Fundamental Christian Attitudes: Strength, Part 4

Victory first begins with a commitment to win. Most Christians lose the spiritual war at this point and it's simply because winning isn't that important to them. They're content to lose. When you want to win more than you want anything else, you've got a fighting chance.

There has to be a hard attitude of a champion, of a winner. Thanks for joining us for the first broadcast of 2021. Today, John MacArthur is going to look at the spiritual armor available to you, vital equipment for being a courageous Christian that others can look to for support. That's the title of John's study here on Grace To You, The Courageous Christian. Well, John, happy new year.

I'm glad 2020 is over. Of course, as we minister in an uncertain and constantly changing world, we don't know what 2021 is going to bring. But talk about what courage might look like for you and for our ministry during this new year.

Well, for us, the courage is to continue to proclaim God's truth accurately and without compromise. That's all we've been called to do. We can't control the times, but at the same time, they're not out of control either because all of this works within the framework of God's sovereign purpose. So we just continue to proclaim God's Word accurately and without compromise. And I think, you know, even if 2021 is a lot like 2020 and we don't know that all of a sudden everything is going to revert to being the way everybody would like it, that's not likely. So this is going to have some tough, tough things to face as we go through this year, the kind of things that we had in 2020 that we don't have any control over, let's put it that way.

They're liable to be more of those, not only this year, but in the future. But all of that works within the framework of God's purpose, and it makes the Word of God more valuable. Again, the more difficult life is, the more confused people are, the more they have struggled to find hope and meaning and significance, the more the truth of God shines in that kind of darkness. So we're confident in God's Word. We're confident that God does His work through His Word.

Let me say that again. He does His work through His Word. And so as we teach His Word, the Spirit uses that to accomplish the building of His kingdom for His glory. But we need your prayers.

Again, a lot of unknowns ahead of us. Pray for our staff here in the United States who generate these programs and help us get all the resources into your hands. Pray for the encouragement and strength of faithful saints who operate our offices in Canada and United Kingdom and India. Pray for God's continued provision for our ongoing financial needs, and pray for the people that we minister to—radio, books, television, podcasts, blogs, and more. Pray for the Word to have free course around the world and accomplish God's purpose for His glory. And from all of us at Grace to You, much thanks. Yes, thank you, friend, for all that you do for us. Your prayers and support have helped us connect countless people throughout the world with biblical truth, and we trust that God will bless the opportunities we have to teach His Word in 2021.

So with the first message of the new year from the series called The Courageous Christian, here is John MacArthur. Here we are in the midst of a world that has been so designed by Satan to do everything it can to destroy us. It calls for tremendous strength to be able to stand against the wiles or the schemes of the devil. To be able to stand against his subtle craftiness, his cunning takes a tremendous amount of preparation.

And what is that preparation? Well, according to this passage, it is the full armor of God. Let's talk about that armor. Paul has in mind a Roman soldier. And what you see here typically is the basic outfit that a Roman soldier engaged in battle would have. He would have a belt to wrap around his loins. He would have a breastplate to protect his vulnerable chest area. He would have the right kind of shoes to engage in hand-to-hand combat.

He would have a shield and he would have a helmet to protect his head, and he would have a sword to engage in the battle. That's the image in Paul's mind. The spiritual implications are profound for all of us.

Let's start, first of all, where Paul starts in verse 14. The first thing you need to know if you're going to be in this battle and be able to stand is that you have to have your loins girded with truth. This is the belt, your loins, your midsection. And a Roman soldier would start in the matter of arming himself for the battle by putting a belt on, a soldier's belt to which could be attached his breastplate, which would be over his shoulders and connected to that belt, a belt to which would be attached a sheath or a place to put his sword. And more than that, the belt served him in another purpose. The belt could be cinched tight and the corners of his tunic pulled up through that belt. You remember in ancient times they were basically what amounts to a dress, a piece of material with a hole in it for the head and two holes for the arms and you just kind of put it on. And when you went out to battle, you certainly didn't want to go out to battle with your dress blown around. Somebody might pull it over your head and yaha, it's curtains, you know. And you certainly didn't want to get your arms tangled in your dress or your tunic.

You wanted to make sure as you got into the battle that you had everything pulled in very tightly and typically they would pull up the corners of that tunic and make it into some kind of a mini tunic so they could move with some alacrity and some agility in the hand-to-hand combat in which they were engaged and if needed they could dodge and run and move. To look at the belt is to understand something very basic to warfare. And in Paul's imagery, he calls it the belt of truth. It might be better even to translate that word truthfulness. And I don't think he's so much talking about content. I don't think he's talking about biblical doctrine. He gets to that when he gets to what weapon?

