The Belt of Truth (Part 1)
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Each year we make a special free resource available during the season of Lent. For the 40 days from Ash Wednesday through Good Friday, Gospel in Life would like to send you a daily devotional. Sign up to receive this daily email at gospelinlife.com slash Lent. Now here's Dr. Keller with today's teaching. Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. Put on the full armor of God so that you can take your stand against the devil's schemes.

For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world, and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. 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 all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the saints. That's God's word.

We said, I'd like to conclude our remarks on the armor of God and then begin to look at this first, the first of the items of the armor, the belt of truth, what it is and how you put it on. Some of this we began talking about last week. Let me just remind you, first of all, what we said the armor is. The armor of God is the benefits and the privileges and the freedoms you have in the gospel.

And to put on the armor means to get a new mindset, a new disposition, a governing disposition, and to look at yourself and to feel about yourself and to look at the world and to feel about the world.

in a new way through those truths and through those freedoms. That's what it means to put on the full armor of God. We mentioned that last week, and I don't want to belabor it because essentially we're going to show you how bit by bit you do that, so I don't have to keep on going with that. Another remark we have to keep in mind. A lot of people have asked me about this this week, so I think I need to come back to it. I think anybody...

with much of a heart, considers warfare something that's very repugnant and that no one should glory in. It might be necessary, but at the very best a person would only say, "I believe that war is necessary."

As far as I know, the only two Christian positions, and there's differences within the Christian faith on this, is to say that warfare is never necessary or to say that warfare is sometimes necessary, but there's no Christian position that says warfare is grand and glorious. It's something we can glory in. It's something good and adventurous and so forth. Paul, by using military imagery, is trying to get a couple of points across, and the one I want to press here is,

He's trying to get across. He has to use the military metaphor in order to get it across, not because he glories in warfare and in arms and so forth, not because he just finds warfare a grand and glorious thing, but I think it's the only way he can get across

using the military metaphor, that you're a soldier with the arm of the Lord. It's the only way you can get across that one of the essentials of our relationship to God is obedience. And I don't know that there's any other way you can do it. Listen, there's too many other situations in which you can talk about obedience, but if you look more carefully, it's not really obedience, it's agreement. So, for example, you have a contract and you're on a job and you have a supervisor over you.

And of course, you may say, "Well, I have to do what the supervisor says. My supervisor has told me this and this, and I have to obey." But you don't really have to obey. You really only agree. Because you see, if your supervisor tells you to do something that you think is ridiculous or outrageous or silly, you can quit. You're allowed to quit.

When you enter into a relationship with your employer, everybody knows that you have the right to quit. You're not a slave. You're an employee. And therefore, essentially, every single time... Now, think about this. If you look more carefully, you'll see that you really never obey your supervisor. Not really. Your supervisor gives you a long and continual series of recommendations.

and you decide, "Are these recommendations worth continuing in this job?" And if it's worth continuing this job, then I do it. I may not like it, I may knuckle under it, but ultimately, ultimately, everybody understands that our relationship is such that everything I do is voluntary. See, obedience is one thing and agreement is another thing. In obedience, you have to submit your will and you no longer trust either in your understanding

You don't trust in your own intellect, your own understanding, or your own will. But when you're talking about agreement, so I'm in a situation where you may be over me, but ultimately I decide, I still rely on my intellect and my understanding as to what I'm going to do, then that is still agreement rather than obedience. But when you're in the military, this is about the only situation I know like this, when you're in the military and when you're on the battlefield...

Your relationship to your commanding officer is very different than your relationship anywhere else, because anywhere else you have the right to quit. But under your commanding officer in the military, under battle conditions, you do not have the right to quit. You can't say, forget it. You can't fire me. I quit. You can't do that. Why? Why is that illegal? Why is that in many situations treasonous? Why is that? Because for you to disobey...

Under those circumstances means that everybody's life is in danger. And therefore it's always been a rule that you obey orders. And that's real obedience. That's not just agreement. Now what Paul's trying to get across is, I think he's trying to make you look and ask yourself the question, do I really obey God? Have I crossed over the line? So now that I say, command me. You're the master, I'm the soldier.

