Ephesians chapter two, we are moving onward. I'll have a little bit of review here in chapter one, but we spent, I counted up and it was around six weeks in chapter one. And it was solid gold stuff. I mean, it is an important chapter. And we're still continuing on the same topic as we get into chapter two. We're talking about our origins, who we are. It's good to know who you are. What all stands with you when you stand for him? What kind of heritage, what kind of legacy do you have when you stand for him? What kind of power do we have when we stand for him with God behind us? With God is the majority, you know? There used to be a bumper sticker that said, God said it, I believe it, that settles it. I don't need to believe it, God said it, that settles it. And so standing with God, you're standing with the majority. I've called this the user manual, and I compared it to the greatest American hero, losing the manual to his super suit. This is the user manual for us. This is telling us how to use what he's given us, because he's gonna give us a suit by the end of this. Matter of fact, in chapter six, we get the armor of God, and so he's building us up for that. So we have three chapters of him telling us our origin and what we are, the power behind this. And that's one of the key points here for us now. We end at chapter one with that, where he was talking about God's power. Verse 19 says, Ephesians 119, and what is exceeding greatness of his power to us who believe according to the working of his mighty power? He says, if you are his, to us who believe, God worked in you. So, I hope God is working in you. But he says here, if you have repented and trusted Christ as Savior, God did work in you. And how did he work in you? He says he worked with you with power. No it doesn't. It says he worked with you with great power. No, it doesn't. He said he worked with you with exceeding greatness of power. That's some power now. Paul knows how to build it up. He said it wasn't just power, it wasn't just strong, it was an exceeding greatness of his power. How powerful is God? He's all powerful. He's omnipotent. He's the all powerful God. What kind of power did he use when he worked in you? This is personal. He's talking about you. If you repented and trusted Christ as Savior, what kind of power did God use to work in you? Don't think generic, don't think me. You think you as we're going through this. What kind of power? Did he use his creation power? No. His creation power is but a breath for him. He just speaks and the worlds leap into existence. That one, I should tell you what kind of power he has. That he could speak and the universe leaps into existence. That he would create space and time and energy and mass and he would make all this that we enjoy and have been trying to discover and explore. Yeah, he just has to speak and to do that. What kind of power? Verse 20 tells us. 1 20 says, when he wrought in Christ, or which he wrought in Christ, when he raised him from the dead and set him at his own right hand in heavenly places. And so he's gonna use the power that he wrought in Christ. It's gonna be resurrection power. The death of his son. He not only made his son alive again, which would be great. I mean, think of that. How many times have we been to the sickbed of someone that we love? And we're like, God work a miracle. God, you can raise the dead if you want. He doesn't normally now. But if he did, wouldn't that be great? What would that be like if God rose the dead today? but they had to be like, oh, we lost him. He was flatlined for a while, now he's back again. And then they would progress them to intensive care for a while, right, and then they'd go to a step-down unit as they had been there for a while, and then they would slowly start up in rehab, and then they'd go through some physical therapy, trying to get things back to normal as they get back home. But it wasn't that kind of power. Jesus Christ was alive. Jesus Christ was active. Jesus Christ was walking. He's moving. He's not in some intensive care. He's alive and he's alive with power. Matter of fact, he goes, I exalt him better than he was before. But even here, because we have to remember that Jesus Christ was a man and he limited himself to what man is and who man is and man's limitation, but not in the resurrection power. God gave him more. He gave him so much more. He gave him ruling and authority power, verse 21. He says, far above all principality and power and might and dominion and every name that is named, not only in this world, but also in the world which is to come or that which is to come. And he had put all things under his feet and gave him to be head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fullness of him that filleth all in all. He exalted him with power over principalities. What's a principality? That is an extremity of a thing. The extreme of a thing. This is the extreme or high potentate. This is the biggest and the strongest and the best. The leader of leaders. He is king