The sword. What he's talking about here is truthfulness in the sense of dedication. It really is the idea of sincerity. It's the idea of going into the battle with a view toward the seriousness of what you're engaged in and making a real commitment to it, a sincere desire to contend, a sincere desire to pull all the loose ends of your life in, pull in the loose ends of your life and make a real commitment to the battle. And anybody in any kind of endeavor like this knows that victory first begins with a commitment to win, total heart, soul, mind commitment to win. And I suppose it might be safe to say that most Christians lose the spiritual war at this point, and it's simply because winning isn't that important to them. They're content to lose. When you want to win more than you want anything else, you've got a fighting chance.

Anything less than that and you're liable to be trampled. There has to be a hard attitude of a champion, of a winner. And I can promise you, you're not going to win in this spiritual warfare until winning is really important to you. And how does it become important to you when you understand what's at stake? When you understand that eternal reward is at stake? When you understand that the eternal glory of the Lord Jesus is at stake? When you understand that usefulness in the kingdom is at stake for you?

When you understand that the souls of people are at stake? Paul says that to Timothy. When he tells Timothy, look, why am I beating my body?

Why am I exercising self-discipline? Because, he says in chapter 4 of 1 Timothy, we're dealing with something that has eternal consequences. This is not trivial stuff. This is a warfare with immense consequences. This whole thing of spiritual war starts with commitment. And I'm not trying to give you a pep talk, I'm just trying to tell you the fact. But until you get a grip on eternal things, until you set your affection on things above and not on things on the earth, until you offer your body as a living sacrifice, until the purposes of God matter more to you than your own goals and ambitions, until the eternal glory is the compelling issue in your life and not worldly comfort, you're not going to get the belt on, pull the loose ends of your life and make a commitment to battle that can turn out in victory.

That's where it starts. Secondly, in verse 14, Paul looks at this image of this Roman soldier who is so prepared for war and he sees a breastplate of righteousness. Now breastplates in ancient times could be made out of thick leather. They could be made out of some configuration of leather and metal as you've perhaps seen. Sometimes you've even seen pictures of Roman soldiers who had that great eagle on a brass plate that was molded and cast and placed over their chest, a very formidable kind of protection. There have been all different kinds that have been used, but those breastplates were absolutely crucial because what they did was they covered the vital organs. And you could get into hand-to-hand combat and somebody might whack you in the arm or somebody might poke you in the shoulder, somebody might get a shot at your leg somewhere and you could survive.

But if they start poking around in here, you're in some real serious trouble. And the vital part needed protection. Sometimes they even used very heavy linen and overlapping iron.

Sometimes they put pieces of animal horn on there to act as a barrier and no soldier would go out into hand-to-hand combat without the protection that was needed in that area. Now what is the image that Paul sees here translating into in terms of the spiritual dimension? Well, it's a very simple thing. It's a matter of protecting the vital areas of your life with a breastplate of what? Of righteousness.

What is that? That's simply doing what's right...doing what's right. It's the same kind of righteousness of which Paul spoke to Timothy in 1 Timothy 6, 11 when he said, "'Flee from these things, sinful things, all the things involved with the love of money, flee from these things you man of God and follow after righteousness and godliness.'" If you're not living righteously, you have immense vulnerability.

You are really vulnerable. You are exposed if there is a pattern of wickedness in your life, if there's a pattern of sin. In the words of 2 Corinthians 2, 11, an advantage has been taken of you by Satan. He has the advantage if there is sin in your life. And by that I'm not saying that you need to be perfect, but I am saying you need to deal with sin. You say, well what if there's sin in my life? Well, the thing to do is to confess your sin and the Lord is faithful and just to what?

To forgive it, confront it, deal with it honestly, openly, turn from it. Now there's a third component here and I think this is a very, very graphic one as well in verse 15. He says, have your feet shod, have some shoes on. And what are these shoes called? Well, they're called the preparation of the gospel of peace. And what does it mean? Well, the word preparation simply means prepare your feet, prepare your feet with the proper shoes.

And what are they? They are the shoes called the gospel of peace. It's an important piece of armor. In fact, what the Roman soldiers used to do is they developed what was called a hobnail boot, very simple to make. You put a leather sole on it and you hammer nails through the leather sole so that they stick out the bottom. Short, stubby nails.

