Alright, let's turn back there
now to Ephesians 1. The singing sounded good. I was
reading there and was listening, and I liked it. It sounded so
good. Thank you, Art, for the Scripture
reading. We're going to look at Ephesians 1, verses 1 through
14. Just sort of take an overview
of these 14 verses, and we'll take them verse by verse. And
we're going to start here in verses 1 and 2. This is the greeting,
or verses 1 through, yeah, 1 and 2. You know an epistle, this
is called an epistle, the epistle to the Ephesians, and it is a
letter. That's what an epistle is. And
when you get a letter, the first thing you do is you see who that
letter is written to. You see who it's written from.
That's what we do. The first thing we need to do
when we read Scriptures is see who's writing it and who's it
written to. We see here in verses 1 and 2,
Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God, to the saints
which are Ephesus and to the faithful in Christ Jesus, grace
to you and peace from God our Father from the Lord Jesus Christ. The writer here then is Paul.
He tells us some things about his office. He says, Paul, an
apostle of Jesus Christ. An apostle was called directly
by the Lord Jesus Christ. There were only 12 apostles.
Paul was one of them. Paul was one of those apostles.
He's the only man since the day of Pentecost that was called
directly by Christ. He's an apostle. And he was given
gifts. The apostles were given gifts
for that time so that men would listen to them as they preached.
Men today don't have those gifts. Preachers today don't have them.
He tells us here he was called by the will of God. Christ is
God. And he called Paul. He gifted
Paul. He sent Paul. And he called out
his sheep thereby, using Paul. Christ gets the glory. He called
him. A false messenger then and now,
then the same as now, was one who has not been sent of Christ. He goes and he preaches, but
he's not been sent. All true messengers of God, then
and now, are made so by the will of God. If they're true messengers
of God, they're made so by the will of God. They're sent by
Christ, not by man's will. All right? Then it says here,
the people to whom Paul wrote were the Ephesians. He said,
the saints at Ephesus, the faithful in Christ Jesus. Every believer's
a saint. Every believer is a saint. To be a saint is somebody that's
been sanctified. They've been made a saint by
the Lord, not by man. By God the Father, by God the
Son, and by God the Holy Spirit. God gets the glory. And every
believer's faithful in Jesus Christ. This is not two different
people he's writing to when he says, the saints at Ephesus and
the faithful in Christ Jesus. He's describing the believer
as a saint and as faithful in Christ Jesus. We're faithful
in Christ Jesus by the faith of Christ. Paul said, I'm crucified
with Christ. Nevertheless, I live, yet not
I. But Christ liveth in me, and
the life that I now live, I live by the faith of the faith of
the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me. I live by
his faithfulness keeping me and upholding me. Now it's very important
to note here, always note this, in these letters in the New Testament,
they're always written to believers, to the saints. That's who they're
written to, to the faithful in Christ Jesus. They're written
to his people. They're never written to unbelievers.
They're never written to the world. They're written to believers.
That'll help you read in these scriptures because then when
you see scriptures that say us and us all and what God has done
for us all, you know, He's not talking about the world. He's
talking about, He's addressing believers. That's who He's talking
to. That's who He's writing to in this scripture. And His prayer
for them there in verse 2 was, and peace from the Father and
the Lord Jesus Christ. Because all grace and all peace
is from the Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ. And here's
what I want us to see tonight. Salvation is by God the Father,
God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. And we might think that's
a pretty simple proposition that everybody ought to know that,
but not everybody knows this. And this is what the whole world,
religious world, that claims to be Christ, denies. God the
Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit saves His people. And we don't save ourselves.
