Timothy Keller Sermons Podcast by Gospel in Life - The Belt of Truth (Part 2)

Episode Date: February 7, 2024

When you become a Christian, there’s a sense in which you receive all of the blessings and all of the privileges and power and benefits instantly. But there’s another sense in which you don’t.  You’ve received the armor when you became a Christian, but then the process of growing in grace is actually a process of sticking each piece on, piece by piece. We’re continuing our look at the armor of God by looking at 1) what it means to put on the belt of truth, and then, 2) what it means to understand the breastplate of righteousness. This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on February 2, 1992. Series: Spiritual Warfare – The Armor of God. Scripture: Ephesians 6:10-20. Today's podcast is brought to you by Gospel in Life, the site for all sermons, books, study guides and resources from Timothy Keller and Redeemer Presbyterian Church. If you've enjoyed listening to this podcast and would like to support the ongoing efforts of this ministry, you can do so by visiting https://gospelinlife.com/give and making a one-time or recurring donation.

Welcome to Gospel in Life. When we become Christians, the Holy Spirit gives us all kinds of resources to face trouble and evil in our lives and in the world. So why does it sometimes feel so hard to stand up against it? Join us today as Tim Keller explores the metaphor of the armor of God and why understanding this idea in applying it to our lives is crucial to the Christian life. We're looking at the armor of God. In the beginning, Paul says, put on the whole armor of God, and then he goes on and he says, put on first the belt of truth, then the breastplate of righteousness, and on and on and on he moves and says put on each piece. That's very much like what it means to be a Christian, because you see in the beginning when you become a Christian there's a sense in which

you can say we receive Christ. And so in that sense we receive all the blessings and all the privileges and all the power and all the benefits instantly. If you receive the Holy Spirit into your life, the moment you become a Christian, there's a sense in which you've got it all. But there's another sense in which you don't. It's a little bit like you have, you've received the armor when you become a Christian, but then the process of growing in grace is actually a process of sticking each piece on piece by piece, understanding what it means to put on the belt of truth, understanding what it means to put on the breastplate of righteousness, and so forth, and so on.

So what we're going to do is we're going to begin, we've spent some time looking at the armor in general, and as of last week we began looking at each piece in general, in particular. So what I'd like to do with you now is turn you to Ephesians 6. I'm going to read verses 10 to 18 and tonight we're going to talk just about, we're going to finish up the whole idea of what it means to put on the Bell of Truth and then we're going to turn to the breastplate of righteousness. Say, read with me if you can. Listen.

Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the power of His might. Put on the full armor of God so that you can take your stand against the devil's schemes. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the devil's schemes. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world, and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. Therefore, put on the full armor of God so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything to stand. Stand firm then with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, and with your feet fitted

with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. Take up the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, take up the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God, and pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert, and always keep on praying for all the saints. This is God's Word. Let's finish up partly because lots of you weren't around last week. The first of the pieces of armor that's mentioned is the Belt of Truth.

And as we said before, the interesting thing about the first of the things that Paul mentions is being something that if you're going to stand in the first of the things that Paul mentions is being something that if you're going to stand in the world against the troubles and problems of this world, if you're going to stand in the evil day, he says, on the evil day, if you've got the armor of God on, you'll be able to stand. And since most of us say, boy, we've got evil days coming, I mean, for example, there's Monday. How am I going to stand?

The first thing Paul says you have to do is put on the belt of truth. What does that mean? I think we noted last week the odd thing about the belt of truth is it's the only piece of, it's only a cutrement, the only thing Paul mentions in this series is it's not really a piece of armor. What was the belt of truth? First of all, it was a belt. And the belt, which in some cases is called a girdle, was the belt of truth. First of all, it was a belt. And the belt, which in some cases is called a girdle, was the part, was a very large band or sash around you that was very important when you were fighting because you wore flowing robes. And when you were ready to fight, you had to pick up your robe and stick it in your belt. There's lots and lots

of places in the Bible where it talks about, gird up your loins stick it in your belt. There's lots and lots of places in the Bible where it talks about, Gird up your loins. You know those places that it says, Gird your loins for action. Gird up your loins because the bridegroom's on the way. Gird up your loins and run the race. What's this girding up your loins stuff? What it meant was you couldn't do anything with all the flowing robes unless you picked up all your flowing robes and you tucked them into your belt and then you're ready for action. You're ready to move. There's a place in 1 Peter where Peter says, Gird up the loins of your mind and that is probably what Paul is getting at here. What it means to put on the belt of truth, it means to subjectively

use the object of truth. The girdle, the belt, is the thing around your private parts, the thing around your center. And it's pretty clear that what Paul is saying is the basis for all the rest of the armor is to take the word of God and not just know it, not just know the doctrines of the scripture, not just have memorized verses that you can recite or repeat, not just be able memorized verses that you can recite or repeat, not just be able to win or just be able to get an A on a quiz about Bible knowledge, but to put on the belt of truth means to subjectively take the truths of the Word of God and use them in your life.

