Ephesians chapter 4. I want to
begin reading for you in verse 22. I want to remind you that we have
been going through this epistle, and I've somewhat got away from
it. I need to get back to it every
Sunday because I know you forget, but the way we've been going
through this anyway is sort of unorthodox. We've just been picking
out highlights from it sometime. Sometime we go verse to verse.
And that's mainly what I want us to think about, just one thought
this evening. But let's read some of these
verses. Ephesians chapter 4 and verse
22. Now you put off concerning the
farmer conversation The old man, which is corrupt according to
the deceitful lust, be renewed in the spirit of your mind, that
you put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness
and true holiness. Wherefore, putting away lying,
speak every man truth with his neighbor, for you are members
one of another." You are members of the same body. You are stones
in the same building. Be ye angry, and sin not. Don't
let the sun go down upon your wrath, neither give place to
the devil. Let him that stole steal no more. But let him labor, working with
his hands the thing which is good, that he may have to give
to him that needeth. Don't let any corrupt communication
proceed out of your mouth, but that which is good to the use
of edify, that it may minister grace to the hearers. And grieve
not the Holy Spirit of God, by which you are sealed unto the
dead redemption. And let all bitterness and wrath and anger
and clamor, evil speaking, be put away from you with all malice.
And be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one
another, even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you." I just
want us to thank this evening just for a few minutes on The condition that must have
prevailed in the first century when the gospel came to the world.
Paul in the other epistles mentions things like this, that ye put
off concerning the farmer lifestyle. Your farmer conversation. And
of course he mentions that again there in chapter 2 and says in
verse 2, In time past, you walked according to the course of this
world, the prince of the power of the hour that worketh in the
children of disobedience." And what a dark, dark world it was
in the first century, not only among the Jews, but especially
among the Gentiles. I want you to look over here
in 1 Peter with me. has been studying here, and he
brought out some of these definitions, but I just want to remind you
in two or three places the times, in time past, the way these men
lived and the way these women lived. I was talking with a friend
of mine not long ago, and he said, you know, that it seems
like we're going back into heathenism, and I fear that we are. And one
of the reasons I wanted to look at this just for a few minutes
is just to show us again and remind us the only remedy that
there is against slipping back into spiritual and moral darkness
is the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. Look here at what Peter
said in chapter 4 and verse 3. The time passed of our life. may suffice us." We were satisfied,
he said, to have wrought the will of the Gentiles when we
walked in lasciviousness. Now, Brother Larry gives some
good definitions of these words, and you'll have to ask him to
get more detail than this, but one of the definitions to this
is just living after your animal appetites. We walked in lasciviousness. We were like animals. Lust in
our lust, desires, excess of wine, getting drunk, getting
high, getting a buzz, revelings. We saw the definition of that
word with just carousing around. You know, we just went looking
for trouble, Peter said. Nothing to do but just out carousing
around, looking for trouble. That's what that word means.
Banqueting. Brother Larry said that word
meant simply gathering for the purpose of getting drunk. It
wasn't just to socialize. Nothing the matter of that. We
went back and socialized, son. But they got together just to
get drunk. That's the purpose of their party. And he said,
an abominable idolatry. Not only idolatry, but abominable
idolatry. Do you remember the Ephesians
were messed up in this? Remember they had a temple, a
world-famous temple, to the goddess Diana. And they worshipped. And they tell us that some of
the awful, awful things that went on, not just worshipping
Diana, that goddess, but some of the immorality, the sexual
immorality, the vulgarity that took place in that temple. Peter
said it was abominable idolatry. So there he tells about the way
they lived after the Gentiles. Look over here in Colossians.
