The Belt Of Truth

Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled round your waist~ Ephesians 6:14


I have a problem with my belt. It may not be the place to share this but the analogy fits, unlike my belt. Being a man of a certain age, with a taste for sugary and fatty foods and an aversion to enforced exercise, the optimum of my girth just about exceeds the measurement of the largest notch on my belt. The solution I have found is to fasten my belt slightly lower than I would have done in my early twenties (in truth I did not use a belt in my early twenties). The nature of my paunch is such that it tapers in and so my belt slowly works its way down from the wider point until it finally has nothing much to grip onto. At this point its descent becomes fairly rapid. If I have my hands full at the time this can present somewhat of a  problem, and has done! Having ones trousers around ones ankles as one walks along can somewhat restrict ones movement. Short of wearing maternity trousers there is little I can do about it as without a belt I would be incapacitated.

The belt in Paul's picture of a (Roman?) soldier wearing armour, visually, is probably the least striking component. The glint of the armour, the menace of the sword,  the size of a shield would more than likely dominate our initial impressions of said soldier.  But the belt is integral. Without it there would not be a whole lot of fighting going on. I don't have much historical knowledge but I heard a sermon on the armour of God a long time ago where the speaker said that the belt holds everything in place. My belt only holds (or rather, doesn't hold) my trousers up but the Soldier of this era relied on his belt for his life. If the belt came away it could be all over.

The belt is the smallest part of the armour and it is the last thing to go on. Paul gives it the greatest importance by addressing it first!

Why is that? Well I can only conclude that truth, like the belt, holds everything together. It is the very basis on which we are fighting in the first place. The Devil, our adversary, as Jesus himself asserts, is a liar. He has been lying from the beginning and is himself the father of lies. Genesis 3 records the first lie in human history. The purpose of the lie was to undermine God and his authority and to wage war on his most beloved creation, you and me. How can we wage war on the liar if we are subject to lies and lying? Believing a lie preceded all the sin that has plagued Adams race since, with one exception. Just as Adam fell in the garden Jesus was tempted in the same way when Satan spoke to him in the wilderness. Jesus overcame him with an unswerving testimony to Gods truth.

It is interesting too that Paul does not limit truth only to the bible. The bible is true but the truth is greater than the bible. We live in an age where truth is seen, to the greatest degree, as subjective and relative. I can tell you with absolute certainty that curry is the greatest form of cuisine known to man. That is true. Millions of people, I suspect, will attest to it. There was a time when the greatest food known to man was lasagna. But then I discovered curry and everything changed. It is conceivable that there will be a time when another food supercedes  it (though I seriously have my doubts). Now this is MY truth. But it may not be true for you. Some truths ARE relative and subjective. However there is truth that is absolute.

The reason I was born and came into the world is to testify to the truth, everyone on the side of truth listens to me~ John 18:37 (words of Jesus before Pilate)

 Pontius Pilate was a man of great responsibility. In the face of a huge moral dilemma, to wriggle out of an issue of conscience, he decides to apply the rule of relative truth to a situation that requires the rule of absolute truth. In the face of Jesus' staggering statement he throws up a question that is at the heart of most who have fallen to evil. "what is truth?" With disastrous personal and national consequence.

I want to argue that the truth that we must stand in goes a lot deeper than an allegiance to certain doctrines or world views. It is far more than crossing every t and dotting every i. Truth is a way of life.

1. We must live in truth.

This means that we have as much responsibility to be honest and "walk in the light" in all our dealings as we have to believe the "right things". Our integrity is a great weapon against the accuser. As a young teen I wove a web of fabrication to cover my sins. If I had not sinned I would not have needed to lie to cover it. It got so confusing that I often found that I could not remember who I said what to about certain events. To put it succinctly, it soon snowballed. Later, when coming to Christ, I realised that if I refrained from the sin in the first place (showing integrity to the truth I believe in) that the lies were no longer necessary. As a result Satan has less to pin on me.

2. We must be true to ourselves.

A statement that has become a cliche, and a cliche that many evangelicals have shied away from as it seems to smack of relativism. I would argue that "towing the line"can be as dishonest as believing an untruth. The "truth" can mask  many lies. If we are to live in the truth then we must be as honest about our doubts and faults as we are adamant about asserting the truth of the bible. If we arrive at a truth having been on the journey and wrestled with the issues then that truth is more powerful to us, more able to sustain us.

3. We must align ourselves with the truth.

This seems to contradict my previous statement but I am sure that when we come across a plain truth in the bible, no matter how uncomfortable, once we are convinced and have wrestled with it we must accept that Gods truth is greater than ours. God does not lie and he isn't a man that he should lie. As stated previously, everyone on the side of truth listens to Jesus.


4. Jesus is the truth. (John 14:6)




5. There is a greater truth.


And thank God for this. When we have fallen out of the truth, there is another weapon that is still the truth, the deepest truth of all. We are told in Revelations that we overcome our enemy by the word of our testimony. This is our affirmation of the truth, our honesty and integrity, our allegiance and commitment to walk in the truth, to proclaim the truth. But we are human and we are weak. When we fall, the enemy, the accuser, will exploit it to the maximum. This is when we need the greater truth. We do not only overcome the enemy with the word of our testimony but also by the blood of the lamb. Jesus has paid the full price for our sins. Our Father was satisfied to look at him and pardon us. Satan has nothing to say in the face of this, all his accusations are silenced by Jesus' blood.


Who will bring any charge against those who God has chosen? It is God who justifies. ~ Rom 8:33

This is the truth in which all things hold together. The armour will not fall apart because it is held by this belt of truth. We hold to the truth but, in reality, the truth holds us.

A footnote, if you will, is that Paul seems to state the obvious. Yes, the belt is the truth that holds it all together, that underpins all our warfare but Paul (seemingly unnecessarily) says it must be buckled around your waist. Its fine having a belt, looking at it and saying "yes, that IS a belt, and it seems like a great belt, and will do a decent job!"  but if we do not actually have it "buckled around our waist" it will not do much good. It seems to me that if do not actively wear it and fasten it...it will be about as practically effective to us as my rather inadequate belt is at holding up my trousers.