Transcript

It’s time to begin our service today, and I am so glad to have you here with us. I send my greetings to everyone, especially those I have had a chance to speak with or exchange messages with over the past week. We are continuing to see more ministers and churches exit The Message, and we rejoice to see the success of the gospel message. Let’s make sure we keep our brothers and sisters all around the world in our prayers.

Making the decision to exit The Message is very difficult. For most of us, it is our entire life, our entire community, really our entire world. Leaving that behind to set off and, in some ways, to basically start over is a very challenging decision. Additionally, the persecution and the very cruel way that many people in The Message, especially their leaders, behave towards those who leave make it even harder.

It is a big job to work your way through the beliefs of The Message, and to figure out what to keep and what to throw away. We all go at our own pace and in a way that is best for us. So let’s just keep all the brothers and sisters in prayer. At this stage, there are thousands who have exited The Message, including plenty of preachers and even whole churches. It’s so big that The Message is calling it the great falling away. But the truth is, it’s actually the great running away.

We are running away from a doomsday cult and running towards Jesus, because He is what we really need. Being justified by His blood, we shall escape all wrath. We don’t need a false message or to understand hidden mysteries. To escape the wrath of God, we just need to be justified by the blood of Jesus. To say otherwise is to deny the Bible, and I thank God for that.

Scripture Reading

We are continuing our study in the book of Ephesians, and we are back in the fifth chapter today. I invite you to open your Bibles and turn there with me to follow along. I am going to be picking up where we left off in the last lesson, and I will read from verse 7 down to verse 15. The apostle Paul writes:

7 Therefore do not become partners with them; 8 for at one time you were darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light 9 (for the fruit of light is found in all that is good and right and true), 10 and try to discern what is pleasing to the Lord. 11 Take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness, but instead expose them. 12 For it is shameful even to speak of the things that they do in secret. 13 But when anything is exposed by the light, it becomes visible, 14 for anything that becomes visible is light. Therefore it says,

“Awake, O sleeper, and arise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.”

15 Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise but as wise, 16 making the best use of the time, because the days are evil.

Prayer

Let us pray.

Lord God, as we approach the Scripture today, we pray You bless our reading and understanding. As we look at these things with an honest heart, help us to discern what is pleasing to You. This we ask in Jesus’ name.

Amen.

Introduction

As we pick up here today, we have spent the last couple of lessons looking at these really strong statements made by the Apostle Paul here in the first half of chapter 5. Before we resume, let me remind us all again where we are overall within the book of Ephesians. I think that is important so we keep context in mind.

Since the beginning of chapter 4, Paul has been speaking about Christian conduct and behavior. We have labeled most of these lessons with the title “Walk In Love,” because that is what lies at the very foundation and root of everything Paul has to say about Christian conduct. At its root, the Christian life is one motivated by the love of God. In our past lessons, we have walked through an explanation of that quite extensively.

It is important to remember that this is the basis for everything Paul is saying; otherwise, we could possibly take some of what Paul says here in an incorrect direction. We must analyze and understand everything Paul is saying with the understanding that love is what motivates and defines our Christian conduct.

In the first part of chapter 5, Paul has been warning us not to fall into the harmful lifestyle of sin. He has pointed out that sexual immorality, covetousness, and idolatry are things we should avoid as Christians. Paul warns us not to be fooled; those are the very things that bring on the wrath of God. They are not things to be flirted around with or for us to make excuses for that behavior. As Christians, we have to step away from those things because they are harmful to ourselves and to others. Ultimately, they are an offense to God.

In our last two lessons, we examined those things in detail.

Do Not Partner With Evil

As we arrive at verse 7, Paul warns his Ephesian readers not to partner with people who are engaged in sinful activities. You don’t want to enter into a partnership with a man or a woman who embodies the seven deadly sins. That is not something that will turn out well. Let me read verse 7 to you again:

7 Therefore do not become partners with them.

This is straightforward: we should not enter into partnerships with people whose lives are defined by idolatry, covetousness, immorality, gluttony, greed, and similar things. Of course, this does not mean we are to avoid such people entirely. It doesn’t mean you should cross over to the other side of the street if you see someone like that coming. Paul is not taking an extreme position when he tells us not to partner with such people. We can understand this by the way he speaks about the same issue in his other epistles.

For example, in 1 Corinthians, Paul said he warned us not to keep company with immoral people, but he didn’t mean to avoid them altogether—because the only way you can totally avoid them would be to leave the world entirely.

