Hey church. Welcome back to another edition of the Daily Bible Podcast. We are back with, I would like to say another light easy episode, but we're back with the entire letter of Ephesians. Just know next year we're gonna go so much slower. In fact, it might be frustrating to you for the opposite reason. This is too slow. I need to get more. I need more context. I need to see what's happening. That's funny 'cause we. We're never gonna be happy. I know that. I know that, you know that. But just no, just 'cause we're doing a bible reading program together doesn't mean you can't do your own Bible reading program on top of what we're doing here. Sure. In fact I in the past have asked people like, please join us in doing this Bible reading program, and they'll push back with, well, I'm doing my own. And I said, that's fantastic. Keep doing it. And do the one with us. I think there's an important feature here. I think in the New Testament, if you pay attention, you'll notice that a lot of the letters are written to a community of people. We just finished by Lehman. That one's accepting. So are the books of Timothy and Titus. Those are pastoral epistles. But there are, there's a large sense of which. The whole thing is understood as a communal experiment. It's a communal process, and I think that's important. One of the things that we wanna do as a church is to read the Bible together so that we're on the same page, literally and figuratively. We can talk about it together. We can utilize it as a means to fortify our relationships to talk about the things that we're learning. There's just so many benefits to doing it with your church. And so we would encourage you, if your church is doing a Bible boarding program and you've been with us, join your church. Yep. If they're doing, if they're doing a different program, we'd love for you to be part of what your church is doing. We do this for our church, and if others wanna listen in and be part of it, fantastic. We're okay with that. But we would really encourage you to be part of your, whatever your church is doing. Yep. Now, after that, if you wanna do an additional one, you want to throw in the McShane plan, or if you're really crazy, you wanna do Grant Horner's 10 a day program, whatever you wanna do, do your own thing. Fantastic. But do it with others as well. Do the thing that your church is doing. Amen. Yeah, I'd agree. I would agree. By the way, as we're going through some of the, the bigger chunks here, Colossians, Ephesians, remember, you can always submit questions. So if there's a section that we don't hit on and you're going, well wait a minute. I had a question about this. You guys didn't even talk about that. Submit your questions to questions at podcasts. No. Sorry. podcast@compasstx.org. That's the one. That's it. podcast@compasstx.org. Not questions at, don't send it to there at all. I don't know where that's gonna get you. So read us the questions. We'll be happy to, to take it and address it. We're just kind of having to do a fly by because there's so much here and so much ground to cover. That is difficult for us to be able to do that justice. But yeah, gc, it's gonna be in the seventies for like five days in a row right now. I'm not mad at that at all. Really. I like the cold, but I also don't mind. I've been running the heat. Yeah. And I just got my bill for the heat. No, thank you. Yeah, so I don't mind the little bit of the warm Yeah, I, I, I'm, I'm, I'm trying, I'm trying to be thankful to the Lord for absolutely good weather. You should be. But I do like my cold weather during Christmas time. I didn't ever, that's one thing I never liked about California. California Christmases didn't feel like Christmas. It was just, it was like, okay. This is not, this is just, this is just like every other day out here. There's nothing special about this. And, and, but see, that's what you pay for when you go to California. You pay for immaculate, pristine weather all year round. But I didn't want it. And nobody was giving me a refund for that. Nobody was like, Hey you're not using the immaculate weather so you can have a refund back on that. Yeah. You don't, you could have moved to Texas at that point. I mean, and you did eventually. I was tempted, yeah. Anyways, it's supposed to be in the seventies which is great. Yeah. I haven't gotten my latest heating belt. We keep it pretty, pretty, cool. Yeah. Pretty cool. 60 degrees. Not, not 60. But we're like 65, 66, 66. Yeah. Wow. Not six seven, not six seven or eight, nine. Definitely not 89. Oh no. We keep it like 67 and because my kids, we, they can put on sweatshirts and jackets and my wife's fine with it too. I'm not like causing my wife to be bitterly cold while she's just trembling around the house. Right. I don't have the thermostat under the lockbox. I'm not, I'm not back Kind of a dad. Like, you don't need to, you got the, you got the internet access. You can get alerts when it goes up and like, oh, nope. Nope. Not today. A retina scanner. Not in my, yeah, no. We keep ours between 69 and 71. Okay. Yeah. And I've always flirted with, okay, do I wanna try to put a cooler? I don't mind it being cool. But I feel like there's just something nice about waking up to a warm house and. I'm okay with that dude. In our office. You are notorious for keeping it cold. Well, that's different because I, the way that I work is different than the way that I live. I'm okay with comforts in the right place. When I'm working, I need to have it cool so that I can focus. If it's too warm and it gets stuffy, then I just, man, I am awful with the heat. Yeah. God has grown me so much in this since being at Texas. Yeah, in Texas. But