Let me begin this morning by reading a couple of Scriptures.
This charge I commit unto thee, my child Timothy, according to the prophecies which led the way to thee, that by them thou mayest war the good warfare.
Paul—this was not his earthly son, but a son of his in the Lord—said, “According to the prophecies which went before thee, that thou by them mightest war a good warfare.”
Suffer hardship with me, as a good soldier of Christ Jesus.
“Thou therefore endure hardness, as a good soldier of Jesus Christ.” Thou therefore endure hardness as a good soldier of Jesus Christ.
For the word of God is living, and active, and sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing even to the dividing of soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow, and quick to discern the thoughts and intents of the heart.
That He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, that ye may be strengthened with power through His Spirit in the inward man;
that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; to the end that ye, being rooted and grounded in love,
may be strong to apprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth.
And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.
Take the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.
Now, I have been sharing on this matter of spiritual warfare. One thing that was impressed on my heart as we were in our Bible study together Friday night was the word endure.
As I considered this whole matter of spiritual warfare and the sword of the Spirit, I felt impressed that I needed to say something briefly about this matter of enduring.
In Matthew 24, when the Lord is giving the signs of His return and how He is coming back, He says, “Those who endure till the end shall be saved.”
Now, we know this word of salvation. For most of us who grew up in the Bible Belt, we take this word salvation and limit it just to this matter of regeneration—being born again, born of the Spirit.
But we know that our salvation is much more comprehensive than that. Not only is our spirit quickened when we accept the Lord Jesus Christ, but it is made alive to Him. Our souls as well—our mind, will, and emotions—have to be transformed into a vessel through which the Lord can express His life. That is also a part of our salvation. We might say, the salvation of the soul.
Then one day we will be quickened and made alive in Him, and our bodies will be transformed. Even those who are already in the grave will rise, and they will rise with a glorified body. Our body will then know its full salvation.
So, this Scripture in Matthew 24, speaking of enduring to the end that you might be saved, really has its emphasis on this salvation that our soul needs to come into: to be fully a vessel through which the Lord Jesus can express His life in your life.
And the word is, endure to the end. In other words, it is a transformation process. It is not an instantaneous process.
When we accept the Lord Jesus Christ as our Savior, our spirit is quickened immediately. It is instantaneous. We have eternal life. Because we have Christ as our eternal life, we will live eternally with Him. That is instantaneous.
But this matter of the soul and its transformation—we talked about the transforming and renewing of our mind—that is a process that goes on all of our lives. There is this thing called endurance, which we have to ask for in the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that we might endure to the end.
When we came to the Scripture this morning in 2 Timothy, Paul tells Timothy to endure hardship as a good soldier in Jesus Christ. In 1 Timothy, he exhorts Timothy to war a good warfare.
It is interesting: in 1 Timothy, probably Paul was in his first imprisonment. But in 2 Timothy, Paul was in his second imprisonment and preparing to go and be with the Lord.
That is the place in his life where he had written and said, “I have fought the good fight. I have kept the faith.”
We know in the book of Acts, Paul said, “I was not disobedient to the heavenly vision.”
Here in 2 Timothy, the circumstances in Paul’s life are quite dire. As we know, he was in prison, awaiting probably his execution. He also mentions in these letters that many had forsaken him at this point.
Many of the churches had forsaken Paul and left him, and had turned against him. He says, “Many have left me.” Even Demas, he points out, a dear fellow servant, had left and was no longer with Paul.
There were just a few, apparently, at this point in Paul’s life who were remaining faithful to the heavenly vision and what God had shown His people, particularly through this great apostle Paul.
I do not lift up Paul as a man, but the fact that God worked so mightily through him. We received so much through this man, his life, and what the Lord did.
But we have to remember: at this point in his life, things were dire. I mean, outwardly, the circumstances were very, very difficult for our brother. So many had left.
Brothers and sisters, as we know here, there is nothing more discouraging than when there are those who leave. Paul was in that situation.
And he writes to Timothy and says, “Suffer and endure hardship as a good soldier of Jesus Christ.”
