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This I say therefore, and testify in the Lord, that ye have forced not walk, not as other Gentiles walked in the vanity of their mind, having the understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them 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, and the truth is in Jesus.
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 has created in righteousness and true holiness.
Therefore, putting away lying, speak every man truth with his neighbor, for we are members one of another. Being angry and then mad. Let not sun go down upon your wrath either. Give place to the devil.
Let him that soul 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 ye 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 analysis.
And be a kind one to another, kinder hearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake, hath forgiven you.
Just like to make an introductory comment.
Or, uh, not so much what's in the chapter, but just the spirit of things. And that is very often. And when we read the word of God, our tendency of our thoughts is to, as it were, bring God into our lives where we are. And that's right. And that's necessary for us. And because we're on earth and we're in the trials of life on earth, we tend to bring God down to us.
In our thoughts and in our hearts to meet us in whatever need we see at the moment. But I'd like to suggest, brethren, there's another way of looking at it and perhaps we can look at it this way this morning for ourselves. And that is the Lord Jesus is not here on earth. He is in heaven and it's a profitable for the soil.
When in spirit, as it were, we turn it around and we say.
With let us be together with the Lord where He is.
In the heavens, and this is a book of heavenly things, and as it were, we can sit down with the Lord Jesus this morning in spirit where He is, and can look together at the matter of need as He would minister to us. And then when we leave this place, yes, we have to, as it were, by God's direction, if I can put it this way, we have to come back down to earth.
And continue on with the light of heaven in our souls, with the enjoyment of heavenly things in our spirit, and go through things with Him or for Him here on earth.
And rather than simply be focused on our, you might say, our own needs, see that we are, we have put off the old, we have put on the new. The Lord gives us instructions for and then he sends us forth, if you will. And that's really the way Scripture does look at it in this context. And that is the Lord Jesus came from heaven as a heavenly man and he came down to earth and he lived here on earth.
His heavenly life.
To serve God. And when the work was finished, He returned home. Now He has called us in union with Himself to be with Him there. And He would sit down with us, and if you will give us instructions, and then He would send us forth to be here on His behalf. But a heavenly people, with heavenly objects and enjoyment of His presence and Himself where He is now.
00:05:13
And we would go forth and serve Him here on earth when we leave this place, but also in our spirit, returning to enjoy Him where He is. That's Canaan.
Does that describe the two groups of Gentiles which are here? He talks about the occasions.
Change and it says other Gentiles and then he talks about the understanding darkened. That's those that live on earth, but you go back to the first chapter and you have the eyes of your understanding enlightened to the heavenly situation. The church is with Christ in heaven in the purpose of God.
In that first check.
In the exhortation, it's as if the Lord, as we sit with Him in His presence where He is.
Then give us instructions so that when we go among men, when we leave, as it were, that time together and we go among men, he's saying don't be like them.
Don't you put off those things?
In Colossians the thought is put them off, but here he speaks of it as something that has been done and he's saying don't pick him up again.
That old man has already been put off in this in Ephesians, and so he says, don't pick it up again, but don't pick up with the things of the old man, the things that the Gentiles walk in and that you're going to be exposed to.
When you're there as light and love for me in that world, don't be drawn back into it.
I just wanted to to back up a couple of verses and, uh.
Go over that again before we go on verse 15. But speaking the truth in love, they grow up unto Him in all things, which is the head, even Christ. From whom? From Christ the whole body thickly joined together.
And compacted by that which every joint supplier you look at your body. Every joint has a function and to define something for the health of the body.
So it is for the body of Christ. Remove the whole body, thickly joined together and compacted by that which every joint supplier. So if you're a member of the body of Christ, you are a joint.
And you are to function for the good and blessing of the entire body.
According to the effectual working in the measure of every part, notice the emphasis in this verse. Every joy in every part make it increase of the body. That's what builds up the body into a healthy body every every.
Member is performing its function as directed by the Spirit of God. They can increase of the body.
Unto the edifying of itself in love then we get to the first word we started, but I just I was just looking at that 16th verse how it it it does away with anyone who is a member of the body of Christ and saying I don't have anything to do everyone has something to do for the good and blessing of the entire body. Every joint supplying it and a wonderful to see the picture that.
Envy, one of us, has something that we can contribute for the good and blessing of all.
I don't want to belabor your point where they're gone, but I thought of the three captains in their 50s that went up to Elijah and the 1St 2GO up and they tell him to come down, but the third captain, he goes up with his fifty and what does he say? Oh, let our lives be precious in my sight. And I thought of it too, as no doubt they were the ones that were part of the remnant of Israel.
And they, they knew the danger that they were in and the danger of the way. And, and just to make that flea, let our lives be precious in my sight. And to think of the confirmation that Elijah could give them that their life was precious. And now you can go safely on and counting upon the guidance and wisdom for the way.