I really, when I start sweating and I just get uncomfortable and I'm like, I don't want to be here anymore. Just take my life, Lord. Why did you even, why was I even born? Why did the knees receive me? So the heat really bothers me. The cool I can tolerate for the same reasons that you bring up. I can put a jacket on, I can put a space heater on myself. I can deal with that. Yeah. But if I'm hot, there's no escape. You just melt, burn, and die. That Pretty much. Pretty much, yeah. Yeah. Anyways, you didn't tune in to listen to weather. You tuned in to listen to the Daily Bible podcast about the Bible. And we are now turning to the letter of Ephesians, Paul, to the Ephesians. This is the realm of Ephesus. Remember we met the Ephesians already in the Book of Acts, acts chapter 20. You remember it was the Ephesian elders that Paul called to him while he was in my elitist there, and said goodbye to them, and there was weeping and they were sorrowful. So this is that group that Paul's writing. To here and he's writing to encourage them and also to lay out a good paradigm. Ephesians breaks down. I think, pretty nicely. I've always heard the outline as the first three chapters are gospel indicatives, an indicative statement being a statement of fact. This is. What day is it? Was we record? This is Saturday. That's an indicative statement. It's not a command, it's not an urge, not an exhortation. It's just a statement of fact. Gospel, indicatives. And then chapter four, five and six being gospel imperatives, meaning in light of the indicatives. This is how you should then live. And this is where in chapter four, five, and six, we get into the commands. We get into the excitations. We get into the prohibitions. Don't do this. You should do this. So. Ephesians chapter one is probably most well known for the long sentence, and it's one sentence in the original on the spiritual blessings that we have in Christ, and that's in chapter one, starting in verse three. It really goes all the way down through verse 14. And then he gets into Thanksgiving and prayer. So just some high levels through these, and then we can come back and land on some. Chapter two is probably most well known for the. The by grace you have been saved passage. And we get that after Paul has laid out the bad news in the first three verses. The but God of verse four then goes on to talk about his grace. And God has saved us by his grace. But he saved us by his grace for workmanship, for works that he's created us to do. So chapter two, most well-known for by grace, you have been saved Chapter three. Then we get into Paul's prayer for the Ephesian church there. And he, this is where we read him praying about. God being able to do far more above and beyond anything we could ask or imagine. This is where he's praying that the Ephesians would have strength to comprehend and know the love of Christ, which surpasses all knowledge. And so chapter three is him praying for the Ephesian Church. Then chapter four, he is going to appeal to now to. Transitioning to the gospel imperatives there for them to walk in a manner worthy of the gospel. He's gonna start there in chapter four, verse one, addressing that, and then he's going to address what that looks like specifically in chapter four pursuing unity together. He's gonna talk about the gifts of the different offices in the church and what they are there for, and then he is gonna transition to what, look, what it looks like to live as believer. Putting off and putting on. This is some of the parallel of Colossians chapter three here that we get here in Ephesians chapter four. Then in chapter five. He addresses some of the threats and some of the issues that we need to watch out for. He starts by encouraging and admonishing us to be imitators of God, chapter five, verse one. And then he goes on to talk about what that should look like and avoiding things like sexual morality and other sins that must not even be named among us. He says. And then instead to be careful about how we walk and to be sober minded and to be always giving thanks. Chapter five then wraps up with probably the most well known section of chapter five, which is his instruction to wives and husbands. This is the passage where wives are encouraged and commanded, not just encouraged, but commanded to submit to their husbands as to the Lord. Their own husbands and husbands are commanded to love their wives. As Christ loved the church. He goes from this into chapter six, dealing with the relationship of children and parents and fathers. So similar again to Colossians and then the end of chapter six, being the most famous part of chapter six, which is the whole armor of God the spiritual armor of God. And we do that because again, our battle is not against flesh and blood, but against the powers that work in this present age. So that's again, chapters one through three, gospel indicatives, chapters four through six, gospel imperatives. Going back to chapter one in verse four, Paul says that we are chosen, or let me just read it, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him, et cetera. What does it mean then that Paul says, we're chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world? This for me is election, this is the doctrine of election here. What do you say for me? Is it different for somebody else? Somebody who doesn't believe in the doctrine of election is gonna say this is different. Okay. And people have different views on that. So, my view on this is God shows without any interference or or consideration of us and our will in that process. Others will argue that God shows by looking down the corridors of time. Seeing who all would freely choose of their own free will to follow Jesus in that he chose them to be the ones here. And that's what Paul's referring to. So, this is not a divisive issue in the sense of one campus believers, one campus is not believers. This is just a matter of interpretation. My interpretation of this text is he goes on to talk about predestine predestining and really if you look at this, God's sovereignty, drips. Through the verses of the spiritual blessings of Christ here as he talks about predestining according to the council of his will, who works all things after his good purposes. God's sovereignty is all over these verses here. And I think this is in keeping with that, that God's sovereignly of his free will, according in, in keeping with Romans nine before without consideration of anything that good or evil had had been done. God chose those that he would save. Amen of that. Yeah. I know the arguments for the free will, they just don't hold. Water. In my estimation, this makes so much more sense to say that God is the one who chooses. He's the one who effectually calls us into his relationship. He does that through the spirits. He awakens us so that we're able to respond. So many good reasons behind that. Okay, on a related note then, suppose, you know somebody who says, look, I want be a Christian, and I have gone to God and I've asked for God to forgive me. I've asked for God to open my eyes, and to this point nothing has happened. And maybe they might think to themselves, well, I must not be chosen then. Mm-hmm. Because God is not responding. Mm-hmm. Even though I'm praying and I'm asking God to open my eyes and to show me Christ and all those things. Mm-hmm. What would you counsel a person like that? I think my first question would be, what's the experience that you're looking for? What do you want to have happen when you do this? Are you looking for, a parting in the skies? Are you looking for a burning in the bosom, as the Mormons will say, what is it that you're looking for? And then let's evaluate. Yeah, go ahead. Can I, yeah, yeah. Let me just respond to what they might say. Yeah. Ephesians. I was dead. Now I'm alive. And so I would expect that my thinking would be radically changed. I'd probably feel, I'd feel guilt free, I'd feel free, maybe something like that. Mm-hmm. I would expect that there would be some emotional response to my surrendering my life to Christ. But when I get up off the floor or when I'm finished praying, things aren't really all that different. Right. And that's then the question of. Is it a matter of discipleship? Is it a matter of surrender? Is there a deficiency in the understanding of the gospel? If the person understands the gospel, if you lay it out and say, this is what it is, and you walk through the components of the gospel and say, are you, do you desire to repent from your sin and surrender your life to, to Jesus Christ? And it as you're savior your Lord through faith and repentance. And if they say, yeah, I'm there. I wanna do that. And I've expressed that to the Lord. Okay. So then what does new life in Christ look like for you? What does your life look like before Christ? What are the things that you believe that Christ would wanna deliver you from? And what does walking in obedience to him now look like from that point forward? And that's some of the obedience. That's some of the discipleship side of things. For somebody who says I expect it to be radically different. Becoming a new creation in Christ. Positionally you are a new creation in Christ, but your transformation is progressive. Sanctification is progressive, meaning that it's not all of a sudden that you're gonna wake up and the des the sinful desires that you once had are all of a sudden not gonna be there at all anymore. But now it's a matter of you've been given the spirit to be able to battle those sinful desires. You've been given the spirit to be able to have freedom from those sins, but that's gonna be a process of growing that's gonna involve you working out your salvation as he talks about in chapter two with fear and trembling. Able to do that now because God's at work in you. So. It's not a passive like, okay, I prayed, so now where's the transformation? Where's the feeling that's gonna change? It's not about the feeling so much as it's about you are standing with God and then the fact that the spirit does take up residence within you and if you're truly saved, your desires will change. You should say I don't desire to do the things that I used to do anymore. The temptation's still there. And so, man, I need help from a more mature believer to help me understand what it looks like to battle those things, to have freedom from those things. But it's. It's more about your position in Christ than it is the feeling that you experience at the moment of salvation. I think you're warning us against trusting our feelings, even in a conversion experience. Yes. We don't wanna put too much stock into, oh, my eyes were opened and now I can see new colors of the rainbow and I had all these incredible feelings in my stomach. Those might come right, and to some measure, they, I think they do. For most Christians, there is a. A life to death or death to life rather, the other way around experience. But the way that it works itself out practically is different for a lot of us. Is it possible that someone can have this yearning to be a Christian and not be chosen? I. Man, that, that's a tough one. I don't know that I've come across a situation like that and I don't know that that's in keeping with what I know of the character of God, that he would deny somebody who truly desires to be a follower