Tune in as we explore the nature of salvation and what it means to experience profound peace amidst worldly conflicts. We discuss the powerful symbolism of the Sword of the Spirit and the Helmet of Salvation, and how these represent the truth and protection provided by our faith. This episode encourages reflection on our spiritual journey and understanding of the gospel that offers peace and transformation.
Shema Yisra’el Join Aaron now as he reveals the reality foreshadowed and the new life we can now experience because of what the Lord Jesus accomplished for us.
SPEAKER 02 :
I’m presenting a verse-by-verse study through Ephesians, and in the previous message, I was in Ephesians chapter 6, between verses 10 and 14, talking about the armor of God. This is the end of the book of Ephesians, and Paul is using an illustration in order to describe something else. The armor of God is a symbolic representation of something else, and it’s important for us to keep that in mind because it can be easy to for people to think about the armor of God as if it’s something real. But that’s not what is real. What is real is what the illustration or the symbology of the armor represents. That’s what’s real. For example, in verse 14, Paul said, This is not about something that you gird your waist with. This is about the truth. It is the truth that is real. The idea of a belt is an illustration. It is a symbolic representation of something else, and that is the truth. And so we are to know and understand and believe and respond to the truth. If we do not. then we will not stand in the way that Paul describes here. We will not be able to stand firm in the midst of the conflicts that we will find ourselves being a part of. Because when you become a believer, when you become a child of God, you enter into the conflict that already exists. Just because you are a representative of of the living God. You are a person who exercised willful, voluntary behavior to reject the devil and his demons and to reject all of the philosophies that a lot of other people have come up with that turn out to be a rejection of God also. And so through your rejection, you’re certainly going to be an embarrassment to these people at the very least. And they will also consider you to be their enemy at the most. War will be upon you. It will be upon you for the purpose of making you ineffective. The general intent behind those people and demonic spirits who will come against you, who will attack you, who will look at you as someone evil. such that if they do you harm, then in some ways that’s a form of public service. These people are going to be in your life and they are going to be there for the purpose of suppressing you, of injuring you, of damaging you, of inflicting whatever pain is necessary to keep you from testifying of the truth. Because when you do that, By default, you testify that they are a lie, that they are a bunch of liars who are exceptionally dishonest, and the world should be warned of their presence, their existence, and their purposes. But if you find that the war is not in your life, It could very well be because you have a really poor understanding of the truth and of reality as God sees it. Now, I don’t mean that to say that you have to always be in a state of conflict. But what I have found is that when a person goes an extended period of time, if they experience an extended period of time such that they don’t seem to have much opposition in their life, that has the purpose of separating them from their God, then chances are they’re not very close to him anyway. And so if that’s you, then consider that to be something to reflect on, something to think about and ask the Lord about these things. And perhaps he will give you some insights concerning where you’re falling short in terms of what he would like you to believe and how he would want you to understand the relationship that you have between each other. All right, now going back into verse 14, stand therefore, but you will not stand if you have a poor understanding of reality. Having girded your waist with truth, having put on the breastplate of righteousness. Now, of course, you’re not going to have an actual plate that you can put on your breast. That’s not what this is. This is a symbolic representation to speak about righteousness. And as I explained in the previous message, righteousness is just simply a fancy word that means you are right with God. That’s what it means to be right with God. You have to depend on what he has done for you. You cannot trust in or depend on what you think you’re going to be able to do or not do for him. You are only going to be right with him because he makes you right with him. And that, of course, is accomplished through forgiveness. It’s not because you managed to find some way to get your flesh under control. It has to do with the fact that he no longer holds your sins against you. And so he can declare you to be righteous because you believe in him, just as he declared Abraham to be righteous because he believed his God. Moving forward into verse 15, and having shod your feet with the preparation of the gospel of peace. All right, now this can be a little bit of a challenge because when you think about the gospel of peace in the context of the war and the conflict that exists, how can this be a gospel of peace? Especially as I just described, a person enters into a state of conflict and They enter into a life of being uncomfortable in many ways because they do believe and trust in the Lord. So where is the peace in that? Where is that peace? Well, it’s important to understand that even if a person does not convert to the living God and become a child of God, they are still going to experience the conflict and the war that exists. They’re going to experience the consequences of people’s decisions, of the way that they relate to one another. They’re going to find that this world doesn’t have much peace in it anyway, especially when evil people don’t have righteous people easily accessible to them so that they can abuse them. They will then turn on each other. But we have the good news of peace, the gospel of peace. And