Welcome to Reign of Grace. This
program is brought to you by Reign of Grace Media Ministries,
an outreach ministry of Eager Avenue Grace Church in Albany,
Georgia. It is our pleasure and privilege
to present to you the gospel message of the sovereign grace
and glory of God in the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ. We pray that today's program
will be a blessing to you. Thank you for listening and now
for today's program. Welcome to our program today.
I'm glad you could join us for the message. I'm going to be
preaching from the Word of God, the Bible, in the book of Ephesians
chapter 2. Ephesians chapter 2. I have a
couple of messages that I'm going to preach through this chapter.
And the title of this first message, beginning in Ephesians 2 and
verse 1, is the quickening of God's grace. The quickening of
God's grace. So if you'd like to follow along
in your Bibles, it's Ephesians, Paul's epistle to the church
at Ephesus. Ephesians chapter 2 and verse
1, beginning at verse 1. And the apostle here is talking
to professing believers. Now, anytime we address people,
that I as a preacher of the gospel, when I address people, I try
to preach an evangelistic message and that is mainly geared towards
the lost people who are lost still lost in their sins you
probably heard me say it on this program many times there's only
two types of people in this world basically there are sinners yet
lost in their sins and then there are sinners saved by the grace
of God and so anytime I preach here on television or at our
church at Eager Avenue Grace Church I try to gear the message
in an evangelistic manner, aimed towards calling lost people to
believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. And there's also a teaching aspect,
what we call edification, towards the people who have already been
brought into the fold of God's church, the sheepfold. and who
need to grow in grace and in knowledge of Christ and grow
in the Word. And so this message here, as
Paul's writing to the church at Ephesus, is both evangelistic
and it's also a teaching message. It's also an edifying message.
And so when he addresses these people, and I want you to understand
this. Now, I think everyone ought to read and study the Bible. But these epistles are addressed
to believers, not to unbelievers. But now, as I said, within the
pages of these messages that are addressed to believers, there
is an evangelistic tone. calling lost sinners to believe
in the Lord Jesus Christ. Now what you're going to see
in this message on the quickening of God's grace is some of the
blessings and glorious benefits that the people of God possess
because of the Lord Jesus Christ. Because of who Jesus Christ is. Who is He? He is God in human
flesh. My Savior, and this is a glorious
thing, my Savior and my Lord is Emmanuel, God with us. He is every bit God in every
attribute of the character and nature of deity. And He is every
bit human, a man. in every attribute and character
or nature of humanity except one thing, He has no sin. He
is totally without sin. So when I speak of my Savior,
I'm telling you of one who is both God and man. The perfect God-man. He had to
be so in order to save me from my sins. And then secondly, This
book tells about the blessings and benefits that God's people
have because of what Christ accomplished successfully on the cross of
Calvary in His obedience unto death. And these verses are going
to talk about that. You see, salvation is based upon
the glorious person and the finished work of the Lord Jesus Christ. The work that he finished was
a work of propitiation, the scripture says. That means that Christ
as the surety, as the substitute of God's chosen people, God's
elect, that's what Ephesians 1 talks about, God's chosen people
whom he chose before the foundation of the world and gave them to
Christ, and imputed, charged, accounted the debt of their sins
to Christ, Christ came as the surety, having all the responsibility
to save His people and put Himself in their place under the justice
of God. And the scripture says in Philippians
2, He obeyed unto death, even the death of the cross. And what
did He accomplish? Now most people today, most preachers
today will say, well, he died to make you savable or to make
salvation a possibility for you if you would do your part. That
is not what he did. My friend, that is not the gospel.
That is not the true Christ of this book. He did not die to
make me savable if I would do my part. He did not die to make
salvation a mere possibility. He did not die for those who
die and perish in eternal damnation. He died for His sheep and His
sheep will hear His voice. They'll seek Him. You say, well,
why seek the Lord? Why read the Bible? Why listen
to a gospel? Because that's what his sheep
do. Are you one of his sheep? Well, he said, my sheep hear
my voice and I know them and they follow me. That's what he
says. That's the evidence of being
one of God's elect. Believing the gospel, believing
in Christ, trusting in him. So what did he accomplish on
Calvary? He accomplished the full salvation
of his people by establishing righteousness, that righteousness,
the merit, the worth, the value, the quality of his whole work.
