Standing With Truth

The speaker discusses the section in Ephesians chapter 6 about the armor of God. He emphasizes the importance of standing firm in one's faith and resisting the devil's tricks. He explains that the belt of truth is crucial in this battle, as it is rooted in the word of God and provides stability. The speaker warns against being deceived by false doctrines and highlights the tactic of questioning God's word, which has been used by Satan since Adam and Eve. He encourages believers to put on the whole armor of God and fight against the devil's attacks. Amen. Hopefully you serve a Savior also, because I know I do. You have your Bibles this morning. Turn to Ephesians chapter 6. Ephesians chapter 6. We are entered the section that many people call the section about the armor of God. We started last week in this section in chapter 6 and verse 10. And Paul writes to the church at Ephesus, 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 wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places. Wherefore, take unto you the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand. The Bible tells us very clearly, with no explanation needed, that in the end, God will have the last word. That the battle has already, even though we are in a battle, the war has already been won. We're told in Revelation chapter 20 and verse 10, it said, And the devil that deceived them was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet are, and shall be tormented day and night forever and ever. And I saw a great white throne, and him that sat on it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away, and there was found no place for them. And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God, and the books were opened, and another book was opened, which is the book of life. And the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books according to their works. And the sea gave up the dead which were in it, and death and hell delivered up the dead which were in them, and they were judged every man according to their works. And the dead and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death. And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire. God says the war is going to be over with. Satan, the false prophet, all those that have not trusted in Jesus Christ as their personal Savior will all be cast into the lake of fire. And God says this is the second death. There is no return from the second death. And we come back to Ephesians chapter 6, and Paul says, tells us that as Christians, because God has done all of this for us, then we ought to walk a certain way. We ought to live a certain way. And he tells us that one of the problems with walking, as we studied last week, is first of all we have to learn to stand. And we need to understand that we have to stand before we can walk. And we've got a lot of Christians today, and we are seeing it not only in America, but around the world. We're seeing where people are falling away from their faith, falling away from their trust and their belief in Jesus Christ as their personal Savior. And Paul says we don't want to do that. We don't want to do that. And so we need to be able to stand. We need to be able to stand against the walls of the devil. He tells us back in Ephesians chapter 6 and verse 14, he says, Stand therefore, having done all to stand, stand therefore having your loins girt about with truth, and having on the breastplate of righteousness, and your feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace. Above all, taking the shield of faith, wherewith you shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked, and take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God. And praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, and watching thereunto with all perseverance and supplication for all saints. As we think about this armor of God this morning, if utilized properly, we will be able to do what verse 11, verse 13, verse 14 say that we are to do. We are commanded to stand. We are not to run. We are not to flee when the battle gets heavy. And we've understood last week that guess what? We are in a battle. And whether you like it or not, we are being wrestled with. And sometimes when you are being wrestled with, we have no obligation but to fight. We have to try to survive. And he says we do that by standing. And this armor that God has given us, everything that we need to be able to stand against the trickery and the cunniness of Satan. We have everything that's there to be able to not only stand, but to withstand the evil. To be able to resist Satan against his daily assaults that come our way from the enemy. And so this morning, I want us to examine the thesis of this whole armor of God. We're going to take several weeks and we're going to break them down. And today we're just going to deal with the very first one, the belt of truth. The word aletheia can be translated truth as content or truth as opposed to falsehood. Truth is defined as the word of God. And all through the Bible, the truth is referred to as the revelation of God, the content of truth. Or truth can also be defined as an attitude of truthfulness, non-hypocrisy, sincerity, honesty, integrity, or commitment. And so when we look at this belt of truth this morning, we're going to look at it from both of these different viewpoints as being the content of truth, but also being the attitude of truth. And the belt of truth speaks of a life that is built on the faithfulness of the word of God. Everything that we have, we have to believe