Alright, turn back in your Bible
tonight to these last few verses in the
book of Romans. Romans chapter 16. In verse 25, The Apostle Paul says now to him that is of power
to establish you according to my gospel and the preaching of
Jesus Christ according to the revelation of the mystery which
was kept secret since the world began. but now is made manifest,
and by the scriptures of the prophets, according to the commandment
of the everlasting God, made known to all nations for the
obedience of faith. To God, only wise, be glory through
Jesus Christ forever. Amen. I call this tonight, Closing
Praise, because Paul concludes this epistle,
this letter, with praise to God. He says, Now unto Him. And you know, that rings a bell
in other places in Scripture, such as Ephesians 3, where he
says, 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. It's always unto Him. And then, like Jude says it in
this little book of Jude we find in the New Testament, he says,
Now unto Him that is able to keep you from falling, and to
present you faultless before the presence of His glory with
exceeding joy. He reminds all of the Lord's
people that it is God alone who is able to save us, to strengthen
us, to confirm us, and to keep us. And all glory has to go to
Him. And this is exactly what Paul
has been setting forth. This is exactly, in this book
of Romans, what his doctrine was, that salvation is all of
God, it is all of grace, and it is all in Christ. And if God's salvation is in
all these, then there can't be anything in us, and therefore
there can be no ground for us to boast or praise ourselves. He says it is always unto him. And he says it is according to
my gospel. And that does not mean that Paul
just came up with this gospel or that it was his idea or his
personal doctrine he developed. It didn't come from him, but
it was the gospel that he preached, and it was the gospel that he
believed, and it was the gospel that God used for his salvation. Now, I know that the apostle
was confronted by Christ on the road to Damascus. But before
that day, he stood there, held the clothes of those who stoned
Stephen, who bore a faithful witness in his dying hour of
the gospel of Christ. And then, not only that, immediately
after Christ stopped him on the road to Damascus, he sent him
immediately into Damascus to hear the word of the Lord from
a man by the name of Ananias. But the Lord God makes His gospel
to be to everyone He saves their gospel. And this is the gospel
that He speaks of. And what is His gospel? Well, if you look back in verse
25, He says it is the preaching of Jesus Christ. Now, in our day, there are a
lot of folks that claim to be preaching Jesus. But in truth,
they are preaching about everything else but the things concerning
Jesus Christ. Paul, in all of his epistles,
reaffirms this very thing. He says in 1 Corinthians, But
we preach Christ crucified. That's what we preach. In another
place, he says this, For I determined not to know anything among you
save Jesus Christ and Him crucified. And then to those churches in
Galatia where they were being confronted by all these preachers
who were coming in and mixing law and works with grace, he
said this, God forbid that I should glory save in the cross of our
Lord Jesus Christ. And if a preacher or if an individual
ever moves beyond this preaching of Jesus Christ and Him crucified,
if he ever loses that or they ever lose that as the emphasis
or the centrality of what they preach and believe, they are
in trouble. But I want you to notice something
else that the Apostle says here. He says that this gospel, this
preaching of Christ is according to the revelation of the mystery
which was kept secret since the world began. He speaks of it. calling it, on one hand, a mystery,
and on the second hand, a secret, a secret that was kept secret
since the world began. You see, the gospel of Jesus
Christ and Him crucified is the revelation of a mystery. Now listen to what Paul says
in the book of Ephesus. He writes to them and he says,
Pray for me. And he says, Pray for me in this
particularly, that utterance may be given unto me, that I
may open my mouth boldly, to make known the mystery of the
gospel." The mystery of the gospel. Now, he's not saying here that
the gospel is mysterious or mystical or something like that. No, the
word mystery here, and as it is often used, in the New Testament,
the word mystery simply means that which was concealed or hidden
or that which was not up to this point revealed or made manifest. And that means that the things
of Christ were in a sense concealed and not yet made manifest, though
he was pictured and his work in all the types and shadows
of the Old Testament. But he himself and that purpose
of God's grace, which included more than the Jews, it was not
made manifest until his coming. And it is not made manifest until
the preaching of the gospel began. And this does not mean that these
things did not exist because Christ was from old eternity
the wisdom of God. If you want to read some interesting
words Look back in Proverbs chapter 8 and hear the One who is called
Wisdom speaking to God the Father, and not only to Him, but so that
we can hear it, and letting us know that He was the Wisdom of
God. There was a Savior before there
was ever a sinner. Do you know that? There was a covenant of grace
and mercy before Adam and Eve were ever in the garden. He was before all these things. When it says that Christ hath
the preeminence, it not only means that he is above all, but
he is before all. He is the firstborn of many brethren. He existed in old eternity, but He wasn't yet made manifest. The things concerning Him, the
things concerning God's purpose of grace in Him, and the things
that were actually meant By even the things that were foreshadowed
