All right, turn with me to Ephesians chapter 4. Ephesians chapter 4 verse 17. I've had several different things going through my mind, studying on and thinking on, and this is what we fell on tonight. I just believe this is another one of those things that needs to be dealt with. There's more. than what I've got here tonight. There's things that need to be dealt with that I won't be able to in this message just for time's sake, but there'll have to be more said about this subject. Let's look here in the scripture Ephesians chapter 4 verse 17. Let's read through verse 19. This I say, let me start over. This I say therefore and testify in the Lord that you henceforth walk not as other Gentiles walk in the vanity of their mind, having the understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them because of the blindness of their heart." Man, that's a terrible indictment, isn't it? Who being past feeling, this is what we're going to talk about. Who being past feeling, those are the people who are past feeling have given themselves over unto lasciviousness to work all uncleanness with greediness." Man, that's terrible. I mean, he put it in strong language, didn't he? To describe this kind of people. All right. Feeling is one of our five physical senses. The sense of touch. We call that feeling, don't we? Feel of this. Tell me what you think. It's the sense of touch. Being one of our physical senses, feeling is a means of gathering information in order to make decisions and avoid dangers and approve or disapprove of something. We use it a lot. We feel of things a lot, don't we? All these gadgets, now they're touch, they're activated by touch. Let me tell you something, it worked a lot better when it was a switch that was just on or off. It was a button that clicked. Things worked instantly. You didn't have to sit there and wait on it. It worked a lot better. Yes, it did. The sense of touch is a way of discerning things. You touch something to find out how hot it is, how cold it is, how sharp it is, how dull it is, you know, how soft it is, how hard it is. We figure out a lot of things by just touching. I've been working on those doors back there, and I can't see little specks, but I can feel them. That's how I do it. I brush and feel with my hands, and I can feel little bitty specks and stuff, and I can tell if there's something on there by feeling of it instead of looking at it. Imagine life without the sense of touch. If we couldn't feel things with our hands and fingers and the rest of our body, what would life be like? Well, a hot or cold shower wouldn't matter, would it? Nothing much would matter, really, would it? If you couldn't feel anything, what would life be like? It'd be like not being alive. It'd be like being numb. What is it like when you wake up, I do this a lot, and your arm's asleep? Or your leg's asleep? It's not a pleasant feeling, is it? Do you like it when you go to the dentist and they numb you? And then you come home and all day, it's just like, you can't, it's like, Just think what life would be like without feeling. Feeling. Now the verse we just read there is not referring to feelings of the flesh, but to feelings of the soul or the heart. There's a deeper way that we feel, and it's not with our fingers and our skin. We feel much deeper than that, don't we? Do you know that all of our senses are like, oh, taste and see that the Lord is good. There's two senses right there in that little sentence. Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good. All of the senses are involved in feeling. We feel with the heart like we do with our hands and our skin, but there must be an object to our feelings. Please listen to me. The object is ourselves or another person or it can be an animal. People love their pets nowadays. I guess people have always had that. I think it's out of hand now. I think it's ridiculous and way out of bounds and it goes with our decadent society. and degenerate society, but we do. We have feelings. We develop feelings of an object. Now, that object is either ourselves or another person or another animal or it could be, you know, we develop feeling for things that are inanimate and have no real value in the sight of God. We do. Man, I hate to admit that, but we sure do. I go up there where the sawmill is set and I miss it. And I think every time, that is so stupid. That's just a thing. And it was just an aggravation most of the time. But we have feelings. These feelings of the heart are the issues of life. You need to understand that. Proverbs 4.23 says, keep thy heart with all diligence, for out of it are the issues of life. These are the issues of life, feelings. These feelings that I'm talking about here tonight. These feelings that this verse talks about these people did not have anymore. These people who had their understanding darkened and were alienated from the life of God to the ignorance that is in them. because of the blindness of their heart. And they have given themselves over unto lasciviousness to work all uncleanness with greediness. These are the people that have no feelings