1623. The Works of the Flesh, Part 2

Welcome to The Daily Platform from Bob Jones University in Greenville, South Carolina. Today on The Daily Platform, we're continuing a study series entitled Walking in the Spirit. As we've been working this semester, we've been working through the theme Walking in the Spirit. And we have learned that walking in the Spirit is the only way to live the Christian life and really nothing else works. God is so mated that we have to live independence upon the indwelling Holy Spirit that lives within us, who is the one that empowers us to live out the Christian life. Living the Christian life is not easy, it's not hard, it's impossible. Without Jesus, you can do nothing. And so he tells us in Galatians 5, 16, if we walk in the Spirit, we'll not fulfill the lust of the flesh.

This is a tremendous statement of encouragement. That if we are walking in the Spirit, there's no way, it's impossible for us to be living out the sinful works of our own sinful nature. And so what he does is he is confirming this, he is showing us this. Because the nature of the flesh and the nature of the Spirit are completely opposite from one another. They contradict each other.

They are in conflict with each other. So we come down to verses 19 to verse 23 and what we do is we see a list here of specific evidences of the work of the flesh and then specific characteristics of the fruit of the Spirit. And the reason why this list is so important is it helps us to understand the reality of whether or not we are in the flesh or whether or not we are in the Spirit. So if you are in the Spirit, here's the evidence of it, here is the fruit of it. If you are in the flesh, here's the manifestations of it. So last week we started out with the phrase in verse 19 when he says, Now the works of the flesh are manifest. That is, they're evident, they're self-evident. It's a no-brainer.

You don't have to wonder whether or not you're in the flesh because here's how you know. And we started last week with what was really at the top of the list and you find this at the top of the list of most sins in the New Testament. And by the way, there are a number of sin lists in the New Testament and you should study those. When I was a seminarian here at Bob Jones University, I actually studied out those lists of all those sins in the New Testament. And almost every single list at the very top of it has sins of immorality. Today we will continue to look at this list and we will break them down into three categories found here beginning in verse 20 and we'll read down to verse 21. He says, verse 20, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, envings, murders, drunkenness, revelings, and such like. Of the witch I tell you before, as I have told you in time past, that they that do such things or they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God.

So here's what Paul does. He continues this list of manifestations of the flesh. And these are things that all of us in various ways have experienced in our life when we're living out our fleshly desires. The first in this list here that we'll look at today are what we call religious sins. These are the sins of idolatry and the sins of witchcraft. Let's begin with idolatry. What is an idol? That's a very important question. An idol is something within creation that has been made by God, the creator, that is inflated to function as a God in our life.

Let me say that again. It is something that God has created. So Paul writes in Romans 1 where he says we have stopped worshipping the creator and we started worshipping creation. It is something within creation that has risen to the level, has been inflated to the level of God or a God in our life. It would be something that meets our self-centered desires. It could be something to which we look to for security or protection to overcome our fears. It could be something that we look to for personal satisfaction, something to satisfy the desires of our body or the desires of our mind.

It could be something that we look to that will bring us a sense of success or something that will self-promote us. And so an idol is all kinds of things depending, let me say it this way, all sorts of things are potential idols depending on our attitude and our actions towards them. Idolatry may not involve explicit denials of God's existence or character, but it may well come in the form of an over-attachment to something in itself. Something that could be perfectly good, but it could be something that we inflate it to a position in our life that God should have. An idol can be a physical object, it can be a property, a person, an activity, a role, an institution, a hope, an image, an idea, a pleasure or a hero.

Anything that can become a substitute for God. Before my conversion experience at 19 years old, there was no question in my life that my idol was a soccer ball. I loved soccer. And after I became a Christian, I didn't stop loving soccer, but I stopped worshiping it. It no longer became a priority as the most important thing in my life.

It never became something from that point forward that would lead me to disobey God. Anything in my life that becomes a priority over my commitment to God and his will, to the worship of our God, to putting him first in our life in all things, where we seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, then those things are idols. John Calvin said the human heart is a factory of idols.

Every one of us is, from his mother's birth, an expert in inventing idols. He went on to say that the evil in our desire typically does not lie in what we want, but that we want what we want too much. So for all of us as believers in Jesus Christ, we are commanded by Paul to flee idolatry, to keep ourselves from idols, to let nothing rise in my heart, to ascend to the throne of my own heart, that that becomes more important to me than anything else. It is my personal commitment to Jesus Christ, first in my life, his will, his word, the control of his spirit, which is most important, he is to be preeminent. Everything else is to be under his authority and control.

