THE SWORD OF THE SPIRIT
Posted by Pastor Greg Allen on February 25, 2024 under 2024 |
Bethany Bible Church Sermon Message from February 25, 2024 from Ephesians 6:17b
Theme: In order to stand our ground against the attacks of the devil, we must know and use God’s word accurately.
(All Scripture is taken from The New King James Version, unless otherwise indicated).
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Over the past several weeks, we’ve been learning from Ephesians 6 about the armor that God has provided for us as believers. As the apostle Paul wrote in Ephesians 6:10-13;
Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord and in the power of His might. Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places. Therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand (Ephesians 6:10-13).
That armor—that divine panoply of the follower of Jesus—is essential for us to learn about. As the rest of the Book of Ephesians has already shown us, we have been given an immeasurably rich inheritance in Jesus Christ. We are now joint heirs of all the glory that God the Father has given to His beloved Son, and we have now been blessed with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Him. But we receive and enjoy those rich blessings while in the midst of an intense spiritual battlefield. We walk and live in those blessings while fighting against an unimaginably powerful enemy who is intent on keeping us from enjoying them. His cleverness and skill are beyond our human capabilities, and he would completely destroy us if he could. And we simply cannot stand against his attacks unless we do as the apostle Paul tells us and “take up the whole armor of God”.
So then; we’ve been taking the time to examine the various pieces of armor that the apostle Paul described to us. As he went on to say in verses 14-17;
Stand therefore, having girded your waist with truth, having put on the breastplate of righteousness, and having shod your feet with the preparation of the gospel of peace; above all, taking the shield of faith with which you will be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked one. And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God … (vv. 14-17).
These six pieces of armor are vital to our defense against the enemy. As we’ve learned, we can’t just take up our favorite ones, and leave the others to the side. Unless we take up the “whole” armor—with each piece integrated with and supportive of the others—then we become easy victims of the devil’s attacks. And so, we’ve devoted a single Sunday morning’s time to each piece; and have been examining them carefully.
And now, this morning, we’re ready to consider the last piece that’s mentioned; the sword. As the apostle Paul urges us at the end of verse 17, we’re to “take … the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God …”
* * * * * * * * * *
Now; when I read the words “the sword of the Spirit”, my mind often goes back to a copy of the Bible I found many years ago. It was a great old Bible. It was a brown leather edition of the Ryrie Study Bible in the New American Standard translation. I found it in a used bookstore a little over 40 years ago; and if I remember correctly, I only paid five dollars for it. I used it almost exclusively all the way through Bible college and then all the way through seminary. I read from it daily. I even took it with me around the world, and used it when I taught a preaching class in Belarus. That particular Bible was foundational to my growth as a believer and as a pastor; and I will always be grateful to God that I found it.
But there was an interesting thing about that Bible, and I wish I knew more of the story behind it. It was a kind of mystery, and I can only speculate about it. You see; it was a Bible that had a name embossed on the cover. It was probably the name of the person who first owned it. That name had been very crudely scratched off by someone else sometime along the way, and other words embossed over the scratched-off name. Those newer words said, “A Warrior’s Sword”. I’m sure that whoever owned it second was thinking of Ephesians 6:17 when they had that embossed on the cover. I think that seeing those words was part of what inspired me to buy it in the first place. What a great way to describe a Bible! I thought about those words for all of the years that I used that particular Bible. But I always wondered what happened to the second owner. Why did it end up in a used bookstore? Did that second ‘warrior’ end up dropping the sword somehow? Did I end up taking hold of it so I could—in a sense—continue the battle with it?
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Perhaps you have a story of a Bible that’s like that. Frankly, I have a couple of such stories. But that particular story—the story of those mysterious words on the cover of that Bible—has always reminded me of the importance of this last piece of armor. We cannot stand against our spiritual enemy unless we have faithfully taken up all the pieces of armor. And it may be that this one particular piece—“the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God”—is mentioned last for a reason.
You see; all the other pieces of armor are clearly defensive in nature. The belt of truth, the breastplate of righteousness, the footwear of the gospel, the shield of faith, and the helmet of salvation all are clearly to be put on for protection against the enemy’s attacks in the time of battle. But what is the nature of the sword of the Spirit? We usually think of a sword as an offensive weapon. And most Bible teachers have dealt with it that way—that is, as the only offensive weapon in the list of our spiritual armor. But I suggest to you that—while it certainly can be used as an offensive weapon, its primary purpose is defensive. In other words, Paul mentions this last piece of armor to teach us that, in order to stand our ground against the attacks of the devil, we must know and use God’s word accurately. If we drop this sword, we ourselves may become his victims in the battle.
