Speaker 1: Today on Daily Hope with Pastor Rick Warren, we continue
Speaker 1: in our riveting journey through the series The Invisible War.
Speaker 1: In it will explore the unseen world of good and
Speaker 1: evil and see how it impacts our day to day existence.
Speaker 1: Join us for eye opening biblical insights into the spiritual
Speaker 1: dimensions that influence our lives in ways we never imagined.
Speaker 1: Right now, here's Pastor Rick Warren with part one of
Speaker 1: a message called never Fight Your Battles Undressed.
Speaker 2: One of the things that nine to eleven taught us
Speaker 2: is you have to be prepared for an attack. And
Speaker 2: that's really what I want to talk about in your
Speaker 2: personal life today. If you'll take out your message notes.
Speaker 2: Nine to eleven told us that we weren't ready for
Speaker 2: that kind of warfare, and we were caught off guard
Speaker 2: because we didn't know who the enemy was and we
Speaker 2: didn't know how they were going to attack. This same
Speaker 2: principle is true in your life. And we've been talking
Speaker 2: about the battles that you go through in life and
Speaker 2: the reason why life is so hard, why it is tough,
Speaker 2: why it is difficult. The reason why you have so
Speaker 2: many battles in your life is there are unseen forces
Speaker 2: at work around you. This is called the invisible war.
Speaker 2: This weekend, I want to wrap up this series by
Speaker 2: looking at how to fight the battle by preparing for
Speaker 2: it and what kind of armor, what kind of equipment
Speaker 2: you need to wear. The Bible is very very clear
Speaker 2: about this. If you have a Bible, I want you
Speaker 2: to open to Ephesians chapter six. Ephesians chapter six. If
Speaker 2: you don't have a Bible, all of the verses are
Speaker 2: written out there in your outline. You can pull that out,
Speaker 2: and before we actually look at the full text, I
Speaker 2: want to make three points. I want you to write
Speaker 2: these things down. These are three things that Paul teaches
Speaker 2: us about fighting the battles that you fight. The battle
Speaker 2: against discouragement, the battle against depression, the battle against doubt,
Speaker 2: the battle against the spare, the battle against darkness in
Speaker 2: your life. Again, delays and dead ends and difficulties, these
Speaker 2: battles that come against you in life. Unless you're prepared
Speaker 2: for them, you're going to be taken out by Satan,
Speaker 2: just like the twin Towers were taken out by the terrorist. Now,
Speaker 2: the first thing in Ephesians chapter six that we're going
Speaker 2: to learn is this, write this down. I must get
Speaker 2: dressed for the battle. I must get dressed for the battle.
Speaker 2: Nobody would go out onto a battlefield naked. Nobody would
Speaker 2: go play NFL football without putting on some padding, suiting up,
Speaker 2: putting on a helmet, these kind of things. You just
Speaker 2: don't go out into a fight without being prepared for it.
Speaker 2: I learned to term a number of years ago when
Speaker 2: we were doing the forty Days of Purpose in a prison.
Speaker 2: Do you remember when we were doing forty days of
Speaker 2: Purpose all over America? And we did this in a
Speaker 2: number of prisons that asked us to come and study
Speaker 2: the purpose of life with them. One of the prisons
Speaker 2: was called Sierra Prison in northern California. Six thousand men
Speaker 2: in a maximum security prison, and they wanted to do
Speaker 2: forty days of Purpose. We have now planted a church
Speaker 2: in that prison that runs several hundred people. Over two
Speaker 2: thousand prisoners have gone through forty days of Purpose at
Speaker 2: that prison. And in fact, there was an article in
Speaker 2: the New York Times on the front page that talked
Speaker 2: about the change they'd made. This prison had never gone
Speaker 2: more than two days without a lockdown because there was
Speaker 2: so much violence and conflict among the prisoners. Since they
Speaker 2: had done forty days of purpose, they'd gone five and
Speaker 2: a half years without a lockdown. That's the difference that
Speaker 2: it made. In fact, there are seven cell blocks in
Speaker 2: this prison, and one entire cell block is committed to
Speaker 2: celebrate recovery. It's an amazing, amazing thing. Well, I went
Speaker 2: up there to visit them one time when they were
Speaker 2: planning the church in the very beginning and just starting
Speaker 2: the church, and Danny Duchane, the prisoner who is the
Speaker 2: pastor of that church, told me, he said, now, Rick,
Speaker 2: when we go out onto the field, this is a
Speaker 2: giant football field where six thousand prisoners gather, he said,
Speaker 2: you never go onto a field without being suited and booted.
