7-10-25 Study of Revelation Ephesians Chapter 5:3-7 The Perversion of Love

➡ This Bible study focuses on Ephesians chapter five, discussing the importance of understanding and preparing for the Rapture. The speaker emphasizes that Ephesians is a self-assessment book in the Bible, guiding us on how to live our lives according to God’s plan. The study also warns against being deceived by worldly things and stresses the need to walk in love, imitating God’s love. The speaker insists that his role is to share the truth from the Scripture, not his personal opinions, and encourages listeners to apply this truth to their own lives.
➡ The text discusses the concept of divine love and the importance of imitating God’s love and forgiveness. It emphasizes that God loved us so much that he gave his only Son for our salvation. The text also encourages us to study and improve ourselves in order to understand and embody this divine love. Lastly, it highlights the importance of forgiveness, stating that we are most like God when we love and forgive our enemies.
➡ This text emphasizes the transformative power of salvation and the importance of living a life worthy of this gift. It explains that when we accept salvation, we are given a new nature, mind, and body by God, enabling us to live in a way that reflects His love. The text also highlights the role of the Holy Spirit in sealing this transformation within us, and encourages us to live sacrificially, unconditionally, and forgivingly. Lastly, it reminds us that despite potential persecution, we should strive to live in a way that glorifies God.
➡ This text emphasizes the transformative power of God’s love and salvation. It suggests that through God’s divine power, we are granted everything we need for life and godliness, and we become partakers of divine nature. The text also highlights the importance of love, stating that true love can only come from God and is a sign of knowing God. Lastly, it underscores the need for purity and morality among believers, and the power of God’s grace and mercy in our lives.
➡ The text discusses the concept of love, contrasting the pure, selfless love granted by God with the selfish, conditional love often sought in the world. It highlights the perversion of love in society, such as the pursuit of physical desires and personal passions, which are inherently selfish. The text also emphasizes the importance of self-control and righteousness, warning against immoral behaviors like adultery. Lastly, it underscores the need for truth in our lives, even when it’s uncomfortable or challenging.
➡ This text discusses the dangers of immorality, particularly sexual sins, and their prevalence in today’s society. It emphasizes the importance of self-control and the negative consequences of lust, greed, and lack of self-restraint. The author warns about the influence of such sins on the younger generation and the role of various institutions in promoting them. The text also highlights the transformative power of faith and the need for individuals to resist immoral temptations.
➡ The text discusses the importance of confronting and addressing sexual sin within the church community. It emphasizes that such behavior is not appropriate for believers and should not be present in their lives. The text also encourages individuals to self-assess and make decisions that align with their faith. Lastly, it highlights the need for spiritual growth and reliance on God’s guidance in all aspects of life.

Foreign guys, welcome back. It’s good to be with you. This is our Thursday night full Bible study of the book of Ephesians. We’re into the next to the last chapter, chapter five, just for those. And I, I got word today that the, the viewing audience has been increased on looking at these and I got some statistics today that was quite interesting. So let me just sort of say those of you who are new to this, we’re doing a study. Yeah, I’m rocking. We’re doing a study on Revelation and we broke out of Revelation after chapter three to come into Ephesians so that we understood exactly what it, what we need to view our life at, to go back into chapter four of Revelations to deal with the Rapture.

Because if we just studied Revelations, we went through the Rapture, majority of us would not even have a clue as to really what all that meant and how you would be prepared for that activity. Because you’re either gonna, you’re gonna rapture, you’re gonna have one of three choices. You’re gonna die, you’re gonna go to hell and go to heaven upon your death. Before that, if you’re living in, during that period of time, you’re gonna have two choices. You’re either going to get raptured, you’re going to stay in the great tribulation and that’s not where you want to be.

So this is this, this is this. Ephesians is the self assessment book in the Bible. First three chapters deal with the, the pre planning and the doctrine of creation itself and the, the facility of how that God prepared for you and I to go home. And chapters four, five and six is how we apply our lives in this physical form in order to meet the requirements in chapters one, two and three to go home. That’s really where we’re at. So we’re in the middle of chapters four, five and six. We’re right in the middle, right in chapter five.

And we’re looking at chapter five, verses three through seven. Okay, we’re taking, this is a slow process for us and we’re going to be in this chapter five for a number, number of weeks. And tonight’s topic deals with a condition of what we have learned from the world and what we don’t understand of God, which is called the perversion of love. Because really God is total love and that’s what he tells us to do. But this world has perverted that. Remember the law of duality, this world has perverted that in order to capture not only your attention but your emotions into the dark side of the Matrix.

And that’s what we’re going to be looking at tonight. Now I’m going to, I’m, I’m going to make a statement here and then I’m going to jog off of this in a moment because I’ve had quite a few conversations today and I want to say this. When we get together, it’s the time of coming to read the word of God and to study it and explain it for purposes of not only understanding it, but for application of what you need to be doing in the sanctification of your life. This is a time that we, we don’t hear from Jim Pugh, we hear from heaven.

If you think you’re hearing from Jim Pew and you don’t like what you’re hearing, go the opposite direction because why you’ve already turned yourself off from what the friggin purpose is of what we’re doing. This has nothing to do about what I think or what I feel. I don’t give you my opinions. My job is to give you the truth. Your job is to interpret that truth into your own life, apply it to your life, discern it for what it is, meaningful to your life, and allow God to reveal it to you. And if you think anything else about it, from what I heard today, I just wish you would go away because I’m not here to persuade you.

Yeah, well, yeah, I am. I’m here to persuade you for one thing, not for myself, but what God says in the Scripture. And it’s, and it’s interesting to see a different perspective from those that sit in here, listen to it, and then want to complain because number one, they don’t agree with what it is. And I’m going to say if you don’t agree what it is, you’re not studying. Because it’s not my opinion. It’s all straight from Scripture. And they, they disagree with what I’m saying because they don’t like what I’m saying. Well, if you don’t like what I’m saying, then you don’t like the Holy Spirit of God.

