h theories and pet ideas, but he will get the victory over them
likewise. What we want is to draw the sword of the Spirit. It is that
which cuts deeper than anything else.

Turn in your Bibles to Eph. vi, 14: "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 (or over 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."

THE GREATEST WEAPON.

The sword of the Spirit is the Word of God, and what we need specially
is to be filled with the Spirit, so we shall know how to use the Word.
There was a Christian man talking to a skeptic, who was using the
Word, and the skeptic said, "I don't believe, sir, in that Book." But
the man went right on and he gave him more of the Word; and the man
again remarked, "I don't believe the Word," but he kept giving him
more, and at last the man was reached. And the brother added, "When I
have proved a good sword which does the work of execution, I would
just keep right on using it." That is what we want. Skeptics and
infidels may say they don't believe in it. It is not our work to make
them believe in it; that is the work of the Spirit. Our work is to
give them the Word of God; not to preach our theories and our ideas
about it, but just to deliver the message as God gives it to us. We
read in the Scriptures of the sword of the Lord and Gideon. Suppose
Gideon had gone out without the Word, he would have been defeated. But
the Lord used Gideon; and I think you find all through the Scriptures,
God takes up and uses human instruments. You can not find, I believe,
a case in the Bible where a man is converted without God calling in
some human agency--using some human instrument; not but what He can do
it in His independent sovereignty; there is no doubt about that. Even
when by the revealed glory of the Lord Jesus, Saul of Tarsus was
smitten to the earth, Annanias was used to open his eyes and lead him
into the light of the Gospel. I heard a man once say, if you put a man
on a mountain peak, higher than one of the Alpine peaks, God could
save him without a human messenger; but that is not His way; that is
not His method; but it is "the sword of the Lord and Gideon"; and the
Lord and Gideon will do the work; and if we are j