My dear friends, your friend and mine, Dr.
Alan Redpath, in his opening prayer spoke about
mind and heart and will being ready to
receive what our dear Master has for us.
It is good that we should be continually
reminded about the importance of our response.
It is an axiomatic law of the spiritual
life that we get by being got.
We possess by being possessed.
When my dear Lord has all of me
that there is, then I have all of
him that I can contain.
But it is one of the fundamental laws
of the spiritual life that there is this
human divine reciprocity.
We receive by giving.
We possess by being possessed.
And it is particularly appropriate that we should
have that consideration in mind as we come
again to Ephesians.
Most of you, if not all of you,
will need no reminding that this morning we
continue and I hope complete a study which
we commenced yesterday morning in Paul's letter to
the Ephesians, to which will you kindly turn
again now.
I will not waste time by retreading the
already traversed pathway which we covered yesterday morning.
That would not be fair to those of
you who were then present.
But I will recapitulate preparatorily to what I
now have to add.
Repetition is a waste of time, but recapitulation
can be a strategic economy.
Well now, by way of preliminary recapitulation, this
Ephesian document, in our English presentation of it,
consists of six chapters.
Quite obviously they divide into two trios consisting,
that is, of part one, chapters one, two,
and three, and part two, chapters four, five,
and six.
Part one is noticeably, indeed almost entirely, and
quite dogmatically, doctrinal.
Part two is equally conspicuously practical.
By doctrinal we mean truth stated.
By practical we mean truth applied.
Now the subject of the doctrinal first half
is the believer's wealth in Christ.
The subject of the more practical second half
is the believer's walk in Christ.
Just one further observation.
We noted that this epistle to the Ephesians,
and perhaps the first epistle of John, more
than any other of the New Testament writings,
are characterized by what we call chain themes,
C-H-A-I-N, chain themes.
Link by link great truths are developed until
by the time you come to the final
link there is a wonderfully complete presentation of
some aspect of evangelical truth.
And one of the wonderful chain themes, by
the way friends, can I set your minds
going a little?
Why don't you go through some of the
chain themes in Ephesians?
Have you ever gone through Ephesians on the
riches of divine grace?
Have you ever gone through Ephesians as to
what it teaches about the believer's inheritance in
Christ?
Have you ever gone through Ephesians in its
teaching concerning the ecclesia, the mystic body and
bride and temple of God's dear son?
Oh, you never get to the end of
these wonderful themes in Ephesians.
Now we're going through, of course, on the
teaching of this letter concerning the Holy Spirit.
And we noticed that the Holy Spirit is
mentioned in it twelve times.
Six times in part one, and six times
in part two.
Yesterday, shall I say, alas, or what?
We only got through the first, the first,
well, how many?
All right.
I wondered if you knew.
I'm not sure that you do.
I feel I'd better quote Paul here.
Brethren, I stand in doubt of you.
Anyway, we did, we got through the first
four.
And these are they for the benefit of
those who were not here yesterday.
Reference number one in chapter 1 verse 13,
the Holy Spirit seals believers.
Reference number two, chapter 1 verses 17 and
18, the Holy Spirit illumines believers.
Reference number three, chapter 2 verse 18, the
Holy Spirit unifies believers.
And reference number four in chapter 2 verse
22, the Holy Spirit occupies and sanctifies believers.
And now we come to reference number five.
It comes in chapter 3 verses 5 and
6, and several verses on from there.
Verse 5, chapter 3.
Paul speaks about the mystery or sacred secret,
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, by the Spirit.
Well, now here we find the Holy Spirit
intelligizing Christian believers concerning the deepest counsels of
the divine purpose.
The mystery, the hitherto hidden secret, which was
not made known to the sons of men,
as it is now revealed by the Spirit.
Now, dear fellow believers, there are certain brethren
in these days, they are called amillennialists, and
among them there are some of the finest
evangelical exegetes.
But I shall not hesitate to say, quite
frankly, that I for one decidedly differ from
them in some of their exegetical peculiarities.
I won't go into the matter of there
being no prophesied future for the Jewish people,
or there being no prophesied millennial empire of
our Lord as David's greater son.
