the same thing that Mr. Lathan had in his talk about talking with Paul and walking with
Paul.
He was going to the union and kept the five.
And as he remembered from last week, his great job of breaking down the gap before.
Before, you know, Paul kind of broke it up into sections.
He first talked about how important it is for us to walk in unity.
And Brother Lathan did a good job of talking about how important it is to the church.
Then he kind of started talking about the gifts that God has given the church.
And especially the gifts of ministry that he's given the church so that the saints can be
equipped to carry out the work or the ministry of the church.
And he made a good point that everybody in God's body, you know, got a gift.
God has gifted us to do something that will be a benefit to his kingdom and the benefit
to those in his kingdom.
And so we just need to make sure that we exercise the gifts that God's given us, whether it's
preaching ministry, teaching ministry, or just ministries of service.
Then in that chapter, Paul described in general terms how we are to put off the old self and put
on the new self and this transition of life from coming out of our death and our old life
into new life and walking with Christ.
And by the time he got to chapter 4, 25 through 31, he described particular sins of speech
and personal animosity that God considered for us to get out of our lives.
And he even got to the point where Paul said that when we don't live like God wants us to live,
there's a tendency for us to grieve the Holy Spirit.
So he admonished them and he admonished us not to grieve the Holy Spirit.
And what we're going to find out tonight as we go into chapter 5, Paul further describes
action that are unsuitable among Christians and the Christian family.
And Paul understood that when it comes to some of these actions in our lives and in the lives of believers,
this is a process.
This is an ongoing battle, an ongoing process.
As we strive to live to be mature and complete in Christ Jesus, there are more things that we're going to find out
that God wants to take away from us to get out of our lives.
But that's this constant battle that's going to always be going on between our old nature, our flesh, and the spirit.
And so a lot of these things now that he talked about tonight, he kind of addressed them from the standpoint
of our old nature and our flesh and then seeing those things that if we don't deal with them,
then they could hinder us from being able to walk in the light.
And the thing that we got to see here, keeping in the context of what was going on in Ephesus,
is that there were false teachers in the church and there were teachers and things that went contrary to what Paul had been teaching.
And some of these things involved how they saw illicit sexual activities and things of that nature.
And so that's why tonight a lot of the focus is going to be some of the things that they did that the Gentiles and the heathens,
they did not consider those things sinful and even the Romans did not consider those things necessarily sinful.
And so that were people who were going around and telling them and justifying certain things by saying,
hey, those things, yeah, even though you may think they're bad, they're really not all that bad.
No different than the day there are some things that the Bible clearly say that may be right or wrong,
but then there are people who will come back and say, well, if God created it, He created it for good use.
And so therefore we ought to be able to enjoy whatever God created.
Getting away from how He created it and what He created certain things for.
And so when we understand that, we can see how when we get saved, we come from living in a life of darkness
and then now God expects us to start living in the light.
And He's going to make that point tonight in contrast that darkness and light and what our responsibilities are as we go through this lesson tonight.
And so we look at chapter five and verse one, you know, I want to read this, but I want to start off, you know, with a discussion around a question.
So He says now, imitate God.
Therefore in everything you do, because you are His children.
Now let's think about that.
First I want to ask, what does imitate mean to you?
When you hear that word imitate and He's telling us to imitate God, then what does imitate mean to you?
How do you interpret that? How do you understand that?
When He says imitate, what does it mean to you?
And your answer is your answer because I always believe that Jesus told His disciples how you read something, how you interpret it is going to be how you applied in your life.
So when you read that and He says imitate God, therefore in everything you do, because you are His dear children.
So they're asking what you think, what does imitate mean to you?
It means that we're trying to do likewise, do the same.
I hear this a lot now, now that I'm a few years older than I used to be.
I ran into one of our family friends this weekend, a friend of mine, someone getting married.
Boy you sure look like your daddy.
Not only do you look like if you walk like it, and it's like I'm in his footsteps trying to do what he did,
to cheer myself like he did, speak like he did, and act like he did. That's a good example.
I think that's a perfect example.
Brother Tupir, I want to come back to that. Do you want to say something Long Down?
You got a mic? Okay, go ahead.
So go online, you know, speak if you can't hear you. I think you've turned them all on.
Yeah.
I'll say copying, being a copy and trying to do what someone else is doing and farting in their footsteps.
Okay, and so if we look at that, and both of y'all are pretty much saying the same thing,
so now think about this.
So a lot of times when God gives us instructions, there are ways that we can contrast
what God is telling us with how we live in the natural.
But then you hit it right on the head, but we'll do.
So if I say imitate God, then I could ask you that in the natural,
how did you feel like you imitated your father or your parents?
How did you know you was imitating them? What caused you to imitate them?
Most of the time we imitate them based on the things that we saw them do.
Whether it was right or wrong, it didn't make no difference, but because they were authority figures,
we figured that if they were doing it, it must be okay.
And some of the things they were doing were not necessarily consistent with God,
but because that was the pattern that was in front of us, we picked up some of those things.
We picked up some of those things, like you said, some of the things we picked up genetically,
you know, from our parents.
But at the same time, God now is saying to us that just like we can learn things from our parents in the natural,
there are certain things he expects us to learn from him,
and as we learn those things, he wants us to imitate him because he calls us his dear children.
In other words, like you said, now that I'm his child, there ought to be certain things that I do that look like him.
Just like you said, Brother Fulton, I think you might have said that someone even walked like their father,
you know, even talked like their father.
So what I'm trying to say, even if that happens in the natural, the same thing ought to be happening in our spiritual transformation,
that we should start to walk, talk about, we should start to live like we are children of God.
And when we live like we are children of God, people will be able to see that,
and then we will be a good representative of him in the earth.
Now once he tells us to do this because we are children of God, then he kind of gives us some instruction
in telling us what we need to do.
Because in verse 2 he says, now live a life filled with love, following the example of Christ.
So as we know that God is love, his highest attribute, so therefore we can't go wrong if we live a life of love.
So he's letting me know that in that one way we can imitate God is to love.
And when Jesus told his disciples that the world would know you by the love that you have for one another.
So he says now get this, live a life filled with love.
So that means that love has to be a priority to you.
And it's sometimes difficult, but sometimes you got to love some people that don't love you.
And you got to learn how to love people in spite of.
Because what he gives us an example is the love that Christ had for us.
So look at this, he says live a life filled with love, following the example of Christ.
He loved us and offered himself as a sacrifice for us, a pleasing aroma to God.
So now the example that we have when it comes to love is Jesus.
And he's saying that Christ lived a life to the point that he sacrificed himself for us.
Now under the old sacrificial system, an offering system, every sacrifice did not require anima, a blood.
Some sacrifice was grain offering, and different things.
But here he's saying the level of sacrifice that Christ made required blood, required his life.
