“Therefore, be careful how you walk, not as unwise men, but as wise, making the most of your time, because the days are evil.”
Paul’s great theme in chapters 4 and 5 has been the walk of the Christian. He has presented his exhortations and encouragements from numerous angles. We are united in Christ. We are His body; members of one another. We are each, by virtue of the talents He has given us, gifts to the church for the function of worship and ministry.
We are now expected to grow up. To learn Christ and understand that through regeneration we have been created anew in the likeness of God.
He talks once more of putting off the old self and putting on the new. He speaks of laying aside all of the habits and behaviors that marked the old man, and taking up and demonstrating the behaviors that are befitting one who has Christ in him.
You are light in the Lord, he says. You once were darkness, but now you are light.
Walk accordingly. Do not participate with those who are darkness, in their deeds of darkness. Bring light into their darkness and by your presence and your Godly behavior, expose to them the danger and destructiveness of those things done in darkness.
It’s the walk. It is all based on the daily walk of the believer. With all that he is saying, his fundamental message is, don’t walk like who you were before Christ, rather, in His power and direction, walk like who you are now, in Him.
So he continues that theme in our text verses today, and we’ll see that he begins to get more specific now with the things that should be avoided and the things that should be practiced in wisdom and brotherly love.
WATCH YOUR STEP
Different translations use different words here in verse 15 to define how the believer is to walk. Careful, Circumspectly, Purposefully, Accurately; the Wycliff translation says, “Therefore, brethren, see ye, how warily ye shall go…”
At least two translations say “Look carefully”.
Taking all these together we can get a picture of a troop of soldiers trying to pick their way through a mine field without triggering any of the mines. Or a man crossing an old rope bridge with some of the boards broken or missing. You don’t just go tripping merrily along in cases like those.
That’s the strength of emphasis Paul is making here. He is telling us that the Christian’s daily walk, to be successful and spiritually fruitful, and to avoid disaster, must be one of diligence, accuracy, wariness (not weariness), purpose.
Preston Collins, who is serving a Baptist church in Oklahoma, included in his newsletter
a section of a U.S. Government Peace Corps Manual for volunteers who work in the Amazon Jungle instructing them in what to do in case one is attacked by an anaconda.
I cannot confirm that this manual actually exists, but whether real or concocted, it makes its point.
This is what the alleged manual said:
1. If you are attacked by an anaconda, do not run. The snake is faster than you are.
2. Lie flat on the ground. Put your arms tight against your sides, your legs tight against one another.
3. Tuck your chin in.
4. The snake will come and begin to nudge and climb over your body.
5. Do not panic. (‘scuse me?)
6. After the snake has examined you, it will begin to swallow you from the feet end -- always from the feet end. (Does the U.S. government guarantee this?) Permit the snake to swallow your feet and ankles. Do not panic.
7. The snake will now begin to suck your legs into its body. You must lie perfectly still. This will take a long time.
8. When the snake has reached your knees, slowly, and with as little movement as possible, reach down, take your knife and very gently slide it into the side of the snake’s mouth between the edge of its mouth and your leg. Then suddenly rip upward, severing the snake’s head.
9. Be sure you have your knife.
10. Be sure your knife is sharp.
As I said, I can’t verify the existence of this manual, but having done time in the U.S. Military, have no trouble accepting that it’s out there somewhere.
It is difficult for us to stay mindful of, ~ in our society of comforts and protection by the law and law enforcers, and immediate gratification virtually in arms reach for any need; perceived or real ~ but the Christian lives in a world of spiritual danger, spiritual warfare, and Paul admonishes him to walk warily and ready for anything.
Pastor Collins wasn’t preaching in Ephesians 5 when he used this anaconda illustration, but he followed it with this observation and I thought it fit well here. He said:
“Keep the Word of God, hidden in your heart. Be sure it is freshly sharpened by daily Bible reading and prayer. By all means don’t wait until Satan has swallowed a third of you before cutting him to ribbons with God’s Word. “
WALKING WISE
Paul equates careful, diligent, accurate walking with wisdom.