Why? Because they were on ground, they were on dirt or some kind of grass on a field somewhere and it would be a very, very good idea to have some kind of shoe that would give you a grip because you were literally in hand-to-hand combat. They had their feet prepared to go into this war, to go into this combat.

And if they didn't, they would be slipping and sliding and very ineffective and very vulnerable. And I love what it says in verse 15. Here's what makes up your shoes, the gospel of peace, the gospel of peace. Now I've heard a lot of preachers talk about this, but I don't think they very often get it right because almost every time I've ever heard a preacher refer to this, they say that we take our feet and preach the gospel. Blessed are the feet of those who publish the good news.

That's not what it's talking about here. It's not talking about feet going somewhere, it's talking about feet doing what? Standing firm. This is not evangelistic feet, folks. This is not the beautiful feet of those who preach the good news. This is the feet of those who are under assault in the spiritual war. And with these feet, you hold your ground and you take your firm grip and you stand against Satan and you don't run and you're at perfect balance as he comes at you and your feet are on solid ground and they're anchored.

And what is it that anchors us? It is the gospel of peace. Now what does that mean?

It means this. The gospel is that we have made peace with whom? With God. That's the good news, right? The good news is we have peace with God. And so I stand my ground.

Why? Because I have made peace with God, which means God is on my side. And that's why I can stand my ground. And when Satan comes at me, I just say, God, get him. When the temptations come, when the world cracks, God, I have made my peace with you through the gospel.

You're on my side. I need your strength. That's essentially what you have in verse 10. Be strong in whom? In the Lord and in the strength of His might. Tap your divine resource. The victory is yours if you just call upon God and His strength.

You say, what does that mean? Just cry out in the midst of the onslaught. Strengthen me, O Lord. Come to my rescue, just like the psalmist did many, many times.

Well, let's keep moving. Verse 16, in addition to all, on top of everything else, take the shield of faith with which you will be able to extinguish all the flaming missiles of the evil one. Take the shield of faith because it will extinguish missiles. This shield in the Roman time was about four feet by two and a half feet, four feet high, two and a half feet wide. And soldiers would get behind them, literally. Sometimes when an army moved like a phalanx, that's a long sort of group, sort of stretched out across the countryside moving like this, sideways as it were, like a snake moving sideways, a phalanx. Sometimes when they would do that, the front troops would have the shields. And as the enemy would fire, this great long phalanx of shields would extinguish the arrows that would fly. The shield would be wooden usually, covered with thick leather, saturated with oil so that when the fiery arrows went into the oil, they were immediately extinguished.

It was an oil that put out the flame rather than gave it energy. As Satan fires his missiles at us, as he fires his temptations at us, we have a shield. And what is that shield? It's the shield of faith.

Let me put it to you as simply as I can put it. Every single temptation that Satan sends your way and my way is a temptation to distrust God. It's a temptation to believe a lie. And the lie might be, do this and you'll be satisfied. Do this and you'll be fulfilled. Do this and you'll make more money. Do this and you'll gain popularity. Do this and you'll feel more comfortable.

Do this and you'll get what you want. That's the lie. And God says, obey Me and I'll bless you, right? Every time you sin, who have you believed?

Not God. You see, what really shields you is faith. If a trial comes into my life and things aren't going the way I want them to go and the temptation comes to me to get angry with God and I get angry with God, I have...I've not trusted Him. I should know that God allows these trials to make me strong. I should know that in the midst of these trials, He can work His will. I should know that God has a positive purpose in it all. I should know that He is teaching me something and I should say, God, I thank you for this trial and what you intend for me. And when I do that, I say no to the doubts and the anger and the hostility toward God that Satan wants me to exhibit. If I believe God, I thwart the temptation. And let's add the next one, verse 17, take the helmet of salvation.

Now Roman soldiers wore helmets. Why? Well, because you didn't want to become a split personality. You didn't want to have somebody chop your head off.

Arrows could strike you in the head. There was a sword called a ram-faya, could be as long as four feet in length, double-edged, wielded with two hands. You needed a helmet to protect you from a blow from that sword. What is the helmet of salvation? You mean salvation? You mean you have to be saved? No, we're already saved.

What does He mean by this? Well, to help us, Paul refers to it also in his letter to the Thessalonians, 1 Thessalonians chapter 5 verse 8 calls it the helmet of the hope of salvation. Listen now, it is the helmet of the hope of salvation for God has not destined us for wrath, but obtaining salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ who died for us.

