be opening your Bibles to the
first chapter of Ephesians. I'll turn this recorder on once
I'm done with my preliminaries. I've counted such a blessing
to be here among you. I communicate from time to time
with a preacher in Russia, and I'm often blessed with the way
he addresses me. The last email, it said, Dear
Joseph, Beloved of the Lord. And often when I receive letters
from him, you know, I don't have to get past the salutation and
I'm blessed. But then as our brother was speaking here
a little bit ago and he referred to me, and this can be second
only to Beloved of the Lord, he said, Brother Joe, which carries
with it beloved of us. That's what when we say brother
someone, that's somebody we love. And there is no greater blessing
than to be loved by the Lord. And second to it is to be loved
by the people of the Lord. And I'm so happy to be here,
happy the Lord has been pleased to provide this building for
you. And I come here and there's such a sweet spirit and fellowship,
I feel like I've come home. By the way, you said years. It's
31 of them. 1977. Probably in July
or August. I remember the first service
I attended. I believe it was Brother Charlie
Payne preached. He came over on a Wednesday night.
And afterwards spoke to him and Frank Tate. And came back and
heard Brother Henry. I was just out of Bible school
and got my degree, you know. And I remember that I would occasionally
go back up there to the Dayton, Ohio area where I had gone to
school. I would visit with the preacher
or the pastor of the congregation where I had worshipped up there.
And I remember after a little while, he said, well, what do
you think of Henry Mahan? He's the one who advised me to
go to church there. And I said, well, he's good. He sure repeats himself a lot.
About a year later, I went back and visited that guy again. He
said, what do you think of Henry Mahan? He sure repeats himself
a lot, and I'm finally starting to catch on. And it has been
a blessing to be associated with this congregation and that message
for all these years. And of course, we think all these
years. Thirty-one. What's that to God? He's been
enjoying that message forever. We're not the only ones that
enjoy the message of Christ. God the Father does. Now we have here, oh, I better
hit the on button on this. Now he said hit, there's recording.
Okay, we're good to go. This chapter, you're probably
very familiar with it because it lays out in such clear
and concise terms the gospel that we believe. In fact, it
is so clear and so plain that in my first year of Bible school,
which was quite the free will school, I remember that one of
the professors, who was probably as free will as anyone there,
tried to teach us through this book. He started three times because he'd get into Ephesians
1. I mean, right away he's into material he can't explain. At least he cannot explain it.
within the framework of the theology that he believed. And he was
kind of like a fellow trying to jump across a creek. And he'd jump across and wouldn't
make it all the way, so he'd try again and he'd try it again.
Finally, he just kind of had to skip over it and move on to
something that he could more easily twist to fit what he believed. But this is a chapter of praise. Three times, specifically, it
mentions praise. In verse 3, blessed be the God
and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. That word means, that
word blessed, it doesn't mean that we're going to somehow or
another bless God. That is that we could pour up out, give to
Him something He didn't have before and make His condition
better. The word from which that is derived,
I believe I've got the right one in my mind. Actually, we
get our word eulogy from it. And it simply means good word.
Good word. Praise. And God is worthy of a good word
to speak well of Him. So speak well of the God and
Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. And then in verse 6, having mentioned
a few things regarding salvation, it says, to the praise of the
glory of His grace. Now, you know, if you remember
geometry, with any two points, you can make a line. You know,
with one point, you don't know where you're going from there.
But as soon as you establish the second one, you've got a line.
And so now we've got a direction that this Scripture is going.
It's talking about praising God. It's talking about things which,
when understood and believed, will certainly cause the heart
to fill up with praise for God. And out of the abundance of the
heart, what does the Scripture say? The mouth speaks. An unpraising mouth comes from
a heart empty of the knowledge of God and the knowledge of His
gospel. Now, people can raise their hands
in the air and sway back and forth and shout this and that.
