Join Sharon Knotts as she delves into the significance of God’s spoken word, a message born from her personal journey from despair to spiritual triumph. In this episode of The Sound of Faith, Sharon illuminates the power of speaking what God has quickened in our spirits, demonstrating how it shapes the visible and the invisible realms against life’s adversities. Through biblical accounts of Joshua’s leadership and the miraculous victory at Jericho, she illustrates how faith, combined with courageous declaration, can lead to supernatural success.
Greetings, friends and new listeners. I’m Sharon Knotts, welcoming you to The Sound of Faith, because we know faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God. Today’s message is part of an in-depth study entitled The Spoken Word Series, which includes teaching on the creative Word of God, because everything that’s created visible and invisible, God spoke into being. also the living word, the revelation of the two-mouthed sword of the Spirit, which is the spoken word of God when we speak what God has quickened to our spirits. This teaching is the culmination of my own personal journey from a place of deep despair to an authorized and dynamized deputy of the spoken word of God. If you’re not living right, if you’re not doing right, if you’re not obeying the word of God and you’ve got error in your spirit, I’m not calling you a devil. I’m not calling you a sinner. I’m just saying you’ve got stuff in there. You are not going to be in a position and a condition to receive the rhema word of God. And if anybody knows it, your adversary does. He watches you. He watches me. Amen. He is an expert on human behavior. He’s been busy watching us since Adam and Eve. And even though he cannot read your mind, thank you, Jesus. I’m glad he can’t read my mind. You say, why? Don’t you go down the wrong road there. Sometimes I have been double-minded. Sometimes I’ve been battling doubt and fear and unbelief. But I was smart enough not to give it life by speaking it. I was smart enough not to open my mouth and begin to speak all that negative stuff. Because the scripture says in Romans 10, 17, faith comes by hearing and hearing and hearing by the word of God. But I can flip it and tell you that so does doubt and fear and unbelief come by hearing negative things.
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Even if it’s your own voice. Amen. He didn’t qualify whose voice it was. He just said by hearing. Amen.
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And if it’s the word of God, he qualified what is spoken. If it’s the word of God, then faith comes. But if you get under negative things, and even with your own mouth, you can sabotage yourself. I’ve seen people do it all the time. Well, I don’t know why God doesn’t move for me. Well, I don’t this, and I don’t that, and I’m upset, and I don’t believe it. I got a letter sitting at home. It’s been sitting on my desk for two weeks. I got to answer it. I don’t want to answer that letter, but I got to. It’s one of them kind of letters. I thought we could just say what we, you know, we would be able to say, call those things that are not as where they were. And she’s going, I’m not saying this to disparage against anybody. But I have an indication that everything’s not quite right because she’s in jail. Now, you could be saved in jail. Many people get saved in jail. But chances are that whatever God are there, some of that’s still here. And it’s got to be worked on. You can’t just all of a sudden say, I’ll call them things that are not as they were. And like an abracadabra, the gates are going to open. I’m going to walk out. Amen? So you see, you’ve got to let the Word of God be the scaffold first to do the work in your heart. Because you’ve got to have, it’s not speaking a formula, and that’s where the Word of Faith movement, many people got messed up. They grabbed a formula, and they were using the formula, and they used it, and after a while, for some, when they did, they did not get the results. They became discouraged. They really got discouraged, and I’m telling the truth. Some of them ended up giving up. They said it didn’t work and they gave up and they backslid. And that’s a shame. Amen. It’s nothing wrong. But what did Jesus say? And I don’t want to get ahead of myself because this is next week application. But Jesus said, if you will say and not doubt in your heart. So you can’t have not doubt in your heart is one of the biggest keys of all. Amen. It only works in a clean heart, a pure heart. You can’t have some faith and some doubt. You can’t have a lot of faith and just a little bit of doubt. You’ve got to have all faith and no doubt. Amen? Nothing wavering. All right, so the word of God is that sword, that two-mouth sword. It’s not the red word. It’s not the thought word. It’s not the meditated word. It only becomes that sword against the