And that righteousness has been imputed, charged, accounted to
his people. And they're justified before
God. They're redeemed by the blood
of Christ. Having been ruined by the fall,
they're redeemed by the blood. And as a result of that, they're
going to be regenerated by the Holy Spirit. And they have all
these blessings because of what Christ did. Over in Ephesians
chapter 1 and verse 3, listen to this. Paul writes, blessed
be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who hath blessed
us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ. All spiritual blessings. Now
one of those spiritual blessings is the quickening of God's grace. So look at Ephesians chapter
two and verse one. He says, and you hath he quickened. quickened. Now what does that
mean? You ever heard of somebody make
the statement say, well you cut me to the quick. Well that word
quick, quickening there, doesn't mean speedily, doesn't mean fast,
it means life, living, made alive. What the Bible sometimes calls
regeneration. And you hath he made alive. Now, what he's talking about
is the new birth. The new birth. You remember over
in the book of John chapter 3, the Lord speaking to a religious
man named Nicodemus, and he said in John chapter 3, Jesus answered,
and this is John chapter 3 verse 3, Jesus answered and said unto
him, Verily, verily, or truly, truly, I say unto thee, except
a man be born again, or literally born from above, he cannot see
the Kingdom of God. He cannot see or understand,
savingly, the reality of the Kingdom of God. And that's the
reality of salvation. It's the reality of eternal life. It's the reality of what it takes
for a sinner like me to be accepted and received by God, who is holy,
righteous and just, and must punish sin. That's the issue
of salvation. And the reason that a person
cannot see the Kingdom of Heaven, the Kingdom of God, until he's
born from above, miraculously, irresistibly, invincibly, is
because, by nature, he doesn't have eyes to see. He has physical
eyes, maybe, but he doesn't have spiritual eyes. You remember
Christ in the book of Matthew 13, when the disciples ask Him,
why do you speak in parables? And he told them because of the
natural man's rejection of the truth. And so he was going to
hide it from them. He told his disciples, he said,
but blessed are your eyes for they see and your ears for they
hear. You see, in order to have spiritual
eyes and ears, we must be born again. So Christ said he cannot
see the kingdom of God. Now that's what he's talking
about over here in Ephesians chapter 2, and you hath he quickened. Now why is that quickening necessary? This is the quickening. God making
alive spiritually his people. Alright, look back at Ephesians
chapter 2 again, verse 1. He says, and you hath he quickened
who were dead in trespasses and sins. now that's why sinners
have to be quickened that's why they have to be born again because
by nature by nature we fell in Adam into sin and death and by
as a result of that we are born into this world naturally spiritually
dead now a lot of people today do not believe that But I'm telling
you, that is what the Bible teaches. You hath he quickened who were
dead. And that's spiritual death. Now
people argue about this and they try to define it. It's not really
that complicated. Man won't believe it until he's
made alive. You won't believe that you were
born really spiritually dead. How dead are you? Well, dead
means dead. What that means is this. It means
you have no spiritual abilities. No spiritual faculties. It means that your mind, your
affections, and your will are all spiritually dead. It's like
the natural deceitful heart. Now you have a physical heart.
But by nature, you don't have a spiritual heart. And listen
to how he describes those who are spiritually dead. Now as
I go through this, we're going to look at verse 2 and verse
3. And I want you to think about
something before I read these verses. One of the greatest mistakes
that people make when they read the Bible, and especially, especially
verses like what I'm about to read, Ephesians 2, 2 and 3, is
they relegate these things to somebody else. Oh, he's talking
about somebody else. He's not talking about me. And that's one of the worst mistakes
you can make. especially when he describes
sinful people, and that's what he's doing here. Now what he's
doing, now listen, he says, let's listen to verse one one more
time. You hath he quickened, you hath he made alive, that's
the new birth, who were dead in trespasses and sins, spiritually
dead, trespasses. Trespass is a word for sin, it
means to break the law, it means to go too far, it means to cross
the line. Sins here is the most common
word in the New Testament for sin, it means to miss the mark.
