If you would please turn back
to the book of Ephesians chapter 1. Ephesians chapter 1. Let me read verse 15 down through
verse 18 or verse 19 it is. Wherefore I also, after I heard
of your faith in the Lord Jesus, and love unto all the saints,
Cease not to give thanks for you, making mention of you in
my prayers, that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father
of glory, may give unto you the spirit of wisdom and revelation
in the knowledge of him. The eyes of your understanding
being enlightened, that you may know what is the hope of his
calling, and what the riches of the glory of his inheritance
in the saints, and what is the exceeding greatness of his power
to usward who believe according to the working of his mighty
power. I want to speak this morning
on, my subject is, three quats. Three quats. But to open up this
subject, I would like to say that our text here Again, we
see that Paul is praying for the believers at Ephesus. He's praying for those that he's
heard about, those that he has ministered to, and he said that
he had heard of their faith in the Lord Jesus and their love
unto all the saints. He had heard about these people
and about their faith and their love toward the Lord's living
family. And what a wonderful testimony
that is. If a man is known, if he's been
heard of, if his faith has been heard of, what a wonderful thing. A man has believed on the Lord
Jesus Christ. A man has been given hope in
the Lord and he so perseveres in that hope and in that faith
that it gets out on him and people begin to hear about his faith. And then, beloved, when we come
to this love unto all the saints, What a marvelous, wonderful thing
that is. That's a miracle indeed, when
we're able to love one another. It's a miracle of God. We are
told in the Bible that we're taught of God to love one another.
We're told in the Bible that this is the evidence that we've
passed from death into life, that we have love one to another. Well, Paul said, I've heard of
your faith, and I've heard that you love the Lord's family. the Lord's people and so therefore
he says I cease not to give thanks for you making mention of you
in my prayers I thank God for you and beloved we have reason
to thank God for everybody that believes And those who love,
we have reason to thank God for them because they are God's production. God has made these people. They couldn't come into existence
any other way except God bring them into existence. But Paul
says, I make mention, I cease not to make mention of you in
my prayers. I'm praying for you. I'm praying
for you. I remember you. I'm going before
God and making supplication unto God. I'm earnestly mentioning
you before God, praying for you. And here's the prayer. He says,
I'm praying that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, that the God
of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give unto
you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of
Him. Now Paul is praying for the Lord's
people that the Father of glory, the God of our Lord Jesus Christ,
may give unto them the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the
knowledge of Him, in the knowledge of our Redeemer, the Lord Jesus.
And in verse 18, that the eyes of your understanding being enlightened. The eyes of your understanding
being enlightened that you may know that you may know what is
the hope, number one, what is the hope of his calling, number
two, what is the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the
saints, and number three, what is the exceeding greatness of
his power to us who believe according to the working of his mighty
power. Now then, to begin with, our
text begins with a personal experience within the mind and the judgment. It begins with an experience
from God, and this is an experience of free grace Because Paul said,
I'm praying that the God of our Lord Jesus, the Father of Glory,
may give, may give. Now anytime you find in the Bible
where it talks about God giving something, that's free grace
is what it is. The Lord freely gives. And so
this is an experience, Paul is praying that the people of God
would have a free grace experience, that the eyes of your understanding
being enlightened. Now beloved, everything depends
upon the eye of our understanding being open. We're children of
God living in a world that's no friend of grace. To help us
on to God, we're living in a world wherein men are blinded by sin,
living all around us, and we came out of a fall in nature. and we still are affected by
the fall, and we need that the eyes of our understanding, that
they would be open in everything concerning our spiritual growth
depends upon God giving unto us the spirit of wisdom and revelation
in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Now
there may be 10,000 things to see, but we'll never see them
if we're blind. And we might just as well, if
we're blind to them, then they'll do us no good. And so we need
to have our eye open by the Lord. Zedekiah had his eyes put out
by the king of Babylon. And then after his eyes were
put out, they took him down to what is called by some the imperial
city or the city of Babylon. But what would they take him
down there for when he had his eyes put out? Why would they
take him down to this city? He might just as well be taken
out to the desert. because he couldn't see anything
anyway. He wasn't able to see anything. There were vast halls,
and there were palaces, there were hanging gardens, and there
was a city that had a wall about it that was one of the wonders
of the old world, but Zedekiah saw nothing. He saw nothing of
the grandeur, the wealth of Babylon. To him, it was as though it didn't
exist. Because he had his eyes put out,
he was blind, and he couldn't see. So what good does it do
a man to have all of these spiritual truths, and all these great and
wonderful, marvelous mysteries of the Spirit, if we don't have
the ability to discern them, the ability to understand them.