You're the officer, I'm the soldier. See, to put on the armor of God means you enlist. And when you enlist, you know that you give up the right to disobey an order. You give up the right to quit. In any other situation, you're really agreeing with your superior. Here you're obeying your superior. Now look at yourself for a minute. How else do you explain the selectivity of how you adhere to the designs of God?

You know, and I know, because I talk to so many of you, that you're always in situations where you say, I obey God except here. Now look at that except here. What you mean is, I agree with God except here. What is that except here? Well, usually that except here is a place where you say,

You know, I've had a, you have to understand that I've had a very rough life, and it's hard for me to do that. Or you have to understand I'm very lonely, and it's hard for me to turn it down. Or you have to understand, you have to understand, I know it's wrong. You say, I know it's wrong. I know it's wrong. I really shouldn't do it. And when a person says, I know it's wrong, I really shouldn't do it, you are revealing yourself. Your slip is showing. Your relationship to God is not one of having enlisted God.

It's not really one of obedience. Instead, you have a lot of recommendations that come to you from God, and the ones that look practical to you, and the ones that look explicable, and the ones where you're going to understand why he asked you to do this, then you comply. But that's not obedience, that's agreement. That means there's a lot of people here who say, oh, I believe what the Bible says, but

And yet because of your selectivity, you are revealing who's really on the throne of your life and who's really the master of your life and who's really the commanding officer. The fact is, your relationship to God is one of maybe, you know, he's your employer, but he is not your master. Because you hold on to the right to quit.

at places and at times, you feel like, listen, I need to call in sick today. So you call in sick. That's your right, in a sense, as an employee or an employer, as an employee or an employer. But you see, when the commanding officer gets a hold of you and he says, the battle is here. I don't care if you don't feel good. Get up there on the lines. The relationship is very different. Please consider and think about this. That means that some of you are not enlisted at all. And therefore, some of you are out there

In the world without any armor on at all, you're vulnerable. You're tremendously vulnerable. A Christian is somebody who says, I'm a person under orders.

I don't want to debate for you, I don't want to abate, debate too much with you right now the whole issue of can a Christian really lead a disobedient life, all of his or her life? Can you really be a Christian? Can you really be saved and continually, can continue to live a life which you pick and choose selectively, like many of you are doing, as to what you're going to obey and what you're not going to obey, what you're going to comply with and what you're not going to comply with?

You see, I'm suggesting that you don't have any relationship of obedience to God at all. Can a Christian spend his or her entire Christian life saved and yet disobedient? And I don't know that I want to debate with you. I do know that it's possible to do for periods of time, for seasons, and that many of you are in those seasons. Do not believe that a life of obedience shrinks your soul. Don't believe that. You know, obedience is the only way to heal your soul.

I've been reading lately about the problem of people who are over gender stereotyped. You know, there's a lot of folks that say one of the problems with women is that they've been pushed into roles in which they have the Cinderella complex. They feel like it's their job just to be submissive and to be walked on. And then there's the men who have been pushed into the Marlboro man complex.

And that is to be macho and to have no friends and to be dominant and domineering in many cases violent. So here's the Cinderella complex, the person who in a sense is too feminine and she's always saying, "I'm never right. I'm never right." And here's the Marlboro Man, a person who's actually too masculine. He's saying, "I'm never wrong. I'm always right." Do you see that obedience

actually heals those kinds of differences. Because in obedience, you have both submission and courage. You see, the Cinderella complex is a person with lots of submission and no courage. The Marlboro Man is a person with lots of courage and no submission. Neither of those people are obedient. Obedience, to become a person under orders, to become a soldier in Christ's army, actually heals those differences. It brings you together. It doesn't shrink your humanity, it creates your humanity.

It creates both a courage and a submission. That's the reason why the Christian ideal of knighthood in the Middle Ages is so unique and amazing. In "Death of Arthur," there's a place where when Lancelot dies, one of the knights of the round table, Sir Ector, in "The Death of Arthur," looks at him and says,

"Thou wert the sternest knight that ever pulled a spear out of a breast, and thou wert the meekest knight who ever ate in a hall with the maidens." And when you listen carefully, you'll see that the old medieval idea of chivalry was that a knight was this odd combination of masculinity and femininity, of hardness and softness. A knight was supposed to be somebody who was afraid of nothing.

who was a person who was willing to, he was used to seeing limbs lopped off and he was used to seeing death and blood and iron and steel. On the other hand, he was a poet. He had to be a person who had a tremendous daintiness and tenderness. That was the ideal of chivalry. Where did it come from? It came from Jesus.

