Equipped and Prepared

The world we live in is unstable and we must be equipped to battle the confusing forces that confront us daily. It matters how you and I are “dressed”, spiritually speaking, for the battle. Ephesians chapter 6 informs us how we are to put on the full armor of God to be able to face these trying last days that we are living in. Learn how to avoid apathy creeping into your Christian walk and how to stay vigilant!

Hey, you guys. We’re gonna be diving into really arguments from the Bible, but it’s taken out of the new book, living in the days of deception, gonna be looking at how you can be equipped to live in the days of deception.
Let’s find out what that
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Now open your hearts to what god’s word has to say to you. Here is Jack Gibbs.
Well, everybody, welcome back. And I wanna thank you for, uh, really allowing us to have the to to talk to you about the things of god, the things of your life, the things of our lives, uh, frankly.
And before we get into today’s final and installment of our encouragement regarding the book living in the days of deception.
I know you’re probably tired of hearing about it. I’m tired of talking about it.
But then when I look at it, I realized, wow, this is actually super, super good important stuff for us.
And so, Listen, I I I just, again, wanna thank you for for being with us.
If you’ve gotten your copy of the book, uh, or pre ordered it.
Um, in fact, Uh, it’s gonna be available physically in in a matter of a couple of days.
Um, but you can still get the pre order of that.
Uh, but if not, you can get it wherever books are sold.
Um, certainly Amazon is a great way to go. Don’t we all?
Goes buy stuff through them just about.
But you guys regarding the book, let’s let’s make this application today. This is all about practical stuff.
And I really wanted the book to be very practical.
I was on a radio program today, uh, with, uh, the Washington times or the Washington Examiner.
Doesn’t matter. Uh, and the interviewer was asking about or talking about how practical the book is.
And that’s what we wanna hear. And it is practical.
And so extract now, uh, pulling some of the content out of chapters 1112 in the book living in the days, daze of deception, um, is this.
And that is being equipped for living in the days of deception.
The last days, he being equipped for living in the last days.
Now a d a y s, of course, that’s the obvious.
But how about d a z living in the last days?
Meaning that for you and I as followers of Jesus, if that’s who, in fact, you are on the other end of this lens, uh, then you and I understand that we’re living in the last days spelled with a y, but we also know that we’re living what will be for us the last days, daze when it comes to a a malignancy and cancerous evil in the spirit realm of deception.
Jesus warned us and said that is as we get deeper into the last days that, uh, the end of times, uh, before his second coming, that deception would be rampant deception would be an extremely attractive deception.
Imagine deception. True. If I can say it this way, in a strange way, true pure evil deception is the type of deception that make you want to have it.
Now that’s a powerful, powerful form of deception.
And I believe that we’re actually now in this time of your of your living and my living out our lives is the fact that things are so unstable and getting unstable.
All over our world and in our states and in our country and in our cities that we’re living in the days of fog of deception that we’re tempted to reach out and grab something.
And to combat that, I wanna give you this first argument If you’re gonna be equipped for living in the last days, it matters how you get dressed.
Notice that when we get dressed to go somewhere, Obviously, I got dressed to do a podcast.
I’m not going out right now. I’m not going anywhere fancy. Not that you’re not worthy of it.
It’s just that this is a relaxed setting. I’m dressed for what’s needed. Right?
If you’re going to go to the beach, you dress accordingly.
If you’re gonna go to a gala, you dress accordingly.
You can be actually not dressed properly from something as casual as the beach.
To as formal as a gala. The point is to be dressed for what you are immersed in.
Or what you’re are intending to experience.
And so according to the Bible, which we lean heavily upon in the book days of deception, is that it matters how you and I are dressed spiritually.
Meaning that out of ephesians chapter 6 versus 10 to 18, You and I are there commanded and given extreme details on how to dress for the last days of spiritual battle.
Listen, as a pastor, I’m not saying this to be bombastic.
You are probably experiencing this if you are involved in a church at all.