I'll only mention this, that with passages like
this, our beloved amillennialists do have a problem.
And I find that one of them translates
it like this, the mystery which in other
ages was not made known unto the sons
of men to the same extent as it
is now revealed.
But Paul never said anything about to the
same extent.
The Apostle Paul clearly says that the mystery
was a completely hidden secret until the Holy
Spirit brought it out in the times of
the New Testament apostles.
I'm not being unduly dogmatic, I'm only being
definite when I say that if language here
means anything, it means that the church of
the New Testament was never revealed to the
prophets of the Old Testament.
Why?
Glance down the context if you have your
New Testament open.
Look at verse 9, "...and to make all
men see what is the common sharing of
the sacred secret which from the beginning of
the world has been hid in God."
Well don't you agree with me that that's
didactic and definite and unmistakably clear.
The church of the New Testament was never
revealed to the prophets of the Old Testament.
The Ecclesia, the called-out, blood-bought, born
-again people of Christ who constitute the true
Ecclesia, they and the church of our Lord
Jesus Christ were a secret hidden in the
purposes of God until revealed in New Testament
times.
And why was the kept so guardedly a
divine secret?
Shall I surprise anybody when I say it
was so that Lucifer, who became Satan, Diabolus,
Apollyon, Beelzebub, the devil, should not know about
it in advance.
That's why.
Let me ask you, if Satan had known
in advance that the crucified Jesus would rise
from the dead, and that upon the very
ashes of Jewish unbelief and failure God would
begin to raise this new and mystic building,
the church, if Satan had known that in
advance, and if he had known that there
would be a period of approximately 2,000
years during which a worldwide gospel of saving
grace would be preached all around the planet,
and if Satan had known that at the
end of that 2,000 years there would
be a multitude that no man can number,
from all nations and kindreds and tongues singing
round the throne in heaven, this is our
God.
We have recognized him in Jesus.
We have learned to like him, and to
want him, and to know him, and to
serve him, and of our own free choice
we have made this God our God, and
we will love him and serve him and
be his people forever.
By the way, friends, that's part of God's
inheritance in the saints.
He doesn't have that kind of inheritance in
the angels, but he does in ransomed human
sinners.
If Satan had known all that in advance,
and if he had known that our Lord
would then come back with all his redeemed
people and reign for a thousand years in
a global Christocracy, do you think that Satan
would ever have hounded our Lord to the
cross as he did through his human dukes?
On the contrary, he would have exercised all
his satanic wiles and powers to keep Jesus
from ever getting to that cross.
When Jesus rose from the dead, Satan got
the biggest blow of his nefarious career.
You say, you want scripture for all this?
Oh, well, it's here in this context.
Have a look at the context.
Verse 5 again, the mystery 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,
that the Gentiles should be fellow heirs and
of the same body and partakers of his
promise in Christ by the gospel, of which
I was made a minister according to the
gift of the grace of God given unto
me by the effectual working of his power.
Yes, unto me, who am less than the
least of all the saints, is this grace
given that I should proclaim among the nations
the unsearchable riches of Christ, now listen, and
to make all men what is the fellowship
of the mystery, which from the beginning of
the world hath been hid in God, who
created all things by Jesus Christ, with this
purpose in view, to the intent that now,
since our Lord's resurrection, that now, unto the
principalities and powers in the heavenly spheres, that
Satan and all the multifarious myrmidons of his
insurrection movement against Jehovah, that now, to the
principalities and powers in the heavenly spheres, there
might be made known by the Ecclesia, the
church, the many-sided wisdom of God, and
the secret is out, and Satan's doom is
certain.
Are you following?
Say yes, or out you go.
Well, there it is, as it is now
revealed unto his holy apostles and prophets by
the Spirit.
So there in the fifth place, the Holy
Spirit intelligizes believers in the deepest mysteries of
the divine counsels.
And now reference number six.
In chapter three again, verse 16, Paul prays
that God would grant you according to, note
the gauge here, the standard of measurement, that
he would grant you according to the riches
of his glory, to be strengthened with strength,
a grammatical tautology to indicate the inexhaustible here,
to be strengthened with strength by his Spirit
in your inner man.
