Address—Bob Thonney
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I'm going to read.
Number 42 in the appendix.
Has to do with what we're going to talk about tonight.
Save your lead us by thy power, Save into the promised rest. Choose the path away, whatever seems to be the Lord the best.
Our guide in every peril Watch and keep us night and day else are foolish hearts will wander.
From the straight narrow way, since India is our redemption, salvation full and free. Nothing need our souls disheartened, but forgetfulness of thee not can stay our steady progress More than conquerors we shall be, if our eye, whatever the danger, looks to the and none but the.
This verse especially My presence we are happy. My presence were secure. In my presence all afflictions we can easily endure, In my presence we can conquer.
We can suffer, we can die wandering from Thee. We are feeble. Let it thy love, Lord, keep us an eye. Let's pray. Gracious Father, thanks for another opportunity.
To open and speak from my precious word.
We confess.
How insufficient we are to attack.
Well, we're thankful for the presence and power of Thy Holy Spirit.
And asked that he would have liberty tonight to make thy word go home to our hearts consciousness. Help us Lord, we pray in that wonderful that worthy name of our Lord Jesus, Amen.
I thought last evening, Brother Paul, that you were going to speak on the armor of God.
And so I'm going to speak on it.
That all right. Thank you.
Ephesians chapter 6.
We are in conflict zone.
It's a real thing, young people.
It's nothing to be ignored.
But we need to have God's view of it.
And that way we will not be dominated by fear.
Ephesians chapter 6 and verse 10.
Finally, my brethren.
The strong in the Lord, and in the power of His might.
Put on the whole armor of God that you may be able to.
Stand against the Wiles of the devil.
Where we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in higher heavenly places.
Wherefore they come to you, the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand.
In the evil day, and having done all 2 stand, stand therefore having your loins heard about with truth.
And having on the breastplate of righteousness.
And your feet shut with the preparation of the gospel of peace.
Above all.
Taking the shield of faith wherewith you shall be able to.
Quench all the fiery darts of the wicked, and take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.
Praying always.
With all prayer and supplication in the spirit, and watching there unto with all perseverance and supplication for All Saints, and for me that utterance would be given them to me, that I may open my mouth boldly.
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To make known the mystery of the gospel.
There's seven things to be considered in the armor of God.
I'm going to tell you, young people especially, I'm going to have a test at the end of the meeting. I'm going to ask you to shut your Bibles and the notes you might have taken, and I'm going to ask you to give me what those seven are. I'm going to name them to you right now, first of all.
Loins heard about with truth, secondly.
Having on the breastplate of righteousness, Thirdly.
The shot with the preparation of the gospel of peace.
For taking the shield of faith, with which you will be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked, 5th Take the helmet of salvation.
Six, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.
Seven praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, and watching there unto with all perseverance for all sake.
So I'll, I'll test you at the end and I'm going to say this, this is not a assembly meeting. So the sisters can put up their hands to answer too. So don't think you're going to be exempt where you're sitting. I want you to listen. My desire is that you'll remember.
I.
I found it very helpful to go over those things in my own life.
Seven things that are so important in connection with the warfare that none of us can avoid. It's a reality. It's not a warfare of bombs and bullets. It's a spiritual warfare and we have an enemy that wants to knock us down.
I have to say the Sunday school I grew up in, Walla Walla.
I don't think even half of the children and young people that grew up with me are going on for the Lord like they should be.
I hope they're saved. I'm not sure about some of them. Some of them are already passed away in this world.
But it's a real warfare and we have an enemy that doesn't want you guys.
To be reading the scriptures, he's going to put obstacles in the way. And so we want to help you to get these things into your memory. It will be a help and a blessing to you if you can remember that.
So it's a very real warfare. You know, in the Bible we have persons that encounter that warfare too. I'm going to talk a little bit about Daniel.
He was probably LED away captive. I heard the other day a speaker say that perhaps he was 14 or 15 years old when he was taken from the land of Judah and his parents were probably killed.
In the taking of the city of Jerusalem and Daniel 14 or 15, is there any 14 or 15 year olds here? Please raise your hand.
Quite a few.
OK, very good.