It don't mean nothing. Because what they eventually
get down to is praising man. But I'll tell you, when there
is true praise from the lips, it is evidence of grace. In fact, the only ones who can
praise God are the ones who have experienced the things that Paul
is writing about in this scripture. You cannot praise God. This is true. You cannot praise
God from a legalistic or a freewill platform. It can't be done. Oh,
you can say some words, but it's interesting how if you'll listen
to those who stand on such a platform, they know they have to say those
words, and they kind of say them, but it's just for long. It's over to man somewhere. But
he goes on, and it says in verse 12, that we should be to the
praise of His glory. So now I've got a third point.
And he's right in line with the rest of them. The praise of God. And is it not interesting that
in this matter of praise to God and all the things that Paul
lists, there's not a word about anything that we've done. Now,
therein you can see or detect sometimes these people who draw
near to God with their lips, but their hearts are far from
Him. Because they will say, well, praise God, praise God, I such
and such. You ever notice that? It always
gets back to them. But here is a long list of things
that God has done. He has blessed us with all spiritual
blessings in the high places. That's really what that word
means. In fact, our word heaven comes from the word meaning to
heave up. From the high places. Jesus Christ
was raised to the right hand of God in the high places. And
that's where our warfare goes on, Paul later says in this book,
spiritual wickedness in the high places. But here he has blessed
us with all spiritual blessings in the high places, in the spiritual
places, in the realm where eternal things are carried out. Now,
I don't resent blessings in the low places. And boy, we've got
a bunch of them, don't we? I mean, you know, people are
worried about the economics of this country. I'll tell you this,
if we go into a full-scale recession, we're still going to be better
off than about 95% of the rest of the world. Poverty in this
country is rich as everywhere else. And so I don't resent the
fact that I've got blessings in the low places. I tell you, they're nothing to
be compared with the blessings in the high places. Because the
low places, whatever blessings you get in the low places, you
will lose. Because either they're going
to leave or you are. But you know it says a fool and
his money are soon parted? Hey, everybody and their money
are someday parted. It's leaving you or you're leaving
it. But those spiritual blessings
in the high places where eternal things go on, are unchanging
blessings. The Lord said, lay not up treasure
down here on earth, where there's all kinds of things going to
ruin it. Lay up treasure in heaven, because there nothing can touch
it. And then He goes on to detail
some of those blessings, the election from before the foundation
of the world. Election, and that takes us back
to what we call eternity past. That's the best way we can describe
what that is. But in eternity, there is no
past or future. But before the world began, chosen,
and it immediately takes us to the other end of the thing, that
we should be holy and blameless before Him. And therefore, the foundation
of all salvation is told to us. God's electing grace. And the
destiny of all those who have been elected is that they should
be holy, which don't confuse the word holy with the word righteous.
It means two different things. Holy simply means set apart to
Him. In fact, in almost every case
where you find the word holy or sanctified or saint, they're
all coming from the same Greek word, you could place the word
His in there and you get the general meaning. We were chosen
to be His. Everybody else is left to themselves.
And if we're going to be His, the only way we can be His is
then to be blameless. Brethren, can you imagine what
it really means to be blameless in God's sight? Now, I could
probably pull off being blameless in your sight, because you don't
know about me what I know about me. And I ain't going to tell
you. I may not be able to convince
you of blameless, but I can convince you of better than I am. I love
that hymn. He sees me as righteous and not
as I am. Aren't you glad God doesn't see
you as you are? People say, well, God will accept
you as you are. And I understand what they mean by that. And yet He doesn't accept us
as we are. He's going to make holy and blameless. And in one place, I believe it
says unblameable. Because, you know, maybe I'd
be pretty slick getting this presence, you know, and have
hidden everything and think, OK, blameless. And then somebody
that knows me shows up and says, let me tell you something here.
The record's clean, but I'm about to tell you what it really is.