And that's the way that we are by nature. We have no apprehension
of spiritual things, we have no power to discern eternal good,
and our foolish heart, the scripture says, is darkened. 1 Corinthians
2.14 says, But the natural man receiveth not the things of the
Spirit of God, their foolishness unto him, neither can he know
them, because they are spiritually discerned. The truths of God
must be discerned by the Spirit. So we need the Spirit of wisdom
and revelation given to us This, as we said, is a free grace experience,
and God's in the business of giving to His children, His people,
the spirit of revelation and wisdom in the knowledge of His
Son. Therefore, the Lord must enlighten
the eyes of our understanding, or else, however precious the
truth, and however clearly it may be stated by the preacher,
we will never be able to apprehend it. We'll never be able to let
hold of it. And so you say, oh, I just wish that the preacher
could be a little clearer in his presentation. I just wish
that somebody would come along who has the ability to teach
me something in the realm of the Spirit. Beloved, it won't
make any difference unless God gives you an open eye, unless
God gives you a heart, unless God takes away the scales from
your eyes. Unless God anoints your eyes
with the eye salve of His Spirit, unless something takes place
and God gives you the ability, you'll never be able to understand
spiritual truth. But I'll tell you if He gives
you that. You say, I'm limited in my education. Well, it won't
make any difference. I tell you here this morning,
and I'm not here to champion an individual staying out of
school and not getting his education, but I'm telling you we're talking
about things in the Spirit. And I'm telling you that God
can give you a spirit whereby you'll be able to enter into
the revelations of Holy Scripture, and He'll give you wisdom to
interpret what the Word of God has to say. and that we all need. It doesn't make any difference
how much education we have or have not. Now there's a better
translation, I think, of this text. which goes like this it
says the eyes of your heart being in life the eyes of your heart
now this I believe is the correct one and so beloved listen it's
divine things are usually better seen by the heart than they are
by the mind they're better seen by the heart and so the Lord
must give the eyes of your heart understanding now the purifying
of the heart by faith is the beginning, I think, of this enlightening
of the spiritual eye. When God first saves a man, when
God first delivers a man out of Egyptian blackness and darkness,
and the darkness and blindness of sin, when God first translates
an individual out of darkness into light. This is the beginning
of God opening up the eye of the heart. And as strange as
it may seem this morning, the eye of the child of God is rather
in the heart than in the head. That's the reason why that we
make no attempt to preach to anybody's head. We can't do that.
We don't have the ability to do that. Any ability that I have
to preach is preach things in the Spirit as God is pleased
to anoint that we might be able to speak words of wisdom after
the Spirit and in the Spirit. But the eyes of a child of God
is more in his heart than it is in the head. And we're not
here to educate anybody in the head. We're here trusting that
the Holy Spirit would give you this answer, Paul's answer to
prayer, and that you would have this spirit of wisdom and revelation
given to you in the knowledge of the Lord Jesus. That's what
we're here. That's what it's about. So my
prayer this morning is the same as Paul's, and it's for each
one of us that the eyes of our hearts may be enlightened, that
we may know spiritual things as they're best known, and that
is that we may know them in our hearts, that we may know spiritual
truth. Now note, if you will, and I
want to emphasize this, that this prayer was offered for converted
people. It was offered for believers.
for those who had trusted in the Lord Jesus Christ. So we
see that those who already see need to see more, need to have
their eyes more enlightened. So this is a prayer that we need
to offer often for ourselves and for one another. is that
the Lord would give us this spirit of wisdom and revelation in the
knowledge of Him. Now then, he that sees most has
this same need of his eyes seeing more and more. For how little,
beloved, have we entered in as of yet to the glory of God? How
little of it have we really seen? How little of God's truth do
we really know? How much of the Word of God is
just simply a blank to us? And how much of truth is it that
we have to just say, well, I don't know anything about that experimentally
or otherwise. I know nothing about that. I'm
ignorant to that. And so there's so much of the
Bible and so much of truth that we need to enter into yet. And
we can do that because this prayer is offered for the children of
God. And as we pray, You know, we can be strengthened, our spiritual
eye, and you know there's a day coming when we're going to see
great light. There's a day coming when we're
going to enter in to the light of the new Jerusalem. And I know
that as God strengthens us here, And as He gives us more light
in our souls, more spiritual light and wisdom, then the light
of the city of New Jerusalem will not be too strong for us.
