The Ephesians Story (Part 5) – Chosen in Christ Before Creation

Now you are a son of God. I want you to know, all of you, I want you to know that on the day that God chose you in Christ before the foundation of the world, that day He was in good humor. It was one of His better days. I want you to know that, that particular day, as He did that which He intended to do, He did it in a spirit of gentleness and kindness. Try to remember that on a bad day, when it looks like God’s picking on you. Now understand this in the great sorrows of life, understand this, that His cross is kind, that the suffering He allows into you, a son and daughter of God, is a kind thing. The cross is kind, the suffering is kind, the blessings are kind; that everything He does toward His child, son, or daughter is kind. Very kind. His intention is kind.

He was not an angry God the day He chose you and passed over someone else. Brother, His intentions toward you are kind. Son of God, holy and blameless, He’s gentle toward you. Pat, it’s true. And every one of you is going to suffer, and every one of you is going to find a bad day, a really bad day. Please know that He wasn’t trying to punish you when He made you a son of God. He wasn’t in a spirit of vengeance or evenness. It was a day of kindness.

Now, finally, one last word. Everything you have heard tonight and heard this morning, He did to the praise of His glory. He did it to the praise of His glory. He did it so that His glory might be praised. Now I ask you, is His glory worthy of being praised for what you have heard this night, and what you have learned this night, and seeing this night, and your spirit knows and has always known and is going to now remind you, is His glory worthy of praise? Okay? Then say, “Lord, praise your glory. Praise to your glory, Lord.” Well, don’t sit there and shake your head like a Baptist.

Behold what manner of love the Father has given unto us. Behold what manner of love the Father has given unto us. That we might be called the sons of God. That we may be called the sons of God. Lord, we praise such glory, the glory of the only begotten Son, the glory that’s in You, the glory that is us, Lord. That is a living, breathing glorification of Your glory, and we praise Your glory for Your kind intention in making us sons, adopting us, marking us off in Christ before the foundation of the world that we might know that while we are here, we are holy and blameless as we were holy and blameless and shall forever be holy and blameless and are never out of a state of being holy and blameless. That You have given us spiritual blessings in heavenly places that are in Christ, and they belong to us, and that we are the holy ones of God. Lord, I don’t understand how a brother could see all this. I cannot imagine the revelation he had of You that would bring forth such inaudible things. But Lord, we are seeing You as he saw You, and You are opening our eyes to the praise of Your glory.

He’s going to cause a recession. What are you going to do in Ethiopia and Somalia? And I know this has been kicked around, but what are you going to do when God decides that the best thing in the world could happen to you is that He break that which is not Him in your life? He is not incapable of taking away prosperity. He is not married to the theology of prosperity; it is not an irrevocable covenant. Your salvation is, perhaps. Well, it depends on who’s talking. I’ll take the Lord’s Supper with you either way, brother. It doesn’t matter to me which way you believe. If that’s taken away from you, I’ve never seen anybody in the prosperity movement who, when it’s taken away from them, just crashes, but not everybody is in the prosperity movement consciously.

I think one of the things that just blows my mind is how we toss off marriage. And the frequent statement I hear, “I needed God and He wasn’t there.” And this person is no longer following the Lord. I don’t know what that is, but I can tell you one thing: it’s a motive for following Jesus Christ, even if it’s unconscious. And if that motive’s taken away, what have you got? I would even pose this question to anyone who divorces, and I really wish you wouldn’t. By that question, I’m not sanctioning it, but do you continue to follow the Lord divorced? Or is it all in there?

And finally, oh brother, oh sister, will you accept me into your fellowship even though I am not a premillennialist? And that is a heavy question. Don’t think that’s a small question. You know, the brethren began this wonderful thing; they were the first to say it, “If Christ has received me, you’ve got to receive me. And if Christ has received you, I’ve got to receive you.” But they never meant it. They never meant that, because if you also were not premillennial, you couldn’t get in the door, and it has been a test of fellowship from the beginning. So, I stand outside the brethren door, and there are so many people who are pre-millennial that they really don’t know there is someone else. And I was in a conference, the details of which I will not reveal, but there was a reason for in the last meeting I stood up there in front of about 800 people, and I said something about the message that was brought and appreciated it, and then I said, “Of course, you may realize that I am not of a pre-millennial background, I’m more of amillennial background.” That didn’t mean I was saying I was amillennial. There were literal gasps, literal gasps in the audience, and stone silence from the Sanhedrin.

