Lord, we thank You this day. Lord, as we stand before You, we thank You that there has been bloodshed for us: the blood of the precious Lamb of God, God’s only Lamb.
Lord, we thank You because of the great sacrifice of Jesus Christ, that through faith in Him as our Savior, we can find our security. We find that He indeed is our good Shepherd, the One who through love uses His rod and staff both to discipline and comfort us, and to bring us into His full purpose.
Lord, we come back to Thee this morning. We want to be a people of purpose. We want to be a people, Lord, who are pursuing what You are pursuing, who are after what You are after.
By Your grace, Lord, and by the anointing of the Holy Spirit, may You speak Your words today. Lord, may we speak, may we hear, by the grace of God and through the power of the Holy Spirit. In our time, we pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.
Well, this morning I am going to have to do a little bit of review. We had quite a few young people who were out last week in Toronto, and others have been in various places ministering in different ways. So, I am going to need to do a little review this morning.
If you heard last week, this is so critical: this matter of wielding the sword of the Spirit that we are encouraged to do in Ephesians 6:17, when it speaks of taking the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.
This morning, I would like to challenge our young people. In 1 Timothy 1:18, Paul encourages Timothy to war a good warfare. In 2 Timothy 2:3, he tells Timothy to endure hardship as a good soldier of Jesus Christ.
The challenge is this: as young people, you are called into this warfare. I remember that in the nation of Israel, as they were moving out, it was when they became twenty years old that they became soldiers. So we are called into this warfare, called to take part in being a good soldier of Jesus Christ.
Now, this was particularly critical for Paul because, in the second letter to Timothy, Paul was waiting to be martyred. He knew that he would soon be departing and that the church was in great declension at that time. His ministry had been challenged.
He mentioned five men who opposed him greatly and opposed his words, both within and without the church. He also said that many had left, many had gone away, and many would not receive him or his ministry. Many who had been with him had left him.
But he said also in that same book to Timothy, “I have fought the good fight.” He is encouraging Timothy now to rise up and be a soldier in Jesus Christ, to fight the good fight.
Also in 2 Timothy, it says that we have been called with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to His purpose and grace. What is that purpose of God that He has had from the beginning, from eternity past?
It is that in the fullness of times, all things would be summed up, brought together in Jesus Christ: all the heavens, all of the creation, and all those who have accepted Jesus Christ. It would all be summed up in Christ. All would be about Christ. All would be from Him, through Him, and to Him.
Also, God had a great purpose in His mind that His Son would have a bride. We know the bride to be the church. He has told us that we need to be the house of God, to be the body of Christ, and the mature bride. The mature house and body is the bride of Christ.
So we have this great purpose that God has been working toward: God the Father providing a bride for His Son. When His Son came the first time looking for His bride, He found her not.
And so He went to the cross of Calvary and suffered the infliction of all the pain of man, plus all the principalities and powers that surrounded the cross on that day and came upon our Lord Jesus Christ.
It says that He threw off the principalities and powers of darkness and overcame them. In so doing, a soldier pierced His side, and blood and water came out of the Lord’s side.
The water and the blood are the very substance and essence of the church, brothers and sisters: the blood for our redemption, the blood for our safety and defense against the enemy. The enemy cannot touch the blood of Jesus Christ. When the blood of Jesus Christ is brought before our enemy, he has no answer. He can do nothing.
The water is for the life—the life of Christ poured out on our behalf. We have His life. That is the foundation block of the church, and He brought it forth on Calvary’s cross.
All down through the ages, He has been working to mature and bring into focus this matter of the bride that He has so desired and that the Father wanted for Him. This is His great purpose.
But we are called to be soldiers. Warfare and being a soldier is not His purpose, but in order to bring about God’s purpose, it is necessary that we be soldiers and enter into this warfare, brothers and sisters. That is our calling—not our purpose, but our calling.
Our sister mentioned this morning in the announcements what Lance had shared about that remnant who had come back to build the house of God, to be the house of God. They had a part in bringing in the King. May the Lord have mercy upon us.
