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We do not realize the importance of being able to have swords today in our modern society. As a weapon, the sword has lost it's value today because of guns and grenades and airplanes. In Biblical times, though, the sword was precious. Having a sword often meant the difference between life and death. An enemy was less likely to bother your crop and family if he knew that you had swords available to fight. When Israel came out of Egypt, they did not possess swords and had to completely trust in God's miraculous power to save them. After the Egyptian army had drowned in swirling waters of the Red Sea, the Israelites rejoiced that God had delivered them from "the sword of Pharaoh." (Exodus 18:4). They murmured at Moses mainly because they realized that they did not have swords and the enemy did.

Even after Israel entered into the promised land, swords continued to be hard to come by and therefore precious. The only way that they could get swords was to buy them from other nations. They had not yet learned the technology to be able to form iron and make weapons. To make matters worse, it was the Philistines, Israel's enemy, who for several centuries had a monopoly on making iron and forming such weapons. This "iron" monopoly made it very hard for Israel to get enough arms to create military victories in that time. The tribe of Dan eventually moved north from it's God-given lands to try to escape the pressure of the Philistines. The tribe of Judah also came under heavy military pressure from the Philistines but held out until God delivered them from the Philistines hands through the efforts of King David.

I could preach an entire message on the modern lessons that we can learn today from the Philistines, but will only take the time to point out one parallel. The Philistines believed in three separate Gods rather than the one God of Israel. They were able to push their beliefs on many of the nations of the area because they were the only people who had access to swords. The Philistines were well united and organized under the belief that all people should be made to believe as they did. Every city had a leader who was devoted to pushing their cause and beliefs. That is why it was so demoralizing for little David to beat Goliath. It was not only that their champion had been defeated, but HOW he was defeated. Goliath had spent weeks making fun of the God of Israel and blessing his triune God. But little David told him "I come to you with the name of THE LORD, and then proceeded to fell the massive giant. He proved without a shadow of a doubt to the Philistines the power of knowing how many gods that there really are and the power of trusting in His name!

In the modern third century after the original disciples of Jesus had all died and passed from the scene, there arose a movement that disputed the teaching of the Jewish apostles and the scriptures that they wrote stating that there was only one God of the universe and that His name was Jesus. This movement couldn't decide whether there was two gods (God the Father and God the Son) or three gods (originally God the Father, God the Son, and Wisdom), and the controversy grew throughout the century. In the early 300s, an emperor who was rapidly losing power named Constantine decided that if he could get the religious leaders to agree on their doctrine, then perhaps he would gain their support and keep his position of authority. Emperor Constantine was not a Christian, was not baptized, and had been raised as a pagan, not really believing anything doctrinally.

Constantine called many religious leaders whom he knew together for a meeting in the town of Nicea which is now modern-day Isnick, Turkey. There were three different groups invited to this "council of Nicea:" the Athanasians who believed that there were two gods: the Father and the Son who were two separate people of similar substance and power, the Arians who believed that there was one God the Father and that Jesus was not God at all, and a large group of people who really did not care how God was defined as long as there was peace and an end to the controversy. A fourth group who believed like the Apostolic Fathers that there was only one God and Jesus was that God were not invited as their extreme "Jewish belief of oneness" did not appeal to the pagan emperor.

In the council of Nicea, both parties presented their sides and a great debate ensued. Finally, the emperor decided to throw "the weight of his authority into the balance and thus secured the victory for the party of Athanasius" (see Louis Berkhof, The History of Christian Doctrines, pg 87). Then the emperor Constantine made a decree that all had to sign the statement that there were two gods: God the Father and God the Son who were similar yet different. Only Arius and two other bishops refused to sign the decree. They were all banished into exile as criminals and everybody went home. Persecution then began on the majority of churches who were teaching that there was one God and His name was Jesus. The modern Nicene creed was not the result of this council. Another decision made at this council was to forbid those going into the ministry from marrying.

In the later part of the century, the debate began to grow again over the definition of the Holy Spirit. Was it another god? Was it the spirit of God the Father or God the Son? Or was it the Wisdom of God. Over the century, people receiving the Holy Spirit with the evidence of speaking in other tongues had greatly diminished which contributed confusion to the dilemma. We today realize that the diminishing of people being filled with the Spirit was because of the false teaching of God the Father and God the Son as being separate people, but they did not realize that fact in that day.

In 381 AD, there was another meeting called in the capital city of Constantinople. The decision there was to include the Holy Spirit as a third "person" or "part" of their definition of God. After some debate as to whether or not to call this third person "wisdom," "logos," or "the Holy Spirit," the doctrine of the modern-day trinitarians was pretty much formed. Again all people who refused to preach this decision were banished from the country and some were even killed. From this meeting in Constantinople, the Roman Catholic Church developed. A few years later, the Catholic Church made it illegal for the common person to own a Bible or any copy of the scriptures. They were translated into Latin, a language that few people spoke, and were only given to the priests.

You may wonder what this history has to do with the Philistines being the only ones who had swords. When you realize that the scriptures say the Word of God is the "sword of the spirit," it begins to make sense. Like the Philistines, the early Catholic church believed in three gods. They were also the only ones who had copies of the Bible, the sword of the spirit!" Therefore, like the Philistines they used their monopoly of swords to try to force people to their beliefs. Because the common people did not have the swords of scripture, it was very hard for those who believed the true word of God to win converts. The tribe of Dan represented those who started out serving God in the promised place, but allowed themselves to be moved because of the pressure from the early Catholic church. The tribe of Judah also came under attack. "Judah" means "praise" and they represent those who were willing to worship God in spirit and in truth despite what the government told them that they had to believe. Despite extreme pressure, those people who believed that Jesus was the only, one true living God have survived! Today many churches and organizations have split off of the Catholic church for various issues but for some reason have held on to a trinitarian view of God. What God is looking for is someone like David to look at the Philistine giant who is making fun of the one true living God and will say "I come to you with the name of THE Lord!" For somebody to be willing to reveal to the world the power of knowing that there is only one God and that victory comes to those who know and trust in His name! David then took the sword from the giant and used it to cut off it's head. God is looking for someone who will pick up the Word of God, read and study it to find out exactly what it actually says, and cut off the head off a trinitarian tradition that was formed not by careful study of the word of God but by the political motivations of a non-Christian Emperor.

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There is power in the precious sword of the spirit: the Word of God! To someone who was living back in the third and fourth century, they would have given anything to be able to just pick up the Bible and read it. But even if they could get their hands on a copy, it took many years of study of Greek, Hebrew, or Latin to be able to comprehend. In modern times, swords are plentiful. There are Bibles in our language all over the place. Just like the physical sword has lost it's preciousness in modern times, so has the Word of God, the sword of the Spirit, been neglected by today's generations. We take for granted that we can pick it up anytime we want and read it, therefore most of the world goes by without ever bothering and bases their eternal destiny on what somebody says is there.

We are to endure hardness as good soldiers of the Lord and fight the fight of faith. In the Bible, the phrase that identified a man as a soldier was "he drew the sword" (see II Kings 3:26)! For you to be an effective soldier of Christ, you must "draw the sword." You need to read the scriptures and learn them. You need to be able to draw them out whenever they are needed. You need some "sword training" so that you will effectively be able to fight. How many soldiers do we have in the church that are unable to defeat the enemy in their life and stand for God because they are not adept at using the sword of the spirit!?! If there is any sword that you need to be able to use, it is the Word of God! A soldier who is unable to fight is not of much use to the master. We make ourselves valuable to the kingdom of God by learning more of scripture in study and through reading and preaching!

When the prophet Samuel described Goliath in I Samuel 17 he described every weapon and piece of armor EXCEPT his sword. Samuel did not notice the sword of Goliath. He noticed his spear as big as a weaver's beam. He noticed his armor and his shield that was so large that another man had to carry it ahead of Goliath. Everybody that day could not help but notice Goliath's chain mail armor and leg protectors and heavy helmet gleaming in the sunlight. But nobody noticed the sword that was in it's sheath by his side. That is except David. David had a plan. He knew that the stones would not kill Goliath, but David had spotted something that no one else had: the sword in the sheath. The Bible says that after David slung the stone and knocked Goliath down, that he ran to him and pulled the sword from the sheath and proceeded to cut off his head!

I want to tell you that the devil knows the Word of God. He has spent thousands of years listening to it being preached. When he approached Eve, he knew the commandment that God had spoken. The devil studies the Word of God because he knows that what it says will come to pass. The devil knew that God was going to come to earth. He just messed up on his timing. The devil knows that he is going to one day lose and be cast into the lake of fire. The devil certainly has the Word of God in his possession.

But when the devil comes to intimidate you and to back you down, he prefers to keep the sword hidden from view. He wants you to be scared of his intimidating size. He wants you to shake when you view all of the weapons that he has developed. He wants you to hide in fear when you see his protection and armor. He doesn't want you to pay any attention to the sword of the Word of God. In fact all of the other armor and weapons are to keep you from getting to the Word of God. The devil encourages anything that will keep you from understanding scripture and learning about the Bible. That's why there is always something that will provide an excuse for you to miss church. That's why the minute that you pick up the Bible, you get sleepy. That's why the natural tendency for many people is to read anything but the Word of God. That's why the devil fought so hard against having the scriptures translated into everyday language and printed. He wants you to forget about the sword.

But we need to be like David and trust in the name of the Lord! The devil can't stand against the power of knowing the name of the one true living God and trusting in it completely! But we must also be willing to grab the sword from it's sheath and cut off the devil's threat in our life! Only by drawing the sword of the Word of God, will we be able to get victory in our lives! And when the enemy saw David standing there with the sword in one hand and the head of Goliath in the other, they ran! The devil knows that if God's people get a revelation of who Jesus Christ is and are willing to learn to use the sword of the Word of God, that he cannot stop us! It's time to be a good soldier: It's time to draw the sword! It's time to face the giants in your life with the name of Jesus Christ and the Word of the Lord!

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In our text, we read of the events that happened the night that Jesus Christ was betrayed and arrested. Jesus knew that His time was drawing near and that the disciples were about to become the body of Christ reaching out to the world. He looked at His disciples and reminded of them how that the last time that He had sent them out, He had commanded that they take hardly anything. This time He said for them to take their purse (a bag for money similar in function to our wallets) and their scrip (a leather pouch for carrying food similar in function to our backpacks). He also said that if they did not have a sword, that they would be better off selling their "outer coat" and buying one. The outer coat was of greatest importance to a Jewish man for it became the very bed that he slept on while journeying. For Jesus to tell them to sell their coat if they had to in order to buy a sword was to tell them that it was very important that they have a sword! As they looked around their possession, they found two swords and presented them to Jesus Christ and when He saw that there was "two swords," He said "It is enough."

There are very few Bible passages that confuse theologians like this one. In my library, I have many commentaries which I frequently read. None of the commentaries are able to give any explanation of the meaning of this passage and most simply skip over the passage. But this statement began to bother me and this sermon came out of a desire to know what the two swords represented. To human logic, two swords among twelve men are not enough. Yet, Jesus said "It is enough." Whatever they represented, must be important to have, because when you have those two things, you have "enough."

Jesus was trying to equip the disciples for their earthly ministry. To aptly minister to the needs of people, it takes money. That is why Jesus told them to take their wallet. To reach the lost and build a church, fellowship becomes very important, and that is why Jesus told them to take the ability to carry food. But money and fellowship are not enough, they also needed two swords.

