God's people rejoice in the faithfulness
of God. Great is His faithfulness. He
changes not. There's not a shadow of turning
in Him. If you will, let's open our Bibles
again to Ephesians chapter 4. Tonight we are going to begin
where we left off last time with verse 22, that you put off concerning
the old man, 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. And we are looking at these verses
tonight where the Apostle Paul continues to teach and exhort
believers about our walk, about our conduct as we walk in this
world. The last time we saw his exhortation
in verse 17, not to walk as other Gentiles walk. And I've reminded
us that the Gentiles did not have the word of God. They did
not have the light that only the nation of Israel had been
given the oracles of God. And so he exhorted the believers
here not to walk as other Gentiles walk in the vanity of their minds. And then we ended in verses 20
and 21 in which Paul states that these to whom he is writing had
heard the gospel, they had heard, they had learned the truth as
it is in Christ Jesus. They had learned of him in order
to live a new life, a life in service unto Christ. I want you
to keep your places here, but turn over to 1 Peter chapter
4, and let's read this exhortation of this apostle concerning the
believer's walk in this world. In chapter 4, 1 Peter, the first
three verses, Peter wrote, For as much then as Christ hath suffered
for us in the flesh, arm yourselves likewise with the same mind.
For he that hath suffered in the flesh hath ceased from sin,
that he no longer should live the rest of his time in the flesh
to the lust of men, but to the will of God. Now notice this,
for the time past of our life, that is before we were converted,
before the Lord revealed Himself unto us and brought us unto His
Son, for the time past of our life may suffice us to have wrought
the will of the Gentiles. That's the way They lived, even
though Peter is writing primarily to Jewish believers, but even
still he speaks of walking like the Gentiles. When we walked
in lasciviousness, lust, excess of wine, revelings, banquetings,
and abominable idolatries, wherein they think it strange That is,
the unbelievers, they think it's strange, those of you who have
been saved by the grace of God, unbelievers think it's strange
that you do not continue to live in the same way. They think it's
strange that you run not with them to the same excessive riot,
speaking evil of you, who shall give account to him that is ready
to judge the quick and the dead. Now, I've entitled our study
tonight, Put Off and Put On. Put off and put on. Because that's what the apostle
Paul is exhorting every believer to do. We are to put off and
we are to put on. He uses a metaphor. of putting
on clothes. As we get up in the morning,
we put on our clothes, we dress for the day, and then when we
come in in the evening, we put off our clothes. He uses this
metaphor to speak about what we are to put off concerning
our walk, concerning our conversation in this world. Notice first in
verse 22, put off the conversation of the old man. Put off the conversation
of the old man. In other words, the conduct,
the walk of the old man. Now, let's ask a few questions
here. What does he mean by the old
man? Put off the conversation of the
old man. What does Paul mean when he speaks
about the old man? Well, we know he is talking about
that corrupt nature. that all men inherit when we
come into this world. We inherit a corrupt nature from
our common father, Adam. It's that which the Lord Jesus
Christ called the flesh. In John chapter three, when he
told that very, very religious man, that which is born of the
flesh is flesh. In other words, that which is
born of a corrupt nature Our Father is flesh, is corrupt nature. And then he refers to it as the
old man, because it is natural. It is natural to all men. No
one comes into this world apart from the Lord Jesus Christ. He's
the only man who ever came into this world. Adam was created
holy, that's true, but he soon fell into sin. But apart from
the Lord Jesus Christ, who was not under that covenant and associated
with Adam, he's the seed of the woman, not the seed of the man.
But every other man, every other individual, when we come into
this world, we bring with us a corrupt nature. That's the
reason he's called the old man, and he's old. He's as old as
you are. Your old man is as old as you
are. My old man is as old as I am. In other words, as David said,
in sin did our mother conceive us, and we were born, we brought
forth. Or in iniquity, we were conceived
and brought forth in sin. Now when Paul tells these believers
to put off the conversation of the old man, we recognize he
doesn't say, destroy the old man. That's not what he says. He doesn't say that because that's
not possible. The old man is indestructible
as far as we are concerned. He will remain with every child
of God until the Lord calls us home. As long as we are in this
world, until the Lord calls us home, this old man will continue
with us. We cannot destroy him, and he
doesn't tell us even to improve him. The old man, that which
is born of the flesh is flesh. It was born flesh, it was born
corrupt, and it will die corrupt. That's what the scriptures teach.
