I hope… that's a good way to start. I always smile a little bit when I ask the pastor, so how long am I supposed to go? And the standard response is, oh brother, just let the Spirit lead. That's really dangerous. That's really dangerous. I always like to know about when folks expect to be wrapping up so that I don't start getting those looks and things like that. Of course, at Apologia Church, with Jeff Durbin preaching most of the time, the poor The poor moms, it's a family integrated church, need to know when to bring extra Cheerios because once they run out, things start getting… get pretty ugly. Ah, there is one. Yes, good. Hmm, okay, well, you never know what you're going to find in a pulpit, trust me. I could write a book about things you find in the back of pulpits as you travel around the United States. It is good to be with you this morning. Some of you know that Over the last two evenings, I have been involved in a battle here in Houston. The kind folks down at First Lutheran downtown really like to have debates, and so that was… I just done my third and fourth debate there. I thought I had done more, but I guess I hadn't, and we have two more debates coming up in March when I'm coming back. I'm leaving from here tomorrow, headed for Tullahoma, Tennessee. I'll be doing a debate on the atonement there, and then to the seminary in Conway, Arkansas, where I'll be teaching Baptist church history, and then back here to Houston the week after that for two more debates, one with a man by the name of Layton Flowers on John 6. and then the last one with a Unitarian scholar on the deity of Christ. And so, if you have already gotten your tickets, great. I think they've already sold out in March, but they're live-streamed, so I hope you will watch those. The last two debates, last two nights were with Trent Horn of Catholic Answers, one on solo scriptura, one on purgatory. and they were lively debates, shall we put it that way, in the minimum. Turn with me, please, to Paul's epistle to the church at Ephesus, Ephesians chapter 1. I have been asked… Yeah, there's… Believe me, I… I'll take one. Thank you. I have been fighting the physical battle on this trip so far, and I'm going to try to keep my voice as low as possible, lest it just completely give out on me, and my sign language isn't all that good, so we don't want to go… we don't want to go there. I have been asked to look at an incredible text of Scripture in Ephesians chapter 1, verses 3 through 14, with an emphasis at the end upon verse 14, and I will simply mention in… in background issue here, that it's very interesting to me the lengths to which men will go to try to get around Romans 8 and 9, Ephesians 1, John 6, John 8, 10, 17, all of these texts that speak so clearly and compellingly of God's sovereignty in the matter of salvation. It was really interesting. Last evening, as I arrived for the debate, I was informed that there was already a discussion going on in another building on the campus involving a well-known openly consistent Arminian, and I mean that in a sense of knowing Arminianism historically, so on and so forth, who's also written a book on the logic of purgatory as a non-Catholic, and that he was going to be attending the debate And he did, and when that information came out, my Roman Catholic opponent was just excited and overjoyed because the debate was on purgatory. And this morning, I happened to notice online, on social media, a picture of the two staying together, and my Roman Catholic opponent was saying, and he told me he agreed with everything that I said. And I couldn't help but thinking back to the fact that the first written debate of the Reformation took place between Martin Luther – we were in a Lutheran church – Martin Luther and Desiderius Erasmus. And Erasmus was a Dutch humanist scholar, and what were they debating? What was the very first written debate of the Reformation? Well, that's why Martin Luther wrote the book On the Bondage of the Will, and Erasmus wrote a book, not nearly as widely read, On the Freedom of the Will. And in that work, Luther said to Erasmus, you of all of my opponents have put your finger upon the heart of the matter, the hinge upon which it all turns. And what was that? Well, it was the nature of man's will. Is man's will enslaved to sin? Is salvation the sovereign work of God? Or, as Rome must teach and must believe, do we have some semblance of creaturely autonomy? And Rome has to believe that because how do you… how do you find salvation within Roman Catholicism? I used to be able to answer that question really easily, and now we have Francis. And I don't know what Francis believes, and nobody knows what Francis believes, but leaving the current pope aside and the confusion that's causing, historically, to receive eternal life requires utilization of the sacramental system. And so you have to have that… that desire, that ability to tap into the grace of God through the sacramental system of the Roman Catholic Church. And so it's fascinating that you would have a non-Catholic today who would clearly agree with Erasmus against Luther, but let's be honest, that's the majority today. we who hold to the sovereignty of God, hold to the supremacy of grace, hold to election and predestination, believe what these texts say, we are in the minority amongst those who call themselves, quote-unquote, Protestants. There is no, quote, Protestant church