Read your Bible - Ephesians 2:4-5,10

Turn please to Paul's letter to the Ephesians, Ephesians chapter 2. Ephesians chapter 2 please and verse 4. But God, but God, that's all we want to read. Please keep your Bible open. My audience that I'm going to speak to is very limited, so everybody else can listen in anyway.

As I've listened to our brethren today and enjoyed the ministry and I agree what they have been telling us and have been encouraged and challenged, on my mind for this session or for this word or whatever you want to call it, I was going to go through the whole of the epistle to the Ephesians, but I'm not going to do that. I just want to think of these two words, but God. If you're reading your Bible and you come to the word but, it makes a change.

It brings a change, it brings a context, contrast, it makes a difference. When you read but God, it makes all the difference in the world and in the next world. I want to speak about three things.

I don't know how long I'll take. I want to ask all the people, all the older people, I want to ask everyone, and there's someone in this audience that this may apply to, I don't know. But I just wonder, before you came to the conference today, did you actually open your Bible? Did you read your Bible? Did you read your Bible this week? I heard of Mr. Norman Crawford, you would all know that name, and he said there are two fundamentals in the Christian life, and our brothers touched on that, and maybe the other men did as well.

It's prayer and the word of God, the two pillars of Christianity, and if one falls, the whole thing will come down and vice versa. Two pillars. We're going to speak about one.

Our brothers touched on the other one. Let me ask everyone, did you read your Bible today before you came to the conference? I have learned that there are people and they're saved, they're genuinely saved, but they have big problems reading. It could be one reason or the other, and they find it difficult.

And I have always said this to people, and I'm going to say it to you as a help to reading your Bible. There may be someone, and you have the difficulty reading. Look at that.

There may be someone else, and you're doubting your salvation. Maybe there's one person in this gathering like that. I want to talk about that.

Maybe there's another person, and you're discouraged as you think about the circumstances around the world, and you're discouraged about the future. We might talk about that as well. But first of all, the reading of the Bible, but God.

I always tell young people and anyone that gets saved at meetings I have, read your Bible and read it every single day. And when you're reading your Bible, here's something to help you read. What is it? Look for what it says, especially in the New Testament, we're thinking of, look for what the portion of Scripture you're reading, what it says about the triune God, the Father, the Son, and the Spirit.

And if you read through this epistle, the Ephesian epistle, you will discover that it's sometimes called the Trinitarian epistle because it's full of the Trinity. And look for what it says about the Father, and about the Son, and about the Holy Spirit, and that will be a starter for you in reading your Bible. And as you read, and as you mature, and as you grow, and as you learn more, continue to do that.

And I just want to encourage you from this verse, but God. Now, if I asked you to read down the next verse, it's just down to verse 10. What does it tell us about God? And if you look at it, this is God the Father.

What does this verse that we've started to read, what does it tell us about God? And if you had a little notepad and just wrote down the things, you would discover that the Bible is rich and full, and so is this Ephesian epistle, as it tells us things about God. Now, what does it say about God who is rich in mercy? My brother talked about mercy. Now, mercy has many different nuances, and I'm going to give you a slight different from him.

I'm not disagreeing with our brother. We all know that there's times mercy holds back the judgment that we're due. But there's something about mercy that it's smooth when it sees a soul in distress, or a soul in trouble, or a soul that is coming through difficulty, and there's something in mercy that moves the heart to try and relieve the person and remove the trouble or extricate them from that trouble.

That's the thought of mercy. That's one nuance of mercy. What does it tell us in this verse about God? It tells us that God is rich in mercy.

He has a wealth of mercy. If you would read down first three verses of this chapter and then come to these words, but God, it will bring in a contrast. We're seeing the conduct and the character of men in those verses, but now we're going to look at the character of God.

What a lovely subject, and He's a wealth of mercy. God moves toward people in pity to try and relieve them in their circumstance. What else does it say about God? He's a God of love, isn't He? It says here, for His great love were what He loved us.

