Armored With Truth

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Morning, church.

Turn your Bibles to Ephesians chapter 6 as we continue our studied and armored.

Ephesians 6 · chapter mention

Wasn't that video well done?

You watch that?

Our guys do a great job.

I'm thankful for the team of people doing things that I have no idea how to do.

And uh the photography and the media work and the slides.

We've got a great team, period.

A lot of people doing a lot of things here, but thank you.

Thank you that you're here this morning.

And uh thinking through this, finally, we're getting to some armor.

We talked about the enemy for two weeks, and now we're talking about something that we can take up.

And so it says that in Ephesians 6 to take up the whole armor.

And uh this armor of truth.

One thing is constant in the world we live in, there's disagreement about truth.

Pilate said to Jesus, what even is truth?

We live us today in a day where there's fake news, spin, fabrication, misinformation, exaggeration, there's social media and media manipulation, fact-checking, conspiracy.

There's a lot today that is in disagreement about what is true.

Charles Spurgeon said one time, a lie can make it halfway around the world while the truth is still getting its shoes on.

There's a battle that rages, and on one side there is the God man Jesus who calls himself in Scripture the truth.

And on the other side, our enemy, our adversary, he's called in scripture the father of lies.

So we have to understand this truth.

Let's pray together.

Father, we love you and thank you for the opportunity we have this morning to open up the book of truth.

God, we pray that you would speak.

God, we don't need to be here just for another Sunday.

God, we don't need to be here just for a social gathering.

We need to hear the truth.

And God, I pray that you would pierce it into our hearts this morning.

We ask that you rebuke the enemy, all the distraction, and God, just open up your word to our hearts for the next few moments.

And we thank you for it in Jesus' name.

Amen.

The first thing I want you to see this morning is the identification of the belt.

In Ephesians 6, 14, it says, Stand therefore, having girded your waist with the truth.

So the word belt is actually never used, but when you look through the armor, it's implied that a soldier to gird himself at the waist, he used this belt.

The belt of truth says, gird yourself with the truth.

Letter A, this morning I want you to see some fallacies about the truth.

Fallacies.

Number one, truth is not measured in feelings.

Jeremiah 17, 9 says that the heart is deceitful and desperately wicked above all else.

Who can know it?

I used to work with teenagers and you'd hear about feelings a whole lot.

Pastor Rick, I got them feelings for this boy.

And I'd say, oh my, that could last three days.

I got all the feels, Pastor.

Okay.

Or you might hear somebody say, I've got mixed feelings.

Or Pastor Rick, you know, that really hurt my feelings.

I don't like what you're doing.

I don't like what you're saying, Pastor.

I'm not feeling that.

Feelings are something that comes from your heart, which Jeremiah described as deceitful and desperate and wicked.

So I need you to know today truth is not measured by feelings because feelings change.

You're sad, you're glad, you're happy, you're mad, right?

Um, I was watching a television show with Heather several years ago, and it's called Extreme Home Makeover.

Had never seen it before.

We turned it on, got into the show, and I'm like, I love shows about change.

So if something at the beginning starts and by the end there's change, I like that.

Anyhow, so we're watching through this show, and as they get through describing what's going on with this family, this young man was handicapped, not able to get in and out of the shower easily.

They go in and they're changing things around, and they show a scene and they zoom in to him in this great big shower and the joy on his face.

And I look over at Heather because I had to do my man check.

And I looked for tears and I didn't see any.

And so I did all I could to hold it back.

And I found out something.

If you fight tears hard enough, you will emit noises you didn't know you had.

And I went.

And she looked at me and I was like, oh, we are never watching this show again.

But I noticed 30 minutes later, I wasn't sad anymore.

Feelings change.

Now, don't miss here, we don't bypass feelings.

Feelings are a part of you, but feelings are not the measure of truth.

In fact, Hebrews talks about Jesus being our, he came to this earth and he was not without infirmities, he was not without feelings.

He felt everything as we did, yet without sin.

And so he had feelings.

But the world's the world's message to us is this hey, just follow your heart.

As long as you feel good about it, that's all that really matters.

And that's a fallacy.

That is not all that really matters.

The truth is not measured by feelings.

Second thing it's not measured by is opinion.

See, truth is truth.

Truth is an absolute.

