Watchman Radio Hour

David Schultze: Welcome to the Watchman Radio Hour, coming to you from Portland, Oregon here in the beautiful Northwest. This is David Schultze, your announcer. The Watchman Radio Hour is a production of Watchman Radio Ministries International, an evangelistic ministry reaching out to the peoples of the world with the gospel of Jesus Christ. And now here's our speaker Alex Dodson to bring you this week's message from God's word.

Alex Dodson: For our scripture reading today, let us turn to the book of Ephesians chapter 5 and we'll begin reading in verse 3. Let us hear the word of God. "But among you there must not be even a hint of sexual immorality or of any kind of impurity or of greed because these are improper for God's holy people. Nor should there be obscenity, foolish talk, or coarse joking, which are out of place, but rather thanksgiving.

Of this you can be sure: no immoral, impure, or greedy person—such a man is an idolater—has any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God. Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of such things God's wrath comes on those who are disobedient. Therefore do not be partners with them."

Our Father in heaven, we thank you for the Bible that you have given to us. We thank you that it's your infallible word and that we can put our full confidence in everything that it says. Now, oh Father, as we come to study your word, we pray that you will send forth your Holy Spirit in great convicting power. In Christ's name we pray, Amen.

Today we live in a sensual society. We can see it in fashions, we can see it in the movies, we can see it on television, we can see it in music. Sensuality is everywhere. Paul warned the Ephesians about sensuality. In Ephesians 4:17-19 he says, "So I tell you this and insist on it in the Lord, that you must no longer live as the Gentiles do in the futility of their thinking.

They are darkened in their understanding and separated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them due to the hardening of their hearts. Having lost all sensitivity, they have given themselves over to sensuality so as to indulge in every kind of impurity with a continual lust for more."

These verses do a good job of describing our present generation in this nation. We have given ourselves over to sensuality. Sexual immorality is rampant and continues to get worse. Modern movies are full of it. Young people don't see the immorality in it. We have become a law unto ourselves, casting off the laws of God, and we will pay the consequences.

Today we want to look particularly at Ephesians 5 verses 5 and 6, which says this: "For of this you can be sure: no immoral, impure, or greedy person—such a man is an idolater—has any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God. Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of such things God's wrath comes on those who are disobedient."

Sinful living will bring God's wrath. This is a lesson we will learn and a lesson that is now being taught whether we realize it or not. A godly society brings the blessings of God, but a sinful society brings God's wrath upon it. Our forefathers promoted a godly society and God blessed this nation.

They were not perfect and there were times when the nation was not so godly, but powerful revivals brought the nation back to God time and again. We have reaped the benefits from the godly living that has preceded us. However, today's generation is casting all of that off and going their own way, thinking that our prosperity will continue, but it will not.

Sinful living brings the wrath of God upon us. His warning judgments are already falling and they will get much worse if we do not repent. This is the message of the hour. We need to repent of sinful living. If we don't, God's wrath will increase upon us. We cannot fix the economy and prosper if we continue to sin. It will not work no matter what the politicians tell us. Prosperity comes to a nation that honors God and a nation that dishonors God will not prosper. This is a lesson we're going to learn. Yet we must pray for a national spiritual revival that is our only hope.

Now let us see in the first place that no immoral person can be a Christian. Verse 5 says this, "For of this you can be sure: no immoral, impure, or greedy person—such a man is an idolater—has any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God."

The emphasis here is on sexual immorality. Verses 3 and 4 say, "But among you there must not be even a hint of sexual immorality or of any kind of impurity or of greed because these are improper for God's holy people. Nor should there be obscenity, foolish talk, coarse joking, which are out of place, but rather thanksgiving."

Paul puts the emphasis on sexual immorality. He mentions it first and foremost. In verse 19 he had said, "Having lost all sensitivity, they have given themselves over to sensuality so as to indulge in every kind of impurity with a continual lust for more." Sexual immorality and impurity are describing the same kind of conduct, and today it permeates our society.

Francis Foulkes, in commenting on this passage, writes, "Indeed, we cannot say that these sins are viewed in the New Testament as worse than the sins of pride and the subtler forms of self-centeredness. But neither law nor prophets in the Old Testament, nor gospels nor epistles in the New Testament, allow men to regard lightly the sins that break the bonds of marriage, destroy the sanctity of the family, and cause children to be brought to birth without parents to be responsible for their nurture and training."

Yes, there are other sins and bad ones, but sexual immorality in all its forms is very destructive to any society. Today we're delving into sexual immorality as never before. Pornography is more available than ever. Sexual immorality is portrayed in the movies more than ever. People living outside the bonds of marriage in this society is happening more than ever before.

Things our forefathers believed were very wrong have now become right in the eyes of many. We are changing the definition of marriage that has been held from the beginning of time. No generation has ever done this before. We're stepping into new territory never explored before. We're descending into depths of sin that no society has ever reached before.

Yet we have forgotten the law of God and are making a law unto ourselves. People are doing things that no former generation has tried to do. This depth of our sexual immorality has never been reached before. Can God just sit back and do nothing while his moral law is dragged in the mud and totally shunned? No, he will not, and we as a society will see.

