Ephesians 6:17 - Walking, Running, Standing, Resisting, and Soaring

TheChristian life, as we said, is a battlefield. Satan is warring against us. Hewants to defeat us. He has come to steal, to kill, and destroy. But God, ourGod has given us an armor. The armor of God. Did you hear that? The armor ofGod. Not the armor of some man, some person in the past, or the armor that wehave made up for ourselves. No, it's the armor of God Almighty Himself that'sbeen made available to us. Remember how Saul gave David his armor to put on tofight Goliath. But after David put it on, he realized that he couldn’t wearsome other person’s armor, and he didn’t need it when he by faith knew he hadthe armor of God on already! So the last thing we are told to dois to take and put on is the helmet of salvation. We've talked about that inthe past number of chats. Right now, we're talking about the sword of theSpirit. We're talking about what that is. It's the word of God. It's the Spiritof the living God through the word of God. Then we find out why we should usethis sword because it's our offensive weapon against the enemy, the devil. Wealso learn how to use this sword. We look at an example of even Jesus ChristHimself.Jesusused the sword of the Spirit against Satan. The clearest example in the Bibleis when Jesus was in the wilderness and Satan came and tempted Him. What didJesus do when Satan tempted Him three times? Each time Jesus answered, "Itis written." He was quoting Scripture from the Old Testament. Myfriend, Jesus did not argue with Satan. He did not negotiate with Satan. He didnot reason with Satan like Eve did when she was tempted and failed. No, Heanswered the temptations with Scripture. Every time Satan came with a lie,Jesus came back with the truth. Now, that tells us something. And that is, ifthe Son of God, the sinless, spotless Lamb of God, chose to resist the devilwith scriptures, then you and I better learn to do the same.Inthe Scriptures, the Christian life is picture or describe as a battle, but theChristian life is also pictured as a walk. We are to walk in purity, walk inthe light, and walk in love. We've talked about that here in the book ofEphesians. The Christian life is also described as a run in Hebrews 12:1. Itsays, “Therefore we also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud ofwitnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us,and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us.”  How do we do it? We do this by “looking untoJesus” (v. 2).TheChristian life is also a fight. But it's not a fight with Satan, my friend.It's a fight to stand strong in the faith. 2 Timothy 4:7, Paul said, "Ihave fought a good fight, I have finished the race, and I have kept the faith.”The fight is to keep the faith, to be armored with a faith in the Scripture, inthe Word of God, which is a life of obedience. Then it is also “taking a stand”.We've read that here in Ephesians 6. “And having done all, to stand”.  We stand but Paul also said we “wrestle”. I'llnever forget when I went out for wrestling in high school. I found out it's anexercise of resistance and endurance. You're resisting the strength of the personthat you're wrestling with. That’s what we are told to do with the devil. James4:7 says, "Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil." Howdo you do it? You do it with the Word of God! Then we are promised that, “hewill flee from you”. Todaywe should be encouraged with the last verses in Isaiah 40:28-31, “Have younot known? Have you not heard? The everlasting God, the LORD, The Creator ofthe ends of the earth, Neither faints nor is weary. His understanding isunsearchable. He gives power to the weak, And to those who have no might Heincreases strength. Even the youths shall faint and be weary, And the young menshall utterly fall, But those who wait on the LORD Shall renew their strength;They shall mount up with wings like eagles, They shall run and not be weary,They shall walk and not faint.”