TIGHTENING THE BELT OF TRUTH
Posted by Pastor Greg Allen on January 21, 2024 under 2024 |
Bethany Bible Church Sermon Message from January 21, 2024 from Ephesians 6:10-13
Theme: As Jesus’ followers, we must make sure we’re girded securely with the belt of God’s unfailing truth.
(All Scripture is taken from The New King James Version, unless otherwise indicated).
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A few weeks ago, we began looking at the very important ‘final’ section of the Book of Ephesians.
We found that, after having laid out before us all of the rich spiritual treasures that are ours through a relationship with Jesus Christ—and after having then urged us to rise up and ‘walk worthy’ of our high calling in Christ—the apostle Paul concluded it all by reminding us of the seriousness with which we’re to embrace all these things. He wrote, in Ephesians 6:10-13;
Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord and in the power of His might. Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places. Therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand (Ephesians 6:10-13).
Paul encouraged us to remember that we live this wonderful, blessed Christian life in the midst of a hostile spiritual battlefield. We may not wish to be in one. We may prefer to live the Christian life in peace and ease. But we don’t really have that choice. So long as we walk with our Savior in this world, we walk with Him while under fire. A fierce adversary threatens us, and he runs a vast organization of wicked spiritual beings that would destroy us if it could. Our Savior has already won the war for us; and so, the victory is sure and certain. But unless we take up the armor that God has provided for us in this present time, we personally will not stand in the battle and will suffer loss.
And so Paul urged us to take up all that God has provided for us; so that when the time of intense attack is over, we will still be standing firm with our Lord. Paul went on to write;
Stand therefore, having girded your waist with truth, having put on the breastplate of righteousness, and having shod your feet with the preparation of the gospel of peace; above all, taking the shield of faith with which you will be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked one. And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God … (vv. 14-17).
Each piece of this spiritual armor is absolutely essential. All of the various pieces are related to one another, and we’re urged to take up ‘the whole armor’—without ignoring a single piece of it. It’s very much worth our time then to examine each piece of armor individually, and to understand how it—along with all the others—protects us from our enemy’s attacks.
And so; this morning, I ask that we begin by examining the first piece of the armor that Paul mentioned—the ‘belt’ of truth. “Stand therefore, having girded your waist with truth” … (v. 14).
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Now; today, we don’t think of a belt as an essential part of our apparel. We’re accustomed to wearing relatively tight-fitting clothing. For many people nowadays, belts are hardly more than fashion accessories. They aren’t necessarily worn to … well … do what belts are ordinarily expected to do.
But in ancient Eastern cultures, the common form of dress was a flowing robe or a long open tunic with holes for the arms and head to poke through. Those kinds of garments, by themselves, were fine for normal, casual, everyday life activities. And so, when a belt was worn back then, it served a very important and practical function. If someone had serious work to do—or even if they had a long distance to walk—the edges of those flowing garments would flip and flop and get in the way. And so, the open end of the flowing garment was typically pulled up from the bottom and tucked up into the belt—leaving the legs and arms free and unencumbered. This was typically called ‘girding up the loins’ because a person’s loins were considered the ‘working’ part of the body. (A slightly similar idea today would be when we say, ‘Let’s roll up our sleeves and get to work’.)
Think of the Old Testament prophet Elijah. Elijah was an amazing man. God worked so many astonishing miracles through him that he would have almost seemed like a kind of superhero. At one point in his ministry, God allowed a terrible drought to come upon Israel. Elijah told King Ahab that the drought was about to end, and that he should jump on his horse and ride quickly away before the rain stopped him. But God also sent Elijah ahead of Ahab to the valley of Jezreel; so that when Ahab arrived, he would—to his surprise—find the prophet Elijah already there. And so, 1 Kings 18:46 tells us that “the hand of the LORD came upon Elijah; and he girded up his loins”—that is, he tucked the open end of his tunic up into his belt—“and ran ahead of Ahab to the entrance of Jezreel.”
To ‘to gird up one’s loins’, then, was symbolic of the idea of preparing one’s self to do some serious work—and to get all encumbrances out of the way in order to freely move around effectively. The apostle Peter once used it as a figure of speech for becoming serious about our faith in the Lord Jesus. He—just like Paul—wrote about the rich inheritance we have in Jesus, and then said;
Therefore gird up the loins of your mind, be sober, and rest your hope fully upon the grace that is to be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ … (1 Peter 1:13).
It was a call to tighten up the loose ends in our thinking and believing, to do some hard work in our understanding of our faith, and to make sure that we have our hope fixed on our future glory in Christ. And the same kind of idea is going on in what the apostle Paul tells us in our passage this morning.
