Ephesians chapter 4, and I want
to begin reading in verse 17. This is where we've come to as
we've been slowly working our way through this epistle of Paul
to the Ephesian church. In 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 minds, having the understanding
darkened, being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance
that is in them because of the blindness or hardness of their
heart, who, being past spilling, 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 him, and
have been taught by him as the truth is in Jesus. That ye put
off concerning the former conversation the old man, which is corrupt
according to the deceitful lust, and be renewed in the spirit
of your mind. And that ye put on the new man,
which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness. Paul had been reminding, as you
and I have read and studied in this chapter, of the great blessing
that it was to be a believer, to be a member of the body of
the Lord Jesus Christ, to be in his church. He says that there
in verse 16, he tells us about that, from whom the whole body
is fitly joined together, And he says in another place that
we grow into a holy temple in the Lord. The Lord has joined
us to his body. He has fitly joined us, put us
in there and set us right where he'd have us to be, in his body,
in his church. The Lord adds to the church daily
such as should be saved. Right in the midst of professing
Christianity, And it's a large group today, isn't it? And right
in the midst of it is this church, is this body of Christ. And it's
the Lord that's fitly joining this church together. It's Him
that puts each member in the body as it's pleased Him. And this is the church that's
on its way to heaven. Part of the church is already
there now. The church triunfa is there now. The rest of the
church is here upon this earth, living by faith, waiting and
hoping. But the church in heaven and
the church on this earth is one, one body, one church, the Israel
of God. Isn't that a blessing? Remember
when we read this, what a blessing it was to think of this, that
the Lord of all people has put you in His church, that He's
chosen you that He's redeemed you and that He's called you
and He personally has put you personally into His body. The greatest blessing between
the eternities is for a person to belong to this church, to
be a member of this body. And you know why? Because it's
the church that's going to be saved in the end. It's the church
that's being saved now and it's the church that's being saved
in the end. It's the Church that Christ died for. It's the Church
that He saved. The Roman Catholicism had this
right from the very beginning, among all the other errors that
they had, they had this right. That salvation was for the Church.
Nobody else was going to be saved but the Church. Now, one of the
many errors that they made was this. They thought Roman Catholicism
was the Church. But they were right about the
church is going to be saved, and the church only. And if you're
not in the church, you won't be saved. But the church that
you must be in is the one that Christ put you in. One you can't
get in on your own. He fitly frames us together. And I don't care what analogy
you look at the church, if you look at it under the analogy
of a building, the temple of God, it's Christ Himself that
sets each stone in that building. If you look at it as an orchard
where trees are planted in His orchard or His vineyard, it's
Him that sets each tree, plants each tree. If you look at it
as a vine that the branches are joined to, it's Him that joins
each branch to Himself. Christ, He does this all. And this is the church that's
being saved, and the church that will be saved at last. What a blessing it is. David
said, I'd rather be a doorkeeper in this house, in the house of
God, than to dwell in the tents of wickedness. What a blessing,
he said it was, to be in this body. Now here in verse 17, Paul
says, In the light of that, these believers are not to think, They're
not to speak and they're not to act like other believers,
like unbelievers. That's what he's telling them.
Walk. That's what walk includes, your whole conversation. What
you're thinking, what you're saying, what you're doing, your
whole conversation. He says you're not to walk as
other Gentiles walk in the vanity of their mind. Now this has nothing
to do with self-righteousness. It has nothing to do, as we said
this morning, with a holier-than-thou attitude. Sometimes you and I
are afraid that people are going to think, well, you guys, you
guys just think you're better than I. I don't want anybody
to think that, do you? And you know no true Christian
thinks that. I mean, if anybody thinks rightly about himself,
it's a child of God. He knows what he is. He often
says, O wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from this
body of death? So He knows. It's not me. It's
not me saying that I'm better than you are. But you know, while
a believer never says, I'm better than anybody else, He does say
this, and He knows this, He's different. He's different than
everybody else. And I tell you what, you just
watch unbelievers. You watch your neighbors. If
you tell your neighbors you confess the Lord Jesus Christ to them,
and you tell them that you're a believer in Him, you know what
they're going to do? They're going to expect you to
be different too. They may get aggravated at you
when they see what difference there is, and when they hear
what difference there is, but they expect you to be different.