in the first place. But so many today who do not like Roman Catholicism, theirs is a commitment of taste not of conviction. Oh, I don't like the way that they do worship or the clothes they wear or things like that. It's a matter of I just don't like that way of doing things rather than what it used to be not all that long ago for pretty much all of our churches, a committed recognition that there was a fundamental and foundational difference between us in regards to the sovereignty of God and salvation. And so that certainly came out very clearly last evening as we talked about purgatory. And in fact, as I've debated that issue in the past, in… there was a really well-known debate I did in 2001 with a Catholic scholar by the name of Peter Stravinskas. it more clearly demonstrated the differences between Rome and Scripture on justification than the preceding year's debate, which was on justification. And so, when you push these issues, you start to understand why we believe the things we believe. So, I will work through this text, and I will just mention I recently did this on my program, and the reason I did it was that there was an individual pushing a theory that he had come up with. There's… Well, I'll tell you, YouTube certainly has broadened the theological spectrum of people, hasn't it? It used to be you had to convince a publisher that you had some kind of meaningful credentials upon which to write a book. Not so much, as long as you've got a webcam, you can put it out there. There is a particular individual who was saying that all the Reformed people have completely missed the… are completely wrong about Ephesians chapter 1, because Ephesians chapter 1 verses 3 through 12 are only about the apostles. All these words are only about the apostles, and it only becomes relevant to the Ephesians in verse 13. As we look at this, as we consider this, keep things like that in mind and ask yourself the question, why is it that so many people who will name the name of Christ have an amazing capacity to read into Scripture arguments and perspectives that will allow them to maintain control when it comes to salvation itself. They'll be willing to say all the glory goes to God, or at least 99% of it. God's tried real hard but it was me that allowed him the great privilege of saving me." Well, I know that sounds rather amazing, but it truly is what you're facing when you look at what is being said by so many today. So, Ephesians chapter 1, beginning of verse 3, I will read through the text, commenting as we go, and then, as I said, the request was that the focus be toward the end at verse 14, but obviously what comes before that provides that immediate context. And so writing to the church at Ephesus, where Paul spent a large portion of time, did he And yet, have you noticed something about this book? There aren't any personal greetings. You have personal greetings elsewhere. You have references to specific names. We read 1 Corinthians chapter 1. We talked about Crispus and Gaius and the household of Stephanus and things like that, and yet Paul didn't spend nearly as much time in Corinth as he did in Ephesus. Why is that? I believe honestly that the epistle we're about to read from is the same epistle that is made reference to in Colossians 4.16. If you're familiar with that text, Paul says to the church at Colossae, read the epistle that is coming to you from Laodicea. Now, why would I come to that conclusion? Ephesus was the chief city in the Lycus River Valley, and so Paul in spirit-given wisdom chose to establish a sound church at that place because he knew if there was a sound church there, the gospel would naturally invade all of Asia Minor, and it did. The Church of Colossae was the result of having planted the church at Ephesus. Paul wasn't in Colossae, but it was a second-generation church. And so you have here what I believe is a circular letter, that is, it is meant to be copied and then taken to the next church, and the next church, and… and all those churches that had resulted from the evangelism of Ephesus itself, Ephesus being the chief city in that particular region. And so you have great grand themes, just as the epistle to the Romans was meant to function in the same way, you have great grand themes that are introduced to us here in this particular text. And so Paul begins and says, "'Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the One who blessed us with all spiritual blessings in the heavenly places in Christ. And so we… we have to go back to, at least for me, it was junior high school where we had all those lessons that many of us chafed against and didn't really want on the subject of grammar, pronouns, direct objects, all of these things, to know what it is that Paul is saying here. And so when he says, God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the one who has blessed us, who is the us? Well, as I said, there are people out there that would actually try to say that this was only the apostles. As we will see, the heavenly blessings that are mentioned include adoption, redemption, forgiveness of sins, which obviously not only the apostles or in any particularly special way did the apostles receive and experience these things. Instead, he's using the plural and he's addressing all believers, including the Ephesian believers and, of course, all of the apostles as well, but he is speaking about what God has done in Jesus Christ to His own glory. And so he speaks of the One who has blessed us with all spiritual blessings in the heavenly places in Christ. Now, are we in the heavenly places? Well, interestingly enough, Paul is going to, in a sense, say yes because of that last phrase in verse 3, in Christ. Make a note, if you take notes, if you… if you mark in your Bible the number of times just in the first fourteen verses where Paul is going to use phrases such as, in Him, in Christ, and specifically in verse 6, in the Beloved. I had always missed that one as a young person because my father, who was a pastor, would very often refer to the congregation as the beloved. Beloved, it's great to see you today. And he was also one who would always use King James English in his prayers, too. That was just the way that he had been raised. And so I sort of missed the fact, until I learned Greek myself, that verse 6, it's a singular, the beloved. It's not the beloved plural, the beloved congregation. It's the beloved one, singular, that is in Christ. And so I believe, if I recall correctly, it's ten times in fourteen verses. The fact that this is in Christ all the way through here is one of the strongest arguments against religious pluralism, against all the movements that are so common in, quote-unquote, progressive churches that deny the uniqueness of salvation in Christ Jesus. What is said in this text? is that the grace of God, the gifts of that grace are found in only one place, and that is in Christ. And so the blessings, the spiritual blessings that are ours are ours because of our union with Christ. And in Paul's theology, there is such a reality of that union that he'll say in chapter 2 that we have been seated in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus. that reality of the now and the not yet. We need to know that now we are in Christ and we have these spiritual blessings even though we have not yet entered in with Him into those heavenly places. We experience life here on this earth, but the reality of our union with Christ is so real. that we need to, as Paul said to the Colossians, we are to set our mind on the things above where Christ is seated at the right hand of the Father. This is not just some type of mythology, this is a recognition of the reality that those who are in Christ Jesus are united with Him, and He as the resurrected One sits at the right hand of the Father, and we in Him therefore have these spiritual blessings. Continuing on. Verse 4, just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we might be holy and blameless before Him. Now, depending on your translation, at the end of that verse, you have the words, in love. And it truly is an argument, whether it is to be understood, that we might be holy and blameless before Him in love. having predestined us, verse 5, or whether it should be wholly and blameless before Him. In love He predestined us. I think probably it's in love He predestined us, but you can't prove the point one way or the other. Just as He chose us in Him. Now, aside from that very odd perspective that I mentioned to you beforehand, Most non-Reformed scholarship will understand this text along these lines. Christ is the chosen one, and we are elect as we choose to be in Him. So you have a big group called the elect, which are really not known to God outside of maybe His omniscience, but God doesn't choose who are in the elect. We choose to be in the elect, and once we then by faith join the elect, then all the rest of these things can be said to be true of us. This is called class election. A class of people have been chosen by God in Christ, but He has not chosen the individuals. He has left that up to us to make that choice. But you will notice, going back to grammar, just as He chose us in Him, Now thankfully, the Greek language is very clear. English is not nearly as clear and not nearly as specific as Koine Greek was as to what a direct object is, indirect object, etc., etc., and the direct object of choosing just as he chose is not him. It does not say he chose him. It says he chose us in him before the foundation of the world. The direct object of choosing is us, us who receive the spiritual blessings And we know that this is not choosing Christ, because what does it say? The result of this choosing, the purpose of this choosing is that we might be holy and blameless before Him. And so whatever this choosing is about, We must recognize that from the biblical perspective, this choosing is about salvation, holiness, and blamelessness. These are terms that Paul uses elsewhere to speak of the church, the church that is in Christ, the body of Christ, that it is God's overarching purpose. that there be the body of Christ and that He, by His Spirit in this life, is conforming us to the image of Christ so that that body is being made holy and blameless. This is God's purpose. This is God's intention. The beautiful message here is that while 2,000 years have passed since this time frame, since these words were written, not a complete 2,000 years, but we're getting very close, that purpose has not ended. God has always been about forming a people who are holy and blameless before Him. And He chose to do this in Christ before the foundation of the world, not just simply a broad-spectrum statement that I'm going to make a church. I'm not sure who's going to be in it. I might be surprised one way or the other. No. The assertion