he describes this as something that would be on our feet forever. Again, a symbolic representation, but to emphasize the point that we are to know and live in and walk in our daily lives with our feet, with our souls, with our hearts, with our minds. We are to engage the world that we are a part of on a daily basis with the peace that he gives to us because of what he’s done. If you do not know the peace that God has given to you because of what he has done, chances are it’s because you really don’t believe in what he has done. And you need to revisit that. You need to review the importance of resting in the complete forgiveness of sins as a start. That’s usually where this is found. When a person does not rest in the complete forgiveness of sins, By default, they have to believe that God still holds their sins against them. And so God does not accept them. They are unacceptable to God. He is ashamed to have them in his life. These are the things that follow from a poor understanding of forgiveness, in which case there is definitely going to be a lack of peace. This is something that he wants us to have. It’s something that he wants us to live in. It’s, of course, very hard to find a person who lives in this peace. And the reasons why are simple. They are not complicated. It’s because of a poor understanding of their righteousness that has been given to them according to the truth of what God has done for them. That is why they are not experiencing and living in the good news of peace that God has given to us. But when we know this peace, at least to some extent, we will have something to testify of to others. And so as we engage the lives of others, we can engage the world with the peace that we have in our hearts in Christ Jesus, and we can also testify of this peace to others, inviting them to to surrender to the gospel that will give them peace and be saved. Continuing forward into verse 16, Above all, taking the shield of faith, with which you will be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked one. And of course, as I just explained a few moments ago, it’s not necessarily going to come from the demons exclusively. There are other people in our lives who are going to send our way Things that would be considered to be fiery darts. Things that are thrown at us in an abstract way to cause us harm. All right. That is the world that you are in. You are in a world filled with people and demonic spirits who are looking for you so that they can cause you harm. That is the way things are. That is the nature of people and the demonic powers that you have exposure to. These are people who live to cause other people harm for various reasons. And you also may have been the kind of person who related to other people in this way. And hopefully you’ve decided to no longer do that. not because you’re concerned about your right standing with God, but because it is no longer who you are, and it is not the new life that has been given to you to live in. But in the midst of that, we are surrounded. There is no shortage of people who will be in your life who will make you feel uncomfortable to the extent that it is as if they are intentionally trying to cause you harm. And the way that this is normally done is through lies. It is through telling you things that are not true, trying to get you to believe these things that are not true, Or perhaps just telling lies about you. That can certainly cause a significant disruption to the peace in your life that you may have encountered or experienced. There will be a lot of opportunities for people to use dishonesty, for demons to use dishonesty. One of the reasons why, of course… is because it doesn’t cost them anything. You know, just to tell a lie, that doesn’t cost anybody anything. If they were to use a real arrow that had a flame on the end of it, then they’re going to have to go through the expense of obtaining an arrow. They’re going to have to purchase it or they’re going to have to make it. They’re going to need a bow. You know, I mean, this is something that is abstract. It is an idea. It doesn’t cost anything. It’s something that people just use as a weapon to cause harm to others. These fiery darts are these are going to come at you. They’re going to be thrown at you. And when they hit you, it will be in the context of you will have a confrontation. with something that isn’t true, and this will be disturbing in your life, or it could be tempting in your life, however this is represented, you have to say no. You have to say this is not true, this is not real. And the way to do that is to know what is true and to know what is real. In this case, you are going to defend yourself from the attack of someone else, either a physical person or a demonic spirit. Paul describes the tool of defending yourself as a shield, a shield of faith. Well, what is faith? Faith is your response to the truth that has been revealed to you. That is a fundamental expression of faith. If you have faith, then that means you have something that you can use in order to respond to a circumstance or situation according to the faith that you have. And the faith that you have will hopefully be according to the truth that God has revealed. As he describes in verse 14, that you have the truth that God has revealed. You recognize that you are righteous because of what he has done for you. You understand the gospel of peace and what it means to live in peace with your God in the midst of the world that you’re a part of. And so when these lies are thrown at you, you can respond to those lies with what you know is true. That is what it means to defend yourself from the fiery darts that are going to be, that will be, sent your way, that will be sent to you. In this case, he refers to the wicked one, but really anybody can participate in this. Again, in verse 16, above all, taking the shield of faith with which you will be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked one. Now, again, if you find that for some reason you don’t see that you are quenching all of the darts that are being thrown at you. If you notice that you are not handling the conflict well in a peaceful