Randy Green's Blog, page 355

War and Peace – Part 4

NEWS FLASH!!! Acts: Volume 8 of Heavenly Citizens in Earthly Shoes is now available from CreateSpace (paperbacks) and Kindle (eBooks). Click on the link to the right of this page to go to Amazon and place your order.

Stand firm therefore…having shod your feet with the preparation of the gospel of peace [Ephesians 6:14-15].

Jesus won the victory over the flesh, the world, and the devil. We are “in Christ”, so we too have won those selfsame victories. Isn’t that fantastic?

We have to remember that the battle is not ours to fight and win. The battle belongs to the Lord. We are not to live our own life. We are to be the Body of Christ on earth and allow Him to live His life in and through us. We are not out to accomplish our plans. We are servants of Christ, doing His work to accomplish His plan.

The Lord Jesus is the perfect military commander. He is the perfect master. He never sends any of His people into the world to do a job, without first equipping them to succeed in achieving His goals. He never dispatches any of His troops to the battlefield, without first furnishing them with the weaponry needed to succeed and obtain the victory.

The Lord displayed this truth to the Israelites in Egypt. He defeated Pharaoh and his armies on Israel’s behalf, forcing Pharaoh to surrender and release Israel from slavery to him. He defeated Pharaoh at the Red Sea, when Pharaoh tried to force Israel back into slavery to Egypt.

The Lord went ahead of the Israelites into Canaan, defeating the inhabitants of that land for Israel. Israel wasn’t allowed to sit back and watch the action, mind you. They did have to go forth and fight. But the Lord went first and whupped the heathen folks. Israel simply had to obey the Word of God to them to follow behind Him and do mop up duty. In other words the Lord equipped the Israelites to accomplish the chore which He assigned to them.

Though the Israelites fought against physical troops and employed physical weapons, the fight was first and foremost spiritual warfare. The Lord was in control. The battle belonged to the Lord. Israel’s part was to hear the Word of God to them, obey the Word of God to them, and win the victory which the Word of God guaranteed them. Voilà! spiritual warfare in a nutshell.

The same applies to us Christians today. No, we don’t conduct physical warfare against physical enemies by employing physical weapons. We aren’t out to inherit a physical country as the spoils of war. We are strangers and pilgrims on the earth, who desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one.

But we do walk with the Lord in order to arrive at our heavenly country. And we can only do so on the basis of obedience to the Word of God. This journey is one of daily spiritual warfare. This warfare is conducted on the basis of the Word of God. It begins with grace through faith, and it ends with grace through faith. Everything in between is also grace through faith.

That is what we are learning by the individual pieces which comprise “the full armor of God”. Are you putting on each piece daily? Are you wearing “the shoes of the gospel of peace”? Praise the Lord for his armor. Let us go forth to war, being strong in the Lord and in the power of His might!

To further research this issue, I direct you to my book Joshua: Volume 6 of Heavenly Citizens in Earthly Shoes. To purchase my books please go to:

http://www.amazon.com/Randy-Green/e/B00507WC86

Filed under: Church Age Tagged: armor, demons, devil, Ephesians 6, military, peace, sandals, shoes, spiritual warfare, war

War and Peace – Part 3

NEWS FLASH!!! Acts: Volume 8 of Heavenly Citizens in Earthly Shoes is now available from CreateSpace (paperbacks) and Kindle (eBooks). Click on the link to the right of this page to go to Amazon and place your order.

Stand firm therefore…having shod your feet with the preparation of the gospel of peace [Ephesians 6:14-15].

We conduct spiritual warfare by proclaiming the Gospel of Jesus Christ. The Gospel is God’s proclamation to sinful man that he cease from his hostilities against God, repent of his sins, and turn to God for forgiveness. In doing this the sinner renounces his sin of rebellion against God’s kingship, and he submits himself to God as His King. In this way the sinner becomes a saint, an adopted son of God in Christ Jesus.

This scenario is made possible by the death of Jesus on the cross. Jesus died our death, thus paying the penalty for our sins. He rose out of death without sin, thus providing us with a new resurrection life without sin.

