The Good Fight Series #5
Pastor David T. Elms 6/30/2026
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Summary
Pastor David T. Elms explores the 'Shield of Faith,' redefining it as a communal, stubborn commitment to faithfulness that protects the believer from spiritual erosion and the enemy's accusations.
Key points
- •Faith is not merely a mental theory or positive thinking; in its original Hebraic context, it is 'faithfulness' through action and stubborn steadfastness.
- •The shield of faith was designed for interlocking protection (the Roman testudo formation), meaning spiritual survival depends on standing together as a body rather than acting as isolated mavericks.
- •Spiritual warfare is a lifelong reality that does not end at retirement or due to age; believers must actively maintain their 'resurrection armor' to counter the constant erosion of a non-neutral world.
- •A mature church rejects 'secular spirituality' and convenience, choosing instead to be 'poor in spirit' and full of compassion toward the broken and backslidden.
- •The enemy continues to launch 'fiery darts' in the form of accusations and distractions, but consistent faithfulness quenches these missiles even when emotions are low.
Scripture
Spiritual Warfare
Faithfulness
Community and Unity
Spiritual Maturity
Life application
Commit to one specific act of 'holy stubbornness' this week by choosing to be faithful to a spiritual discipline (like prayer or church attendance) or an act of kindness even when you do not feel emotionally motivated to do so.
Reflection questions
- In what areas of my life have I treated faith as a mental concept rather than an 'action of thought'?
- How can I better interlock my 'shield' with others in my church community to provide mutual protection?
- Are there 'fiery darts' of accusation or doubt currently affecting my mind, and how does the truth of God's covenant loyalty address them?
- Am I currently experiencing 'spiritual erosion' due to a lack of movement, and what is one forward step I can take today?
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Full transcript
0:00Let's go to the word of the Lord.
0:02Isn't it fun to have fun in church? Yes.
0:05Isn't it great to know that God's got it? Yes.
0:08Amen. Finally, my brethren.
0:12Ephesians 6:10. "Be strong in the Lord and in the power of
0:17His might."
0:18LXM, did you see me catch myself right then? Yeah.
0:21Okay, I wanted to know if you saw me. Yeah.
0:24"Put on the whole armor of God, that ye may be able to
0:27stand against the wiles of the
0:31devil.
0:32For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against
0:36principalities, against powers, against the rulers of
0:40the darkness of this world." Yes. "Against spiritual wickedness in
0:44high places. Wherefore take unto you the whole armor
0:48of God, that ye may be able to withstand in the evil day,
0:52and having done all to stand.
0:55Stand therefore, having your loins girt about with truth, and having
0:59on the breastplate of righteousness; And your feet shod
1:03with the preparation of the gospel of peace; Above all, taking the
1:07shield of faith, wherewith ye shall be able to quench all
1:11the fiery darts of the wicked."
1:16That's it.
1:18That's where we're going to stop.
1:21A few things I want to state as we get into this shield of
1:25faith. First of all, we've got to recognize that the environment
1:28that we live in when we start living for God ceases to be a
1:32neutral environment. Amen. Brother Tom Trimble talked
1:36to us about how when you live for God, there is no neutral.
1:41Either you're making forward movement or your lack of
1:45action
1:46means you're moving back. Amen. If you're
1:50not actively pursuing something forward,
1:55there is no neutral. Amen. And the reason is,
1:59is because our environment is one that is
2:02made up of a great amount of erosion.
2:06The natural environments of nature is erosion.
2:10It is the state of being. Heat brings
2:13erosion. I don't want to get off into my straight A's in physics.
2:20It's not haughtiness, is it?
2:22I made C's in chemistry, so that brought me right back down to earth.
2:26But the environment that we live in is not neutral. Amen.
2:30And so once you buy into the fact that I don't just fight
2:34when I go to church, that when I'm going to work, I've got to recognize
2:38I'm not walking into a neutral environment.
2:42Amen. And when we do that, then we ignore that we
2:46have an opposing force,
2:49and then act as if there's no real contest going on, that
2:53there's no battle gear that is needed.
2:56And our battle, as we read, is not against flesh and blood.
3:00That's right. Paul tells us very plainly, our battle.
3:04It means we have one. You don't get it when you're 18,
3:08and you do not lose it when you retire. That's right. Amen.
3:12I've seen some Pentecostals think that you can retire
3:16from active duty,
3:18but there is no such thing as retiring.
3:21I've watched some people, both saints and
3:25preachers alike, who I do not respect.
3:28I'll just say it out loud. If they think that because I
3:32am retired from a position in this earth, that the
3:36battle has now ceased and the devil has seen my age
3:40and declared, "You're now applied for Social
3:43Security, and since you now collect Medicare and
3:47Medicaid, that the battle is no longer going," I want
3:51to correct that thinking and adjust you in Jesus' name and
3:55tell you that the battle never ceases. Yes.
