So we are still in Ephesians chapter four. So we have covered through verse number 16, So we're going to be looking at verses 17 to 19 here in Ephesians chapter 4. As soon as I get there. Alright, here we go. Alright, so Ephesians chapter 4 verses 17 to 19. This I say, therefore, and testify in the Lord, that ye henceforth walk not as other Gentiles walk, in the vanity of their mind, having their 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 unto lasciviousness to work all uncleanness with greediness. So Paul began chapter four. I'm not sure why that keeps kicking me off. Paul began chapter four with the exhortation to walk worthy of the calling that they had been called with and called to. And he gave them seven foundations for unity of all the members in the church at Ephesus, particularly with those Jew and Gentile relations in mind. And for all of that emphasis on unity that Paul has made in this letter to this point, he also expanded to show that unity or within that unity, rather, there's also diversity, and that would come to the different parts. So the work of bringing glory to God in this age, it is a corporate work. We saw that at the end of chapter three. It is a corporate work, but it's a corporate work that Paul has shown and is showing that each individual part in the body contributes to. So the foundation work, he explained, has been done through the extraordinary gifts that Christ gave those first century apostles and prophets and evangelists. And those were extraordinary offices. And again, we see those in the book of Acts, see those operating. They primarily had to do with revelation in particular. And so that foundation has been laid. And what Paul has said, and he said this at the end of chapter two, essentially, and echoed in chapter three, the foundation has been laid and now buildings are being built on that foundation. Churches, these churches are buildings that are being built on this foundation. And every building that Christ builds matures to a temple, to a habitation, dwelling place for God in this age through his spirit. Now in chapter four, Paul returns to the walk command here that he began this chapter with, and he's going to draw out some consequences of it in the body. And that's ahead of us here in this letter to the Ephesians. And so it makes us think a couple of things. We look at the beginning of chapter four. What does it mean to walk worthy? of that calling. What does it mean or how does an individual do this? How does a corporate body do this? And Paul's already touched on these things, but he's drilling down further as we continue. Now he reinforces here in verses 17 to 19, he reinforces that command to walk with a command to not walk, not walk as other Gentiles. So this passage also presents us a couple of opportunities. We've been studying this letter of the Ephesians. We've seen Paul's emphasis on unity and such. And so we're presented with a couple of questions here that might seem to be contradictory. And one has to do with the relationship between walking and learning, and the other has to do with the relationship between Jews and Gentiles, or those of the nations. All right, so we're gonna jump in here. Immediately we see in verse 17, this I say therefore and testify in the Lord that you henceforth walk not as other Gentiles walk in the vanity of their mind. So right away, we see this word therefore, this connecting word that Paul has been using, which obviously goes back to what he has previously stated. So this is particularly to what came before here in chapter 4 and verses 1 to 16. But then if you remember how that chapter 4 starts with the therefore, it also connects to really the preceding half of the letter. So it also connects to chapters 1 to 3 previously. Now, all of these connections that we have seen and we've been drawing attention to, all of these connections show a very logical order. and progression of thought in what Paul is writing. We might call it reasoning, or we might call it argumentation, but Paul's not just sort of rattling, just sort of off the cuff, just throwing out random thoughts or musings that he might have, I guess, popularly today you might call that you know stream of consciousness kind of thing just sort of just sort of flowing out that is not what this letter is at all it is it's very logical and it's very ordered and all of these connecting words tell us that so that tells us that there's something we should be tracing through. We should be bringing from what we've already read and learned in this letter, we should be bringing it forward because Paul is continuing either to develop it as foundational principle or he's drawing from it as consequence or conclusion. So we're in the letter, the part of the letter where it's more the consequence or conclusion that he's drawing from it. But it is, that means that this letter was carefully constructed to convey a coherent message. So it has interconnected, interrelated thoughts coming from foundations leading to conclusions. That's the way that Paul has written this letter. And so we're seeing that continue. So what Paul has to say here, what comes after this has to do with what he has said before. Now, he says, this I say therefore and testify in the Lord." Now, talking about all of this reasoned argumentation, and then we get this word like testify, and it sort of all sounds somewhat legal. And Paul is actually using a legal term here for witness. It's a word that means to testify, to take to record, to obtest, as in