The point I wanted to make this morning concerning this spiritual warfare, brothers and sisters, is that it is to the end. It is not something that is immediate and then it is over. It is a lifetime battle.
For Paul, it was a lifetime. But what was so tremendous about this man, who could have been so discouraged at this point in his life, was that he stood firm. He says, “My son Timothy, stand strong in the faith, and endure hardship as a good soldier. You are still a soldier.”
Timothy, remember: we are called not only to be saints, but we are called to be soldiers in Jesus Christ.
The fight and the battle are to the end. Regardless of how gloomy the picture may seem, how difficult it may seem, Timothy, you have to stand and endure to the end.
Don’t give up, Timothy. Don’t let up in this battle. Don’t ease off. Don’t get out of the race. Stay in it till the end. The reward is in the end.
So he encourages Timothy to be a good soldier. Brothers and sisters, we are, as I have already mentioned, in a warfare as Christians, and we need to learn to endure to the end.
What is so interesting to me is the passion in Paul’s heart. In view of all of this gloom and doom, he had a passion. He was still a warrior.
He had many wounds, many stripes, and many disappointments, but he was still in the battle right up to the end. The fire was still there, brothers and sisters.
The temptation for us is that the battle is so long and the warfare is so intense that we have a temptation to give up, to quit the fight.
Oh, I want to encourage us all this morning that we cannot quit the fight, regardless of the conditions around us, regardless of the conditions in us.
Often we find in our own lives personal difficulties, personal issues, personal trials, and tribulations. They get so intense that we want to give up. But Paul says, “Be a good soldier. Endure hardship as a good soldier.”
Brothers and sisters, we need to be awakened to the fact that we are soldiers.
We have not gone to a football game where we are spectators. We are in the battle. We are on the front lines. That is where we are as Christians.
So may the Lord encourage us.
You know, Paul said that Christ was the God of all encouragement. I have determined that if you want to be encouraged, you will be encouraged only through faith.
Believing that He is our encouragement, taking Him as our encouragement, brothers and sisters—it is by faith. The just shall live by faith.
Do you want to be encouraged in your life? Take Him as your encouragement. Just say, “Lord, I take You as my encouragement. I take You as the Victor.”
Our failures and defeat are only temporal, but His victory is eternal. Think of that. That should encourage us.
Yes, we have setbacks in our lives, and we fail in our lives. But His victory is eternal. In the midst of our failure, we need to lay hold of Him as our Victor.
Well, that was on my heart this morning: a word of encouragement.
Oh, may we stand shoulder to shoulder in this battle. May the Lord rally the troops, for He is coming soon.
It is easy to be impressed with His soon coming when you just study Matthew 24. He is coming soon. He is at the door.
I was reminded the other night that Jerusalem would be trodden under the hands of the Gentiles for so many years. Then the time of the Gentiles would be up, and God would be moving in a new direction.
Interestingly enough, in 1947, when Israel was made a nation again, and in 1967, Jerusalem was no longer in the hands of the Gentiles. It came under the full rule of the Jewish nation.
Now, regardless of your political position about what is happening today, prophecy is real and true. Basically, the fig tree has blossomed, and the end is mighty near.
We must be encouraged to endure till the end—to the moment in which we are raptured to the throne, hopefully. If not then, at least to the trumpet sound.
So may the Lord encourage us, brothers and sisters. We are in a warfare. We are soldiers.
I do pray that in our days ahead, we will learn how to bind each other’s wounds and encourage us all to stay in the race, to fight the good fight, to war a good warfare, and to endure hardship as a good soldier in Jesus Christ.
Well, I have been sharing on this matter of warfare requiring that we have the correct armor. We have gone through most of the armor now, and we come to the offensive weapon in this warfare, which is the Word of God: the sword of the Spirit.
The Word of God, which is the sword of the Spirit. All the rest of the armor we have talked about has been defensive in nature. But here we have the sword, which is the Word of God, the sword of the Spirit.
This whole picture that we have been looking at concerning the armor of the Lord Jesus Christ is the Lord Himself. He is our armor, and we have seen the various aspects.