The point is that Timothy was a young man. I think he was around thirty years old. Paul was saying, “Look, Timothy, you have to take up the fight. You have to be a good soldier. You have to learn how to war a good warfare. You need to learn how to use the armor and the sword of the Spirit.”
Things were in great difficulty. Many were leaving and had already left, and times were very difficult. Timothy, you are going to have to take up the charge.
My challenge this morning is this: are we willing to take up the charge to be a good soldier in Jesus Christ? This warfare is an intense warfare.
This warfare brought our Lord Jesus Christ to the cross of Calvary. It will also bring you to the cross. It will bring you to places in your life that will be very difficult. You will have to know how to use the sword of the Spirit.
You will have to know how to use this armor of defense that Christ has given to us—and it is Jesus Christ Himself. So the challenge is this: in this time of great pressure, declension, and strife, will you take up the fight?
You know, when the battle is on, when the pressure is on our lives, it will cause us either to focus or to falter.
In other words, when the battle is on, the pressure is on, and the heat of battle is there, Paul says, “Fight the good fight.” Focus. Timothy, you have to focus on God’s purpose, on what God is after. You need to come into your calling in Jesus Christ, Timothy, and part of that is being a soldier.
You have to focus. When the pressure is on, brothers and sisters, the psychologists say we either fight or flee. Really, that is true.
When the pressure is on and the battle is engaged, it is time to fight. We cannot flee.
I remember Gideon won a tremendous battle with just a few hundred men against overwhelming odds. But first of all, they had to separate out those who were fearful. He said, “If you are fearful, go home. You will discourage those who are prepared to fight.”
Then he said, “Okay, come down to the water.” He brought his men down to the water and watched them as they took water. Some just stuck their heads in it and drank. Others scooped it up in their hands while they were watching and took the water that way.
They were ready to fight. They were prepared. They knew how to fight. They knew that they had to be watchful at all times.
That great company of men—I cannot remember the exact number, but it was in the thousands—was reduced to a few hundred. He said, “Okay, these are the ones who will engage in the battle. These are the ones who are prepared for the fight.”
I want our young people to know that the battle is on and that we need to be engaged in this great fight for God’s purpose, that God might have His purpose in our generation.
Last week I shared that this matter of the sword of the Spirit is the word of God. You cannot separate the sword—the word—from the Spirit. They are one.
In fact, the Word, the Spirit, and Christ are one. Remember in the creation, in Genesis, it says that the Spirit moved upon the darkness and upon the face of the deep. It was hovering because there was chaos there, and the Spirit cannot abide chaos.
The Spirit was moving, and then God spoke and said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. The Spirit and God—the sword of the Spirit—spoke, and there was light.
We know from the Gospel of John:
In the beginning was the Word,
and the Word was with God,
and the Word was God.
It was Christ. You cannot separate the three. You cannot divide them.
If you do, it becomes letter. It becomes law, and it kills. In fact, the word of God says that the letter kills, but the Spirit brings life. You cannot separate these two, or they become ineffective. As a matter of fact, they do damage.
The Lord Jesus spoke to the Pharisees and said:
Ye search the Scriptures, because ye think that in them ye have eternal life;
and these are they which bear witness of Me.
The Pharisees had separated the Scriptures from Christ.
Let me say this again: when you read this Word, you need to be looking for Christ. Sometimes we read it to try to figure out how we should handle this situation or that situation. I want to say that is okay in a sense.
But if you read it in the sense of, “Lord, I have this situation, and I am looking for You. As I read the Word, I need You. If I find You in here, my situation can get resolved,” then you are reading it rightly.
Oh, I am an engineer, so I am used to looking for the ABCs of things, to get down to the source, to reduce it to a formula that I can always use. It has served me well through the years.
But when it comes to spiritual things, there is only one thing that serves you, and that is Jesus Christ: knowing Him, encountering Him, and having the reality and life of Christ leap out of these pages and speak to you. You must be looking for Christ. You cannot separate the Word from Christ; otherwise, you get death.
I spoke last week of the first mention of this sword. Remember when man fell in the garden of Eden? There was this flaming sword, and it was put there to guard the way of life.
