PT-1 "The Sword of the Spirit" (Eph. 6:17b)

SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 10/31/2019 9:40 AM

My Worship Time                                                              Focus:  PT-1 “The Sword of the Spirit”

Bible Reading & Meditation                                     Reference:  Ephesians 6:17b

            Message of the verse:  “and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God,”

            I have just finished listening to the sermon that John MacArthur preached in 2008 on the Sword of the Spirit and have learned much from it and so like we did over the last three days looking at the helmet of salvation from MacArthur’s sermon we will look at this sermon over the next three days, Lord willing.

The Armor of God: The Sword of the Spirit

Ephesians 6:17

In Ephesians chapter 6, we’re looking at the armor of God, the believer’s armor laid out for us by the Holy Spirit through the pen of the Apostle Paul. Paul has given all kinds of very foundational and important instruction in this letter to the Ephesians, instruction which has to do with living the Christian life, walking the worthy walk, as he speaks of it in chapter 4 which begins the practical section of this great epistle, the first three chapters being doctrinal. And he has laid out all kinds of things about behavior and how we are to conduct our lives and how we are to walk in the Spirit and manifest the power of the Spirit in every relationship.  And then there comes this necessary statement in verse 10 that to live this way and walk this way is going to demand strength. Finally verse 10 says of Ephesians 6, “Be strong in the Lord and in the strength of His might.” You’re not going to be able to do this on your own. You’re not going to be able to live in a way that honors God, to walk a worthy walk, to experience the fullness of the Spirit and the blessing that comes with that. Not going to be able to leave behind you the former things of your life and walk in newness of life easily. Not going to be able to grow, you’re not going to be able to be renewed in the spirit of your mind, to speak truth, to be one in the body of Christ...all the things that he’s been talking about in your own strength. This is something that requires the strength of the Lord.  And he envisions this in a very graphic kind of analogy as if he is looking at a soldier, no doubt a Roman soldier, of course, by the tens of thousands they filled the Mediterranean world during the time of Paul’s ministry and were very familiar to all the people to whom he wrote and spoke. And so, in that analogy he says, “If you want to enjoy the strength of the Lord which it’s going to take to live this kind of life, you must put on the full armor of God,” (verse 11). Because, you have an enemy that is going to do everything in his power to prevent you from living the way God wants you to live. It isn’t that he particularly cares about you; it is that he wants to thwart the purposes of God. You need to mark it as sort of foundational in the relationship between Lucifer and God, Lucifer hates God. He hates God. And all his demons who once with him were among the angels of heaven and agreed to fall with him, a third of them to number them as Revelation does, equally hate God and the purposes of God and the objectives of God. And they hate God and manifest that hate in attempting to thwart the purposes of God that are basically operational in us. And so his assault against us is primarily an assault against God. It’s a little bit like Paul saying, “I bear in my body the marks of Christ, people are wounding me and persecuting me not because of me, but because I represent Christ.”

Understanding this, we read in verse 12, that our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against these very categories of demonic beings called rulers, powers, world forces of this darkness, meaning the darkness that is Satan’s darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenlies. So we are engaged in this warfare.

            It is not that you are necessarily in hand-to-hand combat with demons all the time. I can say to you that in my entire lifetime I have never knowingly been engaged in a personal struggle with a demon. But I am daily engaged in a personal struggle against a demonically inspired system that comes at me and at my sinful tendencies through the world, through the system that is in the power of Satan who is the prince of this world. It is not that we as believers have demons running around in us, we are the temple of the Spirit of God, we are new creations, and we have been transformed and changed. But we are assaulted by the system around us and we have tendencies to fall to that assault because of our remaining flesh, our fallenness which we will possess until we receive our heavenly inheritance and leave this world.

            And so, against these assaults that come on us, we have to defend ourselves with the full armor of God, verse 13, to resist in the evil day and to be able to stand firm. Now wanting to give us an analogy that is memorable, Paul breaks down the parts which really become components of living a godly life.

            Girding your loins with truth, or truthfulness means commitment, motivation to be obedient, motivation to be holy, to be godly, to be Christ honoring and we have to have that desire. In other words, establishing your priorities, pulling all the loose ends in like the Roman soldier would pull the corners of his tunic up and tie them tightly with his...with his belt so that he would be able to move freely in the midst of hand-to-hand combat, pulling everything together. It’s about discipline for the struggle at hand, spiritual discipline.  And then he talks about putting on the breastplate of righteousness. And we talked about the fact that means practical, personal holiness. If you want to win the battle, the routine daily conflict with the world assaulting your flesh, you need to be living a holy life. A pattern of sin only makes you very, very vulnerable. And having your feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace is to remember that, what holds you in the middle of the battle, what anchors you is the fact that you have made peace with God that means God is on your side. God is your defender. God is your protector. And it’s in that confidence that you fight the battle.  And those that are the things that are fixed in place. On top of those, in addition to all of those, you take the shield of faith. And the shield of faith is the thing with which you quench the temptations that Satan sends. We talked about the fact that you shield yourself from temptation by believing God. You either believe God or you believe Satan. When Satan comes with his deceptive lies that lure you into sin because he promises satisfaction, if you believe him you do it. If you believe the real satisfaction is found in honoring God, then you do what is right. It’s your faith in the Word of God that protects you from believing Satan’s lies and deceptions that shields you.

            The helmet of salvation that idea that you have a future salvation which is secured to you, protects you against the blows of doubt that Satan would wield against you, sometimes telling you you’re unworthy of the goodness of God. God isn’t going to continue to bless you and be good to you because you’re an unworthy sinner, preying upon you in the times of your weakness and faltering and making you think that you may not have a future with God. The helmet of salvation is the assurance of that eternal life which is to come. And when you live in the light of that assurance, it effects how you live now because you know you are a permanent citizen of that eternal kingdom. You are motivated to live as such.”

We look at what David Jeremiah writes concerning Acts 13:13 in our quotation from “Love in Action.”