And you know something? You are different. You're no
better, but you are different. And Paul says you walk, not as
other Gentiles walk, in the vanity of your mind. Now here in verse
17 and verse 24, I want us to see this. We're told the difference
between the believer and unbeliever, and we're told also why that
difference exists. Now, if you thought I was going
to come here and use two or three sentences this evening and tell
you the difference between a believer and an unbeliever, I can't do
that. I can't do that. That's why we're going to the
Scriptures here in our text that we're studying. We're not going
to jump over here on just a topic, but this is where we're at, and
this is what we're going to see. The difference here, as Paul
says it in this text, here in verses 17 and verse 24, we see
the difference, and we see why also that difference. exist. He says here in verse 17, This
I say therefore and testify in the Lord that you went forth,
walk not as other Gentiles walk. And here he identifies the problem
of this world. Here's the world's condition
and what is it? If you had just a few minutes
and you had the attention of the world, and you was going
to say, world, I want to tell you what your problem is. Here's
the problem of every lost man. What would you tell them? I mean,
would you begin to talk about symptoms? You know the world
loves to look at symptoms. We've got these symptoms. What's
the matter with us? Well, our problem is this. Look
at all the crime in our society. And what we need is better law
enforcement to keep crime under control. We need to build more
prisons. That may be so. I don't know.
That may be so. But that's the symptom. That's
the symptom. We've got all these diseases,
and what we need to do is get better educated, better doctors,
let science, research, and develop these medicines to take care
of all the new bacterias and everything. We need that, because
we've got so many sick people, and we've got to deal with this
problem. That's not a problem. That's symptoms. The world deals
with symptoms. What is the world's problem? You know what a lost man's problem
is. Paul tells it right here. They walk in the vanity of their
mind. The world's problem is not anything
that you see. The world's problem is not anything
the world's doing. Everything the world's doing
is the fruit of its mind. It's something that you can't
see. He walks in the vanity of his mind. What is the mind? What
is the mind? Well, a mind is what governs
a man's thoughts, his actions, his walk, the course
of his life. And I think you'll agree with
this, the mind is one of the most noble parts of a man's soul. Love the Lord with all your mind. That's a noble part. If a man
is called to love God with all his mind, If God demands that
of us, that must be a noble part of us. And here Paul said, this
is the problem with the mind. It's vanity. And if that part
is vain, if the most noble part is corrupt, how much more are
all the other parts? Man's problem is with his mind. And this phrase here, the vanity,
of the mind. Terence asked me one day this
week what this word vanity meant. I think we have to go to the
context to find out sometime what it means because the word
here simply means empty, uselessness. But I think probably according
to this context you're more even than that. What does it mean
in this context? It means this, everything that's
associated with the mind. Everything that the mind produces
is unprofitable and vain and empty from a spiritual standpoint. We have given to us here four
things in verse 18 that I would call the product, the by-product
of the mind that walks in vanity. This is a by-product, four of
them. First of all, in verse 18, he says this, Having the
understanding darkened. What does a mind that walks in
vanity produces? A darkened understanding. It
can't understand. What is man's problem? He's in
the dark, isn't he? If we could come here and have
some way to shut all the light out of this room, all of the
windows and turn the lights out, well, you couldn't see your hand
in front of you. And we had a huge chalkboard up here with all kinds
of good things written on it. We turned the lights off and
I said, Larry, would you read this for us? What would he say? Brother, I can't see it. I just can't see it. Is that
not man's problem? He has this veil over the eyes
of his understanding. When Paul first began this epistle,
remember what he prayed for these Christians. He said, I pray for
you that the Lord would open your understanding, enlighten
the eyes of your understanding. That's the lost man's problem. I gave a tract. I may have told
you about this. I gave a tract to my neighbor the other day.
And it was the most simple tract with Charles Spurgeon I've ever
seen in my life. Behold the Lamb of God. There's
some of them back there. And he kept it for a few days
and he came back over and he said, he said, I read that tract
and he said, I can't understand a thing it said. I can't understand
a thing it said. You know what his problem is?
