In this sermon, the preacher uses the analogy of a sprint race to illustrate the Christian life. He describes a scenario where seven sprinters are lined up to race, but various obstacles hinder their progress. The preacher emphasizes the importance of standing firm in the midst of challenges and opposition, highlighting the need to rely on Jesus as our teammate. He also discusses the concept of the "evil day," referring to the spiritual opposition and worldly influences that Christians face. The preacher encourages believers to stand in the grace and gospel of God, remaining steadfast in their faith.

We've been making our way in a series on Sunday morning through the topic of Christian combat We know that as Christians that there's a conflict that we face and as Paul said so beautifully in the text We considered last week that was Ephesians chapter 6 verse 12 that the conflict that we face It isn't a flesh-and-blood conflict, but it's a spiritual conflict. It doesn't mean that it's less real because it's spiritual Spiritual things are very real you might say that they're more real than material things that pass away Spiritual things are eternal. They're rooted in the heavenlies but in verse 13 of chapter 6 in this letter to the Ephesians Paul brings us to the topic that we want to consider this morning in the third part of our series I think it's a very important topic It helps us to focus this morning on what the goal of Christian combat is Here you can have a soldier and he can have the strength that he's supposed to gain Through physical training and basic training and all of that business and the soldier is strong and you've got to have strength if you're going to fight in a battle Second you need weapons and armament and you can have God's armor as we're going to talk about next week in the week after And all of that how it works together, but you can have a well-equipped strong soldier Who is still ineffective in battle because he doesn't know what he's fighting for he doesn't know what the goal of his warfare is about and He may be unaware as to what the strategy and the goal of his enemy is I'm going to suggest to you this morning that unless you know what it is You're fighting for and unless you have a sense of what your enemy wants to accomplish against you You can't be effective in the Christian combat that faces every one of us every day Well, let's take a look at this I think that the Apostle Paul by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit speaks to it very well in Ephesians chapter 6 beginning at verse 13 where he says therefore take up the whole armor of God that you may be able to withstand in the evil day and Having done all to stand Well, really it's very simple The goal of Christian combat is to stand Look at it there in verse 13 again. Take up the whole armor of God. Well, why? Why do I bother with this? Why do I have the armor of God? Why do I take it up? Why do I have myself strong in the Lord as Paul said to do in verse 10? Why? that you may be able to withstand in the evil day and If that point wasn't clear enough in verse 13, he says and having done all to stand Do you see how he repeats the same idea twice in the same sentence just for the sake of emphasis now If you really want to get an idea of the emphasis Paul's putting on this go back to verse 11 because he brings up the same Idea there. He says put on the whole armor of God that you may be able to Stand against the wiles of the devil I mean he says it in verse 11 and then he repeats it again in verse 13 and then he repeats it another time in verse 13 what is the goal of our Christian combat? It's to stand to stand describes What we use the strength of God and God's armor for say, okay pastor David I saw Ephesians 6 10 where it says finally my brethren be strong in the Lord and in the power of his might and that's working in my Life, I have the strength of God at work in my life. And then you say I have the armor of God Well, we haven't really talked about God's armor yet. We're gonna start talking about that next week But let's say you're familiar with these concerts. Yeah, I have that in my life. What do I do with it? Paul says I'm glad you asked you stand Many of us have a wrong idea about spiritual warfare we sort of picture the Christian army as Assaulting the kingdom of hell and that we're sort of out on patrol against demons and spiritual enemies Much of this is based on a misunderstanding of a passage of Scripture Matthew chapter 16 verse 18 you can turn there if you want or you can just listen to me as I read it Matthew chapter 16 verse 18. Jesus said also I say to you that you are Peter and on this rock I will build my church and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it That's easy to see how if you read that verse and you just think about it in our own culture and our own Context we have this picture of the gates of Hades and they won't prevail against us Well, I mean what the gates do gates don't do anything. They just sit there and so gates aren't gonna prevail against us Well, we're attacking those gates. We're trying to overthrow them There we are that the church is an army and an assaulting army and we're bombarding the gates of hell And then we're gonna plunder hell and we're gonna conquer it I don't know what we're gonna do with it once we have it, but there are out There's a conquering army bombarding the gates of hell Now the problem with that understanding of what Jesus said in Matthew 16 18 That it's completely Inconsistent with the rest of the scriptures nowhere else in the Bible. Do we read of the church assaulting or conquering hell in this way? instead we should understand that phrase the gates of Hades as it would have been understood by the people that Jesus first spoke to When we think of gates, we just