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Bro. Otis Fisher
We're ready for verse 28 in the book of Ephesians, chapter 4. That's where he started. I was almost to make a mistake. Well, I hate it because I skipped that part. I had lots of good things to say. It's the new world to me every day anyhow.
But fornication and all uncleanness, covetousness, let it not be once named among you as becometh saints. Fornication. This is a product of the new morality, by the way. It started with Adam and Eve. It is accepted as normal conduct today by the whole world.
Their own leaders to prove it. Covetousness. This is not just money. I know ministers who would never be guilty of trying to get rich. They want power and position of their denomination, community. As a covetous man never has enough of wealth, so the pleasure seeker never has enough of pleasure.
The appetite increases in proportion to its indulgence. Neither filthiness nor foolish talking or jesting, which are not convenient, but rather give thanks. Filthiness. This is anything based on vile words or acts.
Foolish talking. Give me some examples of foolish talking. Virge. All right.
Bill. Foolish talking. All right.
Any other thoughts? Foolish talking. Well, this includes ridicule. Childish. Childlike. Infantile. Senseless. Irrational. Bigot. Unwise. Improper. Ill-advised. Silly. Frivolous. Trivial. Useless. Dull.
Stupid or brainless. Blockhead. God's pulpit is no place for a joke as foolish talking. Worship is not made up as small talk. To joke about heavenly things is to degrade God. Think about it. Jesting. This is unimportant, insignificant, trivial liberty.
Babble. Trash. Rubbish. A flash in the pan like an old flintlock gun. This does not mean good, clean humor. It means dirty jokes or jokes about heavenly things. A joke is to carry one's mind along in one direction and suddenly interrupt it, if you want the definition of a joke.
Convenient. They do not come up to the proper standard. They are utterly improper in themselves and highly unbecoming in those who profess Christianity. Rather, give thanks. Prayer or praise is the best guide for our language.
For the man who has a trifling or silly disposition is ill-fitted for either. How can the man who has been talking foolishly or joking in public go in private to magnify God with the very tongue he has used to wrong him?
Be simple. Be honest in your speaking. Never use a long word where a short one will do. Call a spade a spade and not a well-known oblong instrument for maintaining husbandry. Where a short word will do, you always lose by using a longer one.
For this you know, that no whoremonger nor unclean person or covetous man who is an idolater hath any inheritance in the kingdom of God and of Christ and of God. Let no whoremonger or unclean person nor covetous man who is an idolater.
They are all idolaters if they are not saved. Let no man deceive you with vain words. For because of these things cometh the wrath of God upon the children of disobedience. Vain words. Let no man deceive you with vain words.
Clarence, how can that be done?
Yeah, that's right.
Yes, yes. If you know what you're talking about, you can present it in a few simple words. Whoremonger, this is one who is habitually a whoremonger. Idolater, this is one who is habitually. All covetous people are idolaters.
The world will say that all these things are all alright. Let no man deceive you. You can't be deceived if you know the truth. Vain is empty and worthless children of disobedience. These are Satan's seed.
Children of disobedience. Do not allow anyone to persuade you that these things are innocent or they are unavoidable. Weaknesses of human nature. Therefore permissible of God. Those who live in this kind of life will not see the kingdom of God.
We find Matthew and Proverbs speaking to this. Do not allow anyone to persuade you that these things are just innocent. He didn't mean it. It's human nature. So on and so forth. You know better than that.
Be not ye therefore partakers with them. For ye were sometimes dark, but now are you light in the Lord. Walk as children of light. We spoke about light this morning in class. How the turning of the bulb would not cast a shadow.
We're children of light. Walk in the light. Phos, F-O-C-E. Greek rays meaning illumination. For the fruit of the Spirit. This was light in the original. Is in all goodness and righteousness and truth.
Proving what is acceptable unto the Lord. Now the fruit of the Spirit is acceptable unto the Lord. Everything that is not the fruit of the Spirit is not acceptable unto the Lord. Can you tell the difference between the fruit and not fruit?
All right. Some people have these characteristics. Knowledge of the Spirit of God. Goodness and righteousness and truth. And I mean, I understand what you're saying. But is there a people that have those characteristics that are not saved?
Yes. Because there's good people that are not saved. There's people gooder than some Christians I know. Russell?
Even though a person may be good in this world. They do good things. That's right. That's right.
That's right. Absolutely. According to the dictates of the gospel, you shall be able to bring in full proof to yourself what pleases God. It originated with God. If it pleases Him, it originated with Him.
And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them. Now, we're associated in the world with people that are not Christian. But we do not have to fellowship with them.
There's a difference. For it is a shame even to speak those things which are done of them in secret. Fellowship. This is a harmony, good understanding, fellow feeling, affection, warmhearted, to be at home with, with open arms, arm in arm.
Have no religious connections, whatever, with heathens or their worship. That stopped a lot of churches. Unfruitful. The result of sin does not deserve the name of fruit. Works of darkness. Satan loves the absence of this false FOCE.
Satan loves this. He works in dark. Reprove, but do not try to become a reformer. There is where some of us fall down. I want to reform this man. Say it again. That's right. You tell your own children this to start with.
You raise them up as they should be. Beyond that, it becomes a problem. I think too easy. I know I'm very guilty of telling someone that they're doing wrong. I shouldn't do that. So pray for them. Do everything you can without just out and out telling them.
I don't know if that answers your question or not. Reprove? What does the word reprove mean? Greg? What does reprove mean? Russell? All right. You reprove it by action.
Wait till he gets by. A lot of that has to do with a lot of review. It's the word that you're facing. It's verbal. Reprove can't be verbal. I think your life will always be reproved. Remember, it helps you to put your creed into talking about a false people.
