BY THE EDITOR.
Chapter 2―The Girdle Of Truth.
“THE loins girt about with truth” is the truth applied producing truthfulness in us as a practical thing. In order that we may have our “loins girt abort with truth,” we must know that we have been redeemed from the whole power, and sphere, and rule of the enemy. The sin-question must have been no longer a doubtful one, but a settled one in our experience.
We must be like the Israelites, after having been sheltered from the sword of the destroying angel by the blood of the paschal lamb; they stood with their “loins girt,” and ate the feast within their dwellings with their staves in their hand in the attitude of travelers.
“The loins girt” supposes us to have been rescued from sin and Satan; and made “strangers and pilgrims” passing on to the land of promise. Those Christians who do not know that they have been redeemed by the blood of Christ, even though quickened in their souls with the very life of Christ, will feel no deliverance in their spirits, and cannot gird themselves with the truth that they are the Lord’s, and start for another country, “even an heavenly,” leaving the world behind them, because they do not know for certain that heaven is theirs.
But “we are begotten again to a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance that is incorruptible and undefiled, reserved in heaven for us” (1 Peter 1:3, 43Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which according to his abundant mercy hath begotten us again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, 4To an inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for you, (1 Peter 1:3‑4)). And it is not only our duty, but our blessed privilege, to enjoy the knowledge which is thus imparted to us, and act upon it. The full knowledge of having redemption through Christ, that He is our Saviour, that God is our Father, that heaven “with eternal glory,” is ours in Him, delivers us from this present evil world, and fixes our affections on the things that are above, where Christ sitteth at the right hand of God.
Christ said, “If any man will come after me, let him deny himself.” And so when we are redeemed we should deny our old selves, and all that in this world would minister to the gratification of the old man. Knowing ourselves to be the Lord’s, His redeemed, purchased, peculiar possession, we should recognize it, realize it, gird ourselves with the truth of it, walk in the strength of it, and thus “girded with truth” stand in the conflict with Satan.
The joy of the Lord as our Redeemer is our strength. Never are we so far out of Satan’s reach as when we have the new song put in our mouth in praise of our God, on the ground of having been redeemed, and taken conclusively out of the horrible pit and from the miry clay.
The loins girded about with truth means, that we are not only to know truths about redemption and salvation intellectually, but so to realize those precious truths that they turn us away from self and Satan’s world to the throne of God, where Jesus sits, that we may feed by faith on a precious Christ there for us, our heart’s affections being fully occupied with Him, and our minds formed by what He now is in “the Glory” before God. We can afford to want “this present world,” for our new nature thus formed by the truth concerning Jesus instinctively turns to the new things which we have in Christ; and there is, therefore, no moral vacuum produced by giving up the world because Christ fills our hearts instead of the world―our Beloved engrosses the affections, and they have entire repose in Him.
If Satan comes and tempts me by asking how I know that I have another world; I gird me with the truth which I find in the Word of God concerning Christ Jesus, and meet him with such words as these:―The Son of God has come in the flesh, unfolding the Father’s love to me, a sinner; and He has said that whosoever believeth in Him shall not perish but have everlasting life, and that I believing in Him shall not come into condemnation, for I have thereby passed from death unto life, I believe it, and rest in it; Christ is mine, and I am His; He is not of this world―I am not of this world; my portion is heavenly, not earthly my inheritance is satisfying and enduring, not unsatisfying and evanescent.
And if Satan tempt me again in another form, and say―Seeing you have another world, and are sure oi it, you had better enjoy the things of this; I answer, Christ “hath redeemed us from this present evil world according to the will of God and our Father;” and as Christ enjoys not His rule over this world, but is for the present expecting till His enemies be made His footstool, I wait for God’s Son from heaven, and for the glory that shall follow, and know that if I suffer with Him now I shall reign hereafter. Having our loins girded thus with TRUTH, we can meet the enemy and successfully resist him.
And as all truth contained in the Word may at one time or other be a girdle for the loins, the more we know of the Word of God. (if we get it from the Lord in holy fellowship), the more prepared will we be to meet the enemy in conflict; but it must be obtained not by the mere exercise of our own minds, but by the “unction from the Holy One that teacheth all things.” The precious truths of accomplished redemption by the dying Lamb of Calvary―life in resurrection in Christ risen from the dead, our completeness in Christ, our oneness with our glorified head in heaven; His coming the second time without sin unto salvation; and the eternal glory that shall be ours with Him, are such truths as keep our hearts and minds from wandering in search of a satisfying portion here below. “Our hearts are with Him on the throne,” and cannot any more come down to the poor trifling joys of earth.
