Church: Reformed Baptist Church of Franconia | Text: Ephesians 6:18-20 | Date: June 5, 2016 | Speaker: Fred Zaspel

The Word of God and Prayer

Subject for this morning in these verses is the Word of God and prayer. The Word of God and prayer. Ephesians chapter 6, I’ll begin reading with verse 10:

Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might. Put on the whole armor of God that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil. For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in heavenly places. 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 firm. Stand therefore, having fastened on the belt of truth and having put on the breastplate of righteousness, and as shoes for your feet having put on the readiness given by the gospel of peace, in all circumstances take up the shield of faith with which you can extinguish all the flaming darts of the evil one. And take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the spirit, which is the word of God, praying at all times in the spirit with all prayer and supplication. To that end, keep alert with all perseverance, making supplication for all the saints and also for me, that words may be given to me in opening my mouth boldly to proclaim the mystery of the gospel, for which I am an ambassador in chains, that I may declare it boldly as I ought to speak. So that you also may know how I am and what I am doing, Tychicus, 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 and love with faith from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Grace be with all who love our Lord Jesus Christ, with love incorruptible.

Our focus this morning will be on verses 17 and following. We’ll look at that again: “Take the helmet of salvation,” which is what we saw last time. “And now, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God, praying at all times in the spirit with all prayer and supplication. To that end, keep alert with all perseverance, making supplication for all the saints and for me, that words may be given to me in opening my mouth boldly to proclaim the mystery of the gospel, for which I am an ambassador in chains, that I may declare it boldly as I ought to speak.”

Let’s bow together for prayer. Father, what a delight it is to be here this morning and sing these wonderful hymns of praise to Christ, to express our heart’s reliance upon our Redeemer, who has done everything for us that we need to have our right standing with our Creator. What a great gospel this is. What a great provision it is that you have given to us in your Son. We’re thankful for the great salvation that we have seen described for us in such wonderful and glorious terms throughout this letter to the Ephesians. And we’re grateful also for the exhortation that it gives us so that we may have direction as to how you intend to restore us to the image of Christ. We’re grateful for your provisions in that struggle, and as we continue this one more time here this morning to look at these provisions, the Word of God and prayer, we pray that you would open our minds and our hearts to these very basic, elementary, but so essential truths and these dimensions and aspects of Christian living that we may please you in our daily walk. We ask in the name of Christ. Amen.

We’ve been emphasizing that in this passage, the theme that Paul is driving is that of faithfulness to preserve the gains won for us by the Lord Jesus in his saving work. That salvation has been described for us. He has described the attending responsibilities of the Christian life and how we should live in a way that reflects well on the gospel of Christ. And this is what’s been secured for us by Christ. And yet it does involve real struggle, particularly in light of the awful enemy that is described for us in verses 11, or verses 12 and 13—11, 12, and 13—where he speaks of this supernatural, infernal enemy, Satan, and his forces that have come against the Christian.

In the larger context, of course, as we’ve said, that this reflects the work of Christ as triumphant conqueror, conquering over Satan, conquering over sin by his death. That great irony of redemptive history where the Son of God came in great humiliation and in great weakness and in seeming defeat, defeated the devil himself, our adversary, and has won the day. And that day will come to fruition in which finally our salvation culminates in the glory that we will have with Christ in the eternal state. But in the meantime, this enemy is still on the loose. And he is still a very real enemy, and living successfully before God involves real struggle.

And so Paul writes this passage to tell us in that context we should keep in mind that Christ has won the day and in him God has provided for us all of the ammunition, all of the armor, all of the resources we need to remain faithful. And so we have it repeated. Verse 11: “stand.” Verse 13: “withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand firm.” And then again, verse 14: “stand therefore.” And all of this to emphasize, more or less, a defensive posture where we recognize that the enemy has come against us, and yet we can remain faithful through these provisions, the belt of truth, and so on, fortifying the mind and the heart with revealed truth.

