Proper Living with the Night Far Gone

Transcript

GRM 828
1/5/2003
Proper Living with the Night Far Gone
Romans 13:8-14
Gil Rugh

I John chapter 3, “See how great a love the Father has bestowed upon us that we should be called children of God, and such we are. For this reason, the world does not know us because it did not know Him. Beloved now we are children of God, and it has not appeared as yet what we shall be. We know that when He appears we shall be like Him because we shall see Him just as He is. Everyone who has this hope fixed on Him purifies himself just as He is pure.”

In our Sunday morning studies we’ve been looking at some matters relating to prophetic issues, the future that is set before us. Our next study I want to look at what the Bible says about heaven, a description that we have of our eternal residence in the very presence of God; and our consideration of future things is to help prepare us for what God has planned for us, and not just to give us a glimpse of the future. As John writes here it is to shape and dominate and control our lives as we live them day by day. Everyone who has this hope fixed on the coming of Christ, and some day seeing Him face to face and being like Him purifies their life. That hope, that anticipation, that knowledge of a glorious future event works to so shape our lives that we want to live holy and purely before Him. I think one of the reasons the church’s godly character, holiness, purity erodes and seems to continue to decline, to be more conformed to the world is we do lose our perspective. We become more absorbed in the world in which we live, more occupied with the things of this life. It’s compounded for us in our prosperous society, we who are privileged to live the good life and have so many earthly blessings to enjoy, that it seems sometimes our focus on the future gets blurred. When that happens then our priorities get twisted and we lose perspective. The result of that is we find an erosion of purity in the church as well.

Back up to Romans chapter 13. After the great doctrinal foundation laid through the first 11 chapters of Romans, Paul exhorted the Romans in light of these great doctrinal truths the gospel of Jesus Christ, God’s saving work in our hearts and lives. Then he exhorts us to present our bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God. That is the ministry God wants from us, that we are no longer our own, we have been bought with a price. Therefore, we are to glorify God in our bodies. We are to present these bodies to Him. We now are devoted to serving Him and honoring Him with our lives. From chapter 12 really to the end of the book he’s talking about godly living, the life and lifestyle of the people of God and those who have given their bodies over to the Lord. It’s the very practical everyday ordinary things of life. In fact, the first part of chapter 13 talked about our responsibility to human government. It never is God’s intention to save us and then have us remove ourselves from the world. There is a defiling characteristic about the world, but by the grace of God it is possible for us as the people of God to live in the world undefiled by the world, as we live under the control of the Spirit. We are to be lights in the midst of darkness, not lights who have removed themselves from the darkness to shine together, but lights in the midst of a dark world. Not amazed that the world is in darkness, because we know they need the light of the glory of the gospel of Jesus Christ to shine in their hearts so that they come to know the God who is light and then become part of the light themselves.

So, a very practical matter in how we submit to government. Our attitude toward secular rulers is a reflection of the work of God’s grace in our lives. That gets down to even basic matters like paying taxes. You get to the end of year and think I’m going to have to do my taxes. Well, verse 7 is a good verse on that, “render to all what is due them, tax to whom tax, custom to whom custom, fear to whom fear, honor to whom honor.” Paul picks up a word there and he reuses it in verse 8, and that forms his transition from talking about human government to our responsibility to one another. This will be in the context of the rapidly approaching completion of our salvation. He’s going to remind the Roman believers that in light of the fact we are moving toward glory in the presence of God as His people, we are to live our lives properly in this present world.

He says in verse 8, “owe nothing to anyone except to love one another.” In verse 7 when he said render to all what is due to them, well the word translated render is the same word translated owe in verse 8. There’s a connection here. We pay what is owed, fulfill our obligations. It’s that emphasis, fulfilling our obligations and responsibilities in the paying of our taxes and showing honor to governing authorities and so on. We are to be in debt to no one, we are not to be behind in our obligations. There is only one obligation that is ongoing in the life of the child of God, and that is the obligation to be loving them. I can never pay that in full. Now you never get to the point to say, you know, I’ve exhausted my love, run out of love. I am always in debt to others to show love to them. “Owe nothing to anyone except to love one another.” This verse is not talking about the issue of whether you are allowed to borrow money, those kinds of things. His concern is that we do pay our debts, fulfill our obligations, which means I do have to fulfill the obligation if I borrow money to pay it back according to the agreement I’ve entered into. But it’s much broader than that, because in verse 7 he talked about paying taxes. You have an obligation as a citizen under the Roman government to pay taxes to the Roman government. They use tax money for a lot of purposes that I would not be in agreement with as a believer, speaking from Paul’s day, but my responsibility is to fulfill the obligations I have as a citizen there. It would be for us today and so “fear to whom fear, honor to whom honor.”

