From the MLJ Archive

Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones: I should like to call your attention this morning to the first two words in the fourth verse, in the second chapter of Paul's Epistle to the Ephesians, the Epistle to the Ephesians. The second chapter and the first two words in the fourth verse. And the two words are but God.

Now, these words obviously suggest a connection with something that has gone before. The word but is a conjunction and yet it suggests always a contrast. And here we've got the connection and the contrast. Therefore, I would read to you the first three verses of this chapter.

And you has he quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins, wherein in time past ye walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience, among whom also we have all had our conversation in times past, in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind and were by nature the children of wrath even as others, but God.

Now there, you see, we come to the introduction of the Christian message. The peculiar, specific message which the Christian faith has to offer to us. These two words in and of themselves, in a sense, contain the whole of the gospel. There it is, it's what God has done. God's intervention. It's something that comes entirely from outside us. And displays to us this wondrous and amazing and astonishing work of God, which the Apostle goes on to describe and to define in the following verses.

Now, I'm anxious to consider this with you this morning, in a general manner only. I do so for several reasons. One is that the text itself compels one to do so. But I'm dealing with it in general this morning for certain special reasons.

There is often a charge brought against the Christian message, and especially in the evangelical form of that message, that it is remote from life, that it is irrelevant to the immediate circumstances in which men and women find themselves. There is an objection in other words on the part of some to an expository method of preaching the gospel, that it never seems to come to grips with the realities of the situation in which men and women constantly find themselves from day to day, and that it is irrelevant to the whole world situation in which we find ourselves.

Now, I want to try to show you therefore this morning that that charge is entirely unfounded. And that that idea that the business of Christian preaching is just to be making references to topical and contemporary events and making a few remarks about them, is indeed in a sense to depart from the Christian message altogether.

I would go so far as to say that there is nothing which really does deal with the contemporary situation save the Scripture. Of course, it assumes that we are able to apply it. We've certainly got to take its doctrines and its truths and show their relevance to the contemporary situation. And that is what I want to do this morning. I do so particularly on a day like this, when instinctively almost, and certainly as the result of what is happening in the world in which we live, our minds are compelled to face and to think of the general situation in addition to our own particular situation.

And claiming as I do that the gospel deals with the whole of men and with the whole of his life in this world, it is important obviously therefore that we should see what all this has to say about and to do with this position in which we find ourselves. Now, you notice that the thing I'm emphasizing is this. The all importance of method.

Now, what so many who do not think in a Christian manner, what they believe the business of the Christian Church is, is this. They think that one should announce, for instance, on a day like this, a subject. The Geneva conference, possibilities. And then go on to say what we think the statesmen should do and so on and so forth.

Now, I want to show that that is entirely false to the biblical method. The biblical method rather is to display its truth and then see the relevance of that to any situation. You don't start with the situation, you end with the situation. The Bible invites us at the very beginning to stop looking on the horizontal, as it were. To stop just looking at the world and at men. It invites us at the very beginning to lift up our eyes and to look at God.

In other words, the whole case of the Bible from beginning to end is this. That life and men and the world simply cannot be understood until we see everything in the light of and in the context of the truth about God. Therefore, we must start with the truth of God and then end with the immediate situation.

Well now then, let me try to show you how that is done and how it is done in this very passage which we are looking at together. We've been spending a number of Sunday mornings on those first three verses in this second chapter of Paul's Epistle to the Ephesians. And we've done so in order that we might see what we ourselves were like by nature and what the whole world is like by nature.

Now, you cannot begin to solve the problems of mankind until you know what man is like. How futile it must be to attempt it. You must start with the character, the nature, the being of men. What sort of a creature is he? You see, instead of rushing off to the international conferences and to talk about contemporary events, you go a bit further back and you say, well now, what sort of a creature is man?

Obviously, all your conclusions and all your proposals are going to be governed by that. If men is really an essentially good creature who only needs a little more instruction and knowledge and information, well, obviously, your treatment is going to be comparatively simple. But if what the Apostle Paul says here about men as he is by nature and without Christ is true, well then, obviously, that's going to be entirely hopeless, and you're wasting your time if you attempt it.

