The Battle We Fight

1. For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war after the flesh:
2. For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds;
1. (II Corinthians 10:5)
2. The believer battles.
1. The Christian lives in confrontation.
2. The faithful fight.
3. No one could miss this in even a superficial reading of God's Word.
4. We are to fight externally that outside us opposed to the gospel, and to fight internally that within us opposed to the lordship of Christ.
3. We are energetically reminded to "put on the armor of light", (Romans 13:12) and "to put on the full armor of God" (Ephesians 6:1). Paul commands us to "fight the good fight", (1Timothy 1:18:6:12).
1. It requires endurance: "Endure hardship... like a good soldier of Jesus Christ", (2 Timothy 2:3).
1. Paul heartily addresses other Christians as "fellow soldiers", (Phillipians 2:25; Philemon 2).
1. (Phillipians 2:25) "Yet I supposed it necessary to send to you Epaphroditus, my brother, and companion in labour, and fellowsoldier, but your messenger, and he that ministered to my wants."
2. "To Philemon our beloved friend and fellow laborer, 2 to the beloved Apphia, Archippus our fellow soldier, and to the church in your house: 3 Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ."
2. In the Christian life as warfare we need to understand where we fight, how we fight, and the enormous potential for victory. (1)
1. Christians Battle is a Real Campaign.
2. The Christian battle in the world:
3. "We live in the world" (vs. 3).
3. We must never forget the arena in which we battle.
1. We still live in the flesh.
1. We have all of the infirmities, weaknesses, exposures to temptation, and limitations that go with being a human among humans.
2. The gospel itself is a treasure, but we carry that around in fragile clay pots of humanity (2 Corinthians 4:7). "But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us". KJV
3. Jesus prayed, "My prayer is not that you take them out of the world, but that you protect them from the evil one" (John 17:15).
1. Jesus left us in the world.
2. We must live the Christian life in an environment that is ceaselessly hostile toward it.
4. Christians battle differently from the people in the world:
1. "We do not wage war as the world does."
2. It is in no mere human strength that we battle the Christian war.
3. For the conflict to tame ourselves within and to take the world without we are not dependent on anything that human nature can afford us.
5. The church does not conquer on the basis of any kind of human strength - intellectual, physical, economic, institutional, or cultural.
1. We do not win because we are sharper thinkers, strong fighters, richer spenders, or greater builders.
2. We will not even make a dent in the world unless our weapons come from a supernatural source. (2)

1. This calls for a definite refusal:
1. The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world.
2. This would pits us in a battle where mere human strength encountered other human strength.
2. God intends us to battle in a campaign where divine power confronts human strength.
1. This makes an affirmation.
1. Our weapons have "divine power".
2. They are powerful in God's eyes, whatever the world thinks.
3. They are powerful through God's enablement.
4. They are powerful for God's cause.
2. When we fight with God's weapons, we find it self evident that there is far more than human strength behind such weapons.
3. What are these weapons?
1. The unbelieving world does not consider these being weapons at all.
2. They are comprehensive weapons, both offensive and defensive "in the right hand and the left hand".
1. They include purity, understanding, patience, kindness, sincere love, truthful speech, (2 Corinthians 6:6-7) (3)
2. (2 Corinthians 6:6-7)"By pureness, by knowledge, by longsuffering, by kindness, by the Holy Ghost, by love unfeigned, By the word of truth, by the power of God, by the armour of righteousness on the right hand and on the left," KJV
4. The weapons include truth, righteousness, preparation, faith, assurance of salvation, and the possession of the Spirit (Ephesians 6:14-17).
1. These are first inward weapons. "Faith and a good conscience" (1 Titus 1:19).
2. These are intimately personal weapons: "offer the parts of you, body as (weapons) of righteousness", (Romans 6:13).
3. We are to hand over the very limbs and organs of our body to the battle.
5. Sometimes there is more.
1. There may be supernatural manifestations of power such as Paul sometimes used (Acts, 13:8-12).
6. (Acts 13:8-12), 8 "But Elymas the sorcerer (for so is his name by interpretation) withstood them, seeking to turn away the deputy from the faith. 9 Then Saul, (who also is called Paul,) filled with the Holy Ghost, set his eyes on him, 10 And said, O full of all subtlety and all mischief, thou child of the devil, thou enemy of all righteousness, wilt thou not cease to pervert the right ways of the Lord? 11 And now, behold, the hand of the Lord is upon thee, and thou shalt be blind, not seeing the sun for a season. And immediately there fell on him a mist and a darkness; and he went about seeking someone to lead him by the hand. 12 Then the deputy, when he saw what was done, believed, being astonished at the doctrine of the Lord".
7. The world does not recognize our weapons as weapons at all.
1. Yet, Christ conquered on His cross through these weapons.
1. Only victories won with these weapons are His victories. (4)