The Helmet of Salvation — Part One

the following message by Alistair beg is made available by truth for life for more information visit us online at truth for I invite you to follow along as I read from Romans and chapter 5 Romans chapter 5 beginning at the first verse therefore since we have been justified by faith we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God not only that but we rejoice in our sufferings knowing that suffering produces endurance endurance produces character and character produces hope and hope does not put us to shame because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us for while we were still weak at the right time Christ died for the ungodly for one will scarcely die for a righteous person though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners Christ died for us since therefore we have now been justified by his blood much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God for if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his son much more now that we are reconciled shall we be saved by his life more than that we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ through whom we have now received reconciliation amen gracious God we thank you for the wonder of what we have son we pray now that as we turn to the Bible it may be actually your voice that we hear beyond voice of a mere man grant that we might hear your promptings and pleadings and willings and winnings for this we long and we pray in Christ's name Amen well we're still in our studies in Ephesians chapter 6 and I invite you to turn there and to the phrase which is the focus of our study for today you'll find it there in verse 17 and take the helmet of salvation take the helmet of salvation if you ever wonder what it's like to have to study the Bible and prepare to teach it just imagine what it was like this past week to sit down with a blank sheet of paper and the phrase and take the helmet of salvation and start from there and after you've thought for 30 minutes and you've looked at the sheet of paper there's still nothing on it at all well eventually you run out of time and Sunday comes and and here you are well we have been very clearly reminded by Paul that the same grace that reconciles us to God antagonize as us to the evil one that we are naive in the extreme if we fail to understand that to become a follower of Jesus Christ is to be immediately introduced to warfare of a significant nature spiritual warfare the nature of the enemy we have considered and the resources provided to us in Jesus are have been the focus of our study and so we have been following along and this morning we essentially come to the last piece of the armor now you may look down at your text and say no there are two more pieces but I think strictly speaking the helmet is the last piece of the armor a sword is not armor it is a weapon and so we have the sword of the Spirit which is the word of God and then we have prayer and I think the distinction is valid I may be proved wrong by you we're not putting on the shoes too people were not putting on the breastplate of righteousness to attack them and run at them the helmet of salvation is all protection but we're going to turn to the point where we take up the weapons that are provided for us but that's not this morning this morning we are here in this helmet now I wonder if you've been as helped as I have been by the poetry of Wesley in a hymn that he rode on this section of the Bible which I don't think has ever really been bettered and I found myself saying it to myself quite routinely as I've been going through this passage I remember it it begins soldiers of Christ arise and put your armor on strong in the strength which God provides through his eternal son strong in the lord of hosts and in his mighty power who in the strength of Jesus trusts is more than Conqueror in the second verse which I won't quote to you he begins stand then in his great might with all your strength complete and the third and final verse begins leave no unguarded place it's wonderfully helpful if you're unaware of it you might take it and sing it yourself on the way home provided have someone else read the word studio but what we've been learning in the process is that to put on the armor which is the exhortation of Paul here is then to resist the accusations the insinuations and the lies of the devil himself and how is that done well it is done by trusting in Christ alone those of you who were present last Sunday morning will recall that we ended our study by the singing of that him in order that we would understand clearly that all of the resources are provided for us in Christ and any potential victory that we have over the evil one is an account of our being held up enclosed in supported by these things and we have said from the beginning that behind this exhortation there is the picture of the Roman soldier and behind the picture of the Roman soldier there is the picture that emerges in the Old Testament of God as a warrior of all the things that people think about God you'll seldom have somebody suggest that he is a warrior but in fact God is depicted as a warrior and in acts in the Isaiah chapter 59 he strides out when men are looking for salvation and looking for victory and the warrior comes out wearing the helmet of salvation as the worker and the bringer of salvation now what we know as New Testament readers is something that Isaiah and the people who lived in Isaiah's day 600 years before Christ did not