Good morning. I apologize, you're going to have to hear me gravel through this. Alright, we're in Ephesians 1, moving slowly through chapter 1. So we'll do our Scripture reading starting in One, four, just as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world that we would be holy and blameless before him. What a wonderful verse that is. Chose us before the foundation of the world. You could meditate for a long time on that considering the creation had not been made and he's still planning how we are gonna be saved and making provision for that. In love, he predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to himself, according to the kind intention of his will. To the praise of the glory of his grace, which he freely bestowed on us in the beloved. In him, we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace, which he lavished on us. In all wisdom and insight, he made known to us the mystery of his will, according to his kind intention, which he purposed in him. Well, let me do one more verse. With a view to an administration suitable to the fullness of the times, that is, the summing up of all things in Christ, things in the heavens and things on earth. We'll stop there. So last week we talked a bit about some of the mysteries of his will, a mystery being something that refers to a truth that was previously hidden and has now been made known by divine revelation. There are several of these, and last week we dealt with a few of them. The first one was the mystery of the church, which is the Gentiles are fellow heirs and partakers of the members of the body of Christ. This idea of grafting in the Gentiles to the plan of God to his family. The second one we looked at was in Romans 11, where he says, I tell you a mystery that there's a present hardening. of the Jews, or of Israel. So a hardening of their heart for a time, and it is for our sake, which would cause us to be, I think, quite humbled by that. That the hardness that we see in the majority of the Jews with respect to Christ is for your sake. So the idea of that that's humbling is that I likened it one time to, this is the way I thought of it, in context of a different argument, but similar, was you know in the story where Moses comes down and the Israelites from Mount Sinai and the Israelites are worshiping a golden calf. And God said, stand back, I'll destroy them all and make of you a great nation, Moses. So we'll just pare down the nation of Israel and build it back up from Moses. And Moses says, no, no, no, Lord. For your sake, don't do this. For your name's sake. So your enemies will say you just took them out of Egypt to destroy them. So for your glory, do what you've promised to do. And I sometimes see in the church this attitude of, yeah, the Jews failed. The Jews failed. They've rejected Christ. Well, the first thought would be they rejected Christ, and we're told in Romans 11, for your sake, meaning he put his attention on the Gentiles to make them jealous, meaning there's still going to be a tension going back to Israel, and we should have great compassion on God's people and that our rich root of faith comes from through Abraham and the Jews. So that's something that we dealt with a little bit last week, maybe not in that direct of a, I mean, within the context of Romans 11. Romans 11. The next one I wanna deal with is a mystery. I'm gonna call it the Harpazo. The Harpazo mystery. And you'll say, what is he talking about, the Harpazo mystery? Well, it's the mystery of the rapture. the catching away, the taking up. For that, let's go to 1 Corinthians 15. There's a lot of discussion in church, I think especially now. Maybe I'm just sensitive to it because I listen to the wrong discussions online maybe. But there seems to be an attack on the idea of a rapture. 1 Corinthians 15, 51. Behold, I tell you a mystery. We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed. So the idea here is, here's a mystery. Not everyone, at a certain point in time, not everyone is going to sleep, meaning die. There's gonna be a point in time that Not all will sleep, but we will all be changed. In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet, for the last trump will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. For this perishable must put on imperishable, and this mortal must put on immortality." Verse 54, but when this perishable will have put on the imperishable, and this mortal will have put on immortality, then will come about the saying that is written, death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting? So we have this very clear concept of something happening where a group of people are gonna be changed in a twinkling of an eye, and it seems that the people changed will end up in the same state as those that are risen from the dead, meaning we're all changed and put on immortality. So a changing for those that are alive into their eternal state body or new body, and those that are raised from the dead likewise will have the same body. So then for a further verse, series of verses, is 1 Thessalonians 4, 13. And here it doesn't say that this is a mystery, but it seems to be talking about the same event. But we do not want you to be uninformed, brethren. Now, it's interesting, that statement is used right before he talks about the mystery in Romans 11. So uninformed, as in, I'm about to tell you something that you don't know. So it is kind of falling into that mystery category if we're looking for parallels. Brethren, about those who are asleep, so that you will not grieve as do the rest who have no hope. For if we believe For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep. For