Alright, if you'll take and turn to Ephesians chapter 6, we're back in our series on the whole armor of God tonight, taking a look at the helmet of salvation. Let's go ahead and read the verses leading up to this and read the portion that talks about what we're talking about tonight. Let's begin with verse number 10. Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord and in the power of His might. Oh, how important that is. Amen. Put on the whole armor of God that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places. Wherefore take unto you the whole armor of God, that ye may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand. Stand therefore, having your loins girt about with truth, having on the breastplate of righteousness, and your feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace, above all taking the shield of faith, wherewith ye shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked. and take the helmet of salvation. And we're going to leave off right there because that's what we're going to deal with tonight. Take the helmet of salvation. Now we know that Peter warned us to be sober, be vigilant because our adversary, the devil, is like a roaring lion walking about seeking whom he may devour. And I've kind of given you a little extra in your handout there. I preached the message years ago. Some of you may remember the devil's devouring deeds. I don't know if you remember that one. That was from a long time ago. But that came to mind when I was thinking about this message. And I share with you this because it relates to what we're talking about with the helmet of salvation. Because what the devil wants to do is get in your head. He wants to get in between your ears. He wants to get you thinking wrong. And He does that in different ways. And these devouring deeds, this is how He works. He likes to use these things against us. He loves distractions or diversions. I like to call them detours. Because He didn't get your mind off of one thing and say, squirrel! He's going to do it. He's going to try to get you to look at the squirrel instead of looking at what you need to look at. Satan wants to distract us from God's will with things of the world. so that we detour our lives away from what was God's best for us. Remember Demas. Paul said, Demas hath forsaken me, having loved this present world. Well, how did he begin to love this present world? Satan got his eyes off of what he was called to do and got it on the world. He detoured him. He distracted him. He diverted him. Delays and discouragement. Satan likes to delay us if he can. And even discourage us with his delays. Paul spoke of being hindered many different times. And tried to use those to discourage the Apostle Paul. Tried to use them to discourage churches. Remember, he'd been hindered from getting to the Roman church. And the Roman church was kind of upset at Paul because he had not visited them yet. And he talked about in two places how he had tried to make his way there, but he had been hindered from doing so. Well, Satan will do that. He uses delay and discouragement. Be careful of being discouraged. He wants to use that against you. Discord and divisions. He loves to use this in churches. Sometimes Satan uses discord and divisions among brothers and sisters in Christ and churches to accomplish his purposes because if he can get folks focused on each other rather than on keeping our focus on the Lord, he's got us. He just really does. Disobedience and defilement. This comes with temptation. Satan will tempt us to disobey the Lord so that we defile ourselves with sin. Don't do it. Stay in the book. If you have trouble in a certain area of your life, you've got maybe some weakness in some area, memorize verses that are related to that area of struggle that you have. That's the best way I know of. And when that temptation comes, thus saith the Word, the Word of God says, do like the Lord Jesus Christ did when He was tempted. He said, it is written. It is written, and that's what we need to do. We need to say, it is written, and we need to go to the Word of God. And in doubt and disbelief. And of course, we know Satan's been using that since the very beginning. Yea, hath God said? It gets you questioning the Word of God. Satan will try to fill our lives with disbelief or doubt, and he'll have us doubting God's goodness, God's provision, and God's will, and God's commands. And understand, Satan would love nothing better than to have every one of us who have trusted Christ to live our lives in defeat. He wants you to be defeated because if you're living in defeat, you're not going to be any good for the Lord. So he's constantly coming against us with every while that he has in order to bring about our defeat. He'll use every angle He can to get it to bring us down in defeat. And that's why we're warned here by Paul to take the whole armor of God that you may be able to stand, having done all to stand. Because He's got wiles and He's going to come against you. I mean, when you think about this, look at the great prophet Elijah that we recently studied on a Wednesday night. who one