Holy Scriptures and Israel

Gideon Levytam: The study of Ephesians chapter 6. Don't set this aside. Recognize that it is the Lord who loved you, who chastened you, who disciplined you because he loved you and he cared for you. So, my son, despise not the chastening of the Lord.

The Lord sometimes has to deal with us as well when we are wrong, as a father. He deals with us in chastisement, in musar, in order that we will walk in a way that is pleasing to him. So, number four now, in verse 4, the fourth thing that he's saying to the fathers, and the fourth thing is that the fathers are to instruct their children as well. Not only to nurture them, to chasten them, but also to instruct them.

And here is verse 4. Fathers, provoke not your children to wrath, but bring them up in the nurture and notice the last thing, the admonition of the Lord. And this is also so beautiful. What a blessing it is when the children are being admonished and instructed by the Lord.

One of these people that were very much instructed by the Lord and by his parents, specifically, the parents of this young man, he was younger than Paul, who was instructed by his own family and that was Timothy himself. And you notice what Paul reminds us of Timothy? If you just read with me, 2 Timothy 3, verse 14.

Timothy, but continue thou in the things which thou has learned and has been assured of, knowing of whom thou had learned them. In other words, Timothy, you continue to follow the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and now accepting Yeshua the Messiah, continue because you have learned this and remember who you have learned this from when you were a child.

And then he tells them in verse 15. And that from a child, you have known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith which is in the Messiah Yeshua, in Christ Jesus. All scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness.

That the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works. Timothy, don't neglect. Remember all what you have learned that now that you are grown up. He is encouraging him to continue on to serve Yeshua the Messiah, and he's reminding him, you remember who have instructed you, Timothy.

You knew the Holy Scripture already from a child. And apparently Timothy's grandmother and Timothy's mother, his grandparents, have already instructed him concerning the things of God, the things of the Messiah. And when Yeshua the Messiah came and the gospel had been preached unto Timothy, Timothy embraced Yeshua because he was prepared already by the scripture.

His heart was plowed, you might say, by the Spirit of God, that when the gospel was preached unto him, the Spirit of God convicted Timothy and he accepted the Messiah. And now Paul is saying to him, Timothy, you continue. Don't be discouraged. You continue to serve and remember where you have learned all these things.

The scripture taught Timothy when he was already a young boy in their home. By the way, Timothy did not have a Jewish father, but he had a Jewish mother. And you can see that even when the time that the father is not a believer, the mother was there and the grandmother was there.

And you remember Paul took Timothy and he circumcised him because he was Jewish, for the testimony to our nation, the Jewish community. But Timothy was influenced by the scripture already when he was young. Amazing to see this, how this person was instructed. And so Paul is saying to the fathers not to provoke their children to anger, to wrath, but to instruct them and to encourage them to continue to follow the scripture.

Now, one more thing I want to mention in the Psalms. If you turn to Psalm 78, we have an encouragement that was given to Israel. And this is helpful for us as well. It is a psalm that was written by a man by the name of Asaph. And look what Asaph is saying in Psalm 78.

Psalm 78, Give ear, oh my people, to my law. Incline your ears to the words of my mouth. I will open my mouth in a parable, I will utter dark sayings of old, which we have heard and known and our fathers have told us.

Our fathers told us. Our fathers told us. We will not hide them from their children, showing to the generation to come the praises of the Lord and his strength and his wonderful works that he has done. For he established a testimony in Jacob, in Jacob, and he appointed a law in Israel, which he commanded our fathers that they should make them known to their children.

Verse 6, That the generation to come might know them, even the children which should be born, who should arise and declare them to their children. Now you notice there are four generations here. Verse 3, we have heard it. Verse 3B, our fathers have told us. Already two generations.

Verse 6, that the generation to come, this is the third generation, they will tell them to their children, the fourth generation. From generation to generation, to generation, to generation, verse 7 and 8 says that they might set their hope in God and not forget the works of God, but keep his commandments and might not be as their fathers, a stubborn and rebellious generation that set not their heart aright and whose spirit was not steadfast with God.

You see, among our people there were those who were right with God and there were those who didn't follow God. Same thing with us as believers today, there are those of us who follow in the instruction of the Lord, but there are those of us who don't. And that's why Paul is emphasizing so much, children obey your parents, fathers provoke not your children to wrath.

