SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 11/5/2019 11:00 AM
My Worship Time Focus:
PT-5 “The Sword of the Spirit”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Ephesians
6:17b
Message of the
verse: “And take the Sword of the
Spirit, which is the Word of God.”
In today’s SD we will look at the last section of John
MacArthur’s sermon on the Sword of the Spirit, and there are some very
enlightening things in this short section of this sermon.
“Some
final thoughts on this, and I’ll let you go. Second Timothy chapter 3 I
referred to. Let me just take you there for a minute and remind you of what the
Word of God does. Five things are listed here that are accomplished by the
Word. The first one is salvation in verse 15, “That from
childhood you have known the sacred writings,” (meaning Scripture), “which are
able to give you the wisdom that leads to salvation through faith which is in
Christ Jesus.” That’s why the Bible, according to Philippians 2:16,
is called the Word of Life because it gives spiritual life. John 5:24,
“He who hears My Word and believes in Me has eternal life.” John 6:63,
“The words I speak to you are spirit and life.” Or John 20:31,
“These things are written that you might believe that Jesus is the Christ and
believing have life in His name.” Or Romans 10:17,
“Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word,” or Ephesians 5:26,
“Cleansed by the water of the Word.” And I love 1
Thessalonians 2:13, “For this reason we constantly thank God
that when you received from us the Word of God’s message, you accepted not as
the word of men but for what it really is, the Word of God which also performs
its work in you who believe.” It has a saving power, “we’re begotten again,” 1
Peter 1, “by the word of truth.”
So it is the Word that has the power to save. Now once we have been saved,
what does the Word do? Well very familiar verse, verse 16, “All
Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching,” content, the body of
divine truth that we live by. This is the treasure of biblical truth, the revelation of God to man.
It is also profitable for reproof, to confute, refute, convince, convict,
rebuke, the idea here, to expose error and sin. So the Word of God has this
positive effect of bringing truth and sound teaching that saves and sanctifies,
at the same time it also cuts as Hebrews 4:12
puts it, it rebukes, it reproves, it exposes error. That’s bound up in
correction which is the remedial side of reproof. You start with reproof and then you move to correction,
making it right. Sending it in the right direction, epanorthosis, I think is how you say the word in the Greek. It
means to straighten up, to thoroughly restore someone to an upright
position. So the Word comes, it saves. The Word comes, it establishes
doctrinal truth. And then the Word cuts and breaks down and shatters the
sinner, or the saint, for that matter, who comes under its power. And then it
picks the sinner or the saint back up in a restoring work to an upright position.
And then trains in righteousness, paideia
which has to do with educating children, bringing them to maturity which is the
positive side of correction. So this is the power of the Word of God, for us in
our own lives, to do its work and through us to impact the lives of others. Christ is the model. Putting the
armor on is putting on Christ.
Well I’ll leave it at that. One further lesson, I think
we’ll look at next Sunday night, is the place that prayer plays in all of this
because in verse 18 Paul says, “With all prayer and petition, pray at all times
in the Spirit.” We’ll talk about what that means. That’s also critical as you
go into battle, not to feel overly self-confident even in wielding the Word but
being dependent on prayer and the ministry of the Holy Spirit.
Father, we thank You for our lesson tonight, familiar
things to us all but wonderful reminders of the greatness of Your Word and the purity of it,
the power of it. Lord, we would ask that You would continue to draw into our
church family people who need to hear the truth, who need to come under its
power, its transforming power, both those who are outside the Kingdom, bring
them that they might be saved. Bring believers who are out in the midst of the
struggle and the battle and ill-equipped because they don’t understand Your
truth. They can’t defend themselves with the specific knowledge of Scripture;
they can’t advance into the kingdom of darkness with a specific knowledge of
Scripture because they don’t know Your truth. Continue to spread Your truth across
this world to Your glory and Your honor. Raise up many who will be faithful as
there are many now, Lord, we need many, many more. We would even pray so boldly
that You would silence those who misrepresent the truth and that You would
raise into places of prominence those who speak the truth that the truth may be
heard, the truth that saves and sanctifies. We thank You, Lord, that You’ve
equipped us fully to be triumphant and victorious. We want to enjoy that
victory even here and now until we enjoy it in its fullness in Your presence in
the future. We thank You for that promise and we live in that hope in the name
of Christ. Amen.
Our quotation from “Love in
Action” is from the book of Job as we move from our study of Barnabas to Job.
Naked I came from my mother’s womb,
and naked
shall I return there. The Lord gave, and
the Lord has taken away; blessed
be the name of the Lord.
Job 1:20-22
11/5/2019 11:07 AM
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