When the sinner believes this message of the Gospel and accepts God’s offer, he is no longer the old sinner at war with God. He becomes a saint, a new creation in Christ Jesus who is a part of God’s family. He isn’t at war with God any longer. He thenceforth has peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. He can live in the peace of God thereafter. This is “the gospel of peace”.

In conducting spiritual warfare, this translates thusly. Satan accuses the saint of sinning, trying to evoke guilt feelings in the saint and drive him to hide from God. It worked in the garden of Eden when the man and woman sinned, didn’t it? Who’s to say it’s not a successful ploy still?

When we put on “the shoes of peace”, it amounts to proclaiming that we are in a state of peace with God because we are “in Christ”. Satan’s accusation dissipates into thin air by this revelation. We cannot exactly feel guilty and run away to hide from God, if we clearly know that we are at peace with God. Can we? Methinks not!

In case you haven’t noticed, as we’ve studied each piece in “the full armor of God”, we’ve basically been identifying different aspects of Christ Jesus’ Person and ministry. We’ve proclaimed the Gospel in its various aspects. The Gospel is the answer to any guile and bile which Satan employs against us.

We can do all things through Christ Who strengthens us, dear friends. We can overcome the world because Christ overcame the world and we are “in Christ”. We can rebuke the flesh because of Christ in us, the hope of glory, and He was victorious over the flesh. We can overcome the devil because we are “in Christ”. Didn’t He overcome the devil in the wilderness for forty days and forty nights?

Yes, Jesus sure did! Let’s go to Him now and congratulate Him on His sterling victory. We’ll finish our topic in the next study.

To further research this issue, I direct you to my book Joshua: Volume 6 of Heavenly Citizens in Earthly Shoes. To purchase my books please go to:

http://www.amazon.com/Randy-Green/e/B00507WC86

Filed under: Church Age Tagged: armor, demons, devil, Ephesians 6, military, peace, sandals, shoes, spiritual warfare, war

War and Peace – Part 2

NEWS FLASH!!! Acts: Volume 8 of Heavenly Citizens in Earthly Shoes is now available from CreateSpace (paperbacks) and Kindle (eBooks). Click on the link to the right of this page to go to Amazon and place your order.

Stand firm therefore…having shod your feet with the preparation of the gospel of peace [Ephesians 6:14-15].

We are to conduct spiritual warfare and defeat the devil in his wiles. Symbolically, the Word of God keeps our feet unencumbered by the pitfalls and stumbling blocks of the flesh, the world, and the devil. God’s Word is like the belt which anchors the tunic away from the feet so we don’t stumble. God’s Word is “the belt of truth”.

The second piece of armor is “the breastplate of righteousness”. Man in his own strength cannot stand against the devil. We will fall for his guile in no time flat. The devil will remind us of whatever weakness and failing we have, which is as simple as pie for him.

Satan might point out the last time we sinned, and we will be speechless, unable to refute him because he would be right. Or Satan might butter us up with some supposed achievement which we accomplished, should our weakness be pride. Our head will swell to the size of Rhode Island, and we will be defeated outright.

No man, including the Christian, is righteous in his own right. We all sin and we all fail. Ergo, we cannot confront Satan in our own righteousness. We need “the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus”, if we are to be victorious in spiritual warfare.

That is “the breastplate of righteousness”. As new creations in Christ Jesus, we don’t stand on our own righteousness. We stand on the Rock, Christ Jesus. We have His righteousness ascribed to us by God.

Satan can point the finger at the old sinner’s lack of righteousness until the cows come home. God isn’t impressed. His Son Jesus names us as His own, as having His righteousness. God declares us “Not guilty!” Satan goes away ashamed.

The third piece of armor for us to put on can be identified as “the shoes or sandals of peace”. And that identifies the “war and peace” we made note of earlier. On the one hand we are going forth to conduct spiritual warfare. On the other hand we are fitting our feet with the gospel of peace.

Isn’t that peculiar? Are we to conduct war or are we to hold peace talks? Which is it already! Well, it’s both. How’s that for decisiveness, huh?

Permit me to explain. When we conduct spiritual warfare, we don’t do so by pushing our own agenda. We serve the Lord Christ, not ourselves. We conduct spiritual warfare by proclaiming the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Ah oh. Just when we were getting to the nitty gritty, the sand in the clock has filled the bottom. Oh well. We’ll be able to roll the good things of today over our tongues a bit, as we sit at the feet of Jesus. Tomorrow we will continue down this trail.

