Transcript: Christian Living: 7 Steps to Spiritual Maturity - Level 1 Goal

Thank you. into you, you can't stop it. It forces you along in the eternal life process. And therefore, that eternal process must be joined into. Like a little baby, he doesn't just lay there and all of a sudden he walks. Between those two steps, he puts effort into it. He gets a desire to walk and set up and roll over and all those things. He has a desire and he has to take action and do it. Now, if you look up here, the next point. Stop living the perverse, empty life like everybody else lives. Now we're going to our text, Ephesians chapter 4. Look carefully at the text because we're going to go verse by verse through it to show you that this is the divine will to push you and move you through. But you must take response like the baby has to take the steps and so forth. You have God's grace pushing a desire, but you have to take action. And here's the actions that he's going to show you of how to remove yourself and how to be free from that back old life that God says to leave and get rid of. Ephesians 4.17 So this I say and solemnly testify in the Lord, that you must no longer live as the heathen, as they do in their perverseness, if I can talk today, the perverseness of their minds. No longer live that lifestyle. Give it up. And notice the terms used. He says that you must no longer live as the heathen, in perverseness. What is perverseness? What does perverse mean? Rebelliousness. What else? What is perverse? Sinful. Sinful. If you take it to general use of perverse, if you take something and say, these glasses you wear on your face so you can see, that's what you do with them. You can perverse that truth by saying, well, I use it to clean my ears out. See, that's perverting the truth of what it's for. See what I'm saying? You can do it with anything. And in the sense of what God is saying, He's saying no longer live perverting what He has established as moral reality. If you go against what He says, you're perverting the truth, or you're perverting the moral practice. and you're making it away from the will of God. And so you don't want to do that thing. He says that's what you did in the past. That's what you're used to doing. You followed the perverseness of your minds because your mind chose to do things until you came to Christ that are absolutely contrary to the will of God. Correct? But if you grew up in the church or if you're used to biblical ideas, you might not realize, you kind of heard this stuff, but you might be perverting the truth by not practicing what it says. Just because you've heard it all your life doesn't mean you're doing it. And that way you're perverting the truth also. So either way you're twisting from what God's telling you to do. So you have to be careful. We have to call you to understand so you can take the proper steps to fully come within compliance to the will of God. And so to do that, we need to make sure we step by step listen to the rest of the scripture here. So let's look at verse 18. Now look at verse 18. It says their moral understanding is darkened and their reasoning is beclouded. Notice that's what we talk about being perverse. First of all, in God's idea, the perversion is morality. The lost person, the unsaved person, has a moral perversion to what God calls moral. They don't follow the morality that he's established. They do their own morality. So the second idea here is that the perverseness of life is called immorality. Now that is our culture. You listen to our culture, whether you listen to the music that's sung, whether you watch the movies or the media or listen to the scientists or the philosophers or the teaching from colleges and universities, they'll tell you what morality is. And what they call morality is the opposite of what God calls to be moral. Correct? Correct? Now, think of the areas we're saying here. Because notice what happens. If you have twisted morality, it says here in verse 18 that that makes you alienated away from God. That's what takes you away from having an interconnection or a closeness with the living God. So this alone has to be looked at very carefully. They are alienated or estranged and self-banished from the life of God with no share in it whatsoever. This is because of the ignorance that is deep-seated in them due to their hardness of heart, their insensitive, immoral practices. They don't even realize they're not connected with God. That's the allegation the Bible gives. So therefore, you're going to have to measure, what is your morality? Does your morality match the teachings of the Lord Jesus Christ? or have you been perverse in your activities or your actions or your thoughts and so forth? Now, in verse 19 through 20, it goes on a little further and explains. It says, first of all, the idea, immorality is indulgence of strong sensual desires. See, it's one thing to think it, it's second to act it. Immorality is actually the action of doing that very thing that God says not to do. It's following the strong desires you have. See, our culture will say over and over again, it's okay because I want to. I have a desire for that. You hear men say they want to become women. And they say, it's okay because I have a desire for that. The excuse is, I have a desire. I want to do that. Women say they want to be connected with women and sexual contact. And it's okay because it's their desire. See, while all they're mentioning, they drop the ideas of what the Bible calls that lust. It's sin. but we don't have sin in our culture no longer. Now it's just okay and don't ever question them because it's what they desire. And there's nothing wrong with what they desire. Well, it is. God says you're going to be dragged into judgment for your desires. There's