Believers are called to imitate God by walking in love and light, mirroring the example of Christ. This imitation involves actively demonstrating love, particularly the selfless, forgiving love described as 'agape,' which contrasts sharply with the world's distorted understanding of affection. Furthermore, Christians are to live as children of light, exposing the unfruitful works of darkness through their actions and words, rather than participating in or condoning sin. This commitment to truth and righteousness, though potentially unpopular, is essential for reflecting God's character and bringing His light into the world.
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recent days espousing the post-tribulation viewpoint. One would think that the writers had just discovered undisclosed secrets hidden from the foundation of the world. However, none of their arguments are new. Neither should one be impressed with their listing of scholars who propagate the theory. For every prophetical genius proposing the post-tribulation view, there are fifty scholars who proclaim the great escape, all the free-tribulation rapture. However, names are There's a line that's been drawn through the edges on that line and say, all right.
The Woodhouse gave it back. He didn't have something. He sent it early. Let's quiz on Second Timothy chapter two. He didn't get to. If you can find it, I'll treat somebody just sort of. First person finds it. Somebody tell me why fifteen plus sixteen equals seventeen you can find it in second Timothy chapter two not now go on your own fifteen plus sixteen equals seventeen in second Timothy chapter two that was that's his message what why didn't say what fifteen sixteen represented but it is in chapter two not here everybody else's clue Fifteen plus sixteen equals seventeen.
First one after the meeting. Okay? No raise your hand, Vernon. But anyway, last night, Eddie Schwartz said he had to sleep quickly. You want to know why? Curly slept quickly too. So did Vernon. Well, see, yesterday I was talking with my brother from Brummigan. And he said, when he was at a conference up in Canada, he went out for ice cream and chased fire engines after he spoke at night.
So we went out for ice cream last night. And we closed McDonald's town last night. So we all had to sleep quickly. And I trust the rest of you could sleep a little bit. more slowly so that your blood was running when you cut yourself shaving this morning. And so we're glad you're all here. And I know it's just in some beautiful weather. It's a little bit perspiring, I know, but I just really have enjoyed it. And I was thinking last night when I was asking you to raise your hand for the last time I got bitter at somebody's getting angry yesterday. I started thinking, I know why they're not raising. I started coming to me while I was speaking. It's You people are all on the mountaintop this week and you're having just a fantastic, beautiful experience of fellowship, you know, and all the rest that comes with coming to camp.
Maybe I should ask that question next Wednesday after you've been back and worked for three days and things like that, you know, might be a little bit different when you come back from the mountaintop and you have to knock heads with that mean, cold, cruel world out there. So I apologize for giving you such a hard time last night. Let's turn to Ephesians chapter five. Ephesians chapter five. And we'll continue in the walk of the new man. The new man in Christ. The new woman in Christ. And by the way, it's very specific in the Greek text. It's this new man's word antrapas and not the word aner.
If there's a new man on there, that would be talking about male believers. So it's the word antrapas. And that's the word that could literally be you know, without damaging the Bible, okay, could be translated as person, you know, that it's not a sex term in terms of male or female. It can refer to a person, man or woman. And, you know, the National Council of Churches, I was somewhat concerned about this new Bible that they're coming out that we're going to, you know, desex the Bible and get male and female out of it. Well, you know, there's some places I think that they can legitimately take the word man out of there and not damage the text. And with the word new man, it could be new person, and you're not damaging the text because that's what the word anthropos means.
But I was very, it was kind of interesting. I listened to the man who was in charge of this, the man by the name of Bruce Metzger. And Bruce Metzger, though he is aligned with the liberal school, he has a very high regard for the biblical text. And he was on Camelot's radio in St. Louis and says, you can't do that to the Bible. I mean, the words on there, that's male. You can't change male to female. And so he just would not change the text of the Word of God. And so he was in charge of the project. I think the project is dying as a result. And that doesn't disturb me at all. So I praise the Lord for that.
But let's read Ephesians chapter five, verses one through fourteen. Be, therefore, followers of God as dear children and walk in love, as Christ also has loved us and have given himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling favor. But for iniquation and all uncleanness and for covetousness, let it not be one, and notice it's not the word done. the word means, let it not be once named among you as become a saint.
Neither filthiness, nor foolish talking, nor jesting, and please, before you write Eddie Schwartz and company off, wait till we expound that verse, okay? It does not have to do with the fact that we can have honest, And God gave us the capacity to laugh, and that's good. And that's not what I'm talking about, which are not convenient, but rather giving a thanks. For this you know, that no whoremonger, nor unclean person, nor covetous man, who is an idolater, hath any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God. Let no man deceive you with vain words, for because of these things comeeth the wrath of God upon the children of disobedience.
