LESSON ONE * PART I
BOOK 3 of CONNECTING THE DOTS
Genesis – Revelation (Dispensational View)
It's good to see everybody in again this
afternoon as we begin Book 76. For
those of you out in television, we thank you for joining us and studying with
us. My, our letters just keep
encouraging us more and more, that for the first time in people's lives they're
enjoying their Bible. They're studying it, and they're reading it. And that just thrills us that we're getting
people to finally do what God really expects.
Because this Book, as I've said a hundred times on this program, was
made in such a way that plowboys in
So anyway, we're going to come right back to
where we left off with Connecting the Dots
of Scripture. We started this
series with Book 74 when we started in Genesis. It's just sort of an overview instead of verse-by-verse
like we've done for the last 16 or 17 years.
We're just doing a fast overview. We're following the timeline as we
come up through the Old Testament.
We've now come through the four gospels and the
Book of Acts. We have just come past Saul's conversion, which means it's the
beginning of Saul's (Paul’s) ministry to the Gentiles. That's where we're going to pick up, now, in
the Book of Acts, if you will join me. Come back to chapter 13 where Paul and
Barnabas have just begun their ministry to the Gentile world. Having left
Acts 13:5-7
“And when they were at
Now, do you get the picture? Here we have a Gentile that is open to the
Scriptures, and Paul and Barnabas are attempting to get to him so that they can
lay it out in front of him. But this
fellow servant, who was a false teaching Jew, a sorcerer, did everything he
could to keep Paul and Barnabas from him in order for this deputy or this
governor not to hear the Word. Continue
reading with me and see what happens.
Acts 13:8
“But Elymas the sorcerer (for so is his name by
interpretation) withstood them, (See?
Held them at bay and wouldn't let them see the deputy, or the governor.)
seeking to turn away the deputy from the faith. 9.
Then Saul, (who also is called Paul) filled with the Holy Spirit, set his eyes on
him,” Now, this is not just a response of an angry Jew against another
Jew. This is God's chosen apostle to the
Gentiles filled with the Holy Spirit.
Now look what he does. He sets
his eyes on him, and he says to this false teaching Jew--
Acts 13:10-11
“And said, O full of all subtilty and all
mischief, thou child of the devil, thou enemy of all righteousness, wilt thou not
cease to pervert the right ways of the Lord? 11. And now, behold, (Paul puts it on him.) the
hand of the Lord is upon thee, and thou shalt be blind, not seeing the sun for
a season. And immediately there fell on
him a mist and a darkness; and he went about seeking
some to lead him by the hand.”
If you'll just turn the pages while we're in this
part of Acts to chapter 17, and now we get the big picture. Elymas the sorcerer was just a symbol, or a
picture or a type, of the nation of
Nationally these things happened, but that still
left the individual Jew with the opportunity for gaining salvation. So it isn't that it shut the Jew out
completely, but nationally they are no longer responding as the nation that
they were under Moses and so forth.
Now then, Paul and Barnabas come into their
ministry among the Gentiles. We pick them up again over in chapter 17, where
they have now begun their second missionary journey. They started up there at Philippi, and
they're coming down the Aegean coast in
Acts 17:5
“But the Jews who believed not, (That rejected Paul's
message now of Grace.) moved with envy, took unto them
certain lewd fellows of the baser sort, and gathered a company, and set all the
city in an uproar, and assaulted the house of Jason, and sought to bring them
out to the people.” In other
words, they were just adamant in their opposition to anything that Paul was trying
to do. And then verse 8.
Acts 17:8-9
“And they troubled the people and the rulers of
the city, when they heard these things. 9. And when
they had taken security of Jason, and of the other, they let them go.” All right, now as you follow on down, you see
that as Paul and Barnabas continue their ministry, it is constant opposition
from the unbelieving Jew. Now, when I say unbelieving, it is that they could
not recognize that Jesus was the Christ.
They were still orthodox. They
were still in their Judaism, but they could not accept that Jesus was the
Christ.
Here we have the fore view, then, that this Jew
on the
Here again, this is what God finally did with
the nation. Now remember, I'm emphasizing that individuals can still be saved,
but nationally the majority are rejecting everything.
Romans 11:6
“And if by grace, then is it no more of works:
otherwise grace is no more grace. But if
it be of works, then is it no more grace: otherwise
work is no more work.” In other words, you
can't have both ways. It's either works
or it's Grace.
Now under Judaism, of course, it was primarily
works. We're going to look at that
later. But under Grace, it's without
works—now verse 7.
Romans 11:7a
“What then?
Just get rid of all these Gentiles and their
oppression, and they could have what we call Shangri-La or whatever, or utopia;
if they could just get rid of all these Gentile armies. So they had that in their mind that that's
what they were looking for. But they
didn't want to do it God's way. They
wanted to do it their way, just like people today. And that was their problem.
You know, I've shared this I think more than
once on the program. One of the first
times that Iris and I were in the Holy Land, we were in
That's exactly what Paul is talking about clear
back in his day. They couldn't accept the fact that God still wanted to do all
these things God's way. No, they wanted
to do it their way.
Romans 11:7
“What then? Israel hath not obtained that which he seeketh
for; but the election hath obtained it, and the rest
were blinded.” Just the small percentage of Jews that did
become believers is called the remnant. So the election hath obtained it, and the
rest, the vast majority, were what? Blinded. Not physically, but to spiritual things. Just exactly like the type that was set with
Elymas. He was blinded physically, but
it was a symbol of
All right. Now
Romans 11:25a
“For I would not, brethren, that ye should be
ignorant of this mystery,…” And I'm going to be coming
back to it. It's one of the mysteries
that I'm going to touch on in the next few programs.
Romans 11:25b
“…lest ye should be wise in your own conceits; (Now here is this
mystery. No other portion of Scripture
ever explained it to the point where people could believe it until we get to
this apostle.) that blindness in
part (a spiritual blindness) has happened to
Well, what's the fullness of the Gentiles that
Paul is talking about? The Body of Christ. When
the Body of Christ, the out-calling of Gentiles that we're going to pursue now
in a little bit—when the out-calling of Gentiles is complete and we're out of
here in the Rapture, then what can God do?
He can open the eyes of
God's not through with
Now that word after just reminded me of
another portion that we're going to look at.
Come back with me to Acts chapter 15.
And for sake of time, because we've looked at it several times, Acts
chapter 15 is a parallel with Galatians chapter 2. It's the
But anyway, here we are in the Acts account of
that
Acts 15:12-13
“Then all the multitude
kept silence, and gave audience (or listened) to Barnabas and Paul, declaring
what miracles and wonders God had wrought among the Gentiles by them. 13.
And after they had held their peace, (Everything quiets down. The
arguing stops with Peter, James, and John—who we're dealing with especially in
Galatians chapter 2.) James answered, saying, Men and brethren,
hearken unto me:” In other words, he's addressing his Jewish
congregation up there in
Acts 15:14
“Simeon (or Peter) hath declared (What took
place in the house of Cornelius back in Acts 10.) how God
at the first did visit the Gentiles, (Now watch the language.) to
take out of them (Who are the them? Gentiles. See, you've got to watch your pronouns. God is going to take out of the Gentile world
not everybody, but a small percentage.) a
people for his name.”
Of course no one but Paul ever uses the term the
Body of Christ, but here it is. Even
though Peter, James, and John didn't understand that that's what it would be
called. All they realize is that there are going to be Gentiles called out of
their paganism, or whatever, to become part of God's own modus operandi. Which when we get to Paul will be called the
Body of Christ.
So at the first, in Acts chapter 10, when Peter
went to the house of Cornelius, he witnessed that God would save Gentiles by
faith right on the spot—without repentance, without water baptism, without
anything else. Now verse 15—James is
still speaking.
Acts 15:15-16a
“And to this agree the words of the prophets: as
it is written, 16. After this…” See, that's what made me think of it. After what? After God has called out a people for His name
as we saw in verse 14. Or we could say, after the Rapture and the
Body of Christ is removed from the earth to Heaven. See how it all fits?
Acts 15:14b
“…to take out of them a people for his
name.” That’s when the fullness
of the Gentiles is brought in. So the
question is—when will that happen? “After this”—as we see in verse 16. So after this, the prophet says:
Acts 15:16
“After this I will return, (At His Second Coming! And,
of course, he's merely the spokesman for God Himself. So God says, I will return--) and will
build again the tabernacle of David, which is fallen down; and I will build
again the ruins thereof, and I will set it up:” That is when God shall set up His 1,000 year
earthly Kingdom after the Tribulation. And
the other word for tabernacle was temple, remember? He’ll rebuild again the tabernacle of David
which is fallen down and has been now for almost 2,000 years.
He goes on to say in verse 16, “and
I will build again the ruins thereof.”
Now, what does that mean? God is
still going to finish His Old Testament promises with the nation of
To rehearse their chastisement: well, first is
the Babylonian, remember. Then came the Roman invasion of A.D. 70. Now the one that is left is the seven years
of Tribulation and the Second Coming. Now
Amos has brought all three of these around. You can just jump in at verse 8 so
you get the flow, as I call it. Amos chapter 9 verse 8:
Amos 9:8
“Behold, the eyes of the Lord GOD are upon the
sinful kingdom, and I will destroy it (See what I talked about? The bad things
happen before the good things?) from off
the face of the earth; saving that I will not utterly destroy the house of
Jacob, saith the LORD.” See,
He's not going to totally annihilate them.
There's going to be a nation of
Amos 9:9-10
“For, lo, I will command, and I will sift the
house of
In other words, they rebel against all of God's
overtures. But now verse 11—after all the chastisements, after the horrors of
the tribulation are past, here comes the promise. And this is what James quoted.
Amos 9:11-12a
“In that day (When God is ready to
come back and finish His work with
And then you come down to the verses at the end
of the chapter. We might as well read them, because this is
Amos 9:13-14
“Behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that the
plowman shall overtake the reaper, and the treader of
grapes him that soweth the seed; and the mountains shall drop sweet wine, and
all the hills shall melt. (That is with blessings.) 14. And I will bring again the
captivity of my people of Israel, and they shall build the waste cities, and
inhabit them; and they shall plant vineyards, and drink the wine thereof; they
shall also make gardens, and eat the fruit of them.”
Do you see what that is? That's just fantastic production. That’s the milk and honey that
Amos 9:15
“And I will plant them upon their land, and they
shall no more be pulled up out of their land which I have given them, saith the
LORD thy God.” Well, when will it happen? After the Church has been completed and taken
out of the way. Now, that brings me back
to what I call the third reason that we can open up the timeline scripturally. We
have to do it scripturally; otherwise, we're just pulling it out of the woodwork,
as I said. But here we're going to have
the third reason.
The first one was that Elymas was a type of
I want to come back to that one now for the last
few minutes of this half hour. Come back
to Romans chapter 11 to, again, show that we have to have a break in the Old
Testament timeline. We've already got
it up here, so I better use it. Here we
come. We've come all the way out of the
Old Testament and up through the prophets since the Babylonian captivity in 606
B.C. Then
After He ascended back to glory, Peter and the Eleven thought that they'd go right on through into the
seven years of Tribulation and then the Second Coming and the Kingdom Age would
appear. Well, you see, that's where
most of replacement theology is even today.
They totally ignore this second line that has the Body of Christ here. They think everything just keeps on going
up here on the top line.
Well, years ago now, we taught those little
epistles at the back—Peter, James, John and Jude. And I know I shocked a lot of people. All those little epistles were written to
believing Jews in this point in time here between the ascension and the
Tribulation. The Tribulation certainly
hadn't started, but they thought it would at anytime. Here they are. So, all those little Jewish epistles were
written to believing Jews to prepare them for the horrors of the
Tribulation. They knew that if they
could get through it, they would have the glories of the Kingdom. It’s so plain.
But what nobody understood, and a lot of
Christendom today can't understand, is that God stopped the timeline right
there, and now we drop down to this one (Body of Christ). And we open up to what Paul refers to. We're
going to look at that all afternoon and maybe the next taping. But we open up this parenthetical period of
time that we call the Dispensation of Grace, where God is calling out the
Gentile Body of Christ. And when it's
full and out of the way, yes, then He's still going to finish this program up
here on the top line with the nation of
They just ignore Paul. It's just unbelievable the mail that we
get. I had one come—maybe I referred to
it before. I know I did to a couple of
my classes. I had a lady in a far part
of the country write me. And across the top of her newspaper she wrote “Now I
see what you mean when you say that people hate Paul.” Well, there was a letter to the editor in
there, and it was the most venomous language you could ever imagine and still
be printable—all against the Apostle Paul.
Some of the language was—they kicked him out of
Now, if you've got Romans 11:25, let's look at
it again.
Romans 11:25a
“For I would not, brethren, that ye should be
ignorant of this mystery,…” This secret that was
never mooted or hinted at anywhere else in Scripture except for what we read in
Amos. But what could you take out of
that if you didn't know it after the fact?
Nothing.
And the same way with other little statements. It didn't mean a thing until after it was
fulfilled.
It was a secret that was kept in the mind of
God. And what was the secret? That
Romans 11:25
“For I would not, brethren, that ye should be
ignorant of this mystery, lest ye should be wise in your own conceits; that
blindness (a
spiritual blindness) in part has happened to Israel, until
the fullness of the Gentiles be come in.” In other words,
But we're not going to make a big issue of it
that you have to see every Jew saved before anything can happen, because God
has His own time table for the nation of
LESSON ONE * PART II
BOOK 3 of CONNECTING THE DOTS
Genesis – Revelation (Dispensational View)
For those of you joining us on television, in
case this is your first time catching us, we're an informal Bible study. And hopefully, I don't preach at
anybody. We just simply let them see
what the Book says. To me that is
paramount to everything—just understanding what the Word of God itself
says.
Well, we've only offered one book over the years,
and we've still got it. It's a series of
88 questions and answers from our previous programs. If anyone out there is interested, you just
give us a call, and the girls will get it out to you. We send it out with an invoice, so you don't
have to pay for it until you get it.
It’s the best $11 you will ever spend.
We're going to pick right up where we left off
in our last program. Now remember, we're
connecting the dots of Scripture by going from Genesis, and hopefully we'll go
all the way through to Revelation if the Lord tarries. But in the last half hour, we merely showed
our proof that there would be an opening up of the timeline. Because those three references we used make
it so plain that for a period of time Israel will be set aside and be dispersed
while God goes to the Gentiles.
Now naturally, when you have two such totally
different groups of people as Jews and Gentiles, you can't go with the same
thing. It just wouldn't ring true. So when God saves Paul, He doesn't just have
him go back and check with the twelve disciples, as we saw in previous
programs. Instead, He separated him
purposely, kept him from the twelve, so that he would not get mixed up with the
Kingdom economy. Because He's going to
begin something totally different with Paul, which we
call the Dispensation of the Grace of God as seen in Ephesians 3:2.
Now, I'm well aware that there are a lot of
people out there that detest the term dispensation. In fact, I had one fellow in my class one
time who just suggested to his pastor, why don't you ever preach a sermon on
the Rapture? He looked at him in shock,
and he said, “I wouldn't dare do that.”
He said, “Why not?” He said,
“Well, then they'd call me a dispensationalist.” As if that's the worst thing that can happen. I am aware of that.
And those of you who have been with me over the
years—I never used the word for the first eight or nine years, because I knew
it would turn a good number of people off.
So I would just speak of it in general terms. Don't you realize that when Adam and Eve came
out of the garden, everything was different?
When Noah and the family came off the ark, everything was
different? After God called Abraham, everything
was different? After God brought
So, after realizing that God was going to open
the timeline and make a parenthetical period of time, we don't know how long,
we call it the Dispensation of the Grace of God. And it came about through God's appointed
Apostle of the Gentiles, Saul of Tarsus.
I'm going to bring you now, just as an introduction to the
dispensational view, to Ephesians chapter 3.
We'll start at verse 1. Now
remember, Saul of Tarsus—the rabid, orthodox, rabbi, Jew—whatever you want to
call him, remember that God saved him on the road to Damascus and then
immediately instructed him that He was going to go to the Gentiles, which God
had never before done.
Ephesians 3:1
“For this cause (Because of what he's
written in the first two chapters.) I, Paul, the prisoner of Jesus
Christ for you Gentiles.”
Now you've got to remember. Where
is Paul when he's writing? Well, he's in
prison in
Ephesians 3:2
“If ye have heard (And no doubt they had,
because after all, Paul's been out there now for 20 something years.) of the dispensation of the grace of God which is given me to
you-ward.” See, that's where we
get the title for this period of time.
It's the Dispensation of the Grace of God. Now again, I've got to qualify. A dispensation is simply a period of
time. It can be short or long or
whatever. That doesn't matter.
But a dispensation
is a period of time during which God lays on a segment of people that He's
dealing with a set of rules and directions.
Now for the simplest one, of course, I always go back to the Garden of
Eden. When Adam and Eve were in the
garden, God gave them instructions. He
said that every tree in the garden is for your enjoyment except those two over
there. The one was the Tree of Life, and
the other one was the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Of that tree, the Tree of the Knowledge of
Good and Evil, thou shalt not eat. Just simple directions! Everything else is yours to enjoy. And that's all there was to it. And that's why we call it the simplest
dispensation.
Now, we don't know how long they were in the
garden. There are all kinds of guesses
and so forth. Well, for however long they were in the garden,
that was all they had to do. Just simply refrain from eating of that one
tree. It was that simple. But they just couldn't cut it, and so they
ate. Well, when they disobeyed, they ended
that Dispensation of Innocence. God came
in with a judgment, a punishment, which required them to get out of the
garden.
Then a new dispensation began. So now, when Paul speaks of the Dispensation
of the Grace of God, he's speaking of this period of time following the death,
burial, and resurrection of Christ when He is turning away from Israel and
their whole system of Law and temple worship, and He's going to give to this
apostle what we call the Gospel of the Grace of God, which is I Corinthians 15:1-4. Now let's go back and look at it, even though
you all know it from memory. We keep
using it, and I'm finally getting some response. I had several write that their pastors are
actually using these verses in their preaching.
Well, praise the Lord, because here is the Gospel of the Grace of
God.
Now, again, it's not total. But there's enough of it here that you can
branch out and find the rest of it without any trouble. I Corinthians chapter 15 verses 1 through 4. So if somebody comes to you and says, well,
what's this Gospel that Les Feldick is talking about? You just tell them, well,
it's as simple as A, B, C. It's just simply believing in your heart for your salvation that Jesus
Christ, the Creator, God of the universe, went to that cross and died
and shed his blood, was buried three days and three nights and arose from the
dead.
That's it.
Believe it in your heart and God moves in and then everything else falls
into place. But here's where we have to
begin. I Corinthians
chapter 15. We might as well read
the whole four verses. We've got time
today.
I Corinthians 15:1a
“Moreover, brethren, (So Paul is talking to
Gentile believers over there at
And when he speaks of himself, it is I am “the”
apostle of the Gentiles, not “an” apostle.
That makes all the difference in the world. And that's what we have to recognize. Because
to this man and this man alone were these directions for this Dispensation of
Grace given. Let's continue on and get
back to our dispensational thought.
I Corinthians 15:1-2a
“Moreover, brethren, I declare unto you the
gospel
(the one and only) which I preached unto you, which also ye have received, and wherein ye
stand; (As a believer you are positioned.) 2. By which also ye are saved,…” It's by this gospel you are saved. Now, isn't that plain? It doesn't say this gospel plus something
else. No. It's by believing this gospel that we're
saved. And that's the all-inclusive word of Scripture. Salvation—to be saved, to be born from
above—and all these things are tied up with our faith in this gospel.
I Corinthians 15:2
“By which also ye are saved, if ye keep in
memory what I preached unto you, unless ye have believed in vain.” In other words, you have to know what you
believe. You have to understand it,
otherwise it's for nothing. Now here it
is. This is the gospel!
I Corinthians 15:3-4
“For I delivered unto you first of all that
which I also received, (Well, where did he get it?
From the Twelve? No. But
rather from the ascended Lord.
The Twelve never fully understood it.) how that
Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures; 4. And that he was buried
and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures:”
Now, there it is. Christ died for my sins and that, of course,
includes His shed blood. He was buried
three days and three nights, and then He arose from the dead in power and
victory and glory, and that settled it.
That makes our debt paid in full when we believe it for salvation and
trust it plus nothing.
I don't know if I should take time this
afternoon or not. Maybe this is as good
a time as any. I've been doing research,
just in between when I can, to find the history of the 1611 King James Version
and how it came about. But not just the
King James Version, along with that I was studying in my spare time -- now, I'm
not one of these guys who just sits there by the hour and the hour and the
hour. I don't have patience for that. But I can get a couple, three hours in an
evening once in a while and maybe a little time on a rainy day and so
forth. But I'm not a nut at this.
But in between times, now, for the last several
weeks, I've been looking at the history of the King James as over these other
translations, and also the history of Christendom. Now, you'll hear me use that word quite
often—Christendom with a D-O-M—speaking of all aspects of so-called
Christianity. And, you know, it was a
shocking revelation—because we've all heard of the early church fathers: Justin
Martyr and Chrysostom and Origen, and then we jump up to Augustine and so
forth.
Well, you know, those church fathers didn't have
it all right either, especially Origen.
He was a rascal. And he had a lot
of corrupt ideas. In fact, Origen -- now
I don't know if I'm pronouncing it right.
I've looked and looked and tried to find a dictionary that gives me the
pronunciation and I can't find it. So if
somebody will let me know. But it's
O-R-I-G-E-N. I can give you the spelling
of it. But anyhow, he's in the first century. He's within a hundred years of the Apostle
Paul. And he was the first of the church
fathers to come up with the idea that God was all through with the nation of
Now, you've got to realize that between the loss
of Paul and Peter, probably around A.D. 68, just before the
But anyway, if you go back and look at it, these
little groups of people, like humans are prone to do, would say, well, let's
just get together once a month and we can fellowship in a larger group. Well, that's all well and good. But as time went by, there were too many of
them to all go, so what would they do?