Um Satan wants us to believe that truth is relative, and that I think Pastor Dave hit this, that you can have your truth, and I can have my truth, and we can go in the neutral corner, and we can be happy with each other's truths, whatever they are, and that's what Satan would have us to believe.

But that is not how truth operates.

Truth has a measurement.

Truth is not an opinion.

If I say to you the 2003 white expedition parked in the back of the parking lot is mine, that's not an opinion.

I've got a title, there is a measurement of truth to that.

Now you can say that expedition is red, and that's an opinion.

It's a dumb opinion.

It's not the truth.

And you can have opinions, and you can even have wrong opinions.

Lots of people have them and they like to share them.

Right?

Some of y'all got some people at work, right?

Like I know them.

Right?

But opinions are relative.

Opinions can be different.

That's an opinion.

It's not the truth.

Truth is not that way.

Some people will say, Well, it's okay for you to be a believer, but it's not okay for me.

That is a false statement because the measurement of being a believer is to believe in Jesus Christ, who is the truth.

And so we can measure standards of truth.

Well, it got me thinking about today Satan's latest attack on truth, and it's been constant throughout his career, but right now his biggest attack on truth is the word tolerance.

Everyone today is just so supposed to be okay with everything and anything that someone else purports, and we have to not only be okay with it, but actually celebrate it.

And culture has misappropriated the word tolerate.

The word tolerate itself means to bear with the idea of something or forbear.

You seeing that?

It doesn't say celebrate or agree within it.

It's just to for that's that we're literally tolerating.

We are.

Okay, I'm tolerating people that have an opinion that I don't agree with.

That's what I'm doing.

But they say if you don't tolerate or if you're intolerant, then that is hate.

In other words, if you don't celebrate for them.

No, the word tolerate means I'm I bear, I deal with it.

Okay.

Satan has defined intolerance as hate.

You either celebrate or you're hating today.

Christians, I want you to hear me on this.

We treat, we treat everyone with love.

We treat, no matter what is going on, we treat everyone with love and respect.

I'm not demeaning that.

Absolutely.

We have to love, we have to show our love, we have to show Jesus to people, but standing firm on your beliefs is not intolerance.

Because Christianity is based on an absolute truth.

I don't have to believe in perversions of sexuality to love someone.

I don't have to teach my children to agree and celebrate with something that is sinful and wrong, and that be intolerant.

That's not what it is.

I'm not going to celebrate sin.

They don't want us to pray publicly.

Well, that's too bad.

If praying to my God is hate speech, then they have lost their minds.

My kids are allowed to pray in school.

And guess what?

So are yours.

And guess what?

Can you stop a prayer?

Just pray for you.

You can't stop a prayer as long as you can think a thought.

Prayer.

I hate that whole thing.

Prayer got out of schools.

It never one day was out of schools.

As long as a teacher was a Christian and had to deal with kids, she was praying.

I'll tell you that.

They don't like you to talk about Jesus.

Can I tell you when we were in Connorsville, Indiana, God allowed us to, for eight years, run this youth rally at the public high school.

Actually, at the public middle school, it had a larger gymnasium.

And we ran a youth rally.

For eight years, we had over 10,000 students show up.

Over 1,100 got saved.

And the city council donated$200 or$2,000 a year to that event.

But they didn't want you to talk about Jesus.

Isn't it crazy?

They don't want you to talk about Jesus, but God has opened the doorway that I have been into every school in this county and shared Jesus.

And Chelsea Middle and Chelsea High and Vincent and Vincent Middle and Coosa Valley and Cornerstone, I've shared Jesus' football teams, FCA, Oak Mountain Middle, that's right.

I forgot about that one.

Evangel.

And I prayed in the name of Jesus, and people have been saved.

And I've been at City Council at Westover, City Council at Chelsea, and guess what?

I prayed in the name of.

They don't want us.

Who is they?

All these they that don't want us doing things, and I've been invited to do it everywhere.

I don't know who they are, all three of them, but they got a loud mouth, I guess.

It's a fallacy.

Oh, you'll get canceled.

Well, you can't cancel Jesus.

I'm sorry.

I love people, but I respectfully, and you can respectfully disagree.

And it's not intolerant.

It's your First Amendment right to disagree.

Letter B is this.

Facts about the truth.

Well, how that how then, Pastor, do we measure truth?

How do we measure it?

Truth is measured by reality and origin.

Okay, truth is discovered, it's not invented or fabricated.