The Sword of the Spirit, Which Is the Word of God

Now, as I say, all of this about standing and standing firm is essentially a defensive posture, holding the position that was secured for us in Christ and remaining faithful. With this next piece of armor, all of that changes. Here we have the one offensive weapon: the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God. The sword, of course, is not something that is for mere defense, although it certainly has that function as well. But the sword primarily is an offensive weapon. And the word that is used here refers to those relatively short, around 18-inch swords that were used by the soldiers in hand-to-hand combat, the kind that was easily wieldy in battle and effective in that kind of use. It’s an offensive weapon.

And we’re not left to any doubt here as to the meaning of this metaphor, because Paul gives us this one himself: the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God. Now this is not the only time in the Bible that the Bible itself is referred to with this figure, or that the Word of God, or God talking, is used in this figure of a sword. In fact, if we had the time, I would like to turn back to Isaiah chapter 49. There the servant who is prophesied to come, who is Christ, of course—this prophecy of Christ, the servant of the Lord who will come to do his will and accomplish his purpose—he is described in Isaiah 49 in verse 2 as one in whom God has put a sword in his mouth. God has put a sword in his mouth. It’s graphic language. And the idea, of course, is that he speaks. And in speaking, he accomplishes the divine purpose.

Now we have that kind of theme carried through in other places of the Bible as well. And it goes all the way through to the end of the book in Revelation chapter 19, when Christ is depicted as coming in glory and in pomp and in victory, riding on a white horse. And it says there’s a sword came out of his mouth with which to strike the nations. Which is again, graphic kind of language. That is to say, in that grand conflagration and the world rebellion against God, it actually won’t be much of a fight. Because all Jesus has to do is speak and enemies crumble.

And this is that larger theme of the power of the Word of God. The power of the Word of God theme, which is everywhere in the scriptures. We meet it actually on the very first page of scripture: “And God said, let there be light.” And there’s light. God speaks, and it was. And this whole doctrine of creation out of nothing, that God just spoke and from nothing everything came—that is amazing omnipotence. The power of the Word of God theme. We find that all through the scripture.

One of my favorite reflections of it is in Jeremiah. I see several other places in the prophets as well, but Jeremiah is in graphic terms where it tells us that Jeremiah’s calling was to tear down kingdoms and to build up kingdoms. That’s what Jeremiah was called to do. That’s an odd kind of way to speak of a prophet. You might speak of a king that way, but here’s a prophet who, far as we know, didn’t carry a sword. If he did, it wouldn’t have made much difference. He didn’t lead an army. And yet his calling is to tear down kingdoms and to build up other kingdoms. And of course the point is this is a prophet who speaks for God. And when he makes an announcement about a kingdom that it will fall, or an announcement about another kingdom that will be raised up, it will happen because—and this is a favorite phrase from Isaiah—because the mouth of the Lord has spoken it. And there’s this power given to the word of God that when God speaks, his purpose is accomplished.

Well, that’s what’s reflected here in this passage when now he speaks of the sword of the spirit, which is the word of God. And the point here is that this is the only offensive weapon that we have in our armory. Paul makes an allusion to this in 2 Corinthians chapter 10 when he tells us in the same kind of a conflict passage, the weapons of our warfare are not carnal. They’re not fleshly. We don’t have the same kind of weapons that the world has, but the weapons we have are mighty to the pulling down of strongholds. We have a reflection of it in Revelation chapter 12 and verse 11, where the dragon chases the people of Christ out into the wilderness and they’re under assault. And we got the wonderful statement in Revelation 12 verse 11, that they overcame the dragon. They overcame him by two things: by the blood of the lamb and by the word of their testimony. A wonderful picture of the church under assault and yet triumphing ultimately through the work of Christ on their behalf and through the witness of the gospel that they give with their own lips.

Well, in that sense then, Paul has turned now to this dimension of taking the fight to the enemy. And so the question next is, in what sense do we take the fight to the enemy? How do we use the sword of the Spirit as Paul is talking about it? Well, I have little doubt that some dimension of it is this matter of using it in a personal sense, that is taking the word of God and applying it to our own struggles. You struggle with doubt. You struggle with disappointment, discouragement, suffering. You bring the word of God to bear on that, and it has a wonderful, encouraging effect, and it defends us in that sense.