that this is the word of God. And if it is the word of God, if it was spoken from the word of God and written down by holy men of God as they were moved by the Holy Spirit, the Bible says that God is not a liar. As a matter of fact, that God cannot lie. And so we have to look at this as if it is God's word, that everything here is truth. And everything is here for us to be able to know truth and to understand truth. And therefore, it is the word of God that gives the Christians the stability that they are able to stand when the wiles of the devil come before us. When we think about the belt of truth, it provides a place for all the other pieces of the armor and different things to be able to rest and attach. Do you realize without the belt of truth, the soldier of God would find the other pieces of the armor completely useless? Without the belt of truth? Listen, unless our lives as Christians is rooted and testimonies are rooted in the word of God, we will not be able to stand in the evil day. And so let's notice this first element this morning, the substance of truth. To deal with the wiles of the devil. How do we fight the wiles of the devil? The conference this week, yesterday, if you missed it, you missed a great, great conference. I'll post the website where you can at least go and hear the two messages that Brother Richard Hamlin mentioned yesterday. There was also several breakout sessions, but in my opinion, it was one of the best ones that we have had yet. Very good. And what we were convinced of out of the word of God yesterday is that Satan is real. Satan has demons that are real. Satan is working hard in this world to not only destroy God, but destroy anybody and everybody that believes and trusts in God. And as we look at this passage of Scripture this morning, that is what Paul is saying, that Satan doesn't just go after evil people that desire him. Satan even goes after those that are trying to live for Jesus Christ. And he attacks us and he attacks us hard and he attacks us often. That's why Paul says here in Ephesians chapter 6 and verse 11, put on the whole armor of God that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. And as we think about these wiles of the devil, he goes on and tells us in chapter 4, verse 41, that we are henceforth no more children tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine by the slight of men and the cunning craftiness whereby they lie in wait to deceive. We were told as we walked that guess what? There are those that are out there that are trying to deceive us and are trying to trip us up in our life for Jesus Christ, trying to get us to doubt the goodness and the graciousness of God. We see it as you go back in the Bible all the way to Adam and Eve, when there were just two people here on this earth, God created them in His image and He told them you can have everything in this world. Everything is yours, everything you see, eat it, enjoy it. He said I created you, I want to bless you, I want to give you everything for you because I love you. And He said there is just one thing that I was free of in the knowledge of this people that I shall remind you, for in the name of God and the Spirit of God, I can't fear them. And it is this very promise that the creation of Adam and Eve before Satan slithered into place, into the garden. And guess where he appears? Right before Eve, as she is standing there, not enjoying in all the fruits and the treats that God has given her, but she is standing right at the pointery of God's saying, do not eat. And she is thinking, and as she is thinking about those two, then Satan comes in and he makes one quick yet swift statement, yea, that God said. And do you realize that that tactic has still been going on for over 6,000 years? Satan still comes to us and says, does God really say that? Does God's word really say that? Does God's word really mean that? Does that what that means? You know, and unfortunately, we have many teachers, and unfortunately, I haven't actually done the same. We have teachers, and we have preachers that have taken and played right into the strength of Satan. When we go back, and here's how we do it. We go back and say, well, Paul was writing here to the church at Corinthians, and this was for them because of the culture, or whatever, right? And that may be true about the historical context. But the church is the word of God. The church is the word of God because we can still take God for sale, and we can go on with the life that we want under idolatry, making ourselves a god. You know, the unfortunate thing in America is we don't have a lot of individuals that say, you know, we worship ourselves. We worship ourselves. We think we need to make decisions for ourselves, and we don't think this, and we think that, and we have too many wrong decisions, but it isn't all of that, right? And the whole time, what we're doing is we're building up as God, because we need to care, and God needs to publish His decisions. That's the thing that we need to do. Satan, this person is talking about things for you that need to be looked at. Can you really trust God? Can you really trust the word of God? We have people in colleges and seminaries today that are tearing apart the word of God and trying to say, well, that book really, you know, doesn't count. It's really not. It doesn't get followed up by, you know, this is an apology. This is a miracle. This is a seed that you really couldn't be trustful. And so, he gives you the adultery here. The problem with that is you can get sucked into it, and