Address—Bruce Conrad
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In this afternoon by seeing him #294.
Our Lord, enlarge our scanty thought.
To know the wonders thou hast wrought.
Unloose our stammering tongues to tell thy love immense, unsearchable.
Hymn #294 Some brother could start it with a suitable tool.
Can Lamb of God?
For us.
In all life, love.
And.
Teach us all.
God and painting life.
Forever.
Called.
To all of you, I will.
Answer.
Fear those still love the Lord for it.
How blessed are they?
Who?
Share altered by.
Thy watch.
Ful side.
Life and strength from.
There is favor.
With Famous.
Yeah.
They live.
Hath roar on Moonstone summary.
Palms to tell my love.
Amen.
Answered Joy.
First, corn.
Many.
Brethren thou.
To her will.
And Earth must fall.
Here's all thy shame and.
All the throne.
And.
She.
We pray.
Our God, our Father.
We bless and thank Thee for the love that has reached out to us.
In the person of thy well beloved son.
We stand here.
I stand here.
And you and I are both in the presence of.
Many whom thou didst foreknow.
Before these very worlds were made upon which we stand.
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Thou has called them.
And justified them.
Soon.
We all shall be glorified together to be with him like thy son.
We look to the.
This afternoon that Thou would guide us into that which would help us all along. Refresh our hearts.
And sharpen our sense of who we are and whom we serve.
While we're here in this world, Lord Jesus that hated thee without a cause and cast thee out.
So.
We feel.
We have a couple barley loaves and a few small fishes and would say, like the disciples, what are they among so many?
And truly, the inheritance that is ours is so vast. The well so deep.
Depended upon thee, our God, there would be.
The work of the Holy Spirit to bring before us that which would be for our prophet with clarity.
And so we commit the time to thee, we ask for thy blessing and my help our God.
In that worthy name of our God and Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, Amen.
So where are the 14 year olds?
Who's 14 in here?
This one right back there, 22 right back there. My eyes aren't as good as they used to be anymore.
There's 12. Great. All right. I'm going to try to try to stay linked up here this afternoon.
I'd like to read first of all a passage.
Genesis 17.
Genesis 17 chapter 17 and what? Abram was 90 years old in nine the Lord appeared to Abram and said unto him, I am the Almighty God, walk before me.
And be thou perfect.
Verse 3 And Abram fell on his face, and God talked with him.
Let's just leave it right there.
Now let's turn to the very end of the book of Romans.
16th chapter.
And it seems to me there's a little bit of an appendix here at the end of this epistle to the Romans, starting in 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, the eternal God made known to all nations for the obedience of faith to God only wise be glory through Jesus Christ forever.
I have it on my heart to take up some doctrine.
Some teaching.
And I want to take up this doctrine because it's very, very practical.
Because without our heads on straight as to the teaching that is appropriate for us.
We really don't know what direction we should be headed in. Sometimes we do really don't know what's appropriate for us in every situation.
We lose track.
And our actions and the energies of our lives can be severely misdirected.
And so I would like to take up what the scripture calls in somewhat of a technical way.
The mystery.
Or.
I believe it's in Ephesians 5 where the Apostle Paul refers to it as a great mystery.
And it concerns Christ, yes, and the church.
Together called in Paul's epistles the later epistles that he wrote from prison the Christ.
The reason? I read that brief passage in Genesis 17 that occurred to me last night while I was pondering this.
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Is that God appeared to Abram and I think it was about the fifth time he did so.
But he kind of recalibrated things with Abraham and justice focused him in and said, OK, here's here's going to be the character of our relationship.
I am the almighty God. You are going to walk before me.
Be thou perfect.
In other words, get aligned with my thoughts. And then he proceeded to speak about some promises.
And then he proceeded to put Abram through the paces. You know, like you and I were poured from vessel to vessel.
And Abram had to learn some lessons in chapter 161718 and so on as you know the story.
I want to tell a story about myself, kind of a stupid story.
But I think it illustrates.
How misguided we can be if we're not properly aligned with the purpose of God for us in that present time.
About 12 years ago when I was still working, I was transferred by my company to Texas to Dallas, TX.
And so my colleagues who had already lived there said, move to this town, just don't bother running all around, just move here. So we did.
And we rented a house and.
Eventually bought the house and we have a little piece of grass out front. Not very big by rural standards.
And for some reason I'm out there and I'm looking at the grass and, uh.
It's I'm from spent most of my life in New England.
And grew up on the East Coast. And, and so I'm out there on my lawn and I see what looks like weeds.