But it describes, really, the armor of a Roman soldier. When we come to the sword, I think it is quite interesting to note that the Roman sword was a short sword. It was not a long sword. It was a short sword.
What are short swords for? Lord, give me grace—I cannot even talk.
It is for close fighting. It is for being right in the face of your enemy: hand-to-hand combat. That is what this kind of sword is for.
Hand-to-hand combat, right up close, in-your-face warfare. It is blood-and-guts warfare, if you will pardon the expression. It is up close and personal.
And we have this sword: the sword of the Spirit.
This morning, I will get into this matter of the sword of the Spirit. In Ephesians 6:17, it says that the sword of the Spirit is the Word of God.
The sword of the Spirit and the Word of God are synonymous. There should not be any confusion about what the sword of the Spirit is. It is the Word of God.
But we are talking about not just the Word of God in the sense of the way it is written, but the Word of God in its active state. For the Word of God is active and powerful and sharper than a two-edged sword.
Bottom line, brothers and sisters, what I want us to be impressed with is that the sword of the Spirit is a godly weapon.
It is not of man, but of God. It comes from God. It is God.
“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was God, and the Word was with God.” We know that Christ is the Word of God. Christ is the outward expression of the Word of God. Christ is the One who has brought all of the desires and wishes of the Father into place.
It says, “The sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God.” Two things: Spirit and the Word of God.
I thought about this and said, “You know what? You cannot separate the two.” They are really one, but there are two different sides: the Holy Spirit and God’s Word. Yet they operate together.
Remember in Genesis how it says that the Spirit moved upon the face of the deep, moved upon the waters? Then it says, “And God spoke: Let there be light.” The two always work together.
The Holy Spirit is the power and energy, so to speak, of God, and He is always present with God’s Word.
In other words, the action—the energy, the power of the Godhead—is revealed through the Holy Spirit. So when God says, “Let there be light,” the Spirit moved and there was light. The two always work together.
I think it is interesting about this matter of the sword. In Isaiah 49:2—you can just write that down as a reference—it says, prophesying about Christ, “He made My mouth like a sharp sword.”
And He hath made My mouth like a sharp sword.
The Word of God—Christ speaking—a sharp sword.
We remember that in the temptation, when our Lord Jesus was tempted, the enemy used the Word of God. But when Christ would speak, the enemy would stop talking.
Finally, when he suggested that Christ worship him instead of the Father, Christ said, “Be gone,” and he left.
As powerful as the enemy is, as powerful as Satan is, he cannot withstand the sword of the Spirit. That is the point.
Now, he uses the Word of God, but there is no power behind his word. The enemy often uses the Word to deceive the saints.
I think that is very interesting. The enemy actually gets us through our mind and through our reasoning power. That is why I said before, brothers and sisters, the Lord says, “Come, let us reason together,” but we always need to plead the blood of Jesus Christ over our reasoning, because the enemy can use it as well.
He got Eve to do a little reasoning, and she fell into the trap. He gave her some half-truth. That is generally what he does.
I am just saying that this Word—the enemy even tried to use it on Christ Himself. But when he used it, was it the sword of the Spirit? Of course not.
Brothers and sisters, the Word of God is living and sharper than a two-edged sword. It takes the work of the Holy Spirit upon this Word.
In that prophecy, speaking of Christ, it says, “My mouth became like a sharp sword.”
In Revelation 1:16, it says that out of His mouth went a sharp, two-edged sword.
Remember Revelation chapter 1, the revelation of Jesus Christ as King of kings and Lord of lords? It says a sharp, two-edged sword went out of His mouth.
Then He spoke, and He began to divide things. He began to divide what was of Him from what was not of Him in His church. It was used as a weapon to divide things and to separate things, and say, “This is of Me, and this is not of Me. This is good, but you have left your first love.”
The sword of the Spirit always divides what is of man from what is of God. It is the power of His Word that does that.
In Revelation 19:15, it says that out of His mouth is a two-edged sword, and He will smite the nations with it and rule them with a rod of iron.
That is speaking of the next thousand years after the Lord returns: the millennium period, the time in which He will reign on the earth.
