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The sweetest town that ever reached our ears and constantly started congestion around it raised the new dark beers #10.
Raytheon.
Nsnoise.
It's not trying to do something ourselves there, God has done it. But in the 4th chapter we are supposed to keep the unity of the Spirit and so on. You think that'll fit, Don? I think the Lord put in your heart, so we should take it out.
The force of revision.
Seasons Chapter 4I Therefore the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you that ye want worthy of the vocation, wherewith ye are called, with all lowliness and meekness, with long-suffering, forbearing one another in love, endeavoring to keep the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace. There is one body and one spirit, even as ye are called, in one hope of your calling.
One Lord, 1 faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all. But unto every one of us have given grace, according to the measure of the gift of Christ. Wherefore he saith, when He ascended up on high, He led captivity captive, and gave gifts unto men. Now that he ascended, what is it but that He also descended first into the lower parts of the earth? He that descended is the same also that ascended.
Far above all heavens, that he might fill all things.
And he gave us some apostles, and some prophets, and some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers, for the perfect perfecting of the Saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ, till we all come in the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ. May we henceforth be no more children tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine by the sight of men and cunning craftiness.
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Whereby they lie and wait to deceive, but speaking the truth in love, may grow up into Him in all things, which is the head. Even Christ, from whom the whole body fitly joined together and compacted by that which every joint supply is according to the effectual working and the measure of every part, make us increase of the body on the edifying of itself and love. This I say therefore, and testify in the Lord, that ye henceforth walk not as other Gentiles, Gentiles walk in the vanity of their minds.
Having the understanding American being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that has been themed because of the blindness of their heart, who being past feeling have given themselves over until 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 you put off concerning the former conversation of 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 Newman, 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 angry and send that Let not the sun go down upon your wrath, neither give place to the devil. Let him that stole steal no more, but rather 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 for the use of edifying.
That it may minister grace unto the hearers, and grieve not the Holy Spirit of God, whereby ye are sealed unto the day of redemption. Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamor, and evil speaking, we put away from you with all malice, and be kind one to another, tender hearted for bearing one another, even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you.
That last verse was when my mother quoted to me when I was just a boy, five or six years of old.
Be ye kind.
One to another, tender hearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you. What we have any patience is the highest church truth as you said, and we get so much of that in the first chapter. Her brother was praying about our understanding, being enlightened, and if you just look at the 1St chapter, that whole prayer.
From the 16th verse on is terrific. It's what the purposes and counsels of God.
R they are then, no matter what we are they these are the purposes of councils of God. Well in the.
18th verse of the first chapter.
It asked this, the eyes of your understanding, being enlightened, that you may know what is the hope of his calling.
And what the richest?
On His great glory and His.
Yes, 555501 out here.
The inheritance of the Saints in life. All these things are given to us from God. Now in the 4th chapter we're asked to walk according to these things.
In the first verse of the 4th chapter.
I therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you that ye walk worthy of the Book calling for with your call.
Peter talks about the calling.
The God of all grace has called us to His eternal glory by Christ Jesus.
First Corinthians 19 says God is faithful by whom you recalled unto the fellowship of his dear Son. Now that's where we are called and put by the Lord. Now it's a walk and carried it out. Enjoy it.
Well, you have to look at the red sheet blood to see Christ does everything. Huh?
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I wonder if we could ask the question why was the Ephesians Saints given the highest truth? Is there a reason for that?
What do you think about what God says about the Old Testament? All these things happen to them. For us upon whom the ends of the ages are come, the opinion's got it for us. I think we're we're carried out now.
That's just an answer, I don't know whether it is right or not.
Why just Mike, just suggest that when the gospel went into Ephesus that it went right into the devil's stronghold and in that city was, uh, holds one of the seven wonders of the world in wicked worship and, and, uh, just to show the power of God that he can invade the devil's stronghold and there to give them such a rich deposit of truth would it be to sustain them against all that title.
Evil and wickedness.
MMM.
