SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 9/15/2019
6:05 PM
My Worship Time Focus: PT-2 “The Submission of Employees”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Ephesians
6:5-8
Message of the verses: “5 Slaves, be
obedient to those who are your masters according to the flesh, with fear and
trembling, in the sincerity of your heart, as to Christ; 6 not by way of
eyeservice, as men-pleasers, but as slaves of Christ, doing the will of God
from the heart. 7 With good will render service, as to the Lord, and not to
men, 8 knowing that whatever good thing each one does, this he will receive
back from the Lord, whether slave or free.”
We
start out with another quote from John MacArthur on slavery: “Although slavery is not uniformly condemned
in either the Old or New Testaments, the sincere application of the New
Testament truths has repeatedly led to the elimination of its abusive
tendencies. Where Christ’s love is lived
in the power of His Spirit, unjust barriers and relationships are inevitably
broken down. As the Roman Empire
disintegrated and eventually collapsed, the brutal, abused system of slavery
collapsed with it—due in great measure to the influence of Christianity. In
more recent times the back of the black slave trade was broken in Europe and
America due largely to the powerful, Spirit-led preaching of men as John Wesley
and George Whitefield and the godly statesmanship of such men as William
Wilberforce and William Pitt.” We have
in our DVD library a story of William Wilberforce and I believe that one may be
able to find this film on one of the internet movie apts.
We
have been mentioning that since we began looking at Ephesians 5:18b that in
order for believers to accomplish what the Lord wants us to accomplish that we
must be filled with the Holy Spirit. Now
after we finish this section in Ephesians chapter 6:1-9 we will be finished
with the Spirit-filled teachings, and then we will go onto how we can be
protected with the Spiritual Armor and as I the think about this it seems very
logical that after the teaching of being filled with the Holy Spirit in the
home and in the workplace that we as believers will need the protection of the
Spiritual Armor as Paul will bring up in the last part of chapter six so that
with the use of the Spiritual Armor we can stay clean thus continuing to be
filled with the Holy Spirit of God to accomplish what it is that He wants us to
accomplish.
As
mentioned in earlier SD’s and this one also the New Testament does not give us
a command about slavery, but as we look at how we are to treat slaves and then
employees we can tell that the ways that slaves and even employees were treated
that the filling of the Spirit in believers will not allow, or should not
allow, believers to treat either slaves or employees harshly.
These
past two days have actually been an introduction to these four verses and
beginning tomorrow we will begin to look more intently at the verses. John MacArthur gives us a preview on the
things which, Lord willing, we will be looking at.
Because
the command of mutual submission is possible only to the Spirit-filled believer,
Paul is addressing Christian slaves, just as he later addresses Christian
masters (v-9). He calls them to have the
right behavior, the right perspective, the right attitude, and the right
commitment that reflects their right relationship to God through Jesus Christ.”
Today’s quotation from “Love in Action:” “The Bible tells us clearly that the church,
the gathering of believers, is to provide an environment of encouragement for
all who seek it.”
9/15/2019 6:30 PM
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