Unblameable. Because as our brother spoke
of in the service, the blame was laid on him. The blame was
laid on Christ. He who is unblameable by nature
was blamed in order that I, who am blameworthy, would never be
blamed. And he goes through, I can't
detail all these things for you, As I said, you've read this Scripture
before many times. If you're a sovereign grace preacher,
you can hardly not refer to this chapter over and over again. And he gets down to this Scripture
in verse 11, in the last part of it, and it speaks of him who
worketh all things after the counsel of his own will. Several
weeks ago, I was listening to Brother Bruce Crabtree preach,
and he was preaching, I can't tell you for sure which one of
the verses from this chapter, but one of them. But he read
the whole chapter, and I'm driving in my pickup truck on the way
to Insulated House, and I'm listening to him read the Scriptures. And
he read that phrase. I don't know about you, but I
get a lot more out of Scripture hearing someone read them than
I do reading them for myself. I don't know, just a different
way, I guess. And I heard him read that phrase, him who works
all things according to the counsel or after the counsel of his own
will. I thought, what a blessing. And I thought, I'm going to have
to preach on that. And I did at our church last week. And
it, but it's, what a powerful and blessed thought and how peace
provoking It is to those whose trust is in Him. Now, if you're
going to trust somebody, don't you want it to be the guy that's
in control? I mean, it may be very nice for
someone to try to save you and to extend himself to his furthest
reach to rescue you from a situation, but unless he has the power and
the wisdom to command the situation, it's just going to be so much
good intention. Until your Rescuer, your Savior,
your Deliverer is someone who can take command of the whole
situation, of your enemies, and of your worst enemy, which is
you, until He can take control of those things, He is no Deliverer,
because the circumstances will overwhelm His efforts. But here
it speaks of one. who works. And the word there
in the Greek, we get our word energy from it. He expends energy
according to the counsel of his own will over everything. He works it. One of the chief aspects of the
glory of God in our salvation is this, that he is active in
it It's three things that go together, but it'll help us if
we divide it into the three. That he is active in salvation.
He's not passive. God's not waiting. He is sovereign in it. He determined
that there would be salvation, who would get it, and how they
would get it, and when they would get it. And then lastly, and
here's, well, I want to say the most important. It's one of those
things, all of them, absolutely important. He's successful. Successful. Do you realize that the Lord
Jesus Christ is the only successful man there's ever been? They'll talk about a man who
made a bunch of money. Well, he's a successful man.
I beg your pardon. He may have made a lot of money,
but he's going to leave it to somebody else. That's not a very
good success, to lay hold of that which I cannot keep. Well,
he's a successful man because He's got power. He's a congressman. He's a senator. He's a president.
You're out for a little while, but he can't keep it. He's a healthy man. He ain't
going to keep that health. The Lord Jesus Christ is the
only one who's successful, so much so that on the Mount of
Transfiguration, it says that Moses and Elijah spoke to him
of the death that he should accomplish. Have you ever heard of anybody
accomplishing death? Do you ever go to the funeral
and look at the corpse and say, whoo, what an accomplishment? Do you know that that word, accomplish,
the definition accomplish is exactly the same word the Lord
used when he said it is finished. It is accomplished. Hell is an
eternal circumstance for this reason. It's never accomplished. They're dying forever because
they never get death accomplished. They're never done dying. Christ accomplished even death. And He's the only one who's ever
done it. He is successful. It is, in my opinion anyway,
in any reasonable man's mind, He is left with only two choices
when it comes to God. He must believe that God is absolutely
powerful and sovereign and successful, or he must be an atheist. Now,
I'm not saying that that's what all men believe. I'm just talking
about if anybody can think about it for a minute. You cannot be
a God without being sovereign. It's part of the definition of
being God. And therefore, I am, in the spiritual struggles within
me, I am never tempted to go back to that form of religion
from which I came. Now, I do have spiritual struggles.
I have struggles of faith. But it's not between sovereign
grace and freewillism. I know freewillism in right. And not just because the Bible
says so. Common sense will tell you that. It's between sovereign grace
and atheism. Because to my mind, that's the
only two choices available. Says Him who works. This universe is ruled by person.
It's not ruled by chance. It's not ruled by impersonal
fate. Do you know what chance is? What
we call chance is simply a set of circumstances too complicated
for us to figure out ahead of time. A guy goes down to a casino and
he pulls the lever on that machine and the tumblers start tumbling.
You say, well, as long as they're tumbling, he's got a chance.
