The Soldier’s Weapons

Can I invite you to turn with me to Ephesians chapter 6, where, in the section that begins at verse 10, we have looked somewhat briefly in these last couple of weeks at this whole matter of the warfare in which we engage and the armor we’re provided? And we left it last evening in the opening phrase of verse 17:

“Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the saints.”

Father, we pray that as we look together at these verses this evening, that the Spirit of God will be our teacher, illumining the printed page to our waiting hearts, so that in discovering again the truth of your Word, we may live in obedience to it and we may live to the praise of your glory. For we ask it in Jesus’ name. Amen.

Most of the treatments of this particular section of Scripture that you find in books—namely, in commentaries—follow along from verse 17a into the remaining part of 17 and into 18 and deal with both “the sword of the Spirit … the word of God” and prayer under the same heading of the weapons of the armor for the Christian. But in actual fact, there is a difference between the helmet and all that has preceded it and the sword, which is now brought to our attention, because when we come to the sword of the Spirit and to prayer, we actually leave the armor behind, and we come to the matter of our weaponry. And here we are given to us the offensive elements of our Christian warfare. There has been provided for us all that is necessary to be able to stand in the evil day, with little emphasis made on a consideration of our backs, as it were. It would seem that we are standing face-on to the antagonism and warfare that is ours to engage in. And then, having concluded that, Paul says, “And I want to identify for you your weapons so that you make sure that you’re using the right weapons in engaging in the right warfare.” And of these he mentions two.

The Sword Is Historically Interesting

First of all, “the sword of the Spirit.” Some of you, I know, are particularly interested in military battles and skirmishes and warfare from particular periods of history. And some of you, I know, have actually visited in Scotland and have been enthralled by the massive and wonderful display in Edinburgh Castle, the capital of Scotland, of weaponry that goes right back down through the years—into the ninth and tenth century, as it turns out. And when you go through those particular pieces of the museum, you come across these incredible swords—the two-handed or double-handed swords—many of which are hanging on the wall. And it becomes apparent very quickly that one had to be particularly strong to be able to wield one of these things, and most of the swords that I have seen were actually considerably larger than myself and may even have been almost as heavy as myself.

And so, I look at them in the late twentieth century. I admire them. I’m struck by the fact of their historicity and their interest. But while I find them historically interesting, I’m forced to conclude that they are, at the present point in history, practically useless. They would not be issued to any of the troops that are currently in Bosnia, nor would they have been given into the warfare of the Gulf War or actually any other war for the longest time. Because although they are marked by these historical qualities, they are practically useless.

Now, that is largely the picture which many people take in relationship to the Word of God: that somehow or another, “the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God,” is, in the minds of many people, historically interesting and yet practically useless. “Surely,” say men and women, “you don’t believe that book, do you? Surely you don’t think that it is without error? Surely you’re not going to base your life upon it? I would be surprised,” says someone, “to think that you would read it on a daily basis. Why don’t you just put it in a cabinet somewhere? Why don’t you put it under glass? And you can pass by and look at it and be reminded of its historical orthodoxy and yet at the same time recognize its practical sterility.”

Now, we would not or should not be surprised by that. The foremost attack of the Evil One from the very beginning was an attack on the Word of God. If you look, for example, in Genesis 3, just to pinpoint this in our minds, we read in verse 1, “Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, ‘Did God really say, “You must not eat from any tree in the garden?”’” So the first attack of the Evil One was an attack on the authenticity of the Word of God: “Are you sure that God really said that?” And of course, his insinuation was he didn’t.

And down through the corridors of time, his strategy has changed very little. And there has been forthright and subtle and circuitous attacks on the Word of God to devalue in the minds of men and women the priority and place of the Word of God in order that the Evil One, engaging in warfare against the people of God, may be far more successful than he might otherwise be. If he can get the people of God to doubt the weapons of their warfare, to set aside the weapons of their warfare, then, of course, it is going to be very easy for him to gain great victories.

