Address—C. Hendricks
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Turn with me tonight to Ephesians chapter 6, verse 10. Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord and in the power of His might. Put on the whole armor of God that you may be able to stand against the Wiles of the devil.
For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.
Wherefore take unto you the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand.
Stand, therefore, having your loins gird about with truth, and having on the breastplate of righteousness, and your feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace, above all taking the shield of faith, wherewith ye shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked.
And take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God, praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, and watching thereunto with all perseverance and supplication for All Saints. And for me that utterance may be given unto me, that I may open my mouth boldly to make known the mystery of the gospel.
For which I am an ambassador in bonds.
That therein I may speak boldly as I ought to speak.
And of the mystery dispensation of the grace of God this present day.
Before we look into the verses we've read tonight.
We should just have a.
A little survey of this epistle.
In the first 3 chapters we have the doctrinal part of the epistle.
In the last three chapters we have the the walk of the Christian flowing from the position that we have in Christ.
In chapter 1 of Ephesians, the apostle unfolds in most of the chapter.
Our blessings on an individual basis. Our individual blessings.
What we have in Christ, we'll look at some of them as we're going through this, this consideration.
And it ends with a corporate thought. It's a prayer. There's two prayers in Ephesians, one in chapter 1 and one in chapter 3.
The one in chapter 1 is addressed to the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the one in chapter 3 is addressed to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.
He's presented in chapter 1 in both of those characters as the God and as the Father of the Lord Jesus.
The end of chapter 1 we have the prayer, the apostle praying three things, praying for three things that they might know what is the hope of their calling, and what the riches of the glory of their inheritance in the Saints. And then he says, And what is the exceeding greatness of his power to us word who believe.
According to the working of His mighty power, which He wrought in Christ, when He raised Him from the dead, and set Him in the heavenly places far above all principality and power, and might and dominion. And then it says, And He gave him to be the head over all things, to the assembly, to the Church, which is His body, the fullness of Him, that Philip All in all. And that's the way that prayer ends.
It ends with Christ in glory and being presented as the head not of the church. That's that's elsewhere in the epistle that he's the head of the church, but there he's head over all things to the church and he's presented as such to her. So it starts out with individual blessing and then it ends with this collective thought of being.
The body of Christ, the fullness, the.
The compliment of him that filleth All in all. And then it goes on in the 2nd chapter to develop more of our blessings.
We are seen seated in the heavenlies in Christ in the very highest position, and then He takes up at the end of the second chapter that which is collective and corporate.
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And two grand truths come out.
And the first is that we are members of His body. We are one body in Christ. And the second is that we are the habitation of God in the Spirit God the Holy Spirit dwelling on earth in the assembly, making the assembly the very dwelling place of God the Holy Ghost.
2 Marvelous Truths.
Being made members of the body of Christ, united by the Spirit to the head in heaven and to one another, each member on earth.
Wonderful truths and then the habitation of God by the Spirit. In the 3rd chapter he unfolds the truth of the mystery, that hidden secret which was never divulged even in the Old Testament Scriptures. It was hidden from ages and from generations.
But now has been made manifest to his Saints that the Gentiles, verse 6 of chapter 3, he might just turn back and look at it because that is the mystery that he's talking about. It's not, it's not all that's connected with the mystery. But he says in verse 6 of chapter 3 that the Gentiles should be fellow heirs, joint heirs with the Jew.
That's the first part of it, and the second part and of the same body.
Joint a joint body with Jews, you and Gentile forming a body united to the head in heaven. And the third part is and partakers or joint partakers of his promise in Christ by the gospel. Now you don't get any one of those three things in the Old Testament. This is the mystery. He talks about it in verse 3. How that by revelation he made known unto me the mystery.
Verse 5, Which in other ages was not made known under the sons of men.
As it is now revealed unto his holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit. And in verse 7, after unfolding the three elements of the mystery, that the Gentile should be fellow heirs, and a joint body and joint partakers of his promise in Christ, by the Gospel, he says, whereof I was made a minister according to the gift of the grace of God.
Given unto me by the effectual working of his power unto me. So the apostle Paul.
Was the depositary of this mystery. He was the one that was to make it known. Notice he says in verse 9, and to make all men see what is the fellowship of the mystery that should read by a better manuscripts. The more correct reading seems to be the administration of the mystery or the dispensation of the mystery.
