You know, the book of Ephesians is one of four books of what are called the prison epistles. Paul is in prison in Rome. He was there from approximately 60 AD to 62. From there he wrote four epistles, Ephesians, Philippians, the book of Colossians, and the book of Philemon. And he wrote this book to the people of Ephesus to whom he preached. And the Lord saved several people, and there was a local church established there.

And Paul writes this letter to them to, first of all, strengthen them in doctrinal matters. Don't be afraid of the word doctrine. It's a good Bible word. It just means the teachings or the beliefs of the people of God. It's the doctrine of God, our Savior.

In chapter 1, Paul deals with the very fundamentals of our salvation. He traces the salvation of the Ephesian believers and of every believer back to the eternal council chambers of God. Salvation is of our Lord. And he authored our salvation. He talked about election unto salvation in chapter 1. He talked about being predestinated unto the adoption of children in chapter 1. He talked about redemption by the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ, which resulted in the forgiveness of sins, that is, the justification of all of the people in whose stead Christ died. He also mentioned in the first chapter the work of the Holy Spirit in sealing us, in keeping us ever looking unto Jesus who is the head of the church.

He goes into the second chapter and he talks about our depravity, our sinfulness. He said, you that were quickened were dead in trespasses and sins. And he shows us the necessity of those works of grace that he had outlined in the first chapter. The reason we had to be chosen unto salvation and redeemed by the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the reason the Spirit of God had to do a work within us was because of our natural depravity when we were born. We were born dead in sins. Therefore, God had to do something for us. I don't ever ask you to do anything for God. What I ask is that God would do something for you. Because the doctrine of Jonah is the doctrine of the entire Bible. Salvation is of the Lord.

He continues in the second chapter and he talks about how the Jew and Gentile are one in Christ. and were built on the same foundation, the Ephesian believers and all of us who are believers, all of you who are here who believe the Lord Jesus Christ, all who are watching, were all built on the same foundation upon which the apostles were built, Jesus Christ himself being the rock, the firm foundation upon whom we're built.

He gets into the third chapter, and in the third chapter he establishes the fact that he's a preacher of the gospel by means of the work of God. God appointed him a preacher that he would declare the riches of the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. And he winds up the third chapter talking about the love of God, which is boundless and endless and glorious. that God would love us with an everlasting love.

And then in verse chapters 4, 5, and 6, he goes into more practical matters. And if you read the commentators, and for the most part they're correct about this, The first three chapters of Ephesians have to do with doctrinal matters, whereas the last three chapters, they have to do with very practical matters, but still the doctrine is there because we must never divorce ourselves from the teachings of God regarding our salvation. And so he gets into the fourth chapter and he begins to talk about how that the children of God must not live like those who do not know God. In our text, as I read chapter 4 and verse 17, he says, This I say therefore, and testify in the Lord, that ye henceforth walk not as the Gentiles walk, in the vanity of their minds. And when he says the Gentiles, he could just as easily have said, as unbelievers walk.

The children of God, We're people who have been bought with the bloody death of our Lord Jesus Christ. He paid the price for our redemption. We're not like we used to be. We were dead in sins, but now we belong to God. We have been washed. We have been robed in the righteousness of Jesus Christ. So our walk, our manner of living, that is, is to be different than it was before our conversion. Now we seek to honor God in all things, whereas before we sought to honor ourselves. Now we seek the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ, whereas before we sought self-glory.

So he says, don't walk as other Gentiles walk. Don't walk like the ungodly people walk, whose minds and whose hearts and whose understanding is firmly grasping the things of this world. Let us who are of the light, who are of the day, who are the children of God, let us embrace the things of God and walk in a manner that is becoming to the Lord's children.

In addressing the people of God, people to whom the gospel has been revealed, he admonishes them to seek the glory of Christ in all that we do. And then he begins to talk about how Gentiles or how the unbelievers conduct themselves and what is their makeup and what they're like and what we were like, what we were like. And it begins to say there in the end of chapter 17, there was a time when we walked in the vanity of our minds. Vanity means nothing, nothing of any value. in the emptiness of our minds. And he's stressing here the mind of an ungodly person.

