Ephesians 4:27, “and do not give the devil an opportunity.”
I have come to enjoy reading and listening to mp3 recordings of the sermons of Charles Spurgeon. One of the things about his sermons which struck me is that he often preached a very long sermon around a short, simple Bible verse. Sometimes the shortest, simplest verses carry some of the deepest meanings, and this is the case for our Scripture lesson.
Ephesians 4:27 is one of those verses which is rather short but packed full of meaning. It should be read with 1 Corinthians 10:13 which will both be discussed in this post.
The NASB provides a good reading of the Scripture. The word “opportunity” is a good word for the context. However, the King James uses an equally good word, and perhaps the two can be used together. The King James uses “place” instead of “opportunity.” They really mean the same thing but approach the subject from different angles.
When I think of giving something “place,” I think of making room for the object on my table, kitchen counter, desk or night stand. I think of rearranging things or moving something out of the way. This is where “opportunity” works in conjunction with “place” because “opportunity” means that in making a place for something we are giving it an opportunity to impact our lives.
We can just as easily make room for a pornographic magazine on our night stand as we could make room for a Bible. We can just as easily change the television channel to a questionable program as we could turn the television off and spend time praying for missionaries instead.
Now I want you to notice another word in the verse, and that word is “give.” This word is an active verb which demonstrates a conscious act on our part. It means just what I wrote above, that we “give” a place for an object or thing by making room for it in our lives and our daily routine.
Next, I want to draw your attention to another word, which appears in 1 Corinthians 10:13. That word is “allow,” and in 1 Corinthians 10:13 it is used with reference to the Lord. However, it bears equal importance in our role in not giving the devil an opportunity.
1. We allow either the devil or the Lord to work in our lives.
2. It is our choice and a conscious decision that we have to make to either accept or reject the Lord’s authority in our lives and His authority over the devil.
3. Despite it being our choice whether to allow the devil an opportunity and a place in our lives, we are in no wise more powerful than the devil. Our choice to allow the Lord to reign supreme in our lives activates His power and authority over the devil and to deliver us completely from the bondage in which the devil would so quickly enslave us.
4. We must allow the Lord to perform this work in our lives. It is an equally conscious decision to allow the Lord free access to transform every area of our lives.
The devil can only harm, influence or control us only so much as we allow. We must acknowledge our part and our responsibility in giving the devil an opportunity. 1 Corinthians 10:13 clearly tells us that the devil is restrained by Christ alone and has only the ability to act as Christ allows. We do not have at our disposal the excuse of “the devil made me do it,” or “that’s just who I am,” or “I was born this way.” This would be placing responsibility for how we turned out in life onto someone else, or worse, blaming God. The Lord plainly tells us in the Bible that we will be tempted and plainly tells us in the Scripture lesson that we have a role to play in either allowing or disallowing the devil to work.
It is a choice we make to accept Christ as our Saviour and allow His Spirit to transform us into people who are acceptable to the Lord. This means that everything which comes into our mind or attempts to influence us must be filtered, tested and checked against the standards of the Lord as we have them in the Bible. It is not our place to twist the Bible to meet our circumstance and what we want, rather it is our duty to allow ourselves to be conformed to the Lord’s Word.
If we know we will be tempted, then it is our job to learn how to decipher that temptation, which we do by reading the Bible, and to not allow the devil an opportunity, whom we disallow as we call on Christ who is faithful and true to come to our aid.
Giving the devil an opportunity or allowing Christ to defeat the devil on our behalf involves rearranging things in our lives. We either give the devil or Christ place or room in our lives. We either rearrange ourselves around the devil or around Christ. There is not enough room for the two to coexist. There is active involvement on our part to make room for one or the other. If we are passive, then the devil will eventually take root because we have made an active decision against the Lord.
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