Sharpening Our Swords

      By Fern Horst

"Then was Jesus led up of the spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil. And when he had fasted forty days and forty nights, he was afterward an hungred. And when the tempter came to him, he said, If thou be the Son of God, command that these stones be made bread. But he answered and said, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.

"Then the devil taketh him up into the holy city, and setteth him on a pinnacle of the temple, And saith unto him, If thou be the Son of God, cast thyself down: for it is written, He shall give his angels charge concerning thee: and in their hands they shall bear thee up, lest at any time thou dash thy foot against a stone. Jesus said unto him, It is written again, Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God.

"Again, the devil taketh him up into an exceeding high mountain, and sheweth him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them; And saith unto him, All these things will I give thee, if thou wilt fall down and worship me. Then saith Jesus unto him, Get thee hence, Satan: for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve.

"Then the devil leaveth him, and, behold, angels came and ministered unto him." (Matthew 4:1-11)

A few years ago a friend of mine discovered the same effective strategy that Jesus used in the wilderness to refute Satan's attacks against Him. After a relationship ended painfully, my friend was bombard with doubts and negative thoughts. She countered those thoughts and feelings by quoting out loud verses from Scripture that specifically refuted the lies Satan was telling her. Her primary weapon in the midst of this spiritual and emotional battle was Scripture. Jesus gave us a wonderful example when He used Scripture to counter Satan's temptations, and my friend was wise to use the same weapon that He did. In fact, the Bible itself refers to Scripture as a weapon:

"For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any twoedged sword." (Hebrews 4:12a).

"Put on the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil…. And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God." (Ephesians 6:11, 17)

The best way to be prepared with our Sword in hand when Satan attacks is to read and re-read and re-read the Bible so that its truths become the basis of our thought patterns, and so that we don't have to fumble through the pages of our Bibles to find something applicable.

Another dear friend of mine, an elderly widow who passed away several years ago, amazed everyone who knew her with her depth of Bible knowledge. We called her a walking Bible concordance. For over 40 years she read five chapters of the Bible a day, which took her through the Bible in less than a year. When she was finished, she started all over again. After awhile she started seeing connections from one part of Scripture to another. She had started this practice of Bible reading while raising her children with an alcoholic, unbelieving husband. She needed answers for various dilemmas she faced, and so she turned to Scripture for answers, and found them there.

Her practice of reading the Bible became a challenge to me to read through the Bible not just once, but repeatedly, so that its truths will become a part of me as well. I need those truths for when I face my own dilemmas of various kinds, when Satan attacks me with negative thoughts or temptations, when I need to make a decision whether big or small - so many circumstances in life call for the need for a wisdom much larger than our own. God speaks that wisdom to us through His Word - and it's a tremendous blessing when we can call it to mind at any moment.

On our website at Purposeful Singleness we have a Bible reading schedule to read through the Bible in one year. The particular plan we have chosen includes a portion from both the Old and New Testaments to read each day, and takes the reader through the Old Testament in chronological order. You can find the schedule and various other Bible study tools on our website at:

Bible Reading Schedule

May God richly bless you in 2008 as you seek Him and follow Him with your whole heart!

© 2008 Fern Horst

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