Truth is truth transculturally.

It works across every culture.

Truth is an absolute everywhere.

Works in every culture.

Truth is unchanging.

It can be conveyed across time, across generations and seasons.

All truth is absolute.

So in order to find truth, you have to go back to an origin.

What are you saying, Pastor?

That sounds like a lot of babble.

Here we go.

If you wanted to find the truth about an airplane, you would travel back to 1903 and see the origins from the Wright brothers.

Not one check yet, I'm just saying.

Okay?

You'd have to go back to the early 1800s to find out what led to the airplane, which was a bicycle, and you would have to find out about the origin of the bicycle.

Well, then you'd have to go really far back, tracking through human history to find out about the wheel.

And you'd keep going back until you found the origin of origins.

Where did the thought process begin?

Well, it started here.

Genesis 1.

The origin of origins said, in the beginning, God.

The absolute standard of truth, God.

John 1 1 said, in the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the word was God.

In the beginning was God and Jesus.

And John 14 6 said, I am Jesus said, I am the way, the truth.

So if you backtrack through origins, original truth, the standard of truth is Jesus and His Word.

It is not okay for you to say, Well, Jesus is good for one and not another.

No, because he's truth.

It's like saying, Well, water's good for me, but it ain't good for you.

It's a standard of truth.

The truth is you need Jesus.

He's the measure and standard of truth.

And we have his word of truth as a standard bearer for our life.

And so I need you to understand some facts about truth, some fallacies about truth, so we can, number two, assimilate the truth, assimilation of the belt.

I need you to see verse 11 again, part of that, and we'll read 14 one more time.

Ephesians 6.

Verse 11 says, put on the whole circle, underline, highlight, square, triangle, whatever you got to whole armor of God that you may be able to stand.

And then verse 14, it said, again, stand therefore, having gird, pulled together your waist with the truth.

That word, the whole, in verse 11 is panoplay, and it's the completed tool.

It says, put on the whole armor of God.

So we're going to go through the next three weeks, and we need to start a foundation here of these pieces of armor.

But it does not mean from the gay, it does not mean you're going to put this on and you're going to have separate pieces of armor.

You're going to put this on and you're putting on the whole armor.

It's a package deal.

And so he says, the completed tool, put on the whole armor.

Well, the first action, it's interesting, is putting on the belt.

When I think about a belt, I think about some things.

I think about that it holds up pants, keeps a shirt tucked in.

Without a belt, your pants might be falling.

I think about the guy I saw walking across 280, and I seen his shorts and his underwear and his pants and three layers and no belt.

It made me want to buy a belt.

Grandma might have said something else that she wanted to do with a belt.

Okay?

The belt is first because the truth pulls everything together.

If you live by truth, the truth is first.

It's the first thing that you put on it.

That word GERD, right?

We don't use that every day.

I think you guys need to start using that a little more.

Gird your stuff together, kids.

Gerd is paretzunami, and it means around with a belt.

Girding within the military context, the Roman military here was gathering up the tunic that they wore, tucking it into a girdle to allow the freedom of movement, and it helped them avoid falling.

This is funny.

Augustus would punish his soldiers and was known to symbolically send centurions outside of his tent and make them stand at attention outside the tent.

This is a big punishment without their belts, making it look like his soldiers were wearing dresses.

It was a big punishment.

Well, I asked Brooke if I could borrow something.

Promise there is no weapon in this that I can use.

Okay.

Brooke Morgan just made it through the police military academy.

I don't give her a hand.

I don't even.

First thing I looked at was the size of the waist on this, and I thought, holy cow.

She's about a 20-inch waist there.

Anyhow, so on this belt, you can see different pieces of I got it upside down.

They're going, they're going to be laughing at me.

I'm not there.

That's why I'm not there.

I looked at that thing and said, Am I allowed to take that on stage?

Because if I'm going up on stage with a gun, everybody's going to be mad at me.

It's a taser, okay?

And I'm pretty sure I can't shoot myself.

But you got a taser, there is handcuffs, there's pepper spray, uh, there's a flashlight.

But in order for a police man or a policewoman to have access to all of these items, do you see what they gotta put on?

They gotta put on their belt, and the belt holds very valuable tools.

And think about it this way: if they didn't have that belt on and they got in a situation, and all they had was pockets, and they're in the middle of something and a needful of something quickly, can you imagine?