know namely that the fulfillment of that Old Testament picture of the warrior who brings salvation is the Lord Jesus Christ himself and you will perhaps remember that of all the things that are said about why Jesus came one that stands out in this context most helpfully is in first John chapter 3 and verse 8 where John says and the reason Jesus came was to destroy the works of the devil to destroy the works of the devil and the question is inevitably raised well has he done so and the answer to that is yes he has that at the cross the battle has been fought and won on behalf of all who believe you say well I seems to be a lot of activity going on if the battle has been fought and won well that's one of the reasons that we need to put on the helmet of salvation so that we can think properly about these things the picture that I've used throughout is a simple picture from chess about which I know relatively little and if you played me you would understand quickly but in chess checkmate finishes it up and you can produce checkmate very quickly if you're very good and if you're playing somebody like me who's very poor and the poor person will say oh but can I make a few more moves and you may say well you can make some moves if you want but you cannot alter the outcome because checkmate is inevitable and so that's what we have in the cross more moves being played out more antagonism more enemy warfare without being able to affect the outcome so to put on the helmet of salvation which is the exhortation here is then to trust in all that Christ has accomplished to trust in all that Christ has accomplished there's no surprise that we would be given protection for our heads and therefore protection for our minds the roman soldiers helmet was a combination of decoration and protection you've seen pictures of it with a plume on the top often made of brass or of bronze filled with felt or with sponge in order to make it possible to wear a bit like a crash helmet or a military helmet even today and it was of such significance that only an axe or a hammer would really be able to penetrate it and it's this picture that he now gives to us for those who are facing the challenges in Ephesus and each of us chasing facing the challenges where we live he reminds us that we've been provided with the protection for our heads and therefore for our minds now what I'd like to do is to consider this along three lines first of all to think very particularly about the importance of the Christian mind the importance of the Christian mind and then secondly there the importance about thinking properly about salvation itself and then finally a call to believe in Jesus himself first of all then the importance of the Christian mind I recalled this week that I had heard a lecture sometime ago in fact when I went back to check or when I was helped in checking I discovered that it was 1996 when I went across into Pittsburgh to Sewickley because the late John Stott was there and he was giving two addresses that day instance Stevens Sewickley I can't remember who came with me I didn't go alone and off we went and we were not disappointed and he gave a talk along the lines of one of his books your mind matters and it was very good I took comprehensive notes and I remember that he began with what was like a big joke for John's start because he he really didn't do jokes but he began his talk by saying there were two people and they were in a grocery store and they were bemoaning the state of the world and one was complaining about how devastating everything was and how overwhelmed they were by it and how it was stressing them in every dimension to which the friend replies you know you need to take things a bit more philosophically stop thinking and that was his joke you see it went over very well then and as it did now that's why he shouldn't do that kind of stuff but he pointed out that the twentieth century he said had spawned ugly twins ugly twins one mindlessness and two meaninglessness mindlessness and meaninglessness now if you think about it that's quite a helpful picture let's not bother for the moment with the notion of nihilism and meaninglessness and futility but let's think just about mindlessness and let's be honest enough to recognize that it is one of the charges that is leveled against the Christian soldier the man or the woman who says that they are men and women of faith and if they're bold enough to say that they're actually men and women of faith in the Lord Jesus Christ because of course it is not unusual in fact it is quite common for faith to be regarded as a kind of illogical belief in the improbable happening and for people essentially to say you know the real thinking people are those who think along these very rational lines and therefore we feel sorry for you that you've had to come up with this as a crutch or or as a walking stick just to help you navigate your way through life I'm sure you've had that said to you well what is the answer to that the answer to that is to retreat or advance if you like to the Scriptures and to say to ourselves first of all well is that how the Bible is presented to me when I when I read the Bible do I discover that it invites me just to feel things when I read the Bible does it try and sweep me up in an emotional surge when I read the Bible does it ask me to disengage my thinking processes in order that I might then become this person of faith and the honest answer has to be no it does not in many cases what it does is it causes