As to the meaning of one of the swords, we have already alluded when we mentioned that Ephesians 6:17 tells us that we must take up the sword of the spirit which is the Word of God! You can have all the money and all of the food in the world stored up, and if you do not learn to understand and use the Word of God, you will fail at living for God! A church can have tons of money and many members participating in much fellowship, and yet if they do not follow the teachings of the Word of God, they will be a failure in God's eyes. They may appear successful to man, but to God they will be lacking. I hope I am impressing on you the importance of the Word of God! For us to have "enough" to reach our world and live as Jesus desired for us to live, we must have the Sword of the Spirit: the Precious Word of God and be able to effectively use it!

I want to tell you that you will make mistakes in learning to use the Word of God. It takes time and practice in learning to use the sword effectively. But don't let that scare you from picking up the sword and learning about it. After making sure that they had two swords, Jesus led His disciples into the garden to pray. After about an hour, soldiers carrying torches appeared through the trees and then to their surprise, the disciples recognized Judas Iscariot leading the procession of Roman soldiers and Pharisees who had come to arrest Jesus. Judas kissed Jesus which secretly identified Him to the soldiers. As the soldiers began to lay their hands upon Jesus, Peter grabbed one of the two swords and swung at the nearest man. As the servant of the High Priest tried to duck, the sword narrowly missed taking off his head and instead sliced off his ear. Jesus gently rebuked Peter telling him to "put the sword back into it's place" and then, to everyone's amazement picked up the ear and put it back on the man, instantly healing him.

As you begin to try to use the sword of the Word of God, you will make mistakes. Everyone does. Peter had the sword because Jesus had commanded him to take it. But Peter was just learning how to effectively use it. In trying to learn how to properly use the sword, Peter caused the other man to not be able to hear! How many people have hurt people and caused them to no be able to understand or willing to listen because of the injury that they received from someone trying to learn to properly use God's Word?!

But don't let the fact that you like Peter are going to make mistakes stop you from learning to use God's Word. Jesus reached down and healed the man. Jesus is patient to a person learning to use His Word! He will even heal what we mess up in order to allow us to properly put the sword in it's place! Take encouragement today! If your desire is to please God and you are trying to learn the Word of God so that you can better reach this world, Jesus will help you and even make right the damage from your mistakes. As you learn, you will get better at handling the sword. Trust Jesus to help you!

Jesus went on to say that those who live by the sword, will also die by the sword! As you begin to use the sword of the Lord and begin to teach the Word of God, you will find that it also tries to bring death to the ways in you that are not like Jesus. You must not be willing to teach the word to others if you are not willing to live the word yourselves. Sometimes saints are reluctant to use scripture to reach out to others because they know that there are scriptures that they are ignoring themselves! They that live by the sword shall perish by the sword. If you are going to use the sword to change somebody's life, then you must allow it to change your own!

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What of the other sword, though? The disciple did not use it that night, yet they needed it to have "enough" to reach their world. What other sword is found in scripture? I once thought that the other sword was the "sword of judgment." In that we must allow God's Word to change us, but that still falls under the sword of the Word of God. So I began to search the Word of the Lord prayerfully asking God what the other sword represented.

In prayer, God quickened a scripture to my attention and I believe that I at least have a partial answer to the question to what the other essential sword is. The scripture is found in the life of David in I Samuel chapter 21.

David's life did not go quite like he had planned after his anointing as King. As a child, things had happened fairly quickly. The prophet Samuel had chosen him of all the brothers to be the next king of Israel. God had allowed him to write many songs and even become a harp player in King Saul's palace. He learned to guard the sheep from the bear and the lion. And then came the eventful day where, David was willing to trust God completely in facing the giant Goliath. After that day, David became a household name in Israel. Everybody loved David, except King Saul. Saul became jealous and began to chase David around the countryside. David went from national hero to starving fugitive and so it was in chapter 21 David desperately realized that he was going to have to face the enemy Philistines once again as that was the only land that he could flee to that Saul could not follow him. As you can imagine, David was the most hated man in Philistia after killing Goliath and he knew that to face the enemy he had to have a weapon.

