The Deeper Struggle

Let's take our Bibles and turn to Daniel chapter 10 this morning. Daniel 10.

Daniel chapters 10, 11, and 12 are kind of a set piece. They all go together. Chapter 10 is something of an introduction. Chapter 11 is the main vision. And then chapter 12 is kind of concluding applications. So 10, 11, and 12 round out this amazing book of our Bibles. It really does go together, but even I'm not going to try to bite off three chapters in one Sunday. What I am going to do though is bite off two chapters today. Now, I'm not going to read all of it. If you look at chapter 11, it takes up several pages of your Bible. I'm going to do some summarizing when it comes time for that in the sermon. But I do want for our public reading of God's word, which I think the Bible commands and is so good for our souls, to read aloud Daniel chapter 10. So if you're able, I'm going to invite you to stand with me as we honor the reading of God's Word.

They call it the picnic battle. It was the opening conflict in the war between the states in the spring of 1861. And the armies of the North and the armies of the South were gathering together at a little creek not too far away from Washington DC, just southwest of there. And many of the Washington elites, the politicians, the socialites, they decided to go out and see for themselves. And they thought it was going to be a lark. The men brought their wives and their children came expecting to play. They had picnic baskets and they had opera glasses. They thought it was going to be a spectacle as the federal armies routed the rebels, the Confederates.

But a couple of hours later, they were the ones who were routed and running back to Washington, D.C., because the battle landed right in the middle of their picnic. And they found that this lark, this fun day out watching something kind of interesting and exciting, it turned out to be a real war where they're shooting real bullets and real people are really getting killed. And this picnic turns into this dangerous, deadly situation and they go running back home! They call it the "picnic battle." and it was the first of a long series of battles as you know, that would last for the next four years or more--a great, fierce conflict that would change the history of the United States.

I think that's kind of the message of Daniel 10 and 11. I've thought of it a lot this week. What Daniel 10 and 11 are telling us is that the life of faith, the life of walking with God, the life of serving God, entering into his work, it's not a picnic. We may come into it expecting it to be easier than it actually is. We may come into it expecting it to immediately just improve our life and to make things more pleasant and more comfortable. What we find when we enter into this life of faith is that it actually makes life a little more difficult sometimes, a little scarier. There's more conflict, there's more tension than before. Why is that?

Well, Daniel 10 and 11 give us this answer. As I told you, chapter 10 is the lead up to this big vision. Chapter 11 is the vision itself. Chapter 12 is concluding application. And these chapters together remind us that God's people are always in a battle with powerful forces. But they also tell us that the battle belongs to our sovereign God, and he is committed to his people, and the victory is his.

I want to look at this text today, chapters 10 and 11, under four headings.

The time stamp is really important in this story. It's the third year of the reign of Cyrus, king of Persia. Now, if you remember the story, Cyrus is the king who God raises up to send the exiles back home to Jerusalem. He does that in the first year of his reign. And this is a thrilling moment for God's people. Ezra and a small group of exiles make this return journey back to the holy city. They plan to enter into this building project, restore the walls, restore the temple, restore God's place. And it's so exciting that it inspires the kind of thing Psalm 126 talks about: "We were filled with laughter and we sang for joy. The Lord has done great things for us." They can't wait to start this new chapter of restoration and renewal.

But then they get there. And once these exiles get there (you can read about it in Ezra and in the first chapter of Nehemiah), they find that those neighbors of theirs who've been without them for 70 years, they've gotten used to not having them around. And they're not real excited about them rebuilding the city of Jerusalem, and they oppose them fiercely. And they even stir up the son of Cyrus, king of Persia to order a cease order, a cease building order on the city of Jerusalem. They've got to stop this project, and the work suddenly grinds to a halt after they expected so much more. They expected a victory lap in Jerusalem, but now it's ground to a halt and they are deeply discouraged and demoralized.

And that's why at Passover time (which is like Christmas or Easter for us) Daniel is not celebrating is he? He's fasting and he's mourning. See Daniel, it may surprise you that he stayed behind in Babylon. He didn't go with the returned exiles back to Jerusalem, but Daniel's over 90 years old at this point. So he wasn't quite up to making this big long journey and then getting into this construction project. Once they arrived there, Daniel stays behind in Babylon, but his heart is still in Jerusalem, just like it has been all of his life. He's still engaged in the work, interceding for the people, and for the work with God in prayer.

