Ephesians 1, as announced, as
I notified you, we'll be looking tonight at Ephesians 1. The title
of the subject is a prayer for the saints and or a prayer for
understanding. A prayer for understanding. Now,
though we understand some things, Most things are beyond our understanding. I told you, I urged you to ask
questions, and someone did ask me a most difficult question. And you weren't the only one.
Someone else asked me a difficult question. Try to answer from
God's Word. But most, you know, the things
of God, most things are beyond our understanding. We just believe. We take it by faith. Paul said,
we preach in part. We know in part. Paul was a brilliant
man. And yet he said, oh, then I might
know him. I might know something about
the power of his resurrection. That's what we're going to look
at here. But this is a prayer for the saint, prayer for believers.
And my prayer, like Paul, is that he said, in my heart's desire
and prayer to God, for Israel, for everybody, that they might
be saved. And that's my heart's desire
and prayer for every person in this room, every person that's
not in this room, every person that's listening. Prayer for
the saints. Now, Paul said in verse 15, when
I heard In verse 14 he said, verse 13 is where he said, you
heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and
you trusted, you trusted in the Lord. After you heard the word,
you heard the gospel and you trusted, you actually believed
it. And Paul said in verse 15, when I heard that, oh, he said,
I gave thanks to God. When I heard of your faith in
the Lord Jesus Christ... See, faith in Christ is a miracle.
Verse 19 says, according to the working of His mighty power.
For somebody... There's nothing I want more for
you and for me. Nothing gives us more joy to
hear that somebody believes. A miracle of God's saving grace
and His power. Somebody didn't believe. Somebody
didn't have any interest in Christ at all, all of a sudden, to just
be enamored with and in love with Christ. That's a miracle.
Now you're looking at a miracle. I'm looking at several miracles
here. Some of you couldn't wait to get out of here. And now,
you don't want to leave. What happened? That's the grace
of God. Paul said, when I heard that,
When you hear about somebody confessing Christ, doesn't it
give you great joy? And you thank God, don't you?
Because that's who Paul said, we're bound to give thanks to
God for you, brethren, beloved Lord, because He chose you or
you wouldn't believe. He chose you and He called you
by the gospel. So Paul said, when I heard that,
Now, this is a continuation of Sunday's message. You remember
the message on 1 Samuel, on when the Lord calls. And when the
Lord calls somebody, it's a miracle. It's His choice and it's His
power. The gospel is His power. And
if He calls somebody and they answer, if they call on Him and
they believe like young Samuel, that's a miracle in it. That's
what I'm hoping and praying for. That's what Paul prayed for.
This is a continuation of that. When the Lord called, Paul heard
that the Lord called these people. In Spring Lake, North Carolina,
many years ago, Brother Rupert Reibenbach had just started pastoring
there, and it was a Southern Baptist place before that. False religion. Okay. It was full. That building was
full of people. All right? The Lord taught Rupert
the gospel and he began to preach the truth. Well, there were several
young people in that congregation. Okay? Six young men in particular. Six young teenage boys that were
wilder than Red River steers. Okay? You know most of them that
have been here. You know, every one of them has
been to this. And two of them probably listen. Johnny and Tommy
Parker. And then there's their relatives, cousins, other fellas
that were brothers, Craig and Kevin and Paul and Johnny and
Tommy and Curtis, who's now the, Craig is the song leader. Anyway,
those six, I call them the dirty half dozen. Rowdy. And they'd sit together. Rupert said, let's sit together
on the back row, and they'd just be causing all kinds of trouble.