people that desire to rob banks. Does that mean it's okay? No. There's people that desire to have sexual contact with children. Is that okay? No. All of that is sin. God is the one who calls morality what it is, not men making up what they did arbitrarily change when they desire to, suddenly our culture has twisted it into a pervert form that says, don't ever question it. In fact, did you hear about the basketball player who got in big trouble because he dared to say he wasn't happy around homosexuals and he didn't like it that it was homosexual? Oh man, he was under great attack for daring. Did you hear about the general this last week who dared to say it was immoral? Oh, they threw fits over this. You can't say it's immoral. If you say it, they attack you, they threaten you, they try to fine you, punish you. You can't dare say it's immoral. God doesn't change. No matter how many people shut your mouth, it's still immoral. Because God said it was. Correct? And this is where our culture is turning perverse in its thinking. It's darkened. That's what the Bible says. Our culture is darkened in their ignorance and their stiff-heartedness because they demand their right and they can do what they want. God says, no, you can't. I'm going to bring you to judgment. No matter how much you cry and scream, yell, threaten, sue, persecute the Christians for saying anything, it's not going to change God. He's still going to bring them to judgment. Now, let me tell you something. When we get in this kind of a culture that we're in today, it wasn't like that 50 years ago, was it? It's changed. And it's going to get continually harder. Now, if you go back in history, George Whitefield was a famous preacher. Ever heard of his name? Now, George Whitefield, when he started preaching, he ended up getting pushed outside. They didn't like him inside the building of the church, so he went outside. Well, he started talking to the people who had the same mentality I'm talking about. He started preaching to them outdoors. Except for they didn't come by invitation. He went out and started preaching. And the people hated him for talking. They didn't want to hear him say that. They've got pictures painted of one of his sermon times. You won't believe it. He was standing up on this place and there was trees around there People had crawled up in trees and were throwing tomatoes and stuff at them to make them shut up While he was preaching one guy had a drum beating and tried to drown it out so nobody could hear him Another person had a horn blasting trying to stop him. They literally physically tried to drone him out, but he wouldn't quit. He was so tenacious in his preaching, he wouldn't stop talking. And rather than walking away, they'd rather attack him. And he had such guts and determination, he would not stop. Now, what was he telling them? God loves them and has a wonderful plan for their life, and it's okay if they commit adultery and everything? No, you ought to read his sermon. He was tearing them up and down to repent of their sin and calling them what they were, sinners in the hands of a God who will bring judgment upon them. And they did not want to hear it, and they were trying to shut his mouth. No different today. Don't shut you up any way you can. They don't want to hear it. We were told this week that we couldn't go to the parade and set up a booth there because churches are too controversial. They refuse to allow us to even be a testimony at the big thing Saturday night. The Saturday afternoon and night. They wouldn't let us. Illegal. By law. They're shutting us up. They're trying to stop us because what we say is not what they want to hear. It's going to get worse before it's better here in this country. Believe me. But God says, I want you to understand, you that are believers, if you have really come to me, do not stop this. You must go look at this very clearly and understand it and take strong action. So he wants you to see he is very strong against it. Now, he says that these folks have such spiritual apathy, they have become callous and past feeling and reckless and have abandoned themselves to unbridled sensuality. Party, party, party. All you want to do is party. What goes in Vegas stays in Vegas. You always hear these stupid ideas. They're talking about sin and immorality, drunkenness and parties, and it's just no big deal. Go down to Louisiana, New Orleans, have your fling, have the girls flip their shirts up for you, give them beads for their... You know that's what the beads are for? They give those as prizes for girls who flip their shirts up. Did you know that? You see those beads? That's what it is. Those are prize patrol packages for girls who will be immoral. They have all this stuff going on in our culture over and over, on Everywhere You Turn. It's evil and constantly spoken of evil. They're reckless and abandoned, and Hollywood loves it because they've always been that way. They're the ones that propagate it and want Americans and Christians to shut up. They want to have the freedom to do what they want to do, and they want Christians to leave them alone. They want to control the minds of America. They want people to agree with them. Now, if you hear a Christian's crowd against them, they'll say things like, Movies don't affect people. You ever hear this? Movies don't affect people. We're just reflecting the ideas of the culture. Now, I have a question for you. If that's true, then stop taking advertising money because all the ads you put on TV don't affect anybody. Why are you accepting all those millions of dollars if it doesn't affect anybody? You can't have it both ways. If you know an advertisement affects somebody, then stop lying. But they won't. They continue to tell you they don't