The Helmet of Salvation — Part Two

the following message by Alistair beg is made available by truth for life for more information visit us online at truth for I'd like to encourage you to follow as I read from the Bible from the Old Testament turning to the Book of Numbers and to chapter 21 numbers 21 when the Canaanite the king of Arad who lived in the Negev heard that Israel was coming by the way of a tharam he fought against Israel and took some of them captive and Israel vowed a vow to the Lord and said if you will indeed give this people into my hand then I will devote their cities to destruction and the Lord heeded the voice of Israel and gave over the Canaanites and they devoted them and their cities to destruction so the name of the place was called Horla from mount hor they set out by the way to the Red Sea to go around the land of Edom and the people became impatient on the way and the people spoke against God and against Moses why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness for there is no food and no water and we loathe this worthless food then the Lord sent fiery serpents among the people and they bit the people so that many people of Israel died and the people came to Moses and said we have sinned for we have spoken against the Lord and against you pray to the Lord that he take away the Serpent's from us so Moses prayed for the people and the Lord said to Moses make a fiery Serpent and set it on a pole and everyone who is bitten when he sees it shall live so Moses made a bronze Serpent and set it on a pole and if a serpent bit anyone he would look at the bronze Serpent and live amen father as we turn to the Bible we humbly pray make the book live to me or Lord show me yourself within your word show me myself and show me my Savior and make the book live to me for Jesus sake amen well our focus is on that little phrase in Ephesians 6:17 where Paul exhorts those to whom he writes to take up the helmet of salvation and in our previous study we sought to understand very very clearly that what it really means to put on the helmet of salvation is to trust unreservedly in the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ in all that he has accomplished on the cross and in order to help us with that we began to think of how Paul in unpacking the whole panorama of salvation in Romans lays out first of all the need for salvation insofar as the whole world is accountable before God and then secondly he goes on from verse 21 of chapter 3 in Romans to make clear the provision that God has made for man as a sinner and we looked at one of these three little pictures and I said the remaining two were your own but I want to come back to them just briefly in case you haven't already begun to do your homework we're looking here at Romans chapter 3 where he talks about the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe for there's no distinction for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God and here's the first from the law courts and are justified by His grace as a gift we looked at that and then the second picture is in the same verse and this picture is taken from the slave market that's the significance of the word redemption we just have been singing about a ransom paid and a Redemption and what Paul is referencing there is what Jesus actually says that the one who sins is a slave to sin and therefore it needs to be bought back or redeemed and so what Christ is accomplished is not just that we are declared free to go it's not that the sinner is just released but rather that the sinner is released by the payment of a ransom and Christ has paid the sinners ransom and as a result of that sets the sinner free from sin and from death and from judgment and it's for that reason for example when Paul is writing to the Corinthians in chapter 6 he says to them you know you are not your own you were bought with a price therefore glorify God in your body the third picture is there immediately following that you will notice whom verse 25 whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood and this is a picture that is taken from the Old Testament sacrificial system God God's wrath is poured out against sin and therefore God needs to be propitiated God's justice must be satisfied the story of salvation is not that God has decided to overlook sin for God could not be true to himself and overlook sin therefore sin must be punished and what Paul is pointing out is that the sacrifice of Jesus has satisfied the Justice of God and his wrath has been poured out upon his dearly beloved son the wrath of God is not diffused by the passing of time and if you think it through in the end there are really only two ways for God's justice to be satisfied either by the everlasting punishment of the sinner or in the death of Jesus his beloved son and for the believer God has brought forward into time the judgment that must be faced executing his judgment on the son of his love in order that we while we are still sinners may have access into his presence now Paul tackles all of that and more and brings us then to chapter 5 which is where we essentially left off in the understanding of the benefits if you like of what it means to have been set right with God and I suggested that there are three that we can pay attention to and we will do so briefly I don't want to expand on them unduly but first of all and straightforwardly that therefore that begins verse chapter 5 and verse 1 is on the strength of the argument that we have just given a very brief precis of therefore he says in light of the fact that God has done this in Christ and has used Abraham as the great illustration of justification therefore he says since then we have been justified by faith here's the first benefit we have peace with God now you will notice that this matter of justification as we said before is about acquittal it is the absence the absence of condemnation that's why by the time we get to chapter 8 with Paul he will say there is therefore now no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus why because they have been justified by grace and through faith how does this come about well as we have just seen in and through the work of the Lord Jesus when Paul writes to the Colossians in Chapter 1 he gives it to us in just a phrase or two he says for in him that is in Jesus all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell and through him that is through Jesus to reconcile to himself all things whether on earth or in heaven making peace by the blood of his cross this I think is important on a number of levels and one that may not be immediately obvious to us is helping us to understand God's plan and purpose for his world people will sometimes come to us and and chide us for the fact that the world doesn't seem to be getting any better at all if you really had a God who cared about these things surely they say he would have he would have sorted it all out by now why didn't Jesus do this what was it that Jesus told his disciples he came to do what is it that jesus promised his disciples or if you like what did he not promise them you can never read in the Gospels and find Jesus promising his followers absence from trouble no he says in the world you will have tribulation there is nowhere that Jesus promises that as a result of his work there will in the history of man be the absence and freedom of war from war nowhere does he say to us that as a result of his coming and is dying and his ascending that in the course of time the world is going to be a better place he does not say any of that at all in fact he says to them I have told you all of these things it saw that in me you might have peace in the world you will have this now this is a very important in understanding the nature of salvation and what God has done and what God is doing and what God plans to do a part of the problem with people is that they get mixed up in in the very process of God's redemptive purpose they want to import into now that which is promised only then and so they find themselves making claims that are incapable of substantiation either from the Bible or from human experience but since we're putting on the helmet of salvation since we're thinking since we're thinking properly about life from a biblical framework since we're trying to understand the nature of salvation itself we can be free from that and we can realize that the only true peace that is really available in the entire world is the peace which comes in and through the Lord Jesus Christ himself now I say that having grown up as some of you have done in the 60s with various refrains that were so so strong and residual and emphatic Lennon and Yoko in the bed for peace all we are saying is give peace a chance and so it is Christmas we hope you have fun the near ones and dear ones and so on and then that song peace is coming if you want it peace is coming if you want it and of course who lives in this world and once war and discord and hatred and strife no one but where is true peace to be found where is true peace to be found in the heart of a man in a relationship and marriage between parents and children between warring factions in in a country between the nations of the world you see this is what it means to think to think wearing the helmet as you know I read obituaries I know many of you think it's morbid but and it may well be but in my obituary reading this week and I usually get three every morning one was of a Russian author who pioneered Soviet Beatlemania he did this at the time that the Soviet Union in the USSR as it was then was denouncing the music particularly of the Beatles as horribly decadent as an indication of Western capitalism everything that would be destabilizing to all that they were trying to achieve in the USSR the Beatles were not singled out alone the Beach Boys were included some of you will be encouraged by that and particularly they did not like California Girls that's probably because they never met any of them but that's by the way for now but I was intrigued by this this man Kolya Vasan who was the man ironically by the end of his life he's being hailed by Putin and the rest of the Kremlin for the work that he's done in helping the USSR to become the wonderful place that they believed it to be he turned his home into a veritable shrine to the Beatles he was consumed with it in the obituary we learn of the fact that he his influence had extended beyond himself he was consumed with it he never married he never had children he trained as an architect and by his own testimony he said I never married her children quotes because all my time and my soul were dedicated to the Beatles he eventually put his training and his architectural plans to use when he designed a 210 foot temple of love peace and music dedicated to John Lennon it had been intended to stand on the shore of the Gulf of Finland with two large spheres on its roof one inscribed with all you need is love and the other with give peace a chance he actually went so far as to plan to launch a yellow submarine in the sea nearby Sint Petersburg I'm reading this in the morning and I'm saying this is amazing I and as you read an obituary you have to get to