of Christ, to be a follower of Christ. Even in, in chapter two, when you look at the opening of chapter two, the way Paul describes it, we were dead in our trespasses and sins. A dead person. A dead body can't do anything. A dead body can't even desire life because it's dead. It can't do anything. Right. And so spiritually speaking, a spiritually dead person to be able to have any inkling of a desire for spiritual life, to me is evidence of God's drawing work in that person's life. So that's why I would say, I don't know that it would be, I've. Number one, I don't know. I've run across that scenario. And number two, I don't know that that would be in keeping with the character of God to say to that person, yeah, you desire this, but no, I'm not gonna let you be saved. Yeah. If a child asks for bread, is he gonna give them a stone? Right. Right. How much more will your father in heaven give the spirit to those who ask? And I think that's what's happening here for this particular person. I would agree with that, and I think that's an important thing to think about because what you said earlier in my mind is really the critical questions to ask is what do you expecting? What do you think when you say the word repent, what do you mean by that? Yeah. When you say the word, I'm trusting, but nothing's happening. What do you mean by that? I think that's the kind of person you have to spend time with to say, okay, let's just talk about this whole thing. I would wonder if that person is regenerated without being converted in the order of salvation. We believe that just as we're saying here, Ephesians chapter two, we believe that people have to be alive in order to even respond to God's call, right? To become Christians in the first place. Can you talk about that? What should we expect in terms of people getting saved? How long are they regenerated? Yeah. Before they're converted. Yeah. And there's not a formulaic response to this. It's not an algorithm the way that you could plug into a computer and say, A plus B, equal C. It's gonna look different for different people. Regeneration does take place. I think most often what we see is regeneration takes place in. Almost the same time as faith is expressed, somebody's born again and they're putting their faith in Jesus in that moment. I think that's a lot of times when we see this happen. Could somebody be born again, made alive, regenerated, which is what that means. And then subsequently have it be a matter of weeks or months before they actually get to that moment of surrendering their faith to Christ. Yeah. It's possible for sure. I think what we're really talking about is the drawing power of God. The calling of God. Paul says in Romans chapter eight is part of the unbreakable chain, those whom he for knew, he also predestined, those whom he predestined. He says he also called those whom he called, he also justified. So the calling of God on. The elect is, that's the eye of the tulip, the irresistible grace. And that is such that when God, God always gets his man to put it that way, right? When God sets his sight on somebody and they're part of his elect, when he begins to call them, he's going to bring them to himself. That calling process could be. For some people a matter of years from the first time you hear the gospel, the different relationships, the different people that you're brought into contact with over the years to the moment that you finally bow the knee and faith and repentance to Christ, that process could be a matter of years. Where does regeneration take place in that man? That's a bird's eye view that only God has access to but I would agree regeneration has to take place before faith because a dead body can't put faith in Christ. The spiritually dead person has to be made alive before they can put faith in Jesus. Yeah. That's a helpful framing here. And chapter three then Paul talks about the mystery of. The gospel. What is that? If you could succinctly tell us, 'cause Paul says it and he says it in a few different ways. What is the mystery? Because in our minds, when we think of the word mystery, we're probably thinking about like a puzzle that needs to be solved. There's a cold case that needs a sleuthing detective to go and figure out what's happening. What mystery is Paul talking about and why is that pertinent for us to understand? Yeah. So he hits this in chapter eight. He says in verse chapter eight, chapter three, verse eight, how many chapters do you have in Ephesians? I've got curiosity. Eight. It's a super Bible. To me, though, I'm the very least of all the saints, this grace was given to me to preach to the gentiles, the unsearchable riches of Christ and to bring to life for everyone. What is the plan of the mystery hidden for ages? In God who created all things so that through the church, the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly place. And the mystery is the gospel. And it's now been made known. It's his plan for redemption. It's his plan for how he's gonna save lost humanity. And that's why it's being made manifest, being revealed in the church that the church is the display of the mystery of God. Because now. People from all types of backgrounds and religions and prior, faiths and everything else like that are brought under the banner of Christ through the gospel and saved. And that's the mystery of God at work. Now through the message of truth, the message of the gospel. So God is bringing two disparate groups, Jew and Gentile together under the same roof, under the same gospel, right? And he's now making himself a new people. And this is a big part of the gospel because it shows how God unifies all of creation