Information. 2
Chapter 1 - Introduction And Background. 3
Chapter 2 - Praise The Lord! - Part 1. 12
Chapter 3 - Praise The Lord! - Part 2. 21
Chapter 4 - Praise The Lord For Redemption. 29
Chapter 5 - The Mystery of His Will - Part 1. 38
Chapter 6 - The Mystery of His Will - Part 2. 46
Chapter 7 - Paul's Prayer List For You - Part 1. 54
Chapter 8 - Paul's Prayer List For You - Part 2. 63
Chapter 9 - From Death To Life. 72
Chapter 10 - Amazing Grace. 80
Chapter 11 - From Alienation To Reconciliation. 89
Chapter 12 - God's New Home. 98
Chapter 13 - The Revelation Of The Mystery. 107
Chapter 14 - A Prayer For The Church. 116
Chapter 15 - Our Mind-Blowing God. 125
Chapter 16 - Lessons On Walking In Church. 133
Chapter 17 - The Bounties Of Our Conquering Christ 142
Chapter 18 - Body Building. 151
Chapter 19 - Change Your Clothes! 160
Chapter 20 - The Wardrobe Of The Spirit 170
Chapter 21 - The Christian: The Divine Impersonator 178
Chapter 22 - The Children Of Light 186
Chapter 23 - The Fullness Of The Spirit 195
Chapter 24 - The Christian Wife. 204
Chapter 25 - The Christian Husband. 213
Chapter 26 - Parents And Children. 221
Chapter 27 - The Christian At Work. 230
Chapter 28 - The Christian Warrior's Brief 239
Chapter 29 - The Christian Warrior's Armour - Part 1. 249
Chapter 30 - The Christian Warrior's Armour - Part 2. 258
Chapter 31 - The Christian Warrior's Armour - Part 3. 267
Chapter 32 - Constant Prayer 277
Chapter 33 - Varied Prayer 286
Chapter 34 - Spirit-Led Supplication. 295
Chapter 35 - The Strategy For Prayer 304
Chapter 36 - The Man With The Message. 313
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David Legge studied at the Irish Baptist College, Belfast, Northern Ireland. He served as Assistant Pastor at Portadown Baptist Church before receiving a call to the pastorate of the Iron Hall Assembly. He now serves as pastor-teacher of the Iron Hall, and resides in Belfast with his wife Barbara and their daughter Lydia.
The audio for this series is available free of charge either on our website (www.preachtheword.co.uk) or by request from info@preachtheword.co.uk
All material by Pastor Legge is copyrighted. However, these materials may be freely copied and distributed unaltered for the purpose of study and teaching, so long as they are made available to others free of charge, and the copyright is included. These materials may not, in any manner, be sold or used to solicit "donations" from others, nor may they be included in anything you intend to copyright, sell, or offer for a fee. This copyright is exercised to keep these materials freely available to all.
Ephesians - Chapter 1
"Introduction And Background"
Copyright 2000
by Pastor David Legge
All Rights Reserved
Turn with me in your Bibles to Paul's epistle to the church at Ephesus, the book of Ephesians. And we'll take time this evening, we're going to look at the introduction of this little epistle and the salutation that we find in verses 1 and 2, we're only going to look at these two verses - because it's important as we look at any book that we lay are historical and contextual foundations of the book. In order to interpret any book of the Bible properly, it's important that we understand who it's being written to, who's writing it and what situation it's being written to. So we need to have a backdrop for this book of Ephesians to understand all the truths that are held therein. But in order to get the context of what we're going to be looking into the weeks that lie ahead, let's look and read the whole of chapter 1 of the book of Ephesians. If you want to shout 'Hallelujah' in the middle of any of these verses, you feel free to do so! I can't because I'm reading.
"Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God, to the saints which are at Ephesus, and to the faithful in Christ Jesus: Grace be to you, and peace, from God our Father, and from the Lord Jesus Christ. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ: According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love: Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will, To the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted in the beloved. In whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his grace; wherein he hath abounded toward us in all wisdom and prudence; having made known unto us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure which he hath purposed in himself: That in the dispensation of the fulness of times he might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven, and which are on earth; even in him: In whom also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestinated according to the purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will: That we should be to the praise of his glory, who first trusted in Christ. In whom ye also trusted, after that ye heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation: in whom also after that ye believed, ye were sealed with that holy Spirit of promise, which is the earnest of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession, unto the praise of his glory. Wherefore I also, after I heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus, and love unto all the saints, Cease not to give thanks for you, making mention of you in my prayers; That the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give unto you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him: The eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that ye may know what is the hope of his calling, and what the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints, And what is the exceeding greatness of his power to us-ward who believe, according to the working of his mighty power, Which he wrought in Christ, when he raised him from the dead, and set him at his own right hand in the heavenly places, far above all principality, and power, and might, and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this world, but also in that which is to come: And hath put all things under his feet, and gave him to be the head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fulness of him that filleth all in all".
We're looking this evening at verses 1 and 2 of this chapter, let's read them together again: 'Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God, to the saints which are at Ephesus, and to the faithful in Christ Jesus: Grace be to you, and peace, from God our Father, and from the Lord Jesus Christ". Samuel Taylor Coleridge, the hymnwriter, wrote these words about the book of Ephesians - he said: 'It is the divinest composition of man'. The most beautiful letter, the most beautiful words that have ever been penned by any human being - but as we sit this evening and study these magnificent words, as we read them, we say that they are not simply the divinest words of a human being, but as we read them they testify very clearly that these are the words of Almighty God. Go home this evening and read these words - for perhaps they're the profoundest that have ever been written by any man. You can see the grandeur, the majesty, the dignity, the richness and fulness, the peculiarity of these words among the whole of the New Testament and the whole of the word of God - there is power in these words! This, perhaps, is not the longest of Paul's letters - but perhaps it's one of the profoundest, the most powerful, the most significant of his works and writings, humanly speaking.
Look at the book for a moment. The book naturally splits into two parts, two sections. The first section is chapter 1 to chapter 3 - 1, 2 and 3 deal with doctrinal belief, in other words: what believer's wealth is. What we believe, our doctrines of our faith that we build our life and build the church upon - 1 to 3 is doctrinal. Then chapters 4 to 6 are practical - not simply the believer's wealth, but the believer's walk. Because of what we believe Christ is, what He has done for us, what we have as our foundation - how then should we behave as Christians: our walk in Christ. Now the two key verses in both of these sections are found at the start of each of the sections - look at chapter 1 and verse 3, this is the key verse in the first doctrinal section of the book of Ephesians: 'Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ'. And then the second key verse, for the second section, the practical section, is found in chapter 4 and verse 1 - the very start of the section: 'I therefore, the prisoner of the Lord', Paul says, 'beseech you that ye walk worthy of the vocation wherewith ye are called'. He outlines, in chapters 1 to 3, all that you are in Christ, all that we have, all the riches that we have inherited through the blood of Christ - and then in chapter 4 he says, 'Now, this is what you've been called into, now practically speaking you've got to walk worthy of your vocation of your calling'.
What is the theme of this little letter of Paul's? The theme is simply this: the mystery of the church of Jesus Christ. It's a mystery because it never, ever was revealed in the whole of the history of Judaism. This mystery was something that only came to being at Pentecost, in the New Testament when the church of Jesus Christ was formed. You can see it right throughout every chapter of the book of Ephesians. Look at chapter 1, for in chapter 1 and verse 11 we see there, a mystery: 'In whom also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestinated according to the purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will'. Chapter 1, we have the mystery of the will of God. If you look at chapter 2, and you read it when you go home, there is the mystery of the church of Jesus Christ - how Jews and Gentiles, all sorts of pagans and barbarians, and the Pharisees even, and the Scribes, no matter what background you're from - how that God has wrought in Christ a reconciliation, and that God has broken down the middle wall of partition and has made the two, Gentiles and Jews, one in the Lord Jesus Christ. If you go to chapter 3 and verse 4, you see there the mystery - as Darby translates it - the mystery of Christ, the mystery of His person, the mystery of His being, the mystery of who and what He is at this moment in time in heaven. Go into chapter 4 and you read about the mystery of the unity of the body of Christ, all across this universe. You go to chapter 5 and you have some practical rules about how masters should relate to their servants, servants to their masters, husbands to wives, wives to husbands, children to parents, parents to children. But you remember, after Paul says that husbands are to love their wives as Christ loves the church, he says that this is the mystery - he speaks of the relationship between the Saviour and the saints, the Bridegroom and the bride, the Lord Jesus Christ and His church. And then, when you go into chapter 6, you see the mystery of the Gospel - look at chapter 6 verse 20: 'For which I am an ambassador in bonds: that therein I may speak boldly, as I ought to speak'.
The message of this little book is the present dynamic relationship between the Lord Jesus Christ, risen, exalted, glorified in heaven! The message is His dynamic, real, powerful relationship today with the church, His first love. It's quite similar to the book of Colossians, you see the book of Colossians speaks of the 'cosmic Christ', the Christ as He is today - not as He was, not as He was upon the cross, not even in the resurrection, but ascended, risen, exalted as He is now. But Ephesians differs in this respect: that it speaks not specifically of the 'cosmic Christ', but how the church has a 'cosmic' present role as the body of that same Lord Jesus Christ.
Now, I want us to do a bit of work this evening - because we've got to think, we've got to understand the situation and the circumstances that this letter - and remember, it is a letter - that was addressed to the church at Ephesus [was written in]. Ephesus was one of the largest Mediterranean cities. It had approximately a quarter to half a million of a population, and for those days that was very large. But this city of Ephesus was richly blessed from hand of God, for this city had been touched with the preaching of Paul the apostle - and if you look on the back of your sheet, your handout, you'll see there the three missionary journeys of the apostle Paul. But Paul the apostle came across this city of Ephesus in his second missionary journey, en route from the land of Greece to the land of Syria - you can read about it in Acts chapter 18. But as he came across Ephesus on his second missionary journey he did not stay there long, he only stopped over there for a few nights - but as he was hurrying through that city of Ephesus, on to Jerusalem, he found time to debate with the Jewish leaders in the local synagogue. The word of God tells us that they were so impressed with what Paul was teaching and preaching, that they begged for him to remain with them in Ephesus - and he said that he would come back again one day if it was the will of God for him. Therefore, we read in the book of the Acts, that on his third missionary journey he made sure, he believed it was the will of God, that he would go again to the city of Ephesus and there, the word of God tells us, he spent three years.
Now, I want you to understand Paul's strategic way of his missionary journeys. He did not go 'willy-nilly' and decide, 'We'll preach here, we'll preach there, we'll go to this city, to that city', or wherever the path took him, there he preached - that wasn't the way he worked. Now remember that Ephesus was perhaps the largest city in Asia Minor, and Paul knew that if he could break the [impregnable] walls of that great city - where people travelled through, where businessmen came to, where cultural people came to in the arts, and music, and writing and so forth - that he was going to plant, as it were, a gospel 'atomic bomb' that would spread to the whole province of Asia Minor. Do you see his thinking? And therefore he comes to Ephesus, the biggest city - and we read in the book of Acts that for three months he resumed his confrontation with those Jews that he had talked with on his second missionary journey. He debated with them over and over, every day for three months until he had some opposition - and when he had the opposition he removed himself with his converts and went to a lecturing theatre and hall of Tyrannus. And there, day after day, morning after morning for two whole years he debated, he preached, he exhorted these men and women to trust the Lord Jesus Christ.
What faithfulness Paul had in the Gospel. So much so that there was a riot in the city of Ephesus - and you can read about it in chapter 19 of the book of Acts. There was a man called Demetrius, and because his livelihood was threatened - he made little idols, replica models of the temple and of Diana of the Ephesians - and because Paul was preaching the Gospel and idolaters were being converted, he was going to go out of business. Leonard Ravenhill has said that you can't have revival without a riot. Ten years later Paul decides to write a letter to the church of Ephesus - and if you go to the very end of this book, you'll see in small writing - it's not inspired - but there we have: 'Written from Rome unto the Ephesians by Tychicus'. Paul, as he wrote this letter to the Ephesians, was under house arrest in Rome. He was imprisoned; he was awaiting the outcome of the appeal that he had made to Caesar. But I want you to notice, as you've already read the first chapter - and I hope you've read the other chapters of this little book - he is imprisoned for the cause of Christ, but he's not moaning! He's not whingeing, he's not grumbling, he's not griping - but perhaps this letter shows unbelievable, explosive joy that this prisoner for Christ had in his Lord and his salvation!
Sure, if you read many of the books of the Bible, some of the greatest of them were written in prison. And well might the Psalmist have said in Psalm 76 verse 10, that God makes the wrath of man to praise Him! You'll find within the New Testament, that three of the books that we have were written where Paul is at this moment - in prison, house arrest, in Rome. The book of Colossians, the book of Philemon, and the book that we read this evening - the book of Ephesians. We only have to look down church history, don't we? We go to the Reformation and we read of men that were imprisoned: Sivonna Roli (sp?) in Italy, Tyndale in England, Anne Askew - why was she imprisoned, a woman? She was imprisoned because she rejected the popish doctrine of trans-substantiation, she declared - had the guts to say - 'This is only bread, this is only wine', and she was thrown into prison. And before she was burned at the stake in Smithfield, do you know what she could write in poetic language?
'I now rejoice in heart
And hope bids me do so,
That Christ will take my part
And ease me of my woe'.
Madame Guyon, the French saint, as she lay in a cold prison cell - do you know what she could write?
'My cage confines me round,
Abroad I cannot fly,
But though my wings are closely bound,
My heart is at liberty.
My prison walls cannot control
The flight, the freedom, of my soul'.
Paul was in prison, but it didn't affect his spirit. Paul was in jail, he couldn't go out, he couldn't preach, he couldn't witness, he couldn't sing out in the open or with the children of God - yet he rejoiced in his Lord! Are you in prison this evening? What is it? Is it illness? Is it persecution? Is it your family? Is it friends? Is it your husband or your wife? People at work, your boss? And you feel that you're in prison, you feel that you're sealed in, you can't get out, you're kept! Listen: Paul, the prisoner of Christ, could rejoice - and so can you!
We read in the word of God that Paul was allowed some visitors, we read that there was a man called Epaphras - he would come in now and again and he would keep Paul posted with what was going on within the church of Jesus Christ at large. But Epaphras had come to Paul and disturbed him a little, because he had brought to him news that there were heretics in Colossae teaching that Jesus Christ was not who He was. That bothered Paul in jail, so he got started and he wrote the letter to the Colossians. And then, while Paul was in prison, he befriended a slave called Onesimus - he was a renegade fugitive, he had offended and frauded his master and his owner. But when he came in contact with Paul he was gloriously saved and converted, and Paul had the burden of this soul, Onesimus, upon his heart and he decided to write a letter to his master who was a believer, Philemon, and send him back to his master - hoping that he would be pardoned. The man that stayed with him much of the time in prison, was a man called Tychicus - he was the man who was going to take Onesimus back to Philemon with the letter. He was the man that was going to deliver the letter to Colossae. But he was also a native of the city of Ephesus, and he was going to be travelling through Ephesus, and Paul couldn't resist writing a letter to the church at Ephesus, and he took it with him.
Now look at verse 1, it says: 'Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God, to the saints which are at Ephesus' - some manuscripts don't have the words 'at Ephesus'. Now that doesn't really matter, because we know that this letter was going to Ephesus - but what many believe is this: that this was not simply a letter for Ephesus, but it was an open-ended letter that was to be a circular letter that went round all the churches of Jesus Christ. I want us to notice three things about these first two verses that will give us an introduction to this great letter - I don't know about you, but I'm excited about it! It's full of spiritual dynamite, spiritual meat - and if you go away starving this evening there's something wrong. The author is the first thing that I want you to notice: 'Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God'. Now, there's three things I want you to notice - I want you to notice the author, secondly I want you to notice his authority and thirdly the source of his authority.
Look at the author: Paul. If you were to look at letters that were written - ordinary secular letters from friends and family and relatives - in the same age and day that this letter of Paul was written, you would find that they all began the same. They started with the name of the person that was writing - the author - and then the second name or place that you would read would be the addressee - the person being written to - and then the third thing you would encounter is the greeting - the salutation of the person, the author, writing to the addressee. That follows the same pattern and the same model here as we see. He says, 'Paul' - the author sending the letter. Now I want you to notice that he doesn't say 'Father Paul', he doesn't say 'Apostle Paul', he doesn't even say 'Elder Paul' or 'Pastor Paul' - he says 'Paul'. Paul was his Roman name, and we find throughout the epistles that Paul, he was the apostle to the Gentiles and whenever he was speaking as the apostle to the Gentiles he used his Gentile name 'Paul'. Remember what he said? He was [a Jew to the] Jew, he was a Gentile to the Gentile, he was everything to any man that he might bring them to Christ. That's what we need to be, that by all means we would save some.
You know, and you heard last evening, that he was called Saul before his conversion - probably because he was from the tribe of Benjamin, and King Saul was from the tribe of Benjamin, and the mother of Saul christened her son after the great King. But when he was converted, his name was changed. He became the apostle to the Gentiles, and what a work he did, but his name was changed from Saul to Paul - do you know what Paul means? This staggers me, it means 'small', small. That lion that ravaged, that breathed out murderings and cursings and threatenings against the church of Jesus Christ, that Pharisee that was instrumental in the murder of Stephen whose face was as an angel - that lion was brought down to size, made small by the Lord Jesus Christ. And the one who arrested Christians, on the road to Damascus was arrested by the Son of God and converted! It's amazing, God cut him down to size, but it was his smallness that became the medium for God's bigness. He said, 'When I am weak He is strong...His strength is made perfect in my weakness'. Do you know that, Christian? Maybe you're going through weakness today, maybe you're experiencing it, maybe God is bringing you down to size by some means - listen: His grace is sufficient for you. Cherish His grace, cherish the work that God is doing in your life and see that He is honing, He is digging, He is excavating in your life, maybe even in your flesh, a channel by which He will flow the life of Christ through you.
Paul, just Paul, that's the author - but what is the authority of the author? Look at verse one: 'Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ' - he is an apostle, now that's not a title, it was his role. We find this word 'apostle' throughout the whole of the New Testament, what it's doing here is simply giving an official stamp to the letter that is being sent to this church and to all the churches. But here, in this verse, it's used in a restrictive sense - what do I mean by that? Well 'apostle' simply means in the Greek, literally: 'sent out one', but there are many meanings for 'apostle'. For instance, to be a missionary in the New Testament could be classified as being an apostle, sent out from the church. Indeed, we read within the word of God of one Epaphroditus, who was called 'your apostle', simply because he was chosen by the church to be their servant. But the word 'apostle' here is not used in that sense, but used in the restricted sense of one who has been chosen directly by God, for God, to be a foundation member of the church.
Turn with me for a moment to Ephesians 4, Ephesians 4 and verse 11, and we have here what God has in mind when He calls Paul an apostle: 'And [God] gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers; for the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ'. Turn to chapter 2 and verse 20, the church is built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the Chief Cornerstone. When Paul calls himself an apostle here, he's using it in the restrictive sense of the twelve disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ and Paul the apostle here. Given gifts, given powers, many of them not with us today - many now, not all - to lay a foundation for the church of Jesus Christ. That's his authority, he was an apostle - he had seen the risen Lord Jesus Christ, which was a requirement to be made an apostle by the hand of the Lord there on the road to Damascus.
His authority - but what is the source of his authority? 'Paul', verse 1, 'an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God' - it's amazing to me, that Paul is banged up in prison but he accepted it as the will of God for him. I would have gone daft! Can't preach, can't read my books, can't run around, can't do what I want to - how can this be classed as serving the Lord? Many people that are laid up in a hospital bed, or locked at home, or are sick, or are ill - they think to themselves, 'How can I serve God? Lord, if you'd just make me well I'd go to the four corners of the earth for You!'. But he saw being banged up in prison as the will of God for him. All God wants us to do with His will is accept it! I wonder is there someone here this evening and you're battling, you're striving, you won't accept the will of God for you? See Paul, he accepted God's will - and I want you to see that he didn't become an apostle, he didn't bring it upon himself, he didn't choose that ministry, he had no aspiration for it, there was no usurpation of another apostle and he took his place - I want you to see this: that there was no democratic nomination of him! But there was a preparation of God, and a choosing and election of God.
This was God's doing - and let me say this, Christian: if you're to be strong, if you're to be calm when the storms of life come across your path, if you're to be an effective child of God - you must know God's will! And know that it's God's will and not yours. There are preachers in the pulpit and they cannot preach, there are missionaries on the mission field and they cannot evangelise, there are men and women as elders, deacons, ministers, members in works and it is not their gift - it is not God's will for them to be there, many a time it's their own will! Oh, make sure it's God will. You see when the storms of life come in, you need to know it's God's will. And I thank God, that when I was being called into the Lord's work, at the specific moment in time when I felt the call, someone said to me, 'Now God's speaking to you through the word of God, take a pen, take a piece of paper and write it down! Write what God is doing, for there is a day coming when you will despair at everything that is happening in your life, and you will think: 'I wonder was this God's will at all?''. Many a time I've looked back and I've opened those pages, despairing, discouraged, but I've rejoiced because it's the will of God that counts - that's all that counts!
There's the author, but then secondly there's the readers - for he says in verse 1, 'Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God, to the saints which are at Ephesus, and to the faithful in Christ Jesus'. 'To the saints', that's the addressee, the person that he is writing this letter to - the saints. Now who are saints? Are they dead people? Are they dead people who have reached the top 10 of their field in Christianity, and they're the best so some church comes along and sticks an 'St' in front of their name and canonises them - is that what means? Does it mean after you die that the elders will come along and scrutinise your life, and if it's beyond reproach they'll canonise you as a saint? Or as some church teaches, that after two miracles you can become one? No, that's not what the Bible teaches. Even the dictionary has got it wrong - for if you look at chapter 1 and verse 1, you see saints are mentioned, look at verse 15 of chapter 1, '...unto all the saints...', verse 18, '...his inheritance in the saints...'. Let me say this: saints are alive! Not dead!
Look at chapter 2: 'You hath he quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins: wherein in time past ye walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience: among whom also we all had our conversation in times past in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind; and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others' - we were dead! But saints are alive, they don't perform miracles - have you ever performed a miracle? You haven't, have you? But saints have miracles performed on them - that's what a saint is! Not someone who performs miracles, but people who have experienced it - look at verse 4, chapter 2: 'But God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us, even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ' - that's a miracle! Huh, my friend, a saint is simply a believer, a saint is simply - and this is what it literally means - a set-apart-one for God, one who has been taken out of the world spiritually speaking and placed, as Paul says, in Christ Jesus. As the Lord said in John chapter 17, 'You are in the world but not of the world', that is a saint. It's like the scuba diver: he exists in an alien environment because he possesses special equipment, isn't that right? And we exist here because we have the Holy Ghost!
It's the saints in Ephesus that are addressed, look at verse 1. This place of Ephesus, the faithful in Christ Jesus there - and you see, Ephesus was so blessed because not only had Paul preached there, but Apollos had preached there after Paul preached there, Timothy preached there, and then at the end of his life John, in the first century, the last living apostle John preached and lived there and used it as a base. But not only was this city great geographically speaking, but the word of God clearly teaches us that this was a city great in iniquity. In fact the Bible calls it the site of total iniquity, the throne of Satan, the seat where he sat in the whole of Asia. If you had went into Main Street, Ephesus, you would have seen there the great temple, the site of the great temple of Artemis - and if you had went in through the doors you would have seen there the great statue of Diana, the goddess of the Ephesians that was reputed to have come down from God in heaven down to there. It's one of the seven ancient wonders of the world, and that city was a great city - it had an amphitheatre of 25,000 of a capacity. But the word of God - no matter what history says about this city, or films portray about it - says that it was Satan's very headquarters in Asia. You know, they had a book called 'The Books of Ephesus' - not the book of Ephesians now, but the books of Ephesus - and they were magical books through which they did divination and necromancy, this was an iniquitous core of the earth. It was a lucrative place, it had a great trade and selling about it, and they ran around the city selling little silver models of the temple and of Diana - that's why Demetrius got so upset when Christ was being exalted!
You remember that Paul faced two oppositions. You remember in Acts chapter 19 there were the seven sons of Sceva in Ephesus. Oh, they were into necromancy, they were into witchcraft and they thought - they saw this man Paul doing great miracles, and casting out demons - and one of them said, 'I think I'll do it'. You remember he went to do it and the demon said, from the man: 'Paul I know - but who are you?'. He faced it from a devilish world, he faced opposition from the economic, materialistic, commercial world - the whole of the commercial city went into a riot because their trade was at stake because of Christ. Do you know what A.B. Simpson says? 'A Gospel that goes down to the heart of Wall Street and turns business upside-down must have some power in it!'. Huh, it has power in it alright. Do you know something - and I want you to get this, for I believe this is for someone: you can be a saint in Ephesus, filled with iniquity, and your home is filled with iniquity, your work is filled with cursing and blasphemy - day by day you face it from your nearest and dearest and your loved ones, but you can be a saint in Ephesus! It's like carbonic acid, it's very heavy - carbonic acid gas sinks to the bottom of a cave - and if you're to survive, if you're not to let the contamination and the pollution into your system physically speaking - do you know what you have to do? You have to stand up straight and hold your head high! If we're to survive in this world, and if you're to survive in your Ephesus, you've got to look unto Jesus, the author and finisher of your faith. You've got to hold your head up high - not in pride, but looking to Him and seeking Him - and then you'll survive!
It's to the faithful, 'the saints', verse 1, 'at Ephesus...in Christ Jesus'. Didn't Paul love that? Every time you read an epistle of Paul, you ring those words: 'in Christ'. He talked about 'in Him', 'in whom we have', 'in the beloved' - and that's all that matters, to be faithful, and that means to exercise faith in Him, to have fidelity in Him, to be for Christ and Christ alone - and to be in Christ, that's all that matters! Then thirdly, and finally: we have the author, we have the readers and then we have the salutation. This is his greeting, look at verse 2: 'Grace be to you, and peace, from God our Father, and from the Lord Jesus Christ'. You know that grace, the word 'grace' - 'karos' (sp?) in Greek - was the Greek greeting, it was like 'Hello', the way we would say 'Hello', they would say 'Karos' to one another. 'Shalom', in Hebrew, means peace - that was the Hebrew greeting. And Paul here in verse 2 says: 'Grace', that's the Greek greeting, 'be to you and peace', that's the Hebrew greeting, 'in Christ Jesus' - do you see it? Do you know what that means? Look at chapter 2, chapter 2 and verse 12: 'That at that time ye were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world: But now in Christ Jesus ye who sometimes were far off are made nigh by the blood of Christ. For he is our peace, who hath made both one, and hath broken down the middle wall of partition between us; Having abolished in his flesh the enmity, even the law of commandments contained in ordinances; for to make in himself of twain one new man, so making peace'.
How else could you have an ex-Roman Catholic and - I say this - an ex-pagan Protestant standing on a platform together united in Christ? You'll not get it anywhere else. You'll not get it in Stormont. You'll not get it in South Africa. You'll only get it in Christ! Grace for the Greek, peace for the Jew - and there's no distinction in Christ! I wonder do you know the peace of God? That peace that passeth all understanding - do you know how you know it? Verse 2: 'from God our Father, and from the Lord Jesus Christ' - those blessings, grace and peace - they come in that order now, you must experience the grace of God in Christ through faith and salvation before you'll have any peace in your heart. Don't try and work at peace, you've got to have grace first, but it comes from our Father. And what Paul was saying here, as he links the Father with the Son here, is that they are both the same, they are both equal, they are both God, co-eternal, co-equal!
I want to finish with this: 'Grace be to you, to and peace, from God our Father, and from the Lord Jesus Christ'. That's His title you know: 'the Lord Jesus Christ' - He's the Lord, He ought to be your Lord, that means master, that means you're not your own, you belong to Him - you can't do what you want, you can't say what you want, or think what you want, you've got to do what He says because you're redeemed by blood - you're not your own! He's the Lord, Jesus, He's the Saviour. He shall save His people from their sins, and if you don't know Him by faith, He can save you now! Christ, He's chosen of God. He is God's Man, God's Prophet, Priest and King - glory to His name!
She was put down in history as the greatest miser in the whole of America. I don't know whether the greatest miser in all of Ulster is here, but she was the greatest miser in all of America. And when she died, she left an estate of 100 million dollars - and when she died it was found out that she ate cold oatmeal for her breakfast, her lunch, and her dinner because she didn't want to spend the electricity bill on heating it up. It was said that her son suffered an amputation because she delayed in looking for a clinic to treat him freely, and because of that he lost his leg. She was wealthy, yet she chose life of a pauper. In these next few weeks we're going to look at the riches and the wealth that we have in Christ, and I want to ask you this as we look into it in the future: Christian, are you living in His riches - it's all there - or are you living as a pauper?
Our Father, we thank Thee for all the riches that we have in the Saviour - and Lord, we've inherited it all. Nothing of ourselves, but through His death it has become ours. Lord, we must claim it by faith - Lord, we're going to see many things in these weeks that lie ahead, of what we have and what can be ours. Lord, help us not to be like children that look into the toyshop window, and we despair that we can't afford what we want. Help us to realise that it's been bought and all we need to, by obedience and faithfulness and fidelity in Christ, is to claim it in His name. Lord, help us to be what You want us to be. Lord, do Thy deeper work in us, we pray, and bless us now as we part from one another, and may that grace and that peace, that is found through the Lord Jesus Christ and His Father, go with us now. Amen.
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Transcribed by Andrew Watkins, Preach The Word - October 2000
www.preachtheword.co.uk
info@preachtheword.co.uk
Ephesians - Chapter 2
"Praise The Lord! - Part 1"
Copyright 2000
by Pastor David Legge
All Rights Reserved
| Ephesians 1:3-6 |
| 1. Praise The Lord For Blessings (verse 3) 2. Praise The Lord For Election (verse 4) 3. Praise The Lord For Predestination (verse 5) 4. Praise The Lord For Christ (verse 6) |
Now let's come to the word of God and turn with me to the book of Ephesians, we've studied two verses of this little book so far - and I'll confess to you before we begin that I intended studying verses 3 through to 14, because if you have a Bible that splits the passages up into sections with themes you will see that verses 3 to 14, is a theme, it's a section of itself. But I couldn't do that, and then I tried verses 3 to 6 and I intended up to today to doing that, but I couldn't do that either. We're only looking at verse 3 and 4 this evening, there is so much in this little book, so much in these verses, that I think it would be wrong of me to pass by the riches that we have in our Lord Jesus Christ.
So let's look at chapter 1 of the book of Ephesians and we'll take time reading the whole of this section together, beginning at verse 3: "Blessed be God the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ: According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love: Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will, To the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted in the wellbeloved. In whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his grace; Wherein he hath abounded toward us in all wisdom and prudence; Having made known unto us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure which he hath purposed in himself: That in the dispensation of the fulness of times he might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven, and which are on earth; even in him: In whom also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestinated according to the purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will: That we should be to the praise of his glory, who first trusted in Christ. In whom ye also trusted, after that ye heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation: in whom also after that ye believed, ye were sealed with the holy Spirit of promise, Which is the earnest of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession, unto the praise of his glory".
Let's read those two verses again that we are going to study this evening, verses 3 and 4: "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ: According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love".
We said at the first week of our study in the book of Ephesians that chapter 1 is split up into two sections, if you just look at it for a moment. You see in verses 3 to 14, the passage that we read together this evening, praise of spiritual possessions that we have in Christ. In other words Paul is writing here, and he is writing and there is an outflowing, an overflowing of praise to God for the possessions that we all possess in Christ if we're in Him by faith. And then in weeks to come we'll see, verses 15 to 23, look down at it, there's not praise for spiritual possession but there is prayer for spiritual perception - an overflowing of prayer. From Paul's spirit of an outpouring of praise, he falls on his knees before God and he asks God that in the light of all that he has in Christ that he would come into the realisation, the reality, of the riches of God's grace in Christ. Now, as in previous Pauline letters in the New Testament, we saw a few weeks ago in verses 1 and 2 that this letter starts in the same way as any letter in these days was written. It begins by the writer's name, then it says who he is writing to, then he gives a salutation in verse 2: 'Grace be to you and peace from God our Father'. And then in the line of the style of writing of those days of a letter, Paul continues and he writes, in verse 3, a blessing, a wish that he has for all the readers.
Now in those days, if it was an ordinary letter, the writer perhaps would wish for good health, for wealth, for whole well-being for the person receiving the letter. But we see in verse 3 that Paul is not writing about physical health, Paul is not writing about financial riches, but Paul is writing about the spiritual blessings that we all have in heavenly places in the Lord Jesus Christ.
Like all of Paul's letters the first section is doctrinal, and then the second section is practical and we're going to focus in this evening on the beginning of the section verse 3 to 14, where Paul is homing in on the doctrine of what Christ has done, what God has done for His world through the Lord Jesus Christ. Verse 3 to 14 is a blessing. Verse 15 to 16 is a thanksgiving. Verse 17 to 20 is an intercessory prayer. But this section that we're going to look at this evening, verse 3 through to 14, it contains one of the most glorious and most symmetrical doxologies to be found in the Holy Scriptures.
If you have a Bible that breaks the passage up into paragraphs - and I would advise you to get one of those at least - you'll see that this section, verse 3 to 14, is split up into three poetical stanzas. Each concludes by a repetition of the phrase that we find in verse 6: 'To the praise of the glory of His grace'. Then look at verse 12: 'That we should be to the praise of the glory of His grace'. Verse 14: 'Which is the earnest of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession, unto the praise of His glory'. And each of these sections emphasises a different reason that we, as the children of God in Christ, should praise our God. Each of these sections emphasises a different Person of the blessed holy Trinity - Father, Son and Holy Spirit. In its scope it covers the entire sweep of redemption from the beginning, before time in the election of God, to the total consummation of redemption in the receiving of our inheritance, when the world is burnt up and a new world comes to pass.
