So this morning we turn our attention back to the word of God and rightfully so. We go to Ephesians chapter six. Ephesians chapter six and talking about standing in the evil day. This is the third message. If you haven't had an opportunity to listen to the last two, I would encourage you to go online and do so. There's some important things that we're considering as we work our way through this passage, taking a break from John just for a few weeks to address this. I was going to address this in a probably one Sunday as a new year's message, and it's going to become one of those longer series just to work our way through this. Ephesians 6, 10. Listen to what Paul says as he concludes this letter here written to the church at Ephesus. Ephesians 6, 10. 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 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 the fiery darts of the wicked one, and take the helmet of salvation, 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. We are currently at war. Did you know that? Do you realize this, that you should be aware of this? Or do you have an idea that war is bullets and bombs? A couple of weeks ago, whenever I prayed and asked the Lord to give me direction as to what to share with you at the beginning of a new year, little did I know what was gonna happen just around the corner. I had not even planned at that time to go to Washington, D.C. I knew there had to be a huge effort, and there was a huge effort put forth to steal the election and to deceive large populations of the American public and the world. But I still had some hope. I had some hope for justice, that it would prevail. The evidence was overwhelming. The affidavits were in the thousands of people who had been witness to the greatest crime in history, in America at least. I personally watched votes flip on TV. I just knew that somehow the truth would come out and the courts would bring justice and righteousness would reign. But while some might consider me somewhat pessimistic whenever I consider my eschatology that I believe the church is going to endure a great persecution before the rapture of the church, I was optimistic when it came to our country. There are still millions who affirm a Judeo-Christian ethic, even millions more who are not Christians but believe in God and country. They know that this country was founded on God and his word and believe in it. And I was deeply encouraged to see hundreds of thousands show up at DC and many who affirm what we were doing. Hundreds of tracks were handed out and hundreds of tracks were taken with very little refusal. Many affirm that what we were doing was good and needed. But the last few days have proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that we are in a war for the very soul of this country. We are being attacked from without and within. The truth is being perverted and twisted on a scale that I have never seen before. Having been there and witnessed to what happened, I can actually tell you that what you're seeing and hearing much of on the news, if you listen to a lot of the mainstream media, is lies. Clever technological sleight of hand. Videos are taken in one location at a certain time and then placed on TV to be at another location and claimed to be at a different time. And now there is a great purge happening as I speak. Google, Facebook, Twitter, Apple, and other companies are deleting websites, People's accounts, the liberal leftist propaganda promoting platforms are no longer allowing conservatives to speak their mind. Pages and accounts are being deleted faster than I can count. But more importantly, you need to realize that you're next. They're coming after the Christian. They're coming after the non-inclusive, non-gay affirming beliefs. If you homeschool, soon you'll have to accept the mandate from the state that you need to be taught the state curriculum. Christian schools will be made to change or adapt their curriculum to line up with the public schools. Churches will be next. They'll be told that any preaching against certain sins will be considered hate speech, and they'll either have to shut up or lose their tax-exempt status, or worse, they will be closed down. Just recently, I read an article just this week entitled, We Worship with the Magi, Not MAGA. It was talking about what is known today as Christian nationalism. And what it says is this, as I quote just a portion of the article, it says this, and I quote, though it saddens me deeply, it must be clearly admitted, yesterday's atrocity, referring to January 6th, was in large part brought to us by white evangelical church in America. Now that's written in Christianity Today, a known liberal leftist Christian magazine. It goes on in that same article and says, the emanciated and malformed evangelical political theology got us where we are now. Jeffrey Goldberg describes the insurrection as the capital of the insurrection at the Capitol as chaos rooted in psychological and theological phenomena intensified by eschatological anxiety. He went on to say, the storming of the Capitol cannot be understood outside the heresy of Christian nationalism peddled by the likes of Josh Howley, Franklin Graham, and Robert Jeffries. the unhinged apocalyptic Trump worship of Eric Matassas, the blasphemies of the Jericho March, and the millions of evangelicals who see Jesus as a means to ill-conceived ideas of American greatness. Now, whether you agree with that or not is not my issue. My issue is this. You are being painted as the target. You are the problem. And you are the reason why we have the problems we have in America. And so even though you may not necessarily agree with that agenda and you may have a totally different eschatological viewpoint, you are the target and you are the problem. I am the problem. Someone who stands for Christ, loves God and loves his word and knows that we do believe that yes, God is essential for a country. And yes, we do believe that the commandments of God are essential for a country to operate. You have become the problem in America. We also know just by watching what's going on around us that we should not be surprised that lockdowns will become commonplace and much more severe in the next months ahead. We will experience that churches will be the main target because they are considered super spreaders and they will be asked to shut down and to close. Vaccines will be mandatory in many places to fly, to travel, or to move from state to state, and to work in certain places, or to go to school, or