in those Old Testament types, they remained a mystery. And even at the coming of Christ,
they remained a mystery until these men in the beginning were
set forth preaching the gospel, making known this mystery. You see, the salvation of God's
people, which necessarily involved the Savior of that people, was
before the world began, and therefore the gospel is called, in light
of that, the everlasting gospel. The everlasting gospel. But it was made manifest at the
coming of the Lord Jesus Christ and that death that He died on
the cross, that which was preached as the Old Testament foretold,
the prophets foretold that it would be, not just Jews, but
all nations. Verse 26. but now is made manifest,
and by the Scriptures of the prophets," or in accordance to
just what they said, and according to the commandment of the everlasting
God made known to all nations for the obedience of faith. Now, the Jews, who, for the most
part, had enjoyed every earthly favor, every profit, every manifestation
of God on this earth and them only, it did appear that they
would be the only people that God would favor, that He would
even save a people out of, since He never sent a prophet to anybody
else, never ordained and established His worship among any other people. There's a mystery. And it had
to do with a people and peoples beyond the Jews. Paul, in that eleventh chapter
of Romans, if you remember, he says, I would not, brethren,
that you should be ignorant of this mystery, lest you should
be wise in your own conceit. He's talking about those Gentiles
that God showed mercy to. He says that blindness, in part,
is happened to Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles come
in. Now, this mystery he's talking
about, this mystery of the gospel, has to do with Jesus Christ and
Him crucified and in His death accomplishing the salvation of
a people. And they're not Jews according
to the flesh. You know, the Jews had a kind
of a saying among them. Jewish men had this saying. They
prayed this. They said, God, I thank Thee
that I was not born either a woman or a Gentile. They called them dogs, Gentile
dogs. But the appearing of Christ and
the going forth of the gospel, that gospel declares him to be
the Savior of the world. Now, men make a lot of mistakes with
a phrase like that. They say He's the Savior of everybody
in the world. But you can just mark this down.
If the Son of God came to be the Savior of everybody in the
world, everybody in the world would be saved. Because the prophets
had already said, He shall not fail. But rather, that means
that grace crosses that boundary that had for so long been set
up by God Himself amongst men. There was that separation of
these Jews from everybody else. They were Jews and everybody
else was Gentiles. But He's the Savior of the world.
You see, that's one thing that really graded on those Jews naturally. Here we are, we've been calling
ourselves God's people, we've had these favors and all these
things, and now you come along preaching about this fellow Jesus
and you're calling him the Savior of the world? Are you talking
about he's come to save Gentiles too? Boy, I sure am glad he did. Turn
over to Ephesians in the third chapter. Ephesians in the third chapter. Let me read beginning in verse
1. For this cause I, Paul, the prisoner
of Jesus Christ, He's that willing bondservant. Even if he's down
there in the prison house somewhere, he knows it's God's purpose and
will that he's there. He's the prisoner, not of the
Roman government, but of Jesus Christ for you Gentiles. if ye have heard of the dispensation
of grace, of the grace of God which is given me to you." How
that by revelation he made known unto me the mystery, as I wrote
afore in a few words, whereby when you read you may understand
my knowledge in the mystery of Christ. which in other ages was
not made known unto the sons of men, as it is now revealed
unto his holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit." What is that? That the Gentiles should be fellow-heirs,
and of the same body, and partakers of his promise in Christ by the
gospel. 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, unto me, who am less than
the least of all saints, is this grace given, that I should preach
among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ." and to make all men see what
is the fellowship of the mystery which from the beginning of the
world hath been hid in God, who created all things by Jesus Christ,
to the intent that now unto the principalities and powers in
heavenly places might be known by the church the manifold wisdom
of God according to the eternal purpose which he purposed in
Christ Jesus our Lord. Here's this mystery. What is
it? That from old eternity, God loved,
God chose, God predetermined everything in the salvation of
a people out from among the Jews, but also and maybe even more
so from among the Gentiles, that He, in coming to shed His blood
on that cross, would redeem every one of them. and bring them to the praise
and glory of His grace. You see, Christ and His gospel
are the manifestation of God's purpose and grace which He purposed
in Him before the world began, and the mystery involved Christ
coming to save a people from among these Gentiles as well
as Jews, and to reveal the covenant mercies of God to all His people. When Paul writes in that first
chapter of Ephesians, he speaks of how God in His mercy had chosen
us in Christ and blessed us with all spiritual blessings in Christ
before the world began. He talks about how we have forgiveness
in Him and how the Father has made us accepted in the Beloved. And then He says this in verse
9. He says, having made known unto us. Now, you know, we like
to know a secret, don't we? We just like to find out a secret.
