Ask you to open your Bibles tonight to the book of Ephesians. Sunday morning about two weeks ago, we began looking at what I refer to as a little mini-series. This is in no way an in-depth study of this book of Ephesians. This is one of those books that you could literally spend years and years of study in and never probably get the full content of the message as it is written out here. For instance, Dr. Martin Lloyd-Jones, I think, spent about 50 messages, if I remember correctly, just in Chapter 1. And so that gives you some idea of the depth of this book. And, of course, it is a beautiful, beautiful epistle that was written by the Apostle Paul under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. We're going to cast anchor tonight for a little while in Ephesians chapter 2. Before we read the scripture and we begin, I want to go to the Lord in prayer. Our Father in heaven, we come to you tonight knowing that we can do nothing except it be given us from above. We can accomplish nothing, Lord. There is no change that will be brought to any life. Lord, there is no power in any of us to save sinners nor to even cause us to rejoice in the greatness of our salvation. But Lord, we are totally dependent upon the Holy Spirit. And I pray tonight that as I preach this message that you've laid upon my heart, that Lord, you would speak through me. I pray that they will not hear the voice of Mark Woodruff tonight, but they'll hear the voice of the Spirit of God speaking to them, Lord, out of your Word. And I ask that you just make it real and alive. Help me, Lord. I put a watch over my mouth and my heart. May I not say anything that would displease you, Lord, but may I say those things that would please you and be a blessing and a help. And, Father, I pray tonight that if there's one here tonight whom you've been dealing with, Lord, who recognizes their lost condition, that, Father, you will bring them to that place of repentance and faith and trust in the Lord. I pray that you be exalted in all things. In Jesus' name I pray. Amen. Let me just briefly review what we covered in the last message. I began this little series probably of three or four parts here. I don't know exactly how far we'll go with it, but again, it's not intended to be an in-depth study of the book of Ephesians as I've already mentioned to you. But let me just tell you, I've entitled this little series, Ephesians, God's Love Letter to Believers. And I gave you on last time some things that were in my mind as I was preparing this message and as I began to launch into this message. You know, this is a beautiful letter written by the Apostle Paul. And one of the things that got me thinking on this is there are many things in chapter 1 especially whereby men oftentimes in their preaching just seem to skip over some of these beautiful terms and these beautiful words that describe how great our salvation is and what God has done for us. And it occurred to me as I was thinking on this that this Ephesian epistle, this letter that Paul wrote, again under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, is not a hate letter filled with dirty words. In fact, it's a beautiful love letter. And it describes God's love for the believer in the things that He has done by means of His grace in order to bring us to Himself to purchase our salvation. And so on last time, we mainly camped out over in chapter 1, and I shared with you a number of things as it relates to chapter 1. Let me also tell you, I read you this poem last time, and I believe that it helps to give a little bit of a context because this is why I refer to it as God's love letter. And that is because love is demonstrated here. Love is shown by the things that God has done for on our behalf. We can see His love reaching out to us and bringing us to Himself all the way from eternity past. And I read you this poem by Elizabeth Barrett Browning, How Do I Love Thee, Let Me Count The Ways. I love thee to the depth and breadth and height my soul can reach when feeling out of sight, for the ends of being an ideal grace. I love thee to the level of every day's most quiet need by sun and candlelight. I love thee freely as men might strive for right. I love thee purely as they turn from praise. I love thee with the passion put to use in my old griefs and with my childhood's fate. I love thee with a love I seem to lose with my lost saints. I love thee with the breaths, smiles, tears of all my life. And if God choose, I shall but love thee better after death." Now these are human words written by a human author. But I like that first part, how do I love thee, let me count the ways. And I believe that as we look through this Ephesian epistle, We can see the Apostle Paul writing and counting the ways in which God has bestowed His love and His grace and His favor upon us as unworthy, hell-deserving sinners. And I believe it helps us to go back and recall and remember those things that He did for us. I also want to remind you that in that last study, and I brought some notes up here with me, I'm not going to go through the whole message from last time, but we began by using the words of that old song, Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound. as our outline. And the first point in our outline was amazing grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me. And we went back over there to chapter 1 in the first couple of verses there, particularly with verse 3 where he begins and says, Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ. And I pointed out to you at the end of verse 3 there, there is a piece of punctuation called a colon. And in our English grammar, that colon signifies that what is following is strongly related to what has gone before. And he is saying here, here are some of the spiritual blessings that God has blessed us with in heavenly places in Christ Jesus, puts that colon. And then he gets into a very great and awesome truth there in verse 4 when he speaks about the fact that before the foundation of the world that God chose us in Him. Before the foundation of the world that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love. And so God's choosing of us. is one of those great and mighty evidences of His great love for us, that which took place in the heavenlies, even before the world began, before God said, let there be and there was, before He created the heavens and the earth and all that in them is, God chose me to salvation. And then he goes on in verse 5 and he expands on that a little bit more and he speaks about God's method of that choosing in this word predestination. And that's a beautiful and powerful word. And what it literally means is to predetermine, to choose out beforehand those whom He would bring to Himself and to favor us with His great grace