So Lord may graciously help me.
I would turn your prayerful attention this evening to Ephesians chapter
six and particularly looking at verse 14. Ephesians six verse
14. Stand there for having your loins
girt about with truth and having on the breastplate of righteousness. That's Ephesians 6 and verse
14. This morning we looked at the
armor that was needed. God had instructed us through
his servant Paul to put on the whole armor of God. We looked
briefly at all of the different parts of the armor, and then
a bit more on the first part of the armor, which is in verse
14. your loins girt about with truth and the necessity that
we have the truth and know the truth and the truth from the
word of God. Otherwise how can we stand against
Satan's lies if we do not know what the truth is? So we need
to walk by faith, we need to be based on the word of God,
we need that truth which is like a belt around us to guide us
in the right the way that we should go. But as the Lord helps
us this evening, I would like to look more at this second piece
of armour, which is referred to as the breastplate of righteousness. So this is the part of the armour
that protects the chest, protects the vital organs and we can think
of that, particularly in the Bible, it talks about the heart
so much and also sometimes the liver and the kidneys, those
parts in our abdomen which are protected by this breastplate
of righteousness. So the idea was when an arrow
or something like that would be shot at the person, then the
breastplate would stop that arrow entering into the abdomen and
then easily killing the person because you've got the vital
organs of the heart and so forth inside that space. And if they
are stopped from working, then the person, it will be a fatal
wound. we have the breastplate. That's
physically what it was. We think today of the necessity. Policemen often wear Kevlar vests,
bulletproof vests. Even today, very much, this is
important from stab wounds and things like that. People have
these vests on which give them protection so that people can't
easily penetrate the skin and damage those vital organs which
are inside our body. But thinking about this, what
do those vital organs inside our body really speak of? Well, so much in the Bible is
written about the heart as the center of the affections and
the feelings. And you see, when the work of
grace begins in the heart of a child of God, that center of
affection starts to change. Instead of loving the world and
the things of it, that heart is changed. So it starts to have
a love to the things of God. It starts to have a tenderness
over sin that it didn't have before. Before it could just
enjoy doing the sinful things and ignore the word of God, but
now it becomes tender. It becomes a tender conscience
that easily would get upset if we sin. It's tender before God. And it's the work of God's spirit
of regeneration to give us a heart that is tender. A heart that's
really tender. Well, if you've got somebody
that's very tender. they're also easily damaged,
aren't they? They're easily hurt. If you've
got somebody that's very tender, very concerned, if they put one
foot out of line or say one word that's wrong, they're very tender.
And in a sense, it's a good thing to be tender. And yet, you see,
they're also very vulnerable. And you see, as God has opened
our eyes to see the exceeding sinfulness of sin and made us
have a love to the things of God and the people of God and
the house of God and a desire to glorify him, we have a tender
heart. And you see, one of the pieces
of armour is to protect that heart, that centre of the affections. because Satan knows that if you've
got a tender heart, which is a good thing, which is a precious
gift from God, he can shoot his arrows at it and cause all manner
of hurt and anguish in that heart because it's tender. You see,
if you had a hard heart, you wouldn't care less. It wouldn't
matter. It would just bounce off. Don't worry about it, whether
you're accused of something or not. But if you've got a tender
heart, it doesn't bounce off. You're tender before God, like
David. He cut off parts of Saul's garment. And we read his heart
smote him. He was so tender. But of course,
you see, sometimes Christians can get hard hearted like David
did with Bathsheba and Uriah. And he's very, very hard hearted.
And it was a long time before he came to realize his sin. It took Nathan to come and visit
him before his heart became really tender regarding that matter.
So God's people can sometimes be hard-hearted, but it's a great
blessing when they're tender. But if they're tender, they are
susceptible, you see, to Satan and to fire things at them,
and they need a breastplate. Well, what do we read here then?
