Ephesians chapter 1. Our text is going to be in verses
13 and 14. Ephesians chapter 1, 13 and 14. Let's read this together. 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 unto the redemption of the purchased
possession, unto the praise of his glory. I find it amazing
that when we're studying the Scriptures and we're going through
these books and we're going through them verse by verse, how often
we see the same things repeated over and over and over. Do you feel like that I tell
you the same things over and over and over? Well, when we
go through these verses and we go and we preach what God says,
We're going to say things over and over and over because God
says them to us over and over and over. The way that the Lord
chose to teach us the truth is by repetition, by continually,
repeatedly repeating the truth to us over and over and over. And that's how we need it because
we're slow learners and we need to be taught over and over and
over. So today we're going to look
here, we're going to see again something that our Lord has taught
us before and He's teaching us again. He's teaching us again.
What I want you to notice here for our divisions, there are
three words that I want you to draw your attention to. It says
in verse 13, in whom you also trusted, after that you heard. you heard the word of truth,
the gospel of your salvation. And it says, in whom also after
that ye believed. You believed. First you heard,
then you believed. And it says, and also after that
you believed, you were sealed. See this word, sealed. You were
sealed with that Holy Spirit of promise which is the earnest
of our inheritance to the redemption of the purchased possession and
to the praise of His glory. So that'll be our divisions.
You heard, you believed, you were sealed. Well, we begin here
and it says, in whom ye also trusted. Now the in whom tells
us that it's Christ we're trusting in. Christ we're trusting in.
And you go back to verse 12 and it says, He also trusted, and
it says in verse 12 that we should be, this is why all of these
works of grace were done, that we should be to the praise of
His glory who first trusted in Christ. I realize that most of
the commentaries say that we should be to the praise of His
glory us who first trusted in Christ.
And that meaning holds, that meaning's good. But truly, God
the Father was the first one who trusted the Son. And He trusted
the Son and gave His work into the hand of His Son for a reason,
that He might make His people to be to the praise of His glory. When He calls, if you notice
as we've studied these things that God did outside of us, apart
from us, He blessed His people with all spiritual blessings
in heavenly places. He chose us in Christ before
the foundation of the world. He predestinated us. Christ came forth and He redeemed
us by His own blood. That's who we have forgiveness
of sins in. But all of these things He did,
to bring us to experience what He's done for us. He said there
in verse 4, He did this that we should be holy and without
blame before Him in love. That means the Spirit of God
is going to separate His people, separate us from this world,
separate us from this body of death, this body of sin that
we live in, and He's going to separate us by creating us anew
inwardly, and He's going to separate us into Christ who is our sanctification. And when He does that, creating
us anew in righteousness and true holiness, that's when we
find ourselves to be without blame before Him, because we
see that in Christ we've been made the righteousness of God.
His righteousness has been imputed to us. But my point is to you
is that the Lord did all these things to bring us into the experience
of it, so that we trust His Son. as He did from the foundation
of the world. And it says, in whom, in Christ,
you also trusted. You also trusted. I love the
picture here. If we take this meaning as I'm
giving it to you, you have first, you have God the Father looking
to His Son and trusting His Son to accomplish the salvation of
His people and to glorify His great name. And then you have
the end result of that, His people looking to His Son. And isn't
that what God said He did everything for? That His Son might have
all preeminence? That everybody be looking at
His Son and everybody be glorifying His Son? And so, by His grace,
you are also trusted in Christ. Faith is essential. Without faith,
the Scripture says, Hebrews 11 says, Enoch had this testimony,
that he pleased God. But without faith, it's impossible
to please God. For he that comes to God must
believe that He is. And He must believe that He's
a rewarder of them that diligently seek Him. Those who come and
bow down to His feet and kiss the feet of our Savior. That's
what worship in the Old Testament when you see He ran to Him and
He worshiped. It means He ran to somebody and
He bowed down and kissed his feet. That's what the Word means.
