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­­­­LSB  Ephesians 4:17-24 Part 1

17 Therefore this I say, and testify in the Lord, that you walk no longer just as the Gentiles also walk, in the futility of their mind, 18 being darkened in their mind, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, because of the hardness of their heart. 19 And they, having become callous, have given themselves over to sensuality for the practice of every kind of impurity with greediness. 20 But you did not learn Christ in this way— 21 if indeed you heard Him and were taught in Him, just as truth is in Jesus, 22 to lay aside, in reference to your former conduct, the old man, which is being corrupted in accordance with the lusts of deceit, 23 and to be renewed in the spirit of your mind, 24 and to put on the new man, which in the likeness of God has been created in righteousness and holiness of the truth.

I often turn to the page of pocket articles that pop up when I open a new tab on firefox for sermon illustrations.  All of those click bait titles are a panoramic look at our ailing civilization that is slipping into ever increasing insanity.  here's a few that speak to our cultural moment.

Time   America’s Age Old Mental Health Crisis
America Has Reached Peak Therapy. Why Is Our Mental Health Getting Worse?

Aeon  What Would Thucydides Say?  In constantly reaching for past parallels to explain our peculiar times we miss the real lessons of the master historian.

NPR  All Grown up, but Still Fighting? Why More Siblings Are Turning to Therapy, Together

New Statesman  Salman Rushdie: ‘The World Has Abandoned Realism’

And from a source I've lost;  A Bipartisan Pair Aims To Solve America’s Happiness Problem
April 23, 2024   Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn. and Utah’s Republican Gov. Spencer Cox are joining forces to try and address a vexing problem plaguing the U.S.: Americans are less and less happy

I didn't have to look very far or waste much time to copy and paste those titles on May day 2024.  We are the most inward navel gazing society that has ever lived.  

It seems that a sustained era of FDR's four basic freedoms,  the freedom of speech, the freedom of worship, the freedom from want, and the freedom from fear;   has produced a culture that has not achieved nirvana, or anything close, but rather is slipping quickly into madness.  We had everything and couldn't find happiness or peace within.

How is that possible?

As usual, I believe with all of my heart, and I might add, from a sound and settled half century plus of a real sustained inner peace, that this ancient book addresses all of those problems.  

This book has the answer to all of the dilemma's that the pocket article writers are addressing with great sound and fury, getting nowhere except deeper into the quicksand.

Now what is the chance, what are the odds, that an old man with white hair living in the middle of nowhere, in flyover land Nevada, actually knows the answer to all of these vexing questions that keep the click bait pocket title article writers working furiously (and I might add, making a lot of money while they crank this stuff out non stop)?

I do, you know.  I know the answers to all of those questions.  Easy peasy simple stuff.  You can check my IQ.  Nothing special.  I am in fact a retired rocket scientist, but any milk maid or plowman can come up with the same answer.  It's been written down in very plain language for almost 2000 years.

Here it is;  17 Therefore this I say, and testify in the Lord, that you walk no longer just as the Gentiles also walk, in the futility of their mind, 18 being darkened in their mind, alienated from the life of God

We were created, intricately designed by God, to walk with God.  We're made to have a relational connection with God.  A life connection.  With God.

See it there, about half way through verse 18?  Gentiles, and by that category, Paul infers, all fallen peoples who are trapped in their sins, everyone, then, who has not had sin forgiven and removed as far as the east is from the west, by the substitutionary shed blood of Jesus who died in our place, we are alienated from the life of God.

Spiritually dead.  An entire component of God's design;  dead.  Empty.  Hollowed out.  Dead.  

We have this inner core designed for a life with God, that is empty.  Void.  And we know we're empty.  And we try to either fill that void up, or, we simply dull the pain with drugs or sex or rock and roll.

Also in the news this week.  Joe Biden with his cool sun glasses and scowl is going for the young and cool vote by making marijuana a class 3 drug instead of class 1 substance.  Cannibis is no more deadly than cough syrup.  

Before the dispensary on the edge of town gets a chance to open, it'll be on the shelf at Raleys next to the cough syrup.  Maybe they can use that cannibis dispensary tent to keep road sand dry.

We are hollowed out empty, and we dull the pain in a variety of methods.  Usually with what my mother called, the law of diminishing returns.  Right?  Over time it takes more substance to achieve the dulling.  Or newer younger sex partners.  Or more money.  Or more learning.  More discovery.  Im not really a man afterall, I'm a woman.  No wonder!!

