(Sunday School) Armor of God: Sword of the Spirit

We are going to get right into our our lesson today continuing

on in our Ephesians 6 study on the armor of God.

And this week we are, we are taking a look at the same verse

that we were on last week, Ephesians 617.

But specifically, we're moving on to another item 617 says and

take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which

is the word of God. So let me just give a little

background on on the item in in question here.

The the Roman sword that we're talking about is called a

gladius. The gladius was at this time

when this was written in the 1st century.

This was a relatively new at least in, in Rome, it was

borrowed from the the Greek Zephos sword.

It was a relatively new design, at least in large scale

production for like the military and stuff, because it had a

double edge. Most swords would be on

one-on-one edge, while the other side was blunt.

And so tactically, this, this changed the way that the, that

this sword was wielded and defended against because it

would, you know, both, both sides of the blade were, were,

were lethal. And so people defending against

this had to change the way that they, they fought.

So this is a big deal that it was, you know, that it was a, a

new thing for them. It was, it was the, the gladius

was useful in a chopping and swinging motion, but it was also

very effective in a stabbing move like from the phalanx that

we, we talked about a couple weeks ago.

The, the formation that the soldiers would do with their,

with their Shields, they would, they'd hold the shield up and,

and stab the sword out. And this gladius sword was

usually only about 19 inches long, rarely longer than 27

inches, which was much shorter than previous swords of the

region. And this just the size of this

thing alone. The fact that it was a short

sword, it actually added to the reputation of the Roman

centurion because it suggested that he was extremely courageous

or or brave by by going into a battle with this short sword.

So all of this background, all of this stuff to say the double

edged sword was designed with maximum lethality in mind.

It was extremely dangerous and effective in the hands of a well

trained soldier. Now this sword was was worn

securely on the belt. In fact, the sword of the spirit

was directly linked to the belt of truth, reminding us that the

word of God is intimately and eternally connected and, and

absolutely inseparable from truth.

And you guys have probably watched, you know, movies with

sword fights and, and certainly you've noticed in every sword

fight that you've ever seen that the sword is used to block

attacks as well as to deliver them.

So the sword is really the only offensive and defensive weapon

in the armor of God arsenal that that we're looking at.

And that's a concept that's very important in our our study

today. So let's talk about it being a

defensive weapon first. So second Timothy 316 is a

package that we've all heard, you know, many times and it

testifies to the God breathed authority of the word of God.

It says all Scripture is breathed out by God and

profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction and for

training and righteousness. Now you might sword that way,

but I think if you know, if, if you can imagine like a, a horse

with a a riding crop, using that to, to correct and that horse,

it's a weapon, so to speak, right?

It's, it's, it's, you know, much the same way with with the idea

here of the sword. So in Luke 4, when Jesus was

tempted in the wilderness by Satan, the only responses that

are recorded from Jesus are to quote Scripture.

Now, Jesus is omnipotent, right? Jesus is, he's supremely

powerful and capable of destroying Satan.

But his method of defense was the word of God.

It was just it was to quote Scripture, which I think is is

is pretty, pretty interesting. In Revelation 116 we see this

this phrasing or this, you know, talking about the double edged

sword. We see it several places, but I

just want to pull a couple of these out real briefly.

Revelation 116, it says in his right hand he held seven stars

and coming out of his mouth was a sharp double edged sword.

Pretty specific there, right? And then in Revelation 212, I

got to use this cool font. I thought the the, the topic

here, I had a different 1 and I couldn't read it.

So I changed it so you guys can read it a little bit.

But now I can't read it back there because it's because it's

fancy. In Revelation 212, it says to

the Angel of the church in in Pergamum write these are the

words of him who has the sharp double edged sword.

So again here, that's another example of where we see this

phrase double edged sword. Now this is an interesting word

when you when you look at the Greek double edged means, it's

the word diestomos, diestomos in, in Greek and it's a, it's a

it's weird because it's a combination of these two words

die meaning to and stomos or stomos meaning mouth.