3:59That you've got to understand, as long as you're breathing God's
4:03air, you have a foe that is working against you. Yes.
4:07And it is seen in our culture. There is a battle
4:11of racism, and it's everywhere. It's not just in America.
4:15Racial wars. Prejudice is not of
4:19God. It's straight from hell. Prejudging another
4:23is straight from hell. The idea that one person is
4:26better than another person is straight from hell.
4:29You may have a better-looking bank account than I do, and I'll acknowledge it's a
4:32better-looking bank account. I'll trade mine for yours.
4:36But that does not mean you're a better person than me. Yes.
4:40I've seen some very wealthy people who are some of the greatest
4:44poor in spirit people you will have ever met, and I've seen some
4:48people that are broke, busted all the time.
4:51They don't have any investment strategy.
4:53They don't understand the power of compounding money.
4:56They don't know how to save or to spend,
5:00and yet they are so full of haughtiness that I can't hardly stomach
5:04them. No. Because they believe when the Bible says, "Blessed are the poor," that
5:08means the people who are broke all the time That is not what the Bible
5:12means. No. It means poor in spirit.
5:15So you could have just gotten $10 trillion given to you, and
5:19you can stay poor in spirit. I know. Right.
5:23Wow. And so this is why when I come to church, I want
5:26adjustments. Yes. I want adjustments.
5:29They were telling us last night, brother...
5:31Who was it telling us about that spine adjusting place?
5:35Was that Brother Zach?
5:38At home last night, we were talking about some spinal adjustment that
5:41Nani might need. Who was telling us about that?
5:44Was that you, Austin?
5:48No, it was Tessa. Tessa was telling us about her dad.
5:52Okay, her dad had a major back situation happen to her,
5:56literally put him on his face, and they found him in the
5:59floor of the business that he owns.
6:01Tessa's father owns a
6:03dealership for Triumph motorcycles.
6:06And they walked in, and he was on the ground just in
6:10pain. And he started a new process of
6:14some kind of a hyperbolic chamber back
6:17chiropractic adjustment. And it was amazing for him
6:21because it really has set him back to where he feels normal
6:25again. Well, when I come to church, I need a Holy Ghost
6:29hyperbolic adjustment to my spiritual
6:33spine, to where I can get healthy and
6:37active in the Holy Ghost, and I'm still on the
6:40battlefield with my Lord. I may not be healthy enough to
6:44jump three inches, but I'm on the battlefield with my
6:48Lord. I want the Lord to know I have taken on this
6:52battle. Yes. Amen. And we've got to understand the
6:56battle is against our mind. It's against classism.
7:00It's a battle of religious manipulation that can happen
7:04in every church group, every church of every type
7:08of religious activity. That's the reason there is such an
7:11obstinance to the word religion nowadays.
7:14Because some people get in it, and all of a sudden they practice a type
7:18of class warfare because they know how to pray.
7:22They know how to read the Bible. None of that is becoming, and it's not
7:26the way we win. We win through humility. Yes.
7:30We win through being poor in spirit.
7:32Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of
7:36heaven. When I pray, "Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as
7:40it is in heaven," I need to understand the only way that I can help
7:44apply kingdom of heaven living on this earth is if I
7:47understand what it means to be poor in spirit. Amen.
7:52The flaming arrows that the Lord talks about here,
7:55they include secular
7:57spirituality. What is secular spirituality?
8:01It's fleshly spirituality. You can play spiritual cards,
8:05but what it does is it makes your flesh feel a lot better in itself.
8:09Oh, wow. I'm a little bit better than you now. Did you know that?
8:12If you didn't know that, I'm going to find a way to let you know that.
8:16That is secular spirituality. That's not biblical spirituality.
8:21Yes. That's the reason we have months of consecration.
8:23Lord, let me get in the mirror and see who I've become. I know. Right.
8:27Who am I becoming, and who am I aspiring to be more
8:31like? I know. Everybody says, "I want to be like Jesus." Well, have you ever
8:35seen him? No.
8:38I did a funeral today. I was at the funeral of the
8:42family that I was involved with last week, and it was at St. David's.
8:45And I sat in St. David's, and I was admiring some of the structure and
8:49the work, and they've got a depiction of
8:52The Last Supper there up on the
8:57stained glass. And as I was looking at that, I thought,
9:00"That's not what Jesus looked like."
9:03Amen. I'm not sure what Jesus looked like, but he was a very manly man.
9:07I'm just going to tell you that right now. He was a carpenter.
9:10He had wide shoulders. He had thick biceps.
9:13He was a powerful man. He's not any
9:16slight-built man. A carpenter that didn't have
9:20power tools, okay? That means if you've done
9:24woodwork with no power tools, I promise you, your shoulders
9:28and your arms are powerfully built.
9:32And listen, it was artistic. I was admiring the room, a coral backdrop.
