Finished my message this morning
with the prospect of resurrection glory in and with our Lord Jesus
Christ I want to begin my message tonight there and finish the
message tonight there Ephesians chapter 1 verses 13 and 14 My
subject is the redemption of the purchased possession We live
in confident hope of the resurrection. Now folks may ask, how can you
speak with confidence concerning that? How can you say that with
any measure of assurance at all? What proof can you give of that?
The fact is, those things known by God's people in the experience
of His grace cannot be proved to anyone. You just can't do
it. You can talk to your wife who
doesn't know God, or talk to your husband who doesn't know
God, or talk to your children who don't know God, or talk to
your parents or neighbors who don't know God. You can teach
them facts, you can teach them scripture, but you can't teach
them the things of God. The natural man knoweth not the
things of the Spirit of God. They're foolishness to him. Neither
can he know them, because they're spiritually discerned. You try
to witness to people, and well, we should do that. I get questions
from folks almost every week. Do you have some scripture references
to prove? And to prove this doctrine or
prove that? I like proof text. They'd like to give you a text
that proves something you can't argue with, election or predestination
or the new birth or redemption, any of those things, like proof
text. And you, how do you witness to a Jehovah witness? How do
you witness to a Mormon? How do you witness to an Arminian?
How do you witness to a Catholic? You tell them the truth. Tell
them what God has done for you by his grace and leave it there. It won't do you or those whose
souls you seek for Christ. It won't do you or them any good
at all to argue and debate about the things of God. That's a tough
lesson to learn. I don't pretend to have learned
it, but I'm learning it. Like all young believers, as
a young believer you want everybody to see the things of God and
you argue and fuss with them and you get upset and you debate.
What good does that do? What good does that do? I have
never known anyone to be argued into the knowledge of God. That's not going to happen. How
do you know these things when you experience them by God's
grace? All right, let's read our text,
Ephesians 1 verse 13. in whom ye also trusted. That
is, as God, the triune Jehovah, trusted in Christ our surety
before the world began, you also trusted in Christ. When? After that you heard the word
of truth, the gospel of your salvation. Faith comes by hearing
and hearing by the word of God. You cannot better witness to
folks than by causing them to hear the gospel. Bring them to
hear the word of God. Keep short articles or tracks
or tapes or CDs. Still want to refer to cassette
tapes. Nobody has them anymore. But keep those things handy that
you're familiar with and encourage folks to listen. You also trusted
in Christ. After you heard the word of the
truth the gospel of your salvation in whom also After that you believe
that is having believed on the Lord Jesus Ye were sealed with
that Holy Spirit of promise sealed Preserved kept identified as
people who belong to God and sealed in Christ by His Spirit
and having sealed to you all the promises of God that we've
read about in the opening verses of this chapter. Indeed, all
the promises of God in Christ Jesus which are yea and amen
in Him. And this Holy Spirit of promise
is the earnest of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased
possession unto the praise of His glory. I want to talk to
you about our sealing and the resurrection of our bodies which
awaits us. Our being sealed by God the Holy
Ghost until the resurrection of our bodies with our Savior
the Lord Jesus in glory. The redemption, the final deliverance
of the purchased possession. All who are born of God are sealed
in grace by the Spirit of God unto the resurrection day. Let
me show you six things with regard to this redemption of the purchased
possession. The purchased possession being
these bodies and all that's involved in life in Christ Jesus. When we sinned in our father
Adam, we died spiritually. Man was created body, soul, and
spirit. He died spiritually. When Christ
comes by His saving power, by the operation of His grace into
our hearts, giving us life, we now have life spiritually again. And that spiritual life we have
is Christ in you, the hope of glory. The Spirit of God dwelling
in us is the Spirit of Christ. lives in us. Christ liveth in
me. What a statement. Christ liveth
in me. Oh, what a salvation this that
Christ His Spirit liveth in me. Now let me show you six things. Number one, the sealing of the
Spirit spoken of in verse 13. is his blessed witness, the witness
of the Spirit with our spirits, that we are the children of God.