Can you lay down your concept of how the Lord will return and receive me? I don’t want to tell you how I feel about you if you don’t. I feel sort of like Paul, the day that some Jews were trying to keep him from preaching the Gospel, and he said to them, “Now that I see that you feel that you are not worthy of eternal life, I will go to the Gentiles.” Now, I don’t mean that, but that’s the way I feel. If you are going to reject me as a believer because I don’t believe in premillennialism, I pity you. You hold to that view too strongly, brother. And if it were taken away, would you still have a Gospel? And for us to come together, everybody’s going to have to give up a little suffering. We’ve all got an agenda. You know what mine is? You know what my agenda is? I want you all to do everything the way you’re supposed to do it. I don’t want you to fuss or fight. I want you to get along perfectly. And I want you to know that agenda is daily crucified. We don’t do too well in this business of getting our own way in the House of God. Before I open this book now, I want to thank the brothers and sisters in Atlanta. This is very personal, and it’s very real. Sweetheart, will you come up here? Then you’ll know I’m not lying if my wife is standing by me. I don’t ask you to talk about anything. It’s just proof I’m not lying. Don’t make you say, “No, he’s not lying.”

And then I will tell a story that has nothing to do with what I was about to do. Helen and I were taking one of these tests on disposition and, you know, the innate nature of people, you know, whether you’re strong-willed or quiet or, you know, introvert, extrovert, and all that. And we were very excited about discovering the fact that we were absolute, total, unbelievably opposites. So, we called this company to talk with them for a minute about something, probably to find out if there was some kind of class we could take of theirs. And we got hold of a PhD in psychology, and you know, I was talking and being excited, and Helen would say a little corrective word every once in a while, in here, and so on and so forth. I am aggressive, outgoing, and pushy. You know, like all people with outgoing personalities. And he just made the observation, he said, “I see which one of you is in control of this marriage.” And I said, “You mean my wife?” And he said, “Yes. Absolutely.” I won’t ask you if that story’s true or not. I’m only going to say this once to you, Atlanta. I adore You. You have wormed your way into my heart. I have so admired your ability to hang in here with so little help and ministry. I appreciate your love for one another and the Lord, and for me. And I really, really mean that, and I hope to see you a little more in the future than I have in the past. And I know that my wife joins me somewhat in these sentiments, but I’ll not ask her that either.

Anybody else got anything else to say? Then would you open to Ephesians, if you’ve got your scripture with you, and I really hope you do. This book was not ever written to the church in Ephesus. It did not get the name, the book, or the letter to the Ephesians, the book of Ephesians, or the letter to the Ephesians until probably the third or 4th century. Early manuscripts leave it blank, and that’s because it was a circulated letter, as was probably Colossians. The first people who ever read this letter were the Christians in Colossae. The letter was brought to them by a brother who had raised up that fellowship of believers in Colossae and had gone to Rome. He came back with two letters from Paul, one definitely and directly to Colossae, and the other also to Colossae, but to all the other churches. And as I said, I think both of them probably got equally circulated.

If there’s any piece of literature other than this that the house of God in Colossae had ever heard or read, it was probably the Galatian book. All indications are that that letter got copied, recopied, and copied again, and passed out everywhere. In fact, it is my opinion that when Paul wrote this, the first letter he ever wrote in his life, it was also his death sentence. I don’t think the Jews ever forgave him for writing that letter. And they, eventually, were instrumental in his death, both his notoriety and his death. I’m going to assume that the Christians in Colossae had read the Book of Galatians, and if not, they really missed a treat, because that is one unbelievable book, and so is this unnamed letter we’re looking at. Last night on the way out the door, one of the sisters here said to me, “I’m going to go home and read everything you covered to see if it’s really in there.” Jan, did you go home and read it? You didn’t have time to read it? Okay, alright.

What verse did we leave off on? Is that as far as we’ve gotten in a whole weekend? I would like to share with the brothers and sisters who have come here from Stockbridge that last night, we counted the number of times the name, the reference to the Father, or reference to the Lord Jesus, or reference to “In” appeared in the first 13 verses. And how many times is Jesus Christ referred to in the first 13 lines of this book? 18 times. And how many times is the Father referred to? 18 and 22 make 40 times in 13 lines, and “In” 12 times. We asked this brother to count the number of times that anything negative, condemnatory, or demanding, or requesting Christians to do or be anything, appears. Period. It did not appear; there’s nothing there.