Just a second, hold on, hold on, don't run, just a second, just a moment.

No, it's all right there on the belt.

They have handcuffs, gun, pepper, all of these things, and they all have different reasons and different uses, but they're all one thing connected to the belt.

The belt is positioned at the core of a person.

Truth is at the core of Christianity.

When you think of a person's core, what do you think of?

The core of a person is what connects the trunk of a person to the lower limbs of a person.

It's the very center.

You know, every time a person swings a baseball bat, they engage their core.

If you've mopped a floor, you have to engage your core.

If you've painted, you have to engage your core.

Everything that you if you take out the trash, you engage your core.

Did you know driving, you engage your core?

You know what happened to me this week because of this?

I got convicted about my core.

And I had to change my usual routine of one sit-up per day, which is when I get up to more than one, and I'm sore right now.

Okay?

It's sad, it really is sad.

If you went a long time, I'm like 25 sit-ups, and I'm like, my, I'm so sore.

This is awful.

But it got me thinking about that core that's supposed to be strong.

Is the very center of you strong?

Truth, rooted in truth, belted in truth, because all armor, all of it, using the rest of it, is centered first.

Do I believe the truth?

Am I gonna be protected against the darts of Satan?

Well, first you better know the truth.

You better understand the truth.

Letter B is this all armor is powered by truth.

All armor is powered by truth.

This Christmas, I was blessed and shocked with an unbelievable gift.

In 1968, Plymouth GTX.

I about lost my life.

I just about had a heart attack.

I went outside, Heather and the family had a whole thing done, but her uncle sent this to me from Texas, and uh I love it.

I love it, it's the most powerful thing I've ever driven.

I'm pretty sure it's the most powerful thing I've ever owned.

Listen, I had to study this because I don't know just for knowing, but the engine, the power of the engine, it has such an awesome name.

The engine on this thing, it's a 440.

The engine's name is a super commando.

I didn't make that up.

I would have liked to have made it up.

Yeah, I call the engine super commando.

It has a six-barrel carburetation system, meaning the more carburation, the air that goes to the thing gives it more power.

It has dual exhaust, which allows more air to go through the engine, giving it more power.

It's cherry red and black stripes, which obviously has to give it more power.

Everything that I think about in this thing gives it power.

Well, we're going to the D now a few weeks ago with some teen boys, and they're taking the ice cream truck down, and we're gonna uh try to hand out information about the church and witness to people.

I'm like, I'm gonna take the car because it'll maybe it'll attract some of those types of people to come talk to us.

So I take the car down.

On the way back, some teen boys wanna ride with me.

And they might have pushed my button a little bit about showing off because it has power.

And so I started pushing down on the gas and just giving them a little show, and then I found myself pushing down.

And fucking knowing what I was pushing down on the gas most of the way.

Okay.

And we're just, and they're filming me, and they're just pouring gas on me.

And I'm just like, oh, they got me on film, I better do it right.

And so we're flying, and all of a sudden I felt a loss of power.

I was like, what is that?

I'm like, I've done something wrong.

I've killed it.

And next thing I know, and we're on whatever this road is, 55?

We're on this road.

There is no shoulder on the road.

And I've got 14 boys in the car with me.

I'm like, somebody's about to crush this car.

And I'm pulled over the yellow vans.

They saw me.

Kept on going.

Probably pray.

I got it started back up, which never happened.

You know, if you it what had happened, I found out I got back here.

I ran out of fuel.

The gas gauge doesn't work on it, and my foot works too good.

And I had run out of gas.

I learned a really important lesson.

It can have all the power in the world, it can have all the power at once.

If there's no fuel, you have no access to any power.

Church, you can have all the power, access to you.

It can be all around you.

But if you don't have the Holy Spirit of God, if you're not armored up in the truth, then you have no assimilation of power.

And let me tell you a verse that talks about it.

In 2 Timothy 3, it says this.

Talking about last times, but look, these are the words.

Chapter 3, verse 1, and then we'll look at verse 5.

Know this in the last days, perilous times will come.

Here are these comparisons.

Men will love themselves, money, they'll be boasters, they'll be proud, they'll be blasphemers, they'll be slanderers, they'll be traitors, they'll be lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God.

Sound familiar?

But verse 5 is interesting with that list of who's who of really sinfulness.