affect anybody. They do. I just heard of some young guy that got killed in a race. And the other guy, did you see that in the news? And the other guy got in trouble because he raced with him and he got killed in an accident from a long-range race on the highway someplace. Do you hear that? The movies are about that. They picked this up from movies. There's a movie advertising now about the very same thing. cross country or something race or whatever. I mean, but I mean on the streets, not outdoor. I mean a literal drag racing type of thing through dangerous places. They are influencing these young kids. A number of kids were massacred by laying in the street and running over by buses. They lay down because they think the bus is going to run them over. And it does. It kills them. It smashes them. But they saw it on movies where guys do it and they don't get killed. So they think they can do it and they go try to do it. Well, guess what? The influence is here. Our culture is saturated with perversity. You've got to admit it and understand it because you've got to make a change if you're going to follow Jesus. You can't just let it happen in your life. And so notice this is what it is here. The people are eager and greedy to indulge in every form of impurity. Yes, they do. Watch all the different shows of Hollywood news shows. All they're showing is young people having parties and getting drunk and going to rehab and blah, blah, blah, and having immoral flings and getting divorced and remarried and divorced and remarried and divorced and remarried or not getting married, just changing partners and changing partners. That's all they show on there for the news of these people. On and on and on. It's all showing the unbridled sensuality, eager and greedy, to indulge themselves in the form of impurity. That's all they do. And that's okay, according to what it shows on TV now. But it says clearly in verse 20, look it for you. If you're going to be a believer, you did not so learn Christ this way. This is not your life. You shouldn't be interested in that life. In fact, the Bible says you shouldn't even talk about that kind of stuff and what they do in darkness. But we hear it and see it and listen to it all day long. We need to stop. We need to break ourselves from this. If we're going to follow through into freedom from sin, it starts with what you choose to listen to and watch. Now notice in Matthew 19 to glorify this, not glorify it, but to clarify it a little further, even the way we in our culture have designed ourselves and complete ourselves with marriage and so forth is even wrong now. Look at what Jesus teaches. He says, I say to you, whoever dismisses, which means divorce his wife, except for unchastity, and marries another, commits adultery. Now, people say, well, I'm not committing adultery if I marry the person. Now listen to Jesus again. And he says, if you divorce your wife and go marry someone else, while you're married to this other person, what are you doing? You're committing adultery. Adultery is being practiced while you're married. If you leave your wife or leave your husband just to find someone else. All those people in Hollywood with their fourth and fifth marriages are committing adultery all day long. You understand it? That's not the definition given by Hollywood because they don't want to agree with God. But Jesus is the one who says, no, if you're going to follow my teaching, this is my morality. I'm telling you, if you divorce and get married again, you're committing adultery. The only exception he gives is what? Which means what? If your partner rips you off, I guess you could say, stabs you in the back and goes off, that's the only freedom you have. But if you're the one who does the unchastity and remarries. You're in adultery. You've committed adultery. If you get married, it doesn't stop adultery. I had people before tell me, I'm not committing adultery anymore. Yeah, I left my wife, but I'm remarried now. So now it's not adultery anymore. That's not what the Bible teaches. That's what America teaches. That's what Hollywood may say, but that's not what Jesus says. It doesn't stop because you've got a piece of paper that says you're married. If you disobeyed God and broke from your vows and went off and found another partner, you're in adultery still. And it says, and he who marries a divorced woman also commits adultery. So if you're an innocent party who marries this woman, you are now committing adultery as you're married. Does that make sense? This is not the morality of America, but the morality of Jesus Christ. Verse 10, this so shook up the disciples because they practiced what America did in their country. And they go, the disciples said to him, if this is a case of a man with his wife, it's neither profitable or are advisable to get married. That scared them because everybody they knew was in adultery. See, they were going, oh man, because what the practice of those days was, basically in the old days, was men were the boss and they could dump their wives if they didn't like her and get it to somebody else. Well, Jesus said, guess what all your buddies are doing? They're all committing adultery. God's not happy. You're not approved by God. So that scared them to think, yay, maybe it's best to never get married is what they started to feel from that strong statement. Notice the Scripture is very different than our culture. Also remember in 1 Corinthians 6, it says, shun immorality and all sexual looseness. Now, it doesn't say, cut it down a little. It says, cut it off completely. Don't make excuses here. It says, in the way you do that, it says, flee from impurity in thought word or deed Now how do you flee from immorality in thought You have to watch what you read You