Spiritual Warfare - Lesson 10

Spiritual Warfare
Dr. Gerry Breshears
th251-10
Description of Warfare in Ephesians
Lesson Transcript

Paul's book of Ephesians, magnificent book, so much here. Ironically, one of the themes that I think is big in the book gets overlooked way often, and that is a theme of what we'd call spiritual warfare. So what I'll do is just run through here and dig into a few passages to just show you how this theme develops, especially against the background of what we've already done. Chapter 1: "Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. He chose us in him."

He's talking about the body of Christ here. There's a big debate about the nature of God's choosing. I'm going to skip all that. If you tap into my doctrine thing, I talk about the different things on this. But what I'm looking at here is he chose us into Christ. He predestined us to adoption to sons, to adoption his sonship. And we're going to do the praise of His glorious grace. We have redemption through his blood. We have forgiveness the sins, which is lavished upon us. He's made known to us the mystery His will, all that kind of stuff. This is all things that Jesus has done for the body. And it seems to me that what He's doing here is back up in verse 4. He wants us to be holy and blameless.

Now, again, there's a lot of debate about exactly what this means, but let tell you what I think it means. The word holy, kadosh in the Old Testament, [inaudible 00:01:52] in the New Testament, [inaudible 00:01:55] is the noun. The word literally means: awesome, terrifying, or dedicated to. Now, English doesn't mean that at all, and that's not the meaning in English. The word holy in English means morally pure, something like that. But the Hebrew and Greek words, when you're talking about God, He is awesome in the sense that He's terrifying. Terrifyingly great. But He's awesome. He's the greatest ever.

But the other meaning of kadosh is that it's dedicated to. And we say it's separated from, but that's a result. That's not the heart of the meaning. The heart of the meaning is dedicated to. So what God is doing here, and the first thing is he wants us to be dedicated to Him. Of course the alternative would be dedicated to Satan. And that is accomplished in the cross. We just saw that in Colossians. Same thing here. We are in Him in order to be dedicated to Him. And that's the no condemnation, all those things. But then the second word there is blameless.

And blameless means that there's no accusation against us. It means that we are morally mature, ethically right. And His goal is that we in Christ would be dedicated to Him. And that's true when we come to Christ, we're in the kingdom of light, and to be blameless. And the way I read this, and the worst he has here, we've done in verse 11: In Him, we've been chosen being predestined according and plan and works everything toward His will, in order that we who are first put our hope in Christ, might be the praise of His with glory." We have this deposit of the Holy Spirit. What he's saying, he says, we're in Christ and he wants us to be blameless. And that's the same thing you saw back in our look at Genesis. He wants us to be blessable, image bearing covenant partners. Who partner with God to bring goodness and light into the world.

Tony Evans has a phrase that I really like for the emphasis. First half of the first chapter is God's goal is it will be a beautiful bride for His precious son at the married supper of the lamb. And we don't start out as beautiful bride, we don't start out as anything like that. We start out in the other tribe. So he wants us to be beautiful bride for His precious son, who will partner together to crush the serpent. I think that's, if I can say the theme of the book of the Ephesians, that's the heart of it. And this beautiful bride is not just the Jewish people, the physical descendants of Abraham, it's Jew and Gentile together in the one new family. Beautiful bride for His precious son.

And that beautiful bride is made up of Jew, Gentile together fellow heirs in one new family. So let me unpack this with you a little bit. So the first thing is holy and blameless. Holy means dedicated to, married to. Blameless means blameless. Holy is the way we say in English. But see, in English, holy means morally pure. In Hebrew, Greek, it just means dedicated to. But the blameless piece is that we'd be beautiful bride. So you follow that through in 1:15, he begins his prayer. "Never stop giving thanks for you. Keep asking God may give you the spirit of wisdom and revelation so you may know better. Pray the eyes of your heart be enlightened." He keeps praying these things that we would know heart, that we would be known hope is verse 18. Hope, inheritance and power.

In today's world, those are the opposite of what's being said. We have hope. Well, the world around us is just clear full of despair. We have an inheritance in the future in a world that says you're going to die. If climate change doesn't kill you, toxins will. And if they don't, everything's going to kill you. Oppressive powers. We have hope, we have inheritance and we have power. We're not the victims of oppression. And that's all worldview, contemporary. That's his prayer for us. We'd be beautiful bride. Then he talks with that power, same one that raised Christ from the dead, "Far above," verse 21, "Far above all rule, authority, power, dominion. Every name that's invoked in the present age, the age to come.

