of his character set forth in the first
chapter of the Epistle to the Ephesians.
I'm not going to endeavor to review the
ground we've covered, other than to remind you
that God as Father planned and purposed our
salvation before the foundation of the world.
God as Son provided everything that the Father
purposed and planned in the fullness of time.
And now God the Holy Spirit is ready,
waiting, willing to perfect in us everything that
the Father purposed and the Son provided.
But, whereas God in his sovereignty can command
sinners to repent, and does, he beseeches his
brethren to present their bodies a living sacrifice.
Total different attitude and approach to the redeemed.
I beseech you, I beg of you, I
implore you, said Paul in Romans 12, 1
and 2, by these mercies, it's as though
behind Paul is the Lord Jesus holding out
his nail-pierced hand, present your body a
living sacrifice.
No command here.
The Sovereign is now dealing with us as
his loving children.
And when it comes to the church at
Ephesus, these that have been brought so recently
out of groveling before the shrine of Diana
of the Ephesians, and all the immorality and
brutality, cruelty of that worship, he says, I
heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus,
and your love unto all the saints, and
I cease not to give thanks for you.
I'm terribly grateful for what's happened, said Paul.
Oh, I'm so grateful.
It's wonderful.
I give thanks for you.
Making mention of you in my prayers, that's
a little weak.
It's much stronger than that.
To another church, he said, I am praying
for you night and day, travailing.
And there's something of that in this as
well.
In other words, once we've come out of
death into life, once we've repented and received
Christ as our Savior and Lord, then the
approach to us as his children is entirely
different.
No longer is it one of a Sovereign
commanding his subjects.
It's a Father entreating his children and interceding
for his children.
What's he praying for?
What is Paul praying for the church at
Ephesus?
What is the Lord Jesus, our great High
Priest, praying for us today?
Because Paul's prayers are but an echo of
Christ's prayer.
And what is Christ praying for today, for
you?
Because he ever lives to make intercession for
you today, for me, the Lord Jesus is
praying that the eyes of our understanding may
be opened, that we may know the things
that are ours to know in Christ, as
he did for the church in Corinth in
that first letter, chapter 2, verses 9 and
10, I hath not seen nor heard, neither
hath it entered into the mind of man
the things that God had prepared for them
that love him, but God hath revealed them
unto us by his Spirit, which he has
given us.
And so Paul is adding to that another
aspect, and he's saying, I'm praying for you
that the God of our Lord Jesus, the
Father of glory, may give unto you the
Spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge
of him, that the eyes of your understanding
may be opened, that you may know the
things that God has prepared for them that
love him.
Because unless you know what is yours, you
have very little grounds for expecting it to
become yours.
When you are told by the court that
you've been named a residual legatee for an
estate, you're interested in finding out what it
is that's been bequeathed to you.
If your neighbor gets such a letter and
says you are one of the heirs of
a certain estate, you're interested in a way
what they may have received.
Probably, well, I don't know why we should
be so interested, but we usually are when
we find some friend of ours has been
named in an estate.
But it doesn't really affect you.
It's not going to change your way of
life.
It's not going to meet your problems or
your needs, because it's their bequeathment, not yours.
So he's praying that you, as an heir
of all things through Christ, may listen to
the divinely appointed court representative, who it is
that's going to read the will to you
and explain to you what it is you've
inherited.
See, I have not seen.
You can read the Scripture, that's splendid.
Memorize the Scripture, that's splendid.
But it's much simpler for a tape recorder
to do that than it is for you
or for me.
All you need to do is read it
into the tape recorder and it'll repeat it
back over and over again without error.
So it isn't just enough for the eye
to read.
It isn't just enough for the ear to
hear.
It isn't just enough for the mind to
repeat.
That's what it's saying.
I have not seen or heard, neither has
it entered into the mind of man.
This is not mechanical.
That's what he's saying.
In this manner of understanding, the things that
God has prepared for them that love him
is revelation.
The words are all there.
The truth is there.
It's all set forth.
But it's one thing to read it and
it's another thing to understand it.
Because we're not just dealing with dollars and
cents, houses and lands.
We're quite adept at comprehending that.
But when we're talking about having been blessed
with all spiritual blessings in the heavenlies in
Christ, that's a dimension with which we have
very little previous familiarity.
We don't talk that language too well.
We don't understand the terms of reference.
And so, if all we had was just
the will, and here it is, this is
the will in the Testament, called the New
Will, the New Testament.
But how excited are you about that?
You have it.