us to think so deeply that we cannot quite unravel the jigsaw puzzle that it introduces us to complexities that are metaphysical in their dimensions and through it the runs a line and that line is running historically yes and rationally so for example when you read in the Gospels themselves take any of the Gospels the Gospel of John he tells us towards the end there were many more things that Jesus did we don't have the capacity to put them in these book this book but these things were recorded these signs were recorded in order that you might believe that said exercise of the mind and that by believing you might have life in his name when mark begins his gospel he starts straight out this is the good news of Jesus and then Jesus speaks and he says the time is fulfilled the kingdom of God is at hand and believe the good news it's a call to believe Christianity is supremely and first of all a call to think to think in fact it is a call in Christ as a soldier of Christ to think deeply and to feel deeply the compassion and the necessity of the out working of this good news has to then express itself in other ways but for now we're thinking about the importance of our minds what you find in the Gospels is historical in fact if you remember in our studies in Luke which reduces the numbers substantially but I've always been intrigued by the way in which Luke begins at chapter 3 now he's writing a gospel he's not writing a history book he's not writing a biography although others bio biographical material he's writing a gospel is it writing good news and this is how he starts his third chapter in the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar Pontius Pilate being governor of Judea and Herod being Tetrarch of Galilee and his brother Philip Tetrarch of the region of it areia and track and itis and Lysanias the Tetrarch of Abilene I won't read any further on what the world are you doing here look he's setting the reality and the truth of the gospel within the historical context of the time he's reminding the reader the thinking reader that this is not something that has been scrabbled together out of the air these are real events in real time involving real people so the apostles when they begin their preaching after the resurrection of Jesus they do the exact same thing in fact there would never be a New Testament without the resurrection of Jesus it's questionable whether any one of us would even have heard the name of Jesus of Nazareth without the resurrection and therefore they then launch into the then-known world with this amazing story proclaiming the need to think Paul when he writes to the money when he addresses the Ephesians you can read it in acts it says that he reasoned and he persuaded them in the in the in a lecture hall of Tyrannus and he used to do this every day the people would come in and listen and he wasn't just singing songs to them he wasn't just trying to get them to have an emotional experience no he said I wanted I want you to think with me today when he when he did the same with a vessel and I can people it says that he reasoned with them from the Scriptures explaining and proving so for those of you who want to come at this on a very rational basis here you are consider the evidence apply your minds to it but don't come with this nonsense about science deals in the realm of rationality and faith deals in the realm of mindlessness it is not so just this week one of the obituaries in The Times was of a young geneticist from Sen Thomas's Hospital she died on as a collision on her on her bicycle in central London and as I read the obituary describing how she had invested her life in in seeking to come up with answers to deep genetic questions that involved illnesses and children of death nests and so on for which there was very little money involved at all and that and this was her great commitment and it made made the point that she was testing and re-examining and testing and re-examining as inevitably science must trying to reproduce the same circumstance to make similar deductions but Christianity is by definition involved in events in history that are unique and unrepeatable now when we begin to bow underneath the thinking of this we have to do so in the awareness of the fact that the context in which we go back out into a is largely one that affirms the independent validity of every notion of religion the independent validity of every spiritual experience that is immediately a problem for the Christian soldier because the Christian soldier who is wearing the helmet of salvation is unable to embrace that pluralism the Christian soldier is unable to affirm that relativism the Christian soldier is stuck if you like with the exclusive claims of Jesus of Nazareth the Christian soldier inevitably is confronted with the responsibility of affirming truth as it is revealed to us in Jesus and seeking to establish or affirm not the uniqueness of Christianity per se but the uniqueness of Jesus that we are prepared to say to our world that God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself that is the Incarnation that there was no other good enough to pay the price of sin he only Jesus could unlock the gate of heaven and let us in that is the atonement that it was in triumphing over sin and death and the grave that he arose triumphant that is the resurrection that he has ascended to the right hand of the Father from which he will come to rule in power and in great glory one day in other words the Christian mind is