Some of you may remember the story from Exodus and earlier in the Bible when the people of Israel are going through the wilderness and they encounter enemies. Joshua is the young warrior down in the valley fighting with the enemy. Moses is that older leader up on the mountain interceding with God, his hands outstretched, praying for the people. As long as Moses prayed, the battle went with the people. When Moses hands grew weary and he stopped praying, the battle went against the people. So the fight is happening in the valley, but the battle is won up on the mountain. And that's what's happening with Daniel. He's interceding for the work of God and for the work of God's people. And he's trying to understand this discouraging setback. Everything has been moving towards this return to Jerusalem. Is it not God's will that they go back to the city and rebuild? Why are they facing such resistance and such struggle?

And that's the setting of Daniel 10, 11 and 12: this discouraging setback. And that ought to sound pretty familiar to us. When we try to obey God in our personal lives, when we try to engage in his work, do we not often find it just unexplainably difficult? Why is it so hard for us to stick with our spiritual commitments that we make? Why is it so difficult to take new ground for the Lord in our homes? Why is it so hard to gain victory over particular sins in our lives? Why is ministry so hard? Why is it so challenging to see fruit in the work that we know God loves and that God wants to bless? I mean everything about the Christian life is kind of hard! If you're really trying, if you're really engaged in the work, it's all kinda hard. Why is that? That it always seems like we're taking one step forward, and we get thrown about six or seven steps back. Why is there such resistance? Why do we face these discouraging setbacks in our walk with the Lord? That's what this story is about. And if you never face discouraging setbacks and you just get better and stronger every day in every way, you're free to just pick up some extra pancakes on your way out the door. This is not gonna help you any. But for the rest of us, we need what God says to us today about why we face these discouraging setbacks in our life with him.

So that leads to the second movement.

It's as Daniel is wrestling with God in prayer that he gets this heavenly visitor. And he's had some people with him, maybe joining him in prayer, and all of a sudden they scatter. They can't see what's going on, but they can tell this is not a place that they need to be. It's a lot like Saul on the Damascus Road in Acts 9. And suddenly Daniel is left all alone with somebody who sounds a whole lot like Jesus in Revelation 1. I would encourage you to read Revelation 1 this afternoon, set it side by side with Daniel 10. It's clear to me Daniel 10 is like the template that God is using for what he does in John's life later on. There are so many similarities. And this guy sounds a whole lot like Jesus. As we keep digging into chapter 10, it seems clear to me that he can't be Jesus for reasons that we'll see. But he's definitely been with Jesus. This is an angel that's coming directly from the presence of God, and that's why he blazes with the glory of God. His appearance is like lightning. That's exactly how the angel who rolled the stone away in Matthew 28 was described on Easter if you remember that.

It is so overwhelming just to get close to this guy who's been close to the Lord that Daniel collapses. He's overwhelmed with the glory and the holiness of God! As a matter of fact, the angel spends most of chapter 10, which we read out loud, he spends most of that chapter just trying to revive Daniel, just trying to get him back on his feet, trying to encourage him. He puts a hand on his shoulder, touches his hand to his lips. It keeps telling him "don't be afraid. You don't have to be afraid because Daniel you are greatly loved. I've not come here to crush you. I've come here to encourage you."

And what this angel goes on to tell Daniel is that he's been trying to come encourage Daniel for three weeks now. Ever since Daniel started this fasting and this mourning, and trying to understand what's going on back in Jerusalem with God's people, he's been trying to get here for three weeks! What took him so long? Surely the angel didn't get lost! No, the angel tells Daniel that he's been in a great conflict (v13) with somebody he calls the "prince of Persia." (That's not that Jake Gyllenhaal movie from 2009). That's a different prince of Persia. No, Daniel knows that the Persian government is blocking the Jerusalem rebuild. They've gotten involved, they've intervened, they're stopping God's people from doing God's work. He can see that. He knows about the Persian government. But what this angel tells Daniel is there's more going on behind the Persian government that he can't see. Behind the scenes lurks this sinister unseen force.

It is very mysterious, but Paul refers clearly to this kind of thing a lot in the New Testament. Paul will talk about "principalities and powers." Have you ever run across that in your Bible reading? "Rulers and authorities in heavenly places, in the spiritual realm," you run across that kind of language sometimes in Paul. I think that's exactly who this angel is talking about. There are these dark forces that are opposing God's purposes and God's people.