A darkened understanding. There is none that understand
it. What's the matter with him? It's
a byproduct of this vain mind. And on top of that, he has this
enemy, this angel, the God of this world, that Paul says has
blinded the minds of them that believe not, lest the light of
the glorious gospel of God should shine through unto them. The natural man does not receive
the things of the Spirit of God. And there is no sense in getting
mad at him. It would be just like me getting mad at Larry
because he can't read the chalkboard up here when the room is totally
dark. What does he need? He needs somebody
to reach his flip on the light switch. Then he can see. But until that happens, he cannot
see. What is the wrong? What's wrong
with this lost world? It don't understand. It just
don't understand. That's its problem. And he says,
secondly, here's another by-product looking at this. Having the understanding
darkened, being alienated from the life of God. That word alienated
simply means estranged. They're aliens. They're aliens. What does it mean to be an alien?
I think we know something about that in our day, don't we? We're
having big debates about that right now, about illegals coming
into this country from another country. What does it mean to
be an illegal alien, an alien to a country? Well, I went to
Mexico for a while. Mexico's trying to tell our country,
you guys just ain't treating our illegal aliens properly.
You need to afford them more rights. I tell you, you go down
to Mexico. You better not be caught without your papers in
Mexico. I mean, they got fellas standing on the corner with AK-47s.
I got my picture made of one of them. They got old truckloads
of soldiers. And they can stop you at any
time and check your papers and haul you off to jail, and nobody
may hear anything from you again. When you're an alien, that means
you don't have the rights. You don't have the privileges.
You don't have the protections. that's afforded the citizens
of that country. You don't have a constitution
to protect you. Paul said, these men that are
lost, that don't know the Lord, they're aliens from the life
of God. What does that mean? Well, it
means you don't experience the benefits of this life in your
soul. What is the life of God in the
soul? Is it not peace? Bill, you said something back
there about peace. Ain't that one of the first things we experience?
We're not aliens to this life. This life brings peace. It brings
joy. It brings the assurance. It brings hope. It brings rest. It brings holiness. It brings
love. The life of faith and communion
and fellowship with God. But Paul said they're aliens
to this. They have no right to it. They've never experienced
what it is to know the life of God in their souls. You have
to be a citizen to know something about that, don't you? John was
writing his epistle, 1 John, and he's writing to those, he
was saying that those things which we've heard ourselves and
which we've seen ourselves, we declare them to you. He said
the life, the life of God, this eternal life in Christ was manifested. And we saw Him, we handled Him,
we heard Him with our ears, and we're declaring this life to
you that you may have fellowship with us. And truly our fellowship
is with the Father and with His Son. What does it mean to be
an alien to this life of God? You don't have the right to it.
You don't have the privileges of it. You don't know the source
of it. And you don't know the effects
of it in the soul. He's an alien. He's an alien
from the life of God. The believer experiences it,
but the non-believer is alien to it. The love of God is shed
abroad in the heart, but the aliens know nothing about it.
to you that believe He's precious. But the lost know nothing about
that. The peace of God which passes all understanding keeps
your heart and your mind. But aliens know nothing about
that. Why? Because they're aliens to the
life of God. What's the problem? The mind. It's the mind. And thirdly, Paul
mentions this, and look at this. through the ignorance that is
in them. Why is an unbeliever, why is
he an alien from the life of God? Because he's ignorant of
the true nature of God. He's ignorant of the nature of
salvation that's by the Lord Jesus Christ. One man said this,
I think it was Gilbert, he said this about this. He said, where
such ignorance reigns in the mind as it does in every vain
mind. There can be no saving faith
in God. Our desire after God, our communion
with God, our dependence upon Him, our worship of Him, our
heart compliance to His will. Where ignorance reigns in the
heart, you can't worship God. You can't believe on Him. You
can't love Him. You know all ignorance does is just commit
idolatry. That's all it does. Trust in
itself. It's full of idolatry and self-righteousness.
You remember when Paul was upon Myer's Hill and they had an altar
there to the unknown God. To the unknown God. All their
altars said it, to this God, to that God. Then they had an
altar to the unknown God. And Paul said, I beheld your
devotions. And as I did, I beheld this altar
with this inscription, to the unknown God." And then what did
he say? To whom you ignorantly worship. If a person worships God without
knowing the nature of God, and the nature of salvation in Christ,
the nature of my acceptance with God, what is it? It's just idolatry,
ain't it? The best he can do is idolatry.
Paul was writing about the Jews, and he said, I bear on record
that they have a zeal of God, but not according to knowledge.
For they have been ignorant of God's righteousness. Ignorant
of the righteousness that He requires. Ignorant that the fact
that He has furnished us this righteousness in Christ. Ignorant
of how to receive it by faith. And what do they do? They go
about to establish their own righteousness. Ignorance. What's wrong with the world?
