Ephesians 2, Ephesians 3, I'm
sorry. Ephesians 3, I began reading
this, prepare to preach from it or teach the Bible study,
whichever. So much here, this speaks of
the mystery of Christ and then the unsearchable riches of Christ. I thought, my, my, those two
things deserves a message by itself. And we will, Lord, we'll
the next Wednesday night look at the mystery and riches that
are Christ. But this one thought really spoke
to me in verse 6. So let's read from verse 1 to
verse 6. For this cause, that is, for
the Gentiles, I, Paul, the prisoner of Jesus Christ for you Gentiles,
if you've heard of the dispensation of the grace of God which is
given to me to you, how that by revelation he made known unto
me the mystery. As I wrote it forward in a few
words, whereby when you read you may understand my knowledge
in the mystery of Christ, this mystery 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. And this is it,
that the Gentiles should be fell-aware. That's us. And of the same body,
and partakers of His promise, God's promise in Christ by the
gospel. You know, years and years and
years ago, when God first made this, Jacob, Abraham, Isaac and
Jacob, that's the Jews, not Gentiles. But we're partakers of this promise
now. But that one line, that one statement,
this promise of God in Christ, now there are many promises.
Peter wrote, he said he's given us many exceeding precious promises. There are many promises. We just
sang those promises, some of them. But they're all one because
they're all in Christ. It's all speaking of this salvation
that he's talking about. It's all in Christ. To be loved
by Him, to be kept by Him, to be led by Him, given the Spirit,
lead and guide and direct and provide. It's all because of
Christ, in Christ. So this is a very simple message. It'll
be a very simple message and very easy to follow along and
should be very short. I'll put my timer on. All right. Very simple outline. Four points. And it's hard for me to preach
on a thought or a word or one verse. I usually preach verse
by verse. This is what my pastor recommended
us young fellas do. It's what I recommend that these
men do. But every now and then something
will just speak to you and you can't get away from it. This
promise. All right. Who made this promise?
Number one. Who made this promise? Number two. When did he make
it? Number three, what is his promise? And number four, why
did he make it? All right. Now, first of all,
a promise. A promise means it. Webster's
Dictionary. It's the declaration of something
that will be done. To declare something that will
be done or not done. Promise not to do something. Okay? It also means it's a declaration
or assurance that something's going to be given, promised to
give you this by one person. It also means the expressed assurance
that you can expect to receive what is promised. Did you hear
that? That's why I like just looking
at the dictionary. It's assurance that you can expect
to receive something that's promised, all right? It all depends on
it. Who made this promise? Look at Titus chapter 1. Titus chapter 1. All right? Who
made this promise? We just read it there in Ephesians,
but look at this in Titus chapter 1, verse 1. Paul, a servant of God, an apostle
of Jesus Christ, according to the faith of God's elect, acknowledging
of the truth, which is after godliness, in hope of eternal
life, which God, that cannot lie, promised before the world
began. Right there we have the answer
to all those questions, three of them. God made this promise,
who cannot lie. God who cannot lie. Turn to Hebrews
6 with me. You'll like that. Hebrews chapter
6. You'll like them all. Now, you know, man makes promises,
and he may mean well, but man doesn't have the ability to fulfill
his promises. He may intend to keep a promise. He may want or desire to keep
a promise, but we don't have We can say I promise to do this,
but we just don't know what's going to prevent us from doing
that. As you know, there are many men,
particularly politicians, who make promises they have no intention
of keeping whatsoever. They just want you to vote. They're
liars. Sunday's radio message, let God
be true, every man a liar. A man may make a promise. I consider
myself an honest person. If I'm not, you shouldn't be
listening to me. But if I promised to do something for you, you'd
believe me wouldn't you? You'd take me at my word. But
I may not be able to do it. I may call you and say, Brother
Stephen, I know I promised to be there, but I'm running late.
That's just the way it is. Not God. Nothing affects his
problem. Nothing. We're going to see that.
God cannot lie. And He has the power to fulfill
it. What He promises, He will do. The gifts and callings of God
are what? Without repentance. That means He won't take it back.