Now look at verse two. He says, wherein in time past. Now the time past here that he's
talking about is before they were quickened. Before they were
born again. He says, in time past you walked
according to the course of this world. Now, I often tell people,
when you read the Bible now, and this is in line with what
I was saying earlier, don't read it with the accept me syndrome. In other words, when he talks
about all have sinned and come short of the glory of God, don't
say accept me. There's no accept you or accept me here. What he's
describing here is all of us by nature, that is, as we are
naturally born, even the best of us, even the most religious,
even the most moral. What he's describing here is
man by nature, fallen in Adam, born spiritually dead, without
Christ, without this quickening. And here's what I'm telling you. If you have not been quickened,
If you've not been born again from above by the Holy Spirit,
regenerated and converted, if you haven't, this describes you. Even if you're sitting in a church
pew somewhere. Even if you're standing behind
a pulpit reading the Bible. You walked according to the course
of this world. What is the course of this world?
Well, it can be a lot of different things. Christ described it in
Matthew 7 as the broad road that leads to destruction. And it's
a broad road. It's wide because there's so
many different ways that will lead to destruction. So many
different ways other than the one way, the narrow way, which
is Christ crucified and risen from the dead. Christ said, I
am the way, the truth, and the life. No man cometh to the Father
but by me. You want salvation? There's one
way. Christ is my salvation. You want
to be saved? Then salvation is by the grace
of God. It's not based on my works. It's not based upon my decision. It's not based upon anything
that I do or anything that comes from me. It is totally based
upon what Christ accomplished on Calvary in putting away my
sins by the shedding of His blood, His death, and the establishment
of righteousness wherein I stand before God accepted. You see,
I have a righteousness. It's Christ's righteousness.
It's one He worked out. I didn't have anything to do
with it. It was all Him. And it's been imputed, charged
to me. And when I come before God, I stand in Christ, washed
in His blood, clothed in His righteousness. If I never come to faith in Christ,
if I'm never brought, not by my will or by my power or my
goodness, I don't have any, but if I'm never brought by the power
of the Spirit to believe in Christ and rest in Him, then I give
evidence that I'm worldly. Verse two again, wherein in time
past you walked according to the course of this world. That
can be the immoral world, it can be the religious world, He
said, according to the prince of the power of the air. That's
Satan. And the Bible tells us that Satan
is a deceiver, a subtle devil. His main goal is to keep sinners
from seeing the glory of God in Christ, the gospel. His main
goal, listen, if Satan can have you in a false church, listening
to a false gospel, of salvation by the works of the will of men
and resting in a false refuge that's where he wants to have
you and so he says according to the prince of the power of
the air he says the spirit that now worketh in the children of
disobedience now listen folks a child of disobedience what
is that? who is that? well you say that's
a child who disobeys They're children of disobedience. You
know who he's talking about there? He's talking about unbelievers. That's the issue. They haven't
been quickened. They're spiritually dead in trespasses
and sins. They have no life within, spiritually
speaking. They're the walking dead. And
the thing about it is they have physical life, but no spiritual
life. You say, well, a child of disobedience couldn't include
me because I obey. Now let me tell you something.
We're all sinners. As I told you, there's either
sinners lost in their sins or sinners saved by grace. What
he's talking about is those who give no evidence of being quickened
because they believe not on Christ. They have not come to repentance
of their dead works and idolatry. And that's what he's saying.
Unless you have the spirit of God quickening you and residing
in you, you have the spirit that now worketh in the children of
disobedience. That's unbelievers. And look
at verse three. He says, among whom also we all had our conversation
in times past in the lust of our flesh. Now, conversation
there means our conduct, our way of life, our bent of life. And the lust of our flesh, normally
when religious people talk about lust, they only categorize that
as sexual desires, unlawful sexual desires, and that would be included.
