Take your Bibles and turn back
with me to Galatians chapter 5. And the title of this message, The
Manifest Works of the Flesh. The Manifest Works of the Flesh. Now, last week we saw this, that
those sons of liberty, you who have been born again of the Spirit
of God, You have been set at liberty, and let me explain this
liberty. It is a liberty wherewith Christ
hath made you free. It is a liberty from sin, not
a liberty to sin. We are at liberty from the guilt
of sin. This is glorious, isn't it? What
Christ did at Calvary was a miraculous thing. It was actually a transference
of guilt. God took that which we have done,
we have committed, we were guilty, and transferred that to the Lord
Jesus Christ, where He there on Calvary bore our sin. In his own body he bore the guilt
of it. We know that because God punished
him. God cannot punish the innocent.
That's an abomination. Therefore God did punish our
sins. We are free from the guilt of
sin. We are by the power of the Holy
Spirit free from the power of sin. Whereas once sin constrained
us so that we could not believe, we could not love, Yet now by
the grace and power of God we have a new nature by which we
are free to believe. We are free to love Christ and
free to love one another. So we have a liberty and we are
not under the confines of the law in any measure whatsoever. We are free from the law. And
so Paul prefaces this and he now turns to those believers
who are at liberty, in verse 13, and he says, we've called
unto liberty only, listen, use not your liberty as an occasion
to the flesh. And again, I'm stressing this
very poignantly that Christ is now, the apostle is now turning
from those who failed to those who maintained their faith. Because he knew our nature. He knew those who would repent,
those who would turn and come back with their tail chucked
between their legs, that these who remained faithful would pump
out their chest. They would naturally be proud
and set themselves above those that failed. And so Paul then
begins to explain that in every believer there are two distinct
natures. a nature that is created after
God in true holiness, as Paul says in Romans chapter 4, and
the nature that we are born with, the nature of the flesh. And
he says in verse 17, he says, The flesh lusts against the spirit,
the spirit against the flesh, and these two are contrary so
that you cannot do what you would. In other words, the new nature
would be only righteous, It would only love Christ, it would only
love the brethren, it would only believe on Christ. And yet the
old man would do everything in the opposite way, would have
you not believe in Christ, would have you not follow Christ. And
these, therefore, is a warfare, a constant engagement within
every believer. And here is the hope then in
this warfare because this is very painful, this warfare. This is a very difficult thing
that happens every day we have to face this. Now listen, we
truly are at war with the world. The world hates us. Satan would
desire to sift us as wheat. But the worst enemy is self. If there were no fleshly nature, how would the world or Satan
have any hold on us at all? The problem is here. It's within
our own selves. So he testifies that though we
are at liberty, we're not at liberty from this warfare. No
one is to escape this warfare. But here's our hope, verse 18,
we are led of the Spirit and not under the law. This is our hope that we are
not under the law. Why? If we were put under the
law, could we do it? Even with the new nature, we
still in this body could not maintain that. But that's good
news, isn't it? We're not under it. We're under
the grace of God. And so now Paul begins here in
verse 19. He says, now the works of the
flesh. This is that nature that we wore
with. The works of the flesh, which are these, are manifest.
Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, idolatry, witchcraft,
hatred, variance, simulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies,
envying, murders, drunkenness, reveling, and such like. If he
would have had a list, he could have just kept going. And such like, of which I tell
you before, as I've told you in time past, they which do such
things shall not inherit the kingdom of God. And so, we who are believers in Christ
ought to be thankful that God has given us a new nature, because
this one that we have is not changed. He's given us a new
nature, wherein dwells the Holy Spirit. He did not destroy the
old, Therefore, these sins that we have listed, all of us who
are at liberty, we confess these things. We confess that these
sins are our sins by nature. We confess that when we would
do good, what? Evil is present with me. And so all these deeds, they
may be applied They may be applied to us all. We all have these. Therefore, all our works and
all our deeds, I don't care how good our deeds are. I don't care
how much men applaud them or how good they are toward other
people. We as believers in Christ dare
not count any good that we've ever done toward the righteousness,
our righteousness before God. How do we count our good works?