However, he does say, put off the conversation of that old
man. And not only put off the conversation,
but put that old man off that place, the place that he, where
he resided, that is in the heart, the will of man, on the throne. He's put off by the Lord Jesus
Christ coming and and living in every child of God. Until
He is put off, then we are governed, every man is governed by Him. In other words, that old nature
is reigning until the Lord Jesus Christ does the work of grace
in our hearts. He no longer reigns, but He remains. but he no longer remains on the
throne. The Lord Jesus Christ now has
taken up residence upon the throne in the heart of everyone who
is saved by his wonderful, marvelous grace. Until then, we were governed
by him, but we put him off, put off his conversation. We walked according to the dictates
of that old man. The dictates, the governing of
that old man, we walked and our conversation was according to
him. So the exhortation is not changing
the old man. That's impossible. But it is
the conversation, the walk, that is changed and is to be put off. Now keep your places here. Turn
back just a few pages. In Galatians chapter 5, the apostle
names the works of the flesh. Galatians
chapter 5 and verse 19. And one way that we know that
by flesh, he's speaking of this corrupt nature, is that most
of these things he mentions are sins which are committed in the
body, no doubt about that. But we also see that there are
sins that have to do with the mind, not just the physical part
of man, but the mental part of man as well. Beginning in verse,
verse, 19. Now the works of the flesh are
manifest. Which are these? Adultery. That's the work of the flesh,
that old nature. Adultery. Fornication. And you notice that almost always
the apostle names these things first. And one of the reasons
is because in that day, in that society, and it may well be like
that again in our day, in our society, Most people see nothing
wrong with adultery. Most people see nothing wrong
with fornication. It's just a way of life. It is
a way of life, but it's a way of life of the flesh, and it's
contrary to the Word of God, to the teachings of the Word
of God. Put off, these are the works
of the flesh and their manifest, which are these, adultery, fornication,
uncleanness, and that would include homosexuality. In this matter
of uncleanness and other kinds of what we would call deviation
from God's order. God's order was when he saw it
was not good for the man to be alone, he created for him a help
me. a woman, his wife, and he only
created one, right? He didn't create two or three.
You say, well, in the Old Testament, many of those men had more than
one wife. They practiced polygamy. That's
true. And you can name them, and I
would say this, every case that I'm familiar with in the scripture,
it all turned out bad. I don't care if it was David,
a greater man of God as he was, or Solomon, or whoever. It all turned out bad. And they
live no doubt to regret doing something. And remember, the
Lord Jesus said that the Lord suffered divorce because of the
hardness of your hearts. It's because men have a corrupt
nature, have a hard heart by nature, that they would have
more than one wife. But let's go back. The works
of the flesh are manifest, which are these, adultery, fornication,
uncleanness, lasciviousness, idolatry. Now, idolatry, yes,
it may be physically bowing down to an idol, but it may be an
idol in our mind, something that we worship, not something physical. Witchcraft, hatred, that's something
that is spiritual, right? Hatred, variance, emulations,
wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, envies, murders, drunkenness,
revelings, and such like, of the which I tell you before,
as I have also told you in time past, that they which do such
things, they that practice such things, shall not inherit the
kingdom of God. So Paul, in our text tonight,
is exhorting believers who have that old nature, that old man,
to put off his conversation, the lifestyle that is produced
by that old man, that sinful part. But then the positive is,
put on the new man. In verse 24, put off and put
on. You put on the new man, which
after God is created in righteousness and true holiness. Remember that
verse I quoted? The Lord Jesus said, that which
is born of the flesh is flesh. He also in that sentence said
that which is born of the spirit is spirit. The spirit, the new
man, it's a creation. It's a creation. And it is the
creation of God. No man can make himself a Christian. No man. I don't care who he is.