to hold church. ID cards will be given to everyone who gets a vaccine, and eventually you may be arrested, as is the case in New York, if you do not have the vaccine, or you are showing signs of sickness, and you may be arrested and quarantined for who knows how long. The new president and vice president and their administration will work very hard to undo everything that President Trump did. Executive order after executive order will be made, and sometimes not even through executive order because they will have the House of Representatives and the Senate in their favor. They will enforce every ungodly, anti-Christ, immoral law that they can come up with. We are at the tip of the iceberg right now, and frankly, folks, the ice goes very, very deep. One of the things we're going to face in the next few weeks is what is called the Equality Act. You may have heard of it. Some of you, I'm sure, have. The Equality Act is going to be pushed through and enforced. And the Equality Act basically says that you cannot discriminate against anyone for sexual preference or sexual ideology. To give you a better idea of what it means, reading specifically from the Equality Act word for word, it says discrimination can occur on the basis of sex, sex orientation, gender identity, and then it also lists sex-based stereotypes. I had to look that up because I wasn't sure exactly what was meant by that. And what is meant by that is this, if you have a preconceived idea that someone should not be the way they are sexually, that is considered discrimination. Now you think about that for a moment, where that goes. Whenever it comes to a church, and we stand up and say, that's wrong, that's immoral, and we present a preconceived idea, a stereotype of what is a sin and what is ungodly in the sight of God. Another part of that article says this, or that Equality Act says, The discredited practice known as conversion therapy is a form of discrimination and harms the LGBTQ people by undermining individuals' sense of worth, increasing suicide, substance abuse, exacerbating family conflict, and contributing to second-class status. Now, what they mean by conversion therapy is basically counseling someone away from that lifestyle. telling them that what you are in and what you are doing is wrong or it is bad for you and that you can change. So basically that assaults every biblical counseling group in America and also assaults every counseling effort made in local churches to turn people away from those types of sins. It will be considered discrimination. Churches will no longer be allowed to counsel and to tell people that what they are doing is wrong and that they need to repent. And then in fact, God can change them from their homosexual or transgenderism. To add to that. One other point in the, uh, the, uh, equality act is discrimination is also that is based upon sexual orientation, gender identity, or as I said, stereotypes. any program or activity that is funded by federal dollars, you can find yourself in serious waters, bad waters, if you discriminate against anyone who has federal funds coming in for that. Now that includes public schools. I was told and I also read that in any of the public school systems or public funded systems, that if you are trying to dissuade someone from gender conversion, you will be thought as discriminatory. If a child decides to move from male to female or female to male and desires to have the hormone blocking therapy, they will be able to receive that in the public schools with no permission granted from the parents. Parents may not even know. This is not theory, folks. This is where we are headed. This is real. Kamala Harris has made it very clear that that is going to be one of her first priorities to push the Equality Act through. Now it may take some time to finally filter down to the churches and what the churches are going to do, but the line has been drawn in the sand and churches are going to have to make it very clear where they stand. And frankly, I believe many churches are going to compromise. They may not necessarily agree with what they say, but they're just not going to say anything. And whenever it comes to biblical counseling, they're just going to just redefine it. We are living in an evil day, a very evil day. I reread, and I would encourage you to turn there with me, I reread Romans 1 again, and I thought to myself, I thought, my goodness, are we not living this out right now? You know, so often you probably have heard that God is going to judge America, and I do agree with that, unless God is merciful and gracious and brings a revival and a reformation in our country. But I believe that we are not going to be judged. I believe we are being judged right now. Romans 118 says, for the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, listen to this, who suppress the truth in unrighteousness. There's the key. That's the starting point. You suppress the truth. What truth? The truth about God, the truth about his word, the truth about Christ, the truth about his commandments. It says in verse 19, because what may be known of God is manifest in them for God has shown it to them. For since the creation of the world, his invisible characteristics are clearly seen being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and God has so that they are without excuse. Every single man, woman, and child are without excuse because the evidence is clearly made. Then it says in verse 21, because although they knew God, they did not glorify him as God, nor were they thankful, but became empty in their thoughts and their foolish hearts were darkened. They profess to be wise. They became fools and they changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like corruptible man and birds and forfeited animals and creeping things. They became idolaters. Verse 24 says, therefore, in three times, God says this in this text, therefore God gave them up or gave them over. Peridotomy is a legal term, a judicial term, meaning you're given over to judgment. from the court proceedings, if you will. Therefore, God gave them up to uncleanness in the lust of their hearts to dishonor their bodies among themselves, who exchanged the truth of God for the lie. Not a lie, but the lie. The lie that denies God, that denies his existence, that denies his ownership, that denies his sovereignty, that denies the word of the living God. And so it says that they gave themselves over to that lie. God gave them over to the lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the