and with His great mercy and to cause us to come to Himself." There in verse 5, He predestinated us to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brothers. He predestinated us to the adoption of children, this verse says, by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will, to the praise of His glory. So we look at the fact that in the heavenly places, God, even before the world began, was already at work to bring about your and my salvation. And that's a great comfort to me. God loved me before I even existed in physical reality and in material reality. In His mind, He had already chosen me. He had picked me out to salvation. And He had brought me to Himself. In verse 6, we're reminded that all of this is to the praise of the glory of His grace. Now the word grace figures in very heavily in the book of Ephesians as I told you last time. And this word grace is a pivotal word here because it is the grace of God that is seen here as that element by which God brought about salvation. Grace means God's divine favor, God being favorably disposed toward me in such a way that would cause Him to work all things out for His glory and for my good to bring me to Himself. And so we saw there in verse 6 that it is all to the praise of His glory. Verse 7 demonstrates how God's purposes in the heavenly places are then translated by means of the death of the Lord Jesus Christ, by His redemption through His blood, what God planned out in eternity, He worked out in time. When the Lord Jesus came, we know, of course, that He did not come and go to the cross by accident. It was all in the predetermined, preplanned purposes of Almighty God. He came to the will of His Father to bring salvation to His elect, to purchase all those that the Father had given to Him. And that's why Jesus could say, All that the Father giveth me shall come to me, and him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out. This was all worked out. in the eternity past, before the world began, the Lord Jesus then carried it out in time there as He hung upon that cross on Golgotha's hill and He paid the penalty for my sin. and He gave me forgiveness through His blood according to the riches of His grace." I pointed out to you that that word, riches of His grace, seems to signify God opening up His treasure chest of grace in order to provide salvation for His elect and to bring them to Himself. And then I showed you that along about verse 10, we have a reflection on earth in our lives as God brings us to Himself, there is a reflection in us of what took place in the heavenlies. And I put it to you like this, when a sinner believes on Christ for salvation and receives God's free gift of salvation, it is because of what God has already done in the backdrop. There's a back story to that. It is not just a decision that someone comes to in a place in someone's life where they say, I think that I will accept Jesus, or that I will ask Jesus into my heart, etc. But God has been working in the background all the while. God has brought it about. You see, I mentioned this to you all last time. Every one of us, since the fall of Adam, we have all been born into sin. Adam chose by free will to do what he did. He did it deliberately. He chose his course of action. He had at that time a free will. But ever since the fall of man, all of us have been born under the bondage of sin. Our will is in bondage to our nature, and it is a sinful nature, and our will will always do what our nature dictates to us. And that's why we can never choose God without the intervention of the Holy Spirit. We can never decide simply to follow Jesus unless God... I said it to you this way, we have a busted chooser. Our chooser is busted by the fall unless God takes that... will of ours and mends it and brings it into subjection to His will and shows us and makes us alive by His great grace, then we will always choose the wrong thing. We'll always choose to go our own way. We'll always choose to follow the course that we have set in our lives. And we will never, ever come to Christ without God's intervention. I illustrated it to you this way, in carpentry a lot of times you have something that's called match booking or book matching. And I think that's also probably a graphic design term as well. But what that signifies is, and some of you that are carpenters may be familiar with it, you take a piece of furniture and they'll cut the veneer, thin sheets of wood, and they will situate it on that piece of furniture where perhaps there's a line down the middle. And what is on the right will be reflected by what's on the left. I believe that's what we see here. When you look at verses 1 through 9, you see what's taken place in the heavenlies. When you look at verses 10 and following, you see how that is reflected in the life of everyone who comes to the Lord Jesus Christ. So again, I say to you that your repentance and mine unto salvation was not just a momentary spur of the moment thing that took place, it was being worked out by God before the foundation of the world. God brought your life through His providence and through the preaching of the Word, through the Holy Spirit to that place where you would choose Him. And He enabled you to choose Him. Because again, none of us could choose Him apart from the grace of God. None of us would. Jesus said to those in His day, you would not come to Me that you might have eternal life. I believe John commented, therefore they could not believe. And so we see that our will being under the bondage of sin was held there and could not choose and could not turn to what was right until God in His great mercy revealed to us what He had already been doing in the heavenly places. And God brought salvation, funneled it right down to me. And I believe that you can compare, and I won't go through it tonight because we already did it on the last message there, but you can compare some of the things that you find, for instance, in verse 11. You can compare it to what you see there in verse 5 where it says in verse 5, having predestinated us under the adoption of children by Jesus Christ through Himself, look at verse 11 there, in whom we have obtained an inheritance, being predestinated. In other words, I have obtained my inheritance of salvation and I am being conformed to the image of Christ because of what God has done in hand-picking me out before the foundation of the world. It has been revealed to me by God's grace at salvation as a result of the Holy Spirit's work that He predestined me to be conformed to the image of Christ. He predestined me according to the purpose of Him who worketh all things after the counsel of His will. Look at verse 12 and compare it with verse 6, that we should be to the praise of His glory. Again, all of grace is