Okay, so let’s get into this, let’s get into Ephesians, chapter five, verse three through seven. And I’m going to read this to you and then we’re going to, we’re going to get into some detailed discussions here. It says, therefore, be limitators, imitators, sorry, imitators of God as beloved children and walk in love. Just as Christ also walked, also loved you and gave himself up for us. An offering and a sacrifice to God as a fragrant aroma. This ties back to all of the sacrifice system that existed in the Old Testament. Because why Christ came to fulfill the law.

And in fulfilling the law, he sacrificed himself as that fragrant sweet aroma to God to allow you to go home. And he’s telling us here, Paul’s telling us here, that being imitators of God requires us to not only be his children in obedience, but we’re to walk in the love as Christ also walked in the love between him and His Father. For us, that’s a big challenge. Let’s go on. It says then continuing, but immorality or any impurity or greed must not even be named among you as is proper among saints. And there must be no filthiness and silly talk or coarse jesting which are not fitting, but rather giving of thanks.

Remember, when you are saved, you are exchanging an old life for a new life. And we talked about that in the self assessment. If you’re not there, then you need to question your salvation to begin with. For this you know with certainty. Okay, here we go. That no immoral or impure person or covetous man who is an adult, adult adulterer, an idol worship has an inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God. Did you get what I’m saying? You think you’re a Christian, you’re walking down this path, but you’re doing all of the stuff that you used to do.

You are not safe. You have no inheritance. If you are not changed, you have no inheritance. And it goes on here because in this process of salvation, there’s also aside of the salvation from the evil world that they want you to be saved, but they don’t want you to have a relationship with God. They want you to know him, but they don’t want you to have a relationship with Him. Why? Because the relationship is the sanctification process that the Scripture says you need to be sanctified in Him. Let’s continue. Let no one, no one, no one.

What does that mean? No government and no friend and no husband, no spouse, no child, no one deceive you with empty words. For because of these things, the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience because of what things you have allowed yourself to be deceived. Get it? You’re thinking upon the things of this world and not the things of the book. You’re allowing the things of this world to come into your life and control what you do and not the spiritual aspect of Christ controlling your life. Therefore do not be partakers with them. That’s a commandment point blank.

Therefore, do not be partakers within. What does that mean? Don’t associate, don’t affiliate. Don’t do the things of this world, because if you do, your doors are completely open. Yeah, as we saw last time, last time we were together on Thursday night. When we’re looking at verses one and two in this same chapter, it begins on a very, very beautiful high note, right? It tells us to be imitators of God as beloved children. Well, that’s very good because why he says you can only come to me as a child. Well, that’s why you are not programmed in this world.

And if you are programmed and you’re going to come to him, you have to be broken. Broken so much that you’re actually a child. We are the children of God. God is not a God who draws us nearly to Himself. He draws us all the way to Himself and He makes us his own children by birth and what, by adoption? Not only are we his children, but we are his beloved children. And we are loved by God from eternity past for the foundation of the world. Guys, we’re living in a simulation. This all happened before he created one speck of matter.

We are loved by God from eternity past through eternity future. We are therefore to be imitators of God. And what does that really mean? Well, in verse 2 it says. It means that we walk in what you’re not. You’re never more like God that when than when you actually love him and love like Him. Because everything that God has done for us is done because what he loved us and why did he love us? You saw it in the substack today. Because he wanted to give a blessing to His Son. And he had to love us to know that we’re not going to be robots in this endeavor, that we’re going to make decisions along the way that in some cases like Lucifer is going to cause.

Cause him to live in the. Live in hell for eternity. But we knew that the people that are going to be drawn out, the spiritual beings are going to be drawn out of heaven with this condition of, of luring us for particular purposes of, of our free will mind in heaven. He knew that we were going to sin, but he also knew that he was going to provide a vehicle by which we could go back to glorify what his son times 3. 16. That’s what we’re talking about. God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son to us for what Salvation.

Your ticket. Oh, he paid the price. It’s not like us going to, you know, the ticket counter and buying a ticket for somebody to go home that is really in need. This guy paid his whole life for what we take for granted, for be imitators of God. That’s a high bar. I need to take a nap. Jim, can you let Patty in, please? Yeah, I’m doing okay, thanks. This is a high bar, guys. I understand that you should understand that. And you might say to yourself, that seems far too high for us to attain. And if you’re thinking of being equal to God in the comprehensive reality reality of his nature, that’s your reality.

This physical world is not your reality. It is too far. But you can imitate God in ways that the Bible designed you to imitate God. And in what ways the spirit of God enables you to do that. It’s all right there, guys. It tells you how to do this. And to help ease the burden of that command, to be an imitator guide, guys. Remember that. That’s a command. That’s not a wish list. You’re to put on the armor of God. You’re to put on the sun. You are to work as the Son. You are to put the robe of His Son.

You are to think like in the mind of God. This is not a condition of if you want to or not. This is a commandment. Let’s go back to chapter three, verse 14, where the apostle Paul is praying. And he was. He’s bowing his knees before the Father. Now, we’ve talked about spiritual prayer and we’ve talked about positions of prayer as it relates to the magnitude of what you’re praying. You honor the Father by bowing your knees before him. And what Paul is, is doing here is he identifies with all of us. This is our example that we are his family in heaven and on earth.

And he prays for us. And he prays that God would what grant us in verse 16, according to the riches of his glory, to be what strengthened with power through his spirit and what the inner man. That’s your heart. He’s telling you how to do it right here. Sanctified in Jesus Christ means that you are allowing Christ that he took home with you. Remember, this is his home. It’s not a red house. This is his home. And if it’s his home, just like your physical home that you rule, he rules you. So first we need to understand Paul is praying for us.

And he’s praying for something that has come become possible because the spirit of God has taken up resident. And what in our inner man? You can’t pray this if he. If you don’t have residency. Okay, guys, self assessment time. You have no power. None. You have no fruit. None. Unless your heart is the resonance of home for Jesus Christ. If you see no fruit, if you feel no power, if you see that all you’re doing is spiraling down, better look at your heart. He does this so that we can be what, Strengthened with power to the end that Christ may what, settle down at home in your hearts through faith.