But I think it’s difficult not to see that Paul has more in mind than that. He’s talking about taking the fight to the enemy. And likely what comes to your mind first when you read “the sword of the spirit,” taking the sword of the spirit, is probably something along the lines of taking the word of God, or if we can narrow it, taking the gospel to the lost. Evangelism, or apologetics, or however you want to look at it, it is taking the fight to the enemy. That is what Paul has in mind in the following verses. Notice again, verse 17, the end of the verse: “take the sword of the spirit, which is the word of God, praying all times in the spirit with all prayer and supplication.” And then verse 19: “and also for me that words may be given to me in the opening of my mouth boldly to proclaim the mystery of the gospel.”

He’s speaking here of gospel advance, taking the word of God and making advance for the kingdom through speaking the gospel. I think that’s what’s primarily in view here. And again, that is a huge theme, particularly when we come to the New Testament. And I think I would like you to take time to look back at Romans chapter 1. It’s a very, very familiar verse, but it helps when your eyes see it. Romans 1 verse 16: “For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ.” This is a dramatic understatement. There’s a fancy word for it as a figure of speech, but a dramatic understatement. “For I’m not ashamed.” That is, I’m boastful. I’m proud of the gospel in that sense. Why? “Because it’s the power of God to salvation to everyone who believes.”

Now, I think it’s enormously important for us to be convinced of this down to our socks. The gospel is the power of God unto salvation. It is not your winsome personality that is the power of God to salvation. It is not your vast learning that is the power of God to salvation. It is the gospel that is the power of God to salvation. This is what God uses to bring men and women to faith in Christ. More of that in a minute.

Look over at Hebrews chapter 4. Hebrews chapter 4, another very familiar verse. Here speaking of the unique capabilities of the word of God. Hebrews 4 and verse 12: “For the word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and spirit and of joints and marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.” So much here spoken of about the Bible. It’s living. That’s an interesting description of black ink on a white page, isn’t it? It’s living. And of course, it’s something that the scripture affirms about it all of the time. It is active. In fact, many times the New Testament writers, particularly in the book of Hebrews here, the New Testament writers will cite the Old Testament and speak of it as saying—not said, but saying—and in fact it’ll be “God says,” “God is saying,” or “the Holy Spirit is saying,” and one time in the book of Hebrews it’s Jesus, quoting the Old Testament, “Jesus is saying.” But here’s this notion of the word of God is alive and active and powerful to do what? Well, it makes piercing divisions between soul and spirit and joints and marrow, discerning the thoughts and intents of the heart. That is, it gets down deep and it cuts and it lays open.

Now, you don’t have to have much experience in going to church and hearing preaching or in reading the Bible yourself to know what that’s talking about in your own experience. We’ve all been there. Someone opens the scriptures for us, and it begins to cut. And it cuts deep, and it lays open the heart. It did it initially when we came to Christ the first time, and it does it again, and again, and again. This is the power of the Word of God.

In fact, even in terms of apologetics, I think it’s a wonderful study. Many of us wish we could do more in that regard, to learn how to defend scripture, to defend Christianity against its critics. But ultimately, we have to realize that the best defense for the scripture is an offense. Turn it loose, is what Spurgeon said. It’s like defending a lion. The best thing you could do is turn it loose. Let it defend itself. And this is the notion that Paul has in mind here with regard to the sword of the Spirit.

Now, I want you to see that again in Ephesians 6, that it is never the Word of God alone, but it is the Word and the Spirit. It is, after all, the sword of the Spirit, which I take it to mean the sword that the Spirit uses—the sword of the spirit, which is the word of God. The point here is that, yes, only advance for the gospel can be made only in the sovereign hands of the spirit of God. But the weapon that he uses is the word of God that we speak. So we take the sword of the spirit to make advance for the gospel.