And the fact that he uses the term belt and to gird up the loins of your mind shows in some very vivid ways what it really means to live according to the Word of God, instead of living according to your feelings, instead of living according to your impulses, gird up the loins of your mind. You see, your mind is, the idea is, the picture is, your mind is flowing out in a zillion different directions. You're petrified. You're saying, what if?

What if? Oh my gosh, what if? What if? What is Peter saying? What's Paul saying? Put on the belt of truth. That means, gird up the loins of your mind, focus yourself, remind yourself of the truth, talk to yourself about the truth, focus, pull yourself together, but not in a stoic way.

You see, the stoics, Marcus Aurelius and that whole group of the ancient pagans, Stoicism meant self-control for self-control sake. Keep a stiff upper lip. Why? Because that's the right thing to do, that's the strong thing to do, that's the civilized thing to do. Just try that on yourself for a while. See how far you get. In the name of humanity, in the name of civilization, pull yourself together. Just see how motivating that really is. That's not what we're talking about. We're saying using the truth, reminding yourself of the realities that the truth of the Word of God tells you, pull yourself together.

You know, the example I love so much, there's one of the Ralph Vaughan Williams hymns that we sing for all the saints. And unfortunately there's one line, in fact, if sometimes some of you come up and say, where's that verse that you like so much, why didn't we sing it today? It's partly because it's often left out. It's a long hymn and you know, you don't want to sing eight verses and somebody leaves it out and this is one they usually leave out but it's a great verse that goes when the battles fierce when the warfare is long then steals on the ear of the distant triumph song and

hearts are brave again and arms are strong what's that mean the picture is here you're fighting a battle and you and you're losing and you're overwhelmed but suddenly off in the distance you hear or you hear of the fact that reinforcements are on the way. Now how does that affect the way you fight? Nothing has changed. You haven't physically gotten any more invigorated. The enemy hasn't changed, it hasn't gotten weaker, but something happens to you. Or another way to put it is, here you are fighting and someone in your troop comes running out

of the watch tower and says, I've been to the tower. And even though we're overwhelmed with the enemy here and it looks bad, there are reinforcements coming. And when our side gets here, we'll outnumber them five to one. They'll be here very soon. So fight. We've won. Well, you see, that's new information. But what happens is you've girded up the loins of your mind in the truth. Nothing has actually changed, but you've got a perspective.

You suddenly, in a sense, are seeing your battle, your little patch, you versus this other person, but you're seeing it from the perspective of the watchtower. You see that? And what's happened is because the truth has come, you have rearranged your thinking, and therefore your entire way of thinking, your entire way of feeling, your whole attitude toward the fight that you're undergoing at that time has radically changed and altered. What does it mean to put on the Bell of Truth? In a sense, the Bell of Truth is what makes it possible to use all the other bits of armor.

In a sense, this is what it means to put on the armor of God. The breastplate, the helmet of salvation, the shoes of peace are all various truths that God says, take these things and look at the world through them. Get up in the watchtower of these various verses. That's what it means to not just know about the Bible and memorize the Bible, but put it on. Gird your loins with the truth that accords with godliness, says Titus.

Gird your loins with the truth. Put on the belt of truth. Gird up the loins of your mind. It means take these truths, run up into them as if they're a watchtower, look at the world through them, and then look at the world through these truths. You've got this, this is going to happen, this is on the way, this is inevitable. God has said this about you, God has done this about you, and refused to simply be so myopic as to only see the fact that here's somebody bearing down on me and that's all

I know. Oh no, you have to look at it in the whole perspective. And that's the reason why we say that Christians, I want to move on to the breastplate of righteousness because I'm done. That's what the Bell of Truth is. But I want to say this is why we say that Christians above all people are to be thinkers. I know that that's not the popular image of Christians, especially Christians who really take the scripture seriously. The idea is, oh, those people believe everything the Bible says. They don't like to question. They're not very reflective. They're not very scholarly. They're not very intellectual. They're the kinds of

people who just say, I believe it, that settles it. Not at all. As a matter of fact, it's my experience, it's not universal, but it's my experience that an awful lot of Christians tell me that the difference between before they were born again and after, before they were converted, they said, you know, I was religious, I went to church, I believed the Bible Bible and I believed a lot about it But I never thought about it I became a Christian and