Tell me a secret, you know. It's just idle curiosity is all
it is, but there's been a secret from old eternity. And it concerns a lot of people.
Not every person, but a lot of people. And when we are brought
to hear the gospel of Jesus Christ, and the grace of God is brought
into our heart, we find out a secret, which is the secret of grace
that God has loved us and purposed to save us and given Christ to
die for us, that He might bring us unto Himself. When our Lord was speaking there
in Matthew 13. His disciples said to him, they
said, why do you speak in parables? In other words, why don't you
just come right out with it? The Lord's answer would surprise
a lot of folks. He answered and said unto them,
Because it is given unto you to know the mysteries of the
kingdom of heaven, but to them it is not given. It's given to you, the gift of
God's grace, and His mercy is given to you to understand the
mysteries of the kingdom of God." What are the mysteries of the
kingdom of God? The things concerning the King
and His kingdom, which is not meat or drink, but righteousness
and peace and joy in the Holy Ghost. And Paul says that this
mystery has revealed that this Christ is to be preached to all
nations for the obedience of faith, because He is the wisdom
of the only wise God. Here's another one of those mysteries. He says, without controversy,
great is the mystery of godliness. What is that? That God was manifested in the
flesh, justified in the Spirit, seen of angels, preached unto
the Gentiles, believed on in the world, received up into glory. That's a mystery. God walking
around as a man. You see, the only way that you
could ever believe that is for God to give us faith to believe
it. Because faith believes God, what
God says, not what the eye sees, not what the natural mind understands. And he says that this is preached,
Christ is preached, his gospel, this mystery made manifest and
declared, he says, for the obedience of faith. Now, here's what most
folks think the gospel is. An invitation. An opportunity. Or as they like
to say, a chance. But that wording that the Spirit
of God gives Paul to use here, it's precise. He says, for the
obedience of faith. You see, the gospel is something to be obeyed. The gospel commands us to cast
off all other hopes. repent of all our false notions
about God, and believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. Is that right? Listen to this. Paul in Romans
6, he says to these believers, and believing is what obeying
is, he says, but God be thanked that ye were the servants of
sin, but ye have obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine
which was delivered you." What did you do? You obeyed from the heart the
command of God. to cast off all other hope and
believe on, rely solely upon, trust only in the Lord Jesus
Christ. Listen to this verse in Romans
10. He says, but they have not all
obeyed the gospel. For just like Isaiah said, Lord,
who hath believed our report?" That makes obeying God and believing
God the same thing. They've not all obeyed the gospel. Why? How do you know that? He
says, just like Isaiah said, Lord, they've not believed our
report. What is that? The declaration
of the gospel. And then the Bible says in another
of Paul's epistles that when Christ comes, he takes vengeance
against those who obey not the truth. See, the truth of the gospel
is not just out there, you know, floating around out here. It's
like walking by the buffet at Golden Corral, you know, and
you just pick it if you want it, you don't pick it if you
don't want it. No, this is the command of God. The gospel is not an offer. The
gospel is a declaration about God's Son. It's about the King
and the command is, bow before the King. But you see, Christ's coming,
now listen to me, don't get me wrong here. Christ's coming and
the gospel being preached, This alone does not mean that a sinner
will know who he is or believe the gospel. No. No further revelation of this
mystery is necessary. When Christ comes, here's a manifestation
of it. When the true Gospels preach,
here's a manifestation of this miserable mystery, but it requires
another revelation. Another revelation. And that's what Paul talks about.
You see, he must not only reveal himself to us in the Gospel,
but in us. Now, listen to Paul's word when
he writes to that church at Galatia. He says this, But when it pleased
God, who separated me from my mother's
womb, and called me by His grace to reveal His Son in me. To do what? He said, I had to have a revelation
of Christ in me that I might preach Him among the heathen,
or the Gentiles. He said, immediately I conferred
not with flesh and blood. You see, if God reveals Christ
in us, the truth of Christ in us, we won't have to run to anybody
for a second opinion. I've seen that over these 30
years time and time again. I've seen young military couples
come in and sit down on the pew, and they'll sit there, they'll
have their Bibles, and they'll follow what I say, and they'll
read along, and you can just see them. Well, that is what
it says and everything like that, and everybody's friendly to them. They like the people and everything.