So when a person is in the flesh, then they make things and stuff and other people more important in their life than God. And then notice the second one he calls witchcraft. The word witchcraft in the Greek is the word from which we get the word pharmacy. It was used, or it meant back in biblical times, the use of drugs. It was used in occult practices to put people in an altered state of mind in order to come into contact with spirits, which are demons. I'm sure that you've seen in your lifetime television shows or movies of something where there's a witch doctor or a shaman or a medicine man, and they go into this state, this altered mind.

That's basically through the use of drugs. That's why drug use is always an open door to satanic influence in your life. And so he warns about all of these things and witchcraft, of course, would be involved in black magic and sorcery and other things.

And I do want you to understand that these things are very real. I've preached numbers of time overseas in areas where there is spiritism and the spirits are very, very powerful. Now, they're not powerful on a believer because the power of demons was broken at the cross. And therefore believers are protected. But unbelievers are open up to demonic influences in their life. Even the Didache, which was one of the earliest Christian writings after the era of the apostles, notes a severe command in abstaining from magic that is found in sorcery.

We know when we read in the book of Acts chapter 19, when Paul is in the city of Ephesus, the people came out and they burned their books that taught them witchcraft and magic. There's always an infatuation with the spirit world that is apart from God's revelation in God's word. When you read the New Testament, you read Jesus is dealing with demon spirits. When you read most of Paul's letters, you don't really get into that.

What you get into is the freedom that believers have over the demonic world and that we are to stand and put on the whole armor of God and live out our Christian faith. But when people are in the flesh, they tend towards idolatry and witchcraft. Then the second area has to do with relationship sins.

And this really is the largest number of flesh evidences that are seen in our personal life that we experience more on a regular basis. And I want to look at, if you will note please, in verse 20 he says, idolatry with witchcraft, and then he says, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, endings, and murders. These are all relationship sins, and this is where it shows up in our life. The first one is the word hatred or enmity. This is hostility or antagonism that comes between, for example, different classes of people, rich and poor, different races of people, or different ethnicities of people where people feel like they've been mistreated or misunderstood or underrepresented. It is our natural hostility we feel towards God. Paul says the natural mind is at enmity with God. And so therefore, as believers, it is very easy for us to get to a place where we feel a sense of hatred or a sense of enmity towards other people, especially believers, if we feel like we've been mistreated or misunderstood. But God commands us to love our enemies. We are to pray for those that despitefully use you. And so if there is somebody in your life that you find yourself in antagonism with, what has God commanded you to do? He's commanded you to love them and to pray for them.

That is a fruit of a Spirit-filled life. Then notice the second word is the word variance or strife. This means to be at odds with other people. This includes the actions of people who are contentious, hard to get along with, quick to argue. They like to quarrel.

They like a good fight. They love living in the world of drama. Have you ever met drama people?

I mean, they're actually hard to be with because every time you get around them, there's always tension and conflict and strife. And so Paul is warning about this. Discord can seep into any church ministry because of the attitudes of people. Paul warned about those who would preach Christ out of envy and out of strife.

That is this tension. I remember a number of years ago, I was out doing some evangelistic work in a neighborhood in a church I was working in as an intern. I was out with a gentleman. We were going two by two, knocking on doors, sharing the gospel with people. And I went to a particular home where the Lord allowed me to talk to this individual, present the gospel to them. And this person bowed their head and prayed and received Jesus Christ as their Savior. And I remember being so fired up because that's so unusual.

God had just prepared this person for the right moment, right time. And I remember getting back in the vehicle with this gentleman. He was a little bit older than I was. And when we closed the door, I could see anger on his face. He looked at me and he said, you stole my convert. And I went, what?

What are you talking about? He said, you stole my convert. You were the one that shared the gospel and led him to Christ and I didn't get to do that. Now, that only took place 44 years ago.

And I remember it as if it took place today. And what happened was he was reacting out of a sense of strife in his heart. We should rejoice when Jesus is preached and people are saved no matter who preaches the sermons. Who are we? We are only laborers for Christ. Every man receives his own reward. There is nobody special in God's vineyard. We are brothers and sisters in Christ.