This is what he bequeathed.
But has that gotten, oh, filled with anticipation?
Well, not for the most part.
You don't look that excited about it right
now.
But I'll tell you, if you'll go to
ask the Holy Spirit to become to you
the spirit of wisdom and revelation and the
knowledge of him, that the eyes of your
understanding may be opened, then the things which
God has prepared for them that love him,
that eye can't see nor ear hear nor
mind perceive, are made clear and are made
real.
By whom?
By the ministry of the Holy Spirit.
So, he's entreating us and begging us and
imploring us to become sensitive to the fact
that God the Holy Spirit wants to be
the one who unveils or explains this will.
That's your response.
What is your response?
Lord, open the eyes of my understanding.
Be unto me, blessed Holy Spirit, the spirit
of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of
Christ.
That's your response.
That's your petition.
That's your prayer.
On a daily basis, not just once, but
every day.
Lord, show me today something more.
You see, we can't take it all in.
It's so marvelous.
It's so wonderful, the things that God has
prepared for them that love him.
But everything he's prepared is essential for our
happiness in time and for our going through
time in a way that's going to glorify
him.
Many of us, I'm afraid, are going to
get through and out of time and into
eternity, redeemed, yes.
But when we stand before him at the
bema, there may be a few tears.
Maybe more than a few.
Maybe a lot of tears.
I have a feeling there's going to be
tears in heaven.
Otherwise, what's he got to wipe away?
Remember it says he's gonna wipe away all
our tears?
Well, if we don't have them, what's he
got to wipe away?
You know what I think the tears are
going to be about?
How indifferent we've been to the things that
God has prepared for them that love him.
How content we've been to go along with
only a fraction of what of our inheritance.
To limp along through time without even having
concern enough to go to him and say,
blessed spirit of God, be unto me the
spirit of wisdom and revelation and the knowledge
of Christ.
Now, the sovereign God could have done it
some other way.
He could have taken you as his child
by the nape of the neck and held
you up there and cuffed you back and
forth a few times and said, now this
is yours and this is yours and this
is yours.
Now take it because you need it.
But in his sovereignty, he decided not to
do it that way.
That's not how he does it.
You see, a sovereign God has a right
to decide what he will, what he won't
do.
He has a right to choose the method.
And so he has chosen as a method
with his children of giving in the scripture
a statement such as Paul is making to
the church at Ephesus.
Hey, you guys up there at Ephesus.
You know, it's great that you're converted.
It's wonderful that you're forgiven.
We're all so happy to hear that you're
pardoned and you're justified.
Hey, you're brethren, we love you.
And we hear you love us, and that's
a bigger miracle.
It's easy for us to love you, but
it's a miracle that you could love us.
We're thrilled about that.
But unless you should sit down right there
and say, hey, I got everything there is
to get.
I'm forgiven, I'm pardoned, I've justified.
I got news for you.
Everything you've got's good, but you haven't gotten
all the good yet.
There's a lot more you don't have than
you have that you know about.
So I wanted you to know that you're
on my prayer list since I heard you
were converted.
Did you hear that?
The Lord Jesus said, I'm not praying for
the unconverted.
I'm not praying for the world.
To his father in John 17, he said,
I'm praying for them you've given me out
of the world.
Why?
Because it's going to be so very easy
for them to come into pardon and come
into forgiveness and come into the assurance of
eternal life and sit their diddly squat and
say, isn't this wonderful?
So I'm praying for them.
I'm praying for them, what?
That the eyes of their understanding may be
open and that they may realize that God
the Holy Spirit wants to be unto them
the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the
knowledge of Christ.
To show them the things that the Father
purposed before the foundation of the world and
the things the Son provided at Calvary.
To quicken them with expectation, to show them
their need, to stimulate them to meet the
conditions.
And that's what the high priest is praying
for.
Well, if you understand that, then you realize
that it's extremely important for us to have
that attitude of expectancy.
Frederick Faber said that in words that I
am not able to quote the actual phrase,
he was a great poet and I'm not,
but Frederick Faber said, some people outlive their
thirst and their hunger for God.
They've met him, they've taken, as it were,
the cup of pardon and the cup of
forgiveness and they've never been thirsty again.
And it would be so wonderful if as
long as we breathe, as long as we're
alive, we could have this, oh, about the
things of the Lord instead of that, ah,
old hat.
No, no, let's never outlive our excitement at
that which God has prepared for them that
love him.