Finally, when Rupert started preaching the truth, he went
up to them right in their face, and Tommy told me that. He said,
he told everyone, you're going to sit there, and you're going
to be quiet. He said, I didn't prepare the
gospel for you to come here and sit and act like an idiot. He
said, from next week, you're going to sit with your parents,
and you're going to hear this gospel. Struck fear in them. And Tommy told me, he said, Johnny
told me, he said, we hated Rupert. But we were sitting with our
parents the next Sunday. He said we respected him because
he was a man. He wouldn't tolerate any foolishness. This was serious business. And
it got in their face and he said, now you listen to me. Lo and
behold, the Lord saved all six of them. And they're the most enthusiastic. He said they would just go out
and they'd want to fight people. They went from hating Rupert
to loving him dearly, respecting him. I tell you, the Gospel's the
power of God. It really is. It's a miracle. And God calls
men. He calls men who preach Him in
power. My, my. That's my hope and prayer
for every single person in this room and this congregation and
other congregations. If someone believes, we're bound
to give thanks to God for them. because it takes the power of
God. You say, when I heard of your faith in the Lord and love
unto all the saints, verse 16, he said, I cease not to give
thanks for you. Thank God, thank God. That's
the most wonderful thing that could happen to a human being. And he says, I make mention of
you in my prayers. It's very endearing and meaningful
when somebody says they're praying for you. These men, nearly every
time, thank the Lord for me. And I cringe, feeling so unworthy,
and yet I'm so thankful. That's very special. Well, I
make mention of every one of you by name. I could close my
eyes right now and tell you where every one of you sit. And who's not sitting. And I
call you by name. Do you do the same? Do it. Do it. It's very meaningful.
Very meaningful. Lord, please bless. Bless Teresa. Bless Sarah. Please, Lord, bless
our children. Bless Olivia. Bless Daisy and
Abbie. This is real. We're talking about
real people. A real need. So he said, we give
thanks. We make mention of you in our
prayer. I don't know how many people in Ephesus with Paul pray
for all of them, individually. And he prayed, here's his prayer,
verse 17, that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father
of glory, may give unto you a spirit of wisdom and revelation and
a knowledge of Him. that God may give you the spirit
of wisdom and reveal Himself to you, the revelation and the
knowledge of Him. Now, everyone, old and young,
I want you to look at Proverbs 4 with me. This seems to apply
to young people, and it does, but it's to everyone. We're all
to receive the Word like little children. And Proverbs 4, don't
you love the proverb? And by the way, young people,
do you read the Bible? You know, that's what it means
to call on the Lord. It's not only actually pray,
but seek Him in the Word. Read God's Word. This is God's
Word. Ask Him, Lord, speak to me. But
Proverbs 4, look at verse 1, read with me. Here are your children,
the instruction of the Father. Tend to no understanding. I give
you good doctrine. This is good instruction. For
shake ye not my law." He said, I was my father's son, tender
and only beloved in the sight of my mother. And who's speaking?
Solomon, all right? But now, Solomon was the son
of David, wasn't he? But now this is Christ speaking,
who is called the son of David. And so Solomon heard the Word
as a young child, and the Lord saved him and taught him and
gave him revelation. And our Lord Jesus Christ grew
up in wisdom and stature and faith with God and men and learned
Then he feared, verse 4, he says, he taught me, my father taught
me and said unto me, let thine heart retain my word. Keep my
commandments and live. Do what I say. Get wisdom. Get understanding. Don't forget. Neither decline from the words
of my mouth. Get a knowledge of Christ. Understand him. Ask. for Him
to reveal Himself to you. Verse 7, Wisdom, Christ is the
principle. Hey, everyone, get wisdom. With
all thy getting, with everything you got, we say, give it all you got. Get an understanding of Him.
Down in verse 10, My son, receive My sayings. The years of thy
life shall be many. You know Christ. You'll live
forever. I've taught you the way of wisdom.
Down in verse 13, Take fast hold of instruction. Let her not go. Keep her. She's thy life. That's
Christ. He's thy life. Chapter 8. Go
over to chapter 8. This whole chapter is Christ
speaking. God's people know this. But look
at what he says, verse 1. Proverbs 8, 1. Does not wisdom
cry, understanding put forth her voice? Now the reason he
says her, she, is because Christ speaks in the church through
the preaching of the gospel. She stands in the top of the
high places, Mount Zion, by the way, in the places of the paths
of righteousness. She cries at the gates. The entry
of the city at the coming in of the door, that's the church
isn't it? That's where Christ speaks to his people. Unto you,
O men, I call my voices to the sons of men. Oh, he's simple. Poor ignorance. He calls them,
later on, fools. And what he's telling them is,
listen to me. Stop listening to everybody else and listen
to me. Here, verse 5, you fools, be
of an understanding heart. Here I speak of excellent things.
