I thank the Lord for this occasion
that we can gather to fellowship and fellowship around the Lord
Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord. Turn with me in your Bibles
back to the book of Ephesians, chapter number one. This is one of the great chapters. I mean, it's all great, but this
one just always stands out to me. chapter 1 of Ephesians. And I want to take a verse tonight
and maybe just make a few comments upon it. And that's verse number
13. Verse 13. I want to point out
three things in this verse tonight that are hearing, believing,
and sealing. These three things. Paul writes and he writes to
the faithful that's in Christ Jesus. And he says, "...in whom
ye also trusted," or believed, "...after that ye heard the word
of truth, the gospel of your salvation,
in whom also after that ye believed ye were sealed with the Holy
Spirit of promise, which is the earnest of our inheritance,
until the redemption of the purchased possession, unto the praise of
his glory." We have, in the book of Ephesians,
here to start with, we have God's plan. We have God's purpose. We have God's And this verse
tells us that he uses means to place us in the Lord Jesus Christ
to make us inheritors. These words described before
us tonight describes that, the means that God always uses to
make Christians. The book of Acts. As the Lord
went back to glory, there was a handful of people. They were
told to wait at Jerusalem until the Holy Ghost would come upon
them, then go witness and preach the Word. So we find that preaching
the Word of truth is the instrument, the preaching of the Lord Jesus
Christ concerning His person, concerning His work, who He is
and what He's done. In the book of James, there's
a very important verse, and I'll read this verse to you in the
first chapter, verse number 18. It says, Of his own will, beget
he us with a word of truth, that we should be the kind of
firstfruits of his creatures. That he begets us with a word
of truth. This tells me that truth is very
important. God's truth. I don't believe
God begets people with earth. I believe He begets them with
truth, the word of the truth. And that's what James tells us.
Now, can you be a Christian apart from the truth? We have a lot of religion that
is apart from the truth, but I'm talking about being a Christian
apart from the truth. Living a good life doesn't make
one a child of God. Doing good works doesn't make
one a child of God. There must be the word of truth
and there is no salvation apart from the purpose and the work
and the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. Now cults can produce
some good works. They can produce some good feelings.
They can produce some happiness. But they're not based upon the
truth of the Word. They do not present the truth.
And just being religious doesn't make one a child of God. You have in the Scriptures in
the Old Testament and the New Testament You have the Jews and
you have the Pharisees and they believed in God and tried to
please Him. They tried to keep His commandments
and they made all kinds of commandments and added to the Word of God.
They sacrificed in order to do this. They fasted twice a week.
You remember the Pharisee told God for all that he did, they
gave the goods for the poor and just kept on. And they lived
in the way that they thought. They should live. But you notice,
as Christ, they became opponents of Him. They were religious. The religious Saul was an opponent
of Christ, wasn't he? So there's a difference. A child
of God has a dependence upon the Lord Jesus Christ, upon His
person and His Word. That's what a child of God does.
He has the entire dependence upon Christ. The gospel, and
we need to remind ourselves of this in our day, that the gospel
is not what you do for God, but what He's done for us. It's what
Christ has done for us is the gospel. Paul to Timothy says,
preach the Word. And whenever we're preaching
the Word, turn with me over to the Thessalonians. In 1 Thessalonians, in verses
9 and 10, and here's some great verses, and this was read this
morning. Verses 9 and 10 of the first
chapter, for they themselves show of us what manner of the
inner and the inner we have unto you, and how you turn to God
from idols to serve the living and the true God. and a way for
his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead, even Jesus,
which delivered us from the wrath to come." Now, the Word teaches
us that we, by nature, are the children of wrath, even as others.