think of gates But when a person in Jesus's day thought of gates Not only did they think of the physical structures the door and the hinges and the post and all of that They also thought of that's the place where the city leaders Congregate to organize and strategize the affairs of the city It was our equivalent to City Hall or the city council chambers or the Congress or whatever Place you want to think of that is identified with government and organization and strategy The city gates were that place in the ancient world It's where the judges and the city leadership gathered together It's where the city life was planned organized Strategized and so it is in this sense that Jesus speaks of the gates of Hades What he's saying is that no satanic strategy no plot from hell will ultimately succeed against the church And isn't that a precious promise? You know, it's in this sense that that we almost in a in a bold humility We would stand before any spiritual enemy and we would say bring it on Jesus has given us a promise that your strategies will not ultimately prevail. It just doesn't matter Because you will not prevail against us not your strategies not your organizations not your plans I've read the end of the book and we win in the end. That's all there is to it It's not going to change So that's great confidence that we have So I want you to understand that the idea is not that the church is a conquering army in the sense that we're out Bombarding the gates of hell to overthrow Hades The idea is that Jesus promises that no strategy of Satan that no organized attempt of the powers of darkness would ultimately overcome the church because gates are where Strategy is decided Now I want you to think of how the same principle was illustrated in the ministry of Jesus himself When Jesus practiced his ministry, he was not out on a search-and-destroy Mission for Demonic powers or demonic forces now. He encountered them a great deal, but he encountered them while Conducting the ministry that God had given him to do In other words the great picture. I want you to gather from this is that the devil does not set our agenda as Christians We don't go out and look for what he's doing and react to it We take our instructions from God the Father He gives us our agenda And so friends, what's your agenda? You know, do you have a little organizer a day planner many of you have these personal data assistants? Whatever you have you have all these different things and you organize you have your agenda. Well, there's Jesus Christ set your agenda Does he organize your life? And he's to set you out and to set you on the course and today wants you to go to work and he has Appointments for you at work some of those appointments, you know about some of those appointments. You don't know about You're gonna meet somebody in the lunchroom that you weren't expecting to meet and that's God's agenda for you today And so God has an agenda for you. And that's what you're supposed to follow now The picture is simply this just as in the ministry of Jesus when he was out following the father's agenda Satan tried to oppose it and derail it and whenever the devil tried to come up and Oppose or derail this great plan that Jesus had and he'd received from his father and was working it out in his life Jesus wouldn't let Satan derail it or oppose it in the slightest way No, he stood against it in all strength Jesus set about doing the father's will and he dealt with satanic opposition as it arose When it raised itself Jesus stood against it and was not moved but you get the point here, don't you? Satan didn't set Jesus's agenda God the father did but Satan tried to mess it up and Jesus would not allow that the idea here is that God has given us a call that he's given us a mission that he's given us a course to fulfill and Satan will do his best to stop it Now there may be some of you here this morning and you're saying I really don't know that God has given me a call or a mission or a course to fulfill He has and if you don't know about it, then the greatest adventure in your life Is in front of you God has such exciting things to work in you He wants to fulfill the purpose why he puts you on this earth to live and breathe You see, you know, it's bigger. Don't you? You know, it's bigger than just making a paycheck You know, it's bigger than just hanging on until the kids are old enough to leave the home and then you do something else You know, it's bigger than those things You know that God has an eternal purpose to work in you and through you for the glory of his kingdom And he's going to accomplish it in Jesus name And when you have a sense of what it is and when you go for it on it I can guarantee you that Satan is going to oppose it and try to derail it in some way But that's exactly why Paul tells us to be equipped with these things in Christian combat so that it won't be Successfully opposed and so that it will not be derailed and that we will stand against every attack and intimidation of the enemy It's plain that this is Paul's emphasis here in Ephesians chapter 6 verses 11 and 13. Let me read you again He says in verse 11 put on the whole armor of God that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil There we are. We're standing. We're entrenched. He's not going to derail us. He's not going to successfully oppose us We're going forward in the name of Jesus Christ, and he's just not going to successfully battle against us He says in verse 13 therefore take up the whole armor of God that you may be able to Withstand in the evil day and having done all to stand Friends really the goal of our battle is to stand in the midst of the evil day and after we've done all All doesn't really have in mind the idea of us hunting out and pursuing spiritual enemies But rather the idea is