Now here we find the Holy Spirit supernaturally
strengthening Christian believers with a supernatural strengthening in
their inner being.
The Holy Spirit is the inexhaustible replenishment by
which we become more than conquerors through him
that loved us.
This verse is teaching us not some isolated
crisis, but a delightful prolongation of receiving, receiving,
receiving this inwrought strength by the Holy Spirit.
And this supernaturally imparted strength, which we are
meant to experience day by day and hour
by hour and moment by moment, is meant
to be our all-sufficiency for all the
emergencies and extremities and exigencies and necessities of
our pilgrim walk and our present spiritual warfare.
Now my dear brother, dear sister, let me
look at you and ask you, how much
do you really know about this continually imparted
strength of the Holy Spirit?
As I move in and out among the
churches of USA and sometimes up here in
Canada, I don't seem to find too much
vivid experience of the Holy Spirit.
I'm sure that in these days one of
our deepest needs is to know more and
experience more of the Holy Spirit as the
believer's continual strengthener.
Don't you think so?
Well I won't dilate on that because the
clock goes tick, tick, tick, and we have
six other references to get through, you know,
and I have to have you out before
two o'clock this afternoon.
Now I want to ask you a question.
Are you listening?
Are you ready?
We said that the Holy Spirit is mentioned
six times in part one and six times
in part two, twice in each chapter.
We have gone through the first six, that
is, through the doctrinal half of Ephesians.
Have you noticed anything that all these six
references have in common?
I haven't time to wait for your reply,
so let me quickly point it out.
In this first half of Ephesians, all these
six references to the Holy Spirit are exclusively
concerned with what he is and what he
does to us Christian believers.
There's not a thing about what we are
to be or what we are to do
in relation to him.
It's all what he is and what he
does in relation to you and me.
1, chapter 1, verse 13, he seals believers,
the mark of ownership and security.
2, in chapter 1, verse 17, he illumines
believers with that wonderful threefold ministry of illumination
which we considered yesterday morning.
3, in chapter 2, verse 18, he fuses
all true believers into one wonderful spiritual unity.
He unifies believers, making us a family.
And 4, in chapter 2, verse 22, he
occupies and sanctifies believers, making them nothing less
than the habitation of God through the Spirit.
And 5, as we have just been reflecting
in chapter 3, verse 5, he intelligizes Christian
believers in the deepest purposes of God.
And 6, in chapter 3, verse 16, he
strengthens believers with a never failing supernatural strength
to make them a match for all the
demands of this present life.
What a wonderful ministry of the Holy Spirit
that is, isn't it?
Isn't it?
Say yes.
Right.
Can you think, can you think of any
spiritual need that you or I can have
between now and when we meet the King?
Can you think of any spiritual need that
is not anticipated and adequately matched by this
sixfold provision?
I can't.
What spiritual millionaires we ought to be.
What a wonderful provision.
Well now, let's go through the remaining six,
and when we get to the end, I'm
going to ask you another question.
So get ready.
And I'd better tell you, I'll only just
linger a minute on each one, because we
might need the time at the end.
Are you ready?
Now for the six in part two.
1, in chapter 4, verses 3 and 4,
endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit
in the bond of peace, for there is
the one body and the one Spirit, even
as ye have been called in one hope
of your calling.
So the first thing believers are to do
is to keep the unity of the Spirit.
We can't always succeed in achieving social unity.
We can't always somehow manage to attain theological
unity.
We can't always somehow manage to attain theological
unity.
And certainly I seem to find that we
have not yet arrived at eschatological unity.
But whatever else we can't do, we are
to keep the unity of the Spirit.
And the way that we keep the unity
of the Spirit is by having our hearts
and mind filled with the life and the
love and the grace of Jesus.
Keep the unity of the Spirit.
Now chapter 4, verse 30, And grieve not
the Holy Spirit of God, whereby ye are
sealed unto the day of redemption.
Christian believers are not to grieve the Holy
Spirit.
Have you noticed in the New Testament there
are three principal names for the Holy Spirit?
One, he is the Spirit of light.
Two, he is the Spirit of life.