Well, I don't want to derail us from our chapter, but I just, uh.
Have enjoyed and was given to the Ephesians Saints.
Few more comments on the setting of the chapter.
Let me get a setting of the chapter. It often helps us to see the details more clearly. We're going back to chapter one for a moment and verse three. It says, blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath left us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ. It begins with the blessing of God and immediately connects us with heavenly places.
And tells us the purposes of God with respect to us, and His purposes with respect to the whole earth, that He is going to, in that first chapter, bring everything under the headship of Christ, and under His control and authority in heaven and on earth. But then we have in the first chapter brought out the work of redemption, because without it we could have no part.
And what God is doing, we have to have, we have to be redeemed. We have to have what God can, will do for us. And so in the end of the first chapter, he brings the first of two prayers given to us that emphasizes what the work of God is for us in accomplishing His own purposes and one of His purposes with respect to us.
Is to form a body, the church, as a bride for his Son who will be associated with him in the heavenly places. And so she is immediately here seeing in her proper place, which is with her head in the heavens. She's a heavenly people. She's a heavenly body and association with a heavenly man. How does she get, practically speaking, brought into that place in the second chapter?
The individuals that are going to form and are found to be dead.
The head himself in the first chapter is seen as after accomplishing redemption. It speaks of him as dead as well, and quickened. That is, quicken means brought again, brought up from the dead. It doesn't. It's not the same as new birth, but it means brought up from the dead. And so the Lord Jesus the Head is quickened from his place on earth in accomplishing redemption and takes his place.
Where he came from, which is his own natural place, which is which is heaven. So then the Church is found, for the individuals that are going to form it are found dead on earth.
In their trespasses and sins, but in God's ways and purposes, and were they are quickened with Christ, they're taken out of that place of death and brought up into born together into a body.
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And brought in association with himself. And how the Jew and the Gentile are brought together into that blessing is seen in the third chapter. But then, and this is where the 4th chapter where we start comes in.
Our position is in heaven.
But in fact, in reality, right now we're on earth, we're not in heaven.
And so just like the Lord Jesus, a man who had a heavenly life and birth, or not birth a heavenly life, came down to earth and had to live on earth among men and in sin where sin was.
As in a far country really from his own natural home, so we the Church in this epistle is taken up there in heavenly places, with himself, as it were, like he came down to earth.
So we find ourselves here on Earth.
And yet have a heavenly life and an association with a heavenly man as part of his body, his pride, and he gives us instructions for how to live with each other.
While still here and how the body itself, even while on earth, can develop and grow in practice and in spiritual development. And that's why in the end of the third chapter, the prayer is.
Not the work of God for them, but it develops the work of God in them. That is that it might be practically realized in their soul. And we have that in the 4th chapter. One comment before stopping, because on to the fifth chapter. And as the Lord Jesus, the man out of heaven was light and love in this world, so we as now belonging to heaven and having our natural home and life there.
And our interests and our hopes there while on earth we become the light of the world.
And we are here to display the love of God to all men, and that becomes our responsibility in the world where we walk as we await our hope.
So there's a call, just sorry, it's in the first chapter. It's called a calling here it says location, but it's calling. That's Our Calling. So how can we walk worthy of this heavenly calling?
He shows us, he gives us practical instructions for how to do it. Yeah, this carrying out this instruction, this third verse.
It demands.
Obedience from us, endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit.
In the bond of peace.
He's a brother, begins this book. Look at the second verse of this book. It's peace.
Grace to be to you in peace from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ. Now look at the 2nd to last verse. It says nearly the same thing.
That is Ephesians 6 and verse 22 Says peace, peace of the brethren. That's us here.
Angelo yes, that's necessary too. And hey, who wants this? God's evolved and.
The Lord Jesus Christ, they desire that for us to go on in this so that we might demonstrate, might fulfill what we're called to.
Could someone give us?
A word on the difference between loneliness and maintenance.
Holiness is the person that takes the low place and meekness is.