It's all of Him. And if there was something else
I would want you to see, it'd be this. Everything we're going
to end up having, we had in the beginning that was before the
beginning. In the beginning that was before
God made anything, we had everything that we're going to have when
we come into His presence in the end. We fell, and Christ
came, and He redeemed us, and He restored, gave us back what
we had in eternity with God. And He's keeping us to that time
when we are fully conformed again to His image, and we'll have
everything. So I want you to see that as well. Let's read
the text one more time. I'm going to make the divisions
this time when I read it. The first thing we're going to
see is salvation is by God the Father. Look at verse 3. Blessed
be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who hath blessed
us, that's who did it, God the Father, with all spiritual blessings
in heavenly places in Christ Jesus. According as, here's the
first thing, is election. According as He's chosen us in
Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be
holy and without blame before Him in love. Then there's predestination,
having predestinated us unto what? There's adoption, unto
the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself. And then we're
told why he did it, according to the good pleasure of his will,
to the praise of the glory of his grace, so that everybody
that's applauding and giving glory will be glorifying his
grace. And then, in this, He's made
us accepted in the Beloved. That's God the Father. That'll
be our first point. Secondly, salvation's by God
the Son. By God the Son. Verse 7 says,
in whom? It ended there talking about
Jesus Christ. Adopted to Jesus Christ. And
it begins here in verse 7, it says, in whom? In Jesus Christ. We have redemption through His
blood. redemption through His blood,
the forgiveness of sins according to the riches of His grace. We didn't have to pay Him to
do this. Grace means He came and did it all for free. He did
it for His people freely. Wherein He hath abounded toward
us in all wisdom and prudence. having made known unto us the
mystery of his will. This thing that he's done and
that he's doing is a mystery. He's made it known unto us, the
mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure. This is
why he did this, why the son did it, according to his good
pleasure, which he purposed in himself. That in the dispensation,
now here's the mystery, in the dispensation of the fullness
of times, he might gather together in one all things in Christ. If you ask me to tell you what
the book of Ephesians is about, I'd say one. It's about being
made one in Christ. That's what it's about. One.
Being made one in Christ. both things which are in heaven
and which are on earth, even in Him, in Christ, in whom also
we've obtained an inheritance. All this is in God the Son. We've
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. There we are. applauding somebody
again, there we are, giving glory to somebody again, giving glory
to the Son, to the praise of His glory who first trusted in
Christ. And then thirdly, salvation is
by God the Holy Spirit. Verse 13 says, in whom you also
trusted. In Christ you trusted, after
that you heard the word of truth. How did you hear it? Had to hear
it by the Spirit of God, that's the only way a man will hear
the word of truth. the gospel of your salvation, in whom also
after that you believed. How did you believe? By the Spirit
of God, giving us faith to believe. Then what happened? Then you
were sealed with that Holy Spirit of promise. The Holy Spirit sealed
us, which is the earnest of our inheritance until the redemption
until our bodies are raised from the dead, the redemption of that
purchased possession. That's what His people are, purchased
possession. Who's going to get the praise
for that? To the praise of His glory. You see, God the Father,
God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit saves His people and gets
all the glory. Let's look at the first part.
Salvation is by God the Father. Verse 3 says, Blessed be the
God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who has blessed us with
all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ. Now it says
here, God hath blessed us. Now Paul's one of the us and
he's talking to those Ephesian saints who are part of the us.
And every believer is included in this. He's saying, God hath
blessed us. He's blessed us. We know by His
grace and we glorify God because God is the one who has blessed
us. He's the author of all blessings
and He's the giver of all blessings. If we're going to be blessed,
if we have been blessed, then God's the one who blessed. He's
the one who blessed us. And unless He blesses us, we
have not been blessed. He's the only one who can bless. And this is so. God blesses whom
He will. He doesn't have to bless anybody. He's not obligated to anybody.
He blesses whom He will. That's what Paul declared, quoting
the Scriptures in Exodus, he said, God said, I will have mercy
on whom I will have mercy. So then it's not of him that
willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that showeth mercy.
