Thy word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path. This is Dale Jackson welcoming you to the Lamp and Light broadcast, coming to you from the studios of Central Baptist Church in beautiful Ocala, Florida. Lamp and Light is a ministry. It takes a book of the Bible, verse by verse, teaching it as it is to men as they are, without compromise or apology. Seeking the truth and love is our purpose, and to give the lamp and light to all. Now, here is our teacher and pastor, Dr. Andy Bloom. Yesterday in our question and answer series, we finished with question six. Let's continue as we move on to question seven today. Now, here is our teacher and pastor, Dr. Andy Bloom. This is your radio pastor, Dr. Andy Bloom, welcoming you to another lamp and light broadcast. And of course, today we continue our question and answer period. Now, I want you to know that I may have some troubles in these answers simply because I I my eyes are still bad and I'm not trying to make excuses I'm just trying to say is that in some cases it's just trying to read I put my answers a lot of time in all caps but some of these answers I have written out here long answers were written before I had any real bad problems with my eyes but I've also had questions come in when I wasn't able to type and things of that nature. And so I didn't get to really answer those questions because of that. And hopefully we can get back up to it and get things going the way it ought to be. And hopefully that doesn't happen again. But the Lord is good and he's been blessing this ministry regardless of what's happened with my eyes over the last year or two. So praise the Lord for all he does for us. Now, I hope you have your Bibles ready and be turning to those different passages that we go to as well as to have pencil and paper so you can write some of these things down and you'll have them. If in the future you have a question to ask me, I will answer that question as I am able to get to it. Right now, I'm in the middle of a lot of catching up with things that got real, I mean, months behind on simply because of the health problems that I did endure. But I do want you to know that we do like hearing from you. And if I've got to write you back and I type it back, you see a lot of typos. I have a hard time with it. I just work on it because it is just a testimony to my eyesight, which is not good right now. Even in our church services, I have one of my men stand up there on the platform with me when I ask for a show of hands of visitors. And at invitation time, when I ask people to raise their hands for spiritual things, I'll even have to have someone up there to point out where they are. And so it's at that point. God is still blessing us. He's still using us and doing great things. And all we can say is all glory to God because when you think of the situation, nothing should be happening, should not be used at all when you think of the situation of my eyes and other health things. And so I praise God because I know, I know beyond any shadow of a doubt That is all of him. By the way, that's just not true for preachers. That's true for every believer in Christ. If they'll walk with the Lord, walk in holiness, walk separate from this world, and walk separated unto Christ. Oh my friend, allow Christ to be your all in all, and these things can happen for you as well. Now let's get into our question and answer period right off the bat here. Okay, this is a, they gave me a subject matter here. It's grieving the Holy Spirit. This listener says, this morning, I read my Bible in Ephesians chapter 4, verses 30 and 31. I was low, okay, she says, because it said, grieve not the Holy Spirit of God, whereby ye are sealed into the day of redemption. Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and evil speaking be put away from you with all malice. Now, this sister goes on to say, I was looking over the things that grieve the Holy Spirit. And since we are commanded to not grieve the Holy Spirit, these things would be of primary importance to us. So much of it has to do with how we respond and how we speak. But my question to you is the bitterness, wrath, clamor, and evil speaking grouped together in verse 31 of Ephesians 4. However, it's tied at the end by saying, with all malice. Now, I looked up malice in Strong's and David Cloud's encyclopedia. And notice the meaning is harboring ill will, extreme hatred, wickedness. In a wider sense, I am trying to figure out why wasn't it in the list. And so she's looking at the bitterness thing. Why wasn't bitterness part of that big four there that she was looking at earlier? You know, bitterness. And that does come in. A lot of people deal with the thing of bitterness. And so I understand that. I know that people go through that. And so bitterness is a terrible thing. And it does affect a lot of people. And so we just say, Our strength comes from the Lord, it doesn't come from ourselves. It comes from the Lord, and really our satisfaction and things of that nature must come from the Lord. But now let me just take back up in her letter here, as I was reading. But she goes on to say here, does it carry more weight because it