minute was calling down fire from heaven and killing false prophets and praying to the end of three year drought. He was doing that in one chapter and the next chapter over, he ran away from a wicked queen sitting up under a juniper tree and wanting the Lord to take his life. He got his focus away from what the Lord wanted his focus to be. Now the Lord got him back on track and he was able to train Elisha And it all turned out okay. But it would have been a better off if he hadn't gotten in and had his little pity party. Satan, understand Satan is against us. And we can be assured that he's going to be coming after us. And that's the bad news. But the good news is God is for us. Romans 8.31. If God before us, who can be against us? Now we know that Satan is going to be against us, but what that's talking about, what's going to be able to bring you down from God's best with regard to your salvation? Nothing's going to be able to do that. Not only that, but listen, God wants to and can move mightily in our lives as believers if we depend on Him. And that's what He wants us to do, is to depend on Him. 1 John 4, verse 4, You are God's little children and have overcome them because greater is He that is in you than he that is in the world. Now, over a number of weeks now, we've been showing how God has made His armor available to us so that we can withstand the wiles and the schemes and the methods of the devil. So this week we look at the headgear that will help us in the battle And it's the helmet of salvation. Understand that a Roman soldier entered battle wearing a metal helmet. And the obvious reason was to protect his head. Because if you take a hit to the head, you're not going to be much good. You're just really not. The head is a place from which the whole body is controlled. It's important that the head be protected, right? And as believers, we need to protect our head spiritually speaking. The head houses our control center, our brain, which is our thinking mechanism. If Satan can control how we think, he will have us defeated and keep us there for sure. And so we're told to take the helmet of salvation. Now, let's think about this. What we need as believers, I think sometimes we assume that we We know enough, but we need to have a practical, working knowledge of our salvation. When you first got saved, you maybe didn't know a whole lot about salvation. You knew enough that, hey, I'm on my way to heaven. Praise the Lord. Amen. And that's good. But if we're going to fight against the wiles of the devil, we need to have a working knowledge of our salvation. so that we can defeat Satan. Some think of their salvation as only a past event. Now it is a past event. The salvation of our souls took place at a particular time and place. Now you may not have a date and you may not have a time, but in your mind you knew when you did it. You knew when you trusted the Lord. February 17, 1971, Sterling Baptist Church in Brunswick, Georgia. I remember that. But understand that our salvation is also a present event. If we have trusted Christ as Savior, we are saved from sin's penalty, but we are also At the same time, we're in a process, now that we're saved, the Lord saves us from the power of sin as we walk through this life. He gives us His power to be able to walk in His power rather than the power of the flesh and the power that sin would take us. Furthermore, we know that salvation is also a future event for which we are looking forward to, aren't we? We just are. There will come a day when our life on this earth will be over and we're ushered into the very presence of Christ and we will be saved once and for all from the very presence of sin. We're saved from the penalty of sin at the moment we got saved. Saved from the power of sin as we walk We can have deliverance from the power of sin in our life. And then we're saved also at future tense. We're going to be saved one of these days from the very presence of sin forevermore. Hallelujah. Praise God. We need to take or accept the helmet of salvation. And when we do, we are remembering those three tenses of salvation. The past, we're saved from sin's penalty. The present, we're being saved from sin's power. and the future we shall be saved from sin's presence. Now, understand that this outline is not original. You've probably heard it preached before. But it's a great summary of our salvation that can help guard us from Satan's attack on our thinking. Like I say, he likes to get us diverted. Let's think about our past for a moment. We're saved from sin's penalty. One of the things that Satan tries to do is to get us to continually grieve over past sins. Can I get a witness? He just does. He wants us to take us back in our thinking and have us remember those things that we have done that were wrong. He wants us to continually bring up in our thinking all of our past failures and sins both before and after our salvation. He's going to use those things against you. Just be ready. He wants to influence your thoughts in that area. That's when the helmet of salvation comes in handy. That's when what we're talking about tonight