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July 1, 2021 4:00 am
Convincing spiritual battle. We can rely on the sword of the spirit.
The Bible word of God, but can you book that old really be of any use today on Truth for Life Alastair Begg begins a series of messages to demonstrate why the Bible is no ordinary. I invite you to turn to Ephesians where we find ourselves in chapter 6, and adverse 17. The first half of which we dealt with last time concerning the helmet of salvation and now in the second half of the verse we come to the start of the spirit which is the word of God. I said last time that I take it that we have moved now from the armor to the weapons and I'm suggesting that I actually two weapons, and the first of these is the Bible or the sword of the Spirit in the second, which we will come is prayer itself that when you think about the development of the church in the early days as it's recorded by Luke in the acts of the apostles may remember that the apostles on that occasion, had to make a determination that given the expansion of the church and the needs and the necessary needs being responded to. They would entrust some of those things to others so that they might give themselves to prayer and to the ministry of the were in other words, that he would take up if you like the weapons of our warfare which Paul in second Corinthians refers to as capable of bringing down strongholds know Paul's readers would have been familiar with the picture of the Roman foot soldier and the sword that he used in hand-to-hand combat.
The word here for sword is not of a big two-handed sword, but it is of the Makarios which was the sword maybe 12 or 18 inches that would be used when battle had ensued and so he makes the point very straightforwardly that the Christian soldier then is armed with the sword of the Spirit and then explains that the sword of the Spirit is in fact the word of God.
The word that we have read all of in second Peter chapter 1 the word which Paul refers to in second Timothy three that is the inspired the breathed out word of God. The word that the psalmist says is a lamp to our feet and a light to our path in in all of its totality, the conviction that the Christian soldier is equipped with that which is necessary for engaging in this battle, and it is because we believe that that we do what we do as a church.
If you wonder why it is that Sunday by Sunday.
We continue to turn to the Bible together and that is because we are thoroughly convinced that to borrow from my late friend Mark Ashton, the word of God. Does the work of God through the spirit of God in the people of God, and it is because this Bible. This book is like no other book.
It is living and it is active as a writer of the Hebrews says in Hebrews chapter 4 we are familiar with reading books to see if we can understand what the book says if we can understand the intention of the author peculiar experience and a wonderful experience to be reading the Bible and to discover that this book actually understands science I register this week in my study somewhere of someone who it said when confronted with a reading the Bible. Although he was not convinced enough to follow Jesus, he said, but I will tell you this, the man whoever made my heart wrote that book whoever made my heart wrote that book get this amazing experience of being uncovered. If you like by the Bible itself. Note with that is an affirmation of the conviction as a church family. We realize that we live in a culture that does not immediately embrace that I actually live in a church culture that doesn't necessarily embrace that there are many who regard the Bible as having some kind of utilitarian value, but that is largely lost in the past. Now the Bible would be disregarded in many cases associative useless relics from a bygone age in the same way that the horse and buggy was superseded or replaced by the internal combustion engine in the same way that the internal combustion engine is about to go the way of the horse and buggy so they would say the Bible has essentially gone the same way.
There may be value in it. Historically, there may be literary value in it.
You hear people saying that all the time. While it's very helpful to our people. They can read literature and so on.
But what they're actually saying is that there is no pressing relevance that it contains to address the needs of 21st century dwellers, and I remember Martin Luther in his writings where he in the bondage of the will makes this quite staggering statement.
Here it is. Nobody who has not the Spirit of God sees a jaunt of what is in the Bible. All men have their hearts darkened so that even when they can discuss." All that is in Scripture.
They do not understand or know any of so using this makes sense of how it is that people can say well yes I think the Bible has some literary value. I think there are things here that may perhaps be worthy of our consideration and he would sit not have a conversation about it all. No sense of what the plot line of the Bible is no sense of what we have just expressed in our preceding him speak the Lord as we come to you to receive the food of your holy Word. Nothing along those lines at all. Why is that why is it while the third says because the heart of man is darkened. As I was driving here this morning. Earlier on I was thinking along these lines are thing about how in the range of people who come to Parkside not everybody is prepared to make the affirmation that Iapetus may some of you are wondering some of you are pondering these things and I found myself quoting from the book of Job.
