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1 Thessalonians 4:6
DailyBibleStudy.Org
6 That no [me] man go beyond [huperbaino] and [kai] defraud [pleonekteo] his [autos] brother [adelphos] in [en] any matter: [pragma] because [dioti] that the Lord [kurios] is the avenger [ekdikos] of [peri] all [pas] such, [touton] as [kathos] we [proepo] also [kai] have forewarned [proepo] you [humin] and [kai] testified. [diamarturomai] KJV-Interlinear
6 and that no man transgress and defraud his brother in the matter because the Lord is the avenger in all these things, just as we also told you before and solemnly warned you. NASB
To go beyond or to transgress, means to cross over that invisible line of behavior, which God has established through the work of the Cross. Remember that God provided us with sanctification, or a setting apart, or a separation path, by which we can extricate ourselves from the evils of this world, and bring us into His level of holiness.
When someone pulls you out of the mud pit, washes you off and dresses you in fine clothing and provides you with the finest of everything imaginable, then why would you throw it all away and jump right back into the mud pit and have nothing?
And here Paul warns us not to cross back over that line into the former life, because in that life, there is nothing there for us except doom, loss, misery, and total failure.
To defraud means to deceive, cheat, lie, trick, con, dupe and so forth.
When on the one hand, God gives all that we can possibly use in life, and God gives it to us freely and without effort on our part, then why would someone go out into the world and try to cheat or lie their way through life, in order to gain the very things that God gives freely?
But, when you reject truth, or doctrine, when you ignore your daily Bible study, when you are more or less indifferent about all of this Jesus stuff, then you have only one other avenue to follow in life and that is the avenue of the sin nature.
The sin nature has sin on the one hand (its area of weakness), and human good on the other (its area of strength). Both together, or separately, do nothing for your life but cause you failure.
You might want to visit the web site and view the Carnal Human Nature chart, to refresh the many and broad aspects of the carnal life into which you can easily get caught up.
And so the warning. God gives us everything freely, but people reject the phenomenal wealth that is there at their finger tips, and rush out in the the world and hustle life for the same things, but never acquiring any of them.
And when you hustle life, that is the same thing as defrauding others. You cannot gain anything in this life, unless it costs someone else something.
What work can you do that is not repetitive? What purchase or sale can you make that will last forever? And so the world by its very nature, causes limited benefit, because of its own limitations.
Only God is eternal and therefore His provisions are unlimited. Remember the burning bush and what was said to Moses? ‘I Am, that I Am.’
I Am, means eternal and unlimited resources and therefore eternal and unlimited provision.
In God there is no shortage, no limits, no rationing, no restrictions.
So, do not cross back over into the realm of the carnal world, because God has given you an out, and an unlimited realm in the spiritual life.
The carnal realm of the sin nature, is the target of judgment and nothing will survive that judgment. Whatever gains you may have in the carnal world, you will lose permanently.