Verse 8, all the words of my mouth are in righteousness. Verse
9, they're all plain. You have to understand. So, and
two more verses, verse 35 and verse 36. Whoso findeth me, Christ findeth
life, and shall obtain favour of the Lord, except it in oblivion.
He that sinneth against me, he that rejects Christ, wrongeth
his own soul. All that hate me, love death. That's serious, isn't it? That's
serious. Go back to Ephesians 1. So he
prays, Paul prays, I pray that the Lord will give you a spirit
of wisdom and that he might reveal a revelation of the knowledge
of him. He must reveal himself. I use
the illustration of, you don't know my brother, you know what
I mean. Someone may say, I don't believe you have a brother. Well,
you know, he may not care whether you do or not. And he doesn't
have to reveal himself, does he? What would it matter to Him
if you believed Him or not? What about God? Does He need
people to believe Him? No. We need to believe Him. And He
has to reveal Himself. And He does it through the Gospel.
He does it through the Word. That's how He speaks. He's a
very real person. The Lord God Christ is not a
concept or a theory or a mere faith or a belief. He's a person.
And He speaks. He said, My sheep hear my voice. Is that a matter of speaking?
No. I've heard His voice, not audibly,
and you have too, haven't you? Through a man. I've told you
this so many times. My pastor was my father and I'd
hear him preach and I heard him for so many years and I was one
of those half dirty dozen. We got a half dirty dozen. We
got a dozen dirty dozen in here. And I was just like him. John,
Paul, Rowdy. What happened? God sent the power
of the gospel to them. And I heard, that's my dad, you
know. And then one day I was... And
he moves in such a strange way. I told you my story, but I went... My dad was preaching in Danville
before Don Fortner was there. Preaching a meeting there. And
the song leader and his wife and their son was nearly my age. They were going. And they asked
me if I wanted to go. And they said, we're going to
the steakhouse down there. I said, yeah, I'll go. It's one of the best
steakhouses in Kentucky. Sure. I knew he'd pay for it. And I went. Okay, now I'd been
hearing my dad preach all these years. And I had to go all the
way to Danville, Kentucky to hear him. When I was sitting in that pew
that night, the Lord spoke to me. The rest is history. The rest
is his story. His glory. His power. Here I
am. Because he spoke to me. I was
the only one in that room. And my daddy was speaking to
me. That wasn't like Eli. He said, I didn't talk to you.
I didn't call you Samuel. The Lord called you. He said, Oh, I pray the Lord
will reveal Himself to you, the knowledge of Him. You know, to
know Christ is to have eternal life. Wisdom is to know Him. Wisdom is to know that life is
all about Jesus Christ. You know that life is all about
Jesus Christ. In Him was life, and the life
was the light of man. He that hath the Son hath life,
not a figure of speech, That's the truth. You may have many
things. You may know many things. But
if you don't have Christ, you don't have life. And you're going
to die without Him. If you have Christ, He said,
you'll never die. Now, He can't lie. So He's life,
He said. A revelation, a knowledge of
Him. You know, the sun is the source of life on this earth.
Without the sun, there can be no life anywhere. Is that right?
So, the sun, S-O-N, is the source of all physical and spiritual
life. You can't live without water,
can you? This is the water of life. You can't go for three
days is about as long as you can go without water. Water of
life. Christ called himself the water
of life. You can't live without him. You
can't live without him. So, ask. The world asks this,
what is the origin of life? You know if somebody asks, they
really want to know, you know they'll find out. What is the
origin of life? What is the meaning of life?
What's the purpose of life? I'll tell you in one word. Christ. In Him is life. Three words comprehend everything. Christ is all. He's all. Look at Ephesians 1,
verses 9 and 10. After this is all over, he said,
he's made known unto us this mystery. The good pleasure of
His will. The purpose. Here's the purpose. For all things and all people.
That when it's all over, the dispensation of the fullness
of time, He's going to gather together in one all things in
Christ. Both in heaven and on earth.