So you see, you must start with this doctrine. What is man like in sin? What characterizes men as he is in sin without the grace of God? Well, we've been looking at it in these first three verses. And we've seen that it's perfectly plain. He is dead spiritually. He is governed by the devil, who operates through mighty spiritual forces under his command, who in turn introduced the mind and the outlook of the world, a principle of evil.

That's the position of men. And the result is that men, dominated by all that, lives a life of trespasses and sins. Indeed, he's been born in such a way as the result of his connection with Adam, which means that his very nature is fallen. He starts with a polluted nature. And finally, he is under the wrath of God. That's the Apostle's statement in the first three verses.

Well now then, what is the relevance of all that to the to the present situation? What does all this got to say to us in a general manner this morning, rather than in the particular? Well, it seems to me that a number of things can be very easily deduced from this teaching.

The first is that here we are given as I've said, the only real and adequate explanation of why there are such things as war, Armistice Day, two World Wars. Why have we had them? Why is men guilty of this final madness? Why is it that men kill one another and have even glorified in war? Why? What's the explanation of it all? Well, there's only one answer. It's because men is like this.

It isn't only the teaching of the Apostle Paul. You remember how James puts it in that fourth chapter of his gospel, whence come wars among you? And answers the question, even of the lusts that war in your members. That's the cause of war. It's men in his fallen condition.

Now, I say this is something which is absolutely vital for us as a starting point. This is true of nations, it's true of classes, it's true of individuals. And surely, there is nothing which is quite so pathetic as the way in which people think along one line when they're thinking of nations, and along another line when they're thinking of individuals.

It's no use talking eloquently about the sanctity of international contracts, while you're dealing with people who break their own marriage contracts and other personal contracts. Because nations consist of individuals. A nation is not something abstract. You can't expect conduct from a nation which you do not have from an individual. All these things have got to be taken together.

Well now, this is a principle that operates right through society from top to bottom, from the individual, to the nation, to the continent, to the whole world itself. And you see the explanation is this. That men is governed by these desires of the flesh and of the mind. He isn't so interested in whether the thing is right or not, he's interested in that he wants it, that he likes it, he must have it.

Of course, we stand back aghast when a nation does that. When Hitler walks in and annexes Austria, we are horrified. Yes, people are horrified who do that very thing in their personal lives. They do it, I say, in the matter of another man's wife. They do it in the matter of a man's post or position. It's the same thing exactly.

There is the principle then. It is this lust that governs mankind. Walking in them, says the Apostle, we all had our conversation in times past, as we saw in the lusts of the flesh, fulfilling the desires of the of of the flesh and of the mind. Very well. The first deduction therefore is that here and here alone do we have an adequate explanation of and an adequate understanding of why things are as they are.

Very well, let's leave that and go on to another. The second deduction, I think, follows very logically, which is this. While men continues to be like that, the world will continue to be as it is. I think it's obvious. If it is the state of men in sin that has been responsible for the history of the past, obviously, while men remains like that, the history of the future is going to be the same.

So that here, you see, we come face to face with the optimism of the natural men, who is always so sure and confident that somehow or another we in our generation can put things right. Whereas all other generations have failed who've gone before us, we are in a different position, we are in a superior position. We are educated, we are cultured, we know, they didn't. We've advanced so much. We must do it, we're going to do it.

Now, I say, if you believe this biblical doctrine of men in sin, you must see at once that that's a fatal fallacy. It's impossible. If it is this question of the lusts that are in mankind in sin, while they are there, there will be wars. And we have specific teaching to that very effect from our Blessed Lord himself, who said there will be wars and rumors of wars. He said, as they were in the days of Noah, even so they shall be in the days of the son of men. As they were in Sodom, he says, even so they shall be.

That's our Lord's view of history. So that you see, if we grasp this teaching, it will deliver us at once from all the false enthusiasm and the false excitement of men who really believe that by bringing in some new organization, you can outlaw war and banish it forever. The answer of the Bible is that you cannot do so while men remains unregenerate.