under this new regime. Yeah, this new dispensation, some might call it. Fantastic. Okay, lemme keep going. There's several questions here in verse one of chapter four, he says that I therefore a prisoner for the Lord urge you to walk in a man are worthy of the calling. Okay? As Christians, we've heard all of our Christian lives, you're unworthy. You're an unworthy sinner and now it seems like Paul is saying, Hey, walk worthy. Mm-hmm. Well, but I'm unworthy by nature. Mm-hmm. How do I do that? How am I supposed to walk worthy and what does that actually mean? What binding does that have upon my life in a practical sense? Well, I would go back, I think to chapter two when he says, work out your salvation again with fear and trembling, because he lays out there the fact that, hey, this is. Being a Christian is not a passive thing. Being a Christian is not something that you just, you're saved and then you just sit there and go, man, I'm so grateful for the grace of God because I'm an unworthy wretch. And that's just your identity until Christ comes back and saves you. Now there's an expected work. In fact, he says that back with the by grace you have been saved in order to walk in the works that God has prepared beforehand for you. And so part of that is to walk worthy of the gospel. There is a way in which we can live in such a way that. As Paul writes in another book, adorns the Gospel of God, that is such that it's evident that we have been transformed by the gospel. And so the gospel has done work in your life. Now, live a life that is, is worthy of that. And he starts immediately by saying here, that has a lot to do with how you operate in the church, how you serve the church, how you're a unifying force in the church, how you submit to leadership in the church, how you grow in, into the full stature of christ's likeness in the church. All of these things he's pointing to here in chapter four is as evidence of walking worthy of the gospel. So it's possible then that a Christian can walk unworthy by not doing the things that they're called to do? Yes. Does. Okay. So the difference then is not that this is speaking about our justification, right? You're made worthy in Christ, you're declared righteous once and for all. Right? But you can be walking unworthy in your sanctification, right? You're not living up to the call that you've been given. Yes. Okay. Maybe chapter six here. Let me try to land the plane as we go through here. Chapter six is really fascinating because this is where you get the whole armor of God. Yep. Spiritual warfare. Okay. We have on one end of the spectrum the very spiritual. Arm of the Christian Church mm-hmm. Where there's a, there's casting out of demons, there's spiritual bondage and release ministries where they cast out generational curses and, they perform certain rights and rituals. On the other side of the spectrum are the frozen chosen who. Don't see anything spiritual about anything. Mm-hmm. Okay. Help us navigate this chapter. Clearly, Paul sees it as a big part of being a Christian, says, put on the armor every day so that you're not vulnerable. What kind of vulnerabilities could we expect if we don't wear this armor? Right? Yeah. What natural or I guess, supernatural things might we experience or expect if we don't wear the armor? Yeah. Yeah. I've been talking with my kids a lot going through Proverbs in the mornings because Solomon makes such an important emphasis on the use of our words. And so I've been talking to them a lot about the reason he does that is because of what Jesus even says, that the mouth speaks outta the abundance of the heart. And so, in other words, what happens to us, the things that we take in that, the things that we are exposed to on an everyday basis, they have an impact on us spiritually speaking. And I think the armor of God fits into that because as Christians, we may live in a culture where we don't often give a whole lot of credit to the existence of the spiritual realm, but the spiritual realm does exist, and it does exist in our lives. And the demons in the demonic forces are at work here in North Texas. And so if you're gonna neglect to put on the spiritual armor of God here, you're gonna make yourself prone to fits of rage. You're gonna make yourself prone to lust. You're gonna make yourself prone to divisiveness in the church. You're gonna make yourself prone to breaking up of families and difficulty in your marriage and children that are wayward. You're not gonna have an effective testimony. All of these things are. Aspects that we probably wouldn't look at individually and say, oh that's demonic influence going on there. But as we consider it all, as a whole, these are all tactics the enemy uses to undermine our effectiveness as believers and to attack us. And so we want to be sure that we are ready every single day for whatever's gonna come at us. And so we want to be. Putting on the armor of God. And one of the best ways for us to do that is acknowledging each of these things and acknowledging what we're up against during the day and making sure we're taking up the sword of the spirit, which is the word of God. And that's the offensive weapon that we have here. I would say, I think there's a weapon that is, is here after the sword that's often neglected. Or after the helmet. No, the sword that's often neglected that still is part of our weaponry here. And that's prayer. It's not given a specific weapon. But this is huge for us to also be praying at the same time. So, I don't know if that answers the question, but, oh, I think it does. It certainly does. I guess I'm comforted by this because you said that the demons are provoking us