Ephesians 5:6 - The Consummate Evil

"Let no one be deceiving you in empty words.  For because of this the wrath of God is coming upon the sons of unbelief."

-Disobedience stems from unbelief, generally speaking.  Show me someone doing that which God does not want, and I will show you someone who is walking in unbelief.  They are believing something about God which is not true or are simply not believing that about Him which is true.  Either way they are embracing a lie.  In other words, they are deceived.  Deception, falsehood - the lie - is the consummate evil, it lies at the root of all sin.  "They exchanged the truth of God for the lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, Who is blessed forever, amen." (Rom 1.25)  Thus the two go hand in hand, thus it has been from the very beginning, where that crafty serpent of old deceived Eve into swallowing an exotic cocktail of half-truths and lies and thus managed to persuade her to do the one and only thing which God had forbidden.  It is God’s would-be-children believing what is not true, and making life choices based on that belief.  Believing what is not true about God, perhaps that He does not exist, or that He does not see or care about what I do, or perhaps that His wrath is not a thing.  Oh, but it is a thing.  Unrighteousness begets wrath like rotten food attracts flies.  It’s like the field of dreams - if you build it, they will come.  If you do it, wrath will come.  Oh, it’s coming.  Which is why throughout the millennia the Lord has pleaded with and implored and urged His children to NOT do the things which He hates.  He has sent angels and prophets and judges and apostles and His very own Son, all to remind us of what is true and to turn from the wrath which is to come.  "Flee, you fools," cried Gandalf, and flee we should, but in that day there will be no place to hide, save one - the Cross, where the wrath of God has already been poured out and fully satisfied.

-But know this - if I deceive you, you don’t know it.  Paul joins in the royal and ancient chorus of divine messengers and declares truth about false truth.  He warns against those who would deceive and lead astray with empty words.  These clearly are folks - friends(?) - who are trying to get me to join them in their daring deeds of darkness, in their excess and pursuit of more and of that which is simply out of place for a true child of God.  Those thus engaged in that which God does not want are not His children, they are not son and daughters of light.  Paul calls them sons of unbelief, of disobedience.  They are in fact children of wrath.  Only you and I were never made for this.  What a tragic waste of that wonderful impossible miraculous gift that is life, time measured out to each one of us, a fleeting moment in which we have the chance to come to know and experience and spread the knowledge of God’s breathtaking goodness.  Don't be deceived.  Don't waste this.