We must not let this sword fall from our hands. We need to keep hold of it, and put it to use in our defense against the enemy of our souls. Our defense in the field of spiritual battle truly depends upon it.
* * * * * * * * * *
Now; to understand this better, let’s begin by considering …
1. WHAT KIND OF SWORD THIS IS.
When we read the word ‘sword’, we twenty-first-century adventure readers and movie-goers usually have an image in our minds of the large broad-sword that ‘the knights of the round table’ might have used. Among ancient Roman history, there’s a name for that kind of sword. It was called a rhomphaia. It was a very heavy, very threatening, very deadly battle weapon that would have been fearsome to see in the hands of an enemy.
There are a couple of occasions in the Bible when this particular kind of sword was mentioned; and from those occasions, you can understand the nature of this type of sword. In Revelation 1:16, we’re told that the Lord Jesus appeared to the apostle John in a vision; and John tells us that “out of His mouth went a sharp two-edged sword …” The sword that John described was this large broad-sword—a rhomphaia. And the purpose of this sword is described for us later in Revelation 19—in the vision of our Lord at His second coming. We’re told,
Now out of His mouth goes a sharp sword, that with it He should strike the nations. And He Himself will rule them with a rod of iron (Revelation 19:15).
This sword—the rhomphaia or broad-sword—was definitely an offensive weapon. It was drawn out in battle in order to settle any conflict with the enemy very quickly and very destructively. And it didn’t have to be precise or accurate in the way it was used, either. Just ‘using it’ was enough.
But when Paul spoke of the ‘sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God’, that’s not the kind of sword he was talking about. Instead, he was speaking of a completely different kind of sword called the machaira. It was a much smaller sword. It was a precision instrument that was usually kept at the Roman soldier’s side at all times; and served as a defense in hand-to-hand combat or in the exercise of authority in specific situations. It’s the kind of sword that the apostle Peter drew out when he—in a heat of excitement—cut off the ear of the high priest’s servant. It’s also the type of sword that was mentioned in Romans 13:4; when we’re told to respect and honor civil authority;
for he does not bear the sword in vain; for he is God’s minister, an avenger to execute wrath on him who practices evil (Romans 13:4).
So; it’s very significant that that’s the kind of spiritual sword that Paul compares the word of God to; that is, the machaira—the smaller, precision instrument of up-close defensive use.
But the significance of this is shown to us in another way. And that’s by the fact that the word Paul used for ‘the word of God’ is not the usual word for ‘word’. Ordinarily, when the Bible speaks of someone’s ‘word’, it uses the word that most of us are familiar with—the word logos. When it speaks of ‘the word’ of God as logos, it usually describes God’s expression of thought or will or authority to us in a general sense. But when Paul spoke of ‘the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God’, he used a different word … the word rhema. And that word refers to a specific utterance, or a specific saying, or a spoken declaration. In other words, the whole Bible is the word of God in the logos sense; but a specific utterance of God on this page of the Bible, or a specific declaration on that page of the Bible, is the word of God in a rhema sense. And what Paul says is that we’re to take up; ‘the precision short-blade machaira of the Spirit, which is the rhema of God’.
You see; my old Bible had the words “A Warrior’s Sword” on the cover. But I needed to be careful to remember that the whole Bible itself is not the ‘sword of the Spirit’ that the apostle Paul was talking about. I’m deeply indebted to Dr. Harry Ironside for helping me to understand this better. He wrote;
Do not make a mistake here; the sword is not the Bible. This Bible is not the sword of the Spirit, it is the armory [that is, the place where all the swords are kept and stored up]. There are thousands of swords in here and every one of them is powerful and two-edged. … If the devil comes at you and you throw the Bible at him, it is not going to drive him away. You might do that, and go down yourself. But when he comes and you say, “Here is what God says,” and you have a definite saying of God to meet the case, you defeat him.1
Think of one of the best-known passages about the nature of the Bible—2 Timothy 3:16-17. That passage begins with these words:
All Scripture is given by inspiration of God … (2 Timothy 3:16a) …
And though Paul doesn’t use the word logos here, he’s reminding us that the whole Bible is the logos or self-expression of God. It is given to us by ‘inspiration’—that is to say, it is ‘God-breathed’; and that speaks of the whole Bible in terms of its divine source and its divine authority.