anymore. They don't feel. They don't feel. So they don't care. If you don't feel, you don't care. Same thing. It's synonymous, it goes together, it is the same ailment, malady, sin, whatever it is. It's the same problem. You don't care, you don't feel. If you care, you feel. And these are the issues of life. There are some people who appear to have no feelings. Now, modern terminology and psychology and all of this, they call them sociopaths or psychopaths. There's a difference there, but both of them have some things in common. And these things that they have in common, it has to do with feelings. Feelings for others and feelings for themselves. They're not past feeling because they feel hatred. And they feel contempt and they feel anger. They have lots of feelings, just no good ones. And especially no good ones toward other people. The identifying characteristic is their lack of feeling for others and their lack of regard for the feelings of others. They feel no empathy and they feel no sympathy for other people. Can you imagine that? Look at yourself. Are you really that way? Can you look at somebody and not hurt if they're hurting? Can you just feel nothing when you see somebody else suffering? Or you see somebody else mistreated? Or you see somebody else hurting? And you just don't feel nothing? Can you just laugh at them? Can you just laugh at it and go on? And just count it as nothing? You're in dangerous territory if you really can do that. The pain and the suffering or the grief and injustice that others are subjected to is of no concern to these people. And they feel no pain or sense anything unpleasant about it. Their only concern is themselves. Man. You know, you can read all kinds of these stuff which we shouldn't read. Just shouldn't read these news articles that tell all these gruesome details of things. of violent acts against other people and everything, but people can, you know, they can sit down and eat a sandwich over the dead body of somebody they just butchered and not feel a thing. There's something bad wrong with people that can do that. Something has come undone in their soul. These kind of people are more and more numerous now than they used to be. I'm telling you. And there's a reason for it. People who have no feelings have a very serious spiritual problem. Of course, there are people who don't show their feelings openly very often. I understand that. I'm kind of one of them. A lot of people are that way. Women are naturally more inclined to show their feelings than men are. Now that's a fact. And men are naturally more inclined to refrain from showing their feelings simply to keep from appearing too feminine. That's a fact. But there's a great difference between not wearing your feelings on your sleeve and not having any feelings. There's a big difference there. We're not talking about people who don't show their feelings much. We're talking about people that don't have feelings. God created us to have feelings and they're a major issue of life and a major element of our soul. And I don't know how to stress that or make that clear enough. I don't know how to articulate it so that that, that it comes across like it needs to the importance of that fact. This is a major, this is the issues of life. We think this matters more than just about anything else. What would life be like if all people were without feelings? We watch animals. And some animals don't appear to have feelings. Animals appear like psychopaths, you know. They do. They'll take care of their young, and kill everything else and not think a thing about it. They'll kill some other animals young and not, it doesn't affect them at all. Mindless, heartless, thoughtless, soulless. And there are people just like that. What would it be like if all people were like that? What kind of world would this be? Well, If you mess around and miss the coming of the Lord, or you mess around and miss knowing the Lord, you're gonna find out in this world pretty soon, because that's about what it's gonna come to. They are the, feelings are the fat and the sweetness, as well as the bitter herbs of life. Think about that. What would life be like without feelings? What would life be like for you if you have no feelings? They're the fat and the sweetness, the best things of life. They're what gives life savor and joy and pleasure. There's no pleasure without feeling. Nothing gives us pleasure without feeling. Pleasure is a feeling, but it's not really, it's a result of feeling. Now, the only thing that shows that we care about anything or anyone but ourselves are our feelings. And if we don't show them, people don't know. The healthy soul has a great need for them. We live on them. They're really the water of our soul, so to speak. We just can't live without them. Life is too empty without them. What does it mean to be lonely? You're being deprived of feelings. of receiving and giving feelings. That's what loneliness is. You ain't got nobody to talk to, to show your feelings to. You've got nobody to show their feelings to you. That's what hurts about loneliness. The healthy soul has a