Speaker 2: And I said, what does that mean. He said, well,
Speaker 2: you don't go out in shorts or you know, cut
Speaker 2: offs and flip flops, because he said that makes you
Speaker 2: very vulnerable. You go out with real pants on, and
Speaker 2: you go out with hard shoes, so you're ready to
Speaker 2: either fight or fight. You know, you're either gonna have
Speaker 2: to run from people trying to beat you up or
Speaker 2: you're gonna have to fight your way. So you never
Speaker 2: go on the field without being suited and booted. And
Speaker 2: actually they made a very important statement when they started
Speaker 2: that church, as they had one hundred and fifty guys
Speaker 2: gather in the middle, and they said, you know, just
Speaker 2: as Moses was told by God to take off his
Speaker 2: shoes because it was holy ground, we're going to dedicate
Speaker 2: this prison to Jesus Christ. And so they said, men
Speaker 2: of Sierrat Church, deboot, and in front one of six
Speaker 2: thousand prisoners, one hundred and fifty guys who were forming
Speaker 2: this church years ago, took their shoes off. In the
Speaker 2: middle of the prison. You could have heard a pin drop.
Speaker 2: But the point was, when you're going into battle, you
Speaker 2: have to be suited and booted. You have to be
Speaker 2: prepared for it. Now here's what the Bible says. And
Speaker 2: Ephesian six, verse ten, a final word Paul says, be
Speaker 2: strong with the Lord's mighty power. Put on all of
Speaker 2: God's armor. Circle that phrase God's armor. Put on all
Speaker 2: of God's armor, so that you will be able to stand. Said.
Speaker 2: If you're not, you don't have on the armor, You're
Speaker 2: you're gonna fall, You're gonna slip, you're gonna you're gonna stumble.
Speaker 2: So you'll be able to stand firm against all the
Speaker 2: strategies and tricks of the devil. Now, I hate to
Speaker 2: tell you this, but you were born into a battle.
Speaker 2: You didn't ask for this battle, But when you were
Speaker 2: born on earth, you were born into a cosmic battle.
Speaker 2: There is an unseen war going on between good and evil,
Speaker 2: between light and darkness, between God and Satan. They are
Speaker 2: not equal enemies. Satan is far in fury. He's a
Speaker 2: created being. God's a zillion times more powerful than Satan,
Speaker 2: and one day he's going to wipe him out, but
Speaker 2: he allows him to exist right now. So people have
Speaker 2: a choice, because it's not real love unless you can
Speaker 2: choose to not love somebody. And so God gives us
Speaker 2: a choice between good and evil. He's actually using that
Speaker 2: right now. But in this cosmic battle between God and Satan,
Speaker 2: people are often pawns. You see, Satan cannot hurt God,
Speaker 2: he can't hurt him at all. So what do you
Speaker 2: do when you can't hurt somebody? You hurt his children,
Speaker 2: You go after his kids. You want to hurt me,
Speaker 2: You hurt my kids, you hurt my grandkids. And so
Speaker 2: the bottom line here is that Satan often uses you
Speaker 2: as a pawn to get it God. He tries to
Speaker 2: hurt you. Now, notice what this verse says, put on
Speaker 2: all of God's armor so that you will be able
Speaker 2: to stand firm against all the strategies and tricks of
Speaker 2: the devil. Now, the devil is real. He's real, he's actual,
Speaker 2: he's factual. He's not just a force. You know, we
Speaker 2: like to joke about Satan, we say, you know, we
Speaker 2: think of him in a little red pajamas with a
Speaker 2: tail and horns and a pitchfork. In fact, we name
Speaker 2: our teams, you know, the Diablos, and we like the joke.