Well, we could speak the whole evening just on that, but.
Just to bring out that in chapter 1 we have our individual blessings in Christ, chosen Him before the foundation of the world and predestinated to be conformed to to be to be placed before himself as sons and an inheritance in him, and all the blessings sealed by the Holy Spirit. All this is true of us individually and then the collective truth being made members of the body of Christ and being made.
The habitation of God by the Spirit.
This is all involved in the mystery, the truth of the mystery, and he explains how he received that revelation. It was a revelation. It wasn't something that was even found in the Old Testament. So to look in the Old Testament for the mystery is to look in vain. Now there are types in the Old Testament which now that we understand the mystery, now that it is no longer a hidden secret, but revealed to us, we can go back to the Old Testament and we can see it hidden.
Rights and shadows which we can now rightly read now that the truth of the mystery has been revealed to us. When we come to the 4th chapter where we get the practical walk falling from the doctrines of the preceding 3 chapters. The last part of the 3rd chapter is a prayer to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.
And it's it's to the effect that the Saints might subjectively.
Enter in to all that is theirs in Christ. Now notice chapter 4 starts with I Therefore the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you that you walk worthy of the vocation wherewith you are called now the first.
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16 verses of chapter 4 gives the the walk of the Christian in connection with his corporate and collective responsibilities.
When the doctrinal part is given to us, chapter 1 is individual, chapter 2 is collective, and then the truth of the mystery in chapter 3, God's eternal purpose of grace in Christ to bring us into that hidden secret of Christ in the assembly. That's the mystery. But now the first part having brought out the mystery, the first exhortation is to walk.
Worthy of the vocation wherewith we are called.
With all lowliness and meekness, with long-suffering for bearing one another in love, endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit and the bond of peace, there is one body. And so on these verses. This 1St 16 verses. Notice the 16th verse ends with from whom the whole body fitly joined together, and compacted by that which every joint supplieth, according to the effectual working in the measure of every part.
Make an increase of the body under the edifying of itself and love. This is all collective. This is the members working together in the body.
For the mutual building up of the entire body of Christ. So the first 16 verses in connection with the walk that we walk worthy of the calling. The vocation means the calling wherewith we are called. What is Our Calling? Well, we're called to be members of the one body and we're called to be the habitation of God by the Spirit. That I believe is what he's referring to in the calling. It's it's the collective line that he's bringing out.
And he mentions gifts he gave some apostles and some prophets and some evangelists and some pastors and teachers for the perfecting of the Saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ, until we all arrive at the unity of the faith and the knowledge of the Son of God. So here we have the the collective sphere, the sphere of the assembly, and all the members working together for the edifying of the body.
So it's interesting that that when he gives the doctrinal side, he starts out with individuals.
Through then collected and then when he gives the practical walk, he starts out with the collective responsibility in our walk first, and then from chapter 417 we have the walk mentioned again. This I say therefore, and testify in the Lord that she henceforth walk.
Not as the other gentiles walk in the vanity of their minds and so on. So again, he's talking about the walk.
The 1St 16 verses of chapter 4 is our collective walk. Now we have the walk of the individual in the world.
And that goes on from chapter 417 through chapter 521. There you have the walk of the Christian in this second sphere, our individual responsibility to walk not as the other Gentiles walk in the vanity of their mind, but to walk according to God in all of the various relationships at school, at home.
At our job and then the third sphere.
Starts with verse 22 of chapter 5 and runs down through 69 and it's the family sphere. It's our walk in the family. Notice verse 22, wives, verse 25, husbands chapter 6 verse one, children again verse one.
Your parents, verse 2. Thy father and mother.
Verse 4 and he fathers. Verse 5, servants. Verse 9, Angie Masters. So here you have the domestic circle. You have three circles in which we are found walking. It's either the sphere of the circle of the assembly or the circle of the world or the circle of the family. But we're always in one of those circles.
At some point in time in our lives.
And now we've come to the 10th verse of chapter 6, where we began reading tonight.
Notice he starts with finally.
My brethren, He had given all the truth, that is the highest truth individually and collectively for the Christian, for this present dispensation of the grace of God, and it's also called the dispensation of the mystery.
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The highest truth that God has ever revealed to man. You remember in John 16 the Lord Jesus said to his disciples, He said, I have many things to say unto you, but she cannot bear them now. Howbeit, when He, the Spirit of truth has come, He will guide you into all truth.
