The Sword of the LORD

“And He began to say to them, Today this Scripture is fulfilled in your hearing. ” (Luke 4:21 NKJV).   Jesus had just been in the wilderness for forty days of fasting.  It was the Spirit of God that led Him there.  At the end of His fast Satan tried to divert the Lord from the purpose that He had been sent to earth to fulfill.  Of course, Satan failed in his attempts, and Jesus returned out of the wilderness "in the power of the Spirit" and entered into Galilee.   At that time Galilee was one of three provinces in Palestine - Judea and Samaria were the other two.  It was referred to as "Galilee of the Gentiles" because of the large percentage of Gentiles that inhabited the area.  To say that the "purer" Israelites of Judea looked down their noses at the Galileans, and felt superior to them, would be an understatement.  When Philip first told Nathaniel about Jesus, Nathaniel’s comment was, "Can there any good thing come out of Nazareth?"...

"Behold, Thou desirest truth in the inward parts: and in the hidden part Thou shalt make me to know wisdom." (Psalm 51:5).   God desires that we be honest with Him.   He is interested in both what we do, and why we do it.   Our actions may seem good on the surface, but the Lord searches out our innermost intentions.   He examines our motives to see if our works are wrought in Him, or are "self" propelled.   In another Psalm, David says, "Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts: and see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting." (Psalm 139:23, 24).   David realized that the heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked; therefore we need the Lord's help in discerning what makes us tick.   In 1 Corinthians chapter 13, Paul explains that if he were to possess the faith to move mountains, or give all that he had to the poor, or even give himself up as a martyr to the Lord, yet, if...

"Speak ye comfortably to Jerusalem, and cry unto her, that her warfare is accomplished, that her iniquity is pardoned . " (Isaiah 40:2).    2 Chronicles, chapters 17-20, tells the story of Jehoshaphat, king of Judah, who lived during the 10th century B.C.   Jehoshaphat was a good king.   Scripture tells us, "his heart was lifted up in the ways of the Lord." (2 Chronicles 17:6).    He was not a perfect man, however.   He made the mistake of allying himself with Ahab, king of Israel, against the Syrians.   This displeased the Lord because Ahab was a very wicked man who had led Israel away from worshipping God and taught them to worship Baal instead.   It is said of Ahab, "Ahab did more to provoke the LORD God of Israel to anger than all the kings of Israel that were before him." (1 Kings 16:33).   After the battle with the Syrians in which Ahab was mortally wounded and Jehoshaphat escaped with his life only because of God's divine...

“As ye have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk ye in Him: rooted and built up in Him, and established in the faith, as ye have been taught, abounding therein with thanksgiving.” (Colossians 2:6, 7).   As I think about it today, it wasn’t all that difficult to receive Christ as my Savior.   I had been brought to a point in my life where I knew I’d messed up and couldn’t fix things or go back and change the choices I had already made that had brought me down the road that I was on.   I needed help, and more than that, I needed forgiveness.   I didn’t need a theologian to tell me I’d offended my Creator.   What little I knew about God was enough to tell me I’d blown it.   That’s when someone found me and told me about Jesus.   I was amazed to hear that my past could be forgiven, and that I could have a clean slate to write my life on.   It wasn’t difficult – I simply believed it.   As a gift from heaven, I just accepted it and...

As John the Baptist began preaching in the wilderness of Judea, his message was simple and direct: “Repent ye: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”   He was sent to call Israel to repentance, but also to announce the imminent appearance of the Messiah, Jesus Christ, and the usher in a new dispensation of grace.  Later, after John was cast in prison, Jesus began His earthly ministry by proclaiming much the same message as John’s.  He said, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand: repent ye, and believe the gospel.”   The “time” that Jesus mentions being fulfilled here is the time (or dispensation) of the law and the prophets.  This we know because He says in Luke 16:16, “ The law and the prophets were until John : since that time the kingdom of God is preached, and every man presseth into it.”     That the preaching of the kingdom of heaven was to take center stage in the Gospel Message is evident because it is mentioned 118 times i...

" And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil ..."  (Matthew 6:13) Growing up, I was taught to recite the Lord's Prayer in Sunday school, and I committed it to memory at an early age.   It wasn't until years later, however, that the words began to sink in, and then only little by little as the Lord opened my understanding to what I had learned.   Most recently, though, I was brought up short by the words quoted above.   I have always considered that temptation was an inevitable part of life, and that there was nothing that I could do to avoid it, but these words promise something altogether different than I had ever considered.   They indicate that the Lord is willing to lead me in such a way that I will not walk into temptation blindly, and that He is able to deliver me from the evil that would seek to divert me from following Him.   When Jesus went to the garden of Gethsemane to pray before His betrayal and ultimate crucifixion, hi...

"Now the word of the LORD came unto Jonah the son of Amittai, saying, Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and cry against it; for their wickedness is come up before Me.  But Jonah rose up to flee unto Tarshish from the presence of the LORD." (Jonah 1:1-3).   As much as we hate to admit it, there is, at times, a little bit of Jonah in all of us.  It's that carnal, selfish side of us that rises up and says, "I want to do what I want to do!"  Even when we know it's not a good choice, we choose it anyway.  Paul experienced it, and wrote about it in his letter to the Roman believers.  He said, "For that which I do, I allow not: for what I would, that do I not; but what I hate, that do I." (Romans 7:15).  In other words, the things that he hated doing, and in his mind he wouldn't allow himself to do, he did anyway; and the things that he knew were right and good, he found that he had trouble doing.  It's sort of like our New Year's res...

" For the earnest expectation of the creature waiteth for the manifestation of the sons of God" (Romans 8:15-19).   "Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when He shall appear, we shall be like Him; for we shall see Him as He is.   And every man that hath this hope in him purifieth himself, even as He is pure" (1 John 3:2, 3).   Each of us who have been born again by the Spirit of God has been adopted into the family of God.   From the outset we are fully sons and daughters just as surely as our own children are our sons and daughters the moment they are born.   In terms of maturity, however, we have a lot of growing up to do in order to become fully functioning children of God.   It isn't apparent, looking at ourselves now, just what we will look like or be like once we grow to full maturity.   What is evident, though, is that the more we discover of the Lord Jesus and His true natu...