the point where it finally says so what happened to this fellow Kolya vassan jumped to his death from the third floor of a st. Petersburg shopping center you see the substitute gods that are offered by the evil one our self depleting there is no possibility whereby they can satisfy the longings of the human soul it is to the believer that is given the wonder of peace with God freedom from the fear of judgment and of death and of recrimination and of the dredging up of that which has been satisfied in the death of Christ on the cross that's the first benefit that he mentions the second is there in verse 2 and through him Jesus it's always through Jesus notice we have peace with God through Jesus through him we have also obtained what access by faith into what into this grace in which we stand so number one peace with God number two we stand in grace in fact we every so often sing a song that I think has that very title this this wonderful picture here of access should be familiar to us we have obtained access how do you get in I just was listening again as some of you have been doing to Paul Simon as he comes to the end of his career at least by his own testimony and in one of his songs he sings about if you don't have a wristband you're not getting in you've got no wristband gotta have a wristband well how do you get access to the Living God only through faith in Jesus now Paul has been mentioning this in our studies in Ephesians I don't expect you would be able to pick it up immediately I couldn't I had to go look for it but I knew it was there Acts chapter 2 Ephesians 2 and Jesus came and preached peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near for through him that is through Jesus we both have access in one spirit to the father's the same word this is actually find it in verse 12 of chapter 3 as well according to the eternal purpose realized in Jesus Christ our Lord in whom we have boldness and access with confidence here we go again through our faith in Him that word in Greek pedagogy is a word that was used primarily of making an introduction or assuring somebody into the presence of someone so for example if we think in terms of of majesty or we think in terms of royalty we've seen that some of you have watched the crown and you know that the fellow goes in and and he says your majesty I want to present to you mr. X or miss X and then and then he archers away well there's a wonderful picture Jesus comes before the father and he says father I want to present to you Mary I want to present to you bill I want to present to you some of your children your dearly bought children that you have loved from all of eternity and whose Redemption I have purchased I assure them to you I bring them in what an amazing reality this is and it's not that we get as in the picture of royalty you know a five minute opportunity to be with her majesty not four eyes as it where an occasional appearance but rather a lifetime privilege and when Paul will go on through Romans he will make it wonderfully clear that there is nothing that will ever separate us from the love of God that when we rush into his presence we can reject we can rest in that and we can be glad of it this wonderful isn't it I'm just looking for it now as I speak there we have it I'm sure that neither death nor life nor Angels nor rulers nor things present or things to come nor powers nor height nor depth or anything else in all creation he just keeps all the phrases up we'll be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord in them and the evil one comes to us and says you might not make it to the end and we say oh yes I will why because he who promised is faithful and because he who began a good work in me will bring it to completion of the day of Jesus Christ and because all my hope and all my confidence is grounded not in my worth or what I own but in the precious plant of the Lord Jesus Christ well then you can notice the third of the three that we have peace with God that we stand in grace and we rejoice in hope we rejoice in hope of the glory of God and I'm not going to go on into three but I can't resist just pointing out you will notice that not only that but we rejoice in our sufferings so for the person who says you see now once you get a peace with God you stand in grace you rejoice in hope it's plain sailing from that point I know immediately after he says we rejoice in hope this isn't by the way we rejoice in our sufferings why because our result our sufferings produce endurance and endurance produces character and character produces hold and after all as I mentioned says Paul in writing to the Thessalonians the helmet is the very hope of salvation and that hope is a hope that doesn't make us ashamed because when the Bible uses hope in that way and when we use it for example in the words of committal at a gravesite we're not talking about uncertain hope we're not talking about the hope we have of well I hope the weather holds or I hope my exam results come through or any of those things but no JB Phillips paraphrase is it as a happy certainty that the Spirit of God creates within the child of God a happy certainty a confident joyful expectation which rests in the promises of God in the promises of God now we thought this evening we might sing standing on the promises but we reversed before we got there but it would be fine to have done so you see it is important again when we put on the helmet of salvation to make through make sure that we are thinking theologically and we're not thinking sentimentally I went searching for a song that I know for another reason