Soldier No.2 The Belt of Truth

This is number two in the series The Christian Soldier, given by Tony Sargent, entitled The Belt of Truth. Now let's turn again to the letter from Paul to the Ephesians and from the 13th verse of the 6th chapter. I would like to say that there are other books in the Bible besides Ephesians, just for those who are curious.

But it's through Ephesians that we can pour a lot of the teaching of the rest of the Bible and discover the sharpness and definition that Ephesians gives. Just how wondrous is the inspiration of Scripture that we can call so many texts to confirm what Paul is saying here to the church in his day, and by extension, because the Bible is always up to date to ourselves today. Well then, Ephesians 6, 13, Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything to stand, stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace.

In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God, and pray in the Spirit on all occasions with kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the saints.

A great American preacher, a contemporary, Dr. Wiersbe, who now has something to do with Back to the Bible broadcasts on Transworld Radio, has gone on record as saying this, that the Christian life is not a playground, it is a battleground. The Christian life is not a playground, it is a battleground. And he has supporting evidence to make that assertion from these verses in Ephesians 6. This sort of P.S. that the apostle puts to the tail end of his letter, which becomes very vital when you consider it, because it describes for us the sort of attitude that we ought to have as we make our way through this world.

We are soldiers of the Lord Jesus. General Booth was quite right in many senses in emphasizing this at the turn of the century, which gave birth to what one of my lads wrongly referred to in an answer to an examination question when I was in school as the starvation army. He gave birth to the salvation army, and the idea of us as soldiers is a concept that's undergirded time and time again in Scripture.

We are engaged in a war, verse 12 chapter 6, our struggle is not against flesh and blood, or as the A.V. puts it more powerfully, we wrestle not just against flesh and blood, but hideous principalities and powers, an unseen enemy that causes the apostle to tell us that when the day of evil comes, verse 13, we are to put on the full armor of God. The thought that he repeats repeats from the 11th verse, and as I showed you last week, this armor of God is indeed, as the description indicates, something that is divinely provided. Look, for example, at the third verse of 2 Corinthians and chapter 10, for here the apostle once more makes plain the nature of our warfare.

Though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds, and so forth.

Well, I said last week that the classic example of a Christian soldier is none other than our Lord Jesus. He is the captain of our salvation, and when he came into this world, immediately the struggle begins. Herod and his colleagues want to ensure that the contender, as they understood it, to the throne born in Bethlehem, is not allowed to survive, thus the massacre of the innocents.

And shortly after our Lord commences his public ministry at the age of 30 or thereabouts, we find that all hell is let loose, from the waters of the Jordan to the wilderness he goes, from the baptism to the buffeting, and Satan comes along and struggles with our Lord Jesus. And we discover that the armor that the Lord Jesus had, spiritually speaking, was more than sufficient for him to be able to resist the forces of the enemy, as the devil flung himself time and time again on the Savior. Now, you remember David, the king, or prior to being a king, when he was caught up in a particular conflict, when he suggested that he might be the one who would go down the valley of Eilat and fight Goliath, so the existing king, somewhat stupidly, said to David, well look, if you're going to do this, then take my armor, put it on.

And David, you can imagine that this scene must have been hilarious. David, just a teenager or so it would seem at the time, trying to put on the cumbersome armor of a physically mature man. And David, realizing the absurdity, says, I can't put it on.

Why not? Well, I haven't proven it. I haven't been able to show its value for me. And now I want to say to you, my friends, this morning that that's not our embarrassment.

You see, the armor that is ours, the armor that's made available to you, to me, as we make our way through the warfare of this world, is trusted armor. It's none other than the armor of our Lord Jesus Christ, the armor of God. And the thought is sustained prophetically in Isaiah 59, when reference is made to the one who will bring salvation to the world in these terms.

Verse 16 of Isaiah 59, he, God, saw that there was no one, and he was appalled that there was no one in the world to intercede. So his own arm worked salvation for him, and his own righteousness sustained him. He put on righteousness as his breastplate, and the helmet of salvation on his head.

He put on the garments of vengeance, and so forth. So the point that I've tried to make clear is this, that this armor that we're looking at now in detail is tried and trusted armor. It's what's necessary for you.

I put it to you that you cannot be a successful Christian unless each day of your life you make a deliberate effort to put on the full armor of God. Six pieces there are, not that it's necessarily an exhaustive list, not that the description is perhaps complete that the apostle has as he puts this piece of reasoning together, but here are the main defenses of the Christian. And he starts by directing our attention in verse 14 to the belt.