Now, I want you to note that while most English translations don't show this, this section from verse 3 right through to verse 14 is an unusually long sentence. In the Greek New Testament there is no punctuation of a full stop, from verse 3 right through to 14 there is this glorious sentence full of rhythm, recurring phrases, exalted theology - making this doxology one of the greatest of Paul's writings and indeed in the word of God, totally. It is a hymn of exalted praise and majesty to God, the God of our salvation. Now I want you to notice this, that Paul's worship in verses 3 to 14 is theocentric. What does that mean? 'Theo' means God, 'centric' means central - and all of his worship, his praise and his adoration had God in focus, he was looking unto Jesus the Author and Finisher of his faith. He wasn't taken up with his problems, he wasn't taken up with his circumstances - and remember that, as Paul is writing here, he's in prison in Rome - but he is so taken up with God - and that is worship! - that he forgets about himself. He concentrates on Him and he worships Him. Oh, that we would get there - a change of perspective. You see we are the primary movers in our world, everything centres around us and moves around us, and we think the world rotates around us - but, oh, that we would get our eyes off ourselves and get them fastened on Christ! I hope that as we study this book that we'll go out with such a Damascus road vision of the Saviour that we will sing as we go in worship and praise and adoration to His name.
Genesis, the first book in the Bible, is a book of beginnings. Matthew is the book of the Kingdom. Galatians is the book of freedom. But Ephesians is the book of the Christian's riches in Christ Jesus. I want you to see this, that lovely figure of a man, bruised and beaten, hanging upon a Roman gibbet, expiring on the tree, in agony, in sweat and blood, the God-man dying for sins - and when He bows His head and gives up the ghost, He leaves a will for you and for me. I believe the book of Ephesians is that written will of the dying Son of God. All the riches, the blessings, the treasures that we have in Him!
Let's look at them this evening. Verse 3 is the first thing that we're going to look at. I've entitled my message, 'Praise the Lord!' - and we're going to praise the Lord for the blessings that we find in verse 3. Let's read it slowly together, and look at every word as you're reading it: 'Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ'. Verse 3, it's the phrase, it's the part of this passage that the rest of the chapter revolves around. Someone has said that in its structure, its poetical structure, it is a state of controlled ecstasy. Can you not see it? Can you not see Paul on his knees, with the chains around his arms and his feet, crying to God? 'Blessed be God for the blessings that He has given to me in Christ Jesus our Lord, praise Him!'
Notice it says: 'Blessed be God and the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ'. Now this blessing, 'Blessed be God', in Old Testament days was used exclusively of God the Father. You might find it in the Old Testament, and the Jews even today use it: 'Blessed be God, blessed be God'. It's a typical introduction to a Jewish ascription of praise to God Almighty. But here look at it: 'Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ'. Distinctively Paul, as he gives this blessing, makes it a Christian blessing. The God who blesses the Jews in the past is the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. If you were to look at a Hebrew version of the book of Ephesians you would find that it's written in the form of a Jewish blessing, this passage that we're looking at, a Jewish beracah. And here Paul is taking the form of a song and a prayer of praise that the Jews used to 'blessed God' and he uses it to 'blessed God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ'. And if you go into the book of Deuteronomy you will find that the beracah, the Jewish blessing, 'blessed be God', is used usually and primarily for material blessings and possessions. It was used for material blessings such as long life, abundant crops, protection from enemies. But Paul here, in his overflow and outflow of praise, exclusively praises God for all spiritual blessings in Christ - blessings that were achieved by the death and by the resurrection of our glorious Lord. Now I want you to see this: God blesses us with all spiritual blessings! And because God blessed Paul with everything that he talks about in this chapter in the book, he turns around and responds to bless God!
There is a deficiency of praise in our world today, in our church. You don't hear the 'hallelujahs' as much, you don't hear the 'praise the Lords' and the 'Amens'. But, oh, if we are receiving from God blessings from heaven itself, should we not praise Him? Should we not bless Him? 'Blessed be God and the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ', now see the next bit, 'Who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places' - He has blessed us with blessings. John Paul Geddy (sp?) is one of the richest men in the world. Do you know how much he's worth? 1.3 billion. The weekly income of some of the oil sheiks runs into the millions week after week. Yet all those are pennies compared to the riches that Paul exhorts us to praise God for that we have in Christ Jesus our Lord!
Harry Ironside was asked on one occasion, 'Have you got the second blessing?', and he answered saying this: 'My friend, I'm into the tens and the hundreds of thousands of blessings'. Because we are in Christ, and our God when He sees Christ He doesn't give us little, He doesn't give us a bit now and a little bit later, but He gives everything, because He gives us Christ. Now it's one thing to have the blessings and it's another thing, an entirely different thing, to make those blessings yours. Think of it, the robe of righteousness, that when God looks at you - and once you were full of sin, covered from head to toe with sores putrefying, oozing, before the face of a holy God because of your iniquity and your transgression - now when He looks on you in Christ, you're as pure as the driven white snow. Praise be to God for the robe of righteousness in our Lord Jesus Christ. Praise be to God for our heavenly citizenship that we have. Praise be to God that we don't need to get entangled with all the nonsense in Ulster and the world, because we're of another country! Our citizenship is in heaven, in glory. Think of it, we have a place, we have a purpose and we ought to have a practice, within the body of the living Christ, the church. What a blessing to be heirs with all the riches that are in Christ Jesus our Lord, yet some of us - me included - live like paupers when we should be like millionaires.
Look at the verse again. What kind of blessings are these? 'Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places', or better translated, 'heavenly realms'. Do you know where your proper home is? If you're in Christ your proper home is heaven. Hard to think of it sometimes, isn't it? But you will never be at home until you are in heaven, for wherever Christ is, wherever God is, that is your home. It might seem strange because we've never seen it - but do you know what God has done? One of His greatest spiritual blessings in Christ is: He has come in, and He has implanted within the depths of our being, a new nature - a new person in Christ Jesus that can never ever be at home in this awful world. Isn't that why, when you walk along life's path, and when you look at the television, and when you read the newspaper and you see things that turn your stomach and there's like a tug at the string of your heart heavenward, because there is someone in you, a nature that you have, that can never be at home here.
If you look at the book of Ephesians, you see that this subject of the heavenly realms is intrinsic to the whole of the message, you see it in verse 3. Look at verse 20 of chapter 1, talking of the blessings and the power of His greatness towards us: 'Which he wrought', verse 20, 'in Christ, when he raised him from the dead, and set him at his own right hand in the heavenly places'. What blessings do we have in Christ in heavenly places? The blessing of a resurrected, eternal life with Christ - sure we could spend all night on that! In chapter 2 and verse 6 you see another one: 'And [he] hath raised us up together, and made us to sit together in heavenly realms in Christ Jesus' - that we have actually a citizenship and by our spirits we can rise heavenward, though we don't do it in body, we can be there in fellowship with Christ. Look at chapter 3 and verse 10: 'To the intent that now unto the principalities and powers in heavenly places might be known by the church the manifold wisdom of God', we have victory over the demons and the devil because we are in heavenly places with Christ. Chapter 6 and verse 12: 'For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high', or heavenly, 'places'. Our battle, our war, our struggle is in the heavenlies, but praise God we have Christ on our side!
Do you remember the Lord in the upper room? In John chapter 14, and He looked into the disciples that He loved and what did He say? 'I go to prepare a place for you'. I've heard it said: 'That place is being prepared now for us. If God took six days to create the world what's that place going to be like when He's taken 2000 years to prepare heaven for us?'. But, my friend, that's not the case, you see the Lord said to those disciples: 'I go to prepare a place for you', and that place is not being prepared, but that place today is ready - because the Lord Jesus was saying: 'I go the way of death and resurrection to prepare a place for you'. And now He has died, and now He has risen again and that place is prepared, as it ever will be, because our place is where Christ is.
Do you remember when God created the world? The Lord Jesus Christ, who was His instrument and indeed the Person who created all that we see around us, in His creation Christ fitted His creatures for the environment that they were to inhabit. He gave the birds of the air feathers and wings so that they could fly. He gave the fish of the sea scales and gills so that they could breathe. But God - Ephesians says - God is doing and has done a new thing, for He is able by His grace to take the filthy, vile sinner out of his environment and change him miraculously inside to take him to a new environment! How we are blessed. And we are called by Paul, and I call each of you - I hope by the Spirit of God - to this evening rise and every day from now on, rise by our spirits to our heavenly citizenships and draw upon the resources there for you and I to conquer day by day.
Have you ever heard it said after a great prayer meeting, maybe the man that's closing the meeting will pray and say, 'Lord, we thank You that we were in heavenly places this evening and we felt that we were there!'. That man knows little about it. You see we consider ourselves in heavenly places when we feel that we're in heavenly places. But, friends this evening, it's got nothing to do with feeling. Paul says, 'We are, God hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings'. It's not a question of feeling, it's a question of fact. You might say, 'David I don't feel like I'm in heavenly places, I feel like I'm in hell!'. It doesn't matter what you feel, what matters is this: that if God the Father has given His only begotten Son at the cross at Calvary for you to save you, how much more shall He not freely give us all things! And one of the things that He gives you is this: everything! There is not a thing that He will or He can withhold from you.
Now I want you to see that the apostles as they wrote the New Testament, they were men and they were men inspired by God. But I wonder whether Paul in this cell, was groping in his vocabulary and language for a phrase that would describe what it was to have such a rich relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ. We would have come up with all the theological phrases of the day, maybe we couldn't have come up with anything, maybe wrote a book on it. Look what he calls it: 'Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ'. Doesn't that epitomize it all? It sums it all up. That we can have nothing, nothing in this Christian life without Christ. God has blessed us by giving us and by putting us in Christ. There's no stronger identification than to say that we are in Christ. Because it means that Christ is our environment. Like Patrick of old could say, 'Christ before me, Christ behind me, Christ beside me, Christ above me, Christ beneath me, Christ in me, Christ outside me'. You see it's more than the indwelling Christ. It's more than the Christ the size of an inch that fits in your heart - but it means that your whole being, your whole existence, your whole environment is Christ.
If you're sure you're in Christ this evening, can I ask you are you living as Christ is your environment? Do the things that you do fit in with Christ around you? With Christ above you? With Christ behind you and before you, seeing all that you - and bringing, as Paul says in Corinthians, Christ into what you are doing? But let us not look at that. Let us look at the security and the controlled ecstasy of knowing that because I am saved, I am anchored in Christ. Praise the Lord! Let's hear it. Praise the Lord for His blessings!
Well here's a strange one: praise the Lord for election. I don't know what all the smiling's about, but verse 4, look at it: 'According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love'. This, believe it or not, is one of the spiritual blessings that we have in Christ. But when you read that, perhaps as a Christian, you wince at the word 'election' - because in our language, election conjures up some ideas in our mind. It suggests merit to us, it suggests value, it maybe even suggests votes - that the person that achieves more will be the person that will be elected. It suggests accomplishment. Well, in the Greek language and within the context of the Old and the New Testament, this word 'chose' in the Greek language is in the aorist tense. That means this: it means that what God is talking about here, how He hath chosen us in Christ, that it is a once for all action, never to be repealed. It has before it in the New Testament in Greek, a prefix, preposition the word 'ek' (sp?), it means 'out of'. So if you put the two together you have this sense, 'chosen once for all out of' - and it is in the middle voice in Greek, which has the sense of choosing for ones self. Put it all together and you get this: chosen out of the world, chosen once for all, chosen to be God's own as a peculiar treasure.
Now we're going to spend a little bit of time understanding this doctrine. What does it mean to be chosen? I've already said that I've tried to deal with too many verses this evening, so what I did was, I took out of the twelve or so verses - eleven - I took two verses, and we're now looking at one verse out of the passage, and that is the literal meaning, that one has been taken out of the many - chosen. Now don't think of this word negatively, because Paul in the language and in the context, literally speaking, of this verse is speaking positively, because he says: 'we are chosen in Him'. He is speaking positionally. We are rooted and grounded in Christ. He speaks chronologically of this choosing: that this choosing was before the foundation of the world. And he also speaks of the purpose of this choosing: that we that are chosen should be holy and without blame in the sight of God.
Now, I want you to praise the Lord for election. And therefore I want you to see this: that the person perhaps you are sitting beside, or the person that has gone on to glory before you, you're life's companion, that is a person that you have chosen to be with you, to go with you all the way of this life. But think of it - wonder of wonders, God has chosen us! He has chosen us to have the atmosphere of love, the atmosphere of kindness, compassion, the atmosphere of His love. And whatever you do - and you may go away this evening not agreeing with what I'm going to teach on this - but whatever you do, go away rejoicing in this fact: that somehow, no matter what way you want to put it, God has chosen you...and you are special to God. You are valued to God, you mean something to God!
But we must deal with the problems that this doctrine portrays for us. If you were to turn - and we haven't time to look at these verses - but if you were to turn to 1 Thessalonians 2 verse 13, you would find this: that the Bible teaches that God chooses men for salvation. That is in the word of God, 1 Thessalonians 2:13. It also teaches that we are elect according to the foreknowledge of God, 1 Peter 1 verse 2. It then goes on to teach that those who fear and believe the Gospel can know for sure that they are the elect of God in the Christ of God, 1 Thessalonians 1 verse 4 to 7. You can't refute it. You can't get around it, it is there, it may be uncomfortable for our puny minds to think about it, but it's there. But let me say this, the Bible never and nowhere teaches that God chose men to be lost. God never condemns men that deserve to be saved. Did you get that? God never condemns men who deserve to be saved, because there are none.
If I had half a dozen eggs and I got one of the brethren to go up to the choir box there, and he opened a box of eggs and I came below - now many of you might love to do this - but, I came below, and he threw all the half dozen eggs over the choir box and I caught two. What way would you describe what has happened? Would you say David Legge broke four eggs? Did he? David Legge saved two. And in the same way we can never say that God chooses to condemn men, because we are all condemned! We'll all done under sin, lost, all on our way to hell, but God saves some in His mercy.
Now we have to understand this. Let's turn to Romans chapter 9 - looks like I'm not even going to get through these two verses - Romans chapter 9 and verse 22: 'What if God, willing to show his wrath, and to make his power known, endured with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction' - speaking of lost Israel - 'and that he might make known the riches of his glory on the vessels of mercy, which he had afore prepared unto glory', notice the difference verse 22, verse 23. He says that the vessels prepared unto glory were prepared afore time. He doesn't say that of those fitted for destruction. He may choose those that are saved, God prepares them for glory, that is true. But if they're damned, they fitted themselves for it.
Can I say this? Do you see election as a blessing? Now be honest. Because Paul saw it as a blessing, that's why he was coming in praise within this book, he saw it so much. Someone has said that election is one of the most hated doctrines and words of the whole Bible. But the hymnwriters could praise about election, listen to some of them:-
What is the doctrine of election? Two little boys were talking in the playground and one came up to the other and said, 'Have you found Jesus yet?'. And the reply from the other boy was this, 'I didn't know He was lost. But I was and Jesus found me'.
Isn't that what it is? Like He said to the disciples: 'Ye have not chosen Me, but I have chosen you'. If it wasn't for God we'd still be in our sins. He was the first mover in all of redemption. Spurgeon said, 'God certainly must have chosen me before I came into this world or He never would have done it afterwards'. Bunyan said this - boy, he rejoiced in it! - 'Oh, the Lamb of God! He had a whole Heaven to Himself, myriads of angels to do His bidding, but those could not satisfy Him, He must have sinners to share it with Him'.
You say, I don't understand this doctrine, well neither do I. But do you know what God says to you and to me? He says, 'My thoughts are not your thoughts. And your ways, Christian - no matter how intelligent you are - are not My ways'. Someone has said that the truth of election - what we're looking at this evening - is a family secret within the church of Jesus Christ. It's not something that you present to the world. The Lord said, 'Don't cast your pearls before swine', you're not to proclaim it as part of the Gospel in that sense. But it's something that God whispers into the ears of His beloved: 'You were Mine before the world was'.
Let me illustrate it for you. It may seem like a contradiction, it may seem that it doesn't make sense at all. But I want you to see this, in all that we study in election throughout this book, throughout the word of God, I want to say this categorically: the same Bible that teaches the sovereign election of God of His saints, is the Bible that teaches human responsibility. No one can use - and I know some people that do use the doctrine of election as an excuse that they're not saved. No church or Christian can use the doctrine of election for not preaching the Gospel of God's grace, because God makes a bona fide offer of salvation to all men everywhere, every man can be saved by repenting from his sins and believing the Gospel - and if he is lost, he is lost because he chooses to be so. Now I believe the both of them and you might say how can I - I don't know how I can, but I believe them. If you think for a moment of a broad road and it leads to destruction and they're all going down it on their way to hell and there's one man Evangelist, he's standing with his hands clasped. He is shouting, 'Repent!'. He shouts, 'Whosoever will may be saved, whosoever will let him drink of the water of life freely. Whosoever will let him come'. But they all go headlong into hell and they are responsible and most of them don't come, and he shouts 'Ye will not come that ye might have life'. But then there's one or two and they turn and they walk through that door that says: 'If any man', whosoever will may come through that door. But you see them going in and then when they go in through that door and they shut the door behind them, they find written inside the door: 'Chosen, before the foundation of the world'. You see he couldn't see it until he got inside.
D.L. Moody used to say in his own quaint way: 'The whosoever will are the elect and the whosoever won'ts are the non-elect'. And if you trust Christ you can know, you can know that you're chosen of God. Never use it as an excuse not to be saved. But as we sit here as Christians, looking at the riches that we have in Christ, I implore to you, I plead to you, that you believe the both. Warren Wiersbe was given good advice by his professor when he said this: 'Try and explain election and you'll lose your mind. Try to explain it away and you'll lose your soul'.
I want us quickly - and we're going to take time to do this - Acts chapter 27 is a great illustration of how we must believe that God chooses men for salvation - how we know we cannot tell, we cannot work it out. Yet on the same, on the other hand, the other side of the coin, we have responsibility for trusting Christ. We haven't time to give the context and the background of the story here, but you'll know in Acts 27 Paul is sailing to Rome. He's about to be put in prison, the same prison that we're talking about in the book of Ephesians. But as he goes there's a great storm erupts in the sea and in verse 22 we see this, that Paul was given a word from the Lord and he turned to the men in the boat and he said: 'Now I exhort you to be of good cheer: for there shall be no loss of any man's life among you, but of the ship. For there stood by me this night the angel of God, whose I am, and whom I serve, saying, Fear not, Paul; thou must be brought before Caesar: and, lo, God hath given thee all them that sail with thee'. Now that was God's sovereign divinity speaking, that these men all in this boat would be saved and there's nothing that anything could do about it. The wind and the waves couldn't stop it. Paul's hand or their hands couldn't stop it. I understand that, don't you?
Now let's confuse ourselves a bit - verse 31. What happened was simply this: some of the men in the boat, some of the crew decided that they would have to save their lives and they got a little lifeboat, if you like, to escape with their lives and with their possessions. But Paul said to them in verse 31, Paul said to the centurion and to the soldiers, 'Except these abide in the ship ye cannot be saved'. Now, work that one out! God said, 'There's not one of them going to be lost', and that's what God said to Christ, and that's what Christ said to God. 'All that the Father giveth Me will come to Me'. Now that's God's part. But then Paul turned to them and he said 'If you get out of this boat, like Christ is the vessel, if you ignore the way, you're responsible, God'll not save you'. Just like John 6, 'All that the Father giveth Me, will come to Me; and him that cometh unto Me I will in no wise cast out'.
Oh, it's hard to explain, because you can't explain it. Well let me ask you, do you believe the Trinity? Do you? The mystery of the Trinity's on our side, isn't it? It's not on God's side. He understands it. So believe election! Believe it, it's in the word of God. Believe it and rejoice in it and realize that, although you don't understand it, it's a fact. And we need balance in this issue - how do you get balance? You're in the playground and there's a seesaw, or in physics you call it a fulcrum, there's a wee triangle in the middle and then there's the plank along it - how do you get balance? The wee child maybe you say, now you get balanced and she'll go up to the middle, the middle and sit on top of the middle, is that balance? No, you need one on either side of the same weight. And balance, in the relation to God's sovereignty and man's responsibility, is not meeting somewhere in the middle and denying both, it's believing both extremes and rejoicing in them. Like Spurgeon said, it's like a train track and the two lines run beside one another, God's sovereignty and man's responsibility. They run parallel, but they never ever meet, they never come together, you can't make sense out of them, but you need both of them for the train to run - and you need both of them for the Gospel to work.
Look quickly, that this election, it's in Him. And you're chosen, my friend, because God sees you in Christ. Because He has placed you in Christ. It's all of Him and because He is accepted, we are accepted and this is the mighty thing that I want to bring to your attention this evening: that we are chosen, elected to be holy and blameless in His sight. There might have been a time when somebody came up to you and said: 'You can be holy in God's sight', and you would've said: 'Come on! That's a quare laugh, me holy in God's sight?' Yes.
The word used for 'blameless' in the Greek here is the word that was used of the Old Testament lamb, without blemish and without spot. It's the word used of Christ, the Lamb of God in the book of Peter, that He was a lamb without blemish and without spot. It's the word used in Ephesians chapter 5:27 where it describes the church being handed to Christ in the end of times, being handed without blemish and without spot. And one day we will be without blemish and without spot. But here's the thing that Paul is bringing to us now: that we can be without blemish in the sight of men and women today. That's what he said in Philippians 2:15, 'That ye may be blameless and harmless, the sons of God, without rebuke, in the midst of a crooked and perverse nation, among whom ye shine as lights in the world'.
Now here's the catch: if you claim to be elected of God, are you beginning to live a holy and a blameless life? You can't have both, this talk about, 'Well, I can do what I like because God's elected me and saved me and I can live like a reprobate now', that's not in the word of God. Because you find in 2 Peter chapter 1 and verse 10 these words: 'Make your calling and election sure'. Make sure that you're saved, by the works that you do.
When young Victoria, when she was a child she was shielded from the fact that one day she would be the next monarch. And when she was let discover the fact for herself by her teachers and her parents, this is what she said: 'Then I must be good'. Her life from then on would be controlled by her position and by who she was. Brethren and sisters, you are children of the King, you're joint heirs with Christ. And even though you haven't entered into the heavenly throne room - just like the queen of England: even when she's absent from her throne, she's still the queen of England - and you are still blessed in heavenly places, even though you haven't got there yet!
Can you not say, 'Praise the Lord for election'. What love, what love. We often say it's a love that has no end, but you know it is a love that had no beginning because it was before the world began. An everlasting love and, as the word of God says, as high as the heavens are above the earth - and the astronomer is still trying to probe the limits of space, you can't make a scale model of the universe - no one knows the distance of the farthest star - and you can never use up the love of God.
'Could we with ink the ocean fill
And were the skies of parchment made,
Were every stalk on earth a quill
And every man a scribe by trade,
To write the love of God above
Would drain the ocean dry.
Nor could the scrolls contain the whole,
Though stretched from sky to sky'.
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Transcribed by Judith Watkins, Preach The Word - October 2000
www.preachtheword.co.uk
info@preachtheword.co.uk
Ephesians - Chapter 3
"Praise The Lord! - Part 2"
Copyright 2000
by Pastor David Legge
All Rights Reserved
| Ephesians 1:3-6 |
| 1. Praise The Lord For Blessings (verse 3) 2. Praise The Lord For Election (verse 4) 3. Praise The Lord For Predestination (verse 5) 4. Praise The Lord For Christ (verse 6) |
Ephesians chapter 1, Ephesians chapter 1, and true to form we're not getting too far this evening - only another two verses - but filled and packed with gospel truth that we can't ignore, and it would be criminal to skip over it just to get a passage finished. So let's read these verses together, and let's take note - this is important - that you take note of every single word that you find written here. Verse 1: "Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God, to the saints which are at Ephesus, and to the faithful in Christ Jesus: Grace be to you, and peace, from God our Father, and from the Lord Jesus Christ. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ: According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love: Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will, To the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted in the well-beloved".
We've looked at verses 1 right through to verse 4, and we're going to look this evening at verses 5 and 6. If you have your handout with you from last week (maybe you don't, but maybe you got another one on the way in) you'll see that we only dealt with two of the points on that handout, and we're going to deal with the last two - verses 5 and 6. Now, let's read these verses again to get into our minds what we're going to be studying: "Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will, To the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted in the well-beloved".
One of the first revelations that we get of God is as the seeker. If you turn to the book of Genesis this evening, and chapter 3 and verse 9 - and we were thinking about the fall of man where the image of God in the creature was defiled - and right there when Adam sinned, and when Eve sinned, God knew what had happened. You remember there we see the first picture, as it were, of the saving God who is the seeker God. We read in Genesis chapter 3 and verse 9 these words: 'Adam! Where art thou?' - 'My child Adam, where are you? Where are you hiding? Where have you gone to? What have you done Adam?'. In commenting upon the question to his Bible class a teacher once said: 'You can never be a preacher, boys, if you read this verse as though God was a policeman. Read it as though God were a broken hearted father looking for a lost child'. Isn't that what it is? The heart broken of the Heavenly Father as He looks down upon His creature, upon the one He lavished so much love upon. He gave him charge over all the universe to name the animals - to be given charge over and rule over all of creation - but he lost it! And in his pride, and in the lust of the eye, the lust of the flesh, and the pride of life, he fell and he did what God told him not to do - but, oh, how it broke the heart of God! F.B. Meyer says this, speaking of God's heart: 'God's heart is as true and tender as the heart of the sweetest, gentlest woman that ever pressed her child to her bosom. Nay, all the love in all women's hearts together compared to the love of His heart is as a glowworm's torch compared to the sun at noontime'.
Oh, the love of God! A preacher remarked once about when Mary and Martha sent Jesus their message concerning their dying brother Lazarus, and you remember that message - it wasn't: 'Lord, he loveth thee', but the message was: 'Lord, he whom thou lovest is sick'. It's not our imperfect love that keeps us close to Christ. It's not our terrible failing, faltering love that makes the difference where salvation is concerned, but it is His perfect - the love of God. Oh, I'm sure you can think of many verses this evening in the word of God from Genesis to Revelation that describe - maybe chapters, maybe whole books - that typify the love of God. John 3:16: 'For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son' - what a verse! What about Romans chapter 5 and verse 8? 'God commendeth His love' - He demonstrates, He shows, displays His love - 'in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us'. The hymnwriters knew what the love of God in Christ was.
'There is no love like the love of Jesus,
Never to fade or fall,
'Til into the fold of the peace of God
He has gathered us all'.
Oh the deep, deep love of Jesus,
Vast, unmeasured, boundless, free.
Rolling like a mighty ocean
In its fullness over me.
Underneath me, all around me,
Is the current of Thy love.
Leading forward, leading homeward
To my glorious rest above'.
Christian friend, do you know the full extent of the love of God for you? Because Paul, as he wrote this book and as he traces the whole plan and map of salvation from election in salvation, to predestination, to adoption, to glorification in the future - the consummation of all things, the whole plan of salvation - and because of the wonder of it all he falls and he sings this song of praise to God! That's what this is! He doesn't get taken up with the details and the intricacies of the theological issues, but he gets taken up with what a great God he has!
Therefore we see first of all: 'Praise the Lord for predestination!'. I want you to see this - look at verse 5 - now, we have to read verse 4 to understand verse 5: "According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love: Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will".
Now I want you to notice this: many translations take the last two words of verse 4 and start verse 5 with them, and I believe that's the way it should be. So that verse 5 reads this: 'In love having predestinated us unto the adoption of children'. What that does, and what Paul is doing in the Greek is this: he is emphasising the loving nature of predestination. James Montgomery Boice puts it like this: 'Any interpretation of this mysterious doctrine that detracts from the love of God is rightly suspect'. Predestination is rooted and grounded and planted and fertilized, originated in the love of God. It's all of love my friend. Don't have a cold religion whatever you do! Don't have a cold, dead theology! I don't care what spectrum it is or what camp it is - whatever you do remember it's all of love, all! God is simply saying that in love - listen: 'I must get these children - these human beings - out of the mire. I must pull them out', and I say this reverently, He says: 'I must pull my holy sleeve up and delve into the depths of the miry clay and lift them out. I must get them there. I must have these children come before me and they must have everything!'. What love! Is that not why Paul exclaims that, 'He has blessed them' - those children - 'with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ'.
Now, I want you to see this: that the whole of the created universe never knew of these divine counsels of God before the world began. These are the deep, divine thoughts of grace and love toward us - you and me - but no one ever knew about it! If we were born in Old Testament days we would have thought that there was no hope for us: 'We're the Gentiles and God has His own people, the Jews, and it's too bad I was born - it's an accident of birth - in the wrong race and the wrong religion. There's no hope! We're not in the commonwealth of Israel. We're not blessed, being the seed of Abraham'. But the mystery of God's will to engraft into Himself the Gentiles is revealed in this book! Oh, how we'll praise Him one day for the plan of salvation! Can you imagine? When you get to glory and when you stare into His glorified face, how you'll praise Him when you see Him! To think that He looked at you and He looked at me in love, and He predestinated you and I to be holy before Him! What will it be like? Imagine this: when you're lying on your deathbed - I don't know what'll be wrong with you if the Lord tarries; what you'll die of - but you're lying there. It's the last hours and the cold sweat is coming upon your brow, and you feel that you're being taken, you're being plucked from this scene of time and, all of a sudden, you just drift into the presence of the Lord Jesus. You stand on that shore, and you look at His blessed face, and you see Him as He is. But, oh, to think that He planned that moment from all eternity! It began before the worlds began, it began before you were even thought of. His plan will come to pass, and we should praise Him for what He has saved us from.
I was reading this morning in my reading from Psalm 40. Psalm 40: 'I waited patiently for the Lord; and he inclined unto me, and heard my cry. He brought me up also out of an horrible pit, out of the miry clay, and set my feet upon a rock, and established my goings. And he hath put a new song in my mouth, even praise unto our God: many shall see it, and fear, and shall trust in the Lord'. Do you know, do you really know, what the Lord saved you from? Some of you do because you were dirty, deep in sin, but some of you have been growing up in a Christian home and - we? - we don't really know! Oh, we need to praise Him for what He saved us from, and we need to praise Him for what He brought us to, and what He will bring us to one day - when we get to glory and when we see Him. It's no wonder that Paul praises Him so much in this chapter. If you look at verse 6 he praises the Father: 'To the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted in the beloved'. Who made us accepted in the well beloved? It is the Father. Then you look at verse twelve: 'That we should be to the praise of his glory, who first trusted in Christ'. Christ: the praise of His glory! Praise be to the Father for the plan! Praise be to the Son for the execution! And then in verse 14: 'Which is the earnest of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession, unto the praise of his glory'. The Holy Spirit! Praise be to Father, Son and Holy Spirit for our salvation, for our redemption, our regeneration, our justification and - one day - our glorification! Praise be His name! Can you say it? Praise Him! Oh, give Him the praise whatever you do!
This phrase 'in love', leads to this phrase, 'having predestinated us'. Now what does that mean? We spent some time last week on the subject of election, and this is another frightening phrase. But the point is this: whenever God says in front of it, 'in love', you don't need to be frightened. It no longer becomes a problem, but it becomes - this is what I want you to see - it becomes such a blessing! Predestination, or foreordination - and although it's closely linked in these verses, and in theological books, and right throughout the word of God it's linked with election - and although that's the case they aren't exactly the same. We saw last week that election pictures God's choice, and God's choice alone, of man to salvation. But predestination, it's an advance of this, it's the next stage - because to be predestined (and the word is 'destination', 'pre-destination') - you have to have a destination that has been preordained. Now I believe that, as we look through the word of God, that destination is not heaven - because that was decided at election - but the destination is a spiritual place of blessing. Turn with me to Romans chapter 8 for a moment - it's important that we understand these things - Romans chapter 8 and verse 29. Paul says, speaking of God: 'For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren'. You see, the purpose of predestination is to be conformed to the image of His Son. You're chosen in salvation in election, but predestination takes that choice a little further to the consummation of it when, one day, you and I will be like Christ. Isn't that an amazing thought? Do you know what this is? Do you know what predestination is? It's the guarantee that if we believe in Christ we know that, one day, we will be completely like Christ. Do you know what it does? It secures our salvation!
There's none of this 'saved and lost' nonsense - and that is all it is: it is nonsense! How could you be saved, and the hand of God come out and catch you and then let go of you again? How could that happen? How could it happen? When you think of the subject of predestination: that you are saved, and the moment you are saved a process begins for you to become like Christ - it has been activated - and that thing was decided before the world began! If it starts when you're saved how could it stop? It can't stop! No man can stop it, my friend, no devil can stop it, no husband or wife can stop it, no father or mother or child can stop it - and I say it reverently today: God can't even stop it, because He willed it! He willed it. That's what predestination is. If election was unto salvation, that we find in the book of Thessalonians, predestination is to bring us, one day, as the children of God into the image of His glorious Son.
Now I want to go deeper into this, because it says: 'Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children'. Now, there was no Jewish custom of adoption, this was a Roman custom where - under Roman law - boys and girls from other families might be legally adopted and granted full rights and responsibilities within a family. But even that Roman adoption, and our Western adoption that we know all so well, is not exactly what Paul is getting at here - it's something totally different. What he is getting at, first of all, is that this is a public attestation of adult sonship and the conferment of privileges belonging to sons who have come to the legal age. You remember the prodigal son: he went before his time out into the big bad world. But when he was going to come to age he would have got his father's inheritance. He would have been declared - it would have been conferred upon him that he was the son of his father; he was declared to be the son at that moment of time. But the spiritual truth that Paul has in mind here far outstrips his illustration within the word of God. Imagine the truth that we know: that we have been brought from the slave market of sin into the family of God. We now can call ourselves the sons, the daughters, the children of God! We've been made [part of] this family relationship, and we might think that that's where adoption stops: that we've been brought into the family. No!
Who was the natural Son of the Father? The Lord Jesus Christ. Just like our natural sons and daughters, Christ was by nature the Son of the Father. Who are the adopted sons and daughters? We are the adopted sons and daughters. We're unnatural to God, we're not like Him, we're not like Him in our nature - but the miracle of grace is this: through regeneration and through the new birth (that we were thinking about last evening) we are made the natural sons and daughters of God! You can go down to an adoption office today and you can adopt a child, and that child can become as your own child. Maybe you've other children [but], after a matter of time, you look at the two of them and you see no difference between them. You treat them both the same, and they're conferred with the same blessings, the same privileges, the same name - but no matter how much you love them and no matter how much you bring them into your home, into your family, into your life and into your heart, they will never be by nature [the same]. But wonder of wonders, we should be called the natural sons and daughters of God! That the Holy Spirit of God should enter the heart of a sinner and should so bring life into his bosom that He gives birth to the Holy Spirit of God in that man or woman's life - that they can be called naturally adopted! Biblical adoption! You know, God could have saved us without making us sons and daughters, but He chose to do both. We're not just saved, but the word of God says that we've become co-heirs, co-inheritors with Christ. Listen to Romans 8: 'The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God: And if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ; if so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified together'.