this we say to you by the word of the Lord that we who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord will not precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a shout and with the voice of an archangel and with the trump of God and the dead in Christ will rise first, so that's what it said in the other verse, right? And we who are alive and remain will be caught up, now that word caught up is harpazo, together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air and so we shall always be with the Lord. Therefore comfort one another with these words. You know, my question to those who don't believe in a rapture is, well, what do you do with these verses? The idea of, it says harpazo, and some people say, well, there is no rapture word in the Bible. No, you are right. Here's where it comes from. Harpazo means caught up, taken away, taken up, okay? It's the Greek word. And then when this Bible was translated into Latin, the Vulgate Latin, The word that was used in Latin was rapturo, or something like that, right? That we in English take to be rapture. So we could call it the harpazo if you want, but we gotta do something with it, right? And these aren't the only places that it's, to get an understanding of what this event is talking about, it's mentioned many other places in scripture. So let's look at those. So one of them is Revelation 12.5, in describing what we believe as a summary of the Christ child, or Christ coming, and then, 12.5, okay. She gave birth to a son, a male child, who is to rule all the nations with a rod of iron. And her child was caught up to God and to his throne. Now that was caught up, that's harpazo. So what this is talking about is Christ's ascension after his resurrection in 40 days. It's a description, a very quick summary of what has already happened in the past, that Mary gave birth to a son, A male child was to rule all the nations with a rod of iron, and her child was caught up to God and to his throne. Sounds a lot like Christ to me, right? So what do we know about that ascent? Well, he just was taken up off the earth, okay? Okay, well, there's one. 2 Corinthians 12.1, 2 Corinthians. 12-1. Well, let's just go to 12-2. I know a man in Christ who 14 years ago, whether in the body I do not know, or out of the body I do not know, God knows, such a man was harpazzoed up to the third heaven. He was taken up to the third heaven. Now he's saying, I don't know if it was bodily, may have been. I don't know if it was just outside. He doesn't know exactly what happened. But he was taken up to the third heaven. And I know how such a man, whether in the body or apart from the body, I do not know, God knows, was cut up into paradise and heard inexpressible words which a man is Not permitted to speak. So he goes on, but this is Paul talking about this event happened to me. This is my testimony, OK, where many things were revealed to me and it is that word Harpozzo. OK. Here's another Harpozzo. Acts 839. So this is the eunuch, we could go in 35, and Philip opened his mouth, and beginning from this scripture, he preached Jesus to him. As they went along the road, they came to some water, and the eunuch said, look, water, what prevents me from being baptized? And Philip said, if you believe with all your heart, you may. And he answered and said, I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God. He ordered the chariot to stop and they both went down into the water Philip as well as the eunuch and he baptized him when they came up out of the water the Spirit of the Lord snatched Philip away and The eunuch no longer saw him but went on his way rejoicing snatched our pod zone Took it away Miracle right amazing totally divine event to move Philip on his way for God's purpose. Revelation 4, 1. Now, I don't know if this one is also Harpazo. I just thought of that in my head. I mean, here I didn't check if this one's Harpazo. 4.1. So here we are. He's gone through all of the description of the churches in the first three chapters of Revelation. Revelation is one of the break points in understanding the book of Revelation. It's between the 3rd chapter and the 4th. And so things are moving forward. And after these things I looked, and behold, a door standing open in heaven, and the first voice which I had heard like the sound of a trumpet, speaking with me, said, come up here, and I will show you what must take place after these things. And immediately I was in the spirit, and behold, a throne was standing in heaven, and one was sitting on the throne. I'm not sure if this is, is this a Harapazo? It's not the actual word, okay. But it's a similar thing, where he's being taken up, but he's talking about the calling up into heaven. So here we have these verses, that is something miraculous. It's taken place at other times. And I'm not gonna go into anything about the timing of this event. That would take much, much longer and many, probably many, many lessons. But there's a mystery, okay? A mystery meaning something that, wasn't revealed in the Old Testament, but this taking up of believers at the completion of a period of time, okay, all those that have already passed away have their resurrection, and those that are still alive at the end of this period of time will be taken up to meet the Lord in the air. And that is part of a mystery that is revealed, and we call it the rapture. I've heard many people say there is no rapture, okay, on podcasts and things. And I would love to sit down with him and say, OK, well, is there a Harpozzo? OK, if there's a. explain to me what these events are. I would assume that the difference is on the timing of the