Here's the third group that he's speaking. I'm back in Ephesians chapter 6. And this time, verses 5, 6, 7 and 8, he's speaking to the servants, to the believing slaves. So Paul appeals to the believing slaves to be obedient to their masters. You and I might not apply it to ourselves as we are all servants, we all have somebody under whom we work for, our bosses, our superiors.

And we are all one way or another are servants. We are not slaves like in the Roman Empire. There were millions and millions of slaves in the time of the Roman Empire. They say that there have been about 6 million slaves under the Romans at that time. There were many, many, many slaves. Some of them accepted Yeshua the Messiah.

And now because they've accepted Yeshua the Messiah, they become children of God, born again, Mashihihim, you might say it in Hebrew, Messiah followers. So what happened now when they became believers? They are now to set an example even though their status didn't change. They remained slaves in the Roman Empire, but they became believers in Yeshua the Messiah, born again.

And so in verse 5 to 8, Paul appeals now to the believing slave, to the believing servants. And look what he's saying to them in those verses. First of all, verse 5. Servants are to obey their masters as unto the Messiah. They are to respect their masters as they are honoring Yeshua Jesus the Messiah.

Servants, be obedient to them that are your masters according to the flesh, with fear and trembling, in singleness of your heart as unto Christ. Notice this expression, as unto the Messiah. In other words, those servants are to obey their masters recognizing that when they obey their masters, they are really obeying the Lord Jesus the Messiah.

And you know, we also have bosses or people who are our superiors. And when we submit to them and obey them, we are really submitting to Yeshua the Messiah. And you know, we don't always have bosses or superiors who are very kind and very nice. Sometimes we have those that are very harsh and very unkind.

Nevertheless, notice this verse in verse 5, be obedience to them that are your masters according to the flesh. He doesn't say to them, only obey them if they are good and they treat you always right. No, we are to obey them because they are our bosses, our masters. In this case, there were slaves who had masters.

By the way, they didn't have much choice, but they were still to do so anyways. Look at the verse in Colossians. Again, Colossians chapter 3, verse 22. Servants, be obedient in all things to your masters according to the flesh. In all things. In all things, we are to submit to them.

There's another verse that I need to mention here in 1st Peter chapter 2 and verse 18. That is also a beautiful verse. Servant, be subject to your masters with all reverence, with all fear, and not only to the good and the gentle, but also to the forward, or to the wicked one, to the unfair one.

Now, what do you do when your boss doesn't treat you well? What do we do in a case like this? Well, it's very easy to say, well, he doesn't treat me well. He doesn't treat me right. I'm not going to do the right thing. I'm not going to obey him. I'm not going to submit to him because he doesn't treat me right. Well, you and I might do so, but it is not submitting to our masters as unto Christ.

As unto the Messiah, as unto the Messiah. And therefore, 1 Peter chapter 2 and verse 18 adds the words, not only to the good and to the gentle, but also to the one that is froward, it's wicked or unfair. You know, don't you feel sometime, brothers and sisters, that sometime we have those bosses who are really unfair.

They haven't been fair with us. They haven't dealt right with us. We have done so much and we have sought to be faithful and so on. And they haven't treated us fair. Well, nevertheless, the Bible teaches us very clearly that we as servants are to seek to the best of our ability to do the right thing and to be obedient to them that are our bosses, our masters.

And when we do so, we are literally obeying our blessed Lord Yeshua the Messiah. He is pleased with obedience to our bosses even though they are not kind and not nice. And there's no need to go all around and tell everybody else how bad our bosses are or our masters are. That doesn't justify us.

We should commit it to the Lord and he knows. He knows every situation that we are in. We can share it with some for prayer. We can pray for them, but it is the right thing to submit to our bosses and to our masters, as both Colossians tells us in chapter 3, verse 22 and Peter wrote to these early Hebrew believers and he says, not only to the good and kind one and the gentle, even to the ones that are harsh and not always kind.

Sometimes, you know how you feel when our boss doesn't treat us right. We feel like we can do some, you know, we can, we would like to retaliate. Nevertheless, when we submit to the Messiah, or doing the work that he had given us to do, we are honoring the Lord by doing so. Verse 6 of Ephesians chapter 6.

Continuing, he says, servants are not to serve with eye service. I don't know if you feel like sometime like that when the boss come and he see you doing something, all of a sudden you are busy, busy, busy, right? And the moment he go, you know, it's we are not the same in the way that we are usually when the boss is around.