Even in Him. And it keeps going. In whom?
In whom? In whom? It's all about Him. All about Him. So Paul prays and I pray that
the Lord will give us all an understanding. Verse 18, the
eyes of your understanding being enlightened. Now, knowledge is
to know facts. Knowledge is to know facts. I
used to believe, I still believe, the facts about God. God is something. I believed that before I knew
God. God elected a people. That's
what it says right there. I believe that. It's a fact.
I believe it. You're a fool not to believe
that. Right there it says it. Man's dead. I know that. It's
a fact. That's knowledge. Wisdom is what God makes you
to understand. No, experience that. Know facts and not know God.
But when you're wise, when He makes you wise, when He reveals
Himself to you, when He reveals Himself to you, then you, I see,
I understand. You don't just believe the fact.
God is sovereign in you. And you see His sovereign hand
in everything. God did elect the people in you. Man is dead in it. I was dead.
I was blind. Now I see. I was dead. Now I
hear. So, in Luke 24, we don't turn, but how do we get an understanding
of Him? How do we come to really see
and understand and, you know, Well, in 1 John 5 it says, The
Son of Man hath come and given us an understanding that we might
know Him. Nobody would really know God
unless God was manifest in the flesh. God became a man. Christ became a man. We can know
something about God, but we can't know God until He comes down
here and speaks to us. Right? And he did. And in Luke
24, it says the Lord opened the Scriptures, opened their understanding
of the Scriptures. What was it? What is the Scripture
all about? Him. What is life all about? Him. I told you about the wise
owl. You've heard that. Wise old owl
called wise. Because you ask him any question,
he'll say, who? What's the meaning of life? Who? Who? What's the beginning of
all things? Who? God created all things. The ox knows he's on it. The
ass knows he's master of creation. All creation knows who created
it. Man's the dumb beast. He's dead. He really is dead. His understanding
is darkened. His heart, foolish heart, Romans
1, I was going to have you read that with me. Professing himself
to be wise, he's a blooming idiot. He's so blind. He's so deaf. He's so dumb. He's so dead. He
can look at all this and say, there's no God. It just happened. But God, take some of these bloomin'
idiots and reveal themselves. Open their eyes. It's just being born again. Verse 18, He asked for three
things. He asks that their understanding
might be enlightened, they might understand the hope of His calling,
that they might know the riches of the glory of His inheritance
and the exceeding greatness of His power. Three things. He prays
that they might know something of the hope of His calling. Now, I preach all the time. It seems like more now than ever
on the hopelessness of this world, this dark and evil world. And
it is. And these are the last days right
before the, as in the days of Noah. Our Lord said that. And they just, there's no time,
no age that's more clearly fit that. And our Lord said, when
the gospel is preached in all the world, and that's never been
the case until now. Never. There's not one corner
of this globe that hadn't heard the gospel. You'd have to live
in a cave to not hear the gospel. There's so many millions out
there. But anyway, I preach that this
world is ending, and it is. But I don't want to dampen the
hopes of young people or whoever. You know, it's okay and it's
natural to hope for some good things in this life. God gives
us all things richly to enjoy. It's okay to hope for a marriage,
to be married and have children and have a home. God's the one
that made this happen. When God made everything in this
world, what did he say about it? This is good. Ecclesiastes,
the whole book's about this. It's good. It's good for a young
man or a woman to get married. It's good. It's not good for
a man to be alone. And on and on it goes. It wouldn't dampen
anybody's hopes, you know. It's okay. It's natural to hope
for, you know, a home, a family, and a happy life, and so forth. But understand this. It won't last. It won't last. And people look for, they hope
for, they put all their hope for a joyful and a peaceful and
a secure and a safe life, they put that in things and the world. And that will never be the case.
