The Armor of God

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NOVEMBER 29

ASK GOD FOR A STRONGER HOPE

Be sure you humbly acknowledge God by constantly waiting on Him for your spiritual growth. “The young lions” are said to “seek their meat from God” (Psalm 104:21).

Now the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that ye may abound in hope, through the power of the Holy Ghost” (Romans 15:13). God is the God of hope; not only of the first seed but also of the whole growth and harvest of it in us. He does not give a saint the first grace of conversion and then leave the completion of it wholly to his human skill.

Be sure you humbly acknowledge God by constantly waiting on Him for your spiritual growth. “The young lions” are said to “seek their meat from God” (Psalm 104:21). God has taught them to express their wants when they are hungry; and by this they have learned that their Maker is also their Supplier. At first a baby expresses his needs only by crying; but as soon as he knows who his mother is, he directs his cries to her.

The Father can always find you, Christian. He knows what you want but He waits to supply you until you cry to Him. Does God care for the beasts in the field? Then surely He will care for you, His child in His house. You might pray for more riches and be denied; but a prayer for more grace is sure to be answered quickly.

Love has a secret yet powerful influence on hope. Moses befriended the Israelite when he killed the Egyptian who had fought with him. And love kills slavish fear—one of the worst enemies hope has—and thereby strengthens hope’s hand. Whoever pulls up the weeds helps the corn to grow. It is fear that oppresses the Christian’s spirit so that he cannot act or hope strongly.

“Perfect love casteth out fear” (1 John 4:18). The freewoman will cast out the bondwoman. Fear is one of Hagar’s breed—an affection that keeps everyone in bondage who partakes of it.

Love cannot tolerate fear. The loving soul asks, “Can I fear that the One who loves me most will ever hurt me? Fear and doubt, away with you! There is no room for you in my heart.” Charity “thinketh no evil” (1 Corinthians 13:5).


Daily Readings from The Christian in Complete Armour: Daily Readings in Spiritual Warfare

 

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NOVEMBER 30

CHOSEN FOR HEAVEN

When your hope is at a loss and you question your salvation in another world, look backward to see what God has done for you in this one.

If we spend all our thoughts on our unworthiness of heaven we shall never realize we are among the chosen ones who will enjoy it. But when we believe the pleasure God takes in demonstrating His greatness—making miserable creatures happy instead of allowing their misery to continue in eternal damnation—and the cost He paid for His mercy to reach us, we see Him as the Most High God! When we weigh and meditate on these truths they open our hearts, though fastened with a thousand bolts, to believe without question all that He has said.

Recall past mercies from God’s hand. When the strong Christian’s spiritual rest is broken by very great fears for the future, he can read the history of God’s gracious dealings with him. Thus he endures his night of affliction with comfort and hope. But those who have not penned in their memories the remarkable instances of God’s loving favor to them miss comfort’s sweet companionship.

Sometimes little scraps of writing found on a man’s desk help save his estate, for without these records he would have spent the rest of his life in prison. And often it is one experience remembered which frees the soul from despair—a prison where the devil longs to trap the Christian. God’s dealings with David were often the subject of his meditation and of his songs; and when his hope faltered, he regained it by recalling God’s goodness to him: “I said, This is my infirmity: but I will remember the years of the right hand of the most High” (Psalm 77:10).

When a hound has lost the scent, he hunts backward to recover it and pursues his game with a louder cry of confidence than before. Thus Christian, when your hope is at a loss and you question your salvation in another world, look backward to see what God has done for you in this one.

Daily Readings from The Christian in Complete Armour: Daily Readings in Spiritual Warfare

 

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DECEMBER 1

HOLD ON TO THE POWER OF GOD

Another way to let God rescue you from despair is to remember how often He has proved your unbelief to be a false prophet.