and I didn't realize that it came from a musical by Rodgers and Hammerstein which some of you are old enough perhaps to have seen I haven't it's called carousel and in the movie carousel one of the barn burning songs has these lines when you walk through a storm hold your head up high and don't be afraid of the dark this actually is the theme song of the liverpool football club and it is sung routinely at Anfield with great enthusiasm by these well-meaning people sometimes bursting into tears in their enthusiasm for all that is represented in the song it is absolute unbelievable sentimentality is rubbish actually when you walk through the storm hold your head up high and so on walk on walk on with hope in your heart okay it's a good thing to do but hope in what hope in whom hope in hope no you see we are not just hopeful of things the Christian has been set free so that when the evil one comes and threatens to undo us and challenges us in this way we remind him hey I'm wearing the helmet I'm wearing the helmet I am trusting unreservedly in the work of Jesus he has accomplished on behalf of the sinner and I am a sinner therefore he's accomplished it on behalf of me all that is necessary for me to have access into God's presence to stand in grace to rejoice in hope and to be justified by faith and what then is the reason for your assurance the evil one may ask what then would you say in response to that so the evil one comes to you says well that sounds pretty good back you got those three points done it's very good but uh why why do you actually believe that well I tell him because of the Bible because of what it says in the Bible I have an objective reason and I have a subjective reason well give me your first one he says well let me give you the objective one in verse 10 of Romans five here's the logic that you will find as you wear your helmet 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 so what he's saying is this that we were justified on the basis of his death in the place of the sinner if he has gone to that extent to put us right with God do you not realize that we will then be glorified one day in his presence on the strength of his life in his death our justification in his life our glorification and that grounded in the love of God verse eight but God shows his love for us in the while we were still sinners Christ died for us I love the hymn which goes it begins a now for it doesn't begin has the stanza for the love of God is broader than the measure of man's mind and the heart of the eternal is most wonderfully kind it also has a wonderful lines there's a whiteness in God's mercy like the wideness of the sea it's tremendous picture of the love of God do you doubt the love of God are you convinced of the love of God those of you who fancy yourselves as theologians are you prepared to tell people of God's unmistakable love for them are you prepared to share your faith and an open and unequivocal way as to say to men and women let me tell you of the love of God for sinners John Murray you will remember and this brings me to my final point and that is that I said once we considered the the importance of of the thinking in a Christian mind and of the importance of thinking properly about salvation itself so that we might understand that those he whom he called he justified and those he justified he also glorified then I said we would want to think about making a very personal and passionate plea to men and women to be reconciled to God to say to men and women will you believe in the Lord Jesus Christ in order that you might be saved and it made me think of Murray because Murray is the one who was involved in the interchange with our friend who was here and led us a cappella and the singing of two psalms William Mackenzie of Christian focus and it was in their conversation in the car and the Highlands of Scotland that William was stumped by Murray when Murray asked him what is the difference between a lecture and preaching and Mackenzie couldn't come up with an answer to to satisfy the old professor and eventually he gave up and the professor said to him the difference is this that in preaching it is a personal passionate plea to which Mackenzie replied in what sense he said in this sense 2 Corinthians 5 we implore you on Christ's behalf be reconciled to God now that same Joan Murray makes this observation and this is for those of you who are in the Honors Program and you will know who you are because you just sit up a little more in your chair when I read this to you the rest of you will slouch a little I made that up there's no one and there's no Honors Program so visitors are going how would you get in the honors program this is this is Marie the passion for missions for going into the world with the gospel its quenched when we lose sight of the grandeur of the gospel when when we actually start to circumscribe the message of God's love for sinners it is a fact he says that many persuaded as they rightly are of the particularism of the plan of salvation and of its various corollaries many have found it difficult to proclaim the full free and unrestricted overture of gospel grace they have labored under inhibitions arising from fear that in doing so they would impinge upon the sovereignty of God in His saving purposes and operations the result is that though formerly assenting to the free offer of the gospel they lacked freedom in the presentation of its appeal and of its demand in other words they become tied up in their own theological predilections the gift of salvation is a gift it is not purchased it's not earned it's