And then that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend what comprehend means understand with all of the saints. What is the breadth, the dimensions of Christ? Breadth, the length, the heights and the depth. And to know the love of Christ, which surpasses all knowledge, that you may be filled up to all the fullness of God. In chapter five, he says, be an imitator of God. That’s not a wish list. That’s not an if then statement. It’s a command. Here. It’s an indicative thing. You are, you can and you are to be filled up with what? The fullness of God.

If you know what fully the love of Christ which surpasses all knowledge. How do you get that, guys? You get that by sitting on the couch watching the tv. No, you get that in your sanctification process. You have to study in order to improve yourself, to be sanctified in him. That’s also a command, by the way. You are, this is Christ. You are to be sanctified in him. They didn’t say, oh, you know what? You could say, oh, go do whatever you want to. And you know what? I’ll give you all the riches and glory in heaven.

I’ll see you when you get there. That’s not what he said. It. Your focus in this physical realm as a spiritual being, having a physical experience is to ensure that your spiritual life is in order. So again, imitating God is about having love the way God loves. And we looked upon that last night in a great, great amount of time. So how does God look? Verse 2 explains it. Walk in love. Just as Christ also loved you and gave himself up for us as an offering. Ah, think about this. We talked about this the other night as an offering, not a tithe.

You hear? Getting what I’m saying? Tithe is owned by Christ. An offering is that which is over and above, which is what Christ did for you to give you the ability to go home. Let’s go back. Walk in love. Just as Christ also loved you and gave himself up for us as an offering and a sacrifice. Sacrifice is the tent. Offering is everything above it. The sacrifice that you give as a steward is understanding that the first fruits, the first 10% of your fruit is his. But he gave more. He gave him a lot more. He did an offering and a sacrifice to God as a fragrant aroma.

And we said this, that primarily divine love is known for its forgiveness. That is the simplest definition of divine love, by the way. God loves us enough to offer us unconditional, self sacrificing, forgiving love. That’s the spiritual love. That’s not this world’s unconditional love. And we saw that last time. That’s what he asked of us. If you’re going to love like God, then you must forgive sometimes, as the scripture says, 70 times 7. But you’re never more like God nor Jesus, what he said in Matthew chapter 5 than when you love your enemies. And that demands forgiveness, endless forgiveness.

I had a phone call today. Oh no. Matter of fact, it wasn’t a phone call. It was a podcast on Scotty Sax radio. And we were talking about God Always Wins. And Robert Shuler put out a book, God Always Wins. And he was promoting his books on Scotty’s show today. And I just happened to, Scotty invited me on to really talk in details about this. And it’s things we, we’ve talked about and, and Scotty wanted to know the spiritual connection with why the term of that book was provided by scripture. And it says it goes back to the beginning.

God created this world for his Son and in that creation he controls both good and bad. So it doesn’t really matter what goes on in this world. Whatever’s going to go on in this world, he’s approved of it. And therefore it’s going to glorify his son. And we got. Scotty asked me about this Epstein stuff and I said, you know what scripture says? There’ll be nothing hidden from us. Everything will be transparent. But it might not be our time. That, that. But even what Epstein did was to glorify his son. Think about it. This world is changing because of the evil.

Yeah, it’s going to glorify Christ at the end. I can imagine tomorrow there’ll be more phone calls about, oh, I don’t agree with what you’re saying or whatever. And I’m just going to say, go look at scripture. You don’t have to listen to what I’m saying. Just go read scripture. So the call here in this re this aspect of our Life as a Christian, a follower of Christ, a sanctified person in Christ is to walk in love. That’s part of the order you want, right? You’re supposed to walk as we learn in chapter four. Worthy of what your calling.

Back in chapter four, verse one, Paul implored us to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which we are. What called. And that’s an effectual calling to. To none other than your salvation. If you’re called to salvation and you accept that salvation, why are you not walking this way? So to walk worthy, we have to walk not in this world’s definition of love, but in what God has defined as his love. Now the question is, can we do it? Well, yes, we can. Because why he transformed you at salvation. He gave you the new nature.

He gave you the new mind. He gave you the new DNA. He gave you the new body. He gave you and gave you and gave you all of the things to do that. So what limits you might limit you if you go back to chapter two of Ephesians and remind yourselves of those very Familiar verses, verse 8. For by grace you have been saved through faith that not of yourselves. It is a gift of God, not as a result of of works, your works. So that no one most. Then in verse 10 he went goes on and says, for we are his.

What workmanship created in Christ Jesus for what good works which God prepared beforehand, before when foundation of the world, guys, so that we would walk in what the good works? Just as much as God elected you, getting where I’m fixing to put down. God elected your justification. Who did he have to justify to? I want you to. We’re going to get into this in the substack, okay? Because the substack we’re getting in very, very detail. And you’re still seeing things, looking at things, reading things from a very, very different perspective of point by point by point of creation and not this glossy overview of creation that we have learned in our past.

Who did he justify you to? His Son? He had to go through the ability to allow him God in the sonship form his nature to be crucified. To provide what the justification that nobody else could provide back to God himself to give you salvation. He elected your sanctification. You have been chosen and ordained to what good works. And those good works were ordained before time began. He could not have written your name in the Lamb’s book of life before the foundation of the world if he hadn’t justified you. And how important is to you for that God ordained the Believers would be marked by what? Righteousness and holiness.

Go Back to chapter four, verse 24. Put on the new self which is in the likeness of God has been created in righteousness and holiness of the truth. All these things describe what it means to be a child of God. We are beloved children. We are to walk worthy. We can walk worthy, but we cannot walk worthy unless we’re sanctified in Jesus Christ. Romans 5:5. I want you to take note of that. 5:5. Just hang on to that a moment. We’re gonna get into that. Romans 5:5 says that the Spirit has literally shed abroad the love of God in our heart.

We can love the way God loved, obviously not to the perfection of him. Why? Because we’re less than the even the angels of God. We were sinners. He’s not. But in the character of that love. In what God’s character of love that we’re supposed to have the new nature in that he gave us a point of salvation which is unconditional, self sacrificing and endless forgiveness. This marks us. It’s a stamp. It’s a seal in your heart because you receive the Holy Spirit immediately upon that process. Now our journey last Thursday in verses one and two was a sweet time together as we contemplated the character of this love and began to examine our own hearts.