He’s talked about obligations broadly and I’m not to have any of these obligations unfulfilled. I didn’t pay my taxes as I should, I didn’t show proper honor and respect to the governing authorities like I should. All of them should be up to date and current. But there is one obligation I am always running behind on, I always have the debt of love. I can never totally fulfill that debt. “Owe nothing to anyone except to love one another.” That’s an obligation of action here as he’s going to develop it, an obligation to fulfill in doing for others what is best for them.

He who loves his neighbor has fulfilled the law, has completed the obligation that he has. For this, he’s going to give an example from the law, from the Old Testament, “you shall not commit adultery, you shall not murder, you shall not steal, you shall not covet. If there’s any other commandment it’s summed up on this say, you shall love your neighbor as yourself.” He pulls out some of the commandments, four of the commandments, that relate to our personal relationships. He doesn’t try to be inclusive here in mentioning every commandment, he mentions examples. Then he says in the middle of verse 9, “if there’s any other commandment it’s fulfilled in your fulfilling your obligations in love as well.” Some of these that we would see diverse, you shall not commit adultery. Well, if you are showing love to your neighbor, you wouldn’t commit adultery because adultery is an act of selfishness, it’s not an act of love. It’s doing something to satisfy your own passion and selfish desire. You are not doing something for the good of another person. The same with you shall not steal. Why would I steal from someone? I’m not concerned for their good and their benefit, I’m looking to take something away from them for my benefit. The true Biblical love is acting for the good of someone else, giving of myself for their benefit.

You shall not covet. Again, all of these clearly can be fulfilled in what? Summed up, “you shall love your neighbor as yourself.” That’s a quote from Leviticus 19:18. The standard is the way you take care of yourself, the love you have for yourself. Self-love is presupposed in scripture. Paul wrote in Ephesians chapter 5 verse 29, “no one ever hated his own flesh.” We all love and care for ourselves. And so, we as Jesus said, do unto others as you would have them do unto you. We’re always looking out for ourselves and always thinking of what people could do for us, always thinking of how people could treat me nicer, how they could do things to make my life more comfortable, more enjoyable and on we go. We’re well aware of ourselves, we take care of ourselves. That’s just a simple truth. Will you love your neighbor as yourself? Not looking to fulfill my desires, but I’m looking to make their life better. Rather than wanting to steal from them or covet what they have, I’m looking for ways that they might have more, and so on. Be more blessed and that kind of idea.

Self-love is not something that has to be taught. That’s pandering to the flesh as you are well aware, though it keeps coming up and even Christians keep talking about it, self love and self esteem. In spite of the fact even the world does studies that show that the emphasis on self love and self esteem is damaging and counter productive, it doesn’t keep them from pushing that because we all want to be able to focus on ourselves. There is no one I love to talk about more than me, and nothing like a listening ear where I can just talk about me for endless amounts of time. We’re all focused on self and so what we want to do is love our neighbors as ourselves. We’re not talking about an emotion here, try to stir up emotions for your neighbor. We’re just talking about what you do, doing what is best for someone else. That’s love your neighbor as yourself.

Love does no wrong to a neighbor. Love is therefore the fulfillment of the law. You see love functions in the context of a standard of right and wrong. Love does no wrong to a neighbor, therefore love is the fulfillment of the law. Particularly talking about these personal relationship commands. If I make my personal feelings the criteria, then I could become very selfish because I can get pleasure and satisfaction out of doing things which are not helpful to someone else. If that becomes the standard, as the song, you light up my life, it can’t be wrong, it feels so right. Well how many homes and marriages and families have been torn apart because someone got involved in an immoral relationship and it just felt so good. But the fact it felt good did not make it right, it did not make it an act of love. Just admit I did something selfish, something with disregard for others because it gave me pleasure, satisfaction, enjoyment. Remember there is pleasure in sin, it’s just short lived, it’s just for a season and a time. Sin can be very pleasurable; immorality can be very pleasurable. Proverbs talk about bread eaten in secret is pleasant, stolen waters are sweet. There can be that added enjoyment that comes from the forbidden, as we would refer to it. But the standard is not how I feel, the standard is what is right. Love does no wrong to a neighbor, and so we are functioning out of love when we are doing what is best for them.