That's what he's praying for the church at
Ephesus, that the eyes of their understanding may
be opened, that they may know what is
the exceeding greatness of his power to us
were to 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 heavenlies 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
gave him to be head over all things
to the church the fullness of him that
filleth all in all.
Every word in the Greek language that has
to do with power is in that those
few verses.
God absolutely exhausted the language he chose to
give us the New Testament in telling us
about this.
Now here we see the sovereignty of God
revealed.
In what?
In verse 20.
God's sovereignty is revealed in raising Christ from
the dead.
Now we know at Calvary there was conflict.
We know that when the Lord Jesus reached
out and drew me and drew you to
himself and became in the eyes of his
father and me, saddled as it were with
our guilt and our uncleanness, identified with us
in our sin, made to be what we
were, that from that moment that he identified
himself with us, the father could no longer
look upon him as his son but he
had to look upon him as us.
And that meant that because he was laden
with your guilt in mind, your corruption in
mind, though he himself was laden with it
in that sense it was laid upon him,
but we yet without sin.
But in as much as he identified himself
with you, he was exposed now to conflict
in from two directions.
From hell, from the pit, because he had
my guilt and yours on him.
Everything that Satan wanted to do to us
and could do to us because of our
sin, he now could do to Christ.
Prior to that, the Lord Jesus in conflict
said, I saw Satan fall as lightning from
heaven.
He was cast out.
But now because the Lord Jesus has identified
with your sin and with mine, he's subject
to what Satan can do.
Those three hours on the cross and those
hours prior when he was scourged, was in
effect what Satan was wanting to do to
God when he said, I will put my
throne above the throne of the Most High.
Now God the Son, the God by whom
the world was made, is standing there, hanging
there if you please, suspended between heaven and
earth.
The Father's eyes averted because he is laden
with my sin and he's subject to everything
that Satan can do.
So for those three hours are three hours
in which hell attacks heaven, in which Satan
sees Christ as God and does to him
everything that he wanted to do when he
raised his voice and said, I'll put my
throne above the throne of the Most High.
And so the Lord Jesus is there, subject,
can't fight back because he's now there as
me and as you, and we have no
grounds for any defense.
He's identified with our sin.
And then there is a another aspect of
that conflict and that is God from heaven
looking down upon his Son and seeing him,
his Son as me and having to bring
the cup of his wrath and the cup
of his judgment against sin, as it were,
to the Lord Jesus and hold it there.
Now when there's not another arrow in the
quiver of hell to be shot into the
Lord Jesus, another spear to be thrown, another
fist to be raised to buffet the Son
of God, when there's not another drop in
the cup of God's wrath against sin, when
the Lord Jesus has drained it to its
last bitter dregs, he can cry out, it's
finished.
That twofold battle is now over.
Hell has done everything it can to God
and God has done everything as justice demands
that he do to me, to man.
It is finished.
He releases his spirit and he dies.
So resurrection is victory.
The third day that God-life which cannot
die returns again to that broken and bruised
and marked body and the Lord Jesus bursts
again the bonds that had been placed around
him and returns again in resurrection life, in
resurrection victory.
In this is seen and demonstrated the sovereignty
of God.
God sovereignly permitted his Son to be subjected
to everything that Satan could do to man
and to God.
God sovereignly chose to deal with his Son
as is justice demanded he deal with you
and with me.
This was a sovereign act of a sovereign
God.
He chose to do it.
He accepted his Son as our substitute and
our representative.
And the Lord Jesus, I said, that day
when he burst the bonds that had held
him in death and came forth in resurrection
triumph, said two things.
He said to hell, the power of hell
is broken, the power of death is broken.
And he said to the Father, the law
has been vindicated, the law has been satisfied,
the law has been justified.
Now God can be merciful to sinners and
hell no longer has any hold upon the
redeemed.
A twofold victory.
Showing again, I say, in the raising of
Christ from the dead, the sovereign power of
God.
But in verse 21, not only has he
been raised from the dead and brought again
into life, but he has set at his
own right hand in the heavenlies.
His ascension, causing Christ to ascend to his
own right hand, is the sovereign act of
God.
Because now there is a man, because in
his incarnation he was mortal, he was subject
to death because he had a body and
a personality like ours.
But now he's been raised in immortality, never
subjected, yet he is raised in a body,
a resurrection body that carries with it the
marks of his suffering.
The sword wound in his side, the nail
wounds in his hands, as he said to
Thomas, put forth your hand into my side,
put forth your finger into the nail wounds
in my hand.
