The Helmet of Salvation (09/16/2001)

Prayer for the Nation and the Bible Study Ahead

Let's have a word of prayer and we'll begin this afternoon's Bible study. Father, thank you for the service today and the touched hearts in our congregation. Lord, you have certainly gotten our attention, and Lord, we feel that there'd be others of your children all across this nation and across the world that certainly have you sanctified in their heart more than they did the week before.

And Lord, we apologize to you that we're that way, but we are that way, and you know that, and that's why from time to time you bring things to pass, to cross our paths, to cause us to look up and to draw near to you.

And Father, so we have to thank you for everything that's happened in that sense because it's caused us to walk with you more closely and to think of you more often and to speak with one another about you more, and those are all wonderful things.

And Lord, we pray for our nation as it appears that they are turning back to God, and yet we wonder what God they're turning to because we don't know if it's the God of the Sikhs or the God of the Buddhists or the God of the Mohammedans or the God of the Hindus or some Jesus Christ that they have fabricated.

We don't know who it is that they're turning to, Lord, but we know that you know. And Lord, help us just to be servants in your hand. Use us for the furtherance of your gospel and for your purposes in these days, and strengthen us and make us to be fit for service.

Amen. Well, we're going to be in Ephesians chapter 6. We were supposed to go on into the next book, but I like it to hit where Brother Otis can start the book and give a little bit of the foundation, so I'd like to go back and hit a verse of mine that was covered, but there's an interesting part of it that relates to what happened this week.

It's the reason I'm going back to it. And before I get into that, though, I want to share something that I thought was interesting with you that I found. There's a man named Dr. R. Winston Mazzakis, who is a born-again Christian.

He was born and raised in Greece, and he is the president of the Institute of Bible and International Studies. And he's written several books, but I found this in one of his books. He asked the question, is the United States in the Bible?

And you've probably heard that asked before and thought about it yourselves. And he definitely believes the United States is alluded to in the Bible and gives some interesting thoughts about it. I'd like to share some of those with you.

That may be all we have time for, but I hope to get to this verse in Ephesians in a minute. But if you would turn with me to Jeremiah 49 and verse 28, I'll show you what Dr. Mazzakis says, what his opinion is about whether or not America is in the Bible.

And maybe the white horse we talked about this morning could be America. Who knows? If it is, then it has a very prominent position at the early stages of our moving into the tribulation. Now, this study that this man did had to do with the Gulf War, Desert Storm War.

And he points out that Jeremiah 49, 28 through 31 and other passages in that part of the scripture prophesize the Gulf War. And since the Gulf War included the United States, he believes you can find the US alluded to in this passage.

So let's read it together. It says, concerning, I'm in Jeremiah 49 and starting with verse 28 concerning Kidar, which is Kuwait. It's in the area of where Kuwait is. And concerning the kingdoms of Hazor, which Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, shall smite.

Now remember, Babylon is Iraq. That's where Iraq is now. Thus saith the Lord, arise ye, go up to Kidar, that's Kuwait, and spoil the men of the east. Their tents and their flocks shall they take away.

They shall take to themselves their curtains and all their vessels and their camels, and they shall cry unto them, fear is on every side. Flee, get you far off, dwell deep, O ye inhabitants of Hazor, saith the Lord.

For Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, hath taken counsel against you and hath conceived a purpose against you. Arise, get you up unto the wealthy nation that dwelleth without care, saith the Lord, which hath neither gates nor bars, which dwell alone.

What's interesting is he points out the history of Kuwait. It started out as just desert, and it was a wasteland. And some Arabs from Saudi Arabia heard that the waters, let me think, would that be the, which sea is it that is to the west of Kuwait?

I don't have a map. Would that be the, that couldn't be the Mediterranean. Which sea is that? Maybe somebody will find that for me in a map. But anyway, there is a sea there. And they had heard, which one?

I'm not sure. Okay. Anyway, they had heard that there were some very valuable oysters that could be found. So these Arabs got their tents, and you know, they're people who like to move around anyway in tents and have sheep and so forth.

And so they took their wives and their children and their tents, and they just moved, and they moved over to the coast. And they began to deal with and sell these, well, not long after they had arrived and taken that as their own country, and they called it Kuwait, which nobody cared because it was just desert.

