Ephesians chapter 2 and verse
1. And you hath he quickened who
were dead in trespasses and sins, wherein in time past ye walked
according to the course of this world, according to the prince
of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the
children of disobedience. among whom also we all had our
conversation in times past in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling
the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature
the children of wrath even as others. But God, who is rich
in mercy for his great love wherewith he loved us, even when we were
dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ. By grace
ye are saved. Amen. May the Lord bless this
reading to us. The opening verse of that opening
hymn today reminded us there is a period known to God when
all his sheep, redeemed by blood, shall leave the hateful ways
of sin, turn to the fold, and enter in. And Mr. Kent beautifully captures the
true order of salvation as he sets in verse, God's love, knowledge,
will, and goodness at the head of the divine work of grace. And then culminating in the conversion
experience of each lost sheep of God's little flock. Mr Kent showed us that God knows
the time, the place and the circumstances of the conversion of all of his
people. because he has planned and ordered
every step along the way. Every step by which Christ's
bride is revealed and his church gathered in. God is in control
of all the aspects of the lives of his people in this great work
of bringing many sons and daughters to glory. and there are no surprises
for God. Not simply because he foreknows
the future, as if he looks forward and sees what's going to happen,
but because he holds the future in his hands, steering it according
to his own good pleasure. just as surely as he controlled
the past according to the determinate counsel of his will. Our Lord, the Almighty, all-knowing,
all-righteous, all-holy God, purposed, ordered, and brings
to pass all his will for his own glory. And long before Mr. Kent wrote his hymn, the prophet
Isaiah records the Lord himself saying these words, I am God
and there is none else. I am God and there is none like
me. Declaring the end from the beginning. and from ancient times the things
that are not yet done, saying, My counsel shall stand, and I
will do all my pleasure. That's in Isaiah 46, verse 9
and 10. Did you hear that? Did you hear
what the Lord said there? From the very beginning, God
said what the end of all things will be, because that was his
good pleasure. And he says, my counsel, my plans,
my purpose will stand because that's what I want to happen. Now we understand, and I hope
you're familiar with the term God's sovereignty after all this
time of us sharing fellowship together, but we understand this
testimony of God in terms of his sovereignty. God's sovereignty
describes God's rule in the world, indeed in the universe, because
it's all under his control, whereby all that happens, including the
salvation of men and women, boys and girls, does so, as Paul tells us in Ephesians
1 verse 11, according to the purpose of him who worketh all
things after the counsel of his own will. You see what's happened
there? The Apostle Paul picks up on
Isaiah's words, quoted from the Lord, where he says, my counsel
shall stand, I will do all my pleasure. And Paul says, you
know what that means? It means that all these things
happen according to the purpose of him who worketh all things,
all things after the counsel of his own will. and God's sovereignty and God's
rule is taught throughout the scriptures using such biblical
words as election and predestination and foreordination and foreknowledge. and phrases like perpetual decrees,
or eternal purpose, or determinate counsel, or everlasting covenant,
heavenly calling. Now I could give you chapter
and verse for all of these words and phrases, but for time I'm
just going to quote David saying this, Psalm 33 verse 11. The counsel of the Lord standeth
forever, the thoughts of his heart to all generations. and to show us that the church
is at the heart and the love of God for the church is at the
heart of all God's plans. The writer to the Hebrews in
Hebrews 6, verse 17 says, we're in God willing more abundantly
to show unto the heirs of promise, that is his elect people, the
immutability of his counsel confirmed it by an oath. Now, I want us
just to realise what the writer to the Hebrews is saying there.
It pleases the Lord to teach his church about the sovereignty
of God in salvation. The Lord wants us to be speaking
about his sovereign grace, about his immutable counsel. It pleases God when we speak
about His sovereignty in salvation. So let the advocates of free
will and spiritual self-determination protest all they like. The scriptures are clear concerning
God's sovereignty in salvation and His dominion in the affairs
of nature and providence. We lay no charge for sin with
God, and yet we recognize his rule and we acknowledge his control
and authority over all things, all people, and at all times
in this world. So in today's verses in Ephesians
chapter two, We are taught by the Apostle Paul about the divine
work of grace by which God brings his elect people, that people
that he has set apart, sanctified before the world began, and that
people who are redeemed by Christ that God brings that elect people
into the experience of mercy through this quickening or spiritual
new birth. That's what the Apostle Paul
is talking about in our verses today. Now, the word that is
used there, ye hath he quickened, you has he quickened, made alive. That's what that word means.
We saw in our little introduction yesterday, the word quick has
an old meaning in English. It means alive or animated or
lively. And today we mostly think of
quick in the sense of fast or speedy. And actually that's where
fast and speedy is derived from because it was alive and because
it was lively. One place that we do see the
older usage still being recognised is in the word quicksand. Quicksand
is a mud that seems to be alive so as to suck in or to consume
anything that falls into it. A word for mercury, which is
like a silver metal that flows around, is quicksilver. And people used to call mercury
quicksilver because it was like lively silver. There's another idiom that I
thought I would mention to you just so that you'll remember
this maybe the next time you're clipping your nails. The little idiom, cut to the
quick, is a reference to us cutting our fingernails or our toenails
too short until we cut into the living part of the nail bed. and then we hit a nerve and then
we feel pain. So when we think about cutting
to the quick, it means we've cut our nails too short. And that means that we've cut
into the living part of our nails. And that's what quickening means. It means to make alive. So quicken, in the sense of living
or making alive, is an excellent biblical word. And while it's
not used much in our everyday language, it is used some, as
we've seen, but it's not used much, it nevertheless is an excellent
word for what the Lord does in the new birth. It really describes
it. It brings a dead soul to spiritual
life. God does that. It's a word that
we want to retain and a word that we want to be familiar with
and to use because it's a powerful and important act of grace. And Paul tells us that God quickened
the Ephesians when they were dead in trespasses and sin. And this teaches us some very
useful things about God's power and God's initiative in the sinner's
life as he brings his elect to glory by first bringing them
to a knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ of forgiveness for sin
and by the blood of Jesus Christ, cleansing them from all sin.
So I've got, this is one of these points again in my thoughts where
I need to tell you, I've got three points that I want to leave
with you. Don't worry, the rest of my time is divided over these
three points. I know when I need to stop. So
here are the three points. And the first one is, quickening
produces a new creation. The next one is quickening brings
spiritual occupation. And lastly, quickening is a lifelong
transformation. So we've got a new creation,
we've got spiritual occupation, and we've got lifelong transformation. So those are the three headings
that I've gathered my thoughts under. Let's get moving through
them quickly. That was a pun. Quickening produces
a new creation. It's God who quickens, not man. And it ought to be very obvious
to men and women that they cannot quicken themselves. What is dead
cannot bring itself to life and cannot improve itself in any
way. Just a little aside here actually,
I find it quite interesting that just as there has been a growing
denial of God's powerful hand in the creation of the physical
world, there has been an equally sharp rise in the denial of God's
powerful, creative work in the soul. Just as scientists have
been telling us that the world evolved over billions of years,
there has been an equal rise in the number of people telling
us that man can make himself alive. Both of those ideas are simply
humanism and I'm sure they're connected. If man can evolve
to improve himself without God in nature, And now he also is able to do
it spiritually when these free will preachers tell us that man's
will brings him into newness of life. Then what does he need
God for at all? Both of those trends, whether
that comes from the world of science or whether it comes from
the world of religion, both of those trends deny the need for
God and elevate the power of man. And yet the Lord Jesus Christ
tells us, except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom
of God. And he emphasises the difference
by saying to us, that which is born of the flesh is flesh, and
that which is born of the spirit is spirit. The flesh cannot quicken
the spirit. That which is flesh is flesh.
