1097. The Works of the Flesh pt. 2

Welcome to The Daily Platform from Bob Jones University in Greenville, South Carolina.

The school was founded in 1927 by the evangelist Dr. Bob Jones, Sr. His intent was to make a school where Christ would be the center of everything so he established daily chapel services. Today, that tradition continues with fervent biblical preaching from the University Chapel platform. Today on The Daily Platform, we're continuing a study series entitled Walking in the Spirit, which is a study of Galatians chapter 5. Let's listen to today's message where Steve will continue his teaching about the works of the flesh from Galatians chapter 5. Let me ask you to take your Bibles and turn with me please to Galatians chapter 5 this morning, Galatians chapter 5. We're continuing our study and our theme, Walking in the Spirit, and we're looking this morning in Galatians chapter 5 as we began our last message on the works of the flesh, which was really a part one message.

And today I would like to finish works of the flesh part two. It was a number of years ago when I was serving as an intern in a local church out in Denver, Colorado that I went out and played golf one day with a friend of mine who was a student here at the University and his brother-in-law. His brother-in-law was a young pastor, a Baptist pastor of a church. He probably at the time was maybe 26, 27 years old, somewhere in that neighborhood. And we went out and we played a round of golf and we were coming back to our homes and we were driving down one of the main drives in Denver, Colorado.

If you're from Denver, it was Alameda Avenue. Suddenly I was sitting in the backseat, my friend in the passenger side and the pastor was driving. Suddenly a car sort of whips out in front of the preacher.

He must have forgotten that we were in the car because he reached down underneath his seat and grabbed a tire tool and pulled it up and started yelling at the driver and said, I'll break your head! I was sitting in the back of the seat and I thought, now that is a manifestation of the flesh. It's self-evident.

It's like, duh. And I remember as years went by I saw that same pastor at a conference probably ten years later and as soon as I saw him, guess what I thought? There's the pastor that could not control his temper. This morning as we look at the manifestations of the works of the flesh, last time we saw that the flesh reveals itself in sexual sins and Paul continues this thought of the flesh as he reveals the different and the random ways in which our fallen sinful nature can manifest itself. These evidences of the flesh are opposite of the spirit and they are also things that can be committed by any and by all believers. So let's begin reading this morning in verse 19 and we'll read down to verse 21 as we look at the works of the flesh. Paul says, now the works of the flesh are manifest which are these.

And then he begins to list them out. Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, these are the things that we saw the last time we met. Then idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, envings, murders, drunkenness, revelings, and such like.

That is that this is not an exhaustive list. Of the witch I tell you before as I have told you as I have also told you in time past that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God. I'd like us this morning to actually work through this list so that you can understand them because these are various manifestations of the flesh and we'll look at them in three areas as they appear.

The first area is in the realm of religious sins. Notice what he says, now the works of the flesh are manifest which are these and then he says idolatry and witchcraft. That is there is the potential of a believer of actually falling into the worship of an idol or into witchcraft. What is idolatry? Well what is an idol? One writer Richard Keyes defined it this way, an idol is something within creation that is inflated to function as God. All sorts of things are potential idols depending only on our attitude and our actions towards them. Idolatry may not involve explicit denials of God's existence or character, it may well come in the form of an over attachment to something that is in itself perfectly good. An idol can be a physical object, a property, a person, an activity, a role, an institution, a hope, an image, an idea, a pleasure, a hero, anything that can become a substitute for God. Something that we look to to bring a satisfaction and security above the Lord. John Calvin said the human heart is a factory of idols.

Every one of us is from his mother's womb experts in inventing idols. Paul tells us in the book of Colossians chapter 3 that materialistic greed or covetousness is a form of idolatry. John Calvin said the evil in our desire typically does not lie in what we want but that we want it too much.

Is it wrong for you to get an education so you can go out and make a living? No, but would it be right for you as a believer to make it your passion in life to be rich? So an idol is anything that replaces God, anything that replaces God in our heart. We are to love God with all of our heart, mind, souls. We're to love others and give ourselves to serve them and whenever things take that place that becomes a God. In the New Testament Paul tells us to flee from idolatry. John says that to believers to keep yourself from idols and for all of us things can be become more important to us than God.