And it seems that this angel who's visiting Daniel has been fighting it out with the prince of Persia, the one behind the Persian government. In this case, he's been fighting out with them for three weeks and it has been a mighty struggle just to break through the line, get to Daniel, and encourage him. And as we listen to what the angel says, we realize this is a really fierce struggle. He says he had to wait on Michael, the archangel, to come and back him up! (It's like the Steiner brothers--need a little tag team). He needed help to overcome the prince of Persia and get through, which is the main reason why I don't think this can be Jesus. Jesus doesn't need a tag team partner, right? So I think this is an angel who needs Michael to come and help him. It's a fierce struggle.

We also see that it's a long struggle. The angel says, "when I get finished talking to you, I gotta go back and keep fighting the prince of Persia." He also says it's an evolving struggle. It changes over time. He knows the prince of Persia is eventually going down. But once he's out of the ring, in comes the prince of Greece who's going to follow Persia on the scene. So this battle just keeps continuing on kind of like the monsters in Daniel 7. The faces change, the forms change, but the conflict remains the same over history. What's the point of all this?

I think this is the big point. This is the deeper struggle that's behind the discouraging setbacks of God's people--this spiritual battle that's taking place in an unseen realm. It's going on all the time behind history and behind our daily lives. It goes all the way back to Genesis 3:15 in the garden. When God made an announcement, God himself said that there would be enmity or conflict between the serpent and his seed, and Eve, the woman, and her seed. There would always be this conflict as long as history lasts, but there would be a savior who would come in to end the conflict ultimately.

But this conflict is playing out in the background of the biblical story at all times. Now, the Bible doesn't discuss it on every page. You will not find references to Satan and to demons on every page of the Bible. But on a pretty regular basis, scripture will give us that little reminder of what's going on behind the curtain. I think about Job 1. There we read about Satan roaming up and down, and to and fro over the earth, accusing Job, making trouble for God. He's doing that mess all the time, right?

Or I think about 2 Kings 6, where Elisha's servant is so shaken up because they're surrounded by the Syrian armies. And Elisha says, "don't get shaken up." "Lord, open this boy's eyes so that he can see what's really going on. Open his eyes to see God's spiritual forces surrounding the army of Syria." That's happening all the time!

Or think about the four gospels when Jesus, the Son of God, comes on the scene and it's like he flushes it out into the open all this demonic activity that's been laden and hidden in history all along. All the forces of hell are coming out arrayed against Jesus in those gospels.

So here's the thing. The Bible does not want God's people to be paranoid about Satan. The Bible does not want God's people to be obsessed with Satan and with demons. But the Bible doesn't want us to be ignorant about Satan and demons either. I think the apostle Paul is a really helpful guide here. So Paul, as you look at his life and Acts, as you look at his letters, he is not obsessed with the devil. He's not paranoid about the unseen realm, but he does take it really seriously. Paul says to the Thessalonians, "We wanted to come to you many times, but Satan hindered us," (1 Thessalonians 2:18). Or he'll say in 2 Corinthians 4:4, when he's talking about how difficult it is to get through to his unbelieving Jews with the gospel message, he'll say, "the God of this world has blinded their eyes, blinded their minds from seeing the light of the glory of God in the face of Jesus." And he'll tell the Ephesians, just regular Christians in Ephesians 6, after he gets done talking about just basic day to day stuff like going to work, husbands loving their wives, moms and dads raising their kids, all that basic stuff of the Christian life, he'll say now, "remember, we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but we fight with principalities and powers in the heavenly places. We gotta put on the full armor of God because we're in a spiritual battle even as we engage in these very basic earthly tasks."

Now, when we really think about that, this battle that's going on behind the scenes, man it's enough to overwhelm us. Like Daniel, I can see how he ended up on his face, unable to talk, saying, "Don't tell me anymore. I can't handle it". It would overwhelm us to know that all of these dark forces are arrayed against us--the people of Jesus. If we didn't know about Jesus. If we did not know that Jesus has triumphed over Satan and over the dark spiritual forces. That he is with us. And through the gospel, we are dearly loved just like Daniel. That he is with us. He will never leave us or forsake us. That Jesus reveals to us this deeper struggle that is going on behind our daily lives, and reminds us not to rely on our own strength as we live for him, but to rely on him in prayer daily. Jesus says, "apart from me, you can do nothing! But with me," well "greater is he that is in you than he that is in the world."

