That is, whatever way the wind is flowing, that is the way you turn, that is the way you go. Submissions: I am so grateful to those of you who send me your own material to post! "Wherefore putting away lying, speak every man truth with his neighbour: for we are members one of another. In the Iliad (6: 146-149) Glaucus and Diomede meet in single combat. I took pleasure where it pleased me, and passed on. If we stain a garment or a carpet, we may send it to be cleaned, but it is never again quite the same. We speak of Enoch walking with God, and we look at the holiness of his life; but did anybody ever think of the majesty of his life? And if children that had a relationship with their parents in the flesh and under law did so (for it was indeed right), how much more did it become Christian children to pay them reverence? In Romans the sinner is regarded as alive in sins; and death, the death of Christ, is the means of deliverance. Sometimes he feels merry, and can sing hymns; at another time, he can do nothing else but sigh and cry, though he scarcely knows wherefore. Neither can he describe his new birth; that is still a greater mystery, for it is a secret inward work of the Holy Ghost, of which we feel the effect, but we cannot tell how it is wrought. If the latter enquired how God had interfered most conspicuously for them, no doubt they were reminded of the power that brought them out of the land of Egypt. That is, we don't deserve it. All other combats are outside the calling of a Christian. All of us have sinned, all of us have missed the mark. The ancient world was full of barriers. Hence in the latter we find, not exactly choosing, but predestinating us: "Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will.". Christianity demands love even to our enemies, but Plutarch said that the sign of a good man was that he was useful to his friends and terrible to his enemies. The Greek words used there is poeima, the very word from which the English Word poem is derived. We don't want trouble, we dont do conflict here! Outsiders, rank outsiders, far away from any rights, or any participation in the rights of God's children. When a man has allowed some habit, some indulgence, some forbidden practice to master him, he becomes its slave. There were more tears than words; it was not a "dry" discourse; you wetted it well with tears of grief and anxiety. Is it so, beloved? The child has a thousand things to ask; it has to learn everything. No God? We saw that the deadly thing about sin was that it slowly but surely destroyed a man's will and that the indulgence which had begun as a pleasure became a necessity. Here he is drawing the contrast between the life of the Gentile and of the Jew. But in Ephesians we are in presence of a new creation in Christ, where claim is out of the question. If we are alive unto God, every part of our worship should be living. It may be perverted to this or anything else; but so far is our corporate place from being put in the foreground that we do not hear one word about the assembly as such till the close of the first chapter. If God reveals it now, the idea of man of ourselves being the first and main object in the mind of God is impossible. What has it to do with a happy life, so long as every sentiment of the mind, and every act of the will, is death? Oh, be aware of his devices; seek to "keep the heart with all diligence, for out of it are the issues of life." ", 15, 16. The breast-plate means the practical righteousness of the saint himself. fol. (See also Romans 6:16; John 3:36. Trespasses, , may signify the slightest deviation from the line and rule of moral equity, as well as any flagrant offence; for these are equally transgressions, as long as the sacred line that separates between vice and virtue is passed over. For example, the Matthew and Luke accounts of the Lord's Prayer use the words interchangeably; and, as Blaikie said, "The distinction cannot be carried out in all other passages. Here are some indexes that might be helpful. Come into Gods presence with singing! All those who are in their sins, are dead in sins; yea, in trespasses and sins, which may signify all sorts of sins, habitual and actual, sins of heart and of life. ", Meanwhile, before a blow is struck at man's failure in the presence of righteousness, or at his apostasy from grace, that blessed Saviour, the only begotten Son in the bosom of the Father, the Son of man who is in heaven, went down to the very uttermost, and (having exhausted the powers of evil, and blotted out all that could rise against the objects of God's grace,) was raised and seated by God in heaven. Exodus 24:1-8 gives us a dramatic picture of how the Jewish people accepted the covenant and its conditions--"All the words which the Lord has spoken we will do" ( Exodus 24:3; Exodus 24:7). What the paradox was to me in the sphere of thought, perversity became to me in the sphere of passion. Not the law, but Christ. It is only his love in Christ which has forgiven men who deserved nothing but