ON THE VANGUARD

THE POWER OF GOD’S WORD
“Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God…”
Ephesians 6:17

Some mornings when I go walking I bring my ipod and keep in stride with the beats of TobyMac or Skillet. Other mornings, such as today, I walk with only the sounds of nature in the background. These are normally the mornings when I find myself talking to God and He in return talking to me. Honestly, these are the mornings when I feel the most refreshed spiritually having spent an hour or so just conversing with God. As I found myself in one of these conversations today, I found myself excited about what God was telling me. It is nothing new, nothing I didn’t already know, but it was something I have failed to really do and have a new outlook on. What is it? It is combat against the enemy with the Word of God.
In Ephesians 6:17 we see that one of the pieces of our spiritual armor is the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God. When Christ was led into the desert to be tempted in Matthew 4, the weapon Christ used against the devil was the Word of God. The devil first came tempting him with food, since it had been forty days since He had eaten or drank. Jesus’ response was that man did not live on bread alone, found in Deuteronomy 8:3. Then the devil tried to tempt Him by telling Him to jump off a cliff, knowing that the angels would catch Him. Jesus again responded with the Word by stating not to test the Lord your God, Deuteronomy 6:16. Lastly the devil tried to tempt Jesus with the splendors of the world, to which He quoted Deuteronomy 6:13 about worshiping the Lord your God only. For every temptation that the devil threw out there, Jesus came back by swinging His sword of the Spirit, God’s Word.
Yesterday, as I was alone and in charge of the TV remote, I found myself watching an old childhood show, Gospel Bill. This exact same message was being portrayed in this episode. The clumsy Nicodemus came up to the Sheriff, Gospel Bill, and shared that in the past he had chewed tobacco. Recently he was being tempted again. When he saw others chewing, he wanted to chew. When he saw others buying, he wanted to buy. When he saw others spitting because of the tobacco, he again longed to have it in his possession. So he asked the sheriff what he should do. The sheriff’s response was to get in the Word so that, like in a gun fight, he would have ammunition against the tempter.
It is such an easy lesson to hear yet I think we struggle with the simplicity of it. I know I do. I have heard it said that the longest distance in the world is from our head to our heart. This is a lesson that is so important that we need to catch it now. The devil knows the Scripture better than some of us, and because of this he is able to twist the words of God for his benefit. He did that with Adam and Eve. “Did God really say not to eat from that tree?” Yes God did, but this twisting of God’s word caused doubt, which opened the door for sin. How many times have we fell prey to the same thing? God’s Word says “NO!”, yet we hear the devil in our ear twisting the truth and we give in instead of standing firm on what God said, using the Bible against the enemy. If it worked for Jesus to use Scripture, would it not also work for us?
I cannot answer for you, but for myself I know that I need to continue to be in the Word. I need the ammunition in my gun. I need my swinging of the sword to count. The devil will come, but the devil will also retreat when we fight the way Jesus did. The passage of the temptation ends in Matthew 4:11 stating, “Then the devil left him…” Let’s use our swords the right way, as more than decoration, and watch the devil leave.