creator who is blessed forever, amen. That's not the end of it. It goes on in verse 26 and says, for this reason, God gave them up to vile passions. For even their women exchanged the natural use for what is against nature. Likewise, also the men leaving the natural use of the woman burned in their lust toward one another, men with men committing what is shameful and receiving in themselves the penalty of their error, which was due. And even as they said in verse 28, and even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind. This is why you can have someone stand in the house of representatives and pray a prayer. And at the end of that prayer, say amen. And a woman that is reprobate mind. That is a mind that doesn't even understand the basics of right and wrong. They don't even have a decency to understand what conscious is. So it says in this text, they're given over to a reprobate or a useless mind to do the things which are not fitting. He gives a whole list here of those things, and it's not extensive, it's not complete, but there's a list. He says in verse 29, filled with all unrighteousness, sexual immorality, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness, full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, evil-mindedness. They are whisperers, backbiters, haters of God, violent, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things. disobedient to parents, undiscerning, untrustworthy, unloving, unforgiving, unmerciful, who knowing the righteous judgment of God that those who practice such things are deserving of death, not only do the same, but also approve of those who practice them. Listen carefully. Our country cannot survive and will not survive if we continue in this path. The second president and founding father of our nation, a leader in the American Revolution, his name is John Adams. John Adams wrote a letter to the Massachusetts militia on the 11th of October in 1798. We don't talk like this anymore. So you're going to have to just kind of listen to the words and you'll get the gist of what he's saying. Some of it's clearer than other things. I would encourage you to go back and read that letter and you may have to go and look up some of the words. But what he says in just part of that letter is this, while our country remains untainted with the principles and manners which are now producing desolation in so many parts of the world, while she continues sincere and incapable of insidious and impious policy, we shall have the strongest reason to rejoice in the local destination assigned to us by providence. That's so good. I wish we talked like that. What he means is we can rejoice that we have a nation that honors God, honors his word and lives out his word. And this has been assigned to us by God's providence. But then he goes and gives warning. He says, but. Should the people of America once become capable of that deep simulation towards one another and towards foreign nations, which assumes the language of justice in moderation, while it is practicing iniquity and extravagance and displays the most captivating manner of charming pictures in candor and frankness and sincerity, while it is writing in rapine or rapine, that means plunder. and insolence, he says, this country will be the most miserable habitation in the world. Because we have no government armed with the power capable of contending with human passions, unbridled by morality and religion. Avarice, ambition, revenge and gallantry would break the strongest cords of our constitution as a whale goes through a net. Then he said this, Our constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to government of any other brothers and sisters. We are at war. Are you prepared? Are you ready for what's coming? Have you prepared yourself? Have you prepared your family? Well, one of the reasons why we are looking at this text is because it helps us to be prepared for what's coming. Now in Paul's day, there was a lot of things happening to him that we are not accustomed to. He was being persecuted for his faith. He had been thrown out of cities and beaten many times for his faith, for naming the name of Christ, that he is the only way. But you and I are going to go places we've never been before. Some of you may lose your job. Some of you may find yourself having to work through some of the complexities of how to homeschool in an environment where the state is demanding you to teach things that you are not comfortable with. Many of us will find ourselves in civil disobedience because we know that God's word and his command is authoritative over man's command. We're going to face difficult days and you and I need to be ready for those things. And the way we can be ready for those things is to go back to the text that is given to us in Ephesians chapter six, verse 10 and following. And I begin there again, and I just give you fair warning. We will not finish and we'll not finish next week. I think it's very important for us to take our time with this and to understand what Paul is saying. Because these are not days just to know Bible knowledge. These are not days just to listen to sermons for the sake of listening to sermons. You need to understand that what we hear today and what we hear in the next weeks and what we have heard needs to be applied diligently to our lives. So the first thing we noted was the exhortation. In verse 10, he says, finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord and in the power of his might. Put on the whole armor of God. As we noted in verse 10, the be strong is a present imperative. It is calling on us by commandment of God to continually be strong in the Lord and in the power of his might. He goes on and explains what that means by giving us the armor. That is the power of his might. That is depending upon and being strong in the Lord. So in verse 11 and verse 13, he reminds us by telling us that we are to put on the whole armor of God, verse 13, that we are to take up the whole armor of God. You cannot take up certain parts of the armor of God. You must have all of the armor of God. When you go into battle, you don't go with just a helmet. You go with all the other armament that you need to protect your vital organs. So is the case here. You cannot go halfway prepared. You must take all of the armor. And I believe the intent of the Aorist verbs is that we do this once and once for all, that we do this and we finally do this. So we move from the exhortation to the explanation. And that is simply this, that he gives us three reasons