And without controversy, great
is the mystery of godliness. God was manifest in the flesh,
justified in the Spirit, seen of angels, preached unto the
Gentiles, Believed on in the world and received up into glory. This is a great mystery. Paul
gives us these several things here. God was manifest in the
flesh. He was revealed in flesh. What a mystery. What a mystery. God was made flesh and dwelt
among us. Somebody said three of the greatest
mysteries known to this world. was how God spake in everything
come into being that was not there before. He spake and the
universe was, and filled it with planets and stars and the sun
and the moon. Creation. Everything but seen
that we see was made from something that does not appear. The Word
of God. What a mystery that is. What a mystery. The mystery of
the resurrection. What a mystery that will be.
Bodies that have long been gone back to the dust are no more.
The Son of God shall speak and they'll come together and be
changed and be made like unto his glorious body. What a mystery
that is. Even John said it does not appear
what we shall be. It does not yet appear. And this
great mystery here, God was made flesh. The eternal God. tough to himself, our likeness
in a most real sense, and having taken that likeness, will never
be separated from our humanity again." What a mystery. Why he
did it, how he did it, it's a mystery. It's a mystery. And he says here
not only it's a mystery that he was manifested in the flesh,
he was justified in the Spirit. He was justified in the Spirit
and by the Spirit. Everything Christ did was by
the Spirit. All of His thoughts, all of His
words, all of His actions, He was aided by the Spirit. The
Father filled Him with the Spirit without measure. He was justified
in the Spirit. All He did was of the energy
of that Spirit. Notice here, he said, thirdly,
he was seen of angels. Seen of angels. Can you imagine
the mystery? How the angels felt when they
saw their Creator, a six-pound boy, eighteen inches long, hanging
upon his mother's breast. Can you imagine? He said to the
angels of God, when He brought him into the world, go worship
Him. And they went and worshipped
Him. When he was tempted for forty days of devils, and they
finally left him, and the angels came and ministered to him, saw
him through weakness after he had fasted forty days, and a
thirst, their creator, thirsty and hungry. During the garden,
when he had swept great drops of blood running down from his
body, in an awful agony, his spirit heavy, it was said that
an angel came and strengthened him. angels saw him, looked upon
their Creator. Oh, they had to be amazed at
such a thing. They knew him long before we
did, you see. They know him better than we
know him. And to see him in our humanity, oh, they thought what
a mystery it is. And fourthly, he said, this is
a great mystery that he preached unto the Gentiles. He preached
unto the Gentiles. God incarnate preached unto the
Gentiles. Well, he didn't preach to many
of them while he was here, but he did preach to them. He didn't
let his disciples go to us, the Gentiles, but he did go to them.
He went and preached to a whole town. He preached to that Gentile
woman there at the city of Sychar, sitting on the well, the Samaritan
woman. He made himself real to her. The woman, the Canaanite
woman, the Gentile woman that had a daughter, previously vexed
with devils. She came to Him. He preached
to her. Brought her to faith in Himself.
Answered her prayer. He preached to the Gentiles.
And I tell you, it isn't a mystery now that He's preached to the
Gentiles. And you know, really and honestly, He's doing the
preaching. We're the mouthpiece and we're the vessels. We have
this treasure in our vessels. But we preach with the Holy Ghost
sent down from Heaven. It's Him that's doing the preaching,
isn't it? And who's He preaching? Himself. He's priest unto the
Gentiles, the unsearchable riches of Christ. And he says here he's
believed on in the world, and I want to say some things about
that in just a minute. So look at the sixth thing that
he says, that he was received up into glory. What's so mysterious
about that? That happened to men before.
We've got record that Enoch And Elijah was received up into glory.
