Now let's open our Bibles again
this evening to Ephesians chapter 4. Ephesians chapter 4. Verse 22, that you 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 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 we are members one of another. Be ye angry and
sin not. Let not the sun go down upon
your wrath. Neither give place to the devil.
Let him that stole steal no more, but rather let him labor, working
with his hands the thing which is good, that he may have to
give to him that needeth. Let no corrupt communication
proceed out of your mouth, but that which is good to the use
of edifying, that it may minister grace unto the hearers. And grieve
not the Holy Spirit of God, whereby you are sealed unto the day of
redemption. Let all bitterness and wrath
and anger and clamor and evil speaking be put away from you
with all malice, and be you kind one to another, tenderhearted,
forgiving one another, even as God, for Christ's sake, hath
forgiven you." We began looking at these verses last time, verses
in which the apostle is exhorting believers, that is, God's children,
to put off the conversation of the old man and to put on the
new man. In this chapter, of course, the
apostle Paul is dealing with the believer's walk in this world. You notice back in verse 1 when
he began this practical section of the letter, and therefore
the prisoner of the Lord beseech you that you walk worthy. He's dealing with the believer's
walk in this world, that we walk worthy of the vocation, the calling
wherewith we have been called. And that calling is God's effectual
call when he called us out of darkness and translated us into
the kingdom of his dear son. We ought to walk worthy of that
holy, high, heavenly calling. And he's continuing on in these
verses tonight. When we looked at some of these
verses last time, I had us turn to Galatians chapter 5, and we
looked at a list of the works of the flesh, that is, that which
is the conversation of the old man. We do not read there of
the works of the spirit. We read of the works of the flesh,
but not the works of the spirit, we read of the fruit of the Spirit. Let's look back a few pages and
see that. In Galatians chapter 5, just
a couple of pages back, after listing the works of the
flesh, Then he said in verse 16, this
I say then, walk in the spirit and you shall not fulfill the
lust of the flesh. And then he lists the works of
the flesh and then down to verse 22. But the fruit of the spirit,
not the works of the spirit, but the fruit of the spirit is
love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith,
meekness, temperance. Against such there is no law. The things that the new man is
to put on are produced by God, the Holy Spirit, who lives in
the child of God. I want you to look back also to
Matthew chapter 12, just a moment, or let me read this verse if
you would like. Matthew chapter 12, these words
of the Lord. You know, people have the idea
that you just turn over a new leaf. You just make a resolution. You want to be a better person.
You join a church and you take on the name of a Christian. But that doesn't solve the problem. The problem is the heart, the
heart that is desperately wicked and deceitful above all things.
And that's the reason A man must be born again. Or as our Lord
says here, the tree must be made good first, and then the fruit
will be good. But just to try to produce good
fruit in the energy of the flesh, and many people do that. But
that's not what the Apostle Paul is speaking of in our text. Here
in Matthew chapter 12 and verse 33, the Lord Jesus said, either make the tree good and
his fruit good, or else make the tree corrupt and his fruit
corrupt, for the tree is known by his fruit." That's so easy
to understand, isn't it? When you see a tree with apples
on it, you don't have to wonder what kind of tree that is. It's
an apple tree. It's an apple tree. It has apples
upon it. And when men and women are born
of the Spirit of God and have this new man living within us
and the Holy Spirit living within us, then the fruit of the Spirit
is good fruit, love, joy, peace, these things that the Apostle
mentioned there in Galatians 5. Now, Paul gives some particulars. He gives some particulars contrasting
the conversation or the walk that is to be put off and the
conversation, the walk, which is to be put on. Now we looked
at two of those last time. Lying is to be put off And speaking
the truth is to be put on. Lying, the flesh, the old man. Speaking the truth, the new man,
the fruit of the spirit, the new man. And a second one we
looked at, being angry and sinning is to be put off. The works of
the flesh, being angry and sinning. The works, or the fruit rather,
of the spirit, the new man, is to be angry and not sin. Now,
before we go on this evening, I want to call our attention
once again to that verse, verse 23, that is sandwiched between
these two verses where Paul says, put off and put on. In verse
23, here in our text, Ephesians 4 and verse 23, and be renewed
in the spirit of your mind. Now he's writing to believers.
He's not writing to lost people. He's writing to believers. Their
minds have already been renewed. That's part of regeneration.
