'Words of Life' w/ Pastor Mark D. Ingram
'Words of Life' w/ Pastor Mark D. Ingram
Beyond Flesh and Blood: The True Battle for Our Soul
The battle you can't see is the one you need to prepare for most. Pastor Mark Ingram delivers a compelling examination of spiritual warfare, drawing from both Scripture and his military experience to illuminate how believers must recognize, understand, and fight their true enemy.
Satan—not other people—stands as our chief adversary, operating through individuals and circumstances while studying our weaknesses with relentless dedication. Like a military commander preparing for battle or a coach developing a game plan, Christians must understand their opponent's tactics. "The devil utilizes people, even our inherent and individual proclivities, tendencies, and weaknesses," Pastor Mark explains. "He is a relentless and thorough foe, so we must gain a thorough knowledge of him and his ways."
The message centers on three essential principles for spiritual victory. First, remain perpetually alert—Satan never takes vacations or rest periods. Second, know your enemy intimately—his history, motivations, and methodology. Third, fight exclusively through God's strength, never your own. Ephesians 6:10-12 provides our battle instructions: "Be strong in the Lord and in the power of His might. Put on the whole armor of God that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil."
Whether you're facing spiritual opposition, feeling under attack, or simply wanting to strengthen your spiritual defenses, this message offers practical biblical wisdom for standing firm against the adversary who prowls like a roaring lion. The victory is already secured through Christ, but our daily walk requires vigilance, knowledge, and complete dependence on God's power. Listen now to equip yourself for the battles that truly matter.
In lieu of eternity, sermons and musical artists are featured to extol JESUS CHRIST as the sole hope for the eternal souls of humanity.
Blessings to you once more. Thank you for tuning in to this week's version of the Words of Life show. I am Pastor Mark Ingram and I do recognize that you could have been anywhere attuned in any other ministry, but God has led you to this one. In this week's sermon we are going to talk about an enemy that we should all be very aware of. He's an enemy of God, he is an enemy of the human race and he certainly is an enemy of those that love the Lord. It is very imperative that for us to obtain the victory in our day-to-day walk eternally, it's already done by Jesus Christ. But in our day-to-day walk we must secure this victory, and the only way that we can master that in Jesus' strength is by knowing our enemy. So let's delve into this week's word to see what God has to say about how to fight our enemy.
Speaker 2:We thank you for joining our Words of Life broadcast, where our mission is persuading the lost, perfecting each believer and equipping all for service with practical application from God's Word. We now join Pastor Mark for this week's Words of Life.
Speaker 1:In today's opening text, we will be reading from the book of Ephesians, chapter 6, beginning at verse 10. We are going to read from the King James Version today and our reading is as follows Ephesians 6, beginning at verse 10, through verse 12. Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord and in the power of his might. Put on the whole armor of God that he may be able to stand against the wilds of the devil, for we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places. May the Lord add a blessing to the hearers, the readers, but, most importantly, those that intend to do with Holy Spirit's help, his Holy Word. The title for our message this week is simply how to Fight Our Enemy. How to Fight Our Enemy. We must understand that fighting is a part of spiritual warfare. To fight is to scrap, to wrestle, to struggle, to battle or even to come to blows. Fighting is indicative of opposition. It's indicative of an opponent that we will have to wrestle ie struggle with, ie to battle or come to blows with. And so, in fighting, there must be a part B, that part B being we must have an enemy, an enemy defined as simply an adversary. It is an antagonist, it is opposition or a rival. And the first thing I want us to understand today is our chief enemy, satan himself the devil. He is God's enemy, he most certainly is our enemy, and we need to understand about our enemy. He utilizes people, even our inherent and individual proclivities, tendencies and weaknesses. The devil, our enemy. He utilizes people within the spiritual realm, or this battle of warfare. Romans 7 and 21 lets us know that our weaknesses, our tendencies, like I just said, those individual proclivities, those could be used against us. Romans 7 and 21 lets us know this way I discovered this principle when I want to do what is good, evil is with me or always present within me. Some translations state Understand that we have an enemy that does not believe in taking vacations. He is a relentless and a thorough foe, and so we must gain a thorough knowledge of him and his ways, as well as knowing how to fight this enemy. It is a prerequisite of ours that we gain an understanding of how he does what he does, why he does what he does, what methods that he might use. I want to use a couple examples that I think we can all relate to.