The flaming sword guards the way of life. That is what is needed in your life: this flaming sword to guard the way of life.
You are going through life, and this is Christ. The flaming sword cuts and says, “No, this is not of Christ. No matter how good you think this issue is, no matter how good you think this is, it is not right. The spirit of it is wrong.”
It cuts, divides, and protects the way of life. It guards the way of life in your life: the flaming sword of the Spirit. We need to have that flaming sword speak to us as we read this Word, as we encounter His Word.
Oh, how it must come to life as a flaming sword to us in our lives.
In Hebrews 4:12, it says that the word of God is quick and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword.
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.
It separates what is of man from what is of Christ, brothers and sisters. It separates out the flesh from the Spirit, the self-life from the Spirit-life.
Not only does it separate out what we would refer to as the bad things in our lives, but there is such a thing as good flesh. Good flesh will give itself to the Lord. It will say, “I want to do all these good things,” but it is all in the name of self-gratification and self-interest.
It looks so good, and on the surface you cannot discern what is of the natural man, what is of your own flesh, and what is of the Spirit. That is why you need this flaming sword. That is why you need the word of God to separate the two, to guard the way of life.
These words are living words, handled in the right way. It says the sword cuts down so deep, it is so sharp, that it cuts right down into the bone, right into the marrow.
A brother pointed out to me last week that this marrow in the bone is where the blood cells are generated from. In other words, it is getting to the life of the issue, the heart of the issue, where there is life. It cuts, divides, and says, “Here is life. Follow the life.”
But it takes the word of God. Sometimes we just want to follow what is up here, and we follow either our reasoning or our feelings, and we think they are spirit. They are not, brothers and sisters. What is the solution to that dilemma? The solution is the sword of the Spirit.
Dividing, cutting: “Lord, I need You to speak. Is this me, or is it You? Lord, show me. Touch me.”
Paul speaks in 1 Corinthians of carnal Christians. A carnal Christian is one who has been quickened by His Spirit because he has accepted the Lord Jesus as his Savior, but he has not really made Him Lord of his life.
A carnal Christian is basically one who has been quickened in his spirit, made alive to God and capable of communicating, but frankly is not communicating. He is basically living life on his own, in his own way.
Now, there are very different degrees of carnality, and I am not sure any of us could ever say that we are free of being carnal. But that is the work of the sword of the Spirit. Thank God for the sword of the Spirit, but we need to be alive to it, looking for it.
The great thing about something sharp—I do not know if you have noticed this—is that it really does not hurt until the healing process starts. Have you noticed that? Have you ever cut yourself with a razor blade?
At first, you do not even notice the pain. At least I did not. I got a nice two-inch scar on my hand putting on a lawnmower blade that I had sharpened to a razor edge.
Now, you do not need to make your lawnmower blade that sharp. It does not have to have a razor edge on it, I can tell you. But in putting that thing back on, I had the wrench, and of course the wrench slipped off. The blade just cut way down in there.
At first, I did not know I had cut myself until I saw blood going everywhere. I mean, it was just going everywhere, and I said, “Well, I have cut myself.”
So, being a man, I thought, “I can take this.” I went over to the faucet and ran water on it, which was a mistake, because when I did, it just opened it up. I looked down in there and saw muscle and flesh and bone, and I went out like a light.
Fortunately, my wife was close by and said, “What is going on?” I said, “Get me to the hospital.” We got in the car, wrapped it with a rag, and got it sewn up at the hospital.
But it was sharp, and I have to say, it was not painful. That is the Holy Spirit. When the enemy is cutting on you or pounding on you, the pain is immediate. But the word of God is so sharp.
You say, “Yes, Lord,” and He cuts it out. I mentioned that it is a flaming sword because it is not only able to cut, but to consume what is not of Christ. Oh, how we need this sword to guard the way of life.
Carnal Christians, brothers and sisters, are in such danger. When we are out of the way of the Lord, when we are not quiet in fellowship with the Lord, we put ourselves in such dangerous places.