To bow down and kiss His feet. That means we're confessing we
have no other hope But Christ, He's our only hope. And we believe
Him. We believe the Son of God sent
Him. We believe God the Father sent Him, that He's the Son of
God. We believe that He's come and that He's given us an understanding.
And we believe that we're in Him that is true. And we believe
that this is the true God and eternal life. He's all our hope
and all our salvation and what He's accomplished. Young fella
everybody was after up there in Boston. If just civil, as
far as civil law goes, the best thing that boy could have done.
would have been to come straight out, out of hiding, and bow down
his face to the dirt and to the feet of the police chief and
beg mercy. That'd been the best thing for
him to do. Just civilly speaking, just as far as our civil courts
go, when that's certainly the best thing for you and I to do
as sinners with God, to come to him and bow down and kiss
his feet. Cuz we're not gonna be saved apart from him doing
all the work. God the Father, God the Son,
and God the Holy Spirit. And we have nothing to contribute.
Absolutely nothing. All right, now let's look here
in verse 13. Let's look at these divisions now. After that ye
heard the word of truth. Now notice here that the Ephesians,
it says, after that ye heard. They didn't believe before they
heard. It was after that they heard.
And what did they hear? It says, after that ye heard
the word of truth. It could be translated after
you heard the truth of the word. The truth of the word. This is Christ comes and speaks
in the message. And he's the word. He is the
word. He's the essential word. He's the incorruptible seed by
whom we're born again. It's Christ entering in and birthing
us anew. He's called the everlasting father.
And you know a father births his child. And that's what he
does. He's the last Adam. And then
it says here, it defines what that word of truth is, it's the
gospel of your salvation. The gospel, the good news of
your salvation. Whenever he brings this message
to us, he brings this message to us as the good news of your
salvation personally. You sit and you hear that God
elected a people. You hear that God predestinated
His people to one day enjoy that adoption into His family. You
hear these things. And you sit in there and you
think, what if I'm not the elect child of God? And I told you
before this illustration how that one time my son, he was
locked out of his sister's room. And he was complaining and complaining
because she wouldn't let him in her room. And I said, son,
do you really want to be in her room? And he said, well, no,
I don't want to be in her room. I just don't want her telling
me I can't be. Well, most people, the natural man hears election
as saying, I can't go into heaven. And it's not that he wants to
be there. He don't believe God, don't want to bow to God. He
just don't want God telling him he can't. But that's not what
election is. Election is God opening the door
and saving sinners who otherwise would not be saved because we
died in sins in Adam. So when it comes to us, this
gospel comes as the good news, the gospel of your salvation. He makes you to see, I chose
you. He makes you to see, I redeemed you. He makes you to see, when
I shed my blood, I shed my blood for you. When I purged the sins
of my people, I purged your sin. And that message suddenly becomes
the gospel. It becomes good news. and it
becomes the good news of my salvation personally when he does that.
Now, I want you to see here, it says, After that ye heard
the word of truth. Look over to Hebrews chapter
1. We know that the Scripture says in 1 Corinthians 1.21, After
that in the wisdom of God, the world by wisdom knew not God,
it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that
believed. It says, after that, after that, in the wisdom of
God, the world by wisdom knew not God. After that, the world
by wisdom knew not God. It pleased God after that to
save through the foolishness of preaching. This means that
we're engaging in right now. It doesn't mean you're necessarily
going to be brought to faith while you're sitting in a congregation,
hearing the preacher preach. But he's going to cross the path
of his people with the Gospel. Here's why. Here's why. It's
because he's going to stain the pride of men. He's going to bring
a man to see that he had nothing to do with his salvation. Hearing,
hearing. It's the only one of our five
senses that we do that requires us to do absolutely nothing to
do it. And it's also the only one of
our five senses that requires us to do something not to do
it. You got to plug up your ears
not to hear. And so, but to hear, we don't
have to do anything. And the picture there is, is
if we're saved and given spiritual ears to hear, God's getting the
glory for it. He gave us the glory to hear.