Is this depressing? Well, if you think it is, my reply is this. Whether it's depressing or not is not my business. I'm here to preach the truth. And in any case, I understand that the modern men wants to be a realist, that he is rather objected to Christianity because it doesn't face the facts. It's not realistic, he says. It's some pie in the sky. You go into your chapels and you shut yourselves off and you don't face the facts of life. Here are the facts.

It is the fatal optimists who are not realists. It's the people who have never faced the facts about men in sin, who are shutting their eyes and turning their backs upon reality. The Bible faces it all. It has a realistic view of life in this world.

Well then, let me go on to another. And here I come to the specific, direct teaching of the gospel. Let me put it as plainly as as simply as I can. What has this Christian message to say then about this state and condition, the explanation of which we've just seen? And the answer is that it says, but God. That's its message.

What does that mean? Well, perhaps the most convenient way of dividing this matter is to put it first of all negatively and then positively. I regret I have to start with the negative again, but I have to, because I know full well that it is because so many forget these negatives, I'm about to note to you, that messages will be delivered today which I, if this is correct, cannot possibly regard as Christian at all. But they will be delivered in the name of Christianity and of the Christian Church. And I am profoundly convinced that what is keeping large numbers of people from Christ and from salvation and from the Christian Church is this awful confusion of which the church herself has so frequently been guilty.

That isn't what controls my message, but I say, it's a part of it. I believe there are many outside the church today because in the First World War in this century, the Christian Church so frequently became a recruiting station. And those men were offended, and in a sense they were right to be offended. There are certain things which should never be confused. Let me note some of them.

What is this Christian message? Well, let me put it first by saying, it is not a great appeal for patriotism. That's not the Christian message. The Christian message does not denounce patriotism. There's nothing wrong in it. It's a poor men who doesn't love his country and his nation. There's nothing in the scriptures against that. It is God who has divided up the nations and described and defined the bound of their habitations. It is God's will that there should be nations.

But it is not God's will that there should be nationalism, an aggressive nationalism. There's nothing wrong, I say, in a men honoring his own country and delighting in it, but it is utterly un-Christian to say, my country, right or wrong. That's wrong. That is fatally wrong. That is flying into the face of the Scripture.

Take this great Apostle who's written this very Epistle to the Ephesians. Here is a men who was a Jew. And if ever a men was proud of the fact of his nationality, it was the Apostle Paul, a Hebrew of the Hebrews, of the tribe of Benjamin. He was a narrow nationalist. He despised the others, the Gentiles were dogs outside the pale.

Ah, yes, but you see the thing he glories in, in this chapter, in this epistle, you remember is this. In whom ye also trusted. The Gentiles have come in, have been made fellow heirs with the Jews. The middle wall of partition has been broken down. There is no longer Jew nor Gentile, Barbarian nor Scythian, bond nor free, male nor female. All are one in Christ. That's the Christian position, but God.

Here is the way to break down that kind of nationalistic spirit that leads to war. The belief that we are always right and everybody else always wrong. It's as wrong in nations as it is in individuals. It's always wrong. So that the Christian message is not an appeal to patriotism. And if Christianity is ever portrayed in that form, it is a denial, it's a travesty of the message. And it is misleading in the eyes and in the ears of those who listen to it.

But secondly, the Christian message is not either just an appeal to courage or heroism or to the manifestation of a great spirit of self-sacrifice, et cetera. Now, let's be clear about this again. Christianity does not condemn courage. It doesn't condemn self-sacrifice or heroism. But it's very important that we should start by realizing this, that those qualities, those virtues are not specifically Christian. They are pagan virtues, which were taught and inculcated and admired and praised before the Lord Jesus Christ ever came into this world.