To further research this issue, I direct you to my book Joshua: Volume 6 of Heavenly Citizens in Earthly Shoes. To purchase my books please go to:

http://www.amazon.com/Randy-Green/e/B00507WC86

Filed under: Church Age Tagged: armor, demons, devil, Ephesians 6, military, peace, sandals, shoes, spiritual warfare, war

War and Peace – Part 1

NEWS FLASH!!! Acts: Volume 8 of Heavenly Citizens in Earthly Shoes is now available from CreateSpace (paperbacks) and Kindle (eBooks). Click on the link to the right of this page to go to Amazon and place your order.

Stand firm therefore…having shod your feet with the preparation of the gospel of peace [Ephesians 6:14-15].

Leo Tolstoy’s novel “War and Peace” is acknowledged as one of the longest novels ever written. Its fame is not based on its length though. Tolstoy is a wonderful writer, who should be appreciated by readers until Jesus comes again.

His style is engaging, but his subject matter often makes the novel difficult for modern Americans to enjoy. We aren’t much given to reading today, what with TV and movies and PCs and smart phones and the internet all working in unison to steal our time from us. Reading has become a lost art, unless we buy into the synoptical alternative to the real thing.

Tolstoy’s “War and Peace” portrays Czarist Russia circa 1805, when the French invaded the land. It continues into the Napoleonic era and his invasion of Russia. The historical setting is not one with which many Americans are familiar. This makes his novel distant and irrelevant for many of us. I personally enjoyed the book quite a bit, though it did have the side effect of heavy lifting on the brain.

You might want to read Tolstoy’s “War and Peace”, if you haven’t already done so. It may afford you a blessing in the reading. But there is another “war and peace” for us to consider. This one will indubitably shower us with blessings. So we mustn’t skip it for any reason in the world!

In our last several studies we have descanted on the topic of spiritual warfare. In order to conduct spiritual warfare successfully, we must needs “put on the full armor of God”. We learned that already, as I am sure you recall.

The first piece of armor is “the belt of truth”. Jesus is the truth, and the written Word of God is the truth.

In order to work or go to war, the folks of the ancient world needed to wear their belt or girdle or sash around their tunic. The tunic dragged along the feet and tripped them up, if they tried to work or fight a battle in it. They had to pull the tunic up away from the feet and tuck it into the belt, to keep it off the feet and out of the way. Then they could successfully work or fight the war.

Only by adhering to the Word of God can we Christians successfully conduct spiritual warfare and obtain the victory over the wicked one. The battle is not ours. The battle belongs to the Lord. The Word of God is the truth about who the devil is, what sin is, how to resist the devil on the spiritual plane, and important topics like that.

Now that is good stuff! I can’t wait to taste some more…but we’ll have to wait because our time is up for today. Let’s spend time with Jesus a while. We’ll meet back here tomorrow.

To further research this issue, I direct you to my book Joshua: Volume 6 of Heavenly Citizens in Earthly Shoes. To purchase my books please go to:

http://www.amazon.com/Randy-Green/e/B00507WC86

Filed under: Church Age Tagged: armor, demons, devil, Ephesians 6, military, peace, sandals, shoes, spiritual warfare, war

Don’t Give Your Heart Away – Part 4

NEWS FLASH!!! Acts: Volume 8 of Heavenly Citizens in Earthly Shoes is now available from CreateSpace (paperbacks) and Kindle (eBooks). Click on the link to the right of this page to go to Amazon and place your order.

Stand firm therefore…having put on the breastplate of righteousness [Ephesians 6:14].

Sinners sin and every human being is a sinner. So Satan never runs out of ammo for shooting us. He simply points to one or another of our sins and convicts us. The sinner responds by tucking his tail between the legs and crawling off to hide, defeated by Satan yet once again.

The Christian can do the same because he still does lose his temper or commit some other sin. Nothing difficult about doing that. After all, the old sinner still lurks inside, trying to have his way.