9:35I could tell you all about St. David's right now.
9:38But I don't need you to go there to find out how it looks, all right?
9:43But my point is that we don't know
9:47what Jesus looked like. So how am I going to be more like Jesus?
9:51Paul said, "Follow me as I follow Christ."
9:55You need to find somebody that you think, boy, the way they carry
9:58themselves makes me think of the Lord.
10:02When I watch them worship, there's a freedom of spirit.
10:06There's an approach of gratitude.
10:08There's a praise that is constantly present, and I want to
10:12be like that person. So if you want to be like Jesus, find
10:15somebody that prays like you think Jesus would have prayed.
10:19Find somebody that had the joy of the Lord, has it the
10:23way you think Jesus had the joy of the Lord.
10:26Find somebody that had compassion in the way
10:31. Yes.
10:34Yes. You can't have a church built out of people who refuse to grow up.
10:37No. People who will not mature.
10:41When convenience replaces commitment, when we
10:44outsource consecration, and it's everybody else's turn to consecrate,
10:49but we excuse ourselves from practicing the discipline of
10:53personal consecration. That's immature.
10:56That's childish church. This church is not
11:00built on saints who just know slogans, but it is
11:04built on saints who are acquainted and embrace
11:07sacrifice. Our words matter. Our actions matter.
11:11Our worship matters. Our approach to prayer matters.
11:15Our approach to guests matters. Our approach to backsliders,
11:19as Mindy talked about just now, it matters. Yes.
11:22You see a backslider you used to be close to, it's hard not
11:26to personally think, "You've abandoned me."
11:30It's hard.
11:31Right.
11:32But if you just treat them like, "I'm expecting you back
11:36maybe even today, and I know you're coming back.
11:40Whether you know it or not, I know you're coming
11:43back." You know what that does to them?
11:46That tells them there's hope in the house of God.
11:49Immature saints won't do that.
11:53Immature saints act like they're God's policemen.
11:57That's right.
11:58Immature saints think that God gave them handcuffs.
12:02That's right.
12:02"I'm going to put handcuffs on you with my eyes."
12:08Wow. Speak Lord. Wow.
12:09"How dare you act and think the way you've been
12:13acting and thinking?"
12:16No, when I see them, I'm saying, just like the father of the prodigal, he
12:20saw him while he was a very,
12:25a very long way off, and he didn't wait to see what
12:29attitude he was coming home with. He didn't wait to see if he had the right
12:33mindset. He didn't wait to see if he was going to come and clean his
12:37room like he used to know to do. No, he saw him a long way off,
12:41and that father started running. Ha ha, running.
12:45I know you're coming back to be back, and
12:49that's the way mature saints are.
12:56Yes.
12:56Our commitments, they constrain us
13:00to readjust our thinking.
13:02Yes.
13:02And
13:04we all
13:07need to readjust our thinking-
13:09Yes
13:10... continually.
13:12I know you think that's not flesh anymore, but I shook your hand.
13:17It's still flesh.
13:19We've got to put out the bad
13:23and take up that which is good.
13:26Amen.
13:26If you have no knowl-- The enemies and the infiltrators of the
13:30church, and by the way, there are people in the church that Jude warned
13:34us about, that have come in, the King James says,
13:38"Unawares."
13:40That's right.
13:41They have come in, and what that means is you don't know who they
13:44are.
13:45My Lord.
13:46I know you think you operate in the full gift of discernment, but Jude
13:50said you don't know who they are.
13:52That's right.
13:52They came in unawares. So there's enemies and there's
13:56infiltrators that come into the church, and they want the
14:00knowledge of who you are and what you are
14:03suppressed. They want to reconfigure who you
14:07think you are. They want to readjust what you
14:11know about yourself until you forget who you
14:14really are, and they can tell you now who you
14:18are now. And they can redefine what a child of God is
14:22supposed to act like and redefine the attitudes that a child of
14:26God is supposed to have. And they get around you, and gently and
14:29subtly and sneakily and snaky,
14:33they change with their slithering tongue, and that's the
14:37perfect metaphor. Because the way they do it is with sly
14:41words of men's wisdom. They
14:45readjust how you think the church ought to be.
14:49And if you have no knowledge of your own history, you will have no
14:53way to discern what is the truth and what is the
14:57lie. That's the reason every once in a while, you need to go back and find out
15:00who we are.
15:02Yes.
15:02So you cannot be conned into believing something
15:06that you are not.
15:07Amen.
15:08When you are filled with the Holy Ghost, you got a part of a new tribe.
15:12You were brought into a new family. It wasn't a tradition.
15:15You're not put in a new fishbowl. You were born in the
15:19church of the living God, the fellowship of the redeemed,
15:23the people who have been blood-bought, water
15:27baptized.
15:28Yes.
15:32Yes, Lord.
15:33And so here's what the Lord said. He said
15:36that, "I want you to put on the whole armor of God."
