Back to Ephesians 3 now. I've
brought a Bible with me, Ephesians chapter 3. Six times in the book of Ephesians
alone it uses this word, mystery, this phrase. the mystery. And 25 times in the New Testament,
the word mystery is used. And here in chapter 3, well,
first of all, look back at chapter 1. Let's look at a couple of
other places where it uses this term, mystery. Ephesians 1, look
at verse 9 with me. It says that God has made known
unto us, now remember the us is verse 1. the saints which
are at Ephesus, and to the faithful in Christ Jesus of those true
believers. That's the us. Verse 9, God has
made known unto us the mystery of his will according to his
good pleasure which he purposed in himself. Now look over at
chapter 6. If you don't have a Bible, follow
along and listen to me carefully. Ephesians 6, look at verse 9,
Paul asks the people to pray for him, as I do now, you. Verse 19, that utterance may
be given unto me, that I may open my mouth boldly to make
known the mystery of the gospel. Now turn back to chapter 3, and
we'll stay there a few minutes. Ephesians 3. Now look at Ephesians
3, if you noticed as we read it, verse 3. Look at verse 3,
that by revelation God made known unto me the mystery. Verse 4,
my knowledge, when you read you may understand my knowledge in
the mystery of Christ. Verse 9 through 12, and I want
to make all men see what is the fellowship of the mystery which
from the beginning of the world hath been hid in God, who created
all things by Jesus Christ." Let's stop there. What's this
mystery he's talking about? This mystery. Did you notice
that he said THE mystery? He didn't say mysteries, plural,
did he? He said THE mystery. And if you
look it up every time, it says the same thing, the mystery,
not mysteries, but the mystery. And so he's not concerned about
us looking into the mysteries of prophecy. I'm not this morning
going to look into the different horses in Revelation and the
beast the last days and the plagues and the seals and the dragons
and what have you. I don't despise those things,
but it's not necessary that we know those things. It's not necessary. And he's not talking about mysterious
ceremonies of religion. Have you ever been in a church
service? This is fresh on my mind, just
coming from Mexico. I was in a very large Catholic
cathedral and then out in one of the old ancient ruins where
they were holding a mysterious service. Have you ever been in
a large religious ceremony where a man stood up before you and
did all sorts of mysterious things? That he wore mysterious clothing
women's clothing, did mysterious things, used mysterious waters
and mysterious movements and wore mysterious jewelry and beads
and said mysterious words and generally did mysterious things,
things that are a mystery to most people. Have you ever been
in that? We're not talking about these
things. Those things are a mystery to most, and I believe they're
a mystery to the man that's doing it. I don't believe he knows
what he's doing. He said, this will be good, let's
try this. They'll be impressed. That's not the mysteries he's
talking about. He says, the mystery. The mystery. We need to know,
look at verse 9. Paul says, I want to make you
know, to make you see what is the fellowship of the mystery,
which has been hid in God from the beginning. Hid from the beginning.
in God, or that is, in the mind and the purpose of God. But now,
verse 10, he says, and this is a difficult verse to understand,
but I'll see if I can't clear it up in a moment. But now, unto
the principalities and powers in heavenly places, talking about
angels and cherubs and seraphs and so forth, might be known
by or through the Church the manifold wisdom of God. He says this mystery is something
that all of the church knows. Something all the church knows.
But the world, you remember John said, we are of God, but the
whole world, life and wickedness. So this mystery is something
that the church, the true people of God, know, but the world does
not know. Here is the first part of this
mystery. If you are interested, are you
interested? Look at the first part, verse 11. He says, It is
all according to the eternal purpose which God purposed in
Christ Jesus our Lord. This mystery is according to
the eternal purpose which God purposed in Christ Jesus our
Lord. The mystery of God's will and
purpose. That's the first part. Stay with
me. Now, nobody knows much about God, certainly not everything
about God, nor ever will know all about God. who he is and
what he does and why he does things the way he does. But this
one thing we need to know. We need to know something about
God's will and God's purpose, what it is. All right, now turn
over to Isaiah chapter 45 with me. Isaiah, the book of Isaiah,
chapter, I said, I mean 44, chapter 44. just two or three books past
the book of Psalms. Isaiah 44, turn over there. What is God's purpose? The will
and the purpose of God. We need to know something about
the God of the Bible, or we may be worshiping the wrong one. The scriptures talk about a multitude
of people having a God of their own imagination. And that rightly
describes a God of our generation. They talk about a God I've never
heard of in the scripture. They describe a God that doesn't
even closely resemble the God of the Bible, don't they? People
are talking about and claiming to worship a God who does not
in any way resemble the God of the Bible in any way. They talk
about a God who wants to. and can't because you won't let
him. They talk about a God who tries
and fails and so forth. That's not the God of the Bible.