Verse 5 says, but there will be people that have a form of godliness, but denying its power.

Man, I got this car with all this power, but let me tell you, without fuel, I'm denying all the access.

This scripture said there are those who have a form of godliness, those who make an outward display of religion and they present themselves as godly, but the difference is there is no power.

There's no Holy Spirit working in their life.

Oh, you can look the part.

We can be religious looking a few days a week.

It's evidence in the fact that their lives are unchanged.

They speak of God.

This is what it said.

They speak of God and they live in sin.

If the power of God is not in your life, if the Holy Spirit is not working, convicting, directing you towards deeper ministry, compelling you to love the lost, burdening you for people, convincing you to invite, driving you to give, chiseling away at sin in your life.

You may have a form and look of godliness, but denying the power.

I can fit in here one or two times a week, but it's not in here because there's no power.

There's no Holy Spirit directing, there's nothing.

It's on the outside.

By the way, the demons are disguised as angels of light.

Hear me?

They have a form of godliness, but they denied the power.

You say, What do you mean that demons have a form of?

Yes, they believe.

The Bible says they believe in with fear and tremble.

They believed there was belief, but there was no receiving.

There was no reception.

Believing without receiving means that the power of the Holy Spirit is dead.

Reception of Christ causes activation of truth.

If I'm belted up, this is what I'm saying.

What does that mean?

If I'm belted up in truth, there will be the produce of fruit.

The Bible says, how will you know them?

By their fruit, by their production of fruit.

Not how they look.

A form of godliness.

Help me, Pastor.

1 John 1, 5 through 9 goes through it.

You can turn your Bible there, it'd be good for you to see it.

It's vital that we understand this as a church.

If we call ourselves a Christian, Paul said walkworthy, armor up.

It can't be a form of godliness.

It has to be godliness.

1 John 1 5 through 9.

It helped if I'd have been turning there with you instead of talking.

This is the message which we have heard from him and declare to you that God is light and in him is no darkness at all.

If we say that we have fellowship with him and walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice truth.

But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another.

That's important.

And the blood of Jesus Christ, his son, cleanses us from all sin.

If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us.

This is important.

This is maybe what we get to today.

If we confess our sins, he's faithful.

And he's just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

Genuine fellowship with Jesus here is called walking in the light.

It says, walking in the light requires a lack of darkness.

If we do not practice the truth, if we don't belt up in truth, if we walk in the light, not only will we be walking with Jesus, it says, but we'll also have fellowship with other brothers and sisters in Christ that are also walking in the light.

Bible talks about the spirit-bearing witness.

So other people who are walking in the light will be walking beside us.

And verse 8 and 9 is in honesty about sin.

That's what he's saying.

He's not expecting, I'm not saying that we don't sin.

He's not expecting us not to sin.

We have flesh.

We have a fallen flesh.

I'm not saying that at all.

He's expecting us to be sin honest.

Truth, belted in truth.

When I mess up, I fess up.

And when I mess up with somebody else, I fess up with somebody else.

And I move on.

And then we fellowship together.

That's how we go from a soldier belted to an army of soldiers belted.

I'm walking in truth with others.

Do it quick.

Do it often.

And get back into the light.

Who wants to walk in darkness?

Once you have that belt fast and walking in truth, you've activated not only other soldiers, but you've activated the whole body of armor.

And without truth, there can be no other armor.

Think about it.

What is righteousness, the breastplate of righteousness, if there's not truth?

Think about that.

If I don't acknowledge the truth, how can I know what is righteous to guard my heart?

If there is no truth, then what is the sword of the spirit that I'm to yield?

If there is no truth, what is the helmet of salvation?

If I don't have the truth, then I don't understand salvation.

So none of the armor is affected if I don't first girt up in truth.

Just as without fuel, you've got no power in your car.

The access to something very powerful is there.

But you've got to gird up in truth.

Well, that takes us to the third point this morning.

Confrontation of the belt.

I want you to see Ephesians 5.

11 and 12.

Confrontation of the belt.

By the way, everything that leads to the armor of God in Ephesians 6 and ending is something that Paul has been getting to throughout the book of Ephesians.

He was working his way to it.

So you can go back to the chapter and see where he talks about truth.

Verse 11 and 12.

He says, And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather highlight this word, expose them.

That's called getting to the truth.

For it is a shameful, it is shameful even to speak of those things which are done by them in secret.