Suddenly my mind woke up. I began to say oh my word Look at all the things look at all the truth. I haven't really let God and his word affect the way I think about everything How do I think about politics through the truth of God? How do I think about sex through the truth of God? How do I think about politics through the truth of God? How do I think about sex through the truth of God? How do I think about money through the truth of God? How do I think about how much money I spent on my appearance? How do I think about, how do I think about everything? And very often people say, before I became a Christian,

I was kind of moral kind of religious. I never thought about these things. These things weren't interesting to me. My mind was asleep. And now my mind is on overdrive. I'm constantly thinking. I've had people who have been real honest with me about what they've visited the church and they've gotten a taste of the old classic historic Christian message, which is what you have here. They said, thank you, but I don't think this is for me. And I've had a couple of people be real candid. They said, the real problem is

I want to relax on Sunday. See, I get challenged to think all week. I don't want to be challenged like that. You know, I want to lay, I want to sit back and I want peace. And what they really are saying is, see, the old-fashioned kind of Christianity, the classic Christianity makes you think. It makes you think radically and makes you think hard. In fact, as Paul is trying to say, it's the essence of what it means to be a Christian. Look at Matthew 6, have no anxiety about anything, but consider the lilies, consider the birds of the air.

What is Jesus saying? If you're petrified and if you're paralyzed with fear if you're full of doubts It's why because you're not thinking See have no anxiety about anything but think think Anxiety and doubt is not too much thinking. It's the absence of thinking. That's what he says Or you take a place like I mean it's just full of this. There's a place where Paul says, I've been suffering. How did Paul put up with what he put up with? How did he put up with the beatings?

How did he put up with the loneliness? How did he put up with the scorn? How did he put up with the rejection? How did he do it? I mean, you know, Paul has got to be considered one of the leaders in the history of the world. He started an institution. He spread and built. You talk about building an institution that has been one of, if not the most enduring

and most influential institutions in the history of the world, that's the church. There's a certain sense in which you could say Paul started it, you know, humanly speaking. Now here's somebody who really accomplished something in life and he stuck with it in spite of incredible odds. He was beaten, he was stoned, he was whipped, he was imprisoned. who really accomplished something in life, and he stuck with it in spite of incredible odds. He was beaten, he was stoned, he was whipped, he was imprisoned. And how did he put up with it?

You know what he says? He says, I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with a glory that should be revealed to us. What's the word reckon mean? It means to add up to account to think it out. He says, whenever I find myself on the verge of death, I keep thinking, this is nothing compared with the glory that not only I find

happening through my life, but that is waiting for me. How does he deal with it? He thinks. Now this stiff upper lip stuff, none of this, well, he just must have been made of sterner stuff than me. Heck no, he says, I reckon, I thought it out. Jesus says, if you're full of anxiety, you're not thinking. You're not putting on the belt of truth. Paul says, if you're not able to deal with your suffering, you're not reckoning. There's another place where Paul says, we walk by faith, not by sight. That's an interesting statement. We walk by faith, not by sight.

Now, he doesn't say, we walk by faith, not by sight. Now he doesn't say, we walk by faith, not by reason. He doesn't contrast reason with faith, not a bit. He doesn't say, we walk by faith, even though it makes no sense, there's no evidence for it, even though it goes against everything, you know, every bit of logic and rationality, oh no, that's why we believe. That's not what he says. In fact, he's actually saying the opposite.

He says, we go on what we know, not on appearances. We walk by faith, not by sight. I don't go on what it feels like. I don't follow what it appears like. I don't follow my impulses or how I feel this day or how it seems. I go on what I know. What he's saying is faith is thinking.

Doubt is an absence of thinking. Being. Doubt is an absence of thinking. Being overwhelmed with suffering is an absence of thinking. Put on the bell of truth. Girdier loins with a truth that accords with godliness. Get it? All right. Now, so we've seen that the bell of truth, in a sense, is the foundation for everything else. Because when we talk about the breastplate of righteousness and the shoes of peace and the helmet of truth, in a sense, is the foundation for everything else. Because when we talk about the breastplate of righteousness and the shoes of peace and the helmet of salvation, we're really talking about our particular truths that we pick up

and use, that we run up into the watchtower over. All right, now. Let's look at the very next one. As he says, stand then, firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, and with the breastplate of righteousness in place. The breastplate of righteousness. Yeah. All right. Let's see what we can do. The breastplate was the thing that went basically from the neck to the abdomen. In other words, it was, you know, you don't want to get, you really don't want to get cut in the arm, you don't want to get cut in the leg, you don't want to get cut in the