So I think the first message that we take away from this is the reason that the Christian life is hard, the reason Christian marriage is difficult, the reason Christian parenting is the hardest thing you've ever tried to do, the reason ministry can be so grinding is because of this deeper struggle. And if we don't take it seriously and just charge off to try to live for Jesus in the power of our own flesh, we are gonna get crushed. And so we need instead to daily rely on the Lord Jesus who is our strength, and not neglect the spiritual component of even the most basic things that we do in the Lord's name every single day and every single week.

So we've got this discouraging setback. We've got this deeper struggle. And that leads to chapter 11.

So what about the angel's message? What is it that he's trying to break through the lines to communicate to Daniel? Well, if you were to look at chapter 11 (and I encourage you to read it for yourself), it is a pretty lengthy and incredibly detailed look into the future. He tells Daniel all this stuff that's gonna happen. There is not another chapter in the Bible like Daniel 11 that gets into this level of detailed prediction of what's going to happen in history. There's not another thing like it in all the Bible. Why does the angel go into all this detail about what's going to happen? I think it's really to underline two things for Daniel.

And this part is really simple. If I were to try to walk through a history lecture of all the stuff that's going down, that would not be really simple. The message though that the angel has for Daniel, it is really simple:

Number one: This present struggle that God's people are facing back in Jerusalem and here in Babylon, it's not unusual. It's not unusual. No, God's people, and that includes us, will face satanic resistance in many different forms until the end. That's the first part of the message. We are going to face that spiritual conflict all the way until the end. Second part of the message: God will keep his people and give them victory in the conflict in the end. That's the other part. That's the good news. So, what I'm going to do is just summarize what the angel tells Daniel and you can go back and look at it for yourself afterward. It comes in four phases. This look into the future. It comes in four phases to Daniel.

Phase one is in verses 2-4. It's where the angel tells Daniel that Persia is going to continue to go to grow strong, but then they're going to meet somebody even stronger. Alexander the Great, a king who becomes mighty with his Greek empire, and he's gonna overwhelm the people of Persia. That's gonna be a struggle for God's people, but God will be sufficient in that struggle. That's phase one.

Phase two is gonna happen in verses 5-19. And that's where he describes this power struggle that will take place among the successors of Alexander the great, the Seleucids and the Ptolemies--these groups that are vying for the kingdom on the other side of Alexander. If you read through these verses, there's all this back and forth, fighting, and warring, and plotting, and intrigue, and God's people are gonna be caught in the middle of that. It's gonna be a difficult time! That's phase two.

Phase three comes in verses 20-35. And that's where he describes the rise of one of those Seleucid kings, Antiochus Epiphanes. Y'all remember us talking about him? He came up in chapter 8. He's that Antichrist junior who shows up on the scene in the second century BC. And these verses describe him, verses 20-35 describe Antiochus Epiphanes in incredible detail, spectacular predictive detail. It is unbelievable. They tell us that he is going to be arrogant and cunning and brutal. He's gonna try to seduce and deceive many of God's people when he arrives in power. But then for those people of God who know the truth and stand against Him, he's gonna rage against them. Remember this is the guy who made a pagan sacrifice in the temple to Zeus. He's the guy who tried to end all sacrifice and offering in Jerusalem. That guy who was like an Antichrist preview--well, he's gonna rage against the people of God!

But notice verse 32 of chapter 11, verse 32. "But the people who know their God," in the days of Antiochus Epiphanes, "but the people who know their God, they shall stand firm and take action and the wise among the people shall make many understand that for some days they shall stumble." That means they will be injured and they will be killed by sword and flame. So those people who know the Lord and resist Antiochus in those days will experience victory. I think that's talking about the Maccabees. They are that resistance force who knew the truth of the word and stood against these invading forces. It's how we got Hanukkah. We went over all that a couple of weeks ago. Those are some of the people of God who in a day of deception and persecution, cling to the truth, trust the Lord, and experience victory.--though it's a costly victory. It's a time of conflict. That was phase three: Antiochus.

But that still leaves phase four. And that's in verses 36-44. And this is the most intense episode of conflict of all for the people of God. Now, from ancient times, I'm talking about like since Jesus's day and before, interpreters of Daniel have recognized that once you get to verse 36, we're not talking about Antiochus anymore. Because the details about Him, they don't match up with Antiochus anymore. And he's Antiochus on a much bigger, grander scale than Antiochus ever thought about being. And interpreters have recognized all across the spectrum that this person, that the enemy that's being described in verses 36-44 is the church's final enemy, the ultimate enemy of the people of God. He's like Antiochus on steroids. He's evil incarnate.