Oh, they'd form a committee. And
boy, you know what a horrible thing a committee is. Then these committees would meet, and after a
time they said, well, now you know, there's a group of our committees over
there in North Africa, and we're over here in
And that's the way the thing started
growing. And so it was. It was growing rather slowly. But then you get to A.D. 315, one of the high
marks in human history, and what happened?
Constantine, the Roman emperor, became a quote, unquote Christian. And what did
But outside of this big conglomeration, there
were always these little, small groups of true believers; and they were always
hated, persecuted, and driven from one valley to the next. Okay.
Now you come on up to A.D. 400, about 75 or 80 years after
Just look at how long we've had this idea that
we teach suppressed. The masses embraced the replacement theology, and
replacement theology rests primarily—not exclusively, of course—but primarily
on the four gospels. And as one writer
of history put it—and I'd never seen it in that way before—they rested only on
the Sermon on the Mount. Well, now, you
just watch even today your news reports.
How they'll refer to the fact that Jesus and the Sermon on the Mount is
what transformed the world. Did it? Not
really. Now, it's got high, lofty
premises, no doubt about it. But see,
that's not what transformed lives.
So anyway, Augustine picked up on Origen's
replacement theology and, with the mass increase of the organized church, it
led up to? Roman Catholicism, of course,
is going to come out of that. So
replacement theology became the number one tenet for Christendom. What did that do with the Jew? Hated them. Persecuted them. And they were just running from one place to
the other. Okay. So Augustine was really the father of Roman
Catholicism. And out of that came, of
course, the appearance of the popes and the hierarchy and all the rest.
And now, if you know anything from secular history,
A.D. 500 to A.D. 1500 is called what in history? The dark ages. Well, what did that mean? The sun never shone? No.
Where was it dark? Spiritually. Because you see, the organized church now had
proclaimed that the average believer could not read the Scriptures
himself. So they confiscated the
Scriptures, really, and kept them locked up in the monasteries. The average man didn't have the Scriptures of
any sort—except, again, these little fringe groups maintained it.
Now you've come all the way up through the dark
ages. In A.D. 1500, or a little after, who was the great awakener? Martin Luther. So Martin Luther comes out with what we call
The Reformation—the idea that all this religion was totally wrong—the just will live by faith; they're saved
by faith. Which on the surface
sounds so good, doesn't it? But is that where Martin Luther stopped? No.
Martin Luther came right on and embraced all the other stuff that he had
been so-called hating. He brought it out with him and made it part of basic
Lutheran theology, and that incorporated, of course,
infant baptism and the hierarchy and replacement theology.
Now then, you just keep rolling. Out of Luther's reformation, here came the
next big reformer—John Calvin. Now John Calvin sets up his headquarters in
Now then, it jumps across the pond and we come
over here to the early colonies and especially the likes of the Puritans and so
forth. Oh, they were so thrilled to escape
that heavy hand of persecution in
Well, anyway, you bring it all the way up to our
present time. The vast majority of
Christian preaching and teaching is the four gospels, the Sermon on the Mount,
with a little bit of Old Testament thrown in, and that's where it's been. I mean, you can't argue it. It's in secular history just as plain as day. So now then, these fringe groups believed
like I do. So what am I? Yes, we're out on the fringes. The vast
majority of people aren't going to listen to my message. They don't like it. They hate Paul, as I've already
emphasized. But, you see, if you're going to ignore Paul, you're ignoring the basic
message for this Dispensation of Grace, because it was given to him to give to
us in the Body of Christ.
Okay. Now
there it is, all in a nutshell. And
don't take my word for it. I've got to
give you another one. I'm free. Here awhile back I had a gentleman call. I think from
Well, you see, I forget about the internet. Before the afternoon was over, he called
back—about 4 in the afternoon, and he said, “Les, you did.” I said, “I did what?” He said, “You blew me out of the
saddle.” I said, “Oh, are you the guy
that called about Lent?” And he said,
“Yeah.” I said, “What did you find
out?” He said, “Just that I couldn't
believe my eyes. There were several pages.”
I said, “Do you mean you've already been down at the library?” He said, “No, I got it off the
internet.” Well, dumb me, you know, I
don't think of that. So anyhow, I said,
“What are you going to do with it?” He said, “I'm downloading it. I'm going to lay it on my pastor's desk and
let him read it.”
Well now, I know many of you know what
Britannica says about Lent. But I'm not
going to tell you. I might get thrown
off the air. You go and find it
yourself. You just look up the word
Lent—L-E-N-T—in a good encyclopedia and it'll tell you exactly what it's all
about. But, you see, it's not in Paul's
epistles. It's not in Scripture.
Now come back to Ephesians chapter 3. I didn't intend to give you that
history.
Ephesians 3:2
“If ye have heard of the dispensation of the
grace of God which is given to me to you-ward:” Now, I've done this
before. This is all review. So, how did we get all of these doctrines of
this dispensation? From
Paul.
Now, if that shakes people up, then just go back
to Exodus. How did
Ephesians 3:3a
“How that by revelation,…” A revealing—a
supernatural outpouring from God in Heaven of these new directions for
mankind—mostly for Gentiles, but it's also applicable to
Now, in this period of time, just like the
period of time in the Garden, however long it was, that doesn't matter. But in
this period of time that covers the Dispensation of the Grace of God, we have
our own set of directions; just like Adam and Eve had—you can have everything
but that tree. Okay. Our set of directions is just about that
simple. And what are they? Recognize
that you're a sinner and you're lost.
And when you do, recognize that Jesus Christ, the Creator, the Son of
God, went to that Roman cross and shed His blood and died, was buried three
days and three nights, and God miraculously raised Him from the dead.
And that finished our plan of salvation. That's our directions. Now, is that so hard to follow? Now then, after you get the basic directions,
then naturally when we're a believer and the Holy Spirit comes in, we begin to
see all these other aspects of Scripture.
Then everything starts falling into place. In fact, let me show you what the Scripture
says about that very thing. Come back
with me to I Corinthians. I think we
touched on this recently. I Corinthians
chapter 2 verses 13 and 14. Now, this is
all part of our instructions after we've become a believer.
I Corinthians 2:13-14
“Which things also we speak, not in the words
which man's wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Spirit teacheth; comparing
spiritual things with spiritual. (We
compare Scripture with Scripture, not Scripture with some secular book.) 14.
But the natural man (the unsaved person) receiveth not the things of the
Spirit of God: (The Holy Spirit can't deal with the unbeliever so far
as his daily experience is concerned.) for they (these things of the
Spirit) are foolishness unto him; neither can he know them, because they are
spiritually discerned.” He can't
understand these spiritual things. Now,
isn't that obvious? But we have to start
with the basics, and that is we have to believe the Gospel. And once we believe the Gospel for salvation,
then everything else falls into place.
LESSON ONE *
PART III
BOOK 3 of
CONNECTING THE DOTS
Genesis –
Revelation (Dispensational View)
Okay, it is good to see everybody back again. We’re
going to keep right on going. We’ve got
so much to cover, and of course it’d be great if the Lord came before we
finished today. I’m ready, so I wouldn’t
mind a bit.
We’ll pick up where we left off on Paul’s revelation
of what we call the Dispensation of the Grace of God. It is something totally different from what
God was doing with
And it’s working, because the girls in the office hear
it everyday. How many people are finally
seeing it for the first time, and it just thrills us beyond your
imagination. All right, chapter 3 of
Ephesians, we’ll pick up where we left off, but we’ll go back to verse 1 as a
refresher.
Ephesians 3:1
“For this cause (because of the first two chapters) I Paul, the prisoner of Jesus
Christ for you Gentiles.” Paul is in prison in
Ephesians 3:2
“If ye have heard of the dispensation of the grace of
God which is given me to you-ward:”
Well, we covered that in the last half hour.
It’s obvious that we pick up all of these doctrines of Paul in his
epistles. You can find them nowhere
else, and we’re going be looking at them this half hour. One of our brothers
has been kind enough to put them on the board for me.
Ephesians 3:3a
“How that by revelation (from the ascended Lord in Heaven) he
made known unto me the mystery;…” Now there the word is singular, so it
envelopes all the mysteries that become part of this Dispensation of the Grace
of God. All right, we’ll just run over
them quickly.
Here we start with eight distinct mysteries that Paul
reveals in various places throughout his letters. We’re going to look at them
one by one, but let’s just go over them quickly. Number one, right back there in Ephesians
chapter 1, we have the Mystery of His
will. In other words, the will of
God concerning mankind.
We’re going see the Mystery of Christ in our next verse in Ephesians 3. We’re going to see the Mystery of the Body of Christ in Colossians 1. We’re going to see the Mystery of God in Colossians 2 and the Mystery of Godliness in I Timothy.
The Mystery of Israel’s Blinding,
which we talked about in the first half hour this afternoon—it was a mystery, a
secret. We’re going to talk about the Mystery of the Rapture.
And that’s exactly what Paul calls it in the very
first verse that he begins in I Corinthians 15 verse 51, where he says: “Behold,
I show you a mystery; We shall not all die, but we all shall be changed.” Well, it’s a mystery.
And then the final one, the eighth one is the Mystery of Iniquity that he speaks of
in II Thessalonians—when he makes the only reference in all his epistles to Old
Testament prophecy and that concerns the Mystery
of Iniquity.
So, we’re going be looking at all these mysteries. If
you put them all together in a circle, then you could call them singularly The Mystery—how all of this composite
work of God was poured out to this apostle, and by whom we have received
it. They become, then, our
dispensational directions or instructions or however you want call it. All right, verse 4:
Ephesians 3:4
“Whereby, when ye read, (In other words, we read his letters of Romans
through Philemon.) ye may understand my knowledge in (What?)
the
mystery of Christ.” Now, I hope
I can do this right. What word triggers
knowledge? Wisdom!! If you’ve got wisdom, you’re going to
practice what? Knowledge!
Now go with me to a verse that we look at so
often. I use it when people accuse me of
making too much of the Apostle Paul.
Keep your hand in Ephesians. Now
remember what words I’m talking about—wisdom
and knowledge—how that it is all part of this revelation of these truths
that were totally kept secret until it was given to this apostle. All right II Peter chapter 3 verses 15 and
16.
II Peter 3:15-16
“And account (or know) that the longsuffering (patience) of our Lord is salvation;…”
God is not willing that any should be lost, you know
that. Now reading on.
II Peter 3:15
“And account that the longsuffering of our Lord is
salvation; even (Now watch this
carefully.) as our beloved brother Paul also
according to the wisdom (and knowledge) given unto him hath written unto
you;” Well, where did he get it?
From the ascended Lord. And who is recognizing the fact? Peter.
Peter is telling his Jewish readers of that epistle
that since Judaism is now going through the cracks—God knows, as he inspired
Peter to write, that the Temple will be gone in just another 2, 3, or 4
years. The priests will be gone. So, what’s left for the Jew? Paul’s Gospel and that’s why he’s telling
them this—in view of what’s out in front now.
It isn’t going to be the Tribulation and the Second Coming and the
Kingdom that was just out in front of these Jewish believers. But now it’s going to be a period of time
called the Dispensation of the Grace of God.
And if you're going to cash in on that, Peter says, you’ll go back to
Paul’s writings; because that’s the only place you’ll find it.
When I talk to people on the phone, you know what I
always ask them? Why didn’t Peter say go
back to John’s gospel? That’s what most people tell you today. Well, if you're looking for salvation, go
read John’s gospel. Huh uh, Peter didn’t
do it. And I won't either. I never tell anybody go read John. I tell everybody, you go read Romans through
Philemon, because that’s where it’s at. I want you to see that that’s what the
Scripture says. That’s not just my idea.
Peter says, you go to Paul because
of the wisdom that’s been given unto him and he has written it unto you. And then verse 16:
II Peter 3:16a
“As also in all his epistles,…” I think he’s referring to Hebrews.
But I think when he says up here that he has already
written unto you, he was referring to the Book of Hebrews. Because that’s where
Paul is appealing to the Jew who is contemplating his message, but they still
have one foot over the fence in Judaism.
And the word that Paul uses all through Hebrews is better. Yes, Judaism was good in its day and time,
but this is so much better. Yes, the Law
was good, but Grace is better. And all
the way through the Book of Hebrews—just look for it. You got that word better, better,
better. All right, so Peter understands
that, and he says, you go to Paul but not just
Hebrews. Verse 16:
II Peter 3:16a
“As also in all his epistles, speaking in them of
these things; (pertaining to
salvation) in which are some things hard to (in his epistles) be
understood,…”
You’ve all heard this one before, and it’s hard to comprehend. But I can
get an idea why Peter said this, because he was so steeped in legalism himself,
and God didn’t really expect him to embrace all this.
I think Peter was kept separate providentially. But then Peter includes all these other false
teachers that are unlearned and unstable down in this verse, and what do they
do with Paul’s epistles? They twist them
all out of shape, so that they lose all their meaning. And they do it with the other Scriptures, and
what’s their end result? Their
destruction! Now that’s tough language.
Okay, back to Ephesians we continue on with what Paul
calls the Dispensation of the Grace of God—which is really the revelation of
all these mysteries. And when you put
them in a composite, it’s The Mystery, something that has never been
revealed. Now again,
just look at them. They are all
from Paul’s epistles, and not one of these premises can you find anywhere else
in Scripture. Try it. You won't find
it. And that’s why it’s called a
mystery. It was kept secret since the age began and revealed only to this
apostle.
In fact, if I remember right, the last moment of our
last taping, come back with me. I’m pretty sure we were in Romans chapter
16. Jerry, maybe you remember. Was it?
Yeah. Romans 16, lets go back
there a minute. Now I’ve got to keep
hammering away and hammering away and hammering away, because little-by-little
you’re going see it. Some of you may see
it a lot faster than others. But I’ve got to remember that I’ve got that TV
audience out there, and fortunately I forget about them. Do you know that?
Romans 16:25a
“Now to him
(Remember, this is all Holy Spirit inspired. Paul didn’t sit there in some
conclave all by himself debating, how can I put this? What words should I
use? No, it just flowed like a river. And he says,) now to him that
is of power to establish you according to my gospel, (And what’s
Paul’s gospel? Faith
in the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.) and the preaching of Jesus Christ according to
the revelation of the mystery,…”
The Mystery—Paul’s Gospel is going to fit
hand-in-glove with every one of these. All except the very last one, which is the mystery of iniquity. Which, of course, is the
other side of the coin. But all
of this is part of Paul’s revelations.
Romans 16:25b
“…which was kept secret (How long?) since the ages
began.” Where does that begin? With Adam? See, it
has never been revealed before. Oh, maybe in a latent form. Yes, all the ground
work was being laid all the way up through the Old Testament for the work of the
cross. But to reveal it to mankind as a
means of justification and redemption and forgiveness and all these good
things—no, it is not it back there. The
only places you’ll find it are in Paul’s epistles.
All right so now come back to Ephesians chapter 3,
again, to this mystery. Paul’s knowledge of the mystery of Christ, which—like
he says here in verse 5, just like in Romans 16:
Ephesians 3:5
“Which in other ages (Or dispensations, or periods of time,
however you want to put it.) was not made known unto the sons of men, as it
is now revealed unto his holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit;” Now be careful, it wasn’t revealed to the
Twelve. So he’s not talking about the
prophets and the apostles of
You’ve got to remember, how many years has this Gospel
of Grace been going to the Gentile world without benefit of one page of Paul’s
epistles? How long? Well, about 15 years. He began his ministry about A.D. 40. I don’t
think he wrote Thessalonians until about A.D. 54. That’s 14 years. So for about 14 years these early little
congregations had no benefit of anything written. So, what did they depend on? Gifted men. And that was the gift of prophecy.
Now, let me show you that—I Corinthians chapter 14
verse 1. Paul is writing to the
Corinthian church and he says:
I Corinthians 14:1
“Follow after charity, (love) and desire spiritual gifts, but rather (or
the most important) that ye may prophesy.”
Now the word prophesy here in the Greek does not mean to tell the future
like Isaiah did, but it meant to speak forth.
Well, if it hadn’t been for gifted men, Christianity
would have died almost immediately, because Paul couldn’t do it all alone. After he established a little congregation of
believers up there, somebody had to carry it on. Well, who did it? Gifted men. Now once the Scriptures became a completed
thing, and Paul’s epistles are now available for all, then that gift died
away. It was no longer necessary to that
extent. Always understand that. That’s
why I love history. I mean, you’ve got
to understand how these things came about before it makes sense. Now back to Ephesians chapter 3, again. That it was revealed to not only Paul, but
his fellow apostles and prophets by, again, the Holy Spirit. Now verse 6:
Ephesians 3:6a
“That the Gentiles (See, a totally different
approach than when He was dealing with
Back up with me to Romans. I don’t know how many of you folks in here
watch the daily program, but I think we’ve been in Romans lately. Romans chapter 8, because you see, too many
times we read these words and it doesn’t mean anything. Gentiles coming in as
fellow heirs with the God of Israel?
Unbelievable! But that’s where they are, and that’s where we are. This is what made the Jews so envious. And, of course, that’s what God intended it
to do. He said in Romans 11 “that
He might make them jealous.”
Here we were as Gentiles reaping blessings that they could have had, but
they rejected.
Romans 8:14-15a
“For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, (the Holy Spirit) they are the sons (I
think a better word is children.) of God. 15. For
ye have not received the spirit of bondage (That’s a small “s,” so it’s
that spirit of our nature.) again to fear; but ye have received the
Spirit (The Holy Spirit) of adoption,…” Of placing us, like the Father with a
business would bring his 14 year old son.
Remember, I’ve explained that over and over. That’s adoption. It’s to be brought in beside the Father with
full responsibility.
And the
Well, that’s where we are in the Body of Christ. You
see, it’s not heaven or hell, it’s a position.
All right, read on.
Romans 8:15b-17a
“…but ye have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby
we cry, Abba, Father. (Respect to
our position.) 16. The Spirit himself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the
children of God: (Not gods, but we are children of God. Now verse 17, here it comes.) 17.
And if children, then (What?) heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with
Christ;…” That
one verse, I don’t think many people believe that. I just don’t think that most Christians
believe that.
A joint-heir with Jesus Christ the
Creator of the universe. Well, what’s a joint-heir? Come on, tell me. What’s a joint-heir? What’s His is mine!
What’s mine is His! That’s it. What a position. No wonder the Jews were jealous. All they’re going to get is an earthly
kingdom. We’re gonna be joint-heirs with
Christ Himself. Not gods. Don’t ever get that idea. We never become
gods. But my goodness, we’ve become
joint-heirs with Christ. All right? Read on.
Romans 8:17b
“…joint heirs with Christ; if so be
we suffer with him, we may be also glorified together.” By virtue of that position. And we gain that position not with works, but
by our faith in that finished work of the cross. My, I don’t see how you can get it any better
than that. All right, come back to
Ephesians chapter 3. Our time is going fast again. Start at verse 6, just to read into verse
7.
Ephesians 3:6-7
“That the Gentiles should be fellowheirs, and of the
same body, (Of which, remember,
Christ is the head.) and partakers of his promise in
Christ by (faith in) the gospel. 7. Whereof (This gospel and
what it can do for lost humanity. Paul
said--) I was made a minister, according to the gift of the grace of God given
unto me by the effectual working of his power.”
Now, to show you the impact of that word minister, come back again to Romans
chapter 15. So you see what an important
word it really is when Paul says, that I am a minister of this Gospel of the
Grace of God. In Romans 15 verse 8—a
verse that I used several months back every time I had a class. Haven’t used it lately.
Romans 15:8
“Now I say that Jesus Christ was a (What?) minister (same
word) of the circumcision (the nation of
All right, now the Apostle Paul has that same kind of
authority. Not like Christ over
Ephesians 3:8a
“Unto me,
(unto this one man) who am less than the least of all saints, is this grace given,…” That unmerited favor. Paul didn’t deserve it, and neither do
we. Paul didn’t work for it. He didn’t go to school for eight years so he
could get a sheepskin that would now make him available. Huh uh, it was all by God’s Grace.
Ephesians 3:8b
“…that I should preach among the Gentiles the
unsearchable riches of Christ;”
What does that mean? My, what this man
has been permitted to feed to us is beyond human understanding. We just take
what little we grasp by faith. But it is
so unsearchable, beloved. We’ll never
understand it until we get there.
In fact, that’s getting to be one of my favorite
answers anymore. You know, they call me with these questions, and for a lot of
people it’s a point of controversy. You know what I say? Listen, if it doesn’t affect our eternal
destiny, if it doesn’t affect our Christian walk, then
forget it.
We’ll find out when we get there. I think that’s a good answer. A lot of these things we can't answer. Why argue about them? They’re not going to affect your eternal
destiny. They have nothing to do with the plan of salvation. If it doesn’t tell you to go out and live
like the world or something like that, if it still maintains our Christian
walk; hey, what difference does it make?
Now, I can give you one example. Genesis chapter 6 is a big chapter of
controversy—where it says “there were giants in the earth in those
days.” Now, you know, there are
two lines of theological thought. I’ve
got a chart at home with great men, famous men, on each side of the coin. Over here are men who say that these were
fallen angels who had actually had relationships with female women and they had
giant children.
Over on the other side are those that teach like I
always have, and I’m beginning to rethink it.
Maybe I’m wrong. That it was a
breakdown between the godly line of Seth and the ungodly line of Cain. That’s always been my take. But listen, what difference does it
make? If I win the
argument, so what? It’s not going
to make any difference.
So with a lot of these things now, that’s the way I’m
starting to answer people. I say, look,
if it doesn’t affect your salvation, if it doesn’t affect your Christian
testimony; hey, we’ll find out when we get there. Then we’ll get full knowledge, and if the
Lord wants us to know. I think it’s a
good way to look at a lot of these things.
All right, let’s go on a little bit yet in Ephesians, and then the half
hour is gone again. Now
verse 9. After contemplating the
unsearchable riches of Christ—unfathomable, we will never plum the depths. We
will never reach the height of them, but now verse 9. This was Paul’s goal as a human being, as an
instrument in God’s hands.
Ephesians 3:9a
“And to make all men see what is the fellowship of the
mystery,…” What do these seven premises do for you and
me as believers in our fellowship with one another? Why it just brings us together like
family. We are one in Christ. All right, the fellowship of the mystery and,
again, where did it come from?