We recently watched a movie titled, “Behind Enemy Lines”. An American pilot is down behind enemy lines in Croatia, and trying to avoid search parties while making it to his pick up spot.
A professional assassin has been given the task of hunting him down, and this assassin has been required to take a member of the regular military with him. As they walk through the woods the professional is wisely looking at where he is putting his feet, in order to avoid booby traps.
The camera pans down to his feet and you see him pause slightly over a trigger sticking up out of the leaves, then widen his step to avoid it.
The poor soldier coming up right behind him is foolishly just plodding along daydreaming, and he steps down on the trigger.
Now he’s in a fix. The bomb won’t go off until he lifts his foot, but since the assassin didn’t want him along anyway, he just walks away and leaves the soldier frozen on top of this booby trap.
A few minutes later, after the assassin has gotten a few hundred yards further into the forest, an explosion can be heard from his back trail.
Folks, when we are careless and drift into the practice of walking according to the world’s wisdom, which to God is foolishness, we can find ourselves very suddenly in a fix that we cannot get out of without major hurt; to ourselves and often to those who love us.
The difference between the wise and the foolish, is that the wise man understands his circumstances. It has to begin with that. If you can’t see the potential for danger around you; if you cannot detect the pits and snares that lay in your path, then you are not going to be inclined to wariness.
When I was in Viet Nam, whenever we received incoming rockets hitting the base, or when we had intelligence reports of Viet Cong activity in the vicinity, our senses were heightened. We were alert, and we didn’t engage in silliness. We kept lights off as much as possible, and kept our weapons in hand and ready to fire.
If a week or two went by when there was no action or activity, we’d be back to reading novels, putting rice beetles together in empty rations boxes and taking bets on which one would win the fight, smokin’ and jokin’ and getting sloppy.
We’re that way as Christians too, my fellow believers. Only the main reason we’re often so oblivious to any danger or snares in our path, is because far too often we’ve forgotten altogether that we’re at war in enemy territory; behind enemy lines; and instead of being soldiers we behave like tourists taking pictures of the pretty birds ~ and it’s only by God’s grace that we miss the booby traps at all.
Walk wisely, says Paul. Know who you are, know your enemy, be aware of your circumstances, and look carefully at each step. Sounds like a good plan to me.
REDEEM THE TIME
This phrase at the beginning of verse 16 is another one that the various translations juggle around. The most frequently used is ’redeem the time’ (or ’redeeming’). Others say, ’making the most of every opportunity’ (NIV), ’making the very most of the time (buying up each opportunity)’ (Amp), ’make every minute count’ (CEV), and our text, ’making the most of your time’ (NASB).
Nothing spectacular there. They’re all saying the same thing. Use time wisely. Be careful how you walk, and be a good steward of your time.
Paul’s exhortations in these verses are very purposeful and deliberate. Then, as now, the spirit of the world determines to, and is very successful in, leading people in an aimless path of futility and destruction, and wasting their days one after another until in the end they look back and despair that so little of value has really been accomplished in their life.
In a conversation between Alice and the Cheshire Cat, (in Alice In Wonderland) Alice asked, "Would you tell me please, which way I ought to go from here?" "That depends a good deal on where you want to get to," said the cat. "I don’t much care where," said Alice. "Then it doesn’t matter which way you go," said the cat.
And that’s pretty much the way the average life is lived.
Now you may object and say, ’Nonsense! I know a lot of people with very clear goals and an organized way of striving for them.” But if you say that you misunderstand.
Because you see, the most self-sufficient, driven, mover and shaker in any field of endeavor will reach the end of his life, and if he is still apart from Christ he will have gone nowhere. And the direction he took will not have mattered after all.
I can’t remember who said it to me, but in casual conversation I remember someone saying ‘Satan doesn’t have any happy old men’. I suppose that makes a great deal of sense.
When we’re young and healthy and think we have a long future ahead of us, death is something a long way off, and we still think that we’re going to find our niche, reach that goal, serve that purpose, attain to that rank, accumulate that wealth, or whatever our highest aspirations are.