That's the way that we are by nature. But Paul is saying verse 6, not with eye service, as men pleasers, but as the servants of the Messiah doing the will of God from the heart. When we serve God, when we serve Yeshua the Messiah on the job, wherever we are. What a great testimony it is when we just simply do our job or do our work that the Lord had given us to do.

And you know, really, if you would have somebody who work for you and only does the work when you are there and doesn't do the work when you are not there, how would you feel, right? We all understand it very well. So when the boss gives us an instruction to do something, we do it as unto the Lord and we finish with the responsibility that we have, not as men pleasers, eye pleasers, simply as unto the Lord, doing it from the heart.

Doing it in the will because this is the will of God. God desires to see this in the life of the believers. Thirdly, in verse 7, notice, with regard to the servants, to those slaves, by the way, the word for servant here is Doulos, d o u l o s in Greek, and it really speaks of slaves.

The same word is mentioned in 1 Corinthians 12:13, Galatians 3:28, and Colossians 3:11. It's the same word. We all part of the body of Christ, the body of Messiah, slaves and free, bond and free. We all part, we all belong to the same God, and this is the word Doulos has to do with really those that are servants and slaves.

Verse 7, servants are to do their service as with the will of God. And I'm repeating verse 7 now. With good will, in a good will, doing service as to the Lord and not to men. Here's this expression, the good will. The good will is God's will. To do it in a good way. This is the good will and the pleasure of God that he wants to see those who are servants, the doing their responsibility in a good way.

From the heart, verse 6, with a good will, verse 7, because it is pleasing to the Lord. And finally, in connection with the servants, in verse 8, servants will be rewarded by the Lord for their faithfulness. You know, because after all, God sees everything, right? And so we read in verse 8, knowing that whatsoever good thing any man doeth, the same shall he receive of the Lord, whether he be bound or whether he be free.

Notice the word bound is mentioned here again. Doulos in Greece, Doulos speaks of a slave. And what we really see that when we do the right thing, God will reward a faithful service unto him. He will ultimately reward the person who does that which is good, that which is from the heart.

You know, God is planning to reward. You know, every time when we are going to do the right thing, we might not get the reward now, even not from our boss, from our master, but the reward comes from the Lord. He is the one that sees everything. And he is the one who is going to reward everyone that have served faithfully.

It says in Colossians chapter 3 and verse 24, knowing that of the Lord you shall receive the reward of the inheritance, for you serve the Lord Christ. But he that doeth wrong shall receive for the wrongs which he has done and there is no respect of person. In other words, God is saying like this, you be faithful in what the Lord gives you to do on the job.

Wherever you are, if you work for someone, just be faithful to your master, to your boss. Do the right thing and the Lord will ultimately reward those that do the right thing. He will reward. You are going to receive a reward. The reward might not come today, but a faithful steward will ultimately receive a reward in a Messianic kingdom.

There is a day coming in which God is going to bring us back with him. Yeshua, we're going to come with Yeshua and we're going to reign and rule with Yeshua the Messiah for a thousand years. Israel will be restored, our nation as a nation. Messiah will rule as king. We, the church, the Ecclesia will rule with him and he will reward us for faithfulness here on earth.

He will reward us in the Messianic kingdom. It is required from a servant that he may be found faithful. Often time, we are not as faithful as we should be and that's why it is our own loss in the long run. So, brothers and sisters, let's finalize this message with the appeal of Paul now not to anymore to the children or to the fathers or to the servants, but now he's talking to the masters.

To the boss, to the one who is in charge. And look what he's saying to him. One verse, three things he's saying to the masters. Ye masters, verse 9. Do the same things unto them. Forbearing threatening, knowing that your master also is in heaven. Neither is there respect of persons with him.

He is really finalizing here the thought of all this submissiveness that he talked about in chapter 5, verse 21. He's finalizing this by speaking directly to the masters and he's saying to the masters, masters or boss, one who has charge over someone else. He's saying, masters, you are to do the same good to your servants as they were exhorted to do good to you.

In other words, if they were called to be faithful in their service for you, you also be faithful to your servants in doing them good. The masters are to do the same unto the servants. You notice it says in verse 9, and he master do the same things unto them. That word the same things takes it back to verse 5 to 8.

