Fasten Your Belts of Truth

[0:00] a seat, and while you're doing so, please turn to your Bibles in Ephesians 6. We are on Ephesians 6, verses 13 to 14.

[0:14] Let me begin by reading this couple of verses here. It says, It says, therefore, take up the whole armor of God that you might be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand firm.

[0:39] Stand, therefore, having fastened on the belt of truth. If you're new or you've been away for a while, we are actually in the middle of a nine-part sermon series on spiritual warfare, based primarily on Paul's teaching to us in Ephesians 10 to 20.

[1:03] As you know, we've been kind of diving into the depths of the enemy, his tactics, his schemes, how he attacks us. And to be honest, sometimes it's deep, it's dense, and it's overwhelming for us.

[1:18] I've had more than a few comments. I'm ready for that armor now. Teach me how that I can prepare myself against this foe.

[1:31] So today we begin with the believer's armor, with the first part of the armor. As if you have an ESV, it is called the belt of truth. The belt of truth.

[1:42] Now let's take a quick look at this section. Notice, I began with the word therefore that Paul uses here. And if you've been with us like I have talked about, you know exactly what that therefore stands for.

[1:59] He's talking about that cosmic battle that is going on. That battle that is not flesh and blood, but it is spiritual, and it's against the powers of darkness.

[2:10] It's against battles that we cannot see with physical eyes or touch with physical hands, but we know that it is there. We learned about the enemy that his name is Satan, that he is behind the powers of darkness, and his goals, as I stated in my prayer, is to diminish the glory of God.

[2:32] God, we learned about his influence, how it is worldwide. It is in the world, and it is in our flesh. They work for him.

[2:44] And we learned about his power, that he is indeed a fallen angel who is smarter, wiser, more learned than any human being can ever be. And the only thing that's more powerful that exists is the Trinity.

[2:57] And last week, there was a pretty light sermon on his tactics, his temptations, his schemes that he uses to tempt us.

[3:09] Because Satan knows that it's not enough to present sin to us. He has to make sin look good, right? Nobody chooses evil for the sake of its evilness.

[3:21] Believers in Christ choose sin and evil because it looks really good. It looks like something that we have to have. So Satan has got to put a lot of work into getting us to believe that that wrong is actually good and right for us.

[3:41] So when he says, therefore, he's taking all of these things into consideration. And then he gives this Ephesians church a command. It's an imperative.

[3:52] And he's saying, given what you know about the battle, given what you know about the enemy, given what you know about his influence and his power and his tactics, the saint is to simply take up the whole armor of God.

[4:06] Why? So you can stand in the evil day. What is that evil day? I call it code for when Satan comes against us.

[4:17] Whether it's at the end of times or in our daily life, the whole implication, as we've learned from Ephesians, that the battle is in everyday life.

[4:30] So Paul's goal for us is to stand. You'll notice it appears three times in the text here. One, withstand in the evil day. Then he says, having done all to stand firm.

[4:47] And then he says, stand therefore, having fastened on the belt of truth. Paul's goal for us is to stand, to survive, to be alive in this battle.

[5:01] We've learned a lot about the enemy. He's tough, strong, wise, clever. He's deceptive. He's a liar. You know what?

[5:12] He's got a pretty good track record. He messed with Adam and Eve and he won. He took on the prophets. Many times he won. Kings beat the kings.

[5:22] The wisest man who ever lived took him out. Tempted what we believe Moses to be the humblest man who ever lived. Got him to sin at the very end.

[5:33] In fact, Satan is so proud of his abilities, he even came against the Son of God. Jesus in that wilderness. When we know those truths, we start to ask, what chance do we have?

[5:50] I am nothing like them. But Paul thinks we've got a pretty good chance to stand. In fact, there's a promise here that God has designed for us a way to stand.

[6:07] And God has actually designed the way we are to wage this war. And he's given us a battle plan. And this battle plan has two elements to it.

[6:18] The first element, you're going to see here on the board, is God's power. God is promising us, promises us God's power. That is what he is responsible for.

[6:30] And then that is our actions follow that. When God's power, when we follow it, we use our actions, what we're responsible for, we can win this battle.