And having on the breastplate of righteousness. the breastplate
of righteousness. And this is very important, that
we realize what righteousness this is speaking of. Because
you see, if we look in Isaiah 59 verse 17,
there's a cross-reference there. Isaiah 59, let's find it, verse
17. we read, for he put on righteousness
as a breastplate and as a helmet of salvation upon his head. So
righteousness as a breastplate. This is talking about the Lord
and how, you see, we need righteousness. Now, which righteousness is he
talking about? This is the Apostle Paul writing it. And that's why
I read two other letters that Paul wrote, one to the Romans
and one to the Philippians. And here, he most certainly shows
in Philippians, he starts off by, well, if I go, look at Romans
1. Romans 1 shows that all have
sinned and come short of the glory of God, both Jew, Gentile,
and Jew, that they all come guilty before God. But if you look at
Paul's own personal experience that we read about in Philippians
3, he thought that he had a lot of righteousness of his own as
he was a Pharisee. And he was impressed with it.
And he was proud of it. He boasted of it. Though I might
have confidence in the flesh, if any other man thinketh where
he might trust in the flesh, I more circumcise the eighth
day of the stock of Israel, the tribe of Benjamin, the Hebrew
of the Hebrews, as touching the law of Pharisee, concerning zeal
persecuting the church, touching the righteousness which is in
the law, blameless." This was his credentials. This was how
Paul would present himself as being a holy man. Somebody who
ought to be looked up to and reverenced. This was a very high
religious man. But what things were gained to
me, those I counted lost for Christ. He realized that all
that religiosity, it was hollow. It wasn't real righteousness.
It was only a form of godliness and denying the power. And Paul
then, as it were, counts that righteousness He calls it, I
count them but done, that I may win Christ. So he throws away
that righteousness. So clearly, when he says here,
having on the breastplate of righteousness, clearly Paul would
not be speaking of this breastplate made of his own righteousness,
which he refers to as done. No. In verse 9 of the chapter
that we read in Philippians, he says, and be found in him,
not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that
which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which
is of God by faith. You see, this is what Paul is
clearly showing. This is the righteousness. And
this breastplate of righteousness, then, is that these tender children
of God need to be protected with a righteousness that is not their
own. It's often referred to as an
alien righteousness. In other words, it comes from
outside of them. It comes from the Lord Jesus
Christ himself. But it's not only, you see, it's
a righteousness which means their sin has been taken away. And their sin taken by imputation
and nailed to the cross. he hath made him to be sin for
us who knew no sin. But also the imputation the other
way, that his righteousness, his law-keeping, his ever-delighting
to do his father's will, his perfect obedience, always, all
the time he was on this earth, his perfect obedience has been
imputed to their account. So these people who feel their
that they come short, who realise that sin is mixed with all that
they do. They are commanded here in this Ephesians 6 to put on
a breastplate and to wear a breastplate which is the righteousness of
the Lord Jesus Christ. This is the breastplate. This
is what they need to protect themselves, their tender consciences
from the center of their affections. You see, you think about it,
the heart, if you have one strike through the heart, it can be
fatal, isn't it? And you think of what Satan wants really most
to do. We spoke of the battle this morning.
He wants the heart of God's people. out away from God. He wants to
have their heart instead of them being followers of Christ. You see, he wanted, that was
the great contest that Job had. Satan said if you take away all
his external wealth and all his affluence and the hedge that
you put about him, he will curse God. His heart will go away from
God. Instead of loving God, he will
hate God. and curse God, the heart, and no wonder then we
need a breastplate, something to protect the centre of the
affections. And if you think about the Lord
Jesus Christ's kingdom, it's a kingdom of love. It's a kingdom
of love and therefore there needs to be a tenderness and a love
coming from our hearts to the Saviour. And this is why we need
that breastplate of righteousness. But we sung the first hymn about
the happiness arising of the people of God. Well, it's a great,
it's a happy people that have become unhappy with their own
righteousness. You see, all the time Paul, the
Saul of Tarsus, was happy with his own righteousness. All the
time he was a Pharisee. He was pleased with himself.