And I think today maybe if some of us were to see the splendor
of God, which outshines the sun in the city of the New Jerusalem
that we probably would be maybe somewhat taken aback greatly
and be blinded by it. But if the Lord spiritually answers
the prayer of Paul and our prayer for each other this morning and
gives us the spirit of wisdom and revelation and the knowledge
of Him, then I believe that we'll be able to find ourselves at
home even in the New Jerusalem. Find ourselves at home there
in the splendor of that light that outshines the sun. Now beloved,
if believers need to have their eyes enlightened, how much more
those who are unconverted. There are those here today that
are unconverted. They're bound to be. Some here
who have never, never experienced the work of regeneration. Some
here who've not been born of the Spirit of God. Some here
who have no hope in the Lord. No hope for eternity. They're
sin blinded, the Bible teaches. They're blinded by sin. They're
born blind. And the God of this world sees
to it that their minds are even further darkened as they live
out their days here in this world. What a terrible, terrible, Tragic
thing it is that we have men and women under the sound of
our voice, boys and girls who are blinded by Satan and who
are sin blinded. Theirs is a sevenfold midnight,
darkness, the gloom of spiritual death. It's the very gloom of
the death that you'll suffer is to be in outer darkness and
eternal darkness, just a furtherance. of what already is your condition
and you need God to do something in you. May the Lord Jesus touch
your eyes and may you this morning come see. Wouldn't that be a
marvelous and wonderful thing if the Lord was to open your
eyes? Now then, I want us to get to
these three things that we mentioned that we would be preaching about
this morning. So what is to be seen and known
according to this text? There are three things that Paul
mentions that we can find out, that we can know as the Lord's
people. He said, first of all, he says
we want to know what is the hope of our calling. We need to enter
into that. We need to understand what is
the hope. of God calling a man out of spiritual
death into spiritual life. Now I believe, and of course
I think everybody here that knows the Lord and been around here
any length of time believes this, that there comes to every man
who is a true Christian a call from God. God calls his people. God's people are called to be
saved. The Bible throughout attributes
salvation to a call from God, and we call this call the effectual
call. We believe that God calls his
people effectually, that God by the Holy Spirit lays hold
of those that were given to Christ in the eternal covenant in time
and draws them out of sin and sin's death and blindness and
darkness into the light of the Lord Jesus and into hope and
into rest in Christ. And so every Christian, every
true Christian has received a call from God. Now the Spirit of God
personally applies the truth of the scripture to their heart
and makes this chosen person to feel that the truth of God
and that Christ himself belongs to them. in this call. God so
calls a man that a man feels that God has singled him out
by sovereign grace and he perceives that God has separated him from
others and that God has given to him a special hope in the
Lord Jesus Christ. That God has revealed the word
to that individual, to his heart, and he feels this. Now what is
the hope of this calling? Have you been so called? Has
God laid hold of you? Do you feel that you heard the
voice of God through the Word calling you to eternal salvation? Do you feel that the Lord has
laid hold of you, affectionately called you into life? Do you feel that? Well, beloved,
if you do, then what is the hope of that calling? What is the
hope of that calling? What does it mean? If God laid
hold of me, if there was a day in my life when the Spirit of
God touched me, when the Spirit of God come down, when the finger
of God did come, and when God breathed life into my soul, if
there was a time when the Lord touched me, what's the hope of
that? What's the hope of that calling? Well, I think this is
what we're to understand about that hope. First of all, we understand
that involved in that call of God is forgiveness of our sin. Forgiveness of our sin, the putting
away of all of our sin and guilt. God has laid our sin upon the
Lord Jesus. Jesus has died in our room instead
in place. Jesus has paid our sin debt. God has granted forgiveness to
every one of his children. all those that have been laid
hold of and been called, they have been forgiven. Their sin
has been charged to Christ and He paid their sin debt. We also have been accepted in
the Lord Jesus. We've been accepted in Christ.
God said, I cannot accept you as you stand in a state of nature.