feet and all that sort of thing, but you know, what they call your vital organs is what the breastplate of righteousness is over. Now, I guess many of you know that today when we talk about the center of our personality, the seat of our deepest feelings, and our deepest motives, and our deepest thoughts, we talk about it, we call it the heart. Now we, for some reason, we identify the center of our personality with our heart. Not that we really think that that is necessarily physically where the heart is, you know, where the soul is, but we identify with the heart. The ancients, the Greeks and the Romans and in biblical times, they don't talk about the center of the feelings and the personality as the heart.

This creates some problems for biblical translators. Because literally, whenever Paul says, I feel it in my heart, the spirit is in my heart, where my heart is turned within me. Whenever they talk about that, the English translators put the word heart in there, but what Paul is actually saying is my bowels. And all through the Bible, whenever it talks about, you know, I love you from the heart, it's actually saying I love you from my bowels. And where there's a place where God says, my heart is turned within me when I see you. You've broken my heart. He's actually saying you've turned my bowels.

And the English translators know that you'll laugh if you see it there, just like you're laughing now. Because bowels to us doesn't mean love and the soul, it means excrement. And so they have to translate at heart. The fact is that the ancients talked about the bowels or the abdomen as the seat of the emotions. Which by the way does make some sense because physiologically we know that your emotions can create heart problems, they also can create intestinal problems too.

It makes sense. There's not much left in English of that old view that the center of your personality, your deepest feelings are down here. Not much left. Except we still have the term ventispline. Sometimes we'd say that. But outside of that there's not much. The point though is the breastplate of righteousness, whether you're a modern American or whether you're an ancient Greek, covers the seat of your emotions, the seat of your deepest feelings about yourself. Now, what makes your emotions so deep is your deepest beliefs and motives and feelings about yourself.

So when Paul talks about the breastplate, he's saying, how are you going to protect that part of you? Some of you are so vulnerable there. Some of you are on a constant emotional roller coaster. Some of you are just being jerked all over the place by your emotions. Frankly, we all are. It's just that some of you, it's more obvious.

You know, some, if you tend to not be quite an emotional type, what that really means is you don't know how to express your emotions, or you don't recognize them when they're there. And it's very easy for you to feel superior to the people who are always gushing tears all the time, see. But the fact is emotions are human, and therefore you're emotional. And so what Paul's trying to say is, Paul's actually trying to say is, the breastplate is that which protects this most vulnerable

of all you might say, the parts of your personality, that is the heart, the center, how you feel about yourself, how you feel about the world. What is it that you're going to do in order to protect this most vital and sensitive area? What is the breastplate? And Paul says the breastplate is righteousness. Now, what's that mean? And there's been controversy over the years in many, many interpreters and even translators of the Bible have said this means that the only way for you to protect

your heart is by living lives of moral righteousness and rectitude and integrity. And some of your translations will say, put on the breastplate of integrity. Now, this is the argument, and by the way, even though I'm not going to adhere to this, I want to show you some of the validity to it. They say, you will never be able to deal with your emotions, and you'll never be able to deal with the evil day.

You'll never be able to deal with trouble if you're a hypocrite, if there's a lie at the center of your life. If you claim to be one thing, but in another place you're blatantly contradicting what you claim to be, in that case your emotions will be jerked all over the place. You will find that you will not be able to stand in the evil day. When people accuse you, you will always, always feel guilty. And you know, that's true. By the way, integrity is tremendously important when it comes to dealing with troubles and suffering and accusations and persecutions. When it deals, you need integrity if you're

going to deal with the battles of life. There's a place in the book of Proverbs that says, the wicked flees when no one pursues. And what that means is that as long as you know that you're duplicitous, as long as you know that you're a hypocrite, as long as you know that you're not something other than what you claim to be, you are going to find yourself unable to be a courageous person, unable to handle criticism and trouble. In fact, in some cases you're going to flee when no one pursues. You're going to become paranoid. You're going to think people are after you. Now, listen, integrity is essential. And all these things are true. And we're absolutely... And I must say, this is a different sermon actually.