of kings. He is lord of lords. He is god of gods. He is the one who's over all. The one who is above all. This is who he is and this is considering specifically here in these principalities. It's talking about in the angelic realm or in the realm of the Elohim. The realm of the supernatural. Jesus is over all supernatural. He's that kind of power. He exalted him, again, in the form as a man. You know, the shocking thing in the universe is not that Jesus sits on the throne, that he sits on the throne as a man. There's a man on the throne. He gives him that kind of power. So he's not just barely keeping him alive. He's alive and exalted. He's above all. He has power, it says here. That means exousia. That means he is the authority, he is the ruler of rulers. And that way, as I mentioned, with Lord of lords and King of kings and God of gods. It says he's done it, not only that, with might. He's put him with might. Might means dunamis. That is a dynamite kind of a power. That means he has influence. He's the one who speaks and it happens. He's the one who declares. He's the one who decrees. He has the ability and the strength to make sure that all things gets done within his strength and the power and degrees that he has. He is the commanding Lord. And then Psalms 2 and in Revelation 19, we hear when he comes back, he rules with a rod of iron. Makes them so in that way. Right now we have the free will. But when every knee bows and every tongue confess, he makes them acknowledge him. Right now they have a choice to choose and reject. He will make them in the future because he has the dunamis power. He has the power to say you will bow. You will confess that I am Lord and they will. So that's why it's better to bow now as a friend and associate with his than as an enemy in subjection saying you win, I am defeated. And you have to humble and grovel at his feet. That's what that means, you surrender to him. And he says, not only is he ahead over everything in this world, our world's big. You always kind of learn that when you're on vacation a little bit, right? You're looking at a map, or you can travel on YouTube, and next thing you know, you're there. Hey, that was quick. Then you get in the car, and you're like, oh, Louisville's a long way away. And then, wow, you gotta drive all the way through Kentucky? That's as far as we went. We went to the southernmost part of Kentucky. We didn't quite get into Tennessee, but we're down there next to the border. It's a big old country. let alone, you know, when you go to Florida, you're like, Georgia, or Alabama, whatever time you're going to, it's like, how long is this? Is there anything else going on? And you hit Florida, like, yay! And you're like, where's the beach? Well, down there. You know, it's like, usually, you know, you're gonna drive, you're gonna go to the middle of Florida, you know, you're gonna go Cocoa Beach or something like that, you gotta, that's a long, I've never even been to the tip of Florida, man, that is a long old state, it's a big old world. We had Wilt, an exchange student that lived with us, you know, and, I heard Brett tell this story, so we were going to, he played football with us, he was the kicker, and we were going to some Linton Stockton or something like that, some far away game, we're riding for a minute, and he's like, are we still in Indiana? We're like, yeah. He's like, we'd have been in Sweden by now. Four countries away, and he would come here and talk about just driving around, it's just so big. It's like from Europe, they come over here, it's big here, he's had so much room. He talked about gas was so much cheaper, I just wanna drive around and waste it. It's like, it's just big. God, Jesus, over this big world. But not only this world, the world which is to come. That's what it says. I'm like, what? There's power and there's gonna be authority in this world, there is now, but there's gonna be newer power and authorities in the world to come. What's that? That's one of those texts that make Brian daydream and not get much done, because I'm like, what kind of power, what other things are coming? I don't know. What exploits does he have left for us in adventures in the future? I don't know, but I look forward to them. And he says Jesus is over all that too. That's the kind of power that God used when he resurrected him, that he exalted him and he gave him all this. God resurrected Jesus and he's more than alive. He's just forever this man who's ruling and reigning in this way. He's forever the Anthropos, the God-man. It's kind of mind-blowing when you stop and think about it in those terms. That power that God used in that, that power that God used to do that, to take Jesus Christ, crucify him, resurrect him, and then exalt him farther above than any man can ever be or will ever be. God used that in you who believe. What does that make you think about you now? Do you have a little more value than you thought you might have in God's eye? And we tend to want to sing that old song. Why