God says, I cannot have anything to do with you as you stand,
being born into this world, having grown up in this world. I can
have nothing to do with you, but I can put you in my Son by
a sovereign operation of my own grace And then I can accept you
freely in Him. And that's exactly what He's
done for all of those that He's called. He put us in Christ and
accepted us on the basis of His person and the basis of His merit. And that's where we're at this
morning. We have been adopted into God's family. We have the
rank and the rights and the privileges of a child of God. That's what
it means to be called. If a man is called, he's a member
of God's living family. He belongs to God's family. And
he always will. There'll never be a time when
he won't be a member of God's family. And he has the rights
and the ranks and the privileges of a child of God. Now that's
glorious. But that's the hope of our calling.
And there's some other things too that's involved in this.
We are under divine protection and ownership forever. Now, this is so important to
see. We're not our own. We've been bought with a price.
We're under divine protection. Now, say what you will, the Bible
teaches that God has a special providence. God has commissioned
angels to look after those that are the heirs of salvation. God
has a special protection. The scripture says that safety
is of the Lord, that deliverance is of the Lord, and that God
does in a special way, a unique way, preserve all of those who
trust in Him. And all of those whom God has
given to Christ, God says, I own them. And Christ says, I own
them. And the Holy Spirit says, I own
them. Because God the Father, He gave
the Lord Jesus for us. Jesus gave Himself willingly,
voluntarily to buy us back from sin. And the Holy Spirit has
come in absolute, effectual faithfulness and has called us unto himself,
and we truly do belong to the Lord. We're under His special
providence and special protection. Now that's what it means to be
called of God. And Paul said, I'm praying that
God will give you the spirit of revelation, wisdom, and the
knowledge of Him, so you'll understand what's involved in this calling.
And you know we can talk about being called all we want to,
but if we don't understand what's involved in it, then we're going
to come up short. We need the blessedness, we need
to know the blessedness of our position in the Lord Jesus. And
so a perfect justification also at that day. We need to know
that when God laid hold of us and called us, that He perfectly
justified us. And that during our lifetime
there should be no sin laid to the charge of God's elect. We
are perfectly justified. Satan cannot bring a charge against
us. There will be nothing laid to
our charge. Perfectly justified. No more
condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus. Now, Beloved,
if God gives you the understanding of that, I think it most surely
will bless you as you live out your days here. And also, we
have absolute perfection in Christ. We're holy and without blame
before Him in love. That's the way we will appear
in that day. Holy and without blame before
Him, having been loved by God, loved by Christ, called by the
Holy Spirit. Now, not only that, but our bodies
will be perfected in the resurrection. They'll be perfected in the resurrection. We all know that we live in a
body of sin. And we're imperfect in this body. But beloved, there's coming a
day when God is going to raise up this body because we know
that God has bought the body as well as our souls. God has
purchased these bodies, and they belong to God. They belong to
Him. This body belongs to the Lord,
and we see that clearly, and we see what's going to happen
in 1 Corinthians 15, beginning with verse 42. So also is the
resurrection of the dead. It is sown in corruption, it
is raised in incorruption. There's going to be a perfection
of this old body. As sure as God called you, this
is the hope of your calling. This old body is going to be
buried like everybody else's body, but there's coming a time
when this body Because we are owned by God, called by God,
loved by God, this whole body is coming out in incorruption. It is sown in dishonor. It is
raised in glory. It's sown in weakness. It is
raised in power. It is a natural body. It is raised
a spiritual body. It's sown a natural body. He
has raised a spiritual body. There is a natural body, and
there is a spiritual body. And God said, I'm going to raise
that body. It's going to be spiritual when
I raise it up. It's going to be spiritual. All
it had to do with its sinfulness, its corruption, all of that will
be left in the grave, and I'm going to raise it up, a body
into perfection. Now, beloved, that's the hope
of our calling. And if God's laid hold of you,
and if you know He's called you by His grace, then you have this
hope. This is part of it. And then
also is involved in that is to forever enjoy the infinite happiness
of God. Here we're sometimes happy and
sometimes we're not. Sometimes we're joyful, sometimes
we're not. It fluctuates here, does it not?
But in heaven, God is infinitely happy. He is happy. And all throughout
eternity, we're going to enjoy God's best. Now, I'm talking
to those who are called, and I'm telling you the hope of your
calling means you're going to enjoy God's best for all eternity. God's best. And you're going
to be infinitely happy as God is throughout eternity. That's
the hope of your calling. Do you understand that? Do you
see that? Well, that's what Paul said.