great need for this. All the great things concerning God are accompanied by feelings. Truth. The truth. It's the rejoicing of your heart. Charity rejoiceth in truth. That requires feelings. You don't rejoice without feelings in your soul. Feelings produce outward expressions of everything that's good and wonderful and holy and right and godly. Those without feelings don't understand or possess any of those things. Truth, love, praise, mercy, grace. Those without feeling, they don't possess any of those things. They don't love. They don't know the truth. They don't know what mercy is. They show no mercy. They receive no mercy. So they don't understand. Now the more of our life that God controls, the greater our sense of feelings. When we glorify God as God in our lives, and our minds live and operate in that reality, there's a feeling in everything. I mean, you're a, you know, how can I say it any other way? You're a tender-hearted person. You feel everything. You feel pleasure in beauty. Beauty in everything. You see beauty. It makes you, you look at the stars. Look at the moon tonight. That big old star right above it, out there looking at it. We've looked at it all the way to church tonight. Why does that? God made it. It's a wonder. You look at it and think that it's been here ever since men have walked there. Every man and woman, boy and girl that had eyes to see have looked at that moon that ever lived on this earth. Same moon, still there. Same stars. It just, you think about David and the Psalms, you know, what I consider the heavens. The works of thy hands, the moon and the stars, which thou hast ordained." The moon and the stars. He thought about them too. And he took great pleasure. Then he expressed his feelings there in that song. We get pleasure out of things. When we glorify God in our lives, our minds are just focused on that. And we find pleasure in beauty, in sunsets, in mountains, in flowers, in color. Color. We take pleasure in color. I read somebody's obituary last night and it said her favorite color was red. I mean, P's always tell me about her favorite color. Everybody, especially women, like color. They get great pleasure in color. It makes them feel. I mean, I'm just saying that when God is real in your life, you're gonna have feelings. You ain't gonna be one of these that are past feeling. Past feeling is without God. And you can just set your, you can gauge how close you are to God by that. We find pleasure, we feel pleasure in things we hear, music, voices of loved ones, It's all it takes sometimes to bring forth feelings, to hear somebody's voice. Isn't it amazing how unique voices are? You know somebody by their voice. Everybody has a distinct voice, as unique as their fingerprints. And it's attached to feelings. We like to hear birds singing. It makes us feel something, don't it? Every spring, we're waiting on the whippoorwill. Who hears the whippoorwill first? There he is, the whippoorwill singing. Like to hear the frogs, you think that is so dumb. But I remember when we lived in Mexico and I hadn't heard frogs in months and that was a thing we missed, really. I can think of, I thought about it and thought, man. All we hear here is horns and sirens and music and screaming and hollering and motors and traffic. Why does it give you good feelings just to sit on the porch and listen to the frogs at night and the bugs in the summer? We find pleasure in our sense of touch. It's the most used sense when a child's developing. Have you ever noticed that? He has to touch everything and feel of it. He can't be satisfied to just look at it. He's got to touch it. And if he can touch it and get a hold of it, what does he do next? He has to taste it. He has to feel it, he has to taste it. He has to know about it. We find pleasure in tasting things, in smelling things, and of course, there's a negative in all of those senses too. We feel displeasure also in every sense. There's bad smells, and there's bad tastes, and there's bad sounds, and there's things that feel bad, and yeah, and things that are ugly. And of course, that's just the way it is. But as God diminishes in our life, so do our pleasurable feelings. Listen to me here. When you start going away from God, you start going away from good feelings. It begins when we start losing our feelings toward evil and unclean things. Being convinced by the devil that we're getting wiser than those who told us those things were wrong. Does that sound familiar? I mean, Eve, the garden, the serpent, does that sound familiar? Same old way, but when we start losing our distaste for things that are unclean and evil, we cease to feel that displeasure, that unpleasantness of that which is unclean and evil, thinking that's all the feelings that we're gonna get rid of or that we're gonna fail to have anymore. But the devil has a surprise for you. You know what's gonna go missing? Your good feelings. Your compassion for others. Your sympathy, your empathy toward others. Your caring for others. Because it goes hand in hand. Sin is trespass. Sin is transgression against the law, which is you