Speaker 2: But Satan is no laughing matter. He hates you. He
Speaker 2: wants to destroy you. He wants to destroy your marriage,
Speaker 2: he wants to destroy your career, he wants to destroy
Speaker 2: your finances. He wants to destroy your life. He would
Speaker 2: be happy for you to take your own life. Satan
Speaker 2: wants to mess up your life. And notice it says
Speaker 2: he has strategies and tricks. Satan is subtle, Satan is strategic.
Speaker 2: Satan is smart. He's far smarter than you are. So
Speaker 2: don't try it out smart Satan. You're never going to
Speaker 2: outsmart him. And he's not afraid of you at all.
Speaker 2: Now that's the bad news. That you were born for
Speaker 2: about the good news is you were born to win.
Speaker 2: And the Bible says in first John, greater is he
Speaker 2: who is in you than he that is in the world.
Speaker 2: Satan is not afraid of you, but he is afraid
Speaker 2: of who's in you God. And greater is he who
Speaker 2: is in you than he who is in the world.
Speaker 2: And when God's spirit, the spirit of Jesus Christ, is
Speaker 2: in you, you don't have to be afraid of Satan.
Speaker 2: But you got to get dressed for battle. Now. The
Speaker 2: second thing we're going to learn from this passage is this,
Speaker 2: I must know my real enemy. I must know my
Speaker 2: real enemy. One of the reasons why you walk around
Speaker 2: defeated and discouraged all the time is because you don't
Speaker 2: know who your real enemy is. You often think your
Speaker 2: enemy is other people. That's not the real enemy. You
Speaker 2: often think the enemy is the economy of the enemy
Speaker 2: is a political party, or the enemy is something else.
Speaker 2: Who is the real enemy? If I ask you that,
Speaker 2: who's responsible for all the mess in the world. Who's
Speaker 2: responsible for the mess in our culture, the mess in
Speaker 2: our economy. Who's responsible for all this mess? Some of
Speaker 2: you would say the Democrats, some of you would say
Speaker 2: the Republicans, some of you would say the Tea Party,
Speaker 2: some of you would say a pox on all of them,
Speaker 2: and you'd all be wrong. In every case. They are
Speaker 2: not the real enemy. Look at what the Bible says,
Speaker 2: verse twelve. We are not fighting against people, And if
Speaker 2: you think other people of the enemy, you're wrong. We
Speaker 2: are not fighting against people made of flesh and blood,
Speaker 2: but against the evil rulers and authorities of the unseen world,
Speaker 2: against those mighty powers of darkness who rule this world,
Speaker 2: and against wicked spirits. Many translations say spiritual wickedness in
Speaker 2: the heavenly places. Now, you are no match for Satan.
Speaker 2: You trying to take on Satan is like you trying
Speaker 2: to shoot a rubber band out of battleship. It's going
Speaker 2: to have no effect at all. Satan is not afraid
Speaker 2: of you. He's not scared of you, and you cannot
Speaker 2: hurt him. But everybody gets used by Satan. Yes, Christians
Speaker 2: get used. You know sometimes you say things that Satan
Speaker 2: put those thoughts in your mind. He's even a believer. Absolutely.
Speaker 2: I have said things to my wife that I know
Speaker 2: looking back that was from the devil. She knew it
Speaker 2: was from the devil too when I said it, and
Speaker 2: you have been used as aupaonn in Satan's plan all along.
Speaker 2: You cannot beat Satan, but God can. Now. The other
Speaker 2: thing I want you to understand about this and write
Speaker 2: this down, is not everything that is spiritual is good.
Speaker 2: You write that down. Not everything that is spiritual is good.
Speaker 2: There is spiritual wickedness. There there are goods, and there
Speaker 2: are bad spirits their spiritual light and their spiritual darkness.