15:40And what we're talking about tonight is the shield of faith.
15:44It's God's
15:46battle
15:48of unconventional warfare,
15:50and he talks about the whole armor.
15:53Now, this is a different kind of armor.
15:55This is resurrection armor. It's Kevlar
16:00for the soul.
16:02Kevlar
16:03that enables you to move.
16:06It enables you to battle. It enables you to not be
16:10killed, but maybe survive a missile.
16:14If you treat Ephesians 6 as just the closing of the book,
16:18and he's trying to rouse a people to their feet, then you
16:22miss the very edge that Paul is writing with.
16:26Paul is writing with an edge in this book.
16:29He's not just reminding people what they already believe.
16:33He's telling them how to keep standing when
16:37everything around them seems to be degrading.
16:41Spiritual living is degrading. Culture is
16:44degrading. The intellectual approach to faith is
16:47degrading. And the enemy wants you to be affected in your
16:51mind so you collapse, and it makes it to where
16:55all the doctrine you want to believe is just the good-looking doctrine,
16:59the socially acceptable doctrine, the doctrine that may not
17:03have what the Bible calls the offense of the cross.
17:07Well. Right. Come on. That's right.
17:10The offense of the cross. There are some times the preaching of the
17:14cross is going to offend you.
17:17That's right. The word. That's right.
17:18And if you're not careful, you'll blame the preacher.
17:20Right. That's right.
17:22You'll say, "Boy, if that preacher had any sense about him, he'd understand
17:26he needs to phrase that a little differently."
17:29There is, and I will not excuse the ministry
17:33choosing to offend because they enjoy the moment of
17:37offending. No, that's not excusable.
17:40But there is a preaching that takes you back to an altar,
17:44and takes you back to a cross, and gets you dipped beneath
17:48a crimson stream of blood.
17:52I said it in a generation that doesn't want the blood of the
17:56Bible. I'm going to tell you to thank God for the
17:59blood that washes white as snow.
18:06And so we have taught about truth must be the protection of our
18:10core. We've talked about having a breastplate that's uncommon
18:14and uncomfortable, and it's cumbersome of
18:18sorts. And I put on my bulletproof vest and showed you that.
18:22I talked about having peace as your mobility, that when
18:26you put your shoes on, it means you're going somewhere.
18:29And the night Paul says when you put on your whole armor, that
18:33the pieces are not modular accessories picked
18:37according to fashion decisions, but they're facets of a
18:41coherent way of life. Personal
18:44protection has always been a brutal
18:48equation. If I'm going to be properly protected,
18:52then I've got to make an understanding of what
18:56survivability I have, but also have
18:59mobility. Yeah. The way I'm going to live is not just by
19:03building a wall of steel around me, because I've got to have
19:07mobility as well as survivability.
19:10And that's the reason Paul said these pieces, they're not optional,
19:14they're not always fashionable. But the one thing
19:18that I want to tell you, you've heard about the girdle of
19:22truth. You've heard about the breastplate of righteousness.
19:25You've heard about the shoes of peace.
19:28But above all-
19:33Above all
19:36Above all,
19:38above all,
19:40take the shield of faith.
19:43Now, I did a series a few months ago called "Faith
19:46Defined," and I called it faith
19:50is faithfulness. Right. And I want to redefine that to you again
19:54tonight, because the culture that we live in has amused
19:58itself to death, and it has reduced spiritual
20:01warfare to casual doctrines that are comfortable for the
20:05ears to hear. The Bible said there will be a generation that will have,
20:09the King James calls it, itching ears.
20:12It just means they want to hear sweet
20:15platitudes of
20:18digestible doctrines. That's right.
20:20And their digestive system is so tender that they can't
20:24have meat. The Bible said there are some that are babes
20:28and they have milk. But then he said, but strong meat
20:32are for those that are men, and it's referring to
20:35mature people. And here's the problem.
20:39When all the church is made up of is
20:42childishness and small ideas that
20:46are easily offended, then church is not the
20:49church of the living God. When all they want are casual
20:53doctrines that are pluck as you choose, it's as if
20:57they go through a cafeteria line to take what they want to eat
21:01and leave the rest. And church is known as evangelistic
21:05entertainment. What they're essentially doing is they're dropping the
21:09shield of faithfulness. My Lord.
21:12Now, I know they say it says shield of faith, but I
21:16taught, and I'm going to say it again, that the
21:19shield is an action. It is not a
21:23theory.
21:25And I taught to you, and I'm telling you again, when faith was
21:29taught in the Bible times, it was taught with
21:33the Hebrew interpretation of faith.
21:36And faith in the Hebraic understanding is action
21:40of thought. I believe something and I act on it.