These little runners, they're going everywhere. And I'm like, man, this isn't right again. I have all these weeds and I, I must have been out walking or something or. And And so it was a hot day.
And so I started pulling these things up.
And I'm pulling in, I'm pulling here and it's going way over there and coming up and I'm gathering them up pretty soon within.
Half an hour, 45 minutes, I got this pile of weeds, I think they're weeds. And I started moving over and started another and my neighbor across the street.
I think he sees me, you know, and.
And he's kind of out there making himself obvious. He's out there across the Little St. So I said, you know, I should meet him anyway. You know, I've been here a little while and should be neighborly. So I go over and introduce myself. He says, well, what are you doing over there? I said, I got all these weeds all over my lawn. And it just shakes his head. He says those are not weeds. That's the kind of grass you got.
And here I am thinking that I'm doing something positive and profitable and I'm just being an idiot.
And it's a lot of sweat and energy, too. And I got this big pile out. You can imagine how embarrassed I was to kind of bag them up and hope not everybody going by saw me.
But it's just an illustration coming from New England, you see something like that and that's that shouldn't be there or grass grows this way in Texas. That's just the kind of grass you got that can take 110° and not much water.
It's the same for you and me as Christians.
It's the same deal.
And we need to understand what we're about.
And so when we read in the end of Romans, the Epistle to the Romans, chapter 16, we're at the very end of the Epistle.
And the Apostle Paul covers an immense.
Immense ground all about where different peoples are coming from, His assessment of them, God's provision for sins, how a man can be justified before God, the basic questions of life. If you were saved later in life, you can remember asking these questions. You know, what am I here for?
What's what's right? How is there a God and how do I get right with him if there is one?
And Paul, beautiful, masterfully, the Spirit of God takes you all through that in the early part of Romans, then switches into the next subject.
I understand my sins are forgiven, but what about this nature that I have that?
Doesn't seem to have disappeared after I accepted Christ as my savior. And so you have the wonderful truth at the end of chapter 5 and the doctrine in chapter 6 and the experience in seven and and it burst forth in chapter 8 and all of that and the beautiful parentheses and chapters. Well, what about Israel? Is it all over for Israel now? How does that fit beautifully.
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Takes that up, and then the practical side, and then the epistles all over.
But there's nothing about the church really in Romans.
I think the one body which most of all of us have been schooled, schooled in in various assemblies, most all of us understand we're very conversant in that truth that we are one body really not taken up much in Romans. Maybe one's kind of passing reference to it. But I would submit to you this that I've started to think of lately that where Romans ends, Ephesians, Colossians and Philippians picks up and goes on.
And Paul gives a little teasing of it, I believe at the end of his epistle by saying there.
Referring there, I would say to two aspects of the stewardship or the ministry that God had given to them to him. One is the gospel.
Specifically, the gospel of the grace of God and the other is the revelation of Jesus Christ according to the mystery.
Now just on the first one, the gospel of the grace of God, isn't it fascinating?
That in John's writings. In the Gospel of John, I don't think the word gospel appears once.
I don't think John refers in his three epistles or in the Book of Revelation.
Specifically using that language of the gospel.
Because what really was His ministry? His ministry brings the Son of God before has come down from heaven.
And here He is, That eternal life which was with the Father is now manifest unto you.
And speaks of the communication of that life and the possession of it and how it is displayed first in him alone and then as we get in his epistles, which thing is true in him and in you? Different subject. And so it's fascinating too. At the end of John's Gospel, you don't have the ascension.
Don't need to go anywhere. He's come and he's here and he's walking with him.
As I picture it, I just picture the Lord and Peter and John just walking down the beach, just walking off into the distance. The Lord is walking all the way through John's gospel.
Then there's nowhere needed. It's almost like you don't need to go anywhere else. He's here. The Son of God has come.
But not with Paul.
It's different with Paul, isn't it? We know his personal story, at least as much of it as we get in the various epistles and in the book of Acts.
And his encounter with the Lord Jesus was not sitting with his brother, mending that or fishing within his family business and meeting.
Jesus, who perhaps they at first thought was just a man from a nearby town, and then he calls them and off they go. No Paul, Saul of Tarsus, we all know the story. Heading away from Jerusalem in pursuit to the death.
Of God's Saints who had put their trust in him and he encounters.
The Lord Jesus Christ is a glorified man and that's where his history starts. And so in Pauls doctrine.
It starts in heaven.
