Last week we concluded with verse
11, where the apostle wrote by virtue of the leadership of the
Holy Spirit, he said, knowing the time. We're creatures of
time, and we know our time is limited here on this earth. And
he said, it's high time to awake out of sleep, for now is our
salvation nearer than when we believed. And so what he's talking
about there is as we, having been born again by the Spirit,
that's when we come to faith in Christ, that's when we believe,
and that's not just a one-time thing, we continue to believe.
Coming to Christ, Peter talked about that in 1 Peter 2, to whom
coming. So it's a continual thing because
it begins in regeneration and conversion. There's that initial
gift of faith by which we lay hold of Christ. There's that
initial repentance where having, I'm gonna talk about that this
morning and next week. There's that initial repentance
where the Lord enlightens our eyes and reveals to us not only
the right way of salvation, but also the wrong way of which we
all in some form or another have to repent. By nature, we don't
believe the right way. You agree with that? We don't
come forth from the womb as believers. We're born in sin, the scripture
says, born spiritually dead. And so when he says, wake up,
he says, he's telling us that our time here on earth is so
limited. and we need to wake up. We don't
need to be sleeping on the job, so to speak. That doesn't mean
that we can't go to bed at night and sleep. Boy, I'm at the age
now, a good night's sleep is a very precious thing. Many of
you know what I'm talking about. You go through a night and you
can't sleep, you wake up the next morning, your day's miserable.
But that's not what he's talking about. He's talking about being
lax, being neglectful in the work of the ministry, and seeking
the lost, preaching the gospel, edifying one another in fellowship.
Wake up. Where he says, put on the armor
here, he's gonna talk about. Well, when he transitions from
verse 12, he says, the night is far spent. Now what's he talking
about? He's talking about the time of our earthly pilgrimage
here on this earth. Our salvation is near. You know,
the word save and saved is used with every verb tense. We have
been saved, we are being saved, and we will be saved. Now what's
that mean? Does that mean we're not saved yet? No, it means we're
not glorified yet. We're still on this earth. We're
truly saved. Scripture tells us that. We can
have assurance of salvation, how? By looking to Christ. the
author and finisher of our faith. And so we're in the continual
process of being saved. In other words, as we go through
this life as believers and the Lord preserves us and enables
us to persevere in the faith, we'll have enemies we'll talk
about. And we know our victories over
these enemies is of the Lord. It's not by our power and our
goodness, but it's of the Lord. And then at some point in time,
the Lord's either gonna come back again, we don't know when,
maybe when we're alive on this earth. But either that or we're
gonna go to meet him in physical death. We'll pass from this life
to the next. And so that's what he's talking
about when he says our salvation is nearer than when we believe.
The night is far spent. It's high time. Even though we
as believers, we've seen the light of Christ, This present
world is described as a night, a darkness, because just like
in Philippians 2, he talks about how we're to shine forth as lights
in a dark world. And what does he mean there?
We're to preach the gospel, we're to live by the gospel. the word
of God. As the world lies in darkness,
we're to be shining lights. And how do we do that? We preach
Christ, who is the light of the world. And so, this present world
is enshrouded in both moral and spiritual darkness. It's opposed
to the light of the gospel. You know, over there in John
3, in verse 19 and 20, he talks about this is the condemnation,
how the light has come But men love darkness and hate the light. Why do they hate the light that
we have? I love light, don't you? You come into a dark room,
especially one you're not familiar with, I don't wanna walk through
it, I wanna turn the light switch on. But here's a light that men
by nature hate. Why? Because it exposes something
that they think is good, but something the Lord holds is evil. And that's where you gotta look
at that verse now. Remember who he's talking to. He's not talking
to a drunk or a drug pusher or a whoremonger. He's talking to
Nicodemus, a religious man who had reached great heights of
religion. And that applies to him. Do we call the works of
the drunk, we call that good? No, we call it evil. It's evil.
But what men by nature don't know is evil. That's what God
calls evil. Depart from me, you that work
iniquity. Well, what were we doing? We're
preaching. We're casting out demons. We're
doing wonderful works, impressive to men. But that which is highly
esteemed among men is an abomination to God. That's really the focus
of the message today that we're gonna have later on. But the
night is far spent. Look at verse 12. He says, the
day is at hand, the time. The time that, when time's up,
that's what he calls the day, our final glory. And so as we're
in this world, but not of this world, wake up, and the day is
at hand, he says in verse 12, let us therefore cast off the
works of darkness. Now whatever is darkness, according
to God's word, we're to cast it off. You say, well, that's
talking about if you are an alcoholic, quit drinking. Well, you should
quit drinking. If you think that's a good thing, your mind's perverted. I contend that even the alcoholic
knows he's doing wrong. Now, he may not be able to get
off the stuff, but he's doing wrong, he knows that. But what
he's talking about works of darkness are the works of Satan that deceive
people. In 2 Thessalonians 2, he calls
it the deceitfulness of unrighteousness. And the darkness that men love.