And so he's telling us sometime we're going to have to learn how to love people in a sacrificial way.
Well we can love them in spite of, and willing to make sacrifices for them because we love them.
And when we do that, it sends up a pleasing aroma to God.
In the Old Testament, the sacrifice, the smell that came off of it was considered a pleasing smell to God, like a fragrant smell.
And so when we live in love, then the things that we do is pleasing to God.
And that's what our role ought to be as his children, just like in the natural.
When we really understood our relationship with our father and our mother, we really wanted to live in a way that would make them happy with us.
You know, even though sometime we did things to disappoint them, our intent should have been trying to do it.
We want to live in a way that is going to be pleasing.
So that whatever we offer up to God, it will be a sweet smell and aroma.
But you can't go wrong with love.
You can't go wrong because he had minded us to live a life filled with love.
Now he's going to say a lot of things here in this chapter, and this is one thing I like about Ephesians in this chapter.
You don't have to be too smart to figure out what he's trying to get us to see.
You don't have to be too deep and go to too much theological debates and all of that.
This book is pretty plain.
Now I mean there's some yeses and noes, some dos and some don'ts.
The thing is that when we don't agree with the yeses and the noes and the dos and the don'ts, then we try to justify something that's to make this scene complicated.
When it really, this chapter is not that odd.
I'm going to show you here in a minute.
So now we want to do things that's pleasing to God because it will send up a sweet smelling aroma, a fragrance.
Then he goes into and kind of go back to something that was said in the previous chapter, start talking about how they were supposed to live.
This letter is written to the church, not to the world.
So that means that when he addressed these things, these things had to be in the church.
And because the people in the church were coming out of the world, they brought a lot of their tendencies, their proclivities, the things they like to do right into the church with them.
And because they were coming out of practices that they did not consider evil because the Romans did it, the Heathens did it, other people did it.
All you got to do is go back and read Romans chapter one and two.
You'll see they were doing a lot of things that were considered okay.
But things that is considered okay by culture and society in the world does not necessarily mean it's okay with God.
So you kind of got to keep that in its context.
So look at what you said.
Now look, let know, somebody say no, sexual immorality, impurity, agreed be among you.
Such sins have no place among God's people.
Go back and look at that individually.
Let know sexual immorality.
The Greek word poinoneer, where we get the word pornography from, has to do with any type of illicit sexual activity.
Now what we see here, God has put a prohibition on sex unless it's under certain conditions.
All sex can't be immoral because God created it.
So it can't be immoral if certain things about it that can be immoral when it is performed under the wrong conditions and in Rome.
Let me look at this.
So he said now, and the really had to do that again because you go back and read Corinthians, very Roman.
Sometimes sexual misconduct was part of worship.
They had temple prostitutes.
So in certain circles, they didn't see nothing wrong with sex.
And in its truest sense, there is nothing wrong with it.
But what happens is, it looks like God intended for it to be within the constraints of marriage.
Amen?
But flesh don't agree with that.
Flesh don't agree with that because if flesh agreed with it, most of us would have been virgins when we got married.
All of us would have been virgins when we got married.
So he said, let no sexual immorality be among you.
He said, or impurity, doing things that is considered unclean or greed.
In other words, having, you know, you can be to the point where you're never satisfied with something.
Here it can be talking about money.
It can be talking about possessing.
It can be talking about anything that can become so much a part of you that you get to the point where you almost worship that thing.
Because later on, he's going to connect greed with adultery.
So there are certain things that can become such a part of our lives that if it gets to the point where it becomes more important than God, then it becomes our God.
So we can either last or die.
Brother Hurte, you got a mic?
And then it just comes to me in my thought, which is that he says soon after he's going to say such sin, such sin.
But we know what sin brings, and sin brings death.
And nothing smells good about sinful things because that's dead, that's dead, death.
So I'm just saying is that if you're doing a sinful act, if you practice a sinful act, you are actually letting in to a point of death.
Okay?
I mean, that's the way I kind of look at that in the sense that if you're doing sinful things that is not pleasing to God, that brings death.
You know, the Bible said the consequences, you know, the wages of sin is death.
Now whether or not someone dies physically every time they sin, it may or may not always happen.
But something in their spiritual relation with God is going to die every time you sin.
Because if a sinful act produced immediate death, most of us wouldn't be here.
I didn't say immediately death.
I mean, it would bring death upon you.
Adam's sin brought that death upon us.
That's very true.
And because of his sin, death came into the world.
Right.
And so that consequence is going to happen to all of us whether we live good or bad.
Everybody's going to die.
Well, unless you hear when Jesus comes back.
But if you're not here when Jesus comes back physically, we're going to all die.
That's just the natural order of things.
This body.
What else am I talking about?
Yeah.
This body.
Yeah.
This body is going to die.
The spirit is going to live and then eventually end up somewhere.
But the natural body, the physical body is going back to the dust from which it came.
And the reason that consequence is what you're saying is what Paul said in Romans, the wages of sin is death.
Well, when Adam sinned, death came into the world.
And so what we see here is that now when we get into this thing about sin and sexual,
he tells them, let none of these things exist among you.
So he started with sexual immorality.
You can list anything you want.
That's a broad category that I'm not going to try to go through and highlight every little thing that could be that.
But you can use your own imagination.
You know what it is.
Just by being brought up in the natural, our parents tried to tell us, don't do this until you get married.
Don't do that.
Don't go out there and do that because you're going to mess around and get somebody to pray.
Don't do that.
They knew that there was consequence for doing things outside of the will of God.
I'm going to ask you this question to the pastor.
I know that you said that we would die.
What does that mean then?
When we say when Jesus was crucified and you believe upon him,
and when he says, now death don't have no power on you, on us.
He's talking spiritual death.
I'm talking the physical part where God says you're going to return to the dust.
This body is going to return to the dust unless you're living when he comes back and be caught up with him.
But then the same thing here though, what I'm saying is that with sin, we're also talking about a spiritual death.
That's what I meant about when you say that.
Okay, well you didn't say that. I got you now.
You still don't understand.
We understand about the body because we're going to get a new body.
When Jesus comes, that's a new body.
But at the same time, it's that this simple thing that you do is a spiritual thing also to a point that death.
We're agreeing on that.
Ain't no disagreement on that at all.
We don't necessarily die physically every time we do something wrong.
But there's something that we lose in our spiritual relationship with God when we sin.
I can tell a lie right now, and unless God's going to strike me dead like he did out of Niles and Sapphira,
I'll probably still be standing right here.
But something on the inside of me is going to lose that relationship because now I'm walking in sin.
And he gave me a chance to repent when I error because he noted that it's possible, like Paul noted here,
because this is a process he noted that there's a possibility that before you die, you're going to error.
And so therefore, you have an opportunity to say,
okay, if you ever confess that he's faithful and just to forgive you of all your sins and unrighteousness.
But because we know he's going to forgive us, that is not permission for us to go out and practice something
and believe that we can keep going back and asking God to forgive us for the same thing.
Because there's a dip between error and something and practicing something.
But then is he, is this, is this warning in the sense of practicing immorality?
If you're practicing it?
But this is where I see it when he says, don't do these things.
That means to me, this is invisible, it's practicing that sinful walk.
No agreement, this is a good possibility.
The reason he had to write this to this church is because some of these things were being talked to him
and they were continuing to do them even after they had came into a relationship with Christ.
Because this is the church now, writing that he says now, and it's going to kind of clear itself up as we go down.
He says now look, let no sexual immorality, impurity or greed be among you.
Such sins have no place among God's people.
So there are certain things that just don't match up with us when it comes to being Christian.
There are certain things that we did before our relationship was established with Jesus Christ
and we go through that rebirth and giving our life to Christ and the Spirit of God coming into us
after we are coming into a relationship with him.
There are certain things that no longer supposed to match up with us
because last time we were talking about as you walking in the new man, the old man has to die.
And so now today we get it here, he's talking about how important it is for us as the new man
for us to walk in the light as opposed to walking in darkness.
And we're going to see here in a minute that light and darkness cannot coexist.
You're going to be either one or the other.
They don't occupy the same space at the same time.
And so that's a contrast he let us know that as Christians there are certain things
because we are God's children that shouldn't be able to occupy the same space with his spirit.
The spirit of God dwells in us.
Get a mic because online we want to make sure they can hear what you're saying.
When we sin, having the spirit of the Lord within us, whenever we sin, it's kind of like dormant.
You get dormant. It's not communicating together.
You cannot separate yourself from that spirit.
And I agree with you in a sense with your saying that if we know the God's spirit is in us
and we continue to do things that goes against what he represented in us.
Last week I think you talked about we can grieve the Holy Spirit.
The only reason he would be grieved in being in us is because we're doing something that makes him sorry.
And so when we get to that point, then the Bible does talk about whether or not he will stay in an unclean temple.
And so that's why it's important when we do error, we do make mistakes.
We can't take that for granted. We got to go back and get things right with God.
And he realized that we will error.
But again, like Herb said, like we said before, is the difference between error and practices.
When we practice something over and over and over, that is not error.
So now look at it. He says now, so he gets a little deeper and he starts dealing with other things.
He says now, let no greed be among you and all these things, no sin have no place among God's people.
Verse four, he says now look, obscene stories, foolish talk and coarse jokes.
These are not for you.
Wow. Obscene stories.
You know, you know when something is obscene, it normally got some type of overtone, then the most obscenity goes along with sexuality.
You know, sometimes when you're looking at a movie, it tells you that in the rating of that, you know, say there's going to be some obscenity in here, some nudity in here, something in there.
It lets you know that when things are obscene, in man's eyes, it may be okay, but in God's eyes, it's not.
So he says now obscene stories, then foolish talk, buffoonery, and then coarse jokes.
That coarse joke, when you look that up, that come back to, you know, being vulgar.
Because the context here, all these things he talked about, the things that we can do that can be sinful and God not be pleased because we are His children.
But God got a problem with us telling vulgar jokes, or listening to people tell jokes that are vulgar.
You got a problem.
Now, I'm not trying to tell you to regulate what you do. You got to let the Holy Spirit do that.
I do believe there's certain television programming that could be hazardous to your health, your spiritual health.
You just can't watch everything and let it get into your spirit over and over and over again.
Because what happens is as you watch that and get in your spirit, it will start coming out of you.
It will start saying some of the things that you see and hear over and over again.
Now, I don't, you know, I can't regulate what you watch, but that's what the Holy Spirit job is.
What is something that you won't watch, maybe something that somebody else will watch,
but I'm telling you, if you watch this stuff with too much nudity in it, you may be getting yourself in trouble.
It's good.
This is why the word tell us to die daily.
You know, when you die in the slash, you come alive in the spirit.
So when you have a relationship with God, your spirit that's in you, it'll guide you and it tells you, you know, not to do a certain thing
and not to hear or say certain things because you're dying daily in the spirit of God.
Paul did say that we have to crucify the flesh daily.
Because again, it is understood that this war that go on between us with the spirit and the flesh is going to go on forever.
And you got to win some battles every day because there's going to be opportunities for things to pop up in your life that could be sinful.
The problem is now, and we're going to see later, is that there are people out there, we don't all classify everything that God classifies as sin.
Sin.
Something that God classifies as sin, man called it pleasure.
As long as I ain't hurting nobody, I can do this, just me, it's for pleasure.
But if it goes against God's word, then there got to be something in you that say, even when I'm by myself, this pleasure is unacceptable to God.
Because whether I'm with you or by myself, I am still His job.
That make it into the sin.
He said now look, these are not for you.
Instead, let there be thanksfulness to God.
Another one says, hey look, instead of having all this go on amongst you in the church, look, we need to be spending time showing thanks to God.
Thanking Him for what He has done and for what He's doing in our life.
Giving Him thanks as much as possible for what He's done in our life.
And give thanks to others and continue to build each other up and be thankful for one another instead of being caught up in sin with one another.
So He said, let us be thankful. Now look at it, he's now looking, verse five, he's saying, look, you can be sure, you can be sure that no immoral, impure, or greedy person will inherit the kingdom of Christ and of God.
Tie both of them together to show that one is there.
He says now, you can be sure.
Now obviously, you kind of got to, he used that word inherit.
Inherit leads me to believe that there's something that is stored up for you, that you're supposed to inherit.
And he's saying, you can be sure that if you're practicing immoral thing, impure thing, and you're a greedy person, no one in that category will inherit the kingdom of Christ and of God.
Now he's going to tell us a little bit more why he didn't hear the man, but let me ask you this.
Let's play this out in the natural. And most of us got kids, and if you're smart, you got a will.
And in your will, outlines your inheritance, what you want your children to inherit.
Now, all of us probably different, depending on what you got, how you got it, what it meant to you.
Is there a line that when your children get to that line, you can say, hey, look here, I was going to leave you this.
But because of the way you've been acting, because of what you've been doing, I'm going to make a decision to not leave that to you.
Y'all don't think folks do that?
Is it right or wrong?
Some people say, are you going to reward a disobedient child who's been disobedient all of the time?
And then all of a sudden, you got other kids who've been obedient doing everything right.
You're going to give him just as much as you give that one. That's up to you. It's yours.
That's why it's called an inheritance.
But I'm saying, God is saying, regardless of what we say, he's going to look at his children and based upon how they've been acting, it's going to impact their inheritance.
That's right.
Well, let me just read this again, Brother Herb. I know you're agreeing with this.