Letter A, is this the truth?

Cast down lies.

He says expose them.

That word expose is el enco.

And that is to find, fault, and correct it.

Satan is the father of lies, and he seeks to, another scripture says, beguile you.

That's the word paralegizme, and it means to cheat and delude you and I.

Again, back to culture today.

One word that sort of annoys me, you'll hear this today.

I misspoke.

You hear this word?

I must have misspoke.

Oh, you lied?

No, I mistakenly spoke.

Oh, you lied?

What is misspoke?

He'll use a person, right?

To beguile.

Demons will beguile.

Demons are liars.

If you allow a lie, church, and justify a lie and entertain a lie, you invite demons to ride on your back and saddle your mind.

Ephesians 6.12 said that we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers or rulers of the darkness of this age.

Lies invite warfare.

You ever seen that?

If people are lying, the tension never stops.

You can't get to a compromise.

You can't get to a right place.

You're always backtracking and covering yourself, and you're always scared.

You're always on edge.

You always have to cover for a lie.

Lies invite tension and warfare, but the truth sets a force field.

The Bible says you should know the truth, and the truth shall set you free.

The truth sets you up with a force field.

So we saw this scripture, 1 Peter 5.8, about how to fight this.

It says, be sober, be vigilant, because your adversary, the devil, walks around seeking whom he may devour.

That word, be sober, is Gregorio, and it means to be alert, to stay awake, to be watchful for the enemy in his lies.

1 Thessalonians 5.21 says this, to test these things.

Okay?

Don't just hear through these gates, but understand, divide the truth.

Satan is a beguiler, he's a master manipulator.

Anybody felt like they've been manipulated before?

What he does with manipulation, he promulgates fantasies that makes us believe temporary things are inordinately valuable to us while he conceals the consequences in fine print.

Unless we are belted in truth at the core and we understand truth, unless we're studying this book, understanding truth, when a lie comes to our ears, we'll go, huh?

Maybe that's okay.

By the way, if he can't manipulate you, he'll use people to manipulate.

I want you to hear this, church.

Not everyone has your best interest in mine.

Not everybody who has your ear.

How often do people say to you, your closest friends say to you, I was reading the Word of God the other day.

And I wanted to see what you thought about this.

I was praying for you the other day, and I wanted to see what you had to say about this.

A lot of people will say, you know what I think?

You know what I like?

You know what I would do?

Tell me what the word of God says.

Tell me when you were praying about me.

Psalms 55, 21 says, His words were smooth as butter, but he had war in his heart.

Satan will use people, he'll use demons.

He is a manipulator, he is a beguiler.

So what do I do, Pastor?

I am so glad you asked.

Daily, methodically, and persistently begin to situate your decisions, your goals, and your convictions through the lens of the Word of God.

Verify what you're doing through this book.

This is truth.

If you have to ask the question, I'm not sure if verify it with the book.

As a parent, the things that you're doing with your children, I'm not sure culture seeing a lot of people are doing it.

Well, verify it with this book.

Well, that's old fashioned.

Yeah.

It's right fashion too.

Verify it with the book.

John 17, 17 says, Sanctify them in the truth.

Your word is truth.

2 Timothy 2.15 says, Study to show thyself approved unto God.

A workman needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.

You see, the truth casts out the lie.

You want success?

Joshua 1.8 says that if you want success, that you would meditate on this book day and night.

I used to teach the teenager, I said it's bay, before anything else.

And then it's fay, following anything else.

And then it's may more than anything else.

The word of God for success.

Did you hear that?

We we'll skim past that.

We heard that verse that says, before anything and after everything.

Before you leave for your workday, are you in the word of God?

At the end of your night, before you're going to sleep, are you concentrated on the word of God?

More than anything, listen, more than anything else.

You want the truth to belt you up?

There's some people who already turned me off already.

You say, I've had enough, Pastor.

I don't, if that's what I gotta do, I don't want that.

And listen, his grace is sufficient.

This is not a to-do thing.

This is because I love him and I get to relate in him.

Do you want to be belted in truth?

Well, letter B is this truth cast out the enemy.

Turn to 2 Corinthians chapter 10.

2 Corinthians 10 · chapter mention

Verse 4 and 5, I want to read.

For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal.

He's saying these weapons, these this picture of weaponry that we're talking about, this is a spiritual weaponry.

