(Armor of God 2) Belt of Truth
Armor of God • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
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Today we continue in our second week of the series entitled The Armor of God.
At the heart of this study lies a central thesis: The Armor of God equips the believer to stand firm against the schemes of the devil.
11 Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil.
To endure and remain standing,
believers must be spiritually clothed for battle,
prepared to resist the schemes of the adversary, the devil.
For we are under attack by a real enemy—
one whose aim is to only steal, kill, and destroy all that is good.
But thanks be to God, He has not left His children defenseless.
He has equipped us with His armor,
so that we may remain standing in victory.
And even when the battle is fiercer than we could ever imagine,
more daunting than we could ever conceive,
we are equipped with the Armor of God to endure every storm and every struggle.
Today we are going to unpack the first piece of Armor mentioned by Paul,
the belt of truth.
10 Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might. 11 Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil. 12 For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. 13 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 firm. 14 Stand therefore, having fastened on the belt of truth, and having put on the breastplate of righteousness, 15 and, as shoes for your feet, having put on the readiness given by the gospel of peace. 16 In all circumstances take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming darts of the evil one; 17 and take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God, 18 praying at all times in the Spirit, with all prayer and supplication. To that end, keep alert with all perseverance, making supplication for all the saints,
I will be unpacking 3 points today about the belt of truth...
The Belt of Truth Holds Everything Together.
Abdu Murry, wrote a book back in 2018 that was title...
Saving Truth: Finding Meaning and Clarity in a Post-Truth World
He articulated the point that in a culture of confusion,
a post truth worldview blossoms greatly.
He explained that at the very heart of a post truth worldview,
is the idea that emotions and feelings take precedence over factual evidence.
Murry wrote,
“In a post-truth age, if evidence fits our preferences and opinions, then all is well and good. if it doesn’t, then the evidence is deemed inadmissible or offensive...” (Murry 14)
In response to the rise of the post-truth age,
Murray emphasizes the church’s role in fostering this climate.
He argues that, corporately, the church has contributed to the post-truth worldview by sanitizing Scripture—reshaping it to sound more appealing and accepting.
Murry wrote,
“Christians have compromised the clarity of Scripture for the sake of acceptance and to avoid conflict.” (Murry 31)
The church, instead of being a lighthouse for truth and clarity,
traded its God-given identity to become a social club.
The church that was meant to bring stability,
and uphold truth in a decaying culture remained silent in order to fill its auditoriums.
Here me today,
When the church is silent on issues of the day,
the world will still continue to speak its message.
Thus, the rise of a post truth worldview,
which took an already chaotic culture,
and placed gasoline on the fires of chaos....
When truth is treated as a shifting construct with no fixed point of reference,
authority is granted not to what is true,
but to whoever asserts their voice the most forcefully.
In such a climate,
the loudest mobs of the moment are often followed—whether willfully or under pressure—producing chaos and calamity beyond what one could imagine.
This chaos,
renders the turbulence of life so severe,
that survival itself may feel unattainable.
When everything is shaken to its very core,
it can seem as though there is no way to remain standing.
But thanks be to God,
that we who are called by the Father,
have been equipped to remain standing in victory,
even in the midst of the greatest turbulence....
The first piece of equipment Paul urges believers to dress in,
is the belt of truth.
This first piece of armor is so vital,
for truth is what holds all things together.
It is truth that secures our faith within the bounds of orthodoxy,
guarding us from error and preventing us from falling into deception.
Clothing ourselves in the purity of truth,
keeps our hearts from wandering into the perversion of truth,
as we remain grounded in the One who is truth—Jesus Christ…
Truth is the glue that holds everything together.
When we begin to compromise truth,
the elements that were once securely bound start to loosen,
and what was once stable begins to fall apart...
In the last decade we have seen many people in the church start to deconstruct their faith.
(What do you mean?) [replacing scripture with philosophical ideologies of the day?]
1 Now the Spirit expressly says that in later times some will depart from the faith by devoting themselves to deceitful spirits and teachings of demons,
The deconstruction movement is fundamentally about departing from the faith,
in order to devote oneself to teaching that is contrary to Scripture. (Deception)
I find it interesting that in my experience of viewing deconstruction take place,
is the reality that the biggest problem they have in Christendom,
is the exclusivity of Jesus being the only way of salvation.
Deconstructionist have taken an offense to the Christian foundational belief that Jesus is the only name by which we can be saved.
This is a pivotal point that they get hung up on…
And I would hope they are intellectually honest enough to wrestle with this question:
Will I follow the authority of Scripture, or will I follow my own emotions?
In other words,
will I fall into a post truth worldview,
or will I stand on what the Word says?...
At the end of the day,
you cannot accept the teachings of Jesus if you do not accept His claims...
C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity,
“A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic—on the level with the man who says he is a poached egg—or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse. You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.”
Peter said this to the Jewish religious leaders....
11 This Jesus is the stone that was rejected by you, the builders, which has become the cornerstone. 12 And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.”
Peter understood the exclusivity of Jesus because He knew what Jesus said....
6 Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.
Charles Spurgeon writes,
When Jesus said, “I am the Way,” He clearly intended to exclude all other ways, so beware lest you perish in any one of them!
A. W. Tozer writes
Christ is not one of many ways to approach God, nor is he the best of several ways; he is the only way.
Do not put on an imitation belt of truth.
Do not settle for a counterfeit that may feel more comfortable or even look more appealing.
Instead, clothe yourself in the genuine belt of truth—the one that keeps you firmly standing on God’s pure Word….