They don't find me too naturally offensive, and they seem to be
learning and kind of rejoicing in what they hear and everything. And all of a sudden, one Sunday,
in comes this young couple, and they're two older people with
them. Who's that? That's mom and dad
from such-and-such Arkansas or somewhere where they're from. And mom and dad hear, and I never
see them again." What'd they do? They got a second opinion. They believed what mom and dad
said rather than obey the truth. I'm telling you the truth. You see, our Lord After he talked
about Capernaum and Jerusalem and all these places where he
had been and done great miracles in their midst, he said, if the
cities of Sodom and Gomorrah had had the evidence and witness
that you've had, they'd have repented in sackcloth and ashes
long ago. Did he get all bent out of shape
because they didn't believe him? No, He said, Father, I thank
Thee that Thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent,
but You revealed them unto babes. Can God do that? He's been doing
it a long time. All He has to do to, in this
sense, hide something from us is not open our eyes to it. Not give us faith to believe
it. Leave us in our natural state. That's all he has to do. You
take a ball of clay and you lay it out into the sunshine, you
don't have to do anything to it. It'll just get harder and
harder and harder. You see, it's not by mere education
or information, but by the revealing work of God's Spirit who can
alone take the things of Christ and show them to us. People sit for long times, maybe
till they die, under the sound of the true gospel. But they
never see the mystery. They never find the secret of
God's everlasting love or the glories and splendors of Jesus
Christ and Him crucified. They never see the glory in it.
They never find out this hidden wisdom of God. You see, the Spirit of God must
take the gospel of God and teach us the things that these gospel
truths mean and give us an understanding. That's what John says in 1 John
5, the last few verses there of that book. He says, God has
given us an understanding. Does that mean that we understand
everything? No. A God that you and I could understand,
He'd be a pitiful, pitiful God. No, but He's given us an understanding.
He's given us a measure of an understanding as to what we are. And He's given us a measure of
understanding as to who He is. And He's given us a measure of
understanding of how Jesus Christ is the only way that God can
be just and yet save wretched sinners like we are through His
precious shedding of blood. Christ said, how be it when he,
the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth,
for he shall not speak of himself. Wherever you hear somebody always
talking about the Holy Spirit, oh, we got the Spirit, and the
Spirit moved here, and we felt the Spirit, and all that, you
can just count on it. The Holy Spirit is not the Spirit
they're talking about. He said, I'm going to send the
Spirit of Truth, and He'll not speak of Himself, but whatsoever
He shall hear, that He shall speak, and He will show you things
to come. He shall glorify Me, for He shall
receive of Mine and show it unto you. All things that the Father
hath are Mine, therefore said I, that He shall take of Mine
and show it unto you. One day our Lord was with the
disciples and he asked them this question. He said, who do men
say that I am? Well, they said, some say you're
Elijah, the prophet. Some say you're John the Baptist
come back from the dead and all these things. He said, but who
do you say that I am? And Peter gave this response.
He said, You are the Christ, the Son of the living God. And you know what Christ said
to him? He said, Blessed art thou, Simon Bar-Jonah. For flesh
and blood hath not revealed this unto you, but my Father which
is in heaven." How did you know that, Peter? All these other
people, you know, even with your problems and your rashness and
cutting off the priest's ear and all that kind of stuff, though
you've got a lot of failures, but you know something. What's
that? That man right there. is the
Son of God. He's the Christ." And he said,
there's only one reason that you know that. Flesh and blood
didn't reveal that to you, but my Father, which is in heaven,
He revealed it to you. He revealed it in you. You believe
it. You can't help but believe it.
When the Lord began to reveal the gospel to me and the Christ
to the gospel, it wasn't a matter of whether or not I was going
to believe it or not. I couldn't help but believe it.