Accepting it humbly in the heart when somebody else puts you there.
Paul was an example of what he preached in this in this epistle. In our first verse he starts out I therefore the prisoner of the Lord.
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He humbly accepted the the consequences of rejection of His ministry of heavenly things. He was made a prisoner for us, and he writes from prison in Rome and he.
Is an example, not just in the preaching of the ministry that the Lord gave to him. That's how we got it through Paul. He was the one who was caught up to the 3rd heaven.
God specially revealed these things, and really only through him. Many of these things, uh.
But not only was he, uh, a good doctrine or a good teacher, but he was a good example. Uh, he can, he was, he doesn't say a prisoner of Nero or a Caesar, but he's a prisoner of the Lord. He took it from the Lord, his imprisonment, uh, to become an example, uh, of what he taught.
If we get a hold of these things.
We will not enter into carnal conflicts.
The wars of this world, the politics of this world, all of those things are earthly mindedness. And many, many, many Christians nowadays are engaged in these things. That's not Christianity at all.
Then Christianity lists us above earth and sets us in heaven, and our brethren are all over the world. Some are brethren that belong to countries that are in conflict with the country that we live in.
But we're not here to set things right.
That's going to be done by the Lord himself.
And he will do that. And he's the only one that can do it. We can't do it.
It's what what what what do these verses mean to us? So they take us out of this world. This world is a place that.
Satan is the God and priests of.
It were true to him and live accordingly as he lived when he was here. He didn't get involved in these perfectly things.
He said my Kingdom is not of this world. If my Kingdom were of this world and with my service fight that I should not be delivered.
To them.
You must hear the second thing you want to.
He's going to come back and he's going to set things right. But we're talking about the different dispensation. We don't understand dispensational truth. You'll not understand what I'm saying.
Having formed one body.
Was necessary for them to understand how to walk together practically as such. And so that's why he says in the end of that we're bearing one another. My fellow believers bearing with me and I with him. I think in the Old Testament you see a little example of it in Caleb and Joshua.
They were really in spirit, heavenly men, but they walked with a company of people who hadn't learned that really in their souls. And so they walked with them for 40 years in a desert. And there's not a word of murmuring. There's not a word of complaining on their part. There's not a saying. You know, we'd all be better off if you would just get the truth and understand it and walk because you should. And we could all go together now in the land.
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And the Lord Jesus as a heavenly man who lived on earth with his disciples, they weren't yet in union with him, but in the same spirit as seen in Matthew 11 and 29. We're 28 where he says, for I am meek and lonely in heart. And the Lord Jesus showed the same perfect spirit. He was from heaven. And they hadn't yet learned that truth, but he bore with it.
He showed the compassion of his own heart toward them and in a sense in spirit, he said. He didn't say come up to me, but he said come down to me.
Come down to where I am and.
Through work of God in the soul goes to the bottom, and as it were can stay there. Man always has to ascend to the top and be #1.
Men's drive and whatever, whether it's their company or the world or their country or whatever to be #1 but the Lord Jesus, as it were in the Spirit is saying, come down to where I am.
Make only, and there you're going to find a rest for your soul that you won't find anywhere else. And in the body of Christ the first will be last, the last of the 1St.
1St So we we learn that spirit and we're taught the instruction to show it to one another.
Let me to amplify that read to you from Deuteronomy 20.
And understanding this book.
But the word thy God is with you, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt, and it shall be when ye are come nigh unto the battle, that the priest shall approach and speak unto the people, and shall say unto them, Hero is feel he approached this day unto battle against your enemies.
That that's your heart and you're not. And do not tremble either. Be terrified because of them. For the Lord your God see that goeth with you to fight for you against your enemies, to save you. Now contrast that with Romans 12, Romans 12.
Here's instruction to be to the Christians.
Recompense to no man's evil for evil.
Provide things honest in the sight of all men if it be possible, as much as we live life in you with us, peaceably with all men.