It is the witness of God by which the Holy Spirit sheds abroad
in our hearts the love of God. He sheds abroad in us, causes
us to know the love of God for us, and thereby assures us that
salvation is ours in Christ Jesus. Giving us faith in Christ and
a good hope through grace, God the Spirit dwelling in us tells
us that all grace is ours and glory too. In a word, giving
us His Spirit as the Spirit of adoption whereby we cry, Abba
Father. God our Savior puts His seal
upon His own work and stamps it as genuine. When he gives
faith in Christ, God says, this is my work. This is my chosen. This is my redeemed. This is
my adopted child. He puts his own stamp upon things
that he has done and says this is genuine. He that hath received
his testimony hath set to his seal that God is true. What a statement. Receiving the
testimony of God, that He has given of His Son, the Lord Jesus,
by faith in Christ Jesus, receiving God's testimony given in His
Word, believing sinners have proof in their own hearts that
Jesus Christ is the Son of God and we are born of God. We have
proof in our own hearts that Jesus Christ is the Son of God
and we're born of God. I have said this to you for many
years, both publicly and to most of you privately, as you talk
to me concerning your souls and concern for your souls. I'm not
about to try to persuade anyone to profess faith in Christ, assuring
you that you are born of God. I'm not going to do that. I'm
not going to do that. If your faith stands in my word,
somebody else come along more clever than me and destroy your
faith. If your faith stands in God's
word, sealed to your heart in the experience of his grace,
nobody can take it from you. This is God's seal testifying
that this work is his work. It is written. This is the record. that God hath given to us eternal
life, and this life is in His Son. He that hath the Son hath
life, and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life. When God gives you faith in Christ,
you find yourself doing something you have tried to do and couldn't
do. Tried and tried and tried. How
long did you try to believe? How long did you try to muster
faith? How long did you try to come
to God? How long did you try to trust
Christ? And then suddenly, you find yourself
coming to God, believing His Son, trusting the Redeemer, because
God the Holy Spirit has come in by grace, creating in you
a new nature, making you partaker of the divine nature, you to
believe that Jesus is the Christ, your Redeemer and your Savior.
All right, second, this work of grace in us is performed by
the Holy Spirit of promise as is described here. By God the
Holy Spirit who was promised and who comes in fulfillment
of the promise. Now this is what Paul means for
us to understand. It is the Spirit of God who verifies and confirms
in every believer the promise made by God who cannot lie to
give eternal life to His elect before the world began. That's
written in Titus chapter 1, the very opening of the chapter.
Paul says God who cannot lie has promised eternal life to
His people. The Spirit of God comes and verifies
God's promise. And he's here referring to the
many, many promises of the Spirit spoken by our God and written
in the Scriptures for us. Let me refresh you of a few of
them. You turn to Ezekiel chapter 36. Ezekiel 36. Let me read these
promises and you read a few of them along with me. In Jeremiah
chapter 50, the Lord says, In those days, in that time, saith
the Lord, the children of Israel shall come. They and the children
of Judah together, that is all my elect people, going and weeping,
they shall go and seek the Lord their God. What day is that talking
about? The one described here in Ezekiel
36 verse 27. I will put my spirit within you
and cause you to walk in my statutes and you shall keep my judgments
and do them. I will put my spirit in you.
And when I put my spirit in you, I will cause you to walk in my
statutes. Blessed is the man whom thou
choosest and causes to approach unto thee. And you shall, when
I put my spirit in you, you shall keep my judgments and do them. That is, you shall believe Me. You shall trust the Son of God. Look at chapter 37, verse 14,
Ezekiel 37. The Lord God says, I shall put My
Spirit in you, and ye shall live. And I shall place you in your
own land, in the land of promise, pictured in Canaan, the land
of God's grace, the land of salvation. Then shall you know When I have
put my spirit in you, then shall you know. When I have caused
you to dwell in the land of life, then shall you know that I, the
Lord, have spoken it and performed it, saith the Lord. You will
know this is my doing, not yours. When I've done this, you will
know this is my performance, not yours. Look at chapter 39,
verse 29. Neither will I hide my face anymore
from them For I poured out my spirit upon the house of Israel
saith the Lord You turn to New Testament if you will turn to
John chapter 14 Why are you turning listen to this? The Prophet Joel
says speaking as God in Joel 2 28 speaking for God says it
shall come to pass afterward that I will pour out my spirit
upon all flesh and and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy,
your old men shall dream dreams, and your young men shall see
visions." Our Lord Jesus said, if you then being evil know how
to give good gifts to your children, how much more shall your Heavenly
Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask after Him. Now,
look in John 14. While our Lord was yet living
on this earth, He assured His disciples that when He had gone
to the Father, He would send us the Comforter, even the Spirit
of Truth, to abide with us and in us forever. John 14, verse
16. I will pray the Father, and He
shall give you another Comforter. You remember when Paul speaks
of the false Gospels of all forms of works, religion? He said,
I marvel that you've been so soon removed from the gospel
of Christ to another gospel, which is not another, which is
not even similar. He uses the word another to refer
to something that's not even like the gospel of God's grace.