This is an important theme. There are some brands of Calvinists—in fact, one of the marks, I think, of a hyper-Calvinist is this doctrine that they call immediate regeneration. We all agree that the Spirit of God is the one who must open the heart and bring us to life so that we may be saved. But one of the marks of hyper-Calvinism is that the Spirit of God does that immediately. That is, without any mediating use. That is, He does it in a vacuum. He doesn’t need the Gospel to use, but He can bring men to life.

But everywhere, certainly the position of this church, certainly my position, everywhere in the scriptures we find that the Spirit of God indeed sovereignly opens the heart, and we can do nothing to cause that. But nonetheless, it is emphasized that the Spirit of God does that through the ministry of the gospel. And so it is not an immediate regeneration, but a gospel regeneration. We find this everywhere. For example, in James chapter 1 and verse 18: “He brought us forth with the Word of Truth.” Or 1 Peter chapter 1, we have the same thing, that He brought us to life through the Word of God. Well, we find many other reflections on that. That’s not the point of the message today. We can explore that more thoroughly another time, but I want you to see that that’s Paul’s assumption here when he speaks of the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God. We take the sword, the Word of God, we wield it with the confidence that this is the instrument the Spirit of God uses to give life.

The emphasis then is that the gospel is the power of God to save. If I can refer back again to Romans 1:16, brothers and sisters, we’ve got to be convinced of that down to our socks. The gospel is what God uses to save. I suspect—and we’ve all felt this nervousness about evangelizing and talking to others, spreading the gospel, and we’re afraid that our witness isn’t good—we’ve all felt that we’re inadequate and all of that. I suppose that if we could boil down all of our hesitations about witnessing, it comes down to Romans 1:16. We’re not deeply convinced that this gospel really is the power of God to save. Well, that then I think is taking the sword of the Spirit, taking it and putting it to use in the offensive sense, taking it to the enemy.

How Is It That the Sword of the Spirit Is Made Effective?

Well, now the next question, and I want to spend the rest of our time here, is how is it that the sword of the Spirit is made effective? How is it that the sword of the Spirit is made effective? And I want you to see how the passage reads. Verse 17 again: “Take the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God, praying.” You see that? And notice “praying” is not a separate imperative. It’s not a separate command. Now, it has an imperatival force. It’s commanding us to pray, but that’s not the way it’s worded. “Take the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God, praying at all times in the Spirit with all prayer and supplication.” This is how you use the sword of the Spirit. You use it with prayer. And so, title of the message today: The Word of God and Prayer.

Now notice then that prayer here is not a separate piece of armor. It is something that is to be used in connection with all of the pieces of armor. Now I’ve told you how much I love John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress, and that you have to read that, and you’re really not quite saved if you don’t. Here’s one exception where I think he got it wrong. He speaks of the weapon of “all prayer” as though prayer is a separate weapon. Now, what he’s exhorting us to in the book is right enough, but on that precise point, I think he got it wrong. I think the hymn that we sing, Stand Up for Jesus, I think it gets it right: “Put on the gospel armor, each piece put on with prayer.” That’s what Paul is saying here. The point is not that prayer is a separate weapon or a separate piece of armor, but it’s a continual requirement in connection with the armor. The armor then cannot be used effectively apart from prayer.

In other words, then, don’t think that this struggle for the Christian life can be won in a purely mechanical way. Don’t think, for all of this emphasis that we have had to this point on the importance of learning and deeply imbibing the teachings of the Word of God—for all of that emphasis, don’t think that this struggle is simply a cerebral one, as though learning itself has won it. I don’t want to diminish the importance of the learning. We’ve been emphasizing that all along. But what we find now is that itself is not enough. You take the armor—the belt of truth, the breastplate of righteousness, the preparation that comes from the gospel of peace—you take these pieces of armor, and what that means is you’re deeply imbibing the teachings of the Word of God, and at the same time, praying for effectiveness in its use.