Why does God, when we read the first three verses, why does God not just scrap the whole human race and start over again? Why does God act towards mankind with mercy? Why does He hold back the judgment? Why does He seek to relieve people of their difficulty and trial and bring them out of their sin and all the conditions that we find them in, in verse 1 to 3? Well, He tells us here, for His great love were what He loved us, and mercy is an expression of love. So, we're learning the next thing about God, that He's a great love. He didn't love us just after we got saved.

He loved us even when we were dead in trespasses and in sins. You see the great love of God. That word love is used in Acts 24 when it talks about the great peace that the Christians had.

It's found in John chapter 3 when it talks about much water. There was a great abundance of water. We think of the living God, and He's God of mercy, and He's a God of love.

John, we could use his words, for God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. And as you read down through this, you'll read an awful lot about God and the character of God. You'll find out that God's a God of grace, and as our brother said, He moves towards mankind in grace, that unmerited favor.

But look what it says, quickened us together with Christ, raised us up together, made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus. If we were to go back to chapter 1, we would see there the great power of God operating towards Christ. We would see the great power of God that brought Christ up from the dead and raised Him up and sat Him at His own right hand in heavenly places, far above all principality and power and might and dominion and every name that's named, not only in this age but in the age which is to come, and has put all things beneath His feet and made Him head over all things to the church which is His body, and so on.

You see the same power that operated in Christ, it's available to the Christians. It has operated in the Christian when it has given them life, it has quickened them, has raised them, and has seated them in heaven. I could go on with that there, but really what I'm saying is this, tell me this, have you read your Bible today? We're talking about the pattern.

You'll never know the pattern unless you read your Bible. I've told every one of my children, and they all profess to be saved, I've told everybody I meet, read your Bible before you read a commentary. Make it your business to read your Bible daily, and start in chapter 1 and go to chapter 2 and then chapter 3 and read consecutively, read daily, read consecutively, and read intelligently.

Think about what you're reading, and we could go on and go on and learn different things about God, about His power, about His kindness, and about His purpose, and so on, but because of the time I'm not going to go through all that, just to ask you, have you read your Bible? You'll never form convictions unless you read your Bible. You'll be like grasshoppers moving about, jumping from one place to the other, and you'll never settle down in God's assembly. Reading your Bible purifies your mind.

It cleanses your mind from defilement, the defilement of the world that you meet every single day, and if you don't read your Bible daily, I say this to you, you're a very careless Christian. You're just a target to go down and fall into sin, so that's just a slight challenge to everyone but God. Maybe this other person I'm thinking about, and maybe there's someone here, and maybe because you don't read your Bible, you're doubting your salvation.

These things are linked at times, and maybe there's someone here, and you've come to the conference, and really deep down in your heart, you just, you feel out of it. There was a time when you were very confident you were saved, but things have happened, and you just wonder, and you just doubt now, have I really got the matter? Am I really on my way to glory? Am I really saved? Am I a Christian at all? And I'm going to say this, there's only one thing, and that is not for yourselves, brethren. There's only one thing a Christian couldn't do, that an unsaved man could do.

You say, what's that? A Christian cannot go to hell, but he could commit any sin out there. Look at verse 5, the end of verse 5, Paul is going through a logical sequence, a progression of teaching, and he's moving step by step. He talks about being quick in giving life.

He talks about being raised in verse 6. He talks about being seated, and you can see that, but he slips in this little parenthesis, and the parenthesis means something that's slipped in alongside, or put in alongside, and you see five words in the parenthesis inside the brackets, by grace you are saved. And you might think I'm going to be very simple and simplistic in this, but I think I have to be. I'm not insulting your intelligence, I would say nearly every single person in the room is more intelligent than I am, and better educated than I am, but I want you to look at these five words.

Think about this now. By grace you are saved. By grace you are having been saved.

By grace you are having been and continually are saved. By grace you are presently having been and will continue to be forever saved. That's the idea.

By grace you are, you exist in a condition of having been saved and are saved and will be saved forevermore. I'm going to put it like this. You probably sometime or other heard this little nursery rhyme, Humpty Dumpty sat on the wall.

Humpty Dumpty had the great fall, and all the king's horses and all the king's men couldn't put Humpty together again. Here's Humpty. What is he? He's an egg.

And he had a great fall, and he smashed to pieces. That's Monday. You go back on Wednesday, and there's poor Humpty, and he's smashed to pieces.