why we need to have the whole armor of God, as we noted last time, the age, the activity, and the adversaries. The age is, it's an evil day. It's evil. And it's been evil for a long time, but now the gates have been opened and the demons are let loose. And it is going to come out in such a barrage of evil. It is going to shock you. So we live in an evil day and you need to have your armor on for that. Secondly, because of the activity. And the activity basically is, is that you and I must be prepared to stand in this day and to be equipped with The armor of God, because of the wiles of the devil, the schemes of the devil, as we noted last time, the methods of the devil, the Greek word methodia, which has the idea of a vehicle of good and true carrying error. In other words, the devil doesn't show up blatantly disguised as the devil and say, listen, I'm here to give you falsehood and error. He shows up with a truckload of truth, but he has a little small pocket of error. I was listening again to John MacArthur this past week, talked to Josh Bice at a 3G conference, and they both expressed the amazement of how quickly that the evangelical church adopted and believed the social justice agenda. Folks, I'll be honest with you. You must understand that the church for years has not been teaching the whole counsel of God and has left the church able to be seduced by some of the most complex and even sometimes some of the most simplest of doctrines that are error. So the activity is, is that we must have the full armor of God because the devil is going to use his schemes, his methods to come against you and the church. And the third was because of our adversaries, the adversaries are listed in verse 12. He says, our adversary is not flesh and blood. Meaning that it's not people, it's not humans. There's something more to this than just that. Yes, men by themselves, women by themselves can be very evil. As I've told you before, we don't need the devil's help. Leave us alone and we'll go as far into hell as we possibly can go. But with that said, whenever you add the depravity of man and the fallen nature of man and the desire of man and the passion of man for evil, and then you, you kind of, um, fuel that with demonic activity and satanic influence, you have a mess on your hands. And here's the case. He says, our primary wars against principalities, powers, against rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual host of wickedness and heavenly places. And we looked at that last time basically could be summed up by saying the devil and all of his minions and demons, they work all the time, 24 hours a day. To obstruct and to influence the church away from the truth and away from God and away from Christ and to destroy its testimony in the world and to obstruct the gospel of Christ and to blind men and women to the truth of the gospel so that they cannot know Christ. All this is going on while we meet here today, but then we move now to the equipment. The equipment and we begin looking at the first part of the armament that is given to us. We pick it up in verse 14. Listen to these words. Paul says, stand, therefore having girded your waist with truth. Now the word stand here is the Greek word histamine. It basically means to stand in place or to take a stand or to be still to stand firm or to be steadfast. And Paul is telling us that we should not run after or pursue the evil forces, but rather we should stand firm. The word, therefore, is the Greek translation of the, rather the English translation of the Greek word un, which basically means by extension, here's how the dots are connected. Or another way of saying that is the reason why you should put on the armor of God, therefore stand because why of the evil day, the wicked schemes, therefore stand. putting on the armor of God. It is also important to note that the rest of the text, where he tells us that we should, uh, fasten the belt of truth or gird up the belt of truth, having put on the breastplate of righteousness, having fit your feet with the gospel of peace, or having taken up the shield of faith. All of these are what are called heiress participles. And for those of you who've been in English, you understand this for those of you who haven't, then that's okay. You're going to get an English course. In Greek, it's the same. A participle is a verbal adjective. Basically, it can express action, but also it can describe action or describe something. Here, in this case, it is telling us how we stand and with what we stand. How is it that you and I can stand up against the evil of the day? How is it that you and I can stand and be firm and solid in the context of a day where the devil and all of his evil forces are trying their best to twist and manipulate and obfuscate the truth? Well, he tells us by giving us all four of those participles. And the first one here is given to us in the text that I just read. that tells us that we are to stand firm, having girded your waist with truth. Now, your translation may say it a little different, but we'll get the gist of it by just looking at the words themselves. Because Paul has something very specific in mind here whenever he uses the idea of girding your waist with truth. Now, most believe, and I believe it is correct to say that he has in mind the imagery of a Roman soldier. And the Roman soldier would indeed prepare himself to go into battle. He wouldn't just wake up one day and said, you know what, let me get my pajamas on, it's time to go to battle. No, he would get prepared to go to battle. So he would suit up for that. And one of the first things he would put on is what we call the gird or the girdle, which was basically belt. And many believe, as you research through this, that this referred to more than just a belt, but the actual apron, because a lot of the Roman soldiers in those days wore aprons. And those aprons would actually be layers of leather that would lie against the thighs of the men. There also would be another belt around the top and the waist area, maybe a little above the waist, that would be decorated with all types of metal and iron. And it was believed that even in that belt that sometimes the soldier would hold his sword or even his dagger. So the idea is that this is an essential piece of the armament because without it, frankly, you're not going to be able to be prepared and nothing, none of the other armament will work well because this was what was under the rest of the armament. Some talk about the girding that it is the idea of