So it became their own country. We discovered oil over there, rich oil fields all over the little area known as Kuwait. We went over and we taught them how to drill and how to produce. Well, they made a law in their country that it's okay for any foreign country to come in and do business as long as at least one of the partners and the controlling partner was a Kuwait resident.

So everything that was done there, they put it in their banks, and they got rich, rich, rich. In fact, they were so rich that this is the law in Kuwait, even to this day as far as I know, but I know it was up until the Desert Storm War, that any young person that went anywhere in the world to college or university, they paid their entire scholarship, the government did, from their oil money.

Every young man that was married was given money to pay for the wedding, a deed to his house or apartment, and monthly income to live off of from the oil money. When Iraq attacked and came in and began to destroy and to take their things away, all of the key families were over in Europe staying in the most richest hotels in Europe, the most exclusive luxury hotels.

That's where they were hiding away, so they were very, very, very wealthy. So you kind of see some of this where it talks about this being a wealthy nation, where they dwelleth without care, saith the Lord, which have neither gates nor bars.

They had no defense, no army, nothing like that. So this is a picture. Now he thinks that the United States shows up in Jeremiah 50 in verse 9, where it says, for lo, I will raise and cause to come against Babylon an assembly of great nations.

He says that's like the UN. It's like Bush made a big deal, and we all remember the big deal that was made about how he got this coalition together, all the nations to fight with us so it's not just America fighting.

An assembly of great nations from the north country, and they shall set themselves in array against her, from thence she shall be taken. Now look at this. This is amazing. Their arrows shall be as of a mighty expert man, none shall return in vain.

Remember the smart bombs? It was the first time in history they were ever used, and they could put them through a door this wide in a building from two miles away, put it right through the door of that building.

So it is fascinating to think about these things. Jeremiah 49, 14 says, I have heard a rumor from the Lord, and an ambassador is sent unto the heathen saying, gather ye together and come against her and rise up to the battle.

Someone went out and gathered all the heathen nations and had them fight Babylon. Jeremiah 50, 42 says, they shall hold the bow and the lance. They are cruel and will not show mercy. Their voice shall roar like the sea, and they shall ride upon horses, every one put in array like a man to the battle against the daughter of Babylon.

50 and verse 25 says, the Lord hath opened his armory and hath brought forth the weapons of his indignation, for this is the work of the Lord God of hosts in the land of the Chaldeans. And verse 26 says, come against her from the utmost border upon her storehouses, cast her up as heaps and destroy her utterly.

Let nothing of her be left. Well, obviously this was not all fulfilled, but it is an interesting allusion to a country far away gathering an assembly of great nations to battle against Iraq. Jeremiah 50, 41 says, behold, the people shall come from the north and a great nation and many kings shall be raised up from the coasts.

The coast would indicate countries that have islands or they're like islands or coastal areas and so forth. There were over 100 ,000 sorties of our jets in that war, each one letting loose five or six missiles.

So close to a million of these smart weapons were exploded on Iraq during this time. It's his belief that the United States was alluded to as the country that got together this coalition of nations. Whether that is the United States or not, I don't know, but I felt like it was interesting reading for me this past week.

The Helmet of Salvation and the Hope of Salvation

Now, let's go into Ephesians chapter six and verse 16. And I want you to think about the armor that brother Otis taught about last Sunday. And all of it makes a lot of sense to me except for one. And it makes sense to me now, but there was a good while when I struggled with understanding this verse because all of this, these bits of armor can be put on and taken off.

And he's exhorting us to put it on, but that implies you can take it off. You put it on, you take it off, you put it on, you take it off. The shield is that way, the breastplate, the shoes, all of it.

But now I get down to verse 17. My theology gives me a problem with this because it says, and take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the spirit, which is the word of God. Now I can see how you can take the sword and put, put, lay it down or pick it up.

It depends on whether you want to study it or be lazy and leave it alone for a week, whatever. You can put it down, you can pick it up. But the helmet of salvation, now how could you put that on and off if it's true that you cannot lose your salvation?