We're all sinners. We're condemned by God's holy
law. We need to be delivered from
the wrath of God, and that's what he tells us that Christ
has done here. He's delivered us from the wrath to come. That's
what he was doing on the cross. He bore our very wrath that was
due us. So God, we see that he's done
all in the Lord Jesus Christ. He's delivered us from the wrath
of God. He has reconciled us. And the result to that is that
God has taken our sins and And one of the very important verses
found over Peter is that he bore our sins in his own body on the
tree. He bore. That is redemption. That's what he did. He bore. He was punished in our stead
and we are forgiven. That's the word of truth. The
apostle in preaching and Paul as he preached in crowds and
where he went, the results were some believed, others did not
believe. That's the same today as the
gospel is proclaimed. Some believed. One place in the
Scripture it talks about some believed, some doubted, and some
did not believe. Some believed with joy. Others
began to persecute. Just in Paul's day, there's Stephen,
and we know what happened to him. They stoned him. But to
some, it's the gospel of their salvation. As it tells us here,
the gospel of your salvation. All listen to the same Word.
It was presented in the same way. But that doesn't, in and
of itself, accomplish the Word. There's another factor, and that
is the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit. There has to
be an application of the truth by the Spirit of God. Just hearing
the Word. Just hearing it. There has to
be an application of it. Who makes thee to differ? Over in 1 Thessalonians, and
I wanted to get to it again in the first chapter, it says in
verse 5, that our gospel came not unto you in word only. See,
he writes to the Thessalonicans here, the Thessalonians. Maybe
it says that the gospel came not unto you in word only, but
it came in power and in the Holy Ghost with much assurance. And he says, you became followers
of us and of the Lord. Look at verse number three. That
gospel that came in prayer, that was a work of faith, that was
a labor of love, that was a passion of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ
and the sight of God in our Father. And Paul says by all of this,
He says, brother beloved, knowing your election of God, didn't
he? Over in Ephesians chapter 2,
verse number 1, back to our book of Ephesians, there has to be
this, and you hath he quickened who were dead in trespasses and
sin? Look at verse number 5, even
when we were dead in trespasses and sin, he's quickened us together
with Christ. I'm telling you today that the
work of the Holy Spirit is essential. He brings, he comes with power
and much assurance. Doesn't the Scripture say that
no person can believe in Christ and call him Lord but by the
Spirit? No man can say that he is Lord,
and as the Scripture says, he is Lord but by the Spirit and
the operation of the Spirit of God. The Bible says the natural
man said, these things are foolishness. The Word is foolishness to them.
They do not understand it. So the Spirit of God is essential,
His Spirit. It is interesting to note that
the book of Matthew said it pleased Him to reveal it to babe. Aren't
you glad you was a babe? And he revealed his word unto
you. He revealed his truth unto you.
It's God that makes Christians. It's just that simple from the
scriptures, isn't it? I preached a sermon one time
on self-made Christians, preacher-made, and God-made. And that's only
one time. That's God-made. At Book of Acts, we notice that
there's a lady, and she was gathered, the women were gathered by the
river, and Paul spoke unto her, and he gave the Scriptures, and
there was one of them, it says, whose heart the Lord opened,
and she attended to the things that Paul spoke. By nature, the
heart is shut. It's closed to the truth, the
message of the gospel. And the Word by itself doesn't
open the heart. It's the Word and the Spirit,
God's Spirit. There's a dual operation. And
that is the Spirit and the Word, and the heart opened. It's the
Spirit that quickens us. It's the Spirit that gives life.
It yields unto us. And He doesn't believe for us. We believe. But faith is also
the gift of God, the scripture says, doesn't it? Right here
in chapter 2 of Ephesians, and apart from the Spirit of God,
we're dead. We do not have life. He's the
one that gives us spiritual life. He brings the truth to our very
sight, and we hear and we believe, and it's the Spirit that works,
that we desire the Word, that we want the Word. I'm glad to
preach in a place that desires the Word and wants the Word and
likes the Word. I've been in churches in the
past, and I've been in one church particularly years ago. I preach
on grace, and everybody in the whole church acts so puzzled
on what I was preaching on. that the gospel meant nothing,
but now it means everything, doesn't it? Because it's the gospel of our
salvation. He does it for us, but he leads
us to repentance, doesn't he? The scripture says he leads us.