devil in combat when you open your mouth and speak it. You can’t think him out. That’s what I tried to do, lying on my bed in the fetal position, all like this, all tense, in my head, but you can’t think the devil out. And you can’t meditate him out because he can’t read your mind, as I said. Amen? You have got to speak God’s word, and whatever you do, all those negative things that may be coming to you, do not give them life by speaking them. Amen? Amen. Now, meditation on God’s word can bring mediation. Let’s turn to Joshua, the first chapter. Joshua 1, and we’ll read three verses there. Joshua 1, 6, 7, and 8. Be strong and of good courage for unto this people shalt thou divide for inheritance the land which I swear unto their fathers to give them. Only be thou strong and very courageous that thou mayest observe to do according to all the law which Moses my servant commanded thee. Turn not from it to the right hand or to the left hand that thou mayest prosper whithersoever thou goest. Verse 8 is important. This book of the law shall not depart out of thy mouth. This book of the law shall not depart out of thy mouth, but thou shalt meditate therein day and night, and thou mayest observe to do according to all that is written therein. For then thou shalt make thy way prosperous, and then thou shalt have good success. So we see here that Joshua was now taking the place of Moses. And God has given him a little pep talk. Now this was not the first time that Joshua heard these exact words. God is repeating exactly what Moses told him before Moses went up in the mountain and died. These are exactly what Moses already told Joshua, and now God is reinforcing them and speaking them to him directly. And how many know that when God speaks to you directly, it’s even more powerful? Amen? It’s even more powerful. And so he has told him, you want to be prosperous? You want to succeed? You want to be the one that take the children of Israel actually into the promised land. Be strong. Be of good courage because you have to understand he had to be besieged by self-doubt and fear and thinking, oh my goodness, this is a huge thing that I’m taking them over at. Amen? And Moses was not there for him to lean on and look up to. So he had to meditate on God’s word, but that’s not all that he was told. He said, do not let it depart out of your mouth. So apparently, he had to go around actually speaking out loud what God said. Speaking it out loud, and that was part of my victory. I started walking around my house speaking out what God said. I would speak it out, and the more I spoke it, the bolder I got. And the bolder I got, the more I spoke it. And I began to feel an anointing on it. Don’t wait for an anointing to come. Start speaking the Word of God. The life is in the Word. The life is in the Word. You just got to release the Word, and you will release the life. Amen. Amen? So Joshua had to go around speaking God’s word. Now what did that do? It served to keep fear at bay. It served to keep him thinking the right way that we can face our enemies. Amen? So he succeeded. He brought them in. They crossed over the Jordan River. They got in. But now they’re having their first big challenge, the city of Jericho. The city of Jericho, the walls of Jericho were so… thick. They could have chariot races around them. And they had these walls and it was impenetrable. How were they ever possibly going to be able to take that city? And you know the story. Everybody knows the story of Jericho. So I’m not going to take the time to read it all. But here’s the point. They did what God said. They marched around it every day for seven days. And on the seventh day they were to march around seven times. And after the seventh time they were told that they were to shout. He said that the priest will blow the trumpets and the people will shout. it doesn’t tell you what they were supposed to shout. When you shout, you have to say something. He didn’t just say, go, I’m not going to do it because of my microphone, but he didn’t just say, blare some noise out. Shout indicates that you say something. Yes, in a very loud voice, but you say something. What did they say? I don’t know. You want to know my speculation? I believe that they said, what… Moses said after they defeated the king Amalek and all the Amalekites in the wilderness. Remember when they had that big battle? And as long as Moses kept his arms up, the battle went for Israel, but he got tired. So what did they do? Aaron got on one side. Her got on the other side and held his arms up until the battle was over. They had a great victory. And the scripture tells you a lot about it in Exodus. But after that victory, Moses built an altar to God to worship and give thanks. And you know what he called it? Jehovah Nisi, the Lord is our victory. And I believe that when the priest blew the trumpets, I believe all the people said, Jehovah Nisi!