punishment from him, men who had grieved his love and broken his law. That is because this is far more a lyric of the love of God than a careful theological exposition. [4] W. G. Blaikie, The Pulpit Commentary (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Wm. Stand therefore, having your loins girt about with truth [inwardly applied, and thus bracing us morally], and having on the breast-plate of righteousness." (T) 10For we are Gods handiwork,(U) created(V) in Christ Jesus to do good works,(W) which God prepared in advance for us to do. And they began to be merry (Luke 15:21-24 NASB). How could it be otherwise, seeing that He who sits on His throne, tar above every creature in God's presence and in all ages, is a man, but withal the very Son of God? But it is not so with the revelation of the mystery. The sight of that Cross awakens in the hearts of men of all nations love for Christ, and only when they all love Christ will they love each other. Sin appears as sin; he cannot understand it. We have not earned salvation nor could we have earned it. I have in my church and congregation and I dare to say what men dare to do I have in my congregation women whose ruin and destruction have been wrought by some of the most respected men in respectable society. A man shoots his arrow at the target; the arrow misses; that is hamartia ( G266) . God therefore has not been pleased in the heights of divine truth to repeat words in the same way as His grace leads Him to do when He is helping the babes. This also answers to the grand doctrine of this epistle. "Rejoice, O my soul, in thy youth; soon shall other men be in life, "No mortal is happy of all on whom the sun looks down. It can never rise above its human source. Paul thinks of this building going on and on, with each part of the building being fitted into Christ. Less than $5/mo! At the back of things there was a kind of essential despair. So, too, has our modern world. Do you think that when you finally come and say, "Father, I do realize You have been good to me, You have done so much for me. Scripturally-based resources for worship planners and leaders. As Origen had it: "The scars remain." (ii) That is to say that works have nothing to do with earning salvation. 2. Its construction was very elegant; upon it stood pillars at equal distances from one another, declaring the law of purity, some in Greek and some in Roman letters that no foreigner should go within the sanctuary" (The Wars of the Jews, 5, 5, 2). "But to every [each] one is given grace according to the measure of the gift of Christ." And he said, "Who are you? 44. "Like trying to get an octopus into a paper bag." 5. "Among whom we all had our manner of living, or our lifestyles in times past." If there be a divine life to which you are a stranger, how long will you be a stranger to it? I believe it to be true; and believing it to be true, I feel its living force upon my nature every day. Israel was supremely the covenant people. It is told that when Pericles, the greatest of the Athenians, was walking forward to address the Athenian assembly, he used to say to himself: "Pericles, remember that you are an Athenian and that you talk to Athenians." height; and to know the love of Christ." As being the image and glory of God on earth, he is the one that gives names to his companion, or to the subject creation. When God gives people a new life, they must live a new life (8-10). And what is the first lesson of the truth as it is in Jesus? Herein is love. trespasses and sins --. Spiritual death is the state of being separated from fellowship or affiliation with God. Does she really take an interest in her husband's work and try to understand his problems and his worries? This application consists of two parts. But the saints, now being made the objects of these heavenly counsels of God, have a wisdom and prudence of their own, quite peculiar to the new creation in Christ, and its proper relations: God puts no limits to it. The epistle to the Ephesians truly understood will help none so to do. If I would deliver the Midianites in the hands of the 10,000, they would go around boasting in themselves and glorying in themselves. He rules the universe from His heavenly throne But there is yet more. In Him we enter into favour, "in whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of offences," not exactly according to the praise of his glory, "but according to the riches of His grace." Are we in life where we ought to be? This divine life usually begins with pain. P: We come to celebrate Gods abiding love! Come, let me just press this matter home. Sinners are dead in state, being destitute of the principles, and powers of spiritual life; and cut off from God, the fountain of life: and they are dead in law, as a condemned malefactor is said to be a dead man. The next verse shows that this is not forgotten, for account is taken of the fact, and it is provided for. BEST VALUE in digital Bible study. 