But you know what the difference is? They never died. And he did. Nobody died like
he died. Nobody died for the cause for
which he died. The reason he's so glorious that
he ascended unto heaven, he raised from the dead and ascended unto
heaven. God incarnate. Now it's no mystery
that he's in glory. He was there long before he came,
but the mystery of him being in glory, he's there in our humanity. He's God incarnate. God revealed
in the flesh. And he says here, he's believed
on in the world. And Paul tells us that this is
a mystery. Great is the mystery of godliness. God is believed on in the world. That's a mystery. What a mystery
that is. Our faith. Who is our faith in?
He's believed on. Who is our faith in? Well, our
faith's in God. Who's believed on in the world?
God. God is really believed on in
the world. Abraham believed God. This God. Our faith is in the
Creator, isn't it? It's in the Sustainer. David
said, I'll lift up my eyes unto the hills, my eyes of faith,
from which comes my help. David, who does your faith come
from? The Lord that made heaven and earth. Peter said, commit
your souls unto Him as unto a faithful Creator. Our faith's in God.
Our faith is in God the Creator, our Maker, our Sustainer, and
our faith is in God our Savior. Listen to this. There is no God
else besides me, a just God and a Savior. There is none else. Look unto me. Believe in me. Who? God our Savior. For I am
God, and besides me there is none else. And what does our text here say?
Who is our faith in? God our Creator? God our Savior?
But our faith is in a trial in God. In a trial in God. Not just in God. Not just in
Jesus. But God in the flesh. A God who took our humanity.
A God who was seen of angels. A God who preached unto the Gentiles.
A God who was received up into the glory. Our faith is in this
triune God. Faith, if it's saving, is in
God who has revealed himself in the Lord Jesus Christ. That's saving faith. Now, that
eliminates a lot of people, don't it? That eliminates a lot of
people. If saving faith is in God who
has revealed Himself in His Son, Jesus Christ, that eliminates
a lot of people. Because there's a lot of people
who don't believe that Jesus Christ is God incarnate. But
thank God that takes in a lot of us, don't it? That's what
I believe. Isn't that what you believe?
We believe in this God, don't we? This incarnate God. That's where our faith is. And
Paul said here, that's a mystery. That's a mystery. That's a mystery. Now, I want to give you two or
three things quickly concerning the mystery of faith. Great is the mystery of faith. And the first one is this. It's
a mystery of how it begins in our hearts. That's a mystery of how it begins
in our hearts. We can learn a lot of facts about
faith. You can go to your commentaries
and glean a lot of knowledge concerning what it is to believe,
but I'm telling you what, that does not eliminate the mystery
when you experience faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. There
was a time when you didn't believe that you was without faith, and
now you do believe. But you can't put your finger
exactly when you come to faith in Christ. I just about bank
on it. Now, I love Dear Newton, and
we love that song where he says how precious did that grace appear
the hour I first believed. I know where I first began to
call on Christ. I know where He was revealed
in my heart. But really and honestly, when did this faith come? Somebody
said, well, it came while I was calling on the Lord. But wait
a minute. The Scripture says, how can they
call on Him in whom they have not believed? You don't begin
to call until you believe, do you? Isn't it a mystery? The
old songwriter says, I know not how this saving faith to me He
did impart, nor how believing in His Word wrought peace within
my heart. I know whom I have believed.
But I tell you what, it's still a mystery to me. How it came. How it had its beginning in my
soul. The Lord Jesus explained it like
this. He said it's something like this. He said, you sow this like a
farmer sowing the seed in the ground. And he sleeps. And it germinates and springs
up. But he don't know how. It's out
of sight. But suddenly there he recognizes
it. He's popped up through. That's the way faith is. It gets
in your heart. But I tell you, until you begin
to see some evidences of it, you just don't know when it started
and how it got there. What a mystery faith is. It's
a mystery. We know the Lord's the author
of it. You can't believe apart from
grace. But what a mystery it is in the heart. And secondly,
the way faith comes to us. The way faith is born in the
heart. Because it comes out of adversity. Faith is born out of trouble. We talk about success. I heard
somebody, maybe it was Todd and I, were talking about success.
