Now, if you'll take your Bibles
and turn to the book of Ephesians, I'm going to try to cover and
recap just a little bit, but try to cover verses 11 through
23. Last week we talked about the
Holy Spirit of promise and being sealed by His presence and power
to make the promises of God in Christ effectual. to the saving
of the soul. The promises of Christ are so,
whether men believe them or not. They're effectual, whether men
believe them or not. But in order to make them effectual
to us requires the power and presence of God's Holy Spirit. Now, here's where men have the
complication. And I really don't care if I
spend the whole message on this. This is just so important. But
salvation is taught by doctrine. You hear me sometimes make negative
comments about doctrine saying that salvation is not in a doctrine,
but it's not without a doctrine either. Doctrine simply means
teaching. That's what it means, teaching.
And the doctrine of Christ, which is what John says, if any man
bring not the doctrine of Christ, don't let him into your house
and don't bid him Godspeed. So it's an important but the
doctrine of Christ means the teaching of Christ. In Matthew's
account of the Great Commission, I found this interesting. His
is a little different. Here's what he says. He says,
Go ye therefore and teach all nations. Teach all nations, baptizing
them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy
Ghost. Teaching them to observe all
things whatsoever I have commanded you. And lo, I am with you always,
even unto the end of the world." Now, here's the problem. There
is no inherent knowledge of the gospel in any of Adam's fallen
sons. He's not born with an inherent
knowledge of the gospel. He has a conscience that bears
witness of God. God, that God is, that God is
in the heavens and that God rules over him. But he has no inherent
knowledge of the way of salvation, of the gospel. He said, the natural
man, in 1 Corinthians 2, verse 14, the natural man receiveth
not the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness
unto him, neither can he know them, because they are spiritually
discerned. And then here's the second difficulty. There is no knowledge of the
gospel in any heathen religion. Am I going to name them? No,
I don't think I need to. Any heathen religion. Well, what
are you talking about, pastor? Well, he says in Isaiah chapter
45 verse 20, talking about these graven images, He said, they
have no knowledge that set up the wood of their graven image
and pray unto a God that cannot save. If you pray to a God who
cannot save, you pray to an idol. You worship an idol. The God of the Bible saves whom
He will. Isn't that what He told Moses?
Moses said, show me your glory. He said, here's my glory. I'll
have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I'll be gracious to
whom I will be gracious, and whom I will I'll harden. The
God of the Bible saves whom He will, not those who let Him.
He says this. He said, is my arm shortened
that I cannot save? Is there something wrong with
the living God? Is there something out there
that the living God cannot do? Is my arm shortened that I cannot
say? Idolatry has to do with who God
is. It's worshiping, he said, not
only the graven image and not only the wood and the silver
and the gold and calves and all of the things that men set up,
snakes and whatever, birds, these four-footed beasts, all kinds
of things that men make graven images of. But it's worshiping
a God who cannot save. That's the one thing that sets
himself apart. And that's what he tells us all
through Isaiah in the 40s. In Isaiah, he just keeps telling
us, look unto me, all ye ends of the world, and be ye saved. For I am God, and beside me there
is none other. I save. Now, there's no inherent
knowledge of the Gospel in any of Adam's fallen sons. He said
there's none that understand it, none that seeketh after God. And there is no knowledge of
God in all the heathen, freewill, ceremonial, fundamental religion
of our day who pray to a God who cannot save. Turn with me
to John chapter 6. I hear this a lot, and it disturbs
me. But people say to me, people
who ought to know better, say to me, I've always believed in
God. I have no doubt that you do.
You're God. But not the living God. Not the living God. In John 6,
verse 44, Christ said, No man can come
unto Me except the Father which hath sent Me draw him, and I
will raise him up at the last day. It's written in the prophets,
now listen, they shall all be taught of God. Now, there's no
coming to God, and there's no worshiping God, and there's no
calling upon the name of the Lord to be saved. There's no
looking to the God who saves apart from Christ. He's the one
mediator between men and God. You see what I'm saying? And
he said, no man cometh unto the Father but by me. And that's
why he said this back in the prophets, they shall all be taught
of God. be taught of God." In John chapter
7, the Lord went up to the temple and taught. For those that have
come in a few minutes late, I'm talking here out of Ephesians
chapter 1 about this being sealed by the Holy Spirit. I'm talking
about His teaching and doctrine being the teaching of God. And in John chapter 7, he went
up to the temple and he taught, verse 15, and the Jews marveled
saying, how knoweth this man letters, having never learned?
That is, they were making fun of him, poking fun at him because
he didn't go to their seminary. They didn't go to their school.
