The Sword of the Spirit

SERMON: 2017-02-05--e0609--the-sword-of-the-spirit-part-3 SOURCE DURATION: 00:41:33.000 PROPOSED CUTS: 1 CONFIDENCE: 1.00 APPROVED: false REASON: The entire provided window contains continuous material that functions as theological exposition and pastoral application (reviewing lessons on the Word of God). ACOUSTIC EVIDENCE: available ACOUSTIC MUSIC INTERVALS: none ACOUSTIC SPEECH OVERLAP: no ACOUSTIC BOUNDARIES APPLIED: none Inline CUT markers identify each proposed audio boundary after the relevant word. --- ORIGINAL TRANSCRIPT WITH PROPOSED CUTS MARKED --- Well, so far in this little mini-series on The Word of God is the Sword of the Spirit, we have looked at two of three very practical lessons that you and I can learn from what the Bible teaches on this subject. Just a very quick review. The first one, we need to know the Scriptures. We need to know not only the broad outlines and the stories of Scripture, not only sort of where things are in the Bible, but we need to know very specific verses that address very specific situations so that we can wield the Word of God as the Sword of the Spirit. That takes effort, that takes discipline. It is well worth our time to do that because that's how the Kingdom is advanced and God's people are built up. Secondly, we saw last week we must trust the authority of Scripture. We must trust the authority of Scripture. I pointed out last week, if the devil can convince us to trust what our eyes see, what our ears hear, and what our senses tell us about reality, then he can readily deceive us because our senses can be deceived. Remember the tree of the knowledge of good and evil? God said that tree will kill you. Adam and Eve, they looked at it, they saw that it was good for food, it was desire to make one wise, it was pleasant to their eyes, and they fell into sin. You and I, when we go by what we think, by what we see, by what we hear, we can readily be deceived. The only antidote to that is to know the Word of God not only, but to trust it. And I believe there has to be a time in all of our lives where we come to a place that says, as Billy Graham did so many years ago, "Lord, here is your Word. I submit to it. I trust it, and I want to lead my life on the basis of what you tell me." I believe there is no substitute for that because Satan will get us every other way. That brings us this morning, then, to a third practical implication of what we've been talking about, and that is to say we must use the scriptures with integrity. We must use the scriptures with integrity. Paul writing to Timothy, 2 Timothy 2.15, "Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved a workman who does not need to be ashamed and who correctly handles the Word of truth." Notice that. "Who correctly handles the Word of truth." One of the characteristics of false teachers and false prophets, of course, is that they all use scripture to try to win converts, but then they twist the scriptures to suit their own purposes. Paul talks about that with regard to the competition that he had when it came to preaching the gospel in the early years of the Christian church. He says in 2 Corinthians, chapter 11, "Concerning these false teachers, such men are false prophets, deceitful workmen." Now notice the next phrase, "masquerading, pretending to be apostles of Christ, and no wonder for Satan himself, masquerades as an angel of light. It is not surprising, then, if his servants masquerade as servants of righteousness." And further on, Peter, 2 Peter, chapter 316, this is a really interesting verse. He's talking about Paul's letters, and he says concerning Paul's letters, "They contain some things that are hard to understand." Yeah, most of us I think would agree with that, "Some things that are hard to understand which ignorant and unstable people distort." Ignorant and unstable people distort Paul's letters. And then the next phrase is really interesting, "As they do the other scriptures to their own destruction." What's fascinating about that is that already then in Peter's day, Paul's writings were recognized as having been inspired and equal to other scriptures. False prophets, false teachers twist the scriptures. And if you've ever listened to the theological arguments that have ravaged and often divided the church in recent decades and certainly over all the centuries, then you know that virtually everybody uses the scriptures to try to prove their point, and very often those are conflicting theories. Let me give you just really quickly two examples. One is the place of women in leadership in the church. For 20 or 25 years, our denomination struggled with the issue, first, should women be allowed to serve as deacons? Then the question was, should women be allowed to serve as elders? Then the question was, should women be allowed to serve as pastors? That debate range, maybe too strong a word, but carried on for a good 20 or 25 years, not because people were stubborn or traditionalist or because they didn't want to see women prosper or come into their own, but rather because scripture has some strong teaching on that particular subject. Listen, for example, to what Paul says to In 1 Timothy chapter 2, the verses 11 to 14. You know this passage. He says, "A woman should learn in quietness and full submission, while the husband said amen and yes. I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man. She must be silent, for Adam was formed first, then Eve." And so the traditional view of women in leadership positions was based on an appeal to the creation story. Adam was formed first, then Eve, and that's why for thousands of years in the history of the church, primary leadership positions in the church have always been male. But times change. We have the rise of feminism in recent decades, and with a rise in feminism