He cannot find lasting joy and happiness. There is no real security
or safety in these things, in the world, these things. Why
is that? Sin. Sin is in this world. And it's
in every human being. Our Lord called it the present
evil world. There's more evil in this world
than we know. And the Lord is so good that
He restrains it. He restrains it. And so, there's
no freedom from troubles and sorrows. There's no freedom from
sadness. It's okay to want these things,
but know this, you're going to lose everyone. And the joy that they bring in
the beginning, the sorrow and the sadness is at least equal
in it. and never go away in this lifetime. That sadness, that empty ache
where that person you had is gone. Isn't that right? So many in here can attest to
that. Can't you? Hope in Him. Hope in Christ. Hope for lasting peace and joy
and security in the Lord. It's only to be found in the
Lord Jesus Christ. He's the one who made all these things. He's
the one who does all these things. He's the one that, Thou only,
Lord, make us meet and dwell in safety. You've given me everything. The Lord gave. And if you know
He gave it, you can be real thankful. And if He takes it away, only
then, Can you have this joy and this peace that passeth? Understand. You say, I don't
think I could live without my husband. I don't think I could
live without my daughter or son or my wife. I don't think I could.
Yes, I mean, here I am. How? How? I know Him. I know He gave them and He took
them away in His wisdom. He's the one that did it. Things
didn't take them. Things didn't take our loved one. God did.
There's no peace otherwise. No peace. In Christ's hope of eternal life,
the hope, and He calls it the hope of your calling. In Romans
8, it says, you know, all things, we know. We know. Who knows? The world doesn't know the end.
God's people know the end. All things work together for
good to them that love God. God of the Bible, the truth,
God's salvation. Who are the called, called by
the gospel, according to his purpose. He did it on purpose,
called you. That's the hope of his calling,
he said. And he went on to say for whom he did predestinate,
he called. To tell you what? You've been
justified. He doesn't call you to ask you
anything. He calls to tell you. He doesn't
call you to say, won't you do, won't you accept me. No, he calls
you to tell you, you haven't been accepted. He calls to tell
you the good news. I chose you. You're mine. Kelly read Psalm 12 and said,
he'll save them all from this generation. He's going to save
everyone of them from this generation. Starts out by, Help the Lord,
the godly man, ceaseth, and the faithful fail from among the
sons of men. Trouble all around us, but he's
going to save his people from this generation. Call them out,
like Israel did. It's the hope of his calling.
He's called to tell us you've been saved from sin. You've been
saved by the blood of Christ, by the righteousness of Christ.
You've been saved by the Lord Jesus Christ, your Savior, from
sin. The penalty of sin, Christ bore
it. He paid for it. You've been saved
from the power of sin. Sin shall not have dominion over
you. I won't let it. Isn't that good news? You've been saved. Someday you'll
be saved from the actual presence of sin. You're going to be in
a place where you're going to dwell in righteousness. Because I said
so, God said. Because I chose you. You've been
called. We've been called by the Gospel
to tell us we've been saved from this world. The world that He's
going to destroy. Everything in it. First Peter.
Second Peter. Three. He calls us by the Gospel
to tell us that He's saving us from despair. We live in this
world, but we're not in despair. Listen to 2 Corinthians 4. My
daughter loves this. There were trouble on every side,
but we're not in distress. We're perplexed, but not in despair. We're persecuted, but not forsaken. We're cast down, but He won't
destroy us. Nothing and no one will separate
us from the love of God. This is the hope of His calling.
I believe I've been called. How do you know? You're supposed
to give diligent to make your calling an election share. But
do you love what you've heard thus far? Okay, but you've heard
this before. How many times, John Sheasman? 5,433, at least. But you're back. Why? He's still calling you. Whoever he called, he keeps calling. He'll never quit calling you.
You may run off. You may fall in a ditch. You
will. You'll stumble, but he'll come get you. The gospel will
come around you if he can't call you back. Cold and cold and cold and cold. You keep coming back. Now, to
hear the same thing, what movie would you go to see 143 times?
I mean, there's some good ones. I like them. But, I mean, four,
five, six. We have to wait like ten years
before we'll watch something again. It better be really good. Literally, you're hearing the
same thing you heard something. This is the hope of His calling.