Now what did God bless His children with? It's God that does the
blessing. God the Father is the originator,
the fountain of blessing. What did He bless His children
with? Verse 3 says, who hath blessed us with all spiritual
blessings." God's blessed us. He's talking about His individual
children. We're not talking about nations
here. We're talking about individuals. Individual children. He's blessed
us with everything that God can give a sinner. All. He's blessed us with all. And
notice these are spiritual blessings, spiritual blessings, wisdom,
righteousness, sanctification, redemption, peace. divine inheritance,
eternal life, all spiritual blessings. That's what God has blessed us
with. And all the spiritual blessings that God could give us, that's
what he's given us. All spiritual blessings. Where
did he give them to us? And when did he give them to
us? This is so important now. Where did he give us these blessings
and when? Look at verse three. In heavenly
places. That's where he did it. That
means God, who is Spirit, God the Father, who is Spirit, in
spiritual places, blessed each individual child with all spiritual
blessings. And then look what it says in
verse 3, in Christ, according as he hath chosen us in him. That means then and there, when
there was God the Father in spiritual places, that means that Christ
was there with God too. If He blessed us in Christ according
as He chose us in Him, Christ was there too. You know why? Christ is God. Christ is God
the Son. He's the second person in the
Trinity. So what we're seeing here first is God chose God. God chose God first. He, God
the Father, chose God the Son, and God the Son agreed to become
a man and the mediator, Christ Jesus. That's why it says there,
blessed be God, the God and the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.
That's the sense in which He is the God and the Father of
our Lord Jesus Christ. As God the Son, He's equal with
God the Father and God the Holy Spirit. But he made himself of
no reputation, became a man. And when he did that as the mediator,
he did it as the man. believing His Father, depending
upon His Father, and going about to be the mediator and to accomplish
all of those covenant, that covenant work that the Father gave for
Him to do. So that's what He did first. He chose His Son.
And then He, choosing us in His Son, He blessed us with all spiritual
blessings. He gave us all spiritual blessings,
choosing us in Christ. Now get that. All spiritual blessings
were ours right then and right there because Christ is all our
spiritual blessings. Read it again, verse 3. He blessed
us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ
according as He had chosen us in Him. You see, all the spiritual
blessings became ours right then, according as He chose us in Christ,
because Christ is all our spiritual blessings. Christ is. Christ is our wisdom. He blessed
us with that spiritual blessing. Christ is our righteousness.
He gave us that spiritual blessing. Christ is our sanctification. Christ is our redemption. Christ
is our propitiation. Christ is our justification.
Christ is all. God gave us all when He gave
us Christ. or when He put us in Christ.
There was no possibility Christ would fail in what God gave Him
to do because He's God. He's our surety. He would come
and He would do these things for us. And so in Christ, God
saw us like He saw His Son, like He saw Christ. Holy and righteous. Accepted. There with Him, just
like He saw them. Now when was that? When did that
happen? When was that? Verse 3 says, before the foundation
of the world. I said it's the beginning before
the beginning. This was when there was nothing
but God. No world had been made before
there was an earth, before there was anything that was carnal
and temporal, before there was, when there was no sin, when there
was no realm of the flesh and sin and death, when there was
no Mount Sinai, when there was no Old Covenant, when there was
no Old Covenant precepts and no Old Covenant promises. when
there was no old covenant ordinances, when there was no touch, not
taste, not handle, not, there was none of that at all. God
blessed us with all spiritual blessings according as he has
chosen us in Christ, in Christ, that for this reason, verse four,
that we should be holy and without blame before him in love. All God's elect, get this, all
God's elect, every one of God's elect children were then in Christ
what we are now in Christ and what we shall be ourselves perfectly
when he makes us perfect in final glory. That's what we were then. From the beginning, we were what
we are and what we shall be in the end, in Christ. That's what
we were. You see Christ? What are we going
to be in the end? Perfectly conformed to His image. You know what we
were in the beginning? Perfectly conformed to His image.
That's what we were. That's what we were. All this
was done by God the Father before the world was made. If God gave
us all spiritual blessings in Christ in spiritual places before
the foundation of the world, then that must mean that carnal,
earthly, temporal, fleshly things have nothing to do with making
us the righteousness of God in spirit and in truth. These things that we do in our
flesh, things that we do have nothing to do with making us
holy and righteous and without blame. Absolutely nothing. None
of that stuff existed yet. And this is what God had made
us in His Son before the world was made, before any of that
was made. Now Paul's setting forth this for a reason. He's
got something that he's leading up to over here in Ephesians
2. And we'll touch on it here in a minute. But he's setting
that forth. We had everything then. Everything. Now somebody
will say, but we fell in sin. We fell in sin. Well, God knew
beforehand we was going to fall in sin. Verse 5 says, And He
predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to
Himself. The Father predestinated us to
be adopted to be His own children through Jesus Christ. That's
what He did. He predestinated the time He
predestinated the season of His love. He predestinated that exact
time and place when He'd cross our path with this good news
of His Son. And when He did, because we were
sons, Paul the Apostle said, because we were sons, He sent
forth the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, crying, Abba, Father,
Father, Father. We began to cry out unto Him.
