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As you all know we’ve been making our way through the Book of Ephesians - as a church...
And for the past several weeks - we’ve been lingering over the Armor of God that we are called to ADORN ourselves with...
As we’ve walked through each piece of Armor...
The more we got into it, we could see the connection between these pieces of ARMOR...
…and Jesus Christ Himself.
The belt of Truth
The breastplate of Righteousness
The shoes of Readiness
The shield of Faith
And last week - the Helmet of Salvation
What we’ve seen is that Jesus Christ Himself - lived out HIS ministry on earth - having adorned Himself with this ARMOR...
And we see that as we seek to Adorn OURSELVES with the Armor of God...
We will become MORE AND MORE like Jesus… (living AS He lived)
TODAY - we come to the final piece of ARMOR...
AS we quickly approach the end of this Book...
What is it?
- - As you can see - it is the Sword of the Spirit
And so let’s get to our text today - and then dive in...
The SWORD of the Spirit...
The first 5 pieces of Armor - by and large - were all PRIMARILY used as DEFENSIVE weapons...
Belt of Truth - it actually would HOLD the Breastplate IN PLACE - and it would also hold the sword
Breastplate of righteousness
Shoes of Readiness
Shield of Faith
Helmet of Salvation...
All of these items - PRIMARILY used in DEFENSE… although the SHOES of readiness would be used to ADVANCE forward...
TODAY - we see the SWORD of the Spirit...
Now of course a SWORD can be used to DEFEND against attack, but primarily it will be used on OFFENSE...
TO ATTACK
So let’s dive in and see what the Bible says - about God’ Word....
It’s interesting that the Bible - Makes claims about ITSELF - as God’s word!
And so we’ll mainly be camping out in 2 Timothy today...
SLIDE: God’s Word: Weapon that Never Fails
God’s Word
What did v14 say?
The call here from Paul to Timothy was that Timothy CONTINUE in what he had learned...REMAIN in the truth...
This is more than just a call to 'Keep Believing'....there's an emphasis here from Paul to RESIDE in this truth....there's a commitment here...
I know people...Christians...who are always looking for the NEXT thing.
the next NEW thing...The next NEW wave in Christianity!
Charles Spurgeon has said:
Rest assured that there is nothing new in theology except that which is false; and that the facts of theology are today what they were eighteen hundred years ago.
Spurgeon is spot on here!!
NOW - We can fall into this as well...
We have Bible Studies...One bible study might be about reaching the lost...but when it's over we might say - OK, What's NEXT?
What's next?? - and we forget to live out what we had just heard!
Always saying- what's next…It’s DANGEROUS...
BECAUSE - it could lead to - - Always HEARING but never DOING!
James tells us - if all you do is hear the WORD (truth) but never DO the word....you're deceiving yourself.
And so Paul's call to Timothy is - CONTINUE in what you've learned...There's no ALTERNATE gospel out there that will save you....
REMAIN in the WORD of God - His truth - ...because it's ABSOLUTE truth!
It will never fade away!
When it comes to God’s WORD...there's nothing new under the sun...
Now, we look at society, and it wants to tell us MANY different things about TRUTH...
That truth is RELATIVE...
What the world REALLY thinks is - There is NO absolute truth...
But clearly....NO ONE believes that ALL truth is RELATIVE...
No one would say - Well, gravity is true for you, but not true for me...and then go jump off a 50 story building...
And if we just think about it - The statement itself - "Truth is relative....there is NO absolute truth"......is a SELF-REFUTING statement...
When someone says - There is NO absolute truth - - the Question BEGS to be asked...."Is that a true statement?"
NOW - People all over the world EVERY DAY about what IS true and what’s NOT true...
TODAY - our topic is God’s WORD...
And we know the World DENIES the validity of God’s WORD -
But we just read in Scripture that God’s Word will STAND FOREVER!!
SO - how do we handle that…?
Is there a way - to SPEAK to the VALIDITY of God’s WORD??
Answer - yes!
SLIDE: Truthfulness of God’s Word: Evidence - The Person of Jesus Christ
Truthfulness of God’s Word
The Scriptures tell us that Christ spoke like NO OTHER man...His words were BEYOND ALL human philosophy!
No one could have made up this person of Christ.
How do you explain His resurrection?
With 500 eye witnesses WHO DIDN'T expect Him to rise from the dead!
How do you explain apostles who saw Jesus die...who were then RUNNING for their lives...hiding...To then becoming WORLD CHANGING evangelists...unafraid of death?
Would they have responded that way to preserve a LIE??
NO!
The only explanation is the resurrection!
How do you explain the OT giving 350 prophecies of Jesus Christ...
...Half of them coming true historically and recorded in the NT......the other half will come true at His 2nd coming!
The truthfulness of God’s Word - Evidenced in the person of Christ!
But what else?
SLIDE: Truthfulness of God’s Word: Evidence - Science
Truthfulness of God’s Word
Now - you may be thinking - uh oh...he was fine until he mentioned SCIENCE....
Listen - Science is an apologetic FOR the truthfulness of scripture...!
At the time the passages in Isaiah were written, it would have been universally believed that the earth was flat...
But what did Scripture say?
The Bible says the stars can't be numbered....in a day when Scientist had numbered them at 1023...
We know that Science is built upon assumptions....
That the future will be like the past..We have laws that are Absolutes...
...never changing...
Laws of Nature...
Laws of Logic...
Scientific Laws.......
Never changing....
The interesting thing - is that Atheism has no justification for Science...Atheism says that ALL of Existence came about BY CHANCE...
Meaning, 10 seconds from now, 2 + 2 COULD equal 10....AND - the composition of WATER COULD become - H2O2...AND - the gravitational pull of the earth could turn OFF....
Now, the Atheist doesn't even CONSIDER that these things will happen - EVEN though their world view promotes it!
INSTEAD - the atheist LIVES his life on the Christian Worldview....that God holds the universe together by the word of His power...
They live their lives on the Christian Worldview...and yet DENY God with merely their lips...and their wickedness.
(Romans 1)
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