Mighty Weapons

The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds.

2 Corinthians 10:4

The weapons of our warfare are mighty. I wish I could thunder those words in such a way as to capture your imagination and help you to see how wrong is the terrible attitude of pessimism and despair that exists among Christians these days. Many act as though all we can do is to hang on to what we've got and wait for the Lord to come. That is wrong! We are called to attack these strongholds, and weapons are placed in our hands that are able to subdue and break down these strongholds of evil.

The Bible is full of examples of this for our encouragement. We have an example in the case of Jonah, where the weapon of truth is used to set a whole city free. Nineveh was a pagan city, doing things that were destroying the life of its people. Jonah was sent there to preach. When Jonah finally fulfills his call to preach to them, what was the result? The result was that from the king right down to the most common person in the city, they all repented, and the city was spared for over a hundred years. That is the direct thrust of the weapon of truth against a stronghold of evil.

You can see how the weapon of love prevailed in many places in the Scriptures. There is the story of David and Jonathan, that wonderful story of friendship between two men who were on opposite sides of the political fence. One was the son of the king, and the other was the greatest threat to that king's throne. By all rights these two men should have been at one another's throats, but they were friends. They loved one another deeply. As a result, when David became king, Jonathan was delighted and did nothing to withstand him. The threatened breach between these two families was healed, extending even to Jonathan's son and his son's sons. What could have been a deadly feud that would have severed a country was healed by love.

Take the weapon of righteousness. Read the book of Daniel. Remember those three young Hebrew men who resisted the proclamation of the king to bow down before the great idol erected on the plain? They refused to do so even though threatened with the fiery furnace. Because of that, ultimately, the king himself became a believer and issued a proclamation that the God of Daniel must be honored and respected throughout the whole of the kingdom.

These things are evidence of how these weapons of our warfare can prevail in the midst of human society. These are mighty weapons. They are mighty forces with which we can attack the strongholds of evil of our day. This is what the Word of God calls us to. Let us learn what these weapons are, and how to use them, and then deliberately move to the offensive. Refuse to accept the status quo, this attitude of Nothing can be done. A great deal can be done. We need to repent of our barrenness, of our blindness, and take up weapons that work.

Lord, train me, make me, shape me. Put in my hands, as you have, these weapons of truth, love and righteousness, and teach me how to use them effectively. Amen.