The Sword of The Spirit

Forty days after resurrected from the grave, Jesus was taken up into heaven in the presence of His disciples. He led them out as far as Bethany, and He lifted up His hands and blessed them. While He blessed them, He was parted from them and carried up into heaven Luk.24:50-51. Ten days later Pentecost happened, Holy Spirit was given to the believers and they received power from on high Luk.24:49, the power to be a witness Ac.1:8, even the power to attack the devil Eph.6:17. All believers must aware that the devil will never ever take a rest. The devil always walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour 1Pet.5:8. Jesus warned us that the thief does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy Jn.10:10. Believers are equipped by God not only to defence but also to attack the devil. As we are preparing ourselves to celebrate Pentecost this month, it is important for us to learn about the power of Holy Spirit, specially the power to attack and fight the devil. By the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, apostle Paul explained to the church in Ephesus about the whole armour of God so that we may be able to stand our ground, and even after we have done everything, we keep stand up. From all of that armour, we only have one weapon to attack while the rest of it is to defence. That special weapon is the sword of the Spirit. The power of Holy Spirit will definitely give us power and ability to attack. That is not a regular sword, that is the sword from the Holy Spirit that was given to us. Just right after the Pentecost happened 2,000 years ago, Peter and other disciples were not afraid anymore. They were not hiding behind the locked door again, they preached the gospel in the front of public. They fought back when the Sanhedrin tried to shut them off. They didn’t have any fear with the prison nor persecutions. Even they were able to see the afflictions and sufferings as a grace from God Ac.5:41. The sword of the Spirit is the real thing that believers can have, so the devil no longer able to restrain us behind the locked door.

¹⁴ Stand therefore, having girded your waist with truth, having put on the breastplate of righteousness, ¹⁵ and having shod your feet with the preparation of the gospel of peace; ¹⁶ above all, taking the shield of faith with which, you will be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked one. ¹⁷ And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God; ¹⁸ praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, being watchful to this end with all perseverance and supplication for all the saints— Ephesians 6:14-18 NKJV

WHO IS OUR ENEMIES?

God never told us to hate another people. We must love our neighbour. Our enemy is not another people. Our enemy is the devil behind it! Paul wrote: 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 Eph.6:12. Jude wrote: And on some have compassion, making a distinction; but others save with fear, pulling them out of the fire, hating even the garment defiled by the flesh Jud.1:22-23. We must hate the garment and not the person. We must fight with the devil and not with the flesh and blood. The devil is real, and he never stop doing his work. We don’t need to be afraid with the devil because God who is in us is greater than he who is in the world 1Jn.4:4. The devil may use anyone to do his will, but we must still keep in our mind that our enemy is not the flesh and blood, but the devil. We must always have a heart that want to save people from the deception of the devil and open their eyes so that they can see the light of the glory of Christ 2Cor.4:4.

Holy Spirit was promised and then given so that we can have a victorious life and overcome our greatest enemy. Holy Spirit was given so that we can start to fight and no longer in defence position at all the time. We must not keep silent when the devil trying to intimidate us with his lying lips. We must fight back and stop his deceitful mouth. The power of Holy Spirit will enable us to do that, the Holy Spirit will empower us and equip us.

BE AWARE WITH THE STRATEGY OF DEVIL

The Bible was given so that we can be aware with the deception of the devil from the beginning of the world, even until the end of the world. The books of Bible were given for a reason that we can know God more and we can have a victorious life! From the first book of the Bible (Genesis) up unto the last book of the Bible (Revelation), we can definitely and easily find the strategy of the devil so that we can get ready and be prepared to overcome it.

The first work of the devil was recorded in the book of Genesis as destruction of what God already made Gen.1:2. The earth was without form (or place of chaos; Hebrew: tôhû) and darkness was everywhere. The devil is dark by its nature and he will always try his best to bring darkness. He always tries to ruin everything that God already made. The devil tried to ruin the life of Job and expected that Job will curse God. The devil tried to ruin the life of David with the sin of adultery. The devil tried to ruin the life of Solomon with the sin of idolatry. The devil will always try to ruin the work of God in the life of believer. God is always made everything very good Gen.1:31, Jesus done all things well Mrk.7:37, while the devil always destroys much good Ecc.9:18. We must always abide in the light so that the devil will not able to overcome us. We must bring the light with us always so that we can make the devil flee away. The word of God is a lamp and a light Ps.119:105.