What would you think if your parents were killed and you were taken away to a Pagan land like Daniel was?
You think you would have stood like Daniel did. I'm amazed at that young man stood, but it was spiritual warfare, and in his life he had some spiritual disciplines. One of them was praying. He prayed three times a day. He opened as the Jews used to do, the.
The uh, windows to the east, Uh, is that E then?
OK, so that's it, to the east starts. Well, let me see, If it was towards Jerusalem from Babylon, that would have been to the West, wouldn't it? So it was to the West. Anyhow, it's towards Jerusalem. And he prayed three times a day. That was spiritual discipline. The time came when the government of that country where he was said that.
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Prohibited to do.
But that was his spiritual discipline and he continued to do it and he ended up in the lions stand. But you know what? I think he had a more peaceful night in the lions den than the king had in his palace.
There in Babylon.
Why was that?
Because he trusted in his guy. Wonderful to think about it.
Daniel in Chapter 9 of Daniel is praying and he's also praying in chapter 10. In Chapter 9, he gets his answer right away.
Chapter 10 It takes three weeks to get his answer.
Why the difference?
Then got here, Yeah, You know what? When the answer came, it came by an Angel to him, and he said, I've come from the Prince of Persia. And now that I'm going, I'm going to go back to the Prince of Greece. It was the time when the Persian Empire was changing to the.
Grecian Empire.
And so.
There was conflict in government circles, and the answer didn't get to him right away.
To me, that's very interesting. We got a country where there's a very.
Real conflict in government circles.
May be aware of it to a certain extent or not, but there's conflict and sometimes those things affect getting the answers to our prayer. Very interesting to think about. I don't understand it all, but I find that extremely interesting to think about.
Anyway, Daniel, persevere.
And he lasted through the Babylonian Empire into the needle Persian Empire.
Pretty interesting, man. He knew what conflict was in your life. I want to say to you young people, I don't know if you like it or not, but you are not going to avoid spiritual conflict in your life. There's just no way that it will happen. You're going to have it.
And if you give way to it, the enemy is going to try to get you down. And I'm going to tell you your life will be a lot harder if you give way to the enemy. It's far better to put on the armor of God and to stand firm. So I'm going to take up these seven points that we've talked about, first of all.
In verse 14, it starts stand therefore having your loins, you're about with truth.
The girdle was something they put around. The soldiers put around their waist a belt of truth. We could say it was a wide belt that was put around there so that they would be strong in warfare. What is it for us?
True, I remember reading one of the early statesman of the United States of America. I think it was Thomas Jefferson who.
Made this comment.
Error needs a strong government to back it.
True will stand alone. That's very true. The truth will stand alone. But it's not just knowing that in your head, young people. It's putting it on. Come on, you know, I know a lot of you people, young people know the truth.
Put it on. Make it practical in your lives. Do it important, that is.
Otherwise, you're not going to be strong. You're going to give away, give away.
To what is not true, and there's a lot of it in the world today, I want to make this statement about the truth.
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The truth.
As we have it, in the Word of God and in the person of the Lord, Jesus is absolute. We live in a world where people try to make it relative. Oh, that's just your idea. I have a different idea. And who's to say if you're right or I'm right?
And they say truth is just relative.
Don't look at me, young people, because sometimes I make mistakes.
I don't want you going making the same mistakes that I do.
Look at the Lord Jesus, because He is the truth. I am the way, the truth and the life. No man cometh to the Father but by me, so he's seeking it in the absolute sense.
Somebody has said either Jesus was delusion.
Or he was a deceiver.
Or it's true, He is the truth and it's absolute sense.
The only answer that makes any sense is that He is the truth in its absolute sense. It also says in John 17, Sanctify them by thy truth. Thy word is true. How wonderful to have a book in our hands that is the truth.
Absolutely.
You think I know it?
All you know what I found? The more you learn of this book, the more you realize how little you really know.
Just keep on learning through all your life. So don't look at me again. I say young people, sometimes we have the tendency to look at somebody older that you admire. I can understand that to a certain extent.
Look at the Lord Jesus, Look at His precious word. You will not be ashamed if you put your trust in the Lord Jesus and His precious word. That's the truth. But put it on. Don't just talk about truth. Make it practical in your life. How important that is.