Believers do good works. There's no doubt about that.
We're going to see why they do them later on in these later
messages because they're fruits of the Spirit. They're not really
works that we do, they're fruits. Therefore, we as believers count
all our righteousness as done. All our works. Though they may
be good, though they may do others' service. And that's what we long
for. We long for our works. Anything
that we do in the service of Christ, we desire it to be beneficial. But then after it's done, what
do we do? We count it as done. Why? That we may win Christ and be
found in Him, not having our own righteousness. I dare not
count any righteousness. in anything I've done toward
the righteousness that we have in Christ. We count it but done
and dare not add it to the righteousness of Christ. And we do this because the old
man of sin is in us. And so then all that the new
man does is mixed with all the old man does. This is why it
can't be counted. Now how do we know the works
of the flesh? How do we know the difference
between what's of the flesh and what's of the spirit? How do we know we're walking
in the spirit? I'll tell you what, the heart,
the scripture says, is deceitful and desperately wicked above
all things. Who can know it? It's deceitful.
It's deceitful. A lot of times you may think
that you're doing God a service all the while you're walking
in the flesh. How many religious, self-righteous
people doing good things suppose they are doing God a service
all the while they're denying the righteousness of God that
is in Jesus Christ by trying to add their works to His? And so how do we know the difference?
Well, Paul gives us a very concise small list, but this is a very,
and you'll notice that the works of the flesh are much more than
the fruits of the spirit. He lists a lot more of these
than he does the other. But notice how Paul says this.
He said, the works of the flesh are manifest. Listen, they are
cut and dry clear here. They're plain. Now why are these works of the
flesh so clear? And I want you to understand
that they're not just clear to us who believe. They are clear
to us. But I'll tell you this, they
are really clear to everyone because of this one thing. The
law of God is written on the heart of every man. That's why
when I read these things, everybody cringes. adultery, fornication,
uncleanness, wanton lusts. You see, we know these are wrong.
Because the Law of God is written on our hearts. The Apostle in
Romans chapter 2, he testifies of this. He said the Jews, they
had the Law of Moses. But listen, the Gentiles who
never saw the Law of Moses, who never read the Law of Moses,
yet they did the same things contained in the Law of Moses.
Why? Isn't that astounding? You take
a group of people in Israel, they got the law from Mount Sinai.
You take another group of people in another country who never
heard of Jehovah, never heard of his law, and you read their
laws, the laws of their gods, the laws of their society, and
you could say that they're almost identical. Wait, listen, everybody
in every culture knows adultery is wrong. Everybody knows fornication
is wrong. watching this documentary on
Vikings. And then, you know, they married. Now, why would they marry? What
was that about? Why would the women get upset
when their men left them? Because they knew it was evil. The law of God is written on
the hearts. It's written on the hearts of
every man. These sins, these sins, all these
sins that he mentions here, they all are produced from the heart. These sins are outward manifestations
of an inward problem. Our Lord tells us that out of
the heart in Mark chapter 7, out of the heart, precede evil
thoughts, murder, adultery, theft, fornication. Where does it come
from? Out of the heart. The natural
heart of man produces these things. Therefore, listen, no amount
of reformation, can change the heart of man. No amount of reformation. Now,
these things are written on the heart of men. This happens all
the time. Men feel guilty about sin. I mean, they don't have
to be a believer in Christ. Again, they could be the heathen
nations. They felt guilt. And what happens when a man feels
guilt? He tries to reform it. He tries
to soothe his conscience. He's done all these evil works
and now his conscience bothers him. What does he do? He tries
to turn over a new leaf. The problem is, it's just the
same old leaf, only a different side. Same leaf. Same nature. He feels a guilt
of his conscience. He tries to reform his behaviors. He stops being immoral. He starts
being respectable. He starts being a good parent,
a good husband, a good employee. And he may cease from all the
outward performances of these things we're going to mention.
