Ephesians chapter 4, and my pastor and I are going to teach this lesson again. At the mouth of two or three witnesses, I told some of our teachers, you don't need notes. My pastor's already done it for you. But we didn't get through this, and I wanted to. You remember how the book of Ephesians started. It starts talking about God choosing a people, and in verse 4 of chapter 1, that they should be holy and without blame. Well, that's Christ, isn't it? Predestinated, is the next verse. Having predestinated us under the adoption of children. Chapter 2 says, by grace you're saved through faith. That's not of yourselves. It's a gift of God's. It's not of works. Salvation is not our work, it's God's work, Christ's work. And it's His works for us, and it's His work in us, because predestination, Romans 8.29 says, predestinated to be conformed, predestinated to be conformed to the image of Christ. That's what salvation is all about. If you'll notice the title of this Bible study, and it could have been titled many things, Put on the New Man, or Love One Another as Christ Loved Us, or Chapter 5, As Dear Children. It was simply entitled Christ's Lightness, Christ's Lightness. That's what we wanted. That's what salvation is all about. bartered in his homespun North Carolina way. One time he said, God woke up, that's the way he put things, one morning and took one look at his son and loved him so much, he said, I'm going to have a whole bunch of boys just like him. And that's what the kingdom of God, that's why He created in the kingdom of people, sons, predestinated to be just like Him. And that's what we wanted, isn't it? David said, I'm not going to be satisfied until I awake with His likeness. And we have that. There's a new man in us, created in Christ Jesus by the Holy Spirit, regenerated, a new person, a new man. It's holy, unblamable, unreprovable in God's sight. It's a new man. And this chapter talks about an old man there. And that's us. Oh, and Paul said in Romans 7, there's two laws of war in my memory. A new man and an old man. He said, I know that in me, in me, me myself, that is in my flesh, this old man. No good thing. But there's a new man that you had nothing to do with, born of God, born of His Spirit, born of the Word of God. in the image of Christ. A babe, a young man, rose until, like Paul, look at chapter 4 now, do you remember that? In verse 13, Paul said, so we all come, the unity of faith, the knowledge of the Son of God, the perfect man, the measure, the stature of the fullness of Christ, no more children. tossed about. Remember, Paul says this whole world, in that sense, is kind of like a toy for people to play with, things. I want to be done with that, don't you? I want to be done with this place. Things that are higher, things that are lower. Like our Lord Jesus Christ came to this earth and needed nothing but God. And food and raiment, his whole life was spent glorifying our Lord, serving others. And he was the happiest, the blessed man, the most blessed man, the blessed man to ever walk this earth. He had God. That's all he did. Perfect. Perfect man. I want to be like that. Don't you? So, that's what we've learned. Verse 20 and 21 talks about not being like the Gentile world. We haven't learned Christ. If so, we have heard him and been taught by him the truth as it is in Jesus. And he says, put off this old man. Don't feed him. Put him off. Starve him. Kill him. Crucify him. Verse 23, be renewed in the spirit of your mind. What renews our mind? What establishes our thoughts and thinking, the way of thinking, as God thinks? This is the mind, the will of God. It's not what anybody else says. That poisons our mind. But this renews our mind. Because the mind, by nature, is without understanding. The understanding is darkened by nature. But when Christ comes, light, the entrance of thy word, giveth light, understanding. And Christ is that light. The essence of it. Christ is that light. And verse 24, he says, put on the new man, which after God, that is, it's his creation, created in righteousness and true holiness. There's a lot of talk about holiness. Oh, hold on. There's all these Holy Ghost people and Pentecostal holiness. That's not true holiness, is it? Pharisee-ism is not true holiness. It's fake. It's phony. Our Lord said they appear to men to be good and upright and all that. But inside, full of extortion and excess. But Christ is in you now. If Christ is really in you, there's true holiness. Read on. So he says here, and this is where we left off. He says, verse 25, put away lying. Put away lying. My pastor said, reject, renounce lying. Any lying. Exaggeration. Any effort to deceive. Put it away. Speak the truth. Our Lord could not exaggerate. Our Lord could not... I don't know where this term white lie came from. Where'd