Be not ye therefore partakers with them. For ye were sometimes darkness. But now are ye light in the Lord. Walk as children of light. For the fruit of the Spirit is in all goodness and righteousness and truth. Proving what is acceptable unto the Lord. And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness. But rather it is prudent. For it is a shame even to speak of those things which are done of them in secret. But all things that are reproved are made manifest about life.
For whatsoever doth make manifest is life. Wherefore he saith, Awake thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give you life. Father, I thank you for this portion of the Word of God. We know that there is no way upon us and come the death of your word. But Father, we are thankful that your Spirit is here and your Spirit will take from the Word of God and will bring it to meet the need that each of us has. There is no way that any human speaker behind this podium could begin to understand it only, much less the need of the people in an audience.
So, Father, we trust the working of the Holy Spirit in our midst to accomplish a work which would bring glory to your Son and edification to this body of believers. We pray this in your Son's name. Amen. Be, therefore, followers of God as your children. Now that little word, followers, is translated as often. It's also the word that's translated, you know, be followers of me, even as I also am of Christ. It's a word for mimic. You know, and that's almost the English bringing out of the Greek word for, it's the word mimic. And it's the kind of thing, you know, that whenever you have your child and you go out in the snow, now you've got to be at gnaw to get a little bit of snow.
But when you get up north and you get some of that snow, you'll find out that you go to get out there and you put your clothes on and you go walking out in the snow and all of a sudden you look behind you and you see this little boy back there with his washes and he tries his best. to hit that footprint of his daddy. He doesn't quite make it. He takes three or four more, but he makes sure when he gets there that he hits that footprint and he steps in it. And he may step in it once or twice or three times and then he goes up there and he steps in the next footprint. But what he's doing is he's mimicking or that you might be in there one day and you got that face all lathered up there and you're hoping that your blood is running slowly and you get out your Gillette track too and you start shaving And all of a sudden you come back in the bathroom about a half hour later after your little boy has been watching you do this.
And he's got that face all lathered off his eyes and everything is all. And he's got that track too. And you're, oh no, don't do that. But what he's doing is what? He's mimicking. Or your little girl, ladies, that one day you come in there and you're brand new high heels. Those platform shoes, six inches high and all the rest. They've got them on. They've got your nice new dress. And they got all a handbag. And they got the lipstick on, you know, all over the place and powder and rouge. I know you don't wear those things. But anyway, they got all those things on there. But what are they doing in that? They're mimicking. They have seen a pattern that has been set. And they're following that pattern.
Okay, now there is a vital dynamic in the Christian life of mimicking, following an example. Elders, for instance, are to provide an example that the sheikh was in the flock to be able to follow, that you see an elder and you walk in his steps and you are mimicking, you're following his example. But ultimately, behind all of this, that the appeal is that we're to be imitators of God. Because the only reason we would ever follow an elder or any other man is because that man is following or mimicking God himself. Or he's following the example of a man who is following God. But if we're to back off and say, okay, well, how can we be imitators of God? God is spirit. You know, how can we creatures of flesh and blood mimic spirit?
Well, we just so happen to have had God having taken on the likeness of sinful flesh, and having lived a perfect, sinless, holy, righteous, unblameable life before us, the Lord Jesus Christ. And so when we can take a look at Matthew, Mark, and Luke, and John, and other representations of the life of the Lord Jesus Christ, and I'm sure this is in the mind of the Apostle Paul here, the imitators of God, he's talking about Jesus. So when those people knock in the door and not the clean cut ones, the other ones, and they don't, well, both of them, okay, both of them got problems with the deity of Christ, don't they?
And isn't it a sad thing, by the way, I was just thinking when Brother Woodhouse was talking about, isn't it a sad thing that the Mormons and the Jehovah's Witnesses that are known for knocking on the doors and not us? Isn't it a sad thing to know that people, when they hear that door and they look and see two people out there, they don't think of the assembly down the street or, you know, one other evangelical or fundamental church. It's not them. It's going to be the other people, the cult. Why aren't we out there? Well, anyway, that's not my message either. The followers of God. And then notice how he says it. And I just like the way, you know, God, you know, through the Apostle Paul, you know, gives these you know, instructions as dear children.