So to me, that one did not fit. The helmet of salvation, but he's obviously saying, take the helmet as if it's not on, take it and put it on as just like all the rest of this stuff that can be laid aside and put back on, laid aside and put back on.

Well, it still presents a problem because the whole allegory, it's like a picture of a physical thing that's supposed to teach us spiritual truth. And you picture your armor off over here and you go put it on.

The last thing you put on before you go out the door is the helmet. And then you come in and you take it all off and then you put it back on and you go out to fight. And that's the picture. So the helmet didn't fit until I found this parallel passage, which explains it to me.

First Thessalonians 5 .8. And really what reason I thought this was so wonderful for today is, is that I was studying in this passage because of, for other reasons, because of what happened last week.

And then I realized that this is what we studied last week in Ephesians, but I want you to notice First Thessalonians 5 .8. And there's one bit, sometimes when you find parallel passages, what'll happen is it's teaching the same thing, but it'll give you one more bit of information that you didn't have in the other passage, just a little bit more to help you know more what God's talking about.

And that's what happens here. It's talking about exactly identically the same thing, but it gives you one word extra that explains the whole thing in Ephesians on this helmet of salvation. And so First Thessalonians 5 .8 says this, but let us who are of the day be sober, putting on the breastplate of faith, same thing that's mentioned over there, and love, and for a helmet the hope of salvation.

Now what word has been added that's not in Ephesians? The word hope. So the armor that you're putting on is not your salvation. You can't take that off and put it on. You got that on all the time, but what you can take on and off is the hope of it.

And the hope of it is your, is your, the, what's our definition for hope? It's not, it's not like I hope it'll happen, but it won't, but it's an earnest expectation of a certain future event and not only earnest, but excited expectation.

Now you can lay that off because there can be days in your life where you're not thinking about that hope. You're not excited about that hope. But this week we are all vividly thinking about that hope.

So we have the helmet on. Last week some of us did, some of us didn't. Now we didn't, we were all saved, but we didn't have the helmet of hope on. So it's not a helmet of salvation as much as it is a helmet of the hope that salvation brings.

The helmet of the hope of salvation is the hope that's emphasized because you can't take the salvation off, but you can take that excited expectation away because listen, if you're not thinking about the end times and the second coming and the rapture, uh, I've read many stories about great preachers that built churches back in the days when people believed in the Bible and they built churches that had, I hate to say they built it, God built the church, but they had maybe three, four, 5 ,000 people in attendance hearing these preachers preach and, and they were, they're trying to do, here's what the people always try to do is figure out, well, what method did he use?

They don't realize God did that, you know? So they try to figure out a method so that I can now go build a big church, you see? So we can read books about how to build a big church. Well, they've written such books and, but it's kind of interesting to read about the churches that, uh, grew at the early portions, well, in the, in the early to mid -1900s when churches were really strong, people like J. Frank Norris and preachers like that, Lester Roloff.

I mean, you, you, many of you are familiar with some of the names, uh, D .L. Moody, these great preachers and the, these, one book said that one of the things that they preached and came back to was the theme of the second coming.

Again and again, every year, they, at least once a year, they would preach on get, being ready for the Lord to come back and it kept the people wearing the hope of salvation, being excited and expecting his coming.

And that's what hope means. It means it's not like I doubt it's going to happen. It means I'm excited and expecting it to come. And that is the helmet that's referred to here, and I thought you'd find that interesting.

So you might go over to Ephesians six and put in your margin there. First Thessalonians five, eight, it'll always remind you what that's talking about. But while we're here, I wanted to point out some interesting things.

Look right up from where we are straight up the column on the same page in chapter four, starting with verse 13. First Thessalonians four, 13, but I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning them which are asleep, and that's Christian parlance for they've already physically experienced physical death, that you sorrow not, even as others which have no hope.

There's your helmet. See, there are those that don't have this helmet, many of them in New York City and across the world, are walking around, like Brenda's song said, how do they make it? All they've got is a bare cupboard, and they're looking in that bare cupboard for all the answers.

What a powerful line to a song, looking for the answers in a cupboard that's bare, because they don't have a prayer, therefore they don't have any hope. So here you have people where he says, now listen, don't be like people that have no hope.

