Put on Truth Eph 6:14 14 Stand therefore, having fastened on the belt of truth
Priority of Belt of Truth of truth
It is not surprising the armor begins with truth. In battling the devil, we battle deception and lies. All he does and will every do is based upon man’s willingness to believe his lies. The only remedy for a lie is the truth. (Randell). Truth is the first essential aspect of our ability to stand. Satan is a lair and the Father of Lies (John 8:44) and his lies are only defeated by God’s truth. It is on the “belt” of truth that the usefulness and effectiveness of everything else depends. The signifies unqualified confidence in the truth of Scripture. This is the foundation of everything. (Peter Jeffery). Truth Gk altheia can be translated truth as content, truth as opposed to falsehood, truth as defined as the Word of God, the revelation of God, the content of truth. If Satan attacks me it is incumbent upon me first of all to have the belt of truth. The only way you can resist the falsehood and the lies of the devil is to have the truth. So the basic thing that Satan does is come with lies, with untruths and the believer if he’s going to war must know truth. (Mac Arthur) So here the truth primarily refers to the truth of the word of God. It refers to Christian doctrine or the specific content of God’s revelation in the Bible (Boice). doctrine really known inevitably leads to a life change consistent with God’s character This is put first suggesting that successful spiritual warfare begins with fixing Christianity’s great doctrines firmly in our minds. It is dangerous to rush into battle without having the great doctrines of the faith fixed firmly in our understanding. Without the knowledge of who God is, who we are, what we have become in Christ, and what we have been called to do . . . we will be vulnerable to Satan’s onslaughts and wiles. Christians for the most part have gotten out of the Bible, if indeed they were in it, and they are into everything else; basically, anything besides the word of God. They are more interested and invested in the world then the word. They can tell you everything about someone’s life during the day but nothing from the life of great men of faith in the word. They are worldly wise and illiterate of the word. They let lesser things keep them from mastering the truths that will make us strong for battle (Boice). For there to be victory in spiritual warfare one must come to believe that what God has said is truth. The Bible doesn’t’ just contain the word of God; it is the word of God. (Randell).
Purpose of the Belt of Truth stand
Ex 12 Luke 12:35 Gird up your loins a common phrase for a person taking a journey. girding your loins was gathering up all this loose material so that you could get ready to go. What that means then is readiness, preparedness. The belt was preparedness (Mac Arthur)
Support -The idea here may be, that as the belt was the support of the body, so truth is suited to brace us up, and to gird us for constancy and firmness. The belt kept all the parts of the armor in their proper place, and preserved firmness and consistency in the dress; and so truth might serve to give consistency and firmness to our conduct. A man who has no consistent views of truth, is just the man for the adversary successfully to assail. (Barnes)
Strength – our core To be prepared for action tighten the belt and tuck in the tunic. It provided strength, braced you for action (Borgman) The loins are the chief seat of bodily strength. Job 40:16. The loins are to the body as the keel to the ship. The whole ship is knit to that and sustained by it. And the body is knit to the loins; if the loins fail, the whole-body sinks Deut. 33:11; weak loins and a weak man. If we are a little weary, nature directs us to lay our hands on our loins to sustain them, as our chief strength. (Gurnall) If you are going to stand you must fasten the belt of truth around your core. The truth of God must be the very center of your strength. (1 John 2:14) The word of truth must be the core of our convictions, it must be the core of our conduct. We are not only latching on the word, but the word is latching on to us. We are not only seeking to master the word, but we are seeking to be mastered by the word. If we are going to stand we need to have the word of God in us in our inner most being in such a way that it is the very center of our strength. (Borgman) The Belt braced and strengthened the loins (our core), around which it was attached. In a word, it rendered all compact and firm. A sincere and hearty attachment to truth has a like effect upon the mind. The man possessed of it is at once decided in his choice, and in his measures. He knows what he has to do, and readily sets about it, without hesitation or hindrance. A double-minded man, who is guided sometimes by principle, and sometimes by interest, is unstable and slack in all his ways. He has so many doubts and difficulties, and hopes, and fears, that he can no more move and act with spirit and alertness, than one encumbered with a long flowing robe, in the folds of which the arms and feet are entangled at every moment. The resolutions formed by such a one are weak and feeble, presently shaken and dissolved by every fresh consideration which comes across him. He does nothing, or what is worse than nothing, being generally, in the end, for lack of strength and steadiness, carried away to do what he ought not to do. If he doesn’t know the truth, he is easily prevailed upon to forsake it for something else (home)
Security -our confidence When a soldier would go to battle he would tighten his belt and tuck in his tunic to be ready for battle. There would be no loose ends nothing left untucked for the enemy to grab. The belt prevented the other garments from being in the way (home) The soldier’s belt was essential. It gathered his tunic together and also held his sword. It ensured that he was unimpeded when marching. To ‘tighten one"s belt’ can mean to prepare oneself for action which the ancients would have called ‘girding up their loins’” (Stott p. 277).
Steadfastness – our consistency Nothing but the truth of God clearly understood and cordially embraced will enable the soldier to keep his feet for a moment before these celestial potentates. (Hodges) We can’t stand if we have nothing to stand for.