tucking it under so that you can be prepared to walk or to run or to be in battle. And that may have some idea of that. In fact, you find it used that way over in first Peter chapter one in verse 13, where it says that we are to gird up the loins of our mind. And in that context, he's talking about the. cloth loin, not the Roman armament, but rather the cloth loin that someone would wear in those days. And whenever you would have that kind of dangling around your legs, you didn't want it to be there whenever you wanted to run or to work. You would tuck it up around your belt. But in this idea, what Paul has in mind is more than that. He has an idea of this apron that would be protective, that would also be under the rest of the armament. and would indeed be held up no doubt with the belt itself. So you need to know that in this context here, what Paul is talking about is that whatever we are referring to, whenever we talk about being girded with truth, is that this is essential to be in place before anything else gets started. You can't have the shield of faith without having the truth. You can't have the breastplate on unless you have the belt. You must have all of those things in place before you put the rest of the armament on. And this is essential because this is really foundational. If you look at verse 14 again, it says, stand therefore having girded your waist with what? With truth. Now, whenever you read that, you wonder, well, what exactly is Paul talking about here? Because there's a number of ideas of what truth is. Now, I'm not denying the existence of truth because we all here today believe there's truth. But I am talking about different kinds of truth, meaning there's objective truth. The objective truth basically refers to the body of divinity that we believe, the facts of the doctrines that we believe. We would confess that Jesus Christ is God. We would confess that Jesus Christ resurrected from the dead bodily. That's the body of truth, the objective truth. You find that referred to many times, like in John 3.21, it says, but he who does the truth comes to the Father. That's objective truth. John 5.33. He says, you have sent to John and he has borne witness to the truth. The truth, the objective truth of God's word, God's truth, John eight 32, and you shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free. That's again, talking about objective truth, definable truth, doctrinal truth. Romans chapter nine, verse one says, I tell you the truth in Christ Jesus. Again, defining it as objective truth. It even talks about it in the old Testament. Many, many times. Psalm 119, one 42, your righteousness is an everlasting righteousness and your law is truth. But he also talks about the message of truth. Like for instance, Paul often uses it this way in second Corinthians six, seven, he calls it the word of truth. In Ephesians 1.13, he refers to that you have heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation. So this refers to the actual message of the gospel, not necessarily all the body of divinity, if you will, not all of the Bible, but the message of the gospel. John 1.18, of his own will, he brought you forth by the word of truth. Again, the message of the gospel. But also this truth could refer to trustworthiness or truthfulness. And not just truth as far as a body is concerned, faithfulness or honesty. You find it that way in Psalm 119, when the Hebrew term is used there, all your commandments are faithful. That's the Hebrew word I met, which comes from the Hebrew amen, which I thought was interesting is primarily in the feminine form. Pretty interesting, isn't it? Jeremiah chapter seven, verse 28. says it like this. I thought this would be a good verse for us to read today. So you shall say to them, as Jeremiah is told by God to say to the nation, this is a nation that does not obey the voice of the Lord, their God, nor receive correction. Truth has perished and has been cut off from their mouth. That is, again, the idea of being faithful to the message, trustworthy with the message of the truth. But then there's also truth in the sense of opposed to being false. Like it says in John 19.35, and he who has seen has testified, and his testimony is true. That is, it's not false. True words, not false words, not lies. In the Greek culture, the word aletheia, which is the Greek word translated here true or truth, They refer to this word, aletheia, as reality as opposed to illusion. What is actually true? And as I told you, the Hebrew word used in the Old Testament, amet, and then the root amen, it could be understood as this, as one lexicon says, firmness, stability, perpetuity, faithfulness, fidelity, uprightness, integrity of mind, truth as opposed to falsehood. Another lexicon said, the word Ahmet occurs 126 times. It is used absolutely to denote a reality which is to be regarded as firm, therefore solid, valid, or binding. It thus signifies what is true. When used of persons, it sometimes expresses that which predominantly characterizes their speech or actions or thought. The word Ahmet is also one that refers to conduct that falls under the norm of truth and therefore is a man who has integrity. So you can see that this word is used a number of different ways in the Old and the New Testament and it's kind of hard to know exactly what is Paul talking about here when he says the belt of truth. I mean, what is he referring to? Is he referring to objective truth? Is he referring to subjective truth? Is he referring to moral truth? Is he referring to the message of the truth? What exactly is Paul talking about? Well, whenever you look at the way Paul uses it in Ephesians, he actually uses it all those ways. He talks about objective truth, subjective truth, moral truth, the message of the truth. He refers it that way in Ephesians 1.13, Ephesians 4.14, Ephesians 4.21, Ephesians 4.25, Ephesians 5.8 through 13. All of those passages refer to those varieties of ways in which Paul used the word truth. So after going through all of that and trying to nail down exactly what Paul means by the word truth, I come up with this conclusion. He means all of it. Every bit of it. Because that's what he has in mind. Paul is not saying, I want you to believe in just one idea of truth, like the objective truth. Because listen to this carefully. Reason with me, if you will, for a moment regarding this. If he's just talking about the body of divinity or the body of our faith, what we believe in facts, what we believe about God, what we believe about Christ, man, and