What He says, He will do. There's an old saying that a
man is only as good as his word. Right? That used to be. You don't
hear it anymore. Because nobody hardly is. But a man's only as good as his
word, or a woman. And somebody says this, you have
my word on it. It used to mean something, not
anymore. Well, it means something when God says it. God says that
concerning his promise. You have my word on it. God is true to his word. Always. Scripture even says he has magnified
his word above his name. He cannot lie, what he promises.
And it even says that he has a name on his thigh. What is that name? The Word. That's his name. He's true to
His Word. Okay? Ephesians 6, verse 13. When God made promise to Abraham,
he could swear by no greater, he swore by himself. Hebrews 6, verse 13. We're told
not to swear by heaven or anything, but God did. He did. You know, I haven't been a witness
in a court of law. I don't know if I could Make
that promise. Do you swear to tell the whole...
I don't know if I could do that. Put your hand on the Bible. I
don't know if I could do that. I'd have to conscientiously object
or something. Or maybe I'd say, by the grace
of God, I'm going to tell you the truth. But God swore by His
own name. That's His name, the Word. He
keeps His Word. He's true to His Word. What he
says he will do, what he promises he will do, he will do. The promise
is sure because of who made it. Here's the point. The promise
is sure because of who made it. To whom did he make this promise? Who made the promise and to whom?
To Christ. This was a promise, a covenant,
an agreement made between God the Father and God the Son and
the Holy Spirit. But God promised this to His
Son, a covenant agreement, a promise, a covenant made between God the
Father, Son and Holy Spirit, much, much later. All of us are born and God gives
us this gift of faith that promises to us. Right? The promise is
to us. The promise is to you. Peter
preached at Pentecost. The promise is to you and to
your children, as many as believe. It's to you. So the promise is
to us. But this promise is not asking
us to do anything to fulfill it. This promise is not conditioned
on us doing anything, not even faith. Faith is conditioned on
the promise. It's not us keeping the promise.
Now he comes to us and now you promise to be faithful. That's
not what he says. What he does is he comes and
promises that he'll be faithful. When he came to Jacob, Abraham,
Jacob, that's what he said to him. This is what I'm going to
do. This is what I'm going to do for you. And he told him everything
he was going to do for him. He didn't ask Jacob anything. He didn't
ask Abraham anything. This is just wonderful. The promise.
And the promise really is just revealed to us. It's not asking
us. It's telling us. It's not asking for our agreement.
It's just telling us about an agreement He made. And we're
in on it. We have no part in it. Alright? So who made this promise? God
made this promise. With whom? Christ. It's between
them. Whatever He promised, it's all
up to them. Alright, when did He make this
promise? Titus 2, again. Titus 1, verse
2, it says, before the world began. The promise of eternal
life before the world began. 2 Timothy, Brother Don Bell. 2 Timothy, I want you to see
this. Brother Don's eyes light up when
you mention this scripture. Don was a Pentecostal preacher,
so-called. Chandelier swinging, pew jumping,
hopping, tongue talking, Pentecostal preacher, so-called. Did you
know that, Don Bell? And he started hearing the gospel
from men like Henry Mahan and others. And it was shaking his
world. It was tearing his world up,
turning his religion inside out. And he said he was reading this
one day, 2 Timothy 1, verse 8 and 9. He said, Be not ashamed of
the testimony of our Lord, nor of me, his prisoner. Be thou
partaker of the afflictions of the gospel, the gospel. Now here he's going to tell us
what the gospel is. The gospel is according to the power of
God, God who has saved us and called us. with a holy calling,
not according to our works, but according to His own purpose
and grace which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world
began. Now, I say, that just blew my
religion out of the water. It's not by works of righteousness.
That's what you quoted in your prayer. It's by Christ's work,
all according to God's promise. So you see, this promise was
made before we were even born. Listen to this. I'm telling you,
you couldn't hear a more comforting or assuring message than this.
Listen to Romans 9. It says, Now the children of
the flesh, Israel, they're not the children of God, but the
children of the promise. Okay? Account it for yourself.
