Helmet of Salvation.
(Sermon Notes)
By Nick Bibile
This is the final defensive armor in Christian warfare, the helmet of salvation. It means that we are certain and confident that we are saved. And we need to put a helmet a protection, why? The enemy will come and accuse us saying we are not saved. We have a destiny and our destiny is heaven and the true Christian have not put his hope in this glittering world but on the Lord Jesus where his hope rests.
1 Thes 5:8 But since we belong to the day, let us be sober, having put on the breastplate of faith and love, and for a helmet the hope of salvation.
Just like the heart need to be protected by the breastplate the head need to be protected with the helmet. Enemy loves to attack the brain, your thinking powers. And how we need to protect our head with the helmet of salvation. The head is the seat of the mind.
Psalm 3: 1 O Lord, how many
are my foes!
Many are rising against me;
2 many are saying of my soul,
there is no salvation for him in God.
3 But you, O Lord,
are a shield about me,
my glory, and the lifter of my head.
The head is a
vital part of our body, many get headaches due to
problems, stress and sicknesses. Christian life is a struggle in this world,
struggle against evil, struggle against sin, struggle against compromise, it is a battle in this world. Satan will tempt
and attack us daily and we are fighting against a spiritual enemy and we need
the spiritual armor to combat the enemy. At the end of the days before the Lord comes
enemy will throw all his powers against the
Luke
21:25 “And
there will be signs in sun and moon and stars, and on the earth distress of
nations in perplexity because of the roaring of the sea and the waves, 26 people fainting with fear and with foreboding of what is coming on
the world. For the powers of the heavens will be shaken. 27 And then they will see the
Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory. 28 Now when these things begin
to take place, straighten up and raise
your heads, because your redemption is drawing near.”
Our heads are
secure with the words of Christ Jesus. And need to protect the head with the
helmet so we know that our salvation is secure. The helmet is from God as it is
a spiritual armor. Christ wore this helmet against the powers of the enemy.
Before we wore the helmet of sin as we loved the pleasure of sin and we wore a helmet of sin as we did not want to hear the word of God, we wore the helmet of pride as we did not want to be humble ourselves we were so prideful in our religions and our ways. We were enemies of God.
Isa 59: 10 We
grope for the wall like the blind;
we grope like those who have no eyes;
we stumble at
among those in full vigor we are like dead men.
11 We all growl like bears;
we moan and moan like doves;
we hope for justice, but there is none;
for salvation, but it is far from us.
12 For our transgressions are multiplied
before you,
and our sins testify against us;
for our transgressions are with us,
and we know our iniquities:
13 transgressing, and denying the Lord,
and turning back from following our God,
speaking oppression and revolt,
conceiving and uttering from the heart lying words.
But praise God for his
interception.
Isa 59:15 The Lord
saw it, and it displeased him
that there was no justice.
16 He saw that there was no man,
and wondered that there was no one to intercede;
then his own arm brought him salvation,
and his righteousness upheld him.
17 He put on righteousness as a breastplate,
and a helmet of salvation on his head;
he put on garments of vengeance for clothing,
and wrapped himself in zeal as a cloak.
Ps 62:1 For God alone my soul waits in silence;
from him comes my salvation.
What is salvation? The word
salvation is to be saved. Saved from what and who? Saved from
sin, hell and from the curse of God.
We were slaves to sin, sin controlled our lives, the
flesh was in charge as we went according to the pattern of this world. There
were some of us who were bound to traditions of religion. Some even thought they were Christians but
their hearts contradict their behavior.
Outwardly they
show that they are Christians but inwardly they are not, outwardly they look
good Christians but inwardly they are full of dead men’s bones. They show to the people that they believe the
truth of the gospel and believe that God is infinitely great, they make a show
of respect to God, show of love to God but their hearts contradicts as their
outward behavior not consistent with the inward heard.
They profess to
believe in Christ as their Savior, their Lord, believe in the doctrines,
believe in heaven and hell, yet they love their carnal enjoyments and
worldliness, their hearts have no room for Jesus. They are willing to obey God and a desire to
glorify God but they are inconsistent again as they aim at selfishness and serve
their lusts of the flesh. They pretend to be enemies of the devil and even
pretend to hate sin and wickedness, their mouths show much love but their
hearts go after much covetousness.
Mat
The helmet of salvation is the glorious truth of the gospel, we must
trust in the work of Christ, his obedience on the cross, Christ alone and
nothing added to salvation. True Christians believe they don’t belong to
themselves but they belong to the Lord who purchased them with his precious
blood and as the belong to the Lord they will live with
Jesus, live for Jesus and grow in Jesus.
Satan will attack the true Christians that when they sin against God,
God will not forgive them, they will lose their
salvation, there is no more hope for them, why not enjoy the pleasures of the
world, the carnal appetite. But the true
Christians when they do sin they are convicted with much bitterness with their
sins, they cannot sleep until they confess their sins to the Lord, there will
be true godly repentance.
1 John 2:1 My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.
Like in a court room setting, Satan will come with his
accusations as he is called the accuser of the brethren, he will accuse the
Christian with his sins, but as the Christian had confessed his sins to the
Lord Jesus, the Lord will come in the defense of the Christian as an advocate
and say, “I took the punishment for his sins.” The Father God will look at the
sinner and say, “I don’t see any sins in him.” As the Father sees how Christ
Jesus took the punishment of the sinner and the sinner is converted to a saint.
True Christians the salvation cannot be loosed, it cannot be taken
away. Helmet is costly and it has to be
solid. In the same way this helmet is made by God and it cost the blood of his
son and it is a solid that no one can take it away.
John 6: 37 All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me
I will never cast out.
Jude 1: 24 Now to him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to
present you blameless before the presence of his glory with great joy
In this world we see people who have lots of wealth, they will protect those wealth from thieves who would like to steal their wealth. In a spiritual sense we have the greatest wealth and that is salvation and Satan will try to attack our salvation.
But praise be to God as the Lord Jesus has spoken in our behalf.
Satan will also bring temptations of wrong doctrines, skepticism and pride. Satan will even use fellow Christians to tempt you to become prideful. John Bunyan said that after his sermon a fellow Christian came and said, “What a wonderful sermon you gave this morning.” Bunyan said, “You are too late, the devil told me before I came out of the pulpit.” The devil will try to intoxicate you with pride, “Oh! What a great man you are, so spiritual.” The devil wants you to say, “Oh, yes, that’s what everybody says, thank you, thank you.” Your head gets puffed up like a balloon. We need a helmet so it will not get puffed up.
Oh Satan will tempt your head with unbelief, skepticism, pride, errors of doctrines, the “isms” of the world. There is danger all over us as the false doctrines, skepticisms and other religions of this world are spreading like wildfire. But the helmet of salvation will protect us.
Ps 27:1 A Psalm of David. The LORD is my light
and my salvation; whom shall I fear? the LORD is the
strength of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?
We should rejoice in our salvation as he saved us from the pit of hell
to heaven.
Ps 35:9 And my soul shall be joyful in the
LORD: it shall rejoice in his salvation.
We would love the Lord from the bottom of our hearts for that great salvation.
Ps 40:16 Let all those that seek thee rejoice and be
glad in thee: let such as love thy salvation say continually, The LORD be
magnified.
True Christians are in a battle, spiritual warfare in proclaiming the
gospel, defending the gospel and Satan is not going to be happy as he will
bring his armies against the Christian.
2 Corinthians 4: 8 We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; 9 persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed