Tonight we're in Matthew chapter 4. I'll quote the verse that's our verse for tonight from Ephesians 6 and verse 17. It's the latter part of verse 17. Last week we dealt with taking the helmet of salvation. And tonight we're going to take the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God. We're going to be taking a look at the sword of the Spirit tonight. And we've been dealing with these the whole armor of God, and how to fight against the schemes and the wiles of the devil, and whatever methods he might try to bring against us. And we've seen thus far the build of truth, which is knowing and obeying God's Word. Understand God's Word is a defense and an offense. Tonight we're going to see the offense. but it was what we fight Satan with. And we have seen the breastplate of righteousness, which is recognizing our identification with Christ and His death, burial, and resurrection. And it's allowing Christ to live His life through us. We've seen the boots of the readiness of the gospel of peace. We're to stand in peace as we focus on Christ and are filled with His Holy Spirit and fellowship with God in prayer. And we've seen last week, the last two weeks, the shield of faith, which allows us to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked. And then we saw the helmet of salvation. It reminds us of our victory over the penalty, power, and presence of sin. Now, today we see a piece of armor that doubles as both a defensive weapon and an offensive weapon. That's the sword of the Spirit, which when properly used, It allows us to resist temptation that Satan likes to bring our way. And the Roman soldier's armor included a sword that was used in hand-to-hand combat. And it was the most effective weapon of that day. And the sword of the Spirit is that which is to be used to ward off temptation from Satan. The Word of God is that sword. word in this passage would refer to a specific saying. Thus, when we use the word of God, we use the word of God in fighting temptation. We are using specific sayings from God. We're confronting Satan with scripture. We're confronting Satan with God's words. And as believers, we must learn to use our sword, and I think there's no better teacher than our Lord Jesus Christ. That's why we're in Matthew 4. Because in Matthew 4, verses 1-11, it shows us how our Savior defeated temptation from Satan. And He gives us what we need here. And first of all, we see Jesus received direction from the Holy Spirit. There in verse number 1, Then was Jesus led up of the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil. If you're going to be tempted, You certainly want to be Spirit-led. And when Jesus was tempted, it was right after a great spiritual event in His life. He'd just been baptized. Look at Matthew 3, verse number 13. Then cometh Jesus from Galilee to Jordan unto John to be baptized of him. But John forbade him, saying, I need to be baptized of thee, and comest thou to me? And Jesus answering said unto him, Suffer it to be so now, for thus it becometh us to fulfill all righteousness. Then he suffered him. And Jesus, when he was baptized, went up straightway out of the water, and, lo, the heavens were opened unto him. And he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting upon him, and lo, a voice from heaven saying, This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased. What a wonderful event that was. And this, on the tail end of that, is when Satan directed his attack. Right after that, Jesus was led up of the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted. This was at the very beginning of his ministry. He's just about to begin his ministry. He's been baptized. Now he's going to be tested here in the wilderness. And we see that Satan will try to tempt believers after times of great spiritual events as well, or times of great spiritual success. One of the most important times for a young believer is right after they get saved. That's when they've not known satanic attack until they got saved. They were in Satan's arena before that. He didn't really have to work on them too much. But once you're saved, He takes and uses His wiles against you. You're no longer in His court. But He's going to get you to try to fall if He can. He wants to ruin your testimony. He wants to take away your effectiveness for Christ. And so, you know, when you're saved, when you're baptized, If you're trying to serve the Lord, any of those things, some of the greatest times of battle will come when you determine in your heart, I am going to serve the Lord. I'm going to serve the Lord. And you're determined to do that, well Satan's determined to try to knock you off of doing that. He wants you to quit. He wants you to not do anything. But understand one key to Jesus' victory over temptation is that the Holy Spirit was guiding Him. And understand we will face times of temptation, but facing times of temptation will go best for us when the Holy Spirit is in control of our lives. We're walking in the Spirit. Galatians 5.16, this I say then, walk in the Spirit and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh. And Galatians 5.25, if we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit. So Jesus received direction from the Holy Spirit. He was walking in the Spirit. We see Jesus resisted distractions from Satan. Satan still tries to get us distracted today. It's no different there. and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. In fact, when Satan first tempted mankind, when he tempted Eve back in the Garden of Eden, if you remember when Eve was tempted by Satan, he tempted her in three basic areas in Genesis 3-6. First of all, the lust of the flesh. He got her to look in at the tree and desiring it. He saw it was good for food. The lust of the eyes. It says, and it was pleasant to the eyes. It's how it is said there in Genesis 3-6. And the pride of life, a tree to be desired to make one wise. And the Bible reveals that believers are also tempted by Satan in those same three basic areas. That's why the Apostle John wrote what he wrote in 1 John 2-16. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, And the lust of the eyes and the pride of life is not of the Father, but is of the world. And so one of the ways that Jesus showed that He was qualified to be our Savior is that He was tempted and He had victory in the same three areas of temptation. And we can have victory in those same three areas as well. I like Hebrews 4.15 that says, We have not a high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities, but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin. He was tempted, but he did not yield to the temptation. And he shows us how in the scripture here, Matthew records this, and we see in Jesus' life how he resisted the temptation that came his way. First we see that Jesus was tempted by Satan with the lust of the flesh there in verse 2 and verse 3. In Matthew 4 verse 2, when he had fasted 40 days and 40 nights, he was afterward and hungered. Now most of us can't get past in the morning. You're going to wake up hungry, aren't you? You're going to want that breakfast before you go to work or do whatever you're going to do for the day. You've got to have your breakfast. I have to have my Raisin Bran, right? I can't make it through the day. Yeah, it's a sad life, I know. That's where I'm at in this point in my life. You have to do certain things, and raising a brand is one of those things. When he had fasted 40 days though, 40 nights, he had to be really hungry, right? He was afterward and hungered. I mean, he was a man. Yes, he was God, but he was a man. He got hungry. And when the tempter came to him, he said, if thou be the Son of God, command that these stones be made bread. So there's the lust of the flesh right there. Satan wanted Jesus to use his power to make bread out of stones. And after 40 days of fasting in the wilderness, Jesus was hungry. The human side of Him was hungry. And Satan wanted Jesus to rely upon Himself. Well, I can turn these stones into bread. I don't need my Heavenly Father for this. But we know that Jesus, when He came to the earth, He placed Himself willingly That's when he emptied himself. there in Philippians chapter number 2. We know that the Lord Jesus Christ willingly submitted to His heavenly Father's will in His life. It wouldn't have been wrong for Jesus to do because He would have disobeyed God's plan for His life and He would have listened to Satan instead of listen to His heavenly Father. The plan for His life was to lean upon His heavenly Father and to follow His Father's will. When our desires control us, they become lust. Jesus was Spirit-controlled. He didn't allow His hunger to control Him. He allowed the Holy Spirit to control Him. When we choose to satisfy our lust in our own way, rather than depend upon the Lord for our needs, then that means that we're listening to the wrong voice, and thereby we can wind up not fulfilling God's plan for our lives. And when you think about eaves, you got looking at, except what sure does it look like it makes some good food? You know, they had all these other trees to eat up of. They probably enjoyed all those. But I don't know what that fruit looked like. There's nothing that says it was an apple. Okay. I know that that's the way the world depicts it. But it doesn't say it was an apple tree. Because we still have apple trees. The tree of life, the tree of knowledge of good and evil, it was a tree, but we're not told what kind of tree it was. But anyway, she wound up listening to the wrong voice and wound up not fulfilling God's plan for her life and her husband's life, got him tied up in the situation as well. Something else we see is that Jesus was tempted by Satan with the pride of life there in verse number 5 and verse number 6. He said, And then the devil taketh him up into the holy city, and setteth him on the 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." Now, we're going to come back and look at where the Lord said it's written, okay? I'm not skipping those except on purpose for right now. We're just looking at temptation. Jesus was tempted by Satan with the pride of life here. Now think about it. If Jesus had listened to Satan, he would have been tempted. He would have been tempting his heavenly Father to take care of him while he was doing something that was unwise. How do believers tempt God? You know, there are some folks that just astound me how they tempt God