We cannot practice sexual immorality and claim to be a Christian. Again verse 5 says, "For of this you can be sure that no immoral or impure person has any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God." This is what Paul is telling us. We can't be sexually immoral and impure and be a Christian. He says we can be sure of this.

William Hendrickson writes, in commenting on this passage, "Many translators and interpreters, though differing in their views of this expression, have however felt that the reason why the apostle makes use of these two words where ordinarily one would have sufficed, is that he wished to lay special stress on what he is about to say. The fact of which the Ephesians can be very sure is this: that no one who practices the sins mentioned in verse 3 and elaborated in verse 4 has any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God."

One of these sinful practices is greed. That calling a person a greedy individual is the same as calling him an idolater is clear even on the surface, for such a person is worshipping someone else than the true and living God.

Francis Foulkes writes, "The apostle has solemn words to say about the consequences of such sins as those he has just enumerated in the lives of men. They, in common with all unrepented sin, exclude men from God's kingdom." And then he writes, "There were then as there always are those who made light of sin and scoffed at the thought of its consequences."

Perhaps Paul was writing in the particular realization that among his readers, there were those representative of early Gnosticism who said that the sins of the flesh were irrelevant to the spiritual life, and those too who took freedom from the law to mean liberty to continue in sin of any kind. The words of such men, he would insist, were vain words. The word of God is solemn and true.

Matthew Henry wrote, "By covetous man, some understand a lewd, lascivious libertine who indulges himself in those vile lusts which were accounted the certain marks of a heathen and an idolater. Others understand it in the common acceptation of the word, and such a man is an idolater because there is spiritual idolatry in the love of this world."

Of these persons it is said that they have no inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God. That is the kingdom of Christ who is God or the kingdom which is God's by nature and Christ's as he is mediator, the kingdom which Christ has purchased and which God bestows.

Heaven is here described as a kingdom, as frequently elsewhere with respect to its eminence and glory, its fullness and sufficiency, and so forth. In this kingdom the saints and servants of God have an inheritance, for it is the inheritance of the saints in light.

And then he goes on to write, "But those who are impenitent and allow themselves either in the lust of the flesh or the love of the world are not Christians indeed and so belong not to the kingdom of grace nor shall they ever come to the kingdom of glory. Let us then be excited to be on our guard against those sins which would exclude and shut us out of heaven."

Young people go to church on Sunday and yet many commit sexual immorality and think nothing of it. Paul says you are wrong, you're not a Christian. You need to repent and become a true Christian. People who call themselves Christians will go to movies and commit sexual immorality in their hearts and think nothing of it, but they are wrong. They can't commit sexual immorality in their hearts and continue to call themselves Christian. They need to repent and become true Christians.

Now let us see in the second place that God's wrath will come on a sinful people. Verse 6 says, "Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of such things God's wrath comes on those who are disobedient." God's wrath comes now. God's wrath is even now breaking out on this nation because of its immorality. God's wrath is not just something in the future, it's also now.

Romans 1:18 says, "The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness." Matthew Henry writes, "These sins bring the wrath of God upon those who are guilty of them. As though such things were tolerable and to be allowed of in Christians, or as though they were not very provoking and offensive unto God, or as though you might indulge yourselves in them and yet escape with impunity."

Matthew Henry also says, "For because of these things cometh the wrath of God upon the children of disobedience. By children of disobedience may be meant the Gentiles who disbelieved and refused to comply with and to submit themselves to the gospel, or more generally all obstinate sinners who will not be reclaimed but are given over to disobedience. Disobedience is the very malignity of sin."

If we as a people are disobedient to God's moral law, God will not sit idly by and do nothing. God's wrath is even now being revealed from heaven. And our disobedience has already come up before him and he is not pleased and his warning judgments are already falling upon us. God's wrath is a present reality.

Then let us see that God's wrath will come in the future. Not only is God's wrath being revealed in the present time, it will come even to a greater extent in the future. In Acts 17:29-31, as Paul was in Athens, he said, "Therefore since we are God's offspring, we should not think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone, an image made by man's design and skill."

In the past, God overlooked such ignorance, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent. For he has set a day when he will judge the world with justice by the man he has appointed. He has given proof of this to all men by raising him from the dead. You see, a great judgment day is going to come. You may get away with your sin now, but a day is coming when you will have to stand before the judge of the earth. Will you be able to stand before him?

William Hendrickson writes, "By means of what has been called a prophetic presence, Paul stresses the fact that the coming of the wrath of God to be visited upon those who live in the sins mentioned in verses 3 through 5 and who listen to empty words assuring them that all is well is so certain that it is as if that wrath had already arrived. And in principle, it actually has arrived. These sinister practices attract God's displeasure like a fully lit up enemy target attracts bombs. The wrath spoken of here, though in a sense already present, is also ever on the way until on the day of the great consummation of all things, it will be fully revealed, for the sons of disobedience are the children of wrath."