Courage was the supreme virtue of the Greek pagan philosophers. It was the very essence of stoicism. And that was why, you see, they regarded meekness, the meekness taught by the Christian faith, as weakness. There was no word for meekness in in Greek pagan philosophy. They regarded that as very weak. Courage and strength and power, those were the things they believed in. That is why, you remember, Paul tells us that the preaching of the cross was to the Greeks foolishness. That that should be the savior, someone who was crucified in weakness, that that's the way, ah, that was to them nonsense and rubbish. They had no belief in meekness and in humility. No, no. It was courage and power. And heroism and the like.

So that I say it's very important that we should realize that it is no part of the Christian message to exhort people to courage and to heroism and to self-sacrifice and things of that kind. There is nothing specifically Christian in that. I say it doesn't condemn them, but that isn't the Christian message. And the point I'm emphasizing is this. When it has been represented as the Christian message, it has confused people and it has led to a division amongst people which the gospel itself was meant to heal.

But let me go on to the third, which is on the other side. There are many people who seem to think that the Christian message is this, and especially on a day like this, that we should just appeal to the world to put into practice Christian principles. Now, this is the pacifist position so called. They say, now you Christian people, you're there preaching about personal salvation and about doctrines and so on. Why don't you do something about wars? Well then, we say, well, what do you want us to do? Well, they say, what you've got to do is this. Why don't you tell the people to practice the sermon on the mount?

Why don't you tell them to turn the other cheek and to love one another and so on? Then there'd be an end of war. You've got the solution. Just get people to put into operation the principles of the teaching of Christ. What is the answer to that? The answer to that is the first three verses in the second chapter of Paul's Epistle to the Ephesians. You can preach the sermon on the mount to people who are dead in trespasses and sins until you've exhausted yourself, and you'll be none the wiser, neither will they.

They cannot do it. They don't want to do it. They're enemies and aliens in their minds. They're governed by lusts, the lusts of the flesh. They fulfill the desires of the mind and of the flesh. They're governed and ruled by this. How can you do it? You cannot. There's only one hope for men in sin, says Paul, but God. They need to be regenerated. They must be given a new nature before they can even accept the sermon on the mount, leave alone begin to put it into practice.

So you see, all this travesty of the Christian message on that side, as if it were but an appeal to men to rise up and to follow Christ in their own strength and to put into operation Christian principles of teaching, I say it's as much a travesty as is the preaching of patriotism. It is equally un-Christian. It is indeed dangerous heresy because it fails to realize that men being what he is in sin cannot possibly implement such teaching. And to expect Christian conduct from people who are not yet Christians is dangerous heresy.

You see how important this teaching is? And you see how the Christian message does have its application to the modern world? You see why I don't spend my Sunday mornings here in talking about conferences and about politics and international relationships or industrial disputes, or in ever preaching only on this question of pacifism and physical war? My dear friends, I'd be wasting my time and yours. What is needed is that we should start with this fundamental thing, the doctrine of men in sin, in his deadness, in his hopelessness, in his complete helplessness.

Very well then, to sum it up at this point, the negative, I'd put it like this. That the Christian faith, the Christian gospel, has no direct message for the world, except this, to say that as it is, it's under the wrath of God, that it's under condemnation. And that all who die in that state will go to perdition. The only message of the Christian faith to an unbelieving world this morning is simply that. Judgment, a call to repentance. And an assurance that if they do repent and turn to Christ, they shall be delivered individually.

The Church therefore, the Christian faith has no message to the world apart from that. We do not address it on its its particular problems. The message is not a direct one. Very well then, what is the message? Well, let me put it like this.

The Bible teaches very plainly and very clearly that while that is the message of God to the unbelieving world, that nevertheless God has done something about that unbelieving world. And what he has done is this. There is men in sin, there is mankind in sin. There are all men in sin, among whom also we all had our conversation in times past, and we were the children of wrath, even as others, like the rest of mankind. Everybody's involved with it.

Very well, what has does God say about this? Well, this is what he says. He has controlled that. God has put a control upon the power of sin and of evil. He has put a control upon it in this way. As I've already reminded you, he has divided the peoples up into nations. Not only that, he has ordained that there should be states and governments. He has ordained the powers that be. The powers that be, says Paul, are ordained of God. Whether it be a king, or an emperor, or a president of a Republic. The powers that be are ordained of God.

