CHRISTIANS AND THE SPIRITUAL BATTLE 2

– As we already know that whether we like it or not, we must join in the spiritual fight with Satan in order to keep faith and to win eternal salvation for ourselves, so we have to prepare for it according to the Bible’s instructions.

– God wants us to be saved in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, so if we truly love God, then we would obey His orders to be able to win this spiritual fight against Satan.

1TIMOTHY 2: 4 – God wants all people to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth.

1TI-MÔ-THÊ 2: 4 – Ngài muốn cho mọi người được cứu rỗi và hiểu biết lẽ thật.

– Before we mention the spiritual weapons that we need for this battle, I want to remind you, my brothers and sisters in Christ, about the different outcomes in the fight of our lives.

– God has decided that after this life we only have 2 places to go for eternity. It has to be one or the other. We cannot go to them both. We must either be in Heaven with God or to be punished forever in Hell with Satan and his demons.

– If a person won over Satan in this spiritual battle, he would be rewarded the salvation and would live happily with God in Heaven for eternity. But if he lost the fight, he would be punished in Hell with Satan and his demons forever.

– The thing I want you to pay attention to is the word FOREVER. As we could be in Heaven with God forever, so anyone who was to be punished in Hell will never come out of it. Try to imagine being in some bad places or some difficult circumstances forever and you will understand how horrible it is.

– For example, in this life, if a person was to be punished in prison with a life sentence, he would not be there forever, even if he could not be forgiven with a parole, because he would eventually end his sentence someday if he died, but in Hell, human souls would not die and would be suffered forever with no end. Because of that, it is the ultimate horror.

– Therefore, as we still have a chance in this life, we must not surrender in the fight with Satan. We must win. We must come out victorious so that we would live forever in Heaven with God.

– Some religions give humans a false sense of second chances. They said that if people cannot be good in this life, they would have a second chance in the next life to correct their mistakes or to repent their sins, but the Bible states clearly that after death there is only judgment and suffers. Only people who have true faith in the Lord Jesus would live happily ever after with God in Heaven.

HEBREWS 9: 27 – Just as people are destined to die once, and after that to face judgment.

HÊ-BƠ-RƠ 9: 27 – Theo như đã định cho loài người phải chết một lần, rồi chịu phán xét.

– Thus, because we Christians only have one life to live and one chance to win the battle and receive eternal salvation, we must try our best to do the utmost to win this fight.

– God knows that we have no way to win over Satan by our mere abilities, so He has given us some unbeatable weapons for us to use in this battle.

EPHESIANS 6: 13-17 – Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand. Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.

Ê-PHÊ-SÔ 6: 13-17 – Vậy nên, hãy lấy mọi khí giới của Đức Chúa Trời, hầu cho trong ngày khốn nạn, anh em có thể cự địch lại và khi thắng hơn mọi sự rồi, anh em được đứng vững vàng. Vậy, hãy đứng vững, lấy lẽ thật làm dây nịt lưng, mặc lấy giáp bằng sự công bình, dùng sự sẵn sàng của Tin Lành bình an mà làm giày dép. Lại phải lấy thêm đức tin làm thuẫn, nhờ đó anh em có thể dập tắt được các tên lửa của kẻ dữ. Cũng hãy lấy sự cứu chuộc làm mão trụ, và cầm gươm của Đức Thánh Linh, là lời Đức Chúa Trời.

– Almost every Christians knows these verses, some even memorized them and remembered them by heart, but the important thing is to do it. Applying God’s words and using them everyday in our lives will be useful for us in the spiritual battle, otherwise they are just words if we knew them, memorized them, remembered them but continued to go on our ways.

– That is what happened to many Christians. They knew God’s words but never applied them to their lives. When Christians refuse to live according to the Bible’s advices and commandments, we are prone to fail and surrender to Satan’s temptations.

– Please remember that when the Lord Jesus Christ was tempted by Satan in the desert, He used only God’s words to chase Satan away, not by any object or by anything else. So, we Christians should follow His example in order to win this fight.

– We will study into detail of what God’s words are instructing us to do in this particular passage. First of all, we want to talk about the words ‘FULL ARMOR OF GOD’. The word FULL means we need to equip ourselves with all the spiritual weapons that God commands us to have, not one of them to be left behind or neglected.

– We Christians often chose the weapons that was convenient for us, but not all of them. Our spiritual preparedness is so different and so inadequate compared to soldiers. When a soldier goes into a battle, he equips himself with all kinds of weapons in order to sufficiently attack the enemy and many kinds of armor to protect his life, but Christians more than often forget the sword of the Spirit (the Bible) and the breastplate of righteousness.