got to make sure what you reading isn full of immorality Okay what else Okay, if you're sitting there watching soap operas that spend all their time talking about how they're going to divorce their husband, kill their husband, and have another hookup someplace, you're watching immorality all day, whether it's in the evening or in the morning or whatever. If the movies, that's their core teaching. Now, if you have a movie that shows that as a consequence, it may show it's somebody doing it, but if it shows it's a consequence and it's wrong, there's nothing wrong with it. You see what I'm saying? But if it glorifies it and acts like it's normal and there's nothing wrong with it, that's where you're going to fill your mind full of immorality by assuming it's okay. And you have a lot of folks that flood their minds full of dreams saying, my husband is mean to me. I watched his show. That guy's so wonderful. I wonder what it would be like if I had a guy like that and I should leave my house. You're building immorality in your thoughts that will take action if you're not careful. You don't fill your mind. You have to make choices not to watch. What does that? Don't glorify sin. One thing I'm noticing in Hollywood now is they're putting out a lot of new shows and the storylines are not about the good guys, but the bad guys. The story of the Sopranos. All about evil men. There's new ones of, I forget some of the names, but it's always glorifying the bad guy. Or the shield. The guy's a crooked cop and he's the star of the show and everything about him is the crookedness he does and he murders people and everything else. And he's the star. They're twisting now the show so that they're glorifying evil instead of good. In the old days, if you watch, the good guys even wore white hats just to make sure you understood who they were. It was symbolic, but they were trying to show you that they glorify good over evil. A good proper show would be a cop show or something where it's taking goodness and they overcome evil. They don't glorify it or think it's okay. They know it's wrong and they try to stop it. That's okay. That's not showing immorality. It's showing that God has a righteous standard. See what I'm saying? You've got to listen to the content of the movies you go to to make sure they're not glorifying evil, but they're glorifying good. Immorality is normalized inside shows all the time. The jokes are about immorality. The ideas are about immorality. You keep flooding your mind with it. You get so used to it. That's what they're trying to do with the new wave of homosexuals. You can't even hardly watch a show now. They've got to have a homosexual in that show. There's not that many homosexuals in the United States that they could be on every network of every situation of everything going on in America. There's not. There are 20% of them that are homosexual. but they're now propagating in your mind to accept as normal homosexuality. The children now growing up are going to see it all the time on television until it will be normal to them and they will not question the immorality of this issue because they pound it into their heads from the time they grow up. We don't like it but we're going to be dead. But the kids growing up won't even think about it. And they're teaching it and forcing it down their throats in the schools. In the children's program. Exactly. They're pushing immorality down the throats of our children. Watch it. Resist it. Stop it. Don't agree with it. Don't let it pass on. Raise your voice. Get your kids out of it. Get your grandkids out of there. Don't let them hear it. What I tend to do if I see something like that, I either turn the channel or say, That's wrong! And I do it just because I need to do it, even though the kids don't understand yet. But I'll keep doing that. And I did it all the time my boys grew up. That's evil! And they say, Why are you talking on TV? well I'm doing it for them basically I want them to say that I don't agree with that I'm not going to just let it pass you get it in your head I disagree with this but the more you get that pounded in our culture you're going to become like them you don't want to you have to resist this if you're going to get any step to the first steps of being a true believer you have to fight through this stage alone and in our culture that's going to be a major battle it says do you not know that your body is the temple the very sanctuary of the Holy Spirit who lives within you, whom you have received as a gift from God. You are not your own. You were bought with a huge price by the blood of Jesus. Right? Therefore, you cannot let your eyeballs, your body, do anything that's contradictory to Jesus. Or if you do, you'll grieve Him and hurt Him. You know how children hurt their parents? How do children hurt the hearts of their parents? What is it? By not listening. Not listening? and what hurts God when you don't listen? It's the same, God gets the same broken heart and this is what's hard for people to understand. God has a heart that's broken over the way His kids act and talk and do things. It breaks them just as much as it grieves you to watch your children do wrong decisions, have suffering lifestyles that they didn't have to because they wouldn't listen to what you tried to train them into or whatever, right? And it hurts. It hurts God. And it hurts Him when He watches you. That's why you have to see how careful this Scripture is in every point. Make sure you take the exact action He gives you. Also, 1 Corinthians 7 says, Now as to the matter of which you wrote Me, it is well for a man not to touch a woman, in other words, to cohabit with her, but to remain unmarried. But, because of the temptations to impurity and to avoid immorality, let