to the praise of the glory of God. So you see an absolute balance there, a mirroring in time and in our lives of what God has already done on our behalf to bring us to Himself. Verse 13 brings us down to the place where we trusted Christ for salvation. And I said to you this, and I know you've heard this both from our pastor and other pastors, we can't rely on simply saying, I'm one of God's elect and therefore I don't need to repent and believe. If it were possible that one of the elect did not repent and believe, do you know what would happen? They would go to hell because the Bible says, Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved. But we know for certain that that is not going to happen because God always accomplishes what He sets out to do. And if God predestined me into salvation, what does that mean? That I will, at some point in time, by the grace of God, through the working of the Holy Spirit, bow my will to His, surrender myself to Him, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, repent of my sins, and begin to live a life of faith and obedience to God. Because God always works out what He plans. He never fails. He never tries to do anything. Jesus did not go to the cross to try to save a people from their sin. He went there to save them from their sin. And what He worked out in eternity past, what Jesus worked out upon the cross, will come to pass. And in fact, that is the main substance of tonight's message. As we go over to chapter 2, let's look at the first few verses of this chapter tonight as we get into the message. In chapter 2 it says, And you hath He quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins, wherein in time past ye walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience, among whom also we all had our conversation in time past, in the lust of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others, But God, who is rich in mercy, for His great love wherewith He loved us, even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ by grace ye are saved, and hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus." And so, again, using the verses of amazing grace as our Outline, we come to the second stanza that says this, the first half of that second verse, and we can all quote it, says this, "'Twas grace that taught my heart to fear, and grace my fears relieved.'" And I believe that we see a demonstration of that played out here in chapter 2 of Ephesians. And we're going to try our best to point that out to you tonight. Charles Hodge, a commentator from days gone by, points out that verses 1 through 7 appear to be one sentence, one long run-on sentence. Now, you do find some periods in that, but the thought carries over past the period, and so I believe that's why Charles Hodge commented on it that way. If you read the writings of the Apostle Paul, the epistles, you will note that Paul was the master of the run-on sentence. That is, he would go on and on and on and on and on with the same thought. And I believe that what we see in that It may be giving to us evidence of the great joy that welled up in the heart of the Apostle Paul as he wrote or possibly dictated his letters. I believe that some of the letters, you can find suffixes on the end of these letters, some of them that will indicate that the handwriting of that letter was actually done by another person. Can you imagine taking a dictation from the Apostle Paul when God just filled his heart with the great joy of his salvation, and you're trying to write as fast as you can, trying to take down everything that he says, well, God didn't miss a beat here. He gave it just as He wanted it to be here. But I believe that these long sentences that Paul writes are not just here to take up space, not just to show us how good of a sentence he wrote here, but I believe that it reflects the overflowing joy of his heart in his salvation. Paul was in love with the Lord Jesus, and it's evidenced in all of his writing. He loved the gospel of the grace of God. And I believe that's why he went through persecution and through torture and imprisonment, and ultimately, as tradition tells us, to be beheaded, because he loved the gospel of the grace of God. And he wanted to tell that gospel wherever he went and he determined that he would give every ounce of his strength to making the gospel known even in places where it had never been heard before. Perhaps like a child. You know, you may take a child off somewhere to the zoo or to some place and they see so many amazing things and they come home and they begin to tell you about it and they just talk and talk and talk and talk and talk. and they can't get it said for how excited they are. I believe that's what we see in Paul's writings. He is so excited by the grace of God that rescued him, the chief of sinners as he called himself, and brought him to saving faith in the Lord Jesus Christ that he couldn't hardly get it said and he just kept going on and on and on. And that's why it takes men like Dr. Martin Lloyd-Jones a year to preach through chapter 1. And that's why it takes us so much effort to get through and to read because these verses are so rich because God gave them to him by direct revelation as an apostle of God. He spoke this word to him, and he opened up the great treasure chest of his salvation, and he showed the Apostle Paul all the things that God had done. And I believe that he just couldn't get it said. In fact, I think that's why over in the end of chapter 3, you find him breaking out into that doxology, now into him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think. according to the power that worketh in us. Unto him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus throughout all ages, world without end. Amen." You can feel the excitement and the love of the Gospel in this man as he wrote. In fact, if you read through those first three chapters of Ephesians that are primarily the doctrinal portion of the letter, again, we see a beautifully uninterrupted train of thought that testifies of Paul's love for the Gospel. in all of its glory, in all of its beauty. I heard an old gospel song that a black man wrote many years ago called, Full of the Gospel. And I believe that describes the Apostle Paul, I'm full of the gospel of Jesus Christ my Lord. And he wanted to declare it. You see, chapter and verse divisions, as you know, were added to help us locate places in the Scripture more easily. And so, you know, you don't have to cut off what he says there at the end of chapter 1 because you come to chapter 2. And so it should read continuously on through as you go through these sections of Scripture. So Paul, again, was full up with the Gospel of God. He loved it. He loved to declare it. He loved to proclaim it. I believe that's why