that we remain unhindered by their persistent attacks Now I want you to look carefully at that phrase in verse 13 where he says That you may be able to withstand in the evil day and having done all to stand There's a tremendous amount in those few words First of all, it sort of points out for us another dynamic of our spiritual battle that we may not have considered There's three elements that I want to emphasize in verse 13 first Oh, he tells us what to do. The goal of our combat is to stand right? well, we stand in the midst of the evil day and then finally we stand after we have done all Well, the first part is to stand and you understand that we've been talking about that a great deal But secondly, he says to stand in the midst of the evil day You know what the evil day is don't you we live in it right now You say well, wait a minute Paul seems to indicate that he was in the evil day. Well, he was as well We're all in it That phrase the evil day is another way to describe what the Bible calls the world And when it says the world it doesn't mean it in the sense of the globe or the earth or even the material earth It talks about the spiritual dynamic of our culture of our age. That is an opposition to God And you take a look at it, don't you? On the television set does most the entertainment on the television set does it honor God and glorify Jesus Christ? No popular music popular media The spirit of the age the spirit of our times is not glorifying to God or submitted to Jesus Christ It is the evil day. Now. This is something important for us to understand We have three Dynamics at work in the Christian combat that we face think of it like a triangle at the top of the triangle you have Satan and his spiritual allies the principalities and powers and such that we spoke of last week That's at the top of the triangle then at one of the lower corners of the triangle you have the evil day That's the world system Satan and the evil day they work together They're in partnership to try to woo us away from the agenda that God has put in our life then at the other corner of the triangle you have our flesh and the world the flesh and the devil all Work together in a terrible harmony man. Do they work together? Well But in a very bad way To defeat us or to come against us in our Christian life and Paul touches on this aspect He says you're in the midst of the evil day so you need to stand but notice this last phrase here it is so important in verse 13 and having done all to stand Well, you see if you haven't done all and Then you're standing you haven't fulfilled what this verse talks about Let me illustrate it to you this way Let's say that you're you're on a track team and you're getting to race the 400 meter race now. That's a tough race to run Because it's not long enough to be like a really long distance like that The 10,000 meters where it's a controlled race where you pace yourself and you save some kick for the end But it's too long to be a sprint to you know It's too long to be a sprint but but too short to be along this and so basically what it is is you just run As hard as you can for the entire race and pretty much does die at the end There you're one of the sprinters there's seven sprinters right here all there in the race and there you've got the inside track and there you are and at the starters getting ready and you're in your blocks and every muscle is tense and you're ready for that gun to go off And finally bang the gun goes off Now instantly the guy right beside you stumbles He stumbles and he trips and he falls. He never even gets out of the blocks. He sprawled out in his lane The next six guys excuse me the next five guys there Yeah, there's seven of you all together the next five guys They take off all beautifully down the way and so they're running down They're making their way down the track and early on the first turn and on the first turn two of them get tangled up and they trip and they fall and they're sprawled out on the track and Three of the runners successfully complete three of them tripped three of them successfully completed the race and then there's you Where are you? You're just standing there You didn't move an inch And at the end of the race you say I am so happy that I didn't fall look at this guy right next to me He fell right out of the blocks and look at those people over there around the first turn. Well, they fell up there I'm so happy. I didn't fall Well, you didn't fall but you didn't run either You see this is what Paul says and having done all to stand You can't be satisfied to say well I didn't take any chances in my Christian life and I built up that barrier around myself and I never really went for it I never really went forward for the Lord, but but boy, I didn't fall. Thank you Jesus And the Lord will put his hand on your shoulder good. Yeah, but did you did all did you fulfill the ministry that I called? You to do Well, no, no, but I didn't fall because I'm glad you didn't fall But there was a race in front of you to run See, that's the point that the whole goal of Christian combat is not this entire defensive thing where we sort of make our bomb shelters as Christians and we huddle in them and just wait until it's all over and they're all then we can finally go to heaven The idea is no God has given us a call He's given us a mission and we're going to fulfill it and we're going to do it all and and by God's grace and by His power at the end of it all we're going to stand We're going to successfully finish this Christian combat that he's given us You know in the ancient world It was said that a Roman soldier must be the kind of man who could be relied upon Who when it was hard pressed in battle? He would stand fast and not give way and that same quality is essential in the Christian combat that we