Put On The Full Armor Of God

Satan also comes to us very craftily like the slippery serpent that caused that first sin in a perfect world. Satan can make things seem in this world as if they are the most important things in our lives. He creeps into the church. Some of today’s churches for many have simply become a gathering place to meet friends, a gathering place for business connections. The word of God is misplaced, overlooked, and for-gotten. A very astounding poll came out this week concerning evangelical Christians. "Evangelical" is in our church name, Redeemer Evangelical Lutheran Church, and Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod. Evangelical means preaching the gospel. This latest poll said 68%, more than half; of evangelical Chris-tians do not believe that Jesus is the only way to heaven. They do not believe that Jesus is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. There are other ways to get to heaven.

There are a lot of lessons to learn from that. You and I are evangelical Christians, so we are lumped into that 68% category. I don’t believe that. I believe what John tells us when Jesus said, "I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life." I believe what Luke writes in Acts, and I know you do too. There is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved. Satan creeps in, and he gives the whole church, especially the Christian church, a big, black eye saying, "See, they don’t believe in Jesus for everything." The devil is deceptive. The devil is our great enemy. Paul wrote in Corinthians: "The god of this age (in other words Satan and his deception and false teachings) has blinded the minds of un-believers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God" (2 Corinthians 4:4). Today we also add believers are blinded because almost 70% of the church do not trust in Christ for salvation. He has blinded the minds of believers and unbelievers so that they cannot see the light of the gospel (evangelical) of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. The enemies of the church will continue to attack. Satan will constantly continue to attack. The Lord says to us, "Put on the full armor of God."

Satan is bold. He attacked a perfect creation. Satan is daring. When Jesus walked on the earth and was in the wilderness for 40 days, Satan came to him and tempted Jesus three times. That is how bold the devil is. Satan did not win. Satan is going to tempt us day after day. The devil is going to try and distract us from the path that leads to heaven. He is going to cause us to get all worried and upset about things that do not matter at all in eternity. We are often easily distracted by the devil’s deception. Jesus described with the parable of the sower. At the conclusion when the disciples could not understand, Jesus explained it to them and us: "Still others, like seed sown among thorns, hear the word; but the wor-ries of this life, the deceitfulness of wealth and the desires for other things come in and choke the word, making it unfruitful" (Mark 4:18,19). Those are the temptations you and I face. Those are the things that our great enemy, Satan, uses to distract us, the worries of this life. Maybe from time to time, we can worry ourselves almost sick, can’t we? The deceitfulness of wealth--who has enough money? If we hon-estly look, we have more than we need; but the world says we never have enough. Scripture warns that Satan uses many things of this dark world to torment us, to deceive us, to attack our Christian faith.