However, the new nature of the Holy Spirit also lives inside the Christian. He responds to Satan, “Get thee hence, Satan. For it is written, ‘Believe on the Lord Jesus and you shall be saved!’” When that happens, then it is Satan’s turn to slink off into the shadows to disappear, his face red as a beet. Sinners tend to do that, and Satan is the sinner par excellence.

The message for us to garner is this, my friends. We cannot combat the forces of darkness in our own strength, in our own righteousness. Only the righteousness of God can win out in such a campaign. Fortunate for us that we are the righteousness of God, eh? In Christ Jesus, that is.

So let us not be remiss in conducting spiritual warfare against the flesh and the world and the devil. But let us be sure we first don “the whole armor of God”, and that includes protecting our hearts. We must needs depend on the Lord Jesus for the victory, not go to war in our own strength and righteousness. We must “put on the breastplate of righteousness”, which is the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus. There are no chinks in that armor.

So we prepare for spiritual warfare by “girding our loins with truth”. The Word of God is truth—both the living Word, Jesus, and the written Word, the Bible. We remove the entanglements around our feet, which tend to trip us up and prevent our effective functioning. We pull them out of the way and tuck them into the belt around our waist.

The Word of God removes the obstacles from our feet, allowing us to walk in His ways and not stumble. By this manner we can be effectual soldiers in the army of Christ. He can use us to overcome His adversary, the devil.

We also don “the breastplate of righteousness”. When Satan attempts to force us into losing heart and surrendering, we cling to the Word of God and allow God to go to war against Satan instead of us.

We don’t fight Satan in our own righteousness. We fight him in “the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus”. We protect our hearts with “the breastplate of righteousness”. The Lord provided it to us for that very purpose. As obedient soldiers in the army of Christ, we follow the orders given us from the “captain of the host of the Lord” (cf., Joshua 5:14). That would be the Lord Jesus.

So are you ready to march off to war now, Christian soldier? You are? That’s good. Oops! Not so fast! We still have several other pieces of armor to don before heading to Normandy. Normandy can wait, the pieces of armor cannot.

We’ll continue with the next piece of armor in tomorrow’s study. See you then. For now let us respond to Jesus’ invite. He wishes our company. Let’s not keep him waiting.

To further research this issue, I direct you to my book Joshua: Volume 6 of Heavenly Citizens in Earthly Shoes. To purchase my books please go to:

http://www.amazon.com/Randy-Green/e/B00507WC86

Filed under: Church Age Tagged: armor, breastplate, demons, devil, Ephesians 6, military, righteousness, spiritual warfare, war

Don’t Give Your Heart Away – Part 3

NEWS FLASH!!! Acts: Volume 8 of Heavenly Citizens in Earthly Shoes is now available from CreateSpace (paperbacks) and Kindle (eBooks). Click on the link to the right of this page to go to Amazon and place your order.

Stand firm therefore…having put on the breastplate of righteousness [Ephesians 6:14].

The Word of God is like the hand of God, as it reaches out to us with His offer of salvation. Will our hearts harden to His voice and reject the offer, indignant that He should think we need His handout? Or will our hearts melt at the sound of His voice and go out to Him, giving itself away to the God of love?

This is where “the breastplate of righteousness” comes in, dear friends. The breastplate of the Roman legionnaire protected his heart. In Scripture the heart is indicative of our emotions, our love, what we desire and live for. Physically the heart is a vital organ. Life cannot exist without the heart.

Spiritually the heart is a vital organ as well. Spiritual life cannot exist, is not real, except the heart be given to the Lord. Otherwise we are simply being religious. We are only playing church. We are serving self and doing good deeds for our own fame. We are tooting our own horn and singing our own praises.

Anyone in such a condition is fair game for the devil. He savors such delicacies, loving ever finger-licking bite. Such folks are defenseless against the wiles of the devil because man by himself hasn’t the power or the intellect to outdo or outwit Satan.

Only the child of God can have the victory against the evil one, and only when he bedecks himself in “the full armor of God” and betakes himself to spiritual warfare. Part of that armor is “the breastplate of righteousness”.

The Holy Spirit teaches us that the Christian is “the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus”. That, my friend, is “the breastplate of righteousness”. The natural man (i.e., the person who isn’t born again) only has his own righteousness. I am sure your experience confirms what mine does: there isn’t a man alive who is perfectly righteous, who has never done or thought or said anything wrong.

