Basics on God's Armor

All my Christian life (which is nearly all of it thankfully), I have heard or quoted the verses in Ephesians 6:10-17 regarding putting on the full armor of God. Of course, it's vital to do this. Consider several implications:

1. IT IS A CONTINUOUS SUITING UP. The battle never ends, so neither does our preparation for it. One does not put it on once, and then never think about it again. A main tenet of soldiering is that one must live constantly on the alert, prepared at any time, especially in the most unlikely of circumstances.

2. SUITING UP REQUIRES OUR ACTION. "Put on," "take up," "having fastened," etc., all point to diligence on our part. The battle may be the Lord's, but he requires our commitment, and this, for our good. There is no place for passivity in the battle of the ages.

3. ONE MUST REMEMBER THE CHARACTER OF THE FIGHT--IT IS A SPIRITUAL ONE, NOT A PHYSICAL. This means we don't go around "beating up" on one another, for that in itself is a ploy of the evil one to keep us distracted from the true enemy, as well as squabbling in the rear while the battle rages on the front!

4. THE TRUE ENEMY IS ANYONE OR ANYTHING THAT TURNS OUR EYES AWAY FROM THE ALL-SUFFICIENCY OF CHRIST ONTO TRUST IN MAN. Granted, our attention turns immediately to Satan, as well it should. But the devil often fools us by coming through another person or event. Remember, Satan was in Peter's good heart to divert Jesus' intended death (Mt. 16:22-23). Peter's main sin here was hearing what Jesus had told them in strictly human terms, and not God's. We might credit Peter with at least wanting Jesus' safety. But Jesus saw it for what it was, an attempt to divert him from the infinitely greater mission--death on the cross!

5. VICTORY IS ASSURED IN EACH PIECE. We are not commanded to don the armor as a mere exercise in obedience. It carries true value and accomplishes powerful victories! Inattention to God's word invites destruction, whereas a vigilent spirit wins in the day of battle! Spurgeon said,

Let me remind you that you are a soldier, you will be always at war, you will never have a furlough or conclude a treaty. Like the old knights who slept in their armor, you will be attacked even in your rest. There is no part of the journey to heaven which is secure from the enemy, and no moment, not even the sweet rest of the Lord’s day, when the clarion may not sound. Therefore, prepare yourselves always for the battle. “Put on the whole armor of God,” and look upon life as a continued battle. Be surprised when you have not to fight; be wonderstruck when the world is peaceful towards you; be astonished when your old corruptions do not rise and assault you. You must travel with your swords always drawn, and you may as well throw away the scabbard, for you will never want it. You are a soldier who must always fight, and by the light of battle you must survey the whole of your life. (From a sermon in 1867)

Run, Christian, run in the almighty power of Jesus Christ!

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The Dry Rot of Nonexpectation

". . . but we will give ourselves continually to prayer and to the ministry of the word. . . . Then the word of God spread, and the number of the disciples multiplied greatly in Jerusalem, and a great many of the priests were obedient to the faith" (Acts 6: 4, 7).

The church is afflicted by dry rot. This is best explained when the psychology of nonexpectation takes over and spiritual rigidity sets in, which is an inability to visualize anything better, a lack of desire for improvement. 

There are many who respond by arguing, "I know lots of evangelical churches that would like to grow, and they do their best to get the crowds in. They want to grow and have contests to make their Sunday school larger." That is true, but they are trying to get people to come and share their rut. They want people to help them celebrate the rote and finally join in the rot. Because the Holy Spirit is not given a chance to work in our services, nobody is repenting, nobody is seeking God, nobody is spending a day in quiet waiting on God with open Bible seeking to mend his or her ways. Nobody is doing it-- we just want more people. But more people for what? More people to come and repeat our dead services without feeling, without meaning, without wonder, without surprise? More people to join us in the bondage to the rote? For the most part, spiritual rigidity that cannot bend is too weak to know just how weak it is. 

A. W. Tozer, Rut, Rot or Revival: The Condition of the Church, 8, 9.
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A Call To FEEL Your Faith!

The last two days I have focused on the issue of taking a Christian stand against the evils of abortion. I want to add to that today from another perspective, namely the heart of those who are tender enough to resist evil in all its forms. Look at Ezekiel 9:4,

"Go throughout the city of Jerusalem and put a mark on the foreheads of those who grieve and lament over all the detestable things that are done in it." 