00:10:19
And start your advance.
S.
1718 we have.
A reflection back on what these Gentiles, these other Gentiles of how they want stayed there for and testify in the Lord that she henceforth not as other Gentiles walk in the vanity of their mind, having the understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God for the ignorance that is in them because of the blindness of their heart and being past feeling have given themselves over on the recipient's desk to work all.
On the wholeness with greediness, that's what we used to be.
Unfolds what we once were as Gentiles and now he goes on to what we are in Christ.
Man never rises above himself. He can never get beyond his own limitations of his own mind and his own imagination.
And the only way we know God is when he reveals himself to us and God has chosen, blessed be God, to make himself known to us in the person of the Lord Jesus. But we're going to leave this place and enter back into the circumstances of the world where man's thoughts don't go beyond himself in his own imagination. He's his mind is darkened. He didn't want the knowledge of the true God. He willfully.
Turned his back upon it to live without God in the world and the consequences they're seeing here and he's telling us the apostle Paul saying don't do that.
Don't walk that way. Don't walk in the imagination of your own mind. God has made himself known to us perfect, perfectly in the person of the Lord Jesus.
And just one other comment about it. It says who Speaking of by reason of the hardness.
Umm of their heart, or the blindness of their heart. Mr. Darby translates his hardness being verse 19 past feeling.
To me this is very significant in this way.
Man calls the things that are described there his way is law.
The fornication and such things that man goes after, the uncleanness, the unsatisfied or unbridled lust of man that he goes after, those are virtues.
To him those are things that satisfy the flesh in man. God looks at it and he says he is so corrupted that that is hardness that is opposite the true love of God.
Man's so-called love is really lost. It's a desire to have something for self regardless of what other people think or feel. It's for me it's and it's God says that's harness.
That is hard.
God's love is His sovereign goodness toward others, and He would have us always to act in love, which is always considers its object.
As what is good for the object And how can the need of the object a person, an animal, a turtle, How can that need be met?
And yet.
The thoughts of man are totally completely twisted and false if he gives up the true knowledge of God revealed in Christ.
I'd like to say to young people especially, don't make close friendships with the world, with the people of the world which live in these wicked ways. Don't make you. You have to brush around shoulders with them in school and so on, but don't make them your close friends. You have not so learned Christ. You don't. You don't find a pattern for living from any of them.
00:15:22
Because they're not safe, they're not members of the body of Christ. So that's so important that especially the young and I just, I just read it. I just heard of a man of a nursing nurse.
She got married six months ago. Now she's divorced. She, she didn't. The man she married, she didn't even get to know him. She didn't. She hardly knew him, and he hardly knew her.
And that doesn't come out until it's too late. Sometimes you, you, you join yourselves to a, to a something that's commits you for the rest of your life. You should better be sure that you know that person and that they are Christians and that they're walking and so as, as Christ and walking with Christ as earth.
Sometimes fall under the banner that we want to be a help, but I think of what Paul said to the Corinthians Saints. He said he are epistles known.
And read of all men. You know, that's kind of an alarming statement to my soul, to think that how well we are known in the community in which we live. And there's a certain communication among the neighbors, You know, they're watching and sizing things up as to what Christianity is all about. But to be known and read daily. Recently there was a neighbor.
That, I would say got saved by observing a manner of life. And that kind of a salvation is a good salvation, isn't it? Saved by a manner of life. So if we're young or we're older or whatever age we are, if we really want to be a help, let us just walk quietly in the truth. You don't have to say a lot and.
Be more of a help than trying to get into close quarters with some of these questionable situations that go on.
Stay away from it, don't be smudged by what's going on.
Let's go to first John 5. Connect up with this word, understand?
The Gentiles evolved with the world and they had strong understanding.
In the first chapter, we have already seen that those who are up there have the eyes of their understanding that they may know the highest truth in the world. The greatest thing that God has ever done is raising somebody from the dead. That's the greatest work that's ever been done anyplace. And so how do you get the knowledge of that in Matthew 5? I mean in Matthew.
10.
Matthew 15 There are three words.
In the 10th verse.
Matthew 15.
He called the motor.
3 words. They're for us.
Here and understand, listen to what God has to say about it as the truth is in Jesus. He's our standard. You've got to learn Christ. Well, Christ is our standard. Jesus is our standard. Grace and truth came by Jesus Christ. You're going to find he's a model in both of us.
Hear and understand, listen to this truth that's coming again out of invasion for the Saints of God.
Oh, it's so precious. You think of that, but then you get the reverse of it, the understanding direction, alienated from the life of God when you get into the life of God by taking Jesus.
If you don't have that, you can't get into that understanding. Well, I don't guess I finished reading that person first job, which is so wonderful for us.