A spiritual Christian, of course, is one who is open to the Lord, seeking the Lord: “Lord, what is Your way? What do You want? Lord, I am Yours.”
You may not be perfect. You may sin, falter, and fall. But in your heart you are saying, “Lord, I do want to follow You. I accept Your will for my life.” That is a spiritual Christian.
He is not one who can stand up here and speak well. He is one who simply wants to follow the Lord.
In 2 Corinthians 10:4, it says:
For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh,
but mighty before God to the casting down of strongholds.
The weapon is not carnal, but spiritual.
Here was my question: can a carnal Christian use a spiritual weapon? That is the issue. Can a carnal Christian wield a spiritual weapon?
Well, I think all of us can easily come to the answer to that. He may try. We may try. But it is probably—and in fact, it is a fact—a bit dangerous.
So what do we do? The point is this: the sword of the Spirit, brothers and sisters, has two edges. First, it needs to cut on us.
We always have to allow the sword to be working in our own lives personally before we are able to really use the sword of the Spirit against the enemy, against the principalities and powers of darkness. It is a spiritual weapon, so we need to be spiritual in order to use it.
I think we have a young Marine in our midst. When he signed the papers to become a Marine, he was a Marine right then. But my question is, is he yet a Marine?
Until you go through boot camp, until you go through those years of training, until you enter the battle and the fight, do you truly become a Marine? Yes, you are, but there is that great sense that until we learn the warfare, until we learn how to use our weapons, until we are ready and prepared to use our weapon, we are not prepared for battle.
What if I put an M16 in your hands right now and told you to go out there and accurately shoot it at something? Well, you might, since there are so many bullets that come out of an M16, hit this house. But you probably would not hit the target.
But if I train you, if I take you through that weapon, if I make you break it down, learn it by heart, and be able to put it back together in your mind so that you become one with that weapon, then you can probably use it accurately.
That is the way the sword of the Spirit works, brothers and sisters. We have to learn how to use it. We have to learn that in order to use it, we have to be right ourselves. The sword actually has to do a work in us.
The sword is always guarding the way of life. Never forget that: the way of life.
What do we do? How do we respond? For all who went to Toronto, the answer is simple: it is consecration.
Do you want to be prepared to use this sword? You have to consecrate yourself to the Lord. That is Romans 12:1-2.
Present your bodies a living sacrifice,
holy, acceptable to God,
which is your spiritual service.
Lay yourselves on the altar. The word of God is sharper than a two-edged sword, dividing asunder soul and spirit, even to the thoughts and intents of the heart.
Sometimes you do not know what you are really thinking. Sometimes you do not really know what the intent of your heart is. We cannot know our hearts, but the sword of the Spirit knows.
It can divide and say, “Yes, this is the Lord. No, your intents seem right. Your intents are good. But there is something wrong here.”
David learned the lesson the hard way. His intent was good, was it not, when he went to bring the ark up? But he had not consulted the word of God. He had not allowed the sword of the Spirit to work first.
He brought the ark out on a new cart, which was not God’s way. It was not according to His word. Remember, Uzzah went to steady the ark, and he died there as he balanced that ark.
David was upset. David was confused. David was concerned, and it says he feared the Lord that day. He went back, and what was his answer? Finally, the Lord spoke and said, “You brought it up the wrong way. It is not in accordance with My word.”
He finally allowed the sword of the Spirit to speak to him. Then he went and brought up the ark properly and put it in its place. His intent was good, but the sword of the Spirit had not been allowed to work.
We all, brothers and sisters, have to learn this lesson.
Now to what I had to share for today: we cannot afford to remain carnal Christians. It is too dangerous. The Lord is coming back. He wants us to be ready. He is looking for His bride.
We have to know how to use His sword. It is dangerous otherwise.
In Acts 19, there was a Jewish priest who saw Paul casting out demons in the name of Jesus. He was awed by this. His name was Sceva.
He looked at Paul and saw what was going on, so he went up to a person who was demon-possessed and said, “I cast you out in the name of Jesus, whom Paul preaches.”