And all we do is live our lives for the glory of God and serve Him. And so therefore, in this case, there was a spirit of strife. Then notice the next one, it says emulations.

And I'm going to use this and tie it to the word envings, which comes a little bit later on. The word emulation has the idea of jealousy. Now, jealousy and envy are like a brother and sister.

They're very, very similar. But they're differences. A jealous person is someone who has a passionate zeal for their own personal self-interest. And they feel threatened by the success of others. Envy is different. It means they have a hostility towards their competitors with a malicious spirit. That is, they want to see that other person hurt or suffer.

And so therefore, they have an ill will towards those who seem to be more prosperous. Let me give you an illustration of this. I was preaching a number of years ago in a church up in the state of New Hampshire. And after the evening service, the four team members that were traveling with us, two young men and two young ladies, were standing in the back of the auditorium. I noticed that the two young ladies and one of the young men, each of them had a small loaf of banana nut bread. And the other guy had nothing. And his name was Peter. And I said, Peter, you didn't get any banana nut bread from these people?

And he looked at me, kind of smiled. He said, no, I guess I didn't. I said, Peter, do you know the difference between jealousy and envy? I said, jealousy is you're upset that everybody else got banana nut bread.

You didn't get any, and you want it right now. I said, do you know what envy is? Envy is you saying in your heart, I don't want any banana nut bread, and I hope when they eat their banana nut bread, they get sick to their stomachs. That's the difference.

They're very similar, but the outcomes are different. You and I all by nature are jealous. We don't like it when somebody has what we don't have.

When they drive a nicer car, wear better clothes, have better grades, have different abilities and opportunities to come to them. Or we find ourselves actually enjoying hearing the gossip of how other people fail. Have you ever been to the grocery store and you're standing in the checkout lane and they have all those highly intelligent magazines sitting there? Like Globe and Star? And what are they all about?

They're gossip columns about people who are rich and famous, who have all kinds of problems in their life, and we like to read that because it's human nature to enjoy other people's sufferings. I mean, how many of you when you were growing up got disciplined by your parents? Excuse me, you got spanked by your parents.

Raise your hand, okay? Everybody here got spanked, okay? Almost everybody got spanked. Now, how many of you remember when a brother or sister got spanked and you didn't?

Raise your hand, okay? How many of you sat there and while your sibling was getting disciplined, you were weeping and praying and crying for them that the Lord would be merciful and have blessed them? Is that what you did? Or did you do what my children did when I walked out of the room after disciplining a child and the other ones were sitting there on the couch with their hands folded and they had the biggest grin on their face? It's just human nature. And of course, as we mature and as we grow in the Lord, what do we learn? First of all, we learn to be grateful for everything God has given us. Because what we have, we don't deserve, and what we've received has been a gift of God. Gratitude for God's grace is what makes the difference in our lives.

And do you know what? When other people are rejoicing, I'm commanded to rejoice with them. And then notice the next word, the word wrath. The word here has the idea of fits of anger.

It literally has the idea of breathing hard. Have you ever noticed when you get angry, your heart begins to race and you breathe hard? It's a volcanic explosion, an emotional outburst, fits of anger and hostility.

It could be a display of verbal abuse, attacking people, an enraged temper. I remember years ago I was out playing golf with a friend of mine and his brother-in-law. His brother-in-law was a young pastor, probably 25 years old.

And we had gone out and played golf that day and we were driving down one of the main streets in Denver, Colorado called Alameda Avenue. The pastor was driving, I was sitting in the back seat, and my friend was sitting in the passenger seat in the front. And all of a sudden a car whipped out in front of the pastor.

Someone had said, you can always tell how spirit-filled people are by the way they react when they drive cars and when they play sports. Well, I guess the pastor must have forgot we were in the car because he reached down underneath his seat, grabbed an iron tire tool, held it up, started yelling at the driver, and he said, I want to break your head. I was sitting in the back seat and I was thinking, hmm.

Temper, temper, temper. Okay, brother pastor, you didn't have your devotions this morning. Do you know I saw that pastor years later in a pastor's conference?

And guess what's the first thing I thought? Someone had said, if you lose your temper, you lose your testimony. Now, every one of you sitting here have probably had fits of anger. You may not have showed it to other people, but you showed it in your room when you closed your door and you murdered your pillow. Or you sat there and you sulked.