[6:42] Now, I'm going to take you back up. If you look in Ephesians 6, 2, verse 10. We began with the saying, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might, that is his power, and our actions put on the whole armor of God.

[7:02] So let's take a look at the first part of this armor. If you have an ESV Bible, it reads, stand therefore having fastened on the belt of truth.

[7:15] Anybody use a King James version or a new King James version here? No? No? All right. Someone raise your hand. It reads, having girded your waist with truth.

[7:26] Anybody with NNIV? Reads a little bit differently, right? It says, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist. And anybody with a New American Standard version?

[7:39] No? Okay. This actually probably has the clearest idea of what Paul is trying to teach. It says, girded your loins with truth.

[7:51] That we're to gird our loins with truth. And the reason there's a difference here is it's actually an idea that Paul has written and the translators are trying to make sense of this idea with our general sense.

[8:06] And I want you to understand something very important about this piece of armor. It's not just a belt. You and I, we know belts have many different reasons, right?

[8:18] Some, it's for show. You know, if you go down in Texas, you know, big buckles, right? It's a show. It's a piece of jewelry. Like, wearing a flashy watch, they have big buckles.

[8:30] For some, more importantly for me, it keeps my pants up. Right? A lesson, I don't know if I should share this story or not. You guys will hear me talk a little bit about my sport acumen, whether it be baseball or track, but I actually played football.

[8:45] I was a wide receiver on my team, broke out on a run, cut a cross, got tackled and my pants fell down. Why? Because the only belt my mom had the sense to give me was one of her dress belts.

[9:00] Right? Snapped right there. I quit the team right there. That's it. That was in for me, right? I learned a very valuable lesson. You always got to have your belt.

[9:11] But it's not just that. First, you need to understand what a Roman soldier has in mind here or that Paul has in mind. And I believe that Paul has a depiction of a Roman soldier.

[9:24] If you've been reading some commentary, some theologians believe that Paul is making reference to a passage in Isaiah which reads, Faithfulness, the belt of his loins.

[9:36] Now, we need to understand the audience who's receiving this message. One, a lot of them are Gentiles. They're not at all familiar with the Old Testament.

[9:48] So, Paul asking them to put in mind an imagery of a book that they haven't read would not make much sense. But guess what is open and plain to see in Ephesus of that day?

[10:02] Roman soldiers. Everybody knew what a Roman soldier was. was. They knew what he did and they obviously knew the type of armor that he had on.

[10:13] So, you'll notice when it says gird your loins it means bind truth to your loins. And what a Roman soldier's belt looked like. It was kind of a thick leather piece but it also had pieces that would fall down leather straps with metal at the bottom of them.

[10:33] So, it was weighted. You know what's likewise that we have in our you guys all have something like that in your home. It's called an apron. Right? It's to protect your thighs your loins that area it's very sensitive anybody who's been cooking just this summer I'm cooking with some shorts on oil splatters and next thing you know I got oil burns on my legs.

[10:57] Right? I should have been wearing mom's apron. Right? But it protects so it's got that ability. But the other part of it because it's thick it's almost like anybody weight lift with a weight belt for all you guys who've been in the gym the weight belt actually gives your back support.

[11:16] Alright? So it's not just holding your weight your gym clothes on it's actually giving you support. So when you turn so when you're weight lifting or doing some stuff you don't kind of tweak your back over and pull a muscle it keeps everything together to stabilize you.

[11:33] That's what this belt is doing. And what it's kind of the beginning place for the whole rest of the armor. So when you put on that breast plate that goes on it attaches to the belt and it gives you this security it holds everything in place.

[11:52] So you with me on that? So it's a central point it's the mid section of your body that is the belt. You'll hear some preachers tell you while it's used to tuck in the tunic of the soldier.

[12:06] Yeah you know I don't think soldiers really are wearing dresses or robes that are in modern day times. They're ready for war. So what I think Paul is really getting at here the place where you need to be central when it comes to spiritual warfare is the truth.

[12:27] You have to know the truth. Now people ask several questions. What truth? What truth are you talking about? Are you talking about the truth of the gospel?

