Gooding, David: 6 - Movement Two (Part 1A)

We begin our reading this evening in the epistle of Paul to the Ephesians, chapter two and verse eleven. Wherefore remember that aforetime ye, the Gentiles in the flesh, who are called uncircumcision by that which is called circumcision in the flesh made by hands, that you were at that time separate from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of the promise, having no hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus, you that once were afar off are made nigh in the blood of Christ. For he is our peace, who made both one and break down the middle wall of petition, namely the enmity, having abolished in his flesh the law of commandments contained in ordinances, that he might create in himself of the two one new man, so making peace, and might reconcile them both in one body unto God through the cross, having slain the enmity thereby. And he came and preached peace to you that were afar off, and peace to them that were nigh. For through him we both have our access in one spirit unto the Father. So then, you are no more strangers and sojourners, but are fellow citizens with the saints and of the household of God, being built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the chief cornerstone, in whom each several building, fitly framed together, groweth into a holy temple in the Lord, in whom ye also are builded together for a habitation of God through the Spirit. Chapter three, please, and verse fourteen: For this cause, I bow my knees unto the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, that he would grant you according to the riches of his glory, that you may be strengthened with power through his spirit in the inward man, that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And then, for the moment, some verses in chapter four. Verse four: There is one body and one spirit, even as also you were called in one hope of your calling, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all. Verse nine: Now this he ascended, what is it but that he also descended into the lower parts of the earth? He that descended is the same also that ascended far above all heavens, that he might fill all things. And he gave some apostles and some prophets and some evangelists and some pastors and teachers for the perfecting of the saints unto the work of ministering, unto the building up of the body of Christ. Verse sixteen: from whom all the body, fitly framed and knit together, through that which every joint supplieth, according to the working in due measure of each several part, maketh the increase of the body unto the building up of itself in love. To that glorious end, may God deign to use our study of his word this evening. Tonight, then, we begin in earnest the study of the great second movement of thought that goes up to compose the epistle of Paul to the Ephesians. That second movement begins in chapter two and verse eleven and proceeds until chapter four and verse sixteen. We do well, therefore, at the beginning of our session, to spend a little time surveying some of the leading themes of this second major movement of thought in the epistle. This movement too deals with one of the major purposes of God. But whereas, as we saw last night, the first movement of thought presents God's purpose in these terms, that we should be before him in love with the status and ability of sons of God. The second major movement of thought very soon introduces us to another of God's purposes. That is, in the creation of the world and the development of his- its history, God has determined to make himself room in time and space, room to have a dwelling place, that the Almighty God, Creator of the universe, might himself enter into the creation that he has made, and there display his glory and make known his personality by means of localizing his presence somewhere within his creation. Therefore, it is, of course, that the very first paragraph of Movement two tells us that God's purpose is that there should be a building fitly framed together that should form an holy temple in the Lord, and goes on to remind us that each little bit of building in that temple, such as the believers here in this church in Ballyhackamore, as they are brought to Christ and built into that great scheme of God's eventual temple, already form God a dwelling place through his spirit. So says the first paragraph of this second movement. And the second paragraph of movement two, likewise, reminds us through the words of Paul's prayer, what is God's continuing purpose for his believers. For Paul praying for those that are already believers and already know something of the indwelling of Christ in their hearts, Paul prays nevertheless for them. That God would grant them to be strengthened in the inner man by his spirit to this end, that Christ might dwell in their hearts. They're still thinking of that great purpose of God to make room for himself within his creation, now in the hearts of his believers. And the third and final paragraph in this movement too reminds us that there is one body, even as, of course, there is one God and Father of all, who is not only over all and through all, but is also in all. So that here we are brought face to face with that incalculable wonder that the transcendent Lord of time and space has been pleased to intervene in his own creation and enter it and make himself there a dwelling place. Now, perhaps at first sight, the wonder of it doesn't fully come home to our hearts, and that for one or two reasons. In the first place, we're used to the idea. We've known it for such a long time, ever since we knew anything, ever since the day when we opened the