A lot of self examination, examination to see whether we are truly marked, marked by that love. Now I’m going to ask you a question. What do you think the sealing of the Holy Spirit is in your heart? What do you think it is? Do you just think it’s a stamp seal? Oh, you’ve been saved. Boom. I’m going to do this. Is that what you think? That’s probably 99.9% of people believe that. Oh, just because I went through that salvation process, the scripture says I’m going to be sealed with the Holy Spirit. And that ceiling is there it is.

No. You know what the seal is. You know what the why the Holy Spirit is is commanded to stay inside of you once you’re saved. Sealed with the Spirit. It’s not a band aid effect. It’s the manifestation of God’s love through Christ in loving us, in offering his life as the sacrifice to sell you. And verse two tells us that in chapter five we were to walk in love. That means the daily pattern of Christian conduct is marked sealed by love that is sacrificial, unconditional and with endlessly forgiving. And it is possible because if we love that way according to chapter three, as which we have Read.

We can be what? Filled with the fullness of God, the most godly person are the persons who love the most. You got to give to receive, who loves sacrificially, unconditionally and endlessly forgiving. Think of how the church would be if that was all being lived out by each one. Can you imagine the blessings that this family would receive? So since we are beloved children of God, verse one says, be imitators of God and walk in love. That was the plea, that was the commandment. It’s possible because of what? The transformation. Without the transformation, you couldn’t do it.

Why? Because you’re born in this world, chapter two of Ephesians, with a demonic spirit controlled by the prince of power, the air, living in total disobedience and chaos. Until you are transformed, you have no ability to do it. Now, I’m going to borrow some Peter’s words first Peter, just to expand this a little bit on your understanding of what being born again means. Listen to what Peter writes in first Peter 1, verse 3. Blessed be. Now that’s a benediction. Okay? Blessed be is always a benediction. It’s really sort of like a doxology. Blessed be the God and the Father of Lord Jesus Christ, who according to his great mercy has caused us to be what? Born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.

The way you describe conversion is there’s a new birth, a transformation, an old to new self assessment. Guys, where are you at? Peter says it again in verse 23, you have been born again, not of seed which is perishable, but imperishable being, that is through the living and enduring word of God. What happened upon salvation? You got a seed planted in you called the Holy Spirit that was sealed by Christ’s love because he sacrificed his whole being for you. He sealed you with that seed so that seed would never perish, but would grow upon what your sanctification.

He says you are a new creature. You’ve been born again. Peter marks that again in chapter two, verse two. Like newborn babies long for the pure milk of the Word so that by it you may grow in respect to what salvation, You’ve been born again. And Peter extends that means in the same as the second chapter. And if you go to verse nine, you’ll see it. You are now a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation. Think about what we’re talking about in the Return of the God study. Okay, let’s go back. Look at this.

In that way, you’re a chosen race. A royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God’s own possession, so that you may proclaim the excellences of him who has called you out of the darkness into marvelous light. Light. If you’re empty, you’re going to be possessed. If your culture’s empty, it’s going to be repossessed. If your nature nation is empty, it’s going to get repossessed. That’s exactly what we have done as an individual and society that God took away when he started the church. You put God on display. The glory of God shining in the face of Jesus Christ is now shining through us.

That’s what we’re supposed to do. You were once a people, now you’re a people of God. Once not a people. That means you were once not of him, were of this world. You were possessed. Now you are the people of God. You now have changed. You’ve now been transformed. You now have been sealed to not allow that repossession to take place. You had not received mercy. Now you have received mercy. It goes on. He says, beloved, I urge you as aliens and strangers, abstain from fleshly lusts which wage war against the soul. That is your spiritual war.

Keep your behavior excellent among the Gentiles, so that it in the things in which they slander you as evildoers, they may, because of your good deeds as they observe them, glory by God in the day of visitation. What he’s saying is, you’re going to get persecuted, guys. And when you get persecuted upon my name, that’s good. You’re over the target. But expect it so we now have the capacity and the command to live to the glory of God. We have been transformed to that reality. Self assessment. If you do not see this capacity or the command in which you’re living today to the glory of God, then you need to look at your salvation.

Peter says more in second Peter, chapter one. He says that God by His divine power has granted to us in verse three, everything pertaining to life, life and godliness. I want you to think about that. Everything. You’re not missing anything. You get that word, everything. You’re not missing one thing through the true knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and excellence. For by these he has granted to us his precious and magnificent promises. And then this amazing statement comes after that, so that by them you may become partakers of divine nature, having escaped.

Past tense, escaped, past tense, the corruption that is in the world by lust, what is the new birth? You’re a new creature, creation. And you have been Granted the divine nature, you have been transformed. You are a new creation. And God himself, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, all have taken up resonance. Amen. This is the way we are to understand salvation. Now, if I borrow a phrase from Paul in Galatians, chapter 4, verse 4, as he speaks about the transformation, let’s look at what he says. But when the fullness of time came. Fullness of time means when God’s time was right.

When the fullness of time came, God sent forth His Son. Okay, he waited 4,000 years. Why? He had to build a nation. So when the fullness of time came, when it was the right time, God sent forth His Son. Born of a woman. Born under what? The law. So that he might redeem those who were under the law. Okay, all of this. All of the old saints were in hell, right? He had to come in, close the law, out do his prototype in the resurrection, so that he had the ability, when he went to hell, he could bring him home.

That we might receive the adoption as sons. We are both the born sons and adopted sons. God has sent forth the spirit of His Son into our hearts, crying out the Father. We speak to God with intimacy because we are one with Him. One with Him. If he’s one, so are we one. Father, Son and Holy Spirit. We. They are one, so are we with them. Father, Son and Holy Spirit. They reside all of it in you. Verse 7, Galatians chapter 4. We are no longer a slave, but a son. And if a son, then an heir through God.