And without being alarmist in any way this evening, the fact of the matter is that in our present generation, the average awareness of the truth of the Word of God—working knowledge of the Scriptures—by a man in his forties is significantly less than what would have been so at the turn of the century for a boy or a girl aged twelve or thirteen. For they would have been brought up and nurtured in the church, catechized alongside the truth of the Word of God, shared with the truth of Scripture to such a degree that they would have committed vast portions of it to memory, and they would have been equipped in such a way so as to be able not to wave the Bible like a banner but to be able to wield the Bible like a sword—to be able to answer the stupid statements of pagans not in a bombastic way but in a clear way as a result of taking the sword of the Spirit and using it powerfully.

Now, part of the problem has been that in the attack of the Evil One over time, he has been successful in suggesting to men and women that somehow or another, the historical claims for the Bible are fatuous; that… And, for example, this is primarily so at the turn of this century—the early parts of this century. Karl Marx was at the forefront of much of this, suggesting to men and women, writing about the idea, that Christianity arose in the second century and that Jesus was actually a mythological figure; that he had been invented about two hundred years after he didn’t exist and that he was then made much of in the various documents which these people had conjured up, and when the New Testament was said to be written, it was actually a historically worthless document. And many people at the turn of the century in America, as well as in Britain, grew up in churches where that was actually taught from the pulpit. And consequently, they grew up without any notion of confidence in the Bible itself. And they were always surprised that anybody would be particularly concerned about the Bible in terms of its practical usefulness rather than simply acknowledging its historical interest.

Now, I want to say to you tonight, for some who are wondering about this—and I want to just drop down on this in passing—that the authority and the authenticity of the Bible, particularly the New Testament documents, has far more to substantiate it than most other historical literature. Indeed, no ancient document or selection of documents have come down to us with such a wealth of manuscript tradition as have the Gospels. We have copies of the Gospels (when I say “we,” the church does in various places throughout the world) that go back to well within a century of their compilation—that is, in the latter part of the first century AD And when I say we have them, we don’t have them extant or intact; we have pieces—so that they are there within a relatively short time after the events taking place.

Consider that in contrast to the gap which exists between the time when Tacitus wrote, which is about fifty years after Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, and the earliest surviving manuscript of Tacitus’s work, which is found eight hundred years later. Eight hundred years after he wrote it, you get the first document. And nobody asks whether Tacitus wrote the truth. No one asks whether Tacitus was a good historian. No one spends their time calling in question the veracity of his word. But here we have the New Testament documents within sixty or a hundred years of the time, and everybody’s up in arms to say, “Oh, you surely can’t believe that that is historical stuff?” Livy, who was a contemporary of the Evangelists, writing at the same time as Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John—there is a gap between his writing, and the earliest manuscript which we have from him is eleven hundred years after he was there. When you take the secular writers of ancient history, you have about two or three pieces of manuscript which attest to the text of those writers. When you take the text of the New Testament, you have literally hundreds of documents.

Now, if you doubt this, you need only to begin to study, begin to go to the university, begin to read with an open heart and an open mind. In Manchester University, for example, we have a fragment of John’s Gospel which is dated between AD 100 and AD 125; also, a Qumran fragment of Mark’s Gospel, which dates to before AD 68—and that is when the Qumran community was overrun by the Romans and the caves were sealed. So by the time the Romans overran the Qumran community, they had already copies of the Gospel marked down within immediate proximity of the events described in the Gospel.

Now, what should that tell you? Well, it ought to tell you this: that by the matter of a passing of less than hardly a generation, the New Testament was not only written; it was on its way to being compiled. And if the Gospel writers had been coming up with wild and wonderful stories about Jesus and his deeds, there were still plenty of people around to say, “That’s a lot of nonsense.” Because it wasn’t eleven hundred years afterwards. And eleven hundred years afterwards, there ain’t nobody around who can call in question what you’re saying. But fifty or sixty years afterwards, somebody’s going to say, “Now, now, don’t be making that stuff up!”