[12:37] Do they need to know the gospel? Yes of course they know they need to know the gospel. But they also need to know what God has taught us. Some of you might be thinking do you remember when Pilate was before Jesus Christ the king of kings the lord of lords and the only question that Pilate had for him was what is truth.

[13:02] I'm going to get back to that. But I want you to understand something about this armor that Paul's talking about. There is no place in scripture where this armor is something magical that gets powered up because I know a special prayer.

[13:23] Or I say I call on the armor of the lord right and I've got this special defense against Satan. I don't have to memorize a certain line of prayer or a certain prayer that Paul has given me.

[13:39] It's not activated by a special incantation. The armor is not a formula. The whole idea of what Paul is getting at it's not about trusting the armor of God but it's about trusting the God of the armor.

[13:57] Do you with me on this one? It's not the armor of God but the God of the armor. Remember how he takes you back to verse 10. Be strong in the strength of God.

[14:09] If you don't trust God, guess what? You're not going to trust this armor. You're not going to believe him. And if you don't trust God, you're going to try to figure out your own way to battling Satan.

[14:24] And guess what? You're going to lose 100% of the time. How do we battle Satan on our own? You know how we do it? We use earthly means to get rid of stuff of our lives.

[14:37] You know what? I've got a bad habit, so I'm just going to force that bad habit out of my mind. I'm going to put all over the house, you know, I don't know, don't light stuff on fire, right?

[14:48] And I'm going to write it in all the rooms. But guess what? Every room you see that there ahead of you, right? You know, man, I've got to quit lighting stuff on fire, you know, or lying, or it could be pornography, certain sins that our hearts are being gravitated to and we're struggling in the battle.

[15:08] So that would be like a man-made thing. We're seeing Satan as an external power. forever. But what Paul is calling us to is you got to trust God.

[15:21] But if you do not know God, you will not trust God. If you do not trust God, there is no belt. Now, what do I mean by trust God?

[15:36] I mean, do you have a living, breathing, acting faith with Jesus Christ? Paul has been teaching not only the truth about Christianity, but how the effects of Jesus Christ and the gospel are to specifically influence you in this Christian life.

[15:59] This is the whole sum of chapters 4, 5, and 6 of Ephesians, right? We've been going through Ephesians for over a year now. We've covered the first three, four chapters actually.

[16:10] We're going to get back to chapter 5 after this. But we know that the first three chapters presents the gospel to us, right? Ephesians 1 tells us that God chose you, that Jesus redeemed you, and the Holy Spirit guaranteed you, right?

[16:26] Those are truths that we know and understand. It even gives us this beautiful picture that once you become saved, you're a child of God. He's your eternal father.

[16:38] That is now the relationship. And that we only have redemption through the blood of Christ. What that means is, can I work for it?

[16:50] Can I pay for it? Can works get me there? Well, Ephesians 2 says you can't. You're dead in your trespasses, you're a part of Satan's domains, you needed to be rescued.

[17:03] That's the story of the gospel. Colossians 1 gives us a beautiful picture where it says Jesus qualified us to share in the inheritance of the saints.

[17:15] Beautiful picture. It also says that he delivered us from darkness into light. And it said he transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved son.

[17:27] In each of those actions, they were solely done by God. Amen? That's Jesus Christ. our rescuer, our redeemer, the one who set us free.

[17:40] So when he's talking about all these truths, he's talking about these truths, and they make us alive in him. Jews, Gentiles are now one people. We're at peace with one another.

[17:53] So it's more than just the gospel. The question is, what does the gospel look in your life today? That's where Ephesians 4 comes in.

[18:08] Ephesians 4 says simply, walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called. God called you to be a child of God. Do you act like a child of your father?

[18:24] Are you humble, gentle, patient? Do you bear with one another? even goes on to say, are you eager to maintain unity in the church?

[18:41] And Ephesians 5 tells us that once you're doing that, you still cling and follow to Jesus through tough trials, through tough circumstances, and not just the good things, but the bad things.

[18:55] In fact, your salvation has to affect your marriage, your parenting, how you respond to your parents, how you act in the workplace.