It is heavenly in its character. It shows us how we end up glorified in heaven with Him and so on. Now a brother. I think I looked at the schedule.
And a brother tonight will stand up here most likely, and preach the gospel, but he's not going to stand here and say.
It's my gospel.
Paul said it's my gospel in Romans chapter one. I think he uses that expression my gospel.
He got it from the Lord himself and it was communicated to him.
And he had it laid upon him in a distinct way, that it was a stewardship, a dispensation, if you will, that was his to carry out. But his gospel isn't just. And I don't want to spend much time on this, but his gospel isn't just. Here's how you receive the forgiveness of sins.
But he could speak of the gospel of the glory of Christ and the gospel of the blessed God. God has been blessed, made happy, so to speak, by the great work of his Son in this world. He sent him, the Father sent the Son to be the Savior of the world, and he's been glorified by what he did and how he did it. And God has now been glorified and filled with delight.
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At the great work of his son.
And Paul uses the expression, the gospel, the good news of the glory of Christ the man.
Who was spit upon and who had the crown of thorns?
Exalted as man.
There's one man in glory in the glorified condition. One man.
You say, well, I thought my grandfather, I thought my grandfather went to, went to be with Jesus. He did. If he put his trust in Christ, he's absent from the body. He's present with the Lord.
But not a body. The body is still where you laid him.
But not the Son of God himself, the Lord Jesus Christ, spirit, soul and body, arisen a glorified man, the first fruits of a coming harvest. He's alone in that sense, as a man.
And Paul shows in his gospel how it is that you and I as sinners can not only be justified in Christ, but what our present position is, and how God for his own glory has picks up you and me and shows us how our destiny and our life is hid with Christ in God. Wonderful. Paul's gospel.
I don't want to spend much time on that. I want to go to the next aspect of his ministry.
Which is in verse 25, the preaching of Jesus Christ according to the revelation of the mystery.
A mystery, boys and girls, is not something that cannot be understood or that you have to figure out.
It's called a mystery because it was once hidden.
It was hidden before the Lord Jesus revealed it to the apostle Paul.
We read there in verse 25, which was kept secret since the world began, but now is made manifest, and by the Script, the prophetic Scriptures, according to the commandment of the eternal God, made known to all nations for the obedience of faith.
It is very important.
It is pivotal.
For us to understand as believers that the character of truth.
That was communicated to us by the Apostle Paul, which is comes under the heading of the mystery. You can look upon it almost as a technical term.
Is understood by us because it has ramifications in our heart's affections, our patience, our joy, and our ability to walk worthy of this vocation wherewith we've been called.
Why would God hide it?
It's an interesting verse, isn't it, in Genesis chapter 15 when the Lord is speaking to Abram?
And he tells them that he and his seed, they're going to go down into Egypt for 400 years, and in the 10th generation, they would come out.
By his strong armed, strong arm of Jehovah, because the iniquity of the Amorites was not yet full.
What an interesting passage that is. In other words, he was going to exercise all kinds of patients on those, on those peoples, those tribes, those peoples that were in Canaan 400 years worth.
And yet he knew what the result would be, because known unto God or all His works from eternity.
He knew how it would shake out, but in.
Utter fairness.
He suffered impatience for them, that they would manifest what they were or what they were not.
And when they proved by their.
Amazing immorality and degradation that they filled that land with such moral filth.
And sorrow that the Lord could say the land vomits out the inhabitants thereof.
And at the same time, what does he do? He brings his people who have been nurtured down there.
Nurtured under under Pharaoh in Egypt and brings them out with a high hand, and then brings them into the very land with certain responsibilities and so on.
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God down through the ages as we know, has dealt with with man as he is fresh out-of-the-box, so to speak, since sin came into the world.
Man in Nature and the Jew is a little sample representation of what all men are.
And so the question obviously could be raised, well, if you just just hedge them about and just tell them exactly what you would like them to be and to do that they'll do, it'll work out. And so he hedges them about and he gives them his word and he raises up then in the face of their failure, Kings.
And prophets, and priests, and all the rest.
Until they prove themselves as iniquitous.
As those that he had rightfully displaced from the land.
And yet, when responsibility by men fail, God is free. As we were speaking the other day, some of these young brethren here God is free, being God to fall back on his own sovereignty.
Because after all, he is God.
And wonderfully, when he falls back on his sovereignty, because he is good.
He manifests his choice in a way that is for man's blessing. He does it sovereignly.
And so promises are made, as we all know, down through the prophets profit after prophet. We call them major and minor, and the theme is consistent.