But in practical Christian living, God’s inspired logos needs to be put to use by us in individual utterances, and sayings, and declarations for personal application. That’s how we interact with God’s revealed word in daily life. And so, he goes on to say that all Scripture, in its individual utterances,
is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work (vv. 16b-17).
That speaks to us of the individual verses and passages of the Bible as God’s rhema to us. So then; it’s those individual, specific, accurately quoted, well-applied portions of God’s word that are ‘the sword of the Spirit’ that we’re to take and use in our defense against the devil’s attacks.
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Now; Paul calls this ‘the sword of the Spirit’. But quoting mere words to the devil isn’t going to defeat him any more than waving a Bible at him would. Those specific sayings must be God’s words; recognized as coming authoritatively from Him. Only they are the sayings and utterances that the Holy Spirit will stand behind.
And this tells us something else about the sword, and that is …
2. WHAT POWER MAKES IT EFFECTIVE.
The power behind God’s word—applied through individual utterances to the specific situations of life—is the Holy Spirit Himself. He gave them to us. He preserved them for us, and put them together for us in the Book we call the Bible. And He gives those sayings power when they are rightly used and rightly applied against the attacks of the devil.
Just think of what the Bible itself tells us about this. In Isaiah 55, God spoke through the prophet Isaiah and said this about His promises in Scripture:
“For as the rain comes down, and the snow from heaven,
And do not return there,
But water the earth,
And make it bring forth and bud,
That it may give seed to the sower
And bread to the eater,
So shall My word be that goes forth from My mouth;
It shall not return to Me void,
But it shall accomplish what I please,
And it shall prosper in the thing for which I sent it” (Isaiah 55:10-11).
I looked this passage up in the Greek translation of the Old Testament. And do you know how it translates the word “word”? It says, “So shall My rhema be that goes forth from My mouth; it shall not return to Me void …” Our mighty God stands behind every specific utterance that He declares to us. And when we put those utterances to use in the specific challenges of life, He Himself makes absolutely sure that it accomplishes what He sends it out to do.
We find a similar thing in another beloved verse about the Bible—in Hebrews 4:12. It says;
For the word of God [that is, the logos of God] is living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, and of joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart (Hebrews 4:12).
As sharp and as precise as any machaira sword might be, the word of God is sharper and even more precise—when the right utterance from God is applied to the right situation in the right way. It cannot fail; because, with the Holy Spirit working through it, it is living and powerful!
Or think of how the Holy Spirit helps us and guides us in our use of His utterances. When the Lord Jesus had His final meal with His disciples—just before He went to the cross for us—He told them many things. And it may be that they were afraid they’d forget something that they needed to know. But He assured them that He would send the Holy Spirit as their Helper. He told them;
“These things I have spoken to you while being present with you. But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all things that I said to you” (John 14:25-26).
That was a promise to the apostles about how the Holy Spirit would help them pass on our Lord’s teaching to us. But it also applies to us who now have the Lord’s teaching written in the Bible. Dear brothers and sisters; have you ever had a time when—as you faced a challenge or a trial of some kind; or as some temptation came your way—a specific verse of the Bible or a specific passage suddenly came to your mind? Have you ever been amazed at how it was the right word from God for the right moment? I am convinced that when that occurs, it’s the Holy Spirit—our divine Helper—reminding us of what specific things the Bible says at just the time we need to draw upon it.
Now; that won’t come to you from simply holding your Bible to your forehead and hoping that it will all—somehow—download into your brain. For the Holy Spirit to bring it out of us at just the right moment, we have to first put it in! We need to do the hard work, as a regular pattern of life, of daily reading the Bible, and studying what it means, and memorizing its words, and storing it up in our hearts. But when we do our part, we can be sure that the Holy Spirit—who works powerfully through His word—will bring it forth to our minds and hearts just when we need it most.
So; let’s remember the power source of this ‘sword’. It’s the ‘sword of the Spirit’. He stands behind what He has preserved for us and gives it its mighty power in times of battle.
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And that leads us to consider one more thing about “the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God”. And that is …
3. HOW WE’RE TO PUT IT TO USE.
The apostle Paul says that we’re to ‘take’ this sword with us into battle. How are we to do this? I’d like to suggest at least three important ways we do so.