But the lust here refers to any unlawful desire, doesn't matter
what it is. If you desire something that
is unlawful or ungodly, if you desire something that dishonors
God and denies the Lord Jesus Christ, that's a lust of Satan. You can go all the way back to
Genesis chapter 4 and look at Cain and Abel. Both those boys
desired salvation. Both those boys, I say boys,
they were men actually at the time that they were bringing
their offerings there in Genesis 4. Both those men, those brothers,
desired to please God. Both those brothers desired to
be accepted of God and blessed by God. Cain's desire was a lust
of the flesh. Abel's desire was a godly desire. How do you know? Cain sought
all of those blessings by the works of his hands. And God,
that, listen, that dishonors God. That denies the person and
the work of the Lord Jesus Christ. That's an unlawful desire. It's
a lust of the flesh. It's fleshly religion. And so
no matter how good you try to be, If you approach God upon
the ground of your own works, your own decision, your own ideas,
your own goodness, you are going through a lust of the flesh. But Abel's desire was godly.
How do you know? He did what God said. He brought
the blood of the Lamb. That's a picture of Christ. Ask
yourself this question. Upon what ground will God accept
me? There's only one ground that
honors God and gives Christ the preeminence. And that ground
is the blood of Jesus Christ. It's His righteousness imputed,
charged, accounted to me. No other ground will do. You
say, well, I'm gonna try to be the best and that'll account
for something. It'll count for nothing. It's a lust of the flesh. What can wash away my sins? Nothing but the blood of Jesus.
My hope is built on nothing less than Jesus' blood and righteousness.
You see that. All right, go back to verse three
of Ephesians 2. He says, among whom also we all had our conversation
in times past in the lust of our flesh, fulfilling the desires. And that word desires, if you
have a concordance in your Bible, it's the word wills. Fulfilling,
in other words, this is what we desire, what we want, what
we will. Fulfilling the desires or wills
of the flesh and of the mind. What people need to understand
today, in this day of the heresy of free willism, and I'm saying
that openly now. Somebody says, well, we all have
a free will. Well, what is your will free
from? It's not free from your fallen human nature. It cannot
be. I've often used the example of
a wolf and a sheep. If you built a pen out in a pasture,
a lush green pasture, and you put a sheep in that pen, and
then you put a wolf in that same pen, now what is the sheep going
to eat? The sheep is going to eat the
grass. Why? Because of his own free
will, he decides to eat grass? No. I'll tell you why he's going
to eat grass. Because that's what sheep eat.
He's a sheep. And that's the long and the short
of it. By nature, it's a sheep. Now,
what's the wolf going to eat? Well, the wolf's going to eat
the sheep. Why? Because he's a wolf. It's not
because of his own free will, he decides to eat, you know,
say, well, the wolf, if he decided to, he could eat grass. Yes,
but he's not going to decide to eat grass because that's not
his will. That's not his desire. He's by
nature a wolf and he's going to turn and grab that sheep and
have a feast. Why do men and women born into
this world of Adam, why do we sin? For all have sinned and
come short of the glory of God. Is it because of our own free
will we choose to do something? No, it's because we're fallen
men. The natural man, 1 Corinthians
2.14, the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit
of God, neither can he know them. They're spiritually discerned.
That's why we sin. We don't become sinners by sinning,
we sin because we're sinners. And we're born that way. Some
people argue about that. Well, we're born innocent and
then we make the first choice. Why is it in the history of the
human race there has never been one human being, one human being
who did not make the choice to sin? Why is that? There's only
one human being that has never sinned, who didn't have a sinful
human nature, and that's the Lord Jesus Christ who is God-man. But here he says, we were fulfilling,
this is Ephesians 2, 3, fulfilling the wills of the flesh and of
the mind. Here's the long and the short
of it. Man desires salvation. He desires religion. He even
desires heaven. He can desire righteousness,
but he will not desire the things that honor God and give Christ
the preeminent. Man has to have some glory. And therefore, he says, well,
I've got the free will. Man is a free agent. He can decide
certain things, but he will not come to Christ. And this is what
he's saying here. He says, fulfilling the desires
of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature the children
of wrath, even as others. Now I'll deal with that next
time, and I hope you've enjoyed this message. Join us next week
for another message from God's Word. We are glad you could join us
for another edition of Reign of Grace. This program is brought
to you by Reign of Grace Media Ministries, an outreach ministry
of Eager Avenue Grace Church in Albany, Georgia. To receive
a copy of today's program or to learn more about Reign of
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today and may the Lord be with you.