Acquaintance with revealed truth is not enough. There must be divine enablement. There must be divine enablement. And so we put on the gospel armor, each piece put on with prayer. Notice he says, “praying,” verse 18, “at all times in the spirit.” That again speaks of divine enablement. You’re familiar, of course, with Romans 8 and verse 26, which speaks to this exactly, where the Spirit helps us in our praying because of our weakness and our ignorance.

But what kind of prayer? How much prayer? Notice it: “Praying always. All kinds of prayer, with all perseverance, and for all your fellow soldiers as well.” Four universals: pray on all occasions, with all kinds of prayer and requests, with all perseverance and persistence, and for all the saints. It’s not pray sometimes, with some prayers, with some degree of persistence, for some select group of saints, but praying on all occasions, make full employment of this great provision and this resource of prayer.

Now Paul stresses this in the way that he words it here. It’s very important. The way we have this at the beginning of verse 18 with “praying” as a—if you like the grammar—the present participle here. That is to say, there is no right use of the armor apart from prayer. You take the sword of the Spirit, praying. You put on the belt of truth, praying. You take up the shield of faith, praying. That’s the sense of it here. Praying with all prayers and supplications. That word has the idea of earnest request that’s born out of a sense of need, a plea for help. All kinds of prayers is the idea here.

And notice how he stresses it in the middle of verse 18: “to that end, keep alert with all perseverance.” To that end, keep alert with all perseverance. That is, being especially careful in reference to this responsibility of prayer. Be careful about this. That is, your heart will likely tend to grow indifferent regarding the necessity of prayer and the need of prayer. You are likely to think that you can get by with this struggle on your own because you’re so smart after all, and because you’ve learned so much Bible now after all, and because you’ve been a Christian now for so long after all, that you can do this and you’re up to it. Paul says you be alert to that. Praying always, be very careful, praying always with all persistence. Don’t think that you are up to the task. What you need is divine enablement, therefore pray. That’s the logic of it. What you need is divine enablement, therefore pray. Pray all the time, all the time.

Paul here is portraying a Christian soldier facing opposition with awful danger, verses 11, 12, this infernal enemy. A Christian soldier facing opposition, terrible danger, yet determined to take the fight to the enemy. So he takes up his sword, and yet recognizing his inadequacy, he prays. I’ve got to take the time to do this. Look back to—keep your hand here, we’ll be right back—but look back at 2 Chronicles. That’s in the Old Testament. 2 Chronicles chapter 14. We have a marvelous illustration of what Paul is telling us here.

2 Chronicles chapter 14. The setting for us is given in the first verse. We have King Asa who has come to reign in place of his father. And it tells us in brief at the end of the verse that the land had rest for 10 years. Beginning in verse 2, we find the description of his reign, that he was one of those few good kings. He did what was right in the sight of the Lord. He broke down all false worship and false altars, drove them out of the land, took away false worship of all kinds, established national faithfulness to God. Verse 7, he built the cities, he strengthened the walls and the towers, the gates, and enjoyed peace and prosperity with the Lord’s blessing. Verse 8, they had a big army. And then verse 9, Zerah, the Ethiopian, came out against him and he had a bigger army. And then verses 12 and following, they had their fight, and Judah whooped up on the Ethiopians. To put it in a good contemporary paraphrase, they whooped them, and great was the whooping with which they whooped them. And they came back from the fight better off than they were before with all the loot and the booty.

And the hinge, the turning point—well, notice first of all, verse 12: “The Lord defeated the Ethiopians.” And all these guys out there with their swords and their spears and their clubs and their bow and arrow doing the fighting, and they get through and it’s “the Lord defeated them.” And the hinge, the turning point is given to us in verse 11: “Asa cried to the Lord his God, ‘O Lord, there is none like you to help between the mighty and the weak. Help us, O Lord our God, for we rely on you, and in your name we have come against this multitude. O Lord, you are our God. Let not man prevail against you.'” And the Lord whooped him.

