The Church, the Bride

Well, let's turn our Bibles to the book of Ephesians, where we were this morning. I've been studying the book of Ephesians for the last, probably, month, and a few things that I've enjoyed from it, just to follow on from where we left off. Let's go to chapter two, please.

Ephesians chapter two, and let's look at verse number 10. Ephesians two, verse number 10. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus, unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.

I want you to think of that first expression, for we are his workmanship. Now, let's go to chapter three, please. Just over one chapter.

Chapter three, and let's look at verse number two. Now, this word dispensation was mentioned this morning, and express what it means. And Paul says, if ye have heard of the dispensation of the grace of God, which is given me to you-ward, how that by revelation he made known unto me the mystery, as I wrote afore in few words.

And I would take it that that's referring to the last part of chapter two. Verse four, 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. I might not get a chance to touch it later, but just so that we all understand, the end of verse five, holy apostles, that's New Testament apostles, and prophets, that is New Testament prophets, not Old Testament prophets at all.

And that can be proven from the context. Verse number six, that the Gentiles should be fellow heirs and of the same body, and partakers of his promise in Christ by the gospel. And then Paul mentions that he's made a minister.

Now, come down to verse number nine, and he's continuing with the mystery, and to make all men see what is the fellowship of the mystery, which from the beginning of the world have been hid in God, who created all things by Jesus Christ. Now, here is where my thoughts are. Verse 10, to the intent, or for this purpose, all what we've been reading, and all what the whole Ephesian epistle is about, to the intent that now unto the principalities and powers in heavenly places, I would take that to be good angelic hosts and governments that God has set up, to the intent that now unto the principalities and powers in heavenly places might be known by the church, or by through the church, the manifold wisdom of God.

Now, look at where this is anchored. Verse 11, according to the eternal purpose, even before there was an earth, even before there were stars and planets and people, this is coming out of the mind of God, according to the eternal purpose, which he purposed in Christ Jesus, our Lord. Now, let's turn to verse number 18, and of course, it's following from verse 70.

I should read verse 17, that Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith, that ye, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend, and that word really should be apprehend, with all saints, what is the breadth and length and depth and height, and to know the love of Christ with passage knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the fullness of God. And that's really what Ephesians is all about, the fullness of God's dealings. Now, unto him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us, verse 21, unto him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus, listen to it, for time, no, throughout all ages, world without end.

And that's all we'll read, we'll look to the Lord to bless his public reading of his word. Really, what's on my mind is, I wanna try to start out by making a distinction between what was mentioned this morning, the universal church, or as the word of God calls it, the body of Christ, and a local church. And I hope we all see the distinction between that.

An awful lot of people in the religious systems, they don't see any distinction between those two unique churches, if I can word it that way. If I was to go back when I got saved, April the 4th, 1990, I had no idea all this stuff was going on, and all I knew is I was a sinner, and I saw for the first time, Christ died for me, that's all I understood. I didn't realize, according to what we read this morning in Ephesians chapter one, that at that very moment, I was indwelt, sealed by the Holy Spirit.

I had no idea, I found that out later. Another thing I did not understand was, is that I was actually placed into the body of Christ, the bride, I had no idea. That is a privilege that every single Christian, no matter where they are, no matter where you meet them, whatever color skin is on their face, or whatever dialect they speak, the minute they put their faith in Christ, they are a part of the massive church that God is building right now.

One of the writers tells us that at this very moment, God is bringing out from the Gentiles a people for his namesake, and I'm sure you've experienced this, maybe you've been on a trip someplace, and you've met somebody, I don't know, you might have seen them give thanks for their food or something, and sort of thought, I wonder if they're a Christian, and then you might go over and start to talk to them, and you find out they're born again, they're saved, and you don't know anything about them, but right away, there's that connection, like, I know this person. See, that's an outworking of being linked with Christ. All across this world.

Now, that church commenced in Acts chapter two at the day of Pentecost. I think we all should know that. And if you were to look through the word of God, you're gonna find that an awful lot of people think that the present day church is a replacement of all the promises that were given to the nation of Israel.