Ephesians 3:9b
“…which from the beginning of the world hath been hid
in God,…” Now listen, that’s not there just to fill the
page. That’s what it means. These truths were hid in the mind of God!
Remember, I always go back to Deuteronomy 29:29: “The secret
things belong to the Lord our God, but those that are revealed belong to us and
our children.” All right, that’s
the concept all through Scripture. God
can keep things secret as long as He wants to, and He’ll reveal it in His own
good time.
All right, all the rest of Scripture never makes one
mention of these mysteries, not one except the iniquity. So, they are all Pauline revelations, and you
and I can just embrace them. And if
you're the only one in the whole family that believes it, hey, you are
blessed. You are the blessed one,
because you can see it, but most of Christendom does not buy it. They just can not believe it.
Okay,
we’re ready for the last program this afternoon, and then we’ll be heading out
for home. For those of you joining us
on television, again we want to thank you for your prayers more than anything,
but also for your letters and your financial help. Naturally, we can’t do this without it.
You
know, when we first came up here—I’ve got to tell things like this! This is what makes our program. When we first came up here to talk to these
station people—they’re the ones that called.
They wanted us to make a program.
So we came up and had a breakfast meeting with them and found out it was
going to cost us like $2,000 a month for one program a week and the production
end. Iris hadn’t said anything about the
meeting until we got to the car and she said, “Les, I thought they’d pay
us!”
Well
you know, I imagine a lot of people think that. Because where do people get all their
funds? Well, from what they do. So it was a logical response. We didn’t know
anything about TV. You know, as I always
tell people, we were the takers of a clod of dirt when it came to
television. But anyhow, here we are, and
we have to pay for TV time. The
television people don’t pay us a dime.
Okay,
we’re going to keep on the dispensational view.
We’re going to come back to these mysteries that we started in our last
lesson. For this next half hour, at
least the first part of it, we’re going to start at I Corinthians chapter
4. This is a little different approach. Paul is writing to the believers at
I
Corinthians 4:1
“Let
a man so account of us, as of the ministers (See, there’s that word again.) of
Christ, and stewards of the mysteries of God.”
What’s a steward? Well,
let’s look at Scripture. Go back to Genesis
chapter 15 – Abraham.
Genesis
chapter 15, but first let’s stop at chapter 12 and the Abrahamic Covenant. Just for a second so that you’ll know what
Abram, as his name was still, what he was up against.
Genesis
12:2
“And
I will make of thee a great nation,…” Now, that’s as
far as we’ve got to go to make my point.
What would Abraham have to have if a nation is going to come from
him? Children! How many did he have? None!
All
right, so here he’s getting almost befuddled with the idea—how could people
come from me and even my own wife Sarai when we don’t have a child? All right, now you come over to chapter 15
in Genesis and still no child. Still the
promises keep ringing in his ears.
Genesis
15:1
“After
these things the word of the LORD came unto Abram in a vision, saying, Fear
not, Abram: I am thy shield, and thy exceeding great reward.”
Now
verse 2, don’t forget the fact that Abram is 90 and Sarai is 80, and they still
won’t have a child until he is 100 and she’s 90. But nevertheless, they’re already past
childbearing age.
Genesis
15:2
And
Abram said, Lord GOD, what wilt thou give me, seeing I go childless, and the
steward of my house is this Eliezer of
And
we know that Abram had tremendous wealth.
He had men servants and women servants.
He had cattle and sheep and goats, and he couldn’t run it all himself.
So he had this steward, this overseer, this manager, Eliezer of Damascus. All right, now come back to I Corinthians 4
and maybe this verse will mean a little bit more to you.
I
Corinthians 4:1
“Let
a man so account of us, as of the ministers of Christ, and stewards (Or managers, overseers, promoters, all the things
that make an operation go. That’s what
we are to be. Not of a business, nor of
a farm and ranch operation, but of what?) of the mysteries
of God.”
So
every one of us as believers are stewards of this body of truth. It’s up to us to get it out in front of
people every opportunity that we get, in one place or another. You don’t have to use all of them at
once. But let people know – hey, this is
where it’s at! You won’t find this back
in the four Gospels. You won’t find this
back in the Old Testament. You won’t find
it in the Book of Revelation. You find
it only between Romans and Philemon.
That’s
why I’m constantly stressing—study Paul’s epistles. Now, you don’t throw the rest of your Bible
away. You know I don’t teach that,
because I just used it. Man, I love to
use Genesis. I love to use the
prophets. But I’m not going to take people back there to show them how to be
saved. I’m not going to take them back there to show them how to live the
Christian life in 2,000—wherever we are.
But we are to be stewards of these basic premises that we are calling
now the mysteries of Christ and God and so forth. All right, let’s read on here a little
bit—verse 2.
I
Corinthians 4:2
“Moreover
it is required in stewards, (overseers,
managers) that a man be found (What?) faithful.” Now I imagine everyone in this room has known
of someone who has been a victim of embezzlement or of a floor manager. I’ve known several in my lifetime who just
simply got taken to the cleaners by an embezzler. I think of another fellow who had managers of
his operation, and they stole him blind until he almost went broke. Well, you see, it’s the same thing in the
spiritual.
If
we are going to keep all this to ourselves and never pass it on, are we going
to enhance the Body of Christ? No. We’ve
got to share it. Like I said, you don’t
know all seven of these and pass them out at one time, but be ready. Be ready to share these things that most of
Christendom knows nothing of. They won’t
hear it. Most of Christendom don’t have a clue about these things, because they’ve never
been taught it. But this is where we
ought to understand that as believers in this Age of Grace, we are stewards. We
are household managers of this body of truth that we call the Dispensation of
the Grace of God.
All
right, I hardly know where to go first, because there is so much to cover, and
I don’t want to get it all mixed up. But
let me just continue on here in I Corinthians 4. Some of these verses disturb
people. Well, I can’t help it, because
it’s what the Book says. Come on over
with me now in this same chapter, I Corinthians 4, and go to verse 16.
Remember, what’s the basic instruction in the beginning of the chapter? Be
stewards and ministers of Christ of these mysteries of God.
Now
how are we going to be a good steward?
Well, we have to be taught. You
don’t just automatically come in and run somebody’s business without some
training. So, where do we get our
training? I Corinthians 4 verse 16, and
as I said, most won’t like this.
I
Corinthians 4:16
“Wherefore (Paul says by inspiration of the Holy Spirit. Not by Paul’s own ideas. But he says--) I beseech you, be ye followers
of me.” Most people say it should say Jesus. But it doesn’t. It says, “Be ye followers of me.” Paul.
Now don’t worry, I’m coming to the right point. Here’s I Corinthians chapter 11. Now verse 1, and now this will set your mind
at ease.
I
Corinthians 11:1
“Be
ye followers of me, (But don’t
leave the rest of the verse out.) even as I
also am of Christ.” Do you see
that? Now see, this Apostle had direct
communions with the Christ in Glory. He
had direct fellowship in more than one area.
In fact, let me give you an example.
I’ve got to back everything up with Scripture. I can’t help it.
Come
back with me to the Book of Acts chapter 22.
This is even besides his experience on the road to
Acts
22:17-18
“And
it came to pass, that, when I was come again to
All
right, then he actually argues with the Lord.
Acts
22:19
“And
I said, Lord, they know that I imprisoned and beat in every synagogue them that
believed on thee: 20. And
when the blood of thy martyr Stephen was shed, I also was standing by, and
consenting unto his death, and kept (or I held) the raiment of them that killed him.
Acts
22:21
“And
he, (the Lord Jesus) said
unto me, Depart: (Depart what?
All
right, let’s go over a little further to Philippians chapter 3 and verse
17. Now here are three distinct
instructions of who we are to follow.
And most of Christendom gets all bent of shape, and says, “I’m not going
to follow some man. I’m going to follow
Jesus.” Well, listen, God gave to this
man this place of Apostleship. Christ
Himself designated Paul as “The Apostle of the Gentiles.” And
as this man follows Christ, we are to follow him. And here’s the third one now in just these
few references, and there several more like them.
Philippians
3:17
“Brethren,
be ye followers together of me, and mark them who walk so as ye have us for an
example.” Now, how did Paul walk? Above reproach.
You
cannot find one word of Scripture that anybody ever had anything to malign the
Apostle’s Christian walk, if you want to call it that. Never!
He was above reproach. And he
suffered for it for twenty some years.
So when I maintain that as our Apostle this is where we are to spend our
time—in his letters—it is because they are God’s letters to us as Gentiles. And
it’s through his letters that we not only find Salvation, but the Christian
walk.
In
fact, let’s just go to Titus chapter 2 for a minute. Now who in the world can argue against these kinds
of admonitions? Titus chapter 2 verse
11.
Titus
2:11a
“For
the grace of God…” See, Paul is
always on that grace thing. We’re saved
by grace, we’re kept by grace, and we look forward to whatever eternity is
coming by grace. We don’t deserve any of
it.
Titus
2:11
“For
the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men.” No one is
going to be able to say, “I never had a chance.”
I
just told my class the other night here in
John
1:6-7
“There
was a man sent from God, whose name was John. 7. The same came for a witness,
to bear witness of the Light,
(Now the word Light is capitalized, so it’s a reference to Jesus Christ of
Nazareth.) that all men through him might believe.” How many?
All!
John
1:8
“He
was not that Light, (speaking of
John) but was sent to bear witness of that Light.” Now verse 9—my, this blows me away. I can’t explain it. I have to just leave it where it sits, and
you can do the same thing.
John
1:9
“That
was the true Light, (Jesus of
Nazareth in His earthly ministry) which lighteth every man that cometh into
the world.” How many? Every last one!
The Aborigines in the middle of
Romans
1:18-19a
“For
the wrath of God (Notice it
doesn’t say the love of God, but rather the wrath.) is
revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who
hold the truth in unrighteousness; 19. Because that which may be known of God
is manifest in them;…” In other words, God put
them in the spotlight. And there it
is. No argument.
Romans
1:19b-20
“…for
God hath showed it unto them.
(Shown what? Their
unrighteousness. Their wickedness.) 20. For the invisible things of him from the
creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are
made, even his eternal power and Godhead; (In other words, who He is.) so
that they (the unsaved multitude) are (What?) without excuse.” Now just let that soak in.
Every
human being is somehow or another enlightened enough where they could cash in
and have salvation, but they refuse to.
So when they come before the Great White Throne, they’re not going to
have one word of argument, because they’re going to know they are there without
any excuse. Now that’s one of the quirks
of Scripture. Like I said, I can’t
answer it. So we’ll just wait until we
get there. But it’s a fact that Christ
died for every human being that’s ever lived.
You
know, I get a lot of things in the mail.
And I had an interesting one. If
the lady is watching me, so be it, because I wrote back the very fact I’m going
to say now. A good friend of hers had
given her the previous Sunday’s service bulletin in which the pastor had an
article that I could agree with. I had
no problem. But this lady was all shook
up, and she wrote across the bottom. She
said, “Les, I don’t think I can agree with it.”
What
the pastor was pointing out was how Christ suffered so horrendously for the
sins of the world. And she didn’t think
she’d agree with it. So this is what I
wrote back. By the time this program
reaches her, she will already have read my letter. I said, “My dear lady. Now you’re talking like these Jesus Seminar
Liberals, who, the last comment I read from one was, ‘how in the world could
any Father cause his son to go through what Jesus went through?’” And that’s how they ridicule it. How would anybody with any common sense make
their son suffer like that?
So
I said you sound like some of these Jesus Seminars Liberals. I said, listen, the whole idea of His
suffering was that He was taking the sin debt for the whole human race. Not just a few, but for the whole human race.
I
gave her an example that we had experienced in
But
anyhow, the guy had our small group right there at the
I
stopped him right there. I said, now,
wait a minute. Don’t you understand the reason God set up that sacrificial
system? And there would be more of an impact if it was the household pet. But
it was that Jew’s sin that caused that animal to die. He had to see the horribleness of his own
sin.
Well,
the same way with the cross. We’ve got
to understand that when Christ suffered and died, He did that because of our
sin! And sin in the eyes of God is
awful! We’ve lost it. All right, so this is what we have to understand.
That God wasn’t being unfair to His Son.
He wasn’t being morbid. He was
doing what had to be done. Someone had
to suffer and die for the sins of mankind, and who could do it but God
Himself? He had to be God.
All
right, that was all free for nothing.
Come back to where we were in Titus, and then we’ll close. Titus chapter 2—this is what we mean by
following the writings of Paul. It’s so
logical. It’s so appropriate. Verse eleven again.
Titus
2:11
“For
the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men.” But for us who
believe, now the next verse kicks in.
The Grace of God teaches you and me as a believer, as a Child of God,
and as a Joint Heir with Christ. We’re
taught.
Titus
2:12
“Teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly
lusts, we should live soberly, (Now
that doesn’t mean that you can’t ever laugh or smile or have a good time.) righteously, and
godly, in this present world;”
Now,
where did the word Christian come from?
Christ-like. That’s right. To the pagan world it was actually a slur
term. When it first originated, the pagan’s put it on these believers who they
thought were Christ-like. They called them Christians. All right, that’s what they’ve got here. We
are to live Christ-like.
Now
there you go with the teachings of Jesus, and I have no problem with that. When he said that we are to be salt of the
earth, absolutely, we ought to be. Are
we to be the light? Sure, we’re to be
light. And so many other things that He
taught are certainly appropriate.
But,
by-and-large, we come back to how did the Apostle Paul put it? We deny
ungodliness. We deny worldly lusts and
desires. And instead we live soberly, we
live righteously, we live godly in this present world. Even in our daily life, this is how we are to
live. And at the same moment, while we
are living the Christian life—that doesn’t mean that you can’t pursue
happiness. It doesn’t mean that you
can’t pursue enough to leave for your kids.
In fact, Scripture admonishes us to.
Parents are there for children and not children for parents.
So,
there is not anything wrong with working and, as we say in
Titus
2:13
“Looking
for that blessed hope, (And
what’s the blessed hope for us as believers?) and the
glorious appearing of the great God and our Savior Jesus Christ:” And then see the next verse.
Titus
2:14
“Who
gave Himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto
himself a peculiar (or a set
apart) people, zealous of good works.”
Of course we’re going to do all we can to help our fellow man. Nothing’s better than to help someone who is
destitute, and that’s all part of our being stewards of the mystery.
Okay,
it’s good to see everybody in again this afternoon. We’ve got quite a few new
folks that have never been here before. So those of you out in television, if
you look over the audience, you’re going to see a few new faces this
afternoon. For all the rest of you
who’ve come in routinely, again we thank you for helping us out and being so
supportive.
We
always like to let it be known, every once in a while anyway, that we’ve still
got the Questions and Answers book for $11.
I don’t like to peddle them, but on the other hand we want to make
people aware that they are still available and very useful and informative and
make wonderful gifts.
Again,
I always have to thank my audience, all of you here and those of you out in
television, for your prayer support, for your letters, your comments…my, what
an encouragement it is to know that the Lord is using us to open the Scriptures
to so many. And we thank you for your
financial help. After all, television is
not free. And we do thank you for all of
that.
All
right, now for those of you in the audience here in the studio, you can see on
the board that we are going to start with the mysteries today. These mysteries
are scattered throughout Paul’s epistles.
I had the studio audience turn to Ephesians 1 verse 9, but I just
happened to think I’d better go back to Deuteronomy 29:29 once again for the
sake of new listeners. Most of you
regular listeners know this by memory, just from rote repetition. But it’s one of the most descriptive verses
for understanding what Paul calls the mysteries that were revealed to him and
him alone.
Deuteronomy
29:29—I always have to give credit for finding this verse to a dear gentleman
who was in one of my
Deuteronomy
29:29a
“The
secret things belong unto the LORD our God: (Now stop and think a minute. What does that mean? Well, exactly what it says. God is Sovereign. God is in total control; and He can do
whatever He wants, however He wants, whenever He wants. Now that’s what it means. He can keep things secret if He wants
to. But, see, the flip side is--) but
those things which are revealed (and are no longer secret) belong
unto us and to our children forever,…”
Of
course Moses is writing, so he’s speaking of the children of
Now
in Ephesians chapter 1 verse 9, we have an instance—it’s not the only one, not
even the first as far as that goes—but in Ephesians 1 verse 9 he says:
Ephesians
1:9
“Having
made known unto us the mystery of his will, (or the secret of His will) according to his good pleasure which he hath
purposed in himself:” Now see how I’ve already explained that with my
opening remark? Why is it according to
His good pleasure? Because He’s
Sovereign, and He can keep things secret until He’s ready to reveal it.
Now
here’s one of the revealed secrets that you will find only in the letters and
the epistles of Paul. It’s referred to here as “the mystery of His will.” Now, if you just read that casually, you
don’t think anything of it. But
hopefully I’m getting people to understand that you’ve got to stop and analyze
these things without just running by them. So what in the world is he talking
about that God’s will has been kept secret?
Now
maybe I’d better qualify that. Oh, I’ll
make it easy for you. Just turn over in
this same Book of Ephesians. There’s another one in Romans 16, but let’s use
the one in Ephesians chapter 3 verse 9.
We’ll be coming to it probably later this afternoon. If we don’t get it
here today, we’ll get it at our next taping.
But here is exactly what we have to understand—that these things that
Paul refers to as the mysteries are doctrines and tenets of our faith that were
never known anywhere else in Scripture.
This
is what makes Paul’s apostleship so set apart from all the rest of our
Bible. It is that all these things were
kept secret until revealed to this Apostle.
That’s what most of Christendom can’t understand. And, of course, the first reason they can’t
understand it is because they won’t read Paul.
In
fact, I don’t know if I mentioned it in my last taping or not. But one of my listeners, I won’t even name
the state. But in one of the far off
states, she sent me a clipping from her newspaper. And across the top of the newspaper she
wrote, “Les, now I understand what you mean when you say that people hate
Paul.” And then she had underlined one
of the letters to the editor. It was in
response to a letter that a pastor in their community had written being
critical of another liberal pastor, and he had evidently used some of the
quotes from Paul to make his point.
Well
now, this letter that she had outlined for me to read, I’ve got it in my Bible
here, but I won’t take time to read it.
But you cannot imagine the venom that can spew out of people’s mouths
when they start attacking the Apostle Paul.
And that’s what she was doing.
Just with venom, no Christian love whatsoever. She just ridiculed the man. How he was kicked out of
All
right, have you got Ephesians 3 verse 9, then I’ll get
back to the one I intended to start with.
In verse 9 he says:
Ephesians
3:9a
“And
(I want) to make all men see what is the
fellowship of the mystery,…” Now when he speaks of the mystery, he’s speaking
of this whole body of truth of these things that were revealed to this Apostle,
not counting the eighth one, because that’s back in the Book of Revelation
chapter 2. But these first seven
mysteries are our basic doctrine—that you will not find anywhere else in
Scripture. You just can’t find it. No use even wasting your time to look. All right, so back to my
verse in Ephesians.
Ephesians
3:9
“And
to make all men see what is the fellowship of the mystery, (or this huge compilation of secrets) which
from the beginning of the world (Now that takes us at least back to
Adam.) hath been hid (Where?) in
God, (That’s why He could keep it secret. It was within His makeup. So they have been
hid in God, the same God--) who created all things by Jesus Christ:” All
right, so that’s the whole concept that I want to have you see this afternoon.
It is that all these Pauline doctrines that he calls the mystery had never been
revealed before. You can’t find them in
the four gospels. You can’t find them in
the Old Testament. You can’t find them
in the little epistles at the end. They
are uniquely within the epistles of this Apostle.
All
right, so now let’s come back to our list of the mysteries. The first one we
have on the board.
Ephesians
1:9a
“Having
made known unto us the mystery (or
the secret) of his will,…” Now I’m going to stop right there. Now goodness sakes, we all know that
beginning with the human experience back with Adam and Eve, God’s will was
certainly exercised and made known.
Wasn’t it? In other words, so far
as Adam and Eve were concerned in the Garden, what was God’s will
concerning what they could or could not do?
Well, everything in the Garden is for you to enjoy except that
tree. So the will of God was expressed.
When
He dealt with Moses and He dealt with some of the other patriarchs and David
and the prophets, we know that God expressed His will. Now what’s the point I’m trying to make? Yet when it comes to you and me as members of
the Body of Christ, understanding the will of God is something so totally
different and superior than anything that ever went
before. And that’s what the average
believer does not comprehend. That we
are in such a unique position in God’s dealing with the whole human race. That as members of the Body
of Christ, we have an understanding of the will of God that even Adam didn’t
have. We have an understanding
that Moses did not have. We have an
understanding that Abraham and the rest of them didn’t have.
All
right, now let’s just see what the Scripture says about it. Continue on in Ephesians chapter 1 to see
what I’m driving at. Jump across, at
least in mine, to the other page. Go
over to verse 15 and see if we can get just a little better comprehension of
what Paul is talking about. This whole secret of a revealed will of God to you
and me as believers today compared to the rest of biblical history. All right, verse 15, now this is a prayer of
the Apostle on behalf of the Ephesian believers. He says:
Ephesians
1:15-17
“Wherefore I also, after I heard of your faith in the
Lord Jesus, and (your) love
unto all the saints, 16. I
cease not to give thanks for you, making mention of you in my prayers; (Now here is the Apostle’s prayer.) 17.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:”
Ephesians
1:18-19a
“The
eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that ye may know what is the hope
of his calling, and (Let
me repeat…and you may know--) what the riches of the glory of his
inheritance in the saints, 19. And what is the exceeding greatness of his power
to us-ward who believe,…”
Not
the rest of the world. They know nothing
of these things. But this is imparted
only to you and me now as, what we call, Grace Age
believers. Now let’s just flip over a
few pages to Colossians chapter 1. Here again we have much the same thing, but
to a different group of Gentiles over in Colossi. Here again we’re going to look at a prayer of
the Apostle on behalf of this congregation.
So we can just take the two of them together, and they’re for us. Absolutely they are! Verse 9:
Colossians
1:9
“For
this cause we also, since the day we heard it, (That is, of their professing faith in this preaching
of the cross. That we--) do
not cease to pray for you, and to desire that ye might be filled with (Now
here it comes.) the knowledge of his will in all wisdom and spiritual (And
who’s that for? For you and every individual believer as God has a will for
that particular life. What’s the next
word?) understanding.”