No, it's already cast. What's the old phrase, the die
are cast? It doesn't say the die have quit rolling. What he's
talking about is the dice. They've been thrown, and the
moment they're thrown, it's hard to determine which way they'll
come up. But we say it's a matter of chance. Why? Because it's
simply too complicated for us to figure out how it's going
to come up. Otherwise, we can make us a killing down at the
casino, couldn't we? There is no chance with God. Because he not only knows all
the variables, he's the one that made them in the first place. And fate, fate is impersonal. You know, well, he was fated
to die at that time. But he may have been predestined
to die at that time by a personal God. But there is no impersonal
force in this universe. carrying men along to their destiny.
There is God who rules everything personally, actively, sovereignly,
and successfully. Him who works. Now there's two
kinds of sovereignty, or maybe we might say one kind of sovereignty
revealed in two branches. First of all, there's what I
couldn't think of any other way to do it, call it transcendent
sovereignty. And what that means, that that
shows God as He is described as the One who dwells in that
light to which no man can approach. And what's the Scripture saying
at that point? It's saying that God is out there, beyond this
creation, not a part of it. God existed before He made the
heavens and the earth, and His existence has continued unchanged
for the whole time that the heavens and the earth have been in existence.
And when he rolls them up like a garment or like a scroll, because
he's done with them, he'll continue on unchanged. And I want to tell
you something about God as he's thought of or perceived transcendent. By the way, the word transcendent
just means to go beyond. He's out there. He's above it
all. You can't communicate with him. You can't. The created has no access to
the uncreated. There is no way for the uncreated
God to communicate with his created beings. You say, well, he did. Well, hang on, you'll see how.
But there is no way just for that to happen. But he is sovereign
in his transcendent existence the same way that an author is
sovereign over his story. Now, maybe you've never written
a story, but you can imagine writing one. Now, if you write
a story, who gets to decide who's in it? You do. And who gets to
decide what happens to everybody in the story? You do. You all know Shakespeare. He
wrote Romeo and Juliet, along with some other plays, but everybody's
kind of familiar with Romeo and Juliet. Now imagine that Shakespeare
is writing away. And in walks one of his friends
and he looks at him and Shakespeare is standing there with his brow
all knitted up and looking all perplexed. His friend says, Bill,
what's the problem? He says, well, I've come to the
end of the story. Pretty close to it now. It's a tragic love
story. And I'm going to show my ignorance. I can't remember just how Romeo
killed himself. I think he did it with the poison, didn't he?
Yeah. And he's got the cup in his hand. But, you know, I just
don't feel it'd be right for me to decide for Romeo whether
or not he's going to kill himself. His friend looks at him. What? Romeo is a free being. And, you know, as much as I might
want it to go this way, I have no right to determine how his
life shall go and when it shall end. Bill's friend scratches his head
and says, have you lost your mind? If you don't decide and
write, nothing happens. Because the moment you put down
your pen, Bill, the story's over. In the same way, friends, what
you and I call reality is God's fiction. It's God's story. Romeo, or we are to God, just
as Romeo is to Shakespeare. And everything that happens in
this world, God wrote it. People like to divide that between
that which God purposed and that which God allowed. An author
can't allow anything. Because the moment he steps back
and says, well, I'll allow, nothing happens. The only thing that happens in
the book is what the author writes. And everything he writes happens.
And so it is with God over creation. And you know, that kind of sovereignty
is mentioned in this verse, where it says he works all things after
the counsel of his own will. His own will is that transcendent
sovereignty. But there's also what we might
call eminent sovereignty. Transcend means out there, beyond,
far away. Eminent means right here. Now
you might be thinking, well, you said that the God out there
can't communicate with us down here. And that's right. So you
know what God did? This is going to sound funny, but he created
himself. Imagine if Shakespeare wrote a story and there were
some people in that story he really loved. He said, I want
to communicate with them. But he can't holler at the book
and make them hear. But you know what he can do?