Look in Colossians chapter 3. And look here in verse 5. Paul
mentions some of the things here when he's writing these to the
Colossian believers. He said here in verse 5 of Colossians
chapter 3, mortify. That word mortify simply means
put to death or deaden your members. The desires strip them of their
power. to go after sin, which are upon this earth. And he mentions
these five things. Look at this. Fornication, that
is sexual vice, sex outside of marriage, uncleanness, moral
impurity, inordinate affection, sensual appetite, excessive desires
for things, for pleasure, evil concupiscence, longing after
those things which were evil, and covetousness, greed, this
wanting, wanting, wanting, the I never being satisfied, coveting
everything a person sees. And if you can't obtain it with
your hands, still your heart lusts after it. And then he went
ahead here to say, which is idolatry. And look here at what Paul said
in verse 7, "...in the which you also walked sometimes when
you lived in them." So Peter tells us about how the Gentiles
lived and how the Jews mocked them. Now Paul tells about Colossians,
how they lived and their immorality. And look over here at Corinth
in 1 Corinthians chapter 6. Look at 1 Corinthians chapter
6. I guess Corinth was probably
one of the worst places in the known world at this time. And
Paul tells some of the things that's going on here in verse
9. 1 Corinthians chapter 6 and verse 9. Look here. Know you not that the unrighteous
shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived. And he mentions these several
things. And these weren't just occasional things. These sins
are what they lived in. This was their lifestyle, their
former conversation. Fornication, fornicators, living
in sex outside of marriage, idolaters, worshiping of idols, adulterers,
effeminate, That word means unmanly, becoming soft, woman-like, may
even include homosexuality, abusers of themselves with mankind, thieves,
you can't trust them, they'll just steal you blind, covetousness,
drunkards, revilers, extortioners, none of these shall inherit the
kingdom of God. And look in verse 11, and such
were some of you. Now, we look around us today
and we see some of this coming again, don't we? We see drunken
parties, extortions, living a lot of these
open and profane sins. And look over here in Philippians. Look in Philippians chapter 2,
what Paul says to them. Philippians chapter 2. I use some strong words to deny
the lifestyle that people are living. And you're in Philippians
chapter 2 and verse 14. Look what he says. Philippians
2, 14. Do all things without murmurings
and disputings, that ye may be blameless and harmless, the sons
of God, without rebuke, without fault. And look at this. What
kind of a city did they live in? What was their country made
up at? How would you describe the place
around Philippi? You live in the midst of a crooked
and perverse nation among whom you shine as light. Perverted
everywhere you look. Perverted acts of neighbors and
fellow citizens. Perversion. Look at Ephesians
again. Look back at Ephesians chapter
5. Look in Ephesians chapter 5 and
verse 8. Paul had been speaking in chapter 5 about don't even
mention about fornication. You see these people living these
lifestyles, don't even talk about it. Don't even mention about
idolatry and covetousness. Don't even let it be named among
you. And he says here in verse 8 of chapter 5. He says in verse
7, look at this. Be not ye therefore partakers
with these people. For you were sometimes darkness,
but now are you light in the Lord." You were darkness. You
lived in darkness. Spiritual darkness and moral
darkness. I've just read these to you and
you can go through almost all of these epistles and you can
find out And you can see, it's evident from what these verses
teach us, that the moral darkness and the spiritual darkness was
great upon the Gentile world at this time. And they had their
philosophers there at Mars Hill. Paul was preaching to those philosophers. They had their brilliant thinkers.
The Greeks were brilliant thinkers at this time. They had, as far
as a government, they had a government that sort of kept civility, the
Roman government. They had a huge army, a mighty
army. But look at the world, what spiritual
and moral darkness it was in at this time. And there was one
thing that brought spiritual light and moral light. And there was one thing that
bound Satan's reign over the Gentile world, and in general,
brought life and love and holiness and truth to the Gentile world.
There was something that invaded this darkness, invaded the immorality,
and in general subdued it and brought light and brought holiness
to the Gentile world. And you know what it was? It
was the Gospel. It was the Gospel. Look here
with me in Colossians again. Just turn back over to your right
in Colossians. Colossians chapter 1. You remember
what I just read to you about the Colossians, how they lived
and their immorality. and their idolatry,
covetousness and fornication, all of this. And look here now
what Paul said happened to them, and look why it happened. In
Colossians chapter 1 and verse 4, look at this. He's talking in verse 3 about
giving thanks to God, the Father of the Lord Jesus Christ. We
pray always for you. Since we heard of your faith
in Christ Jesus, and since we heard of the love which you have
for all the saints, and for the hope which is laid up for you
in heaven, look at this, whereof you heard before in the word
of the truth of the gospel which is come unto you." Now, while
they were in this immoral lifestyle, all the ungodly things that they
were doing, in spiritual darkness, He said, "...the gospel came
to you, as it is in all the world, and it brings forth fruit, as
it does also in you, since the very first day you heard of it
and knew The grace of God in truth. What was it that came
and delivered these Colossians from their darkness? From their
immorality? And don't forget what I read
to you in chapter 3 of how immoral they were. It was the Gospel. Paul said it brought forth fruit.
What kind of fruit is he talking about? Well, in verse 4 and verse
5 he tells us, we heard of your faith, Your faith in Christ,
that's the fruit of the gospel, ain't it? You heard the gospel
and you believed in Christ. That's the first fruit, they
say, of the gospel. Faith in Christ. And here's another
fruit. Love which you have to all the
saints and for the hope which is laid up for you in heaven.
That's good fruit, ain't it? And what a rule of life it is.
Faith and love and hope. I'm telling you, if you've got
faith and love and hope, that's the fruit of this Gospel, and
you talk about changing your life. It will change your life. And it will bring about repentance.