I can see the smile on your face.
He says, let me just read it.
Then you got a comment against it, then argue with the scripture.
Look at this. You can be sure that no immoral, impure, or greedy person will inherit the kingdom of Christ and of God.
For a greedy person is an idolator worshipping the things of this world.
So if you're worshipping the things of this world, that means the things of this world become your God.
That's why he called them idolators.
And why would God leave an inheritance for someone that worships?
Go ahead, Brother Herb.
It's different. The only thing that was just so many when Jesus was giving a parable about the product of Son.
That's all.
But what did the product of Son do?
He went off and did his thing.
But what did he do?
When he came to his senses.
But I'm just saying that he asked for his...
When you said that, Pastor, you gave him the scripture.
I'm just reading what the scripture says.
I'm just saying that's the only reason why I gave because the boy asked for his inheritance.
He came to his...
But I'm just saying the boy asked for his inheritance.
He repented.
But he asked for his inheritance first.
He didn't ask for nothing.
He said, give me what...
I ain't even worried about being a slave.
Treat me like a slave.
Before that, Pastor, before that.
What did he ask?
He said, give me my inheritance now.
And he squandered it.
So he asked for it.
That's the only reason I smiled.
And that's a whole completely different of a scenario.
That came to my mind when he asked for his inheritance first.
He went there, came to his senses.
Yes, he repented.
He rebelled.
Came to his senses, got ruined.
And the father came and back in.
And I'm just...
When you said, when we leave an inheritance on one...
But I'm just saying, this son asked for it earlier.
Different scenario to her is absolute oneness.
When you leave an inheritance, you die.
But he asked for his.
Let me finish.
When you leave an inheritance, you die.
It was rude to go and ask for your inheritance
before your father or your mother died.
He did. He did.
And the father, because of his goodness, gave it to him.
He can do that.
You can do that to your sons right now.
Or your children right now.
You can do that to my children.
If I got an inheritance from them,
and the one I'm saying, Dad, I want mine now.
I know what the will say.
I know you done broke this thing up in the thirds.
Give me my third now.
And if I feel like they can handle it,
I may say, okay, I'm going to peel it off to you right now.
But if you get out there and waste it,
I ain't going to take from your other two sisters
and give to you.
Now, that's my choice.
I could. I could be like the guy in the prep and say,
hey, two sisters, look here.
You know, baby sisters with out there and cut the food.
Now, you know what you're going to hit right bottom?
I'm going to take another third from y'all,
put back on her.
Now, they can have an issue with that,
but I got a right to do that if that's what I choose to do.
Just like God.
He got a right to forgive somebody I don't even agree with.
He got a right.
But right here, he's saying that, hey,
if you do these things, it's a possibility
you couldn't miss out on your inheritance.
Brother Willie.
You know, that's a true statement because I got to admit
that I have done this myself to my son.
You know, I give, but then when you ask for something,
you give it, but then when you don't do right,
you come right back and you take it away from them.
And then you go out and do something else for another child.
And then people say you're showing favoritism,
but you're not showing favoritism because what Pastor's saying right now
is that if you inherit, you're trying to show them the right road to walking
so that they will be blessed for the rest of their lives.
But wouldn't that be considered greedy?
Well, I mean, greed, I see greed if you already got it and you want more.
When you're in the pickpain, eating slop, you ain't got it.
That ain't greed.
Coming back to my sense, I know where my dad got at his house
and I'd rather go back and live at his house again than to stay in his hogpen
even if I got to be a servant in his house.
The thing was that the father was more loving than the older brother expected
because he could do that.
But I'm saying proud too.
Proud too when he asks for his inheritance.
Proud too?
You can look at that, you may be able to tie greed to that.
I can't say, I think what I would tie more to is disrespecting of his father.
It was kind of rude to say, hey, give me mine now and let me leave
because I don't like the way you're running things around the house.
I don't like the stuff that's going on, so look, just give me mine.
Because you could have gave it to him, he stayed there.
Obviously, he wasn't happy at home.
He felt like maybe the rules were too tight.
He felt like the rules too tight.
And you tell him, okay, two grown men can't live in this house.
The rules too tight now, one of us got to go.
I mean, that's what you can do as the father.
Now if he comes to his senses and comes back after he's been in the hogpen,
you can take him back in and your mom can love him just like you love the ones
that didn't go to the hogpen.
But what we see here is that God is just trying to get us to see in this particular context
that the people who are practicing these things, he was trying to warn this church,
if you get into the practice of doing these things,
then there's a possibility you can jeopardize your inheritance.
So now look, because they were worshiping the things of this world,
that worshiping word that is important,
because now when the things of this world become a part of your worship,
then they're going to keep you from worshiping God.
And anything that's going to go before God, you know the Bible is true.
It's say God is a jealous God.
I mean, he gave Jesus for us, but he still didn't give Jesus for us
to go out there and worship something, another God.
Amen.
So now look at this, he said now in verse 6, he says,
don't be fooled by those who try to make excuses for these sins.
Hey look, there going to be some folks that say, well you know, ain't that wrong with it?
Ain't that wrong if you want a little bit more and more and more of this
and don't care about other folks to get it?
Ain't that wrong with this?
Ain't that wrong with this, you know, more living, you know, sex is pleasure.
God wants you to have pleasure, you want you to have leisure, you know.
Just like you work, you got to have some pleasure.
And the culture that we live in glorify that.
See, we now, we talk from where we are now versus where we were.
Some of y'all glorify that too, before you got saved.
That's why you tell me, I ain't doing it no more than next week.
Next weekend.
Go ahead.
A lot of times, when you say why save, you say, I don't feel like that exactly is the truth.
You can baptize and doing God, living for God, and then you find yourself in a different situation doing things that you're not supposed to.
And God forbid died while you're doing these things.
Okay, you go to heaven while you're sending.
I got to make sure I'm understanding what your question is, what the point you're trying to make.
My question is, okay, let me say, when you're saved, when you're saved, you are saved for good.
That you can't lose your inheritance, like you said.
Well, now let me, let me stop right there.
Now, there's two camps on that thought.
That's why I say that.
One can't believe, one's saved, always saved, no matter what you do.
There's another camp to believe, you can turn your back on God and renounce Him and you can lose something.
Now, I don't know what camp you may fall in, but some say that a person that do that never really had the relationship with God, because if he did, he wouldn't fall away.
Okay, thanks.
But the Bible in Hebrew does say, if you don't taste his goodness and turn your way away from it, it's going to be hard to come back.
Yes.
Back to it.
So I won't get into that debate of once saved, always saved, or can you lose your salvation.
Because this topic is not about them losing their salvation.
This is about trying to help them to live right and then determine whether or not that inheritance is going to be their form.
Because you can be saved, I do believe, and then still, when you get to heaven, not get the rewards that you think you're going to get.