And there were many things that he could not unfold to them. For instance, he couldn't unfold this, the secret of the mystery at that time, because the mystery is Christ in the assembly. And you couldn't even have an assembly until there was a man in the glory. It says in John 7, the Spirit was not yet given because Jesus was not yet glorified.
In Acts One, Christ ascends to heaven, and they watched him.
Disappeared from their sight. On the other side of the cloud is where Christianity begins. It begins with a man in the glory and the Spirit of God, a divine person sent down from that glorified head in heaven to unite all believers into one body, one new man, and to unite them to the head in heaven.
Now that's the mystery. The mystery is Christ and the Church.
Notice in his discussion, since I'm on this point of the husband and the wife, I want to read those verses, Chapter 5, verse 22.
Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the Church, and he is the Savior of the body. Therefore, as the Church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands and everything. Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ.
Also loved the church, and gave himself for it, that he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the Word, that he might present it to himself. A glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that it should be holy and without blemish. Notice how his whole discussion here of the marriage relationship, the wife and the husband, the wife's place of subjection. The husband's place is to love as Christ loved the church.
And it's all connected with Christ and the church.
The mystery and he even mentions that verse 28. He says so ought men to love their wives as their own bodies. He that loveth his wife loveth himself. Well, that's an illusion back to the very first woman that was created. You remember when God created man, he took of the dust of the ground and he formed him into a man and then he breathed into his nostrils the breath of life and man became a living soul. Now he brought all the animals to Adam and he gave names to them, but he found none.
That satisfied his heart none. And so God caused a deep sleep to pass on Adam and out of his side he took a rib and he builded a woman. And when Adam awoke, he saw that woman. And he said, this is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh. She shall be called woman because she was taken out of man. She met his needs, she satisfied his heart.
And.
That's what he's alluding to here in this chapter.
Sought men to love their own wives as their own bodies. Eve was part of himself, and so he's alluding to that. For no man ever yet hated his own flesh, but nourisheth and cherisheth it, even as.
The Lord or Christ, more correctly, the Church. Christ the Church, For we are members of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones. Now that truth.
Could not be brought out.
Until there was a head in heaven, until there was a man in the glory to be the head of this body on earth. For this car shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall be joined unto his wife, and they too shall be 1 flesh. Now here he's talking about the union, the marriage union, which he calls one flesh. But he says this is a great mystery. It's a picture.
Of Christ and the assembly I speak concerning Christ and the Church.
And so that the mystery that he's talking about the the marriage relationship has been elevated in Christianity into an altogether new position. It is a picture of Christ and his church. Nevertheless, let every one of you in particular so love his wife, even as himself and the wife see that she reverence her husband.
All through the writings of Ephesians we have allusions to the mystery.
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The truth of Christ and the Church, all earthly relationships, the the marriage one in particular is a picture of that. And so our conduct flows from these lofty, wonderful truths that we have been given.
Finding My Brethren, verse 10. This is his final word. Now he's going to talk about the conflict.
That the Christian has All these truths have been brought to us. We've been informed, taught, brought into a knowledge of the wonderful elevated position of the Christian in Christ.
And now he says, finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord and in the power of His might. Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the Wilds of the devil, the Wilds of the devil, the stratagems, the trickery, the cunning craftiness of Satan. There are those that feel that.
Satan is out to cause us to fall into some gross immorality.
And that, that's what he's really about. Well, that will suit his purpose, true, But far less than that will suit his purpose. And all we have to do is look around us into the sphere of professing Christianity and see how successful Satan has been to rob the Church of what is her true portion, her heavenly portion.
That she is blessed in a sphere where Christ is in the glory.
Altogether outside of this world. And what is Satan succeeded in doing? He succeeded in getting Christians to thinking that Christianity is just another worldly religion and we're here to to correct the ills of society, to set the world right and to to make it a better place to live in without Christ.
Terrible thought, because the only one that's ever going to set this world right is the Lord Jesus himself.
We're not here for that purpose. We're here to represent the man that the world has turned out of this world. That they rejected him and sent him back to heaven with a message. We will not have this man terrain over us. We're here to represent that man. We're here to walk as he walked.
We're here to manifest his character and all his interests. They that's why we're here. We're not here to serve our own selfish self interests. We're not here to make a name for ourselves in this world. We're not here to to make some great impact on this world, but to pass through it as strangers and pilgrims who belong to another scene altogether.
