Good morning. Please turn in your copy of God's word to the book of Ephesians chapter two. Ephesians chapter two. This is not outside the subject of what we've been studying, but it is outside of the book. We have been working our way through the book of Romans and today we come to Ephesians. But you'll see that this is not off topic. This is gonna be right in line with where we've been. Someone saw the title of my message. Dead, Disobedient, and Damned. And they said, another seeker-friendly sermon from Waco family. Dead, Disobedient, and Damned. Ephesians chapter two, we'll read first 10 verses. and you were dead in your trespasses and sins, in which you formerly walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience. Among them, we too all formerly live in the lust of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest. But God, being rich in mercy, because of his great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ. By grace, we have been saved. and raised us up with Him and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus. So that in the ages to come, He might show the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace, you have been saved through faith. And that, not of yourselves, it is the gift of God not as a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them. Heavenly Father, we bless you for the blessed gift of your written word, which serves as our only certain infallible rule for faith and obedience. We thank you, especially today for these verses that are before us, that we might be sanctified by your truth. That is our prayer, Lord, that we would be sanctified by your truth. We pray that you would save sinners, help us to see that we once were lost without Christ, dead in trespasses and sins, sons of disobedience, truly children of wrath. Show us more clearly the great work of salvation that you have accomplished, accomplished before the foundations of the world, to Golgotha, even to the time when you have applied those works to us, as we have repented and believed in Jesus Christ, repenting of our sin. We ask now that you bless the preaching of the word. We pray these things in the light of our blessed Savior and his coming kingdom. Amen. What we have in Ephesians is a miniature of what we see in Romans at full scale. What we see in Romans is three chapters taken to show that all men are under the curse of the law, where Ephesians says the same thing, but only in a few verses. The beginning of Romans, there are 11 chapters of doctrine before you get the therefore and you turn to application for the final chapters. Well, Ephesians doesn't have 11 chapters, only three chapters of doctrine. So you might think, well, if Ephesians is the condensed, maybe you're thinking like, this is the cliff notes. And what we know about the cliff notes is you never get all the story, you never get everything. If you haven't found out yet, don't try to read the cliff notes, read the book, because you won't pass the test. But Ephesians is not cliff notes. If we're thinking of Ephesians and we think, well, it must be inferior because it's so much shorter, so it's so much more condensed. Well, we'd be wrong in thinking that. Ephesians is not inferior. It is different and they both have unique value to us as believers. But Ephesians is somehow packed more densely. We get the same doctrinal punch in Ephesians, but it's more pounds per square inch, so to speak. And as we come here in chapter two, we're right in the middle of a heavyweight doctrine. We're right in the middle of this text, and what came just before these verses that we read in Ephesians two was Paul's prayer, Paul's prayer requests for the church at Ephesus, for those Ephesian believers. He prays that they would know God. And the last thing he mentions in his prayer, in his prayer request, is that they would know the power of God, which raised Christ from the dead. That's why I wanted us to read these verses from chapter one. And I appreciate Brother Jeff reading this for us, so it would be on our mind, that we would know the power of God, or that the Ephesian church would know the power of God that raised Christ from the dead. And we have this fresh in our minds, Then we come to chapter two, verse one, and you were dead. So you get that transition, it's a beautiful, beautiful transition here. I pray that you know the power of God that raised Christ from the dead and you were dead. So we bring that forward. You were dead and the power, Christ was dead, but he was raised by the power of God and you were dead. And what we have here then is sort of a narrative. Within this doctrinal section, we have sort of a narrative. Because this, Christians, this is our story. This is our, so some of you remember the song, this is my story, this is my song. Christians, this is your story. We can make it personal and we can say, this is my story. If you're a child of God, you can say, this is my story. And our story as believers given here in chapter two, verse one, we're at this point of, now we know the end of the story, right? But let's just put ourselves here in chapter two, verse one, and you were dead. And we find ourselves at this, point of tension in the narrative. I want you to know the power of God that raised Christ from the dead and you were dead. We find ourselves here, we've all read books and seen movies, whether it's fiction or non-fiction books, we've watched movies in the same place, where we get to this high point of tension, where there's uncertainty. Will the good guys win? Will the protagonist make it