The Alternative

Dr. Tony Evans: Religion keeps telling you to change from the outside in or manage sin.

Guest (Male): But Dr. Tony Evans says that's the exact opposite of how real transformation happens.

Dr. Tony Evans: When you have on the breastplate of righteousness, you've got a delivery system from the inside out, not the outside in.

Guest (Male): This is the alternative broadcast featuring the timeless biblical teachings from the archives of Dr. Tony Evans. God has only one standard of behavior, absolute perfection. So how can a mere human do anything but totally and completely fail? Well, let's turn to Ephesians to join Dr. Evans as he shows us the answer.

Dr. Tony Evans: Paul the Apostle speaks to the church at Ephesus and Christians everywhere that there is an attire necessary for us to wear if we're going to be successful in this thing called the Christian life. Finally, brethren, chapter 6 verse 10, be strong in the Lord and the strength of his might. Put on the Here's our series, the full armor of God so that you may be able to stand firm against the schemes of the devil. Here it is. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against principalities and powers and world forces of this darkness, against spiritual forces of wickedness in heavenly places.

He says over and over again, stand firm. That means don't go anywhere. He says stand firm, and what he's meaning by that is Jesus has already accomplished the victory. So don't leave him to fix what's wrong. He then says in verse 13, take up the full armor of God. Don't get partly dressed. Don't just put on a few pieces. Take up the complete wardrobe. He introduces us to the first piece of attire that gives you victory in the spiritual realm, which affects how things work in the physical realm. And he calls it gird up your loins with truth.

Verse 14 says, gird up your loins with truth. The first thing that you must keep with you at all times is a truth belt. In other words, you find out what God thinks or says about a matter. That is the first place you should go. You should not first go to your mama, your daddy, your cousins, your uncle, your auntie, you even your mate, or your parents or your children. They all can have input. But when you want to know the truth, the very first place you go is God's thinking on a matter. What does God think and what does God say about this matter?

He said at the end of verse 14, put on the breastplate of righteousness. Righteousness. What is righteousness? Righteousness is simply the standard that God requires for people to become acceptable to him. Righteousness is really my application of the truth in my everyday life. The truth is the informational base that tells me what the right thing is to do. The truth is whatever God says about a matter. That is the truth regardless of how many other people agree the other way. Now, why is this so important? Because we're talking about spiritual warfare, wickedness in heavenly places.

And the thing you need to know about this and why righteousness is a major point here is that demons function on wrongness. So he's talking about the spiritual realm. Demons function on wrongness. Wrong is not just wrong. Wrong is demonic invitation. See, wrong is wrong just cuz it's wrong. But what wrong does is invite demons to join the wrongness. So two things happen with unrighteousness. Demons are invited in, and demons make a bad place worse, and God is blocked out. Unrighteousness gives Satan a legal right to you. So the question is, if righteousness keeps demons away and allows God to flow in my life predicated on truth, cuz that's the only way you know what's right, but God doesn't lower his standard, how do I get this righteousness operating?

Breastplate.

Guest (Male): Yes.

Dr. Tony Evans: He says put on the breastplate of righteousness. Why does he call righteousness a breastplate? A breastplate is basically a chest protector. It's a chest protector. It protects your chest. Now, why do you want to protect your chest? Cuz then your chest is your heart. Why do you want to protect your heart? Cuz all of life flow banks on that. The job of the heart, breastplate, behind the chest, heart, is to to pump life into you. To pump life into you. Well, for every spiritual principle, there's a physical counterpart so we can understand the spiritual principle.

We have a physical heart so we understand the physical principle. Well, behind that is a spiritual principle. That's why the Bible says so much about the heart. It talks about the heart because that's the spiritual pump to pump the life of God into you. When you accepted Christ, if you are a Christian, if you have trusted Jesus Christ as your sin bearer and you are saved today, something astronomical took place. I mean astronomical. The Bible says it in a lot of different ways of 2 Corinthians 5:17, if any man is in Christ, he is a new creation.