comes in handy. When Christ died on the cross, He died for all our sins, present future, He didn't miss a one. I mentioned that this morning, and I mentioned it tonight because it refers to both messages that I preached today. All of our sins were future when He died, and He died for all of them. I like the song, we didn't sing it tonight because we just recently sang it, Horatio Spafford I'll put it best in this hymn, It Is Well With My Soul. Y'all know I've shared with you my favorite verse is the third verse there that says, My sin or the bliss of this glorious thought. My sin, not in part, but the whole, is nailed to the cross, and I dare it no more. Praise the Lord. Praise the Lord, O my soul. And we ought to keep that in mind. One of the reasons why we sing songs is these songs remind us of truths that we need to bring back to our minds and be constantly mindful of. Sadly, we're forgetful creatures. We just are. And so we need to be reminded, and a lot of what I do as your pastor is I bring back to your memory some things that maybe we talked about before, studied before, or I preached before, but we bring these things up again just to refresh your memory and give you a boost that, okay, don't forget that we need to do this, amen? Now, the moment we placed our faith and trust in Christ's complete, finished work, for us on the cross of Calvary, and it was that. It was complete and finished. When He said it is finished, He meant it. He finished the work of paying the price of our sin there on His cross. The moment we placed our faith and trust in that work that He did on our behalf, we were no longer condemned to die for our sins. Christ took our place. He died in our place. We are free. We will not face hellfire if we know Christ. Bottom line. John 3. You're familiar with John 3.16? You probably quote what I'm fixing to read to you. And the only reason I'm reading it is because my brain gets faulty from time to time. And it has little places in it that leave gaps. And so I'm going to make sure that we get the whole thing in here. John 3.16, For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life. And we're told. You believe in the Son? You're not going to perish, but you'll have everlasting life. For God sent not His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved. Here's where I want to get. Verse 18, He that believeth on Him is not condemned. But he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. It's just that simple. Someone may say, well, that's all well and good, Pastor, but what about my sins since I've been saved? Some of them have been horrendous. Yeah, mine too. I get ashamed of myself sometimes. And He wants you to think about those things. Satan will get you to dwell upon some of those things that you've done that you shouldn't have done and get you thinking differently than what you ought to be thinking. And here's what you need to understand and what Satan wants you to forget. When Christ died, He died for all your sins. As believers, at that point, we became the children of God. John chapter 1 verse 12 and 13 says, But as many as received Him, to them gave He power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on His name, which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. I've been born of God. If you're saved, you've been born of God. We're part of the family. Amen? We're brothers and sisters in Christ. We have a heavenly Father. And we are heirs and joint heirs with Jesus Christ. I don't know how many different ways we can talk about this relationship, but there's plenty in Scripture that talks about it. Now, when we sin, and listen, we are going to sin. God does not kick us out of His family though. He doesn't kick us out of His family. Aren't you glad? Satan will beat you over the head with your sin and cause you to think somehow you're not saved. But when we were saved, we died in Christ. His death for our sin became our death for our sin. If you ever forget that, just remember Romans 6. Run to it and read the first eight verses there especially that talk about the fact that we are identified in His death, burial, and resurrection. That's our identity in Christ. If you are in Christ, you died with Him, you were buried with Him, and you rose with Him. Okay? You just did. God doesn't kick us out of the family, but listen, He does chasten us because He loves us. and wants us to get back to doing what is right in our life. I think of Hebrews 12 every time I think of this. Hebrews 12 verse 5 and 6. Hebrews 12 actually comes out of Proverbs 3 verse 11 and 12. These verses that I'm fixing to read you. He says, You have forgotten the exhortation which speaketh unto you as children. Well, the exhortation is found in Proverbs 3 verse 11 and 12. And here's the exhortation. My son, despise not thou the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when thou art rebuked of him. For whom the Lord loveth, he chasteneth and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth. Now, listen, when we sin, we know the line of communication between us and our Heavenly Father is broken. You remember when you used to get in