He can create a character called Bill and put him in the book. and God entered his creation. In fact, he is the first part
of this creation. Remember in Proverbs where it
said, I was the first of God's works. If I understand it correctly,
God in his creation, in his creative form, is known generally under
the name the Word. And the Word has manifested himself
in many different ways. He manifested himself as the
voice of the Lord God that walked in the garden in the cool of
the evening. And I don't think it was some disembodied voice
floating around, or it would have said the voice of the Lord
God floated in the garden. Adam saw someone. Adam talked
to someone. He manifested himself as the
angel of the Lord, the messenger. Have you ever noticed it always
has something to do voice, word, message. He's the revelation
of God, because He is God. And the last form that He took,
and the form that, near as I can tell, He shall eternally possess,
is our Lord Jesus Christ, a man. The Lord Jesus is not simply
a man spiritually possessed by God. He is God in a human form. He's not half God, half man.
Sometimes I even have a little bit of a hard time saying he's
of two natures. Friends, he is a single person
who is both man and God, indivisible. That doesn't make any sense.
Well, it may not make the kind of sense I can get these brain
cells around, but it's the truth. And this God who is called in
the Old Testament, what is it, Jehovah, Shammah, the Lord is
present. He's here. And this God is actively working
to bring His will to pass. God didn't simply write the story. He entered the story. And He
controls everything in the story. to bring about the goal he had
for the story. He works. He works justly. Everything God does in this universe
is just. Shall not the judge of all the
earth do right? You know, when Abraham was going
to argue with the Word that appeared to him as God appeared to him,
and you'll notice, came to Abraham and he said to
the angel that he brought along with him, he said, are we going
to hide this from Abraham, what we're about to do? You'll notice
that when God's going to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah, he doesn't
just stand up there in heaven and say, all right, fire a brimstone
or whatever it was that fell on it. He went down there and
did it. But when Abraham begins to argue
with him and to make a case for sparing That city where his nephew
Lot lived, he says, shall not the judge of all the earth do
right? Well, not that he's going to
get God over a barrel, but it was a point that Abraham understood
that Sodom will not be overthrown unless it's right. And he tries
to find some way for it to be right not to overthrow Sodom. Of course, he couldn't find one. And the reason he couldn't find
one was he got it whittled down to ten righteous men. He couldn't
find ten righteous men. And someone counted it up and
said, if you take Lot and his wife and his two daughters and
I think somewhere around there are supposed to be some sons
or something. Probably they were thinking, well, maybe Lot's household
is righteous. Nope. Not even Lot's wife. But every righteous person was
taken out of the city before the fire fell. Everything he does is just, it's
right. Everything he does, he does powerfully
and omnipotently. Back in Daniel chapter 4, Nebuchadnezzar
exalted and extolled the God of heaven. begin to describe
him, and this is the way everybody who's had dealings with God describes
God. He does as he wills among the
armies, the powers of the high places, the heavenly places,
and among the heavens and the earth, and nobody can stay his
hand or even say to him, what in the world do you think you're
doing? Friends, that's power, that's sovereignty. Not only
can no one stop him, none dare challenge him. I love Paul's
response to those who say, well, why will God yet find fault for
who's resisting His will? Paul, you just told us that God's
determined everything and working everything out according to what
He determined. And men are simply doing what He said they would
do and purpose what they do. How can God find fault with Him?
Does Paul step back and give a nice philosophical answer?
He says, nay, but oh man, who are you to say to God, what do
you think you're doing? He does what He wants. Nobody
can stop Him. And nobody has the right to challenge
Him. And He works universally. People talk about the universal
love of God. I can't find that anywhere, but I can sure look
and see that God, look about the universal work of God, because
He's working everywhere. Because it says He works all
things. Whatever things are happening, God's working them. Again, I'm
reminded of what our brother said in the Sunday school class,
it's a tough pill to take. This business of submitting to
the authorities, particularly here in America, we just not,
submissions not our strong suit, you know. We built our whole
political system on the idea that all men are created equal,
so don't tell me that I'm not as equal as that guy. And I don't know what the politics
of this congregation is, I'll be frank with you, I don't care
anymore. I used to think politics was important. I'd get all twisted
up and nodded up at the elections. I have come to believe there
is not a man, there's not a man to look to. There never has been. But basically, you know, the
presidency comes down to a two-horse race, and there's people in God's
church backing both those horses. But I know which horse is going
to win. Whichever horse God votes for. I'm not saying we shouldn't
vote. We live in the story. And so
we live our, you know, we carry it on. We do whatever it is.