21:45You don't know it by theory, but when the Grecian and the
21:49Greco-Roman training and ideals came into
21:52it and began to pepper the thought of Christianity,
21:57it became a philosophy where faith began to drift
22:01and seep towards just the idea of interior
22:05ascent. It's just mental, yes. It's
22:09toward a model of a philosopher
22:11contemplating and settling on an ideal of
22:15an eternal truth. And in the Greco-Roman framework, it
22:19is mainly that faith is a way of thinking.
22:23It's not an action of doing. And that's the reason they think, "Well,
22:28what is your faith?" And you think, "Well, I've got positive thoughts about God, so
22:31I have faith." Right. And that's the spoiling and the
22:35seepage of the sewer of a Grecian mindset of
22:39what faith was. Hebrew faith and first church faith
22:43was never a faith that was just sitting around and thinking.
22:47It was always a movement. It was a movement.
22:51And when the Bible spoke of doubt, it wasn't an internal debate.
22:55Doubt was stopping between two opinions.
22:58Doubt was what stopped you. Calm down, Elms.
23:02Yeah. Doubt was what stopped you from believing and
23:06acting on the fact that God said he was on your side.
23:10It was breaking covenant because you weren't sure of the
23:14covenant. And so it would break away from God, who has walked
23:18into history for you because you're not certain that God
23:21understands where you live. I know.
23:24Faith cannot be that thin Greco-Roman notion of merely
23:28thinking positively about God. It's what some people think of
23:32as optimism. This shield is not
23:36optimism. That's right. Well, you must not have a lot of
23:39optimism. You need to put up your shield of faith.
23:42No, the shield of faith is acting- Like
23:46God said, he's on your side. Yes.
23:50Right. Faith is not thin, faith is
23:53strong. Oh. But the thing about this shield is that
23:57it's standing with God, in God, for
24:01God- Yes ... over a period of time. I don't know which way I'm going
24:05to go, but I know I'm going with God. Yes.
24:08I'm not sure where my help is, but I know my help is in the name
24:12of the Lord. I know that trouble's all around, but the name of
24:16the Lord is a strong tower, and the
24:19righteous run into it, and they are safe.
24:23So watch me get in my safety zone.
24:27Yes. Woo.
24:29Yes. Watch me shout when all the reports are bad,
24:32because you can't steal my shout by throwing doubt at me.
24:36And now I'm supposed to stop and be caught between,
24:40"Is he for me or is he not for me? Is he for me or is he
24:44not for me?" The minute I start dancing is the minute I
24:48send abramessa to every demon in hell.
24:51God's for me. God's for me. You've been telling me all
24:55week that he's not for me, but my praise is
24:59reminding you that I know if God be
25:02for me, who can be against me?
25:07Yes.
25:09Oh yes, he's for me. That's the reason I sing. I sing.
25:14I don't always sing because I'm happy.
25:17I like that song. I like, "I sing because I'm happy.
25:22I sing because I'm free." Yes. Yes.
25:26Those are two good words, but I don't always sing because I'm happy.
25:30Sometimes I'm in the middle of the souls' valley-
25:34Yes ... but you're going to find me singing. Hallelujah.
25:36Because doubt says, "Are you sure he's with you?" My song
25:40says, "I know he's with me." Yes. That's putting on a shield of
25:44faithfulness.
25:48Yes.
25:50Right. Come on. When Paul says, "Do it above all,"
25:54he means above all. Yes. He's not neglecting
25:58truth as your core, he's not neglecting the
26:02uncommon
26:04breastplate of your pursuit of righteousness.
26:07He's saying without this lived action, the rest of the armor
26:11collapses into a costume. The pieces hang on you, but
26:15they do not hold you. That shield is the only thing that
26:19can be turned on every direction- Yes ...
26:22from wherever the missiles of hell come
26:26from. You can't turn your breastplate, it's affixed to you.
26:30You can't turn your girdle because it's got your
26:34core covered, but there's a lot of cracks in that that I don't know
26:38what angle the missile's coming from, but my faithfulness,
26:42I said my faithfulness moves me to a
26:46place where wherever it's coming from, I've got a block for that.
26:50Yes.
26:53Hallelujah. Yes, Lord. So,
26:57I've got to close.
26:58Number one, Roman shields were designed to interlock.
27:02When you study the shields that the Lord was referencing through Paul,
27:07this is not an accurate depiction, and I told Brother Andrew, who's providing.
27:11God bless, I'll give him some extra credit.
27:13He's providing all of my materials for this series, and this is
27:17amazing. But this is not an accurate depiction.
27:20It's right because it was made like this.
27:23They were made with plywood glued together.
27:27They took several thin pieces of wood and glued them together, and that was the
27:31shield. It was the lightest they could do it.
27:33But then on top of that, they would cover it with a felt of sorts, and
27:37over the felt, they would cover it with a deer skin or a
27:40leather that was literally
27:44empowered to extinguish the enemy.
27:47Many times when they say fiery darts, they would dip them in a tar pitch or
27:51dip them in an oil and light them on fire before they shot them at you
27:55in that day. And so the Romans had constructed their shield.