Jerusalem was a cesspool of sin aggravated by hundreds of years of intermittent but persistent rebelliousness. The time had come for judgment! "Bring near the executioners of the city, each with his destroying weapon in his hand" (v. 1). So the Lord sent the heavenly detective/police force (cherubim) throughout the city to mark the ones who'd escape death. And what was to be their criteria for this mark? Look for those who "grieved and lamented over" their dreadful plight (i.e., rampant sin). Don't look for those who profess faith ONLY, for that would be hypocrisy. Don't seek out those with a good religious resume either. No, look for their response; seek out the right kind of people by their behavior. BEHAVIOR ALWAYS BETRAYS BELIEF! And the behavior they are to detect is a grieving, lamenting heart. Indeed, Jesus would later proclaim, "Blessed are those who mourn (over sin, theirs and others), for they shall be comforted" (Matthew 5:4). The world doesn't like mourners, declares Don Carson. "The world in which we live likes to laugh. Pleasure dispensers sell cheers and chuckles, all for a neat profit. The summum bonum [i.e., "ultimate goal"] of life becomes a good time, and the immediate goal is the next high. The world does not like mourners; mourners are wet blankets" (Sermon on the Mount, p. 19). OK, that's the world's viewpoint. What of God's?

My Point?

The kind of people God looks for are those who FEEL THINGS. They aren't content to merely discuss issues; they don't satisfy themselves that they've done their duty after they've written about them, or read their Bibles on the subject. No, they FEEL the pain of sin, they FEEL the dejection of God's disappointment! Their heart aches. In short, they "grieve and lament." Do you feel anything in terms of your relationship with Christ and this world? Does anything bother you, or move you?

Pastors Included!

Then, almost before you know it, you've read 5 devastating words, "And begin at my sanctuary!" Start with the religious leaders--priests, scribes. I liken this today to our pastors or elders or deacons--ones who should certainly know better! These are ones who NEED to live better -- not perfectly, but better. When it comes to God's great grace, we pastors and leaders stand to receive the greater condemnation if we do not respond accordingly. That's not a threat; it is the natural concomitant of a wonderful privilege.

The end result is that all those who had not received the "mark" were slaughtered! That's right, men, women, boys and girls. EVERYONE! It's an amazingly serious cleansing. But my emphasis here is to encourage us all to first see the importance of FEELING sin and righteousness, then second, to act on it. Let us not rest content to have learned ABOUT bad things in the world, or to have become FAMILIAR with Bible doctrines. Rather, let us enter into them, to actually be moved by them. GRIEVE and LAMENT over today's sins, and tomorrow we may see Christ bring salvation--and FEEL IT TOO!

Stand Against Murdering The Defenseless!

Don't Despise the Day of Small Things

by Dr. Ralph F. Wilson


I remember the excitement in my boyhood neighborhood when somebody began to build a large home on a vacant lot at the end of our street. A concrete truck rolled up to pour foundations, and for several days we could hear the sound of vigorous pounding as carpenters framed the walls. Then everybody left. I never knew why. Not another nail was pounded. The frame stood winter and summer--as long as I lived there--a house of sticks and little more.

Some of God's projects stall, too. Five centuries before Jesus was born, the Israelites returned from exile to find Jerusalem in ruins and their beloved temple destroyed. With great enthusiasm they set about rebuilding it. However, Zerubbabel the governor, got little farther than laying the foundation before opposition set in. Neighbors fought the project tooth and nail, finally succeeding in getting a restraining order to halt construction (Ezra 4). Enemies mocked. Supporters became discouraged. For years the site stood silent.

Failure. Zerubbabel felt like a failure. Oh, there were plenty of other things to do. Zerubbabel set to work building his own wood-paneled home. But his grand dream had fizzled.

He was probably like the rest of us when failure looms. What little self-confidence we have ebbs away. We seal ourselves from more pain by denial. We meet further effort with skepticism. We protect ourselves from getting our hopes too high again. We look at the ground rather than the sky, at the past rather than the future.

And then one day a man of God, Zechariah, began to speak words that pierced Zerubbabel to the heart and filled him with fresh hope: "This is the word of the Lord to Zerubbabel," came the message. "Not by might nor by power, but by my Spirit, says the Lord Almighty." Zerubbabel could feel his heart pounding as the message continued. "What are you, O mighty mountain? Before Zerubbabel you will become level ground. Then he will bring out the capstone to shouts of 'God bless it! God bless it!' The hands of Zerubbabel have laid the foundation of this temple, his hands will also complete it" (Zechariah 4:6-7).

The project had seemed like an immovable mountain, Zerubbabel thought. But now with God at work he knew he could finish the temple.