00:20:01
In First John 5.
The 20th verse.
We know that the Son of God is coming. He's the Son of God. He's the Son of man. He's Jesus. We know he is come.
And the next What's the next step?
And that he has given us an understanding.
That understanding is given to the states is in the first chapter of Ephesians. It's heaven. That's a situation. Doug Don has called us up to take the standard up there.
What's what's it given to us for? He has given us an understanding that we may know Him that is true. Who is true?
As the truth is in Jesus.
Stitching our Chapel.
The expression, the truth.
As it is in Jesus.
The Lord Jesus was the perfect living expression of truth.
He could say, I am altogether that which I say unto you, There was no difference between what he said and what he was in his life. I might say to you, truth. God says, don't lie. That's a statement of truth. God says, don't lie.
But do I live? That is my life, the living expression of not mine, the Lord Jesus. Life in that way was perfectly transparent. He was altogether that what she said.
That it's the truth as it is in Jesus.
And further than that, every action of the Lord Jesus was directed.
By the power of the Spirit of God, the Spirit of truth. And so that's the truth as it is in Jesus, the living expression of the truth by word and word as perfectly directed by the Holy Spirit and he. We are encouraged, if you will, we're really exhorted to know the truth and to live the truth from that source.
So this verse is not just a doctrine for us to understand that the truth is in Jesus and and know it, but in our lives in the measure that we understand the truth in Jesus, our lives show us and it's practically displayed.
Because He is our life.
Christ, who is our life. We had a life in Adam and it manifested itself as the nation's walk, as we've seen. But we have the life of Christ and in we have the Holy Spirit, and so that life is to be displayed in our everyday.
Experiences.
To be lived like we really have.
I remember very well.
I got stabbed when I was a freshman in college through my optometrist and.
And I was playing baseball at the time, engineering student, and I went out for baseball. I don't know how I did it, but umm, at any rate, uh, after I got saved, they noticed a change. They tried to get me to smoke. Oh, they tried so hard and they tried to get me to drink liquor and I would do it. And so most of the audience here was raised.
In Christian teachers raised in a Christian family, I was not. Makes it quite a difference.
But they, they want to, they see you are umm, holy, holy soul of that. Those are the terms that they'll shoot at us. Show them that, as it says here, umm.
Diversity speaks about being holy.
00:25:02
There's many, many of them are there.
So we earned him and had been taught by him that the truth is in Jesus. Once you come to know him, you you have an example and you have a power in the Spirit of God who involves you. Now you have the word of God that you read every day. I hope so. And that gives you power to say no.
That those that are in the world, they think that that's, that's a wonderful life. It's not. It's not. There's nothing to it.
There's there's nothing of any value to it.
Some of us know our brother Lance Fervor in Bermuda and he said there are the days when he was deep in the world and in the rock band and, and just going on quite a day that performance for quite some time to come. And he got saved one night and he was wondering how he was going to tell his boss that he couldn't go on with this kind of lifestyle and.
So he decided he was going to wait for three or four days and look for the opportunity to tell his boss.
And so he thought he D waited long enough and so he went up to the boss and he told him I can't go on this circuit any longer. He said I got saved and my life has changed. The boss looked at him and he said I know when you got saved, your plane went Askew and he didn't know it. So the world, you know, we can't really pretend before the world. It just doesn't work. They've got our number because even our language, the way we speak.
Is a very quick indicative that this is not our bunch of people here and.
Verse 22 is something that.
As it's presented to us here in Ephesians, it's something that has been done.
In Colossians, In Colossians it's looked at as something that you do and be done with it once you've done it. But here is Mr. Darby translates it, having put off.
According to the former conversation, that is, you put off that old person that you were, and he's saying having done so, that old person corrupted itself according to its loss, and that was the nature of the life he lived, a life that was constantly being corrupted by the loss that were controlling it.
He then in verse 23 speaks, I believe, as something that it should be a current ongoing.
Activity in our lives. The constant renewing of the mind.
We are.
Always, Every day I think of our lives bombarded with things that will draw our minds back into the former manner of life.
So much of what can be heard on radio, seen on television, read in the newspaper, in the magazines, on the Internet.
Has the character of drawing the thoughts of the mind into the former manner of life.
And the consequence when mind goes there, then the heart tends to follow and we are drawn back into those things. And so he says, the renewing of the spirit of your mind, that's a constant ongoing need for us to.
Have our thoughts, our hearts, engaged in what the Word of God presents to us?
And fortified us as we start the day to guard us as we go through it, from being drawn away by the things we're exposed to even in the necessities of work and so on. Where our fellow workers, our whole attitude of the company itself is, is, according to the former conversation of our own in the 24th verse. Again, it's something that has been done.