We live our lives. But understand this, from God's
viewpoint, this race is over. And not only is it over because
he purposed it, he's here working in the minds of people. and moving
the levers of the universe to put in the man he has determined
to put in. He not only established the ends,
he's working the means to bring it to pass. And another thing
to think of, we might think this is a pretty big deal, who's going
to be president? Would you be overly concerned
about who became dog catcher in Ashland? God's not particularly concerned
who's president of the United States. Really? I mean, Nebuchadnezzar was king
over the greatest empire of his day. I didn't care. He said, I'll put you on the
throne. I'll take you off. I'll put you
back again. And when I'm done with you, I'll
put somebody else there. And eventually I'm going to put there
a man named Darius. Or Darius, I don't know how it's pronounced.
And that man's going to send my people back home. I'll call
him my shepherd. A godless man? Yeah. I'll call
him the savior of my people. A godless? Yeah. Because I'm
going to work in even this godless man. And he's going to send forth
a decree. And my people are going home. And God will even take godless
men and use them to bring about his purpose of salvation for
his people. And you may go cast your vote
this coming November 4th and wake up to find November 5th
that your man didn't win. But that doesn't mean you didn't
win. Because whoever's in there, he was put in there for you. Now it says he works everything
according to the counsel of his own will. Does this mean that
God Just does whatever he wants? Well, it's true. God does whatever
he wants. But that's not the point Paul's making. There's
something even more glorious than simply that. Because that
would make God capricious. That'd make God like the God
of the pagans. So you haven't a clue what he's
going to do. He's told us what his will is. See, by the word
will here, he's not simply talking about the desire of God. Sometimes
you can mean that. You know, well, what's your will
on this matter? You just mean, well, what do you want at the present
moment? But the word will also means is, what is your goal? When I left home, I had a will. It was to get here. And for this trip, I have arranged
everything and worked everything to accomplish that will. God has a will. We see God doing
a lot of things. What's he accomplishing by what
he's doing? You know, there's a difference between doing and
accomplishing. What is the accomplishment? All right, look up there in verse
9. Having made known unto us the mystery of his will. Now, God's will has been hidden
for the most part. For most of the time that this
earth has been here, God's will was hidden. And even now, it's
hidden to most people. But He made it known to us, according
to His good pleasure, which He has purposed in Himself, that
in the dispensation of the fullness of times, what does He mean by
that? Well, once everything's done, once all the times that
He has ordained have come to an end, He might gather together
in one. all things in Christ, both which
are in thy high places, and which are on the earth, even in him. I know God's will. Scriptures say that the Lord
Jesus Christ prayed, Thy will be done. What is God's will? To bring everything under Christ. And He is working in everything,
by everything, and through everything to accomplish that one thing. And you don't know what this
universe is about. You have no understanding of the raison d'etre. The reason for being. Man says,
why? And isn't that our great question?
And no matter how far we get along, we can always ask, why?
In fact, your kids are probably irritated to fire out of you.
Why? And you give them a reason. Why?
Why? And why never ends until you
get here. Why? That Christ might be head
over everything. In fact, that word meaning together
in one. It's a pretty long Greek word,
but right in the middle of it is the Greek word for head. And
where they used it, they actually used it in bookkeeping. You know
how you do a spreadsheet, and you're going to keep track of
your checkbook on a spreadsheet, and so you put, you know, mortgage.