Stand firm then with the belt of truth buckled around your waist. Well what I want to do for a moment is just to show you what this derives from, what's the origin of this term, that the belt of truth. It seems to me that unless you understand the visual aid that Paul has in front of him, because he's in jail remember, verse 30 tells us this, does it not, or earlier in the, not verse 30, verse 20 in chapter 6 tells us that he's an ambassador in chains, he's in a dungeon, maybe he's actually manacled to a Roman soldier, that's the visual aid you see.

Here is this man and he's captive, or so it would seem, he's defenseless, or so it would appear, but Paul says no, he says inside I have an armor that is every wit as good, indeed it is superior to the armor that the Roman soldier has. So Paul uses the Roman as a visual aid, all the Ephesians would understand what he was getting at. We living 2,000 years on have to do a little bit of study and ask ourselves, well what is this, what is this belt? This, this, this belt that obviously goes around the waist, why was it so important? Well the derivation of this, or a study of its origin, brings out two things.

First of all the priority of that piece of armor, and secondly its purpose. The priority? Well you can't think of the thin belt that I've got here, it's a much wider belt that they used to put on it for the Roman army, and the belt would come right round the waist and also right round the loins. Why? Well for this reason, you see in those days it was common for men to wear loose-fitting garments.

Now that was very sensible, it still is today in the, in the Middle East, it still is in India. A long-flowing garment, it helped to ventilate the body, so to speak, to stop the heat being so intense, and when it was cold, to keep out the cold. A most remarkable thing.

Why men gave over and started to wear trousers, I don't know, but they did. But you see, one of the problems of the loose-flowing garment that men used to wear in those days, was if you were in a hurry. Then you had great problems.

Try to run in a maxi skirt. I've never had the opportunity to demonstrate it, but I'm told that it's fought with difficulty. So what does the soldier have to do? The sound of the bugle goes, he moves into the area where the rest of the men are coming, he's preparing himself for battle.

What does he do? He takes the belt and he puts it round his waist, he puts it round his loins, and then had him buckle the belt. He takes up those fragments of cloth, which would impede his progress, and he pushes them down around the belt, so his legs are freed, and he has a mobility that he didn't have before. I'm all in favor, because statistics indicate that it's a right thing to do, to put your seat belt on in a car.

And yet there is an argument against wearing the seat belt. What is that? Well you see, when you're in a car with a seat belt on, and you've got the wheel, you feel that much more secure than you did without the seat belt. With the net result that seat belts, it is argued, it's a minority opinion, but it is argued, can contribute towards accidents if you increase the speed.

Now it's quite right to say that if you feel, I use the word deliberately, belted up in your car, then you're much more secure. And if you feel secure, you feel confident driving. But we come back to this Roman soldier.

Here he is, and we find that he's got his belt on. We find that his, the trailing cloth has been put into the belt, so that his progress is unimpeded, and now he's able to move. You see, it would be ridiculous to pick up the shield, until he'd done this.

Or the sword, until he'd done this. Or indeed the helmet, or the shoes. It's vital that he uses the belt, it's fundamental, it's not just ornamental.

You get belts today that are ornamental, don't you? They don't really serve a purpose, apart from enhancing your sense of dress consciousness, as it might be. But this is not cosmetic, this is absolutely fundamental. Now the idea of girding up your loins, it becomes quite common in Scripture, alas, its meaning has been lost as the NIV and more modern versions of the Bible have tried to update it, just to make it meaningful to those who haven't gone into the origin of the term.

Here is our Lord, and in the Gospel of Luke, He is endeavoring to ensure that His disciples are ready to move out and witness for Him. And so in the 32nd verse of Luke's Gospel, He has this to say, "'Do not be afraid, little flock, for your Father has been pleased to give you the kingdom. Sell your possessions and give to the poor.'" In other words, get ready.

Get ready for what? Well, get ready for My service. And He goes on in verse 35 to say, "'Be dressed, ready for service, and keep your lamps burning.'" Now that's rather an anemic attempt at translating in the NIV, translating the expression, "'Gird up the loins, the loins of your dress. Be at an attitude, in an attitude whereby you can serve Me.'" That's what the Lord is saying here.

It's exactly the same phrase that the Apostle Paul uses in Ephesians 6. You get perhaps even a more clear example as you move to Peter, the first epistle of Peter, and the first chapter. Once again, the authorized version makes the literal translation, "'Gird up the loins of your mind.'" But here in the NIV, you get this, "'Therefore prepare your minds for action. Be self-controlled.