And Daniel's actually already talked about him back in Daniel 7. After all those beasts rose up from the different nations out of the sea, and then there was that one little horn who spoke boastfully and was so arrogant and all that kind of thing--the little horn, that's the same guy right here. Paul is gonna talk about him too in the New Testament. 2 Thessalonians 2 is going to call him the "man of lawlessness" or the "man of sin." He's gonna have to come onto the scene before the final return of the Lord Jesus for this final conflict. John, the apostle, will call him by the most familiar name in 1 John and in the book of Revelation, he calls him the Antichrist, the ultimate enemy of God's people. I think that's who Daniel's describing here in chapter 11 verses 36-44.

I just want you to notice a couple of things about him in verse 36. What are some of his characteristics? He exalts himself above God. Verse 36: "the king shall do as he will. He shall exalt himself and magnify himself above every God and shall speak astonishing things against the God of Gods," right? Verse 37 we read, "he loves no one but himself. He shall pay no attention to the gods of his fathers or to the one beloved by women." It's like he has no capacity for loving or esteeming anything beyond himself. It's like the ultimate most extreme version of sin that you can imagine. Verse 38 we see that he is warlike: "He shall honor the God of fortresses instead of a real God." In other words, his only God is power or military might. Verses 38-39: we found out that he's wealthy, and he's able to promise rewards to those who will get in league with him. Verse 38: "A god whom his fathers did not know he shall honor with gold and silver with precious stones and costly gifts." Verse 39: "He shall deal with the strongest fortresses with the help of a foreign God. Those who acknowledge him, he shall load with honor. He shall make them rulers over many and shall divide the land for a price." And so it's gonna seem like a good deal to link up with this ultimate enemy because he's got the cash and he's got the power and he's got this charisma.

But we find that for those who don't get in league with him, who don't ally with him, who stand against him like the Maccabees did under Antiochus, well they get a very different treatment, don't they? Verses 40-43 describe the rage that he's gonna pour out against the people of God. Now look, this description, and we could say so much more, but everything that Daniel 11 is saying about this kind of ultimate enemy, it matches up exactly with what the New Testament says about the Antichrist in 2 Thessalonians 2 and in Revelation 13.

I don't think what the Bible teaches us is that we should be obsessive about identifying who the Antichrist is gonna be ahead of time. Bur rather, here's what the Bible tells us to do: to recognize that the spirit of anti-christ is in the world at all times. 1 John chapter 2 is going to say that we know that an ultimate anti-christ is coming. We know that. The Bible tells us that. But many antichrists have already come who exalt themselves against God and will try to seduce you into adopting their attitude, their anti-god attitude, loving only yourself, worshiping power, worshiping wealth.

Now, as the Bible describes this guy though, he's the culmination of that attitude and of that mindset. That's kind of scary stuff, isn't it? I remember a local church in my hometown of Dyersburg showed some kind of end times movie that was made in the seventies when I was growing up. And man, it scared the pants off of me. I can still see vivid images of this Antichrist character and then people in hell getting eat up with maggots. I mean, it shaped me y'all. It shaped me. I was like six years old. Man, that can be pretty scary stuff, can't it? If we let ourselves, we can give our hearts over to fear as we look at the condition of our world and the turmoil that it's in.

And it would be scary stuff except for one last detail about this anti-christ. And that's in verse 45: "And he shall pitch his palatial tents between the sea and the glorious holy mountain. Yet he shall come to his end with none to help him." If you remember back from Daniel 7, when that little horn was spouting off, speaking boastful things, exalting himself against God, warring against God's people, the moment that the ancient of days took his seat and opened up the books, that little horn was extinguished. Gone. God's not sweating him. The son of man is not sweating this Antichrist, this little horn, this ultimate enemy. He's no threat to the Lord and to his reign. And this is the big point of the angel telling Daniel about this. He's telling this dramatic story of history. Daniel here's what's to come, and as God's people, we're living in this history. But what you need to know is whether you are called to face Alexander the Great, or Antiochus Epiphanes, or even the ultimate Antichrist, your God is in control. His victory is certain. The story of history is God triumphing over all of his foes. And so you can know how the story is going to end!