And you go over here, and you put that under the heading of
house expense. And I wrote something down here
to the gas station, and that's under the heading auto expense. And you got all these headings
over here, under which you list the expenses. This word means
that everything be brought under one heading, Christ. Brethren,
no matter what's happening, it comes under the heading of Christ. And that means that if we escape
what the economist says is common, that's going to come under the
heading of Christ. That means if the economists are right,
it comes under the heading of Christ. That means if you live, It comes
under the heading of Christ. And if you die, it comes under
the heading of Christ. You get the picture. Everything
is about Christ. You've heard that phrase, people
that are kind of self-centered, you know, and you say to them,
well, everything's got to be about you. And that's not right
for us, but it's right for Christ. Everything's got to be about
Him. Do you realize that's why God made the universe? He didn't
make it for Adam. He didn't make it for you. He
didn't make it for me. Essentially, He made it for His
Son. He made it for Himself. All things
were made by Him and for Him. The United States of America
is for Christ. And so is Russia. And so is Iraq. And so are all those other countries.
The President was made for Him and so are all the tyrants throughout
the world and the other leaders who try to promote Him. All of
them are for Him. It doesn't matter what's happening.
It's for Him. How has He made Christ head over
all things? I've got to wind this up quick,
but if you just look towards the end of the chapter here,
talking about the working of the mighty power in us and in
verse 20, says, which he wrought in Christ when he raised him
from the dead, had made him Lord of life, crowned him the Lord
of life, who triumphed over the grave, who rose victorious to
the fight for those he came to save. Life is about Christ. When he raised him from the dead
and set him in his own right hand, what's that? That's the
place of privilege and authority. Sit here at my right hand till
I make your enemies a footstool for your feet." Boy, how different
that Jesus is from the one you hear talked about. Jesus would
sure like to save you if you'd only let Him. And you know, He
wants to save the world. I had a man tell me one time,
it's God's dream to save the world. I said, well, maybe your
God's dreaming, but mine's not. You know, He's fully awake and
He's realizing His purpose. The Lord Jesus is there in his
right hand, and he is not troubled, he is not anxious, he is not
worried, he is not upset, he is not even disappointed. All
of his friends are being brought to bow at his feet, all the ones
he wanted, and all the rest are under his feet. Set him in his own right hand
in the high places. Far above all principality and
power. We, from that word principality
in English, where did we get our word prince? He's talking
about authorities. Far above all authorities. Remember,
this was being written into pagan Rome, which had the idea that
there's all kinds of authorities. And they had shrines to all of
them. And Paul wasn't saying that any
of them are actually real. He's just saying, don't worry
about them. If they do exist, Christ is above them. And indeed,
there are spiritual powers. There are spiritual principalities. But they're below Christ. All
power and might and dominion and every name that is named Oh, I'm driving through, making
this drive here. There's names in everybody's
yard. Names that seem powerful in this
world. Names grasping for power in this
world. These little names. He's far
above all those names. You pile all those names together
in one pile, they won't reach Him. Every name in His name, not only
in this world, but also in that which is to come. Boy, I tell
you, religious people, they like their names too, don't they?
He said, well, in all those names, He's above them, and even in
the names of the faithful who occupy the world to come. I've
got some men whom I highly regard in the gospel. But Christ's name
is far above them. In fact, the only reason I regard
them is because they have a regard for that name. And then he's
put all things under his feet. He gave him to be head over all
things to the church, which is his body, the fullness of him
that filleth all and all. I don't know the details of what's
going to happen. I don't know what's going to happen the rest
of today. I know what I plan, but I know how my plans go. I
plan to be here for one of those services. I messed that up. I didn't know it was in the morning.
I called John yesterday afternoon and said, God, tell me directions
to the church so I can get there tonight. And he's kind of like,
well, why? Nothing happened. That was this morning. I said,
oh. I'll read your emails a little
more carefully from now on. I don't know all that God's going
to do, but I do know what He's going to accomplish. He's going
to exalt His Son. And in the end, everybody's going
to see that this was all done for Him, and the whole thing's
been about Him. And if it's about Him, now, see
if this isn't true. If it's about Him, isn't it okay
with you, whatever it is? So I'll tell you about my 401K. Is it okay with you if your 401K
is cut in half or a third under the heading of Christ? Well,
you're under that heading. I can deal with it. Can you be
sick under the heading of Christ? I'm not trying to be Pollyanna
here. It hurts. It's tough. But you
who know Christ, what would you refuse? under the heading of
Christ.