Alright, we’re going to begin our Study. I hope you can hear me
well because I put in my air conditioner in a couple of… what was it?
–Thursday?… and the air conditioner is right by the mic here, so I hope
there’s no background noise.
Alright, let’s go in our book of Ephesians here. So if you have
your Bibles here with you tonight --and I hope you do-- turn with me with Ephesians
Chapter 1, verses 22 and 23. And we’re going to continue on as we go verse by verse
in the book of Ephesians. It’s a meaty book; it’s a good book. It’s one
that really needs to be dissected to gain all the truth you can out of it. Sometimes we
look at these four chapter books, the six chapter books, or one chapter books, and we
figure, well, you know, there’s not as much meat in here as there is in say,
something like Matthew or John, or the book of Isaiah, or something like that and
unfortunately, skip ‘em. And what we cannot do is skip ‘em, because there’s
a LOT of Truth that is entwined throughout the entire Bible found in this book. And
that’s what we want to look at tonight, some of the great truths of Scripture.
So, Ephesians Chapter 1, verses 22 and 23.
[It] says this: "22 And hath put all things under his feet, and gave him to be the
head over all things to the church, 23 Which is his body, the fulness of him that filleth
all in all." Now, if we’re going to begin to look at these Scriptures, what we
want to do is we want to look at other Scriptures, which kind of build on this theme.
Basically, what we’re looking at here is the testimony of the Lord Jesus Christ being
all in all and having all authority and all power.
So turn with me to Colossians Chapter 1, verse 18. In
Colossians Chapter 1:18, we read this: "And
he is the head of the body, the church: who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead;
that in all things he might have the preeminence." Now, when we look at a
statement like this, "and he is the head of the body, the
church." You know, when you cut somebody’s head off, the rest of them are
useless. It dies. The complete body dies. If you cut an arm off, you can live. But you
can’t cut a head off and see that body live, because they still haven’t been
able to transplant heads yet. Modern medical science has not gone that far. So we see in
Colossians 1:18 that He is the head of the body, the church. And [where] you see the word
"body," in the Greek, it is the word "soma." And the word
"soma" normally refers to a living body. In this
case, it’s a living body. It’s a word that’s defined by its context: "…who is the beginning, the first born from the dead…"
The "Prototokos" [firstborn] "…the firstborn of
the dead…" [is] one who is NEVER going to die again. "…that in all things he might have the preeminence." --NOT in some things, not in a few things… But the Lord
Jesus Christ is all in all, and He has the preeminence, because in Him, all the fullness
of the Godhead dwells in Him, which is another great mystery.
Turn with me to 1 Peter Chapter 3, verses 21 and 22.
And we see in these two passages, it says: "21
The like figure whereunto even baptism doth also now save us (not the putting away of the
filth of the flesh, but the answer of a good conscience toward God,) by the resurrection
of Jesus Christ: 22 Who is gone into heaven, and is on the right hand of God; angels and
authorities and powers being made subject unto him." So when we see a term
like as we saw back in Ephesians 1:22, it says: "And hath put
all things under his feet," That’s
a term which means everything is subject to Him, and everyone is subject to Him --even the
unbeliever who does NOT believe that the Lord Jesus Christ is God Himself. --Or the
unbeliever who goes around and just swears His name out doesn’t realize that
he’s going to have to give an account for every time he used that Holy Name. So He
put all things under His feet. And we see that He’s at the right hand of God in
Heaven. And all angels, all authorities, powers --whether they be on heaven or on earth,
or in hell-- are subject to Him –totally subject to the Lord Jesus Christ.
One more passage. Let’s look at Hebrews
Chapter 2, verse 8. And we read there: "Thou hast put all things in subjection under
his feet. For in that he put all in subjection under him, he left nothing that is not put
under him. But now we see not yet all things put under him." As finite beings, we
cannot see all the powers and principalities that God has placed under the Lord Jesus
Christ. We cannot see demons. We cannot see Satan himself who is under the authority of
God. We cannot see angels who are under the authority of the Lord Jesus Christ. We could
only see ourselves, human beings. We can see this world as under the authority of the Lord
Jesus Christ. And that’s because we are part of this world. And that’s because
we have the Scriptures. Now, the unbeliever does not know that the ENTIRE world is subject
unto the Lord Jesus Christ. That unbeliever does not know.