And you go back on Friday, and there's poor Humpty, and he's smashed to pieces. What has happened? On Monday he had a great fall, and in a moment of time, once and for all, he was smashed. And the evidence is there on Wednesday.

And the evidence is still there on Friday. The condition hasn't changed. It hasn't altered.

In a moment of time, something happened to Humpty. He was smashed. And he continues to be smashed.

Wednesday. And he continues to be smashed. Friday.

And he was smashed forevermore. Why all the king's horses and all the king's men couldn't put Humpty together again. That's what this verse is about.

Something happened in a moment of time. Something happened once and for all. Something happened that was done once and for all completely.

And it still exists. That condition still prevails. And it will prevail for all eternity.

Saved. Now, not everybody that says they're saved is saved. But let me tell you, if there's a moment in time you trusted the risen Son of God.

Not the work of Christ. I'm not asking anyone to trust the work of Christ. No, no, no.

Trust the risen Son of God who once did the work upon the cross, who died and was buried and rose again is now in heaven. When I got saved 41 years ago, Christ was in heaven. When everybody here got saved, Christ was in heaven.

You trusted a man who's in heaven, who did the work. And that moment you were saved. Who saved you? But God.

Salvation's an act of God. It was God. God's the actor in verse 4. God's the subject.

God's the active one. God is doing the action in verse 4. But God. Look at it.

Verse 5. What did he do? He quickened us together with Christ. He raised us up together. He made us sit together in heavenly places.

All those things are acts of God. Let me tell you, you cannot reverse an act of God. It's impossible.

You may as well try to reverse the creation of the world. It's impossible. You cannot reverse an act of God.

Listen to this. No foe, no fiend, no fault, no failure, no fall, no force in all of the universe of God can do, undo what God has done. Whatsoever the Lord doeth, it shall be forever.

So it's God who saves. Now look at verse 8. For by grace, and it should read the same as verse 5, for by grace you are having been saved through faith. There is an unlimited reservoir of grace and it's full of salvation.

And you get it by faith. You drink of that reservoir by faith. You go to the top, the faucet, and you turn it on.

There's a reservoir somewhere and it's full of water and it flows down and you have a drink. It's there all the time whether you touch that faucet or not. It's available whether you touch the faucet or not.

Away with this thought of election to salvation. It's not in my Bible. No one likes sinners in the New Testament or the Old.

Think about this. For by grace, you are saved through faith. That's the channel.

That not out of yourselves. This salvation, it doesn't come out of the origin of it, it isn't out of yourselves. This salvation, the origin isn't out of works.

The source of it is not man. The source of it is not man's works. Verse 8, of God it is the gift.

The origin is the living God. It's the living God who has provided salvation in his wondrous, unlimited, infinite grace that we heard about earlier. And you receive it by faith.

Faith is not a gift. So once saved, always saved. And you may not live up to the standard or the expectation or the desired demands of God, but the failure on your part does not undo what God has done.

So we see God's action and we see God's aim. What's God's aim? He has a future aim, a future purpose and a near purpose. A distant purpose and a near purpose.

Look at verse number 10. When our brother read this, and I could have got up after him, but I'm glad another man got up. Verse 10, for we are his workmanship, poema.

It could be some translated work of art. For we are his work of art or better, meisterstuk, masterpiece. We are his masterpiece.

If you happen to be able to buy the Mona Lisa, where would you put it? In the basement underneath a blanket? No. You would display that masterpiece. You would have it up in your, I don't know if you call it living room here or not, but you'd have it up in the biggest room, the main room of the house and everybody would see that you own the masterpiece.

You would display it. If you go around one of the corridors here, you'll see that there are trophies on display and you'll see maybe the name of someone and he was the captain of the football team in that year and they won the cup and the cup's there. And you go around these trophy rooms and there are all these trophies, but you can't display the trophy without displaying or mentioning the person who won the trophy.

Verse 7, there's ages to come. That's another thing about God. He's eternal.

He transcends time, but in the ages to come, he's going to show the exceeding riches of his grace and his kindness towards us through Christ Jesus. God is going to display to a wandering universe his meisterstook, his poema, his masterpiece. What's that? That's you.

