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Sermon #4227

Things to Avoid

A Sermon on Ephesians 6:10-13

Originally preached Dec. 10, 1961

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Scripture

Ephesians 6:10-13 ESV KJV
Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might. Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil. For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against …

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Sermon Description

Faith means believing the word, and therefore, acting. In this sermon on Ephesians 6:10–13 titled “Things to Avoid,” Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones gives this strong call to action and urges Christians to rid themselves of passivity. Spiritual health includes positive and negative aspects, including taking in what is beneficial and avoiding what is not; avoiding dissipation of energy such as zeal without knowledge, talking too much, or vain arguments; and acknowledging that activities must be thoughtful, disciplined, governed, and directed. A person must sit down to determine what can be done and what can’t. Through too much talk, people find themselves in spiritual trouble. However much one argues about truth, if one is not growing by it, do it less. The test of everything must be: is it profitable to one’s own soul and to other people? He calls the listener to avoid enervating atmospheres, including spending too much time in worldly, unspiritual company will dull one’s spiritual edge and waste vitality. He also encourages avoiding foolish talk and jesting, bad company, and polluted reading; making no provision for the flesh to satisfy its lusts; keeping watch over thoughts and imaginations that can be evil; and avoiding Christians who don’t believe that the Bible is the authoritative word of God. A life will go wrong if the doctrine is wrong and this is a main cause of decay in the church today.

Sermon Breakdown

  1. Be strong in the Lord and in the power of his might.
  2. Put on the whole armor of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil.
  3. For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.
  4. Wherefore take unto you the whole armor of God that ye may be able to withstand in the evil day. And having done all to stand.
  5. Here is the first great thing we've got to grasp in this struggle, this conflict, this wrestling against the devil and all his powers arrayed behind him.
  6. And there's nothing more important, therefore, than for us to understand what this means.
  7. And we've been taking time to do this, showing that it isn't a doctrine, teaching some kind of passivity, which just tells us that we hand it over and just wait and watch for the victory that is won for us.
  8. We have seen rather that it is an exhortation to us to act with all our might and main, realizing that we can only be empowered and enabled by the power of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ.
  9. And last time we tried to show by a number of illustrations, particularly from the scriptures, how this works out in practice, that faith means that we believe this word.
  10. We therefore act, as our Lord said to the men, with a withered hand, who couldn't move his hand at all, stretch forth thine hand.
  11. The men made the effort and found he could do it. So this great principle here works in actual daily practice, so that there is therefore an adequate explanation.
  12. In that way, the command carries implicit in it this enabling power, and therefore we must rid ourselves of any notion of passivity and of doing nothing and of handing it over, a false notion of the rest of faith.
  13. The rest of faith means that you rest in the word of God, that you have faith to believe that as your day, so your strength will be that you are to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, because you know that it is God that worketh in you both the will and to do of his good pleasure.
  14. Very well now, and we've been seeing how, therefore, the thing for us to concentrate on positively is the realization of the power that is given to us.
  15. In the rebirth, a seed of life with power and life and vigor in it. We must see to it that this grows and develops. We do so by taking the appropriate food. Here it is drink, prayer, exercise, practice, doing the work and so on.

The Book of Ephesians

Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones

Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones (1899-1981) was a Welsh evangelical minister who preached and taught in the Reformed tradition. His principal ministry was at Westminster Chapel, in central London, from 1939-1968, where he delivered multi-year expositions on books of the bible such as Romans, Ephesians and the Gospel of John. In addition to the MLJ Trust’s collection of 1,600 of these sermons in audio format, most of these great sermon series are available in book form (including a 14 volume collection of the Romans sermons), as are other series such as "Spiritual Depression", "Studies in the Sermon on the Mount" and "Great Biblical Doctrines". He is considered by many evangelical leaders today to be an authority on biblical truth and the sufficiency of Scripture.