Speaker 2: There is righteousness and there is evil. Just because someone
Speaker 2: says I'm spiritual doesn't mean they're good, because there are
Speaker 2: evil spiritual forces too. Not everything that's spiritual is a
Speaker 2: good thing. And by the way, Satan doesn't fight fair,
Speaker 2: So a lot of times he's going to put ideas
Speaker 2: in your mind. You've got to catch him in the acto. Well, hey,
Speaker 2: I know where that one come from. You See, Satan
Speaker 2: can't physically attack you. He can't come out and slug
Speaker 2: you and punch you. What everything he does in your
Speaker 2: life he does by suggestion. And so this battle, that
Speaker 2: the spiritual war that you're in, it's in your mind.
Speaker 2: It is a mental battle. And those thoughts of depression
Speaker 2: and those thoughts of discouragement, and those thoughts of anger
Speaker 2: and fear and worry. Those are coming from the evil one,
Speaker 2: and they're going to come at you, and you need
Speaker 2: to understand them and catch them in the act. Now,
Speaker 2: the third thing this passage is going to teach us,
Speaker 2: and we're going to look at it, is use every
Speaker 2: piece of armor. I must use every piece of armor,
Speaker 2: and we're going to spin today's session looking at the
Speaker 2: pieces of armor. In verse thirteen, it says, use every
Speaker 2: piece of God's armor to resist the enemy in the
Speaker 2: time of evil. And we are in evil times right now,
Speaker 2: so that after the battle you will still be standing.
Speaker 2: God says, you can have victory, and I want you
Speaker 2: to fight from victory, not for victory, stand in the
Speaker 2: place of victory to what Jesus Christ did on the
Speaker 2: cross for you. But he said, You're going to have
Speaker 2: to put on every piece of God's armor to resist
Speaker 2: the enemy, so that you're still standing after all these
Speaker 2: things have happened. Now, let me give you a little background.
Speaker 2: When Paul writes this passage Ephesians, he's in prison. Paul
Speaker 2: was at this time the most famous prisoner in Rome.
Speaker 2: The Roman Empire is spread all over Europe and Asia,
Speaker 2: and Paul has been taken as a prisoner to appeal
Speaker 2: to Caesar, the Emperor of Rome. He's the most famous
Speaker 2: prisoner in Rome right now. And so not only is
Speaker 2: he in prison, but he was chained twenty four hours
Speaker 2: a day to a Roman centurion. And as Paul is
Speaker 2: writing this, he's writing it as he's chained to a
Speaker 2: Roman centurion. And Paul looks up and he's writing on
Speaker 2: how to handle spiritual warfare, and he looks up and
Speaker 2: he sees this fully dressed Roman centurion. He goes, hmm,
Speaker 2: I could use this as a teaching lesson, and I
Speaker 2: can compare every part of a Roman soldier's garb, weaponry,
Speaker 2: protection and make a spiritual parallel to the things you
Speaker 2: need in your life to guard against depression, despair, defeat, doubt, difficulty,
Speaker 2: and all the things that get hit you down. And
Speaker 2: so we're going to look at that and today in
Speaker 2: just a minute. And I actually I own a complete
Speaker 2: set of Roman armor underneath all of his weaponry. The
Speaker 2: first thing that a Roman centurion would wear would be
Speaker 2: a red tunic, and this was kind of like his
Speaker 2: long john. So he's standing here in his underwear. Actually
Speaker 2: right now, the first thing that a Roman centurion would
Speaker 2: put on would be the belt. Now, if you've ever
Speaker 2: watched like a weightlifters, professional weightlifting at the Olympics, or
Speaker 2: even sometimes even wrestlers, they will wear a heavy belt
Speaker 2: like this. They sent it up around their waist. It
Speaker 2: gives them support and stability. It's what holds them together.