Old things have passed away and all things have become new. He says at the point of salvation, everything about you became brand new. Now watch this. It goes on to say in 1 Corinthians chapter 1 verse 10 that Christ has been made to us righteousness. The Bible says in Ephesians 1:13, you were sealed with the Holy Spirit until the day of redemption. So here it is. When you accepted Christ, only one third of you got saved immediately. Only one third of you got saved immediately, and it wasn't your soul. Now I know what we're used to saying, my soul was saved.

Uh not quite. You have three parts, body, soul, spirit. One day in the future when you die, your body will be saved cuz you're going to get a new glorified body. Your soul, who you really are, your personality, mind, will, emotions, conscience, that is in the process of becoming saved. It's called sanctification. That gets saved over time. The only thing that was immediately saved when you became a Christian was your spirit. Inside your body is your soul, but inside your soul is your spirit. The job of the spirit, here it is, is to release life into the soul.

As the spirit releases life into the soul, the soul releases life into the body. So the body begins to live righteous because the soul has become righteous because the spirit's flow has delivered righteousness to it. When you have on the breastplate of righteousness, you've got a delivery system from the inside out, not the outside in. You see, what religion does is try to change you from the outside in. Come to church more. You ought to be better. Give more. Serve more. Worship more. Raise your hands higher. Jump up and down. Spin around. Flip a pew.

Do this. Do that. Do this. And you become a tired Christian. You're You're on this treadmill trying to do more for Jesus. You know, I am running for Jesus. Yeah, but I am tired now. Why? Because religion keeps telling you to change from the outside in or manage sin. He says no, no, that's not the way. He says if you want authentic change that deals with not only what the public sees, but what's in the closet, he says if you want to deal with that, then that has to happen from the breastplate. That is that must happen from the heart.

That must happen from the The pump and the job of the pump, the heart, is to pump God's life from the spirit to the soul to the body. That's what the breastplate of righteousness is designed to do. God will not change his standard. He's not going to adjust because of his nature, his perfection. Religion will only help you to manage sin. And managing sin is not all bad. I mean you don't want a person who who's a murderer just doing what they do. You want them to manage their impulses, okay? So management management isn't all bad, but it doesn't solve the root problem, okay?

To tell me to stop doing something is the right thing to do. I ought to stop doing that. And I may stop doing it because I'm not supposed to do it or I don't want to go to jail or whatever. But And I may stop doing it, but you haven't solved my propensity toward it, my desire toward it, my history with it cuz I've been dealing with it for 20 years or whatever it is, because we have not gotten to the heart of the matter yet. He says it must come from the heart.

Guest (Male): When Dr. Evans returns, he'll tell us how we can move from simply managing sin to actually walking in alignment with God. Now, if righteousness is a goal that seems out of reach, Dr. Evans wants you to remember that those obstacles standing in your way are spiritual issues, not just behavior problems. And they can't be beaten without supernatural help. We're offering a great resource that'll show you how to get it, a powerful book called Victory in Spiritual Warfare. In it, Dr. Evans explains why we need to depend on God's power if we're going to win the invisible spiritual battle going on around us, which may be taking the form of substance abuse, emotional or relational issues, and more.

We want you to have a copy of Victory in Spiritual Warfare as our gift. Just visit tonyaevans.org to make a contribution, and we'll say thanks by sending it your way. And if you contact us right away, as a bonus, we'll include all eight full-length messages in Tony's current series on the Armor of God. You can get them on your choice of CD, USB flash drive, or digital download. Find out how at tonyaevans.org or call 1-800-800-3222 and let one of our resource team members assist you. I'll have that information for you again after part two of today's lesson and this.

Guest (Female): I urge you to take this course.

Guest (Male): Dr. Craig Evans, renowned expert on the New Testament, serves as the special guest lecturer for the Tony Evans Training Center course on the Dead Sea Scrolls in the Bible.

Dr. Craig Evans: It covers very important ground, what they are and what they're not.

Guest (Male): One of the most significant archaeological finds of the 20th century, the Dead Sea Scrolls provide unparalleled insights into the accuracy of the Bible. These ancient manuscripts offer a treasure trove of historical and spiritual significance.