We're to cast that off. We're not to be associated with
that. We're not to be in fellowship with that. And next week, I'm
gonna talk about this a little bit more. You know, Tim James
always said, we're all recovering Pharisees. I mean, when we were
lost and didn't know Christ, didn't know the truth, we were
drunk on our own false doctrine. And that's true, isn't it? In
some way or form, some degree or another. We were like the
Pharisees. We thought that we made the difference
between saved and lost. It was something we did, something
we decided, and then the salvation is maintained by something we
do. And so we're recovering Pharisees. when he says, cast that off.
Now, you say, well, I've cast that off, I've repented. I'm
gonna tell you something, we still have the flesh, don't we?
And it's not just the flesh in immorality, it's the flesh in
false religion. We all have to fight, even now,
the evil spirit of self-righteousness. Even believers now, that's a
big part of the warfare of the flesh and the spirit. We've got
to fight that, we've got to cast it off. When thoughts of self-righteousness,
you know, I look at somebody and I'd say, yeah, they're not
saved. I'm talking about people who
profess to believe the gospel. Well, why am I saying that? Well,
they don't do this, or they don't do that, or look at what happened
to them. I mean, what if some of us would have come upon and
met King David during that period of time when he was in the throes
of his physical lust with Bathsheba? Well, by nature, we'd say, he's
lost. But he wasn't. You say, well,
then that means what David did was all right. Absolutely not.
That's stupid. That's foolish. No, what he did
was not all right. He should have cast it off. And
of course, you know, when you see the purpose of God engaged
in all that mess, God makes sense of all that mess. Boy, it just
blows your mind, doesn't it? Does that mean I can go out and
do what David did? No, I don't have any mandate
or allowance to do that. We gotta cast it off. But that
spirit of self-righteousness, that's something we all have
to deal with. I am a sinner saved by grace. This is my story. You wanna know my spiritual biography? I'm only a sinner saved by grace. I have one righteousness before
God, and that's the imputed righteousness of Christ. And at my best moments,
what am I? I'm still a sinner saved by grace.
And whenever I get to thinking differently because of my own
self-pity or whatever, I gotta cast it off. And that's that
part of that continual repentance I'll be talking about next week.
But he says, cast them off. And then he says in verse 12,
let us put on the armor of light. And I love that language. The
armor of light. What does that remind you? It
reminds you of Ephesians six, put on the whole armor of God.
I'm not gonna turn there because it would take too much time to
go through all that. But read that again for your
own edification. Withstand the wiles of the devil. We put on armor. We're warriors.
That's what he says. It's like a warrior. He goes
to sleep at night. He doesn't wear his armor. He's
got the bedclothes on, but he wakes up and he puts on the armor.
And that's what he's talking about. Put on the armor of light. Armor is made for warfare. And
as believers, That's what, we're in a warfare with the world,
with the flesh, and with the devil. And you know, when you think
about that, and I don't know if we could set a degree on it
or not, but I sometimes find that warfare with the flesh is
the greatest battle that I have to fight. What am I saying? I'm saying that the greatest
enemy I have is me. I know the world is a great enemy.
Christ said, marvel not if the world hates you. It hated me
before it hated you. We're in the world, but we're
not of the world. He told his disciples in John 16, 33, when
he was talking about these things, about their earthly pilgrimage
and how they would be persecuted, remember he said, the world will
hate you, they'll throw you out of their worship services, because
you tell them the truth. Why would anybody go into a worship
service and get thrown out? He said, they'll even murder
you, John 16. But he said, these things I have
spoken unto you that in me, in me, you'll have peace. In the world, you'll have tribulation,
trouble. Like Job said, man is a few days
and full of what? Trouble. But be of good cheer,
he said. Why? I've overcome the world. How did he overcome the world?
