The Good Fight Series #7
Rev. Melanie K Elms Preached on 7/21/2026
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Summary
Reverend Melanie Elms explores the 'Sword of the Spirit,' emphasizing that the Bible is a powerful offensive weapon bought with the blood of martyrs and meant to be wielded with authority in every believer's daily life.
Key points
- •The Word of God is characterized as the 'Sword of the Spirit,' implying it is not our own strength that wields it but the Holy Spirit through our obedience.
- •A historical overview shows that the Bible has been feared and persecuted by tyrants for centuries because a person who bows to God will not bow to an oppressive state.
- •The sermon emphasizes moving from 'Logos' (the entire revealed Word) to 'Rhema' (a specific, quickened spoken word) to fight immediate spiritual battles.
- •The Bible acts as a spiritual guard that protects believers from 'snares' and prevents iniquity from having dominion over their lives.
- •Physical Bibles are increasingly important in an era of digital misinformation and AI that may attempt to rewrite or distort scriptural truth.
Scripture
Spiritual Warfare
Bible Study
Discipline
History
Life application
Commit to carrying a physical Bible and reading it daily until it changes from a duty into a 'love affair.' When facing a specific trial this week, find a specific verse (a Rhema word) and declare 'It is written' over the situation, just as Jesus did in the wilderness.
Reflection questions
- How does the knowledge that people died to translate the Bible into English change your perspective when you see it sitting on your shelf?
- Is your relationship with the Bible currently for information or for transformation?
- What are the 'portals' or 'snares' in your life where you need the Word of God to act as a guard?
- Think of a current struggle. What specific 'Rhema' word can you wield as a sword against that situation today?
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Full transcript
0:00in the house of God with us. In Jesus name. So I'm grateful to
0:00be here tonight. And we are continuing the series, the whole armor
0:05of God, a spiritual warfare series. We are on the sword of
0:11the spirit tonight. Who's ever wielded a sword and by wielded like
0:17used it? Yeah, see, no. So this this sermon or this message,
0:22this teaching, we really need to listen up. I have half
0:28a mind to join like archery. I just think it would be so much fun.
0:33I don't know how good I would be at it, but just to be able
0:37to have, you know, that whole, I'm probably claustrophobic, to have that helmet on, but
0:42to feel like, man, I can just, this is okay to do. Like I can
0:47get an opponent and take out all my aggression in a very skilled way, and
0:52it's okay. But notice that none of us have really used a sword before.
0:58So when we talk about the word of God being the sword of the spirit.
1:03Now notice I was going to say this further on in my notes, but I
1:08want you to realize what Paul is talking about there in Ephesians. He's talking about
1:12the sword of the spirit. It's not your sword. So that should be a comfort
1:17to you because if it were your sword, it's going to fail you. It will
1:22fail you. But the sword of the Holy Spirit will never fail. It does things
1:27we cannot even see and it goes to the exact spot it's needed and it
1:31does the work exactly like it needs to be done. It's the perfect surgeon that
1:36holds that sword. We're just actually we're the tool. We're the one who grabs it
1:40and the sword of the spirit does the work. We're just doing it in obedience.
1:45So that's what we're going to talk about tonight. If winter and Zechariah can bring
1:49up some of my swords. I'm going to have my glasses here. These are
1:55just a few. Okay. Get these things out for display. They're gorgeous. These are beautiful,
1:59gorgeous. I'm not using all of them. This is my favorite for the moment because
2:03it's brand new. It smells new. I just got it this week. Who has their
2:08Bibles with them tonight? Not on your phone. Raise them as high as you can.
2:12I don't want any. This is what I tell my singers when I say raise
2:16your hands. I don't want any air up in the pit. Have it up high.
2:21I encourage us all to bring your sword to the church house. This is training
2:26ground right here. You put it down now. Throughout this service and this message, I
2:30want you to hold it tight. I notice that I do this without thinking, and
2:34y'all, I'm not asking you to start noticing me, okay? Y'all need to be noticing
2:39the word of God and what's going on in the service. But when I have
2:43my Bible with me at church, I have it close to me. And when I
2:48stand, I have it sitting on my lap. It's close to me. I have slept
2:53with my Bible before because I was going through something so awful and difficult that
2:58I had to, this was my anchor. And I know it's a physical thing, but
3:04this is the word of God on pages. This is the Lord himself on pages.
3:10So when I would have a fearful moment, I have let, went to sleep with
3:16it lying on my chest like this. Because it means that much to me. Some
3:21of y'all may need to do that. I'm just telling you, you need to be
3:26walking through your home and declaring the word of the Lord over every corner of
3:30your house. Get out in your yard, go from point one to point two, the
3:34corners and start declaring the word of God over your home and your your land.
3:39Heal this land. Oh, God, heal this land. Take back what the devil stole. You
3:44do it through the power of the word of God, through the authority of the
3:49word of God. It's not in your own authority. The devil laughs at that. I
3:54mean, we know that scripture talks about that. Well, I'm Paul. I know. But who
3:59are you? Who are you? So we use the word of God as it is
4:05the sword of the spirit. I just got this one this week. Literally, I could
4:10just get drunk on that. Y'all think I'm silly. I am not. I mean,
4:16I like a real word, a real book. And by the way, this is not
4:20an ad for this Bible, but I don't know if y'all can see this, but
4:25you see the lion on the head of a serpent. I'm very, I can't say
4:29proud of the word of God, but I'm very happy and delighted with the word.