He says, I love you. I care for you. You're beloved. And that's the word. Yeah, they ought to get paid to out there. You're beloved. You mean a great deal to me. You know, and I know a lot of preachers they will use, dearly beloved, you know, and they get that from the Bible. And sometimes I wonder, you know, when you hear what follows the dearly beloved, if we really are. But for the Apostle Paul, it really means that the followers of God is your children. And what is it saying if you're a follower of the Lord Jesus Christ will be demonstrated in a person's life? What do you think it would be? Wow. Oh, you've been reading the Bible. That's what he talks about, isn't it?
You know, it's amazing. I can remember talking to Dr. Jones. And he says, when he's gone to conferences, that he says when you go to conferences, you know, with the assemblies of Christians, there are certain subjects that are inevitable to be brought up and talked about. And they talk about and talk about them and talk about them. And sometimes those passages are only in the Word of God one time. But you know how many times? the Bible and the New Testament, just New Testament, without even going into the Old Testament. How many times it says New Testament to love one another? Anybody want to take a guess?
We got from one extreme to the other. Okay. If God says it once, is it important? Right. If God said it, I believe it, that settles it, right? God says it twice. It's kind of saying, I really want you to pay attention. Says it three times? Hey, this is important stuff. Four times? Five times? Six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen? Fifteen, sixteen times. And it's not just John. Every sixteen times, well, you might have to, you know, there are some variations like love your neighbors yourself, but at least about sixteen times love one another.
What does that mean? It means it's important. In fact, Jesus said, The one thing that would characterize being followers of the Lord Jesus Christ, the one thing that would characterize it is what? By this, shall the whole world know, all men will know, that ye are my disciples, if ye have loved one for another. That's what characterized Jesus. Why do you think those little children came running up into his arms? Because he, you know, now some guys, you know, you're seeing some people, you take a look at them and the children, they take a look at them and what they do.
Man, they tuck their tail behind their leg and off they go running the other direction. You know, that man scares me. You know, you just take a look at them and you're doing your best smile, the whole thing you got. Come here. You know, and that child has turned around and run. And Jesus, I just, you know, I would have loved just seeing Jesus walking through a time. I just get the impression that it was a standard thing. that the children were flocked around the Lord Jesus. Why? Because he was a man who was marked by love. And if that's what Jesus was marked by, and we're to be imitators of him, what should be the mark of believers in the Lord Jesus Christ? It's love.
Now, this word love is all misunderstood today. In fact, he talks about it in verses three, four, and five. In fact, that's what all these words, fornication, uncleanness, covetousness, filthiness, foolish talking, jesting. All those words, when you take up and you do a word study, have moral connotations. They have to do with the fact that people have taken that little word love and they are using the wrong Greek word. There are three different primary Greek words for the word love, two of which are used in the Testament, one of which is not. That is not is the word erotic, where we get the word erotic. It has to do with sexual type love.
And people today are into this thing just like they were back in the first century, the Temple of Diana, which was located in the city of Ephesus. They made merchandise of temple prostitution, including homosexuality. It was a morally depraved garbage pit. And so when they talked about love, they were talking about a Hugh Hefner type love. They're talking about a love that is being paraded all around our society today. And that's what love was for them. And we've got problems like that in our society today when we talk about a lover. We're not talking about the Lord Jesus Christ, are we? Are we?
And yet he is really the lover in the agape sense of the word. But people are using and misusing this word just totally the wrong way. And so when you use the word love today, it's almost, it's been destroyed as bad as the word gay. It used to be back in the eighteen nineties. Some of us weren't alive then. That you could talk about the gay nineties. And it was, you know, a nice term. You talk about a time when people enjoyed themselves. At least that's the way I understand the term was. But now you can't use that word because it's totally destroyed. And the word love now is almost totally destroyed. In fact, that's the way it was back in the first century.
Because when the writers of the New Testament wanted to talk about love, you know, that man's concept of love was so warped, so distorted, so that what the Apostle Paul, the Apostle John, the Apostle Peter, following the example of the Lord Jesus Christ, picked up a word that was so little used that nobody really had a concept. They really didn't understand what the word was. And this is the word agape. And the noun and the word, the verb is agapao. And that was hardly ever used. You don't find it much in the Septuagint, the Greek Old Testament. You don't find it in Koine Greek much. It's a very little used word. It wasn't a word. It was distorted. Pick up a new word and says, okay, I want to use this word to describe something to you that the world doesn't know anything about.