It's endless, but those of us who are merely mildly amused observers are watching as the train goes over the cliff into absolute no return madness.

Our passage this morning addresses what we are witnessing before our eyes.  The answers are right here in plain english.

17 Therefore this I say, and testify in the Lord, that you walk no longer just as the Gentiles also walk, in the futility of their mind, 18 being darkened in their mind, alienated from the life of God

First of all, Paul is going to say something that is so ground breaking and earth shattering that he calls in a witness to corroborate the authority of what he will say.  This isn't just Paul saying this.  I call the Lord Jesus as my corroborating witness.  17 Therefore this I say, and testify in the Lord

The command is simple.  that you walk no longer just as the Gentiles also walk   You who are christians, that's the you that Paul is referring to here, you christians, be separate.  Don't do what they do.  We are to be separated from the world around us.  We walk differently than the rest of the world.  

And the distinction is true christians who have been born again, regenerated to new life by God who has quickened them alive from the spiritually dead and who has fellowship with them personally and imatimately by His indwelling Holy Spirit who lives inside their hearts.  That's who the pronoun "you" refers to in these verses.

The godless, those who Paul calls the gentiles here, walk in darkness.  Like blind people bumping around in the dark, looking for something they've lost, trying to fill up an empty soul, maybe it's this.  Maybe it's that.  Maybe if I read enough pocket articles I'll figure it all out.  Or maybe I'll go down the cannabis road and just dull the pain of being empty.

So, Paul's imperative is, you, don't be like them.  Don't walk like they walk.  Don't live like they live.  in the futility of their mind, 18 being darkened in their mind, alienated from the life of God   That's it.  But you all know I'm going to spend some time exploring the digression that Paul has given us here.  Futility.  -►  Darkness.  -►  Alienation.

I've been accused of having a hobby horse.  I default too often to this cultures mad rush into insanity.  OK, fair enough.  Guilty.  But it's frustrating being an old white haired guy in fly over land who actually knows the answer to the problems, and no one would ever listen to me.  

And probably, that's a good thing and I should just shut up because the world, in it's madness, is beginning to be violent in it's behaviour towards folks like me who claim there are answers in the absolute truth of an ancient book.  If anyone was paying attention to me, it wouldn't be good attention, so I'm OK with being ignored.  As long as that's possible.  Although I can't resist tempting a future reaction by publishing these manuscripts.

So, if you'll allow me, and you don't have much choice, I'm going to dig into this regression that Paul has defined for us here in his simple imperative to not be like the lost blind folk.

17 Therefore this I say, and testify in the Lord, that you walk no longer just as the Gentiles also walk, in the futility of their mind, 18 being darkened in their mind, alienated from the life of God

futility -► darkened -► alienated   This is a logical progression.  A spiral downward.  An incremental movement further and further distant from the creator and His design for thriving.

So the progressives have actually chosen a correct descriptive word.  Progressives are moving progressively further and further away from light and into darkness, away from blurred vision into total blindness, away from human thriving into utter madness.  Away from the Creator's intent of love and blessing into further and further alienation.

There is a progression.  Good word;  progressives.  They got their word right.  It's the direction they're madly going that's the problem for them.  Progression away from the Creator and His design for thriving, and over a cliff to utter destruction.  But progress, just the same.  I'll give them that point.

Let me insert a disclaimer here.  I'm not talking about democrats verses republicans here.  Godless republicans are standing around saying, why do we have to die on this morality hill.  And quickly they are rushing move away from God's design, if that's what it takes to win in this culture.  But at least there are a few conservative hold outs.  

Futility, of mind, leads to darkness in futility, leads to complete alienation from the giver and sustainer of life.  This is incremental.  It happens in phases.  

The word Paul chooses here, futility, is only used two other times in scripture.  And it means dysfunctional emptiness.  An empty void.  And if we're talking about our thinking apparatus, and more importantly, the combined thinking apparatus of the whole world, this becomes a very strong word.  

Paul is saying that the combined effort at thinking of the whole world is dysfunctional emptiness.  Void.  Meaningless noise.  And that's only the beginning point.  Then it goes dark.  Darkness in dysfunctional void.  And ultimately it ends in a total divorce from God.  God leaves the room.  Alienation from the Creator and sustainer of all things.

