Derek Prince - A Bible On Your Bookshelf Is Not Going To Protect You
This is a clip from: God's Word Your Inexhaustible Resource
I want to go on to the next statement, the one I was headed for: Take the sword of the Spirit which is the word of God. So that's our weapon of attack against Satan. It's the word of God. Some of you have probably heard, because there's a lot of teaching about this today, that there are two different Greek words for word. There's logos and there's rhema. Logos is the total word of God, the whole counsel of God, the eternal God, the word of God. Rhema is the spoken word of God. And the word used here is rhema. Take the sword of the Spirit which is the rhema word of God. In other words, it's not the Bible beside your bed or in your bookshelf that will protect you. It's the Bible where you speak it out in faith and quote it. That's the sword of the Spirit and that's so sharp that every time you do that to the devil he backs off. He's afraid of the sword of the Spirit. And our perfect pattern for this is Jesus.
In Matthew 4 when Satan came to tempt Him, how did Jesus answer? Three times He said what? It is written. What's that? That's the sword of the Spirit. And Satan left him. He has no answer to the sword of the Spirit. You can give him all sorts of psychological reasons and he's not impressed. But when you simply quote the Scripture and apply it personally you can drive him from you. So, the sword of the Spirit, the Word of God is our weapon against Satan. Let me give you just two other passages. 1 John 2:14. The second part of the verse, John says: I have written to you, young men, because you are strong and the word of God abides in you and you have overcome the wicked one. Who is the wicked one? Satan. John makes three statements about those young people. They're strong, they've overcome Satan and the reason is the third statement, the word of God abides in you.
If you have the word of God abiding in you it will give you spiritual strength and victory over Satan. In Revelation 12:11 we have an example of this. It's a picture, I believe, of the end time tremendous conflict between the people of God and the people of Satan. And the devil himself is personally involved. But verse 11 of Revelation 12 gives us the key to victory. It says: They -the people of God- overcame him -satan- by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony and they did not love their lives to the death. So how do we overcome satan? By the blood of the Lamb, by the word of our testimony.
Now I have a way to explain this which I've explained to thousands of people. I tell people if you could pay me there's no money that would express the value. But, I'm not asking for payment, you understand. This truth is priceless. How do we overcome satan? By the blood of the Lamb and by the word of our testimony. This is my explanation. We overcome satan when we testify personally to what the word of God says the blood of Jesus does for us. Let me say that again. We overcome satan when we testify personally to what the word of God says that the blood of Jesus does for us. The key to that is knowing what the Word of God says. Then it's making it personal, applying it in your own life.