Girt with Truth

Stand therefore, having your loins girt about with truth.’ — Ephesians vi. 14.

7? ROMAN soldier’s girdle was a strong belt which he wrapped around his loins, binding the armour tight to his body, and preventing it from interfering with the freedom of his action. The girdle braced him up, gave him a sense of firmness and a consciousness of compact and concentrated force. There was the civilians girdle, as well as the soldier’s, and this too accomplished a similar purpose. Its purpose was to lay hold of the flowing Oriental garments, which would otherwise flap loosely and catch the winds, and become a serious impediment to progress, and to bind them about the loins, and give to the wearer a sense of physical firmness, resource and control. Such is the apostle’s figure. Now see the application. ‘Have your loins girt about with truth, Take the truth, and wrap it

round about your life. Wear it like a belt, to give you strength. Let it gather up the whole of your life, and bind it into compactness. Do not let your life be loose, indefinite, limp and inconclusive. Let it be firm, assured, decisive. ‘Stand, having your loins girt about with truth. ’

Now, if any man wore the girdle of truth, that man was the Apostle Paul. He took ’ the truth as it is in Jesus,’ and he wrapped it about his life; and while he was wearing it nothing could intimidate or dismay the grand old warrior. The belt gave him a wonderful sense of power. As he felt its bracing support, he cried in the joyful consciousness of might: ‘I can do all things through Christ who strengtheneth me.’ So long as he wore the girdle, no enemy could overpower him. Suffering, temptation, loss, death — let ihem come; ‘I can do all things.’ How rarely we hear that note of absolute confidence in the religious life of to-day ‘We are more conscious of weakness than of strength. We feel limp and loose, with scarcely any spiritual strength. How is it? It is because we are not wearing the girdle. We are trying to live the Christian life without the Christian revelations, without the sustaining power of the mighty truths which

Christ made known. Revealed truth is the dynamic of the spiritual life. Let us put on the girdle, and wear it night and day. The girdle gave Paul a sense of power, it gave him self-possession, it also gave him decision. What it did for him it will do for all men. It will fill them with a calm consciousness of encompassing power, which will be to them the proof that they are partakers of the strength of God.

And now let me try to put a girdle round about some of my readers who may need bracing up into spiritual confidence and strength. There are some who are careworn, anxious about to-morrow, wondering if the meal in the barrel will hold out, and if the cruse of oil will fail. Here is a great truth, which I would ask you to put on and wear as a girdle, and wear it always, ‘Cast all your care upon Him, for He careth for you.’

And some are just beginning to live the Christian life, and they are experiencing all the joys of its most delightful spring; but they are a little fearful as to how they will fare on the morrow, when the skies darken and temptations come thick and strong. Here is a great truth, which I ask you to buckle on and wear like a belt: ‘Having loved His own, He loved them unto the end.’

And there are some who know themselves to be so embedded in evil habit as to be almost hopeless of escape. They are coming to regard themselves as almost past redemption. Let me ask all such to take this truth, and fasten it round about their lives: ‘He loved me and gave Himself for me, ‘We are justified by faith, ‘He is able to save even unto the uttermost.’ Take this truth and wear it, and paralyzing despair shall yield to a bright and vigorous hope.