Brothers and sisters, He says He will smite the nations with His Word—the sword of the Spirit—all through the kingdom age as well. But He will use it in judgment.
In that period of history, when somebody does wrong, His judgment will come immediately. There will be no delay. If it is wrong, it is wrong; and His right is right. He is the Judge: the sword of the Spirit.
In Revelation 19:13, let me read that.
And He is arrayed in a garment sprinkled with blood: and His name is called The Word of God.
And the armies which are in heaven followed Him upon white horses, clothed in fine linen, white and pure.
And out of His mouth proceedeth a sharp sword, that with it He should smite the nations.
His name is called the Word of God. Brothers and sisters, you cannot separate the sword of the Spirit, the Word of God, from Christ Himself.
He is the instrument that God uses.
It is interesting. We know from John, the Gospel of John, that it says, “In the beginning was the Word.” Now, that beginning is not the beginning of creation, but the beginning way back—which I do not know where.
But in the beginning, always there is the Word of God. When Christ and the Godhead got together and decided on this plan to create man in His own image, whenever that was, Christ would become the Word of God, the sword of the Spirit.
The book of Revelation almost ends with the same thought in chapter 19: this last great battle, when the enemy is let out of the pit that he has been chained in for a thousand years.
It says He will speak a word, and the enemy will be defeated. That very, very last battle will be the Word of God, the sword of the Spirit.
It is the Spirit that puts reality and life into the words. You cannot separate Christ from the Word; neither can you separate the Holy Spirit from the Word.
You and I can say the same things. The Lord says, “I am the way, the truth, and the life,” and there was power there, brothers and sisters.
Today, we take those words, and they strike our hearts, do they not? Even today, when we hear the words of Jesus declaring that He is the way, the truth, and the life, in our hearts we say, “Yes, that is right.”
If I want to know the way, I have to know Him. If I really want to know truth, I have to know Him. If I want to encounter life, I have to know Christ.
Everything else is false. Everything else will pass away. But with Christ, I know Him. I know the way, the truth, and the life because I know Christ.
They are living words, still living today, because the power of the Spirit is still in them.
I think it is a bit amazing that many did not hear those words. They heard them audibly, but in their heart they did not receive them.
So, brothers and sisters, the sword of the Spirit cuts. But for some, they hear the Word and reject it, and it becomes death to them. Others hear the Word, and it becomes life, and they are made living vessels of Jesus Christ. The sword of the Spirit has that kind of power.
Often, the Lord will say something to you. I want to illustrate it, and I know this has happened to us all.
There will be some circumstance in our life that we are dealing with and struggling with. We will be reading the Word of God one morning, one afternoon, or one evening—or you may just be sitting there—and a word will come to you.
It will strike your heart, and it will be so living and alive to you. That is the sword of the Spirit touching your heart concerning that issue. The Lord has spoken. It is alive. It is real.
You could read it out of this Word a hundred times, but for whatever reason, on that particular day, it has become alive to you. The Word of God, the sword of the Spirit, has struck.
It says, “This is Me. This path you wanted to take is not Me.” It seemed like a good path. It seemed like a righteous path. But it is not Me.
Have you ever been in that? What you want to do is not a bad thing. It may even be a righteous and good thing, but the Lord says no to you. That is the sword of the Spirit.
Sometimes, brothers and sisters, there are things in our lives, and the Lord challenges us. We say, “Lord, I really do not want to do it.”
Then the Lord speaks, and down in your heart you know you have to do it. You know you have to do it. You are not ready. You are not prepared.
But somehow the Lord makes you willing, and eventually you yield to the sword of the Spirit. It cuts deeply, brothers and sisters. It discerns the intents of the heart. It discerns the thoughts of the mind.
This sword of the Spirit, as we read earlier—what I am saying is, you cannot separate the Spirit from the Word of God.
As a matter of fact, if you do, the Lord said it is death. In John 5:39, He says, “Ye search the Scriptures.” He is speaking to the Pharisees.
