Abounding Grace

Guest (Male): Four things to look out for in your battle with the flesh, next on Abounding Grace.

It's good to be with you. Welcome again to Abounding Grace. We're about to resume our verse-by-verse study of Galatians with another look into chapter five. Today, Pastor Ed Taylor raises our awareness to three very real enemies and breaks down the works of the flesh into four identifiable categories. It will serve to help us rely on God's resources and grace rather than our own ability in this battle with the flesh.

Pastor Ed Taylor: Open your Bibles, Galatians chapter five is where we are. A little bit of a challenging Bible study today, but we need that from time to time. We're going to pick up where we left off in verse 19. The title of our Bible study is "The Works of the Flesh are Evident." We've learned that walking in the spirit will help us. Not only help us, but it will make it happen. When we walk in the spirit, we will not, we shall not, we won't fulfill the lust of the flesh. You and I, we can't be in the flesh and in the spirit at the same time.

And yet we have this battle that's ongoing to get us into the flesh. When we hear the word enemy as Christians, we almost always think of our arch-adversary. When we think of enemy, we think of enemy capital E, the devil. Indeed he is an enemy, and he is an arch-enemy. You'd be right. There is a battle ongoing in the spiritual realm between the devil and the demonic realm. He is a formidable foe, but he is not your only enemy. He is not your only enemy.

Probably not even your worst enemy. It's all too common for Christians to give the devil far too much credit. Far more credit than he deserves, blaming him for every evil. There was a joke that was passing around for a long time—it's still with us—where you do something and somebody goes, "Well, the devil made me do it." Can I just tell you, never say that again. Never say that again. The devil didn't make you do anything. It would be an easy thing to say, "The devil made me do it." No, when you say that, you refuse to take responsibility for your own choice. The devil didn't make you do anything. He might have tempted you, might have taunted you, but he didn't make you.

No, we actually have a threefold enemy. If you're taking notes, you should jot it down so you understand that the devil is as real of an enemy as he is, but we actually have a threefold enemy. We battle in our lives the world, the flesh, and the devil. The world, the flesh, and the devil. The world, number one. We live in a world that is Antichrist. Not just capital A Antichrist. When we think of Antichrist, we think of that coming world ruler, that leader who is going to come and turn the world against God.

But the Bible tells us in 1 John that many Antichrists have already entered. This world in its own culture is Antichrist. I want you to think of it two ways. Anti means two things. First of all, it means against. It's easy to see that today's culture is against Christ. There's no question about that. I mean, if you still doubt that or you still wonder about that, I don't know that your eyes are fully open to the realities in our current culture. The culture is Antichrist, coming against Christ.

But the word also, the prefix anti also has another definition, and that is not only against but in place of. Certainly you can see our culture propose many, many things that are in place of the worship of the one true God. Many theories, many philosophies, many things to take our attention away from God. The Bible says in 1 John chapter 2 verse 15, "Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life is not of the Father but is of the world." Of course, we're talking about the system, the culture, the atmosphere of the world in which we live.

Number two, we not only battle against the world, but against our own flesh, our own sinful habits. They drag us down. They're so vital. It's so vital to grasp this that later on in chapter five of Galatians in verse 24, it says, "Those who are Christ's have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires." You just can't mess around with the flesh. You just can't mess around with it because if you don't kill the flesh and deal with it, it will grow and overcome you and overwhelm you.

And then finally, thirdly, we have the devil. Let me tell you how it works. The devil is a formidable foe, but very few of us, if any of us, have ever met him head-on because this is how he operates. This is how he operates in that threefold enemy. The devil uses the world's system to provoke your flesh into sin. The devil uses the world's system to provoke our flesh, keeping us in a perpetual state of compromise or even worse, a perpetual state of disobedience. This holds us back from God's best.

And so in the world that we're in, it's very attractive. There are many things in the world that we would want in our lives. The devil uses that, brings out temptations, and we just go for it, and yet in a way that we go for it that is contrary to the will of God for our lives. Now, my pastor, he taught this over and over and over again. It is embedded in my psyche and in my mind, and I want it to be embedded in you. He would always tell us to be forewarned is to be forearmed.