Here when our Savior speaks of the Holy Spirit, he has been
the comfort of his people, walking with them in the flesh. He said,
I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another comforter.
The word is another exactly like me. He shall send you another
Comforter, just like I am, that He may abide with you forever,
even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because
it seeth Him not, neither knoweth Him. They don't understand Him. They don't know Him. But you
know Him. You see Him. For He dwelleth
with you and shall be in you. Look at verse 26. But the Comforter,
which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name.
He shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your
remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you. This is the spirit
of promise. Look at John 15, verse 26. When
the Comforter is come, whom I will send unto you from the Father,
even the Spirit of truth, which proceedeth from the Father, He
shall testify of me. When the Comforter comes to you,
this is how He'll comfort you. He will show you me. He will
show you who I am, what I have done, where I am, what I'm doing. He will testify of me. Now look
at chapter 16, John 16, verse 7. Nevertheless, I tell you the
truth. It is expedient for you that
I go away. It's necessary for you, for me
to die, to rise from the dead, to ascend on high, to enter into
my glory. For if I go not away, the Comforter
will not come unto you. But if I depart, I will send
him unto you. And when he is come, he will
reprove the world of sin, of righteousness, and of judgment."
Strange comfort. Strange comfort. How does God
the Spirit God's elect? How does God the Spirit comfort
the sinner when He gives him faith in Christ, when He makes
him a new creature in Christ, when He gives him life in Christ?
He reproves you. He convinces you. He convicts
you of sin, of righteousness, and of judgment. What does that
mean? Not He will convince you that
stealing is wrong. You knew that Not that he will
convince you you ought to start living right. You knew that beforehand.
Not that judgment day is coming. Everybody's born fully aware
they're going to meet God one day in judgment. You can't silence
that witness in your soul. God speaks to your conscience
and your conscience constantly torments you with guilt. But
when God the Spirit comes in grace, he convinces you of sin
because you believe not on me. He convinces you the problem
has always been refusal to believe on me. He convinces you that
you are a sinner because you believe not me. Of righteousness. Of righteousness finished. Because
I go to my Father. I came down here to bring in
everlasting righteousness. And I could not go back to my
Father if I hadn't brought it in. And of judgment. Of judgment
over. Judgment done because the prince
of this world is judged. Look at verse 12. I have yet
many things to say unto you, but you can't bear them now.