It's really nothing you can see. That's the symptoms. That's only the symptoms. The
problem is the mind. It's the darkened understanding.
It's the ignorance that is in there. And then he goes on and
he says this in verse 4, verse 18, the last part of verse 18.
Because of the blindness or hardness, If you look on your, if you've
got a little grief in your mind, this is what it says, the hardness
of the heart, the blindness of the hardness of the heart. Now,
man's heart is naturally hard. When he's born into this world,
he's hard. You don't have to teach a little sinner how to
sin. When he's born into this world,
he lies and he hates God. His little heart's hard towards
God. And as he grows up, sin hardens his heart more. He hardens
his own heart through sin. They say he'd be hardened through
the deceitfulness of sin. And then there's the judicial
hardness of God. You know God hardens some men's
hearts. The Scripture says in John chapter 12 verse 40, God
hath blinded their minds and hardened their hearts, lest they
should see with their eyes and understand with their hearts
and be converted. And I should heal them. Brother
Glenn, I've often thought of what you said years ago. If you
don't believe, God picks you where you can't believe. If you
won't come, God picks you where you can't come. You harden your
heart against Him, He may very well harden your heart to the
Lord. And God does that. And our text seems to teach here
that one reason the men continue in their ignorance and alienation
and darkness is for this reason that they willingly harden their
hearts. And the scripture teaches that.
Listen to Zechariah chapter 7 verse 12. They refused to harken. They pulled the shoulder away,
and they stopped their ears that they should not hear. Yea, they
made their hearts as an adamant stone lest they should hear the
law and the words by my Spirit in my prophets, saith the Lord. Therefore the wrath of the Lord
cometh upon them. They harden their hearts. Today, if you will hear his voice,
harden not your hearts. And verse 19 sums it up. And
he tells us here, it's just like on a downhill course. Who, being
past spilling, have given themselves over to lusciousness to work
all uncleanness with greediness. It's just a downhill course. The longer a man lives in this
world and hardens his heart, it finally ends in a life with
unbelief and utter despair, where he finally says, well, I've served
my sins, so after them I'll go. It's that awful, wretched, miserable
unbelief that reigns in the heart. There's no hope, he says. I've
loved my sins, so I'll go after them. I'll go after them. You
know you don't hear many older people being converted, do you? There was a lady, Judy West,
down at Brother Donny's conference. And it seemed like the Lord had
really done something for her, but she's 68 years old. I was
talking with her the other day, and I said, I heard something
about happened to you, and I want you to tell me about it. She
said, the Lord has saved me. The Lord has saved me. And I
was talking with her pastor and her husband, some of them. They
said, man, you wouldn't believe the difference in Judy. What would
be the difference in view? She was hard. Boy, she was hard.
But that's the exception, ain't it? Because as men go on in their
natural state, and they hear the gospel from a preacher, they
hear it from reading, they hear it from neighbor, the things
that's in this universe, the creation testified, and they
harden, and they harden, and they harden themselves. And after
a while, they're past feeling. Conviction doesn't bother them.
Talk to them about the judgment of God. Talk to them about the
goodness of God. They're past feeling. They're
past feeling. Verse 20. But ye. Ain't that wonderful? This is Paul's favorite word,
I guess, sometimes. But ye. Ain't that wonderful? See how he distinguishes between
the saved and the unsaved? Between the true believer and
the unbeliever? But ye. Oh, he's been going downhill,
downhill, downhill, until he reached the point where there
was no return. Giving themselves over. But ye.
