Address—Doug Buchanan
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Let cleave and mystery. What do those 3 words have in common? Ephesians that Andrew read to us this morning, Chapter 6 and verse 19.
And for me, this is praying Paul.
Speaking 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.
This is amazing for the teacher of all teachers.
To express himself this way, to be able to explain something.
To give utterance.
And I believe it was so because of the greatness of the revelation that was given to him.
In view of the greatness of that revelation that was given to him, he felt so insignificant, so unable to make it known.
And this is our challenge here too. Let's pray.
Mark on.
As mentioned, we would like to speak.
On the subject of the mystery.
The mystery of God.
What is the mystery of God?
The Apostle Paul largely is the one who has brought it to our light, but all the apostles in the New Testament.
And so in this first meeting, I would like to give maybe just a little overview. We'll probably turn to quite a few scriptures and with maybe not quite so much explanation. And as the Lord gives the ability later, we might look at a little more details.
I'd like to start out with a verse in Colossians chapter 2 to introduce our subject.
Colossians, chapter 2.
Verse two and verse 3.
That their hearts might be comforted being knit together in love, and unto all riches of the full assurance of understanding, to the acknowledgement of the mystery of God, and of the Father, and of Christ, in whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.
Christianity.
Is not a code of conduct.
It's not an organization, it's not a group of meetings.
What Christianity is really all about is it is a person.
Revealed to us.
The Lord Jesus Christ has chosen to reveal Himself.
To.
In him are hid all the treasures.
Of wisdom.
And knowledge.
This is what we want to bring before our hearts, a person.
We want you to know, really know, the Lord Jesus.
It will change your life, just like it changed the Apostle Paul's life. He's a dramatic example of it. He was so zealous in his cause before he was saved.
Thankfully, he was zealous in his cause afterwards too.
Thank God for a faithful man like Paul who in all opposition to Satan.
Made himself bold at all costs. It cost him a prison sentence.
It cost him much persecution of the Jews.
Because it was different than the old traditions that the Jews had had from years and years that had degenerated.
And just become like a sect of Pharisees and Sadducees and so on.
Christianity Today, I'm sad to say, is also degenerated.
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And it's considered a whole group of vast denominations where you can choose which one you'd like to go to according to your banter, according to where you think might be the most agreeable.
Oh, that's not God's thoughts of what the Christian testimony was to be. That's not what makes our life what it is. It's a person. It's the Lord Jesus. In him are hit all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. Outside of Christ, we have nothing if we pretend to be Christian.
It would be better to be non Christian.
And go out and enjoy whatever you could get out of life than to be Christian, pretend to be a follower of the Lord, and really not lay hold of what he really is and what he's made unto us.
Now I'd like to go back to the Old Testament for a verse that might sum up the Old Testament in Deuteronomy chapter 29.
Deuteronomy 2929. I'll expect you to remember that 2929.
Where this verse is, it's a wonderful verse.
The secret things belong unto the Lord our God, but those things which are revealed belong unto us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of this law.
Now turn over to 1St Corinthians chapter.
Two verse 9.
But as it is written, I have not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man the things which God hath prepared for them that love him. But God hath revealed them unto us by His Spirit. For the Spirit searches all things, yeah, the deep things of God.
This is the Old Testament and this is the New Testament.
The Old Testament are the secret things are known to by unto God.
There were many revelations in the Old Testament.
The Old Testament or Covenant?
Went for a long time, many thousands of years. In different way. God tried man.
But the true revelation of God didn't come out in the Old Testament. It all. It says the secret things belong unto God.
But God has chosen to reveal the secret things. That's the mystery.
And that's what's for us.
It has been revealed.
For us.
God hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit.
For the Spirit searches all things, yeah, the deep things of God.
Why do we preach the gospel?
Is it just that sinners be delivered from hell? That's pretty good reason to get saved.
There's somebody here.
That has Hellfire before them. That's a good enough reason to get saved.
I remember hearing my brother tell me that that's why he got saved, because he didn't want to go to hell and he knew he would go to hell if he didn't accept the Lord Jesus as his savior.
But that isn't all what the gospel is about.
God has wonderful thoughts, deep thoughts.
Councils.
It was unknown in the Old Testament. It couldn't be known until the Lord Jesus came down.
In the Old Testament, they looked forward to having a keen reign.
A king of righteousness and peace. They look forward to Jerusalem being the center of it.
And like the 12 apostles, look forward to sitting on 12 tribes, judging the 12 tribes of Israel and having a reign of peace here in a relationship with a man that God would set up as a good king and would deliver them from all their enemies.