You all remember what happened. The demon looked at him and said, “Jesus I know, and Paul I know; but who are ye?”
It says the demon leaped on him and actually stripped him of his clothes. The man went into a wild fit.
Brothers and sisters, we cannot just lightly use the sword of the Spirit. It will probably be the next ministry before I get into wielding the sword of the Spirit that the Lord has given to us. My big concern is that we would be prepared to use it.
If we are going to use the sword of the Spirit, when we say, “In the name of Jesus,” is it going to make a difference?
It will only make a difference if we are given to that name, if we are under the authority and lordship of Jesus Christ Himself.
Is He your Lord? Do you say, “Lord, all authority in heaven and earth is vested in You. I have no authority. I have no power, but You have it all. You have given Your name to me.”
“I am Yours, and I want to follow You wholly and completely. I want to consecrate my life to You. I want to learn of You, Lord Jesus. I am under Your name, committed to Your name.”
Then, when you say, “In the name of Jesus,” the principalities and powers listen, just as when Paul spoke to the demon-possessed man. The demon had to leave. But when Sceva spoke, the demon leaped on him, and he was defeated.
If we are carnal and try to use the sword of the Spirit, the least that can happen to us is nothing, if God is merciful. Nothing.
So we need to be prepared. We need to give ourselves to the Lord Jesus, to be under His name, so that when we use His name, it carries His authority with it.
The only way to carry His authority with us is for us to be under His authority in our lives. If you are living life for yourself, living it your own way, then you are really not under the authority of the Lord Jesus Christ.
What is this division of soul and spirit? It says the word is sharper than a two-edged sword, dividing asunder soul and spirit. What is the significance of that?
In 1 Thessalonians 5:23, it says that the Lord may preserve us blameless until His coming: spirit, soul, and body. Man is a tripartite being: body, soul, and spirit.
Our spirit is that organ God has designed to contain the Holy Spirit and to contain His life. Once it is quickened by receiving Jesus Christ through faith, then you are made alive to God. You can actually communicate.
It is much like a radio. Radio waves are out there, bouncing all over the universe. They are there, but they are hidden to you. You have no idea that they are out there.
But if you turn on your radio and find the right channel, you can pull in that particular radio wave, and you will hear what is on that radio station—music or whatever they are talking about.
That is very similar to being quickened in your spirit and made alive to God, being able to communicate. You cannot really communicate with God until you have His life within you. But once your spirit is quickened, then you can communicate.
You have that radio receiver, so to speak, put into your heart, by which you can tune in the Lord Jesus Christ and hear what He is saying to you. It is communication first in spirit, which is eventually revealed in your soul, to your mind, and you are able to interpret what the Spirit is saying.
So we have this organ called the spirit. We also have the soul. The soul of man is his mind, will, and emotions.
But the life of the soul that you are born with is called the self-life. That life is opposed to the life of Christ.
In your spirit you have this spiritual life. It is flawless, by the way. It is eternal in nature, and it is pure and perfect in nature. But your soul life also has a life of its own.
That is why, frankly, you can live to yourself and on your own without the Lord. You can live that way. Of course, you are out of His purpose, out of His will, and you are not one of His children.
But the soul has a life of its own. It says the Spirit lusts against the flesh—or fights against the flesh—and the flesh fights against the Spirit.
One is in your soul; the other is in your spirit. There is this struggle going on. What the Lord wants to do is replace the self-life with His life.
That is when He says, “Deny yourself, and take up the cross, and follow Me.”
If your spirit is not in communion with the Holy Spirit and the Lord, if you are not exercising your spirit in the word of God, in prayer, and in worship, if you are not exercising yourself in that way, following the Lord and offering yourself in consecration, your spirit is weak.
When it is weak, it is like there is a door between the spirit and the soul. The only way I can describe it is like a door that swings both ways.
If the spirit is strong, it can press itself through. The pressure of a strong spirit works its way out that door into the soul.
But if our spirit is weak, if we are not communing with the Lord, that door can swing the other way and allow the soul life to creep into the spirit. That is why we have to have the sword of the Spirit to divide between the two.