is He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world. That choice is specific. And you might be saying, you're really emphasizing this. Let me tell you why. Class election is impersonal. Class election is impersonal. If you simply elect a class and then you don't know who is going to be in that class, it becomes impersonal. There is a song that we sing. And I don't… it's a very popular song, so I'm not really sure when it's sung in non-Reformed churches if they're really listening to what it says. But it's talking about Christ and in His death, it's talking about, my name was written on His hands. That's personal. And there are many, many people, many of our friends who are not Reformed in their theology, I was certainly raised in an independent fundamentalist Baptist tradition, even though it was not an anti-Reformed tradition. My dad went to Moody Bible Institute, and I found out years later that the systematic theology that they used when he was at Moody was written by a Presbyterian, those sneaky Presbyterians. They're always writing good books and sneaking into our churches. And P.B. Fitzwater was the author. And so my dad did not have an anti-Reformed mindset, but used a lot of Reformed language, even though I didn't have the full vocabulary to fully understand that. But you see, substitutionary atonement, Jesus died for me, is a Reformed belief. It is utterly inconsistent outside of Reformed theology. And yet many independent fundamentalist Baptists will say, yes, Jesus died for me. And then they'll turn around and say, and He died for every other person, and they end up with an atonement that only creates possibility. It doesn't actually redeem. Here, this selection from before the foundation of the world includes the sanctification of those who have been chosen, because we are to be holy and blameless before Him. It's all of salvation, which would include the atonement itself. What is the result of Christ's death? How else can anyone be holy and blameless before God but by the imputed righteousness of Jesus Christ? So, if we don't read it this way, we end up with an impersonal class election that gives you no grounding for substitutionary atonement. In love, He predestined us unto adoption through Jesus Christ unto Himself. It can't get much more plain than that, except that it's predestination, and man chafes against being a temporal creature subject to the sovereign decree of God. I am absolutely convinced as I get older and older that outside of the work of the Spirit of God, no one will ever embrace that truth with joy and true submission. It's got to be a spiritual work. You can't argue somebody into this. they have to be willing to hear what Scripture says on this matter. He predestined us unto adoption. That is, of course, part of the work of salvation. We're not all sons and daughters of God in the sense of this adoption. We are creatures of God, but to be truly the children of God, what did Jesus say to the Pharisees? You're not the children of God, you're the children of the devil. But all today, every funeral you go to, everybody is a child of God. You question that and they'll look at you like you just grew horns out of your head. predestined us unto adoption, being made the children of God, but only through Jesus Christ as the only way of adoption. There is no other way. The pope recently said he hopes hell will be empty. I think he's a universalist, personally. But how would that be? Well, they have their ways of figuring things like that out, trust me. But true adoption is only through Jesus Christ to Himself. Jesus said He's the only way of the Father. Paul's saying the exact same thing. But what is this predestination in love based upon? According to the kind intention of His will. And there's the issue. There's the issue. Mankind in rebellion against God does not trust the kind intention of God's will. And sometimes, very frequently, brothers and sisters, we don't either. May I confess a sin to you? I look at what's happening in the world. This is going to be a wild year, folks. I hope you've got your seatbelt on. 2024 is going to be crazy. I don't know what the situation in our nation will be in January of 2025. I could foresee some major changes, major struggles and difficulties. And you know what? Our introduction, by the way, is a little old. I have five grandchildren. Little Ransom is over a year old now. And Kelly and I have been married for almost 42 years. And when I think of my grandkids, and I think about what could be coming our direction, I sometimes don't trust. I worry. I fret. I become distracted. I know I'm the only one in the room that suffers from this, I know. Everybody is looking down. A little bit of conviction coming upon us all. Does God have a kind intention? Is He working all things according to that will? That's what verse 11 is going to tell us. If so, do we trust Him? It's one thing to read this and talk about the big things of salvation, but then we need to make application in our lives. predestined us according to the kind intention of His will, not our will. His will, there's the problem. I can't control that. And so man finds ways around it. And if someone ever asks, and it's asked all the time, why me? Why not that one? Why one sister and not another sister, one brother and not another brother, this part of a family, not that part of a family? Why? The only ultimate answer I know of is