Because here's Jesus, a person who is as tender and as sweet, a person who can have children, who just know that Jesus is someone they can approach. And here's the Jesus who is throwing all the money changes out of the temple with a dirty look. Here's a Jesus who combines the strength and the meekness. Here's a Jesus who combines the two sides of humanity.

And here's a Jesus who says to the Father, not my will, but thine be done. Look at what it took for him to be under orders in the garden. Look at him dying in the dark for you. Look at him being completely obedient when nobody's looking. What does that mean? Do you understand what is being said here and what is being talked about here? Jesus was a man under orders.

And because of that, he had both courage and he had submission. At the same time, he combined that because he was a soldier, he was a man under orders, and that's the reason that he was such a great and godly person. It's the reason why he combines these things. Are you like that? Are you a person under orders? Have you put on the armor of God? Or do you just have a kind of agreement relationship with God?

The reason the military metaphor is there is not because Paul is bloodthirsty or that he's reveling in military imagery. You see that? Lastly, lastly, the armor of God is given to us to give us the understanding of obedience, but also the armor of God puts stress on the fact that what we've been given is not something that we have naturally. It's the armor of God. It's something that's been provided to us.

I told you, you can be out there without any armor on unless you're willing to take an obedient relationship to the Father. Have you got that? Have you settled that tonight? Have you settled that in your life? Have you said, unconditional obedience, I'm going to obey you no matter what in any area of my life. I'm just going to stop being selective. On the other hand, you can be out there without the armor of God if you don't know the truths of God's Word. The armor is the armor of God.

I think this is where we closed last week, but let me, I just mentioned this at the very end, but let me bring it back to you. The main problem that we deal with when it comes to the forces of evil...

is that Satan is someone who can infect our imagination. Did I mention that last week? Most of our problems are infections of the imagination. We're told that Satan is a liar. Diabolos means he's a deceiver. And so what he does is he injects lies into our imagination so it goes wild. The way Satan actually creates problems in your life is he creates inordinate desires. Now, an inordinate desire is a desire that's good,

its place, but he injects it and it goes wild. Let me give you a couple examples of this. For example, take a look at anger. Anger is good. God's angry all the time, and he's perfect. Anger is good because injustice is something that should evoke anger. If you're a good person, you're going to get angry at injustice. But bitterness is an infection of the imagination. It's sort of like

Your anger, it's sort of like there's a little VCR on in your heart and you can't turn it off. Have you ever tried to turn the VCR off and it won't go off? You know, the VCR that won't die. But imagine for a moment trying to turn it off and not only won't it go off, but it gets louder and louder and brighter and brighter. What anger is, is thoughts about what that person did to you.

Vivid images. You can't turn off. It gets louder. It goes on and on. You can't turn it off. And so what happens is anger is good, but bitterness is wrong because in bitterness you have gotten, you've lost. You're still being controlled by the person. How do you deal with bitterness? You deal with bitterness by somehow turning off the VCR. And therefore bitterness is just an infection of anger. Or think about guilt. Guilt is good. You've got to have a conscience, don't you?

If you don't have a conscience, you'll end up in prison as a sociopath. And one of the reasons that you've got a lot of problems with your self-esteem in many of your cases is because you can't turn off those vivid images. See the guilt VCR. You can't turn off the vivid images of the things that you've done. You can't feel forgiven of it. You can't stop the pictures continually flashing by your vision and your mind. And therefore, guilt is good.

But the self-hatred that comes because the guilt mechanism is infected with all sorts of vivid pictures is bad. Or think of worry and fear. Worry and fear is good. What is concern? What is adrenaline anyway? Adrenaline's good for you. Adrenaline keeps you on your toes. Adrenaline means I've got to be aware of things. I've got to be on my toes and I've got to be at my best. But worry and anxiety, when it gets infected,

with satanic injections, means you can't turn it off. All you see are pictures of "what if, what if, what if?" You're turning over in bed at night because you can't go to sleep because you can't stop that, the worry VCR. It's the VCR that will die. You try to turn it off and it gets louder and louder and louder. What if this happens? What if that happens? You see all these scenarios of the worst possible things that can happen.

