Ephesians - Lesson 33

Notice, Paul moves after he talks about the sword of the Spirit is the Word of God. Notice, sword of the Spirit. The Spirit is God's inspired, the Spirit inspires God's Word.

And he moves from talking about the Spirit to now talking about, or the Word, to talking about praying. Look at that, praying at all times in the Spirit, it's no accident he puts those things together. The sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God, and pray in the Spirit.

I think this is an invitation to pray what God has revealed by the Spirit in His Word. Do we do that? Do I do that? Look, as you're studying Ephesians with us, for example, you should be reading Ephesians for yourselves and asking yourself, am I reading the text the right way? Evaluating what I'm saying by reading the text. You should be holding me accountable as you hear me teach, and you should be a Berean searching the scriptures to see if what I'm saying is true.

But you should also be praying the Word, praying this, God help me today to fight against the devil and his lies. Help me today to put on the full armor of God. Help me today to walk in the Spirit.

And watch what God does when you pray like that. He will do something in you and through you and for you that is supernatural. Why? Because the Word of God is supernatural and the Spirit of God uses the Word of God to change our lives.

So put on the full armor of God, which is the gospel, and pick up the sword of the Spirit and pray in the Spirit. Pray the Word for you. Pray the Word for your churches, for your families, for your neighbors, for your co-workers, and maybe God will do a massive work.

So to that end, he says, keep alert, be vigilant with all perseverance. He turns to prayer again, making supplications for all the saints. How do you pray for somebody that you do not know? Simple.

Simple. You pray the Word. It is helpful when I know, for example, that someone has a specific need and I know how to pray for them and I know how to pray for someone who is sick, for example, or hurting or who needs Christ.

But many people that I come in contact with in my life, I'm not aware of how to pray for them. But one thing I can always pray for them, one way we can always pray for them is to pray the Word of God. Pray what you're reading devotionally.

Praying for all the saints. Here's a healthy practice. Pray for churches in your community to be faithful to the gospel.

Make that a part of your rhythm as a believer. Even if you don't go to those churches. So I'm not going to give a particular church name, but let's just say such and such church.

You're aware of such and such. You have a friend who goes to that church. Make it a part of your rhythm.

Father, may the preaching and the teaching in this church change lives, strengthen this church. May they be faithful to the gospel. Pray for all the saints, not just for the saints with whom you agree in your Christian community where you do go to church.

Pray for the body collectively, even for people with whom you might not have a relationship. We all have people in our churches that we do not know. And if our churches are large, then it's possible that most people we don't know.

And that's okay because that's the way church works today. There are communities of people in our churches that we can know better than other people in our churches. But here's the point that I'm making is that we can collectively pray for the body of Christ this way.

And if we have people in our churches with whom we disagree, we can still pray for all the saints in ways that are consistent with the scriptures by praying the scriptures for them. And then I love this. I love this line.

Paul is never ashamed to request for prayer, to request prayer. Verse 19. And also pray for me that words may be given to me in opening my mouth boldly to proclaim the mystery of the gospel.

So this is fascinating. Here's this man planted all these churches, beaten numerous times. Now he's incarcerated, coming to the end of his ministry.

And he says, hey, you know, I need prayer because I might be tempted not to speak the gospel when there's a door open there. So pray that words may be given to me in opening my mouth boldly to proclaim. Pray when you're nervous about opening your mouth.

Pray, Lord, sure, take away the nervousness. But if he doesn't, this is how you should pray. Lord, help me to speak through it.

Even if your voice cracks as you're sharing Jesus with people, the Lord can use that for his glory. And he says, I'm an ambassador in chains. That's why I think he is in prison.

For which that is for the gospel, I'm an ambassador in chains. I want you to pray, however, that I may declare it boldly as I ought to speak. So what Paul desires is for us to put on full armor of God so that they can fight against the gospel or against the devil in his lies, so that we can fight against the devil in his lies.

And one thing that helps us fight is prayer. And now he comes to the end. This is my final section in my outline.

He comes to the end in verses 18 through 23, and he basically just says to them, here's some things you need to know about my situation so that you also, verse 21, may know how I am and what I'm doing. Antiochus, the beloved brother and faithful minister in the Lord, will tell you everything. I have sent him to you for this very purpose, that you may know how we are and that he may encourage your hearts.

