Sunday, July 1, 2018 -
Ephesians 6:18
Prayer Makes the Armor of God Effective for Victory! Pt. 1
Lesson # 18 – 068
Grace Fellowship Church
Pastor/Teacher, Jim Rickard
Stand in Warfare –
Eph 6:10-20.
In our outline of Eph 6:10-24, (The Believer’s
Walk in Warfare; God’s Provision for His Children’s Spiritual Battles).
1. The Empowerment, vs. 10.
2. The Enemy, vs. 11-12.
3. The Equipment, vs. 13-17.
4. The Energy, vs. 18-20, God’s Appeal
for Prayer in the Church.
5. The Encouragement, vs. 21-24.
We are now on the fourth point: The Energy, vs. 18-20, God’s Appeal for
Prayer in the Church. Here we see the Royal Family’s responsibility
to exercise our corporate privilege of prayer as professional Christian soldiers.
We begin with vs. 18.
Vs. 18,
Prayer Makes the Armor of God Effective for Victory!
Eph 6:18, “With
all prayer and petition pray at all times in the Spirit, and with this in view,
be on the alert with all perseverance and petition for all the saints.”
This verse begins with “With
all prayer and petition,” DIA PAS PROSEUCHE KAI DEESIS.
DIA, διά is a
Preposition that means, “through, by, with,
because of, or for the sake of.” Being in this Genitive construction, it is a
Genitive of Means, showing us it is a marker
of instrumentality that tells us “HOW” something is accomplished. We could
translate this “by means of all prayer and petition.” Here we see that
the “Full Armor of God,” which is made up of the Word of God resident in your
soul, is both put on and made effective by the means of prayer and petitions.
The Adjective PAS,
πᾶς that means, “all, every, each,
etc.,” tells us that “by means of all” of our prayers we should be
asking God to empower us with His Armor.
Then we have the word for “prayer,” which is PROSEUCHE προσευχή, that means, “prayer or
petition.” We noted this word back in Eph
1:16, regarding Paul’s prayer for the Church and will note the principles
of prayer below. It is used about 40 times in the NT.
Then we have the coordinating Conjunction KAI, “and,” with DEESIS, δέησις that means,
“request, petition, prayer, or
supplication.” Petition means, “to make a demand for action, an appeal or
request to a higher authority.” Supplication means, “to make an appeal to
someone in authority, a humble and sincere appeal to someone who has the power
to grant a request.” Prayer is
general, supplication is
special and specific.
This is the first time DEESIS is used in the Book of
Ephesians and will be used again at the end of this verse. Related to the verb DEOMAI, “ask, beg, or beseech,” DEESIS is basically a “request” or an
“entreaty” in a religious context. When addressed to God it can mean a
“prayer,” but a specific type of prayer called a request or petition prayer.
Yet, Papyri also indicates that the word was a strong term meaning more than a
simple request. It was used of a prisoner’s request, (probably for freedom or
some favor), as well as in requests to false deities. Paul explicitly linked
DEESIS to prayer four times, Eph 6:18;
Phil 4:6; 1 Tim 2:1; 5:5. In His role as High Priest, Heb 5:7 portrays Jesus as offering “prayers and petitions” to God.
Therefore, this word is used to doubly emphasize our prayers to God where we
have specific requests or action items for Him.
The context here is that we are to be asking God directly to
equip us with His armor.
Phil 4:6, “Be
anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with
thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.”
Now we are given the action item, “pray or praying,” with the Verb PROSEUCHOMAI, even though the
substantives have indicated this thus far. PROSEUCHOMAI προσεύχομαι is in the
Present, Middle Deponent, Participle, Nominative, Plural. It is the “thing” we
are to be doing on behalf of ourselves and others: Praying to God! This is the
first time this word is used in Ephesians, but is used extensively throughout
the NT; used nearly 90 times.
In the Bible, we find that this word means both intimacy
with the one we are praying to, as well as being a personal petition. The
previous sections of this passage have indicated that for us, but this word by
itself explains that to us.
Next, we have the frequency or “WHEN,” of our prayers and
petitions, “at all times,” which in
the Greek is EN PAS KAIROS. KAIROS, καιρός means, “time, a fixed time, season,
or opportunity.” We saw this word in Eph
1:10; 2:12; 5:16. In those instances it was speaking of specific time
periods or seasons. Here in this construction, it is in the Dative of Time,
denoting a point of time or in this case the frequency of when we should to be
petitioning God. It answers the question “WHEN?” If we translated it “praying
in every season” it would indicate that we are to pray in both the good times
and the bad times. “Praying at all times”
gives us that sense as well, as does “praying on every occasion.”
The answer to the question, “when should I be petitioning
God in prayer to equip me with His armor?” is “all the time” or virtually every
time you pray. The reason is, because any time you pray to God asking Him for
something, the answer is based on having the Full Armor of God.
So in the first part, we saw the “HOW?” How do I complete the
equipping of God’s Armor? The answer is, “through petition prayers.” Now in the
second part, we see the “WHEN?” When do I petition God for His armament in
prayer? The answer is, “every time you pray, on every occasion." Prayer is
needed in this fight. The Armor of God is necessary, but so is prayer.
Luke 18:1, “Now
He was telling them a parable to show that at all times they ought to pray and
not to lose heart.”
Col 1:3, “We
give thanks to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, praying always for you.”
Col 4:2, “Devote
yourselves to prayer, keeping alert in it with an attitude of
thanksgiving.”
1 Thes 5:17, “Pray
without ceasing.”
“Satan trembles when
he sees, The weakest saint upon his knees.” (A.T. Roberts, Word Pictures in
the New Testament.)
Communion: Jesus’ prayer in Gethsemane, Mat 26:36-47; Mark 14:32-43; Luke 22:39-47.
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