4:34This is called the humble lamb series and they come in different colors and I
4:38have my name on it. Anyway, I can't wait to mark this up. So these
4:43are some of my favorites. This is also a new and my husband bought him
4:47for himself. and it's an apostolic Bible. And then when he got it, he felt
4:53like it was a little bit too much silver, a little bit shiny. So I've
4:59taken it, and I marked it up. It's a study Bible, the Premier Holy Study
5:04Bible. And then this one here is the MacArthur Study Bible, very good one too.
5:09Most of these are King James Version. This is not. This is the NLT. It's
5:15a nice, fun read. I don't study from it. This here I bought my grandmother
5:20in 1999. purchased it in Bethlehem, Israel, and I gave it to
5:26her. You read it this way because it's a Jewish kind of text.
5:32And when she passed, that was one of the things I got from
5:38her. This is also from Israel. This is my little dagger. Let me
5:44just whip this out right now on you. This is, I got when
5:50I graduated from high school, and I don't use it a whole lot
5:56anymore because it's weary and worn. Not weary, it's worn. It's not
6:02weary, it's still strong. A million and one memories in here. I still like
6:07to carry it every once in a while. My husband calls me Sister Jeff
6:13Arnold because of the way it looks. And this Bible, and I have more
6:19at home, but this Bible is Pauline Elms from San Diego, California. This is
6:25my husband's grandmother's Bible. And if I could, I would start collecting Bibles. They
6:30get expensive the more, the older they are, the more rare they are.
6:36It's a dream of mine to start collecting rare and incredible Bibles. You need a
6:41little bit of cash for that. I'm praying that the Lord will open the windows
6:46of heaven, shower me a little bit cash so I can buy His Word. Let
6:51me just say something about the Word of God that you already know, but I'm
6:55going to remind you. Some of y'all tonight, I want you to lend me your
7:00ears because you've heard almost everything I'm going to say, maybe except the exception of
7:05a couple of illustrations. And so it can just kind of go over you. You're
7:11not grabbing for it because it's not precious anymore. It's not. It's something that's common.
7:16And how do I know this? Because it can happen to me, too. So I'm
7:21not superior here, but I need you to lend me your ears and your heart
7:26to be open because we must have a fresh revelation of the power of the
7:31word of God for me, for myself. So if we just say, yeah, I've heard
7:37this before, the sword of the spirit, yeah, yeah, yeah, it's double-edged and it's strong
7:42and it's mighty and I'm going to wield it whenever I need it. And it's
7:47just become this rote memory. And we cannot do that. When Reverend Evangelist Ethan preached
7:52on Sunday and he talked about Calvary and part of his message or most of
7:57his message, and he starts talking about what Jesus went through on the cross, I've
8:02heard that my whole, I'm 50-something. You want to know how old I am? 58.
8:0858 years I've been under the sound of the echoes and
8:14the words on Calvary my whole life. And yet something hit me
8:20right there in that chair on Sunday. And I'm telling you, if I would have
8:25not held myself back, I was ready to fall at this altar and disrupt the
8:31entire service and didn't care what you all thought. And I held myself back because
8:36I knew that Ethan had more to say. Part of me wishes I wouldn't have
8:42done that. that i would have just released it and done what i felt in
8:47my spirit and i was crying and sobbing thinking lord you had me on your
8:53mind we don't take it personal enough we don't take calvary personal We
8:59have the knowledge that he went to Calvary for us, but we don't say
9:05he went just for me when he was hanging there and flesh was falling
9:10from his bones and you couldn't even see who he really was because of
9:16the blood that was streaming down his body. And like Ethan said, he was
9:22naked. Do you think he had a white robe on? The shame, the disgust.
9:28that the pure holy God of the universe endured for me is overwhelming. It's
9:34so overwhelming that I think that's what keeps us from really looking at Calvary
9:40because it's so overwhelming. I can't live there very long, Lord, because if I
9:46do, I'm crushed. I can't operate. I can't function in life because it's so
9:51beautifully gory. To think that he had me on his mind and
9:57if he just did it for one person, if he just went to Calvary just
10:03for me and no one else, he would have done it. I don't want to
10:09grow hard in my soul. If we can't weep when Calvary's preached, what will we
10:14weep over? Our own storm, our own distress, our own despair, our own depression, our
10:20own discouragement. We can weep over that how somebody has betrayed
10:26us. Somebody has done us wrong. We've been on somebody has the
10:32justice has let us down and yet we can't shed a tear
10:38about Calvary. I'm so grieved y'all. We cannot be professional Christians. We
10:43don't come here on Tuesday night because we're just checking the box.
10:50That's one of the things I do. Absolutely. I do. I come here on Tuesday
10:54night out of duty, but that's not the real reason. That's not the only reason
10:59I've come because if I don't hear from the word of God, I can get
11:03off track. I'm afraid to get off track. The fear of God has got to
11:07be stirred up within us so we can seek the wisdom of the Lord. Hallelujah.
11:11So the sword of the spirit, the word of God is not mundane and common.