You are well aware of the love chapter. Just turn over to there, I’ll read you a few verses. Just after the book of Romans. Love is to be a dominating characteristic of a believer’s life in his relationship with others. Verse 4 of I Corinthians 13,” love is patient, love is kind, love is not jealous, love does not brag, love is not arrogant, love does not act unbecomingly, love does not seek its own, love is not provoked, love does not take into account a wrong suffered, love does not rejoice in unrighteousness, love rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, love believes all things, love hopes all things, love endures all things, love never fails.” What do we mean when we talk about love? There it is, very simple. We have reduced it to just an emotion and a feeling. I don’t love them anymore. Well start right now. I just can’t turn that on and off. The Bible commands me to love. I can’t control, I just don’t feel that way. I didn’t ask how you feel, I didn’t say I command you to feel this way. He says I command you to act this way, I command you to do this. We don’t fall in love and out of love. I’m not downplaying emotions; they are created by God and are part of our lives. That’s not what we’re talking about when we talk about Biblical love and our obligation to love one another. We can do it, and I can do it when I feel like it and I can do it when I don’t feel like it. Now it’s easier and more enjoyable when I feel like it, but it’s just as necessary and just as much required of God of me when I don’t feel like it. I don’t feel like being kind, I don’t feel like being patient. Well, so what? Is that an excuse? We don’t allow our children to do that. Why didn’t you treat your brother or sister kindly today? I didn’t feel like it. Oh okay, that explains it. Thank you. That justifies it. No, we don’t do that. But somehow, we think as believers, well I don’t feel like it. Well, what has that got to do with anything? That’s what we’re talking about with love.

Come back to Romans. Earlier in chapter 5 of Romans Paul had written, Romans chapter 5 verse 8, “But God demonstrates His own love toward us in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us.” That connection. God demonstrates His love, He did something. His Son died for us. He gave that which was most precious to Him for our benefit, not for anything He got out of it, not because we were so valuable. The great demonstration of love is that while we were yet sinners. Understand the Biblical doctrine of what it is to be a sinner, we were enemies of God, we were hostile toward God, we were under the condemnation of God. And on it goes, and in that kind of state of hostility and animosity God demonstrated His great love. He had His Son die for us. That’s what we’re talking about, doing what is good and best for the other person.

Back in Romans chapter 13 Paul is instructing believers to demonstrate this characteristic. It’s the character of God, it is the work that God produces in the lives of those whom He redeems. Remember the fruit of the Spirit is love, first item mentioned, love. In the love passage in I Corinthians 13, no matter what else you have if you don’t have love, you don’t have anything. This quality and characteristic is to characterize our lives as God’s people.

Paul continues and says, “and this do knowing the time.” Now he’s going to tie this to the fact that we are moving toward the culmination of salvation. It is already the hour for you to awaken from sleep for now salvation is nearer to us than when we believed. Recognizing we are part of the plan of God in salvation and that we are moving every day closer to the conclusion or culmination of that salvation, talking about salvation in its ultimate dimension which he talked about in Romans chapter 8 already, that time when we will be unveiled as the sons of God, that we will experience glorification. We do this fulfilling our obligation to love, being characterized by love in all we do in every situation, because we know the time; and there is a rebuke in this, that it is already the hour for you to awaken from sleep. You know some of these things are not new. The drowsiness of the church, the lethargy, the carelessness, the attitude of it’s okay, this is good enough, nobody’s perfect already infected the Roman church and Paul is still on the scene. He hasn’t even had a chance to visit them, and he has to tell them already the hour for you to awaken from sleep is here. Why? Now salvation is nearer to us than when we believed. There’s an urgency about it, we are to be alert, we are to be aware because the coming of the Lord draws nigh, the day when we will be ushered into His presence. I can’t live today and say look it’s all right, I can deal with that in the future. But we’re moving toward the coming of the Lord. If that were true when Paul wrote our salvation is nearer to us than when we believed, we are 2000 years closer to that event than even those that Paul wrote to. The point being there is no time to waste, and every day is valuable in this context.