It is God who has ordained magistrates and given them the sword of power. Why? Well, simply to keep the manifestations of evil within bounds and under control. For you see that if God had not done this, if the lusts that operate in us all by nature and by inheritance from Adam, if these were allowed unlimited and uncontrolled manifestation, the world would be hell, and it would have hurtled itself to perdition long ago and would have destroyed itself. God has put a limit upon it. He's put a bound even upon evil. He has held it in, he has restrained it.

Indeed, the Apostle Paul in a most extraordinary statement in the first chapter of the Epistle to the Romans, proves that by saying this, that sometimes, for his own end and purposes, God withdraws that restraint partially. He says that he had given them over to a reprobate mind. There are times and seasons when God seems to relax the restraint that he's put upon sin and evil in order that we may see it in all its horror and amazement. It may well be that we are living at such a time.

But that is what the Bible tells us about what God does directly about men in sin. He just controls the manifestations of his foul and evil and fallen nature. That's the general message, but what is the particular? Well now then, this is the thing that the Apostle is out to emphasize most of all in this immediate paragraph. The message to individuals is this, that we can be delivered out of this present evil world, that we can escape the condemnation that is coming for certainly up for certain upon this world.

That's the message that the Apostle preached. It is a message to individuals. It isn't to say that the world can be put right if we only implement Christian teaching. It isn't an appeal to people to reform themselves or to do this or do that. No, no, it's a message which comes and says this, that as the result of what God has done in Christ Jesus, his son, our Lord and Savior, we who were in the very warp and woof of that sinful, condemned world, can be delivered out of it.

Who gave himself, he says to the Galatians, that he might deliver us from this present evil world. The world is doomed. The world is going to be destroyed and punished. The devil and all his forces are going to perdition, and all who belong to that realm will suffer the same perdition. But the message of the gospel to men and women this morning is that they needn't be participators in that. You can be taken out of it. Out of the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of God's dear son. From the power of Satan unto God. That's its message. Individual men and women. The world will remain as it is, you can be delivered out of it, you can be taken out of it.

Not only that, as I've been saying just at that point, we can also be introduced into and become citizens of a kingdom which is not of this world. As we go through this second chapter, we shall find Paul elaborating that. He says you know the marvelous thing is this, that you Gentiles in Christ and because of his blood have become fellow citizens with the saints. You have become citizens in the kingdom of God, the kingdom of Christ, the kingdom of light, the kingdom of heaven, a kingdom that is not of this world, a kingdom which cannot be shaken, a kingdom which cannot be moved. That's the kingdom into which we enter.

Now, this is to me the most thrilling news a men can ever hear. We are all citizens of this country. And we are all involved in what happens to this country. If this country goes to war, we shall be involved. The bombs didn't escape us in the last war anymore than anybody else, we're all involved with it. We are citizens of this world and we partake the fate of this world.

But thank God, here is something different. While remaining citizens of this world, we become citizens of another. This other kingdom that has been opened to us by Christ, a spiritual kingdom, a kingdom that is not of this world, eternal in the heavens with God. That's the teaching of this message. But God. He's done something. Yes, and he's done it for individuals, and that's what he's done.

And then that works itself out in practice, doesn't it like this? If I believe all that, from now on, I'm not going to pin my hope nor rest my affections finally on anything that is in this world. The natural men does, of course. He pins his hopes in this world and its mind, its outlook, its statesmen, its mentality, its pleasures, its joys. He lives for it, and all his hopes are centered there, his affections are there. Not so the Christian.

The Christian having been given to see that that is doomed, it's under the wrath of God, has fled from the wrath to come. He's believed the gospel, he's entered this other kingdom, and his hopes and affections are set there now, not there.

The Christian, I say, is a men who to use a scriptural phrase, knows that he's but a stranger and a pilgrim in this world. He's a mere sojourner. He doesn't any longer live for this. He's seen through it. He sees beyond it. He's but a journeyman, a traveler. As James puts it, he's a men who has realized that his life is but a vapor, a breath. So he doesn't regard this world as permanent, and lay down his plans and say I'm going to do this and that, not at all. If the Lord will. It's all under God, and he realizes how contingent it is. He doesn't pin his faith, he doesn't set his affections any longer in this world.