The second one is.
That same 14th verse.
Having on the breastplate of righteousness.
That's what covered the breast of the soldier and that was a very important piece because there were arrows flying in warfare.
And there were darts and there were Spears. And if you had the breastplate on, why it would just hit against that and fall to the ground.
Wouldn't do any damage.
What is the breastplate of righteousness?
To me this is practical, righteous.
It is what Paul talks to a young man about in First Timothy chapter one.
Maintaining faith and a good conscience.
Maintain a good conscience.
You know, the apostle Paul said.
And one of his discourses.
Here in Do I exercise myself to have always a conscience void of offense toward God and toward man? He doesn't say I always have a good conscience, no.
I exercise myself.
If Paul makes some mistakes, yeah.
One time, he was told.
Buy some brethren by the Spirit not to go to Jerusalem. And he went anyhow.
But he recognized it afterwards. You know what? What conscience is. I hope you understand what conscience is. It's what man got in the Garden of Eden when he ate of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. God had given them that Garden of Eden, a beautiful garden with all sorts of fruit.
Everything that was good to eat. And he gave them one restriction.
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Not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
And so one day.
Eve starts talking to the serpent, which is a figure of Satan.
And.
The serpent puts a question to her, puts a doubt in her mind.
Did God really say not to eat of that tree?
And Eve answered, Satan, if you look at it closely, she made two mistakes in her aunt in what she said to say she said that.
That, umm, we could not either any tree if we could eat of any tree of the garden, but the tree that is in the midst of the garden.
Do you have the knowledge of good and evil wasn't in the midst of the garden. It was the tree of life that was in the midst of the garden. That was one mistake. Sometimes, you know, we quote Scripture and we quote it because we're not very well acquainted with it. We make mistakes.
And then she says he said that we should not touch it nor eat of it. I've never said you couldn't touch it. You did say it shouldn't either. So ** *** made two mistakes.
And then the enemy says a direct lie. You will not surely die. And so she looked at that route, and she took it. There was Adam beside her, watching.
Or take it and the eating of that fruit.
You know, the scripture says that Eve was deceived, but Adam wasn't deceived. And that's why Adam is the responsible head of a fallen race, because he ate knowing that he was doing it in direct disobedience to God.
Then what happened? Then they were ashamed that they were naked, they didn't have any clothes on and.
They tried to cover themselves up with fig leaves. You're, I don't know if there's any fig trees around here, but we had big trees down in Bolivia. Let me tell you, they don't make very good material to make a, uh, some piece of clothes with. They rip real easy.
Then they hit behind the trees of the garden, and God came down and said, Adam, where are you?
And he says, I heard thy voice, and I was afraid.
Did you eat of the tree that I told you not to eat?
And Adam blames his wife.
That's the tendency we all have to blame somebody else, the woman.
And when the Lord turns to the woman, she said, the serpent, that's just the way we operate. We tend to blend, blend somebody else. When you're guilty, don't blame anybody else but that using finger right here.
That's the way to do it. So they got what is called conscience.
You take CON the rest of that word. Conscience is science for knowledge with knowledge before they were innocent means without knowledge of good and evil. So every single human being has a conscience.
That scripture talks to us about an evil conscience it talks about.
A umm.
Good conscience talks about a pure conscience talks about a conscience seared with a hot iron. I just want to say to you young people, this is your breastplate. Maintain a good conscience before God. We live before him. Yeah, sometimes you can hide stuff from your parents and from your brethren.
But there is an I see. There's an all seen God.
That sees every single thing you ever do.
You know, I found it sometimes.
A little child.
In his home, he knows he's not supposed to touch a certain base on a table, and he goes up to that table and he knows he's not supposed to touch it, and he's tempted to touch it, and he looks around to see if his mom's watching. Why does he do that? That's his conscience work.
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So conscience is a very real thing to maintain a good conscience. That's the breastplate of righteousness. We're living in a sin filled world and I want to encourage you young people and older ones too, to exercise yourself to have always a conscience void of offense toward God.
And toward men.
Remember.
Joseph in the Old Testament.
He had a pretty rough life.
When he was.
17 or so.