He said, “You have been searching the Scriptures. You have been reading the Word.” In fact, the Pharisees knew it very well—much better probably than we do. Except, of course, they did not have the New Testament at that time.
But they had been searching the Scriptures. He says, “You think you are going to find life, but they speak of Me.”
What they had done was separate the Word of God from Christ. The two did not go together for them. So, this Word that they had, which is the same Word that we have from the Old Testament, was meaningless to them.
They worshipped it, but the Spirit could not speak to them.
He says, “Don’t you see? All these Scriptures are talking about Me, and you miss Me—which means you miss the Scriptures.”
Brothers and sisters, when the Lord said that, the sword was wielded, and it cut. It cuts two ways.
They heard the Word of God but did not receive it, and they were left destitute and without life. But those who heard this Word and received it received life.
Your heart was not right.
In 2 Corinthians 3:6, Paul says, “The letter kills, but the Spirit brings life.”
Take this and use it as a rule book, and it will bring death to you, brothers and sisters. You have to be looking for Christ when you read this Book.
If you want to receive life, you search it, and what you are looking for is Christ.
Oh, but being an engineer, we are always looking for the formulas, are we not? We are looking for, “Lord, show me the exact way to handle this.”
There is a lot of instruction in the Word of God—do not get me wrong—that we should consider and use. But it has to be living.
If you read it any other way, it has to condemn you. Read it: the law is in here, and we are all guilty and condemned.
But thank God, through Jesus Christ, we have been delivered from the law. We have been delivered into life.
The letter kills, but the Spirit brings life. That does not mean that the letter is bad, but it needs the life of Christ with it.
How is it possible that such a thing as this sword can bring life? You think in terms of a sword bringing death, but it says it brings life.
It is because when the sword is wielded, it cuts away what is not of Christ. It cuts away and reveals, and says, “This is the Lord, not this.”
It divides what is of man from what is of God. That is why it brings us life, and it guards the way of life.
Remember in the Garden of Eden, when man fell—when Adam and Eve fell—they took them out of the garden. What does the Word say? It says there was a flaming sword that guarded the way of the tree of life.
A flaming sword was set there to keep them from going back and taking hold of this tree of life. Fallen man could not live eternally. God could not let that happen.
I think it is so interesting: a flaming sword guarding the tree of life. Now, the flaming sword is marvelous because a sword divides, but a flame consumes.
So, a fiery sword not only divides what is not of Christ, brothers and sisters, it consumes it.
Now, do you know why we need this sword in our life? Not only does it divide what is not of Christ; it consumes it.
So we have this flaming sword guarding the way of the tree of life.
Now, thank God that in His mercy, He has offered His Son as a sacrifice unto us, so that man now has a way to take of the tree of life. The tree of life is Christ.
That is by accepting Him as your Lord and Savior, as your sacrifice in your place of death that you should have, because we are sinful people, born that way.
But God, through His sacrifice—what has He done?
You and I, when we are quickened by the Holy Spirit through accepting Jesus Christ—our brother shared this morning about accepting the gift, accepting the gift of salvation—something happens in our spirit, this organ that God has devised.
Man is the only one with an organ that can contain His life, or the Holy Spirit. We are the only animals made that way that have spirit.
The rest of the animals do have soul—do not get mixed. They have a mind. They are emotional. They have a will. Some of y’all who have animals at home realize how strong-willed they can be.
So they do have a soul, but man has spirit.
Because of man’s failure, because of his fallen nature, that spirit is basically dead toward God. But when the Holy Spirit touches your life, when the sword of the Spirit strikes your life, you receive Christ as your living Savior.
The Holy Spirit comes and resides in that organ and quickens it and makes it alive, so that you are able now to commune with God. You now have the life of Christ dwelling in you through the Holy Spirit. That life is in your spirit.
You are a new creation, it says, in Christ Jesus. You are made alive to Him. You are now a spiritual man.
The spiritual man resides within you.
That is why, when Nicodemus came to Christ—Nicodemus being a very good man, a very righteous man, a good Pharisee if we want to put it that way—he came to Christ.
