As discussed in the previous chapter, the
helmet is designed by God to not only defend our head against temptations from
Satan and our own flesh, but to also bring us the hope that comes from our
salvation. Just as Satan tries to damage and render ineffective the other
pieces of our armor, his hostility towards our helmet is no different.
He will put all his effort
into trying to cause us to sin as he wants us to question whether we have truly
received the gift of salvation. He will whisper into our ears that if we are
truly God's child, we wouldn't have contemplated his temptations, and certainly
wouldn't have succumbed to them, therefore the only conclusion we can reach is
that we are still lost, and not a child of God's as we had thought. He wants nothing more than to have us
question our walk with God and to feel such shame and guilt as we conclude we
are lost, that there is no remedy for what we have done, and to have us live in
despair and hopelessness.
He is certainly delighted
when he has been successful in tempting us to sin because it gives him the
courage to stand before God, acting as our accuser and judge, demanding that
God punish us and turn His back on us as we are not worthy of God's mercy. Job
was a man who was righteous in the sight of God, yet Satan tried several times
to prove to God that in his heart of hearts Job was only righteous and served
God because of how God had blessed him (Job 6:1-12). This is his attitude towards
all of God's children, and he is obsessed with seeing us disgraced and rejected
by God.
Gurnall tells us, "The
devil is delighted if he can cause saints to sin, but he glories most when he
can lay them in the dirt in their Sunday clothes and make them defile their
garments of salvation. If he succeeds, he tries to insult God by showing Him
what a predicament His child is in and holds up the Christian's assurance for
the world to laugh at. After Satan has thrown the Christian into some filthy
sin he asks God, 'Is this the
assurance You gave him of heaven - and this
the garment of salvation You put on him? Look where he has laid it - and what a
mess he has made of Your grace.' We
tremble at the thought of putting such blasphemy of our living God into the
devil's mouth!"
If Satan can't get us to sin,
he will go after the sense of hope that we have acquired since becoming God's
child. He sets his plans and lays his trap with the intent to destroy our joy
and our hope for the future. He would see it as victory indeed if he could have
us constantly struggling with feelings of sadness and fear. However, he is willing to accept only a small
victory if he can get us to live with a weak sense of hope and a small degree
of anxiety.
Satan aims his arrows
straight at your hope. He wants you to spend useless time wondering if your
sins have truly been forgiven. Maybe you have issues with lust, jealousy or
envy, so in these areas he wants you to believe you'll never get victory over
them. If you suffer from affliction, he has you focus on wondering how long you
can possibly endure under such a burden.
He loves to get us to worry about issues for which there seems to be no
remedy, or those things that seem to have no end in sight. His hatred for us
knows no bounds, and he is overjoyed if he can get us to the point where we
feel so utterly hopeless that we begin to question if there's any point in
praying or spending time with God after all, when there seems to be no hope for
us anyhow.
We must not allow the enemy
to weaken our hope as it not only allows worry and anxiety to enter into our
hearts and minds, but because our hope is the very thing that will help us bear
up under temptation and affliction! Gurnall
tells us that our hope will be severely tested, but not just by Satan, but by
God Himself. "God Himself tells us
that we have 'need of patience' - and He means stored-up patience (Hebrews
10:36)...And if this is true of patience it is also true of hope, because
patience bears everything on hope's back. Now because we never know how much
affliction and temptation God intends to lay on us, we must never stop trying
to strengthen our hope. There are hard duties to be performed and strong trials
to be endured which require a proportionate (equal amount) hope. We are told 'But
Christ is faithful as the Son over God's house. And we are His house, if indeed
we hold firmly to our confidence and the hope in which we glory' (Hebrews
3:6)."
Even though Satan will try
whatever means are at his disposal, with the Lord's help and our using our
helmet of salvation, we can thwart any of his attempts. Gurnall gives us
several ways that we can use to strengthen our hope, which will help deflect Satan's
attacks.
First, by diligently studying God's Word, the Bible. Gurnall tells us,
"The Christian is bred by the Word and he must be fed by it or his grace
(hope) will shrivel up and die...the Scriptures provide nutrients for the
saint's strong and solid hope...The devil knows this so well that he works hard
to deprive the Christian of the help stored in the Word." Gurnall challenges us to consider if we are underutilizing or wrongly applying God's Word. Are we too lazy to
read and search the Scriptures for what we need, as this plays into the
enemy's hands as we slowly starve ourselves from the very thing that would feed
us spiritually.
Then there are those Christians who have accepted Satan's false
applications of the Word and thereby have troubled spirits (e.g., the name
it/claim it/faith teachings where you are sick or financially in trouble
because you lack faith). Gurnall
warns us that we need to make sure that we have not been manipulated by others
in such a way that the Word no longer strengthens our hope, but actually deprives
us of the rights we have as Children of God to utilize our helmet of salvation
and the hope that comes with it.
Second, we need to live godly
lives so as to keep our consciences pure. If we are careless in how we live, it
has a direct impact on our hope and we find our hope faltering. "All sin
brings fears and shakings of heart to the person who tampers with it. But sins
which are deliberately committed are to the Christian's hope as poison to his
body, which eventually drinks it up. Sins produce a lifeless Christian and make
thoughts of God dreadful to him...Faith and a good conscience are the two wings
of hope. If you have wounded your conscience by sin, renew your repentance so
that you may act in faith for the forgiveness of it and redeem your hope.",
says Gurnall.
Third, being God's children
we simply need to ask God to give us more hope. When Paul was in Rome he
encouraged the saints there when he said, "May the God of
hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may
overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit." (Romans 15:13). God
is the God of hope.
Fourth, we
need to grow in our love for Christ and remember His love for us. The more we
love Christ, the stronger our hope becomes as we find our comfort and hope can
only come from Him. Since fear cannot tolerate love, Christ's love will not
allow any fear to come into its presence as fear tears away at any sense of hope we possess. There can be no room
for doubts of God's love for us. "The loving soul asks, 'Can I fear the
One who loves me most will ever hurt me? Fear and doubt away with you! There is
no room for you in my heart'.", says Gurnall.
Fifth, we need to exercise our hope. Reminding
ourselves of God's promises brings hope to the weary spirit. When Satan comes
to rob us of our hope, he often brings doubt along with him because the
combination of the two causes the greatest harm. Our soul can feel so
overwhelmed by this attack, especially if we are holding out hope for something
that we are waiting upon, that we can begin to question if we truly deserve to
have the very thing we hope for!
Satan will try to convince us that we are
unworthy of hoping for anything but we must cling to the same words that God
gave to Abraham when he promised that even in his late years he would have a
son. God added, "I am the Almighty
God!" (Genesis 17:1). God was
strongly proclaiming that He is the Powerful, Holy, Omnipotent, Almighty God
and if He said it was so, then there was no other power, in heaven or on earth,
that could undo or undermine His promise. When we read any promise we need to
remember the One who has made it!
Lastly, it is our recalling
of past mercies that strongly rekindles our hope. Think on those times that you
feared for the future or felt remorse over past sins and the sense of grace
that suddenly swept over you and showered you with love and forgiveness. When
our hope is at a loss, and we question our very salvation, we simply need to look back and remember what God has already done for us!
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