Sexual temptation is the same thing. As we've said many times from here, God invented sex. There can't be anything wrong with sex. Sex is something that we were meant to enjoy inside the context of a permanent and exclusive and total commitment relationship, inside a covenant, inside marriage.

But what happens is when the sexual desire, which is a good thing, when that VCR starts going and going and going and you can't turn it off and it gets louder and the pictures you see go on by, the same thing happens. You've lost control of your passions. In every situation, sexual temptation and guilt and bitterness and worry and fear and instinct, in every situation you've got a good emotion, Satan injects it. Your problems are infections of the imagination.

You see all these pictures that just begin to haunt you. How do you deal with it? Paul says you have to put on the armor of God. Many of you have spent all of your lives dealing with it using your own armor. Now, you hear it all the time when I listen to people trying to comfort one another. You use common sense, you use appeals to willpower, and they do not work. If you try to fight the spiritual forces of darkness with anything other than the armor of God, you will be defeated.

So I've heard people say, well, you know, worry doesn't solve anything. That's a great example of a common sense sort of way of trying to fight worry. It doesn't work a bit. There's no use crying over spilled milk. What's going to happen is going to happen. I'm sure it will turn out all right. This too will pass. You've heard all this stuff. There's no use feeling guilty about it. Think about the good things that you've done. See, these are all the ways in which people without the armor of God

Using common sense or logic or willpower, say, "Here's how to deal with the guilt problem. Here's how to deal with the sexual problem. Here's how to deal with the worry problem. Here's how to deal with the bitterness problem." It never works. If you try to deal with the forces of darkness using your own ideas, using your own power, using anything but the armor of God, using anything but the truth of who you are in Christ that's revealed in your word, you are going to be defeated.

The forces of darkness, these things are angelical powers. They're older than you are. If God allowed them to, though he doesn't, they could pick up mountains and throw them at us. You see, there is no one, certainly not you, certainly not your brain thinking, there is no one other than the Holy Trinity itself who is a match for these beings. And that's why Paul says the armor that you've got to put on is the armor of God. It's not just armor. It's not just willpower. It's not just fortitude. It's not just stoicism.

You've got a perfect example of this is in Hebrews 12. In Hebrews 12, there's a place where the writer is trying to say, you've got to deal with sufferings in your life. And he says, my brethren, do not faint when these problems come, and do not, on the other hand, take them lightly. So what he's trying to say is there's two non-Christian ways of dealing with your suffering. The one way is to go to pieces, to say, oh my word, oh my word.

Everything is over and so you collapse. The other way is to take it lightly, which is the way of the Stoic, the way of Marcus Aurelius, the way of saying, "I'm not gonna let it get to me. Yes, there's trouble in my life, but so what? I'm gonna keep a stiff upper lip. I'm gonna overcome it. I'm not gonna let it get to me." Neither of those are Christian ways to deal with things. In both cases, you're gonna be defeated.

The one is you let yourself go. The other is you hold on to yourself. What is the Christian way to do it? How would you put on the armor of God? We'll talk about that later. But you see, if you read Hebrews chapter 12, you'll see that all he does is he tries to get a hold of you. And he says, you've got to think. Success, true love, and the life you've always wanted. Many of us have made these good things into ultimate things. We've put our faith in them when deep down we know that they cannot satisfy our longings.

The truth is that we've made lesser gods of good things, gods that can't give us what we really need. In his book, Counterfeit Gods, Dr. Keller shows us how a proper understanding of the Bible reveals the truth about societal ideals and our own hearts, and that there is only one God who can wholly satisfy our desires.

Dr. Keller's book is our thank you for your gift to help Gospel in Life share the power of the gospel. So request your copy of Counterfeit Gods at gospelinlife.com slash give. That's gospelinlife.com slash give. Now, here's Dr. Keller with the remainder of today's teaching. You've got to think. You're anxious about things? Look at Matthew 6. Matthew 6 says, have no anxiety about anything, but consider God.