27:59It was 2.5, 2 and a half feet
28:02wide and about four feet tall. So I got about the height
28:06about right. But the width-
28:09Four and a half ... it's four and a half tall? Okay.
28:11So it's close,
28:13but it's not all the way right. But I appreciate it and I
28:17thank the Lord for it. But I'm telling you, that shield
28:21was meant, it sort of had a curve in it, and they would lock them
28:25together and they would work. There was a literal name they called
28:29for that grouping of the gathering of soldiers.
28:32When they would interlock, they would lock themselves together
28:36and it was like a wall of protection that they could lift high
28:41and hold and duck under like a roof, or they could move forward.
28:45It didn't stop them from moving, but it was a literal thing.
28:48And Paul is writing this while chained to a Praetorian
28:52guard, and the Praetorian guard had the shield with
28:56him. So he can sit there while he's writing and observe this
29:00shield and he says, "I see how that thing can
29:04involve others in its making." This shield is not
29:08made for mavericks. It's not made for lone wolves.
29:11It's not made for people who are always on their own all the
29:15time. The Bible says the church is a body
29:19fitly joined...
29:22Say the word.
29:24Together. Together. Say it again. Together. Together.
29:27That is the way God wants this. Nobody stands alone in the church
29:31of the living God. Yes. The shields were intended to overlap.
29:35When I see your faithfulness and you see my faithfulness-
29:39Yes ... and I come to church and see that one over there's faithfulness, and I see
29:43how that one's transmission just went bad and they're still being faithful,
29:47and this one over here had a bad circumstance, and they're still being faithful,
29:51I overlap my shield and you bless me,
29:55and it might be that I bless you, and we stand
30:02It's not about the heroism of an isolated warrior.
30:06There's no superstars in this kingdom. Amen.
30:09I'm always not drawn,
30:12is the way to say it. I'm always not drawn to those who act
30:16like they've got a super spirituality.
30:19No, we're in this thing together. Yeah.
30:22Sometimes I'm a little higher, and sometimes you're a little higher.
30:26But none of us are going to say, "I'm higher." That's right.
30:30There will be some that do that, but that's not going to ever have a place
30:34in this house. That's right. Because in this house, we're all needing
30:38Jesus. Amen. And so it's the bit
30:42fitting together. Paul said, "Above all, take the shield of faith." In
30:46other words, above all, anticipate you're going to need one another.
30:49Above all, I know you've got the core of truth and the
30:53uncommon righteousness over your heart, and peace on your
30:56feet, but above all, make sure you get faithfulness.
31:00Sometimes your faithfulness will take you through your deepest
31:04doubt. Amen. You just wake up and you don't even feel like saying
31:08hallelujah. But faithfulness demands that you cannot
31:11be silent. And so instead of sitting there, you stand
31:16up and your faithfulness says, "Hallelujah." Sometimes you don't
31:20feel like going to church, but you know what faithfulness demands?
31:23It demands that I get there, and I show up, and on the
31:27inside, I'm tore up. On the inside, I'm broken up.
31:30On the inside, I'm busted up. But my faithfulness got me to the house
31:34of God, and when I got there, I found manna was sitting in
31:38that place for me. And there was a chalice of Holy Ghost
31:42wine that was there for me to drink of the cup of
31:46the Lord.
31:50The Bible said, "Above all,
31:52the shield of faith." Yes, sir. The flaming arrows of the evil one.
31:55Sister Elms, come. I'm closing. They're not just temptations.
32:00They're also accusations.
32:03And we never share
32:07the accusations we hear in our head with others.
32:12We don't. And I don't want you to.
32:15Please don't do it.
32:18Some people say, "Confess your sins." The Bible says, "Confess your sins one to
32:21another." There's some folks you do not need to confess your sins to.
32:28That's right. Yeah. You need to be very wise who you go
32:31confessing to.
32:33Yeah.
32:36Don't run around. And then when you confess, I want you to
32:39ask yourself who's getting the glory. Yeah.
32:45If you grew up in the church, you've been in some testimony services.
32:53Now, if you've been here and I'm leading the testimony service, you
32:57seasoned saints know what I'm about to say.
33:00I can interject and turn that thing.
33:03I'm not going to let it go on.
33:06I'll stop it. If it starts going that long, I say, "Well, good old devil.
33:09We're going to beat him, though, aren't we?"
33:16If you come to my testimony services. Why? Because I've seen them.
33:19Man, the sin is more glorious
33:22that by the time they're done describing their fall,
33:26the devil's got all kinds of glory. Come on.
33:34Falls aren't special.
33:37You meet somebody that fall, they act like, "Oh, you just don't know.
33:41Yeah, that temptation was so strong.
33:44You should have seen
33:47what I put up with before I
33:49fell."
33:58No.