The Roman historians Tacitus and Pliny, along with the Jewish historian Josephus—and you can read these guys—attest to what archaeological sources confirm. In other words, if you read two Roman and one Jewish historian about this person Jesus, this is what you’ll discover: they attest within a matter of a short period of time after the time of Christ. In their writings, you may discover this without a Bible. Without reading a Bible, you may find from two Roman and one Jewish historians these truths concerning Christ: one, he was born of a virgin; two, he performed miracles; three, he was executed by Pilate; four, it took place in thick darkness; five, at the time of the Passover; six, he claimed to be God; seven, he said that he’d leave and come back; eight, that he was the Messiah; nine, that he rose from the tomb; ten, that he had disciples; and eleven, these disciples worshipped him as God.[1] So the secular Jewish and Roman historians, with no ax to grind, simply chronicling the events of this Jesus of Nazareth, affirm the veracity of the New Testament documents themselves.

So you see, behind all of that… And I commend to you, for example, F. F. Bruce’s marvelous little book The New Testament Documents: Are They Reliable?[2] Behind the affirmations of the Bible concerning the sword of the Spirit, there is authentic, historical, secular evidence—not that we need it to be compelled to belief but in order that we may be able to address our pagan neighbors and friends who trot out the classic clichés: “Oh, you surely don’t believe that stuff! That was made up in the second century.” And we often find ourselves struck dumb saying, “Well, oh no, it wasn’t,” and they say, “Oh yes, it was.” And then we go into one of those things, which leads to absolutely nowhere. But with a little bit of homework and a little bit of work and a little bit of reading on the side, we can be well prepared to draw the sting of the foolish assertions of our pagan neighbors and friends and begin to make them consider the possibilities of the wonder of this sword—be able to say to them, “It is not only historically interesting, but it is practically useful.”

The Sword Is Practically Useful

How useful is it? Paul tells us when he writes in 2 Timothy 3:16. What is the work of the Word of God? What does this Scripture do? What does this sword effect in people’s lives? Two Timothy 3:16: “All Scripture is God-breathed,” and it “is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness.”

Jesus used the sword of the Spirit in counteracting the attacks of the Evil One in his temptation, recorded, for example, in Matthew chapter 4. And if you turn to Matthew 4 for just a minute, you will see how the priority of the Scriptures was there for Jesus himself. “The tempter,” in Matthew 4, “came to [Jesus] and said, ‘If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread.’” How does Jesus reply? He replies with the Scriptures: “It is written,” he says, “‘Man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.’” And so the devil comes at him a second time and “took him to the holy city and had him stand on the highest point of the temple. ‘If you are the Son of God,’ he said, ‘throw yourself down. For it is written’”—now he starts to use the Bible against Jesus—“‘“He will command his angels concerning you, and they will lift you up in their hands, so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.”’”[3]

Now, let me just pause there for a moment and tell you that everybody who uses the Bible… There are people who use the Bible—the cults use the Bible—with great skill. It is a sword on which they will fall. That is why the Christian Science Reading Rooms are so attractive: they are neither Christian nor scientific, and they always have the Bible there. But the key to understanding the Bible, in the mind of a Christian Scientist, is not the enabling power of the Spirit of God, who illumines the printed page, but it is the key to it all: namely, the work of the lady, Mary whatever her name was—Baker Eddy, or whatever her name was. In the same way, those magnificent advertisements by the Mormons on television make much of the Bible. I haven’t seen one yet that doesn’t have the Bible in it. Why is that? It’s the same strategy as the devil in Matthew 4: “Well, you want to use the Bible? I’ll use the Bible then. I’ll show you how we can use the Bible.” It is the sword on which they will fall.

Christianity is Christ, and Christ is revealed in all the Scriptures.

