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
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