He may have been an adulterer, now he's just so faithful to
his wife. He may have been a fornicator, now he only confines inside of
marriage. He may have been a thief, but
now he doesn't steal anymore. He may have been an idolater,
but now he's very religious. But what we must understand about
this is that no matter how a man tries to reform from these things,
he can never, by his outward reformation, change what's inside. Jesus told those Pharisees, He
said, you are as whitewashed tombs on the outside indeed beautiful. Now you got that? He acknowledged
that outwardly they seemed to be religious. They seemed to
be holy outwardly. What was the problem? It wasn't the outward. inside. He said inside is full of dead
men's bones. And I want you as believers,
Paul here is not listing these sins in order to send men back
under the law or to reprove them or to try to reform you. He's
not saying these things just so you feel guilty and stop doing
them. That's not what he's doing. He said the flesh lusts against
the spirit and the spirit against the flesh. What he is showing
you as a believer is that this stuff is still in you. This is
the flesh that I'm talking about. These sins still reside in every
believer's old nature. And I'm going to use some outward
manifestations of these sins in the message. I pray that the
Holy Spirit would cause us really to look within and see that these
sins are not just you. Look at that sinner over there.
No, look at this sinner right here. That's what I need to do.
Paul is causing these Galatians to not look outside. He's trying
to get them to look inside to see that they're no different
from the ones that failed. Later on he's going to say, consider
yourselves. Why? Because you are just as
capable of falling as those that fail. So when I list these sins,
I'm talking about me. These sins are in my nature. And we dare not deny this. He's showing us this, that all
our flesh can produce is sin. You got it? The best that your
flesh can do is sin. That's it. It cannot produce
any righteousness whatsoever, no matter how you try to reform
it. Just dressing up the corpse.
Therefore, we are all guilty of the works of the flesh. We
all oppose the gospel of Christ. We all by nature are haters of
God. We by nature are full of sin
and there is no amount of reformation or cleaning up of this life can
save our soul or justify us before God. That's the point of enlisting
these things. Yet I do not want to leave you
without hope because these things are very sharp. They are true. I want to give you that there
is hope for sinners. Every one of us who by nature
are nothing but sin, there's hope for you. There's hope for
you. Isn't that what the apostles
said? This is a faithful saying and
worthy of all acceptation, that Jesus Christ came into the world
to save one group of people. Who? Sinners. And what'd Paul
say about himself? I'm the chief. There's hope for sinners. Man,
what did Hart say about that? He said, a sinner is a sacred
thing, for the Holy Ghost hath made him one. You'll never know
you're a sinner, except the Holy Ghost reveal that these sins
listed are my sins. They're mine. And so the one remedy for the
sin is what? It is the blood of Christ. It
is the only thing that can cleanse us of our sins. It is the only
thing that God has chosen by which to make us just and holy
and righteous. And how do we know that his blood
was successful to do these things? How can we know that we who are
guilty of these things are justified before God? Because God raised
him from the dead. God punished him for our sins,
and if there was any sin left, by justice to man's could not
raise him. But because there was no sin
left, God raised him from the dead. And the only righteousness
that is imputed and imparted to the sinner is the righteousness
Christ obtained. The only righteousness is the
righteousness Christ obtained. And that is the righteousness
that the Spirit gives in the new nature. He creates the righteousness
in us. So what then does the works of
the flesh have to do with your righteousness? Thank God nothing, because all
my flesh can do is sin if I had to do anything. If I had to do
one thing, it would corrupt the righteousness of God. Therefore, do you believe on
Christ tonight? Do you trust in the Son of God?