that come from? I guess it means just an innocent lie. Hold on. There is no such thing. Our Lord spoke the absolute truth. Somebody wants, the old saying is, honesty is the best policy. No, no, that's not what Scripture teaches. It's only policy. Right? It's only policy. Honest, upright. Don't live a lie, don't speak a lie, don't deceive in any way. Truth. You know, truth may offend some people, but it's truth. The truth will make you free. It will offend you at first. We need to offend it now. We need to be offended. But this is why Paul said in verse 15, speak the truth in love. Everything our Lord said was the truth. He didn't flatter anybody, did he? He didn't say things to make people feel good. He didn't gloss over things. He spoke the absolute truth. But he did it in such a way. You know that woman that came to him asking for help with her daughter, and he said, it's not right to give the children bread to dogs. He called her a dog. She's a gentile. That didn't offend her. It's the truth. Remember, after everything he said, what she said? One word. Truth. Everything you say about you, about the Word, about me, it's truth. It's the truth. But he said it in such a way that she wouldn't offend him. I had a dog, and every now and then I'd say, you ain't nothing but an old hound dog. You ain't worth nothing. Just lie down there, you old good-for-nothing worthless dog. He'd just look at me and smile. My dog used to grin. The Lord just says things in love. That's the way I want to do it. Oh, I've said it too often, to argue with people and to beat people over the head with them. I want to be like him, don't you? The way I speak. I want to speak the truth. Nothing but the truth. And I want to do it in battle. Don't you? All right? Look at our text, verse 25. We're members one of another. You know, we're brothers and sisters in Christ, and that's a blessed term, and I don't just call everybody brother. Do you? I don't do that. I don't do that. But one time, Brother Scott Richardson was talking to a fellow somewhere at a barbershop or something, you know, and believers, their language is brother. How you doing, brother? But, and Scott slipped up and said, I don't know, brother. You know, the one of these fellas and a believer was there. And he's later, he said to him, you call that man brother. He's not your brother. Rebukes his elder. Anyway, Scott said, well, he's my brother in Adam. If he's not my brother in Christ, I've got him one way or another. It's true, isn't it? sons of Adam, all of us are. Nevertheless, we don't throw that term around. Look at verse 26. Let me go on. Be angry and sin not. Let not the sun go down upon your wrath. If you do, it's going to give place to the devil. To do what? Fill you full of bitterness and anger and wrath and malice and vengeance and so on and so forth. If you're not done with that, the devil's going to have you right where he wants you and his whole His whole objective is to divide. You remember how this old thing started? Endeavoring to keep the unity of the faith. Unity. And there was a time when there was only one man and one woman on the face of the earth. Satan had a third of the heavenly host angels, fallen angels, with him. It wasn't good enough. He wanted to divide those two. He wanted to separate those two from God and each other. How'd he do it? Lies. I know God said that, but he didn't really mean it. And he deceived a woman, and they were divided from God. and each other. They began to, they were now against each other. Adam said, that woman, if you hadn't given me that wife, I wouldn't have done this. Right? Anybody guilty? And the woman said, well, I'm innocent because I didn't know what I was doing. No excuse. Division, division, division. And in our text here, it says, don't let the sun go down on your wrath. Does that puzzle you when it says, be angry and sin not? Anybody? You know what that means? Well, my pastor cleared it up. He said, there is an anger. There is a true anger. There's anger and there's hatred in God. Now this is something, because the world doesn't know the God of the Bible. They leave out, false liars leave out where it says God is angry with the wicked every day. God hateth all workers of iniquity. God hate, God hate, God hate. Esau hath I hated. Liars say it doesn't mean that. These false prophets, ministers of Satan say, it doesn't mean that means love less. God can't love less. God's love is perfect. Whoever he loves, he can't love this one more than another. His love is perfect. Our love is less. Isn't it? God can't do it. His love is perfect. Well, they say it doesn't mean hate. Yes, it does do. It means odious, it means detest, it means to despise, it means I'm going to destroy you. You don't destroy things and people you hate, that you love. What kind of