That's a work of the flesh. Then notice the word witchcraft. It is from this word that we get the word drug use or pharmacia or like a pharmacy. Drugs in ancient times were used in occult practices to put people in an altered state of mind in order to be able to make contact with spirits which are demons. So you take a drug, it alters your mind, it puts you in another world and puts you into contact with demonic spirits.

Spiritism today in the world is very powerful and it's very active. It could be shamanism. It could be witch doctors.

It could be medicine men. It could be voodooism. It could be as in as in Africa I ran into people who were involved in what they called juju which was black magic and witchcraft and sorcery.

And it's entering into the realm of the spirits. One of the earliest Christian writings after the era of the Apostles was called the Didache. In this writing it notes a severe command to abstain from magic and sorcery. It's interesting in the book of Acts chapter 19 where Paul the Apostle is in the city of Ephesus preaching and he comes into contact with people that were involved in exorcism and the believers saw the power of the demonic world and they actually had books if you can read it in Acts 19 verse 19 and they brought the books out in the middle of the street and what did they do to them? They burned them.

And they say the accumulated amount of the books was somewhere around 50,000 pieces of silver. I think personally that the use of drugs in the United States American society in the world whether it's from marijuana all the way up is literally opening up society to the influence of demons. So as believers this would be a manifestation of the works of the flesh. We just call those simply religious sins. But then notice another category and this is the largest number of flesh evidences and this is seen in the realm of relationships.

I don't know of anything that shows the flesh more than in the way that we relate to and we react to one another. And let's take the list as they appear. Number one, the first is hatred. Hatred is simply hostility or antagonism towards any other person or groups of people. This could be hatred towards a particular individual, a particular race, a particular class of people, the rich versus the poor. Believers are commanded to even love our enemies.

So let me ask you a question. Is there anybody that you hate? Anybody as soon as you see them you feel animosity. Someone you personally resent so that you have developed within your own heart a spirit of anger and bitterness towards that person. Maybe somebody that you trusted and they mistreated you. Maybe you feel like something's been done to you and it's wrong and it's not fair and so therefore you harbor that anger towards them.

Then notice the second word, the word variance. It's the idea of strife. It means to be at odds with others and this includes the actions of people who would be contentious. Have you ever been around people that are hard to get along with? They're quick to argue, always quarreling, always fighting. They're people who live in the realm of big drama and there's always tension.

She's a drama queen and very touchy. You always have to be careful because there's going to be a reaction. This kind of discord often seeps into local churches because of the attitudes of people. Paul even warns that some can preach Christ out of envy and strife. A number of years ago I was working as an intern in a local church and was out with a man in the church doing house-to-house visitation. We came to a home, we met an individual, they opened their door to us and we began to share the gospel with them and it was a wonderful opportunity and I was able to lead the man to Christ and went back and got in my car and man I was excited. This guy accepted the Lord and the man got in the car and closed the door and looked at me with anger on his face and said you stole my convert. I was like what? I stole your convert? I didn't know that I was the converter.

I mean all I did was tell him about Jesus and he said yes and I realized even in a good church with good people there can be even strife and contention over ministry. Notice the next word emulations and I'm going to pull the word envying which is down a little bit further and put them together and sort of compare the difference because the word emulation, the desire to emulate someone, is the word jealousy. Jealousy and envy.

What are they and what's the difference? Well they come from the same family. It's kind of like a brother and sister but they're slightly different. Jealousy is a passionate zeal for one's own self-interest and it feels threatened by the success of others. If somebody's successful you want that. Whereas envy is a little more diabolical.

It means that you become hostile towards your competitor with a malicious spirit showing an ill will towards those who seem to be more prosperous and you would like to see them fail. All right, a simple illustration. A number of years ago we were in a revival meeting up in the state of New Hampshire and one of the fellas on our team at that time we had two young ladies and two young men traveling with us and I noticed that the two young ladies and one of the young men had gotten, all of them, had gotten a small loaf of banana nut bread. Somebody in the church gave it to him but the other guy didn't get anything. His name was Peter. Peter was from Australia so I sort of poked fun at him. I said, Peter, nobody gave you any banana nut bread? Maybe they don't like you.

Maybe it's because you're from Australia. I said, Peter, do you know what jealousy is? Jealousy is you are mad that everybody got some banana nut bread.