Well, he's in control of it all. We know that. The main way he
overcomes the world is by his death on the cross. To put away
the sins of his people, to establish that righteousness which God
imputes to his people, and from which comes life everlasting,
and calls you out of the world. The world cannot hold you back
from God. And here's the key, you can't
even hold yourself back from God. You would if you could.
You will not come to me that you might have life. The natural
man receives not the things of the Spirit of God. That didn't
come out, listen, coming to Christ, receiving him, believing him,
resting in him is not the product of our own innate goodness or
free will. Because the Bible says we don't
have that. And then, when we think about
the flesh, Paul dealt with that in Romans 7. Oh, wretched man
that I am, who shall deliver me from this body of death? I
can't get away from it, Paul said. He said, you know, Paul
made this statement in Romans 7, in that last section, Romans
7, 14 through 25. He said, I have a desire to do
good, but I don't know how to do it. What is he talking about? Well, Paul, you know how to be
a moral person, a responsible citizen. You know how to do all
that. But I don't know how to be good
as God measures goodness. And here's what he's saying.
I want to be like Christ. I want to think like Christ.
I want to walk like Christ. I want to follow him perfectly.
But how to do that, I don't know. You know why? Because I still
have the flesh. I still have evil desires, sinful
desires, lustful desires, selfish desires. I still have those. And I have to live with myself.
I not only have to live in the world, I gotta live with myself.
And that's a big problem. Because here's what I'm telling
you, if you were on your own to do that, or if it was conditioned
on you, you would lose this battle. And so he says, who shall deliver
me from this body of death? And what's our victory there?
Verse 25 of Romans seven, I thank God through Jesus Christ our
Lord. There's no condemnation in Christ. And then we can talk
about the devil, the adversary, the accuser of the brethren.
We've got to contend with him too. But we have no power to
do that of our own. And I love that passage in Revelation
12, where it talks about how the great dragon, the old serpent,
the devil, Satan, which deceives the whole world. Now I'll tell
you what, there's a passage there that you wouldn't have any problem
getting some of these free willers to admit that it's not talking
about every individual without exception. The whole world, he
said, Satan deceives. Are you deceived today? Am I? I once was deceived. Remember
the old blind man in John chapter nine. I was blind. Now I see. Somebody turned on the light.
Who was it? The Lord God. But he says that Satan deceives
the old way. He was cast out, that's at the
cross of Christ. And he says in verse 10, this
is Revelation 12. And I heard a loud voice saying
from heaven, now has come salvation. That's Christ. Strength, that's
Christ. And the kingdom of our God and
the power of his Christ. For the accuser of our brethren
is cast down, that's Satan, which accused them before our God day
and night. And verse 11 says this. Years ago, they started a religious
TV station up in Ashland. And of course, you know how it
is. The first program is send us money. You gotta have it. And they had a Baptist preacher
up there on their set. begging for money with all the
other denominations. And they had a little poster
cut out that they called This is the Devil. And the Baptist
preacher, he said, now what we're gonna do is we're gonna kick
the devil out. And he went over and kicked that
poster. And I thought, you fool. You're operating right in Satan's
realm. And that's sad, you know, somebody
said, well, preacher, you shouldn't be that hard. I'm only teaching
what the word of God says. So, when you have to deal with
Satan, where's the victory there? Well, Revelation 12, 11, they
overcame him, the deceiver, by the blood of the lamb. And by
the word of their testimony. The blood of the lamb, that's
the foundation of our salvation. That's the righteousness. that
God has imputed to us. We cannot be condemned. The armor of light, part of that,
the armor of God, is the breastplate of righteousness. And that stands
for his righteousness imputed because that torso there that
that breastplate covered, that's the vital organs. If somebody
shot you in the leg, you can recover from that. Somebody shot you in the head,
you wouldn't recover, but you got the helmet of salvation. at that
breastplate. And so they overcame him by the
blood of the lamb, by the word of their testimony. Well, what
is the word of our testimony? I'll summarize it in Galatians
6, 14. God forbid that I should glory,
boast, save in the cross. And they loved not their lives
unto death. We realize that this life on earth is the night is
far spent. Some of us are coming pretty
close to the close of it, aren't we? We'll look back at Romans
13, let us put on the armor of God. In verse 13 he says, let
us walk honestly. That means that we're to conduct
ourselves decently, properly, realizing that God sees all,
knows all, and we're to walk honestly as in the day, as in
the light. You see, when we're covered in
a cloak or hidden in the closet, you know, we can do a lot of
things people don't see us. But we're to walk, our walk through
this life is to be an honest walk. Honest about God, who God
is. Honest about ourselves, who we
are. Again, I'm a sinner saved by grace. Honest about how God
saves sinners. By his grace through Christ.