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And that's wonderful.
But God's thoughts are higher than that.
Who in the Old Testament ever thought that God would become man and then that God would make it so men could become like him and have relationship and a nature like God?
It's far beyond anything in the Old Testament.
No wonder it couldn't be revealed.
No wonder it's called a mystery.
And so when we consider this word mystery.
Usually we think of it in the sense of it's something secret or unknown or known by an exclusive group of people, but in the New Testament it also has the meaning of that which is made known to us.
Now today we have men like to copy God's things in a lot of ways. We have what they call secret societies today. And in those societies, maybe it's a club or a sorority or a or something, they will have secret initiation rights and only the initiated understand and are supposed to know and understand what those things mean. Maybe they have some kind of a significance. I understand that those things are even.
Convey sometimes in a handshake. I've seen it done where two strangers will meet that belong to the same secret organization and they will give a little signal that shows each other that they both belong to something secret.
You know, I can look back on my boyhood days and I think most of us can relate to this, that, you know, we like to have secrets and maybe we'll form our own little clubs or a little small group of boys or girls and they'll call ourselves a name. If you went back to the farm where I live, you could look back in one of the little building over there and you could see a name written over.
A little Playhouse there that some children used as their secret meeting place.
And over that is written the word your boys. And that was the name of their little secret.
Clubhouse.
Well, God has something like that, but far better.
And God has chosen to reveal Himself to a special people.
In the Old Testament, blessing only flowed to people in the world through the Jews. The Jews were the only people that really had any relationship whatsoever with God, the true God, Jehovah.
There was a place for blessing for everybody at all times. There always has been.
But all the other nations had already given up the knowledge of the true God and gone off into idolatry and so forth. But God in his grace called of Abraham and his seed, and he maintained a relationship with them through the Old Testament, the Old Covenant.
Now God has chosen to reveal himself to us in a new way, in a fuller way.
And it's through the Spirit you have to be born again. You have to have the Spirit of God dwelling in you.
To enter into this mystery that God has made known.
Let's look at a verse, a few verses in the end of Romans, just back a page or so. Last chapter of Romans. Romans chapter 16.
Verse 25.
Now to Him that is of power to establish you according to my gospel, and the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery, which was kept secret since the world began, but now is made manifest.
And by the scriptures of the prophets.
According to the commandment of the everlasting God made known to all nations.
For the obedience of faith to God only wise be glory through Jesus Christ forever. Amen.
Here we have Paul telling us a little of the mystery, the introduction to it. It's a part of the gospel, the mystery.
So God doesn't just intend to deliver us from hell and Christianity. The gospel isn't just to get saved. And so you live a better life and so you don't beat your wife or your children, or you don't, or you're a better neighbor, or you're a good citizen in the country you live in. That isn't just what the gospel is about. The gospel is to bring us into the thoughts that God himself wants to share with us.
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God wanted to have a people with himself.
Not only here on earth, but in heaven.
All this is a part of the mystery.
Kept secret since the foundation of the world.
That is, it wasn't revealed to the Old Testament prophets. Here where it says the scriptures of the prophets, it really means the New Testament prophets, the prophetic scriptures. We could read it. The New Testament prophets are the ones that revealed to us the secret.
And it could only be made known to us after a man had come and died, paid the price of redemption, redeemed a people so that that people could be in relationship with God, in peace and in joy.
To go to heaven in your sins would be the most horrible thing that could ever happen to anybody because they would be so uncomfortable.
And God doesn't ever make that possible.
No, when God brings the people around him, He brings the people around him so they can be at peace and joy and at happiness with Him. I think it's lovely to consider. I'll just throw this out of our meditation for you to study sometime.
The life of in the life of Joseph, the way that Joseph after he was in prison and released, how he made himself known to his brethren, is a beautiful story of how the Lord Jesus desires to make himself known to us. Well, I believe it applies principally to the Jews in the coming day, but in principle it applies to us also.
And how he deal, how Joseph dealt?
With his 10 brethren that had so evil and treated him and he was hard on them in certain respects and he accused them of certain things because he wanted to get them to the bottom of their problem and confess it and get it out in the open so they could have a normal relationship.
Again, and God has made provision for us so that we could be together with Him in a normal relationship, at peace and joy.
Is it true that some of you young people feel uncomfortable when you go to meeting? Why is that?
I believe there's probably something unconfessed in your life, something hidden, something covered up that hasn't been made known to the God, to the Lord. And God intends us not just to be inside heaven as a poor beggar sitting there looking off at a distance to all that's going to be going on there.