Can a man by searching, find God as a myself the answer of course is the man does not know God by investigation but by revelation that God has disclosed himself that God is a God who speaks that in Schaefer's work from the 60s. He is here and he is not silent in the same way that if you and I sit in companionship with one another and neither of us speaks that is really nowhere is knowing what is going on inside our own hearts and minds. It is when we give voice to it that we can understand what each other is thinking and feeling in the same way God has disclosed himself. Now I set myself out today to examine the.
The importance than all of this first weapon, the sword of the Spirit by thinking, first of all, in terms of how absolutely necessary it is for coming to faith. Secondly, how absolutely necessary it is for continuing in the faith, and thirdly how absolutely necessary it is in contending for the faith and using it both defensively parrying the threats of the evil one and and using it all offensively in the cause and challenge of evangelism. Note what what I want to try and do then is work along the first of these lines in the awareness of the fact that I won't get to number two and three this morning. The Bible reveals what, for example, the Westminster confession clarifies, namely, that God makes himself known by means of what we refer to as general revelation and special revelation by general revelation. We understand that the goodness of God, the wisdom of God the power of God is revealed in his world by the light of nature and by the works of creation and providence by the light of nature. The writers of the confession were refilling to the fact that we men and women have been made in the image of God so that God has made men and women in order that we might know him and in order that we might enjoy him. And deep inside of the heart and mind of an individual is this consciousness of this reality because God by his general revelation has said eternity in the heart of man, therefore, to deny that is just to deny that by nature. We are both invaded by God and we are surrounded by God. Therefore, we can run, but we can. I the fact is that we know but we choose not to know if you been spending a lot of time trying to convince your agnostic friends that there is a God stop. You don't need to. They know there is a God. God says they know there is a God. God made them with an innate awareness of the fact of God established it in their life's revealed it in the world. Atheism is a choice. We know but we choose not to know. We challenge the notion of a good God we deny his existence will reject his authority. We resent his interference and the Bible says on the strength of all that God has disclosed himself since we knew these things and turned our backs on them we are accountable and not only are we accountable but in many cases, we are actually miserable miserable so I am using too many miserable people lately. No I don't mean every morning you get up and say I'm horribly miserable.
But when you get up in the morning or when you live in the evening or when you're on a long car ride somewhere and you begin to think about the big things the deep things can I ask you what fills that great vacuum in your heart.
I know you think the only person I ever listen to is Paul Simon. But I do listen to some others.
Here's here's one of my other friends. I'm dizzy from the shopping mall.
I search for joy, but I bought it all doesn't help the hunger pains in the first, I'd have to drown to ever satiate something's missing and I don't how to fix something's missing and I don't know what it is nigh.
Don't know what it is a tall when autumn comes it doesn't ask you just walks in where it left you last. You never know when it starts until this fall inside the glass around your summer heart.
Something's missing and I don't how to fix it.
Something's missing and I don't know what it is no, I don't know what it is a tall as John Mayer.
You see the light of nature, the works of creation are unable to bring a man or a woman into a saving relationship with God who has made for that to happen necessitates the word of God. The sword of the Spirit because it is then in the Scriptures that the great theme song of God's creation and purpose is revealed to us.
It is there that we discover that you discovered it all the way through the Bible. For example in in the story of Jonah. Perhaps and and you read the declaration of Jonah. Recessed salvation belongs to the Lord with her salvation anywhere. He says it must be God himself.
You read in the prophets and the prophets are pointing forward to one who will come and fulfill all the expectations, providing in himself that which we can never find ourselves. The gospel is the good news that we can save ourselves neither by being good, nor by being religious, nor any other approach, and the good news of God has sent Jesus to do for us.
We can do for ourselves challenging. If you like our indifference challenging our rebellion and God.
In the mystery of his purposes has chosen to take that story of his love and have it preserved in a written record of his inestimable love for those who have turned their backs on him is that is it is a quite remarkable story is that Adam and Eve turn away. They are banished from the garden. He provides them with a covering, and yet he reaches out to the God against whom I have offended is the God who comes to seek me and who loves me in Jesus and at the very heart of this we find ourselves with the sword of the Spirit. Note this is think about it on two on two levels. Number one, it would be possible theoretically for God to have done this simply by oral transmission. So we just keep talking to one another in passing it down from generation to generation in the way the folklore happens or stories of record or whatever else and for the period of time that was true before the Gospels were penned oral tradition carried it along.