I can't think of anything I'd rather do or hear. That's a miracle. That's the working of His mighty
power. Verse 18 says that you might know the riches of the
glory of His inheritance in the saints. We looked at that Sunday,
didn't we? The riches of His inheritance. Let me just read it to you again,
okay? Revelation 21, I'll just read
it to you again. This is what God's people have
to look forward to, this inheritance. He said, I saw a new heaven and
a new earth. The first heaven and the first earth were passed
away and no more sea. No more sea? I love the sea. Don't you? I love the sea. Well,
there must be something better. What is it? It's Him. It's Him. He goes on to say,
John, I saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down from God
out of heaven like a bride adorned for her husband. I heard a great
voice. saying, the tabernacle of God
is with men. He will dwell with them. God
will dwell with them. They'll be His people. God Himself
shall be their God with them and be their God. He shall wipe
away all tears. No more death. No more sorrow. No more crying. No more pain. The former things are passed
away. It won't even come to mind. The new heavens and the new earth
are so glorious, so amazing. And Christ will be there. This is the marriage supper of
the Lamb is what it is. It goes on to say, Blessed are
they that are called to the marriage supper of the Lamb. Those that
are with Him are called, chosen, and faithful. There's a marriage
coming up. I mean here, Lord willing, in
October, this month. Anybody here looking forward
to that? Anybody? And not everybody's called to
that, right? Who's called? This church. Brother Johnny Parker's daughter
got married, and everybody wasn't called to that. But we got a
special Wasn't that an honor? It was such an honor that he
honored us to be there and he said something about us sitting
at the number one table with all of us. We don't deserve that. All of God's people are called
to the marriage supper of the Lamb, like Old Mephibosheth,
to sit at the king's table as one of his sons. Who? Who gets
to be there? Old Mike Anderson. Who? Well,
who's he? Is he a king? Is he royalty?
Is he mighty and noble? No, he's just Mike. Why is he there? Somebody called
Him, chose Him. And the exceeding greatness of
His power, verse 19, I quote, it says, what the exceeding greatness
of His power to us who believe. What a miracle we all are. It
took the working of His mighty power. And He went on to say,
this is a power, verse 20, that raised Christ from the dead. If someone today was literally
raising people from the dead, if that was happening, how many
people all over the world would flock to that person? Huh? Everybody's got someone they
know and love that died. Okay? And if they really thought
someone was raising people from the dead, there's not a place
anywhere to hold all the people that flocked to them. Someone is raising people from
the dead. The very next chapter, "...and you hath he quickened
who were dead." This is the working of His mighty power. He really
is. He really is raising people from
the dead. It takes the power of God to make an earthbound,
flesh and blood human being think on things above. To make a worm
look up, it takes the power of God. You can't do it, you can't
convince blind people that God is. Nothing you say or do, nothing
anybody comes up with, nothing you preach to them can do it.
Only the Spirit of God. The working of His mighty power.
The exceeding greatness of His power to us who believe according
to the working of that power. He raised us from the dead. It took great grace and power
to save me. And it's going to take great
grace and power to keep me. Well, that power is still at
work, and it's His Word. It's His Gospel. And read on
with me, and I close. It says, He raised Christ from
the dead, set Him at His own right hand in the heavenly places,
far above all principality and power. There's a real man in
gold. We've got a real King sitting
on the throne of glory, reigning and ruling over everything. He's
sitting on the circle of the earth. The earth is His footstool.
His name is Jesus Christ. He's not a figment of men's imagination.
He's not a cunningly devised fable. He's a real person, and
we're in His hand. And I'm so thankful. And I bow
the knee. And He's greater than every name
in His name, not only in this world, verse 21, but also in
the world to come. And God has put all things under
His feet and gave Him. God gave this Lord over all to
be the head. He gave him to the church. Christ is ours. That's what the
Beloved said in Psalm Solomon, He is mine, my Beloved is mine. He's our husband. This great
one. is our Father. This Great One
is our Husband. This Great One is our Queen.
This Great One is our Brother. This Great One is in touch with
the feet of our Father. This Great One knows more about
us than we do. This Great One, we're His body. We're so united to Him. We're
His beloved. We're so united to Him that we
can never be separated, ever. It has power in it. Nothing and
no one is separated. Not even death. Not even death. That's power. He's the fullness
of all. I feel it now. Okay. Stand with
me.