And Jesus replied, “It is also written: ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’” And a third time, “the devil took him to a very high mountain … showed him all the kingdoms of the world,” etc., and said, “‘All this I[’ll] give you … if you[’ll] bow down and worship me.’” And “Jesus said to him, ‘Away from me, Satan! For it is written: “Worship the Lord your God, and serve him only.”’ Then the devil left him.”[4] You want to know how to get the devil to leave you? Use your Bible. Read your Bible. Learn your Bible. Quote your Bible. Understand your Bible. Get to grips with the Bible. It’s all in this book. Christianity is Christ, and Christ is revealed in all the Scriptures. And for that reason, we want always to affirm our commitment in this way.

Jesus not only in Matthew 4 makes much of this, but when we view him in his High Priestly Prayer in John chapter 17, we find a similar emphasis. John 17:8: “For I gave them,” he says to his Father, “the words you gave me and they accepted them.” What was Jesus doing when he was walking and he was talking? He was giving the very words that the Father knew his children needed to have—here in this book, the Bible. The psalmist in Psalm 119:11 speaks to us concerning the way the Scriptures work for us in defense: “I have hidden your word in my heart that I might not sin against you.” “I have hidden your word in my heart that I might not sin against you.” The same truth in Psalm 119:89 and following:

Your word, O Lord, is eternal;
 it stands firm in the heavens.
Your faithfulness continues through all generations;
 you established the earth, and it endures.
Your laws endure to this day,
 for all things serve you.
If your law had not been my delight,
 I would have perished in my affliction.
I will never forget your precepts,
 for by them you have preserved my life.
Save me, for I am yours;
 I have sought out your precepts.

I remember working my way through the 119th Psalm in our Bible study on a Wednesday night in my previous church in Scotland years ago. There was a young man there, a civil engineer who was working on the oil pipelines that were coming in and going out to various rig mechanisms that were established largely by American oil companies in the North Sea and off the shores from Aberdeen. And this fellow, Tommy, who, prior to my arrival there, had had a massive heart attack as a young man in his twenties—it was a very strange thing.

But I’ll never forget: he was home on this particular Wednesday night, and he would fly back up to Aberdeen, and then he would go out onto these rigs, etc., and he would stay in the Holiday Inn in Aberdeen. And the Holiday Inn in Aberdeen, as some of you know if you’ve been there, is a little bit more upmarket than the average Holiday Inn here. At least, it’s a little bit more expensive than the average Holiday Inn here. And he would stay there. And the stewardesses from British Airways would stay there. And the stewardesses from British Airways would, in the evening, sit around and talk and, depending on their mood and sense of fascination, be perhaps interested in the camaraderie and the companionship of a young eligible bachelor like Tommy—intelligent, well-versed, a civil engineer, and with a fat wad of money from these American oil companies in his hip pocket.

And I’ll never forget him coming back some couple of weeks later and telling me, “Pastor, I came awful close to disaster the other night in Aberdeen. But do you know what kept me?” “No, what kept you, Tommy?” “It was that thing you did in Psalm 119: ‘I will never forget your precepts, for by them you have preserved my life.’”[5] Tommy tonight is in heaven. He had another massive heart attack and, as a young man in his thirties, went to heaven. But it was a wonderful reminder to me of the power of the Word of God to keep.

If you will store the Word of God in your heart a wee bit every day, it will stand you in great stead. If at the age of eighteen you save a buck a day, with compound interest, you’ll have a million dollars before you’re retired. And if from the age of eighteen you would store up a verse a day, you would have such a wealth and working knowledge of the Bible that people would be sitting at your feet in years to come as you wielded the sword of the Spirit.

But may I say this to you? Nobody ever became a Bible scholar on one sermon a week. Nobody ever became agile with the sword of the Spirit simply by listening to somebody talk about it. Nobody will ever become useful with the Scriptures minus a real desire to know the Word of God. That’s what it takes: it takes a desire to know the Word of God. And that desire is not a natural thing; it is a supernatural thing. And even the supernatural desire is waged war against by all the activities of the Evil One, who says to us, “You know, don’t become so concerned about that. Don’t spend your time on that. There are far too many other things.” If you’re going to become a student of the Word of God, we need to be coming submissive to his Spirit, and we need to be committed to the study. It demands constant diligence. We never become a Bible scholar lying in front of the television or playing in the park. Laziness and indiscipline will mar our ability with the sword. We need to be like the Bereans in Acts 17:11, always searching the Scriptures on a daily basis to see if these things are so.