verse 6, to the praise of His glorious grace, which He graced us, which He freely gave to us, but it's the same root, which He gave to us graciously, us, in the Beloved One, in Jesus. This is undoubtedly one of the most exhaustive phrases I know of. What's the reason? What's the ground of the predestination? What's the ground of His will? To the praise of His glorious grace, which He graced us with in the beloved one. If you're in Christ, you're in Christ by grace. If you're loved, it's because you're in the loved one. There is no place left for boasting. There is no place left for sacramental systems. It's all of God and all to His praise and honor only. There is nothing left for mankind to boast about. And that's why the majority of those who call themselves Christians in the world today don't actually believe that when it comes to our salvation, that that predestination, that grace which has been graced upon us only in Jesus Christ is completely based upon the free actions of God. Now, is this again just some type of general thing? No, because in whom, in the beloved one, We have redemption through His blood. Here is the connection of the atonement. So many Christians have the atonement as one subject over here and elections over there and the church is over there and eschatology is up there and it's all just spread out all over the place. You can't do that. We have redemption through His blood only in Him. This is salvation. The forgiveness of our trespasses is only in Him because we are united with Him. And how great is this forgiveness? According to the riches of His grace. You cannot have a greater standard. How much can be forgiven? How great a sin can be forgiven? And there are people who literally are fearful of this truth being preached and taught, because they've seen individuals who will take a promise like this and they will abuse that grace. I don't believe any person whose heart has been changed by the Holy Spirit of God can read these words and go, oh, gracious forgiveness, let me pile the sins on Jesus now. When we understand that He bore our sins in His body upon the tree, what are we going to do? Just pile them on for the fun of it? No, there is a change that takes place. We are made new creatures in Christ, but we have the forgiveness, the redemption of our sins, the covering over according to the riches of His grace, which He has lavished upon us. He has made to abound unto us, not through a sacramental system. I feel my heart breaks. I mean, I do battle. with Roman Catholics as I was battling with Trent Horn the past two nights, and one part of me is going, here is a man who is preaching falsehoods that enslave people. So I have to be clear. I have to be forceful. At the same time, he's a really nice young man. He's one year older than my son. He's a nice young man. You'd like to go to dinner with him. And it's a tragedy. We were talking at the end of the debate last night that I'll be coming back, I'll be debating a unitarian, and he would debate the same unitarian in the same way as me, but we are fully divided from one another. Why? Right here. The riches of God's grace, which He has caused to abound to us in Christ Jesus, brings us perfect salvation, he does not proclaim that message. He's probably at a church somewhere in Houston today, or maybe he went back to Dallas last night, I don't know. But he's probably somewhere today attending Mass, and that Mass will not perfect him. He will have to go to Mass again next week and the week after that because it's not a finished work. and he has no imputed righteousness. That's the tragedy. It truly breaks my heart. I hope when you see people that are trapped in falsehood that you don't have just, that what you have in your heart is a true feeling of compassion, pity at the damage that is done by false teaching. According to the riches of His grace, which He's caused to abound to us in all wisdom and understanding, God wants us to know what He has done for us so that we can glorify Him and rejoice in what He has accomplished in Christ Jesus. He has given us wisdom and understanding. He's made known to us the mystery of His will. He didn't have to, but He wants us to know the mystery of His will according to the kind intention which He has set out, which He has established in Jesus. He wants us to know these things. He's… This is not like the old pagan religions where you had the mysteries and you had… you had the initiates and then eventually all the way up to the chosen ones and only the ones up here because they've gone through all the… the ceremonies and everything else. Only they know all the mysteries and things like that. No, Christianity never had that concept. It was clear in Jesus' teaching. My teaching is open to everyone, proclaimed from the rooftops. Nothing that is hidden will not be made known. And so He has made known to us, and it's an act of grace, the mystery of His will. And this is where He's given it to us, in Scripture. If you don't have the highest view of this, and there are so many in quote-unquote Protestant churches and in Roman Catholic churches, for that matter, that do not believe that this is a consistent Word from God, you will never believe what Paul is saying here. If you think that Paul, for example, contradicts James, and James contradicts Paul, and Paul contradicts Paul, my opponent just last night. The only way he could make his interpretation of 1 Corinthians