Peace be to the brothers in love with faith and from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Grace be with all who love our Lord Jesus Christ with love incorruptible. And thus ends the letter.

With Satan and the devil you spoke about in our battle with him, can he in any way for a Christian put ideas into our mind or influence us mentally? That way you spoke about how he can kind of put things before us that appeal to our flesh, but can he attack us mentally in any way? That's a great question. I think one of the ways in which he perhaps attacks us the most is mentally. I think that's one reason why Paul places such an emphasis on the mind, mind, heart, and using these anthropological categories, the eyes of our heart, and it's one reason why I think he talks about being transformed by the renewing of our minds, Romans chapter 12, and even in Ephesians, by the renewal of the spirit in your mind.

In Colossians, which is closely related to Ephesians, Paul talks about taking captive every philosophical thought that is opposed to God and Christ, and to Corinthians he talks about taking captive fortresses, which are ideological forces. So I think in the realm of ideas, Satan tempts us in terms of our thinking. He tempts us because the decisions that we make, we process them cognitively, and what we do flows from the heart, but there's a cognitive process by which we, I think, make decisions.

I think when Jesus is tempted by Satan, he's challenging his thinking at some level, because Jesus has just been baptized, and God said, this is my beloved son, and now Satan is challenging that. So I think, yeah, I think every temptation is a temptation that is related to the mind, I think, and by that I mean we have to make a decision to give in to it, or not. Yeah.

So, go ahead, you have a follow-up, because I wanted to say, so that makes the point about in taking Bible, praying Scripture, being in the context of the local church, meditating on Scripture, reflecting, creating disciplines where we're trying to establish our thoughts in ways to honor God, it's important, our minds need to be active, not passive recipients. And I don't mean we're anxious all the time, what I mean is, is that we have to train our mind to think about God, and his word, and how that should be worked out in our lives practically, that's a proactive discipline we have to exercise in order to resist those thoughts. Yeah.

On that, on the mind part, is it from the external coming to our mind, not internally, that the influence is coming from, isn't it, you know, once we know Christ, are you saying it can be internal in our mind, or it's an external idea and philosophy and teaching and stuff that he brings towards us that we take, and then we begin to process it, and it becomes bad, or, you know what I'm saying? Yeah, I do. Isn't it an external thing that he does, and not an internal, if that makes sense? Yeah, no, it does, it's good, I suppose in my answer, I was prioritizing in taking thoughts that aren't godly, but I'm not denying that there are internal desires that we have that are consistent with the devil's desires. So what I mean is, I think temptation is internal and external.

I think in Jesus' case, it's not internal. I think Jesus is tempted in an external way by the devil. I don't think his desire was ever to do what the devil is tempting him to do.

I think, I hold to the impeccability of Christ, so that he was tempted to show that he could not sin. Not only did Jesus not sin, but he could not sin, in my view. And when he's tempted by the devil, the devil is pressing against him, I think, in an external way, and Jesus is resisting those ideas with Scripture.

But in his case, it's not internal, it's external. In our case, because we have the Spirit, but we're in a fallen body, and we have a sin nature unlike Christ. Christ did not have a sin nature, we do.

In Christ, we're transformed, and while we were called in Christ, we were called the new man, we're not called, we're not in the flesh when we're in Christ, we're in the Spirit. The remnants of the old man remain, they still manifest themselves in different ways. Sometimes those ways are just the natural process of aging, or death, that's a remnant of the old man, death.

But also, sometimes our desires can manifest that there's something wrong with the world when we want things that aren't of the Spirit. But here's my point, one of my questions is, from where does desire come? That's a complicated question, but these appetites that we have, the devil can make us think that those inward desires are pleasing to God, but I do not think, I do not think the devil is overcoming and triumphing and overpowering us because we have the Spirit living in us, he's not dwelling in our hearts. Now you have Jesus saying that the Spirit's in our hearts, but the Spirit of the one, the ruler of the age is not in our hearts anymore, but the Holy Spirit's in our heart, not the Spirit of the anti-God power, you know, Ephesians 2, the Spirit of the one ruling, like the anti-God Spirit is not in our heart, because the Holy Spirit is.