And he said, you know, success comes after we enter the workforce. We have 30 or 40 years in the
workforce, and we make good money, and we have good health, and
everything goes just right. And then we retire and say, well,
we've been successful. Thank God everything's good,
and now we're successful. Things is going great. I didn't
come down with cancer and didn't have to retire when I was 35
on disability. Everything's going great, so
now I'm successful. But you know it's not that way
with faith. Faith is born out of trouble.
Faith is born out of adversity. I want you to turn over here
with me over to Psalms 107. Clarence read this for us just
a few days ago. Look over here at this passage. Faith is born out of trouble.
Adversity. Psalms 107. I'll tell you when faith comes.
I'll tell you when faith came to that woman that had an issue
of blood. Faith came to her when she found
out that there was no physician that could do her any good. She
spent everything she had, and she grew worse. There's where
faith was born. That's the way it is with us
in our hearts. Faith is born in that man who
had leprosy when he realized he was full of it. There was
no hope, no help. And he came to Christ and listened
to his faith. If you will, you can make me
clean. He didn't get healed and was
doing well, and then had faith in Christ. Faith was born at
the worst time in his life. That's when faith is born. That's
how it's born. Out of adversity. That prodigal
was in a far country. He was sent out to feed swine. And he reached the point where
he said, I'm perishing. And that's where faith is born.
What was it he said, when I perish from hunger, I know what I'll
do. I'll arise and go to my Father's house. That's the way faith is
born. Ain't that a mystery? That's
a mystery. And look here at proof of this
very thing in Psalms 107. Look in Psalm 107 and look in
verse 4. They wandered in the wilderness
in a solitary way. They found no city to dwell in.
Hungry and thirsty, their soul fainted within them. Then they
cried unto the Lord in their trouble, and he delivered them
out of their distresses. Look in verse 10. Such as sat
in darkness, and in the shadow of death, being bound in affliction
and iron, because they rebelled against the words of God, and
contemned the counsel of the Most High. Therefore he brought
down their heart with labor. They fell down, and there was
none to help. Then they cried unto the Lord
in their trouble, and he saved them out of their distresses,
and brought them out of darkness and the shadow of death, and
broke their bands asunder." And he goes on, almost through the
entire Psalms, telling us how this faith is born. Out of trouble. Now, when I say trouble, I'm
not talking about your wife has left you and you're in trouble.
Or you've lost your job and you're in trouble. Or you've even lost
a child and you're in trouble. But you're in trouble in your
soul. Everything else may be great. You may have all kinds
of success and plenty of money and the bank account and a nice
car and things may be well at home, but in your soul You're
in trouble. You're convicted. You're afflicted
in your heart and your spirit. And there's when you lift your
eyes to Christ the Lord. To Him. To Him. You know what this tells us?
Being brought low with none to help. Fallen and can't get up. You know what this tells us about
faith? It's not self and action. That's not what faith is. Faith
is self-forsaken. Faith is self-put-down. Faith is looking out of its utter
failure and loss and misery and weakness to God in Christ. That's what it is. You know,
really, faith has to be borne out of desperation. It has to
be borne out of utter weakness and failure and loss. Because
if it's not, if it has anything to do with our strength, our
ability, it's not saving faith. It has to be in Christ and in
Christ alone. And to be brought there, we've
got to be in trouble, don't we? We've got to be in trouble. Paul
said, I know whom I have believed. And I am persuaded that He's
able. Christ is not looking for anything
in you. He's not looking for any self-ability,
self-power, self-marriage, self-will, self-help. You know what He's
looking for? He's looking for you to finish
with self. And put self off and put Him down. And trust Him. I know whom I have trusted, and
I am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed
to him against that day." Another mystery of this faith
is this, the effects it has upon a man's heart. the effects it
has upon a man's heart. Look over here in Acts chapter
15. Look in Acts chapter 15. We're
going to study on this Wednesday night a little bit in our Bible
study. But here in Acts chapter 15,
there was a controversy of were we justified by faith in Christ
alone or by faith in Christ plus the deeds of the law. You find
that in Acts chapter 15 in verses 1 through 4. Look what he said. Certain which
came down from Judea taught their brethren and said, except you
be circumcised after the manner of Moses, you can't be saved.