Let's delve into this truth a little bit further.  Paul gives the definitive statement of this phenomenon in Romans chapter 1.

While you're turning to Romans, let me preface that passage by saying, what we're experiencing first hand, day by day, pocket article after pocket article, is the judgement of God on our nation.  The sustainer of life moving farther and farther distant from us.  Individually, corporately, and nationally.

In my lifetime we have gone from blessing into judgement.  From the thriving of FDR's four freedoms into the very real loss of all of them.  God is judging the United States, in real time.  Country western singers like to get all teary eyed and sing God bless the USA, but look around you.  God is in the process of cursing the USA.  Here's why;

Romans 1:18  For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness,

Supressing the truth is where the progress away from God begins.  When I was a little guy, nothing was open on Sunday, except church.  Sunday was for worship.  And I remember my parents a little shocked and disgusted about people who would open their stores on Sunday.  It was dis-respectful, even if you didn't believe in a God.  Shameful to make your employees work on the Sabbath.

Little by little the suppression of the truth takes over.  We laughed at the foolishness of that picture of monkey's incrementally evolving into men.  What nonsense.  In the late 1950's.  We were monkeys.  We'd laugh at each other and say, I can see the resemblance.  Maybe you were, but not me.  ha ha

Then no fault divorce came.  My mom was an early adopter.  My dad was down the road by 1961.  She lived to regret that.  Then the sexual revolution of the 1960's.  The pill could prevent babies.  And by 1973, if you did manage to get pregnant, you could abort the tiny human to the waste bin.  

And after all, smarter people than us were explaining that there is no God who makes rules and judges people who break His rules.

But something happened that made the suppression idea kick in with a capitol S.  Modern science discovered DNA.  Every human has a unique DNA signature that put end to end in letters would wrap around the earth about 3 times.  No thinking honest person can make the leap, knowing that, that we evolved to unique DNA signatures of every human, without a designer.

But wait a minute.  If there's a designer, a holy God, we're in trouble, and we won't be able to go jump in the sack with anyone we want whenever we want to.  So they double down on evolution even though science prooved that it is utter foolishness.  

They suppress God because they love evil.  That's the darkness component added to futility of mind.  Broken thinking takes on a dark component in doubling down to suppress the truth.

This spiral into a mad rush over the cliff of any possible thriving happened in my lifetime.  I've watched it unfold.

Rom. 1:19 because that which is known about God is evident within them; for God made it evident to them.

It was evident long before science gave us the intracacies of DNA.  But suppressing God's truth has doubled down time and again in my lifetime.  

20 For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, both His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse. 21 For even though they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God or give thanks, but they became futile in their thoughts, and their foolish heart was darkened.

There's the same progression that Paul laid out for us in our Ephesians passage.  Same exact incremental progress away from God.

Futility in minds which leads to darkness in suppressing the truth.  Your thinker is broke.  So your logic goes something like this.  We know there isn't a God.  No sky God who is holy, who made everything, who owns everything, who might define good and evil in black and white absolutes, and who further might judge evil rebellions against Him and His rules.  We know that can't be possible, so;

We've got to find our own way out of this mess.  God is dead, so we get to make the rules.  With damaged thinking machines.  How's that working out for them.  

22 Professing to be wise, they became fools,

The smarter we got, the dumber we got.  We've double tripled down on how smart we are, and these days, the arrogance is fearful to those of us who know how a Holy God reacts to arrogant pride.  Terrifying wisdom of this generation of fools.  Absolutely stunning arrogance!

23 and exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for an image in the likeness of corruptible man and of birds and four-footed animals and crawling creatures. 24 Therefore God gave them over in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, so that their bodies would be dishonored among them.

I'm not going to go into all the gory details Paul lays down about perversions of sensuality.  But I wanted, for the sake of our text in Ephesians to get to this first place where it says, God gave them over.  And it's going to say that 2 more times.  God walks away.  God distances Himself.  AGain.  And again.  

Until ultimately, if you keep reading in this passage, you get to to the final gave them over, and at that final walking away, He allows their broken thinking machines to go crazy.  Insanity takes over.  Reprobate minds.  Broken thinking apparatus.  Impossible to get to any truth.  Insanity is a judgement of God when He walks away.  God gave them over . . . . to absolute insanity.  Minds that can no longer reason in reality.

