Welcome!
Today we continue The War, our series
on spiritual warfare. Just in case you have somehow forgotten, we are in a war,
a war not against flesh and blood, but against something much more powerful.
Often it is true that flesh and blood gets co-opted into this war; that is,
people, wittingly or unwittingly, become powerful and effective foot soldiers
for Satan and his demons. But even then, they are not the real enemy; the real
enemy is behind the scenes.
By way
of example, last week commemorated the 100th anniversary of
Communism; in October 1917 the “October Revolution” began in Russia to
transform global thinking of what a government should be like. In its theory,
pure communism involved common ownership and a lessening of the state. Practice
was another matter. Its followers, not just in Russia, but around the world,
believed that creating a communist paradise required purging capitalist beliefs
and indeed, all beliefs that were opposed to communist ways of thinking.
Communist leaders did not value the freedom of choice, or even human life
itself, and as a result, they sent millions upon millions to prison camps,
often to die, and millions more people were executed on the spot. Communism has
left a trail of death not just in Russia, but in every country where it has been practiced. Not surprisingly, the
country with perhaps the greatest degree of civil rights abuses in the world is
a country that practices what is arguably the purest form of communism (not the
idealist impossible version, but the real-world totalitarian version) – North
Korea.
From communism’s
beginning in Russia, Christianity was seen as an enemy of communist ideals. One
of the reasons for this was that some Christian leaders supported the opponents
of the communist revolution. But I am convinced a much deeper reason had to do
with the core question of the nature of man and his allegiance. Communism
taught (and still teaches) that all duties are collective, to be enforced by
the state. Man’s value is what the state says it is. In essence, communism
replaces God with the state. In contrast, the Bible teaches that man is made in
the image of God, and his worth is based on what God says about man.
Furthermore, the Bible teaches that although we are generally to submit to our
governing authorities, we are, above this guideline, to submit to and follow
God above all else. The book of Acts shows early believers disregarding
commands to stop sharing the gospel given by what was then essentially the
state. Recall that Peter and John were arrested, and in response,
Then they [the religious leaders] called them
in again and commanded them not to speak or teach at all in the name of Jesus. But Peter and John replied, “Which is
right in God’s eyes: to listen to you, or to Him? You be the judges! As for us, we cannot help speaking about what we have seen and
heard.” – Acts 4:18-20
What
did they mean by “cannot”? Surely they could stop speaking! What they meant is
that their ultimate allegiance was not to these earthly leaders, but to Christ.
And because Christ had called them to “go and make disciples,” that was what
they were going to do. They could not, or more precisely, would not do anything else.
As the
early communists rounded up believers and told them to reveal the names of
other believers or face imprisonment, torture, and death, and as the religious
leaders likewise persecuted the early church in Acts, it would certainly appear
as if the war was (and is) in fact against flesh and blood. On a much lesser
extent, we can feel the same way as we deal with seemingly impossible bosses,
family members, or even insurance or telephone company employees (maybe
especially so with the latter). But this is not true. Behind it all are “the rulers, the
authorities, the powers of this dark world and the spiritual forces of evil in
the heavenly realms” (Eph. 6:12).
Recall
what Jesus Himself said while on the cross:
Jesus said, "Father, forgive them, for they do not
know what they are doing." – Luke 23:34a
And
remarkably through the centuries, this prayer has been repeated by believers
about to be executed by their persecutors, included those killed by communist
governments around the world. These people understood, even during their final
breaths, that the war is not against flesh and blood. I think it is important
that we too fully accept and understand this, not only as we reflect on the horrible
fruit of 100 years of communism and the militant, corrupt, atheistic
governments that implemented it, but as we look at the relatively minor
conflicts we experience in our own lives.
And
lest you think that, since we aren’t experiencing major persecution like under
the communists or the early church, Satan is rendered impotent in attacking
believers and weakening the church, let me just remind you that Satan is just
as happy using believers to do his
destroying work for him; perhaps even more so! I received a prayer request just
this week from a leader of a Christian ministry that is undergoing great
turmoil because multiple members of the “second tier” leadership have decided
to quit their positions because they don’t agree with the top-tier leadership’s
assessment that something they are doing is improper. Even here, the battle is
not against flesh and blood. Satan’s real success in this situation is not in
getting the second tier people to disagree with the top leaders; disagreements
can happen all the time. His success is in blowing up what should have led to a
sincere discussion and a willingness to ultimately yield to the leadership – I
don’t want to get into any particulars, but I am convinced that the concerns
and requests of the leadership were not at all unreasonable – Satan’s real
success was in getting people to leave over a minor manner and to leave
abruptly, causing chaos and disunity in the entire organization. Please
understand – Satan absolutely delights in thwarting the work of God in this
manner, and he succeeds in this way all
the time! Again, when you are tempted to overreact, when you are tempted to
give your anger sway, when you are tempted to lash out at those that love you,
your battle is not against flesh and blood.