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And when they did, the walls fell straight down.
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Not over, but straight down. Amen. Supernatural. Amen? So they had to participate with God. God wanted them to open their mouth and speak to the enemy. And only when the people shouted, we always preach when they blew the trumpets, we kind of overlook the fact that the people had to shout. We think just the trumpets did it. Well, the trumpets were very, very important. Now, our Bible says trumpets, but it’s really a shofar. And a shofar is a ram’s horn. And the rabbis teach that the ram’s horn, when blown at a certain frequency, a certain pitch… emulates the voice of God. That’s what the rabbis teach. There’s a certain way that they can blow the ram’s horn and to the devil, to Satan, a.k.a. Lucifer, who used to lead the worship in heaven on the Mount of Congregation, to Lucifer, it sounds like the voice of God. And when he hears that voice, he scatters. He runs. Amen? But don’t you see? You’ve got to participate with God. God released his voice when all the priests blew the shofar.
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But he made the people release their voice and shout, and this is my opinion, Jehovah Nisi, the Lord is our victory. And this is a word for somebody right now. Thus saith the Lord, this is your rhema word. When your back is against the wall and you feel like the enemy is strong, I want you to open your mouth and say Jehovah Nisi. The Lord is my victory. I think you need to try it again. When your back is against the wall and you feel overwhelmed, you’re going to open your mouth and what are you going to say? And the walls are coming down. And the enemy’s going to scatter.
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Amen? I’m talking about using your sword. Your sword against the enemy. And I’m really talking about using the sword in close combat. Close combat. There’s a difference. There’s a difference when you’re all in, you know, you’re all out here and the enemy’s way over there and you’re in a tank or you’re up in an airplane looking down. It’s another thing when it’s hand to hand. Hand to hand. Amen. That is what it means. Let me quickly tell you. There were three types of Roman swords. And of course, we all know that Paul spent a lot of time with Roman soldiers. He spent a lot of time actually shackled to Roman soldiers. He knew a lot about Roman soldiers and he knew all about their weaponry. He would have observed it. That’s why he used the armor of God in Ephesians 6 chapter because he was able to use that and relate to it spiritually. So there were three types of swords. The first type of sword was a huge, heavy-duty sword. It was so heavy and so long they had to hold it with two hands. And really the only real purpose of this sword was that they used it in practice because it really wasn’t something you could use in actual combat because it was so heavy. What are you going to do? You’re going to slug them like a ball bat? So they really used it in practice. And if you’ve ever watched gladiator movies, you see them. They’ll have like a big tree or a big column and the gladiators up there and they’re just banging away at that. What are they doing? They’re getting muscles. They’re getting strength. Amen. They’re building up their arm muscles and their shoulder muscles and all of that. They’re using these very heavy swords to hit these people. immovable objects in order to build up their muscles. So that particular sword was really only used in practice. Amen? So we’ll be using that sword in prayer. Amen? The second type of sword was more like a lance. It was skinny and it was long. You could use it with one hand, but because it was so long, you really didn’t get that close up on your enemy. And therefore, you could not really inflict that much harm, that much damage. You certainly were probably not going to kill them. Because you’re so far away and they’re so far away and you’re doing this. We see sometimes when they do fencing. Amen? Unless you get them down and you’re over top of them, all you’re going to do is maybe have a few hits on their legs or something. You’re not going to kill them with that sword. Amen? But the third sword was more like a dagger. It was generally about 19 inches long, sometimes even shorter than that. And unlike the double-handed sword or the long sword, it could be used with one hand, but because it was so short, it had to be used in close combat. It was important that you could use it with just one hand, because the other hand had to be free for what? The shield of faith. If we read all of the whole armor of God in Ephesians 6 chapter, we see that Paul says, above all, take in the shield of faith. Now the above all does not mean above all it’s the most important. I’ve already showed you what the most important one is. It means out in front of all. Hold it out in front of yourself, the shield of faith. Amen? So you got the shield of faith with one hand, and you got that dagger-type sword with the other. And, you know, let me just throw this out here. This is just free, okay? This is free. It doesn’t have anything particularly to do with the message. But there is no such thing as a New Testament armor-bearer. We hear a lot of people talking about, he’s my armor-bearer. No, if you have an armor-bearer, you are in big trouble. Old Testament armor bearer, New Testament, you take your shield of faith whereby you may be able to quench every fiery dart of the enemy.
