Play it Safe

Ephesians 5:3-14

Story of the billionaire and his Yacht

He wanted someone skilled to captain his top of the line yacht

3 finalist, and had to prove their helsmenship

first could navigate rapids and come near to waterfalls and could take the ship to the brink without sinking

second one could navigate a few meters from staggering and dangerous cliff lines, fighting against the current that wanted to smash the ship into a million pieces against the rocks

third one was watched with much anticipation from the other two applicants. Only to see him take his guests into the beautiful and calmest waters where the billionaire and his friends enjoyed the view

To the suprise of the other two the billionaire picked the third applicant, acknowledging all their skill level. “But my yahct is very precious to me, so I don’t want the cofindence of one who who will take it to the brink of being destroyed if one litte mistake should happen.”

God does not want us to be driving our precious bodies as close to immorality as we can, where one mistake could bring great wreckage upon ourselves for the rest of our earthly lives.

Ephesians 5:3 NIV

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.

V3 - Impurity and sexual immorality are linked, all forms of impurity mean any other forms of sexual immoraltiy. Porneia is used here, and it is where we get our word for pornography. The mistake we sometimes make is thinking that Paul’s day was some how less debased. They had homosexuality practices, group activities, boys dressing up as girls, etc. do we have it worse? Well its a no and kind of yes.

Incest - 1 Cor 5:1 - love is love as a man sleeps with his mother

Prostitution - 1 Cor 6:13 - just going down to worship at the temple meant sleeping with temple prostitutes

Sex out of wedlock John 8:41- Jesus insults the pharisee’s by calling them ilegitimate (they are indignate)

Idolatry - Rev 2:20-21

Revelation 2:20–21 NIV

Nevertheless, I have this against you: You tolerate that woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophet. By her teaching she misleads my servants into sexual immorality and the eating of food sacrificed to idols. I have given her time to repent of her immorality, but she is unwilling.

The devils fake sex idols are imitation, broken, poor pleasure and lead to death. He is a master of faking and selling cheap knock offs. Vs Gods good pleasurable, joyful intimacy found in a monogmous, marriage between a man and a woman, consensual parties. Initmacy is a taste of God’s initmacy and deep knowing of us.

Surrender them all to be destroyed

Colossians 3:5 NIV

Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry.

Now we come to a time and place where Paul and his time didn’t face, and that is the place of the internet where the enemy has devised a new weapon that is very powerful. All the sexual activities and warefare was out in the marketplace and not in the home. Now he has used the internet and produced a new weapon, a cyber one - pornography that comes into our home through smart devices.

PORNOGRAPHY

The Changing Character of Spiritual Warfare It is as though we have devised a form of heroin 100 times more powerful and addictive than before, usable in the privacy of one's own home and injected directly to the brain through the eyes. It's now available in unlim- ited supply via a self-replicating distribution network, glorified as art and protected by the Constitution."

Where did it start

Unsupervised use of devices. Sadly, kids with unrestricted and unsupervised vices is having detrimental effects. Research by security technology company found that 'one in 10 visitovrs to porn sites is under 10 years old'. Children are not watching what we would imagine as normal porn, they are consuming some of the most degradıng and violent imaginable, even live-streamed. Porn is said to be more addictive than heroin, Dr. Jeffvor. Satinover wrote: With the advent of the computer land smartphonel, the delivery system for this addictive stimulus (inter net pornography] has become nearly resistance-free. According to Fight the New Drug, the UK has had a 400- percent increase in child-on-child sexual assaults: In a report by The Daily Mail, convictions of rape by those aged under 17 years old have almost doubled in just four years in the UK. A representative from the country's Ministry of Justice has warned that extreme pornography is fueling this alarming rise in the number of child rapists. Experts say violent pornography is influencing children to act out the aggressive, hardcore scenes they see online." This is not just a problem in the UK. Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner (SANE) Heidi Olson, from the US, writes:

The biggest age range of perpetrators that I see in my hospital is CHILDREN. In fact, in 2016, 2017, and Continuing this year in 2018, our biggest age range of people committing sexual assaults are children ages 11-15 years old. ... Pornography is often a driving factor, and sometimes rhe only factor that influenced Child to act out in a sexually harmful way.