That's not the true and living God. Look at verse 6 of Isaiah
44. Isaiah 44, verses 6 and 7. Thus saith the Lord, the King
of Israel, and his Redeemer, the Lord of hosts, I am the first,
I am the last. Beside me there is no God. And
not the devil, not man, but God alone is God. That means absolute,
ruler, sovereign, creator, controller, sustainer, provider, controller
of all things. God is God. He is in control
of all things. Not the devil, not man, but God
is God. He says, I am God. There is no
other God. Verse 7. Who as I shall call, shall declare
it, set it in order before me. Since I appointed or chose or
elected ancient people, the things that are coming and shall come,
let them show unto them." Look over at chapter 45. Look at it
now. One old preacher said one time,
if you don't have a Bible and aren't following along with me,
he said, I could be reading from the Sears and Roebuck catalogs
and telling you it's coming from the Bible. So I hope you're following
along. Isaiah 45, verse 5. He says this again. He says it
all the way through Isaiah. I am the Lord, there is none
else. Not you make me, Lord, I am the
Lord. There is no God beside me. I
girded thee, I gave you clothing, I did for you, though thou hast
not known me. But they're going to know, they
may know, from the rising of the sun and from the west, there's
none beside me, I'm the Lord, there's none else. I form the
light, create darkness, I make peace and create evil. Does your Bible say that?
Now, he's not talking about sin here, but he's talking about
those things which people think are evil. hurricanes, droughts,
tornadoes, earthquakes, and so on. Well, the devil did that.
No, he didn't. The devil's not God. That's what God's saying
all the way through. He's not God. I'm God. Everything's in my hand. Go on. I, the Lord, do all these
things. Look over at Isaiah 46, and I'm
just choosing a few random verses. Isaiah 46, look at verse 9. And as I said before, we're not
meeting here this morning for me to tell you what things we
must do for God. We're here to worship the God
of the Bible and tell you what he must do for us. All right, verse 9 of Isaiah
46, he says, Now remember, we need to remember this, the former
things of old. I am God. There's none else. I'm God. He says this over and over, doesn't
he? There's none else. There's none like me. There's
nobody even close. Look at this. I declare the end
from the beginning. From ancient times, things that
are not yet done, saying, and here's what I want you to see.
My counsel, whatever I have decided, it will stand. I will do all
that I chose to do. Not if you let me," he said. But I'm going to do exactly what
I intended to do from the beginning. Read on. Now, he's talking about
this man named Cyrus who God sent down here to Israel to capture
them and so forth. God sent this man, calling a
ravenous bird, this powerful man from the east, a man that
executes my counsel, my judgment against my people from a far
country. Yea, I've spoken it. I will also bring it to pass.
I have purposed it. I'll do it." That's it. This is something we need to
understand, that whatever God purposes, he says, I'll do it. Not try. He says, I'll do it. I purposed it, and I'm going
to do it. That's the first thing we need
to understand. But that's a mystery to most people, isn't it? And they have all sorts of questions
and can't figure out why things happen as they do. Why this?
Why that? They can't figure it out in reference
to God. Why would a God of love allow
this to happen or that to happen? Well, maybe the God of love didn't.
Maybe the God of holiness and justice made that happen. If
God is love, why did this happen? Well, God doesn't always exercise
his love about everything, does he? But he exercises judgment
and holiness and justice. But we have to see, all men and
women need to come to see that God is God, and he has a purpose
for all things. And his purpose will be done. If it can be thwarted, if his
purpose can be messed up, if man can ruin his plan, for lack
of a better word, then he's not God. We're just as much God as
he is. He says over and over, I'm God.