to do these things, so really helpful for you to say that. I can now use it as justification. The devil made me do it. Ah, I appreciate that. Yeah. Let me off the hook. No, no, that's, that's not it. It's our flesh. In fact, it's interesting. James says, let no one say when he is tempted, I'm being tempted by God, for God himself. Tempts no one and cannot be tempted. But each person is tempted when he is carried away by his own desires and enticed by his own lust. So ultimately our sin is birthed from within. Our sin is birthed from our flesh. However, we have an enemy that's gonna do everything possible to set us up, to cause that flesh to show up. And to come out. So it's us doing the sin. It's not the enemy doing it for us, but the enemy knows our weaknesses. And again, we've talked about this before. Satan's not omnipresent. So he's is not like Satan is in your car with you, but one of his demons might be there too. And he may know that you're battling lust. And all of a sudden our radio commercial comes on that is going to trigger your thoughts. Or he may have somebody cut you off if you're battling anger and all of a sudden the rage that you're harboring in your heart is gonna come out because why? Because you're not. Storing up the armor of God, you're not putting on the armor of God. You're not wielding the sword of the spirit, because when you are, the enemy can't come after you. When you are the word of God, the power of God, the armor of God is always gonna win over the attacks of the enemy. And so the enemy's just gonna prey upon your weaknesses, but it's your weaknesses that are causing the sin there. You're two examples. One about the car cutting you off or the Commercial coming on the radio. Is that how they work. Can a demon control someone's car movements, can a demon control the advertisements on the radio or what do you say? How do you think they operate, I guess on the normal basis? I think they do. I'm not saying every single time it's that, but I think they do. And I think Satan and his demons are far more intelligent than we give them credit for. We don't see the person who is throwing themselves down in the fire, like in the days of Jesus here in some third world countries, you're gonna see that some animistic cultures, you're gonna see much more tangible, traditional styles of demonic oppression and possession than what we see here today. But I think he, he looks at our country and understands that one of our biggest idols is our intellect and our intelligence, and we're advanced and we're products of the industrial revolution. And I think part of his intellect and his shrewdness, Satan's shrewdness is to adapt to those things. So I think he's sly and shrewd enough to use a car cutting you off on the road as a reason for your anger to manifest itself to come out. I think he sly and shrewd enough to stack up that radio commercial to come on when it does so that your lust is inflamed. Yeah, I absolutely think he, he can do those things. Does that suggest then that we rebuke those things? Someone cuts us off. I rebuke you in the name of Jesus, or advertisement comes on during the Super Bowl. I rebuke you in the name of Jesus, though. No, but I, I don't see, I, we see evidence of, again. Prescriptive versus descriptive. We see evidence of the apostles speaking. Well, I don't know that we see evidence of the apostle speaking directly to the demonic forces. We know that Jesus did, but we don't have any instructions in the epistles that we should address or speak to the demonic presences. What we do have is we have instructions that we need to arm ourselves. We have instructions that we need to be walking in a manner worthy of the gospel. We have instructions that we need to be growing in christlikeness. If we're doing those things, that's our greatest weapon against the enemy. Not to call out and rebuke and cast out and things like that. But in prayer we can pray that God would protect us from these things as well at the same time. Yeah. I guess back to your point to wrap this up here, verse 17, it says that we take up the sword of the spirit. That's their only true weapons. Yeah. The only one that does damage. It's the only offensive weapon that we have. It's also defensive, but it's an offensive weapon. Yeah. Which I think suggests to us that one of the best ways that we can guard ourselves and even take ground is by using the word of God, memorizing it, meditating upon it, taking the words that God has spoken to us as, words to deliver lives upon, to build our lives upon those things and take them for what they are. So, alright. I have lots more questions, but those are probably sufficient. Awesome. If you've got questions that we didn't hit, don't forget. podcast@compassntx.org. Attention PPJ Oh. Let's pray and we'll be done with this episode. Lord, we pray that we would be men and women of the word men and women who are dressed for battle every single day, that we would not neglect the word of God, not think that one message once sermon on a Sunday morning is enough to get us through the week, or one episode of the Daily Bible Podcast is enough even to get us through the day. Help us to be saturated with your word. Always looking to revisit it, to meditate on it, to chew the cut of your word to just. Be immersed in your word every single second that we have, and we want to be that because we want to stand strong. And so help us to do that, we pray in Jesus' name, amen. Keep in your Bibles. Tune in again tomorrow for another edition of the Daily Bible podcast. Until tomorrow. Bye y'all.

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Yeah. I would agree with everything that you said