If I had to title my message this morning, and then I would title the message that we are at war.
And we are not at a physical war, but we are at a spiritual battle.
And if I see that we travel for thousands and thousands of kilometers to participate in this war,
this is not an easy war, this is not going to be easy always,
but with God on our side, we will overcome.
Sometimes we think that God has given us an easy path, but I have learned in life,
nothing comes easy, even preaching the gospel of God to those who are not saved.
It doesn't come easy, but we need to persevere.
We need to stop up.
We need to be ready.
Sadly, many, many Christians, as you call themselves, they are not ready for this war.
They are not armored, they have nothing on them.
And we as Baptists, we have one thing on our side, is that we will preach the truth,
no matter what comes our way, no matter who loves us, or no matter who don't love us.
We don't care.
We have a command to go out, preach the gospel, and preach the truth.
So this morning, the first thing that I need to concentrate on in Ephesians 6,
I would like to speak about the truth.
And if we have a look at scripture, the scripture says we need to put on the belt of truth.
And when I got to Ghana, I lost my belt.
And it was very, very uncomfortable for me because my second belt was in my case in my carry-on,
not my carry-on in the case where I checked in.
And then what happened is, I had to struggle to keep my pants up.
And I said to myself, my good Lord,
how does this gangsters walk with their fancies down and exposed?
And I had to struggle.
And then this scripture comes to me.
We are supposed to have the belt of truth,
because if we have the belt of truth, the belt keeps everything tucked in.
It keeps you neat.
Although it is a cosmetic, although it is not the best of things.
A lot of people want to go without it.
But the Bible says that we need the belt of truth,
meaning that this belt that keeps our pants from falling down
is in fact a belt that keeps everything together.
So the truth, my dear beloved brothers and sisters,
is something that keeps believers together.
The truth, and if we don't have the truth, then we have nothing.
We have nothing to preach about, we have nothing to say.
And we need to understand that truth is a fact,
a verified, undisputed fact.
We believe as Christians that facts are laid in the Bible.
We don't go to anywhere else but the scripture for our facts.
We believe that every answer in life lays in the Bible.
You can go to the Bible, you will find anything in the Bible.
The life and the truth on any topic, it is found in the Bible.
Jesus was saying to us it is an undisputable fact
that He is the Son of God.
He goes further on to say that I am the truth,
I am the way, and I am the life.
He didn't say I am the, He says I am the.
So the truth, it is very important for each and every Christian.
So we should be honored, our vows should be tightened
and everything in our life, in other words,
our spiritual life should be tucked in and we should be ready for the battle
because there's a lot of lies out there.
There's a lot of things out there, people are preaching
and to a lot of people, they don't know the truth
and we have a responsibility to tell them the truth.
It's not always going to be easy, but it's going to be worth it.
Luke 12 2 and 3 says,
For there is nothing covered, that shall not be revealed.
Sometimes we think we can hide the truth,
but we can never hide the truth.
For many years, I believed the ways of the Pentecostal was the right way.
I believe that it was the truth.
And so I actually read the true word of God
because for many years, I allowed people to read and say,
this is the way that God wants us to do.
And I believed a lot of things, but today I can say to you,
I am covered with truth.
I would like to encourage you and say to you,
whatever you do in life, never go without the belt of truth.
If someone needs to know that he's a sinner, tell him he's a sinner.
If you need to tell him he's a fag,
you tell him you're a fag and you're going to hell.
You see, because we want to treat them as if they are gold.
They're not gold, they are from the pit of hell.
And today I want to encourage you.
The Bible further says in John 8 32,
for he shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free.
How much of us, really, if we go out there,
we know the truth, especially the Pentecostal Chemistmatics.
How many of them really know the truth?
And the truth is fine in the Bible.
That is why the church out there,
because they don't know the truth,
you can see the way that even they are dressing.
They look like they are going to a nightclub
because they don't know the truth.
If my wife walks a perfectly dressed, to them it is a sin,
but to me that she's honoring me and loving the life of me.
The Bible further says, and I'm going to just,
I'm just going to have about two or three,
the Bible says we ought to wear the breastplate of righteousness.
Righteousness, righteousness and truth goes together.
This war you cannot go into without being righteous.
There's many a people that wants to fight this war
and they still want to have secretive lives.
They still want to do their own thing.
But we, as the Bible says, we need to put on the breastplate of righteousness.
The breastplate is a piece of armor that covers the chest
and all your vital organs.
In other words, you need to have a spiritual battle.
And if you are not covered up, you are going to lose out.
And this is one thing that we need to know.
The breastplate of righteousness shows of a way
where we are protected through our faith.