love is that? People in hell are God's love. I don't want that kind of love. I want a love that's going to save me, inspire me, love me and inspire me. Well, that's the love of God. This holy hatred is found in Psalm 139. Just turn over there real quickly. Psalm 139. But we need to be careful how we say this, because there's a lot of flesh in us. But here it says in Psalm 139, David, and God had him write this. Verse 21. Psalm 139, 21. He said, Do not I hate them, O Lord, that hate Thee? Am not I greed with those that rise up against Thee? I hate them with perfect hatred. That is a mature, godly hatred, like God. God doesn't love people who hate His Son. Do you? Do you have anything to do with people who don't want anything to do with your Son? Then how can we? We really love God? How can we rub shoulders with and be... Scripture says that the friendship with the world is enmity with God. You're just not, you're not going to be friends with somebody that's your wife, are you Joseph? Oh no. If anybody speaks a word against her, you're going to rise up and you're going to say, hold on now, buddy. Aren't you? Well, how much more, our God, than we live? David said, our Lord said, pray for them that despitefully use God. Not use you. Pray for your enemies. You see the difference? Them that despitefully use you. Our Lord prayed for His enemies, trying to forgive them. He didn't pray for all of them. Did he? He said, I pray not for the world, but for them that shall forgive me. Whoever he prayed for, Sister Sarah, God forgave of it. And they were no longer his enemies later on. Whoever he prayed for on that cross, Father forgive them, were forgiven. by that prayer and by his brother. They were enemies, and you were enemies in your own mind, by your own wicked work. But God, thank you. He loved you. But he says to us, you pray for them despite you. Pray for your enemies, because that's what God loves, some of his enemies. But he didn't tell us to pray for those that hate him. David said, I hate them. I was talking to a fellow one time, and I was talking about false prophets lying on God, and lying to people, and butchering people's souls, and making merchandise of men's souls like the Pharisees. The Lord loved the Pharisees. His harsh words were for Pharisees. He had no harsh words for sinners, for people, common people. His words were harsh to his Pharisees. One time he said, you leave them alone, to his disciples. You leave them alone. I have. And that takes wisdom from above to make the difference, doesn't it? Titus talks about Judah making the difference. Some say with fear, and others hate in the garment, spite of the flesh. But anyway, you just can't love somebody that hates your God. It's a hard matter to pray for someone like that. These men that are lying on God and lying on crack and doing it with a wicked, evil heart and motive and doing it for money and butchering people's souls. Our Lord one time said, You won't go in the kingdom of God. You don't want other people going in the kingdom. God loves people like that. God's true people, they want in the kingdom and they want everybody else in the kingdom. So go on. That's what that means. If you're angry, don't sin. And let not the sun go down upon your wrath. Don't give place to the devil. Be done with that. Whatever anger there is, all anger and indignation should quickly be forgotten. Don't give Satan any room. Don't give him an opportunity to use you for his evil purposes. He'll fill you full of anger and wrath and malice and a bad attitude, and nothing's going to come. The wrath of man doesn't work the righteousness of God. It doesn't do it. It doesn't do it. All right, let's go on. He says, verse 28, Let him that stole steal no more. I don't believe anybody in here has trouble with shoplifting, do you? Although, have you ever received something from Amazon? And let me just tell you what happened. I ordered something from Amazon. I know you don't do that, but we order things from Amazon all the time. And I didn't get it. I didn't think we got it. Okay, got to find out. Mindy had covered it up with something, misplaced it. Yes, you did. And she misplaced it. Well, I called and said I can get it. I didn't get that. No, you better send it right now. No, I didn't. I didn't get it. Well, we'll send you another one. I said, well, if it shows up, I'll send it back to you. No, they said, don't do that. Forget it. So they said, well, it did show up. We found it. I called them. My conscience wouldn't let me do that. Yeah, I'm going to send it back to you. No, they said, just keep it. Just keep it. But little things, you know, little things. My pastor says, he says, actual theft, stealing takes many directions. There's actual theft, actual stealing. It's obtaining possessions by false representation. Failing