And they couldn't find anything to qualify him to stand up and
speak. And Jesus answered them and said,
my teaching, my doctrine, is not mine, but his that sent me. If any man will do his will,
he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God, or whether
I speak of myself. He that speaketh of himself,
verse 18, seeketh his own glory, but he that seeketh his glory,
that is God, that sent him, the same is true, and no unrighteousness
is in him. Now the charge leveled against
the disciples over in the book of Acts is that they filled Jerusalem
with their doctrine. With their doctrine. And Jerusalem
didn't like it. They didn't like it. Paul said this over in the book
of Romans. He said, you were the servants
of sin, but now, he said, you have obeyed from the heart that
form of doctrine. which was delivered unto you,
being then made free from sin, you become the servants of righteousness. And then the one great evidence
that the end is drawing now is that men will not endure sound
doctrine. So you see what this thing of
doctrine is important. It's important. But it's just
like the Word of God. It's just like the preaching
of the Gospel. None of those things are... They're
means to an end. They're not the end. They're
not the end. But they're means to the end.
And the same is with this thing of doctrine. But it says, they
won't endure sound doctrine in the last days, but after their
lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers having itching ears. I'm telling you this, you cannot
reason of an unknown God. God has to be, before you can
even begin to contemplate, before you can even begin to judge things
aright, you have to know who God is. Somebody's going to have
to stand up and say, that's not God, this is God. And show you
from the word of God that what they're saying is true. And then,
you're so rebellious, and so anti-Christ and so anti-God from
your natural birth that you're going to resist that. You're
not going to have that. It takes the Holy Spirit of God.
It takes His presence coming in and overcoming the strong
man. If He don't take down the strong
man, all you're going to do is this. You're going to look like
that little dog in the back of the window you see in college.
Just sit there and do that. You cannot reason. of an unknown
God. You have to be taught. But you
can't teach a rebel. You can't teach a rebel. Listen
to this, Romans 8, verse 7. The rebel's mind is enmity against
God. It doesn't say it's our enmity.
It said it is enmity. It's hostility against God. For it's not subject to the law
of God. And here, the word for law is
in the widest scope. When he said it's not subject
to the law of God, he's not talking about the Ten Commandments. They're
inclusive in the statement, but he's not talking altogether about
the Ten Commandments. When he uses the word law here,
the word is in its largest scope, and it encompasses the entire
Old Testament scriptures. He's not subject to the word
of God, is what he's saying. and all God's work. If God says
a thing, it's law, isn't it? Huh? Does He say something by
accident or does He say something He's going to take back? You
reckon the Lord said something in the Bible that He's going
to have to take back, going to have to eat His words? I don't
think so. Huh. So then it's law. It's law. And a lot of times that word
law stands for the scriptures. And the natural mind, his mind
is enmity against God. It's not subject to the law of
God. Neither indeed can it be, he said. You can't whip it into
obedience. You can't starve it into obedience. You can't beat it into submission.
God himself must come to the center by his Holy Spirit and
make him willing in the day of his power and make him submissive. And that's why the apostles,
whenever they talk about this doctrine, he not only says doctrine,
but he says doctrine and love toward all the saints. Doctrine
and submission. Submit yourselves to them that
have the rule over you. What did Paul do? He said, I
know your election of God because you've become followers of Christ
and of me, he said. Or, and of us, talking about
the other apostles. And if God don't accompany the
words, then the words are of none effect. Now, I said all
of that to say this. When Paul here talks about being
sealed with that Holy Spirit of promise, what he's talking
about is the Word of Gospel that they heard being affectionately
taught and received in the heart. You see, a lot of folks read
this and they say, well, that says after you believed, you
were sealed. But the sealing is in the believing. You can't believe apart from
the power of the Holy Spirit. Who's going to believe? There's
none that believes. There's none righteous, none
that understandeth, none that seeketh after God. Faith is the
gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast. There is
no believing. apart from the Holy Spirit of
God. And that believing is the sealing. It's the sealing. The seal is in the understanding
of the Gospel and the willingness to receive it. And what he's
talking about here is a man stood before you. And a man opened
this book just like all these other men and all these other
churches. And this man said, this is God. Just like they're
saying, this is God. This is happiness. This is hope. This is salvation. But he stands
before you and he says those things. And you believe those
things. Why? Why? Huh? Because God made them effectual
in your heart. And that's what he's talking
about. And that effectual calling, he said, is the ceiling. That's
the sealing of the Holy Spirit of God. It's the understanding
of the Gospel and the willingness to receive it. To the Thessalonians,
Paul said, knowing, brethren, beloved, your election of God
for our Gospel came not unto you in word only, but also in
power and in the Holy Ghost. That's what he's talking about.
With much assurance. Assurance comes from the understanding
of God's being satisfied. You're never going to have any
assurance until you're sure that God's satisfied. God's the offended
party. You can make me happy all day
long. It don't have a thing to do with God. You're going to
have to be assured that He's satisfied. And the only way you
can be assured that He's satisfied is by studying the substitute
because He's the only one who can satisfy Him. Only one who
ever has satisfied Him. This is my beloved Son in whom
I'm well pleased. You get convinced of that, you'll
have assurance. You'll have assurance. And that's
the kind of assurance that Paul's talking about there. The Gospel
comes in the Holy Ghost when it comes with much assurance.
