Ephesians Lesson 38 of 39 part 5

Ephesians 6:9

"And, ye masters*, do the same things unto them, forbearing threatening; knowing that your Master also is in heaven; neither is respect of persons with him."

*in this case owners but for us usually business owners, foremen and departmental heads.

God is saying to the masters and owners to forbear with their workers, listen to them, because they are human beings just like you are, so do not threaten them. Do not be angry and do not allow anger to fester more than a moment. So the lesson carries through right to our own day and time. When a corporate manager or owner of a business has people under him, especially if he is a believer, he is to treat his employees as God treats him, he is going to be successful. He is going to have a happy work force, and we have known some small companies like that. Most of their employees were Christians and the owners were Christians and they did not have any labor trouble. They had excellent safety and production records because it is so true. What God has mandated is going to work.

I mentioned back in the Corinthian letters, that we will notice that every once in a while Paul just seems to shift gears, and will go from one subject to something seemingly totally different, and here is one of them. In the prior sections he came out of the relationship between the husband and the wife, based on love, and the comparison of the love of Christ and the Church, as a unit, with the same makeup as a healthy family unit. Then he carried on into chapter 6 with that same attitude between the parents and their children, but now we come into something totally different. We must also keep in mind that when Paul wrote these articles they did not have breaks, such as paragraphs nor line breaks, they just flowed smoothly. Now we are going to cover the territory of dealing with our adversary Satan and the powers that be. In a similar fashion as John saw it by revelation (in visionary form) in the book called by that name.

Ephesians 6:10-11

"Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord, and in the power of his might. Put on the whole armor of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil."

We have no idea how many ask, "Is it Scriptural that we are to bind Satan?" Personally we have heard it, but that does not mean its so, because it sure is not in this Bible. There is no way that we humans can bind Satan. Satan is a spirit being, and God in His power over angels will one day, as we see in Revelation chapter 19, bind him and put him in the pit for a thousand years. What we need is a revelation of the Master, LORD, Christ Jesus as God, Who alone has not only power but all Authority over all things. But there is no way that we can bind Satan today, nor are we instructed to attempt to do so. For even the angels who are of quail rank with Satan and his counter part (yes there were two who fell and of course all those lesser angels under their authority were case out to the earth with them) said, the LORD rebuke you. We are not told to plead the blood around or over anything but we are told to apply it to ourselves. We pointed out to one individual that the instruction as we see right here is to resist him, to oppose him, but there is no way we are going to bind him. 

Ephesians 6:11

"Put on the whole armor of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil."

The first thing we always have to do in Bible study is think of a situation way back where we have a perfect example of what Paul is talking about here. We like to do this just to make people think. Where, do you think is an instant where someone resisted Satan? Well, the Lord did, in Matthew chapter 4. Go back there for a moment and look at it. If Satan were to have been bound, then the Lord would have done it right there, but He does not, so what does He do? He resists him! And how does He resist old Satan? By the way, where was he (as Satan) located, even in the Son of God, in the flesh, the house given to man as his covering made from the earth. He, Satan is the voice of mans flesh, which is in rebellion against God. Because the very earth which holds as in a dungeon, within it, Satan as Apollyon and Molech as death. Jesus, resisted With the Word of God. And it is no different for us today. We can not bind him (Satan or Molech), but we can resist him by the Word of God! We must know and keep in mind that God's Light will destroy them both. And from what source does this Light (which destroys darkness and evil) come from? The every Light which gives us Life but will destroy them, Christ Jesus, the LORD of All. This is why we have to pass from being dead through death and into His Light of Life, which is then restored to us as found in Genesis 2:7. And here it is in Matthew chapter 4.