[19:08] This is our life, and this truth has to be reflected of all of this. So when Paul is talking truth, he's not talking simply about knowing the facts.

[19:21] He's simply asking, do you know how to act out the truth of those facts in your life? do you trust Jesus?

[19:36] Do you trust his strength? So when you're in this battle, are you going to be able to trust Jesus if, God forbid, you lose a child?

[19:50] Or your child has cancer, your spouse has cancer? Do you still trust in the armor of God? How about going through a divorce, or having a broken relationship with your child?

[20:04] How about asking the question is, will God really forgive me when I sin? Will Jesus still love me when I sin?

[20:18] Or do you trust the devices you do in his name to help yourself? the reality is, Satan doesn't want you to know the answer to these questions.

[20:33] Satan wants to keep you in what's known as the fog of war. He wants you not knowing. He wants you worrying. He wants you to be anxious about the future.

[20:47] He even wants you to be anxious about your past. He'd rather have you seeking the answers of man rather than the answers of God.

[20:59] Paul warned us, James warned us, right? When we look to man, we are carried away by every wind of doctrine. We're tossed to and fro like a ship of the sea, looking for help otherwise than God.

[21:15] We just get tossed around not knowing, trying to find some safe harbor in which to rest and deal with the issues of my life. And that's when Satan comes in.

[21:31] He wants you to question the truth that we know about Bible. He wants you to question God's goodness, God's love, God's grace, his mercy, his sufficiency.

[21:47] mercy. Do you do that? You know, just, if God really loved you, would you be having this kind of tough time, right? Let's be honest, our tough times are all subjective.

[22:02] Some of us, it's school. We put a lot of time in, we're not getting the grades that we think we desire, right? There's a lot on the line, graduate work. We can be mad at God for that.

[22:13] Just speaking with someone this weekend, their relationship God hasn't given them the relationship that they desire, therefore, God can't be good. Well, the question is, are you living in a way that God would bless, that someone would want to have a relationship with you, right?

[22:31] See, what happens when we quit trusting God, God will allow us to become anxious. We will become despondent, depressed, and we will feel hopeless, simply with this question, can I trust God?

[22:52] But I'm going to tell you something about God in this action plan. Notice we said, his power, our actions. That's actually how God's usually worked since the beginning of time.

[23:04] There's always this almost transaction. If you trust God, remember Jesus, there's a scene, it's repeated in several of the Gospels, there's this man with a withered hand, right?

[23:17] He's got this hand that's pulled in, and Jesus actually gives him a very specific command. Stretch your hand out and I will heal it. He doesn't heal it when it's hidden.

[23:28] He's actually asking the man to engage with him. Because it's not the healing that's going on, he's actually healing the man's soul. Remember the blind man, pick up your mat and go wash in the pool of Siloam.

[23:44] Guy's got to trust him at some level. Remember the paralytic in Mark chapter two, his friends dig him through the roof? Take up your mat and walk.

[23:55] Just think how terrifying that is for someone. You've never walked ever in your life. Your muscles probably don't even move, right? So to even do that command is so hard, but it takes a full engagement.

[24:13] And I believe God in his great loves does those things. Even the feeding of the thousands, whether we read in the five thousands or the six thousands, he asks the disciples to give some of the fish and some of the bread.

[24:29] They don't have the power, but they're engaging with Jesus. Amen? And he does that. It's almost a step-like-step process with us too. The more we grow, we learn, we listen, we obey, we are becoming more comfortable, we're starting to know him.

[24:47] And we talked about this in Ephesians, what knowledge of God is. And I made this comment, I said sometimes you'll say to yourself, I have a great buddy of mine, and people have said, man, I want to know Jesus like he does.

[25:04] We were at this gathering, this was actually at a pre-wedding party for my wife and I, and my friend came with me, and man, one of the guys says, man, I really like that guy. He goes, and it just, he's not like this joyous guy, but he's a deep guy, and he says, I want to know Jesus like him.

[25:22] well, he lost his wife to cancer when he had two kids when they were six and eight. I've seen him take those steps.