You see the point? You see how verse 11 is the turning point in the narrative? They’re doing well. They’re being faithful. They had a big army. The enemy comes with a bigger army. And Asa says, “Lord, we can’t do this. You’ve got to do it.” And here’s what we have then illustrated for us, what Paul states in Ephesians chapter 6: “Take the sword of the Spirit, praying always.”

Ephesians 6, verse 18 is a sober reminder that the struggle is a supernatural one. We do not wrestle against flesh and blood. And for any advance, God must be at work. Therefore, pray. For any advance, God must be at work. Therefore, pray.

In the history of revivals, the great movings of God when men and women were just swept into the kingdom by the hundreds, one of the regular characteristics you see is that at those times of revival, they were also marked as times of great prayer on the part of the people of God. Now, I don’t have all that figured out. I know that revival is due to the sovereign will of God. But I also know that God commands us to pray in order to receive blessings. And as you’ve heard me say several times before, God is not going to do, apart from prayer, what he is determined to do through prayer. I don’t know, I haven’t figured it out either, but it’s the case. And whether I understand how it works is really a secondary issue. All I need to know is that God ordains the means as well as the ends, and he commands us to pray. And the command here is: you take up that sword, praying always.

In your spiritual struggles, in your family challenges, pastors in our preaching, Sunday school teachers in your teaching—don’t ever think that you have what it takes. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if evangelism were simply a matter of argument? Oh, we’ve got it. It’s easy. It’s easy. “Are you a sinner?” Well, you know, most people at some point or other will recognize that. “You need help. You need rescue. And you can’t do it yourself. But there’s help freely to be taken in Christ. Trust in him and be saved.” Nah. And you quickly realize there’s more going on here than just an intellectual argument. There’s bias. There’s predisposition. Don’t think that you have what it takes. God must be at work, therefore pray.

And I think it’s so interesting that Paul adds those next words in verse 19: “Take the sword of the Spirit, praying always,” verse 19, “and also for me.” For all the saints, but also for me in particular. The mighty inspired apostle asks for prayers. Universally, we all equally need for God to be at work, because none of us has what it takes. Therefore, pray.

And we should take the time to notice very carefully the focus of Paul’s prayer request. Verse 19: “Pray for me also that words may be given to me in opening my mouth boldly to proclaim the mystery of the gospel for which I’m an ambassador in chains, that I may declare it boldly as I ought to speak.” Now I suppose what’s first significant about this prayer request is what Paul does not say. He does not ask that you pray as you would ask to pray, or as I would ask for someone to pray. Remember where Paul is when he writes this? He’s sitting in prison. Now if that were me, if that were you, you’d say, “Pray that God will open these doors and let me go home. Pray, if you want to make it more pious, pray that God will let me out of here so I can go preach.” But Paul reflects here a massive confidence in the providence of God, and he says, “Pray that I will in this place be given opportunity for the gospel. I’m on mission.”

And the prayer request has a specific focus. And I think this is just fascinating to observe in verses 19 and 20. Paul does not write and say, “Pray for Rufus, my guard. He’s chained to me. I’ve got a captive audience and he’s hearing the gospel continuously. Pray that God will open his heart. And then there’s Aristarchus. I’ve been talking to him too. Pray that God will make him receptive to the word of God. And then there’s Stephanas, pray for him.” And a list of names for whom the people at the church of Ephesus can pray so that they would be saved. That’s not what Paul does. What Paul does is “pray for me.”

So that raises the question, what is it to pray evangelistically? Now we do it all the time: “pray for my friend, pray for my neighbor, pray for my family member.” Unless you get too nervous, I’ll go ahead and say it up front: that’s okay. Nothing wrong with that. But I would challenge you to think, how much example do you have of that kind of evangelistic praying in the New Testament? I don’t know of any specific examples. I know of some ways to reason from the scriptures to get there. The practice is good. The practice is good. But what, according to the New Testament, is the model of evangelistic praying?