If we are not cooperating with the Spirit, if it is not strong, the soul life can come in.
The only other example I could think of is a submarine. When a submarine is down a couple hundred feet in the water—or three hundred or a thousand feet—there are thousands and thousands of pounds per square inch of pressure.
Me standing here is probably twenty or thirty pounds per square inch. For some of us, it may be forty pounds per square inch, or it may only be ten. But a submarine down in the water has to keep the outside pressure from crushing it, from coming in and flooding it, or it sinks.
That is the way our spirit is, brothers and sisters. The soul life, the self-life, if it is very strong, wants to force its way into our spirit and mix things up so that what comes out is no longer pure spirit.
Fortunately, a submarine is designed to handle those pressures, and your spirit is too. But it has to be kept strong, or there is mixture.
It is like that door is being pushed in and the soul life, the self-life, invades our spirit. What comes out is not the Holy Spirit.
In Hebrews 4:12, it says that He is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart: the thoughts of the mind and the intents of the will.
That is what the sword of the Spirit has to do, particularly when we are stirred up, when we are emotionally involved in an issue. It is so difficult, brothers and sisters, to keep that self-life, that soul life, from flooding our spirit, mixing things up, and leaving us not knowing the Lord. We need the sword of the Spirit.
One of the best examples is in Luke 9. When the Lord was going from Galilee to Jerusalem to be crucified, He passed through the land of Samaria.
The Samaritans wanted to receive Him, but He said, “Look, I can only stay a short time. I have to go on.” That upset them. They were offended by that and angry at the Lord.
James and John said, “Lord, these people are not responding to You in a very kind way. We want to call down fire from heaven and burn them up.”
Now, that is James and John. Remember John, the apostle in Revelation who gives us the revelation, this man who keeps saying, “Love, love, love your brother and sister”? Well, he was ready to burn them at this point.
The reason was that their soul had stirred up. They loved the Lord Jesus. Their purpose was good. Their heart, in a sense, was right, in that they loved the Lord and were offended for the Lord.
Now, the Lord was not offended, but they were. They were ready to call down fire from heaven to burn these people. They were sincere followers of the Lord, loved the Lord, and were passionate for the Lord, obviously.
What did the Lord say? This is key:
Ye know not what manner of spirit ye are of.
“You do not know what kind of spirit you have.” Very critical. He did not say, “You do not know what kind of soul you have,” or, “You do not know what state of mind you are in.” He said, “You do not know what kind of spirit you have.”
What had happened, brothers and sisters, in that emotional time and in their reaction to what had happened, was that the soul life had invaded their spirit.
What came out of their spirit seemed like spirit because it came from the spirit, but it was really the thoughts and intents of the soul, not the Spirit.
That is why we need the sword of the Spirit, brothers and sisters. Particularly when we are involved in a matter in which we are so emotionally engaged, we really have to ask the Lord, “Lord, divide soul and spirit here. Do that work in me so that I can take on Your Spirit.”
What was the Spirit of the Lord at that time? He was going to Calvary. He had the spirit of a lamb, not the lion. It was the spirit of the Lamb. He was going to Calvary.
But their spirit was not that way. Their spirit was wrong because the soul had invaded it.
I do not know about you, brothers and sisters, but there have been many times in my life when, over different issues and matters that I have been praying about and that have been so heavy on my heart, I have said, “Well, I think this is what the Lord is going to do. This is it. I know this. I know the Lord.”
And He does not do it. In fact, sometimes it seems as though He does the exact opposite. I feel as if it is coming from my spirit. What has happened?
It is because my soul life has invaded my spirit. It seems like spirit, but it is really my thought. It is really my mind coming out. It is really the intents of my heart making their way through.
Oh, brothers and sisters, how we need to put our confidence in the Lord and not in ourselves.
You cannot examine yourself and figure it out. That is the point. You cannot examine yourself and figure it out. So what do you do?
Psalm 139. Our brother read it this morning, except for the part I wanted to read. Psalm 139:23-24. Very critical.
