This sermon delves into Ephesians 2, emphasizing the state of every individual before becoming a Christian, highlighting the darkness and hopelessness of being dead in sin and following the course of this world. It explores the power of God in saving sinners from the grip of the world's godless system, urging believers to recognize the contrast between the world's mindset and the truth of God's Word that sets them free.

Well, we find ourselves in Ephesians 2. First three verses once again. Ephesians 2.1 And you were, the Apostle Paul, speaking to these Christians, believers from the city of Ephesus, part of the church at Ephesus. And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the Prince of the power of the air, the Spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience among whom we all once lived, in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind and were by nature children of wrath like the rest of mankind." We're looking at the condition of every single individual who is not a Christian. What you see here is we are looking at what Christians once were. That's really the point of this. Paul isn't just interested in describing humanity generally. He is very interested in having these Christians recognize what they were formerly. You see it. Verse 1, you were dead. You were. Verse 2, in which you once walked. And what's extremely helpful to think about is this, what somebody used to be before they became a Christian is precisely what everyone in this world currently is who is not a Christian. No matter color, age, social position, education, religion, wealth, if you're not a Christian, here you are. You're everything these three verses express. And what's happening is the Apostle is concerned to show the Ephesian Christians something about God in this. He wants to show the greatness and the glory of God in saving a sinner. That's what this is all about. We were this. We were down in those depths. And Paul is convinced, it doesn't seem like he thinks we can appropriately appreciate just exactly the greatness of our salvation until we recognize how dead and how wrecked and how down in the depths we are by nature. The question that comes, are you surprised at yourself? I mean, are you surprised at what you used to be? Is there anything about that that shocks, amazes, alarms you? Do you ever echo what our brother Bob, you remember in his last prayer when he visited us over there at Fatty's? What have you done, Lord? What have you done? You see, that's what Paul's doing. He wants us to see what we were that we might say, what have you done? What is this? We'll never glory in this as we ought to until we come to the top of the pit that we have been pulled from and stare down into those miry depths. Last week, my sermon title, How Dead is Dead? The Five-Fold Fallenness of Man. That was part one. We dealt with dead in trespasses and sins. This week, How Dead is Dead? Five-Fold Fallenness of Man, part two. I want to speak with man's deadness with regards to the world. Now hear me carefully. I'm not talking about man being dead to the world. I'm talking about man being dead in the world. Every lost man has this relationship with the world. In the world. Inside it. One with an evil system. You see what's being said here. We followed the course of this world. Or, your translation says, we walked according to the course of this world. Now, I think you're like me in this. It strikes me. We underestimate this concept of the world. I feel this. We under-react. Paul wants to show us a picture of ourselves and where we came from. And you know, in that description of the depravity and the brokenness from which we came from, he identifies something with regards to our relationship to the world. There is a way that Paul is using this term in Ephesians 2.2 that carries an ominous sense. And I'm afraid we don't feel that as we should. The world as it is used right here, there's something about it that is threatening. There is something hellish and vicious and terrible about this word. And I'm afraid it goes over our head. I'm afraid we read it. We probably read it just this morning. We read there. We read across that. We read that we walked according to the course of this world. And it doesn't strike us with the amount of force that it ought to. There is something about this word that we need to feel. If we're really going to recognize what it is that the power of God has rescued us from. I'm afraid we don't feel this as we ought. Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. What we think about? Some crazy worldly haircut or cut of pants or the music that they choose. But listen, we're talking about so much more than that when we talk about the world. We're talking about something dangerous. Something evil. But, I think one of the reasons that we don't appreciate this for what it is, is precisely because our Bibles use this word in other ways. Our Bible uses the term world in ways that are not hellish, but actually in ways that are good. Perhaps, or at least neutral. Let me just walk through some of the ways that world is used in our Bibles. You don't need to turn to all these, but listen, I'm going to give you a verse to substantiate every one of these ways. Now look, some of these I recognize. They're nuanced. They're just shades of difference from one meaning to the other. You may even be able to think of other ways perhaps that it's used in Scripture or used in the vernacular. But, here's a good sampling of how this is used. World. Sometimes it's used of all the creation. Everything. Basically the whole universe. Let me give you an example. Acts 17.24 The God who made the world and everything in it being Lord of heaven and earth. This idea of all the