Book of Romans, 8:1 - Fruits of the Old Man, Pt. 2 (11/24/2019)

Good morning, everybody. Let's see here.

I don't know. Yeah, it's working. Can you hear me okay? All right. It's probably my ears.

All right. Well, that was a beautiful special this morning. Appreciate that very much.

And a good feeling in on the song leading. Very good. Good to see all of you. And I was very sad to hear about Ben and Ashton's neighbor.

He was in the ministry, wasn't he, Ashton? Well, find out when the service is.

Maybe some of us could attend or something. If you can find out, we have to. I bet Sharon could find out in the paper if we can figure out when the service is.

It might be nice for some of us to attend. But apparently, he was a wonderful family man playing with one of his grandbabies when he had the heart attack, wasn't he?

So, wow. We don't know how much time we have here, do we? But isn't it nice to know we have all eternity together?

Whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die, Jesus said. So that's the wonderful news, isn't it?

Well, are you getting? Does it seem like Thanksgiving time to you? Doesn't quite to me.

Does it to Glenda, though? Are you kind of getting in the mood? I don't know. Maybe by Monday morning, it will seem that way.

But anyway, the best news that I have to tell you today is that Baylor beat

Texas yesterday. So the Lord has blessed the Baptists. And that was awesome.

Whatever. Did they?

That's the best news, actually, right there. Georgia beat A &M. That would make a lot of people around here angry.

Most of the people I graduated with from Ohio went to A &M. But the rest of us who didn't are happy to hear your news.

Excellent news. Well, let us, since we're talking about fleshly things, let's turn to the book of Galatians.

And we'll talk about the flesh a little bit today from the Bible. Always remember that in the scripture, it uses the word flesh for several things.

It doesn't always mean in the bad sense. There's nothing wrong with our bodies.

In other words, our bodies were created to become the temple of the living God. And it's good that we're having children's church today.

Brother Dave, thank you for that. We'll see you guys in a little bit. Because last time, we left them in here and then we started talking about some interesting parts of the flesh.

So anyway, it doesn't always mean in the bad sense.

But you just have to tell from the context. But there is the phrase in the New Testament when it talks about the flesh, it's one of our three enemies, the world, the flesh, and the devil, right?

And in that sense, it's kind of what we're talking about today. So in Galatians chapter 5, verses 1 and following, it starts talking about this great subject.

And if you remember, we first talked about the fruits of the spirit. And they could be roughly divided into three groups.

And we call them inward fruit, which is like what's happening on the inside of us with regard to the new man, right?

And then outward fruit, which means things that point out to each other, our relationships together with other people, especially in the church.

And then upward were fruits of the spirit that relate predominantly to the Lord, between us and the

Lord, although all of these can be interchangeable in the different groups. But for example, the inward fruit were love, joy, and peace, all right?

Mostly on the inside. Outward fruit were patience, gentleness, and goodness.

And those are things we exhibit toward one another. And then upward fruit, faith, meekness, and temperance, or self -control.

And so those we studied already. And so now we're talking about the other side of our schizophrenic existence.

And that is that we're not only a new man, but we still have the old man hanging around us.

And it does relate to this body. Because if you think about it, part of this body is our brain, right?

And that brain is part of the flesh, both in the sense of just part of our body, which can be turned around and used for the glory of God, right?

I mean, that's what should happen. But also, it is part of our natural body, which means it's part of the fallen part, the part that was depraved.

The brain just has input put into it from the world, the flesh, and the devil, doesn't it? All the time.

And from God, and from good things, and good people. So it has both. And so that brain of ours, just in the natural sense, really is an enemy quite often.

And so we talk about that in relationship to this passage of scripture.

So it's almost like it words it like we have fruits of the spirit, but we also have fruits of that part of us, the brain, the body, the natural part of us.

And that part of us is going to stick with us until the rapture, or until we die, whichever happens first.

But at that point, we will be set free from that part of us. We won't have anything pulling against what

God wants or what we want to do with the Lord anymore after that. But until then, we have a battle.

And the reason we talked about this last time, in case you weren't here, we don't list these fruits of the spirit as a list of things we're supposed to strive to do, or be, particularly to do.

And we don't list this group of sins of the flesh, or fruits of the flesh, as a list of things to avoid.

Because it just doesn't work that way. What it is, though, is it's two different lists to use for observation and comparison.