brought under the framework of revealed truth in the scriptures the good the bad the new the perfect God made the world beautifully and all was good man rebels and sin enters into the world and through sin death the bad the new in the person of the Lord Jesus in him you will of life and life and all of its fullness yeah but life is still full of sin and disappointment and darkness yes because this is the new but it is not yet the perfect this is where we live now my dear friends unless we're putting on the helmet of salvation on the average Monday morning we will be suckers for all of this that comes against us and it is too bad when the people myself included in trying to teach the Bible do such a poor job that it causes the listener to switch off causes the listener to say well there's no reason for me to continue thinking there's no logical progression at all and what this character is all about but Paul again you see is very concerned on this respect he says to Timothy as a young pastor in Ephesus God did not give you a spirit of fear but a spirit of power and of love and notice and a sound mind when he exhorts him to stand against the tide that pushes against him he says and as for you Timothy keep your head in all situations when he writes to the Corinthians he says I do not want you to be children in your thinking when he warns the church at Rome about being absorbed into an alien culture he says let me tell you how you're going to manage this by being transformed and transformed by the renewing of your mind the renewing of your mind a mind in every thought renewed and full of love divine well that's as much as I will take time to say concerning that the importance of the Christian mind but we need to go on from there and consider the importance not only of thinking but of thinking correctly about salvation thinking correctly about salvation that's why it is called here the helmet of salvation because our protection from the enemy of our souls and all of his evil schemes is once again grounded not in how I feel but in what I know that's why one of my favorite verses is Isaiah 26:3 you will keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you because he trusts in you whose mind is stayed on you how do I deal with the thoughts of my mind many and various as they are how do I bring them under control how do I wrestle them to the ground as it where when I am experiencing all these insinuations and accusations now you can go and find books on the power of positive thinking that will go much along these lines what they all are missing of course is the enabling power of the Holy Spirit to subdue our rebel cries and to enable us to trust Christ so the protection then in the helmet to counter the attacks of the enemy is salvation it is his saving power which is our only defense against the enemy of our souls and Paul throughout his letter has been making this clear he's grounding all that he's saying at the end in what he has reminded them of at the beginning he has reminded them of the vastness of God's love and back in chapter 2 and verse 4 he says to them but God being rich in mercy because of the great love with which he loved us I remember one of my friends telling me that he that he became a Christian on the day one of his friends said to him have you have you ever known the love of God for you in Jesus the man said no I never heard of such a thing but God being rich in mercy because of the great love with which he loved us even when we were dead in our trespasses made us alive together with Christ by grace you have been saved then he comes back and says it quickly again and what was it that these these folks in Ephesus had done to deserve this the same thing that you arrived here to believe it today have done to deserve it absolutely nothing absolutely nothing now that's why we read from Romans chapter 5 and I can tell already that we are in this position as we were in the first hour and we will need to come back to this in the evening but let me set up our evening study now by pointing out to you that Paul in giving to as the letter of Romans spends from verse 1 of chapter one to verse 20 of chapter three establishing the need for salvation he takes these first three chapters to explain man's predicament as a sinner before God so for example just if your Bible is open around there you see quoting from the Old Testament in verse 11 of chapter 3 none is righteous no not one no one understands no one seeks for God all have turned aside together they have become worthless no one does good not even one not a very nice description of humanity is it and man in his pride recoils from this they are surely not telling me this well I'm not what the Bible is this is the Bible's verdict on humanity in sin no one is righteous no one actually seeks God so if that is the predicament what is the solution well that's when you get to verse 21 of chapter 3 and the great transition but now he says the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law and so he makes it clear that although man as man could never enter into the presence of a holy God on the strength of who or what we are God in Jesus has provided the means whereby we might have a right standing before God and that right standing before God in Jesus is for all who believe if your Bible is open I hope it is you will see that verse 22 the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all our 10 church no for all of our baptized no for all over doing their best no for all the love religion