creation. And here's the thing, when all of that was first created, we see that God saw everything He had made and He said what? It's very good. See, there's a sense in which it's good. And so to take the Word and to put some terrible dark spin on it, that sometimes doesn't register so much with us. Or how about this? When we talk about the world, oftentimes we're talking about the sphere of this earth. That's what we mean by it. For instance, Mark 16.15 He said to them, go into all the world and proclaim the Gospel to the whole creation. Well, here He's not talking about all the universe. Don't preach the Gospel on Jupiter. That isn't the issue. It's this whole sphere where humanity dwells. Go out into all the world and take the Gospel. Sometimes, it's more specifically the inhabitants of the world, both angelic and human. Let me give you an example of that. 1 Corinthians 4.9 The Apostle says, and speaking about himself and the other Apostles, those other co-workers, co-labors with him, he says this, we have become a spectacle to the world, to angels and to men. There you have an idea that it's likely all the inhabitants, angelic and human. Spectacle to the world. To angels and to men. Or how about all humanity? Just men. The world of men. John 6.33 The bread of God is He who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world. Now, he's not talking about angels there. He doesn't give life to angels. Not eternal life. Not salvation. Not as he's talking here. The world. The world of humanity. The world of mankind. And that's just in a general sense that he's saying he's food for the world. He offers salvation to the world. Sometimes when we use world, it's speaking about every specific individual. Let me give you an example of that. Romans 3.19 Whatever the law says, it speaks to those who are under the law so that every mouth may be stopped and that the whole world may be held accountable to God. Every single individual held accountable. Every mouth stopped. It's every single individual people. Sometimes it just simply means a lot of people. For instance, John 12.19 So the Pharisees said to one another, you see that you are gaining nothing. Look, the world has gone after Him. They don't mean every single individual. But they mean a lot of people have gone after Him. The world has gone after Him. Sometimes world means just the Gentiles generally. Apart from the Jews. You see a perfect example of that in Romans 11. For if their rejection, the Jews rejecting Christ, if the Jews' rejection of Christ means the reconciliation of the world, what will their acceptance mean but life from the dead? The world there is everything apart from the Jews. It's the Gentiles. How about just any sphere? We talk about the world of... you fill in the blank. It's just that realm or that sphere which pertains to any particular thing. For instance, James 3.6 The tongue is a fire. A world of unrighteousness. Sometimes world just means all the stuff of the world. Matthew 16.26 What will it profit a man if he gains the whole world? It's just talking about the stuff. The credentials. The titles. The money. The pleasures. Just the stuff of the world. So that brings me to the definition in Ephesians 2.2 Here, the world carries a sense, like I said before, it's ominous. There's something threatening and hellish and dark and terrible about the way that it's being used here. There is a world that is consistent with men dead in their trespasses and sin. A whole mass of humanity alienated from God. So how dead is dead? How does this concept of the world speak to our former deadness? Do we really know the world? Does the world conjure an image of our minds of horror, of darkness? Have we properly understood what this means? Look at the verse. You were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked following the course of this world. Or, you once walked according to the course of this world. I had a picture come to my mind. I have, at different times, I try to watch what happens in the world. It seems like every now and then, for some reason, I watch dispatches to the front or I come across some news that pertains to Africa. Africa's a mess. It seems like it has been forever. They have rebel militant groups in some of the countries over there. You know they've got Islam against Christianity. There's a mess. It seems like Islam is coming down from the north. You've got countries that are just unrest. You've got rebel groups. It seems like all over Africa, somebody is rebelling against somebody else. Some kind of horrific genocide is taking place. I've read some of these stories where these militant groups just marauding across the countryside. They go into these villages and they slaughter everybody. And I've read of them taking the bodies and dumping them in a well. I think that is the perfect picture of the world. It's like Paul takes us by the hand and he has us come over to the top of the well and he says, look down in there. After weeks gone by and all that massive body, human corruption in that pit. And he says, look in there. That's where God has taken you from. That's what God has rescued you from. And think of it. You see, the deliverance that's affected for us by the power of God is not merely a deliverance from the state of individual death. It is deliverance from a pit of the whole mass of people who are rotting in one evil environment, each aiding the decay of the other. You throw a newly fresh dead body down in there and what happens? It falls into all that corruption down in there. And it just aids. It's like this squirreling mass of rot and corruption that works against and on each other, each aiding the decay of that which is next to them. Listen, we're talking about you and