When therefore Paul and Barnabas had no small dissension and disputation
with them, they determined that Paul and Barnabas should go up
to Jerusalem and to the apostles and elders about these things.
And being brought on their way by the Church, they passed through
Pharnassia and Samaria and declared the conversion of the Gentiles.
Verse 4, And when they were come to Jerusalem, they were received
of the church and the apostles and elders, and they declared
all that God had done to them. 5 But there rose up certainly
the seed of the Pharisees, which believed saying that it was needful
to circumcise them and command them to keep the law of Moses. You've got to keep the law of
Moses. You can't be holy. You can't be pure. You won't
live right if you don't keep the law of Moses. That's the
way we're sanctified by the law of Moses. That's what they were
saying. But look what Peter said here in verse 9. He said, God
put no difference between us, we Jews, and those Gentiles purifying
their hearts by faith. Purifying their hearts by faith.
Look what faith will do. It will purify your heart. Brothers
and sisters, I say this with all sincerity and honestly. Whatever instructions I have
received by looking to the law of Moses, I can honestly say I have not
received any comfort from it. I have not received any strength
from it. Have you? No. You know, we are told by
some very dear brethren, Horatius Bonar, that we are bound, a Christian
is bound, that is the word that he loved to use, bless his heart,
a Christian is bound to keep this law. As soon as you take your eye
off Christ, or as soon as you try to keep one eye on Him and
one eye on Moses, I'll tell you exactly what's going to happen.
You'll grieve your heart to death. I had a fellow, there was a fellow
that worked with my oldest son, and he's some weird looking fellow. I met him one time, and he could
stand, and he could take this eye and look that way, and this
eye and look this way. The strangest looking fellow
I've ever seen. He could look east with one eye
and west with the other eye. He said, I can't do it alone,
it just gives me a splitting headache. I thought, I imagine,
I imagine. It gives me a headache, a heartache,
when I try to look to Christ with one eye and look to Moses
with another. Don't you? Christ came into this
world and bore the judgment of that law in his own body, fulfilled
all its demands, put it in his heart and magnified it and honored
it. And now it's satisfied. And I tell you, when we love
that law, it's when we see it fulfilled in our mediator. If
you try to look to Him with one eye and to Moses with another
eye, you're going to get so grieved and you're going to get self-righteous
or you're going to get in despair. But I tell you, when you look
to Christ who has fulfilled that law, you know what you'll do?
You'll say, oh, how I love this law. I delight in this law. When you find out you're free
from it is when you delight in it. If we're bound by it in any
sense, You're not under the law, but under grace. You know what
happens then? It's a mysterious thing. Your
heart becomes pure. Then you delight in the Lord
who fulfilled the law in your place. You delight in Him who
took away your sins. Then you're pure. What does it
mean to be pure? One of the definitions of being
pure is without sin, without spot. But you say, Bruce, I don't
see myself that way. Well, it's not what you see.
