Let's take our Bibles now and
turn to Ephesians chapter 4. Ephesians chapter 4, beginning with verse 17. This I say, therefore, and testify
in the Lord, that ye henceforth walk not as other Gentiles walk,
in the vanity of their mind, having the understanding darkened,
being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance
that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart, who
being past feeling have given themselves," and I believe that
word feeling there is in reference to the conscience, being pricked
by the conscience, being past feeling. have given themselves
over unto lasciviousness, to work all uncleanness with greediness. But ye have not so learned Christ,
if so be that ye have heard of him, and have been taught by
him, as the truth is in him, that ye put off concerning the
former conversation, the old man which is corrupt, according
to the deceitful lusts, and be renewed in the spirit of your
mind, and that you put on the new man, which after God is created
in righteousness and true holiness." Now, as best I could last week,
I tried to show you how believers are all one in Christ. We're one. I know there's different
bodies, different assemblies in this world. But the body of
Christ is one body. And we all stand in Him. We all
were taught of Him. That's what He says here. So
be that you've been taught by Him. Otherwise, you're not in
the body. You just profess to be in the
body. But Paul's dealing here with people in the body. And
those in the body are all one. I go to Wichita Falls, we're
one. I go to Danville, we're one. We believe the same thing. There's one body, all chosen
of God in Christ, who is their Lord and representative. They're
all blessed in Him. They all have their standing
in Him, all ruled by Him, and all share a common interest in
Him. My righteousness is their righteousness,
if they've been taught of God. My atonement is their atonement,
if they've been taught of God. We're one. It's hard to get that
concept in your head, but we're one. Christ's people are one.
They're one body. And they're one Spirit, the Holy
Spirit. He it is that teaches us. I don't understand this thing.
I'll just be honest with you. I don't understand this thing
of believers in opposition to one another. I just do not understand.
I mean, what's your excuse? We have the same revelation. We have the same spirit. We have
the same Lord, the same Christ. We're all hoping the same thing.
So where is the disagreement? What is it that we have contention
about? You see what I'm saying? Where
does it come from? One of us is not taught by the
Spirit. That's where it comes from. One of us has belief in the wrong
Lord. That's what Paul said. I marvel,
he told those Galatians, that you're so soon removed from Him
to another gospel. That's what he called it, another
gospel. And over and over and over, we're told in these epistles,
there's just one body and one Spirit. All regenerated by Him. Nobody regenerated by anything
else other than the Holy Spirit of God. There's one revelation. There's one thing that the Holy
Spirit is going to reveal to us, and that's Christ. That's
Christ. All receive the same revelation.
All give the same new heart. The same new mind. The same revelation
of Christ. All partakers of the same new
covenant. I just find one covenant in here.
That's all I find. All called in one hope of their
calling. Called to be sons, heirs of God. Called to be conformed to the
image of Christ. And this calling as heirs and
sons is right now in this present time a hope. That's all I've
got is a hope. I can't show you the kingdom.
I can't show you the glory. I have a hope. I have a hope. I've never seen Christ. Have
you? I've never seen Him. I don't have any idea what He
looks like. I bust at people because they paint pictures of
Him. But I'll be honest with you, I don't know if that picture
represents Him or not. I've never seen Him. I don't
have any idea what He looks like. No idea. It's a hope. And all the visible church, those
who are assembled on this earth in this present, those who are
alive on this earth at this time. They all share that same hope. Paul said, it's not a hope if
you see it. There's no reason to hope for
it if you already have it. But this thing is represented
as a hope, and we all share that same hope. Same hope. One Lord, he says. He just keeps
talking about this oneness. He ain't going to get off of
it. He just stays right on it. One Lord. One ruler. We're down here contending about
who rules what. That's just one ruler, Christ.