trouble with your earthly dad? Man, you didn't want to be around him. You weren't going to carry on the conversation with Him. You were just trying to avoid Him as best you could. Sadly, when we are not right with our Heavenly Father, sometimes we push Him off rather than run to Him. Psalm 66 verse 18 says, If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me. What He wants to hear, He wants to hear that sin of confession. He wants us to confess and forsake the sin that we have embraced. We're not kicked out of the family, but God is grieved when His children sin. How do we fix it? 1 John 1. We confess our sin. He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Now listen, there may be times when we have to live with some of the consequences of our sins. where we're still forgiven and can return to a place of fellowship with God if we confess our sins. That's right. We still can. So take the helmet of salvation and realize that Christ died for all our sins. There is no more condemnation. I love Romans 8, 1 and 2. It says, There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus. Are you in Christ Jesus? Amen. Then there is no condemnation. Therefore now, no condemnation of them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death. And that is the case. Praise God. Hallelujah. Now, that's the past. The past, we're saved from sin's penalty. The present, well, we're being saved from sin's power. We don't have to let sin have power over us. We've already seen that we can have power over sin as we discuss Galatians 2.20. I'm crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live. Yet not I, but Christ liveth in me and the like which I now live in the flesh. I live by the faith of the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me. And let's think about Romans 6 verse 14 where it says, Satan wants us to think that we are alone. He tries to make us think that we've been cut off or separated from God and His love. Romans 8 is a wonderful place to go. Let's go to Romans 8 for just a moment. And I want you to see your helmet here. This is another part of your helmet. We've come to understand the very nature of our present life in Christ Jesus. Look at Romans 8 and let's look at verse number 35. He says, Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword. As it is written, for thy sake we are killed all the day long. We are accounted as sheep for the slaughter. Nay, and I got it circled in my Bible, in all these things, we are more, as you ought to circle that too, we are more than conquerors through Him that loved us. For I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. Now did you partake of the love of God that's in Christ Jesus our Lord? When you got saved you did. Amen? And so this applies. Listen, the term tribulation there in verse 35, that's a term that can cover a vast array of circumstances that come our way that may or may not be common to life, but they're unpleasant. The word translated here refers to troubles pressing upon someone from without, such as persecution, affliction, or other things that are unpleasant. That's what tribulation is. Distress. The word translated here refers to that which arises from within caused by tribulation. The distress comes when we receive that tribulation. And so we have anguish or discomfort. It can be a very narrow place where one is crammed and pressed in by oppressive circumstances. We might verbalize it this way. I feel like I'm between a rock and a hard place. between a rock and a hard place. But hey, listen, that's not going to separate you from the love of God. It's in Christ Jesus. Persecution versus being picked on, hurt, or even somebody trying to destroy you for the cause of Christ. Now they can destroy your physical life. They can take your life away from you. They can hurt you. But listen, they can't take They can't take the love of God to send Christ Jesus away from you. Amen? They can't take that part of you that is saved and on its way to heaven. Famine means to suffer physical hunger, which has happened to some saints. Nakedness means to be destitute of convenient or decent clothing, a lack of adequate clothing. Even Paul talked about he needed a cloak brought to him. He lacked adequate clothing where he was at at the time. Peril. Precarious situations where you are in danger. We find ourselves there sometimes, especially in the work of the Lord. You'll come across some precarious situations where you feel like things could go bad here. I've been there a number of times. The Lord saw me through those times. Thank God for that. He got me out of those things. But sword is the actual loss of one's life for Christ's sake. Now, sometimes it may come to that. Someone may very actually take our lives for Christ's sake. But listen, all they can do... I think, what was it? Dr. John R. Rice. I don't know if this is a true story or not, but I heard him say it. I'm just assuming it's true. And he was up in New York, on the streets of New York, and some guy pulled a gun on him, tried to mug him. And he said, you can't threaten me with heaven. And I'm like, you know. I don't know if I'd be