have We're going to dig in as soldiers and we are not going to give an inch We're going to go forward and do all that the Lord calls us to do and at the end of it all by his power and His grace, we're going to be standing Now you might take a pause here and say now wait a minute here great. You know we have this standing We're supposed to go out and this but Why does it bother Satan so much and I'll tell you why it bothers him so much and why he wants to shake you from your standing It's because he knows how glorious your standing is Now you may not know it You may have only the faintest Understanding of how glorious your standing is in Jesus Christ But I'll tell you Satan knows it very well, and he doesn't like it. He wants to try to shake you from that standing You see you you have a status You have a standing in Jesus Christ Let's say you go up to heaven and there's a computer terminal there And you punch it up and you're trying to get your personnel file right there up there on the screen in heaven So there's your picture you're happy because it's a good picture. You know it's not one of those bad pictures like on your drivers That's a nice picture of you. You know that's a relief good. You know they're looking at this one in okay Well, here's my file here, and here it says and here It says you know there's your name at the top and the date of birth And there's the date that you came to Jesus Christ and there it is and then says a present standing You go. Oh, man. This is this is my account balance. This is my standing right here in heaven What's it gonna say on this screen? I'm glad you asked because Paul will tell us right here He tells us all over the place in his letters So we're going to spend some time turning to different passages scripted get your fingers limbered up here turn to Romans chapter 5 verse 2 I'm going to tell you in just a few places We're just going to scratch the surface on it, but I'm going to give you a little survey of your standing in Jesus Christ Romans chapter 5 verse 2 reads Through whom now he's speaking of Jesus, so I'm going to change it to say through Jesus Also, we have access by faith Into this grace in which we stand So there you go. What's it say on your computer screen up in heaven your person alpha standing you stand in grace You stand in the grace of God now some people get all confused about what God's grace is Some people almost think of grace is like a pixie dust that God sprinkles on people if he wants to save them or something well grace has many different aspects to it, but one of the most important is that grace describes the Attitude of God towards the believer and it's an attitude of favor It's an attitude of welcome and acceptance the grace of God means that God doesn't just love you. He likes you There's people in your life that you love, but you don't particularly like am I right? Well, sometimes you wonder if God doesn't feel that way about you. Well, he loves me He has to love me look Charles Manson for heaven's sakes. He has to love me We know grace means God likes you. He sees you in terms of acceptance and favor and Welcoming it means that when God looks down from heaven and looks at you. There's a smile on his face. That's your standing Now it's right there on your personnel file up in heaven the devil hates that and He wants to shake you from it He wants to do everything he can to make you believe that your standing is not of grace But that you stand in God's annoyance or you stand in God's impatience or your Irritation to God or you're on probation before God anything He can do to make you think that God is annoyed and irritated and angry and disturbed with you. He'll put it in your head He wants to shake you from your standing so what does Paul say you should do with the Christian combat use the strength of God use God's armor and Stand where God has put you and he's put you in a standing of grace. So stay there. Don't get shaken Understand where you stand and then stay there What's another aspect of our standing look at 1st Corinthians chapter 15 verse 1 and I want you to notice that I have very Carefully arranged these passages scripture so that you seamlessly move from left to right in your Bible as you turn through these different passages That's just my little gift to you this morning 1st Corinthians chapter 15 verse 1 Paul writes and he says moreover brethren I declare to you the gospel which I preached to you which you also received and in which you Stand you stand in the gospel Well, that's a great place to stand, isn't it? But what does it mean that you stand in the gospel? I'll explain it to you it means that you Stand in what Jesus did to save you Not in what you can do to save yourself As some people try to find a place of standing in what they can do to save themselves Maybe that's why some of you are here this morning You're trying to fill up your attendance chart before God in heaven You think if you get enough gold stars on the chart, then I'm saved for sure It doesn't work that way that screen up there in heaven. It doesn't have a place for those gold stars What it does is it has a place for your standing in Jesus Christ, and if you have trusted in Jesus If you trust in what he did on the cross to save you instead of what you can do in a misguided attempt to save Yourself if you trust in him and in what he did then the Bible says you can have salvation Put your trust in Jesus and if there's anyone here this morning, you haven't done that yet. Well, then why not for heaven's sakes? I've got news for you, and I'll just tell it to you very plainly and very very pointedly. You cannot save yourself You may wish you could you may do better than anybody else here, but you can't save yourself It's like imagine a rowboat trying to make its way across the ocean and then