He remembered that, I'm God. Back to the text. So God will
do his purpose. That's the first part of this
mystery. God has a purpose for all things. We can't understand
why he does what he does. The first answer we can have
in reference to all things, this mystery, is that whatever happens
is on purpose. And God did it. And maybe someday
we'll understand why. Right? My daughter is too young
to understand why I do the things I do. Right? She's just too young.
Someday, when she becomes a parent, she'll understand herself. Well, someday, the Scripture
says, we'll know, even as we have been known. But until that
time, much remains a mystery. All right? The chief purpose
of God Almighty The chief purpose of God Almighty is found here
in Ephesians 1, and it will clear up this mystery. It says in verse
9, According to the mystery of God's will, according to his
good pleasure, which he purposed in himself,"
this thing he just up and decided to do, this purpose. That's verse
10, "...in the dispensation of the fulness of times," or that
is, when all things are said and done, "...that he might gather
together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven
and which are on earth, even in Christ, in him, in Christ,
in whom we have, and so forth, in Christ, in Christ. So this
mystery has something to do with God's purpose in Christ. Do you see that? Do you see that? God has purposed all things in
or for or because of his Son, Jesus Christ. Stay with me now. God Almighty
has one Son. I don't care what preachers tell
people, that we're not all the children of God. No. Our Lord
plainly said to some Pharisees, you are your father the devil,
didn't he? He says in Romans 8 that some
are given the spirit of adoption whereby we can cry unto him,
Father. So that's a gift, isn't it, to be in his family, and
that's what predestination means. Predestination is, I've used
the term, planned parenthood on the part of God. He decides
who is in his family. We're not all born into the family
of God, no. We read that in Ephesians 2 this
morning, didn't we? We all were by nature children
of wrath, even as of it. God Almighty always has had just
one Son, and He says it many times, one begotten, well-beloved
Son, doesn't it? Huh? If you've read your Bible,
you've seen that. One son, always has had one son. He's called the Eternal Son,
which was with him from the beginning. The Father and the Son. Okay? Picture this with me. The
Father and the Son. We can't, but try. The Father
and the Son. And the Holy Spirit was there,
too. In love and in happiness and in union. One happy family. The Father and the Son, together.
There was no earth, no universe, no nothing, just God. But they
didn't need an earth or a universe. They didn't need anything, not
like Oral Roberts said, that God created things to have something
to do, that God created man because he was lonely. No! God had his
Son. They weren't lonely. This scripture
says, "...in him is all things, by him, for him, through him,
to him." God is of himself, complete, whole, self-sufficient, independent,
in need of nothing and no one, totally complete. He doesn't
need anybody or anything. But here we have the Father and
the Son before anything else was, arm in arm, hand in hand,
heart to heart. Now, they were spirit, but I'm
giving you this picture. And the Father loves the Son,
and the Son loves the Father. And the Father is proud of the
Son, and the Son is proud of the Father. And the Father loves
the Son, everything about the Son, because he's just like the
Father. The Scripture says he's the express
image of the Father. Now, maybe this is the reason
God only gave me one child. This is very real to me. I have
one daughter, one child, and she's very dear to me, this one
child. And there are some ways that my daughter is like me that
I don't like. As someone would say, maybe she'll
grow out of that. But there are some ways that
she resembles me that I don't like that. But God the Father
loved everything about his son, because he resembled the Father
in every way, just like that. He loved God's whole in, perfect
and complete. God the Father loves his son,
loves all about him, loves his ways, loves his looks, loves
the way he walks, loves the way he talks. Scripture even says
he loves the way he smells. You women who have had babies,
didn't you just love the way your little newborn baby smelled?