When Jesus responds to Peter and says, get behind me, Satan, I don't think he's saying Peter is demonically possessed, I think he means Satan has over-conquered his thinking. Jesus is trying to, or rather, Peter is trying to persuade the Son of God not to go to the cross. And Jesus is saying that's satanic behavior, and it doesn't say anything about his internal posture, it's just his behavior demonstrates that there's something happening here.

So his desire is reflecting desires of Satan. There's an inward desire here, but yet Peter is not demonically possessed. So to answer your question, I think Satan operates in multiple ways, external temptation, challenges the mind, and he works to use those desires that we have that are evil, but we have the ability to overcome those desires.

We don't have the ability to stop his external temptation, but we have the ability not to give into it. He's going to tempt, but we don't have to give into it. There's no temptation experienced by man that he's not able to overcome, because God enables us to overcome every temptation, to find a way out.

So Satan might tempt me to, in a moment of road rage, to respond in an ungodly way. That temptation is there. This person responded this way to me.

I really want to respond a certain way to this person, and that temptation is there, but I don't have to give into it, because I have the Spirit. Does that make sense? So I think it is primarily, however, though, it's a mental and cognitive thing where our thinking is what is impacted, and then when those desires that we have are not what they should be, if we're thinking the right way, if our minds are being renewed, we're able to resist those desires. The desire to do something that's not in accordance with the Spirit doesn't mean we have to give into the desire.

In other words, the desire is a sin, yes, but giving into that desire is worse. So when you have the desire to do evil, what we do is, to resist the temptation, is we don't give into that desire. We confess the desire to the Lord, and we pray, God, yes, take the desire away, but the first thing we do after we pray is don't give into the desire.

Flee from what that desire is, like don't embrace whatever that desire is leading us to do. Does that make sense? Yeah, yeah. So I'm saying this because there is this emphasis on the mind, renewing the mind, renewing your mind, transformed in your thinking.

Paul emphasizes this, enlightening of your mind, praying that you would know what you know, the eyes of your heart would be open, these sorts of things. You exhorted us to be under the preaching and teaching of God's Word in the context of the local church, not merely online, but for our churches that the primary pastor is doing Sunday morning preaching, maybe a midweek lesson, or maybe a small group or something, and he finds himself not under the hearing of the Word. Do you have a word for pastors that maybe they should too somehow find themselves under preaching and teaching? Do you have a word for them? Yes, absolutely.

That's a good question. I think pastors need to be preached to and taught as well. And when a pastor is responsible for the primary preaching and teaching, he's always on the giving end, but his soul needs to be nourished as well.

Because there's something different happening when a pastor or a professor studies the Bible for the purpose of output. That changes your heart, absolutely. But there's something different happening when you sit in the context of the church, Christian community, and you hear it preached to you or taught to you.

You have the freedom to kind of receive it without receiving it for the purpose of teaching it to people, if that makes sense. And I think it's wise and good for a pastor to be in a place where there's some venue that's available where he can be a Sunday school student, where he can sit under teaching. And not all churches have opportunities where a pastor can ask a fellow church member if he will preach for them on that Sunday.

Some churches don't have the luxury of that. But if a pastor has some preachers in the congregation who need some training, then let those preachers preach and let him receive. I think that's a good thing.

I remember I was a guest preacher at a church in another city, and I went to a Sunday school class, and I was just so encouraged by sitting under Sunday school teaching, because I spend most of my time teaching people, not being taught. And it just felt good for an hour to sit and to be taught the Bible. I mean, it's just good old-fashioned, practical stuff, too, and it's just so encouraging.

When Paul or different places in Scripture emphasize something by repetition, often it means that not only is it important, but that it usually takes some effort in some ways to do that. And it's interesting what you mentioned, that the passage that you're talking about starts off with standing against the schemes of the devil, and then later, where it says to having done all to stand firm, stand therefore. So the idea of standing, and then how do you stand? Well, then you go down to the later part of that, where it talks about the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God, and then right after that, praying at all times in the Spirit with all prayer and supplication.