court, to call to witness, that sort of thing. So it does have legal connotations to this word. So Paul is saying, that he is he's testifying he's he's witnessing and really it has the it has the function of strengthening this word say Because the word say can be very general. It can refer to just saying something, just speaking. It can refer to giving exhortation, giving instruction, giving teaching, giving commands, just any sort of thing. So context is going to control. But really, Paul is strengthening. And so what the result is when you get, say, plus testify, this equals insist. Paul is insisting. He is urging what he is writing to the Ephesians. And so what does that mean? Well, that means further that Paul is speaking with apostolic authority. In other words, he's not giving out his opinion. He's not giving out a suggestion. He's urging them. He is commanding them. He is earnestly commanding them with authority as an apostle, which again, takes us right back to chapter four and verse number one, where he beseeched them as the prisoner of the Lord, which again, we saw tracing through this, this was an apostolic authority. So Paul is insisting in Christ, he is insisting, he is urging in Christ that they henceforth walk not as other Gentiles walk in the vanity of their mind. So really this command is sort of a complementary command to what we have in chapter four and verse number one earlier at the beginning of this chapter, where he commanded them to walk, and here he commands them to walk not. So this is the first occasion this word, let's give us this word walk. This is the first occasion of this question about the consistency or the coherence of this letter when Paul is telling them to walk. And what I mean by that is that Ephesians, as we have seen, places great importance on the mind. places great importance on understanding, comprehending, teaching, learning, thinking, reasoning. Well, walk refers more to action, to behavior, to way of life, having more to do with things that we do. So is there some inconsistency or are these complementary? How do these function together is what's going on. So just a quick look at Ephesians and the emphasis, the references to the mind, the understanding and such. So the word for mind that is used, which essentially refers to human intellect here. And this human intellect is that that is naturally corrupted and that that can be renewed in Christ. And so we have some references here. Ephesians 2, 3, among whom also we all had our conversation in times past in the lust of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others. Chapter 4, here where we are, he talks about the Gentiles walking in the vanity of their mind. Also later in this chapter, he talks about being renewed in the spirit of your mind. So here again, he's talking to the human mental faculty and the fact that it's naturally corrupted is what we saw earlier. And here it is that that is renewed. He speaks of understanding and understanding here has the idea of illumination or maybe illuminated comprehension. Illuminated comprehension of God's will. So he talks about how that God abounded toward us in all wisdom and prudence. Verse 18, the eyes of your understanding being enlightened. And there's that illumination piece that you may know what is the hope of his calling. the riches of the glory of his inheritance and the saints. Ephesians 4.18 talks about having the understanding darkened. This is the natural mind. 5.17, wherefore be not unwise, but understanding what the will of the Lord is. Having an enlightened comprehension. of God's will. He speaks of wisdom. Here back in Ephesians 1.8, God has abounded toward us in wisdom. In other words, this is back after the gifts that God had given us in Christ. Verse 17, that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give unto you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge. And this was Paul's prayer as he's writing them. He wants them to have wisdom from above. See then that you walk circumspectly, not as fools, but as wise in Ephesians 5. 15. He emphasizes learning and teaching. Here in chapter 4, he spoke about the gifts that Christ gave. Of course, there was an extraordinary gifting there. There's ordinary functions that continue, but there's also extraordinary teachers, instructors. Verse 14, that we henceforth be no more children tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine or teaching. and verses 20 to 21, but ye have not so learned Christ, if so be that ye have heard him, that ye have been taught by him, as the truth is in Jesus Christ. So this learning and teaching refers to growth through instruction. It's not hearing a word that just sort of passes through and wanders off, but it's a word that's received and retained and a word that increases understanding. Paul refers to knowledge. This would be relational knowledge of God in particular that the Gentiles do not have by nature. that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give unto you the spirit of revelation and wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him. Here's another of Paul's prayer in Ephesians 3, 19. And to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge that you might be filled with all the fullness of God. Just previously in Ephesians 4, 13, till we all come in the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God unto a perfect man, under the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ. And then we have the concept of thought and reasoning. So this is