harpazo, not that there isn't a harpazo. But anyway. All right, moving on, back to Ephesians. There are many other mysteries, but those are just two that are new things revealed in the New Testament that were hidden in the old. All right, back to Ephesians. Okay, Ephesians 1.10, and with a view to an administration suitable to the fullness of times, that is the summing up of all things in Christ, things in the heavens and things on the earth. This word Administration, I want to deal a little bit with it. It is the Greek word, oikonomai, which is like a plan, a time of a plan, a dispensation, so a period of time where a certain group of interactions are in force, an arrangement or an administration. If we were to talk about different administrations, when we say that, we would probably think of different political administrations, right? The administration, if I said that right, you would think the Trump administration. But in all these different organizations, there's different ways of doing things, right? So if you're at work and you're at your works administration, you would have to know the rules and how your company does things, right? Laws are dependent on different countries. So if you're in Africa and thinking you have the same rights as you are in the United States, You're not thinking right, all right? There's a disconnect between those two economies or administrations. The administration, in the verse, suitable to the fullness of the times. So this times word, let me just read this little summary of these two words. The Greek word translated plan or oikonomai, means dispensation, arrangement, or administration. The main idea of this word is that of managing or administering the affairs of a household. That's where it comes from. The Greek word translated times at the end is karyos, which means particular time, period, eras, ages, rather than the passage of time, that would be chronos. So if you have a chronometer or a, what's the type of watch, a chronograph, it would show the passage of time. That's not that word, it's a, like if we were to say the time of the Civil War, we wouldn't use chronos, like the, we would use something elapsing, we would be referring to a period of time, right? An already established period of time. All right, so the administration suitable to the fullness of the times, that is an economy, so a way of operating at the fullness of a period of time, okay? Certainly, this is where dispensationalism would come from, that as we look at all throughout Scripture, we find that there are different economies of God with man. Certainly, man, we are not in the economy of Garden of Eden, right? The Garden of Eden had a very specific economy dispensation period of time that God was dealing with man, right? Very different than now. In all the dispensations, there are different interactions or dealings, how God is dealing with man during different times. All right. just to establish that in your head that it is here in Scripture that there are different times and epochs and ages where God is dealing with man. If we could go find the mountain where Sinai happened and could get in there on horseback or whatever, hike in, probably would be prevented to do so from the Saudi Arabia or whoever's in charge of Mount Sinai, wherever Sinai is, right? And we were to walk up to the top of that mountain, would we be struck dead? Was there a period of time when you could not have set foot on the mountain? Yes, right? So it's a different interaction with man and God. All right, and there's a lot of other illustrations. But the key to this, I think, or the most important thing, is that in the fullness of time, all things will be summed up in Christ. Christ is the fullness and the completion of everything, of all of God's plans. All of God's plan is summarized and completed, fulfilled and incorporated in Christ. This has to do with unity in Christ. Everything is brought together in Christ, the unity of Christ. Now, what we're going to look at is some of this summing up of all things. Let's start with a passage we ended with, which is in Romans 11, last week. Romans 11, 17. There are so many ways Sometimes when I'm reading a passage where there's like 10 things going on in that passage, and I'm drawing out one or two, okay? And so I might go back to that same passage on a different topic, and I'm ignoring the one or two, and I'm looking, I'm drawing out the four, five, and six, okay? Certainly Romans 11 is to answer the question of God has not rejected his people, has he? But there's much more biblical truth here than just that, and one of it, one of those things is, starting in verse 17, but if some of the branches were broken off, and you, being a wild olive, were grafted in among them, and became partaker with them of the rich root of the olive tree, Do not be arrogant towards the branches, but if you are arrogant, remember that it is not you who supports the root, but the root supports you. So this idea, what I want to draw out of this, we certainly have drawn out the other side of this in the past, which is the arrogance that I think the church is guilty of with respect to thinking the root somehow flows out of our Gentile goodness and willingness to accept Christ, rather than the rich root of faith through Abraham that we've been grafted into. But the key is that we've been grafted into it in Christ. And this is a summing up of Christ. Christ is that rich root, the rich root of faith that we are grafted into. Now go back to Ephesians 2. 