comes a reinterpretation of scripture. And so one of the popular theories today is that that wasn't a creation ordinance that is good for all time. This is something that was occasioned by the particular situation that the church at Ephesus found itself in, and other people have found other references in scripture that appear to contradict this. And so, for example, in Acts chapter 21, you have the evangelist Philip. He's got four unmarried daughters, all of whom prophesy, according to the scriptures. And so the favorite text that people fall back on is often Galatians 3 verse 28. There's neither Jew nor Greek slave nor free, male nor female, for you're all one in Christ Jesus. And so the tide has swung. But what it does is it leaves a lot of people confused. What does the Bible really say? And how do I know that I can trust it when you've got so many different voices telling you so many different things? It puts the average person in a position where you want to give up when you say, "Well, unless I am profoundly theologically oriented and profoundly learned, I can never find out what the Bible really means." Isn't it true? That there are times when you question, "What does the Bible mean, and how can I trust what it means?" A quick other example, more current than the last one that I mentioned, and that's of course the whole issue of same-sex relationships, homosexuality, and its place in the church. For thousands or hundreds of years, the church has been united in the fact that marriage was ordained by God between a man and a woman, and that relationships outside of that covenant relationship were biblically wrong and sinful. And again, a lot of that is rooted in various passages of scripture, including Romans chapter one, which is a very intensive discussion by the apostle Paul on the nature of the development of homosexuality. And so, for example, he says in the context of that passage, "In the same way men abandoned natural relations with women, were inflamed with lust for one another, men committed indecent acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their perversion." And then it goes on to say in verse 28, "Furthermore, since they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, he gave them over to a depraved mind to do what ought not to be done." And so for many, many years, God's people said God's word is clearly opposed to anything that departs from the biblical norm of marriage between a man and a woman. Well again, times change. And as times change, people look at the Bible through new eyes, and often with a particular agenda, as you could imagine, and so the emphasis falls on trying to reinterpret a passage like that by saying that in Paul's day, they didn't know about homosexuality or same sex attraction the way that we do today, and that that passage in Romans chapter one referred to a particular style of homosexual relationships in scripture that we would disagree with today, but it doesn't really address the beauty of a same sex relationship. That's the argument that you hear all the time, and you hear it everywhere. And so instead of emphasizing what scripture says about biblical marriage, the texts that people start falling back to are a text like this, Romans 15-7, "Accept one another then as Christ accepted you in order to bring praise to God." And so on the one hand, you have a whole group of folks who want to do everything they can to embrace, to make the church as inclusive as possible, and another group of people who say, "But where do we draw the line?" and both groups appeal to scripture, and both groups have their own particular proof texts. And then the question is, "How do I know? How do I know what the truth is? How do I avoid just being influenced by the loudest voice, the cleverest biblical interpretations? How do I know that as a simple believer I know what scripture teaches and what I can stand on?" Is that a fair question to ask? I mean really, you know, it's as complicated as I'm making it because that is the reality. I want to give you, in the time that remains, three principles that I think not only will encourage you, but that will help you in your own reading of scripture to know what it really says so that you can trust the authority of scripture and you can use it in your conversations and in your decision making with biblical integrity because you are honoring the intent of scripture. Number one, the key, hear me well, the key to understanding scripture is the person and the work of the Holy Spirit. What does Paul call this sword, which is the word of God in Ephesians 6-17? It is the sword of the Spirit. If the word of God is the letters on the page, then the Spirit of God is the inspiring voice behind those words and he is the one who must interpret to us what the real meaning of scripture is. Jesus puts it this way, John 16 verse 13, he says, "When he," that is the Spirit of truth, notice the Spirit of truth, "When he comes, he will guide you into all truth." Let me pursue that just a little bit further. Who is the author of scripture? Well, we know from earlier studies that it's the Holy Spirit. Peter says, 2 Peter 1, 20, 21, "Men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit." So if it's the Holy Spirit who is inspiring the authors of scripture, who is showing them what it is that they need to communicate as God's authoritative word, then it's the Holy Spirit on the other end who has to interpret that word as it's coming to us. It's like in telecommunications, you have an encoder over here and the message is all garbled in between, but to read its message on the other end, you've got to have a decoder. And who is a better decoder than God's Holy Spirit? Listen to how Paul puts it, 1 Corinthians chapter 2, 11 and 12, "Who among men knows the thoughts of a man except the Spirit