And assurance comes from God's satisfaction with Christ, His
willingness to save sinners, and His love that spared not
His own son. Who could doubt a covenant sealed
with the blood of Christ? Who could doubt it? Huh? That's
where you learn something about the evil of sin, is in your doubts,
in your doubts. He said, I'll convince, when
the Holy Spirit has come, He said He'll convince you of sin.
How's He going to do it? By your unbelief. Huh? That's exactly when you, when
He's finished teaching you, You're going to realize that you doubt
something undoubtable. And when you do that, you're
going to see something of the exceeding sinfulness of sin in
your own unwillingness to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. God
spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for you all. God punished
His Son. He poured out His wrath on His
Son. He appointed His Son. He left
heaven's glory to be robed in human flesh and dwell among us.
How can we doubt that? Because of sin. That's right. The Holy Spirit does not seal
us with gifts and evidences like speaking in tongues and divine
healing and resistance to poisonous reptiles and all that kind of...
Turn with me. I want you to see two scriptures
with me this morning. Turn with me first of all to
Mark chapter 16. I want you to see this is Mark's
account of the Great Commission. I think this is important that
you see this because in our day we're just getting bombarded
with this stuff of tongues and spiritual gifts and people rolling
around on the floor and talking about the Spirit of God coming
down and that kind of foolishness. Listen to this. Mark chapter
16 verse 15. And Christ said unto them, go
ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature.
He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved. He that believeth
not shall be damned. Now listen. And these signs shall
follow them that believe. In my name they shall cast out
devils. And they shall speak with new
tongues. And they shall take up serpents. And if they drink
any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them. And they shall lay
hands on the sick, and they shall recover." So then, after the
Lord had spoken unto them, he was received up into heaven and
sat on the right hand of God. And they went forth and preached
everywhere, the Lord working with them. Now watch this. And confirming the word with
signs followed. Now this pretty much, along with
a few verses similar to this over in Acts, that's the basis
of all charismatic religion. Now turn with me to Hebrews chapter
2 and let me show you what this confirming is all about. God
confirmed their preaching with these signs and evidences. Now here's what I want you to
see. Christ came. The whole Old Testament prophesied
about Him. When the fullness of time was
come, God sent forth His Son, made Him a woman, made unto the
law. Now He's here. Now He's appeared. And He walked
with them, preached to them, healed the sick, did all these
things. God confirmed Him in their midst,
Peter said, by miracles and wonders and signs, which He did by you
in your midst, as you yourselves also know. He raised Him up into
glory and then He sent forth His Holy Spirit, poured it out
upon the church. The entire shape, here's what's
going on, the entire shape and form of Old Testament ceremonial
religion had come to an end. The priesthood was being dissolved. There are no priests. Christ
is our priest. That priesthood is gone. The
common priesthood is the church. That's the church. He made us
kings and priests unto God. All believers are priests. They
tend to the things of God. They tend after those things.
They serve God. But the priesthood, the sacrifices,
the temple, the holy places, the Ark of the Testament, the
mercy seat, all those things are being drawn to a close. And
these things These things had served their purpose, but these
things had been around for thousands of years. You know, this whole
thing of what we call fundamental religion in our day, the owl
walking and decision making and free will, you know that's only
been around about 300 years. Did you know that? That's right. It only goes back about 300 years. It's been 2,000 years since Christ
died, hasn't it? Huh? Now, that religion that's
only been here 300 years, you can't touch it with a 10-foot
pole. Huh? You can't convince a child in
that church that that religion ain't right. Why, my father believed
that, and his father believed it. I'm sure he did. And you
go back about 300 years, and you find out that his daddy didn't.
That's right. But you ain't going to get to
first base with them because it's established. Now think about
a religion that's been here for thousands of years. Thousands
of years. And men like Isaiah and Jeremiah
and Ezekiel and Daniel and Moses and all of these men worship
God this way with a priesthood and sacrifices and a temple and
all these things. And now all of a sudden you're
going to come along and start preaching something else. Oh,
we don't go to the temple no more. We don't offer sacrifice.
We don't have a priesthood. Well, you're crazy. Yeah, but
this is what God has established. Well, who are you? You see what I'm saying? That's
why the gifts. That's why the gifts. Listen
to this here in Hebrews 2, verse 2. Therefore, now if you care to
read chapter one, he'll tell you there that these old things
have grown old like a garment. He set them aside. Now, since
the old has been discarded, therefore, we ought to give the more earnest
heed to the things which we have heard, lest at any time we should
let them slip. For if the word spoken by angels
was steadfast, And every transgression and disobedience received a just
recompensive reward. How shall we escape if we neglect
so great a salvation, which at the first began to be spoken
by the Lord and was, now listen, confirmed unto us by them that
heard him, God also bearing them witness, the same as he did with
Christ. Both with signs and wonders and
diverse miracles, and gifts of the Holy Ghost according to his
own will. Now that's why he gave the gifts.