Why did the Father do all that? Why did He do all this? He ain't
made the first grain of sands yet. We're still in heaven. Why
did He do all this? Verse 5 says, according to the
good pleasure of His will. Not our will. Not your will. Not mom and daddy's will. Not
the preacher's will. According to the good pleasure
of His will. He chose to do it according to
the good pleasure of His will. All right, verse 6 says, this
is another reason He did it, to the praise of the glory of
His grace. So that all His children shall
praise Him and glory in Him, give all glory to Him for showing
us all this free, unmerited, unsought, sovereign, unchangeable
grace. That's why. That's why He did
it. That's why He's not going to
let you or me have any room to glory in this thing of salvation.
He did this thing of salvation that He might get all the glory,
that we praise His grace, that we praise Him that salvation's
all of grace. That's why He did it this way.
Verse 6 says, we're in. And all this He did now before
the world began, and all this right here before He made anything,
we're talking about God the Father, what He did, we're in. He hath
made us accepted in the blood. He did. I hear people want to
talk about when they accepted Jesus as their personal Savior.
Let me tell you something. What we need to be concerned
about is whether or not God's going to accept us. That's what
we need to be concerned about. And God will not accept us unless
He hath made us accepted in the beloved Christ Jesus. That's
how He makes us accepted. He does it. He does it all. The
right and the honor and the glory goes to God the Father. He hath
made us accepted in the Beloved, in Christ Jesus. So you see,
first of all, salvation is by God the Father. It's by God the
Father. Now let's look at the second
thing. Let me see if I can illustrate
this thing about salvation being of God the Father and Him not
sharing His glory with anybody. Let's say Art has come along
and he's went out and bought all the materials, come home,
laid out a design of something he wanted to build for his children,
and he built it. He did all the work in building
it. He planned it. He purchased it. He put it together. He built it. He got it all done. And then he gives it to his children. And his children come out and
they say, they start praising one another for everything they
did. Do you think he's going to let them have the glory for
that? They didn't do anything. They didn't buy it. They didn't
purchase it. They didn't put it together.
They didn't do it. He did everything. And he did it that his children
might say, thank you, Father. Thank you for what you've done
for us. That's why God did it. That's why God did it. All right,
let's look at the second thing. Salvation's by God the Son. Redemption
and forgiveness is by the Son. Look at verse seven. In whom
we have redemption through His blood." Now we here, we're still
talking about His saints, we're talking about Paul, we're talking
about himself, we're talking about everybody that he chose before
the world began and gave to his son. In whom we have redemption
through His blood. Redemption through His blood.