Inspired
by the Holy Spirit, Paul, in his letter to the Ephesians, followed this
profound truth with a practical list of defenses a Christian should employ in
his battle against the spiritual rulers, authorities, powers, and forces.
Starting from Eph. 6:14, he wrote:
Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled
around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, and with your feet fitted with the
readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. In
addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can
extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. Take
the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.
– Eph. 6:14-17
I
encourage you to read the transcripts or listen to the recordings of past
messages to gain deeper insight into the belt of truth, the breastplate of
righteousness, the gospel “shoes” of peace, the shield of faith, and the helmet
of salvation. Today we focus on the sword.
I do
want to review a bit of what John shared last week regarding the helmet of
salvation, because I believe that the helmet and the sword, appearing in the
same sentence, are linked more deeply than just “grammatically.” Regarding the
importance of a helmet in battle, John pointed out that “in the midst of battle
if a soldier takes a blow to the head, all the other gear, armor, and weapons
become useless.” He also noted that “the outcome of a battle is often more
about fear and despair than it is about strength and power. A great many
battles have ended with one side running away.” John explained that “the helmet of salvation
protects us against discouragement, against the desire to give up, giving us
hope not only in knowing that we are saved, but that we will be saved. It is
the assurance that God has triumphed and will triumph. A Christian
soldier's ‘thinking process’ is protected by his salvation ‘for we walk by
faith, not by sight.’” John is exactly right about this!
We see
more insight into the helmet of salvation in I Thess. 5:
You are all children of the light and children
of the day. We do not belong to the night or to the darkness. So then, let us not be like others, who
are asleep, but let us be awake and sober. For those
who sleep, sleep at night, and those who get drunk, get drunk at night. But since we belong to the day, let us be sober, putting on faith
and love as a breastplate, and the hope of salvation as a helmet. For God did not appoint us to suffer wrath but to receive salvation
through our Lord Jesus Christ. He died for us so that,
whether we are awake or asleep, we may live together with him. Therefore encourage one another and build each other up, just as in
fact you are doing. – I Thess. 5:5-11
It’s
even more explicit here: put on the hope
of salvation as a helmet. This is not the kind of hope that is without
assurance, as in “I hope I passed Dr.
Baum’s test on Friday!” No, this is the kind of hope that is entirely based upon assurance. We are
“children of the light and children of the day. We do not belong to the night
or the darkness.” This is who we are – our very identity, now that we are
believers, is in Christ. We are “of the day” because He is of the day – as it
says in John 1, in Him is no darkness at all.
It is
believed that in Roman times, the primary reason for having that helmet on was
not so much for protection from arrows, but for protection from the longsword.
This was a huge, heavy kind of sword. It was most effective from an elevated
position, for example, if a person was on horseback. He would swing with a
powerful downward stroke, attempting to cleave right through his opponent’s
skull. The job of the helmet was to deflect this blow. A soldier with a helmet
knew that he was likely safe from such an attack – this made him far more
effective, far more dangerous, because even in the presence of people with
longswords, he could continue to attack; he knew he was protected.
In the
same way, the hope, or assurance, of salvation makes us more “dangerous,”
because we know to Whom we belong, and we know where we are going after we die.
We know that we are forgiven in Christ, redeemed by His blood, forgiven and
saved for an eternity with Him. This should make us bold, eager to pray for
others, eager to share the gospel, eager to die to self and live all-out for
Him. This is what the helmet of salvation should do for us.
I
would add one more point about the helmet – you can’t put a helmet on if you
are already wearing something else on your head. I think many people are timid,
afraid to be bold for Christ, precisely because they do not wear the helmet of
salvation but instead wear a crown of “self.” That is, they are afraid of being
rejected, or being seen as weird, or perhaps even experiencing a very minor
amount of persecution if they are bold about their faith. Such people are
thinking about their present lives rather than about eternity; that is, they
are wearing something other than the helmet of salvation. Don’t get me wrong,
but if you are really wearing the helmet, along with all the rest of the armor,
you should feel bold, even a little, dare I say it, reckless.
When I
was growing up my family often took me snow skiing several weeks a year.