heart's door and invited the Lord Jesus in, we have known about this glorious pan, and familiarity, while it has not bred contempt, has perhaps reduced some of the wonder of it. And secondly, the wonder of it may not have come home to our hearts because we have not always stopped to think about what it involves, and even when we try to think, we very presently find ourselves running up against problems and wonders that surpass our very understanding and ability to conceive of them. But just let me provoke your pure minds just for a moment. This business of God dwelling within his own creation. Say what a wonder it is. I suppose all of us find it very easy, do you see? Uh, to see at once that the universe in which we live was created by God. And because we understand that, we understand that the universe once upon a time had a beginning. And then we understand that there must have been a time when the universe didn't exist. That then God always was, even before the universe existed. He existed. He had no beginning. He was the eternal God. None had to create him. He was the self-existent, eternal, almighty Lord. There came a point when he was pleased to create the universe, and so the universe began. Now that's very easily understood. I wonder what I, uh, you would say to me if I ask you a simple question. Where was God before he created the universe? Where was he? That That wasn't wasn't me. meant to be a trick question, but did I hear some of you say, well, he was in heaven, of course. Who was he? What, before he created anything? He was in heaven. Oh, wait a minute. Let me think that through if I can. What are you telling me now? That heaven is as eternal as God is. For I was asking you, do you see, where was God before he created anything at all? Well, didn't he have to create heaven as well? Or is heaven a thing like God himself, equally self-existent and eternal without beginning? Some of my friends, I shan't tell you their names, are in the habit of talking as though heaven were like that. Do you see? They're very much like me. When they think of Mr. Tom Jones, whoever Mr. Jones is, they think of Mr. Jones, but they can't think of Mr. Jones without thinking of some place for Mr. Jones to be in. He's in his study, or he's in the kitchen, or he's in the office, or he's in the field, and in fact, if you try to think of Mr. Jones without thinking of a place for Mr. Jones to be in, you get yourself all in a muddle. And in consequence, when we start trying to think about God, some of us find it very difficult to think about God without thinking of some kind of a place for God to be in. But when you scratch your head and think a little bit more deeply, then of course that's rather silly, isn't it? For they're not two things, self-existent and equally eternal, God on the one hand, and then some place or other for God to be in. There is one only eternal, self-sufficient, self-existent, that is God himself. And the very heavens of heavens he had to create. Which is why the psalmist is talking more prose than poetry when he says that the very heaven of heavens cannot contain thee. The highest heaven there is, is but the created heaven that he himself was pleased to make. The wonder to which these passages call our attention again is that that self-existent Lord has been pleased not only to create a heaven, but to create a universe, including our planet, and has deigned himself to come into it. That's a tremendous marvel. When eventually we come round to seeing that he has not only come into our world, but the bit of time and space that he's chosen to dwell in is your heart, your personality, and the wonder of it surpasses anything we could possibly express. But then our second major movement of thought in this epistle will likewise draw our attention to another theme. And that is the formation of what the New Testament calls the body of Christ. And that is a second wonder, not, of course, unrelated to the first, but oh, what a magnificent thing it is. It's the idea that in the first paragraph has Paul all agog with joy and gladness. This new man, says Paul, that Christ has created, the like of which never was before. You see, says Paul, trying to explain what God has done. He's not merely taken Gentiles and added them in their thousands to the Jews. He has taken Jew and Gentile and made out of the two of them one absolutely new, brand new thing. One new man. And if you probe this that God has been doing since the times of Jesus Christ, you will in fact come across a novelty the like of which neither heaven nor earth had seen before. A new kind of a thing. It is called in the first paragraph, the new man. It is called in the second paragraph, the body, a body in which Jew, Jew Gentiles are fellow members, just like the Jews. And it is called in the third paragraph, the body of Christ. Oh, think for a moment what wonders this does. Though, first of all, didn't it, as chapter four reminds us, it involved, first of all, the coming of Jesus Christ, our Lord, into the world. The marvel of his descent. For this that ascended, what is it but that he first of all descended? And this was a staggering new thing, that the almighty transcendent Lord who made space and time should himself become human. Human. All the wonder of that body of Jesus Christ, his literal physical body, a body that you could have measured as so many feet long and so many inches wide. Without ceasing to be the transcendent Lord of space and time. Transcendent still, he humbled himself and became human and had a body which you could measure in terms of space and time. That was wonder number one. But if that was a wonder, there's a bigger one, because the Bible