Here's the promise. At this time, I'll come and Sarah
shall have a son, and not only this. You know, Sarah had two
sons, Abraham and Isaac. But only one of them was God's
child. It was Isaac, a miracle child,
which represents Christ. And not only this, but Rebecca,
Isaac's wife, you remember how he got her for a wife. That's
another wonderful story. But Rebecca, when she conceived,
she had twins, Jacob and Esau. These children not yet born,
neither having done any good or evil. That's us. And when they were both born,
they both did evil, didn't they? all right, that the purpose of
God according to election might stand, not of works, but of him
that calleth. It was said to her, promised
to her, the elders shall serve the young, as it is written,
Jacob have I loved. Now you know what Jacob was. You know what Jacob did? What
all Jacob did? I've studied the whole life of
Jacob many times. But God made a promise, didn't He? And He kept it. He said, I am
the Lord, I change not. Therefore, and you quote the
rest of it, you sons of Jacob are not consumed. Why? He made
a promise. I promise. Here's the point. Galatians 3. Go back there. Galatians 3. We
read that. John read it. Did you catch this, you men,
as we were reading this, and you ladies tonight? It said that
nothing can annul this promise. Not even the law. Not even you
breaking it. can nullify this promise. Isn't
that good news? Why is that good news? That's
not good news to a religious person, you know, self-righteous,
because they think they keep the law. Paul thought he kept
the law. Boy, it's good news to the sinner, isn't it? We know
we break every point. We don't try to, we don't want
to, but the law is spiritual, we know that. It requires perfection. Look at Galatians 3 verse 15.
Rather than I speak after the manner of men, if a man makes
a covenant, though it be a man's covenant, if it's confirmed,
nobody can change it. All right? Or add to it. That's
just a man's covenant. If you go to a If you buy a piece
of property, you'll have the title search and you'll have
it recorded in the courthouse and all that. You go through
all the legal process and nobody can do anything. I can't take
one inch of your ground. I don't care what they say. My
Uncle Bill, he promised to give it to my cousins. It's on the
books. It's in the law. You can't change
it. Yeah, but no buts about it. All
right? So that's a man's covenant. What
about God? And it goes to a great length
to talk about the law came after the covenant. This covenant was
made before the law, and so He made it to Abraham before the
law was given, so it wasn't dependent on Abraham keeping the law, was
it? It was dependent on God keeping His promise. And the law was given to show
us the sinfulness of sin. And that points us to Christ. Okay? You understand that much?
I know you do. But this was all done before
we were born. Done before we had our existence
between God the Father and God the Son. And the Scripture, we've
looked at Ephesians 2. It talks about us being children
of wrath. And even while we are yet sinners, Christ died for
us. It's all according to promise.
And Ephesians 6, you don't have to keep turning, but I should
have had you stay there, but listen to this. It talks about
God swearing by no greater than Himself. And He said this in
Hebrews 6. He said this. He said, Men swear
by the greater an oath for confirmation is to them an end of all strife.
But God willing, more abundantly to show under the airs of the
promise, the immutability of his counsel confirmed it by an
oath that by two immutable things it's impossible for God to lie. What's that? You sing that song.
His oath, his covenant, his blood, support me in the well-meant
blood. Immutable. What does that mean?
Unchangeable. It can't be changed. Like when
God blessed Jacob. That's another story I'd like
to look at again. Jacob's mother, you know, dressed
him up like the son who had the right to the inheritance. And that's another message. But anyway, so the father blessed
the one who didn't have a right to it because he looked like,
smelled like, and he bought the savory meat of the son who had
the right, Esau. Okay. And then the father blessed
him. Well, then Esau came back later
and said, bless me. He said, undo it. He said, I
can't. He said, I blessed him and he'll
be blessed. I won't change it. I have to go back on my word.
You see, God cannot lie. All right. Who made this promise? God did. To whom? To Christ,
the Holy Spirit, to go round up these people. When? Before the world began. For the
law, for anything. For the children to be born. Any good or evil. For anybody
to do anything, God said, this is the way it is. This is the
way it's going to be. Alright? What is this promise? Titus 1, verse 2. In hope of
eternal life. Which God, who cannot lie, promised
before the world began. Eternal life. Eternal life. Christ said this, I give unto
them eternal life. Eternal life. It's a gift. 1 John 5 says, He that hath the
Son hath life. Hath life, not shall have life.
What does that mean? He that hath the need for Christ. He that hath faith in Christ. Salvation is by grace through
faith. I believe. I don't believe like I want to
believe, but I do believe. There was a time I didn't believe.