He sits on the throne. I'll tell you how to dissolve
all these arguments over who rules. Just listen to him. He
sits on the throne. He's the one that makes up the
rules. He's the head of this thing. He rules in the church. He's the head. He's the preeminent
one. He sits on the throne. He's got
the power. And there's just one faith, one
saving faith, the gift of grace and our faith sufficient to walk
and live and serve God acceptably in this present world. Without
this faith, it's impossible to please God. It's impossible to
serve God. And it's impossible to worship
God. And all God's children have it. They all have this faith.
Without faith, you can't come into the presence of God. You
just play in church. And that's what most folks do,
play church. God's children have it. And they
all live by it, and they all walk in it. And there's just
one baptism. That's the commandment of God
to all who believe. It's our confession of faith
that we're buried with Christ in His death and risen with Him
to walk in newness of life. And I just don't see how there's
any room in the Church of God for confessions of sprinkling
and pouring. I don't see what they confess.
I just don't see it. Baptism literally means immersion. And baptism is for believers. If I understand the scriptures
right, unbelievers don't have anything to confess but to sin.
Isn't that right? And they'll confess everything
else except that. And then he said, there's one
God. My God wouldn't do like that. Ain't that what folks say?
Well, there's not two Gods. There's just one God. Either
I represent a false hope and a false God, or those who are
in disagreement with me do. One or the other, because they're
just one God. Just one Father of all. He's the beginning. But I think if you pursue the
subject, you'll soon learn that there's many gods so called in
this world. In 1 Corinthians 8.5, Paul said,
for though there be those who are called gods, whether in heaven
or earth, as there be God's many and Lord's many. But to us, to
believers, there is but one God, the Father of whom are all things,
and we in Him, and one Lord Jesus Christ by whom are all things,
and we by Him. Just one God. And there's just no reason, there's
no reason for schism separation of believers. Believers are all
saved the same way. They all stand on the same foundation. They all share the same Father.
All given the same revelation of grace. Ought not be any schism. Ought not be any controversy.
Ought not be any argument. Not only that, but Christ didn't
leave us to flop around here like a bunch of dead fish drawed
up on the river bank. You throw them out there and
they can't breathe and they're not in their element and they
just flip and flop around like they don't know anything. He
left us with men taught of God. That's what He goes on to tell
us here in this chapter. Apostles, prophets, evangelists,
and so on. Evangelists are no more than
traveling preachers sent to minister to these remote groups of believers
who had no pastors, and to young congregations with young pastors. You find Paul doing the work
of an evangelist. He told Timothy to do the work
of an evangelist. And to help these young men,
these inexperienced men, even the young pastors, to help them
and assist them. And he puts in his church pastor
teachers. The discord comes when church
members, saved or lost, revert back to their former walk. And
so that's what he says here. This I say, therefore, and testify
in the Lord that you henceforth walk not like you used to walk. He's talking here to Gentile
believers. It's not OK. Whatever those traditions were,
be you Jew or Gentile, don't revert back to them. Don't go
back to that. Go back to that. And I'll tell
you this, men walk as they believe. Now you write that down. The
way a man walks is the way a man believes. It's the way he believes. I remember visiting some folks.
down in LeCount, Louisiana one afternoon. That man had just
finished mowing his grass. My family was young then. Melissa
was the oldest. Then Cindy and Andrew was about
three years old, if I remember right. He was just toddling around
and curious. This man had an old riding mower
that he kind of worked on. He had the hood off of it. Built
him a little homemade muffler and it come up out of there and
looked like an actual farm tractor. Come up out of the top and kind
of hooked over. And my boys over there, and I knew that that man
just parked that tractor, and I said, Andrew, don't touch that
muffler. It's hot, honey. He reached out and grabbed that
muffler. And man, it just sizzled them fingers. And he tried to
hold back the tears for a little while, but he couldn't do it.
After a while, he just broke down and began to cry. But I'll
tell you this, that boy from then on didn't grab a hot muffler.