what you get and what you were when you throw not just one and two and ten bodies down in there, but you have a hundred, you have a hundred million, you have 7.5 billion men, women, and children dead in sin and you throw them all down into the same pit. This is the kind of thing that look down in there. That's the pit, the miry hole that God took you out of. And brethren, there is a sense in Scripture, you know this, from Ecclesiastes, what does it say? You're going to have a man, another man comes against him. He may resist him. Do you know what the wise man said? If that one man comes against two, it's not so easy. And where you have a cord, actually, where you take three fold and wrap those cords together, what does Scripture say? It is not quickly broken. What sort of principle is that? What's the truth there? Now you see, it's a principle that you can apply to that which is good or to that which is bad. We tend to strengthen one another. A force is created that is very difficult to contend with. The whole forms a power, a force that overwhelms. It overwhelms. It impacts everything that comes into contact with it. There is a current, a current, a force, an undertow that's created by the world that affects everything. A movement by which every spiritual dead man, woman, and child is carried along. The non-Christian is controlled. And there is something that is very powerful. Brethren, what we're being shown here in these verses is what the power of God has delivered us from. And what He's showing us is power after power that we did not have anything in ourselves to resist. We did not have the ability to overcome. We do not have in ourselves that which is necessary to conquer death and to conquer what we are dead walking according to this world. This world holds such a force over us that if God doesn't come deliver you, you are swept away by it. And this is true of everybody who is not a Christian. It doesn't matter what religion they have this morning. It does not matter who they call upon if they don't call upon the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. They are swept away by this and they cannot resist this. And they are being rotted by this. This isn't just a force. It's a force of darkness. It's a force of wickedness. It's a force of rot. A force of decay. It's down in that well. It's you being thrown down in there. And it's a cord coming together of all this death and rot and you become intermingled with it. And you rot in the midst of it. And you're swept by it. There's movement down there. And you're carried by all that stench of death and that rot. And we're talking moral, not physical. That's the picture. That's what we're had. We're talking, brethren, about a world. The world. This system that has a mindset. This system that's all around us. The prevailing outlook and mentality of the whole organization and machinery of men who are alienated from God. That's the issue. They're dead. They're apart from God. You can see this hellish picture. Again, I'm afraid we pass over this and we don't really see it for what it is. Just let your eyes drop down to v. 12. Remember that you were same thing. You were. Remember. Remember. Paul wants us to remember. Remember what you were. This is another just horrific description. Separated from Christ. Alienated from the commonwealth of Israel. This chosen people. You're on the outside. You're alien. Strangers to the covenants of promise. Having no hope. And without God. And you might want to pause. You see, because I'm afraid what we do as we read this, and we just read it, we're strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world. Almost like just without God in the world. And you see, we don't pause after God. We have no hope. Pause. We are without God. Pause. In the world. Without God sounds terrible. In the world, we just kind of added on at the end there. That means you're in that pit. You're down in that well. Christian, you are dead in this. Swept along by this great engine of godlessness. Every hope. Think about it. Without hope. Every hope. Every impulse. Every aspiration. Every aim. Every desire. You're just being formed and molded by this system that you were a part of in the world, in its grip, in its grasp, and all of it, no hope. This whole world around us. They have expectations. They have hope. When Scripture says no hope, it doesn't mean they don't have hope. It means none of their hopes are valid. I can guarantee you, about 99.9% of this city around us does not believe that they will end up in hell. They have some hope of escape. And that's where we used to be. And they are without hope. You're down in that well, let me tell you something, you're without hope. There's only one hope. And that is that God pulls you out of there. And it takes such a working of His power to untangle you from that cord. To pull you out of that mess of rot. To make you into a clean thing. Who can make a clean thing out of that which is dirty and defiled? In the world, all of it heading to hopelessness and damnation. The whole thing. That's the world out there. Look at the world when you drive home. Hell bound. Damnation written across their foreheads. Everywhere. You stop at a convenience store. You stop to get gas. You just watch the people as they drive by you. Hopeless, hopeless, hopeless. But damned. The world. The whole thing. What are the glaring characteristics of the world? It's like this comes at us. It comes at us often in the pages of Scripture. You know this, what I want you to do is see the world from God's perspective. See, we walk around out there and because our eyeballs roam to and fro in the physical realm, we can forget so easily how things really are. I want you to see this whole thing