Ephesians Lesson 29 of 39 part 5

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."