It will bring about humility. Fruit. The fruit of the Gospel. It will change the way we think.
It will change the way we talk. It will change the way we act.
It will change the way we live. The gospel invaded this dark,
Gentile world. And it brought light. And it
brought light. And it brought holiness. And
I tell you, brothers and sisters, nothing else will do that. Nothing
else will do that. Look in Titus chapter 2. Titus chapter 2. I think you and I, in a sense, have been somewhat spoiled. When
I was growing up, you didn't see all the open and
profane sins that we're seeing now. I think anybody that looks
at our society now realizes that we're headed back into heathenism.
We're headed back into darkness. I just seen a statistic the other
day. It's almost 70% now of people living together without getting
married. Did you not realize that? That's where we're headed
back into. There's no shame. There's no
embarrassment of what's going on in our day. We're headed back
into heathenism. And what we don't realize, I
think sometimes, is the hold that immorality, the hold that
spiritual darkness gets a hold of the people's minds. Nothing
will deliver people from immorality and bad habits. We talk about
drunken parties. Well, just quit going out and
getting drunk. But wait just a minute. These things get a
hold of the heart. They get a hold of the mind.
Talk about sexual immorality. Well, just quit it. What are
you going to do when you get hooked on it? See, we look at these things
and we think, well, that's just something people are doing. But
why? Why do they do it? It's ingrained and you can't
quit doing it. I think all of us probably had
sinful habits before the Lord saved us that we just couldn't
quit. It had got into us and it had bound us. That's where
this Gentile world was when the Gospel came to it. And what the Gospel does, it
comes to you and it frees you. The gospel comes to you and it
sets you free from sin. It sets you free from those habits.
It sets you free from the bondage of it, the power of it. We often
say, well, the Lord saves us from the power of sin. I wonder
if we know what that means. What do we mean He saves us from
the power of sin? One thing, these habits, these
sinful habits that we can't quit sinning, He saves us from it. I've seen people that were drunks
and they couldn't quit getting drunk. They were alcoholics. And the minute the Lord saved
them, it was gone. And other damnable habits. And
when the Lord saved them, they were gone. That's the wonderful
thing about this. It brings forth fruit. It saves you from the power of
your sin. Here's how Paul said it in Titus
chapter 2. Look at this. And look in verse 11. The grace
of God. That's what Paul said to the
Colossians. You knew the grace of God. The
grace of God. In truth, you knew it. For the
grace of God that brings salvation hath appeared to all kinds of
men. Not everybody. We know that.
But to all kinds of people. He says that, if you read there
in the context, he says in verse 2, the aged men, it's appeared
to the aged men. In verse 3, to the aged women. Number 4, the young women. Number 6, young men. Number 9,
verse 9, exhort servants. The gospel has appeared to all
kinds of men. God's grace has been revealed
to so many people's hearts. And what happens when it does?
Look in verse 12. What effect does this have upon
us when the grace of God appears? Teaching us. Teaching us. That
word means to train. Training us. That denying ungodliness. Training us to hate it and renounce
it. To deny ungodliness. Everything
that's contrary to God just teaches us to deny it. And lust, worldly lust, evil
passions, the desires that rule this world. And it trains us,
look at this, to live soberly. Soberly. That word soberly means
self-constraint. It teaches us to constrain ourselves,
withstrain ourselves, keep ourselves under control. It has to do with
what we think about ourselves. And righteousness, justice, that
has to do with our relationship with others. That we're to be
just in our relationship with others. And godly, that's our
duty towards God. Faithfulness to God. Paul mentions
these three things here in verse 12. Did you see that? Soberness,
our duty to ourselves. To keep ourselves under subjection.
To think rightly about ourselves. Brother Donnie Bell made a statement
one time about this word soberness. And he said, I can't help how
people treat me, but I'm to be sober about it. And that word
simply means I'm to keep it under subjection to myself. I am responsible
to how I react to what people think about me. I can't help
what they think about me, I can't help what they do to me, but
I can help how I react. I'm to act soberly, keep myself
under subjection. What teaches me to do that? The
grace of God. God's grace. But when He says
grace, that means His unmerited favor. He gives that to us. He
gives that to us. And then He says righteousness,
teaching us that denying ungodliness, we should live justly our duty
to others. We're not to lie one to another.
We're not to defraud one another. We're not to mistreat one another. Justice, to be just and truthful
and honest one to another. Our Lord said, in all things
whatsoever you would that men should do to you, do you even
so to them And this word, godly, our duty to God. So He deals
with what we think of ourselves soberly, our dealings with others
righteously, justly, and here, godly, our duty to God. To hear
Him, to love Him, to fear Him, to obey Him, to believe Him,
to follow Him. And all this soberness and righteousness
and godliness is the fruit of the gospel of the grace of the
Lord Jesus Christ. And Paul says, it's come unto
you. And look what it's done for you.