But Paul makes this idea even more serious to us in that he associates it with the idea of a soldier fighting in the midst of battle. For a soldier, a belt wasn’t just a luxury item or a fashion accessory. It was an essential and life-preserving piece of battle armor. Obviously, a soldier going into battle—and particularly into possible hand-to-hand combat—couldn’t afford to have his garments flopping around loosely. If he was in any way encumbered by his garment, it could easily cost him his life. And so, for a soldier, a belt was essential in order to ‘gird’ himself for battle. What’s more, other pieces of armor were held solidly in place by that belt. His breastplate, which was crucial to his protection from direct bodily attack, was usually fixed onto his belt in such a way as to be kept in place—tight and secured—preventing it from coming loose in battle or from exposing any openings by which an enemy could strike his vital parts. And his belt also held his sword at his side, so that it was always available and kept within easy reach of his hand.
And so it was the image of a soldier—with a belt tightened up in place to keep everything secure and to allow for full freedom of motion—that Paul had in mind when he wrote, “Stand therefore, having girded your waist with truth”
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Dear brothers and sisters in Christ; after having given much thought to what this verse is telling us, I find it very hard to stress the importance of it enough. It’s brought a great deal of conviction to my own heart; and I hope that—by God’s enabling help—I can express to you how crucial of an exhortation I feel that it is to us.
We live in serious and spiritually dangerous times. The Bible warns that “in the last days perilous times will come” (2 Timothy 3:1). And it warns us of the nature of those times; that people will no longer be willing to listen to truth. Instead, they will make up their own versions of ‘truth’ according to their own fleshly desires; and will gather teachers to themselves who will tickle and flatter their ears. The Bible tells us that they will make a dreadful choice to “turn their ears away from the truth, and be turned aside to fables” (4:4).
I cannot say for certain that we’re living in those ‘last days’. But I feel very sure that we’re living in perilous times with regard to ‘truth’. They’re times that seem very much like the days that the Bible describes. These times are, without question, being manipulated by the ‘father of all lies’—the devil. And unless we are faithful to do what the apostle Paul urges us to do in this passage—and to keep ourselves properly ‘girded about the waist’ with truth—we won’t stand in the day of battle.
So then; let’s begin by considering …
1. WHAT WE’RE TO BE ‘GIRDED’ WITH.
As Paul tells us, “Stand therefore, having girded your waist with truth”
Now; what exactly is “truth”? Have you ever tried to define it? It’s not an easy thing to do. It doesn’t count to say, “Well; truth is that which is true;” because that still leaves the definition incomplete. If ‘truth’ is defined simply as ‘that which is true’, then we still have to define what it means that something is ‘true’.
I think that one of the most remarkable questions ever asked on planet Earth was the one asked by the Roman Governor Pontius Pilate. In John 18:38—during his interrogation of Jesus—he famously said, “What is truth?” But I don’t believe he was asking it as a philosopher. He wasn’t asking because he sincerely wanted to know the answer. I think he asked it because he was a cynical man—a political leader—who had to listen to other people’s versions of truth so much that he wasn’t even sure anymore that there was such a thing as truth. He asked the question as if to say, “Please don’t talk to me about truth. All I ever hear is ‘spin’. All I ever hear are other people’s versions of ‘truth’—or rather, their ‘perversions of truth’. Do you talk to me of ‘truth’? Well; what is truth? Where is it? I sure don’t see it.”
And yet, what made this cynical question so remarkable was that there—standing right in front of him—was the very One who had just shortly before that time declared, “I am the way, the truth, and the life” (John 14:7). Pilate thought of truth as a thing that was frustratingly out of reach. And instead, it turns out that truth is a divine Person that can be known through a relationship of faith.
Given this ‘personal’ aspect of truth, I have sought to give an objective definition of what it means for something to be ‘true’ in the sense that the Bible speaks of truth. It seems like a pretty ambitious thing for a country preacher to try to do. But let me share with you the best explanation of it that I can come up with. Truth is that which conforms to God our Creator in terms of His mighty works, His perfect will, and His revealed word. The only Perfect being is God our Creator; and so, what He does is ‘truth’, what He wills is ‘truth’, and what He speaks is ‘truth’. Therefore, if we want to know truth, we must know Him; for something is true only to the degree that it conforms to Him and is subject to Him. As the Lord Jesus once said to His Father in prayer, “Your word is truth” (John 17:17).
And dear brothers and sisters; this means that ‘truth’ is a very holy thing. It’s that which conforms to and is an expression of God Himself. He is its source. It’s not something that we created beings should ever disregard, change, or reject. We must never say, “I have my truth, and you have your truth;” because to say that would be to commit a form of idolatry. There’s only one truth—and it’s that which conforms to the God who alone is true.
Paul mentions ‘truth’ in several places in his letter; and in all of those references, we see that it’s an objective, personal, knowable thing that points to God as its source. For example, near the beginning of this letter—in Ephesians 1:13—the apostle Paul wrote to his brothers and sisters about Jesus, and said;
In Him you also trusted, after you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation … (Ephesians 1:13).