That's me. We are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus. God's a creator.

We know that. He is an old creation. It was a masterpiece.

You stand and you look over the hills of Wisconsin as our brother mentioned in the evening and the sun going down over the Mississippi River and the light shining on those waters glistening. You wonder at the creation of God. It's been marred.

This first masterpiece, marred. He's working on another masterpiece. The end of the chapter tells us what it is, but he's making this out of what we might call mini masterpieces.

The materials he's using is told, we'll read about it in the first three verses, and he has to change. He has to do something with this material, and so he gives them life, and he raises them, and he sits them in the heavenlies, and he pours his grace upon them. Grace and salvation, and as our brother said, grace to live every single day.

But listen, the day coming when he will put on display the masterpiece unmarred, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing. That's the distant. That's the future.

That'd be not so distant now. But look what it says in verse 10. For we are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.

This fits in with what we've heard already. You see, before there was a flutter of a bird's wing, before there was a bird to fly in the sky, God had prepared the environment for that bird. Before there was a fin, before there was a fish to swim in the sea, God had prepared the environment for that fish.

Before there was a soul believed in Christ, God had prepared the environment for that Christian. God has ordained that birds fly in the sky. He's ordained that fish swim in the sea.

He has ordained that Christians walk in good works. What a contrast between verse 1 to 3. What a difference in the walk. What has made the difference? But God, but God.

Dear Christian, as we've heard, we're not looking at Israel. We're not looking at Ukraine. Take a good look into the future.

Take a good look around the trophy room there and realize that's what God's going to do. He's going to put every one of us on display to a wandering universe. Angels and men will stand with their mouth open and their eyes agog as they see the wonders of the grace of God and mankind and those who have trusted Christ.

This word, this word that's translated here, workmanship, if you go to Romans chapter 1, you'll see there, the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse. The word things that are made is the same word here. And we look at the first creation.

Marvelous. But it does something. What does it do? The heavens declare the glory of God.

The firmament showeth his handiwork. Day unto day unto earth speech. There's neither speech nor language where their voice is not heard.

Omnilingual. This creation is omnilingual. It speaks in Russia.

It speaks in China. It speaks in America. It speaks in Ireland.

All over the world, the voice of creation is heard. God created it to do something that declares his glory. See here.

We are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in him. We're part of a new creation. The stamp of grace is upon it.

You read this chapter, you see the grace of God, the gift of God, and now you'll come down to the good works of God. And someone might say, well, these good works, how do we know what they are? You've got to read chapter four and five and six. And so just to come back to what we heard from our brother, Brandon Doyle, Ephesians has six chapters.

The first three are doctrinal. The second three, broadly speaking, are practical. And you get the doctrine, and then you put it into practice.

It's divided for us nicely because when you come to the end of chapter three, there's this little word, amen. And when you come to the end of chapter six, there's a little word, amen. Tell me this.

Have you read your Bible today? When I got saved, I didn't even have a Bible. I'd never seen a Bible until I was almost 21. Shame upon you, disgrace upon you, if you haven't read your Bible today.

And if you go on not reading your Bible, you'll fall into doubts, and you will be discouraged at all that's happening around the world. But if you read your Bible and read it every day and get involved with the Word of God and get engrossed in the Word of God, you'll know something about God and His great plan, and you'll get the assurance of salvation from the Word. And they'll pray about the things that's happening in the world, but you'll not get discouraged with them.

You'll not get down depressed. Why? Because you'll look at the bigger picture and realize God's program is right on target. And soon the Lord will come, and soon we'll be on display to a wandering universe.

It's all hopeless when you read the first three verses of this chapter. For men are doomed, and men are deceived, and men are defiled, and men are disobedient, and men are dominated, and men are doomed to the wrath of God. What's going to happen? But God, and He gives dead men life, and He gives deceived men truth, and He cleanses defiled men, and He liberates dominated men, and He saves doomed men, and He saves them by His grace.

When they believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, for by grace you are saved through faith, and it's all to the glory of God. If you have any doubts, get down to your Bible. Read your Bible.

Once saved, always saved. May God bless His Word.