from God's perspective. Here's the first thing. We're going to develop this a whole lot more, Lord willing, next time. But you look at Scripture. It says the devil is the ruler of this world. It says that the devil is the god of this world. It says the devil is the deceiver of this whole world. He who is in us is greater than he that is in the world. That's what John says. He that is in the world. Scripture says we know that we are from God and the whole world lies in the power of the evil one. What we're talking about is this. What's been poured down into that pit? A third of the angels. You think about their knowledge, their cunning, their strength. You take all these fallen angels and you throw them out there to just accelerate the rot. More on this next time. Listen to this. 1 Corinthians 3.19 Speaking of the world's wisdom, you see this whole world has a way of thinking. A way it perceives things. It has ideas. It has theories. Sets forth these propositions all the time. The wisdom of this world is folly with God. It's foolishness. For it is written, He catches the wise in their craftiness and again, the Lord knows the thoughts of the wise that they are futile. Now, that's coming at this hopelessness from a little bit different direction. What does futile mean? It means it's never going to accomplish what they hope that it's going to accomplish. It's futile. Their efforts towards something fail every time. The world out there, they have hopes of pleasure. They have hopes of not perishing. They have hopes that they're going to live tomorrow. They're not going to die. They have ideas about how the world works. Why things are the way they are. Look, what I want you to see is this. When God takes the whole collective system of fallen mankind and He looks into that well, there's absolutely no... You have to get the wretchedness of this. Not one single thought in all that mass of wretchedness is ever wise, truly. Not one thought, not one hope, not one aim, not one thought comes in the minds of any in that pool that is ever good, that is ever righteous, that is ever wise, and that ever amounts to anything. It means that everything that man hopes for he never will achieve. It's futile. It's empty. And when we were lost, it just pulled us. It molded us. We may have rejected that. We love to believe we're independent. We love to boast in that. We love to believe that. It's just simply not true. You're being pulled. You're immersed. The wisdom of the world is folly with God. It's all foolishness. But here's another thing. Scripture is specific at this point. We have it articulated to us that the world specifically doesn't know the Father. It specifically tells us it doesn't know the Son. And it specifically tells us it doesn't know the Spirit. The world doesn't know God. It thinks it does, but it doesn't. It's all corrupt. It's all wrong. And I'll tell you, this is where the horror, this is where the terribleness, it doesn't know God. It is without God. That's what it means to be in the world. It talks about God. It has an image of God that it has constructed, but it doesn't know the true God. Listen, 1 Corinthians 1.21, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom. In all that it tries to do, you see the thing about the world? God is out of reach. God is beyond. Man is in a damnable condition. And he can't reach God. He simply is impotent. John 17.25, O righteous Father, even though the world does not know You, the world does not know You. I know You and these know that You have sent Me. But there it is, O righteous Father, the world does not know You. Speaking of Christ, you know there in John 1, the Word, the Word who was in the beginning, the Word who was with God, the Word that was God, we see that He came into the world. He was in the world, and the world was made through Him, yet the world did not know Him. None of it. None of it knows God. 7.5 billion people. And let me just remind you of something. When Jesus Christ comes, the basic overall description given to us in Revelation 1 is that the whole world, the realm, the nations, all the population of the earth, the sum of it is, they wail. It doesn't seem to be a picture of that many Christians. It's just like the summarizing picture is that all the nations wail. Why? They don't know Him. Who is this? We were expecting a baby in the manger. I kept a crucifix on my wall. I thought He was a dead Christ. He looked very much alive to me. And you see the thing about the horror of it? Is all those people alive right at that moment before He came, they had hopes, they had aspirations, they had dreams, they had direction, but it was all futile as it is with every age. Totally futile. Never going to be accomplished. Never going to be fulfilled. Concerning the Spirit, I will ask the Father and He will give you another helper to be with you forever, even the Spirit of truth whom the world cannot receive because it neither sees Him nor knows Him. You know Him. They don't know Him. Do you recognize what the world is? It is utter darkness. In that pit there is rot, there is decay, the mass of rotting humanity that affects the whole, affects each individual part and there is absolutely no light. It is absolute futility. More, Scripture says, there are enemies. This isn't just a fact that there's ignorance. The ignorance is on purpose. The ignorance is an overflow of our hate, of our wanting to suppress the knowledge of the true God. Listen to what Scripture says. James 4.4, many of you well know this. Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? It means you are against God. To be part of this world, there is no part of it, there is no sliver, there is no remnant of the world that God approves of. He looks at the whole thing and He finds it opposed to Him. It fights Him. You need to recognize this world for what it is. As you're driving down the road, you see these people passing by you that I said damnation, written across their forehead. The vast multitudes. The Christians out there are few in number. What's going through people's minds is not just ignorant. It's not just that they don't know the Father, they don't know the Son, they don't know the Holy Spirit. Their minds are dwelling on things and thinking such thoughts as are directly opposed to God. They are battling Him. To be a friend of the world is enmity with God. Therefore, whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. They're enemies. And the hatefulness, Jesus hit on this. He said to His unbelieving brothers there in John 7, the world cannot hate you, but it hates Me because I testify about it that its works are evil. John 15, our Lord again, if the world hates you, know that it has hated Me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own, but because you are not of the world, I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you. Or John 16, truly, truly, I say to you, listen to this, you will weep and lament. He's talking about His crucifixion. And He says to His disciples, when that happens, you're going to weep and you're going to lament. But what's the world going to do? He says it's going to rejoice. We are in a world. They talk about Jesus. We're in the Bible belt. But they want the true Christ of Scripture dead. And they rejoice to have it so. And they work to have it so. Don't be amazed that when you come with your picture of Christ, the real Christ, as displayed in the pages of Scripture, that the world absolutely hates it. They can't stand it. It's the world. And you and I were in this. We were bound up in this. We were bound up in those opinions of who God was. Those theories about God. Those theories about eternal life. Those theories about how the universe was created. The world hates the true biblical Christ. And this probably goes without saying, but it's an interesting way to look at it. The world is anti-Christ. Listen to how John says this. In 1 John 4, 3, and 5. This is the spirit of the anti-Christ which you have heard was coming and now is in the world already. Jump to verse 5. They, the anti-Christs, are from the world. You see, the world breeds the anti-Christ. Therefore, they speak from the world. The whole mouthpiece of the world is anti-Christ. And the world listens to them. Isn't that interesting? Who does the world listen to? The anti-Christs. Look at people making their crazy little movies. Running all over looking for some guy with 666 stamped on his forehead. And if they just simply walked into the bathroom and looked in the mirror, and they could see things as God sees them. 666. It's just failure. Failure. Failure. And it's a whole system. The Christian is the remnant exception. Few there be that find it. This massive machinery. You see, not everybody is Adolf Hitler. You see, that's not to see things as God sees them. That's looking at things with your physical eyeballs. Just because there isn't slaughter on every street. Paul takes us by the hand and says, look into this well. See it for what it is. This is where the power of God has taken you out of and seated you with Christ. This is it. What wretchedness. Anti-Christ is the world. Do you recognize what that's saying? Anti-Christ. It's all anti-Christ. That's like saying anti-Savior. There's none other name given under heaven among men whereby we must be saved. Do you know what it is? It's people kicking, kicking, kicking and biting at the Christ. The only name under heaven whereby they must be saved. And they strike at Him and they hate Him and they want to kill Him and they want to destroy Him and they want to suppress Him. That's the world. That's the rot. That's the decay. And we get sucked into it. Just wrapped up in this. Everybody, that's not a Christian. This is the pit. This is the hole. You have to see it for what it is. Don't be amazed. Don't be amazed. If your children don't get saved, they will spit in the face of Christ. You're lost parents. Don't be surprised. Just because they're close to you, this is what you were to. And aside from the power of God pulling you from such miry clay, there you stay. Back to the text. Ephesians 2. One and two. You were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked following the course. The course of this world. This literally reads the aion of the cosmos. The age of the world. And often times, age is, in many translations, translated world. This is two words that are often translated world. It could read literally the world of this world. But from what I've seen, every translation goes with the term course. By translating the word as course, what the translations have done is they're focusing on the advancement, the development in this age. We're in an age. It has an end. We're moving towards something. There's a course. There's an advancement. There's a progression in a certain direction and through time. We speak of set a course for the open sea or set a course for home. Or we say in the course of a year. Or in the course of the battle. That's the idea here. The picture is of a whole world in the sleep of death moving ever onward in a course of its own utter futility and hopelessness and mindset, which gives it all its shape and definition and distinction. Repeatedly, the Greek scholars indicate that this use of words here probably conveys the idea like we often talk about, the spirit of this age. That that's just basically the idea. You are caught up in the spirit of the age. It's like you take all this dead humanity, all of it, and you