And it seems like that's how we do stand, is by the sword of the Spirit and by praying. And it's interesting that that theme comes up again in Joshua, where Joshua is beginning. It doesn't say stand, but it says something similar, where it says, be strong and courageous, for ye shall cause this people to inherit the land, in a situation where he's going to face a lot of challenges.

And if you look at the pickup verse to that, it tells him why he should be able to stand. It says, no man shall be able to stand before you all the days of your life, just as I was with Moses, so I will be with you. I will not leave you or forsake you.

So as we're strong, as we stand, it's because we can do that, because as we pray, as we rely on the Lord's presence, then we're able to do those things. Yes, and with the help of the people of God. That's the piece too that is important, I think, with Ephesians, is you have this reference to the church, the church, Ekklesia, Ekklesia.

And while he's thinking, I think, collectively, the church in terms of Jew-Gentile unity, that there are massive implications for localized assemblies, where what God has done in Christ for Jews and Gentiles, that's worked out practically in localized places. And being a part of local churches where there are pastors and teachers and served by deacons and celebrating the ordinances and preaching the gospel, these are means by which we stand, we stand. And we need, we need the church.

Don't forsake the assembling of yourselves together, as is the custom of some. Yeah, yeah. This question is in regards to a lot of online ministries where I see deliverance ministries popping up all over America, where a Christian might be struggling with anxiety, depression, maybe even an illness, say autism or cancer.

And it's a demon that is in us that would be creating that. And so I would need to go to a specific church to have that unclean spirit, if you will, exercised from me. Is Paul, is that biblical? Is Paul addressing anything like that? Or what are your comments on deliverance ministry as a whole? Yes, that's a good question.

So in Ephesians, it seems to me that Paul is very much in agreement that there's a spiritual war, that there are demons, there's anti-God powers. But he doesn't identify these anti-God powers as a God or a demon of depression or anxiety or fear. And nowhere in Paul's writings does he ever give a hint, and this is debated amongst Christians, but nowhere in Paul's writings does he ever give a hint that Christians can be demonically possessed.

The spirit lives in Christians. We cannot be, in my view, possessed by demons. We can be demonically influenced.

We can be demonically, demons can confuse us in our thinking, but they cannot possess us the way we see demonic possession taking place in the Gospels. And the way in which we see exorcisms working in the New Testament in the Gospels is Jesus is exorcising demons from those who don't believe to show that the kingdom of God has come and he's the king of the kingdom. But we never see people coming to Jesus in the Gospels saying, hey, my relative is depressed and he has this demonic, this demon of depression, will you cast this demon out so he'll stop being depressed? But we never see a believer who expresses he has a demon of depression, would you please cast this out of me? So it seems to me that the demonic realm is very real.

I think demonic exorcism is real in the sense that we see it in the Gospels. And there are parts of the world where in there could very well be the kind of things you see happening with exorcism in the Gospels where that could happen in places perhaps where there is a darker and less Christian presence. But there is no, in my view, a demon of depression.

Christians get depressed, but that doesn't mean that they're demonically possessed when they're depressed. Christians get anxious, but that doesn't mean that's a demon. And so, yeah, I don't see Paul supporting or the Gospel supporting anything like a ministry devoted to getting rid of these demons of affliction in your life.

What we do, though, see is the need for Christians to take seriously that we are in a spiritual battle. But here's the thing. We've already won the battle.

Jesus has risen from the dead. So wherever the battle is, it's not one of oppression. We have, we're in victory over those forces of evil because we're reigning with Christ.

But we must fight to make sure that the devil stays in his place, so to speak. Am I answering your question? Yeah. Just to be fair, there are Christian scholars who would say Christians could be demonically possessed.

That's not my view. I don't think, I don't see anything at all in the New Testament that would support that. But we can be demonically influenced.

Peter was. You know, I was just thinking about when you, you know, talking about that, you know, we can be anxious, worried, you know, all these other things. You know, it's interesting, you know, in Philippians 4 or 6 where it says, be anxious for nothing but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let your requests be known to God and the peace of God that passes all understanding will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.

Then he talks about how your thinking is and all that. So it seems as that it's, it's again, it's towards us as believers, the resource and where we need to go is the Lord, not, you know, the devil cast this out of me. But hey, I'm struggling here.

I'm doing it. And we run to the Lord. We go to the Lord.