so forth, and salvation, you do realize that you can believe all of that and not be faithful. You can be very, very doctrinally straight, and not be a man or woman of integrity. You can have truth, but not live the truth. So we're talking more about not just orthodoxy, but orthopraxy too. We're not talking about just what you believe, but how you believe it. And I believe that's what Paul has in mind. He's painting here with a large brush. He uses the Greek word aletheia, which is a common word used in the New Testament and in the Old Testament Septuagint. And so we have to understand that what Paul means is this, not just truth in doctrine, but also truth as faithfulness, truth as integrity, truth as truthfulness, truth as genuineness. As I said, you can have doctrine without faithfulness, but you cannot have faithfulness without doctrine. You cannot have genuineness and integrity without having doctrine, but you can have doctrine, but not have integrity. So he has more in mind than just believing certain doctrines. And this is, this is key to understand, because I think sometimes we think we're okay. As long as we've got our T's crossed and our eyes dotted, that we've got all of our doctrines straight, and we've got it all nailed down, that the devil will leave us alone and we have protection. There's more to it than that. You know, the, the Hebrews often referred to the word of God as the laws of God, but they also, they refer to the wisdom of God. And the wisdom literature is the application of the written word of God. It's not just knowing the facts about God, but it's how to apply what you know about God's word. That's the wisdom. And that's exactly what Paul has in mind here. Faithfulness requires integrity, which requires truthfulness, which requires genuineness, which requires a body of divinity to believe and a person to be faithful to whom, you know, by the things that we believe and teach and know. So whenever Paul says this in verse 14, stand therefore having girded yourself up with truth, that is making yourself prepared with truth, not just doctrinal truth, but also truthfulness, integrity, application of the word of God in your life. All of those things that really come home to us whenever we're in the battle and living our Christian life. And by the way, you cannot have any of the other armor without it. You can't have the breastplate of righteousness without truth. How do you get the righteousness without the truth? You cannot have the gospel of peace without knowing the truth. You cannot understand what it is to believe and to trust God and to have faith in God if you don't know that God and live for that God and trust that God. You can't have the helmet of salvation unless you know what that salvation is and trust in the Christ of that salvation. And you definitely cannot have the sword of the Spirit, which the Bible defines here as the Word of God, if you don't have the truth. And you can't have prayer, the last part of the believer's armor, prayer, supplication, and perseverance without having the truth that drives you back over and over again to the foundational things in the word of God and the trust you have in God. Paul knew that. And he understood that the battle really lies with the truth. That's where you start. That's where it all starts. No truth. And you're going to be defeated. no truth and you're going to be attacked and taken over by the enemy. You and I will be worthless and weak soldiers if we don't have the truth surrounding us and girding us and supporting us and in fact defending us. You cannot stand against the wiles, the schemes and the ideological subversion of the devil if you don't have the truth. As it even says early on in Genesis, you remember this, The very beginning of the battle, the devil said to Eve, has God really said question the, what the truth question, the truth. One of the reasons why we have a lot of the problems we have in the church today is because young people have questioned the truth and they've questioned the truth because there's been years and years of not defining the truth, teaching the truth, explaining the truth and living the truth. And that too. And John 8, 44, you get a picture of your enemy by the Lord himself. John 8, 44, you are of your father, the devil, he says to the Pharisees and the desires of your father you want to do. He was a murderer from the beginning and does not stand in the truth because there is no truth in him. When he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own resources for he is a liar and the father of it. There is no truth in the devil or the demons. In Acts 5.3, the incident occurred there where Ananias and Sapphira were going to sell their land. And Peter confronts them and says this, why has Satan filled your heart to do what? To lie to the Holy Spirit. You have that incident in Acts chapter 13, verse eight through 10, where Paul, the apostle, confronts Elymas, the sorcerer. Listen to this. It says, but Elymas, the sorcerer, for so his name is translated, withstood them, seeking to turn the proconsul away from the faith. Then Saul, who was then called Paul, filled with the Holy Spirit, looked intently at him and said, oh, full of all deceit and all fraud. You son of the devil, you enemy of all righteousness, will you not cease perverting the straight ways of the Lord? It'd be a good thing for someone to go up to Washington and quote that. And then you have the future. the future of the coming of the lawless one whose workings are according to the workings of Satan in 2 Thessalonians 2 9. It says he comes with lying wonders, deceiving wonders. It goes on and says, and with all unrighteous deception among those who perish because they did not receive the love of the truth that they might be saved. For this reason, God will send them a strong delusion that they should believe the lie because they did not believe the truth. Do you see where the battle is? Truth, lie, truth, lie, deception, truth, deception, truth. That's where it is. Revelation 12, nine talks about the great dragon referring to the devil, the serpent of old who deceives the whole world. That's how he's characterized. Revelation 22 talks about those who will not inherit heaven. It says, blessed are those who didn't do his commandments that they may have the right to the tree of life and may enter through the gates of the city. But outside our dogs, sorcerers, sexually immoral murderers, idolaters, and whoever loves and practices lies. The battle is for the truth. It's always been there. It's