00:30:10
Uh is looked at here as having been done. We have put on the Newman and then he tells us what that Newman is. It's created in uh, as it says, in righteousness and true holiness.
That's the new man, the man that is characterized by righteousness and true holiness and the exhortations which then follow, almost all of them are based on that truth.
Of what we are. We are those who have been created as new creatures in Christ Jesus to live lives of truthfulness and holiness. And the exhortations follow our exhortations of practically carrying out that righteousness and true holiness.
Comment down on the verse 22. It speaks of the old man.
Is that the same as the flesh?
Not exactly, but they're connected.
Flash is that sinful nature within me which knows nothing but lust and itself will, and it controls my life. That's the flesh that is within me. The old man is the position I held before God in the flesh as a creature of the flesh. And so it it includes the flesh, but it's the whole position of what I was before God.
And when to go back to?
To reinforce the thought, if you will.
When I enter into.
My death with Christ crossing the Jordan. When I enter into my death with Christ, then I change my position from the old man on the one side of the Jordan, and I cross the river, and I come up on the other side.
With him on the other side. And that's where the new man is introduced.
And it's a change of position and it is a change of enjoyment of a life with God that comes with the life that is given to me. And so it's there, is connected with it. And when it speaks to the old and the new man, the sense of putting it off and putting it on, that is with a new life in Christ, God gives by the power of the Spirit.
The putting aside or mortifying, as it says in Colossians, putting it out from active activity in my life, that former manner of life, the old man.
So when it comes up in our lives, we say that's what has been put off. I have no longer anything to do with that. And I think it's good to distinguish that because the flesh is always in us. But positionally we are in a place where we have put off. It's been done. And I enjoy the picture we have in the Old Testament when they cross the Jordan.
The 12 men from the 12 tribes took a stone out of the Jordan to the other side.
And those stones are seen to this day. But Joshua is a picture of the Lord. Jesus took 12 Stones and put them in Jordan, and then the Jordan flood again over them and they were not seen. That's the old man that's been put off. It's no longer to be seen any longer. What's seen is that which is on the other side, Jordan.
On the Canaan side, that's the new man that we are told that. We are told that having we have been put, we have put on that Newman.
These natural purposes, our energy that has split off in the old manner, There's just the work that God has done, none of that in Christ.
It's an exhortation to do something.
00:35:00
So it's it is.
In, in the sense that it's given, let's turn to Colossians here, it's looked at as having been done, but in Colossians it's it's the doing of it.
Umm in chapter.
Umm. I'm gonna refer, uh, to Mr. Garvey's translation because of the very nice parallelism that's shown there in chapter 2 of Colossians in verse 20.
It says new translation if ye have died with Christ.
Now chapter 3 says in verse one if ye then.
Be risen with Christ.
And then in verse five in the new translation, it says put to death. Therefore your members which are on earth and verse 12 Says put on. So you first have if you be dead with Christ, you are I am dead with Christ. Whether we enjoy it, whether we enter into the the the truth of it and walk in it.
The fact is we are dead with Christ and so he says to if you be dead with Christ, well you are. He presents it as a if you are, then this is what should result from it. And then the chapter 3 verse one says if you be risen with Christ, well you are.
We are risen with Christ. It's a fact.
But in the having died with Christ, and having risen with Christ, then not by the power of the old will.
It'll never do it. Man cannot do these things in the power of the flesh and the power of the will of man.
But if you be dead with Christ, if you be risen with Christ, then you have what you have in chapter 3 verse three in Colossians, if ye are for ye are dead, he states that now is a fact. And then he says your life, you have life in Christ and having life in Christ by the power of the Spirit of God.
The flesh is to be.
What says here? Mortified. That is the it's not. It's the practical judgment of the flesh as having no place, as having been judged by God.
And we're not to live according to it anymore. So here as an exhortation, yes, it is the new man, the life of the new man by the power of the Spirit of God.
Judging that which belongs to the flesh is Gilgal. But I think it's good to realize the work has been done, hasn't it? And we are to put that into practical effect because of the work that has been done. Looking back at Colossians 2, you mentioned Don verse 20, We've died with Christ. Go back to verse 12.
It says we are buried with him in baptism.
In which ye have been also raised with him through the faith of the working of God, who raised him from the dead, from among the dead. So it's something that has been done, but we are to put that into practical effect in our lives, and that's where the exhortations come in.
We could never do it by our will, we could never do it by the force of will. But what it is, is.
We have been given a life which is perfect.
The life of Christ, it doesn't, it doesn't want anything. Every one of us who in this room want to please the Lord Jesus Christ, that's an expression of our life. We didn't have to make ourselves say I want to please the Lord Jesus. The life we have, that's how it is. That's its nature. And God has further given us power by the Spirit of God.
And we are to live in the position and in the condition in which God has placed us in this new life. The problem is that there's still the flesh in US, and it's always ready to.