is in the last few words that round up this command to grieve not the Spirit. I believe that bitterness is a poison. Now, she's still talking. He's still talking. Whatever this is, okay? Wrong anger can kill us. Clamor, that repeated loud complaining, is deadly. As we have seen in the past, and then evil speaking which is abusing with hard and hurtful words on purpose to hurt. It could change our children if we watched how we respond. But this malice word, it seems to be heavier, doesn't it? Holding into that grudge, And hating without letting things go can change a person on the inside. And we're trying to change other people and not our own home. But it is the opposite direction at home than from other people, but other people are not our children. And so in some ways, it affects us more when we see these things in those people than even in our own children. I think, and evidently this is a school teacher, I will encourage the teachers where I work to ask for power every day to clean out the sludge and junk that we may be aware of what is in our own lives, just like we clean out a sewer pipe. Wow, that is descriptive, isn't it, folks? She said, like cleaning out a sewer pipe. It's daily maintenance, which means being in God's word. We have a good group this year at our school And so, can you help me on these things of grieving the Holy Spirit? So here is my answer. And so. After a question like that, that's really that's really something this this listener has, it sounds like they've gone to commentaries and bookstrongs and and others just to try to find an answer to something that troubled their heart, that troubled the workplace, evidently working in a Christian school, as well as even perhaps to the home. And so my answer is, the answer to the question is to why, with all malice, is at the end, I think, is found in the emphasis behind those things that precede it. The Greek word used has several ways it can be applied. It often depends on both the context and the Greek tense. Here the word malice has the idea of an evil habit of the mind, not necessarily of the body. And let me break here, just pass on to you folks. First Corinthians 4, 5 lets us know the thoughts of the heart will be made known in heaven. If the judgment seat of Christ, okay. First Corinthians 4, 5 is addressed to Christians. And those things of darkness will be made known. So when you have those things in the heart that are going to be made known, sometimes we can put on an act that really impress people. People say, man, we're really spiritual. And the truth is that there's something else completely different in our heart. There's an old story from way back. I mean, I think this probably goes back to the 50s, if I can remember correctly. of a preacher telling this, and he told it as a funny story. And it was. I mean, it's a funny joke, but it illustrates something. And so let me use this kind of humorous illustration just to for you folks. Now, I'm breaking away from the letter, but I'm going to come back to it and finish answering this letter concerning Ephesians 4, 30 and 31. But the story is told of an old mangy dog walking in Washington, D.C. and was passing by the French Embassy. And there at the gates, that old dog, that old mangy dog could look through and see there right behind the gate, two French poodles. Very well-groomed as they groom poodles when they have them like that in an expensive place. with the ribbons in their hair, the nails painted, everything. I mean, it was first class all the way on those little poodles. But this old mangy country dog, we used to call him growing up Heinz 57 varieties, he stops at the fence and he looks at them and says the first one, what's your name? And she said, Fifi, F-I, F-I. Then he looked at the other one and said, well, what is your name? She said, Mimi, M-I-M-I. See, now this old dog, they're talking down to it in doing that. And so they said, and what is your name? And his answer was, Fido, P-H-Y-D-E-A-U-X. OK, now, we laugh at something like that, but isn't that really Something that tries to show on the outside But we know we should be on the inside and we're more of it on the outside than we are on the inside and A lot of these things we're seeing now in Ephesians chapter 4 30 and 31 is from that This is your radio pastor pastor Andy Bloom saying May the Word of God be a lamp unto your feet and a light unto your pathway today We want to thank you for listening to the Lamp and Light Broadcast. If you would like a CD copy of today's message by Dr. Bloom, send us your name and mailing address, and include the radio station by which you are listening, and the date of the broadcast. We would appreciate a gift of $5 to Lamp and Light Broadcast, 1714 Southeast 36th Avenue, Ocala, FL 34471. You may also visit us by our website and freely download the sermons by clicking on the sermon library. That site is www.centralbaptistocalla.org. Again, the address of Lamp and Light Broadcast is 1714 Southeast 36th Avenue, OCALA, FL 34471. and our website is www.centralbaptistlocale.org. This is your announcer Dale Jackson saying, may God's peace be with all who are in Christ Jesus. Stands, Berkeley stands!