Following Him for Spiritual Protection
This
is part two of my message based on the text found in Genesis 12:1-3 “Now the Lord said
to Abram, “Go forth from your country, And from your relatives and from your father’s
house, to the land which I will show you; And I will make you a great
nation, and I will bless you and make your name great; And so you
shall be a blessing; And I will bless those who bless you, and the one
who curses you I will curse. And in you all the families of the earth
will be blessed.”
As
last week, I am focusing our attention on verse one in which God told Abram: “Go
forth from your country, and your relatives, and from your father’s house, to a
land which I will show you.”
And
simply said: “Abram followed Him.” And, as we also saw last week, Abram was not
and is not the only person God has called to follow Him out of a comfortable
life. Old Testament history is abundant testimony of how often God said to His
Chosen people through the prophets, “Follow Me.” And the New Testament gospels
also give ample testimony of how often the Lord Jesus said to those of His day,
“Follow Me.”
There
are likely many reasons God calls us to follow Him. Last week we looked at only
one. When so many in the crowds surrounding Jesus decided to no longer follow Him,
Jesus asked the Twelve if they also were going to leave. Peter answered, “Lord,
to whom shall we go? You have words of eternal life. We have believed and
have come to know that You are the Holy One of God.” (John
6:68-69)
That
Jesus ALONE has the words of eternal life is a critically important point, and
we dare not gloss over it. With all the voices in our society calling us in
dozens of directions – only Jesus has the words of that bring true freedom,
true hope – along with everlasting life.
Listen:
Surely the reason so many Christians grapple with sin – even and especially
what many Christians consider ‘serious’ sin such as sexual immoralities –
including pornography – and they remain trapped in hatreds, bigotries, habitual
lying, gossip, and self-righteousness – the reason so many are trapped in sins
and cannot seem to extricate themselves is because they read their Bible only
sporadically – if at all. They don’t have much of a prayer life. And they think
it sufficient for this spiritual warfare to simply attend church.
THAT
– oh, please hear this – THAT is a sure recipe for failure in our walk with
Jesus.
And
so, that first point answering the question why God calls us to follow Him
leads quite seamlessly to a second reason the Lord calls us to follow Him –
which one might expect it to overlap with the first because the Bible is an
integrated Book, whose theme of redemption and salvation and instructions in
righteousness flow from one end of the Bible to the other.
He
calls us to follow Him for our spiritual protection. I readily admit my
own difficulty to recognize the constant, never ending spiritual warfare
that rages around us 24 hours a day, 365 days around the calendar year. It
never lets us. Not for a moment.
Many
of you remember Paul’s warning in his letter to the Christians at Ephesus: (6:11ff)
“Put on the full armor of God, so that you will be able to stand firm
against the schemes of the devil. For our struggle is not
against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers,
against the world forces of this darkness, against
the spiritual forces of wickedness in the
heavenly places.”
And
we remember from the context of his letter that the pieces of our armor – the
helmet, the breastplate, the belt, the shield, the shoes, and the sword are ALL
rooted in God's revealed word to us through His scriptures.
And
many of you remember the Lord’s warning to the religious leaders and laity
who’d gathered around Him: (John 10:1-5) “Truly, truly, I say to you, he who
does not enter by the door into the fold of the sheep, but climbs up some other
way, he is a thief and a robber. But he who enters by the door is a
shepherd of the sheep. To him the doorkeeper opens, and the sheep
hear his voice, and he calls his own sheep by name and leads them
out. When he puts forth all his own, he goes ahead of them, and the sheep
follow him because they know his voice. A stranger they simply will
not follow, but will flee from him, because they do not know the voice of
strangers.”
Listen, please. God LOVES you so much He sent His Son to die your death.
Yet, no one should be surprised to learn how many in the pews AND pulpits DO
NOT know the voice of strangers. Such ignorance was
true in the first century, and it remains true in the 21st. It was
for good reason Jude warned: (Jude 1:4) “For certain persons have crept
in [to the church fellowship] unnoticed, those who were long beforehand marked
out for this condemnation, ungodly persons who turn the grace of our God
into licentiousness and deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ.”
