Ephesians chapter six. Ephesians chapter six. We're going to read several verses from there in just a few minutes. As I mentioned, revival services, February 16 through the twenty first. We read about some great revivals in our country years in the past, sadly not recent ones, other revivals around the world.

Those revivals did not start as a result of an evangelist coming to a meeting. Those revivals started in people's hearts, churches, communities, nations as a result of prayer, and God's people preparing themselves for God to do a great and mighty work in their lives. While we hope and pray that having an evangelist in and having special services and a focus on reaching the lost for Jesus Christ on taking time to open up our our hearts to the word of God in a special way, a special week, that God will indeed bring revival. But revival comes when God's people prepare for it. Revival comes when God's people pray for it.

When they open up their hearts to it, when they when they see a need for it. And so I do hope that indeed we do have revival, and we do need it. We do need revival. We need to be revived and and and challenged and in some cases convicted over things in our lives that need to change. We do need to be empowered and and encouraged from the word of God to move forward, to to run that race that we talked about the last couple weeks.

Do you really want revival? Do you need it? Does your neighbor, brother, or sister need it? Does your church need it? Are you preparing for it?

Preparation is important. Once a year, my family goes to Virginia at Thanksgiving. It's to see my parents, but it's sort of a family reunion. I've only missed it three times, I think, in my life, maybe four. That's not bad out of fifty four years that I have been in Virginia for Thanksgiving.

Two of them were when my boys were born. They were both born around Thanksgiving. So, we didn't go those two years. But every year we go, my wife in particular feels the need to prepare. Okay?

And I'm glad that she does because I'm busy distracted by other things, some of them terribly important and some others maybe not so. But, if we are to get, we take presents up with us for the for the family. We, have several things to prepare for recently. In the past few years. Every year, we've been going up to Virginia and then up to Ohio to see my wife's parents, and then back down to Virginia and then back down to here.

And that takes a little bit of something called preparation. From time to time, nations have to go to war. It is it is a necessary evil at times to protect their people or their land. It would be silly to go to war without any what? Preparation.

It would be silly to decide to build a building without any counting the cost, Christ put it, or preparation. In Joshua chapter three verse five, before the Israelites went into the land of Canaan to conquer it, in Joshua three five, Joshua says this, sanctify, says this to the people, sanctify yourselves for tomorrow the Lord will do wonders among you. He told the people, sanctify yourselves. For tomorrow, God is going to do what? Wonders among you.

Let's pray. Dear God, thank you Lord for the many wonders that you have done in our midst, in our church, in our families, in our own very very own lives. Lord, we pray for more wonders. We pray for answers to prayer. We pray Lord for the wonder of revival in our hearts, in the hearts of our friends and neighbors, our loved ones, our church, Lord, our community.

We pray that you would do a wonderful thing. We pray that you might show yourself mighty in behalf of our people and answer to our prayers. And I pray Lord that we might take time in the coming weeks to prepare our hearts and ourselves for revival. Lord, that we might sanctify, set apart ourselves, cleanse our hearts through your word and through prayer, and prepare ourselves, Lord, to receive a blessing. Pray, Lord, if there be one here today that's yet to receive Christ as savior, may you open up their hearts even today to accept the most most important, most wonderful gift that has ever been given or ever received, salvation through faith in Jesus Christ our Lord.

For it's in Jesus name we do pray. Amen. So Joshua says to them, sanctify yourselves. The word can be translated consecrated. It means to set yourselves apart specifically to to the Lord.

It has the idea of cleansing yourself. Cleanse yourself of of the cast aside the the weights and the sins which doth so what? Easily beset us, as we talked about the last couple weeks. And prepare yourselves. It means to prepare.

So he's telling them, you need to be prepared to go in. You need to be set apart and consecrated in your heart to who? To the Lord. Okay? Prepare themselves with great anticipation and faith to see the the wonders that God would do among them.