So it actually is the actual translation of this is a double

mouthed sword, which is pretty interesting.

We see indications of of something along this line

elsewhere to in in Isaiah 49, two says he made my mouth like a

sharp sword. And then again in Revelation,

there's several of them in Revelation, but in Revelation

19, it says from his mouth comes a sharp sword with which to

strike down the nation's. Now those last two, the sharp

sword, it's not the same double edge, but it's still interesting

that it's that that imagery of a, of a, a sword associated with

the mouth. So even though it doesn't say

that double edge meaning double mouth, it's still both of them

are, are indicating and, and placing it coming out of, of the

mouth. So that's a, that's a, a pretty

interesting concept that that we have here.

Now the sharpened edge of the sword, this is this is a a very

specific description that we see that it's double edged this way.

And and so many commentaries as they as they work through this,

explain that that one sharpened edge of the sword came into

being when the word of God initially proceeded from the

mouth of God. The second edge of the sword is

is added when the word of God proceeds from your mouth.

So I'm not ascribing power to it supernaturally when when we

speak it, but but but figuratively when we are able to

speak God's word. There is power in that we we

know that because that's that's backed up in in Scripture, but

it must be properly wielded. If we again, if we go back and

we look at that passage in Luke 4 after Satan tried to attempt

Jesus the first two times, he comes back with his third

attempt to to tempt him and he uses Scripture against Jesus

improperly, right? That's why this is important.

It does The sword has to be wielded properly.

Satan used the same weapon, but he didn't use it properly.

And so this is how we know that the sword of the Spirit is

perfectly attached to the belt of truth because the misuse of

Scripture didn't have power, because Satan tried to swing it

untruthfully. We also see that the the sword

of the Spirit is an offensive weapon.

As we've already seen, the sword of the Spirit in Ephesians 617

is in our, in our main passages identified as the as the word of

God. And the Bible identifies the

word of God as Scripture, right? God's as Scripture has God's

spoken Word and Jesus the Incarnate word we that laid out

clearly in in in John chapter 1. Then in Hebrews 4 verse 12 says

John 1 · chapter mention Hebrews 4:12

for the word of God is living and active, sharper than any 2

edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit,

of joints and of marrow and discerning the thoughts and

intentions of the heart. So the idea is that is that of

of of piercing and penetrating right the the word of God

reaches all the way to the heart, the very center of

action, and it lays open the motives and the and the feelings

of of of those that it touches. It discerns between what is good

and what is bad. Now we, we know that we all

develop our own opinions and our own beliefs, some of them very

strongly, right? We all, we all have some beliefs

that we hold onto very, very strongly.

And until we come to know Jesus rightly, many of those beliefs

that we hold onto so strongly are are simply wrong, right?

We we can all admit that, right? We've we've held onto things in

our life that we thought were absolute, but but when we when

we come to know Jesus, often times we come to opinion we and

we start believing something differently.

So God's word, this scalpel sharp blade can cut through the

joints in the marrow it and help us to separate our wrong,

sinful, selfish opinions and beliefs from the truth of God.

That's why in that passage from second Timothy where we read is

profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction and for

training in, in righteousness. So certainly as you, as you

think about this idea of separating the, the, the, the

joint from the marrow, right or, or whatever.

For me anyways, I, I was going to put a picture of, you know,

prepping, you know, meat away from the steak.

But it'd be one thing if it was a steak, but if you didn't know

it was a steak, you might think it was some gross, gruesome, you

know, Wharf picture or something like that.

So I didn't, I didn't put it up here, but I think you can

imagine that, right? If you've ever cut the, the, the

meat away from a bone and, and you've tried to use a sharp

knife in order to, to do that and, and the sharper the knife,

the the better you can do that. Or, or hunters.

You guys have certainly done the same thing when you've prepped,

you know, game in the field to, to, you know, get the, the meat

to take home. And so the the sharp blade of

Scripture has the ability to separate those ugly things that

we cling to right in our hearts in our in our lives.