If they were to submit, if they were to do the right thing, to do their job in a right way, you must treat them in a right way. Don't treat them in the wrong way. Do the same thing to your servants as God expects from the servants to do to their masters. Secondly, in verse 9, we find that the masters are not to threaten their servants.

You know, how often time when the boss threaten you, well, if you're going to do this, you'll be fired. If you're not going to do this, if you're not going to work overtime, I'm going to lay you off. I mean, today in this country in which we live and we have some stipulation that the government placed upon any boss, any manager, or any person who is in charge is responsibility.

But can you imagine how those slaves 2,000 years ago felt when their masters treating them one way or another, they threaten them? I can just imagine what they have threatened them with. You slaves, if you're not going to do this or do this, I'll block you in some kind of a place and you won't be able to receive food, who knows what.

Can you imagine how to be threatened? It's an awful thing to be threatened by your own boss. Christians, or Messiah followers, believers, who are masters are not to threaten their people. They are to challenge them, to encourage them, to charge them, not to allow them to do what they want, but they are not to threaten them.

And here he's saying to them in verse 9, masters, do the same things that to them, forbearing threatening. Don't threaten them. Don't treat them, don't cause them fear and threaten those that you are in charge of. In Colossians 4 and verse 1, Paul said to the masters, masters give unto your servant that which is just and equal, knowing that you also have a master in heaven.

Give them that which is right. Don't threaten them. Treat them in a right way. Don't threaten your inferior, you might say those slaves or those servants of yours. And Paul conclude in verse 9, the masters have to realize that they have someone above them who is their master, who is the Lord Yeshua the Messiah.

And so he says in verse 9, masters, do the same thing unto them, forbearing threaten, knowing that your master also is in heaven. Neither is there respect of person with him. You know, every one of us have a master in heaven. Yeshua the Messiah is our master. And you know, he treats us gently. He deals with us courteously, in a nice way.

He's encouraging us and building us up. And a master, a believing master, a believing boss, is responsible to treat those who work for him in a right way. What a shame if he does not do it. What a testimony it is to the world around, where there is such a treatment of a boss that is wrong towards the one who worked for him.

And it is terrible, terrible testimony to the world around us. There are many other verses that can be read, and I'm going to conclude with 1 Peter chapter 2 and verse 23. Let me just conclude with this. And you notice about Yeshua, and Yeshua is the best one to finalize a message. Yeshua, it says, who when he was reviled, he reviled not again.

And when he suffered, he threatened not. But he committed himself to him that judge righteously. You know, here's Yeshua the Messiah, who the way men treated him when he was upon the face of this earth, and he could threaten the people and he can give them a judgment on the spot, but he didn't threaten them.

He committed himself unto God who judged righteously. What a lesson to learn from Yeshua the Messiah. He suffered. He was a great example to us here on earth as a man among men. An example that he had given unto us. And what a challenge is this to all of us as believers in Yeshua the Messiah.

Well, brothers and sisters, out of verse 21 of chapter 5, submitting yourselves one to another in the fear of God, Paul spoke to the wives to be subject to the husband, to the husbands to love their wives, to the children to obey their parents, to the fathers not to provoke their children to anger, to the servants to be obedient to their masters, and to their masters simply not to threaten their servants, recognizing that they have a master in heaven to whom they will have to give an account and their master has no respect of persons.

He will treat them in the very same way if they will treat their servants aright. God will deal with them aright. And if they will threaten and treat their servants in a wrong way, God has no respect of person. He will deal with them in discipline if they will not submit to his words. Well, there are much that can be said, but thank God for the message that he had given to us today, children, fathers, servants and masters.

May the Lord encourage us to be submissive to the Lord.

Host: You have been listening to the Holy Scriptures and Israel with Gideon Levytam. Gideon teaches God's word from a Hebrew Messianic perspective. For more information about this ministry, write to Holy Scriptures and Israel, Box 1411, Niagara on the Lake, Ontario, L0S 1J0, or visit our website at holyscripturesandisrael.com. You are also invited to Gideon's weekly Bible teaching on Fridays at 11:00 AM and 7:00 PM and Saturdays at 1:00 PM at Willowdale Christian Assembly Hall, 28 Martin Ross Avenue in Toronto. Holy Scriptures and Israel is made possible by your prayers and financial support. If you would like to support the program, visit holyscripturesandisrael.com. God bless you. Shalom, shalom.