Paul kind of talks about that when we talk to Timothy, you know, and if there's going to be crowns of blessing that's connected to us when we get to heaven, not just getting into heaven.
And Hebrews talk about when you go in, you want to go in a way with so much glory that you represent and praise when you're going to heaven versus just barely getting in.
So all the arguments that theologians go back and forth on for me personally, now that I know who Jesus is, I will say for myself, I'm saved forever.
Because I'm not going to do anything that's going to cost me to lose my salvation.
And the one thing that he said, because everything else is forgivable, but he said, if you blaspheme the Holy Spirit, you know, it's going to be hard for you.
So even when I was the biggest fool in the world, I didn't have enough sense to go out there and blaspheme the God Spirit.
So now that I know that, I won't do that. But I'm not saying that I won't ever sin again.
But I'm saying that if I do, then I know I got a way back to him. One sin is not going to keep me from entering into God's kingdom.
It's because I'm looking at verse four. It's not where we are.
No, we were down in verse six.
Yeah, but I'm just making a reference.
Okay.
You know, so this is known that homo-mongers are not unqueen person, not a religious man who is in idolatry, in every sense. That means they would lose.
I don't think inheritance, in terms of talking about something that you get, I think it's something that you don't enter.
You don't get. So he says, he says now, don't be fooled. He says, look, a greedy person will not inherit the kingdom.
Because he, in this passage, you're right, he's equating that to saying that if you have, in essence, you've gotten to the point where God is no longer your God.
Because he is tying that to being an idolator.
To the point that you're saying, hey, I have renounced God, I'm going to turn my back on him. If you do that, then you're no longer saying that you're a child of God. You are renouncing God.
I don't think most people who are saved, even though they may be doing some crazy things, I don't think they wake up in the morning and say, I no longer want to be a child of God. I don't believe in God.
I just don't think they wake up. Now, if some people do that, I don't know. But here's what he said. He said, now look, once you get to this day, you're not just a casual person making a mistake.
He said, you become an idolator. Worship in. Well, you can't worship God in mamma. You can't worship God in the things in this world.
So if you start worshiping something else, then you have changed your allegiance from one God to another. Worship in.
That's a big step for even a person who may not be the most holy Christian, most people, even though they're in the church trying to live right, they don't go out and start worshiping something other than God.
Now, I say most, maybe not all, some people may, but I don't believe most people, when they come into their relationship with Jesus and they learn and they grow, that they will knowing they just go out and start worshiping.
That would be almost like to me all of a sudden, I wake up and say, man, I'm saved, but I really want to understand, you know, what this devil worships about.
I want to go over here and learn about the pentagram and I want to learn about this and what they do. I want to do some of these prayers and chants they're doing.
Well, I think God's going to have a problem with that. I don't win now and team up with his arch enemy. I don't think he's going to be pleased with that.
But I don't think that most of us is crazy enough to go to that far to do something like, unless someone is cunning enough and crafty enough to pull us away from the truth to go and start worshiping the lie.
So, brother?
One thing I would say is that, you know, two things I would say that don't you think God would know your heart, what true repentance and believing on him?
Well, the Bible said that God know the heart. Who can know the heart of man, but God.
And so therefore, I can judge your heart. All I can look at is your action.
Correct.
And do you think a good heart that love God would take you over here and sit down and worship Satan?
I'm just asking.
I would think that God would know your heart when you true to repentance.
That's true. That's the difference. But I'm just saying now you're given if a good heart of her came over here and sit down and worship the devil.
Is that a good heart? Do you think God believe your heart could be where you are?
I don't think you, since he knows all things and he knows your heart, I truly don't believe that he will, that you will turn your heart, that your heart will be turned away.
You make him a point.
That's what I'm saying. I don't think.
If you are truly his child, like we go back to the beginning of this, then I don't believe no true child of yours would truly turn away from you.
It would take something really, really, really strong to pull a child away from there.
That's the point I'm trying to establish, because Jesus said, I can't accept you. If your father sent you to me, he won't sense someone that deceiving heart.
Amen. And that could be true in some cases, but apparently in this church, there were some people that may have been confused, because he tell them here, don't be fooled by those who try to excuse these sins, for the anger of God will fall on all who disobey him.
So God can't get upset. What that looks like, how he carried that out, what may be the consequences, I don't want to find out.
But the Bible said God got to protect him. He couldn't get upset.
Now, how long do you go before you spank Lil' Johnny?
I mean, you got a limit. Most of them in the old days, on the young days, in time and all this, they may not do spanking no more.
They may reason, they sit down and talk and communicate. But how long will you communicate with Lil' Johnny before you get your communication stronger and firmer, and you start, if you ain't gonna spank him, you start taking some stuff away from him?
So I'm saying, God must have a limit that he will go to before we cross that line, so now God is angry at us. He no longer, you know, just, okay, understanding. Now, I'm upset.
You know, some of the priests of sermon, a long years ago, back in the 17th and 1800s, you know, you don't want to fall into the hands of an angered God.
So for the anger of God, will fall on whom will disobey him. Did he come back and tell us another don't?
Don't participate in these things, these things to be even listed up there. These people do. Most of the time we get caught up when we start doing things that we see other people do that may not be saved.
When we still allow people outside the body of Christ to influence us. But sometimes we can be influenced by people in the church who ain't living nothing.
Because he's talking about, you know, these were false beliefs of other people that were intertwined with them in the church.
So they say, don't be fooled by them, but at the same time, you know, you got to make sure that you don't participate in these things, in the things these people do.
You know, have no share of it. So there are some time when other Christians may not be where you are, they may go out and do something that you feel like, hey, I ain't going to have no share in that.
Now for you, it may be wrong or sinful, but for them it may not. So like for me, I tell people all the time, you know, alcohol is just not me.
And I don't mind being around people who drink alcohol, so I don't have no fear going around them, but I will not participate with them.
I don't care what the occasion is. Why? Because for me, God didn't tell me I don't need to do that.
And so I know He them spoke to my heart about doing that, and for me to do it to me, it would be a sin, but it may not be a sin for Brother Hurd.
Because Brother Hurd may work on the principle, as long as I don't get drunk, Pastor, you ain't got nothing to say.
Brother Hurd, be right. You're right, Brother Hurd. The sin is drunk in this. You're right, Brother Hurd. We just disagree. I just agree that I'm not going to drink. You're going to drink.
And if you don't cross that line, I ain't got nothing to say. But I may not want to be there with you and participate and be around you while you're doing it.
I got a choice to make.
So, Pastor, are you basically seeing a person need to establish a relationship with Christ for their sin?
Oh, yeah. Every individual. You know, it's an individual wall. We function as a body as a group, but our relationship with God is individual.