That's the way faith is. Preachers say, well, you've got
to exercise your faith. If God ever gives you faith,
it will exercise you. Turn with me to 1 Corinthians. Will you just look across the
page? 1 Corinthians. 1 Corinthians
chapter 2. How does anybody come to the
revelation of this mystery? This mystery in Christ that's
from old eternity, before the world began, hidden through the
ages, as though the prophets whispered things concerning it. Look here in I Corinthians 2
beginning at verse 7. Paul says, but we speak the wisdom
of God in a mystery. Even the hidden wisdom which
God ordained before the world unto our glory which none of
the princes of this world knew, for had they known it, they would
not have crucified the Lord of glory. But as it is written,"
this was written in the Old Testament, "'Eye hath not seen, nor ear
heard, neither have entered into the heart of man the things which
God hath prepared for them that love him.'" Now I wonder, growing
up, All my life as a younger adult, how many times I heard
people, and they say it today, something like this, well, you
know the Bible says that I hadn't seen and near hadn't heard the
things of God. But look at that next verse.
Look at what Paul says to those who've been brought to believe.
He says, but God, though that's true, the natural eye, the natural
ear, the natural understanding hasn't received the things of
God, those prepared things. But God hath revealed them unto
us by His Spirit. If you believe the truth of God,
You've been brought to a hope in Jesus Christ alone. Don't
pat yourself on the back. It's just the grace of God and
the mercy of God and the Holy Spirit working in us, giving
us faith and subduing that natural rebellion, enabling us to see and believe on Christ. He says, For what man knoweth
the things of a man, save the spirit of man which is in him?
Even so, the things of God knoweth no man, but the Spirit of God. Now, we have received not the
spirit of the world, but the Spirit which is of God, that
we might know the things that are freely given to us of God. That's a mighty important verse
of Scripture. Because it tells us, when the true gospel is preached,
what the Holy Spirit teaches the Lord's people reveals to
us concerning Jesus Christ. Does it tell us the things to
do? Is that what He says? Does the Spirit of God give us,
like, three steps to heaven, ten steps down a Roman road,
or something like that? Does the Spirit of God, is His
emphasis on how we're to live in this world and how we're to
do one thing and be sure we don't do the other? Is that the...
I'm not saying that in the gospel, set right beside the things of
Christ, we don't find that instruction. Well, what's his emphasis? What
does he have to reveal in us? He says, "...but the Spirit which is of
God, that we might know the things that are freely given to us of
God." I'll tell you this, if the Spirit of God, through this
gospel, ever reveals to an individual what God has so freely given
them, that will prove to be the only
motivation for that sinner to live and obey
the things of Christ and do what we're commanded to do in Scripture
for His glory. And that's why I don't stand
up here week after week and browbeat you with what you're supposed
to do and what you're supposed to give and how you're supposed
to act and where you're supposed to go and not go and all stuff
like that. That'll make little Pharisees
out of you. Because in truth you know that
already. But the only motivation to do
it, comes through God revealing to us the things, the multitude
of things, such as forgiveness, and righteousness, and heaven,
and eternal life, and all these spiritual blessings, knowing
the things that are freely given to us of God. He says in verse 14, but the
natural man receives not the things of the Spirit of God,
for they are foolishness unto him, neither can he know them,
because they are spiritually discerned. There is nothing any more foolish
to the unregenerated person than the gospel of free grace. Nothing anymore for us to do. Paul writes in Colossians, he
says, "...the mystery which hath been hid from ages and from generations,
but now is made manifest to his saints, to whom God would make
known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the
Gentiles, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory." How
is Christ in us? He says He dwells in us by faith, by God the Spirit enabling us
to believe the things concerning God's Son. And when the Spirit
of God reveals the things of God's grace in Christ to us and
in us, we'll feel and confess just what
Paul does in verse twenty-seven. To God only wise be glory through
Jesus Christ forever. Amen. Our Father, we praise You for
the things of Your grace. We thank You for Thy Son, the
Lord Jesus, the one in whom You bless Your people with everything. When we have Him, we have all. And when You have brought Him
to dwell in us by faith, through that gospel that you set forth
in your Word, which you send out to be preached to your people. Lord, we rejoice. We are so thankful. And find that gratitude which
the Spirit of God works in our heart, moving us, constraining
us, to do the things that you command
us to do, to be the people in this world that live for your
glory. And we thank you. We praise you
for the mercy that's followed us all our days. And this glorious
mystery you made known to us and continue to make known to
us, revealed to us that hidden wisdom of God, the secrets of
the eternal, Jesus Christ and Him crucified. We thank you. We praise you. We pray for all
these Lord, that upon our hearts, every need, every affliction,
these lost ones of family and friends all around us, Lord,
we pray that You would bring and call and draw each one unto
Yourself as it pleases You. For we pray in the name of our
beloved and wonderful Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.