Over here in this fifth chapter
of the book of Ephesians, our Lord likens a wife's love for
her husband and the husband's love for his wife to the love
of the Lord Jesus Christ to His Church. And all of those that are believers
that are saved by the doing and the dying of the Lord Jesus,
they comprise this one body, which our Lord Jesus Christ is
the head of. He's the head and his people
are the body, and he refers to his people as the church. And he tells wives to love their
husbands, husbands to love their wives, even as Christ loved the
church, loved the body. This is a local. This is a local visible body
here, active body, a body that you can see where members fitly
frame, join together, one body. And there's another one someplace
else, scattered all over the United States, all over the world.
There's bodies like this. Not every church is the body
of Christ. I mean everything that calls
itself a church is not a church. It can't be a church if it does
not believe in Him whom the Scripture reveals as the head of the church. If they don't believe in Him,
how could they be a church? They're an institution, an organization,
a religious, but not the body, not the true church. The true
church is made up of those that have been born of the Spirit
of God and those who have become the recipients of the favor and
grace of God and who know God in the Lord Jesus Christ. Now,
those people make up this church, and that's what he's talking
about here where he says in verse 22, Wives, submit yourselves
unto your husbands as unto the Lord. As you yield yourself unto
the discipline, of the Lord Jesus Christ, yield yourself likewise
to the same discipline unto your husbands. For the husband is
the head of the wife. He is number one. He is boss. Even as Christ is the head of
the Church, and He is the Savior of the body. Christ is the head,
and we are the body. And so the husband, he is the
head of the wife, and Christ the head of the Church. He is
the Savior of the body. Therefore, as the Church is subject
unto Christ, so let the wives be unto their own husbands and
everything. Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved
the Church and gave himself for it, that he might sanctify it
and cleanse it with the washing of water by the Word. that he
might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle
or any such thing, but that it should be holy and without blame.
So ought men to love their wives as their own bodies. He that
loveth his wife loveth himself. No man ever yet hated his own
flesh, but nourisheth and cherisheth it, even as the Lord the Church." And over here in the first chapter
and the fourth verse, which I think I read this morning, but I'll
read it again. According as he hath chosen us
in him. That's the church. He's chosen
the church in him, in Christ, before the foundation of the
world. that we should be holy and without blame before him
in love. And I read over here in this
verse that eventually, in verse 27, in that
fifth chapter, that he might present it to himself a glorious
church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that it
should be holy and without blemish. And that's what he says here,
that we should be holy and without blame before him in love. That's
the Church. Of course, that holiness without
blemish, we're in Christ. And Christ is without spot and
without wrinkle, and he's the head of the Church, and he's
the head of the body, and we're the members, and we are as he
is. We are holy in him. Our holiness
is in Him. Our righteousness is in Him.
We stand in Him, our Savior and our Substitute, Captain of our
salvation. Well, are you going to sing another
hymn? Well, let's just not sing anymore,
and let me go on with this, and we'll go from there. That first chapter of Ephesians
in verse 3, chapter 1, verse 3, the apostle said, utters the
word of God, that he was inspired to write and every word that
he penned is truth, all truth, nothing but the truth. And this
is how it is. Other than this, this is exactly
the way it is. He said, Blessed be the God and
Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath already, past tense, who hath blessed us. Well, we
were blessed in Christ before the world began. We were blessed
in the covenant head. He's the church. of the Church,
the head of the Church. And we're blessed in Him, and
we're in Him. He put us in Him. He chose us
and put us in Christ. He said there, according as chosen
us in Him before the foundation of the world. So in the mind
and the will and the purpose of God, we're in Christ before
the world ever was. And that's how we're holy without
blame. You cannot be holy that we should
be holy and without blame before him in love. That's an impossibility
for anyone, a sensible sinner or an unsensible sinner, a saved
sinner or a lost sinner, to be in himself holy and without blame
before him in love. That's an impossibility in yourself. But it's possible in him, in
Christ. You see what I'm saying, Neil?