God is in the process in redeeming his people. Hebrews says of bringing many sons to glory. You are a child of God. And again, that’s what verse one says. We are beloved children. And as beloved children who bear the mark, selling love, Christ on the cross as the Spirit sealed inside of you. We’re who bear the mark of God, who possess the divine nature in whom Father, Son and Holy Spirit dwell. This is scripture. He’s telling you. Inside of you. All three of these live and it’s sealed by the love of God. We should imitate him if he is going to dwell inside of us.

Why are we living a world of hell when we should be willing living the world of imitation of that which resides inside of us. Self assessment. Where are you now? We have the power. Not in our own strength. Why? Because we don’t have that, but in the strength of what? The Spirit. And by the work of the Word through the Spirit, to walk in love. And that love will be like God’s love again, sacrificial unconditional and continuously forgiving love. One other text I would lay out tonight is in first John, chapter four, verse seven. Beloved, let us love one another.

For love is from God. And everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. Oh, good night. Did you just hear that? Let’s read it again and hear the words. Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God. In other words, you can’t love unless it comes from God. You got that, Husband? You love your wives? Do you love your wives? The only way that can happen is if it comes from God. It’s not a physical, emotional thing. Let’s. Let’s go back. Beloved, let us love one another. For the love is from God and everyone.

Everyone. It doesn’t matter who you are. Everyone who loves the loves, loves. You can’t love in this physical form. You get it? You can’t love in this physical form. It doesn’t exist. Everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. And we elected officials of our government to change this world to show our children love by giving them contraceptives without parental approval so that they could have what? Safe sex, which they told him it was. Okay, so if you know God and you’re born of God, you love. The one who doesn’t love, doesn’t know God.

For God is love. And by this love of God was manifested in us. The only way you can love is what God’s manifested again inside of you. So how does that happen? You got to be saved. You have no ability to love without salvation. That God has sent his only begotten son into the world so that he might live through him in this is love. Not that we love God, but that he loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation, the satisfication for our sins, providing us this love. Tough Susan time. Where’s your love come from? Does it come from your nightly desires or does it come from a union that’s based upon what God is giving you to love that person completely unconditional, no matter what.

If God so loved us, we also ought to love one another, right? That’s what it says. No one has seen God at any time in this history. Okay, I’m talking about our history. No one has seen God at any time. If we love one another, God abides enough in us and his love is perfected in us. That is why your sanctification seed grows. Think about it. It’s not about the study. How many of us went to college and studied our butts off to just to get A degree and come out and not even understand what we even study to begin with.

And we never use it. It’s not about study, it’s the relationship. And you can’t have the relationship unless you’re sanctified in Jesus Christ. We’re never more like God than when you love sacrificially, unconditionally, and, and with total forgiveness. And we have a model of that, a pattern. The plea is in verse one, the pattern is in verse two. And Christ, as we saw last Thursday night, is the one who loved us and gave himself up for us as a satisfactory offering, not a sacrifice, he already sacrificed himself, but as an offering to God that arose from the cross as a sweet aroma.

Think about that. Christ went to the cross. It was God who went to the cross, by the way, God himself went to the cross in the form of his sonship. He had to do that because he had to have. Think about, think about why the sonship was ever created. He had to do that because he needed to leave that physical body when he was going to place the sins on that body. Because God cannot associate with sin. Think about it. He had to create the sonship as the vehicle, prototype, as the vehicle to allow God to withstand the acceptance of the offering for forgiveness of sins based upon the sins that he put upon his Son as the sacrifice.

That’s what’s so magnificent about this, so beautiful, so wondrous, so precious should be to all of us that in a sense, I hate to descend, you know, into verse three here, but necessarily we’ve got to get there because it starts to turn here and it turns very darkly and it’s very ugly. Why? Because it goes from the light to the dark in how we walk our daily lives. And it goes on to say this, but, oh, I love butts, okay, all through scripture, but you know, something else is, you know, something’s turned when he says, but.

But immorality or any impurity or greed must not even be named among you as is proper among the saints. In other words, what he’s saying here is the saints do not have immorality, do not have any impurities, where the first condition in chapter four that we learned was purity. No impurity nor agreed should be named among you. In other words, it should not be part of your life. There is an anti numian’s nightmare. That verse, right? There is an antinomians nightmare. If you think that somehow because of the grace of God and because of the forgiveness of sins and because Christ has set you free, free from the punishment of the law.

Remember, he came to fulfill the law, which the law only did punishment. His sacrifice, death, burial and resurrection created a grace, a mercy that said, you don’t have to comply with the law before my death. Let’s go on that you can live any way you want to live. Then this verse will jerk the chain fast and get you back to what your reality. Let’s go back and read it. No more immorality or any impurity. Think about your life. I’m not going to try to get into it, you know, I see it. You see it. No immorality or any impurity or greed must be even be named among you.

This is the perversion of love, guys. Paul goes on so fast. From the perfection of love to the perversion of. This is the satanic deception. This is the law of duality. You see, the word deceived down in verse six. And I think we all understand that the world seeks love. I mean, that all does. I mean, we all grew up that way, right? I lived in the 60s. You can’t get around it. If there’s anything that seems to be the most imbu ubiquous theme in our culture, it in terms of music, literature and media, it’s all about love.

Matter of fact, every country music song out there is all about somebody either marrying or breaking up. The word wants. The world wants love. They want to live in love. Loving, being, love, making love is the ultimate high. It synthesized life to all the emotional keyword emotional experiences, high and low to all the emotional extremes that releases the highs and lows of human feeling more than anything else. Christ was emotion, had emotions, but he was not emotional. Emotional states are of this world, not of your spiritual being. Love is the ultimate human experience. But what the world offers is a false form of love.

It’s not the perfect love. It’s elusive. I think people are seeking for a love that is everything they could imagine love to be. But they never find it. Because the only ones who can truly love are those who are in what the knowledge of God and in whom God dwells. Now, there’s endless songs and there’s plays and there’s films and there’s books and there’s televisions and all this stuff and they all the rest are evidence of the chase for that love. But love so fast descends into what is truly ugly. Some time ago I read an article.