tells us that when he rose again from the dead and ascended, he didn't go back simply where he was before. Yes, he ascended where he was before, but now, being the transcendent Lord, he remained human still. Still. And the doctrine of the incarnation and the ascension teaches us this, that there is somewhere, how shall I tell you where? There is somewhere in God's heaven, still that human body. That is Jesus Christ, our Lord. The incarnation hasn't been undone. Very Godhead has been changed, and changed eternally, as the Son of God has become man and remains man still. Though he has ascended far above all heavens, yet is he still involved in space? There's a human body still. And as though that were not wonder enough. We are now told in this passage that we who have trusted Christ, be we Jew or be we Gentile, by faith have been created in Christ one new man, and have been so joined to the Lord Jesus that he and we form one body. The universe shall yet see this surpassing wonder unveiled, Christ and his people forming a new kind of personality in God's universe, a corporate personality that is Jesus plus all who trust him in one body. And the third leading theme I would like you to notice with me as we peruse this second major movement of thoughts in this epistle, is that everywhere throughout its three paragraphs, it breathes the wonder and excitement and reality of progress, genuine progress. For in this second movement of thought, we're not thinking merely of God's creation, we are thinking of God's ways in history. And the very interesting thing is this, that when God set his heart upon having this dwelling place within creation, God himself didn't try to do it all at once. But God has set himself limited goals in the different epochs of history, and as one age has given way to another, God has moved the project on and moved it up. And it's an exciting thing to look back in history and say, yes, there was an age when the dwelling place of God was only this. You know, there was a time when the dwelling place of God was only made of gold and silver and precious stones, glorious in their array, but that's all it was. Now another age has dawned, and the purpose of God has been moved on, and there has been genuine progress. And now we reach a stage when God has a dwelling place within space and time, but it's a spiritual dwelling place. That doesn't mean it doesn't have a material content. It has a material content, but the material content this time is human bodies and human personalities. And this time it isn't limited to a city like Jerusalem, it's universal. And chapter two reminds us that even so we haven't seen the finished product. The real big end and aim and object, that final temple, is only in process of being. And the completion of the project waits the dawning of a greater age. Progress. Why should we bother to notice it? I wonder what it means to you, this idea of progress in history. If you don't like history, just start with, so you're not interested in any progress in history. I suggest to you, if that's so, that is a little bit, uh, of a pity, isn't it? Well, see, if you stop still a moment, if you can stop still, you will find that there's nothing in this universe that is still, is there? Nothing. You sit as still as you can be. You're moving, aren't you? At a colossal rate. The old planet is taking you willy-nilly through space. You can't be still. Where's it going with you? The whole universe is moving, and pray, where's it going? Is it making any genuine progress, or is it just moving? There are days when I seem to be moving a lot but making no progress. I wonder if you've ever had that experience. Going round and round in circles, chasing my tail, getting largely nowhere. Our universe expanding, pray, where is it going? Is it getting anywhere or just moving? Or to look abroad for a moment at our loved scientists. What progress they've made this last hundred years, haven't they? What, what an age it has to be lived, uh, to be living through this age. To have seen the progress, and now in our day and generation, making strides in the understanding of our universe, the like of which our fathers never dreamed of. Geometrical progression, till it leaves us stunned and wondering what nineteen ninety one is going to be like, if they got so far in nineteen eighty one. All this great progress, tell me, is it real progress? Or is the whole thing empty and doomed to destruction? What is your view of life? You a mechanic? Hey, is it worth trying to improve the car engine you're working on? Or do you think the movement of history is a nonsense anyway and meaningless, and it doesn't matter whether you go forward or backward. What is your view of history? Well, my view of history is that our blessed Lord Jesus is going to be the heir of all things, history included. Oh yes, this is a fallen world. Oh yes, a lot of its progress has been engineered by men who knew not God, and some who didn't care too. But the God who made our world is behind its history. And there is such a thing as genuine progress in human life, and Christ will be the heir of all things, human progress included. The world is just not going to go out as a fail. Progress is real. So, but you're not interested in that side. Well, let me mention something that you are interested in, and that's you. Because whether you're interested in history or not, you're part of it, aren't you? They may never write a book about you, but you're part of history, aren't you? Indeed, when I look at you and I tempted to ask the question, well now, who are you, Mrs. Smith? Now just tell me for a moment, who are you, Mrs. Smith? Now who are you? Well, who are