Prepare themselves, he said, with great anticipation and faith to receive and experience the miraculous works of God. Just as God had done in the past. It wasn't something God hadn't done before. It was God who led Abraham and his family out of the Ur Of The Chaldees to a land called Canaan that he said he would later give to the descendants of Abraham, though Abraham had no children and no son. In his old age, God gave him one when his wife was far past years of bearing children.

As God had done in redeeming Israel from the hand of pharaoh, 10 plagues he brought upon the mightiest nation in the world in that day that had held Israel captive for four hundred years. God smote the hand of Pharaoh through 10 plagues and then parted the Red Sea so Israel could walk across and the army of pharaoh could be destroyed. As God had done in bringing them to Sinai and making them a people and a nation. God now makes request by Joshua that they cooperate in this task that is laid out before them by setting themselves apart, preparing their hearts, preparing themselves for for the Lord and his service, by cleansing themselves and preparing for battle. We must do the same if we wish to receive a full measure of God's blessing and power.

If we wish to see the mighty hand of God at works in our lives, in our church, and in the lives of others, we need to sanctify who? Ourselves. We need to prepare ourselves for the battle that is to come and that we are already in, that we might see victory, we might see the hand of God at work. We are in a battle with an enemy the Bible calls a roaring lion. He is a defeated enemy.

However, as wild beasts tend to be, when cornered, when the end is near, the enemy doesn't lay down and quit. He gets more vigorous in his efforts. Do not underestimate the power of our enemy. Certainly, not underestimate the power of our God. The enemy is great, but greater is he that's in us than he that's in the what?

Than he that's in the world. But he is in the world and he is at work and as he is trying to destroy the testimony of God from this earth. He will fail. The gates of hell will not prevail against the church of God. But he does often prevail in the hearts of many in many nations, and kings, and rulers.

He is hard at work to destroy your testimony. The next few weeks could be pivotal in your growth and service for Christ or in the life of another who might be saved or restored because you sanctified and you prepared yourself to have revival. Do not take these opportunities for granted, whether they be revival services or any Sunday service or bible study or ministry. They are wonderful opportunities. They are turning points in the lives of God's children.

It could be the week, the day that God does something extraordinary in your life or in the life of someone else. Do not be weary in well doing, for in due season we shall reap if we faint not. Don't give up. Don't throw in the towel. Don't say, oh, it's just another revival.

Don't say somebody else will do it. I don't need it. You do. I need it. You can always need spending more time with Jesus, getting closer to him, having more power and grace and love spill forth from your life for Jesus Christ.

We need to sanctify ourselves. We need to prepare our hearts. We can sanctify ourselves by putting on the whole what? Armor of God, Ephesians chapter six verse 10. Ephesians six verse 10.

Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord and 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. 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 high places. Wherefore, take unto you the whole armor of God that you may be able to withstand in the evil day and having done all to stand. Stand therefore having your loins gird about with truth.

Having on the breastplate of righteousness and your feet shod 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. It is a battle. It is a war.

Last week, we looked at the Christian life as a race. Today, in the next few weeks, we look at the Christian life as a war. A war over the souls of men and women, boys and girls, over the testimony of God's children against an enemy called Satan and his minions and those that he uses as pawns against the sin and the temptations that still reside within us over which we can have victory in Jesus Christ. In second Corinthians 10, Paul wrote these words. For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war after the flesh.

For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal of the flesh, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strongholds. Casting down imaginations every high thing that exalted itself against the knowledge of God, and to bring into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ. The weapons of our wars warfare are not made of iron. They're not made of they do not require gunpowder. They're not gained by pumping iron in the weight room.

Those things may have their place. But the war that this passage is talking about is a spiritual one. And those things will do you no good against spiritual enemies that plague us, that fight against us. We need spiritual weapons. We need the might and the power of almighty God.

We need to put on the whole armor of God to war with the devil and with sin. And whether we like it or not, we are part of this war. It wages all around us and within us every day of our life on this earth. And yet many Christians seem neither to be aware of it or engaged in it, but we must. And as we look to revival, we are looking to go to war against Satan and sin, to snatch the souls of men and women from the enemy, to root out sin and weakness and doubt and carnality in our own lives and our own heart.