When we consider that Paul also said things like that, it lets us know he is not taking an extreme position here. The reality is that we are still going to have relationships with people who are living non-Christian lives. We have to live in this world. We have to have a job. We have to shop at the store. We have to do the things that life requires of us. In the course of life, we are going to have to deal with those sorts of people and have relationships with them.

Whether it is coworkers, members of our family, people we cross paths with while we are out and about, or even people we have to do some business with, there are people in the world we will have to interact with. Paul is not commanding us to isolate ourselves and hide under a rock for our entire lives. If we did that, how would we be a light to anyone? We have to be out and about for someone else to see our light. If we go to the extent of hiding our light under a bushel, then we have taken Paul’s words in the wrong direction.

If we take Paul’s words to a place where they no longer can be described as walking in love, then once again, we would have taken his words in the wrong direction. We have to use our common sense to know the extent to which to take Paul’s statement. There is a line we can cross where we move into a relationship with someone and begin to take part in their evil. Life is so complicated that it’s not something we can boil down into a comprehensive explanation of what a person should do in every situation. But the rule of thumb Paul gives us is that we should not let our relationships with people advance to the point where we become partners in their evil deeds.

That is the line we need to respect and not cross. We cannot partner with wicked people in their wicked deeds. I can be kind to the man at the bus stop, but I am not going to smoke what he is smoking. I can be kind to the ladies I work with, but I am not going to invite them home to live with me. I can do a business transaction with a business owner, but I can decline to pay him under the table. We can interact with society around us and have good relationships with them, but we should not partner with them in any evil deeds.

It is up to us as individuals to look at each situation and decide the best way to handle it. It is not my job, as the preacher, to dictate to you how to navigate every situation you encounter. You have the Holy Spirit, and it is up to you to examine your circumstances and decide about your own relationships. We want to be good neighbors to the people around us, but we don’t want to be partners in their evil deeds. It is up to us as individuals to look for that line and not cross it. That is your business, and for you to decide.

Where we come from, the preacher would decide it all for you. The preachers basically put themselves into the role of the Holy Spirit. Instead of our lives being guided by the Holy Spirit, our daily lives ended up being directed by preachers. These things all go back to William Branham, who usurped the role of God. William Branham inserted himself into the roles of savior and the Holy Spirit. Many preachers of The Message who came after him did the exact same thing, learning it from him.

As they took an inappropriate level of control over people’s lives, they tended to create the isolation of the doomsday cult we lived in. That was not a good thing. We largely cut ourselves off from the world around us. I can speak for myself here—we had pretty much no relationship with anyone on the outside. That was how it was preached to us it should be. We were forbidden from any sort of relationship at all with most outsiders. They used this verse to help enforce that. Those of us who actually listened to the preachers and obeyed what they taught generally had no relationship with anyone outside of the message.

On this side of things, we can be sure that is not what Paul has in mind here. This comes across nice and clear in verse 8.

Shining Your Light

Let me read it to you. Paul writes:

7 Therefore do not become partners with them; 8 for at one time you were darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light

And let me skip ahead to verse 13. Verse 13 says:

13 But when anything is exposed by the light, it becomes visible, 14 for anything that becomes visible is light. Therefore it says, ‘Awake, O sleeper, and arise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.’

Now, what do we have there? Paul is telling the Ephesians to walk as children of light. He is telling them to shine their light. For someone’s light to shine on others, we must be around them. How is anyone going to see your light if you are isolated from them? How does that work? If we just look at Paul’s words here, it is obvious he is not saying that we should become isolated from the world around us. Because if we do that, we can’t really be a light to them.

So, we have to strike a balance. There is a balance between not partnering with evil on one hand and not getting so isolated that our light is hidden.

Just as surely as we are commanded not to partner with evil, we are also commanded to walk as children of light. That naturally means going into places and being around people who need to be exposed to light. This doesn’t mean we have to seek out places. I don’t need to go down to MS-13 gang headquarters and pay them a visit. I don’t need to find the Bloods and Crips and invite them to dinner. I don’t need to go meet up at the Klan rally. You understand what I mean. We don’t have to seek out places to find those people to shine our light. But as the natural flow of our lives brings us into contact with them, in those situations and times, let us shine the light.

As our life takes us from situation to situation—as we go about the business of life—we should walk as children of light.

We know and understand that as Paul says these things, it is apparent that he is referencing the Sermon on the Mount, which was preached by Jesus. When Jesus preached the Sermon on the Mount, He gave very plain and clear instruction about just what it means to walk as children of light. That is Matthew chapter 5, if you would like to read it. It is important here to make sure we notice that this whole concept of walking as children of light comes straight from the lips of Jesus. That is what Paul is appealing to here. Jesus said, let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify God.