That's why we all grow at different rates. That's why we learn at different rates. That's why we respond with our spirit. Not the same.
Because everybody grows differently. That's like natural children. Natural children don't, even in the same families, don't grow the same way.
Don't learn everything exactly the same time, the same way. And don't act the same way, even though they're in the same family.
Some children mature quicker than others.
And so it's the same way in our walk with Christ. There are some people, regarding, I don't think of age when I used to wear maturity, think of growth.
Some people will mature in their relationship with Christ, even though they may not have been saved for two years.
I have a course.
Versus somebody who may have been in a church for 10 years. But they ain't putting in the work. They ain't trying to grow.
They ain't doing the things that leads to growth.
So your question?
So, just hypothetically, saying a speaking.
Okay.
If I were to be at a restaurant somewhere eating, and you so happened to come into the environment and say a restaurant, and I was drinking some wine, would you see me the same?
You know, 20 years ago, I probably would.
Because back then I was very dogmatic in my approach to say that anybody didn't do what I did.
You know, it had to be wrong.
Because I didn't drink nothing. And I had an issue with anybody who drunk anything.
Because I was just that hard on alcohol.
And so I'll never forget one day we were at the Olive Garden with some young people.
And this is a true story.
And while we were sitting there, you know, Olive Garden always asked you, would you like wine with your data?
Well, 80% of the people at the table looked right at me to see what I was going to say.
But there was one outlaw that hadn't been under me long.
They said, yeah, it's a wine.
And when he said that, everybody looked at him like, are you out your mind?
You don't order a glass of wine.
But at that time, you know, that was kind of where I was at.
But now I know that drunkenness is the sin.
So I really don't major on those things.
But if you cross that line, I ain't going to cut you no slack.
So are you saying that if we were to go out to dinner as a church group to Olive Garden,
and somebody got a drink of wine, you would have anything to tell about it?
I wouldn't have no problem with it.
If you sit down and drink the whole bottle, though, and then somebody got to assist you to your car,
then yeah, I'm going to have a problem with that.
I'm going to have a problem with that.
You know, another true story.
When we used to have our anniversary, we'd go out and have a big thing.
Some people who drank wine said, Pastor, we want wine on the table at anniversary.
Ain't no sin against that.
But I've always said no.
I'll probably still say no to that.
Because when I allowed a church to have an anniversary, and we put it on the table, look, I'm enabling you now.
And I don't want to look like I'm enabling you.
But if you're going to, you paying for your own meal, you want a glass of wine, you go and do your thing.
So I understand, and you got to understand, when we're dealing with people, there are Christians who drink,
not just wine, but drink strong drink.
Amen.
So the sin, I wouldn't encourage that, and I would hope that everybody that hung around me wouldn't do that.
But if they did, and they get drunk, I couldn't hold out against them.
Because I understand where that line is, but I'm not afraid to call.
See, what happens is, the church get afraid to call sin.
You can call things sinful without calling out the person.
I can stand here and say, hey, drunkenness is a sin.
The Bible just said, fornication is a sin.
But I ain't calling out no name.
But if the fornicator is here to me, he getting tight right now.
He is, he could squirm it.
Well, why he got to go?
I ain't called your name.
I just called out the sin.
He trying to judge me.
Now I don't even know who you are.
I'm just saying God says, fornication is a sin.
That's it.
Let me read on that.
Yeah, we have a, he said, now look, he says, but now look, brother Herb just in you all, he said, now look, this is where we were.
He says, for once you were full of dog, because how many of you know we was all there?
Before you got saved, you didn't know it because we were doing stuff in the dog and we thought that was good.
The stuff that we did in the dog, we didn't think that was really evil or simple because we kept doing it until somebody told us, hey, that's a better life.
And so we had to be told because, hey man, I didn't see nothing wrong with going out and, you know, having to listen to sex at 16 and 17 because all my friends were doing it.
And no one challenged me on that, not even the older men now lie.
So therefore coming out, that wouldn't look that it's no crossing, you cursed, hey man, oh, go song.
And so when you come up with that misguided teaching and you run up on this in the Bible, then now you won't try to justify what we were doing that was wrong.
It says, hey man, we just ignorant.
We got to admit we was in darkness.
And we came out of darkness into the,
so he said, now look, this is all of us.
He says, but once you were full of darkness, but now, somebody said, but now, but now you have light from the Lord.
So now he says, live in the light.
So as people of light live in the light.
So therefore now that we're in Christ and His light is in us, we're supposed to live like people of light.
And therefore as people of light, we're not supposed to flick on and flick off.
Meaning that even now when we go into the midst of darkness, the light is still supposed to stay on.
Now I just came back from a wedding celebration.
And in Champagne we're flowing like I don't know what, because it's natural.
There ain't got no problem with that. As long as none of the folks I knew got drunk, I ain't get drunk from it.
I ain't see it. There ain't no problem with that.
But while the champagne was flowing, I was just let watching them soak it up.
Because my light was still shining.
I could have said, man, I'm over here in a foreign country on Isle and there ain't nobody from Stroud-Madeefolk
that's supposed to have some kid to me and some know me. I could go ahead and just have me a little sip right now.
And so it wasn't nothing simple about it, but for me, my light said I can't do that.
You may feel like you can, but my light said I can't.
And so for me it would have been simple for me and God to have this relationship.
When I say I have been delivered from alcohol, I have been delivered from alcohol for all occasions.
There is no occasion that caused me to want to have a drink.
But now for you, ain't that wrong with that? Because I can find a celebration in the Bible.
Jesus first miracle at a celebration.
So don't hate on me because my light is shining. You just keep on drinking.
But if you get drunk, I'm going to have something to say about it.
Because if I don't, then now it's looking like I'm endorsing your behavior.
Oh boy, that's what Paul was trying to give him to see here. He says, look, for you were once full of darkness,
but now you have light from the Lord. So live, conduct yourself as people like.
And then in verse 9, for this light within you produce only what is good, right, and true.
When we get saved and the light come in us, it's supposed to produce good in us versus evil,
right versus wrong, and truth versus lie.
The good when you get saved is supposed to produce these things in us.
But if we don't allow the spirit to work in us, it won't produce those things.
So you'll be saved and still lie. You'll be saved and still living wrong.
You'll be saved and still doing evil.
Because you're practicing what you came to the Lord with, and you don't allow the Holy Spirit to move on your heart,
to change you and transform you from that darkness to light.
He's saying now look, so carefully, somebody say carefully.
So this is each one of y'all. You gotta carefully determine for you what pleases the Lord.
I know for me drinking alcohol don't please Him. I've carefully determined that.
I know for me gambling don't please Him. I've carefully determined that.
Even though if I wanted to go back, I can justify to say, but it ain't sinful.
I pay my tithe. I pay my bills on tithe. It's recreation. It's relaxing.