Now what he's saying here, raised Christ from the dead, seated Him at the right hand of God in the heavenly realms. So that's where Christ is today and that is far above all the demonic powers. And so what he's saying in his death, resurrection, exaltation that He is achieved the highest level of authority in the universe right next to the Father himself as messianic authority, not just divine authority. So he's an authority over all the demonic powers. And He continues. God placed all things under his feet echoing Psalm 110 and appointed Him to be head over everything. So He is head over everything and God did this for us.

He is head over everything for our benefit, his body, the beautiful bride for His precious son. So the theme here is that He is exalted above all the demonic powers. And you come down in chapter 2: "You were dead in all the bad things. But because of His great love, God, in rich in mercy, made us alive together with Christ. Even when we were dead in transgression, by grace you've been saved." But look at chapter 2 verse 6, "When God raised us up with Christ and seeded us with Him in heavenly realms in Christ Jesus." Now where's Jesus?

Heaven.

Right hand of the Father. Far above, what?

All dominion's powers. He's far above all the demonic powers, Satan and all of his forces. Where are we? We're seated with Him in heavenly authority, far above all the demonic powers. See, and this is absolutely crucial teaching that some folk get it, but I'm surprised how many people missed the connection between 121 and 2:6, even though it's really obvious. He is raised and seated next to the Father. We are raised up with Him and seated with Him, and that's far above all the demonic powers. Do we have authority to demonic powers? We do. We do. Because we're seated with Him in that place. And that's something that, of course, the enemy wants us to forget. And so the purpose of that, in order that, in the coming ages, He might show the rich of His grace.

And so then you get what everybody's memorized. If you've been around the church for a while, it's by grace you've been saved, not through faith, not of yourselves, the gift of God, not by work so anyone can boast. Of course you can't stop there. That's the holy, dedicated to. But verse 10, "We are God's handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do." While it's true that we're not saved by our works, we're saved for good works. We're not saved by our good works, but we are saved for good works. And it's the idea that we are beautiful bride, blessable, image-bearing covenant partners who will partner with Him in crushing the serpent and bringing goodness into the world. We are not saved by good works, true, but we're saved for good works, which we do in combination with Him. And he goes in and talks about Jew and Gentile come together in the rest of chapter 2. So you're no longer foreigners, strangers, Gentiles are coming in as fellow citizens with God's people.

Chapter three, I'm just hitting some high points here about the spiritual warfare. He talks about Jew and Gentiles fellow heirs, full partakers in the covenants of promise, and that he's a servant because of the work of His power. "Even though in the less that the least of all God's people," verse 8, His grace has given me, preach to the Gentiles the boundless riches of Christ, make plain to everything the administration of the mystery." Now mystery, my pretty wife is a huge fan of mystery shows. She loves them. And she can figure out who did it and why quicker than anybody I know. She's an absolute master of it. And that is not what the mystery is here. This is not by being clever, something we figure out. The mystery is something that cannot be known except God reveal it. So what he's saying, "He's make plain to everyone the administration of this mystery, which for ages past was kept hidden in God, who created all things."

The mystery, his intent is now through the church, the manifold wisdom of God. And that's the mystery of Jew, Gentile together in one body, fellow heirs, equal participants in God's goodness, the manifold wisdom of God. And here's the thing, second half of verse 10, 3:10. "Should be made known to the rulers and authorities in heavenly realms, according to His purpose accomplished in Christ Jesus our Lord." He is showing to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly realms, the mystery for the sake of overcoming their dividing. God is unifying Jew and Gentile again, in the body of Christ. And that is a statement of triumph to the demonic powers. This mystery kept past. His intent is now that we, through the church, this wisdom of God should be made known to the demonic rulers and authorities in the heaven realms. All the gods, Baal and Chemosh, and Moloch, and Astarte, and Artemis, and all them, we are declaring the mystery of God's shalom.

And I think back to what I tried to palm off you in Genesis 1 and through 3, "We are blessable, image-bearing covenant partners, beautiful bride for His precious son, to partner together in doing good to overcome the divisive evil of the evil one. Then he praises marvelous prayer, chapter 3. Chapter 4, you get the first command. "I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling which you've been received. You are holy, dedicated to God." So now the call is be blameless. And here's the blamelessness: Be humble. Be gentle. Be patient. Be forbearing, to use the old word. Be unified through the bond of peace. One body, one Christ, all that.