trespass against your neighbor. What is the law, the two rules? Love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. Love your neighbors as yourself. Jesus said on those two. Well, when you cease to love, that means to care, to esteem highly, more than yourself. When you stop doing that and start thinking of me more than them, you don't care anymore. And so when you, you know, that's the thing. Do y'all understand this? That the evil and the unclean, you should abhor it. You that love the Lord, hate evil. You should hate sin. You shouldn't seek to get rid of your negative feelings about it. See, that's the world's argument. that if you people would just stop thinking that it's wrong, it wouldn't be wrong. And we wouldn't feel so bad about it if it wasn't for you thinking it's wrong. But when we stop thinking it's wrong and we give up on, you know, get to where we don't, it's not offensive to us anymore. It doesn't stink to us anymore, the uncleanness of it, the evil of it. It's not an offense to us. We give it all up. We give it all up. We throw the whole thing down the drain. We don't care anymore. That's the way it goes. It can't go anywhere else. You can't love God and then love evil. You can't love God and not hate evil and sin. Romans chapter one, verse 21 through 24. Man, I tell you, this is, It just gets more important to me all the time. It applies so much. This scripture right here that we've read so many times, because that when they knew God, they glorified Him not as God, neither were thankful, but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened. professing themselves to be wise they became fools and changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man and to birds and four-footed beasts and creeping things wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lust of their own hearts to dishonor their own bodies between themselves I mean, that just tells this whole tale that we're talking about here. As the light fades, the darkness increases. And we find pleasure and contentment hard to find. And frustration and anger and contempt and hatred are constant companions. We're filled with it. That's what life's about. Now, what's the world full of now? What is everybody struggling with? God made a woman to be a nurturer and therefore he endowed her by nature with tender feelings and desires toward others, especially her children and her husband. Now that's the way God designed a woman and he made her by nature to be that way. You can take any little girl when she's little and that's what she wants until her mind has been warped and disturbed and polluted by other people in this world. That's what she will naturally want to do. She'll naturally be tender in her feelings. She'll naturally want to nurture. The liberated or empowered woman, as they want to call her, is void of feelings. Have you ever noticed that? They're void of feelings except for hatred, rebellion, contempt, and a whole lot of frustration because she can't accomplish what other people are standing in her way to accomplish and be what she wants to be. Have you ever noticed that? Witchcraft. What is a witch? Well, it's a woman who's rejected God's order for her. And she's embraced all of the pagan ideas about upside down matriarchal order of society. And they're always, always espousing these hate filled things. ideas and attitudes. They hate men. They hate God. They hate women who act like women. They're filled with all of this stuff that the verse just said they were filled with. Do you see the feelings? Their feelings are gone. She's lost all love, compassion, empathy, sympathy, and tenderness toward everyone but herself. She's a goddess and she must be revered and honored and worshiped and pampered and catered to in everything she wants That's Satan's trophy of what he can do to God's perfect creation. Yeah, you're liberated, empowered woman, Satan's trophy. A man with no feelings is a man who does not know God and therefore is like a brute beast. The Bible says fit to be taken out and killed. And he will be the grief of a good woman's life if she marries such a man. All these disorders that are so rampant. A woman, wait a minute, back up here. A woman that marries a man that has no feelings or will not show any feelings is gonna have a miserable life. She's gonna have an unfulfilled, unhappy life. She needs that. God made her to need that. God made a man to need that from her. So all these disorders that are so rampant now that were unheard of a few decades ago, they're all associated with this matter of feelings. I'm talking about all this ADHD, this autism, all of these bipolar, every bit of it, every bit of it, it's all in one big lump tied in with this right here. Messed up feelings. You know, I've seen something the other day and it was a little girl going through what looked like a Walmart, just destroying the store, just knocking stuff off, stomping it in the floor, just throwing bottles of stuff on the floor and busting them. And everybody's just following her around and some woman's just screaming, don't touch her, don't touch her, keep