chapter 3 work was to say that Paul was wrong about when the day of the Lord was going to be. I'm like, wow. Did people hear that? They understand that? But you need to understand, if you think And I actually have two Jeffrey Rice rebinds with me. Please do not be… do not be jealous. They… but they are beautiful. This is the… this is the Johnny Cash Bible, by the way, just in case you want to look it up. If you believe that this is a consistent word from God, you are in the minority of the vast majority of quote-unquote Christian churches in the world today. You go to a Bible college, you go to a seminary, the vast majority of them are going to tell you that these are the words of men, that there's internal self-contradiction, redaction, editing, etc., etc., etc. If you believe that this is a consistent Word from God, not only does that put you in a special group of people, but it's also honestly the only way you're ever going to believe what's being said in these words. If this isn't divine revelation consistent from beginning to end, you're not going to believe this. There's no reason to believe in the Trinity, resurrection, divine election, if you don't have the highest view of Scripture. And so as the view of Scripture declines in churches, you see these beliefs, even though so many of the churches around us were founded believing these things, and they don't believe them anymore. Where did it start? A collapse in confidence in Scripture. a collapse in the confidence of Scripture. And I truly believe it's only the Spirit of God that maintains us in our faith in what God has revealed in Scripture. He speaks of the intention, the kind intention which He has established in Him, set forth in Him. What? That is, and this is a difficult text to translate, but it is the… literally the economy, the summing up of the fullness of the times, summing them all up, everything, what? In Christ. in Christ. It's God's purpose. Because of the incarnation, because the Son enters into human flesh, because He dies, He's resurrected from the dead, He is seated at the right hand of the Father, there is a summing up, a collecting of everything in Christ. From the world's perspective right now, everything is spinning out of control. so much happening that is not connected to anything else, and it's just random insanity. The Christian says, no, I may not be able to see how God is going to glorify Himself out of all of this, but the promise is He's going to. He's going to sum up all things in Christ, the things in the heavens, the things upon the earth, all in Him. One of the most amazing things we proclaim to the world is Colossians chapter 1. The Son, where all things created, whether in heaven and earth, visible, invisible, principalities, powers, dominions, authorities, all things created by Him, for Him. He is before all things, and in Him all things soonest they can. They hold together. We literally tell this world that the man who lived in Galilee 2,000 years ago not only created the entire universe, and we know the universe is so much larger now than anybody believed back then, but he's still holding it together. That's foolishness to the world. foolishness, as we saw in 1 Corinthians 1. How could anyone believe that? Only by the Spirit of God. Only by the Spirit of God. That's why the church keeps growing, because the Spirit keeps opening hearts and minds to know who our Creator is. Everything's being summed up in Him, in whom we have received and inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of the one who works all things according to the counsel of his will." How many people believe in that God? That's the God you see all through Isaiah, all through the Psalter, all through Jeremiah, all through the history of Israel. You see the one who is working all things according to the counsel, the decision of His will, not man's will, His will. And that is why there are literally theological systems amongst people who call themselves evangelicals, where they say God does not have exhaustive knowledge of the future. They say that so that man can be free. They're called open theists. They're out there, but they don't believe what Ephesians 1.11 says. and any system that denies to God the freedom to sovereignly deal with His creation cannot deal with verse 11. But He is the one working all things according to the purpose, the decision of His will, so that the result of that is that we might be to the praise of His glory We, again, have you been following the pronouns through? Following the pronouns through? That we might be to the praise of His glory, those of us who have first believed in Christ. Now, again, when you look at this and you see the transition in verse 13. in whom also you, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, in which also you believed, you were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise, who is the down payment of our inheritance." There you have a specific reference to how they experienced salvation when they heard that. Who is this that first believed? That's, again, the argument being, well, you know, this is just the apostles. Paul understands, unlike what my opponent said last night, Paul understands that God has a purpose He's accomplishing in this world. And while we are to always live with the expectation of our entering into the presence of Christ, He understands that there's going to be more. That's why he's