That the loins may be “girt with TRUTH,” we must have spiritual experience of all that Christ is to us, and of all we have in Christ. The truth in order to its being a girdle to us, must be obtained in living union with Christ risen and in counion with God, and not obtained by the precept of men. Men may be used as ministers of His grace; but if we obtain the truth only from men, it will hang loosely about us. We may be said to hold it, but it will never hold us! We need to be held together spiritually by the truth, especially as to our affections. “The flesh” can be taken up with men’s thoughts about God’s truth, but it is only when the truth of God itself comes to our souls in demonstration of the Spirit and with power that “our faith stands, not in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God.” The truth of God was quoted even by Satan to lead the Lord Jesus from the path of entire dependence; but He had His “loins girt about with truth” ―it was not merely a thing outside of Him, but He had it in His heart―He was girded with it, lived, walked, and fought in it.
There is nothing in our day that is more employed by Satan in his wiles than setting one against another, on account of their various thoughts about God’s truth. This is not to be girt about with truth, but to give place to the devil. As a general rule, if you find a man anxious on all occasions to fight for certain tenets and views, you may be very sure that they are either unscriptural, or he is holding them in the flesh, and they are not holding him as being the “girdle of the loins of his mind.” It is no doubt our duty, as it is our privilege, to contend earnestly for the faith once delivered to the saints; but “the flesh,” “the old man” in us, can be occupied about the truth in an intellectual and controversial way quite as much as about pleasure or mammon; and it is by partial thoughts respecting God’s truth, and indirect lies, of which men are not conscious, that Satan seems to be deceiving so many persons at the present time, and it is against “the wiles of the devil” that we are specially guarded; and to be able to stand against these wiles we must see to “having our loins girt about with truth.” Satan, in order to dislodge us from our confidence in Christ, and alienate our affections from Him, will never present himself and say, I am the devil, and I am come on set purpose to deceive you about this truth concerning Jesus, and thereby to injure, and if possible destroy your souls.’ He always appears out of character, and when he comes to deceive Christians, who soar the highest in their affection for Christ, he appears as an angel of light, magnifying the importance of this little thing and the other little thing connected with Him, until we lose the due proportion of truth; and as he assailed our first parents in the serpent, so he is now using his subtle wiles, and endeavouring to deceive us even by the exaggeration, distortion, and dislocation of truths, which, sad to say, are so frequently propounded by deeply-taught, earnest and good men, “whose praise is in the gospel in all the churches of Christ.” In seeking to circumvent devoted and experienced Christians, he will thus be found fishing with good bait, and with such bait as completely hides the hook.
If, again, he can succeed in getting us to hold and to contend for the real truth of God out of living, spiritual fellowship with God himself, instead of truth holding us, and we girt as to our affections with it, his end would be accomplished.
In order that we may have the truth as the girdle of the affections of the soul, and be able to minister the truth in love and power, we must have it given to our own souls as an experimental thing, and that which binds our affections together and centers them on Christ himself; otherwise we who minister even God’s own precious truth concerning His Son Jesus Christ, will become, morally, like a pipe that conveys water to a city―not ourselves living men, and living in the Spirit, and drinking the living, water, and having it flowing out of us in rivers for the refreshing of others and the conversion of perishing souls.
And let, us never think that we can know too much of God’s truth. We need all truth, and our Lord prays, “Sanctify them through thy truth―thy word is truth.” And the more of God’s truth that we know, and are girded with, the more shall we be separated from the specious truth-seeming lies of the devil, and the more safe shall we be against his wiles and allurements; and the more useful by His grace shall we be in bringing others out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage, and getting them planted safely in a risen Christ in the land of promise.
Beloved, let us earnestly pray that the Holy Ghost who is come and abides with us to guide us into all truth, to take of the things of Christ, and show them to us, may not only give us to know the TRUTH, and by the truth to be made free, but also to be so sanctified thereby, that our affections and every motion of our minds may be so bound by the truth, and our souls so knit to, Christ through means of it, and so entirely and constantly in the presence of God by virtue of it, that we shall be moulded into a state of trembling truthfulness of spirit, that makes us give up all our human notions about truth or duty, and lean for everything in quiet dependence on the guidance and teaching of “the Spirit of truth,” the written Word alone being our directory.
I leave with you, my dearly-beloved and longed for, a word from God by Isaiah which has just thrilled my own soul: ― “To this man will I look, even to him that is poor and of a contrite spirit, and THAT TREMBLETH AT MY WORD.” This is precious! Oh that it may be ours! But what follows is fearful, as depicting God’s mind about those who do not tremble at His word, and are not “having the loins girt about with truth,” but, on the contrary, are holding their “views,” and walking in “their own ways.” “They have chosen their own ways, and their soul delighteth in their abominations. I WILL ALSO CHOOSE THEIR DELUSIONS, and will bring their fears upon them; because when I called none did answer, when I spake they did not hear, but they did evil before mine eyes, and chose that in which I delighted not.”
“Hear the word of the Lord, ye that tremble at His word; Your brethren that hated you, that cast you out for my name’s sake, said, Let the Lord be glorified; but lee shall appear to your joy, and they shall be ashamed” (Isa. 66:55Hear the word of the Lord, ye that tremble at his word; Your brethren that hated you, that cast you out for my name's sake, said, Let the Lord be glorified: but he shall appear to your joy, and they shall be ashamed. (Isaiah 66:5)).