each man have his own wife and let each woman have her own husband. Because in that moral standard, husband, wife, and marriage, you can have all the sex you want. You can do it all day long, all night long, it doesn't matter. You can do whatever you want. Because that is the moral standard. And that's the only one. Outside of that box, God says, is immorality. And He is so strong about it, it says He'll bring the wrath upon you of final judgment. He can't stand it. In fact, if you start reading the Old Testament, it talks about Him moving all the people out of the promised land before Israel got there because that's what they were. The thing they were noted for is their immorality. He said it ruined the country and he wanted every one of them dragged right out of the land. He didn't want to even have them coexist with them. Out completely, like throwing a renter out of your home, he wanted them out of that country. Not to be there at all. That's how strong God's opinion is about immorality. He doesn't take it lightly. He takes it very severely and strongly. So here's the point then. I want you to get radical and completely strip off all your old selfishness. Because selfishness is the core to why you travel after the things that are only your desires, whether it's immorality or other areas. And so the Bible says, Ephesians 4.21, back to our text, Assuming that you have really heard Him and have been taught by Him, as all truth is in Jesus, strip yourselves of your former nature, which characterized your previous manner of life and becomes corrupt through lust and desires that spring from delusion or confusion or misunderstanding. Notice that selfishness drives you to corruption and back to lust and desires. You cannot live your life in selfishness as a new believer. You must fight that with all your might. The most natural thing a child is is selfish. Everything of the toys in a whole room are theirs. And even if they never bought them or saw them before, they're theirs. Remember? And they'll fight to the death for those things. They are selfish to the core. That's how your fallen nature starts with. And it grows as you get older until you want everything else. And you're greedy in this and you want that. And you want all the pleasures. And you see everybody else have stuff and you want it too. And notice our culture. If you check, the Americans are so obsessed with this and so greedy. They're all bankrupt almost. I get people at QVC. They go, okay, I want to buy this. Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't authorize the card. Oh, let me try another one. Let me try another one. They have all their cards full to the max they can get. They're in debt up to their ears and beyond and they still want more stuff. That's America. Spend it, spend it, spend it. Get more, get more. I want this, I want this. This is what he's talking about. You have to break this as a believer. Paul said be content with food and clothes nothing else just be content you're alive God will provide you food and clothes he didn't say be content with a big house none of this and three cars he said be content with food and clothes but nobody in America is content with food and clothes they demand more and they want to spend more and they up to their ears in debt God says no this is the corruption that leads to lust and more desires and more desires that only get you in more trouble You can go that route You must break from that I call you to understand that. That's what this scripture in Ephesians is saying. Break from these strong desires. Get down to a place. In fact, he's going to show you how even to do this in a second. I'll show you the new motivation he calls you to, and it's not even the same here. So set your objection on a complete turning from all disobedience, Not some, but a complete cut from all disobedience and a determination to change to be holy and righteous. Not a little holy. Not a little righteous. It says go whole hog. Get radical. I love these kind of... See, as a preacher, I love the radical stuff. All out. Go for it. That's my words. I love these things. Everybody else says, oh, calm down. Don't get so radical. But Jesus doesn't say that. He says get determined. Ephesians 4.23 be constantly renewed in the spirit of your mind. Not just sometimes, constantly. And it says having a fresh mental and spiritual attitude. That means you go all the way down to the core of your attitudes. Not just ho-hum, this is church, wau-wee. It's going home and saying, I'm getting an extreme makeover. Extreme makeover. Not just a little makeover, a full, complete, total makeover like they show on TV. all out get a complete new lift. But instead inside, he says I want you to get complete, constantly renewed in the spirit of your mind, having a fresh mental and spiritual attitude and put on the new nature that regenerates that selflessness instead of selfishness created in God's image. In other words, be like God. And that means being right and being holy. Now remember, right means what he says is right and being completely wrong means you're in sin. See, the only measure is you've got to leave all the stuff he says is wrong and get heavy duty into everything he says is right. Does that make sense? Getting into the right? And so, also, he says, under the same scriptures, you are renewed as you flood your mind with God's commands and emotionally cry out for deliverance and grace to walk in them. See, it's easy for preachers to say, you know, here you go, you get all excited, just become perfect. And everybody says, we don't know how to do that. And no one's perfect anyway. So why are you saying those words that are not related to my life because no one's perfect? You're not listening. Listen careful. It