within him?" In other words, who knows what you're thinking except you who are doing the thinking, isn't that true? I mean, sometimes you think, you know what other people are thinking, but often you've got it wrong. In the same way, no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. For we have not received the Spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God that we may understand what God has freely given us. God has given us the Holy Spirit so that we may understand what God has freely given us. The upshot of that is what? Well, if by faith you're joined to Jesus and Jesus has come to live in you by the Holy Spirit, there is something, somebody inside you that will tune in to what truth is, what registers true to the character of God, true to the purposes of God. We'll talk about that more in a moment. And you have an anointing on the inside that will help you discern what truth is. And you got to learn to trust in, because again, what the Holy Spirit does is he takes the word, takes us beyond the letter on the page and interprets what lies behind that word. One quick illustration just to show you how that works is from the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew's gospel, and you may know that the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew's gospel is the new covenant equivalent to the Ten Commandments giving to Israel in the Old Testament. And the Ten Commandments where you don't tend very simple statements about serving God and loving your neighbor, what that looked like in terms of very practical situations. And in the time of Jesus, there was a whole school of scholars, the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, who had to figure out to a T what keeping the law looked like, but they got stuck on the letter of the law. They forgot the spirit that was behind it. And so Jesus comes along and they thought Jesus was just a law breaker and he makes it very clear that unless your righteousness exceeds the righteousness of the scribes and the Pharisees, you're not going to even get into the kingdom. And then he goes through the laws that they claim to believe in. And he gives the real meaning. And so if you read Matthew chapter five in this area, then he goes through a whole series of you have heard it said, you have heard it said, you shall not murder. You've heard it said, don't commit adultery. You've heard it said, don't get divorced. You've heard it said an eye for an eye and love your enemy, but our heart love your neighbor, but hate your enemy, typical literalistic interpretation of those 10 commandments. And what does he do? He goes behind the letter of that law, the way that the Pharisees have come to understand it. And what he does is he goes to the spirit of the thing and he says, it's not good enough not to kill your neighbor. It's not good enough even to have bad thoughts about your neighbor in your heart. You have to positively love him. Same thing with adultery. It's not good enough not to sleep around with your neighbor's wife. You must love your neighbor. It's not good enough not to steal. No, you must not even covet what belongs to your neighbor. So he takes the letter of the law, goes behind it to what the spirit of God is really saying. And in so doing, he raises the bar so high that only through faith in Jesus can we even remotely begin to be righteous in the sight of God. Does that make sense? The spirit interprets for us the law. That's why in the New Testament you don't get a thousand and one details of how you're supposed to live. It's summarized by saying, love God above all, love your neighbor as yourself. And then the Holy Spirit will help you figure out what that looks like in the reality of everyday living. Why not commit adultery? Because it hurts your neighbor. Why not steal from your neighbor when you can get away with it? Because it hurts your neighbor, it's not an act of love. So the Holy Spirit is key. Second principle I want to share with you is that whatever interpretation you come up with, it must always fit the overall theme of scripture. It must fit the overall theme of scripture. The Bible, as I've said, is an amazing book. It was written by 40 different authors over a period of 1500 years. But it's not just a collection of stories. It's not just a collection of essays. It is a book that is joined together by a fourfold common theme. We've talked about this before. You know this. If we can get that slide up, please. The overall theme of scripture can be summarized in four words, creation, fall, redemption, and restoration. God made the world and he made it good. Adam and Eve fell into sin. It is now a mess because of our sin and selfishness. God came in the person of Jesus to redeem us from the mess that we're in, to restore us to the kingdom, grants us his Holy Spirit. And one day Jesus is going to come back, is going to finish it all off, and heaven will be on earth. That is the message of the Bible. So whenever you run into a particular interpretation of scripture and somebody says, "This is what the Bible means," or "This is what the Bible doesn't mean," then you have to ask yourself the question, "Does it fit in the framework of God's redemptive purposes summarized in the person of Jesus Christ?" Here's how John puts it. "Dear friends, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world. This is how you can recognize the Spirit of God. Every spirit that acknowledges that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, but every spirit that does not acknowledge Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the Antichrist, which you have heard is coming, and even now is already in the world." The heresy here was Gnosticism, didn't believe that Jesus really came into the world, that he was really physical. The centrality of the gospel always