The Belt of Truth

The Armor of God

So how do you take an idea or a concept that is hart to picture in your mind and describe it to another person? Pau had this problem. He wanted to talk about something that was critically important to the christian life, something that every christian should know and understand and make it real and easy to understand for his audience. Being a great teacher Paul decided to use an object lesson. He chose something that everyone there was familiar with, something that they had probably seen that very day, in fact they may have been able to see it even as he spoke.

What did he use, what example did Paul use to make a theological concept into something solid that they could hold on to, Paul used Roman armor.

Ephesians 6:10–18 NKJV

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. 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; praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, being watchful to this end with all perseverance and supplication for all the saints—

Today I want to look at just the first part of the armor. Now if I had been writing this I probably would have started with the helmet of salvation. After all we tell people that the first thing you have to do is get saved. Of course I would have been wrong. No one gets saved without first hearing some truth.

Remember when you got saved. Someone may have told you that God loves you and that is true, you may have been told that Jesus died for you and that is true as well, someone may have told you that you had a problem, that you were a sinner, that you needed to find a way to fix your sin problem. You may have attended church or a bible study or for a while and heard a good bit of truth before you were willing to accept it, or maybe you talked to a friend or even a stranger several times who shared truth with you.

However it happened you had to have heard some truth before you got saved. You had to at least know who Jesus was and what He did for you and that you needed his help, you needed to be saved. So truth does come first.

in fact truth comes even before that, even before we knew about it, even before mankind existed. many times the bible refers to the holy spirit as the spirit of truth, Jesus says that He is the way, the truth and the life and no one comes to the father except through him.

when talking to Pilot in the Gospel of John Pilot asks Jesus if he is a king trying to find out if Jesus is a threat to the Roman emperor, listen to Jesus’ relpy

John 18:37 NKJV

Pilate therefore said to Him, “Are You a king then?” Jesus answered, “You say rightly that I am a king. For this cause I was born, and for this cause I have come into the world, that I should bear witness to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth hears My voice.”

If Jesus would say that he was born and came into the world to testify to the truth then that makes it seem like truth is pretty important doesn’t it. Who is it who hears the voice of Jesus everyone who is of the truth. how much more basic to the faith and how much more important can you get than the reason that Jesus was born and the reason he came to the earth, to testify to the truth.

So Paul used a simple belt to remind of how foundational truth is, he related it to a soldiers belt. Now a belt in those days was a little different than what they are today. I wore a belt today with my dress clothes and its main purpose is to look pretty and to hold up my pants but the belt of a Roman soldier was different.

A belt was a place to store your stuff. A soldier wore his sword on his belt, he carried a water skin, like a canteen in case he got thirsty. On a march he might have a pouch that held the food for a midday break. It was common to carry a purse in those days which was usually a leather bag that tied at the top and those ties were tied around your belt, that is where the term cut purse came from, thieves would literally cut your purse away from your belt. A belt was for carrying the things a soldier might need at a moments notice so that they were ready to hand.

a belt in those days was much like this tool belt. It has pouches for nails or other items one might need to work on a house or some other project. It might have loops for a hammer, for you younger folks that’s an ancient form of nail gun, or it might have a spot for a tape measure or a screw driver, that’s an antique screw gun for you youngsters. It is designed to have a place to carry anything you might need.

so how does that relate to the bible and what Paul was talking about. Well truth is the basis for every belief you have about God and every promise that God has made to man. When a carpenter loads his tool belt he tries to carry the things he may need for the job at hand. The right tools and the right materials so that everything is right there when he needs it. In fact most carpenters have often used a tool that is not very well suited to the job at hand when they already own the exact tool made for that job because they had the other tool with them and decided to make due rather than have to go back to the truck or back to the shop for the perfect tool for the job. We tend to use the tools that we have prepared and put in our tool belt even if they are not perfect for the job rather than taking the time in the middle of a job to stop and go look for another tool.