not worked for in any way it is simply received and that is a stumbling block to people because people want to do something they want to bring something invite somebody over to your home and what's one of the first things they'll say to you what do you want me to bring say well I don't want you to bring anything I just want you to come or are you sure goodness gracious how long do we have to have this conversation what do you what do you want me to do I don't want you to do anything I'd like you just to come and so people come to the issue of the gospel in it and they respond in the same way well what shall I bring to this well what could you possibly bring to it nothing what do you want me to do that's the response of naman when the when the when the the girl said to him if you go to the prophet of God P goes to Elijah Elijah says dip yourself in the Jordan what's naimans response why do I have to go there why can't I do what I want to do why can't we do this my way what about the other two rivers they're better rivers can I get washed in those rivers answer no you couldn't get washed in those rivers there's only one river in which you can get washed and pressed again by his servants he went and was washed for those who were wondering why I was reading from numbers as we began for the self same reason what an amazing story they were bitten they suffered their suffering brought them to cry they cried to Moses to intercede for them a forerunner of of Jesus who intercedes on behalf of sinners and the Lord said to Moses tell them tell them to Luke can you imagine as he went to them and he said now folks I know some of us have already died and the word from God is is straightforward he's asked me to put together this serpent on a pole people are asking well what size is it and it said don't worry about that just now and he wants you to know that if you have been bitten and you look you will be healed someone says well how long do I have to look how close do I have to get how bad is the stain got to be Moses says are you gonna listen or not here's the word look look here's the word believe believe now let me finish with Spurgeon it's always good to finish with Spurgeon because Spurgeon's conversion is a wonderful illustration of this very principle if you know the details forgive me if I reiterate them just for a moment but remember he's going off to church as a boy he is a miserable morning it's snowing he decides that he'll bail on the church that he's planning to go to when he turns into to a church a small Methodist chapel that he that he was unaware of only to discover that there were precious few people in the building and the minister himself was not there and some gentleman was there in his place a gentleman of rather limited abilities it might be said it was a December morning it was 18-49 and Spurgeon says that the great longing of his heart was only one thing he wanted to know how he could be saved they wanted to know how he could be saved a simple man Spurgeon referred him as really stupid quotes Spurgeon had a way with words great hero of mine as you would think and Dan he stood in the pulpit and he read the text look unto me and be he saved all the ends of the earth the preacher began quotes this is a very simple text indeed it says look now looking don't take a great deal of pain it ain't lifting your foot or your finger it's just look well a man needn't go to college to learn to look you may be the biggest fool and yet you can look a man needn't be worth a thousand a year to look anyone can look even a child can look but the text says look unto me ah many of you are looking to yourselves but it's no use looking there you'll never find any comfort in yourselves some of you say we must wait for the spirits working you have no business with that just now look to Christ the text says Luke unto me Spurgeon writes after the good man managed to spin out about ten minutes or so on Christ death burial and resurrection Spurgeon says he was at the end of his tether then he looked at me under the gallery just fixing his eyes on me as if he knew all my heart he said young man you look very miserable and you will always be miserable miserable in life and miserable and death if you don't obey my text but if you obey now this moment you will be saved then lifting up his hands he shouted young man look to Jesus Christ Luke Luke Luke you have nothing to do but look and live I saw it once the way of salvation I know not what else he said I did not take much notice of it I was so possessed with that one charming word it seemed to me oh I looked until I could almost have looked my eyes away then and there the cloud was gone the darkness had rolled away and the moment I saw the Sun and I felt I could have sprang from my seat that instant and sang with the most enthusiastic of those Methodist brethren of the precious blood of Christ and the simple faith which looks alone to him oh that somebody had told me this before trust Christ and you shall be saved and what sun Spurgeon's tombstone in Upper Norwood air since by faith I saw the stream thy flowing wounds supply redeeming love has been my theme and shall be till I die that my friends it's what it means at least in measure to take up the helmet of salvation 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

Channel: Alistair Begg

Views: 11,623

Rating: 4.8269229 out of 5

Keywords: Christian Living, Christian Life, Christian Thinking, Gospel, Security in Christ, Spiritual Warfare, Theology, Truth For Life, Alistair Begg

Id: K07fDgrkp6s

Length: 37min 11sec (2231 seconds)

Published: Tue Sep 25 2018