But when the Damascus Road took place, when God shone into his
heart, then he became unhappy with his own righteousness. He
realized it was empty, it wasn't real, it wasn't genuine, and
it would not stand him in good stead for time or eternity. It
was rubbish. In fact it was worse than nothing
because what it did, it gave you an appearance of being right
when actually you weren't. It was deceptive. And so self-righteousness
is deceptive. So have we become that happy
people that have become unhappy with our own righteousness? All
our righteousnesses are as filthy rags. Now, I'm not talking about
our bad deeds. We all know that we do some things
wrong, but look at the things in your life that are the best
things you do. The most honorable things that
you would say, look, I do this or I'm involved in that. These
are the most honorable things you do. And then to see sin is
mixed in those two. And then what hope have you got
if your best things come short? What about your worst? Well,
are we part of that happy people that have come unhappy with our
own righteousness and therefore we want the righteousness of
another? But you see, in that hymn that
we sung, let me just look it up, 735, it's talking about the
wonderful blessing of knowing the joys of salvation. Happy moments, heavenly joys
on earth begin. You see, the Lord's people, when
they come into the kingdom of God, when the Lord shines on
their hearts and brings them into the knowledge of the Savior
and the knowledge of his grace, the knowledge of his will, and
they start to lay hold upon the hope set before them in the gospel,
there's true joy in their heart. They go out in love to him. But they don't always stay there,
do they? You see, they've got to walk on. The disciples were
able to go on to the Mount of Transfiguration, but they didn't
stay there. They had to go back down. Having on the breastplate of
righteousness. You see, one way Satan can deceive
us is to, it is when we feel the blessings and that love that
flows in our hearts to the Savior and gratitude, We start to make
that the security of our salvation. We start to say, well, I've had
this love of Christ shed aboard in my heart. It was so precious.
That's the ground of my foundation of my hope, the love that I have
in my heart. The love that you have in your
heart to the Savior is a fruit of that, what God's done for
us. It's a response, a feeling of
gratitude for what God has done for us. And it's absolutely vital. If you've never known the love
of God in your heart, you have really no evidence of being a
child of God. The love of Christ is so powerful. But the thing
is, you see, that this Christian doesn't always walk with that
feeling of that love of Christ in their heart as they would.
And this is why this breastplate of righteousness is so vital. Because you see, feelings are
precious and we need a religion that is feeling. But if we base
our foundation of our faith, our hope of eternal life on our
feelings, what happens when our feelings go down? What happens
when we're on a bad day? What happens when it seems that
the sun is not shining and all's going difficult? Our feelings
are in a low place. What happens then? Well, you
see, what we're told to do is Finally, my brethren, be strong
in the Lord and in the power of his might. Put on the whole
armour of God. We are to put this on. And one
of the vital pieces of the armour is this breastplate of righteousness.
We are to remind ourselves that our salvation does not rely on
our feelings. It relies on the righteousness
of another. And you see, this is all linked
to this belt of truth. It's the truth of God's word,
what God has said. You see, if you look in Romans,
how Paul lays the Gentiles and the Jews, all of them come short
of the glory of God. All have sinned and come short
of the glory of God. Jew and Gentile. And then he
goes on in in chapter 4 to lead us to how do you then come to
that faith? How do you then come to that
justification? To be justified is to be made
righteous, to be accounted righteous by God. If you like to rightefy
us, But there isn't such a word, so we call it justification.
But it's really the verb of righteousness. To make one righteous is what
justification is. It's the verb of the righteous. So it is to make us righteous. And how is that going to be done?
Romans 4 shows that it is, and uses the example of Abraham,
how he believed God and it was counted to him for righteousness.