So the main idea here is to just let them know the way that you're not in agreement with their life. And let God work. Let God do the work. That's right.
Unfruitful, the result of sin does not deserve the name of truth. Darkness, Satan, love, obedience, the absence of force. Reprove but do not try to become a reformer. I knew a woman that begged her husband to be saved.
She talked to him every day over the meal. He'd come home at noon. She'd talk to him but she'd cry. She'd talk to him at breakfast but she'd cry. At supper she'd sit down and she'd cry. At every supper.
Every meal. Now, if you were a man coming home to a crying woman, would you like that? What? I can't understand people today. Well, that may be. But that's the wrong way to go about it. Yes. But of all things that are reproved are made manifest by the light that whatsoever doth make manifest is light.
Wherefore, he said, awake thou that sleepest, arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light. All is made manifest by the gospel. If you wonder about anything, the gospel makes the answer to it.
It's common knowledge that a dead man cannot arise of his own power. The call must go out, God must arise. God will arise who and when he chooses. Not when we choose. But in this verse, Paul means that Christians who have fallen into a spiritual sleep, those who for many reasons have become stagnant, who are not growing, who have let the flesh turn them away from the joy of Christ, must be awakened.
They must come back to the wonderful peace of study and learning. Do not ever let yourself grow to the place that you need not learn. The man that does not need to learn is a pitiful man. Wherefore, be ye not unwise by understanding what the will of the Lord is, and be not drunk with wine wherein is excess, but filled with the Spirit.
You're not to say to everyone, I love you. A few years ago, that was the thing. I love you in Christ, I love you in the Lord. No matter where you met them or what the occasion was, I love you in the Lord.
No. See then that you walk circumspectly. What's that mean, Bill? Circumspectly. Be not fools, but as wise, redeeming the time because the days are evil. Redeeming the time because the days are evil. Why should that be an incentive to redeem the time, Greg?
Buying up those moments which others seem to throw away? It's not the most precious thing. It is the most precious thing in the world, our time. When once passed, it never returns. It must be one day accounted, because it is short and to us uncertain, because of the work we have to do, the difficulty of doing it, because we have used up such a large portion of time, a lot of us.
How to redeem it? Have a method in the distribution of your time. Be moderate in your recreation. Cut off as much as you can from necessary visits, unnecessary visits. Examine every evening how you have spent your day.
Stop doing that which you know you should not do. Since you are doing something all of the time, you will gradually move toward doing more and more of that which is profitable for spiritual growth, and so please the Lord.
You do something all of the time, so stop doing what you're not supposed to. If you stop it, you'll fill it with something else. Now, it may be you'll find out you're not supposed to do that, so stop it.
And little by little, you can overcome the bad habits, and they will lead to the good, if you just quit doing what you know you're not supposed to, one thing at a time. People should know that you're a Christian without you having to tell them.
Wherefore, be ye not unwise, but understanding what the will of the Lord is. Be not drunk with wine, where it is in excess, but filled with the Spirit. Unwise. You're not to say to everyone, I love you.
To practice all notes from verse 16 brings us to understand God's will. Verse 18. Can you be filled with more than one thing at a time? By thing, I mean thing of like substance. Can you be filled with more than one thing at a time?
Hmm? No. You can't. No, you can't. That's right. If you're filled with the Spirit of wine, you cannot have any portion of the Spirit of God. You can have portions of both, but you would be less than you could be with either.
Do not cut off the doing of an evil thing by degrees. If you fell into the fire, would you want your rescuers to pull you out just a little bit at a time? We have to be very, very careful. Speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs.
Singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord. How many of us do that? I hear my wife in the kitchen singing. Giving thanks always for all things unto God and the Father. In the name of our Lord Jesus.
Speaking to yourselves. Do not practice the sloppy agape. Submitting yourselves one to another in the fear of God. Now, how can you submit yourselves one to another in the fear of God? Greg, how do you do that?
All right, submitting. Let no man be so determined in his own will that it disturbs the peace of someone else. Always consider all other Christians as being better than yourself. The moment that you decide I'm better than he, you've got a problem.
Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands as unto the Lord. Wives are responders. Men, I don't know if you knew that or not. If a wife rebels at this verse, it's because her husband has not practiced verse 25.
I'll get over there in a moment. I pity the unhappy man who has a bad wife. She has shackles on his feet, a palsy to his hand, a burden on his shoulder, smoke in his eyes, vinegar to his teeth, a thorn in his side, a dagger in his heart.
A woman was made after and of and for the man. The action of loving, faithful wife, meekness, modesty, economy, an order of the household management, freedom from extravagance, attention to all the concerned welfare and comfort of her children, a keeper at home.
Personal note, there was never and perhaps will never be a wife like mine. Her entire life has been the happiness of me. She is more Christlike than any woman known or unknown. For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church, and he is the Savior of the body.
We have no trouble with Christ being the head of the church. Therefore, as the church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own husband in everything. Christian love will impose no unrighteous laws.
The husband's love is to be deep, true, tender, self-denying, special. As Christ sought the highest good of the church, so the husband should promote the future as well as the present welfare of his wife and family.
Christ has but one church. He is the husband of one wife. Just as the church cannot have two heads, so the head cannot have two bodies. For the body which has two heads is a monster, so also the head which has two separate bodies.
A good wife should be like an echo to speak when spoken to, but she should not be like an echo to always have the last word. She should be like the courthouse clock, always keeping time and regularity, but she should not be like the courthouse clock, speaking so loud that all the town can hear her.
I want to stop here. The words are beginning to run together. Is there anything you'd like to add or subtract? Yes. What's next? Let's stand and we'll be dismissed. First, dismisses, please. Father, I thank you so much.