Pointless!

Now this I say and testify in the Lord, that you must no   longer walk as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their minds. Ephesians 4:17

Paul spent the first three chapters in Ephesians focusing on the Gospel and what God has done through His Son Jesus Christ. He reminds the believers in Ephesus that, “when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit (Eph. 1:13). Since all Christians are transformed at their conversion (2 Cor.5:17) Paul exhorts believers to live a life differently than those who do not belong to Christ.

The church in Ephesus was surrounded by paganism and its connected immorality. Ephesus was a leading commercial     and cultural city of the Roman Empire. It had the great pagan temple of Artemis or Diana, one of the seven wonders of the ancient world. But it was also a leading city in debauchery     and sexual immorality. Some historians rank it as the most    lascivious city of Asia Minor. Paul was reminding the Christians  not to live a pointless life, one that was filled with sin and      futility. The person that does not know Christ lives a life that      is pointless as well as hopeless. Here are a few quotes from   famous atheists as they neared death.

Thomas Payne- The leading atheistic writer in         American colonies: “Stay with me, for God’s sake; I    cannot bear to be left alone , O Lord, help me! O God, what have I done to suffer so much? What will become of me hereafter? I would give worlds if I had them, that The Age of Reason had never been published. O Lord, help me! Christ, help me! No, don’t leave; stay with me! Send even a child to stay with me; for I am on the edge of hell here alone. If ever the Devil had an agent, I have been that one.”

Sir Thomas Scott—Chancellor of England: “Until this moment I thought there was neither a God nor a hell. Now I know and feel that there are both, and I am doomed to perdition by the just judgment of the      Almighty.”

Voltaire—famous anti-Christian atheist: “I have swal lowed nothing but smoke. I have intoxicated myself with the incense that turned my head. I am abandoned by God and man.”

He said to his physician, Dr. Fochin: “I will give you half of what I am worth if you will give me six months of life.” When he was told this was not possible, he said “Then I shall die and go to hell!” His nurse said: “For all the money in Europe I wouldn’t want to see another unbeliever die! All night long he cried for forgiveness.”

NAPOLEON BONAPARTE—French emperor who,        like Adolf Hitler, brought death to millions to satisfy   his greedy, power-mad, selfish ambitions for world conquest: “I die before my time, and my body will be given back to the earth. Such is the fate of him who   has been called the great Napoleon. What an abyss between my deep misery and the eternal kingdom      of Christ!

Paul expands on this pointless life of the unbeliever,

They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is    in them, due to their hardness of heart. They have     become callous and have given themselves up to     sensuality, greedy to practice every kind of impurity. But that is not the way you learned Christ!— assuming that you have heard about him and were taught in him, as the truth is in Jesus, to put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness ( Eph. 4:18-24).

How is your walk Christian? The last thing it should be is      pointless. We must live our lives not for ourselves but for the glory of God.

Your shepherd,

Pastor Mark