That the prophet would speak to the mass of the people as to their failure and then hold out hope and blessing for the to the in the future. For those that would receive the message, as Brother Sam mentioned, bow their heads in acknowledgement and humility and God offers to that moral group.
The hope of a wonderfully glorious future, that future for Israel, has not yet taken place.
It is still future to this day.
And so for God in past days to say, well, you're going to be set aside and I'm going to do something with Jew and Gentile and I'm going to make of Twain 1 Newman. And they're going to have the highest privileges that that that you, you can't even imagine.
It would be confusion, would it not? It would cause them to scratch their head.
And so it was kept secret, it was hidden, and God faithfully and righteously held out the test for the first man.
And so when the Lord Jesus came, he came to his own. He came in the fulfillment of all of those promises to, AT, to, AT, and he displayed miracles. He displayed God's goodness, His miracles, His words, everything about him exuded that this was the very sent one of God.
This is the Messiah, the Christ.
And man then sealed his wickedness by saying, this is the heir, come, let us kill him, that the inheritance may be ours.
You say, OK, that's it for Israel.
And if that's it for Israel?
Then man has been able to thwart the purpose of God concerning blessing on the earth of that favored people.
Then God made promises to Abram, and he made promises to Isaac, and he made promises to Jacob that he's not going to fulfill.
Because he made specific promises to them and to their seed. He made promises about the land. He made promises about the other nations.
He made many, many promises that are not yet fulfilled.
And so his brother Bill was commenting in the reading meeting. It isn't. Isn't it so strange?
If you have a King James Bible like I have and you read in the prophetic scriptures that.
These terrible judgments are going to come upon Israel, and maybe it's 80% warning to unfaithful Israel, and maybe there's a little 10 or 20% in there. That's a wonderful promise to those that would humble themselves. And in the top of your Bible, they'll say the church receives a blessing or about to receive a blessing. It's so interesting, right? All of those judgments.
Oh, they're for Israel. They earned them. But these blessings are for the Church.
Makes it illogical. It makes no sense. That's what's being taught today throughout Christianity.
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And if you don't get your wits about your young brothers, young sisters, you're going to be swept away by it. You're going to lose your bearings.
And you're going to think you're pleasing Lord, pleasing the Lord by XY and Z, and you're not going to be pleasing him at all.
Because after all, if these distinct.
Repeated promises to the people of Israel are not fulfilled. What about your blessings?
You Christians, what about your blessings? You've been more faithful than Israel? I don't know.
What's to say? Well, yeah. Well, he kind of changed his mind. He was kind of interested in this, and then he decided to do that. No, that's not God. God's not like that. You know that.
Not one word will fail of all His good promise. And so, as we see in the let's turn to Luke 13.
I think it's the 13th chapter of Luke.
Verse 6. Verse 6.
He spake also this parable. A certain man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard, and he came and sought fruit thereon, and found none. Then said he unto the dresser of his vineyard, Behold, these three days I come seeking fruit on the fig tree, and find none. Cut it down. Why Cumber hit the ground.
And he answering said unto him, Lord, let it alone this year also, till I shall dig about it and dung it. And if it bear fruit well, and if not, then thou shalt cut it down.
For three years the Lord Jesus manifested himself to that favored nation of Israel.
Up and down the land, tirelessly presenting himself as the Son of the Father, as the anointed one is the Messiah. And was there fruit? There was not. Not only did they not accept him, but in their rejection of Him they they shepherd him into the Romans, that he would be crucified. Three years, no fruit.
Is Israel all done? No. So we read in the book of Acts after the Lord Jesus has ascended.
And after he has, as man, received the Holy Ghost, you might say a second time.
And poured him out.
Onto the earth, upon those individuals who had put their trust in Him, forming one body.
The body of Christ formed the children of God, once individual units, if you could put it that way, the children of God. But it's not our faith that unites us, it's the Holy Spirit indwelling us.
That unites us together to Christ, the risen and glorified man, into one another.
And so the church started in Acts chapter 2, but the truth of the church was not even communicated in Acts chapter two or three or four for that matter, and go on a bunch of chapters. It was a revelation to me when I first heard that many years ago in Dorothy, NJ.
How strange the truth the church should be started on the day of Pentecost, but.
They didn't know what had happened to them fully, and as they went about preaching first at Jerusalem and then throughout Judea and Samaria and then to the other parts of the world, their initial testimony was to Jesus and his resurrection. And so much was it. A added year. Let's dung about. Let's dig down.
Let's really get to the point.
