The King's Sword

Here now is the legend of the King's Sword. There was a legend about a magical sword used by an old English king. It seems that whenever the king used this particular sword, he experienced success and victory on the battlefield.

His enemies learned to fear the King's Sword. Eventually, the king grew old and feeble. And an adversary, the king, began to spread a rumor around the village that the King's Sword no longer possessed supernatural powers.

That it was now just an average, ordinary sword of little use to its owner. This story began to spread among the peasants until the entire village believed that the King's Sword was now impotent. As the King's heir to the throne matured, he too grew up believing the story about the sword's uselessness and ordered the royal blacksmith to forge him a new sword.

A handsome, shiny, engraved sword with jewels. Much more beautiful to behold than his father's old sword. This was done.

One day, an enemy force attacked the castle village and fell upon the inhabitants, killing and maiming many. The enemy then laid siege to the castle. The young prince grabbed his new, bejeweled sword and went forth to defend his kingdom, but to no avail.

Rather than defeating his enemy, he was captured. In fact, the entire village of the royal family was now under bondage to this evil enemy. Time passed, and the villagers groaned beneath the oppressive bondage of the evil power.

But there was nothing they could do but suffer. Eventually, the old king died, and his son, the prince, could not assume the throne because he was still a captive of this evil entity. The entire village groaned and lamented as they served their oppressive and evil new ruler.

During this time, a nephew of the king grew to maturity, and one day, this lad called on the prince to the castle. The guards allowed the fair-haired, harmless-looking youth entry since he was royalty. The prince was held captive in a chamber with a guard at the door.

When the lad was allowed to visit the prince, he asked him where the old sword was that once belonged to the king. The prince pointed to a large cedar chest by the barred window. The chest was opened, and there, wrapped in an old blanket, was the leather scabbard which held the king's sword.

The lad asked if he could have the sword as a memento of his uncle the king. The prince nodded yes, telling the lad that it was just an old worthless sword of little use today. The lad left the castle with the sword wrapped in the old blanket.

Upon arriving at his part of the village, he stopped by the barber shop to get a haircut. The barber was one of the ancient men of the town, and as the old barber cut the lad's locks, he inquired about the bundle by the lad's feet. The lad told the barber about the sword.

When the old man heard this, his eyes lit up and his stooped shoulders straightened. Then he proceeded to tell the lad about all the powers that the sword formerly possessed. The lad was curious, and as he left the barber shop he visited an old baker.

He asked the elderly baker to verify the story of the magical sword. Oh, yes, said the baker. I was an eyewitness to the king's victories with that sword, for I used to be the royal baker, until the enemy captured the castle and placed us all in bondage.

The baker turned away. His eyes were full of sadness. The lad left the baker and went home.

In his little hovel, he unwrapped the blanket and pulled the old sword from the worn leather scabbard. Though it was large and double-edged, the sword seemed just an ordinary sword. In fact, it was almost too heavy to wield properly.

The lad lay down on a mat on the straw floor and fell asleep next to the sword. The lad dreamed of being a king. He dreamed he was king and fighting a battle with the sword.

The enemy fled from the lad in fear. Was it the magical sword? He awoke to sunlight pouring in from a hole in a thatched roof. The lad grabbed the sword.

Lifting it up with both hands, he exclaimed, It must be true! With a new faith, he rushed forth from his hovel, and the first enemy soldier he encountered. He brandished a sword and attacked. The enemy fell down dead.

Soon another enemy was upon the lad, but brandishing the sword again, he experienced victory. Finally, a troop of enemies fell upon the lad, but the sword saved him once more. There were now eyewitnesses to these events, and soon the word spread among the villagers that the king's old sword was once again magical.

Word got to the evil ruler at the castle, and he personally led his largest band of soldiers to go out and attack the lad. All the lad had to do was to brandish the sword, and the enemy fell before him. The lad was a hero.

He and the sword set the captives free. The lad was made the new king. The prince was so bewildered and jealous that he killed himself by falling upon his bejeweled sword.

But from that day on, there was peace in the valley of the king. The modern church has failed with its new swords and methodologies, but there was a reason why, friends. Men like Whitefield and Edwards and Spurgeon and Nettleton had such power in preaching and saw revival.

They used the great doctrines of grace as a wedding stone to sharpen their blade before they went out to battle and unsheathed their sword and preached on sin and the severity of God's law and warned man of a future judgment and a burning hell of punishment for sin. And they preached man's duty of repentance and his utter necessity of regeneration. They preached much about a bloody cross which was nailed a bloodstained savior from sin and their swords glistened with blood as they hewed down sinners before them by cutting their conscience with the great doctrines of the gospel and showing man their lost and ruined condition through searching sermons like Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God.

I believe if all of these men had only taught on the doctrines of grace, we would have not heard much from them as they would have left this world like a professor leaves his classroom by a closed door. Andrew Bonar, writing on the life of Asahel Nettleton, observed how the great doctrines of grace had lost their power in the hands of men who had, and I quote, they have so preached and prelected on them, so argued and defended them that in their hands these truths have become little better than dry theses, and the preachers of those truths have dropped the tone of solemn, tender, conscience-rousing, bioenergies and become merely able defenders of favorite themes. In admirable contrast with such treatment of doctrine, Dr. Nettleton's preaching, avoiding this error altogether, set these truths high before its hearers and on all occasions in a most thoroughly practical form they saw in them the God of majesty, glory, grace, dealing with rebels and were doubt-bound before him.

Listen, brother preachers, until we again preach the old truths along with their demands upon sinners like these other men did who saw revival, preaching with a sharpened, double-edged sword that divides asunder and cuts both ways to bring conviction to sin and show men their lost condition, we will only be entering the battle to fight against an enemy too great for us and against a society too dead and sinned to pay any attention to us because all we are doing is fighting with a dull blade.