Has the Holy Spirit convinced you of your failure? That's not popular, is it? Tell
men their failures. I'm so thankful God showed me
what a failure I was. Because at the exact moment he
showed me how much I was a failure, he showed me how much Christ
was successful. In everything I failed, Christ
succeeded. Christ succeeded. Are you convinced
that if you were to mix anything you do with the righteousness
of Christ, it would be contaminated? Do you see that these sins manifest
in your own heart, in your own body? And behold, Jesus Christ
alone has bore them in his own body on the tree, and God is
completely satisfied. So as we go through these sins,
we're going to feel convicted of them. Yet at the same time,
we may look from that to Christ to see he has taken care of it.
He's removed it. And so as we go through the manifest
list of sins, Now, some may say this, well, you know, when I
go through this list, preacher, you know, I didn't commit that
one. Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness. Now, I'm not
guilty of that. I beg to differ. Matter of fact,
Christ begs to differ. Now, tonight we're going to deal
with just the first section of these. I'm going to deal with
these, look at this. Back in your text, he says, these
are clear, adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness,
these are sexual sins, sensual sins. And then we'll deal with the
first two of the next verse, idolatry and witchcraft. You see that that's not as cut
and dry as you think somebody running around with a broomstick
Satan worshipers, no, no, no. It's a lot more close to home
than you think. But let's deal with these first
ones that are manifest here, these sensual sins. You remember
what our Lord said about this, didn't you? He said, if a man
look upon a woman to lust after, what happens? He has already
committed adultery in his heart. So don't tell me that you've
escaped this. You had to be brain dead to escape
this. And so then, it's not just the
act of sin that we are talking about, it is the motive and the
intent of the heart. This is what we call sins of
omission and sins of commission. Sins of omission are those things
that you think are not really sins at all. I just had a thought,
not really a sin. Yeah, yeah I was. And so I use this Texas group
of sins to deal with the sensual sins, adultery, fornication,
uncleanness, lasciviousness. Now God created, God created
man and woman and he created a sexual relationship between
a man and a woman to be only used in the confines of marriage.
This was from the beginning, wasn't it? When God gave Eve
to Adam. It was a blessing. It was a gift. Paul says this in Hebrews 13,
Marriage is honorable in all in the bed undefiled. This is
a blessing that God gives in marriage. But whoremongers and
adulterers God will judge. We live in such a wicked day
where Adultery and fornication are really no sins at all. They're
so common. They're so common. It's common
for people to live in outside of the confines of marriage and
commit these acts, it's common. To fornicate. With many people,
in matter of fact, those who who would desire to keep themselves
in love for their spouse. Those who would desire to remain
apart from this are mocked. They're considered weird. And they're rebuked. They're
constantly encouraged to this life. But marriage is an oath
and a commitment of God and is sacred in the eyes of God. should be, especially among God's
people. It should be. Why? Because marriage is a picture,
isn't it? God is very, very meticulous about the pictures of his son,
isn't it? I mean, so meticulous that remember
when those two high priests came in and they burned their own
incense? God killed them. And so it is with marriage. Marriage
is sacred in this. It's a picture. And yet what
does the natural man desire to do with that picture is mar it. Is to do away with it. This is
why that it's so attractive to the flesh to do these things
because it is in our nature to mar the gospel. It's in our nature. So we're not to care what men
consider about marriage, but rather what God says about it.
Marriage is honorable. And this is to be true in the
church. Between a man and a woman, God
made this, and he made it to endure for life. You know, he
said Moses gave you a bill of divorce, but this was not so
in the beginning. It's not how it was in the beginning. But because of our sinful and
lustful nature, the hardness of our heart, marriage is easily
cast off in our day. It is discarded as out of date
and too restrictive. That's just the way it is. Now,
why is that? Because that's our nature. And
I'm not talking just about them. I'm talking about us. This still resides in our hearts. And we should be careful about
this. We should not give into this flesh, this passion for
a moment. Why? Because there are irreparable
consequences of it. Surely we see the consequences
of this disobedience in our generation, don't we? How many countless
bastards are there in this generation? A lot. How many fatherless children? How many of those are raised
by their grandparents, which is unnatural? How many children are devoid
of love and safety and guidance because of the base desires of
men? I'm gonna throw this out there.