This is not because I'm gonna show you that that's not what Paul's talking about here. It's a different sermon, but there's plenty of people in New York who have this very problem. You claim to be Christians, you have the name of Christian. You tell yourself you're Christian, but in a particular area of your life, you're living in blatant contradiction

to what the Bible has said a Christian is. And no wonder you can't deal with your troubles. And no wonder in some cases you flee when no one pursues. And no wonder that you're not able to stand in the evil day and be a courageous person. All right, and a lot of you I'm sure are doing that. But that's not what Paul's talking about and here's why. Paul says the way to protect yourself from Satan, remember this is dealing with the devil,

battles against Satan, the way to deal with the devil is through the blessed breastplate of righteousness and I know he is not talking about your personal integrity because let me tell you, if you try to deal with the accusations of Satan by pointing to your personal integrity, he will have you for lunch. Success, true love, and the life you've always wanted, many of us have made these good things into ultimate things. We've put our faith in them when deep down we know that they cannot satisfy our longings. The truth is that we've made lesser gods of good things, gods that can't give us what

we really need. In his book, Counterfeit Gods, Dr. Keller shows us how a proper understanding of the Bible reveals the truth about societal ideals and our own hearts, and that there is only one God who can wholly satisfy our desires. Dr. Keller's book is our thank you for your gift to help Gospel and Life share the power of the Gospel. So request your copy of counterfeitgods at gospelandlife.com slash give. That's gospelandlife.com slash give. Now here's Dr. Keller with the remainder of today's teaching.

Now what does Satan mean? Remember this? The word Satan, now some of you are new and you haven't been part of the, in here for part of the, the, the series. The word Satan literally means in Hebrew, a prosecutor. And we have said that what, according to the scripture, demonic influence operates in your life by trying to destroy your self-confidence, give you a bad conscience, destroy your self-esteem by showing you what a terrible person you are. We've got consciences without Satan, but what Satan does to a conscience, it sort of

puts it on hyperdrive. It puts it on overdrive. It's like a demonic influence takes your conscience and just drives it into the ground. It's a little bit like your conscience. You know those cars where they not only give you a speedometer over here, but you've also got your RPMs. How many revolutions per minute is your car, is your engine having to take in order to get your car to go the speed. And of course you know that if you're in too high a gear, or too low a gear, trying to go fast,

your RPMs get up too high and you get, you know, the little indicator gets up into the red area. And that means your car, your engine is starting to melt. If you want to go 40 miles an hour, that's fine, but don't do it in first gear, because your car is going to melt, so you shift down. Well basically what happens is a conscience is supposed to work. You don't have a conscience, you're going to end up in prison. You're going to be a sociopath. What Satan does though to the conscience is it turns it up so that its RPMs are up way

up there and you're starting to have a meltdown. It comes after you and says, you're a failure. You haven't lived up to the standards. You haven't done what it really takes. You haven't achieved anything. And if you're a Christian, the satanic accusation operates like this. What right have you got to call yourself a Christian? You call yourself a Christian.

What right have you got to even take his name upon yourself? How dare you pray and ask for this and that when you are doing this and this and this sort of thing. That's a tannic accusation. And that does a tremendous number on your feelings and your emotions and your thinking about yourself. Now how are you going to deal with that? It's going to come. If it hasn't happened to you yet, it will. You look at Paul. Paul was a Pharisee. He says in Philippians 3, he was pretty proud of himself. He was a very moral person.

He had a lot of personal integrity. He fasted twice a week, and he tithed. He gave 10% of his money away to the poor. And he was a very, very, very moral person. And one day, you read about this in Romans 7, he says, One day he was studying the Ten Commandments, and suddenly thou shalt not covet, hit him, and he began to realize that in spite of the fact that externally he was a very obedient person, internally he was full of selfishness and envy and discontent.

And he says, the more he looked at himself, the more he came to hate himself. If you want to read a great example of this, you can read Camus' work The Fall. And in The Fall, in that book you've got this man named Clemens who is actually having a very nice life. And one night in Paris he sees a woman about to throw herself in the water and kill herself. He's not sure she's about to do it, and she throws herself into the river. And instead of calling for the police, getting involved, or pulling off his own clothes and rushing into save her, he just goes home. He says, he didn't want to get involved.

And by the time he gets home, he suddenly says, what's wrong with me? What happened? Why did I do that? And the whole book is the same thing. This whole book is really just a kind of modern version of what happens to Paul in Room 7. Here's a guy who absolutely thinks well of himself until the day where he begins to look and take a good hard look and he looks inside and he sees nothing but selfishness, self-indulgence, softness, and he begins to see nothing but darkness.