me, Lord, what did I ever do? What? I don't, nothing. It's humbling to think that God would choose any of us, right? He said, I would invest that power in you. He's chosen us. He's already, remember the earlier things in chapter one. You're called, you're chosen, you're adopted. You're an heir, you're brought in. He's wanting you to know you're his. And that he's invested in you and he has vested in you. He's not something that starts up and then left like, well, we'll see how you turn out. No, he's invested in you. You are his. You're an heir, you're a joint heir. You have the same power invested in you that he used when he resurrected Christ. Jesus deserves it. Jesus earned it. Jesus is good and right and holy. You're like, yeah, I'm not. So how and why would he put that kind of power in me? See, chapter two, verse one, Ephesians 2, one says, and you hath he quickened who were dead in trespasses and sins. See, he's talking to us. who are believers, the born againers, the ones who've been born twice, the ones who repented of their sins, trusted Christ as Savior, born once in the flesh, born twice in the spirit. Us, those who started fresh and anew, ones who realized that they were a sinner, repented of those sins, and trusted Jesus Christ as Savior, that Jesus Christ would come down and reconcile us, redeem us, and transform us. We were dead. So we had to use resurrection power on us because we were dead. The same power that he used to transform Jesus Christ and wake him out of the ground, he used on us to convert you from a sinner to a saint. He said, you were dead, so dead, he had to quicken you, that means make you alive. You know, if you cut your fingernail and you pull it back into the quick, you got back to the alive part, and that's not fun, that's not good. Quickened, he made you, he quickened, he made you alive. Made us alive in him. What's that mean? I was alive. No, you weren't, you were dead. You just didn't know you were dead. You were a dead man walking, but now he makes you alive to what, him. to spiritual things. He made you alive to righteousness. Did you ever care about righteousness before you were born again? Probably not. Did you ever think about holiness? before he quickened you and made you alive to him, when he redeemed you, when he purchased you, when he made you one of his creatures, now all of a sudden you care and you concern what you think about, what you dwell on, what you're putting before your eyes, what you're doing, what you used to do and feel 100% comfortable doing, now it makes you uncomfortable. Now you understand that it doesn't please him. Now you know that it's wrong. And now you're asking for forgiveness. Father, forgive me. I knew not what I did. It was something that I used to do with the old man. Now I don't want to do it anymore. Please purge that from me. He made you alive to that. He's made you alive to the ways of God. He's made you alive to living like Him, to being like Him, to pleasing Him. He's made you understand what goodness truly is, that God is good. And he wants us to be good as his heirs, as his children, as people that he's invested resurrection power in, that he took you and he took you from death and he made you alive. And he says, now be alive to these things, be alive to my world. Now all of a sudden you have a care and concern for Christians. Did you care about Christians before? They probably had to drag you to church. They had to make you come to be there. Oh, the room's gonna cave in if I get there. No, now you want to go and be with Christians, to fellowship with them. You want to read God's word. You have a desire for God's word. You want to understand what God has planned for you. You want to understand what the purpose and plan of humanity is and what the course is in the future. You have a desire, you have a desire for the lost. You want to see people that you don't even know be saved. You'll take your hard earned money and you'll give it to a place so that they will use it to try to perform the gospel and present the gospel and get the gospel out as far as we can. This is foreign stuff because you were dead, now you're made alive to God. Things have changed, radically changed. within you. We were dead in our sins, it says. We didn't know we were dead in our sins. It says sins and trespasses. Trespasses means you're breaking a known law. We went to Mammoth Cave and Judah can say he hiked all the way back to the distance of the Discovery Tour. He did it all. He was just marching on and on through there. But in there's all kinds of signs, you know, don't touch the cave. You know, don't touch the rocks. You know, because that's cave growth. That's how it's growing. You stop it, you know, we've interceded. That much stalagmite's not gonna grow anymore. I didn't have any desire to touch a cave rock until I saw a sign that said, don't touch. And I'm like, I don't know, I kinda wanna touch that. What am I missing out on, you know? And I heard the ranger over there telling people, don't touch the