And that is how many people were seeing drop like flies right now, giving up on their faith and and just frankly, they they’re getting tired of being a Christian.
Um and and we’re just seeing them depart. Here’s the big question.
Were they really Christians to begin with? I don’t know. Are they are they protocols?
Are they gonna come back? I don’t know. Are they gonna go to heaven? I don’t know.
Are are they are they gonna go to hell? I don’t know.
But I find that incredibly dissatisfied for my own life.
The Bible says work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. Make your calling an election sure.
So I don’t know about them.
And I don’t know about you exactly, but I I have to know about me.
And that is it is important for me to be dressed in the full armor of god as Paul lays that out in ephesians chapter 6.
Your spiritual life today in the 21st century right now, this year of 2024.
You are to be equipped in such a way that you know that you have the shield of faith, for example.
You’ve got the sword of the spirit, which is the word of god. These are active. Right?
You’ve got the breastplate of righteousness. You’ve got the belt of truth.
Your feet is shod with the preparation of the gospel meaning that you can go anywhere.
How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news, Isaiah said, that that is the good news, the gospel, the evangel, Do you know how to tell people the gospel?
So your feet are prepared, uh, shot with the preparation of the gospel. Did I leave anything out?
Press plate of righteousness, sword of the spirit, the helmet of salvation.
Notice that it’s the helmet of salvation that protects your head. That’s important.
Your brain, your eyes, everything, salvation, the key.
And from there, all of the implements of warfare uh, flow forth from us as we look at ephesians chapter 6.
The next thing is is for you and I, if we are going to be equipped for living in the last days, then we’re gonna have to be a people that, um, get wise, that we get wise about what’s going on around us.
And again, this is one of those things that’s very much lacking in the Christian community today is the lack of wisdom.
It shouldn’t be The book of James tells us that all we have to do is ask god for wisdom, and he will give it to us without reservation, without abrading.
Or the word means without, uh, limitation. God, I need wisdom.
God promises in the Bible, you ask for it. You’re gonna get You want wisdom?
I’m gonna give you wisdom. So, unfortunately, the church is not so wise these days because I don’t think the church is leaning much on Jesus, to be honest with you, and his word.
But we we should be more wise now than ever before. Why?
Because we are in dark days, and we ought to know our enemies’ tactics.
In the book living in the days of deception, I point out some of the tactics tactics taught by uh, Xin Wu, for example, the great Chinese military strategist and, uh, war of philosopher.
Things that he said thousands of years ago that are being applied today in our war college and in our military and militaries around the world.
And the key is to know your enemy. To know your enemy better than he knows himself. That’s the goal.
And, you know, you say, well, Jack, that’s that might be great for, uh, you know, the navy seals, but how does that help me?
Hey. Guess what? It’s it’s it’s better and easier and more important for you in me than it is for the navy seals to know their enemy.
Because you see this book, the Bible, this book, the Bible tells us everything we need to know about our enemy.
We need to know from this book, we learn how to defeat him.
We have got the tools and the approach of how to know what he’s going to do next.
We can cut him off at the pass.
We can have listen to this access to the Holy Spirit who can hear what’s going on in the enemy’s camp and then whispers in our ears what the enemy is planning on doing.
I’m kind of holding back a little bit of a chuckle right now.
Maybe you can detect that because I spend a lot of time talking to the lord.
I’m not boasting on up puffing myself up. I’m just telling you a fact. I’m a follower of Jesus.
And so I spend a lot of time alone, and it’s usually it’s not usually always the dark hours of the morning.
And why? Because there’s things that god drops into my head. That’s a thought.
And I write it down. It makes no sense to me whatsoever, but I I write it down.
And 4 months later, for example, there’ll be something going on in our community or in my life or at church or in the world.
And, um, I remember he reminds me, I’ve got the answer to what that group’s trying to do.
To me or to the church or to our city or to our students or to our nation or to whatever it might be.
And I go back to my notes and it’s right, oh my gosh. God. Thank you.