The birds of the year. Consider the lilies of the field. Consider. What is he saying? A Christian is somebody who thinks. A coward is someone who stopped thinking. An anxious person is someone who stopped thinking. They're just listening to the VCR. Have no anxiety about anything, but consider.

I know that's not the popular image of a Christian, but a Christian is somebody who is beginning to think, who says, "I'm not going to just be anxious. I'm going to think about what God is and who God is and what he's done. Look, he takes care of the birds of the air. He takes care of the lilies of the field. I'm more valuable than they are. They're not creating the image of God. I'm creating the image of God, and I'm a Christian. He died for me. What am I afraid of? Do you see what's going on?"

To put on the armor of God means to take the truths of the scripture, to take revealed truths. It's the armor of God. It's something given to you. It's something revealed to you. It's something that's provided for you. That's the only way to deal with these infections of the imagination. It's the only way to deal with your problems. It's the only way to deal with spiritual wickedness in the high place. It's the only way to fight this battle.

So the reason that Paul is saying, "Put on the forearm of God," is he's trying to say, "You're in the army now. A Christian is someone under orders. Your relationship is one of obedience. And secondly, a Christian is someone who has been given ways of dealing with his or her problems."

They're not things that you just pull out of your own gut. It's not a matter of willpower or stoicism. It's taking something new and applying it to your heart and using it. It's got to be the armor of God or you will be defeated. Now, we've already, in a sense, segued. Let me just begin to take a look at the first of all the pieces. You see, he says down here, after he says, "...put on the full armor of God, therefore put on the armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes you may be able to stand."

The first of the issues, the first of the items, he says is in verse 14, "Stand firm then with the belt of truth buckled around your waist." Now, the reason I like to just mention this as the last part of our address tonight is in a way, though it is the first of the pieces of armor, it fits more in with the introductory remarks we're making. Because if you look carefully, you'll see that the belt of truth is different than every other piece of armor. See what the other pieces are?

It says, "...the breastplate of righteousness in place, your feet fit with the readiness that comes from the gospel, the shield of faith, the helmet of salvation, the sword of the Spirit, everything else, even your shoes being shod with the gospel of peace, your shoes, which were pieces of armor, the breastplate, the shield, the helmet, the sword, all of these were offensive or defensive pieces of armor. The belt..."

which in many of your translations says the girdle of truth, was actually not a piece of armor. You didn't defend yourself with it. You didn't attack with it. What is the belt of truth? The belt of truth, rather than being really a piece of armor, is the foundation of the armor. The reason you needed a belt was because, you see, the soldier that time would be wearing this long flowing robe, a long flowing robe.

And the only way that you could ever really use your armor is if you would pick, when you had to get ready for action, you would pick up all of your skirts and stick them in and tuck them in your belt, and then you're ready for action. This isn't the only place it talks about that. In 1 Peter, it says, gird up the loins of your mind. What does it mean to gird up your loins? It mentions it a lot of places in the Bible. Girding up your loins meant you had a belt and this long flowing rope when you wanted to do some hard work, when you had to run for your life.

when you had to do some kind of strenuous action, when you had to fight, you had to pick up all the pieces of your robe, tuck it into your belt, and then you were ready for action. And so what actually Paul is saying is the foundation for the use of all the armor is the belt of truth. The belt of truth is a little different than the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God. The sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God, is the truth of the Bible used offensively.

But the belt of truth, I think, is the objective truth used subjectively. It means to take the truth and apply it to your private parts. It's the girdle for crying out loud. What he is saying here is, unless you take the truth...

of the Word of God and put it into the most intimate and private parts of your soul, unless you take it deep inside of you, you can't put on the armor of God. The armor is useless to you. What it means to put on the armor of God is to take the truths of the Scripture and to embrace them and to digest them and to make them part of yourself. That's what the truth, that's what the belt of truth is. It's the Word of God embraced and believed and used in daily life.

Now, how do you put it on? This way. First of all, to put on the belt of truth means you have to believe the Bible. Does that sound weird? Does that sound too obvious? It shouldn't be. There's only three approaches to the Bible, from what I can tell. When I look out there, I look at other philosophies and religions. You've got superstition, you've got substition, and you've got stition. Superstition says, I believe the Bible, but I believe in a lot of other things.