Now, Christ completely indwells…
Let’s go back to Ephesians Chapter 1, verse 23: "Which is his body, the fulness
of him that filleth all in all." Christ COMPLETELY indwells and fills the church with
His glory. Completely. That glory can be seen when a new soul becomes saved, or when a
soul goes to glory, which is evidence of the victory of the Cross. Because when a soul
passes to glory, that means that God’s magnificent salvation program has culminated
that person’s life and are now in bliss and in full peace and never has to worry
about sickness, disease, and the temptations of sin. NONE of that anymore! --because God
has now completey freed them. You see, the body of death …the body of death that the
apostle Paul spoke about in Romans 7 --that physical body, which HINDERS the believer-- is
gone. Now that believer is more free than ever. Free in the Lord Jesus Christ. Free from
the hindrances of bodily pain. Free from the hindrances of sin. Free from all of that!
…because they’re in glory with the Lord Jesus Christ.
Okay, that completes Ephesians Chapter 1. Oh, it took
us about 7 weeks to get through it… it’s not too bad. Okay, in Ephesians Chapter
2, we begin with a set of verses, which is some of my favorite verses. Okay, Ephesians
Chapter 2, verse 1: "And you hath he
quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins;" Now, as you see in this
particular verse here, "hath he quickened," is NOT
in the original. And he’s carrying the idea from verse 5, which IS in the original.
But you notice, if you took those three words out that says, "and
you were dead in trespasses and sins." Dead. That word "dead" is the
word "nekros," and it’s a term, which means "lifeless," or
"useless," or just totally dead. Now, when we’re dead in our sins, we are
lifeless --we are useless-- for the kingdom of God, because we have no spiritual
understanding. This is why a lot of churches resort to religion to think they are pleasing
God. But you know something, if you want to see how God looks at a dead clergyman
who’s trying to appease Him, whether it be with some kind of ceremony or some kind of
sacrifice: Go to a graveyard and pick a grave. That grave… you’re getting as
much spirituality out of that grave as a dead man gives to God, because a person is dead
and is no more alive than a corpse.
Then it goes and says: "And you hath he quickened, who were dead…" –lifeless—
"…in trespasses and sins;" And the word
"trespasses" here is the word "offenses." It’s the same word used
in Ephesians Chapter 1, in verse 7, when we saw the word "sins," when He had
forgiven us ALL our sins. Every one. Not one will ever be brought against us in heaven.
And we never have to worry about standing in any type of judgment seat, or any type of
bema seat or judgment seat, because every single sin was paid for and removed. --NOT
covered. REMOVED. There’s a big difference, because if you can cover it, you can
uncover it. But if you remove something, it’s not there anymore.
Oh, it’s like when we were kids,
when our mothers used to make cookies. We didn’t cover them, we removed them! Of
course, we got in trouble, but hey, sometimes it was worth it… depends on the type of
cookie.
Alright, now these things mean that we are dead to the things of God
and dead people are totally incapable of resurrecting themselves to any type of spiritual
life. You know, we here all of this… "Oh, I’ll just say a few words. And
you say those few words, and you will become saved." And that’s it. Well, you
see, the bottom line is salvation comes through the Lord Jesus Christ. And salvation comes
first, and then our understanding of Scripture. If we have to understand Scripture before
we got saved, that means we would have to work for our salvation. But God comes into our
lives, sometimes when we’re in bad situations. Sometimes we can be drunks, drug
addicts… Sometimes we could just be out on the street just hanging out, and all of a
sudden God comes into our lives and saves us. And then, once we have that base of
salvation, then everything else in the Christian life falls into place.
Now, as I was going over this term about how He quickened and we were
dead in our trespasses and sins, I want to look at four resurrections, okay. Four
resurrections in the Bible. And I had looked at these resurrections for many, many years
and never saw these four principles of what they’re teaching. So these four
resurrections, they carry individual lessons, but the overall meaning of these
resurrections is the spiritual resurrection of the believer, okay. Of course, this is the
first resurrection as we see in Revelation Chapter 20, verses 5 and 6, where it talks
about this is the first resurrection. And of course, the second resurrection of the
believer, which is the final one into the eternal home. And that’s the final
resurrection of the believer. But as we were seeing in Ephesians already --that we are
already partakers of that first resurrection-- which is the spiritual life: Newness of
life. And we’re already experiencing a little heaven on earth, because we can go
through this life peaceful. Whereas, the world doesn’t.