Second Corinthians 10 verses 4 through 5 says for weapons of

2 Corinthians 10:4–5

our welfare are not of the flesh, but have divine power to

destroy strongholds. We destroy arguments and every

lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God and take every

thought captive to obey Christ. Well, think about what those

strongholds are in our in our life, right?

A sin. So when we read the Bible, when

we study Scripture and hear the heart of God, we're enlightened

to it, right? And it, it shines a light into

those recesses of our lives where we ignore our sins or, or,

or really more to the point where we have where we have

hidden sin, right? It it brings them to light in

stark contrast to God's word and to and and in doing that it

those strongholds are destroyed, that safe and secure place where

our guilty treasures of of sin, where stash are now vulnerable.

Well, what about every lofty opinion raised against the

knowledge of God? Our society has some pretty

crazy opinions that go directly against the knowledge of God

right. And and in this passage in

Second Corinthians, Paul is talking about people who have in

this particular situation, people who have attacked his

ministry specific specifically suggesting that he's a coward

when he visits them. But he talks the in the, in the

letters that he writes. But our but, but we can use this

throughout, right, because our weapons to fight those lofty

opinions of, of people of of critics of culture of just our,

our sinful world, though they aren't weapons of the flesh.

And we need to understand that we don't, we don't, you know,

there's no fistfights or Glocks needed in order to, to defend

the faith, right? Our weapon to defeat those lofty

ideas is to share the word of God, and that's a very powerful

weapon. And just because the word of God

is a weapon doesn't mean that we need to hurt people with it.

Truth alone, truth. Truth does hurt, right?

We can all understand that. Sometimes people hear truth and

they think that it's hate speech, but it's not Truth can

can hurt us. It's it's supposed to, it is

supposed to cut us deep when our position on something goes

against it, goes against God's will.

In First Corinthians one, verse 18, it says for the word of the

cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who

are being saved, it is the power of God.

And so, no, sorry, I should have used the sword of the Spirit.

Yeah, there's a lot of foolishness and, and hurtful

truth in the Bible for those who choose sin, right?

I'm not saying it's foolishness, but the Bible says that it's it,

it comes across as foolishness to those who are perishing.

And so of course it's going to be hurtful.

But we got to, you know, we need to be aware of that.

We don't, we don't wield it in order to hurt, but we do wield

it knowing that it hurts. Does that make sense?

We're, we shouldn't be afraid to to share the gospel knowing that

that those who are perishing are going to find it foolishness and

and they're going to be sometimes bothered by that.

But we don't do it with the intention of but we want to

share with them and let the, the blade of, of Scripture do the

cutting right. And soon that cutting away of,

of cancerous sin brings about miraculous changes.

It, it does it in US, right? And then it also does it in the

people that we share the gospel with that sin that, that, that

that made us sick, that held us prisoner to choosing our own

sinful path. It, it loses its, its power over

us and something new and healthy emerges.

And Ezekiel 3627, it says, and I will put my spirit within you

and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey

my rules. And then just 4 verses later, I

think that's on that same screen.

Yeah, in verse, in verse 31, it says then you will remember your

evil ways and your deeds that were not good, and you will

loathe yourselves for your iniquities and your

abominations. So like this is where I think

that this imagery can be helpful to us to understand that, for

example, if you're, you know, the idea of surgery, the scalpel

has to do damage in order to cut out what's bad, right?

But but the sharper that scalpel is, the more accurate it can be

in cutting where it needs to cut, right.

And so if we that, the more that we know scripture and can wield

it in in a proper way, the sharper that that blade is and

the more that it's able to, to, to cut where it where it needs

to cut and not do additional damage.