The pool of thoughts. Ching-ching.
Ching-ching. I feel so good every time I scratch them off.
It's just a good feeling because I scratch with anticipation.
This next one just give me a rush. It could be the...
But for somebody else, that may be okay.
But for me, that would be going back to darkness.
So I ain't got no problem if you got scratched off in your pocket right now.
I mean, is that what you want to do? Do you?
But if you ain't paying your rent and your card notes and taking care of your family
and you got a pocket full of scratch off, then I think God got a problem with you.
So now look... He said, now look, boy, I tell you, that's why I say this is easy.
This is practical. So you gotta carefully determine for you what pleases the Lord.
Then He says, verse 11, take no part in worthless deeds of evil and darkness.
Instead, ex... This is where Christians get afraid right now.
You don't have to go out and call Brother Herb this or that.
You just need to stand up in front of people and tell them what the words say.
I ain't gotta say, Brother Herb is a drunk.
This person is drunk? I don't know.
I just need to say the Bible. Say, Drunkin' it is a...
And the Holy Spirit gonna ex... Expose that.
And if they are child of God, it's gonna convict them.
Especially if they know if the Spirit say it is sin.
But a lot of times Christians, we go around other people and so to win their approval, we turn off the light.
When you're sitting in a conversation and somebody talking about something that you know is against the Word of God,
you gotta stand and say, hey, that ain't right.
Based on God's word, that is wrong.
And when you do that, then now you are not aiding them with your sorrow.
When people say things and do things in front of you that you know is wrong and you don't say nothing,
it's almost like you endorsing what they do.
I know it's hard sometimes because we don't want to be accused of judging folks.
You ain't judging them, you're just saying what the Bible say.
I can say right now, hey, Drunkin' it is a sin. That's a true statement.
And if you're not a drunk, that just went right over your head.
You ain't talking to me? But if you're a drunk, why you gotta be picking on me?
I ain't picking on you. I just said that's living in darkness.
And you supposed to be a child of life.
He said, now look, take no part in these worthless deeds of evil and darkness that are exposed to him.
He said, look, man, but he hit us hard right here.
It is shameful even to talk about the things that ungodly people do in secret.
You know we shouldn't be going and getting them tabloids.
You know, out of Walmart, the grocery store, you can get them there and see who did this last week.
Oh, you just get into that. I just want to see who pushed the movement start and had sex outside of Mary.
Who fit in to get divorced?
He's saying, look, man, we shouldn't get no pleasure in reading stuff like that.
Let me start a final.
He used to wear a shaeful, a painful feeling of humiliation or distress caused by your conscious of something that you think is wrong or foolish.
You look at them, pick a read that man, you say, oh, man, my kind of man, that is so foolish.
Such and such finna get married for the seventh time.
That is so.
I ain't even buying that. I don't even want to read the story.
I just want to see what it's like. No, you're going to get trapped.
Because you're going to get into the gossip and not read another folk's life. Leave it up.
I'm just for being. You got to determine what is shameful for you.
That's a bone time. I ain't trying to stop you from getting your tabloids on the way out of Walmart.
Wherever you shop them by your grocery. You may even get them in the mail.
You don't have to do that. Now you just go online and find them.
Just Google.
Serious, whoever. That's the only lady's gospel, folks.
Why are we Christians so interested in what ungodly folk do?
That's the question we got to ask ourselves.
Stuff that they do is secret.
It ain't like they're doing it out in the open. We're trying to find out what they're doing in...
That's why I laugh when I got this far today.
But their evil intentions will be exposed when the light shines on them for the light makes everything visible.
That is why it is said. Now this is not a direct quote from a script.
There are several parts.
Awake, O sleeper, rise from the dead.
When we were considered in the world living in darkness, we were considered sleep and spiritually dead.
So it said, now that we have been enlightened, that we are to awake, rise from the dead, and Christ will give you light.
When we come into the knowledge of who he is and what he has done for us and we understand God's word, that enlightenment, our mind get illuminated.
That's what enlightenment means. We get an understanding. We get a knowledge of God.
And as we get a knowledge of him in the light, it should cause us not to want to live in darkness.
When I know what I believe is truth based on God's word, I shouldn't want to go back and live the lie.
Now look at this.
Then he says in verse 15, he started talking about how important it is for us to live by the power of the Spirit.
He says, look, so be careful.
Somebody said be careful.
Man, he telling church folk, you got to be cautious and avoid missteps.
Because if you're not careful, you can have a misstep.
See if I had not been careful down there in St. Lucia, I could have had a misstep.
I mean, because there was leftover champagne, they wanted to go away.
I could have had a... I'm just trying to help them keep them pointed out.
I could have had a misstep.
Ain't nobody out here, Kisha ain't going to tell on me, Catties ain't going to tell on me.
Because they drinking something.
They ain't going to tell on me.
And they ain't going to tell if they ain't okay, it's okay.
Then all of a sudden now, somebody got nothing out of their Facebook page.
That's how I pressed her.
He done had a misstep.
He done went down there and had a...
Now for anybody else, that wouldn't be a misstep.
If you don't get drunk and you do that.
But for me, it is.
Because I'm not convinced that God told me not to do it anymore.
And he may not have told you that.
So for me, I got to be careful because that would be a misstep.
It would be like someone who's been dealing with alcoholism.
They can't afford to have a...
A misstep.
Because that's what the devil want us to do, is to have a misstep.
He says now, so be careful how you live.
Don't live like fools, but like those who are wise.
Make the most of every opportunity in these evil days.
So in other words, they don't live like fools, but like those who are wise.
Because if we want wisdom, we can get it from above.
Then he says, now because we're in a light for the herd,
we're supposed to make the most of every opportunity that we get in these evil days.
I mean, you know, we're living in the evil days.
These days, they're back there with evil. They're still evil.
Ain't nothing changed.
He writing this letter to the church.
You know, sexual sins were back there all the way back in the beginning.
Sexual sins run all the way through the Bible.
All the way through the Bible.
And it runs all the way through 2023.
Not just in the world, but in the...
Man, sex ain't off the limit, Carl. You don't care if you're doing this, do you?
It's still in the...
So if you don't address it, then folk will think, hey, they don't care about certain things.
But the Bible, you got to read the Bible.
You could have skipped this chapter.
Let's go on to the one and jump on marriage.
Now, we just talked about the marriage folk. Let's just deal with this.
No, but before he got to the marriage folk, he had to deal with the whole church.
He said, now, if we are doing those things in darkness,
then we're going to miss some opportunities to witness to some people.
Because what it does is hinder our witness when you try to go and tell somebody about the Lord,
and then they're going to play your life, play you back to you.
Wait a minute.
I saw a few doing when he was over there, and you did go past the limit.
Somebody had to drive you home.
Now, you need to go home and repair.