Alright, let’s take a look at these four
resurrections. The first one is found in 2 Kings, Chapter 13, verses 20 and 21. Now 2
Kings is in the part of your Bible where the pages are still new. LOL. Okay, in 2 Kings,
Chapter 13, verses 20 and 21, now we read this: "20 And Elisha died, and they buried him. And the bands of the
Moabites invaded the land at the coming in of the year. 21
And it came to pass, as they were burying a man, that, behold, they spied a band of men;
and they cast the man into the sepulchre of Elisha: and when the man was let down, and
touched the bones of Elisha, he revived, and stood up on his feet."
Now, incidentally, Elisha prayed a double
portion of miracles. And this was Elisha’s fourteenth miracle. Now, here’s a
principle. Isn’t it interesting that even after death God fulfills His word to Elisha
that He would get the fourteenth miracle. Elisha only saw thirteen in his earthly life,
but God fulfilled His word and gave him the double portion that he asked for from Elijah.
Okay, now, here we see a man who was dead, and they threw this other dead man in. And as
soon as he let down, he touched the bones of Elisha. And the man revived as soon as he
touched Elisha’s bones. Now, what is the spiritual lesson here? First of all, the
spiritual lesson is when we are dead to the things of the world, and totally alive unto
God, we can bring forth fruit because God uses "dead"-icated people in His work.
Write the word "dedicated" out and put quotations marks around "ded."
He uses people that are DEAD. You see, what God did here was He resurrected this man. He
was a dead man. And now he’s dead to the things of the world, alive unto God. And
that’s how we are in our spiritual resurrections. We are "dead"-icated.
Dead to the world and alive unto God.
Now, let’s take a look at the second
resurrection. The second resurrection is found in Luke Chapter 7, verses 11 to 15. In Luke
7:11-15, this is the son of the widow of Nain. We read:
"11 And it came to pass the day after, that he went into a city called
Nain; and many of his disciples went with him, and much people. 12 Now when he came nigh
to the gate of the city, behold, there was a dead man carried out, the only son of his
mother, and she was a widow: and much people of the city was with her. 13 And when the
Lord saw her, he had compassion on her, and said unto her, Weep not. 14 And he came and
touched the bier: and they that bare him stood still. And he said, Young man, I say unto
thee, Arise. 15 And he that was dead sat up, and began to speak. And he delivered him to
his mother."
When we are made alive, the spiritual lesson for this
one is: When we are made alive, we become verbal witnesses for the Lord Jesus Christ.
Notice that the Bible is very clear on this. The Scriptures tell us that when He arose, He
began to speak. And just as believers, as Christians, we are always speaking of the Lord
Jesus Christ. We can’t keep it in, like Jeremiah. He was so upset that He wanted to
stop talking about the Lord Jesus Christ. Stop speaking the things of God. And you know
what, His Word burned in him so much, that he just HAD to speak. He HAD to say something.
Turn with me to Psalm 96, verses 1 to 3. We read this: " 1 O sing unto the LORD a new song: sing unto the LORD, all the
earth. 2 Sing unto the LORD, bless his name; shew forth his salvation from day to
day." --And we show forth the salvation from day to day by putting our trust
in the Lord when the unbeliever is looking. And he looks at us and says, "How can you
trust?" Well, that’s how we show the Lord salvation day by day, in practical
salvation. Then he goes on in verse 3: "Declare his glory among
the heathen, his wonders among all people." That’s our responsibility. Notice the first three words. Verse 1: SING.
Verse 2: SING. And verse 3: DECLARE. It almost gives us the procedure for a church
service: To sing the hymns, and then to declare His glory among the heathen. And we
declare God’s salvation. As He saved us, we tell others, and if those others be of
God’s elect, then they, too, will become saved.