And I look at the church today, I don't see this in so much of the church. Instead the unity in Jesus Christ, we are dividing over just about anything. From masks to political party, to... I mean, you name it, we're going to divide over it. Whether women should be pastors or not. I mean, there's so many controversies going on. Whether to speak in tongues is necessary for salvation, or. I mean, God, Satan wins when we do that. He comes down in verse 17 in following, "Don't live like the evil of the Gentiles, but put on the new self created in Christ for true righteousness and holiness." So verse 25, 4:25, "Put off falsehood, lying." What was Satan before the foundation of the world, in my understanding? What characterized the devil before the beginning?

Liar.

Number one, he's a liar. Here it is. "Put off falsehood. That's the way of the darkness and speak truthfully to your neighbor, for all members one body." Verse 26: "In your anger, do not sin. Don't let the sun go down while you're so angry." Please, by the way, that is not advice for marriage. "Honey, we're not going to bed till we settle this." Well, that's the worst possible time. You're tired and hungry and everything. Let's continue this fight and see if we can avoid sleep altogether. Now that's stupid. It's not talking about marriage. It's talking about here. If we hang onto our anger and feed it, then we give the devil a foothold, an opportunity to work his divisiveness.

Now there's a place for anger, but he's making a real point here. If we hold on the lies, if we hold on to anger, if we talk on that sort of thing, unwholesome talk, we're giving the devil an opportunity to make us anything other than a beautiful bride for His precious son. So in this maturing work, putting on the new way of life, the way of light, don't give the devil an opportunity, a foothold. Chapter 4 verse 26, and he goes on with all kinds of, stop doing this, start doing that. But among you, there must not even be a hint of sexual immorality or impurity or greed for its improper for God's holy people.

Chapter 5, verse 8: In one half of the sentence, "For you once were darkness," that's what we're talking about, the dominion of darkness. "You once word were darkness, now you are light in the Lord. Live as children of light." What he's saying is you used to be in the dominion of darkness, you've been rescued from, brought out of, into the kingdom of light. You are light in the Lord. That's your identity statement. I am light. It doesn't say I'm in the light though that's true. You are light. Therefore live who you are. And see Satan's thing is if you don't do enough good stuff, God's going to be disappointed and push flush.

This is saying, no, you are light in the Lord. Live who you are. So the fruit of light consists of goodness, righteous and truth and find out what pleases God. And so we do things to please our heavenly Father. And there is to be a beautiful bride who partner with His son to crush the serpent. And the way we do that is to do goodness, righteousness, and truth. Filling the spirit. Down to chapter 6 verse 10. He concludes here. "Finally, be strong in the Lord and His mighty power," that's be beautiful bride for His precious son. And he says, "Put on the full armor of God so we can take our stand against the devil's schemes." In verse 12: "Our struggle is not against flesh and blood." Fundamentally our struggle is not against human beings, but against, you've got a whole list here: rulers, authorities, power of the dark world, spiritual forces of evil in heavenly realms.

That is our real enemy. That's where the war is. It's easy to get caught up in evil humans, and there are evil humans. Our enemy is not fundamentally the bad guys. Just like in Genesis 3, after the betrayal of Eve and Adam, God goes for the real enemy, the serpent, not to Adam and Eve. Same thing here. For us to remember, when we're doing the work of helping people come out of darkness into light, evangelism, help them become beautiful bride, the work of edification, being blameless, the real enemy is the evil one who is still in his process of lies, murdering and sinning. So he says put on the full armor of God. And when you look at that, you've got several things in here. You've got the belt of truth, you've got the breastplate of righteousness, you've got feet shod with the shoes of peace, and so on. All of those are quotations from Isaiah about Messiah.

And what the armor of God is, is we put on the fact that I am in Christ, you are light in the Lord. I remember that to be true. I am light. I am light. I put on Christ, I am light. And then you put on Christ's likeness, which has become beautiful bride. And that's the goal we have here. And when he quotes all these things from the characteristic of Messiah in Isaiah, he's telling us, "Be a beautiful bride for the precious son." That's the armor of God. It's not some mystical thing that are allegorize.

