Bookstore Two
The Girdle of Truth is the first thing a Christian puts on in warfare, holding the entire assembly together. If you think a Playtex girdle that can shape a rebellious figure into an hourglass figure is powerful, you haven't seen anything yet. In time of battle, soldiers would tuck their war skirts into their belts so that they would be ready for a fight. Tuck your war skirt in the Girdle of Truth and get ready for a fight.
The word "truth" from the Girdle of Truth is ἀληθείᾳ (alētheia), meaning sincerity or not being hidden. Sincerity comes from two Latin words, "sine" and "cera," meaning "without wax." In the time of Paul, statues that did not have a hairline crack were priceless. When a crack developed in a statue, the owner took wax and rock dust and poured them into the cracks, making the statue appear perfect. The solution for the purchaser was to take the statue outside and let it sit in the sun until all the wax ran out of the cracks, obviously manifesting the hidden imperfections. Many of you look great on the outside but have hairline cracks with wax, and underneath the cosmetology of the heart there is hidden, secret sin. God is turning up the heat and exposing the fakes, the phony, the pompous, and the religious stuffed shirts. Walking wax Christians are covered in wax-put them in the heat and see how sincere they are.
What is the difference between a Playtex girdle and the Girdle of Truth? One is cosmetic, and the other is the real deal. Are you a cosmetic Playtex Christian, or are you the real deal? Are you wearing a miracle Playtex girdle or the Girdle of Truth? Are you real? Are you sincere? Are you rebellious, or are you righteous? Are you a counterfeit, or are you consecrated? Are you artificial, or are you actual? Are you a pretender, or are you a possessor? Are you a buff for flakes and fruit theology? Are you a cookie-cutter, counterfeit Charismatic? Are you attracted to the ritual, or are you redeemed? Are you attracted to the ceremony, or are you attracted to Jesus Christ? Are you singing about a heaven you are never going to see? Do you want to feel good without being good? Are you trying to get into heaven while trying to live like hell?
Do you receive the truth with sincerity? Sincerity without truth is deception. Many are sincere about their false doctrine but are leading the hordes to hell. Deliverance ministers dialoguing with fake, made-up Charismatic spirits are sincere but are in the blows of deception. Charismatics looking for plastic in each other's ears are sincere but are in deception. Spiritual people blowing bubbles, trying to communicate with goldfish, are sincere but are in a watery deception.
Secular humanism is a doctrine of deception; man is not the answer. Secular humanists hate the Word of God, and if Christians lived like them, they would too. New age is deception. You can't hum into crystals and commune with God. Harmonizing with a glass of crystals will get you laryngitis, not the Lord of glory. New agers worship everything but God. New age is tolerant of every religion but Christianity, because Christianity has the Bible, and the Bible is not tolerant toward sin. And the new age is tolerant toward every sin. The sin of the new age is being intolerant of anyone based on a moral basis. Neo-paganism and flower-sniffing environmentalism-the worship of mother earth with all her earth spirits and dream catchers-is a demonic deception. Pagan momma earth and momma nature dupe the biblical illiterates and are in deception. Eastern philosophies where man is god are a deception.
Paul puts his pen to parchment and writes, "Put on the whole armor of God." This is tailor-made, God-manufactured armor. It's not Baptist armor. It's not Assemblies of God armor. It's not Calvinism armor. It's not Nazarene or Lutheran armor. It's not Methodist armor or armor from the Roman Church. Why did Paul say, "Put on the whole armor of God"? Because there are plenty of phony manufacturing companies that have a false design to protect you but will, in fact, lead you to the loins of hell. This armor has been imitated, but it cannot be duplicated. Each of the implements of the whole armor of God is the manifest presence of Jesus Christ.
The Girdle of Truth
The Breastplate of Righteousness
The Gospel of Peace
The Shield of Faith
The Helmet of Salvation
The Sword of the Spirit
You will notice that there is no back piece to this armor. The army of Jesus Christ is never in retreat; we are always on the offense to destroy the works of the devil. Every one of these elements is essential for the bride of Christ to be victorious. Going to war partially prepared is absolutely dead.
God commands us to put on the whole armor; it is not a request. Saint Paul writes, "Fight the good fight of faith; we are more than conquerors through our Lord Jesus Christ." The outcome of this spiritual warfare is based on God's performance, not our skill. This supernatural war is a fight to the end. Many people assume that the armor of God is some cookie-cutter, charismatic cliché that they can applaud and make them feel all happy-clappy. Putting on this armor will determine whether you make it or not (live or perish). You must literally, physically, and spiritually put it on and wear it at all times. If you do not put on the armor, the negative things in your life will continue to consume you. If you are dominated by sin, the flesh, addictions, hatred, bitterness, negativity, worry, or fear, these weapons will keep dominating you day in and day out until you put on this armor. Saying monumental, memorized prayer mantras from a Charismatic deliverance warfare pamphlet, is not putting on the armor. The armor of God is not an imaginary, symbolic prototype you pray on. The armor of warfare is battle-ready machinery that you walk out in all truths, in season and out of season.