But when a man without Christ begins to take notice of his age; the aches and pains, the gray hair, the loss of muscle tone, the weariness, and the realization hits him that within a decade or two he will be in a coffin, happiness becomes a very elusive thing!
Oh, he may cover his fears with bravado. He may hide behind a laugh and some fatalistic creedo like, “well, I’ve lived a good life and I’ve done it my way”; but he cannot be happy or satisfied or hopeful. He’s reaching his end, he thinks, and ahead there is only darkness.
Mark Twain said it well shortly before his death, when he wrote, "A myriad of men are born; they labor and sweat and struggle;...they squabble and scold and fight; they scramble for little mean advantages over each other; age creeps upon them; infirmities follow; ...those they love are taken from them, and the joy of life is turned to aching grief. It (the release) comes at last--the only unpoisoned gift earth ever had for them--and they vanish from a world where they were of no consequence,...a world which will lament them a day and forget them forever." (source unknown)
Make the most of your time, admonishes the Apostle. Because the Christian is the only one to whom time is a friend. We carry with us the only gift that transcends time, and can lift the receiver of the gift out of the darkness into the light; out of the dominion of Satan into the Kingdom of God.
We aren’t slaves to time because we know that all our days are in His hand (Ps 139:16), and at the end of those days we will simply step out into glorious eternity, rich beyond measure, at home with Christ forevermore.
So inherent in Paul’s admonition is the message that we are not to waste time foolishly, doing nothing, but also don’t waste time struggling and striving for that which is passing, when there is Kingdom work to be done.
Be careful where you step. Stay out of trouble, but also look to be sure your steps are taking you along the path of Godly pursuits.
Don’t waste time, but also don’t misuse the time, being busy with that which is passing away. Things the heathen seek. Redeem the time. While you’re here, be here for the Kingdom of heaven, of which you are a citizen. A child of light.
EVIL DAYS
Now just what does he mean, the days are ‘evil’?
How can evil be attributed to a 24 hour period? I mean, there’s evil people in each day, evil things happen during the day, but how can the day itself be evil?
Maybe a look at the definition will help a little.
Evil: poneros (Gr) toilsome; painful; bad
A question that I have heard a number of times over past years, is ‘what is evil?’
I remember a teacher in a creative writing class I took in Jr. College asking that in class one day. “Can someone define evil?” Indeed, what is evil?
Someone asked, what’s the difference between evil and sin? They even wanted to know which came first; like the chicken/egg question.
Nigel Wright, in “The Satan Syndrome“, made a good point.
“There is a fundamental sense in which evil is not something that can be made sense of. The essence of evil is that it is something which is absurd, bizarre and irrational. It is the nature of evil to be inexplicable, an enigma and a stupidity.”
I just might memorize that quote. Because if we look around us today, Christians, at world politics, what’s coming out of our schools, the frivolous battles going on in the courts and some of the major decisions coming down from them, the condition of the American family and where it’s heading, the nature of crimes being committed; … just all around us … don’t we often think ‘everything is going absurd! Bizarre! Irrational! Stupid!’?
Listen! Don’t let anyone tell you that the world in general is less evil than it used to be. Don’t let yourself be deceived into thinking that it’s going along on some even keel. The days are evil, and they grow more evil as we get closer to the end.
I could start quoting all kinds of statistics here about crime, teen pregnancy, rampant abortion, alcoholism, you name it. I don’t like to quote stats unless it’s necessary and I can document them, because people can generally argue with statistics.
But you can’t argue with your own heart and your own observations, and you must know unless you live in a bubble, that the world is growing darker, and evil rides into the day, through it, and out of it on a black nightmare.
Even in Paul’s day he was inspired to write, “…it is disgraceful even to speak of the things which are done by them in secret.”
By comparison, those things Paul was hinting at, which probably included some of the gross and twisted sexual practices taking place in and around the Temple of Artemis, can be found all over the internet, sometimes popping up in a window whether you want it to or not; and are talked and laughed about openly on television talk shows and sit-coms, and even paraded past the eye on some public channels.