Well, Satan has succeeded.
To to get Christians to lower their sights.
From heavenly things, I was talking to a brother once and he made one of the most, the saddest comment that I, I have heard in a long time. We had some ministry. It was, it was on heavenly truth in the assembly. And this was at a conference. And this brother made the comment, well, well, it was just more heavenly truth as though that is of very little value. That is the, that is the truth that truly separates us from this world. The realization in my soul that.
Belong to another scene altogether, not of this world, that this world has the immense guilt of rejecting the one that God in grace has sent into the world and sending him back to to heaven. Now we belong to that man in the glory, and we are here for his glory and for his interests.
In order to stand for the truths that have been unfolded to us in this epistle in Christianity.
We need the whole armor of God.
Now we need it in the assembly circle, We need it in our individual responsibility as we walk through this world. We need it in our families. I don't I believe that of of all the three spheres, we probably failed the most in the family circle.
The enemy is attacking our families of Christians today as never before because he knows what he's doing. He knows what he's about.
He can cause dissension and disharmony and even divorce. And, and I know I've come from two assemblies where brothers are facing that very, very issue right now. Their wives are not saved, but they of course, are trying to save the marriage as God would have them to do.
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The enemy is is busy to divide.
The Saints of God and to cause to cause such trouble in.
In these two spheres of our individual responsibility and also our family sphere that our assembly life is very much affected by it. The assembly life cannot be any higher than our individual path as we walk it with the Lord.
So he ends this epistle with the armor.
And talks about the conflict that we are engaged in. There are very few Christians that even understand that we're in a conflict. Things are so nice down here. We're living in a land of affluence and plenty and everything is going so well that we hardly even realize that we are in a battle unless we are really walking with the Lord in the enjoyment of these heavenly truths.
Put on the whole armor of God, he says. Now God has provided us with the armor, it is our responsibility to put it on.
He doesn't put it on for us. He gives it to us, but we have to put it on. That's our responsibility. Notice verse 11, put on the whole armor of God. Verse 13, take the whole armor of God. Verse 14, stand therefore verse 16 taking the shield of faith. Verse 17, take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the spirit and soul.
The active responsibility of the Christian to take and to put on this armor that God has provided us.
If we should neglect anyone of the pieces of the armor, the enemy will immediately perceive that and he will attack us in that point of weakness and defeat us, whether it's in the assembly sphere or in the of the sphere of the world or in the sphere of the family. He will, he will attack. So we need the whole armor of God. We need it on all the time, in every sphere. I spoke on this in one place.
And my brother came to me and he said afterward, he said I hadn't quite figured out whether.
And to wear the armor when I'm sleeping at night. And I thought about that and of course the answer is yes, because.
When we when we awake, where do our thoughts go? Do we have the helmet of salvation on it? Does the does the salvation of God and all that it means and what we've been delivered from and brought into? Does it control our thoughts or do our thoughts when we awaken at night?
Go to profitless and sometimes even sinful things. Yes, we need the armor on. Even then, we need the armor on all the way through our wilderness journey.
Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the Wiles of the devil. He's not presented here as a roaring lion walking about, seeking whom he may devour, but rather one who in cunning, craftiness and trickery, with subtle Wiles, would would lead us to compromise our heavenly calling and walk as mere men of the world.
Block is near worldlings, Lock is near men. This is what he says to the Corinthians. They were walking as men, and this is one of his.
Centering statements to them. They were walking his men. Someone will say, well, how else can we walk? We can walk as a Christian. That's how else we can walk. We don't walk as men, we walk as Christians. We walk as those who are united to the man in the glory. And that's the way the Christian is to walk. The strength is in him and in the power of his might.
He has given us all the strength and power that we need. We have all the resources that are available to us. We have them all in the Lord, and there's no excuse for failure. We know we do fail, but He's given us this armor that we might be able to stand in the evil day. Put on the whole armor of God that you may be able to stand against the Wiles of the devil.
Many, many talks about the enemy, but we wrestle not against flesh and blood. We're not in a an A wrestling ring and pitting our physical strength against an opponent. That's not the character of our conflict.
We wrestle against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places. I believe the translators here failed to rise to the height of what was written in the original. This is the fifth time in the epistle that Heavenly Places is referred to.