Can you remember how our Lord taught us to pray? Look back at Matthew chapter 9. Matthew chapter 9. Again, a very familiar passage. Verses 35 and following, Jesus is preaching in the villages and their synagogues, proclaiming the gospel. He sees the crowds, verse 36, he has compassion for them because they’re just lost sheep. And then verse 37: “He said to his disciples, ‘The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few. Therefore, pray earnestly to the Lord of Harvest.'” I love that expression, the Lord of the Harvest. He’s still the sovereign God over it all. “Pray earnestly to the Lord of the Harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.” Notice the focus of the prayer is not the evangelizee, but the evangelizer. That’s the focus.

And that’s Paul’s focus in Ephesians chapter 6 as well. “Pray for all the saints so we take up the sword of the Spirit. And for me also.” In specific, what do we pray for? Notice verse 19 again. “Pray for me that words will be given to me.” That is a clear gospel witness. Obviously the point here is that his words will be made effective in the hands of God. “That words will be given to me in opening my mouth boldly,” and that’s repeated in verse 20, “boldly as I ought to speak.”

So Paul prays that, first, word may be given—a clear gospel witness. And two, pray for courage. Pray for boldness. You’ll see a parallel passage to this in Colossians chapter 4 and verse 2 where he speaks of it in terms of an open door as well. So pray for opportunity to witness. But in every case, it is pray for the laborer. Pray for the evangelizer. And so Paul, writing from a dungeon cell, does not pray that he would be let loose in order to preach in public places, nor does he send a list of names, “pray for these people.” He says, “Pray for me, that I will give the gospel clearly and courageously and effectively and boldly.”

And don’t you find it interesting that the mighty inspired Apostle Paul asked that people would pray for him that he would have courage? You never thought of that before, did you? If anybody had courage and boldness, it was this mighty apostle. But you see, in this present evil world, the gospel is never in vogue. And this world really, ultimately, just wants one thing of you. You can believe what you want to believe, but it wants one thing of you: shut up. Don’t talk about this Jesus stuff. If they’re polite, they’ll just think you’re weird. It may get worse. And there’s always that pressure, “Just keep your mouth shut, we’ll get along fine, we’ll be friends, but you keep this up—look, I just can’t put up with this.” You’ve heard that. And it’s never in vogue. And it takes a degree of courage.

Now when you compare it to the kind of courage that the martyrs had and things like that, we feel pretty wimpy. But it takes courage. And the Apostle Paul felt that pressure. “Pray that I’ll be bold to speak clearly, and pray that God will give opportunity for it.” Clear witness, courage, and opportunity. Bottom line: that I will be faithful and that this gospel will be made effective. What we need is for divine enablement, for the spirit of God to be at use to make the gospel successful. Therefore, pray.

And we should think of this in very personal terms. We all wish that we knew more so that we could be better prepared for our witness. And of course, that is of great importance. And that is why we’re always to be learning and to be ready to give an answer for the faith that lies in us and all of that, for the hope that we have. But I have to say that there are few people in the history of the church that I would say were prepared for every evangelistic situation and every question that would be thrown at them. I think I know one person who’d be pretty well ready for just about anything I got thrown at him, and that’s not me.

But now notice this, and this is extremely important: as important as learning and understanding biblical truth and all of that is, if it is the spirit of God—two things—if it is the Spirit of God who makes the gospel effective, if it’s the Spirit of God who makes the gospel effective, then effective gospel outreach is possible for every one of us. Oh, there are so many examples of this throughout the history of the church. This is how the gospel has advanced to us today. This is the story of everyday Christianity, that the Spirit of God takes the gospel and makes it effective through faithful Christians.

I have a friend who told me that when he was in college, he was a Christian at the time, and he was part of a university fellowship. I think it was InterVarsity or one of those groups. They were very serious about spreading the gospel on campus when they were there, making disciples and so on. They were very serious about it and very energetic and worked hard at it. He said, “One guy joined us early on. He was a young guy when he came. He was a Christian, but he was kind of hesitant how he said it.” He said, “I don’t know how to say this politely. He was an odd duck. He’s one of those that is socially awkward. You know the kind. I don’t have to explain it.” And he said, “He’s a good guy and all of that. But you knew that this guy would not be the most effective witness, evangelist on campus.” He said, “By the time I left there, I got to say it: he was responsible for bringing more people to faith in Christ than any of the rest of us.” And he says, “It’s a great lesson for me. It’s not me. God takes the gospel and he makes it work.”