his spirit was so stirred within him as he would go to different places and he would just be so moved by God to preach and declare the gospel of the grace of God. Now let me point out to you this evening as we get into the meat of the message. two unique features of verse 1 of chapter 2, where Paul begins to describe the condition of lost man without Christ. First thing that I want to point out to you is this, that in verse 1, you will see that there are three words that are in italics, those little crooked letters that you've learned about all the way through school. Those words are in italics. And what that signifies, whenever you see that in the King James Bible, is that in the original manuscript, those words did not appear as we see them translated word for word. But the translators of the Scriptures felt so strongly that without the addition of those words, the full and proper meaning was impossible to understand, and so they would add them in there and they would put them in italics so that everyone would know that it was not a word for word translation but it carried the same exact thought. And they did that by great conviction and I believe that they were right to add those words. I believe that it is a part of what God would have us understand. And this is because you understand that going from one language to another, anytime you translate from one language to another, there are certain idiomatic phrases and thoughts that we may use regularly as a matter of course every single day, that if you were to try to take it and translate it word for word, it might come out in a completely different way. And so they put these in there in order to help us to understand what was being expressed. Did you know that oftentimes in the Greek, a word that is in our King James Version of the Bible as two or three words is only one word? And it may be a Greek word that's 14 letters long, as I tried to pronounce a couple of weeks ago and tripped all over myself trying to do it. But they could express it in one single word, whereas we have to take several words in order to do it. Again, there are many words and groups of words that are only one word in the Greek, and by adding these words, the meaning was not changed, but rather enhanced to give us a better understanding. So you see that the words in verse 1 there, hath he quickened, are in italics, and it is with great purpose that they were added, as we'll see. But for just a few minutes, let's set those three words aside. And the reason I want to do this is not to cut up your Bible, I'm not asking you to remove them, to treat them in the same way that you might treat a parenthesis. When you come across Paul's writings, he may be writing along and he'll have a parenthesis, and three verses later he'll have the other side of that parenthesis. And so sometimes in order to grasp the full meaning, you have to read around that parenthesis and then come back and get what's in the middle. Let's treat this in that same way so that we can get a sharper view of what the Apostle Paul was conveying in these first few verses. Again, now the words hath he quickened or a form of them appear in verse 5 so that we understand that this is indeed what he was saying. Yes, it is consistent with what the Apostle Paul wrote, but look at it without those words for just a moment. Here is how it would read. who were dead in trespasses and sins, wherein in time past ye walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience, among whom also we all had our conversation in time past in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others." So you get the idea here. that when He is writing, what He is conveying to us for us to understand is the deplorable, horrible condition of all men without Christ. He wants us to understand that at one time I was dead in trespasses and sins. And He says, who were dead. And he goes on and he begins to describe it. Note the detail that he describes there as the verses that we just read. That man is spiritually dead. That man follows the course of this world. And he walks according to the course of this world. You see, before Christ, each one of us were living the life that the world dictated that we should live. We heard something about that this morning in the message this morning. Each of us were living in that old way, as Paul wrote it there in Romans, minding the things of the flesh, following after the flesh, living the life of the flesh. That describes each and every one of us without Christ. He also goes on to say there that we were under the dominion of Satan before Christ. We were under, as he calls them there, the prince of the power of the air, the dominion, the control of Satan. We were controlled and we partook continually and were controlled by that same Spirit that is in all the children of disobedience. In other words, that lost world out there, we were a part of it. We wanted to be a part of it. That was what we thrived on. That was what we lusted after and what we longed for. We set our affections, as he said there, I believe it's Colossians, we set our affections on this world. That's where our mind was set. That's where our thoughts were set. That's what we loved. And that's the same spirit that we see out here today in everyone who is lost without God. When he speaks about the children of disobedience, he is speaking about those, I believe, who will never taste of salvation, who will never be born again by the grace of God, who will experience the wrath of God, who are destined for the wrath of God, And so they are known there as the children of disobedience. It's these children of disobedience that we lived among. But what we did not know is that God, before the foundation of the world, had chosen us in Christ. We were His sheep, but we didn't know we were His sheep. God had to bring us to the knowledge of knowing that Christ had died for us to bring us to Himself. Our lifestyle was just like the rest of the world's lifestyle. We were controlled, driven by the lust of the flesh. We fulfilled the desires of the flesh and the fleshly mind. We minded the things of the flesh. We were sinners by our very nature. We were sinners by our very choice. We were under the wrath of God. We deserved the wrath of God. We were apparently on a collision course with the wrath of God. That's where we were. Every one of us, had not God snatched us out, had not God done a work in us, we were on a collision course with the wrath, the just and holy wrath of Almighty God. That's exactly where all of us were. This was our pitiful, depraved, reprobate-looking condition. before God came into the scene. We were in our condition as bad as what Paul describes there in Titus chapter 1 and verse 16, as abominable and disobedient and unto every good work