Speaker 2: And so the first thing that a centurion would put
Speaker 2: on would be the belt. It was not only strengthening
Speaker 2: his core, the center of his being, but it also
Speaker 2: held the weapons that he was going to wear as
Speaker 2: he went out in the battle. Now, Paul makes a
Speaker 2: parallel and he says, what you need to wear as
Speaker 2: a Christian is you need to wear a belt, and
Speaker 2: it is the belt of truth. Notice this verse verse
Speaker 2: there on your outline in verse fourteen. So stand ready
Speaker 2: with the belt of truth tight around your waist. Now,
Speaker 2: the belt of truth gives your life stability, It gives
Speaker 2: your life strength. If your life isn't based on truth,
Speaker 2: then you're going to have sinking sands, shifting sands. You
Speaker 2: have no strong core. Jesus said in the Sermon on
Speaker 2: the Mountain, the person who builds his house, who builds
Speaker 2: his life on My truth is like a guy who
Speaker 2: builds his house on the rock. And when the hurricanes
Speaker 2: like they're having back East and the earthquakes like they
Speaker 2: had back East this week come. Because you're built on
Speaker 2: the truth, you're like a house on the rock, you're
Speaker 2: going to withstand it. But he said, if you don't
Speaker 2: build your house on truth, your life on truth, it's
Speaker 2: going to be shifting sands and it'll be easy to
Speaker 2: blow you over. Now what does this represent, Well, you
Speaker 2: might write this down. The belt of truth represents integrity.
Speaker 2: Integrity and integrity is knowing and doing the truth. And
Speaker 2: the first thing you need to put on in your
Speaker 2: life is integrity. It's the belt that holds everything together.
Speaker 2: If your life isn't based on truth, it's going to
Speaker 2: fall apart. And so you need integrity, moral integrity, relational integrity,
Speaker 2: financial integrity, sexual integrity. You need integrity in the different
Speaker 2: areas of your life. Now I've explained this to you before,
Speaker 2: but let me do it again. Integrity does not mean perfection.
Speaker 2: It doesn't mean you always do the right thing, because
Speaker 2: if you had to be perfect at integrity, nobody's got integrity.
Speaker 2: Because nobody is perfect. Everybody slips everybody he stumbles. Integrity
Speaker 2: is not compartmentalizing your life so that you don't appear
Speaker 2: different ways with different people. Integrity comes from the word
Speaker 2: integer or integer, which means a unit of one. It
Speaker 2: means your life is not a bunch of pieces of pie,
Speaker 2: but it's the filling all in the middle. In other words,
Speaker 2: that you act the same way with everybody. You don't
Speaker 2: act one way at work and another way at church.
Speaker 2: You don't act one way at home and another way
Speaker 2: with your friends. Integrity means what you see is what
Speaker 2: you get, that you're not faking it. The opposite of
Speaker 2: integrity is knowing the truth and not doing it. That's
Speaker 2: called hypocrisy, which is wearing a mask. So integrity is
Speaker 2: the opposite of hypocrisy, which means what you know, I'm
Speaker 2: exactly what I appear to be. Now, if you lack
Speaker 2: integrity in any area, you are going to be vulnerable.
Speaker 2: As I said, if you segment your life and say
Speaker 2: this is my church life, and then this is my
Speaker 2: work life, this piece of the pie, and this piece
Speaker 2: of the pie is my sex life, and this is
Speaker 2: my secret pornography life over here, and this is my
Speaker 2: sports life, and this is my friendship, social life. You're
Speaker 2: already lack of integrity because you're not acting the same
Speaker 2: in all of those areas. Integrity is knowing the truth,
Speaker 2: but more than just knowing it, it is doing the truth.
Speaker 2: And that's the one that gives you stability. It holds
Speaker 2: you together in the middle, in the tough times. It
Speaker 2: gives you strength.
Speaker 1: You're listening to Pastor Rick's Daily Hope. We're so happy
Speaker 1: you've chosen to study along with us today. Here's Pastor
Speaker 1: Rick with a letter from one of our listeners.
Speaker 2: Hi, everybody, today, I want to share a letter from Edam,
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Speaker 2: and is preparing me for Heaven. I started listening to
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