AT WAR (6): NO OTHER STREAM (Ephesians 6:10-13) We are studying the Wartime Perspective on spiritual warfare given by Paul

in Eph 6:10-13 under the outline I. The Opposition; II. The Objective; III. The Orders; and IV. The Obstacles. The obstacles we are to stand against found in verse 11: Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil. Schemes of the devil. He is like the Arctic polar bears. They feed almost entirely on seals, and have many schemes for catching them. The seals feed on fish through a hole in the ice. The polar bear will take a deep breath and swim under water to the hole. Clever guy! While still under water, he will make a tiny scratching sound on the ice, imitating a fish. The seal, thinking room service has arrived, dives in for a quick dinner, only to find that he is not eating dinner he is dinner. That is exactly the enemy who is according to I Peter 5:8 prowling around, around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. Hes looking for dinner and if we are not prepared for his attack, we will be it. We saw last week that Satans defining attribute is that he is a liar. Whereas Jesus could say, I am the way, the truth and the life he said of Satan that he has nothing to do with the truth, because there is no truth in him (John 8:44). The devil is the personification of deception. So, if we picture truth at the center of a line, lies are on the fringes. Thats where Satan lives, and where he wants to take us. So his schemes inevitably involve lies. Thus we are looking at various pairs of lies that Satan tells taking us to the extremes of some truth that is in the middle. He has hundreds of these. Last week we saw the first two: I do not exist the lie that most of society in our day accepts. There is no personal devil. Or the other extreme I am great. I am invincible. He wants to become the center of our existence either through our worship of him or our fear of him. The truth in the middle is that he exists all right, but he answers to God. He had to get permission to touch Job in Job 1:10, Have you not put a hedge around him and his house and all that he has, on every side? Satan can only go as far as God allows for His greater glory. Two more today. This lie is true and this truth is a lie. C. This Lie is True Seldom does Satan offer a direct lie. He offers a cocktail of truth and lie. A half-lie intended to put us into Spin City. This starts right off in Genesis 3.
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Satan questions Eve in verse 1, Did God actually say, You shall not eat of any tree in the garden? Did he really now? Eve defensively repeats the prohibition she has heard from Adam, but the hook is set. Verse 4: But the serpent said to the woman, You will not surely die. 5 For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil. There it is the fatal mixture of truth and error. Did Adam and Eve gain knowledge of good and evil from eating of the tree? Absolutely. Unfortunately, they got it by yielding to temptation instead of by winning over temptation. They gained the knowledge of good evil by becoming evil instead of becoming good per Gods intention. They immediately saw their sin; thats why they covered up. But they did gain the knowledge. That part was true. But the fatal lie was You will not surely die. A flat-out lie. Not only did Adam and Eve die, but the whole human race died with them. There is a reason why we all face the reality of death but it is not because it is natural as our humanistic friends would have us believe! Disney glorified this view in The Lion King with the song The Cycle of Life. Its a lie! Yes, death is universal, but death is the most unnatural thing in the universe. Every fiber of our being tells us, this is not natural; it is not right; it is an aberration. And it all resulted because Eve bought into the Big Lie, and Adam followed her there even though he knew better. Ever since that fatal day, Satan has been perfecting the strategy. This lie Im about to tell you is true. He mixes in partial truth, like mixing tea with sugar. But it is still a lie and eventually the lie will kill. Satan was walking with a cohort one day. They saw a man ahead of them pick up something shiny. What did he find? asked the cohort. A piece of truth, the devil replied. Doesnt it bother you that he found a piece of truth? asked the cohort. Satan replied, No. We will see to it that he makes a religion out of it. And Beloved that is just the way it works. Exactly the way it works. Let me give you an example. Someone grasps that love is a good thing. Is love good? Absolutely. Its all over the Bible; it must be a good thing. Every human instinct tells me love is a good thing. But Satan has mixed more lies with that one truth than you can ever imagine. For example, love is a good thing. God is love; therefore God would never harm one of His creatures. This talk about hell and judgment cant be right. Why fear a God who is love. My God is love! Beloved, can you hear Satan offering that cocktail of half truth and half lie? Jesus addresses that strategy in Matt 10:28, And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell. You know, when I was a kid and heard
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that verse, I thought it meant fear the devil. But, of course, that is not what it is saying at all. It is saying, Fear God! He is the one who can destroy both body and soul. He never wants to do that. He is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. He is love. But, He is also holy! But when someone rebells through a lifetime of opportunity, judgment will fall. There will be another victim of the lie. Another example. Bishop John A. T. Robinson, found this shiny piece of truth a few years ago. He said, love is good. In fact, God is love. So love must be the ultimate so ultimate that anything done in love is good. Ipso facto a new religion. Now, the God of Bishop Robinson was not the God of the Bible. He had no personality, no holiness, no substance. He was merely the feeling of love, wherever found. And a new religion was founded that said Love and do what you want! Want to marry? Do you love each other? Great its okay. Want to have pre-marital sex? Do you love each other? Then fine. Want to commit adultery? Do you truly love each other? Then go for it. Want to tell a lie because you love someone too much to tell the truth? Go for it. Love is all there is! Want to know one reason that our modern world is a relativistic disaster? Because Robinson and others like him bought the lie. What a strategy -- this lie is true. Taking liberties