His brothers sold them as a slave to Egypt. I can't imagine what that must have meant to him, his ten brothers.
They sold him as a slave to Egypt. So he goes down and he's bought by the captain of the guard and he's working in the captain's house and he's so faithful because he's conscious of God in his life, that he's soon over the whole captain of the guards house. But there's a problem there.
The captain's wife wants him to commit sin.
Wants him to go to bed with her.
And day by day she said something to him about it. And finally there was a day when it was just she and him in the house, and she grabbed a hold of his clothes.
You know what he had said to her? He said, how can I do this great sin against God?
He lived before the eye of God.
You're young people, I want to encourage you.
To keep yourself pure in this world.
Of sexuality.
And liber umm, people take liberties.
And think that they have the right to do so.
Keep yourself here, it costs Joseph.
And he ended up in prison.
You might have said, come on, Joseph, just go ahead and do it. Get it over with.
Nobody will ever know. Your family is a long ways away, he says. How can I do this great sin against God?
And you maintain himself faithful sexually. I don't think Joseph would have ever come to the throne of Egypt like he did.
If he had submitted to that temptation.
Young people, keep yourself sure it's worthwhile. I was a young person, I grew up in an 18I struggled with those issues.
But the Lord helped me to keep myself here. I'm so thankful.
When I got married to my wife that I could save.
I am a virgin, I haven't gotten out of line as to my sexuality.
It's a very real thing. God has made sexuality to be used within the bonds of marriage. It's like a river running in its banks. What a beautiful thing it is, what a useful thing it is. But if that river becomes too big and it overflows, it bounds, it does a lot of damage.
And I see so many young people.
Messing their lives up.
Don't do it, it's not worthwhile. Keep yourself here, young men. Be careful of your habits, especially around young women, young sisters.
Help by covering yourself up properly.
This world has learned.
If the woman will uncover herself as much as possible, it stimulates men as they look at.
That is a temptation that you should not give.
Keep yourself here. The Lord help you. That's my desire for you. It's worth while struggling, fighting the good fight of faith, to have a good conscience before God. Paul talks to Timothy several times about that. A good conscience. I just want to say that's the breastplate of righteousness. It is very important.
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#3 having your feet shut with the preparation of the gospel of peace. Notice it doesn't say having your feet shod with the gospel of peace with the preparation of the gospel of peace. In other words, the way you watch prepares the way to give the message of the gospel of peace.
Sometimes people have said.
The way you act, speak so loud I can't hear what you say.
If you don't walk properly as a Christian, you're not going to find yourself at liberty to give the gospel of peace. So stop and think about this part of the armor.
The shoes, the.
D shot with the preparation.
Of the gospel of peace. The Lord help us in this young people.
Now the next one noticed. It says above all, this is the central piece of armor. This is number 4. So there's three before it and three after.
Above all, this is very important, taking the shield of faith, wherewith he shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked.
Remember the shield generally, I suppose the soldier learned to hold the sword in his right hand, and he had the shield on his left arm, and he was pulling it up and down to catch the arrows or the darts that were coming here. It says to quench the fiery darts of the wicked.
What are those darts?
Their doubts. Satan wants you to doubt God. That's exactly what he did to Eve and made her fall.
I say sometimes young people, if you have doubts about me, I can understand you.
You have doubts about other people in the meeting? Maybe I can understand.
Never ever admit a doubt about God or His Word.
Because that comes directly from Satan. That's the way he wants to get you down.
And so if a dark a doubt gets in those fiery darts, and the shield of faith goes down, and another one and another one, that soldier is going down in the battle.
Don't let it happen. What is the shield of faith?
Implicit trust in God. God is faithful and God cannot change.
You know what?
There's something that we do that God cannot do. It's a lie.
So when he says something, you can trust him. And there's so much in this Bible, you know what? I read it. I don't really understand that awful well, but I trust it. There's people that trust their minds and they use God.
Somebody has said we should use our minds, but we should trust God implicitly. Trust Him without question. Let me read you a verse.
In Proverbs chapter 3 that I very well known verse but I find it so beautiful.
Proverbs, chapter 3.
And verse five and six.
Trust in the Lord.
With.