active mental perception, and you could even say testing in the sense of discerning. Ephesians 3, 4, whereby when you read, Paul wrote this letter to them, that they may understand his knowledge in the mystery of Christ. And that's this thought and reasoning here. And here it shows up in Ephesians 5.10, proving or testing, able to test in the mind of what is acceptable unto the Lord. All right, so that's just a quick survey, walking through this letter. seeing that Paul has greatly emphasized the role of the mind and understanding and comprehension, and even at one point says that he wrote so that they would read and understand, that they would comprehend. He prayed for their comprehension. The question is, does this in any way conflict with Paul's command to walk, or how do these go together? And one of the reasons why that I would say that is that because within, let's just say broader Christianity, so to speak, there is a real tension here. We have people that sort of on the one side see Christianity as something that's almost entirely I started to say mental, and that sort of allows a little double irony there, doesn't it? They see it as something just entirely intellectual. It's just abstract theological doctrine. That's all that Christianity is. Then you have others who are almost at the opposite end of that spectrum who think that, well, we don't even really even need doctrine. We just need love. We just need action. We just need to be doing these things. And so you have like those two ends of the pole that's very common, very common today. So is what Paul is saying here, what does it say to those sort of camps? And maybe people sort of have a tendency to go one way or another. Christianity is all about the doctrine. It's all about the intellectual pursuit and understanding. And then others, no, it's not about that at all. It's all about the actions and so on. Well, what Paul does in this letter is how he actually shows that they're inseparably connected, that the right walking that Paul is talking about, the right walking has to come from right understanding. You just cannot separate them. You need both. Walking comes from learning and maturing. And that's why Paul was praying for their understanding. That's why he's writing to them, that they would understand. And then he's commanding them that they walk on the basis of that. So it is not an either or thing. situation. And Christianity is not something that where action and education, so to speak, are at odds. They're not at odds. They are in fact interdependent. So it's not just a curiosity, but it is really, when you look at walking, it is a way of life Sorry, I put a slash in there. Sometimes I abbreviate of with a slash. It's a way of life, a way of living. So it obviously involves thoughts and even in feelings and actions. And really it's a whole life way that Christianity is. So here he says that you walk not. Now that is a negative exhortation. In the start of chapter four, he said to walk worthy, and now he's saying, do not walk as other Gentiles walk. And it actually brings us to the next question in regard to consistencies within this letter and how these things work together. Because what's he telling them? He's telling them You all, let me get that second person plural, you all, and we know that he's primarily addressing Gentiles, Gentile believers in this letter, primarily. That you all don't walk as other Gentiles, as other Gentiles. Don't walk as Gentiles. Seems like, what are you saying? Now, Paul has gone to great lengths in this letter to stress unity, particularly of Jews and Gentiles. And we've seen it very early in chapter one and all the way up to the point where we are now, we continue to see this stress. And so now Paul is telling Gentile believers in Ephesus not to walk like other Gentiles. So that seems maybe a little inconsistent, maybe a little confusing. What exactly is he saying? Well, the key to understanding this exhortation is that, and to see that it's in fact not inconsistent, is to see that what was the alternative? Because again, this is the negative side. He's saying don't walk like other Gentiles, but he did not He did not say walk like Jews. He did not say that. That is important. He will go on to say in verse 20, that you've not so learned Christ. That's the alternative. That's the alternative. Don't walk like other Gentiles. Walk as you have learned or have been taught in Christ. So it's not, don't walk like other Gentiles, but walk like Jews. He didn't tell him to do that. And so the second important observation about this is to see that Paul is talking about not walking in Gentiles. He talks about the vanity of their mind, and then he goes on to explain in verses 18 and 19. So in other words, he's saying, don't walk like Gentiles in natural sinfulness and spiritual ignorance and moral darkness. That's what he's saying. Not to walk like, um, we saw that, uh, at the, back in chapter back in chapter two, when he talked about what they were formerly. Chapter two, verses one to three. And you have the quickened who were dead in trespasses and sins, wherein in time past ye walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince, the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience, among whom also we all had our conversation in times past in the lust of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind and whereby nature, the children of wrath, even as others. And that's what Paul is saying, don't walk like. And so in that case, that message