Pick Up Your Sword

 The Sword of the Spirit – Ephesians 6:17

“…and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God…”

How blessed are we to have God’s Word in full. We literally have the freedom to read God’s holy, breathed out Word at the tip of our fingers. The solution to ALL of our problems! This part of armor has always stuck out to me as the only offensive piece of armor, the Sword we can fight against Satan with. Sadly, as followers of Christ, we neglect this part of armor that is most essential in our daily fight with sin. Hebrews 4:12-13 tells us, “The Word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edge sword, piercing to the division of soul and spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart. And no creature is hidden from His sight, but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of Him to whom we must give account.” How fitting are the verses in regard to Ephesians 6:17? Think of the Bible as a mirror. You look into it and see how disgusting your sin has made you. Scripture takes our eyes off of ourselves, and fixes our eyes on Jesus, our perfect Savior who makes us white as snow by paying off our sin debt with his blood. Without this mirror, how are we supposed to grow in sanctification?

My pastor once said God’s Word is the guardrails that keep us on the narrow path to the narrow gate of the Father’s Kingdom. In order to keep fixed on this path, we must believe that all of the Bible is God’s Word, the only real truth. It is inerrant which means without error and infallible which means incapable of being wrong. Paul in 2 Timothy 3:16-17 explains, “All Scripture is breathed out by God, profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.” His Word not only completes us but equips us to do the work He started in us! In Philippians 1:6 Paul says with confidence, “And I am sure of this, that He who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.” Since we have this confidence, we can boldly proclaim the good news of the gospel to our family and friends. From a Ligonier article I read, the author quotes, “for as the Word is preached, sinners are rescued from the devil’s grip and believers see the sins for which they need to repent.”

It is essential to be in the Word daily. It is possible to do when you make it a priority in your life. Although it is possible, that doesn’t mean it is always easy to focus on. We have so many distractions always drawing our weak flesh’s attention off of the Lord. That is why I love what Paul wrote to the church of Corinth in 2 Corinthians 10:3-5, “For though we walk in the flesh, we are not waging war according to the flesh. For the weapons of OUR warfare are not of the flesh but we have divine power to destroy strongholds. We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God and take every thought captive to obey Christ…” Paul is making note that the weapons we have are spiritual, not material. These “strongholds'' mentioned in this passage are wrong thoughts and perceptions that contradict the Word of God. Since we know God’s Word is without error, it never contradicts itself or goes against what God has spoken. If we don’t understand something in the Bible, we have so many resources such as articles and commentaries to help us understand. We are not to change God’s Word, but our minds. As Paul says in Romans 12:2, “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.” When we hold such a high view of Scripture and live by what it says, the world starts to notice. There will be so many people you encounter throughout your life who will try to get you to doubt what God has said by twisting the words of Scripture or trying to disprove it. Notice Paul’s wording when he says that we destroy ARGUMENTS and lofty OPINIONS. Those who come against God’s Word have nothing to defend themselves with but theories and opinions. We have absolute truth in the palms of our hands. It defends itself! As Charles Spurgeon once beautifully said, “The Word of God is like a lion. You don’t have to defend a lion. All you have to do is let the lion loose, and the lion will defend itself”.

We must not be like our first parents Adam and Eve who gave into the deception of Satan in the Garden in Genesis 3, causing sin to enter into this world. Jesus himself exclaimed in John 8:44 to the Jews at the time, “You are of your father the devil, and your will is to do your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks out of his own character, for he is a liar and the father of lies”. So now when we look at the fall of mankind, we see this demonstrated in verse one of Genesis 3, “Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, ‘Did God ACTUALLY say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree in the garden?...” Not only did Satan make them question what God had told them, but he twisted His words. God specifically told them they could eat from any tree but the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Listening to Satan, Eve thought God was withholding wisdom from them, in reality they wanted to govern their own lives by being their own god. This sin which was a “delight to the eyes” not only affected Eve, but she included her husband Adam by giving him some of the fruit, which affected the rest of us forever. Sin causes collateral damage. This is why we must fill our minds and hearts with Scripture so that we don’t have room for the enemy’s lies. In Matthew 4, our perfect Savior Jesus responded to Satan’s temptation after he was in the wilderness for forty days and forty nights. Satan quoted Scripture twice and tried to get Jesus to prove he was the Son of God. Despite being very hungry after fasting for so many days and being weak in his humanity, no word except his Father’s came out of his mouth and Satan left him. Who is a better example to follow than the Son of God himself?

The Bible is offensive because it exposes our sin, in which we have offenses against God.This is where the good news of the gospel comes in. Jesus Christ stood in our place when we stood condemned because of our sin. He took on the wrath of God that we deserve by dying in our place on the cross. He rose again fully defeating sin, death, hell, and the grave and rose from the dead three days later and is seated at God’s right-hand interceding for those who believe in him at this very moment. What better way to close this than ending with The High Priestly Prayer in John 17 that Jesus prayed for those who followed him just before he was arrested and later crucified. He prays,

“I am praying for them. I am not praying for the world but for those whom You have given me, for they are Yours. All mine are Yours, and Yours are mine, and I am glorified in them. And I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to You. Holy Father, keep them in Your name, which You given me. I have guarded them and not one of them has been lost except the son of destruction (Satan) that the Scripture might be fulfilled. But now I am coming to You, and these things I speak in the world, that they may have MY JOY fulfilled in themselves. I have given them Your Word, and the world has hated them because they are not of this world, just as I am not of this world. I do not ask that You take them out of this world, but that You keep them from the evil one. Sanctify them in the truth, Your Word is truth. As You sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world. And for THEIR sake I consecrate myself, that they also may be sanctified in truth”(vv. 9-19).

Praise God that we are always growing in sanctification as we soak in the Word. We are able to withstand whatever we face in this world because we have THE Sword. Pick it up and use it daily, pray for and proclaim the gospel to your family, friends, and neighbors, and watch the kingdom of Satan fall.