And he comes to hate himself and loathe himself. And eventually, no matter who you are, it's going to happen. I tell you that. Because someday, the accuser will put your conscience in overdrive and you will feel the same way. What are you going to do on that day? What's your breastplate? Now, the reason I know that as important as integrity is and important as moral rectitude

is and sincerity is, if you try to deal with that day by talking about your integrity, by saying, but look, look at my sincerity, look at my moral rectitude, look at all these things, the devil will have you for lunch. And here's the irony of why that happens, because the better you get, the more moral you get, the more godly you get, the more you study what it means to be a good person, the more you come to understand the beauty of Jesus Christ. The godlier you get, the less godlier you will feel. The more like Jesus Christ you get, the less like Jesus Christ you will feel because

the humbler you'll get. And the humbler you get, the less humble you feel you are. You see, it's, it's, it's, by definition, the more humble person will feel that you're very proud. The humbler you are, the prouder you will feel. Therefore, the godlier you are, the less godlier you will feel like. And here's what's so ironic. Read, if you do, read the great novels, not the novels, but the great biographies and the great accounts of the great men and women of God in history. And when you read them, you will find there will be times when you'll wonder if you're a Christian at all. See, the more you study

what it means to be a Christian, the more you study Christ, the more, the closer you get to God, the worse you feel. That's just the way it goes. You know, I mentioned one of these a couple of weeks ago and people came to me and they said, you're kidding. You know, I can tell you stories because of what I've read. In the middle of the 1800s, there were two young Christian men who had a real heart for God and they discovered a leper colony in the southern part of Africa. I don't know where it was. We're talking about the 1860s.

I don't think it was South Africa. It was somewhere in the southern part of Africa. There's a huge leper colony, and it was a rule. It was a rule that anybody who went into that leper colony never came out. It was guarded. These two young men came and said, we want to go in there and start a church. We want to go in there and talk about Christ. These people have never heard about it. We want to spread Christianity. And you know what? These two young men were in their 20s.

The civil authorities looked at them and said, if you go in there, you can go in there. No problem at all. Go and do anything you want. You'll never come out. We will never let you out. So they thought about it. They prayed about it. They talked about their families about it, and they went in, and they never you out. They thought about it, they prayed about it, they talked about their families about it, and they went in and they never came out. And we're not even sure what

had happened in there, frankly, because by the time anybody else ever went in there who could come out, everybody was dead a generation. And they went. And the more you begin to realize what it means to be a Christian, and the more you see what other people are like who have been Christians, the less of a Christian you feel like, and the devil, if you point to your integrity, will have you for lunch. You'll be duck soup. Here's a story, an interesting story. Way back in the earliest days, when Christianity was still, was growing like crazy in the Roman Empire, and the Romans were all against it.

There was a time in which 40 Christians had been sentenced to death, and the way they were going to be killed was they were going to be executed through exposure. And it was a job of five Roman soldiers to take these 40 men, and they put them out in the middle of a frozen lake with nothing on but light clothing. As the sun was going down, they told them, you're going to die of exposure out here tonight unless you recant, unless you were willing to sacrifice to the emperor. And if anybody wants to give up Christianity, all you got to do is come off the lake and we'll be sitting here around a fire.

That's where we're going to be all night. You come and you give us, you give us sacrifice of the emperor and then we will not execute you. You'll be fine. And all of them looked at them and said, no, we're going to die for our Lord. And they went marching out there and they, in the middle of the, of the lake, in the dark, they sang hymns. And the soldiers were standing around a fire. And one of the soldiers was a Christian, but would not tell anybody else, scared to death for his life. And he heard them singing hymns, and he just felt tremendously guilty.

And he heard them singing hymns. And finally, at one point, they took up a chant, because they were getting very weak, and they started to chant. They said, we're 40 good soldiers for Christ. We're 40 good soldiers for Christ. That was their chant. In the middle of the night, you know, the Romans were all sitting around the fire still, and one man came staggering out of the lake. He had chickened out. He had given up, and he came and said he wanted to come in. He would make the sacrifice. He was willing to turn his back on Christ. And way out in the middle of the lake, some little voice sounded very weak,

said 39 good soldiers for Christ. And the Roman soldier couldn't take it anymore. And he got up and he says, I'm a Christian. And he took off virtually all of his clothes. And he ran out. And as he ran back out into the center of the lake lake he said, no, 40 good soldiers for Christ. And the next morning they found his body along with everybody else. They were all dead.

You know, integrity, he decided, I can't let these people die. I've got to die for them. I've got to die for my master too. Now you see, history of the church is full of people who are willing to give up everything for Christ, who are willing to give up all their lands for Christ, their lives for Christ, their money for Christ, their social status for Christ. You look at your integrity and you say, if I believe, if I believe this stuff about Christ, did Christ do this for me?