you think that's why I'm praying for you, because you don't have the substance to say, guess what? This is exactly what's going to put the water in the fish, and he says, my son of man, I'm not finished with you. He's going to have to deal with another little bit of adultery. So, he's a Christ-eater to me, and he's a Christian to me, and he's a good Christian to me. And that's very important. But he's doing good, right? That's very, very important. That's why it's a wonderful message. You see how easy it is to say it's twins, it's a seed, and it doesn't say why. Twins do exactly the same thing. And what if it was true, or if it was not? Well, here's what it looks like. And if God didn't do it, don't assume that you can get rid of some fish for three days and three nights, and God is no liar. So, we have a problem we can start questioning the Word of God, and we start changing it, and that is the substance of truth. As a matter of fact, if you go back to 1 Timothy 4, Paul said this to young Timothy, he said, Now the Spirit speaketh expressly that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, and what are they going to depart from the faith? I just, my deal is messing all up again. Shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, demons, and doctrines of devils. See, when we throw and we talk about these things, and we doubt the Word of God, and we don't trust the truth of the Word of God, we are actually playing right into the hands of Satan himself and his demons that come and serve him. Here, the wiles of the devil is translated as a cunning craftiness that he has before us. It's the idea that this doctrine of teaching, it refers to the whims of doctrine. The cunning, the wiles, is these rumors and these sayings and these phrases and these quotes and these things that we have that are laid down before us, and here comes these false truths. They are the wiles of the devil, and the only way that you can resist the falsehoods and the lies of the devil is to have the truth. When somebody comes up with some crazy saying or whatever, we don't want to believe that. We want to go to the Word of God, because the Word of God is our foundation. It is our truth. The Spirit expressly says, and so that's the substance of truth. It's only found in the Word of God. You can trust the Word of God. But then notice the symbolism of truth. The symbolism of truth. And in order to understand this, I want us to go and look at what he says. He says in verse 14, Stand therefore, having your loins girt about with truth, and having on the breastplate of righteousness. Let me understand and describe for you this veil. And what Paul is using, and I mentioned last week, we get so caught up in the armor that sometimes we forget about the teaching and what the doctrine that Paul was trying to get into our minds, but I want you to understand that Paul is using this broken soldier as he was there in prison, riding back to the church at Ephesus, and he was wounded, and he was discharged and he was equipped for battle. He was equipped to be a guard. He was equipped to serve in the Roman army. And so he says, look at this. And as God is speaking to him, he uses his body and his armor and his clothing as a picture to understand that when we are in Christ, we are in Christ. That's what he told us in Ephesians chapter 1, and if we are in Christ, Christ is in us, and guess what? He's using us. And you know, it's not physical. He's in the Roman prison. It really doesn't matter if it's the veil, or the helmet, or the breastplate, or the shield, or the shoes. He's just going down through there, and he's going from the head to the toes, and he's going to go to a new place, a new place, which is Ephesus for us, to be able to come to God on the day. And his imagery is taught all the way through the Bible, and it goes all the way back to the Old Testament. The men are studying it on Wednesday night, and guess what? Everything in the Old Testament, even in the Tabernacle, everybody pointed to Jesus Christ. Everybody couldn't believe that he was Christ. And as we are studying that, as we are looking for that, there was an event that happened before the giving of the law, before Moses got to the Mount of Olives, the people of Egypt first seen it, that happened when God finally got them out of Egypt, and it's called the Passover. It's a very important feast, because it was a feast where they took the lamb. There were so many things that happened, and it's a holy place, and a holy temple, and a holy temple, and a holy temple, and a holy temple, and a holy temple, and a holy temple, and a holy temple, and a holy temple, and a holy temple, and a holy temple, and a holy temple, and a holy temple, and a holy temple, and a holy temple, and a holy temple, and a holy temple, and a holy temple, and a holy temple, and a holy temple, and a holy temple, and a holy temple, and a holy temple, and a holy temple, and a holy temple, and a holy temple, and a holy temple, and a holy temple, and a holy temple, and a holy temple, and a holy temple, and a holy temple, and a holy temple, and a holy temple, and a holy temple, and a holy temple, and a holy temple, and a holy temple, and a holy temple, and a holy temple, and a holy temple, and a holy temple, and a holy temple, and a holy temple, and a holy temple, and a holy temple, and a holy temple, and a holy temple, and a holy temple, and a holy temple, and a holy temple, and a holy temple, and a holy temple, and a holy temple, and a holy temple, and a holy temple, and a holy temple, and a holy temple, and a