“The Jerusalem had commissioned Paul and Barnabas to carry a letter of affirmation to the Gentile Christians in Antioch.  After delivering the letter, the two men stayed on in Antioch for a short time ‘teaching and preaching the Word of the Lord’ (Acts 15:35).  Young John Mark was the source of a strong disagreement between Paul and Barnabas.  As far as Paul was concerned, John Mark had disqualified himself by deserting Paul during the first missionary journey (Acts 13:5, 13).  But Barnabas didn’t focus on Mark’s problems; he saw his potential.  Barnabas believed in John Mark so deeply that he parted company with Paul in order to take John Mark!  Encouragers see potential where others see problems.”

10/31/2019 11:19 AM

PT-4 "The Helmet of Salvation" (Eph. 6:17a)

SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 10/30/2019 10:01 AM

My Worship Time                                                            Focus:  PT-4 “The Helmet of Salvation”

Bible Reading & Meditation                                                 Reference:  Ephesians 6:17a

            Message of the verses:  “and take the helmet of salvation,”

            In today’s SD we will be looking at the last part of John MacArthur’s sermon from 2008 on the helmet of salvation.  I truly hope and pray that this will be a help to all those who read it.  It will probably be good to look at the end of the last SD again to understand how this one begins.

“But if that’s in question, you’ve got some serious problems. You’ll be so busy battling your own emotions that you can rarely engage the real struggle. But when you know the end, “Beloved brethren, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your toil is not in vain in the Lord.” And you have all promises all through the New Testament, don’t you?

            About reward, reward, reward, a crown of life, a crown of rejoicing, a crown of righteousness.

            That’s what moved the Apostle Paul to be able to say in the middle of all the suffering that he went through which just never let up, “We’re inflicted in every way but not crushed. Perplexed but not despairing.” (Second Corinthians 4.) “Persecuted but not forsaken, struck down but not destroyed, always carrying about in the body the dying of Jesus that the life of Jesus may be manifest in our body.” We take it all because we know what’s ahead of us.

            And then he sums it up. “We do not lose heart.” Why? “Though our outer man is decaying, our inner man is being renewed day by day. And momentary light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparisons. So we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen. The things that are seen are temporal; the things which are not seen are eternal.”

            Let it come, he said. My vision is on that which is eternal. In fact, the message is this, that whatever you suffer in this life will be the cause of your reward in the next life. So the suffering is a plus. You bear it now; you’re rewarded for it then.  Admittedly the activities of Satan are relentless, they never stop. But we labor and toil and fight and war for the cause of the Kingdom and against sin because we know in the end we will triumph, and the helmet of salvation is that absolute confidence in the saving, keeping power of God’s sovereign grace.

            I just want to show you a couple of passages that will help seal this in your mind. And two of them are in John’s gospel, chapter 6, a beloved and familiar text of Scripture, as well as extremely important. John 6:37, “All that the Father gives Me shall come to Me and the one who comes to Me I will certainly not reject, or cast out. For I’ve come down from heaven not to do My own will but the will of Him who sent Me. And this is the will of Him who sent Me that of all that He is given Me, I lose none, but raise him up on the last day. For this is the will of My Father that everyone who beholds the Son and believes in Him may have eternal life and I Myself will raise him up on the last day.” That is a great promise...a great promise.

            The Father has given us to the Son. The Son receives us. The Son keeps us. The Son raises us. This, I think, is one of the greatest, most comforting doctrines in all Holy Scripture. We have a calling that cannot be revoked. We have an inheritance that cannot be defiled. We have a foundation that cannot be shaken. We have a seal that cannot be broken. We have a life that cannot perish. John 10:27, “My sheep hear My voice and I know them and they follow Me and I give eternal life to them and they shall never perish. And no one shall snatch them out of My hand, My father who has given them to Me is greater than all and no one is able to snatch them out of My Father’s hand. I and the Father are one.” Now there is some security.

            There are a number of strands in this divine rope that binds us to God. We are Christ’s sheep and it is His duty as the divine Shepherd to care for us and to protect us. And to suggest that any of Christ’s sheep may be lost is to blaspheme the Great Shepherd.  Furthermore, those who are Christ’s sheep, according to this passage, follow Christ. And they do not listen to strangers. They hear His voice. And furthermore, to the sheep who belong to Christ and who follow Christ is given eternal life. To speak of it as ending is a contradiction in terms. How could eternal anything end?

            Furthermore, this eternal life is given to them. “I give eternal life to them,” verse 28. They didn’t invent it. They didn’t merit it. They didn’t earn it. Consequently they can’t do anything to forfeit it.

            Furthermore, they shall never perish. That’s the negative side of saying I give them eternal life. That’s obvious. They shall never perish. If one person who is Christ’s sheep goes to hell, Christ is a liar.

            Furthermore, from the Shepherd’s hand, no one is able to pluck them. Not even the devil. Furthermore, Christ and God together hold on to His sheep. And that is why...(you can turn to Romans 8)....Romans 8 says what it says. “If God is for us, who’s against us?” Verse 35, “Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword.” In fact, no. In verse 37 he says, “And all things we overwhelmingly conquer through Him who loved us. We conquer not because of our own merit. We conquer through the one who sovereignly loved us. Not death, not life, not angels, not principalities, things present, things to come, powers, height, depth, and any other created thing shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

            Or, in the language of Philippians 1:6, “He who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ.” God finishes what He begins, or in the language of Paul to the Ephesians, “To the end that we who were the first to hope in Christ should be to the praise of His glory. In Him you also after listening to the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation, having also believed, you were sealed in Him with the Holy Spirit of promise who is given as a pledge of our inheritance, with a view to the redemption of God’s own possession to the praise of His glory.”

            This is the promise of Scripture. O my, what a promise it is.  Turn to Jude for a moment, the little letter of Jude, the first and the last verse. Verse 1 and verse 25 sum it up. “Jude, a slave, literally, doulos, a slave of Jesus Christ and brother of James, to those who are the called, beloved in God the Father” and...what’s the next word?...kept...kept, preserved in Jesus Christ, or preserved for Jesus Christ, tereo, to watch, stand guard over, keep, preserve, protect.” The word “stress” is watchful care, vigil which never lets up. The passive voice indicates the agent is Christ, literally. That’s why by is best, use of votive in the Greek is dative. Christ never relaxes His care, never relaxes His hold. He and the Father holding us in, as it were, in their divine omnipotent hands.  One use of this verb tereo was ancient times as a way to express a guarantee. When a guarantee was made, this would be the verb that was used. So it could read this way: Guaranteed by Jesus Christ. Our future salvation is secure.