We have the forgiveness of sins through His blood. According
to the riches of His grace. We sinned and we sold ourselves. That's what we did. When we sinned,
we sold ourselves into bondage. Scripture says we sold ourselves
for nothing. We didn't get anything for doing
it. We got nothing in return. Oh, we had a lot of fun doing
it. But we sinned and sold ourselves
into bondage, into sin. We're captives to our sin nature. You can't get out of it. You
can't, you can't, You can't like being here tonight. You can't
make yourself like it. If you don't have the spirit
of God dwelling in you, you can't make yourself here. You can't. You can pay attention. That's
the least you could do. But you can't make yourself hear
even if you start paying attention. Not in the heart. You're in bondage
to your sin nature. That's what we were. In bondage
to our sin nature. Captives under the justice of
God. The lawful captives. Sinned against
God. It demands we die the wrath of
God, the eternal separation from God. Now it was by the obedience
of Christ that we've been given liberty. You who know Him, who
believe Him, surely it's by His obedience, not by mine and not
by yours, by the obedience of one. Just like it was by the
disobedience of Adam, by the obedience of one shall many be
made righteous. And that one's Christ. He came
into this earth and As God the Son, he was equal with the Father,
but when he made himself of no reputation and he took upon him
the form of the servant, he believed God. You see, we got to be, everybody
he's going to save has got to be perfectly faithful. We got
to perfectly have perfect fidelity in our heart to the Father. He's
the only one that did. The only one that ever did. That's
why I told you always stick with this King James translation because
it has that difference between faith in Christ and the faith
of Christ. Herein is the righteousness of
God manifest without the law, without the prophets, even the
righteousness, which is by the faith of Christ. It's by his
fidelity. It's by his faithfulness to the
Father. And he went about and he obeyed the Father. Everything
he did and he depended upon the father as he did it. I know it's
hard for us to understand because he does not He is God the son
all-powerful almighty omniscient omnipotent God, but he made himself
lower than the angels and he came and he went about doing
what he did in obedience to his father and depending upon His
Father, growing in wisdom and stature as a man, just like His
children are flesh and blood. And He went about doing that
through His whole life, through His whole life, obedient to the
Father, His God and His Father. Remember when He was resurrected,
He told Peter, or He's told him to go get Peter, and He said,
tell him that I'm going to to my father and your father, my
God and your God. That's how he addressed the father.
That's what he made himself one with his brethren. And he is
the man, the perfect faithful man, the perfect obedient man. There was one man in the beginning
and one man in the last days. That one man was at the beginning
of the first dispensation. This last man was at the beginning
of the last dispensation. You understand that? That one
man was the head of the old covenant. This last man is the head of
the new covenant. That first man, he plunged all
his children into disobedience, plunged them into sin by disobedience. The last Adam made all that He
represented righteous by His obedience. There's the old covenant. There's the new covenant. There's
the old head. There's the new head. You see
what I'm saying? And everything about that old
covenant is done away with by this last Adam for His people. Everything about it. Everything
about it. And that obedience was through
His whole life. It was not only at the cross. It was through
His whole life. There were places He went, things
He did, because it had to be fulfilled. It was written and
it had to be fulfilled. And He was fulfilling everything.
And He told John, it becomes us in fulfilling all righteousness
for you to baptize Me. And so, then He went to the cross
and He obeyed God even to the death of the cross. Look at Galatians,
back to your left, Galatians 3 verse 10. For as many as are of the works
of the law are under the curse. For it is written, Cursed is
everyone that continueth not in all things which are written
in the book of the law to do them. That's that old covenant.
That's that first covenant. But that no man is justified
by the law in the sight of God is evident. For the just shall
live by faith. You can't touch that law and
expect to come into God's presence. You cannot go back to that law
under the old covenant and try to come into God's presence.
God won't have us if we do that. The just live by faith. Those that are justified, made
right, made just with God, they live one way, by faith. That's
our rule. That's the rule of the believer's
life. Faith. Faith. Now look at the next word.
And the law is not of faith. Would you listen to me? The law's
not of faith, brethren. It's not of faith. But the man
that doeth them shall live in them. That means the man that
does them's got to do everything the law says. If you want to
come to God in anything that was given on Mount Sinai, you've
got to do everything that was given on Mount Sinai. That's
so. All right, but look. Christ hath
redeemed us. from the curse of the law. What's the curse of it? We couldn't
do it and we were guilty and it demanded eternal separation. Being made a curse for us, that's
how he did it. For it's written, cursed is everyone
that hangeth on a tree. And he did it that the blessing
of Abraham might come on the Gentiles through Jesus Christ,
that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith. Do you see that? The promise
of the Spirit's eternal life. That's the promise that the Spirit
brings to us. Righteousness by Christ Jesus.
We receive that through faith. Not through the works of the
law. Not through the works of the law. So you see what I'm
pointing out to you now, stay with me here. You've got God
the Father who blessed us with all spiritual blessings and gave
us full righteousness and holiness without blame. We were Everything
Christ was with God in eternity when He chose us and put us in
Christ. Then we failed. Then we failed. And we came under
the curse of the law. And when we came under the curse
of the law, we got to be brought out from under that curse of
the law. We got to be redeemed from that curse of the law. So Christ
came forth and He redeemed us from the curse of the law, being
made a curse for us. And He fulfilled everything that
was written under that old covenant, that everything that that old
covenant had put us under, He fulfilled it. He fulfilled it.