So when we see any of us exhibiting any of these fruits, you can kind of see which arena we're living in in the moment.

Like, are we walking in the flesh? Or are we walking in the spirit? Now, this is powerful information for spouses.

But don't go around the house saying, OK, I know which one you're in now. OK, I know which one you're in now. That is not a good idea.

Because we can go in and out of those as quickly as we can blink the eye. And always remember who we really are.

We're the new man and the new woman. That's who we are. The old man, think about this.

We battle not against flesh and blood, right? But against principalities and powers and spiritual wickedness in high places.

So if your spouse hurts you with words or whatever, that's not really coming from them.

That's coming from the enemy using the flesh. But the real spouse is the new man or the new woman.

Always remember that. And we have to have grace with one another and patience, don't we?

Because we still live in that realm where we have both. So let's start talking.

We started last time talking about these in Galatians chapter 15, starting with verse 16, why don't we?

It says, this I say then, walk in the spirit and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh.

So there's the answer. So it's not a matter of having a list of these bad things that we need to avoid.

The approach is to be filled with the spirit and you don't even have to think about them. You won't do them if you're filled with the spirit, right?

So let's have a word of prayer and we'll get started this morning. Lord, thank you so much for your word.

Thank you for your Holy Spirit who teaches it to us. Thank you for how your word is alive and living and we can see things new and old in it all the time.

Lord, thank you for teaching us things from one another, helping each of us be teachers to the other as we learn together.

And Lord, thank you that there will come a day when we'll see you face to face. And we will continue to learn throughout all eternity, always learning more and more of you.

And thank you for that in Jesus' name. Amen. So walk in the spirit and you will not fulfill the lust of the flesh.

So this is not a list of things to try to avoid. The way to approach it is to walk filled with the spirit.

That's the way to approach this. But it lists them so that we can observe. We can tell when one of us is down, perhaps.

We can tell when one of us is going through hard times. Listen, when the enemy, we have three, the world, the flesh, and the devil.

When the devil brings adversity into our lives, often our flesh will rise up.

It's just natural. Our flesh will be depressed. Our flesh will say, well, this is worse to me than any other human.

This never happened this badly to anyone else as it is to me, which is, of course, never true. But the flesh will rise up and sort of go with the same vibrations as the

Satan threw out there. And that happens so often. And we can see that in each other's eyes and countenance and body language sometimes.

And so we can come to help. And it really is a great thing that the Lord never lets all of us be down at once.

If that ever happened, it would be really bad. So normally, some of us are up and walking in the spirit and the joy of the

Lord while others have problems. And we can help each other that way. So these are here for observation.

Now, I've noticed you can sort of take these fruits of the flesh and divide them into groups too, pretty much the same groups, inward, outward, and upward.

And we'll talk about that a little as we go through them. But let's go on with verse 17 now. It says, for the flesh lusts against the spirit and the spirit against the flesh.

And these are contrary the one to the other. You cannot live in both arenas at the same time. They're totally contrary.

They're like two specific individuals, an old man and a new man.

How about that? And these are contrary the one to the other so that you cannot do the things that you want to do for the

Lord. Now, that is a stark truth, isn't it? None of us in this room have ever done everything we wished we had done for the

Lord. And we've never not done everything we wished we hadn't done, right? It's just we're just not there.

And aren't you happy, and couldn't you praise the Lord, that you don't go to a church that teaches that you're saved or made spiritual by what you do and don't do?

Because if that were the case, there would be no good news, there would be no gospel. So it's all about Christ and him saving us, but also him working in us.

Christ in us is the hope of glory. Any good thing we do, it's with him, together with him, right?

So it's wonderful that we know that, especially as we look at these things. Now, the flesh makes it where we can't do the things that we want to do for the

Lord, but I think the sense of this sentence doesn't mean you can never do it, it means you can't do it all the time.

We can't do the things that we want to do all the time for the Lord. There are times when we just fail, right?

And so, but think about it this way. God made it this way because he wanted it this way. This is not an accident.

He put this treasure and earth and vessels on purpose so that he would get the glory when we do get it right, rather than us getting the glory, and we know all these things, right?

So look at verse 18. But if we be led of the Spirit, you're not under the law.

Don't you think that's interesting? You would think it would say if we're led by the Spirit, you're not under the flesh, but it changed the subject seemingly and says you're not under the law, but when you realize the truth of it, it is not a different subject because the law relates directly to the flesh and to the world system.