To a stranger, you know. But to you, she or he, oh, you
loved the way that baby smelled. Everything about it was dear
and precious to you, right? Loved the way it felt. Everything
about it. Well, that's the way God Almighty
felt about his son. But you know he's the only one
worthy of all of that. Scripture says he's the altogether
lovely son. That's not us. My little girl
came forth from the womb speaking lies just like I did. That's
what the Scripture said. She came out a sinner, a daughter
of her father, and she's got the nature of her father, which
is a sinner, a rebel. And she'll turn out a rebel and
a hell-bound a rebel like me, unless God saved
her. And by nature, there is nothing good or holy or worthy
of those things about her, but God's son now, without sin. And God looked at his son one
day in that time before all time, and he said he loved him so much. He said, I'm going to do something
great for my son. He's worthy. I'm going to do
something glorious for him, my son's honor and glory. The first
thing I'm going to do, he says, is I'm going to create a universe,
a universe, a world, and my son's going to help me do it. We're
going to do a glorious work. Look at this back in chapter
3. Look there in verse 9. Chapter
3, verse 9. It says that from the beginning
of the world, You see it there? From the beginning of the world,
this mystery has been hid in God, who created all things by
Jesus Christ. He created all things by Jesus
Christ. Jesus Christ is God, just as
much as God the Father created the world. Look over at Colossians
chapter 1 with me. Colossians chapter 1. It says
it a little more clearly in Colossians, just a few books over. Ephesians,
Philippians, Colossians, chapter 1. Look at Colossians 1, verse
13. It says that here in verse 13,
God has delivered us from the power of darkness and has translated
us into the kingdom of his dear Son. Do you have a margin? Does
it say in the margin there, the Son of his love? It says that
in the Spanish Bible, when I was preaching down there. That's
the way Brother Cody, that's the way it translated in the
Spanish Bible. That's a better The son of his love, read on,
verse 15, who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn
of every creature, for by him," who? Talking about Christ, were
all things created that are in heaven, that are in earth, visible
and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities
or power, all things were created by him and not for us, but for
him. for him. So part of this mystery
is, God said, I'm going to create a universe, a world, all for
my Son, all for him. He's going to help me do it.
He's going to help me create things. And he put in the universe,
the universe out there that we can't see or don't know anything
about, he put in angels and cherubs and seraphs and so forth, the
scripture talks about, to serve his Son. He said, you serve my
Son. You wait on my Son, you sing. Y'all sing to my Son, he
says to the angel. And that's what they do 24 hours
a day, the Scripture says. Sing to his Son. Lord, I can't
hear you. That's my boy there, I want you
to praise him. And then he created a world, the Scripture says,
an earth. And on that earth he created
a race of creatures called man. All right? Now, people, we need
to understand this. This world of false preachers
would have us to believe that God created this world for us, that God needed us and that God
wanted us, and God did all this for us, and he wants so much
to help us. It wasn't created for us, was
it? Did it say that in Colossians
1 verse 16? For him. He said, "...for thy pleasure
they are and were created." He said that in Isaiah. And God
created a race of creatures called man to the honor and glory of
his Son. Everything the Father does glorifies
his Son, and everything the Son does glorifies his Father, and
everything the Holy Spirit does glorifies both. So God the Father
did all this for his Son. his only son, for his glory,
for his honor. Now, let me get back, if you
won't mind me using this little girl again. I have one daughter,
and she's the daughter of my love. I love her like no other
child, just humanly speaking. Spiritually speaking, I love
your children just as much, but humanly, I love her as no other
child. She was in me. She was actually
in my loins. She's from me. She is like me. All I do is for her. I want her
happiness. I want her honor, I want to serve
her, I want to be with her. There's nothing that makes me
more happy than just to be around her. I like to look at her, I
like to smell her, I like to touch her, feel her, listen to
her, watch her walk and talk and so forth. I delight in her. All I have is hers. Everything
I have is hers. Understand me? She is the heir,
the sole heir of all that I have, which, sorry, honey, you won't
be getting much, but all I have will be yours. She's got more
now than I do in the Savior. But someday she will inherit
all that I own. She's my only child. I love her. This is the way the Father feels
about the Son. God the Father about his Son.