But that is not supported by scripture. That's why I tried to emphasize in Ephesians chapter two that the church age that we are in right now, it was completely hidden in the Old Testament. There's not even a trace of it.

Now, because we are in the day of grace, we are in the church, we can look back with the knowledge that we have in the New Testament, and I can see pictures of it. You take, for instance, Moses. Well, Moses was rejected as a redeemer by his own people.

What happened? He went into the backside of the desert, and he married a Gentile bride. Okay, there's a picture. I can look at Joseph, who was rejected by his brethren.

What happened to Joseph? Sold into Egypt. And he picked up a Gentile bride. So you can see those faint pictures in the Old Testament.

But the thing to keep in mind is, all through the Old Testament, it was completely hid as to what God was gonna do. And it's reserved for what Galatians tells us in the fullness of time, God sent forth his Son. Now, the way I wanna sort of start today is I wanna ask you a very simple question.

If I was to ask you to give me the dispensations that are roughly given to us in the Word of God, dispensations, let's review that again. Dispensations, it's the way God is dealing with mankind at a certain period of time, okay? So you go back into the Old Testament, you have, I mean, I can't remember all these, I have to write them down, so I'm not gonna. Innocence, conscience, government, promise, law, grace, and finally millennial reign, seven, okay? Now, if I was to ask you a question, which one of those dispensations, periods of time, would you like to have been born in? Someone says, man, I'd love to have been born in innocence.

Love to have seen the Garden of Eden, perfect from the hand of God. Would've been something to have talked to Adam and Eve before they committed sin. You could go all through the different ages.

You ever thought about the flood? Wouldn't it have been something to have been born in one of the members on the ark and seeing the flood and everything? Wouldn't that have been something? You could go into other dispensations, maybe when Solomon reigned and all his glory and the stones were like gold all over the place and all the wealth and the wisdom and all the excitement of being linked with the kingdom. Solomon is my king. You wanna know something? The dispensation that you and I are in is the ultimate.

It is it. Listen, I've been enjoying this so much to the point that it's almost like you feel like just saying hallelujah. All right, we'll contain ourselves, so.

Here's how you need to understand it. You take all the different dispensations of the Old Testament as they start to build. This time of year that we're in, you start to see a little green sprig start to come up out of the ground.

That's innocence. And then leaves start to come on it, conscience. And then the thing starts to come to a bud.

Oh, there's gonna be a flower. And then as that flower starts to develop, you can see the stages as that plant is progressing through it. And then finally that flower blooms.

And what are y'all waiting for? You're waiting for when the fruit comes. Listen, the dispensation of grace that we are in. You know, Jesus Christ was sent, was born at just the right moment.

And all those different dispensations, you know really what they did? One just went a little higher and looked to the next. And the next went a little higher and looked to the next, and the next, and the next. And then finally Christ came, the fullness.

And then as a result of his death and the work that he accomplished on the cross at Calvary, this is where verse 10 comes in, in chapter three. To the intent that now... You see, what did the angels, all the angelic hosts behold in the Old Testament? They saw the perfection that came from the hands of God. They saw the world, the universe.

They saw a man and a woman perfect from the hand of God. And then all of a sudden, sin came into the world. What's God going to do? Well, God hid it from them.

They didn't know. All those angelic hosts, as they witnessed and they looked upon earth, they saw it in figure. Lambs were taken.

All the sacrifices of the Old Testament and everything, all the promises, the prophets with all their prophecies, they were all pointing forward to that tremendous moment when Christ would come into the world. And you know what the angels, the angelic hosts are witnessing right now as we sit here? They see the church. The first fruits of the redemptive work of Christ.

No limit can be put upon that work. Sometimes we get this narrow little view that the blood of Christ, the work of Christ, it's just affecting this little globe that I'm on. Listen, the universe is affected by sin in all its vastness.

All the animal creation, the human creation, the plant life, everything is affected by sin. And God has a massive plan. And it's all centered in his son and the work that he did.