Take a moment, my friend, and savour this thought: as God sees you this evening, He sees you the same as Christ. Paul illustrates it in Galatians chapter 4, if you turn to it. This time he's talking to the Jews and you know that he's trying to explain to them the road that they've taken, and that the law and Moses and the prophets have been the schoolmaster to bring them to Christ. He's trying to show them that they've now to enter into this promise and leave the old behind - of the Jewish laws and rituals - and they've to take on this new sonship, but you can apply it to yourself today. Chapter 4: 'Now I say', speaking of an earthly scene, 'That the heir', the heir of a household, 'as long as he is a child, differeth nothing from a servant, though he be lord of all; But is under tutors and governors until the time appointed of the father. Even so we, when we were children, were in bondage under the elements of the world: But when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law, To redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons. And because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father. Wherefore thou art no more a servant, but a son; and if a son, then an heir of God through Christ'.
We're adopted now but, you know, there's an adoption in the future that the word of God speaks about. But I want you to grasp this - we look forward to that day, but whatever you do don't think that you're not a son of God or a daughter of God now! Listen to the word of God! 1 John 3:2: 'Beloved, now are we the sons of God' - now! - 'and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is'. Paul said it again: 'Eye hath not seen, ear hath not heard, neither hath entered into the heart of man; the things which God hath prepared for them that love him'. You're a child of God! You're a joint heir with Christ! You're an inheritor of all that Christ has in God! Is it any wonder that Paul could sing in a doxology of praise: 'Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ'. In Isaiah 22 and verse 23 we read a little phrase that says this: 'a nail in a sure place'. What did Isaiah mean? Well, what I mean and what Paul means is this: adoption is a nail in a sure place. And what Isaiah was saying when he said 'a nail in a sure place' was this: he had, in his mind's eye, the Arab with his tent and a pole in the middle of the desert; and what he would do is he would take a hammer and a giant piece of iron, like a nail, and he would hammer it into that post. Everything that he owned - his baggage, his utensils, his property - was hung upon that nail...a nail in a sure place. My friend, if Christ falls, if Christ fails, everything for you and I is doomed and damned; but praise be His name - it's secure! It's sure! It's a nail in a solid place! We are in Christ - we are rooted, we are grounded, we are cemented, we cannot be extracted, for we are in the double hand of the Father and of the Son; and no man can pluck us out!
This is revolutionary - it should be in our lives. Did you know that Jesus never, ever referred to the Father in any other term except 'the Father'? There's only one occasion when He didn't refer to God as the Father, and that was in the Gospels where He was quoting Psalm 22, and He says 'My God, my God' - but every other time He says 'Father'. Imagine what that was like for the Jews! They'd never heard a man, let alone a Rabbi, speak of God in that way. They'd never heard of anybody praying to God in such an irreverent way (as they saw it). Because this word 'Father': it wasn't a formal word, it wasn't a religious word, it was the word 'Abba' - it was the word of a child to the father. If you want to put it in our day, without being irreverent, it means 'papa' or 'daddy'. What's it like my friend? I don't know what it's like, and I don't think I'm going to know what it's like for a wee while - but what must it be like for that little child, the first time, to say 'daddy'? Would you say to it: 'You're not addressing me in the right way'? Would you? No. Your heart would go out to that child of your flesh. And when we turn to our God, by our nature in us - the new nature in Christ Jesus - and we address Him as our Father; oh what a heart of love, full of the whole divine, sovereign plan of eternity! And He sees in a human sinner the consummation of His election, His predestination - everything that He has planned is fulfilled in that little word! Abba! Such a close relationship. Do you know that the Muslims have ninety-nine names for God, for the Supreme Being, the Creator? But there is none - not one of the ninety-nine - that resembles the closeness, the intimacy of the Christian's 'our Father'. Not one!
What a great God we have! Praise His name! The book of Romans [chapter] 8 verse 19, says that the creation waits - you don't just wait. One day you're going to be consummated as a son of God, risen from the dead, brought into the likeness of Jesus Christ, but don't think you're the only one waiting on it! The book of Romans says that the whole creation [waits]. Think of this! You might be here this evening and you think you're insignificant, don't you? You're a Christian and you know God loves you and all that, but you think no one notices you. You think that you haven't any gifts and you can't do anything for God, or anything for the church, or anything for your brother or sister - and you think that if you were gone no one would miss you. Listen to this! The whole of God's creation and universe is waiting for the day where you are revealed as a son and daughter of God! The creation waits for the sons of God to be revealed! Hallelujah!
Now let's look at the final phrase in Ephesians and verse 5. It says that we are 'predestinated unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will". Listen! The Son - never you forget it - the Son makes you a son! This is God's sovereignty, this is God's plan from all eternity: that He willed - that's what it says - 'according to the good pleasure of his will', that one day you would be like Christ. There's no room for human pride there, is there? Some of us are full of it - we're all full of it because we're all sinners, aren't we? We may have it under control more than others, but it's always there: that little seed of pride. Like the poet said - as we look at God's sovereignty and God's plan of the ages, and how one day nothing to do with ourselves, He will bring us to the image of His blessed Christ and Son, we say with the poet:
'The more Thy glory strikes my eye,
The humbler I should lie'.
Let's look secondly (or fourthly if you want!) and finally at verse 6. Let's read verse 5 to get the flow, for we find in verse 6: 'Praise the Lord for Christ!'. 'Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will, To the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted in the well-beloved'. What does it say? 'To the praise' - look at the first phrase - 'To the praise of the glory'. Did you know that the primary aim throughout all of God's plan of redemption, from election to the total consummation in the book of Revelation - all of it is to bring glory to God and to His Christ? God's glory - His glory - in this verse, is said to be encapsulated in His grace. That's what it says, look: 'To the praise of the glory of his grace'. God's glory! Sure, we couldn't know God's glory if it wasn't for His grace. That's the only way we know it: [from] Him saving us - and it's alright me keeping on saying from the platform: 'You've got to appreciate God and Christ for who He is', but it's hard for us to do. We tend to only appreciate Him for what He's done for us because that's how He's been revealed to us. 'The praise of the glory of his grace': God's glory is His merciful dealings with men in salvation, and we ought to respond to Him in unlimited praise for it.
Do you praise Him enough? Do you? I don't. There's many-a-time I would love to shout 'Hallelujah!', but I'm afraid, sometimes I'm afraid of you. Isn't that right? I'm afraid of what anybody's going to think. 'He's a fanatic! He's lost his head! Shouting in the middle of a meeting?'. What do we praise God for? Do you praise Him in your heart? Maybe you don't have that ability to shout 'Hallelujah' or to shout 'Amen', but do you say it in your heart? Do you respond to God? Do you know what Kent Hughes says? 'Our theology must become doxology'. Doxology is simply a song of praise, that's what we're reading, the whole of chapter 1 is a doxology. And if you have theology, but you don't have a heart full of doxology, you might as well be dead! For you are dead if the truths of God don't warm your heart, and you don't praise God out of an appreciation of who He is and what He has done for you in Christ. Worship is important to our life! It's important to the life of the assembly of God here in the Iron Hall. Do you know why? Because it's the opportunity to express who we are to God because of what He has done for us. That's how you express it! Giving back to God! Blessing God! And men you take note, at the breaking of bread that's how you worship Him: blessing Him, praising Him, worshipping Him for what He has done for you!
You know, if you look around our world at any persecuted people, and you look into the history books, whether it be of the church or even take - for instance - the Negro race within the Americas. You've heard of Negro spirituals, haven't you? 'I'll fly away...when I die, hallelujah, by and by, I'll fly away...Swing low sweet chariot, coming for to carry me home'. Do you know where those songs came out of? They came out of the paddy fields, the cotton fields. They came out of the slavery that they were in, with the whipping upon their back and the sweat upon their brow - but they lifted their hearts to praise to a hope that one day they would be free. Many of them were hoping that they would die - get away from this awful world - die, and be taken to glory by the chariot of God. They expressed the feelings, the sentiments of their hearts - how? In song, in songs of worship and praise to God. Let me ask you again: do you praise God? See when you're singing, what do you do? Do you look around you? Who's got a new hat or a new coat? Or who's got a new girl? Is that what you look at? What do you look at? Do you look at the words? Sure, some of us know the words inside-out, we could sing without a hymnbook, but do we appreciate them? Do we look at every line? 'Praise my soul the King of Heaven' - do you take that in? 'To His feet my tribute bring. Ransomed, healed, restored, forgiven. Who like thee His praise should sing. Praise Him, Praise Him'. Sometimes I hear sisters say: 'There's not much for us to do in the assembly'. Some of you are poets, some of you are poets and you don't know it! But those that are poets, do you know (whether you're male or female) that there's a great shortage of hymn writing today? Hymn writing of a spiritual kind. Why not employ your pen? Why not employ your heart and your mouth, brethren, to shout 'Amen', to shout 'Hallelujah', to praise the Lord, to pray to the Lord, to bring a word of ministry to exalt the Lord?
But why do we praise Him? Look: 'The glory of his grace' - that's the message - 'to the praise of the glory of his grace'.
'Grace, grace, God's grace,
Grace that is greater than all my sin'.
You know, a woman once attempted to assassinate Queen Elizabeth - not our Queen Elizabeth. She dressed as a man-page and she hid herself in the Queen's boudoir - in all the clothes and dresses and garments. But the Queen's attendants would make it their careful chore to check all the rooms before the Queen would go into them. And before they brought the Queen into that particular room, inside all the skirts and dresses in her wardrobe they found this woman and they brought her out, and they took her to the Queen and she begged the Queen to have compassion on her. Queen Elizabeth looked at her quietly and coolly and said: 'If I show you grace, what promise will you make me in the future?'. And that woman looked up and said: 'Grace that hath conditions? Grace that is fettered by precautions is no grace at all'. Queen Elizabeth caught it and, in a moment, she said: 'You're right. I pardon you of my grace', and they led her away a free woman. That's what God's done for you! There's nothing to it on your account! You've done nothing for it - only accept it! You stood there and God, by His grace, wonder of wonders, has given you everything in Christ!
That's the glory of His grace. Look further: 'Wherein he hath made us accepted in the well beloved'. Praise the Lord for Christ! Do you know what that phrase means? The King James Version actually paraphrases it: 'where he hath made us accepted in the well beloved'. It simply means this: that the grace which works such a response of wonderful praise, finds its focus in the person of God's beloved. He is God's love gift to men. He's referred to in Colossians 1:13 as the Son of His love. In Matthew chapter 3 and verse 17 you remember God opened and tore the curtain of the heavens to say: 'This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased'.
[Do] you know what this paraphrase literally means? Look at the verse: 'This is the grace with which he has begraced us'. This is the grace with which he has begraced us - it's not even a word! But he made it up to encapsulate what he meant: that God has clothed us in all that Christ is and Christ has. That's the amazing grace of the gospel, it's all in Christ! You never forget it, and if you're unsaved you've got to get it! It's of Him, it's not of you - and if you're trying to strive after holiness, Christian, if you're trying to strive after the blessing of the Holy Spirit in your life - forget about it if you're striving! It's all of grace and it's all of Christ. And as we're saved by grace we're going to live by grace, we're going to be raised by grace, we're going to be changed by grace, we're going to be glorified by grace, we're going to rule with Him by grace! 'For the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ' - no Christ, no grace. You see God could not have shown grace without Christ. No matter how powerful He is, He couldn't do it, for I am loved, I am accepted, I am blessed only because I am in Christ! Think of this, think of this, as we close - and I must urge you to grasp this. The poet said:
'The love wherewith He loves the Son,
Such is His love to me'.
The love wherewith He loves the Son? Is the love that He loves me? To all the extent, to all its depth, to all its width and breadth and height! To all it's volume and capacity and acuteness! He loves me and He loves Christ no more!
Where are you tonight, Christian? First of all, person, where are you spiritually? Are you saved? God loves you, God loves you! Where are you spiritually, Christian? Are you backslidden? Are you out in the mountains wild and bare? Are you in the far country? Are you eating the dirty food of the pigs, the swine? Where are you? God loves you like Christ! Where are you Christian? Are you in bereavement? Have you the waves of bereavement and sorrow pouring over your head? Listen to the words of God: 'I love you as my Son'. Have friends forsaken you - a husband or a wife? Is it your health that's failed you, or your employment, or your family? Whatever it may be, it is awesome to think that I have, day after day, hour after hour - whether I'm conscious of it or not - the love of the Father for the Son as my portion!
Go home and read the book of Philemon. And you remember that I said on the first week that Paul wrote the book of Philemon almost at the same time he wrote the book of Ephesians - in the same place and the same house that he was held a prisoner of the Roman Empire. Remember that! I like to think (now I can't prove it, but I like to think) as Paul was writing these words, he had Philemon and Onesimus in his mind when he said: 'in the beloved'. Remember what happened? Onesimus had offended his master Philemon, probably even stolen off him. He ran away and all of a sudden he meets (in Rome) Paul, and he's converted - Paul leads him to the Lord. Paul decides to write a letter - the little book of Philemon that we have - to his old master to tell him: 'Look, Onesimus has got saved! I know he's offended you. I know he's done wrong of you but he's been converted'. Listen to what Paul says - and this is what Christ says to God about you: 'If he hath wronged thee Father, or if he oweth thee ought my Father, put that to my account. I will pay it'. Listen to this! 'Receive him as You receive me'. Hallelujah! What a Saviour!
Abba Father! We thank Thee for our blessed Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ. We thank Thee for all that we have inherited in Him. And Lord, if we don't praise Thee now as we ought, we thank Thee that there'll be a day that we'll praise Him as we should - when we see Him face to face and tell the story, saved by sovereign grace. We say: 'Glory and honour, blessing and power be unto Him that sits on the throne, and to the Lamb'. Amen.
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Transcribed by Trevor Veale, Preach The Word - January 2001
www.preachtheword.co.uk
info@preachtheword.co.uk
Ephesians - Chapter 4
'Praise The Lord For Redemption'
Copyright 2000
by Pastor David Legge
All Rights Reserved
| Ephesians 1:7 |
| 1. Redemption 2. By Blood 3. Brings Forgiveness 4. Relative To His Riches |
Ephesians chapter 1, and we're looking this evening at one verse (we've narrowed it down now to one, we'll maybe be on half a verse next week!). One verse only, but we'll take time to read right down to at least verse 8 - we may go on a bit further, just to get the context, maybe verse 14. But let's read from verse 1 together: "Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God, to the saints which are at Ephesus, and to the faithful in Christ Jesus: Grace be to you, and peace, from God our Father, and from the Lord Jesus Christ. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ: According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love: Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will, To the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted in the beloved. In whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his grace; Wherein he hath abounded toward us in all wisdom and prudence; Having made known unto us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure which he hath purposed in himself: That in the dispensation of the fulness of times he might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven, and which are on earth; even in him: In whom also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestinated according to the purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will: That we should be to the praise of his glory, who first trusted in Christ. In whom ye also trusted, after that ye heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation: in whom also after that ye believed, ye were sealed with that holy Spirit of promise, which is the earnest of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession, unto the praise of his glory".
Let's read that verse together again, verse 7, and let's take note of every phrase and every word that we read: "In whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his grace".
We're looking this evening, as your brochure says, for praising the Lord. We want to go out of this place praising the Lord for redemption. We've learned over the past weeks - I hope we have anyway - to praise the Lord for many blessings. Indeed, what the word of God says is, verse 3: 'all the blessings that we have, being in Christ Jesus'. In other words the whole span, the whole spectrum of all the promises of God that we have delivered to us by faith, because we are found in Christ. We learned how these were blessings that were signed beside our name before the world ever began. We thought of election - how Paul wrote to Timothy that we are elect before the foundation of the world in Christ to salvation. We looked [at] how God, before the beginning of the world, predestinated us, preordained us, chose us in His foreknowledge to be placed in Christ; and one day, wonder of wonders, to be like Christ! We learned last week how it's all because we are accepted in the beloved. We're accepted - nothing to do with ourselves, but because we are planted, rooted, cemented in Christ Jesus - now when God looks at us, He no longer sees our sin but He sees Christ! We have been adopted, not an adoption that we understand today, but we have been made through the engrafted word by the Spirit of God to the regeneration of our souls. We have been changed from a sinful human nature and been given a holy nature, so that now are we called the sons of God. 'And it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is'.
Now, this evening, in verse 7, we see this: that the foundation of all these blessings that we've looked at (all the blessings in heavenly realms in Christ Jesus: election, predestination, adoption, being engrafted into the well beloved) all of these things rest upon a foundation that is found in verse 7: 'In whom we have redemption'. Now I want you to think about this for a moment - think of this! We will never ever again, in our lifetime or after it, have to turn to God and bow on our knees before Him in contrition, in repentance and say, 'Lord, take all my guilt away!'. We'll not have to do it. We'll not have to, with tears blotting an open Bible, or blotting the floor before which we weep, we'll not have to turn to God and say: 'Lord, blot out my sin!'. No more! We don't need to do that! We don't have to ask God: 'Lord, justify me!'. We don't have to wait until a day for the redemption of our souls, because if we're in Christ - listen to these words - it's been done. It's been done! There's nothing more to do because if we've trusted in Christ, if we've trusted in His death at the cross, His atonement, if we have believed in Him these things are blessedly settled forever. Forever! Forever and ever! That's why it says: 'We have now redemption through his blood, even the forgiveness of sins according to the riches of his grace'. So He not only fore-chose us and fore-fixed our destiny, but He bought us. And we're going to see this evening what a cost it was to Himself.
Now look at verse 7, because you'll see in verse 7, the Holy Spirit shifts our attention from heaven down to earth. He moves our thinking from the past: what God has done in election, in predestination, in all those things before the foundation of the world. He changes us from past to present. Not only does He do that, but there is a change of emphasis from God the Father to God the Son. We learned that it was the Father that elected us, it was the Father that predestinated us to be like Christ one day. But verse 7 is the change where it says this: that although the Father did all this, it had to be the Son who redeemed us. Of the ten times that you find the word redemption within the New Testament, seven times you find it within Paul's letters, and you find it three times within the book of Ephesians.
So let's look at this word 'redemption', this concept that we find within the word of God. Let's look at the first phrase of verse 7: 'In whom we have redemption'. Now I want you to notice this - that if you were to search the New Testament there are three ideas held for this word 'redemption'. The first is this: it is simply the idea 'to purchase something', 'to buy something'. When you spend money, you pay a price, you pay the cost, that commodity or object - whatever it is - becomes yours. You have bought it. That's what the word of God means when it says, 'We have been bought with a price, even the precious blood of Christ'. Let's meditate on this! We have been redeemed to God. We have been redeemed to God by Him. We have been purchased by God, by the Son. Therefore we say: 'We are not our own'. And there was a day that we were sold under sin, we were sold to the world, the flesh, and the devil. But praise be to God and His Son, that He has paid the price so that He could purchase us. Do you remember the day when you were sold under sin? Do you? Do you remember the day you prostituted yourself to this world for absolutely nothing? You were sold under sin, without money and without price, but He - Jesus Christ - has redeemed us without money but with His own precious blood.
That's the first meaning of redemption: to purchase something. But the second meaning is simply this: to buy something, to purchase something out of the market, out of somewhere else. That simply means what has been purchased - and this is beautiful - will never ever, ever, be put on sale again! Have you got it? Not only have you been bought out of the slave market of sin, but the second grasped meaning of this word is the idea that never again will you be found in the ranks of Lucifer. Never again ought the child of God to be found in this world. Never again need the child of God be found dabbling in the flesh. The history books tell us that when one went into the slave market and saw a certain slave that you wanted to buy for sale, and you looked at him and you said: 'I'm going to purchase you'. When the money changed hands and when you bought that slave, you were at liberty as the buyer, as the redeemer, to take a piece of paper - a certificate - and place it in the hand of that slave: a legal piece of paper which guaranteed him complete freedom. He could go. He could go and live his life the way he wanted. He perhaps could go back to his father or his mother, or [her] husband] or his wife, and the meaning is this: that never again would that slave be in that position, because he had this piece of paper given to him by his redeemer. Never would his life be put in jeopardy again. It's the word - this second word and this meaning - that Peter uses in his epistle in 1 Peter 1, verse 18: "Forasmuch as ye know that ye were not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold, from your vain conversation received by tradition from your fathers; But with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot".
The third meaning of redemption that we find within the New Testament is the one that's found in our verse, verse 7. It's a Greek compound. That means it's two words put together, and the first part is the word 'apo' which means 'away from' - to put something away from you. It entails the idea of not just putting something away, but putting something away from something else - to separate. The second part of the word is 'latrosis' (sp?) - and it means this: 'to be free'. To be loosed! So putting the two together it literally means this: to be loosed away from something. Christian, do you know what you've been loosed away from? Do you? Some of us forget about it, but - oh - it does us good to think about where we came from, what we've been saved from, what we've been saved to. The fact that we have been loosed away from the law, that we could not keep it, that we could not measure up to it, that the law condemned us and God condemned us by the law, but in Christ we have been loosed away from the law! We have been loosed away from the judgement of God, for by His holy law and by His holy person - His holy character of righteousness, His justice - we were condemned for all eternity, but because of Christ and our redemption we have been pulled away from His judicial wrath. We've been pulled away from the guilt of our sin. Does that not make you rejoice? Remember the guilt that you felt? That guilt that weighed you down? That guilt that tore into your life - every facet and being of it - that you couldn't get any peace? That guilt that crucified your nature? Do you feel it? Can you remember what it felt like: the guilt that you had before God where you saw Christ, and Christ was dying, and Christ had your sins upon Him, and you felt the guilt of it? Do you remember? As Ironside says: 'The question of our guilt will never again rise'.
Did you hear me? I don't think you did hear me! The question of your guilt will never rise again! 'There is no condemnation for them that are in Christ Jesus' - why? Because it was raised on a cross with Christ at Calvary - all of our judgement, all of the curse of the law, all that my guilt deserved. We can say:
'Death and judgement are behind me,
Grace and glory are before me.
All the billows rolled o'er Jesus,
There exhausted all their powers'.
Can you not praise God for redemption? For the fact that you've been bought - you've been purchased? For the fact that you've been purchased out of something? Away from the slave market of sin of the world, the flesh, and the devil:
'Redeemed, redeemed from sin and all its woe.
Redeemed, redeemed eternal life to know.
Redeemed, redeemed by Jesus' blood.
Redeemed, redeemed, O praise the Lord!'
You see if you don't praise the Lord about it - I'll try my best, but the bricks in this building will shout out to His praise. For He is worthy of praise for redemption and we're going to see, this evening, why. Do you remember when you were in Sunday school, or the children's meeting, and maybe you heard the story about the little boy that made the boat, himself, out of wood? And he made it, and he went out with his daddy, and he went out to sail it down the river. He put it in the water and he watched but, all of a sudden, to his amazement, he was terrified to see that it just went down the river, and he couldn't get it any longer, he couldn't reach it. It went out into the ocean, into the sea and he lost it! One day he was walking down the main street and he saw, in the window, that little boat. He looked, and he saw it, and he said: 'That's my boat!'. He went into the shopkeeper and he said: 'You've got my boat in your window!'. The shopkeeper said: 'No, that's my boat! If you want that boat you're going to have to pay for it'. And the boy bought his boat and as he was walking - now listen to this - down the street, holding that little boat in his arms like a child, do you know what he said to it? 'You are twice mine! I made you, and now I bought you!'.
Do you remember what the Lord said to the children of Israel in Isaiah 43 and verse 1? Listen to this - and there are four phrases that I want you to grasp: 'But now thus saith the Lord that created thee, O Jacob, and he that formed thee, O Israel, Fear not: for I have redeemed thee, I have called thee by thy name; thou art mine'. Do you know what God says to your soul, child of God, today? 'My child, you are twice Mine. I formed you and you were lost to Me, but I redeemed thee. Thou art mine!'. Now think of it: when the Lord Jesus Christ, and remember it was the Lord Jesus Christ that created this universe - when He created the universe, He only had to speak a word and the whole thing was done in a millisecond! But when He wanted to redeem you, He had to shed His blood. A word wouldn't do! A sentence wouldn't do! A lifetime of holiness and an example to the world of humanity that they had never seen before, the teachings that far outstretched every philosopher, every religious leader ever - that wouldn't do!
He had to shed His blood, and the extent of the redemption, and the greatness of the redemption is seen from our passage and from our verse in the very fact of what it cost - the price of our redemption. Look at it: 'In whom we have redemption,' - look at this - 'through his blood' - that's your second point. We have redemption, but never you forget this: it's redemption by His blood! What a price for our redemption! Think of it! Nothing else would do! The scriptures clearly testify that - that it had to be the blood of Christ, and the blood of Christ nothing more or nothing less. Why? Because as slaves in the bondage of sin - Romans chapter 6 and verse 23 tells us that the penalty of sin was what? Death! 'For the wages of sin is death' - and because that is the penalty only a substitute life would satisfy the righteous, judicial demands of God. He had to have someone die, it had to happen! Now don't you ever get this into your head that the grace of God, or the forgiveness of God, is simply God wiping the slate clean. It's not! For the slate was never wiped clean for Christ. For you it was, but God's justice cannot be ignored for His love or His grace. God had all these accusations against humanity and against you personally and they had to be dealt with - they couldn't just be forgotten about!
So a substitute had to come, and since the word of God tells us - and it's God's law and I don't argue with it - that the life of the flesh is in the blood; that means that what makes us live and be a living soul is the blood flowing through our veins. Therefore, Matthew tells us that 'The Son of Man gave His life a ransom'. The ransom payment could only be through blood. Now let's get this! There was no other way! God's justice had to be satisfied, but the amazing thing is this: the infinite, judicial wrath of a righteous, all-powerful God was satisfied! Can you grasp that? His righteousness - remember He's an eternal God; that means the righteousness of His eternity. He is an all-powerful God, that means the righteousness, and the holiness, and the wrath of a God who is stronger than anything - He epitomises strength! Oh, God help me understand it: that on that centre cross that all-powerful, unlimited, eternal God exhausted His wrath. Do you know what exhausted means? Like a damp sponge He wrung it out. Every drip, every drag of the anger that He had against the human race and against sin - hallelujah! - it was all exhausted on Him! It wouldn't do if there was one of my sins that wasn't laid upon Him, for I'd be on my way to hell. It wouldn't do if it was the same for you - it had to be: 'all my sins were laid upon Him'.
One of the early church fathers devised a doctrine that said that Christ paid a ransom, but He paid it to the devil. And that means simply this: that the devil had us (and the devil did have us) and that we were in his prison - and if God was going to get us free, Christ had to pay the ransom to Satan. Nonsense! That's not what the Bible teaches, because that would erase the remarkable thing about redemption which is this: the offended party, the one who's hurting, the one who's had the wrong done unto Him - the Father Himself - provided the way by which an irreversible sentence of law and justice that was our due could be placed on His own Son as our substitute. That's the amazing thing! Paul says in Corinthians that this is the amazing thing: that if you think of God and man with their back to back; in Christ, God's back (that's what it says) has been reconciled to man - turned around in the cross of Christ. That's what it says! God, the first prime mover in salvation, has done His due - He, the offended party, has come and made salvation - made a ransom for sin. The miracle is this: that He made the ransom for Himself. He was the one who needed the ransom paid to Him, and if I can say it reverently, it was from His own pocket.
I don't think we can ever enter into this: what God has done. What God has done in redemption; and remember that the gift of God to you, my friend, is not simply salvation or eternal life (although they are gifts) but in theory, the gift of God to His church is Jesus Christ! And everything - salvation, redemption, regeneration, justification, sanctification - all these things are in Him. Do you know what I love about redemption? That, because of the great price that had to be paid for it, it means that it's secure. It means that there's no doubt about it; that my salvation is not resting upon how good I am as a Christian, but how good the blood of Christ was to save me! That's what it's resting on. Now there are these people that believe - and some of them are dear brothers and sisters in Christ - who believe that one day you can be saved and at a later day you're lost. And I ask this question - and I'm being honest from the depths of my soul: is the blood of Christ not good enough to save to the uttermost? I ask another question: will the Father reject the paid price of His own Son's blood because I fall into sin today? Never! For He is as satisfied tomorrow as He was (as our brother reminded us yesterday) when that veil of the temple was rent in twain. He is as satisfied today and tomorrow as He was when He raised Him from the dead; when He took Him to glory; when He entered that heavenly tabernacle and temple by His own blood, and sat down - the work finished. Hallelujah! He is satisfied with Christ! Whether the world is matters nothing - for God is, and that's all that matters.
Have you ever thought about how precious that blood must have been? It's not just precious, like all our blood is precious because it's our life, but it is precious because of whose blood it is! It is the Beloved's blood, think of this! How great your sins are, think of that for a moment! How great wrong you have done in your lifetime! And I know that my sins and your sins are great enough to damn for all eternity, but - praise Him! - His blood is greater than my sin! His blood is able to save to the uttermost. And, oh, the scream and the shriek of my soul as it slides down into hell's fires if it was not for the blood of Christ! For it would have - and the sooner we remember our lot before the shedding of the blood of Christ, the better we would be as Christians in winning the lost, in realising what it cost Him, in realising what a gift we have in salvation. If we realised what the blood of Christ means to you my friend! The brethren writer Nicholl put it well when he said this:
'The more I know the wickedness of my sin,
The more I know the preciousness of the blood.
I see my sinfulness more today than ten years ago,
Yet I value the blood of Christ more also'.
Can I say this? God save us from a bloodless gospel, because a bloodless gospel cannot save. My friend, if you preach or if you teach in any capacity, or you witness, and you find something within you that holds back when you think of mentioning the blood - there's something wrong. For the blood of Christ is everything, and I say this advisedly - and maybe you think it's harsh - but any man or woman that will not preach the blood, or see salvation by the blood - let them be damned! Do you know why I say that? Because Paul the apostle said it in Galatians 1:8 and 9: 'But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed' - that means eternally damned forever! My friend, it's so serious that he repeats it, and he says: 'As we said before, so say I now again, If any man preach any other gospel unto you than that ye have received, let him be accursed'.
We don't take these things [seriously] enough. You know, it blesses my heart to think that this is what it says 'the angels desire to look into'. It says that this was the thing that the prophets, now - Elijah, Moses, Ezekiel and Daniel - this was the thing that they were all puzzled at. They couldn't understand it, because it is the mystery of redemption - and you will find out, as we go through this book, that a mystery within the word of God is not something 'airy-fairy, sci-fi'. That's not what it is, but it is something that hitherto has not been revealed. The mystery here is this: that God loved a world of sinners lost and ruined by the fall. Is that not a mystery to you? It's a mystery to me. How God loved me, how God came to earth as a man for me, and died for me, and shed every ruby drop of blood for me, and was buried for me, and raised from the dead for me, and ascended to heaven for me, and sat down beside God for me - that amazes me! Never let it cease to amaze you, whatever you do, or that's the end of your Christian walk my friend - you'll not be in hell, but at least you'd be a bit warmer if you were in hell! Never lose it my friend.
We read, in the autobiography of Dr. Joseph Parker, that he lost it. He was the great preacher during Spurgeon's day, in the city temple in London. And he says, within his autobiography, that he began to give too much attention to the modern theories of his day that tried to improve upon the fundamentals of the word of God, to make them intellectually respectable, and palatable to all those and sundry. We run into that danger today! Just believe the Bible my friend, that's all! Just say: 'God said it, I believe it, that settles it!' - that ought to be enough. One of them that he caved into was the doctrine of the atonement and redemption through the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. And as he went through his life he didn't realise that these teaching were getting a grip of himself. Suddenly, down his life's pathway, tragedy struck and his wife took ill, and within a few hours she dropped dead. And he was standing there, with his life's partner just gone into eternity in a matter of hours. And it says that in the days and the weeks and the months that lay ahead, he was unable to share his grief with anyone. And he walked around his empty house, through the empty rooms, with a heart that was breaking, with pain that was in his bosom. And he tried to find a place of rest in his modern theories and beliefs, but there were none! And then he said, and I quote you his autobiography:
'In those hours of darkness, in those hours of my soul's anguish when filled with doubt and trembling in fear, I bethought myself of the old gospel of redemption alone, through the blood of Christ: the gospel I had preached in those earlier days - and I put my foot down on that! And my brethren, I found firm standing. I stand there today and I shall die resting upon that blessed, glorious truth of salvation alone through the precious blood of Christ'.
Isn't that why Edward Mote wrote those words that we sang:
'On Christ the solid rock I stand,
All other ground is sinking sand'.
Remember the old man that said: 'Any other rock is shamrock'. My friend it's only the blood of Christ that you can stand on, and this is what our verse says. Look at it: 'In whom we have redemption through his blood' - and here's the next thing that I want you to see: 'the forgiveness of sins'. Your first point, redemption: it is redemption by blood, it is redemption by blood that brings forgiveness. The Greek word for 'forgiveness' has this idea, again, of 'letting loose'. It's the idea - we don't have time to look at it but I would advise you to look at it when you get home - of Leviticus 26. There you'll read of Aaron, and he takes a goat, and he places his hands on the head of the goat, and it says that he confesses the sins of the people upon it. He imputes - puts onto the goat - all the sins of the children of Israel. It says that he takes it away into the midst of the wilderness and he looses it - that's the word for forgiveness. He looses it! He let's it go - the scapegoat, our Lord Jesus Christ who took our sins, who let it go into the depths of the ocean, as far as the east is from the west, as high as the heavens above. He buried it into the ground. He put it behind God's back, so that He says now: 'Thy sins, my child, and thy iniquities I will remember no more'.