How
many church people have that today? Not
many. And I’m not being judgmental. I’m
just taking the general attitude of people.
I hear it all the time. They
invite them to a Bible Study. Not
interested. They’re not the least bit
interested in finding out a little more about what this Book says. Why not?
They’re not in the will of God, because God’s will is that we grow in
the knowledge of His Word.
And
when you grow in the knowledge of His Word, you’re going to experience—like I
had a lady call, I guess I can name the state.
She called from
I
said, “Can I just sit down and share the Scriptures with you?” And he said, “Yes, please do.” Now he was just a young guy, about 30. So she sat down. Then she said, “Now, Les,
you talk about the work of the Holy Spirit.” “Of course,” I said. She said, “I’ve been listening to the program
every morning in Romans and so all of that was fresh in my mind. I took his Bible and went from verse to verse
to verse and it was just the most exciting thing I’ve ever had happen.”
And
she said the guy was attentive. He was
taking it all in. She said she was hoping that she could share phone numbers
with him, but that he wouldn’t do. But
she said, “When I got ready to leave he did say this.” “Lady, you are the first person I’ve ever met
that can make sense out of this Book.”
Well, wouldn’t you go back to your car on cloud nine? Yes, you would. This is what we have to wait for. When you get that opportunity, don’t think,
well, I don’t think I….yes, the Spirit will take over.
I
had another lady some time ago in one of my classes here in
All
right, this is what it means to be under the control of the will of God,
because that will in its turn brings in wisdom and spiritual
understanding. All right, now to qualify
you as a believer, to have this kind of an understanding, come back with me to
I Corinthians chapter 2. I’m hoping that
I can make all these things come together and make you realize that you and I
as believers have a relationship with God and an understanding of His Word that
I
Corinthians chapter 2 starting at verse 10—we’re just going to do a lot of
Scripture reading today. After all, it’s the Word of God that’s powerful, not
what Les Feldick says. The Word of God
is powerful.
I
Corinthians 2:10
“But
God hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit: for the Spirit (That’s the Holy Spirit.) searcheth all
things, yea, the deep things of God.”
Not just the fluff. That’s where
most of Christendom is. They’re up there
just scratching the surface. But the
Spirit wants us to get down into the deep things. Now verse 11:
I
Corinthians 2:11
“For
what man knoweth the things of a man, save (or except) the spirit of man which is in him? (In other words, you send your kid to college
and what do you expect him to learn?
Well, the things of the world and the subject matter and everything that
he can probably use in a career or whatever.
But they’re still nothing more than the things of men. On the same basis then--) even so the things of God
knoweth no man, but the Spirit of God.”
In
other words, if you are going to send a young man to medical school, you don’t
expect some accountant to teach him anatomy, do you? What do you expect? Well, you want somebody who is skilled in the
discipline of anatomy to teach your kid the part of medical school that that
applies to. Well, it’s the same way with
Scripture. You don’t go to the outside world to understand Scripture. We go to that blessed Holy Spirit, which, as
he says in verse 12, “is freely given.”
I
Corinthians 2:12
“Now
we have received, not the spirit of the world, (We’re not concerned about earthly things when we get
into the Book.) but the Spirit who is of God; that
we might know the things that are freely given to us of God.” It’s not something you have to work
and strive for, just ask God to pour it out and He
will. And now verse 13:
I
Corinthians 2:13
“Which things (These things that come from God Himself by way of the Holy Spirit.) also we speak, not in the
words which man’s wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Spirit teacheth;
comparing spiritual things with spiritual.”
Now
does that tell you something? Why do I
use Scripture verse after Scripture verse after Scripture verse? Comparing Scripture with
Scripture. Line
upon line. Precept
upon precept. That’s the only way
to do it. Now then verse 14; this is really the verse I was heading for.
I
Corinthians 2:14
“But
the natural man (the unsaved
person) receives not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness
unto him: (He’s got no time for these things.) neither can
he know them, (Why?) because they are spiritually discerned.” Now
that’s what it means to know the will of God. It is to understand that only by
the working of that indwelling Holy Spirit can we come to a
knowledge of these spiritual truths.
Come back a little further now to Romans chapter 8.
That’s
been on the air not too long ago, so this should almost be like a little quick
review. And you remember when I was
teaching Romans, I emphasized in the first seven chapters that there was almost
no mention of the Holy Spirit. Almost none. But all
of a sudden you break into chapter 8 and it just explodes. And I don’t remember how many times, I think
it’s something like 19 or 20 times in this one chapter, we have reference to
the Holy Spirit. And here it
comes—dropping down to verse 5. And this is all because of the revealed will of
God in our lives which was kept secret until it was given to this Apostle.
Romans
8:5-7
“For
they that are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh; but (Here it comes.) they who
are after the Spirit do mind the things of the Spirit. 6. For to be carnally
minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life (that’s eternal
life) and peace. (Peace with
God—and here’s the reason.) 7. Because the carnal (the unsaved) mind
is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed
can be.”
Romans
8:8-9
“So
then they that are in the flesh cannot please God. (But here we come) 9. But ye are not in the flesh,
but in the Spirit, (We’re not in the flesh. We’re in the Spirit. We’re a whole new person as a result of our
faith in that preaching of Paul’s Gospel—which is that Jesus died for our sins,
was buried, and rose again. So, we’re
not in the flesh, we’re in the Spirit.) if so
be that the Spirit of God dwell in you.
Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ,
he is none of his.”
No
matter how many times he’s walked the aisle.
No matter how many times he’s been baptized, one way or another. If he
doesn’t have the Holy Spirit, he’s still as lost as a goose, is my favorite
expression. He doesn’t know where he’s
going. But if you have the Spirit of God,
then that is God’s mark that you are indeed a child of His, which we’re going
to see in the next minute or so. All
right, verse 11:
Romans
8:11
“But
if the Spirit of him who raised up Jesus from the dead
dwell in you, (In other words,
the very Spirit of the God of Creation, the God who consummated the work of the
Cross.) he that raised up Christ from the
dead (if the Spirit of God dwells in you) shall also quicken your mortal
bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in you.”
All
right, now I’m going to bring you down to verse 14. When we experience true
salvation, and you have truly trusted and believed the Gospel plus nothing and
believed that the work of the cross was complete, then the Sprit of God dwells
in you. I just emphasized again last
night with a caller. I said, “Listen,
when Jesus said, ‘It’s finished,’ was He kidding? He was dead serious. And He meant what He said and He said what He
meant. The work of Salvation was
finished. He did it all.”
Now
of course, we’ve got to jump ahead three days and include the
resurrection. But nevertheless, what has
mankind done with the Gospel ever since the Apostle Paul was given this
revelation? Well, they’ve thrown
everything at it but the kitchen sink.
My, they’re adding baptism to it.
They’re adding church membership.
They add tongues. They add
tithing. They add healing. They add this and that. Then what does that mean? When you add
anything to faith in Paul’s Gospel, then you’re telling God that Christ didn’t
finish it and you’ve got to add something to it. Isn’t it ridiculous?
Well
see, this is what I mean when I say you can place your trust totally in that
finished work of the cross, and nothing else is necessary. And then the Christian life follows. Of course it does. I’m not saying anything about that. But I’m talking about the means of
salvation. If we have trusted the Gospel
of the cross of Christ, and the Holy Spirit comes in, then verse 14 kicks in
and this is where we are.
Romans
8:14-15a
“For
as many as are led by the Spirit of God, (the Holy Spirit) they are the sons (Or the children,
or the born ones—I think it comes out of the Greek.) of
God. 15. For ye have not received the
spirit of bondage again to fear;...” We don’t shake in our boots before a
Holy and Awesome God. Do we? I hope not.
My goodness, we’re in a relationship with Him. We’re His.
He’s ours. So you haven’t
received the spirit of bondage to fear.
Romans
8:15b
“…but
ye have received the Spirit of adoption,…” which means you have been placed as a full son. Not a babe, but a full son. Now again, I always have to emphasize. We start on two levels as a believer, don’t
we? The moment we’re saved, yes, we’re a
babe in Christ. But on the other hand,
we are placed in the Body of Christ as a full heir. Read the next verse.
Romans
8:16
“The
Spirit himself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of
God:” Oh, I love that! Not something that you hope to be. Not something that you’re going to try to
be. You know, that’s most of
Christendom—well, I’m doing the best I
can. I’m trying. I’m working at it. That won’t do you a nickel’s worth of good,
because that’s not what God is looking for.
He’s looking for faith and trust in what He has done. But, hey, it gets better. We’re not just children, we’re what?
Romans
8:17a
“And
if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ; if so be
that we suffer with him,…“ Now
fortunately, we in
For
those of you joining us on television again, we just thank you for everything.
We appreciate the fact that many of you are learning how to study on your
own. Nothing thrills us more than when
you tell us that you’re sharing it with others.
I’ve
always said, you know why most believers do not share
their faith? They’re unsure of their
wisdom. So rather than get caught and
embarrassed, they say nothing. But once
we get people grounded in the Word—hey, when these cults come to your door, are
they ever lacking for words? Never! Boy, they’ve got their verses down pat. Well, once you get an understanding of the
Word, and—like I said in the last half hour—you get an opportunity to share it,
then you’re ready. That’s basically why
we keep teaching. It is to prepare people
to share their faith with those that they have opportunity.
Okay,
back to Ephesians chapter 3. We’re still
going to deal with the mysteries all afternoon as we’ve got them here on the
board. Now we’re going to hit number
2—the Mystery of Christ. Christ a
secret? Well, you’d be surprised. We’ll just take a good in-depth look at
it. Ephesians chapter 3, now of course
the verses we really want are verses 3 and 4.
But let’s start at verse 1.
Ephesians
3:1
“For
this cause I Paul, the prisoner of Jesus Christ for (Whom?) you
Gentiles,…” Gentiles! See, now didn’t I rehearse that again the
last few programs? We’ve got to
constantly remember—how did Paul end up being the Apostle of the Gentiles? Well, you remember back in Matthew chapter
10, the Lord had just chosen the Twelve, and He gave them marching orders. And what were they?
“Go
not into the way of a Gentile, and into the city of
So,
the Twelve were later on called the Apostles of Israel. Now, when
“I’m
going to send this man (Saul of
Tarsus) far hence unto the Gentiles.”
Now,
did you see the difference in the language?
Jesus told the Twelve go NOT to
the Gentiles, go to
And
again, most of Christendom can’t get it.
That’s one of the number one arguments, if I get any, in the mail,
“Where do you get this business of a Gospel for the Jew and a Gospel for
Gentiles?” Well, right there. How in the world, if Jesus sent the Twelve
out into the Tribes of Israel, could they preach faith in His death, burial,
and resurrection? It hadn’t happened
yet. Nobody had any idea He was going to
die. So they certainly had a different
message.
But
now to the Gentile world, this man becomes the one and only true Apostle of the
Gentiles. Now, of course, we know that
following him came Barnabas and Silas, Timothy, Titus, and some of those who
were naturally called apostles as well, but are
never called The Apostle of the Gentiles as this one is. Now verse 2:
Ephesians
3:2
“If (What kind of a word is that? Well, there’s a possibility you may not
have. But--) If ye have heard of the
dispensation of the grace of God which is given to me to you-ward:” Now
those of you who have been with me for years and years, you know what that
means.
Just
like God gave Moses the Dispensation of Law, and Moses took it down from the
mountain to Israel; to this Apostle, and I think on the same mountain, He now
gives the Dispensation of the Grace of God—and He doesn’t qualify just one group
over the another, but He says to take it to the Gentile world and Israel as
well.
Two totally different programs. The Twelve
Apostles were to
Ephesians
3:3-4
“How that by revelation he (God) made known unto me the mystery;
(The secret. That’s why I’ve got it up here with all the
others.) (as I wrote before in few words, 4. Whereby,
when ye read, (That is his epistles.) ye may understand my knowledge (And
knowledge brings what? Wisdom. So you can
just about put it all together. Those
words all fit—that you can have knowledge and wisdom and understanding--) in
the mystery of Christ.)”
The
secret things of Christ that were never understood until revealed to this
Apostle—in plain language. Now of
course, a lot of things were in veiled language back here in the Old Testament
and the four gospels, but did they understand it? No, they didn’t know what it was all
about. In fact, I guess this is a good
time to do it. Let’s go to I Peter
before we go any further. I Peter chapter 1 starting at verse 1, so that you’ll know who
Peter is addressing. You know
that’s our first rule of thumb. Always
determine who’s writing and who is he writing to? Well, Peter an Apostle of Israel was one of
the Twelve. And he’s writing to Jews.
I
Peter 1:1
“Peter,
an apostle of Jesus Christ, (And
put in the word writing without doing
any violence to the Scripture, because that’s what he’s doing. He’s writing--) to the strangers scattered throughout
I
Peter 1:9-10a
“Receiving the end of your faith, even the salvation
of your souls. 10. Of which salvation the prophets (Who? The Old
Testament writers--) have inquired and searched diligently,…” What’s
the other word for inquired? They were
asking, if not others, then for themselves. They were searching the Scriptures
diligently. And these same prophets--
I
Peter 1:10b-11a
“...who
prophesied (or foretold—things in
the future) of the grace that should come unto you: (out in the future
sometime) 11. Searching what, (the Scriptures, the Old Testament as much
as they had) or what manner of time the Spirit of Christ who was in them did
signify,…”
Now
remember, the Holy Spirit has always been the same Spirit. God the Son has always been the same person
of the Godhead, only now in the New Testament we refer to Him as Jesus and
Jesus Christ. But He was the same person
of the Godhead that the prophets were dealing with.
I
Peter 1:11
“Searching
what, or what manner of time the Spirit of Christ who
was in them (That is that Holy
Spirit.) did signify, when it testified
beforehand (before it ever happened) the sufferings of Christ, and the
glory that should follow.”
Now
you see what that said? What were the
prophets talking about? The suffering. There
had to be a sacrifice for sin beyond the animal sacrifices. But it was in such veiled language that God
didn’t expect them to figure it out, and they didn’t. But for our benefit, now we can go back to
Isaiah 53. Let’s go back there. I haven’t done it in a long time. I’ve got a lot of Jewish listeners, so maybe
this is just for their benefit. I didn’t
intend to do this. This was not in my
thinking at all when I left home this morning.
But this is what we have to do.
These
Old Testament prophets looked at these verses. They knew there was something
here, but they couldn’t figure it out.
So, they just kept searching and searching. But it wasn’t time for them to
understand. So God didn’t reveal
it. All right, look at it now, verse 1.
Isaiah
53:1-2a
“Who
hath believed our report? and to whom is the arm of the LORD revealed? 2. For he (Now here
we come. We’re talking about the Messiah now, the Son of God, the Christ.) shall grow up before him as a tender planet, as a root out
of a dry ground:…”
Now,
what’s that a reference to?
Isaiah
53:2b
“…as
a root out of a dry ground: he hath no form nor
comeliness; (In other words, He
wasn’t born there with a great halo over His head and all the aspects of a
King. No. He was in a lowly manger.) and when
we shall see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him.” He
wasn’t a great, fantastic, handsome individual that they were drawn to because
of His physical attributes. No. Now verse 3, here comes
the cross.
Isaiah
53:3
“He
is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief:
and we hid as it were our faces from him; for he was despised, and we esteemed
him not.” What does that mean? They didn’t know who He was. Well, they should have. He gave them three years of proof, but they
couldn’t believe it. Now
verse 4.
Isaiah
53:4
“Surely
he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: (What does that mean?
He was the sacrifice—not only for the whole Nation of Israel, but for
the whole human race.) yet we did esteem him stricken, (beaten
and misused by the Romans) smitten of God, and afflicted.” Of course, that was the work of the
cross—where all the sin of the world was laid on that sinless One.
Isaiah
53:5
“But
he was wounded for our transgressions, (Sin. He became the Supreme
Sacrifice.) he was
bruised for our iniquities: (He went through it all for the sins first
of
Now
that’s not talking about physical healing.
That’s talking about the spiritual.
We’re dealing with the salvation aspect of that work of the cross. Now verse 6—this is
Isaiah
53:6a
“All
we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way;…” In other words, they just couldn’t come
together and recognize who this Messiah, born in
Isaiah
53:6b-7
“…and
the LORD hath laid on him the iniquity of us all. 7. He was oppressed, (This is all a reference to that work of the cross.) and
he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth: he is brought as a lamb to the
slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb (or quiet),
so
he openeth not his mouth.” Now
as we read this, of course we can understand.
It’s after the fact.
But
can you see how much the Jews of antiquity could get out of this? There was no putting two and two together
here. But yet after the fact they should
be able to see it. And that’s usually
the vehicle that does bring a Jew to faith.
They can then see that, yes, this all took place. Absolutely it did! But for those back there at that time, no,
they could not figure it out.
Isaiah
53:8
“He
was taken from prison and from judgment: and who shall declare his generation? for he was cut off (He was put to death.) out of the land of the living: for the
transgression of my people was he stricken.” Now remember, in Old
Testament economy who were God’s ‘My people’?
But
on the other hand, God didn’t expect them to understand who this was before the
fact. And that’s why even the followers
of Jesus, as it was nearing the time for the cross, didn’t understand that He
was going to be going the way of the cross.
All
right, now then, back to I Peter. I’m
not through there yet and verse 11 again.
I
Peter 1:11a
“Searching
what, or what manner of time the Spirit of Christ which was in them did
signify, when it testified beforehand the sufferings of Christ,…” Back there in Isaiah 53 the Holy Spirit was
already laying the seeds of this coming work of the cross. But God didn’t
expect the Jews of that time to understand it, even though they tried. Now verse 12 and then we’ll move on.
I
Peter 1:12
“Unto
whom it was revealed, (That is
unto these writers of the Old Testament prophecies.) that
not unto themselves, but unto us (Peter is now writing from his point
in time. Now, after the cross had been
accomplished and everyone should understand who He was and why He died the death
that He did.) but unto us they did minister the things
which are now reported unto you by them who have preached the gospel unto you
with the Holy Spirit sent down from heaven; which things the angels desire to
look into.”
Well,
now that was a reference, of course, to Pentecost. All right, now while we’re back here at
Peter, anyway; we’re going to jump over to chapter 3. I always use this when my accusers say I’m
making too much of Paul. And all I say
is, “Well, haven’t you ever read II Peter 3:15 and 16?” Well, then that shuts them up, because here
is the very answer to that accusation.
II Peter chapter 3:15 and 16 come to my defense.
If
someone says, “I won’t listen to that guy, he makes too much of Paul.” Well, you be ready. If you think he makes too much of Paul, then
Peter did worse. They will never take
anything like that and blame Peter, if that’s the one they think they’re
following. But look what Peter says, now,
at the end of his life, just shortly before he is martyred.
II
Peter 3:15a
“Account
that the longsuffering (the
patience) of our Lord is salvation; (God is not willing that any should
perish. Now look at it.) even as our beloved brother Paul also according to the
wisdom given him…” What wisdom
is he talking about? These
secrets that have been revealed.
This whole body of truth that was never understood before, that comes
from the pen of this hated Apostle. So
Peter has to even tell his Jewish people that, look, you go to Paul’s epistles,
because our program is falling away.
And
indeed it was. The Jewish program was
falling through the cracks. And by the
time Peter meets his martyr’s death, nothing is left. The
II
Peter 3:15b-16a
“…according
to the wisdom given unto him hath written unto you; 16. As also in all his epistles, (Romans through Philemon) speaking in them of these
things; (pertaining to Salvation) in which (that is Paul’s epistles) are
some things hard to be understood,…”
Now
most of you have heard this a hundred times. But for some of you out there this
is the first time. Paul’s epistles, in
Peter’s thinking at the end of his life, were still hard for Peter to
understand. Now you’ve got to remember,
what was Peter? A
religious Jew under the Law.
And
I always point that out when I teach Acts chapter 10. My, when that sheet came down with all those
unclean animals and God said, “Rise, Peter, kill and eat.” Even into the face of God, what did Peter
say? “No way! I have never eaten anything common or
unclean.” Well, why did he say
that? He was a law-keeping Jew.
And
against all good Jewish sense he goes. There were heel prints in the sand from
Joppa to
You
see that? That was contrary to the
Jewish makeup. They didn’t have any
marching orders to go the Gentile world.
That was Paul’s prerogative. But
yet Peter says here that all of Paul’s epistles are for even the Jewish people,
not just the Gentiles now—such as a pagan Gentile can be saved without becoming
a proselyte of Judaism. That was unheard
of and hard for a Jew to comprehend.
Even
when God saved those Gentiles in the house of Cornelius before Peter even
finished preaching and the evidence of it was made known? Those six Jews who
went up to Cornelius’ house with Peter—what was their reaction? What’s the word? Astonished!
They were astonished. Gentiles
saved without becoming a proselyte? You
get that? And that just shows the vast
distinction from the time of Christ’s earthly ministry until the Apostle Paul
starts going to the Gentile world.
II
Peter 3:16b
“…in
all of his epistles, speaking in them of these things; in which are some things
hard to be understood, which they who are unlearned (I’m afraid that’s most of Christendom.) and unstable wrest (Or twist, and they twist and
they twist.) as they do also the other scriptures, ( Now that statement
right there maintains that if all the rest of the Bible is Scripture, so are
Paul’s epistles. And then they ridicule
it, and they hate it?) unto their own (What?) destruction.” The Book says it, I didn’t.
All
right, now let’s go back to Ephesians chapter 3 verse
4.
Ephesians
3:4
“Whereby, when ye read, (That is these Pauline Epistles.) ye may
understand my knowledge in the mystery (or the secret things) of
Christ.” Oh, wait a minute,
Paul. After all the Old Testament and
after His three years of earthly ministry, there are things that were kept
secret? How could it? Well, let me just give you one example that I
think is the most graphic.