Oh no, He wants to be us. He wants us to be in full.
Participation.
You know there's two ways to go to a wedding.
Some of you have just come from a wedding. I understand that was a very nice wedding, and of course that comes from a biased party that I heard this from. But I believe that I've been to weddings and I've enjoyed them.
There's two ways to go to a wedding. There's there, there is a. You can go to a wedding as a observer.
And sit in the chair and watch the ceremony and those that participate and the marriage union that takes place there and the vows and so on. And it's a beautiful because it's also a picture of heavenly things, too.
But you can also go to a wedding and be the bride or the groom.
And isn't that better? No, it is. It's wonderful.
That's what God intends for us in heaven.
He doesn't just intend that we go there and observe all the water. He chose us as his bride.
Out of the Gentiles, out of the nations? You, dear young people, are you one of those chosen ones? Is that why you're here? To learn what God has chosen you for?
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Do we have to wait until we get there to begin our enjoyment of it?
No, I do not believe so. I believe that God intends us for us to enter into it, starting now, starting the day you get saved.
Let's turn over a verse comes to mind in Ephesians chapter one, and it's in the book of Ephesians and a Colossians especially that we get the mystery of God unfolded to us. There's many scriptures that refer to it and we're going to turn to several of them, but let's just read a little bit here in Ephesians chapter one.
Beginning with verse 3.
I'm going to go ahead and read this whole portion, although we'll probably only comment on the a verse or two down at the bottom.
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ, according as He hath chosen us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love.
Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of his will, to the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein He hath made us accepted in the Beloved.
That's the Lord Jesus, in whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins according to the riches of His grace, wherein He hath abounded toward us in all wisdom and prudence, having made known unto us the mystery of His will according to the His good pleasure which He hath purposed in Himself.
That in the dispensation of the fullness of times.
He might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven and which are on earth, even in Him in whom also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestinated according to the purpose of Him who worketh all things after the council of His own will, that we should be to the praise of His glory.
Who first trusted in Christ?
And I'd like to read that as the new translation.
Who pre trusted in Christ, in whom ye also trusted, after that ye heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation? In whom also after that ye believed, you were sealed with that Holy Spirit of promise, which is the earnest of our inheritance, until the redemption of the purchased possession unto the praise of his glory.
Now we've got a big topic here and we're not going to be able to touch on it very much. I want to call attention to verses 10 and and 12:00.
Verse 10 it says that in the dispensation of the fullness of times.
Thy word dispensation.
Refers to a way of dealing that God is going to have the last age. We call it the Millennium or the Kingdom. It is the last of the dispensations or the last of the ways that God will deal with this earth.
During that time He is going to head up all things in one man, the Lord Jesus. Two spheres are there spoken of, the heavenly sphere and the earthly sphere. The earthly sphere is going to be the place where all the Old Testament prophecies and promises are going to be fulfilled.
The New Testament and the Christian position and all those who die in faith are all, and all those who are caught up at the rapture, which is also a part of the mystery that was given to Paul, are going to be caught up to be with Christ.
In glory, participate there in the heavenly side.
One with Christ the Church is going to be the bride of Christ, which is his body.
We learned that through earthly relationships of marriage that we were Speaking of a beautiful picture of how closely we are to be united to Christ.
One with him. And so you notice in this chapter, one in Christ, in him over and over again, in nearly every verse. It's there. Everything we have, dear believer, is in Christ. Outside of Christ, we have nothing.
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So often our practical experience and growing in these things is learning this. We seem to get the idea that we have attained it after we've lived a few years of the Christian life, that we have attained certain things on our own.
Oh, dear young people, it's all of grace. It's all of God. All things are of God. He's the originator of all this. He's done it all through the Lord Jesus, and he's brought it to us and offered it to us in the gospel.
And we believe it.
Oh, how humbling.
How provoking to respond in worship and praise. And so how often Paul, when he gets into describing these things, he can't contain himself and he breaks out in a doxology. And we almost ought to stop this meeting and sing a hymn right now.
We have a short time and so we'll postpone that maybe till the same tonight. I'm going to ask one of you young people to give out a hymn of praise tonight sometime or other for what you have enjoyed this day.
God has brought you into you see, that's the proper response of our hearts.
The Lord said ye are the salt of the earth.
Also says ye are the light of the world. If salt doesn't have any saltiness, what good is it?
If Christians don't realize anything of what God intends us to be, what good are we?
We're worse than a than a non Christian because we pretend to be something that we're not.
All this.