no for all who believe for all who believe who believe the provision is made for all who believe and he uses three illustrations I'll give you the first one you can do the second and third on your own there in verse 24 there's no distinction we all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God verse 23 and here we go and are justified by His grace as a gift justified by His grace as a gift that is the first of the three illustrations he uses the second one you can find is from the slave market Redemption by the paying of a price the third one is from the sacrificial system hence the propitiation but the first one is from the law court and some of your lawyers here this morning when the accused is brought before a judge they are either justified or condemned the accused is not made righteous or unrighteous but is declared either righteous or unrighteous so the accused is either acquitted and set free or is found guilty and punished and what Paul is pointing out in this remarkable little section is the good news of the gospel that the sinner who deserves condemnation is justified through faith alone in Christ alone not as a result of deserving but as the result of the receiving of a gift Christ at Calvary has taken the sinners place now when this truth actually dawns on the heart and mind of an individual when I come to understand this then the gates of heaven as it where swing open think of what this meant for little Zacchaeus up the tree when he heard Jesus standing on the front porch of his house and declaring to the people in his community today salvation has come to this house people have said salvation to this house of all the houses it couldn't be this house because he was the equivalent of a Nazi collaborator in second world war France he was a bad act how can salvation come to this house unless an individual is justified by faith as a gift what about the thief on the cross when he says to his friend on the other side hey we are up here getting what our sins deserve but this man he has done nothing wrong he has kept the law in its entirety he has fulfilled the plans and purposes of God he is the atom the second atom who has fulfilled the law unlike the first atom in whom we find ourselves who has rebelled and broken the law and the good news of the gospel the gospel of our salvation is that all who believe may find rest in this so what he does is he first of all proclaims the need of salvation and then the means of salvation and then from chapter 5 which gets us to where we wanted to be then if you like the results of salvation and will need to come back to this this evening well let me tell you what they are and then I'll stop they are at least these therefore since we have been justified by faith number one we have peace with God whether you feel it or you don't feel it we stand in grace and we rejoice in hope Monday is coming you know all the onslaught comes again all the insinuations and all the accusations if you really were a decent Christian if you were a decent pastor if you were a whatever it is what's the answer to this to get up and say oh no you don't realize how wonderful I really am I mean I'm actually I'm doing much better than last week I had a tremendous week I read the Bible three times this week and I I only read it once or like half a time last week and this everything is going on no no no no that's it you you will die you will die you will be wounded mortally in warfare without put your helmet on put your helmet on think think ice I can rejoice in hope I can stand in grace I have peace of God sometimes shaky but nevertheless peace sometimes going on sometimes hanging back but peace I have access the way my children have access into my home goodness gracious half the time they're in there I don't know they're in there and the brood continues oh you're here well but I don't say did you punch in the code do you have a wristband they have unlimited access they're my children that's what God says now because you're great now because you're good now because you're making progress but because you've been justified by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone because of the immensity of God's love well father thank you we speak of wonders that are beyond us we delve into realms that our language is incapable of conveying but Lord let us hear your called to all of us let us let us hear the reply of Paul when the Philippian jailer asked him what must I do to be saved and Paul said believe believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved some of us have been trying to get ourselves cleaned up ready for the believing party some of us have been working on some things we want to do so that we might feel some or another that we've made a significant contribution to our standing with you it's very humbling for us to realize that we have to say nothing in my hand I bring about simply to your cross I cling with Newton I know two things I'm a great sinner and Christ is a great Savior hear our prayers o God for your son's sake amen this message was brought to you from truth for life where the learning is for living learn more about truth for life with alistair beg visit us online at truthfortheworld.org you

Channel: Alistair Begg

Views: 17,328

Rating: 4.7941175 out of 5

Keywords: Truth For Life, Christian Thinking, Gospel, Grace of God, Justification, Redemption, Salvation, Security of the Believer, Spiritual Warfare

Id: ypbaxJUX6Bg

Length: 37min 26sec (2246 seconds)

Published: Tue Sep 25 2018