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But unfortunately, they didn't render it here heavenly. They rendered it high places, just as though it could be an authority in a position of.
A high place in this world. But he's not talking about that. He's talking about heavenly places. I think it would be profitable to look at the five places where these heavenly places are referred to in Ephesians because they give the character of the epistle. Please turn back to chapter 1.
In chapter 1.
So there's three blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Notice there we have him referred to in that twofold way, the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Abraham, Isaac. Jacob.
Moses, David, Solomon, to name any of the worthies of the Old Testament. None of them knew him as the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.
The Jews could boast of him as the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.
He was their God. They had a claim upon Him As the God of Abraham, they came from Abraham. As the God of Isaac, they came from Isaac. As the God of Jacob, they came from Jacob.
That was their lineage, that was their heritage, and they knew him in that way. What he was to Abraham, they could claim that what he was to Isaac, what he was to Jacob, God of Jacob, the God of Isaac, the God of Abraham. Wonderful. The Gentile didn't know him in that way. The Gentile had no claim upon him as the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, but the Jew didn't know him as the God of our Lord Jesus Christ.
He didn't know him in that way. He doesn't know him that way today.
We know it. This is Christian truth. We know him as the God of our Lord Jesus Christ. We know him as the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. You remember to marry in John 20.
To this devoted.
Soul that felt.
She went to the empty tomb and she said they've taken away my Lord, and I know not where they have laid him. This world without her blessed Lord was nothing but a graveyard. She had lost everything, Everything.
Because she had lost him and he revealed himself to her, he said. Mary.
And she says, Ribbon I. And he says, touch me, not Mary. I have not yet ascended to the Father. Now that's where Christianity begins. Christianity begins with that blessed man ascending to the Father, a man in the glory. Then the Spirit is sent down, and then the church is formed. That's the beginning of Christianity. You don't touch me, Mary, don't. You can't have me in the old relationship any longer as Messiah.
Some have puzzled over that because in John 20 the Lord says to Mary, touch me not.
But in Matthew 28, the women held him by the feet and worshiped him, because Matthew 28 is a Jewish scene.
It's a Jewish scene, but here in John 20, he is leading her out of Judaism into Christianity. He says, Mary, you can't have me in the old relationship of Messiah any longer. I'm going to bring you into something infinitely better than that. Go to my brethren. That's the fruit of an accomplished redemption. He puts us in his place before God.
And tell them, Mary, you tell them I ascend to my father.
And to your father, he puts this in that place. He is father to us as he was father to him as a man down here. Marvelous truth, stupendous truth.
Tell them I offend to my Father, and to your father, to my God and to your God. He is to us as God what He was to that dependent man as God. The 22nd Psalm He says, Thou art my God. Even from my mother's belly. I was cast upon thee from the womb.
And on the cross, in his hour of utmost extremity and suffering, he cries, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? I believe it's the only instance in the in the account in the Gospels up to that point in time when he addresses him as God. Before that, even on the cross it was Father, Father, Father, always Father, the term of relationship and nearness.
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But that term would not have been appropriate to describe.
During the three hours of darkness, what was transpiring then? It had to be my God, my God. It was God in his judicial character of judge judging sin. And so that blessed man, the Lord of glory, the eternal Son of God, become a man, cries out to him as My God, my God, Why hast thou forsaken me? And then he returns to the term of Father.
Father, into thy hands. After the darkness had subsided, the judgment was passed. God was glorified again his Father. Into thy hands. I commend my spirit. Now Christianity is bringing you and me as individuals into that place of nearness and intimacy and blessedness, so that his God is our God and his Father.
Is our Father blessed be the God.
Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Now that being so calling him in in in that very relationship. There is no truth in the New Testament that is higher than this that we've been brought to into that same position that the sun become a man was in when he was down here.
Towards God and towards the Father. Now, since the blessing is to Him as God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, you would expect a very highest blessing to follow, and it does.
Notice the rest of the verse, Who has blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ?
There's nothing higher than that. He has blessed us with all, not material, not physical blessings, not earthly blessings, but spiritual blessings in the heavenly places in Christ.
According as He hath chosen us in Him before the foundation of the world.
You see, the Church was chosen. The believers of the present day were chosen.
Before the world was ever in existence. Before the foundation of the world was ever laid.