It was produced by Michigan State University, Department of Science. And they came out with the fact that there are currently on the Internet about 4 million pornography sites. 4 million being trafficked on a daily basis about about 80 million people. Now this was some time ago. I didn’t try to bring this up to standards. Today I can tell you that this is probably 10 times or better more than when I read this article in my history. More people are tuned into those websites than everybody on Netflix, Twitt, Twitter, Amazon combined. What are they looking for? Have you ever, have you ever, ever, ever think about this? Have you ever sit down and ask anybody that’s that does this? What are they really looking for? Have you ever tried to counsel anybody like this or minister to them and saying let me just share Christ with you and, and let me just compare what Christ provides you versus what you’re doing.

Why are you really doing this? They would be looking for some kind of gratification, some kind of love, some kind of meaningful relationship, the fool’s paradise. Everything that they can create, not by who gives the true love. They’re like Ponce de Leon trying to find the fountain of use. It’s not there. We’re all dying. God says we’re dying, we’re dying the day we were born. They give themselves to a person for a little while. They give themselves to a certain behavior for a little while and it comes up dry again and again and again and again.

It’s empty. And every time they’re more deeply wounded and it just adds another scar to them and makes them a step more jaded towards reality. At the ever finding true love. Do you think about that? Why do you need to wait upon God to figure out who you should partner with? What is this? Whatever God designs perfectly, Satan will counterfeit. We already said that law of duality and that’s the deception. If the love that God grants us is self sacrificing and unconditional and relentlessly forgiving, the love of Satan offers will be a perversion of that self assessment.

Who’s your love focused? It would be self centered, self indulgent, conditional, unforgiving. When the world talks about love, it usually really simply means self love, self love of what? This physical body. I need you to fulfill my desire for my satisf. Satisfication. And if you do that, then we’re good. The minute you stop doing that, we’re not good guys. Women look at your past. Married for all the wrong reasons. Outcome not pleasant. Physical desire, personal passion is by nature selfish. Physical body, flesh, physical desire, your flesh, personal passion, not your spiritual is by nature not spiritual.

It’s physical and it’s selfish. People love for what somebody provides for them. Gives to them, does for them. That’s the Santanic option. Paul says this, this is not the kind of love I have in mind for you. Verse 3. But immorality or any impurity or greed must not even be named among you as is proper for saints. It should never happen in the church of Jesus Christ that someone pursues an illicit love affair. Whatever it is, the spirit of God vehemently denounces that kind of conduct. Oh, I’m going to go to the church because I need to find business.

Let’s get out of the sexual side. Let’s get into some real world stuff that you can relate to. I got to go to the church because I need to find business. Oh I can network there because they’re going to like me and, and I can appeal to their personal self and by appealing to them they’re going to send me business. Do you think that’s the love of God? Doesn’t matter what it is. The spirit of God vehemently denounces that kind of conduct. It is love’s perversion and the term there immorality is the familiar word hornia in the Greek which means sexual sin in the broadest sense.

Any kind of sexual sin, anything other than the sexual relationship between a married man and a married woman constitutes what, What? Pornography. Get that? Why in the world do you not get rid of your soul tie? There’s a term in the Greek language EA which is the opposite of pornography and it denotes control or self discipline. I brought this up because I have to throw in philosophy a moment. Socrates used to say that self control is the greatest of all virtues and he himself confessed to having a difficult time experience. Oh, I can believe that because why? He was a homosexuality and a deviant.

Plato said the same thing. Oh, and what Aristotle did too. They were all made out of the same cloth. And of course the Greeks were based in their paganism and they talked about self control but never found any way to control their own lusts. That’s what our whole government is built on the friggin Roman Empire of exactly this condition. The word Ekritia is used in a very interesting conversation in the 24th chapter of the book of Acts where the apostle Paul is having a conversation with whom? No other than Felix who is a Roman governor. Now this is this.

Go think about this. Paul had taught the gospel and now he’s going after the government in removing the pagan God. So he’s going to talk to the governor. Felix and Paul and Felix met in verse 24 of Acts 24 Felix arrives with Drusilla, his wife, who was Jewish and was his wife by adultery. Oh now that’s really good point of trying to get this put to bed. He had basically had an adulterous affair with her and stolen her for from her rightful husband. And so it was a sordid marriage. Felix sins for Paul to hear him speak about faith in Jesus Christ.

Oh well, yeah, you need to have that. This is a gospel opportunity, right? This is a gospel opportunity to speak to the very powerful politicians about the faith in Jesus Christ. Why? Because Paul was going to go ahead and head and get the pagan gods out of the system. And what did Paul do? In verse 25 he says this. He was discussing righteousness and self control with Felix and that’s the word Ekritia and the judgment to come. Now, by today’s standards of evangelism, so many people that you hear about this would be to completely blow the opportunity.

Why would you confront a man about righteousness that you know is living in unrighteousness? Why would you confront the man about self control when you know it was his inability to control himself that caused him to have an adulterous relationship he had? And you may ask this, and then why would you tell him that all of this is leading to divine judgment? Well, the answer is because you would tell him the truth. The reason why I started the last this, this out tonight the way I did. Because you’re getting nothing but the truth. And I could care less what you think, except I’m concerned about your heart.

And if your heart is not in the right conditions, I do not want you to disturb everybody else. I’d much rather ask you to remove yourself and allow everybody to experience the truth, because that’s what we’re about. And Paul got exactly the desired response in verse 25. Felix became terrified. Paul is an example of exactly what’s going on today. You want to terrify the people, tell them the truth. You want to see a public uprise and make change, Tell the public the truth. This is the. This is what the removal of the paganist, the removal of the pagan gods.

You’re seeing exactly. This is what we’re talking about in, in our study of return of gods. This is exactly what’s going on today that happened back then. We’re all told that the terror of the Lord should cause us to persuade men. It’s part of it. Paul went after this politician on the basis of his inability and control his lust and therefore to violate God’s standard of righteous and therefore to be under judgment from God himself. That’s what pornia is, the absence of that self control. People don’t have much self control as we know it today. Matter of fact, I can tell you that preachers in churches are probably the most cornerific people in this world.