– We now look into some examples: How many Christians at a local church went to a Bible study class? It’s rarely at 50%. That is the real and sad fact of all Christian churches.

– Many Christians often thought that listening or hearing the sermon in Sunday services was enough, but try to ask them some questions relating to basic Christian’s belief and you will see the lack of Bible knowledge and understanding.

– That problem has been described by someone as the dull sword that Christians brought into battle against Satan. That’s why many Christians had lost the fight, surrendered to Satan’s temptations and sinned in this life.

– Another dangerous thing that we Christians often did to ourselves was refusing to live a righteous life. There was a very small percentage of Christians who wanted to live according to the standards in the Bible but on the contrary, a lot of Christians wanted to live like unbelievers. The question that many Christians often ask themselves is: Why I can’t live like people outside the church?

– They never thought of the contradiction in their question that God’s children wanted to go back and live in the darkness of the world again!

– For soldiers, the breastplate is as important as a sword to them, because it protects their lives in order to fight and to survive in the battle. A dead soldier could not win the battle, even he had a good sword in his hand.

– Likewise, Christians could not survive the battle with Satan if we did not try our best to live a righteous life according to God’s commands even if we had vast knowledge about the Bible. God’s words have confirmed the importance of living a righteous life and called it as living out true faith in Christ:

JAMES 2: 26 – As the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without deeds is dead.

GIA-CƠ 2: 26 – Vả, xác chẳng có hồn thì chết, đức tin không có việc làm cũng chết như vậy.

– In general, in the church, there is a false sense of salvation that if anyone who confessed and believed in the Lord Jesus Christ would be saved. However, according to the Bible, true confession is never committing the same sin again and true faith of believing is living out the faith in deeds according to the Bible’ standards.

– Nowhere in the Bible indicates that a person would be saved and gain salvation by words in their mouth and without actually doing it. There are some Christians out there who claim themselves by name only, and not by heart. God will certainly not let humans deceive Him with that kind of belief.

– As about truth, we have heard many preaching about the importance of truth as the belt for Christians going into the spiritual battle, but how many of us understand the meaning of the word TRUTH? What is truth? I will explain it a little bit today, and we will study it into more details at another time.

– As we surely have known, truth is something that cannot be wrong, and the truth in the Bible is right for eternity and there are many truth in the Word of God.

– For example, the truth about God’s existence. As it is the eternal truth, why many Christians cannot prove it before unbelievers with their live-out faith? Why we cannot prove that He lives in us? That’s because there are still a lot of Christians who have doubts about God’s existence.

– Another example about truth is the salvation in Jesus Christ. The Bible states clearly that to be able to receive the salvation, one must believe in Jesus Christ, receive real baptism in the Holy Spirit (being born again) and live a holy life, but as it is the eternal truth, why there are so many Christians who refuse to live that kind of life according to God’s commands?

JOHN 3: 36 – Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life, but whoever rejects the Son will not see life, for God’s wrath remains on them.

GIĂNG 3: 36 – Ai tin Con, thì được sự sống đời đời; ai không chịu tin Con, thì chẳng thấy sự sống đâu, nhưng cơn thạnh nộ của Đức Chúa Trời vẫn ở trên người đó.

JOHN 3: 3 – Jesus replied, “Very truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again.

GIĂNG 3: 3 – Đức Chúa Jêsus cất tiếng đáp rằng: Quả thật, quả thật, ta nói cùng ngươi, nếu một người chẳng sanh lại, thì không thể thấy được nước Đức Chúa Trời.

HEBREWS 12: 14 – Make every effort to live in peace with everyone and to be holy; without holiness no one will see the Lord.

HÊ-BƠ-RƠ 12: 14 – Hãy cầu sự bình an với mọi người, cùng tìm theo sự nên thánh, vì nếu không nên thánh thì chẳng ai được thấy Đức Chúa Trời.

– Surely, we all know the importance of truth as the belt at Christians’ waists, but concerning the truth of our belief in Christ, how many of us can distinguish the differences between our faith and other religions on earth? Sadly, there are many Christians who think our belief in the Lord Jesus Christ is a kind of religion like others in the world, more or less.

– Many Christians tend to focus on the important of truth in our lives, but only a few actually study on the real meaning of the truth in the Bible. Some don’t even know they were there the whole time.

– We will come back to this subject another time with more details so that we can understand more of it and equip ourselves eagerly and fully with every kind of weapon and armor that we have in the Bible in order to win the battle and receive salvation in Christ. Doing so will certainly help us to overcome Satan and his temptations in our daily life.