11:17It has been bought with blood over centuries. It has been fought for. The enemy
11:22of our soul has been around millennia, checking things out, wondering what's going to work
11:28on the people of God. And one thing he wants to do is water this
11:33down, make it common, sit it on your coffee table, but don't open it. He's
11:38not afraid of the word of God. He's afraid of it when you read it
11:44and apply it. When you read it and believe it. When you read it and
11:49stand on it. When you read it and you use it in authority. That's what
11:54he's afraid of. He will flee when you use the word on him. He will
12:00flee when you use the revelation name of Jesus on him. It's a sword. Practice
12:05the sword of the spirit. that soldiers and those in the in
12:11in history were sent out in battle without training every day the Romans they
12:17would use wooden heavy swords to train every day every day by the way
12:23this word needs to be put in your heart every day and not just
12:28read it but what does it mean Jesus what does it mean to me
12:34right now what is the narrative narrative of the Holy Ghost saying to me
12:40right now and so they would train with that wooden and they would
12:46be heavier than their actual swords okay so that when they went to battle and
12:51they had the actual sword in their hand it was light and they were able
12:56to whip it around they trained with the heavy sword so when you are using
13:01the word of god in your daily walk with him using it not just reading
13:06it using it how can i use the word of god today lord oh the
13:11lord will send you an opportunity and the devil will too yes he will
13:17And so you say, okay, I'm going to practice it each day. I'm going to
13:22practice this, that heavy sword, so that when the impossible comes along, you've already had
13:27some hardships, and you use the word of God, but when that impossible situation comes
13:33along, You can whip the sword of the spirit out and it feels light. I've
13:38been here before, Satan. I've been through something similar to this before and God has
13:42never left me. He's never forsaken me. The word of God says, blow, I am
13:47with you always, even until the end of the world. I will never leave you.
13:52I will never forsake you. Do you hear that, Satan? I don't like to have
13:57a conversation with my enemy, but every once in a while, I've got to remind
14:01him who I am in Christ. remind him who
14:07Christ is in me and if I don't know the word of God
14:13it's my words it's my intellect that goes every time that's like a
14:18paper sword praise God praise the Lord we're fighting the good fight the
14:24good fight it's a good fight and I hate to admit it but
14:30some of y'all know this already but I like a good fight I
14:35like a real good fight this is why I didn't want on live
14:41stream because I don't know what this says about me, and at
14:47my age, I'm like, don't care, okay? Honestly. But I like a good fight. And
14:53if I didn't have the Holy Ghost, it's been said about me many a time
14:59by my family and some of my friends, shoo, we're so grateful you have the
15:05Holy Ghost. She wants to operate in the gifts of the Spirit
15:11and operate in the fruit of the Spirit. I would be trained. I'm living, and
15:16I say this boldly, I don't care. I am living vicariously through Austin Timothy Elms
15:22right now. He's in Tampa with his in-laws, but he's probably watching online. I love
15:28you, buddy. For his birthday, Tessa and I and his mother-in-law went in together and
15:34got him jujitsu lessons to start him out. the bug has bit. Okay,
15:39let me tell you, every day, six o'clock, he's there and rolling and all that.
15:44And I'm like, how is it today? Tell me what you did. What did you
15:48learn today? You know, and I'm going, he's showing me, I'm going, ooh. And in
15:53my mind, I'm imagining, can I do that? Are you kidding me? And I think,
15:57and I told him the other day, he and Ethan, because Ethan wants to start
16:02as well, his birthday's Friday, and that's what he's asked for his birthday. So he
16:06said, I can learn and take down Austin. I'm like, This is going to be
16:12fun to watch. Friday night, we were at a concert in Tampa. We had driven
16:17over there, some of us on the music team, to help fundraiser for a daughter
16:22work over there, church plant. And afterward, we drove back to after... I'm not as
16:28young as I used to be. So they go in the back, I hear them
16:32talking and they're way in the way back like behind the platform and behind the
16:37stage and all that and I go looking around and I'm like, you've got to
16:41be kidding me. So of course mom gets out her phone. That's what moms do,
16:46at least this mom. And I'm putting it outside the door like this. If they
16:50see me, they're like, mom, he's 32 or 30, 32. Ethan will be 25 on
16:55Friday and they're like, mom, They're gonna turn into little kids. "Mother, why?" We're
17:01gonna document your whole life. You'll appreciate it one day. So I'm videoing and they're
17:07doing this and they're... Austin's showing him stuff and I'm getting so tickled because they're
17:12just so excited about it. It's a good fight. Have you ever watched a fight
17:18and you know it's rigged and you're like, "Boring." Kind of like a boring game
17:24that was on Saturday night. I mean, Sunday night. No goals for the longest. "Boring."
17:30I want a good fight. The UFC fight, okay, I'm done after this, okay? On
17:36the White House lawn, back to, okay. I watched it with my mom and dad,
17:41and my mom half the time is going, oh, Jesus, Jesus, help him. I'm like,
17:46mom, he's fine. Oh, my goodness, there's blood. Yeah. Oh, my, oh, poor thing. I'm
17:51like, mom, they make a lot of money, A, and B, this is what they
17:56live for. Like, they're trained. And then when they would hug afterwards, she goes, now,
18:01that ain't right. There's something wrong with them. There's something wrong with them. I'm like
18:07blood's gushing and they're just hugging good job I'm used to seeing that she's absolutely
18:12scandalized they would do that that was one of the best fights in the history
18:18of the UFC not because I said so because it was okay a good fight
18:23it was a bloody one but it was a good one both opponents gave all
18:28they had don't think for a minute that Satan's not giving all he has on
18:34you don't think for a minute that he says well bless their little heart they've
18:39had it rough No, that's exactly when he's coming after you. That's when
18:45you're a little bit weak, when you're a little bit distracted. Oh, perfect opportunity.
18:51I said something to the kids on the way to Tampa. I don't even
18:56know what we were talking about. What were we talking? Yeah. What were we
19:02talking about? Oh, the drink. Which drink was it? Liquid death. Okay. So liquid
19:08death. I don't know how real this is, but I want to be careful.
19:13Supposedly, legend has it, it's on the internet, so it's true, that...