But we must continue to renew our minds. That's our responsibility. And he's given means whereby
our minds are continually being renewed. The Word of God, preaching,
prayer, fellowship of the saints. All of these things are very
important and we neglect them to our detriment because we need
continually our minds to be renewed, renewed so that we put off and
put on the things of the new man. Now let's go on with these
particulars. There's, I believe, four more.
Number three, He says, do not give place to the devil. Do not
give place to the devil. Giving place to the devil. What
does that mean? Giving place to the devil is
living, walking our conversation that is associated with the old
man and resisting him. Give not place to the devil.
but to resist him is associated with the new man. Now the noun,
the name devil, we know that he is called Satan, but devil,
that's one of his names also, and it describes him. That word
devil tells us what he is, and that is he is a slanderer. He slanders. He accuses. That's his work. Resist the slanderer. That's what we're told to do.
Resist the slanderer. Not give place to the devil. In James, the apostle said, resist
the devil and he will flee from you. Now, when we think about
the devil slandering, And this is so, he slanders, he may insinuate
in your mind, slander towards a fellow believer. Don't give
place to that. Don't listen to that slander. He may slander a Bible truth. The Bible truths, for instance,
of election. and perseverance of the saints
and God's limited atonement. He may slander these things. Resist that. Don't give place
to that. Don't listen to that. Be grounded
in the word of God. Resist Satan and he will flee. He may slander you to yourself. Right? He may slander you to
yourself and tell you how sorry you are and how you could not
possibly be a child of God. He's a slander and he's sly.
He's sly. In the next, in the chapter six
of Ephesians, we're told that, or we read rather of his fiery
darts. these fiery darts, and we are
given the shield of faith by which we quench these fiery darts. Now Martin Luther was quoted,
I've read this before and I can't give you a word for word quote,
but this is what he said. He said, I can't keep birds from
flying over my head. I just can't do that. But I can
keep them from building a nest in my head. And we experience
thoughts that come across our mind and it may be one of those
fiery darts that Satan has hurled at us. Take the shield of faith. Resist Satan. Don't give place
to the devil. One of the best helps here when
we think about resisting and not giving place to him is to
fill and to occupy our minds with good things, rather than
evil things, good things. Look over the other way in the
Bible, forward in the next little letter of Philippians, if you
will, in chapter four, verses eight and nine. This is
Paul's admonition to believers. Finally, brethren, whatsoever
things are true, whatsoever things are honest, you know, believers
must be careful about what they put into their mind. Someone
one time said, garbage in, garbage out. You put garbage in, that's
what's going to come out. Whatsoever things are true, whatsoever
things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things
are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are
of good report, if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise,
think on these things. These things, these things, which
you have both learned and received and heard and seen in me do,
and the God of peace shall be with you. So that's the third
particular here that Paul deals with. Neither give place to the
devil. The fourth, do not steal. In verse 28, let him that stole
steal no more, but rather let him labor, working with his hands
a thing which is good, that he may have to give to him that
needeth. Do not steal. Do not steal, but
work that you may have to give to those in need." You might
think, well, was it necessary? Was it really necessary that
the Apostle Paul would need to write believers, children of
God, to quit stealing, not to steal anymore? Well, the Holy
Spirit thought so. He's the one that inspired this
word that the apostle wrote. He's the one that deemed it necessary. You know, stealing may be done
in different ways, but it all comes down to this. It is taking
something or using something that belongs to someone else
without their permission. That's what it basically amounts
to. Let him that stole, that was
your way of life. The old man didn't think anything
about pilfering and taking things off the job, things that didn't
belong to him, just appropriating them to himself. But that's old
man and his conduct and his conversation, that's to be put off and put
on the new man. I want you to look over to 2