in their life. The snake handlers. They base their snake handling on a passage of Scripture, actually. Mark 16, verse 18, that they shall take up serpents, and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them, and they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover. It doesn't say that you are supposed to go handle snakes. It doesn't say that at all. Some people do dangerous things that are not safe at all, but expect God to protect them. And I know some folks have died taking up snakes. I like that. And you won't have to worry about this becoming a snake handling church. There's only three kinds of snakes that I don't like. Dead ones, live ones, and play ones. Other than that, I'm OK with snakes. But anyway, just think about this. Some foolishly spend their money that's money they don't have and expect God to pay their bills. They're tempting the Lord. They'll spend their money on things that they want. And then they don't have money to pay their bills and expect God to get them out of that. Expecting our priorities to be more important than God's plan for our lives and then expecting God to take care of us anyway is not a good way to live life. It just isn't. There was an illustration I heard one time talking about ways that sometimes folks kind of tempt God. There was a storm and it flooded the area and the guy had to get up on the roof of his house and the floodwaters were rising. It hadn't quite got to him yet and they came by and they were going to rescue him. And he said, God's going to provide. Y'all go on, leave me alone then. He had a boat come by, had a jet ski come by, even had a helicopter come by. Well, he wound up drowning. And he got to heaven and said, boy, I can't believe that you didn't take care of me. He said, well, I sent a boat, a jet ski, and a helicopter. What more did you need? Sometimes we don't use the good sense that God gives us, do we? Jesus was also tempted by Satan with the lust of the eyes. There in verse 8 and 9. Again, the devil taketh him up into an exceeding high mountain and showeth 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." Now here we see that Jesus was invited to receive a kingdom without a cross. He came to die. He came to give His life a ransom for us. He was trying to get Him to bypass the cross. If He would just bow down to Satan, He could have a kingdom. He's going to have a kingdom one day. Amen? He's got a kingdom now. But He's going to have an earthly kingdom that is going to last for a literal 1,000 years, and that's just the beginning of the eternal kingdom of God. He would have satisfied the lust of the eyes had He taken Satan up on that. Our eyes see many things, but there are many things that our eyes see that are things that we shouldn't have. You ever looked and saw something and said, boy, that would be nice to have. And then you thought about the ways that it might pull you away from God. Sometimes folks get things. I can't tell you how many times I've been in the ministry for a while now. I can't believe how long I've been in. But it's been a while and I see folks get involved in things and buy things that pull them away from the Lord. And we need to be careful about that. When we give in to the lust of our eyes, we do what we can to obtain what the eyes see. Or we fantasize about what we see through our eyes, which should not be. I don't know, when Eve got thinking about that pride of life, you'd be like God. Remember, that's what Satan said. You'd be like God, knowing good and evil. And so that was not a good thing, was it, whenever she decided to go with the lust of her eyes. Many a person have committed adultery with their eyes. Many a person have killed with their eyes. Many a person have coveted with their eyes. We need to be careful. Jesus received direction from the Spirit. Jesus resisted distractions from Satan. And thirdly, we see Jesus recited declarations from the Scripture. And this is where we want to be at. And what we see Christ did in each of those instances as the lust of the flesh, the pride of life, lust of the eyes, as those temptations came toward Him, Jesus pointed to the Book, pointed to the Scripture. Look at it back in verse number 4 as He was In verse 3, when the tempter came to Him and said, If thou be the Son of God, command that these stones be made bread. And Jesus referred to the Word of God here in verse 4, but He answered and said, It is written. It is written. We need to remember what's written, don't we? A man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God. Jesus pointed out that man is to live by every word that comes from God's mouth. There's one word to obey. And it's certainly not Satan's. It is God's Word. There's one way to follow. There in verse number 7, Jesus said unto him, It is written again, Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God. If he had cast himself down, just to prove that passage of Scripture, which by the way, he didn't fully quote the Scripture. If you go back over to the Scripture and the Psalms that he quoted, he didn't quote it in its entirety. If he had, it would make more sense, but he didn't want to make sense. He wanted to try to get Jesus to do what he wanted Him to do. There's one way to