By the time I met her, my friend, let’s call her Mary, had become quite weighted down by this bag. I was concerned to see her self-reproof and fear and begged her to unload some of this on me. As most of this was dressed up as knowledge, I knew myself to be fit for the task and was happy to take some of it on. That is how it came to be that she opened her bag and we started sifting through it.
The first thing that Mary lifted out of the bag was ancestral sin. Her ancestors had belonged to some or other group that the friend’s religious group condemned as evil. It was therefore asserted that Mary and her whole family was under a curse because of their ancestral connections. It was also because of this that all sorts of calamities and negative things kept happening to them.
Next followed a whole range of signs, symbols and shapes. These could all be traced back to some sort of evil origins or connections and therefore had to be avoided at all cost. As she unpacked the bag further, out came (almost) the whole scope of fairy tale characters, choice of words to be avoided or used, calendar days to be celebrated or despised, etc. The list went on and on and the bag seemed to be filled with endless pitfalls and dangers for this Christian believer.
At the bottom of the bag we found the stuff that carried the most weight. These were a set of law books that contained seemingly endless instructions for what one should or should not do, say, wear, eat, etc. It literally covered every single aspect of life! It took us forever to simply skim the pages, never mind study and master them!
Finally with the whole bag unpacked and spread out in front of us, it was time to start sifting through it. I picked up the curses, wanting to tackle those while I was still fresh. Mary told me that these were particularly dangerous, as she had been led to understand, as something very disconcerting had been made clear to her as they were placed into the bag. The loved one placed this in her bag with a warning quote directly from the Bible. We found it in Ephesians 6:12. It reads as follows:
“For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places.” (NKJV).Daunting! How could we, mere mortals, possibly defend ourselves against such overwhelming forces? We seemed doomed. Truly, that must be the meaning of a curse; to condemn to doom. Well, if this verse was true then there certainly seemed to be little hope for us. What did the loved one suggest we do? She advised the returning to, and adherence of the old Talmudic laws (Jewish laws). What a relief! That meant that all we had to do was follow the set of rules in the law books and we would be saved from the curse. And thus we turned our attention to the law books. Was there enough time in one lifetime to master all of those? Well, we would certainly give it a bash!
Turning the pages of the Bible back to the Mosaic laws, I flipped past Matthew and noticed a discussion that Jesus had with the Pharisees. These were the people schooled and versed in the Talmudic laws in Jesus’ time. They were upset that Jesus’ disciples had broken the Sabbath Law by plucking and eating grain growing in the fields (Mark 2:23-28). Jesus made it clear to them that the law was made to sustain people, instead of people being created to give meaning to the law.
We then flipped even further back to Matthew 5:17-20 where Jesus had yet another conversation with the Pharisees. This time He made it clear to them that if they intended to keep the law, they would have to keep every single aspect of it. There are no degrees of guilt. You have either kept the law, or you have broken it. You do not have to be guilty of murder to be condemned as a law breaker. You need only have neglected to wash your hands before supper, to be guilty before the law! This made our hearts sink. What hope could there possibly be for us? How could anyone be saved? It almost seemed as if it would be easier to take our chances with those evil forces in the air somewhere. And so we went back there, because we had just reminded ourselves of the fact that the book of Ephesians was actually a lengthy letter in its original state, written by Paul to a gathering of early Christians, living in the city of Ephesus. We really could not restrict our reading to only one verse, but needed to take the whole letter into account. We would do that in good time, but for now we would restrict ourselves to reading only the verses surrounding the quoted one, as it was getting late in the evening.
We picked the passage up at Ephesians 6:10 and read through to verse 20. You can read the actual passage for yourself and I will only lift out for you what we discovered. I’ll copy the actual verses at the end of this writ for your convenience. Here is what we discovered:
Verse 10: We are to be strong and people of power (versus cowering in fear under the yoke of curses);
Verse 11: That we have an armor that will not fail to protect us against all evil;
Verse 12: That our battle is not one that is fought in the flesh, but that it is a spiritual one;
Verse 13: That we are to clothe ourselves with this armor of GOD. Not man-made. Not made by the evil one. Made by God, the Conqueror! Finally some good news. But it gets better yet. This armor will assist in keeping us standing;
Verse 14: That our sword is hanging form truth and that truth is keeping us clothed (keeping our pants from dropping down, so to speak). Also that our hearts can rest assured that we are righteous (in right standing) before God;
Verse 15: Our feet should be prepared to spread peace. Wait a minute! This is a soldier’s uniform we are donning. How are we now sent on a mission of peace? This is confusing. We thought we were preparing for war!