But in our verse - verse 7 - the reference is to sins (you'll note that): 'In whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins'. Whereas if you were to turn to Colossians 1 and 14, you read this verse: 'In whom we have redemption through his blood, even the forgiveness of sins'. So in verse 7 of chapter 1 of Ephesians it's 'forgiveness of sin', and in chapter 1 verse 14 of Colossians it's 'forgiveness of sins'. Sin, here, is the Greek word 'Hamartea' (sp?), that's the word used in Colossians. But sins - 'parapatoma' (sp?) - is a different thing, because sin is the condition that we are in by our nature, being in Adam, the black spot of disease morally, spiritually speaking: our dead soul. But sins is not our condition, sins are the acts of our condition: the fruit of who we are and what we are. But listen to this: you put those two verses together, and God forgives them both in Christ. Isn't that wonderful? I hope you think this is wonderful, I really do. That dead soul of yours; Christ took the punishment, but not only for the root of the problem, the branch, the vine that all the sins that you commit stem from - not only did He take that, but everything that you do wrong in your life - Christ took it! Christ put it away! Christ let you loose from it! This is something beyond anything that a psychologist can do, this is beyond anything that a hypnotist can do - and you can have all the positive thinking that you like you like, and read all the books about it, listen to all the tapes about it, but they can't give you, through therapy, the forgiveness of sins. For only God, in Christ, can do that.
There are three distinct aspects of forgiveness that we find within the word of God, and it's important that we understand this because they're so often misunderstood. The first is eternal forgiveness, and what that simply is, is this: the man who says, 'Well look, if I trust Christ and His death on the cross, does that mean all my sins up to the cross, or all my sins up to now when I trusted Christ: they're forgiven? But my present and my future, what about it?' Eternal forgiveness means that all my sins - have you got that? - past (those skeletons that you still remember), present (the thing that you did today, and it's annoying you), future. 'For if we say that we have not sinned we deceive ourselves; we make God a liar and the truth is not in us', because we're going to sin, we're going to keep on sinning until we get to Glory - hopefully not at as great an extent as we are now, but we'll still do it. But praise God, in Christ we have redemption through His blood, even the eternal forgiveness of our sins.
And then, secondly: there's restorative forgiveness. This often confuses young believers; that they don't understand that if Christ has forgiven their past, present and future sins, why is it that if they slip up today they need to confess their sins again? It's simply this: that because you are a child of God, you are no longer in a relationship between God who is a judge and you who are a guilty sinner. Do you understand? That relationship's gone. It is now God who is your Father and you that are His child. Your sins are gone: past, present and future; but what you need is restorative forgiveness. That means this: that sin, when we commit it as Christians, goes between our fellowship and God - not our salvation, but our fellowship between us and God. That is why John says, in 1 John chapter 1 and verse 7: 'If we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and' - verse 7 - 'the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin'. 'And if we confess our sin' - what does that mean? Does that mean God's not going to forgive us as Christians? We're going to go to hell if we don't confess every little sin that we do? Do you know what confessing your sin as a Christian is? It's putting your hands up and saying: 'Lord, there's me again. I've done it again. Would You forgive me? Take it away. I don't want it to be between You and me. I'm Your child, You're my Father; just take it away. And I plead the blood, I know there's power in the blood to restore this fellowship to me as Your child'.
Then, thirdly, there's governmental forgiveness and I want you to note this. That is simply this - to give you an illustration and an example - a drunkard gets saved; and he's drunk for fifty years, hardly a day sober, and his liver is like a sultana. Have you got it? When he gets saved, God, with giving him a new nature, won't give him a new liver. Sometimes we live with the consequences of our sin, that is what's called governmental forgiveness. Therefore we need to beware as Christians, because there are Christians running about and saying: 'Well, I'm forgiven in my past and my present and my future. And I'm a child of God and God's my Father and if I put my hands up and admit my sin, well then God's just going to forgive me'. That's true, but don't you think God can wipe away, or will wipe away, the consequences of what you do - for you'll live with them.
There's a legend about Martin Luther that he was very sick with an illness. As he lay on this bed it says that he had a sense of the evil one - Satan - entering his sick room, looking at him with a triumphant smile. And it says that, in his mind's eye, Satan rolled a big scroll on the floor. And as the fiend threw it from one end of the room to the other, it unwound itself and Luther's eyes read the long, fearful record of his own sins before his face - one by one. And his stout, courageous reformation heart quailed before the ghastly roll of his transgressions. Then suddenly, it flashed into Luther's mind and consciousness that there was one thing not written on that scroll. And he cried aloud: 'One thing you have forgotten! The rest is all true, but one thing you have forgotten: the blood of Jesus Christ, His Son, cleanses us from all sins!' - and as he said this the accuser of the brethren and his heavy scroll disappeared. Can I say this: believers sometimes can be crippled with their past. You will never be what Christ wants you to be if that thing in your mind stays there forever as a skeleton to haunt you. But you need to take the exhortation of Paul to the Philippians: 'Forget it - those things that are behind - and press on!'. For we read in the book of the Revelation that they overcame him - and I'm telling him that tonight - you tell him it! Christ overcame him at Calvary with His own blood! And because His blood has covered me, I can overcome him by the word of my testimony.
But finally, not only do we have redemption by His blood that brings the forgiveness of sins, but it says this: 'In whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his grace'. Did you know that our God is not a miser? Did you know that? He is not a miserly God. And although the word of God teaches stewardship and sensibility with your money and what God has given you, if you're a miser and a scrooge: that's not a fruit of the spirit. And I would vouch to say that you're not showing the proof and the evidence that you are a child of God. But listen to this, the poet put it like this:
'Stern justice can demand no more
And mercy can dispense her store'.
We are forgiven. We are blessed in Christ according to the riches of His grace. Do you know what this verse means? If you had some kind of measuring instrument to measure the depth, the volume, the area, of the love of God, of the gracious riches of God - you could never measure it! Yet it's all given to you. Do you dwell on that enough? Do you? Do you count your blessings enough? Do you name them one by one, what the Lord has done, what He has given to you? And listen: His grace - this verse tells us - is infinite, as His forgiving grace is infinite in the power of the infinite blood of Christ. Now notice the difference, it says: He gives according to His riches, not out of His riches. There's a famous photograph of the old man Rockefeller - scrumpled up face, thin, frail. He's giving a dime to a little waif on the street. He was giving out of his riches. One of the richest men that America has ever seen; but if he was to give according to his riches that young child would have a mansion, would have millions of dollars for himself. But God gives us, not out of what He has, but according to what He has because He has given all that He has! He has given Christ - and He says to you today, 'Here's a blank chequebook, My Christian friend. It's an eternal chequebook and you write cheques to Me as much as your heart is content. Just charge them up child! Like a fish in the ocean - drink until it's dry'.
I want to finish with this beautiful story. In a market place in Rotterdam in Holland stood, for many years in the old corner, this house that was known as 'The House of a Thousand Terrors'. And the story goes like this: during the sixteenth century the Dutch people rose in a revolt against the cruel king, Phillip the Second. And Phillip, what he did was, he didn't like it and he sent a great army under Duke Alva (sp?) to suppress the rebellion. And Rotterdam sieged itself - it held out for a time - but finally it capitulated. And from house to house the victors went slaughtering children, men and women; the citizens being killed in their houses. And a group of men and women and children were hiding in this little corner house that is called 'The House of a Thousand Terrors'. And one young man said: 'I've got an idea'. He says, 'Here's a goat', and he slew it and he spilt out the blood on the floor, and he took a broom and he broomed it underneath the door outside. And when the soldiers came by that door one looked to the other and listen to what they said: 'Come away. The work is already done here. Look! The blood is beneath the door'. God says, 'When I see the blood I will pass over you'.
Our Father, we look forward to a day when we'll sing a new song, singing: 'Thou art worthy to take the book and to open the seals thereof. For Thou wast slain and has redeemed us to God by Thy blood, out of every kindred and tongue and people and nation'. Lord Jesus, we thank Thee for shedding Thy blood for us. Help us never to lose the wonder of it all, Amen.
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Transcribed by Trevor Veale, Preach The Word - January 2001
www.preachtheword.co.uk
info@preachtheword.co.uk
Ephesians - Chapter 5
"The Mystery of His Will - Part 1"
Copyright 2000
by Pastor David Legge
All Rights Reserved
| Ephesians 1:8-14 |
| 1. The Mystery Made Known (verses 8-10) 2. The Mystery To The Jew (verses 11-12) 3. The Mystery To The Gentile (verse 13) 4. The Mystery To Both (verse 14) |
That was good singing, let me welcome you to our Bible Study this evening. We hope and trust that, as we meet together around God's word, that the Lord will meet with us and speak to us through His precious inspired book, the Bible, as we study it together this evening. We're turning again to Ephesians and chapter 1, Ephesians chapter 1, and we'll take time to read from verse 1. We've been going quite slowly, but it's important that we do go slowly and we understand what we are reading, and we understand every blessing that we have in the Lord Jesus Christ. But we're quickening up a little bit today, we're doing a few more verses than one or two.
Let's read together from verse 1 again: "Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God, to the saints which are at Ephesus, and to the faithful in Christ Jesus: Grace be to you, and peace, from God our Father, and from the Lord Jesus Christ. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly [realms] in Christ: According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love: Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will, To the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted in the beloved. In whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his grace; Wherein he hath abounded toward us in all wisdom and prudence; Having made known unto us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure which he hath purposed in himself: That in the dispensation of the fulness of times he might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven, and which are on earth; even in him: In whom also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestinated according to the purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will: That we should be to the praise of his glory, who first trusted in Christ. In whom ye also trusted, after that ye heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation: in whom also after that ye believed, ye were sealed with that holy Spirit of promise, Which is the earnest of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession, unto the praise of his glory".
Now we're looking this evening at verses 8 right down to verse 14. We mightn't get all the way down to it this evening, but we want to look at these verses. Look at verse 8 first of all. We looked last week in verse 7 about the redemption that we have in Him, through His blood the forgiveness of sins according to the riches of His grace. And then Paul, in this long sentence without any punctuation at all, continues to reel off all the blessings that we have in Christ again. Verse 8: 'Wherein he hath abounded toward us in all wisdom and prudence', verse 9: 'Having made known unto us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure which he hath purposed in himself' - and so on, and so on.
We're going to look this evening at the subject: 'The Mystery of God's Will'. One writer has said: 'God has many counsels but only one purpose'. Think about that for a moment. God, in His heavens, in His infinite mind and wisdom and sovereignty, has many counsels but only one purpose. If you were to scour the whole of the word of God this evening, from Genesis to Revelation, you would find many counsels of God within His word. There's His counsels with regards to the nation and the people of Israel. Then there are God's counsels concerning the Gentile nations and people. You remember that God said to Abraham - this was His counsel concerning the Jewish people: 'In thee shall all the families of the earth be blessed'. God's counsels - that through the Jews there would be a special people that would be a light unto all the nations and, one day, in His counsels He would affect every nation upon the face of the earth through this one nation: the Jewish race. Then there are His hidden counsels. What are they? We have in the Old Testament His revealed counsels to Israel. But what we do not have in the Old Testament is what we read about within the book of Ephesians and, indeed, throughout all of our New Testament is the new covenant within the blood of Christ that all nations are brought into the benefit of.
We read about these things that were hidden throughout all of time, never disclosed, perhaps not even hinted at, but here we have it revealed through Jesus Christ, through the written word of God in the New Testament scriptures. There are His hidden counsels with regard to the reign of Christ upon the earth, that one day there would be a reign of the Messiah who would reign in holiness and righteousness and have everyone in every nation under His feet - and as the hymnwriter says: 'His kingdom shall stretch from shore to shore'. All of these counsels have different parts, but there is one purpose. Now I want you to get that before we begin to study these verses: God has many counsels but He has only one purpose. If you think of the Pacific Ocean, and all those mountainous valleys and all those little streams that go to tributaries that then go into a mighty river, and all those mighty rivers run into the Pacific Ocean - many counsels but one final Ocean of purpose!
We're going to look, first of all, at the mystery of God's will that has been made known in verses 8 to 10. Look at those verses with me. We'll look at verse 8 first of all. Now let's read it carefully: 'Wherein [God] hath abounded toward us in all wisdom and prudence'.
'Count your many blessings,
Name them one by one,
And it will surprise you
What the Lord has done!'
Hasn't it surprised us? Over these weeks as we have looked - and we have looked at what we have in Christ: 'all spiritual blessings in heavenly realms'. We haven't to wait on them. We haven't to wait till the consummation of all things or the end of the age, or even till Christ comes back again - whether it's in rapture, whether it's to come to the earth to set up His millennial reign - we don't have to wait, because we have all spiritual blessings in heavenly realms now! Isn't that wonderful? We looked at the fact at how we have these blessings even before we were born. For we were chosen in Him, Paul told us, before the foundation of the world. Our purpose and our destiny was predestined in the person and the image of Christ to be placed, to be planted, rooted and grounded in Him, immovable!
We looked at how we have been adopted - taken from the slave market of sin: children of wrath, children of the devil - and brought into the family of God, adopted. Not just adopted in our sense, but our very nature has been engrafted into the nature of God in Christ. We are new creatures in Christ Jesus! What a blessing! And then last week we looked at redemption and how we are bought with the blood of Christ - how our redemption and our salvation is secure; that there is nothing that can move it. And, outflowing from that redemption, there is the forgiveness of all our sins forever! Hallelujah! What a Saviour we have! What blessings we have been learning about! But here in our reading this evening Paul tells us of more than election, predestination, adoption, redemption. But now he testifies that the God who is liberal, that we read about in verse 7, that He gives us according - look at it: 'to the riches of his grace'. We learnt that he's not a niggardly God. He is not a God who is miserly, who is tight-fisted, but He is the God who lavishes all that He has - everything is ours in Christ Jesus! So He tells us, in verse 8, how God has lavished His riches upon us: 'Wherein he hath abounded toward us in all wisdom and prudence'.
Now to explain this we need to turn to Colossians chapter 1. Colossians chapter 1, and if you ever happen to read (and I advise you to do so) the book of Ephesians in parallel with the book of Colossians, you will see that Paul writes about very similar things, and there are parallel passages between the two of them. And, if you like, the parallel passage to Ephesians 1 verse 8, within the book of Colossians, is Colossians 1 verse 9. Look at it: 'For this cause we also, since the day we heard it, do not cease to pray for you, and to desire that ye might be filled with the knowledge of his will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding'. It's amazing the blessings that we have in Christ, isn't it? I heard a story recently (and it could only happen in America) that a very rich man died and he left an estate of $20 million. No one could find the next of kin, there didn't seem to be a relative anywhere - couldn't find anybody. So the solicitor decided that he was going to hire a private investigator. And he rang the firm and the firm said: 'Well, we have one woman. She'll find out who it is. That's for sure'. And after a few weeks and a few months, in the private investigator's office he rang through to this young lady who was travelling all over the country, trying to find the inheritor of this $20 million. He got her on the phone and he said: 'Well, have you found him yet?'. She said: 'Yes!'. He said: 'When can he come into the office and sign the papers and claim what's his?'. She said this: 'As soon as we're finished our honeymoon!'. Isn't that right? That was her way of getting into that inheritance! But isn't it wonderful - isn't it? - that we don't have to get into our inheritance! We don't have to thieve it. We don't have to, like Jacob whose name means 'wriggler', to wriggle into the blessing of God, try to buy it, try to dupe or con God into blessing us, because we are blessed! It's just getting into the realisation of it.
One of the mighty blessings that we find in verse 8 is this: wisdom. Look at it: 'He has abounded toward us in all wisdom'. The Greek word is the word 'sofia' (sp?) and it simply means this: wisdom - sofia - is the knowledge which sees into the heart of things, which knows them as they really are. Think of that! God has blessed you and I with wisdom so that we see things, and we ought not to see things simply on the outward appearance - but He has given us His ability to be able to look into the very heart of things. Isn't that the difference between us and the world? Or it ought to be! That we simply don't look on the outward appearance, on the bright lights, on the attractive smell of the things of this world, but we can see deeper into the very venomous bite of the serpent Lucifer himself. He has abounded toward us in all wisdom...and prudence.
Look at it...that word prudence could be translated 'insight' or 'intelligence'. It's the Greek word 'fronessus' (sp?). It means this: the understanding and discernment that leads to right action. Understanding intelligence that will lead you to live aright, and live a life that is pleasing to Christ. Now let's put them together for a moment: wisdom and prudence - the God-given ability to look into the heart of things, not to be taken up by what men are on the outside, or what things are on the outside. And also the ability to have the discernment to realise what is needed to walk in holiness and a life that is righteous and pleasing to God. Christian, you have those things but are you walking in the reality of them? God knows that we need men of discernment in these days. We need women and young people of discernment. But let me say this: that discernment and the gift that it is can only be nourished when we saturate ourselves in the word of God. You see, if you do not saturate yourself and your veins become 'bibline' with Holy Scripture, you will never be given a knowledge of what the mystery of God's will is. God's will is in God's word.
Now to give you an illustration of what it is to have a spirit of discernment - and you all have it, you maybe don't cultivate it, or use it, in the way that you ought to - but you know what it is. When you come and you confront something that is unorthodox, and it's as if there's a tug within your soul and you realise (you can't put it into words), but there's a feeling within the depths of your being that there's something not right about that. We need holy discerners in these days. Now listen! I'm not talking about legalistic big brothers (we've got enough of them) but spiritual men who can see past the facade, spiritual women that can weigh up what is spiritual and of God and not carnal of the flesh and of man. That can be summed up in this: absolute holiness. The New Testament writer put it like this: 'to have the mind of Christ'. What's your mind like? Could it be in any way conceivably described as the mind of Christ? 'Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus' - and if we are to be united and, Paul says, 'of one mind', the only mind that we have to be united in is not the pastor's mind, is not the elder's mind, but the mind of Christ, and Christ alone.
'He hath abounded', look at it, 'toward us in all wisdom and prudence'. If you put these two things together do you know how you could sum it up? Simply this: seeing things from God's standpoint. Is that what you do in life when you're confronted with things, when you're confronted with decisions - perhaps life-threatening decisions you may see it as? What way do we look at things? Do we crumble because we are standing in our own flesh - that we are standing in the rock of our feelings and our circumstances; and we're only happy and rejoicing in the Lord when things are going our way? Or do we look at things from God's standpoint? It's wonderful to read in this verse that it was in grace that God chose us. He chose us in Christ, in grace. We learned that it was in grace, and grace alone, that God predestinated us to one day be like His blessed Son. We learned that it is in grace that the blood of Christ was shed for us.
But there's more. Added to all of this - look at the verse - in grace, the riches of His grace, He has super-abounded toward us in all wisdom and prudence. I want you to grasp this. This means that we have been trusted with the mind of God. We have been given His plans, His counsels, His revealed will and purposes for us and for the world that lies around us. He wants us to know His plans - the plans for us individually, the plans for His church corporately, and the plans for the cosmos universally. We thought it astounding - didn't we? - as we looked at election and predestination, that God should take a sinner like you and like me and should have us as companions. Do you remember that - that God would have me as a companion? And then not only that, but that God should have me in His family by adoption and should make me a son, and should love me as much as He loves Christ, and give me everything that He has given Christ! But more than all that: He has brought you and I into His confidence. He has shared with us the plans that He has 'for all things in Christ'. Do you know what that means? We not only ought to be saved, but we ought to know that we're saved. We not only ought to know that we're saved, but we ought to know how we have been saved. Not only how we've been saved but what we have been saved to do. Ephesians tells us in verse 8 that God has given us all that knowledge - how He saves us, why we're saved, what it took to save us - and therefore, as another apostle put it: 'We can know the things that are freely given to us'. Does that not make you rejoice? Does that not make you want to praise the Lord?
Can I ask you: do you appreciate what God has done for you? Now I mean really appreciate. That from the depths of your soul there is a cry of worship and praise and adoration that can't even be put into words, you can't explain what it is, but it's a burning within your soul continually. Even when you come to God, and you can't find words with which to speak to Him, but you know that He can read in the depths of your heart there is a spiritual gratitude. Do you have it? Because you need it. If you're going to be on fire for God, if you're going to be used by God, if you're going to know the power of God through your life and the blessing that is available at your disposal in Christ, oh, you've got to be moved by it! You know, the angels in all their might and (think of it) in all their awesome radiance and holiness - they are still learning the wisdom of God, but we have had super-abounded to us all the wisdom! All His plans! All His purposes! We are object lessons for the angelic beings as they look down and wonder at the fact that the Almighty God that they know all so well could love and redeem people like you! But, praise His name, He did it! And praise His name, He's still doing it! How did John describe this gratitude from within? This is what he says, 1 John 3 verse 3: 'Every man that hath this hope in him purifieth himself, even as he is pure'. There's the two things: you are pure in Christ - you're in Christ! You're sanctified in Christ, but what we need to do is come into the realisation of what we have in Christ - and when we realise it, it changes us down here in this sinful awful world. He's pure, but as he gets to grip within his soul the purity of God that's in him, and what God has done for him in the blessings of God in Christ, he purifieth himself. Praise the Lord that He hath abounded to us in all wisdom and prudence.
But then verse 9 - the mystery of His will revealed again. Verse 9: 'Having made known unto us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure which he hath purposed in himself'. This is the object and the subject of what He has abounded towards us in all wisdom and prudence. This is what He has given, imparted, brought us into His confidence within: the mystery of His will. Let's look at it: 'Having known the mystery of his will'. Now I've said to you before but we need to really recap on it, that this word 'mystery' that we find so often within Paul's epistle here and throughout the word of God - it doesn't mean something mysterious. It doesn't mean something airy-fairy tale, something eerie, something spooky. That's not what it means, but it simply means a sacred secret that was previously unknown. Something, a treasure, that never had been opened, that humanity or God's people had never looked into or entered into or known even intellectually, whether or not emotionally - but now God has revealed it. That's a mystery. Something that was never known. Something that was hidden, but something that God has made known and God has opened and we - praise Him! - have found in the Lord Jesus Christ. Now this is the dominant theme of Paul's epistle to the Ephesians: the truth, the mystery hidden through all time, of Christ and Christ's relationship with His church.
There are many mysteries we read about within the word of God. You'll read within the New Testament about the mystery of the kingdom of heaven. Then there is the mystery of lawlessness and sinfulness that abounds in our nation today. There is the mystery of Babylon the Great - that world power, religiously, that will take over the world. Then there is the mystery of Christ and His church that we're reading about here. There's the mystery within Thessalonians of the rapture of the church: something that we do not read of in the Old Testament, that was not known to those Jewish people, but has been revealed to us in our day, in our time, through the Lord Jesus. There is the mystery of Israel's present rejection. You can read about it in Romans chapter 11: how God, for a season, has taken them out of the blessings and has engrafted we Gentiles into God's plan, into God's mysterious will.
All those things were things that were previously unknown to a latter day - but now, in Christ, we have been blessed through all the blessings in the mystery of God's will, revealed in Christ. That's why Paul says, in 1 Corinthians chapter 4 and verse 1, that we have become 'the stewards of the mysteries of God'. Not only has He taken us into His confidence, and He has given all wisdom and abounded it and lavished it upon us, and all the spiritual insight that we can hold and handle if we would only take it. But this very fact is this: that, through all that wisdom, there is this channel of this one primary thing that He has revealed to us, something that has never ever been told of in all the Old Testament. It was in the types and the pictures, but we have it all in Christ. We enter into the reality of it. We know what it is to know Him and we, a people who never knew God, a pagan heathenistic race in our very blood, we have been made the stewards of the mysteries of God.
'Having made known unto us the mystery of his will' - and here it is - 'according to his good pleasure which he hath purposed in himself'. Now we could easily skip over that, but it would be very wrong. You see we've come across this phrase time after time: according, according to the good pleasure as He hath purposed in Himself. You know, this whole universe and, indeed my friend, your life and this church and everything that pertains underneath God under the sun - it's like a ship in the vast ocean that is going from one continent to another. And the men and the women, and the boys and girls, and the crew and the engineers, and the engine men and everyone - they're all running about. They're doing their own thing: while some are awake, some are asleep, while some are eating, some are playing games - all sorts of activity within this vessel. But that vessel will go to its destination. My friend, that is God's sovereignty, nothing can spite it and it will come despite you and I, for God will work out His good pleasure which He hath purposed in Himself. You see, if God purposed His pleasure in you and I, we'd be in trouble and so would He. If that verse said that God, according to His good pleasure hath purposed all the mystery of His will and His plans in you and David Legge and the Iron Hall - and I say this reverently - God: He would have to forget about it. But the mystery of His will is that He can perform it in His sovereignty, in His dignity and His deity despite you and me! What a God we have! Our God doesn't need to wait on you to lift a hand for Him. Oh, yes He's chosen that that's the way it should be, but if you're not going to get up and do anything don't think that God's going to let those people get lost. Just like He left Israel and He chose us - never you forget this - He can leave you or I, not in salvation but in blessing, and He can raise up another.
He is sovereign. He is God - and shall the clay, shall the thing formed dictate to the Creator of the universe? Verse 10, he describes even more that His will and the mystery of it is being revealed gradually. He's teasing it out, He's painting a picture to us through His good pleasure of His will in Himself. This is it: 'That in the dispensation of the fulness of times he might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven, and which are on earth; even in him'. What is the mystery of His will? Here's the answer, He gives it to us in verse 10 succinctly, compactly. He gives it to us in this one verse: that in the dispensation of the fulness of times He should gather together in one, all things in Christ Jesus.
Now we need to look at this little word for a few moments: 'dispensation'. What does it mean? I'm not going to go into it in too much depth, but it's important that we understand it. It's translated a number of ways within our New Testament. We find it as the word in our English language: 'stewardship', the word translated 'order', 'administration'. The Greek word that means dispensation and all these things is 'hoiconaima' (sp?). It is the word that we get our English word 'economy' from. Now what is an economy? An economy is simply an ordered condition of things. Another way of translating it would be 'administration'. You hear all the time about the 'Unionist administration', don't you? 'The Labour administration' or the 'Tory administration' previously as it was. The idea behind dispensation - this Greek word - is the idea of government and administration. In fact the Greek word was used day by day in the Greek home, and this very word was used as a name for the house servant - if you want to call her a maid or a butler - the person who managed the affairs of the house. The one who saw to it that the family affairs ran smoothly, that there was enough food, that everything was washed, that everything was cleaned and done well, everything was in its order! That's what this word means.
So what's Paul trying to say? That in the dispensation, the administration, the management, of the fulness of times, God might gather together all things as one in Christ. What is it? Listen to this my friend: God is in control! God is the divine manager of all things! He dispenses that which happens in His universe! He administrates it! He holds all things in order! He is the great God and steward of all things! There are many problems in this building, and some of them are so genuine that it breaks our hearts to even think about them. But many of the problems that we face are simply this: that we cannot rest in the sovereignty of God. It's not something to pontificate about or to have as a pet doctrine to impress people. It is something that's meant to go from your head to your heart so that you say: 'Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him'. Do you know my friend that whatever circumstances are in your life, whatever's happening, whatever the Devil or God may be permitting to enter into your life - whatever it is do you know that, through it all, God is in control? That through it all there is a mystery of the will of God. But what Paul is specifically getting at here is: when the fulness of times come to pass - in other words, something is going to happen - there is the mystery of God's will, that there is a day coming and at the appropriate time God will (as He says [in] verse 10) 'gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven, and which are on the earth; even in him'.
I hope, as the Christian church in Jesus Christ, that we don't share in the pessimism of this lost world. G.N. Clarke, in his inaugural lecture at Cambridge University, said these words - and I quote: 'There is no secret plan in history to be discovered. I do not believe that any future consummation could make sense of the irrationalities of preceding ages'. 'There is no plan! God has no purpose! All this chaos, all this meaninglessness is just running together and it's just going to end in a big bang and we're all going to end and there's no purpose to any of it'. Is it any wonder Paul said in the book of Romans: 'Professing themselves to be wise' - a lecturer in Cambridge University! But the dustman in Christ can know more than that: that all things, all things, are running together in the mystery of the will of God. We can say better than this intellectual - we can say like Paul that 'He has abounded toward us. He has made known to us, frail children of the flesh, people from a pagan background that never knew God in our life no matter what religion we're from. He has revealed to us the mystery of His divine counsels and will, that in one day on this earth He will bring all things together - one in Christ'!
God's plan (and this is beautiful) is for Him to sum up everything in His Son. That's it! Jesus Christ! He's not only every blessing that we have, and that we derive every blessing in the Christian life from. But He is what everything that exists will be summed up in. At the moment of time - the fulness of time - the authority of Christ that is trodden in the dirt and spat upon; the authority of Christ that is laughed at in our world, that is degraded and blasphemed - that authority will be declared by everyone. Can you think of that? It's hard to think of today, but let me tell you it is coming! And it will be recognised, it will be acknowledged on the earth and in the age - at the end of all things in heaven and in earth - all things will be under the headship of Christ.
That ought to thrill your soul! But can I ask you, as we think about that beautiful truth, can I ask you: do you know the headship of Christ? I need to be careful but, oh, I know you can turn me to 1 Corinthians chapter 11, and I know that you can tell me that the head of the man is Christ, and the head of the woman is the man. And because of that the woman ought to have her head covered - and that's Biblical doctrine, for the angels - remember we are the object lessons of the grace of God, and it says it's for the angels - [this is] one of the reasons that the ladies do that. But can I address you men for a moment? I would vouch to say that some of you that do your nut about the ladies having their head covered know nothing about the headship of Christ in their life. Works both ways - headship! He is your head. He rules you oh man! He tells you where to go, what to do, what to say, what to be, what to live! Do you know anything of the headship of Christ in your life? Wouldn't it be tragic - think about it - that one day in the fullness of time when God brings all things together in Christ Jesus, and every knee will bow and confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, and you look at every knee bowing and you, as a child of God, recollect that there was never a time in your Christian pilgrimage down here on earth that you knelt before God and Christ, and said: 'Lord, I surrender all'? I'm not talking about being saved, I'm talking about total surrender to everything that God wants in your life. Wouldn't it be awful if the very Devil himself's doing it on that day, and we've never done it with the grace of God in our hearts down here?
What a time this will be! Let's rejoice in it! Let's think about it! A time when Christ's name will no longer be trodden down, when all the unchristian things will be put down and cut away for the last. When everything against God, and in the face of God, will be exterminated and extinguished and then all things - the word of God says - 'in heaven and on earth will be brought together in Christ'. Think about it! Ever since the world began sin (we thought about it last evening with regards to marriage), sin has ripped, destroyed, degraded, depraved everything in our lives and in our world. And the first man was separated from God, and then man was separated from man (Able and Cain), and then nation was separated from nation through sin - and all this separation! Then God had to come in through Abraham and separate a nation unto Himself and make a Jewish race - and there was a difference then between Jew and between Gentile. And ever since the beginning of time sin has made a separation on all fronts. But - praise Him! - there is a day coming when everything previously separated will be made one in my Lord Jesus Christ. It's true - isn't it? - but all around us, all that we see is division. Between Jew and Gentile even today, black and white, rich and poor, educated and uneducated. In all this true world around us, what is true of that world can be said, inwardly of us - even the children of God that (as one writer has put it): 'Every person is a walking civil war'. That there is a struggle even in the depths of our souls - a tension between sin and righteousness, between right and wrong, honesty and lies, passion and reason, Christ and the self-life, the old nature and the new.
But isn't it glorious to praise Him, to exalt Him and adore Him! That there is a day coming, that all that was realised and guaranteed within His own blood at the cross - I will enter into! And there is a day coming when all these divisions will be wiped out. Now notice - this isn't talking about salvation. It's not talking about the division between the saved and the lost - that one day that will be wiped out. Paul's not talking here about universal salvation - that everybody will be saved in the end and God will reconcile everything to Himself. It's talking about universal domination and dominion by God - that's what it's talking about. Paul speaks here about the mystery of His will, and listen: the mystery of His will is the mystery of the millennium. Something that was revealed, not in the same way ever before. Now let me say this: yes, Isaiah talked about it, Habakkuk and Haggai and even Obadiah, that we were looking at, talked about it. The prophets talked about the millennium on earth, but you'll never read about the millennial reign of Christ in heaven. For that is a mystery that has never been revealed until it's revealed here in our reading before us: that even the very cosmos, the very universe will bow to Christ. The thing that Christ has created and sustained throughout all the years of our life will be ordered and ruled by Him. The parallel passage in Colossians 1:16 is this: 'For by him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by him, and for him'. You see that little phrase: 'and for Him'? Some people have translated it this way: 'towards Him' - have you got it? He is the goal to which all things have their direction, towards Him the total cosmos and universe moves. It finds its goal in Him. This is the end for which the universe was and is created. All the universe passed from Him, all the universe emanated from His fingers of power in creation, but all the universe will converge again towards the Christ.
He is the end and He is the beginning. He is the Alpha and He is the Omega. In the same way that all things sprung from Him at His command, so all things will return to him at His bidding - and everything material, spiritual will find their end in Christ. Can I ask you, as we close this evening: have you been running away from Christ? Have you? You're maybe here and you're not saved. You're maybe here and you know not the reality of what it is to be born again. Or maybe you're a Christian - Christians, and you're running away from Christ's lordship in your life. Well let me say this: you can't run away forever, and wouldn't it be better if you bowed to it here on earth than waited for that day, in the consummation of all things, when it will happen at the end of the age?
A Vincent van Gogh painting entitled: 'Still Life with Flowers' was sold a few years ago for $1.43 million in Chicago. But, you know, that painting hung in a suburban home in Milwaukee for decades. It was inherited in 1955 and for 30 or so years it hung there and the people thought it was only a copy. My friend, you have all the blessings that God could - now listen - God could give you, and they're in you! You have the deposit of it in your soul by the Holy Ghost...when are you going to enter into it? I hope you're not going to wait till you're up there. Cause it's no use down here up there. It's in you here and now my friend, because it can affect, like an atomic explosion, everyone around you, everyone in your home, everyone in the assembly, everyone in your land, because you are blessed in heaven as if you were in heaven now - you're blessed there in Him! Glory be to His name!
Our Father, we thank Thee that there is a day when He will have the pre-eminence and everything in this world - evil and sacred - God will channel through to His own divine purpose and will. We thank Thee that it's not just something that we look at universally, but Lord we look at individually, and we take that promise that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them that are the called according to His purpose. Lord, help us to rest in Thy sovereignty and help us to know Thine appointed Saviour more and more each day. In Jesus' name, Amen.