Principles of Biblical Interpretation

And as you study the Bible for yourself—and some of you are taking notes this evening—let me remind you of three important principles in studying the Bible and in coming to grips with the Word of God. These are principles of biblical interpretation. They are not unique to me; you’ll find them everywhere.

When you read the Bible, read the Bible in the awareness of its natural sense. In other words, read the Bible with simplicity, in light of its most natural sense. Don’t read the Bible like a mystery book. Don’t read the Bible as if somehow or another, somebody has hidden something somewhere, and what you have to do is you have to find the code which cracks the key and takes you to the place, and you open it up and go down, and eventually you come to it. That is all the subtlety of the cults again. They’ve always got all this funny business and funny key. And when your pastor, if you have a pastor, he tells you, “Well, you’ll never really understand it unless this, and that, and take away the number you first thought of, and multiply it by two, you know, and then divide it by six, and then you’ll find the numerical system, and then apply that to chapter 9,” and all that kind of stuff, just leave. Just go away. Go for a coffee or something if you’re subjected to that. It’s facile, and it’s dangerous stuff. The plain sense of Scripture. The purpose of God’s revelation in the Bible is clarity. It is not confusion. The purpose of God in writing the Bible is that there would be a readily intelligible message and not a series of dark and mysterious mysteries and riddles.

And as you are aware of one of my now great clichés: the main things are the plain things, and the plain things are the main things. You get somebody giving you the parable of the good Samaritan, and he reads the good Samaritan, and he tells you that the inn equals the church, and that the two denarii that he left behind equals baptism and the Lord’s Supper, and so he goes on. What does the donkey represent, for goodness’ sake? But he’ll have something for that as well, and something for the guy’s sandals, until people are going, “Oh, is this intriguing! Oh, isn’t it amazing the things he gets out of it?” Yes, it is. It ought to be amazing to us. You can preach from the yellow pages on that basis. You don’t need a Bible.

The purpose of God in writing the Bible is that there would be a readily intelligible message and not a series of dark and mysterious mysteries and riddles.

So, the natural sense. I’m not saying that there aren’t things that are hard to understand in the Bible. Don’t misunderstand me. What I’m saying is that when we come to the Scriptures, as a principle of interpretation, we come seeking the natural sense of what is being said. And in the things that are central and clear, it is essential that there is absolute unity. In things that are peripheral… And we would not say that everything is of the same significance as something else. For example, some people get very, very concerned about whether ladies wear hats or whether they don’t. I would say that that was peripheral, and therefore, I would exercise liberty in relationship to that. It would not be imperative that we all agreed the same thing. So in the central things, we should have absolute unity. In the peripheral things, we should allow one another liberty. And in all things, we should approach one another with perfect charity. And that way, we will be able to get along.

Now, the second principle is not the natural sense but what we might refer to as the original sense. The first principle is the principle of simplicity; the second principle is the principle of history. The principle of history. And we’ve made much of this as we’ve studied various sections of the Bible; I hope that it would be obvious to you—namely, that the permanent message of Scripture may only be understood within the circumstances in which it was originally given; may only ultimately be understood within the circumstances in which it was originally given. That’s why, for example, when we studied 1 Corinthians, we labored hard and long to understand where Corinth was, who these people were, so that we were able to come to Cleveland through Corinth rather than simply to launch from our Bibles into the sort of “Well, I like to think of it in this way.” The task which falls to us in our studies is to bring out what is there, not to stick in what we think should be there.