People don’t have much self control at all. They can try mechanisms in their life to control the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the pride of life. But in the end it’s going to win because it’s the truest experience, expression of the fallen nature. So when we come to the term immorality, we’re talking about parnea, which is the absence of self control, not only in a sexual contents, but in any context where you do not have self control. We can be talking about anything. We be talking about sexual sin outside of marriage, premarital sex.

We could be talking about adultery, violating your marriage covenant, having a sexual relationships with someone you’re not married to. We could talk about homosexuality, we could talk about pedophilia, we. Any kind of chastity, prostitution, harlotry, any kind of sexual sins, transgender, you name it. It’s all swept up into this one word called por. Pornography comes from two Greek words, por and gra. Paria is the sexual sin. And GRA is to write, pornographic is writing about sexual sin. That’s what pornography is to write about perverted sex. And again, we’re looking about probably 10, 10, more than 10% of this world does, because the government does that.

You got 8.8 billion people on this earth today. And if you just took 10% of that, 800 million people are involved in this. Guys, they’re coming after your kids. They already got your kids in some of the cases. And if they’re not heterosexual pornographers coming after your kids, the homosexual pornographers are coming after your kids. And they’re aided and abetted by school teachers, school boards, churches, ministers, social workers, hospitals. And the further up the chain of academia you go, the worst it gets until you’re in the university and it’s a cesspool of the attempt of people to corrupt the next generation.

I, you know what, I lived in the 60s, so I lived in the sexual revolution. I went to college in the 70s and I can tell you if, if you weren’t doing that every night, then something was a problem, okay? You weren’t who you’re supposed to be. That’s pretty sad, especially when the church buys in at all. Now I remember churches on the college, college campus and they had you Know, spiritual meetings and so forth and so on. But they never address the problem. They never approached the problem with a solution. They never challenged the university as to what it was doing in corrupting the people that attended that university.

Now how inconsistent is that? Go back to First Corinthians, chapter 6, chapter 6 and chap. Chapter 6 and verse 9. Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? What’s unrighteous? Guys, do not be deceived. Neither fornicators, nor adult adulterers, not idol worshipers nor effeminates, which means basically individuals that are transferring from one to another, nor homosexuals northeast, nor covishes, nor drunkenness, nor revilers, nor swindlers. Will what inherit the kingdom of God? It’s pretty specific here. What’s your self assessment? Not only with you, now with your children. Then in verse 11, such were some of you.

This is Paul talking to the church of Corinth. Some were of this nature. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the spirit of our God. This is what conversion does. It transforms you. Self assessment. If you are not transformed from your old self, you are not saved. So verse 18 of that same chapter, Paul says this flee immorality. Every other sin that a man commits is outside the body. But the immoral man sins against his own body. And that can include even venereal tensie.

Paul says, don’t you know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in inside of you, whom you have have had from God and you are not your own. You don’t know anything. You’ve been bought with a price. That’s the reason why you own nothing. Therefore glorify God in your body and back. In verse 15 he says this. Don’t join your body, the temple of the spirit of God, to a harlot or a prostitute soul tie. If you’re living in any kind of perverted love, you’re either outside the kingdom or you’re disobedient, sinful and headed for divine chastening.

If you’re a true believer. So immorality never to be named among you. It shouldn’t even appear Now I have to say, you guys know I. I wrote a lot about history and stuff and I have to remember when I first found out. Many, many, many years ago, when I was traveling before. Long time ago. Long, long time ago. I mean years. Let’s see, more than. Oh, just right about 50 years. I remember years, years ago, about 50 years when. And evangelicals were sort of applauding the fact that they. That they found out that the Catholic priests were immoral.

And now all of a sudden it caught up to the invent. Evangel, evangelism. There’s no way to protect from false teachers and false Christians. But among those who are true believers, it shouldn’t even be named among you. Now Paul goes and adds another word to this, the word impurity. Ekaterasia, like. Like a. A catheter, a carus, a cleansing. This is unclean. So you kind behind the sin go to sensuality with this. There shouldn’t even be any sensual indulgence. It’s sometimes translated filthiness. That is looking at the passions and the lust and the desires. And the thought of life starts with a thought.

You hear people say today, well, look, it’s okay if you don’t consummate the act. If you hear about sex, same sex, attraction, but I don’t do anything about it. The sensuality is forbidden as well as the act. Say we pervert what the scriptures actually tell us. Why? Because we want to provide the outcome by which we seek and not which the spirits tell us to live. And it all constitutes what Paul identifies here as greed. What do you find? Greed? Where do you. Why do you find greed here? We usually associate that with money, right? Because that’s how we’ve been taught.

Why? Because they don’t want you to think about what’s here. If you’re thinking about what’s over there. If you’re thinking about money and you have no money because you’re in poverty, they can still do whatever they need to you in the rest because they’re going to pervert your mind. But no, there certainly can be greed expressed toward money, towards something you don’t have, that is a material thing. But when you covet something sexually that you have no right to, that’s the kind of greed Paul is talking about. That is idolatry. It says that down in verse five, because you have substituted sexual fulfillment for the Lord.

This is so ugly, guys. So vile. Anything but beautiful. Now I’d warn the young ladies, if a guy says I love you and wants to take away your purity, he doesn’t really love you, he loves himself. And the same thing goes with women. I know women that seduce guys all the time. I grew up with that. You said, well, maybe he can’t control it. I don’t really believe that. Because if a man is sealed with the Holy Spirit and the Holy Spirit dwells within him. Covetousness, greediness, sensationalism doesn’t exist. Why? Because he thinks about who he is instead of what he wants.

Covetousness is greediness. When people get caught up in sexual sin, there is a level of greed that the sin that is just un saturable. We talk about it as sex addiction in a lot of cases. And it’s so powerful that it literally will take a person to total destruction. Because anytime you want something, you have no right to anything that you want that doesn’t justifiably belong to you within the framework of God’s purpose and God’s will. It is worshiping the idol of your own desires. And it grows like a hot bit of coats. In classical Greek, that word sometimes meant defraud.

And that’s what really people do. They actually defraud somebody or something. You take something that’s not yours, they find someone who has something they want, they have no right to it, but they take it. And therefore they have defrauded that person. That’s why Paul said in 1st Thessalonians 4, Let no one defraud you. He’s talking about sexual sin there. Don’t let anybody steal what is not theirs from you. And I want to repeat the end of verse 3 of chapter 5 of Ephesians. It must not even be named among you. There should never ever, ever be something like this among the people of God.

