Ephesians
4:18
"Having
the understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God
through the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of
their heart."
Immediately two verses just pop into mind. The thought here is having
their understanding darkened. So let’s go back to John’s synoptic gospel
chapter 3.
John
3:19
"And
this is the condemnation, that light (reference to Jesus of
Nazareth) is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather
than light, (why?) because their deeds were
evil."
It was not that they
lived in the gutter but rather that they lived in what might be called great wealth. Oh they lived sumptuously, and there
again Pompeii and the more resent discovery in Jerusalem not far from the Temple wall shows that. Some of the ruins of those beautiful homes,
they must have been mansions, and yet as they went down the street
there was evidence of the immorality, and corruption everywhere they
went. Even though it was from 2200 to 1800 years ago, things they
have unearthed are amazing. So when we look at what’s going on in
America, and the Western world today, don’t think for a moment that
this is the first time anything like this has happened. It has always
been this way, we are just doing it in a grander scale now.
We remember telling my Sunday school class way back in the 1980's when the favorite cliche at that time was,
"the new morality." Do you remember that? It was
the so called sexual licenses, but we as kids in the 60's also had our new morality (woman's libbers, with them the burning of draft cards and woman's bras) and we use to tell our kids, "Hey
wake up, there is nothing new about that, it is the same old immorality
that has plagued the human race from day one." Now it is the
same way here in this verse.
John
3:19b-20
"...and
men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil.
(look at the next verse) For every one that doeth evil
hateth the light neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds should
be reproved."
Where did his lifestyle of evil deeds come from? Adam! All those evil
deeds came from the fall of mankind, and evil has been with every
generation after generation since then. What we have said is this, man is more attached to the tree of good and evil than the tree of
life. Now before we go to 2Corinthians for a moment, first let’s
come back to Ephesians chapter 4, and look at verse 18 again. Hope
we are not preaching, but rather sharing.
Before we do, last night while watching a program on TV the Lord gave me a thought, dealing with Hebrews chapter 10 and verse 1. Where the writer states that the Law and the Jewish customs, rituals, rites and ceremonies were all a shadow until Christ. And were only to last until the Tree, Christ Jesus came. And that John the Baptist told the Jewish elite, the Priest's that the axe had been laid to their root, as witnessed in both Matthew 3:10 and Luke 3:9. Both are in reference to Isaiah 10:33-34 and Ezekiel 15:2-4 and Malachi 3:1-3, 4:1 all because of Isaiah 5:2-7, 27:11 and Ezekiel 15:2-7 and to these the Lord made reference to in Luke 13:6-9 and John15:6. Then the writer of Hebrews states almost the same thing in 6:8 and Peter shortly before he is executed revealed this in 1Peter 4:7-8. I know that I have given you allot of scriptures to read but it will help you to do so, especially if you do not know them already.
Ephesians
4:18
"Having
their understanding darkened* alienated from the life
of God through the ignorance that is in them, because of the
blindness of their heart:"
*they
loved walking in the dark, because their deeds are evil. But now what
is the next word in that verse?
They are alienated from God through ignorance because of the hardness of heart, it was and remains a heart thing. For
this we must go to 2Corinthians chapter 4. Where do they get such
stringent blindness that they can not even see through it and
recognize the light? Where does it come from? Well of course it
originated from Adam, but who picked up the dominion of everything
when Adam dropped it. Satan did. The prince of the power of the air
and his silent manipulation of mans mind and thinking as a child
plays with his toys. Now if you do not think our churches
are in trouble, someone told us a while back that one of their
pastors was holding a Bible study, and that individual said, "he
didn’t believe in Satan." Well no wonder we are in
trouble. If we can put Satan out of the picture, out of the equation,
then he is home scott free isn’t he? If we are not going to recognize
him, he has free reign. But oh the Scripture does recognize him.
2Corinthians 4:3-4
"But if our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost: In whom the god of this world has blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine in them."
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