Address—Don Rule
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Pending 10 days, yeah, up here there's harassed and appalled.
Yeah, since the gracious Lord is here, backward they go and fall.
Before behind around they set their fierce already to fight and force me.
From the ground.
A long life, narrow way.
#12 in the appendix.
Call 58949.
Turn with me first to Romans.
Chapter 5.
Romans, chapter 5.
And verse one.
Therefore, being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.
By whom also we have access, by faith.
Into this grace wherein we stand.
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Note the word stand.
And rejoice in hope of the glory of God.
Now turn over to 1St Corinthians chapter 15.
Verse one.
Moreover, brethren.
I declare unto you the gospel which I preached unto you, which also ye have received.
And wherein you stand. Notice the word stand wherein you stand.
I'll turn over to Galatians chapter 5.
Galatians, chapter 5.
And verse one.
Stand fast.
Therefore.
In the liberty whereeth Christ hath made us free.
This afternoon.
We're going to consider.
Standing.
And we're going to look at those things that keep us from standing and the provision of God to stand.
The Word of God gives significant emphasis to the matter of standing.
We all, and it's still a prevalent expression in the world in which we Live Today. We still understand.
And umm, we know what it is. For example the expression when someone says I have to stand before the judge.
That they're going to have to come and face a judge. We know what it is when Scripture tells us about people who have to stand before God.
In Revelation chapter 6 it speaks, It says, uh, the wrath of the Lamb has come, and who shall be able to stand?
There were times in the history of the children of Israel when God said you're not gonna be able to stand.
When we look at the epistles in the New Testament, in almost every single epistle.
We will find that God communicates with us.
Some truth places us in it and tells us to stand in that place in which He has put us.
Just to show, we took the 1St 3 epistles.
In Romans we are brought into a relationship with God.
By His grace we are justified by the work of Christ, and we are brought in to a standing into a place with God.
And later on, we're exhorted. Now stand there.
Stay there, don't give it up. It's a place in which I have put you and you are to remain in that place.
In First Corinthians we have the gospel, as we call it, as God calls it, presented to us, and he has brought us into a relationship with himself.
By that gospel. And he then says to us, he exhorts us through the apostle Paul. This is where I have placed you. Now stand in that faith.
In which you have been placed.
In Romans.
In or in Galatians, which is the next epistle, we are brought into that place of that God has taken us out of a relationship that is man, the Jew particularly, but where instead of what man can do for God under a set of rules, a law, God says, I have delivered you out of that place.
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Into another one.
Which is one of freedom and liberty from that. And he says that's where I brought you. Now you stand there.
You remain.
Firm and fixed in that position into which I have brought you.
It's a subject in itself. We are only looking at the 1St 3 epistles to establish the pattern. A lot of what's going to be said this afternoon and the time that we have to go over it will be more in an outline sense.
But I will encourage you to study it out for yourself. You can go on to Galatians, yes. Then you can go on to Ephesians and Philippians and Colossians. And you will find in every one of those epistles that God has brought you into a relationship or a place of truth with respect to Himself. And then He exhorts you in the epistle.
Hebrews, for example, when it presents the material, it says be ye steadfast, immovable. Is that not a place of standing? Peter? It's not just the epistles of of Paul.
Peter and his one of his epistles he says this is the true grace of God wherein you stand.
It's amazing it was to me at least, for having has read the Bible quite a few years, to find how consistent this pattern is and how important a pattern it is as well, to see that we are brought into something by God and different aspects of the truth of God. And then he puts us there, and having put us there, then he exhorts us stand.
Stand fast.
Stand firm, be immovable.
Don't be tangled again into that that you were previously a part of.
But.
It's incredibly difficult, really.
To stand.
It is a tremendous conflict.
I was.
Surprised by the wording of the divine scripture in Ephesians, it calls it a struggle.
You know what it is to have struggle.
Is there anybody that's an adult in this room that doesn't know what present struggle is in your life?
Turn with me.
To Ephesians.