So we need to spend some time understanding our flesh because when you think of flesh, it would be easy to understand. What's your flesh? You go, "I know what my flesh is. It's right here. I have it. It's flesh on my skin and bones. It's the flesh that covers all of my internal organs." When the devil gets all the attention, the greater difficulty is we start to ignore the flesh, but not the flesh on our—that's the physical definition when you think of what's the flesh, skin and bones. That's the physical definition.

Let's talk about the spiritual definition. It's very, very important for us to learn because often our own worst enemy is not the devil and not the world. Our own worst enemy is ourselves. It's our flesh. I find myself struggling with my own thinking more than I ever struggle with the thinking of the demonic realm. It's my own flesh. The flesh doesn't describe our skin and bones but rather refers to your own human power and desires. Your own understanding. The things that you have figured out over the years, your flesh.

One brother called it our sinful habits and our sinful habit patterns. Especially for those of us that got saved later in life, we developed a lot of bad habits living in this world. Just real quick responses and how to deal with things. Those things, that thinking, is still with us. We may be born again and we are new creations in Christ and all things are new and the old things have passed away, but here's the thing. We still have the same physical brain and the same physical thinking that we're in the process of being sanctified. So we really have to deal with this.

The flesh is the condition of a man or a woman who is controlled by something other than God. So I want you to put this into your thinking. The flesh is you are controlled by some other thinking than what God's wisdom prescribes. You're doing your own thing and not God's thing. It could be that things that are obvious, the flesh. When you think of the flesh spiritually, it could be things that are very obvious, like we see today, like pornography or drugs or drunkenness. Some obvious things that are very clear that are not from God.

Now, you may have justified it and you may have made reasons and you may have your reasons, but you can't say it's from God. You just aren't able—you can't look at pornography and go, "This is from God." "Hey, why are you looking at pornography?" "God told me to." You could never say that, ever. Why? Because it's the flesh. It's not God. Things that are obvious, but also things that are not so obvious, or what I might call in what I might say within the church today, acceptable sins.

Acceptable flesh. Your flesh could be something like overeating or social media obsession or slander or gossip. How about this one? The little white lies. Little white lies, huh? Can't you just skip the color and just call it a lie? It's the flesh. The flesh is a formidable foe. Every person—you might want to jot this one down, very, very important—every person has developed his or her flesh-life in order to get what he wants out of life as much of the time as possible. That's the flesh.

You have in your mind, I have in my mind, the kind of life that I want to live. We're very, very happy when the kind of life I want to live squares with the kind of life God has for me to live. But when God has something for me that I don't necessarily want, I have developed the system to get around it. That's my flesh. Instead of yielding, instead of repenting, instead of submitting or surrendering, we choose to do our own thing. Every person has developed his own flesh-life in order to get what he wants out of life as much of the time as possible.

Here's another angle I want you to think of. I want you to think of your flesh as your own personal techniques for meeting your own perceived needs your own way. Did you hear that? Your own, your own, your own. Almost always you can identify the flesh in our lives by how much it centers around you and your explanations and your opinions. Your own, your own. These techniques are designed—we've created them and we've created them to meet our own needs our own way apart from Christ.

Let me give you an example. You're watching a football game, you watched a game last night, Broncos won, yay, yay, yay, that's fantastic. You're watching it and the commercials come on. There is a commercial for something you didn't even know existed. Now, maybe not the game, maybe it's on your Instagram or on Facebook. You didn't even know it existed. And there it is and now that you've seen the 30 seconds you go, "I want that." Not only now do I see it exists, I want it. I don't really need it, but I want it.

And so you automatically get the number, click the thing, and instead of talking to your spouse and praying about it, instead of bouncing it off someone, you just say, "Hey, I just—I want it. I want to get it." You don't have the money for it though. Like, you're tight on the budget, so you don't have the money. And so you know, if I talk to my spouse about it, I mean, I'd rather just ask for forgiveness than ask for permission, you know, and so I'm just going to go—I don't have any money, but I do have a credit card.

And I got 30 days to figure it out. And this is all happening instantly. You don't have a list where you're going down. This all happens instantly. I see it, I want it. Oh, not going to tell him. Oh, I don't have any money. Got a credit card. You swipe the card, it comes, and you go, "Come on, Pastor, no big deal." But in such a small, small decision, it is a big deal. Because let's say that's the pattern of your life. There's something you should talk to your spouse about, but you've created a fleshly decision.

