Sword of the Spirit (Ephesians 6:17)
I hope you're still enjoying our trek through the armour of God. Ephesians 6:10-20—just a great passage about the armour that God gives us, the fight of battle of faith, and to wage war against our spiritual enemies.
Just a bit of a recap: so far, we've looked at the belt of truth, we've looked at the breastplate of righteousness, shoes of the gospel of peace, shield of faith, helmet of salvation, and sword of the spirit. That's the one we're going to do today.
Up to this point, all the equipment we've been given is defensive. You know, it holds you together, or protects you, or gives you stability, or extinguishes the fiery darts of the enemy, or the helmet to protect your heart and mind. Today we come to the first offensive weapon. Of course, a sword can be defensive as well, but this is the first offensive weapon. It's actually the only offensive weapon that God gives to us.
And it's the sword of the Holy Spirit. It's the sword of the Spirit. In the Bible, the Spirit and the Word work together. And it tells us right away what this sword of the Spirit is. It doesn't leave it as a mystery; it tells us the sword of the Spirit is the Word of God. The sword of the Spirit is the Bible. It's God's inerrant, holy, and reliable Word that we can actually build our lives upon and not be in any doubt about.
So this is the sword that God tells us here to take up. To take up every day of our lives. And this is a great blessing. I mean, we know this already, but scripture is probably the believer's greatest treasure. 2 Timothy 3 says that all scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God, like every believer, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.
So this is just a very important piece of equipment here. And I think it's interesting that the first weapon or the first equipment that we had was the belt of truth, and it's related to the truth of scripture. And it's interesting that the last one is also related to the truth of scripture, except it's offensive. You know, it's meant for us to defend ourselves, but also to attack the enemy as we seek to obey Jesus.
It's interesting to me that the ancient sword was the primary way that people waged war. Unlike today, you know, it's not an intercontinental missile or a precise laser weapon bomb that you drop from far away, or a drone that you send across the ocean or whatever and drop a bomb at your enemy. Ancient warfare with swords and cudgels was at very close range. It was messy, it was bloody, it was fierce, it was face-to-face, one-to-one, very personal.
And this is the kind of warfare we're talking about. Frankly, this is the kind of warfare you and I feel when we're under pressure and temptation. God has not given us, in His wisdom, God has not given us a quick and comfortable fix for our spiritual problems. He gives us a sword by which we engage in hand-to-hand combat with our spiritual enemy. He doesn't give us a button so that we can zap our sins as easily as we change the channels on our TV.
No, no, no. In other words, this is a call for us to stand firm in Christ by knowing and understanding and applying God's Word to our lives. That's what the sword means. That's Jesus' model for us. That's exactly what Jesus models for us in Matthew 4. Jesus comes into this world as a perfect man, and he lives the life that we could not have lived. And in Matthew 4, he faces up to the devil in the wilderness. He's tired, he's hungry, he's weary, he's been fasting for 40 days. And now the devil just comes and throws at him one temptation after another.
And each time, Jesus gets out his sword. He gets out his Bible, so to speak. I don't think Jesus actually had a physical Bible with him, but he quotes it. And we know exactly what he quotes. He quotes from different parts of Deuteronomy. So the first temptation was "Turn these stones into bread and you can feed yourself, Jesus." That was what the enemy says to him. You know, "Solve the problem and you can do it yourself without relying on God." And what does Jesus say? He quotes Deuteronomy and he says, "Man will not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God."
"Jesus, throw yourself down the temple." And Jesus quotes where it says, "You shall not put the Lord your God to the test." Entrust God's will. Don't test him. He knows what he's doing in your life.
Satan says, "Worship me." And Jesus responds and says, "The Bible says it is the Lord your God only you shall worship."
You know, stab, stab, stab. That's how Jesus wages war against the devil when he is tempted. And that's exactly what you and I are called to do. There's a difference between responding with our own arguments—you know, our own ideas—when we're tempted. When we're tempted to take a shortcut, when we're tempted to lust or steal or cheat or say a hurtful thing or be proud or ignore our friend or our neighbour or anything that is a temptation. Sometimes we respond to the enemy in our own way. You know, we'll say, "What will that make me look like if I do such-and-such a thing? What will my friends think? Or what if I get caught? Or what would the people of the church think? I'd better not do that."
But this is not the way to respond to the enemy. God gives us the sword of the Spirit so that we will answer not with our human reasons and our convenient reasons about what will make us look good, but with the Word of God. One writer says instead of hitting the devil with a sword, we often bat at him with a pillow. And the devil is way smarter than us, and the only way that we can have the strength and the stability and the power to defeat our enemy is to wage war against him with the Word of God.
The Word of God is like words of steel that stab temptation in the heart. And so when we're tempted to be harsh with somebody, we can say to the devil, "The Bible says speak the truth in love." When the Bible says—when we're tempted to cheat or lust, we can quote from Genesis 2 where it says that sex is only for those who are united together in marriage. When we're tempted to steal, we can just simply quote from the Bible where the Ten Commandments, one of the Ten Commandments says, "You shall not steal."
There is an incredible power in doing that. And so practically what this means: if we're going to take up the sword of the Spirit, we need to study God's Word, memorize it, and immerse ourselves in it.
And just one last word of encouragement. I think one of the most neglected things that we do when we are reading scripture is we don't ask God for help. And I think the times that I am most blessed in reading the Word and applying it to my life is when I ask God for help before and ask God to help me to respond after. When I actually respond to him after I read the Word, and then I realize that Jesus is with me, that this sword is actually Jesus himself waging war with me and helping me fight back the foulest sins of my own heart and the most awful attacks of the devil against me, and I know that I'm going to be victorious.
And I think we need to not rely so much on ourselves and our own ability to understand, but to ask God for his help. And also to ask one another and to be learning together as a community. You know, the Bible was meant to be read in community. I say that often, and we're meant to study it together and learn it together and share it together. The Christian life is meant to be lived together.
So these are some encouragements, brother. And I hope the Lord will equip us today to fight the battles that are before us. The different moments of temptation or impatience or whatever else is thrown at us, we can stand in Christ and take up the sword.