Chapter 6.
Ephesians chapter 6.
And verse 11.
That ye may be able to stand.
Verse 12 We wrestle.
Verse 13.
That you may be able to withstand.
Having done all to stand.
We're going to spend much of this time together in this chapter.
Because it gives us the provision of God to be able to stand.
The primary.
You you know what it is when someone says to you, What do you stand for?
What do you stand for? What position do you take on this matter or that matter?
You live in a world where, where do you stand? What position have you taken in this world? Well, that's the positions and we don't have time to look at all the details of them, but I stand and you stand before God in a relationship to himself as his children.
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He says you stand and I stand in opposition to a world system that Satan has established that's against him.
And we stand against it.
And so on.
But here he's giving us the provision to enable us.
To do it.
Every one of us have enemies.
You have enemies.
If you don't, you're asleep.
Or you're asleep in Satan's control.
Or you're dead in your sins.
But if you're alive to God, you have enemies.
And they're serious, constant conflict with the enemy.
In the struggle of life.
The primary enemy is Satan.
The biggest fall of your life is.
He makes use of your flesh.
To seek to defeat you.
He has set up a system.
Called the world to manipulate you.
And to keep you from the standing and walking in the position in which God has placed you.
He uses whatever means because sin has come into the world. Death is an enemy.
And he uses death as well, the fear of death, the power of death, to seek to manipulate.
Subtly against us.
And so we're going to concentrate this afternoon particularly on Satan and the other means that he uses and this chapter, Ephesians chapter 6. And the provision of it is particularly to defend us, to provide for us in the conflict against Satan.
Before we concentrate on it, though, I want to go back to Genesis chapter 3 and see how he works so that we can understand a little bit of the importance of the armor that is provided for us to stand against him.
Genesis chapter 3, verse one. We'll just read it and make a few comments about it to enable us to recognize some of the method that's used.
By the enemy.
Now Satan was more subtle.
He is.
Be subtle.
He's clever.
He works indirectly many times. He doesn't come out always face to face. He deceives.
That's his character. He's a deceiver.
Yes, these also can act as a roaring lion, but usually he has already gotten some power over us.
And then he comes out as the roaring lion. But the character of Satan is primarily, to begin with, subtlety. He comes subtly into your life. He comes subtly to you with temptation that will separate you in your fellowship with God.
He was more subtle than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made. And he said unto the woman, Yeah, hath God said, You shall not eat of every tree of the garden?
Satan often works by producing initially questions in the mind.
He focuses the thoughts on certain things.
And makes us start to think about them and question them in our lives.
He doesn't start right out and say that's not true, that's a I'm going to lie to you. He starts out and brings something into the mind that starts the mind at work to question. The intent is to separate the soul from God. He wants you, He wants me. He wants to separate us from our fellowship with our God.
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And yet he begins with something that is going to raise a question in the mind, and when it raises the question in the mind, it starts the thought pattern that leads to unbelief.
He's subtle, he's clever. We're not always aware, in fact probably seldom, if we are aware of what's coming.
So he says.
Shall shall ye not eat?
Oh well, later I better think about why don't I? She never had. He didn't have the question about that before. Until the questions arise through the enemy.
Why can't I?
Says the young child.
After it suggested to them.
So he says, the woman says to the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden, but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it lest ye die. She does two things here that are part of the problem, that of the enemy, that he works on us. First she adds to what God had said, and starts to have her own thoughts about it.
And second, she weakens what God says, lest she die. It was an absolute you're gonna die. But she weakens it and says, well, maybe we die lest we die.
The work of the subtlety of the enemy is to make you and I not believe in the seriousness of the consequences of not standing with God.
And so.
He says to the woman, verse four, He shall not surely die.
A direct, contradictory statement to what God had said. Ye shall surely die, God says. Satan says ye shall not.
Run, brother, sister, When you hear a statement that you know God has said the contrary to it, stop the conversation. Flee it.
Don't play with it.