11. Therefore remember that formerly you, the Gentiles in the flesh, the wild olive, if we connect the two of Romans 11, formerly you, the Gentiles in the flesh, who are called uncircumcision by the so-called circumcision, which is performed in the flesh by human hands. Remember that you were at that time separate from Christ, excluded from the commonwealth of Israel. Now, this is an interesting point. The way to the one true God was joining the commonwealth of Israel. Did Israel send out missionaries? No, they did not. Their testimony went out before the world, miracles that the world had never heard or seen before. And those who desired, I don't know how many did, some did, left their land and went to find the one true God of Israel. And they joined the commonwealth of Israel. going on to explain the Gentile and strangers to the covenants of promise. You had no idea what the covenants of promise were. Having no hope and without God in the world. I don't know why God did it this way, but this is the way he did. He chose a people. Now let's not forget, we had the age of conscience beforehand, which was for everybody, and we failed there, right? Pre-flood. We had Babel, we failed there. That's pre-Jew. That's Jew and Gentile together, same one population. But then we have God saying, I'm gonna take a people and I'm going to invest all of my law and my wisdom in this people. And the world will see them, and they will be faithful to me, and I will be the beacon, so to speak, through Israel. Which, even though they failed, okay, ultimately failed, in terms of, well, I wouldn't say they failed. A partial hardening has happened, I'll use scriptural words. We're talking about Israel. The Torah went all over the world. The Old Testament you're holding in your hand from that calling of Israel. Wasn't in vain his plan was successful at bringing the truth of God's Word To the globe in a way that it had not happened up to that point, right? so I Have a book it's hard to get your head around but it's called the 5,000 year leap It's amazing book And what it's about is What happened on Sinai, the divine giving of the law that a group of people agreed to abide under was the first divine, it was the first non-arbitrary law and man submitted themselves to it, Israel. His point being that A lot of human history forgot that afterwards. And we became, we didn't have a rule of law for many, many years. It was the rule of the arbitrary king, right? The rule of law under Nebuchadnezzar was whatever Nebuchadnezzar said went. And if he changed the law, sorry. If he said off with that guy, then there was no recourse. There was no jury. There was no appeal to a document. It was the king has made a statement. So this 5,000 year leap in this book is saying what the founding fathers and late England tapped into was a law that was non-arbitrary. We call the rule of law. I didn't really understand that as a kid, rule of law. didn't get the significance. I wish somebody would have said, as opposed to, oh yeah, what is the alternative? No law, right, anarchy, okay. Arbitrary law, the law is whatever I say that goes, whatever I say goes by the leader. Right? And the more we get into a situation in our country where we start to deviate from a concrete law, or that law gets very fickle and we can't count on it, we will see a real degradation in the quality of life and fairness that happens. It's only the concreteness of the law that allows us to develop and know what to expect for everything we do. I may have mentioned it, going a little off topic here, but I may have mentioned it that there's another book called Three Felonies a Day. Three felonies a day, that's a crazy title of a book. Well, the Three Felonies a Day book is saying we have so many laws in this country that you are probably committing three felonies a day and not noticing it. That's pretty horrifying, right? You know that your gun isn't locked up at all times if it's not on your person? So you come back from the hunting trip, and your rifle is all wet, and you put it behind the wood stove, and it stays there for the next couple hours. I don't know if that's a misdemeanor or a felony, but it's illegal. Isn't that crazy? It has to be locked up. Anyway, many, many other examples of there's laws that you're probably not aware of in your life. Anyway, the rule of law that was given to Israel was a radical departure from anything else in human history. And it was something that our founding fathers in early England or late England started to get onto this idea of even the king needs to obey some document that we can all agree on. Okay, I think I got way off topic there, off track. OK, verse 14, here's where we really need to be. Here's this. Everything comes together in Christ. For he himself is our peace, who made both groups into one and broke down the barrier of the dividing wall by abolishing in his flesh the enmity, the hostility, the conflict, which is the law of commandments contained in ordinances, so that in himself he might make the two into one new man, thus establishing peace, and might reconcile them both into one body to God through the cross, by it having put to death the enmity. He came and preached peace to you who were far away Gentile, and peace to those who were near, circumcised, the Jew, Israel, for through him we both have our access in one spirit to the Father. So then, you are no longer strangers and aliens, speaking to the Gentiles, and you are fellow citizens with the saints and are of God's household, having been built on the foundation of the apostles and the prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone in whom the whole building, being fitted together, is growing into a holy temple in the Lord, in whom you also are being built together into a dwelling of God in