You have seen God bare His arm to help you. So unless you think He has lost the strength or use of it, hope still has an object to act upon, to lift your head above the water. No person ever drowns in despair unless he loses his hold on the power of God.
Another way to let God rescue you from despair is to remember how often He has proved your unbelief to be a false prophet. Has He not knocked at your door with inward comfort and outward deliverance after you had already put out the candle of hope and given up looking for Him?

He came to Hezekiah after he had concluded that his case was beyond hope and help (Isaiah 38:10–11). Have you ever been left alone with fear as if an everlasting night had come and there would never be another morning? Yet even then God proved those despairing thoughts all liars by an unlooked-for surprise of sweet mercy which He crept in and gently brought to you. Why then are you frightened again and again by your distrustful thoughts, which God has so often proved lairs? Stop feeding your hopes on the corpses of slain fears!

Remember too how even when you have been impatient and despairing in your afflictions, nevertheless God’s mercy has been at work all the while to deliver you from them. David is an instance of this: “I said in my haste, All men are liars. What shall I render unto the Lord for all his benefits toward me?” (Psalm 116:11–12); “I said in my haste, I am cut off from before thine eyes: nevertheless thou heardest the voice of my supplications when I cried unto thee” (Psalm 31:22). He was saying, “I prayed with so little faith that I unprayed my own prayer!

I assumed my dilemma was hopeless but God forgave my hasty spirit and gave me the mercy which I had hardly any faith to expect.” And with his experience, David raises every saint’s troubled hope: “Be of good courage, and he shall strengthen your heart, all ye that hope in the Lord” (v. 24).


Daily Readings from The Christian in Complete Armour: Daily Readings in Spiritual Warfare

 

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DECEMBER 2

HOPELESSNESS IS A SAD CONDITION

Are you cutting your short life into chips by wasting time on trivia when our salvation still has not been worked out?


If God is not in your conscience to comfort it, you must be a raging devil or a stupid atheist. If God is not in you, the devil is; for a man’s heart is a house that will not stand empty.

You cannot afford to be without hope in life or in death. It is a sad legacy that shuts out the rebellious child from all claim to his inheritance. But even if you do have wealth, it is all you have. Does it not make your heart ache to think that your reward is all paid here, and will be spent by the time the saints start receiving theirs?

Yet it is far worse to be without this hope when death comes. The condemned prisoner had rather stay in his cell than accept deliverance at the executioner’s hand. The hopeless soul has more reason to prefer to spend his eternity in earth’s worst dungeon than to be eased of his pain with hell’s torment. Here is the sad confusion in the thoughts of guilty men when their souls leave their bodies. If the sobs of mourning friends in the room of a dying man make his passage harder, how much more will the horror of the sinner’s own conscience frighten him when he sees the flaming inevitability of his approaching destination?

Are you cutting your short life into chips by wasting time on trivia when our salvation still has not been worked out? Are you pampering and decorating your body while your soul is slipping into hell? This is like painting your door when the house is on fire. It would be far more becoming for you to call upon God and lie in repentant tears for your sins at His feet than to wallow in your sensual pleasures and let your sleeping conscience temporarily ease the dread thought of your approaching punishment.

It is possible to obtain a hope of salvation. I do not mean the way you are now, for it is as impossible for you to get to heaven without salvation as it is for God to lie. If any devil in hell had a thousand worlds at his disposal, he would give them all for this hope and count it a bargain.


Daily Readings from The Christian in Complete Armour: Daily Readings in Spiritual Warfare

 

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DECEMBER 3

THE CHRISTIAN’S SWORD

“And the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God” (Ephesians 6:17).

Here we have the sixth and last piece in the Christian’s armor brought to our hand—the sword of the Spirit. Throughout the ages the sword has been a most necessary part of the soldier’s equipment and has been used more than any other weapon. A pilot without his chart, a student without his book, a soldier without his sword—all are ridiculous. But above these, it is absurd to think of being a Christian without knowledge of God’s Word and some skill to use this weapon.