I listened to a documentary about people and what the most important
issues of our day are as far as electing our leaders and mostly
young women. Mostly, this is really horrible,
mostly young women, the reason they vote and the most important
thing to them is abortion. And the world's burning. Wars
are happening. We're on the cusp of war with
many nations and financial collapse looms. And yet the most important
thing is that they maintain their ability to kill their children
and have as much sex as they want. Is this not the base nature? It is. Now the other sins of lasciviousness
and uncleanness, this has to do with unnatural desires such
as rape, incest, prostitution, homosexuality and pedophiles. These unnatural lusts are clear
to be sin. Behold how fast these sins have
consumed our nation. and is now not just taboo, it's
acceptable. It's acceptable. Sodomites teaching children,
it's okay. Parading in the streets as though
they're proud of such things. And what makes it worse is this
religious generation accepts this as okay. It's what men call the church. Receive these things as adultery,
fornication, uncleanness, lascivious. The word lascivious is wantonness. And when I think of that word,
I think of those in Sodom. Remember how the angels came
to get Lot. And they were beautiful. And
you remember how the men of Sodom desired that they bring those
men out. And Lot even said, look, here's
my daughters, take them. And they said, we don't want
your daughters, we want them men. And you remember how the
angels came out and they blinded those men This is how wanton
they were, that they groped for the door. They didn't run in
fear, they groped for the door. This is the same spirit in this
generation. If something bad or evil would come, they would
still be wanton and groping for the door. Believer in Christ, these sins
are not hidden, they are known, they are plain to all men. But
if you walk in the Spirit, if we continue to look to Christ,
we know that we must flee these things. Why? Because these things
are in us. Any of these things, now you
think it's incapable of us to do those things. If you think
that's true, then you think too highly of yourself. Therefore, as believers in Christ,
we should most definitely flee these things. Flee these things. Remember Joseph? Joseph and Potiphar,
his wife, came in and tried to seduce this man of God. Do you
suppose he tried to help her out and gave her a robe and said,
Oh, you need to put this on. Let's talk about this. You suppose
he tried to preach a gospel to her? What do you do? You ran. Why did he run? He ran
because that's his nature, and he knew it. We have many instances in scripture
where men did not run David. David did not run. Scripture
says David looked. Now that was not a, he didn't
just get a glance, he didn't just get a, he stared. And then he said, well, you know,
he justified it. I don't suppose having her over for dinner would
be a bad thing. Right? After all, her husband's at war.
I could just bring her over, comfort her. We know what happened
to David. What about Lot? Scripture says
Lot pitched his tent toward Sodom, and it wasn't long till he was
what? In Sodom. Not only in Sodom, he became
a ruler in Sodom, a man well respected. Even though it was hard for him
to endure that kind of evil around him, yet he did. What I'm getting
at is this, do not believe that we are exempt from these things. Please, by God's grace, recognize
that these things that are in these men outside the church
are in us who are in the church. Solomon said no man could take
fire in his bosom and not be burned. Isn't that not right? It is. And if you don't recognize
this, you're the one going to be burned. If you believe you're
above this. And friends, we could possibly
fall into it. May God keep us. Now the second
group is manifest our religious things. Look at this next set.
He says this, Idolatry and witchcraft. First of all, idolatry. We get
the image of the heathen, don't we? Those in foreign nations
who carve out and whittle their little gods and bow down to them,
and that has something to do with it. That is idolatry. It is idolatry. But idolatry is not just bowing
down to images, is it? I mean, we have people in this
religious generation who still bow down to idols. Crosses and
figures of saints gone by, they bow down to them. I still remember
that story of the famous cross maker in the Catholic Church,
I believe in the 1600s, I believe it was. He was famous for his
crosses. The intricate detail, the beauty
of them. He was on his deathbed, and one
of the priests came by to read him his last rites, and he had
one of those crosses, and he said, Behold thy God! That man
looked up in fear and said, I made that. I made that. There are many people bowing
down to idols still, but idolatry is not just bowing down and worshiping
images. It's not just performed by the
uncivilized or the super-religious in the churches surrounding us.