So, even Jesus, in His explanation, rules out that we should isolate ourselves. Walking as children of light requires us to be out and about and coming into regular contact with people outside of the church.

What is the Light?

Now, as we are talking about this light, we understand we are supposed to walk in it. But, so far, we have not really said what it is. So, let’s ask that question. It’s a really simple question: What is the light we are shining? What is this light?

Obviously, you and I are not a glowing light in a literal sense. We are not electrified, we are not lighting up rooms in a literal sense. We are not literally a light. It is obvious that this word “light” is a metaphor. Paul is not talking about photons traveling through space in wave form and bouncing off surfaces. But, light here is a symbol.

So, what does the word light symbolize here in Ephesians chapter 5? And I think that is a very important question to answer. Because, if we interpret that symbol incorrectly, then we are going to come away from this passage with a very wrong understanding.

So, what is the light we are shining? In the doomsday cult we come from, we were told, and they believe, this light is the message itself. The message is the light. Their special revelations are the light. And it is sharing their special revelations, it is sharing the message – that is how we show the light.

In the message, whenever they talk about the light, that is almost exclusively how they use the word. In The Message – light almost always means revelations and knowledge of mysteries. And if we read these sorts of verses with that definition of the word light, it’s going to lead us into a message understanding of these verses.

So, we come back to that simple question – what is the light? Does the message have this right? Is the light our revelation? Is the light our knowledge of mysteries? Is that what this light really is? Is that what the plain reading of scripture tells us the light is?

Here is the answer: I would suggest to you, the light we are showing is love. Love is the light. The light is not revelations and knowledge of mysteries. That is not the light in this context. Instead, the light is love. If we would take time to carefully read all these passages I have mentioned, that is exactly what we would discover.

If we went back to Matthew, when Jesus speaks of it, He clearly said the light was the godly life we lived before others. This light that is being shined is love. It’s love.

It’s not your revelations. It’s not your understanding of mysteries. But your light is the godly and loving life that you live before others.

If you would, turn to the book of 1st John. We will read what the apostle John says about this. Then we will come back and finish examining this in the book of Ephesians. Because I want you to see that Paul is not the only one of the apostles who talks about these things. You will find the other apostles write about this topic in exactly the same way. In verse six, in 1st John, the apostle John writes:

6 If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. 7 But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin.

So we see there, John talks about darkness and light. John is saying the exact same thing Paul was telling us back in Ephesians. We should walk as children of light. Walk in the light.

John will also tell us exactly what these symbols mean. Go over to chapter 5. In chapter 5, we will read verses 10 and 11. John says:

10 Whoever loves his brother abides in the light, and in him there is no cause for stumbling. 11 But whoever hates his brother is in the darkness and walks in the darkness, and does not know where he is going, because the darkness has blinded his eyes.

So here, very plainly, John is explaining to us what the symbols of light and darkness mean. Here on this side of the message, we are not dreaming up our own interpretation of what these symbols mean. I refuse to do that. We will leave that to the fake message preachers. It is an ungodly thing to do – to invent interpretations of symbolism that are not in the Bible. The truth is – the message is almost entirely built on the interpretation of symbols. It’s not built on the plain reading of scripture. It’s built on taking symbols and William Branham telling us what those symbols meant.

But if we will read the Bible plainly – right here it tells us what the symbols of light and darkness mean as it relates to the way we walk. The apostle John tells us that walking in darkness means walking in hate. Walking in light means walking in love. Darkness is hate. Light is love.

That is what these symbols mean in this context.

I would suggest to you that there is nowhere in scripture that walking in light has anything to do with understanding mysteries or having special revelations. That is simply not in the Bible. That is a fake interpretation of these symbols created by a false prophet. He fooled a lot of people with his corrupt ideas.

Walking in light is walking in love. Let me read it one more time before we go back to Ephesians. John writes:

Now, let’s go back to Ephesians 5, verse 8, and compare this to what Paul writes. Paul says:

8 for at one time you were darkness [you did not walk in love], but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light 9 (for the fruit of light is found in all that is good and right and true).

As Christians, you and I should walk in the way of love. Notice in verse 9 how Paul immediately connects walking in light to the fruit of the spirit. The fruit of the spirit is love and all of its attributes. If you recall, I pointed out through the last several lessons how all of Paul’s instructions about Christian conduct were ultimately pointing towards the fruit of the spirit. Here in verse 9, Paul is bringing it home, and he is pretty plainly showing us that he is talking about the fruit of the spirit: love and the attributes of love.