Turn
over to Colossians chapter 1, another portion many of you have heard me teach
more than once. But, oh, if this isn’t a
revelation of this Jesus of Nazareth like no other portion in Scripture, I don’t
know what is. Colossians chapter 1 and
we have to start at verse 12 so that we establish who we are talking
about. And as we read this and as I
comment on it, just keep asking yourself—is this revealed anyplace else in
Scripture? Does Genesis 1:1 say anything
like this? Now you all know what Genesis
1:1 says. “In the beginning God created the
heavens and the earth.” Period. But now look
how the details are laid out in front of us.
Colossians
1:12-13
“Giving
thanks (the end of His prayer) unto
the Father, who hath made us meet (and
prepared us) to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light: (See,
we’ve covered that in the last half hour.) 13. Who (speaking of God the Father)
hath
delivered us from the power of darkness, and hath translated us into the
kingdom of his dear Son:” Now that goes back to what we taught a year
or two ago—that the Body of Christ is in the
Colossians
1:14-15a
“In whom (The
Son in the verse ahead. So, in the
Son--) we have redemption through his blood, even the forgiveness of sins: (Past,
present and future. Now here it
comes. Here is what I call a revelation
of a mystery that only comes from the pen of this Apostle.) 15.
Who (God the Son) is the image (or the visible
appearance) of (What God?) the invisible God,…”
Now
you’ve got to remember that when you go back into the Old Testament, God was
the invisible three-person God. Even though
Jesus
Himself never made any descriptive account of how He created everything. He certainly let it be known that He was in
control of the elements. He could get up
on the
Okay,
here we go. Let’s just jump right in
where we left off. That would be in Colossians chapter 1. We’re looking at the second one up there. The Mystery of Christ—the very secret of who
He really is.
Now
again, as I said in the last program, you go back to Genesis chapter 1 verse 1
and it is God who in the beginning created Heaven and earth. But how much of God do you get out of that? And Christ in His earthly ministry, I guess
that’s where I closed wasn’t it? How
that the God-Man, the Incarnate, could speak the Word and the winds would obey
His voice. He could raise the dead and
all those other things, and yet it wasn’t the complete picture of who He really
is. And that’s what I want to unveil
under this secret, or the Mystery of Christ as Paul reveals it.
All
right, so we almost have to go back like we did last time and start over, at
least over in verse 13, because I’ve got to establish who we’re talking
about. So, God the Father, up in verse
13:
Colossians
1:13-14
“Who
hath delivered us from the power of darkness, and hath translated us into the
kingdom of his dear Son: (Now we
know definitely who we’re talking about.) 14. In whom (That is in the Son.) we
have redemption through his blood, (So there’s no doubt that we’re
talking about Jesus of Nazareth—the crucified, resurrected, ascended Lord—who
also gave us then--) even the forgiveness of sin:”
Now
here’s the part I want to reveal. A revelation of Christ like
you’ve never seen anywhere else in Scripture. This Jesus of Nazareth, who has finished the
work of the cross, has ascended back to Glory and revealed these things to this
Apostle.
Colossians
1:15a
“Who
is the image of the invisible God,…” Now think about that for a minute. The invisible God? Well, of course, God was Spirit. When the Scripture says “no man has looked on God at any
time and lived,” what was it talking about? Not Jesus in His body of flesh. It was talking about that invisible
Godhead—the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. But they were invisible. They were Spirit. No man has ever looked in on that invisible
Godhead and lived. They wouldn’t have.
All
right, so now we’re bringing it down to the fact that this Jesus, God the Son,
the One who suffered and died, is the visible manifestation of that invisible
God. Do you see that? Now, it’s never been this plain anywhere else
in Scripture.
In
fact, you know I’ve said it before.
People to whom I have taught these things to for the first time would
look at me aghast. You mean Jesus of
Nazareth was the Creator God of Genesis 1?
Well, of course He was! People
just can’t fathom that, but He was! He
spoke the Word and the universe came about.
Jesus of
Colossians
1:15-16a
“Who
(the Son) is the image of the invisible
God, the first born of every creature: (In other words, He was before
anything that was ever created, and here’s why.) 16. For by him (As the Creator of
everything, as God the Son, as Jesus of Nazareth—I’ve got to keep coming back,
so we don’t lose what we’re talking about.) were all things created, (Everything!)
that
are in heaven,…”
What’s
in Heaven? The angelic
hosts and all the beauty of it.
The
Colossians
1:16b
“…and things that are in the earth, (Everything! Every living creature, every
bug, every fish, everything was created by Jesus of Nazareth.) visible (Well, that’s a little easier to understand, but
the next part?) and invisible,…” Even things that we can’t see. Yet we know from scientific
experiments and other ways, we know they are there. If no other way, we know it from
Scripture. And we take it by faith.
Colossians
1:16c
“…whether
they be thrones, (Wow! Now what are we talking
about? Governments. Empires. Kings. How do they get there? By God the Son. Oh, listen, this is something exciting.) or dominions, or principalities, (Now some Bible
scholars will bring that into the satanic realm of the demons and Satan
himself, which of course is true. Satan
is a created being.) principalities, and
powers: (And now it’s repeated, so there’s no doubt.) all
things (Everything that you can imagine was created by God the Son.) were
created by him, and for him:”
Now
granted, the other two persons were there.
We’re not going to leave God the Father and God the Spirit out of creation. But it’s by virtue of the spoken word from
God the Son that everything appeared, whatever it is.
Colossians
1:16d-17a
“…all
things were created by him, and for him: (Now look at the next verse.) 17. And he is before all things,…” See, that
goes back to His pre-eternal existence.
He’s always been.
I
think I mentioned at the last taping.
Have you ever tried to lay awake a few moments at night and look at the
ceiling and stop and figure out where God came from? Have you?
Yes, I think we all have. How in
the world—how did God ever come to be?
We don’t know, but we know He’s always been. And that’s beyond us. Eternity is beyond us. We cannot comprehend eternity. It’s utterly impossible, so we take it by
faith.
Now
read on. The last half is what I really
want to hit home on.
Colossians
1:17b
“…and
by him (by Jesus the Christ) all
things consist.” What does that
mean? Are held together! The universe and all its
orbits and all the stars.
The
sun never burns out. That always gets to me. How does that sun keep generating
without ever losing its energy? Mind-boggling. How
did it get there? By the spoken word of
this person of the Godhead, God the Son. And not only would He create it, but He’s
keeping it all running smoothly. And if
He should ever give the word to destroy it, puff, it’ll go. But He is the controlling element of
everything.
Colossians
1:18a
“And
he is the head of the body, the church:…” Now there again, you hardly ever hear that. Christendom in general never refers to the
Body of Christ. They like to talk about
the Kingdom. “Oh, we’ve got to work for
the Kingdom,” is their cry. Well, that’s
okay as far as it goes, but that’s not what we’re involved in. We’re involved in the Body of Christ! And that’s why there’s so much
confusion. Christendom cannot get it
through its corporate head that the Body of Christ is something intrinsically
revealed from, again, this Apostle. It
is nowhere else.
I’ve
put it out there for 30 years. If you
can find any direct reference to the Body of Christ any place but Paul’s
epistles, show me. Nobody has done it
yet. It’s not in there. It is a Pauline revelation of things kept
secret—that this compilation of born from above believers becomes a part of an
intrinsic living organism that we call the Body of Christ, of which Christ is
the Head. And just like the human body,
everything starts with the thinking mechanism up here. That’s why Christ is the Head. All right, so let the Scripture say it for
itself.
Colossians
1:18a-19
“And
he (This same Jesus the Christ,
the Son of God—the Jesus of Nazareth who walked the dusty roads of
Now
that’s the Christ that has never been revealed anywhere else in Scripture like
Paul does. But just to make sure that
Paul isn’t out in left field, let’s go back to John’s Gospel a moment. John says just enough to confirm what we’re
doing here in Colossians, yet he doesn’t give the details. You can’t construct that much out of what
John writes. Chapter 1
verse 1. Most of you know the
verse. Then we’ll drop down to verse 14
for further consummation.
John
1:1-3
“In
the beginning was the Word,
(Whenever that was. The Word is
capitalized which means a member of the Deity.) and the
Word was with God, and the Word was God.
2. The same was in the beginning with
God. 3. All things were made by him; and without him
was not anything made that was made.” Now
that’s just confirmation. Now, just to
make sure that we understand who we’re talking about, you take verse 14.
John
1:14
“And
the Word (God the Son again) was
made flesh, (Is incarnate, became the God-Man.) and dwelt among us, (and we
beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of the
grace and truth.” So we know
definitely who we’re talking about.
All
right, now I’ve got one more that I usually like to add. This is Hebrews
chapter 1 and verse 1.
Hebrews
1:1-2a
“God, (That’s the Triune God—God the Son, God the Father,
and God the Holy Spirit.) who at
sundry times and in divers manners spoke in time past unto the fathers by the
prophets, 2. (The same God) Hath in these last days (In other
words, Christ’s First Advent is the last days of Scripture. This same God--) spoken unto us by his Son,…” Plain as
English can make it.
Hebrews
1:2
“Hath
in these last days spoken unto us by his Son, whom he hath appointed heir of
all things, (Like we just saw
back up here in Colossians.) by whom
also he (God’s Son) (What?) made the worlds;” That’s creation.
Here
we have a revelation of Christ in a way that we’ve never seen before until Paul
reveals Him as the Creator of everything.
Of course, with the other two Persons of the Godhead
in consort with Him. But you see,
to God the Son is given the credit for all of Creation. Never lose that.
Now,
why do I make such a big deal of that?
If Christ was anything less than what I have just pictured Him, could He
have taken the sin of the whole world?
No. This is what we have to
realize—that when He became sin, and all the wrath and chastisement of God was
laid upon Him, had He been one iota less than what we have just shown Him to
be, He couldn’t have handled it. He
couldn’t have done it. But He did. So we can rest assured that our salvation is
not by virtue of some myth or some story, but that the Creator, God Himself,
took upon Himself my sin and yours. And
we take it by faith. And we’re going
to spend all eternity in His presence.
You
know, I used the illustration, I think, quite a few years ago now. It was probably after the Pope had been to
several places. Not the present one, but
the one before. He traveled a lot. And he had been some place in the
Well,
goodness sakes, if that man is worthy of that much adoration, how much more
should this One have? And we’re going to
be in His presence for all eternity. The
One who could speak the Word and a universe would come into play. And He’s going to know you and me by
name. We’re going to be like we’ve been
in His presence all our lives, and don’t lose that. This is what the Scripture
is trying to show us – who He really is.
And
then, of course, not only did God’s wrath fall there at the cross of
I
think you can stay right here in Colossians chapter 1 verse 25. Let’s start at
verse 24. This, again, is something that
has never ever been hinted at in all of Scripture except in Paul’s epistles. This is why people are so mixed up
today.
I
mentioned it in our last taping and in the last program or so that was produced
before this one. Most of Christendom
totally ignores all of this. They put all their attention on Christ’s earthly
ministry and His Sermon on the Mount.
Well, that’s all well and good.
We’re not taking anything from His Deity and all of His Holiness and
everything in His earthly ministry. But
listen, beloved, that’s not where God really showed His mercy and Grace and
provision. But rather, it was the
cross! It was that shed blood that paid
the price of our redemption. It was the
power of His resurrection that made God able to impute eternal life. And most of Christendom totally ignores that.
The
Sermon on the Mount may be a high, moral standard, but you know what? How many of us can keep it? It’s impossible. It’s utterly impossible. And it won’t become a reality until Christ
returns and sets up His Kingdom. Yes,
then the Sermon on the Mount will become an everyday experience. But see, Christendom is missing the
point. And here it is. These revelations
of this Body of Truth that Paul calls the Revelation of the Mystery, but it’s mysteries—seven or eight of them.
All
right, my time is on double time today, isn’t it? I no more than get started than that clock is
run down. Colossians, once again,
chapter 1 verse 24, speaking of himself up in verse 23.
Colossians
1:23b-24a
“…I
Paul am made a minister; 24. Who now rejoice in my sufferings for you, and fill
up that which is behind of the afflictions of Christ in my flesh…” Now he’s not
talking about Christ’s suffering here.
He’s talking about his own. Now
again, for a quick review for the benefit of new listeners, turn back to II
Corinthians chapter 11. Again, how could anybody shun this man’s service for
God? How could anybody take anything
away from his apostolic authority when he has suffered as an ordinary human?
Not
as the God-Man Jesus did, and we know He suffered. But this man suffers in the flesh just like
you and me. He was not in some
super-human body. All right, II
Corinthians chapter 11, many of you have seen me do this before, verse 22. The
whole purpose was the Corinthians had a hard time giving him his due. Oh, they would look up to Apollos, or they
would look up to Peter. They could look
up to others, but this man? Who are
you? Now he defends it with this Holy
Spirit inspired—I’ve got to keep repeating.
Now
I read again last night. Some great
theologian made the—I’ve got to be careful how I use this, don’t I? Iris says I use too strong a language once in
a while. But here this guy with all of
his degrees and education was wondering how Luke kept track of all of these
details in his Gospel and in the Book of Acts.
And he made some statement like this, “He must have been a great record
keeper or diarist—,” I think is the word he used. “He must have been a great diarist to keep
track of all these statements that people had made in order to write his
Gospel.” Wait a minute, how could he do
it? He didn’t have to take notes. He didn’t have to go back and say, well, now
wait a minute, what happened here, and then write. What does the Scripture say? How? “By the Holy Spirit.”
Oh,
I know what the other one was. It came
to mind. He couldn’t figure out how in
the world Moses could talk about his own death in Genesis. You got a problem with that? Where’s your inspiration? Did God know the details of Moses’ death
before he died? Well, I reckon. He knew it from eternity past. Again, Moses didn’t have to stop and say,
“Well, I wonder how I’m going to die? I
wonder who I can delegate to write about this after I’m gone.” No.
Moses wrote and wrote and wrote and wrote and out came the record of his
death and his burial, everything, by inspiration. Don’t ever forget that. Every word of this Book is Holy Spirit
inspired.
And
when Paul writes something like this—that’s why I’m doing it. Paul writes not to elevate his own ego, he is
writing as the Holy Spirit moved him to write.
All right, now look what he says in verse 22.
II
Corinthians 11:22-23a
“Are
they (comparing the Twelve in
Yes,
but now look at the reason. He’s more
the minister of Christ than James and Peter and John and the rest of them, and
here’s why.
II
Corinthians 12:23b
“…in
labors more abundant, (He labored
day and night for about twenty five or six years.) in
stripes (beatings) above measure, in prisons
(Plural. In more than one place he was
cast into prison for one length of time or another.) more
frequent, in deaths often.” Plural. What does that mean? He was next door to leaving planet earth more
than once. But God always kept on
bringing him back.
II
Corinthians 12:24
“Of
the Jews five times received
I forty stripes less one.” Or the thirty-nine—so they’d make sure they
didn’t go over forty. Can you imagine
what that man’s torso looked like? It
must have been solid scar tissue. Five
times over that period of 20-some years receiving 39 lashes.
II
Corinthians 12:25a
“Thrice
was I beaten with rods, (Now, you
know what the rods were like—a bamboo cane.) once was
I stoned,…” And of course that was up there in central
II
Corinthians 11:25b-26a
“…Thrice
I suffered shipwreck, a night and a day (24 hours) I have been in the deep; 26. In
journeyings often, (He never spent any time at home. He didn’t have a
home that I know of.) in perils of waters, in perils of
robbers,…” As he would be walking those dusty roads,
especially across central
II
Corinthians 11:26b
“…in
perils by mine own countrymen,
(The Jews) in perils by the heathen, (That’d be the Romans.) in perils in the city, (
II
Corinthians 11:27-28
“In weariness and painfulness, in watchings often, in
hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness. 28. Beside those things that are without, that which cometh upon me daily, the care of all the churches.” Okay, back to our text. Oh my goodness, we’ve only got 40 seconds
left. We’ll start here the next program. Okay, back to Colossians for just a few
seconds. Verse 24 again, that’s why we
were looking at his sufferings. This is
what he’s talking about.
Colossians
1:24a
“Who
now rejoice in my sufferings for you,…” And Colossi was what? Gentile. And so this
Apostle of the Gentiles suffered for 20-some years so that you and I could sit
here and be the recipients of this glorious Gospel of Grace. So that you and I have everything we need for
our daily walk.
Okay,
now we’re all back for program number four this afternoon. Again, for those of
you on television, we want to thank you and praise you for your letters. We couldn’t do it without your financial help
and your prayers.
Okay,
we’d better get right back into the Book where we left off in the last program.
We were in Colossians chapter 1 and verse 24. We had to digress and remind people of what
Paul was talking about when he spoke of being
afflicted for the Body’s sake, which
is the Church.
Again
I’m going to repeat it, repeat it, and repeat it. Only Paul uses the term “The Body of
Christ.” You’ll never find it anywhere
else in Scripture. And consequently, the
Body of Christ is a result of these mysteries that were revealed to this
Apostle after the Lord commissioned him on the
Always
be aware of this when people start arguing about things that are in the four
Gospels compared to what Paul says. That
only Paul deals with things that pertain to us.
Now, I’ll just give you an example.
You cannot find anywhere else in Scripture that we’re saved by faith and
faith alone in the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ. Only Paul shares
that with us!
You
cannot find it until you get to Paul. And a lot of other things like we’ve just been talking about, how
that Christ was the very Creator of everything. Well, you won’t find that anywhere else in
Scripture, as we saw here in Colossians in our last program. All right, so let’s come back, if you will,
to Paul’s revelation of this mystery concerning the Body of Christ. Verse 24 again:
Colossians
1:24-25a
“Who
now rejoice in my sufferings for you, (Now remember who he’s talking to.
Gentile believers in Western Turkey in the little city
of
Now
again, I like to qualify and define words.
What does he mean by a minister?
Well, he was the sent one. That’s
basically what an apostle meant. He was
a divinely sent individual that God was going to use for His own distinct
purposes and in this case amongst the Gentiles.
Now
let me by sake of comparison, Scripture with Scripture, come back with me to
Romans chapter 15. We find the same word used in relation with Christ Himself,
but a totally different ministry. Romans
chapter 15 verse 8—here’s another verse that most of Christendom doesn’t want
to touch with a ten-foot pole because of what it says.
Romans
15:8a
“Now
I say that Jesus Christ was (past
tense) a minister (See, there’s the word, a sent one.) of the circumcision…”
Who’s the Circumcision?
Romans
15:8b
“…Jesus
Christ was a minister of the circumcision for the truth of God,…” It wasn’t something that Paul dreamed
up. This is the way God ordained
it. That coming out of the Old Testament
promises and prophecies concerning
Romans
15:8c
“…for
the truth of God, to confirm the promises made unto the fathers:” Well basically, what where those promises? I’ve already mentioned them—a coming Messiah,
a Redeemer, a King, and a Kingdom. But
All
right, but now come back to Colossians.
We see that Paul is a minister of a whole different sort and with
different criteria. He is not a minister
of
Colossians
1:25a
“Wherefore
I am made a minister, according to the dispensation of God (Which in other places is called the Dispensation of
Grace, remember, so it’s the same dispensation.) which is given to me
for you,…”
All
right, now I know we just did this a couple of programs back. But keep your hand in Colossians, and turn
back to Ephesians 3. We’ve got to keep
comparing Scripture with Scripture so that we know what he’s talking about. Now back to Ephesians 3 verse 2 and compare
that with what he just says in Colossians.
In Colossians he calls it “the dispensation of God, which is given to
me for you Gentiles.” Here he
says:
Ephesians
3:2
“If ye have heard of the dispensation of the grace of
God (The same thing, but two
different terminologies.) which is given to me to you-ward.” And then Christendom keeps turning their back
on this man when he alone was given the marching orders for this Age of
Grace. They can’t get it. They just can’t get it.
That’s
why I put the statement from Louis Sperry Chafer on the program a while back.
He said the same thing. That what a difference between what Christ and the
Twelve and John the Baptist preached for
But
you see, God is still going to have to pick up again with
Now
let’s get back to Colossians chapter 1 verse 25, finishing the verse. This “dispensation of God which is given to me for you.” That
is for you Gentiles. Remember now, he’s
writing to Colossian believers, but it was for the whole Gentile Body of
Christ. And what’s the end result?
Colossians
1:25b
“…to fulfill (or bring to fruition, or bring to completion, to bring to a finish) the
Word of God.” In other words, the New Testament would
finally be complete.
Now
that brings up another thought, and people don’t stop to think about it. For how many years did these early believers
of the Apostle Paul go with no Pauline instructions in the printed page? A long time. He probably began his ministry about 40. I say about
because I can’t be real dogmatic. But he began his ministry up in
All
right, come back to I Corinthians chapter 14.
Most people, I don’t think, even get an inkling of what he’s talking
about. I Corinthians 14 verse 1:
I
Corinthians 14:1
“Follow
after charity, and desire spiritual gifts, (plural) but rather that ye may prophesy.” Now think a minute. Out of all the
spiritual gifts that the Corinthians were concerned
about, which one was to be paramount above everything else? Well, the gift of prophesying.
But
now here’s the kicker. When you think of
prophesying, what does the normal individual think of? Telling the future like
Isaiah and Old Testament Prophets.
No, this word prophesying means speaking forth. Just simply speaking forth
the Word of God. So, what’s Paul
implying here? The most important gift
that a believer could have in those days before they had the written Scripture
was the God-given gift to preach the Word.
That’s all they had, gifted men, until the Scripture came in.
I
guess I should have stayed and gone back to I Corinthians 13. It’s been a long time since we taught
Corinthians, except I guess the daily programs will be getting it pretty
soon. But in chapter 13 (between 12 and
14, the chapters on gifts) verse 8—now maybe this will give you a little free
information to go home with today, and for those of you on television to share
with your neighbors. Now maybe this
verse will make sense.
I
Corinthians 13:8
“Charity (or love) never faileth: but whether there be prophecies, (Speaking forth. Not telling the future. But where there be men gifted in speaking
forth the Word--) they shall fail; (They’re going to disappear.) and
whether there be tongues, they shall cease; whether there be knowledge, it
shall vanish away.” Why? Because it would be coming
in the written page. Now they’ll
no longer need gifted men coming in from time to time, they’ll have the
Scriptures in their hands. And that’s
what we’re talking about.