reprobate. But thank God we were not ultimately reprobate. Thank God that though I was depraved in my nature, cut off from His grace, unable to save myself, unable even to decide to follow Jesus, I appeared to be, and had God stepped in, I would be a reprobate. I would be a candidate. I would be on a collision course with hell and the wrath of God. But the grace of God steps in here. Now notice also how Paul describes it here in 1 Corinthians 6, verses 9 and 10. If you want to turn over there with me for just a moment, 1 Corinthians 6, verses 9 and 10. And he gives very specific things here. And he says this, Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived, neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God." And we'll stop reading there for this moment. We'll come back to it later on. But I want you to see that Paul, under the direction, under the superintending direction of the Holy Ghost, is painting for us a picture. of ones who could not inherit the Kingdom of God. We were lost. We were dead. We were blind. We were depraved. We were under the dominion of sin, under the dominion of Satan. We liked it that way. We were satisfied that way. We could go on and on and on being that way, except the grace of God stepped in. Again, there's no way that anyone in the conditions he describes here and in 1 Corinthians 6 would ever inherit the Kingdom of God. I commend to your reading at another time to read Romans chapter 3 beginning with verse 10, read to verse 18. And he begins there describing our pitiful condition and he says that there is none righteous, no not one. And he ends up in verse 18 by saying that there was no fear of God before our eyes. No fear of God before our eyes. It's no mistake that Paul mentions the mindset here in verse 3. Look at verse 3 of Ephesians 2. Again, we're fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind. What that literally means is the desires of the flesh mind. The desires of the mind that is under the dominion of our flesh and of our flesh and sinful nature. That's exactly what he's saying here. And let me tell you that here is what we were before Christ came in and before the Holy Ghost came to where we were and woke us up. We were unfeeling, we were uncaring, we were unconcerned about our souls. Do you remember that time in your life when you had no concern for your soul whatsoever? When did you begin to be concerned about your soul? Well, I believe that it relates specifically. You may be able to pinpoint a time in your past history, in your testimony of salvation. You may be able to go back and you may be able to say, it is at this time that I began to wake up and to say, I'm lost. I'm undone. I need God. What was taking place? I believe it's reflected in verse 4. But God, who is rich in mercy, for His great love wherewith He loved us, even when we were dead in sins, watch this word, hath quickened us. God quickened us. And so now we link up again with those three words that for the moment we removed or set aside from verse 1 because it says almost the identical same thing here. And it basically restates the reality of verse 1. If you look at verse 1, "...and you hath He quickened who were dead." Verse 5, "...even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ." So there's consistency there. When we were dead in our trespasses and sins, God quickened us. That word means that He made us alive. He woke us up from our sleep of death. He woke us up just as much as when He came to that tomb and He said to Lazarus, Lazarus, come forth. Just as when He took that little maid by the hand and said, Talitha Kumai, maid, I say unto thee, arise. There was no way that little girl could have got up just because she laid there and made a decision to get up. There was no way that Lazarus could have gotten up and walked out of that grave just because he made a decision that he was going to get up and walk out of that grave. He had to hear the voice of Almighty God saying to him, Lazarus, come forth. It is God quickening him, God quickening the sinner, making him alive to the things of God. It is when he quickened us that he brought us to that knowledge that we were lost and undone, that we were helpless and hopeless, and he brought us to see things about ourselves that we did not see before. I remember that Sunday morning. I remember a time before that Sunday morning where God had been showing me and I'd been fighting it. You know, you're lost. You need to get right with God. You need to repent of your sins and trust Christ. But I remember that one Sunday morning. In fact, it was in a Sunday school class. Back up at Calvary Temple where I grew up many years ago up in East Point, Georgia, the church is no longer there and it's under a different name, new people and everything else. But at that Sunday morning, I remember sitting in that Sunday school class and we had a substitute Sunday school teacher that day and he was taking the messages that Evangelist W.R. Cruz had been preaching to us all through that week. And on that particular week, I was there for every service except for one, Tuesday night. I don't remember why I wasn't there. Maybe just because I didn't want to go. I don't know. But I remember him reading the title of that message and it was like the Holy Spirit just hit me in the face with it. The title of that message was on being sure you're saved. And I felt like a ton of bricks just settled on my soul and I said, I am so lost. And that wasn't the first moment that I ever had any realization of my need, but that's when it really settled down on me. What was taking place there? God quickening me. By His grace, God wakened me up to the fact that I was lost and undone and helpless. And so for the first time, when God quickens us, we begin to see our deadness. We begin to see our carelessness. We begin to see our lack of concern for our own soul. You may be able to look back in your life tonight and say, I remember when God first started showing me that I was lost. And many of you may have gone through week after week of wrestling and God dealing with your soul, that dark night of the soul where He came in and He bore in on you. He didn't do it to torture you. He did it to draw you to Himself so that you'd see your lostness. John Newton, the author of this song that we've been using, Amazing Grace, again, he expressed it this way, "'Twas grace that taught my heart to fear." You see, the Bible says in Romans 3.18, I mentioned it a minute ago, that there was no fear of God before our eyes. The first thing that has to happen before a sinner will bow is God's grace needs to teach his heart to fear. God's grace needs to come knocking on his door and say, you're delinquent. You're rebellious. You're in your sins. You are dead. You are helpless. You are hopeless. You