throw it out there. And you're in the midst of it. And it all interacts and it's rot and decay. You throw a third of the angels, all fallen and wicked and hating God, and you throw them in there. The deceiver of the whole world. What you're throwing in there are angels with their knowledge and their power, and they're thrown in the midst of that corruption and they are intent on destroying you. This is a bad mix. See, when I talk about something that is terrible, something that is dark, something that is ominous, this will sweep your children away unless God in His mercy exercises His exceeding great power that raised Christ from the dead and seated Him at His own right hand in the heavenly places. If God doesn't do that for your children, they will be swept away by this. They will be. Only God is strong enough. You are not strong enough. Only God is strong enough to stop them from doing that. We are talking about such things as we do not in ourselves have the power to resist. Only in the power of God. Only in the power of God. The spirit of this age. You know, basically what he's saying to these Ephesians is that while they were unregenerate, they had lived not given to the indulgences and corruptions and mindsets that were in fashion in a former time, but in the course of this whole thing as it found them. The spirit of the age. It's basically saying they weren't walking in the spirit of another age. They weren't walking in the idolatries and the impurities of other centuries. All the forms and all the methods by which God was despised in their own time. They were children of their age. And you know, it doesn't mean everybody's the same. It doesn't mean everybody's educated. It doesn't mean everybody runs in the same circles. It doesn't mean that everybody has the same religion. But it's those that are prominent. Yeah, there's different colors. There's different shades. There's different depths down in that pit. But in the end, all the religions and the empty hopes and the aspirations that were anti-God, you don't see people falling down to Diana. Diana. Those were the fads of another age. Diana. Jupiter. They walked in the temper of their age. Just submerged in its ideas. Do you recognize mindsets and ideas will damn you? How you think will damn you. What you believe will damn you. And it is a whole mass of the damned and their damnable ideas and their hopeless ideas and their futile ideas just strengthening like a three-fold cord. Just strong. And who can resist it? Only God can step in and stay that tide, I'll tell you. There's movement. When you talk about a course, it's a golf course. You move through it. You don't stagnate somewhere. There's movement. There's direction. There's development. Have you ever read? Evil people. This is Paul speaking to Timothy. 2 Timothy. Evil people and impostors will go from bad to worse. Or worse and worse. Deceiving and being deceived. Brethren, this thing has motion. I can tell you this. Homosexuality, transgender, garbage, it's somewhere today that it wasn't when I was in high school. This world is moving. There's a force. All these demons carrying this thing towards hell. You have to see where it ends up. That's why when Christ comes, the nations wail. Because they're going to the lake of fire. And all their hopes are dashed. These ideas being propagated through this educational system and in the news and by the internet, you beware, these are mindsets that corrupt and destroy and have strength. We are told about demon doctrines. The devil produces things to be believed because he deceives and he damns and he creates mindsets. The course of an evil world is itself evil. The course is evil. The direction is evil. And to live in accordance with it is just to progressively... You look down in that pit. You throw all the bodies down there. A week later, it's different. It's more rotted. It's more decayed. It's more foul. The trouble with men dead in sin is that they're carried along. They're controlled. They're being dragged somewhere. You watch. You watch your children grow up if God does not save them. And watch what begins to happen to them. It's not stagnant. It's not, well, they're not saved, and so they just kind of remain right there. That isn't true. A current grabs them and you begin to watch them go. And you can cling after them, but you cannot stop it unless God intervenes, unless His power. We are up against such powers in this. This is ominous. You do not want to think about the world as something that's just, oh, well, you know, not really that bad. It's a stream. It's a course of detestation of God. And that's where they get drawn away. It's like further and further and further into this godlessness. Helpless. Paul's point is that unbelievers are dominated by this course, this present evil age, this system continually seeking to press and mold and squeeze men into its mold of ungodless life and words and behavior and attitudes. And look, the unsaved, they consciously or unconsciously have minds that are being molded in some shape with values and attitudes that reflect the whole deal. Think of it. All this dark mass of ideas and opinions and thoughts and hopes and desires and impulses and aims and aspirations that are at any time current in the world. And that's what this is. That's the system. Just alienated. There's a very moral aroma in the ideas you breathe it in and then you exhale it in your own thoughts and words and attitudes. Brethren, I find it interesting, a very similar picture of this in Scripture is like tumultuous waters. Think of this picture. Isaiah 17, we get this, ah, the thunder of many peoples. Don't you see the world in this? The thunder of many peoples. The noise that they make. The noise. So