How much?
How much of my heart?
Did you get it?
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Did you see that word?
How much of your heart?
I'll ask you again.
All your heart.
You know, sometimes when I think of my trust in the Lord, I have to recognize.
There's little pockets of doubt here and there in my heart.
Don't let that happen.
Trust in the Lord with all your heart.
And then it says.
And lean not to thine own understanding.
I love the way it reads in the Spanish, the old version of the Spanish says.
Yeah, the the hill back on soda to Corazon in noise three days into proprio Prudencia and the way it says don't lean is the word for the stirrups on a horse, on the saddle of a horse. You know what happens when you're.
On a horse and you maybe start getting lopsided, you put your weight on the stirrups to rectify yourself. That's a natural response.
Do you have understanding?
I hope you do have some. You have some, don't you, Bernie?
Huh.
A little.
I hope you use your understanding that you got.
But don't put your weight on those understanding you have trust in the Lord with all your heart. To me, that has been such a comfort to me.
Because sometimes I think I understand a thing pretty well and I kind of put my weight on my understanding of the thing.
Don't do that. Use your understanding. God has given you understanding. Use it.
But trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not to your own understanding. Want to read a verse in the 14th chapter of Proverbs as well before we go away from Proverbs?
Proverbs 14, verse 26.
In the fear of the Lord.
Is strong confidence.
And his children shall have a place of refuge. If you walk in the fear of the Lord, the result is going to be strong confidence. I love that.
You know you have an illustration of it in David.
He was a shepherd boy. I don't know how old he was when he came to see his brothers.
When Goliath was out there showing himself.
Says Umm Saul asked who is this youth?
Maybe 1718 perhaps, I don't know for sure, but he was in Europe. But there's one thing that David had was strong confidence.
And talking to his brothers and then talking to others, he finally comes to talk to Saul the king.
And he says I will go.
And so it says you can't go, you just a youth. And he's a man of war from his youth.
But he says I was in the countryside and there was a Lion King and there was a bear and they took a lamb out of the block and I went after him.
And grabbed that line by his beard that to me shows it was must have been a African lion because I don't think other lions have beards. Do they? Tell me about it if I if I'm wrong about that but took him by his beard.
Pretty confident young man and hit him and killed him.
Wow, that's impressive to me. I don't know if I would have the courage to do that. But he proved the Lord when nobody else was watching except the Lord. And so here's now the time to encounter the giant. And he goes down. Saul finally accepts the fact that he's going to go down and fight that giant. And he goes down. He tries out Saul's armor and he says, I haven't proved this.
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And he left it in the heat there.
And he gets his staff and his shepherd's bag and his sling and five smooth stones, and he goes down beneath the giant. Imagine one side of the valley, here comes David, down this year. Other side, here's Goliath, almost 10 feet tall.
All covered with armor. Even has an armor bearer up in front to help protect him.
And Goliath sees David and he says, you think I'm a dog, that you send me this little guy.
And David says, you come to me with a sword and a spear. I come to you in the name of Jehovah, the God of Israel, whom you have defied. This day I will take your head from off of you.
The battle is not over yet, David. You better. You better fight it before you start talking like that. No, there is a confidence there that was incredible. And the fear of the Lord is strong confidence. That's that shield of faith. Make sure to get that in place. That's so important. Well, you know the results of that story.
David had five stones. It only took one.
Knocked Goliath on his face and he took the life spoon sword.
And finish the job. And here comes David back from the valley of Elah with the giant sword in one hand and the giant's head in the other. What a victory. How in the world he do that? You know what? It wasn't for David a matter of David versus Goliath. It was a matter of God versus Goliath. David had all confidence.
How the bottle would come out in the end.
That's the shield of faith. That's the strong confidence. Again, I say, you can doubt me, young people.
You can dial other people too, but never admit a doubt about God and His Word. That's the shield of faith. OK, let's go on because our guns run in and we want to take the test.
The next one is the Helmet of Salvation. The helmet, of course, was something that went over the.
Head, it was.
About the thoughts, you're thinking patterns, how important to have them, right?
I'm going to read a verse out of the our hymn book that to me describes what the Helmet of Salvation is. It's hymn #16 in the appendix. You want to look it up? I found this such a blessing to think about the very last verse.