And what I mean by that, I hope I'm explaining this way or hope

I'm explaining this clearly. But what I mean by that is that

we all know of times when people have used Scripture

intentionally too hurt. They, they, they misuse it,

right? They, they try to cherry pick a

verse or a passage or an idea from Scripture and they use it

to suggest something that, that it is something other than what

it is. And that can, that can do damage

to people who, who don't, you know, who don't understand.

And I think we hear about that kind of thing a lot from people

that are that are critical of Christianity is they think that

they think that the gospel is is more it is not a fine blade.

They think of it that people wield it like a big old club

that just smashes and does all kinds of all kinds of what do

you call that extra damage? What do you call that?

What's that word? Collateral damage, Right.

Yeah. So, but you know, in this, in

this passage, it's, it's referred to as the sword of the

spirit, right? We have to remember that the

purpose of the sword of the spirit, the Bible is, is to make

us strong and, and able to withstand the evil onslaughts of

our enemies of Satan and, and his demons.

Matthew 10 verses 19 through 20 is a passage that you know many

Matthew 10:19–20

of us are probably familiar with regarding persecution.

Says when they deliver you over, do not be anxious how you are to

speak or what you are to say for what you are for.

For what you are to say will be given to you in that hour.

For it is not you who speak, but the Spirit of your Father

speaking through you. So the Word of God is to be

wielded like a sharp 2 edged sword in the mighty power of the

Holy Spirit, both defensively and offensively.

Swords were used to protect oneself from harm or attack the

enemy to overcome or or kill him.

And, and so and where we see Jesus uses the uses scripture to

defend against Satan's attack. And also where we see we that

the Word of God penetrates into us offensively and carves us,

carves us up. See how what I mean about it

being both offensive and defensive?

The Holy Spirit uses the power of the Word to save souls

through the conviction of sin and then regeneration into new

life, and then to give them spiritual strength to be a

mature, effective soldiers for the Lord in fighting this

corrupt and evil world that we live in.

In sharing the gospel with the lost.

Not because God needs us to to do that, but because He gives

opportunity to do that. Right.

In Romans 10 verses 14 and 15 it says, How then will they call on

Romans 10:14

him in whom they have not believed?

And how are they to believe in Him, believe in Him of whom they

have never heard? And how are they to hear without

someone preaching? And how are they to preach

unless they are sent as it is written?

How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news

and that preach to word. When we share the gospel with

people, it is powerful. Isaiah 55 verse 11 says, So

Isaiah 55:11

shall my word be that goes out from my mouth.

It shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that

which I purpose and shall succeed in the thing for which I

sent it. Now remember in that verse that

we read from First Corinthians chapter one said for the for the

word of the cross as foolishness to those who are perishing, but

to us who are being saved, it is the power of God.

So while we read Isaiah and know that God's Word does not return

empty or void in some of the translations, that same passage

says that it will accomplish God's purpose, not ours, right?

So, so think about this. We can struggle with our friends

and loved ones who don't seem to be responding to the gospel

where maybe, you know, we might think that God's word is

returning empty, but we need to remember that he does things

according to his will and purpose, not not according to

our plans or, or our calendars or our timelines or anything

like that. 1st Corinthians 211 and 12 says so also, no one

comprehends the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God.

Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the

Spirit who is from God that we might understand the things

freely given us by God. So the sword of the Spirit is

not just for defense, actively countering evil and resisting

temptation. It's it's used to to discern

right from wrong and to live in a way that is free from sin

might not always understand everything about it.

In fact, we will never fully understand, we'll never fully

understand everything about it, right?

But we can trust that though, the more that we read it, the

more that we study it, the more that we memorize it and that we

pray and, and, and share it and apply it, the more that we will

be surgically affected by it too.

It'll continue to cut into us and cut away those things.

And again, the more that we read and study and share that with

other people as well, the more that it will that they will be

surgically affected by it on God's timing.

Not and it doesn't necessarily mean that they're going to hear

it and come to saving faith. We all know that, right?