rocks. You know, so they're leaning across. And you know, if you're in a museum, you know, you wanna touch whatever it says, don't touch. Or the grass, don't walk on it. I wanna walk on it. You know, it's like it's a rebellious, sinful nature. But see, that's, when you see a sign, when you know that it's wrong, and you do it, that's a trespass. You've violated, you've done it. Sin is you missed the mark, but there's a goal, there's perfection, and you do not attain it. When you were dead, you didn't attain any of those, and you trespassed. And you're like, but maybe I wasn't that bad. A lot of people think, well, yeah, I was lost, but I wasn't sure if sins and trespasses, but I wasn't that bad of a sinner. That's because you're deceived. It's because you were dead. You couldn't even see how bad you were because you were dead to that. But now, with holiness, it should wake you up to it. And this is a crucial part in our origin story. This is a crucial part for our futures to understand where you were. As a preacher, when I'm asking someone if they're saved and talking about their salvation, I wanna know that they understand what the Bible says that they were. Did you know that you were once a sinner? Did you know that none are righteous, no, not one? Do you wanna know that we are all guilty, that we're all against him? If you didn't understand that, you're thinking, well, he cleaned me up a little bit, and I did most of it. I'm very dubious then. So Paul here is making sure we understand our origins, to make sure that we're thoroughly understand where we've come from, who we were, what we were doing. This might be shocking for some of us, but we need to understand who we were. Amazing Grace tries to tell you, I was once lost, but now I'm found. I was blind, but now I see. and he would save a sinner such as I. You know, the Bible says that you're an enemy. You're like, I wasn't an enemy. You're an enemy of God. The song goes on to say that you're a worm. You see yourself as that worm that God shouldn't even care or be concerned about you. You were dead. You weren't even alive, you were dead. Even worse than that, verse two says, Ephesians 2.2, wherein time passed, you walked according to the course of this world. I'm gonna stop right there. The course of this world, that's the track that you were on. You were walking according to the course of this world. You tracked with the world. The world had an agenda. The world had a plan. The world had a way that people should go, and you're like, I'm on track. You were on course to do what the world was saying. Here's the shocking thing. You were subject to the mind control, and you didn't even know you were being controlled. You thought you were being you. But the world had an agenda. And when you're lost, you play right along with it. You step in march, step right with it. You do what the world tells you to do. And you go along and you think that you're doing it. Oh, you're a kid. You're to hate your parents. You're to disobey your parents. You need to be angry with your parents. It doesn't seem all the other kids are. I Need Two Disney Channel tells me I should be fighting with my parents. I should be sneaking with my parents. I should call my parents idiots. And so you do that. You want to go along with that. You want to call them jerks. You want to see that they're keeping you down and they're oppressing you. You want to sneak out at night because they do it on TV. You need to sneak out. What are we going to do? I don't know. Just sneak out and go do something. I remember one time I packed my bags to run away and I got all the way back to the far part of the property. I had supplied myself with walnuts that I had cracked all day long. and I was back there eating my walnuts to run away and then Brett comes running up, you got a phone call. I'm like, okay. They didn't even know I ran away. I was just doing a runaway because on TV kids ran away. I thought I needed to run away. I didn't know until I ran up there and I think they hung up on me. But you want to sneak out, you want to do those things. Oh, they get to a certain age, you know, you need to start drinking, you know, you need to sneak and drink. Don't wait until that 21, no, you gotta get it early, you gotta do that. You should try drugs. They're holding out on you. You need to try drugs, or maybe you need to vape, or maybe you need to do whatever they do today. You need to try all these things. Premarital sex, yeah, why should you wait till, that is wrong. You need to make sure you flirt with that. You need to steal something, you need to smoke something, you need to vape something, you need to huff something, you need to cut. You need to be moody, you need to be emotional, you need to stay on script, right? Come on, this is how kids are, this is how kids behave at two, you'd be terrible on everything else, you just go right along with it. March with them, you need to stay on course. You need to watch Friends, that is the Friends show you need to watch and they tell