to pay your debts is stealing. Right? What a good illustration that is, John. Our Lord paid the debt, didn't He? And we think we can pay it. We're going to make a little payment. You're stealing God's glory. He went on to say, Receiving wages and not putting forth the best effort. Somebody's paying you to do a job, and you don't do it. Steven, we know what that's like. I remember, I've worked non-union jobs before and a man stand over you and your job's on the line. If you don't do it, he's going to fire you on the spot. I've worked jobs like that. And then the unions came along. I worked in the railroad. The railroad union was, Steve, it was ridiculous. It's good, it's bad, right? You have men that lay down on the job, you know? At one point, I don't know where this started, but at some point in this nation, men, they used to say, they used to take pride in hard work. Everybody used to take pride in how hard they worked. Oh, I worked hard, sun up, sun down. And this nation was... Then somewhere along the line, somebody starts saying, don't work too hard. That's not what our Lord teaches. You work by those 12 hours in a day, and you put on a good day's work for a good day's pay, this is what they're paying you to do. It's stealing not to do that. And here's the reason to not steal, but to earn. Verse 28, that we may have to give to him that needeth. The reason God gives us jobs and the ability to earn money and have things is not for our own selfish purposes, but for others. That's what it's for. Alright, read on. Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth, but that which is good to the use of edify, it may minister grace unto the hearers. In chapter 5, verse 4 says, filthiness, foolish talking, jesting, not convenient, not profitable. Corrupt, what's that? It means rotten. Filthy. Now, we know what that's talking about. This world is nothing but that. Can you believe what is coming out of the mouths of people today? It's filth. Don't get used to it. God's not. Their throats are an open sepulcher, Scripture says. How indicative is it of society that the word they like to use more than anything is spoken about fornication? Don't get used to that. It's filthy. It's vile. Corrupt. What does rotten have to do with flesh? Rotten flesh is nothing more stinking. So he says, let no corrupt communications, filthiness, foolish talking, locker room talks, sexually suggested innuendos and this and that and the other be done with. That's what little boys do around each other. It feeds the flesh. It just feeds this ornery man. You ought to be done with that fellow. Don't you? Don't feed him. Don't do that. No exceptions. You say, what about a husband and wife? Well, you don't need, we don't need that. If you've got a good, healthy relationship, good love between wife and, don't need that. Right? Clean. Read on. He says, verse 30, it will grieve the Holy Spirit. These things grieve the Holy Spirit. These tongues Verse 29, or to be used to edify, build up, not tear down, not slander, not speak evil, not speak filthily and feed the flesh, but rather to edify the Spirit. That's what these tongues are. Let your speech be with grace, seasoned with what? Salt. It's God's Word. It's God's truth. Salt. Salt is truth. True. So, anybody need these things? We all do. We've got this flesh to contend with. And it says in verse 30, these saints grieve the Holy Spirit. Don't grieve the Spirit of God. What's he called? Holy. Holy Spirit. Holy Spirit. And remember, this is true holiness. Real holiness. And so he says, don't grieve the Holy Spirit. You're sealed by Him. The Day of Redemption, verse 31, let all bitterness and wrath. Oh, we can become so bitter, can't we? Things go against us. People treat us badly. And they do and they will. You can just count on it. We do. We do. We're all guilty. Let bitterness and wrath and got in an evil speaking. Gossip, slander, put it away with all malice. Malice is an intent to hurt someone, to bring someone down. Let it not be named once among you. And here's the reason, here's the purpose, here's the motive. Be kind one to another. And the word is merciful. With the merciful, he'll be merciful. Tenderhearted. Forgiving one another. How? As God, for Christ's sake, has forgiven you. Forgiving one another. But I just can't forgive that. Hold on now. Hold on now. You better. What if God said, that's one thing I will not forgive? All right, you've gone too far now. What if God said that to us? I hope he never says that to me. He'll always forgive his people, all things, all manner of sin shall be forgiven. Why? For Christ's sake. For Christ's sake. So this is Christ's likeness, that's what this is. Produced by God, by the Word of God, by the Spirit of God. in all of those people. And we need to strive for it. Okay.