That expression only occurs 3 times in the New Testament before the foundation of the world. From the foundation of the world occurs. Let me count them 123-4567 times. From the foundation of the world occurs 7 times. I've written them here at the bottom of my Bible. But before the foundation of the world occurs 3 times. First times in John 17 where he in addressing.
Father says, Thou lovest me before the foundation of the world. The second time is Ephesians one verse 4 chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world, and the third time is first Peter 124 ordained or foreknown. Christ is the Lamb without blemish, foreknown, foreordained or foreknown before the foundation of the world. So the first and last reference is to Christ himself and the middle.
Reference is to the assembly, to those that make up the assembly. In this present day of grace, we are connected with Him who was loved before the foundation of the world, who was ordained to be the Lamb of sacrifice before the foundation of the world. We of all peoples, of all, all dispensations, we are connected with Him in that way.
If you could have chosen a time to live.
You couldn't have chosen a better one.
Than the present day of grace. The blessings of the believer today far exceed any blessings of believers in previous dispensations or in subsequent dispensations. We are living in the most privileged time. We're living in the day of the mystery, the dispensation of the mystery. That's when we're living, when these eternal purposes of grace in Christ are being brought out and we're brought into such.
So the first mention of the heavenly places is verse 3 of Ephesians one. We are blessed with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ.
Second mentioned is at the end of chapter 1 and it's in the prayer of the apostle.
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And He's praying that they might know. Verse 19. What is the exceeding greatness of His power to us Word who believe according to the working of His mighty power, which He wrought in Christ, when He raised Him from the dead, and set him at His own right hand in the heavenly places, 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. And let's put all things under his feet, and gave Him to be head over all things to the Church.
Which is His body, the fullness of him, that Philip All in all. So in that prayer the Lord is exalted far above all principality and power, and might and dominion, the very terms that are used in the 6th chapter about our warfare. We are in conflict with principalities and powers in the heavenly places, and here now the Lord has, as man has been, exalted far above that.
He has set him down at his right hand in the heavenly places. So we are blessed with all spiritual blessings in the heavenlies. Christ is seated in the heavenlies and in chapter 2 verse six, he hath raised us up together with Christ and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus. So our blessings are heavenly. Christ is in heaven and we are seated in.
Two in the heavenly places.
That's the third mention of the heavenlies. The 4th is in chapter 3.
Verse 9, he's talking about the mystery, and he says Paul was especially selected to make all men see what is the fellowship, or more correctly, what is the administration or the dispensation of the mystery which from the beginning of the world has been hidden. God who created all things by Jesus Christ. Notice verse 10.
The intent that now unto the principalities and powers in heavenly places might be known, might be made known as the thought by the Church, the manifold wisdom of God, according to the eternal purpose which He purposed in Christ Jesus our Lord. Again, he's going back to an eternal purpose, chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world. This purpose is an eternal purpose.
That goes back before the world was ever even formed. It's eternal. And now the principalities and powers in the heavenly places, it doesn't say whether they are good ones or evil ones.
The The mystery having been revealed now to those powers in heavenly places, is made known the manifold wisdom of God.
God's hidden wisdom to have a bribe for his son. You see in the Old Testament it talks about a king. Shoranian righteousness and true Princess show rule in judgment. The earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea. There would be a king who would reign the Messiah. He'd be a priest on his throne. These are all scriptures that are revealed in the Old Testament. But that he would have seated next to him his bride.
Who would be joint heirs and a joint body and joint partakers of the promises of God in Christ? That wasn't revealed in the Old Testament. That was the mystery. That was the secret. And so we have when he's talking about the marriage relationship of the husband and the wife, he says this is a great mystery. I speak concerning Christ in the church.
And that is so true. Let's just in connection with those thoughts, let's turn to 1St Corinthians 12.
Verse 12.
For as the body is 1 and half many members, and all the members of that one body being many are one body, so also is now he's talking about the church and we would think it would say so also is the church, but it doesn't say that it says so also is Christ or the Christ. It's talking about Christ and the church, the church, the members on earth.
Composed of each one of us who believe.
Are given his name, so also is the Christ, for by 1 Spirit are or were we all baptized into one body? That body was formed on the day of Pentecost by the coming of the Holy Ghost. The baptism of the Holy Spirit never to be repeated and act by which this the body of Christ was formed when the Spirit of God came here by 1 Spirit where we all baptized into one body, whether we.