I just pray that God will give you this spirit of wisdom and
revelation, the knowledge of Him, so you can hold to this
and so you can enjoy. And then also we'll have this
position of honor and nearness unto God. Let me say that there's
not an angel in heaven with whom the meanest saint on earth would
want to change places. Jesus Christ is not the brother
of angels. but he's my brother. And I'm
going to enjoy that nearness to God, that position of honor,
of being in Christ, made beautiful through His comeliness. I'm going
to enjoy that for all eternity. And there isn't going to be anybody
in heaven, I don't care what the landmark Baptist say or anybody
else say, there ain't nobody going to be there dressed up
any better than I am. I'm going to be dressed up in the perfect
righteousness, the white righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ. And
I'm going to be there for all eternity. And the angels, oh,
let them flutter around. Let them come around. But they're
not going to be nearer to God than what I am. They're not going
to be near to God because Christ is my brother. And he never took
on himself the nature of angels, but he took upon himself the
seed of Abraham, which is the elect. And all those that are
in Christ, he's our brother. He's our brother. And so to be
in heaven with our brother, There is no higher position of honor
than to be able to look at Jesus and say, Jesus, my brother. He's my elder brother. And so,
beloved, this is what is involved in our calling. I'm sure there's
many other things, but these are things that I believe the
Lord has taught me and things that you can know if you just
listen, if you'll study the Word of God and read the Word of God.
Now, the second thing is that you may know what are the riches
of the glory of His inheritance in the saints. That you may know
what is, listen to it now, listen to what the scripture says. Now
you bear with me, and I'm not going to keep you too long here.
I'll be done in a little while, before you know it. But you listen
to what I'm saying. We've got something very important
here to say. That you may know here what the
riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints. Now, God's people
are viewed in the Bible as being His inheritance. God's people
are God's inheritance. Now, the whole world belongs
to God. The cattle on a thousand hills, the scripture says, belong
to Him. The Bible says that the world
and all that's in it belongs to God. It all belongs to him. But his peculiar treasure, his
crown jewels, of the Bible says the Lord's portion, is his people. It's his people. They are viewed
as his inheritance. Jacob, the Bible says, is the
lot of his inheritance. Well, the question comes to me
is how can God make riches out of poor men? How can God do that? Out of poor men and women, how
can God attribute riches to them? Well, beloved, it is through,
and you get this, it is through His investment in them that God
can look upon them as His riches. the riches of His inheritance,
the glory of His inheritance in the saints. Now hear me, if
you invest something in something, and you invest a lot in that,
I mean a whole lot, you take an old house and you invest a
lot in that, that becomes more and more valuable the more you
invest in it. And the same is true with an
old automobile. You can take an old automobile, invest something
in it. and it becomes more valuable
to you because of the investment that you made in it, because
of the investment of labor, the investment that you put into
it. Well, let me point out to you some things that God has
invested in His people that you may see how He got riches, the
glory of His inheritance, how He finds them to be in the saints. Well, first of all, He spent
riches of love upon His people. God loved his people and in spite
of how sick and sorry they are, God spent riches of love upon
them. God has loved his people so long
and so intensely and loved them with such an unbounded love that
there is a wealth in them to his heart. God says they're riches
to me because I've invested great love upon them. And then, we
must hurry along here. You listen to me. Wealth of wisdom. Look at the wealth of wisdom
that God has invested in his people. Now, you know that a
material, you can take some material and it may be almost Valueless,
may not have very little value to it whatsoever, but you put
it into the hands of somebody who is wise, somebody who has
talent, somebody who has ability, and that thing can be turned
into something that is, or else enhanced a thousand fold, the
wealth of it. Just put an old piece of material,
I've known carpenters that way, that you could just give them
an old piece of cabinet, they'll cut it down and make another
one, or an old piece of furniture and cut it up and make another
piece out of it, and something that was of no value, they can
turn it into something real, real special. Well, when God
put His wisdom to work, before the foundation of the world and
God began to deal. Listen, when God took his saints
and before the foundation of the world and took his wisdom,
put it to work to make the elect what they were to be, what they
could be, what he wanted them to be, then God says, there's
the riches of my inheritance. I put my wisdom to work and look
what's there now. They're my people. They're my
people. And they're the lot of my inheritance.