through? Death seems imminent. And that's where we find you. By the way, we all want to get to the end, and we all want to see that the good guys do win, that the protagonist does make it through, that the hero did not die, but he prevailed. We want to see that, because that sells movie tickets. They can do that in a movie in an hour and a half. You can do that in a book in 110 pages, maybe. Here, God giving us this inspired word. He's not trying to sell movie tickets. He's giving us the plain truth, but he does not rush to the happy ending. There is a happy ending. There is a happy ending that we see here for God's people. But there's also a terrible ending for the enemies of God. There's a terrible ending that doesn't end when you get to the end of the book. That doesn't end when the chapter is over. This is not a movie. This is not 120 minutes. This is for eternity. The consequences of sin are more than grave. And the Spirit leads Paul to linger here for a moment on this deadness. Lost men without Christ are dead. Now, I have a friend who does not agree with me doctrinally, And he says, I think you overdo dead. I think you overdo deadness. So today I hope to not overdo deadness, but I hope that we can come to scripture and we can see what God says. I don't want to overdo anything. I just want to say what God says. So let's, let's see here. And that's what we find here in Ephesians two. We have this, this hard truth. and we're left here for just a little bit to feel the uncertainty, to feel the unrest, to bear the weight of the problem of sin for a moment. And we've done this in our study in Romans, as we study chapter one and into chapter two. And now we do it with Ephesians. We wrestle with the problem of sin And we do this and we wanna linger here for just a moment so that when we come to the good news, when we come to the gospel, we will better understand it. We will appreciate it more deeply. And we will embrace it willingly and quickly. It's often been said that medicine doesn't sell to well people. The sick need medicine. The infirm are the ones who need the cure. The gospel message is good news, but it's only gonna come to our ears as good news if we understand the bad news that all have sinned and that we are dead in our sins. Verse one, just to see how Paul lingers here. Verse one, even in this short, condensed thing in Ephesians, You were dead in verse one, and we get to, you were made alive, but that's not till verse five. So this condensed chapter, this is the condensed Romans. In Romans, Paul spends three chapters on deadness, spiritual deadness, lostness of mankind. In those three chapters, he shows that Jewish men are lost in sin, that Gentile men are lost in sin. And just in case you, didn't get it with Jewish men lost in sin or Gentile men lost in sin when we come to Romans 3.23, all have sinned. And I've mentioned that this is very heavy if we don't keep in mind that the gospel is coming. And I know we have different translations of scripture because this is very heavy and we get here and you were dead. That heaviness has led the King James and the New King James translators to give us a little addition of hope, to give us a little addition of foreshadowing. The King James and the New King James says something like this, you, he made alive who were dead. And then they footnote that in the New King James to say, look at verse five. So this is not found in verse one, but they're giving us the foreshadowing. Look at verse five. He made a lot. They're giving us this hope. And we have in the ESV and in the New American Standard, just the straight up, you were dead. Paul has no issue here in Ephesians. He has no issue in Romans, spending a little time dwelling on the deadness We need to learn from this, and we need to learn not to just rush to the gospel. Do we love the gospel? Absolutely. We wanna hear the good news, but let's not rush there. Let's spend some time thinking about the sinfulness of sin, about the predicament of lost man. Let's spend some time thinking on the sinfulness of mankind. We think we understand the gospel when we know that Jesus died on the cross for sinners and was raised three days later. And as important as that is, I'm not gonna minimize that in the least, but we need to come to know about our sinfulness. We need to know why it is that Jesus had to go to the cross. Why was that necessary for salvation? And the answer comes We need to understand the state in which we were born. We need to understand the way that we live in sin. And we need to understand the end that awaits each one of us if we continue to live in sin without Christ. Christians, we need to understand the depth of sin so that we can understand the amazing grace of God. so that we can be better worshipers. We've heard for too long that men in sin are wounded or sick. We've heard that Jesus patches up wounded sinners, that Jesus gives medicine for sin. But this text does not tell us here in Ephesians that we are sick in sin. It does not tell us that we are wounded in sin. It says you were dead in sin. Dead is different from sick. Dead is different from wounded. And we remember, Christian, this is who we were. This is you before Christ. You were dead, and you should never forget this. You were dead. And if you're here today without Jesus Christ, this is your current condition. You are dead in sin. Faith and repentance are commanded of the scriptures, and faith and repentance are the only hope you have for your dead condition. Faith in Jesus Christ. He is the only hope. Now, we all understand, we