We didn't do anything. He did it. And if we don't hear
the gospel and we willingly refuse the gospel, there's no one to
blame but ourselves because we willfully stopped up our ears
and said, we won't hear it. We just won't hear it. But here's
why He saves. He's going to bring a man to
nothing. He chose nothings to bring to naught those things
that are. He chose foolish things, and
everything God chose is a foolish thing to the natural man. He
chose to send His Son forth, not as a mighty conquering king,
but as a babe in a manger, without form or comeliness, with nothing
about Him that would make us desiring. He chose to send Him
forth into this world of sinners to grow up from a babe and to
go forth preaching His Word and declaring the truth of His Word.
He chose for Him then to go to a cross and to be nailed to a
cross and to be made the sin of His people and to shed His
blood to declare God just and the justifier of His people.
These are foolish things to men. So it's no wonder that this thing
of preaching is a foolish thing with men. It's very foolish to
them. But this is how it pleases God to save. And the other reason
is, is because He's going to see to it that those that are
saved, glory only in the Lord. They're going to glory only in
the Lord. And by this work, he gathers his body together so
that this is how he makes us constantly come here. Y'all don't
come here because I'm just some congenial fellow that y'all like
to listen to. Y'all come here because of the
word that's being preached. You come here because of the
gospel that's being preached. And that's how he draws us and
keeps us together as a body. Our common bond that keeps us
united, the cement that keeps the stones of this building fitly
framed together, is Christ, our builder and our maker. It's Christ,
the foundation and the headstone. He's the one that does that.
But look at Hebrews 1. Are you there with me? Hebrews
1 verse 1, God who at sundry times, it means in many times,
many times, and in diverse manners, in different manners, spake in
time past. See here, in time past unto the
fathers by the prophets. But in these last days, He hath
in these last days spoken unto us by His Son. By His Son. whom he hath appointed heir of
all things, by whom also he made the worlds." Those last two phrases
point to the fact that when Christ said, all power is given unto
me, that I may give eternal life to as many as the Father has
given unto me. Everything was put into his hand and now that
he's accomplished the work of redemption and has risen, Ephesians
1.21-1.22 tells us that that God's put all things under
His feet and given Him to be the head over all things to the
church. And this is Christ who filleth
all in all. So, when He came the first time,
He shows us how He saves now. We're talking about this hearing.
After that you heard. Remember what He did first? Turn
over to Isaiah chapter 40. Isaiah 40. First thing He did
was He sent John the Baptist. He sent John the Baptist. And
by that, He's showing us. And then, after John the Baptist
preached, Christ came forth and He spoke the Word into the hearts
of His people. And that's an example of what
happens while the Gospel is being preached. That's what happened
to the Ephesian brethren when Paul went there and preached.
Christ preached through Paul and preached that message. Look
here in Isaiah 40. He spoke there and He told him
in verse 1, Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, saith your God. Speak ye comfortably to Jerusalem,
crying to her that her warfare is accomplished. That's our message. The warfare's done. Christ has
done it. And that her iniquity is pardoned.
That's the message. God has pardoned the iniquity
of His people. For she's received of the Lord's hand double for
all her sins. Double restitution. Double good
for all her sins. Now watch this. The voice of
Him that crieth in the wilderness. That's John the Baptist. And
here's what he cried. Prepare ye the way of the Lord. Make straight in the desert a
highway for our God. I stand here and I'm doing what
Paul did when he stood there preaching to the Ephesians. I'm
telling you, get ready, the King's coming. He's coming. Stand, clear
the way. Clear everything out of the way.
The King's about to make His presence known. That's what a
crier does. And John the Baptist was sent
to be a crier. And God's preachers are sent to be ambassadors for
Him as though God did beseech you by us, saying, Be ye reconciled. unto God. And Christ comes forth
in that Word. Now look, and the voice said,
verse 6, that voice said, that's John the Baptist, he said, no,
no, I'm sorry, that voice is Christ. The voice said, cry.