holy temple, and a holy temple, and a holy temple, and a holy temple, and a holy temple, and a holy temple, and a holy temple, and a holy temple, and a holy temple, and a holy temple, and a holy temple, and a holy temple, and a holy temple, and a holy temple, and a holy temple, and a holy temple, and a holy temple, and a holy temple, and a holy temple, and a holy temple, and a holy temple, and a holy temple, and a holy temple, and a holy temple, and a holy temple, and a holy temple, and a holy temple, and a holy temple, and a holy temple, and a holy temple, and a holy temple, and a holy temple, and a holy temple, and a holy temple, and a holy temple, and a holy temple, and a holy temple, and a holy temple, and a holy temple, and a holy temple, and a holy temple, and a holy temple, and a holy temple, and a holy temple, and a holy temple, and a holy temple, and a holy temple, and a holy temple, and a holy temple, and a holy temple, and a holy temple, and a holy temple, and a holy temple, and a holy temple, and a holy temple, and a holy temple, and a holy temple, and a holy temple, and a holy temple, and a holy temple, and a holy temple, and a holy temple, and a holy temple, and your light's burning. Jesus is talking. If you go back and you read this passage in Luke, and I'll get back to the Passover here in just a second, and I'll get back to the Passover here in just a second, but if you go back to this passage in Luke, you will actually find that Luke is talking about the second coming of Jesus Christ. the second coming of Jesus Christ. And what He is talking about in the second coming is that we are to gird our loins with gathering up all of the loose material, everything that was there, because back in that day, they didn't have jeans and stuff like we do. They wore a robe-type garment. They wore a robe-type garment. And with that robe-type garment, you can ask any lady or whatsoever, it is hard to run, much less wrestle or fight when you're wearing a dress, right? Because you get all tangled up and it's a bad situation. And so what He's telling them is that the second coming of Jesus Christ, that you need to gird up your loins. All of that loose material and every bit of that and gather it up right there at the beginning of the time for the second coming of Jesus Christ. And He tells them here, He says, because you are fixing to get involved in hand-to-hand combat. It's fixing to be a battle. All of this evil that's been in this world is fixing to come to an end. And so Luke is telling us that we need to get ready. We need to be prepared for this. And then He tells us in Exodus 12, back to this Passover, He said, and thus shall you eat it with your loins girded, your shoes on your feet, and your... Oh, my thing keeps jumping. Darby, I guess you got it there. I'm going to another program. I'm tired of looking at it and fooling with it. Exodus chapter 12 and verse 11. Let's just forget that technology altogether and let's just go to the Bible. Exodus chapter 12. I've had enough of Satan this morning and he don't even want to lead this up. Exodus chapter 12, verse 11. Look at what he says. And thus shall you eat it with your loins girded, your shoes on your feet, your staff in your hand, and you shall eat it in haste. It is the Lord's Passover. And so notice here He tells us that we are to eat it standing with our loins girded, ready to go to battle. Gird up your loins. Why? Because you're not staying in Egypt. You're fixing to get out of here. You are heading to the promised land. And so understand this gird up your loins was a very common phrase that was used in the Old Testament. It's a very common phrase in the New Testament. And Luke chapter 12 that I mentioned just a second ago said, let your loins be girded about and your lights burning. In other words, what it is talking about is this preparedness. It's talking about being ready. Being ready. The belt was preparedness. The Roman soldier wouldn't go into battle with his dress flapping and flying in the breeze. Somebody would take it. Have you ever watched hockey players when they finally got enough and they start to fight? What's the first thing that they try to do is get them tangled up in that big old shirt that they wear, right? Have you ever looked at football? You know why they wear skin-tight clothing and their shirts are so tight? So you can't use their clothes against them when you're trying to bring them down. That would be a bad thing. And so that's what this whole idea we use it in sports even today of this idea of preparedness and readiness. And remember, it's dealing with hand-to-hand combat. And we don't understand that because everything we deal with is physical. What we can see, touch, smell, taste, right? The five senses in here. But understand that right now even in this service right now there are angels and demons that are fighting that we don't even see. There are things that are going on right now and I don't want to scare you this morning but I want us to understand the reality of what is happening. We are in a battle and Paul says, Satan wants to deceive you. He wants to bring you down. 2nd Timothy chapter 2 and verse 3. Paul the last letter that he writes he tells Timothy he says, Thou therefore endure hardness as a good soldier of Jesus Christ. No man that tangles himself with the affairs of this life that he may please him who has chosen him to be a soldier. What he's saying is you can't fight if you're all tangled up in your robe. You can't fight if you're all tangled up. You know why the Christians are losing the battle