19:19For the Super Bowl, it was the drink of the Super Bowl. It's those big
19:24tall things, it's liquid death. Right there you're going, no, no. And a witch doctor
19:29they hired a witch doctor to come in and bless that liquid death. It's more
19:34of a curse. It was a curse. So I heard that and I heard a
19:39few other things and I'm like, well, I'm not going to drink liquid death. Not
19:44because I'm afraid. I'm smart. I'm not afraid of the enemy. I'm just not giving
19:48place to the enemy. Right. I'm not saying you can't drink it. A friend of
19:53mine drank it Monday night at a concert we went to because there was only
19:58water there. And I said, first of all, that looks like beer. And secondly, it's
20:02been cursed. This is all they had. I'm like, in Jesus' name, I claim that
20:06nothing will hurt us. You know, I didn't drink any, but I was parched. But
20:11anyhow, they were talking about it in the truck. And I said, no, I'm not
20:17going to drink that. Whatever. And I said, portals, portals, portals. And they laughed so
20:22hard. Portals, portals, portals. I'm talking about portals and windows of opportunity for the enemy
20:27of your soul to come in with legal right. legally have the right to
20:33come into your life and attach a spirit because of openings and doors that you
20:39have allowed whether you brought it to your home whether you're participating in something whether
20:45it's a generational curse down the bloodline that's another sermon for another day the word
20:51of God works in that situation the good fight sword of the spirit
20:57Alright, so we have been talking about the whole armor of God in Ephesians.
21:03So we pastor has already been talking about those preceding this. So we have
21:09five pieces that protect us helmet of salvation, the breastplate of righteousness, the shield
21:15of faith, the shoes, and I like shoes. I like shoes. If
21:21somebody would say, okay, draw those shoes. The feet shot with the preparation of the
21:27gospel of peace. It means a pair of shoes, boots that you put on. I
21:32could come up with something dazzling. Some really powerful boots. So this one we're talking
21:38about tonight, it's the only, this sword is the only weapon God put in your
21:44hand. An offensive weapon. It's one weapon, but it's enough. It's one weapon, it's enough.
21:49So, one piece of And it's part of what we call the armor and it
21:55attacks the enemy. It's an offensive weapon. So if you're taking notes, I do recommend
22:00taking notes in church. Almost half of my notes don't get finished because I'm coming
22:05up to the piano to play. And it hit me when Brother Easter was preaching.
22:11I looked at my husband. I said, I'm over here going. And I thought, I
22:16can't keep up because I know I've got to think of a song and I've
22:20got to walk up there in a minute. So a lot of my notes don't
22:24get finished. So you can watch the live stream, come back and finish them. But
22:28I will go back over some notes and I forgot that that's what was said
22:32and it ministers to me in a fresh way. And I think, oh my goodness,
22:36this is so powerful. I didn't even hear it the same way that day that
22:40I'm hearing it right now. So I do recommend taking notes. I will be... Pretty
22:44easy on the note takers because I'll tell you the points. You know what I'm
22:49saying? You don't have to go, which one was the point? Let me swim through
22:54these dark, murky waters and find what was that the second point or was this
22:59the third point? What? Okay. Number one, the word is always under fire. You don't
23:04burn a powerless book. If it has no authority, if it has no power, if
23:09it doesn't have any power for change or radical thinking, it can just sit around.
23:14People can read it all day, but a powerful book that's different. So Something that
23:19has no power men don't wage war over. You don't organize. Nobody organizes
23:25an empire-wide campaign to destroy a book of fairy tales. Mother Goose and
23:31Grimm Tales or whatever they're called. As wacky as those are, if you
23:36really listen to those, those are really weird. Rub-a-dub-dub, three men in a
23:42tub. Humpty Dumpty. I mean, some of them are crazy and funny and
23:48others are like, "Hmm, that's questionable." And we're teaching our kids, and I
23:53was like, "Hmm, okay." You only try to kill what you fear and
23:59what might be alive. Let's talk about the historical record for a moment. This
24:05is just touching on a few things. There's no way tonight we would need
24:11a whole series of several weeks to really talk about the historical record in
24:16its fullness. But the historical record, this is something documented. This is
24:22not speculation. It's showing a pattern, okay? A repeating pattern. Antiochus IV.
24:28Ooh, Antiochus. Ooh, can y'all say that a little bit? Ooh, Antiochus.
24:34That's not tongues. That's his name. Epiphanes, in 167 B.C. This man,
24:40he was a Seleucid tyrant, okay? So he was very well known
24:46for... his brutal brutal crackdown on jewish religious practices very well known we think some
24:51people are i mean i look at i hear some americans talk about no kings
24:56and and whatever that's fine we don't want a king either the only king that
25:01i want is jesus christ the king of kings right but all these rallies and
25:06and for this and not this and we can't speak and we've been we're being
25:11discriminated against and i'm not saying that doesn't happen it absolutely does happen But we're
25:17talking about somebody. This is totally different. I think we've gotten so
25:23comfy in our rights and demanding our rights that now we're demanding
25:28our preferences. Many of them, not all of them. But this was
25:34a tyrant. And so he ordered that all Torah scrolls to be
25:39burned. It would be like the president of the United States saying
25:45every Bible must be gathered and burned. Okay. So he ordered
25:51that and this is it's a long story but out
25:56of that okay trying to get rid of the Torah
26:02and y'all know what parts of what books of the
26:08Torah right? Yeah the first five books of the Bible
26:14okay. Those scriptures he was saying they're all going to be burned. What came
26:20out of that was a rebellion, the Maccabean rebellion. You know about the Maccabees, the
26:25Maccabee rebellion. It's a very wonderful story. I would suggest you guys look into it.