And the third sense is, if you like, the general sense, or the principle of harmony. The principle of harmony. And all that simply means is that we set the verses in the context in which they’re found. The reason they’re there is because God has purposed to have them in that way. So there is a harmony about the unfolding of Scripture. And therefore, we set the verses within the context of the letter, we set the letter within the context of history, we set the Old in the light of the New and the New in the light of the Old.

So these three principles will be, I think, a help to you: coming to the Scriptures understanding its natural sense (the matter of simplicity), its original sense (the matter of history), and its general sense (the principle of harmony).

Now, when we begin to get to grips with the Scripture in that way, then we will be able to use it on the attack as well as on the defense. And let me conclude this weapon with just a verse from Hebrews chapter 4. I sound to myself as if I’m going away and coming back, but I’ll just keep talking, and hopefully I come back more than I go away. Hebrews 4:12: “For the word of God is living and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.”

That’s why, you see, when we use our Bibles, we need to use them with great care. If you have a friend who does a lot of woodworking, they will always be very, very concerned, if you’re a novice or an amateur or a nuisance around the place, to tell you, “Now, don’t be fiddling and fooling around with this stuff. A lot of this is sharp, you know.” Or if you’ve ever had the opportunity to be in the company of a surgeon as he engages in his work, he exercises extreme caution in the way he makes the cut because of the sharpness of the scalpel. And in the same way, since the Word of God has such amazing power to be able to divide even spirit and soul and marrow and joints, as it were, to get to the very heart of the issue, it is imperative that in the wielding of the sword, we do so cautiously and graciously and purposefully and kindly, rather than that we become a sort of whirling dervish, you know, swinging the thing around our heads everywhere we go, making people fearful and antagonizing them.

And everyone who sits still long enough, we give them one of those: “Hey, try that for size! This is the Bible, you know. You ought to read it sometime, you cloth-eared nitwit, you!” See, that doesn’t endear people to the Bible. You understand that, don’t you? In the same way that many of our bumper stickers cause as much offense as the offense that we feel at some of the other people’s bumper stickers—the sort of in-your-face type. We need to take the sword of the Spirit and wield it with great care and great skill.

The Weapon of Prayer

Now, that brings us, finally, to the second weapon, which is namely prayer. Because it is interesting and it is imperative that prayer and the Word of God are put together always. Because it is in the sharing of the Word of God backed up by prayer that the Word of God has dramatic impact.

That is why, for example, in Acts chapter 6, the apostles make this change in the developmental and organizational plans of the fledgling church. And in Acts chapter 6, they recognize that the predicament that they’re facing in some of the practicalities of Christian experience—namely, the food matters in the distribution of food for widows—that they were getting themselves all tied up in knots. And “so the Twelve gathered all the disciples together,” in Acts 6:2, and they said to them, “It would[n’t] be right for us to neglect the ministry of the word of God in order to wait on tables. [So,] brothers, choose seven men from among you who are known to be full of the [Holy] Spirit and wisdom. [And] we will turn this responsibility over to them.” And notice this: “[We] will give our attention to prayer and to the ministry of the word [of God].”

The devil is unafraid of prayerless proclamation.

The devil is unafraid of prayerless proclamation. For preaching and what happens in a preaching event is merely the gathering up of results of a battle which has either been simultaneously or previously waged at the level of prayer. That, you see, is a great corrective to us when we think about all that’s happening in such an event or when we are beginning to make much of someone who is given the privilege of simply a voice piece. Because when anything happens, it’s the result of other, unseen people engaging in believing prayer for the proclaiming of the Word of God, for the wielding of the sword of the Spirit.

And that’s, you see, why it is so important that we are praying for March 3—that we’re praying today for it and tomorrow for it and every day for it and, when you come here with a friend or without a friend, that all the way through the preaching event of March 3, you as a Christian are praying. And what are you praying? “God, you’ve given us two weapons in the arsenal. One is the Word of God, which we believe right now is being taught as best as the chap can, and the other one is prayer. Which is why I’m asking you, Lord, ‘Hey, bring it home to people’s hearts.’ Open people’s eyes, Lord. Unplug their ears, Lord. Make them hear the Bible, Lord. They don’t believe the Bible! They’d have never read the Bible. They don’t care about the Bible. Lord, you’re going to have to do this.” Prayer and the Word of God going together.