That is, I could tell you, but you wouldn't understand. The
disciples proved that, didn't they? Over and over again. How
be it when he, the spirit of truth, is come, he will guide
you into all truth. for he shall not speak of himself
but whatsoever he shall hear that shall he speak and he will
show you things to come he will glorify me for he shall receive
of mine and show it unto you all things that the father hath
are mine therefore said I that he shall take of mine and show
it unto you then after his resurrection Our Lord Jesus told His disciples
to abide at Jerusalem until the promise of the Spirit had come. And they waited at Jerusalem
until on the day of Pentecost, God poured out His Spirit upon
His church, the inauguration of the Son of God publicly as
King. He who sits upon David's throne,
when He is seated on the throne, He will pour out His Spirit upon
all flesh. And Peter said, boys, this is
what happened. Joel's prophecy now has come to pass. It seems
obvious to me then that back here in our text in Ephesians,
the Apostle Paul is specifically referring to the promises of
God concerning the gift of His Spirit. But turn back just a
page or two to Galatians chapter 3. Specifically, he's referring
to the promise God made to Abraham When God said to Abraham, in
thee and in thy seed, that is in Christ, shall all nations
be blessed. Our Savior in His death had this
object before Him that God's promise might be given to and
experienced by all His redeemed. Look at Galatians chapter 3 verse
13. Christ hath redeemed us from
the curse of the law, being made a curse for us. For it is written,
Cursed is everyone that hangeth on a tree. And this is the reason
why. This is the only way all the
blessings of God's covenant could come to you. This is the only
way God could forgive your sin and bless you. The only way God
could accept you and bless you, the only way God could receive
you and bless you, that the blessing of Abraham might come on the
Gentiles through Jesus Christ, Abraham's seed, that we might
receive the promise of the Spirit through faith. Let us ever give
thanks for the Holy Spirit of promise and His mighty operations
of grace in us. Without Him, We would still be
dead in trespasses and in sins. Lost and blind. Ignorant of the
blood of atonement accomplished for us by the Lord Jesus. Without
one ray of comfort. Incapable of faith, hope, or
even a prayer. Utterly incapable of worshiping
God and believing God. Except the Spirit of God come.
These things are utter impossibilities to humanity. But when God the
Spirit comes, he gives us life and faith and seals to our heart
all the promises of God in covenant grace, declaring these things
are yours for ye are Christ and Christ is God's. Here's the third
thing. It is the Holy Spirit of promise
which is the earnest of our inheritance. The earnest of our inheritance.
He is the pledge, the earnest of our incorruptible, never-fading
inheritance in heaven. This inheritance is our Father's
gift, His bequest to His chosen, to His adopted, to His sons and
daughters. It comes to us through the death
of Christ the testator. It's ours forever by Him, with
Him, and in Him. The Holy Spirit of promise is
called of our inheritance or the pledge of it because He is
a part of it. He assures us that we shall possess
the whole. As such, He certifies that it
is the right of all who trust Christ to possess the heavenly
inheritance. Now, have I reached beyond the
revelation of Scripture? Hear me, my brother. Hear me,
my sister. Hear me, sinner. As you believe
on the Son of God, God the Holy Spirit declares to you that it
is now your right to possess heavenly glory. Imagine that. Imagine that. Your right How can that be? How can that be? Heaven and all
the glory of heaven was earned by our Mediator as a man in his
perfect obedience unto God and his sacrifice upon the cursed
tree by which he brought in righteousness and satisfied justice and now
justice demands that every sinner for whom Jesus Christ lived and
died possess heavenly glory. And when God the Spirit comes,
He says, Christ is yours. That makes it, Babi Estes, your
right to inner glory. He, forming Christ in us, makes
us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in
light. Look here. Look here. Look right
up here at this fellow talking to you. Everybody here knows me well
enough to know the man talking to you is himself a mortal, dirty
piece of sinful flesh. And nobody knows it better than
me. That's what I am by nature. And that's not going to change
while I live in this body of flesh. But Christ in me. That new man in me. So which one are you, Don? Which
one's really me? Both of them are really me. Both
of them are really me. And this old man flesh must die. That's just right. That's just
right. He must die. He must cease to
be and soon he shall. But this new man, this new man,
God can no more shut the portals of heavenly glory to this new
man than he can shut the portals of glory to his son, Jesus Christ,
who I am united to. and one with in perfect union
as he is one with the Father in perfect union. Meet to be
partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light. Who's
worthy of heaven? Christ is. Christ is. Christ in you is. You are in Christ Jesus. The earnest of our inheritance
is part of the inheritance itself. The earnest money you give, the
down payment, giving pledge of the payment yet to come, is part
of the full payment. And God the Holy Spirit, being
the earnest of our inheritance, the pledge of our inheritance,
is himself a part the whole he dwelling in us assures us that
the inheritance is ours and he is himself part of the inheritance
so that receiving him we are made to possess that inheritance
to which we were predestined before the world began now here's
the third thing or the fourth thing and this is so very important
the righteousness of Christ is imputed to us in justification
makes us worthy of heavenly glory. The righteousness of Christ imputed
to us in justification makes us worthy of the inheritance. And the righteousness of Christ
imparted to us in regeneration makes us fit for the inheritance.
