is, God is my rock, my salvation. You know that one, don't you? You could sing it with me if you want. The third verse is an amazing passage. It says, still, O my soul, wait in silence for God. My hope and refuge is in my God alone. He is my rock, my salvation and strength.

With God alone shall my deliverance be. Kindness and power belong to our God.

He shall reward every man for his works.

David didn't say, let me take it in my own hands. I'll solve it for you, dear Lord.

He didn't say that. Over and over and over. Psalm 25 says, show me your ways, O Lord. Teach me your paths, for you are the God of my salvation. On you I wait.

All the day. All day! I'm waiting. Now, was David's difficulties with Saul over in a day? A week? A month? This went on and on and on. And so he had an opportunity to write many songs, many psalms about this. We wait and hope and look to God. He's our help and our shield. Psalm 33 verse 20. The Proverbs say, do not say I will recompense evil. Let me take care of this evil. Look how bad this is. Let me avenge. He says, don't say that.

Proverbs 20, 22 says, wait on the Lord. He will save you. David understood he was rightful king. He should be in charge. Even though Saul, the evil ruler, was pursuing him and trying to kill him. David understood, blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness sake.

David hadn't done anything wrong. And yet, they were out to kill him. David understood that. David understood that when you do good and you suffer for it, take it patiently, because this is commendable before God. To this you were called. We deny our calling. And we pop speakers when we talk too loud. We deny our calling when we don't take it patiently. It's commendable. Look up that word commendable. What an amazing word. That's the word carous. It's the word love. 1 Corinthians 13, love is, this is love to God. This shows love to God when we are beaten for doing good, and we take it. We don't have to write and defend ourselves. We put it in the hands of God. And right after that section, it shows the example of Christ who took it patiently, because Christ knew who was in charge. Christ knew who the authority was in his life. And Christ knew who was going to make it right. And David understood that as well. And it's very interesting. Later in David's life, Satan got in the door, didn't he? Satan got a foothold on David. David became an immoral man. David became an unethical man. David became immoral, unrighteous. He was a liar.

He was an adulterer. He was a murderer. I'll pop the speakers on that one. He was a murderer.

Did the army rise up and kick David out of office? I mean, he told Joab, make sure Uriah dies. He can't make it much plainer than that. He wrote it down.

The army knew David wanted him dead. Did they revolt and rise up and leave?

Did the people who obviously knew Uriah was Bathsheba's husband and what in the world is going on? What? Did they rise up and throw David out of office? What if God would have said, that's it? I cannot take any more.

See, God allowed an immoral, unethical king to remain in power, what, to be unethical and immoral for the rest of his life? Or to have an opportunity to repent and change and come back to God?

You see, if he would have been removed, kicked out, discarded by God, David would have been waiting to be thrown in the lake of fire, wouldn't he? But God gave him the opportunity to repent and change. And David did. He put on Christ. He prayed, do not take your Holy Spirit from me in Psalm 51. He put on the armor of God. And so, when we're confronted, do we take up that armor? Do we put on Christ or do we take it into our own hands? Do we wait and hope and look to God? You see, by putting on his armor, we're strengthened so that we can sustain the attack of the enemy. And so, we're exhorted to put on Christ for unity and growth. And I think Paul's pointing us this way. The difference between overcoming and spiritual victory and in defeat is unity. First and foremost, unity with Christ. And secondly, unity with each other, with the body, with the church. I think that's why he told the Philippians, Philippians 1.27, he told them to tap into the power of agreement. The power of agreement. Philippians 1.27. Let's notice what he writes to God's church in Philippi. He talks about that power to defeat the enemies. Philippians 1.27. Philippians 1.27. I'll read this in the New International Version, so it might be slightly different than your New King James or King James. Philippians 1.27, he focuses us on the power of agreement. Verse 27, Philippians 1, he says, whatever happens, conduct yourselves in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ. Then, whether I come and see you or only hear about you in my absence, I will know that you stand firm in one spirit, striving together as one for the faith of the gospel, without being frightened in any way by those who oppose you. You see, that's where we can agree. We can agree on that one spirit standing firm with the faith of Jesus Christ. Right across an interesting illustration of this the other day, it was a story that, a true story, that happened back in World War II. In fact, it happened on the day after France surrendered to Germany. The German troops overran France. France surrenders to German occupation. Germany's going to occupy France during World War II. Well, something interesting happened in a tiny Protestant farming village way up in the mountains of central France. There was a pastor who had a little congregation there, and he said something very interesting to them the day after the surrender of France to Germany. This is what he said. He said, the responsibility of Christians is to resist the violence that will be brought to bear on your conscience through the weapons of the spirit. Now, as we read through that really fast, you might miss what he said. Did he say, responsibility as Christians is to resist the Nazis?

No, didn't say that. He didn't say we have to resist the German occupation. No, he didn't say that. He said, we need to resist the violence that we'd be brought to bear on their consciences. In other words, the danger wasn't just that the Nazis would physically harm them or torture them. What he was pointing to was the real danger. The real danger was that strife and war would damage their conscience. It would damage their character. It would damage their principles. You see, the hazard of war, the hazard of occupation, was that they would lose their moral compass, lose their true values during this occupation. And something amazing happened. You see, wasn't there perception just that the Nazis were going to occupy and they needed to resist?

Or was it something different? What was the reality of what was going on?

Well, in the years that followed, that village, less than even 5,000 people, they managed to hide more than 5,000 Jews from the Nazi death camps.

Over 5,000 Jews were saved from the death camps. Why? Because they stood firm and worked together. They kept their convictions. You see, no individual could have done that on their own. Somebody could have ratted out his neighbor very easily to the Germans. But they didn't. You see, they didn't compromise spiritual principles. That would be like a soldier standing unprotected before the oncoming enemy. They didn't do that. You see, they were victorious. They won the battle. And the battle was not with the Nazis. That was not the real battle. The victory was inside of themselves. The victory was that they risked their own lives to be a force for good. They risked their own lives. They never saw evil and called it good.

Never. The victory was that they came out of war. They came out of the battle. They came out of every skirmish that they went into with their conscience and their character intact.

What an amazing example. And for us today, who is trying to occupy our life? As strife, as division, has it damaged our conscience? Has it damaged our character? As quarreling and arguing and fighting and discord? Devastated spiritual principles and that Christ-like character that's supposed to be being built in us?

Don't ever forget, we live on a rebel planet controlled by the devil.

That's where we live. He's not going to fight fair. So take up that shield of faith. Stand firm together. Stand strong as the army of God. Christ is our armor. He is our unity. And never confuse perception with reality. You see, as God's church, we need to choose to be as close to one another as those Roman legions shielding one another in battle. Let's make it our goal. Let's grow in that faith that is bold and strong in Christ so we can face the evil one. Put on the whole armor of God. Clothe yourself in it so that we can have the unity that's only found in Jesus Christ. And you know, we have a promise. We have an awesome promise. We can have full confidence in God. It's going to be all right. It's going to be fine. God will give the victory.

It's a promise because He tells us we are more than conquerors through Him, through Jesus Christ, who loved us.