you how to sleep around with all your friends, that's what everybody does, that's how all groups are. Make sure you do that, you need to go to the bar at a certain age, you need to listen to this and do whatever. What's Instagram say you should be doing right now? It is programming you, telling you what you ought to do, where you should eat, what you should dress, how you should go. If you're not discerning, all these things that they're telling you, lock and step, let's get going, let's do what it is. And so where do I spend vacation? Where am I gonna do all these things? Who do I support? Why do I not support? You're to support the genius of Joe Biden. He is healthy and stronger and smarter than anybody has ever been in the office of the president until all of a sudden, he is dumber than anybody who's ever been there. He has dementia. You should be against him. You should all stab him in the back. We need to kick him out. We're gonna do the 25th amendment. Did we not see that happening like that? They were all for him for three years and then all of a sudden, no. And they all went right in step and they did it. Who's Kamala? We didn't even know who she was. We didn't know where she was. She wasn't at the border. She wasn't doing her job. She showed up and she'd be laughing, cackling Kamala wherever she was. Now all of a sudden she is giving the love vibes that everybody wants. She is the genius. She is the astounding leader of the free world. She should be in charge because they told you so. That needs to be what you're doing from one week to the next. They change it. Orange man bad. Orange man bad. You need to know that. Orange man bad. Vote against him. He has bean tweets. You want criminals living next to you from Venezuela that they pipe in by the thousands, millions to come on in. That's what you want. You stand for that. You fight for that. Is that not what they're doing in the world today? And aren't people just following this? Well, yeah. Queers for Palestinians. Queers, they will kill you. You aren't over there, and some have. They've gone over there and marched, and they throw you off a building. They are doing what they are told that they're doing. And the Palestinians are like, you guys are nuts. Do you not know who we are and what we do? They pump it on us everywhere. Homosexuality for most of all known world is a shame. It is a deviant behavior. It is a mental illness. Now is not only to be endured, it is to be embraced. It is to be taken in. It is to be loved. It is to be promoted. You are to celebrate it. And you are to desire it in your own self and in your own life. You must join on board. Transgender was something that was a rarity, that was never happened or never heard of. Now every school has a club of 50 or 60 that they gotta have in there that they all think, well, I'm just confused and I don't know it. How dare you? Have you seen that? How dare you put on your birth certificate that you have a male or a female? You need to let them grow up and decide what they are. That's our world today. That's the course of this world and how much of the world is marching on that course, riding lockstep, doing what they are told. They are on track with the world's course. And so were we. Why do Christians see so many conspiracy theories where others don't? Because we've been trained to look for an invisible enemy who the world denies is even there. We have been trained to spot it. We have been trained to see what he is doing. We understand the truth. So the lie stands out for us and we say that this is wrong. This is some evil intent. There's something supernatural going on. I'm going to oppose it. Even though that might make my life uncomfortable, might make my workplace uncomfortable, I will not fall in lockstep. I will be the guy who's oddball and stands out and says no. I will not fall into that because I marched to the beat of a different drummer. I have a leader that is not your leader because of resurrection power has transformed me, not because I'm good or not because I'm holy, because I'm righteous, but God has performed a work within me to awaken me to that, to see and to know and to understand that it is him and his way and that the enemy is working in these other things and now I am to be discerning and awake to know who these things are and I know who's behind it all. I'm to be awakened to that. Who's calling the shots? Who's pulling the strings? Conspiracy theories becomes conspiracy facts, right? We are running out of conspiracy theories because they're all becoming true. Because we have called it out, we've seen it, we've pointed to it, and it becomes revealed. Yeah, that was it. We need to wake up. If you have been touched by the resurrection power of Jesus Christ, you need to get off the course of this world. You need to get to a course that's not of this world, it is different. Church, we need to flip the script. We need to tell them, quit following what you've been told. Here is the book, here is the manual. We have a different