You think you deserve it and you want your banana nut bread right now. That's jealousy. I said, but you know what envy is? Envy is you saying I don't want any banana nut bread but deep in your heart you hope that when everybody else eats their banana nut bread they get sick in their stomach. That's the difference. Every one of you are jealous by nature.

You hate it when anybody is successful and you're not and then when they are successful then the tendency is either to tear them down or hope that they will fail. That's a manifestation of the flesh. Then notice the word wrath. The word wrath there literally means breathing hard. How many of you have ever gotten so upset that it was almost difficult for you to even breathe? You are so mad and you're ready for a volcanic explosion. Have you ever watched coaches on the sideline when they think the referee made a bad call?

Sometimes I actually feel bad because I think those guys who are so old they're gonna have a heart attack. Wrath is this verbal abuse, this enraged temper in the responses to situations and circumstances and then notice the word murder. You say well I can never commit murder. Well the Bible tells us that anger is the cause of murder. What does it mean to murder someone? It means to take their life and do you know you don't kill people if you're not angry. You know people don't just walk around start shooting people go haha this is great. I really love killing people.

It's so fun. No before somebody murders somebody there is anger, there is resentment, there is bitterness that builds up to that. But you don't have to pull a trigger to shoot someone and kill someone to commit murder. You could least wish in your heart that they would somehow depart planet earth. Have you ever had anybody in your life you hated so much that you wish that they would take wings and fly away.

That they would just leave you alone, that they would get out of your life, they would go somewhere else so you'll never have to see them again. By nature all of us are murderers. Then the next three manifestations of the flesh in relationships actually are in succession. Strife, seditions, and heresies. The word strife here is used to describe a politician who's seeking an office and he is manipulating the process for self-promotion and personal gain. In the church it is referring to rival factions and competing parties that are motivated by somebody who is selfishly ambitious. Generally it is a very opinionated a person who has his own personal agenda.

He is very strong in the way he thinks and then he's drawing people. He's trying to garner support where people will come and follow him. That's what the word strife means. Then the word sedition is the idea of division. It literally means standing apart. Instead of promoting unity among believers these opinionated people bring strife that results in a spirit of disunion or division among church members. A dividing of the ways with inside the body.

I was in a church a few years ago and a pastor told me that a lady in the church when he had just taken over the pastor it came up to him and said pastor I'm praying for you that God will use you to make this church one because right now it's three. There was not a spirit of unity but there was a growing spirit of division. Then notice the third word the word heresy.

It comes from the word to choose. It means a sect or a party. It's the divisive tendency among believers who are walking in selfish pride with their own agenda and they actually divide the body of the church.

They make up their own distinct groups based on their own opinions. Historically heresy has become known as a doctrine that is at variance with the established rule of faith. They break off from what has been clearly established in the Word of God.

They went out from among us because they were not a part of us. And so what Paul is doing is just exposing to us in all kinds of various ways the way the flesh is at work in contrast to the spirit. And then notice the third area we saw religious sins and we saw relationships sins now we see the sins of intemperance or loss of control. And the final area involves two manifestations one is drunkenness and the other is revelings. The idea of drunkenness means intoxication. They drink alcohol and they become intoxicated. What does it mean to become intoxicated?

Well it literally means to be to lose control. When does a person become intoxicated? Well it's kind of hard to know but it takes place when there is an alteration of the way that you think.

It is a change. For example the Bible says be filled with the Spirit and don't be drunk with wine. When a person is filled with the Spirit they're under the controlling influence of the Spirit so that they think differently than when then when they're in the flesh.

We think differently we respond differently. So a person who is drunk is a person who in their mind has begun to slowly lose control and there is an alteration in the way you think in the way you respond. The word reveling here has the idea of wild parties. It's the idea and what follows from those parties and their drinking is lewdness, immorality, and people literally getting wasted. Now I think it's important here to at least ask the question with regards to whether a Christian can or should drink alcoholic beverages. I think we ought to ask a general question first and that is as we look at this passage of Scripture. Should a believer strive to avoid the flesh altogether? We asked the question can a Christian drink alcoholic beverages? Is that the right question?