00:40:11
Have its way, it doesn't change and that's why there's conflict in us is because the flesh lusts us against the spirit.
But we're never given.
Any place in scripture to say that well, it's OK to accept that as a fact and therefore live that way and say well as an excuse? Umm, I couldn't help it.
Before God, who it's his power that it's done, but the exhortation as to the mortifying or putting to death side of it is in a practical boxes in a practical carrying of it out is looked at as an expectation founded on the provisions that we can do it in the Romans chapter 6.
And verse 6.
We read, knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him.
That the body of sin might be destroyed, That henceforth we should not serve sin, for he that is dead is freed from sin.
If you be dead with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him.
It's after we get the stated fact in verse six that we get in verse 11. Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin.
But alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord.
The old man as far as God is concerned.
This is accomplished at the cross. It's crucified.
He.
The second chapter Colossians have been referred to Chapter 3 verse nine says lie not one to another, seeing that ye have put off.
And accomplished things, the old man with his deeds.
You know, it's not really exactly the same as the old nature, is it? Which we have with us until life here on Earth ends, whether by the rapture or whether.
By death, but.
This is one of God's delivering facts.
The the When you think of laying a loved one in the grave.
Umm, the finality of it.
Doesn't grip us at that moment.
But over the months and years.
The finality can be haunting.
Of the power of the grave.
But it's it's a blessed thing when you think of its power over the old man.
Over what we had been.
Think of that being.
Crucified with Christ.
God fully weighed how awful of things it was.
And he is also more.
Well, he had given us to be more of a conqueror in the one that's risen out from among the dead.
In the power of new life.
What a deliverance we have, but laying hold of it, reckoning it for what it is.
That's where we need the Spirit's help. You know, we look at people that are under the ******* of.
Addiction of one form or another. Yet these very truths are the delivery power, aren't they?
God's pulling measured.
Lead.
Corruption.
Everything else thanks to our old man, and he's put it right where it belongs.
And given us that which is new in Christ has risen out from among the dead.
00:45:03
What a what a deliverance that we really have. Reckoning simply means think that way. And that's what we have in our chapter here in verse 23. Be renewed in the spirit of your minds. We need to constantly be renewed that way.
We live in a world that appeals to the old man and his ways. We need to have a renewal of the mind, brethren, it really is important.
How we think? Do we think in line with Scripture, or do we think in the way that this world trains us to think? It's important. Scripture says a lot about how we think. We need to be careful as we pass through this world to have our minds continually renewed by the Word of God.
I have a question, umm, I'm sorry, I didn't ask it earlier. Going back to verse 19 where it says who being past feeling have given themselves over unto unto lasciviousness to work all in cleanness with greediness. And my question is tied with Romans one where, excuse me, Romans one it it says, uh, in verse 24, wherefore God also gave them up.
To uncleanness and a again in verse.
26 For this 'cause God gave them up unto vile affections.
My question is kind of an unbeliever through through pursuing a course of.
Absolute, uh, lasciviousness, wickedness, that at some point God give them, uh, a hardened heart to where then they, they're no longer able to even have any, any sense of, of right or wrong. Is that the, the right way to interpret that? Or how would one look at that thought in Romans one about God giving them up?
The consequences of the government of God. If you go back to the beginning, if I'll call this in Romans one, the paragraph begins in verse 21.
And it says because that when they knew God, it's the history of man morally that's looked at here in the governmental dealings of God with man according to his own will in opposition to God. So in verse 21, it says there was a time, there is a time in the history when every man knew God as he had made himself known, but when they did know God.
They didn't honor him as God. They didn't glorify him as God. They weren't thankful to know Him.
Because his will and theirs were in opposition through the flesh of man. And so it says, they became vain, their foolish minds.
And their foolish hearts became darkened. Instead of honoring God as God, man, not wanting God in his thoughts, turned his mind away from the revelation of God to himself. And he started to imagine.
His vain thoughts that we have in our chapter came in and and and he creates birds and animals and says this is God.
Now he's superior really in his mind to his God. It's just an image that he's created and he bowed down before it and he says God.
Well, therefore, as a result of that, because of what they did of turning to idolatry and images of idolatry in verses 22 and 3, then he says in verse 24, as a result God gave them up.
To the consequences of their own will.
And so they filled their the consequences was uncleanness because they live by the lusts of their own hearts. They dishonored themselves among themselves. What today is called homosexuality, who changed the truth of God into a lie and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator.
And then verse 26 where you you read, you get to the point it says.
For this cause, God gave them up. That is, God's governmentally gave them up to the consequences of their own behavior. And so it can be in an individual life Today, God presents himself to a soul.
00:50:14
To give knowledge of himself, in spite of the fact that in a general way the world has given up that knowledge. But the light of the Gospel comes in, and man is presented it.
