THE CHRISTIAN’S ARMOUR-EPHESIANS 6:11-18.
“AND TAKE THE SWORD OF THE SPIRIT, WHICH IS THE WORD OF GOD,” Vs.17.
We now come to the last piece of the Christian’s armour, the sword. This is a very, very important piece of our armour for it is a weapon both for defence and offence. In defence, we can parry, and deflect the enemy’s attacks, and in offence, put our enemy on to the back foot and drive him before us until he yields. In our modern day three types of sword are used in fencing. I.e., the foil, a long thin thrusting weapon, the epee, slightly heavier than the foil and for cutting and thrusting, and the sabre, which is carried by horsemen and used for cutting. In Paul’s time the Roman sword was a fairly short sword and used for both stabbing and cutting. In the right hands this was a very lethal weapon.
The Christian of today, (unless he is a member of a fencing club), does not handle any of the actual swords just mentioned. However we do have in our hands a spiritual sword which, when used correctly, is so powerful that it can even defeat spiritual forces and powers, including Satan himself. Our sword is the Word of God which was inspired to be written by the Holy Spirit, “All Scripture is inspired by God,” 2 Timothy 3:6. The Holy Spirit can therefore guide us to use it for both protection and offence against any manifestation of ungodliness, be it from the spirit world or the humanistic anti-god world of men, or even from spiritual pollution and temptation within one’s life. David understood this when he said in Psalm 17:4, “As for the deeds of men, by the word of Your lips I have been kept from the path of the violent.” The Lord Jesus too, when tempted in the wilderness, three times repelled Satan’s attack with the words, “It is written,” as He used three quotations from Deuteronomy.
To be practical in this blog, I will not go into upholding or proving the divinity of Scripture, or its prophetic, doctrinal, or moral instructional aspects. Instead, we will consider the supernatural power of God’s Word to search the heart, to convict, to comfort, and to convert. A personal experience and understanding of these effects will equip us to use God’s Word in witnessing, ministry, counselling, and defeating Satan’s attacks upon our person.
Power to search the heart: Have you ever sat in a congregation and, while listening to God’s Word being preached, said to yourself, “Who has been telling the minister about me?” Of course, no one has, but God was using the minister to search your heart through the preaching of His Word. In our private reading and Bible study God is able to lay our heart bare through a particular verse. David well knew the heart searching power of God when he instructed Solomon, “As for you, my son Solomon, know the God of your father, and serve Him with a whole heart and a willing mind; for the Lord searches all hearts and understands every intent of the thoughts,” 1 Chronicles 28:9.
Power to convict: We sometimes do or say something, and think nothing else about it. But later on, as we read God’s Word, something in a verse suddenly touches a deep chord within and we have a most uncomfortable sense that what we did or said was not right and we need to make restitution in some way. At another time, when speaking to an unbeliever, a Scripture will come to mind which, when spoken will strike deep into the unbeliever’s heart. Do what he will, that word will rankle in his heart until he eventually responds and comes to God.
Power to comfort: Solomon once said, “But as for a broken (wounded) spirit, who can bear it?” Proverbs 18:14. When we have sinned in some way and let the Lord down, we often feel distraught, convicted, and an absolute, stupid failure. On these occasions, the one thing we do not do is to tell ourselves that we are such failures, we are no further use to God. No! We should turn to the only One who can heal us and bring us back into fellowship. Only God can touch us with His pardoning mercy to heal and comfort us, and this He does through His Word. God delights to forgive a repentant soul. “Who can forgive sins, but God alone?” Luke 5:21; “I am writing to you little children, because your sins have been forgiven you for His name sake,” 1 John 2:12. “For You, Lord, are good, and ready to forgive, and abundant in loving-kindness to all who call upon You,” Psalm 86:5. Experiencing God’s forgiving mercy and grace can turn our darkness into light, and fill our soul, “With joy inexpressible and full of glory,” 1 Peter 1:8.
Power of conversion: How many of us can point back to a time, or moment in our past and say, “Through the preaching (or reading) of God’s Word a great change came over me. I believed what I heard (read) and I became a different and new person?” We can now say with Paul to Titus, “For we also were once foolish ourselves, disobedient, deceived, enslaved to various lusts and pleasures, spending our life in malice and envy, hateful, hating one another. But when the kindness of God our Saviour and His love for mankind appeared, He saved us, not on the basis of deeds which we have done in righteousness, but according to His mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewing by the Holy Spirit,” Titus 3:3-5. Through the power of God’s Word we now delight to sit at the feet of the One we once rejected and ignored, and ultimately shared in His crucifixion.
Who can doubt the life changing power of the preached Word when the Apostles were sent forth to preach the grace of Christ? Wherever they went the world was up in arms against them, inspired by the devil to resist the Apostles ministry. Yet, through the preaching of the Gospel, they turned the world upside down.
Our verse speaks of our sword as “the sword of the Spirit,” there are three reasons for this. Because Satan is a spirit we must fight him with a spiritual weapon and God’s Word can be a spiritual sword.
God is the Author of His Word. His hand alone formed and fashioned this weapon. It was formed in the forge of God’s eternal plans and purposes for mankind, “For no prophecy was ever made by an act of human will, but men moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God,” 2 Peter 1:21.
The Holy Spirit is the only true interpreter of the Word, “But know this first of all, that no prophecy of Scripture is a matter of one’s own interpretation,” 2 Peter 1:20. Why is this? Who knows the mind of God as well as the Holy Spirit?
Only the Holy Spirit can give God’s Word the power to affect the soul and deal with spiritual forces. We can read the Bible (as many people do) in an attitude of just reading the words of a story, and the reader remains untouched. However, what a change comes over the whole experience when the Holy Spirit touches both the words and the soul of the reader. This same Word, burning in the heart, and on the lips of a believer can defeat Satan’s tactics and bring an unbeliever to faith in Christ. We have a weapon at our disposal which is supernaturally powerful and with which we need to spend as much time as possible practicing for its efficient use.
I will close this blog with guides for our study of God’s Word, our sword. Do not come to the Word with known and unconfessed sin; pray and ask God to unlock the mysteries of Scripture; compare Scripture with Scripture; use of a commentary by a recognised faithful writer can be helpful; memorise as many verses as possible.
A final warning. We are not to regard the devil as a joke, as the world does. “But Michael the Archangel, when he disputed with the devil argued about the body of Moses, did not dare pronounce against him a railing judgement, but said, ‘the Lord rebuke you,’” Jude 9. “Daring, self-willed they do not tremble when they revile angelic majesties, whereas angels who are greater in might and power do not bring a reviling judgement against them before the Lord,” 2 Peter 2:10-11. We must never forget the might and the power and the strength of this great enemy that is set against us. But at the same time we are not to be terrified by him. We must ‘stand and stand firm’ and use the ‘sword of the Spirit,’ in a way which will cause him to flee from us.
God bless you
John