He says not in rioting, that means exactly what you think
it means. Fighting, fussing, arguing. That's not to be our
way of life. If that's your way of life, you
need to repent. You do. Pray to God, Lord, give
me a pleasant spirit of love and kindness and toleration and
patience. He says, not in drunkenness.
That means exactly what you think. We're not to be drunk morally,
physically, or spiritually. And that's not to characterize
us, but we're to be people of temperance in drinking, eating,
but also in doctrine. You know, a lot of times when
the Bible talks about the false preachers being drunk on wine,
it's not talking about they're out there drinking wine and falling
down drunk. It means they believe a false
doctrine, the wine of false doctrine. But it also applies to our physical
well-being, not in chambering, That means in lust, going from
this woman to this woman to this woman, this man, this man, that
kind of thing. He says in wantonness, that has
to do with desiring the things that we don't have to the point
of neglecting the gospel, neglecting the worship, neglecting others.
He says, not in strife and envying. Now, that comes together. He's
talking about that kind of envy towards others that genders strife,
puts people against each other, being jealous of one another,
all of that. You know, if you win the lottery,
I hope I can rejoice with you. I might look up and say, Lord,
that should have been me. But that, you know what I'm saying.
These are the things we have to wake up and fight with the
armor of light. The truth of God. And then he
says in verse 14, but put you on the Lord Jesus Christ and
make not provision for the flesh to fulfill the lust of the flesh.
Now I wanna talk a little bit about this putting on Christ.
It's a very important phrase. Putting on Christ. What he's
describing, to put on Christ, He's describing an act of faith
here. When we believe in Christ, we
put him on, so to speak. And it describes the believer's
security in Christ and our relationship with Christ. It's not to be taken
literally, and the reason I say that, this is a metaphor, and
it's a great metaphor. But you know, in the past few
years, we've had people, like for example, Let's look at it
this way. Let's look at two aspects of
salvation. There's the legal realm of salvation,
and then there's the spiritual realm of salvation. Now what
Paul's dealing with here is the spiritual realm. We put him on
by God-given faith. God enables us, brings us to
receive Christ. And He is our Savior, He is our
righteousness, He is our protector, He's our preserver, He's our
security, He saves us, He'll keep us safe, He'll bring us
to glory. And the armor of God in Ephesians
chapter six, it's all related to the grace of God in Christ.
Our putting this on is a gift of God. For by grace are you
saved, through faith, that out of yourselves, it's the gift
of God. If you desire to put this on, put this armor on, it's
because God has given you a new heart and given you that desire.
He's given you the faith to look to Christ and rest in Him. And
so we put Him on, and that's a metaphor. But here in the past
few years, there's been men who, because of their lack of understanding
of the doctrine of imputation, which is throughout the Bible
set forth in a metaphor of like wearing a cloak or putting a
coat on. Well, they don't understand imputation
so they'll talk about a pasted on righteousness. They'll talk
about something that's not real. It's just on the outside but
doesn't touch the heart. And they don't understand imputation
or even righteousness, they don't. And I've got a little section
in the book I wrote on that called Going to War with a Metaphor.
Because that's what they're doing. But when we talk about the legal
realm of salvation, which is our justification before God,
it means how God looks at us and forgives our sins. And how
God looks at us and declares us righteous in his sight. so
that he cannot and will not impute our sins to God. Who shall lay
anything to the charge of God's law? That legal justification,
a lot of times in the Bible, is described under this metaphor
of putting on a coat. Now it doesn't mean you can take
it off and put it on, all that, literally. And the first place
you'll find that, you know where it is? Anybody know? Genesis
chapter 3. I've got this in your lesson. You can look it up. Genesis chapter
3. What happened when Adam and Eve
fell? What'd they do? They went out, sewed fig leaves
together to cover their nakedness. Now you know nakedness in the
Bible is a metaphor for being exposed to the wrath of God.
Not having a righteousness. And those fig leaf aprons, what
do they represent? They represent man's futile,
feeble, sinful efforts to shield himself in his own shame from
the wrath of God. And so what did God do in Genesis
chapter three? He took off those fig leaf aprons. And what did
he do? Genesis 3, 21, he slew an animal
Why did he slay an animal? Because blood has to be shed.