Superstition says, "Well, I belong to a religion in which we believe the Bible, but we also believe in our wonderful founder, Jim Jones, who also gets direct revelation from the Lord and who has written a lot of books that help us understand the Bible." And so you see, when you're part of a religion in which we say, "I believe the Bible, but I believe that God has all these other wonderful prophets that help me understand the Bible," you're into a cult.

You see, cults always come along and say, yes, we believe the Bible, but we have the key to the Bible written by our founder. And so they add to the scripture that superstition, that's overbelief in revelation. Substition says you can't believe the scripture. It's a fine book full of wonderful human teaching. And in a way, you can encounter God when you study it, but you can't say that it's revelation, it's all infallible, that every bit of it is something that's true. I mean, there's mistakes and there's contradictions in it.

Let me go this far as to say that if you believe that, you can't put on the belt of truth. The whole idea of the belt of truth is a foundation. It's something that girds you up. How in the world are you going to be able to say, I can obey God and God's word and God's authority and God's commands are my foundation, if you're not sure which parts of the Bible you're supposed to obey and which parts are maybe mistakes, slips of the pen, contradictions.

historically conditioned statements which we no longer can accept. If you don't believe that the Word of God is authoritative, you can't put on the belt of truth. You just can't. You can say, "Ah, this passage here, boy, I get so much inspiration out of it." And I say, "What about this passage over there?" "Oh, I don't believe that." How can you say this is part of your armor? How can you say this is your foundation? How do you know this chapter is crummy and this chapter is great?

You see, a hundred years ago, people had a very different view of things, of men and women, of slavery. They had a very different view of things. And they read the Bible and they say, "Oh my word, I like this part, but this part, modern people can't believe it." That was a hundred years ago. Now we think that the things that they believed were stupid.

We say modern people can't believe that. Well, don't you realize that 100 years from now people are going to look back at the things that you think are wonderful and they're going to think you're stupid? Your grandchildren, your great-grandchildren, if they have any of your letters and they see the things that you believe, are going to think, imagine, I guess they believed that way in 1990. What jerks. Just like you look at 1890. How the heck then do you know enough to judge what parts of this are historically conditioned and what parts are not?

I'd like to know that. What makes you think that, ah, now in 1990 we've arrived? We know that some of these things are culturally conditioned. We can't believe that sort of thing anymore. A hundred years from now, they're not going to believe what you believe. Unless you understand that this is the authoritative Word of God, you cannot possibly build your life on it. If you say, well, listen, that's the way people used to believe about the Scripture, that it was infallible and authoritative. We can't believe it anymore. I just hope you're willing to live...

consistently with what you just said. Because you see, if there's no revelation from outside of time, there's no infallible revelation from God, then every person is his or her own authority. And you've got no basis for making any kind of judgments. You know, for example, multiculturalism is a mighty interesting phenomenon.

The thesis of multiculturalism is that every culture is unique and valuable, and we must not make decisions about which cultures are superior to others. And yet, most everybody hate the cultures where you throw girl babies into the river when they're born, and where women are chattel and are possessions. Us modern people today think that's bad. On what basis? See, Christians know that's bad because the Bible says it's bad. But I want to know why you think it's bad, I say to people.

Say, "Well, because we believe in the worth of every individual." That's a religious belief. Where do you get that? You can't get that from science. That's a religious commitment. You can't learn that through empirical investigation. Where do you get the authority to say, "This culture's bad"? See, a Christian at least is consistent to go into a culture and say, "We're going to convert you. We're going to get you to stop throwing girl babies into the river." Sure, you've been doing it for 500 years.

Doesn't matter now. The Bible says that that's wicked. The Bible says that's evil. The Bible says that men and women are both equal in the image of God. Sure, economically it doesn't help you that much to have a girl child. You need sons. That doesn't make any difference because the Bible stands in authority and judgment over your culture. It is your belt of truth. It is the foundation for everything you do.