And he knows it. He understands the message of the Gospel.
But his will is in opposition. He doesn't want that knowledge.
So he willfully turns away and goes his own way and corrupts himself by his deceitful lust. And that is a hardening process in the heart. Pharaoh hardened his own heart really. And finally God stepped in and finished the process, if you will, and judicially put him under that state of a hardened heart. And then he, his judgment came upon him and so.
A soul that willfully turns away from the light and and goes down their own Rd. can reach a point where they're.
They're beyond. They fit themselves, really. It's a vessel for destruction. It's not talking about what's characteristic of a true believer, is it?
I'd like to just for a moment, get back to the old man and the new man. I read a story not too long ago about an elderly couple in a rural village in England some years ago.
And through the instrumentality of the Salvation Army at that time.
Was an evangelist there that preached the gospel. The husband and wife were saved.
And, uh, they were not an educated couple and.
And the husband decided that he wanted his wife to make him a uniform just like that, worn by the Salvation Army. And so the wife was an accomplished seamstress and made-up a uniform, but both of them couldn't read. And he said that he wanted something embroidered on the uniform. And the wife sent him out and.
Uh, she told him, well, copy something down that you see written. Well, he went outside the house and went through the village and he came back with a couple of words that the wife embroidered on the uniform and those words were under new management.
He passed a a store that had changed hands and now with under new management well.
That should be the situation with uh, and that is the situation with the child of God, where new creatures in Christ, aren't we?
Brother Harry Hale had a lovely strain that our minds make up our moral history in this world.
Let this mind be in you, which was in Christ Jesus. He said, why doesn't it say, let this heart be in you? Well, he clarified that by saying how important our minds are. And he went on to say that we are what we love and think about.
And out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth was going to tell us.
Lord speaks in verse 24 of this Newman.
Says of it.
Which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness.
That's the character, if you will. That's the nature of the new man. That's the nature of life in Christ. It's created after God in righteousness and true holiness. So then he shows us in verses that follow the practical living out of that life in the everyday circumstances of life. He says verse 25, wherefore putting away lying, speak every man truth with his neighbor.
Well, if you are righteous and you have true holiness, do you lie?
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Impossible.
So we're to live it out, the new man.
The old man was a liar.
Of nature, my practice, he lives.
But the new man isn't that way. The new life that is created of God in righteousness and true holiness, it doesn't lie.
It doesn't lie to his neighbor.
And he doesn't lie to his brother.
And the significant that the 1St.
Sin that came into the church in the book of the Acts was alive.
Incredible to think about it.
But it was detected.
And immediately judged. And it's interesting to think that Ananias and Sapphira.
Ananias really didn't speak a lie.
He acted a lie.
And Sapphira came in afterwards and confirmed by saying it she told the lie.
So.
Here to live in the light, there's no room for that which relates to the darkness. Line is not a part of that which is characteristic of Christian.
There's another thing I've noticed in the nursing home. Some of the AIDS, nursing aides and some of the nurses come in. They seem to be very nice persons. They have this ugly tattoo all over their body. Sometimes it's just an arm, sometimes it's almost the whole body. Scripture condemns that.
Where to be just as he made us umm, awkwardly and not decorate ourselves up like that. That's something I know young brothers in Canada, they got their tattoos put on them when they were in the Navy and.
They keep themselves covered. They're so ashamed of what they have. Before they got saved, they did this. Others have tried to have it removed and that's very painful. I understand.
But we should look different, not the way the world looks.
That includes all kinds of things. I look around and I don't see. I don't see any.
They all doctored up like the world does. Tattooing is very painful if you've done. I don't know if it's painful when it's being done, but to get it removed, it's very hard.
In the next verse, verse 26, he says be angry and sinified. Probably many of us have had heard different interpretations of this verse.
But I want to suggest that the primary thought in the verse is taken from verse 24.
That which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness. That's what's being lived out now in these verses and in the context of that interpretation of verse 26, is God. Holy nature never accommodates sin and God has a fixed, if I can use the word attitude toward it. It's an offense.
Against His Holiness.
And there is Rap God alone is to carry it out. Never us, but the holy righteous nature which is part of our why we can be called the new man never.
Get.
With thin but it maintains a holy attitude toward it as an offense to the nature. The Lord Jesus is holy, love good, He hated evil.
The danger in US and as it says it qualifies, or is it where it says be angry and sin not?
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Umm, let not the The difficulty is there is a holy anger.
But there's also a fleshly anger, and very often if.
It's looked at as an offense against God, then it can be seen as it is. But if it's an offense against me, then that anger is sin. And if that is, if my measurement of it is my own treatment and how I feel or my flesh feels, then that anger isn't. He says did not, Because if that's allowed, then holy anger easily becomes sinful anger.