it springs a leak And there's three men in the rowboat and one of them can't swim at all And one of them is an okay swimmer and the other one is an Olympic swimmer and there are hundreds and hundreds a mile away from any kind of land Well the boats going down and so the three men are in the water hundreds of miles away from any land Well the guy who can't swim he drowns right away The guy who's a pretty good swimmer. He swims for a couple of hours He goes two or three miles and then he drowns and then you have the Olympic swimmer. Well, he swims for 24 hours It's an amazing display of tenacity and strength and that and then he dies in the middle of the ocean, too Well, you might be the Olympic swimmer you might be better than anybody is here you still can't save yourself You need Jesus Christ to save you and that's your standing in the gospel I I don't say this with with any bit of hesitation at all. The devil wants to shake you from that standing He wants to put you on the performance trap where you start to think that what you do for God is more important than what? Jesus did for you He'll do anything he can to shake you from that standing but when he does what do you do? Well, you're strong in the Lord and you take God's armor and you say devil you will not shake me from the standing I stand in the gospel not in my own works not in my own efforts. I'm going forward with what the Lord has for me That's your standing Let's take a look another thing that you have a standing in first Corinthians verse Chapter 16 verse 13. It says simply watch Stand fast in the faith be brave be strong. That's your standing To stand fast in the faith and to stand in courage and in strength. That's God's place of standing for you Well, the devil wants to shake you from it You know if we understood the real standing we have in Jesus Christ what courage that would bring our life what strength? If you really took it to heart what it means that if God be for us who can be against us that brings courage in Your life, you can't help but have courage you look around and you see who's on your team Well, it doesn't matter who's on the other team. You've got Jesus on your team and that makes all the difference If God be forced and who can be against us That brings courage and strength in your life. That's a standing that you have in the faith and the devil wants to shake you from it He wants to make you feel weak and afraid and anything He can do to bring that sense in you that sense of weakness or fear Then he says oh, I'm succeeding and shaking them from their standing But no you take a look at that screen up in heaven and it says well no they stand in grace They stand in the gospel. They stand in courage and strength That's what God's given us and that's where we need to stand Let's take a look at the next one 2nd Corinthians chapter 1 verse 24 He says simply Not that we have dominion over your faith, but our fellow workers for your joy for by faith you stand Where else do you stand you stand in faith? You stand in grace you stand in the gospel you stand in courage and in strength, but you stand in faith You're saying I'm trusting God, I'm not trusting in myself. I'm not trusting in men. I'm not trusting in things I'm trusting in God That's standing in faith Now, you know how the devil wants to shake you from that He wants you to get to trust in yourself or trust in that person or trust in that thing You don't trust in any of it you trust in the Lord. That's your standing Let's take a look at the next one Galatians chapter 5 verse 1. Oh, this is a precious one Galatians 5 1 Paul says stand fast Therefore in the Liberty by which Christ made us free and do not be entangled again with the yoke of bondage Well friends he's saying stand fast in Christian Liberty So when the legalism comes to try to shake you from the Liberty that you have in Jesus Christ When people come and try to suggest you or it rises up in your own heart that the Christian life is all about this this rule of the don'ts You know and I'm a better Christian than you are because I don't do more things than you don't do And that's what really defines our Christian experience No, it isn't how easily that slips into legalism my friends and Paul says no You've been made free by Jesus Christ stand fast in that Liberty, but the devil wants to shake you from it He wants to give you that pride. He wants to give you that wrong focus that comes in through legalism Don't do it. Take the strength of God take God's armor and say I'm standing against it and I'm gonna stand in Christian Liberty Or how about this one Philippians chapter 1 verse 27? This is a particularly precious one Philippians 1 27 He says only let your conduct be worthy of the gospel of Christ so that whether I come and see you or am absent I May hear of your affairs that you stand fast in one spirit with one mind Striving together for the faith of the gospel isn't that glorious? That's your standing You stand fast in one spirit in one mind in the unity of the body of Christ we stand in Christian unity a Friend the devil doesn't like that. He wants to shake that Christian unity He wants to bring senseless dispute and debate and division among Christians Sometimes he'll do it by an emphasis on peripheral doctrines or or or minutiae that gets people off on the wrong place other times He'll do it just through rank division and whatever he can use but friends That's not the standing that God's given us. God's given us a standing of unity in Jesus Christ, and so it doesn't matter Rich and poor doesn't matter what nation what language what class what background we come together and the greatness of? Jesus Christ is he's greater than any difference that we have he's greater than at all That's the place of unity that he's given us and you know Satan wants to