writing Ephesians the way he's writing Ephesians. So it's going to go out to all these churches. It's going to help to lay this foundation. Did he know that 2,000 years later, on a continent far, far away, in a language that had not even developed yet, that we would be reading his words? I don't know what he knew, but he knew God's purposes are huge and great and large. And so he says that this sovereignty of God in verse 11 is intended to help us to recognize that everything He has done in us is again not to our praise, not to any patting upon our back, no cooperation here. It is to the praise of His glorious grace. So, we finally get to where I was supposed to emphasize with only the last few minutes left. I knew that was going to happen. I knew that that was necessary given what's coming before this. We, in Christ, in Him, you also, after listening to the word of truth, you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and you believed. What happened? What happened? When it is a true believer, and how do we… how do we identify a true believer? Notice, this happens in him. Now, I can't see, as a pastor in Christ's church, I can't see the hearts of the individuals to whom I'm preaching. I can't see the hearts of individuals who come forward for baptism and for membership in the church. So anyone who has been a minister of the gospel for any period of time knows that you can have that extremely difficult experience of having to disfellowship people, of seeing people that you had had great hopes for and you administered the Word of God to turn against the truth. It breaks the heart. The longer you're in ministry, the longer the list is and the more faces you can see of those who have gone out from us so it might be demonstrated they're not truly of us. We recently had to do discipline upon a person who's continuing to try to cause problems, but a person I baptized, and I had great hope. How can we tell? Well, the fact of the matter is, as we can tell from the New Testament, there are times when the church has to deal with false profession. But who does the Holy Spirit seal? Because when we talk about someone who leaves the church, we're not talking about someone in whom the Holy Spirit has failed. Notice that this sealing that takes place, not only the hearing But then the believing, the gospel of your salvation, this sealing takes place in him, in Christ. The great shepherd loses none of his sheep. We may have some goats that come into the visible church, but in the true flock that he knows, Every one of those sheep knows him and follows him and he knows them. Time will tell in this life, but the truth that is enunciated here, is that in Christ, when you are chosen in Christ, when you hear that word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, when that belief takes place, there is a sealing in Him with the Holy Spirit of promise. The Holy Spirit of promise, what a beautiful… what a beautiful term, the Holy Spirit of promise. Think about it for a moment. We're talking about the third person of the Trinity, and yet Scripture describes Him, calls Him the Holy Spirit of promise. Promise to whom? To us. Have you ever thought of… we think of the condescension of Christ. because he enters into humanity, and he's tempted by the devil, and he's attacked by the Jewish leaders, and he walks the dusty streets of Galilee, and he's healing people right and left, and we think of the condescension of Christ, and yes, as we should, but have you ever thought about the condescension of the Holy Spirit who dwells in us, and empowers us, and encourages us, and who is the down payment. That's what Arabon means, the down payment of our inheritance, the pledge. It was… It's actually a technical term that everyone would have understood. You can find papyrus manuscripts from this time period where this term is used of pledge money, a down payment. The same way we talk about it is used in secular financial documents of this time, that Crispus gave an arabon of 47 drachmas for the work that would be completed on his farm, something along those lines. And so Paul is using a fully understandable term. to say that when you truly believe in Christ, then you are sealed in Him by the Holy Spirit of promise. God the Father, because of the work of the Son, is promising in the Spirit to finish the work that He's begun in us. Not to our praise, not to our congratulations, but to the praise of His glory. That takes us back to verse six. So this is wrapping all of this up. What happens in time when we believe and are sealed with the Holy Spirit does not now distract from the glory of God, it adds to the glory of God. Because we need to realize when we hear, why did we believe? And this is a rather important question. I will be doing the debate here in Houston on the Thursday night that I get back on John 6, and the individual that I will be debating calls himself a provisionist. God has provided a way of salvation but leaves it up to us whether we're going to take advantage of it. And the problem is that when you think about what this system is actually saying, it's saying God has provided this for everyone, and so He's trying to save everyone equally. And most evangelicals, that's… If you were to say, is God trying to save everyone equally? They're going, well, of course. And you go, have you read the Old Testament? Do you have those first 39 books? Have you noticed that entire nations