April 13, 2014
Scripture:
Scripture:
Ministry:
Let’s turn to Luke 23. This chapter sets the cross before us: the repentant thief, three hours of darkness, and the Lord yielding up His life. Read vv. 48 & 49. They stood afar off in distance; we stand afar off in time. Yet we behold the same thing being done. Let’s turn to Hebrews 9:26. When we look at “that sight,” we see Him putting away sin, a work that we will thank Him for, for all eternity. In the Hymn 213, verse 2, the first part is about the putting away of sin. The second part is about the winning of our hearts; and if that sight doesn’t win your heart, what will? It’s a blessed thought! We are won from sin and filled with joy and His love. Surely He is worthy of our love.
Hymn 134 - What can wash away my sins
Prayer
You know so many different Bible stories, so today we are going review some Bible stories. I am going to ask you some questions, see how well you know these stories.
Ephesians 6:10-18
This passage gives us the armour of God. We need that armour to stand in the evil day. When is that day? That day is today; the time that we are in right now. We are in the perilous times that Paul spoke of in 2 Timothy 3:1, and therefore we need the armour of God and we need to be “strong in the Lord”. Proverbs 20:29 says that the glory of young men is their strength. It’s natural and good for a young man to be strong, but being strong in the Lord is better than natural strength. We’re not strong in ourselves, but rather in the Lord. He has strength for everything—He is almighty. We need to be so close to the Lord that we just get strength from Him whenever we need it.
The Lord doesn’t give us strength so that we can do great things, like miracles. Rather, it’s strength to stand against the wiles of the Devil. The wiles of the Devil are his tricks, traps, and artificial offerings. We aren’t standing against the power of Satan. (We couldn’t do that, and besides the Lord already has. We just stand behind the Word of God—like Jesus did—and let the Lord take care of things.) We stand against his artifices.
This fight with the Devil and his forces isn’t physical, but spiritual. Wicked spirits surround this earth in the two lower heavens, and we need a defence against their attacks. We need the armour of God.
The first piece of the armour that we need is found in verse 14: the belt of truth. Back in the day, when the voyageurs were carrying their bales of furs, they would wear a big belt, or girdle, around their waist to give them extra strength. We need the truth of the Word of God to regulate our thoughts, hearts, and minds.
But what is truth? There are three basic, fundamental, Christian truths. Firstly, the truth of Christ’s identity. The Devil tries to lie to people and tell them that Jesus wasn’t God, or that He didn’t rise from the dead, or that He sinned, or some other lie. This is a truth that He tries to attack, and we need to maintain it.
Secondly, there is the truth of the Gospel. Satan attacks this truth by telling people that they must work to get to heaven, or do good deeds, or give money to some cause, or hold on until the end, etc. He tries to get them to put their trust in themselves and not in Jesus. The story is told of a missionary in India who saw a young lady weeping by the side of a river that the people worshipped as a god. When he asked her what was wrong, she told him that her husband was sick, that they had no money, and other problems. As a last resort, she had taken her baby and thrown it into the river as a sacrifice to get the help of this god. Grieved, the missionary told her about Jesus. When he had told her, she asked him, “Why didn’t you come and tell us before?” We need to be grounded in the Gospel, know it’s truths, and have it control our hearts and minds.
The third basic truth is the truth of the assembly; the truth of the gathering together of believers. It’s harder to understand, but it’s important to learn, and the Devil certainly attacks it.
Verse 14 also gives us the second piece of armour: the breastplate of righteousness. This isn’t the righteousness that God imputes to us at salvation; Christ becoming our righteousness. Rather this is practical righteousness that Paul partly describes in chapter 4 of Ephesians: don’t lie, don’t act out of anger, don’t steal. Doing these wrong things gives the Devil an opportunity to bring accusations and doubts into our lives and we will be defenceless because we are guilty. We must do what is right to be fully protected.
Next, we must have our feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace (verse 15). Notice that it’s called the gospel of peace, not the gospel of grace. Shoes are for walking in, and this piece of the armour of God has to do with our daily walk: how we live and what we do. God is called the God of peace four times in Scripture (e.g. Romans 15:33), and wants His children to be peacemakers (Romans 14:19, Matthew 5:9). We are told to live in peace—as much as possible—with others. Sometimes it isn’t possible, and we can’t always avoid trouble, but we shouldn’t be the ones stirring trouble up. Isaiah 32:17 shows us that it is righteousness that will bring peace. Sin brings trouble.
Besides walking in peace with others, our lives should be filled with peace. Not a lack of trouble, but a calm inside that trouble. Our peace should be a testimony to those in the world, because the kind of peace possible for a Christian isn’t possible for the world. As the God of peace keeps our hearts, it should attract those not saved and make them curious, and we should be able share the good news of the peace of Christ with them.
Fourthly, in verse 16, we have the shield of faith. A shield would take the blows from the enemy in battle. The shield of faith stops all of Satan’s fiery darts. Those darts come upon us suddenly, we don’t see them coming in time to prepare; so we need to have that shield up constantly. Things like strong temptations, doubts (sometimes even about our salvation), and limited understanding are examples of fiery darts. We need to have faith in Christ, put all our trust in Him, to stop them. It’s easy to say, but harder to live. Philippians 4:6 is a good verse on this topic, and it’s been summarized like this: “Be careful for nothing, prayerful about everything, and thankful for anything.” We need to have this shield in place to stop Satan’s fiery darts.
Fifth, in verse 17, is the Helmet of Salvation. A helmet protects your head. If a soldier didn’t have his helmet on, he would be hiding his head during battle. We can stand tall and bold in the knowledge of our salvation. We know that we’re saved, we know that we’re going to heaven, and we know that the Lord has completed the work necessary for our salvation.
The Sixth piece of armour, also found in verse 17, is the only offensive weapon the Christian has: the Sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. This doesn’t need much explaining, but let’s be reminded that—like a soldier going to battle with a sword or gun—we need practice with our weapon to be effective with it. We must be familiar with our Bibles in order to be able to use them in spiritual warfare.
Finally we have prayer in verse 18. A soldier with all his armour, but no strength, won’t be much use. We need to be before the Lord in prayer often, gathering strength for the fight.
As a final thought, notice that there is no armour for our backs. We must face the enemy. If we turn and run, our back is a wide open target for him. We must face him boldly with our armour and sword, strengthened by prayer, and by God’s grace we will win the fight.
Hymn 370—Yield not to temptation
Prayer