Affects on men

Suicide rates

Depression

Depression is a raging epidemic in men and boys and also a side effect of consuming porn. (Any time a person] spends much time with the usual pornography usage cycle, it can't help but be a depressing, demeaning, self- loathing kind of experience," says Dr. Gary Brooks, a psychologist who has worked with porn addicts for the last 30 years'." it is easy to see the correlation between the increase in porn use in boys and the increase in suicide. We are indeed in a health crisis.

Degrading of women

Increase in sexual attacks of the most heinous nature, not from the patriachy or toxic masculinity but from the increase in pornography and frequency of watching and more disturbing. like a drug the addict needs a stronger hit more often.

Performance issues

More and more young ltalian men are suffering from sexual anorexia and are unable to get erections because of Internet porn use that started in their mid. teens, experts have said.A survey of 28,000 users found that many Italian males started an'excessive consumption' of porn sites as early as 14 and after daily use in their early to mid-20s became inured to 'even the most violent' images, said Carlo Foresta, head of the Italian Society of Andrology and Sexual Medicine (SIAMS). After developing their sexuality largely divorced from real-life relationships, Foresta said, the effects were gradual but devastating."

Sexual orientation confusion

With looking into how people came to the conclusion that they were gay, two themes kept coming through: porn has messed with their identity, and porn can confuse sexual orientation when viewed as a child. If boys (and girls) are exposed to gay porn, whether accidentally or through curiosity, and this produces an involuntary physiological arousal, then a young person may believe this is evidence that they must be gay or bisexual. Leading to a mass increase in numbers since the gay agenda has ramped up. The problem with this is that society celebrates and pushes confused individuals down the road of this particular sexual orientation life.

Hudson shares about his experience with gay porn as a teen and his sexual abuse. He remembers when he believed the lie that this is who I am' and, as a result, lost the hope of ever becoming a husband or a father, the one joy which he was forever barred'. This, of course, led him to a dark place of depression. "The world was trying to get me to say, "This is who I am, this is my identity." ... All on account of the attractions that I never chose to experience.

Ephesians 5:4 NIV

Nor should there be obscenity, foolish talk or coarse joking, which are out of place, but rather thanksgiving.

V4 - In almost all languages there are plenty of terms which one may use to speak of obscene or vulgar language, since such types of speech are universal. Obscene language may be described in some languages as “dirty language.” But in some instances it may be called “vulva language” (a reference to the female genital organs). It would be wrong, however, to interpret the TEV use of profane as simply being in contrast with sacred. This is not secular language but “bad talk.” Sometimes one may use an expression such as “how fools talk.” Finally the term vulgar may be rendered as “jokes about sex” or “jokes about the genitals”

In speaking of “giving thanks” it is frequently necessary to indicate the content of such thanks or at least the reason for the thanks. Making such information specific in this context may be particularly significant in that it provides a basis for contrast from the first part of verse 4. One may, for example, translate you should give thanks to God as “you should thank God for what he has done for you,” presumably in freeing the believer from such bad behavior.

We can also be thankful for sex itself and the beauty, pleasure and ability to show love and intimacy at a very deep level, in a marriage where both parties are consensual. Sex outside of marriage leads to heart ache, brokeness and confusion. As does homosexuality.

Ephesians 5:5 NIV

For of this you can be sure: No immoral, impure or greedy person—such a person is an idolater—has any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God.

V5 - The statement greed is a form of idolatry is complex in its meaning, and it may be necessary to specify what is involved in greed and in idolatry, for example, “if you always want to get more and more for yourself then that is the idol which you are worshiping” or “those who are always wanting to get more things have really made those things their god” or “… those things have become their god. For example even a good thing like ministry could become greed in the sense of an idol

A strictly literal translation of will ever receive a share in might suggest that the Kingdom of Christ and of God would somehow be divided up. It seems much better therefore to translate will ever receive a share in as “will ever have a place in” or “will ever be a part of.”

Ephesians 5:6–7 NIV

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.