So lets apply that to you christian life. Right now we are sitting in an air conditioned building with good lighting and padded seats and we have a good opportunity to load our belts with truth. Someone had gone to the trouble to make our environment comfortable and someone has helped prepare our minds and hearts with music and song, most of us probably had breakfast and we have set this time apart as a time that we will devote to God and the things of God. This may well be the time that we are best prepared to receive truth. To add another tool to our belts, to make sure that we have all the tools that we need loaded up in our tool belts and that we know how to use them and that they are ready to hand.

There will come a time when you need to rely on the truth of God. Maybe you will be having an innocent conversation with a friend about work, or a about the last ball game and the conversation will somehow turn to God, maybe your friend will ask you why you believe in God or why you go to church, or maybe you will get a chance to share the plan of salvation with them. At that point it is a little late to start looking up bible passages or to call your preacher and ask him what to say, you need to have some answers right there handy. You need to have already thought about why you believe in God and why you go to church, you need to be able tell somebody how to get to heaven now while you have the chance. You need those tools in your belt.

Like the carpenter who is on a ladder holding up a two by four with his shoulder on one side and his off hand stretched out to hold the other side now is no time to realize you brought the wrong nails, once you are on the ladder trying not to fall while holding a board with the top of your head you don’t care if its a 16 penny nail or a ten penny nail you just need something to hold it up there, in a pinch you might even hammer a screw in with a hammer just so you can get it tacked in place and then come back later to nail it in permanent.

the same thing happens in life. When your son asks you why you believe in God instead of Mohammed you are most likely to go with the answer you have ready rather than admitting that you don’t have a good answer. Sometimes that answer is something like, well I just always have or I was raised that way, maybe that is why so many of our kids have turned away from the faith. That is the time to pull out the truth of sin and how we are all sinners, the truth of how much God loves us and how he gave his only begotten son to die for our sins, how Jesus has paid the price for us and how anyone can be saved if they believe put their trust in Jesus, confess with their mouth and believe in their heart that he is lord.

when someone you love gets terribly sick or dies it a hard time to start looking for comfort and peace. Just the other day I was eating dinner with my son and his wife got a text from a friend asking for verses that would be a comfort to someone who was dying. It is hard to stop when someone you care about is sick or dying and have a bible study about the love of God. When things go wrong in your life it is hard to find the truth of God’s love and God’s provision. The truth of God’s love is not that bad things never happen, or that God eliminates all pain and makes everybody happy. The truth of God’s love is that we live in a fallen world and terrible things do happen and when they do God will never leave us or forsake us. When those terrible things do happen you need to have the truth of Gods love right there with you, you need to have already thought about it and meditated on it and have it right there hanging on your belt of truth so that you can whip that truth off of your belt and depend on it to get your through the tough times.

When the financial crisis hits or the job is lost or the house burns down no one really feels like getting into a deep theological discussion about God’s provision and about the how God can let bad things happen and still love us and provide for us. When your world is falling apart it is not the time to begin to wonder what the bible says about money or about charity, when things fall apart we only want help. There are times in every Christians life when we might be tempted to thing that God has forgotten about us or that we don’t matter to God, neither of those things are true but if we don’t have the truth of God close to hand during those tough times where will we find peace and comfort.

Now is the time to load up your belt of truth with the tools you need to make it through the hard times, the lean times, the times when inflation is up and gas is high and grandma is sick. Those times are coming. They might be here faster than you think.

One of the truths that I keep on the front of my belt is the truth of peace. God’s word talks about a peace that passes understanding. To be at peace when everyone else is stressed, to be at peace when you should be stressed, to be at peace when it makes no sense to be anything but upset. God says we can have that kind of peace, it comes from knowing that God is in control and that God loves us, it comes from knowing that no matter what happens in this life I will live eternally with Jesus in a perfect, sinless world, it comes from knowing that the creator God of the universe loves me enough to give his very life for me, that He is all powerful, that he is all knowing, that he is completely in control and that he loves me and has my best interest in his mind and his heart when he decides exactly how things will be. That is the truth of God and it is the most important weapon in my arsenal, it is the support for all of the gifts and abilities I have been given, it is the proof of ever promise God has ever made, it is the certainty that I am loved by the most powerful being in the universe. It is truth ............ and I depend on it.