Justice has to be satisfied. If justice is not satisfied for
the sins of his people, there is no righteousness. There is
no forgiveness. So he slew an animal. That's
where I believe God really instituted the sacrificial way of worship
through the blood of animals. And all believers, they sacrifice. That was an emblem. There's no
salvation in animal blood. But what that blood, whom that
blood typified. And so God slew an animal and
what did he say? He made coats of skin and clothed them. What's he talking about? That's
a metaphor in history. I believe it literally happened. I don't believe it's just a myth
or a story like Aesop's fables. It's a real event. But it represented
something far more than literal clothes and animal, It represented
Christ, our righteousness. And then I've got a list of scripture
on your lesson where you'll see that metaphor used quite often. Our justification, our legal
standing before God as putting on a coat. And one of the ones
that I've got listed in there is Zechariah 3, 1 through 5,
where Joshua the high priest was standing before the angel
of the Lord And he stood there in filthy rags. What do filthy
rags represent? Our sinfulness, our depravity,
our feeble, sinful, self-righteous efforts to cover our own nakedness. And what did the angel of the
Lord say? Take those dirty clothes off
of him and put on a new robe. And that's Christ. Now again,
that's not literal. And just like the breastplate
of armor, that's talking about the truth as it is in Christ
from which we confess Christ. And then secondly, there's the
spiritual realm of our salvation, which is our sanctification by
the Holy Spirit in the new birth, when he sets us apart by giving
us spiritual life, regeneration, and brings us to Christ, conversion.
Now this is what Paul's talking about. Once that happens, we
continue to put him on. Verse 14, but put you on the
Lord Jesus Christ. In other words, look to him,
rest in him, lay hold of him, come to him constantly, See yourself
as a sinner saved by grace, plead his blood at all times, his righteousness
at all times, put him on. That's an act of faith, God-given
faith. And we continue to do that, and
make not provision for the flesh. Don't give way, don't give free
reign to your flesh, the sinful desires, the self-righteous desires,
to fulfill the lust there, to put it into action. Don't do
that. So turn over to Galatians chapter
three, and we'll close with this. I wanna show you this. Does anybody get the paper anymore?
I get the paper. I know, I know there's a lot
of junk in there. But this morning, there was an
article by a local preacher who was talking about salvation,
what salvation is. Two-thirds of the article, he
was spot on. It's to be in Christ. That's
what he said. I agree. And he had a lot of
scriptures. To be in Christ, that's our redemption.
To be in Christ, that's our justification. To be in Christ, that's our sanctification.
But his third point was the problem. And he asked the question, how
do we get into Christ? And you know what his answer
was? Baptism. Baptism. Our brother was baptized last
week, last Sunday. Is that when you got into Christ?
No, Dave, you've been in Christ for a longer time. And he used
this verse here, look at verse 26 of Galatians chapter three. He says, for you are all the
children of God by faith in Christ Jesus. You give evidence that
you're a child of God because you're resting in Christ. Verse
27, for as many of you as have been baptized. Now, sometimes
the word baptized and baptized is talking about the ordinance
of water baptism, the confession ordinance of the New Testament
believers. Sometimes it is. Sometimes the
word baptized in the context is talking about something else.
You know what the word baptized literally means? Now we'll say
it means immersion, and it does. but it means placed into. That's what it means. But when
were we placed into Christ? Before the foundation of the
world, God chose us in Christ. Read Ephesians 1. He blessed
us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ. We were in Christ from the foundation
of the world, in God's mind. We were in Christ at the cross.
He died for his sheep. He's my surety, he's my substitute,
he's my redeemer. And so we've been baptized into
Christ. We've placed into Christ. He's my representative, he's
my surety, he's my substitute, he's my redeemer. And then he says, for as many
of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ.
That's talking about faith in Christ. We put him on when we
believe in him by the power of God. And he says there's neither
Jew nor Greek, there's neither bond nor free, there's neither
male nor female, for you are one in Christ Jesus. And if you
belong to Christ, then are you Abraham's seed and heirs according
to the promise. So that's what he's talking about
in Galatians. So he's not talking about water
baptism. And then over in Romans 13, he's talking about how we
continually believe in him. And again, by the preserving
grace of God, we come to him, we stay. 1 John 3 says we cannot
leave him because we're born again. God has put his spirit
within us, given us a new heart, and he'll never leave us. And
that's what he's talking about, put on Christ. Not like I put on this jacket,
not like that. That's just a metaphor. Believe
in Him, rest in Him continually, every day, by the grace of God. All right.