It is not a spiritual thing. It is spiritual, but it relates to the flesh and the world system.

We live on a higher plane on this side of the cross. We're indwelt by the

Holy Spirit, and the law is written in our hearts, and we're not ruled by the law anymore.

The law's been nailed to the cross. And so, that's why the scripture says if you're led by the

Spirit, not only does it take you out of the realm of the flesh where you don't need to worry about this list of bad things, but it takes you out of the realm of the law.

You don't need the rules. You're out of the realm of the law. It's so interesting how it words it there.

But if you are led by the Spirit, you're not under the law at the time you're walking filled with the

Spirit. You're not under the law. Now, the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these, and remember the word manifest in the

Greek is phaneros, which means a shining. Makes me think of a horror movie. What was that?

It was called The Shining, wasn't there? Jack Nicholson or somebody was in there. But it means a shining.

In other words, God shines his light on these things. God's light exposes these things.

Be certain of this, your sin will find you out. We tell our kids that, but we need to tell each other that as adults.

Because when we start to look at these, this list of works of the flesh, the very first one is called adultery.

And people involved with that always think they'll get away with it. And they never do. There's never been a case where they ever did, ever.

Because God's light shines on all these things. And so it starts out and says the works of the flesh are manifest.

God's light shines on them and exposes them. And it shows us what they are. So this first group of three, or four actually, we talked about last time.

Adultery, fornication, uncleanness. We forgot to have children at church, so they are all sitting here with us. And that was exciting.

So I had to use code language teaching this last week. Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, and lasciviousness.

Remember that? So we talked about those last time. Now if you think about those, those are kind of like the fruits of the spirit where you had some inward fruit, right?

But this is inward fruit of the flesh. Sometimes, I mean, this is, you know, this particular group of things kind of stem from the heart.

There's none of these sins you can do unless your heart takes you the wrong direction first, right? And there they are.

So we might talk about those as inward fruits of the flesh. All right, now obviously just like the fruits of the spirit, you don't keep them all in those three groups tidy.

They can morph into other things where they affect other people, and so these, obviously. But then that comes to the next group, and this is found in verse 20, in Galatians chapter five, verse 20.

And it starts a new group, and there's only a couple of these that I think fit in this group, and I call it upward.

This relates directly to God. So look at this one. The first one is idolatry.

Now don't you think it's interesting that God sort of divides up these sins of the flesh or fruits of the flesh, and it lists four things that have to do with physical adultery type things.

Now I understand there's a technical difference in definition between adultery and fornication.

Adultery, obviously one of the parties has to be married to someone else, right? But it's still, when you talk about adultery, fornication, and uncleanness, and lasciviousness though, it's all kind of the same type of sexual sin.

It comes from the inside and from a bad heart and a mind that's thinking wrong, and then it affects other people, doesn't it?

The very next one listed is idolatry. Now think about that for a minute, because idolatry is like spiritual adultery.

Adultery comes from the heart and affects other people. Idolatry comes from the heart and affects your relationship with God.

And just as adultery is unfaithfulness, idolatry is just as dirty. It's just as unclean.

It's just as much an act of fornication, and it's just as much an act of lasciviousness, except it's between you and God.

One thing that I counsel people who are having marriage difficulties, and fornication is part of the problem of this particular marriage difficulty that I might be counseling with, is

I'll always bring up idolatry, usually to the innocent party, because sometimes there's an innocent party and a guilty party.

I mean, there's always two sides to every story, right? But I mean, sometimes you have an innocent party.

To the innocent party, the one who's feeling betrayed, who's feeling hurt, who's feeling,

I don't know, all kinds of probably emotions, I'll say, well, now, let me ask you this.

Has there ever been a time when you were unfaithful to Jesus? And they'll always say, yes, right? And I'll get them thinking about that, saying, so that's idolatry, and it's kind of the same thing as adultery, and yet he still loves you, which means you can still love your spouse.

You don't have to leave him. In many cases, you don't have to and you shouldn't leave him.

You need to think about that. You've been just as unfaithful as they have towards God, but they've done this to you, so you feel offended by it, but how does the

Lord feel with regard to your relationship to him? Have you ever played around on him? Have you ever put the world ahead of him?

Have you put the flesh ahead of the Lord? Have you ever put the devil ahead of the Lord, you know? And people start thinking about that, and they calm down a little bit.