26:31Out of that came what we know as Hanukkah or Hanukkah. That's called the Festival
26:37of Lights. So what started out and intended to be persecution and
26:43burn all of the scriptures started this wonderful revolt. And now we have
26:49that that holiday, the Jewish holiday, the Roman emperor, the deocletian. I don't
26:54I need my glasses on. It was this was in 303 A.D. He
27:00launched a systematic empire wide scripture burning as well. You have the medieval
27:06church in the 1400s. What a dark time. I look back at that through
27:12history and I think, how in the world do people even survive and live? Just
27:17day to day. Forget the fear of the feudal... wars and all of that and
27:22not knowing if you know somebody somebody was going to come after you but just
27:27trying to scrape up enough food and then the the medicinal practices of the day
27:32and was a very dark time and during this time in the 1400s there was
27:37a man by the name of john badby he was burned to death in 1409
27:42and he was hunted down he along with the lollards the the lollards were A
27:47group of people that was, they were so driven by the desire to help bring
27:52more access to the scriptures to the common man, to those that were English speakers,
27:58because the Bible was only in Latin at that time. So they wanted to give
28:03access to people and ordinary citizens, give them access to the Bible. So they were
28:08hunted down like criminals for the crime of translating scripture into English. That was their
28:13crime. Now, they could have been put in prison. They could have maybe even been
28:19killed, but they were burned to death. You look at communism. It makes the eradication
28:24of the Bible a philosophical foundation of the state. The state decides what parts we
28:30keep and we get rid of, or how we view it, how we translate it
28:36and interpret it. Because they know this is the reason communists and the communistic
28:42philosophy is afraid of the Bible because they know that if a man, if there's
28:47a man who bows to God, that same man will not bow to a party.
28:53Amen. So we know that empires can burn and may and will burn. But the
28:59book in the word of God will not. So number two, the world, excuse me,
29:04the word is owned or the word is unknown. but it
29:10can be owned. This is a modern tragedy. We can read the Bible but not
29:16keep the Bible. The strange inversion of our age is our ancestors died to get
29:22the Bible. I'm going to talk
29:28really quickly about a few statistics here from the Barna research. This is pretty
29:34much a good, reliable research institution, George Barna's research on American Bible owners. This
29:39is us, okay? This is not the world. It's not Western society. It's us,
29:45Americans. 82% believe, quote, God helps those who help themselves as in Scripture, right?
29:5282 that is not in scripture the principle of it
29:57is that's not scripture 66 says there's no absolute truth
30:03that should scare us 63 cannot name the four gospels
30:0863 58 cannot name half of the ten commandments or
30:14that jesus preached the sermon on the mount
30:1952% do not know Jonah is in the Bible. They're probably the same lot that
30:25says Job instead of Job. I can see that it's spelled that way. 48% do
30:31not know the book of Thomas isn't. The book of Thomas is not, it's a
30:37Gnostic book. It is not in the canon of the word of God. And Thomas
30:43did not write it. Do not read it. It's not worth your time. 39% don't
30:48know Jesus was born in Bethlehem. 30% don't know where
30:54there were 12 apostles. There was a Sunday school teacher who asked
31:00her children in her class, she said, who went into the lion's
31:06den and came out unhurt? This little kid goes, oh, me, Tarzan.
31:12Maybe true, actually, but we can laugh, but then again, we shouldn't
31:18laugh too much because an unopened sword is just a decoration on
31:24a wall, and the enemy is not afraid of decorations.
31:31All right, how the sword reached your hand. It's a story written in blood. I
31:36tell you what, if we don't have a heart of gratitude, gratitude is understanding you
31:42have something that costs something and you appreciate that. I don't just have it. I
31:48don't deserve it. And it's price. It's costly. So there were faithful scribes. The Jews
31:54kept the scriptures with the meticulousness that was that borders on miraculous. It's it is
32:00miraculous. It's divine. They counted letters, they counted words. And
32:06when the gospels and epistles came, that same reverence
32:11continued. So God preserved his word through discipline, ordinary
32:17faithfulness, faithfulness. Jerome, surely that's pronounced differently in Roman
32:22or Greek, Jerome or Jerome, I don't know, but
32:28sounds like he's from the Bronx. Jerome moved scripture
32:33into Latin in 8383. Okay, Rome had fallen and Latin
32:39died as a common man's language and the power play that
32:45religion of that day, it kept the Bible locked in a
32:50dead language in Latin. Okay, so now the sacred has become
32:56a secret and this was for many, many years. So secrecy
33:02spawned ignorance, ignorance spun fear and fear fell to false doctrine.
33:08So they begin to sell safe passage to heaven. They could because they had access
33:13to they were the ones who had access. The priest of that day and the
33:18governments of that day understood Latin. If you if you were a scholar or if
33:23you were a priest, you understood Latin. But the common man did not. So they
33:29had to take the word of the priest and any academic of the day, a
33:34scholar of the day. And if that was twisted somehow or maybe they interpreted it
33:39a different way, they wouldn't, these common folk wouldn't know any different. So they begin
33:44to sell self-sacrifice. sell safe passage to heaven. They put a price tag on
33:50repentance. Can you imagine if I said, all right, you can ask for repentance,
33:55but you need to bring $6,000 and we'll take it in five installments. Seriously,
34:01what would you do? They monetized miracles. So this is what Wycliffe and the
34:07Lollards had said. When the sacred becomes secret, the secret can be made a
34:13scam. They were afraid of that. They were watching it unfold before their
34:19eyes. John Wycliffe organized the first English Bible at Oxford. His long gown scholars
34:25would wear these long gowns. They would take to the mud tracks of medieval
34:30England, and they would hide manuscripts under their long cloaks. They would sleep in
34:36safe houses. They would move through the forest. They were forever fugitives. with
34:42the scriptures because if they were caught they were tortured and put to death not
34:48just put in prison or put to death tortured and put to death so we
34:54can call this the guerrilla movement of the gospel or for the gospel everybody have
35:00your word praise god thank you jesus so 40 years after wycliffe died this is
35:05just a quick illustration 40 years now listen to this They were still so
35:11afraid of this man in his book that they dug up his bones and burned
35:17them over the River Swift. And you think about that. Some of them had probably
35:23never met him. Some of them were probably a lot not even alive when he
35:29was alive. They were so afraid of this man and the power of his message
35:34and the book that he stood for that they dug up his bones and they
35:40executed his skeleton. Oh, my word. That's fear. That's how powerful this book
35:46is. Tyndale. We know of Tyndale. There's some concordances and some Bibles, Tyndale Bible. He
35:52was the man who gave English its Bible in 1492 or actually it was in
35:581525. He was born in 1492. So 42 years of his life. Listen to this.