Christ said to him, “You must be born again.” There are no ifs here. All of your good—you are a good man, Nicodemus—but the fallen man can never enter the kingdom of God. The fallen man can never know the life of God.
God has made a way, though, for you, Nicodemus. You must be born again.
This new birth is spiritual in nature and not of the flesh, because He went on to say, “What is born of the flesh is flesh,” and always will be flesh. In other words, it will be something apart from God.
But what is born of the Spirit is spirit. So we have a spirit within us.
We know that we have the life of Christ. We know also, brothers and sisters, that we have this other little fellow in there called the self-life.
The flesh lusts against the Spirit. That is what the self-life is: the flesh, and the Spirit against the flesh. There is this little war going on in us now.
But praise God, He has made a way for us to escape being destroyed. Or maybe I need to say it another way.
On Calvary’s cross, it says that the old man has been crucified. In reality, as far as God is concerned, He has taken away the old man, the old flesh. The self-life is under the cross.
He says, “That is not the man that needs to live here. It is the new man that needs to live.”
The flaming sword is always separating the two, saying, “This is of you, and this is of Christ.” That is what the sword does. It guards the way of the tree of life. It still guards the way of the tree of life in your own heart personally.
But thank God, in His mercy, brothers and sisters, He has made a way for you and for me to partake of the tree of life through His Son Jesus Christ.
Christ Himself is that tree of life. He is saying, “It is by grace.” In other words, it is the free gift of God, not of works. You cannot earn it.
You cannot earn, or do any kind of penance that will ever earn you any right to God, to His life, or to be able to take of the tree of life.
It is God’s free gift for all of those who will believe on His Son Jesus Christ. That is the way it is. That is God’s plan. That is God’s way of mercy.
But so often we want to earn that right. God says, “No, that old man is fallen. It is a fallen nature.”
No matter how good a person you may be, the nature of you is wrong, and that is going to the cross with Christ.
But praise God, “I have put a new man in you, and you will learn that new man and learn how to live by that new man. You will partake of that new man and of the tree of life.”
“I have the sword of the Spirit always working in your heart to let you know when you have crossed that line, when you begin to live by your self-life in the old flesh.”
That is what the sword of the Spirit is: living, sharper than a two-edged sword, discerning the thoughts and intents of the heart.
My brothers and sisters, we have this new creation in us, but we also know, unfortunately, that the self-life is still there.
That is why the Lord Jesus says, “Take up your cross daily, deny yourself, and follow Me.”
We can deny ourselves because Christ has denied self. Self is the life of the soul. Mind, will, and emotions have functioned so long without the spirit that they have taken on a life of their own.
They are able to function on their own. The soul became an organ which God never intended. What I mean by that is, it became an independent organ—an organ that would operate independent of Christ—for the spirit was dead toward God.
So the soul took on all these properties. How could it do it? Because it had the knowledge of good and evil. It was through knowledge that it would live, through the knowledge of things.
Brothers and sisters, the knowledge that man has is amazing to me. I happened to grow up and become an aerospace engineer during that period in which we put a man on the moon.
Y’all will never appreciate how exciting that was unless you lived during that era, which I did as a child. I mean, all the schools—all we did was look at TV for two days. It was amazing.
But it falls short of the glory of God, brothers and sisters. Regardless of the accomplishments, even the good things, all of the medical things that are being developed—and there is a lot of controversy over stem cells today, but I am not getting into that this morning.
The thing of it is, this is all the knowledge of man. Man can do many good things. Man can offer good things. But God says, ultimately, the fallen nature can never come into the kingdom of God. That is why you must be born again.
So we as Christians really have basically two lives. One of them has already been put under the cross: the old man, the man of the flesh, the self-life. The other one is the life of Christ dwelling in our spirit.
There are two kinds of Christians. There are spiritual Christians, according to Paul, and carnal Christians.
In Corinthians, Paul says, “You are carnal. You have got all of these—you are trying to do things with men’s ways. You are using men’s reasoning. You are dividing. You are doing all these things. You are going to court with one another. You are using men’s methods, men’s ways. You are carnal.”