Dr. Craig Evans: They preserve for us the Hebrew Bible and shed light on the teaching of Jesus and the major contributors to the New Testament.

Guest (Male): The scrolls open a vivid window into the life and beliefs of the Jewish people during the time of Jesus.

Dr. Craig Evans: You will understand the Bible and Jesus and Christian origins better than you ever had before.

Guest (Male): Take your first step as an honorary amateur archaeologist. Dive into the Dead Sea Scrolls with special guest lecturer Dr. Craig Evans. Discover this and other fascinating biblical studies at tonyaevans.org. Explore the kingdom anytime, anywhere.

Guest (Male): Well, let's get back to Dr. Evans now in the book of Ephesians as he continues our look at the breastplate of righteousness.

Dr. Tony Evans: How does this work? How do we begin to see this? Look Look at what he says. Turn back a page to chapter four where he brings this together. Verse 20, but you did not learn Christ in this way. If indeed you heard him and have been taught in him just as truth is in Jesus, so we got truth. That in reference to your former manner of life, you lay aside the old self, who you used to be, which is being corrupted in accordance with the lust of deceit, there's our deception, and you have been renewed in the spirit Here's the spirit.

The spirit of the mind and put on the new self which in the likeness of God has been created in righteousness, holiness, and of the truth. So what he says is if you start with the truth, what God says about a matter, here it is, that's where you start. This is what you say, God. God has already deposited a righteous seed within you called the spirit. In this righteous seed, your job is to go back to the truth and recite the truth because only the truth sets you free. What does God say about the matter?

When you rehearse the truth over and over and over, not just hear it preached cuz you going forget this, when you rehearse the truth, it sucks into your spirit cuz your spirit only has truth. Guess what's in your spirit? Righteousness. The more you worry about something, the more you worry about something. In other words, worry gives you more worry cuz now you're not only worried about what you were worried about, you worried about worrying about what you were worried about because worrying invites more worry. And the more worry you add on top of worry, the worse you feel because worry has now been magnified in your soul.

So now your soul's all out of whack. You You're depressed. You're discouraged. You're disappointed because you have now meditated worry, and worry is taking it in. And you thought about it when you woke up, and you thought about it while you were getting dressed, and you thought about it when you went to breakfast, you thought about it as you driving to work, and you couldn't get rid of it all day at work, and you took pills to forget about it. But then when the pills wore off, you remembered it again. Then you couldn't sleep at night cuz you kept worrying about it.

And now you tired and worried when you wake up the next day. So now you evil and mad cuz cuz worry has controlled you. So you worried about it, and worry kept growing and growing and growing. In other words, when you meditated on worry, worry took over. Well, when the Bible talks about meditating on the truth, the same result, the different goal. Now you take the truth, what God says about it. You memorize it. You think about it so that it penetrates the heart. In other words, many of you will take this truth today and it will stop there.

It'll be gone before you hit the parking lot, so it will be of no value to you. Some of you will take it further than the body. You will take it into the soul. So you will say, you know, yeah, I'm going to think about this and yeah, you know, did you hear the sermon today? And maybe you'll you'll even get a tape and and listen to it again. So it gets down to the soul level. The problem with the soul is the soul is contaminated by sin. So the soul is going to fight against the new information being introduced to it so you may or may not keep it.

But what the information can't do is jeopardize the spirit cuz you've been sealed with the spirit. Your spirit cannot take in any contaminated information. Your spirit can only take in the truth. That's the only thing that can penetrate the spirit realm cuz it's the God realm. It's the perfect realm. It's the realm with the standard. So once that truth is caught by the spirit, it's yanked in. When the spirit yanked that truth in, there is a relief valve that opens up. This relief valve sends righteousness out. So the righteousness that's in the spirit flows out into the soul.

So the soul is now becoming transformed, not because your body made it different, but because the spirit released righteousness into the soul. And since the body listens to the soul and the soul now listens to the spirit, you wind up being transformed and you wonder what happened to you. Because you have on the breastplate of righteousness. That's what it means, James 4:7, submit to the Lord and the devil will flee from you. If the devil doesn't flee from you cuz you tell the devil leave me, that's like you talking to a roach saying get out of here.