The child of God no longer has to depend on his own righteousness. Now he is the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus. Once we get this Biblical concept into our heads and move it down into our hearts, it transforms us radically.

The evil one comes up behind us and attempts to disillusion us, “Born again? Oh, really? Didn’t I just witness you losing your temper. Looks like the same old sinner to me!”

The natural man hasn’t any defense to this accusation. He did just lose his temper. He does look like the same old sinner because he is! What can he say except, “Guilty”? Then he slinks off into the shadows to disappear, his face red as a beet.

Hopefully none of us respond in such a fashion. We will pursue this matter some more in our next study. Let us stop now and pitch our tents and take our rest for the night. We still have time to enjoy Jesus before going to sleep.

To further research this issue, I direct you to my book Joshua: Volume 6 of Heavenly Citizens in Earthly Shoes. To purchase my books please go to:

http://www.amazon.com/Randy-Green/e/B00507WC86

Filed under: Church Age Tagged: armor, breastplate, demons, devil, Ephesians 6, military, righteousness, spiritual warfare, war

Don’t Give Your Heart Away – Part 2

NEWS FLASH!!! Acts: Volume 8 of Heavenly Citizens in Earthly Shoes is now available from CreateSpace (paperbacks) and Kindle (eBooks). Click on the link to the right of this page to go to Amazon and place your order.

Stand firm therefore…having put on the breastplate of righteousness [Ephesians 6:14].

Contemporary USA mocks the Bible as being old-fashioned and consisting of fairy tales. This same USA brags about how modern it is, all the while being bed fellows with ancient paganism! Have you ever heard the pejorative “sucker”?

Well, we better get used to it, for we have been duped by the evil one yet once again. The facticity and sense of the Bible is replaced in our country by the stuff and nonsense of ancient paganism, and we are proud of it! We are “modern”, fresh, new…or so we believe.

Truth be told, our thinking is as old as dirt, as old as the Garden of Eden, as old as Methuselah. Baal worship has nothing on us. Just visit your local abortion clinic and see firsthand. Want to know what the Asherah pole was? Ask a porno flick connoisseur. He can tell you.

What has all this to do with our Bible verse? I’ll bet you’re wondering that, aren’t you? Oh, yes you are. I saw you wondering it! You can’t hide it from me. Well, let’s consider how the two are related.

The state of our country today reveals our heart condition. Our hearts have been stolen by the wicked one, aka Satan or the devil or Lucifer. Nay, but rather we have given our hearts away, like some love-sick puppy dog who just entered puberty.

When we prefer to watch Star Wars and fantasize about it until it forms our mindset, what have we done if not set our heart on the things of the earth? All along we should bury our head in the Book and allow it to transform us by the renewing of the mind. We don’t follow the Lord. We follow old Lucifer.

I know, no one confesses, “I follow Lucifer!” But a rose is a rose. By any other name… We are on a perpetual safari to find something novel, something extraordinary, something to tickle the fancy. Ma & Pa’s Bible is just some more of the same old same old. Who wants that? So we make fun of it and believe we have discredited it thereby.

Too bad for us, but the Bible won’t go off on its own somewhere and die. The grass withers, the flowers fade; but the Word of our God stands forever. God demands that we reckon with Him. We cannot avoid Him. Our hearts will perforce either harden against Him, in which case we become card-carrying members of the Star Wars Reality Club. Or else our hearts melt at His presence, and we give our hearts to Jesus.

Which will it be for me? Which for you? Let’s sit at the feet of Jesus a while and ponder this issue.

To further research this issue, I direct you to my book Joshua: Volume 6 of Heavenly Citizens in Earthly Shoes. To purchase my books please go to:

http://www.amazon.com/Randy-Green/e/B00507WC86

Filed under: Church Age Tagged: armor, breastplate, demons, devil, Ephesians 6, military, righteousness, spiritual warfare, war

Don’t Give Your Heart Away – Part 1

NEWS FLASH!!! Acts: Volume 8 of Heavenly Citizens in Earthly Shoes is now available from CreateSpace (paperbacks) and Kindle (eBooks). Click on the link to the right of this page to go to Amazon and place your order.