Set your hope fully on the grace to be given you when Jesus Christ is revealed.'" So you see how Scripture uses this very term, taking it from the Roman soldier. Here he is, alert. The day of battle is imminent, and he's prepared.

Now, says the Apostle, you too, you Christians there in Ephesus, you Christians who will read this epistle down the centuries, learn from the Roman soldier. The belt, it's most vital for you to continue as a Christian in the 20th century. Well, that was the derivation.

That is where the terminology originated. But let me move on for a moment, and perhaps more simply, to describe for you the designation of the belt. What is it implying? Well, the Apostle makes my task very easy, because he gives us some understanding.

"'Stand firm then with a belt of truth buckled around your waist.'" Obviously he's not being literalistic. He doesn't expect us all to go and get one of these little belts and don the garment of a Roman soldier. That would be absurd, wouldn't it, for us to think that way.

But there is, within what he says, within his illustration, a very vital and a sustained principle. That if you're going to be a Christian, and successfully negotiate the devil and the wilds, those fiery darts that he throws at you, then this you have to be engaged in. And that is, belting yourself with what Paul calls, truth.

Now what does he mean? The commentators have a field day at telling us what he doesn't mean. Commentators often confuse me in the reading of Scripture. There are those who were saying, well, you know, later on he deals with the sword of the Spirit, that's the Word of God, therefore this can have nothing to do with the Word of God at all, this belt of truth.

And so we get the idea of truthfulness, and sincerity, and integrity, as though we buckle this around ourselves. Martin Lloyd-Jones demolished that idea. You see, you can't just trust yourself, can you? I cannot trust the sweetest frame, but holy rest on Jesus' name.

I mean, David in the Old Testament, he was a good soldier, spiritually and also literally. But there was a time when David, a man of then integrity, allowed his integrity to fall apart, as he engaged in an adulterous relationship with Bathsheba. No, I dare not trust my own, this cannot have anything to do with my personal integrity.

However much I might work at it, there'll always be flaws, there will always be defects. I can't believe that the central part, the fundamental aspect of my armor, is my own integrity. It must be something stronger, more reliable than that.

So what is this belt of truth? Well, it appears to me that it's nothing more than the full revelation of the Christian gospel. You see, later on we're going to be talking about the sword of the Spirit, and the sword of the Spirit is the Word of God, and we've got obvious illustrations flowing through our minds of the sword of the Spirit being used. Here's Jesus in the wilderness, the devil comes along and tempts him.

What does Jesus do? Well, he takes from the general deposit of truth one particular text, and he applies it to that situation. He takes from the deposit, he moves from the objective truth of Scripture, and he selects one verse which will do to slay the devil's attempts at him at that point. Now that's what we've got to do, but later on we'll come to this, the actual use of Scripture.

Here I'm arguing that when you put the belt of truth on, when you gird yourself and you're ready for battle, the belt of truth is none other than the total revelation of Jesus Christ to the world as contained in Scripture, if you like, the whole counsel of God, the whole counsel of God. Here is our Lord Jesus. I demonstrate the point, and let's go to John's Gospel.

And he's talking about those who are his disciples, valid children of God. Now there were those Jews who believed, this is John 8, I remind you, there were those Jews who believed in the Lord Jesus. They were of minority opinion, alas in Palestine in his day.

Now how do we know that a person is a follower of the Lord? Not because he is a Jew per se, because as I've indicated many Jews alas did not subscribe to what Jesus taught. But here Jesus puts down the definition, the line of demarcation. It's very clear, it's very straight, it's obvious to all who will look at it.

John 8, 31, to the Jews who have believed him Jesus said, if you hold to my teaching and you are really my disciples, then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free. See the idea of freedom in movement? What gives me freedom as a Christian soldier? Well embracing the truth. I put on the belt of truth.

I subscribe to the, to the essentials of the Christian faith. Let me demonstrate this for you even further. Here is the Apostle Paul, and he is affirming his belief in the literal resurrection of Christ.

I'm now going to 1 Corinthians and chapter 15. The whole of this chapter, it's one of the most glorious chapters in the New Testament, and it has to do with the resurrection of the body that you and I will experience at the return of the Lord Jesus, and the first intimation that the body will be resurrected with the literal resurrection of the body of Christ. This is why I find such intolerance in my attitude, God forgive me, to those ecclesiastics who dare to suggest that the New Testament does not give witness to the physical resurrection of Jesus.

What on earth do these people do with 1 Corinthians and chapter 15? I ask you, and I ask them, that you will give me an answer. They won't. I just do not understand people who can have the audacity to suggest that Scripture does not attest to the physical, not just the spiritual, the physical resurrection of Christ.