And he said, John the Baptist said, what shall I cry? And here's
what the message he was given. All flesh is grass, and all the
goodliness thereof is as the flower of the field. The grass
withereth, the flower fadeth, because the Spirit of the Lord
bloweth upon it. Surely the people is grass. The grass withereth,
the flower fadeth, but the Word of God shall stand forever. It
remains. So he says, first of all, tell
them they're grass. Tell them that they're going
to perish, and everything they're hanging on to is going to perish.
And when that all perishes, they're going to perish with it. But
tell them the Word of God remains. That Word. Remember that Word.
That Word of God. After that you heard the Word
of truth. The Word remains. He's going to remain. And then
he tells them down here in verse 9, at the end of verse 9, and
he tells them, cry and say, Behold your God. He said the twofold
message. It is all flesh is grass and
behold your God. Behold your God. And look at,
he says, this is what's going to happen. As you preach, this
is what's going to happen. Verse 10. Behold, the Lord God
will come with strong hand and his arm shall rule for him. Behold,
his reward is with him and his work before him and he shall
feed his flock like a shepherd. He shall gather the lambs with
his arm and carry them in his bosom and shall gently lead those
that are with young. I haven't seen Christ walking
in our midst physically, but I tell you what I have seen happen.
I have seen some sheep be gathered I have seen some be gathered."
He said, my sheep shall hear my voice and they know me and
they follow me. And he said, a stranger they
won't follow because they know not the voice of strangers. He
said, they're going to hear my voice. They're going to know
my voice. I'm going to call them. That's how he's gathering his
sheep. He said, you go forth and cry this message in the midst
of the wilderness. And that's what John of Abbas
said. He said, I'm not the cry. He said, I'm just the voice of
one. I'm here representing one. the voice of one, crying in the
wilderness. And I'm crying that man can do
nothing and that salvation is of God. And as he does that,
behold, the Lord God comes. Just like He did physically when
He came after John the Baptist, so in the preaching of the Gospel,
He comes forth and He speaks the Word in the heart of His
child. And that's when it's effectual. I could sit up here and preach
to you today until we're all so tired we can't sit or hear
and I'm blue in the face. It won't do any good. But if
He speaks, it don't have to be but a word spoken. And all of a sudden, you've left
all and rose up and followed Him without even moving a toe.
You followed Him in your heart. That's right. Look at Isaiah
52. Isaiah 52. His people come forth into this
world, and we fell into sin and into bondage, and we've been
under the yoke of the law, and the yoke of false preachers,
and the yoke of our flesh, and everything else. And He said
at the end of verse 5 there, He said, and My name continually
every day is blaspheme. And He says, therefore, verse
6, My people shall know My name. They're going to know My name.
Therefore they shall know in that day that I am He that doth
speak. It is I. How are they going to
know that? How are they going to know that?
Look at verse 7. How beautiful upon the mountains
are the feet of Him. Now over in Romans 10, we're
going to go there when we leave here. Over in Romans 10 it says,
the feet of them. Here it says, the feet of him.
Because he's telling us, it's me that's speaking. It's me that's
speaking. I'm the one bringing the message.
Christ is saying that. And he says, how beautiful are
the feet of him that bringeth good tidings, that publisheth
peace, that bringeth good tidings of good, that publisheth salvation,
that saith undesigned, thy God reigneth. Now watch this, thy
watchman, thy preachers, whose, thy, he's talking about Christ,
his ambassador, thy watchman shall lift up the voice. He told
them to cry, they're going to lift up the voice and cry. And
watch this, with the voice together shall they sing. For they shall
see eye to eye when the Lord shall bring against them." Indeed,
they're going to lift up the voice. Each of his preachers
are going to lift up their voices and they're going to be in harmony.