It needs to be a spiritual enlivening. So Paul tells us in 2 Corinthians
5, verse 17, therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new
creature. He has newness of life. He's
been made alive. Old things are passed away. Behold,
all things are become new. And yesterday in that little
note that I sent out, we noted that this creative work is a
work of the triune God, with all three persons of the Godhead
actively engaged in this quickening work. And this enhances, surely,
this enriches our view of this great quickening work, which
is at the centre of our experience of God and of his grace. For
it shows us the personal involvement, the personal involvement of the
Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit in the life of every believer. and it gives us cause to praise
each divine person for bringing spiritual life and power to bear
on our human experience. Because here's the interesting
thing, and I'm sure you've gleaned this from what we've said in
the past, but everything else about our salvation, our election,
our justification, our redemption. It takes place outside of us. It's a transaction between the
persons of the Godhead, long before the benefits of that
work are ever applied to our experience. so that quickening
is the first spiritual act that enables faith and touches our
human experience. Such is the Father's love for
his people. Such is the Son's love for his
people. such as the Holy Spirit's love
for his people, that all the divine persons are concerned
in the first kiss of life and our first spiritual breath as
new creatures in Christ Jesus. So this is the first point that
I want to leave with you. Quickening produces a new creation
in which God himself and all of his persons engages to bring
this experience of grace into the life of his people. Here's
the second point. This quickening, this new life
brings a spiritual occupation. And this is perhaps an aspect
of quickening that we don't always give sufficient attention to. But every time one of the Lord's
elect is quickened by God, Satan's goods are spoiled and Satan's
kingdom is diminished and depleted because the Lord occupies the
conquest that he has made. The church and the kingdom of
God on earth is enlarged. There's joy in the presence of
the angels of God over one sinner that repenteth. It is as though
the Lord declares, rejoice with me, I have found my sheep which
was lost. And he gathers it and he brings
it back home and he brings it back to the fold. When the Saviour
defeated death and Satan at the cross, he bound the strong man. Where once our lives were enslaved
to sin and to evil, now we are indwelt with the Holy Spirit
and we are free to serve God. The love of the Father, the Spirit
of Christ, the comfort of the Holy Spirit dwells within the
people of God and our lives are placed under new management.
We have been delivered from the power of darkness and translated
into the kingdom of God's dear son. Christ lives in us and we
live in him. He is our head, we are his body,
the church. God occupies the life of the
elect. John 14 verse 20 says, At that
day ye shall know that I am in my Father and ye in me and I
in you. Now that doesn't mean that we
don't get disheartened or discouraged or we don't feel cold in our
hearts or that we don't sin we aren't tempted all of these things
are true but that is because the spirit and the flesh coexist
together but Christ rules in our hearts and that battle and
that trial and that trouble is a constant challenge for the
church and the Lord's people Quickening is a gift of grace. And like all God's gifts, it's
not of the earth, earthy. But, James tells us, every good
gift and every perfect gift is from above. It comes down from
the father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow
of turning. From this little verse of James,
we learn that as God's gifts and callings are without repentance,
so they are irresistible. They are unremovable. When Christ
comes in and occupies a man's or a woman's heart and soul,
he never leaves. Paul is clear on this in Romans
8. It is God's love and purpose
to save that established the covenant
of grace and the plan of salvation. By placing his people in Christ
before the foundation of the world, God the Father ensured
our justification in his sight. Christ's death satisfied holiness,
paid our debts and assured our glory. everything is fixed and
definite and sure. God has chosen whom he will save
and having sent the Lord Jesus Christ to accomplish all that
was necessary to secure that salvation, he applies his grace
effectively, irresistibly by the power of the Holy Spirit
to achieve his purpose. So quickening applies God's mercy
and it brings about God's will. Our God doesn't try to save sinners
or hope that they will be saved. He doesn't offer salvation and
wait to see who amongst the sin-hardened children of men will find his
offer sufficiently attractive to accept it. That's so much
nonsense. God saves sinners by coming powerfully
into our lives. Christ's sheep hear his voice. God's life-infusing word does
not return to him void. And finally, quickening is a
lifelong transformation. Quickening is a new creation.