Growing up I frequently had problems with spraining my ankles, but I soon came
to love the “armor” of a ski boot, which is basically as inflexible as a cast.
What I discovered is that I could still ski even if my ankle was so sore that I
couldn’t walk. I remember once very badly spraining an ankle right before a ski
trip, and I went to great pains (literally) to convince my parents that it was
only a minor sprain, and that I was perfectly well enough for skiing. Once I
had my ski boots on, I could walk without a limp. I could even jump! I
certainly could ski. (I think my parents had to have been suspicious because
that trip I kept on wearing my ski boots, even at night to restaurants!) I must
have looked pretty ridiculous, but as long as I kept those boots on, I could
walk forever.
The
helmet, and the rest of the armor, should have a similar effect. We do not need
to fear Satan and his underlings. Keep on the armor, and you can do things that
would otherwise be impossible. Keep on the armor, and you can be a soldier who
helps to win The War.
This
brings us to the sword of the Spirit.
Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of
the Spirit, which is the word of God. – Eph. 6:17
The Greek word used for
sword here, machaira, is different
than the word used for the longsword we talked about previously today. This was
a shorter sword. This kind of sword was more for “everyday” use. Roman soldiers
had them for everyday patrolling. A modern analogy is that a policeman uses a
relatively small gun, certainly small compared with the fully automatic sorts
of weapons used in war. Peter used such a sword to, well, cut off the high
priest’s servant’s ear.
This passage tells us
to use the word of God like a soldier would use an everyday sword. What does
this mean? Well, I am no swordsman, but I think I know. A sword is almost
useless unless you spend countless hours becoming trained in how to use it. To
become a soldier, you practiced daily at
sword work. There were no shortcuts to becoming an excellent swordsman, just as
there are no shortcuts in becoming an expert in anything.
Some of my children
have been involved in martial arts. And once they have been at it for a while,
just playing around with them you can tell that their reflexes have entirely
changed. You move quickly to poke at me, and, well, you will succeed to poke me!
But you do this with someone long involved in martial arts, and they will not
only deflect the attempt, but unless they control themselves, they will
immediately counterattack in some way.
Let me talk about the
one thing along these lines that I do know something about – playing piano. I
have played piano now for more than 90% of my life. When I sit down to play the
piano, the keys become almost an extension of me. I know where they are and
what they will do. I don’t need to look at them. I actually watched an
interesting video on YouTube in which scientists tracked pianist’s eyes as they
played – I think as they were sight-reading in particular, that is, reading a
piece of music and playing it for the first time – and what they found is that
a huge difference between intermediate and advanced level pianists was the
amount of time they spent looking at their hands. Intermediate pianists had a
really hard time sight reading because they had to keep looking away from the
music to look at their hands, and then they had to look back at the music, find
their place, and keep going. Advanced pianists, in contrast, were able to just
keep looking at the music – their hands knew what to do.
I am convinced that I
have played piano so much that it has completely transformed my brain. (There
are studies that back this up – studies in general, not studies of my brain!)
One thing I can tell you about my brain is that I constantly dream with a
soundtrack! (My family says I do this so my own snoring doesn’t wake me up – but
I digress.)
Jokes aside, hopefully
you see where this is going. Just as how keeping a sword at your side in a
scabbard with a belt won’t do you any good if you haven’t been fully trained in
using it, so also, carrying a Bible with you (or on your phone) won’t do you
any good if you don’t regularly read it.
We need to read the Bible day after day, day after day, day after day, until we
finally go to be with the Lord. We should be so infused with the Bible that it
radically changes our brains. This is the primary way we live out Romans 12:2:
Do not conform to the pattern of this world,
but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test
and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will. – Romans
12:2
One of
Satan’s favorite tricks is to misguide you as to God’s will. I don’t mean here
God’s specific will, as in where you should work, or even what you should have
for dinner tonight, but I mean as with respect to His moral will, as in what is right, or what is best. The people who
left the leadership positions I mentioned earlier were tricked by Satan into
thinking that it was better to immediately leave over a relatively minor
disagreement than it was to submit under leadership that they did not fully
agree with in every area. This is what Satan does. This is His bread and butter
play. He does it because so often it works. How do you defeat this strategy? By
knowing Scripture. By really knowing
Scripture. Jesus gives us the perfect example of this in the account of His temptation
in the desert by the devil. Here is the account from Matt. 4:
Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the
wilderness to be tempted by the devil. After fasting forty days and forty nights, He was hungry. The tempter came to Him and said, “If you are the Son of God, tell
these stones to become bread.” Jesus answered, “It is
written: ‘Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from
the mouth of God [Deut. 8:3].’” – Matt. 4:1-4
Then the devil took Him to the holy city and
had Him stand on the highest point of the temple. “If you are the Son of God,” he said,
“throw yourself down. For it is written: ‘He will command his angels concerning
You, and they will lift You up in their hands, so that You will not strike Your
foot against a stone. [Ps. 91:11-12]’” Jesus answered him, “It is also written: ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test [Deut.