Search me, O God, and know my heart:
Try me, and know my thoughts;
And see if there be any way of wickedness in me,
And lead me in the way everlasting.
“Try me and know my thoughts”—the intents of my heart. “See if there is any wicked way in me.” What is a wicked way? Any way that is not the Lord.
Let me clarify what I mean. David was bringing up the ark, was he not? But the way was not right. Any way that is not Your way, Lord, is not right, no matter how good it is, no matter how good-intentioned it may be.
If it is not You, Lord, it is wicked. It is hard for us to accept. We want our goodness to be accepted.
Show me, Lord, if there is any wicked way, and lead me in the way everlasting. In other words, life. The way everlasting is always the way of life. “Lord, I need Your life in this. I need the sword of the Spirit to work.”
That is what we do, particularly when our emotions are so stirred: “Lord, just search me. Lord, deal with me. Show me if I am wrong. Lord, really, I want to know.”
Sometimes we will not ask the Lord that because we are afraid that He might not agree with us. Let us be honest. We want Him to agree with us, but we need to be agreeing with Him.
This is where I am headed this morning, brothers and sisters. It is wrong for the soul life to invade the spirit, but what is God’s way?
God wants the spirit, the life of the Spirit, the Holy Spirit, to invade your soul, to come into your soul. Let me explain that a little bit.
Not only does the Holy Spirit dwell in your spirit, God wants Him to dwell in your heart. Your heart is this connecting organ, so to speak, between the soul and the spirit. It contains all of the soul and some parts of the spirit.
He is saying, “I want the Holy Spirit to be able to move out”—not that He really moves out of the spirit, but that He expands out of your spirit into your soul life, into the life of your soul, into the organ of the soul.
As He does that, the Spirit begins to replace the self-life in you. As the Spirit expands and moves out, He begins to replace the self-life.
Then, when people encounter you or encounter me, what they meet and what they are able to share with on a one-to-one basis is the Lord. What they need is the Lord in your life. What they need is the Spirit speaking.
I have seen some people in my life where, when you begin communicating with them, you say, “Oh, that is the Lord. I just met the Lord.” You may have only had a few words, but their life was so full of the Lord.
That is what has happened: the spirit has expanded and replaced the self-life.
It is very much like an air tank. I do not know if you are familiar with an air tank, but you can fill up an air tank with air. It is portable.
In fact, I had to use one a few weeks ago when I had a flat tire. I had this portable air tank and filled it up with about one hundred twenty pounds of pressure. It was full. It was full of air.
But my tire was flat, and it was full of self-life and was not doing too good. I hooked it up, and the air pressure from the tank forced itself into the tire, blew up my tire, and I capped it off.
Of course, I had to plug my tire too, because it had a leak in it. But the point is that this is the way the Holy Spirit needs to work: expanding Himself and replacing the self-life in our soul.
So it needs to move the other way, so that the Spirit is not only in our spirit, but in our hearts.
Look at Ephesians 3:16 with me. It is so clear to me. When you look at Ephesians 3:16, the word of God—the sword of the Spirit—really is alive.
This was Paul’s prayer. Young people, this was Paul’s prayer for you. It was Paul’s prayer for me:
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.
Your inner man is your spirit: that you would be strengthened in the inner man, in your spirit, that Christ may dwell in your heart.
Not merely that Christ may dwell in your spirit—yes, He is there—but that Christ may dwell, come to live, not just occasionally make a trip there and touch your heart occasionally, but that He might dwell in your heart by faith, being rooted and grounded in love.
I think that helped me tremendously to see what the Lord is trying to do when we talk about the sword of the Spirit: that you may be strengthened with all power by His Spirit in the inner man, that Christ, the life of Christ, the Holy Spirit, may dwell in your hearts.
The Holy Spirit dwelling in your spirit is the beginning of your spiritual life. Remember that. The Holy Spirit coming and dwelling in your spirit is the beginning of spiritual life.
What is spiritual growth? Spiritual growth is when the Spirit begins to move and dwell in your heart. That is spiritual growth: to dwell in your heart.