follow. Don't tempt God, We're rather to obey Him. And then there's one person to worship. There in v. 10 and 11, trying to get Jesus to worship him. Fall down before Him and worship Him. Jesus saith unto him, Get thee hence, v. 10. Get thee hence, Satan, for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and Him only shalt thou serve. Now, you know, Satan came at Christ repeatedly there. And he came at Him in three different ways. I believe he comes at us the same way. And sometimes he may hit and leave, but most of the time he's going to hit you repeatedly. And you have to learn to resist. But it says there in verse number 11, Then the devil leaveth him, and behold, angels came and ministered unto him. How important is the Word of God in our lives as being our sword? Jesus quoted Scripture in order to have victory over temptation. And let me share with you that we should do the same. So my conclusion is basically longer than the message. Let's look at Hebrews chapter 4. You probably have this memorized. Hebrews 4 verse number 12. And it tells us about the Word of God. Some things. It gives us the description of what our sword of the Spirit is, the characteristics that it has. It says in verse number 12, for the Word of God is quick and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and as a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart." I love that this book is a living book. The Word of God is alive. And it's alive eternally. It's alive forevermore. It's going to be around. When all of his critics are dead and separated from God for eternity, the Word of God is still going to be alive. 1 Peter 1.23 says that it liveth and abideth forever. Liveth and abideth forever. I like that. 1 Peter 1.25 says, but the Word of the Lord endureth forever. And Matthew 24.35 as heaven and earth shall pass away, but My words shall not pass away. I don't know about you, but that's a very comforting thing to me. Whenever you're going through the difficult trials, you know that the Lord, His Word is not going to pass away. He's going to do what He said He's going to do. We can depend upon His Word. And the fact that He said He's never going to leave us or forsake us, what a wonderful truth. And you think about the different things that can come our way in this life, and it can put you into a panic attack. You start thinking about it too long. You know what will ward that off? Think about, hey, the Lord's with me. He's with me all the way in whatever I'm in. The Word of God is alive eternally. The Word of God is alive internally as well. John 6.63, when we take in the Word of God, it does a work in our heart and life. It says in John 6.63, it is the Spirit that quickeneth, that makes alive, that quickeneth. When it says that the Word of God is quick, it means it's alive. When it says quickeneth, it means it makes alive. It's the Spirit that makes alive. The flesh profiteth nothing. He said the words that I speak unto you, they are Spirit and they are life. Something that will quicken your spirit more than anything in the world is the Word of God. Get into the Word of God. And let the Lord do what only He can do in your heart and life. And the Word of God is alive externally as well. You know, I like the way the prophets of old used to say, Thus saith the Lord. They weren't coming in their own word. When I come and preach to you, I hope that you know that I don't come preaching my words. I come, and that's why I use so much Scripture. Because I know the Scripture is what's going to do the work. And Jesus said there three times to Satan, And friends, one of the greatest things that we can remember is the things that are written that have been given to us to refer to and to lean upon and to use as we are under attack. Thus saith the Lord. Amen. So the Word of God is alive. The Word of God is powerful. I'm glad it's a powerful thing. Jeremiah 23 verse 29. The Lord said to Jeremiah, it's not my word like as fire, saith the Lord, and like a hammer that breaketh the rock in pieces. You think about a fire burning. A fire can change things quickly, can't it? It certainly can. I remember a couple of fires in my lifetime got out of hand. One of them was mine. I was going to burn a field off. near the house and it wasn't supposed to be windy that day. And all of a sudden, the wind picked up. And that was a situation I didn't want to find myself in. But I got out of that okay. My mom didn't do as well. She burned down Dave's barn. She tried to burn some trash in a barrel. Wind picked up, threw it out on to the on the ground. It caught the ground on fire. It was a dry time. It moved over there to the barn, burned it down, burned Daddy's tractor. It was a mess. But what I'm saying is, fire can change things quickly. And God's Word can change things quickly. Not my word like as a fire, saith the Lord. And it's like a hammer that breaketh the rock in pieces. You ever seen somebody that was hard-hearted? I've seen some really hard-hearted people that were softened up by the Word of God. And they came to know the Lord in their life. And it was just magnificent to watch the transformation that took place. And it wasn't anything some man did. It's what the Word of God did in their heart and in