Can I get annoyed? Would that be okay if I get annoyed? Tracy, is that okay? Yeah. Okay. What annoys me to know in is when people take this stuff and just allegorize it all over the place. "Let me tell you how to deal with Satan. You've got the breastplate of righteousness, so never turn your back on because you do not have the backplate of righteousness, you've got the breastplate of righteousness." I just want to puke when I hear that kind of stuff. Come on, that's not what it's saying. It's saying I have his gift of righteousness and right standing. Take it for a characteristic of Messiah.

Okay, enough annoying for right now anyway. Put on the full armor of God. So something we have to put on. It's not something that, remember that we're in Christ and then become a beautiful bride. "For when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you've done everything, to stand." Now, this is a place where, this is one of the few places where I think the NIV misses a really important distinction. Because when it's got, "You'll be able to stand your ground, after you've done everything, to stand." It looks like it's saying stand twice.

And if you look back in the Greek, the first stand you may be able to stand your ground is anthistemi. It's literally be stand against. The second stand is histemi, which would just be to stand. And if I take that word "anthistemi" and go back and see how it's used in other places. If I go back to Galatians 2, for example. This is one of my favorite places. "When Cephas..." This is Galatians 2:11. "When Cephas came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face, because he stood condemned." Where is the word anthistemi? "When Cephas came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face, because he stood condemned." Which one of those words is translating anthistemi, the same one that stand in Ephesians 6:13? Can you guess? "When Cephas came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face, because he stood condemned." Yeah, it's opposed. It's opposed. It's not just I stood firm against him, I opposed him.

How did Paul oppose Peter? Well, he stood up in front of them all and verbally rebuked him. This is not just stand, this is verbal opposition. He's calling out the error of Peter's ways. And what happens is you go through and do your study on this particular word to just say stand firm. You may be able to stand your ground. That doesn't get the point here. This is actually to actively oppose, but you do it by your words. So it talks about when Jannes and Jambres oppose Moses. Do the study and you'll find out that this is actually just talking about active verbal opposition. So that you may be able to oppose him, and after you've done everything, to stand firm, not to be moved off your position. Those are two different things.

And I'll show you how this comes out in Jesus in a bit. So stand firm then, that's histemi. Stand firm then, the belt of truth and that sort of stuff. And you get all these various things of the armor. So I need to be able to rebuke effectively. I need to be able to stand firm and not be deceived and moved. Then one other point I want to make as we think through, just quick look at Ephesians, is chapter 6 verse 17. "Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God." Everybody agrees that of the various points in the armor, the sword of the spirit is the only offensive weapon. Everything else is armored, protected from getting hurt, without allegorizing things. But the sword of the spirit is identified as the word of God.

Again, this is a minor point, but I think end up being significant. There are two words, two Greek words that are translated as word. One is logos, one is rhema. And they're pretty much synonyms. But there is a bit of difference in emphasis. A logos is more a written type thing, a statement. Rhema is more a spoken Word of God. And again, I don't want, they're not completely different, but they're a little bit emphasis. And the word he uses here, the Word of God is the rhema. It's the spoken Word of God. It's the proclaimed Word of God. So the sword of the spirit is not my big black Bible. Good as that is. It's the understood proclaimed Word of God.

And that's why coming back to verse 13, you may be able to oppose, to resist. It's the Word of God spoken that is an instrument that we use and that's to be prepared to do that is that we have the Bible, the truth of scripture. So in our spirit as beautiful bride that we're able to express by word and deed what is the truth of God. And that's a big piece of it. It's not just I carry a Bible. It's not that I've just memorized verses, good as those are. It's that I understand it and can speak it effectively to bring truth in no context of lies. And that's what he's talking about.

And then he concludes with prayer. Of course, prayer is building family fellowship in the conference we have. So quick look through of Ephesians, the reality of the war is unmistakable. The point is that we are to be beautiful bride for His precious son partnering with Him to crush the serpent through the opposition to evil and to lies and the standing firm on the truth of God and who I am in Christ. You are light, therefore live as children of light. Quick tour of Ephesians for some of the warfare components that are there. Clint Arnold has a really good commentary on Ephesians in the genre and exegetical series. Anyway, he's got a good fat thing and he brings out a lot of this material in that commentary. And it just takes you there to go deeper for you Bible nerds. Ephesians is a great book.