Lesson 28: The Sword of the Spirit, part 2

Ephesians 6:17
…and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God,

The first thing we see about the Sword of the Spirit, the Word of God, is that it provides an offensive attack. If we think the power of the sword of God’s word was only effective in the times of the Old Testament, we are wrong:
Revelation 19:11-15 - Then I saw heaven opened, and behold, a white horse! The one sitting on it is called Faithful and True, and in righteousness He judges and makes war… He is clothed in a robe dipped in blood, and the name by which He is called is The Word of God…From His mouth comes a sharp sword with which to strike down the nations, and He will rule them with a rod of iron. He will tread the winepress of the fury of the wrath of God the Almighty.

God uses His sword to defeat His enemies in both the Old and New Testaments. And we, His children, are given this sword by God, supplied by the Spirit, to take out our enemies. It is the Word of God, and it came from the Spirit (2 Timothy 3:16-17). It is our offensive weapon given by our Heavenly Commander to precisely cut up and destroy our enemy when he comes our way! We only need to remember – our enemy is not flesh and blood (Ephesians 6:12) but the spiritual forces of evil in this world.


This “Sword of the Spirit, the Word of God” needs to be with us always. But there are no short cuts to making this true in our lives. We must read it, study it, memorize it, talk about it, meditate on it, pray through it, think about it, attend church and listen to others explain it. You can also read books written by other people who have experienced it in their lives. While their experiences will almost surely be different from yours, there are still lessons we can learn from other believers who have used the Word of God as He meant it to be used. Soldiers teach each other from their own experiences.

Just because you have a Bible does not mean you know how to use it as a weapon in spiritual warfare – any more than owning a sword means you know how to use it in battle. You might watch a flower garden, and see a butterfly and a botanist and a bee come to visit the flowers, moving from one to another. Each may have touched the same flowers, but there were different results for each. The butterfly only touched the flowers. The botanist took notes or pictures and learned to identify the flowers. Only the bee came away from the flowers with pollen to be used to make honey. You might, like the botanist, learn many things in your head about flowers, but until you do something with that knowledge it does you no good.

We must be like the bee – store up and use what the Bible teaches us. Only then can we use it as God intended it to be used.