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Transcribed by Trevor Veale, Preach The Word - February 2001
www.preachtheword.co.uk
info@preachtheword.co.uk
Ephesians - Chapter 6
"The Mystery of His Will - Part 2"
Copyright 2000
by Pastor David Legge
All Rights Reserved
Let me welcome you to our Bible Study here this evening in the Iron Hall. It's great to see you all out, and we hope and trust and we ask the Lord that He will bless us as we meet with Him and around His word to see what He has to say to us this evening. We're turning again to Ephesians chapter 1. Ephesians chapter 1, and we'll take time to read from verse 1 - and you'll be glad to know that we're going to get down to verse 14 this evening, and that's one section. It's taken us six weeks to get there, but hopefully we've been blessed as we've been going through each little truth that the Lord has for us in this little book.
Verse 1: "Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God, to the saints which are at Ephesus, and to the faithful in Christ Jesus: Grace be to you, and peace, from God our Father, and from the Lord Jesus Christ. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ: According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love: Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will, To the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted in the beloved. In whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his grace; Wherein he hath abounded toward us in all wisdom and prudence; Having made known unto us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure which he hath purposed in himself: That in the dispensation of the fulness of times he might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven, and which are on earth; even in him: In whom also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestinated according to the purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will: That we should be to the praise of his glory, who first trusted in Christ. In whom ye also trusted, after that ye heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation: in whom also after that ye believed, ye were sealed with that holy Spirit of promise, Which is the earnest of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession, unto the praise of his glory".
If you have the sheet that you were given last week (maybe you got another one on the way in) you'll see that we only got to the first point in our studies last week: verses 8 to 10. We learned what the mystery of His will is, we learned what a mystery is within Biblical terms - that a mystery is something that was hidden within the Old Testament scriptures that no one ever knew, not even the Jews, but in the New Testament, in our times, those hidden things of old have been revealed through the Lord Jesus Christ. We learned that the mystery of His will is that all things, all plans, all His counsels, all the circumstances in this world are being channelled together like rivers into the ocean to one specific purpose of the sovereign God. It's found in verse 10: 'That in the dispensation' - the economy, the administration - 'of the fulness of times [God] might gather together in one' - everything that is divided within this planet and universe, God is going to bring it together in one - '...all things in Christ Jesus, both which are in heaven, and which are on the earth; even in him'.
Quickly let us look at the remainder of what we have on our sheet, because it's important as we look at our study this evening - verses 11 to 14 - that we understand a few basic distinctions within the word of God. Paul says this great plan of God that has been working down all the ages, that in the dispensation of the fullness of times God in the millennial kingdom is going to bring everything together. Jesus Christ is going to have control over all things, He will rule over the world that is now in chaos. He goes on and he describes, as we have it on our sheet, the mystery as it is applicable to the different sections of God's people down throughout all time. First of all - verse 11 and 12 - He talks to and about the Jews. 'In whom also we have obtained an inheritance', or we have been made an inheritance, 'being predestinated according to the purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will: That we should be to the praise of his glory, who first trusted in Christ'.
Now notice that! Paul says - in verse 11 and verse 12 - he uses the pronoun 'we'. Now look at verse 13: 'In whom ye also trusted, after that ye heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation: in whom also after that ye believed, ye were sealed with that holy Spirit of promise'. So there's a distinction between verse 11 and 12, and verse 13. Verse 11, Paul says collectively 'we have obtained', or, 'we who were made an inheritance'. If you were to turn to Deuteronomy 9 (you don't need to do it, I'll read it out for you) and verse 29, Deuteronomy 32 and verse 9, you find this said of God's children Israel: Ye, "Yet they are thy people and thine inheritance...for the Lord's portion is his people; Jacob is the lot of his inheritance". The Jews in the Old Testament - when God, in the book of Exodus, revealed to Moses and the children of Israel who He was by His covenant name 'Yahweh' or 'Jehovah', He told Israel that they would be His gem, His treasured possession - that Israel, chosen race among all the world, would be a treasure unto Him. So you see what Paul's saying in verse 11: 'We', one day in the Old Testament, 'were made an inheritance to God. We were predestinated according to the purpose of Him who worketh all things after the counsel of His own will, that we', the Jews, 'should be to the praise of His glory who first trusted in Christ'. Who first trusted in Christ? The Jews. Isn't that right? The apostles were Jews. The first church - those that believed - were in Jerusalem, and Paul is saying: 'We were the ones who first trusted in Christ'. It could even be translated: 'fore-hoped in Christ'. The Jews and the prophets and the scribes, before Christ was ever born, they all looked forward and 'fore-hoped' to the day when Messiah would come.
The word of God tells us and the New Testament opens up the mystery; that most of the Jews rejected the Lord Jesus Christ. Only a handful of them believed, but there is a day coming - Paul says - when all will be made one in Christ. And Paul tells us again, and enlightens upon it in Romans 11:26, that one day those Jews will look upon Him whom they have pierced and all Israel shall be saved. So Paul, in verse 11 and 12, speaks of the Jew. And then you look in verse 13 because this is the mystery, not just of the Jew - that the Jews who rejected Christ were now believing, but the mystery of the Gentile. 'In whom ye also trusted, after that ye heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation'. This is a mystery! That the Gentiles, the pagans, the heathens that worshipped gods of stones and the spirits of their fathers - those who had previously been described as the filth of the earth: they had now also heard the gospel? They had now also believed God's word and, wonder of wonders, the mystery that the Gentiles now could actually be made an inheritance to God. We are God's inheritance! The mystery as it's carried out further in the book of Ephesians (and we'll look at it in later weeks) is this: in the fullness of times God will bring the Jew and Gentile together in His new heaven and His new earth. And the mystery of the church is this: that both Jew and Gentile are brought together in the person - in the person of our Lord Jesus Christ. Those two words are beautiful in verse 13, aren't they? 'In whom' - in whom, in Him, in Christ, in the beloved, in Jesus Christ, Christ Jesus. Paul continually talks about this relationship: how we are planted in Christ, and everything that we have - the very fact that all things will unite together in Christ one day, the fact that we who were cast off of God, we had no hope in the world before Christ - we have been given all the blessings of God in Christ Jesus.
But we're going to home in specifically this evening on your fourth point there: the mystery of both, the mystery to both the Jew and the Gentile. Look at verse 14, first of all verse 13 to get the context: 'In whom ye also trusted, after that ye heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation: in whom also after that ye believed, ye were sealed with that holy Spirit of promise, Which is the earnest of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession, unto the praise of his glory'. I want us to look at this verse 13, because it tells us the order of how these Gentile people from Ephesus got saved. It tells us, indeed, how anyone gets converted: 'Ye also trusted after that ye heard' - hearing! 'You heard the word of truth', hearing the word of God. 'You had faith', you believed the gospel - and after you believed the gospel, you were sealed by the Spirit. Paul traces their steps, their birth pangs - how they came into life in Christ as Gentiles. They heard the glorious good news of the gospel, they believed in Christ, and then the Holy Spirit, the third person of the Trinity came - the Spirit of promise - and sealed it. Turn with me to John chapter 7, John chapter 7, because here we have the Lord Jesus Christ, in His own words, anticipating the day when such a thing would be seen. John chapter 7 and verse 37: 'In the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried, saying, If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink. He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water'. 'If any man thirst' - isn't that the cry of the glorious gospel of Christ? Isn't it? 'If any man thirst let him come unto me', Christ says. And God has given us this glorious gospel to proclaim - this gospel of the word of God - and we are to take it and proclaim it, shout it from the mountaintops and the housetops that 'Jesus saves, Jesus, saves'. Paul tells us in Romans that this is the formula of faith: 'Faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God' - that's the order! The order that Paul lays down in Ephesians: 'In whom ye also trusted, after that ye heard the word of truth'. John puts it, in his gospel in chapter 1 and verse 12, like this: 'But as many as received him, to them gave he power', or the privilege, 'to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name'.
It's wonderful, isn't it? To have the word of God, isn't it? You see if we were to stand up here, and even if we knew Christ and tried to convince men and women that they needed to know Him too, we would waste our time for all eternity - because it would be useless because it is not our word that makes the difference. We can't create the anxious thought, but it's the powerful hammer and sword of the word of God. And to think that Paul describes it in this verse 13 as the 'word of truth'. Every word of it, every wit of it is full of truth - it is true! It instructs in the weightiest truths of life and of eternal life, salvation. It, itself, publishes the glad tidings of salvation, it contains the offer of it, it shows you how you can get to it! It gives you the power to trust in Christ, and the blessed Holy Spirit of the living God renders the reading and the preaching of the word of God effectual unto salvation. Indeed it is the word of truth alright - and, oh, how we should cherish it! For men and women of bygone days - and we forget it all too easily - have shed their blood upon the pages of holy writ because they wanted us to get it!
I wonder do you get tired of hearing the gospel preached? Do you? You hear it every Sunday night. You might hear it maybe more than that - a couple of times a week and you get fed up with it and you think: 'Well, I am saved and I don't need to hear this all the time'. I wonder have you, as a believer, lost the thrill of it? Have you forgotten what it was like to be lost in your sin and without hope, without God? What it was like to feel your sin weighing you down and you could do nothing about it? What it was like to have your eyes lifted by the Holy Ghost to the cross where the bleeding Lamb was dying? What it was like to realise that He was there for you? Have you forgotten? My friend, that is something that you need to get before your eyes every day. You need to get to the cross every day! For if you don't get to the cross every day, you'll never take up your cross and follow Him.
Are you convinced of the power of the gospel? Are you? The power that is in the word of God - do you really believe, as Paul says, that it is the dynamus, the power, the dynamite of God unto salvation to every one that believeth? The preaching of the gospel is what saves! We live in a day of drama but, you know, drama is not the word. Jesus Christ was the word, this is the written word - but you'll not find a word in drama. And to think of this fact: that Paul the great apostle, in the day in which he lived, theatre was the chief medium of entertainment. Do you not think he would have used it? Why did he not? Because God hadn't ordained it! But God tells us what works! He says that He has ordained the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe. We are not born, Peter says, of corruptible seed, but we are born of incorruptible by the word of God which liveth and abideth forever. Do you realise that this is a living book? Do you? It is alive! It can talk to you! It can lead you! It can guide you! Its very words can protect you! And even if you don't read it - the Gideons will tell you - that when it gets into peoples' hands it changes their lives! Can I plead to you young people? Oh, for a band of young people today who will plead with a compromising church and say: 'Take your rubbish and give me the word!'. My young Christian, if you don't have a thirst after the word you need to look into your heart. The whole church at large that wants to sideline our epilogue - the word of God - needs to look at what they're living. Is it a falsified, hypocritical life, or is it the life of God in Christ? I am utterly, utterly sold out and convinced that there is power in the preaching of the gospel, in the Spirit of the living God. But I'll tell you something else that I am utterly convinced about: if the cure doesn't come in contact with the helpless, it's useless. You know that the Roman Catholic Church (and God will damn them for it) locked up this precious book for centuries and it didn't do anybody any good. But when Wycliffe was burnt at the stake, and they burned him and his Bibles, and they took his ashes and they threw [them] into the Severn River. And little did those papists know that as they did that, the very Bible that was in his bones was going to every area, every town-land, every city within the whole of Britain because there's power in the open, preached word of God. It is the light of the world!
But can I say to you, do you know what we do with the light of the world? We shine it where there already is light. Don't we? We take it and shine it into the places that are beaming like the sun - the bright places - and then we stand back and expect to see results. But the word teaches that you've got to shine it into the deepest darkness and bring the dark souls into the vicinity of where the light is being shone. Sure light is only light because of darkness around it. Isn't that right? C.T. Studd, the great missionary, said this:
'Some like to stay within the sound of church and chapel bell,
But I'd rather run a rescue shop within a yard of Hell'!
Do we preach the word? And, you know, preaching the word is like teaching - I often used to think about my teachers, that they weren't teachers at all, because they're only teachers when you learn! And, my friends, we are only preaching the gospel if the lost are hearing it. Do we go where the sin is? Do we go, like the Lord Jesus Christ, to where the sinners are? Because where sin abounds grace doth much more abound. Can I say to almighty God this evening, 'God save us from a respectable church-going Christianity!'. Oh, that God would restore us to make this place perhaps what it was one hundred years ago: a rescue mission! A centre where broken, damned souls were mended by the blood of Christ, by the power of the Holy Spirit - where hell-bound lives were saved! May God loose our tongues! May God loose our feet and our hands to shout aloud and to cry aloud in the street the great grace and gospel, and opportunity of the grace of God to all who will come and believe. I believe that we have caved in to the pressure today of the spirit of tolerance in our society. I really do, I believe we're afraid! We're afraid of the world and what they'll do, we're afraid of what our family and our friends will say: 'He's shoving religion down my throat again' - and we cave in. We are caught, as the word of God says, 'in the snare that is the fear of man'. We have listened to the prophets of modern evangelism who tell you not to speak of hell but of a 'lost eternity', to speak not of sin but of 'mistakes', to preach not the shed blood of Christ but only a 'giving of a life for others', to preach not a life of holiness but a 'life of wholeness and happiness' - it's very subtle, isn't it? But then we wonder why the light isn't shining into the darkness. God, give us a fearless, fiery, fervent band of preachers and proclaimers and Christians who will resist unto blood, striving against sin!
I wonder has God been speaking to you in recent days through the word of God about the lost around our district? I know He's been speaking to me, and some people have come to me and expressed how God has been speaking to them. And can I say to you as an assembly: Let's do something! They're lost! They're drowning in their sin! They're going into the fires of an eternal hell, never to get another chance! Let's do something! Don't ask me what, but let's do something rather than nothing! I'll be honest with you: there are times when I am before God that I can almost feel my hands dripping with the blood of the lost! D.L. Moody - he was often criticised for his methods of evangelism, and even his making appeals and altar calls - and do you know what his reply was? 'My way of doing it's better than your way of not doing it'. Brethren, let's do something!
Rudyard Kipling, the poet, writes regarding William Booth, the founder of the Salvation Army. Listen to this! And can I say to you: after I preached the gospel last evening and ministered yesterday morning, and I got up this morning ready to get before God in the word of God for the Bible study - I didn't feel like it. I wondered how I was going to get the energy and what God was going to have to do! And this came to me - this word here that I'm going to share with you - and I had a jump in my step! Listen to this! Rudyard Kipling says of this great old man: 'I saw him walking backward in the dusk over an uneven wharf; his cloak blown upwards, tulip-fashion over his grey head. And while he beat a tambourine in the face of the singing, weeping, praying crowd who had come to see him off, I talked much with General Booth during that voyage and I expressed my distaste of his appearance at the wharf' - didn't like the way he was doing it. 'Young fellow', he replied - listen: 'if I thought I could win one more soul to the Lord by walking on my head and playing the tambourine with my toes I'd learn how!'. Isn't that it? Have you a love for the lost that you'll preach the gospel? These Ephesians heard it, but they heard it because it was preached to them. How shall they hear without a preacher?
An examining committee composed of ministers had met together to look at the qualifications of Billy Sunday. He was going to be ordained as a gospel minister. And among all the other questions that were fired at him in that interview, the world-famous baseball player was requested to identify who this great church father in church history was, and they named him and asked him to say something about his writings and about his life - and Billy was stumped. After fumbling around for a moment he, with a twinkle in his eye, said 'I've never heard of him. He was never in my team' - and they didn't know what to do. And after a moment's deliberation one of the men turned to the others and said: 'I think we should ordain this man. You know why? Because Billy Sunday has won more souls for Christ than the whole shangbang of us!' - isn't that what matters? It's not how much you know, it's who you know! It's the fact that you're consumed with an atomic fire of the love of Christ and the love for souls, so much so that you'll give them a chance! Give them a chance.
'In whom ye also trusted, after that ye heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation' - and here's the next part I want you to see - 'in whom also after that ye believed, ye were sealed with the holy Spirit of promise'. Now I want you to note something in this passage: the Authorised Version of the scriptures that we love so much is a little misleading in this verse, because some have looked at it and seen: 'after ye believed ye were sealed with the holy Spirit'. And they've deduced that this is an experience that you have after conversion, and you have to wait for it. But look at the verse previous, Paul says: 'In whom ye also trusted, after that ye heard the word of truth', so they trusted after they heard the word of God, 'the gospel of your salvation: in whom also after that ye believed'. So if you took that line of thought that that word 'after' literally means 'way after', you would say that these believers got saved twice: after they heard the word of truth and then after they believed. But what's Paul getting across? That this was something - in this verse - this conversion experience was something that happened altogether in a moment. This is true christening...you've heard of christening, haven't you? Some believe that it's being born into the church of Jesus Christ, but this is true christening: being sealed by the Holy Spirit of God, and where the name of a father or a mother is not put upon you, but the name of Christ! It's like the farmer putting his dye mark on the sheep, on the flock. It's like the farmer putting that brand onto his cattle. He's marking them! He's saying: 'They're mine. No one will take them off me. They're mine. I'm going to keep them. I'm going to look after them'. And what the sealing of the Holy Spirit is for the believer is simply this: that God is satisfied with Christ's cross work! And He puts a seal on it by giving you the Holy Spirit. Your gift of the Holy Spirit is the full-stop mark; punctuation of satisfaction upon Christ's atonement at Calvary. It's different than the way that the Holy Spirit worked in the Old Testament, where He came upon someone and then He came off them. And then he would come upon them again when they needed them, but then He would go away. This is something entirely different, what Paul was talking about hear is what baptism, Christian total immersion, believer's baptism means and symbolises: that we are baptised into Christ. It is the effusion of the Holy Spirit Himself: that He, the third person of the blessed Trinity, is given to us, available to the believer according to the promises of the Old Testament and the words of the Lord Jesus Christ.
The Holy Spirit is the promised one, yet He is the same one whom all the promises are fulfilled in. Of course, there's a difference and we must make the difference between the Holy Spirit's regenerating work and His sealing work. If you think about it like this: there's a difference between building a house and then someone moving into the house. And God, in regeneration, comes into the soul of a man, quickens his spirit and He makes him a new man or woman in Christ - the temple ready to receive the Spirit. Then, at the same moment of conversion, the Holy Spirit moves in to take possession - He seals them! So many of us find these things very difficult to understand. So Paul gives us some imagery in these verses: he talks about a seal, and then in verse 14 he talks about 'the earnest of our inheritance'. The seal, within these old classical days, gives us some instructions and illustrations about how the Holy Spirit relates to us as the believer in the sealing. You know what a seal is, you get them on letters sometimes in wax. It's the same seal that Pilate put on the stone that was across the tomb of the Lord Jesus Christ. It is a stamp, and in these days it was a sign that was affixed to a document to guarantee its genuineness. It was also attached to goods that were in transit, that if they got lost the owner would know. They would be sent back to him, they would never be lost for good. It made sure that they were protected as they went from one place to another, and also it represented a designation of office in the state. You've seen letterheads, or suitcases, or envelopes with [OHMS] - [On] Her Majesty's Service, haven't you? That's what this seal was. It represented that this was a guarantee of genuineness - this letter was real. It made sure that, as that letter went from one place to another, that it would be protected, it would never be lost. It was something that had the stamp, the name of the person, the dignitary that it represented.
Oh, how it speaks to us of our salvation! You see, the seal of the Spirit that Paul is talking about here - it guarantees everything that God has promised - it guarantees it to us! We can be sure! We've learnt week after week of the inheritance that we have in the Lord Jesus Christ in election, in predestination (one day to be like Christ), in adoption - so many blessings of wisdom, knowledge. We have so much in Christ according to the riches of His grace, but the sealing of the Spirit upon our lives is God saying: 'Now, there's the receipt! There's the guarantee'. The two ideas behind it are ownership and security. Isn't it wonderful to know that we are not our own? That we are bought with a price, that we belong to Christ, but not only has He His stamp on us, but we are secure as He is in God. We are His and we are safe.
Paul adds to the analogy of the sealing and then he talks about 'the earnest of our inheritance' - and that word can be translated (the word 'earnest') as the 'deposit'. What he's saying is the Holy Spirit to the believer is the deposit, the guarantee - the word is borrowed, these days, from the commercial world - it meant an instalment in hire purchase. It was a token of payment ensuring the vendor that the full amount would eventually follow and be paid. It's a similar idea to the engagement ring. It's a promise that the marriage would come to pass, but it is greater than an engagement ring - for we've heard of so many marriages and engagements that don't come to pass, that don't reach that final day - but this is a watertight guarantee. This is an 'earnest': a deposit. God has covenanted with us, not just by the shedding of His Son's blood, but as an inward witness within our soul by the sealing of the Holy Spirit, that one day we will have everything that is promised to us. God has paid the down-payment to us, He has sealed us with the Holy Spirit, which assures the seller of good faith - we are the seller, we are receiving the Holy Spirit - and it gives us the good faith that God, the buyer, one day will pay in full.
You remember those hours maybe - they don't happen too often, they're special times, maybe in a meeting or in your own quiet time, or reading a book or the word of God - and you have a special sense of God's presence. You know what I'm talking about - but isn't it wonderful to think that that's only the deposit? These things that we experience - and, I tell you, I don't think we really enter into what God wants to experience down here at times - but even the fullest, the most complete experience of the living God on earth, is only a taste of what is going to be paid in fullness to us one day. And what an experience that will be! God calls it, through His word, 'the redemption of the purchased possession'. What is the purchased possession? It is the inheritance. Who is the inheritance? We are the inheritance, we are God's treasure! We were once the dung - Paul said 'the filth and off-scouring of all things', and at times we ought to view ourselves as that. But in God's eyes, in Christ we are His treasured possession. It's amazing how anyone could see us in that way, isn't it? But in Romans chapter 8 we read all about it: that there is a day coming - and the whole earth groans and we have the witness of the Holy Spirit, or we ought to have, within us crying 'Abba Father', that we are not of this world, that we have been redeemed by soul and spirit - but there is a day coming when we will be redeemed by the body. And all of us - everything about us - will go one day to be with Christ and serve Him - and you, my Christian friend, ought never to be happy in the world because of that, you don't belong here!
And although every Christian (and I want to stress that: every Christian) is sealed by the Holy Spirit, Paul says in Romans 8:9: 'if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his' - you can't be a Christian without the Holy Spirit. Everybody here saved is sealed in the Holy Spirit, but let me say this: for many Christians the Spirit's presence has been buried deep in the recesses within the sanctuary of their spirit. And that sealing that they have been given has never been let out to contaminate their whole being, to effuse into both their body and soul, not just their spirit, so that we can say as Paul says: 'to be filled with the Spirit'. Do you know why that doesn't happen? If you turn to chapter 4 of Ephesians - chapter 4 of Ephesians - we find another reference to this sealing in the Spirit: 'And grieve not the holy Spirit of God, whereby ye are sealed unto the day of redemption'. Why is it that in so many Christians - and I would believe 90-plus percent of them in these days in which we live - that they do not know the reality and the blessing of experiencing the Spirit-filled life and walk with God? It's because there are things that grieve Him. Why did He come upon the Lord Jesus Christ in the likeness and the form of a dove? Well, the dove has no gallbladder. Did you know that? There's no gall in a dove, no dirt. It's a pure animal, it is white. It is a timid animal, in other words my friend, if you want to know what this is - to feel His Spirit witness with your spirit that you are His - get rid of your sin! You need to yield yourself to Him.
Let me, in conclusion, express and explain what the end of this verse means: 'the redemption of the purchased possession, unto the praise of his glory'. It's a remarkable thing within the New Testament, that there are only two books that you find reference to this great truth of being sealed in the Spirit. You find it in the book of Corinthians and the book of Ephesians. And it's interesting to note, within the history books, that both cities of Corinth and Ephesus were great centres of the lumber industry in ancient times. A raft of logs would have been brought from the Black Sea (and some of you have been in Romania and you know the Black Sea), and those logs would have been brought down from there, and the different firms in Corinth and Ephesus would have travelled to a harbour and they would have looked over the logs, and they would have made their selection. Whatever logs they would have found as being fit, they would have paid a deposit, not the whole amount but just a deposit - an earnest payment - and they would have taken a knife and marked a wedge - a cut upon the log - to seal it. I think this is beautiful. Do you want to know what the redemption of the purchased possession means? Do you want to know? Listen: they would have pushed those logs down the river, and they would have channelled and travelled though all the storms, through all the obstacles. And maybe if that log could talk to you they would say: 'Am I ever going to get to this place? Am I ever going to survive? Am I going to drown? What's going to happen to me?' - but there would be a day that would come that those logs would reach the harbour there, and those that had paid the deposit upon them would come and they would see the seal upon them - and they would claim them!
What storms are you going through? I know you can hardly see by them. We're all like that at times. You wonder: 'Has this Christian lark any truth in it at all?'. You're maybe listening to people in your family that are unbelievers, and you'd nearly think twice about this word and all the things that are talked about of the second coming of the Lord Jesus Christ, one day you'll be perfect, one day you'll be like Him, one day you'll see Him. You wonder: 'Will it ever come to pass?' - but listen! The church of Jesus Christ that He bought with His own blood - you, individually, as His sheep and His child - you are His purchased possession. You are His inheritance. You are His treasure, and the moment you were saved there was never any chance of you being lost because you were sealed - guaranteed! You were the earnest of that inheritance! There is a day when the redemption of your body will take place - your soul's been redeemed already, and so, really, has your body but it hasn't been realised or consummated yet - but that day will come when you will be transported to be like unto His glorious body! That's why Paul says here, it's 'unto the praise of his glory'. Do you know what this mark often meant? Do you know all the designer labels? You ladies know all about it! Designer labels, or a car - a BMW or a Mercedes marque, a Rolls Royce - do you know what that means? You know what a manufacturer loves to do, He loves to come out and see his seal upon a thing and say: 'I'll stand over that!'. There's a day coming my friend - maybe He can't do it for you and me now, He can do it, because we're in Christ, positionally - but there is a day coming when my Lord Jesus Christ, who died for me, will look into my eyes and say: 'There's My child! I'll stand over him!'
Our Father in Heaven, we thank Thee that we are saved and saved to the uttermost; that we're sure, we're sealed, secured - the package is finished - and we're on our way. There's nothing in Heaven or on earth or under the earth can stop that eternal journey now. But Lord help us to realise that we are blessed now in those heavenly realms; that we can know what it is to know the Holy Spirit as the glove upon our lives; that we are possessed by Him and that He uses us. Lord, use us we pray, use us as a light on a hill. Help us not to hide ourselves under the bushel of this building, but Lord break us loose and let us go, and give us grace and take away our fear. For we know there's power in the name of Jesus, and we'll know that, that day, when in the moment and the split second we see His face, we'll know there's power because we'll be like Him. That's the greatest miracle of all time: that we should be like Him. We thank Thee for this time and ask now that, Lord, You'll part us now in Thy blessing. In Jesus' name. Amen.
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Transcribed by Trevor Veale, Preach The Word - January 2001
www.preachtheword.co.uk
info@preachtheword.co.uk
Ephesians - Chapter 7
"Paul's Prayer List For You - Part 1"
Copyright 2000
by Pastor David Legge
All Rights Reserved
| Ephesians 1:15-23 |
| 1. Thanks For Salvation (verses 15-16a) a. Faith b. Love 2. Prayer For Illumination (verses 16b-17) a. The Author – By God b. The Means – Through Wisdom And Revelation c. The Subject – To Know Christ d. The Instrument – The Eyes Of Your Heart 3. Prayer To Know Hope (verse 18b) 4. Prayer To Know Inheritance (verse 18c) 5. Prayer To Know Power (verses 19-23) a. Infinite (verse 19b) b. In Christ (verses 20-23) |
Now let me give you a warm welcome to our Bible study here, in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, to the Iron Hall. It's great to see you all and if you're visiting with us, maybe for the first time, we're especially glad to see you and we hope and trust that you feel at home with us and that the Lord blesses you through His own inspired book, the word of God.
Ephesians and chapter 1, and we'll take time to read the whole chapter together to get the context of what we're reading this evening. Reading from verse 1, and we're concentrating tonight on verses 15 probably only through to verse 19. So let's read from verse 1: "Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God, to the saints which are at Ephesus, and to the faithful in Christ Jesus: Grace be to you, and peace, from God our Father, and from the Lord Jesus Christ. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ: According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love: Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will, To the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted in the beloved. In whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his grace; Wherein he hath abounded toward us in all wisdom and prudence; Having made known unto us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure which he hath purposed in himself: That in the dispensation of the fulness of times he might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven, and which are on earth; even in him: In whom also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestinated according to the purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will: That we should be to the praise of his glory, who first trusted in Christ. In whom ye also trusted, after that ye heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation: in whom also after that ye believed, ye were sealed with that holy Spirit of promise, Which is the earnest of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession, unto the praise of his glory".
I'm out of breath, for that was one whole sentence! All we have just read was one whole sentence of praise, and now we have a full-stop. Now we look at what we're going to think about this evening. What we've just read was the praise of Paul, and now we're looking at the prayer of Paul. It's the first prayer of two that we find in the book of Ephesians: "Wherefore I also, after I heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus, and love unto all the saints, Cease not to give thanks for you, making mention of you in my prayers; That the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give unto you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him: The eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that ye may know what is the hope of his calling, and what the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints, and what is the exceeding greatness of his power to us-ward who believe, according to the working of his mighty power, Which he wrought in Christ, when he raised him from the dead, and set him at his own right hand in the heavenly places, Far above all principality, and power, and might, and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this world, but also in that which is to come: And hath put all things under his feet, and gave him to be the head over all things to the church, Which is his body, the fulness of him that filleth all in all".
I've entitled our message this evening as 'Paul's Prayer List For You'. There are several things that Paul prays to God, and intercedes to God, that the children of God in the church in the city of Ephesus may have. He prays, he implores, he pleads to God that they may know, in their Christian lives and experience, certain things. We all ought to have prayer lists - and if you don't have one you should get one, and list down the things day by day, or week by week, or month by month, that you want to bring before the Throne of Grace, intercede for others and pray for yourself. But I wonder if we were to take out our prayer lists, and compare them with the prayer list of Paul, how they would compare?
If you look at what Paul asked God for, very little of it - in fact none of it - was physical, all that Paul prayed for was spiritual. We might have our Aunt Aggie's big toe on our prayer list; all the ailments that we can think of of friends and relatives - and it's important that we do pray for the healing of others, and for those who are going through physical turmoil and trial. But what Paul is indicating to this church in Ephesus, as he begins this letter - and he's just finished a long sentence and tirade of praise to God for the great plan of salvation from eternity past to eternity future, all that God has done and will do in Christ Jesus - and as he comes to a prayer of intercession for these Christians, he pleads for their spiritual need. Nothing physical, but spiritual. Also, interestingly, Paul's prayers are not centred around himself. If you look at that list from verse 15 right through to verse 22 you'll see that, always, his prayer life here is centred around prayer, intercession, and pleading at the Throne of Grace for others.
In a general sense there's a great deal of confusion about the whole subject of prayer. Even within the subject of who to pray for, and what to pray for, we find within our daily lives, individually, that there is a lot of imbalance. Sometimes we're always praying for others and we never think of ourselves - but I think most of the time it's more likely that we pray for ourselves and we forget about others. It's like the 40-year-old spinster (I hope there's no 40-year-old spinsters in the meeting tonight!) who prayed: 'Lord, I'm not asking just for myself, but please give my mother a son-in-law'. She was praying for others, but with herself at the centre. If you scour the pages of Holy Scripture you will find that a study of the prayer life of the saints of God, you will find that most of them, most of the time, centre their prayer life around others. Go to Genesis 18 and you find there, Abraham supplicating the Throne of Grace for that wicked, two wicked cities of Sodom and Gomorrah. Go to Exodus 33, and Moses has just come down from the mount where God dwelt and where God was giving him the law. As he came down - you remember he heard the singing and the orgy, as the children of Israel were bowing down and bringing obeisance to a golden calf - and he fell before God and he interceded for the people, and he even asked that God would punish him so that his own people might be saved, so that they might have salvation. You can go through the letters of Paul and we thought yesterday, Lord's Day morning, about Romans 9 and verse 1 where Paul prayed for his brethren, his kinsmen according to the flesh - his brothers and sisters in Judaism. They were praying for others.
This was a theme within Paul's epistles. Turn with me for a moment to Romans chapter 1 and verse 9. You see that Paul, at the beginning of his letter to the people in Rome - the Christians in Rome - he writes in chapter 1 and verse 9: 'For God is my witness, whom I serve with my spirit in the gospel of his Son, that without ceasing I make mention of you always in my prayers'. Colossians chapter 1 and verse 9 - the same chapter and the same verse - 1 and verse 9. At the beginning of this letter to another city and another church, he introduces and again he starts with the subject of praying for them: 'For this cause we also, since the day we heard of it' - your faith - 'do not cease to pray for you, and to desire that ye might be filled with the knowledge of his will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding'. Again in 1 Thessalonians 3 and verse 10, Paul again, he amplifies how he prays. He says: 'I make mention of you' - that means specifically he named their names before the Throne of Grace. He says he did it without ceasing, continually, he didn't forget, he didn't take a break from it - all the time he was remembering them. Then here, in chapter 3 and verse 10 of 1 Thessalonians, he says: 'Night and day praying exceedingly that we might see your face, and might perfect that which is lacking in your faith?'. He prayed without ceasing. He prayed mentioning their names, and you think of the many people that Paul knew and Paul met and had come into contact with and led to Christ, and the churches and the sheep that he was tending and looking after. But day by day, night after night, if his time was not taken up with preaching the word of God or teaching the flock, his time - his minutes, his moments and seconds - were taken up with bringing their names before the Throne of Grace.
When we pray for others what do we ask for? What do we ask for? I want you to remember that in the book of Ephesians Paul was in prison. We looked at that in the introductory message of Ephesians - how he was locked up under house arrest. You think about that, and if you were there and you were writing a letter to the Iron Hall and you'd been locked up for your faith, what would you be asking? 'Oh, pray that God will do something miraculous! That God will break down the walls of the prison, bend the bars back, that He will strike the knees of the jailers and let me go'. Not Paul! What does he pray for? He doesn't ask that they have things that they do not already have, do you notice that? He doesn't ask that God would impart to them something that they had not been given at the moment of their conversion, but he asks, and he implores, and he pleads to God, that God the Holy Spirit would reveal to them what they already have.