Of 16 in the appendix.
For every tribulation, for every sore distress in Christ, I have full salvation.
Sure help and quiet rest, No Fear of force prevailing. I triumph, Lord in thee, O Jesus, friend unfailing, how dear art thou to me. It's the knowledge that in Christ we have a salvation that is complete.
And even though we are down here in the middle of the battle, our God will see us through it all. In Christ we have full salvation, sure help, and quiet rest.
The next piece of the armor is offensive armor.
And the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.
That was what the Lord Jesus used with the devil in the temptations. You know the Lord Jesus was tempted for 40 days, 40 nights.
Early severe tempting. We only have 3 recorded temptation, but in each one of those 3 recorded temptations, the Lord responded to the devil. It is written He used the word of God, a verse from the Bible. He didn't reason with the devil.
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Don't reason with the devil, quote the word of God. I remember as a young person.
Wrestling about the issue of my salvation and the devil would come to me and say you think you're saved, Come on, look, the way you've acted, you're not saved.
And I learned just to go back to the Word of God and say Scripture says whosoever.
They leave it in him shall not perish, but have everlasting life. On that verse I raised the shield of faith, and the devil could go no longer.
I used the Sword of the Spirit.
Is another temptation that I have had is when things go pretty negative in life, things don't always go the way we think they ought to go.
They go pretty heavy sometimes and the devil comes and says you think God's for you, look what's happened. Come on, be reasonable. All these things are against you.
But you have to go back to scripture and scripture says if God before us who can be against us. So don't reason with the demo.
Quote Scripture. That's just what the Lord Jesus said and one of the temptations the devil used the scripture.
If you look at it carefully, he didn't quote it completely. He quoted only a part of it. And the Lord Jesus said it is written again in another place. Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God. And so the devil was defeated and he takes off. He leaves him. The devil realizes he cannot stand before that sword of the Spirit.
Now there's one more thing.
Praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, and watching thereunto with all perseverance and supplication for All Saints. Prayer, supplication.
Prayer is more of a general.
Expression.
Supplication is more intense.
God wants us to be intense about our relationship with.
Him Are you willing to do that? Are you willing to pray?
You know, I don't find prayer easy. I find it hard.
I have disciplined myself to get up in the middle of the night, one or two in the morning.
And to pray.
I know a lot of brethren, not only in North America but in South America.
It's about all over the place. It's a battle.
And it's not about pleasing yourself in this life, young people. Discipline yourself, Deny yourself. The Lord Jesus said if any man come after me, let him deny himself. Take up his cross and follow me. You're willing to deny yourself.
Oh, just turn over and leave another hour, OK?
You're going to find that you won't have power in your spiritual life.
Praying always, with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit.
Watching there unto. In other words, God is going to come through. I've seen some amazingly wonderful answers to prayer.
God wants to answer our prayers.
It's through prayer that we have fellowship with him.
And it's not that we're asking him to do something he doesn't want to do it some we're asking him something that he does want to do.
But he wants fellowship with us in that way.
That's a very important part of the Armor of God, so I'll go over it once more before I do the task #1.
Having your loins skirt about with true number 23 heat shot with the preparation of the Gospel of peace #4 Above all, taking the shield of faith #5.
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Having the helmet of salvation number six, the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God #7.
Praying always, please shut your bibles, please turn off your machines and check your notes. OK, who can tell me #1?
Very good #2.
Very good.
#3.
Very good #4.
Very good #5 you already had one, so I'll take somebody else.
That's number six, Number five.
Helmet of Salvation? And then what was it you said?
OK, that's number six and #7 we didn't have any girls yet. How about that girl way back there?
OK, very good.
OK, I guess you passed the test, but if I ask that same tomorrow morning, I hope you'll remember them too. Let's pray.
Gracious Father, thanks for thy precious word.
Help each one of these dear young people and older ones too.
The battle is strong.
And our desire is to see them go on, not to give away to the enemy. Help us, Lord, we confess we're not sufficient in ourselves. It's only in Thy power that we can stand. So we ask thy blessing on the rest of this day, commending ourselves in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, Amen.