existed during the experience of Israel, no prophets sent to them, and yet they're judged? Even back in Genesis, do you remember that little, that one little verse? when the children of Israel are going to end up down in Egypt, they're going to be an enslave and all the rest of that stuff, there's that little verse that talks about the iniquity of the Amorites was not yet full. God was going to judge them. He knew what He was going to do. Their religion was absolutely, horrifically disgusting, but God gave them more time to pile up even more wrath. It's there in Scripture. whether you want to believe it or not, hey, do you have Jesus' view of Scripture? He accepted all of it. We need to accept all of it too. So what is the result of the Spirit being the Arabon, the down payment, the Holy Spirit of promise that God has promised He's going to finish this work in us, that He's going to give us an inheritance that He's going to redeem His own possession. If you are sealed in Christ by the Spirit of God, you do not belong to yourself, you belong to Him. And He has promised He is going to finish that work within you. That's the promise of Scripture. I've traveled around the world. I think it was 2018. I got to, I've been going for years and years, I've been going to South Africa. And so Vodi talked me into getting on one of those African airlines and coming up to Zambia. And so I got to go to the school. I got to experience the road outside of the school. I don't know how shocks survive anything, almost anywhere in Africa to be honest with you. But we had a wonderful time there and Vodhi and I did a mock debate. He had had a local imam this close to being willing to debate me at the school and then the week before. he, the imam backed out. And so I got to debate imam voting. That was a unique one. Let me tell you that. I actually took a picture with my phone because I was right next to where the podium was. And I'm just looking up at this mountain of a man next to me going, I'm debating this man? This is very strange. It was really exciting. But anyway, I had the opportunity of traveling all over the world through to the very end of 2019. I don't fly anymore. I'll give you the purposes later on. It's not a matter of being afraid of anything like that. I flew 165,000 miles in 2019. I'm not afraid of flying. I just don't like the fact the airlines basically looked at me and said, go ahead and die. So why should I keep giving them $100,000 a year or more in ticket prices when they didn't care about me or my health or anything else? Anyway, One of the things was so beautiful when I would travel to, I spent two months in London in 2019, I went to Melbourne, got out just before COVID started and I'd meet believers all around the world, Zambia, South Africa. In January of 2019, I taught in Samara, Russia. Couldn't do that right now. And yet everywhere I went, it didn't matter where, there was a supernatural connection and unity between myself and my brothers and sisters in Christ in all of those churches. Sometimes I couldn't sing the hymns. I could recognize the tune, knew what the hymn was about, but, you know, like in Ukraine, I taught in Ukraine for years. And it was beautiful to hear those voices being raised in worship, even in a language that I will never ever be able to figure out. But I was still a part of the worship. Why? Because the Spirit of God. The Spirit of God isn't limited by geographical locations, language, culture, dress, anything. And I remember those first few trips when it really struck me. The close spiritual union I had with those individuals was due to one thing, the truth of this text. We have been sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise. He is the down payment. God is going to redeem his own possession in Christ Jesus. We need to remember that the persecuted church lives on that promise. They live on that promise. We may experience persecution in the future, and the only way to live on that promise is if we've already embraced it now. With me today, will we give thanks to God the Father for the tremendous perfect work of God the Son, and the indwelling presence of God, the Holy Spirit, who's been given to us as God, the Father's way of saying, you are mine. I've chosen you in my son, and my spirit now dwells within you as the promise. You're going to receive your inheritance. You are my possession. I will redeem you. I will finish that work. The triune God, the gospel is triune. If you don't believe in the Trinity, you don't understand the gospel. May we rejoice in what God has done in Jesus Christ and rejoice in the spirit that draws us to say amen to his word. Let's pray together. Our precious Heavenly Father, our triune God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, we have seen your triune work here in the pages of your word. You have drawn us to this place. You've opened our hearts. You cause us to believe your truth, to rejoice together. And Lord, you've been doing this generation after generation. You have always kept your promises to redeem your people. Help us to embrace this, rejoice in it. May it give us joy in our daily lives. As we experience difficulties, may we understand the Spirit does not leave us, but the Spirit sanctifies these trials and tribulations to our sanctification, all to the glory of God. We thank you for your word. We thank you for these truths, for all these things in Christ's name.