been directed that way for years and years. We're seeing the culmination of a lot of it. Our culture hates the truth. Many in our country and the leadership of our country hate the truth. And sadly within the church, not too many of them really want the truth. They compromise and sometimes flatly deny it. As a Christian, we are expected and commanded to know the truth. You say, well, how can I know it? Well, first of all, you must know the savior who is the truth. That's the first step. You can't know the truth without knowing who is the truth. And that's the Lord himself. John 14, six says, I am the way and the truth. And no one comes to the father except through me. One of the privileges we had when we were up in DC, and I don't want to give away too much, but I'll share this with you. Whenever we were there, Steve had positioned himself along with Trey on, I think it was Pennsylvania Avenue. Am I right on that? Constitution, and this is where all the people were coming up from the Washington Monument to the Capitol. So there were literally thousands of people walking by, not running, but just walking by. So we had positioned ourselves on one side, a little farther down the street was Luke and Spencer, and we were preaching to them as they came by. We were sharing with them the gospel of Christ. And there were all kinds of people that were walking by from all types of faiths, no doubt. Some that were just good old boys. Some of them that really were Christians. Some of them that weren't. Some of them that were parts of other false religions. And we had some strange characters, no doubt. But there was one time a group of Catholics that were walking by us in their garb and praying the rosary and praying to Mary. And I remember one time, I think Steve said, Mary won't hear your prayers. And on another occasion, whenever I was sharing the gospel, I said the same thing. I said, listen, the church won't save you. Jesus Christ said he is the only way. He is the only truth. Your works won't save you. Your church won't save you. Your baptism won't save you. Christ alone saves you. And the very beginning of this battle starts right there, but too many are still held captive in the darkness by the devil with those falsehoods. And they believe, they really do believe that what they do or what they may participate in or what religion they may affirm is going to save them and bring them merit before God. And that is not the case at all. So you must, first of all, know the one who is the truth. You must know the savior. Secondly, we must know the truth by learning the truth. Now you've heard this before here at this church. This is not new, but let me just emphasize it again by reading what it says in Ephesians four. Ephesians 4, you can just back up. Ephesians 4, 11, it tells us why God gave to the church apostles and prophets and evangelists and pastor teachers. In Ephesians 4, 11, and he himself also gave some to be apostles, some prophets and some evangelists and some pastors and teachers. For what reason did Jesus give them to the church? It says it in verse 12, for the equipping of the saints or the maturing of the saints. for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ, till we all come to the unity of the faith, to the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, that we should no longer be children tossed to and fro and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men or the cunning craftiness of deceitful plotting, but speaking the truth in love may grow up in all things into him who is the head that is Christ. The point of all of this time we come together, we look at the Word of God, we study Scripture together, is so that we can become equipped in the faith. We can become mature believers in the faith so that we're not tossed to and fro and carried about by every wind of doctrine. John MacArthur said this, and I quote, in a sermon he had the enemy within. He said, it has been a long war against God and against His truth in which the devil has engaged. He has employed demons. He has employed men and women. Most effectively, he has employed those who are associated with the truth in some way. The greatest assaults against the truth don't come from outside. They come from inside. From apostates, defectors who named the name of Christ or once named the name of Christ and now are the enemies of Christ who once affirmed their trust in God, belief in God and affirmed the scripture and have become the enemies of the scripture. They're on the inside, he said. He said in Jude verse four, it talks about them this way. There are certain persons who have crept in unnoticed. He calls them the men who are hidden reefs in your love feast. They are on the inside. They are deadly dangerous because they bring such devastating corruption from their position and their posture inside the church. This is the reason why Paul the apostle over in Acts chapter 20 and verse 27 said, I have not shunned to declare to you the whole counsel of God. You know, when we talk about knowing the truth, we're not talking about knowing some truth. We're talking about knowing the whole of truth, the whole of what God has given to us. So many churches today are not declaring the whole council of God. They will declare some, they will pick and choose topics that best fit their congregation and make them comfortable or encourage them to come back. They're more concerned about their success than their faithfulness to the Bible. And churches have unwittingly joined hands with the devil by minimizing the truth and sometimes frankly, excluding it. As a result, we're left with soldiers that are depleted, desperate for the essential equipment that will help them to stand against the evil day. Martin Luther, which we all are familiar with, that noble gospel soldier threw down the gauntlet whenever he said this in his generation. And I always go back to this whenever we talk about preaching the whole counsel of God. He says, if I profess with the loudest voice and the clearest exposition every portion of the truth of God except precisely that little point which the world and the devil are at that very moment attacking, I am not confessing Christ. However boldly I may profess Christ. Where the battle rages, there is the loyalty of the soldier proved. And to be steady on the battlefield besides is mere flight and a disgrace if he flinches at that point. So it's more than just saying, hey, listen, we're going to preach the gospel. We understand that. But sometimes you have to zero in on the issues