WHAT IS THE FLESH?
What is the purpose of Christ in your life? The purpose of Christ in your life is not to take your old vices and your old carnal logic and restructure them to make a new, self-humanistic you. The purpose of Christ in your life is to crucify the flesh, to kill it so that you’re dead to the world, the flesh, and the devil. Now consider the works of the flesh: the flesh is defined as your sinful nature. As soon as you say “the flesh,” people think about your body. That’s not it. Your flesh is your Adamic nature—the nature that you inherited from Adam in the fall. The flesh is not your physical body. In the Bible, your flesh can’t be purified, it can’t be glorified, but the flesh must be crucified. That Adamic nature, which gives in to sex sins, spiritual sins, and social sins, must be crucified. You can’t put up with it. Your flesh will send you to hell, but it won’t go with you to hell.
“The acts of the flesh are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God.”—Galatians 5:19–21 (NIV)
God didn’t put it here just because He needed something to write in the book of Galatians. It’s all-encompassing. Paul writes concerning those who live in the flesh: those who do these things shall not inherit the kingdom of God. Paul wrote this to believers in the church in Galatia, not to a horde of professing pagans. The book of Galatians is a spiritual X-ray of every soul. If you walk in the Spirit, you will see heaven, and if you walk according to the flesh, you will see hell. You will not see the Promised Land of heaven if your flesh rules the spirit. I want to be so dead to the flesh and so crucified in Christ that if a bee stings me, it will sing, “Christ, I Adore Thee!”
Those who sow in the flesh will reap corruption (Galatians 6:8). This came from the Roman sense that if you killed someone with intent and malice—premeditated forethought—you were a criminal, condemned. There was a law in the Roman court that made the condemned criminal carry the murdered corpse strapped to their back; they had to live with it, eat with it, and sleep with it until the rotten corpse killed them. Maggots invaded the rotten corpse, and the maggots ate the corpse, and then the maggots ate the criminal alive. What God is saying is that if you live in the flesh, your corruption is a stinking pile of maggot food—a corpse eaten alive by maggots.
The works of the flesh breed corruption. The corpse of your flesh is tied to your back, the gut-wrenching stench is disgusting, and every day you wake up, the day is already fouled up because of the corruption of your flesh. A person’s reaction to the flesh should be pitiless because evil is within the flesh. Jesus died for sin; you must die to sin. When Christ says, “Take up your cross and follow Me,” He doesn’t mean to wear a cross around your neck. He means, get on it and crucify the flesh. That means to carry your cross and die on your cross—crucified and sanctified. If you are trying to carry your cross and walk in the flesh, you will be crushed by the weight of it. Most can wear a cross; only a few can bear the cross.
We are incarcerated by unredeemed flesh. The Roman crucifixion was for the worst of criminals in the days when the Roman Empire was established. The crucifixion means we do not treat it with courtesy, compassion, or compromise. When something is crucified, it means to kill it. As Christ’s followers, we need to kill the flesh and let it suffocate on the crucifix. No one in world history has ever survived the crucifixion. Don’t let your flesh talk you into a peace accord and talk you out of crucifying the flesh. Don’t be confused about what the Bible calls the flesh; the flesh is rebellious, old nature, selfish, evil, pleasure-seeking, hates the light, loves the darkness, and an enemy of God.
This is the threefold presentation of the flesh: the world, the flesh, and the devil. There is a demolition team that will implode the towers of the flesh: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. The power of the Holy Spirit in our lives is kryptonite to the world, the flesh, and the devil. The world comes around us. The devil comes against us. Our flesh wars within us. Being at peace with the world, the flesh, and the devil is treason against the courts of heaven. The world, the flesh, and the devil will tell us not to get hung up on sin because life is too short—so live life to its full potential of unlimited pleasures. Basically, party like a rock star until you end up in the back of a cop car.
FRUIT
Are you dominated by the flesh? Do you love to steal, cheat, watch pornography around the clock, engage in sex outside of marriage repeatedly, get drunk or high habitually, lie pathologically, have a mangled vocabulary and malformed speech, and, without a care in the world, use the Lord’s name in vain? If you can practice this kind of behavior without conviction, you are not saved, because the fruit you produce is rotten and is 180-proof of pure stench. You have a corrupted, calloused, citrus grapefruit! You are so self-driven and fleshly that the god you worship is the god you see when you’re shaving or giving yourself a perm.
I don’t care if you uttered the sinner’s prayer; you are ruled by the flesh! If you are 100 percent ruled by the flesh and 100 percent carnal, you are 100 percent unconverted. Your carnal flesh doesn’t care if you go to hell, because it’s not going with you. You cannot find the description of a Christian in the Bible; it was actually a derogatory term given to us. Anyone can put the word “Christian” in their portfolio. The only way to define a Christian is by the fruit factor: God is Spirit, and animals are flesh. When you walk in the Spirit, you are more like God, and when you walk in the flesh, you are more like an animal.