Because when I fasten on the belt of truth,
my faith holds firmly in place.
When my faith is firmly secure in truth,
I am battle ready to fight freely.
The Belt of Truth Holds Everything Together.
The Belt of Truth Brings the Freedom to Fight
When Paul wrote this nearly 2,000 years ago, men wore long, flowing robes;
thus, for a soldier to move freely in battle, the belt was imperative.
In the same way,
when Christians fasten on the belt of truth,
we are able to move freely in battle to destroy the schemes of the devil.
However, when we do not fasten on the belt of truth,
we are set up to stumble and fall in battle.
I am convinced that the devil’s primary strategy against Christians,
is to lead them—often unknowingly—to remove their belt of truth,
so that he can replace it with the heavy yoke of bondage.
1 Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us,
It is impossible to run effectively,
when I am carrying unnecessary weight.
In the same way it is impossible to fight the battle effectively,
if I have things in my life that are constantly tripping me up and weighing me down...
The devil, described in the Gospel of John as the father of lies,
is a master at leading us into deception through his falsehoods…
The first time we see the devil at work in Scripture is in Genesis...
1 Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the Lord God had made.
He said to the woman, “Did God actually say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree in the garden’?”
16 And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, “You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, 17 but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.”
The greatest lies ever told in the history of mankind are those that come closest to the truth.
Deception is most effective not when it is blatantly false,
but when it is interwoven with just enough truth to appear credible.
This was the serpent’s strategy in the garden,
twisting God’s words so that Eve began to question what the Lord had commanded.
By doing so,
he planted a seed of doubt in what was true,
and directed her attention toward that which would lead to her fall.
With her perception of truth obscured by the serpent’s cunning,
she saw the fruit—and Genesis records that it was “a delight to the eyes.”
This is consistent with the devil’s methods:
after all he never tempts us with that which is unappealing.
Moreover, when Satan tempts, he does not reveal the ultimate consequences of the temptation.
It is not as if he showed Eve the effects of her disobedience,
nor the ramifications it would have for all of humanity.
So Eve ate of the fruit, and then Adam also ate of it.
In that moment of rebellion, sin entered the world.
The devil’s plan was successful,
because his goal is to destroy that which is good…
God’s good creation would now experience the affect of the sinful fall of mankind.
It is in this moment after the fall,
when shame immediately overtook and overwhelmed both Adam and Eve.
They ran and hid from God,
because they lost the freedom they once had.
When they gave their ear to the serpent instead of God,
they experienced the sharp sting and deep weight of shame…
For the devil,
shame is the perfect place to hold God’s children away from the battle.
When we fall into shame,
we fall away from the battle we are supposed to be fighting.
Through the devil’s temptations,
his goal is to draw us away from the truth,
so that we become ensnared in his web of lies...
But it is when I am living in truth,
I am not held captive by Satan’s schemes.
The belt of truth brings freedom in my life,
propelling me to fight with purpose,
and to remain standing firm in battle.
31 So Jesus said to the Jews who had believed him, “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, 32 and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”
It is the freedom Jesus gives to his children,
that I am able to fasten on the belt of truth,
equipped to stand ready for this spiritual war.
It is the freedom of living in truth,
that I am able to be battle ready for any fight that comes my way.
It is when I am living in truth,
that I am not restricted by shame,
but free to swing my sword to destroy the schemes of the devil.
The Belt of Truth Brings the Freedom to Fight....
The Belt of Truth Holds Everything Together.
The Belt of Truth Brings the Freedom to Fight
3. The Belt of Truth Must Be Worn, Not Just Known
22 But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves.
We can be deceived into thinking that knowledge of truth,
is equal to living in truth.
In other words,
I can have a lot of knowledge about God,
but still not have know God.
I can have knowledge of truth, but still not live in truth.
Let me put it this way...
there is a big difference between...
having life in Christ vs having knowledge of Christ.
17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.
11 And this is the testimony, that God gave us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. 12 Whoever has the Son has life; whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life.
In the garden stood side by side
the tree of knowledge of good and evil and the tree of life.
The temptation can be to strive for intellectual head knowledge about God and His laws,
and thus eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil.
All the while, the tree of life stands forgotten,
because we have filled ourselves with knowledge and are satisfied with only knowing about God...
To eat from the tree of life
is to fasten on the belt of truth
and embrace the truth of the Good News of Jesus Christ.
To eat from the tree of life
is to know the Author of the Way,
the Author of Truth,
the Author who gives Life.
Therefore, don’t be satisfied with only having knowledge of truth,
but rather, fasten on the belt of truth.
May the belt of truth hold your faith secure,
that you may wage war against the schemes of the enemy.
May the belt of truth give you the freedom to stand firm for God today.
May the belt of truth be fastened tightly,
knowing there is life in the One who is Truth,
knowing there is life in the One who makes the way to the Father,
knowing that life is provided by the One who called you from death to life.
His name is Jesus, and He is the foundation of Truth!....
The Belt of Truth Holds Everything Together.
The Belt of Truth Brings the Freedom to Fight
3. The Belt of Truth Must Be Worn, Not Just Known
Close with this...
Iain Duguid writes,
The Bible gives us truth with which we can answer the devil and thus stand firm against his schemes. But like a belt, in order for that truth to do us any good, we have to bind it around us afresh every day. Our hearts are leaky containers, constantly losing our hold on the truth. Day by day, we need to refill our mind with a fresh measure of God’s truth, revealed in the Scriptures, so that we will be equipped to stand against Satan’s lies.
To know truth is to know God,
To know God is to know His Word.