So think about it. Now, this is another interesting thing about this relationship between adultery and all those other three things and idolatry, and that is that a lot of times where you see churches that have very bad doctrine, where in a forum, they're committing idolatry, because I want you to think about this a minute.

Paul said there are many Jesuses, there are many spirits, and there are many gospels.

Now, there's only one right, true Jesus, only one true Holy Spirit, and only one true gospel, but what he meant by that is churches invent

Jesuses that they wish to worship because they don't like Jesus how he really is, and they do that with God the

Father too. Most churches don't like the fact that God the Father chooses who his children are.

Most churches don't like the fact that Jesus chose his bride, yet we choose our brides, but they don't like the idea that Jesus chose his bride.

He chose exactly who would be part of the saved people, and that means he chose who wouldn't be.

He also didn't choose the other person to be his bride or the other people to be his bride. Is that true?

But most churches don't like that God, so they invent a God who didn't do that, and they worship him.

They invent a Jesus who didn't do that, and they worship him, and that, ladies and gentlemen, is called idolatry.

This could be interesting when it hits the airwaves. I've been praying about that,

Ben, whether you should erase the Democrat part from last week or not. I said not to. Maybe we should, but don't erase this part.

Leave this on there, unless I pray about it next week and let you know a week from now, but anyway, you think about that.

So many churches are idolatrous because they're not worshiping the Jesus of the Bible. They're worshiping a

Jesus they've invented in their own mind. They're worshiping a father who loves everyone, whereas the

Bible says he doesn't. It's a different God, and worshiping other gods, ladies and gentlemen, is idolatry, and it's just as filthy on a spiritual level as adultery, fornication, uncleanness, and lasciviousness is toward one another.

It's just that filthy, only that's between us and God, and we're playing around on God, and we're not putting him first, and we're putting everything else in the world first.

We're dividing our affection between him and everything else in the world, and it's filthy, and we need to think about that when we do it, too, not just other churches we can point the finger at, right?

So the next one is witchcraft. Now, that's an interesting one, but that's also towards man, towards God, mostly, and I know it affects, not strictly held within that group.

It can affect other people, too, and so can idolatry, can affect other people.

When they worshiped the Moloch, they gave their babies and burned them alive to him, so that affected other people, so these things morph into other groups, too, but generally, idolatry and witchcraft are between man and God, and this is really bad stuff.

This is dangerous stuff. God is a jealous God, and he's the only one that truly can be jealous, because he's perfect, and he's

God, and for us to be jealous is presumptuous and prideful, because we don't know all the facts about anything or anybody, but for God to be jealous is pure, so when he's jealous, it's a frightful thing, because he does not like it when we play the whore, spiritually, and put other things above him.

He doesn't like it, and it hurts the Holy Spirit. It literally says it grieves him.

Think about that. You can grieve God, so we have to be careful.

Now, this word witchcraft is kind of interesting to me with regard to prophecy, because the word here that's translated into witchcraft, pharmakia, what does that sound like in English, a little bit?

Pharmacy, doesn't it? And it literally is the word. It's translated magic or witchcraft, but if it had been written today in today's

English, we would have translated it pharmaceuticals, so the

Bible says in the last days, there will be a lot of this going on, and now look at what's changed just in my little lifetime, where you have children that used to be called disobedient, and now they give it a clinical name, and they give them drugs for it.

The drug my daddy had hung on the wall and had my name written on it. It was called the David Board, and it was at the kitchen table, and it reminded me every day at breakfast,

I'm gonna honor my dad, and I never had to take a drug for acting out, never, and you know, it was really quiet in my home.

You know why? Because I was the only child, but anyway. So, you know, part of prophecy is that in the end times, people will be getting on drugs for everything.

We'll have drugs for everything, and man -made drugs, and we're gonna be drugged up, a drugged up society when the

Antichrist takes over. Think about that, very interesting, and it lists that, by the way, as a fruit of the flesh.

All right, now let's keep going. So now we have another group, and about eight of them in this group, and I would call this the outward group, the group that directly affects other people.

They all morph into each other group, too, but you can kind of see this, I think. So the first one's hatred.

Now I've even gotten these broken down into two subgroups because really there's more than eight of these.