with your tax return is okay because the government is stupid. Cheating on the expense report is okay for all my hours away from home. Speaking harshly to my wife is okay because she was uncooperative last night. Its my right to take revenge on that person who cost me a promotion. Practicing a homosexual lifestyle is okay. The Bible only speaks against it when used by those in power to subjugate the weak. As a genuine expression of love between two people, its okay. Welcome to Spin City, Beloved, where the lies go on and on and on and on. So thats one extreme. This lie is true. How about the other? D. This truth is a lie Jesus says in John 8:44 that the devil has nothing to do with the truth. He hates truth. Hes always around whispering, Surely you dont believe that! Come on now. Its just not reasonable. His biggest target? The Bible. Hes been chipping away for centuries, trying to destroy it. Yet it remains, as always, the number one best-seller in the world. We cant pass a message in a room of 20 people without getting it hopelessly garbled. But here is a book written by over 40 authors from a myriad of backgrounds over a period of
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1500 years with perfect continuity of message being validated daily through archeology and the changed lives of people who read it. Its not going away. But it is not just the Bible, it is fundamentally the truth contained in the Bible that Satan wants to rob people of. The virgin birth? Nice story. Good for Christmas time consumption. But true? Anyone with any education at all knows its all fairytales. That flood story, Jonah and the whale, the Red Sea parting. Come on now. Lets be big boys and girls. The Bible is a great book of morality tales, but no one believes those things really happened. And so he chips away, telling us this or that truth is a lie. Hes been so effective in recent days on one particular truth. It is the greatest truth of all, and so I suppose it has commanded his attention. That is the truth that there is only one way that man in his fallen, sinful, broken condition can ever get to God. And that is through Jesus. Satan hates that truth above all, and so he specializes in the lie that it is just too exclusive, that there must be some other way, that all those other religions and millions of people could not possibly be wrong, that Jesus is simply a way, but not the way. Be good; be sincere and in the end you will be fine. Jesus? Hes an example to show we should work against the powers of exploitation and take up the cause of the disenfranchised. Thats the way to God. But lets have done with this talk about substitutionary atonement. Its barbaric. Its beneath us. Lets admit that His death was the result of a tyrannical, oppressive government, as all governments are. But even in His death, He shows us a way to victory through non-violence. But atonement? Thats just so much religious gibberish by a few isolated fundamentalists too ignorant to join the 21st century. Exclusivity is intolerant, and intolerance is beneath us. That is the lie Satan is propagating turning truth into a lie! An interviewer asked actor, Will Smith, It is rumored that you are involved in Scientology. But, Will, you grew up as a Baptist. How do you reconcile those things? Will replied this way: "Well, you know, I grew up in a neighborhood where there were Muslims and Christians, and Jews and Hindus and atheists and others and I believe that any way that someone approaches God, if it works for them, then that's wonderful. I think that everyone has truth. We all call the same God by different names. And, anyway, my grandmother taught me that ultimately it was about being a good person. Doing good things." Do good things. Exactly what the Bible says will not suffice. Paul tells us in Eph 2 For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God,
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(specifically) not a result of works, so that no one may boast. The Bible leaves no room for the idea that doing good things gets us to God. This is so hard for us to accept. Human nature wants to do something. The vast majority of people subscribe to the motto: We get our salvation the old-fashioned way. We earn it. The truth -- that you can never earn it, you can only accept it, goes against the grain. Satan says its a lie! But if we are going to heaven, Beloved, you have to stop working and start trusting. Works come after justification, not to earn justification. We have to write in big letters across our soul WORKS DONT WORK! Working for salvation opens the door to the idea that there are multiple ways to God. Jesus is no more or less than any other prophet. George Burns played the title role in the 1977 movie Oh, God! When asked if Jesus was his son, he says, yes, Jesus was his son and Buddha was his son, and Mohammed was his son, and in fact all human beings are his sons and daughters since he created them all. In other words, if we are all just sincere, we will all make it. Dont worry. Be happy! A 2008 national survey conducted by Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life showed that 52% of all American Christians (not just the average guy off the street, but those claiming a Christian faith), 52% believe that non-Christian faiths can lead to eternal life. Which means, of course, that Christ died for nothing. For nothing, Beloved. After all, everyone has truth. Will Smith said so! But does that hold up to real life? Forget the Bible for a moment. Is that a sensible statement at all? Everyone has truth! Is that true? Should we modestly accept that because we are imperfect we cannot claim exclusivity for Christ? Alistair Begg points out that truth is not a matter of pride or humility; it is a matter of fact. When two statements contradict each other, one must be wrong and the other right otherwise words and logic have no meaning. He goes on to say, Islam says that Jesus was not crucified. We say that he was. Only one of us can be right. Judaism says that Jesus was not the Messiah. We say that He was. Only one of us can be right. Hinduism says that God has often been incarnate; we say only once. Only one of us can be right." To say that everyone has truth is demonstrably inane! But there is One who embodied truth, One who was unique in all of history, One whose claims were proven by, His uniquely perfect life, His purposeful, sacrificial death, and His confirming resurrection. The exclusivity of Christ is written on every page of Scripture and is credibly testified to by those who knew Him as eyewitnesses of His incredible life.