What made the difference, brethren? What is the difference and what
made the difference? But ye... Paul said this in chapter
2, verse 4, didn't he? He was talking about us being
dead in our trespass and sin. Walking according to the course
of this world. The spirit that now works in
the children of disobedience. We all had our conversation in
time past. In the lust of our flesh. We
were children of wrath by nature. And then he says, but God. And
he breaks in on that course of sin and eternal ruin, and he
says, But God, who is rich in mercy for His great love for
His beloved, even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened
us together with Christ. He does it again in chapter 2
and verse 13. He told us that we were without
hope, without God, without Christ in this world. And then he says,
But now, in Christ Jesus, Ye who sometimes were for all are
made nigh by the blood of Christ." So he distinguishes between the
believer and the non-believer. He's describing the miserable
condition of the lost. Then he says, but you aren't
like that anymore. Oh, he's not saying you're so
much better. That's not what he said. But he said you're so
much different. It's different for you now. And
the first difference he makes is this. It has to do with the
mind. Did you notice this? The understanding
is not dark anymore. It's not ignorant anymore. Look
what he says in verse 20. But you have not so learned Christ. And he says, verse 21, if so
be that you have heard Him and have been taught by Him. What's happened? Well, something's
happened, but where did it happen? Right where the problem was,
in the mind. You see what Christ does, brothers
and sisters? He doesn't come to deal with
the symptoms. He comes to take care of the problem. And then
that takes care of the symptoms. He goes to the inside. He goes
to the heart of the problem. Oh, if I could just quit doing
that. If I could just quit doing this. That ain't your problem. Your problem is the mind. Our
problem is the mind. That's the heart, the mind. What
does the Lord do? Well, He tells us in chapter
5 of this book in verse 8. Ye were sometimes darkness, but
now are you light in the Lord. You are light. I love that passage. I don't know exactly where it
is. I think it's in Isaiah 9, but I'm not for sure. where Isaiah
talked about those who walked in darkness, they saw a great
light. And those who dwelt in the shadow
of death, to them light is from it. And you come over to the
New Testament in Matthew chapter 4 and verse 16, and Matthew said
that was Christ. That light is Christ. And he
quoted that verse from The Old Testament, but he changed it
just a little bit. And I was amazed one day when
I saw this. Isaiah said they walked in darkness
and they seen a light. Matthew said they sat in darkness. And what seemed to happen, this
is what I love about the King James Bible. It lets us imagine
these things, you see. The other versions, they want
to get everything, the old and the new saying the very same
thing. But when Isaiah said they walked, and Matthew said they
sat in darkness. And it seems to me that they
were walking, walking, walking, couldn't get out of the darkness,
so they just sat down. And there they sat. Once you
used to do anything, we're in darkness. And upon them the light
hath shined. What is that light? What is that
light? Well, it's primarily knowledge. It's knowledge. Now somebody
says, Bruce, now wait a minute, primarily knowledge. Well, I
could quote you eight or ten verses. But why do we have this
Bible? Why did God give us this Bible?
Is it not to give us light in our understanding? Is it not
to bring us to the knowledge of the truth? God would have
us to be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth, as we
read this morning in that text. There are some people saying,
you've heard them, you've heard preachers say it, church members say it,
we don't preach doctrine here. I've had people to tell me, we
don't preach doctrine here. We don't preach knowledge, knowledge
here. We want people to experience something. Well, they'll experience
something all right. They'll experience something
all right. When the Lord first comes to us to save us, He comes
to our mind. And what does he do? He sends
light into the mind. He begins with giving us knowledge. Knowledge. That's the first difference between
the saved and the lost. Paul said it's in the mind. And
it has to do with darkened understanding and then enlightened understanding.
It has to do with ignorance and it has to do with knowing. That's
the difference between them. And these verses aren't talking
now about stuffing our heads with facts. It's not talking
about coming to knowledge of some system. That's not what
it's talking about. I think I hear Diana say something
about when she first began to learn the truth, it didn't have
much to do with calendars. And you know what that was, did
you? I didn't either. I don't know. What is a calendar? You're a calendarist. I'm a what?
You think somebody just cussed you or something, you know? I'm
a Calvinist? What's that? I didn't know anything about
Calvinism. But the Lord began to open my
heart to what He said in His Word. But notice here how He says this,
and I love how He says this here in verse 20. He says, You have
learned Christ. You have learned Christ. He puts
it in a negative way. Let us read it in a positive
way. You have learned Christ. He said, here's the difference
between Jew and those Gentiles which know not God. You have
learned Christ. Oh, it's knowledge. It's the
knowledge of this glorious person. Him. Brother Larry taught us
a few weeks ago about why the apostles sometimes used this
name Christ and what it meant. It's the anointed. God anointed
Christ. That's the Messiah, the Christ,
the anointed of God. And I think if you're in this
context, when He's talking about anointing Him, He's anointing
Him as our priest. He's the mediator between God
and man. This is the way we first come
to know Him. Let me explain it this way. I
went for years, and I've told you so many times, I went for
years, all through my teenage years. And I had my Mediator
between me and God. And it was promises that I was
making to God. If you'll not kill me tonight,
one thing about it, I promise you, I will do better tomorrow.