But it might affect them in some ways that that the sort of that

Pebble effect that way, if that ripple effect might might reach

somebody, you know, down the line in a way that we can't even

understand it. So there's no coincidence that

Scripture uses this imagery of these weapons here in this way.

This double edged sword was designed with maximum lethality

in mind. It was it was extremely

dangerous and effective in the hands of a well trained soldier.

Well, the word of God also has maximum lethality to sin.

It is dangerous and effective in the hands of a well trained

soldier. So let's talk, Let's just let's

let's discuss a couple of things here.

Let me here's a here's a here's a couple of questions.

I just like to maybe chat with you guys about how can we, how

can we use the sword of the spirit effectively in our daily

life? Sure.

Our actions. How how, how do we use the word

of God, the sword of the spirit? How do we do that in our

actions? By living for God.

Yeah. To to to conduct ourselves like

what we see in Scripture, maybe. What else?

What else can we do in our daily life that we can use the sword

of Spirit? Yeah.

Did you guys hear that? Yeah.

That's that's absolutely right. We should always be.

I don't know who it was that said that God's word is the

anvil with which we smashed our our opinions against something

like that. Some somebody smarter than me.

Did you? It was Spurgeon.

OK, Yeah. So.

So that's the idea. If if and the anvil is true,

right, it doesn't, it doesn't change.

That's the whole point of it. Everything else is malleable

based off of that. And that's how God's word is.

So if like what Leanna's saying, if we, if we can do this and,

and apply it to ourselves as we read it on a daily basis and

whatever it is, whatever passage that we're in, if we go, what do

I learn in here that I can apply to my life?

How do I need to maybe reposition myself to be in line

with with Scripture, right? Were you going to say something

fighting the enemy with it? So, so like Jesus, right, like

speaking it, right. I mean, there's lots of

discussion that we could have about about that.

But years ago, when my, when my dad was in the hospital, I, I

told my mom, I said, you know, I, I, I don't know that there's

anything to this or not, but, but you know, let's get some

hymns going in his room while he's unconscious and just let

him soak in that. I don't know what that, you

know, necessarily just to, to hear it all the time and let it,

you know, penetrate into his heart and, and that kind of

thing. I think there is just something

wonderful about about hearing it in our life on our on a regular

basis. You know, if if you hear

somebody quoting scripture, you might not even know what the

whole context of it is that they're talking about.

But there's even something wonderful in hearing somebody

speak it. What else?

Yeah. Kevin, to give a defense in

Peter with Peter. Yeah, always be prepared to give

a defense. So that kind of goes to the same

thing about I think kind of what Toby's saying is as far as like

using it in conversations, right?

That's what we were talking about earlier with the lofty

opinions that the people have, these other these, these

unbiblical opinions that they might have.

And when, when, when it's it's helpful for us to go to

Scripture to be able to speak through that.

We don't have to have our our entire conversation or our

entire response be quoting Scripture, but that is a great

place for us to base ourselves. What else, anything else that we

can do to effectively utilize the the the sort of spirit in

our in our daily life. How about just teaching, right?

I mean, just just sharing it not, and I don't, I don't mean I

guess what we're all we're, you know, in defense, we're teaching

somebody. Maybe I was thinking more like a

conflictual kind of a kind of a dynamic.

But but what about our kids, right?

What about just sharing it with our with our kids or with our

spouse or with our neighbor and and just studying it with them

and proclaiming it, sharing it with them.

What are some practical steps for studying Scripture to be

prepared for spiritual attack? OK, Discipline as far as like

schedule, like regular, habitual.

Yeah. Yeah, absolutely.

It's got to be like this. What the base of your day is.

What were you going to say, Steve?

Yeah, kind of the same thing, right?

Like be diligent about it, intentional about it.

And I'll tell you what, like if you can't be diligent about it,

if you're struggling with that, like if you can't impassionately

get involved in a, in a daily study, at least start with going

through the motions of it, right?

At least start with, OK, I'm going to read some.

Even if you're not in a place where you can devote ample time

to the study, at least start there.