that quick on the thoughts or not. They probably took the guy back. by doing that. But I don't know how that came out, but he was still living and breathing at the time, so I guess it came out okay. But that always stuck in my mind. You can't threaten me with heaven. To be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord. All I can do is usher you into the presence of God, and what a blessing that is. Now, verse 37. And it says that in all these things, it doesn't say that we're just conquerors. We're not just winners. Not just victorious. But we're more than conquerors. More than conquerors. Listen, when we have on the helmet of salvation, we are more than conquerors. And in tribulation, we can be more patient when those things come our way. In distress, Be more than victorious. In persecution, we can be more than a good testimony. Persecution comes our way and we think about, well, I want God to be glorified through this. In famine and nakedness, we can be more than content. Paul talked about in Philippians how in every state he found himself in, he was there with content. In peril and sword, We can be more than joyful. Now listen, it's not through our own strength that we can be that. Not through our own power. Not through our own resources, but through Him that first loved us and continues to love us. Nothing can separate us from that love. In verse 38 and 39, Paul was persuaded. That word persuaded is talking about being convinced. Listen, we should be convinced too. Hope you're persuaded tonight. Death cannot separate us from the love of God. It can only put us in His presence. It unites us with Him. No life situation can separate us from the love of God. He said neither death nor life, no matter what comes our way in this life, it cannot separate us from the love of God. And He talks about nor angels nor principalities. That's the good angels or the bad angels. Neither good angels nor bad angels or the devil himself can separate us from God's love. Now, the devil wants you to think that you can be separated. But you can't be. You can't be. And that's that helmet. Have that helmet on. Don't let him affect your thinking. There's nothing high or low or anything else for that matter. That's what he says. He says, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. I think you pretty well covered it, don't you? I think Paul pretty well covered everything there. Before we were saved, our sin did separate us from God. But listen, in Christ, it can no longer separate us from God. Yeah, it can affect our fellowship, but it's not going to separate us from the love of God. So, the past, we're saved from sin's penalty. The present, we're being saved from sin's power. And then let's talk about the future. We like to talk about the future, don't we? We're longing for it to come. We're wanting to be there. And we're looking for the coming of the Lord. And the future. We shall be saved from sin's presence. I will be so glad. We don't have to worry about it. I look at 1 Thessalonians 5. 1 Thessalonians 5. And the Hellman is spoken of here also. Verse number 8. But let us who are of the day, And earlier in this, verse 5 says, you're all the children of light and the children of the day. He's talking to his church here, talking to believers. He said, we're not of the night nor of the darkness. Remember, you're a child of light. You're a child of the day. And he says, verse number 8 again, but let us who are of the day be sober. In other words, have your thinking straight. What's being sober all about? As a person that's not sober, not thinking properly. Be thinking properly. Put on the breastplate of faith and love, and for an helmet... Here it is, the hope of salvation. For an helmet, the hope of salvation. And in this verse, the helmet of salvation is called the hope of salvation. And the word hope is not wishy-washy. Paul is speaking of hope as a certainty. A sure expectation. That's what our hope is. That's what our hope is. When we are certain about something good, we look forward to it happening, don't we? We hope for it. There will be a day when the process of salvation will be totally complete. As we hope for salvation, we can look forward to two things. First, we look forward to the day when Christ will come for all of His saints. Amen? 1 Thessalonians 4. There, it's saying, open them where you're at probably. Verse 16-18, For the Lord Himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, with the trump of God. And the dead in Christ shall rise first, and we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so shall we ever be with the Lord. And it goes on to tell us that we need to comfort one another with these words. Amen. Wherefore, comfort one another And those are words of comfort. If we knew, if we could know, that's going to come tomorrow. Would that bring some excitement or not? It would, wouldn't it? It just really would. Titus 2.13 tells us, looking for that blessed hope and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Savior Jesus Christ. We need to anticipate. It is going to happen. I know the world says You know, you Christians, you all