[25:33] You're meeting him now, five years after the fact. It took him years to go back to work. Just, it was pain. But through that time, he trusts Jesus.

[25:48] Jesus walked with him through the greatest storm of his life, all when he was in his thirties. And he was obedient and all that, but there were certain times he was disobedient, but he kept going.

[26:01] So when people ask, I want to know God like him, yeah, you do. But it's usually going to come through some pain. God's going to walk you through a period of time where you know him.

[26:13] So this belt of truth, when we accept this truth that we believe that this gospel influences, and I'm going to talk a little bit more about this in a second, it's a sign of being prepared.

[26:35] It means you're ready for action. You've got the belt on, you're ready to put on the rest of God's truth. If you don't have that belt on, everything is just going to slosh and slip all over you, right?

[26:49] So to put on the belt of truth is to gird or bind this truth around your waist. It's an understanding and commitment to biblical truth as being foundational for how you think, how you act in all areas of your life.

[27:09] It says, Lord, I'm trusting in your strength, I'm trusting in your truth, I trust you. That's the first step of this armor.

[27:23] Now, last week, I spoke on the subject of Satan's tactics and schemes and means of temptations that he uses. And I outlined four ways that he assaults us.

[27:36] And one of the ways is he dilutes biblical teaching. He dilutes biblical teaching. And there's nothing better than Satan likes to do than enter error into Christians' belief, right?

[27:49] If you can get some kind of error in there to take root in your life, that root, that error, will undermine your actions, right? You think a wrong thought about God, you think you're doing an action for God, but it's actually based on a wrong action, and people see you do that action, guess what?

[28:09] They start doing that action and adopting that error. Satan loves that tactic. Why? Because it's effective.

[28:21] Today, one of Satan's most powerful assaults on the church itself is on the question, what is truth?

[28:33] Let me ask you a question. Is it possible to know truth without knowing God? Do you believe that not thinking about God, that you can come to some sort of understanding of truth?

[28:52] Feel free to put up your hands if you want to. If you were to attend a quest class with one of our many quest students, you'd go with them to class, and you'd actually be learning something.

[29:07] You'd be learning that there is no absolute truth. There is no truth that you can absolutely know. Another word for it is called propositional truth. I remember when I was in university and used to teach this, I thought it was insane.

[29:24] No way are people going to actually believe this. Not a chance. And we know I only went to university like five years ago, right? I was just a young guy. But I still thought 20 some years ago that you guys are crazy.

[29:41] Nobody will buy into this idea that there is no truth. And what they tell you is you can have your own truth, but usually this exists in the virtue section of your life.

[29:58] everybody can have their own religious truth. But what's more important is that we come to a collective truth. So what happens is we advocate tolerance, teamwork.

[30:12] We're actually judged on our ability to come together, to come to some sort of consensus, and that will be our truth. And any outside words are met with, you're bigoted.

[30:28] You're small minded. Right? You're a Nazi. And I'm not talking in extreme terms. These are what's going on today. In fact, it was interesting, I came up with this article of a high school student, they were in these math teams, and you would think truth out of all the areas that would be absolute would be math, right?

[30:48] So they have the product, they work with the team, and they have to come up with the equation. And the one guy would not agree with his team. Why? Because they got the problem wrong. He was like, no, no, no.

[30:59] Whatever that formula is, this is the right answer. The kid was like a mathematical genius. And the other group got the A because they could all agree on it, but they had the wrong answer.

[31:13] And it reported that he was bigoted and small-minded. The other issue that we would think back 25 years ago, there's certain things that we just know. We know a difference between a man and a woman, right?

[31:26] Who would have thought? Who would have thought? But I want to answer that question, why that thinking exists, okay?

[31:39] I think this is important for us as a body of believers to really understand. And to get to the answer to this, I'm going to give you a quick history on truth, all right? You guys have heard of Plato, Socrates, right?

[31:51] Aristotle, these were great Greek philosophers that existed somewhere in the 400 to 300 BC. They believed that truth could be just, we just know it.

[32:04] It's just naturally known. Some of them attributed to the higher power, one of the Greek gods, but we just knew. We didn't try to figure out why we know these things. We just accept that a man is a man and a woman is a woman.