You don't talk to them at all about that. What you buy, what you think, where you go. Where do you think that's going to lead you? Do you think that's going to lead you to a deeper relationship with the Lord? Oh, let's talk about the money there for a second. So it's only 100 bucks, but you're going to pay the minimum on the credit card. So when you finally pay it off, the 100 bucks cost you $10,000. But that's all right, it was $3 a month for the rest of my life. I really want—I got it. It's so great.

And then you live a life hiding because you're going to hide it. And now you're deceptive. And then you think deception's not going to grow? And now you've lost your credibility. All for what? For a commercial. The devil using the world to provoke your flesh into behavior that you even say it's not that big a deal. Well, if it wasn't a big deal, you would have prayed with your spouse. And then I know some of you are like, "Well, I'm single. Haha." Great. Then you doubly know that it's not appropriate.

You know, but you've created your own personal techniques so you don't have to feel the weight of conviction, therefore not making the right decision. Walking after the flesh is simply relying on our own ability instead of God's resources. Our flesh is rebellious against the grace of God. That's why it's included in this letter to the Galatians who have left grace to go back to the law. This sense of our flesh rebels against the grace of God, and that's where Paul is. Paul says, "You guys got to understand this is a serious issue."

"Now that we've dealt with the theology of grace, now I want you to see what it's done to you guys. I want you to see when you leave grace how you begin to behave. When you no longer lean on the spirit but now you're just doing your own thing again like you were when you were pagans or before you were Christians, I want you to see the damage that it does. It does damage to you and to those that you love, and that's not the way of the Lord." So notice what he says now in Galatians 5 verse 19.

Before we go through each of the works of the flesh, I want you to notice he says, "Now the works of the flesh are evident." Now notice first of all that the works is plural. So there are many works of the flesh. We've already defined flesh practically and spiritually. Now let's look at the word evident. Very important word, evident. The works of the flesh are evident. That word means to make shine. Everybody can see that you're in the flesh. Everybody knows that you're in the flesh.

I have found over the years that the only people that don't admit that they're in the flesh are the ones that are in the flesh. But to everyone else, it's like this dark stage when they do the different lights and everything. When it's all dark up here, it's dark, but then the light shines and you can see so many more things. That's what this word means. It's crystal clear. They are evident. But unfortunately, people that are in the flesh, it's evident to everyone but the person in the flesh.

And this is a reminder to us. It's a reminder to us to have our eyes wide open in our own personal walk with the Lord. The things that we're about to learn today are no surprise. I know they may be new to some of you because you're new to the Bible, and that's great. But they're no surprise. Each one of these, you and I are unable to say, "God told me to do this. God told me to do this. God told me to do this." I know people say that, but you can't really say that. It's not true or accurate.

These things are not easily hidden. And when they're revealed, when the works of the flesh are revealed, they usually bring great embarrassment or even humiliation to the person that are in them. They're just things that, man, you've been living in the flesh so long, now that it's been exposed, it's a very painful process. The person that's caught up in the works of the flesh is warned to be careful of this life. What Paul's saying here is that a person in the flesh will produce these things.

You will either produce in your life the works of the flesh or the fruit of the spirit, as we'll see in another study. Jesus put it this way in Matthew chapter seven in verse 15: "Beware of false prophets who come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they're ravenous wolves. You will know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes from thornbushes or figs from thistles? You'll know people by their fruit." So let's get into the works of the flesh. There are four categories.

Four categories I want to put them in for you if you want to. Again, if you're taking notes, four things to look out for. Category number one is sensual-sexual sin. The works of the flesh in the category of sensual or sexual. Number two, we have religious works of the flesh. Thirdly, we will learn about social works of the flesh. Then finally, we'll end with personal works of the flesh and then a stern warning. So let's look at the first group, these sexual-sensual works of the flesh.

Verse 19: "Now the works of the flesh are evident, which are adultery." Adultery is a work of the flesh. Adultery is sexual sin that breaks the marriage covenant. So when there is sex between a man and a woman that's married outside of marriage, that is adultery and it is a work of the flesh. A very damaging work of the flesh. A very penetrating and probing work of the flesh, adultery. God has given to us sex. It's His gift to us within marriage.

