1/11/18 – Eph 6:10, The Angelic Conflict, Pt. 3, The
Empowerment, Pt. 3.
Lesson # 18-004
Pastor/Teacher, Jim Rickard
Grace
Fellowship Church
Before we
begin, if you are a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ, (If You have - Trusted
in Him for Eternal Life), it is important to prepare yourself to: Take-in God’s
Word and/or Participate in a Communion Service, so take a moment to name, cite,
or acknowledge your sins privately, directly to God the Father. This will
assure that you are in fellowship with God the Father & the Holy Spirit’s
convicting ministry will then be able to teach you as the Holy Spirit is the
real teacher.
1 John 1:9 says— “If we confess [simply
name, cite, or acknowledge to God the Father] our sins [known sins], He
is faithful and just to forgive us our sins [known sins] and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness
[all unknown & forgotten sins].”
For those of you who have not yet accepted Jesus Christ as your Lord & Savior, please see: The Salvation Message @ the
end of this document.
2 Pet 3:9, “The Lord is
not slow about His promise, as some count slowness, but is patient toward
you, not wishing for any to perish but for all to come to repentance.”
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Stand in Warfare – Eph 6:10-20.
Eph 6:10; Mark 12:30; Acts 17:29; 19:23-28; 1 Sam
30:6
1. Empowerment, vs. 10.
Eph 6:10, “Finally,
be strong in the Lord and in the strength of His might.”
Before delving
into the conflict, God reminds us of the strength and power that is available
to every believer to be victorious in the Angelic Conflict: DUNAMIS, KRATOS,
ISCHUS; God’s resources to help you stand against evil powers.
The exhortation to
be empowered, “Be strong in the Lord,”
is ENDUNAMOO EN KURIOS where ENDUNAMOO means, “strengthened, enabled, acquire
strength, gain power, empowered, etc.”
It is the inherent
strength or power that characterizes God, which is given to the positive
spiritually mature believer.
“And in the strength,” is EN HO KRATOS,
“strength, power, and might; dominion or authority.” It is manifested power;
power that is demonstrated in our lives.
Then we have the final phrase, “of His might,”
which is the Genitive of Possession HO ISCHUS AUTOS. Jesus Christ is the One
who possesses this power, and is the One who gives this power to us, so that we
too might be victorious inside the Angelic Conflict.
The word used here for power is ISCHUS, ἰσχύς that means, “strength or power,” but also “ability and forcefulness.” It refers to
endowed power and is a very strong word for inner ability. It comes from the
root verb ISCHUO that means, “be strong, able, forceful, or to prevail.”
Therefore, ISCHUS means, “having strength, power, might, or forcefulness, with
the idea of the possession of power as an endowment.”
It is used in the great SHEMA in Mark 12:30, 33;
Luke 10:27 for the Hebrew MEODH that means, “great exertion or force,” for
the totality of love we are to express towards God.
Mark
12:30, “And you shall love the lord your God with all your heart, and with all
your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.”
The instability of our minds to anchor upon the rock
of Jesus Christ is not indicative of His stability or dependability, but of our
fickle loyalties. The people of God tended to forget the work of God, choosing
to focus on the circumstances of life rather than the faithful character of
their all-powerful redeeming God. Unfortunately, in the battle of our minds,
feelings become the dominant force gaining victory over the comforting work of
God that was once a strong tower of hope to us. Therefore, we must remember our
God in the good times and bad times, by remembering His Word and promises to
see us through whatever may come our way. That is why He begins this last
section by reminding us to appropriate the power, strength, and might of God in our lives, before delving into
the battle call.
Kenneth Wuest translates our verse, Eph 6:10, “Finally,
be constantly strengthened in the Lord and in the active efficacy of the might
that is inherent in Him.” Or
we could say, “Participate in the
strength that is inherent in Him.”
Paul wrote this letter in regard to the various cults of the ancient pagan world that the Christians of the new church were detached from, but still feared when they fell back to relying upon their own human powers.