And three, he is the Spirit of love.
And going with those three names, there are
three outstanding New Testament prohibitions concerning the Holy
Spirit.
One, quench not the Spirit.
Two, resist not the Spirit.
And three, as in our text here, grieve
not the Spirit.
Do you see the parallel there?
One, he's the Spirit of light.
Quench him not.
Two, he is the Spirit of life.
Resist him not.
Three, he is the Spirit of love.
Grieve him not.
Now when you have a moment or two
of leisure, if they allow you any such
elusive commodity at the PBI, if you have
a little leisure, and if you travel up
and down the context preceding and following this
30th verse, you'll find a list of do's
and don'ts concerning the Holy Spirit.
The context is meant to tell us how
not to grieve the Holy Spirit.
Well that is the second thing, believers are
not to grieve the Spirit.
And now chapter 5 verse 9, here is
the third reference in part 2, for the
fruit of the Spirit is in all goodness
and righteousness and truth.
Now if some of you may be using
the English Revised or the American Standard or
the American Revised version or some other more
recent translation, you may find it says, for
the fruit of the light is in all
goodness.
I can't go into a matter of grammar
and exegesis, but I have looked up all
the manuscript evidence, and so far as I
can find, the King James Version wins.
I'm quite sure that according to manuscript authority,
the reading here is correct.
The fruit of the Spirit is in all
goodness and righteousness and truth.
Goodness is what we are meant to be
in our own character.
Righteousness is what we are meant to be
in all our relationships and dealings with others.
Truth or reality, as the Greek word indicates,
is what we are to be before God.
And the life under the monopoly of the
Holy Spirit has that threefold fruit bearing.
It fulfills all obligation to self, to others,
and to God.
The fruit of the Spirit, goodness, righteousness, and
truth.
And now next in chapter 5 verse 18.
The second half of the verse.
I always think that the first half should
be the end of the preceding paragraph, and
this divisive but should start a new paragraph.
But, over against all that has gone before,
be filled with the Holy Spirit.
And although it may sound very clumsy, the
nearest translation to the Greek that we can
get here is, be being filled.
Speaking again, not of some isolated crisis, but
of a continuity of replenishment.
Be being filled all the time, all the
time, all the time.
Continual in filling by the Holy Spirit.
You know, dear brothers and sisters, you only
have to pause and encounter many of these
statements in the Word to realize how spiritually
impoverished many of us are.
That is meant to be our normal experience.
Be being filled with the Holy Spirit.
And now our next reference, chapter 6.
Yes, chapter 6 verse 17.
And take the helmet of salvation, and the
sword of the Spirit, which is the Word
of God.
Christian believers are to wield the sword of
the Spirit.
We are meant to become Spirit-taught experts
in the Word, and in the soul-saving
use of it.
Christian believers are to wield the sword of
the Spirit.
And now finally in chapter 6 verse 18.
Praying always, with all prayer and supplication, in
the Spirit, in the Spirit, and watching thereunto
with all perseverance, or as one translator presents
it, sticking at it with steady tenacity.
What a call attention to that.
Praying always, with all prayer and supplication, in
the Spirit.
But even though it is Spirit-guided and
Spirit-filled praying, there is a place for
the human will.
There needs to be resolution and determination.
We must never let our prayer life be
dragged at the chariot wheels of our changeful
emotions.
There are many dear Christian believers who never
know the deeper meaning and richness and power
of prayer, because their prayer life is at
the mercy of their mood.
We are to pray always, and never mind
our emotions, we are to stick at it
with steady tenacity, and keep praying in the
Spirit, believing that all prayer in the name
of Jesus, and under the compulsion of the
Holy Spirit, has a prevailing power at the
throne of the universe.
I'd like you younger men and women to
learn that while you're young, I wish I'd
learned it when I was younger, that even
with the most spiritual-minded Christians, the prayer
life is a matter of the will.
The Christian life is not lived in the
emotions, it is lived in the intellect and
the will, and our emotions are meant to
be the obedient servants of the crown, the
intellect, through the Prime Minister, the will.
And our prayer life was never meant to
be at the mercy of our emotion.
Sticking at it with steady tenacity.
Do you know some of you look deeply
guilty, beloved scoundrels?
Well, we've got through.
Did you notice anything about the six references
to the Holy Spirit in part two?
I rather think you did.
In this second part of Ephesians, there's nothing
now about what the Holy Spirit is, and
what he does in relation to the believer.
It's all now what the Christian believer is
to be and to do toward the Holy
Spirit.
Think of the references again.
Chapter 4, verse 3.
Christian believers are to keep the unity of
the Spirit.
Chapter 4, verse 30.
Believers are not to grieve the Spirit.
Chapter 5, verse 9.
Believers are to yield the fruit of the
Spirit.
Chapter 5, verse 16.
Believers are to be continually filled with the
Spirit.
Chapter 6, verse 17.
Believers are to wield the sword of the
Spirit.
And chapter 6, verse 18.
Christian believers are to pray in the Spirit,
and to stick at it with steady tenacity.
Well, that in brief, is the Ephesian doctrine
of the Holy Spirit.
Six times in part one, the doctrinal half,
all about the Holy Spirit in relation to
the believer.
Six times in part two, all about the
believer in relation to the Holy Spirit.
Listen, dear brothers and sisters, if all the
evangelical churches of America and Canada were living
in the experience of that wonderful sixfold provision
in part one, and if all our evangelical
churches were measuring up to the requirements of
those six passages in part two, instead of
bemoaning our numerical paucity and our spiritual poverty,
our evangelical churches would pick up their dragging
banners and go forth again like an army,
conquering and to conquer, in the name of
the risen Christ.
You only have to read some of these
epistles to see how far we've wandered from
the New Testament original, and bringing it down
from the collective to the individual.
My dear brother, my dear sister, what about
you?
I'm not only a preacher of sorts, often
I'm a listener, and I know the peril
of keep listening, listening, listening, to one preacher
after another, and one sermon or exposition after
another.
It's fearfully possible to listen and listen and
listen, and very often to enjoy the exposition,
and yet go away again and live far
below the privileges that are ours.
Now don't you find the same peril, or
am I peculiar?
And one of the purposes, dear younger men
and women, one of the purposes of a
conference like this, is to remind ourselves again
all the treasures that are ours.
Do we read about the Ephesians anywhere else?
Oh yes we do.
What's the first reference to Ephesus and the
Ephesians?
Oh, it's in, it's in the 19th chapter
of the Acts of the Apostles.
The Apostle Paul makes his first visit to
the great city of the goddess Diana, Ephesus,
and he is welcomed there by twelve professing
Christian believers, upon whose necks the benignant Apostle
is just about to fall with a kiss
of benediction, when he becomes disconcertingly aware of
a barrier, an invisible but unmistakable barrier between
him and them.
At once he's conscious that there's something wrong
with those twelve men.
Either they've got spiritual measles, or nervous debility
of the prayer life, or some other spiritual
malady.
He's not quite sure, but he gets to
it with one penetrating question.
He says this, my brothers, when you believed,
did you receive the Holy Spirit?
He found that those twelve men were wrong
about the Holy Spirit.
Now I'm not within a million miles of
suggesting that when Paul wrote this Ephesian letter,
he mentioned the Holy Spirit just twelve times,
because on that occasion there were just twelve
men.
That's just a happy coincidence.
But I am deeply persuaded of this, that
when Paul began to write Ephesians, he said
to himself, ah yes, that's the church where
they were wrong about the Holy Spirit.
If they read this epistle, they'll never go
wrong there again.
Do we read about Ephesians anywhere else in
the New Testament?
Yes, we do.
What's the last reference to Ephesus in the
New Testament?
Oh, it's in the last book of the
Bible, the Apocalypse, chapters 2 and 3, in
the letters to the seven churches.
And the first of the seven is Ephesus.
And what's the message?
It's this, nevertheless I have this against
thee, thou hast left thy first love.
Remember the heights from which thou art fallen.
The heights?
Which height?
Well, you know, that American expositor of a
couple of generations ago, Dr. Arthur T.
Pearson, he always called the epistle to the
Ephesians the Switzerland of the New Testament, because
in this Ephesian letter you're among the Alpine
peaks and towering heights of Christian doctrine and
experience.