Hey, if you had to suppress reality you live and breathe in in order to get rid of God, after that, leaving reality for the purposes of your insanity is easy.

When they asked a woman who is nominated for the supreme court of this nation whether she can define what a woman is, and she says no, congratulations.  You've arrived in your progression away from God, at utter madness.  The word indicates insanity.  Broken thinkers that can't arrive at the conclusion any 4 year old still knows.

Beloved, that's judgement on our nation, pure and simple.  It's rather frightening to watch, because the arrogance of the fools with the insane thinking machines is growing impatient and intolerant with anyone who holds up God's revealed truth.  Arrogance, insanity, intolerance can only go one place.  Eliminate any opposing truth.  

Jesus says, they hated Me, so why are you surprised that they hate you too.
The word for suppress, where it says they suppress the truth, is a picture of the effort to hold back an opposing force.

And I'll give them one thing.  Once they've made up their minds that God and His book and His absolute truths must go, they're at least consistent.  Whatever the effort is, that's needed to force God out of the equation, that suppression of the truth, will do whatever is ultimately necessary to keep God and His truth away.

What happens when suppressing the truth gets real for those of us who will not bow the knee to holding onto our belief system based in the authority of the innerrant and infallible words of this book?  This is the very Word of God.

There's already little clashes and spot fires here and there.  We're vastly outnumbered by the folks with reprobate minds.  Broken thinking machines that can only double down on the wrong answers.  

Well, we may be outnumbered here, now, but I've read the end of the book.  God wins.  And I have good reasons to believe that cataclysm may be coming to a theater near you very soon.

17 Therefore this I say, and testify in the Lord, that you walk no longer just as the Gentiles also walk, in the futility of their mind, 18 being darkened in their mind, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, because of the hardness of their heart.

Ignorance.  Ignorance is a choice.  Because God has revealed truth's beyond finding out, in this book.  God has laid everything we need to know in order to thrive, in simple language, in this book.

I wish I could find the source, it's long lost to me, but I remember reading somewhere that on a scale of difficulty of one to ten, with Dick and Jane 1st grade readers as a one, and purposefully impossible to comprehend lawyer speak as a ten, on that scale, this book comes in at about a three.

Ignorance is a choice.  Ignorance that leads to futility and non thriving, is a choice.  Sure, there's some head scratchers in here.  When you get to beasts with 7 heads and 10 horns, you may need to ask for a bit of help.  But for the most part, these words are a solid 3 on a one to ten scale of difficulty to comprehend and understand.

Why would anyone choose to be ignorant of what is necessary for thriving??  That's counter intuitive.  Crazy.  Well, we just spent about 40 minutes covering crazy, didn't we.  Gotta suppress God, and craziness comes in that bargain.  Gotta get rid of the source of all truth, so all that's left is ignorance.

in the futility of their mind, 18 being darkened in their mind, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, because of the hardness of their heart.

Ignorance has a cause in this verse.  Again, very logical, very simple concepts to understand and comprehend.  Very logical in progression.  Crazy mind begets, darkened evil blind crazy mind, begets, divorce from God, begets ignorance, begets hard heart.  Stubborn locked down refusal to budge ignorance.  Ignorance that says I'll fight and destroy you if you say I can't have it.  I'll do whatever is necessary to keep God and His truth . . . out.

We covered absolute truth last week.  Just a refresher.  Only one source of absolute truth.  Jesus praying to His Father said, Thy word is truth.  Jn. 17:17

Again very logical.  If you reject God, reject His revealed truth, reject this book the only other option for you is ignorance.  Utter crazy empty void with a good helping of darkness ignorance.  It's a binary choice.  Another trigger word that makes the dark ignorant folk mad.  Two choices.  Revealed truth or ignorance.  God's book;  all of it . . . or evil ignorance.

We'll take ignorance, thank you very much, and if you disagree and shine truth into our ignorance, we'll do whatever is necessary to suppress the truth, including eliminating the folks who insist on holding on to it.

I was amused the other day at Bill Maher talking about abortion.  He said, "it is kind of murder, but I'm OK with that.  There's 8 billion people in the world.  I'm sorry, we won't miss you."