you? Are you the woman that sits there in this, uh, few five minutes while I'm looking at you and talking to you? Oh no, you say, I'm more than that. You know, of course I'm a little bit wrinkled now, mm, quite as strong as I was, but you know, I can remember myself when I was a vigorous young lady, um, beautiful beyond description, and I could have run five miles with anybody. Ah yes, you can remember that, can't you? Yes, you can. You made a bit of, well, would you call it progress? Well, is it some different woman, or are you... Yeah, what are you? What a marvelous thing a human personality is, isn't it? You can't put it in a box. It's a thing that's got a history. And to describe even Mrs. Smith, we'll have to take a big chunk of history because she fills it. Is it all lost that's gone by? You say certainly not. Uh, oh, certainly not because I, I was, I was born again on June the fifteenth, eighteen ninety one, and that bit isn't going to be lost. No, thank God it won't be lost. You say, what is more, since that day in eighteen ninety one I got converted, I, I, I made a lot of progress. I hope you have. That isn't going to be lost either, is it? Here, while we're on it, tell me, does it matter how you live as a believer? Here's one good woman, and since she got converted in eighteen ninety one, as I say, she's made a lot of progress. Here's another good man, and since he got converted in eighteen ninety two, he hasn't made much progress. Does it matter? Or when they get home to the Lord in heaven, will God wave a wand and the good woman and the good man appear equally the same, whatever progress or not they made on earth. Tell me, does history matter? Does time matter? Does progress matter? And the answer that our chapter four gives us to that kind of question is that history, that time matters eternally. For this great body of Christ that is in process of, of being made is minute by minute growing. And it's growing by that which every little piece supplies, and that means my little piece. And as I grow, and I help my fellow believers grow, the progress that is being made is eternally valid. For God is pleased to work out his purposes in history, through time, by means of gradual progress. And it will make an eternal difference, my brother, whether you have progressed in the things of God or not. You will tell me, doubtless, oh, but my good sir, when I see the Lord Jesus, I shall be like him, for John says that when we see him, we shall all be like him. So you will, what there is of you. And some of us will have grown and made progress, as chapter four tells us. And we should be like Christ. And some of us won't have made much progress. What little there still is of us will be like Christ nonetheless. It is then for these exceedingly practical reasons that I would like us all to notice this leading theme of progress in time, in history, in the ways of God, that so marks this second great movement of our epistle. Because it proclaims God's purpose within history, and therefore God's developing and progressive works in history, it fills history with hope. This is the mark of a Christian now genuinely converted to Christ, that whereas before he was without hope in the world, he had no goal. Now in Christ, he has a solid ground for hope. So now let us come to the beginning of that first paragraph in chapter two and verse eleven. Wherefore remember, says Paul, that aforetime you Gentiles, that you were at that time separate from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of promise. So Paul exhorts us now to look back to pre-Christian days, not so much to the time before our particular and personal conversion, but to the pre-Christian times, and invites us to observe that God hasn't tried to do everything at once. And so in pre-Christian times, things were different from what they are now. In those times, you Gentiles who were called uncircumcision by that which is called circumcision, you had no immediate place in the ways of God. You were the uncircumcision, so called by that which is called circumcision in the flesh. What was that all about, that business of circumcision? Why, it was one of God's early ways with men, but by no means the first. When he called out of the Gentiles an old Gentile by the name of Abraham, and converted the man, and made himself known to Abraham, and made himself known to Abraham as the living God. The God of glory appeared to Abraham, showed up the falseness of the gods that were but the idols of the Gentiles, and brought Abraham out as a pilgrim and a stranger, owning God, the living God, to be his God. From Abraham, God produced a race of men by physical descent from Abraham, and every male in that descending race was required of God to be circumcised. So there came into an existence something new. There had been nations before, a galore of nations. There'd never been a Hebrew nation before. And God, who's always doing new things, made a new beginning. Or if we can get our Gentile prejudice out of our hearts and minds, let's enjoy it, shall we? What was God doing? Why, God was coming in at a point when you have would have thought that everything was almost lost, and God was making a new beginning towards achieving his purpose. You see, men had known God before Abraham, hadn't they? The Bible does not tell us that the Jews were the only people that ever knew God. That'd be nonsense. The men before the flood had known God. Great men of faith like Abel and Enoch had known God and walked with God. Men in the time of the flood, like Noah and his family, and after the flood, had known God and walked with God. Well, the Jews weren't the first to know God. Nor were the Jews the first