They're going to be in agreement in doctrine. They're going to
see eye to eye in doctrine in all things that they preach because
they both tolerate the Spirit of God. So they're going to preach
the same thing. But it means here they're going to lift up
the voice with the voice of Christ together. They're going to be
preaching together. They're going to lift up their
voice and cry, but He's going to come forth and He's going
to gather His lambs by speaking His voice together with their
voice. You're not going to hear His
voice except in the heart. You're going to hear my voice
externally, but you're going to hear His voice in the heart,
and He's going to speak in the heart. And when He does speak
in the heart, this is what He says in the heart, verse 9, "...break
forth into joy, sing together, you waste places of Jerusalem,
for the Lord hath comforted His people." He's redeemed Jerusalem. That's the message that always
comes forth. He's done it. He's done everything. Look over
now at Romans 10. Romans 10. Now Paul is preaching on that
text that I just preached to you, and he tells us the same
thing I just told you. Romans 10. Look at verse 10. Verse 11. The Scripture saith,
Whosoever believeth on him shall not be ashamed. I'm sorry, drop
down to verse 13. Whosoever shall call upon the
name of the Lord shall be saved. Paul said, After that you heard,
you believed. After that you heard the word
of truth. Whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall
be saved. How then shall they call on Him of whom they have
not believed?" You can't believe in somebody you don't know and
you've never heard of. And he says, and how shall they
believe in Him of whom they have not heard? You have to hear.
You have to hear. And how shall they hear without
a preacher? without a preacher. There was a Jewish synagogue
in Ephesus. It was. They had the Word of God. But
it don't say, after that you read. It says, after that you
heard. Because it's God's good pleasure. And whatsoever pleased Him, that
did He in all deep, in the heavens and the earth and all deep places.
And how shall they hear without a preacher? And how shall they
preach except they be sent? Who does the sending? Notice,
Paul's going backwards from the believer back to the source.
You see where he's going? He's just backing us up to the
source. As it's written, how beautiful
are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace and bring
glad tidings of good things. And look down at verse 17. So
then, faith cometh by hearing, not just hearing alone though.
and hearing by the Word of God. Now with what we've seen, what
I've showed you, how that Christ comes forth and speaks when the
gospel is being preached, that Word, Word, is a capital W, the
Word of God. is hearing with the Word of God. Christ speaking the Word. Christ
the Word speaking into the heart. So let's go back to our text
now, and that's where we come to in our text back in Ephesians
chapter 1. That's exactly what happened.
Paul preached, and after that you heard the Word of Truth,
the Gospel of your salvation. What happened? It says, "...in
whom also after that you believed." You believed. How do you believe? Well, Christ, He said, I'll pray
the Father, and He'll send forth the Spirit, and the Spirit, when
He's come, He'll guide you into all truth. And the Holy Spirit
comes forth, and the Spirit gives life where there was no life.
There's just deadness. Just deadness. And you don't
even know, really, when the life has come about. You don't really
know. You know when you plant a seed
in the earth and you're waiting for your garden to grow, you
don't really know when that seed has come to life. You can't see
it. And as so when he plants this Word in the heart, you don't
really know when it's come to life. And just slowly something
begins to happen though. You begin to hear. And you begin
to hear this gospel of your salvation. And when you began to hear it
for the first time in your life, you began to see you're a sinner.
You began to see there's nothing good in you. You began to see
that all of these things, the first thing you have to see,
the first thing is not just that you've broken the law, not just
that your heart's deceitful, not just that you've never believed
on the Lord, although those are things that will be revealed
to the sinner. We've got to be made to see that all of the things
that we thought were good, and righteous and made us accepted
with God is filthy rags and God won't have it. And when he makes
us to see that, he shows us that by showing us how good Christ
is and how God has accepted his son. And we behold him as one
beholds his own son. And we mourn for him as one mourns
for his own son. And he draws us, not kicking
our heels in the dirt and complaining and not wanting to be drawn.