your hands off of her, you don't know what she's going through. And so she just, that's the world we're living in. They all have in common this lack of feelings, all these disorders. Now, I'm sure that little girl was, you know, ADHD, autistic, bipolar, schizophrenic, you know, no telling what else she was. Right? So, we should just feel sorry for her. Well, we should. I do feel sorry for somebody like that because somebody has failed her very badly. They all have in common this lack of feelings or the lack of concern for other people's feelings. They all have in common a departing from God and His truth and His light. I truly believe that most of these issues are related to the rampant demonic influence in our world. I do. And I also believe that most could be resolved by true godliness, true holiness, truly seeking to live in a way pleasing to God, which all requires a departing and a separation from this world and its wisdom and its philosophies. And they're not going to do that. Very few will even listen to that. And it's the only answer, and the only cure, and the only hope. But nobody's gonna listen. They got drugs. They got therapists. They got, what else do they call them? Counselors. They'll turn to that. They'll turn away from godly counsel on it. And they will instead trust only in the very ones who created the problem in the first place, who will only continue to feed and strengthen the devils that are causing the problem. Amen. Now, if you have feelings, you should show them. Whether you're a man or a woman, whether you're young or old, whether you're an introvert or an extrovert, you ought to show your feelings. You ought to be transparent. You can think off on branches all the way through this. I already told you there's a lot more to say about all this than what I'm saying here tonight. But I'm just stating some facts here that I believe are true. There are two extremes here. One is a person who has no control over their feelings. You don't want to be that. I'm not encouraging you to be that. You ought to have control over your feelings if you if you're you know, if you just lose it That's no good. That's a that's that is a fault Mm-hmm. There's something wrong with you if you do that But then there's the other side that has too much control over And that's just as bad If you can just squelch your feelings and never let them be known. You're going to rob yourself and you're going to rob other people. You're going to make it hard on yourself and you're going to make it hard for other people. And the people you're going to make it hardest for are the people who love you the most and the people you love the most. You're going to make the most difficulty for them. by hiding and concealing and squelching your feelings. Both are like poison in any relationship. The one that can't control her feelings or the one that hides her feelings too much. They're like poison in any relationship, whether it's a husband and a wife, or parents and children, or church, family, or friends, whatever relationship. It's poison when you got the two extremes. What matters more to you about someone than how they feel about you? Tell me, what in the world? Is there anything? What matters more to you? about somebody than how they feel about you. Nothing. That matters more to you than anything else. It really does. You've got to think about that. What causes emptiness and discouragement in a marriage more than the lack of showing affection for one another? There's nothing that causes more discouragement, or more emptiness, or more unhappiness, more frustration, more unfaithfulness, than just lack of showing your feelings. What causes emptiness and discovery? Well, what confirms love more? The words you say or the feelings you show? How do you show your feelings? Well, it doesn't, it's not always in just big things. Flowers. Well, to some women, I guess that means a great deal. But to me, it's like an imitation or a handoff. You know, be real. Be real about it. You show your feelings in little things day by day. You show your feelings by showing that you care. By trying to make life easier for them. instead of harder for them by taking a little load off of them. That's how you show you care. If you just push it all off on them, it's you know. Do you ever consider, you know, the wife who does all the laundry and the cooking, do you ever consider all that's involved in that and all the work she does and all of the effort and thought and everything that has to go into that? Do you ever just express thanks? Do you ever just put in a hand to help a little bit to just That shows how you feel. That shows that you care. It's the same way in church. It's the same way at work. It's the same way with your children. It's the same way children with your parents. If you just show them, how about showing them you care by helping, by just making their life more pleasant than harder. By giving them joy instead of giving them grief. By being sensitive to their feelings. That's how you show you care. If you're not sensitive to other people's feelings, it just shows that you do not