Francis Foulkes writes, "Only by forsaking of sin in true repentance is the way open by faith for men to have inheritance in God's kingdom. Otherwise, because of these things, men remain children of disobedience rather than children of God, children of wrath rather than inheritors of God's kingdom of grace. Apart from the gift of forgiveness, men stand under the wrath of God because of sin, subject to his judgment, which in part is a present fact in that they are even now excluded from the life of God, but in greater part waits for the day when all shall stand before the Lord and judge."

Matthew Henry writes, "The wrath of God comes upon such because of their sin, sometimes in this world, but more especially in the next. And dare we make light of that which will lay us under the wrath of God? Oh no!" Do you think you're getting away with sin? You're not. A payday will come one day and you will pay the consequences. A great judgment day is coming and you will not be able to stand. Yet there is hope. If you will repent at once and turn back to God, you will be forgiven in Jesus Christ.

Now let us see in the third place a call to repentance. We need to recognize our sins. People commit sin today and think nothing of it. People laugh at dirty jokes and think nothing of it. People commit sexual immorality in their hearts and minds and think very little of it. Young people have sex outside of marriage and think it's really okay. After all, everybody else is doing it.

People approve of immoral lifestyles and think it's not that bad. After all, they're not bothering me. What difference does it make? Well, the fact is sin does make a difference. It makes a difference with God. And one reason sin does not bother us that much is because we don't really know what sin is. We don't know the law of God. We don't know the Bible. We don't know what's right and wrong anymore.

Everyone is doing what is right in their own eyes. We don't hear the law of God preached anymore from our pulpits. Sin is little mentioned. What we need is the powerful preaching of the word of God and the calling of sinners to repentance in our nation. When powerful preaching comes back to our pulpits, then people will start repenting of their sins.

In the early days of our nation, God sent powerful preachers throughout the land. And we had a First Great Awakening, and later we had a Second Great Awakening, and later we had a great revival that covered the land. These things can happen again, but we must pray that they will. We need to turn back to God. We need a national spiritual revival.

There was one long ago that brought a whole nation to its knees. We read about it in Jonah chapter 3. Jonah went to Nineveh to warn of God's coming judgment on them and to call them to repentance. In verse 1 of chapter 3 it says, "Then the word of the Lord came to Jonah a second time: 'Go to the great city of Nineveh and proclaim to it the message I give you.'"

Jonah obeyed the word of the Lord and went to Nineveh. Now Nineveh was a very large city. It took three days to go all through it. So Jonah started into the city, going a day's journey, and he proclaimed, "Forty more days and Nineveh will be destroyed!"

The Ninevites believed God and they declared a fast. All of them, from the greatest to the least, put on sackcloth. When the news reached the king of Nineveh, he rose from his throne. He took off his royal robes, he covered himself with sackcloth, and he sat down in the dust. And then he issued a proclamation in Nineveh which said this:

"By the decree of the king and his nobles: Do not let any man or beast, herd or flock, taste anything. Do not let them eat or drink. But let man and beast be covered with sackcloth. Let everyone call urgently on God. Let them give up their evil ways and their violence. Who knows? God may yet relent and with compassion turn from his fierce anger so that we will not perish."

When God saw what they did and how they turned from their evil ways, he had compassion and he did not bring upon them the destruction he had threatened. The whole city-state of Nineveh repented from the top on down, and everybody did. God forgave them and withheld his wrath.

Today the wrath of God hovers over this nation. God is displeased with our conduct, with our way of living. His wrath will break out on us at any moment. Even now, his warning judgments are falling. Great destruction will come upon us if we continue in our sins. God calls to us today to turn from our evil ways and to turn back to him. He calls us to put on sackcloth and ashes like the people of Nineveh and to repent and turn to him in this hour.

Tomorrow may be too late. His wrath is ready to fall on the nation in great power. We must take heed to ourselves and repent. Our prayer is that God will have mercy in the midst of his wrath and send revival to this land so that people will repent and turn to him. But what about you today? You still remain in your sins. You have sinned in thought, word, and deed. You have lived a life in rebellion against God. Now you must repent at once and turn to God. Realize that you're a sinner and that you need forgiveness that only Christ can give you. Repent at once and come to Jesus Christ. Jesus came into the world to save sinners, so come to him now and believe on him.

Our Father in heaven, we come to you confessing that our sins are piled up to heaven in this nation. We come to you confessing that sexual immorality and impurity are rampant in this land. Oh Father, we pray that in the midst of your wrath that you would have mercy and that you would send your Holy Spirit in great convicting power. That you would send another great awakening to awaken us to our great sins. We pray that a great mourning will go up in the land as people mourn over their sins, and we pray that the nation as a whole will repent and turn back to you. Oh Father, have mercy upon us. In Christ's name we pray, Amen.

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David Schultze: We hope this week's broadcast has been a blessing to you. If you have any questions about Mr. Dodson's message, please write us. You may email us at info@watchmanradio.org. Our mailing address is Watchman Radio Ministries International, Post Office Box 13251, Portland, Oregon 97213. That's Watchman Radio Ministries International, Post Office Box 13251, Portland, Oregon 97213.

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