36:0442 years of his life. Some of us couldn't even handle
36:09it for a week. 42 years, he was hungry, hunted, isolated, vilified, deliberately misrepresented, and
36:15at the end of his life, finally strangled and burned. His New Testament, the Tyndale
36:21New Testament, appeared in 1525. He believed in this word that much, and he believed
36:26in it so much, he wanted to make certain that generations after generations got it.
36:32And this is the Bible that you're holding in your hand right now.
36:38Blood bought, blood fought. He told it. It's a famous quote of his. He told
36:44a clergyman that he would cause quote the boy that drive at the plow to
36:50know more scriptures than the priests. The young man that would out be be out
36:56tilling the ground. And working in the field, he wanted him to have access
37:01to the word of God and know it as well or better than the priests.
37:07That was his mission in life. And his dying prayer was this. Lord, open the
37:13king of England's eyes. Because he knew if that could happen, a nation could be
37:19saved. The answer to Tyndale's prayer was King James. Now listen, this was almost a
37:24century later. Some of y'all have been praying for two years on something. You're like,
37:29I don't understand, Lord. This is not fair. Are you listening? I can't hear you.
37:34I can't feel you. I can't see you. It's been two years. I've been saying
37:38all this prayer for two years. Now I'm acting like a petulant child, but there
37:42are some prayers that are worth getting a little bit upset over when they don't
37:47get answered. The souls of your children. i don't god i don't understand why it's
37:52taken so long i don't want them to come back to you and have regrets
37:56and have these things that they have to undo and then walk through so those
38:01are good noble prayers to pray and i've been upset over some things before and
38:05god can handle it but can you imagine his prayer that went forth and never
38:10stopped being a memorial in heaven was lord let the king of england open his
38:15eyes so king james comes along and god answered tyndale's prayer now james Is this
38:19is a special he was a special king. He was kidnapped as a child. His
38:24mother was executed. He became king of Scotland at age one. So you know how
38:29wise he was age one. Probably not even walking yet, but he's the king of
38:34Scotland. But this is the deal with him. He was raised on scripture as the
38:39highest discipline of intellect. So much different than today. There are people that will defy
38:44you to your face saying scripture and the word of God is fake. It doesn't
38:50make sense. It's the little fairy god in heaven, this little guy in heaven. I've
38:55heard it many times. And yet this was the highest discipline of intellect. That's how
39:00he was raised. At the age of eight, he could translate any passage of scripture
39:06from Latin to French to English on sight. Eight years old, I'm 58. I can't
39:11do that. I can speak in tongues, and I can speak English, and I can
39:17speak some Spanish. Those are three languages I know. Tongs in English and
39:23Spanish. So a very special king. So he commissioned 54 of the
39:28most intellectually dazzling scholars to come together. Okay, the ones, the highest,
39:3454 highest intellectual scholars of that time. And a quarter of them
39:40were Puritans. Four years it took to translate with those 54 scholars.
39:46Day after day. All day. Four years. It took nine extra months
39:51to review what they had translated and they came up with a final revision. Know
39:57this, they were unpaid workers, unpaid. They worked with gravity because they saw these as
40:03the books of eternal life. So they wrote as scholars for scholars and as preachers
40:08for the plow boy. And this is our King James Version that we have.
40:15That's the King James Version. So the book in our lap is soaked in the
40:20blood of men and women who carried it here. Second Peter 316. Peter said the
40:26unlearned and unstable rest the scriptures unto their own destruction. That's precisely why we need
40:32each other, y'all. An authoritative voice. We need a church. We need accountability for our
40:38doctrine because lone wolves get devoured. I need you. You need me. If I've just
40:43read a passage and everything's spiritual, y'all. spiritual that doesn't mean we walk around and
40:49you know when we need to go and sharpen a pencil or we need to
40:53open our laptop or put in a password for something but who the password let
40:57me see the password password for for no what does the holy spirit say no
41:01i'm not talking about that it could be that you can't remember your password for
41:05a reason it's a spiritual reason but you're not feeling in the moment okay we're
41:09not going to be up in the heavens all the time But everything we do
41:14is spiritual if you apply the word of God to it. Okay, so we
41:20need each other. Number three, thank you much. What the sword does, this is
41:26three points to this one. What the sword does, it guides us, it grows
41:32us, and it guards us. Let's go to Psalm 119. Psalm 119, it's the
41:38longest chapter in the Bible. Let's read every one of them. Just kidding. 176
41:44verses. Okay. It's everyone is about the word of God. Every verse in
41:49that chapter 119 is about the word of God. It's one of the greatest chapters.
41:54Take the time to read it and meditate on it. It's like the Hebrew hymn
41:59book because it's the longest song, and it's a song about the Bible, the scriptures.
