“For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. 4. The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds.” NIV
In our text Paul was defending his ministry to the Corinthian church. There were many in the Corinthian church that were critical of Paul. They did not like his preaching style. They did not think that he was a genuine apostle, because he had not been with the original twelve. They thought that he was “bold” in his letters, but “timid” when he was with them. Paul hinted in this passage that when he came to visit them, they would find out how “timid” he was. He warned them that the weapons that he would use would not be weapons of the world. His weapons had “divine power to demolish strongholds.” Paul did not name those weapons, so what you will get in this article is what I think those weapons were. I want you to realize that this is my opinion, but I think that you will agree that these virtues are weapons that we can use in spiritual warfare. (Paul gives a description of the Christian’s armor in Ephesians 5, but most of them are defensive, except for the “sword.” I think that these weapons that I will list would be involved in our armor.) The first weapon that we have as Christians is Holy Spirit power. In Ephesians 5:17, Paul mentioned “the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.” The Holy Spirit serves as our weapon against strongholds in at least two ways. One is that when we are saved, we are given the Holy Spirit to work inside of us to lead, guide and teach us. We have His presence every day to help us combat evil. Another way is that the Holy Spirit inspired the word of God, which we have to prepare us for the battles that we will face in the world. Have you ever wondered why godless people want to ban the Bible? It is because they know that God’s word has the power of the Holy Spirit and they want to keep it out of our hands, heads and hearts. Miss Doris Knight was a missionary to China during the Japanese takeover and was there when the communists took over. She was retired and a member of the first church I pastored. When Miss Doris knew that the Bible would be banned, she began to memorize massive amounts of scripture. Her sister told me that she had seen her pretend to read from her Bible, but she was really quoting it. She did this because she knew that the word of God is the sword of the Spirit, and she would need it in case her Bible was taken away from her. We could not face the evils of the world without the Holy Spirit. The second weapon that we have as Christians is our faith in Jesus Christ. We should never underestimate the power of faith to defeat the evils of the world. Jesus said that if we have faith as small as a mustard seed, we can remove mountains. We grow in faith in measure, that is, we grow in faith as we live in it daily. But the faith that we have is the same weapon that Paul, Peter and the other great Christians in the New Testament and in Christian history had. We activate that faith when we digest the word of God and when we pray. Prayer could actually be classified as another weapon, but faith and prayer work together in our lives. I have found that when I have gone through difficult times in my life that my faith was strengthened by taking everything to God in prayer. Faith and prayer bring the power of God to bear in our lives. Paul pointed this out in one of my favorite passages, Philippians 4:6-7: “Be careful for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving make your requests known unto God. 7. And the peace which passes all understanding shall keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.” That is a great example of faith and prayer working together. If you are a believer, you have these weapons. Use them!!! Bro. Joe
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