And is to be judged as such.
Umm, let not the sun go down upon your wrath. The tendency that we need an exhortation about is.
You hear the Lord's name taken. His name.
And when you're newly saved, when you're new in the faith, it's a jarring thing.
You hear it the next day and the next day and the next day and the next day, and the tendency of the natural man is gradually you don't even notice this.
It ceases to be even something that penetrates hardly people can swear and curse and take God's name in vain and uh, work workplace and but what he's saying is don't get hardened to that. Don't get to the point where, as it were, that doesn't have any effect upon the soul. It never became nothing to the Lord Jesus and God's honor was when God was dishonored. The same is true within the next verse with the devil.
There's a tendency in us to let him push things around a bit and have his way. But the Lord Jesus holiness never accommodated that, never got to that point where that righteousness and true holiness gave in to it. Umm, it's it's the maintenance of the the light. In contrast to other verses in this chapter which tell us about forgive your brother and love.
And so on. But the love of God and the light that God is are never in conflict with each other. But we sometimes kind of take one and emphasize it in a way that puts aside the other. But he's, he's bringing before us the holiness side here. And we must maintain that even while at the same time God loves us, but he hates our sins.
In Mark chapter 3, it's interesting. It gives a case in which the Lord was angry.
Uh, it's in connection with and this is interesting connection with what you said, uh, Don.
There was this man with a withered hand, and the Pharisees were there watching to see if he would.
He helped they wanted to impede the blessing that would always blow out for others, he says in verse five. And when he had looked around about on them with anger, being grieved through the hardness of Eric heart. We get angry when people do bad stuff to us.
The Lord never did get angry about that. It was when He they impeded the blessing. There's one other place in the Book of Mark that I'd like to draw your attention to in the 10th chapter.
In connection with the.
Little children that were brought to him.
And the disciples were rebuking them. And it says in verse 14 when Jesus died, he was.
Much displeased in the words in the Darby translation is indignant.
So the Lord Jesus was angry.
But there was no flesh in him to.
And wonderfully though, I just wanna bring out the other words too. He grieved in his heart. There was a holy anger, and at the same time there was a love that grieved. And the two were maintained in spotless purity and holiness together. And for us, the exhortation is needed, because so often if what starts out in a holy way degenerates.
Into send to see the Lord casting out those those that were at the temple, the money changers and he referred to his father's house and it was not to be come a den of thieves, was it? So they had so to speak to file the original intent. Umm.
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You'd probably like to have gotten a bull whip and and snapping that around, but just the grease of our board of the Spirit of God would describe a small scourge.
The verse says be ye angry. It doesn't say always give expression to us. Umm.
The interesting difference between righteousness and holiness in our chapter. Uh, we're called to vote, uh.
Righteousness are is the acts that are right and good.
Holiness is the intrinsic abhorrence of evil and love of good within. So holiness doesn't always have to do something. It's intense intrinsic within us. God is holy within us. The Lord Jesus was holy also every time. Unholiness.
Evil was surrounded him. He was angry. He perfectly abhorred that. He didn't always give expression to it. And it's interesting and Mark there where it just says he looked on them with anger. It doesn't doesn't say he said anything or he did anything in John. He took the scourge and used it. That's righteousness he acted upon.
Evil that was before him.
And so we we're in a world that's unholy and we need to be renewed in the spirit of our mind that our that holiness.
Be given its right place within us we are holy we have a nature that doesn't work evil and uh, but we can uh lose lose sight of that and uh become.
Complacent and, and let our other nature take predominance in our life. So we need to, we need to, uh.
Remember, we are holy people, but that doesn't mean we always give expression to all the evil around us. But we do feel it, and if we don't feel it, it's wrong.
I'd like to tell a little story. I was working in a RF shielded screen room and in came the Peter Davidson. He was a Jew. I got talking to him and I said to him, I had my Bible there. I said I'll show you why your people hated the Lord Jesus. So I read to him. After 23. I'm not going to read that whole chapter, but when you get a chance, you sit down and read Matthew 23.
If there has there's ever been a scathing denouncing of the Pharisees and the scribes and those that set themselves up, it's in that chapter and.
Why did they hate him so? Because he told them just what they were. The hypocrites. The generation of pipers. How shall he escape the foundation of hell? I'm just quoting a few of his words. He didn't mince any words when it came to religious hypocrites. That's what they were, and there's plenty of that today.
Interesting in verse 28 in connection with stealing.
The law said thou shalt not steal, and that was it. But grace goes beyond.
That, and it says, let him that stole steal no more, but rather let him labor working with his hands that he made that which is good, that he may have to give to him that need it. So grace goes far beyond law, Doesn't it beautiful to see how we should be known as those that give?