When you think about your loved ones who pass away, don't, you're going to mourn, but don't mourn like the lost mourn. It's a different kind of, you mourn because you're selfish and you miss them, but you don't mourn because you won't see them again like they mourn.

They mourn like it's the end of all things, I mean this is the end, and we'll never be together again, and that's a horrible darkness. No helmet of hope there, and so they get a dart to the head, to the brain, the devil works on their brain and they get so depressed and get so down they can't even function.

Well we're not supposed to be that way. Now look at verse 14, for if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him. Now that's an interesting thought.

When he comes back to the earth, the loved ones that you have had who died in Christ will be with him. So what does that tell you, were they soul sleeping somewhere? You believe in soul sleep, that they died and just lay there in a grave and time passes but they're not aware of it?

No they were already with him, they're already with him, and when he comes they're tagging along and they're with him and it says that very clearly. Now look at verse 15, for this we say unto you by the word of the Lord that we which are alive and remain unto the coming, now there is a generation of Christians and I think we're it.

There is a generation of Christians and if we're not, at least our children are, and if they're not, our grandchildren will be, but I believe we're it. There is a generation of Christians that will be alive when he comes.

Now look what he says about this generation. Those who remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not prevent them which are asleep. In other words, you won't go up before they do because they're already with him.

We don't go first, we go second because they already have been to the place where they're with him and that's what this says. For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout and the voice of the archangel and with the trump of God, and if you look at the parallel passage in first Corinthians, you might want to mark this in your margin, we don't have time to go over there this afternoon.

First Corinthians 15, 51 and that whole passage tells exactly the same story. The only word that it adds is it says at the last trump is when this takes place. This passage doesn't say that, but the other passage says the shout of the voice of the archangel with the last, at the last trump, this one says at the trump of God and the dead in Christ shall rise first.

Now listen folks, that's the bodies because their soul and spirits already with him, came back with him. When he comes from heaven, they are with him. See you see that up here in verse 14. Now from a human viewpoint, what you're picturing in verse 16 is their body, he finds all the molecules that were in it, doesn't matter if they were in that plane, in the nose of that plane that hit those buildings.

I would say they were vaporized, wouldn't you? You know what, God knows where every atom of their body is right now. Those searchers may never find them, they may think it's part of the plaster of the cement, but God knows where every molecule of every body of his own children and the lost also were, and he puts them in a moment, in a twinkling of an eye, he puts those molecules together and they, and those bodies come up to meet the soul and spirit that they go with it so that you're one whole person again.

The nice thing is there is a change in the air for the Lord and for those of us who are still living, we just simply change in the air. We don't have to die. For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel and with the trump of God and the dead in Christ shall rise first.

Then 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, hallelujah. And we are exhorted in verse 18 to comfort one another with these words and as you go on in and read this, you find that much of this passage in both Thessalonians has to do with the people who are here during the last times and telling them how to comfort one another as if they're going through some tribulation.

And I don't know what your view is about when the rapture happens. I know what I've always been taught, but I'm studying to see what the word teaches because I'll be honest, it's never interested me in my whole life.

I've never been interested in that topic, but I'm highly interested. I started studying it a couple of months ago, little by little, and this week that study was highly accelerated. I don't know about yours, but you may have an interest in it at this point too.

But one thing I find that's very interesting is that much of the Thessalonians and other passages in the Bible, there are things given to comfort one another. And I don't know about you, but if I was raptured out of here and I was in heaven, I wouldn't have to be comforted.

But if I'm here, I have to be. So that's just a thought. Now I'm not going to give you a conclusion and I probably never will. What I want to give you is the facts. As we go through and we study with a topic where there are so many good people that have different opinions, there are a group of people that believe the rapture happens at the first of a seven-year period.

There's a huge, larger group of people that believe it happens in the middle, and there is a smaller group, probably similar to the number of people that believe in the one at the front, that believe it happens at the end, right at the second coming.

And there's a group that don't believe any of it happens. They're called amillennialists. I can't go with them. I won't give that leeway. But as far as where you put it, I'm not going to split fellowship with you either way, because your proof may be as good as anybody's.