Speaker 1:My favorite sport is football and football. Be it football, be it basketball, be it baseball, whatever your sport of choice is, there's something that is called a game plan. In other words, when you game plan your opponent or your adversary, then you don't just show up at the appointed time to play the game to try to get the victory over your opponent. No, before you ever arrived to play the game against your adversary, you hopefully game planned your opponent. In other words, you studied their tendencies, you studied their weaknesses, you studied their strengths and you used all of that information to try to make sure that you did what you had to do, taking into account their weaknesses, their tendencies, their strength. You took all of that into account to game plan how you were going to fight or try to go up against your adversary or opponent. There's another thing that we utilized a lot playing sports. They were called scouting reports. These scouting reports were completed by scouts and their job was to go out beforehand again to gain foreknowledge on the opponent, to figure out how it might be best used against them to gain the victory.
Speaker 1:I'm also an Army veteran. I was in from 88 to about 93, 94. I'm a Desert Storm soldier and the one thing being an Army veteran taught me while we were in being an army veteran taught me while we were in military commanders and their rank. We are taught not only fighting tactics, but we were taught to know the capability, the weaponry available as well as the tendencies of who we were fighting against. Combat in the spiritual realm, against combat in the spiritual realm. Now that I'm going to transition from sports or being a military veteran, combat in the spiritual realm is more important than either of the aforementioned, because we, whether we're aware of this or not, we are fighting in the eternal, forever realm, are fighting in the eternal, forever realm and we will each live forever to be able to tell about it. They hunt us even in daylight. Now Nowhere is safe. Thank you, let's delve into our scriptural review within context.
Speaker 1:The book, or should I say the letter of Ephesians. Paul writes to the church in Ephesus, hence Ephesians. He writes this letter to the believers in Ephesus while imprisoned in Rome, under house arrest. While imprisoned in Rome, under house arrest, paul had a special kinship for the believers at Ephesus and he stayed there longer than any of his other church plants in Colossus, corinth or Galatia. Paul begins to explain how blessed Christians position as head of the entire church worldwide and Jesus Christ's exalted position above all in the universe. Because of this, Paul reminds them that Christ, via the Holy Spirit, is now working through them, the church, to reconcile the lost world back to him. Yet Paul realizes that living a godly life in an ungodly world was and still is a harsh reality.
Speaker 1:Paul mentions, within our introductory text of chapter 6, symbolic spiritual battle gear being a necessity to stand against the chief adversary of the church. Then and now, and as we begin our transition from the text to here and now application for our lives, we need to understand that the same adversary excommunicated from heaven, the same challenger that caused sin in the garden for the entire human race, the same rival that thought he was so smart in killing Jesus that he actually played a major role in salvation's plan for mankind that same enemy. He hates God as well as the entire of the church today, and it is imperative that we acknowledge him. We become familiar with his tactics, his ways, his methods, his history and his tendencies His tendencies Although he is already A conquered foe Eternally in Jesus Christ, we still have to deal With him In the here and the now, and to successfully stand Against any opponent, particularly this one, we must know our opponent so we can embark upon how to successfully fight against him on a daily basis.
Speaker 1:And with that said, I think this is a perfect time to pause, to interject our weekly figure, our song of the week, and this week's song of the week. It is entitled in you and it is presented to you right here, on the words of life show. My frailty is your fight. You, you're the power of my mind. You, you're strong when I'm weak. You, you are my victory. You are my victory. Lover of mournful in need, deliverer from deficiency, with grace for my tendency, I live and I breathe in you. In you, in you, in you, you're redeemer of our love, you're redeemer of our loss. In you, you're repairer of our call.
Speaker 2:In you, you're the well when we thirst In you.
Speaker 1:You're redemption from the curse. Lord, you are our Father and it's your story and it's your glory forevermore. You are all that I ever want and need and me, the bread I am holding on to me. Lord, you're oh so close when you feel the fall, you're high above the heavens and still you're in our hearts. You're blessed Trinity. I belong to royalty. In you, your undying loyalty, lord, you are all that I'd ever want and need. The great I am holding on to me, lord, you're oh, so close when you feel the fall. You're high above.