34:01One of my favorite messages, I preached all around the country
34:05when I was getting it. It's called Tell Hell
34:09I'm Getting Back Up.
34:11And one of the favorite illustrations that always blessed
34:15wherever I was preaching.
34:17In fact, I know of a preacher in Texas
34:20who preached it to his church, and he preached it almost exactly like
34:24I preached it. Title and all. And even
34:28the last illustration.
34:32But that's at least when I saw him at conference, he said, "I preached your
34:35message."
34:39I thought, "That's a good message, but every point?"
34:43Every illustration. But at the end, I have the
34:47devil,
34:49the accuser of the brethren,
34:51walking up to God
34:54and saying, "Look at him.
34:57Look how he fell."
34:59So I play that out a little bit,
35:02and then the devil spins around to walk out of the
35:06presence of the Lord
35:07in my scenario.
35:10And the Lord reaches out and grabs him by his collar, said, "Come back here.
35:15You can't leave just yet.
35:18Sit down."
35:19And I have the devil having God make him sit there
35:24while he watches
35:26his child get back up.
35:31And I have the longest
35:33illustration of getting up that anybody could do.
35:36I take probably three minutes getting back up.
35:40And every time, the devil's wanting to look away.
35:44But I just keep getting up.
35:47And the more I did it, the more the audience would just go
35:52Man, it's an awesome message.
35:55And then I finally stand back up.
35:58And then the Lord said, "Did you see that?"
36:06Tell hell I'm getting back up.
36:09Amen. Forget how long the fall was.
36:11Have you seen God's people- What? ...
36:15get back up? Come on. How? What is that?
36:18That's choosing to get a shield of
36:22faithfulness again. Come on. We're not talking about, "Oh, yeah, I had a good
36:25praying through." No, that's good, but that's theoretical.
36:29What are you going to do with it now?
36:31I'm going to go and change what I'm listening to, change my podcast,
36:35change my websites. I'm going to go clean out the glove compartment in my car.
36:39I'm going to clean out, and you know all the rest of the stuff you can clean out.
36:43Amen. Yeah, come on. Too much preaching has
36:46neglected endurance training.
36:50They've only
36:51taught light workouts to their church. Right.
36:56When I'm telling you what? The Lord wants us to understand,
37:01you shall reap
37:03if you
37:05faint not.
37:08That's the reason preaching like I preached Sunday.
37:11Stay with me.
37:13Yes. That's what the Lord said.
37:15He appealed to his disciples, "Stay with me. Stay.
37:19Stay."
37:21Faithfulness is not a warm feeling attached to doctrine.
37:25Faithfulness is not an emotional intensity.
37:29People mistake momentary fervor for covenant
37:33loyalty,
37:34and when the missiles come, and illness comes, and betrayal happens,
37:39and cultural hostility surrounds you, it doesn't
37:43mean God has left you. Amen. Stay
37:47faithful.
37:48Don't confuse the
37:50breastplate with the shield.
37:54Don't confuse it. They're two different parts. Amen.
37:58The breastplate is saying, "God, what you do matters to me."
38:03It's uncomfortable. You don't always like putting it on, and
38:07the Bible says, "Put it on." That's your righteousness.
38:10The shield is his righteousness. Yes.
38:13Faithfulness to his righteousness.
38:15I'm not saying my righteousness will save me from anything. It won't.
38:18But it's a gesture that I need his righteousness.
38:24Antinomianism is a big theological word
38:28that means lawlessness, and it means I want to serve
38:32God, but I don't have any laws that I have to abide
38:36by. I'm not bound to consecration.
38:40And some people confuse
38:43the shield on the other side
38:46with,
38:47"God's done it all, so I don't have to do anything.
38:50I got his shield."
38:52No, you need both
38:54your pursuit and his promise.
38:58Amen. Faithfulness then is not perfection.
39:02Faithfulness is not presumption.
39:05Faithfulness is stubborn.
39:08I said it right.
39:11You know that song that some people don't like us to sing?
39:15I have decided
39:17to follow Jesus,
39:19no turning back.
39:22No turning back.
39:25Amen. I'm talking about stubborn
39:29steadfastness.
39:32You're not going to turn me around.
39:33I'm sick,
39:34but I'm not about to quit.
39:41I had a situation happen that I don't want to tell anybody about,
39:46but I'm not about to quit.
39:49Amen. Holy stubbornness. All right. That's the way I want to call it.
39:53Holy, shall we stand?
39:56Because we have an enemy.
39:59The Bible calls him
40:01a serpent.
40:06You can cut the head off a rattlesnake,
40:12and that rattlesnake head will still bite you.
40:18I had a family reunion in Texas,
40:21and we were all out there in Claude, Texas.
40:25My kids, my wife, we were all there. Man, it was hot.
40:28It felt like a hot air dryer was blowing all the time.