[32:18] It's okay. It's not something that you waste time in. Almost 2,000 years to the 17th century, we had a period called the Enlightenment period.

[32:31] Locke, Descartes, if you're familiar with those philosophers, they challenged the idea, you know what? We really don't need a god to come up with truth. We can kind of figure it out on our own.

[32:43] We're going to use logic. And then we're going to use our senses, right? So there's several guys offering, but they would say, do you have faith to sit in that chair? And you could say, yes, I believe it's a chair.

[32:55] Are you sure it's a chair? Maybe your eyes are lying to you, right? So they entered the idea that your senses couldn't be trusted, right? Your senses could be fooled.

[33:07] So they concluded, well, truth changes with time. People see things differently. So that kind of didn't go anywhere.

[33:19] And then we had modernity. And basically, truth could ultimately be known through science, right? We could have a scientific understanding.

[33:30] It was more reliable. And that's called what's the modern era. So they didn't believe in miracles or God. But this is where we see Darwinism came out of, Marxism, socialism, Nazism.

[33:43] socialism. You know, we thought through science we would have no need for God and we would have eternal peace. It's interesting this month, we just celebrated the 30th anniversary of the falling of the Berlin Wall.

[33:57] Okay? That was the death of modern thought. For some of you who do not understand what the Berlin Wall is, the Berlin Wall was significant because on one side, you had freedom, the other side, you had communism.

[34:13] And if you tried to leave communism to go into the other side of Germany, you were shot and killed. They had armed guards thick. They killed thousands upon thousands of people trying to escape their ideology.

[34:27] Right? It was just for an idea. Like you'd think if your idea was so good, people would be flocking to you. So philosophers knew that didn't work.

[34:39] And that turned us to what's called the post-modern movement by which we live in today. This movement suggests that if objective truth exists, it cannot be known objectively or with any degree of certainty.

[34:55] Why? They believe this because our minds are so subjective that this makes knowledge of objective truth impossible. So they entered a word that we hear a lot, fluid.

[35:08] fluid. That's why you hear this word gender fluidity. Right? They're fluid. Sometimes he's a guy, sometimes he's a girl. Things are fluid. It's on a spectrum. Right?

[35:20] This generation does not trust truth claims. But one of the things that they do admire is humility. It's like a humble thing.

[35:30] You know what? We really can't know. Oh man, he's such a humble guy. He's not saying anything. Right? He's, you know what?

[35:40] I'm just not smart enough to know truth. I accept that I'm so subjective and wrong that I can't figure it out. So we're just going to allow everybody to have this humble idea.

[35:53] Now what's so dramatic about this thinking? It's actually in the church. You guys heard of the emergent church? Right? Many of you do.

[36:04] Maybe some of you guys have read books by Brian McLaren called generous orthodoxy. Right? Bruxy Cavey's books are quite popular. Blue Velvet, or is it Blue Velvet, then there's, or no, The Velvet Elvis and Blue Light Jazz.

[36:20] The Shack. These are all books that exist in Christian bookstores. But they all start with the premise that there's something wrong and we can fix it.

[36:31] And the idea is we really can't know. So if BK says that there's this truth in the Bible, it's bigoted. So by effect, God is bigoted.

[36:41] And if we don't want to say God is bigoted, we're just going to say, well, we really don't know. But what they are going to say is, we know how to be good.

[36:54] So the people who were very attracted to the Emergent Church were people who came out of high legalistic backgrounds, where it was all about rules and not about freedom in Christ.

[37:08] Okay? Because the Emergent Church touched on something that was really good. And it's exactly what I'm talking on today. your beliefs in Christ need to affect your actions in Christ.

[37:23] You get that? If I believe the Genesis story that God created me and it was good and I'm created in God's image and I don't treat another human being as if they were not in God's image despite them disagreeing with me, you get that?

[37:44] the disconnect? Of course, many people in the post-modern movement reject it because, so what happened is all the legalists ran to this emergent movement.

[37:56] Wow, and then what happens is, but we can still do good things. And what they were trying to do is get us to act more like Christians, but guess what? They were leaving the Bible out. So what did they turn to define what is good?