Is Christ this and that for me? Why do I get my feelings hurt so easily? Why am I so easily full of fear? Why am I such a coward in getting involved in other people's lives? Why am I so selfish? Why am I so selfish with my money? Why am I so afraid to give my money away, by the way?

Why am I so subject to sexual temptation? Why am I such a crybaby? And after a while you will feel like, I don't know if I'm a Christian at all. Because my dear friends, your personal integrity, your personal moral rectitude and your sincerity, if you try to put that up against Satan and against your conscience, that's sort of like going out against a nuclear warhead with a cardboard box as a tank. You will be completely and utterly, utterly devastated. And you know what? How

do I know that? Because I talk to you. Because you are. Because that's exactly what's happening. There are so many ways in which to do this. There's so many ways to say, my righteousness. You see, what is your righteousness? Your righteousness is whatever you think enables you to just lift your head up and look at the world and say, I have nothing to be ashamed of. That's what your righteousness is. And see, every one of you is different. But we've all got something. We've all got something to say because of this, I'm a good person or I'm a sincere person. I'm not a very courageous person, but I'm a pretty compassionate person.

I'm not a very bright person, but I really take care of my family or I've done very well in my career or I'm really making a dent in this or that area or I'm really pretty attractive in people like me. Everybody's got some righteousness. Everybody's got some breastplate. Everybody's got something that they are trying to use to deal with the onslaughts of a demonically sensitized conscience. But someday, if it hasn't happened already, in some cases it's already happening, you're already losing it, you're already going down, everybody in this room at some day will face

that and you will find your integrity and your righteousness will not stand up under scrutiny. Well, then what is the righteousness Paul is talking about? What is he talking about? He is talking about the righteousness that comes from God through faith in Jesus Christ. You go to Philippians 3 and there Paul says, you want to have an integrity competition? I would win you hands down. He says, I was a Pharisee. He said, I fasted. I tithed. I was morally upright. And I didn't. I wasn't really a hypocrite. There wasn't a per, you know, when we think of hypocrites, what we really think of is people who are inconsistent in their behavior.

You know, in church, you know, he's a great family man, but actually he's sleeping around with everybody in the office. I mean, that's a hypocrite and that is a hypocrite. But you see, underneath it all, Paul said, I could have beat you all in an integrity and a moral rectitude competition. I could have had you all hands down. But even I, and if this happened to me, it's going to happen to you, even I one day was absolutely defeated. I was a failure.

I hated myself. I couldn't stand up under my own conscience. I felt I had blown it completely. I was in despair and I was in darkness. But then what does he say? Well, I'll read it to you in his own words. Because right next, in fact, is right after Ephesians 6, within one page in my Bible. He says, but whatever was to my prophet, see, whatever I thought was my righteousness, I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more?

I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord For whose sake I have lost all things I consider all my old righteousness rubbish that I may gain Christ and be found in him Not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law But that which is through faith in Christ the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith. I want to know Christ. You see, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith, the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith. Now, I'm actually trying to try to conclude here and go come back next week and talk so far tonight I've tried to talk about the negative and that is how you will never be able to stand in the evil day with your own righteousness ever

But what I want to do is turn around Next week and go into more detail about what the Bible teaches about this, but I will summarize it now Christianity is so different than any other religion in that it says that the righteousness you need to stand before God acceptable. The righteousness that you need to keep your head up and to be ashamed of nothing is the righteousness that was accomplished for you by Jesus Christ. He came to earth and he lived a perfect life and he subscribed to and fulfilled every jot and tittle of the law. He loved his neighbor as himself. He loved his God with all his heart,

soul, strength and mind. And he did it as your representative. He did it as your mediator, the Bible says. He did it as your federal head. That means you're in federation. See, what is a federal head? Imagine that you're in a union, and you send a representative, and that representative negotiates a contract. And just imagine in this case, that person is your federal head, which means whatever contract that person negotiates

happens to you. If that person triumphs, you triumph. If that person blows it, it's blown for you too. That's a federal head. Whatever happens there is imputed to you. You don't deserve it one way or the other, it's imputed. The Bible says the way in which you can stand before the Father is to the imputed righteousness of Christ.

Our sins were imputed to him. He didn't deserve them, but he becomes liable for our sins. On the cross, he becomes responsible for for our sins. On the cross he becomes responsible for them and takes them on his back. But then the other side of the gospel is not only that our sins are imputed to him, but his righteousness, everything that he ever did is imputed to us. So that means that God treats us as if we'd done everything that he has ever done. See, just as he became liable for our sin, we become liable for his perfection.