That’s
what Paul means back here in Colossians 1:25.
Come back with me to where he said this dispensation of God was given to
him to fulfill, or finish, the Word of God.
After Paul’s epistles, that completed everything. Now we still haven’t gotten to the crux of
the mystery, have we? Now verse 26:
Colossians
1:26a
“Even
the mystery…” That is all wrapped
up in this dispensation of the Grace of God. This whole series of things that
had never been revealed before, all these mysteries now compose the doctrines
of the Grace Age believer.
Now,
all the rest of Scripture is certainly the Word of God. Don’t ever take that
away. Don’t ever accuse me of saying
that only Paul is the Word of God.
No. But you do not get doctrine for Christian living back in the Old
Testament. You do not get the plan of salvation in the Old Testament and really
not in the four gospels. All of it is
background. It’s all showing us how God
has unfolded the plan of the ages and showing us His sovereignty. But when it comes to the nitty-gritty of our
everyday belief system, you stay between Romans and Philemon and you won’t go
astray. Now, that’s all as clear as I
can make it. Now verse 26:
Colossians
1:26a
“Even
the mystery which hath been
(What’s the next word?) hid from ages and from
generations,…” Now think a
minute. How did we start this
afternoon?
Deuteronomy
29:29a
“The
secret things (the hidden things)
belong
to the Lord our God…” And they
stay there until He is ready to reveal them.
And then here it comes.
Now
let me show you a good example. We haven’t done this one for a long time. Go back to Luke chapter 18. A beautiful illustration of how God can keep
things to Himself even though He spoke it.
Luke 18:31 and we’re at the very end of His three years of
ministry. They’re up in northern
Luke
18:31
“Then
he took unto him the twelve, and said unto them, Behold, we go up to
Luke
18:32-33
“For
he shall be delivered unto the Gentiles, (the Romans) and shall be mocked, and spitefully
entreated, and spitted on: 33. And they (the Romans) shall
scourge him, and put him to death (the crucifixion): and the third day he shall rise
again.”
Did
it happen? Every last bit of it! How did He know all that? He was God!
But now look at the next verse.
Here are these twelve, ordinary, healthy men, with no hearing problems
that we know of.
Luke
18:34
“And
they (the Twelve) understood
none of these things: and this saying (What I just read from the lips
of the Lord Jesus. Was what?) was hid from them,
neither knew they the things which were spoken.” In other words, they didn’t head down
to
Now,
if you don’t believe me, just stop and think.
If they would have known what He said, and if they would have heard it,
where would they have been early that Sunday morning? Outside the tomb waiting
for things to happen. Were
they? Oh, they were long gone. It was all over. They’d forgotten all about a promise of a King
and a Kingdom already. He’s dead. He’s gone.
But see what the Scripture says?
That’s what it means when God hides things from mankind. And that’s His prerogative.
Now
come back again to Colossians. This
whole concept of this Body of Christ called out of the predominately Gentile
world—people saved by nothing more than believing that Christ died for them,
shed His blood, was buried, and rose from the dead was kept secret. And they have become members of the Body and
Christ. He’s the Head! And the Body of Christ is a living
organism. We are in a union with
Christ. We are part of a living
organism.
But
this whole concept had been totally hidden until it was revealed to this person
and no one else. That’s why Peter, back
there that we read early this afternoon, told his readers to go to Paul because
of the wisdom given unto him. Peter
didn’t understand all this. He
couldn’t. God didn’t expect him to. Don’t ever lose sight of this. I almost get tired of repeating it, but I
have to, because people can’t get it.
They just can’t get it that this Body of Christ is something so
insulated from all the prophecies and promises given to
Now
the reason I get so exercised is because people can’t see the difference. I don’t get any hate mail, per say. I haven’t had over two or three letters in
fifteen years that I would call a hateful letter. But I do get letters questioning my
“whatever,” mostly because they cannot see the difference between Christ’s
earthly ministry and Paul. It’s all one
jumbled-up mess for most people. And
then I get exercised. Why can’t you see
it when the Scripture so clearly separates it all? Why do you want to keep mixing it?
I
told Iris that I thought of a good illustration. She’ll probably think I’m nuts for sharing it
with the whole crowd. But I was thinking
about a good illustration. Now I know
I’m dated. Some of you probably don’t
even know what I’m going to talk about.
But do you remember when the old quart milk bottle was delivered to the
door? Before they dreamed up
pasteurizing and homogenizing, we bought raw milk. After twelve hours in that bottle, what
happened to that milk? The cream came to
the top. And I told Iris that must have
been why they formed the bottle the way they did, because the neck would be
cream and down below was that pale blue skimmed milk. All right, the only reason I’m using that for
an illustration is you have a dividing line between the skim milk below and the
cream on top. Now, what do you have to
do to mix it? Just tip it upside
down.
Now,
am I making my point? This is what
they’re doing between the Gospel of the Kingdom for Israel—which was mainly
faith in His name, and the Gospel of Grace for us today—which is faith in that
finished work of the cross! Here it is
so clearly separated. For us today our
direction is UP!! Heavenly!! Which direction is the rest of it?
I
thought it was a good illustration. I
don’t think Iris thought so. But all you
have to do to mix it is just turn it upside down a time or two and it loses its
identity and once again it’s back. And that’s where Christendom is. They just
constantly keep it all amalgamated, when God has so perfectly separated
it. Have I made my point? I hope so.
All right, come back to Colossians.
Colossians
1:26-27
“Even the mystery (this secret) which hath been hid from ages and from
generations, but now is made manifest to his saints: (Or put into the
spotlight where there is no doubt about what we are talking about.) 27.
To whom God would make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery
among
the (What people?) Gentiles; (And what is the secret?) which
is Christ in you, the hope of glory:” That’s something that is never alluded to anywhere else in Scripture. The Creator Himself indwelling you and
me? Are you getting the point? What a revelation!
And
again, most of Christendom just ignores it.
They don’t bring this out. You
don’t see this in Sunday school. You don’t hear this on Sunday morning. But what a revelation that here we have the
Creator God, not only purchasing our salvation, not only doing everything that
needed to be done on our behalf, then He comes in and above everything else He
becomes part of us and we’re part of Him. Oh, what a glorious Salvation! “Christ in you, the hope of Glory!”
It’s
not just for this world, as down here we’re just passing through. The Glory is awaiting us! And we can’t even begin to describe it. That’s why I think the Scripture is
silent. There is not one word in here
telling us what Heaven’s going to be like.
All the descriptions of Heaven are the earthly Kingdom to
Colossians
1:28a
“Whom we (Paul)
preach, (See, Paul doesn’t preach Paul. Paul only
knows one Gospel, and that is Christ crucified, buried, and risen from the
dead!) warning every man, and teaching every
man in all wisdom;…” Now, like we talked early this afternoon, not the
wisdom of the intellectual community, but the wisdom of God, the knowledge of
God.
Colossians
1:28b-29
“…that we may present every man perfect (mature) in Christ Jesus. 29. Whereunto I also labor, striving according to his
working, which worketh in me mightily.”
All
of this had been kept secret all the way up through the Old Testament, the four
Gospels, and Christ’s earthly ministry.
Not a word about going to the Gentile world. Remember, Jesus only dealt with two Gentiles,
and they were special dispensations of His compassion. One was the Roman Centurion and the other was
the Canaanite woman. Otherwise, it was
all Jewish, because all of the Old Testament promises were to
Now
let’s get started on these next four lessons which will complete book 76. For those of you out in television, we just
want to welcome you to an informal Bible study.
I guess you’ve heard that often enough.
I’m going to address a few things that keep coming over the phone, and
that is do not – please – do not apologize, you folks out
in television, for not being able to give a large offering. We appreciate your prayers as much as any
cash that you could possibly give. So
don’t apologize if you’re not in a position to give a lot, and always remember, it’s the widow’s mite that the Lord recognized. So that’s the first thing.
I
had to write a few of these things down, because I’ve been forgetting
them. Again, we want to thank you for
your letters. They continue to be such
an encouragement to us. My, when we
realize what the Lord is doing. In fact, we’ve got folks visiting us from
In
fact, I had a conversation yesterday with a couple of Jehovah Witnesses. The lady has already come out of that cult
and her husband’s on the fence. I had a nice conversation with him, and he’s
studying the situation. So we’re
reaching a lot of people from various backgrounds that are beginning to see the
truth of these “Pauline Mysteries.”
Now
the other one is our prison ministry. We haven’t mentioned that as often as I
suppose we should. For you fellows that
are watching the program in prison. If you would like our transcribed books, we
send them out free to any prison inmate that asks for them. We send them out three at a time starting
with number 1. So we’ve got a lot of
these older fellows in prison who are already up to books 40, 50, and 60. If
any of you out there are interested, just drop us a note and we’ll get that in
the mail to you.
Another
one is the newsletter. We have a quarterly newsletter that we send out free. If
you’re not getting it and would like to, just call the girls and give them your
name and address and our newsletter will come.
And I always emphasize there’s no begging for money in our newsletter. I won’t ask for money on the program. I won’t ask for it in the newsletter. It’ll be strictly some tidbits of Scripture
and our itinerary and so forth.
The
other question that comes in so often is: Can I copy your material? Absolutely!
Anybody can copy anything they want—off the Internet, from the books, or
from the tapes. Because
again, we’re not in this for the money.
We want to get the Word out. So,
if some of you out there want to make copies, you go right ahead and copy. All we ask is that you don’t sell it for a
profit. That’s the purpose for it being
copywrited. We have to be protected on
that. But other than that, if it’s for
the Lord’s service, then you go ahead and copy all you want.
I
think that’s enough of that. Let’s get
back into our mysteries as we see them listed on the board. We’ve covered the Mystery of God’s Will, the
Mystery of Christ, and the Mystery of the Body of Christ. We’re having a question here in the studio of
whether we’ve actually done the Mystery
of God in Colossians. I think we
did, but if not, we may have to get it later.
But for right now, I’m going to jump in at the Mystery of Godliness. That
is in I Timothy chapter 3 verse 16.
Now,
while you’re looking that up, I’m going to remind you again of our rule of
thumb for Bible study. And what is
it? Who wrote it? Well, it’s the Apostle Paul. Who was he writing to? His young son in the faith,
Timothy. It’s a letter that is
preparing Timothy for picking up the mantle, as it were, if Paul leaves before
the Lord comes. And I’m of the
impression that all of these early men of God connected to Paul and the Body of
Christ were of the impression that the out-calling or Rapture of the church,
which we think is getting close, would come in their lifetime. Now, not everybody is going to agree with
that. But they certainly didn’t think it
was going to be 2,000 years. That I know
for sure.
So
anyway, Paul is writing to Timothy in preparation of his taking over his roll
as the Apostle of the Gentiles, or whatever. So what he writes here, I think,
makes all difference in the world if you understand those circumstances. But let’s come in at verse 14 of I Timothy
chapter 3.
I
Timothy 3:14-15a
“These
things I write unto thee, hoping to come unto thee shortly: 15. But if I tarry
long, that thou mayest know how thou oughtest to behave thyself in the house of
God, which is the church of the living God,…” Well, let’s just stop and show you what I’m talking
about. Come back to Ephesians a moment,
because we have to find these things out from Scripture. Otherwise, it’s just
the words of another human being. Come
back to Ephesians chapter 1. And again, let’s jump in a few verses ahead of
what I want, verse 20.
Ephesians
1:20-21
“Which he wrought in Christ, when he raised him from
the dead, and set him at his own right hand in the heavenlies, 21. Far above all principality, and power, and might, and
dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this world, but also in
that which is to come:” In other
words, to establish again who Christ really is.
Now verse 22:
Ephesians
1:22-23a
“And
hath put all things under his feet, and gave him to be the head (not the King, but the head) over all things to the church,
23. Which is his body,…” Now you see, most of Christendom can’t differentiate that. They think the church is the church is the
church. In fact, those of you who were
with me last week, you saw that evidence.
But
listen, there are all kinds of churches listed in
Scripture. And in my experience last
week, that’s what I tried to do – the word church
comes from the Greek word ecclesia. Always. Well, good heavens, when Stephen writes in
Acts chapter 7 about the church in the wilderness, he wasn’t talking about a
New Testament church. He was talking about
Well,
you have several of those things. But
you always have to differentiate which church Scripture is talking about. And most can’t handle that. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. I can still hear it. But this is what we’re talking about.
Ephesians
1:23
“…(the church) Which is his body, (and it’s) the
fullness (or the complement) of him that filleth all in all.” I’m going to make the point later today, and
I’ll make it again next taping and maybe the next one, and that is that this
“Body of Christ Church” is never ever alluded to or hinted at or spoken of
anywhere else in your Bible except Paul’s epistles. You cannot find it. It’s not addressed anywhere. These things make all the difference in the
world. Now if you’d come back to I
Timothy with me a minute to chapter 3 verse 16.
I
Timothy 3:16
“And
without controversy great is the mystery (There’s that word—great is the secret--) of godliness: (And here
it is. This is the secret.) God was manifest in the flesh, justified in
the Spirit, seen of angels, preached unto the Gentiles, (Beginning with
Paul’s apostleship) believed on in the world, (As a result of the preaching of the
Gospel.) received up into glory.”
Of course, He’s at the Father’s right hand.
But,
you see, all of these things were still in an untold mode until it comes out in
this Apostle’s epistles. That’s why he’s
always referring to these things as mysteries or secrets.
And again, you know the verse in Deuteronomy 29:29. I hope most of my
television audience already knows it. “The
secret things belong unto the Lord our God.” Why?
He’s Sovereign. He can do what He
wants. And if He doesn’t want the human
race to know something, He doesn’t have to tell us. But the verse goes on to say, “the
things that are revealed belong to us…”
Well,
it’s the same situation that I use in Romans chapter 10, that “faith
cometh by hearing, and hearing cometh by the Word of God.” And I’m always asking the question.
Can you believe something that God hasn’t said?
No way! So we have to wait until
God says it as a revelation from the ascended Lord of Glory before we can
believe it. And that, again, is what
people can’t comprehend. And that’s why
Paul is constantly referring to all these mysteries. These were all doctrinal truths that were
never addressed anywhere else in Scripture.
God kept them secret for His own purposes. And that’s why there’s so much
confusion. That’s why there is
“blenderizing” all the time. So, let’s
look back at verse 16 again.
I
Timothy 3:16a
“And
without controversy (without any
room for argument) great is the mystery (this revealed secret now) of
godliness:…” Not according to
I
Timothy 3:16b
“…God
was manifest in the flesh, justified in the Spirit, seen of angels, (Of course He was) preached unto the Gentiles,…” Now, let me just make a point here again. Come back to Ephesians again to chapter 3
verse 1. Just for an example, so that
you know where we’re coming from.
Ephesians
3:1a
“For
this cause I Paul, the prisoner of Jesus Christ (Now again, you’ve got to ask yourself, well, where
is he writing? Well, in prison in
I
Timothy 3:16c
“…received up into glory.” Well, what’s
that a reference to? His
ascension. But before He
ascended, He was seen of not only the Twelve, but of 500 others. And then Paul says, last of all He was seen
of me also. Then, of course, He went on
up into Glory to take that position at the right hand of the Father.
All
right, now I think there’s another Scripture that we can refer to in this same light.
That would be in Titus chapter 2, and drop down to verse 11. Here it’s still from the pen of the Apostle
Paul writing, again, to one of his other associates who I think he refers to in
one of his passages as “fellow apostles and prophets.”
Titus
2:11-12a
“For
the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath (past tense) appeared unto all men.
(In other words, it wasn’t just confined to the few. And here it is in the next verse. This is what the Grace of God coming through
the Word of God is now doing for you and me as Gentiles. It’s--) 12. Teaching us that, denying ungodliness
and worldly lusts, (or desires) we should live soberly, (in other
words not frivolous) righteously, (In other words, we are
always attaining to do that which is right before God as well as before men.) and
godly,…”
Now
that’s a small “g.” That means the very
opposite of living according to the god of this world. We live according to the dictates and the
teachings of the Word of God.
Titus
2:12b
“…in
this present world;” See, as we
live from day to day—Monday through Saturday—not just on Sunday morning. For most people, that’s the only hour they
practice their faith. But it’s a seven
day a week responsibility. And then at
the same time, while we’re living and walking the Christian life, what are we
also to be doing?
Titus
2:13
“Looking
for that blessed hope, (As we’re
going to see later this afternoon, which so many in the world today are
scornfully ridiculing. But for you and I
who believe, it’s the blessed hope. Don’t
you ever forget it.) and the
glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ;” That’s the Rapture and not the Second
Coming at the end of the Tribulation. This is the appearing for the Body of
Christ before the Tribulation starts. Paul
is constantly associated with. “The glorious appearing of the great God and our Savior Jesus Christ.”
Now
all of that, I think, is what Paul made reference to when he wrote in I Timothy
about the Mystery of Godliness. It is
the fact that believers can live a godly lifestyle. It’s not impossible. Now for
Galatians
5:16
“This
I say then, (Now remember, Paul
is writing to Gentile believers, not the Nation of Israel. He’s writing to us Gentile believers.) Walk
in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfill (or give in to) the
lust (or the desires) of the flesh.” See that?
Galatians
5:17a
“For
the flesh (the Old Adam, the old nature, the lost world around us)
lusteth (or warreth) against the Spirit (life),
and
the Spirit against the flesh:…” That is in the
life of a believer. We have these two
entities within us, the Old Adam and the new Spirit life; and they’re in a
constant warfare.
Galatians
5:17b
“…and
these are contrary the one to the other: (absolutely, as opposite as daylight from dark) so that ye cannot do the things
that ye would.”
Now,
you’ve heard me use this before. That’s sort of like floating in a canoe on a
swift flowing river. If you’re going to
just float, which way do you go? Well,
back. In order to make headway, you’re
going to have to constantly put effort into the paddle to take that canoe
upstream. That’s the Christian
life. You can’t just sit back in your
easy chair and say, well, I’m living the Christian life. No, you’re not! You’re being lazy. You’re inept, and you’re
accomplishing nothing. We have to be out
there going against the stream. Now
verse 18:
Galatians
5:18
“But
if ye be led of the Spirit, then ye are not under the law.” This is the
mystery of godliness. You’ve got to
remember,
Now
then, in order to define it clearly so that there’s no doubt as to what you and
I as believers should be avoiding, here they are. The works of the flesh. And it’s not pretty. You’ve heard me do this before. As we go through these things, ask yourself:
would I like to live in a community that is based on this lifestyle? Is this where I would like to live? Well, let’s look at it.
Galatians
5:19a
“Now
the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these; Adultery,…” What
brings in more pain and more heartache and more upheaval in the home than
adultery? It never brings joy and
happiness. We see it in the world all
the time. Would you like to live in the
midst of that? No way.
Galatians
5:19c
“…fornication,…” Well, that’s just the next step down from
adultery. In fact, I had a lady write
just the other day. She was shocked at
Webster’s definition of fornication. She
thought that that was just vile, vile, vile sexual acts. No, fornication, according to Webster is
sexual relationships between any two people who are not husband and wife. That covers the whole gambit. Look at the world today. They’re wallowing in it.
Galatians
5:19d-20a
“…uncleanness,
lasciviousness, (Now, that’s just
another fancy word for constantly living in the gutter level.) 20.
Idolatry,…” Now you go back into
Well
you see,
Galatians
5:20b
“…witchcraft,…” Now, we
like to think in
In
fact, Iris and I had a first-hand experience.
We were taken into a women’s prison. Before we got there, one of the
ladies that was going to take us in said, “Now remember, Les, we were talking
about witchcraft last night out here, and you’re going to bump right into it
when we get into this group of ladies.”
Well, I know Iris and I both thought she was kind of stretching the
envelope. But you know what? We hadn’t been in there five minutes (they
had about twenty young ladies) and up came witchcraft. Unbelievable. And so there it is. And it’s one of the things of the flesh.
Galatians
5:20c
“…hatred,…” Hatred. What’s the opposite of hatred? Love. Would you like to live in a community where
there’s no love ever expressed. That
your neighbors hated you and you hated your neighbors. That would be a horrible lifestyle. But that’s the world. Next word:
Galatians
5:20d
“…emulations,
variance, wrath, strife, (Never,
never a calm minute—It’s always a community in uproar.) seditions,
(Which is really a rebellion against governmental authority.) heresies,” Can’t believe a thing you hear.
Galatians
5:21
“Envyings,
murders, (My, we’re seeing that,
aren’t we?) drunkenness,
(Which a lot of time leads to murder.) revellings, (Which leads to
drunkenness.) and such like: of the which I tell you before, as I have also told you
in time past, that they which do these things shall not inherit the
But
now you go into verse 22. I guess we
can finish the half hour. This is the
other side of the coin. This is the life
of the Spirit-indwelt believer. And he
may not necessarily be the most spiritual, because that’s a process, you
know. We don’t all get spiritual
overnight. But for the believer, indwelt
by the Holy Spirit, this is the result.
The first word is what?
Galatians
5:22a
“But
the fruit of the Spirit is love,…” Love—which is the very benchmark of all of true Christianity. It was the love of God that put Christ on the
cross. It was the love of God that
caused ol’ Saul of Tarsus to suffer for twenty-some years to get this glorious
message of salvation into the Gentile world.
Love is the key. You’ve heard
that before. The next one is joy.
Galatians
5:22b
“…joy,…” My, what a difference
between “joy” and “happiness.”
Joy is that which Paul had in the dungeon. Miserable. His back probably still
healing from beatings. Cold and wet. And yet
what could Paul exclaim? “Rejoice.” They could sing hymns in the midst of it
all.
Now happiness—that’s a shallow thing. Happiness is
something when everything is going your way.
The stock market is going up.
Your health is good. Your bills
are paid. You’re secure in your
job. You’ve got a good wife. Got good kids. That all builds what? Happiness!
But what does it take to dump it?
Any little accident and happiness just goes out the window. But joy?
Joy is eternal, beloved!
You
know, that’s why I love mountains. I
just love mountains, because they are so eternal. Well, that’s joy. That is an eternal result of our faith. Let’s get a couple more.