Verse 12, “the night is almost gone, the day is at hand.” The picture here is this present period of time, this present age is the night. The people of this age are the children of darkness, believers are lights in the midst of the darkness. We as God’s people are those light in the darkness, but the darkness is almost gone. Night is almost over, it’s almost morning, the day is at hand when we’ll enter into the fullness of the glory that He has promised. “Let us lay aside the deeds of darkness and put on the armor of light.” Any of the activities associated with the darkness, and the things that were characteristic of the old life, he’s going to mention some of those in a moment, those things all ought to go. Let’s get serious about this, is what Paul is saying to the Romans. You know we want a Christianity that is comfortable for people, that will fit their lifestyle. Paul wants just the opposite, let’s clean things up, let’s get rid of the old baggage, the old things that perhaps we’ve tolerated. Some things we’ve carried over because we sort of did enjoy them. My life is pretty well cleaned up, but that doesn’t mean everything, but it’s pretty well cleaned up. Well pretty well cleaned up, Paul says, is not good enough. “Let’s lay aside the deeds of darkness and let’s put on the armor of light.” Interesting. He doesn’t say put on the works of light. Could have said that. Keep in mind this is a battle going on, so you put on the armor of light. The clothing for believers in this day and age is armor. You know we put on armor; we don’t put on our pajamas. Now I’m saved, I’m going to get comfortable. No, we put on our armor of light because the night is almost gone but we are still in the night. The whole world lies in the evil one, we are lights in the midst of darkness. We need to put on the armor of light.

Look over after Romans to II Corinthians chapter 6, II Corinthians chapter 6 verse 7. He’s talking about a similar kind of matter. He started out this chapter, II Corinthians chapter 6, today is the day of salvation. We are to be “giving no cause for offense in anything,” verse 3, “that the ministry be not discredited. But in everything commending ourselves as servants of God. In much endurance and afflictions, in hardships and distresses, in beatings, in imprisonments, in tumults, in labors, in sleeplessness and hunger, in purity and knowledge, patience, kindness in the Holy Spirit, in genuine love in the word of truth, in the power of God, by the weapons of righteousness for the right hand and the left.” You see for Paul, he saw it was a battle, and you read what he describes here and it’s an ongoing struggle, an ongoing conflict. We need to have the weapons of righteousness to characterize us.

Over in chapter 10 of II Corinthians verse 3, “though we walk in the flesh” we are still in this physical body, “we do not war according to the flesh. The weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh but divinely powerful for the destruction of fortresses.” You see he saw it as a spiritual battle going on, and we as believers need to have the armor of light, the armor of God. The fullest description of that, as you are aware, is in Ephesians chapter 6 verses 10 and following, where we’re told that “we do battle not against flesh and blood but against principalities and powers, against the spiritual forces of this darkness. That we put on the whole armor of God.”

Over in I Thessalonians chapter 5 verse 8, uses the same picture of night and darkness. Talks about the unbeliever functioning in the night, doing the things characteristic of the night. But verse 8 of I Thessalonians 5, “but since we are of the day let us be sober, having put on the breastplate,” and here we go with the armor, “the breastplate of faith and love, the helmet the hope of salvation. For God has not destined us for wrath, but for obtaining salvation. Now let’s encourage one another with these things,” he says. You see it’s that picture. Of course, we live in the midst of darkness, we live in the midst of the people of darkness, but we are of the light. We must have on the armor of light, the armor of God. We must be alert and aware and on guard. We must be careful that the things that would hinder us and distract us do not become attached to us. As Paul would write to Timothy that he is to “suffer hardship as a good soldier of Jesus Christ, and no soldier on active duty entangles himself in the affairs of this life in order that he may please Him who has called him to be a soldier.”

Now one of the things I think is difficult, turn back to Romans 13, one of the things I think is difficult, both with the passing of time for us as believers and the passing of time for us as a ministry is to maintain the fervor and zeal of those early days. Many of you have been believers for some time. If we were going to be honest, I think we would have to admit that it’s hard to maintain that same passion, that same consuming zeal that you had in those early days of ministry, those early days of our walk with the Lord. I mean those early years. Why is it that it seems that we’re burning hot and then it just seems like you just wind down, it’s hard to keep it going on that level. We have all kinds of reasons, all kinds of excuses, but we find ourselves stepping back a few steps, winding down. Some of it naturally comes with age, perhaps we don’t have the same energy levels and so on. But some of it just comes from just lose that edge of interest, that passion that this is more important than life itself, just isn’t as gripping and it’s harder. They’ve done studies in evaluating ministries. You know what they say about a ministry? Most of what is done in that ministry will be done in the first 15 years, after that it just sort of flattens out and is there. Why should that be? What we want to say for our children, most of what they’re going to do they’ll do in their first 15 years and the rest of it is just waiting. We say oh no I hope that’s not going to be. Well why do we think it will be pleasing to the Lord? That yes Lord we’re going to give you 15 good years, then I plan it will be all right for me to unwind, for me to be less passionate about my love for you, less zealous for my service for you, less consumed. No, that’s what Paul has. He knows how the flesh works; he knows how the devil works. Why does he have to write to churches and remind them of the necessity of living properly, of showing love? Why telling them this is essential, you’re moving closer to your salvation? That we look back and see what we’ve done and think it’s okay now to coast. No, it’s not where we’ve been, it’s where we’re going, and our salvation is nearer than when we first believed, that day when we will be called into the presence of the Lord and give an account, not just for the first 15 years, but for the last 15 years. The night is almost gone, the day is at hand. I wonder if people looked at our lives, individually and as a church, would they say you know there are people that live as though the Lord were coming. That’s what Paul says is to characterize us.