6:16].’” – Matt. 4:5-7
Again, the devil took Him to a very high
mountain and showed Him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor. “All this I will give You,” he said, “if You
will bow down and worship me.” Jesus said to him, “Away
from me, Satan! For it is written: ‘Worship the Lord your God, and serve Him
only [Deut. 6:13].’” – Matt. 4:8-10
How did Jesus do that?
I can hear some of you thinking, “Well, He was Jesus. He can do anything!” Yes,
He was Jesus, but I believe this passage is written down or us because it is a
model for us. Jesus was able to do this because He knew Scripture. We too
should know Scripture. Know it well. Know it repeatedly. Read it, read it, read
it. Doing this will give you spiritual reflexes like what Jesus displays in
this passage. Doing this will enable you to almost effortlessly deflect any
unbiblical thoughts the devil throws your way. Doing this will enable you to
consistently make the morally best decisions.
There are no shortcuts.
There is no plan B. But there is no better kind of training to go into. There
is no better way to spend your time. Nothing will enrich your life here on
earth like soaking your brain every day with God’s Word.
I want to make one more
point about Eph. 6:17:
Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of
the Spirit, which is the word of God. – Eph. 6:17
I want to focus on the
word “word.” In Greek this is not Logos,
as in John 1: In the beginning was the
Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. In Greek philosophy,
logos refers to “a universal, divine
reason or the mind of God.” (gotquestions.org). Instead, the word used here
translated as “word” is rhema. Rhema is much more specific than logos, and its choice implies that, just
as with Jesus’ temptation in the desert, the Bible provides specific protection
against specific attacks.
Now I would be remiss
if I did not mention that there are some who have misappropriated the rhema term to describe using Scripture
out of context, for example, looking for guidance to God’s specific will via
randomly opening the Bible, reading a random verse, and expecting God to give
you specific guidance at that moment via that verse. Although I won’t say it is
impossible for God to work in that manner, I actually think that in some ways
this is another form of putting God to the test, somehow forcing Him to act. I
should point out that if God wants to speak to you directly, He has no problems
doing so. He doesn’t need you to open the Bible randomly for Him to do that. He
can gently guide you through His Spirit, or He can actually speak to you or do
things even more scary. In any case, I am confident that this is not what Eph.
6:17 means when it uses the term rhema.
Instead, the person who
daily soaks his brain in Scripture will be someone for whom particular
scriptures will come to mind when dealing with the tough situations of the day,
when sharing with unbelievers, when seeking wisdom for themselves or for
others, and so on. If you become a person who fills and transforms their mind
with Scripture, you may find other people, even unbelievers, coming to you for
advice because they have learned over time that you possess a great deal of
wisdom.
And hopefully you now
see how the sword is closely related to the helmet and the other items – each
of the other items involves appropriating deep within yourself various elements
of biblical truth. The best way to do this is to keep reading scripture,
because in doing so you will periodically be reminded of these other truths.
And let me mention that
the sword is not just for you to wield as Satan attempts to attack you. It is
also for God Himself to wield as you read. I encourage you, each time you read
the Bible, to ask the Lord to “cut” you with the truths you read but are blind
to in how you fail to apply them in your own life.
For the word of God is alive and active.
Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and
spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart. –
Heb. 4:12
And as
it says in James,
Do not merely listen to the word, and so
deceive yourselves. Do what it says. – James 1:22
I
began this message by talking about a 100-year anniversary. I want to finish
with a 500-year anniversary. Most likely all of you know what I am talking
about – Martin Luther’s posting of the 95 theses on a church door, a seemingly
small action that led to the amazing, unending protestant reformation.
I want
to close with a clip of a movie made about Martin Luther. The clip is actually
a compilation of multiple short clips, so it feels a little jerky at places,
but the advantage of this is that it gives you quickly a reminder of the events
that began 500 years ago.
(Clip
is available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ijjbtcAEOnY.)
“Unless
I am convinced by Scripture and by plain reason…” Martin Luther learned to use
the sword. Scripture became for him the final authority in what is true, in
what is right, in what is good, and in what is best. May we do the same!
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