And
Paul warned the LEADERS of Ephesus (Acts 20:29-31a): “I know that after my
departure savage wolves will come in among you, not sparing the
flock; and from among your own selves men will arise, speaking perverse
things, to draw away the disciples after them. Therefore, be on the
alert.”
Listen,
please: Scripture tells us Satan was able to seduce one-third of the
angels in heaven, those who worshiped in their Creator’s very presence, who
lived in the blissful realm of God's eternal glory. He seduced one-third of them to rebel against
their holy Creator. You’ll find that reference in Revelation 12:3-9 and in
other places scattered throughout God's word.
And
since Saten was able to do THAT, don’t think for a moment he is not actively
trying to seduce YOU into the same rebellion – you who have never seen yet the
glories of heaven. And the ONLY, the ONLY
reason he is unsuccessful with you and me is because our God, through His
Holy Spirit, protects our minds from Satan’s most cunning deceptions.
And
HOW does God protect us? By what means? Certainly, it is true that our God does
not permit the devil to test us or tempt us beyond what our Father knows we can
endure. Many of you recognize that promise from 1 Corinthians 10:13 – “No
temptation has overtaken you, but such as is common to man; and God is
faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but
with the temptation will provide the way of escape also, so that you will be
able to endure it.”
But
I believe, and I teach, and I preach that the primary method God
uses to provide us His spiritual and supernatural protection from theological
errors that lead a person away from salvation – that method is through and by God’s
fully inerrant, fully infallible, and fully inspired word, which we call the
Bible.
It
is no surprise, then, that the Psalmist wrote: (Psalm 119:9, 11) “How can a
young man keep his way pure? By keeping it according to Your
word. Your word I have treasured in my heart, that I may not sin against
You.” Later in the same psalm he wrote: (Psalm 119:105) “Your word is
a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.”
Nor
are we surprised that Paul, the former rabbi and Pharisee, instructed his protégé,
Timothy: (2 Timothy 3:16-17) “All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in
righteousness; so that the man of God may be
adequate, equipped for every good work.”
“Training
in righteousness.” It is for that
PROTECTIVE training that God gave us teachers to help us understand things
that, at first, are confusing. Listen to Paul again: (Ephesians 4:11-14) “And He gave some as apostles, and
some as prophets, and some as evangelists, and
some as pastors and teachers, for the equipping of
the saints for the work of service, to the building up of the body of
Christ; until we all attain to the unity of the faith, and of
the knowledge of the Son of God, to a mature man, to the measure of
the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ. As a
result, we are no longer to be children, tossed here and there by
waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, by
craftiness in deceitful scheming.”
There
were in the first century, and in every century since, various winds of
doctrine thought up by the trickery of men, by craftiness in deceitful
scheming. Such as – and I will cite only a few because the list of ancient and
modern false teaching would fill a college semester course:
Gnosticism
in its multiple forms is one false teaching. Gnostics believed and modern-day
Gnostics still believe that the created world and all things in it are evil.
Only God, who is spirit, is good. Jesus was a created Being who was spirit and
only appeared to inhabit evil flesh. Gnostics also believed and believe
that salvation is possible only through a knowledge of their secret teachings which
is known only by a select group of ‘enlightened’ teachers. Many modern-day New
Age teachers fall into this category.
The
Judaizers of the first century was and remains another false teaching.
Judaizers taught that salvation is possible only through following the Law,
along with its hundreds of legalistic minutiae. Some of you have come out of
churches where strict adherence to their church’s rules is vital to salvation. Other
churches that fall into this heresy are those which teach that good works and
good efforts CONTRIBUTE to salvation.
But Scripture is superbly clear – while good works are important to the
Christian life, it is only and exclusively our faith in Christ alone whereby
God imputes to us salvation. Indeed, Scripture tells us that if we seek to be
justified by our works, we have fallen from God's grace. You will find that
reference in Galatians 5:4.