They were the heights where the Ephesians had
originally lived and communed with heaven.
But something had come in between them and
the risen masters.
They'd left their love.
And they'd come down from those sun-bathed
heights into the shadowy valleys.
Remember the heights from whence thou art fallen.
Is there some elderly man or woman here
this morning, and once your Christian life was
aflame of spiritual enthusiasm, and your prayer life
was a glow of communion, and your testimony
for Christ was a fiery witness to his
saving grace.
But somehow, although you're not outwardly a backslider,
you've got away from that first lovely early
love, and you've got away from those hours
of lingering prayer, and somehow you're not where
you were, and you're not as you used
to be.
This morning the Holy Spirit is here calling
you back.
Remember the heights.
Thank God we can always go back there,
if we will.
Well, believe it or not, sir, I finished,
and I see it, Mr. Chairman, we finished
on time this morning.
So I'm going to make a suggestion.
I think we should have, and I think
you will agree, let's have two or three
minutes in silent prayer.
Wait a minute.
We'll close our eyes, and for the first
half minute or minute, don't pray.
Don't pray.
Just rest.
Close your eyes, and relax.
Wait a minute.
You're too anxious to go to sleep.
Just relax, and don't try to go over
this exposition.
Just relax, and let your mind be at
rest.
And then, in mind and thought, be at
the feet of Jesus.
Remember our Savior, he is omnipresent.
That means he is simultaneously everywhere, and it
means that you and I can have him
all to ourselves, just as truly, if there
were nobody else in, in this auditorium.
And after a minute's rest, get mentally isolated
with Jesus, and look up into his face,
and tell him again that you love him.
Don't try to love him.
Love him.
And if you really look at him, you
will.
And if you see those pierced hands and
feet, and think again, you'll love him.
And then pray, and say, Dear Savior, thou
knowest all things, all the things in my
life that seem to contradict my love for
thee.
You know that deep down underneath, Dear Savior,
I do love you.
I love you.
And help me to love you so much,
that quietly, unemotionally, deliberately, I may give everything
to thee, and believe that what I give,
you take.
And when you do that, let me tell
you what not to do.
Don't run round to the back of your
own mind, and start looking in from the
rear, and saying, Am I sincere?
Have I done it?
Did I mean it?
Has he taken what I've given?
You must not only have faith in him,
in this matter, many of you need to
have faith in your own sincerity.
If Satan can keep getting you to run
round to the back, and start asking, Did
I do it?
Did I mean it?
He will gradually bring you into such a
condition of chaos, you'll never do it.
Give him everything, and do it unemotionally.
I find that the less emotionally I transact
with God, the clearer it is, and the
deeper it goes, and the longer it lasts.
Never mind your emotions.
The Holy Spirit doesn't come to do his
work in the shallowest part of us.
Give him everything, because you love him, and
believe that what you give, he takes.
And count it settled.
Well you say, What if I go on
sin later on today, in thought, well I'll
tell you what.
When you give everything to Christ this morning,
which part of you is it that's expressing
itself?
It's the deepest in you.
Later on, if and when you go and
fall into that possible sin, even if you
do it willfully at the time, which part
of you then is it that's expressing itself?
The deepest in you?
No, the weakest.
Very well, does that which is weakest cancel
out that which is deepest?
Not at all.
There's a provision made.
If you go and fall into sin, you
haven't to keep reenacting this giving yourself to
Christ.
The precious blood of Christ cleanses from sin.
When we are walking in the light, you
must practice yourself in saying, Savior, I've sinned,
but that doesn't alter the fact my deepest,
dearest love is for you.
Please let thy precious blood cleanse this stain
away.
Are you following?
You don't have to keep reenacting the transaction,
but you can keep renewing the covenant, as
I myself do a million times.
But this morning is the morning for some
of you and for some of you older
people.
And I'm simply saying that as unemotionally, but
as determinately and sincerely as we are capable
of, let's give him everything and believe that
he takes it and count it settled.
Now we'll have that minute's quiet rest and
then you all get to praying to him.
Let's bow.