And that resurrection body has been raised in
ascension glory to the right hand of the
Father.
At the right hand means that he has
authority, that he has power.
The third thing we see about the sovereignty
of God is that he has put all
things under Christ's feet.
He is in charge of everything.
He governs and controls and rules the universe
now because having conquered sin and conquered death,
conquered hell, the Father has been pleased to
put all things in his hands.
Thus we see the sovereignty of God manifest
in what is done to Christ in raising
him from the dead and in bringing him
to his own right hand and putting all
power in his hands and giving him to
be the headship over the church.
Well, that's marvelous.
That's wonderful.
Our hearts rejoice at what's happened to Christ,
but how does it affect you?
How does it affect me?
That's the thing we're concerned about.
God in his sovereignty, in his sovereign power
did this.
Are you going to now deny him the
right to continue to exercise his sovereignty?
Are you going to stagger in unbelief when
you see what he has done?
I want you to go back to verse
19.
We are to have the eyes of our
understanding enlightened that we may know, in verse
19, what is the exceeding greatness of his
power.
Is that what it says?
Surely.
Is that where it stops?
No.
The exceeding greatness of his power to usward
who believe.
Now we're dealing with another dimension.
God in his sovereignty is saying to us
that you who now believe, you who are
those that have repented of your sin and
savingly embraced Jesus Christ as your Lord and
your Savior, you who believe, have had the
same power that raised up Christ from the
dead, that set him, brought him to the
right hand of the throne, that gave him
all authority in heaven and earth, and made
him the head over all the church.
That very same power is the power that
brought you out of death unto life.
It's the power to usward who believe.
Power toward us that believe.
Now what does he want us to do?
Just to know that that's the power?
Is that all?
But that's important.
He wants you to understand that the same
power that awakened you to your crimes against
God, that convinced you or convicted you of
the enormity of those crimes, that quickened your
heart to repentance, stirred your heart with faith,
enabled you to savingly reach through 2,000
years and embrace the Son of God, that
same power that justified you in heaven, regenerated
you in your heart, and witnessed to you
that you were born of God.
That power was not some weak little effulgence
that had sort of wafted away, but it's
the very same power that raised up Christ
from the dead.
Well, I can say it another way.
It took just as much of God's power
to bring you out of death into life
as it did to raise Christ from the
dead.
That's why that Scotsman who released from his
futile Lord and given the opportunity of taking
his own name upon his conversion, decided that
he would take a name that was his
testimony.
And so he took the name Livingstone.
We know David Livingstone.
In other words, said the father of David
Livingstone, you think this is a light matter,
being born into the family of God and
coming out of death into life?
You think you have the power to do
it?
Great.
Prove it.
You go out into the field, find that
boulder protruding above the black dirt, and stand
there and in your eloquence give to it
all that you know.
And when, through the power of your personality
and your eloquence, you're able to turn that
granite into quivering, throbbing, feeling flesh, then you
know you're ready to bring people out of
death into life.
And until that happens, you'd better realize that
it's a miracle.
It's the supernatural work of Almighty God that
takes the dead and makes them alive.
The very power that raised up Christ from
the dead is the power that brought Ephesians
groveling before Diana to the place that they
were faithful brethren.
That's a miracle.
But when God saved my soul, cleansed and
made me whole, it took a miracle, a
miracle of grace.
That's what he's saying.
That's what he's telling us.
Now he is saying something more than that.
That the same power that raised up Christ
from the dead, required to bring you out
of death into the life, is the power
is now available to you in your life
and your ministry and your service for Christ.
That's what you've got to understand.
What did the Lord Jesus say?
After that the Holy Ghost has come upon
you, you shall what?
You shall receive power.
What's the power he's talking about?
You shall receive power.
Well, it's interesting.
Precisely so.
There is indeed.
What we have to see in the light
of this is that when God sent us
forth to serve, he wasn't sending us forth
in just our zeal and our enthusiasm and
our talent and our ability.
All of those things are all right.
But he said that the very same power
that raised up Christ from the dead was
to be ours in our ministries.
Remember the Lord Jesus made it very, very
clear, without me you can do nothing.
Oh, I am with you always, even unto...
See, the problem is, we sometimes get the
idea that salvation is a scheme, is a
decision, is a ritual, is words we say
or speak, or it's a system of scripture
or system of doctrine.
And all of these things have their place
in their value.
But you know what salvation is?
Salvation is a person.
He that hath the Son hath life, because
life is in the Son.