And God purposed and created everything for his only Son,
his only Son, for him. He is the heir, the scripture
says, the heir. And in God's purpose, now, in God Almighty's purpose, and
I've got to hurry, man failed. Adam, Eve sinned against God. Now, God created man to do what
he created the angels to do, praise God, worship God, be holy
like God. But man failed. We say they ruined
God's purpose. Oh, no. Oh, no. That was in God's
purpose. And you will see that here. That
was God's purpose. Not God's fault, mind you, but
God's purpose. You say, I don't understand that.
I can't explain that. I can't. It's a mystery. Someday
he will, but maybe. But it's in his purpose. We need
to at least acknowledge that, that nothing happens except what
God Almighty ordains it. If so, it's like I was talking
to a man the other day, and all his trees fell down like everybody
else's, and he said, why would God do all of this to me? He said, and surely God didn't
do all this. I said, well, God didn't? Who
did? He said, the devil did. I said,
well, then who's God, isn't he? In other words, if God loves
us and doesn't want anything to happen to us, why does he
let it? Well, we need to know that God
is God. and not question what he does,
and just say, well, God did that, I don't understand it, but nevertheless,
God did it. And I'll bow to it, and maybe
someday I will understand it. Not the devil, but God, somehow
or another. And in the end, he'll show us,
he'll reveal to us, and we'll say, why was I so stupid? I was
so stupid. I was such a child, ignorant. Well, in God's purpose, And you're
going to see how God gets greater glory to his Son by allowing
man to fall. And when Adam fell, he plunged
the whole earth into misery and sin and corruption and a terrible
misery. There's a mystery in this misery.
Or as one old black preacher said, there's a message in the
mess. There is. There's a mystery in
this misery called planet Earth, and boy, it is a miserable place,
and it's getting worse all the time. Here it is now. Are you
interested? God Almighty, before this thing
ever began, gave a people. Before it ever began, He said
He knew a people, He loved a people, He chose a people, He elected
a people. Got any problem with that? That's what Ephesians 1
said. That's what Ephesians 2 said. That's what Romans 9 said. God
elected a people before the foundation of the world. Now, unless anybody
says it's not fair, well, he didn't have to do that, you see.
He didn't have to choose anybody. But he chose a number of people
that no man can number. He didn't have to choose one,
but he did. He chose a number of people.
He chose a people before the world began and gave them to
his Son. Listen to me, and I'll hurry
through this. God gave these people to his
Son, and the Father said, Here, son, are a people I have chosen,
a people I have chosen to love, like you. Someday they're going
to fall into sin, and there's not going to be anything lovely
about them. They're going to be unlovely. But since I have set my love
on them, I have decided to love them, I'm going to love them.
But you're going to have to do something to them, for them.
Here, son, take these people." So he gave them to Christ, and
he said, Now, you go down to planet Earth in the course after
I created and it falls. And you're going to be their
Savior. You're going to be their Christ. You're going to be their
Captain. You're going to be their Redeemer.
and such like names he gives him. He says, son, you go down
there to planet earth and you're going to do for them everything
that's necessary to save them. They can't do anything. They
can't do it. They're helpless, they're hopeless,
they're defiled, they're dead in sin. You go down there and
you fulfill my law for them, that's what I demand. You live
a perfect life for them, they can't do it. They can't keep
the law, keep the Ten Commandments and get to heaven, can't do it.
You can, you do it for them. You go down there, and then you
take their sins on you. He said, the soul that sinneth
must surely die. The wages of sin is death. They've
all sinned and come short. They've got to die. They've got
to be punished for sinning against me. Son, you go down there and
you take their sin, all their sin, upon you, and you be punished
in their place. You go down there, and you do
that. Take their punishment. All the
ones I chose, mind you, Not all without exception, but the ones
I chose. And you save them, son. You save
them all. And if you do that, you come
back to heaven someday. I'll bring you back. I'll raise
you from the dead. If you come back to heaven someday and you
sit down at my right hand, and whew, I'm going to give you a
name that the universe has never heard before. A name which is
above every name. I'm going to give you greater
honor and glory than you've ever had before, son, for doing this. That at the name of Jesus, your
earthly name, every knee is going to bow. Angels, cherubs, seraphs,
men, devils, everybody's going to answer to you and call you
Lord. At the name of Jesus, they're
going to bow to you and call you Lord, to my glory and to
your glory. You're going to get greater glory
in all this. And the Father says, I'll do it for your namesake.