have a bunch of pipe dreams. That's that stuff. That's a bunch of phony baloney. No, no, no. No, this is real stuff we're talking about here. It's going to take place. Christ could come at any moment. His coming is what is known as imminent. That means nothing has to take place in order for Him to come. When He does come, we will forever be in His presence. Forever. Never separated. Forever be in His presence. But there's another part to that hope. If we die, and that could happen, in this life we face all kinds of physical stuff. Sometimes it catches us by surprise and knocks us for a loop. Unfortunately, sometimes it takes folks out. They die from them. If we die, though, The other part of the hope is if we die, we will be absent from this body and present with the Lord. That's a sure expectation. Because we're saved. That's the helmet of salvation. Amen? That's the helmet of salvation. Accordingly, we look forward to a time when we will enjoy the benefits of some new things. And we're going to read this and we're going to close. Revelation chapter number 21 and Revelation 22, just a couple of things here I want to read and comment on. Look forward to a time when we're going to enjoy the benefit of new things. There's going to be a new heaven and a new earth at John Saul. There in Revelation 21 verse number 1, And I saw a new heaven and a new earth, where the first heaven and the first earth were passed away, and there was no more sea. This earth is going to be gone one of these days. And people that are living for the stuff that's on this earth, it's just all gonna burn up one day. He says in verse 2, And I, John, saw the holy city, New Jerusalem. That's another new thing there. Coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride, adorned for her husband. And I heard a great voice out of heaven saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and He will dwell with them, and they shall be His people, and God Himself shall be with them and be their God. Don't you like that? I mean, I love that right there. And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes. And there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying. Neither shall there be any more pain, for the former things are passed away. And He that sat upon the throne said, Behold, I make all things new. And He said unto me, Write, for these words are true and faithful. And He said unto me, It is done. I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end. I will give unto Him that is athirst of the fountain of the water of life freely. He that overcometh shall inherit all things, and I will be his God, and he shall be my Son. Look at chapter 22 and verse number 1. He showed me a pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of the the throne of God and of the Lamb. And in the midst of the street of it and on either side of the river was there a tree of life, which bare twelve mannered fruits, yielded her fruit every month, and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations. And there shall be no more curse, but the throne of God and of the Lamb shall be in it, and His servants shall serve Him. And they shall see His face, and His name shall be in their foreheads. And there shall be no night there, and they need no candle, neither light of the sun. For the Lord God giveth them light, and they shall reign forever and ever. Praise God. Hallelujah. Amen. So until we leave this earth, listen, we're going to be under attack from Satan and his forces. However, As children of God, we can stand firm against His attacks. Before Satan starts trying to mess with your mind, especially to try to discourage you, please make sure you've taken up each and every day the helmet of salvation. Because you're under constant attack. It could come at you at any time. If you forget to put your helmet on, it gets you thinking the wrong things. Protect your mind. amidst attacks. Amen? Let's pray. Father, thank You for the helmet of salvation. We thank You for our salvation and, Lord, what it means to us. It means so much to us as believers. We are blessed to be Your children. We're blessed to have an eternal home in Heaven awaiting us. And Lord, we're blessed that You help us in our trials While we're here, each of us face things on a daily basis. Because we live in a sin-cursed world, these things come at us. And Satan wants to use these things to bring us down. Lord, You want to build us up. And Lord, You allow things to come our way to grow us into trusting You more, looking to You more, praying to You more, and getting more in Your Word. as we get in Your Word, and as we pray, and as we look to You, and as we are reminded of what we have in this salvation, both from the past, the present, and the future. Lord, what a blessing to know that our salvation is secure. It's secure in You. It's not secure in us. It's secure in You. You're the one that promised it to us. Thank You for blessing us with salvation. That is such a wonderful thing. Help us, Lord, to take up the helmet of salvation that we may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. We pray in Christ's name, Amen.