| Loins Girded with TRUTH Protect Your Spiritual "Loins" The loins, or that part of your body between the ribs and the hips, are regarded as not only the part of the body which should be "clothed," as opposed to the torso and legs, but the generative part of the body. Look up the word in your dictionary, in case you have forgotten. It will say, "The part of the body between the ribs and the hipbone. The part of the body that should be clothed, regarded as the seat of physical strength and generative power: "Kings shall come out of thy loins [Genesis 35:11]" (The World Book Encyclopedia Dictionary). When the Bible speaks of "girding up your loins," it means the practice of tucking the longer skirt, which would impede running, or hamper in battle, into the belt. The "loincloth" is worn around the hips, and between the upper thighs. God says this vulnerable, vital part of our bodies (as a spiritual analogy) can be protected by God's truth. The first part of God's armor is truth. Truth is the opposite of falsehood. Jesus said "ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free" (John 8:32). Complete freedom is freedom from fear, freedom from uncertainty and doubt, freedom from the shackles of physical, carnal appetite. Satan the devil is the first liar in all history. Christ said to the posturing religious leaders of His day, who had a form of godliness, "Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning [he influenced Cain to kill his own brother], and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it" (John 8:44). When Christ appeared before Pontius Pilate, who had the power to release Him, He said, "Thou sayest that I am a King. To this end was I born, and for this cause came I into the world, that I should bear witness unto the truth. Every one that is of the truth heareth My voice. Pilate said unto Him, What is truth? And when he had said this, he went out again unto the Jews, and saith unto them, I find in Him no fault at all..." (John 18:37-38). In the moral and social revolutions which have swept the Western world of professing Christianity since World War II, there has been much written and said about "truth." "Moral relativism" has replaced right from wrong. The evolutionists, agnostics, and perverted philosophers of Satan's world have taught millions that "truth" is only a "relative" term, changing with the mood swings of the populace. Perhaps nowhere is Satan's perverted lie about "moral relativism" so self-evident as in politics. Millions of Americans know many of their elected officials are practiced, deliberate liars; that they only say "what works" for them, to keep them in power. Millions believe "cover up" is one of the foremost concerns of corrupt public officials. God's Word says, "My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge: because thou hast rejected knowledge, I will also reject thee, that thou shalt be no priest to me, seeing thou hast forgotten the law of thy God, I will also forget thy children" (Hosea 4:6). Amorality, nihilism, and anarchy have replaced morality, right from wrong, and God's law. Today, millions of human beings are murdered before reaching birth, all in the name of the "law" protecting abortion. A multi-billion dollar pornography industry flourishes, corrupting youth, destroying marriages, perverting people's knowledge about sex, contributing to rape, and sado-masochistic, brutal crimes—all protected by the Supreme Court. Our news is filled with sensational trials: the shotgun murders of two youths' parents; the bloody stabbing deaths of two victims in Los Angeles; the piteous death throes of two little boys as they slowly drowned, trapped in their own mother's car. We are stricken by hideous spectacles of massive murder and violence, like Waco and Oklahoma City. As if crying out with a national voice of outrage, Americans today are like those characterized by Isaiah's stirring prophecies: "The way of peace they know not, and there is no judgment in their goings: they have made them crooked paths: whosoever goeth therein shall not know peace. Therefore is judgment far from us, neither doth justice overtake us: we wait for light, but behold obscurity [millions of Americans "waited for light" during the Waco hearings, and the Whitewater hearings into Vince Foster's death—but behold, obscurity!]; for brightness, but we walk in darkness.... "For our transgressions are multiplied before thee, and our sins testify against us: for our transgressions are with us; and as for our iniquities, we know them; In transgressing and lying against the Eternal, and departing away from our God, speaking oppression and revolt, conceiving and uttering from the heart words of falsehood. And judgment is turned away backward, and justice standeth afar off: for truth is fallen in the street, and equity [honesty, fairness, integrity, veracity!] cannot enter!" (Isaiah 59:8-14). These verses describe many Western societies today! They describe our judiciary, executive, and legislative branches of government. They describe many government agencies. And, sadly, they describe many professing "religious" people! One of the most important pieces of "armor" for a Christian is the truth! Yet, one of the biggest lies of professing "churchianity" is that Jesus Christ came to do away with God's law! Jesus Christ said, "Think NOT that I am come to destroy the law...... Yet, millions are taught by their clergy that He did precisely that! Christ said NOT to use "vain repetitions" when we pray, but millions, each Sunday morning, repeat the "Lord's Prayer" (it was not His prayer, but an outline of how we ought to pray) in responsive readings." Christ told His disciples, after washing their feet, and giving them wine and bread on the fourteenth of Nisan at the Passover, "This DO as I have done unto you...... and millions of professing Christians simply will not do it! The truth includes the truth about Who and What Is God; about Who was Jesus Christ before His human birth; about God's law, and whether the New Covenant does away with the Ten Commandments. The truth is the truth of the whole Bible, the truth of the gospel of the Kingdom of God. Christ is the living WORD, the "TRUTH," in metaphor, for He never spoke a single untrue word. His word, His example, His life, His death and resurrection, and His present-day High Priesthood represent the truth about Jesus Christ. But millions do not know the real Jesus Christ, even though they have heard the phonetic sound, in their tongue, of His name. Are you one who is armored with the very truth of God? Are you thoroughly grounded, rock solid in the truth? Do you know the truth about pagan holidays, as contrasted with God's Sabbaths, both weekly and annual? Do you know the truth about the pagan doctrine of the "immortality of the soul," as contrasted with the "spirit in man," or the "human spirit" and its incredible potential? Do you know the truth about whether God's law has been done away?
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