42:04So number one, it guides us. Your word is a lamp to my feet and
42:09a light to my path. Amen. Your word is a lamp unto my feet and
42:14a light unto my path. Notice the architecture of the whole Bible. It begins
42:20in a garden with a forbidden tree and it ends in a garden with
42:26an open invitation to the tree of life. Have you thought about that before?
42:31You're driven out in Genesis and you're welcomed home in Revelation. The whole book
42:37is a map from exile back to paradise. Number two, it grows us.
42:431 Peter 2:2 says, "As newborn babes desire the pure milk of the word that..."
42:49Why? You can grow by it. You can grow by it. The Bible's not written
42:54for information, y'all. It's written for transformation. You don't read this book. This book reads
43:00you. I don't read the book of the word of God so that I can
43:05see words on a page and see how well it's put together. I read it
43:11so that it can read my heart. Search my heart. Oh Lord. See if there
43:17be any wicked way in me. That's what David said. You do that through the
43:22word of God. I'm telling you what the beautiful conviction that comes when I read
43:27the word of God or the beautiful encouragement that comes when I'm feeling down. It's
43:32the Bible reading me. It's tapping into that place in my heart that needs to
43:37hear from the Lord. It's y'all we think it's all about let me get
43:43in there and understand it so I can take it Yes, of course, it's to
43:48apply but let the Bible let the Word of God read you and feed you
43:54hallelujah Number three of this third point it guards us Psalm 119 the wicked have
44:00laid a snare for me Have you ever felt like a snare was laid in
44:05your path? You know what a snare is right a trap and it's it's you
44:11know sophisticated and it's Crudity actually, you know, I don't know if
44:16you guys have ever watched the shows called alone. Yeah, I also like it I
44:22also my toxic trait is thinking I can do crazy things Knowing half of me
44:28is like you could never but the bigger half of me is like I could
44:34yeah out there in the middle of nowhere with nothing and I could find my
44:39food I could kill my whatever it needs to be I can eat a rat
44:45I can yeah, I can build a shelter and that's what alone is about and
44:51it's a reality show but whatever i'm not trying to get commercial for it but
44:55they do i was like i need to know how to do that snare as
45:00if i'm going to need one i may if apocalypse comes i need to know
45:04how to do a snare if we do have to go through some of the
45:09tribulation i need to know how to do a snare and you know build a
45:13fire a snare is a trap you don't see it you don't see it coming
45:18you walk into it and this is what is being said here Psalm 119 the
45:23wicked have laid a snare for me yet I have not strayed from your precepts
45:28this is why it's guarding us it's it's safety the Word of God how can
45:33a young man cleanse his way by taking heed according to your word verse 9
45:38your word have I hidden in my heart that I may not sin against you
45:43it's not just sin we're not just trying to stay away from sin we don't
45:48want to sin against God I want to please him. I want to
45:53please him. Verse 11, direct my steps by your word and let no
45:59iniquity have dominion over me. Is that not powerful? Let no iniquity have
46:05dominion over me. Dominion is when something is ruling you. If someone has
46:11dominion over you, they tell you what to do and you must do
46:16it. I don't want iniquity to have dominion over me. Verse 162. I
46:22rejoice at your word as one who finds great treasure. If you walked out of
46:28here tonight and you had forgotten about $2 million, I don't know how, and you
46:34found it. You found great treasure or maybe you didn't ever have it and you
46:40found it and it was yours because it's unclaimed. I can see some of y'all
46:45have never danced before the Lord before. You've barely done a twitch
46:51for Jesus and you would be high up off the ground
46:57because you found great treasure. The word of God is great
47:02treasure. Jesus, my treasure, priceless and precious. Jesus, my treasure, my
47:08hope rests completely in you. Somebody wrote that song a few
47:14years ago. All right, I'm coming to the end
47:19here. Now here's a technical point, and it matters enormously. It matters
47:25very much. So listen up. In Ephesians 6, 17, can you put
47:31that up there, Sister Miriam? Ephesians 6, 17. There's a word that
47:36he's using here, and we're going to talk about it for a
47:42second here. Paul does not use the logos of this word.
47:51Paul Ephesians 617 there we go all right and take the helmet of salvation we
47:56learned about that last week and the sword of the spirit which is the word
48:01of God notice when he's saying the sword of the spirit he's coming back and
48:06qualifying it and just in case you didn't know what that was Just perhaps you
48:12didn't know the word of God. Now we know the word of God to be
48:17the scriptures here, but think about it. If you didn't know that the word of
48:21God was the scriptures, you would think now, oh, well, how do you know what
48:26the word of God is? Y'all, we have it. We have it right here. So
48:31the word he's using there for the sword is not, or the word of God,
48:37is not the use logos, or logos, some people say it differently. The whole reveal,
48:42the entirety of the revealed word, okay? The entirety. He's using the word rhema. Okay,
48:48you've heard of this before. So the word Rima here is a specific spoken portion
48:53of scripture that the Holy Ghost quickens and puts in your mouth for a specific
48:58battle that you're facing right now. It's a right now word. It's a right now
49:02in the middle of my situation word. It's a short dagger. I got to have
49:07hand to hand combat right now. This is not I can't wait. It's not on
49:12the horizon. It's here. And that's what he's using about the word of God. So
49:18the whole armor that we've been talking about is the logos. Okay, that's the whole
49:23revealed entirety revealed word and the blade in your hand in the time of an
49:28attack is the Rima word, the word of God. So when Jesus faced Satan in
49:34the wilderness, he didn't negotiate. He didn't defend himself. He didn't explain himself and he
49:39certainly didn't philosophize. His response, there was three temptations that you can
49:45go and read a little bit later if you want on that. Three temptations,
49:51three times, and the response each time Jesus said, it is written, it is
49:57written. It's already said, it's already done, it is written. So he fought that
50:02way. So why do we think we need to fight differently?