[38:09] Whatever the culture says it's good. All right? So that's how that lie, has entered into the church. So how do we fight that attack?

[38:22] I know I'm not trying to teach you philosophy, but I want you to really understand how people think today, because it's going to understand how we present the gospel and how we live our life.

[38:33] first one is the Bible teaches that reality can only be known through Jesus Christ. All right? John 14 6 says, I am the way, the truth, and the life, and no one comes to the Father except through me.

[38:51] That's the truth claim. All right? John 1 14 says, and the word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only son from the Father, full of grace and truth.

[39:09] And the ultimate one is John 8 31-32, if you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.

[39:22] All truth has to go through with Jesus Christ. So when we ask that question, you'll notice in your quote, I put a quote in the bulletin, most people who try to prove the existence of good, wrong, absolutes without God go crazy.

[39:42] That's the atheist delusion. They can't get there because God is the one who decides. So what they believe is can we come up with a consensus? You know who came up with a consensus?

[39:54] Nazis. If you weren't blonde, blue-eyed, you deserve to die. That was their consensus. All those people agreed to those rules.

[40:07] And it finally took the world to say, enough, quit killing Jews and making war. So what happens is, what they think is right usually only comes along until someone's stronger to oppose them.

[40:23] So it could be a perverted nation that says we think rape is right. Well, they have no moral basis to say it's wrong. They can't rely on, well, God created a woman in man's image too.

[40:38] That's why we're there with abortion. They don't see the world with our eyes. They just see it as a bunch of cells. It's not a person. It has no value.

[40:52] Trying to ask an atheist to define when does humanist start, it's quite interesting. It's usually a while when he's breathing. What about when he's sentient and he's making decisions? Well, is he still a person when he sleeps?

[41:05] No, well, he can make rational decisions. What happens if he has a mental disability? Right? So all of a sudden, they can't even define what is a human being. Paul tells us in Romans 11 36, for from him that is Jesus Christ and through Jesus Christ and to Jesus Christ are all things.

[41:24] truth must begin with God. God is the only self-existing reality and everything depends on him.

[41:35] So when you want to share the gospel story, you do not start with John 3 16. You actually have to go back to Genesis 1. Christianity is the only thing that defines our creation, our fall, it answers why there's a problem in the world, and how we can be redeemed, that there is indeed hope.

[41:58] Otherwise, life is lost. An interesting article came in, a guy wrote this article, he's helping global warming by getting a vasectomy. That's his thing, that's his badge, he's big on, you know, I'm going to do this for God, for the world.

[42:18] If you cannot understand God, you cannot understand the questions about creation, the fall, or redemption. But the thing is, 2 Thessalonians 2, 9, and 12 tells us the world fights truth.

[42:33] The coming of the lawless one is by the activity of Satan with all power and false signs and wonders, and with all deception for those who are perishing, get this, because they refuse to love the truth and so be saved.

[42:48] God sends them a strong delusion so that they may believe what is false in order that they all may be condemned who did not believe the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness.

[43:06] there was an article that came out, CBS reported an article that they're doing a very extreme sort of sex education.

[43:20] They're trying to teach six-year-olds all about sex. And they put it out, what do you think? It was incredible to read the comments. I don't know what city you can dig in and find out what city that they're proposing this in.

[43:33] But everybody said, are you kidding? This is pedophilia. This is preparing kids for sexual abuse. This is horrible. Who would ever do this? Blah, blah, blah. And there's just hundreds of people that are wrong.

[43:43] And then this one lady puts in this comment. She says, the world will not stand for this. They will. They will until people are willing to stand up and do something.

[43:58] So this Wednesday, there was another article, a news thing that happened. And this one actually made me shudder. And it was a court case in Illinois.

[44:09] I don't know if you knew in the high schools. It was out there for a little bit. But basically, you had a very confused boy who thinks he's a girl. So he says, I'm a girl and I want to be able to change with the women.

[44:19] And they said, no, but we'll create for you your own private area where you can do changing. But he says, that's not enough. Listen, the argument that he used, that he won the day, was, if I'm able to change with women and be naked with women, I will feel more like a woman.

