How do you like that? Wasn't that good? When I come up on the stage, I asked me if he was gonna sing. He just looked at me and said, uh-uh. Amen. Got your Bibles. Will you go with me to the book of Ephesians again on this Sunday night? Doing a little series of messages. Started last Sunday night from Ephesians 1 and went down through verse 17. We dealt about what a healthy church is. And thank God for a healthy church. A good old-fashioned, independent, fundamental, independent Baptist church that preaches the Word of God, holds to the truth of God, founded upon biblical authority. but I wanna go on into this passage. Now, if, and I do a lot of teaching tonight, if you're a note taker, put the theme, do this so you'll know, of chapter four, chapter five, down to chapter six, verse eight, the theme is walk worthy. That's the theme. How many of y'all agree that we ought to walk worthy? We're children of God. We're saved. We're washed in the blood. We ought to behave like we believe. Somebody help me here. Look at Ephesians chapter four, this section of scripture that I will do an exegesis of and do expository preaching out of tonight. I want you to look at, we'll start at verse 17. Now, as we introduce this, the first three chapters of the book of Ephesians talk about your belief and your blessings. I want you to know something, your blessings come because you've got a proper belief. You're not gonna be blessed if you don't believe right. You've got to believe the Word of God and believe what God says about salvation, sanctification, justification, glorification, and have those truths locked into you because if you believe right, then you're gonna be blessed by your belief. But in this section of Scripture, we're not talking about the belief in the blessing, we're talking about the behavior of a Christian. Now listen to this, you cannot behave right. Oh, I might hit this three times. You cannot behave right if you don't believe right. Let me say it again. How many of you ever read after Dr. Bob Jones, Sr.? Anybody read? How many's ever read his sermon, Just Do Right? Have you read it? Just Do Right. Hey, by the way, we need to just do right, and you're not gonna behave if you don't believe right. Now, Dr. Jones said this. You can find faulty Christians, Christians with faults in them, by their belief system. If they do not believe right, they'll have bad character. Somebody help me preach. I see a lot of people just don't believe right and they're not anchored into the word of God and because they're not anchored in the word of God, they don't behave right. I don't know if you're getting it or not. I will say this, can I run a rabbit? We're living in a time of Christendom where the church of the living God is behaving the worst I've ever seen it in my 45 years of pastor. We are amassed as a whole. Just not behaving right. We're just a mess as a whole. I'm not talking about you. I'm not talking about this church. I'm talking about if we look at Christian as a whole, it's a mess. They don't know what they believe. They don't behave right. They've changed the culture of churches. Here's what's happened. They changed the culture of churches to emulate what the culture of the world is. The music. Come on, help me. Hey, we see it in the music, we see it in the worship. There's a bunch of perverted, pinko, liberal, ungodly people trying to lead worship that I did not ever be allowed to do it. Oh, we're just wanting to be user friendly. No, you're wanting to be an idiot. Somebody help me preach. So I may hit that a lot tonight because your belief will lead to your behavior. See the joy of our salvation is the fact, somebody help me right here, that we're in Christ. How many know you're in Christ? Wave at me if you know you're saved. Wave at me if you like being saved. Wave at me if you love God. So that's a lot of introduction. So verse 16 verses is our membership relationship with Christ. But from 17, and let's read that, let's read a few verses. Have I read yet? I haven't, have I? Let's look at verse 17 and read down probably verse 27. and I'll deal with this section tonight. For this, this I say therefore and testify in the Lord, that ye henceforth walk not as other Gentiles 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 has given themselves over unto lasciveness to work all uncleanness with greediness. But ye have not so learned Christ, and 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, the old man, which is corrupt according to the deceitfulness of lust, and be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and that you put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness, wherefore putting away all lying, And speak every man truth of his neighbor, for we are members one another. Be ye angry and sin not, and let not the sun go down upon your wrath. But here's the key thought of this section. It'll be my third thought of tonight. This is the key thought. Neither give place to the devil. Here's my theme tonight, the overriding theme, is don't give the devil a foothold. Somebody help me preach. Don't give place to the devil. You ought not allow him to influence your life any. Now let me, let me give you Three things, and the third thing is where I'll preach. See, when we got saved, we got totally delivered. How many believe we got totally delivered? I'm telling you, I'm totally delivered. I've went from the kingdom of darkness, and I've been translated into the kingdom of light. I no longer am in darkness, but I'm walking in the light as he is in light, and we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus cleanses us from all sin. Verse 17, Paul said, we testify in the Lord. He gives us three things. Notice in verse 17, he talks about a changed life. Now I'm gonna say this tonight. If you are saved, you've ought to have a changed life. I don't like Christianity that doesn't change. I watch it. I watch people, I see people in my own congregation acting like Gentile sinners. And I wonder, I said, have they been changed? Have they got what I got? Hello? See, first thing I wanna deal with, I wanna deal with a changed life because let me tell you what our life used to be. Look at verse 17. This I say unto you and testify unto the Lord, that ye henceforth walk not after other Gentiles walk in the vanity of their mind. Here's where I was when I was lost. I had a darkened mind. My mind was dark. I was blind to the things of God. It was dark. Hey, by the way, I thought all you people in church were weirdos. But see, I was on the outside looking in. But now I'm on the inside, looking out, and things are a whole lot different from the inside. Somebody help me preach. In verse 18, he has a darker mind. Go with me, stay with me. Then he got blind misconceptions. Look at verse 18, having their understanding darkened. being alien from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them because of the blindness of the heart. That's how I was. I was blind. I was taught, hey, I didn't get it. I didn't get this thing. You know what worries me? There's people that says they're saved and I just don't think they get it. There's people during this pandemic has absolutely went out of their mind. I don't think they got it. Does a flu virus, H1N1, tell us that we stop church and stop functioning because of a flu virus? Somebody help me. I act like that when I was lost. I was scared to death when I was lost. but now I'm in Christ. Boy, it's quiet in here. You hear me out tonight. We were changed. Hey, hey, we're not blind anymore. I see when we were lost, we had no clarity. We had no correctness. We had no comprehension because we had no Christ. But when we have a Christ, we ought to have clarity. We ought to have correction and we ought to have comprehension. You're preaching, Reverend. See, I want to tell you, I didn't come to Buddha. I didn't come to Muhammad. I'm not praying to a cow. I have a Christ that changed me, that deposited his spirit in me. I'm justified. I'm being sanctified. Help me. I see depraved manners, look at verse 19. who being past feelings have given themselves over to the last shiveness to work all uncleanness with greediness. That's where we were. We were to pray, we were past feelings. That Greek word is a polio or no sense of pain. It's like you put your hand on the stove and not feel any pain. That's that Greek word. And that's where we were as sinners before we got saved. We were past feeling. And you know what worries me? There's a lot of people since they're saved, they're past feeling. I don't understand why they don't have no compassion. I don't understand why they can't forgive. I don't know why they're still bitter. I don't know why they're angry. Cause see, that's a past feeling. That's a depraved manner. When you got saved, you got changed. That ought to be over. Yeah, then deliver it filth. That's the last ship of this. Now let me show you a second thing. Are y'all getting your Bibles? Y'all getting something here? Look at verse 21. I want you to not only see the changed life, I want you to see a corresponding look. Look at verse 21. And so be that ye have heard him, And if it taught by him, as the truth is in Jesus, that ye put off concerning the former conversation, the old man, which is corrupt according to the seep of lust, and be renewed in the spirit of your mind, that you put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness, wherefore putting away lying, Speak every man truth of his neighbor, for we are members one of another. Be angry and sin not. A corresponding look. First of all, there ought to be a sinful removal. We need to put off the old man. If you're dead to it, it ought not have any rule in you. See, here's the problem. There's many believers who are not dead to the flesh. And because the flesh is ruling their life. You know what we need? We need just, really, we need an old fashioned revival. We need every member of this church just say, you know what? I need to put away foolishness. I need God's in my life. I need the power of God. I need a personal revival. I'm not looking at everybody else. I need some things removed out of my life that hinder my life. Hold on a minute. I feel that way about myself. There got to be some stuff removed. You ever really got saved? Something ought to correspond with that. Good preaching, Reverend. See, I'm just preaching the Bible. I'm not preaching my feelings. You know what's killing our churches? There's a lot of Baptist people don't like line upon line preaching and expository preaching because it eats their lunch. Because it's not the preacher condemning you, it's not the preacher saying something to you, it's the Word of God dealing with you. Then look at verse 23, and be renewed in the spirit of your mind. Not only do we need a sinful removal, we need a spiritual renewal. Let me ask the church. Let me ask everyone of you. When's the last time you really got renewed? I'm talking about renewed. Here's what I think. I think we learned to play church. I think we learned to play the game. You know, we know how to dress right, we know how to act right, but we don't learn how to play the game. But I think sometimes we're so far away from what God wants