The first sin of human was happened as Eve was tricked by the devil Gen.3:1-3. The command of God is: “You may eat the fruit of the trees of the garden; but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God has said, ‘You shall not eat it, nor shall you touch it, lest you die.’” But the devil twisted it and said: “Has God indeed said, ‘You shall not eat of every tree of the garden’?” From generation to generation, the devil still doing the same thing which is twisting the word of God! The devil like to intimidate us by twisting the divine command from God. The devil might twist it so that the command looks worst for us, or he also might twist it so that we ignore some of the command. In the days of Paul and Peter, the devil also doing the same thing. Peter wrote: “untaught and unstable people twist to their own destruction, as they do also the rest of the Scriptures 2Pet.3:16.” The devil also tried to twist the Bible when he tempted Jesus in the wilderness Mat.4:1-11. The devil was called as the tempter for a reason. He always tries to tempt the believers. The devil will tempt us to use the promise of God for a wrong reason and a wrong intention. Three times Jesus was tempted, and Jesus always fight him back with the Word of God. We must abide in the Word of God so that the Holy Spirit may will bring to remembrance all things that God said to us Jn.14:26. The sword of the Spirit is the word of God! The devil is very sensitive with the word of God. The Bible is the power of God. The gospel of Christ is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes Rom.1:16. We must have the treasure of the word of God and be ready to use it with the power of the Holy Spirit. We may not see the devil obviously, but indeed he always shoot the fiery darts and we must quench it. We must extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil and then fight back with the sword of the Spirit. When Peter tried to stop Jesus being the sacrifice for the world upon the cross, Jesus said: “Get behind Me, Satan! You are an offense to Me, for you are not mindful of the things of God, but the things of men Mat.16:23.” The devil must be overcome and defeated, otherwise he will keep shooting that flaming arrows, annoying us all the time with the intimidation and deception. The devil may use anyone around us to throw that fiery darts, but we must wisely extinguish it.

The devil also like to bring people being solitaire, far away from another helper so that he may attack them easily Luk.8:29. There was a man lived in the country of the Gadarenes. This place actually was opposite of Galilee where Jesus doing most of his miraculous and powerful ministry. However, this man didn’t get any help because the devil always drives him into the wilderness. This man had demons for a long time, not only one demon but thousands of unclean spirits was in him so that he wants to be called “legion” (Thayer Greek Definitions: legeōn = a legion, a body of soldiers whose number differed at different times, and in the time of Augustus seems to have consisted of 6826 men; i.e. 6,100 foot-soldiers, and 726 horsemen). This man become worse and worse as the devil always drives him to be alone and avoid any help. The physical distance between this man and Jesus is not a big matter, but the works of the devil is the only big problem. The devil like to wait for the better time until he is able to catch his prey Luk.4:13. Once he caught it, then he will bring it far away from the body of Christ. That’s why it is very important for the believers to always attached properly to the local church, to the body of Christ, not only as a visitor but as a family member, as a living stone in the church that ready to be shape until fit into the best place in the body of Christ. Whenever the devil wants to lure us away from the light, from the body of Christ, let’s fight and overcome all deceitful strategy of the devil.

CONCLUSION & CHALLENGE

What it’s all about?

This is about the power of the Holy Spirit for us to fight the devil, to attack, and to defeat him. We are born again in Christ to be more than the winner. Instead of keeping ourselves in the defence position, we must start to fight back the devil so that he will run from us. The Holy Spirit was given so that we have a powerful life. We are not going to let the devil win. Let’s utilise the sword of the Spirit. Let’s keep reading our Bible in a good attitude so that Holy Spirit will be able to bring that powerful weapon through our mouth.

Insights and impressions:

The day will come when the devil will be cast away into the lake of fire and brimstone and they will be tormented day and night forever and ever Rev.20:10. The fate of the devil is already mentioned in the Bible. He is the already-lost enemy. That’s why we must not allow him to deceive us. We must extinguish the flaming arrows while in the same time we must keep fighting with the sword of the Spirit.

Next steps:

We must exercise ourselves so that we may be able to use the sword of the Spirit at all the time. Memorising Bible verse is a good start to do as the devil is very sensitive to it as there is a power in God’s words that will bring him knock out. AMEN.

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