focuses on Jesus. Paul says the same thing on Corinthians 12.3, "I tell you, no one who is speaking by the Spirit of God says, 'Jesus be cursed,' and no one can say, 'Jesus is Lord,' except by the Holy Spirit." Now here is a litmus test by which you can test every preacher you listen to, every movement you might be tempted to join, and every philosophy that comes at you from all sides in the world. Hear me well. If you want to know what is truth versus what is not truth, I've said this before, it bears repeating, all you have to do is ask yourself the question, "Where is the cross of Jesus in this philosophy, in this teaching, in this message?" What is to say, does this message agree with the fundamentals of Scripture? Number one, God created us, we have fallen into sin, we cannot save ourselves, Jesus came to do it, and he's coming to make us new. Is the Jesus that is being preached the Jesus of Scripture who judges sin, who calls us to hate sin and forsake it, and who has poured out his Holy Spirit upon us so that by the Holy Spirit we can increasingly by faith in Jesus become the holy children of God. You apply that test and I don't care who the preacher is, how wonderful their stories are, how emotively they pull on your heartstrings. If it doesn't include that summary of the gospel, it is not the Jesus of the Bible and it's not a true gospel. I read a beautiful quote just this past week, I wish I had brought it along word for word, but it goes something like this, when it comes to dealing with repentant sinners, repentant sinners, Jesus is the most inclusive person that you can possibly imagine, is that true? Doesn't matter where you've been, doesn't matter how bad you've messed up, doesn't matter how messed up your life is, how messed up your family's life is, how many mistakes you've made, Jesus doesn't bat an eye. He says, "Come to me all who labor and are heavy laden and I will give you rest." But when it comes to excluding unrepentant sinners, keeping them away, nobody is more exclusive than Jesus. That's why they put him on the cross. They would have never put him on the cross if he allowed everybody into his kingdom, he recognizes pride and sinfulness wherever it occurs and the emphasis of scripture is that yes, you can come to Jesus as you are, but he loves you too much to keep you where you are and he's challenging you to grow up in Christ to embrace the righteousness of Jesus. Isn't that true? When the holy city comes, the new Jerusalem, everything that is unclean is on the outside and the only ones that are inside are those who are made clean by the blood of Jesus. That's the gospel. So apply that to whoever you listen to, to whatever interpretations you hear. If it doesn't fit in that framework, be very careful because it is likely a false prophet. They come to you as wolves in sheep clothing. I have to tell you, I am constantly amazed by the number of Christians who are bowled over by theories and theologies that are so far removed from the gospel that they aren't even close to the truth of the gospel. By the Holy Spirit, you can have the discernment to know which is which. All right, one more principle then we'll be done, but this is the worst one. I'm just warning you. We must love the truth. You want to understand what is of God and what is not of God? If God is truth and the Holy Spirit is truth, you must love the truth. Listen to this passage from 2 Thessalonians 2, 9 to 12. In the back, can you read that? Read it with me. Read it out loud. This is in the context of the coming of the Antichrist, when the whole world is going to be deluded and they're going to run after the biggest lie that the world has ever seen. Here's what scripture says. Read it with me. "The coming of the lawless one will be in accordance with the work of Satan displayed in all kinds of counterfeit miracles, signs, and wonders, and in every sort of evil that deceives those who are perishing. They perish because they refuse to love the truth and so be saved. For this reason, God sends them a powerful delusion so that they will believe the lie and so that all will be condemned who have not believed the truth but have delighted in wickedness." Very quickly, three things in that passage I want you to note. The first is that there is such a thing as the truth. Now you say that's self-evident. That is not self-evident because we live in a society that denies there is such a thing as absolute truth. Truth is what you make it. Truth is what you believe. Truth is what fits your narrative. It couldn't be further if you'll pardon the pun from the truth. Here's what Jesus says. "Sanctify them by the truth. Your word is truth." And of course, John 14, 6, "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me." That is the truth. So there is truth but not only is the truth, we must love the truth. That is to say, we must cherish it, the book of Proverbs, by the truth. Do not sell it. Get wisdom, discipline, and understanding by the truth. We must love the truth. And then what happens when you don't love the truth? This is where it gets real nasty. For this reason, God sends them what? A powerful delusion so that they will believe the lie and so that all will be condemned who have not believed the truth but have delighted in wickedness. Now hear me well. You really need to hear this. A lot of people have trouble believing that God will send people a spirit of delusion. And they say, "Oh, God would never do that because God is kind and God is loving." He is all of that. But let me ask you, what does it mean that the Bible says he hardened Pharaoh's heart? Did poor Pharaoh have a choice? Was he just left at the Calvinistic mercy of God who didn't want him? Not at all. When in your heart you do not love the truth but choose the lie, then there comes a point where God says, "I