are lost. You are a sinner by nature. You are a sinner by choice. And suddenly, our hearts, we come to see the offended deity. We come to see that we have offended God. and that God is justifiably angry with us over our sins. And then we begin to cry out for His mercy. Because at the same time that God shows us our lost condition, what does He also do? He gives us the ability to see Christ afar off. He begins to show us the grace of God in Jesus Christ. So the grace that taught our hearts to fear also, as we'll see in a moment, our fears relieved. You know, they say that Newton, during the time immediately prior to his conversion, and as many of you know, he was a captain of a slave ship. He trafficked in human beings, selling the black slaves all up and down. He would go to Africa and bring over a boatload of them and all this. And so he was a very dedicated sinner. by many confessions, by many things. He loved to sin. They even said that he'd make up his own new cuss words at times, because he just loved to be foul and sin and to blaspheme God. But as God brought it about, it is said that during the time that Newton came under conviction, he had been given a copy or whatever, a copy had come to his possession of Thomas Akimba's book on the imitation of Christ. And he was greatly moved by that book. And he began to see himself for the first time as a sinner under the divine wrath of God. And in fact, one source that I read said that he closed it and put it away because he couldn't take reading it. But that truth pressed in upon him. And it began to weigh in upon his heart. John Newton, you're a lost sinner. You have offended God. You're far from God. You're unholy. You're unrighteous. You are bound for hell. You're under God's divine wrath. And so that began to work on him. And I'm told also in my reading that about that time, the Lord allowed a big storm to come up at sea. And as Newton was standing there at the helm of that ship and that storm began to toss that ship, he cried out, may the Lord have mercy upon us. And he began to really ponder here and he began to really think, there is a God and He's angry with me. And I believe that he became afraid from what the context of the things that I read, he became afraid that he would die in that wretched and lost condition. You see what was happening? That's why he could look back and he could say, it was grace that taught my heart to fear. He believed that during that storm, that he called on God and he suddenly felt a sense of relief. He suddenly felt a sense that God was hearing him and was having mercy upon him, that His grace was being revealed to him. And that began to grow in his life and he began to study the Word of God, etc. There's more, so much that I could say about that. But you see, God by His grace taught his heart to fear. By His grace, his fear is relieved. I want to point out another feature of verse 1 here of chapter 2 that also relates to those same words, "...and you hath He quickened." And when we put that first word of chapter 1 on there with it, and you hath he quickened, it links us back. You see the word and is a conjunction. What it means is it's like hooking up the cars of a train. That conjunction is that clasp. that place where that train hooks up with what has gone before. And so, when you put that word, and you, Hathi Quicken, it takes us back to the things that he had been saying there in chapter 1. We have to go back at least as far as verse 20 to get the impact of his words, but even verse 20 is linked back by other conjunctions and by other linking words to those things that go before it. Let's go back as far as verse 19 of chapter 1. where in verse 19 he is speaking about the exceeding greatness of the power of God toward those who believe according to the working of His mighty power. And what do we see there when it comes to verse 20? We see that this great power of God, this exceeding great power of God, is that same power that was on display when He raised Jesus Christ up from the dead. In verse 20 it is said to be that he wrought, which he wrought in Christ when he raised him from the dead and set him at his own right hand in heavenly places. That word wrought there is a very powerful word. The word wrought in the Greek is energeho from which we get our word energy. So the word rot means to be active and to be efficient. What is he saying here? That the resurrection of Christ by the power of God is an active display of the efficient energy of Almighty God. The raising of Jesus Christ physically from the dead is an active display of divine energy at work here. God's power is what raised Jesus Christ from the dead. You could literally say that this is God's power made public. It is a glorious showcasing of what God can do because God raised up Jesus Christ from the dead. And it also shows what He has done to purchase salvation for His elect. And so the ones that He has chosen for Himself, not only did Christ die, but God's power raised Him up from the dead. Now here's how it connects to chapter 2. He says, and there, and you hath he quickened. I believe that what he is saying here is just as that same power raised Jesus Christ from the dead physically, that same power is on display whenever God raises a sinner from their death spiritually. The same thing that has taken place, that took place when God raised Jesus Christ up, when He came out of that tomb and showed Himself alive after His passion with many infallible proofs, as it says in Acts chapter 1, that same power is on display whenever God raises a sinner from his spiritual deadness and his helpless condition and gives him grace to repent and to believe the glorious gospel of Jesus Christ. So what we see taking place is that salvation is not a matter of decision. Salvation is a matter of resurrection. God must resurrect that dead soul first and foremost, and that soul has to be raised up from the sleep of death, quickened, made alive by God, brought to a place of caring, whereas it was uncaring, a place of feeling, whereas it was unfeeling, a place of concern, whereas I was once unconcerned about my soul, a place of reverence, whereas once I was irreverent, a place where I loved God, as opposed to the past when I hated Him and didn't want anything to do with His great grace. So again, salvation is not just a matter of a decision that is made, it is a matter of resurrection, of God making the sinner alive to the things of God. And that's the work of the Holy Spirit in us. He comes to where we are and He wakes us up from death's sleep. I can't quote all that song right now, but in some song books you have that verse of, and can it be. I'll try to quote it. Long mine prison spirit lay, fast bound by sin and nature's night. Thine eye effused a quickening ray. I