So he shows that it's by faith. that we come to lay hold upon,
that we're justified through faith. And that is the foundation
of the believer's hope, the fact that he has been justified, the
fact that he's had that faith to believe on the Lord Jesus
Christ. And therefore, we're justified. And this, you see,
this breastplate of righteousness is so, so important. And why
this breastplate is so important, you see, is when we sin, and
we will sin, we do come short. See, Satan would come and say
to those with a tender conscience, you see, those without a tender
conscience wouldn't probably care less. But those with a tender
conscience, and Satan says, you've done this wrong, you've done
that wrong, you've fallen short there. If you really were a child
of God, you wouldn't have done that. And you see, we listen
to his lies if we're not careful. And a tender conscience obviously,
as it were, helps the devil in the sense that we agree with
him and we say, yes, we have come short. And in one sense,
Satan's right. You see, I know Luther had that
at one time. Satan came to him and started
listing all the sins that Luther had done. And Luther said to
him, have you got all the sins there? And so he put some more
on, which were also Luther was guilty of. And he said, now you
put on the bottom of that list, the blood of Jesus Christ, God's
son, cleanseth us from all sin. It didn't mean to say that Luther
didn't say those sins didn't matter. But that's the answer. That is the breastplate of righteousness. And that is what we need to protect
us from the enemy. And you see, I felt that recently
myself. You see, when we come short and
we see that we don't have that love as we would have it, we
don't have that love to God and that those graces are not flowing
as we would like them to, then Satan comes in and said, are
you a child of God at all? Have you ever really believed?
Was it all only just thinking that you run in the ways of his
commandment ten years ago? Ah, put on the whole armour of
God and one of those pieces of armour is to guard our heart,
the centre of our affections and surely if you've got somebody's
heart you've got them haven't you? If their heart's with you,
that means so much. So with your children, if you've
got their heart, that means so much. If they don't love you
and if they don't listen to you and they don't want to listen
to you, they hate you, well, whatever you do, you're in trouble. But if you've got their heart.
And you see, Satan wants to constantly get
us to think wrong thoughts of God. and think wrongly of him
and doubt his goodness, doubt his purposes towards us. And
therefore we need a breastplate of righteousness to protect us
from those fiery darts of the devil. Have you been fired at
recently? You see, and the more tender
you are, the more tender you are in the things of God, the
more Satan will fire those arrows at you. Because he knows that
he's got somebody inside you. Your conscience says, yes, Satan,
that's true, that's true. And in a sense, he's quite right.
We are sinners. But the fact that we're sinners
is not a reason why we cannot be a child of God. because we
have a breastplate of Christ's righteousness and what we've
done is fled for refuge to lay hold upon the hope in the gospel. And the hope in the gospel is
that it's not by my works of righteousness that I get to heaven
anyway. That's never been my reason and yet there's something
deep in the heart of human beings that constantly hankers back
to trying to earn and trying to earn their own salvation and
trying to trust on something base. instead of trusting sovereign
grace to try and build up our own works righteousness after
we've come to a knowledge of the truth we still want to build
that up if we can and you see We need to take on this whole
armour of God. We need to wear it 24-7. It's
no point having, yes, well, I do know that, yes, there is a truth
about the fact that we are righteous in Him. Yes, we have an imputed
righteousness, but I keep that in the cupboard back home. Put on the whole armour of God. We are to put it on. It won't
do us any good at home. It won't do us any good with
the armour hanging up on a peg. needs to be on. So that when
the dark comes in and saying, ah, but you've fallen, ah, but
you don't love as much as you should do. You think of the hymn
writer said, where is the blessedness I knew when first I saw the Lord?
Well, yes, that is true. Sometimes we do mourn that we
don't have the love that we once had, but that shouldn't be a
reason where we say, well, we're not a child of God at all. You
see, we need to then go back to have that faith and to realize
that what he has done, the faith in what Christ has done, well,
you see, really feeling is a fruit from faith. I think the Puritans
used to say that faith is like the master grace. You see, when
you're down and you don't feel that love as you would to the
Lord, and you get in a cycle that goes down, spirals down.
But when faith lays hold upon the truth, that belt of truth,
and we lay hold and say, I am safe, I have been redeemed, the
Lord has promised that I will never leave thee nor forsake
thee, I have cleansed thee, I have washed thee, we lay hold on that,
and then when the hand of faith lays hold on that, they said
all the other graces start a running. You see we start to then Be thankful
for what he's done. But you see, if we go the other
way, we spiral down. Well, perhaps we're not a child
of God. Perhaps we never knew him. Perhaps we haven't got anything.