Quickening is a spiritual occupation as Christ indwells his people
and gives us the Holy Spirit. And quickening is a lifelong
transformation. Quickening is the enabling act
of grace. in the life of a dead sinner.
It transforms by creating spiritual life and calling forth spiritual
experiences. Spiritual experiences. This is
our first awareness of spiritual things. We have an awareness
of sin that we never had before. We have a sense of spiritual
need. that was completely foreign and
alien to us before that spiritual life was created anew within
us. We have a desire for forgiveness
where once we just happily went on and did the things with very
little regret and no remorse. And we discover that we've got
faith in Christ. We hear the gospel and we believe
it. We might have heard it a hundred
times, a thousand times. We might have mocked it. We might
have laughed at the preacher. We might have ridiculed the whole
notion. And suddenly we hear it and we
believe it. What makes that difference? What
has transformed us but the power of God? The Lord Jesus calls
this hungering and thirsting after righteousness. That's an
experience, a spiritual experience of being hungry for Christ, of
being hungry and thirsting after righteousness. He calls it being
weary and heavy laden with sin. We weren't weary of sin before
this transformation, but now we are heavy laden. There's a
feeling, a sense of personal spiritual poverty. And we grieve and we mourn for
a lack of liveliness towards God. And from these first spiritual
experiences, of need. The quickened soul finds a wealth
of good in the gospel that is preached to our soul. And the
child of God experiences conversion. Quickening is God's means of
bringing the experience of grace into the human soul. And God's graces of forgiveness
and comfort and happiness are the start of a long supply of
gifts and goodness that the Lord freely grants to his people. That is our conversion. and the beginning on this new
road of life in our experience. Ezekiel tells us how the Lord
himself describes it in Ezekiel 36 verse 26. The Lord describes
it like this. A new heart also will I give
you and a new spirit will I put within you and I will take away
the stony heart out of your flesh and I will give you a heart of
flesh and I will put my spirit within you and cause you to walk
in my statutes and ye shall keep my judgments and do them. This is the shalls and the wills
that the hymn writer was talking about. The new creation, the
new birth is just the start of God's work in the life of his
people. Paul says to the Ephesians, ye
are God's workmanship. We begin as children. and we
grow in grace. We mature from drinking spiritual
milk to eating spiritual meat. There is a deepening of understanding,
a growing dependence upon the Lord, a deepening trust of his
wisdom and his ways. And there is an exercise of our
faith. Sometimes that isn't pleasant.
Sometimes that is grievous. Sometimes it is hard. But God
is exercising that new life that he has put within us so that
it blossoms and grows and develops. A believer's life is often hard. It is often full of trial. It
is engaged in battles against the flesh that God has seen fit
to retain in our lives. Nevertheless, the transforming
power of God never leaves us. because he which hath begun a
good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ. The union we have with Christ
by this new life never ends. It goes on and on and it will
last to eternity. Christ grants ongoing supplies
of grace in life-giving, soul-quickening, renewing, refreshing power from
day to day. That is our daily relationship
with the Lord. He keeps giving so long as our
need remains. Remember the widow's cruise,
how it just kept on giving that oil. By the first quickening effects
of God, we are brought into new spiritual life. But our needs,
our daily needs, our ongoing needs for fresh supplies of grace,
they don't end this side of eternity. and God has ordained it to be
so. So Christ supplies new mercies
morning by morning, new mercies I see, to alleviate and to mitigate
our helplessness and our frailty in this world. Brothers and sisters,
be sure of this. Grace shall be our portion all
the days of our lives, according to our need until our flesh succumbs
to death. And we are brought home rejoicing
to everlasting glory. If you feel a spiritual need,
if you feel a need for spiritual help, You are in good company. David, the beloved of God, cried
nine times in one psalm, Psalm 119, for the ongoing quickening
influences of the Lord's Spirit. He said, I am afflicted very
much quicken me, O Lord, according to thy word. Great are thy tender
mercies, O Lord, quicken me according to thy judgments. May we all
learn to seek such quickening help in Christ. Amen.