us, and we need to renew ourselves. And by the way, that's daily. The former pastor, I've been here 42 years, the former pastor, his name was Omar Rucker. Omar Rucker was a decent, good man. When I came and took over his telephone, he had the old one in. You know what he had inside when you lifted up the phone to go to your, you know what was sitting right inside there? Here's what it said. I die daily. I don't say a lot of that. I don't see us renewing ourself and dying daily. That's so needed in my life. I'll forget y'all for a minute. That's needed in my life. A renewal. See, there's one thing I wanna be for you every Sunday morning, Sunday night, and Wednesday night is fresh and renewed and plugged into God. I don't care how old I am or how young I was. That's not the secret. The secret is you gotta be plugged into God and renewed day by day. Or you'll get stale. You'll get calloused. How many stale Christians you know? I'm gonna tell you what that means. That means you take it all for granted. Man, we're so blessed and we take it all for granted. All I'm preaching. Let me go on and give you some more. Then I see a supernatural replacement, a holy transformation. Then it says in verse 25, an honest tongue, wherefore put away lying. I wanna tell you something, there's some people so good at lying, they've convinced themselves that it's the truth. They're professional liars. Somebody help me. Professional liars, just lie, lie, lie, and they're convinced that it's all truth. God, help us. Hey, by the way, we need to put away lying. We need to be honest. It's all right. You say, well, I'm afraid of hurting somebody's feelings. Just be honest. Quit lying. Just don't lie. One amen. So everybody else, please, it's okay to lie. There's a lot of things turn me off, but I want to tell you one thing turns me off, it's a liar. Then we need to harness temper. Ooh. Verse 26, be angry. Be angry. Now what's that mean? Do you know there is a righteous in your nation? There is some things you ought to get mad about and be angry about, but you see it not. But here's the problem, as too many of us got a quick temper, man, we're ready, we're ready to go off the edge over nothing. I mean, over nothing. You need to harness your temper. I'll tell you, I know a little bit about that. Cause I had one of those and it still rears itself up once in a while. I want you to know, I do everything I can in my Christian life is to harness my temper and allow my temper to go to my mouth. Cause I can get real mouthy when I lose my temper. Know what y'all do? Everybody here just peaches and cream, I guess. Well, you know, people do see you outside the church. If we're gonna put on Christ, we need to have an honest tone and we need to harness our temper. Amen? How many believe your marriage would be better if both of you had been honest with each other all these years and communicated like two people ought to communicate in your home? How many of you believe your marriage would be better if y'all wouldn't lost your cool to each other over the years? Boy, it's quiet in here. It ain't time to pray. Some of you are looking down. We need to harness it. We need to reign it in and be maker. Boy, I tell you, I can remember a few times, I'm like this. I'm a little different than most people. I don't have a quick trigger, Rich. I really don't. I'm not that you could say something to me and I'm off. That ain't how I am, okay? That's just not my way. Now, I got a tibber, but it ain't like that. There's some people, hair trigger, boom, they shoot you before you get two words out your mouth. Not me. Here's the way I am, or was. Jeff, it builds up in me. It gets up. And it may take two months. And if I don't get that thing harnessed in him, when I go off, it ain't good. I remember, I'll tell something ugly on myself, so y'all don't get, y'all look like you're dying right now. I'll tell on myself. This is terrible. But I'll tell something terrible about myself when it's honest. I don't do it anymore, but I have. But years and years ago, when I first got here, and we weren't making much money, Rich. And I had a guy was doing me wrong about finances. And he hurt my family is what he done, and hurt my children. And he messed up on something. And I'll tell you what, Jeff. You ever had something build up in you and just let it go and it keeps going and you didn't deal with it? There's one day that boy ticked me off. This is the awfulest thing I ever done as a Christian. I didn't cuss. I wrote a few of them down, but I didn't cuss. He did something that was totally unethical toward me and my family. And I went into him, and I said, this is terrible. I'm giving you an illustration of unharnessed anger. I looked in there and saw what he had done to me. I said, well, I'm gonna tell you what, you either fix that, and I'm coming back in 15 minutes. And when I get back, I'm gonna tear your head off. You said, did you mean it? By the way, when I got back, it was fixed. But I tell you what I had to do before the sun got down on my wrath. I called him up. I did. I called him up. I said, you were wrong, but I was double wrong because I let you cause me to be angry and I didn't harness myself and I apologize for my anger. And you know what he done? He left his home, came down to my office, got down on his knees before me, and wept like a baby and said, I've been treating you wrong for months. And he said, I've been doing it on purpose to try to push you to anger. And he said, I thought I'd never succeed. But I flipped a switch. And there's a lot of people you don't harness your anger And that's