New Weapons

Heb 4:12 For the word of God is living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, and of joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.

First, it is the Bible which is the Word of God mentioned in Hebrews 4:12. There is not the slightest hint that this verse refers to revelations yet to come. The Bible is living and powerful. The Bible is alive to this day. It gives spirit and life to all who believe it.

John 6:63 “It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing. The words that I speak to you are spirit, and they are life.

The Words of God are eternally relevant simply because it is God Who spoke them. They are brought to life by the power of the spirit to uproot the Devil’s weeds and to nurture the Truth in our hearts.

Eph 6:17 And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God;

How sharp is this sword of the spirit? How sharp is the Bible? Sharper than any blade! Stronger than any shield, more powerful than any weapon. There is no more than the most! The Bible has all that power contained within it because the Bible is the Word of God, and the Word is God.

John 1:1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

How much power is that? Quite simply, all that there is!

Matt 28:18 And Jesus came and spake unto them, saying, All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth. (KJV)

Jesus’ words have within them might and power.

Rev 1:16 He had in His right hand seven stars, out of His mouth went a sharp two-edged sword, and His countenance was like the sun shining in its strength.

How much strength does Jesus have? His face alone has the strength of the sun! The Words of His mouth are like the flaming sword in Genesis three that turned in every direction to keep the way to the tree of life.

Now we mustn’t assume that this flaming sword of the Word of God is solely used for shredding demons. That certainly is indicated by the passage in Ephesians six, but we entertain a rather shallow viewpoint if we reach the limit of spiritual power after a self-satisfying, self-glorious shootout with a demon or two. Hebrews 4:12 should instil in us the fear of God, or perhaps the utter terror of God when He with the mighty sword turns to face us, with His strength putting the sun to shame. John saw this happen, and it almost killed him.

Rev 1:17 And when I saw Him, I fell at His feet as dead. But He laid His right hand on me, saying to me, “Do not be afraid; I am the First and the Last.

If it were not for the touch of the mighty hand of Jesus Christ the First and the Last, then the mighty sword of the Word which proceeds out of His mouth would have killed John on the spot, leaving the Bible one book short!

Hebrews 4:12 says that the Word of God will indeed turn to face us and will cut deeper into our heart than we have ever been cut before. Every dark corner of our heart must be surgically removed. We mustn’t expect anaesthetic!

This fearsome sword will slice into the depths of our mind, it will dissect our emotions, our reactions, our justifications. Our pride of service to God will be amputated as a cancer, our motives will be laid bare, exposed in the white hot light of God’s Truth, and all that was done without the Holy Spirit’s motivation will be burnt.

Heb 10:31 It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.

Matthew Henry’s Commentary on Heb 4:12:

(3.) it is sharper than any two-edged sword; it cuts both ways; it is the sword of the Spirit, <Eph. 6:17>. It is the two-edged sword that cometh out of the mouth of Christ, <Rev. 1:16>. It is sharper than any two-edged sword, for it will enter where no other sword can, and make a more critical dissection: it pierces to the dividing asunder of the soul and the spirit, the soul and its habitual prevailing temper; it makes a soul that has been a long time of a proud spirit to be humble, of a perverse spirit to be meek and obedient. Those sinful habits that have become as it were natural to the soul, and rooted deeply in it, and become in a manner one with it, are separated and cut off by this sword. It cuts off ignorance from the understanding, rebellion from the will, and enmity from the mind, which, when carnal, is enmity itself against God. This sword divides between the joints and the marrow, the most secret, close, and intimate parts of the body; this sword can cut off the lusts of the flesh as well as the lusts of the mind, and make men willing to undergo the sharpest operation for the mortifying of sin.

(4.) it is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart, even the most secret and remote thoughts and designs. It will discover to men the variety of their thoughts and purposes, the vileness of them, the bad principles they are actuated by, the sinister and sinful ends they act to. The word will turn the inside of a sinner out, and let him see all that is in his heart. Now such a word as this must needs be a great help to our faith and obedience.

(from Matthew Henry's Commentary)

The power of God

God has all power. We should never be so presumptuous as to entertain the fanciful notion that the sole purpose of God’s mighty power is to enable us to appear victorious before legions of devils, or to appear heroic in the eyes of men. So as we read the following verses, we must remember that our spiritual maturity is determined by how much we can apply Scripture to our own heart, instead of using it as a tool to exalt ourselves or to magnify one of our pet doctrines.

Heb 12:29 For our God is a consuming fire.

Jer 5:14 Therefore thus says the LORD God of hosts: “Because you speak this word, behold, I will make My words in your mouth fire, and this people wood, and it shall devour them”.

Jer 23:29 “Is not My word like a fire?” says the LORD, “And like a hammer that breaks the rock in pieces?

Hosea 6:5 Therefore I have hewn them by the prophets, I have slain them by the words of My mouth; and your judgments are like light that goes forth.

Isa 40:7-8

7 The grass withers, the flower fades, because the breath of the LORD blows upon it; surely the people are grass.

8 The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God stands forever.”

The Bible will one day stand to judge us and all that we have done. No other book will be there. There will not be a single Bible commentary, not a single ML or GN, nor a word of this web site. The Bible will stand, like the sun, burning deep into our lives, and our only hope will lie in total submission to this fearsome power, for the slightest resistance would instantly destroy us. The Word of God in the Bible brings life or death, it is spirit and it is life.

All this is true. We must, however, remember that not only is the Word of God a sword for destroying the evil in our hearts, in our lives, and in the world, the Bible is also depicted as life-giving, cleansing water. Once the false has been removed, God can plant the new seeds of Truth (which is also the Word of God in the Bible) and water us with His refreshing, living Words of the water of life.

This study, however, will continue to focus on the Family’s doctrine that they have received, in these last days, new weapons with more power than the old.

Here is the bottom line: God has all power. The Bible, as the Word of God has all power. The Bible is no mere book, but a living, eternal force that will search out the depths of our heart and spirit. There is no more power than ‘all power’; that is the most there is. Therefore if we receive some new spiritual weapon, we are not getting a stronger weapon, but a weaker one!

If indeed the Family has any new spiritual weapons, they can only be feeble and flimsy, fragile and ineffective, forceless and frail when confronted with the almighty power that God breathed into the Bible!

The Bible is power, and attempting to access power from any other source is like cutting off our hands to emphasise our arms. Worse, it is a vain attempt to evade the searching light of God, from which no one can hide.

Now, what if we don’t seem to be able to appropriate the mighty power that is in the Bible? What if it seems like we have more power or authority when we use one of the Family’s ‘new weapons’?

Unfortunately, that would not speak well of us. The Bible’s mighty power is out of our reach only if we don’t believe it.

Heb 4:1-2

1 Therefore, since a promise remains of entering His rest, let us fear lest any of you seem to have come short of it.

2 For indeed the gospel was preached to us as well as to them; but the word which they heard did not profit them, not being mixed with faith in those who heard it.

If our best effort is to latch onto ‘new’ weapons in an impotent attempt to replace God’s mighty power, this only proves our lack of faith in the Bible, it bears witness to our estrangement from God’s Word, and this indeed is a fearful thing.

All is not lost, however, if we return to the Bible, and allow His sword to cleanse our heart and mind. No, there will be no anaesthetic! Only then will we be able to be filled with the power of God, or as it says in second Peter, partake of the divine nature.

2 Pet 1:4 by which have been given to us exceedingly great and precious promises, that through these you may be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.

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