so that people know what the Bible says about those issues. I heard someone this past week, and if I mentioned his name, you would know who he is. He said to pastors this week, he said, pastors, don't preach politics, preach the gospel. I understand that. I get his point. But there's more in the Bible than just the gospel. And the Bible gives us ammunition and gives us defenses that we are to use to stand against the wiles and the schemes of the devil. And in order for us to be discerning, sometimes we have to know what's going on around us, not be blind and have our heads in the sand. So we are to know the truth by knowing the savior. Secondly, we are to know the truth by learning the truth, but here's another one we've often lost practice of. And that is this we're to know the truth by meditating on the truth. You remember, I'm sure you heard some preacher talk about this, that the old Hebrew word referred to the chewing of the cud. The cow would just regurgitate it and chew it over and over and over and just keep chewing on it. And the idea of meditation is going over it and over it and over it and going over it again. Why is that? Because we're hard-headed, number one, and it takes a long time for us to get it, and we forget it, and we need to go back over it again. And sometimes, frankly, whenever you're reading scripture, you may say, well, that was great, but you don't really get a lot of the depth of the scripture without going back and rereading it, thinking about it, meditating on it, praying about it. Joshua 1.8 said, the book of the law shall not depart from my mouth, but you shall meditate in it day and night, that you may be observed to do what All of it that is written in it. And then in Psalm one verse one and two, blessed is the man who walks in the walks, not in the council of the ungodly, nor stands in the paths of sinners, nor sits in the seat of the scornful, but his delight is in the law of the Lord. And in the law, he meditates day and night. Psalm one, 1997. Oh, how I love your law. It is the meditation all day. So we need to meditate on it, spend time in it, reviewing it over and over and over again. So we know the truth, first of all, by knowing the Savior, secondly, by learning the truth, and third, by meditating upon it. And here comes the hard one, memorizing it. Memorizing it. Lost art in Christian world. Psalm 119, 11, your word I have hidden in my heart that I might not sin against you. Psalm 40 verse eight, I delight to do your will, oh God, and the law, your law is within my heart. Colossians 3, 16 says, let the word of Christ dwell in you richly. Not dwell in your Bible, dwell in you. That's where you've got to keep it. There's a war on truth right now. In fact, it's extraordinarily difficult to get the truth about what's going on in our culture and our nation right now, because there is a war on truth, but there's a war on the truth that matters. And the truth that matters is the matter of the word of God. There are large movements afoot right now that want to take the truth away from your family. Do you realize that? There's going to be a time, and I believe the time is now, whenever the leadership of this country does not have restraints anymore. And they're coming after the things that we hold dear. The gates of hell have been opened and the demons have been let loose. Credible voices, very credible voices have been saying for months now that we need to start backing things up, making hard copies of sermons and lectures, protecting biblical truth that you have. Because if you have it on the internet, it's going bye-bye. It's going to be cut. James White said this past week, I'll stay on Twitter as long as they'll allow me so I can be a gospel witness. And I agree with him on that. We'll stay on YouTube and we'll stay on Twitter. We'll stay on Facebook as long as we possibly can to be a gospel witness. But eventually it's coming. He knows it's coming. He knows he's going to be cut. And many other pastors who stand for the truth of God's word, they're going to be cut. They're going to be eliminated. The voice is going to be shut down on the social media sites. But that doesn't mean it shuts the church down. All of us should realize that the church existed long before Facebook and Twitter. You remember back? It's been a long time ago now. You actually would dial someone and call them and say, hey, how are you doing today? We don't do that anymore. What we do is we tweet and we text and we Facebook fact and we Nothing necessarily wrong with any of that, but the point is that we may have to go back to some old times. I saw a picture this past week of a dove with a message on the back of it. Hey, let's just get a bunch of doves, start raising them, put the gospel on the back and send them out. See what happens. So, you know, there are things that we're going to be challenged with in the future, but I will tell you this, and all of us know this, the church is triumphant. Listen, this is not the first time the church has walked through dark days. In fact, even what we're about to face doesn't even come close to what many Christians have faced. We're walking through a playground considering what Paul the Apostle went through or what the early church fathers went through or what many of the churches that suffered under Rome or even at the Reformation. Are you ready? Are you prepared? Let me share something with you that's kind of shocking. This was written A good while back in 1997, shows you the agenda. In 1997, psychologist Nicholas Humphrey gave the Oxford Amnesty Lecture for the year. And the purpose of that lecture was to argue in favor of censorship against the freedom of expression, specifically to censor moral and religious education, especially the education that children receive at home. 1997, he said this and I quote, children have the right not to have their minds confused by nonsense. And we as a society have a duty to protect them from it. So we should know more, allow parents to teach their children to believe, for example, the literal truth of the Bible or that parents rule their lives. Then we should allow parents to knock the children's teeth out or lock them in a dungeon. That was written in 1997. And the agenda has been let loose. We need to have the truth, folks. The first part of the armor is the truth. You need to start saturating yourself with it, filling your mind with it, memorizing it, writing it down, storing it up, locking it up, preparing for the future whenever they come after it. Let's pray together, OK?