Idolatry is the worship of any other God than the God of the
Holy Scripture. That's what idolatry is. It is
the bowing down of any God besides Jehovah. Look with me at Isaiah
45. Isaiah 45. God says about this in verse
20. I tell you, reading this, you
should see the smirk and the humor in this because God's saying,
look, He's talking to idols. He said, assemble yourselves
and come near. Draw near you that escape the
nations. Listen to what He said about
those idols. He said, you don't know nothing. you have no knowledge,
that set up wood as their graven image, that pray to a God they
cannot save. Tell ye, bring them near, let
them take counsel together. Put all your gods together in
one room, and let them take counsel together, and then answer this
question. Who hath declared from ancient time? Who hath told it
from the time? Hath not I the Lord? Listen to
this, there is no God else beside me. A just God and a Savior. If I can deal with that, that's
a beautiful statement. How can God be just and be a
Savior? We know it's by Christ. He said,
there is none other than God beside me. Look unto me and be
ye saved, all the ends of the earth. For I am God and there
is none else. I have sworn by myself, the word
has gone out of my mouth, and righteousness, it shall not return.
That unto me every knee shall bow and every tongue shall swear.
And this is the message of the one true God. He said, surely
shall one say in the Lord, I have righteousness and strength. Who
has righteousness and strength? Who could say that? We said there's
one gonna come that can say that. Jesus Christ, the Son of God. And listen to what he said. To
him shall men come, and all that are incensed against him shall
be ashamed. In the Lord shall all the seed
of Israel be justified, and shall glory. God said, this word's
going out of my mouth, and I'm not like them. I declared this
from eternity. And what I declared is Jesus
Christ is going to come and Israel is going to be justified. That's
my word. It's gone out of my mouth and
it's not going to return. That's God. Now any God that
is not that God is not God. Any God that is not that God
is not God. And anybody who bows to a God
that is not this God is an idolater. You might as well whittle your
God and put him in a corner. That's not God. All men know
there is a God. They all know he's going to judge
all men. You know that this is why every
society has some form of deity and some form of sacrifice? You
know that? One archaeologist said you would sooner find a
society without an alphabet than you would find them without a
God. Why is that? Because everybody knows there
is one. They just don't know who He is. They know they've
got to appease Him, they just don't know how to do it. What natural men cannot know
is who God really is and what God requires. Paul says in Romans chapter 1,
they all know God by creation, but they don't worship Him as
God. Is this not what the atheist
and the evolutionists do when they set themselves up, themselves,
to be God? Why? Because they know God. If
there is a God, He's going to judge them. That's why they don't
like it. That's why we, by nature, don't
like it. And so men, by nature, what do
they do? They set themselves to be God. Other idolaters use
some form or principles of the doctrines of this book and create
a God. They take some of the aspects
of God, some of the aspects they like, and what do they do with
that? They add to it things that God
doesn't say about Himself. So that even so, they call their
God by the same name we call our God. They call their Savior
Jesus even as we call our Savior Jesus. They speak of His person,
His blood, His resurrection. Even though they speak good things
about Him, many have made and worshipped a God of their own
making by denying what He says about His person. By denying
what He says about His work and denying the success of it. I
preached a message a long time ago about three things. It was Malcolm Lilly's funeral.