You're not going to see the sin unto death, but it is a sin, and you can't just blow it off.
That's why if we say the Lord's prayer every day and sincerely mean it, he covers that.
Because he knows daily that the potential for us to do something sinful,
not just alcohol, could be anything that God considers sin.
So he says, now, I'm looking for 17. I'm going to stop at verse 20.
He says, don't act thoughtlessly.
In other words, don't be foolish, but understand what God, what the Lord wants you to do.
You got to understand for yourself what the Lord wants you to do.
And once you understand that, you got to do it.
And don't compare what the Lord wants you to do with what somebody else is doing.
Just like I said, I could have even compared myself to other people who gamble,
other people who drink alcohol and all that, because I can say, hey, it ain't a sin.
Jesus turned water into wine. They cash lots in the Bible to decide certain things.
Ain't that wrong with gambling? If you want to gamble, go out there and gamble.
It's not a sin. Go play bingo and try to win.
It's a game of chance.
Ain't that wrong with it? You don't pay to rent. You don't pay to tie.
You're too old to take care. This is your recreational money.
Pastor Bowden chooses to go see the New Orleans Pelican play with his $75.
You choose to go put it on some slot. Same $75.
I get you out of watching the game. You get you out of ching ching.
Just make you feel good. And the quarter still I fall in.
But if your house know they pay, or your children ain't got what they need, then you got a problem.
And that's the only thing that with certain things that is not necessarily sinful,
they can't become sin to us when we become addicted to it and it becomes our God.
Now, I can't pass by a gas station. I'm always feeling lucky.
Don't even need no gas. Let me just run here and see if I can get me a scratch off.
I'm 10 minutes late from my doctor's appointment, but there's a gas station over there.
You got a problem.
Your behavior now has become addictive and you're addicted to something that could become your God.
So now look here. Let me go and finish this up.
So we got to not act, don't act thoughtlessly.
He said, now look, come back this wine again.
Back then wine was the drink of the day.
We can put crown in there now. We can put seagrown there.
We can put vassiae. We can put whatever type of wine you drink in the day.
For some folk now, we may have to put some pills there.
Anything that's going to cause your mind to get out of place.
Too much weed will mess with your head and it could be legal somewhere,
but it may not be legal for you.
You ain't got got a coma.
Ain't got nothing wrong with you. No doctor prescribed it for you.
Now if you just wanted for recreation, I got a feeling I may have a hard time
calling this sin if they don't make it legal.
If they don't make it legal, because alcohol used to be looked at as a sin,
but they made it.
But I do have a right to say, hey, your pupas don't got so big that you can't see nothing.
You don't have too much.
You don't cross the line.
Now you borderline, you may be stepping over into something that's sinful behavior now.
And the law's going to catch up.
The law just ain't caught up with it yet.
Trust me, they're out there trying to measure how much ever you can take
before they consider you legally intoxicated with it.
Get a mic real quick, let me finish this up. I got eight minutes.
You're a pharmacist too, right?
Technician.
Technician, okay. Well, you know enough about drugs to know which one can do something to you.
I was going to say that smoking as well is a setup for the government to pull you over,
even if you're not doing anything and decide that they smell something and then you need to check your car.
You don't necessarily have to be intoxicated.
Yeah, they'll ask to pull you over to a tail light just to check your car.
Yeah, so you see, it's dangerous anywhere you look at it.
Especially if you're Christian and it's illegal.
Now you in the state, I think in Florida it's still illegal.
Okay, one day it's probably going to be legal here in Florida. Right now it's illegal.
So you're a Christian and you know it's illegal, you're not supposed to break the law.
Unless you got a doctor's prescription that tells you you can do that.
Even though it's recreational, it's illegal.
Amen? Can I get amen from everybody now?
We agree.
In Florida weed is illegal, isn't it?
Huh?
Did they don't legalize weed in Florida?
Oh, okay, I didn't know that. Well, I stand corrected.
Oh, for medicine. Yeah, okay, I got that. Yeah, I figured that.
Yeah, not for recreation. You just can't go out there and you don't get you about four or five of them.
From the street corner drugs, you know what I mean?
You got on the car and now you can't do that. Okay, now look what he tells us we need to do.
He says now, since we can't be drunk with wine, because it will ruin your life.
Well, not only wine will ruin your life, a lot of stuff will ruin your life.
Instead be filled, he contrast being drunk with wine with being filled with the Holy Spirit.
Because you can have a joy that will last much longer and won't have no hangover to go with it.
You can wake up in the morning with the Holy Spirit and you ain't got to be figured out where,
the room ain't going to be spinning around on you, you know,
and you trying to figure out how do I get to work there, because I feel sorry.
You can just be drunk in the Spirit and the Lord ain't got no problem with you being drunk in the Spirit.
You just come to church and get your drunk on every time you come in on Sunday.
Hey, I come to get drunk today, you know, I'm going to get lit right here.
So he encouraged you that, brother.
He encouraged you that?
He encouraged us to drink this Holy Spirit, 100 proof of Him, all of them.
Drink Him.
Be filled with Him.
And this fellow here has told my something that can happen to continue.
This is not talking about when we got baptized, got saved in the Holy Spirit.
This is talking about an experience that you can have over and over and over and over again.
And so he said, look, man, when you do that and come to church, you worship,
you ought to want to be filled with something when you come to church.
And when you get filled, you start singing the right thing.
You sing songs and hymns and spiritual songs among yourselves,
making music to the Lord in your heart.
Songs come from the books of songs.
They used to sing those things.
Hymns came about later because after the song, people started writing hymns.
Hymns were designed to be devotional.
And normally people wrote about their experiences and turned them into hymns that can be used to glorify God.
Amazing grace is about an experience.
A guy who was a slave trader.
All of a sudden one day found out who Jesus was, came into the light and said,
he thanked God for his amazing grace for saving a wretch like him.
He was just talking about how bad he was.
And a lot of these entertainers now, when you listen to their music,
they're just writing about their life, most of them.
They're telling their life story in music and song because people can't remember that.
And so he said, we should be doing the same thing in the church,
telling stories from God's Word in music and song so people can remember it.
Music can be used as an educational tool in the church.
He said, now make your music in your heart.
Your heart got to be in this thing, not just your lips.
When your heart is in it, then that's when that joy comes, when your heart is in it.
Then he says, when you're making this music, give thanks for everything to God,
the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.
So when you do that and we give thanks, then others are going to be blessed by that experience.
So he's telling them, hey, you can have all these things going,
but man at the end of the day, you've got to have the Holy Spirit.
You've got to get filled with the Spirit.
You've got to live and walk in a cause with the Spirit
because all the time you ain't going to have your Bible with you all the time,
but you ought to have the Spirit of God with you all the time.
All done, get in all the hand club of praise, hallelujah, hallelujah.