We must have a massive truth-based weapon against the accusations of the devil and the accusations

of our own conscience and the accusations of people, unless we just cash it in and say

there's no hope in living the Christian life, so I give it up.

What truth-based weapon has God given us to fight the accusations of the devil?

John Piper answers that critical question in this episode of Light and Truth.

The sermon was originally preached at a 2002 ministry gathering in Venezuela.

The foundation I'm going to start with and then move on is justification by faith alone

on the basis of Christ alone.

The reason for starting there is that I'm not here to try to enable you to live at a level

of constant and uninterrupted soaring to glory, simply because I don't think it has been

ordained by God that Christians be enabled in this fallen age to live like that.

There are some groups that think you can, they tend to be more perfectionistic than others,

but my graph of the Christian life is not like this, but like this, like that, and therefore

I'm very eager to help you handle these because I think normal Christian living is not

a steady state soaring, but rather a coping with, a fighting against, a triumphant making

your way through dark seasons, back up to where you wanted to be, and maybe even a little

higher.

Now the doctrine of justification by faith is glorious, not just because it is the most

precious truth about how to move from being under the wrath of God as a sinner to being

in the favor of God in an instant by faith alone at conversion, it is precious because

it is the means by which we make it through the worst times of our lives.

The doctrine of justification by faith is precious as an ongoing weapon in our mouths

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