That’s why Paul’s letters are so full of these prayers for the church. For example, in Ephesians, from which we get our weaponry here, in Ephesians chapter 1, he is praying for these people. He says in Ephesians 1:15, “For this reason, ever since I heard about your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all the saints, I have not stopped giving thanks for you, [and] remembering you in my prayers.” And he asks that they may have an increase in their knowledge of God in verse 17, that they may have an understanding of the way that God has called them to a glorious inheritance in verse 18, that they may have a revelation of the power of God in verse 19—the very power that raised Jesus from the dead.

Whenever the church in history has been in decline, there has been an absence of believing prayer, and there has been an absence of the effective wielding of the sword of the Spirit. And whenever the church of God in the course of history has been lifted up in a period of usefulness, it can always be traced to faithful, unsung heroes laying hold of God’s great and precious promises in prayer; and then, for others, being lifted up, as it were, and wafted on the wings of the prayers of those who will stand at the head of the line in the day of his coming.

You see, from the perspective of the history books of the final quarter of this century, history will be explained in terms of the political machinations of men—the strength and forcefulness of the combination of Reagan and Thatcher in standing against the tide of Communism. History will explain the fall of the Berlin Wall and those dramatic scenes as people scrambled for pieces of the wall and as the bulldozers brought them down. Secular history will not record what heaven will reveal—namely, that the Christians in Eastern Europe had bled and died and agonized in prayer for the downfall of the totalitarian regimes of atheistic Communism.

And as surely as that battle was fought and won on that level, as I believe eternity will reveal, so the battles in times past were fought and won. And I want to turn you to one battle with which to conclude this evening. You can read it in Exodus chapter 17. And it’s the battle between the people of God and the Amalekites—Amalekites against Israelites at Rephidim. Exodus 17:8: “The Amalekites came and attacked the Israelites at Rephidim. [And] Moses said to Joshua, ‘Choose some of our men and go out to fight the Amalekites.’”

“What are you going to do, Moses?”

“[Well], tomorrow I will stand on the top of the hill with the staff of God in my hands.”

“Oh, I see. Okay. Uh-huh. So, me and the guys, we are going to do the hard stuff down here on the battle, right? And you get to just stand on the top of a hill holding your walking stick?”

Joshua would never have said that. Because the staff of Moses had been symbolic of God’s abiding presence with him. It was with that staff that he had parted the Red Sea. It was with that staff that the plagues had come upon Egypt. It was that staff which was a symbol of Moses’s ultimate dependence upon God and God’s abiding provision for his people. It was, if you like, that Moses, in this symbolic gesture, was going to take the part in prayer.

And verse 10:

So Joshua fought the Amalekites as Moses had ordered, and Moses, Aaron and Hur went to the top of the hill. As long as Moses held up his hands, the Israelites were winning, but whenever he lowered his hands, the Amalekites were winning. When Moses’ hands grew tired, they took a stone and put it under him and he sat on it. Aaron and Hur held his hands up—one on one side, [and] one on the other—so that his hands remained steady till sunset. So Joshua overcame the Amalekite army with the sword.

And down on the battlefield, it appeared that effectiveness was directly related to the power and influence and wisdom of Joshua and his colleagues. But from the vantage point of heaven, a strange and unbelievable little scene was the key to it all: a strange man with his hands held up in dependence upon God, so much so that his brothers at the side of him would take turns in holding up his hands along with him.

That’s, you see, why Spurgeon would say regularly to his congregation, “Your pastor may preach the same sermons to far greater effect if only some of you will determine in the unseen place to hold up your hands in dependence upon Almighty God.”