to have a true religion, were they? For Abel had one. God showed to Abel the whole business of sacrifice, didn't he? And Abel wasn't a Jew. And after the flood, the Bible introduces us to a man called Melchizedek. He was not a Christian, obviously. He wasn't a Jew either, was he? And yet he was a priest of the Most High God and knew the living God and had a ritual that he could use in the service of God, that God owned and God blessed, and used his ministry to bless Abram with. Oh yes, the Bible doesn't tell us that the Hebrews were the first people that ever got to know God. Certainly not. God had made himself known to men. But in those days, now speaking generally, not of every Gentile man in particular, but generally, men had departed from God. As Paul puts it, knowing God, they didn't choose to retain the knowledge of God in their hearts, but changed the truth of glory of God into a lie, and began to liken the eternal God to a man, or sometimes to insects and creeping things and animals, and lower and lower and lower still. You say to me, but Mr. Preacher, in those far off days, you know, some of those nations were very enlightened and had great moral codes. Look at the laws of Hammurabi. Yes, I have looked at them. Yes. And of course they had great moral codes. What do you think? For God has nowhere said that men didn't understand morality until the Hebrews came along. Right from the very first, man had a conscience. And from the earliest days, man had laws to regulate society and a sense of right and wrong. Of course he did. But what happened? Men by and large forgot God, and instead of the true God, they turned to idols. What happened next? Why, for a long while, their moral laws went on. And as far as their morality went, they were starting off quite decent people for a while. Just like people today in Belfast. Their parents were believers. They were brought up to love their neighbor as themselves. They themselves now have rejected the knowledge of the true God. They don't want anything to do with God, but they're still concerned about morality, aren't they, and having a fair deal at work and seeing after the neighbor. Yes. For a while, when men reject the knowledge of God waned and men plunged more and more into the dark, so the old morality went downhill, and now evil and cruel and wicked things began to spread. That's not fancy. We see it going on around us, don't we? Men give up the knowledge of the true God. Well, you've got to have some God or other, haven't you? So what God will you make? Well, I'll tell you some of the ancient gods. Some people there were who said, no, they couldn't believe in the great creator anymore. So, all right, who's in charge of old Shoden? Chance, they said. It's all chance. And then they spelled chance with a capital C and made chance into a goddess. No, no, said other people. No, it isn't chance. Do you know the whole universe is determined by fate? And they made fate the ultimate goddess that controls everything. You ask your friend at work who doesn't believe in God, you ask him then what controls the whole show. See what he says. If he's a learned scientist, he might say, well, the whole thing is pre pre- predetermined, you know, it is, uh, programmed. We're nothing more than computers. We're bits of chemicals strung together. We're pre-programmed, and though you might appear to be free, you are in fact living in a mechanistic universe, and you have no free will. Ultimately, you are what the chemicals make you. The whole thing is determined mechanistically. Well, that's just the same old idolatry as it ever was. And the other person who hasn't thought quite so deeply will say, ah, well, I don't think there's anybody in control enough. It's all chance, it's all chance, and when your number comes up, we'll go for it. And you say, what's wrong with it? Why, what has always been wrong with idolatry? When man gets lost in idolatry, man becomes a prisoner. Is it true that it's all determined? You are but a machine, and your personality is only a thing. Well, then if we can get a clever engineer along to begin to adapt your brain and putting a few screws tight that were loose, um, we can make you run a bit better, couldn't we? And if you're only a machine, of course, we can do what we like with you. I do with my car, that's only a machine, you see. My car doesn't have any right to protest. It has to suffer what I do with it, and if you're only a machine, my good man, we do what we like with you. And the man of sin will. So I can't believe that. It robs me of all my personality if I'm a machine. All right. You want a personality? Good stuff. And you want free will. Now who's in the cha- in charge of the whole caboose? Your little decisions can't control the whole lot, can it? Well, who does then? You say it's all by chance, old chap. Well, then it doesn't matter what you decide, does it? Whichever way you go, you're trapped and dehumanized, and the meaning is taken out of history. Oh, for the terror of idolatry, when men lose the sense of the true and living God. It wasn't to spite those Gentiles that God raised up Israel. It was in God's great mercy he raised up Israel to protest against the idolatry of the other nations. And to preach the gospel to the Gentiles by making himself known to Abraham and revealing himself through that special nation to the world at large. That was his idea. But first of all, he had to start with Abraham and then develop the nation. And when God thought of making himself known through Abraham, ah, then he faced another problem. The nation had their temples, but many of them by this time were utterly corrupt, some of them even with human