In Christ is our holiness, our righteousness. In Him is an ample
provision to meet all of our needs as sinners. In Him, in Christ. Now, I want
to just say a few things. to point out how each of the
divine persons of the Godhead has a spatial interest in the
body of Christ, the local visible church that we make up here. We're one of these little insignificant
bodies, insignificant to the world, but not Not to God, not
to Christ. Christ loved the church. This
little insignificant body here, we make up that body in which
He's the head. And the head never hates the
body. The head won't cut the body off. They're fitly framed together
as one. And He loves us. God the Father
loves us. in spite of what we are. He loves
us in Christ. He loved us outside of Christ.
Before He put us in Christ, He loved us. He set His affections
upon us before we had been. So anyhow, anyhow, we should
be holy and without blame before Him in love and in Christ. I want to show you how each of
these divine persons, God the Father, God the Son, and God
the Holy Spirit, has a spatial interest in his church, a spatial
interest which is very significant in the fact that the Bible says
that Christ loved the church and gave himself for it. That's
a spatial interest, isn't it? That is a highly spatial interest. that he so loved the church,
his people, that he gave himself. When he gave himself, that means
all that he was. That means body, soul, and spirit. He gave all that he was for us. Well, God the Father, you see,
has a special interest or a spatial property in them, for they engaged
His mind, His eternal mind, I should say, for they engaged His eternal
mind before time. So God the Father has a spatial
interest or property in us, in that We were in his mind, will,
and purpose before time. He chose us in Christ before
time ever was. So he has a spatial interest
in us. Now do you think that him having
this spatial interest in us, and we being just little wandering,
faltering sheep that walk a few steps and fall down and get up
and walk a few more and eventually God will get tired of our lame
service and bad behavior and just cut us off? Certainly not. Not a God who fixed his love
upon us before time ever was. He's got a special interest in
us. And he that hath begun a good
work shall complete it, the day of redemption. That's a special
interest. Well, his interest was so great
that he made an everlasting settlement for the church, for his people,
with and in Christ. And to confirm this settlement,
He gave this church, individually, He gave them grace in Christ. Remember I told you two or three
times, Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord. Noah found
faith. God, in this settlement and covenant
engagement, God gave us grace, and that grace brought us to
the Living Lord, the Lord Jesus Christ. And that grace that brought us to
Christ, and He so loves us that He marries us, and calls us His
brides. The Church, the Body of Christ,
is called the Bride of Christ. God the Father loved us, the
Lord Jesus Christ loved us, that he gave himself for us, and said
he was married to us, took us for his bride. Now, that being
so, therefore, this Body, this Church, These individuals, like
you and I, the believer in Christ, cannot perish because God hath
made provision for us, eternal safety and eternal protection
in Christ Jesus our Lord. I give unto them eternal life. They shall never perish. There
is no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus. Who shall
separate us from the love of God? Shall this, shall height,
depth, or any other creature separate us from the love of
God? No. He gave her grace in Christ
who married her Therefore, she cannot perish because God the
Father made provision for her safety and security before Adam
ever fell. God decided all that before Adam was made a being, made a living
soul, before there was an Adam. That was already settled by God
in eternity. He foresaw the fall of man. I mean, it wasn't a surprise
to God when Adam fell. It didn't sneak up on God. It wasn't an accident. It wasn't
that God was far off in the corner someplace and Adam got out of
hand and fell. God knew all about him before
he fell, before he made him. In his mind, in his will, he
knew all about this. And he foresaw the fall of man,
and by this covenant that God made, he determined that millions
of members of Adam's race should be redeemed, millions of them,
a number which no man can number. out of every tribe, tongue, and
nation. They shall come. He has the shouts,
and he said they shall come. God has made provision for all
these millions that comprise his body, make up his body. And I told you at the outset