leader now. We need to make sure that we march to him. It's like Toto running over, grabbing the curtain, pulling it back, saying, this is Oz. It's just a guy pulling some levers. You know, there's just something going on. He's not really anything. God is now going to show you who's behind it all. Ephesians two, verse two. Wherein in time past you walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience, the prince and the power of the air." One of many titles. He has a lot. Abaddon, Apollyon, the accuser of the brethren, Belial, Beelzebub, the dragon, the god of this world, the liar and the father of lies, the murderer, the old serpent, the power of darkness, the prince of devils, the roaring lion, the tempter, the thief, the wicked, Nakash, We know him better as Satan, or the Devil, or Lucifer. He has many names, Angel of Light. He presents himself in many ways, and one of them is the Prince and the Power of the Air. Prince and Power of the Air, does that mean he shouldn't be breathing? Not that air. Yeah, it's the air that's out there, it's what it's telling you, it's what's being put out, The air in which we live, the culture in which we live, it's all that, it's not only just the sky, which he is, we'll see that, but the heavens, he's all this. The overall, he's kind of overall, in charge of all, the air. Early on, they were, radio was started, a lot of Christians were against Christians being on the radio, because they said that's the devil's realm. I think it probably is, but we should probably infiltrate and put as much on the devil's realm as we should, right? So a guy that's giving it, we should use to proclaim the gospel. Same with the internet, we should use the internet. We should try to use all these things for him and not be kowtow to it and just give him over. But yeah, he is in charge of all that and the media and everything else. In Revelation 16, 17, it's the last of the judgment that is poured out upon the earth. You have seals that are opened up starting in chapter six and then you have seven of those. And then you have the trumpet judgments that are blasted and these plagues come to the earth and they're poured out upon them. And then the last of the three sets of seven are the vial or the bowl judgments as they are poured on the earth. And the last of those, the 21st judgment that is poured out is the judgment that is poured out on the air. It is not poisoning our air, it is judging Satan's throne. It is judging Satan's dominion. And the thing that begins falling apart in the chapters that follow is the world system that he has created and that he is running. Babylon has fallen, Babylon, Babylon has fallen and the world weeps for them and the structure that gave them all the things that we have and we know that we love, the course that we march on, the things that tell us how to do it, it all comes collapsing down. And as God's last judgment is on Satan's dominion, on Satan's throne, on Satan's heir, his kingdom crumbles and crumbles and collapses and then he's cast into the pit. When Jesus Christ is first tempted by Satan himself, by the devil, he offers him the kingdoms of the world. He offers him all the different kingdoms. And it's a legit offer because he's in charge of the kingdoms of this world, the political systems, the realms, the governments that are there. And he offers them to him as a shortcut than the cross. You don't have to go that bloody way. I'll just give them to you. You bow down and worship me. And Jesus is like, oh no, I'm not taking any shortcut. I will defeat you. It was a legit offer because he is a prince. That means he is a ruler. It means he's king over. He's a prince of demons. Yes, he in charge of the supernatural realm that are the fallen creatures. He's in charge of those. He's the God of this world. He is the one whom they worship, the one that they'd cow down to. It's the invisible realm. We probably see it more and more today as people see the curtain pulled back. We might call it the shadow government, the government that's running the government. The one who's pulling the string for things to happen and he has another system down there. But behind that system is Satan and his system is what he's telling us right here and now. By the time we get to chapter six and he gives us our weaponry, he talks about the supernatural realm and he lists through them all in that way. And so he's telling the world's system, his dominion has over them, not hell, That is a lie. That is just a far side cartoon where he's down there. Yeah, I even made the coffee cold. Yeah, I thought of everything. It is not a place where Satan tortures you, that he is ruling over his dominion of hell. It is his jail. Satan has never been there. He goes there at the end. He's finally cast into that lake of fire. It is the lake of fire made for the devil and his angels. It is not his dominion that he rules and reigns over. The earth is what he rules and reigns over. And he took it. It was supposed to be man's dominion. It was Adam's to