One very important way that the truth is objectified for us then is through the gospel concerning the person and work of Jesus Christ. The good news about Jesus is truth. God is truth and His word is truth; and so the good news about the divine Person who was sent into this world to reveal Him to us—His Son Jesus Christ—is truth. In 4:21, Paul wrote how important it is that we believe in Jesus as we have been taught about Him in the gospel;
if indeed you have heard Him and have been taught by Him, as the truth is in Jesus … (4:21).
What’s more, in Ephesians 4:14-15, Paul let us know that ‘truth’—as it’s embodied in the Person of Jesus—isn’t just a subjective feeling. It’s an objective and propositional thing that we can know, and speak about, and declare to one another. He warned about how we are to no longer be swayed by the lies of this world;
that we should no longer be children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, in the cunning craftiness of deceitful plotting, but, speaking the truth in love, may grow up in all things into Him who is the head—Christ … (vv. 14-15).
And in a similar way, he said in 4:25;
Therefore, putting away lying, “Let each one of you speak truth with his neighbor,” for we are members of one another (v. 25).
And what’s more, truth not only comes to us from God the Father and through God the Son, but is also expressed in us also through God the Spirit. In Ephesians 5:9, he wrote;
for the fruit of the Spirit is in all goodness, righteousness, and truth (5:9).
So; that’s what truth is. It is that which conforms to God in terms of His works, His will, and His revealed word. It’s put on display to us through His Son Jesus Christ, and it is lived out in us through the Holy Spirit. And this not only helps us to understand what truth is; but it also helps us to understand what a lie is. A lie, in the most fundamental sense, is that which is contrary to or in defiance of the works, will, and word of God. Satan established the whole program of ‘lying’ in the garden when he asked that fateful question of Eve, “Has God indeed said …?” God had told the man and the woman that if they eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil they would surely die; and Satan put forth the greatest lie of all time when he said, “You shall not surely die …”
And it all flowed downhill from there. Think of what it tells us in John 3:18-21. We all know what it says in John 3:16-17 about believing on the Lord Jesus and being saved. But it then goes on to say—perhaps in the very words of the Lord Jesus Himself—
“He who believes in Him is not condemned; but he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. And this is the condemnation, that the light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. For everyone practicing evil hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed. But he who does the truth comes to the light, that his deeds may be clearly seen, that they have been done in God” (John 3:18-21).
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So this is the nature of ‘the belt’ with which we are to be ‘girded’. It is ‘truth’—that which is in conformity to the work, the will, and the word of God our Creator. It’s objective. It’s propositional. It can be spoken and declared. And it is personal in that it can be known by having a relationship with Him who is truth. We grab hold of ‘truth’ through faith and obedience. We must not dare try to enter into the battle against the father of all lies without having fully taken up the belt of truth.
And then, notice from this verse …
2. HOW WE’RE TO SECURE OURSELVES WITH IT.
It’s a strong and descriptive way of putting it. We’re to ‘gird ourselves’ with it. As Paul says, “Stand therefore, having girded your waist with truth”
We’re not just simply to pick up this belt and fling it over our shoulder in an indifferent manner. We’re not to simply carry it around without thinking about it. We’re not just to keep it somewhere nearby—so we can run and get it whenever we might need it. Rather, we’re to wrap it around ourselves tightly and keep it in place. It’s to circle around and encompass our very person. We’re to have it all around ourselves—and have it fixed upon us so tightly and so securely that it cannot be removed from us by the enemy. It’s to gird us up so completely that it brings the whole of our life together into a compact whole—so that we’re never left unprepared or disarrayed. We must be solidly girded—bound up and held together—by truth.
Different people have interpreted this in different ways. Some have suggested that ‘girding our waist with truth’ means being truthful and honest and sincere in our daily living. I certainly believe that. As Christians, we obviously must be ‘true’ in the way we live. Others say that it means that we must be ‘sincere’ in our battle for the faith—that we must be ‘all in’ in order to win. And I certainly believe that too. We must be ‘true’ soldiers in the battle. Still, others say that it means that we are to have our doctrine and our theology straight and orthodox and biblical—that we must believe in a ‘true’ way. And obviously, I believe that too. But none of those other interpretations sufficiently capture, in my mind, the idea of what it means to intentionally ‘gird our waist with truth’. I believe it means that we’re to be so committed to God in terms of His works, His will, and His word—so committed to remaining firmly attached to those things—that nothing will ever be able to separate us from them. In battle, we are so ‘girded in truth’ that we will lay down our lives for it rather than ever deny it.