Thessalonians, and this is something that when we think about stealing,
in 2 Thessalonians chapter 3, there were people in this church,
and this church of all the churches, as far as doctrinal I don't think
you find that in the letters of Thessalonians, either 1st
or 2nd Thessalonians. Paul was in this city for just
a short time. He went there, I believe, from
Berea, and the Lord raised up a church there. But notice when
he writes back the second time to them in chapter 3, verse 10
and 11, He says, and he felt it necessary
to write this, for even when we were with you, this we commanded
you, that if any would not work, neither should he eat. Now, that's
a way of stealing. Someone who would not work but
depended upon other people. Now we're talking about able-bodied
men. We're not talking about people
who are injured or sick or handicapped or anything like that. But people
who physically and mentally are able to work and yet they just
let someone else support them. That's a form of stealing. And
Paul had to admonish the people in the church Thessalonica about
this. Because he said, for we hear
that there are some which walk among you disorderly, working
not at all, but are busybodies. Now them that are such we command
and exhort by our Lord Jesus Christ that with quietness they
work and eat or earn their own bread. The remedy against stealing
is here given, isn't it? Let him that stole steal no more,
but rather work, work with his hands. And it's not only working
with your hands, Paul says, to provide for your own needs and
the needs of your family. And also there, and to the church
at Thessalonica, he said, if a man doesn't provide for his
own family, he's worse than an infidel, and it's denied the
faith. But the remedy is to work and to
earn money to take care of yourself, and then to have to give to others,
the joy of giving to others. The Lord Jesus Christ said this,
it is more blessing to give than it is to receive. It's a real
joy, isn't it, to be able to work, to be able to work and
to earn money and have enough not only to take care of yourself
and your family, but also to give to others who are in need. To give, it's a blessing. It's
more blessing to give than it is to receive. And our Lord also
said this, give, and it shall be given unto you, good measure
pressed down, shaken together, and running over shall men give
into your bosom, for with the same measure that you meet with
all, it shall be given to you again. I read just today a story,
and this took place in the 1800s, I'm sure, in England. But this young boy had a six
pence, a shiny six pence. Now, I've never understood English
coins. I'll just be honest. But I know
that that's not a pound in their money. Six pence. It probably
would be a little bit more than six pennies. I'm not sure about
that. But anyway, he had a shiny six pence. He held it up to his
Sunday school teacher and told her, he said, here, Teacher,
give this to Jesus. Well, it wasn't much. And at
first she said, well, I can't do that. No, he said, I want
you to give this to Jesus. So she took it home, and that
night she prayed about it. And the next morning, she took
the sixpence and went to the store and bought some flour and
some fruit and something else. I can't remember exactly what
all she bought. Brought it home and cooked and
made some buns and put those few buns in a dish and put them
in the front window and put a sign there for sale. But it wasn't
long, they were all sold. Next day, she took that money
and bought more flour and more. And then after a while, she added
something else. She started selling alongside
those buns. And then eventually she started
also selling Bibles. And the preacher, the pastor
who told this story, she showed him, she told him the story and
she showed him her ledger. And out of that six pence, which
was very small, and her work, what she did with that money,
her work, that ledger book had like 150 pounds, George Mueller's
orphanage, 200 pounds, China Inland Mission, and just things
like that, that little, little as much, I believe there's a
song, little is much when God is in it. When those few loaves
of bread and few fish were in the hands of the Lord Jesus Christ,
they became much, right? Little is much. But the point
is, it's a joy to be able to give. And that young boy, that
young lad wanted to give and he did give and out of his giving,
It was multiplied many times over and put into spreading the
gospel in the world. Number five, do not be guilty
of corrupt language, but let good and gracious words come
out of your mouth. Now, corrupt language we recognize
to include filthy and unclean words, but That's not the only
way that corrupt language proceeds out of our mouth. Boastful, proud,
arrogant speaking. That's corrupt language too.