Now the Spirit of God is no holds barred, so to speak.
That's what you do. You dig down and you get the nourishment, the fertilizer, if you will. You get it down there. That's one more year and that's what we read in the early chapters of Acts. Let's see if one more year we'll do it and did it.
And so Stephen?
Perhaps the best and the brightest, we might say, is called on the carpet.
And he gives a wonderfully profound description through their history of privilege and rejection and.
And turning their backs in the face of it.
Amazing, amazing oration that he gives.
And they fly upon him, and he the heavens are opened.
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A second time and he sees the Son of God standing on the right hand.
Of the majesty on high, as if he hasn't sat down yet.
And I believe that was the turning point in the seal of that added year, that 4th year.
And lo and behold, who is standing by but one Saul of Tarsus and one of the brothers. We're reading one of our readings. We're going through axes as is if the Lord, it's as if the Lord said, Satan, you've you've you've taken away one of my best. And Saul is standing there. He says, I'm going to take your best.
I'm going to take this one who exceeds in zeal and his animosity to Christ and his people says he's coming with me.
So he arrests them, He apprehends them on the way to Damascus and fits him, the very chief of sinners. He fits him with a special dispensation. What Paul could say was my gospel shows how the Sinner not only receives the forgiveness of sins, because if God just forgave your sins and left you there as a forgiven Sinner.
It doesn't necessarily you The forgiveness of your sins didn't give you new life.
You could have your sins forgiven and still have the same old life and nothing more. Did you ever think of that?
But he didn't do that. He gave us life.
He justified us.
He reconciled us to himself.
And on and on. The truth of Paul's gospel, what he could say, is my gospel.
And he shows that you are not only chosen, but he called you in time, and he justified you in Christ, and he's going to glorify you. It's spoken as a past tense thing, strangely enough in Romans chapter 8.
And so it is that we have now.
The postponement of the blessing of Israel.
Until some future time.
And you say, well, that's a little bit. How do you know that? Let me just the time is going.
By But let me Jeremiah 31 just for one passage, we could.
Obviously you could spend days on this subject.
Months. Years.
Just to pluck out one example, Jeremiah 31.
And reading from verse.
8 Behold, I will bring them.
From the North Country, and gather them from the coasts of the earth, and with them the blind and the lame, the women with the woman with child, and her that travaileth the child together.
A great company shall return thither. They shall come with weeping, and with supplications will I lead them, I will cause them to walk by the rivers of water, and so on.
And then further down in verse in chapter 31, verse 31.
Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that I will make a new covenant with the House of Israel and with the House of Judah.
Not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, which my covenant they break, although I was in the husband unto them, saith the Lord. But this shall be the covenant that I will make with the House of Israel after those days, saith the Lord. I will put my law on their inward parts, and write it in their hearts, and will be their God, and they shall be my people, and they shall teach no more every man his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord.
For they shall all know me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them.
Saith the Lord. For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more. Thus saith the Lord, which giveth the Son for a light by day in the ordinance of the moon and of the stars, for a light by night which divideth the sea, when the waves thereof roar. The Lord of hosts is His name. If those ordinances depart from before me, saith the Lord, then the seed of Israel also shall cease from being a nation before me forever.
Thus saith the Lord, if heaven above can be measured in the foundations of the earth, searched out beneath, I will cast out off all the seed of Israel.
For all that they have done, saith the Lord, and so on.
It's a serious thing.
To not take God as his word.
And so when the Epistle to the Hebrews, we have this passage quoted, I believe, by the apostle Paul was the author, though he.
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Goes under the radar in that epistle, and he quotes that very passage of a new covenant that I will make. With the church, No, but with the House of Israel and the House of Judah. The church is not the House of Israel, nor is it the House of Judah. It's something totally different.
And so to play fast and loose with promises made to God's earthly people is foolish. It is not proper and intelligent understanding of the Scriptures. It's not taking God at his word.
And you start pulling on that thread and you're going to unravel the promises that God makes to his heavenly people.
And so we learn that even though the church was formed on the day of Pentecost.
In the stoning of Stephen was a tipping point and we have the Saul of Tarsus saved. He disappears for a while because he had he had to get his loins girt about with truth before his light would shine. He goes down into Arabia. He has to go through some experiences, he has to learn some things practically and even though from the very beginning he preached that Jesus is the Son of God.
Certainly there was development in his understanding of the truth and how many revelations that God.
That God appeared to him with we are not told, but we know that He did. And so he comes out with this truth that he had received by revelation, a truth that had been hid as we read at the end of Romans.