That's the proper place for sex. It's given to man and woman to enjoy intimacy and closeness. It's given for fun. It's given to build a family and create a unit that is filled with love that will continue to overflow generation after generation after generation. Sex in its proper context is an extraordinarily wonderful gift to enjoy from God. But like fire, sex outside of God's design can be disastrous. Right? Fire is good. Fire in the right place, it warms you, takes care of you.

But just like our state right now has got all these wildfires, that's not good. Fire out of control and outside of its boundaries does great damage. And so right here at the beginning to the churches in Galatia, he says, "You guys, this is not good. Watch out for this work of the flesh. It's not good. It's out of control." Secondly, notice adultery, fornication. So this is a word that's used to describe sexual sin outside without marriage, without the marriage covenant.

Adultery breaks the marriage covenant, but fornication is any other kind of sin for those that are not married. So you can say that sexual sin applies—fornication applies to all sexual sin, adultery specifically to marriage. Fornication is sin used in a way that is not given by God. It's any type of sexual sin, including homosexuality, including bestiality, including all the sin that goes on in the mind. Again, some of you may be new to the Bible and you're like, "Well, what is this? How can I understand this?"

You, this Greek word is a word that's very familiar to you. This Greek word that used to describe fornication is the word *porneia*. Does that sound familiar? It's where we get our word pornography. This is where it hits home to the church, pornography. Pornography is such a devastating sin. The sin of pornography is evident. Nobody needs to tell you that that's sin or a work of the flesh or unhelpful for you or harmful to you. This multi-billion dollar industry destroys everyone that's touched by it. Everyone.

It produces nothing good. Did I say the word nothing loud enough or strong enough? Pornography produces nothing good. "Well, you know, I know this millionaire guy and this gal on OnlyFans, she gives all this money to the poor." Nothing good. Nothing. It is the destroyer of lives that is the most prominent in our culture. And this multi-billion dollar industry that continues to grow ruins girls' lives, ruins women's lives, ruins marriages, ruins boys, ruins men, and ruins anything and everything that it touches. It is a work of the flesh, and you can test it by simply saying this: "God told me it's okay to watch pornography," and just hear how silly that sounds. God would never lead you to something that destroys you and destroys your family and your marriage.

Guest (Male): You're listening to Abounding Grace and part of Pastor Ed Taylor's study in Galatians. Hear it again at aboundinggraceradio.com, 1place.com, or wherever you get your podcasts. Well, Pastor Ed, let's talk for a little bit about our pick of the month here in July: *The Jesus Person Promise Book* by David Wilkerson. What can you tell us about it?

Pastor Ed Taylor: This is a classic. They reprinted it, redid the cover, but it's a classic book of scriptures put into categories given to you as promises. There are hundreds of scriptures in this little book that when you're having any kind of day, you could look it up and go, "Oh, here's a promise for hope. Here's a promise for strength." And it's just taking the word of God, putting it into the categories that will help you greatly. And I don't know why we haven't made this a pick of the month earlier.

It's better than looking scriptures up online, better than using AI, where you have just little book of a collected series of scriptures that then become scriptures when you need them, and then you can hold on to them for the promises that they are. So pick it up, whether you support our ministry or not. This is important. Everybody should have a promise book. Everybody should have this resource. It's small, it's compact, but it's full, full of truths that will saturate your soul. Unbelievable that we haven't picked this before, but we did now. So enjoy it.

Guest (Male): It would make a meaningful gift for that special someone or a purse companion for you. And we'll send it to you when you support Abounding Grace with a gift of $25 or more today. Reach us toll-free at 877-30-GRACE or go online to calvaryco.store. And thank you for your support. It helps us get the word out on stations like this one all across the nation. Large or small, God is using your gifts in great ways. I wish I could share all the emails and phone calls that come in as evidence of that. To make a donation, just visit aboundinggraceradio.com or call 877-30-GRACE. aboundinggraceradio.com or 877-30-GRACE. Our time together sure goes by quickly, doesn't it? But we're already looking forward to our next study in Galatians here on Abounding Grace with Pastor Ed. God bless.