He cannot give himself a new heart. Salvation is the work
of the Lord. Creation is the work of the Lord. For a man to believe that he
could make himself a Christian by some act of his will or work
or anything else, would be the same thing as for Adam to have
said that he created himself, that Adam was his own creator. And you know, that's preposterous,
isn't it? That Adam would ever say, I just
one day got some dust and made myself and breathed into myself
a living soul. No. The same thing is true about
the new man that we are to put on. It is the work of God. It
is a creation of God, and it is created in righteousness and
true holiness. When Adam was created in the
image of God, here it is. Here's the image in which he
was created, righteousness and holiness. And that's the new
creation, the new man. that is created in the believer. It is not the repair of the old
nature. It's not the renovation of the
old nature. No, it's a new man, something
that was not here before. John Gill made this comment on
this passage. He said, because it is new in
all its parts, this new man is new in all its parts, such who
have it have a new heart, new spirit given to them. That's
one of the promises of the new covenant. God give us a new heart,
put a new spirit within us. And he went on to say, they have
new eyes to see with, new ears to hear with, and new hands to
handle and work with, and new feet to walk with, and they live
a new life and conversation. Put on the new man. The apostle
exhorts us. Remember hearing this testimony
of a man the Lord saved and he said the next day, he said, either
I'm living in a new world or I've been made a new creation
in Christ Jesus because things look different now. And of course
he had eyes to see. That's the reason the Lord Jesus
Christ, when he was here many times, he said, he that hath
ears to hear, let him hear. Now, the people he was speaking
to, they all had physical ears. And I'm sure they could all hear
one another speak. But he that hath ears to hear,
that's a new creation, a new man that's created in righteousness
and true holiness. And then we can see Christ. So much false teaching has gone
on in my lifetime that most people are convinced that it is in their
power, apart from even the work of the Holy Spirit, to make themselves
a believer, a child of God. That's God's work. That's God's
work. And we know it's God's work because
All the glory and all the praise belongs unto Him. Man cannot
enter in. Man would want to. Man tries
to. He wants to have a part. He wants
to share in that glory. But God will not allow it. Salvation
is of the Lord. Now, before we look at two of
the particulars that Paul mentions in A Believer's Walk, I want
us to look at verse 23. This is sandwiched between our
putting off and our putting on. He says, be renewed in the spirit
of your mind. Now this also is an exhortation. This is an exhortation. Just
as put off is an exhortation, do it, put it off. Put on exhortation. Do it. So is this, an exhortation. Be renewed in the spirit of your
mind. Be renewed in the spirit of your
mind. He exhorts these believers who, as believers, had been renewed. They had a new nature. Their
minds had been renewed. They were new creatures in Christ
Jesus. But it is sad but true, and you
know this is so, that we all as believers tend to grow cold. And we tend to grow lethargic
in our service of the Lord. And our hearts grow hard and
not tender towards the things of God as they are when we were
first converted. Remember Paul, or the Lord Jesus,
rather, to the church at Ephesus in Revelation, he said, I have
somewhat against thee. Thou hast left thy first love. When we were first converted,
I speak from experience, and I know I'm giving the experience
of many of us, we couldn't wait for Sunday to come. We just couldn't
wait for Sunday to come. Why? Because that's the day we
get to go worship the Lord. That's the day we get to go and
hear the gospel, hear the word of God preached. And we felt
the same way about Wednesday nights. But you know, as time
goes on, some believers, they kind of dread when Wednesday
comes, and oh, that's the night when we are supposed to go and
worship the Lord. We grow cold, and when we're
first converted, we can't wait. We look for opportunities to
speak for Christ, to witness for Christ. We just look for
that opportunity to say a word, to testify, of what the Lord
Jesus Christ has done for us and what he means to us. But
as we go along life's way sometimes, as we sang in that hymn just
a little while ago, prone to wander, prone to leave the God
I love, we grow weary in well doing. So Paul says now, be renewed
in the spirit of your mind. That means he is exhorting us
to pray. And ask the Lord to revive us.
Ask the Lord to renew us because we know that we need it. And
I think of how David prayed in that 51st Psalm when he prayed
and he said, create in me a clean heart. Now he already had a new
heart. There's no doubt about that.