We believe, 2 Timothy chapter 3 and verse 16, that 'All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness'. Therefore, as we look at this book in the New Testament - as we look at every book in the Bible - and we see that it was specifically, primarily written to the church at Ephesus, we note that it is personally 'for me'. The children's chorus says:
'Every promise in the book is mine
Every letter, every word, every line'.
And that's a reality! It's all for you! And if Paul is here, and he is praying it for the saints at this particular time, that means if we believe that Paul was praying in the Holy Spirit (and he was because it's the Holy Spirit who inspired this book and the words that we read before us in this letter) - so according to the philosophy of prayer, if the Holy Spirit of God had inspired the heart of Paul to pray for these specific things, that means that this is God's will for the children of God in Ephesus. And if all scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for you and I today, that means that this is God's revealed will for you and me. What does God say? What is the Spirit of the living God praying for you? What is He interceding for you within the heart of Paul the apostle? What is it that Paul was brought to his knees to pray for?
Well, let's look at the first thing: he was led. How could he not be after such a beautiful sentence of praise and glory about election and predestination, and about redemption, and about adoption and so many things that we've read about already in chapter 1? How could he not thank God for their salvation? That's what he does, and he does it in a two-fold way. Look at verse 15: 'Wherefore I also, after I heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus, and love unto all the saints'. He gives thanks to God for their salvation by talking about faith and love. Of course, first of all, the faith that he talks about - 'pistus' in Greek (sp?) - the faith is the saving faith, the faith by which we trust. We have received a gift from the hand of God to trust the crucified Christ: the bleeding Lamb at Calvary, we've received that gift of God which is eternal life, we have been saved! But what Paul is also talking about is not simply that first gift of faith that we received when we were born again, but he talks about how, as Christians, that we must live by faith, our life must be grounded within faith. I want you see this: that he was praising God that these Christians in Ephesus were grounded, knew in the depths of their soul, that the Lord Jesus Christ was upholding them. They had an assurance, they had an assurance that no matter what would fall at their feet, what troubles or trials or tribulations that they would experience; what opposition or persecution would come from the empires around them - they knew that, no matter what happened, it was well with their soul! They were firm, they were grounded, and because of that they could charge ahead with their Christian life.
I heard of a man in Canada and he was trying to cross a frozen river - St. Lawrence River. He got down on all fours, and first of all he put his first hand ahead of him and just tested the ice, and then his second hand, and gingerly he gradually got on to the ice. He crouched, trying not to put too much pressure on it - and, to his horror, he heard a noise behind him and he turned around to see just a team of horses coming! All he could see was the smoke, he thought: 'What am I going to do?', and he panicked! It was too late - the team of horses ran straight across the ice to the other side. He turned bright crimson, because if he had only known how firm the ice was, he would have galloped across himself. Friends, this is what this book is all about: to know how firm a foundation we have in Jesus Christ! To know that we cannot have a firmer foundation - that everything that we have is an inheritance in Him! We do not believe in a church, we do not believe in a creed, we do not even look to Christians, we believe, we place our faith in Jesus Christ alone! Never you forget that! Because I feel today that in some of our evangelical circles, and particularly in our circles, there is a popery that is akin to the church of Rome. Looking to a church, looking to a denomination, looking to a tradition of doctrinal interpretation - my friend, we have nothing but Christ!
Faith! When Paul saw the faith that saved him, and the faith that kept him, and when he could see, by the eye of faith, the faith that would lead them home, he turned to God and he praised Him: thanksgiving for their salvation. But look at verse 15, because he doesn't just mention faith, but the second thing down there is love. What's he saying? He's saying that true faith - such faith that is truly of God's Holy Spirit, that is rooted and grounded in Christ - will, and must, manifest itself in love. You find that in Galatians 5 verse 6 where Paul again says: 'For in Jesus Christ neither circumcision availeth any thing, nor uncircumcision; but faith which worketh by love'.
An artist, on one occasion, painted a portrait - an erroneous portrait, it was totally false - of hell. Of course, it was nothing like hell, because you cannot describe or paint hell. But he thought he was doing a good job, and he put this circle of people - miserable faces - around the dinner table. They were all sitting with their miserable long faces looking at one another, and they had in their arms long spoons by which they couldn't feed their own mouths - and he said that this was like hell. Food on the table, a long spoon and they cannot feed themselves, they're being tormented and tortured. Now my friend, hell is nothing like that - but one thing he got right was this: they were so preoccupied with feeding themselves that they didn't realise that with the long spoons they could feed each other - and they died because they never saw that.
The Holy Scripture is full and the New Testament is full - believers of the church of Jesus Christ, please listen to this: he talks about love to all the saints. He was praying to God, and praising and thanking Him that these people were saved - and the evidence that they were saved was because they had love for one another! The Greek word that Paul uses for 'love' here is the word 'agape'. It is the word for the love of God. Do you know what kind of love that is? It is the love that wills to love the unlovable! You who were in sins, dead in your trespasses, in your filth and iniquity - God in grace and in love demonstrated in Christ Jesus, who died for you, that He loved you. That's 'agape' love. That is what Paul is talking about. That means this - and it's hard to take [but] you as a Christian are going to have to, if you want to show fruit that you're really saved, that the faith of God is in you - you are going to have to love people that you don't even agree with. Oh, that's hard isn't it? 'It would be nice if Paul just left and dropped out that little word, 'all' the saints. Oh, I can love some of them. Oh, I can love the separatist churches, yes, or the fundamentalist churches - I can love them'. My friend, listen! Don't water down God's word anywhere! All the saints! All of them! I'm not saying you have to agree with them. I'm not saying you have to join up and make a fellowship with them. But, listen, if they're saved, if they're washed in the blood of Christ it is the same blood that washed you, my friend. It's the same veins that brought that blood out at Calvary - and you're no more worthy of it than anyone else. All the saints, because they belong to Him - that's what the Lord said from His own lips: 'A new commandment I give unto you: that ye love one another as I have loved you; that ye also love one another. By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples: if ye have love one to another'.
I'd love to go into the book of 1 John because there's a passage there that says that no man has seen God at any time - and you know the passage I'm talking about - and how we will never really see God with our eyes. I don't know what's going to happen in Glory, but at the moment we can't see God, He is spirit, He is invisible. But John goes on to talk that we, as the temple of the Holy Ghost here on earth, are the way in which the world around sees God with the naked eye - if we love one another! How much of God is the world seeing? It's interesting that Paul combines these two great realities: truth and love, and he puts them together. Some people will tell me today that they might have faith, but they find it hard to love people. There are people who love and they're filled with love, but they don't have faith in the depths. Get the balance! Get it! That a true Christian - true Christianity - combines sound doctrine with sound living. Think of this: Paul is praising the spiritual success and blessing in others. That's what he's doing in reality and practical terms. Can you do that? Do you find it hard to look at another church and say 'God's really blessing them'? - and say 'Praise you Lord, I thank you Lord that you're blessing them; Lord continue to bless them, really bless them!'? It's a hard thing to do, and sometimes we can resent it when others are more blessed than we are and more praised than we are.
But let's move on because not only does he thank for their salvation with regards to faith and love, but the second point down on your sheet in verses 16b to 17 and 18 is this: that he prays for their illumination. '[I] cease not to give thanks for you, making mention of you in my prayers; That the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give unto you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him: The eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that ye may know what is the hope of his calling, and what the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints'. Now I want to pose a question to you this evening: do you think there is a difference between reading the word of God as a book, and reading it as a Christian should? Is there a difference? Some may say yes, some may say no, some say you need to read it intellectually first, and academically - but the word of God testifies this evening that, yes, there is a difference. A Christian, the child of God, when he opens this precious book he must see it as the word of God, and seek God's illumination. Paul prayed that the Christians in Ephesus may know illumination. Yes, I've already said all scripture is profitable, all scripture is God-inspired, God-breathed, as the word of God testifies that 'Holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Spirit of God' - but listen! Do not make this mistake: a merely natural man, if he picks up this book, my friend, and if he looks at it, it is possible that he will see nothing in it. Why is that? He doesn't know the author, isn't that right? You could read the Belfast Telegraph (as I'm sure many of you do) and you flick through it every night and you don't really read it. But wait till your grandchild, or your brother or sister, makes a great achievement in school or in sport - and what do you do? You pick it up. You make sure you buy it, and then you read the article and perhaps you'll cut it out, and you'll read it over and over again and again and again - why? Because you know the person! It means something to you - and when the believer reads the word of God he should be looking at it, knowing that he is indwelt by the Spirit of the living God, and when he reads it he should be hearing the word of God - the very voice of God - through the word!
That's what Paul means when he says that we are given - or ought to be given - the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him. I've broken up into four sections, how we receive this spirit of wisdom and revelation. What exactly is it? Is it a charismatic gift that's being talked about here? Something about dreams or a vision in the night? Is that what the word of God is speaking of here? Well, first of all, Paul tells us very clearly that the author of this spirit of wisdom and revelation is God. That's why he thanks God. Who's he thanking for it? He says: 'I thank the God and Father of the Lord Jesus Christ. I thank You Lord!'. Verse 17: 'That the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give unto you' - God is the author.
If you are to be given this spirit of wisdom and revelation, my friend, you need to see that God is going to have to give it to you. There's so much working, there's so much trying, there's so much striving, there's so much in the flesh in so many Christian lives today - and they do not see the simple reality that everything that we have, or can have, or will have, in our faith is of God! All of it! Start to finish! Oh, we believe the Bible - oh, yes, that's true: but did you know that the Bible alone is not enough? Did you know that? What am I saying? Well, we need God! We need God, through the Holy Spirit, to open up its truth to our minds and to our hearts. See if I took this book and preached it, I could bind many of you up with rules and regulations if I was not preaching knowing the reality of this book. And there are men all around the world, in lecture theatres, in universities, in church pulpits, and they preach from this book - but they don't have the Spirit of God in them, and because of if they're misinterpreting and misrepresenting the word of God. You see my friend, this is what Paul is speaking of: that we need God to come as we read the word of God and reveal His truths, not simply to our minds, but to our hearts also - and then, when He acts, the spirit of wisdom and revelation will come to us.
God is the author! But secondly, look at the means. The means that we know God, and are able to know all the intricate details of spiritual life, and life in and about the Lord Jesus Christ, is through the means of this spirit of wisdom and revelation. Now this Greek word 'revelation' here is the word that seems to indicate 'insight and discernment'. This is something that the Holy Spirit gives to the believer. 'He who will lead you', the Lord Jesus said, 'into all truth' - that, as you read the word of God, He comes and He brings the mysteries of divine truth to our souls. We find it in 1 Corinthians 2 verse 14 and 16: 'But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned'. That's the same idea that Paul is talking here about revelation: this must come from God! 'For who hath known the mind of the Lord, that he may instruct him? But we have the mind of Christ'. That's what Paul means - that we have been given the mind of Christ, the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that when we read the word of God we have the God-given ability to see Christ, to see God, to learn about these spiritual worlds, spiritual realms and things.
The author is God; the means is the spirit of wisdom and revelation, but thirdly look: the subject, the reason why we're given this ability, is to know Christ. Oh, that some people would get this! It's not to know the future. It's not to know the date the Lord is coming back. It is to know Him - 'Whom to know is life eternal'! Friend, this is not knowledge in general, this isn't mere intellectual knowledge on its own - for that is no good, and good for nothing! But this is the knowledge of Him, the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. Now the Ephesians had already been given divine knowledge and a divine revelation, they had been saved. Paul thanked God for their faith, and that is a divine revelation of God where the Holy Spirit:
'Thine eye diffused a quickening ray,
I woke, the dungeon flamed with light.
My chains fell off,
My heart was free.
I rose, went forth,
And followed Thee'.
Never forget, my friend, that salvation is a divine revelation - and if salvation is to come, God must come! You can't work it up! You can't bring it with music or emotion! You can't bring it with fancy lights or a fancy church - God must bring it! Do you know Him? Do you?
Paul prayed that they would have a clearer, a sharper, a keener, a more detailed knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. We were talking last evening about genetic engineering, and when we look around at the world today, and we are dazzled - aren't we? - we're surprised, we're taken aback with the discoveries that man has made in the natural realm. But Christian friends tonight, if we were to surrender ourselves to the Holy Spirit, who is the spirit of wisdom and revelation, and if we were to take the enlightenment that He gives through the word of God, we would see things far greater than that!
You know the Prime Minister, don't you? You know him. You know what he looks like - you even know, perhaps, the way he's wearing his hair at the minute. You know his wife, you know that she's pregnant, you maybe even know the date that the baby's meant to be due. You know his whole family. You know what he stands for or what he falls for. You know so much about him, but you don't really know him, do you? Some of us - what Paul is trying to say - that when we get saved, if we leave it there, friends, that that's pitiful. That is tragic, because we have an opportunity to have an audience, to have an experience, to have a relationship, with the King of kings and the Lord of lords! Do you know Him? For God wants to give to you the knowledge of Him, God wants to draw you into the Holy Scriptures. The word for knowledge within this verse is the word 'gnosis', but Paul takes that word that simply means 'knowledge' and he intensifies it, and he puts a little word in front of it - a preposition: 'epi' - and he talks about 'epignosis'. The 'epignosis' of Christ - do you know what he's saying? A real, deep, full knowledge - he is talking about a thorough knowledge of Jesus Christ - to go deeper and deeper into God, in Christ.
What's the cry of the world today? 'Know yourself', isn't it? 'Know who you are, what you believe, what you feel, your emotions, all your natural instincts and senses. Know who you are'. Bullinger (sp?) says this: 'Society today, instead of breathing in this life-giving air of heaven, their windows are closed, their doors are shut, they are asphyxiated with their own exhalation. They are breathing over again and again their own breath, from which all vitality is gone'. The clarion cry today is: 'Find yourself'. 'I went away to this country or that country', or, 'I took up this career and I found myself'. Friend, you don't need to find yourself, you need to find Christ. You will do no good for yourself - whether you find yourself time, after time, after time, after time again - it'll do you no good: you need Jesus Christ the Son of God! That's why Paul said in Philippians 3:10: 'That I may know him'. You see, that's life - not just getting saved, but the whole relationship with Him, to get to know Him more and more and more. That is why Paul said again in 1 Corinthians 2, 10 and 11: 'But God hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit: for the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God...even so the things of God knoweth no man, but the Spirit of God'. The Spirit of God inspired these pages, and if you're a believer this evening, you need the Spirit of God to come and illuminate these pages.
But fourthly, look at the instrument. The instrument that God uses to bring this wisdom and revelation, which is the word of God brought to our hearts individually, to our lives. The instrument is described as 'our hearts' - but a better translation of it would be this: 'the eyes of our hearts'. Look at the verse, verse 18: 'The eyes of your understanding' - the eyes of your heart - 'being enlightened that ye may know'. We thought about it yesterday morning - that our hearts have eyes and ears. And the way we will know God (oh, that we could grasp it!) is nothing to do with our intellect. God may have gifted us with a keen intellect, but what God wants is a tender heart, a contrite, a broken spirit. For His knowledge - that revelation of who Christ is - is something that is given to them who love Him enough to want to know more about Him! Your knowledge of God doesn't depend on your IQ, but the eyesight of your heart. Friend, how is the eyesight of your heart? What does your heart feed on? What does your heart thrive on? It is the seat of your thoughts and your affections, it is the place where you make your moral judgements, as well as you feel in your emotions. But, my friend, that is the instrument that God the Spirit wants to use to reveal Jesus Christ the Son of God to you. Does He have it, or does the world have it?
If this is going to happen, if God the author is going to do this - if He's going to bring the means through the spirit of wisdom and revelation, if He's going to reveal the subject of Jesus Christ to the instrument of the eyes of your heart - there's three things you need to do. One: you need to spend time. You will never get to know anyone without spending time with them. Two: you need to talk with Him. You need to talk with Him, converse with Him, commune with Him, and let me say this: when you're talking to your friends you need to talk about Him. There are people who confide in me that when they're with other believers, when they talk about the Lord, they look at them as if they've horns growing out of their head. They talk about the things of God - these are believers they're talking to - and they don't want to talk about Him. They want to talk about everything under the sun, but the meeting's over, they're out for a walk, or they're having supper, or they're doing something else, and their 'spiritual hour' has gone! Do you talk about Him? And you need to think about Him. Do you know what the key is of seeing Christ with your heart? It's taking the word of God and a holy Christ contemplation. Taking the word of God, through the Spirit of God, and meditating upon the Christ of God!
Harry Ironside tells of years previous to his so successful and blessed ministry, that he went home to his mother, and he was just staring in his gospel ministry, and when he got home (this is in America now) he found a man in their home from Northern Ireland. Ironside was a young man, but this man from Northern Ireland was dying of what they called in those days 'quick consumption'. He lived in a small tent under the olive trees. Ironside went out to see him one day, and they ended up on their knees with an open Bible. He said that this man, who could hardly talk, as he opened the word of God to him, as he looked upon his thin worn face, he could see the very peace of heaven manifested there. His name was Andrew Fraser, he could barely talk, his voice was ragged and old and dying. He said to Ironside as he came to him: 'Young man, you are trying to preach Christ are you not?'. They talked together, turning from page to page, passage to another, and the tears began to run down Harry Ironside's face as the truth of the Lord Jesus Christ was being brought to him from the whole gamut of scripture in ways that he had never seen before. He turned to the man and he said: 'Where did you learn these things? What books are you reading? Could you show me where they are? What seminary did you go to?'. The man said: 'Young man, I learned these things on my knees on a mud floor in a little sod cottage in the north of Ireland'.
Do you know one of the books that has blessed me, apart from the Bible, in my life? It's A.W. Tozer's book: 'The Pursuit of God'. It was written on his knees. One of the greatest works of all New Testament Christianity is Watchman Nee's work, the only book he ever wrote - all the other books are a combination of his diary writings and his messages - but the one book he wrote, 'The Spiritual Man', was written in a little log hut in the mountains of Asia - on his knees! Where do you think Paul was when he was writing this? He was on his knees, I dare to guess and - my friend - what he was praying for these believers was that they could know Christ in the deepest sense imaginable. And you know that the tone deaf will never stand up here and sing a solo - you can train them, you can send them to musical school and university, you can do all you like with them, but they will never learn to sing. The only way that is possible is that they become a new person and that they're given the nature of a soloist. We may not be the cleverest, we may be despised among all people but, my friend, listen to this: we have Christ! And because we have Him, we have everything. Because we have Him, we can be brought into the depths of the knowledge of God in His vastness, in His transcendence, in His love, in Christ for us at Calvary, in the depths of His justice in hell. We can know all of God through the word of God, breathed upon by the Spirit of God!
Two other things - quickly - that he prays for, thirdly, is the prayer to know hope. And what Paul is talking about here is the hope of His calling. We found it and we read about it in chapter 1 and verse 3 and 4: 'Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places'. He begins to talk about how we are chosen in Christ, how we are predestinated in Him. Why are we predestinated in him? So that one day - one day - listen to this, now don't miss this - we shall be like Him! Now I hope this is not irreverent what I'm about to say, but it pictures it for me: that spiritually speaking, when I get to heaven, if I could take my camera with me (spiritually speaking now), and I stand beside my Lord and get my photograph taken with Him - we would be the same! Isn't that wonderful? What will it be to look on His face, and not just to look on His face, but to be transformed to be like Him and to be like Him forever?
Our Father, we thank Thee for the word of God, and we thank Thee for the Spirit of God who shall lead us into all truth; who helps us - the 'paraklete' - the one who comes beside and takes us along the way. Lord, we pray that as we ponder Thy word and meditate upon it, that You may teach us Thy way. We know that that will be in the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ, for He has said: 'He that shall come will testify of me'. Lord, help us to know Him, in Jesus' name, Amen.
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Transcribed by Trevor Veale, Preach The Word - February 2001
www.preachtheword.co.uk
info@preachtheword.co.uk
Ephesians - Chapter 8
"Paul's Prayer List For You - Part 2"
Copyright 2000
by Pastor David Legge
All Rights Reserved
| Ephesians 1:15-23 |
| 1. Thanks For Salvation (verses 15-16a) a. Faith b. Love 2. Prayer For Illumination (verses 16b-17) a. The Author – By God b. The Means – Through Wisdom And Revelation c. The Subject – To Know Christ d. The Instrument – The Eyes Of Your Heart 3. Prayer To Know Hope (verse 18b) 4. Prayer To Know Inheritance (verse 18c) 5. Prayer To Know Power (verses 19-23) a. Infinite (verse 19b) b. In Christ (verses 20-23) |
Now it's good to see you all out this Monday evening to our Bible study here in the Hall, and we're glad to see you. We hope and trust that as we meet together round God's word, studying His word, that we will see our Lord Jesus Christ, and our prayer will be that we will love Him more and more.
If you have your handout from last week - perhaps you don't have it, there were some on the way in, but maybe you missed that - but if you have it, it would be helpful to you. I want you to add a few other little points to that handout from last week also, because we're reaching the fourth and the fifth point of that handout - and we're going to look, first of all, at the fourth point and then we're going to tease out a little bit the fifth point. But let's read Ephesians chapter 1 again to refresh our minds - and I read this every week, and I don't apologise for it because it's a beautiful chapter of the word of God.
"Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God, to the saints which are at Ephesus, and to the faithful in Christ Jesus: Grace be to you, and peace, from God our Father, and from the Lord Jesus Christ. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ: According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love: Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will, To the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted in the beloved. In whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his grace; Wherein he hath abounded toward us in all wisdom and prudence; Having made known unto us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure which he hath purposed in himself: That in the dispensation of the fulness of times he might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven, and which are on earth; even in him: In whom also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestinated according to the purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will: That we should be to the praise of his glory, who first trusted in Christ. In whom ye also trusted, after that ye heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation: in whom also after that ye believed, ye were sealed with that holy Spirit of promise, Which is the earnest of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession, unto the praise of his glory. Wherefore I also, after I heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus, and love unto all the saints, Cease not to give thanks for you, making mention of you in my prayers; That the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give unto you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him: The eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that ye may know what is the hope of his calling, and what the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints, And what is the exceeding greatness of his power to us-ward who believe, according to the working of his mighty power, Which he wrought in Christ, when he raised him from the dead, and set him at his own right hand in the heavenly places, Far above all principality, and power, and might, and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this world, but also in that which is to come: And hath put all things under his feet, and gave him to be the head over all things to the church, Which is his body, the fulness of him that filleth all in all".
We began, last Monday evening, thinking of the prayer of Paul - Paul's prayer list for you, and for me. We spent several weeks - we're on our eighth study now - but we spent six weeks looking at all the blessings that we are blessed with in heavenly realms in Christ Jesus. We looked at the whole history of salvation. Then we began last week, from verse 15, looking at the prayer, Paul's prayer list for the saints in Ephesus - and we also looked at how this is the list of prayer requests that Paul intercedes for every believer in Christ across the whole world. We looked last week at how he thanked God for their salvation, how he saw within them the combination of their faith rooted in Christ, but also how they were walking in faith day by day. We saw the combination of that faith with the possession of love which was practised, which was the fruit of that faith in the depths of their spirit - that it bore a love one for another. The only way that they could know that they were born again was this combination of the faith of Christ, with the love of Christ.
Then he prayed in verse 16, right through to 18, for illumination. We saw how, through the word of God, we have God's revelation to us - but we also saw that it's very simple to read the word of God and to misinterpret what is on these pages. Therefore Paul prayed that the saints in Ephesus, Christians everywhere, would have from the Holy Spirit a knowledge, a revelation, that they knew what the word of God was really saying. We learnt how only God could give that - that the means of it was through this spirit of wisdom and revelation, the purpose of it was to know Christ Jesus. We saw that the instrument of it was the eyes of our hearts - that we don't know Christ through our IQ or intellectually speaking or academically. We can know about Him in that way, but to know Him: it is a thing of the heart. Then we learnt, thirdly, that Paul prayed for that hope; that that hope would purify them, that it would fill them. As Peter said: 'That hope of seeing the Lord Jesus Christ' - the blessed hope that one day He would come again for His own people and they would see Him, they would be conformed to His image, because they had been predestinated to that day.
Now we turn to the fourth point that we have down on our sheet - verse 18. He says: 'The eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that ye may know what is the hope of his calling' - one - 'what are the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints' - two - 'and what is the exceeding greatness of his power to us-ward who believe' - three. A three-fold prayer request of Paul. We've already looked at the hope, but then Paul says: 'I pray that the Holy Spirit of God would reveal to these Christians in Ephesus the inheritance that they have. That they would know the great blessings that God has given them'. There are two possible meanings for this inheritance. Of course, we learned in weeks gone by that Paul has already spoken about the inheritance that we have. And, in fact, we read those verses in this sense: that we have been made the inheritance of God. We are God's people, we are washed in the blood of Christ, we have the seal of the Holy Spirit - His mark upon us and therefore through grace, through redemption, we have become God's purchased possession. That's what verse 11 says if you turn back to it. We read it in this way: 'In whom also we have obtained an inheritance', or 'we have become an inheritance', 'being predestinated according to the purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will'. That's what Paul wrote to Titus, was it not, in chapter 2 and verse 14? Listen: 'Who', Christ, 'gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works'. Peter spoke about it - 1 Peter 2:9: 'But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should shew forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvellous light'.
Isn't it glorious? We have been made God's possession! Didn't we learn when we were thinking of the sealing of the Holy Spirit, how manufacturers around our world, when they put a seal or a stamp upon their product, that they love to be able to stand over it. They love to be proud of it - the wonder of wonders of the grace of God, the amazing grace in Christ is this: that as God looks down on us, His people - rooted and grounded and washed in the blood of Christ - He looks at a peculiar people. He looks at a special people. He looks at a pure people, a jewel for Him, His treasured possession. Of course, the second meaning of this phrase 'inheritance' can be this - and this is what it means in the context of the rest of the chapter as we read through it: that it is we, we will inherit something in the future through Christ. You see God's plan is not simply to save us - not even to save us, and then to have us serve Him down here - but there are so many things in the future that God has prepared for them that love Him. It can't be entered into through eye-gate or even through the mind. The amazing thing is this: that this verse seems to indicate that He will possess this universe. He will take, He will capture a redeemed universe through His saints! Isn't that amazing? That He will use you and use me! The word of God says that 'He will come with ten thousands of his saints', and He will bring us down here, and we will reign with Him!
It is amazing, isn't it? Just before World War II in the town of Ataska in Texas, a school took fire and burnt down, and 263 lives of little children were taken. Like many places in Ulster, there was scarcely a town in which someone wasn't affected with a family losing a child. After the war they built the school again and they began to expand it and do it up, technologically speaking, and in their new school they had a prized possession. They had learnt from the past and they put in what was called 'the finest sprinkler system in the world'. They were making sure that this thing would never ever happen again. Civic pride ran high - they thought 'this will never happen, the school will never burn down'. And they even got their prefects and their teachers to bring people, day after day, into the school to show them around at the intricate detail of the safety features within the school. After the post-war boom, when more money came into the school, they decided they would expand and they would build another wing. And as they were adding the wing to the school it was discovered that the sprinkler system had never been connected. What an incredible story! It's foolishness beyond belief, isn't it? How they could have everything at their grasp, even everything at their use, yet alas the parable tells us what has happened to so many children of God - that untold power and resources and blessings are available to every believer in Christ, but so many never hook up! So many never get in touch, never plug in, and they become impotent and shamefully useless in the hands of Almighty God!
What Paul wants these Christians in Ephesus to do is, as he looks at this passage, not only to realise the inheritance that they have but - fifthly - he wants them to know the power that they have through God in Christ. Look at the verses - verse 18, the third part: 'That [you] might know what the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints, and what is the exceeding greatness of his power to us-ward who believe, according to the working of his mighty power, which he wrought in Christ'. God wants you and I, my friend - listen - to know the power that is available to us! To know the dynamite, the atomic power that we have to be saved, and then to go on to live the Christian life before men and women in our world. Paul asks God: 'Oh Lord, give them that spirit of wisdom and understanding and revelation, discernment; that as they read the word of God, that the Holy Spirit would come, lead them into all truth, interpret the word of God to them, and then they would come deeper and deeper and deeper into the knowledge of the heavenly realms of the riches and the blessings that they have in Christ Jesus the Lord'. He prays that they would have a deep appreciation of the power of God, that they would realise - and you know what he's been talking about all through this first chapter - that they would realise the power that is behind election, the power that is behind predestination, behind adoption, behind sanctification, the power of God that is behind the bestowal of all these blessings, behind the preaching of the word of God, behind that blessed hope, behind everything that we have as an inheritance, and the power behind what has made us an inheritance in Christ. If you could see this passage of scripture written on music, every note is leading upward. It's coming to the crescendo, it's coming to the grand finale of what Paul has been leading to right throughout this whole discourse of salvation and Christian blessing.
What's it leading to? First of all it's leading - as your first point says under 5 - to show them God's infinite power. God's power! The purpose of what Paul is trying to bring out here is the potential of God's power - 'What is the exceeding greatness of his power to us-ward who believe'. F.B. Meyer put it like this: 'It is power. It is His power. It is great power. Nothing less would suffice. It is exceeding great power beyond the furthest cast of thought'. To emphasise the magnitude of God's power - Paul can't really do it in language that we understand, because you can't do it in any language - and Paul describes the greatest exposition and exhibition of divine power that has ever been known in the history of mankind. Verse 20, this power was demonstrated and 'wrought in Christ when he raised him from the dead'. He goes on: 'and set him at his own right hand in heavenly places'.
If I were to ask you what you believe the greatest demonstration of God's power was, you might say to me: 'Well, it must be creation. That in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth and the universe. He created all the angelic beings, the whole solar systems, everything! Was that not the greatest? In a word it all came into being'. You might say: 'Well, it must be the Red Sea, where God parted the sea for His children to deliver them from Egypt'. You might say it's the plagues that hit Egypt, every one representing one of their false gods, to curse them and to let the people of God go from them. You might even say it's the incarnation - God manifest in flesh, great mystery of godliness: God, contracted to a span, incomprehensibly made man. You might say that is the greatest thing. No! Paul tells us that the greatest demonstration of the power of God is found here: He wrought, He demonstrated His power in Christ when He raised Him from the dead, and set Him at His own right hand in heavenly places.
Why is that the greatest demonstration? Do you know why? Because all of hell, all the demons, all the devils and principalities and powers were massed, united together to frustrate the plans of almighty God. They wanted to keep Christ in the grave, but God triumphed - Hallelujah! God triumphed and pushed Him, by the power of His almighty being, out of the ground, out of the burying place, and brought Him back to life. Christ's resurrection, Christ's glorification and exultation were a shattering blow to Satan and all his hosts on that glorious day when He rose Him again from the dead. God's victorious power was displayed as never before! As I've said, no one can describe or explain such power, but Paul tries to do it - and he uses several words with the same idea. He uses the words of the vocabulary of dynamics. Look at the verse - verse 19: 'what is the exceeding greatness of his power to us-ward who believe, according to the working of his mighty power, which he wrought in Christ when he raised him from the dead'. According to the working - note that word, 'working', of the 'strength' - the second word - of His might - the third word - which He 'energised' in Christ - the fourth word - when He raised Him from the dead.
Someone described that sentence like this: 'The words seem to bend under the idea'. Do you see what Paul is trying to get at? The first word he uses - 'power' - the power of God, which was manifest, demonstrating - is the Greek work 'dynamus' (sp?). It's the word that describes inherent power, raw strength and the power of God. God is demonstrating His raw ability and strength by working according to the working. That word 'working' speaks of operation, it's the Greek word 'energia' (sp?). It's the word that we get energy from, it speaks of great strength. God was working His great 'dynamus' - His great power - through the working in Christ, through the strength of the strength. 'kratos' (sp?) - it means 'might'. Then the last word, 'energised', is 'iscus' (sp?). Do you see what it's trying to say? This working, this effective or operational power, the 'energia' - the working of God - was there at the resurrection. What is the word that he's using? If you turn to chapter 3 and verse 7 you see it, he says: Whereof I was made a minister, according to the gift of the grace of God given unto me by the effectual working of his power'.
That's what the word is - 'energia' - something that is working, but not just working, but working effectually, it's having the desired effect. God was demonstrating His power at the resurrection and, praise God, it had the desired effect! The word 'kratos' speaks of the power in-working right within, the ability to conquer. It's talking about Wellington's ability to conquer Napoleon at Waterloo. It's what we read in chapter 6 and verse 10, look at it: 'Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord, and in the power of his might'. The strength of God, energising, not only effectually working in the life of a believer, but effectually working in the resurrection of Christ and also being seen in the bodily strength that is vital within the resurrection of Christ. Paul wants, through this tirade of language, he wants us to look at the resurrected Christ, the Lord of glory standing there on the resurrection morn. He wants us to see the immensity of the power of our God. He wants us to bow at the Saviour's feet and worship divine omnipotence - strength that isn't just executed and fails, but the strength of God that is effectual, strength that is inherent, that is deep within the being of God, that can never fail, strength that is there and displayed, the ability to conquer never failing - always conquering!
Do you not want to fall at His feet? This is where the power is: at the resurrection and, yes, at the cross and we love the cross - that was the supreme display of the love of God. But the greatest manifestation of God's power was when He resurrected His Son and when He set Him at His own right hand. But before Paul begins to analyse the power of God in the resurrection, do you know what he wants us to see? And if you don't see it you're missing everything! He wants to see, incomparably, the great power for us who believe! You see, Paul isn't just demonstrating all this so that we can be theologians, so that we can be 'biblical clever-clogs' and know everything about the power of God. But he is demonstrating to us, through an illustration of this great power in the resurrection of Christ, that this dynamic, dynamite power is available to us who believe. It's available in salvation, isn't it? Isn't that what Romans 1 verse 16 [says]? 'For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power' - the 'dynamus' - 'of God unto salvation to everyone that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek'.
There might be someone here, and they're not a Christian. They've never been born again. They don't know the life of God flowing through their body, soul and spirit - and maybe you think that you've committed a sin that is unforgivable. You have dirt on you, mind or soul, that you feel can never be cleansed, you're too dirty. My friend, when you see the power of God raising Christ from the dead, there is no one too unredeemable! There is no sin that's unforgivable! There is no sinner that's unsaveable! But Christian, that power is available not only in salvation - and this is what many of them miss - it's sanctification. Look at chapter 3 and verse 20. He talks about this: 'Now unto him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us'. God's power! That dynamic, dynamite change that should be going on, chemically, within all of us.