The final words of the prophecy jolted him. "Do not despise the day of small things. Men will rejoice when they see the plumb line in the hand of Zerubbabel" (vs. 10).

He had despised that early start. How weak, how insignificant, how naive he had been. Yet, in spite of all that, God had been in those beginnings.

How often our efforts for God are attacked by the enemy. We can get so discouraged we don't even want to try again. But God delights in taking the insignificant and making something out of it. Down through history we can see the pattern:

• Moses' rod that delivered a nation from Egypt (Exodus 4:1-9),
• The jawbone of an ass that in Samson's hand killed a thousand Philistines (Judges 15:14-16),
• Five smooth stones that felled the giant Goliath (1 Samuel 17),
• The handful of meal and a jar of oil that sustained a widow through years of famine (2 Kings 4:1-7),
• Five barley loaves and a couple fish that fed a multitude (Matthew 14:13-21), and
• The mustard seed Jesus said would become a great tree for birds to find shelter (Matthew 13:31-32).

What little thing, what dream, what false start, have you despised? Your small church, your tiny Bible study, your hopes of ministry for Christ? Do you despise your failures? Don't. Surrender them to the God who delights in taking human weakness and showing His strength. Take another look at your discarded dreams, this time through God's eyes:

"Not by might, not by power, but my Spirit says the Lord Almighty" (Zechariah 4:6). Oh, by the way. When I went back to my old neighborhood, someone had finished that house at the end of the street. It's beautiful.
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Prayer MATTERS! An Email to Our Church

The following is an email I sent out to our Perry Baptist Church family yesterday (Monday). Only after writing it did I feel it might serve a broader purpose if posted on this site. May the God of all Power and Comfort raise up a strong prayer effort in his people everywhere against this sinful attack against the Lord of Life!

Dear Fellow Pilgrims:

The 14th Annual Life Chain will be held in Perry on Oct.4, 2009 from 2-3 p.m. Meet at our church parking lot at 1:45 p.m. for prayer together before standing along Rt 39 for prayer against evil, specifically the evil hearts of this nation that conceived the evil solution to slaughter babies! And pray as well for those who've suffered such degradations in their own bodies. 

IS YOUR PRAYER INSIGNIFICANT?

We must “speak up” against this slaughter of the helpless unborn! Don’t think that your standing on a street in a small town like Perry has no effect. “Despise not the day of small things,” God told Zechariah when it came to time to re-build the post-Babylonian destruction, seemingly insignificant temple (Zechariah 4:10). How could it compare to the awesome grandeur of Solomon's temple?

Compared to the man-power of much larger cities and Washington, D.C. mega-crowds, we in rural Perry may imagine we have little with which to fight. But that is simply NOT TRUE! Moses’ prayer saved the entire nation of Israel from destruction! (Ex. 32:9-14, esp. 14). Isaiah’s prayer brought on the destruction of the invading Assyrians to the tune of 185,000 men! (Isaiah 37) Prayer’s effect does not hinge on OUR numbers but on the ONE to whom we cry out! Listen to what the LORD told Isaiah right after he had prayed, “For I will defend this city to save it, for my own sake and for the sake of my servant David” (Is. 37:35). Don't miss that. “I WILL DEFEND THIS CITY,” and “FOR MY OWN SAKE.” The key is not found in the voice of the one praying, but in the power of the God being prayed TO! Let us NOT allow Satan to tempt us to cease praying because we are not big names like Moses or Isaiah! That’s an evil ruse he uses all too frequently and, apparently, with too much success. Let us have faith in God and not faith in the evil one!

I would like to see every person in the church gathered together (IN FAITH) to stand along the road and simply call out to God quietly. Remember what God told the prophet Zechariah to tell Zerubbabel (the one building the temple), “Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit says the LORD of hosts” (4:6). The LORD is telling us, "Do not despise the day of small things because victory or success have nothing to do with your position, but everything to do with my mighty power and effective Spirit!"

God stir us up and bless us all as we labor together for those who cannot defend themselves, and for God who gives to all men life and breath and everything else!

Pastor Dave

"Poor In Spirit" Necessary to Be Saved--Charles Hodge

Charles Hodge (1797-1878) was  a much loved professor of theology at Princeton, a warm, generous defender of the faith, most notably historic Calvinism. The following comes from his writings dated 3 March 1861. What DOES it mean to be "poor in spirit?"

This of course is not to be understood as something derogatory. Poor–spirited is a term of reproach. It expresses the absence of manly virtue, of courage, strength of conviction and of will.