Is in Christ.
That makes it secure to how wonderful it's hid with Christ and God as Ephesians, as the Colossians says, oh, it's all in Him, it's ours. How is it ours? By faith after you believed you were sealed.
The new born Christian, as a wealthier Christian, as the oldest disciple of the Lord that's walked many years in the earth. We're all equally blessed with all blessings. We don't all enter into the same account, same amount. And the measure that we enter into will show your young people how much we appreciate of Christ.
It will show in our lives.
Not that that's the primary motive for for entering into these things. Paul could say that. I may know him.
He wanted to know Christ, to learn to know Him.
Our practical experience of life can help us teach us that we go through experiences and God proves himself faithful to us in those experiences. And sometimes it's a breaking down of the flesh and so that we don't trust in ourselves and so we look more to the Lord.
And some of you young people have have already passed a few bump, bumps and bruises, and we're sorry about that.
But sometimes, you know, we need things like this to get us to thinking what is really good for us to think of the Lord. Thanks. So the God is faithful. Now I said I would comment on verse 12 Those who pre trusted or who first trusted.
Now I believe that applies to all those who believe that now at this time, since the the cross of the of the Lord Jesus and the day of Pentecost when the church was formed here on earth, when the Holy Spirit came down to unite a body here on earth with Christ in heaven, it's by the Spirit that we are united to Christ.
And that's the vital link that is maintained.
We speak of the one body, that is what maintains the one body. We don't maintain it, the Spirit of God does. And when we believe we are sealed with the Spirit of God also. It's the earnest for that to show us what is it before us when our bodies are also changed. But the pre trusters are those who first trusted are all those who believe now at this time.
Before the Kingdom is manifest.
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And before the world sees Christ and the Church openly on display in the Millennium.
And that's what's going to take place.
The Mystery of God. Do people about us know and understand that? No.
Turn back to a verse.
In First Corinthians chapter 2.
Interesting verse here.
Verse six First Corinthians 26.
Albeit we speak wisdom among them that are perfect, yet not the wisdom of this world, nor of the Princess of this world that come to nought, But we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, even the hidden wisdom which God ordained before the world unto our glory, which none of the Princess of this world knew, for had they known it, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.
What a thing those leaders of the land missed.
When they rejected the Lord Jesus.
Here I take this and I'm subject to correction on this, but where it says they would not have crucified the Lord of glory isn't so much that the Lord came from heaven, but when they crucified the Lord, they actually sent him back to heaven and made him Lord there, because that's what God did to him when he died and rose again, and he became the Lord of glory as a man there in heaven.
Tareen, the head of the Church, which is body, to whom we are united when we believe the gospel, the Lord of glory.
Do you think the Princess of the world realized that? No, they didn't realize what was going on. And how many around us today are oblivious to what God is really doing in the world? God is now calling out a secret society, if we might call it that way. That way, in respectful terms, the mystery, the church.
Of all the nations he's gathering together a people.
Who pre trust in him before he's revealed?
And it's only by faith then, that you can enter into this.
We can't take out a picture and show physically any of these things other than the written word of God. It's only by faith that we can lay, hold and enter into this. And so it's important for us to believe God.
The Gospel.
And Speaking of this by faith, I'd like to go back to Matthew's Gospel and.
Though in Matthew 13, though this doesn't really, I believe, refer directly to the mystery that we're Speaking of. There is more than one thing that is called a mystery in the Word of God, but it's the principle I believe we have here of faith being the means of laying hold of this.
In Matthew 13. Let's just read a few verses here.
Beginning with verse 10.
And the disciples came and said unto him, Why speakest thou unto them in parables? He answered and said unto them, Because it is given unto you to know the mysteries of the Kingdom of heaven, but to them it is not given. For whosoever hath to him shall be given, and he shall have more abundance. But whosoever hath not from him shall be taken away, even that he hath.
Therefore speak I to them in parables because they seeing see not.
And hearing they hear not, neither do they understand.
Verse 16 But blessed are your eyes for they see, and your ears for they hear. Those are the eyes and ears of faith. And it's by faith only that we can enter in and lay hold. That's how we get saved. By faith in the Lord we commit the salvation of our souls to the Lord Jesus.
And believe that he will take care of us.
And washes from our sins.
And give us all that is His good pleasure to do, because God's thoughts are so much better than anything we could ever imagine or plan out for our own lives.
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So many of the difficulties we have in knowing the Lord's will is simply just learning to set aside our own will, to lay hold of what is His will in our lives, His will. We've read about it in Ephesians one, the good pleasure of His will. What is that?