The
IVP Dictionary of Paul and His Letters states, “Believers within the young Christian communities in and around Ephesus
lived in a culture where magical practices flourished. These practices were
reinforced by the renowned Artemis cult. Artemis was worshiped as a goddess of
the underworld with cosmic supremacy; she bore the six magical Ephesia Grammata
on her cultic image,”
The
six magical Ephesia Grammata, (Ephesian letters), are an ancient Greek magical
formula attested from the 5th or 4th century BC. It reads, ASKI(ON) KATASKI(ON) LIX TETRAX DAMNAMENEUS
AISIA. What these six words mean is a matter of considerable speculation, if
they mean anything at all. They may simply be barbarous words of invocation,
devoid of meaning, similar to our “hocus pocus” today, although their use is
clear. They were a spoken incantation, a protective spell, an
ALEXIPHARMIKA. Similar to the mantras of Buddhism and Hinduism, they were
“meaningless words” potent to protect those who could speak them correctly,
their power residing in their sound, so that they were ineffective if
mispronounced. Others thought they could also be six demon servants of Artemis.
Roughly translated it reads, “shadowless, shadowy, the earth, fourfold (4
seasons), the sun, auspicious.” These were widely perceived as powerful
words.
Artemis
was one of the most widely venerated of the Ancient Greek deities.
Her Roman equivalent is Diana. Artemis was often described as
the daughter of Zeus and Leto, and the twin sister of Apollo. She was the
Hellenic goddess of the hunt, wild animals, wilderness, childbirth, virginity
and protector of young girls, bringing and relieving disease in women; she
often was depicted as a huntress carrying a bow and arrows.
At
Ephesus in Ionia, Turkey, her temple became one of the Seven Wonders of the
World. It was probably the best known center of her worship except for Delos;
her alleged birth place. There the Lady whom the Ionians associated with
Artemis was worshipped primarily as a mother goddess, akin to the Phrygian
goddess Cybele, in an ancient sanctuary where her cult image depicted the
"Lady of Ephesus" adorned with multiple rounded breast-like
protuberances on her chest; associating her with the fertility cults of the
ancient world.
Today,
we see such images in accordance to the ancient images of Artemis / Diana, as
the huntress goddess.
In
the book of Acts, Ephesian metalsmiths who felt threatened by Paul's preaching
of Christianity, jealously rioted in her defense, shouting “Great is Artemis of the Ephesians!” Acts 19:23-28.
The
IVP Dictionary goes on to say, “The
people of the region had an extraordinary fear of the hostile spiritual
"powers." Through magical practices and cultic rituals, people sought
relief and deliverance from the dreaded realm of the powers. This fear was not
immediately allayed, however, when people became Christians. Demonstrating his
sincere pastoral concern, Paul addressed their fear of this realm. More than
any other Pauline letter, Ephesians stresses the hostile role of the
principalities and powers against the church. In contrast to the power of the
hostile supernatural realm, Paul emphasizes the superiority of the power of God
and the supremacy of Christ, (Eph
1:19-23; 4:8-10). He demonstrates that believers have access to this power
by virtue of their union with Christ, thereby enabling them to resist the
vicious attacks of the hostile powers, (Eph
6:10-20). He regards all these spiritual powers as evil and under the
leadership of a being he calls "the devil."
Therefore,
in comparison to the Pagan religions and the Ephesia Grammata, Paul speaks of
the true and real power of God that the believer can experience and enjoy that
far surpasses any power that Ephesus for all of its elaborate spiritism had
ever witnessed.
So,
Paul is exhorting these believes, and us today, to be overcomers by reminding
them that they have real power, real strength that is of and from God, so that
they, and we, stop giving over to the weakness of the flesh with fear to the
false god’s that have absolutely no power or strength, as they are, “gods made with hands that are no gods at all,” Acts 19:26b. Cf. Deut 4:28; Psa 115:4; Isa 44:10-20; Jer
10:3ff; Acts 17:29; 1 Cor 10:19; Rev 9:20.