“Let us lay aside the deeds of darkness and put on the armor of light.” What does that mean? “Let us behave properly as in the day, as those who live in the light, not in carousing, drunkenness, sexual promiscuity, sensuality, strife and jealousy.” These are things that are characteristic of the night. When it happens to the church that you even have to say this should not be part in any way. Sexual promiscuity, everybody does it and the standard just breaks down. We’ve given up as a society, right? Even trying to set any standards of morality, we just want everybody to practice safe sex. That’s the only issue. Doesn’t matter, college, then we bump it down to high school, then we bump it down to junior high school. I mean, doesn’t matter, there’s no standard of morality and you live in the darkness. If we’ve got our pajamas on instead of our armor pretty soon, we just don’t want to fight it anymore. I just don’t want to fight it; I just don’t want to battle. I want a comfortable Christianity. You know in the evening when I’m ready to unwind I like to put on my pajamas. What a sight! Doesn’t matter, I’m comfortable. My old robe with the hole in the back and slippers that look like Donald Duck, that’s fine. Then I can prop up and read a book or whatever. You know I’m not ready for doing something except relaxing. You know if we’re that way spiritually we’re just looking for comfortable Christianity. Give me a Christianity that’s popular and accepted and then pretty soon what’s the next step? Well, we keep moving to become more like the world and so he has to write that “we not be involved in sexual promiscuity, sensuality, not in strife and jealousy.” He puts it all together, just like the works of the flesh in Galatians 5. Strife and jealousy on the same level as sexual promiscuity and sensuality? Yes. You know why? It’s all part of the flesh, and when you let the flesh in pretty soon you have every kind of evil work and it affects us, it affects us all. Reading some statistics over the holidays in talking about the statistics of divorce among professing believers versus statistics of divorce among non-professing people, people that don’t profess to be believers. You know there really is no difference. Why is that? Even allowing for the fact that some who profess to be believers aren’t, a lot of those who profess to be believers and give indication that that may well be true, I don’t like them anymore, we don’t have anything in common anymore. I’ve found somebody that I enjoy more, and I think I could serve the Lord better with them. You know we just lose our perspective.

All these things, we put off these things and that goes in our own strife and jealousy in our home. What’s home like? What’s my relationship with my wife like, my husband like? We put off these things and we put on the Lord Jesus Christ and make no provision for the flesh in regard to its lusts. This is a very simple but key verse, verse 14. Here’s God’s plan for the believer in dealing with the deeds of darkness, in dealing with sin. “Put on the Lord Jesus Christ.” In contrast to the behavior in verse 13, put on the character of Christ, the fruit of the Spirit rather than the works of the flesh would be another way to put it. Put on the Lord Jesus Christ. That’s the same thing as put on the armor of light at the end of verse 12. We’ve been crucified with Christ, he talked about that in Romans 6. We’ve been raised with Christ to newness of life, now we live that life out. Romans 8 tells us we have the Spirit dwelling within us, and we now walk by the Spirit and live according to the Spirit. Galatians 3:27 says that's what happened when we trusted Christ, “we put on the Lord Jesus Christ.” That is to be the continual, now, practice of my life. It’s like I was saved by faith, now I continue to live my life by faith. When I trusted Christ I put on Christ, and now that’s to be my daily pattern. His character is to characterize me.