We pray to him. Help. Like you were saying, kind of like that living out what is true already in us.

And so, you know, just, you know, that idea of deliver me from this anxiety, from the spirit that I have in me that, you know, I'm, I'm have the resources, which is in Christ. So I need to go to him and through the spirit, help me in this area that I'm struggling with. If that makes sense.

Yeah. And I think too, there are different kinds of anxieties there. I'm not an expert on anxiety, but, you know, I get, I get anxious when Kentucky is playing in the tournament.

Are we going to win? You know, I'm a fan when the game's over, my anxiety leaves. And you know, there are different levels of anxiety. Sometimes people have severe bout, Christian people who love Jesus have severe bouts with anxiety because of something to do with their brain.

You know, there's neurological things here that impact people's emotions and, and they need someone to help them who's trained to think of, help them think about the brain in addition to trusting in the Lord and, and having a careful, thoughtful reflection upon what the scriptures say about, about trusting him. Sometimes people are so, because of their, how their brains are there, they can't even think about what the Bible says about trusting in God because their brains need help by somebody who's trained to help them think about the brain and treat the brain. And I would say a person who has a serious case of anxiety due to neurological issues that has nothing to do with a demon, it has everything to do with the fact that it represents part of what it means to live in a fallen world.

And that's that we have bodies and brains that don't do what they're supposed to do and the Lord heals and restores that, but he also gives us doctors to help us in life. If I have, if I'm, if I'm really sick with, for some reason, then of course I want to pray, but I also need a doctor to treat that sickness. If I, if I have cancer, God forbid, if I get cancer, well, I need to pray and go get the treatment.

I don't need to say, deliver me from the demon of cancer. Yeah, the Lord healed me, but it's not a demon. It's just, it's just part of being in the fallen world.

So I pray, God heal me. I want, I want the elders to surround me at my church and put their hands on me like the Bible. And I want them praying for me.

I want them praying, God heal me. But as I'm going to the doctor to get my treatment, I want them, I want them praying for me as I go to the doctor, not instead of going to the doctor. So we have to remember that, that we live in a broken world, in a fallen world.

And put it the way one Christian physician said it to me once, it was so powerful. He said, just because we're Christians doesn't mean we're immune to the impact of living in a fallen world. And something that shows up in, in our, in our health, in our bodies.

And so we have to remember, remember that the Bible doesn't, the Bible doesn't describe these things in the New Testament as, as demons. You have cancer because of a demon, no, the Bible never says that, you know. So I get really, when people talk about these torts of afflictions as though they're a demon that need to be cast out, it's different from what you see happening in the gospels.

These are demons who have overcome people to the point where they can't function because they're, I mean, they're, they're, they're mad men and women in certain cases in the gospel. They live out in caves. They have to be separated from people because of this.

And it's, it's, it's very demonic in this. There's no question about whether it's demonic or, or not. Yeah.

Would it be dangerous as a Christian to have an item that I think protects me from demons or Satan? Maybe I wear a cross necklace or I have a artifact from the Holy land and I keep that with me to maybe ward off of the demonic realm. Is that dipping into superstition or is that unhealthy as a believer? Yeah, I think it would be unhealthy as a believer because it is a superstition, I think. And you think of Galatians five, Paul talks about the fruit of the spirit, lust of flesh, a lust of flesh is sorcery or that he uses witchcraft.

And what you're describing is not witchcraft, but it is a form of superstition. I played baseball when I was in high school and I was a very superstitious baseball player. I remember playing, I still remember this.

I remember playing a game and I was an outfielder and running out of the outfield. I wanted to make sure instead of stepping on the chalk, you know, the chalk that makes it foul, I would always jump over the chalk to make sure I didn't step on the chalk because I thought somehow or another, if I stepped on the chalk, I was going to have a bad game. But if I didn't step on the chalk, I was going to have, that's pagan really, it's witchcraft.

Or even in terms of socks, I wore the same socks every home game and the same socks every away game. I had a pair of red socks that I would wear for home games and blue socks I'd wear for away games, for basketball now. I would always wash them, but it was the same pair of socks.

And if I lost that pair of socks, I thought, well, I'm just going to have a bad game. No, no, my ability to play had nothing to do with my socks. It had ability to do with my ability to play.