Young person, when you know that the word of God has said something and someone else. I don't care who the someone else is.
They're consciously or unconsciously a servant of Satan, even if they're a fellow believer.
They're a tool of Satan against you. If God has said it, that's it.
But she continues the conversation.
For God doesn't know that in the day you shall eat thereof your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.
As far as it goes, that's a true statement.
But it wasn't the whole truth.
It was a statement intended to deceive, and it did.
He didn't say. And this will be the consequence in your life if you go ahead and do it.
The woman saw.
She no longer is focused on what God says, she's focused on the thing that her mind and her attention has been focused on. And so it is with the subtlety of Satan in our lives. He draws our attention away from our relationship and our position with God, all slowly step by step on to something else. And then we focus on that something else and we start to evaluate it.
It's good.
It's pleasurable. It's to be desired.
And it destroys.
But that part is not set, it destroys.
Satan is more clever than we are.
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We need the provision of God. We can't match wits with Satan.
We are guaranteed loser if we try.
And so.
Having separated her in heart and thought from what God has said, she takes, He takes.
And the separation is complete.
Now let's go to Ephesians 6 and see God's provision.
For the working of the enemy.
Ephesians chapter 6.
Verse 10 Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord.
And the power of his might.
Starting point.
We have no strength.
We have no chance.
Against the subtlety of Satan.
None. There's not a single person in this room. There's not a single person in this world.
That can one-on-one face Satan.
And when?
We're weak.
We need a strength.
That doesn't come from ourselves. We need a strength that only God can provide.
Be strong in the Lord and in the power of His might.
It's.
Detention center I go to with John quite often. I'll say to the kids something like this and say, have you ever done something and you decided after you did it that was bad, I don't like the consequences. So you said to yourself, I'll never do that again.
And you did.
And so you thought about it and you said, oh, I'll never do that again. And you did.
Again and again and again.
Is that not true of you?
Have you not said in your life at one point or another I'll never do that again?
And you have.
And you have.
Be strong in the Lord, It sometimes takes a lifetime.
Not to recognize one's own weakness, but there is no defeat, there's no standing against the enemy in our own strength. And so it's part of the lesson that is necessary for us before we realize the degree of the enemy's power and we recognize the need.
For the armor.
Put on the whole armor of God. You can't leave any of it out. You have to have the whole, because Satan will use any aspect of your life, any part of your life. You may do very well in this aspect and that and another, but there will be one part that no, you haven't. And that's where you, he's smart, smarter than you and I are, and that's where he will attack you.
On the piece that you don't have on, so we're told, you not only need need it, you need the strength that the Lord can give.
But you have to have it all.
That you may be able to stand against the Wilds, the subtlety, the cleverness.
Of the devil.
For we wrestle.
Not against flesh and blood.
But against spiritual wickedness.
In high places.
So again, verse 13 Wherefore take unto you the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day.
Do you recognize it? Do I recognize that you live? I live in an evil day.
If we don't realize it's an evil day, we will not think what we have to do with is all that serious or important or consequential.
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And so we go.
I've heard more than one young people young person in my life make a comment like.
Oh, I want to experience life.
It inevitably leads to sin.
And serious. And too.
The moment I think I live in a Sinner or an innocent world that is to be experienced.
Satan has already got the advantage over me.
He's already won essentially the battle.
It's an evil day. It's a day of real, serious wrestling and conflict for everyone. No exceptions, whether you're young or whether you're old.
First piece of armor I believe the armor is given in a moral or a important order we.
Won't take time to develop that thought particularly, but I believe that God is giving us the series of things that we need to put on in an order that is significant. And the second thing we need to say about it is you need it on before you get into the conflict. Don't go out the door in the morning and say, Oh well.
When I have a problem, I'll put on the armor.
You think soldiers do that?
The soldier go out to battle and get in the battle and say, Oh yeah, I think I better go get my rifle now, or I better get my flak jacket on or some other thing. That's foolish, isn't it, to think that way for a soldier? Well, you're a soldier. You're in a conflict. It's foolish to not put on the armor before you have to enter into the conflict, because if you enter into it.