The Old Testament was present now is added to it.
All of this so that we might together be able to look at this wonderful privilege it is to build a tundra congregation sake please take your Bibles to reason realizes only in the last 400 years that any pastor was ever able to say that post-Reformation and post the printing press. Up until that time, nobody in the Bible that they could take you to be preserved in that way now is placed in the hands of the people in order that we might be able to look in the Bible and say no, wait a minute we talk about the love of God say yes God's love we can find that everywhere we can read it everywhere. All right, how do we know what the love of God is. Let's go to the sword of the Spirit. Let's go to the word of God is so as to save ourselves from inventing notions and to help ourselves understand the wonder of his love.
For example, Romans 58 God shows his love towards us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us, or force John herein is love, not that we loved God but that he loved ours and that he send his son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. You see when we take up the Bible is dangerous because this book as we said at the beginning is a lie. I would say to those of you who are wondering, there's a reason why the writer to the Hebrews describes it as sharper than a two edge sword. In other words, the Bible is like a surgeon scalpel. The surgeon scalpel is able to cut right through all of the outer layers cut right to the court with a very heart of it all in the Bible does not see the Bible will cut through all of our defenses. I find myself say Morgan I I am too clever to believe this one too good to need this or I'm to secure to be concerned about it. The Bible will cut through that the Bible is able to penetrate my conscience. The Bible shows me that even my innermost thoughts are known to the God who wrote the school because it is no ordinary book, because what God says is what the Bible says and what the Bible says is what God says. The hymn writer puts it wonderfully when he writes, he speaks, he speaks and listening to his voice new life. The dead receive. I think about that doesn't say bag speaks and listening to his voice new life. The dead receive. No one has received new life as a result of hearing my voice, you can hear my voice right now God chooses to use human instrumentation. We understand the real issue is that we hear the voice of God. How do we hear the voice of God by the Holy Spirit who does what, who takes the very word of God and brings it home to us saying to his deep insight. This is true this is for you. This describes you see, no, no individual is able to do this he speaks and listening to his voice new life.
The dead receive. You see because when we hear God's voice, then were persuaded our eyes cannot see that the Bible is the word of God, our eyes cannot see our need. We don't see ourselves as guilty lost responsible, and indeed we are so keen to make sure that nobody suggests to us that we are guilty lost and responsible bad either metaphorically or literally we want to stick their fingers in our ears when we are in covered by what the Bible says, but is until the spirit of God illumines the word which he has provided for us. It is when the spirit of God shows is ourselves and then shows us, our Savior.
It is then that in being persuaded of the Bible's truthfulness and persuaded. Not that it is a divine authority.
As a result of the arguments of of some person.
The only proof of the truth of the Bible is the Bible. There is no higher authority. If it is the voice of God. If it is from the mouth of God. Who else are you going to go to be on guard to substantiate its truth. No, because ultimately our conviction about the veracity the utility. The benefit of the sword of the Spirit is in itself an act of faith, a faith that is not self engendered nor produced by clever argument, but a faith that is created in the heart of a man or a woman by none other than the living God himself who preserved his truth in a form that people like you and me could read that is what theologians refer to as accommodation that God has accommodated himself in the way that a mother accommodates herself to a child bends down to her or to him reaches down to him doesn't speak from afar doesn't shout at them from up on top of the ladder, no comes down here's the message that in Christ, God has come down.
So what surprises when Jesus says the words that I speak are not my words, they are the words the father has given me to speak. He proclaimed the word of God the father so that we are having it in Scripture rated in a sort may be able to trust to believe it, to share and to live each of us can take up the sword of the spirit of full confidence that it is authoritative. That's from today's message on Truth for Life with Alistair Begg. Alister's teaching today is a great reminder that God's word is living and active. It has the power to transform lives by our mission here Truth for Life is singular and focused.
We teach the Bible so that men and women can come to know and love and trust in Jesus Christ. He alone can save us from our sin lead us to eternal life. We know that many are alongside us in this mission as a way to say thank you for your support.
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Join us tomorrow as we discover how to use the sword of the Spirit to thwart the accusations that come from the enemy and to stand firm in the midst of adverse Bible teaching of Alistair Begg is furnished by Truth for Life or the Learning is for Living