See, we have a right to come in and say that to a culture, but who does? If you don't believe that the scripture is revelation from God, what right do you have to say that our culture is superior to that? You have no right. And you know, here's what's so funny is you can't, I know that if you don't believe the Bible is the word of God, you cannot live like that. You know intrinsically.

that it's wrong to throw girl babies in, even though it's legal in that country, even though that culture has done it for a thousand years, you know it's wrong. How do you know it's wrong? I know you know it's wrong because you've got a conscience, and your conscience, even if you don't believe the Bible, your conscience has been informed by Christian principles in this country, and your conscience may be even informed directly by God. But unless you believe that there is a God who has a revelation that can judge culture

then you've got no intellectual basis for saying they're wrong. Can you live with that? I know you can't live like that. Nobody can. Everybody's always saying, "Oh, we have to be objective. We can't impose our values on people." There's just no way around that. You do impose your values on people, but unless you have a basis of authoritative objective revelation, you don't have a right to. Do you believe in the belt of truth? Do you believe that the Bible is the Word of God?

Classic Protestant Christianity has always said, avoid superstition that says you can add other kinds of truth to the Bible, and avoid substitution which says the Bible isn't truth, but just say the Bible is the only infallible authority for everything that we do, and it's our belt. So the first thing you need in your life if you want to put on the belt of truth is you have to believe in the truth. But the last, the second and last thing to say is the whole idea about putting it

Putting the truth on is the belt. The reason that Paul does not say put on the breastplate of truth, and the reason he doesn't say the shield of truth, he says put on the belt of truth, or the girdle of truth, which was what you covered your private parts with, is to say that it's not enough to believe in doctrine, it's not enough to believe in the infallibility of the Scripture, you have got to get it on into your inner parts. Let me be real, real frank here. There's plenty of Christians walking around who are rude,

Plenty of Christians walking around who gossip. Plenty of Christians walk around who can't keep secrets. Plenty of Christians who walk around who are so sensitive nobody can talk to them because they're always getting upset and offended. Plenty of Christians walking around, plenty of men Christians walking around, and all the women realize that if they come up with an idea, they're going to be discounted because they're women. You know, there's plenty of Christian men who walk around, everybody says, listen, he's not going to listen to anything a woman says.

There's plenty of Christians walking around who are very, very harsh. They never can give criticism in a way that doesn't offend people. There's plenty of Christians walking around with all these kinds of blemishes on their character, and nobody can talk to you about it because you get very defensive about it. Everybody's afraid to get near you. And as a result, you're being defeated. You're not being used.

As a result, you're not seeing people transformed through your life. As a result, in many cases, you've got a lot of problems that you've brought on yourself. There's only one answer. If people come up to you and talk to you about it, you're not going to believe them. You're not going to listen to them. You'll get all upset. You'll get defensive. You'll get angry. You've got to let the Word of God search you. You've got to let it search you. The Bible says it's a two-edged sword. It pierces. It's alive.

I have found out from years of trying to be a pastor, these kinds of blemishes that are tripping people up, that everybody around you can see, but you, you will never see, you will never be healed of them unless you're willing to let the Word of God search you, unless you're willing to study it, to master it, to let it dig in deep, to let it do surgery on you.

And that means that knowing the Bible and being able to mention the books of the Bible and knowing all sorts of doctrine isn't good enough unless you're really letting it come on in. Are you letting it come on in? Are you? See, you're not supposed to be paging through and deciding what parts you like and what parts you don't like. You're supposed to let the Bible page through you and decide what parts it likes and what parts it doesn't like.

You're not supposed to be paging through it and saying, "I like this chapter but not that chapter." You're supposed to let it page through your life and say, "I like this chapter but not that chapter." When's the last time you studied the Word of God with that kind of reality? When is the last time you came to the Word of God and said, "These are the orders of my Master. I want Him to red pencil my life through this book." When's the last time you really let the Scripture cut you? It's the only way that you're ever going to hear an awful lot of the criticism

that you've got to hear or it's your life. There's infections going on inside of you and somebody's got to go in there and take them out. Are you willing to do that? What does it mean to actually put on the belt of truth? First of all, it means to believe in the objective truth of the scripture, but then secondly, it means to let it come in and you have to start using it subjectively. Are you willing to do that? Have you enlisted? You see how these things are all pulled together?

