The Mortifying Power of Scripture

Scripture, when hid in the heart by faith, is the sole weapon ordained by God for the diffusion of temptation in the flesh. It is a sword that grows with the soldier. A babe is able to slay a giant with it; a seasoned believer wielding the Word of God can banish a legion of devils and tread over all of Satan's schemes. The Bible has a power to mortify that this world cannot comprehend, for the object of its mortification are not the flesh and blood citizens of this physical world but the angelic powers and sinister principalities of another realm.

The unregenerate blind professors ridicule this book; religious cults tamper with it; the doctrinally-biased dull its blade to no effect; liberal theologians place a safety scabbard upon it. All these efforts are done in the flesh and are the outcroppings of a deeper campaign occuring in the spiritual realm. The powers of darkness know that the Bible is God's weapon to the believer to withstand Satan's influence and captivate the lusts of the flesh. They therefore induce men in the flesh to destroy it, persecute it, repudiate it, tamper with it, inoculate it.

The purity of the Word is such that if any component of it is adulterated or twisted, the whole is rendered ineffective. In spite of this, many believers play with the Word of God as though it were a toy. They wave it menacingly at each other in fruitless debates; they use it as a club to enforce their agendas; they indiscreetly wield it against fellow soldiers to make a show of their technique. But when it comes time to use it for its real purpose, they find it totally useless against the prevailing powers of hell.

When standing against spiritual wickedness, most believers are soon vanquished by a darling lust: they lose their tempter, they burn with passion after women, they chase after money and worldly position and prestige, they covet the vain applause and religious acceptance of men. Inwardly they have never come to learn the value of God's Word as a sin-destroying weapon for their own walk.

Used for its original purpose, the Word of God is Spirit, and as such it gives abundant life to the believer when hid in the heart. When misused, however, it becomes a razor of death and condemnation to all who toy with its double blade. While scripture is profitable for the establishment of healthy doctrine and the reproof of heresies, the great truth that has been largely forgotten by the church is the usage of the Word of God as a weapon to defeat Satan's attacks.

The New Testament was never meant to be intellectually dissected and dissertated in universities; it was meant to combat spiritual evil and shield you from succumbing to temptation. It has a very practical purpose in revealing the Son of God to us, our Great Deliverer, to rescue us from this present evil world. It exhorts us to walk in Him, rooted and built up and established in the faith, allowing no provision for the flesh to exercise its deceitful lusts within our hearts and minds. God's Word was never intended for dogma wars among the dissenting denominations of Christendom; it was given rather that the believer might triumph over all unrighteousness, and be perfected in holiness, magnifying God's love through the mind of Christ.

Each holy verse has its own special mortifying power. Each verse is authenticated by the Holy Spirit and has the ability to dissolve any obstacle you face - and yet each verse is a dead letter until divinely vivified. If you would experience this miraculous power, this supernatural grace of the Holy Spirit that always leads to victory and joy, you must allow God's Spirit to bring upon you the conviction of necessity for prevailing grace.

Dear saint, confess that you are an undone creature without the very life of Christ empowering your spirit to abide in His glorious victory. Depend on Him daily to renew and refresh your inner man to face Satan's onslaughts as they arise to buffet your mind. Depend on the grace of God to thwart each wave of fleshly rebellion in your mind against God's law. Such a life is wrought according to your faith in the power of God; may you taste of this all-victorious life, of the excellence of unbroken fellowship with your Heavenly Father through the blood of Christ Jesus and mortification by His Spirit.