I started thinking about that.  There's two opposing groups in his declaration.  We, and you.  We won't miss you.  Who's the we, and who's the you.  Any way you divide it up, there's life unworthy of life in his conclusion.  Him and all the other we's who apparently stand with him, are OK with lives being snuffed out.  They won't be missed.  That should frighten you.  It does me.  But I congratulate him for his honesty.  

vs. 19 And they, having become callous, have given themselves over to sensuality for the practice of every kind of impurity with greediness.

And they . . . uh ohh.  Apparently we've got a we and a you also.  Diametrically opposed groups at odds with each other in a struggle.  There's them and there's us.  

Again, 1 Jn. 5:19 We know that we are of God, and that the whole world lies in the power of the evil one.  That's pretty clear.  That lays out a pretty well defined binary.  Us, them.  Opposing views.  One based in revealed truth.  One based in crazy.  Dark crazy.  Divorced from God, dark crazy.  Locked down stubborn hard hearted ignorant divorced from God dark evil crazy.  Who will stop at nothing to suppress the truth.  In other words, us.

And they, having become callous, . . . .
"It's kind of murder, but I'm OK with that."  Bill Maher.  Gotta love him.  He made defining my words really easy.  And they, having become callous,

Interesting and telling greek word translated callous.  apalgeó  It was the word for loss of sensory feeling.  The reason ancient peoples with leprosy would become disfigured is because their nerve endings were insensitive to pain.  Whack a finger off and not know you did it.  apalgeó

That's Paul's description of the world when it gets this far in its progress away from God.  All sensory systems quit.  Including shame.

vs. 19 And they, having become callous, have given themselves over to sensuality for the practice of every kind of impurity with greediness.

In the 1980's when AIDS hit hard, we kind of thought, well, this is as far as they can go.  Right.  They got to their dead end of this verse.  I mean if your sensuality kills you, that's a dead end block that should stop traffic because a bridge is out and further progress will end in death.  Road block.

No.  It's just a work-around.  Detour.  We'll figure out a way to keep going further and further into the depravity and insanity.

Beloved, the words we're studying together this morning were written about 60 AD.  1964 years ago.  Plus or minus.  They weren't written by smart people last week.  How is it that nearly 2000 years ago a man wrote words that we continue to be surprised at how far we can travel into his exact declarations.

I'm not giving you a political ideology, I'm teaching you what a man wrote, under the inspiration of God, in 60 AD.  And we click on You Tube and what we see is above and beyond what we ever imagined was possible in the mad dark war on God.  

And Paul wasn't writing as a prophet looking into our time, he was defining the natural progression of paganism in it's war against God, normative in every time.  He's simply telling the Ephesian christians, separate yourselves from how the world lives and walks.

Come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord.  But it's amazing to us in 2024, because when I was born, 70+ years ago, the separation wasn't so wide.  Now it's massive.  And it has changed at a frightening rate.  Scary how quickly this nation abandoned God and embraced evil.  One lifetime.  2 generations.  Complete turn around into a mad rush over the cliff.

I see the hand of a sovereign God in all of it.  We sort of know the end must be very near, because God Himself crushed wicked nations for their wickedness that were less wicked than we are.  

I have to believe the only reason His hand is temporarily stayed is because history is winding up to final things.  Where we're at right now is the very definition of judgement.  But as a soft, lazy, weak christian I confess that I hope perhaps we'll be spared living through the beginnings of birth pangs.

I look in my crystal ball and there's no guarantees.  The only guarantee is trouble for christians.  We've been the anomaly in history.  We've enjoyed unparalleled thriving and ease, never before available to believers.  All I can say is buck up, buttercup christians and fasten your seat belts.  We're either going home, or we're going through.  I'll close with words from the book of Jude.  

vs. 17 But you, beloved, must remember the words that were spoken beforehand by the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ, 18 that they were saying to you, “In the last time there will be mockers, following after their own ungodly lusts.” 19 These are the ones who cause divisions, worldly-minded, devoid of the Spirit. 20 But you, beloved, building yourselves up on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Spirit, 21 keep yourselves in the love of God, waiting for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ to eternal life. 22 And on some, who are doubting, have mercy; 23 and for others, save, snatching them out of the fire; and on others have mercy with fear, hating even the tunic polluted by the flesh. 24 Now to Him who is able to keep you from stumbling, and to make you stand in the presence of His glory blameless with great joy, 25 to the only God our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, might, and authority, before all time and now and forever. Amen.  Jude 1:17 - 25