Paul talks again, Romans 6:3 and 4: 'Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death? Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life'. What's this power for? It's power to save, it's power to sanctify, it's power to know! Is that not why Paul prayed in Philippians 3 and 10: 'That I might know him'? The only way we can know Him is to know His power in our lives. Can I ask you: Paul said 'That I might know him and the power of his resurrection' - do you know the power of the resurrection in your life? 'What do you mean?' I mean that this divine power is available to every believer in Christ! I'm not story telling tonight, this is real! I'm talking about real things, real life, things that matter! God has imparted to you - it doesn't need to be done again, He's done it - He has given you the divine power that rose Christ out of the grave! Do you have it? Oh, you do have it! Have you realised it? Have you tapped into it? Do you know it's there? Are you using it? As one Christian writer put it: 'Many Christians, today, the system is in place but is dysfunctional because of ignorance, or sin, or unbelief'.
Paul's prayer is, if you're not experiencing this, that God would give to you the spirit of wisdom and revelation that you might know Christ, that you might know the inheritance that you have in Christ, that you would know the mighty power that Christ had wrought in Him at the resurrection there, and then as He ascended to Glory and sat at the right hand of His Father. That you, in your life - your life that you mightn't think is too important, your life that you think is insignificant, that God isn't really interested in and you can't do much for God, you're not a great thinker, you're not a writer, you're not a preacher - but yet God has imparted to you the resurrection power of Christ! But one thing matters, and that is that that power is dependent upon our fellowship with God. Oh, don't miss that whatever you do. It's dependent - the knowledge of it, the experience of it. It's like Samson - you remember that awful passage in Judges 16 where he said: 'I will go out as at other times before, and shake myself. And he wist not that the Lord was departed from him'. He was out of touch with God!
God displays His power infinitely through salvation and sanctification, and then [in] verses 20 to 23 we see that He displays His power in Christ in many ways. The first way is this: in the resurrection, that we've already been talking about in verse 20. The resurrection - it was the supreme expression of the power of God, 'Which he wrought in Christ, when he raised him from the dead, and set him at his own right hand in the heavenly places'. This is what F.B. Meyer says about this: 'There is a marvellous lift there from the grave of mortality to the throne of the eternal God who only has immortality, from the darkness of the tomb to the insufferable light, from this small world to the centre and metropolis of the universe. Open the compasses of your faith to the measure of the measureless abyss, and then marvel at the power which bore your Lord across it'.
Do you see it? The power of God that took Christ from the tomb, and took Him to Glory, and brought Him into the realms of Glory, and set Him there at the right hand of His Father. You see, the resurrection of Christ was the first event ever like it in all of history. You might say, 'But people were raised from the dead before. There was Lazarus, there was miracles in the Old Testament'. But all those folk rose from the dead to die again, but He rose in the power of an endless life. Isn't that what Paul says [in] 1 Corinthians 15? 'Christ the firstfruits; afterward they that are Christ's at his coming'. He is the first like Him! He is the first to rise from the dead like that! With the power of eternity running through Him! Never to die again! There will never be another Calvary! There will never be another tomb! He will never have scars upon His flesh again. And, here, Paul describes - inspired by the Holy Spirit - the resurrection of Christ through the Father God. Yet Jesus Himself said - didn't He? - 'I have power to lay down my life, and I have power to take it again'. Yet He ascribes the resurrection to the Father and the only way of explaining it is this: He said, 'I and my father are one'. There in the resurrection we see both together in that unity. What a display of the oneness of God in His resurrection!
Then in the second half of verse 20, you see it in His exultation. This is so interesting, because Paul links the resurrection, in its powerful importance, to the ascension. Cast your mind back to the end of the gospels, and you see the disciples gathered there, and Jesus had risen from the dead, He had ministered 40 days upon the earth to little groups and to big groups. Then He gathered His disciples together around Him and said: 'Ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you: and ye shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem, and in all Judaea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth'. Then a luminous cloud descended, and with their dazzled eyes they watched their Saviour slowly gliding up to Glory, as He sat at the right hand of the Father on high. What would you have given to be there? One writer said: 'Can you imagine the music, the perpetual starbursts of colour, the shouting of myriads and myriads of angels at the enthronement of the Lord Jesus Christ?' Can you imagine what that moment was like, when the Lamb slain came in there with His own blood and the angels marvelled, and the Father, if He could stand, stood to welcome home His Son?
There is power in the ascension because it says that God made Him to sit. You know, this is beautiful - we read about it in the book of Hebrews that He sat down. Now that is a sign of authority, but it is also a sign of the finished work - that He sat down in heavenly places. Watchman Nee says: 'Christianity begins not with a big 'do', but a big 'done''. It's finished! It's over! Everything is done! He did it! Oh, that thrills my heart! As I walk this pilgrimage, and I try and I try and I try to be holy, I try to serve, I try to strive to be more like Christ, and all along He's saying: 'My son, my child, why are you striving for all that I've done already?'. It's wonderful! There He sits, with the work done, at the right hand of God - and do you know what that signifies? It signifies a place of privilege. We read about it in Hebrews 1:13 - listen: 'But to which of the angels said he at any time, Sit on my right hand, until I make thine enemies thy footstool?' - none of them! That is a place of privilege reserved for Christ, it's a place of power. "Hereafter," He said, "shall ye see the Son of Man sitting on the right hand of power, and coming in the clouds of Heaven". The right hand of power! It's a place of distinction and in Hebrews 1 and 3 we read: 'Who being the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person, and upholding all things by the word of his power, when he had by himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high'. It's a place of delight, the psalmist says in [Psalm] 16 and [verse] 11: 'at thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore'. It's a place of dominion, 1 Peter 3:22: 'Who is gone into heaven, and is on the right hand of God; angels and authorities and powers being made subject unto him'. A place of privilege, power, distinction, delight and dominion is reserved for one Man: Jesus Christ!
You know, the ascension does at least five things. It completes the resurrection. You see, when the Lord rose from the dead, there He was and He yet [hadn't] ascended to Heaven, and it would not have been complete unless there was a man - a physical being of God-man who was in heaven. Do you get it? That at this moment, as we sit here, there is a man like us in every way, except sin, in heaven - and He's at the right hand of God! It means, secondly, that He became the firstfruits of His people. Because He has risen, because He has ascended, it guarantees for us that there is a day coming when we will rise, when our bodies will be redeemed, when we will be glorified, exalted - every believer in Christ! Thirdly, it began a ministry of intercession for His people. See what we've been singing this evening, what we have been praying? It all goes through the Lord Jesus Christ, our great High Priest there, who interprets that worship and prayer and it's offered through Him to God the Father. Praise His name! Fourthly, from that position that He is in there at the right hand of the Father, He is the dispenser of the holy word of God. Do you get it? When He ascended He led captivity captive, and gave gifts to men.
But most significantly, the ascension means His super-exultation above all things. Now I want you to see this, as we close our meeting this evening, verses 21 and 22 - that He has become, through that resurrection, through that exultation and ascension: 'Far above all principality, and power, and might, and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this world, but also in that which is to come: [He] hath put all things under his feet, and gave him to be the head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fulness of him that filleth all in all'. Paul again, he can't describe our Lord, can you describe Him? I can't. He couldn't either, even inspired by the Holy Spirit. He had to stack up all these words and [do] you know [how] he puts it? Verse 22 really means this: 'that He is put above every title', (verse 21, I beg your pardon), 'every title that can be given'. Have you got that? Christ is exalted above every conceivable intelligence, every angelic being, demonic, human - whatever they be, He is above them all! One writer put it like this: 'Above all that anywhere is, anywhere can be, above all grades of dignity, real or imagined, good or evil, present or to come'.
My friend, you can't imagine anything greater than our Lord. Men's imaginations run wild, don't they? Sometimes theologian's minds run wild also! But yet they cannot think of anyone, of any being, greater than our Lord. He is above all! He has been exalted to that place of pre-eminence.
Verse 17: we learned that Paul asked for us, and prayed for us, that we would have 'epignosis', which was knowledge - that deep deep knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ, that revelation of Him through the Holy Spirit. And friends, if you have that, and if God begins to give you that, do you know what you'll see? The exalted Christ! Now can I say this? - 'Whom having not seen we love', isn't that right? We've never seen Him, we've never gazed upon Him and sometimes we're in prayer, or we're meditating, or we're listening to preaching, or we're around the table and we're trying to conceive, or even imagine, what the Lord was like when He said certain things, or when He did certain things. Then when we come to pray to Him, we imagine Him as He was on the earth - that is not the way He is now. Friends, we need to understand this: we worship the exalted Christ! We worship the glorified Christ, who is ascended to Heaven. The courts have rung with the singing of angels! God has praised His Son! He is exalted! Let's get it right! He is the Lord and there will never be an age when He would be out-ceded or far exceeded.
My friend, this should give us spiritual goosebumps. We should be excited at what our Lord has done and who He is, and the power that has been manifest in His being. Now this humbles me: this is the power of my Lord Jesus, yet He wants me there. Does that not amaze you? He wants you and I there. He said in John 17: 'Father, I will that they also, whom thou hast given me, be with me where I am; that they may behold my glory, which thou hast given me: for thou lovedst me before the foundation of the world'. It says in these verses that He has power over created beings, human and spiritual. You see, there's a hierarchy of angelic beings, whether they be good or evil. It's a bit like the rank in the army, but the word of God is saying that He is far above, verse 21: 'all principality, and power, and might, and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this world, but also in that which is to come'. He's above all demons. He's above all angels and archangels. He's above every man! He's above all!
Paul says, in this world, and in the world to come - and that would be better translated: 'in this age and in the age to come'. What it literally is speaking of is the literal 1000 year reign of the Lord Jesus Christ - the millennial reign. It's saying this: that until then, and when that is achieved and accomplished and consummated, that He alone will be the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords! Verse 22 says that He has power over created things: '[He] hath put all things under his feet, and gave him to be the head over all things to the church' - all the rest of creation, although universal dominion belongs to Him now, the word of God says He doesn't exercise it all, He doesn't demonstrate it all - but there is a day coming when He will! Hallelujah!
Are you downhearted this evening? Are you? Are you discouraged? Do you feel belittled by the circumstances of this pitiful existence that you feel? Listen to Paul! 'For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us'. Then, finally, verse 22 and 23 speak, and this is the crescendo, this is the climax that Paul has been leading up to - that God's power has been revealed through the resurrection, the ascension, and all the outflow of that. But the miracle and the mystery is this: that God has revealed His power towards His church. '[He] hath put all things under his feet, and gave him to be the head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fulness of him that filleth all in all'. This is the mystery that was never revealed before, the church is not in the Old Testament. It was revealed in Christ and through Christ and - here it is: that this Christ has been given as the head of the church! No other head! No pope! No moderator! No minister! No elder! No pastor! Jesus Christ alone!
But that is not primarily what that verse means, its meaning is more staggering than that. It means that this almighty Christ has been given as a gift to you and me. Isn't that amazing? Is it any wonder that Paul said: 'this unspeakable gift'? The miracle of grace is also this, and I mean this sincerely, verse 23: 'Which is his body, the fulness of him that filleth all in all'. What Paul is saying here is this: that until Jesus Christ receives the inheritance of His own peculiar people, He will be incomplete. That's what Paul's saying - now, not incomplete in His character, but incomplete in the body. You've never heard of a body without a head, or a head without a body! It's amazing, as Calvin says, that Jesus Christ, as He is at this moment of time, does not want to be regarded as whole until we are home.
Is there a temptation, my friend that you can't get over? Is there a trial? Is there a burden? Is there an obstacle that you feel that you cannot face? Think again, for we have the powerful Christ! Glory to His name!
We're going to stand and sing:
'He is Lord! He is Lord!
He is risen from the dead,
And He is Lord!
Every knee shall bow,
Every tongue confess,
That Jesus Christ is Lord!'
And then we'll sing the second verse: 'He's My Lord!', standing to sing.
[Congregation sings]
Lord Jesus Christ, we acknowledge Thee as our Lord, as the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords, as the worthy inheritor of all things. But Lord Jesus, it humbles us to think that You consider Yourself incomplete without the blood-bought throng. Lord, we are Thy bride and we say: 'We love Thee, Thou art altogether lovely'. We pray that, moment by moment, that through the spirit of wisdom and revelation that You would peep through the lattice, and give us glorious glimpses of Thy blessed person. Amen.
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Transcribed by Trevor Veale, Preach The Word - February 2001
www.preachtheword.co.uk
info@preachtheword.co.uk
Ephesians - Chapter 9
"From Death To Life"
Copyright 2000
by Pastor David Legge
All Rights Reserved
| Ephesians 2:1-7 |
| 1. Depraved And Dead (verses 1-3) 2. Arrested And Alive (verses 4-7) |
We come to our study again in the book of Ephesians and we're now into chapter 2, this is our ninth study - not our eighth study as it says on your sheet, it's actually our ninth study. It's been a bit confusing and I apologise to Steven Smith [and] thank him for printing these week after week - I keep meaning to thank him, but I always forget. But it's been confusing, because we've been running the same sheet into the second week quite a lot and it's actually the ninth week of our study. It's taken us eight weeks getting through chapter one, but I hope it's been well worth - it studying those beautiful truths that we have in the Gospel. We're looking at chapter two and we're going to read the first seven verses, and God willing we'll get through them all this evening. So let's read them, and please read them in the light of what we have already read and studied in chapter one. It's important that you don't see it as a section on its own, so remember election, predestination, adoption, all those beautiful things, redemption, the riches of the knowledge of wisdom that we have in Christ, all the things that we have been blessed with in heavenly realms, that we have seen already within chapter one. So in that light and remembering Paul in prison, on his knees, praying to God and writing to God about these blessings - he already has all of this in his mind as he comes to write chapter 2 verse 1: "And you hath he quickened, who were dead in trespasses and in sins: Wherein time past ye walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience: Among whom also we all had our conversation in times past in the lusts of the flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind; and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others. But God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us, Even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, (by grace ye are saved;) And hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus: That in the ages to come he might show the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward us through Christ Jesus."
Let us take a moments prayer: Lord Jesus Christ, we seek Thee now. We ask that Thou wilt come, Amen.
I'm told that Mount Whitney, in the US of A, in the state of California, is the highest spot in the whole of the Continental US. There's not a higher spot or mountain or piece of land - it's 14,495 feet - and as you stand on that precipice, you can see from that great height a panaroma of the Sierra Nevadas, the beautiful mountains snow-capped all around - and then in the distance you can also see the low lands of the desert plains panned out before your eye. On one side you can see clearly the crystal, indigo and turquoise lakes all around, glistering in the sun. And it seems like the top of the world - as you stand there it seems that there could not be a higher point in all of the universe - as you look on God's earth, you look down at it all. But if you look carefully, about 80 miles southeast is what is called Death Valley, and although this great mountain - Mount Whitney - is the highest point in the US, Death Valley is the lowest point, 280 feet below sea level - and indeed the hottest place in the whole country with a record of 134 degrees in the shade. What a contrast: standing on one place, the highest point, the highest hill, yet able to see from there the lowest point in the whole of the country.
Ephesians 2 - which could be called the 'purple passage' of the 'purple book' of the New Testament - Ephesians - is a bit like that. For Paul brings us from where we have been - in heavenly places, blessed in heavenly realms in Christ Jesus with all those blessings that we've already thought about - and he has us on that mountain, that pinnacle and we've been on it. We saw that he was getting to a climax in the last verses of chapter one, talking about the power that rose the Lord Jesus from the grave and seated Him at the right hand of God, and he talks about how that power is available to you and to me. And now from that pinnacle, from that mountain, he wants us - just for a moment - to take a little glimpse into where we have come from. From the highest point that any human being or spirit can reach, to look down to the depths of depravity that we came from.
Don't let the chapter division put you off, or rob you of its connection with chapter one. Because what Paul is saying, the power that he talks about in the last verses, verse 19: "And what is the exceeding greatness of his power to us-ward who believe, according to the working of his mighty power, which he wrought in Christ, when he raised him from the dead, and set him at his own right hand in heavenly places, far above all principality…". This power that raised Christ from the dead, this power that put Christ at that privileged, honoured place at the right hand of His Father, that power is the power that saves you! That's what Paul's getting at, Paul is saying: 'It is that power that works in you'! God has let this atomic, dynamite power of His own strength to infuse your spirit and to ignite your whole being - He has lit you!
If you were to turn to chapter one of Genesis, and let's do it for a moment this evening - chapter one of Genesis - you see a parallel with what we're reading in chapter two of the book of Ephesians, for you know that the universe began in Genesis chapter 1: "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth." - verse 2 - "And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep." Deadness, darkness, just like what we read in Ephesians chapter one, or two, dead in trespasses and in sin. Then secondly, if you read on it says: "And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters." The infusion of the Spirit of God, directed to deadness and to darkness and what did it bring? It brought the power of God's creation, let there be light! Amen. And then what we have in the next verses, right down to the end of the chapter and verse 31, we have the new creation, don't we? Coming from darkness and deadness, and the Spirit of God comes and hovers upon the waters and we have that infusion of the power of God, and then we have the great thing that God has done, and we'll read about in the weeks to come, chapter two verse 5 to 22. Oh there is nothing new under the sun! And I believe way back there in Genesis chapter one, that God knew what He was going to do through His Son Jesus Christ. He was sending a type and a picture, an arrow pointing forward, a shadow of what He was going to do to glorify His Son, to bring worship and honour to Himself in the courts of heaven one day, where He would redeem a people to Himself.
And so Paul plugs into that eternal truth, that was right there in the beginning at creation, and he talks in verses 1 to 3 of chapter 2 about being - look at the first point - depraved and dead. Let's read those verses again: "And you hath he quickened, who were dead in trespasses and in sins: Wherein time past ye walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience: Among whom also we all had our conversation in times past in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind; and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others." And as Paul, inspired by the Holy Spirit, opens chapter 2 of Ephesians, all we can see are spiritual corpses in the valley of death, have you got it? Death! Spiritual decomposition, absolute rotting, death!
I want you to notice that there's a bit of a difference from verses 1, 2 and 3 - for in verses 1, 2 and 3 and verse 4 there's two people being addressed. Verses 1 to 3, you see that Paul says: 'you', he uses the second person, as he used in chapter 1 and verse 13: "In whom ye also trusted, after that ye heard the word of truth". And we remembered there, as we looked in chapter 1, that at that point Paul was talking to the Gentiles. Paul the Jew was saying to the Gentiles: 'You also trusted when you heard the Word of God'. He uses the second person again in verse 1, 2 and 3 '…you hath he quickened, who were dead in trespasses…wherein times past you walked according to the…prince of the power of the…spirit', and so on. He's addressing them as the Gentiles, those who were in darkness from all time, those who were not given the Law of God, nor the prophets of God, nor the Spirit of God in any form - nor the worship of God - they were in darkness in all times past. But in case the Jews got proud, in verse 4, or I beg your pardon verse 3, he says: "Among whom also we" - [it] changed - "we all had our conversation in times past". So he analyses what the Gentiles were like, how they were dead in their trespasses and sins, walked according to the spirit and the god of this world - but then in case the Jews get proud he says: 'All of us were the same! All tarred with the same brush!' And the first thing he has to say about them all is this - verse 1: "Who were dead!".
Now you'll notice, if you have the authorised version of the Scriptures, that 'hath he quickened' in the first verse is in italics and that simply means that the translators have added that - it is not in the original scriptures in Greek. Now they did that for a purpose, but if you read the original Greek you will read it: 'and you who were dead in trespasses and in sins' - there's no sign of that quickening yet. These people were dead, and that's the first thing I want you to add underneath your first title, 'spiritual deadness'. What is Paul talking about? He is talking about man without God. He is talking about man unable to reach the requirements of God, man falling short of the glory and the standard, the holy mark of God - and let me say this, this evening: when Paul, by the Holy Spirit, says 'dead' he means dead! Do you understand? He means the cessation of life. It is an absolute statement, he doesn’t simply mean in the danger of physical death, or even the second death - in danger of hell. And it doesn’t simply mean, as some of the conservative evangelical scholars believe, the absence of the highest life: that when man fell in the garden, that he was deprived of the highest form of the life of God and he fell to a lower life - and it would surprise you who believes that! No my friend, this means dead! Absolutely, categorically dead! It's not just separation from God, but as John Calvin the great reformer insisted: 'This is a state of real and present death'. Paul's not using a figure of speech here. Paul means that the Gentiles were dead - verse 1. Verse 3 we all had our conversation in times past - the Jews were dead - and all are dead under sin and done, universally, spiritually, morally dead!
You see the most vital part of the personality of a man is his spirit. The spirit was given so that we might know God, and the tragedy of the fall of Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden is that that part died - that's what God meant when He said 'the day that thou shall eat thereof thou shalt surely die'. It didn't mean that Adam was carried out in a coffin, the minute he sinned against God - but his soul, his spirit, eternally was in a coffin, dead. And therefore men are dead to God, and Paul gives the evidence for this in verse 1, he says: '…who were dead' - look - 'in trespasses and in sins…'. 'Transgressions' that word trespass means - and transgress simply means to have a line drawn, some law, some rule, some boundary, and for you or I to step over that boundary, to trespass, to transgress, to fall from that law. The word 'sins' simply means shortcoming - missing the mark - that's what Paul meant [in] Romans 3:23: "All have sinned and fallen short from the glory of God", missed the mark of God.
Now what’s Paul doing? He is showing the multiplicity of the ways that our deadness is evidenced. Some people believe that these transgressions and sins are the cause of the deadness - no - my friend, as you will see, that is not the case. The trespasses and the sins are not the cause, but are the evidence, the mirror that shows men and women, boys and girls that without Christ in their sin they are lost, eternally lost, condemned, damned! There is nothing that can be revived in their souls because the most vital part of the human being, the spirit that relates to God, is dead! How do we know that? Paul says that 'with the law came the knowledge of sin'. Did Paul say with the law came sin? No. You see the law was God's giant magnifying glass, to show mankind that he could never ever keep up to God's glory, God's standard, before. Paul even described himself as being alive before he had the law - as far as he was concerned he was OK, as long as he was in his Judaism - but when God gave the law, all of a sudden, all were condemned.
Do you see it? There's a subtle difference, but we need to draw the line this evening: there is nothing in the human heart that can be revived. There's a hymn that I love, 'Rescue the perishing, care for the dying', but my friends there's a verse in that hymn that is scripturally incorrect. It goes like this, 'Down in the human heart, crushed by the temper, feelings lie buried that grace can restore, touched by a loving heart, wakened by kindness, cords that were broken will vibrate once more'. Impossible! We are dead! Have you ever tried reviving a corpse? Doesn't work, does it? For when life leaves the body - what are you? Dead. Dead my friends, and what it needs is not a reviving, for reviving presupposes that there was life already! But what you need is the Creator of the creature to come and to bring new life again, he needs to be born again! Sure isn't that what the word means? Born again.
Now I'm not saying that everybody's as sinful as one another. I'm not even saying that one person has to be as depraved as another person, that a mass murderer is as equal in depravity as a little child - that's not what I'm saying. For if you look into the Scriptures you see that there were illustrations of this in Jairus' daughter and the widow of Nain's son and Lazarus. Three resurrections that the Lord Jesus Christ performed, do you remember Jairus' daughter? It wasn't long that she had died, perhaps a few minutes, and even when her father was out trying to get the Saviour to resurrect that body, they came and said 'It's too late, your daughter's dead' - a few minutes dead. And then the widow of Nain's son being carried - he was a few hours dead, he was prepared for burial. And then there was Lazarus, Jesus standing at Lazarus' tomb and He was going to resurrect him - and they looked at Him and said 'Are you mad? By this time he stinks!' - a few days dead. You see the fact of the depravity of man is that you're dead. It doesn't matter about the extent of your depravity, the fact is: it is a spiritual fact that the part in you that relates to God is dead. It didn't matter how much decomposition or rot had set in, like our sins, they all were as dead as one another and it took the same resurrection life to raise them again!
What a past and what a present. Isn't it? Do you ever ponder the past that you had before you were saved, have you? Dead, helpless, hopeless, morally reprobate, depraved, you couldn't do a thing for yourself spiritually speaking - and Paul lists the evidences of their deadness. Dr. Geboline (sp?) went into a meeting on one occasion, and the head of the YMCA came over to him - the secretary - and passed him a little decision card, and on it read: 'I promise faithfully henceforth to lead a religious and Christian life' - and then there was a place to sign your name. 'How do you like that? Isn't it pretty good? Isn't it a great way of putting it?', he said. The Doctor replied: 'How on earth can a dead man live any kind of life?' Is that not true? Dead! You see, you cannot live a life for God, until you receive a life from God! Have you got it?
The first thing that Paul wants us to know is that we were dead. The second thing is this: he wants us to see that one of the evidences of our deadness was the way that we walked. And this is the second thing under our first point, the world - in verse 2: '…dead in trespasses and in sin, wherein times past ye walked according to the course of this world'. The Greek word is the word 'kosmos' - it's used 186 times within the New Testatment scriptures, and virtually every instance of its use has an evil connotation. It's not talking about the physical world, with the birds, and the trees, and the soil, and the rocks, and the mountains - that's not what it's talking about. It's not talking about the racial world the black and white, the Roman Catholics, the Buddhists, the Protestants, all different races and creeds. It's talking about the world system, the spirit of the world, the evil world - it's often translated 'way' or 'age'. We read of it in Galatians 1 and verse 4, Paul says: "[Christ] Who gave himself for our sins, that he might deliver us from the present evil world, according to the will of God and our Father'. That's what it means, the world, the evil system that is against God, that is at enmity with God, that will have not God to rule over them.
The dead today are walking around us. They're captive to social and the value systems of today's culture, and it's all hostile to Christ! It might seem harmless on the outside, it mightn't seem blatantly obvious that they are against Christ - but if you ask them what part has the King of kings and the Lord of lords in the whole of their system - and they will dismiss Him, and if they could they would crucify Him again! Never be duped by the world. The sign of a dead person in the world is that they are a slave to pop culture, to the media culture, to the group think of talk shows and magazines and newspapers, they indulge in the sins of the time. You see the world has a mould and it wants to pour each and every one of us into its mould and make us its devotees. It is the mould of depravity! Young person I speak to you specifically: the Word of God says this, and this is a scripture that I think many a modern day Christian - and that phrase galls me - would love to cut out of their Bible: 'Love not the world, neither the things that are of the world' - that's the fruit of the world - 'for if you love the world the love of the Father is not in you'. And I heard of Christian churches this week taking their young peoples fellowships to a public house, renting a room and having a disco - do you know why? To show the world that Christians can have as much fun as the world, without drink. Is that not sad? Is that not tragic? A total misconception, that it's deadness! And anybody who's been in the world knows it is, anybody who's tried the broken cisterns have saw that the waters fail and the devil laughs at the child of God that tries to be satisfied in such deadness.
The course of this world does not necessarily have to be a depraved course, in the sense that we think of drinking, and smoking, and sleeping around, and pornography, and child abuse and all those awful sins, murder and terrorism and all these things - but often, beware! - because the course of this world can often be a religious and a moral one.
There's a story told, an amusing story, about Jeremy Bentham (sp?), he was a philosopher and the father of Utilitarianism - and he's dead, but he still sits on a chair, dressed in old garb and hatted in the early 19th century gentleman's wear. For when he died he wrote down and gave orders, that his entire estate be given to the University College Hospital in London - on one condition - that his body be preserved, and placed in attendance at all the Hospital boards meetings, now don't you elders get any ideas! And he is there today, he's there today. They bring him in, a corpse in all the garb, and do you know what the chairman of the board says, year after year, after year? 'Jeremy Bentham present, but not voting'. My friend that is the course of this world, religiously speaking, for the false religionists, the false ministers and preachers today - they are present in the churches, they are present in their pulpits, they are present in their garb, and in their religious names, but they are dead - and dead useless! But the world loves them, for they don't condemn the world, but they love the world and the things that are of the world. They are kind to the world, but in their selves they have a form of godliness that is powerless, and a costless religion that they give nothing to of themselves, but they live off it.
Oh the world loves religion! 500 years before the Lord Jesus Christ was born, some Greek philosophers were debating with one another, and the question that they were asking was: 'What is the briefest definition of man?' And Plato was there and he stood to his feet and he said: 'Man is a two legged animal'. And one of them went out and brought in a rooster and held it up and said: 'Behold, Plato's man!' Then one exclaimed, 'I have it!' 'Man is a religious animal'. There is no other beast, or creature that looks up to God, and that cries to God, and wants to please God, and wants to live for God - why? Because men are incurably religious - and even the atheist worships himself, he worships man and everything that man does. But my friend whether it be the deadness of overt sin or whether it be the deadness of religiosity - it's all dead! All dead!
We're dead, and we see it in the world, and then in verse 2 we see it in the devil: '…according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience…'. And one by one we are beginning to add to the unholy trinity, the enemies of the child of God, the world the flesh and the devil. The prince of the power of the air, who is he? At times he's called 'the prince of the world', 'the prince of demons', and this awful title that makes us shake in the age in which we live - 'the god of this age'. The Bible describes him as the chief of evil spirits, it describes him as having his realm in the atmosphere, and he commands innumerable hosts in the unseen world - and thus what he does is create a spirit of the age, a spirit that presumes all of humanity, in which he will knit together just enough good, with just enough bad, to achieve his purposes. And he - the Word of God says - is the one that energizes the dead of the world.
Don't believe this nonsense about 'God is our Father', that everybody has God as their Father, nonsense! Jesus said to the Pharisees: 'Ye are of your father the devil!' And my friend, if you are not converted this evening - don't you call God, Jehovah, your Father, for He's not! Your father is the devil, and it is that spirit that he has created around this world in all the fashion and media, in all the drive to bring humanity down to hell, to dupe them, to drug them, to make them drunk with their iniquity, with that new culture, and drag them as far away from Christ as he possibly can - to bring them to hell with himself. He is the ape of the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit, it says, 'will lead you into all truth', but what does it say of the devil here? 'The spirit that now worketh', verse 2, 'in the children of disobedience'. The Holy Spirit will take you into obedience, but he will take you to disobedience. Whatever it is, this is a sign of deadness. And today we have a Church, much of it, finds nothing wrong with a social drink, with a business drink, finds nothing wrong with going to certain places, leading themselves into temptation. Churches think nothing of sidelining God's Word, to make way for music or entertainment - and many of them have a view of the Scripture that says that only the fundamentals count - even those now have been watered down! We need to beware my friends, for we live in a godless age, and I think on many occurances 'Ichabod' could be written on so many places, for there is no reverence of God, no fear of the Almighty, no realising the One that we come to worship, [on the] Lord's Day and during the week, that He is the Almighty, the mighty God, the King of creation, the King of kings and Lord of lords, the Lord of all the universe, the Head of the Church, the One who is above all principality and power, all demons, all angels, and He has been set as our Head and given to us as a Gift - yet we think we can come to Him any way.
Then Paul begins to speak to the Jews. He has finished speaking to the Gentiles in verse 1 and 2, and now he turns to the Jews and he makes sure that he includes them: 'Among whom also we' - the Jewish race - 'all had our conversation in times past in the lusts of the flesh'. There you are, the third of the trinity, the devil, the world, and now the flesh. What's Paul saying? He's saying that the dead, spiritually speaking, are not just corrupted from without, but they are corrupted from within. Not just a problem from the world - and mind you the bright lights of the world, the cry of the world, the temptation and the pull of magnetism to the soul of a believing child of God that has never known the world, can be so strong, and I do not underestimate it because I've known what it is! But my friend that's not the worst, for Paul could say 'In my flesh dwelleth no good thing. Who shall deliver me from this body of' - what? - 'death!' Decomposition, and we all know what it is, that's why when the little monks go off into the desert and enclose themselves in to seek God - and they might have a right motive, they might be very sincere - but they can't get away from their sin, because it's in them!
It's like the little girl who was scolded for kicking her wee brother. She was kicking him in the shins, and then she began to pull his hair, 'Sally!', the mother said, 'What are you doing? Why did you let the devil make you kick your little brother and pull his hair?' To which she answered, 'The devil made me kick him, but the pulling of the hair was my idea'. Isn't that what we're like at times? 'Oh the devil made me do it'. Oh you wouldn't say that to your partner, or to your friend, but that's what you think in there [to yourself]. My friend, most of the time I would vouch - the devil has bigger things and you do it yourself. The devil's not to blame, it's an act of your will, it's a choice that you have, but there's a deeper problem - because within you there is this thing that Paul alludes to called 'carnality', the fleshliness, the life within you that is a wrong life, gratifying yourselves in the lust of the flesh, your desires that have more base desires, the appetites of the flesh that you want to gratify.
He goes on talking about corruption and he doesn't just talk of the flesh, but what does he say? '…in times past…the lusts of the flesh' - look - 'fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind'. You mightn't be doing it in the flesh, but you could be doing it in the mind - and I think there are many Christians feeding like parasites among the filth of the world, in a closed room with a television, with videos, with magazines - it would surprise you! F.B. Meyer put it like this: "It is ruinous to indulge in the desires of the mind, as those of the flesh. By the marvellous gift of imagination we may indulge unholy fancies, and throw the reins on the neck of the steeds of passion, always stooping short of the act." Oh you can get the buzz by just thinking about it! "No human eye follows the soul when it goes forth to dance with satires, or to thread the labyrinth maze of the islands of desire". Sure somebody could be feeding their mind on filth at this very moment and no-one else in the whole meeting knows about it, no-one can check it, only God can see it. And half the time we're not aware of God, we're not living in the consciousness of the presence of God - therefore we feel we get away with it. He says: "It goes and returns unsuspected by the nearest, but if this practice is unjudged and unconfessed" - listen - "it marks the offender a son of disobedience and a child of wrath". We need to see that God is saying that this is a fruit of the child that is dead.