That's the dramatic story. And it leads as we close to:

How do we respond to all of this? Two things. Two ways we need to respond.

#1 - As God's people, we need to be realistic. We need to be realistic about this spiritual conflict that we're in. We need to be realistic about the kind of world that we live in and the spiritual struggle that we should expect in our daily Christian lives until we die or Jesus comes first. I don't know what forces you're going to face. We may have to face some kind of big bad political leader who makes life hell for us, as has happened with so many Christians throughout time! Or you may just face the more mundane but far more common problem of struggling against the evil one in your day to day life of faithfulness. In your home, in your workplace, here in this local church, facing just the garden variety of temptations not to trust God and not to obey him, but to live for yourself or to get discouraged or to give up. I mean, that's where the fight is gonna be for most of us! And there's going to be a fight all the way to the end. So we shouldn't be shocked when it comes! Y'all this week, let's not be surprised when it's difficult to live faithfully for Jesus! When it's difficult to obey what the Bible tells us to do! When we face push back when we try to take a step forward with the Lord. Let's not be shocked when that happens, because we're realistic about this spiritual battle. We've not come to a picnic, we've come to a battle!

Jesus tells his disciples in this world: "You will have tribulation, you will have it." That's a prediction you can count on. Older Christians referred to the church before Jesus returns as the "church militant," the church militant. We're wearing our armor, we're going through the wilderness, we're expecting resistance and attack. And that's why we rely not on ourselves, but on the Lord, daily in prayer, sticking close to him, not relying on our own strength. If we do, we will be reminded really quickly that we are not at a picnic but in a battle. So we should be realistic.

But the second thing, God's people should be resilient. The conflict of history is long and fierce. The conflict in your life, the spiritual conflict, it will last for the rest of your life. But, our God is a mighty fortress. That's where the hymn came from! Martin Luther was well aware of the power of Satan and the presence of evil forces. That's why he wrote in the middle of the reformation when God's doing this new and beautiful thing, he wrote this song and said,

Though this world with the devils filled should threaten to undo us
(What a view of the world! Filled with devils--Martin Luther knew it though.)
 We will not fear for God hath willed his truth to triumph through us. 
The prince of Darkness grim, we tremble not for Him.
His rage we can endure, for lo, his doom is sure!
One little word shall fell him!

You may not have grown up singing that at your local baptist church, but "A Mighty Fortress is our God" is singing about these very realities. God has promised to protect his people through the conflict. He's promised even to use the conflict for our good. This is a Romans 8:28 moment! God causes all things to work together, even the arrival of people like Antiochus IV Epiphanes, even the reality of a spiritual conflict in your life, God wills to use even that for your eternal good! To cause the wrath of His enemies to praise Him in the end.

Just look at Daniel 11:32, "He shall seduce with flatteries those who violate the covenant, but the people who know their God shall stand firm and take action!" Verses 33-35: "The wise among the people shall make many understand that for some days they shall stumble by sword and flame, by captivity and plunder. When they stumble, they shall receive a little help. Many shall join themselves to them with flattery. And some of the wise shall stumble." They'll be harmed. But listen to this, "so that they may be refined, purified and made white until the time of the end, for it still awaits the appointed time."

Can God even use the fiercest darkest struggle in the lives of His people to refine them, to purify them, to make them white? For the time of the end. He can! He's a big God, and a gracious God! If we were to walk through chapter 11 verse by verse, we would see it's just one story after another of evil people driven by an evil Satan plotting and scheming and grasping for power, and grasping for advantage. And yet at every single turn, we read this little word "but!" But, but, but their plans get thwarted, right? Their goal of domination of God's people. It gets halted by the intervention of God. It happens over 15 times in Daniel 11. It's what Jesus told Peter, "the gates of hell shall not prevail against his church." The church is an anvil that has worn out many hammers. Satan can hammer and hammer away, but that anvil still stands by God's grace and power. And one day the church militant, this church that's fighting the spiritual battle, will become the church triumphant, right? And we'll share in the victory of Jesus.

So let's go out and live to show that we believe this by living not in our own strength, not pursuing the lives that God's called us to in our own ability, our own power, our own intellect, our own spiritual reserves that we've stored up from years past. But no, day by day living in reliance on the savior who is mighty to save. Let's pray.

Sermon by Eric Smith
Senior Pastor, Sharon Baptist Church