Arianism
is yet another false teaching. Like the Gnostics, Arians taught that Jesus was
the highest and greatest of God's creation, but a created Being, nonetheless.
Modern-day Jehovah’s Witnesses and the original Mormons fall into this category
of heretical teaching.
Finally,
for our purposes here, was and is the modern heresy of Chrislam. Chrislam is a syncretism
– a blending – of Christianity and Islam. Pope Francis is a proponent of the
merging of the two. But I will tell you as clearly and as kindly as I can,
Islam and Christianity have absolutely nothing in common as it relates to God,
to Jesus, and to eternal life. Islam makes no secret about its view of Jesus.
To Muslims, Jesus is NOT Jehovah God in the flesh. To them, the idea of the
trinity is blasphemy. In their theology, Jesus did not resurrect from the dead.
And
so, we will stop there with the ancient and modern false teaching because I
think the point is made. God tells us to follow Him and only Him through His
inerrant and infallible word and taught by godly and well-schooled pastors and
teachers. I will say it once again for emphasis: Only by following God's word can
we find spiritual protection from error.
“Be
on your guard.” St
Peter wrote, “so that you are not carried away by the error
of unprincipled men and fall from your own steadfastness, but
grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.”
(2 Peter 3:14-18)
So,
I will say it once again for emphasis: The Holy Spirit uses the Scriptures to
protect those who follow Christ from the theological errors that will result
in eternal damnation.
And
while I am on this vitally important subject of knowing and obeying God's word,
I want to remind you of my ‘2+2 = 1+3’ method of Bible reading.
If
you read only two chapters of the Old Testament every day – takes about 10
minutes or so on average, and you read two chapters of the New Testament every
day – takes another 10 minutes or so on average – then you will have read the
entire Old Testament once in a year and the New Testament THREE TIMES in a
year. Thus the 2+2 = 1+3. There are dozens of annual Bible reading plans on the
internet. I have given many of you my own annual plan to try.
For
as long as I have been here at Ashwood Meadows as your pastor, I have striven
to help everyone grow in their faith and remain on the narrow road that leads
to eternal life. I do not want anyone to fall prey to liars and false teachers
who want to steal your soul.
God
called Abram – and Abram followed because he knew – if nothing else but intuitively
that God had the words of eternal life. He followed God because He knew – if
nothing else but intuitively that the One who spun worlds and galaxies into
place would shield him and his family with divine protection from spiritual
error.
Divine
protection. Do you want God's divine protection from spiritual error and danger?
Then follow the voice of the Shepherd. It is NOT enough to read daily
devotional booklets like Daily Bread and The Word Among Us.
Yes,
those publications have their place, but they are NOT a substitute for reading
the Bible itself. If you have to choose because of time constraints or physical
limitations between the Bible and a devotional booklet, you are significantly shortchanging
yourself if you choose the devotional over God’s word.
Someone wisely said, “The Bible will keep you from sin, or sin will keep you
from the Bible.” God gave us His word and He calls us to follow His word
because it is in following His word that we are protected from straying onto
the broad road that leads to destruction.
For
good reason the Lord warned those who followed Him in that first century: (Matthew
7:24-27) “Therefore everyone who hears these words of Mine
and acts on them, may be compared to a wise man who built his house
on the rock. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds
blew and slammed against that house; and yet it did not fall, for it
had been founded on the rock. Everyone who hears these words of Mine and
does not act on them, will be like a foolish man who built his house on
the sand. 27 The rain fell, and the floods
came, and the winds blew and slammed against that house; and it fell—and great
was its fall.”
Some
of you remember the song we taught our children – and they are good lyrics for
adults to put into daily practice: “Read your Bible, pray every day, and you’ll
grow, grow, grow.”
Next week we’ll look at
only one more reason to follow Him – that being the incalculable honor and
privilege of working with God in His vineyard.
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