Because it's, I think it's amazing how much we will, we

will read this, even if it's just something in passing or

whatever. And it'll be with us later on in

the day and we'll be like, oh man, you know, I, I didn't

really understand what that meant at the time, but you know,

Mallard said something in our study group and it, and that

passage I read this morning came back and, and it, and now I want

to know more about it. And it sparked something, right?

What else? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yes,

yeah, it does. It needs to be intentional that

we do. And we put it on the schedule,

right? But let me just tell you, maybe

maybe like, you know, you want to start going for a walk every

every evening or whatever. And you, you tell somebody and

you say, you know, hey, Oscar, I, I want to go for a walk every

night. Don't let me chicken out.

Don't let me tell you my feet hurt.

Don't let me tell you I'm too busy.

Sometimes it's an accountability, you know, like

their accountability is a big part of our walk.

And so sometimes it's just a commitment to somebody that,

hey, we're going to, we're going to do this.

In fact, my son and I just this morning I was telling him, let's

start doing this Bible study together every day.

And I said, even if I for some reason come up with an excuse

not to, you need to do it. Well, come and talk to me and

let's do this together. We were just having this, you

know, this talk this morning. We're going to start a new

study. But, but that's that way on

those days when I'm a little busy or I'm not feeling or

whatever somebody else is going, Hey, I, I need this though,

right? I need to go read through this

because my day will start off improperly as well.

How are you practicing the use of God's Word so as to be

prepared when you face temptation?

Anybody utilizing scripture in a way to to help them when they're

struggling with with being tempted somehow in in whatever?

Together you try and memorize them together that way.

Is there a tactic or a or a method to where you put them?

Yeah. To memorize, Yeah.

Yeah. Anybody have any other

methodologies for dealing with using Scripture for to, to deal

with temptation? I'll tell you an example of.

Oh, go ahead. Yeah.

So you use it to help other people that way too?

Yeah. That's a yeah, right.

My mom was telling me the other day that in fact she just

reminded me of something that she's had at her house on her on

her fridge for since I was a little kid.

As a post it note that says says nothing tastes as good as being

thin feels right. She put that remember where her

temptation was at the fridge. Sometimes if if if we're dealing

with something that's like whatever it is that we're

worried about being tempted by scripture can work that way and

be more even more. Would love if a specific area

where I was struggling to be reminded of this, you know,

perhaps even in that moment, maybe maybe it's something at

work, maybe I'm a different person at work.

And I and I put up some reminders at work that way to

remind me that way. So when I'm tempted to, to drift

into being somebody else, I'm reminded through scripture

because I have those reminders there.

I think that's why we get some of these, you know, stitched

quilts and stuff like that. And it's a good right.

We they're a good reminder to have have this this passage that

reminds US of a of a biblical principle that we want to hold

on to. And it's nice to have them, you

know, at easy access in our in our lives.

And yeah, absolutely that's the idea.

And I mean, it's and it doesn't necessarily mean that we need to

go write it on our front gate. It's but the concept of having

the reminders of of God and and his word throughout our life, it

helps us to deal with with these things.

The way the reason why they they wore those frontlets was so that

it was in in front of them for that specific reason.

Yeah. It's that simple, huh?

Yeah. Yeah, absolutely.

And now let's just you know, you don't have to have the whole

book memorized in order to be effective, right.

But, but it is definitely, it is definitely to our benefit and to

our friends benefit. If when they come to me with

something, whether it's a critique or it's a complaint

about scripture or a genuine question about it, or if it's

just a life question about, hey, I'm thinking about doing this

thing in my life. You have any advice for me?

If we have the ability to come from a place of God's word in

that, that is an effective way of, of discipling people.

Because here's the thing, like sometimes when we see Jesus

quoting the Bible in the Bible, he's not quoting the Bible.

He's paraphrasing the Bible. He's not.

It's not necessarily a word for word quotation.

He's going and he's paraphrasing now.