Now there are a lot of answers you could give to that and I'm not trying to debate it this morning. I'm just trying to ask you the question in this passage of Scripture according to what the Apostle Paul is saying is it clear that believers should strive to avoid the flesh altogether. For example, if something would lead you to adultery should you avoid it?

Yes or no? Absolutely. If something would lead you to idolatry should you avoid it? If something would lead you to hatred or strife should you intentionally avoid it?

How should you respond? When it comes to the matter of drunkenness should we not avoid that which could lead to it? Is there a verse in the Bible that speaks to this?

The answer is yes Romans 13 verse 13. It says let us walk honestly as in the day that is let us walk in a proper and becoming manner not in and then it gives a list of things rioting. What is rioting? Same word for reveling. Not in rioting and drunkenness.

Not in chambering. What is that? Literally it's the idea of going to bed with someone. Committing sexual immorality and wantedness.

What is that? Sensuality. Not in strife and envying. So he lays out these works of the flesh in the book of Romans and then notice what he says but put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ and in so doing this is what you do and make not provision for the flesh to fulfill the lust thereof. The word provision has the idea of forethought. Thinking ahead. It's also the idea of Providence. God's thinking ahead and controlling. And the idea is don't even go there.

Don't even go there. For us as believers we should avoid it all together. So Paul is telling us the manifestations of the flesh and then notice how he concludes and the conclusion is with a very strong warning and he says of such like of the which I tell you before as I've also told you in time past that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God.

Two things I want to close with. Number one and the question is what does this mean? And number one it means this that when we do these things we deserve to go to hell. People that commit adultery and fornication.

People who live in anger and strife intentions. People who are involved in idolatry and witchcraft. People who are involved in drunkenness and wild parties according to what Paul says is this. These people do not deserve to go to God's kingdom.

They deserve to go to hell. It's a very straightforward and then secondly he is saying this that a life that is dominated by these things the manifestations of the flesh they are not going to heaven. And when he says they that do such things he's not speaking about the fact that a Christian can stumble and fall into sin because according to Galatians chapter 6 and verse 1 if a man is overtaken in a fall spirit-filled people should seek to restore them. And the idea is this that a Christian can stumble, a Christian can fall, a Christian can give into his flesh.

But what he is saying is this and this is all throughout the Pauline writings that when a person becomes a Christian they experience a complete change of life. The Holy Spirit comes to live inside of them. The spirit, the human heart is the residency of the Holy Spirit. And when the spirit comes into the human heart there is instantaneously a tension between the flesh and the spirit and there's this ongoing conflict so that you cannot perpetually live in the flesh.

Why? Because the Spirit of God will constantly work to oppose everything you're doing. There's going to be conviction, there's going to be a misery, there's not going to be enjoyment and sin. But a person who professes to be a believer and they permanently and continually live in the sins of the flesh without any regard to the commands of God what is that what does that say about the person? It says that there is no presence of the Spirit of God in their life. So as we close there's no question in my mind and I have nobody in my mind but there's no question in my mind that there are many of you sitting here who really do not have the Spirit in you. And your whole bent of your life internally is the flesh.

And because of the way that you've grown up and the way that where you are right now you have learned how to conform to the structure that you've been placed under but the structure does not really communicate your heart. That your desire is really towards the flesh. Paul warned, I mean Jesus warned, that among the wheat there will be tares. And so as we finish I'm calling out to some of you and our prayer for you is that you will be honest and broken over your sin and you will come to Jesus Christ and you will be born again. May we bow our heads together for prayer. Father we pray that you will now take your word and we pray Lord that there will be genuine conversions even this week as your spirit is working in hearts and that there will be people whose lives have been dominated by the flesh will be set free by the power of the new birth. And then Lord we pray for Christians who have fallen into the sins of the flesh that this will be a week of repentance and sorrow and a returning back to walking in the spirit. We ask this in Jesus name.

Amen. God bless you. You've been listening to a sermon from the study series in Galatians chapter 5 by Dr. Steve Pettit, president of Bob Jones University. For more information on Dr. Pettit's series visit our website thedailyplatform.com where you can get a copy of Steve's study booklet entitled Walking in the Spirit. A Kindle version is also available. Thanks for listening and join us again tomorrow as we study God's Word together on The Daily Platform.