think we understand to a certain degree deadness, but I'd like to take just a moment to look at this and really get the idea when the scripture says we were dead. I wanna really get the idea here. Now, as a pastor, I have spent more time around dead people than most people do in their normal life. I've heard people as I have preached funerals say things like, even when they're at the funeral of a dear loved one, they say, I've never seen a dead body. My life, I think, is odd in this. I think maybe it's because of the time, because I'm getting old. But I remember as early as four years old seeing my great grandfather dead in the casket. Many memories that I have from my childhood, like more than I think is a normal amount, were memories that happened in the funeral home. We had, my grandfather had 13 brothers and sisters. Each of those 13 brothers and sisters were married. That doesn't include my grandmother. We went to a lot of funerals. We went to a lot of funerals. And I've seen hundreds of dead bodies in hospital beds. People who have died, I've seen them in their homes. I've seen dead bodies in churches. I've seen dead bodies in funeral homes. So I think that I can speak with some level of knowledge about the dead and about deadness. And as I look out, I look at some of you who are in law enforcement, who have worked in the medical field. And I think some of you can speak with some level, and when we talk about this, you'll know this to be true. This I can tell you about the dead. The dead are unresponsive. Now, I've had varying levels over the years of fear or heebie-jeebies. Is that a word we can use? Heebie-jeebies? being around dead bodies. I remember at my first pastorate, I mean, I had been around dead bodies before, but at my first pastorate, they brought the body to the church, and we had a visitation where everybody came and greeted the family. The funeral's tomorrow, but the body's gonna be there at the church, and then everybody left, except me, and I'm there to turn out the lights and lock up. And all of a sudden, you realize I'm in this great big room, in the dark with a dead body. Did you know what happened? Let me tell you what happened. Nothing. Nothing. I remember as a child, I had an uncle who died unexpectedly, young. He was in his 40s, maybe late 30s, and died unexpectedly. And I remember at the funeral, This is very vivid, a very vivid memory of my aunt coming to the casket and beating on his chest and shouting at him, get up, get up. And you know what happened? Nothing. The dead are unresponsive. And we need to see that while the dead are unresponsive, this is not a voluntary condition. My Uncle JD loved Aunt Elsie, and when he lived, he would do anything for her. Had he been able to hear her as she shouted, get up, get up, he would have gotten up. It wasn't a voluntary unresponsiveness. And this is what you were. You were dead, spiritually dead, totally and completely unresponsive to the things of God. The things of God had no effect on you, and I'm speaking in past tense to Christians, and if you're here and you're lost, this is present tense for you. The things of God have no effect whatsoever. As the dead body just lay there, you were dead, and not by choice. This is an inherited trait that men are born dead in sin. It's just a matter of fact. Romans 8 tells us that we are unwilling and unable to respond to the law of God. But as we consider deadness and we consider this text in Ephesians, we need to see, this might surprise some of you to hear this, we see that deadness is not absolute deadness. What? Well, deadness is not altogether dead. Here's what I mean. We believe in life after death. So when there is a realm beyond this world, and when we say that a loved one has died, we don't mean that they ceased to exist. What we mean is that they have, and we use terms like this, they've crossed over. They passed. They passed or passed away. They go to a better place. They go to a place beyond. The Bible speaks of language where the dead go to Abraham's bosom or in hell, he lifted up his eyes. So deadness, in the physical terms is not absolute non-existence. It's a deadness from our perspective. A dead person is dead from our perspective, but in another very real sense, they are alive in another realm. This is important for us. They're dead to this world, but they're alive in another realm, in another world. And this is the same with spiritual deadness. And we see it here in this text in Ephesians. Notice verse one, you were dead. And then speaking about this deadness, then in verse two, we read about activity. Do you see it? You were dead. And then all of a sudden you were walking. You walk your deadness, including walking. So there's deadness, but there's activity. And then verse three, among them too we all formerly live. So even though there's deadness, there's in another way activity of walking and living. So deadness is a very bad state, but we think that the state is worse because when you were dead in your sin, When you were dead to the spiritual things of God, you were walking and living and acting and doing in sin. While we were dead and unresponsive spiritually to the things of God, we were quite active, walking, living, and working in the realm of transgression and sin. See verse one, and you were dead. This deadness is not because of transgression and sin. You were dead in transgression and sin. Transgression and sin is not the cause of deadness. Transgression and sin is the result of your deadness. We inherit our sinful deadness, spiritual deadness from Adam