What is this? It's the helmet of the hope of salvation yet to come. You say, well, what's the point? The point is this, one of the great weapons that Satan wants to use to crush the Christian is doubt...doubt. He wants to crush you with blows of insecurity. You'll never make it. You'll never cut it. You're not a Christian. Look at that kind of behavior. Look at this kind of behavior. Look what you did over there. Look what you don't do.

Look at all the stuff that goes through your mind. Look at all the times you failed. You're no Christian. And the continual assault against the assurance of salvation. Or it may come like this, you can lose your salvation one false step and you've lost your salvation. The Lord is going to take that salvation away.

You're going to forfeit that salvation. You know, in evangelical Christianity all over the world there are lots of people that believe that and they live in constant fear that somehow they're going to lose their salvation. It is a debilitating fear.

It creates anxiety. Satan wants to steal your joy and steal your usefulness and just grind you to a halt with doubts. And so you have to have the helmet of the hope of salvation. What is that confidence in God's eternal salvation? One final component in this battle, at the end of verse 17, take the helmet of salvation and the verb is implied, and take the sword of the Spirit which is the Word of God.

Ah, this is great. Sword here, not ramphaya, it's not a big four-foot broad sword you're flailing around. It's not a weapon you use indiscriminately.

Paul is very selective. The word for sword here is makairah. And makairah referred to a dagger, maybe a dagger eight to twelve inches long, very sharp, but you didn't just stand somewhere and wave it, it wouldn't do any good. It had to be used with tremendous precision. You couldn't just swing it at somebody like you could a ramphaya, you had to just put it in the right spot. It had to go right into the vulnerable area. It had to be used with very great precision. You had to be skilled to put yourself in a position to thrust it into the deadly blow.

And what is this sword? It is the Word of God. You might have...if you know a little Greek, you might have thought that Paul would use the word lagos, translated word here, but he doesn't.

Lagos is a general term for the word. He chooses a word that is different, rhema, and rhema means a specific statement. It's not a generic word for Scripture, it's a word for a specific statement. Now listen, the sword of the Spirit is not just a Bible. The sword of the Spirit is the specific statement of the Word of God wielded at just the precise moment. Let me tell you, you can own a Bible, you can own a Bible warehouse and not have the sword of the Spirit.

It's not possessing a Bible, it's knowing it well enough to use it with precision. When Jesus was tempted by Satan, with what did Jesus answer each temptation? And he didn't just say, well the Bible says you shouldn't do that, Satan. He quoted a specific verse, any.

In fact, all three of them out of Deuteronomy. He quoted three specific verses that drove the dagger into the heart of the enemy at the exact moment and at the exact location. It is the ability to use the Word of God precisely that defends you against the subtleties of Satan's temptation.

If you don't know what the Bible teaches about a certain thing, you're vulnerable. As you begin to learn the Word of God, you become a skilled wielder of the precise dagger that is thrust into the heart of the enemy's system as it comes against you. And then on top of all of that, verse 18, with all prayer and petition, you pray at all times consistent with the Holy Spirit. You bathe this entire operation in consistent constant prayer which reflects your dependence upon the Lord.

That's the sum of it all. If you are so equipped, you will be strong in the Lord and in the power or the strength of His might. This is Grace to You with John MacArthur.

Thanks for being with us. Today John showed you the spiritual armor that will help you thrive spiritually in 2021. It's part of his study, The Courageous Christian. And friend, here at the starting line of 2021, perhaps you've set a goal to study God's Word even more consistently this year. And if so, let me encourage you to get a copy of the MacArthur Daily Bible. Each day you'll read a portion of the Old and New Testament, Psalms and Proverbs, taking you through the entire Bible in one year.

To place your order, contact us today. Just go to our website, gty.org. The Daily Bible also includes helpful study notes by John that explain the difficult passages, and this would be a great resource for any new believer. Again, you can purchase the MacArthur Daily Bible when you go to our website, gty.org. And remember, at gty.org you can also download all of John's sermons free of charge. If there's a verse in the New Testament that you don't understand or you want to know it better, John has a sermon on it, as well as many sermons from the Old Testament. You can also read the Grace to You blog with articles by John and other staff members, or listen to Grace Stream. That's a continuous broadcast of John's teaching through the New Testament.

All of those resources and more are available at gty.org. Now for John MacArthur, I'm Phil Johnson. Be sure to watch Grace to You television this Sunday on DirecTV channel 378, and then be here Monday as we consider the question, what should your church be known for the most? John kicks off a series titled, The Bible-Driven Church, with another 30 minutes of unleashing God's truth, one verse at a time, on the next Grace to You.