So now we have forgiveness. the riches, we have the riches
of His grace. He did it freely for us, that
mean by the riches of His grace. He did it freely. Can you put
a price on what He did? He didn't come to me and say,
now what will you give me if I go do this for you? He went
and did it. He just went and did it. He didn't
hint around like we do. We'll hint around it. I want to help you in this thing.
I really want to help you. And then when the person ends
up, they don't need our help, we really like that because we
got a twofer. We pretended like we was going
to help them, and then we got, whew, and we didn't have to help
them. You know? So we're doubly happy
then. We got to come out like we was
going to do something really good, but we really didn't have
to do anything. That's great for us. That's the kind of deals
we do. He didn't do that. He just came
freely and did it because it was the will of the Father, and
it was His will to do it, and He did it gladly. He went and
suffered that cross for His people gladly. He suffered hell on that
cross. He suffered that death that never
dies on that cross. That living death He suffered
on that cross for His people. And He redeemed us from it. So
now the law has nothing whatsoever to say to those who are in Christ
Jesus. Listen now. Listen carefully.
Please listen to me. This is going to be the difference
between you meeting God and saying, didn't I do some wonderful things
for you God? And you meeting God and being
accepted in the Beloved. This is going to be the difference
right here. Listen. We have fully, completely fulfilled
the law. Those that God put in Christ,
when Christ came forth, did Christ fully, completely fulfill the
law or did He not? If he did, then everybody he
represented has fully, completely fulfilled the law. Everything
in it. In Christ, we are righteous.
The law wasn't made for a righteous man, brethren. It just was not. It wasn't. Through faith in Christ,
we establish the whole law of God, and that's the only way
that it's established. Christ established it. He gets
the glory. That's why He came. That's why
He came. Redemption means we're free from
the law. Oh, happy condition. We're free
from it. Now, by Christ the mystery of
His Gospels revealed to us. Look at verse 8. 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 purposed in Himself. Has He made known to you the
mystery? Everything about our salvation and the worship of
God is spiritual. Everything about it. It's a mystery.
It's hidden to the natural man. It's a mystery. Adam fell into
the realm of flesh of sin and death and separation from God.
What caused his nature to become sin? You ever thought about that? Did God put something into Adam
to make his nature sinful? No. He didn't. God removed something. God removed his spirit. Sin is
the transgression of the law. We know that from 1 John. Sin
is the transgression of the law, the breaking of the law. What's
the nature of sin? What's the sin nature? It's the
absence of the Spirit of God. God removed Himself. You and
I were born the first time in flesh without the presence of
the Spirit of God. Every man in that state only
has a mind for fleshly things. Look at Romans 8. All he's got
is a mind for fleshly things. And I've talked about in regard
to spiritual things, in regard to this book. He can't see anything
in it. He can't discern what the book
says. All he sees is the literal. That's
all he can see in it. Alright, look here with me. Verse
5, Romans 8, 5. They that are after the flesh
do mind the things of the flesh, but they that are after the Spirit,
the things of the Spirit. They that are after the flesh,
they mind the things of the flesh. Even when they're looking in
this book, they're looking for fleshly things. They're looking
at literal things. They're looking at things that
have to do with this earth, earthy things. For to be carnally minded
is death. You won't ever understand the
book. But to be spiritually minded
is life and peace, because the carnal mind is enmity against
God. It's not subject to the law of
God. This book right here is the law
of God. It's the word of God. It's not subject to the law of
God, neither indeed can be. So then they that are in the
flesh, they can't believe God. They can't see God. They can't
understand God. They can't discern God. They
can't know what God's talking about in this book. But you're
not in the flesh, but in the spirit, if so be that the spirit
of God dwell in you. Now, if any man have not the
Spirit of Christ, he is none of his. This is the same thing
Paul said over in 1 Corinthians when he said, The law is spiritual. This book right here is the law.