There's a lot of these, but the first eight, I'm gonna put them, I'm gonna call it outward, sort of church -related, like especially with regard to your church family, and then there's some later,

I'm gonna call them outward that are more social -related. It's more like secular society, and you'll kind of see these little divisions.

So let's think about within our church family. The first one is hatred, which means, obviously, the best definition

I could find was hatred. That's what it means, and so the

Greek word sort of carries the connotation of hostility or finding, maybe even seeking to find a reason for opposition.

Okay, now, that shouldn't be found in the church, but when it is found in the church, we know that it's not coming from the

Holy Spirit. It's coming from where? The flesh, right, the flesh.

All right, so hatred is the first one. The second one, and you could put that one over in the society one pretty easily.

The next one is variance, but you're gonna see most of these are very important with regard to our church life.

So variance, now, that's kind of an old English word we don't use a lot anymore, if at all.

So as we look at the Greek, it just literally means a quarrel. Ares is the

Greek word. It means a quarrel, or it can mean wrangling. I like that word.

That's almost like a Texas word, isn't it? He's a wrangler. Contention or debate or strife.

If you look up the word variance in Webster's and you look at some of the older meanings, which is what you would have to do to catch this meaning, it means the fact or state of being in disagreement, dissension, and dispute.

So variance is kind of like, I like that old word wrangling. It's like wrangling going on in the church.

You're fighting over the color of the carpet, right? And we don't see that in a little church like this.

Well, we have in this little church before, but since Brother Otis came is when I dated, too. We haven't had it since he came, which is very interesting, isn't it?

Brother Otis sort of ran off the wranglers, because I think they were afraid of his countenance.

He had a very austere countenance. But so this is not something we have right now in our church and we don't want to have it in the future, but if we do, we'll know the source of it.

It'll be the flesh. And so many times in a church when you have wrangling going on, it's because you have tears in the church.

It's not all wheat. But it can be caused temporarily over short periods of time by Christians who are just walking in the flesh, right?

And sometimes God will put tears in there, kind of like wolves in sheep's clothing, and then the more carnal

Christians will gravitate towards them for a short season, short, long enough to create real trouble in the church, though, and another thing is a lot of times when these tears eventually get run off by the preaching of the word, which happens a lot, they just can't stand it, and they leave.

Sometimes they'll take a wheat with them. They'll take a little family you wish you didn't lose with them. You're kind of glad they left, but they take a family you wish didn't leave with them.

I've seen that happen quite a few times in the history of this little church here. So for that reason, you want to be really careful and spot these things.

Now, the problem is that as Christians, we can have variants because our old man can do that, right?

Our flesh can do that sin or bear that fruit. But in the

Spirit, if we walk in the Spirit, it will fight against that. The Holy Spirit will always lead towards unity in the church, right?

So wrangling is something that when you see that in churches, and I've got a pretty close friend up out in the hill country who's a

Top Gun with Tradeway, and that's how I met him, but he's a good guy. His dad was a preacher.

His granddad was a preacher, and he's not from the same denominational background as we are.

He's more from Pentecostal background, so we have some interesting discussions about things like eternal security, things like that, but wonderful, good man, but he is going through the worst church battle right now in his home church, and he's an elder in his church, and it's just beating him up, and we've been through stuff like that, but I mean, it's just beating him up, and it's so sad, and there's a lot of wrangling going on in his church, and it stems from the pastor.

So in essence, they're having to run the pastor off, and the pastor's trying to steal the assets of the church, and it's just a big, terrible thing, and it all stems from the flesh, and it grieves the

Holy Spirit, and it's sad, so we need to recognize wranglers among us and correct them right to their face and quickly, and in the spirit of love, though.

All right, let's look at the next one, emulations. Now, there's the word we don't use much anymore either, right, emulations.

Well, zelos is the Greek word. What does that sound a little bit like?

Zelos, like jealous. So a good

English word for emulations is jealousy, and it's interesting because as we go down through here, we're going to see envying, too.

We're going to see some similar words, but there are shades of difference in the colorings of these words, but emulations comes from the

Greek word that best translated jealous. Webster's says this about the English word jealous and emulation.

It says ambition or endeavor to equal or excel others, ambitious or envious rivalry.

If you look up envy in Webster's, it means painful or resentful awareness of an advantage enjoyed by another joined with a desire to possess the same advantage.

So that one becomes sort of interesting because if you're talking about envy, it not only wants what the other person has, but it wishes they didn't have it.

