This week we begin our study on the armor of God in Ephesians 6:14:

This is the third time in just four verses that Paul has said, “stand,” or “stand firm.” He repeats this because it is essential for a victorious Christian life. We must be resolved that we will not be pushed back, we will not retreat, and we will not give up any ground to the enemy on the truth that has been given to us. Retreating is not an option. As we are told in James 4:7, “Submit therefore to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you.” Resisting is fighting, which is refusing to give ground. We must do this for the truth that has been entrusted to us.

In explaining how to put on the armor of God, Paul begins by telling us to gird our loins with truth. “Loins” in Scripture is often used in reference to reproduction. To “gird your loins” is to clothe yourself in a way that your reproductive organs are protected. Of course, this is speaking spiritually. So how do we gird our loins with truth?

First, it was considered a curse in biblical times to be barren. The original commission to man was to “be fruitful and multiply” (Genesis 1:22). Of course there are those who are barren in the natural and have many spiritual children, just as we read in Isaiah 54. There are also those who are celibates for the kingdom, such as Paul, and have many spiritual children. However, no one should be without spiritual children. So how do we reproduce spiritually? We do this with our words.

Just as the Lord explained in the Parable of the Sower that the seed was the Word of God, words are seeds. Words will spring up and bear fruit. As we are told in Proverbs 13:14: “The teaching of the wise is a fountain of life.” In Proverbs 18:21 we are told: “Death and life are in the power of the tongue, and those who love it will eat its fruit.” This leads us to an important question. What kind of seeds are we sowing? Are we spreading life or death with our words? This of course is why the apostle tells us to gird our loins with truth. We want our words to be true above all things so what we are reproducing from them is life. As the Lord said in Matthew 12:33-37:

If our words are going to be truth and life, then we must wrap ourselves in the truth. We must love truth, pursue it, and cling to it as the greatest treasure. We must honor it by being devoted to only speaking the truth. Truth is the most basic and precious commodity that we have been entrusted with. In all things it must be an essential devotion in our life. This is why we see in II Thessalonians 2:10 that it is not those who just have truth, but those who have a “love of the truth” who will not be deceived in the last days. That is how we gird our loins with truth—we love truth enough to wrap ourselves in it continually.

Of course the truth that we are talking about here is God’s Word. Just as a knight would arise each morning and put on his armor for the day’s battles, we too need to arise first thing each day and wrap ourselves in God’s Word. There are many other exhortations in Scripture exhorting us to devote ourselves to God’s Word first thing each day. The priests were to wash themselves in the laver first thing each day, which represented the cleansing of the Word. The children of Israel were to gather the manna from heaven first thing each morning, which represents the living Word of God. Here we see that we are to begin putting on our armor by girding ourselves with His truth. If we will spend just a short time in the Word first thing each day it will change our life.

We should also be as concerned about spiritual barrenness as those in biblical times were about natural barrenness. We must protect our ability to reproduce, and we can only do this with a most basic devotion to the truth, God’s Word.