There was a time you didn't believe. A time you had no need for Christ,
had no faith in Christ, and now you do. Where did you get that?
God, not if you see Him. It's a gift of God. And that's
according to the promise. God says, I'm going to give them
faith. I'm going to make them hunger. I'm going to suffer them
to hunger. Hunger and thirst. Eternal. I give unto them eternal
life. What kind of life is this? It's
eternal. It means it never can end. Nothing can end it. Who
shall separate it from the love of God and Christ? Life, death?
No. It's eternal. It's eternal. It's forever. It's
unending. It's unceasing. It's not only
the extent of it, but it's the quality of it. Life. Life. More abundant, Christ said. far and above and beyond what
we can imagine or even think of life to be. Now listen, we
live in this world and we enjoy some things, eating and drinking
and enjoy one another and experience these things, the physical life,
okay? There's a new creature created
in Christ Jesus inside of every believer that's been given a
new nature to love the things of God. It wasn't there before.
It wasn't there before. And what we eat and what we drink
is the body and blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. Once again,
I'm standing up here just talking about our Lord Jesus Christ,
reading about Him. Same thing. Same thing. Here
you are again. Here you are back again for the
same thing. Same bread, same water, same
milk, same meat, same message. You must have this life. This
is how He makes us fit or meet to be partakers with the angels
in life. He gives us this new... And,
you know, we can't hold much right now. We like it. We love
it. We take it in, I like that, and then our minds drift off.
We love it, don't you? You love to sit here and hear
the Gospel and read the Word of God, but you just can't, you
can't do it very well, can you? Why? There's something that gets
in the way. Flesh. Sin. Sin. We do enjoy the things of
God. We think on the things of God.
But this flesh, this sin gets in the way. Oh, God promised. You're going to have life more
abundant. There's going to be a time no more flesh to get in
the way. No more sin to bother you ever
again. And you talk about singing. We're
never going to quit singing. Our flesh gets tired of singing.
Our flesh, we're self-conscious. We won't be them. We'll all be
singing at the top of our love and the bottom of our heart.
Because God promised a new creation wherein dwelleth righteousness,
joy. That's the Kingdom of God. Righteousness, peace, and joy
of the Holy Spirit. We eat and drink. We laugh. We like to laugh
in this life, don't we? I like laughter. Laughter's good
for you. I'd like to hear some of you laugh. Some of you have
such particular laughs. It makes me laugh when I hear
you laugh. But this laughter, I've been laughing all night.
What's that about? Nobody told a joke. Here it is. When the Lord turned
our captivity, we were like them to dream. I'm living the dream. It's too
good to be true. No, this is the only thing that's
not too good to be true. Then was our mouth filled with
laughter, and our tongue with singing. And they said among
the heathen, Lord hath done great things for them. Lord hath done
great things for us. We're so glad. So glad. Joy unspeakable. There's going to be a day Like
more abundant, we will have joy unspeakable, full of glory in
the Lord, in His temple. Enjoying His Word, singing His
song, enjoying one another, worshipping as we've never worshipped before,
full of glory. We're going to see Him. We can't have that fullness now
because sin gets in the way. So He says this promise of eternal
Life. All right? Who's it for? This
promise is for those that believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. What
this is, is a promise of salvation by grace through faith. Not what you do. Not what you
are. Not what you promised to do,
but who you believe. Who you believe. Who do you believe? Who do you rest your salvation
on? Who is your hope of eternal life? Who is all your assurance and
hope and peace and salvation. Who is your salvation? What is
your salvation? Not a what is it? It's Christ.
He asked every believer and he'll give you one word. Christ is
my hope. Oh, it's a good hope. Good hope. John, you knew I was
going to quote Romans 4, 6, didn't you? Listen to this. He said,
it's by faith and that's by grace. To the end, That the promise
might be sure to all to see. But I don't have much faith.
But you have faith. A little bit. Mustard seed is
faith. Abraham had great faith. Lot
didn't have much. Who's more saved? Ain't no such
thing as more saved. God promised. Those that believe.
Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved. Promise. God promised to love us. I will
love them freely. Sovereign love, free love, forever
love. I will love them free. I have
loved you with an everlasting love, he said to his people.