You got angry and depressed. Walk in the spirit, you will not fulfill the lust of the flesh. Then notice the next one is murder. Murder is the response of anger and wrath which leads to a person taking another person's life.

Or maybe you can't do that, you just pray that they will depart planet Earth and get out of your life. And then notice the next three. And I'm going to put them together, strife, seditions, and heresies because actually these go together and they appear in succession. One leads to the next one. The word strife here is the idea of a rivalry. It was used to describe a politician who was seeking an office and manipulating the process for self-promotion and personal gain.

So when you think about a politician who's running for office, obviously they're running against somebody else. They have an agenda, they have something they're wanting to do and they're trying to beat the other person. Now, this happens in the political world, but it shouldn't happen in God's world. In the church, strife has to do with power, control, rival factions, competing parties that are motivated by selfish ambition.

It is generally somebody who is very opinionated, who seeks to draw people to their side. So they're developing a following based on their own agenda instead of really seeking for the Lord's glory and the Lord's name to be praised. And that leads to the next thing, which is the word sedition or dissension.

It literally means a standing apart. Instead of promoting unity among believers, these opinionated people bring strife that results in a spirit, an atmosphere, an attitude of disunion and division among church members. I was preaching in a church a number of years ago and a lady came up to me and she said that when her pastor came to the church, she said to the pastor, Pastor, I am praying that you can make this church one because right now it's three. In other words, within the church there is a division. And so Paul is saying that this is rooted in sin nature. Because think about it, the fruit of the spirit should always be unity, endeavoring to keep the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace. We should work for a unity among the people of God. That's one of the reasons we say the creed every day, as I mentioned before. And the end result of that is dividing the body of the church into distinct groups based on varying opinions. That's where we get the word heresy.

Then notice the last two and I'll finish up very quickly. And these are sins of intemperance. By intemperance we mean a loss of control. The final two are the sins of drunkenness and revelings. Drunkenness means intoxication.

What does it mean to be intoxicated? Well, believers are commanded to be filled with the spirit. Be not drunk with wine, where in his excess, but be filled with the spirit. The word filled means to be under the control of the Holy Spirit. So that our mind and our responses are in alignment with what the spirit of God wants us to do according to the word of God.

So all of us as believers have the Holy Spirit. Drunkenness is when the alcohol you drink begins to alter your mind and your responses. The word reveling has the idea of parties.

And the idea here is that parties led to a life of a loss of control. So it could end up in immorality. It could end up in sensuality. It could end up in wasting yourself away.

Now let me say this in conclusion. With regards to whether a Christian can drink alcoholic beverages, I want you to consider one very simple thing from this passage of scripture. And that is when we look at it as a whole, the works of the flesh, should a believer strive in his life to avoid the control of the flesh altogether?

The answer to that obviously is yes. So let's take adultery or immorality. Let's take strife, murder, divisions, okay? Those things, those actions come from the desires.

The battle of the Christian life is not in the action, it's in the desire. So as a believer, what I should do is I should strive to avoid the desires that lead to those actions. So for example, in the matter of adultery, I should be very careful about the way I handle my relationships with any woman. And I should do that perpetually. It's not just, okay, I didn't commit adultery, but I made out with all these girls. I mean, we would all go, that's wrong. And the thing I want you to think about, and I want you to consider this, that the Apostle Paul tells us in Romans 13 and verse 14, he says, put on the Lord Jesus Christ and make not provision for the flesh to fulfill the lust thereof.

The word provision means forethought. Here's what I'm saying. If drunkenness is a sin, and everybody here gets that, you know that, what leads to drunkenness? Should I not avoid the very potential of things that would put me over the line? And by the way, it does not take much to get drunk. Because a little bit of wine, a little bit of alcohol, a little bit of beer will put you in a state of an altered mind very quickly, and then suddenly you sin against God. And I want to say that to you because you're growing up in a time where Christians are wondering, is it okay to drink alcohol?

Is it not to drink alcohol? And there are differences of opinions on that, and I get all of that. But I want you to think of it, especially at this time of your life.

First of all, it's against the law if you're under 21. But I want you to think about that. Because as a believer, I should strive in my own life to not make provision for the lust of the flesh. If I struggle with anger, where does the battle start? It starts within my heart. And the Spirit of God gives me the power to overcome my flesh. Thanks for listening, and join us again tomorrow as we continue the study in the book of Galatians, preached from the Bob Jones University Chapel platform.