First, we need to feed on it regularly. And that doesn’t mean that we merely have our Bible nearby; but that we let ourselves learn from, and meditate on, and memorize the specific utterances of God from His word—getting it deeply into our hearts and minds. The apostle Peter wrote to tell us that all other things of this earth will wither and fade away; but that the word of the Lord [that is, the rhema—the specific utterances of the Lord] endures forever. And he then told us in 1 Peter 2:1-3;
Therefore, laying aside all malice, all deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and all evil speaking, as newborn babes, desire the pure milk of the word [the rhema], that you may grow thereby, if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is gracious (1 Peter 2:1-3).
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ; in order to stand against the devil and his attacks against us, we need to get the sin out of our lives, and get the word of God into our hearts. We need to hunger for it like a newborn baby hungers for milk; and we need to grow by it every day so we’re ready for the devil’s attacks against us. We take it with us into the battle by feeding on it daily.
A second thing we need to do is learn how to interpret it correctly. Each individual utterance of God is only effective as a sword of defense against our enemy if it is understood by us as it was meant by God to be understood, and applied by us as it was meant by God to be applied. As the apostle Paul said to his young pastor friend Timothy;
Be diligent to present yourself approved to God, a worker who does not need to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth (2 Timothy 2:15).
The devil—our enemy on the battlefield—is a master deceiver. He’s led many people astray, and has brought them down in defeat, through Bible passages and specific verses that were taken out of context; or that were mistranslated; or that were misapplied; or that were added to or subtracted from. Misusing the specific utterances of God, after all, was how he deceived Eve in the garden.
In order, then, to stand against the devil and his attacks, we must use God’s word accurately. It’s a machaira sword; a precision instrument. And it must be wielded with precision. We must work hard, and be diligent, and rightly ‘divide’ it. Otherwise, we’re simply quoting words to the devil that the Holy Spirit doesn’t strengthen and use. We must take this sword with us into the battlefield by using it carefully and precisely.
And finally, a third thing we should do is learn from the example of our Lord Jesus. He went into battle against the devil, and the weapon that He used to defend Himself against the specific attacks of the enemy was the specifically applied utterances of His Father’s word as they’re found in the Bible.
Consider the story as it’s told to us in Luke 4:
Then Jesus, being filled with the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness, being tempted for forty days by the devil. And in those days He ate nothing, and afterward, when they had ended, He was hungry. And the devil said to Him, “If You are the Son of God, command this stone to become bread.” But Jesus answered him, saying, “It is written, ‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word of God.’” Then the devil, taking Him up on a high mountain, showed Him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time. And the devil said to Him, “All this authority I will give You, and their glory; for this has been delivered to me, and I give it to whomever I wish. Therefore, if You will worship before me, all will be Yours.” And Jesus answered and said to him, “Get behind Me, Satan! For it is written, ‘You shall worship the Lord your God, and Him only you shall serve.’” Then he brought Him to Jerusalem, set Him on the pinnacle of the temple, and said to Him, “If You are the Son of God, throw Yourself down from here. For it is written:
‘He shall give His angels charge over you,
To keep you,’
and,
‘In their hands they shall bear you up,
Lest you dash your foot against a stone.’”
And Jesus answered and said to him, “It has been said, ‘You shall not tempt the Lord your God.’” Now when the devil had ended every temptation, he departed from Him until an opportune time (Luke 4:1-13).
Each time the devil threw a specific attack at our Lord, our Lord defended Himself with a specific and well-chosen utterance—a specific rhema—from the word of the Scriptures. The enemy couldn’t handle the thrusts of the sword of the Spirit! Can you think of a better example than that?
* * * * * * * * * *
Now; I suppose that I’ll always think back on that old Bible of mine. I’ll always wonder if, somewhere along the way, someone dropped their sword. Perhaps we might drop our sword more easily—or fail to use it rightly—when we think of the Bible only as a good-luck charm. That’s not what it is. Instead, it’s an ‘armory’ that contains a precise defensive weapon against the devil for each unique attack.
Dear brothers and sisters; in order to stand our ground against the attacks of the devil, we must know and use God’s word precisely and accurately. May God help us to truly take up ‘the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.”
1H.A. Ironside, In The Heavenlies (Neptune, NJ: Loizeaux Brothers, 1937), p. 325-6.
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