And down and down and down and down we go. And the arrows keep
coming from Satan. Put on the whole armor of God
that you may be able to withstand in the evil day and having done
all to stand. You see, Satan would love us
to be buckled down to the ground with our own, as it were, being
sorry so much for our own sin that we lose our hope of salvation,
lose the fact that our salvation stands outside of ourself, not
to do with our own righteousnesses. But quickly we fall. You see,
in Psalm 71, this is David speaking so much about what he trusted
in. Psalm 71, written near the end
of the Psalmist's life, I believe, Psalmist David, in verse 16 says,
I will go in the strength of the Lord God. I will make mention
of thy righteousness. even of thine only." David, this
sweet psalmist of Israel, the one that fought Goliath, the
one that was the first king in Jerusalem, the one that had so
many pictures of the Lord Jesus Christ, who would sit on the
throne of his father David. David is not talking about himself. I will go in the strength of
the Lord God. I will make mention of thy righteousness. even of
thine only." And that's how David, you see, when he was up against
it, as we looked at on Tuesday, how that everything seemed to
be going against him. Ziklag was burned with fire,
but David encouraged himself in the Lord is God, not because
he was sinless, not because he could say, well, I've acted perfectly
as this person. I've acted. No, he couldn't do
that. He'd lied to the priest of Knob, and he'd caused the
death. I've occasioned the death of
all the servants of the high priest. 70 souls, guilt lay on
David. But David didn't say, well, there
we are. Well, then all this has happened.
I mustn't be a child of God after all. But David encouraged himself
in the Lord his God. You see, it wasn't his righteousness
he was looking at, it was Christ's righteousness. For I will go
in the strength of the law of God, I will make mention of thy
righteousness, even of thine only. Well, this breastplate
of righteousness, what does it protect us from? It protects
us from those fiery arrows and darts that Satan would throw
at us. And the tenderer we are, the
more damage they would naturally do. And yet, you see, it's God's
work to make us tender. And yet, he loves that tenderness,
and he's provided a protection for the tender soul, so that
when they get fired at by the devil, they can say, yes, you're
right, I am a sinner. But the wonderful thing is I
have a savior that saves to the uttermost all that come unto
God by him. He says, come unto me, all you
that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. If you come unto the Lord Jesus
and he doesn't give you rest, he's a liar like Satan. But God
is not a liar. God is a faithful God. And if
we come unto him with our heavy laden, with all our sins and
all our need and flee for refuge to lay hold upon the hope set
before us in the gospel, he will listen and he will do it. one
of our hymn writers picks up the point if you come to Jesus
pleading for mercy and you die in front of him pleading for
mercy you'll die as somebody never has yet died before because
nobody's ever done that nobody's ever come truly seeking for mercy
and died at that at that place you see because that's the nature
of the mercy of God in Christ and you see this is the gospel
and it's a beautiful gospel Well, that's the protection then this
breastplate gives. But I want to now also look at
some of the benefits, the blessings that flow from a breastplate
of righteousness. And you see, having Romans 1
and 2 and 3 showing that all have sinned and come short of
the glory of God. In Romans 4, showing how that
we can be justified, made righteous. then in Romans 5 we have the
fruit of that. Romans 5 it says, therefore being
justified by faith we have peace with God. So simple, so profound. We have peace with God. Justified. You see this is the fruit that
flows from from wearing that breastplate of righteousness,
we are justified. We are in a state of righteousness
so that God looks upon us as righteous. But you say, but I
come short. But that's not your standing.