A line of things called the mystery.
The revelation of the mystery which was kept secret since the world began.
Some things in life, in work, in natural life are difficult. Some things are less difficult.
So when you get a way to sort things out, you take it.
When the New Testament will turn to another portion in a moment when the New Testament tells you that the mystery of Christ and the Church made-up of Jew and Gentile both losing their identity and being formed into one Newman the body of Christ.
When we lay hold of that, it starts to put things in perspective in what we call the Old Testament, and I was so helped by a statement Mr. Darby made in his writings, I can't remember where.
But he's put it like this, unless you abstract or take out of the prophets, the church, the assembly, you cannot understand the prophetic scriptures.
And what he means by that is if you keep looking for the church in the Old Testament scriptures.
You're never going to understand them.
But if you take away off the table, so to speak, the that that those passages are a revelation of God's new thing of Jew and Gentile made into one body associated with him in heaven, you take that off the table, then you'll begin to understand. And when it says Israel, it means Israel. When it says Judah, it means Judah. And when it says the nations or the Gentiles, it means that.
And so it's also helpful to take it a step further when you read.
And we're here Pauls ministry in the book of Acts or in other places how he preached to the government powers or to the leaders in Israel, and he begins to quote Old Testament passages about the blessing of the Gentiles. You understand that he's basically saying, look.
You guys are finding it so hard to understand that God has blessing for the nations.
But here, it's all over the place in the Old Testament. That does not mean that the Old Testament is communicating.
That the distinction between Jew and Gentile would be lost, that the middle wall of partition would drop, and that there would be one body. No, it means that Israel will be the head of the nations and that the Gentiles, like it says of Joseph, his branches reach out over the wall. There will be a blessing for this Syrian, They'll be blessing for the Egyptian, they'll be blessing for many nations.
Underneath subservient to Israel as the head of the nation, because Israel's name means, I believe, a Prince with God.
So when you get that, when you can see that for yourself, it is incompatible.
To accept the scriptures in the New Testament that say the truth of Christ in the church.
Known as the mystery was hid in God and not revealed. Once you see that, it opens up so much of the truth to you, so much you can say, well, it doesn't mean this back there in Isaiah 42 or whatever. It has to mean something else. Yes, it does. It means what it says it's saying. It means Israel, it means Judah, it means the nations.
00:45:27
Let's turn to Colossians chapter one quickly.
I'd love to spend some time in the end of chapter one and beginning of chapter 2, but I doubt we'll have time so.
Let me just jump right to verse.
25 Again the apostle Paul writing to the Colossians from prison, he speaks of two ministries.
You still with me?
You 14 year olds.
He speaks of two ministries.
The gospel which he calls my gospel. My good news.
And he speaks of the mystery of the Church of Christ, the mystery of Christ in the church.
And at times when Paul writes the Christ, if you look in the Darby translation or Kelly or somewhere.
It's referring to that mystical union of Christ and the Church.
And using the expression or the name, thus Christ.
Typified in picture when he took the woman from the side of the man and he called their name Adam.
And so in Colossians one verse 25, he's speaking about his second ministry, whereof I have made a ministry according to the dispensation of God, which is given to me for you.
To fulfill or complete the word of God, they say, well, John wrote, you know, the book of Revelations at the end of the Bible.
Now how does Paul get off saying he's completing the Word of God? Because by the revelations he received from the ascended Christ, he's putting the last pieces of God's revelation from himself to man through the apostle Paul. And it concerns this wonderful truth of the Christ, that out of Jew and Gentile he's made one new man and united us to himself in heaven, and we shall be his heavenly bride.
And Israel will be blessed on the earth.
And I've heard Stephen say this many times in the face of the challenge. Well, you guys think that there's like 2 purposes of God.
And we say no.
As a matter of fact.
It doesn't very often speak of purposes, if ever in the plural. Its purpose. God has, and he has had and has an eternal purpose, singular. And when it speaks of counsel, it doesn't speak of counsels. We have it in our beautiful hymns sometimes, and the best writers speak about the counsels of God. But if you look it up and spend, you go down through your concordance, you'll see it's the counsel of God.
The counsel of God is how He has chosen to carry out His eternal purpose.
And He has one purpose, to glorify His beloved Son. And that blessing, that fullness, flows out to you and to me.
And so the mystery which again hath been hid from ages and 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. Let's turn just briefly as we close up here to Ephesians chapter 3.