today? Why are we not able to stand and withstand the attacks of Satan in the world? Because we don't even really know what we believe and don't believe. We're not standing on truth. We have allowed every author, we have allowed every false prophet, we have allowed every false teacher to come in and get us to question the word of God. These are the two biggest problems that we have in the American Baptist Association right now. They're not over doctrinal stuff. We're not fighting and arguing over something that we can just go to the Bible and solve. We're dividing, our church is dividing over translations of the Bible and over mutual worship and what not. And what we need to find out when we get to heaven is this one. I told my class yesterday, do you realize that there is not a single copy of the original stuff at all or any of them right now? When people talk about the original language, that's all they're talking about is the language of the original documents. God never said that He preserved the original documents. You know why He didn't do that? Because we would worship the document for the original. God said, I'm not going to save the documents for you to worship and make a copy of the original. But He said, here's what I will preserve. He said, I will preserve the truth. And so everything that we have is a translation. Either a translation with ill language or a translation of the cultural language. So where are we with all of this? That nobody can be original in front of God? All I have to do is believe that God said this is true. And all I have to do is believe it. And He gave me the Holy Spirit within me to do what? To guide me into truth. And so when I look at these other translations, the reason that I start pulling translations, and you can go between my computer and my office, I've got an entire bookshelf of Bible translations, and I've read just about every single one of them, but here's the problem. When I find something that's there that does not quite make the difference between something that's not in the Bible, because it's a bad translation, it doesn't make it. And even though the change is in our today's language, it has stood up to every challenge and every test for over 200 years. Everybody has challenged the Word of God 2.3 times over. And we're so wrapped up today, we're allowing Satan to confuse us and mess us up and get us to deny everything. Listen, if you didn't believe anything, I don't really care what you believe when it comes to the antichrist, what you believe about the study of the church or anything else, what we need to do is go back and think one God, one Lord, one pastor, one church, one ministry. If we can get back to a green elect that Jesus Christ is true, the Word, the truth, the Word of God became flesh and dwelt among us. Paul said, when I came to Corinth, I didn't come talking to you about all of these theologies. Paul just got through spending three and a half years one-on-one in the church because Jesus Christ himself said he believed it. And yet, he said, well, he was still searching for it. He said, I think it's going to end up where it is. And here's what I think. He said, I just went back. I didn't go back. And I think sometimes if we will get back to the simplicity of the gospel and quit thinking, and quit trying to make sense, do you realize the Bible says, I believe it's Deuteronomy 28, 28, he said that with God, the secret things are secret. Do you realize there's some things in the Word of God that we will never know? Paul in the book of Ephesians has already revealed two mysteries to us in the book of Ephesians about the church that he would have for over 4,000 years and years until like he didn't know nothing about it. And he said, you know what? Now's the time. Do you realize what a mystery that God told Daniel a whole lot about eternal prophecy that he told him to fill up and share it with absolutely nobody in the church? And God told him that it was totally because we couldn't handle it. I believe there's some things that are going to happen that if you knew the future, if you knew what was going to take place, you'd be honest in the matter of not saying it. But God told him, boy, I trust you. You can trust me today, you can trust me in the future, you can trust me next year, and you just trust me because I am serious. I am going to do what? And so we have this teaching all the way through the Old Testament. We have it through the New Testament. And if we're going into war, we need to understand that it is serious. So when a soldier went into war, just like a man going on a journey would do, he would take his belt and he would cinch it around his waist and it could be made of stash material. Most likely, the soldiers were made out of leather because it was tougher and it withstood more things and held up to more things. And they would take the four corners of their tunic and they would pull it up through the belt. And they would make it into kind of a mini-tunic. So that they would be able to move and be flexible. And that's the imagery that Paul is using. On that same belt, if you go back and you study and you look at the Word of God and you look at the Roman soldier, you will find that on that same belt, it would have a strap. And it would come down and connect the belt and go over the shoulder and connect the back. And on that stash that came off of the belt, he would attach his sword to it. Which was the Spirit. The Spirit. And we'll talk later about that. The sword of the Spirit. Listen to me. The Word of God is attached to the belt