That's why Paul to the church at Corinth
in that second letter, 13 and 5, said,
prove your own self.
Know you not your own self?
How that Christ be in you?
Salvation is a person.
That's the important thing to understand.
Now, the very power that raised up Christ
from the dead is the power that is
to be enabling us to live those good
works Elijah has called our attention to, to
enable us to witness, to enable us to
work.
Whatever responsibility Christ gives us now, because of
this identification with Christ, we have access to
that same power.
So it's extremely important for us not to
go down to the second verse, the first
verse of the second chapter.
Many of you have King James versions.
How many of you have a King James
version?
Good enough for Paul, it's good enough for
us.
Not that I have any objection, but I
just like it for this reason.
You notice the first two words of the
second chapter?
And you.
Now, and is a conjunction.
And as I always thought that the function
of a conjunction is to conjunct.
But starting a new paragraph with and doesn't
really strike me as being the best use
of a conjunction.
But if you realize that the chapter headings
were not inspired.
That was put through by the King James
Committee that had translated in English, and they
had it just in running text.
And the who did Ephesians, we're told, was
called to go to France.
And on the road from London to Dover
to take the boat to France, he was
putting in the chapter divisions.
And you can tell when the coach hit
a chuckle, because that's where the chapters were.
And he just didn't bother erasing it, let
it stand.
That must be the reason here.
I wouldn't be surprised, but I don't want
to claim that.
Maybe it's just read head metaphysics.
But at any rate, and you.
That belongs there, it's right, it's okay, no
problem with it.
Except it refers to what's preceded.
Now in my Bible, maybe in some of
yours, because I've been talking to you for
many years.
Maybe in some of yours, but I have
a line down, a circle around Andrew, and
a line down the edge of the page,
and up to the 20th verse, and then
I tuck the point in right after him,
and said him, and the point is of
that line is right there.
Any of you have it in your Bibles?
Oh, for pretty sakes, get it in there,
you need it.
You know how you read it?
That way?
Listen to it.
Which he wrought in Christ, when he raised
him and you from the dead, and set
him and you at his own right hand
in the heavens, far above all principality, and
power, and might, and dominion, and every name
that is named.
You see?
You say, hey, what right do you have
to run lines down and tuck in points
of arrows?
Who do you think you are?
Well, I've been trying to figure that out
for a long time, but I don't have
any problem with that right here at this
point, because in the second chapter, and the
fifth verse, and the sixth verse, he repeated
it.
Oh, I'm so delighted when the Lord repeats
it so that I can get a vindication
for my pet theory.
Now, I'm saying that the and you refers
to everything that preceded it, and I'm also
going to try to prove that to you
from verses five and six.
Read it again now.
Which he wrought in Christ, when he raised
him and you from the dead, and set
him and you at his own right hand
in the heavenlies.
We're in our union with Christ means that
that's where the Father sees us, because we
were in union with him in his death,
and his burial, and his resurrection.
We're also in union with him in his
central, and in his enthronement.
Now, are you ready for verses five and
six, the second chapter?
Even when we were dead in sin, saith
what?
Quickened us together with Christ, and raised us
up together, and made us sit together in
the heavenlies in Christ.
How do you like that?
Pretty good?
Now, do you see why the Paul prayed
that the Ephesian believers have their eyes, their
understanding open?
What did he say in verse three of
the first chapter?
Blessed be the God and Father of our
Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with
all spiritual blessings in the heavenlies.
Well, all right, there you go.
I guess that's right.
I don't know, but I think that's right.
Now, here we have another element.
Here we've got another element.
We have the fact that since we were
united with Christ in his death, when the
Father looked at the Lord Jesus on the
cross, you remember we've said this before, he
saw two people, Christ on the front of
it, and to help me, because I have
to keep it simple, you know, kiss is
my whole approach.
You know what kiss means, don't you?
Keep it simple, stupid.
That's why I have to have it.
So, I have here Christ on the outside
of the cross, but I'm united with him.
So, on the inside, you
were crucified with him.
Well, Romans 6, 6 tells us this, knowing
this, that our old man is crucified with
Christ.
And Galatians 2, 20 said, I am crucified
with Christ.
So, I'm not making anything up out of
whole cloths.
Crucified with him, and in Romans 6, 4,
therefore we are buried with him by baptism
into death.
Baptism, picture of our union with Christ in
his death.
We're buried with him by baptism into death.
And here in Ephesians 2, 5, we are
quickened together with him when two people in
the tomb, Christ in you, two people quickened,
Christ in you, two people raised, Christ in
you, two people ascended into the heavenlies to
sit down, Christ in you.