The usual name in Scripture for war is “the sword.” “I will call for a sword upon all the inhabitants of the earth” (Jeremiah 25:29); that is, “I will send war.” Now such a weapon is the Word of God in the Christian’s hand. By the edge of this sword his enemies fall and all his great exploits are done: “They overcame him by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony” (Revelation 12:11). But before we enter into a detailed discussion of the sword of the Spirit, let us notice the kind of arms here presented for the Christian’s use and the place and order in which it stands.

This weapon is both defensive and offensive. The rest of the apostles’ armor are defensive arms—girdle, breastplate, shield, and helmet. But the sword both defends the Christian and wounds his enemy.

No matter how glorious the Christian’s other pieces of armor, he would easily be disarmed without a sword in his hand. And surely the believer would be stripped of all his graces if he did not have this sword to defend them and himself too against Satan’s fury. “Unless thy law had been my delight, I should then have perished in mine affliction” (Psalm 119:92).

This is like God’s flaming sword which kept Adam out of paradise. The saint is often compared to Christ’s garden and orchard; and with the sword of the Word he keeps his orchard from being robbed of God’s sweet comforts and graces by Satan’s constant invasions.


Daily Readings from The Christian in Complete Armour: Daily Readings in Spiritual Warfare

 

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DECEMBER 4

THE ETERNAL SON OF GOD

“Out of his mouth goeth a sharp sword, that with it he should smite the nations” (Revelation 19:15).

His name is called “The Word of God” (Revelation 19:13). This speaks of a person, and He is no other than Jesus Christ the Son of God. But Christ is not the Word of God referred to in this text. The Spirit is Christ’s sword, rather than Christ the sword of the Spirit: “Out of his mouth goeth a sharp sword, that with it he should smite the nations” (Revelation 19:15).

When the earth had only a few people, and they lived a long time, God declared His mind by dreams and visions and by immediate revelations to faithful witnesses, who in turn instructed others. They lived so long that three holy men were able to preserve the purity of religion by tradition from Adam’s death until the time just prior to the Israelites’ going down to Egypt. Thus God delayed committing His will to writing because it was safely kept by a few trustworthy men.

But after the age of man’s life was shortened and the population multiplied, God wrote the Ten Commandments with His own finger on tables of stone to keep His people from idolatry and corrupt worship. Later He commanded Moses to write the other words he had heard from Him on the mount; and all the while God continued to demonstrate His will by supernatural revelations.

Finally, it pleased God for His sacred Word to be finished by Christ the great Teacher of the church, and by the apostles, His public notaries, for saints to use until the end of time. A curse from Christ’s own mouth belongs to anyone who adds to or takes away from God’s written Word: “If any man shall add unto these things, God shall add unto him the plagues that are written in this book: and if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the book of life, and out of the holy city, and from the things which are written in this book” (Revelation 22:18–19).


Daily Readings from The Christian in Complete Armour: Daily Readings in Spiritual Warfare

 

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DECEMBER 5

CREATION IN SCRIPTURE

Heathens, by inquiry of natural reason, have discovered that the world had a beginning and that it could be the workmanship of no one but God.

What resource could man possibly have in his reading and learning to enable him to write the history of the creation? Heathens, by inquiry of natural reason, have discovered that the world had a beginning and that it could be the workmanship of no one but God. But how does their discovery compare to the compiling of a distinct history of how God worked to produce the world, the order in which every creature was made, and the time involved? To be qualified for such a task a man would have to be preexistent to the whole world and an eyewitness to each day’s work. And man, who was himself created on the last day, cannot do this.

Yet there is history even more ancient than the creation in Scripture, where we find what was done in heaven before the world began. Who could bring up reports of the everlasting decrees then resolved on, and the Father’s promises to the Son of eternal life for His elect at the given time?