have, but he forfeits it and he gets it. And then Christ came down at the cross and fought for it and bought it back. And in Revelation four and five, he begins opening the title deed to the earth and reclaiming it. And that's what lays issue to the rest of the book of Revelation as he pours it out. So no, hell is his jail. He's not been there. It's another one of those lies where he puts you. I'm in charge. There's a place where you can go. I'll have the party. I'll tell you how it's gonna be. No, it's the deepest and hottest part of hell is for him. There are degrees of hell as well. In Revelation 2, verse 13, it tells you that his seat or his throne is in Pergamon at that time. Jesus even tells him. He writes a letter to the church of Pergamos and he says, I know that you dwell where Satan's seat is, that you have his dominion right there, that you're right there at the front lines and yet you are fighting. And what was he doing at Pergamon that he put his seat there? It was the married church. The world and the church mixed together where you couldn't hardly tell one from the other. cautionary tale of us. Let's not bring the world into the church. We're to go in the world, not be of it. We're just trying to stay apart from it, but it was the married church, and so Satan does his best at compromise. We saw Wednesday night that the church, the gates of hell will not prevail against the church, but he does the destruction from within, and he puts in Ananias and Sapphira's heart to lie to the Holy Spirit and to trust in them, so it collapses on them. He is in the world. He's alive and active today. He still has access to heaven to go before and accuse the brethren. In Revelation 12, he's finally kicked out, and he knows he has but a short time, and that is the last half of the Great Tribulation, when he finally no longer has that access, or somewhere around there, the last part, or the part of the Tribulation there. He is the accuser before God, and right now is saying, if you're gonna listen to Brian, you know who he is, you know what he does. He's up there accusing us, but we have an advocate. to Jesus Christ who stands up. We'll see that in the next couple of weeks when Stephen is being stoned, that Jesus is standing up in the role of this one's mine. Yeah, you can accuse me of anything you want. I paid for it all. He's mine. Christ does that for us now. Shockingly here, he tells us who we were in verse two again. He says, wherein in time past you walked according to the course of this world. We were on course of the world before. We were dead, we were in course with the world. According to the prince of the power of the air, he was our boss, we fought for him, he was our leader. The spirit which works in the children of disobedience. It says here that he's still working with the children of disobedience today. Those disobedient ones, the rebellious ones, the ones that are against God and his system. Things that are evil, he's in the midst of that. The rebels. He likes things that where people can shaft the system and get around, probably corporates and officials and corporations. He's in the political system for sure. I think it's beyond doubt some of the most vile, ludicrous things of stealing and robbing from people, making hardships upon hardships. waste, no accountability. He's probably in the education system teaching and teaching and instructing them on the way that they should go and to make sure that they're on course for the course that the world has for them. He's in all kinds of institutions just corrupting and perverting and taking things around. And are you ready to be shocked? He was your boss at one time. He's telling you your origin. You were once on track with him. You were once marching to the beat of his drum. You were once doing everything that he told you to do. You were right in lockstep. You might have thought you were better than that, but he says he was in charge over you as well. Sure, children of disobedience, they probably don't need as much ruling and reigning over as the ones he's trying to tempt that were closer to the Christ at the time. It's part of our origin. We need to realize that we were an enemy, that we were on that team. It's shocking to me that God would pull us out of that and put us on his and adopt us and put us in his family, not just as a soldier, but in his family. Verse three tells us another part. It says here, among whom also we all had our conversation in times past. So we were all once a part of that. He even talks about himself, in the lust of the flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind. And we're of the nature, the children of wrath, even as others. It's part of our origin. Even Paul here says we. Paul too lived and followed and obeyed Satan. He was persecuting the church. He was going after the church. He had a license to kill for the church. And so he begins pursuing and going after them. And he starts talking about how then we lived in our lusts or the desires or the flesh. And does that