40:31The wind was so terrible, we could not grill
40:35outside, and that's bad. When you can't grill outside, it's just terrible.
40:42There were stairs right out of the kitchen.
40:45My cousin, the one we interviewed for "Deep," owned this ranch, and it had a
40:49barn just for our eating. It had a soda machine in the
40:53barn. Obviously, you know he's blessed because I told you about him.
40:57By the way, some of you all are going to be blessed like that, too.
40:59We got multi, multi-millionaires that are sitting in this house right now.
41:03You just haven't seen it yet, but don't doubt.
41:07Be faithful.
41:09So he's one of those. He's multi, multi-millionaire, and he
41:13thought, "A soda machine ought to be in my barn." I like a man like
41:16that.
41:18I used to dream that in heaven, I'm going to have NeHi orange coming down on a tube
41:22in my bed, and chocolate milk coming down another tube.
41:25Like you go to oil, get your Jiffy Lube, and they
41:29bring down that oil and put it in. I'm just going to have chocolate milk, root
41:32beer, Dr. Pepper, NeHi orange,
41:36NuGrape-
41:37... Cheerwine.
41:44Walking out of the stairs in the kitchen
41:48was a rattlesnake right on the ground,
41:51and that woman
41:53that's sitting right over here
41:56went and got a shovel.
42:01That woman right there was a murderer.
42:08Don't play. Don't play
42:11Murder
42:13manifested.
42:15You animal lovers, you need to deal with her after church.
42:20She took that shovel
42:22with her own bare hands
42:26and decapitated that rattlesnake.
42:30But she wasn't done.
42:34She proceeded to reach down and grab-
42:36I don't know why
42:37... the tail of that snake,
42:41not the head.
42:43And she held that... We've got a picture of her holding that
42:48rattlesnake, and it's still moving.
42:50It's still
42:52moving.
42:53Y'all don't know the danger I'm married to. I'm afraid to go home tonight.
42:57I'm afraid to go home tonight.
43:04We have a foe that the Bible says is a snake.
43:07And even if you think God decapitated him at the
43:11cross,
43:12he is still dangerous.
43:15And the way you're going to defeat him, the fiery missiles,
43:18is by the shield
43:22of faithfulness.
43:25Yeah.
43:25The battle's not over.
43:29I know we sing, "When the battle's over, we shall wear a crown,"
43:33but the battle's not over.
43:35I need a church that is seeking to be more faithful,
43:40more faithful, more faithful.
43:43We've got some people in this church right now that come both to the Spanish
43:47church and the English church. Sister Vicky, sitting back there
43:51quiet. Sister Vidalia, the sweet onion of the cathedral.
43:56Listen, she tries to be out of the limelight.
43:59She doesn't want any attention,
44:01but she comes to both the English church...
44:04And I watched her Sunday. I watched Sunday.
44:07In fact, I let her know, and she started worshiping a little extra when she found
44:09out I was watching. No, I don't know if she even saw that.
44:12Did you see my text, Sister Vicky? Be honest, the Lord's listening.
44:17Did you see my text?
44:20Ah, and later that night.
44:23Well, I was watching Sunday, and my heart just glowed
44:27for the people that come to both the Spanish and the English church because the
44:31Spanish church is a stab into a
44:34community. That we've got this building, and I want to reach it.
44:38We've already done it once. This is our second time, and we may do it 20 more
44:41times. I don't know.
44:43But there's some of you that your faithfulness is amazing.
44:47Some of you band members, you never whine, and you come to long practices.
44:51And this church don't know how often you're here.
44:53Right.
44:54Some of you prayer warriors that never miss a Saturday morning extra prayer.
44:58And it's a pretty exclusive group-
44:59Yes
44:59... because I walk in on that exclusive group.
45:03It's open for everybody, but for some reason, those announcements don't get
45:07in the...
45:08Yes.
45:09But I'm telling you, that faithfulness matters. It matters.
45:13It matters.
45:15Being kind to people that aren't like you, it matters.
45:19Being kind to that mean person at work, it matters.
45:24It matters.
45:24It matters because we're
45:26the voice of the Lord, and faithfulness
45:30fights off the missiles.
45:35Master,
45:36this is your people.
45:39This is your house.
45:41We want to know you, Lord.
45:43We've got to have you.
45:45We want to be more like you.
45:48I'm opening this front. Why don't we just all gather around him as it is
45:52a custom of ours to let the word settle into our spirits with
45:56some seasoning. Come and pray a responsible prayer.
46:00Come and pray a deep prayer. Come and look at yourself for just
46:04a moment in prayer and say, "Lord, what is it about this
46:08word that I've got to get more of? What faithfulness
46:12has been slipping in me?" What faithfulness.
46:16Faithful to meet guests, and faithful to welcome the
46:20backslider, and faithful to love that one that doesn't
46:23necessarily like me. Faithful to be kind at work.
46:27Where do I need a sharp-