Ephesians

Looking to the End

Paul closes his letter with a few personal notes to his beloved friends in Ephesus:

Tychicus, the dear brother and faithful servant in the Lord, will tell you everything, so that you also may know how I am and what I am doing. I am sending him to you for this very purpose, that you may know how we are, and that he may encourage you.

Peace to the brothers, and love with faith from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Grace to all who love our Lord Jesus Christ with an undying love. (Ephesians 6:21-24)

Paul has given the Ephesian believers a powerful, practical message on Christian living, concluding with a call to arms and a challenge to prepare for the greatest battle in history. He concludes by commending to them his friend Tychicus—the man to whom Paul dictated this letter, and the one who hand-delivered it to the Ephesian church. Along with Tychicus, Paul sent his encouragement and prayers for peace, love, faith, and grace from God the Father and His Son, Jesus Christ.

Picture Paul, confined by the Roman Caesar, yet considering himself a prisoner of Jesus Christ Himself. What can he do for his Ephesian friends from that rented room? He is living under house arrest, chained day and night to a soldier. He is reduced from a globe-trotting missionary to a mere writer of letters. Yet Paul still has a profound ministry for Christ. He is still on the front lines of the great war between Christ and the prince of darkness.

All Paul could do was write letters—but what letters! The letter to the Ephesians was circulated around Asia Minor and beyond. It was copied and recopied, read in church after church. Ultimately, it was handed down to you and me. For generations, Christians have read the stirring, life-changing words of this letter and have armed themselves for battle with the full armor of God. Through Ephesians and other letters he wrote, the ministry of Paul radiated out from that stuffy little room in Rome, and it resounded around the world and down through the ages.

Paul was a good soldier of Jesus Christ. He put on his armor. He made his stand. He fought the good fight in the strength of Christ. Satan probably thought he finally bottled Paul up in that little room. He figured he had finally gotten Paul out of the way. But Satan was wrong about Paul, just as he’s been wrong about so many things. When Satan tried to shut Paul up, he over-reached himself.

That is the devil’s fatal flaw. Whenever Christians stand on the ground of faith, the devil always over-reaches himself and goes too far. He commits himself to extremes—and therein lie the seeds of his defeat. Sooner or later, the truth becomes apparent. Because God is truth and God never changes, truth must finally prevail. The devil will ultimately be defeated if Christians simply stand on God’s truth.

The devil over-reached himself when he thought he had destroyed Jesus on the cross. For a few hours, that bloody wooden cross looked like Satan’s supreme achievement. All the powers of darkness howled with glee as they saw the Son of God lifeless and broken upon that crude instrument of torture. Satan, it seemed, had won.

Yet that was, in fact, the very moment when the devil lost everything. On the cross, the fate of Satan was forever sealed, his power destroyed. This is what God does in every aspect of life. Whenever the devil sends sickness, death, darkness, suffering, and defeat, whenever it appears that Satan has won—that is when God is working to engineer His marvelous victory. God takes the worst that Satan can throw at us, and He uses it to strengthen and bless us, to teach and enlarge us. Again and again, Satan does his worst, thinking he has finally managed to destroy us—but when the dust clears, we are still standing.

One of these days, the Bible says, the struggle will end. The Lord will come, and the events recorded in the book of Revelation will finally bring history to a close, with all its war and struggle and suffering. The struggle will end for the devil in the lake of fire—but it will end for you and me in unimaginable glory, joy, and peace. We who have endured the battle wearing the helmet of our hoped-for salvation will finally see that salvation in all its glory, and a loud voice in heaven will say, “Now have come the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God, and the authority of His Christ. For the accuser of our brothers, who accuses them before our God day and night, has been hurled down. They overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony; they did not love their lives so much as to shrink from death” (Revelation 12:10-11).

For a little while longer, as the day grows more evil, we must endure and fight the battle here on Planet Earth. But we eagerly look toward the end, toward our salvation, toward the triumphant return of our Lord and Commander, Jesus Christ.

As you make your stand for Him, my prayer for you is nothing less than Paul’s prayer for his Ephesian brothers and sisters: “Peace to the brothers, and love with faith from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Grace to all who love our Lord Jesus Christ with an undying love” (Ephesians 6:23-24).