This book is the Word of God. And it's spiritual. It's spiritual. It can only be understood spiritually.
Without spiritual eyes, all that a man sees in it are literal
things. And you can't discern the spiritual
by looking at what's written as literal. You can't. Is Satan
on a literal chain? No. Are we turned into literal trees
of righteousness? No. But we are trees of righteousness. And Satan is on a chain. That's
right. I don't spiritualize the Word
when I read it. That's what I'm accused of doing.
You can't spiritualize something that's spiritual. It already
is spiritual. It is spiritual. You gotta have
spiritual eyes to understand it. Everything about the worship
of God is spiritual. It's a mystery until he reveals
it. He said, the hour cometh and now is when the worshipers
shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth, for the Father
seeketh such to worship him. God is a spirit, and they that
worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth. It's
the spirit that quickens the flesh, prophets, nothing. The
words I speak, he says unto you, they're spirit and they're life.
The new birth is spiritual. He's not a Jew which is one outwardly. He's a Jew which is one inwardly.
Circumcision is that of the heart in the inward man. Not in the
letter. It's not of the flesh. His praise is not of men. Praise
is of God. He does it. The kingdom of God
is not earthy. It's not of this earth. He said
when He walked this earth, My kingdom is not of this world.
If my kingdom were of this world, then would my servants fight
that I should not be delivered to the Jews. But now is my kingdom
not from thence. He's going to make a new heavens
and a new earth. It's going to come down out of
glory. Come down out of glory. The mystery revealed is this.
Christ is gathering all in him. He's gathering all in him. Right
now, Christ is the key. Look at verse 10, back in our
text, Ephesians 1.10. He's revealed this mystery to
us, brethren, that in the dispensation of the fullness 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. When is this
dispensation of the fullness of times? Galatians 4 says, when
the fullness of 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 He
says, because you're sons, He sent forth the Spirit of His
Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father, wherefore you're
no more a son, but an heir of God. You have an inheritance
now. Look at what Paul says in our
text, verse 11. in whom we also have obtained an inheritance.
You see, this is the dispensation of the fullness of times right
now. Christ has come. The mystery that's been revealed
in us, Christ has come. And He's making His people one
with God again by what He's done. He's making the Jew and the Gentile
that hated each other, that are His elect, He's making them one
in Him to the Father. He's making all things one. He's
taken the Old Covenant completely out of the way. Completely out
of the way and he's brought us back to what we had with the
father in eternity The mystery is this oneness that he's doing
by him by himself. Look at verse 10 That he might
to gather together in one all things in Christ both which are
in heaven and which are on earth even in him Here's the foundation
Paul's laying I'm at completely out of time. I Here's the foundation
Paul's laying, why he's doing it. He knew somebody was going
to come into that church. It's what carnal, religious men
that think they can understand spiritual things, they don't
have a clue about what they're talking about. It's what they
always do. They come in and they resurrect rules from the old
mosaic covenant given on Mount Sinai. They come in and they
resurrect beggarly elements and ordinances from that old covenant
given on Mount Sinai. They resurrect distinctions between
Jew and Gentile given at Mount Sinai. You know what those distinctions
were given by God for? To make it known. Am the one
who makes my people to differ and you know what men did with
it They took those dietary laws and things and they started trying
to keep them and they started saying see we're different from
you We made ourselves that way because we keep this law and
they missed the whole thing. They missed it That's why when
Paul's was sending the Lord was sending Peter down to Cornelius
He said he showed him that sheet and he and he said to eat this
and Peter said I've never eaten anything That's unclean and he
said what I've made clean. Don't you call common. Now get
down there to that one I've cleansed and preached the gospel to him.
He makes his people to differ. We don't. Circumcision and uncircumcision. They start resurrecting that
again. Sabbath days and diet restrictions. This is what he
was bringing them to see. Nothing from the old covenant
given on Mount Sinai ever made a sinner holy and without blame.