here, when God began to work upon the heart of a sinner, He
sends a sharp, pierced dart into a man's soul and convinces and
convicts and slays him and brings him to Christ who has made ample
provision for all of his needs as a sinner. Why he's lived a
life that he couldn't live, Our Lord lived these thirty-some
years upon this earth as a human being, as a man, with the same
passions that we have, apart from the nature of sin. He was
tempted like we are tempted, but yet he never gave in to temptation,
he never sinned. For thirty-some years, thirty-three
years, he walked the face of the earth. And every step that
he took and every breath that he drew was pleasing to God. And when it was all over with,
and when he breathed out his last cry, God said, This is my
beloved Son in whom I am well pleased. Ample provision for
the poor sinner, Bob, who can't save himself. He can't save his
big toe, let alone his whole man. lost before God for the
lack of want and interest and love of God in Christ Jesus. Well, the Lord Jesus Christ has
a special interest in her because he took her unto himself, the
church. And there is going to be a marriage
supper sometime in the future, in eternity. There's going to
be a great supper, great glorious supper, which will be the consummation
of the marriage, the bride and the bridegroom. And there'll be millions and millions
of blood-washed souls that gather to that wedding supper. And every
one of them will have a wedding garment on. Remember that fellow
made the Supper for his son. Son had a marriage. And he said,
I'm going to make a big supper for my son. Celebrate his wedding. And he told his servants to go
out to the highways and byways. Compel these people to come in.
And they had a big crowd there. And the man of the house, the
host, he came down and looked the crowd over. And he spotted
one in that crowd that didn't have a wedding garment on. And
he walked back to him and he said, friend, why come down here
without a wedding garment on? He had a wedding garment on,
but it was of his own making. He probably had a new coat on,
but he didn't have the wedding garment that was supplied by
the host. So immediately he stood out like
a sore thumb. And so they said, get the man
out of here. He hadn't got a wedding garment on. So every one of these
that I'm talking to you about is going to have a wedding garment.
And you know what that garment's going to be? The righteousness
of Jesus Christ imputed to us. We're going to wear that garment.
And that garment, Bob, never grows old. It never gets tattered. It never gets torn. Not ragged. Not ragged like our filthy rags. He loves it. Well, now, I told
you this morning, we take our wives for better or for worse.
Remember me saying that? Ain't that right? You take this
woman to be your lawfully wedded wife for better or for worse? I do. Knowing all the time she'll
never be better. She'll always be worse. That's right. The same can go
about the husband, if it was said there. The husband never
gets any better. The wife takes him for better
or for worse. She takes him for worse because
she knows he's not going to get any better. And that's the way
it is with us in our relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ. He
takes us for better or for worse and he knows ahead of time it's
going to be for worse. Spatial interest. Spatial love. The son has for his children. That's what I like to call his
children. We're his children. We've been adopted into his family.
Adopted. He could have adopted anyone
he wanted to. But he adopted old Pat, Glant,
Bob, Martha, Gene, Gary. He adopted you. You didn't have
no blood ties to him. You're strangers and aliens from
the commonwealth of Israel. But he adopted us, took us in
and made us his own children. Well, he knew he'd have no better,
but he presents her, his bride, before the throne of God, unreprovable,
without spot, or without wrinkles. Now, the great pride of our day,
I hear these television evangelists. I don't hear them all the time.
Sometimes I fight them. If I want to just waste some
time, turn one of them on. They present a pretty good show. Pretty good show. I mean, they can perform. And
their cry is, and not only them but others that don't have no
programs on the church, just little old preachers, their cry
is that, they say, today the church is
in danger. The church is, it's the fault,
a lot of the fault of the wickedness, immorality, is laid to the foot
of the church. The church doesn't do this. The
church doesn't instruct their people and teach their people
and all that. That is the church at large, this big invisible
body that never can get together, that church I'm talking about.