shake you from it But no, we'll stand fast in it in this Christian combat that we've given I'm gonna skip this last one in Colossians 4 and just go to one more in Philippians chapter 4 verse 1 Take a look with me there in Philippians 4 1 where Paul sums it all up if you will and he says Therefore my beloved and long for brethren my joy and crown so stand fast in the Lord Friends we can stand fast in the Lord. That's the standing God's given us It's not in ourselves. It's not even in this church. It's not in any man It's in the Lord and the devil wants to shake you from that standing in the Lord But you see what Christian combat is all about it's all about saying no. This is our standing I'm going to put on the whole armor of God that I may be able to Stand against the wiles of the devil Therefore I'm going to take up the armor of God that I may be able to withstand in the evil day and then having done all to stand You get the message, don't you? You have a standing in Jesus Christ and the devil wants to shake you from it But effective Christian combat will keep you in your standing in Jesus Christ and moving forward with the agenda that God has given you It's really the same idea that Peter repeats in 1st Peter chapter 5 verses 8 and 9 where he says be sober be vigilant Because your adversary the devil walks about like a roaring lion Seeking whom he may devour resist him Steadfast in the faith knowing that the same sufferings are experienced by your brotherhood in the world See, we're not lion hunters. He's worrying about like he's prowling about like a roaring lion. That doesn't bother us We're going ahead with the agenda that God has given us and we're not going to let us just let him distract us or oppose us along the way Let me finish up With just a few final thoughts on what it means to stand. I want you to get a picture in your mind Think of a Roman soldier. He's got his armor on he's physically conditioned. That's you Spiritually, that's you You say I've never put on that Gladiator costume or anything doesn't matter spiritually. It's you there. You are you're standing there now Think about the mentality that you have to have as that soldiers You're going to stand first of all, it means that you're going to be attacked You don't have to say Stan Stan Stan unless some opposition is going to come you are going to be attacked That's just the fact of the matter therefore stand secondly means it can't be frightened a Soldier just doesn't have that luxury does you got to keep your courage? You got to keep your wits about you You're not going to be surprised by the attack nor are you going to be inappropriately frightened by it? But your trust is in God and you know that if God before us who can be against us thirdly It means that we must not droop or slouch or be uncertain or half-hearted in the fight Friends, let me put it to you this way. There's no place for whining and self-pity Anything our general tendency as Christians is just to indulge that a little bit too much To indulge that self-pity there's no indulging of self-pity among soldiers Well, I remember I remember when I used to play football in high school and I was never very good But I was on the team and they even made us guys You weren't very good go through the same terrible practices that they made everybody else go through One time, you know, I got hurt and my arm was hurt It got banged up pretty bad and I go take it to the coach and I show it to the coach my arms hurt and he looks at me and he gives me this look like what are you coming to me for and He grabs a handful of grass And the high school I was at was Eisenhower High School We're the Eisenhower Eagles and so he grabbed some grass and he rubbed it on it on my arm He said that's Eagle grass. That'll fix it They go they sends me back in there Well, obviously he knew very well there was no medicinal value in the grass But you know that was his way of saying you say there's no place for self-pity you're whining along here you're hurt Suck it up and keep going That's the mentality soldiers have to have there's just not this place for self-pity It means that that we're soldiers and we have to stand and we go forward and we go on It means that we are at our position and that we are on alert. That's what the soldier who's standing done finally Friends it means that we do not give even a thought to retreat not a single thought We're ready to go anywhere. The Lord leads us, but we're not willing to retreat We have a ground we have a standing in Jesus Christ and we will not be shaken from it friends If you've come to that place a decision in your walk with Jesus Christ Where you know that you know that you know that retreat is not an option Whatever may come your way It's not going to be retreat because Jesus Christ is in front of you You're following his agenda and in that evil day after we've done all We're going to stand to the glory of God our father Let's pray together and ask the Lord to make that real in our life father. We need it We know Lord that we're talking about a work That you have deliberately made to be greater than what we can accomplish in ourself We need to rely on you and the constant empowering of the Holy Spirit or we can never stand as we should in the evil day So Lord, I pray for myself and I pray for each one of us that we wouldn't become frightened We wouldn't become discouraged. We would not give in to self-pity Lord instead we would be soldiers of Jesus Christ Standing against every form of opposition every form of attack from Satan that comes in the evil day We love you Lord We thank you that you've called us here on this day to listen to this message I know Lord that you've been speaking powerfully to hearts and I pray that you would help them to respond in a way that glorifies You in Jesus name Amen