Nothing. Nothing. Not one thing given
at that covenant on Mount Sinai did. Ever. It was not given for
that purpose and nobody was ever made holy and righteous by anything
given to man on Mount Sinai. Nothing. And nothing from that
old covenant now applies to the believer in Christ. Nothing. Nothing. Was it around? Did it have anything to do with
anything before the foundation of the world when we were blessed
with all spiritual blessings? Nothing. Where were they? in
Christ. You know where they are right
now for the believer? In Christ. He's taking it out of the way.
Look at Ephesians 2.11. This is where he's getting to.
Wherefore remember that you being in time past, Ephesians 2.11,
you being in time past Gentiles in the flesh, Gentiles in the
flesh, who are called uncircumcision by that which is called the circumcision
in the flesh made by hand. That was all y'all just arguing
with one another in your flesh, he said. That at that time you
were without Christ. They were and you were, being
aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, from His spiritual
Israel, strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope without
God in the world. But now, in Christ Jesus, you
who were sometimes 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. That
means he took away the old covenant completely. He did away with
it. For to making himself of two,
one new man, so making peace of his elect among the Jews and
his elect among the Gentiles, and that he might reconcile both
unto God in one body by the cross, having slain the enmity thereby,
and he came and preached peace to you which were far off, he
did it. and to them that were nigh, because
both of them had to have peace preached to them, because both
of them was lost as a goose, taking the things of God and
trying to say they were different by the law, and the Gentiles
not having it, they didn't care. He came and preached to both
of them, for through Him we both have access by one Spirit unto
the Father. Do you see that? So He's given
us all the blessings we lost in Adam in Him. And so we've
now have an inheritance, we've predestinated according to the
purpose of Him that works all things after the counsel of His
own will. That what? That we should praise His glory
who first trusted in Christ. You know who first trusted in
Christ, don't you? God did. God the Father did.
He gave all this to His Son and said, go do this for me. Uphold
my glory by what you're going to do. And He did it. He went
and did it all. He's that man. He's that man
that went and came and did it all. And now there he stands
at the right hand of the Father. And we have all blessings in
him. Paul's objective here is my objective in preaching this
to you. Brethren, don't go back to the old covenant and raise
it up again. Listen to me. Let me see if I can play this
playing. If a man says you are under the law, he's a liar. He's going to put your soul in
hell if He's telling you that, and He brings you back under
that old covenant. The believer has nothing else to do with the
old covenant. Gentiles never were under it. They never were. Jews were when He redeemed them
out from under it and did away with it. It's done. It's over.
We're under a new cup. Go home tonight and read Hebrews
8. Hebrews 8. The whole book is saying nothing
about that old covenant exists anymore. There's no priest anymore. There's no tabernacle anymore.
There's no temple anymore. The temple that God establishes
in our midst, the tabernacle that's going to be in the midst
of His spiritual Israel is Him in our midst. He's that tabernacle. and your body's the tabernacle
of the Lord. You see what I'm saying? And that old covenant
is done away with and it's waxed old and it's ready to decay,
Paul said. And at that time it was, and
now it's decayed. It's gone, brethren. God's not
calling out His elect Jews and His elect Gentiles. God's calling
out His elect. That's it. From the four corners
of the earth. And they make up His one Israel. And they're gathered
together in one. That one. Hebrews Hebrews, I'm
going to quit. I didn't even get to God the
Holy Spirit. But we're sealed. He gives us grace. Verse 13,
He makes us to trust Him. He brings the word of truth to
us. He gives us this gospel. He gives us faith to believe
Him. And He seals us. And that seal is not circumcision. It's not baptism. It's not It's
not any of these things that men want to say is the seal.
The seal is the Holy Spirit. The seal is the Holy Spirit.
He seals us. We're kept by Him. And it means
that until the redemption of the purchased possession, we've
been bought by Christ. He bought us. He redeemed us.
And we're going to be kept by the Spirit of God until that
very day when He brings, the last thing He's going to do is
bring our dead bodies out of the grave to be with Him in glory,
and were that kept by the Spirit of God, that sealed, that kept,
that sealed. So, salvation by God the Father,
God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. If you go back to that
old covenant, you got to do it all. We got to do it all if we
go back to it in any shape, form, or fashion. Amen.