He walked according to how he believed. That's how you can
tell what a man believes he knows, don't it? Paul said, I know whom
I have believed, and he walked that way. I wouldn't give you
a plug nickel for a man who says, I believe this, and then goes
on and walks some other way. It's ridiculous. It's ridiculous. Believers are all called to walk
by faith. They walk in the light of their
calling. They walk in the light of mercy and grace. And they
walk in the light of love. And they walk in the light of
divine purpose. And so it tells them, don't walk
Like these other Gentiles walk, they walk in the vanity of their
mind. Verse 18, having the understanding
darkened, being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance
that's in them because of the blindness of their heart, who
being past stealing have given themselves over to do these things,
to this lasciviousness. The psalmist David wrote this
in Psalm 39. He said, barely every man at
his best state, at his best state, is altogether vanity. Vanity. So when he's talking
about these Gentiles walking in the vanity of their mind,
he's talking about the choice of the Gentiles all the way down
to the bottom. Because man at his best state
is altogether vanity. His mind is vain and therefore
he walks in the vanity of it. Now the phrase vanity expresses
an emptiness. It's empty being destitute of
all knowledge of God. He doesn't have any. He doesn't
have a clue who God is. Did any of you before conversion
have any idea who God was? of his sovereignty, of his omnipotence,
ruling, reigning over everything that is, actually had a design
and purpose in creation and salvation, actually arranged his providence
to accomplish certain things. I didn't have a clue. I didn't
know that God was perfectly just. I didn't understand that. I thought
God was like us. I thought God just felt sorry
for somebody, took the eraser and, well, I've got four or five
things up here against you. I'll just erase them. Don't do
them again. And he did them again. I'm writing it down. And after
so many times, he just said, forget it. That's not God. God is perfectly just. There
is no forgiveness without payment for sin. without payment for
sin. It's vanity. It's vanity. It's destitute of all knowledge
of God. Knows nothing of the fear and
grace of God. Knows nothing of the eternal
Christ of God, of His offices, of His work, of the glory of
His person. They know nothing of the glory
of His incarnation. And that mind is just full of
vanity because it's full of ignorance and lies and deceit. How does
he say that here? Their understanding darkened. Who darkened that? The God of
this world. Fills them full of deceit, lies. And this vanity is displayed
in his thoughts and in his imaginations of God. It's displayed in his
ideas and concepts of creation, evolution, and that type of thing.
It's also displayed in his ideas of providence. He thinks things
just happen. I heard him ranting and raving
on there when that hurricane hit New Orleans. Oh, don't say
that. They got on this fella, whoever
he was. I don't even know what his name
is anymore, but he represented certain organization, a religious
organization, and he got up there and said that was God's curse
on New Orleans. Oh man, they had a fit. They
like to drum him out of town. They don't see God's providence
as judgmental. They don't see his providence
as sent to accomplish something, sent on purpose. It's just an
accident. It's just a freak of nature. The wind blew this way,
the jet stream went that way, and the storm come this way.
Could happen to anybody. Yeah, but it didn't. It didn't. And if you go through the scriptures,
you'll find him, especially in the book of Isaiah, he said,
I sent you droughts. Who did? God did. I sent you
pestilence. I gave you over to your enemies.
I sent wars among you and diseases among you. And you wouldn't turn
to me. You wouldn't turn to me. That's man's vanity. That's the
vanity of his mind. It's displayed in his thoughts
toward providence. And the vanity of man can be
seen in his quest for happiness. He seeks vain things to produce
it, don't he? Boy, if I could make a million
dollars. I used to think that way when I was a kid. Man, if
I could make this business boom, if I could just find my glitch
and find this thing like so many others have found, and make that
money and put that in there, just like that farmer, I could
say, soul, take my age. That's vanity. That's vanity. You can't satisfy the human heart
if it had this whole world, it'd want two more. You can't satisfy
the heart. wealthy men, men who could quit
tomorrow and live like kings till they die. And the money
doesn't mean anything to them. It's just greed. They want more
and more and more. It's insatiable. That's vanity. And so it is with power and fame
and fortune and all these things. That's how they live, he said.