He, he understands that. It's not like he it's not

because he didn't have it word for word.

But I think we can take something from that and not be

afraid to explain a point if we can't speak it verbatim, right?

There's a place where but we got to know this text in order to

have the spirit of it. Go ahead, Toby.

Yeah, yeah, because yeah, knowing it so that we can

recognize what's not scripture is what you're saying.

In our culture, we definitely have that right.

We definitely have, sometimes we have these, these theological

religion based conversations and, and we can sometimes be

presented with something and, and go is that the Bible is

being quoted or, or some other religious texts that I'm not

familiar with. And so I mean, that can happen.

There's a, you know, there's a lot of, there's a lot of words

and a lot of sentences in, you know, in, in scripture.

So we might not be able to to identify them immediately, but

the more we read Scripture, the more we're going to be able to

recognize something that is not actual scripture.

Right. And then we could do again,

similar to what Jesus did with Satan when he said that's not

scripture. I mean, he didn't say that, but

he, he countered it with truthful Scripture when when

Satan misused it. We got a couple of minutes.

But how could you lean on the Holy Spirit's help in doing

battle for the Kingdom of God each day?

Say that again. Pray.

Yeah. You ever pray the Bible?

Yeah. It's there's something beautiful

about praying Scripture, praying God's Word back to him.

That's a that's an aspect of it. What else can we do to lean on

the Holy Spirit's help? That's

yeah, that's straight back to the to the second Timothy 316

passage about all scripture being God breathed right.

That's that's there is where the authority of Scripture comes as

it is literally the breath of God-given to us and maintained

and and and passed down through the the generations for us to be

able to go and look at right like this.

The the same that the same Canon, the same word of God that

was available to, you know, the the 1st century Christians as

they were trying to figure out their way is the same thing that

we've got. We have them.

We get to we get to quote God Almighty and go straight to his

heart to understand how we then manipulate ourselves to align

with him and how we look at the the world.

What else? What else can we lean on the

holy? Or how else can we lean on the

Holy Spirit's help? Yeah, right.

Absolutely. The Great Commission is just as

in place for us as it was for the 1st century Christians,

right. And the amazing thing is that

they didn't, they didn't all have God's word in their in

their phones, right? Most of those guys 2000 years

ago didn't even carry phones, but but they didn't have that

but, but they, but they still relied on God's word as preached

to them and as as memorized and carried then to the to all the

all of the nations and tribes and tongues.

OK, anything else but it it's 10 next week we're going to do a

summation of this series and then we'll get into a another

series following that which we will get into the the attributes

of of God. But unless there's anything

else, let me just pray yes, out and into the rest of our day.

Lord God, I thank you. I thank you for the sword of the

spirit. I thank you that we have

something like this that defends us from the attacks because in

our humanity, attacks from from Satan can can seem daunting and

overwhelming. And yet, Lord, we know that

there is victory in your word. We know that you have ultimate

victory. And so it's, it's a, it's a joy

and it's a, it's a peace. And it gives us hope to have

your word that we can rely on, that we can lean on and then be

empowered through the Holy Spirit as that, as that same

word that defended us then is turned inward in US, Lord, in

our lives, in our hearts, and is used to surgically cut out those

things. They go against you that we know

all of us in this room know that we have that that we as much as

we don't want to admit it, there's places that sometimes we

try to hide. And Lord, I'm thankful that your

word cut so sharply into those recesses of our heart to get

those things out of there so that we can be more in line with

you. Because as much as we hold on to

those, those sins that we think that we, we, we like or even

love, Lord, we love you more. We want to, we want to be closer

to you than we are to that sin. And so we're grateful that we

have that to root out, to cut it out of our life.

And we, we just hope that today with the, as we continue on with

our service with the song word and the preached word, that it

will continue to, to cut that, that cancerous junk out of our

life, Lord, and, and help us to be more in line with you.

And we give the service to you in Jesus name, Amen.

Thanks guys.