[44:40] Like, it's a complete opposite, right? But they bought it. The school board, a five-to-two decision, said it was okay. I came home sad. Sad, because in the interview, they show young girls crying over this decision.

[44:56] massive amount of people there, police presence, families, are all messy. This is the point I'm getting at. Dads are starting to understand that their little girls are on danger.

[45:10] Like, there's been an idealism that has been going on for so long, and people are starting to fight back. My spirits were lifted yesterday morning when I read in a news on Facebook, one of my buddies happens to pastor a church in that exact same area where that school is.

[45:33] Many of the parents are at his school. They're now in the process of voting out the entire school board. They're getting the girls to boycott all sports and not even use the change rooms.

[45:46] Like, I'm, you know, I believe we can accommodate people who are hurting and confused. That's not what I'm advocating, so don't ever think that we utter hatred here. But you can't, just think what, some of these girls don't need to be open to any of that kind of stuff at this age.

[46:04] And that was the cry. Why am I doing this? So, I want to give you a couple of thoughts on how do we resist Satan's assault on truth.

[46:15] All right, number one, you've got to trust God, which means you've got to know God. And we first, we know his word, right? Proverbs 23, 23 simply says, buy truth, don't sell it.

[46:28] It is of great value. Do not be ignorant of it. And just so you know, I just kind of got getting spurred up about this. I've actually ordered several books on the book table because what we're talking is about having a biblical worldview.

[46:42] So I've actually purchased some of the books that I think are some of the best books on having a biblical worldview and also that speak about God. Knowing Christ, knowing God, and some apologetic books, I think it's important for us to understand these things.

[47:03] First John 4, 1 says, this is the second one, test the spirits. And he says, beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God.

[47:14] For many false prophets have gone out in the world. What does this mean? How do I test spirits? Two, this is quick. One, we believe in what's called the analogy of faith.

[47:25] And what that means is the Bible is consistent from Genesis to Revelation. So if some passage seems out of right here, because we learned last week, Satan will twist scripture. Every truth that affects the church always mentions a Bible verse.

[47:38] It always mentions a biblical concept. What happens is when we don't know the whole of it, it confuses us. We need to know an understanding. So God has said, let the clear passages interpret some of the less clear.

[47:52] But God is always going to have a faithful message from Genesis to Revelation. Right? The two, this is the other way, is to ask yourself, does this understanding lead to greater holiness or possibly to more sin?

[48:10] So when you read this or hear what this guy is saying, does it give pleasure to your flesh or does it give pleasure to your spirit? Right?

[48:21] And the second way is to ask, what is the motivation of the speaker or the writer? Is he trying to garner a group of people that will just permeate his idea or is he trying to bless you?

[48:38] A lot of those books that I read were just one guy, he's gone on, he's on Oprah, he's kind of denied certain elements of the faith, he's just gone down crazy world.

[48:48] Well actually all those guys that I read, those books that I, those authors have all gone way off what the Bible teaches about. Like it, it's, it's not even debatable whether they're Christians anymore.

[49:00] And it's important, does it delight my spirit or my flesh? And what's the ultimate motivation? And finally the last piece of advice is pray. Search scripture.

[49:13] Speak to a friend. Am I, my, is it right? Is this okay? I felt, you know, I was at a Christian camp and we sent a non-Christian girl there, she gets saved and then the Christian girls are telling her it's okay for her to go back because she's saying, you know, I got to go back home to my boyfriend.

[49:29] I don't know how I'm going to explain this. And they're like, oh, you can still sleep with them. You just got to ask forgiveness of Jesus Christ before you go to sleep. You know, just in case you die. Right?

[49:40] And I'm glad even in this newborn Christian had this sense to come and, is that right, BK? That's the world. Those are the twisted ways that Satan works.

[49:50] But there's hope, right? The battle is God's. So I did. I shuddered in my spirit on Wednesday, yesterday, reading that God is doing, God is raising other people to do things right.

[50:08] So let me pray. Dear Lord, Heavenly Father, I pray that we would be...