Unless the spirit dictates the soul and the soul dictates to the body, all you can do is manage unrighteousness. You can't be transformed. And we're trying to be transformed. The Bible says look into the mirror and see your natural face there. Mirror referring to the word of God. Nobody in here knows what you look like without a mirror. Okay? You know what people tell you you look like, but you can't see you. You go to a mirror for the mirror to tell you the truth. You can't fix you. You can't judge you cuz you don't even know what you look like in the spirit world unless you get a reflection.

The Bible says God's word will reflect on what you look like. Now you may think you're a pretty little saint. You may think you're a godly little Christian. You may think you're a little nice little follower of Jesus Christ, but when you look in the mirror, it may say you ugly cuz look at your heart. Look at the things you think. Look at the things you want. Look at the things you do. So the mirror will tell you the truth. Now you can look at the mirror and disregard it. Or you can stay in the mirror till the mirror tells you you're okay.

And you know a woman, a woman will stay in the mirror till the mirror tells her she's okay. Okay? All these purses got compacts in them cuz a woman will carry her mirror with her cuz she going to go too long without making sure she okay. A woman will meditate in a mirror over and over and over and over again to make sure she okay. That's what the Bible says. The word of God is The word of God is a mirror. So here's what we're saying. If you accept the truth and you agree that that's God's standard and you drive that truth in, the fastest way to get over an addiction is not say I am not going to do it anymore.

I mean that that's a good thing to say, but you don't have the power to pull off what you just said cuz if you had the power, it wouldn't be an addiction. Okay? So that's not the power to get over it. That's managing it. Okay, manage it, but don't just only manage it. Drive the truth down to the spirit level. Drive it, drive it, drive it, drive it, drive it because once the truth gets down there and God opens up the release valve, he releases righteousness. So you're righteous from the heart and not just from the feet.

You're righteous in the thought, not just in the action. Let's say I buried $100,000 in your backyard. I buried $100,000 in your backyard. As soon as church is over, if you believed me, as soon as you ain't going to greet nobody, you not going to say bless you, praise the Lord, yeah, none of that. You leaving here. You going run to your car when you hear I have buried in your backyard $100,000. And you going to get a shovel and you going tear that yard up. You going to tear that yard up. Having to use the shovel will not be a problem.

You will dig as deep as you need to dig for as long as you need to do it because something of inestimable value has been buried deep down in your backyard. Every effort you put forth to get to that $100,000 will be worth it because it's so valuable. Once you dig that baby up out of there, you can use it for so much more. You don't care about looking cute. You now want to get down to get this thing up out of the ground. When you got saved, God deposited deep down within your soul all the righteousness that belongs to Jesus Christ.

But you can't benefit from it unless you willing to go down there and drive the truth down there and dig that stuff up so that God can release a brand new you under the breastplate of righteousness so that your heart goes and it's pumping righteous thoughts and righteous actions and righteous talk and righteous touch and righteousness is popping up where you never thought it could be, not perfectly because we're still in our bodies, but progressively because our soul is being transformed by the goodness and glory of God.

Guest (Male): Dr. Tony Evans talking about the changes that happen when we wear the breastplate of righteousness. And that's the title of today's message from Tony's current series, The Armor of God. A piece-by-piece inventory of the gear God has equipped us with to fight spiritual battles and win. You can get this set of eight full-length messages for yourself including material we won't have time to bring you on the air. As I mentioned earlier, the set is yours as a thank you bonus when you visit tonyaevans.org. Request the powerful book Victory in Spiritual Warfare and make a contribution to help us keep Tony's teaching on this station.

Again, that's tonyaevans.org or call our resource center at 1-800-800-3222 where team members are available around the clock to help you. That's 1-800-800-3222. Ask someone how they're doing, and oftentimes you'll hear them reply fine under the circumstances. Well, tomorrow Dr. Evans explains why we don't need to live under the circumstances anymore. I hope you'll join us for that.