And the Son says, Father, I'll do it for your namesake. I'll
do it. So in the fullness of time, he did that. Christ came,
made of woman, born under the law to redeem them that were
under the law. And it's a mystery. And that
had been kept hidden from the beginning. Did you notice there
how it said that It was hid in God, but now it's revealed under
the Church. Well, the prophets of old prophesied
of somebody who was coming. Genesis, all the way through
the book of Genesis. Mindy has on her wall down there,
and our children know these Old Testament types and pictures
of Christ. God came to Adam to talk about
the woman's seed. Well, Adam, he didn't know much. Lord, who are you talking about?
didn't know his ark, you know. Abraham and Isaac. You know,
Abraham came down from the mountain that day after the Lord provided
that ram in the place of his son, and he knew that somehow
or another this was a picture of God going to send his Messiah
down here to take our place somehow. But he didn't know who he was.
It's a mystery to him. And on and on the mystery goes.
Even David, you know, he talked about the Lord his shepherd didn't
know his name. I know he's coming. Job said, I know my Redeemer
liveth, and someday I'm going to meet him face to face. My
eyes are going to see him, but I just don't know his name. Kept
his head on down through Ezekiel, Daniel, and so forth. All give
pictures of this crowd. He says, now we know his name. Jesus Christ. This mystery, this
one, mysterious one. Remember when the angels announced
his birth? And they said, Now, this has never happened before.
And this mysterious thing, this God and this man in one person,
call his name Jesus. He's going to save his people
from their sin. And after he does that, you're not going to
call him Jesus anymore. You're going to call him Lord. See? In the name of Jesus, every mouth
shall confess he's Lord. And this has been a mystery that
has been kept hid from the very beginning, from the very beginning. Now in our text, very quickly. And God shows some people this.
You know, the Old Testament is like a family album. It's like God Almighty's family
album, if you'll pardon my familiar type. You all have family albums
of your children at home, don't you, with big 8x10s of your rotten
little Rugrats? Yeah, sure you do. Got them all
over your walls. Well, and they're not worth more
than one picture. But God Almighty has innumerable
pictures of his Son all the way through here, showing everybody,
look at my Son, look at my Son. And he's going to put him on
permanent display in eternity future for all to see. He's worthy. And this is like God's family
album that he allows some people to look in on. It's a mystery
to most. They look at Genesis and say,
I don't understand what that's all about, and Exodus and Leviticus
and Numbers and Deuteronomy, and say, I don't understand what
that story is about. God's people do. They say, hey, that's a picture
of Christ, don't they? I've seen the picture. God showed
me. Let me show you what that says. Rahab's harlot and lion
and the Passover and the ark and this and that. That's a picture
of Christ. It's God's family album. God's Son. God's showing us his Son throughout
it. And he may have known unto us
this mystery, he said. and brings them by his power. They come, and he says, they
have boldness and access with confidence by the faith of him. Romans 8 says they are like children,
too, they are sons of God, given the spirit of adoption, whereby
they can cry, Father unto this God, just like Christ the Son
can. One other thing, he said over
there in 1 Corinthians 15, he said, Behold, I show you another
mystery. He said, If that's not all a mystery enough, how God
created everything and then brought his Son down here and did all
this for him and then brought him down here to do that work
for us and then gives us a spirit of adoption someday. He said,
I'll show you another mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we'll
be changed. of God's people going to awaken
and express the image of Christ. They're going to be just like
him. That's a mystery. I don't know much about that,
but I believe it. So you see, the purpose of God
Almighty will not be changed. It's inalterably changed, and
everything's working according to that eternal purpose, and
that eternal purpose is in his Son. He's determined to do all
things for the glory of his Son, and to save a people, to give
glory to his Son. And like Ephesians 1.10 says,
someday he's going to gather it all together, one big gathering
of people in Christ, for Christ, and giving all glory to his Son. Why? He's worthy. He's God's
only Son. That's why he did it. OK, let's
stand together, and I'll dismiss this in prayer.