            It’s a perfect tense, tereo, meaning past action with permanent results. Every Christian then has been permanently established in the keeping of Jesus who never lets go. By the way, that’s the whole theme of Jude: Survival in the days of apostasy. Tough times, toughest of times. And we’re facing the highest degree of satanic impact that the world has ever known because it’s cumulative. And yet we are kept, we are protected, we are secure.  It reminds me of John 17 where Jesus prays to the Father, Father, keep them.” And the Father hears and answers that prayer. Jude closes this way, “To the only God our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion and authority before all time and now and forever, amen.” That is a great doxology. But why is that doxology there? Why does this little book end with such praise? Because of verse 24, “Now to Him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to make you stand in the presence of His glory, blameless with great joy, to that God, to that Savior be glory, majesty, dominion and authority forever.”

            In between those two great statements about our protection and preservation is the reality that the world is full of very dangerous persons. Verse 3 talks about persons who come into the church, turning the grace of God into lasciviousness. It talks about them further as the false teachers who are defiled, who reject authority, verse 8, revile angelic majesties. It talks about them as if they were unreasoning animals in verse 10, those that have gone the way of Cain, rushed into the air of Balaam, perished in the rebellion of Korah. They’re hidden wreaths in your love feasts, caring only for themselves. They’re clouds without water, carried along by winds. Autumn trees without fruit, doubly dead, uprooted wild waves of the sea casting up their own shame like foam. Wandering stars for whom the black darkness has been reserved forever, and so forth and so forth.  Very dangerous and they’re all around you and they’re among you. Verse 16 says they follow their own lusts, speak arrogantly, flatter people for the sake of gaining an advantage. They cause divisions, verse 19, worldly minded, devoid of the Spirit.  So we are surrounded by this kind of danger and all of that is reflective of the spiritual kingdom darkness that assaults and attacks us against which we struggle. It would be a threatening, terrifying battle were it not for our confidence in the security of our salvation. No wonder at the end Jude praises God for His keeping power. He will present us faultless.  In the words of the famous twenty-third Psalm, our Good Shepherd will bring us to the banquet table which is the picture of heaven.

            In the battle then, we are protected from doubt, discouragement, dread, fear, that engaging in the spiritual war we may be overcome and forfeit our salvation by confidence in the hope of salvation given us in Christ. Hebrews 6 says that we have two immutable things, the promise and the pledge of Christ which anchor our eternal hope.  And so, we can engage in this great struggle without fear. The belt, commitment, the breastplate, purity, holiness, the shoes, confidence in the presence and power of the One with whom we have made peace. The shield, faith, trusting God, and the helmet, security, assurance, the hope of victory and triumph. That leaves us with one more and then a second message to wrap it up on the importance of prayer as Paul ends the passage. And next time we’ll look at the Sword of the Spirit.

            Father, we thank You for the way in which the Scripture is consistent everywhere you go, it comes through that there is only one author, there is only one stream of truth, there are no deviating tributaries that go off into some strange and irregular and inconsistent area. Stream flows in tact with pure truth and all those truths are cohesive. And as we examine Scripture from front to back, as we dig down into the intricacies of the text, and the details, the consistency of what You teach us is always there. We’re never shocked because there’s some aberration that’s inexplicable. Clearly this is Your Word and we see it as such and we know it to be. Lord, give us the strength to battle effectively for the cause of Christ, in His honor we pray. Amen.”

Today’s quotation from “Love in Action” comes from Acts 13:13.

Now when Paul and his party set sail from Paphos,

they came to Perga in Pamphylia:

and John [Mark], departing

from them, returned

to Jerusalem.

10/30/2019 10:31 AM

PT-3 "The Helmet of Salvation" (Eph. 6:17a)

SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 10/29/2019 10:25 AM

My Worship Time                                                            Focus:  PT-3 “The Helmet of Salvation”

Bible Reading & Meditation                                                 Reference:  Ephesians 6:17a

            Message of the verse:  “And take the helmet of salvation,

            We continue looking at the sermon from John MacArthur which he preached to his congregation in 2008:

            “Paul is not saying to us you need to be a Christian. We’re already believers. You wouldn’t have the shield of faith, you wouldn’t have the shoes of the gospel of peace, you wouldn’t have the breastplate of righteousness, and you wouldn’t have the belt of truth.

What is he talking about here? He’s talking about salvation in its future aspect. There are three aspects of salvation...past, present and future. At the time you believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, you were saved from the penalty of sin. That’s what happened. That’s called the doctrine of justification. You were saved from the penalty of sin. You are now in the second phase of your salvation and you are being saved continually from the power of sin, in the sense that sin longer has dominion over you. That’s the current phase, that’s sanctification.

            So the first phase is justification, salvation from the penalty of sin. The second phase is sanctification, salvation from the dominating power of sin. But there’s a third phase of salvation and that is to be freed from the presence of sin. And that speaks of your glorification, justification, sanctification and glorification, past, present and future. The term “salvation” includes all three of those. From the moment you receive Christ to the time you enter into heaven, your salvation is secure. Salvation has happened to you, it is happening to you, and it will happen to you.  The writer of Hebrews says, “You have this hope of a future fulfillment, the final aspect of your salvation.” And the writer of Hebrews also tells us, “It is an anchor of the soul.”

            What I mentioned to you earlier about what Peter said is a good place to understand that. Second Peter chapter 1, “We have by His divine power been granted everything pertaining to life and godliness through the true knowledge of Him who called us by His own glory and excellence, for by these He’s granted to us His precious and magnificent promises in order that by them you might become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world by lust.”