Look what the grace of God has done for you. Look how it's changed
you. Look what you were before. And
look what it's done for you. It's made you a new creature
in the Lord Jesus Christ. The gospel comes and it gives
new light and new life. and new creation. And I tell
you, it makes a better person out of you, doesn't it? It does. It makes a better person out
of you. And here seems to me like, from
what little bit I know about history, here seems to me about
what happens. The Gospel comes like this, and
it saves, It delivers people from their sins. It makes them
new creatures. Then the gospel for a time is
lost. It's lost. And the professing
church goes through the motions of worship. It has the gospel
in word only, but it loses the power of it. Is that where we're
at today? Look what happened just after
the first century. The Gospel came and invaded the
dark Gentile world and it saved. It brought light and life and
holiness with it. It changed people's lives. And
then they began to lose it after the apostles were gone. And then what happens? You try
legislating morality. and see what happens. You try
to make people live right and do right. And all we do is fill
our jails full of criminals and lawbreakers. And what choice
do we got? Then we have to begin to let
down our standards because we can't put everybody in jail.
What some professing Christians is doing now would have got them
in jail during the days of our Puritan fathers. But here's what
happens when the church loses the gospel. Here comes immorality. Here comes darkness. And the
world begins to fall back into that immorality. Why is that? The church is the light of the
world. And when the church begins to
lose the gospel, there's nothing but darkness. And if the church
is not the light anymore, what happens? She keeps shining to
this dark world. And the church is the salt. Salt
preserves. Salt is that fabric that keeps
the world from going off in its immorality. And when the church
loses its saltness, what happens? Immorality comes. Immorality. And that's what you and I are
beginning to see today. Immorality. Things that I never
dreamed I would have seen in my lifetime. You know how many
babies have been killed since they passed Roe v. Wade? You know there's been over 50
million infants killed since they passed Roe v. Wade? And
you know what's happened? We've got to the place where
we're not even much concerned about it. And the reason why
we're not much concerned about it, there's nothing we can do
about it. If there was any hope that we could do anything about
it, I'd crawl down this street and you would too if that would
stop it. I'd stop cars out on 3 if that would stop abortion,
but there's nothing we can do about it. Those who are doing it, this
dark world that's doing it, they've lost convictions about it. And when the world loses its
convictions, it goes off into its immorality. And you know
what follows immorality? Violence. Violence. Down in Sodom and Gomorrah, it
started out with the lust of the flesh. It went to uncontrolled
lust, and then it went to violence. That's where our country is headed
to. Just mark it down. It's headed to violence. It's
already on our border, and it's coming into our... That's what
I'm saying. We've been spoiled. We've got
homes. If I had to, I could go to bed
and leave my door unlocked. I have before. If you and I live much longer,
we won't do that. That's the time that's coming. And you know
the only thing that's going to save us from it? You know the
only thing that is possible to save us from it? You know what
it is? The Gospel. The thing that lifted the Gentile
world out of this mess to begin with is the only thing that will
stop it from coming. We need a revival. If you look
back through history, the 1700s, dear Jonathan Edwards' day, it
was bad. In Spurgeon's day in the mid-1800s,
it was bad. And God sent revival. And that stopped this downward
trend of the invasion of the devil's darkness and immorality. And that's what we need now,
brothers and sisters, is a revival. We've got the Gospel. We've got the Gospel. I think
we've got just as pure a Gospel today as the world has ever known. We preach the Gospel that the
apostles preached. We preach the Gospel that Jonathan
Edwards and Spurgeon and those men preached. You know what we
need? We need the Holy Spirit to come. That's what we need. I need Him
to come to my heart. I tell you how you know the Spirit
of God is within you and how He's working within you. He's always working for you to
put off this old man and to put on the new man. He's always checking
your line. He won't let you get by with
it. You watch Him and see if He can. He's always checking this Corrupt
communication, if it starts out of your mouth, He checks it.
He's the one that's there encouraging you and exhorting you to let
your lifestyle be what's pleasing to God and what's helpful to
your fellow man. Let that which is good come out
of your mouth. That's how you know you have
the Spirit of Christ. And when you begin to sow stray,
it doesn't bother you to lie. It doesn't bother you to defraud.
It doesn't bother you to speak all kinds of corrupt language,
filthy jokes, vulgar words coming out of your mouth. That doesn't
bother you. It's because the Spirit of Christ
is not there. We need a revival, don't we?
I need a revival. You need a revival. And nothing
else is going to save our world. Nothing else is going to save
our country and our communities without a revival. May God send
us one. Let's pray.