What is that imparted righteousness? Sometimes fellows want to argue
with me about this imparted righteousness. They say that's not found in
Scripture. Well, let me see if I can make good on this. You don't have any righteousness
by nature, do you? But you've got to be righteous
to inherit heaven and the glory. Is that true? makes a lie, nothing that's unclean,
no abomination, nothing that sins, nothing filthy, shall enter
into heaven. Read it in Revelation 21. Not
possible. Christ in you makes you the very
righteousness of God in possession so that you possess a righteous,
holy nature. Holiness without which no man
shall see the Lord. And if righteousness now is in
you, it had to be imparted to you. What is that imparted righteousness? It is God, the Holy Spirit, dwelling
in you in this new nature, in the nature of Jesus Christ, partakers
of the divine nature. He comes in and makes us righteous,
gives us a righteousness, which gives us peace before God. before God so that looking to
God in heaven we call God our Father with assurance because
we are the righteous heaven-born sons and daughters of God Almighty
made meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints
in light. And this righteousness imparted
to you, that's our hope. That's our hope. Some of you
here, I hope, are God's elect, redeemed by Christ, but you have
no hope before God. No hope. You live day and night
without God, without Christ, and without hope in this world. That's how you're described in
the second chapter of Ephesians. That's how all unregenerate people
live, without God, Without Christ, without hope. Aliens from the
commonwealth of Israel. Strangers to the covenants of
promise. Without God. Without Christ, without hope.
But Christ died for you. You don't know it yet, but Christ
died for you. He redeemed you with His blood. The Father chose
you before the world was. God accepted you before the world
was. But you're still without hope.
You have no hope before God. And then God comes and gives
you faith. Do you know what it is to go
to bed at night in utter despair of life? Terrified of God without
hope. Without hope. You wrestle through
the night without hope. You wake in the morning without
hope and you get busy and you kind of silence your conscience
with things in this world and you go to bed at night without
hope. Terrified of falling into hell without hope. And then God
comes in grace. Reveals Christ in you. God the
Holy Spirit sheds abroad the love of God in your heart and
you believe on the Son of God and now I have hope. I have hope. How do you know you have hope?
Because Christ in me is the hope of glory. Is that what the book
says? Christ in you, the hope of glory. God the Holy Spirit
is that hope in us. God the Holy Spirit, the Spirit
of Christ dwelling in us is the hope of glory. J.C. Philpott rightly wrote,
heaven is a prepared place for a prepared people. Holy are its
inhabitants, holy its employments, holy its enjoyments. The Holy
Spirit, therefore, in his sealing, sanctifying operations and the
communication of a holy spiritual and divine nature is the earnest
of his holy inheritance, making us, as the Apostle says, meet
to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light. Every holy desire, every heavenly
affection, every gracious longing, every spiritual enjoyment, every
believing hope, faith, hope and love, looking to and cleaving
to the Lord of life and glory by the power of the Holy Spirit
are pledges of an interest in that glorious inheritance. Every longing for God, every ambition for purity and
holiness, every delight in God Every bowing to His will, every
act of faith, every conviction of sin, every desire after God
is the fruit of this life, this pledge, this earnest Christ in
you. Without life, those things could
not exist. Now, what I'm saying is this. The Holy Spirit of promise, the
earnest of our inheritance, makes heaven real to our souls. He is given to us as the first
fruits of glory and the assurance of the full harvest. He's the
foretaste and He is the fullness of that which awaits us. And
this is what it means. will not be a strange new experience
for us. Now I thought a lot about that.