But I will give you the facts and expect you to study and decide what you think. Now I will say this, when I say don't be dogmatic, that's not to say that I think it's not important to know when the rapture happens, because truth is always important.

I am saying that God may not have revealed that time to people up until now. Because my view is this, if you've got good men who believe at least those three things, you've got pre-tribulation rapture, mid-tribulation rapture, and post-tribulation rapture, and I personally know good men of God who believe all three of those, and they're all walking with the Lord.

Now, if that's true, that means they didn't have a whole lot of light up until now to figure it out, or they'd be in more agreement. They were going with a little bit of light they had. I think we may have more light even now than we had this time last week.

So you study it. Go back and read the passages, see if you don't see more, but I'm going to ask you not to have a preconceived notion about any of it. Don't read the footnotes, don't read the Scofield notes, don't read your commentaries.

The only use that they are is they will tell you where the passages can be found, so go jot that down. Go to your commentaries, find all the places in Daniel and Joel, and all the places in 1 Peter and Matthew 24, and write all those down on a piece of paper, then throw your commentaries away, and you go to the Word of God, because you probably have more light than the guy that wrote that commentary right now.

You see what you think, and that's what we'll do together, because I think it's very important that if we have words here that are comforting us, that that might mean that we're not supposed to just sit back and say, oh, it don't matter, we're going to be raptured out of here anyway.

We don't have to, there's nothing we need to worry about our children, they'll be raptured out of here. None of them will be killed for the faith. Can you stand right now and confidently tell me that you know that's a fact, and prove it with Scripture?

There's not a soul in here that can do that, because I previewed it, and there's not one. Now, if we're going to go through some tribulation, we're going to need to know how to go through it. And I believe the Lord has put little bits and pieces of information throughout the Old and New Testament to help those who are in the last days to do this.

Now, wherever the rapture occurs from that point on, we're not going to have to worry about it. And there is a rapture, and it will occur. And at that point, we don't have to worry about anything, because we'll be with the Lord, as this verse says, so shall we be with Him forever.

But we just went through something this week before the rapture, didn't we? And we didn't miss that one. And that was a tribulation. And I won't say it's the tribulation, because I don't know that we know that, but we have some information.

How do we comfort one another? Well, the first thing we do is remind one another that when He comes, even our loved ones that have gone before us will be with Him. We'll see them again. They'll be with Him at the second coming.

And there will come a moment that if we're still on this face of this earth, no matter what we've had to go through up to that point or would miss later, we're taken out. And we go up to be with them in the air.

And where the other passage in 1 Corinthians 15 says we are changed, and Twinkle and I were changed, and the old flesh is gone that fights against everything we would do for God. Now, I want to show you one other thing, and we'll stop, but you're here.

We read this little passage, obviously it's about the rapture. No one would debate this except the amillennialists, and they're wrong, so their debate doesn't count. But as you come into chapter 5 now, that's the context that we're in.

We're talking about these time periods. We're talking about the end times. We're talking about a need to comfort one another with these words as we go through some horrible things and see some terrible things in this world.

And you go into chapter 5, but of the times and the seasons, brethren, you have no need that I write to you. So the early believers, they were not as confused as we are about these things. They saw it more clearly, said, I don't really need to discuss this with you because you understand these things.

But you know why God had him discuss it with them? So we'd have it because we need it. And it goes on and says, for yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so cometh as a thief in the night, for when they shall say peace and safety, then sudden destruction cometh upon them as travail upon a woman with child.

And you saw that in Matthew 24 last week. It's birth pangs. That's the way you watch for the signs. Why would they give us signs if we're not going to be here? There's another interesting question. Why would you even have them?

You might say, well, it's for those that get saved in the tribulation. Well, that's possible, but it might be possible that it's so that we right now can see signs when they start to happen. Many times Jesus said that you are not supposed to be in the dark concerning these things.

He said, it's like a, it's a tree when the trees bud, you know, summer is near. And he said, here's the signs you look for. And then he gave us a whole three different chapters in the Bible, Matthew, Mark, and Luke, Matthew 24, Luke, Mark 13, and Luke 21.