It's the whole mystery. It's to make us enter in and to share with Christ.
Everything that he has.
Now we have quite a few more scriptures we could go over.
I'd like to read a little bit from Colossians chapter one, beginning with verse 24.
The last part of verse 23 says Paul. I Paul, and made a minister who now rejoice in my sufferings for you to fill up that which is behind of the afflictions of Christ in my flesh, for his body sake, which is the church whereof I am made a minister.
According to the dispensation of God, which is given to me for you to fulfill or fill up or complete the word of God, even the mystery which hath been hid from ages, from generations, but now is made manifest to His Saints, to whom God would make known. What is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles?
Which is Christ in you?
The hope of glory.
Christ in you the hope of glory.
We have a living hope.
Glory is before us.
And it's Christ in us when we get saved.
The Holy Spirit seals us, unites us to Christ, indwells us.
Will never depart from us. He shall remain with you forever, says in John.
And that is our union with Christ, Christ in US.
Now the practical.
Display of it is another matter.
We would like those two to be the same, and that's what Christian life is about, making our.
State the same as our standing.
Making what God has purposed us for and made us.
In Christ, a reality in our daily lives.
It's not hard to look at a Christian who's walking with the Lord and enjoying the Lord going on reading his Bible and in prayer.
Showing the fruits of the fruit of the Spirit in his Christian life. It's not difficult to identify that kind of a Christian and to see that he has something, he's real, he has Christ, to see Christ in him.
The world rejected the Lord when he was here and cast him out.
But they didn't really get rid of the Lord, because he's still here in the believer.
And the Spirit of God came down to make that good. So Christ is in the believer. And that's one of the first things that Paul learned when he was on the road to Damascus. And he was a persecuting the Christians even unto death.
And the Lord brought with a great light from heaven, shone, and down there on the road, and blinded Paul, and told him, Why persecutest thou me?
You see, Christ was owning the living link right between him and the church, and so Paul was persecuting not just Christians, believers on the earth, but Christ felt it in heaven, a proof of the link.
So Christ and we are livingly linked. Christ in US, the hope of glory.
And so the Christian life is not just to fix this world up and make it a better place to live. No, it's not that at all. That may be a byproduct of living a good Christian life like Christ. I think it will make you a better neighbor, a better husband, a better father, and a better child and so on, if we live the real Christian life. But that's not the real in purpose.
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The in purpose.
Is to know, learn to know Him. And so Paul speaks that way, filling up the afflictions of Christ. And so we're still here in the world, young people, where there are afflictions and difficulties, and that's part of them.
Learning to know Christ.
That he may be magnified in US.
Now, just in closing, I'd like to refer to one other scripture, because we might not have occasion to do so in the Book of Revelation.
We'll close with this thought. Chapter 10.
We have the mystery there spoken of.
And what may seem to be a rather difficult portion.
Revelation chapter 10.
We'll read beginning with verse 5.
These are the Speaking of the angels that are sent out from God in heaven.
To judge in judgment upon the earth. And this is the last of all the angels, the 7th Angel.
And he sent and this is going to conclude those judgments.
Verse five. And the Angel which I saw stand upon the sea and upon the earth, lifted up his hand to heaven, and swear by him that liveth forever and ever, who created heaven, and the things that therein are in the earth, and the things that therein are, and the sea and the things which are in the are therein that they should.
There should be time, no longer or no more delay as the margin says, but in the days of the voice of the 7th Angel, when he shall begin to sound, the mystery of God shall be finished.
As he hath declared to his servants the Prophets.
Now here we have it said. The mystery of God is finished. Now I understand it this way at this time. This is the the last of the judgments before the Lord himself comes to display himself with His people here on earth, when it will no longer be as it is said the mystery.
The mystery now is.
Openly known and revealed. And so it's on display and therefore it is not the mystery any longer. It's finished. It's brought into reality really what it is publicly in display and not just for the pre trusters.
We are now the pre trusters, those who believe and we enter into that relationship and ought to enjoy.
What the mystery brings us.
Then it's going to be made manifest. How wonderful.
There won't be any.
Feeling sorry for anything that we've done for the Lord at that time. It's all going to be revealed at that time. We wouldn't want it necessarily. All things set right and straightened out right now before Christ. It wouldn't be right that we got all our just desserts in life right now without Christ.
So much better to get everything set right when He also gets his right place here on earth as in Heaven. And that's when the mystery is going to be finished or completed.
That's going to take place at the beginning of this dispensation of the fullness of times.
Shall we disclose with prayer?