I am to make no provision for the flesh in regard to its lusts. Very simple. Don’t provide any opportunities for sin. This is where people get into trouble. We make opportunity for sin and then we act like we’re amazed when we fall into that sin. Don’t make any provision for the flesh. Let me read you what someone else said, put into very simple English Paul is saying do not plan for sin, give it no welcome, offer it no opportunity, kick sin off your doorstep and you won’t have it in the house. Those people that get into trouble get into trouble why? What were you doing there? They got involved with someone other than their spouse. How does that happen? Well, you know we started spending a lot of time together. Wait a minute, wait a minute. What you’re saying is you made provision for this sin, it’s not surprising that you fall into it. Why do that? Just don’t make any provision for it so there’s no opportunity. That simplifies my life, and you know we play games with ourselves. We can all sit down and say what sin is the one that trips you up. This one. Then what kind of opportunities provide occasion for that? Well usually this. Well then, I can pretty well build hedges around where I can keep my distance from those sins which would entangle and entrap me. Make no provision for the flesh, that’s it.

You notice not just one or the other. I put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and I make no provision for the flesh. It’s not I put on the Lord Jesus Christ and now I’m invulnerable. I don’t have to worry about the flesh, I put on the Lord Jesus Christ. I can hang around the bar, I can go there, I can do this because I’m not worried that I’ll succumb. Well, you’re a fool, because the Word says you put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you make no provision for the flesh. The fact that someone else can do it doesn’t mean I can. If I’m tempted by alcohol I don’t want to be where there’ll be any opportunity for me to take a drink. The fact that somebody else isn’t tempted and it doesn’t bother them, and they can be around where it is, that’s nothing to me. I won’t be around it. I don’t social drink. One, I’d get fired. Two, I just don’t want to open that door up because I know there are days I’d get drunk. I’ve never drank alcohol and there are days I wish I could get drunk. It says give strong drink to him who is perishing and there are days I feel like this is it. So, where’s the drink? There are certain things I just want to avoid; I just don’t need to dabble in that. There are other things that I know if I got close to them, I would be more vulnerable to. I’m going to avoid those. If I have nothing to do with that area, I’m putting on the Lord Jesus Christ. I want to be everything He wants me to be, I want His character to be seen in every area of my life, and I don’t want to be put in situations where I will be vulnerable to those things that might attach themselves to me.

Simple. The Lord’s coming. Do you really believe that? Do I really believe that? Do we believe it as a church? We would be a church that preaches the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. Do we live like we believe it or are we like churches that we say have drifted, who have a doctrinal statement that says one thing, but they live over here. Are we a church that says oh we believe in the soon return of the Lord Jesus Christ? But it doesn’t really shape the way we live. We don’t want to drift like that. We don’t want to drift like that personally, we don’t want to drift like that as a church. We want to be living like the night is far gone and any moment the dawn breaks, the day comes, our salvation in its fullness arrives. I have to be done with everything associated with darkness. I am a living servant of the living God and His life is my life. The life which I live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God who loved me and gave Himself for me.

One final thing. Isn’t it liberating to know that? How is the church all mired down in all this foolishness about how to deal with sin and how to live a godly life. Received some material in the mail two days ago and it’s on how I can order all this stuff and it’s got I’ll bet three dozen Christian speakers, and this will be what you need for your family and your home and your husband/wife and on. I’m just thinking what has the Lord done, how is it different than the world? I put on the Lord Jesus Christ to make no provision for the flesh, and you know what? That will make me the kind of husband I ought to be, the kind of father I ought to be, the kind of worker I ought to be. That does it. Now the world doesn’t have that so it’s coming up with all ideas and you know what? We’ve ignored the scripture that the weapons of our warfare are not according to the flesh, not humanly devised, humanly provided. The church has abandoned the provision of God to go and take up the provisions of the flesh, the world, and thinks now they are so wise and the beauty of the simplicity. Very simply. God has set me free. When the Son sets you free you are free indeed. Now live accordingly.

Let’s pray together. Thank you, Lord, that we are living in the shadow of your soon return, that indeed our salvation is nearer than when we first believed, much, much nearer than when the Apostle Paul wrote these words. Lord, indeed, it may come at any time. Lord we would acknowledge that we are prone to laxness, to slowing up, to becoming somewhat indifferent, casual about our responsibilities and obligations. Lord, may we not grow weary in doing well. May we not grow tired of serving you. Lord, may we put on the armor of light, put off all associated with the darkness so that we might be faithful up until that very day when we break into the glorious light of your presence. May our testimony personally and as a church be according to the doctrine that we believe and teach. May we live in light of the soon return of the savior that we love and serve and in whose name we pray. Amen.