4. it grieves me to the heart, to think that some of you are all that heart could wish, except that one thing; yet lacking that which is the only thing that can deliver you. No, it does not; it begins to crawl; it does not walk at first. The gospel of God's grace proclaims the very reverse. And that is what should never happen in a church. Just as Christ is the sample and model whether of nature or relationship, so the Holy Ghost is not without His own proper place in bringing the saint into the reality, knowledge, and enjoyment of both. One said to me, when joining the church, "Either I am a new creature, or else the world is altogether altered from what it was. There are some personages in St. Paul's Cathedral; I have not seen them lately, but I have seen them. In this passage Paul makes a kind of list of the characteristics of life without Christ. Thus, then, Adam acts and speaks. "But God, rich in His mercy, in His love wherewith He loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses and sins." But the divine nature is given to us in its qualities of holiness and love. (iii) Through Jesus both Jew and Gentile have the right of access to God. The psychologists tell us that we never forget anything. Take them down to the stream and let them get a drink of water. It is an awful thing to have your conscience hardened, as in the very fires of hell, till it becomes like steel. Like the rest, we were by nature deserving of wrath. so that nothing could make walls between people. No time to worry about where the path, the flow is leading. Moses took the book of the covenant and read to the people. All these are sins of the flesh. The world's motive is profit. At its heart is a desire to rediscover and refresh the best of past Wesleyan hymns and write new congregational worship that is a call to justice, compassion, mercy, Have we been quickened from above? You remember that our Saviour raised three dead persons; I do not find that during his lifetime he caused more than three resurrections. He merely now touches on the principle, as he had before let us see not merely God's counsels from before the foundation of the world, but the manner and means of their application through Christ our Lord to us in time. Holy Bible, New International Version, NIV Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc. Used by permission. Web2 as for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, 2 in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient. And you hath he quickened This chapter should not have been separated from the preceding, with which it is most intimately connected. It is well to mark the difference. To forgive another's wrongs is not enough for a Christian. So should our walk be. And they don't know the joy that we have in the presence of the Lord as we worship Him and as we sing unto Him our love and our praises and our thanksgiving. It was revealed by Paul alone. And so Christ gives us more light. As our children grow older, do we come nearer to them, or do they drift away until conversation is often difficult and we and they are practically strangers? it is there not merely that He means to bless us, but that He has blessed us already. I wish you would. Here are some indexes that might be helpful. (i) We saw that sin kills innocence. Holy Scripture is not complimentary to unrenewed human nature. Other nations might be governed by democracy or aristocracy; Israel was a theocracy. And is this all? These verses are really preliminary to Pauls main point. The loss of fellowship with a holy God. Having no hope, and without God in the world: It is an awful description, but a truthful description, of what we were. We are sealed with the mark of the Holy That paradox has two arms. We could almost have died with delight at times when we have realized the glorious things that God has prepared for them that love him. The word Paul uses (apokatallassein, G604) is the word used of bringing together friends who have been estranged. Sort of concluding, you might as well bomb out and stay drunk, there is nothing else, too much pain to try to face reality.Sort of the philosophy that a lot of people have taken today. Paul was the chosen witness to fill up that blank. These are the things that governed our lives in the past. If you have been quickened by the Spirit of God, your prayers are living prayers. The Jews, or those who had been under Jewish teaching, had been for a while in an infantine state, or an Old Testament condition; but the Gentiles by faith passed simply and directly into the full Christian blessing. We saw that sin kills innocence saw that sin kills innocence preliminary to Pauls main point means of deliverance every. Our lives in the sphere of passion this building going on and on, with each part the. Main point to worry about where the path, the flow is leading of being separated from fellowship or with... Chapter should not have been estranged your conscience hardened, as in hands... I believe it to be sphere of passion ] W. G. Blaikie, flow... 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