I am seeking to press home to your understanding, something that perhaps you have read many times, and I just want to take it and not speak to you as if you have never seen it before, but I want to take it from here and I want to put it up here.
Because I think it deserves much more emphasis than we often give it. It's vital to understanding the prophets. It's vital to understanding prophecy. It's vital to understanding God's purpose and how his counsels will carry out that purpose in heaven and in earth. And so again in Ephesians chapter 3.
For this 'cause I, Paul the prisoner of Jesus Christ, for you Gentiles.
If you have heard of the dispensation or the stewardship of the grace of God, which is given to me to Eward, how that by revelation He made known unto me.
The mystery as I wrote a four and few words, whereby when ye read, ye may understand my knowledge in the mystery of Christ, which in other ages was not made known unto the sons of men, as it is now revealed unto his holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit.
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And then he describes it rather succinctly here, that the Gentiles should be joint heirs, joint body, joint partakers of his promise in Christ by the gospel.
Is promising Christ by the gospel I believe you can find in other epistles of Paul.
That is the promise of eternal life, because in Paul eternal life is held out there, the mystery.
Now the mystery, as he goes on to say in this chapter, not only is it to be understood.
But it has a practical side, verse nine, and to make all men see what is the fellowship of the mystery, the administration of the mystery.
There is a way that it is, you might say, realized and and affected presently in this world because almost all Christian blessings are present. You have been blessed and I have been blessed with all spiritual blessings in Christ presently in Israel's blessings, typically our future.
And you read through the prophets, and you see that future blessing. This is what I'm going to do for you.
But with the Christian, with the Christian testimony and the revelation in the New Testament, this is what I have done for you. This is what you have, and this is what you are.
And so in verse nine, to make all men see what is the fellowship or the administration of the mystery.
Which from the beginning of the world here it is again hath been hid in God, who created all things by Jesus Christ the to the intent that now.
Unto the principalities and powers in heavenly places might be known by the Church the manifold wisdom of God, according to the eternal purpose which He purposed in Christ Jesus our Lord.
This revelation of this line of things to the apostle Paul.
Was given at a certain appropriate time after the stoning of Stephen.
It has been now made known to you and me. It is part and a key part of the faith which was once delivered to the Apostles.
Once delivered to the Saints and the apostles and prophets, where you might say the conduit, the.
The the ones who received it, understood it, enjoyed it and communicated it. But it's not just for them, it's for us. It's for you and me, The faith which was once committed or delivered to the Saints.
Isn't it interesting in First Corinthians 11?
When the apostle Paul is speaking about the Lord's Supper.
And he says, There I received of the Lord, that which also I delivered unto you.
That the Lord Jesus, the same night in which he was betrayed, took bread, and so on.
And I've often thought of that and if I'm Peter and I'm John and I'm like Paul, how do you get off with this? Like we were we we were there that night. You weren't even there. We were there. And how do you get that you received this from in revelation. But he wasn't lying. He received it. And This is why in the Lord's day, when we put that that the table and the loaf is on it.
And we know that it speaks of the Lord's body given for us in death.
And hence ensues all of our blessings through his death.
Brought life to you and me that there's an added character in it, isn't there? And I believe that's what the revelation that Paul got about it. Because if the church isn't known, that which is the one central expression of it that we can see with our eyes and taste wasn't going to be made known either.
Because the church, even on the night of his betrayal, was still.
A mystery hidden God. And so that added aspect of that one loaf representing all of us as partakers of one loaf, members of one body, was the revelation committed, communicated to the apostle Paul. And the other revelations that we can understand and enjoy that were uniquely revealed to him, we get in First Corinthians 15.
You say, Yeah, well, that's about the resurrection.
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Let's just we have a minute or two. Let's just turn to 1St Corinthians 15, just very briefly.
One Corinthians 15 in verse.
Verse 51.
Behold, I show you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump, the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed, and so on.
You say, well, the Old Testament Saints understood that. They seemed to have the faith that there was a resurrection. Yes, that indeed they did. Martha says it at, at, at.
The time when the Lord came at Lazarus death, he says, I know he shall raise at the resurrection at the last day. And when Paul stood before the council in the book of Acts, maybe 20 chapter 2225, somewhere in there and he's standing there and he's giving defense and he's and he says, you know, I was raised in the strictest sect of the Pharisees and I can check all these boxes. And one of the boxes he checked was, yeah, I believe in the resurrection and angels and spirits.
And we have those beautiful.
References in Job. I think it's the 14th chapter in the Psalms.