Now, do you see why they need to
have somebody that's going to open their eyes?
Because he's blessed them with all spiritual blessings
in the heavenlies, but you don't begin to
enjoy those spiritual blessings till you understand that
you're in the heavenlies now.
We're all delighted about the fact, you know,
I'm going to heaven someday, but how about
today?
How about now?
In this week, by and by, it can
be right now, for as far as the
practical effectiveness is concerned, that's what he wants
you to have.
The realization that when your Savior, the Lord
Jesus Christ, went to the cross, you went
with him.
You were crucified with him.
You were buried with him.
You were quickened with him.
You were raised with him.
You were seated with him in heaven.
Now, that's the place from which we are
to minister.
Our sovereign God planned this.
Our sovereign God decided this.
He, it is, before the foundation of the
world, worked it all out, and Christ in
the fullness of time accomplished it, provided it,
and now the Holy Spirit wants to make
it effectively real, perfected in you.
You say, well, I don't understand it.
Of course you don't.
I told you at the beginning, I have
not seen or heard who wants to argue
with God.
He said it.
He said, you don't understand it, but don't
be worried about it.
Don't be excited about it.
You don't have to understand.
Friends, you don't even understand electricity, but that
doesn't keep you from using it.
It never defined electricity.
We don't know what it is, but we
use it, so you don't understand how.
I'm trying to tell you, I don't know
how, but I don't have to know how.
All I have to do is just say,
blessed God of all grace, I don't understand,
but I do have sense enough as a
little child, if you say I was crucified
with Christ, that the body of sin or
this thing I brought into the Christian life
of traits, tendencies, attitudes, habits of thought, learned
responses, can be nullified, that the body of
sin might be nullified, destroyed.
Okay, I don't understand how, but Lord, I'm
so glad that you make it real.
We'll talk about how later.
Right now, I need the that, not the
how.
Do you understand?
I'm pragmatic about this.
I don't need to understand how a magnet
works.
All I need to understand is that there
are times when it's terribly useful, and I
hope that the physicists understand that it works,
but it won't surprise me if they don't.
Until they come up with a good definition
of electricity, I'm not expecting.
Until they come up with the definition of
electricity, I'm not expecting too much from them,
but they're still doing a lot for us.
Whatever it is, they found out how to
use it, and that's real good.
Have you found out how to use your
union with Christ, crucified with Him, to have
victory over yourself, your attitudes, and your habits,
and your traits, and your disposition?
Have you found out how your union with
Christ gives you victory over the world?
All that's in the world is the lust
of the eye, the lust of the flesh,
and the pride of life.
It's not of the Father, it's of the
world.
You're crucified with Him to have victory over
yourself, and buried with Him to have victory
over the world.
You've got another enemy.
You've got the world, you've got yourself, the
flesh, the world, and the devil.
So what did He do?
Well, we were raised up together and made
to sit together in the heavenlies.
That's where He took us.
He's there, we're there in Him.
We're here, He's here in us.
So don't you see what the Father's plan
was?
One Lord Jesus at the right hand of
the Father, and all of the redeemed in
Him.
All of the redeemed on earth, and the
Lord Jesus in each of them.
Why?
So that you can enforce His victory at
the little crossroads of your place of responsibility
in life.
That's why.
Yes, He put you there.
You're at a crossroads.
You're a policeman.
You put on the whole armor of God.
Helmet of salvation, breastplate of righteousness, loins girt
about with truth, sandals, preparation of the gospel
of priests, shield of faith, sword of the
Spirit.
And He said, this is your crossroads, your
home, your business, your family, your friends.
What are you there for?
You're there to see the traffic runs right.
And when you discover that you got some
dogs of hell are around and the powers
of darkness are there, what do you have
a right to do?
Stand there, raise your hand, blow the whistle,
and say, stop in the name of Jesus
Christ, Son of the Living.
What does it say in Revelation?
How did they overcome this one?
Apostle said, if you resist the devil, he
will flee from you.
Whom resists steadfast in the faith?
How did they overcome it?
By the word of their testimony in the
blood of the Lamb.
Our union with Christ in His death and
burial and resurrection and our ascension with Him.
He's in us here.
We're in Him there.
And so He's enforcing His victory here through
us.
Oh, what were these people up at Ephesus?
What kind of a situation was it?
Who was Diana?
Diana was the successor to all of the
goddesses in the world.
Her father's wife.