He said, don't you live that way. Don't do those things. Don't walk that same way you
used to walk. The man reveals the vanity of his heart in the
means and methods he adopts to achieve his goals. Philosophy. How far will that go? Philosophy. Curious inquiries into the unknown. Doesn't our Lord warn us about
unanswerable questions and things like that? He says, don't waste
your time. That's vanity. Vain speculations, theories,
and assumptions. If this carbon dating is a fact,
then this rock is two million years old. If that rock is two
million years old, then the Bible's wrong. Theories, vain speculations. That's all it is. That's all
it is. It's vanity. Man walks in the
vanity of his mind, supposing himself to be the center of all
things. Ain't that how man thinks? Everything
in this world is for him. Everything is. And all the oil,
it's okay. It's okay. I don't care if you
ruin an ocean. It's okay. That oil's for me.
It's okay to ruin the environment. It's for me. It's mine. It's
for me. It is. All these things. That's how he lives. He's the
center of the universe. When he starts speculating about
salvation, and he hears the gospel, and we talk about election, or
we talk about God's divine predestination, or we talk about any of those
things. Whoa, whoa, whoa. What about man's will? Well,
man ain't the center of this thing. Man's way down the line. In fact, God chose him at the
bottom. to magnify His grace. He bypassed
the angels. The angels are a lot smarter
than He is, a lot more glorious than He is, a lot more majestic
than He is. But He didn't take on Him the
nature of angels. He took on Him the seed of Abraham.
He went way down the hill. Man walks in the vanity of his
mind, supposing himself to be the center of all created things. And he vainly imagines imagines
himself to be something, Paul said, when he is nothing. But
nowhere does that vanity reveal itself as it does in their deluded
form of religion. God said, you thought I was altogether
such a one as you. Oh, I tell you how the Lord must
look on us. It's almost, once you're enlightened
of God, these things almost appear ridiculous, don't they? What
must God think of it? What must He think of it? Oh, the natural man is altogether
and at his best state vanity and he lives and breathes and
walks in the vanity of his mind, imagines peace where there is
no peace. They tell me insanity is doing
the same thing over and over and expecting different results.
That's exactly what man does. That's exactly what he does.
He imagines peace where there is no peace and so he goes back
and does the same thing again expecting the same vain thing
and it never happens. And so he goes back a third time
and a fourth time and a fifth time and he just keeps going
back. That's insanity. He imagines recognition for his
pitiful works. Can you imagine a maggot standing
before the Holy God, bragging on himself. Can you imagine?
Expecting God to give him something. And yet that's exactly what those
folks in the judgment, that's exactly what he said about, wait
a minute now. You owe me. You owe me. Ain't that what they're saying?
We did wonderful works in your name. We cast out demons and
you owe us. Vanity. He imagines his destiny. He had
nothing to do with his birth. He had nothing to do with man's
being on this earth. And yet he vainly imagines that
he has control of his own destiny. How can that be? We weren't even
around when God created the world. Probably won't be around when
he destroys it. And yet we somehow feel like
we have control of our destinies and that our destinies are everything
in the universe designed around me. That's how man lives at his
day. Everything he says and does is
just a big soap bubble. That's the way every natural
man walks in emptiness, blindness, and deceit. And this world that
walks in the vanity of that mind is blinded and believe otherwise
because the God of this world deceives them and blinds their
minds to the truth. He knows they have no spiritual
light. Satan knows that. He knows they have a fallen nature
and therefore he can transform himself into an angel of light
and his ministers into ministers of righteousness and deceive
men and take them captive at his will. And he continues to
walk this way because he receiveth not the things of the Spirit
of God. He won't have them. You can't make a natural man
sit down with you and take this Bible and say, now look here
what this says. He'll look at it and he'll say,
yeah, but here's what I think. Whoa, whoa, whoa. Wait a minute.
Wait a minute. This is the Word of God. Yeah, but just let me
tell you what I think. What do you think? Oh, my. He won't receive the
Word of God as the Word of God, infallible, inerrant, the one
foundation of faith and practice. He won't receive the rule of
the church. The church is the pillar and ground of the truth.
You're not going to find the truth apart from the church.