Now here is the Apostle, and he spends all of these verses, how many of them? 58 verses in 1 Corinthians 15, doing just that, and at the end of the chapter, he, having made this great declaration that Jesus Christ is raised from the dead. If he's not, our faith is in vain, it's hopeless. He makes an appeal, his punchline, he puts it in.

Therefore, my dear brothers, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Move you from what? Well, move you from the truth.

Move you from the faith. Dislodge you from believing in the personal, physical resurrection of Jesus Christ. Always appreciate that this is the essence of the gospel.

If that tomb is occupied on the third day, if like John Brown's body, the bones of Jesus are a moulding in the sands of the Middle East, then we have no hope. We have no gospel. We have no weaponry.

We have no army. We are not soldiers. That's what Paul is saying, and he makes it even more plain in the 13th verse of the following chapter.

Be on your guard. See the military terminology. Be on your guard.

Stand firm. Stand firm in what? Well, stand firm in the faith. Once again, you see, it's, he's back to Ephesians really.

It's got the, the imagery of the soldier, the soldier belting himself with what? Well, with truth. Because the truth and the faith are synonymous terms. They refer to the whole deposit of the gospel, as located in the Old Testament and the New Testament.

Be on your guard. Stand firm in the faith. Be men of courage.

Be strong. Do everything in love. I wonder if you appreciate these things, my friend.

Do you realize that as a Christian, there are certain things that are incumbent upon you? You see, becoming a Christian is not just responding to a gospel address, the like of which we have preached at the tabernacle, Sunday by Sunday. It means that, that it goes beyond that. It's not just singing a few hymns, a few choruses, and feeling happy.

I can sing hymns and choruses that have got nothing to do with Scripture and feel happy. I always go over the moon at the last night of the proms. You know, Land of Hope and Glory and what have you.

I should have been born when the British Empire was really at its heyday. I live afterwards and I realize that apart from Ascension Island and one or two more territories, well, we don't have an empire. And all these grand songs, they testify to an age gone by.

I can get moved by that. But you see, we're not just moved at a superficial level, though it's good for our emotions to be aroused. Thank God for our emotions.

They're a God-given gift. But you see, as a Christian, my convictions affect my mind, as well as my emotions. And this is what Paul means when he says, stand firm with the belt of truth buckled around your waist.

Ensure that in your mind, just to push his visual aid now into what he's really getting at, that your mind is immersed in Scripture and you know the truth. Oh, so many people today, they'll tell you that this book is not authoritative. The reason why the Christian Church is in the state that she is in today, I say, is because of that problem.

Where is authority? If it's not in this book, then you'll find it somewhere else. For man was born for certainty. And whether it's a pseudo-certainty that he attaches himself to, or the reality of Scripture, sooner or later you'll find it.

It'll either be the Pope, or the Watchtower Society, or Seung Myung Moon, or Karl Marx, or Sigmund Freud. There will be someone, some being, some organization to which you look for certainty. Man was born for certainty.

And here is the authoritative Word of God. And the Apostle says, you want to be a soldier. Right.

Gird yourself. Get the belt of truth. Buckle yourself into it.

Feel free as a result. Not at the whim, not at the beck and call of the evil one. Realize that you can stand, you can stand firm as a soldier of Jesus Christ, and you can resist the enemy.

Isn't this what Paul is saying in 1 Peter and chapter 5? When in the 8th verse, he makes reference, and I've been here so many times in expanding this passage, to the devil and his wiles. Be self-controlled and alert. Your enemy, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion, looking for someone to devour.

Resist him. How? Well, stand firm in the faith. Because you know that your brothers throughout the world are undergoing the same kind of suffering.

And so forth. Well, I was going to take you into the Old Testament and vindicate my point there, but time is marching on. Let me take you to the last thing that I want to draw to your attention this morning.

And that is what I have called the denigration. The denigration of the belt of truth. It's derivation we've looked at.

Paul has gone to the Roman army for his visual aid, for his graphic illustration. And then he shows us what it's all really designating. Now I want to show you that this belt of truth, all that it stands for, has been denigrated.

What was the plight of Adam? Oh, let me put my question another way. Who was the first person to wear the armor of God? And you say, Jesus Christ. And I argue you're wrong.

Jesus Christ was the first person to wear the armor of God and use it properly. But the first one who should have put on the armor was none other than our forefather Adam. What happened? Well, in the Garden of Eden, God gives Adam idyllic circumstances into, into, in which he's going to live out his life.

He has a partner tailor-made for his requirements. There they were, Adam and Eve, so wonderful. God gives truth to them.

