Armor of God part 7 (sword of the spirit)

Ephesians 6:13-17, “Wherefore take unto you the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand. Stand therefore, having your loins girt about with truth, and having on the breastplate of righteousness; And your feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace; Above all, taking the shield of faith, wherewith ye shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked. And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God:”

So, I made it finally to the last piece of armor mentioned in these verses, the sword of the spirit/Word of God. I figured our best example of how to use this sword would have to be the temptation of Jesus in Matthew chapter four. I have made several observations about the three temptations satan put before Christ and how Christ handled them. How did satan tempt Jesus? The first was with pride. In verses 3 and 6 he asks Him to prove who he is. The second thing he tries to use is the physical needs of the body and chooses the thing Jesus appears to weakest to at the moment, food. Third, in verse 6 he tries to use Gods own Word to make Jesus stumble. The fourth and last attempt toward tempting Christ is his use of greed. If I look at my life and the people around me I can see that satan still uses these four basic tactics in his temptations of us today.
Next I looked at how Jesus responded. First of all, what he didn’t do was defend Himself. This sticks out to me most because I have always felt this need to defend myself and it is something I have been trying to learn to let go of. Exodus 14:14 tells me that I need to let God be my defender. The second thing I noticed is that Jesus spoke the Word with authority. “It is written” and basically since it is written that is that and the end of the discussion of the matter, the final authority is the Word. Luke 4:36, “And they were all amazed, and spake among themselves, saying, What a word is this! for with authority and power he commandeth the unclean spirits, and they come out.” Thirdly, He uses scripture that fits the situation. If we are to do this scripture memorization is important. I have started to write down scripture as I come across it. I have a couple of notebooks that I keep nearby when I do my Bible studies and I write down the verses that speak to me or that I think might help someone else. The fourth observation I made about how Jesus handled satans temptations is that He repeatedly rebuked satan, He waited until the last temptation to command satan to leave Him. I think He waited in order to allow satan to reveal to us his mode of attack.
There is one more thing I wondered about when reading about Jesus using the sword of the spirit against satan. Was he quoting scripture to satan or to Himself? In verse 7 He seems to be speaking to satan, “Jesus said unto him, It is written again, Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God.” But the scripture He quotes in the verses before and after seem to me to be speaking to His flesh not satan. “But he answered and said, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.” (Mat 4:4) “for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve.” (Mat 4:10)
I think this is the explanation of what twoedged means in Hebrews 4:12, “For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any twoedged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.”
Not only can the Word of God cut away the attacks of satan but it can also show us the intents of our hearts and cut away the parts of our flesh that are in conflict with our spirit.
So that concludes my study on the armor of God. You may notice that our backside would remain uncovered. This is addressed in Isaiah 58:8, “thy righteousness shall go before thee; the glory of the LORD shall be thy rereward (rearguard).”