would be equally appropriate to Jews as well. Don't walk according to your unsaved natural mind. So that's what he's saying. He's not saying don't be Gentiles anymore. you know, cease to be Gentiles, become Jews. He is decidedly against that and has shown the error of that in this letter as well as in others. So that's not what he's saying. So he's not telling them to cease to be Gentiles. And he says, you know, I think it's 2 Corinthians chapter seven, where he says very much the opposite, how you are to abide in the calling in which you were called. So whatever that station was, they were to remain in it. So he's not saying, don't walk as Gentiles, but he's saying, don't walk as naturally sinful Gentiles walk. That's what you were formerly. That's where your conversation was formerly, but don't continue in that. Well, how do they walk? Well, he says, first of all, that they walk in the vanity of their minds. And this word has the idea of futility. in utility. There's an inability to it. It's not that Gentiles don't have a mind or they don't use a mind. It's not that they're unintelligent in that sense, but the mind, the natural mind corrupted by sin is unable to deliver them from the natural darkness and blindness and death that they are walking in. And so Paul is saying, Don't walk that way. Now, sort of a corollary that we could draw from that is that obviously then we do still have within us some of those natural propensities. We have this natural inclination. that obviously Paul is saying must actively be resisted, must actively be pursuing going the right way and not going that way. It's easy. It's easy to go that way. Even for those who have been saved, don't go that way is what Paul is saying. Then we come to verse 18. 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. So Paul puts it in the present. It's ongoing. It's a persistent I can't spell and talk at the same time today for some reason. It's a persistent condition that the Gentiles are in. They are persisting in darkened understanding, alienated from life, ignorance and blindness of heart, and so on. So what Paul gives us here, he gives us, first of all, a condition. He gives us, second of all, a consequence of that condition. And then third of all, he gives us a cause for that condition and the consequence. So really when you're looking here is the cause, this is the condition, and then that is the consequence. So the condition is having a darkened understanding. This has the idea of being covered or obscured, like you put something over a light. And he's talking about the human faculty of the mind and the understanding. So again, doesn't mean unintelligence in a sense. Just like in Proverbs, a fool doesn't necessarily mean someone without intelligence, doesn't necessarily mean that. It can in some cases, but doesn't necessarily mean that. Having an understanding darkened, and really this is a contrast with the enlightened understanding that Paul spoke about back in chapter one and verse 18, that enlightened understanding in Christ. So this is the contrast, this is the natural condition. The consequence of having this darkened understanding, is being alienated from the life of God, being alienated, being far off, without hope, without God in the world, being dead, being dead rather than alive. This is the consequence, and ignorance that he speaks of It does refer to a lack of knowledge. It can be a little more metaphorical to speak of a moral blindness. And that probably is the tendency here, more of a moral blindness that he's talking about. And then we get the cause, because, the blindness. And that word for blindness has the idea of being calloused. So we would say hardness of their heart. It's why they don't know God and don't understand spiritual things, because their understanding is darkened. They are ignorant of God because they are hard-hearted toward Him. Let me go on to verse 19. who being past feeling have given themselves over unto lasciviousness to work all uncleanness with greediness." Now, Paul is continuing to speak of the things in which he's saying don't walk, that he's insisting as an apostle in Christ that they do not walk. Now, the expression of being past feeling on the one hand tells us that this ignorance is not innocent. It's not innocent ignorance. It is calloused, resulting in being past feeling. And this means unable to feel pain, being insensitive. So imagine if you maybe had some sort of an injury or something to some part of your body and killed the nerves in it or whatever, and so that you couldn't feel the sensation of hot or cold, you couldn't feel pain, you couldn't feel if you were being cut or whatever the case may be, and of course how dangerous that that would be. But that is what he is saying about natural condition of the Gentiles in which that they are not to walk. They are unable. So in this sense, unable to feel pain, but more in this sense, they are senseless to the word of God. They're senseless to any sort of spiritual things. They're senseless to any sort of tend toward holiness or godliness. They're past feeling. And because of that, they've given themselves over. They are committed. They are committed to this. And what Paul describes here in these words, are really all sorts of immorality. I mean, the words might maybe make us think of something in particular, but they're not necessarily that specific what he's talking about. Like, for instance, lasciviousness, which has the idea of unbridled lust. Now, we probably tend to think of sexual