care. And that's the message they get. And they make up their mind about you immediately, as soon as they find that out. Of course, feelings can be feigned, faked, and that requires another message. Because that's another branch of the tree that Satan works very effectively also. If you're young, you better consider this matter in choosing a mate. If they show no emotion and seem insensitive toward others, you'll be in for a difficult and empty life if you marry them. I'm warning you. A person that never shows any sign of feelings is someone to keep your eye on. Because that's a road that leads to a bad end somewhere. It's going to develop. Things don't stay the same. When you get on a road like that, or you yoke up with somebody like that, you're going to go somewhere you don't want to go. Feelings are the issues of life. Issue means a flowing out, or a giving out, or a sending out. And it also means children, or child. Issue. It's the issue of life. It's what comes out of you. It's the signal you send out. It's what flows out of you. Do you think, how do you think people, what made Jesus so different than the Pharisees and the scribes and the Sadducees and all of that? He cared. He cared. He loved the young man that came to him and went away, Jesus beholding him. loved him. He looked on the multitudes and wept and had compassion on them. They were hungry and he said, I will not send them away, you know, fasting. We can't, we're going to feed them. He cared for the people. How'd they know? Because what he did for them, he healed them. He delivered them from devils. He healed their leprosy, their blindness, their lameness. He never left anybody in the same state they were in. He changed things for them because He cared. For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son. Well, Jesus came. And by this shall all men know that you're my disciples, that you love one another. How's everybody gonna know? Because you care. Not because you say, I love you. I love you. I love you. We all love each other here. No, it's because they watch how you do. They watch how you treat each other. They see if you really care. They're what come out of us for others to see feelings are. And they're what determine, more than anything else, what they think and what they feel toward us. Hope you got that. Our feelings are what come out of us. Other people see them. They sense them. That's what they've got their radar on detecting. All the time. Anybody that comes to church to visit, that's what they're looking. You meet some stranger, you meet, you know, you're always looking and feeling to see what do they think, what are they feeling toward me, you know. When you smile at somebody, that changes the feelings. You're telling them what you feel. You frown at them. You know, are you just emotionless? It leaves them wondering. And what can they think? But the worst. Feelings. That's what people look and they make up their mind what they think and feel toward us. They make friends and they make foes out of other people. Our feelings do. Be careful with your feelings. Sometimes your feelings are bad. Sometimes your feelings are in error. That's another branch. Be careful about how you feel toward other people because they're sensing it. They're hearing, they're listening for it. They make us desirable or undesirable to be around. Our feelings are what others are trying to sense and discern when they're around us. Have a heart that's right with God, and your feelings will be easy to show toward others. I'm gonna stop. But I think this is very important, I really do, my goodness. This is one of the major things of life. Why do people get crossways with each other? Because their feelings are hurt. And their feelings get hurt because somebody don't care. Or they believe the lie. See, there's so many things that enter into all of this. People tell you something ain't true and you get all these feelings towards somebody. And it's all a work of the devil. And it's all lies and false and it ain't true and you shouldn't have them feelings. I can go on and on, but think about this. Study about this. Check yourself. It's a thing we need to really watch and work on in ourselves. Not just what we feel, but we need to be sensitive toward the feelings of others. We need to teach these children to be that way too. Yes, sir. We need to do it by example. Amen. Father, thank you for the word of God. Thank you for this message that spoke to my heart. I pray it helps somebody else. Lord, it's so important. We neglect this. We handle this matter so carelessly and Lord, it's something we ought to pay attention to and it ought to have priority above almost everything else. If we love our neighbor, if we're gonna If we're going to live in Your will, then we must be sensitive to other people's feelings, and we must be sensitive to how they're receiving us. And Lord, we've got to care. If we don't care, we don't love. And if we don't love, we don't even—we're in darkness. So Lord, help us. Help us to walk close to You. And help us, Lord, to love one another and to show it. In Jesus' name, amen.