He just, he says, here's how, you know, look for these things. And then we go into Thessalonians. He's naming, the Lord is giving them to us again. There's a time when peace and safety, you know, there's not, I've heard it again and again on the TV this week, how, boy, we didn't expect this.

We just all went around. We've always gone around the world. I saw a photographer give a testimony and he's taking pictures in Kuwait. He's taking pictures in Lebanon. He's been all over the world where these wars were happening, like back when Lebanon was blasted for a good number of years.

And he'd been and took all these awesome photographs for Time Magazine. They had him on and he said, I've never seen anything, in all the wars I've taken photographs in, I've never seen anything worse than this.

And he said, but, he said, all of those other ones, I could get on a plane, I could come home to my house in New York City, I had an apartment there, and I felt safe. He said, I was in a secure harbor.

He said, I don't feel that way now, and that's something. Peace and safety, then sudden destruction cometh. Now one thing we saw from this little foretaste that we got Tuesday is how sudden an annihilation can take place.

How many of you really thought that anything more than just a hole in that building would be there from that airplane? Did you really think you would see the building just go, and be gone? And then look, you watch and say, well that probably won't happen to that one.

Just enough seconds went by for you to think that, and all of a sudden, it's gone. How many of you really thought that would happen to that pile of cement and steel? I don't think anybody thought that could even happen.

Well, you might have thought the top would fall off, and then you thought, well they might have to demolish it because it's unstable, but you never thought it was just gonna be, in a matter of minutes, vaporized.

And yet, peace and safety and sudden destruction comes. Now here's one thought for you today. I want you to focus on the word sudden, and realize that these things don't have to build up and last over long periods of time to happen.

You can be going to the store, you can be at home with your children, you can be at school, you can be living your life, and suddenly the entire world can change today because of nuclear weapons, because now we know because of airplane fuel makes a pretty amazing bomb.

Things can just totally be changed suddenly in an instant. What if they'd had a briefcase in that plane that had a nuclear weapon in it? Well, they'd probably have to detonate it or else it would just blow it up, but if they had detonated it before it burned, what would have happened?

You would have seen probably every building in Manhattan would have had that same result in one instant. And what would you have been thinking right now if that's what had happened? I mean, we thought this was pretty bad, didn't we?

But what if every single building on Manhattan Island looked just like those two right now? Could have happened in just as short a time period, and may be the next thing that happens. You don't know. We just see it coming.

We see the handwriting on the wall. So sudden destruction cometh upon them, and even this is like travail. Now, look, God's given us insight here. Those two buildings when they fell was not the end. It was a birth pain.

And I know that some women have a lot of those before they have babies. Others don't. Fortunately, mine does because we had to drive to Fort Worth to have our babies, but she had long periods of time where it took a long time for those to get closer together and harder where the baby could be born.

And you don't know which way this will go, but you do know that you're going to see these things happen, and the stronger and the more horrible they are, and the closer together they happen, you can know that the baby's going to be born, so to speak.

The baby being born would be the second coming. So there we have this amazing insight, travail upon a woman with child, and they shall not escape. But ye, brethren, now look, now don't you find that interesting?

There is a they and there is a ye. Now, Paul was addressing these people as if this could happen in their lifetime, ladies and gentlemen. He is not speaking to a group of Jews that got saved in the tribulation period.

Are you with me? I mean, you hear what I'm saying if you've studied these things much, because that's what's taught is all these, you know, all the stuff that happens to save people in a tribulation, it's just the ones that got saved after the rapture, the ones that got the new ones that got saved.

Well, Paul is speaking to these people as if this might happen to them. And he says, they shall not escape, but ye, brethren, are not in darkness that the day should overtake you as a thief. Now, does he say you're going to escape the day or does he just say you won't be surprised when it comes?

You tell me, which did he say? That's what he said. So we're going to find as we study that some of the old tried and true doctrines we've been taught by our forefathers and our mentors were honestly taught to us by men who did not even have as much light as you right now have, because you are seeing the events.

This was a closed book 100 years ago. You can actually read good Christian people who exhorted their young preachers, do not even study the book of Revelation, it's a total waste of time. You're unspiritual if you study it, as recently as 100 years ago.