Some of you know Malcolm, he's a wonderful believer. The God
that Malcolm worshipped when I preached. And I preached three
things about Malcolm's God. I said, he is God manifest in
the flesh. I said that he came to save sinners
by his obedience and by his blood. And I declare this that Malcolm's
God was successful. He saved everyone he determined
to save. Now, I was a very prominent preacher
of a Baptist church sitting in that congregation who pastors
thousands of people. And he agreed with the first
two, but he would not agree concerning his success. And he walked out
of there and didn't give me any acknowledgment whatsoever. When
that message was finished, why? Because he worships a different
God. He worships an idol that is subject to man's will, to
man's decision, to man's obedience. This is rampant in our day. Any God who is subject to the
will of man is not God. Any God who is not sovereign
in all things Listen to this, in all things, any God who is
not sovereign in all things is not God. God is sovereign in
life. God is sovereign in death. God
is sovereign in sickness. God is sovereign in health. God
is sovereign especially in the salvation and the damnation of
men. God is sovereign. And any Jesus who died for all
men without exception is not the Son of God. Why? Because the Christ of this
book said, I lay down my life for the sheep. And other sheep
I have which have done this for them I also must bring. He told those Pharisees, you
believe not because you are not of my sheep. He said, my sheep
hear my voice and I know them and they follow me. I give unto them eternal life,
and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them
out of my hands. The Father which gave them me
is greater than all, and no man can pluck them out of my Father's
hand." This is the God of Scripture.
Any God that is not like that is an idol. And any Holy Spirit who's trying
to give life is not the Holy Spirit. Any Holy Spirit running
around begging you to help him out in giving you life is not
the Holy Spirit. The wind bloweth where it listeth.
You can hear the sound of it. You can't tell where it's coming
and where it's going. So is everyone that is born of the Spirit of
God. Therefore, any other God who
is not sovereign, omnipotent, omniscient, immutable, Omnipotent,
eternal is not God, but an idol. And let us also who believe in
God, who believe in this sovereign God, a successful Savior, who
have been saved by the grace, let us be aware of this. Yes,
we too may fall into idol worship. Is this not what was happening
in the Galatian church? That's exactly how Paul sets
this forth in the very beginning. He said, I marvel that you are
so soon removed from Him to another gospel, which is not another. You see how easily we can be
tempted to move from the gospel? So we sit here and we say, yes,
I'm so thankful that God has given me the grace not to be
an idolater. Yet, I'm telling you, it's in
you. And the moment we think that
we are above this is the moment that we become the Galatian Church. When you hear of the Church of
Ephesus, what do you think? I think of a very wonderful,
successful church. I think of a very doctrinally
sound church, don't you? You read that book of Ephesus
and that is a Oh, it's a beautiful, glorious book to a wonderful
group of people who are obviously very knowledgeable about the
scriptures. He begins with the election of
Greece. And yet, what did the Lord say
about the Church of Ephesus after that? He said, they left there first. They became so proud of their
knowledge that they forgot the adult, the idolater that was
in them. I think that there is, was that
pride of race, pride of face, but the worst is what? Pride
of grace. Can you be proud of grace? Is
that possible? If it's really grace, you can't
be proud. You have to be humble. It has
to humble you. Because God chose me based on
nothing in me. Christ saved me based on nothing
in me. The Spirit called me based on
nothing in me. All that was in me was sin. I tell you this, if I'm going
to endure, I have to maintain this understanding of my flesh.
Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness is still in me. Idolatry is still in me. I know I got another one, I ain't
got time. I think that clock moves too
fast, for me anyway. I'm sure it doesn't move too
fast for you, but it seems to move a lot faster for me. I just beg God, keep us humble. Keep us at the feet of Christ.
Don't let us move. I want to stay right there. I
don't want to leave. Because I know what's in me.
If left to myself, there'd be no hope for me. But he ain't
gonna leave me to myself. He'll keep me. Let's stand and be dismissed
in prayer. The Father dismisses with your
mercy and grace and pour out your instruct us as we war with the
flesh. Let our hope be only and always
looking to Christ and not ourselves. Thank you for the successes and
thank you for the victories, but we give no credence to them. All my righteousness is Christ.
All my offering is Christ. All my hope is Christ. Bless
your people and dismiss us in Christ's name.