All right, so emulations think of jealousy, and in a minute, we're going to actually get to the word that's called envy in English, and the funny thing is it actually means jealousy or envy.

So these words are similar, but they're just slightly different. But zealous, you can tell from the

Greek word, that is jealousy, basically an ambition to be equal or have what other people have.

Okay, when we get to envy, I think it's a little worse sin because it not only wants to be like that, it wants them not to have it.

That's pretty bad when you think about it. All right, so then the next is wrath, and this comes from a word that's interesting, thumos, or thumos,

I should say. It sounds like thermos, doesn't it? Like a thermos bottle, but actually, it does have the same meaning because it has to do with passion, heated passion.

Like this is, it's translated into the word fierceness, but it means strong, vengeful anger.

Vengeful anger, that's the worst kind of anger there is. Like someone has really, really done something that hurt you and you want them gone.

You want them gone, and you're willing to do it yourself. That is a fruit of the flesh, isn't it?

But think about what wrath is. It is a fruit of the flesh, okay?

Because in our case, it is. Now, let me ask you this, though. Does God have wrath, the

Father? Yes, but does he also have jealousy? Well, he does, he does, but for him to have it is not unrighteous because he's perfect, and so his jealousy and his wrath would be perfectly placed.

Ours, we don't have all the information. We don't know even what God would want us to do to that person who hurt one of our loved ones, do we?

We don't know. We don't care, and that's why it's flesh, right? So there's the difference.

Now, the next one is strife, and here we really start to play into the context of church.

Variance, I think, was a good one, wrangling. Now, strife is a

Greek word. It's kind of funny because it comes from a little word, erytheia, and a really good

English translation for that is intrigue, like if you think of a spy show or something, a spy movie, and we all kind of like those sometimes.

Intrigue, isn't it funny that that's the root word for this strife in the church?

It comes from intrigue. Now, how can that be? Well, it comes from a little root word in the

Greek which means to stimulate to anger, to stimulate to anger.

So you're attempting to cause people to be angry with each other, and there's a little bit of intrigue to that because there are tactical things that the person is doing in the church to create certain people to strive with one another or to not like one another, and it relates to another one we're gonna get to in a minute, and I'll wait till I get to it, but there is an intentional intent to create a problem between two other people by using intrigue to do it.

So those things are so dangerous in the church. You guys have been in big churches.

Many of you have been in a large church, and you've seen these things happening, and you go, wow, in the church, really?

But it's the flesh, and the whole church has flesh, and the whole church has spirit, so we shouldn't be so surprised, and the bigger the church, the more flesh is in there, right?

But the more spirituality can be there, too, so you just have to deal with these things as what they are and recognize them for what they are.

Strife, that's a particularly bad one, and there again, it's specifically listed as one of the things that grieves the

Holy Spirit. The next one is seditions, and the word sedition in the

Greek, the best meaning would be disunion, a person who causes people to be divided, so here you see that fits with the other sin of the flesh, and there are people who will get into a church, and my strong belief is always that it's tares.

First thing I'll think about a person is they're a tare. Now, can I know that? No, they could be just a carnal

Christian, couldn't they? But I'm watching them like they're a tare, okay? Now, are we supposed to try to pluck the tares out and get rid of them?

The Bible said no. Said let the angels do it, because if we try to do it, what can happen?

We might hurt a wheat. Thinking we're ripping a tare out, we might rip a wheat out, and if you hurt one of those, it would be best if you had a millstone around your neck and you were cast into the sea, because you just made a baby stumble, so you gotta be really careful here, don't we?

You know what, I think the best way to root the tares out is just have a church where the Word's preached and taught in all the classes and in the school, and you just preach the

Word of God and you talk about the blood of Jesus a lot, and you talk about grace, and you talk about how it's not by works.

It's distinct from and apart from the works of the law. Totally the love of God loving us, and it's so weird, but when you talk about the love of God and the blood of Jesus and pure grace, it will root out tares and demons.

All day long, they hate that stuff. False prophets, false teachers, false groups, they hate that stuff.

The only time I had a religious person try to reach across my desk and grab me and beat me was a

Mormon sitting in my office because he kept gibbering so long I got tired of it, and I said, look, it's all about nothing that you have.