53rd given dreams for in so doing thou shall keep coals of fire on his head. He not overcome the people who overcome evil that should. You never understand the Bible if you don't see the contrast total contrast between New Testament teaching and Old Testament teaching.
If if a country nowadays has a change in leadership at.
Time of fall was there and Rome, I think it was 0 that was charging is one of the most wicked that has ever lived and.
Was Paul was Paul's ministry ever to the to the tenor of trying to correct that evil and grow? Not a bit. That's not what we're called to. We're not called to correct the evilness in this world, whether it's in the political world or whether it's in the in in in the battles that are being fought. Sad to say, there are many Christians.
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That are engaged in these things but that's not what we're called to we're called to to forgive and if I had any hunger feeding.
It was an example of.
Two countries that were fighting each other and before the war started, these two young men went to the same university and they they were taught the same thing and they got to be friends and so on. And then there's two countries got to be a war with another and they both became Christians.
And they were taught to kill the enemy. And there was his friend, his Christian brother that was before him, and it was the same way with him towards the 1St man. How could he do that?
Well, it's too bad that we're looking at the name when Christians are engaged in trying to set the world right, and we can't do it. We simply can't do it. We have the most precious truths in the epistles, but it's entirely different industry that you get in the Old Testament.
When God was fighting for Israel with Israel, but it's not we're not here to fight. We're not here to kill other members of the body of Christ because they're in a different country that we are in our countries are at war with each other. How could Christians who are all members of the same body killed them just totally on contrary to scripture. Now it's a very unhappy thought to think of sending a one of my brothers home the glory ahead of time.
But I was thinking if we could have a little help on endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit.
To turn it around is to ask the question this way, is it possible for us to break the unity of the Spirit? I think there's some confusion on that and we need some help.
The question is, can we break the unity of the spirit or we cannot break it? It's not the energy of the body.
God keeps that.
He keeps that we're going to keep the unity of the Spirit that is go on according to the Spirit who leads in the Lord's last words that we turn to John 14, we see a little bit about that.
John 14.
The Lord was getting ready to go from the disciples, and he talks to them, and in the 14th of John.
And the verses, well, he talks about the comforter. Maybe we should begin reading there.
Start with the 25th verse. These things have eyes spoken unto you, being yet present with you. He was getting ready to go. But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, He shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance. Whatever I have said unto you now He says, peace. I leave with you not a battle of peace.
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My peace I give unto you, not as the world giveth.
Give unto you, Let not your heart be troubled in, let it be afraid. You have heard how I have said unto you, I go away, I come again unto you. If you love me, you would rejoice, because I go to the Father.
For my father is greater than I. And now I have told you before I come, it come to pass, that when it is come to pass, he might believe here after you. I shall not talk much with you.
For the Prince of this world cometh and hath nothing in me. Ron was talking about the Prince of this world, but the world. But that the world may know that I'd rather the Father, and as the Father gave me command, Even so I do. Then in the 16th chapter he says, Howbeit, when He, the Spirit of Truth, is come, and He is come, the Spirit of truth is here, the Lord's going up on high, but the Spirit of truth is here. He's in every heart that believes here.
He's amongst us, at our believers. What's he going to do? This is the greatest comfort I know of, albeit when he the spirit of truth is come, that's a.
Perennial thing. It's a continuous thing. Is come is continuous perpetuity. He is here. The world doesn't know anything about it. They can't do anything about it. We might try to print the Spirit or to grieve the Spirit if we go wrong, but the spirit stays here. What you going to do?
He shall not speak independently of himself. That's the middle of earth, but whatever he shall hear, that shall He speak. He will show you things to come. He shall glorify me, for He shall receive mine himself. Show it unto you. The Spirit of God is here today to show us price. That's what you can see in the Red Sea and Jordan. Bull worth of Christ. The price profit of nothing. The price keeps the rare rare enough and we think we can get.
Do something. What we do in order to get we can't do that. The flesh, probably nothing, but the Spirit is here.
And he can teach us of Christ.
181.