The poor in spirit are these who are conscious of their spiritual poverty. They stand opposed to those who falsely assume and assert that they are rich and know not that they are wretched and miserable, and poor and blind and naked.

1.  A sense of ignorance and a willingness to be taught. . . It is only those who are sensible of their ignorance and of their insufficiency to discover truth and who are converted so as to be as little children, who have the Holy Ghost, who is the source of all true knowledge and one of the great blessings of the kingdom of God.

 2.  A sense of unworthiness, as opposed to a spirit of self–righteousness. It is a consciousness of guilt and ill–desert in the sight of God which leads the soul to cry, God, be merciful to me, a sinner. So long as a man thinks that the law of God does not condemn him who cherishes the persuasion that he has never done anything worthy of death, so long is he left in his delusion. But when he is made sensible of the enormity of his guilt, and when he trembles at the wrath of God and renounces his own righteousness, then he receives the righteousness of Christ and becomes rich indeed.

3.  A sense of pollution, as opposed to self–complacency or a disposition to admire our own excellence and to regard ourselves as attractive in the sight of others. To this is opposed a sense of vileness, which leads us to abhor ourselves and lay our mouths in the dust before God. To those who are thus poor in spirit, the Spirit comes and adorns them with all his heavenly grace.

4.  A sense of helplessness. This is opposed to the conceit of our own power to change our hearts, to subdue sin, to secure holiness of heart and life. Those who have this conceit God leaves to their own resources, either to perish in their delusion or to convince themselves of their utter impotence, because then they are endued with power from on high.

So when they think they have power in themselves to accomplish any good work in the Church, God leaves them to try. It is only those who are poor in spirit whom He helps.

5.  Poverty of spirit is a sense of wretchedness, i.e., of the utter incompetence of the world to fill the desires of the soul. Those who think themselves rich because possessed of this world’s sources of happiness, and desire nothing more, God leaves in their contentment. But those who are sensible of their poverty, who hunger and thirst after God, He fills with Himself.

Time, Stress, and the Sabbath!

One of the best explanations of the principle of Sabbath is found in the works of Rabbi Heschel. If you’re a Gentile, or a protestant, you may be tempted to skip over this article. Don’t! You may be surprised. Please read the following slowly; take it in. Note that this is all Heschel’s with the exception of the headings which are my own.

One of the most distinguished words in the Bible is the word kadosh, holy; a word which more than any other is representative of the mystery and majesty of the divine. Now what was the first holy object in the history of the world? Was it a mountain? Was it an altar? . . .

God Declared TIME Holy, Not a Location

It is, indeed, a unique occasion at which the distinguished word kadosh is used for the first time: in the Book of Genesis at the end of the story of creation. How extremely significant is the fact that it is applied to time: "And God blessed the seventh day and made it holy." There is no reference in the record of creation to any object in space that would be endowed with the quality of holiness.

This is a radical departure from accustomed religious thinking. The mythical mind would expect that, after heaven and earth have been established, God would create a holy place--a holy mountain or a holy spring--whereupon a sanctuary is to be established. Yet it seems as if to the Bible it is holiness in time, the Sabbath, which comes first.

TIME Declared “Holy” From the Beginning

When history began, there was only one holiness in the world, holiness in time. When at Sinai the word of God was about to be voiced, a call for holiness in man was proclaimed: "Thou shalt be unto me a holy people." It was only after the people had succumbed to the temptation of worshipping a thing, a golden calf, that the erection of a Tabernacle, of holiness in space, was commanded. The sanctity of time came first, the sanctity of man came second, and the sanctity of space last [emphasis mine]. Time was hallowed by God; space, the Tabernacle, was consecrated by Moses.

While the festivals celebrate events that happened in time, the date of the month assigned for each festival in the calendar is determined by the life in nature. . . . In contrast, the Sabbath is entirely independent of the month and unrelated to the moon. Its date is not determined by any event in nature, such as the new moon, but by the act of creation. Thus the essence of the Sabbath is completely detached from the world of space [emphasis mine].

In Summary

The meaning of the Sabbath is to celebrate time rather than space. Six days a week we live under the tyranny of things of space; on the Sabbath we try to become attuned to holiness in time. It is a day on which we are called upon to share in what is eternal in time, to turn from the results of creation to the mystery of creation, from the world of creation to the creation of the world.

Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, Ph.D. (1907-1972), born in Warsaw and educated in Poland and Germany, was Professor of Ethics and Mysticism at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America. Among his books are Man Is Not Alone, God in Search of Man, The Earth is the Lord's, and Israel: Echo of Eternity.