Now, the word mind is a word that's used to express the very faculty, the main faculty of ourselves. You could put another word in, understanding. You remember when our Lord Jesus in Luke, the fourth chapter, when He appeared to His disciples after His resurrection, And he spoke of some things that they didn't correctly understand. And the scripture says, he opened their understanding. Remember that passage? He opened their understanding. If you look it up, the word understanding is identical to the word mind. And what he's saying here is that those who are in unbelief, they walk in the vanity of their understanding of their spiritual darkness. They don't have any eternal awareness of things, or they don't have any awareness of God, not really, nor do they consider things of eternal value.

You see, the natural mind, the natural understanding has a grasp of many things, but there's one area where the understanding, the mind of man, cannot grasp whatsoever. That's when it comes to spiritual and eternal things. Everything else we can understand. I could give you a math book, perhaps, or a science book, or whatever. And with diligent study, and perhaps with some tutoring from someone who is very knowledgeable in those areas, they could cause you to understand the science, the sciences, the maths, and so forth and so on. You could get an understanding.

I marvel at the things that God, the amount of understanding God has given to men, for instance in the area of medicine. what they're able to do, the machines that men have invented, have improved upon, the medicine, the pharmaceutical companies, the medicines. I know this medicine that Nancy gets, they spent $50 million to discover this medicine that the liver produces, this enzyme that Nancy does, her body doesn't produce it. but they spent $50 million, some I did, in all kind of test trials. That kind of stuff amazes me.

But when it comes to spiritual things, when it comes to eternal truths, nobody can teach you that. Oh, I can speak the words so that your ears hear them. But in the darkness of your mind, and I was the same way, in the darkness of my mind, I didn't comprehend what was said. Because the only way you can have spiritual understanding is to have a spiritual mind, is to have the spiritual ability to grasp the things of God.

As we talk about the glory of God and the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ and of His incarnation, of His perfect life, and the necessity of His death. death to satisfy God's justice, death to satisfy that which God demands, punishment for sin. As I preach about those things, you can receive the words, but you'll never truly learn the gospel until you have the mind, the understanding that God has to give you.

And we were like everybody else, we walked. in the vanity of our minds, which didn't have any understanding. And it may very well be that some of you, as you listen to me this morning, some of you here, maybe some of you who are watching, you say, Jim, I understand the words you're saying, but I really can't grasp what you're talking about. What is the glory of Christ? Why do you keep speaking of the Son of God? Why do you keep talking about the necessity of his death? The necessity of him suffering the wrath of God in his soul. I just don't understand. And you never will till God teaches you. See, that's what's gotta happen.

He said, you walked in the vanity of your mind, emptiness of your mind. A mind that is full of only vanity is empty of absolute truth. Now, let me go back to the word mind again, M-I-N-D. You can have... The mind is that faculty of the body that makes decisions like what is right and what is wrong. What is truth and what is error? That's what the mind does. And there are lots of areas where you can discern truth from lies. From that which is right, from that which is wrong. That's your mind, that's your understanding. And actually, it includes the will, the mind includes the will, the volition, the choices that you make. The state of your mind, it will determine how you view things.

Now, in secular things, in temporal things, You make choices every day. And we teach our children from the earliest age to do right and avoid wrong. That's fine. To tell the truth and not tell a lie. Because the mind, the understanding is involved in that. But when it comes to spiritual things, your mind cannot determine that which is true from that which is error. You see, most of the religion today, religion you watch on television perhaps, or that you hear on the radio, much of religion today is false. It's wrong. It's dishonest. The preachers are dishonest. You say, well, why are people so gullible? The mind is darkened. That's the problem. Joe and I were talking about the article that I wrote on the back of the bulletin. He was saying it was so clear.

Why do people hold on to free willism? When the Bible talks about the will of God, it's not of him that willeth nor of him that runneth, but of God that showeth the mercy. How come people can't receive that? Why do men defend the free will of man to their death? Because the mind is darkened. That's why. They have no ability to understand. Don't get mad at them. Don't argue with them. Tell people the truth as it's found in the Lord Jesus Christ, who is the way, the truth, and the life, and leave it to God the Holy Spirit to either reveal it or leave them as they are.