the Spirit. So this unification that comes in Christ, all things will be unified in Christ. This one example is the unification of those who are by faith, those are the children of God by faith, Jew and Gentile brought into one. Okay. Another example of this unification in Christ is John 10, which we've spent recently a lot of time in. But again, we're pulling out something a little different, although I think I mentioned it at the time. Christ being the good shepherd. John 10, 16, I have other sheep. This is great. We're having a conversation about sheep and shepherd. I'm going to give you some more spiritual truth. I have other sheep, which are not of this fold. You don't see them, they're not around right now. I must bring them also and they will hear my voice and they will become one flock with one shepherd. I'm bringing them in. I'm bringing this other flock into the fold under me as the one shepherd. This is that other revelation of the Gentile being brought in. It's interesting because in that other passage it said far and near, right? And when he's talking about the Jew, he's talking about this flock, the near, he says, I got other sheep. And they kind of looked around and went, I don't see them. Yeah, they're far. I'm calling them from afar. That is the Gentiles that are going to be brought in. And then he goes on, for this reason, the Father loves me because I lay down my life so that I may take it again. No one has taken it away from me, but I lay it down on my own initiative. I have authority to lay it down. I have authority to take it up again. This commandment I receive from my Father. I always want to point out there, especially in this age of blaming people who crucified Christ, you know, you got two guilty parties. Was it the Jews? Was it the Gentiles? No, it was all of us, including you, that crucified Christ. But don't forget, he was the one that laid down his life. It would have never happened if God the Father hadn't made a plan and Christ being willing to go through with that for our sake. All right, one more, Colossians 1, 15 through 20. So we're looking at this bringing all things together under the headship of Christ. There's a great one who if someone's struggling with or dealing with who is Jesus, is he really divine, is he really God? I mean, there's many of passages like this that just keep putting checks on the side of yes, and what he claimed. But here's another one. He, Christ, is the image of the invisible Gog, the firstborn of all creation. For by him all things were created, both in the heavens and on earth. Visible and invisible whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities all things have been created through him and for him He is before all things and in him all things Hold together. He is also head of the body of the church and he is the beginning the firstborn from the dead so that He himself will come to have first place in everything. So this is that another duplicate Passage confirming that all things are going to be summed up in Christ For it was the father's good pleasure for all the fullness and that sounds a lot like what we're dealing with in Ephesians to dwell in him and Through him to reconcile all things to himself Having made peace through the blood of his cross through him. I say whether things on earth or things in heaven Now, I will say that this passage, we're not going to fully go into this, because it would take me too long. But I want to talk about a couple of things that we find in this passage. Certainly, it's a great summary of a duplicate passage of all things coming together in Christ, and that He will be the fulfillment of these things. There's some confusion about this firstborn of all creation. We're gonna deal with that. And the other thing we wanna deal with is this is the main passage, or one of the main passages that's used for universalism, which is that all people will be saved, and I wanna deal with that as well. I plan on talking about multiple positions on subjects and then explaining why I hold the positions that I hold. For me, I feel like we live in a world where we have so much access to other people's positions through our phones, and there's a lot of talk on these subjects, and a lot of confusion can be averted if you know of the three or four positions that there are and why you hold, so you can be an apologist for why you hold the position you hold, or at least not be blindsided by it and say, I didn't even know there was another way to interpret that verse. And that's the way I think. I'm too much of a question asker to not want to know the other positions. So I plan on doing that. I will try to build a case for why I hold the positions I hold. When I'm all done, if I hold them 60-40, then it's not hugely concrete, and then I'm not as solid as maybe some people are. But I'll be honest about that. I try to say, if Scripture were a puzzle, how much of the puzzle is put together? And I vacillate. In my understanding of putting it all together, 92%? Is it 85%? But certainly there's some things that we have a hard time exactly putting our finger on. Let's close in prayer. Our Father, we thank you for your word. We pray that our hearts would be curious. I think you've left a lot of things with multiple ways of seeing them and that there is some great value in digging into them and becoming convinced in our own mind, as Paul has said. We ask that you would do that in our hearts, that we would spend the time to dig into these things, that they would be curious to us and thereby edify us and make us stronger witnesses for the gospel. We ask these things in the time to follow, in Jesus' name, amen.