their life. Romans 1.16, of course, we're familiar with. For I'm not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, but it's the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believeth. And I'm sure you've heard some preachers say that that word, power of God unto salvation is do not miss. Kind of like we'll get the word dynamite from. It is powerful. The Gospel of Christ is powerful. It can take a lost sinner and make them a saint. Only God's Word can do that. Only the Gospel of Christ can do that. It's powerful. And that's why we preach the Gospel. That's why we preach the Word. Because the Word is what is powerful. It's powerful enough to accomplish God's purposes. The Lord said in Isaiah 55 verse 11, So shall my Word be that goeth forth out of my mouth. It shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please. And it shall prosper in the thing whereinto I sent it. And so I'm never shy to use the Word of God. Because I know if I use it, God will accomplish what He wants to accomplish by it. Because it's powerful enough to accomplish God's purposes when I'm not powerful enough myself. It's powerful enough to help us in our Christian warfare. That's what we've been talking about in this whole thing of the whole armor of God, and especially talking about the Word of God. We need power in our warfare against Satan and against sin. 2 Corinthians 10 verse 4-5 says, The weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strongholds. casting down imaginations and every high thing that exalted itself against the knowledge of God, and bringeth into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ." Let me say this, I don't know what has a stronghold in your life, but I guarantee you God's Word's got something that will help you rid yourself of that stronghold. I've seen it in my own life. I've seen it in the lives of others. You've just got to have the want to get into the book and allow God to give you that help. Use the Word of God to pull down those strongholds and to cast down those things that Satan wants to use to bring you down with. The Word of God is powerful. The Word of God is sharper than any two-edged sword. It talks about it piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit. It is a piercing or penetrating sword. It cuts into the immaterial part of man, the heart. What else can get into the heart? This cuts to the quick in the heart. It keeps on piercing for man's benefit. Think about it. God gave this Word for our benefit. It's one of the greatest benefits that we've been given as believers. One of the greatest gifts that we have, and I hope that you treasure your Bible, you treasure the Word of God. and realize just how much we're blessed to live in a time where we have the complete Word of God. We've got the complete Scripture. All of it can be used to help us in our life. It reaches man's spirit like nothing else can. You know, I thank God for folks that come and try to comfort me in times of when times get tough. We all find times that we need comfort, but you know the greatest comforters are the ones that come speaking to you the Word of God. They share with you what God has to say, give you the words of comfort from Scripture. Because nothing reaches your spirit like the Word of God. It pierces, it penetrates. It cuts and changes from the inside out. And if there's something in your life that needs some spiritual surgery, Cut something that's a stronghold in your life. Listen, you've got the right thing in your hand there. You've got the Word of God. You just need to use it. It's a piercing or penetrating sword. It's a discerning sword. It judges. It shows us our sin. It judges our thoughts. It judges our intents and motives. Jesus is our example. So friend, what we need to do is make sure that we take the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God, and put it to use in our lives each and every day. You know, when you go a day without the Word of God, that's not a good day. Just not. You need to be keen your day with the Word of God. It's not too bad to end your day with the Word of God too. I can tell you, if you have trouble sleeping, take and read your Bible. Satan don't like you reading your Bible. He'll try to get you sleepy times for sure. But anyway, what I know is that the Word of God is a great a great asset to us as believers. And we need to see it for what it is, the Word of God, and we need to use it to the full extent in our life. Amen. Father, we thank You so much tonight for Your Word. We thank You for the influence that it is in our lives. And Lord, we just pray that You'd help us each and every day to take this book and to feed upon it. And more to digest it and to ingest it and to have it in our hearts and in our memories. And when Satan comes with his fiery darts, we can resist those temptations that he sends our way. Send him traveling by. the same way that Jesus said by saying, it is written. Knowing the Word of God. Nothing can help us better than Your Word. We just pray that You'd help us, Lord, in our task of taking up the book and not just feeding upon it, but Lord, using it in a great and mighty way in our own personal lives. Help us with these things, we pray. In Jesus' name, Amen.