Alright, let’s look at the third resurrection in
Scripture. Luke Chapter 8, verses 41 to 42. And this, of course, was the daughter of
Jairus. It says: 41 And, behold, there
came a man named Jairus, and he was a ruler of the synagogue: and he fell down at Jesus'
feet, and besought him that he would come into his house: 42 For he had one only daughter,
about twelve years of age, and she lay a dying. But as he went the people thronged
him." Verses 49 to 53: "49 While he yet spake,
there cometh one from the ruler of the synagogue's house, saying to him, Thy daughter is
dead; trouble not the Master. 50 But when Jesus heard it, he answered him, saying, Fear
not: believe only, and she shall be made whole. 51 And when he came into the house, he
suffered no man to go in, save Peter, and James, and John, and the father and the mother
of the maiden. 52 And all wept, and bewailed her: but he said, Weep not; she is not dead,
but sleepeth. 53 And they laughed him to scorn, knowing that she was dead." --Isn’t
that what the evolutionists say when we say a believer is sleeping? And they laugh us to
scorn, because they say, "Sleeping? They’re dead. There’s no movement in
that body!" Verses 54 to 56: "54 And he put them all out,
and took her by the hand, and called, saying, Maid, arise. 55 And her spirit came again,
and she arose straightway: and he commanded to give her meat. 56 And her parents were
astonished: but he charged them that they should tell no man what was done." Now, what is the spiritual lesson of this particular
resurrection? The spiritual lesson of this one is that when we are made alive, we are
witnesses, which confront the disbelief of others. We are made alive, we are witnesses,
which confront the disbelief of others. That, of course, happens anytime you talk to an
unbeliever, anytime you speak with an unbeliever, because you are witnessing to their
unbelief.
Now, let’s take a look at the fourth
resurrection. Now, there is another resurrection in Scripture, which I didn’t touch.
Of course, it was Eutychus that fell out of the third floor window. But I just want to
look at Lazarus now, alright. John 11. And we’ll only look at… for time sake,
we’ll look at two verses. John 11, verses 43 and 44, because basically, we all know
the story of Lazarus. Well, John 11:43, 44 states this:
"43 And when he thus had spoken, he cried with a loud voice, Lazarus,
come forth. 44 And he that was dead came forth, bound hand and foot with graveclothes: and
his face was bound about with a napkin. Jesus saith unto them, Loose him, and let him
go." Now, this is probably the most famous
picture of the spiritual resurrection of the believer.
Now, what is the spiritual lesson here? When we are made alive, we
become VISIBLE witnesses for the glory of God. Visible witnesses. You see, if I claim to
be a Christian, and people see me going into a bar at night, I’m giving a visible
witness, alright. But it’s a visible witness of hypocrisy, or it’s a visible
witness of unbelief that I was never saved. You see, if I’m still walking with the
world --when I claim to be a Christian— then something ‘s wrong, because we are
to be visible witnesses. The world is to see a difference between us and them.
You know, this is what God chided the priests in
ancient Judah for. They could not tell the difference between the holy and the profane.
They performed the duties of the temple, but they didn’t know what was holiness. They
didn’t know what was profane. So what was happening was, they were defiling the
temple. They were making a mockery out of God’s ceremonies: Those foreshadows --those
types-- that type the Lord Jesus Christ. Those types --those foreshadows-- had to be holy,
because they were foreshadowing the Lord Jesus Christ who is His Holiness Himself. So if
you take some type of a ceremony in the Old Testament --no matter what it would be….
Let’s say [with] an oblation, [when] pouring out water before the LORD, and you put
strong drink in there, and pour THAT out before the LORD… What that’s doing is
that it’s mocking the foreshadow --the type. It’s adulterating it. Basically
that’s what’s happening. And when you adulterate something, what you are doing
is you are MOCKING it. See, God warns us about spiritual adultery. --Doing something else.
--Following a different gospel. --Following a different God. And that’s what Israel
did. That’s what Judah did. They followed idols. They were jealous of the
Babylonians. They were jealous of the Assyrians. They saw them conquering land after land
after land, to the point one of their kings even said… I don’t know if it was
Sennacherib or Rabshakeh or one of them who even said to the people of Jerusalem,
‘The gods of the other nations couldn’t stop us, and you’re going to stop
us? –YOUR god is going to stop us?’ You see, they didn’t realize that they
were going against the true God. And that’s who we --as Christians-- represent: The
true God, the Lord Jesus Christ Himself. And when we represent the Lord Jesus Christ as
representatives of God on this earth, we are AMBASSADORS. As ambassadors, it BEHOOVES us
to act in conformity to the government that we represent. When we have an ambassador to
another country, he doesn’t make up his own principles. He doesn’t make up his
own words. He carries words, documents, treaties, whatever --from his government to the
other government. While we, as God’s people, are ambassadors, and WE are carrying
God’s Word to the government of hell. Whenever we give someone the Gospel, we are
literally accosting the principalities and authorities of hell, and if a person becomes
saved, we’re actually taking one of their soldiers out of their ranks. So you see how
important a good, strong visible witness is?
Okay, let’s go back to Lazarus for a moment.