Heaven will not be a strange new experience for us, but the
fulfillment of that which God has begun in us and will perfect
in us at last. He which has begun a good work
in you will perform it until it's done, until the day of Jesus
Christ. Turn to 1 Thessalonians chapter
5. 1 Thessalonians 5. Look at verse 23. The very God of peace sanctify
you wholly. The God of peace make you holy
entirely. Set you apart to himself completely. Consecrate you to himself in
the totality of your being. The God of peace sanctify you
wholly. I pray God your whole spirit
and soul and body, your whole being, Be preserved blameless
under the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. Well, if you pray enough and
read your Bible enough and give enough and do enough, you'll
finally get this sanctification and this blamelessness. Oh, no.
How on earth is this going to happen? How? How can this be? Faithful is He that calleth you. who also will do it. Faithful is he that calleth you
who also will do it. All right, here's the fifth thing.
The apostle tells us that the inheritance to which we have
been predestined is ours already. We have already obtained it by
grace. The spirit of promise, God the
Holy Spirit, is the earnest, the first fruits, the pledge,
and the assurance that we shall one day possess it fully. And he keeps us sealed in grace
until the redemption of the purchased possession. What does that mean? You remember I've told you so
many times this word redemption. or redeem or redeemed is one
of those great, great, great big words. We tend to think of
it only referring to our Lord's redemptive work at Calvary. Redemption
is the deliverance of God's elect from sin and all its consequences
completely. By grace, by blood, by power,
at last in the resurrection of these bodies. There's a day coming called the
redemption of the purchased possession. Jesus Christ, my brother, my
sister, purchased us. Lock, stock, and barrel. He purchased
us, all that we are. Not just our souls, not just
our bodies, not just our spirits. He purchased us, not just our
hearts. The totality of my being is His by right. He bought me
with a price. And the longing of my heart,
and I know you share it, is that I'd be completely His. Oh God, make it so. Completely
His. Utterly His. No reserve. And when He comes in His glory,
it shall be. All that we are, even these bodies
that return to the dust, He will come to deliver. Completely deliver. from sin and all its consequences. The Holy Spirit says, Don, this
hope is yours. You're not of them that draw
back to perdition, but of them that believe to the saving of
the soul. This is yours. That testimony
is sealed to us And we are sealed in the grace of God by the Holy
Spirit in the blessed gift of faith in Christ Jesus. Resurrection
glory will be the complete work of redemption. It will be redemption
finished. Now, here's the sixth thing. When Christ comes and redeems
that which he purchased, that possession that's his, when he
raises us from the dead, mortality shall be swallowed up unto life
to the praise of the glory of his grace, to the praise of his
glory. Let's turn to that passage I
closed with this morning, 1 Corinthians 15. Let's read it together. 1
Corinthians 15. All shall be accomplished without
question, without any doubt whatsoever, to the praise of the glory of
God the Father, who first trusted in Christ, by whom we were chosen,
predestinated, and adopted. praise of the glory of God the
Son who redeemed us with His blood in whom we've obtained
the inheritance and in whom we trust. And to the praise of the
glory of God the Holy Ghost by whom we are sealed who is the
earnest of our inheritance until that day. Let's see, 1 Corinthians
15, 24. Then cometh the end. Then cometh
the end. Oh, how is this thing going to
wrap up? when he shall have delivered
up the kingdom to God, even the Father, when he shall have put
down all rule and all authority and power, for he must reign
till he hath put all enemies under his feet. The last enemy
that shall be destroyed is death, for he hath put all things under
his feet. But when he saith all things
are put under him, It is manifest that he is accepted which did
put all things under him. And when all things shall be
subdued to him, all things subdued to Christ the God-man, our mediator,
the last Adam, the last man, then shall the Son also himself
be subject unto him that put all things under him. God the
Son. I've just read much more than
I can begin to comprehend let alone proclaim but our Lord Jesus
will finish his work as Jehovah's righteous servant when he brings
all the host of God's elect every redeemed sinner through all the
ages of time scattered in all the four corners of the earth
brings them at once in resurrection glory and bows as a servant to
the triune Jehovah and says, Lo, I and the children which
thou hast given me, that God may be everything and everything,
that God may be all in all to the praise of the glory of the
triune God, and that shall be the redemption, the final deliverance
of that purchased possession, that which Christ redeemed with
His precious blood at Calvary. Oh, may God make it yours by
His grace in Christ Jesus. Amen.