David went to the temple of God and begged the High Priest to give him some bread. I recently preached about that in the sermon "The Law of the Hungry." In verse 8, David also asked the priest for a spear or a sword:

I want you to notice that David had no bad will to King Saul who was trying to kill him, but simply stated that the reason that he was running for his life was "the king's business." And the priest looked at him and said we only have one sword, the sword of Goliath. It's wrapped up in a cloth by the glory of God.

Somewhere after the battle that day against Goliath, the sword was taken from David and carried to the temple. There God had reserved for such a day as this. And when David heard that the sword of Goliath was there, he perked up and said "give it to me" and " there is none like that!"

After you are anointed with God's sweet Spirit and purpose, the devil is going to try to destroy you. If you are going to make it living for God, you are going to have to endure some things. Everyone of us has a Giant in our life that will try to rob our relationship with God. Your Giant may be the tradition of mother and father. It may be severe persecution from your family and friends. It may be a physical illness or a low time in your life. It may be unbelief that God can actually work a miracle in your life. It may be circumstances that take an extreme turn for the worse. It may be an experience of abuse that you had as a child or teenager. There is something in everyone's life that comes to God that is the Giant that is intimidating. The one thing that you think by looking at it through physical eyes that you will never be able to conquer it. The one thing that has always wreaked havoc in your life. And after you begin to live for God, it will come confront you. You will have to kill the giant or it will destroy your relationship with God.

Most of you here know that God will help you kill the giant. Stepping out and trusting in the power of the name of the Lord will help you to kill it. God loves to give people who are the underdogs to sin a supernatural anointing that kills the work of the enemy in their lives. God loves to equip those that are young in serving Him with His delivering power. He loves to take a hopeless situation and transform it into a victory.

If you are still living for God, you have had a massive victory over a giant in your life. If you have lived for God anytime at all, you can look back and realize how you destroyed the giant of your past with the Word of God and pushed through to a relationship with God.

After that victory, however, life does not always turn out as we planned. You may have destroyed the giant, but you will quickly realize that you still must be able to fight. And sometimes when you feel as though you are running for your life and just simply trying to survive, you wonder if God still really has a plan for you! I can tell you what you need to do: you need to run to the temple just as David did. When you do, you will find that God has another sword awaiting you. It is the strength and power that you used to kill that giant way back in the beginning!

David picked up that sword and instantly remembered what it felt like that day that the entire army of the Philistines was running. He remembered how that the Spirit of the Lord helped him to gain the victory. And all of sudden a desperate and fearful man became a mighty warrior again. He thought "if God did it for me then, then surely God can help me to win the victory now!" The other sword that you need is the anointing and testimony of that past victory.

The saints that make it to complete victory over the "accuser of the brethren," the devil, will do so by the blood of the Lamb (applying it according to the Word of God), and by the WORD OF THEIR TESTIMONY! Your testimony of how that God changed you and gave you the Holy Ghost. . . . Your testimony of how that God forgave you and washed all of your sinful lifestyle away . . . Your testimony of the great victory that God has given you is a powerful weapon! By remembering what God has done for you in the past, it reminds you and gives you faith of what God wants to do for you in the future! David was able to go on and win victory after victory from the Philistines because he had the sword of his past victory to give him faith.

Tonight, you have come to hear the Word of the Lord and I certainly hoped that you learned something. I hope that you learned to better use the sword of the Word of God. But God has more for you tonight than just another lesson on how to use His Word. He also wants to remind you of what a great work that He has done in your life. He wants to remind you of the changes and the giants that He has helped you to kill. And, here in the house of the Lord, He wants to unwrap the same faith and anointing that you once had then and give it to you to use now! God wants your faith to be boosted with the sword of your testimony! He wants to remind you: if He delivered you then, then He will do so now against whatever is trying to rise up against you because He has not changed!

Jesus said that you only needed two swords to make it as an able disciple reaching this world. You need the sword of the spirit which is the word of God, and you need the sword of the testimony of your past victories. When you have both, no matter what the odds or obstacles, the Master says "It is enough."