Therefore, we won't let you go. Not go away from them. We won't
let you go. He let it go a little bit, but he said, I'm coming
after you. Promised to love us, promised
to provide all things for us, provide everything. He that spared
not his own son, deliver him up for us all. How shall he not
with that unspeakable gift freely give us all things? What are
we worried about? As we said a few weeks ago, we're worried
about a house payment. When Christ made a sin payment,
of His own precious blood. Don't worry about this minor
thing. The whole thing. He promised
to give us the Holy Spirit and Him that's able to keep us from
what? He promised to keep us from falling. Falling away forever. I know I'm going to be lost someday.
I just know it. I'm such a sinner. Not if God promised. Mm-mm. Mm-mm. He lets you fall like
old Noah, you know. Six months after he'd been in
the ark, he tripped and fell and he didn't fall out of the
ark. He couldn't get out. Why? He
shut up. That's what we read. Shut up. Shut in. Isn't that good news?
Sealed. Okay, why? Twenty-seven minutes. Why did God make such promises? Why would God do this to such
unworthy creatures, such sinners, such rebels against Him? Why
would He do this? Why would He make such a promise to people
that don't deserve it? Only one answer. Because He's God. For
His glory. Ephesians 2 says that in the
ages to come, He's going to show exceeding riches of His grace
to us through Christ Jesus. We know a little bit about that
now, but we're going to know a lot about it then. We're going
to sing, oh my, it's for His glory. It's for Christ's sake. He said to Christ in that covenant,
that promise before the world began, Son, if you... Now this is what the Scripture
says. We know God is, you know, not like us. Son, I'm going to
give you a people I've chosen, I've loved. I will give them
to you. And you're going to go down to earth and you're going
to live for them. They have broken my law and you're
going to live according to my holy law. You must honor my law. Man, my people have broken it. They've dishonored me. They profaned
my name. You go down and magnify my Lord,
magnify my name and glorify me and everything you do as a man,
their covenant head. And I'm going to give you these
people. You're going to do that for them. You're their covenant
head. You're the second Adam. Will you do this? You know, when you and Joseph
stood up here not long ago, I caught myself. I'm going to change the
vows from now on. I did it this time. I said, by
the grace of God, do you promise? Do you catch that? You say, do
you promise inside of God? By the grace of God do you promise.
Okay? And you all did. And you hope,
you hope God will give you the grace to fulfill that. Okay? Christ promised. He said, I'll
do it. As the husband of his wife. as
the husband of his bride. All of them were forlorn. Will you promise to go down there
and be a true and faithful and loving husband? Provide for her
and do for her and lay down your life for her in sickness and
health and death? Will you do this? Christ said,
I will. Do you love her? I do. That's the one. He's the one
that made this promise. And so God said, for your sake,
if you do this, I'm going to receive every single one that
comes to me by you. Every single one of these people
that believe and trust you, no matter how filthy a sinner they
are, no matter what they've ever done in their life, if they come
to you and ask for forgiveness, To me, through you, I will frankly,
freely, completely, 100%, forever and finally, unchangeably, immutably,
pardon all their sins, wipe them out, blot them out, and nobody
can do anything about it. For Christ's, for your sake.
Then, son, if you do all this, and I know you will, You're going
to come back and sit down at my right hand where you reign
over everything, and I'm going to give you the whole universe. It's yours. It belongs to you.
So it's for Christ's sake. That's why I did it. For Christ's
sake. And I can say this from Scripture. For His great love wherewith
He loved us, He did it for us. He made this promise for us.
I read Psalm 78, he said, he remembered that they were just
flesh. They were just flesh. They kept forgetting. They kept
wandering and all that. He said, nevertheless, he remembered
for them. He remembered His covenant. He couldn't forget His covenant.
He made this covenant for them. They couldn't remember. He can't
forget. Why? It was like, let me close
it with Brother David. David, are you listening? With
what he keeps telling us, and it's so true. He did this for
Christ's sake. He did it for His glory. He did
it for Christ's sake. And He did it for our sake. He
did it for that great love where He loved His people. God really
and truly is out to do you good. He's promised, I'm going to do
you good. It's all gonna be good. Just
trust me on that. Okay, stand with me.