much noise on the Internet and on the news and the TV and the papers and magazines and the radio stations. Noise, noise, noise. I don't care how conservative it is. It's noise that is godless. Noise. And their God, even when they talk about God, they just wreck the God of Scripture. They spit on the Christ of Scripture. They tear it down. They make Him small. They just basically tip their hat to He who is everything, who created them, who is the center, who is the focus, before whom the very seraphs cover their eyes and they speak so glibly of Him. It's a detestation of God from beginning to end. This dark mass of all these movements and ideas. And Scripture looks at it like this. The thunder of many peoples. They thunder like the thundering of the sea. Ah, the roar of nations. They roar like the roaring of many waters. The nations roar like the roaring of many waters. But He will rebuke them and they will flee far away. Chase like the chaff on the mountains before the wind and whirling dust before the storm. In Isaiah 57 we get this. The wicked are like the tossing sea. It cannot be quiet. Its waters toss up mire and dirt. It's all filth. There's no purity in it. There's no beauty. There's no peace, says my God, for the wicked. It's a whole world that is not content. It is not at peace. Because I'll tell you what, they have eternity written on their heart. No matter how much they want to try to convince themselves otherwise, they know they're going to die. And they know in their conscience there's a God as much as they've tried to suppress it. And they know they'll have to answer one day. And they fight it and they hate it and they spit at it. And it's just a mass like this ocean. And we were in there. And there's no salvation unless God powerfully saves you. Through Jesus Christ, that's the only hope that we have. And you come over to the book of Revelation and there's a picture of it. The many waters. The prostitute is seated on the many waters. And we are told that the many waters, that the peoples, the multitudes, the nations, and the languages. You see the world? It's a world of whores. The prostitute is seated on them all. We're not talking about physical sexual immorality. We're talking about people that will have sex with everything but God. We're talking about people who whore themselves after every idol, after everything but God. Everything. That is this world. And you may have a group over here and they like this idol. And you have a group over here and they like that idol. But the prostitute, it's just a world of prostitution. It's a world of whoredom. Brethren, this is the power of God. You know what we're told? What overcomes the world? Your faith overcomes the world. And you know what you read? 1 Peter 1 verse 5 We are kept by the power of God through faith. You know what overcomes the world? You can argue about 1 Peter 2 verse 7. But I'll tell you this, when God by His power has put a faith in you that you believe that the Christ of Scripture is and that He is precious above all things, you will overcome this world. And all of its godless, alienated mindsets, you will overcome the world. And I'll tell you this, you want to know your salvation? You want to know if it's true? There was a time when you suddenly dug in the heels by God's grace because of the faith in you. And you believed something entirely different than what this world believed. And you turned counter to the world, counter to its course, opposite. You went against the stream, against its beliefs, against its little views of God. That is the power of God at work. And that doesn't happen by your willpower. And it doesn't happen by the power of man. It happens by the power of God. And by the power of God, your faith is upheld against all the currents of this world, against all the tides, against all the force, the rot, the corruption, the mindsets. Because your mind, brethren, this is what Scripture says, don't be conformed to the world. We need to set our minds on things above. Brethren, the power of the living God alone, everything about the Word of God, everything in here, runs counter and contrary to all that we're talking about. You see, the beauty is, sanctify them by Thy Word. Thy Word is truth. He's appealing to His Father, not to the disciples directly. Empower them. Build them up in this Word. Shape them. Form them. Fill their minds with the truth. The truth sets us free. You want to be freed from the current of this world? The truth sets us free. That's what happens when a person gets saved. God radically, God powerfully pulls you up out of that pit of corruption. And you know what? He doesn't say, Father, remove them all from this world. He says, deliver them from the power of the evil one, but we are to be lights of the world. Brethren, let me tell you, in all that I've said, God doesn't want us to isolate ourselves in some sterile compound where we try to keep the world out. Because you do not have the power to keep it out. I've seen families will try to build this... Look, we need to protect our children. But you try to create your little gated little house on the prairie, thinking, I'm not going to let the world in. Okay, you raise your children in there, and then you watch them depart from you when they're 18. And you see what sweeps them away. Brethren, we are absolutely dependent on a power that is so great. This is what Paul wants us to see. He wants us to be amazed at who we were and see, wow! This is what God saved us from. This is His power. And if you have small views of the world, I think you end up having small views of just what it means when God saves you from that. Amen. Lord willing, we'll try to carry on and look at the prince of the power of the air next time.