And as right now, verse number 10 there, Ephesians chapter three, verse 10, to the intent that now through the church, principalities and powers, they may behold, what? The manifold wisdom of God. You know, you go back, those that are familiar with computers, you remember when Windows 3.1 came out and they boasted, what was it? I don't know, 16 million colors that they're graphed, you know, all that stuff, right? And then Windows 95 came out and then there was like true color, 32 million colors. You know what we read here in Ephesians three? Hope I got all that right.

See, so I'm smiling. Maybe I'm way off my rocker. But anyway, Ephesians three, the manifold grace, the variegated grace of God, the multicolored, multicolored.

Listen, Microsoft has nothing on God. With all his ability to produce a little card that can produce colors ranging in 32 million colors, doesn't even come close to the unlimited shades that are found in the grace of God, seen in the church. You just go right through the whole of Ephesians and the whole thing that he's building up is what? Gentiles, Jews that were so opposed.

Here were the privileged Jews. Here were the pagan Gentiles, dead in sins, completely dark. What has God done? God hasn't brought the Gentile up to the level where the Jew was.

No, it's higher than that. God has brought those two together and he's made one new man in the person of Christ. He's brought that new man so high up.

You just get lost for words. You can't really fully describe what God is doing. And you know what the angelic hosts are looking at? Maybe you think nobody pays attention to what's going on.

I'll tell you this, there's millions of them up there looking down and they're seeing God from the four corners of the world, all different languages. I love to think about that. Sometimes when your gospel meeting is not going just as good as it is, you think it is.

I love to think that at that very moment, the spirit of God is working in every dialect corner to corner, never goes to sleep. Don't you ever let someone get on a platform behind a podium and tell you that no one's getting saved. God's work is coming to a grinding halt.

Not at all. God's work is just advancing according to plan. Everything is just moving and the church is being built.

A stone here, a stone there, a stone there. Aren't you glad you're a part of it? I tell you, I just, I think it's incredible that I am in what is called the bride, the bride of Christ. Now, I'm gonna quote a man because if I was to say this, probably some would contest me on it.

I was enjoying a comment by Mr. Albert McShane. He's a fairly well-known respected teacher in Northern Ireland, now gone home to heaven. You know what he said from his teaching on Ephesians? Nothing comes close to the bride, not even the nation of Israel.

He went a little further. We tend to look from where we are and we tend to look off to the thousand-year reign of Christ and go, wow. He says, right now is far better than millennial reign.

Nowhere in the word of God does it exalt the thousand-year reign like it does with this destination of grace, what God is doing. You wanna know something? Listen, I want you to listen. Listen, Noah is not in the bride.

He's not in the church. As great of a man as he was, Abraham, Moses, Solomon, David, just keep going down. Go through all your minor prophets, major prophets.

Go through, just go through them all. They're not in the bride. We are and in a coming, you think of it from a natural, why God would use these things is amazing.

You think of it from a natural perspective. What is everybody waiting for as you're all standing up there? Do you know what you're waiting for? You're waiting for the father to present the bride. March her in, present her to the man.

Do you know what's gonna happen in a coming day? Little insignificant me. No, I'm not gonna be in the nosebleed seats way, way, way, way, way, way back there. Oh, I'm in the bride.

Here, don't forget about me. Not at all. I'm gonna be right next to my savior and he's gonna present the bride to himself in the presence of the whole thing.

And everybody's just gonna bow and worship and go, the bride. I'm so glad I'm saved. I'm glad I'm living where I'm, when I'm living.

I'm glad I'm able to say, I belong to Christ. Just what we read this morning, purchased, I often think of this every time I, when I fly with Murray at night, you fly over all these cities and then it's dark for a while and you see all these little lights. You know what God sees when he looks down from heaven? Me.

Look at that light. He belongs to me. I purchased him, him.

I purchased you. I purchased you. You and I, dear child of God, we are included and we are in on the biggest thing that God's doing, will ever do.

May God bless his word.