It's agape law. And they don't know what it's about because that love comes from God himself. Because God is agape. God is love. God is the source of love. God is the one who sheds his love abroad in the hearts of his children. God is the one who, through his children, loves other people. That we are to be imitators of God. We are to be lovers with agape love. Now, if we have the time, we can go back to First Corinthians chapter thirteen and we can take a look at the characteristics of love there, but we don't have time for that. But let me tell you two things real quickly, that love in First Corinthians thirteen. One thing is that love does not keep a record of wrongs done. Okay?
There is a tendency that we have here, and this is part of the idea behind here, that he given himself for an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet smelling favor, that he was forgiving. And love does not keep a record of wronged up. He remembers our sins and iniquities. No more! Lord, that sin I committed yesterday, what sin was that? And it's not that God is not omniscient. He is omniscient. But the thing is, he says, I, out of love, have chosen to forgive, and that I will remember no more. I won't bring it back up. And so when you hit the computer file, you push the button for Rick Bowie, and up comes the card. Guess what? It's cleaned by the brother of the Lamb.
So what do we do? We hit that little computer card called Husband. Up comes a card. October twelfth, nineteen, fourteen. You did. October thirteenth, nineteen, fourteen. You did. October fifteenth, you did. And so what does he do? He pushes his computer button. Up comes his card and it says white. And it says October twelfth, nineteen. And off we go. And man, they got a big long list. And if you ever wonder why, you always are like that. The reason they say that is they picked up the card, the card's getting heavy. And so they say, instead of rehearsing each individual instance, in fact, they probably can't even remember them all, they ask they to say, you always are, or you never. And the reason is, is they got a big, heavy card that they punched up.
Okay. Love does not keep a record of wrong son. Okay. Abraham Lincoln is reported to have said, the good I do, nobody remembers, and the bad I do, nobody forget. Okay. Second one, love does not behave unseemly. You know what that says? Love has good manners. Application. Lunch time coming up here, twelve thirty.
Love has good manners. You women got to fight for yourselves, don't you? With your kids. With all those nice, mannerly men. When was the last time your husband opened the door for you, ladies? Uh-oh. That's love, though. Love has good manners. Well, we're to walk in love as Christ also has loved us. Let's go on to the second section here, beginning of verse six.
Not only are we to walk in love, but we're to walk in the light. Now, let's establish this right now, that lights and darkness are mutually incompatible. Where it's dark, there's no light. Where there's light, there's no dark. They're incompatible. They don't get along. When light comes in, dark leaves. And when dark comes in, light's gone. They're incompatible. And that's what he's going to talk about here, that when we are in the Lord Jesus Christ, and the Lord Jesus Christ is in us, He is the light of the world, and being the light of the world, He comes into us and we become the children of the light, and we now are the light of the world.
We are His light in us to the world. So the Lord Jesus could say, He are the light of the world. We are the children of the light. And when we are the children of the light, and we go out into a world that is covered over with a darkness of sin, what should happen? there is going to be a mutual incompatibility, that the likes of the Lord Jesus Christ is incompatible with the children of disobedience, with the children of disobedience who are walking in the unfruitful works of darkness. In fact, if you go on here and it says some things that are to happen here, he says, first of all, in verse seven, that we are not to be partakers well maybe we start first of all in verse six that we're not to be deceived with these vain words when these children disobedience come up that first of all we're not to allow their empty words to be a means of discussion but the one I'd like to take a look at is verse seven be not ye therefore partakers with them and then go on down in verse eleven and have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness so Two different words here.
One is the word share, the first one partaker, is that we're not to share with them. That we're not to, you know, get to the place where we actually become co-participants in the works of darkness. And sometimes, you know, that when we get involved in situations with the people in the world, and they get us into a compromising situation, that if we stand up and, you know, and be counted, we know that we're going to suffer some tribulation. We're going to suffer some persecution. We're going to get some flack. We're going to get some pressure. You know, it might be from a boss. It might be from a fellow employee. We're just praying for this one young fellow. And this morning that we're having some times when he has gone to work and he sat there and says, when I work, I want to work the hardest I can.
And some of the fellow employees come up and say, hey, cool it. Slow it down. You're making us look bad by working so hard. So what does he do? He has to make a choice. He made an agreement with his boss that I will give you the best day's work for the ways that you're giving me. But a fellow employee saying, hey, listen, we're not willing to give that much, and therefore we don't want you to make us look bad. So he has a choice of being a participator in their evil deeds, being a co-participant, being a partaker of it. or getting flack, pressure, stress, persecution or whatever from its fellow employees.