Speaker 1:We are back and we most certainly hope that you enjoyed our song of the week in you. You can actually join us on our webpage, wolchristiancenterorg, where you can not only listen to this message again, just in case you missed the first half of it, you can watch not only this message on the front page, but you can actually pull up any other message that you may have missed, as well as any song that you have heard right here on the show. Again, that song is entitled In you and that song is actually available on the Church Mixtapes Project, volume 1, and that is actually available on iTunes, amazoncom, googleplaycom, shazam any number of digital retailers where you can download music. We want you to know about that. You cannot get it on the website because there is just something about putting anything for sale and this is just my personal opinion on a website, whereas the main, primary goal is to get the word of God out, and so the music, that's a totally separate thing. If you like the songs, you can easily go to Amazon iTunes to download it, but you won't find it on the website. Either way, we hope you are blessed by the word of God via the music that you hear on the show.
Speaker 1:We are back with the sermon, and the title of our sermon is how to fight our enemy, and in fighting our enemy, we must name this enemy. His name is Satan, his name is the devil, he is a liar, he is a snake. We need to know all that. We need to know about him if we are going to fight our enemy and that is a mandate that we use the sword of the spirit to conduct warfare with him, because if we do nothing, if we're literally just sitting by waiting to get to heaven as Christians, well, he's plotting, he's scheming and he's fighting us each and every day. So what's the first thing that we have to know when we concern ourselves with how to fight our enemy. Well, point number one today is this I must be alert at all times. That is point number one. I must be alert at all times. To be alert, it is to be attentive, it is to be watchful, it is to be prepared, or a biblical word that we're aware of, it is to be vigilant.
Speaker 1:Again, I'll refer to my army experience of the time that I was in the military. For five and a half some odd years we had this thing in the military called guard duty, and guard duty occurred at uncomfortable ships. It didn't matter whether the weather was good or whether the weather was bad, it didn't matter what time of night it was, and it sure seemed like, early on in my military career, my guard duty. Even in basic training, I have done guard duty in rain all night in a foxhole, where it didn't stop raining. The temperature was about 30 degrees. I have slept in three, four feet of snow on guard duty for my four-hour shift up at Fort Drum or Griffith Air Force Base in northeast New York. I have done all of that.
Speaker 1:And the big thing about guard duty was you were charged for your entire platoon, you were prepared and you were vigilant, because every one of your peers their safety as they slipped it was really in your hands. You were the guard, you were to sound an alarm, you were to use your weapon if necessary, but the main thing about guard duty was you had to be attentive, you had to be watchful, you had to be prepared, you had to be vigilant. There's another thing about the Army experience that I can relate to being alert. It also taught us and we would literally get in trouble for this you were never, even if you weren't in wartime and you were just in the field practicing for a week or two and you spent the night out there. You were taught you never go outside of your tent without your protective gear, our protective gear being a Kevlar or a helmet, it being a canteen which contained water, it being your weaponry. I had to use an M16 and a 9mm, because I was a medic, as well as a gas mask. Anybody could drop a weapon when it comes down to a gas mask, and once that little pill was open or that bomb was dropped, you certainly had better have your gas mask Again. All of those things taught us to never enter the field unprepared or unaware of the constancy, the threat of or the potential for danger.
Speaker 1:Now I want to use my army experience to ask us this how often do we dilly-dally about daydreaming as if we do not have an enemy that watches, plots and plans against us relentlessly? I know I'm guilty of that and I have to do a better job, because it seems as if we don't pay attention to him and start praying or using the word of God until after he's attacked us. But 1 Peter 5 and 8 lets us know be sober-minded, be watchful. Your adversary, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion seeking, prowls around like a roaring lion seeking, a roaring lion that is seeking someone to devour. That's all he does. God even asked him when it came to testing and bringing trials upon Job where have you been? The devil literally said going to and fro, up and down in the earth. In other words, he doesn't take vacations, he doesn't rest. All he does is go from here to there, starting trouble, or he authorizes his demonic forces one-third of the fallen angels now known as demons to do the same in his name.