They say that religion is at fault. The church is at fault. It's in danger. But I say not
so with this church. It may be so with the church
they're talking about, but not so with this church, because
God in Christ has presented this church unto God without spark
or without wrinkle. Pure, this church that I'm talking
about. Well, you see, this church is
not in danger, the church I'm talking about, the church that was brought about by the eternal
choice of God, as before time ever was, and redeemed by the
blood of the Lord Jesus Christ, and this church that was quickened
by the Holy Spirit. Now, this church is not in danger,
is what I'm telling you. Why? Because this church that
I'm talking about, that God loves, and the Savior loves, and the
Holy Spirit loves, this church was built on the Rock of Ages. and she won't falter. If she is built on the sand,
Bob, she might falter. Why, our Lord said, Peter, who
told you what you just said? Peter said, Thou art the Christ,
the Son of the living God. Well, who told you that? How did you come to know that?
And then our Lord said, up on this rock." What rock? You're of the Father. You're
the Christ, the Son of the living God. Our Lord said, My Father
hath revealed that unto you, and up on this rock I'll build
my church. And this church will never be
in danger because the gates of hell shall not prevail against
it. She's built on the rock of She's
firm, and she won't fall. That's good, isn't it? Well, I'll tell you this, and
then I'll quit. Now, this church is both perfect and
pure in Christ, her husband. And this church, over here in
the book of Acts, Acts chapter 10, Turn there in Acts chapter 10. This church here in Acts chapter
10 is represented in a figure to Peter, represented in a picture
to Peter in the tenth chapter. And beginning there, about the
ninth verse, I'll read that to you. It says, On the morrow,
as they went on their journey and drew nigh unto the city,
Peter went up on the housetop to pray about the sixth hour. And while he was up there, he
became very hungry, and he would have eaten. But while they were getting ready,
he fell into a trance. And he saw heaven open and a
certain vessel descending unto him, as it had been, well, it
was likened to a great sheet knit at the four corners and
let down to the earth. He had this vision in this trance,
he could see this, this great sheet like a fire with four corners
being let down from the heavens down to the earth. And inside
of that great sheet, or that certain vessel descending, were
in all manner of four-footed beasts of the earth. wild beasts
and creeping things and fowls of the air. Now, when Peter fell into that
trance and saw the heavens open and this certain vessel likened
unto a great sheet descending unto him, Aquarian were all kinds
of four-footed beasts and creeping things, lizards and worms, salamanders,
alligators and crocodiles, all sorts of creeping things, and
fowls of the air. And he heard a voice, and the
voice came from heaven, and the voice said, Rise, kill, and eat. And Peter said, Not so, Lord. He said, I don't eat things that
are common and unclean. Now this sheep, with the creeping things and the wild
beast and the four-footed beast, It was brought down from heaven
and lifted up and it was done three times. Three times God
did that. And this vessel was received
again up into heaven eventually. Now, it was to show, I believe,
the equality of the love of God, the love of the Father, the love
of the Son, and the love of the Holy Spirit. With all these creatures
in it now, all of them, creeping things, fowls of the air, wild
beasts, none of these flew out. Fowls of the air. But none of
them flapped their wings and flew away. None of them crept out. None
of them ran out. None of them jumped out. And
none got in. And so Peter said, Not so, Lord,
for I have never eaten anything that is common and unclean. And
a voice spake unto him again the second time, and he said,
What God hath cleansed, whether it be Jew or Gentile, black,
white, or yellow, if God hath cleansed, don't you dare, Peter,
call that unclean. What God hath cleansed, don't
call that unclean. This was done thrice, and the
vessel was received again unto heaven. So the church of the
Lord Jesus Christ, made up of all nationalities and all colors,
Jews and Gentiles, black and white and yellow and red, if
God hath cleansed them, and to be in his body, They've been
cleansed in Christ. Paul said to Peter, what God
has cleansed, don't you call common. God loves the Church. Christ
loved the Church. The Holy Spirit loves the Church. That's us. He loves us and gave
himself for us. And we ought to be willing to
give ourselves unto him. Live for him. Be obedient to
him. Be useful. And I ask you for
good will, Lord, help me to serve this generation and be a witness
of your grace and mercy to the vilest sinner. Make a difference
how far he's gone. to be a call upon the name of
the Lord. Well, let's stand. We'll meet
again.