It's what He sees. When I see the blood, I'll pass
over you. You know those that were in the
house down in Egypt, they couldn't see the blood. It was on the
outside of the door. They were on the inside. Their
faith was in this. He sees the blood. And when He
sees the blood, He passes over me. And our faith is in Christ,
that when God looks upon him, he sees no sin. And that purifies
the heart. That releases you from guilt,
from bondage, and you can serve him with delight. And that purifies
the heart. That purifies the heart. We can't
serve the Lord. We can't delight in Him without
faith in Christ. You just can't do it. Faith in
Him and what He's done on our behalf in satisfying God in everything
for us, that's what puts the heart at rest and puts the heart
at ease. And I tell you what, you look to Him. You keep an
eye looking to the Lord Jesus Christ. That will purify your
heart. That will do for you what the
Law of Moses can't do. Well, the Law of Moses showed
you a sin. That's good. That's good. That's what it's
there for anyway. But if you take your eye off
Christ, you'll stir in your sins in the face. And you'll stir
in death in the face. He purifies our hearts by faith. That's the mystery. And the world
don't understand it. Oh, you're going to live like
the devil. Just believe in Christ and live
like the devil. Man, you just don't understand the mystery
of this faith, because it purifies the heart. The simplicity, the effortlessness
of believing. A man is going to believe probably
when he gives up and quits trying. That's why faith in the Scripture
sometimes goes under the word of rest. Rest. When you get tired of trying
to believe, and you just believe. Rest in the Lord. When I was young, it was the
same way. You could be tired, and boy,
you could lay down and just sleep. You rested. You know why? Nothing
concerns you. When you're 19, 20 years old,
what bothers you? It didn't matter if you had all
kinds of debt. It didn't matter if a house was leaking. It didn't
matter. You're young, careless. You just
lay down in the midst of it all. And the ceiling leaking all around
you. And what do you do? You just rest and rest and rest.
Now, you wake up at 5 o'clock in the morning and you can't
go back to sleep. Because you've got all this mind
cluttered with everything and you can't rest. But if you can
just put everything out of your mind, you can rest, can't you? That's what faith is. Forget about everything else.
Forget about doing. Forget about failures. Forget
about what you ought to have done. Get all that clutter and
just rest in Christ. Believers! I'm talking to believers.
Rest. That's what it is. The hardest
thing we ever do as believers is just rest in Christ. We'll
have all kinds of excuses for not doing it. But that's what
faith is. Entering into His rest. He says, I finished the work.
I finished the work of creation. That's done, ain't it? God's
not creating worlds today. He finished that. And He rested.
Wouldn't it be silly for us to be back? Wouldn't it be silly
for Adam to be back there running around thinking, boy, we need
to finish this. Wouldn't that be silly? And here
sits the Lord saying, Adam, Adam, I'm rested. And ain't it the
same way? Cross seated in heaven. He's
done everything. And us running around cluttered
up in our mind, oh, we need to do this, we need to do that.
No, He's resting. Enter into His The simplicity of it all just
would ask. Well, I said one more thing,
but here's the last thing. And here's the mystery of the
end of our faith. Look in 1 Peter 1. Great is the mystery of faith. 1 Peter chapter 1. Here's the mystery of faith.
And that's the end of it. The end of our faith. It's going
to end. There was a time when we didn't have it. And the Lord
gave it to us. And we live by faith now, but
it's coming to an end. And what's going to happen when
it does? But he tells us here in 1 Peter 1, and look in verse
8. Whom having not seen, we've never
seen Him, we love Him. We love Him because He first
loved us. We love Him because of what He's done for us. I love
the Lord because He's heard my voice. Though now you see Him
not, yet believe Him. You rejoice with joy unspeakable
and full of glory, receiving the end of your faith." And what
is that? Receiving the salvation, the
complete and eternal salvation of your soul. You say, Bruce,
I thought we were already saved. We are. And we are being saved. And we shall be saved. But I
tell you, that salvation at the end of the way All the half has
never been told. And you know what? It's so mysterious.
We don't know hardly anything about it. Paul said to be absent
from the body is to be present with the Lord. But what will
that be like? What will it be like to leave
this body of corruption and sin and to be free from it and to
rise there in heaven and to look upon the face of the Lord Jesus
Christ? What will that be? You remember in Pilgrim's Progress,
when Christian and Hopeful, and Bunyan was over at the side,
he was the dreamer, and he said he saw Christian and Hopeful
enter the gate. And he was trying to get around
people where he could see what was going on in there. And he
got just a little glimpse, how wonderful, how glorious it
was inside that gate. And he said, oh, I so envied
to be among them. What will it be like? It's a
mystery. It's a mystery. But, O my soul,
we wait. We wait. We wait for this faith
that we've been living by so long to end in sight. The mystery of faith. May God bless His Word.