That was my Mediator. Not lying to my mother. I quit
lying to my mother. I was afraid to. That was my
Mediator that became my Mediator. Some little thing I would do
was my Mediator between me and God. I set it up there. And one day, bless God for it,
almost suddenly I learned Christ. And what did I learn? He was
the mediator between me and God. And He by Himself and by His
marriage could save me. That He ever lived for that very
reason to save me to the uttermost. I learned Christ. I learned Christ. And when I learned Christ, I
found rest for my soul. And Paul said, that's the difference
between you and these other Gentiles that know not God. You've learned
Christ. Look at them, he says. Look how
ignorant they are. Look how they try to worship
God in their self-righteousness. They set up their silly idols
one after another. But look at you. You've learned
Christ. He's your everything. The person
of Christ. The glorious Son of God. He's
everything to you. You've learned Him. Now, brothers
and sisters, wasn't there a time in your life that you had not
learned Christ? You had a very low opinion of
Him at best. But when He taught you Himself,
oh, it made all the difference, didn't it? It made the difference. That's what the Apostle Paul
has been talking about throughout this book. Look here in chapter
1. Look here in verse 12. He's been
talking about knowing Him. That's what he's talking about. That we should be, chapter 1
and verse 12, that we should be to the praise of His glory
who first trusted in Christ. In whom you also trusted after
you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation.
in whom after you believed, you were sealed with that Holy Spirit
of promise." And look what he says down in verse 17. "...that
the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give
unto you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge
of Him." In the knowledge of Him. And look what he says over
here in chapter 3, in verse 17. that Christ may dwell in your
hearts by faith, that you, being rooted and grounded in love,
may be able to grasp and comprehend with all things what is the breadth
and length and depth and height, and to know the love of Christ,
which passeth knowledge." To know Christ, the person of Christ.
That's what he says over in chapter 4, in verse 13. Till we all come in the unity
of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God. Knowing Christ. You've learned Christ. And now here in verse 21, he
goes on to tell us how we learned Christ. First, this gives us this sweeping
statement. You've learned Christ. And now
in verse 21, he's going to tell us how we learned Christ. How
does a man learn Christ? You've heard Him and have been
taught by Him as the truth is in Jesus. You've heard Him. He's taught you. What's the problem
with the lost world? Well, it needs to be taught because
it's ignorant. And you and I have tried to teach
it. We failed. A lot of times through no fault
of our own. But you know something? Somebody
mentioned in their prayer, I think it was Terrence mentioned in
his prayer, the problem with the world, they're just hearing
this voice. They're just being taught by
this voice. You know what the world needs
to hear? His voice. The world needs to be taught
of Him. When the world hears His voice,
and when the world is taught by Him, then the world will learn
Christ. But not until then. This is the
difference between us and them. We have heard Him, and we've
been taught the truth by Him. We have learned Christ, but ye. But ye. Oh, thank God there is
some but ye's in this world. There's some but ye's here this
evening. And that's our hope, isn't it? But ye have learned
Christ. Oh, it's not because we're any
better. But we are different. We are different. Absolutely
different. And He's made us to different.
He's made us to different. One more thing quickly. Verse
20 and 21 says here that He's made a difference, but there's
something else. When you link verses 20 and 21 to verse 24,
I want to skip down to verse 24. Here's the first thing He
says that you're different. You've learned Christ. And then
in verse 21 He tells us how we learned Him. We've heard Him.
He's taught us. But here He links those two verses with something
else in verse 24. that ye put on the new man which
after God is created in righteousness and true holiness." He links
it to regeneration and the new birth, the new creature. It's not only that we've heard
Him and learned of Him, but look what this has led to, a new creature,
a new creation. When Christ begins to teach a
man of himself, he makes him a new creature. When he learns Christ, he finds
out also that he's just been made a new creature. Now, I tell
you what, the new birth, being made a new creature, is a mysterious
thing to me. I used to have all this figured out. If you ask
me the very instant I was born again, oh, I can tell you the
very instant I was born again. I sort of doubt it anymore. I
just sort of doubt it. I know where I learned Christ.