sacrificing, sacrificing little innocent babes on altars to grotesque images. Temples filled with prostitutes in the name of religion, defying sex like our modern world does. You want to know what God is really like? Well, says God, we shall have to shut out that kind of stuff. And I shall have to have a temple where only Jews may come, and among the Jews only the priests may come, and we must put a wall round it and isolate it to keep it from that horrible corruption and perversion that is Gentile religion. To show men what the true God is really like and what his service is like. That wasn't to spite Gentiles. That was God's way of reacting in his mercy to men. And so he chose Abraham, and he developed the Hebrew race, and he put a wall around him. And by definition, and as a result, in those days, those who were not circumcised Hebrews, they were outside. And Paul is just relating the fact, he's not being rude. They were separated from the Messiah. For God had promised through the Jew that one day the Savior of the world would come. He hadn't promised it to any of the Gentiles. Read the Gentiles' own history books. They don't have any hope. They don't have hope in a coming Messiah. Ask old Plato, he was a wise old bird, wasn't he? We owe him a tremendous lot, but ask him what hope he has. He hasn't got any. He reckons this world is a pretty poor place. He reckons the human body is a pretty poor thing, and your best wisdom is to get out of it as soon as you can, into some world beyond. He's no hope for this world. Hm. Well, ask the Stoics then what their hope is. They're pretty wise birds as well. What is their hope? Well, their hope is that the world goes on like it's doing now, and one of these days will come the final conflagration, and it will all be burned up. And when it's been burned up, we'll start all over again, exactly as it was before, with all the same details as ever it was before. Oh, dear me, I say, I'm glad I'm not a stoic. Imagine seeing the whole show through again, in every detail. Would you like to live your life over again in every detail? I wouldn't mind. I want the progress, if there any, not just repeating the same old thing all over again. What about you? Well, ask the Epicureans then. They were the evolutionists, dear souls. They believed in the atomic theory. They invented it, or or took it over. What is their hope? Well, they'll tell you that matter is eternal. It's just going on and on and on and on and on and on forever. But the same world as it is now. Yes. Going on forever. Isn't it going to improve? No, because the whole thing is by chance. Remember, you Gentiles, says Paul, you were without Messiah, without any hope of a coming Savior, and therefore you were without hope in the world. It's perhaps not the worst thing you can say about our modern world. It's one of the most terrible. Your neighbor who lives next door to you, if he's not a believer in the Lord, has no hope. No solid hope for the development of the world. Oh, I know the political parties will soon be around your doors again, and they'll have their programs and tell you how they're going to improve things. We've heard it many, many times. Our dear communist friends will tell us that the very laws of history guarantee that one of these days the great utopia will come. But the only laws of history are contradicting the communists nowadays, aren't they? One of the saddest things you can say about Gentiles without God is they don't have any real hope. And they were without God in the world. Dimly at best knowing about him. No immediate access to his presence. Ah, but there was worse than that. They were aliens from Israel's covenants, strangers to the promises, and because of it, there grew up on both sides an antipathy one towards the other. The Israelite, as he looked out upon the Gentile, came to despise him, the uncircumcised Gentile, in all the folly of his idolatry. And the Gentile, as he looked at the Jew and saw the Jew professing this great religion and in his daily work being a Pharisee of the worst kind, proud, and himself breaking the very law he preached, the Gentile grew angry and an enemy of a Jew. So that at long length it looked as if the whole thing were going to fail of its purpose. Indeed, the Jew failed so terribly that in the end God had to get rid of them, sling them out to Babylon, sling them out to Assyria, finally let the Romans sling them out altogether. You say it was a failure then, that whole Jewish business? No, it wasn't. As we close tonight, I'm going to tell you why. That period of God's dealing in history, what was the point of it? What was the value of it? Well, it served this tremendous purpose, the making of God known and establishing who was the true God. How was that, you say, if the Jews failed? Well, my good sir, it's a simple thing, really, isn't it? I can ask you to go back to Old Testament days and consider all the nations and all their religions and all their laws and all their literature. I can guarantee you one thing, that when you come to the Jew, you will find something unique. You will find early on in his sacred literature, the Old Testament, you will early on, right from the very first word, find the true and only God. Monotheism preached pure and simple. The big contrast it makes with all the other nations with their polytheism and idolatry. I must therefore ask myself, and where did they get this idea? These Jews with their marvelous idea that there is just one God. Where did they get it from? You say, they got it by gradually evolved, you know. Well, that's precisely what it didn't do. Because if you look at that same record, you will find this, that no sooner had God