Stand firm therefore…having put on the breastplate of righteousness [Ephesians 6:14].

Springtime is in the air. Ah, amore! Venice is nice for the atmosphere it affords springtime lovers, or so I hear tell anyway. Gay Paris is not exactly chopped liver, if you’re looking for a substitute. What is indispensable is the amore part, not the scenery.

Isn’t life in Tinseltown romantic? There are the fairy tales, and there are the fairy tales, and then there are the fairy tales. Who needs reality when fairy tales are so readily available? We modern Americans are real dupes.

No matter how much we want to pretend reality isn’t real, it is still there, waiting to bite us in the rear end at the first opportunity. Money cannot buy us happiness…or fairy tales…or eternal life. Optical illusions and cheap parlor tricks are not reality, so we would do ourselves well not to give away the farm for pie in the sky.

In our last several studies we have been delving into spiritual warfare and “the full armor of God”. This armor is God’s provision for the Christian, in resisting the evil one and overcoming the world. The first piece of armor we descanted upon was “the belt of truth”. Tinseltown is anything but the truth, dear friends. Why are we in America so willing to pretend it is?

We call ourselves being “romantic” when we chase after our lusts, in imitation of the antics of the silver screen. We should be burying our noses in the Word of God to learn of what real life consists. We instead prefer to play Mr. Magoo or Don Quixote and pretend Star Wars is reality.

We fancy ourselves Luke Skywalkers, out to save the lovely Princess Leia from those repulsive alien-looking whatever-they-are. Not to worry. The force will be with us, whatever that is. Oh, I know what it is! It once upon a time wore the epithet “animism” and “ancestor worship”. It was standard fare for the ancient pagans and their heathenism.

But we are so smart today, aren’t we? Just change the label and redo the packaging, display it on the silver screen as “the force be with you”, and presto! we have made Greek mythology modern and returned us to our heathen roots. And this from the intelligentsia wannabes who mock Christianity as a fable and superstition! Who woulda thunk it, huh?

Have you noticed how much mega-millions of dollars these repackaged Greek myths are making? What does that tell us, if not that modern Americans are too “smart” to buy into Ma & Pa’s old-fashioned superstition (read “Christianity”), so we buy into the polytheism of the ancient Greeks and Canaanites and Egyptians?

Not a pleasant note on which to end the song, is it? But we must stop and take our rest for the night. We’ll meet up again tomorrow. Enjoy time with Jesus now.

To further research this issue, I direct you to my book Joshua: Volume 6 of Heavenly Citizens in Earthly Shoes. To purchase my books please go to:

http://www.amazon.com/Randy-Green/e/B00507WC86

Filed under: Church Age Tagged: armor, breastplate, demons, devil, Ephesians 6, military, righteousness, spiritual warfare, war

Truth or Dare? – Part 4

NEWS FLASH!!! Acts: Volume 8 of Heavenly Citizens in Earthly Shoes is now available from CreateSpace (paperbacks) and Kindle (eBooks). Click on the link to the right of this page to go to Amazon and place your order.

Stand firm therefore, having girded your loins with truth [Ephesians 6:14].

The devil loves to engage Christians in conversation. He knows our proclivity for flapping the jaws at a speed too fast for our minds to keep up. Soon we are speaking half-truths along with him, and he has won the battle against truth.

In the garden the woman fell for this trick. The devil led her straight to lies and into sin. Jesus too was tempted by the devil. However, Jesus recognized the devil for who he is. He is a liar and the father of all lies. This means the devil is the opposite of the truth. Jesus is the truth (cf., John 14:6). The Word of God is the truth (cf., John 17:17). The devil is a liar (John 8:44).

This dichotomy between the devil and God, between lies and truth, was taught to the man and woman in the garden by means of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and the tree of life. If the man and woman had faith in God, then they would obey Him. He permitted them to eat fruit from every tree, including the tree of life.

On the other hand, if they hadn’t faith in God, then they would do the one thing He forbade them to do, viz., eat fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. This was why, in the garden, the devil immediately queried the woman about the fruit she wasn’t permitted to eat. “Did God really say that you can’t eat any of the fruit from any tree?” He got the woman discussing the issue with him, and he tripped her up in her words. She should have said, “It is written…” and left off talking after quoting the Word of God.