A soldier is somebody who says, "I'm under orders." But now you see where the orders are. The orders are here in the belt of truth. In conclusion, the whole idea of the belt of truth is to take your scattered robes so you stop tripping over them and to focus your clothing into the belt

And when you focus your clothing into the belt, you're ready for action. In many of your cases, your minds are scattered, your thoughts are scattered. You're worried. You're thinking, what if, what if, what if? You're panicked. You're paralyzed. Gird up the loins of your mind with the scripture. Focus your mind. Let the Bible, let the truth of the scripture gather your thoughts and strengthen you.

A person who is saturated in the scripture can say, "No reason to panic. It happened to David. It happened to Abraham. It happened to Peter. It happened to Paul. I see what's going on." David Martyn Lloyd-Jones, who was a great preacher, you've heard me quote him before, was a doctor before he became a preacher. One day he was in a train.

They were moving along and suddenly a man in front of him turned blue in the face, started frothing in the mouth and fell down into the aisle. Everybody got up and panicked. They said, "Stop the train. Somebody call a doctor." Well, you know, Dr. Lloyd-Jones had been or was a doctor. He got up and he said, "Stop."

This man is having an epileptic fit. Look at this, look at this, these are the symptoms, look at this and this. All you've got to do, don't panic. Do this and do this, he'll be over pretty soon. We probably don't even need to take him to a hospital. Just do this and do this and do this. What happened to the car? Peace, cooperation, teamwork, everybody calmed down. Why? Somebody had the truth. Somebody knew the truth. And as soon as he began to tell the truth, everybody instantly knew.

It was the truth. Information, insight into the real nature of things, that's what's in the Word of God. And that kind of note of clarity and authority needs to be operating in your lives. And the Scripture simply says,

If you're living a defeated life, if you're scattered and tripping all over your own two feet, it's because you're not gathering your thoughts into the Word of God, letting it search you. You're not taking the Word of God and putting it around your private parts and letting it into the center of your being. So there's a certain sense in which this is a fairly easy sermon to apply to your life. You've got to get busy.

Just ask yourself, how thoroughly am I studying the Scripture and how thoroughly am I letting the Scripture study me? Two questions. It takes discipline. It takes time to be put... You have to put time aside for it. How thoroughly, how much time am I spending studying the Scripture? How thoroughly, how much time am I letting the Scripture study me? If you're not doing that, if your Christianity right now is just lots of inspiration, feeling good,

Instead of letting the Scripture search you, I'm afraid it's a frothy thing. It's a fleeting thing. Put on the belt of truth that in an evil day you may stand. Okay, let's pray. Father, I thank you that your word has told us that if there is a problem in our life that is causing us to panic, you have said that we have to gird up the loins of our mind, we have to focus our thoughts into the belt.

We ask that there may be some people here tonight that really are panicked, very much so. We ask that you would help them tonight to see that they need to consider your truth. They need to consider your promises. They need to sit down and let you search them. I pray that you would help us all to do that. I pray that you would help us see what it means to put on the belt of truth. I pray that in the midst of a

of a city in which on the to the one side we've got people into all sorts of crazy cults people who see God speaking to them everywhere instead of in your word on the other hand we have people who don't believe you speak at all on the one hand we have people who are under all sorts of domineering authorities who who are manipulating them on the other hand you have people who don't believe there's any authority at all and they're having a starvation a famine of authority in their lives

Because we're surrounded by all of these things, we know, Lord, it will take your help for us to be guided into the true understanding and obedience and submission to the authority of your word. We ask that you would help us to do that. Oh, Lord of the word, lead us through the word of the Lord. We pray this now in Jesus' name. Amen.

Thanks for listening to today's teaching by Tim Keller here at Gospel in Life. We want to share a special free resource with you that we provide during the season of Lent. For the 40 days from Ash Wednesday through Good Friday, Gospel in Life would like to send you a daily devotional. Sign up to receive this daily email at gospelinlife.com slash Lent. That's gospelinlife.com slash Lent.

This month's sermons were recorded in 1992. The sermons and talks you hear on the Gospel and Life podcast were preached from 1989 to 2017 while Dr. Keller was senior pastor at Redeemer Presbyterian Church. ♪