So a spiritual Christian is one who lives by the Spirit. In other words, he is seeking the Lord. He has his communion with God in his heart and his spirit. He communes with God, and he is yielding himself to the Lord. That is a spiritual Christian.
But a carnal Christian is one whose spirit has been quickened. Indeed, the instrument to communicate with God is there, but he is not communicating.
He is really living by his old man, by the flesh, by the self-life—living for self and living by the ways of man instead of the ways of the Lord.
Even though he has a quickened spirit, even though his spirit is securely saved, if we want to say it that way, for eternity, he is living according to the old man. He is living according to flesh. That is a carnal Christian.
Let me read 2 Corinthians 10:4.
For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but mighty before God to the casting down of strongholds;
casting down imaginations, and every high thing that is exalted against the knowledge of God,
and bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ.
What I want us to concentrate on in that Scripture is that the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty. Another word for mighty is spiritual.
The weapons of our warfare are not carnal but spiritual, to the pulling down of strongholds.
This is the point of all that I had to say. Brothers and sisters, if the weapon is spiritual, can a carnal man use it?
If the weapon of God—if this sharp, two-edged sword, which we are exhorted to use—is powerful, it is a godly weapon: the Word, the Spirit of God.
Brothers and sisters, if this weapon is spiritual, can a carnal man use the weapon?
That is why, brothers and sisters, it is a two-edged sword.
Sometimes we would think the purpose of the two-edged sword is that it does not matter whether you are swinging forward or backward, it is going to cut. That is an application for that.
But what I want to say is that the purpose of this two-edged sword is, first, that it has to do its work on us.
Brothers and sisters, if we are not cooperating with the Holy Spirit, if we are not communing with the Holy Spirit, if we are living a carnal life, we will not be able to effectively use the sword of the Spirit.
As a matter of fact, it could be a bit dangerous.
In Hebrews 4:12, it says the Word of God is quick and powerful and sharper than any two-edged sword, dividing asunder soul and spirit.
What is of the soul and what is of the spirit? Or what is of your mind and what is of God’s mind? What is of your heart and what is God’s heart? It is dividing those two.
Even to the joints and marrow of the bone, a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.
Brothers and sisters, sometimes we think we are for the Lord, do we not? We are going the Lord’s way. “Yes, we are for the Lord.” That is our mind.
But the sword comes in and it says, “No, that is not My mind.”
Or, brothers and sisters, we may think that we have great intentions, good intentions, in what we are doing—even in serving the Lord. The Lord will come in with the sword, and He cuts through the intents of the heart.
He says, “No, this is the real intent of your heart. Outwardly, you have convinced yourself that you are doing this for Me, but you are really doing it for yourself.”
Now, brothers and sisters, we as men cannot judge that, but the sword of the Spirit can. How important is the sword of the Spirit.
But a carnal man is ineffective in using the sword of the Spirit because it is a spiritual weapon. First, it has to work on us to cut out this carnal nature, to cut us away from our carnal life.
It has to cut through and show us what is of Christ and what is ours, to show us our heart. You can never examine your own heart.
Either we think too much of ourselves or too little. Very rarely does a man think of himself as he should.
You know, sometimes I want to be very clear about this self-life, because it is so important. We do need to use the sword of the Spirit against our enemy, but the Lord first has to use it with us in our lives.
Often, brothers and sisters, it is the goodness and the good things in our life that become the hindrance.
Often we even take the good things about ourselves, our personalities, and our lives, and we think that is spiritual. We make them spiritual, and we see ourselves as being that way.
Most of us know that we should be humble, so we do not think in these terms: “We are smart.” We outsmart ourselves.
We say, “Well, Lord, I know I would never think that way.” Well, of course you do. You just do not admit it, or you do not want to admit it because we know it is wrong. We do.
But the good often gets in the way of the better, of the best—the better, as Kenny shared on.
Only the Holy Spirit can separate that. Other Christians can look at you or look at me and say, “Oh, isn’t that a wonderful Christian? They are always so patient and so loving.”
Brothers and sisters, as much as we admire that, it may just be the natural man.