            You have these great and precious promises of a future final escape. In 1 Peter he puts it this way, again in the opening chapter, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who according to His great mercy has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead to obtain an inheritance which is imperishable, undefiled, will not fade away, reserved in heaven for you who are protected by the power of God...listen...through faith for a salvation, ready to be revealed in the last time.” You have been saved, you are being saved, and you will be saved. We’ve all been given these great and precious promises about future glory. In the words of Paul to the Galatians he says in chapter five and verse 5, “You essentially are awaiting for the hope of righteousness...the hope of glory.”

            In fact, like the creation, Romans 8 says, “We groan, waiting for the adoption, the redemption of our bodies.” In Romans chapter 13 Paul says, “Now is your salvation nearer than when you believed.” What could he be talking about? What do you mean your salvation is nearer than when you believed? When you believed, you did receive salvation, yes in its first phase. And you are receiving salvation in its second phase and yet you are nearer to the fullness of your salvation than when you believed and the final phase, glorification.

            So what are we talking about when we talk about the helmet? (Back to our text.) We’re talking about the confidence in a full final, total salvation when we will be glorified. How is this part of our armor? I’m convinced that if you believe you can lose your salvation, you are ill equipped to engage in the battle. If you’re not sure you can win, you very likely will be tempted to turn in to some kind of a monk who flees from any threat at all. It makes a huge difference...a huge difference. You can’t lose. That is the promise of Scripture.

            You are promised triumph, 2 Corinthians 2, God causes us always to triumph in Christ. If you’re under some erroneous theology that tells you one slip and you’ve lost your salvation, you are not equipped to engage in the spiritual struggle. You are not equipped to reach into the fire and snatch brans from the burning. You’re not equipped to get close to the enemy because you are motivated by fear. You’re threatened. You don’t have the heart of a victor, one who knows triumph and victory is absolutely sure.

            Consequently you can be motivated by doubt, motivated by fear, and every tiny little problem becomes a horrendous discouragement to you. So know this, and this is the good word of the helmet that protects you from any fatal blow, all blows attempting to, as it were, crush your head, obliterating your salvation, will be deflected by the truth which is your confidence that nothing can separate you from the love of God in Christ Jesus.  I don’t know that I could do ministry and at the same time worry that I could take a step in one direction and lose my salvation. I don’t know that I could confront the issues in the world if I lived in mortal fear that every time I put myself in such a position, Satan could enter my life, or enter my hope, or enter my family or wreak havoc all over the place and the end of it all I could end up in hell.

            A lot of people believe that. But you can engage yourself in the battle; you can engage yourself in the struggle, fully confident...fully confident that you will not be defeated. You have the promise of eternal heaven.  When you have that kind of promised invincibility, it changes the way you approach the battle. People who are confident in the end, confident in the victory, confident in the securing power of Christ, confident in the promises...and we’ll look a little more at those promises in a moment...approach things differently. They sacrifice their whole life without fear.

            You know, somebody who thought somewhere along the line he might lose his salvation might want to mix in a little worldly fun just so that he didn’t make too many sacrifices and end up in hell anyway and have nothing to show for it. We need to be so crystal clear about our eternal home, so confident and assured that’s where we’re going that we would sacrifice anything and everything in this life for the advancement of the Kingdom against all opposition, fearlessly, triumphantly. We don’t need to grab any of this world’s goodies on the way because there’s so much more waiting for us in glory.  I think this effects your attitude and I think it effects how you labor, how you work. Discouraged people, people who think the devil might be more powerful than God, people who think the devil can mess up everything and people, who fear that they might lose their salvation, just don’t bring the right confidence and the right passion to the battle. Luke 18:1, Jesus said, “Men ought always to pray and not to faint.” We’re to stay at it, living in the constant hope of glory, never fainting, never giving up, never growing weary, and knowing that the victory in the end will be ours.

            We understand what Peter meant, going back to him, 1 Peter 2,“For such is the will of God...verse 15...that by doing right you may silence the ignorance of foolish men.” Doing right in the face of foolish men may silence them, but it’s also very likely to agitate them. And so Peter also reminds us that in the process of doing what is right in the face of ungodly men, you may suffer...you may suffer. First Peter 3:17, “But it’s better if God should will it so that while you’re putting the ignorance of evil men to flight, in a sense, you also are suffering for doing what is right, rather than for doing what is wrong, that’s best.” In fact, that even honors God. Chapter 4 verse 19, “Let those who suffer according to the will of God entrust their souls to a faithful Creator in doing what is right.”

            When Paul wrote to Timothy in 1 Timothy chapter 1, he talks about the fact that there are people who use the Law but the Law is not made for a righteous man but those who are lawless and rebellious, the ungodly and sinners and unholy and profane, those who kill their fathers or mothers, murderers, immoral men, homosexuals, kidnappers, liars, perjurers and whatever else is contrary to sound teaching. That’s how the world lives. That’s how the world acts. The Law of God does not come to us the way it comes to them. It comes to them to inflict its mortal wound on them and drive them to the cross. But for us, the Law of God is life and joy and blessing and hope.

            We are like soldiers, 2 Timothy 2, we talked a little about that last time, are willing to suffer hardship as good soldiers of Jesus Christ, not actively entangling ourselves in the affairs of everyday life, but rather pleasing the one who called us to be a soldier, our commander in chief. We don’t need to suck anything out of this world. We can wait for what is ours to come because it’s guaranteed. We don’t have any doubts about that. The message is to hang in there.

            Sometime sit down and read the second and third chapters of Revelation and in those chapters you will read about all the churches. I wish we had time...some time we may do another series on the churches of the book of Revelation. But in each of those letters that He wrote to churches that were beleaguered by sin and persecution, His message to them is always the same. “He who has ears to hear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.” Trust the Word of God. Trust the Word of God to him who...what? Overcomes...”to him who overcomes, to him who overcomes I’ll grant to eat of the tree of life in the paradise of God.”

            To him who overcomes I will give some of the hidden manna, a white stone, a new name written on the stone which no one knows but he who receives it. To him who overcomes, keeps My deeds to the end, I will give authority over the nations and will rule them with a rod of iron as the vessels of a potter are broken to pieces as I also have received authority from My Father and I’ll give him the morning star.