and his sin. And our sins don't cause us to be lost, don't cause us to be dead in trespasses and sins. Because we are dead in trespasses and sins, we commit sins and trespasses. I'm wondering, I really am. Someone's got to give me one of these or like, I don't know. Are we tracking here? Dead to the things of God, alive in sin and not, not dead to the things of God because we sin. You're not lost because you sin. You sin because you're lost. Okay. We're going to, we're going to keep going. Verse three, we see that by nature, by nature. the nature that we inherit from Adam is the cause of our deadness. So we were dead, living in the realm of transgressions and sins, dead to God, alive to sin. And in our study in Romans, when we get to Romans five and six, we'll go into great detail about this deadness and sin, but alive to sin. Deadness in sin, alive to sin. Deadness to God, alive to sin. We'll see more of that in Romans 5 and 6. Now, someone here, lost, may be thinking, I don't know that this is where I live. Because you may think that your life without Christ, you may think, well, I'm not doing all that bad. But what we're going to see, what you call Life without Christ, what you call life, is what the Bible calls deadness, disobedience, and damn. Verse one tells us we were dead, and we lived in the realm of transgressions and sin. Now verse two, it says we walked. The word, it's a form of paraphrase, to walk around, to take steps, to walk a circuit. You didn't just exist inactively in trespasses and sins, you walked. You took steps. You walked in the regular circuit of sin. You can't say, well, I was dead, like I was in a coma, so I have no responsibility No, you were dead to the things of God, but consciously living and walking and taking steps in sin. You once walked in trespasses and sins. This walking in trespasses and sins reminded me of Psalm 1. Now Psalm 1 speaks not of the dead man, but of the living man. But we see the negation. Blessed is the man who walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, or standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the stormful. Now the blessed is the man who does not do that, but what can we take from that? The man dead in his sin walks in the counsel of the ungodly, and stands in the way of sinners, and sits in the seat of the stormful. So we see this same progression that happens in Psalm 1, And we see it here in Ephesians and we find that we were beyond sitting or standing, we were walking. Walking in transgression, walking in sin. One theologian called this the race of transgression. And we're all running that race. We're born running that race. And some of us run it well. Some of us run it hard. Walking in cadence. Imagine the formation of soldiers marching. We might say they're marching lockstep. So the soldier is marching closely to the soldier in front of him and his foot goes where the soldier in front's foot just vacated. Walking step for step in cadence. And that's the idea that we give you. We were walking, we were marching lockstep with sin. And we see in the text what that looks like according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, according to the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience. This is the lockstep marching, the peripateo, the walking, taking steps. And this is what we used to live. This is how we used to walk. Now we won't spend a lot of time here, but let's just look briefly. Walking according to the course of this world. The Bible has a lot to say about this world. It's not talking about the skies and the seas and the rocks and the trees. It's not talking about the creation. It's talking about the world system. The world system and all those who are walking lockstep with the world, the world is at enmity with God. The world sees God's wisdom as foolishness. What God calls foolishness, the world calls wise. Romans 12 commands do not, Christian, do not be conformed to this world. But that's exactly how we used to walk. Fashioning ourselves after the course of this world. Loving what the world loves. Hating what the world hates. Living directly contrary to God and his word. walking according to the prince of the power of the air. This is a clear reference to Satan. And I simply want to note that our deadness, our deadness, in our deadness, it is Satan with whom we walk. When you are dead, you walk under the power of the devil. You walk as a slave to sin and Satan. We should understand how woeful this state is. And believers, you were dead and a lost person. You are held under the power of Satan. Walking according to the prince of the power of the air that is now working. Satan is working. This morning on Sunday school, we talked about Satan's work, demonic possession that we see from the scripture. And some of us think, well, we don't see that sort of thing in our day. So Satan must not be working. He must have given up. He must not be working. Do not be fooled. I believe firmly that Satan has enough control that he doesn't have to employ demon possession as much. I'm not saying those things aren't real, I'm just saying I think so many people are walking lockstep with Satan without that extreme. But Satan is working. Don't dare think that Satan is in hell, far away from us. Satan is at work and Satan is effectively working in the hearts and minds of lost men and women. To every evil thought, Satan gives hearty agreement. To every good thought, Satan objects strongly and tries tactics of distraction. To every other thought, Satan offers perversion. and he offers it in abundance. And