Ultimately, the source of that may be because being that way is the way we survive. Being that way is the way we are able to make it through. Being that way is our way of coping in this life.
Being that way often is the way that brings pleasure to us. We do this kind of goodness because it actually brings pleasure to us.
So I want to be very clear: not every good thing you do is just out of the flesh. Do not get me wrong on this.
All I am saying is that is why we need the sword of the Spirit in our lives. Only the Holy Spirit can cut so deep.
It says down into the marrow and joints, down into the very marrow. You know what marrow is? Well, if you are a Southerner, you eat it. But if you are not a Southerner, you would not touch it.
If you get down to the bone in a T-bone steak, and you get down in the bone, there is some marrow in that bone, right in the little hole. I do not know if you can afford a T-bone steak anymore.
But if you happen to be able to, in that little bone right in the middle, there is a little circle. There is some marrow in there. Southerners love it, and we eat it.
But the point is that it cuts that deep. It is that much of a discerning instrument in God’s hand.
He uses that and says, “Jerry, you thought that that was Me operating in your life, but it was really you, and you need to know that.”
Often the Lord is that gentle. But if we do not listen to Him, He can get a little more difficult with us.
The point being, brothers and sisters, it gets back to this matter of consecration. How do you deal with that?
It gets back to that Scripture in Romans chapter 12: “Present yourselves a living sacrifice.” Now our children are hearing about this in Toronto.
“Present yourselves a living sacrifice, and be transformed by the renewing of your mind.” The first step is a living sacrifice.
In other words, that is what this whole Scripture about the sword being sharper than a two-edged sword and discerning thoughts is about. You put yourself on the altar and say, “Lord, show me.”
I think it is out of Psalms: “Show me if there is any wicked or evil way in me.” Now, an evil way can appear to be good. That is the point I am making.
“Show me if there is anything, Lord, that is not conforming to Your life.”
Now, I tell you the truth: I struggle with asking the Lord that question, because I know He will show me, and I am not sure I am prepared to deal with it when He shows me.
But He is always able to make us willing if we just turn our hearts to Him.
The idea—our part, our responsibility—is to put ourselves on the altar and say, “Lord, I am the living sacrifice here. I am Yours.”
“I know I have a strong self-man—strong whatever, strong emotion, strong will, strong mind. Lord, I need You to work on it. I cannot do it.”
“I cannot even tell what is right and wrong here in my life. I am not going to wrestle with that thought either, Lord. You are going to do it by the sword of the Spirit.”
Remember, I said in the beginning it was a flaming sword that protected the way of the tree of life. It is a flaming sword that protects the way of life in our hearts, brothers and sisters.
The sword cuts; the flame consumes. Thank God, when He brings it to light, He can consume it. He can deal with it.
We can become a spiritual man prepared to wield the sword of the Spirit. It is a godly weapon.
It is not meant for carnal use.
I do not want to discourage anybody. You say, “Well, how will I ever be able to use the sword of the Spirit? I am so carnal.”
It is a process, brothers and sisters, that will go on all your life.
The more we grow in Christ spiritually, the more effective we will be with His sword. We have to learn to use it.
We will not be able to wait until we are absolutely perfect and sinless. I do not want to give that impression.
But the one thing I want to leave us with today is this: if we are going to use the sword of the Spirit, be prepared for it to cut both ways. Be prepared for it to cut both ways.
I think we will end there today and continue later.
Lord, we just come back to You today.
Lord, I do not know exactly what You have for today as far as touching our hearts, but whatever the Word applies, Lord, may the sword do its work today.
Lord Jesus, I want to thank You. Lord, Your sword is always for good and not for evil.
I want to thank You, Lord Jesus, that we have this instrument in our lives to protect us, Lord, to deal with us as well as our enemy.
Lord, show us. Teach us.
Lord, most of all, I pray that we will be willing to present ourselves living sacrifices, Lord.
Lord, we need to learn how to use this sword because You have exhorted us to be good soldiers.
In these coming weeks, Lord, we pray that You will enlighten us. Show us Your ways, Lord, in Jesus’ name. Amen.