William Cowper, one of my favorite hymn writers, with words that were then set to an arrangement from music from Beethoven, writes these words somewhere between 1731 and 1800:

What various hindrances we meet
In coming to the mercy seat!
Yet [he] who … knows the worth of prayer
But wishes to be often there?

Prayer makes the darkened cloud withdraw;
Prayer climbs the ladder Jacob saw,
Gives exercise to faith and love,
Brings every blessing from above.

Restraining prayer, we cease to fight;
Prayer makes the Christian’s armor bright;
And Satan trembles when he sees
The weakest saint upon [their] knees.

While Moses stood with arms spread wide,
Success was found on Israel’s side;
But when through weariness they failed,
That moment Amalek prevailed.

Have you no words? Ah! Think again;
Words flow apace when you complain
And fill your fellow creature’s ear
With the sad tale of all your care.

Were half the breath thus vainly spent
To heaven in supplications sent,
Our cheerful song would oftener be
“Hear what the Lord has done for me.”[6]

So we recognize that there’s a war on. We discover our strength to be in the Lord. We identify the enemy, we delineate our responsibility, we clothe ourselves with the armor, we take our weapons from the hand of the Commanding Officer, and we hear him say, “Quick march.”

Are you ready for battle? Some of you tonight may not even be in the army, and so you just heard a talk about something that is irrelevant to you until you join.

Sterling Castle, about thirty miles from Glasgow, was a scene of boyhood paradise for me. For there a battalion or regiment was still in working order, as it were, when I was a small boy. And at certain times in the day, they would come out and march on the castle esplanade. And I would walk on the cobbled street beside them as they marched, trying to keep step with the soldiers. And I loved it, and I admired them—and I had no uniform. I wasn’t in the army. I was just hanging around on the side.

If I’m speaking to someone this evening and that fits you, we’d invite you to come to our prayer room at the end of our service, ’cause we’d like to give you a piece of literature that would tell you how to enlist—to remove you from simply walking up and down on the sides when the army marches, so that we would be able to introduce you to your Commanding Officer, to give you your armor, to provide you with the weapons, and to encourage you to come and join us in the battle.

Let’s pray together:

Eternal God and loving Father, look upon us in mercy tonight, we pray, as we come to the end of this first day of a new week, as we have heard your Word. Speak into the lives of those who have come out of interest but who know themselves to have no uniform, never to have received your commission, and simply to be walking on the sidelines. There’s something about the stirring of the drum, there’s something about the forcefulness of the army, there’s something about the strident nature of their boldness that attracts them. Help them to hear your voice bidding them lay down the arms of their rebellion and be gathered up in the arms of your loving embrace.

And for some of us who, in the midst of the warfare, have lost sight of where the real battle is found, have wondered why it is that we’ve had so much time to skirmish internally, to criticize people within the army, to call in question this and that and the next thing… Where did we get all of this time that’s on our hands? It’s because we’ve forgot what the battle really is. And tonight, God is calling us to say no to resentment and to bitterness and to self-pity and selfish preoccupation, and to lift our eyes and look out, and to take our stand against the devil’s schemes. Lord, we don’t want to be just a bunch of chocolate soldiers that melt as soon as the heat is turned up. We want you to make us strong and useful, so that when we have done all, we’ve been able to stand,[7] and so that one day, when we stand before you in heaven, we might hear you say, “Well done, good and faithful soldier.”[8] For we ask these things in Jesus’ name. Amen.

[1] See Tacitus, Annals 15.44; Pliny the Younger, Letters 10.96; Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews 18.3.3; 20.9.1.

[2] See F. F. Bruce, The New Testament Documents: Are They Reliable? (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 1943).

[3] Matthew 4:3–6 (NIV 1984).

[4] Matthew 4:7–11 (NIV 1984).

[5] Psalm 119:93 (NIV 1984).

[6] William Cowper, “Exhortation to Prayer” (1779).

[7] See Ephesians 6:13.

[8] See Matthew 25:21, 23.