You anticipated this issue 4 months ago. You gave me the answer.
I didn’t know what it meant, but I wrote it down thinking it was from you because it was a weird thought.
And what happened, god gave me insights and wisdom into an event that was not even yet, uh, for me to deal with.
And then the the the the problem hello?
The problem arrived to the answer that I already had.
God gives us what we need to know in advance. So keep that in mind.
The other thing is issue guys Uh, regarding being equipped for living in the last days is, uh, for us, you and I to get stronger in the things of faith.
Stronger, stronger in the things of faith.
Hebrews chapter 10 verses 2425 warn us that we need to be careful in the last days when things are getting more and more difficult that we do not succumb to the temptations of ditching church that we don’t succumb to the temptations of not fellow shipping, not worshiping.
Not serving others that we would succumb to laziness, apathy, And so that’s a danger that you and I have because it’s very, very creepy, creepy, meaning It creeps in so subtly, uh, the apathy that tells us, you know, and I’m telling you right now, I’m telling you this is how it works.
Um, you know, you may be faithfully disciplined on going to church even on mid weeks or Sundays.
Or whatever you’re doing.
And all you have to do, if you noticed, if you miss 1 week, it’s very comfortable for the flesh to miss a week.
And then something pops up the 2nd week. And so you’d like, okay.
Well, maybe maybe we can live without that.
And you wind up finding out that apathy is creeping in, and you wanna be so, so very careful about that.
And so, yeah, the the final thing is is to get strong. To get strong.
We, um, uh, we exercise. Right? We exercise our bodies. Even walking, something as as normal as walking.
Just walking exercising your body enough causes you to feel better the next day.
Uh, movement stretching, exercise, strenuous work, which is so valuable that nobody does anymore, strenuous work, imagine.
It’s great for your body.
The Bible says Paul wrote to Timothy, and he said Timothy Physical exercise is good.
And I’m I just always wonder. I’m sorry. What did Paul What did Paul know about Timothy?
Did Timothy did he like to work out? Was did he do bench press? Did Timothy like to do squats?
Did he do do dead lift? I don’t know. It just says that Paul told Timothy. Hey, Timothy.
You know, physical workouts are good.
But it only lasts for a while, but he who exercises him exercises himself spiritually.
Now, that’s the kind of strength that lasts forever. And so, yeah, go ahead and work out.
Do your setups if you if you need to do that. Super good. But are you doing spiritual setups?
Are you doing spiritual presses? Are you doing spiritual dead lifts? Are you doing spiritual squats, so to speak? Right?
Are you receiving from the Bible, the full counsel of god. Right?
So if you’re only doing curls for your biceps and you never work out anything else, you’re gonna go back a freak.
Ever seen people like that? Well, listen, spiritually speaking, you might be all totally into bible prophecy.
Hey, I’m a big fan of bible prophecy. But I cannot let that be.
The only thing I’m focused on, I’ve got to be having a well rounded diet in the bible.
And I have to have the prophetic portions of the scripture as I am to the salvation portions of scripture, to the historical parts of scripture, to the um, uh, portions of scripture that are doctrinal regarding ministry or or regarding government with kings and lords and emperors and and stewards and all that kind.
You gotta be well rounded. It’s so very, very important.
And so living in the days of deception is a time which you and I need to gird up the old English word is.
We need to can I just kinda act it up? We need to We need to make sure.
Right? Imagine a guy getting into a Formula 1 car or a fireman getting ready to go into a raging roaring fire in the building.
What do what are we doing here? Imagine an accountant getting ready to take on the tax season.
He’s girding himself up. He’s he’s he’s getting himself ready.
He’s he’s in tune with the latest taxes or the laws. He’s got his papers.
The guy going into the boardroom to make the case for why the company should buy or sell.
He’s got everything he needs, including hypotheticals. He’s all ready to go.
And, um, the Bible tells us that nobody uh who is enlisted in army, um, goes to battle, but which he hasn’t first prepared himself and he has what he has for the battle and nothing more than what he needs for the battle.