The souls of men and women, boys and girls are at stake. The glory and testimony of our father in heaven is at stake. Our present blessings and future rewards at his children as his children and servants are at stake. The enemy wants to destroy those things. God wants to provide those things and redeem those things.

God has given us weapons with which to fight battles, not weapons of human intervention or human might but weapons of the Lord. Spiritual weapons. It's not enough to be strong and well trained if you go to battle unprepared and unarmed. The strongest, craftiest soldier is no match for the enemy if he goes into battle unarmed and unprotected. Likewise, the carpenter without a hammer or the tennis player without his racket.

You might be the best tennis player in the world, but if you leave your racket at home, you're not gonna win. Not gonna happen. And yet sometimes we seem to think that we don't need the the weapons of warfare that God has given us. They're not they're not important or at least we don't take the time to prepare ourselves and to put on the whole armor of God before we walk into the fray. And then we wonder why we get pummeled because we're unprepared.

Yet so often we go into spiritual battle unprepared and unprotected. We go into battle with the wrong weapon or no weapon at all. We would laugh at the batter who came up to the plate with a tennis racket or a golf club. Baseball's gonna roll right through that tennis racket, and you're not likely to hit it very far with that golf club. You've got the wrong what?

Weapon. Wrong tool. Silly, you say. No. Sad.

Which all too often is an adjective which best describes many Christians today. Our strength against the enemy in this war is found in who? In the Lord Jesus Christ. The battle belongs to who? Battle belongs to him.

Time after time in the Old Testament, we don't have time to look today, Israel went to battle. When they went to the battle in their own strength and they thought we've got it, they didn't. But when they waited on the Lord, sometimes all the Lord asked them to do was to stand there and see the salvation of the Lord. Whether it was the walls Of Jericho falling down or the enemies that opposed Jehoshaphat killing one another, We must recognize the battle belongs to the Lord. The victory belongs to the Lord.

And we cannot fight it without putting on the armor of God. God has there provided us with this armor. Mighty tools in defeating this enemy that we cannot see, this enemy that we can't defeat with physical brawn, but we can defeat with God's help. In escaping the wiles and the snares of the devil that we read about in Ephesians six. In avoiding his his darts, his arrows, and his missiles which he can so cunningly devise and has devised all around us in this sinful, spiritually dark world in which we live.

Paul said, if you walk in the spirit, you will not fulfill the what? The lust of the flesh, which also implies that if we're not walking in the spirit, that we're exposed. So walk in the spirit. How do you walk in the spirit? Put on the whole what?

Armor of God. Don't walk out into the battle with bullets and arrows and spears flying with no weapon and no shield and no armor. Put on the armor of God. Prepare your hearts for the day of battle. Paul, under house arrest in Rome and under inspiration, the Holy Spirit gives us this most vivid picture of our spiritual armor and the weapons which we have to with which we have to fight and with which we must enshroud ourselves if we are to conquer and win.

See victory and revival. Paul's description of the armor of a Roman soldier comes from his day in and day out likely being chained to one. He became distinctly familiar with the pieces of the soldier's armor, but this passage is not about the armor of a Roman soldier. It is about the armor of the child of God that we need to put on to prepare ourselves for the battle that is before us every day and to a particular one we're gonna walk into here in the next few weeks. Let's take a brief look at the first one.

Having your loins girt about with what? Truth. Okay? Or as we say to the kids, an explanation, having on the belt of truth. The this belt that the Roman soldier wore, his pieces of armor hooked to.

It was the central part of his armor. Without the belt, then nothing of the armor would stay in place. It was central. It was it was vital. You think about the the battle on their legs and on their chest and the helmet on their head and the shield and the sword and all those kind of weapons.

And you just don't think a whole lot about the what? The belt. It just doesn't seem to be all that important. But indeed, it was very important because the other was useless if you didn't have the belt. The belt of what?

The belt of truth. John eight thirty two, Jesus said, ye shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free. You shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free. There's one who wants to enslave people in bondage and steal them away from the one who loves them and made them. That person is the devil.