            To him who overcomes, he’ll be clothed in white garments and I will not erase his name from the book of life even though they did that in cities when they didn’t like you anymore. I’ll never do that. I’ll confess his name before My Father and before His angels. To him who overcomes I will make a pillar in the temple of My God. He’ll not go out from it anymore and I’ll write upon him the name of My God and the name of the city of My God, the New Jerusalem which comes down out of heaven from My God and My new name. And to one who overcomes I will grant him to sit down with Me on My throne as I also overcame and sat down with My Father on His throne.  These promises to the churches, they were beleaguered by sin and persecution of God’s way of saying Hang in there, be faithful to the end and believe me, you will be everlastingly rewarded.

            I think when you understand the greatness of your salvation, when you understand the permanence of your salvation, when you understand the eternality of your salvation, when you understand the love of your Savior; it anchors you in the middle of the battle. You don’t get discouraged. You are not defeated before you ever engage the enemy.”

            I believe, Lord willing, that we will be able to finish this sermon in our next SD.

Our quotation from “Love in Action” is the response that Dr. Jeremiah has to the reading of Acts 9:27-28 from yesterday’s SD.

“Our transferable quality of an Encourager is that Encouragers see potential where others see problems.  When no one wanted anything to do with Paul, Barnabas stood up with him and for him.  He believed in him!  Christians who have the gift of encouragement will champion the underdog, jumping on the bandwagon when everyone else is jumping off.”

10/29/2019 11:00 AM

PT-2 "The Helmet of Salvation" (Eph. 6:17a)

SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 10/28/2019 10:05 AM

My Worship Time                                                            Focus:  PT-2 “The Helmet of Salvation”

Bible Reading & Meditation                                                 Reference:  Ephesians 6:17a

            Message of the verses:  “And take the helmet of salvation,”

            In our last SD I stated that I would take a few days to quote the sermon that John MacArthur brought to his church on the helmet of salvation.  He did this in 2008 and so I was able to watch his sermon and then copy and paste it to my computer in order to put it onto my SD.  Whenever you listen or watch MacArthur preach you are going to quickly find out that he will give a good review from his former messages and so a part of this sermon will have a little review of the earlier pieces of the spiritual armor, as this series will give us all of the pieces of the Spiritual Armor. 

            When I do my Spiritual Diaries I desire to first of all bring glory to the Lord, and I can do this by studying His Word and then after I write the SD and put it onto my blog I then desire for those who read them to have them have a spiritual impact on their lives.  So at times when I do like I am doing today, that is to quote an entire sermon it is to be so that I can better understand the text and so those who read these SD’s can also better understand them.  I have a specific prayer as I look each day at where the Spirit of God has taken these Spiritual Diaries.  I desire that God bless all who read them, that He will be blessed by those who read them.  I desire that the Holy Spirit will use them to bring glory to the Lord by giving an effectual call to those whom the Lord chose in eternity past, for those whom Christ died for, for the Holy Spirit to cause believers to grow, and then to bring revival to those believers who are in need of revival, that the Holy Spirit will continue to spread them around the world, which He is doing, and finally for the Holy Spirit to use these SD’s on the last day of the church age to give many thousands of effectual calls along with if is God’s will to have the last person in the church to receive an effectual call after reading one of these Spiritual Diaries, again if it is the Lord’s will.

            “The Armor of God: The Helmet of Salvation

Ephesians 6:17

            Ephesians chapter 6 is our text tonight and we’re looking at the believer’s armor. There are so many things that have come and gone in my life time in terms of Christian emphases. It’s good that some of them are fading away and have almost disappeared. It’s sort of like the offshoot of the Amish many years ago. It was a quirky kind of cult and they believed that marriage was...and cohabitation sinful. It didn’t last very long. They all died and there was nobody left to carry it on. That was a good thing.

            There are other things that have come and tried to have a life and sometimes lasted quite a while before they died. One of them, basically, was inimitable to the Quaker Movement and I guess you could call it sort of historic quietism. That’s a label that really does define the Quaker approach to spiritual life which was to say what you need to do is surrender yourself. They had phrases like “hand it over to the Lord,” “let Him do it.” Or their most famous one, “Let go and let God.” Stop struggling. Stop striving. Abide. Rest, and all that kind of benign quiet language. They said, one writer, it’s like a man in a room, there’s brilliant sunshine outside but the room is in darkness, that’s because the blinds are drawn and the man is fumbling around in the darkness. All he needs to do is open the blind and the light will flood him. This is the quietistic view. It took a firm footing in England and America in a movement called Keswick. Keswick Movement was this kind of movement, die to self, self-crucifixion. Books were written by people like Major Ian Thomas and others. And the whole idea was that if you want to live a successful Christian life, you simply surrender. They would say things like, “Holiness is by faith in Jesus, not by any effort of my own.” We supply the surrender, God supplies the power. Not I, but Christ. Another famous book along that line was The Christian Secret to a Happy Life by Hannah Smith, a book that isn’t nearly as popular as it once was, but shows up now and then.

            But this Movement has died away, thankfully, because it does not reflect a biblical approach to spiritual life. It is not benign. It doesn’t call for you to surrender and to yield and to sit back and to rest and to abide and to feel you’re responsible for nothing but some kind of self-surrender. That is really opposite what Scripture teaches. Particularly what we’re learning in the passage before us which says, “Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of His might.” Verse 10, “Put on the full armor of God that you may be able to stand firm against the schemes of the devil for our struggle is not against flesh and blood but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places. Therefore, take up the full armor of God that you may be able to resist in the evil day, and having done everything to stand firm.”

            Hebrews chapter 12 tells us the Christian life is a race. First Corinthians 9 tells us the Christian life is a boxing match. And Ephesians 6 tells us the Christian life is a war. In Titus we are told in chapter 3 and verse 8 to apply ourselves to good deeds, in fact, to be diligent to do that.

            We are told by James and by Peter that we are to resist our enemy, the devil, to be sober and vigilant. In fact, in 1 Corinthians 9 we are told by Paul’s example to beat our bodies into subjection.  We are told here in the epistle to the Ephesians, chapter 5 and verse 15, to be careful how we walk. We’re told in Philippians 3:14 to press on. He said in 2 Corinthians 7:1 we are told that we are to cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh, perfecting holiness in the fear of God.