And it’s not the criminals and prostitutes and porn stars and street thugs who are the only purveyors and practitioners of the worst evils. The people who support and perform some of the worst evils in our society are esteemed and respected doctors, judges, yes, even clergy.
I’ve used this quote before and it bears repeating. C. S. Lewis observed:
“The greatest evil is not done in those sordid dens of evil that Dickens loved to paint... but is conceived and ordered (moved, seconded, carried and minuted) in clean, carpeted, warmed, well-lighted offices, by quiet men with white collars and cut fingernails and smooth-shaven cheeks who do not need to raise their voices.”
I can’t remember the source, but somewhere else Lewis wrote that as we near the end of the age it becomes more and more apparent who will serve the Lord and who will not. In other words, the lines are becoming clearer as the world grows darker.
And trust me friends, the line is not between the church and the world. That line runs right through the church itself, and on one side are those who are sold out to God and serving Him in truth, and on the other those who are empty vessels putting on a façade only. Unfortunately, the unchurched world, when it examines the church, usually thinks that what they see in those folks is the true representation of the church, and they remain in their ignorance, unable to see any real distinction between themselves and those in the church; and the reason is because by and large there is no distinction to be made.
We live in evil days, believer in Christ, and we are not called to muddle through and somehow survive it. That’s not the message of Paul here in Ephesians, and it’s not the message I see anywhere in the gospels or the New Testament epistles.
We are called to march into it with swords drawn and walk in victory over it, while rescuing some from it.
“You were formerly darkness, but now you are light in the Lord; walk as children of light”
“…all things become visible when they are exposed by the light, for everything that becomes visible is light.”
“…Be careful how you walk, not as unwise men, but as wise, making the most of your time…”
Those without Christ are the victims, church. They’re not the enemies, although the enemy often uses them against us. But they are deceived captors and have no will of their own to resist.
The days for them are toilsome and painful and bad. Our lives, according to the Apostle, are to be lived in such a way among them that their deeds are exposed for what they are so they might be brought to the light.
But as we go, he says, we must go warily and with caution, because we’re in enemy territory. And if we’re marching forward, he’s going to oppose us.
We must be wise and diligent and purposeful, being conscientious about the time we have and being good stewards of it for the Kingdom.
Because the days are evil and filled with evil, and if we are not cognizant of the dangers, we will waste the hours and the enemy will continue to gain ground.
But if we are alert and ready to do battle and willing to follow the Lord into the fray, we will bring light to some. Through us He will extend his invitation to “Awake sleeper, and arise from the dead” and shine His glorious light of truth and holiness and life on them.
We’ve got to see it, Christian. We’ve got to shake ourselves out of the mindsets that have characterized the American church for so long, that Christianity is belonging to a denomination, and going to the functions and engaging in the traditions and hearing a teacher and laying some money in the plate and then going home to vegetate spiritually until the next called assembly.
Christianity is and always has been a call to war, and the Christian’s weapons are love and light. And the march against the gates of Hell is to continue until our Captain returns to establish is reign.
That is the New Testament definition of the church and her duty.
I wonder; do we really have the right these days to sing:
“Like a mighty army, Moves the church of God;
Brothers, we are treading where the saints have trod.
We are not divided, all one body we -
One in hope and doctrine, one in charity”?
We’d better do some praying about that believers, because if we can’t sing that in truth and sincerity then there needs to be some heavy duty repenting going on; and then getting back into formation.
“Onward, Christian soldiers, marching as to war,
With the cross of Jesus going on before!”
It’s time to get a little more militant with our faith. If we’re oblivious, or ignorant, or neglectful and walk not at all, the enemy gets the upper hand and we suffer loss.
But if we carefully and wisely watch our steps and make Godly use of our time, and march forward to bring the light of the gospel into people’s lives, we will do much good.
For Christians, “we have Christ’s own promise. And that cannot fail“.
- Baring-Gould