lost man in deadness of sin is walking lockstep and will be synchronizing his will with the will of Satan. The text says, now working in the sons of disobedience, we were slaves to Satan, slaves to sin, He exercised rule and power over us, and we were willing participants. I thought about that demoniac that we spoke of this morning. He wasn't kneeling and praying to Jehovah when he was overtaken. He was a willing, submitted slave. We willingly participate walking lockstep with the world and with Satan, and now we can see our culpability for sin shown in disobedience. The very word disobedience implies a willfulness. Disobedience is when a willful choice is made to transgress, to cross the line. It's not an accident. So don't say that about your sin. Well, it was an accident. It's not a mistake. I made a mistake. No, we need to call sin what it is. It is sin. And we were disobedient. By nature, the text says, by nature, children of wrath, because of this nature, this sin nature, the walking in sin, the willful disobedience, being born into this deadness, We have another thing that we must own. Lost men are under the wrath of God. There's no discussion, there's no negotiation. Lost men are by nature children of wrath. That is we were under the wrath of God. Lost men are by nature children of wrath. lost man or woman, you are now marked out for the wrath of God. And the only hope, the only hope to save you from the wrath of God is that you repent of your sin and run to Jesus Christ by faith. Dead, disobedient, and damned. This is the last part being children of wrath means that lost men are damned. Hell awaits the center. For eternity. Torment of flight. The Bible tells us. More about hell than it tells us about heaven. There's plenty about heaven. exactly what God wanted to tell us about heaven. We have so much about hell, the place where the worm dieth not, where the flame is not quenched, where God will be present in his justice and in his wrath, but the mercy of God that we live in and take for granted day to day. Now the mercy of God will not be in hell. Hell is a place where there is no escape. We continue to see that this is not the problem of a few. This is not the problem of just the Jew or just the Gentile. This is a problem that is universal. The text says among them to we all formerly lived. This is not just some sinners. This is the way we all live. Dead, disobedient, and damned. We all lived and walked lockstep with other sons of disobedience, with other children of wrath. And if you are a believer, then we say with Paul, I too formerly Well, as I too formerly lived, we all formerly lived in the lust of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as no rest. This life of being dead in sin, living in the lust of our flesh. Christian, is that how you used to live? After living a short time in Christ, you should be able to say, that's how I used to live. But that's no longer how I live. I used to indulge my flesh. I used to indulge my mind. I used to go after my lusts. But no more. Now my mind is renewed. renewed by the word. Now I present my body, a living sacrifice to God. Not that we live this way perfectly, but what are we after? What are we striving after? What are we, what are we pursuing? Christian, you should be able to say that's what I used to do. That's how I used to live. But now I pursue Christ. Now I pursue his righteousness. Now I pursue his kingdom. Not perfectly, but that's my pursuit. That is what I'm after. And if you cannot say, that's how I used to live, but now I'm after, if you cannot say that, then you should examine yourself to see if you are in the faith. I'm not preaching a works of salvation. You cannot work to attain salvation, but if you are saved, there will be works that show evidence of that salvation. What we have here before us is a grim picture, the lostness of fallen men and every, every baby that is born by ordinary means is born dead in sin. If you're here today and you realize this state of deadness and disobedience, this is me. This is where I am living now. If you realize that if you died today, you would certainly be under the wrath of God. Damned to hell. Then I say, turn from your sin. No, I don't say turn from your sin. God commands it. Repent is the word. Turn from your sin. Run away from the life that you are living and flee to Jesus Christ. If you will come to Him, He has died to pay for your sin. He is the only Savior. Christian, how does this truth affect us now? How now shall we live? Let us live as the redeemed. Let us live as those who have been bought with a price. Let us live as children of God, as sons of righteousness. We are buried with Christ and raised with Christ, no longer dead, but the living people of the living Savior. No longer under God's wrath, but now He has set His love upon us. This should make us more careful to redeem the time that we have remaining in this life. that from this point forward, we will live not after the lusts of the flesh, not after the desires of men, not after the course of the world, but we will live pursuing the will of God, pursuing the righteousness of God, pursuing holiness without which no one will see God. Christian, you've spent enough time living after the lust of your heart. May God pour out his grace upon us and show us mercy. Heavenly Father, we pray that you would. Help us to better see and understand the lostness of lost men, the sinfulness of sin. And we pray God that you would. Draw sinners to repentance. It's in Christ name. for the edification of the church that we pray.