He leads us to It's by His operation, by revealing the Word, opening
our hearts to receive it, as newborn beings desire the sincere
milk of the Word. The brother in the back, he raises
cattle, and I do too. And I thought the other day,
I said, a calf that is born, and before they're wobbly, but
first thing they do, desire milk. That's put there. And when there's
a new nature, a divine nature, there's a desire for the milk
of the Word. Might be wobbly, newborn, but
there's a desire to learn. There's a desire to know the
truth of God. So God calls us. He calls us
to act upon the word that is preached. We must hear, and we
must act, and we must believe. And when we truly, truly hear,
we believe. You know, kids, raising, rearing
my kids, they hear, but a lot of times they didn't act. And
I guess I was the same way. But when we truly hear, we act. And when we truly hear and know
that we are sinners and we are condemned by God's law, God has
set a standard and we are like an iron. We are shot toward that
and we come short of it. The Bible tells us that we've
come short, doesn't it? We didn't meet the mark. And
we're going to stand before a holy judge and how are we going to
stand Then there comes this message of Christ dying for our very
sins, taking our place upon Calvary. And we must have Him. We must
have the Lord Jesus Christ. He's our hope and our confidence,
and He's that which we have an assurance in. It's Christ Jesus
in whom the Scripture says here that you believe or trust Him.
It's all centered upon the Lord Jesus Christ. And how important
is that? And here, the gospel of our salvation,
word of truth. It's Christ. Our sins is laid
upon him, and he took and paid the penalty, and he freed us.
The songwriter says, my hope is built on nothing less than
Jesus' blood and righteousness, and I do not trust the sweetest
frame, but holy lean on Jesus' name. And on Christ, the solid rock,
I stand. And we know that all of the ground
is sinking sand, don't we? Then there's that of the sealing,
hearing, believing. And he said, You were sealed
with the Holy Spirit of promise. Now, here's that of faith that's
raised up in our very souls, and we received Him and And there's
a promise of the Holy Spirit, the sending of Him, and He attests
to that of the work of Christ, the finished work of Christ.
I've thought over the years just how important is that what Christ
said upon the cross, it is finished. Everything is based upon that.
It is based upon Him. His finished work. He put our
sins away. He put them away. And there is
His gracious work here against the Holy Spirit. And there is
His work in our very hearts. He convinces us of sin and opens
our eyes to see the glorious person of the Lord Jesus Christ.
And we rest upon Him. There's nothing else that we
can rest when we see Him. There's no rest anywhere else.
It's upon His blood and His righteousness. It's upon Him. And the Holy Spirit
takes the things of Christ. And He doesn't speak of Himself,
but He shows them to us. He shows us His work. He shows
us what He has accomplished. And He did accomplish on the
cross. A lot of people preach this.
He did or He might not, and maybe He's done something, maybe He
hadn't, but He has accomplished our salvation. He shall save
His people from their sins. He accomplished, and here's what
the Holy Spirit does. He shows us this. He gives us
divine light. We know that the Scriptures,
that they've come to us, And God has preserved it down through
the years. And here's the message. And here's
the message to our very hearts. It's to me. The gospel of my
salvation. He brings the promises. These sacred promises of the
Scripture. And brings them to our life and
to us. that we understand them and make
use of these promises. Somebody mentioned this morning
about He would never leave us, nor forsake us, the blessed promises. He shows us grace and teaches
us of His grace. He teaches us the freeness of
salvation in Christ. By the way, The Scripture says,
if the Son of Man makes you free, you're free indeed. We're called
the Lord's freemen in the Scripture. We've been freed. He makes Christ dear to our very
hearts. Unto you that believe, He is
precious. I thought about that verse over
the years, and it had a way to tell whether you really believe
or not. Is he precious to you? Is Christ
precious? It says unto you to believe he's
precious. The Holy Spirit uses that to
teach us of Christ, doesn't he? If he's precious to us, he attests
to that word, doesn't he? He brings him near. He's still closer than a brother.