The mind is the problem. The mind is the problem. And he gets into verse 18, he says, having the understanding, the mind darkens. You know, the things of the Lord Jesus Christ, they're so bright to me. Are they to you? I see them so clearly in the Word of God. Well, why can't everybody see it? There's a darkness that we cannot penetrate even with our best arguments, even when we preach the truth. That which our words, even though they're true words concerning Christ and grace and salvation, our words cannot penetrate the darkness. Only God can do that. That's why we pray that the Lord will bless the word of God to the knowledge of people. to their understanding, give them an understanding.

It says having the understanding darkened, having the mind darkened, being alienated, verse 18, alienated from the life of God, ain't cut off from the life of God.

You see, when God made man, okay, when God made man, he had a perfect mind. He had perfect understanding. He had no objection. Adam had no objection to the things that God had done. He sought the glory of God. Because, I'll put it this way, he was in his right mind. He had an absolutely perfect understanding. And I know that's true because, you know, after every day, God said what He had made was good, right? And then after the sixth day, God looked at everything, man included, and God said, it's very good. Man's mind, his understanding, which included his will, his volition, the choices that he made were all good. They were all good.

But then something happened. Adam sinned. And he didn't just sin as a private individual. He sinned as the representative of the entire human race. And when he sinned, right then and there, our minds were instantaneously darkened. No more understanding. No more light. And the presence of God, which before had cheered him, and he was thankful to walk with God, Now, he tried to hide from God. What in the world happened? He spiritually died. In his mind, his understanding was so darkened. Everything about God and eternity and salvation and grace was now foreign to it.

And all people from then on in the same boat. And you're no different He says here, being alienated from the life of God because we died spiritually through the ignorance that is in them.

Ignorance. Preacher, you're not gonna offend me, are you? You're not gonna call me ignorant, are you? Yes, I'm gonna call you ignorant. But we're all ignorant by nature. There are a lot of things we're not ignorant of. We have people in here who have college degrees, master's degrees, PhD degree. You're all very intelligent. I don't deny that. Intelligent in many areas except one, the one that counts. See, this is why salvation has to be all of grace. You understand that? Well, you can't unless the Lord shows it to you. It's why it has to be all in Christ. If the only intelligence you've got concerns physical things and subjects that don't have to do with God, don't have to do with eternity, if your intelligence is limited to that. Well, I mean, I'm glad you have that intelligence. But you see, for all of us, me, you and everybody else, in the spiritual realm, we're ignorant. We just don't know. We don't have that capacity. That's why Paul in 1 Corinthians 2, he says, the natural mind, the natural man, to him, spiritual things are foreign. They're foolishness to him.

People say, I just don't get it. I can't see where you're coming from on this. I know you can't. I know you can't. But some of you do see. Some of you do understand. Some of you see why God had to send the perfect substitute and sacrifice to die on our stead and place because of our utter lost and depraved condition, and Christ was the only one who could do the work of redemption and satisfy God. And the only way we can come to God is through Jesus Christ. You can't come to God any other way.

I know there's a lot of intellectuals in the world. There always have been. You know, we talk about the Egyptians of old. They worshipped 2,000 gods with all of their wisdom. They worship 2,000 gods. How many gods are there? It's just one god, right? Everybody here knows that. And the Greeks, the Greeks who were supposed to be the great philosophers, the deep thinkers of the world, 30,000 gods they worshiped. That's not too smart, is it? You see, spiritual smartness only comes by grace. People are ignorant. That's why I keep preaching, praying that God will give them the new birth.

You've read John chapter three, man by the name of Nicodemus, that guy was smart. He was a teacher of the teachers. Everybody looked up to him. If he'd had degrees back then, he'd be a THD and a DD, Doctor of Divinity, and any other kind of degree that they had back then. You mention the name of Nicodemus, boy, that guy, whoo, he's smart. You know, he can practically quote a good bit of the Old Testament. And our Lord Jesus started talking to him about being born again. And this man who had degrees this long, he said, when you talk about being born again, are you saying the man's got to enter into his mother's womb again and be born? Well, how ignorant is that? Can you imagine an educated man said something like that? But you know why? He didn't understand. He's ignorant. His mind was open to all sorts of things, but not the truth.