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God says in Isaiah 48:11, My glory I will not give to another. And yet we rob His glory when we place Christ in some pantheon of other gods and claim equal validity for all. If Christ is God as proven by His resurrection, there is no other way and when He says, I am the way, the truth and the life, no one comes to the Father except through me that claim must be taken seriously. You can accept it or you can reject it, but He didnt leave open the option of being the equal of Buddha or Mohammad or Vishnu or whoever. He is either the way; or He is no way! Someone once asked Donald Grey Barnhouse, Dont you believe that every man has the right to have his own religion? In other words, isnt Will Smith right? Everyone has truth? Doesnt every man have the right to have his own religion? Barnhouse replied, He has the right to have it now, but when he dies is going to be lost if he doesn't have God's Son. . . . Freedom of religion is the right of every man to go to hell in his own way, but if we are to go to heaven it must be in God's way. There is only one way to God. Salvation is not by character. Goodness cannot take a man to heaven. If so, God was a monster to let Jesus die. Elijah said, "If Baal (the OT Canaanite god) if Baal be god, then worship him, but if Jehovah be God, worship him." And you will recall that God answered with fire from heaven on that occasion to reveal himself while the prophets of Baal stood helplessly by a preview of coming attractions on the Day of Judgment when every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 11 and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. God has revealed Himself clearly enough for us to know that He means what He says. It is a major scheme of the devil to call lies truth and truth lies. He is master, and mankind is falling right in line. He is saying, Fine, have Jesus if you must, but He is no different from any other great prophet. To think He is the only way to God is to be intolerant. But, dear people, what if He is God in the flesh as the Bible teaches? What if He did die for your sins as the Bible teaches? What if His name is the only name given on earth among men by which we must be saved as the Bible teaches? Then it is Satans word against Gods Word. It is the word of Will Smith (everyone has truth) against the Word of Jesus Christ (I am truth). Who are you going to believe? We do not claim exclusivity for Christ because we are any better or smarter than anyone else. We are not. We claim only what He claimed it and then backed up His claims by His resurrection victory over sin and Satan and death. We claim it because we believe it is a matter of eternal life and death. So, the question for each of us this morning is, have we accepted this Savior? John
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says in 1:12, But as many as received Him to them gave He power to become the children of God, even to those who believe in His name. Have you prayed and acknowledged your sin and received Him? Paul says in Rom 10:910, If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. Its the only way, dear friends. Conclusion -- The Archbishop of Canterbury some years ago was in a dialogue with Jane Fonda. The Archbishop said to her, "Jesus is the son of God you know." To which Fonda replied, "Maybe he is to you, but hes not to me." To which the archbishop replied, "Well he either is, or he is not." There is the crux of it all. Beloved, either is or He is not. Dont believe the lies of the enemy. Believe the truth of Jesus Christ. Jesus said in Luke 18:17, Truly, I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it. So let me close with a childrens illustration. This comes from the Narnia Chronicles: The Silver Chair by CS Lewis. Early in the book, Jill, the heroine, runs into Aslan, the lion who depicts Christ. Aslan says, If you are thirsty, you may drink." . . . For a second, she stared here and there, wondering who had spoken. Then the voice said again, "If you are thirsty, come and drink. And, of course, she remembered about animals talking in that other world and realized that it was the lion speaking. Anyway she had seen its lips move this time, and the voice was not like any mans. It was deeper, wilder and stronger -- a sort of heavy golden voice. It did not make her any less frightened than she had been before, but it made her frightened in a different way. "Are you not thirsty?" said the lion. Im dying of thirst," said Jill. "Then drink," said the lion. "May I? Could I? Would you mind going away well I do?" said Jill. The lion answered this only by a look and a very low growl, and as Jill gazed at his motionless bulk she realized that she might as well have asked the whole mountain to move aside for her convenience. The delicious, rippling noise of the stream was driving her nearly frantic. "Will you promise not to do anything to me if I do come?" said Jill. "I make no promise," said the lion. Jill was so thirsty now that without noticing it she had come a step nearer. "Do, do you eat girls?" Jill said. "I have swallowed up girls and boys, women and men, kings and emperors, cities and realms," said the lion. It didnt say this as though it were boasting nor as if it were sorry nor as if it were angry. It just said it. "I dare not come and drink," said Jill. "Then you will die of thirst," said the lion. "Oh dear, said Jill coming another step nearer. "I suppose I must go and look for another stream." "There is no other stream," said the lion.
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There is no other stream. There is no other stream. Everyone will bow their knee and their tongue will proclaim that Jesus Christ is Lord. Everyone. Some with a cry of anguish and others with a shout of joy. I pray you know Him now, so it will shouts of joy then. To us is given the inestimable privilege of going out into an increasingly confused world and increasingly confused church and holding the line, keeping our feet, standing on truth and leading others to the one stream of life.