That's not who you are. You see, therefore being justified
by faith. We have peace with God. There's a reconciliation taking
place. God is no longer angry, you see. God is against the sinner. But when that sinner has fled
for refuge to lay hold upon the hope set before them in the gospel,
then they are in a state of peace. Justification is a once-off act. We are justified. Therefore,
being justified by faith, we have Peace with God. We may not always feel it, but
we have. We have. And may the devil not
be able to take that from you. We have peace with God. And you see, when we have peace
with God, then the gratitude starts to flow. Then the love
starts to flow. And then you see the hand of
faith is laid hold upon that, the hope set before us in the
gospel and then all the other, all the other graces go running
as the Puritans would say. The hope and the love and the
humility, all those run as it were as they start to lay hold
upon what this, what this savior has done for us. Therefore being
justified by faith, we have. peace with God. This is the state
of peace. You see, and we read elsewhere
that, behold what manner of love the
Father hath bestowed upon us that we should be called the
children of God. You see, if we've been justified,
we have peace with God, all our sins have been taken and put
upon the Saviour, and therefore we are the children we have then
turned been moved into you see a status of sons and daughters. This is really important to this
is why we need that belt of truth you see if we go by our feelings
do we always feel a son and a daughter do we always feel that these
things are so we don't always. That's why we need to put on
the Christian armour. That's why we need to protect ourselves.
That's why we need to be strong in the Lord and the power of
his might. And yes, we freely acknowledge it's not a case of
pretending that we're righteous. It's a case of saying, yes, we
do come short, but we have one that is merciful and gracious
and is able to save us unto the uttermost, as we come with fresh
repentance for our fresh sins, that we may come with repentance
but not come with no hope, not come in despair and thinking,
well, I've fallen again, perhaps I'm not a child of God after
all. You see, the benefits that flow from this blessed plate
of righteousness that we have been, we're to put on, not to
just say, well, I've heard about this, I've heard about that doctrine.
Well, it's good you have, but you need to put it on. And when
you go into battle, you need to have it on. And when the darts
come at you, and when the difficulties come, the trials come, and the
going gets tough, we're to remember, remember your identity. Your
identity is really important. What is our identity? Are we
the children of wrath, even as others? Or have we been translated
into the kingdom of his dear son? You see, in Romans 6, Paul
takes this identity aspect. Romans 6 verse
11, likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed under sin. but alive unto God through Jesus
Christ our Lord." So reckon yourself. So in other words, when sin comes
to the door, you say, I've got no business sinning. I have a
new master. I'm not under Satan anymore.
I've got no right to sin. I've got no business sinning.
I've been justified. I've been brought into the kingdom
of God. I've had my sins taken away. I've got a new master.
I've got new goals in my life. Not carrying on in the old way.
Changes identity to sons and daughters of the Most High. And
this is a wonderful thing, isn't it? You see, it's one thing to
be justified, one thing to be saved, but it's another thing
to be brought into a family relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ. To
be called sons and daughters, that's something different, isn't
it? You can be friends with somebody, you can have friends and they're
kind to you, but that doesn't make you a son and a daughter,
does it? You see, when the inheritance comes of families and, well,
it's very clear which one was a son and the daughter and which
one wasn't. They're just a friend. The sons and daughters, they
often get the inheritance. But you see, we have been brought
into the family of God to an inheritance, incorruptible, undefiled,
and that fadeth not away. You see, he's not just like,
well, they're just some friends. They're just some friends. We
have an acquaintance with them. But there's no great benefits that
flow to them. You see, when we come into the
kingdom of God's dear son, there's an inheritance that outstrips
every inheritance that any will has ever left below here below. The will of leaving Windsor Castle
or anything like that would pale into insignificance to having
an interest in the will and testament of our Lord and Saviour Jesus
Christ. And he gives that to his sons and daughters, who he
has adopted into his family. He has given them a status change. They're no longer children of
the devil. They've got no business in it, although they sadly do
sin. And yet their identity is the
children of God. and they're to put on this whole
armour of God and they're to act and to walk as their children
of light. They're to put on that whole
armour of God, that breastplate of righteousness and remember
whose they are and whom they serve. and that they are accepted
in the beloved, you see, and that's the next thing that I
want to speak about, the benefit that flows from this breastplate
of righteousness. Romans 5 verse 2, by whom also
we have access by faith into this grace, wherein you stand.