And then not only that, but the life of suffering. God has invested
the life of suffering, incarnation and death, the death of His Son
into His people. As the Lord looks over all that
He's made, He sees nothing in this world and in all creation
that has caused suffering and death till He looks at His people. He looks at His people. And he
said, I've invested a life of suffering, sorrow, and death
in those people. Now that's the reason God says,
as he looks upon you this morning, you're the riches of mine inheritance.
I put life and I put sorrow and sadness and death into your life. And God has made us new creatures,
we're told in Ephesians 2 and 10. And then, you know, I thought
about How that after God did all of this work in His people,
you know Jesus knew what He knew what the saints cost. He knew what the saints cost
Him. Because He's the one that bought us with the price. He's
the one that laid down His life. He's the one that died for us.
He's the one that suffered the hell that was due us. And He
knows what the saints cost because He bought them. And so there's
a riches in God's inheritance. There's glory in it because of
the investment. But then, you know, when we all
get around God's throne, and we all know what we were by nature,
a bunch of rebels. But you know, there's, there'll
never be any uprising around the throne of God. When we think
of what God has done, you know, we're made new creatures. and
we are saved and I like what somebody said about that and
I wrote it down it says there will be an achievement indeed
this will be an achievement indeed to have produced God having produced
free agents which will be under no control of force but perfectly
at liberty and yet will be forever absolutely obedient to the will
of God You see, God has done such work in this investment
that he's made in his people, he has so fixed them up that
here they are around the throne of God, free, but yet absolutely
obedient because of what God's done, because of the wisdom and
the love and the deliverance that God gave them, and they've
become the riches of his inheritance. There won't be any uprising around
his throne, nothing to mar. You know, sometimes we think
about having a family reunion or think about having, you know,
I come out of a big family and I've thought several times, well,
it'd be wonderful to have a family reunion and all the kids that's
left, ten kids, all get together and their families and all that.
I'm sure before it was over with, there'd be an ugly scene or two.
Bound to be an ugly scene or two. Somebody would get cross
ways. I mean, somebody would. But you know around the throne
of God, when all of that marvelous big host that God has redeemed
through grace, when they all get around the throne, won't
have to worry one thing about somebody saying something out
of line or somebody in any way acting out of character. Nobody
will be, of course, people of Reunion, they don't act out of
character, that's just the way they are. But I'm talking about
when we get around the throne of God, we're all going to be
acting according to the new nature. and having a redeemed body and
everything's going to be alright. You ever see a family squabble
or a family blow up or something? Well, you know what I'm talking
about. And that just, well, I just throw that in to you. But anyway,
that's part of this business of God working on us, making
something out of us. Well, the last thing is this.
What is the exceeding greatness of His power to us? who believe
according to the working of his mighty power. What is the exceeding
greatness of his power to us worth? Now, I'm sure that there's
a lot of us that, this morning, may think we don't know too much
about the power of God. We may feel that we haven't experienced
much of it. And we're saying, woe is me,
I'm so weak, so fickle, so frail, I have no strength, and I'm undone. Well, we do feel that. in our
nature we do feel that. Paul said when we're weak we're
strong, but we feel that. But let me remind you that in
the conversion and in the preservation and the salvation of any one
person that God Almighty has exhibited as great power as he
manifested when he raised Jesus Christ from the dead and set
him at his own right hand. God has Listen to me, let me
say it this way. The salvation of no man in the
world is by his own strength. The salvation of no man in the
world is by his own strength. It's by the power of God. We are His workmanship. Now, God's power has been at
work. It is impossible for a man to
convert himself, change himself, save himself, but it's not impossible
with God because the power is with God. The power is with Him.
Now, we take note of the fact Here in our text, as we read
it in Ephesians 2, just look at verse 5. It says, even when
we were dead in sin. We were dead in sin. Now, in this world, when a man
dies, when someone dies, we take their corpse and we lay it out
and we prepare it to be put back in Mother Earth. And we prepare
it and we sow it in the ground. We bury the body. Well, that's
all we can do. There isn't anything else we
can do. And when we come to dead sinners, Paul said, we've been
quickened in verse 1. You hath he quickened. But here
it says, when we were dead. When we were dead. When we were
dead. Now I want to show you something
here about this power of God. We were dead. And so we asked
education, education can you help us here? Education looks and just can't
do a thing. They've tried, they put out much
effort, but they can't do anything. And then we call the moralists.
Look this case over if you would, and help us if you can. We need
some help here. We've got a dead sinner, and
we need something, we need somebody to help us. But beloved, there's only one
place where there's any help, and that's the power of God.