woke the dungeon flame with light. My chains fell off. My heart was free. I rose, went forth and followed Thee." You see what's happening there? God makes the sinner alive. He resurrects His dead Spirit and causes Him to be able to repent and believe the Gospel, to come to Christ and to walk with Him. If we doubt the connection of those words from verse 20 of chapter 1 to chapter 2 and verse 1, let's go down to chapter 2 and verses 6 and 7 where He had just gotten finished saying in verse 5, even when we were dead in sins, He hath quickened us together with Christ, by grace ye are saved, and hath raised us up together." There it is right there. God quickened us, He made us alive just as He did the Lord Jesus Christ physically and He raises us up together and makes us sit together in heavenly places. If you compare the wording of verse 6 of chapter 2 to the wording of chapter 1 in verse 20, you will see very comparative terms there. almost identical phrasing, but it's speaking on the one hand about God doing that work to raise Jesus physically, on the other hand of God doing that work to raise the sinner spiritually. There's that matchbooking again. You see what God has worked out in eternity past and in the death, the sacrificial death, the substitutionary death of Christ, He brings to bear in the life of everyone whom He will bring to Himself. I can't get it said, but it's there. It's there. We see it worked out there, God quickening the sinner, raising him up from death's sleep, bringing him to himself. And so God, what God did in Christ's physical resurrection is mirrored in the believer by spiritual resurrection. Here is the work of grace by quickening us, by teaching our dead and careless and unconcerned heart to fear by repentance, and by grace our fear is relieved, as we'll see in a moment. Verses 8 and 9 says this, by grace are you saved through faith. I'm glad that God didn't just quicken me to my deadness and say, okay, you're dead, stay dead. No, but He gave me the ability by grace through faith to see the dying Savior, to see His great sacrifice on my behalf, to see Him resurrected and able to save me to the uttermost by the grace of God. I'm glad that God showed me not only my deadness, but He showed me the sufficient Savior. By grace, my fears relieved. He brought me to Himself. I believe that the parenthesis in verse 5, and you can almost see Paul chomping at the bit here as he's telling this story, as he's giving this, maybe again as a dictation, and he throws in what's going to come up later on, and he has that phrase at the end of verse 5, by grace you are saved. And he tells us here that we are saved by the grace of God. God, by His grace, relieved those fears by allowing us to see not only our deadness, but allowing us to see the great remedy, the great resurrection, the great salvation that we have in Jesus Christ. So God first of all showed us our awful condition, and then He saves us by His grace. He brings us to a place of repentance and faith. That word saved there means safe. It means to deliver or protect. So first God showed us the awful condition of our lost estate. Then as we are enabled to call on Him by grace and repentance and faith, He pronounces us safe. I like that, don't you? God saves us by His grace. He delivers me. He protects me from my sin that once held me. He delivers me from the wrath of God that was against me. So grace not only calls my heart to fear, but grace my fears relieved. And I'm grateful for that. I'm grateful that God not only showed me that I should fear, but by grace my fears relieved. Let's look at the second half of that verse of that song that says, How precious did that grace appear, the hour I first believed. By saying this in his song, Newton was not saying, and let's understand this, that grace at first appeared precious, but afterward lost some of its appeal. That's not what he is implying there. Yes, it appears great and gracious at the first, but the object of what he is saying here is to express the reality that at that very moment of conversion, when the sinner first believes on Christ for salvation, he is instantly, instantaneously made a partaker of that divine nature. He is no longer under the divine wrath of God from the very moment that he first believes on Christ. At that very moment, the wrath of God has been averted from him. He realizes that now by believing on what Christ has done, that the Lord Jesus stepped between him and the blow of Almighty God. God's wrath has been poured upon Jesus Christ, and now I am spared by the grace and by the mercy of God, and that took place the hour I first believed. I believe that that's a very scriptural idea. Look at it here in your Bibles in verses 11 through 13. Paul challenges these Ephesians and those who would read this letter to remember some things. Wherefore, remember that ye being in time past Gentiles in the flesh who were called uncircumcision by that which is called the circumcision in the flesh made by hands, that at that time ye were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world." Notice the use of the words, in time past and at that time. Those are very significant. But then he comes to verse 13 and he says, but now. Blessed conjunction right there. In time past, at that time you were, but now. You see there's been a transformation that takes place. God at that moment that He gives us the grace to believe and to repent of our sins, at that moment A change takes place. God translates us out of the kingdom of darkness and plants us into the kingdom of His dear Son. He expands that thought here as He moves on toward the end of the chapter. And He talks about how these Ephesians were Gentiles, unsaved Gentiles outside of the way of grace, outside of the way of God's salvation, outside of that elect nation of Israel. But God in His mercy brings them to Himself. Look over at verse 19. Now, therefore, you are no longer what you used to be. You are no more strangers and foreigners, but now you are fellow citizens with the saints. So you see, that transformation took place. Let's go back to where we were before in 1 Corinthians chapter 6. I stopped reading on purpose over there. As Paul was describing the wretched condition, I'm going to go back and read these verses again. Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived, neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners shall inherit the kingdom of God." That's a bleak picture right there. And look at what he says in verse 11. And such were some of you. Uh-oh, we've got a problem on our hands, don't we? Such were some of you, but notice it's in the past tense. That's in time past. Although he doesn't include the word now here, I don't think it does any injustice to the verse by putting it in here in several places. What if he did this? What if we said, and such were some of you, but now you are washed. But now you are sanctified. But now you are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God." You see, there is a marked difference that takes place the very hour we first believe. I believe that's what Newton was trying to express here. We immediately are no longer under the dominion of Satan. We're no longer what we used to be. If you looked over in Romans 3, again, you can write it down and look at it later. He said, for all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. And then in the very next verse, he says, being justified freely by His grace. And I believe it wouldn't do any injustice to that if you put the word now right there, but now. Because what he's demonstrating is that all things, as 2 Corinthians 5.17 says, have passed away. All things now have become new. When did that take place? I believe it took place the hour I first believed. The hour when grace came home to my heart, how did I believe? Was it because I simply made a decision? No, it was because God in His grace quickened me, resurrected me, gave me the faith, gave me the ability to repent and believe. And from the hour I first believed, That grace appeared precious. What is he saying? There's no waiting period there. You don't get saved today and you become a Christian later on. Now God is continually making you more and more like Christ. I understand that. But in other words, when a person is brought to a place of repentance and faith, it's as good as done right there. It's done. There was a transformation. That's why you and I can look back and we can say, if you know the date, you can look back and say, on this particular date, God made the Gospel real to my heart, gave me the faith to believe, that's my spiritual birthday, that's the beginning point of my life in Christ. You see, if you look back over history, natural history is divided. We use these letters B.C. and A.D. Before Christ, Before Christ, that is before, in history speaking, before the time that Christ came and lived upon this earth, ever since that time that Christ came, we use a Latin term, Anno Domini. which means in the years of our Lord, in the year of our Lord. So we would say this is A.D. 2015, in the year of our Lord, 2015. So in the same way that you see that take place in history, I believe that for the Christian, for the true believer in Christ, we can look back and we can say those years before Christ are B.C. But since that great line right there where God gave me the grace and the faith to believe on Christ, everything else is A.D. I'm living now in the years of our Lord. You see, in an instant, God's grace becomes the reality that replaces the reality of our being dead in trespasses and sins. The change of our practice takes time and God is constantly working to conform us, but our position in Christ, and we heard about that positional sanctification this morning, I'm not what I ought to be practically speaking, but in Christ I sit in heavenly places in Him. In Christ I've been raised from the dead. In Christ I've been given new life. My position has been changed instantaneously. The very moment, the hour I first believed, at that moment of conversion, God wrought a change within my being. The hour we first believe, the hour of conversion into Christ marks the difference between the old life and the new. In Colossians chapter 3 and verse 9, let's look over there for just a moment. Colossians chapter 3 and verse 9, the apostle does something very similar to this. or he points out a reality based on this, let me say it that way, where he says, and he is, let me just say this, as far as the background of Colossians, Paul does what he did in Ephesians. He gave the first part of that book And he talked about the doctrine of God, the doctrine of Christ, the salvation that we have in Christ. And then he comes to a point and he says, because of all that, now you and I live this way. And that's the heart of what he says right here in verse 9 of Colossians 3. Lie not one to another, watch it, seeing ye have put off the old man with his deeds. and have put on the new man which is renewed in knowledge after the image of Him that created him." And so he is pointing out the fact that at salvation a change has been wrought. God has come in and He is doing something. So again, there is a difference between what used to be and what now is. There's an old gospel song. I don't know if every word of it I particularly agree with just as it's written, but I believe it expresses something here that we need to think about. It says, what a wonderful change in my life has been wrought since Jesus came into my heart. I have light in my soul for which long I have sought since Jesus came into my heart. You see the difference there? When Christ came in, when Christ brought you to faith and gave you the ability to believe, quickened you, grace causing your heart to fear, grace your fears relieving, even from that very moment, God came in. And He brought you to Himself. Another verse says, I am possessed of a hope that is steadfast and true since Jesus came into my heart. And no clouds of doubt now my pathway obscure since Jesus came into my heart. So you see there's a place where God brings that sinner to in which all things pass away. So I believe that what Newton expressed in this song is clearly expressed in the Scripture that from the hour the sinner lays hold of and believes the gospel, saving grace is then imparted to him to live in and on for the rest of his days and throughout eternity. There is no waiting period for salvation to take effect. Its results are immediately seen and enjoyed and we continue to grow in grace all the days of our lives. So here's that second verse again of amazing grace, our outline for tonight. "'Twas grace that taught my heart to fear, and grace my fears relieved. How precious did that grace appear the hour I first believed.'" I don't know about you, but I can say amen, Brother Newton. That's exactly what happened when God brought His salvation to bear on my heart. He first had to wake me up to my sin and show me the Savior, give me the faith to repent and believe. And ever since that time, since the Lord Jesus did that work in me, how precious that grace of God has appeared, even from that very hour in which I first believed. Father, I pray You'll take Your Word tonight, cause the saints to rejoice in it. Lord, I pray tonight if there's one here who, again, who may have come to realize their need of Christ. Lord, I pray, show them the cross, show them Calvary, show them the Lord Jesus. And Lord, resurrect them from their sleep of death and cause them, Lord, by grace to repent and believe, come to Christ. In Jesus' name, I do pray. Amen.