He doesn't want to free you. He wants to what? Enslave you and keep you that way. He uses sin to addict you and to enslave you in his service. There is a way for you to be free from that and from the penalty in the lake of fire.

You shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free. The truth is powerful. The truth is vital in this warfare against this enemy, the devil. In Philippians four eight, Paul told the believers there to think on these things. Some of these things they were supposed to think on were things that were true and things that were honest and things that were just.

All of those emphasize thinking, meditating on true things. The devil is the father of what? Lies. His primary weapon in his arsenal? Deception.

He deceived Eve in the garden and has continued to sow the seeds of deception in all humanity ever since. He said to Eve, yay, hath God said, as he planted doubt in Eve's mind that God was telling her the what? The truth. And then he came out and said, God essentially, he said, God is lying to you. He knows that in the day you eat the fruit thereof, you will be just like him.

He is holding you back. That was a what? A lie that enslaved all humanity, and Satan is busy in the hearts and minds of people today deceiving them through all kinds of avenues and media today to tell them lies after lies, to keep them from Jesus, to keep them from salvation, to keep them from living in faith even as God's children from being the testimony and experiencing the joy that God has to give by planting lies in our hearts. The truth will set us what? The truth will set us free.

The master of deception loves to deceive and the only defense is a tenacious determination to know and cling to the truth. Beginning with what? God's word. John seventeen seventeen, sanctify them, prepare them, cleanse them, consecrate them for the battle, for the life through thy what? Thy truth, thy word is truth.

You wanna know the truth? Here it is. God went through a lot of trouble to get this in your hands and in mine. 40 authors, fourteen hundred years, all telling one story, the story of God's plan of redemption for mankind. Not the story of man but the story of the Holy Spirit.

Communicated and revealed to us so that we might know the what? The truth. The truth about how we got here. The truth about where we're going. The truth about this battle that we feel inside of our heart.

That void that is there that needs to be filled. The purpose for which we're here in the way of salvation and the knowledge of the God who made us, of his holiness, of his love, of his mercy, of his grace, of his justice. Truth that the world vitally needs. Truth that the devil is so desperately trying to keep away from the hearts and minds of people today. The devil and skeptics are always attacking the integrity of scripture.

Why? Because it is the truth that sets men free from the bondage of sin and Satan from the enemy who was always trying to undermine it in the hearts of men. Doesn't do us a whole lot of good, by the way, if it's just sitting on your shelf. Need to read it. You'll be like a tree planted by the rivers that produces much fruit and beautiful leaves according to David in Psalm one.

If you will meditate on it day and and night, you need to take it into your heart, make it part of your life. It will change your life indeed. It will change the lives of those who hear it, who read it, who come here for revival services and Sunday services. If we will open up our heart to it, it will change you, strengthen you, and help you. Today, we live in a world where truth is under attack from all quarters.

It is no wonder as so many are easy targets to the devil, so confused, so easily what? Deceived. So easily deceived. It it always confounds me how so many people can be deceived by such ridiculous lies, and yet, again and again and again, it happens. You would think we would learn, but we don't.

Man is inclined to believe the lie rather than the what? Rather than the truth. We who are children of God know better. We need to open up our hearts. We need to search out the truth, and we need to apply it to our lives.

And then we need, as we prepare our hearts, we need to bring others in so they can hear the truth. We need to take the truth to them because they so desperately need it today. We do not know sometimes what we believe as we should. Even as professing Christians, we get led astray. We allow the world to tell us everything is relative.

We no longer take a stand. We believe the day of devil when he says, yea, hath God said, and we we allow doubt to enter our hearts. We believe the lies of the devil when he questions God's love toward us, his providential hand in our lives. Don't. God knows what he's doing.

Listen to the words of Job. Naked came I out of my mother's room and naked shall I return thither. The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord. What is the Job saying?

God knows what he's doing. I can trust him. Doesn't mean it's easy. Hear the words of Joseph. Joseph, Genesis forty five five.