revealed himself on Mount Sinai to the Jews as the one soul God, they went away from him and had to be hauled back again. And no sooner had he hauled them back again, the way they went into the idolatry of the nations around them, and forever and forever and forever, the very people who have given us this Bible to witness to the fact there is only one God were all the time themselves slipping back into idolatry. Isn't that true? By which you may conclude this, sir, that the Jews didn't invent this idea of one God. They didn't gradually evolve to it. If evolving was true, they're going the other way. They were given it. They were given it. Here is God in history, intervening in history to make himself known to this Jewish nation, to give us his word through them. And the very failure of that Jewish nation shows that the thing that they were given was in fact given of God and not their invention. One other thing. You read this Old Testament that God gave to the Jews in that time, you will find this message that one day the Messiah would come, the savior of the world. How shall I know whether it's true? So you say to me, but my dear good man, that's a bit of Jewish nationalism, you know. They like to think they're the boys. As you see, they got it into their heads that they regard blue-eyed boys and special favorites, you see. And of course it was obvious to the Jew that the savior of the world would be a Jew. I mean, had the English written the Old Testament, well, the savior of the world would have been an Englishman for sure, wouldn't he? And you say, therefore, it was their simple pride that dared to tell the world that, uh, the savior of the world would be a Jew. Ah, not so fast, sir. When he came, the Jews rejected him. And to this present day, officially and as a nation, they reject Jesus the Messiah, who has proved to millions beyond doubt that he is the savior of the world. They didn't invent the idea. The centuries that God spent raising up that nation with hist- in history, giving him their law, his laws, giving them hope, were years that have pointed conclusively to where you may find the true God within history. But it wasn't the end of the story. That was only the first act. And when it seemed at length as if this too had all gone wrong, then God intervened in history once more and set going another move. The kind of a God he is. When the world nearly destroyed itself with its violence and sin, and God had to destroy it with the flood, God showed he had a new thing up his sleeve and invented an ark and saved and began again. When the nations were lost in idolatry, God did a new thing, and he created the Hebrew race of Israel. And finally, no, not finally, next, when Israel had gone almost beyond repair, God intervened once more and has showed us his next stage, and he's begun again and carried it one stage further. And if we're beginning to get the idea into our hearts, we shall find our heart rising with expectation, because we shall argue this way. Oh yes, and I know what that new stage is, and oh how wonderful compared with that previous stage, that was good, and now I see why it was, but this new stage, oh how much more wonderful it was than that first stage. Once you start talking like that, you'll find yourself presently saying, and if this present stage is wonderful, oh pray, what will the next one be when the Lord and God's great plan has been brought to fruition. And when that begins to rise in your heart, then you'll find it has a practical implication in its tale. If God has been on the move, if the thing is even now moving Four. forward. Hey. Pray. What progress am I making while my little history runs its course? Since I got converted, progress have I made? Is it visible? How much shall the progress of my life contribute to the final achievement of God's purpose? The Lord encourage our hearts, give us visions of his purposes and vistas of the future, that we might now give ourselves seriously to the business of making progress along of his purpose for his name's sake. Shall we pray? O God our Father, we bow before thee this evening in the impression that we are involved in things bigger than we ever thought of. While we thank thee, each one personally, for his and her individual salvation, we do bless thee that as we de- open our eyes, we discover we are part of a grand purpose that has filled history. And we bless thee for the assurance in our hearts this night that life is not vain, all is not vanity. Our labor in the Lord is not lost and fruitless. Now, because of Jesus Christ, thy son, his coming and his resurrection and his coming again, life is worthwhile and progress is real. And we are pushing forward to the coming of the great day. We do pray thee that our studies might therefore pro- bring thy glory. Grant, Lord, that they will give us a new earnest to grasp the time, to redeem the time, to seize hold of life with both hands, that we may make the optimum use of it in all its departments, that be it in the natural and secular, or in the spiritual and the sacred, we may make progress to thy glory, and it all contribute to the achievement of thy final purpose. And O Lord, we praise thee this evening that we have not yet to wait for thy coming, simply, but even now, here in this life, thou dost deign to dwell in our hearts through faith, and for this we praise thee. O Lord, find thyself ever greater room in our hearts, we do beseech thee, and dwell therein through Jesus Christ, thy son. That not externally only, but internally, there may be bigger progress as Christ gets more and more of us to his satisfaction and to his praise. Through that same Lord Jesus Christ, we ask it. Amen.