And it was right around that time. It has to be. Right in
there. Where I was made a new creature. But they're linked together and
you can't separate. We've got this big controversy
amongst some of the dear brethren today. Is a man born again and
then he believes? Or does he believe and is he
born again? Well, you know something about
that controversy, they'll never get it figured out. They'll never
get it figured out. The best thing we can say about
it is this. Somewhere here when Christ begins to teach you of
Himself, and you truly learn Him, at the same time, you're
made a new creature. You're this new creation. And
you find that in the other places of Scripture. You remember when
the Lord Jesus said in John 5, the hour is coming, and now is,
when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God, and
they that hear shall live. Well, right here is that voice.
You've heard Him and been taught by Him, and you're alive. He
says the same thing in John chapter 3, talking about the new birth,
being like the wind. You hear the sound. You hear
the sound. What is that sound? It's His
voice, isn't it? What happens when you hear His
voice? You're taught of Him. You hear Him. And you're alive. And you're made a new creature.
What's the difference between the lost man and the saved man?
Well, it's not only that he's learned Christ, but the saved
man has a new nature. He's a new person. He's a new
being that never existed before. And what is the nature of that
new man? What is His legend? Righteousness and true holiness. And I'm not saying look down
deep within you and you can see a little man down there that's
created and righteous. That's not some little person
in you. That's you. If any man be in Christ, he is
a new creature. One fellow told me this one time,
he said, I've looked inside of me, and there's no new creature
down there inside of me. And he said, I don't see a new
creature in anybody else. What does the Bible say, brothers
and sisters? You're God's creation, created
in Christ Jesus. There is a new creature there.
One more passage of Scripture. Look over here in 1 Peter chapter
1. Look at 1 Peter 1. Look in verse 22. Seeing ye have purified your
souls, and obeying the truth. The truth. The truth as it is
in Jesus. You've heard Him. He's taught
you the truth. Ye have obeyed the truth through the Spirit
unto unfinished love of the brethren. See that ye love one another
with a pure heart firmly. Then born again, not of corruptible
seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth
and abideth forever. All flesh is grass. The glory
of man is as the flower of the grass. The grass withers, the
flower fadeth away. Let the Word of our Lord endure
forever. And this is the Word which by
the Gospel is preached unto you." We're made new creatures. At
the very time when Christ begins to teach us of Himself and we
learn Him, we're made new creatures. We're born again. We're born
again of the message. We're born again of the Gospel.
Why did He put this like this? When He said, You are begotten
of the Word, and then He turns around and says, This is the
Word which by the Gospel. There are certain things in the
Word of God that's not Gospel. You have the Law of Moses in
here, and that's not Gospel. I'm telling you, that will condemn
you. That will curse you and cast you out. That don't give
rest, that gender strife. But in this book is the message
of the Gospel. So it's not just sharing the
words of this book. How many people read this book?
Jack Van Impe, years ago, had the whole New Testament memorized.
You think Jack knows the message? It's the message. Being barned
again of the message that this book tells us. And I tell you,
when you're barned again, Peter said it's of the incorruptible
seed. You've got a new creature. A new creature. And you know
something? This affects the mind. Here's
what the Lord said. A new heart will I give you.
And a new spirit will I put within you. And I'm going to take you,
He said, of that stony heart that's in you. I'm going to take
out that stony heart that's in you that you've been hardening
through sin. I'm going to give you a heart
of flesh. A pliable heart. A soft heart.
This is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel
after those days and with the house of Judah. I will put my
laws where? In their minds. See how He deals
with our problem. He gives us a new mind. Puts
His Spirit in it. And then says walk like it. Just
be what you are and walk like it. So the Christian is commanded
to think, to act, to walk differently from the world because he is
different. The Lord is not commanding us
to do anything we cannot do. I tried for years to be a Christian.
I couldn't be one. I despaired of being one until
the Lord made me one. When He makes you one, you can
be one. If He commands us to do what we can't do, then He
has to give us grace to do it. Before He gives us grace to do
it, He gives us grace to be it. He changes the mind. He makes us holy. And He says,
walk holy. He makes us good and says, be
good. We're born of His love. And He says, love one another. Oh, in our ignorance, we tried
to live the Christian life. In our ignorance, we tried to
live the Christian life. All the time was nothing but
idolatry. But he made us Christians. And
now, what in the world are you doing here? Well, you're driving
three hours to come here. Why are you doing that? Why are
you doing what you're doing? Nobody's making you. You're doing
just what you want to do. Let's pray.