Or should Paul have written, “Take the sword of the Spirit which is what you have heard someone say, “That’s in the Bible.”

It’s amazing; most people will tell you that they’ve heard what’s in the Bible, but they haven’t read the Bible.  They’ll say, “Like the Bible says, ‘God helps those who help themselves.’”  [No, Benjamin Franklin said that.]

“Like the Bible says, “Honesty is the best policy.” [That’s been attributed to Shakespeare and Lincoln.  Mark Twain said, “Honesty is the best policy --when there’s money in it.”]

Like the Bible says, “Cleanliness is next to godliness.”  [John Wesley said it, and what he actually said was, “Being clean is a sign of spiritual purity or goodness, as in  ‘Don't forget to wash your ears--cleanliness is next to godliness.’”  

When Paul tells us to take up the sword of the Spirit, he’s comparing the Bible to a special Roman sword, the μάχαιρα (machaira) the short Roman sword.  The Bible is the only offensive weapon in the uniform as Paul gives it.  Someone wrote, “Taking up the Sword of the Spirit is the appropriate Scripture spoken or put to use by the Christian in a given instance of temptation (e.g., Matt.4:4, 6, 10). As Jesus used the words of Scripture to repulse the tempter, so must the Christian the words the Spirit has inspired to drive away Satan. The Holy Spirit both gives the word and empowers it as we use it. It is His Sword.”

Without knowledge of the sword, you don’t know what God wants you to do when the temptation comes.  It’s the sword that tells us what’s right and wrong. 

There is no substitute for the sword and your use of it.  If you’ve been a believer for a few years and you don’t know hardly anything about the Bible, you ought to be ashamed of yourself because that’s your Sword.  In the military there is “The Manual of Arms,” by which the soldier knows his weapon backwards and forward.  He can take it apart and put it together blindfolded.  A soldier who doesn’t know his weapon is in danger and is a danger to others.

In my opinion, what far too many people do is to go by what somebody said was in the Bible, but we don’t check it out  and we let it go because that’s what everybody says and has said for so long, in some of the quotes, for 200 years.  What do we call that?  Tradition.  Tradition assumes the ultimate authority.

Jesus had something to say about tradition, the democracy of the dead: “Thus you nullify the word of God by your tradition that you have handed down. And you do many things like that." 

The Jews had this body of written works on the Old Testament Law and the Pharisees went by what their written tradition said about the God’s Word than what the Word said.  It had gotten to the point that the Jews had written instructions that if the traditions said one thing and the Old Testament said another, the traditions trumped the Bible.  The Jews were not allowed to question the traditions. 

Paul is getting ready to leave the elders of the Ephesian church.  He’ll never see them again.  He has a warning: “Keep watch over yourselves and all the flock of which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers. Be shepherds of the church of God , which he bought with his own blood.  I know that after I leave, savage wolves will come in among you and will not spare the flock.  Even from your own number men will arise and distort the truth in order to draw away disciples after them.  So be on your guard! Remember that for three years I never stopped warning each of you night and day with tears.”

Savage wolves?  Pretty harsh words on Paul’s part.  Did that happen?    

Paul and the apostles left the church with the truth, just as Jesus promised in the Upper Room Discourse.  They’ve written it on parchment.  Then along come the next generation of church leaders and they are the wolves coming from, as Paul predicted, the inside.

But in church history, we don’t call them “wolves.”  Not at all.  In fact, in most places today their written wolverine works are esteemed and their images are in stained glass church windows.  No, we don’t call them “wolves,” we call them “the church fathers,” or sometimes the “apostolic fathers.”  That sounds much better than “wolves” and the words, “church fathers” disarm us and make us think we can relax our grip on the Sword of the Spirit which is the Word of God. 

“Would you like to have your morning cornflakes served with milk, fruit, and bugkiller … or would you just as soon pass on the bugkiller?

“Unfortunately, you might not have a choice. Aventis Inc., a biotech seed conglomerate based in France , sells a genetically-altered corn seed that it calls StarLink. The company's bioengineers have genetically inserted into these seeds a protein that acts as a pesticide, killing bugs that feed on corn plants.”