50:08Why would we think we can fight differently? It's very easy to see this is
50:13how we fight our battles. This is how I fight my battles. Sorry, I break
50:18out into song. I've been actually holding back on a lot of songs so far.
50:23But so notice it's the sword of the spirit. You supply the memorization and effort
50:28and the Holy Ghost supplies the timing and he supplies the power. So a sword
50:32you never stored in your heart cannot be drawn in the hour of battle.
50:38You can't quote something you've never heard or never applied or never understood. So
50:44I need you to repeat after me. The Bible tells me so. Nothing shall
50:50separate me from the love of Christ because no weapon formed against me shall
50:55prosper because I am more than a conqueror through him who loved me because...
51:01Listen to what I'm telling you. This is what the word of God is
51:07saying. Greater is he that is in me than he that is in the
51:13world because... Thanks be to God, which giveth me the victory through our Lord Jesus
51:18Christ. This is the victory that overcometh the world. Even my faith. I overcome the
51:23devil by the blood of the lamb and the word of my testimony because the
51:27best so. In this world I have tribulation, but be of good cheer. He
51:33has overcome the world. The Bible tells me so. The God of peace shall shortly,
51:39shortly, shortly bruise Satan under my feet. The Bible tells me so. I resist the
51:45devil and he flees because the Bible tells me so. The weapons of my warfare
51:50are mine. mighty through God to the pulling down of strongholds. The Bible told me
51:55that. My light affliction worketh for me a far more exceeding and eternal weight of
52:01glory. The Bible told me so. The Lord is my helper. I will
52:07not fear what man shall do to me. The Bible told me so. And if
52:13God be for me, tell me who can be against me. The Bible says, if
52:19God be for me, tell me who can be against me. I'm asking you, who
52:25can be against me? The Bible tells me so. Praise the Lord. We are grateful
52:31to you. Your word is great. It's everlasting. I can stand on your
52:36word. I can see your word. Great is the word of God. And we're
52:42going to, and if you have your phone, you don't have your Bible, you
52:48can go ahead and y'all can come on up here to the phone. Bring
52:54your Bible. You can grab one of mine if you don't have one. Be
52:59careful with them, but yes, grab one of mine. One, two, three, four, five,
53:05six, seven, eight. Let me just say this. AI is here to stay. It
53:11is, as of right now, right now while we're having this conversation, this
53:17message here tonight it's rewriting the bible this is proven you cannot trust
53:23ai you can use it as a tool but it lies it's face
53:28off if you do not have a real bible right now by real
53:34i mean hard copy you better have several and you better cherish them
53:40and keep them very safe and protect them because we cannot we cannot
53:45trust google we cannot trust wikipedia wicked pedia. We cannot trust AI when it
53:51comes to this. Do you think for a minute that Satan's not going to touch
53:57AI? He's going to stand back and let it do its thing. It's a portal,
54:03portal, portal. You better know the word of God. You better get it in your
54:08heart because when it may be one day when we're, these will be burned before
54:14us. It's not to strike fear in your heart. I'm just, it's a warning. Love
54:19it. And I prayed for many years. Back in, when I first moved here, I
54:25said, Lord, I can't be a pastor's wife and not know the word. Please, Lord,
54:30give me a love for your word. Give me a love. And I begged him.
54:35Give me a love for your word. But I wasn't listening after him because I
54:39figured it out years later that the more I read it, the more I loved
54:44it. But I thought it was just going to be something that was going to
54:49be doused on me. All of a sudden, I'd wake up one day, I love
54:54it. Oh, I just got to have it. But now that I taste of
54:59it and I eat of it, the more I want it, the more I need
55:05it. My body and my spirit, my spirit's crying out for more. I need it.
55:11And that love comes. And when I'm not with it enough, I feel separated. I
55:17remember the first time that I read through the Bible completely. And I did it
55:23in about four months. It was several years ago. I remember reading the last few
55:29verses and And a sadness, I broke into sobs. I felt such sadness
55:35that I was done. And that was so irrational because I knew I could start
55:41over again. I had it with me. But that beautiful, sweet relationship that I had
55:47with it those four months. Oh no, it's done. And I know that's not rational.
55:53And I knew that then. And I started over again. I read it four years,
55:58I mean four times in that year. and my dad has talked about
56:04i think he's mentioned it here where he started reading the word of god at
56:09one point and he finished it in a little over a month that takes hours
56:14a day and he said i didn't intend to do that i didn't set out
56:19to read it in 30 days but it just got a hold of me that's
56:24not something he can do every day the rest of his life but he had
56:29that beautiful sweet season and i encourage us and i challenge us challenge all of
56:34us To get a love affair with this word, it is literally your life. Because
56:40this life will soon pass. This word of God also says that our life is
56:45nothing but a vapor. If you want to get really good and depressed, read Ecclesiastes.
56:51Okay? It's a great book, though. There's some good stuff in it. There's some portions
56:56of it. Vanity, vanity. Everything's vanity. Nothing's worth it. It's just vanity, vanity. And I'm
57:01like, it is. You're right. Why do I even do anything? It's a vapor. But
57:07the word of God has said that so that we would understand what we do
57:12for Christ is what's going to last. This life is just quick. We feel like
57:17in the middle of our afflictions that life is long. Time is just slowing down.
57:22But he said, oh, no, no, it's just a vapor. Do what you can for
57:27Christ while you can. I'm praying over us. If Sean will come up here, Pastor
57:32Sean, come up here and pray over us. A love for the word of God
57:37that will be catalyzed when
57:41we pick it
57:46up you got
57:51to pick it
57:56up you got