There's a nearness. He teaches us of an everlasting
love. I've said over the years, and
this is from the Old Testament, He loves us. He loved me with
an everlasting love. I don't have much more precious
it can get than that. Love and kindness He's drawn
us unto Himself. Everlasting love. And again,
that's the Spirit. It says we're sealed. He attests the work of Christ.
Our very hearts is everlastingly in love. And He seals the heart. The heart is upon Christ. It's
sealed upon Christ Himself. And He strengthens that faith. I come today. I don't want to just come and
show up. I ask God, the Holy Spirit, to enrich our lives. I ask Him to show us the things
of Christ. I ask Him to bless our very hearts
in the things of Christ. That we might be strengthened
in Him. And that which we see and which
we hear of Christ and receive from Him And the Spirit attests
that with power, that He's all in all. I like that song that you sung
a while ago, how great that was as a message in itself. And that
of the believing. He that has begun a good work
in you will perform it unto the day of Christ, the Scripture
says. There's the Spirit, and there He writes divine truth
upon our very hearts. And it changes our hearts from
stone to a heart of flesh. Now, some of us probably had
some hearts of stone, didn't we? It was hard, and we wanted
our own will about everything, stubborn. But it gives us a heart
of flesh. It's one that looks to Christ.
It's one that says, thy will be done. See, there's a lot of
difference. And said, I'm just going to go
my way. I've had people that tell me, I had a person tell
me one time, I confronted him about some issues, and this fellow
told me, he says, no matter what the cost is, I said, it's going
to cost you. He says, I don't care what the cost is, I'm going
that way. And he did. He wasn't concerned about the
cost. But a heart of flesh. Pliable. Love of the brethren. Doesn't
the scripture say you've passed from death unto life? Sign of that is that you love
the brethren. Sisters. You'd joy with them. You'd weep with them. Have that
kind of a bond, aren't we, with our brothers and sisters? He
seals the truth to our very souls. We live in a day that people
are one way today and then another way tomorrow. And I've been with
people that heard the sovereignty of God preached. Then I've been
somewhere else, and there they were, and there's no sovereignty
of God preached at all. They didn't seem to tell any
difference whatsoever. But He seals the truth to our
very hearts. Oh, to have that truth sealed
to us, that we stand, don't waver. witness with our spirits that
we are the children of God. The Scripture says that there
is a shed in abroad of the love of God, the Holy Spirit. There is that cry of adoption,
of adoption. Isn't that a wonderful cry of
a newborn babe? It says, Father, have you ever
stopped and thought, We pray our Heavenly Father, just what's
all in that word, Heavenly Father. And here again, He steals the
truth that He's our Father. My Father cared for me. He loved
me. He sacrificed for me. But here's my Heavenly Father.
Look what all He's done for me. How He cares for me. But all
that He's done. Just that word, Father, how He
cares for us. How He supplies us. All of our
needs. And there's this adoption that
we're adopted into His very family. And it goes on, it says, Which
is the earnest of our inheritance unto the redemption of the purchased
possession. Now, an earnest means heart of
the sum agreed upon or paid in advance or binding of the payment
of whole. It's like a deposit. So there's His gifts unto us. There's His graces. There's His
teaching. There's His influence, His operation,
His quickness, His reviving. How often do we need reviving? You know, the psalmist in David,
he'd say, Over and over, quicken me according to thy word, didn't
he? We need quickening. We need reviving. We need renewing. We need anointing. All of this
is indwelling his filling. The first fruits of the harvest
was a pledge in the scriptures of the whole crop. So there's
Christ, he's first in grace to us. Then there's Christ in glory. He comes in grace. Then you're
going to see Him in glory. He's revealed here, but you're
going to see Him face to face there. He comes here and visits. He
visits with us. In ours is presence. Ours is
love. Ours is power here. But there,
you're going to see the fullness of His person, and you're going
to know the great love that He has for His children. This sealing with the Holy Spirit
of promise, we must know something of His teaching. We must know
something of His work. We must know something of the