Verse 16: That the only way we could avert the onslaught of the evil one, was to lift faith up before us as a shield. What do we believe? That Jesus died for our sins on the cross, that we are forgiven, that the Holy Spirit now lives in us, that one day we will be united with God in heaven, that nothing can separate us from the love of God;
Verse 17: That the only knowledge we have to fill our heads with is the fact that we are saved. That the whole armor is defensive in nature and that the only offensive part of the armor is the sword, specified to be the word of God. How good a swordsman are you? I am rather rotten. Fortunately it is not our job to use this sword. The Holy Spirit of God will Himself take care of the offensive part of the battle;
Verse 18: That what we are called to do is to persevere in prayer for ourselves and our fellow believers;
Verse 19-20: That even Paul was daunted by the circumstances he found himself in and needed prayer. That he was in literal chains, but still witnessing. That what he was suffering was not as a result of some curse that landed on him due to something he or his forefathers did wrong, but that even in that he saw the hand of God and gave God the honor due to Him. This same Paul also wrote a lengthy letter to the believers gathered in Galatia to admonish them for wanting to keep the Talmudic Laws instead of simply accepting the free gift of forgiveness found in Christ. I refuse to lift out single verses, but urge you to rather read the whole letter as it has been preserved in the book of Galatians. You may want to follow that up with Hebrews as well.
It was at this stage that we revisited the origin of sin. We went back to Genesis and the story of Adam and Eve. We see that the only curse that we need to take any note of is the one where our own choices in favor of sin, separates us from our union to God. We see that in the time of Noah God took out a water gun and smote the world because of its sin. We see that God followed this up with a set of laws, which mankind had never been able to follow to the full letter of it. Not even the best of men succeeded here, starting with Moses himself. I can regale you with many more stories and examples, but really I would rather urge you to read the Bible as a whole from beginning to end. I would choose to skip forward to where God took out the big guns.
By the time Jesus entered the scene, God was done playing with water guns (respectfully intended). He had given endless warnings and laws to try to unite people with Himself. He had watched people sin and He had forgiven time and time again. He had smitten them with plagues, warfare, sickness, famine, exile to try to get them to turn back to Him. He had healed, blessed, given rain and food, rebuilt, restored and forgiven endless times. It was time to stop the cycle. Enters Jesus onto the scene. Now I can not stress enough how important it is that you should read the gospels carefully to see how well Jesus explains the transition from abiding by the law to accepting forgiveness for free. Matthew is especially good reading for understanding this well. In Mark Jesus tells us that the new salvation plan is so completely different from the previous one, that He compared it to new wine having to be put in new wine skins. The old simply could not contain it.
And then God took out the big guns when He allowed Jesus to lay down His life and to conquer death and the curse thereof. We see Jesus rise from the grave, having subdued all that separated us from God. God shot off another volley with His big guns when He sent the Holy Spirit, a part of God Himself, to become an indwelling Inhabitant of all believers.
With the truth of salvation and release was laid open by God’s Word on the table, Mary and I found that there was no burden left to lift onto either of our shoulders. Jesus had already done it all. Truly,
“I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels, nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 8:38-39. Feel free to read the whole letter).
Ephesians 6:12-20Marietjie Uys (Miekie) is a published author. You can buy the books here:
10 Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord and in the power of His might. 11 Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. 12 For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places. 13 Therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand.
14 Stand therefore, having girded your waist with truth, having put on the breastplate of righteousness, 15 and having shod your feet with the preparation of the gospel of peace; 16 above all, taking the shield of faith with which you will be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked one. 17 And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God; 18 praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, being watchful to this end with all perseverance and supplication for all the saints— 19 and for me, that utterance may be given to me, that I may open my mouth boldly to make known the mystery of the gospel, 20 for which I am an ambassador in chains; that in it I may speak boldly, as I ought to speak.
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