No soldier going into warfare. Takes his Xbox with him.
No soldier going into battle takes his video games or his phone, uh, to download the latest, you know, called the duty or something.
I don’t know. And then you go there so fine tune because you’re if you don’t shoot, you’re gonna get shot.
And that’s the time of Christianity we’re living in right now.
Listen, lazy, silly, meaningless Christianity is going to die. It’s dying now.
Many of you are the other end of this microphone already know Your church died, for example, during COVID or your church died during the woke ism.
And, uh, your pastor or your elders are your board, your deacons folded because of BLM or because of lgbt qiaaim0nyzp.
Whatever’s going on. You fold. Why?
Because you’re listening to the world and you’re not listening to the word.
You are all hip and ready to go on the latest thing.
That is on the song or is on this show, but you couldn’t argue yourself out of a spiritual argument if your life dependent on because you have grown lazy in being a student of the scriptures.
And so, how are we gonna survive the days of deception? We are gonna be equipped.
Equipped in the word of god. And this book is this book is just a book. Yes.
It has Bible scriptures in it, but this is the book. This is a book big difference. Okay?
So make sure you own a Bible and then better than owning a Bible.
Make sure that you are using the Bible. You don’t even have to physically own a Bible anymore.
You can get one online for free. Right? But, um, regarding the book living in the days of deception.
Uh, I’ll just end by saying this.
In in putting this together, And I know this is gonna sound kinda crummy.
Right? I’m I think it sounds crummy. So I’m just gonna give you the backstory to this.
The Ford is written by secretary Mike Pompeo, US State Department, the 70th Secretary of State in United States history and also the former director of the CIA.
Former director of the Central Intelligence Agency also happens to be a born again believer who’s not shy about it.
He has literally expressed his faith.
Uh, while he was working for president Donald Trump on the world stage to foreign countries, and it was his job to ensure that before you did any work at all with the United States, any purchasing of oil or aircraft or anything else, technologies, whatever.
Mike Pompeo Established the the precursor to doing business with the United States during the trump era, and that was this that your country had to promise our country religious freedom for the religious people of your country no matter what their religion was.
The cool thing is is I’ve had the opportunity quite a few times to sit down with Mike Pompeo personally.
We’ve had some meals together.
I know him, and I thought, wow, what a deal to to try to convince the person walking by the airport bookstore, or you’re going down the aisle at Target or at Barnes And Noble’s or wherever you might be, or you see this on Amazon.
I deliberately had this put together in such a way that it doesn’t scream Christian.
Jack, how dare you say that? Just calm down for a moment.
Secretary Mike Pompeo. A lot of people know who that is.
They know that that’s the director of the CIA. US State Department Secretary of State. Wow.
Forward by Mike Pompeo. I asked him. He read the entire book and he wrote the forward.
But I told him I think it would be awesome for what we wanna achieve if you’re up here, if your name is up here at the top.
Because this book applies to believer and non believer. This applies to Christian and a theist. This book does.
And notice the word days. Notice how it skewed and blurred. It’s intentional.
It’s to optically communicate you that you and I just got hit upside of our head, and our vision is kind of skewed.
Askewed. Right? It’s like, wow. What was that? What did I just hear?
Who said what? What just happened? Boom. Right? We all feel this way right now.
And so living in the days of deception, it was designed to catch your eye.
Why? Because the insides I pray will bring you great help.
And then, of course, the subtitle is how to discern truth from cultures lies.
And so we just hope that it’s a blessing to you. Get your own copy for yourself.
You can do that at amazon.com.
You still have about a couple of day and a half or so to preorder it, if you hurry quick.
Uh, but then after that, it goes out However, it goes out Amazon or wherever books are sold.
Listen, you guys, you know us, you know us, that we believe it’s time for us to live out what we believe in.
Certainly, America needs us to live out what we believe in.
The church needs you and I to live out what we believe in.
So until next time, god bless you guys.
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