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I don’t want an armor bearer. I want my own shield. When I’m all by myself and the devil’s coming after me, I don’t want to have to get on the phone and talk to my armor bearer. I want to be able to quench the fiery dart of the wicked one right here and now. Amen. That’s a man-made man manufactured.
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office, title, if you will. And it’s not New Testament truth. He said, you take, you take the shield of faith. So you’ve got the shield of faith in one hand and you’ve got the dagger of the sword in the other hand. And this is the sword that the enemy fears. This particular sword that Paul would have observed had those serrated edges on both sides and it was curled up on the end. And And that meant when he plunged it into the enemy, and you can only do that if you’re up close. You can’t do it like this. I mean, we’re talking about the fierce battles you get in. We’re talking about the battles when you’re looking eyeball to eyeball at the devil. Amen? We’re talking about those kind of warfares. And so when you plunge this particular type of sword into a person, it literally shredded them. their insides. It shredded it and they began to bleed profusely internally. Now, as bad as that was, when you pulled it out, It did even more damage. It did even worse damage when they pulled it out. Amen? And this was the type of sword that literally struck terror in the hearts of the Roman soldiers. They did not want to get in combat with someone that had this two-edged sword. And so what Paul is telling us is this. We have a weapon. We have a two-mouthed sword that literally strikes terror in the heart of Satan.
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Amen. He does not want to come up against you when you use this sword. He’s going to flee. Amen. Because it’s going to shred his lies to pieces.
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It’s that spoken word of God, that rhema word of God that God drops in your spirit. Now, somebody here might be saying, well, how do I know when I have the rhema word of God? I won’t know. How am I going to know? Well, let me tell you this. You will know it. You will just know it because it’ll be not like anything you’ve ever heard before. Amen. It will rise up in your spirit and you will know it’s coming from your spirit and it’s not coming from here. It’s coming out of your spirit. It’s hard to explain, but you will know it when you hear it. I mean, it’s like trying to explain to a first time mother to be about having a baby and she’ll say, well, how will I know when I’m in labor? And the answer is, oh, honey, you will know. You will know. Well, how will I know if I’m really having contractions? You will know. Don’t worry. You will know. But sometimes that first-time mom-and-a-bee gets a gas ping. She says to her husband, this is it. Take me to the hospital. And they get there, and the doctor says, honey, you’re not ready yet. You’re not having contractions. Go on home. It’s not time. And then she, in some cases, I’ve known people that’ve done it more than one time. Go back again. Honey, it’s not time. When will I know? You will know. And then one night, she wakes up in the middle of the night. She says, honey, this is it. This is the real thing. We’re going to have a baby. Get me to the hospital. Amen. But trying to explain it to somebody until they’ve actually had it, they don’t really understand it. But you will know because it will rise up out of your spirit. David said in Psalm 42, he said, deep calls unto deep. Deep calls unto deep. The spirit of God calls deep down into your spirit, not your brain. Yes. Not your brain. He bypasses your brain. He speaks to your spirit. And that’s why audible voices need to be suspect. Let me say that again. Audible voices need to be suspect. Because generally, I’m not ruling it out, but generally, God speaks out of your spirit. Satan speaks to your mind. Your own flesh speaks to your mind. Your own brain speaks to your mind. But God speaks to your spirit. Amen? And when it happens to you, you will know. Because sometimes when I’m mulling things over in my mind, a situation that I’ve got to make a decision upon or something, and all of this chatter is going on up in here. But