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I have been quite spiritually motivated of late by reading stories of World War II heros.
One such hero was British officer, Jack Malcolm Thorpe Fleming Churchill.
More famously known as "Mad Jack" or "Fighting Jack Churchill", Jack was an officer in the British army who was specifically known for his motto: "Any officer who goes into action without his sword is improperly dressed." As his motto would suggest, Mad Jack was known for carrying a longbow, a set of bagpipes, and a Scottish broadsword. Not the normal set of artillery that you would expect in the WWII era!
Mad Jack fought in several different British campaigns, including France in 1940, Norway in 1941, Italy in 1943, and in Yugoslavia in 1944. Throughout these, he used his bagpipes to signal advance, and he often faced combat with his longbow and sword in hand. Once, while fighting in hand-to-hand combat in Italy, he was forced to leave without his sword. He later walked back to town to retrieve it.
Mad Jack was eventually captured by the Nazis. While playing his pipes, he was knocked unconscious by a grenade. Mistakenly taken for a relatively of Winston Churchill, he was flown to Berlin for interrogation and then transferred to Sachsenhausen concentration camp. In September 1944, he, along with four others, escaped Sachsenhausen using a tunnel they dug in secret. They attempted to walk to the Baltic coast, but were captured near the German coastal city of Rostock, just a few kilometres from their goal. They were transferred to Tyrol in 1945. A delegation of prisoners told the senior German army officers they feared they would be executed, and when a German army unit moved in to protect the prisoners, the outnumbered SS guad moved out, leaving the prisoners behind. They were then released.
What intrigues me with this story is the weaponry that Mad Jack chose to use. How can you fight guns and tanks and grenades with a long bow and a sword? Yet he used these arms to save many of his fellow soldiers from the Nazis.
It makes me think of the "arms" that we are given by God and asked to put on. All of it sounds so antiquated compared to modern weaponry. Who uses a breastplate anymore? Modern soldiers don't typically wear helmets, either, while few carry shields, and even fewer carry swords. Yet this is the armour we are given: Breastplate of righteousness, helmet of salvation, shield of faith, belt of truth, shoes of peace and of course, the sword of the Spirit, the Word of God (See Eph. 6:10-17).
But if they weren't effective, even for us today, God wouldn't have given them to us. The fact is, these weapons of God are even more effective against the enemy as Mad Jack's sword, longbow and bagpipes were against the much more modern weaponry that he faced in battle.
The sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God, is the only piece of defensive armament in the lot, and it stands as powerful against the enemy today as it ever did. You see, the devil's lies cannot stand up against the truth of God's Word!
In order to use it well, however, we must do these three things:
1. Be familiar with God's Word. We are told to: "Study and do your best to present yourself to God approved, a workman [tested by trial] who has no reason to be ashamed, accurately handling and skillfully teaching the word of truth." (2 Tim. 2:15 AMP). We must first know what the Bible says in order to recognize the difference between truth and deception.
2. Recognize the lies of the enemy: "You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies." (John 8:44 NIV). We must first recognize the thoughts and facts and circumstances that we tend to believe as lies. This becomes easy to do when we are familiar with God's Word, for: "If anyone does not speak according to this word, they have no light of dawn." (Isaiah 8:20 NIV)
3. Wield our sword: "Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand. " (Eph. 6:13 NIV). Once we've identified the lies, we must rise up with the Truth of God's word. We must "wield our sword"!
The next time you are facing something, no matter how real it feels, that goes against the truth of God's Word, rise up and wield your sword! May your prayer be something like this: "The devil is trying to deceive me that God won't ______. But the Truth of God's Word says that God is ______! Therefore, I stand on God's Word and I declare that God is my _____, and this_____ must leave!"
Feeling like you are under attack? Recognize the devil's lies, and then, just like Mad Jack fought WWII with a sword, turn around and fight off the lies with the Truth of God's Word! Fight with your Sword!
In His love,
Rob Chaffart
Director, Answer2prayer Ministries
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