Some human authors accurately preserve the history of others, reflecting their faults and weaknesses as well as their accomplishments. But where are the men who objectively record the blemishes of their own house? At this point the pens often refuse to ink the whole truth. They can make a blot in their history but not on their own names; and even if they should mention any scars these will be found in extremely fine print.
But none of this self-love appears in the history of Sc
ripture. The writers are free to expose their own shame and nakedness to the world. Thus Moses impartially branded his own tribe for their bloody murder on Shechem. Nothing escaped his pen—he chronicled the proud behavior of his sister and God’s severe chastisement of her, and even the incest of his own parents (Exodus 6:20).


Daily Readings from The Christian in Complete Armour: Daily Readings in Spiritual Warfare

 

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DECEMBER 6

SATAN AND THE FUTURE

What the devil told Saul would happen to his army and kingdom was nothing but what he rationally concluded from the premises which lay before him.

When we consider Satan’s many years of experience in studying natural knowledge, we will not accept his predictions as prophecies but see him as a learned naturalist with a short and dark text of natural causes.

What the devil told Saul would happen to his army and kingdom was nothing but what he rationally concluded from the premises which lay before him; in that God had rejected Saul and anointed another man to be king, together with the full measure of Saul’s sins—culminating in his going to a witch for counsel—and a great Philistine army gathered against him. Coupled with his burning conscience, all these made it appear that the devil, without a gift of prophecy, had accurately envisioned Saul’s doom.

God may reveal future events to Satan as His instrument. The hangman is not a prophet. He cannot tell a man when he will be executed until he gets a warrant from the king appointing him to carry out his orders. Satan could have told Job beforehand what afflictions would come to his estate, servants, children, and his own body because God had allowed him to be the instrument to bring all these trials upon Job. But neither Satan nor any other creature is able to foretell events which do not arise from natural causes nor follow moral and political probabilities.

Prophecies in Scripture are locked up in the cabinet of the divine will to prove their heavenly extraction. They must come from God, who can tell us what only He knows. Who else but God, for example, could have told Abraham where his heirs would be and what would happen to them four hundred years after his death?

Finally, how wonderful are the prophecies of Christ the Messiah! His person, birth, life, and death are as specifically set down many ages before His coming as if recorded by those who were with Him and saw with their own eyes all that happened.


Daily Readings from The Christian in Complete Armour: Daily Readings in Spiritual Warfare

 

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DECEMBER 7

SCRIPTURE’S PURE COMMANDS

God is “the Holy One” (Isaiah 43:3). He alone is perfectly holy: “The heavens are not clean in his sight” (Job 15:15).

Who could form laws to guide men’s hearts or prepare rewards to reach their souls and consciences? An earthly king would be ridiculed if he made a law that his subjects love him or confess their unfaithful thoughts. And further, what mortal ruler could ever assume that he could keep the hearts and thoughts of men within his jurisdiction?

Throughout the years men have schemed to plan acts of murder but were attacked by their own consciences before anyone could accuse them. Their surrender came about not because of a law but because they dreaded the arrest of their conscience for violating God’s law. For this law not only restrains hands from killing but also binds hearts from cursing. It rules in the consciences of vile men like a bit that God rides the most stubborn sinners with, and curbs them so they can never completely shake it out of their mouths.

God is “the Holy One” (Isaiah 43:3). He alone is perfectly holy: “The heavens are not clean in his sight” (Job 15:15). And as God is the only holy Person, so the Scripture is the only holy book. Dregs appear in even the holiest writings of the sincerest men when they have stood awhile under the observation of a critical eye. Scripture too has been exposed to the view of all sorts of men yet can never have the least impurity. It is so pure that it makes filthy souls clean: “Sanctify them through thy truth: thy word is truth” (John 17:17). There is nothing in Scripture to feed the flesh or afford fuel to any lust. It puts every sin to the sword and strikes through the loins of all sinners, affluent or penniless: “To be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace” (Romans 8:6).

Athenagoras well said, “No man can be wicked that is a Christian, unless he be a hypocrite.”


Daily Readings from The Christian in Complete Armour: Daily Readings in Spiritual Warfare