Charles Spurgeon famously told the story of his own conversion. He’s walking to church one Sunday morning. He’s a teenager, and there was a driving snowstorm. And he said, “I just can’t do this.” And so he ducks into a Primitive Methodist church, decides to go there, and walks up into the balcony and sits. Well, as it turns out, it was such a snowstorm, the preacher couldn’t make it either. And so one of the deacons in the church—I think it was a deacon, one of the laymen in the church—comes up to the pulpit, and he decides people aren’t going to go home without a word from God. So he’s going to be faithful and speak. It’s not that deacons can’t preach; plenty of them have. But it’s not his regular job and it’s not something he was prepared for in any case, but he decides he’s going to be faithful. So he takes his Bible and he reads Isaiah chapter 45, verse 22: “Look to the Lord and be saved, all the ends of the earth.”

Spurgeon said he really didn’t have a sermon prepared. He said he really didn’t have a whole lot to say about the text, which as it turned out, he said, was really pretty good because he just kept repeating the text: “Look to the Lord, look to the Lord and be saved.” He said he pointed up to the gallery where I was and he said, “Look to the Lord, young man, look to the Lord and be saved.” He said, “I saw in a moment for the first time what a Savior Christ was.” And he said, “In a moment, I came to faith and to believe.”

A good friend, many of you may remember him, Don Theobald, who preached here a few years ago—hope to have him back this year as well—he loves to tell of his own conversion. He grew up in a home where the gospel had no place whatever, but he had a friend who was a Christian. And I forget now the details, whether the friend was injured or if he suddenly came down with a severe illness—one of the two—it was a very critical situation and his friend was in the hospital. So Don ran up to see him in the hospital. And he got to the hospital room and the boy’s mother—he’s a young teenager at the time—but the boy’s mother was there in the room as well. And of course she’s in tears and she’s concerned for her son and she’s worried what will come of him. And he said, “She sat there the whole time I was there talking about how good God is.” What in the world? He said, “I had to go home and find this out.” So he dug out a Bible and read it on the sly, closed the door behind him so the rest of the family wouldn’t see him. And he will tell you, I’ve heard him say it many times, that that is what God used to bring him to faith in Christ.

What is equally required of all of us is that the Spirit of God take our witness and make it effective. Therefore, pray. And you see how in all of this we each have a part of the gospel outreach of one another? “Pray for the laborer.” I’ve often liked to imagine some humble slave, some humble Christian slave sitting there in the church at Ephesus that Sunday when this letter from the Apostle Paul was read. Paul asks us to pray for him. And it begins to dawn on him that, “I have a part in this great gospel enterprise of the Apostle Paul himself.”

At our prayer meetings when we come together, Wednesday nights and so on, it ought to be a regular feature of our prayer that we pray for the witness that each of us have with other people. It ought to be a regular feature of our prayer that we pray for the Sunday school teachers of this church, the youth workers, the pastors. Whenever we come together, that God will attend his word and make it work. Every Sunday morning, teachers in our Sunday school open the word of God to the children of our church. What a massively, massively important task. The youth workers, with our youth. And of course, as we’re here together corporately as well, it ought to be a regular feature of our prayer: God, make your word effective in the hearts of your people.

God has supplied us with a full suit of armor, full range of weaponry. It is left to us now. He tells us we must use it faithfully. Go on the offensive, take up the sword of the Spirit, praying always. Amen. Let’s pray.

Our Father, we thank you for the great provisions we have in Christ. Forgive us, Lord, for thinking that all of this rests on us. Forgive us for not taking advantage of the great resource. Forgive us for not recognizing how needy we are for the work of your spirit. Make us more and more men and women of prayer. We ask in Jesus’ name, amen.