It's nothing you have that anyone needs. It's all about the blood of Jesus, and I said the word blood about five times in two minutes, and he got up and tried to grab me, and his friend sat him back down, knowing that that's not the religious thing to do, you know, to show your true colors.

It was great, I loved it. So, seditions, disunion, the next one is heresies.

Now, that one's kind of interesting because when we think of the word heresy, somebody just give me a word of thought, what you think that means.

It'll probably be wrong, but tell me what you think it means, come on. What does it sound like it means? Gossip, what else?

Heresy, a heretic, false, a false teacher, right? I mean, that's the first thing that pops into mind about heresy is they're teaching false doctrine, and do you know that what it actually means is?

It's from a Greek word that means a choice or a party, like Democrat, Republican, that's that meaning of party, and so what a heretic is, first and foremost, it comes from a little

Greek word that means to take for one's self. Now, think about this, because it is a false teacher, right, but to take for one's self, so it is a person who comes into the church and says, you know,

I'd like to have a home Bible study in my house, would that be okay? And we say, oh, more Bible study, the better, sure, do it, so he starts inviting little groups of people from the church over to his house and teaching things that are totally contrary to what the elders of the church are teaching and what the belief of the church is, but trying to pull them over into his party, saying that the other party is wrong and they're just off a little bit and they're ignorant and they don't know the scripture like I know the scripture, and pulling them over here into my party, which is what

I'm teaching at my house. Now, that's what the word for heresy means, so it's not just false doctrine, it is usually, well, let's put it this way, if the church has true doctrine and someone does that, theirs probably is false doctrine, but the main thing is they're trying to pull people into their group and away from that group, so they're creating parties in the church, sects, if you will, little groups of people that like each other that don't like the other groups, and that is of Satan, that's of Satan, you know why?

Because if it's true teaching in the church, it all fits together and it won't hurt the other teaching in the church, right?

If it's true doctrine, it all builds on itself, in fact, it all sheds light on the other doctrine, makes it more understandable if it's true, so you gotta watch people that do that.

I don't like, you know, scripture says don't, it says lay hands not on any man too early,

I don't think a church should say, oh, look at that precious young couple, they just got saved, let's let them teach high school

Sunday school, now that was done to me in Charlotte, we just fresh out of the gate saved, and they said, well, you take the juniors and seniors in high school and teach them, why?

Who knows why, they shouldn't have done it, I, listen, it turned out good for me because those kids knew more about the

Bible than I did, I was scared to death they would ask me something I couldn't answer, so I studied every day, didn't I, Charlotte, that first year, every day

I'd come home from work, study for two hours, just so they couldn't ask me a question I couldn't answer, but should they have chosen us to teach that class yet?

We weren't ready, right? So, kinda shows they didn't have too many people that were ready, did they?

So, you have to worry about in churches where you give someone a duty to do too soon before you really know them, because they're new and you don't know them very well, and they can start saying, you know, they're almost right over there, but they're a little off in these areas and start pulling people into their little group and then split the church right in half.

Really bad, the Holy Spirit does not like that. So, that is a fruit of the flesh, a heresy.

So, now you know it's a little bigger word than just false teaching. It's also causing parties and divisions in the church so that I can pull people into my group and my way of thinking.

And then, the next one is envyings, and this is a different word than zalos.

Thanos, it's hard to say. It literally means ill will or detraction, and I really think this one is sort of the word that means

I'm jealous that they have it, and I want what they have, but I don't want them to have it. That's what

I think this one means. It's really bad. Like, man, it makes me sick that they have that. I wish I had it, and they didn't.

You know, that kind of thing. And it's interesting because it comes from a little bitty

Greek word, theo, or theo, and it means to shrivel or wither away or to ruin something or to completely corrupt or destroy something, so envying can bring some real corruption into a group that it's allowed into.

All right? Now, let's see what time it is.

I think it would be really nice to finish this today, so just let me finish. I'll be finished pretty quickly because I kind of want to get into the next thing we can get into.

So the next, there's a little group of outward sins of the flesh, and I call these societal more than church, more than in the church, but they can all happen, but the next one is murder, so let's hope that's not in the church.

Murder, okay. And this murder is a fruit of the flesh, all right?

And if we see this, we know that we rooted them out too late, probably. It's a joke.

All right, murder. Phonos. It literally means to slay, all right?

Enough said about that. It is interesting that that's a fruit of the flesh. Next is drunkenness, and this word literally means intoxication, so it doesn't mean just alcohol, by the way.