There’s a far cry from you thinking you have some freedom in Christ because you love a girl or a guy, to engage in illicit sex with him or her before you are married, or because although you have a wife, you find another woman or man that you like better, and because you love him or her, that justifies adultery. That’s just perverted. Sexual sin, either in the act or in the sensual attitudes behind the act constitutes anything but lustful greed and idolatry. And it should never ever be named among you means it should never ever be present in your life.

Why is that? Because it’s not the proper for the saints. And even in Corinthians, as many problems as they had Paul identified back in chapter one of Corinthians verses two, to the church of God, which is at Corinth, to those who have been sanctified in Christ Jesus, Saints by calling. If there was any group in the New Testament you might think weren’t saints, it would be the Corinthians. But they were. Which made their behavior so much more inconsistent. In fact, their behavior was so bad in chapter five it was reported that There was immorality among you, you saints, and immorality of such of a kind as doesn’t even exist among the Gentiles.

Oh my gosh, so perverted. The Gentiles were perverted and the Christians in Corinth was worse. And someone has his father’s wife incest, and you become arrogant and have not mourned instead so that the one who had this deed would be removed from your midst. In other words, they just condoned it. Now, guys, this is where church disciplines comes from. This kind of person is to be confronted. And we’ve had certain conditions like that happen through the three years. I mean, there’s been conversations of things that I saw or heard of in ways that I needed to cut off.

Paul says, I, I am on my part through absent in the body, but present in spirit, have already judged him who is so committed this as though I were present. I don’t need to be around you to see, but my job is as a truth teller to confront in the name of our Lord Jesus. When you are assembled and I was with you in spirit, with the power of our Lord Jesus Christ, I have decided to deliver such a wine to Satan for destruction of his flesh so that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus.

You may say, well, wait a minute. If we’re too hard on sinners, they might not get saved. Oh, is it your job to say to them, your guy, John Plant C now, if you’re hard on these sinners, they might not get saved. This has no place in the church, guys. John 15:3 says this. And now you are clean through the word. When you are justified, when you are regenerated, you come out clean. Even your conscious is clean. This should never be named in any association of a true believer. It’s completely alien. I want you to think about that.

When you were justified, changed, you regenerated. Everything about your old self became clean, even your thoughts. And in that transformation, there should never, ever after that point in time, any of this. He parted your mind. Guys, we’re going to stop here. Hang on a moment. Sorry guys. Any questions? Comments? Guys, super important topic. So much sexual perversion afoot. I am very, very grateful for you speaking up about this tonight. Well, you need to understand how you should conduct your life. That’s all. Isn’t that what you were talking about? Like, if you’re in a church and you see that going on, the church should confront them.

Yes, that’s what scripture tells you to do. Yeah, that’s what that’s What? I thought so. Anything else, guys? I could have gone on for another two hours on stuff, but you get the point. There’s enough said to get the point. My notes was very lengthy. I just looked at this and I just threw everything thing down that I think about. So you’ll get it out in your Bible study. There’ll be a lot more information on the Bible study notes, but I think you get the picture. Well, just as a comment on where society’s at, I just happened to notice that over the last weekend we had a drag show that drew some attention up in Jerome.

And it was interesting to see some of the comments of the various people. A few, only a handful protesting or whatever. But their comments about, well, it’s okay if the grandmother takes them and they’re underage. Well, you know, oh, my goodness. All these things that were, you know, just kind of all over the place. So I. I guess we don’t even have that many kids in our communities here. You know, they clear closed some of the schools and whatever. So it’s just interesting to see they’re going after the kids and the kids are saying, well, it’s great that my grandma took me because now I feel like I have a place in this town, you know? See, it’s just, you know, I know it’s bad.

I didn’t think that was happening here. Where’s the church? Heartbreaking. Oh, so. So, Jim, I heard today that the hospital, the. That was doing surgeries on children for sexual changes is closing its doors. Good. All hospitals will close their doors here soon. Yeah, well, I just thought that was interesting, you know, for, you know, because they’re not going to get the money for one thing. Matter of fact, just watch. Just watch how all the changes. Yeah, okay. All right, guys. Anything else about this subject? Self assessment. Know where you’re at, Guys, nobody can know any better than you yourself.

You’re either. You’re either pointed in the right direction or you’re not. And it’s completely left up to you to make the decision necessary to move you forward. Forward in the right direction. So that’s my prayer for you, is that you come to some realization of what you really need to be doing and start after it. Anything else? All right, let’s pray. Father, thank you for this evening. Thank you for the opportunity to again get back in the your word. Speak truth. Speak truth to power. Speak truth to our hearts. Father, may we continue to look to thee and not around thee, but to thee as the example of exactly how we should be living our life because we should be imitating you.

And we can’t imitate you if we’re living a physical life. We can only imitate you if we’re living a spiritual life with a convenient physical life experience to give us the ability to decide whether we’re going to go home or not. Thank you for the word. Thank you for your son. Thank you for so much that you’ve given us and such an opportunity to come to really know who you are, what we are, how we should walk, how we should conduct ourselves. The Father, you have to convict our hearts because as you said, it’s not easy.

You’re gonna have to do that. But Father, you’re gonna have to convict us so hard that we actually see it, fill it so that we can repent and ensure our place that you’ve given us in heaven. Father, again, bless those that are hurting. Give them your healing power. May they seek. They seek you out in times of pain. Lean on your everlasting love for the healing power that you give. Father, we again pray for those who have lost loved ones in these tragedies, not only in the state of Texas, but throughout this earth. And there are many.

But may we also know that basically we seek the glorification of your son through all of this understanding the tragedy of life and the physical morning. But may we also understand that the outcome of this is controlled by you and all through the glorification of your son. So, Father, as you go be with us for the rest of the week, it’s going to be an exciting weekend. And may we ever look to you to actually understand exactly what’s going on and your precious hands over everything that’s going on. And we ask all these things in your sins.
[tr:tra].