That's why God left it here. That's why He left it here. There's no other reason for the
church to exist in this world except that it be the pillar
and ground of the truth. You can't find any other reason.
There is no other reason. It's the visible body of Christ
in this world. It's where God meets with men
and promises His presence and gives us gifts and feeds His
sheep. Man isolates himself. Stands
off by himself. He won't identify with God's
sheep. He won't fellowship with God's
sheep. And he won't be encouraged by them. That's man. And then
thirdly, he receives not the things of the Spirit of God when
he refuses to believe the gospel of Christ. He takes the gospel
of Christ with all the other gospels he hears, and he takes
what he wants and he leaves the rest. But I believe this is one of
the greatest evidences here. He receives not the things of
the Spirit of God when he refuses to rest in hope in and walk in
the power of the resurrected Christ. Christ sits on the throne. God's sheep understand that.
That's the first thing He teaches you. Christ sits on the throne
and He rules, not you. It's His will that's going to
be done, not yours. It's His glory for which these
things are being done, not yours. That's the first thing He teaches
us. And He continues to teach us that. Young believers, they
walk in the vanity of their mind, believing themselves to be the
heirs of that glory. Believers walk in a righteousness
already approved and accepted. They walk in a reconciliation
already accomplished. Already accomplished. Listen
to this. Speak ye comfortably to Jerusalem,
and cry unto her that her warfare is accomplished. It's done. The battle's already been won.
Old Brother Scott said years ago, stack your shotguns in the
corner, the war's over. Crack won. He won. Believers make their daily decisions
of life based on his rule who governs all things. I don't base
my decisions on the economy. I don't base my decisions on
who sits in the presidential chair. I base my decision on
who sits on the throne. That's it, according to that
purpose. Those are the things. And that's
what Paul's teaching these folks. Don't go back there and walk
that old walk. You're going to be miserable
if you do. You're going to be in trouble if you do. If you're
a true child of God and you wander back into that thing, boy, I'm
telling you, you're in for trouble. in for trouble. He said, don't
do it. And then he goes on and he tells us about the foolishness
of it. Oh, so foolish. You know, I find this to be true. Believers that are established,
I'll put it that way. I'm not going to say every man,
woman, and child who believe. But believers who are established
in the gospel do not long to preserve their life. They don't. It's okay. If he takes me tomorrow,
it'll be okay. If he takes me next week, it'll
be okay. Now, I'm not going to run out
here in front of a truck and tempt God, but it's okay with
me. I'm not, I'm telling you, I just,
I don't take a cabinet full of vitamins hoping I can get one
more year out of my life. Why would I want to stay in this
place one more year? You see what I'm saying? We don't...
I'm not living to preserve my... But I tell you this world is.
This world is. Oh, they see a bump. Whoo, look
out! Maybe God sent that bump. Who knows? And here's what's going on. He said, we haven't so learned
Christ, down here in verse 20. If so be that you've heard Him
and been taught by Him, that you put off concerning the former
conversation, that is, your walk of life, the old man which is
corrupt according to deceitful lust, and be renewed in the spirit
of your mind. That old man Paul refers to here
is your fallen nature and your former walk of life. That's what
that is. That old man was crucified with
Christ, hung up on a tree, exposed for what he is. Christ, he said,
was made a curse for us. Made to be sin for us. Read Romans
8, 1 through 3 and see if that ain't what he's telling you there.
What that law could not do, it could not convince you of the
evil of sin. It'd tell you don't do it, but
it couldn't convince you of it. What did convince you? God sent
His Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and put Him on the tree.
He condemned sin in the flesh. It's just utter vanity to think
there's any part of that old man worth preserving. It's utter
vanity to continue to walk as you once walked. And so He says,
put off that old man. Put off that old man and put
on the new. For what I know about the new
man, everything about the new man, you learn in Christ. You
learn in Christ. Put him on. How do we put him
on? By faith. By faith. And that faith continues,
and that faith dictates our walk, and that faith dictates our conversation
in this world. All the way along. He said, don't
walk like you used to walk. Walk after the new man.