even mean bad ones? Just that our body desires things. We desire food. I can pervert that, Satan says. You can desire sex within a marriage. I can pervert that, Satan says. You can desire children. I can pervert anything. He said some things are good desires that you're supposed to have because I will change it around And I'll pervert it. We had no self-control within it. We did as we felt, we did as we did. And our destiny was wrath, it goes on to tell. Like all others, we were on course, we were marching toward that cross. Broad is the way that leads to destruction, but narrow is the path, and few there be that find that one. We were all on that path. We need to come to grips with that. Do you understand how lost you were? Do you understand how vile a sinner you were, and your trespasses and your sins? That you were dead? that you were on Satan's team doing as he bidded. You were marching through the course of this world with no second thought for it. You thought it was just your way and your things you were doing. You were doing what you wanted. Well, yeah, the lust and the desires of your flesh. You were doing that because he put that within you. And some of the scariest words that you can find, probably in the world, Well, I would say the Bible would be almost persuaded. You know, in the book of Acts, he confesses, he's like, you almost persuaded me. That's one of the tragic words. You were almost a believer, but you didn't? Or the potential, you had potential, and you didn't live up to it. Or you had possibilities and possibilities lost. Those are tragedy things. But we're about ready to read the two best words in the scriptures that are concerning you and me. Because we were enemies. The devil was our boss, we lusted, we were worldly, we were sinners, we were dead. We were on that track, that was the course we were on, and such were we, it says. And then we get verse four, but God. Ah, that's great words. You were on that course, we were marching that way, we were blind and we were dead and we didn't even know it, but God. God interceded in your life. God put out the gospel call, you responded and you listened. God called, you answered. Maybe it was through different ways, all kinds of different ways, but he did, and you responded, and you went, and you responded to him, but God, but God, let's see where it says, but God, who is rich in mercy, this is our hero, for his great love, wherewith he loved us, even that while we were yet sinners, while we were enemies, while we were on the devil's team, but God interceded for us, even while we were dead in our sins, he hath quickened us together with Christ, by grace are you saved. It is grace, it is not what you deserve. It is mercy, it is gracious. You are getting what you do not deserve. God is kind in that. But God gives us something that none of us deserve, that none of us has earned, that none of us could have outside of the good and the kindness and the grace of God. But God sent his son down to die for us, to suffer and to die and to resurrect and be exalted. And he used that same power to convert you, a dead minion of the devil. who was marching in the zombie army doing whatever the world had told you to do, but God interceded and woke you up and put you on his team. That's us. That's Christians today. Let's not be defeated. Let's not think, well, you don't know who I am. He knows who you are. He knows who you are better than you know who you are. He knows what you were better than you knew who you were. We weren't awake to knowing that we were on the devil's team doing that. Some of us maybe. Most of us not. That God would then say, no, I'm changing you. That God could change a sinner such as I. How wonderful a love like this, this hymn that goes on. He's gonna build on that, and we'll build on that next week. But I wanted to end with that. But that's where we were, this is part of our origin. That's where we were, that's the things he did. Hallelujah, but God. But God intervened, God changed. Nobody pulls themselves up, no one rescues themselves, no one's like, and then I decided one day, While you were dead, how much work can you do when you're dead? Nothing. Lazarus was dead. It was Jesus. Lazarus, come forth. Right now he puts out sinners. Whosoever will call upon the name of the Lord, you shall be saved. Some of us hear and some of us respond. Sometimes we need to keep shining the light of the gospel in the blind guy's eyes. We need to keep making sure we're proclaiming the good news of the gospel to the lost and to the dying. We need to make sure that we are watering, that we are planting, that we are doing our best to do that because you never know when but God will intercede and change a life. If you're thankful for that today, we have a chance to praise him here this morning, but God. Let's do so as we close an invitation. Sing a song about what He could do for you. This is where we've come from. He's got to work for us. Don't think that He can't use me. He can use you. But God can do anything.