Dear brothers and sisters; I can’t stress enough how important I think this is right now—particularly in the times in which we’re living. We’re living in days in which people all around us demand that—in order to live peacefully in society—we must conform with and live according to blatant lies. We’re being told that it’s okay to believe in God if we want to believe in Him in our homes, or up in our private room somewhere, or behind the closed doors of a church building. But once we walk out into the everyday ‘real’ world, we’re told that we had better behave as if the God of the Bible doesn’t exist—or that if He exists, He has never spoken or has made Himself known. We’re told that we must behave as if there’s no ‘one single truth’; but rather that there are many ‘truths’—as if one person can have their ‘truth’, and another person has their ‘truth’; and all people are free to live according to their ‘truth’; and no one has the right to say that there is ‘the’ truth.
You know this from experience. I genuinely wonder if we’re living in a time that is unparalleled in history. Some writers and commentators have begun to call ours a ‘post-truth culture’. We’re living in days in which we are told that we all must agree to things, say things, and accommodate things that we all absolutely know—with all our being and all the powers of sound reason and logic—simply do not represent reality In fact, the people who tell us to say things that are not true also themselves know that they are not true—and yet they demand that they be said anyway. We’re being told—and are almost close to being forced—to call people by words that everyone knows does not represent what they really are, or refer to them by names that everyone knows are untrue to what God has made them to be, or to even say that they can do things or be things that every single human being knows is absolutely impossible for them to do or be. Nevertheless, we’re warned that if we don’t support and repeat these lies, we will suffer the loss of our jobs, or the loss of our reputations, or even the loss of our freedoms.
And unless we courageously take up the belt of truth—and gird our waist with it in a whole-hearted, God-reverencing, uncompromising way—we will not stand. If we turn from the God of truth, and submit ourselves instead to the master of lies, we will become the devil’s victims. Without that belt firmly fixed in place, we won’t be able to have the full protection of the breastplate of righteousness—because we’ll have begun to call sin by other names than by what God calls them. Without that belt in place, we won’t be able to grab the sword of God’s word—because we will have allowed its authority to slip from our side. The boots of the preparation of the gospel of peace won’t help us—because, after all, why would anyone believe our declaration of the truth of the gospel anymore if we are willing to compromise with and agree to lies?
We have to be able—in these crucial times—to lovingly but firmly say, “No. I will not call things by names that are not true to what they are. I will not agree to say things that do not represent reality. I will not go along with lies. I will not suppress truth. I will not agree with the idea that one person can have ‘their’ truth, and another person can have ‘their’ truth, and that there are as many ‘truths’ as there are people who want to have them. The God who has made us has declared the one ‘true’ truth. He has declared it in His works. He has shown it in His will. He has proclaimed it in His word. And most of all, He has revealed it to the world in the Person of His Son Jesus Christ. I will wrap that truth around myself. I will let it bring order to my whole being. And I never allow it to be taken off of me.”
Dear brothers and sisters; can you think of very many that the enemy of our souls—the father of lies—would fear more than that?
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And that leads us—finally—to consider …
3. WHAT THE RESULT WILL BE.
The result of keeping our loins girded with truth will be that you and I will ‘stand’. The apostle Paul said in verse 11, “Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil.” In verse 13, he said, “Therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand.” And in verse 14, he puts it very specifically, “Stand therefore, having girded your waist with truth …”
The enemy of our souls has already defeated many who professed a faith in Jesus at one time—but who are living as defeated people who cower under and repeat and celebrate his vile lies today. And the reason is because they would not obey this command and gird themselves tightly with the truth. The devil knows very well that, without the belt of God’s absolute truth girded around our waist, we will easily become his victims. This is as serious a matter to our souls as a thing can be!
Let’s make sure, then, that we faithfully take up this essential piece of armor. Let’s see it as an indispensable part of our battle-wear. Let’s affirm that truth is that which comes from God, and let’s wrap that truth around ourselves so tightly that it cannot be taken off of us. Let’s allow His truth to bring order, confidence, and security to our whole being while serving Him on the field of battle.
And let’s also always remember that we don’t do this alone. We do it along with the very Author and Perfecter of our faith—Jesus Christ. One day soon, He will return to this earth and reign in truth. And it tells us this about Him in Isaiah 11:1-5;
There shall come forth a Rod from the stem of Jesse,
And a Branch shall grow out of his roots.
The Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon Him,
The Spirit of wisdom and understanding,
The Spirit of counsel and might,
The Spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the Lord.
His delight is in the fear of the Lord,
And He shall not judge by the sight of His eyes,
Nor decide by the hearing of His ears;
But with righteousness He shall judge the poor,
And decide with equity for the meek of the earth;
He shall strike the earth with the rod of His mouth,
And with the breath of His lips He shall slay the wicked.
Righteousness shall be the belt of His loins,
And faithfulness the belt of His waist (Isaiah 11:1-5).
AE