And I'm saying to all of you that the mind of the unbeliever, of the unregenerated person is open to all kinds of religion. But let me tell you something, of all the religions in the world, I don't know how many millions and millions of people are Muslims. How many millions and millions of people believe Roman Catholic doctrine? How many millions and millions are tied up in Mormonism and Seventh-day Adventism and Jehovah's Witness and Methodist and Baptist? I'm talking about billions of people. And they're all wrong. You say, but surely a God of love. will let these people into heaven. The only reason you would think like that is because you have a darkened mind. That's about as simple as you can get, one. Christ said one door, just one door. He said, I am the way. That's a definite article. The is definite article. There's not another. It's not the Muslim way and the Methodist way and the Mormon way and the Baptist way. There's Christ who is the way. That's very simple. It's so simple people miss this way. And it's because of the ignorance and the blindness of the heart. See, God will not receive you for your works. If he receives you, he receives you for Christ's sake. That's the only reason. Have you come to God, attempt to come to God by any other way? You will not be accepted. You will be rejected.

You say, Jim, that's pretty tough talk. That's Bible talk. That's God's Word. The one God of heaven and earth. Well, what's the cure? What's the cure for our ignorance? Well, look at verse 20 and 21. He says to these believers, and remember he's talking to believers. He's talking about how people are by nature and these people were by nature. He said, but you haven't so learned Christ. You have to learn Christ.

Look at verse 21. If so be that you heard him, you've got to hear his voice. His voice is heard in the gospel. and have been taught by Him. That's what's necessary. You have to be taught by Him as the truth is in Jesus. The only cure, here is the cure. The Spirit of God has to enroll you in the school of Christ. Then you'll learn. It's the only place you're gonna learn the truth. is in Christ who is the truth.

Oh God, teach us. And if you don't understand what I'm saying this morning, you don't understand this message, from your soul say, Lord, show me, teach me. I don't want to be wrong. I don't want to die swearing on a stack of Bibles. Well, I've been a good person and I know God will accept me. I want to know the truth, don't you? Only the truth as it's found in Christ Jesus.

And when you, by the Spirit of God, by the Spirit of Christ, have learned the truth, you'll come to Him. And the Savior said, come unto me. All you that labor and are heavy laden, I'll give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn of me. That's true wisdom. Take my yoke upon you, for I'm meek and lowly in heart, and you'll find rest to your soul. Rest for your soul is only found in Christ, so you can work from now on. Try to be a good person. Well, you ought to be a good person. I got news for you. The Bible says there's none good, no, not one. So really, you're barking up the wrong street there.

Christ said, I'm the way, the truth, the life. Oh God, I'm ignorant. You got to teach me. The preacher's tried to tell me the truth, and I'm sure he has. But Lord, I need you to teach my mind, my understanding. Otherwise, I'll never get it. I remember, I'll get this to you quickly, I think I probably told it before, I remember I preached to a young lady for several years. And one Sunday morning, she came up to me after the service, she said, I get it now. I get what you're saying. I wonder what happened. The work of grace done in her heart. The eyes of her soul were open. All of a sudden, she had a different understanding.

And I tell you what, if the Lord works within you, you'll say something like that. I get it now. I get it now. I see what you're saying. All of grace and all in Christ. And that's all I got to say. All right, let's sing a closing song. That's 489. Now we'll just sing one stanza.

Glory to His name. 489. Glory to His name.

Down at the cross where my Savior died,
And there for cleansing her sin I cried,
There to my heart was her blood applied.
? Glory to his name ?
? Glory to his name ?
? Glory to his name ?
? There to my heart was the blood of Christ ?
? Glory to his name ?

don't get the sign of the food list on the front page. You're busy yet? Thank you. Shake it, shake it. you Yeah.