When Lazarus came out of that grave, he didn’t know what was happening. He was bound
with grave clothes, he was all set to be laid there until the last day, when he would be
resurrected. But you see, here’s a principle. The Lord Jesus Christ said to them,
"Loose him, and let him go." [John 11:4 KJV]. You see, whatever bound us in our old life is loosed in our
new life, so that we may be free to serve God. You see, we CANNOT carry sinful practices
over from our old life to our new life. This is why I have a problem with preachers that
drink and preach that it’s okay to drink. Or Christians that smoke. They’re not
being good testimonies. They’re allowing what bound them in the past life to continue
to bind them in the new life. I mean, it could be anything. It could be attitudes,
physical addictions, even religion. Religion has bound many people that God has saved. And
yet, they still want to stay in a church and serve in that church under the same religion.
And whether that be Roman Catholic, whether that be in a dead church somewhere --dead
Protestant church-- it doesn’t matter. You see, religion can BIND us tighter than
Lazarus was bound. Do this. Don’t do that. Sacrifice this. Don’t sacrifice that.
Observe this Holy Day. Don’t observe THAT Holy Day. All the do’s and
don’ts. It does NOT please God. --Only the SACRIFICE of the Lord Jesus Christ PLEASED
God. You see, the old life –the old life— was death. And therefore, when we shed
our grave clothes --and it doesn’t happen overnight—you see, when they used to
bind the body in the old days, they used to wrap them up. And that’s why he had to be
loosed. So little by little, when a person comes out of the old life, they shed the grave
clothes, strip by strip, because we now have on the robe of Christ’s righteousness.
We don’t need the clothing of religion. We don’t need the clothing of the world.
We don’t need anything that could rebind us again.
Turn with me to Isaiah Chapter 61, verse 10. It says
this: "I will greatly rejoice in the
LORD, my soul shall be joyful in my God; for he hath clothed me with the garments of
salvation, he hath covered me with the robe of righteousness, as a bridegroom decketh
himself with ornaments, and as a bride adorneth herself with her jewels." When
we look at this, we also see that God is the one Who hath clothed us –for HE hath
clothed me. HE hath covered me. And what’s the result here? "I
will greatly rejoice in the LORD, my soul shall be joyful in my God…" You see, when a bride adorns herself with jewels, we’re
also considered jewels. You know, wood, hay, and stubble? That’s all going to be
burned up in hell. But silver, gold, and precious stones: They define the believer. Gold:
Salvation. Silver: Redemption. The jewels, the precious jewels. So you see, it’s
important that being that we are clothed in the robe of Christ’s righteousness…
being that we are clothed in the garments of salvation, it is important for us to be that
visible witness out in the world --to be able to live before other people, to live before
them as Christians. Let us not be conformed to the world, but be conformed to the image of
Christ. You see, that word "conformed" means it is an outward showing of an
inward transaction. We became saved in our spirit, therefore, we need to portray that
salvation to the world --that it’s REAL! So once we are able to understand what
happened to us in salvation --that God has clothed us, he’s raised us from the
dead—then we can have an understanding of how we are to live. We are to live in
concert with who we say we are. If we’ve truly become saved, the things of the world
will seem less pleasurable to us.
I know I work with a fella’ who LOVES going out with his
motorcycle. And it’s something he almost lives for –for the Summer-- so he can
get on his motorcycle. For me, I couldn’t care less. I look at that and say to
myself: "My, if that’s all I can live for is a motorcycle… what good is
that? What kind of a life is that? --That my motorcycle has become my clothing? --No,
thank you. I am going to be clothed in Christ’s righteousness, and I’m going to
say, ‘Halleluiah’ to that."
Alright, it’s twenty to nine right now. Now, next week, I’m
going to go into Ephesians Chapter 2, verses 2 and 3, along with Romans 7:14 to 25, 1 John
4:3 to 10, and 1 John 1:6 to 10. So next week, I don’t want to start on Ephesians 2:2
and 3 and stop in the middle. So what I’m going to do is that I’ll stop here,
and I’m going to start next Saturday, because it’s going to be a big lesson next
Saturday on the Apostle Paul and the idea of a believer sinning where the Bible says that
if we say we have no sin, we make him out a liar, and it also says, those who are born of
God CANNOT sin. Well, how do I reconcile that? Well, next week we’re going to look
into that, and we’re going to reconcile that a little bit, based on tying it in with
Ephesians Chapter 2, verses 2 and 3. So, I hope you can join me next week.