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Gentiles, whether we be bond or free, and have been all made to drink into one spirit. So the body exists as a result of the baptism of the Spirit sent down from the glorified head in heaven.
All right, the 4th mention of the heavenly places is in 310.
And it is to the intent that now unto the principality and powers in heavenly places.
Might be made known by the church to manifold wisdom of God. And the last mention is our chapter 6.
Where we are reading verse 12. For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness.
In heavenly places, the way that ought to read is the margin reads it exactly the same expression as the previous four. So we have a we have the power of Satan and all his hosts in heavenly places to withstand.
Our progress, if you can get us to act as near worldlings and earthly minded Christians. And he succeeded in doing that in the in the large majority of cases, then he has gained his hand because the church is heavenly. The church belongs to heaven, it says in First Corinthians 15, as is the heavenly one. That's Christ. Such are they also that are heavenly.
That's us. We are heavenly whether you like it or not. You're heavenly if you're a Christian.
Earthly.
They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. Most wonderful truth, that is what separates us from this world and Satan's. Satan's warfare with us is to get us to act as mere worldlings, as those who belong to this scene. We don't. We're just passing through to represent the one that this world will not have.
And so the conflict.
It's not enough to be.
Just a good, law abiding, moral, decent, upright citizen. You can be all that and not be heavenly at all. So I've known a lot of people. They're not even Christians and they meet all those descriptions. They're just good people, as the saying goes, and they don't do anyone any harm and so on. But they know nothing of heavenly truth. They know nothing of Christianity. And sad to say, that's true of.
Who bear the name Christian?
So having said this, now he says in verse 13, Wherefore take unto you the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day.
And having done all to stand.
We need the whole armor of God in this conflict.
The enemy would seek to cause us to have so many earthly oriented problems that we do not enter into our true portion and we're robbed of it and we fail to represent the heavenly man to wear the blue.
To wear the blue.
That we belong to another scene. There is anything that is so.
Repulsive to the world.
As one who's passing through it and the world dangles before our eyes, seeks to attract us. Like Christian walking through Vanity Fair, all the display of the wares of this world. It's like today, a Christian walking through one of our modern laws, all the display of things everywhere, and just walking through with his eye fixed upon an object ahead. And that's a heavenly 1.
That's a heavenly 1.
All the attractions and the dainties of this scene no longer having much appeal.
We know how far we've fallen.
Because the world is quite an appealing place to us.
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We wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in heavenly places. They are there to withstand our progress. You know, the book of Joshua is what answers in the Old Testament to Ephesians, and it says every bit of the land, the whole land was theirs, but you had to put your foot on it. You had to walk on it.
You had to stand on it, then it was yours.
And so these truths are all ours. We are blessed with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly. They are all ours that we have to put our foot on these things, make them our own, and walk in the good of them, the measure in which we are.
Enjoying earthly things is the measure in which we get robbed of our heavenly heritage and portion.
Then we start in verse 14 and I've arranged it just right. So we wait for tomorrow night to get into the actual armor.
This meeting is introductory to the actual armor where it starts in verse 14. I'll just mention this. The armor consists of.
Drawing skirt about with truth. The best plate of righteousness. The shield of faith. Excuse me, Each child in the preparation of the gospel of peace, the shield of faith, the helm of the salvation, the sword of the Spirit and prayer. You've got 7 things. The armor. Every one of them speaks of Christ. It's also manifestation of his character.
All speaks of him. He was the one when he walked through this scene.
That more the armor perfectly and.
Earths attractions have no power over his soul. He was a heavenly man, the heavenly stranger on earth on his way to the glory. He had but one to please, and that was the Father, and he did it.
Imperfection. If the Lord leaves us here, We'll look into the rest of that tomorrow night, Lord willing.
Let's see in closing.
139 This world is a wilderness wide, with nothing to seek or to choose. We have no thought in the waste to abide. We've not to regret, not to lose. Notice. The beauty of the hymn is it's it's, it's his path. The Lord is himself gone before we're walking the same path that he walked. He has marked out the path that we treads. It is as sure as the love we adore.
There's nothing to fear nor to dread. There's only that one path in the Waste.
Which his footsteps have marked as his own. And we follow in diligent haste to the seats where he's put on his crown. For the path where our Savior is gone is led up to his Father and God, and that's where it's leading us. We're actually seated there already, and so he's trod the path ahead of us.
And we're going to be there soon.