Galatians
5:22c
“…peace,…” Now when
Paul speaks of peace, he speaks of two kinds of peace. The peace with
God, which we experience the moment we are saved. And then we have the peace of God, which carries us in our
daily life. That come what may, we have the peace of God that is carrying us
through. All right,
got to go a little quickly.
Galatians
5:22d-23a
“…longsuffering, (That gives us patience.) gentleness,
(Sometimes I get prone to be tempted to lose that gentleness. But I pray constantly, Lord, keep me gentle,
keep me kind.) goodness, faith, 23. Meekness, temperance:…” Now there’s a word that too many people confine
merely to being temperate with your alcohol intake.
No,
temperance is something that carries into every facet of life. How you raise your children – under a heavy
hand of the whip, under the loose hand of permissiveness. Neither one are going to work. But when you are temperate, you re what? You’re in a balance. In everything we are to be temperate. We maintain a balance, and we don’t go head
over heels one way or the other.
Galatians
5:23b
“…against
all these things (Paul says) there
is no law.” There is nothing that would forbid any of these fruits of
the Spirit to be functional in the life of the believer. All it takes is being submissive to the
leading and the guiding of our precious Holy Spirit. And we do that, of course,
through an attitude of prayer. Lord,
give me wisdom, lead me, and direct me, day by day.
Okay,
good to have you all back from your coffee break. For those of you joining us on television, I
always have to remind folks that we are just an informal Bible study. Hopefully we teach the Word in a way that you
can study it on your own and enjoy your Bible.
Don’t just read it because you think you have to. Let it be a joyful experience.
Okay,
we only have one book that we always continue to let people know is available.
It’s our Question and Answer book.
It covers a lot of things, and it’s had a lot of good response. A lot of people use them. People say it’s the best $11 they ever spent. They make wonderful gifts.
Okay,
in our teaching of the mysteries, the studio audience has let me know that I
not only skipped number 5, which we did in the last half hour, but I also
skipped number 4! Somehow
or other that didn’t come out in my bookkeeping. So, we’re going to pick
up number 4 now. It doesn’t make any
difference in the order they are taught. Turn with me to Colossians chapter 2,
and we’ll spend a few moments, probably not as much as I would have had my
thoughts been all in order, but Colossians chapter 2 verse 2. We’re going to start with verse 1.
Colossians
2:1
“For (Paul says) I would that ye knew what great conflict I
have for you, and for them at
In
other words, Paul was not instrumental in starting these two little
congregations. Colossi and
Colossians
2:2-3
“That
their hearts might be comforted, being knit together in love, (We’ve been stressing that.) and unto
all riches of the full assurance of understanding, to the acknowledgement
(or ready to accept the fact of this mystery) of the mystery of God, and of the
Father, and of Christ; 3. In whom are hid all the treasures
of wisdom and knowledge.”
Now,
I think all the apostle is doing here is reminding us again of the Triune
God. In fact, you can just go a little
further in this same chapter, go on down to verses 8 and 9. Because you see, these are things, as I said
in the last taping, you do not find anywhere else in Scripture. It was left for this apostle to reveal these
things that God had providentially kept secret.
And
that’s why I just told a gentleman yesterday, a Jehovah’s Witness. The wife was only in it about nine years, so
she had a better chance. But the husband had been in it since birth. After watching my program for not all that
long, she saw the truth of all this and was genuinely saved and came out of
it. But she wanted me to talk to her
husband. She said he’s starting to look at it, but he’s been in it all his
life. He is having such a hard
time. Would you talk to him? Yes, gladly.
And
he was a real nice gentleman. You know,
a lot of times these people are abrasive, and they’re against you. But he was real open. So we talked a good
long while—over half an hour. Finally, I
left the conversation with him this way.
I said, “Look, if for the next three or four weeks you will just read
nothing in your Bible but the Book of Romans.
And then for another week or two read the rest of Paul’s epistles on
through Philemon. Then call me back, and
we’ll just pick it up on the phone.”
Well, fortunately, they’re in an area in
Now
here’s where prayer comes in. You just
pray that these people will get this full understanding of who God is.
Those
of you who have been approached by Jehovah Witnesses at your door, or wherever,
I think you’re all aware that they cannot accept the fact that Jesus Christ is
God. He was something less than
God. He was through an act of
reproduction, somewhere along the line.
But they can’t accept that He was part of the Godhead, and that’s what
made me think of them. What Paul is
talking about here as being the mystery of God is His Triune-ness, if I can put
it that way. That He’s One God according to Deuteronomy. Absolutely, He’s One God. But He is still in Three Persons.
Now
there’s no way we humans can understand that, because it’s into the realm of
the Spirit. So, how do we take it? By faith. God says it. That settles it! Why question it? Like I tell more and more people when they
come up with these things that are not definitely answered in Scripture, “Hey,
if it doesn’t affect your salvation, your eternal destiny, your Christian walk,
your hope for the end here on this planet, wait until we get there! And then we’ll have all understanding.”
And
I’m satisfied with that answer. Don’t
try to find something that the Scripture doesn’t address. Wait until we get there, and we’re going to
have full knowledge. But here is an item
that Scripture does address—God is a God of Three Persons. Now down to verse 8, Paul writes to these
Gentiles in Colossi and
Colossians
2:8a
“Beware
(or be careful) lest
any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit,…” Oh, now listen. If the Colossians needed this, we need it
today a million times more;
because the false stuff is coming in like a tsunami.
Listen,
when a tsunami is coming, you’ve only got one way to go. And what is it? High ground!
You’ve got to hightail it for high ground or you’re never going to make
it. Well, that’s where we are with false
teaching today. It’s just coming in like
a tsunami, and all we can do is race for a place of safety. And what’s our place of safety? The Word of God. This is it.
Colossians
2:8a
“Beware
lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit (false teachings) after the tradition of men,…” Now, in
all of this tsunami of false teaching that’s coming up lately, especially in
the term the emergent church, I tell
everybody to run from it like a tsunami.
Because
even though it sounds good, it sounds valid, and reputable men are embracing
it, that doesn’t change it. You run from
it. Because what they’re trying to do is
take us back to the early church fathers.
That’s one of their premises.
We’ve got to get back to the teachings of Origin
and Justin Martyr and Chrysostom
and Athanasius and some of the others. Listen,
every one of them are heretics. Every one of them.
And yet everybody has been resting on the church fathers for ever so
long, and now they’re trying to kick us back to them.
I
think I mentioned it one day last week.
All it’s really amounting to is getting the world ready for the
Colossians
2:8b
“…after
the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ.” Now again, we
have to remember as we saw in our last taping. You go back over here to chapter
1 and I could repeat it every week because it is so earthshaking. Come back with me right now to chapter 1
verse 15.
The
pronoun “who” is referring to the “Redeemer” up in verse 14, who is
the “Son”
of verse 13, who is connected to the “Father” up in verse 12. But now into verse 15, here
is “God
the Son.” We covered it
in detail in our last taping.
Colossians
1:15
“Who
is the image (The visible
manifestation of what kind of a God?) of the
invisible God, the firstborn of every
creature:” Why is He invisible?
He’s Spirit. And no man has seen
God at any time.
Now
that throws a curve at people. Why
not? Because until
Christ became flesh, God was an invisible Spirit. Again, when the Scripture says, “no
man hath seen God at any time and lived,” what were they talking
about? That Triune
Spirit Godhead. No one has ever
seen that and lived. But once God the
Son became visible, of course, that’s no longer an instruction, because we do
see God in the person of God the Son.
All right, that’s what Paul is addressing here.
Colossians
1:15
“Who (the Son) is the image (the visible
manifestation) of the invisible God, (or the Spirit God.) the
firstborn (Or, He comes before everything else that was ever created.) of
every creature: 16. For by him (By God the Son, Jesus of Nazareth, what happened?) were all
things created,...”
That’s
why He could go to that cross and take the sin of the whole world—from Adam to
the end. How else could it happen had He
not been the Creator of everything Himself?
Nobody else could do that. And
that’s what we have to emphasize. When we believe in a work of the cross that
took not only my sin but everybody else’s, how could He? He was the Creator. That’s what we have to understand, and that’s
what Paul is revealing for the first time.
Now
you ask the average Sunday school person.
You ask the average church goers. I don’t care whether they are liberals
or conservatives. “Who created the
universe?” What’s their answer? God. Well, yes, that’s true. But what person of the
Godhead? They don’t have a clue,
because they’ve never read Paul.
I’m
going to say some more about that before the afternoon is over. Well, I don’t know. I’m already in the second
program, so I know I won’t get there.
But anyway, they ignore this apostle’s letters. I’m always using the expression: they treat
him like an unwanted stepchild. He’s
there, but we don’t want anything to do with him. I can tell it in the articles I read and in
the sermons I listen to. They just avoid this apostle, and he’s the one with
all the answers.
I
read, I think I referred to it in the last taping. You go back into church history starting with
these early church fathers. Did they put
any emphasis on Paul’s apostleship? Not
a one of them. Where was all their
emphasis? Christ’s earthly
ministry. The Sermon
on the Mount. And that’s as far
as they ever get. Oh, it’s
sad how the millions upon millions down through history have been totally
deceived and mislead.
All
right, now back to my text in Colossians chapter 2—the Mystery of God—how that
we are not to be deceived by the rudiments of the world and not after
Christ. He is the key of everything. And here’s why in verse 9. I love this verse.
Colossians
2:9
“For
in him (not the Father, not the
Spirit, but the Son) dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead
bodily.” Well, what’s the
Godhead referring to? The
Trinity. The
Triune-ness.
Now,
I am beginning to shy away from the word Trinity, because it’s not in
Scripture. Did you know that? The word Trinity
is not in our Bible, as such. But the Triune—God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy
Spirit—that’s the Godhead. And
Jesus Christ is the manifestation of that Triune God bodily. We’re going to see Him someday. He’s in a body, and He will be for all
eternity.
I
always put it this way. He condescended
to limit Himself to that body for the sake of the salvation of the human
race. Otherwise, He wouldn’t have had
to. He could have just as well stayed an
invisible Spirit. He went eons and eons
and eons of time that way as far as we know.
But for the benefit of saving the human race, He confined Himself to
that body in which He will dwell for all the rest of eternity, if I understand
Scripture. Now verse 10:
Colossians
2:10-11a
“And
ye (as a believer, you and I as
believers) are complete in him, (In other words, when we place our faith
in that work of the cross plus nothing, do we need anything more? No!
That’s all we need. It’s
complete.) and he is the head of all
principality and power: 11. In whom also ye are circumcised with the
circumcision made without hands,…” Not a
physical circumcision, a spiritual.
Well,
you all know by now, you’ve been studying with me long enough. Circumcision is a cutting off of that which
was superfluous. So, in the Spirit
realm, what’s superfluous? The Old Adam. We
don’t need him. He’s superfluous. He’s worthless. So he’s been cut off by an act of God, not by
an act of a human being. That’s the “circumcision
made without hands.”
Colossians
2:11b-12a
“…in
putting off the body of the sins of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ: (the Old Adam) 12. Buried with him in baptism,…” Not water, but Holy Spirit.
Now
we’ve got to chase another verse, don’t we?
I Corinthians chapter 12, we’ve got to cover everything with
Scripture. I Corinthians chapter 12
verse 13, now this is the baptism that Paul refers to. Romans chapter 6 and here in Colossians
chapter 2 and in other Scriptures, whenever he speaks of baptism, this is what
he’s talking about.
I
Corinthians 12:13a
“For
by one Spirit (the Holy Spirit) we
are all (Every last believer has experienced this baptism. There’s no denominational connection
whatsoever. This is a thing between the believer
and God Himself.) we are all baptized (or placed or
positioned) into one (What?) body,...” The Body of Christ.
No
church can do that. No denomination can
do that. Only God can do that. Every
believer becomes a member of this Body of Christ by virtue of the Holy Spirit
placing us into that Body. Now back to
Colossians chapter 2 once again.
Colossians
2:12
“Buried
with him in baptism, (that Holy
Spirit baptism) wherein also ye are risen with him
(It’s the power of the Holy Spirit that brings us out of deadness into life.) through the faith of the operation of God, who hath
raised him from the dead.” See, there are certain elements of Paul’s
epistles that just keep popping up and popping up. Three of them are faith, hope, and
charity. They just keep popping up all
through Scripture. The other one is the
death, burial, and resurrection. It just
keeps coming to the top over and over.
Why? Because
they are paramount to our position in Christ. Now
verse 13.
Colossians
2:13
“And
you, being dead (in our
pre-salvation existence) in your sins and the uncircumcision of your
flesh, (We hadn’t been cut off from Old Adam, he still controlled
us. That’s all in our past.) hath he (God, up in verse 12) quickened (or made you
alive) together with him, (That is with Christ, who also now has been
raised from the dead. But here’s the
best part of all.) having forgiven you (already) all
trespasses.”
And
that’s not license by any stretch. It’s
something that should sober our thinking. That Christ has done that much on our
behalf without our lifting a finger.
Yes, the moment we believe it, He considers our whole sin problem
forgiven and in the past. It’s done and never to be brought before us again. Now then, you come on into the next
verse. I wasn’t planning to do
this. Can’t help it. You’ve just got to keep going.
Colossians
2:14a
“Blotting
out…” Why? Because we’ve placed our
faith in that finished work of the cross. We’ve been forgiven. We’ve been given the power of the Holy
Spirit. Now these are things we have to
understand. Don’t be plagued by these
things from the past. Don’t let somebody
try to teach you something that was taught to
Colossians
2:14b
“Blotting
out the handwriting of ordinances that was against us,…”
Now I like to think of the 613
rules and regulations that came out of the Ten Commandments and Judaism. Six hundred and thirteen rules! And it was all nailed to His cross!
Colossians
2:14c
“…which
was contrary to us, and took it out of the way, nailing it to his cross;” What does it
do when you crucify? You put it do
death. So, all these rules and
regulations were put to death. Now verse
15:
Colossians
2:15
“And
having spoiled (or defeated) principalities
and powers, he made a shew of them openly, triumphing over them in it.”
When we speak of principalities and powers in Scriptures, whose power are we
usually referring to? The
satanic. All the satanic
principalities and powers are utterly destroyed so far as we are
concerned. They are defeated. Now reading on in verse 16.
Colossians
2:16
“Let
no man therefore judge you (Or
point an accusing finger at you because you aren’t keeping such and such a
rule, or because you aren’t keeping such and such a law. Hey, that’s all been crucified to me. I’m set free from it. So don’t let anybody judge you.) in food, or in drink, or in respect of a holy
day, or of the new moon, or of the sabbath days:” Do you see how plain
this is? Why? That was all nailed to His cross! We’re free from it.
And
look at the millions of people that are still laboring under a Saturday
Sabbath. That if they don’t keep it, they’re going to Hell. Well, they are, whether they keep it or not,
because they’re not putting their faith in this finished work of the
cross. Oh, it’s so sad that they’re
under that legalism. They’re afraid to
break out from it. And if they don’t,
then they are doomed. They’re not going
to make it.
So,
don’t let anybody judge you as a believer in what you eat or what you drink or
in respect of holy days. Going back to
Judaism, or the new moon; which, again, was part of Judaism—when the first
little sliver of the New Moon showed, that set the next month in motion. And the same way with the Sabbath Day,
they’re all a thing of the past. We have
no Sabbath Day, per se. Now verse 17,
what did it all amount to?
Colossians
2:17
“Which
are a shadow of things to come; but the body is of Christ.” It was a shadow of things to come. Now, I come back to one of my favorite
illustrations. You already know what it
is, don’t you? The
big, old, beautiful tree.
The tree with the sunlight shining behind it. What lays out on the ground?
The shadow. And you remember the old fellow came along
and wanted to buy that beautiful tree to make furniture and the guy says, no, I
won’t sell you the tree, but I will sell you the shadow. How much furniture can you make with a
shadow? Well, none. How much salvation can you get keeping the
Law of Moses which was a shadow? None. Get the
picture? Oh, it’s all so obvious. That was all part of the “looking
forward.” But it has no validity for us
today. All these things were a shadow of
things to come.
Well,
let’s see. I wanted to make one more
comment yet before we go away from this mystery. Come back with me to Ephesians chapter 5.
Remember our subject for this half hour is the Mystery of God. Who is He? What is He?
Well, He’s a Three Person Godhead operating as One. And here we have two of them in Ephesians
chapter 5 verse 20.
It’s also an instruction for prayer.
How do we pray? Well, here it
is.
Ephesians
5:20
“Giving
thanks always for all things unto God and the Father in the name of our Lord
Jesus Christ.” There’s the formula for prayer. You approach God the Father however you want
to do it. If you want to start out like
the Lord’s Prayer, Our Father which is in Heaven, that’s absolutely
legitimate. But somehow or other, you
address the Father. You’re going to ask and pray everything in the name of the
Lord Jesus Christ.
Now,
in the minute we have left, let’s go back to Romans
chapter 8. This is where we pick up so explicitly the Third Person of this
Triune God, the Holy Spirit. You
remember when we were teaching Romans, we pointed out that in those first seven
chapters the Holy Spirit was hardly ever alluded to. That’s why Paul had the problems that he had
in chapter 7. But then you get into
chapter 8 and the Holy Spirit just breaks out all over the place, just like
blossoms in the springtime. Every place
you look in Romans chapter 8 you’ve got a reference to the Holy Spirit. All right, start right out in verse 1.
Romans
8:1
“There
is therefore now no condemnation to them who are in Christ Jesus, who walk not
after the flesh, but after the
(What?) Spirit.” The Holy Spirit. All right, now just come on down. We’ll do this quickly—verse 11.
Romans
8:11
“But
if the Spirit (the Holy Spirit) of
him that raised up Jesus from the dead (resurrection again—and if that
Spirit--) dwell in you, he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also
quicken (or make alive) your mortal bodies by his Spirit that
dwelleth in you.” And then you come over to verses 14 down through 17.
Again, it’s the operation of that Third Person of the Trinity.
Romans
8:14
“For
as many as are led by the Spirit of God, (See that?) they are the children of God.”
Romans
8:16
“The
Spirit himself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are (What?) the
children of God.” See the world
of the Holy Spirit? It’s
everywhere. God the
Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit.
My,
we’re glad to see everybody back from your coffee break. We’ll go into the
third program this afternoon. We are in
book 76, for those of you out in television. We’re in the final four programs
of that book. Right, Jerry? And hopefully we can get through the next two
mysteries in these next two programs. That will put everything concerning these
mysteries in book 76. That would work
well, wouldn’t it?
Okay,
those of you in television, we’re asking you to turn with us to Romans chapter
11. The studio audience is already
waiting. We’re going to drop down into verse 25. We’re looking at the sixth
mystery up here on the board, which is “the
Blinding of the Nation of
Romans
11:25
“For
I would not, brethren, (So, he’s
writing to believers, as I’m always emphasizing. Paul never writes to the unbelieving world.) that ye should be ignorant of this mystery, (or
secret) lest ye should be wise in your own conceits; (Now here’s the
mystery.) that blindness (spiritual blindness) in part (For a period of
time. Not from here until eternity, but
for a period of time blindness--) has happened to
Now
when Paul speaks of the “fullness of the Gentiles,” I have
to feel he’s talking about one thing and one thing alone, and that is the Body
of Christ. So, as we get closer and
closer to the end of the Church Age, and the Body of Christ is nearly full, we
have
Now,
just to show you how all of this comes about from way back in the Old
Testament, I’ve got to go back to I Kings.
Way back in the books of history.
I Kings chapter 19 and, of course, God is speaking
here. He says:
I
Kings 19:18
“Yet
I have left me (Or, I have kept
to Myself.) seven
thousand in
Today
the Jewish population is somewhere around 15 million. But only 7,000 at the time of Elijah were
faithful? You’ve heard me refer to this
one over and over. That boiled down to about 1/10 of 1% of
Now
here’s where I think I’d better make my comment before I go any further. You’ve heard me say it with regard to the
beginning of the human experience when God set the whole system of humanity on
planet earth in motion back there in Genesis.
He gave mankind a free will. Right? God did not
use them like puppets on a string.
Yet
here we are 6,000 years later. Is God’s schedule still on time? Absolutely!
To the last jot and tittle after 6,000 years of human history of men’s
free will—to declare war, sign peace, and do all of these horrible things. Yet everything is exactly where God
programmed it. Which tells you
what? He’s in control of
everything! Which
makes you ask the next question. Then why all the misery?
Well, that’s hard to answer, isn’t it?
Why, if God is in such total control, has He let the human race bring in
so much misery and discomfort and heartache if He could have programmed it
differently?
Well,
I can’t answer that. You can’t answer
that. It’s just one of the unique things
of Scripture that God in His Sovereignty has permitted all of these
things. I don’t think He directed it,
per se, but He’s permitted it. Look at
the suffering in the world today in this enlightened age with all of our
technology. There’s more death and
murder and sorrow than any other time in history. Well, why?
Because it’s the way God programmed it.
All
right, now with the Nation of Israel, it’s the same way. God miraculously brought Abram out of
God
would discipline them, and they’d go out, like into the Babylonian Captivity
for 70 years. How many of them came back
to the homeland when Cyrus came up and said, all right,
Was
that according to God’s design? Yes.
Absolutely! That’s the way He
designed it. These things just boggle the mind.
That’s why we’ve got to come away from all of this thinking and trying
to figure it out. Just take it by faith,
what we can understand. Like I said in the last half hour. If the Bible doesn’t definitively give you
your answers, wait until we get there!
We’re going to be able to ask a lot of questions, if we have to. I don’t think we’ll have to. I think we’re going to have full
understanding and knowledge.
But
anyway, isn’t it amazing that this chosen Nation, this favored Nation, would,
all the way through its history, only give a small remnant of obedient Jews or
Israelites, whatever you want to call them, to God’s service.
All
right, let’s move to the next one in Isaiah chapter 1 verse 9. This is a verse that we’ve used over and over
through the years. And again, it just
says the same thing. It’s just so hard
to believe. Why, when these people were so favored. And because of their
unbelief, they became almost what we would think the un-favored. Do you remember ever watching Fiddler on
the Roof? What did the old boy, the
main character, what did he say? “Well,
if we’re the favored nation, I wish He’d choose someone else for a while.” Well, I can understand why they would. Why would God treat us the way He treats
us? Well, because of their disobedience
and their unbelief!