They said don't be partakers of them. And then secondly, that we're to have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness. Then this is the idea where we go in and we go beyond just where we're participating and partaking the work. We actually go beyond that and we enter into fellowship with it. Not only do we not partake of it, we don't fellowship with it. And we could go on and talk and talk and talk about the unprovable works of darkness. But I'd like to spend just our last couple minutes with this word that we see in the end of verse eleven, and it's developed in greater detail down through verse fourteen, but rather reproval.
For it is a shame, even to speak of those things, which are done of them in secret. You know, a few years ago, the girl in our assembly, a woman, married woman, children all around, came up and she says, I bought this book. What do you think about it? I'd never read the book. I'd heard it advertised. You know, it's the book, Everything You Always Want to Know About. sex and we're afraid to ask. Well, I was foolish.
I said, okay, give it to me. I'll read it and I'll evaluate it. And I tell you, the garbage that got poured into my mind when I read that book, I'm still struggling with it. And it's been eight and ten years ago. See, there are things that we as Christians have no business knowing. And if we know it, we have no business talking about it. There are some things that we are, and at the end of Romans chapter sixteen, that there are certain things that we're to be simple concerning evil. That when it comes to evil, it comes to come up and says, you know what such and such a group does? And you say, no, I don't, and I don't want to know.
And you know, I have to be careful when I get involved in counseling situations, when you get into some of the really corrupt counseling situations, that they start going into the details of evil. And you know, we as Christians don't want to hear, we don't want to know the details of evil. We can know what's evil in our spirit, we know that it is evil, and we can reject it because we don't want to have that in us. But more than that, it's not only that we reject it for ourselves, the likes of something else. Not only does the light push back the darkness from itself, the light exposes the darkness. We reprove, and that's the meaning of the word reprove. It means to expose.
It's like the policeman that gets the silence alarm, that there's a bank robbery going on in the middle of night at First National Bank of Nashville. And so the policeman come down there, and they look in the window, and they see this little flicker of a light back by the safe, and they see three guys hover around working that safe and all of a sudden, and so the policeman all come in there, and they all get the great big flashlight, and they sneak in there, and they come up behind the guys, and all of a sudden, all these big flashlights go on, and they, what do you say? Gotcha. Freeze. Put your hands up. And the unfruitful deeds of darkness have been exposed. And what's going on today is that, you know, Edmund Burke said a long time ago that all that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men.
Say nothing. Christians are the salt of the earth. Christians are the light of the world. And when it comes, not the political issues, I'm not talking about political issues, I'm talking about moral issues, scriptural issues. And what has happened in every denomination, almost without exception today, is that the denominations have been taken over little by little by little. And what has happened is that in the process of it, they didn't expose the evil. They didn't shine the light to the Word of God upon them. They did not show it up for what it really was. And so that the darkness began creeping, the light retreated. The darkness crept some more, the light retreated some more. The darkness crept and the light retreated even more.
And what needs to happen is that the light needs to stay bright. It needs to stay firm. And where does it stay firm and bright? In the believers that we are the ones who are to bring the light of the Word of God to this world, not just to the church, because we're talking about here to the children of disobedience, the unsaved world that were to expose their unfruitful works of darkness. And I tell you, that's a very serious business that does not necessarily make for popularity. It does not make you necessarily the most fruitful employee that, you know, it may make you the most fruitful employee, but not the most loved employee of a boss. We had a man who worked for a company and his company that they wanted to bring in booze for the Christmas party and girls that were not the wives of the men and not allow the wives of the men to be there.
And here was this man as a Christian. He was upper level executive. And what do you think you do when you do something like that? Well, you're the boss that you want to do. He says, no, what you're doing is evil. It's wrong. It's contrary to the word of God. I won't participate. I won't partake in it. And I will, you know, I stand firm and I stand strong in it. And he exposed it to his boss, courageously. Six months later, he's without a job. It doesn't make you for a popular employee. Because assaults the earth and the light of the world does not always get a good reception from the world. Let's close in prayer. Father, we are thankful that your word is alive and powerful, and it is relevant.
And we live in a world that does not respond to your word. Father, may we be courageous in living according to your word, that our lives are a testimony of reproof that so are our words. But, Father, before that, it's so interesting that this happened, before we talked about that, He talked about how we're to be imitators of you in love. Father, may this world and our fellow believers see the love of God in Christ Jesus, in us. May we see it in each other today. In Jesus' name, amen.