            Peter tells us that while we have been given, (2 Peter 1:4), precious and magnificent promises, we must apply all diligence in your faith supply moral excellence; in your moral excellence, knowledge; in your knowledge, self-control; in your self-control, perseverance; in your perseverance, godliness; in your godliness, brotherly kindness; in your brotherly kindness, love. Peter reminds us that we are to be diligent because we don’t know how long we’re going to be here. In his first epistle, chapter 1, he says, “Gird your minds for action,” verse 13, “Keep sober in spirit. Fix your hope completely on the grace to be brought you at the revelation of Jesus Christ as obedient children.” We are called to obedience.Philippians 2:12 and 13 says, “Work out your salvation with fear and trembling.” God has put it in you, work it out, and make it visible, demonstrative.

            Ephesians chapter 4 to the end is all about this. Back in chapter 4 verse 1, “I therefore the prisoner of the Lord entreat you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling which you’ve been called.” And then he goes on, chapter 4, chapter 5, and chapter 6 to tell you how to walk. It demands aggression. It demands wisdom. It demands obedience. It demands perseverance. It demands faithfulness. It demands holiness, purity. And it recognizes that we’re engaged in a war.

            The Christian life is anything but passive. Yes God is our strength, and as Jehoshaphat said, “The battle is the Lord’s and we must be wary of trusting in our own strength.” But even though the strength is His and the battle is His, we are called to obedience, to commitment, to diligence, to self-discipline in order to be victorious.  Certainly the Apostle Paul understood how hard it was to be a Christian. You could never accuse him of some kind of benign surrender. He was a warrior. His life is lived in lists like this: endurance, affliction, hardship, distress, beatings, imprisonment, tumults, labors, sleeplessness, and hunger. He says to the Colossians that “It is his commitment to admonish every man, teach every man with all wisdom to present every man complete in Christ and for this purpose I work to the point of exhaustion, striving according to His power which mightily works within me.” That’s the perfect parallel, His power working in Me and my total commitment.  You depend on God, and you give your all. It is a war.

            I’m so glad that wrong notion has faded away. I don’t hear people talk about it at all anymore. When I was young, it was a dominating paradigm for spiritual life.

             Now that we’re in Ephesians chapter 6, let’s return to Paul’s discussion of how you arm yourself for this aggression, for this battle, for this effort. And you will notice that there are six pieces of armor that are mentioned, beginning in verse 14. And the first three are introduced by the verb having...having girded your loins, having put on the breastplate, having shod your feet. It presupposes that those are the permanent things. You have your belt on, you have your breastplate on, and you have your shoes on. And even if you’re not engaging in the battle at the moment, those remain in place because at all times you must be marked by readiness.

            But in addition to that, or on top of that, verse 16 says, “In addition to that,” the verb changes, “taking up the shield of faith.” Verse 17, “Take the helmet of salvation and, implied, take the sword of the Spirit which is the Word of God.” So at all times commitment, at all times holiness, at all times confidence in the presence and power of God. That’s what those first three mean as we already know.

            We live then committed to victory, pulling in the loose ends of our life as indicated by the belt of truth, truthfulness. We live in purity and sanctification and godliness and holiness with our breastplate on at all times. We live with our feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace which is to say that we’re confident God is on our side. And we live in that constant preparedness...commitment, holiness, and confidences. We take up, when the battle comes, the shield of faith, the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit.

            Now last time we talked about the shoes of the gospel of peace and we talked about the shield of faith. We could say a lot about those things. But I think we said enough last time to establish in your mind what we’re talking about.  Just a word or two about the shield of faith which was the one we ended up with last Sunday night. To say that the shield of faith is that which...with which you will be able to extinguish all the flaming missiles of the evil one is to say that the shield of faith is what protects you from devastating temptation. The arrows of Satan, the flaming missiles of the evil one you extinguish, you extinguish by faith, and it’s your protection.

What do you mean by that? Trust in the Lord. It is faith that overcomes the world. It is faith that overcomes Satan. Satan works through the world system. Your overcoming temptation has to do with you believing God and not believing Satan. It comes down to that as we learned in the Garden of Eden. Either you believe God or you believe Satan. Eve decided to believe Satan. She fell. She told her husband. He decided to go along with her, the whole human race fell. If you sin, you believed Satan. You have believed his lie about where fulfillment lies, where satisfaction lies, where real joy lies. If you deny sin and if you follow the path of holiness, you’re believing God you’re saying I believe satisfaction, fulfillment, blessing, joy, all of that is found in obedience to God so that what shields you from succumbing to temptation, what extinguishes the arrows of Satan is simply your trust in God.

            Every time you sin, mark it down. You have believed the lie. You have believed that you can find real peace, that you can find real joy, real fulfillment, and real satisfaction, something better than what you now have in sin. That’s the lie. Satan is the father of lies and speaks only lies.

            If you reject the temptation and you follow the path of holiness, you have said I believe God. I believe God, I trust Him. I trust Him that fulfillment, satisfaction, joy, blessing is found in obeying Him. It’s that simple.  Now that brings us to the fifth piece of armor and it takes some time to kind of work through this because it opens up a doctrine for us. “Take also...verse 17...the helmet of salvation,” the helmet of salvation.