You'll be wounded.
And before it'll be, it'll be too late, OK?
Verse 14 Having your loins skirt about with truth.
John 14, says.
Speaking the Lord Jesus, speaking, I am the truth.
John 17 says thy word is true.
That's the truth.
That's the truth that you need.
The Lord Jesus, the person I am the truth.
Lord Jesus in Psalm 17, saying thy word, Speaking of the Father, God's Word, Thy word is true.
It's real important to recognize here these are practical things about our lives. This is not.
The statement of doctrine that exactly, but it is the application of it to our daily life that's in view here and it's important to get the sense of this application of putting on the girding.
Of the loins with truth.
This doesn't mean that I read my Bible.
When I get up in the morning, I read a chapter, I say good morning, Lord, take care of me today. And then I go off and have my breakfast and I'm out the door and I live my daily life.
It is.
The Cultivation.
Of a relationship.
Of affection between your soul and the truth.
It is living in the present practical enjoyment.
Of the Lord Jesus.
In your life.
It is having a love affair.
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With God speaking to you through the Word.
It's the beginning.
Of armor, because if the Lord Jesus.
And you are enjoying one another in your life.
If His word is a delight to your heart in that way, then everything else that you are exposed to is judged by it. Satan comes along, and Satan is the opposite. He's the lie.
And if you are in the enjoyment of that which is true and real, then what he has to present to you doesn't attract.
Because you have something that is better for your heart.
The best illustration of this I learned, I received. I didn't learn it, but at least I received it into my head. At the time, I was about 17 years of age.
And my parents allowed me, for the first time in my life, to go to a conference like this by myself. So I got on a bus to the Greyhound bus, and I went to Iowa, to a Des Moines conference.
And I remember one statement.
Of that conference.
At that time, television was a rather new phenomenon.
Hadn't developed yet to what it is today.
There was a brother in a meeting and a reading meeting made a comment like this.
He said in the room at the hotel where I'm staying, there is a television set and he was making kind of a play on the word vision.
In the word television.
He said if you knew the vision.
That fills my soul.
You would know I have no interest in turning on that machine.
It's not really useful to me for anything but to put my coat on.
No law there is there.
There was a person whose life, and I can say it, showed it.
That was reality.
The enjoyment of that brother's heart.
In the truth was so strong and attractive.
That what was offered as an alternative.
Had no claim on him.
Because it was worse than second best.
That girding the loins.
The girding sense has the idea of you have to be careful because you have to use restraint because you live in a world where you can't let your affections go out unrestrained.
You have to be careful what you set your heart on in the world because it's not an innocent world.
And so it's let the loins be gird about with truth.
Second piece of armor.
As it says they're having on the breastplate.
Of righteousness.
Scripture often connects righteousness with a good conscience in a practical living out righteously, and I want to present it to you as living.
A transparent life.
If Satan hasn't manipulated you. If you are walking in practical righteousness.
You can live a transparent life.
No deception.
Is another way of saying it.
When someone walks in the room when you are on the Internet, do you change what's on the screen?
If you have your iPod out or your cell phone and someone walks into your presence, is what's on your cell phone needs to change?
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If someone comes to your house to visit you, is the occupation and the activity change?
There is.
Serious problem that Satan gains the advantage of.
First John chapter one, we're told.
Umm.
Blood of Jesus Christ, His Son, cleanses us from all sin.
And it also says, if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. The characteristic is, is if I give up a good conscience, if I allow something in my life which is not of God, I enter Satan's realm of deception. I become a deceiver. I try to deceive my parents. I try to deceive my brethren. I try to deceive my husband, my wife, my relationships at work.
To cover that which is not righteous within me.
That's working in my life, and without righteousness there is no standing up to Satan.
He will manipulate a life. He does manipulate a life.
That is not or cannot be lived transparently.
When Abraham decided to go down into Egypt.