have sent you prophets. I have sent you my messengers. I have sent you my discipline. You refuse to hear and to listen, so I'm going to give you over to your sin. So that the fullness of the rebellion that lives inside you can come to ultimate expression so that when judgment comes, as surely it will, everybody will know that I have been righteous in the judgment that I have poured out over here." Understand that. God gives you over to the delusion if you do not love the truth. And so the point is we must love the truth. The truth of who God is, the truth of who Jesus is, the truth of who we are, the truth of what needs to be repented of, the truth of what needs to be given over to God. And now here let me just bring that close to home because how many of us aren't there who in our study of the scripture, we stay away from all these nasty passages that make us feel bad, and we love to dwell on the passages that make us feel good? True? And how many of us, when we're trying to justify a certain lifestyle or a certain behavior, we gravitate towards scriptures and we gravitate towards preachers and we gravitate towards messages that make us feel good and write about ourselves regardless of what God says? True? I remember a young man, years ago, was a straight-laced churchgoer, as anybody that I've ever seen, conservative, traditional, found himself attracted to a particular sexual lifestyle that was contrary to scripture, contrary to everything that he had grown up with. You know what was the first thing he did? He started studying the Bible to try to prove that what he was doing was okay. And then when he ran into passages that he didn't quite know what to do with, then he collected a whole series of books that try to justify his particular position and then he surrounded himself with a whole bunch of people who patted him on the back and said, "You know, what you're doing is perfectly okay. God loves you, God understands you, and God likes you the way that you are." And he bought the lie hook, line, and sinker, not because he didn't know about her, but because he didn't love the truth. And if you don't love the truth, it doesn't take very long before the lie becomes so comfortable that you can live with it and it will mark the rest of your days. Are you hearing me? We must love the truth. And if God's word says a certain thing or if God's people speak into our lives in certain places where he gets close to home and it hurts and we're called to take up our cross and follow Jesus and we need to repent, then the wise person says, "Lord, this is hard for me. I don't know how to do this, but help me to embrace the message of the cross because the word of the cross is foolishness to those who perish. But guess what it is for those who have embraced it, power of God to salvation." So what happens when we know the scriptures? What happens when we know how to interpret them by the power of God's Holy Spirit? What happens when we embrace and love the truth? We can be confident that God guides the humble in what is right and teaches them in his way. And Jesus put it this way, "If anyone chooses to do God's will, he'll find out whether my teaching comes from God or whether I speak on my own." Would ever be bamboozled by people who profess to be smarter than you are, who make it sound like unless you have a doctorate in theology, you can't possibly interpret the Bible correctly. It is a bunch of nonsense. The reformers used to talk about what they called the perspicuity of scripture. And what they meant by that is that the simplest believer with a heart set for God and a heart set for truth by the Holy Spirit is more than able to understand what God is saying and to live his life or to live her life in agreement with the purposes of God. And I often say if it takes whole books to try to tell you that what the Bible plainly says, it isn't saying there's probably something wrong in the attempt to make it sound that way. Trust God's word. It's been many years since I stood at the seminary pond with my Bible open under that big tree before the face of God, and I made a pledge to him and I said, "Lord, I don't know if the Bible is true, if the Book of Mormon is true, if all these other religions are true, but I'm taking a position by faith that this is your word. I want to submit to it as best as I know how and as you give me the grace, and if I come to the end of my life and discover that I have been fooled, then so be it, I don't want to live in the tension of having to try to figure out what is truth and what is not truth. I bend my knee before you." That's more than 40 years ago today, and I can tell you with confidence that I have never ever regretted that choice because the Bible says your word is truth, and Jesus said, "If you follow me, you will know the truth and it will set you free." So let me encourage you one more time to make sure that you know the scriptures, that you know how to use them specifically in specific instances, and learn how to interpret it led by the Spirit, directed by the overall framework of the biblical message, with a heart committed that is truth, and you will have a sword in your hand that is called the sword of the Spirit, the word of God, and with that sword, you can not only resist the attacks of the enemy coming at you, even if it takes two or three times or more, but you can also step into situations where people are captive by Satan's power, and you can say, "In Jesus' name, by his authority, be gone and watch him turn tail and see God's kingdom come in might and in power." That is the authority God gives to you and to me by Jesus through [PROPOSED CUT 1 START at 00:41:28.460; remove through 00:41:33.000] the armor of God, and God's people said, "Amen." [CUT] [CUT] [PROPOSED CUT 1 END at 00:41:33.000; resume after this marked segment]