way, that these attacks that are coming upon you are causing so much of a disruption that it really does have a profound effect on your life, then it’s probably because you don’t have strong faith. And why would a person not have strong faith? It’s simple, because they don’t know the truth or they don’t believe the truth that God has revealed. When you do know and you do believe and you apply the truth that is applicable at the time of conflict, If you’re able to do that, then you are defending yourself with faith. I’ll give you a simple example. You can be bombarded with verbal attacks to tell you you are evil. You are not a child of God. That is not who you are. You’re a liar. You’re a deceiver. You pretend to know God, but you do not. This is a lie. These are the kinds of things that people are going to throw at you. And when they do, the only way you’re going to be able to defend yourself is with the truth. the truth otherwise. And so we are to do that, but we can only do that if we have an honest and real faith. If we fail, then that will be a good indicator to show that you have to revisit this topic and see what kinds of things are you believing that are not true. Moving forward into verse 17, “…and take the helmet of salvation.” and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. I’m going to start with the sword of the Spirit and then go to the helmet of salvation. The sword of the Spirit, in this case, again, it’s a symbolic representation of something else. We don’t have a real sword. If we did, that certainly would be an offensive weapon. It’s a weapon that you use in order to cause harm to to someone else. Now, it’s not our intent to actually cause harm to someone else, but it is our intent, it will be our intent, to use the truth to create discomfort in other people’s lives, because that’s exactly what we are going to do. And it’s through that discomfort that that people will consider the topic, they will consider the subject, and if the confrontation is executed in a wise manner, then the person will have the ability to to concede that they were wrong and that they need to believe something else. If the conflict is not presented well in a wise manner, then it can often confront a person’s pride. Their pride will get in the way and they simply will not be able to concede to the truth. because their pride, their personal identity and value is just way too important to them. And they don’t want to be seen as someone who is weaker than is necessary in order for them to just simply confess that they made an error, that they need to correct what they believe. This would be a good use of the sword of the spirit, not to cause harm just for the purpose of causing harm and discomfort. but to use the truth and so that you may not just defend yourself through the expression of the shield of faith, but that you may also attack someone else who otherwise would be causing you harm. with the truth so that they might be confronted with the disruption that you will cause in their lives and they will consider being saved. In the beginning of verse 17, he says, “…and take the helmet of salvation.” The helmet that would go on our heads, that would defend our minds. Salvation is something that we need to have, that we need to understand, that we need to know, and that our decisions need to be a reflection of the salvation that we already have. The challenge, as I’ve explained in many programs previously, is that it’s very hard to find a person who has a reasonable understanding of what salvation is. What is true salvation? And this is answered by answering the question of what is the gospel, because it’s really the same thing. Salvation has to do with you being saved from who you once were to become someone new. And this salvation is God reaching into the world and finding a person to save from the world and from their condition. What is their condition? Their condition is that they are sinful and they are spiritually dead. That is what happened when Adam and Eve violated the law of God in the Garden of Eden. When they did, they died spiritually. And everyone who has been born into this world ever since then has been born into this world dead spiritually, spiritually dead, which means they do not have the life of God within them. Salvaging what God can salvage in the world is accomplished through taking what is here and making it into something new. And God is the only person who has the ability to create new life. But that is what salvation is. Salvation is being created, recreated into a new person, a new being entirely. And so when he says in verse 17 to take the helmet of salvation, this is what he’s talking about. He’s talking about salvation. resting in the salvation that you need to know and know well. Because if you don’t, then in the midst of the conflict, if you’re going to engage in the conflict without having the helmet of salvation, then obviously a very important part of who you are will be exposed and available for people to cause serious injury to. And then continuing into verse 18, praying always with all prayer and supplication in the spirit, being watchful to this end with all perseverance and supplication for all the saints. of the presence of our God in our lives. And as we do that, I do believe that we can fulfill verse 18. In verse 19, he says, And for me, which means pray always for him, keep him in mind that utterance may be given to me that I may open my mouth boldly to make known the mystery of the gospel, which we have already looked at extensively. for which I am an ambassador in chains, that in it I may speak boldly as I ought to speak. but that you also may know my affairs and how I am doing. Tychicus, a beloved brother and faithful minister in the Lord, will make all things known to you, whom I have sent to you for this very purpose, that you may know our affairs and that he may comfort your hearts. Peace to the brethren and love with faith from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Grace be with all those who love our Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity. Amen.
SPEAKER 01 :
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