As Joseph explains to his brothers why he is forgiving them rather than having them executed. Now, therefore, be not grieved nor angry with yourselves that you sold me hither for God did send me before you to preserve life. That's the truth. God knew what he was doing. Hear the words of Paul in Romans eight twenty eight, for all things work together for what?

Good to them that love the Lord to those who are the called according to his purpose. I may not always understand how that fits everything in my life, but I'm sticking with it. And you should too. People believe his lives when he says you won't get caught. It isn't so bad.

Look, everybody else is doing it. Young people in particular are so easily deceived and it's sad to see it. It's sad to see it in the lives of so many who are told, well, sow your wild oats while you're while you're young, and you won't have to worry about it. You worry about the other later that catches up with them next week, next month, next year, and sometimes for the rest of their life. We need to know, search, and search out the truth to stand on it no matter what.

Truth matters. It is the piece of the armor which holds everything else together. Search it out. Start here. Now this doesn't contain all the truth in the world.

I had a psychology teacher that said that all truth is God's truth. There are other truths and there are other truths that matter. Two plus two equals what? Four. That's a truth.

Does it matter? Yeah. If you wanna build a building that doesn't fall over, yeah, it matters. All truth is God's truth. But we need the truth.

The world needs the truth. They need to see the truth. They need to search out the truth. Cling to the truth because the truth will set them free. The truth will change their lives, accepting lives, even little ones, as the devil gets his foot in the door destroys societies.

We see it all around us. We see stuff thought, so a man can become a woman and a woman can become a man? I don't think so. Where how did we get there? One lie on top of what?

Another and people did not cling to the truth and God's children were not willing to stand up and what? Speak the truth. And here we are. That's how the devil works. But greater is he that's in us than he that's in the world.

Greater is the truth than the lie. And before you leave this morning, I wanna make sure you understand the first truth that you need to grasp a hold of, and that's called the gospel. You and I are sinners. We're condemned in sin into eternal damnation in a place called the Lake Of Fire. That is the truth.

Look inside your heart. Are you a sinner? Consider the 10 commandments. Have you ever broke one or two or three? A dozen times?

A 100 times? Be honest. We're sinners. Broken God's law. There's a penalty.

The God who made you though loves you so much, he sent who? His own son, Jesus Christ, to take your punishment by his death on the cross so you and I can be forgiven and justified, that is to declared guiltless before him in heaven. God could have just said it through with you, but not our God. He loves the ones he made so much, he was willing to suffer to buy us back. Jesus rose again from the dead and offers this forgiveness and salvation to all who trust in him, to all who call on his name, who died on the cross for our sins and rose again from the dead.

This is the what? This is the wonderful truth. Do not deny it. Do not resist it. Do not listen to the lies of the enemy.

Accept, receive the Lord Jesus Christ and what he offers, and you will become a child of God. You will receive everlasting what? Life. He will set you free. Have you received that?

If there's any doubt in your mind this morning, we're gonna sing a hymn of invitation. I'll meet you right down here. Please come as we sing in just a moment. And I hope if you're here today and you are a child of God and you know it, that you would consider that God isn't done with you yet. God has something for you this week, next.

In revival, he wants to use you to change to be a testimony to him and to change the lives of others. We need to prepare ourselves by filling our hearts with the what? With the word of truth, Clinging to it and putting it to practice. Putting on the armor of God. Let's pray.

Dear God, thank you, Lord, for your word. Thank you for the truth that sets us free. Thank you for the opportunity today to preach it. I pray, Lord, that we would stand for it in our lives, that we would practice it in our lives. I pray that we would be willing to speak it to others who need to hear it.

Lord, I pray that we would begin to prepare our hearts earnestly that we might have revival in our lives, in our families, in our church, in our community, that we might see the hand of God at work doing wonders among us if we will sanctify ourselves and prepare ourselves for the battle that is already upon us. Lord, help us to be able to see the truth from the lie. And, if there is one here today that is yet to make sure their relationship with you, who is unsure today, who who has been blinded or perhaps confused and wants to settle that this morning, I pray as they would they would come as we sing this hymn of invitation. In Jesus' precious name, we do pray. Amen.