SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 6/2/2019 8:53 PM
My Worship Time Focus:
PT-2 “The Punishment”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Ephesians
5:5-7
Message of the verses: “5 For this you
know with certainty, that no immoral or impure person or covetous man, who is
an idolater, has an inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God. 6 Let no one
deceive you with empty words, for because of these things the wrath of God
comes upon the sons of disobedience. 7 Therefore do not be partakers with
them.”
I
want to fist of all quote a verse from Revelation 21 that we looked at in our
Sunday school lesson today, and I believe it goes well with verse five: “"But for the cowardly and unbelieving
and abominable and murderers and immoral persons and sorcerers and idolaters
and all liars, their part will be in the lake that burns with fire and
brimstone, which is the second death” (Rev. 21:8).
We
have been talking about this list that Paul has in verse five and this is
surely not the only list given in the Word of God concerning different
sins. In 1 Corinthians 6:9-10 we read “9 Or do
you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived;
neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor
homosexuals, 10 nor thieves, nor the covetous, nor drunkards, nor
revilers, nor swindlers, will inherit the kingdom of God.” Paul then goes on to say “11 Such were some
of you; but you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in
the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God.” We have three lists of sins and the key to
all of these lists is what Paul writes in verse 11 as he states that “such were some of you.” He is talking about the Corinthian believers
who followed some of these sins habitually before they were saved, and that is
another key which is habitually. If we
see someone who has stated that they are a believer, but then we see him or her
habitually commit sins then we have the obligation to confront them and ask
them about these sins and find out if they truly are saved. Just to let you know that Paul writes another
list found in Galatians 5:17-21.
Perhaps
you confront a person who is habitually committing one or more of these sins,
and you do it in a loving way. Well Paul
then writes “Let no one deceive you with empty words,” telling you that sin is
tolerable and that God will not exclude unrepentant sinners from His kingdom. These “empty words” that they give you are
full of error, and they are devoid of truth, and therefore they perhaps will
deceive you.
John
MacArthur writes “It is ‘because of these things,’ that is, because of the sins
listed here and the lies of ‘empty words’that‘ the wrath of God comes upon the
sons of disobedience.’ Such people are
called ‘sons of disobedience’ because it is their nature is to disobey and they
are ‘children of wrath’ (2:3; cf. 2 Thess. 1:8-10), the targets for God’s guns
of judgment.
“God’s
attitude toward perverted love and sexual sin is seen clearly in Numbers
25:1-9, where the Israelites had relations with Moabite women and God
slaughtered 24,000 of them. His attitude
toward sexual sin has not changed, and perverted love attracts God’s wrath like
a fully-lit city attracts enemy bombers.
“In
the final warning, Paul says, ‘Therefore do not be partakers with them.’ ‘Don’t join the world in its evil,’ he
says. ‘Don’t be partners with them in
wickedness. Be partners with Christ in righteousness. Don’t imitate the world, but rather be
imitators of God, as beloved children’ (v.1).”
This section ends the 15th
chapter in John MacArthur’s commentary, the one that we are mostly following as
we make our way through Ephesians. Lord
willing we will begin to look at verses 5:8-14 which he entitles “Living in
Light” as we look at the introduction to these verses in our next SD.
Verse that goes with the quotation from
E. B. Bounds is from Proverbs 15:3: “The
eys of the Lord are in every place, keeping watch on the evil and the good.”
6/2/2019 9:20 PM
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