Isaiah
1:9
“Except (or unless) the LORD of hosts (There again Paul
would define that. Who is it? Well, it’s God the Son in His Old Testament
operation.) had left unto us a very small remnant,
we should have been as
We
can take the next ones now from Ezra and Nehemiah. Go back a few pages, back into the history
again. Ezra and Nehemiah, these are the
two that led that small contingent of Israelites back from their Babylonian
captivity. Go to Ezra first, chapter 3
and drop down to verse 64. All got
it? Ezra chapter 2 verse 64. Now, you’ve got to remember that up there in
chapter 1—maybe we’d better look at that first.
Keep your hand in chapter 3.
Let’s go back to chapter 1 first—Ezra chapter 1 verse 1. They’ve been out in captivity for 70
years. According to today’s news, you
should know where that is. That’s in the
area of present day
Ezra
1:1-3
“Now
in the first year of Cyrus king of Persia (Iran), that the word of the LORD by the mouth of
Jeremiah might be fulfilled, the LORD stirred up the spirit of Cyrus king of
Persia, that he made a proclamation throughout all his kingdom, and put it also
in writing, saying, (Now this is what his proclamation said.) 2.
Thus saith Cyrus king of
They
were all free to go. He wasn’t holding a
one of them back. All right, now come
back where we were looking in chapter 2.
How many bought into it? It’s in
chapter 2 and verse 64. Out of those
several million Jews (Israelites) who had been taken captive, and Cyrus had
given them full permission to go back to
Ezra
2:64
“The
whole congregation together was 42,360.” Isn’t that something? Why?
What was the matter with the rest of them? They had no interest in what God had for
them. They had no interest in rebuilding
a
What
had they been doing? Oh, they’ve become
bankers. They’ve become
businessmen. They’ve been migrating
throughout the then-known world. That’s
why wherever Paul went years later, every place he went, what did he find? Synagogues of the Jews. But they had no real spiritual life or
interest.
Now
you can come into Nehemiah. He’s the
next one some years later. Come down to Nehemiah chapter 8. He’s coming back to rebuild the city walls
and the housing in order to make
Ezra
8:35a
“Also
the children of those that had been carried away, which were come out of the
captivity, offered burnt-offerings unto the God of Israel, twelve bullocks for
all Israel,…” Now, some of you may be wondering why I am
emphasizing this. Well, most of
Christendom has bought into this false idea that the ten tribes of Israel to
the North disappeared into the captivities of the Syrians and so forth, and
that really the only people of Israel that were left after all this were the
two tribes in the South—Judah and Benjamin.
That’s one of the biggest lies ever perpetrated on the Christian church.
Those
ten tribes weren’t lost. Most of them
had already migrated down into
Ezra
8:35b
“…twelve
bullocks for all
All
right, let’s take a quick jump, because I’d kind of like to wind this up in
this half hour and it’s going so fast. So jump all the way up to chapter 13.
And again, we’ve touched on this before, but it doesn’t hurt to repeat. We’ve got Paul and Barnabas starting their
first missionary journey. After they
left
Acts
13:6-7
“And
when they had gone through the isle unto Paphos, they found a certain sorcerer,
a false prophet, a Jew, whose name was Bar-jesus: 7. Who
was with the deputy of the country, Sergius
Paulus, who was a prudent man; who called for Barnabas and Saul, and desired to
hear the word of God.” Now, what
have you got? You’ve got a Gentile who
is calling for the Apostle of the Gentiles (Romans 11:13). He wants to hear the
Word of God from this Apostle. All
right, but this Jew is going to intervene now in verse 8.
Acts
13:8-10
“But
Elymas the sorcerer (for so is his name by interpretation) withstood them, (In other words, held them back from approaching
Sergius Paulus.) seeking to turn away the deputy from the
faith. 9. Then Saul, (who is also called Paul,) filled with the Holy Spirit, set his eyes on him, 10. And said, O full of all
subtlety and all mischief, thou child of the devil, (Boy, that’s strong
language, isn’t it?) thou enemy of all righteousness, wilt thou
not cease (or stop) to pervert the right ways of the Lord?”
In other words, preventing this Gentile from hearing
the Gentile plan of salvation from the Apostle of the Gentiles. Now verse 11:
Acts
13:11
“And
now, behold, (Paul says to this
sorcerer, this Jew) the hand of the Lord is upon thee, and thou shalt be (What?) blind, (Physically. The rest of your life? No.) not seeing the sun
for a season….” What’s the
picture? That’s
In
fact, come back with me to chapter 17.
This is the Apostle’s second journey.
He’s up there along the Aegean Coast of Greece, north of
Acts
17:5
“But
the Jews (See?) who
believed not, moved with envy, took unto them certain lewd fellows of the baser
sort, and gathered a company, and set all the city in an uproar, and assaulted
the house of Jason, and sought to bring them out to the people.” They had to escape for their lives
practically from Thessalonica. Now come on down to verse 12. This is while they’re in
Acts
17:12-13
“Therefore
many of them believed; also of honorable women who were Greeks, and of men, not
a few. 13. But when the Jews of Thessalonica had knowledge that the word of God
was preached of Paul at
Well,
now we can move back to Luke. Luke
chapter 2 and, again, this is some 400 years after they had come back from the
Babylonian Captivity. That’s a long
time. The Nation of Israel has now been
pretty well established again—under the
Now,
is the whole nation waiting and ready for this event? No, just a little smattering. I’m just going to point out a few of
them. Luke chapter 2 verse 8 and down
into those next few verses you have the response of the shepherds to the
announcement of the birth of Christ.
They knew what they were looking for.
Luke
2:8-11
“And
there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch
over their flock by night. 9. And, lo, the angel of
the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them: and
they were sore afraid. 10. And the angel said unto
them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall
be to all people. 11. For unto you is born this day in
the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord.” All right, now
the shepherds responded. They didn’t
reject that announcement. Now come on
down to verse 25.
Luke
2:25a
“And,
behold, there was a man in
Luke
2:36a
“And
there was one Anna, a prophetess, the daughter of Phanuel, of the tribe of
Aser: she was of great age, and had lived with her husband seven years…” Verse 38.
Luke
2:38
“And
she coming in that instant gave thanks likewise unto the Lord, and spake of him
to all them that looked for redemption in
All
right, let’s jump all the way up again to the Book of Acts, if you will. Acts chapter 1 and, again, we’ve touched on
all these things before. This is just good review. The response of the Jews of Jesus’ earthly
ministry—was there a great percentage?
No. Just a few,
comparatively.
Now,
don’t let all those crowds that gathered around when He performed the miracles
of the loaves and the fishes and all that confuse you. You’ve heard me say what that was. That was the free lunch. They had no interest in spiritual things but
to fill their belly? Oh,
absolutely. It’s no different today.
All
right, in Acts chapter 1 verse 15 and this is a shocking number. After three years of signs and wonders and
miracles, how many did even the Lord Jesus Himself gather, at least in the area
of
Acts
1:15
“And
in those days Peter stood up in the midst of the disciples, (That is these believers who had become followers of
Jesus of Nazareth.) and said, (the number of the names
together were about (How many?) an hundred and twenty.)” That’s nothing. That’s nothing compared to the whole. But that’s been
Now
we’re going to come all the way up to Acts 28:28. Coming all the way up to
the end of Paul’s ministry. He is
now being taken prisoner to
Acts
28:21-22
“And they said unto him, (As they leave,
they said unto Paul--) We neither received letters out of
Acts
28:24
“And
some believed the things that were spoken, and some believed not.” Now come on
down to verse 28.
Acts
28:28
“Be
it known therefore unto you, that the salvation of God is sent unto the
Gentiles, and they will hear it.” What has happened to
Now,
when you get into Romans chapter 11, we have the concluding answer to
Romans
11:7
“What
then?
And
it’s so true. My, it is so hard to get a
Jew to see these things. Some do, but
it’s always been that small, small percentage.
Okay,
good to see you all back for program number four this afternoon. For those of you joining us on television, we
trust you understand that—I think I’d better explain really quickly that these
once-a-week programs as you see them on the air are current. Of course, you all realize that. Then you watch me on Monday through Friday
and all of a sudden I’m fifteen years younger!
Well, it’s just because those are reruns. But a year from now I’m gong to be pretty
close, so I’ll look just as old on those reruns as I do on the weekend. That’s the format. The weekend programs are weekly, and the
daily programs are reruns.
All
right, we’re going to go to the next mystery.
And I wish I had two half hour programs.
But since this is going to end Book 76, some of it may have to go on
into Book 77. But I’m going to try and
sandwich it in as quickly as I can.
Okay, I Corinthians chapter 15 verse 51.
This is another one of the mysteries that was revealed to the Apostle
Paul that had never ever been hinted at.
Now
I’ve got to emphasize that. Because nearly everybody tries to blenderize the
Scriptures and say that—for example in Matthew 24:41—the two women working at
the mill, where one will be taken and the other one left is the Rapture. Another one is John 14 where God says, “I
will go and prepare a place for you.” Many say that’s the Rapture. No, it couldn’t be! Because then God would be betraying the
secret. God doesn’t work that way. God does not lie. If those examples were the Rapture, then Paul
wasn’t shown a mystery or secret as God says he was!
All
right, now here is the secret that has never been revealed before. And whenever I get letters of opposition, and
it’s getting worse and worse; not just for me, but for everybody that is
proclaiming this end time event, the Rapture.
It’s coming under attack more and more.
In fact, I mentioned last week at the prophecy conference. In 1998 Tim Lahaye wrote a book Rapture Under Attack.
Well, now it is 10 years later and it has just been compounded.
It’s
no longer a kind letter that says, “Well, Les, I just can’t agree.” Now they attack and say, “Where do you get
such a dumb idea?” And a lot of them
like to refer to this Margaret McDonald.
Oh, the minute I see that—and for you out in television, if you’re going
to write to me on the Rapture, don’t mention Margaret McDonald. Because when
you do, your letter goes straight in the trash can. And I don’t mind telling people that. I got one just the other day and the first
thing I saw – Margaret McDonald – I didn’t even read it. Waste basket time!
Do
you know who Margaret McDonald was?
No. Most people don’t unless
you’re in my position. But I first ran
into it, I’m going to say at least 20 years ago in one of the five cities where
I go and teach. And it happened because
many of the people in this one particular large church were in my weeknight
class. And the pastor got wind of the
fact that I was teaching the Rapture.
Well, the next Sunday he puts out hundreds and hundreds of copies of
where this idea of the Rapture began.
And how it went back to the middle 1800’s at the time of John Darby that
there was this teenage girl who was running on less than a full tank mentally
and she had a vision. And in this vision
she saw the Bible opened up dispensationally and the Rapture. She took it, supposedly, to John Darby, and
John Darby just jumped on it.
Now
listen. John Darby was one of the top
theologians of his time—middle 1800’s.
He had already published his own Bible translation. I’ve got a copy someplace. Tremendous scholar. And you think he would listen to a teenage
girl who wasn’t all there? But see,
that’s what they’re trying to tell people. That this whole concept was given to
John Darby by this whatever and that he latched on to it, and then from that
point on we have the rise of dispensationalism.
That’s a lie straight out of the head office of the god of this world,
Satan. Don’t you ever believe it.
Now
I think I shared in the last taping. I
had a poor gentleman. I think he’s from
All
right, now of all the letters that I’ve had through the years, there aren’t
that many—probably—what? One a month, if that?
I doubt it. We get hundreds of
letters a day. If you get one a month, that’s only one out of thousands. They immediately start showing me these
Scripture verses to refute my teaching of the Rapture. Well, where are they getting all their
Scripture? Old
Testament, the Four Gospels, and the Book of Revelation. They totally ignore Paul’s Epistles, and he
was the only one given this secret. So what do I do? I just skim through it. If I don’t see a reference
to any of Paul’s epistles, waste basket.
They haven’t got an ounce of ground to stand on. Why should I bother trying to prove my
point? Because the first thing these
people have to understand is, as I’ve already said, only Paul has anything to do with the Rapture, because only Paul
teaches the Body of Christ!
And
anybody can see that by just simply reading the rest of Scripture. You will not
find one reference, not one, to the Body of Christ, except Romans through
Philemon. That’s all. Well now, does that take such an intellect to
put two and two together? That if this
Apostle alone was given the revelation of these mysteries that would bring
about the Body of Christ, could these other places have reference to it and it
still be called a secret? It can’t happen. Here’s the key in verse 51.
I
Corinthians 15:51
“Behold,
I show you a mystery; (A
secret. And here’s the secret.) We
shall not all sleep, (or die physically) but we shall all be changed,” Now
that’s obvious. When we come to the end
of the Church Age, there’s going to be living believers.
Well,
is God going to kill them all first so He can resurrect them from the
dead? Well, no way. Once He’s resurrected the believers of the
Body who have died and they’re reunited with their soul and spirit, then the
next event is to change those of us who are still on the planet earth from this
body we are living in to the new resurrected body in an instant. And many can’t seem to buy into that, because
I guess it’s too hard. Hey, with God,
nothing is impossible!
I’m
going to do quickly like what I did the other night over the period of an
hour. It is to show that this idea of
believers being taken off the planet before the Tribulation begins is
scriptural, as the Body of Christ has absolutely nothing to do with the horrors
of the Tribulation, which are death and destruction.
Okay,
now I’m going to have to watch the time.
Ordinarily, I don’t do that. But
on this half hour, I’m going to watch my time.
Let’s turn first and foremost back to Revelation chapter 6. Now ordinarily when I teach Revelation 6, I
like to also use Matthew 24. But I’m not
going to do that for sake of time today.
But in Revelation chapter 6 you can start with verse 1. Here we have the
appearance of the anti-Christ, or the next event after the Rapture has taken
place. By then the Church is gone,
because we can have nothing to do with death and destruction, which I’m going
to show you in these next 18 minutes.
But here we go. This is prophecy
concerning the Second Coming.
Now,
the first seal is the appearance of the white horse—the fake Christ, the
anti-Christ. Then in verse 3 we have the
appearance of the red horse.
Revelation
6:3-4
“And
when he had opened the second seal, I heard the second creature say, Come and
see. 4. And there went out another horse that was red:
and power was given to him that sat thereon to take peace from the earth, and
that they should kill one another: and there was given unto him a great
sword.”
Now
back up really quickly to I Thessalonians chapter 5. Ordinarily Paul makes very
little allusion to prophecy except in rare occasions. I think this is one of them, as well as in II
Thessalonians. I Thessalonians chapter 4 is his
comparison passage with I Corinthians 15:51.
I
Thessalonians 4:17
“Then
we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the
clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord.” Now you drop
down into chapter 5, and we’re going to be dealing with those that are left
behind.
I
Thessalonians 5:1-3a
“But
of the times and the seasons, brethren, ye have no need that I write to you.
2. For yourselves
know perfectly that the day of the Lord (Now that’s the Tribulation. Those final seven years are called the
Day of the Lord.) cometh as a thief in the night. 3. For (Now
watch this.) when they (That is the world’s population) shall say, Peace and safety;…”
Now
that’s the white horse of Revelation 6:2.
The anti-Christ is going to come in promising peace and prosperity.
All
right, so now Paul is telling us, yes, when the Tribulation opens, it’s going
to be peace and safety.
I
Thessalonians 5:3b
“…then (What’s the next event?) sudden
destruction cometh upon them,…” Now, come back to Revelation 6 again.
That’s exactly what we’ve got. After the
white horse of peace and safety, now you come into the second horse and it’s “red.” The rider of this horse is given the power--
Revelation
6:4b
“…to
take peace from the earth, (And
they’re going to end up--) and that they should kill one another: and
there was given unto him a great sword.” Now, I associate that with the
prophecy of Ezekiel 38 and 39 where
I
put it toward the end of the first year of the seven. Because in biblical
history, if a king came on the throne as much as one day before the end of a
year and goes into the next year, that one day was considered a full year. That’s biblical timing. Now, if this Russian invasion comes along at
about the 11th month of the Tribulation, then
Now
as a result of that invasion, of course, there’s going to be tremendous loss of
food production. Because I honestly feel
that the Russians are going to preempt everything they’ve got on North America,
knowing that we would come to
So,
what’s the next great event? Famine. Oh, it’s as
logical as daylight follows dark. That’s
back in Revelation 6 verse 6. Then he sees the fourth angel and the fourth
creature saying:
Revelation
6:7b-8a
“…Come
and see. 8. And
I looked, and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death, and
Hell followed with him. And power was
given unto them over the fourth part of the earth, to kill with sword, and with
hunger, and with death,…” All right, put two words in that scenario and what
would it be? Death and
destruction. Not peace and
safety. Death and
destruction.
Now
for sake of time, I’m going to jump right over to Revelation chapter 14. I’m not going to look at the companion
portion in Isaiah, for sake of time. But if you want to put it in your notes,
that would be in Isaiah 63—where this final judgment that’s going to come on
planet earth is likened to putting grapes in a grape vat. Now it stands to reason. They harvested the
grapes and threw them into this huge hollowed-out stone. They can’t just let those grapes sit there.
So what do they have to do? Crush them
one way or another.
Now
there was one that we saw in
Revelation
14:14-15
“And
I looked, and behold a white cloud, and upon the cloud one sat like unto the
Son of man, having on his head a golden crown, and in his hand a sharp sickle. (speaking of a harvest) 15. And another angel came out of the
temple, crying with a loud voice to him that sat on the cloud, Thrust in thy
sickle, and reap: for the time is come for thee to reap; for the harvest of the
earth is ripe.” It’s time for
God’s final judgment.
Revelation
14:16-19
“And
he that sat on the cloud thrust in his sickle on the earth; and the earth was
reaped. 17. And
another angel came out of the temple which is in heaven, he also having a sharp
sickle. 18. And another angel came out
from the altar, who had power over fire; and cried with a loud cry to him that
had the sharp sickle, saying, Thrust in thy sharp sickle, and gather the
clusters of the vine of the earth; for her grapes are fully ripe. 19. And the
angel thrust in his sickle into the earth, and gathered the vine of the earth,
and cast it into the great winepress
(not of a vineyard, but--) of the wrath of God.”
All
right, now we’ve got to do a little thinking.
The vast military that’s still left by the end of the seven years of
Tribulation will be the Orient.
Well,
it’ll be a God-directed thing. It’s
going to be supernatural. These men, not
knowing what they’re doing, are going to command their armies to make their way
to the Nation of Israel. They’re going to pack them into the valleys of
Then
along the
You
know, I read an interesting statistic years ago, not that many, but probably in
the last ten years. Every man, woman, and child in
Okay,
now let’s jump across the page in my Bible to chapter 16. Here we have the
crushing element. Millions upon millions
upon millions of the world’s troops packed into the valleys of
Revelation
16:21a
“And
there fell upon men a great hail out of heaven, every stone about the weight of
a talent:…” If you’ve got a marginal help, it’s what? One hundred pounds. One hundred pound chunks of ice are going to
come cascading down on these millions of men out there in the open field. So what have you got? You’ve got a river of melting ice and blood
that will indeed run as deep as a horse’s bridle.
I
think, if it is not already topographically possible,
God will make it. That river of blood will find its way to the
Now,
let’s go back and show how Paul warns us for our final days on the planet. That’s going to be in II Timothy chapter
3. I shared with the prophecy conference
last week how I was driving home from one of my classes in
II
Timothy 3:1
“This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall
come.” Now you want to remember, Paul has only one last day
in mind, and that’s the Body of Christ.
He’s not concerned about prophecy.
He’s dealing only with the Gentile Body of Christ.
II
Timothy 3:2-5
“For
men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud,
blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, 3. Without natural
affection, trucebreakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of
those that are good, 4. Traitors, heady, high-minded, lovers
of pleasures more than lovers of God; 5. Having a form of godliness, but
denying the power thereof: from such turn away.”
And
Michael stopped and said, “Fellow Americans, this is where we are.” Is it?
It’s tomorrow’s newspaper! It’s
next week’s newspaper. It’s exactly
where we are. But now here’s my
point. Is there one word of death or
destruction? Not a word. Now isn’t that
amazing? This is the scenario that you
and I can look for at the trumpet call.
We
don’t have to look for vast devastation.
We don’t have to look for millions upon millions of people being put to
death. In fact, I made the point the
other night. In Revelation chapter 6
when at the mid-point of the Tribulation it says one-fourth of the world’s
people will be killed. Good heavens,
what’s one fourth of seven billion people?
One point seven five billion! Not
million! One and three quarters of a
billion people are going to be dead by the end of the first three-and-a-half
years. We can’t image what that’s going
to be like. But by the end of the seven,
they’re just about all going to be dead.
There’s just going to be little smattering of survivors around the
planet.
But
see, Paul doesn’t allude to that. Paul
says it’s a breakdown of moral and spiritual things. See the difference. Boy, that’s as different as daylight and
dark. You and I aren’t going to be part
of that death and destruction. This is
what we look for. All right, now in the
two minutes I have left, let’s just capitalize on this.
II
Timothy 3:2a
For
men shall be lovers of their own selves,…” Instead of lovers of God. True?
Well, you know it is. Nothing
matters to the human race today like the economy. And it isn’t just
All
right, now I’m going to go all the way down to verse 5. This is the one that
slaps us in the face every time we turn around.
We’re in a time where people--
II
Timothy 3:5a
“Having
a form of godliness,…” Any power? None. It’s all flim-flam. I call it hip-hop religion. And that’s all it is. There’s no power of God in it.
I
had one of my converts out of Roman Catholicism call from
But
see, this is why I’m making such a dividing line between the Body of Christ
which was a secret kept in the mind of God and never revealed in any of the
prophetic statements. Not one iota. The
mystery of the Rapture has nothing to do with the death and destruction of the
end-time scenario. And then they
ridicule us for believing that we’re gong to be taken out before the
Tribulation begins? Man, this is the
glory of being in the Body of Christ!
This is our “Blessed Hope” that we’re looking for!
Titus
2:13
“Looking
for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our
Saviour Jesus Christ:”
Copyright © 2008 Les Feldick Ministries. All rights reserved.