Present at the Birth (Part 3): Creation Reveals His Purpose

Might now, after being hidden for all these ages, be known to the rulers. But now who is going to take that which is unfathomable, that which has been given to the Gentiles, which has been a mystery for all the ages, and has been hidden, a mystery hidden in God, as far as you can get something hidden, and it’s been hidden for all the ages, and it is manifold in its richness and wisdom. Who’s going to reveal it? The church is going to reveal it…to whom? The principalities and the powers.

Now then, brother Alex and brother Andy, and the brothers here in this city who just took the Lord’s Supper together last night, what’s your purpose? And when we talk about His purpose, there will never be a day I’ll ever try to put it in one sentence. I just will not. But here, when I join in the fellowship of the body of Christ, I see that one of the things that I am to do as a member of the body—this fellowship in this town should understand that its purpose is to reveal a mystery hidden in God, hidden through all the ages—to reveal it to the principalities, to make it known, to make it visible, to make a hidden mystery hidden in God—the Ecclesia—make it known to the principalities and rulers and powers and authorities on earth and in heavenly places.

Alright, to the rulers and the authorities in the heavenly places. Now this parallels and is part of and is in accordance with the eternal purpose. Say Praise the Lord. It fits with the eternal purpose. It’s part of the eternal purpose that the church do something about revealing something that is hidden in God. The eternal purpose which He will carry out in Christ Jesus our Lord. Right? No! Thank you. The eternal purpose: this is according to His will, wrapped up in, hidden in, the eternal purpose which He what? Which He, I have accomplished here too; well, let’s read it the way it is out here in the corner, out here in the margin. This is in accordance with the eternal purpose or the purpose for all of the ages which He formed in Christ Jesus our Lord. Praise the Lord. He formed it in Christ Jesus. So, if you want to find the eternal purpose, you find it in Christ.

Oh boy. Now then, there are two words here that if you were to open my heart, you’d probably find them chiseled on it, and those two words are eternal purpose. It is not for any other purpose that I minister, and it is for the revelation of that purpose that I live and breathe. But that’s very simple and very small, for it must be yours too. We ought to all be immersed in, enamored with, saturated with, committed to, fanatical about, possessed with, and magnificently obsessed with His eternal purpose. The best way, perhaps, to get your attention on the eternal purpose is to say that it is that which has nothing to do with the fall. A purpose of God. We come back to: why did God create? What is the destiny of man? Why did God enter into activity? Why did God do?

Now, you remember that the other night I asked you to repeat the statement with me: God’s intent is in no way affected by nor determined by man’s needs. Correct? There is an activity, an action, a purpose, an intent in God apart from sin. Put it another way: there is an intention in God, there is a purpose, there is a goal, there is something to which He was determined before He created—a point toward which He would move—that is not affected by, is not influenced by, and has nothing to do with the fact that man sinned in the garden, or that you and I sin. Has nothing to do whatsoever with the fact that Jesus Christ came into the earth and died for our sins on the cross. Are you hearing me? And that purpose is a purpose beyond that which is temporal and is that which is eternal.

Now, we live in a man-centered age. I suppose—I don’t want to pick on this age. This age is not any different than any other age I’ve ever read about. It really isn’t. I don’t think it’s even any worse than other ages. You don’t know how bad man’s been from the outset. First kid God—first child ever born on the earth—was a murderer. We haven’t moved very far from that. We’re very man-centered. Just by the very nature of the fall, we’re man-centered. Our gospel today is very man-centered. And the farther we get into this matter of psychology—we are living, evangelicals right now are living in a period of popularity of pop psychology—and what is, the books are called self-help books. Self-help books. We are in an age that is extremely centered on helping you be adjusted in life.

Now, it has distorted the gospel because everything points toward you and me. Tonight, I’m going to once again seek to take those arrows and bend them; take them and bend them back in the direction of our Lord. Away from us and toward Him. Lord, help me do that. Lord, be my help to do this for Your glory. Amen. Brothers and sisters, can you understand this? See if I can explain it. Could you see this as God before creation? Now put a little infinity mark all out here and realize that the circle is no good because the circle in itself is limited. And expanding, if you put a circle on it, you’ve limited Him, but the circle stands for an eternal, limitless God. You got that? That’s God before creation. When He, when God is all.

Now, just a little parenthesis. If ever you were to understand anything about the Lord Jesus Christ, or the Christian life, or anything about the Christian life, you have to realize that there was going on inside this eternal God the fellowship of the Godhead, and everything pours forth from their previous experience. Everything that we run into in some way relates back to the eternal Godhead.

Now, imagine that God has a purpose, and therefore, He creates eternity. So, here’s a circle within the circle, and here is eternity. And this is filled…this is eternal—this is a place. Eternity is not a status. It’s a place. The eternals—the angels—live there. There’s no matter there. There’s no mass there. There are no molecules there. There’s no dimension there. There’s no space there. There’s no time there. You can’t measure it. It’s not big, it’s not little. There’s no end to it. It’ll fit anywhere, and it’s bigger than anything and smaller than anything. There’s no—Einstein is out there somewhere telling you that there’s no mass in this place, and there’s no molecule, therefore there is no measurement. You got that? Try to think Einstein when you think of this.

Now, within that eternal—the eternals—God created the visibles. Now, when He created what is visible, He had to bring into play mass, molecules, which in turn created energy, space, time, measurement, and finiteness. That which is finite, that which has a beginning and an end, is very new. New idea. Only recently, only when God created the physical realm. Okay, now I’m going to draw. You following all that, John? Yeah, thank you. Now I’m going—I’ve got a big circle: God, then the eternals, which are in Him; eternity is in Him. And then here’s the finite—the creation of the visible realm. Are you still with me? You owe me a dollar for this, you know. There is the beginning of creation and the end of creation. And there will definitely be an end to the physical creation. There was a beginning to the physical creation—you can read it in Genesis 1—in the beginning. And God created the heavens, and then He created the earth and the stars and the comets. And that’s beginning and end. That’s finite—mass, molecule, atom, space, time.

Now, I ask you a question. This is important. Is all of recorded history that we know about, the visible creation, is it in a fallen state? Is all the history of creation, physical creation, a history of a fallen state? No. Alright, that means there was a time when there was part of creation—physical creation—that existed in history without the fall. Is that correct? Will there be a day when the fall is over? So, as we look at that which is finite, we see its beginning here and its end here, but sin doesn’t begin here and end here. Sin begins here and ends here. You got that? So, there’s a little part out here in which there’s no sin, no fall—before and after. Before sin is introduced and after sin is dealt with, and Satan is thrown into the pit, and all that stuff. You have got a little, little area right here. Now, that means, brothers and sisters, something very simple: God has some kind of a plan outside of and above redemption.