Matthew 26:52-54

“Then Jesus said to him, ‘Put your sword back into its place.  For all who take the sword will perish by the sword.  Do you think that I cannot appeal to my Father, and he will at once send me more than twelve legions of angels?  But how then should the Scriptures be fulfilled, that it must be so?'”

It shouldn’t be any wonder why our churches and our Christians seem so weak and feeble.  If you lack power in your spiritual life, if so many tempests slam you and toss you to and fro, and you seem doomed in a pathetic and sinking vessel, take note of our Lord’s words.  Again he holds up Scripture in an esteemed place – indeed, in the highest place.  If we doubt and stumble in our faithlessness it’s because our spiritual muscles have shrunken and this is always the sorry state of every Christian and church that forgets that Scripture is God’s living word.  

Jesus doesn’t call the angel armies to squash his petty enemies because he knows fully the authority and power of Scripture.  Do we?  And, in our hour of need, in our deepest distress, what do we most readily seek – our own good or that the name of God be glorified?  Here we have Jesus, facing the Cross, facing humiliation and agony, the reproach of blasphemous and petty men, and yet he will not use the overwhelming force that is at his command.  This should be said of all of us: When we’re reviled, ridiculed and abused we respond first by seeking God’s glory, not our own vindication.  Peter draws his weapon because his faith is small and his faith is small because he doesn’t know the Scripture.  No man is advanced in faith that doesn’t know the Word because to have Biblical faith is to have faith in the God that reveals himself in the Bible.  Beware of teachers that instruct to the contrary.  There is no real faith outside of Scripture – just delusion, error, and wishful thinking, none of which will stay the hand of the Devil.  

The Christian that races to his weapons in defense against the world will perish because he’s fighting a spiritual war with the very flesh that caused the problem in the first place.  Jesus isn’t telling Peter that men have no right to self-defense.  He’s telling him that this battle is about the ultimate self-defense – the salvation and rescue of the soul from Hell.  No sword will rescue the sinner from Satan’s grievous and vile grip.  Only Christ, his sinless life, his crucifixion and resurrection, has that power.  So, the Christian or the church that thinks it needs a new man in Washington, or a new policy here or there, has pulled the world’s sword and he’s in danger of the fire.  The man perishes that thinks evil lies outside.  Christ came to call sinners to repent of the evil that resides inside.  This is the message of Scripture for it all testifies of Christ and Christ came to save the lost.  To draw a sword or to create a policy or have some marketing strategy as the primary weapon against sin is sinful.  Scripture and prayer are at the heart and soul of the Christian life and there’s no other life for us.