immorality, and that would be certainly included. But that's not all. That's not the only lust within human beings. I mean, we have uncontrolled lusts for various things. So that's not the only one. What I'm saying is it's not limited This uncleanness as the idea of impurity, it's like an antonym, it's opposite of holiness. And then, of course, greed or covetousness. And when it's paired in a list like this, It's describing an insatiable desire and pursuit for more. So they're committed to unbridled lust and impurity, and they want more and more of it. Insatiable, just cannot be satisfied in that pursuit. And of course, Paul refers to covetousness and greed as idolatry. later in chapter number five. And so again, when we look at this list, we don't see it as limiting or being extremely specific, rather Paul's being more inclusive with sins. And really what this amounts to is being sinfully, naturally indulgent. Just pursuing pleasure, whatever that may be individually, pursuing pleasure. And that pursuit of pleasure can have a lot of different paths. There are some that even pursue it through a path of pain. and other things. So it's not, again, it's not just sort of one thing or one way, but he's describing again this sinfully natural mind that is just committed, committed to fulfilling its own lusts and desires. And probably one area where this might seem to be dampened a little bit and that would be external constraints. And because of external constraints, in other words, there are constraints just like the laws of the land. There are things that people don't do simply because it's illegal and they'll go to jail or have some hefty fine or But if they think they can get away with it, or if that constraint is removed, and Paul even talked about in Romans 7, about how the law made him realize lust. How it made him realize, because even though maybe outwardly he didn't do those things, but that external constraint of the law made him feel that pressure. Inwardly, he wanted to. Inwardly, he wanted to. That desire was there. So, again, we read this description and maybe we have a certain thing in our mind, like maybe some wild, drunken party and all sort of hedonistic things going on and what have you. My point is simply that it's not just there that this exists. It's also within the life of the one that appears to be morally upright. there are external constraints in place. Sometimes humiliation is a big factor, keeping people from certain behaviors or activities. They don't want to be humiliated. They don't want to be embarrassed or they don't want to suffer the penalties or the consequences. But again, that doesn't mean that that desire is not there. Those desires are there. And that's what Paul is saying. You cannot obey your desires and simply walk, live your life in order to fulfill them. So we're sort of seeing it coming together. Why do natural born sinners walk this way? Well, they walk and live the way that they do. because their minds are distorted, because their minds are disoriented because of sin and because of the corruption due to indwelling sin. Now again, that doesn't mean that a sinner may not be a brilliant mathematician or some great composer or able to do amazing artistic things and all of that sort of thing. That doesn't mean that their mind doesn't work. But it's showing that there is a natural inclination there, and there's a distortion, there's a disorientation because of sin, and hardened hearts are insensitive to God and His Word. And no matter what they're doing, and even though they may live what looks to be a morally upright life, they are not living their lives to honor and glorify God. That's not their pursuit. That's not their aim. Whatever their motives are, that's not what it is. And again, we're talking about natural sinners, natural condition sinners. And that walk, no matter how moral that it might be, no matter how outwardly clean that it might appear, leads only farther away from God and not toward Him. And that captures that idea again of the vanity, of the futility. Man in his mind, in his natural condition, no matter how great his effort and no matter how great his results look, cannot think himself to God. It doesn't happen. So Paul's urgent exhortation should cause us to realize, well, wait a minute, who's he saying this to? Well, remember how the letter starts in chapter one and verse one. Faithful saints in the Lord, faithful saints in Christ is who he's writing to. And if he's giving them an exhortation like this, what does that tell us? Well, it tells us that there is a natural bent within us. There's a natural bent within us to live this very way. There is. And he's urgently insisting that we do not go this way, that we actively resist that. Why? Well, for one reason, because we're not yet, just as he said in the previous verses, we're not yet matured to the full measure of Christlikeness. We haven't arrived there. We're not yet there. We still have tendencies within us and sort of maybe almost like default settings due to sin. So Christian maturity, which necessarily involves this walk, as Paul explains it, is about being more and more conformed to Christ. It's not about knowing more than somebody else, winning the arguments, winning the debates, and it's not about essentially paying zero attention to this big old book that God gave us and thinking that we can just operate on our feelings and do a bunch of what seemed to us to be good works and that's where it's at and it's not at either of those extremes.