Ephesians 4:22-27 - "Nor Give Place To The Devil"

Paul, as he begins to list the sins that weneed to put off that come from the old man within us. The first one was put offlying. Then secondly, he said, “be angry and sin not” because when youdo, you give place to the devil. Let not the sun go down on your wrath. Angerleads to wrath. Wrath leads to malice. Malice leads to murder. We rememberedJohn 8:44. Jesus said, "You are of your father the devil. The lust ofyour father you will do. He was a murderer from the beginning and abode not inthe truth. Neither is there any truth in him. For he is a liar and the fatherof it." Nowif you go back to verses 31-32, it's where Jesus said to the disciples, “Ifyou abide in My word, then you are My disciples indeed. You shall know thetruth and the truth shall set you free”. Then in verse 36, another veryfamous verse Jesus said, "And if the Son shall make you free, you shallbe free indeed." Now when I begin to put that all together looking atthis devotion for today, I thought back to Genesis chapters 3-4. That is where Satantempted Eve. Remember the very first thing he said to her was a lie. He said, "Didnot God say you shall not eat of every tree in the garden?" He lied.God didn't say that. Eve responded, "No, we can eat all the trees in thegarden, but there's one we can't eat, and we've been told we can't eat ofthat."  Thenthe Satan said, "Oh, no." He said, "You shall not surelydie." That was his second lie because God has said, "If youeat of it, you will die." Satan said, "No, you won'tdie." Now my friend, we have a major issue in our country todaybecause we've been feeding lies to our young people, actually for the lastseveral generations, lies that they came from a monkey, that they came fromnothing. They’ve been told that everything just happened from a big explosionbillions of years ago. As a result, they have no value of life and do not careabout life.  Now,think about what happened with Cain, the first son that's born along with hisbrother Abel, when he gets angry. Look at these verses in Genesis 4:1-6. Put ittogether. Cain gets angry. What does he do? It overwhelms him to the point thathe murders his brother Abel. Then when God shows up and asked Cain, "Hey,where is Abel? I'm looking for him." Cain lies and says, "How do Iknow where he is? I don't know where he is." Look at those verses veryclearly. Did you see what happens when we get angry and give place to the devil?We get caught up in the bondage of lying just like Cain did.  Whenwe're in the bondage of lying, we actually give place to the devil. Don't giveplace to the devil. Don't give the devil opportunity in your life to take holdof you and lead you into worse sins that will cause terrible consequences inyour life and the lives of others. This is so powerful and so important. I wantto encourage you to think about putting all these things together. Remember, asJesus has taught us, you'll know the truth. The truth sets you free. If the Sonsets you free, you're free indeed. Why? You're free from the bondage of lying.You're free from the bondage of Satan.  Knowingthe truth, knowing Jesus, sets you free from the bondage of living a lie and alife of vanity. What was the curse put on Cain? That he would be a vagabond andlive a life of fear and insecurity (Genesis 4:12-14). He would live an emptylife, wandering around, wondering what life was all about. That is the problemin too many of our lives today, in America and for that matter, the world too.When we kick God out of our lives, and we deny Him. When we put His Word on theback burner of our lives, even daily, we headed down the path of living a lieand bowing down to Satan.  RememberJesus said, “If you abide in My words, then what you will know the truth,and if you know the truth you will be free”. Free to enjoy life doing whatyou ought to be doing! God help us to find that freedom in His Word in ourlives as we see Jesus who is the Way, the Truth and the Life.