A revelation, a disclosure of himself. The cooler of the day, he'll come down and he'll talk with Adam. He'll talk with Eve.

There are certain prohibitions, not much in the way of law, but there is a law that is imposed upon Adam. There is the revelation of God's will. That wrote you not to eat of it.

And what happens? Well, the belt of truth is put around Adam, but, and around Eve, but the devil comes along and what does he endeavor to do? Unbuckle. Unbuckle Eve, and as a result of her influence have Adam also vulnerable to his fiery dance. You see, even at the beginning of time, this, this teaching was, was so necessary.

Obviously, the metaphor would have been ridiculous to have given to Adam, but in principle, it's all there. The devil comes along. Hath God said? You see, it's the truth of God that's being questioned.

God has not said, from suggestion of error to a flat categorical denial. And Eve takes off the buckle and drops the belt, and so does Adam. And throughout the whole course of human history, there has been a fight on, on the part of the forces of evil over against the forces of righteousness.

Who is the devil? Well, what do you refer to him as? Well, in the, in the Bible studies that I gave you on the devil, I brought you back to Scripture's designation of the devil. He is the father of lies, and he wars against the truth, and so he endeavors to stop you and me from embracing the whole counsel of God, the plight of Adam, the plight that we ourselves also are confronted with as we fall as Adam did. Now, what was the plea of Jesus? Well, when Jesus was praying for the likes of you, uh, for the likes of, of me in, in the high priestly prayer, we, we discover in John's gospel in the, and the 17th chapter, he has this to say.

John 17, verse 16. Speaking of those whom the father has given to him, they are not of the world, even as I am not of it. Sanctify them by the truth.

Your word is truth. What does sanctify mean? Well, well, simply this. Set apart.

May these people be separated for you, and for me, and for the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. Now, how are they to be set apart? By the truth. By admitting to the whole counsel of God.

It's only that that will preserve them in the evil day. So for this, Jesus Christ prays. Now, let's, in my closing couple of minutes, make this very practical.

My friend, do you know what it is to buckle yourself with a belt of truth? Fifteen years a pastor of this church, all right. I can tell you the spiritual casualties that I've had down the years, and always the beginning of their fall, has come through the loosening of the buckle. Not necessarily failure to attend here.

Where they attend, provided it's a bible preaching pulpit, is utterly immaterial. But it's a failure to attend to the truth of God, to the truth of scripture. You see, there are many other options that are available today, in terms of well valid evangelical entertainment, that alas are substituted from a real study of scripture.

But the man who's going to stand in the day of battle will not stand simply because he had a happy glad experience six months ago, or a year ago. After all, I can be elated here on a Sunday, and being in a preacher's depression on a Monday. I can't just trust my feelings.

Thank God, as I've said for my feelings, thank God for emotion. But I need more than emotion to keep me in the day of battle, the day of struggle, the day of conflict, the day that a clean-shaven, nice-looking young fellow knocks on my door, and starts to peddle his literature. And I find that I'm like an infant in a playground, not being able to cope with what he's got to say.

Why can't I cope? Well, because I don't know the truth. I wouldn't get down to a basic ABC study of scripture. I just wanted the beginnings of the gospel to be, to be informed about this.

But I didn't want doctrine. I didn't want what that man was preaching Sunday after Sunday at the tavern. I go, why? Well, it needed concentration.

There were times when I didn't quite understand him, and I wasn't prepared to give the sort of consideration week after week after week, until I come to grips with what he was trying to say. And as a result, I fall. Now, I don't say that just because of my ministry.

I represent any preacher, every preacher. It is absolutely necessary, vital that you know the truth of scripture, that you have the belt of truth upon you. No longer be children, no longer be unprepared, no longer be soldiers ill-equipped for fighting the devil on the evil day.

No, says the apostle, not a bit of it. Rather, stand firm and stand with the belt of truth, buckled around your waist, and ready to take up the breastplate of righteousness. We look at the next piece of the armor on the next occasion I'm privileged to preach from this pulpit.

Now let's go to hymn 379. Sung it once or twice recently. Don't apologize for singing it again.

Sometimes this hymn has been misused. I would go so far as to say that even a great man like Winston Churchill misused it. Speaks not of the victorious British armies, though thank God for the delivery that we are acknowledging during these days.

Having won the war, let's pray that we don't lose the peace. But it speaks of the Christian army, the international body of men and women around the globe who've embraced the truth as it is in Jesus, going on through this life, fighting the fight for him. 379 onward, Christian soldiers.

Amen.