He was forsaking the place of faith and his his son Isaac followed him and did the same.
He started to deceive.
He started to try to deal with the circumstances in which he was placing himself, and so he deceives, he says about his wife. She's my sister, Isaac said about Rachel. She is my sister.
Because Satan was at work using the separation of the heart and its righteousness with God. Practical righteousness.
To bring in that which was not of God, and to make deceiving and being deceived the character of the life.
I'll just comment that these first two characteristics are developed. These first two pieces of the armor can be seen in more complete way in John's gospel and John's first epistle. So if you wish to study them more, to understand them more, you find Cain and Abel are brought out in first John and the matter is righteousness between them. Why did Cain hate Abel?
Because Abel was righteous and Cain was evil, he was unrighteous.
And the characteristic of evil is that it hates righteousness.
And I say that it's a serious thing because in Second Timothy chapter 2, we find that we're exhorted to walk with the Lord out of a pure heart. But if we don't?
And we give it up, and we allow unrighteousness in our lives. Satan uses us as a tool to oppose truth.
There's many a Saint of God who's become a tool of Satan because the minute I embrace error.
Put on me by forsaking truth or becoming unrighteous. I'm going to in unconsciously, perhaps to myself and my focus on that error or that focus on self protection of my unrighteous ways. I will oppose truth.
We have a clever enemy.
And sadly, a rather successful one.
Verse 15 and your feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace.
Are you a peacemaker or a peacemaker?
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Conflict Producer.
While Satan's happy to use that.
A development of what's in verse 15 is found in the book of Philippians, and we have in the book of Philippians that which teaches us how to walk in peace in our own hearts with God, and as a consequence, how to be a peace faker in our relationships with others.
Just as a practical expression, be wise.
Concerning that which is good.
And simple concerning that which is evil, if we are to walk in peace in this world and to have a message of peace, this isn't the gospel of the grace of God that's here. The thought isn't that, but it is that which would present to us a path through life that we would walk in peace with God practically, and we would walk in peace.
With our fellow man and Philippians 4 particularly is given to us to help us to understand how to put on that armor and uh, to walk in it.
So may the Lord help us to do that.
We otherwise.
We'll find ourselves irritated.
With the foibles of one another.
And we will walk in a way that Satan will subtly manipulate us so that instead of being the man of peace, the woman of peace will be ones that have conflict with our brethren and with our fellow man at work and school and so on.
And he knows how to use whatever draws us.
Away in heart from that fellowship with God that gives us the peace of God in dealing with one another.
I think it's Mark's gospel. It says, umm, have salt in yourselves and have peace one with another. I would comment that if you have your loins, gird about with truth. If you have on the breastplate of righteousness and your feet shod in this way, you will fulfill that verse. Have peace and have salt in yourself.
And uh.
Walk within peace.
With one another.
Verse 16 above all, taking the shield of faith, where which you may be able to quench the fiery darts of the wicked.
Turn with me over to, uh, First John Chapter 5.
Keep your finger here. We'll be right back to Ephesians 6.
The end of First John. First John, chapter 5.
Verse 18 We know that whosoever is born of God sinneth not, but he that is begotten of God keepeth himself, and the wicked one toucheth him not. And we know that we are of God, and the whole world lieth in wickedness, or if you have the Darby translation, lieth in the wicked one.
Here in verse 16, the fiery darts of the wicked one.
The world is Satan's lie.
Set up to deceive.
To destroy.
Our lives.
Every day.
We get a barrage of fiery darts shot at us.
The whole world in which we live is set up of Satan to disconnect our souls.
In the constant moment by moment enjoyment of our fellowship with God.
To distract us into occupation with that. The fiery darts is that which penetrates and then creates a fire that expands. That's the way they're designed to do, and that's the way that Satan's fiery darts are intended. Everything in advertising and in the system of men is intended to.
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Draw upon lust, upon the desire to have.
And we live in a world that's evil.
I was somewhat astounded the percentage of people that wake up in the morning and they turn on their cell phone before they get out of bed.