why it messes your life up. Am I preaching? I know it's quiet in here. I mean, I'm just going down to Scripture. Now, let me give you one more point. I haven't even got to the point I wanted to get to. Look at verse 27, and I'll be done. This is the message. Neither give place to the devil. I wanna ask, so I don't feel so rotten. Anybody in this room ever give place to the devil? Four of you. See, we encounter a evil opponent. The devil's bad. The devil's after us. And what makes it bad? We give him place in our life. See, I want to tell you what the devil wants. He wants you out of this kind of church. He wants your children out of this kind of church. He wants your children to be enslaved to him. He wants your marriage to be broken up. He wants your testimony. He wants your future. He wants your spiritual fortitude. He wants you to quit. And here's the only thing you can do. The only thing you can do is tell that evil opponent, no! Now, how many's ever had your house inspected? Two of you? Or all of you have? They come in and they look around, don't they? And them dudes look for something wrong. You know what some of us need to do? We need to inspect our life. And I'm not talking about what we allow in the front door. No, it's what we allow in the back door. Why have you let pornography get in your house? Boy, is it dead in here. Why is it? that some of your social media is rotten. And you don't monitor the internet. I have seen stuff on the internet that absolutely, in the last few months, embarrassed me to death. Allison taught me to do something. She's here tonight. You taught me. I didn't know how to do this. Without unfriending somebody, just block it so you don't have to look at that stuff. I mean, I think Peyton placed it on Facebook all the time. And I'll be honest with you, I believe a lot of y'all in it. Y'all living in Peytonville. Hello? Let me ask you something. Would your life be different if you wouldn't give place to the devil? Would your marriage be different if you wouldn't give place to the devil? Would your morality be different if you haven't given place to the devil? I know some Christians that have given place to the devil. They smoke dope. They drink, they're hopped up on pills. God help us. You said, what happened to them? They gave place to the devil. We've all done it. Come on now. And I want you to know something. And I'm gonna tell you where most of that stuff come from. if I can. It comes from our sickening, rotten pride. See, that's what got Satan kicked out of heaven, and that's what messes all of us up, is our pride. We're too, we worry too much about us, and not more much about what he thinks. Somebody help me preach. See, we need to check our social media. We need to check our text messages. We need to check our emails. And by the way, let me ask you a question. Boy, this is gonna get, I'm down where the rubber meets the road right now. Wonder how many of y'all would allow me to come to your house and check all your emails? And check all your texts? Could I do it? What would I find? I'll tell you what you said, you wouldn't do it. Oh yeah, I will. My phone's right out there. Rich, you deacons, go ahead and take it. Take a look at it. Dissect every email I got. You're gonna find most of them ain't been opened. I don't let myself get on a chat room with another woman. I don't let myself get into some social media site that's filth and rotten and degraded. Because I'm not giving the devil any place in my life. because you deserve a leader that loves God, that is holy, that is separated, that's trying to do right. I'm almost done. So we need to eliminate the opportunities. Just don't let wrong stuff get out. I'm gonna finish right there. Can I talk to you a minute? My seats are gone, now here's one. Can I talk to you a minute? Let me ask you a question. Have you done anything lately on the last month or the last six months that you regret doing? That you give place to the devil? Is there anything that you absolutely are allowing the devil to have victory in your life? And it's all because you let him in the door. I'll tell you what some of you have done. You have quit being a disciplinarian parents with your kids. You know who rules most homes? Children. Boy, it's quiet in here tonight. Did I shoot y'all with a shotgun? We're letting the Indians run the reservation. And we're the leaders. I'm gonna ask you something. Are you afraid to say no to your kids? How many? Families, have I pastored in 42 years, who've lost their children, lost them because they give place to the devil. They lost them. They're gone. Some of them dead. Some of them a mess. Some of them in jail. Why? Because they let the devil come in. Boys, quiet in here. You know what we need, Rich? We need some of us to get honest with God and say, God, I need a revival. I have let the devil have his way too long. And I'm broken about it, God. My behavior's not been right. And I want to get right. I tell you what I'm gonna do, I'm gonna pray. Y'all go ahead and stand. If you feel like the devil's been working in your home, your life, your business, your work, your attitude, your action, anywhere, he's been some places he shouldn't be, why don't you come around the altar and pray? I'm not gonna press you tonight. I'm gonna just sit here and pray myself. Our Father, I pray that these folks say, I wanna renew mine. I want my life so connected to Jesus. I want my family, my children to be locked in, to be connected. I don't wanna lose my kids. I don't wanna lose my testimony. and my joy, God help. In Jesus' name, amen. Will you come, let's sing.