So I think that's superstition. It's not helpful. I think artifacts don't fight off demons, evil, the spirit, prayer, the word of God, the people of God, the gospel.

These other things are just Christianized versions of paganism, basically. If as a Christian, you think, there's nothing wrong, I don't think, with wearing a cross. But if you think that cross has some kind of value in terms of fighting off forces of evil, that's superstition.

The scriptures say nothing about that. And by that, I mean that some artifact is going to help you win the battle. The scripture says, stand, word of God, armor of God, spirit of God, gospel of God.

Yeah. And even now to this day, I still have to fight against a superstitious mindset. It's the strangest thing.

I still have to fight against a superstitious mindset because it was just so ingrained in me as a baseball player. Yeah. Okay, I have a question that sort of builds off your comment that Christians are not and cannot be indwelled by a demon.

And I accept that. I think that's correct. But I'm thinking of other people who are maybe possessed by a demon, who are put in a position of authority over us as Christians.

And I'm especially thinking of maybe some well-known, seemingly demonic leaders that the world has known in the past. And I'll just start with when Peter was ordered by the Sanhedrin leaders to never mention the name of Jesus again. And of course, it would seem to me like they were probably demonically led, if not possessed.

But then in modern days, in the last 100 years, we've seen people like Hitler or any number of leaders who are put in a position. Now, Scripture says that God puts those people in their roles, and we are to live under them no matter how harsh they are, which is a hard teaching, but it is Scripture, I believe. So do you have any words of wisdom on dealing with leaders who seem like they're demonic? Yeah.

Yeah, that's a good question. I think one thing to do would be to certainly pray for them, pray for them to be saved, and pray for God to somehow supernaturally to break through their darkness and awaken them to the truths of the gospel and to work. That would be one thing I would say.

And pray for those who are under their demonic leadership, those who are under their tyranny, that God would protect them and preserve them, and that those who are believers, that they would be strengthened in their faith, able to be a bright light even as they serve under a demonic leadership. I'm thinking particularly of Christians in different parts of the world where their faith in Jesus could very well cause them to lose their life because their government is corrupt and it has anti-Christian agendas, the government does. Pray for them and pray that the Lord would be pleased that he would provide a way for those Christians to be in a better situation if possible, namely maybe working within government to end the corruption.

I think prayer is the best posture to have in that situation. In a democratic context, we're able to vote people in, vote people out, or go to human resources and these sorts of things. But yeah, I mean, we have some evil characters out there who are over regimes that are evil, and the best way to fight against the kingdom of darkness is, in that sense, is pray for the people who are in those contexts and pray for those people.

Yeah, and this might sound really harsh. I think this is the right way to pray, but I think praying for God to bring his righteous judgment against those demonic leaders in those places if they don't repent and turn, like may the Lord raise up his righteous judgment and remove those leaders from their tyranny. Yeah.

In the context of the local church, say, as we meet on a Sunday or a midweek service or even a home Bible study, should we take time, set aside time somewhere to bind demons, there's that vernacular, or say we rebuke Satan or rebuke the devil? Yeah, it's a good question. I think the way in which we push against the darkness and bind the devil is through the proclamation of the gospel, through the living of the gospel. I think Satan, how I understand the binding of Satan, I think Satan is bound by virtue of the cross and the resurrection.

I think 1 Peter 3 says this, the cross, resurrection and ascension, the devil has been conquered and defeated, and by means of the death and resurrection and ascension of Jesus, that event is a proclamation to the demons that they've been conquered and triumphed. And even in Ephesians 1, you have Jesus is reigning over the demons at God's right hand. And so the way in which we, I think, bind, continue to press against the darkness and reaffirm the binding of Satan is through prayer, through the preaching of the gospel, through the living of the gospel.

And what some of those prayers would be, Lord, we pray that you would manifest light in the midst of darkness and where there are demonic behaviors, demonic actions, demonic rulers. We pray for the darkness to be pushed back. But I think the way in which this happens is through gospel kingdom preaching and living.

Yeah, not necessarily having a service devoted to casting out demons, but a service devoted to preaching the gospel, because that's how the demons are going to be exercised, I think.