all of a sudden, I’ll hear it here. I don’t know how to explain it to you. And then I know this is not Sharon because I’m always careful. I always want to make sure it’s not fleshly zeal. Fleshly zeal is not evil. It’s not demonic. It’s not satanic. It’s what it is. Fleshly zeal. I want to do this. Oh, this is a great thought. Oh, this is wonderful. I love this idea. I’m going to go do it. And somewhere down in here, the Spirit of God checks and says, it’s not as good an idea as you think it is. Or this is not the time. Or this is not for you. This is for someone else. Amen? So, you know, the scripture says that by reason of use, having your spiritual senses exercised, Hebrews 5.12, to be able to discern good and evil. And that word discern means make a choice between two things. But let me tell you this. The greater the word of God that you have deposited in your spirit, the greater will be the rhema word that God can give to you. The more of the written word that you have in your spirit, the more that God can give you that rhema word, the more powerful it will be, the more specific it will be, amen, when you have that in your spirit. So I know I’m running out of time. I didn’t get everything in I wanted to today. We will stop here for now, amen. Let me give you one quick illustration, and then we’ll finish. Talking about the sword of the Lord, because next week I want to go on to application. I want to take you to the story of Gideon in Judges, the seventh chapter. We won’t go there. I’m going to paraphrase it to you for sake of time. Gideon was one who was very fearful, hiding from the enemy because the Midianites were a powerful enemy and they had been tormenting the Israelites for years, every year, waiting until they would harvest their crops, get them all ready, and then they would come down and steal them. And so the people were frustrated, the people were hungry, the people were upset, and they were just in a bad way. And they were afraid. They greatly feared the Midianites because they said the Midianites were like grasshoppers in number. And so they were overwhelmed by their enemy being so great in number. Now, an angel of God comes to Gideon, says, you great man of valor, I’m going to use you to deliver my people. Now, suffice to say that he was not a great man of valor. But you see, God was speaking what he saw he was going to be. And it took many supernatural interventions to bring Gideon to the place. You know, he put out the fleece twice. How many remember that? Yes. And he had several encounters, supernatural encounters, before he was ready to actually go to war. And the last thing that God finally used to get through to Gideon was, he said, Gideon, go down and do some espionage. Sneak around the camp of the Midianites. Just sneak around their tents. And when he did, he came upon a tent where two of the men were discussing that one had had a dream the night before. And he says, listen to this dream. I saw this big cake of barley come rolling down, and it ran into our camp, and you knocked it all down. He says, what kind of sense has that dream made? And the other guy said, oh, that’s nothing but the sword of the Lord and of Gideon. And when Gideon heard his enemies prophesying his victory… Faith comes by hearing. God used the enemy to tell, give the enemy a dream and interpret the dream and let Gideon go hear it. And he went back to the camp of the Israelites and said, all right, we’re ready now. Now, I don’t have time to tell you, but God had whittled them down from 32,000 men to 300. Because God was going to really get the glory out of this one. Amen? So what did he tell the 300 men to do? They were going to wait till night. They were going to ring the camp of the enemy with 300 men, surround them. They would have a pitcher that would have been like a terracotta pitcher with a candle inside and a trumpet. And Gideon said, when I… Give the signal. You’re going to break the picture because 300 men cracking terracotta was going to make a big clattering sound. Then they were going to see all the candles and they were going to see all ringed around them. It’s going to look like more than 300. And then he says, you’re going to shout. You see, they had to use their voice. And what were they to shout? The sword of the Lord and of Gideon.