That sound innocent.
Might to you to might to me, but it's not.
It's not innocent.
It is the avenue that man is so taken up with being wired with the world that he can't live without it.
You can't live.
Without the cell phone in his hand.
Because it gives them instant access, but access to what?
I'm not saying a cell phone is evil.
But I am saying it's a tool that can easily be used.
To keep and separate the soul from God.
That the constant barrage of fiery darts to access the heart, the mind, the will that separates it.
Into Satan's world the whole, as it says in John, the whole world lieth in the wicked one.
Separate your heart, your life from it. Be watchful. Be careful.
Don't unnecessarily occupy yourself.
With that which?
Satan uses on you.
Life is a struggle.
It needs a provision of God.
Verse 17 Take the helmet of salvation.
The helmet of salvation is found in Colossians.
The whole book of Colossians you will find if you read it, and you read it quickly with this before you, you will see that it's the full understanding of the will of God and the mind of God. You're exhorted. Set your mind on things above where Christ sitteth at the right hand of God.
Stand, hold your finger here. Just read one verse. That's the conclusion of it. We don't have time to look at all the verses connected with it, but.
Uh, noticed in the last chapter where you get the standing part.
Umm Colossians chapter 4.
Verse 12 Aprofis, who is one of you, a servant of Christ, Pseudosyou, also laboring fervently for you in prayers, that ye may stand perfect and complete in all the will of God. You won't get the will of God from Satan.
You won't get the will of God from the world.
You won't get the will of God from your human mind.
Get it from God.
And only from God. And you need on that helmet that practically goes to God.
To receive from himself the light that you need to live by the wisdom, the knowledge of himself and His will.
You have 5 minutes.
Go to the Word. You'll get more out of it in 5 minutes than you can if you spend 50 years in man's wisdom.
You may stand take the helmet of salvation.
And the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.
Here it's often used for the benefit of others. You can't use this book if it's not a living reality to your own soul.
It isn't good enough to know that it says something.
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If it's to be used as the sword of the spirit, it really in the exhortation sense of it, it has to be the living reality of your own life. And then it can.
Be used to the Spirit. The Spirit can use it independent of us, of course, but the sense of it here is for you as a user of it should be an instrument of the Spirit of God in fellowship with Himself, so may the Lord.
Help us, each one, to have our own lives lived out in that.
Personal.
Enjoyment.
I speak to you this afternoon, but the sword is A2 edged sword.
It says the same things to me that it says to you.
Why do I say some of the things I say to you and the way I do? Because face answers to face and water.
If it's in my heart, I'll think it's in yours.
Sword is sharp.
Verse 18 Praying always with all prayer and application or supplication in the Spirit, watching thereunto with all perseverance and supplication for All Saints.
I want to encourage you in your prayer life in a very practical and very specific way.
Young people.
I encourage you.
Speak to the Lord.
Every day for your brothers and sisters and your parents.
Every day, everyone by name.
Mothers and fathers.
I encourage you not only to pray every day by name.
For your own children.
But for all the children.
Of your brothers and sisters.
As well As for them. Your family tree, in other words.
You who are older.
Who have a care, you say, and I'm sure you do.
For the assembly where you are.
I encourage you to pray each day by name.
For every single person in the assembly where you are.
With perseverance.
With perseverance, all perseverance and supplication for All Saints.
May the Lord help us to help one another.
We can.
We can not only put on the armor for ourselves and live it out, but also we have the privilege of caring for one another.
In this way there's no limitation.
We may not always have a word to say to the person, but we always have a word to say. We can with God.
Many have heard this statement. Prayer is based on the immense privilege of having common interest with God.
Does God have an interest in your brothers and sisters?
Sure does.
You have an interest in your brothers and sisters. I trust you. Do you share a common interest with God then?
Talk together.
About it each day.
Likewise in the bigger family. Likewise in the assembly. Let's pray.
Our God and Father.
We do ask that each one of us may apply.