Zadok Discipleship Course - Armed for War
41
The Belt of Truth - Pt. 1
The Armor Is Revelation - And Offensive
Ephesians 6:10-14 • Hosea 4:6 • The Gates of Hell
Before we examine the individual pieces, we must settle a foundational principle: each piece of the armor is a revelation. It is only put on by entering into the experience and manifestation of that revelation. The belt, the breastplate, the helmet, and the shield are not imaginary objects strapped on in your mind - they are living spiritual realities you walk in, or you do not have them.
Not a lack of effort. Not a lack of sincerity. A lack of revelation knowledge. When you lack the revelation of a piece of the armor, you cannot walk in it. And when you are not walking in it, you are not wearing it - no matter how many times you have confessed it.
The Armor Is Also Offensive
Each piece is both an offensive and a defensive weapon. The way most of us were taught, the armor is purely defensive - as if it only protects us from what the devil throws at us. But you cannot win a war from a purely defensive posture.
Dr. Morris Cerullo asked a military general why, with all of America's might, they could not simply win the Vietnam War. The general replied: "We are not here to win. We are only here to hold the line, to keep the North Vietnamese from taking the South."
That defensive-only posture cost them the war.
Too many Christians are living in a purely defensive crouch - just hoping to get through the week without another major attack. Taking shots all day and calling it survival. But that is not what God called you to.
Jesus said the gates of hell shall not prevail against you. Have you ever seen marching gates? Gates do not march. We are the ones who are supposed to march right to the gates of hell and kick them down. That is an offensive strategy. It is time to stop waiting to be attacked and start taking the battle to the devil's doorstep.
Fill in the Blanks
Girding Up the Loins of Your Mind
Ephesians 6:14 • 1 Peter 1:13 • The Creative Center of Thought
Paul says to gird your waist - or in the King James, "gird your loins" - with truth. The word "gird" means to be firm-footed, to support, to tighten. It speaks of an unwavering, unshakable position or stance.
The loins are the reproductive parts of the body - the part that creates life. Paul uses this physical picture to describe a spiritual reality: the belt of truth supports and protects the creative parts. God is a creative God. He has given us the same creative capacity in the realm of our minds.
Peter connects the phrase directly to the mind. The loins of the mind are your imagination - the part where thoughts run, where concepts develop, where visions and dreams take shape. That is the creative center of your thought life. And that is exactly what the belt of truth is designed to protect and fortify.
The enemy has been targeting the imagination - wrecking it with fear, with lust, with lies, with dark imaginations. God says: I have given you a weapon for exactly that battle. It is the belt of truth. Shore up the creative parts of your mind with truth. Reinforce your imagination with truth. If your thinking is rooted in truth, you will not fall.
Fill in the Blanks
Truth Is Absolute, Not Relative
The Mack Truck Illustration • Relative Truth in the Church • The Movie Trilogy Account
The vast majority of the younger generation - including Christians - do not believe in absolute truth. They believe truth is relative: "my truth." The devil has been deliberately fostering this philosophy. Because if he can remove your belief in absolute truth, he can render the belt of truth powerless. You cannot gird yourself with something you do not believe in.
The Mack Truck test: Stand in front of a Mack truck going one hundred miles an hour and decide in your mind that it won't hurt you. Your opinion is irrelevant to the physical law of impact. When that truck hits, you are finished. Truth operates the same way. Whether you believe in hell or not does not affect its existence. Whether a generation decides sin is acceptable does not make it so.
If someone decides their "truth" is that they can harm whoever they want, you immediately say: that's wrong. In that moment, you are agreeing that there is something absolutely wrong regardless of what anyone feels about it. You already believe in absolute truth. You just don't want to apply it consistently.
God spoke about a particular movie trilogy about to be released: "This movie carries a spirit that will cause people to question reality."
Many went anyway. Some returned and reported finding supposed "Christian themes." God responded: "Son. I have given My prophets eyes to see realities in the spirit realm that others do not see. And My people need to come to a place where they trust what I speak through My true prophets, even when they do not personally see what the prophet sees."
We are happy to receive a prophecy about our blessing, but we resist the prophetic voice when it calls us to separate from something we want. That is the fruit of relative truth operating in the church - embracing the Word when it serves us and questioning it when it costs us something.
The fundamental question in this battle is not "What do I think?" or "What do I feel?" It is: "What is true?" My opinions mean nothing. Your opinions mean nothing. Our opinions are subject to the deception of our own hearts, the conditioning of our culture, and the influence of the enemy. Only God's Word is truth. Only that.
Fill in the Blanks
Truth Is a Person - Not an Abstract Concept
John 14:6 • John 16:13 • Psalms • Christ as Truth Itself
All God's work is done in truth (Ps. 33:4). His truth is your shield and buckler (Ps. 91:4). His truth endures forever (Ps. 117:2). Truth has power to atone (Prov. 16:6).
The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of truth (John 16:13). Jesus did not say He speaks truth - He said He is truth (John 14:6). Truth is not abstract. Truth is a Person.
Jesus did not say He speaks truth. He said He is truth. This changes everything. Because if Christ is truth, then truth is not something floating abstractly in the universe, available to whoever constructs their own version. Truth is a Person. And you either know Him or you don't. You are either in union with Him or you are not. Outside of Christ, there is no truth.
The belt of truth is not just a commitment to accuracy or a rejection of falsehood. It is a revelation of Christ as truth itself. You put this piece on when Christ as truth becomes living reality in you - when you no longer filter life through your opinions, your culture, your feelings, or your experience, but through Him alone.
"The posture of the person wearing this armor is: God, not my way but Yours. Not my will but Yours. Not what I think is right, but what is true. Show me. Reveal truth to me. I will humble myself before it, yield to it, and walk in it."
- Dr. Steve FossFill in the Blanks
The Word Is Truth - Its Power and Promise
John 17:17 • Hebrews 1:3 • Isaiah 55:11 • John 8:32
The word "sanctify" means to set apart unto God - set apart from the world, from sin, from sickness, and from death by the power of His truth. Jesus identifies that truth with His Word. The Word of God is not merely a book of moral principles. It is the living expression of Christ who is truth, and it carries the same power.
Jesus is upholding everything in the universe by the power of His Word - holding galaxies in their orbits, keeping planets in their courses, maintaining the physical laws of all creation. That same Word God wants written on your heart. When it is written there, it will uphold, maintain, guide, and propel you the same way it upholds the universe.
The Word of God always accomplishes what it is sent to do. It is so powerful that it can create and destroy. Nothing can stand in the way of the Word of God when it is released in faith by someone walking in the revelation of truth.
Note the precision: it did not say truth will make you free in some abstract, general sense. It said the truth you know - the truth you have received by revelation, embraced, yielded to, and walk in. Wearing the belt of truth on your head like osmosis does nothing. Only the truth you have entered into through revelation - the truth that has become experience and manifestation in your life - rises up as a shield, gives power, and shores up every other piece of the armor.
Without the belt of truth, nothing else will stand. All truth will endure forever, because truth is Christ, and Christ is eternal. When we are conformed to truth, we are conformed to Him - and that conformity carries us into eternity.
Fill in the Blanks