The sword of the Spirit divides what is not of Christ. What is coming out of our spirit has to be divided from the soul.
This is critical to God’s purpose, which I mentioned in the beginning: to bring many sons to glory. Sonship is not achieved, brothers and sisters, by living life the way we want to live it. It is only achieved when Christ is enthroned in our hearts.
When our heart is one with our Lord, we have come into sonship—many sons to glory.
Thank God for those words in Revelation: “The bride hath made herself ready.” Think about that. How does the bride make herself ready?
She has to grow. She has to mature through the work of the sword of the Spirit. Christ begins to dwell in your heart, to fill your heart. Oh, the bride is getting ready. Thank God. That is the way He does it.
What is our part? Consecration. Laying ourselves on the altar. “Lord, is there any wicked way in me? Lord, show me. Let the sword of the Spirit guard the way of life in my heart.”
Because broad is the path that leads to destruction, but narrow is the path that leads to life.
The other aspect of this—and I will finish with this—is that the cross and the sword work so closely together that they are almost one and the same.
Your body contains your soul, and your soul contains your spirit. In other words, your body is the shell of your soul, if you want to put it that way, and your soul is a shell for the spirit. It is that outward shell.
But the problem is, if our soul life is strong, it is like having a very hard shell. Remember the hardened heart. It is like a hard shell around the soul, and the spirit cannot get out.
It is locked in by this hard heart, by this soul life that is so strong, this self-life that is so strong. Through many dealings in your life, the Lord begins to crack that hard shell.
Eventually, as the Lord continues to deal with us, the hard shell cracks, and the life of the Lord can come out of the spirit into the soul.
That is taking up the cross. The cross has so much to do with our own will. But when our will crosses the will of the Lord, the cross of God has come into your life, and you have to say, “Lord, I am willing. Your will, not mine.”
I have told us so many times, but it is so critical in our Christian experience: God is just looking for a willing heart.
If you are not willing, you can even go to the Lord and say, “Lord, I am not willing. But I am willing to be willing.”
“Lord, I know You need to crack this shell a little bit, that the oil might flow out, that the real life might come through.”
Strong in the spirit—a spiritual man for a spiritual weapon. That is what God is looking for.
Brothers and sisters, all of this work is necessary. God wants us to be warriors. He wants us to be able to wield the sword of the Spirit. But we have to be made into people who can wield it, who know how to use it.
Not only knowing in the sense of having knowledge of how to use it, but having your heart ready to use it, your heart right with the Lord.
James and John were ready to wield that sword and destroy all those Samaritans, but their spirit was not right.
What can we do? We lay ourselves on the altar. That is what that whole thing is talking about, brothers and sisters, when it speaks of dividing asunder even to the marrow of the bone.
It is speaking of the sacrifice being divided up as a priest would divide it. The Lord Jesus is our High Priest, and He has to do that work.
The most critical thing about using the sword of the Spirit is that we have to be made ready to use it. We have to be good soldiers. We have to be trained soldiers—soldiers of Jesus Christ.
Not carrying out our own warfare, not carrying out our own thing, but the Lord’s warfare. Consecration is so key.
Well, just one last thought. After sharing this morning, you might think, “Well, I will never be able to use the sword of the Spirit. I am such a carnal person.”
It is really quite simple. Lay yourselves on the altar. Say, “Lord, I am Yours. I just want to do Your will. If I do not want to do Your will, Lord, show me, and I will be willing to be willing.”
I do not know if you can get much more spiritual than that.
Lord, we just come to Thee this morning. Lord, I pray that we will all be challenged to be good soldiers in Jesus Christ and to war the good warfare. Lord, You are coming soon.
It will be that great battle, Lord, in the heavens. I hope, Lord, that You will have warriors capable of that work.
Lord, we desire all to be warriors and to be able to be with You to help clear the heavens, that You might return.
Lord, we just come to Thee. Lord, this thing is much larger than we can realize in our own hearts. Do Your work, Lord. Do Your work.
But do not let us falter in the hour of pressure. May we focus. Lord, may we not flee, but may we fight. I pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.