witness of the Spirit, And we must know something of Him making
us a new nature and a holy and that of a spiritual nature, partakers
of a new nature, a heavenly nature. And if we don't, there's no pledge
of earnest, are there? We must know something of this. ever heavenly love, ever spiritual
enjoyment, believing, hoping, loving, looking and cleaving
to Christ is an earnest, is a pledge of a glorious inheritance. That comes by the power of the
Spirit. Where did you get the desire to be here tonight? Where
do you get the desire for the Word? for the truth. Oh, all of this is a sealing
of the Holy Spirit. Surrendering one's heart to the
Lord Jesus Christ. Seeing Him that He's altogether
lovely. That He's the fairest of ten
thousand. And that who He is. That's a sealing of the Spirit,
isn't it? to see Him as the Scriptures
present Him. Believing upon Christ, you believe
as the Scripture presents Him, doesn't it? You trust Him as
the Scriptures present Him. It says, In whom ye trusted or
believed, after ye heard the word of truth, that truth came
in power, changed our lives, Is it true that we become followers
of the Lord Jesus Christ? Years ago, I preached observance
from Psalms 23, and I was doing research and reading about in
the old country, the shepherd and the sheep. And it was interesting to me
to read this statement. It said some of the sheep would
follow the shepherd, some would be back a little ways, some would
be up a little closer. But it said some of the sheep
would just try to be under the shepherd's legs, just nuzzling
against his legs. That's where we ought to be. But all these people follow him.
They are followers of the Lamb. They are followers of Christ.
And again, by that you can know that you are sealed with the
Holy Spirit of promise. There is an earnest, a very earnest,
redemption of the purchased possession. Let me remind you of one thing
here. There is also The purchase and
the redemption of our souls, but there's also going to be
a redemption of our bodies also. They're going to come forth from
the grave. The purchase possession. To sum all of this up in this
chapter, and let me just give you a couple of things upon it.
In this chapter, we have the distinct work of the Trinity. We have the Father. We have the
Son. And we've talked this morning
about the Son. But right before this, you see
the Father. You see what He's done. But you see the distinct
work. And here's the Spirit of God.
So you have the distinct work of the Trinity. Now, when it
comes to our salvation, it's the Trinity. It's God the Father,
God the Son, God the Holy Spirit. It teaches us that the Father chose
us in Christ. He's blessed us with all spiritual
blessings in heavenly places in Christ. It teaches us of redemption,
that Christ, what he's done in our redemption, That He redeemed
us with His precious blood. And this verse here teaches us
of the Holy Spirit, what He does. That He quickens. He brings in
power, the gospel. That of the redeemed. He makes us meet for the inheritance. It's what the Spirit of God does.
He makes us meet for a future enjoyment in glory. And it all redounds to this. The last part of verse number
14, here's where it redounds to. That is the praise of His
glory. The doctrines of the Scripture
The truth of the scripture, it always redounds to the glory
of the Lord Jesus Christ and the Father and the Holy Spirit,
doesn't it? Always comes to that. So there's
praise to the Father. There's praise to the Son. There's
praise to the Holy Spirit. There's praise to the Father,
that love chose the Church, and has praise to the Son that loved
and gave Himself for the Church, for her, and praise to the Holy
Spirit that loves and seals unto glory. He shall see His seed and be
satisfied. Isn't that what the Psalmist
wrote? He shall seek his seat. Rabbi Duncan wrote and said he's
going to see him brought in, he's going to see him brought
up, and he's going to see him brought home. His seat. It's all to his glory. I thank you for your attendance
this day. I trust the Spirit of God has
sealed something to our very hearts as we've looked at his
word. May we pray, Father, take the
message. We thank you for what you revealed
unto us. We thank you for salvation. We
thank you for the power of the Spirit and the Word. We thank
you for changing our very lives. And all of our hope is upon Christ. We rest upon Him, the Lamb. He's now the Lamb of glory. Oh, blessed be thy name. We thank
you and we praise you for this people. Just continue your blessings
upon them. We pray in Christ's name, Amen.