We come willingly. in the day of His power. And
here's what's happened when that happens. Look at Ephesians chapter
2, verse 8. By grace are you saved through
faith, and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God. He's given
us life and He's given us faith to believe Him. And so after
that you hear, you believe. Now who's got the glory in this
thing so far? There's no I in it. There's no
I in it. There's no I will save so and
so in such and such a way. It's Christ taught me the Gospel. He brought the Gospel to me and
He taught me the Gospel. After that you heard, and it's
the Spirit of God quickened me, and He gave me life, and He gave
me faith, and He granted me repentance, and I believe. And whenever you
believe, here's the third thing, and He says there in verse 13, after that you believed, you
were sealed with that Holy Spirit of promise. This is not the Spirit
of God doing a work now and then down the road doing another work
and all that. This all happens together. Whenever He gives us faith to
believe, He draws us to see Christ is trustworthy and worthy of
all our trust. And we cast all our eternal trust
and our eternal well-being into His hand. And when we do that,
We say we have the witness within ourselves. We bear witness with
our Spirit, the Spirit that has come within us, the Holy Spirit.
We bear witness that He is our Father. We say, Abba, Father.
And when we bear witness of Him and confess Him, it's all done
by His grace. When we do that, He seals us. He seals us. You know the analogy,
the illustration. You ever sealed vegetables and
you take them and you put them in a jar and you heat that jar
up and you got the lid on them and you set them out there on
the counter and you just wait and listen. And in a minute you're
going to hear them start popping like popcorn. And what's happened
is that lid has sealed and when that's sealed, Guess what happened? What's inside is preserved. It's preserved. And that's what
he's telling us here. After that you believe, from
then on, from the moment we believe on, how do we continue? How do
we continue in the faith? How do we continue running this
race set before us? We've been sealed. We've been
preserved by the Spirit of God. And look at what he says the
Spirit of God is. He says, By that Holy Spirit of promise. I like that. By that Holy Spirit
of promise. He keeps telling us this promise
over and over. That's how we keep knowing it. And he says,
verse 14, which is? He's talking about the Holy Spirit.
The Holy Spirit is the earnest of our inheritance unto the redemption
of the purchased possession. Now, Christ came and He made
the purchase. He purchased us. He purchased
all His elect people by shedding His own blood. That was the price
that had to be paid. The law demanded death, and He
paid it. He went to the cross and laid
down His life in place of His people, bore the judgment of
God, put away that eternal death for His people by being separated
from God for His people. He did that. He made the purchase.
Now His people are a purchased possession. they belong to Him.
And He's coming back for them. He's going to redeem that which
He's purchased. He's already redeemed us as far
as shedding His blood. We're redeemed by His blood and
we have forgiveness of sins. But there's another redemption
in Romans 8 that's called the redemption of our bodies, the
adoption. It's called that glorious liberty
that glorious liberty. We've been delivered. Christ
has made us free now. But then there's going to be
a glorious deliverance into his presence because he's coming
again. But until then, how are we going to know he's coming
back? I want something that lets me know he's going to come back
for sure. One time I was down in Tennessee
and I pulled up to a station and I got some gasoline and I
went in to pay. And when I went in to pay, I
realized I didn't have any cash. And I was a little slower than
everybody else getting credit cards. I didn't have a credit
card. I didn't have anything else. I had a debit card. That's all
I had. But they didn't have an ATM. They didn't have the swiping
thing. This was a while ago. So there
I'm sitting. I got no way of paying these
people. But I see across the parking
lot, way on the other side of it, there's an ATM. And I just
filled my truck up with gasoline, full tank of gas. And I tell
the people, I need to go over there and get the gasoline. I
mean, get the money. I'll be back. You can trust me.
I'll be back. And she said, give me something
as an earnest so I know you're coming back. I said, what do
you want? She said, give me your driver's
license. So I gave her my driver's license. And I took off over
there to that ATM and got the money and came back. Of course
I'm going to come back. I left my driver's license there.
I purchased the gas. It's mine. Of course I'm coming
back. Christ fills us with the Spirit
as the earnest that He's coming back for His purchased possession.
And when He does, this is what's going to happen. Verse 14, to
end there, it'll be unto the praise of His glory. We won't
praise anybody in heaven but God. We won't praise anybody
but Christ. Amen.