Speaker 1:That's why Ephesians 6 and 11, part of our opening text, lets us know put on the whole, the full, the entire armor of God, that he might be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. Our entire armor of God, the belt of truth, the breastplate of righteousness, shoes for readiness, the shield of faith, the helmet of salvation and, again, the sword of the spirit, the word of God, all of this should let us know if there's weaponry, if there is an armor of God that we have to put on, if we have to be vigilant and watchful. We've got to understand that we must be alert at all times when fighting our enemy. Here's point number two. I must know the enemy of my soul. I must know previous history. Why he's mad and upset? Why is he fighting against me with such hatred for me? We must know that about our enemy, again, let's refer to our opening text.
Speaker 1:Ephesians 6 and 11 put on the whole armor of God that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. That word wiles, in the Greek context translated, means methodea, and that is indicative of Satan's nature of trickery, deceit. He's a liar, he lies and wait, he observes, he schemes. He is not original or creative, so he takes what's good and he simply manipulates it. He appears as light but really is a wolf in sheep's clothing. He uses the same repetitive stratagems throughout history against us and he is amazingly successful because he knows humans. He knows us better than we know ourselves, simply because he has studied us and he knows us quite well. These are indisputable facts about him. So, since he has done absolutely nothing but watch us and then set humans up with the same strategies, it behooves us to know him and how he operates. He does the aforementioned by simply using the people in our lives, and here's where we often err.
Speaker 1:Our enemy is Satan, not people. People, saint and sinner, are simply used as spiritual agents, and we must know this about Satan. Ephesians 6 and 12, our introductory text lets us know this, for we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places. Our enemy is never people, but it is Satan, and we must know Satan and how he operates by utilizing his unseen ranks, fallen angels, principalities, powers and the rulers of this world to fight against us. People are simply agents and any of us can be used if we are not aware or do not know Satan's methodology. And our final point, when it comes to knowing how to fight our enemy.
Speaker 1:Point number three is this I must protect myself in the Lord's strength and might never my own. Ephesians 6 and 10, through verse 12, if we read our opening scripture all together finally, my brethren, be strong where, in the Lord and in the power of his, might not ours put on the whole armor of whose God's that we might be able to stand against the wiles or the methodology of the devil? Ephesians 6 and 17,. We are to take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the spirit, which is the word of God, the word of God being the only offensive weapon in our arsenal. We should pray it, speak it, use it, believe in the power inherent in Jesus's name, given to each one of us who belong to God. And though we fight Satan daily, victory has been procured for us eternally and we must activate that faith by fighting for the eternal futures of those who have yet to receive salvation and remain blinded by methods that Satan will use to keep the world in darkness. So I'm going to close with these three quick points that will cause us to examine ourselves and to review somewhat the message. Question number one do I daydream often on the battlefield, placing myself in danger of Satan's methods. Question number two do I possess intimate knowledge of Satan instead of general assumptions? And our final question which position am I in most against Satan and his demonic military kingdom of fallen angels, defensive or offensive?
Speaker 1:We thank you again for joining us for this week's Words of Life message and it is our hope that you have certainly gotten some points, some information about, scripturally, how to fight the adversary of our soul. Let's go before the Lord in prayer. Father, in the name of Jesus Christ, we thank you for this opportunity, this opportunity not only to hear a word from you, but to be able to apply it to our lives. And applying that word, lord, help us day by day to learn that our enemy is never people or a person, but the chief adversary of our soul is Satan himself. And you have given us the victory in Jesus Christ and we have an offensive weapon, the sword of the spirit, words of life, your Bible, to put to work against him. In the mighty name of Jesus Christ, we do pray. We thank you, father. Let us say it is so or amen. Until next week's show, until you listen to us on the radio or watch it right here I am Pastor Mark Steele and I look forward to seeing you again next week. God bless you.
Speaker 2:We thank you for listening to Words of Life with Pastor Mark D Ingram. We request your prayerful consideration in partnering with us to support our sole purpose of spreading the good news of Jesus Christ with your monetary donation. You may visit our website at wolchristiancenterorg.