And Remember What the Title of Our Lesson Is. If we step back to the first part of chapter 5, Paul told the Ephesians to walk in love. And when he gets down here to verse 8, and he says walk in light, Paul hasn’t changed subjects. He is still talking about the same thing. Walking in light and walking in love are the same thing.

It is really an abuse of the Bible to come here to chapter 5 and make walking in love and walking in light two different things. It is very plain that walking in light and walking in love are the same things. And they are shown to be the same things across the New Testament. Walking in light and walking in love are the same thing, says the apostle Paul, says the apostle John, says the Apostle Peter, says the Apostle Jude, and says Jesus Christ Himself.

Walking in light is walking in love. Once you see that here in the scripture, don’t ever let a fake message preacher steal the truth away from your heart. Don’t let them manipulate symbols over the plain reading of the Bible.

If there is one point I hope you will take away from this lesson today, it is that walking in light is walking in love. It is the same thing. It really has nothing to do with revelations and hidden mysteries.

Walk in Love

Now let me come back to Paul’s point here. Paul wants the Ephesians to walk in love, which is the opposite of walking in covetousness, idolatry, and immorality. Here in these verses, he is just restating his same instructions, but he is doing so by using light as a symbol for love.

As Christians, we should walk in a way that is guided by love. If we do that, our lives will be like a light to others. It will show them a better way and expose the difference between Christians and non-Christians.

Jesus said, “By this shall all men know you are my disciples, because you love one another as I have loved you.” So how do other people come to know we are Christ’s disciples? How do you and I show other people we are Christians? We do that by loving each other as He loved us. Not by hidden mysteries or special revelations, but by love. And when we walk in love, we will shine that light to others.

8 for at one time you were darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light 9 (for the fruit of light is found in all that is good and right and true).

On this side of things, having left The Message behind, I think there is one thing I can say I have found to be far more important than the message ever told us. And that is the fruit of the Spirit. The truth is, The Message hijacked many verses about the fruit of the Spirit. By hijacking those verses, it drew our attention away from the main thing that Jesus Christ wants to do in our lives as His followers.

The truth is that Jesus wants to transform us into loving people, people who are fruitful in that way. That is His primary objective in our lives. Changing our character in that way is the perfection He wants to transform us into. That is the perfection we will have in glory, when we are in eternity with Christ.

Today we can only have these things in measure, and a measure that is growing. But we are growing towards that end state. That is what perfection looks like. Perfection is someone who loves like Christ loves. Perfection is when our character and person are entirely defined by the love of God.

And that has been the teaching of the church for centuries. That is not something new. Perfection cannot be found in mysteries and knowledge and all those sorts of things.

When you actually look at scripture and see the correct way to define these symbols, you come to realize The Message is a million miles away from real perfection. Most of them don’t even comprehend what it is. Most are on a wild goose chase, looking for perfection in all the wrong places. They have gone so far down the wrong road, they can’t even see the forest for the trees.

And as I say that, I am not telling you that we can even achieve perfection in the here and now. But I am telling you that in eternity, that is what perfection will look like. When Christ appears, then we shall be like Him. In eternity, that is exactly what we have to look forward to.

Closing

As I bring this lesson to a close today, I want to encourage you to really think about this if you have not. Open up the Bible and actually read what it says. What is the light? What is this light we are supposed to walk in? Don’t accept what I say just because you heard me say it. Look at the Bible. Look at these verses here in Ephesians 5. Look in 1st John. Look at the Sermon on the Mount. Read the other scriptures on this topic.

See if you come away with the idea that light is mysteries and revelations. If you do, you will be surprised to discover that there is really absolutely nothing about revelations and mysteries there at all. If you can see that walking in light is walking in love, I think it will go a long way towards helping set you free from the way The Message trapped us in their false system.

You don’t need The Message to walk in the light, because they don’t even really know what the light is. But thanks be to God that He has opened our eyes to the truth of the Bible and has set us free from the doomsday cult which indoctrinated us with a false message for our entire lives.

Let me encourage you today – walk in love. Walk in the true light. Shine the love of God on others. Let God do a work in your heart. Feel free to pray along with me as I close here.

Prayer

Lord God, it is the desire of our hearts to walk in light. It is the desire of our hearts to be children of light. Help others to see that we are Christ’s disciples. Take our lives and mold us to be more like Christ. Give us the love we need to understand the height, the depth, the breadth, and the length of the Church. Give us the ability to speak the truth in love. This we ask in Jesus’ name. Amen.

Before I close, I want to let you know I will be giving a talk later this evening. I don’t normally do two services on Sundays, but I will be doing two today. I invite you to join me back at 6 this evening, as I will have a few more things to say related to these scriptures. Let me close now in prayer.