            Now Roman soldiers wore helmets. They knew that blows to the chest could be fatal because their vital organs are there, so they wore a breastplate. They also knew that a blow in the head could be fatal. And so they protected their heads with a helmet. Some helmets in ancient times were leather with metal pieces fastened on to the leather. Others were solid cast metal, very much like their breastplates so there were breastplates of leather with metal riveted to it, as well as those that were molded, pounded metal. The purpose was to protect the head.  From what? Really from the broad swords that were being wielded. In battles in ancient times there were small little daggers called machaira, could be foot long, shorter. They were used in hand-to-hand combat to inflict a fatal blow. But there were also rhomphaia, a massive sword that would be as long as three feet or four feet, double edged. A handle would be gripped in both hands. The soldier would raise his sword high over his head and endeavor to bring down a crushing blow on the head of his enemy, splitting open his skull. A soldier had to be alert because a blow like that if it found its place in the right point of the head, even if you had a helmet, could be a crushing, devastating blow. So you would have to be aware of that. But once you moved, it would deflect that deadly blow.  The helmet, as far as our army is concerned, is the helmet of salvation. Now somebody might think well that means you don’t want to go into this battle unless you’re saved. But you wouldn’t even have this armor unless you were saved. This is not talking about salvation in the sense that we immediately think of it, past salvation. Not even talking about present salvation. To understand what it is actually talking about, you go to 1 Thessalonians chapter 5. First Thessalonians chapter 5, verse 8. “But since we are of the day, not the night, let us be sober, having put on the breastplate of faith and love, and as a helmet, the hope of salvation...the hope of salvation.’” 

            We will end here for today.

Quotation from “Love in Action” is from Acts 9:27-28:

“But Barnabas took him and brought him to the apostles.

And he declared to them how he had seen the Lord

on the road, and that He had spoken to him,

and how he had preached boldly at

Damascus in the name of Jesus.

So he was with them at

Jerusalem coming in

and going out.”

10/28/2019 10:48 AM

PT-1 "The Helmet of Salvation" (Eph. 6:17a)

SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 10/27/2019 1:03 PM

 

My Worship Time                                                            Focus: PT-1 “Helmet of Salvation” 

 

Bible Reading & Meditation                                     Reference:  Ephesians 6:17a

 

            Message of the verse:  “And take the helmet of salvation.”

 

            I have mentioned that I have studied the spiritual armor in the past and also mentioned that the way that John MacArthur teaches about the spiritual armor is different, but seems to be spot on after I have had some time to think about it.  Now before we go into the helmet of salvation I want to write about how I have used the shield of faith in my walk with the Lord.  I remember when I worked at the large foundry that I retired from some 20+ years ago that after I became a believer I became tempted and also upset about all of the pictures that were plastered over some portions of the buildings that were a part of the foundry.  I would have to pass by these pictures many times and so when I was studying about the spiritual armor I would sort of raise my left hand as to hold up the shield of faith against this kind of thing that was in many of the places in the foundry.  One thing that I did as I was using this part of the armor was to pray for my younger sister each time I was tempted and each time that I would use the shield of faith. I prayed that the Lord would save her as at that time I did not believe she was a believer.  A few years after I retired I was on vacation in Florida where my family was living for the winter at a RV site.  All had RV’s but my wife and I.  I had a chance to present the plan of salvation to my sister and she told me that a few years earlier when she was having some difficult things going on in her life that she had turned her life over to the Lord and said that I did not need to worry about her salvation as she was now a believer.  As I looked back from when she told me she became a believer it was at the same time when I was being tempted by obscene pictures raising my left hand with the shield of faith and praying for my sister. 

 

            As believer’s we are always in the battle and therefore we always need to have our spiritual armor on and we certainly need to have our helmet of salvation on because our heads are surely in need of protection.  The Roman soldier’s helmet was made of thick leather with pieces of metal on it to protect the head from blows from a very large sword that was about four feet long and could strike deadly blows to the head. 

 

            I have to caution those who read these SD’s that as in the case of most of my study on Ephesians that I will rely on different quotes from the commentary that I am reading to help me better understand this very difficult book of Ephesians, and that is John MacArthur’s commentary.  This is especially true in the way that he is teaching about the Spiritual Armor.

 

            What I plan to do for these last two pieces of the Spiritual Armor is to use fairly recent sermons that John MacArthur preached on the Spiritual Armor.  The commentary that I have been using is from sermons that were preached by him in 1979, and the sermon on the helmet of salvation that I want to use is from 2008.  So over the next couple days or so we will look at this sermon and I hope that you will take the time to look it over and think about it as it is important to our walk with the Lord.  We will begin, Lord willing to do this in our next SD.

 

In today’s “Love in Action” quotation we will look at David Jeremiah’s comments on our verses from yesterday Acts 9:1-2.

 

“This was Paul before his dramatic experience with God on the Damascus road.  It’s not hard to see why the true followers of Christ were skeptical of Paul’s supposed conversion!  Everyone, that is, except Barnabas.  Barnabas believed Paul and saw potential where others saw problems.

 

10/27/2019 4:31 PM

 

             

                       

 

 

PT-4 "The Shield of Faith" (Eph. 6:16)

SPIRIITUAL DIARY FOR 10/26/2019 9:22 AM

My Worship Time                                                                  Focus:  PT-4 “The Shield of Faith”

Bible Reading & Meditation                                                 Reference:  Ephesians 6:16

            Message of the verse:  “in addition to all, taking up the shield of faith with which you will be able to extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one.”

            We have been talking about the flaming missiles that Satan shoots at us for some time in these Spiritual Diaries, and the question arises as to how we as believers can extinguish these flaming missiles that Satan shoots at us.  He shoots missiles of temptation at us and the only way that we can defeat these missiles is to believe God as we take up the “shield of faith.”  Let us take a look at Proverbs 30:5-6 “5 Every word of God is tested; He is a shield to those who take refuge in Him. 6 Do not add to His words Or He will reprove you, and you will be proved a liar.”  We want to now look at what David says in Psalm 18:30 “As for God, His way is blameless; The word of the LORD is tried; He is a shield to all who take refuge in Him.”  One more and that comes from 1 John 5:4 “For whatever is born of God overcomes the world; and this is the victory that has overcome the world-our faith.”

            John MacArthur writes “The evil one’ (or ‘vile, wretched one,’ poneros) refers to the devil, whose supernaturally evil schemes are to stand firm against and ‘to resist in the evil day’ with the armor God supplies (vv. 11-13).  Paul here again emphasizes that our struggle is against personal forces of evil—not simply against bad philosophies or wrong ideas, as liberal theologians and preachers have long maintained.  Our battle is not against abstract evil influences but the personal ‘evil one’ and his hordes of personal demons.”