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The sword of the Lord and of Gideon. And when they did that, when they cracked the pictures, and when they shouted the sword of the Lord and of Gideon, the people rose up the enemy.
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They were so confused. They were so scattered. They began to kill themselves. Wow. or flee to the mountains. Do you see how essential, how imperative it is that you open your mouth and release the Word of God when you want the victory. I don’t care if it’s 300 up against the proverbial grasshoppers in number. When you open your mouth and speak the Word of God, it’s the one weapon against which your adversary has no defense.
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James 4, 7, resist the devil.
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And he will flee from you. How do you resist him? No, you open your mouth and you release the sword of the Lord. Hallelujah. If you get this revelation in your spirit and you start activating it right now, as soon as you leave here and you start using it, it’s going to bring you out of those things that you keep getting snared by over and over and over again. It’s the thing that brought me out of the pit. It’s the thing that brought me out of that pit of despair, hopelessness, anxiety, suffering. It brought me out. It didn’t happen overnight. It took me a while to get it. But once I got it and started using it, I began to come out and come out. And you know what? The thing that brought the victory is the thing that keeps the victory. You’ve got to use it every day. Amen? Hallelujah. Come on, stand on your feet. And next week we will have our final session, which will be the application. And you don’t want to miss it because it’s some good things that I’ll be bringing out next week. Amen. It will really solidify it for you. And you know, you will have the application, how to actually apply it. and use that sword. Amen. You know what the sword is now, but you’re going to see examples from the Bible, what Jesus did and what others did. Father, we thank you for your word because it’s alive and active and I know that it’s germinating in our hearts right now. And I just pray, Holy Spirit, that as we meditate on this word, and it will just become more alive in our spirits, that we’ll receive the revelation of it. You will give us the wisdom that comes from you, that doesn’t come from Sharon or any person, that comes from you, Holy Spirit. And I pray that great victories are going to be won, and people that have been dealing with the same old frustrating problem for so long and too long are going to find the way to come out of it. And win the victory. Now Lord bless your people. Watch over them. Protect them and keep them. Until we meet again in your house. In Jesus name we pray. And let the church say. Amen. Amen. I really hope you’re being blessed and spiritually enlightened by this teaching, the spoken word series. This revelation was forged in my spirit during a time of prolonged suffering in my body, which triggered emotional and mental anguish. I had always had a strong spirit of faith, but after being homebound and bedridden, I despaired. And in my distress, I begged God for a word to hold on to. And he gave me John 15, 7. If you abide in me and my words abide in you, You will ask what you will and it shall be done. Honestly, I was disappointed. I wanted something more dramatic. But then I began to get this revelation of God’s spoken word. And gradually as I put it into practice, I overcame the attacks of the adversary. The foundation is the creative word. The word of God literally spoke everything into existence. He framed the worlds and he upholds all things by the word of his power. The revelation is the authority that Jesus, the word of God, made flesh and dwelt amongst us, had himself and gave to us to speak the word as a sharp two-edged sword against the enemy. The literal Greek says two-mouthed sword. One mouth is God’s and the second is mine or yours. When we speak forth the word that God quickens to our spirits… This creates the one weapon against which Satan has no defense. Rhema is not a magical formula. It is the active living word of God, a word from the word that comes out of our mouth. The application is the illumination of Jesus’ own ministry by which he demonstrated faith in his own spoken word and its unlimited authority over time and distance when he sent his word and he healed them. Friends, I urge you to order the spoken word series. The complete set is a 3D set. Offer SK-136. That’s SK136. Please send a minimum love gift of $15 to The Sound of Faith. P.O. Box 1744, Baltimore, Maryland, 21203. Or order online at soundoffaith.org, where you may also order on MP3. But to order the Spoken Word Series by mail, send your minimum love gift of $15 to P.O. Box 1744, Baltimore, Maryland, 21203. Request offer SK136. Until next time, this is Sharon Knott singing Maranatha.