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It's more blessed to give than to be received, and that's what's characteristic of Christians is giving sacrificially giving. Lord help us to enter into the spirit of that far more than what law would require.
The next verse is the very same character. A lot of it says don't lie, don't let a corrupt communication come from your mouth. And as Bob commented, the previous person stops there.
Well, that's as much as was required under law. But grace and Christianity go beyond and turn to the needs of others. Just like in the last verse that went on to others. So in verse 29 it says, well, if there's a good word.
That would identify the heart of a soul, then give it given, don't withhold it, but go ahead and speak that good word which would would edify the heart of those spirit.
And grieve not the Holy Spirit of God, whereby ye are sealed into the day of redemption. And you mentioned that.
Uncle Clem there the other day we have that exhortation here in Ephesians. We have in First Thessalonians 5 the exhortation quench not the Spirit. And I enjoyed the thought that.
Graving the Spirit of God is doing the things that the Spirit of God tells us not to do. Quenching the Spirit is not doing the things that the Spirit of God would lead us to do.
I think it is interesting thing that in both cases we are to be sensitive as to the Spirit of God in our lives. He's in you. If you're a believer in the Lord Jesus, He dwells in you.
What's characteristic of a child of God is that they are led by the Spirit of God.
Don't grave him by doing things he tells you not to do. Don't quench him by not doing the things that he tells you to do.
The lights of the flesh is doing what our own will ask us to do instead of what God has prepared us to do by the Holy Spirit. We ought to walk in pleasing way to Him always and not allow the flesh to act.
It's interesting that it says that brings in his continually being in us. We're sealed into the day of redemption. The Spirit of God is never going to leave the true believer. And so it's, it's it's that more, much more of a serious offense against him to grieve him because he's not going to leave. We get into hard circumstances. We may go off and leave the difficulty, but the Spirit of God doesn't do that with the believer. He stays with the believer.
So the excitation in the next chapter is to be filled with the Spirit. What does that mean?
I didn't have 100% of the say.
And if the Spirit of God is hindered in any way, can be no blessing, can be used as channels for God can't bear any fruit from God, except it comes directly through the Spirit of God. And so.
There is a tremendous importance that we give places here to the Spirit of God.
In the last two verses we have a number of things that are mentioned that hinder the Spirit of God in doing what He wants to do in our lives. Like you say Brother Phil, producing that fruit that is characteristic of a believer in the Lord Jesus.
Pretty negative things here.
All bitterness.
And wrath and anger and clamor and evil speaking be put away from you with all malice. Pretty inclusive verse, isn't it? As to the negatives in the believer's life.
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It's just as large on the positive side in the last.
Be kind one to another.
Without discrimination, that would be.
Even the standard is God for Christ sake has forgiven you.
What an example.
I think this is the only time I may need to be corrected. We have the expression tender hearted.
Then said that it's human to offend, but it's divine to forgive.
That word, bitterness, brethren, does tremendous damage in the life of believers, and we need to.
Judge it.
The Lord help us in that it it is something that is referred to.
In the, uh, Hebrews 12 as roots of bitterness. It's under the ground, it's under the surface.
So a nurse, that person did me in, and I'm never gonna forgive them.
We might not say that in so many words, but we nurse that grievance.
Get rid of it.
Remember old brother Harry? Hey Hossein, I probably got it most off of the tapes and more than hearing him because he was fairly old when I was fairly young. But remember him saying never entertain?
A, uh, bitter thought about anyone in the sphere of your acquaintance that is so important, brethren, If you have a hard thought about somebody, get down in your knees.
And pray for the Lord's blessing on that person. Lord help us brethren. Satan knows how to take those roots of bitterness and make them sprout. And many are contaminated. That happened again and again among spreading. Lord, help us to do what we have in the last verse. Be kind one to another, tender hearted, forgiving one another. Let it go.
Whatever the grievance was, let it go. There's somebody else that can take care of the matter and make it right. You don't have to try to make it right.
That's the heaviest load.
And we may even take consolation in the fact that, well, this is that has been done against me and is going to be settled the judgment seat of Christ. There's no relief in that either, is there? But to realize that when we're raptured home, our first look in the face of the Lord Jesus will cause us to forget everything that we should have forgotten here and we're not going to be able to take our case on.
Think of the Lord Jesus on the way to the cross.
Praying the Father forgive them.
Who? Who was treated worse than that?
Who showed the heart of God greater than that?
Even as God in Christ's sake forgiven us.
So the Spirit of Christ.
In that life is, Father is.
It's touching here how it says that even as God for Christ sake hath forgiven you, God forgave us not because necessarily just ourselves and our need, but because of Christ, he forgave us and so.
We should do the same but for Christ sake. Sometimes it's hard to forgive people, but then we look at Christ and see what he did for that person. Then we can forgive them.
174.