V6-7 - Abbott summarizes the situation: these are the words of “persons … who made light of sins of impurity.” It is impossible to determine, however, whether such persons were part of the Christian fellowship or were outsiders. It would be wrong to translate foolish words as “stupid words” or “meaningless words.” In order to be deceitful, such words must be clever but wrong, and therefore in some languages foolish words may be appropriately translated as “lying words”

In verse 7 such people are the people who are attempting to deceive the readers. The Greek is literally “Do not, then, become partners of them”. Have nothing at all to do with such people may sometimes be expressed as “avoid such people.” But it may be more in keeping with the context to say “do not join up with such people” or “do not keep company with such people”

Ephesians 5:8–9 NIV

For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Live as children of light (for the fruit of the light consists in all goodness, righteousness and truth)

V8-9 - “At one time you were darkness, but now (you are) light in the Lord” is how the first part of verse 8 reads in Greek. The two metaphors darkness and light stand for spiritual and moral conditions: death versus life, lost versus saved, evil versus goodness.

Verse 9 in Greek is literally “for the fruit of light (is) in all goodness and righteousness and truth” Light here is seen as a fertile field which produces fruit

Gal 5:22 “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness,”

Goodness, righteousness, and truth: the three qualities listed are all moral virtues, ethical qualities, which characterize people who “walk in the light” of God. See Brc:

“For light brings as its rich harvest everything that is good and right and true”

best to translate verse 9 as “it is this light which causes people to do everything that is good and right and true,”

Ephesians 5:10 NIV

and find out what pleases the Lord.

V10 - This verse in Greek is a participial clause, related to the sentence that begins in verse 8. Try to learn translates a Greek verb which means primarily “to put to the test, try, prove,” and (as a result of such a test) “to approve, commend, accept as good.” Here the first meaning is indicated; Christians are called upon to find out by testing, experimenting, trying, what is well-pleasing to the Lord (see similar use of the verb in Rom 12:2). Barth translates “Find out by experience”

What pleases the Lord may be rendered in some instances as “what causes the Lord to be happy.” But it may be more appropriate in some languages to render the clause as “what the Lord wants you to do”

This verse is rendered, test and try to please the Lord. This means that Paul is calling us to scour the bible to find all the things that make God happy and reject/repent of worldly ways that don’t, infact bring them into the light to be destroyed.

Ephesians 5:11–12 NIV

Have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of darkness, but rather expose them. It is shameful even to mention what the disobedient do in secret.

V11-12 - Have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of darkness, but rather expose them. It is shameful even to mention what the disobedient do in secret. Have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of darkness, but rather expose them. It is shameful even to mention what the disobedient do in secret. Have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of darkness, but rather expose them. It is shameful even to mention what the disobedient do in secret. Christian maturity will help us steer and navigate the murky waters of fruitless acts of damnation.

Story of the billionaire and his Yacht

He wanted someone skilled to captain his top of the line yacht

3 finalist, and had to prove their helsmenship

first could navigate rapids and come near to waterfalls and could take the ship to the brink without sinking

second one could navigate a few meters from staggering and dangerous cliff lines, fighting against the current that wanted to smash the ship into a million pieces against the rocks

third one was watched with much anticipation from the other two applicants. Only to see him take his guests into the beautiful and calmest waters where the billionaire and his friends enjoyed the view

To the suprise of the other two the billionaire picked the third applicant, acknowledging all their skill level. “But my yahct is very precious to me, so I don’t want the cofindence of one who who will take it to the brink of being destroyed if one litte mistake should happen.”

God does not want us to be driving our precious bodies as close to immorality as we can, where one mistake could bring great wreckage upon ourselves for the rest of our earthly lives.

So why are you seeing that colleague after work for a drink when you know he'll flirt with you and you fancy him? Why have you agreed to go clubbing with colleagues while you're abroad on business when you know you'll feel pressured to drink and go to a strip joint? Why haven't you asked your partner to block the " Adult" cable channels on your TV, and your Bible-study leader to sort out an internet accountability program? Why are you sharing your personal thoughts with someone else's husband, and why are you stopping to chat when you drop off that married youth leader after church? Stop steering close to the rocks: have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds

Eph 5:13-14 “But everything exposed by the light becomes visible—and everything that is illuminated becomes a light. This is why it is said: “Wake up, sleeper, rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.””

V13-14 - then Paul quotes from Isaiah, explaining that "this is why it is saidwake up sleeper, rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you. He is referring to the glorious promise of lsaiah 60:1: "Arise, shine fo your light has come, and the glory of the LORD rises upon vou" Since Christ has risen from the grave to reveal himself as the light of the world from God, we must now wake up and Iive by his teaching.

“ The lamp of the gospel has been switched on in our old prison cell of sin.” - Richard Coekin