says, create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right, persevering, and steadfast spirit within me. Also, it says, I am sorely afflicted. Renew and quicken me which means give me life, O Lord, according to your word. You don't ignore the word because you decided to make an excuse like no one's perfect. That's an excuse. God said, I want you to be wholehearted, all righteous and all holy. And then the first thing we say to God is, can't be done. No one's perfect. You just called God a liar. You hear what I'm saying? You don't sit there and tell God that. He just told you to do it. Would God tell you to do something you can't do? He would tell you to do something you can't do by yourself. But He's telling you to do something you can do because I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me because He gave me the grace which is the desire and then the strength and power to do it. You're telling God He doesn't have enough power to do it? He just told you to do it and He gives you the grace to do it. Now you've got to stop making excuses about your life And you've got to get real. You've got to get real. And one way to get real here, to flood your mind with God's commands. It's easy to say, I'm walking with God, but you don't even know what His commands are. Did you ever see those videos? I had some here back a number of years ago where they went into malls and said, name the Ten Commandments. And the people go, okay, name ten beers. Oh, they named ten beers like it was nothing. They can name ten beers, but they couldn't name hardly one of the ten commandments of God. Well, ignorance is not bliss. You're breaking the commandments, and if you're careful so you don't remember what they are, you feel like you're okay, but you're not. Right? To make sure that you get renewed in the mind, you need to flood your mind with the clear Scripture, knowing the commands of Jesus Christ. You read it, and you understand it, that will cause a conflict in your heart. Because then you'll feel guilty, because you'll start to see you're a sinner. Right? You'll see you're not doing right. But the right response is not to stop reading it so you don't hear it any longer. The right response is to cry out to God like Psalm says, God, create in me a clean heart. I don't want this one anymore. I hate what I'm doing in this practice. I'm afflicted sorely in my heart for being such an evil man. I can't stand it. Well, you can't get to that emotional rise until you actually read what it is that bothers you, right? So if you want to walk with Jesus and learn how to walk, Don't be afraid to read it until it sticks you in the heart. Make sure you understand what those commands are thoroughly, completely, and clearly. And then you can discern whether you've done them or not. Because really you start seeing you haven't. And as you start to see you haven't, this is the place to go in Psalms to cry out to God. Also, Isaiah reminds of the same thing. Remember, he says, those who wait on the Lord shall change and renew their strength and power. Well, how do you wait on the Lord? It says to look for Him. And the way it's worded, it says, They shall lift their wings and mount up close to God as eagles would. They shall run and not be weary. They shall walk. In other words, you walk with God like He wants you to. It's the idea of waiting. But it's not passive waiting going, I'll stand at the bus stop and hope the bus shows up and God's on it. It's waiting by pouring into His Word and wait for Him to give you the power to change. Make sense? you get the power from Him to change. But you've got to stop making excuses claiming you're okay. You've got to say, no, I've got to get this out of my life, and I need to get it out now. And as you wait, God moves. And believe me, He moves. Because He wants it out of you far more than you do. So again, now the same idea, we're under the same thought. To renew your mind is to flood your thoughts with God's commands. Romans 12.2 says, Do not be conformed to this world. don't let the teaching and ideas of this world bend you to act like them don't get it pressed in by this age this culture that you live in fashioned it after and adapted to its external superficial customs culture demands you follow their customs right God says I don't care what century you live in I don't care what culture you're from you don't bend under the pressure that a culture tries to make you in you don't change your moral standards because they keep telling you it's okay today. It doesn't matter. We're in the 21st century. Don't you remember? We're not in the old 20th century. They used to say we're not in the old 19th century. Things are different today. If they're different, it's only because you defied the living God. They're not different when it comes to morality. God hasn't changed for you or me. He never will. It goes back to the first century when He made the statements from Jesus, right? And so also, it says, be transformed or changed entirely by the renewal of your mind. Remember the word transformed comes from the word metamorphosis, which is what? A caterpillar builds a cocoon. While he's in that state, he gets metamorphosis, and he comes out a whole different looking creature. This is the exact Greek word is where that comes from. It's a metamorphi or something is the way the Greek word is. It's where we get the idea from. It says you would be transformed and completely renewed by the renewing of your mind by sticking to your ideas here. Renewing your mind by flooding it with God's commands and emotionally getting connected with it where you cry out for change. You do become absolutely a new person. Just like the Bible said, you become a new creation. All things pass away. All things become new. Exactly. You got it.