It's not just, we think in English, drunk means you drink alcohol of some kind, but in the

Greek, it just means intoxication, so it means the condition of having physical or mental control markedly diminished by the effects of alcohol or drugs or anything.

You can be intoxicated with a lot of different things, and that is part of the flesh.

It's not a spiritual thing. It is a fleshly fruit, so it's translated drunkenness in the

King James Version. Intoxication would be a perfect translation for now in modern

English because it can be to be drunk on a lot of different things, and so too bad for the pot people trying to come out with pots okay everywhere now.

It includes that too, not just alcohol. So those kinds of things are sins of the flesh, and I hope to say these are more to do with society than within the church.

Revelings, revelings is an interesting word. It comes from komos, which is the

Greek word. It means a carousal, as if letting loose. It's like getting rid of all the restraints that society or the

Bible or anything would put on us. Reveling or rioting, if you look these up in the old

English meanings in Webster's, and you look at the roots of these English words, carousal, it means a wild, drunken party or celebration or a drunken revel.

If you look up revel, it means a wild party or celebration. If you look up rioting, it's interesting in the old archaic meaning of the word.

It means debauchery, all right? So these things, we see things like this in our society.

Sometimes you'll be watching a movie maybe that you think's gonna be a good movie, and all of a sudden you'll just have a scene of a bunch of 20 and 30 somethings in a huge room, theoretically dancing or whatever they're doing, throwing a debauched party with weird music and weird stuff going on.

That's what this is. And this is another sin of the flesh, and it's obviously not a spiritual thing.

Now, the last one mentioned in this whole thing is called and such like. So how many others are there?

How many more fruits of the flesh are there? There just simply are not listed here.

But if you put it, it's hard to tell in context. Does it mean reveling and such like, or does it mean all these things and stuff like it?

I don't know. Probably means there's just others that God didn't choose to list.

But they're things that don't come from the spirit. They come from the flesh. In Galatians 5 .22,

the second half of the verse, it says, of which I tell you before as I have also told you in time past, listen to this, that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God.

Now, wait a minute, though. Some of those I just got through saying were in the church.

Well, the key is the little word do. Every little word in the

Bible is important. That's why it's so important we have the right version that's tied to the correct Greek.

But there the word do, they that do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God. That is a very strong statement.

They're going to hell, right? They are going to hell, period, God said. But the word do is so important.

They that do such things. It's the Greek word proso, which means practice.

Now think about it, that's key. It means to perform something repeatedly or habitually.

To be really good at something, you have to practice, right? So that's a good way to remember what this word means.

It means to do something or perform something repeatedly and habitually. It is different than the little word poio, which is another word that can be translated into the word do.

It's not that word because that word means just if you do something. This word is not just if you do something.

This word is if you habitually practice something. So now think about that. A Christian who's in the flesh can do any one of these sins of the flesh we listed, couldn't they?

Couldn't we, unfortunately? We can be dangerous when we're walking in the flesh, can we not? But do we habitually live a lifestyle of doing those things and are we moving in that direction or are we moving away from those things towards the

Lord? See, that's the difference. So a born -again person does not do these things like in Galatians 5 .22b

because that means habitually practicing. A lifestyle of this habit. We're not like that.

We might make a mistake. We could easily get in the flesh and do one of these things in the other sense of the word do, once, a one -time mistake and be sick over it, right?

But when you see people who have a lifestyle of habitually doing things like this, that's different and God says those people will not inherit the kingdom of heaven.

How about that? So that concludes our study on the fruits of the spirit and the fruits of the flesh.

And I may take one more time. I may not. I'm gonna pray about it. But if you go right into the next chapter,

Galatians 6, it shows us about what can you do if you mess up as a

Christian? I may do that next or I may move on into Romans 8 verse two. So let's stand and have prayer together.

Lord, we just thank you for your word. We thank you that there's a lot of warning in this passage for us as your people.

Number one, for us to walk in the spirit so that we shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh but also to watch others that may come in and just keep an eye out for these different types of activities, some of the flesh, some of the spirit.

Try to discern these things and Lord, always help us be a church that preaches the word and teaches the word so strongly that tears would be rooted out by you, not by us and by your word, not by our words.

And so Lord, we pray for our fellowship time we're about to have. Bless the meal we're about to have together and we ask it in Jesus' name, amen.