A lot of people go through times doubting their salvation, don't they? I went through a long period of my life doubting my salvation because I could not just believe God - that He has said 'Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved'. Well, sometimes I wonder ought some so-called 'Christians' to doubt their salvation a little bit more. To be sure that you are in the faith, to persevere that you may show works - the Lord Jesus says - meet for repentance, why? Because if you are continually feeding upon the spirit that now worketh among the children of disobedience, the likelihood is that you are a child of disobedience - a child of wrath!
Paul talks not just of carnality, of corruption, but now of condemnation. The Word of God says we are condemned already, the wrath of God abideth on him who is condemned, who is without Christ, who is without hope, who is not saved - unconverted! Many have said that verses 1 to 3 of chapter 2 of Ephesians is like a summary of the first three chapters of the book of Romans. You have the Biblical doctrine of depravity, and then you have the truth that God can save! Now when I talk about depravity, what I'm talking about is this, not that everybody is depraved - as depraved as they could be - but that every single part of our person is tainted with sin, is that not true? Your mind, your will, your body, so much that has tainted motives - all sorts of feelings and emotions tainted with sin. And we have here a total awful picture of the valley of death - he's just been on the mountain of the blessings that we have in Christ Jesus, but he has us looking down now into the awful depths of our past, where we were brought from, where we were saved from. Some people say in churches: 'Man is well. Man's alright - what are you talking about? He's trying his best and there's an innate goodness within men and, if we all try our best with one another, man will be alright'. Some evangelicals say: 'Man is just sick. If you give him the medicine of the Gospel and the Word of God that he'll revive and he'll be alright. He may be mortally wounded, if he doesn't get the Gospel he'll die, but treat him and he'll be alright'. But my friend the Word of God says 'man is dead'! You can go to any morgue and try and puff and blow into the lungs of a corpse, you can shout 'Boo' in the face, you can do all sorts of things - but once the life is gone, they're dead.
Do you ever think back to what you were? I love this, verse 4, we've come through a cemetery of sin: 'But God' - Hallelujah! - 'God who is rich in mercy, for the great love wherewith he loved us, even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, (by grace ye are saved;) and hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus: That in the ages to come he might show the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward us through Christ'.
But God! But God! What a cry! What that should do for our hearts, for the sinner deep dyed in his sin and his deadness. McDonald says, 'It's one of the most significant, eloquent and inspiring transitions in all literature', why? Because it indicates a stupendous change, something that I could not change, you could not change, no church could change, or minister or system, or philosophy of belief could change, 'but God'! Hallelujah!
God is the author, but look what it says about our God: 'God who is rich in mercy'. What did the Psalmist say? 'He hath not dealt with us after our sins, nor rewarded us according to our iniquities. For as the heavens are high above the earth, so great is His mercy toward them that fear Him, as far as the east is from the west, so far hath He removed our transgressions from us'. The mercy of our God is an inexhaustible mine. You can't plumb the depths of it, you can't measure the width of it, the riches of His mercy and then what does it say? 'The great love wherewith He hath loved us', why is it a great love? It's a great love because it's His love, and it's better to be loved by the sovereign Saviour of the universe than by every human being that has ever been born. His love is a great love because of what it cost Him to love us, because it cost Him the blood of His only begotten Son - it is great also because of the wealth that it gives to you and I, all the riches in Christ Jesus! Verse 5, 'Even when we were dead in sins, hath he quickened us together with Christ'. 'When we were dead', it's a great love because it shows the gulf that God did span at Calvary! It shows what God had to do to bring us from the depths of the mire of the dirt, and the shame, and the darkness, and deadness that we were in. And the deader we realize we were - that we are - the greater the cross becomes.
Oh it's wonderful, that He quickened us. And that word literally means 'made us alive' and in scripture, most of the time, the word is actually translated to describe the physical resurrection - but what he's talking about here is a spiritual resurrection. The resurrection of a dead spirit, that's why he was talking in verse 19 and 20 in chapter 1 about the great power of God that rose Christ from the dead, that set Him at the right hand of the Father on high - that that is the power that works in you, to bring new life to your spirit, to resurrect you, to give you that born again life in Christ - to quicken you. And you have been quickened - look at the verse: '…quickened us together with Christ'. Isn't that beautiful? Together with Him: that means that when He died, I died in Him, when He was buried, I was buried in Him, when He was raised, I was raised with Him, and when He ascended on high, I went to sit there with Him in heavenly places.
What did we read Paul said? 'We are blessed with all spiritual blessing in heavenly places' - why? Because we're in Him, and He's up there, do you see it? Together with Christ - and Paul is so overwhelmed with the undeserved blessings that he has, that he interrupts his train of thought here in verse 5, and he just exclaims: 'By grace you're saved!' It's all of grace, he gets so excited that he realizes what it was - and then in verse 6: '…and has raised up us together and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ'. Positionally, positionally you're not waiting on the rapture, positionally you're not waiting on the millennium, or the new heavens and new earth, because positionally you're in them already. And that means you can enjoy it, you can enjoy all the blessings, all the blessings of Christ in Him. And look at verse 7, as we finish, in verse 7 - this is wonderful: '…that in the ages to come He is going to show the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us through Christ'. God, for all eternity, will be unfolding new revelations to us of the blessings that we have in Christ. Do you know what I believe God's going to do? He's going to take us into the school of heaven, and He's going to be our teacher, and He's going to tell us what it cost Him to show grace to us. No matter how long we're there - do you know what the term spell is? Eternity, and in all eternity it will never tell how great the gulf that my Saviour spanned at Calvary.
Read that verse again, verse 7, look: 'His kindness toward us', he multiplies it, 'His grace in His kindness toward us', he multiplies it again, 'the riches of His grace in His kindness toward us' - and finally - 'the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us'. Hallelujah! What a Saviour!
Our Father we thank Thee for Jesus, the Lord and Christ - the One who saved us from our sin. And we thank Thee that there is a day coming, when we will learn in the school of God, for all eternity, what it meant to show the exceeding riches of the grace of God toward us. Lord let us never lose the thrill, let us never lose the joy, of what it is to be a child of God and to be saved from our sin. Part us now with Thy blessing, we pray, in Jesus Name. Amen.
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Transcribed by Judith Watkins, Preach The Word - July 2000
www.preachtheword.co.uk
info@preachtheword.co.uk
Ephesians - Chapter 10
"Amazing Grace"
Copyright 2000
by Pastor David Legge
All Rights Reserved
| Ephesians 2:8-10 |
| 1. Grace Working For Us (verses 8-9) 2. Grace Working In Us (verse 10a) 3. Grace Working Through Us (verse 10b) |
That was good singing. It's good to see you all out this evening to our Bible study here in the Iron Hall Assembly. If you're visiting with us - and there are some visitors here this evening - we're very glad to see you, and we hope and trust that as we study the word of the Lord together, that the Lord will speak to us individually and corporately as a fellowship here, and that the Lord will have a message for us all this evening.
If you have your Bible with you, we're turning to Ephesians. Ephesians chapter 2 - and we began chapter 2, last week, at verse 1 - and we went through verses 1 to 7 and we looked at the subject: 'From Death to Life'. But we'll read those verses again, and we're specifically homing in on verses 8 to 10 of chapter 2 and we're looking at the subject of: 'Amazing Grace!'. Verse 1: "And you hath he quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins: Wherein in time past ye walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience: Among whom also we all had our conversation in times past in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind; and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others. But God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us, Even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, (by grace ye are saved;) and hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus: That in the ages to come he might show the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward us through Christ Jesus. For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them".
Last Monday evening we looked, and we saw in verses 1 to 3 of the chapter that sinners are utterly dead - that the human being, when he is born into the world, is born in sin and shapen in iniquity. This is something that cannot be changed - and it is not the fact that man is alright and he'll be alright in the end, and we looked [at] how it's not the fact that man is mortally sick and one day he will die from the sins and the trespasses that he commits. It's not even as good as all that, but the word of God teaches that man is dead. There is the absence of life, and being dead he cannot help himself. There he is, a spiritual corpse, the spirit within him that is the part of the human being that relates to God, that is there to worship God and to know God and to have a relationship with God, is dead. If man is to know God - we saw in verses 4 to 7 - that he has to be made alive. He has to have a spiritual resurrection where God, the Holy Ghost, comes into the spirit - the inside, the inner man - of a dead unbeliever and breathes new life. He has to be born again, born from above.
We remember that we saw Paul, and he brought us to that pinnacle of faith in all of chapter 1, looking at the history of salvation - what God has done for us. There from that mountain top, in chapter 2 and verses 1 to 3, he now makes us look into the depths of the valley of death where man was before he was converted. Then, as it were, again he lifts us from that valley and he says: 'But God!' - He is the answer. We saw from that pinnacle of saving grace, and all the blessings that we are blessed with in heavenly places in Christ, we saw a journey from hell to heaven, a journey from darkness to ultimate light, a journey from bondage to total and utter freedom, a journey from wrath to glory, a journey from death unto life! From that surveying point he assesses the whole relationship that we have with Christ Jesus - how once we were dead and now we have been brought into life. And now, as it were, sitting there contemplating on the blessing of what God has done in salvation, he summarises the whole thing up in 2 verses - verses 8 and 9. Let's look at them. He tells us how this great change, this great regeneration from death to life has happened: 'For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast'.
You could say that these two verses are the gospel in a nutshell. My friend, this is what it's all about. Paul, in these 2 verses, gives us the dynamics of salvation - how salvation happens, what salvation means, the whole process and mechanics of how you are saved, why God has saved you, what God has saved you from, what He has saved you to, and how it has all been done. It is one of the greatest declarations of the gospel of God that we find within the word of God. So many people have been converted through these verses, it's no wonder! But let me say this to you: if you're not saved tonight, you're not converted, or you're a backslider, I want you to listen very carefully to these words. Listen carefully to what God is saying to your heart about how we are saved. How are we saved?
Now I want to begin with verse 9, to clear away all the rubbish first of all. For verse 9 makes a declaration that we are not saved of works 'lest any man should boast'. How are we saved? Well, we could answer that with a negative first of all - how we are not saved - we are not saved by works! Now let me say this: that modern day Protestantism has become a religion of works, and indeed it outstrips pope-ishness at times - and the extent to which men of the cloth rely on works, and climbing a celestial ladder to God of good works, morality, theology and all that they can think of just to reach God, to be good enough to get into heaven. But yet God the Holy Spirit denounces it, and declares: 'Not by works, lest any man should boast'.
They believe and they preach the frog and the milk philosophy. I don't know whether you've ever heard of that philosophy or not. You'll not hear about it in the halls of the universities or the theological colleges, but do you know what it is? It's the wee frog that you put into a carton of milk that can't get out. How does it get out? The only way for that little frog to get out of that carton of milk is for it to start to paddle away and beat its feet, until it beats so much that it makes butter. Then it gets a little pad and it's able to jump out of that carton. That's the gospel of so many of our churches today: 'Try your best! Work for God! Work with God! Keep the commandments! Go to your church! Give to the poor! Do all you can! Be nice to your neighbour!' - but my friend, listen to what God says: 'Not of works, lest any man should boast'.
Ach, if you stopped 20 people in Templemore Avenue this evening and asked them: 'When you get to the Judgement Seat, and you stand before your Maker, and you are asked why you should be let into Heaven, what will you say?'. 'Oh, I'm a good person you know. I try my best, and I do no harm to anybody, and I'm trying to do good to everyone, and I go to my church, and I give to the poor - there are much people worse off than I am. There are people that do terrible things, and I'm not like that. I'm no murderer. I'm no burglar, or terrorist, or rapist, or anything like that. I try my best!'. Now listen friends, that attitude will get the frog out of the milk, but it'll not deliver the soul from hell. God says: 'Not of works'. Listen to it! It's categoric! It's emphatic! No buts about it! You can't water it down! You'll never get into heaven by works! But do you know what the trouble is? That we have, ingrained within our very nature, something that is called pride. That simply means that the stumbling block of the gospel to many people is this: that they want to do a wee bit about it. You see, people don't want a gospel of grace where they don't do anything. They want to add a wee bit. They want, at the end of the day, for there to be a wee brass plaque where, at least, it says: 'This person - David Legge - added a little bit to his salvation'. They want some of the glory, some of the time - when they get to heaven they want to have it themselves.
Why is it not of works? Paul tells us in verse 9, in the second half of the verse - what does he say? Look at it: 'Lest any man should boast'. Imagine if you got to heaven, or I got to heaven on my own steam, imagine what it would be like. There wouldn't be enough room to keep all the celestial big heads that there were, isn't that right? Peter would have to widen the golden gates to get you in, isn't that true? 'Lest any man should boast' - that's why Paul says it, that's why the Holy Spirit made him say it, that if there are people in heaven that are glorying in the fact that they got themselves there, [then] God's not God and they are. That's what it's down to. That's what it means! God would have to play - and I say it reverently - second fiddle for a soul that is in heaven that saved himself, or added to his own salvation. My friend, this is why God has declared this.
It's interesting - if you go into the gospels, into Matthew's gospel, you see there that the Lord, on occasions describes the judgements at the end of the age. Do you know the only people at the judgements that are boasting? It's the ones that are going to hell. If you turn with me now to Matthew chapter 7 and verse 22 you see that. Matthew 7 and [verse] 22, and Jesus depicts them standing there before Him, and what is it that they're saying to Him? 'Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? And in thy name have cast out devils? And in thy name done many wonderful works?'. 'Depart form me ye cursed into everlasting fire', is the reply that comes from the Lord Jesus. They're boasting, but no one shall boast in the face of God for their salvation. That's why it's by grace. If you turn to chapter 25 you see that the sheep that are saved, the ones that will go into eternal life and enjoy the blessings of God's salvation forever - they're the very ones that can't even remember the good deeds that they did do! Matthew 25 verse 37: 'Then shall the righteous answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungered, and fed thee? Or thirsty, and gave thee drink?', and so on. They can't even remember! They are there, and that proves that they don't get there by their good works, because they can't even remember them!
You know, my friend, salvation doesn't come by works, and anyone that is truly saved has nothing to boast about. There's nobody boasting in heaven this evening. There's nobody lifting their head high because they saved themselves, or they did something about their salvation, but it gets worse than this. The situation of man is more tragic, because the gulf between the deadness of man and the awesome righteousness of a holy God is so far away that man can't do anything about his salvation. Maybe you don't believe that type of religion. Well, turn with me to Romans chapter 3, for we need to look at this - and I want to say that everything I'm saying is from the word of God. In Romans chapter 3 we read two things about the awful state of man. What Paul does is, he employs a rabbinical technique of writing. It used to be called the string of pearls, where he puts a whole lot of truths together, but it's not a string of pearls because they're awful pearls. It's more like a string of perils! He lists the overwhelming evidence that man - listen - is universally corrupted.
The first thing he mentions is their character. Look at verse 10. Verse 10, through to 12: 'As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one: There is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God'. Now take that in my friend! When God says that there is none that seeketh after God, He means that there is none that seeketh after God. 'They are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable; there is none that doeth good, no, not one'. Man is universally corrupt in his character! Then he goes on, verse 13 to 18, to say that man is corrupt in his conduct: 'Their throat is an open sepulchre; with their tongues they have used deceit; the poison of asps is under their lips: Whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness: Their feet are swift to shed blood: Destruction and misery are in their ways: And the way of peace have they not known: There is no fear of God before their eyes'.
It's awful, and Paul in Ephesians declares that all people, no matter whether they're Jew or Gentile, whether they're pagan or pious, whether they're pope or Protestant, they're all condemned and done under sin! This is awful! If you look at Ephesians 2, that we've taken our text from, that's why Paul does not relate these works that he talks about: 'Not by works, lest any man should boast'. Often when Paul was talking about works he referred it to the works of the law, keeping the commands of the Old Testament, but he knew that the Gentiles, those that weren't Jews, didn't even know what the commandments were of the Old Testament! He wants to make categorically clear that he's talking about every human being that has ever been born or lived, apart from the Lord Jesus Christ. Have you got it? It's an awful scene, isn't it?
Someone has said that: 'Our good works are no more beneficial than rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic', isn't that right? Can you imagine being on the Titanic and when it's going down and you escape into the circumference of where the boat is about to sink? And there's a man trying to swim beside you and he gives you a dig and he says, 'You know, I'm the Olympic gold medallist winner in swimming'. And he says to you, 'Now look! You follow me and you swim with me, and if you even want to hold onto my foot you do it!' - and they're off the coast of America (you know where the Titanic sunk). Will they get there? No. Why? Because the distance is too far to reach. My friend, that's what God's distance is like! That is what the law of God is like my friend, it is beyond us. Anyway, how can a dead man do any swimming? A dead man can't do anything. The unsaved person is dead in their sins, and they're there helpless and hopeless, and all they have is hell, and all they deserve is hell, says the word of God.
My friend, this is an awful situation - and here Paul pronounces that this is why it needs to be so great a salvation. Is it any wonder that the Lord Jesus said in the Beatitudes, in Matthew 5 and verse 3: 'Blessed are the poor in spirit; for theirs is the kingdom of heaven'? One paraphrase puts it like this: “Blessed are those who realise that they have nothing within themselves to commend them to God, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven”. That's what it means. Do you realise that tonight, my friend? Don't come with all of your righteousnesses whatever you do - and I'm talking to both Christians and non-Christians here tonight. Because sometimes Christians get a thing about themselves, and about how much they know, and what they do, and how much they pray, and how much they preach - and they just think that God loves them for what they can do for God or even for who they are - not a bit of it! God loves us unconditionally! He loves us for one reason: because He chooses to love us, nothing else. If we are to know Him, if we are to be saved by Him, if we are to enter into the kingdom of God, we must become as little children. That means there's not to be pride about us. What does the hymn say?
'Boasting excluded, pride I abase
For I'm only a sinner saved by grace'.
You see that's what Paul said in the book of Romans and chapter 3 and verse 27. He asked: 'Where is boasting then? It is excluded. By what law? of works? Nay: but by the law of faith'. You can't have faith and works together to secure your salvation - no! The word of God teaches, the book of Ephesians, the book of Romans, even the book of James teaches that faith, and faith alone will save the soul alone. You see the tragedy of religion today - and sadly much of Protestantism and a lot of evangelicalism is going in that direction - is that it blasphemes the Saviour and it castrates the cross. You see, that's what Paul talked of in Galatians chapter 2 and 21, look what he says: 'I do not frustrate the grace of God: for if righteousness come by the law, then Christ is dead in vain'. If I could get there through my works, through inner righteousness, through a false religion or a denomination, Christ need not have died at Calvary! Do you know why He died? Because there was no other way!
Do you think God would spend so great a price for your soul if you could get there on your own steam? Not a bit of it! That's why the word of God is laying down here for us - Paul doesn't want us to miss it - as if we could already through all the verses that we've been looking at - but he wants to set down absolutely, so that there's no doubt about it in our minds, that if we are to be saved we must be saved by God, and God alone. You see, if man could save himself [then] man is his own saviour. Do you understand that? And if man could meet God halfway and help him out in the salvation then man has two saviours: himself and God. But the word of God is teaching, categorically, that there is one Saviour - and God says, Isaiah 42:8: 'I am the Lord: that is my name: and my glory will I not give to another, neither my praise to graven images'.
Old John Nelson was a godless, blaspheming blacksmith until God saved him. Then what happened [was] a tremendous transformation of grace in his life, and he became one of John Wesley's preachers. One day when he was out preaching the gospel, he began a conversation with a very self-righteous man, and that man said to him - listen: 'I don't need your Saviour. My life is all that I need. I can present my own life to God and I'm satisfied He won't be hard on me. If anybody gets into heaven I'll get there because of the way I've lived'. 'Look here!', said Nelson, 'If you got into Heaven you would bring discord, because do you know what they're doing in heaven? They're singing: 'Worthy is the Lamb that was slain, that was slain! Worthy is He for the finished work that He has done at Calvary' - that's what they're singing. But if you went in by your own works, you'd have to sing: 'Worthy am I! For I did a good work. I tried my best and it worked. I got the goal. I achieved everything that needed to be done. I ticked all the boxes that God wanted to get me here. Worthy am I!''. And do you know what he said? 'An angel, if they heard you singing that, would take you by the scruff of the neck and throw you over the wall'.
No flesh shall glory in His sight, and if there's an inch of you that thinks you're going to get to heaven by anything to do with you - my friend, you are in trouble. For if man has to have anything to do with his salvation, do you know what it means? It means God would owe man heaven at the end of His life. Do you think you can bargain with God? If you do your best that at the end of the road God's going to have to, He's obliged to take the chequebook down and give you an eternity in Heaven? Do you know what the book of Romans says? Chapter 11 and verse 35: 'Or who hath first given to him', God, 'and it shall be recompensed unto him?'. There's nobody owes God anything, and God doesn't owe him. God is no man's debtor, and Paul teaches in the book of Romans that if we have to have, or feel we have to have, some part in our salvation - God is in our debt! But Paul says: 'Now to him that worketh is the reward not reckoned of grace but of debt'. You see, if you've to work for your salvation, you're being saved because God's in your debt, and God can't be in anybody's debt. Do you understand this?
This isn't some bargain, you know. Some people preach the gospel as if it's some bargain, and you would need to be a fool to refuse it. 'Eternal life? The slate wiped clean? Everything you want - a home in Heaven when you die, and everybody at church for your friends?' - that's not the gospel! You see, the gospel costs you everything, but it cost Christ everything. I wonder, is there anybody here this evening - you know, this is something that has been argued for years, debated in the church, even from the fifth century; Palagius brought this doctrine into the church that men could help God with their salvation, that men could meet God some way, [and hold] out their hand to God heavenward some of the way, and then God would reach down and pull them up to heaven. But the word of God says this, and it's our first point: that grace is working for us. You see, that's the way you're saved. By grace! We are saved by grace. Look at verse 8: “through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God”. By grace are ye saved!
What is grace? Grace is simply - to give a simple definition of it - is God's unmerited favour to those who are totally undeserving. Do you know what it is? It's verse 4: 'But God'. Verses 1 to 3 have been describing what a terrible pit that we're all in from birth and then, in verse 4: 'But God, who is rich in mercy'. God reaches down. It's grace, He doesn't have to do it, He wasn't obliged to do it and He certainly wasn't in anybody's debt to do it. We're all on our way to hell, and God would have been righteous and just to let us go there, but God who is rich in mercy poured unmerited favour upon us - those who didn't deserve anything. Do you know what this verse means? Look at verse 8: 'By grace are ye saved through faith'. Do you know what it literally means? You are being saved? No. You shall be saved? No. You can be saved? No. You may be saved? No. If you travel on the way that you're going, and keep the slate clean, you will be saved? No! By grace ye are saved through faith! Do you know what that is? It's in the perfect passive participle. Do you know what that means? The perfect tense describes an action which is a state of being at the present time, and Paul is literally saying this: 'By grace we are in the state of being, of having been, saved'. That's the state of being that you're in. The state of living and existence - if you've put your trust and faith in Christ - is of 'have-being' saved already. No doubt about it!
Can you say that? Are you in a state of having already been saved, so that you know in the depths of your soul that you'll never die spiritually? That you'll never lift up your eyes in hell? That you'll never smell your flesh burning in the lake of fire? That you'll never have God say: 'Depart from me, I never knew you'? Even though you've known the gospel all your life, do you know what it is to have that deep assurance: 'I have been saved'? You need to have no doubt about it. Some of you, when you go shopping you make sure you get a receipt for whatever you bought just in case it's not right, yet some of you are taking shoddy goods for an eternity. My friend, is there anything more important than that? You need a guarantee that you are saved, secured!
What is this grace? There was once a mission in the slums and there were all sorts of creatures came into that mission - drunkards and drug abusers, murderers - all sorts of sinners. One night - and there were many people getting saved every night - and one night, there at the altar kneeling down before the preacher were two men. One was a judge and one was a robber, and both of them were shedding tears and crying to God for mercy to be saved. As the pastor walked out of the church that night, he happened to walk out with the judge. The judge turned to him and said: 'Did you see who was kneeling down there beside me tonight?'. The pastor said: 'I didn't know you noticed'. 'Oh yes! What a miracle of grace,' he said. The pastor replied, 'Oh yes! A convict being saved!'. 'Oh no!', said the judge, 'I meant me. For I was brought up a gentleman. I was taught to say my prayers. I took communion regularly. My bond was my word. I went to Oxford. I got my degrees. I learnt law and then I went to the courts, and I was debating and challenging men about the right and wrong of the law, but there I was and God was able to save a self-righteous wretch like me! That's grace, my friend!'. He said, 'You know, for a convict to come out of jail - it would have been the greatest news that he could ever hear, to know that the slate could be wiped clean. But for me, I thought my slate was wiped clean. But it wasn't'.
My friend, this is the type of grace that we are preaching. This is the grace that we have in the word of God, and it takes this grace to save all. It's all of grace, and the minute, my friend - now listen to this, Christians, because there's a lot of watered down word preached in these days - immediately you begin to mix what man does with what God does, and add a little bit and you tell people that man can meet God halfway, or that God will save them and then they have to run the race themselves and keep themselves, and if they sin the next day, well, if they died they'd be in hell - that's not a gospel at all! That is not grace, it's certainly not the grace of God. My friend, salvation is not co-operation - man and God. It is absolute regeneration! Do you know what Pascal said? 'Grace is indeed required to turn a man into a saint, and he who doubts this does not know what either a man or a saint is'.
You see, if you think that you can be saved by your works, or you can meet God halfway, or that you in some way came to Christ and He was obliged to take you because you're such a good person - my friend, listen to this: you have no idea what a sinner is, because a sinner is dead and he can't even help himself. Have you any idea what a saint is? Do you know what a saint is? It's a person who is clothed in the righteousness of Christ, and unless you have His holiness - His righteous standard - you will never stand before God, because it's only that standard that He accepts. All that God asks of a sinner - not that he work his way, not that he do his best - the only work that God asks a man to do is a work of fact! Admitting a fact! Throwing the hands of rebellion down, and saying: 'Lord, You were right, I'm dead. Lord, I need You!'. For the gift of God is eternal life, and you need to admit that you can't do it, that only God can save you - and the work that God has done with Christ at Calvary, where He put Him through my hell and my judgement, where He took my place and my transgressions, and the iniquity of us all was laid on Him. Unless you are trusting on the finished work - it's completed, you don't need to add to it by the way - unless that's what you're resting on, you can never be saved. For it's by grace.
Look at the second bit, verse 8: 'For by grace are ye saved through faith'. Now what's Paul saying? He's simply saying this: that faith is the medium for this salvation. It's the condition upon which the salvation is given. But beware of something here - faith is not a quality. You'll hear people talking in our world today and they might be a Muslim, they might be Roman Catholic, they might be a dead dyed Protestant, they might be a Mormon, they might be a Jehovah's Witness, they could be anything in the whole wide world and they have faith. Now it's their own faith. It's man's faith. They have a faith in a god, but don't make the mistake that faith is a quality that men have: 'Ach, he's religious. That's just his inclination. He was born that way. I don't know whether it's a gene or something, or it ran in his family. That's just his persuasion. He likes to worship God, go to church and be good living'. Not a bit of it! It's not a virtue. It's not a quality. It's not even a faculty of the human spirit that, because of sin and because of the fall of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, has been ignored or trampled down or neglected. My friend, listen! This response of the faith of man is by God's grace! Can a dead man have faith? No. This is something that man cannot produce.
You see, the response of faith in a man, even that very thing, must be evoked by the Holy Spirit of God. To make sure that we don't [make the] mistake of thinking that God does the grace, and then we need to work up the faith within us to believe what God is saying, Paul says, and repeats in verse 8 - look at it: 'Not of yourselves...For by grace are ye saved through faith, not of yourselves'. It is a free gift, the gift of God! And every commentator says this - listen - that Paul, when he talks about a gift here, is not only talking about a gift of faith but he's talking about grace and faith. He's talking about the whole thing that he's talked about before. He's talking about a whole gamut of salvation. That every wit of it and bit of it is by God's grace - it's a gift! A lot of people find this hard to believe because they say: 'Well, can I not even have exercise in a little bit of faith in the whole thing? Could I not do that wee bit?'. My friend, the grace and faith that we find here is the gift of salvation, and there's a lot of people, and they're in danger of making faith their saviour. Do you know what I mean by that? Friend, Christ saves you!
Can I take a bit of a digression? I remember hearing Duncan Campbell on tape. It was during the revival, and there was a mighty move of God. There was a young girl that rang him up on the telephone after one of the meetings, and said: 'Mr. Campbell, you're going to have to come down. I need to be born again. I've been praying for two weeks that God would show me the way of salvation and I still haven't got there. I know that I'm not saved'. Mr Campbell got up out of his bed and went down to the wee girl's house. He opened to her Romans 10 and verse 13, and said: 'For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved' - and that is true. You know, that wee girl turned round to him and said: 'Mr Campbell, do you think a verse of scripture will save me?'. God needs to save a man. It's not a head knowledge of scripture. It's not even an intellectual tick at the side of it saying 'I agree with that' or 'I concur with that'. It's a work of the soul in the very spirit of man. Oh, I wonder have a lot of people really got this work done within their soul. You might say: 'Well, how do I have this faith? How do I receive it?'. Well, we know! Turn to Romans 10 for a minute. Romans 10, keeping in mind that God says that even this faith is a gift from God. Paul tells us in Romans 10 and verse 8 - if you look at verse 8 you'll see there the little phrase 'the word of faith'. Do you see it? Speaking of the word of God - 'the word of faith'. Then in verse 17, a well-known verse: 'So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God'.
Do you know how faith comes? Now listen carefully! When the word of God is preached, that word of faith, and the seed of the word is sown out hither and thither and it lands on ground that has been prepared by the Holy Spirit of God. When that happens, when they come together, faith is created within the soul and the spirit of man as a gift of God. What were we singing earlier?
'I know not how the Spirit moves,
Convincing men of sin,
Receiving Jesus through the word,
Creating faith in Him'.
Is it any wonder Paul could say 'by grace are we saved'? It's not works, he's already said in Romans 4:5: 'But to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness'. Him that doesn't work for it, but believes in it! And you remember there the jailer - and Paul and Silas are there, and the Holy Spirit has convicted him of his need and what did he say? 'What must I do to be saved?' - 'Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved!'. My friend, that is the message that we have: 'believe'. It's the message throughout the whole of the word of God. It's the message of the word of faith. It is to implore men to believe the gospel of Christ: 'And as many as receive Him, to them He gives the power to be called the sons of God, even to them that believe on His name'. Oh, it's wonderful, isn't it? Paul shows us the order in chapter 1 and verse 13 if you look at it. He said to them: 'In whom ye also trusted' - when? - 'after that ye heard the word of truth'. You see, it's the word of God entering your heart my friend. When you see a promise from God, that God loved you, and that Christ died for you, and something is enabled within you to say this: 'That was for me He died!' - and you believe that it was for you, and you're saved.
That's what the reformers died for. That's what Martin Luther's clarion call was: 'Justification by faith alone, by grace alone'. Sola fide - by faith alone in Christ alone, not by works but by Christ. Oh, it is wonderful, isn't it? As the carol says:
'But in this world of sin,
Where meek souls will receive Him still
The dear Christ enters in'.
From start to finish, Paul has been trying to show us that this is God's grace. Then we see quickly, grace working in us in verse 10a - we're almost finished. He says: 'For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them'. Now, this is by no means a postscript or parenthesis. Paul isn't putting this down as an afterthought, saying: 'Oh, I'd better tell them this: that now you're God's workmanship', but this is what Paul has been leading up to. This was what he was bringing to them - the conclusion of why he was talking about grace and faith and not of yourselves. Verse 10 is the outcome of all that came before it, and it shows us this: that salvation, the salvation of God, is for a purpose. It is intended to produce good works as the fruit of its genuineness. Don't get me wrong now! Listen! Works has no part in the securing of our salvation, but after we are saved we are to prove our faith is real by our works. Some say Paul and James contradict each other when James says that 'Faith without works is dead', and Paul says that you can only be saved by faith through grace. No. If you read James very carefully you will see that what he is saying is this: 'That by their fruit ye shall know them'. And the root is faith and the fruit is works - and we, through this grace and faith, have been created, it says, in Christ Jesus unto good works.
Do you know what that means? You, my friend, have been foreordained - if you're saved - to do good works for God. This is beautiful! He says that we are his workmanship. Do you know what that word in the Greek is? 'Poeme' (sp?). It's the word that we derive our English 'poem' from - 'poeme'. Do you know what he's saying? We are God's poem. Another translation says that we are God's 'work of art'. Used in the New Testament twice, but what he is saying is that 'we are God's poem!' Now, if you've ever seen a poem you'll know this - that you read and you think to yourself, if you're like me, 'I could never write anything like that!' You know what it's like - if I was to sit down at that piano tonight and play you a tune you would all run out! Why? Because I don't have it in me, do I? You've either got it or you don't! My friend, the only one who's got it to save you is God! He's the only one that can make a poem of your life. We, the word of God - Paul is saying - are the masterpieces of God. Think of that! There is nothing like us, not in ourselves but what God has made us. Look at verse 10 - He has created us in Christ Jesus unto good works. The Hebrew word for 'created' there is the same word that you find in Genesis 1 verse 1: 'In the beginning God created'. What he is saying is: what He did in us in Christ, the change that He has wrought in our soul when we were born again, is the new creation. We are new people in Christ Jesus! It denotes the creative energy of God, that only God has through Christ Jesus It's emphatic - just like verses 6 and 7: 'Only in Christ Jesus'. Only in Him - none other!
Then finally and thirdly he says that it's grace working through us. We are created in Christ Jesus unto good works 'which God before ordained that we should walk in them', or that 'God before prepared for us'. Do you know this life of regeneration, this life of salvation, the fruit that we are to have and show in our lives - this is amazing - has already been prepared by God! It literally means that we are to walk about for all eternity in everything that God has prepared for us. The road is already built and spread before us. You see the more I read the word of God, I realise that everything I have is nothing to do with me. It's all of God! Do you know what this means? You might have helped a wee lady across the road today and felt very good about it, but the word of God says that He prepared that for you in His eternal counsels - and He, by His Holy Spirit within you, enabled you to do that. He's not going to have one on that day standing beside the Throne with a big badge or a big smile, thinking: 'I did something' - for my friend, God did everything!
Let's bow our heads, and perhaps you're here this evening and you're not sure about how you are with God, you don't k