Having established these things, having completed the full canon
of Scripture, these things are no longer needed. Their purpose
has been served and they're not around anymore, these gifts. They threatened to kill Peter
for preaching, but they were afraid of the people. And I think
a little bit afraid of Peter, because he'd done a notable miracle,
and they said, we can't deny it. It's kind of like when Christ
called Lazarus out of the tomb. They said, if we don't do something,
the whole world's going to follow him, because we can't match that.
He just called a dead man, been dead three days, called him out
of the tomb. Well, here was a man been crippled all his life, and
Peter healed him, and they couldn't deny it. I think they weren't
just afraid of the people, but they were afraid a little bit
of Peter. And after they released him, and Peter saw the power
of God in these enemies who crucified Christ, being forced to turn
him loose. He saw the power of God in that,
and he prayed over in Acts 4, verse 29, and he said, Now, Lord,
behold their threatening. and grant unto thy servants that
with all boldness they may speak the word of God." Now listen,
"...by stretching forth thine hand to heal, and that signs
and wonders might be done by the name of thy holy child, Jesus."
Confirm our words. That's what Peter said. And do
it in such a way that they can't deny. They wanted to deny it.
It was to their purpose to deny it, but they couldn't deny it.
They couldn't deny it because the power and presence of God's
Holy Spirit confirmed their words. Now, you don't need me to perform
a miracle to you this morning. All I have to do is open a book
and tell you right here in Ephesians chapter 1. You can't read Ephesians
chapter 1 and deny election, predestination, or faith. You
can't do it. You can't do it. Apart from saying
that just ain't so, you might as well just rip the book of
Ephesians out of the Bible. You can't deny it because it's
that clear. It's that clear. And I tell you
this, you better receive it because God confirmed the men that wrote
this with miracles and wonders and signs and no man, no man
could say them things ain't so. They could not deny it. These
signs and evidences were poured out on the early church to establish
a new era, a new age, the last days, the gospel age. And the
true evidence of the Holy Ghost is Christ in you. That's what
it is, Christ in you. Look over here to John chapter
16 for just a moment. John chapter 16 and verse 13. Howbeit, 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 shall show you things to come." That new age. Things to come. The Gentiles
calling. That was a mystery. The Holy
Ghost was going to show them that. Signs of the times. He was going to show them that.
Paul said, Don't think that the Lord is coming right this minute.
There are some things that have to happen before He comes. Over
in II Thessalonians 2, He talks about that. Things to come. The
last resurrection. All of these things the Holy
Ghost is going to show us. He shall glorify Me, verse 14,
for He shall receive of Mine and show it unto thee. All things
that the Father hath are Mine, therefore said I unto thee. I'll
take them my own. He'll take them my own and show
them unto you. I read this to Don on the phone the other day. I want to share it with you.
Something Robert Hawker. He was a faithful commentator,
pastor. Lived back in the, well he was
born in 1753 and died in 1827. But he's talking about this thing of Christ teaching
them that He was the prophet, He was the revelation of God.
And He said, when speaking of His Father, as it may be said
and must be said to every unregenerate soul on earth, you have neither
heard His voice at any time or seen His shape, And yet every
child of God in whose heart the light of His glory has shined
has the light of the knowledge of both His voice and His shape
in the person of Jesus Christ. Now listen to this. For the invisibility
of Jehovah in His threefold nature of persons is made known as far
as any revelation can be made known unto a man by the God-man
mediator. There is no revelation of God
apart from Christ. That's what the Holy Spirit does.
That's how you can tell a church where the Holy Spirit is because
they teach Christ and Christ is received and worshipped. If
Christ is not the theme of that church, if he's not the foundation
of your hope, if he's not the joy of your heart, you don't
know God. And you're in a church that don't
know God and you better get out. You see what I'm saying? It's
the Holy Spirit. Anybody that teaches the Holy
Spirit, the Holy Spirit, or says, I'm studying the Holy Spirit,
they've missed the Holy Spirit. Because the Holy Spirit won't
speak of Himself. He's not going to say, I'm the
Holy Spirit, and here's what I do. You see what I'm saying? Only thing you're going to get
out of Him is Christ. Christ. Christ. Christ. That's
all you're going to get. You find that, you found the
Holy Spirit. And when you find that in your
heart, you found the Holy Spirit and you've been sealed, sealed
by the Holy Spirit of God. And He becomes all your hope,
all your hope.