Acts
17:29, “Being then the children of God, we ought not
to think that the Divine Nature is like gold or silver or stone, an image
formed by the art and thought of man.”
In
our culture today, everyone wants to talk about problems without talking about
evil, faith, or the Spirit. Anyone who proposes a spiritual cause to a problem
is labeled as a fanatic, or naïve, silly, unenlightened,
or uninformed about the real issues. Some may give a sentimental value
to those of faith but nothing more. In their hearts, they believe such talk is
inane. But sooner or later every believer discovers that the Christian life is
a battleground, not a playground, and that he faces an enemy who is much
stronger than he is; apart from the Lord. Therefore, you must take into account
sin and Satan when you try to assess the problems of your life and this world.
Paul, as a trustworthy and inspired apostle, is not uninformed about the real
problems; he is informing us about the real, unseen battle beneath these
visible problems.
Therefore,
we must be strengthened by the mighty power of the Lord, because we do not want
to crumble when the evil one tempts us. Do not look in the wrong place for
strength. Our strength is not in our resources and ability, in how long we have
been Christians, in how much we know about the Bible, or in how long we have been
in ministry. Our strength is in our union with Jesus Christ and His mighty
power, Eph 1:19. In another passage
that alludes to being a soldier, Paul says in 2 Tim 2:1, “Be strong in the
grace that is in Christ Jesus.” We are called to look in the right place,
to the right person: Jesus Christ. Therefore, we are to say, “Yes, I am weak, but I do not have to remain weak. I will find my strength
in the Lord,” Cf. 1 Sam 30:6; Heb
11:32-34.
1
Sam 30:6, “Moreover David was greatly distressed
because the people spoke of stoning him, for all the people were embittered,
each one because of his sons and his daughters. But David strengthened himself
in the LORD his God.”
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A
PERSONAL NOTE FOR YOU
John 6:47 says: “Most assuredly, I say to you, he who believes in Me [Jesus Christ] has everlasting life.”
Notice again
what John 6:47 says, “he who believes in Me [Jesus Christ] has everlasting life.” It doesn’t say, “will have;” it says,
“has.” Therefore, the very moment you believe Jesus Christ’s promise of
everlasting life, you have it, and it can never be lost or taken away from you [John 10:28-29]. Furthermore, the gift
of everlasting life [also called eternal life in Scripture] is available to
every human being; there are absolutely no exceptions.
John 3:14-18 says: “And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must
the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but
have eternal life. For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten
Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.
For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the
world through Him might be saved. He who believes in Him is not condemned; but
he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in
the name of the only begotten Son of God.”
Eph 2:8-9, “For by grace are ye saved through
faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: 9 Not of works, lest any
man should boast.”
If
you have never accepted Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, I am here to tell
you that Jesus loves you. He loves you so much that He gave His life for you.
God the Father also loves you. He loves you so much that He gave His only Son
for you by sending Him to the Cross. At the Cross Jesus died in your place.
Taking upon Himself all of your sins and all of my sins. He was judged for our
sins and paid the price for our sins. Therefore, our sins will never be held
against us.
Right
where you are, you now have the opportunity to make the greatest decision in
your life. To accept the free gift of salvation and eternal life by truly
believing that Jesus Christ died for your sins and was raised on the third day
as the proof of the promise of eternal life. So right now, you can pause and
reflect on what Christ has done for you and say to the Father:
"Yes
Father, I believe that Your Son, Jesus Christ,
died on the cross for the forgiveness of my sins."
If you have done that, I Welcome You to the Eternal
Family of God !!!
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Grace Fellowship Church
Pastor/Teacher: James H. Rickard
23 Messenger Street, Unit 3
Plainville, MA 02762
Copyright © 2001 - 2018.
Property of: James H Rickard Bible Ministries
All Rights Reserved.
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