Procurement of Belt of Truth having fasten
The Gk word perizonnumi here is in the middle voice meaning “having put on’ or “put around”-you do it for yourself - we all have the responsibility to do. (Broadman) The belt is not put on us, we have to put I on, and we have to put it firmly in place. (Lloyd Jones) The battle is a daily struggle and we must daily be prepared for battle. In conflict there is no loosening or laying aside the belt, it must be firmly attached so that when the enemy attacks we will be prepared to respond. It behooves every Christian to be well girt with ‘the word of truth,’ Eph. 1:13.; that is, the truth delivered to them to be believed and held fast Jude 3-4. It should be the care of every Christian to get an established judgment in the truth. The Bereans are highly commended for the inquiry they made into the Scripture, to satisfy their judgements concerning the doctrine Paul preached. They did not believe hand over head, but their faith was the result of a judgement, upon diligent search, convinced by the scripture evidence, (Acts 17:11) It is said there that ‘they searched the Scriptures daily whether these things were so.’ They carried the preacher’s doctrine to the written word, and compared it with that. We should Labor to get a heart inflamed with a sincere love of the truth. This only is able to match the enemies of truth. Rev. 12:11 ‘they loved not their lives unto the death.’ Mark, not to the loss of some of the comforts of their lives, but ‘unto the death.’ Life itself they counted an enemy when it would part them and truth. What we have from God, we cannot keep without God. Keep therefore your acquaintance with God, or else truth will not keep her acquaintance long with you. maintain a steadfast profession of the truth. (Gurnall). The difficulty is you can lose the desire for truth. You can go through the motions. You can be content with mediocrity. You can be content with lethargy. You can be content to just keep your life the way it’s going. You come week after week, go home. Nothing changes. Nothing’s different. Attitudes are the same, reactions are the same. Nothing ever happens. You just come and go, come and go, come and go and the commitment never changes. God help you and help me if that happens. We must be committed to fight. So the first piece of equipment is the Belt of truth and Truthfulness. (Mac Arthur)
Precautions about Truth belt
Compromised truth –Satan desires to undermine God’s character and credibility. He wants you to doubt God. To compromise the truth. That’s the thrust. He did it in the Garden with Eve. “Has God really said,” and then he disputed God’s motive by saying, “Well the reason God doesn’t want you to eat that is because God knows you’ll be like Him and God can’t stand the competition.” In other words, he wanted to ascribe to God a selfish ulterior motive. “You can’t really trust God,” he was saying. “You can’t really believe God. He may say one thing but down deep inside means something else. So His Word is not believable.” “If you deny God His Word you make him a liar.” That’s what Satan wants to do. He wants people to think God is the liar and he tells the truth. So while God tells us He is truth and Satan is a liar Satan tells us he is truth and God is a liar. “You can’t trust God. You have to doubt God. Doubt His Word, doubt His power. As soon as you begin to doubt God and his word at any point in terms of His character or His credibility consider the source (Mac Arthur) Someone comes among us with strong convictions and then begin to become lax in their commitments and convictions. By their actions, they begin to compromise the truth. We ask where are the convictions they once professed with such passion? Where is their commitment to truth? They have removed the belt of the word which holds all things firmly place and replaced with the belt of the world which holds nothing in place and makes us trip up with every step. When truth is no long the central core of your life your commitments and convictions change and then compromise begins. Why aren’t they standing anymore? Why are they following the enemy? Why are they holding to things they never would have held to a year ago? Why are they rejecting things they said they loved? I saw them in worship. Their hands were lifted you. I saw them in Bible study and they knew the answers. Why aren’t they standing anymore? Am I sincere in this warfare? Is there really true truth in my inner most being to say I am a follower of the Lord ? (Borgman)
Counterfeit truth Truth is loved and prized only of those that know it. And not to desire to know it, is to despise it You have, may be, heard of the covetous man, that hugged himself in the many bags of gold he had, but never opened them or used them. When the thief took away his gold, and left him his bags full of pebbles in the room, he was as happy as when he had his gold, for he looked not on the one or other. And verily an ignorant person is in a manner no better with truth than error on his side. Both are alike to him, day and night all one to a blind man. (Gurnall) If you don’t know what the word of God teaches then you will not know when you are being deceived by your thoughts, feelings or emotions and will freely follow them rather than God’s truth in his word. You will be tossed to and fro and lead astray by what appears to be true, rather then what is true. (Eph 4:14, Heb 13:9, Jude 11-13)
Companion truth Some people don’t really want to whole heartedly live for God because they don’t want to lose their friends, they don’t want to move out of the circle they’re in. They don’t want to be thought to be different. They don’t want to have to change their relationships with people. They’re very comfortable with the acceptance they have. They like being liked and they’re just not ready to take a different tack which may alienate them. So, your friend’s “truth” dictates your “truth”. Your “truth” becomes what your friends believe not what God says. We are admonished to let Christ not our companions dictate truth (1 Cor 15:33, Gal 5:7-10)
If ever you will see the face of Christ with comfort at the resurrection —who chose to lose his life, rather than deny or dissemble the truth—stand to it, and flinch not from your colors.’ treasure, which God delivers to his saints, with a strict and solemn charge to keep against all that undermine or oppose it. Some things we trust God with, some things God trusts us with. The great thing which we put into God’s hand to be kept for us is our soul. (2 Tim.1:12). That which God trusts us chiefly with is his truth. . . . as a charge of money to a friend whom we confide in. (Jude 3, Rom. 3:2) If he that is entrusted with the keeping of a king’s crown and jewels, ought to look carefully to his charge that none be lost or stolen, much more the Christian that has in his charge God’s crown and treasure. Rob God of his truth, and what hath he left? (Gurnall)
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