If we Christians don’t want to be the devil’s next meal, then we perforce have to fight spiritual warfare daily. And if we are to be successful in conducting spiritual warfare, we must don “the full armor of God”.

This armor includes wearing and properly utilizing “the belt of truth”. To wear the belt of truth, we must feed on our Bible daily in quiet time alone with Jesus. We must learn Bible truth not only in the head but also in the heart, so that we are spiritually armed to stand firm against the lies of the devil.

The good ol’ USA today is not a Christian society. We are not even a post-Christian society. We are an outright antichrist society! And I’m not speaking hyperbolically either. The Book of the Covenant has been lost in the house of God. That should tell us how much it exists in the rest of society. It doesn’t.

We must daily prepare ourselves to walk in the ways of the Lord and conduct spiritual warfare, if we would not succumb to the wiles of the devil. We cannot do the Lord’s work and fight the Lord’s battles with our tunics dragging on our feet. We must needs wear the belt of truth. Only then will we be successful in standing firm.

To further research this issue, I direct you to my book Joshua: Volume 6 of Heavenly Citizens in Earthly Shoes. To purchase my books please go to:

http://www.amazon.com/Randy-Green/e/B00507WC86

Filed under: Church Age Tagged: armor, belt, demons, devil, Ephesians 6, military, spiritual warfare, truth, war

Truth or Dare? – Part 3

NEWS FLASH!!! Acts: Volume 8 of Heavenly Citizens in Earthly Shoes is now available from CreateSpace (paperbacks) and Kindle (eBooks). Click on the link to the right of this page to go to Amazon and place your order.

Stand firm therefore, having girded your loins with truth [Ephesians 6:14].

People in Bible times, including the Romans, wore tunics instead of trousers and shirts. The tunics dragged around the feet when walking and working. So a belt was worn around the waist, allowing the tunic to be pulled up off the feet and tucked in to keep it out of the way.

In Ephesians 6 Paul painted that image for us, except in Paul’s case the belt represented truth. If we don’t want to trip over our flapping jaws by quibbling with the wicked one, we need to employ the belt of truth. The operative word here is “truth”, dear friends. Jesus said that He is the truth. The Psalmist noted that the Word of God is the truth.

The devil is a liar and the father of all lies. He won’t tell you the truth, not even by accident. The antichrist will be a man who the devil possesses. He will present the world with the lie, and all the world will follow him like mice behind the Pied Piper.

But the devil doesn’t speak the lie only during the Tribulation. He is incessantly engaged in this sordid practice of his. We must go to war against it daily, both in our lives and in the world as a whole. Who is sufficient for these things? Not me, and not you either. Only the Lord is, which is why He provides us with “the full armor of God”.

When we wear the belt of truth—or when we gird our loins with truth, which is the same thing—we are fitting ourselves to go to war, you see. And the only defense against the lies of the devil are the truths of God. We have these truths in written form in the Bible. As Rule #2 for Bible study teaches, “The Bible is our sole and final authority in all matters of faith and practice.”

Not convinced? Then consider how Jesus warded off the devil’s attacks, during His forty days of fasting in the wilderness. To each of the devil’s temptations, our Lord answered by quoting the Word of God. Jesus didn’t argue with the devil. He told him the Word of God.

Jesus didn’t correct the devil because the devil wasn’t repentant. Jesus deflected the devil’s temptations by clinging to the Word of God as the truth. He put on the belt of truth, you see. In doing this Jesus role modeled for His people how to combat the wicked one.

In the garden the woman engaged in conversation with the devil. It only took a few exchanges of words between the devil and her before she stepped in it. She didn’t recognize that the devil wasn’t really interested in the truth. She innocently thought she could straighten him out.

Oh, dear. We’re out of time again. Let’s betake ourselves to Jesus for a refreshing time of fellowship. We will continue this topic on the morrow.

To further research this issue, I direct you to my book Joshua: Volume 6 of Heavenly Citizens in Earthly Shoes. To purchase my books please go to:

http://www.amazon.com/Randy-Green/e/B00507WC86

Filed under: Church Age Tagged: armor, belt, demons, devil, Ephesians 6, military, spiritual warfare, truth, war