I know the word liable is almost always used in a negative sense, but in this case, understand it. What does it mean to be liable? It means the consequence of this person's behavior fall on you. In this case, you're liable for his perfection. You stand complete in him. That's why Paul says, I don't want to be found with the righteousness of my own making, because my righteousness will never stand up before the onslaughts of satanic accusation. I want to be found in him. What does it mean to put on the breastplate of righteousness? In brief,

for example. Are you cast down today because you're disappointed? Because something has not happened that should have happened or something has happened that never should have happened, and you're devastated and you're kicking yourself and you feel horrible about yourself, you feel like a failure, you feel worthless. What should you be doing? I know what you are doing. What you're doing is you're saying, oh Father, I don't know, God,

if I had been a better Christian, maybe this wouldn't have happened to me. I'm being punished for something, right? In other words, you went before the satanic accusation. You went before the prosecutor in your own righteousness. You start to look at what you've done and you say, oh my gosh, I really haven't done this, I really haven't done this, I've been a failure.

Instead, to put on the breastplate of righteousness means to say, the reason I am so disappointed is because this thing that I've lost was something I trusted in. This was my righteousness. This is what I thought would make me hold my head up. But that's not my righteousness. What I am is a Christian. In Christ, He's done everything for me. is a Christian, in Christ he's done everything for me. And therefore I'm disappointed because I was trying to be for myself what only Jesus Christ should be for me. He's my righteousness. Look, you feel guilty about something?

You say, how could I go before God? Maybe the devil's doing it to you now. How can I go before God? When considering what I have done, you put on the devil is doing it to you now. How can I go before God? When considering what I have done, you put on the breastplate of righteousness and you say, if I hadn't done that this week, that wouldn't make me acceptable. Even if I had never done it, you have to turn to the accuser and say, if I hadn't done that this week, that wouldn't make me acceptable. It's Jesus Christ that's my acceptability. He is my wisdom, my righteousness, my sanctification, my redemption. Do you know how to do that? If you don't, and I know

most of you don't. When I say most, I mean I know some of you, a good number of you now sort of heard this message. But how well you're doing it, I don't know. Because you see if you're doing it, you take criticism, you say, who cares what you think? When I know the only person whose opinion matters loves me and his son, that's putting on the breastplate of righteousness. When you're disappointed you say, yeah, I blew it, but he's my righteousness. You know, there's so many great old hymns about it. There's the one that goes, well made the accuser, roar of sins that I have righteousness. You know, there's so many great old hymns about it. There's the one that goes, Well made the accuser,

Roar of sins that I have done. I know them all in thousands more, Jehovah, noeth none. Or what about the time? What if the fact you just dry as a bone? If you're a new Christian, and you felt real close to God for a while, and now you've dried up,

your prayer life isn't very good, you just don't feel much love for him, you don't have any kind of special feelings. What's happening to you? Is the satanic accusation coming this way and saying, maybe it was on your head? You know what you were doing? You were letting your feelings be your righteousness. Oh, I know I'm a Christian. I know God loves me. Why? Because I got all these wonderful feelings of closeness.

What about the hymn that says, My hope is built on nothing less than Jesus' blood and righteousness. I dare not trust the sweetest frame. He's talking about emotions. I dare not trust the sweetest frame, but holy lean on Jesus' name. It's all in there. Do you know how to do that? Do you know how to put on the breastplate of righteousness? You know, Jesus Christ says, I mean of righteousness? You know, Jesus Christ says, I mean Romans 4, 25 says, Jesus Christ was raised for our redemption. You know what that means? He was raised for our justification. Justification means that you're completely

made just. When Jesus Christ was raised from the dead, that was God's way of saying, He has totally satisfied all requirements. He has completely satisfied utterly and over and above every requirement of the law and therefore if you believe in him I will accept you completely. That's what the resurrection is. The resurrection is a receipt. Have you ever bought something in a store but you're still going to walk around in the store? What do they do? They give you a receipt.

They package up the bit of merchandise and they put a receipt on it. So if somebody walks up and says, hey, what right have you got to take that thing out of the store? You can say, here's my receipt. It's been paid for. The resurrection of Jesus Christ is your breastplate of righteousness. Don't you righteousness. He's raised for our justification. You look at the resurrection and you say, the reason I know

that I'm complete and accepted is because Jesus was raised and he wouldn't have been raised unless God had seen that he had paid it all. He had fulfilled it all. And completely. Do you know how to do this. podcast were preached from 1989 to 2017 while Dr. Keller was senior pastor at Redeemer Presbyterian Church.