He's not talking about an actual belt that you have to put on tomorrow, but but they're mighty in God for pulling down strongholds, the stronghold of lies.

Verse 5, casting down.

I want you to hear both parts of this, casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God.

That's the first part, casting down.

Second part, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ.

Two things here.

It says, cast down every high thing, anything in culture and life that exalts itself or makes itself look like it needs to be God.

Or anything that puts itself against the knowledge of God.

And he says, bring it into captivity.

Second part.

First you cast out the lie, then you do what it takes to cast out the enemy.

I want you to know something.

Satan is not that upset that you're in church.

He's not upset that you worship.

What he wants you to do is block out the knowledge of God.

If you come to church, fine, as long as tomorrow you throw the belt in the corner.

Oh, you can come here, you can get what you need and feel motivated.

He doesn't care as long as your Bible hits the corner.

You can listen to worship as long as Monday the belt goes in the corner.

You can be close to the truth.

That's what the demons and the devil do.

He's close to the truth as long as you're not wearing the truth.

So, how do I fight all of this satanic and demonic attack and get rid of them?

Well, let me tell you what Jesus did.

Satan tempted Jesus in the wilderness three times, and Jesus fought Satan with truth.

Every time he fought him with truth, and he fought him with the word of God.

That, listen, he didn't open up a scroll that he knew because he'd been studying the truth.

He understood the truth.

And he said to Satan, this he Satan said, If you worship me, Jesus, I'll give you everything that you see, the mountains, everything that's within this realm.

You can have it all if you just worship me.

And Jesus said, Satan, away with you.

You shall worship the Lord your God and him only.

Why?

Because he knew the truth.

If we're not preparing that way, when life hits, sometimes it's too late to make a choice.

Right?

Well, Paul said further, he said you gotta cast down the lie and then take a lie captive.

So what does that look like?

Well, I have to give ownership to a guy named Dave Piggott.

Dave, I saw demonstrate this at a youth rally.

Umbody here would ever know Dave, but I don't want to act like this is my original thought.

I saw Dave talking to teens, and he said, You gotta cast down every lie and take it captive.

He said, things like this happen with Satan.

Satan lies.

And the way that you fight Satan is you gotta keep pushing truth.

He said, You gotta keep pushing truth.

He'll whisper a lie, and you say, But Satan, God said, but God said, and he whispers, you're worthless.

And he says, You're a liar.

And you take that thought, he said, you take it back here to the cage, you open it up, throw it in, and you lock the key.

And you come back, and Satan starts whispering in your ears.

He says, You know what?

You're a loser.

You're not the student, you're nothing but an F student.

And you say, Satan?

But God said, That's not the truth.

And you take that line, you take it back to the cage, you open it up, you throw it in there, and you lock the key, and you come back, and he says, You know what?

The things that have been happening in your life, you're nothing but a victim.

You say, No, let me tell you, Satan, that's a lie.

And you take that line, you take it, and you put that in the cage, and you're done with that lie.

And he says, Sir, everybody does it.

Everybody looks at porn.

Go ahead and click.

It's not that big of a deal.

You say, Satan, that's a lie.

My family's on the line, my life's on the line.

I'm gonna take and you come back, and Satan keeps on whispering your ear, and he tries to tell you things, and you gotta take that thought.

Every thought it says, every thought captive, everything that takes itself against the knowledge of God captive, and he says, Listen to me, Satan says, You're something that you never meant to be.

And he whispers, and you begin to think it long enough, and you begin to hear it long enough, and you get to believing a lie, and he says, You know what?

You're nothing but an alcoholic, you're nothing but a sexaholic, you're just a shopaholic, you are a mistake, and you say, Satan, that's a lie, because scripture says I was fearfully and wonderfully made, how marvelous is his work, and you and you take captive every lie that wasn't meant for you, and you put it away.

You say, Satan, yeah, the truth is I mess up, and I'm not what I want to be, but I want to tell you, praise God, I'm not who I used to be, and one day I'm not gonna be who I am now.

I'm gonna be glorified and justified because my Bible says I'm a child of a king.

That's the truth, Satan.

But God said, I got my belt on, Satan, and if I need to beat you with the truth, I'm gonna take this belt.

You're gonna feel it.

Because that's the truth.

My Bible says that I can do all things through Christ.

And if He is for me, none of your lies can be against me.

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