It really is. And in my mind, the use of God's
name. And folks, I've said this before,
and I just remind us again tonight, we live in such a time that most
people have no idea of the command, thou shalt not take the name
of the Lord thy God in vain. And to use his name in conversation
and frivolously and as an exclamation every time something happens
is taking God's name in vain. And God said that his enemies
take his name in vain. Let no corrupt communication
proceed out of your mouth. Be recognized that God's name,
that's God. That represents him, the name
of the Lord. For whosoever shall call upon
the name of the Lord. What does that mean? That means
to call upon the Lord. His name is him. And he said,
don't take my name in vain. That's one of the commands, wasn't
it? Israel of old, you say, is that still for us? Absolutely,
absolutely. But then gracious, edifying words,
that's the fruit of the spirit. This is what should proceed out
of our mouth. And let me say this, just as
I, making these notes up yesterday, just as I got to this point,
exactly at this point, I received a text And it was filled with
gracious words that ministered unto me. Gracious words. That's
what is meant here, isn't it? Our conversation, when we speak
to one another, when we speak to others, we should encourage
people and we should lift up. And if we stick with the gospel,
that'll always be gracious words, if we minister the gospel. to those, to the ears of those
that we speak with. And the sixth thing, grieve not
the Holy Spirit, whereby believers are sealed unto the day of redemption. Now the first truth to see here
when Paul says, grieve not the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit
is a person. He's called the third person
in the Godhead. but he is a person. And being
called third doesn't mean that he is less than the father and
the son. When we think of that, it's a
parallel line. There's a first, second, and
third. It's not first, second, and third. Because God, the Holy
Spirit, is God. And he is a person. You can't
grieve a power. You know, most of the cults,
they deny the person of God, the Holy Spirit. Now, if you
come in contact with electrical current, say 220, you may be
grieved, probably will be. That current, that power is not
going to be grieved. For one to be grieved must be
a person. Just as Peter told Ananias, you've
lied to God. You can't lie to an immaterial
being or thing, but to a person. And that's the first thing we
should see here. Grieve not the Holy Spirit. He's
a person. He's a person. And he is grieved with the conversation
of the old man. The things named in this passage,
these are things that grieve him. The things that we have
already looked at and that which follows. And remember this also,
the Holy Spirit is the seal. He himself is the seal. Now we
think of a seal, you seal a document with wax or something like that
or a little metal thing, but no, God the Holy Spirit, he is
the seal. And he has sealed every believer
by his presence. He lives in every child of God. Look back to Ephesians 1. Verse 13, the apostle says, in
whom you also trusted, after that you heard the word of truth,
the gospel of your salvation, in whom also After that you believed,
you were sealed with that Holy Spirit of promise. Isn't that,
that's God's order there. Hearing, you got to hear. How should they believe in him
whom they have not heard? Believe, and at that point a
person is sealed. God the Holy Spirit. his work
of regeneration, and he comes to live again. And notice it
was sealed back in the text here, Paul says, and grieve not the
Holy Spirit of God, whereby you are sealed unto the day of redemption. What is that, the day of redemption?
Well, most people believe, and I think rightly so, that is speaking
of the resurrection of the body. He has made unto us wisdom, righteousness,
sanctification, and redemption. And let me read this passage
in 1 Corinthians 15. You're sealed, your body is sealed
with God the Holy Spirit. And in 1 Corinthians 15 in verse
42, Paul said, so also is the resurrection of the dead. Now
I want you to notice this word it. It is sown in weakness. Now, what is it that's buried?
It's the body, isn't it? It, the body, is sown in weakness. It is, it is sown in corruption. It is raised in incorruption,
a body. It is sown in dishonor. The body in which we now live,
this tent, this tabernacle, it will be buried and it will turn
back to the dust. We know that's going to happen,
but it's sealed. The body is sealed. You say,
well, that's hard to believe. If it were not God who was doing
it, it would be impossible, right? But with God, all things are
possible. And I like to think, was it William
Tyndall, they dug his bones up, man who gave his life to translating
the scriptures into English, they dug his bones up and burned
them and took the ashes and threw them into the river and they
were washed out to sea. That body is going to be, it
was sown in corruption. It is going to be raised and
in corruption. You say, well, God, he's able,
right? He raised the body of our savior
after it was in the grave for three days. You say, yes, but
it didn't see corruption. I know that. But the power was
put forth and his power, all power, hasn't been diminished. Here's the last thing. Put off
all these things, verse 31. Just put all this off. Bitterness,
wrath, anger, clamor, evil speaking. Put away from you with all malice. Just put that away. And in its
place, and in its place, right? Put on the new man. Be you kind one to another, tenderhearted,
forgiving one another, even as God, for Christ's sake, have
forgiven you." Put these on. Kindness. Tenderheartedness. Forgiving
one another. Forgive even as you have been
forgiven. How have you been forgiven? Believer,
child of God, how have you been forgiven? You've been forgiven
for Christ's sake. You've been forgiven freely upon
the sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ, giving himself. Based
on that sacrifice, you have been freely forgiven. Now, forgive
others. That's part of the model prayer,
isn't it? Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass
against us. I trust the Lord will bless these
words to all of us here this evening.