But still more marvelous. He's never taken by surprise by anything that happens in this world. That is why I said at the beginning that there is nothing that I know of that is so relevant to worldly circumstances as this gospel. The Christian is a men who's never surprised by what happens in the world. He's prepared for everything, prepared for anything. He's not a bit surprised when a war breaks out. The other men, of course, is tremendously surprised. The other men really did believe perhaps at the end of the First World War that the League of Nations was really going to abolish war forever. There were many who believed that the Locarno Pact was finally going to do it. And they were happy, they said, we'll never have another war like that. And when it came in 39, they didn't know where they were. The Christian didn't believe that.

The Christian knowing that men is a creature who's governed by lusts, and that that always produces war, knew perfectly well that no Locarno Pact nor anything else could outlaw or abolish war. He knew that it might come at any time, and it came and he wasn't surprised. As the 112th Psalm puts it in the seventh verse. He shall not be afraid of evil tidings. His heart is fixed, trusting in the Lord.

Believing as we do this biblical doctrine of men in sin, we should never be surprised at what happens in the world. Are you surprised at all the murders? All the thefts, all the violence and the robbery, all the lying and the hatred, all the carnality and the sexuality? Does it all surprise you as you look at your papers? It shouldn't if you're a Christian. You should expect it. Men in sin must behave like that. He can't help himself. He lives, he walks in trespasses and sins. He does it individually, does it in groups. There will be industrial strifes and misunderstandings. There will be wars. Oh, what pessimism, says someone. I say no, what realism.

Face it. Be prepared for it. Don't expect anything better from a world like this. It's a fallen, sinful, godless, evil world. And while men remains in sin, it'll be like that. And it's as much like that today as it was in the days of Sodom and Gomorrah and in the time of the flood. But oh, I thank God that I haven't finished. I go on to say this, that the Christian is a men who realizing that he's living in a world like that and having no illusions at all about it, is linked to a power that enables him not only to bear whatever may come to him in such a world, but indeed to be more than conqueror over it all.

He doesn't just passively bear it. He doesn't just put up with it. He doesn't just stick it and exercise courage. No, no, that's stoicism, that's paganism. The Christian being in Christ, the Christian knowing something of what the Apostle calls here the exceeding greatness of God's power to us, worth that believe. He's strengthened, he's enabled to go through with it. His heart doesn't quail, he's not defeated. Let the world do its worst to him. Let hell be let loose. He is sustained. This is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith.

So that if things really do become impossible, the Christian still has resources. He still has comforts and consolations. He still has a strength concerning which all others are ignorant. And finally, the Christian is absolutely certain and assured that whatever the world and men may do, he is safe in the hands of God. We can confidently say, says the scriptures, the Lord is my helper and I will not fear what men shall do unto me. Indeed, he knows this.

That men in his malignity may destroy his body. He may insult him, he may persecute him, he may ravage him. But he shall never be able to separate him from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. He knows that whatever may happen in this world of time, he is a son of God, an heir of glory. Indeed, he knows this. He knows that a day is coming when even this present sinful world shall be entirely redeemed.

By which I mean this. There shall be a new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness. The Christian can look forward to this, that he in some glorious day in the future, when his very body shall be renewed and glorified, when it shall no longer be weak, when it shall no longer be subject to sickness and old age and disease, it will be a glorified body like that of the risen Christ. He knows that he in this glorified body shall even walk the face of this very earth, out of which evil and sin and vileness shall have been burned out by the fire of God. He will dwell in a perfect world of which the Lamb, the Son of God is the light and the sun, and the brightness and the glory. And he shall enjoy it forever and ever.

That is what the Christian message, the Christian faith has to say to this wretched, distracted, unhappy, confused, frustrated, modern world. It's all the outcome of these essential doctrines which can be learned only in this book, which is God's word. There's the world, but God. Amen.