Indicating that Old Testament Saints sauce as as Brother Gordon Hale put it to me once, he said the Christian is now in the light of day. The revelation has been out. The true light has shown, has shown and you and I are in that light. But in Old Testament days, it's like a if you're out doing something at night or working or walking or whatever and it's a dark night and you'll get some Thunder for a moment everything is lit up.
So you have Psalm 16.
Reference to the resurrection in Psalm 17 and so on. Beautiful, beautiful foretaste, but it's not the revelation of what we get in First Corinthians 15. The timing of it is tied to the trump of God. The change that takes place is into a body that is incorruptible. And the fact that the trump is mentioned in First Corinthians 15 ties us, ties it, and links it.
Overlaps with it, you might say, into First Thessalonians 4.
Where as you all know.
Paul makes that statement to those new believers.
Saved only weeks perhaps by this time.
In First Thessalonians 4.
For this we say unto you, by the word of the Lord.
That's a revelation that he had from the Lord, and so we see in these passages as we.
Put them together and we start to ponder them. We see that the mere existence of the Church.
As united to Christ, risen and ascended was.
A mystery hidden God.
And therefore the expression of he and and us, He and her, if I could put it that way.
Was not revealed and so Paul adds that character to it as to the supper on the Lords table. And her destiny is also not known because she wasn't known. And so that's brought out as a revelation in First Corinthians 15 and then the destiny of the Lord descending into the clouds of heaven.
And ushering us into heaven with himself to be glorified.
We have just touched, as we often say, the tops of the waves.
But if you are a believer, whether you are 14 or.
Or thirteen or nine or eight or seven, or whatever you are.
It perhaps has not dawned on you yet, as it often doesn't to us who are much, much older.
The reason that you are a believer?
And that you're part of the Church of God.
Is because He chose you in eternity past, as we say.
Before those mounts of beautiful mountains that we've been seeing driving over here, before those were even created, he had you as an individual in mind because election is personal.
It says whom he foreknow, not what.
Israel's adoption and election was national. Yours is personal.
The origin of your blessing.
Was in eternity.
It's remarkable, isn't it?
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And you've been made part of the Church of God, and you're part of it now. And this is the practical side of it. And our time is gone.
But it has a practical side to it because right now, while we're here in this world, we're part of something heavenly. We're not of the world as we often see. We're heavenly men by birth. We've been called from above.
In the truth of the mystery, and when we realize what we are part of, it has a separating effect upon our hearts and upon our lives. And it brings us to realizing that we're just strangers here. We're strangers and pilgrims, and it flows out into the various aspects of life, if properly understood, and the heart is engaged.
And also, just to close, you're part of the Church of God, and the Church of God is going to outlast these mountains.
Think of it.
The origin of your blessing was before the mountains were made, before the earth was formed for you.
And he's going to fold it all up like a garment.
And the Church will still be with him as his bride, not just his wife, but his bride, often to eternity as we had in the Reading meeting to day. How wonderful these things are. Brother called me once I was driving home. It was very late. I was so refreshed. A comment that he made.
He said when the world's when the world's were framed by the word of God.
The angels shouted for joy. Think of it, watching, being able to see what God did to create the world. They shouted for joy, the sons of God.
What happens when he creates a new heavens and a new earth? As Peter tells us, this one is going to be dissolved. He's going to create a new one. Where you going to be?
This is going to put you in a closet somewhere.
No.
The sons of God, the children of God are. I believe we're going to see it.
Changed new heavens and a new earth where sin has never come. Sin will never have been associated with that new heavens and that new earth, just like you have a life to which sin has never been attached.
Wonderful.
Let's just close in prayer.
Or God our Father.
What can we say in light of these things? Help us, young and old, to lay hold these precious things we know it is Thy desire having made known unto us the mystery of Thy will, Thou hast abounded towards us in all wisdom and knowledge. Help us to exert the spiritual energy and virtue.
That we may lay hold of these things in our understanding, and more than that, that they would be the.
Sanctifying, refreshing power in our lives as we recall the origin of our life and our eternal destiny. Lord Jesus, to be with and like thyself.
We just commit.
These various passages we've read, the thoughts so feebly expressed to Thee, we ask for Thy blessing upon Thy Saints. Preserve us in the knowledge, the understanding, the appreciation of truth, that we might not turn out by the way, we might not be tossed to and fro by the winds and the doctrines of men. And so, our God, we just commit the time to Thee. We ask for Thy blessing upon Thy precious Word.
In thy worthy name, Lord Jesus, Amen.