Only God can raise a dead sinner. Only God can breathe heaven's
breath into a man who is spiritually dead and make that man live. Only God can do that. Now, you
know, if we somehow or other could get together, the daughter
of Jairus, the son of the widow of the gates of Nain, if we could
get Lazarus and Eutychus If we could get all of those who were
raised from the dead in the Bible and somehow or other get them
around and let them talk to us a little bit, they could surely
say some strange things and they'd make some remarkable disclosures
I'm sure. education looks and just can't
do a thing. They've tried. They put out much
possible that we can do that. We can't get them together. We
can't get a crowd like that together and have these people to tell
us about what it means to be raised from the dead, to be brought
back to a physical life. We don't have anybody, we've
heard a lot of reports about people who died and then they
were brought back, but we don't have anybody that we can bring
in. But beloved, listen, the thing,
while it's not possible in a physical way, here if we're right, here
if we are speaking at all to anybody that's been called of
God, here if we are speaking to anybody that meets this description
here, when Paul says, and you hath he quickened who were dead,
you, here he says, when we were dead, he has quickened us together
with Christ. If we're talking to anybody that
has been made alive in the Spirit, then we have an assembly of people
that's gathered on the same conditions really. We've got people here
that's been touched by the power of God. They're alive. Don't
you feel, aren't you alive in the Spirit? If you're saved,
you're alive. And if you're saved, the power
of God has come into your life. The power of God has touched
you. God's power has come down. The same power that God used
in the raising of the Lord Jesus from the dead has come into your
life. And that power is there. That
power is working. It's resurrection power. And
that's what raises a dead sinner from his spiritual grave and
brings him out into life. It's God's power, God's Holy
Spirit. We are quickened to life in Christ,
alive from the dead. Now then, why should we know
these things? Why should we know these things? Somebody said,
well, Frick, do you really think I ought to get serious about
praying that God would give me the spirit of wisdom and revelation
and the knowledge of Him? Well, beloved, I'll tell you
what, I read about an old lady one time, she lived for years,
Earlier in her life she had a bunch of papers, and in them papers
there was evidence that she was a wealthy woman, that somebody
died and left her in the States. Very wealthy. She lived out all
of her days and wasn't even aware of it. Wasn't even aware of it.
Until she got old, just ready to die. Now, if you've been called
of God, wouldn't you like for some preacher to get up off the
chair and to get with it and tell you what's involved in you
being called? If you've been called of God,
wouldn't you like for somebody to tell you about that? I mean,
wouldn't you come back week after week? I just want to hear a little
bit more about what's involved in my having been called of God.
And then, wouldn't you like to know a little bit more about
what God's invested in you? What God's done in you? What
this is all going to turn out to be in eternity, whenever you're
at home with the Lord, what God's invested in you to make Him to
say, there's my inheritance right there. That's my inheritance. The Lord is my people or my portion. What would move God to say that?
Aren't you interested in that? Well, that's why I want you to
know this. It's because I think you are interested. And I think
you ought to be interested. And then something about the
power of God. Don't you want to know about what it was that
made you live? That brought you out of sin's
death? My friend, if you don't understand it was the power of
God, how can you have any hope for anybody else? If you don't
understand what it was, it was resurrection power that delivered
you. And then if you believe that
and if you understand that, you can pray earnestly, God bring
your power down upon me and help me. Make all out of me that your
resurrected power could possibly make out of a man or a woman
or a boy or a girl in this world. Make all of me that your power
could make of me. And I'll tell you what, It sure
is wonderful to know something about what these three want,
to know what they're about, and to know something about the meaning
of these verses. May the Lord bless. Father, in
the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that altogether lovely one, in
the name of Him, our blessed Redeemer, our blessed Savior,
that blessed one who came out from your bosom, and willingly,
voluntarily laid down His life. In His name we're praying. Father,
give all of us the spirit of revelation, wisdom in the knowledge
of Him. Make these things that we talked
about this morning, things that all of us could talk about at
the drop of a hat. That everyone here could say,
just let me tell you about the hope of my calling. Father, Father,
be pleased to give us a great blessing. Pour out of the Holy
Spirit, pour out of the Spirit power and grace upon us, wisdom. Give us understanding, give us
more understanding and help us, we pray. Make this a living body,
a New Testament body, where the Spirit of God is mightily at
work. We pray it this morning in the name of Jesus, for His
sake. Amen.