            I for one cannot really understand why people who say that they believe in God will also say that they do not believe that there is a devil.  All you have to do is take a look at history and some of the terrible things that have happened and you can see that there has to be a devil.  All you have to do is read from the Word of God, from the very first book and see that there is a devil.  Look at who tempted our Lord in the wilderness from Matthew chapter four and you will see that He was tempted by the devil because that is exactly what the text tells us:  “Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil” (Matthew 4:1).  Another way one can see that there is a devil is taking a look at the nation of Israel and you will find out that Satan hates the nation of Israel and has always hated that nation.  Once you see all of the terrible things that have happened to Israel and compare it with Scripture you know that Satan is behind Israel’s troubles. 

            In our SD for tomorrow we will begin to look at the “Helmet of Salvation” from Ephesians 6:17, Lord willing.

Our quotation from “Love in Action” comes from Acts 9:1-2:

As for Saul,

he made havoc of the church,

entering every house, and dragging off

men and women, committing them to prison

(Acts 8:3).  Then Saul, still breathing threats and murder

against the disciples of the Lord, went to the high priest and

asked letters from him to the synagogues of Damascus, so

that if he found any who were of the Way [Christians]

whether men or women, he might bring

them bound to Jerusalem.

10/26/2019 9:47 AM

PT-3 "The Shield of Faith" (Eph. 6:16)

SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 10/25/2019 11:29 AM

My Worship Time                                                                  Focus:  PT-3 “The Shield of Faith”

Bible Reading & Meditation                                                 Reference:  Ephesians 6:16

            Message of the verse:  “in addition to all, taking up the shield of faith with which you will be able to extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one.

            I want to go back to the first flaming missile that Satan shot and that was at Adam and Eve as seen in the third chapter of Genesis.  That missile was that they should doubt God, and it worked and Satan has been shooting that missile at many people ever since.  Why not? If it works why change what you are doing.  Every temptation, directly or indirectly, is the temptation to doubt and distrust God.  Satan asked Eve “Did God really say that, are you sure He said that or did you not hear exactly what He said to you.”  Think about this fact that what God told Adam and Eve was His Word and His Word never changes because He never changes.  John MacArthur writes “The purpose of all of Satan’s missiles, therefore, is to cause believers to forsake their trust in God, to drive a wedge between the Savior and the saved.  He even tempted God’s own Son to distrust Him in the wilderness—first to distrust His Father’s provision, then to distrust His protection and His plan (Matt. 4:3-9).

            The following are some of the things that John MacArthur wrote to combat what Satan tries to get people to do:  “Efforts to justify fornication or adultery in the name of God’s grace—arguing, as some do, that sex was created by God and that everything He created is good—pervert logic, contradict God’s Word, and impugn His integrity.  Trying to justify marriage to an unbeliever—arguing that the relationship is so beautiful that it must be of God—follows Satan’s will instead of God’s.  Doubting God is to disbeliever God, which, as the apostle John tells us, makes a liar of Him who cannot lie (1 John 5:10; cf. Titus 1:2).  Whenever and however we try to justify any sin, we degrade God’s character and elevate Satan’s.  To sin is to believe Satan, and to follow righteousness is to believe God.  Therefore, all sin results from failure to act in faith in who God is and what He is.  Faith, then, is the shield.”  I think that this paragraph makes things simple to understand when it comes to disobeying God and thus shows us to follow God and not follow Satan.  It also makes me think of the countless number of times that I have failed God, and thus follow Satan’s lie, and this makes me also think about the longsuffering of God and how much He loves me. 

            Let us look at Proverbs 8:34 “"Blessed is the man who listens to me, Watching daily at my gates, Waiting at my doorposts.”  Sin forsakes and contradicts this promise that God has given to us that those who listen to God are blessed. Jesus tells us that God will never give us a stone when we ask for fish (Matt. 7:9), that God will open the windows of heaven and pour out immeasurable blessings on His faithful children as seen in Mal. 3:10.  “"Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, so that there may be food in My house, and test Me now in this," says the LORD of hosts, "if I will not open for you the windows of heaven and pour out for you a blessing until it overflows.”  James tells us in 1:17 “Every good thing given and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shifting shadow.”  Paul tells us that God will supply all of our needs “according to His riches in glory” in Philippians 4:19, and then in Ephesians 1:3 we learned that God has “blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ” and there are hundreds of other such promises, so why do we believe Satan’s lie that God is holding something back from us.

            There is only a little bit left in our study of the shield of faith and we will, Lord willing, look at the only way that we can extinguish these flaming missiles that Satan shoots at us in our next SD.

In our quotation from “Love in Action” today we will look at Dr. Jeremiah’s comments from our verses from yesterday, Acts 5:1-2.

“These two were like many would-be encouragers today.  They wanted recognition but didn’t like the requirements.  They just couldn’t bring themselves to make the full sacrifice, as Barnabas had done.  But because they wanted the same level of applause, the pretended to give it all and kept some for themselves.  Their ‘act of love’ was not genuine.  It was tarnished with deceit and selfishness.  They missed the blessing that could have been theirs that could have been theirs because they were unwilling to pay the price up front.  The pretended!”

Now it is my desire to finish the quotation that we have been looking at from Dr. Warren Wiersbe’s book “The Strategy of Satan.”

“So when Satan comes with pride to attack your will, surrender immediately to the Holy Spirit and let him work in you to produce humility and submission before God.  Do not attempt to go beyond your gifts or faith you have to exercise those gifts.  Satan can use spiritual things to make you proud: your ability to teach or preach the Word; your prayer life; your success in witnessing and soul-winning.

“The story may be apocryphal, but it illustrates the point.  A famous Christian businessman was visiting a church and was asked to give a word of greeting.  He got carried away telling all that God had done for him.  ‘I have a successful business, a large house, a lovely family, a famous name, enough money to do the things I want to do and be able to give to Christian works.  I have health and opportunities unnumbered.  There are many people would gladly exchange places with me.  What more could God give me?’  From the back of the auditorium a voce called, ‘A good dose of humility!’

“Humble yourselves in the presence of the Lord, and

He will exalt you.  James 1:19”

10/25/2019 12:16 PM