He already had a new heart. And yet he prays and asks the
Lord to create in him a clean heart Why? Because he knew that
he had sinned against God. And not only create within me
a clean heart, O God, but renew a right spirit within me. Renew that right spirit. Renew
me. Yes, it is God who works in us
both to will and to do of His good pleasure. But at the same
time, we have a responsibility as God's children to ask the
Lord to work in us, to will and to do. Now, we're going to look
at two of these particular works of the flesh that Paul exhorts
these believers to put off. The first one, verse 25, put
away lying, speak the truth. I thought about him dealing with
lying first of all, before anything else, put away lying. And I wondered
if this is not the first manifestation of sin in all of our lives, when
the scripture says we go astray from the womb, speaking lies. If this isn't the first manifestation
that we have a corrupt nature, a fallen nature, that is lying. And lying, we see, is a work
of the flesh. It is a product of the old man,
the old nature. And most lies, not all lies,
hear me now, but most lies concern the tongue. Not all lies. I know we can lie by look, but
most lies concern the tongue. And I thought about what James
over here in his epistle writes in James chapter 3. And we'll read James 3 in verses
1 through 5. Be not many masters, knowing
that we shall receive the greater condemnation. For in many things
we offend all. If any man offend not in word,
the same is a perfect or mature man, and able also to brattle
the whole body. Behold, we put bits in the horse's
mouth. that they may obey us, and we
turn about their whole body. Behold also the ships, which
though they be so great and are driven of fierce winds, yet are
they turned about with a very small helm. Whithersoever the
governor listeth, even so the tongue is a little member, and
boasteth great things. Behold, how great a matter a
little fire kindleth. Put away lying, speak the truth. David prayed at the end of Psalm
19, let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart
be acceptable in thy sight, O Lord, my strength and redeemer. Lying words are not acceptable
in God's sight. He is the truth. Not only does
he love the truth, he is, God is the truth. Put away lying. Speak the truth, the apostle
says. For Gentiles and for most lost
people, not all lost people, I know there have been men who
have been very moral, very moral men, and they would not ever
tell a lie, knowingly tell a lie. But most fallen men are given
to lying. The devil, who is our spiritual
enemy, we recognize that he is the father of lies. And we should
be and must be on guard when tempted to lie. The opposite
of lying is, of course, speak the truth. No matter where we are, we should
speak the truth. In business, we should speak
the truth. In our conversation with other
men and women, we should speak the truth. But notice Paul gives
a reason for doing this besides the commandment of God. One of
the commandments in that moral code that God gave unto Israel
was, thou shalt not bear false witness. But Paul doesn't mention
that. He says, notice again, if you
will, in verse 25, Wherefore, putting away lying, speak every
man truth with his neighbor. Now notice, not because that's
God's commandment. That is true. But for we are
members one of another. We are members one of another,
as believers. We make up the mystical body
of the Lord Jesus Christ. We are members one of another.
Speak the truth to each other. And as members of society, we're
all members of the same race. Speak the truth. Speak the truth,
as the apostle says. For we are members one of another. And the second particular, be
you angry and sin not, verse 26. You know, there are times,
there are times when God's children should be angry, must be angry. There are times when we should
be angry, but we must not sin in our anger. John Calvin, In
his comments on this, he gives three faults by which we offend
God in being angry. Be angry, but sin not. And he mentions, first of all,
when we are angry for slight causes, for some little something
that really doesn't amount to a molehill. We get angry. Be angry. First of all, he said,
for slight causes and often for no cause. And then when we are
angry because we ourselves have been injured, private injuries,
what is a believer to do? He is to turn the other cheek.
When he is commanded to go one mile, he is to go a second mile. Number two, when we go too far,
and are carried into intemperate excess. In other words, there's
some offenses that deserve the electric chair. They're capital
offenses. But not every offense is a capital
offense. We can be excessive in our anger. Not every offense, not everything
that would make us angry, and we should be angry about, can be carried to intemperate
excess. And number three, when our anger,
this is when we are angry and sin, when our anger, which ought
to have been directed toward ourselves, or our sins, is turned
against our brothers. We can be angry and sin not when
our anger is toward ourselves and our sins. Concerning others
when we are angry at their faults, but not their persons. We can
be angry with their faults, but not their persons. And when we
are angry, it should always be for the glory of God. The glory
of God that excites our anger. Now Paul, knowing how difficult
this is, that we will always control our anger, says we will
not always control our anger. He said, let not the sun go down
upon your wrath. In other words, get over it.
Get over it. Deal with it and move on. Don't hold that anger overnight. Deal with it today. If you get
angry today, resolve whatever it is today. Don't let the sun
go down on your anger because then it's going to become a bigger
problem. It's going to become harder to
resolve once a night has passed. Well, I pray the Lord would bless
these words of exhortation to all of us here this evening. And God willing, next time we'll
look at the remainder of these particular things that he mentions. Let us stand and we'll sing just
a verse of a hymn and with this verse we will be dismissed.