You have access, you see. You see, if you're not in favor
with somebody, they don't want to see you. They want to keep
away from you, you haven't got access to them, you're not important
enough. But you see, when these children of God have been justified,
they've laid hold upon the hope set before them in the gospel,
they then have access. That's why we can come boldly
unto the throne of grace, not because we've become particularly
arrogant. We come boldly. Because that
is what the King has told us to do. We're to come to him with
access. Access that is not due to the
fact that we have kept all the Ten Commandments and never sinned.
We have access because we've fled for refuge to lay hold upon
the hope set before us in the Gospel. And that's our reason
for coming. That's how we can come, with
that access and to be able to call him Father, Abba Father,
our Father. be able to call him father because
he's he's done these things for us therefore being justified
by faith we have peace with God we don't always feel it and as
soon as we don't feel it the arrows are coming from the devil
are you really a child of God are you really how is it that
you don't feel this ah need that breastplate of righteousness
go away devil I've got a righteousness not my own, and though I come
short and there's many things that make me sad about myself,
but I've got nothing to be disappointed with my Saviour. He has kept
the law and made it honourable. But then if you look in Romans
5 verse 3, you have another aspect that changes when you have this
breastplate of righteousness, when trials come. Satan is a
mastermind when trials come to say, there you are. If you were
really a child of God, it wouldn't have happened to you. You wouldn't
have had that tragedy happen in your family. You wouldn't
have had that difficulty if you really were a child of God. It's
exactly what they said to Job. If you really were, God wouldn't
leave you in that position. Ah, a chained attitude to trials. You look at it in Romans 5, verse
3, and not only so, but we glory in tribulations also, knowing
that tribulation worketh patience, and patience experience, and
experience hope, and hope maketh not ashamed. Here we are, we've
got there in the end, because the love of God is shed abroad
in our hearts. So these trials that come into
our pathway, Satan wants to say, there we are, there we are, you're
not a child of God. The breastplate of righteousness says, I have
a savior that loved me. He laid down his life for me.
Why would he suddenly go against me? He's doing it for my good. He's doing it with an end in
view that I may have a closer union with him so that I may
be prepared for an eternal glory in heaven. a change to our view
of tribulations. You see, instead of thinking
of their God's, well, there is a chastening hand of our God,
but it's always, the chastening is never with a purpose to ruin
them. It's always to a purpose to bless
them. Like a good parent chastens their children with a view not
against those children, but for those children's good. And that's
what our God does. He's training us. to make us
ready and ripe for eternity. Well, this breastplate of righteousness
is lastly, it's the only way we can die well. is with a breastplate
of righteousness. When we come into the valley
of the shadow of death and all manner of troubles come and all
our sins as Christian as he went through that Jordan, all his
sins, he all seemed to well up and he wondered whether he was
ever a child of God at all and his friend would go forth into
glory but he would be left behind. Ah, then to have a breastplate
of righteousness. that all my hope of heaven is
not built on my good Christian profession and my obedience to
the law. No, it's built on the one I want
to live for and die to, the Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord, our righteousness. That's what we need, the righteousness
of another. It doesn't mean to say that we
are carefree and we don't care about sinning. If you've got
a tender heart, you will care about sinning. But you won't
let that care play into the hands of Satan and then cause Satan
to say, well, you're not a child of God anyway. Because if you
were a child of God, you wouldn't have done that. You see, that's
how Satan will use it. And we need that breastplate
of righteousness to be able to quench all the fiery darts of
the hell, the shield of faith that we might be able to go on
and press on and not in arrogance, but in humble dependence upon
God, that he is able to save unto the uttermost. Well, finally,
my brethren, be strong in the Lord and in the power of his
might. Put on. It's no good leaving it back
in your house or in your bag. Put on the whole armour of God.
that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil.
He's cunning. He knows who's got a tender conscience
and he knows just how to wound you. He knows how to cast you
down. Stand therefore having your loins
girt about with truth, the truth of God, the truth of God's word,
what he has promised. And stand upon those promises
and plead the promises to God and to Satan too to say, go away.
This is what God has said. having on the breastplate of
righteousness. May the Lord add his blessing.
Amen.