This is a breastplate of life.
We are not righteous because of our own works.
We are not righteous because we go to church.
We are not righteous because we feed people.
We are righteous because we are cloaked in the armor
protected by the sacrifice of God.
Our vital organs are protected because we believe.
We believe.
We don't care what people say.
They say no, but you can't believe who you believe.
We believe.
The Bible says in 2nd Timothy 2, 22
when Paul talks about turning from the lustful desires
and pursuing righteousness.
If you go to other churches, if you go in this war,
you see pastors that is supposed to be in this war with you,
but they are living an unrighteous life.
They are doing, they are not doing the work of God.
And God wants us to live righteously.
Live righteously, sometimes people say yes,
but nobody's going to know it.
God knows.
I can remember one day traveling to Dallas.
A pastor was with me.
I never knew that this guy even was interested in alcohol.
And when we got on the plane, he was sitting next to me,
said to me, pastor, remember when I'm on the plane,
I just take one whiskey.
That is the only time when I take alcohol.
I looked at him and I said to him,
you are showing your true character.
You are not living a righteous life
because if you can consume alcohol,
then you can have lustful desires.
And the Bible says we need to pursue righteousness.
Psalm 5 verse 8 says,
Lead me, O Lord, in thy righteousness,
because my enemies make thy way straight before my faith.
Lead me, O Lord, in thy righteousness.
And that should be the prayer of our hearts every day.
And this is a part of the Bible that I really love that says,
we need to have the feet of readiness,
readiness to go preach the gospel,
climbing mountains like you made me climb mountains today.
I would have never done this in South Africa.
But you made me, I said to myself,
this is a bunch of crazy Americans,
but I need to do what I need to do.
I'm doing the Sermon on the Mount, praise God.
I am doing it.
And I was exhausted when I told you,
but you know what?
My feet of readiness.
I was ready.
Be ready to go out so many.
I have a look at Daniel.
Daniel, while this guy was bathing,
was sunbathing, Daniel went over to him
and started to preach the gospel.
And that is what I've noticed about Baptist.
Wherever they come, they don't care.
They preach the gospel.
There is feet of readiness,
feet to do the work of the Lord.
Sometimes we are going to get stumbling blocks.
Sometimes people will try to help us,
but if they are helping to put a stumbling block against you,
I tell you, step up to that stumbling block
and make it so that that stumbling block
will be a step for your victory.
And then the last point that I want to make this morning.
We need to have the shield of faith.
We need to go out and know,
no matter what people say about us,
we are going to be fired on by the devil.
People are going to try stopping us from preaching the truth,
but you need to have the shield of faith.
People need to know I will not be moved.
Like a king standing at the water according to someone,
we will not be moved.
Too many Christians are easily moved.
And today I would like to encourage you
that we will have stumbling blocks
and when trials and troubles come,
we need to have faith in our shield.
And our shield is Jesus Christ.
And we should always, always have faith in Him.
We have the trusted shield.
The way we believe, it is a shield itself.
It protects us.
And God wants us to be shielded.
Whenever you start to preach your God
and you're a Muslim guy or someone comes up
and tries to disturb you,
you need to shield up and continue preaching.
You need to say, I am here for one purpose.
And my goal is to preach the truth.
I don't care what people say about me.
I don't care how people like me,
but it's the shield of truth.
Friends, we need to have the sword of the Spirit.
We need to have God with us wherever we go.
He says that we need to keep on fighting the good fight.
It is my encouragement this afternoon.
You need to have every person sitting here.
When you go out, make sure that you have the armor of God.
Make sure that you are ready
because the battleground that we are entering is not for sissies.
It's not for sissies
because we are being spiritually attacked for preaching the truth.
People want to lock us up.
People want to get us out of the town and out of the system.
But as the Bible teaches,
if you knock on one door and the one person throws you away,
dust off your feet and go to the next door.
It is my encouragement to each and every person here
that when you go back home,
know one thing,
that if you are fully armored, the devil can come.
That is why before we go out, we pray.
That is why when we return, we pray
because we are armed and we are ready for the world out there.
My encouragement is keep on preaching the truth.
Do not allow anyone to disturb you.
Have the shield of faith on you.
Say, Lord, this is my shield.
I don't care what people say about me.
May God bless you and may God keep you.
Let us pray.
Heavenly Father, we thank you for this morning.
We thank you for this word.
Father, we thank you to each and every person that we sing this morning.
Father, I pray as we go out so winning in this week,
Father, that we will be ready.
We will have the feet of readiness and the shield of faith.
Bless us this day further in Jesus name.
Amen.