That’s an article from March 3, 2001.

In Matthew 13, Jesus tells a story about a farmer planting the good seed of the gospel.  But what if later on, Satan tampers with the seed and puts bug killer in it?  I’m going throw out some names of the wolves in farmer’s clothing who tampered with the seed of the gospel, and from now on, when you hear their names, feel free to boo.

All of the “church fathers” were infected with some false doctrine, and most of them were seriously infected. Even the so-called Apostolic Fathers of the second century were teaching the false gospel that baptism, celibacy, and martyrdom provided forgiveness of sin.

It was these church fathers who poisoned the seed by starting the idea that all previous sins were forgiven at baptism, but the believer’s sins after baptism weren’t forgiven.  What they were saying was: Christ’s work on the cross was insufficient, incomplete, that He did not die for all our sins. What they were saying was that faith alone was not enough, that works must be added to faith.

So they had a problem of their own making.  If Christ’s death doesn’t provide for post-baptismal sins, what does?  From this developed the idea of doing penance for sins.  After your baptism, they said, YOU take care of your sins through an imposed system of works assigned to you.  This means the “church” controls you and keeps you in fear.

Now, how does all this fit in with what we’re seeing about the necessity of the Bible alone as the sole authority, not tradition?  These church fathers and their writings were held in such high esteem that they trumped the Bible.  You did not question the Church Fathers and they held power over people through their writings for 1500 years!  Just as the Jews holding on to their traditions, the Fathers were not to be questioned either.

The church fathers tampered with the seed of the gospel of grace and poisoned it.  Today for some, they still hold great power. For 1500 years, the sword was the tradition of the church fathers.  

You are going to use a sword.  The question is, “Which sword?”  People use the sword of tradition in the sense that they go by, “I heard someone say the Bible says, ‘Jesus loves me this I know” and “If I love Him when I die, He will take me home on high.”    No, whether the believer loves Him or not, He has promised to take him home on high.  Nothing shall be able to separate the believer from the love of God. ( Rom. 8)  In this case, a wonderful children’s song (at least the first verse of it) has poisoned the seed.  People sing it without examining it because tradition demands, “Sing it!”

But you don’t know they poisoned the seed unless you go the Bible and read the gospel of John, or Titus 3:5, or Romans 4:4-5 among other passages and then you say, “The church fathers were heretics!” 

Muslims in the western Indian town of Solapur line up to drop their babies off a 15 yard tall tower in a shrine, catching them in a white sheet. The ritual, which has taken place for more than half a millennium, is believed to make the children grow up healthy and strong. The faithful claim there have never been any injuries during this ritual which has lasted over 500 years.  You don’t question this tradition; your throw your baby off a tower.  Unchecked tradition is dangerous and doubly dangerous when it comes to what people say about the Bible

How do you use the Sword of the Spirit?  Satan’s attack comes to get you to doubt, deny, and disregard the Word of God.  The way some people think, he comes to get a person to drink, smoke, or play cards.  But no, he comes to get you to doubt, deny, and disregard the Word of God.  Once that happens, the rest will follow.  But you take up the Sword and you use the Word of God: “Thy word is truth;” “Your word is a light to my feet and a lamp to my path.” 

That’s the problem with many churches; the Bible isn’t their sword: tradition is, “what we feel” is, or “what we like” is.  Traditions, feelilngs and likes all combine as an unholy Trinity to trump the Bible. 

When Luther stood before his inquisitors who were threatening him if he didn’t change his mind about honoring the Church Fathers as the Roman church and popes had done, that is with an unquestioning loyalty, he looked at them and said, “Unless I am convicted by Scripture and plain reason—I do not accept the authority of popes and councils, for they have contradicted each other—my conscience is captive to the Word of God.  I cannot ad will not recant anything, for to go against conscience is neither right nor safe.  Here is stand, I cannot do otherwise.  God help me.  Amen.”

TRUTH TO TAKE HOME: YOU HAVE A SWORD. WIELD IT.