of truth. You cannot separate truth from the Word of God. So the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God, is attached to that belt. And over the shoulder is that strap. And on that strap, you know what they would put? All of their emblems and insignias of what they've won and their trophies that they have got in battles. You see, when they would take somebody and conquer them, they would take something and put it on that strap. I know my grandfather had a gun one time, and on that gun, everything that he killed, he marked on that stock with a certain symbol for small gun, certain symbol for big game, and everything had a mark, and he kept up with it. It was a trophy. And man, that gun was precious because it showed everything that he killed with that gun through that battle. That's what the Roman soldier did. And that's where they put this Roman soldier. All of the medals and the awards of his accomplishments was placed there. And guess what? Every bit of that was connected to the belt of truth. Listen, when you wear the belt of truth, you draw the sword of the Spirit, you're going to win battles. You're going to be rewarded for your faithfulness and for your standing in that battle. And what a fitting combination to only those ready that were girded up, only those with the sword of the Spirit hanging on their side were the ones that won medals. Everybody else that was just in the battle and wasn't paying attention, they never won anything. They never done anything. And so I want to finish and wrap this up this morning with the seriousness of truth. Listen to me. It does refer to truth. And I think you can take Aletheia, and I always have a hard time saying that Greek word, in the sense of content and the substance of truth, but that's still not the primary purpose of what Paul is trying to teach us here. That's not what he's doing because that's dealt with in the sword of the Spirit. That's in the sword of the Spirit, but what is he talking about by the belt of truth? And I believe after much prayer and much study, the main thrust here is the idea of truthfulness, which the Word also could mean. And here he is speaking of an attitude, not content. What do you mean by an attitude? You say, put your belt on. That shows an attitude of readiness, preparedness. Peter put it this way, and we use it for our apologetics conference. He said, be ready always to give an answer of the hope that is in you. Be prepared. Satan's going to come at you. They're going to say that that's not in the Bible or that's not what that means, but guess what? You know, the whole problem with Adam and Eve in the garden was that if you go back and you study that and you look, every sin of that which I've done was given to Adam. No other sin was given to Eve. Eve wasn't told not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, was she? Eve wasn't told to cry with blessed sins of evil and evil. Eve wasn't told not to eat of the tree of evil and evil and that the God who has given sin to put on the tree and took all of it out and made it more evil. And the whole line of the woman was standing there in the tree, but when she went to her husband and told him the truth, do you remember what she ate? And she ate the soot of the water. She ate the soot of her husband's blood with it. And Eve ate it. She was taught the truth that says evil is to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, to sin, He says, here's the duty of everything that Christ has done for you. He says, I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies. This sinful, fleshly, ungodly tabernacle that you have, you are to present it as a sacrifice to God. Holy and acceptable unto Him. He said, that's just your reason. He said, we're just scratching the surface. That's the least you could do for someone that died for you and gave you life. And He says, be not conformed to this world, but be you transformed by the renewing of your mind. By your mind. That you know what? Prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God. Submit to the truth, but seize the truth. He says, gird your loins with truth. That is something that you have to seize the truth. You have to believe it. You have to do it. You have to say that I believe this is the Word of God. And if you really believe this is the Word of God, you're going to read it. You're going to study it. You're going to be ready. Because guess what? We're in a battle! If they signed me up and drafted me today and said I'm going to have to go up to Iraq and I'm going to have to fight, you better believe I'm going to be listening to those that are training me and preparing me to get ready for that battle. Because I want to come back alive. I want to win. I want to be victorious. I'm not going to go over there to die. And God has left us here in the greatest and the biggest battle. And we just walk through life unprepared. We need to seize the truth. We need to get our focus on the right things. The question is, is how badly do you want to win? How badly? How badly? Is it worth knowing the truth? Is it worth learning the truth? You know, I feel I was pretty far in this thing, but I've been reading it all the time. And I find that the thing that God gives me is more trouble in that and in that alone than in the whole world. And I'm not saying don't do it, but please feel free to pause at a certain point, at a certain time, at a certain strategy. If I didn't see it, then you can worry about it with me until I get to my level of seeing it. ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ...