What Shall I Do - Part Twenty One Apr 16, 2023 by: John Herbert | Series: What Shall I Do... Audio Study Notes PDF https://s3.amazonaws.com/cornerstonejax/sermonfiles/T057_20230416.mp3 Refresh A Recap from the Sermon Ge 25:32 And Esau said, "Look, I am about to die; so what is this birthright to me?" We will continue today to look at the birthright and the timeframe for it. The full text of this message can be found by clicking the PDF button. Sunday April 16th 2023 What Shall I Do…….. Part 21 1). Ge 25:32 And Esau said, "Look, I am about to die; so what is this birthright to me?" 33 Then Jacob said, "Swear to me as of this day." So he swore to him, and sold his birthright to Jacob. 34 And Jacob gave Esau bread and stew of lentils; then he ate and drank, arose, and went his way. Thus Esau despised his birthright. We have seen from our study of these verses that Esau ‘despised his birthright’, he considered it to be of no value to him in what was then his present situation, as the birthright remained something yet future and therefore, intangible. And this incident with Esau is important for us because of what is written in Hebrews Chapter 12 about it - Heb 12:16 lest there be any fornicator or profane person like Esau, who for one morsel of food sold his birthright. 17 For you know that afterward, when he wanted to inherit the blessing, he was rejected, for he found no place for repentance [in his father], though he sought it diligently with tears. And as we read these two verses, we will understand a profane person to be like Esau in the sense of being wicked as Esau was in despising his birthright, but why the use of the word ‘fornicator’ in this context? Clearly, this must be dealing with something beyond the obvious. The primary use of this word is with regard to a man who prostitutes his body to another’s lust for hire. And again, we must look beyond the letter in this to the Spirit. a). For someone who has heard the Word of the Kingdom to prostitute himself from a spiritual perspective can be explained for us in – Jas 4:4 Adulterers and adulteresses! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Whoever therefore wants to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. The words adulterers and adulteresses are used in this verse in a metaphorical sense to describe those who have apostatized, those who have entered into the forbidden relationship with the kingdom of this world and the god of this age, having thereby stepped away from their high calling. b). This is much the same idea that Paul wrote about to Timothy – 2 Ti 2:4 No one engaged in warfare entangles himself with the affairs of this life, that he may please him who enlisted him as a soldier. The ‘one engaged in warfare’ is the one who has heard the Word of the Kingdom and therefore knows that his citizenship, his hope, his inheritance, and his blessing is to be found in the heavenly realm of the kingdom, the heavenlies, presently occupied by Satan and his angels. And if the one who has heard the Word of the Kingdom is to realize his hope, receive his inheritance and his blessing, then he must be engaged wholeheartedly in the spiritual warfare, looking to take the land that his enemy presently possesses, with a resolve and determination such as we have seen with Caleb and Joshua. c). What he cannot do if his inheritance is to be realized, is to entangle himself with the operation of the present world system, with those things that pertain only to his physical existence. He cannot become a friend of the world, he cannot sell himself to the service of the wicked one by focusing his attention on the cares of this world, the deceitfulness of riches and the pleasures of this life. And should he do so, he becomes in a metaphorical sense, a fornicator and profane person like Esau, he becomes the friend of the world, and taken to its end, he becomes an apostate. d). And to take that pictured through Esau to is conclusion, there comes a point in the present, to be realized at the Judgment Seat yet future, when the realization that the birthright that had been despised, was in fact the greatest possession anyone could attain to, and the loss of it will produce weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth on the part of the one who has lost it but no change of mind by the Judge whose glorious offer was betrayed for a ‘morsel of food’, for a forbidden relationship with the god of this age. e). And there is more than a touch of irony to Esau’s words at the beginning of Genesis 25:32, And Esau said, "Look, I am about to die. Are we not all about to die? Which one of us has the guarantee of being here next week? None of us do, but we think we do, which could open the door to despising our birthright because in pursuit of next week we can take our eyes off of that which really matters. And if we repeat this often enough over the course of time, then we know what would come next. f). If our physical life should end in the next moment and there is no more time for us to seek first His Kingdom and His righteousness, just the certainty of our appearance at the Judgment Seat. What then, from our time on the earth, would be most important to us? 2). De 6:23 Then He brought us out from there, that He might bring us in, to give us the land of which He swore to our fathers. The primary application for this verse is for national Israel, but the truth of that stated in it can certainly be applied to ourselves. And firstly, let’s note the purpose, ‘He brought us out from there, that He might bring us in’. When looking at Israel, this is their deliverance from Egypt to be brought into the land of Canaan. And for ourselves, we have been delivered from the kingdom of this world to be brought into the heavenly land. And both the bringing out and the bringing in are actions of the Divine will for the purpose of rulership. The fulfillment of the promise given to Abraham – Ge 22:15 Then the Angel of the LORD called to Abraham a second time out of heaven, 16 and said: “By Myself I have sworn, says the LORD, because you have done this thing, and have not withheld your son, your only son— 17 blessing I will bless you, and multiplying I will multiply your descendants as the stars of the heaven and as the sand which is on the seashore; and your descendants shall possess the gate of their enemies. 18 In your seed all the nations of the earth shall be blessed, because you have obeyed My voice.”’ Here then, in Deuteronomy 6, is the same foundational principle that we had seen in the command to Abraham to get out from his country, from his family and his father’s house. The command was never just about the leaving but also about the arrival at the land that God would show him. He was to leave the land of his birth to go to the land that God would show him, so that his descendants, both earthly and heavenly, would possess the gate of their enemy. And through those same descendants, all the nations of the earth would be blessed. And the fulfillment of this promise is to be realized solely in relation to the present heavens and earth and the seven-thousand-years of time that God had established from the beginning. There is nothing here that has to do with the endless ages beyond the seven-thousand-years of time. a). And as we consider this it should cause us to be a little more circumspect about how we address our deliverance from the kingdom of this world within this same context. We have been saved by grace through faith for a purpose to be realized in the Seventh Day. But when we talk about the salvation we presently possess, we commonly give it the name ‘eternal salvation’. b). Now, before we go any further let’s be quite clear. The salvation that we presently possess, the salvation of our spirit, because it has been bought through the finished work of Christ at Calvary, the death and shed blood of God Himself, makes absolutely certain that it continues into the endless ages. The Scripture makes this clear – Ro 11:29 For the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable. And for all those who have believed on the Lord Jesus Christ, irrespective of what they do next, this remains a certainty – Re 20:5 But the rest of the dead did not live again until the thousand years were finished…… The ‘rest of the dead’ in this verse refers to all those who had been redeemed from the kingdom of this world but were separated from the purpose for that redemption because of unfaithfulness, unbelief. The unfaithful Christian then, but they will ‘live again’ at the end of the thousand-years, during the endless ages. However, for us to say that as we believed on the Lord Jesus Christ, God saved us for the purpose of eternity is not correct at all. c). We were saved by grace through faith in order to receive spiritual life, with a view to attaining the salvation of our soul, to realize God’s purpose for us in the Seventh Day. Or to say this another way, we have been saved, we are being saved and we will be saved, for the purpose of rulership in the Millennial Kingdom. d). And this should be easy enough for us to see as we look at two types that show the redemption of the spirit – Ge 1:3 Then God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light. 4 And God saw the light, that it was good; and God divided the light from the darkness. 5 God called the light Day, and the darkness He called Night. So the evening and the morning were the first day. As we know, the light that came on Day One marks the beginning of the redemption of the ruined creation, and God said ‘let there be light’ for a single purpose, to make rulership in the Seventh Day possible. And as we look at the skeletal framework for the whole of Scripture laid out in the first thirty-four verses of Genesis, we see that nothing there moves beyond the Seventh Day – Ge 2:1 Thus the heavens and the earth, and all the host of them, were finished. 2 And on the seventh day God ended His work which He had done, and He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had done. 3 Then God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because in it He rested from all His work which God had created and made. So, let’s ask the question. The light that God caused to be present on Day One, the light that existed before the sun and the moon, the light of His glory, will it continue into the endless ages? Absolutely. The Scripture says so – Re 22:5 There shall be no night there: They need no lamp nor light of the sun, for the Lord God gives them light. And they shall reign forever and ever. But did God bring His light into the darkness on that first Day in Genesis for the purpose of illuminating the endless ages? No. As we have already seen the purpose was specifically for the present heavens and earth, mankind, and rulership in the Seventh Day. e). We can also look to the events surrounding Israel’s deliverance from Egypt – Ex 3:16 Go and gather the elders of Israel together, and say to them, ‘The LORD God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob, appeared to me, saying, “I have surely visited you and seen what is done to you in Egypt; 17 and I have said I will bring you up out of the affliction of Egypt to the land of the Canaanites and the Hittites and the Amorites and the Perizzites and the Hivites and the Jebusites, to a land flowing with milk and honey.” ’ Again, it is as clear as it was in Deuteronomy 6, that God delivered Israel from Egypt to take them to a land flowing with milk and honey within the timeframe of seven-thousand-years. And, as we know, the means by which the Jews were delivered was the death and shed blood of the Passover lambs – Ex 12:12 “For I will pass through the land of Egypt on that night, and will strike all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both man and beast; and against all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgment: I am the LORD. 13 Now the blood shall be a sign for you on the houses where you are. And when I see the blood, I will pass over you; and the plague shall not be on you to destroy you when I strike the land of Egypt. And for those Jews delivered that night and indeed for all Jews before the crucifixion who were saved by the death and shed blood of the Passover lambs, does this salvation, this deliverance, extend into the endless ages? It must. As it finds its efficacy in the death and shed blood of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world, the same death and shed blood upon which our own deliverance is based. But in God’s dealings with Israel throughout their history, He deals with nothing beyond the land of promise and the Seventh Day. f). So, why is the name we give to our presently possessed redemption important? Because of where the phrase ‘eternal salvation’ has come from. It has come out of the leavened teaching that sees the Christian only in relation to heaven and hell and eternity, an ideology that either denies the coming Seventh Day, or if that Day is acknowledged, it is seen as the first of the endless ages, which it is not. And hopefully this doesn’t need further explanation. g). But out of this phrase and implicit in its use is the idea that God saved us for the eternal ages and once that was wrapped up and settled, He could then deal with us and the Kingdom. h). And this is where we can get into trouble. Just as we know that once received, salvation by grace through faith never has to be dealt with again, so its outcome for the endless ages never has to be addressed either, because this is NOT God’s focus. i). We have been saved by grace through faith for the purpose of receiving our inheritance in the Kingdom. This is God’s purpose for our presently possessed salvation, and it MUST be ours also. We have been delivered from the kingdom of this world, that we might be established in the Kingdom of the Age to come. j). And this as always must be our goal and focus. 3). Eph 1:3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, 4 just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love, 5 having predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will, 6 to the praise of the glory of His grace, by which He made us accepted in the Beloved. 7 In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace 8 which He made to abound toward us in all wisdom and prudence, 9 having made known to us the mystery of His will, according to His good pleasure which He purposed in Himself, 10 that in the dispensation of the fullness of the times He might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven and which are on earth—in Him. 11 In Him also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestined according to the purpose of Him who works all things according to the counsel of His will, 12 that we who first trusted in Christ should be to the praise of His glory. 13 In Him you also trusted, after you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation; in whom also, having believed, you were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise, 14 who is the guarantee of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession, to the praise of His glory. In Paul’s letter to the Ephesians, we can clearly see that Christians have blessings awaiting them in heavenly places, in the heavenlies, the same heavenly places where Satan and his angels are to be found. And as we see, these blessings have to do with ‘adoption as sons’, ‘the dispensation of the fullness of the times’, and the ‘inheritance’. All is connected to the land of our calling, and all have to do with the age to come, the final one-thousand-years of God’s seven-thousand-year timeframe. a). It was with a view to the Ephesians having a mature knowledge of these same things that Paul had prayed for them, a prayer with which we are familiar – Eph 1:17 that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give to you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him, 18 the eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that you may know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints, 19 and what is the exceeding greatness of His power toward us who believe, according to the working of His mighty power 20 which He worked in Christ when He raised Him from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly places, 21 far above all principality and power and might and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this age but also in that which is to come. 22 And He put all things under His feet, and gave Him to be head over all things to the church, 23 which is His body, the fullness of Him who fills all in all. So, why did Paul determine to pray for the Ephesians in this way? Well, it wasn’t for the accumulation of ‘epignosis’ knowledge for its own sake on their part, but because of what his letter to them had to finally address – Eph 6:10 Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord and in the power of His might. 11 Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. 12 For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places. The heavenly places, the heavenlies, where the Christian’s blessings are to be found are presently occupied by the enemy of our soul and those with him. And if we, individually, are to enter that land and receive our inheritance in the Seventh Day, then we must engage our enemy in the spiritual warfare during the Sixth Day and have victory over him. And to be properly prepared, that we might gain this victory, we need to have that for which Paul prayed for the Ephesians. b). The whole armor of God is founded upon that for which Paul prayed and only through receiving and implementing it will the victory be ours. This is in effect the same thing that Paul told Timothy in – 1 Ti 6:12 Fight the good fight of faith, lay hold on life for the age, to which you were also called and have confessed the good confession in the presence of many witnesses. It is also the instruction given through Jude – Jude 1:3 Beloved, while I was very diligent to write to you concerning our common salvation, I found it necessary to write to you exhorting you to contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints. 4 For certain men have crept in unnoticed, who long ago were marked out for this condemnation, ungodly men, who turn the grace of our God into lewdness and deny the only Lord God and our Lord Jesus Christ. We might find it interesting that the Lord would not let Jude write to his audience about salvation by grace through faith but instructed him instead to exhort them ‘to contend earnestly for the faith’, faith to the saving of the soul. The word ‘fight’ in Timothy and ‘contend earnestly’ in Jude are the same word in the original language, with an intensified form of the word used by Jude. c). In essence then, the verses from 1 Timothy and Jude, exhort the believer to strain every fiber of his being in this fight of the faith. To take nothing for granted and leave nothing to chance. Hence, Paul’s prayer for the Ephesians. And this is the exact position Paul found himself in at the end of his life – 2 Ti 4:7 I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. And in doing this, Paul had had victory in the spiritual warfare. He was a victor to whom the spoils of war belonged – 2 Ti 4:8 Finally, there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will give to me on that Day, and not to me only but also to all who have loved His appearing. And if we return to Jude for a moment, we see this good fight of the faith is given a specific context, For certain men have crept in unnoticed, who long ago were marked out for this condemnation, ungodly men, who turn the grace of our God into lewdness and deny the only Lord God and our Lord Jesus Christ. These ‘certain men’ are the false teachers, with false doctrines, and we know where these false doctrines came from – 1 Ti 4:1 Now the Spirit expressly says that in latter times some will depart from the faith, giving heed to deceiving spirits and doctrines of demons….. Let us be in no doubt, the false teaching, the Laodicean leftovers that stick to the side of our earthen vessel, are part and parcel with the spiritual warfare, and are described as the fiery darts of the wicked one. And they are there to attempt to stop those who would enter the heavenly land from doing so. And perhaps here is where we can find the necessity for understanding the redemption we presently possess, the salvation of our spirit in the correct scriptural way, laying aside the traditions of men. Right here is a victory in the spiritual warfare if we do so. We will continue with this next time if we remain and the Lord is willing, and we have prayed. What Shall I Do - Part Twenty One Apr 16, 2023 Speaker: John Herbert Series: What Shall I Do... Category: Sunday Morning https://s3.amazonaws.com/cornerstonejax/sermonfiles/T057_20230416.mp3 Download Audio x
Refresh A Recap from the Sermon Ge 25:32 And Esau said, "Look, I am about to die; so what is this birthright to me?" We will continue today to look at the birthright and the timeframe for it. The full text of this message can be found by clicking the PDF button. Sunday April 16th 2023 What Shall I Do…….. Part 21 1). Ge 25:32 And Esau said, "Look, I am about to die; so what is this birthright to me?" 33 Then Jacob said, "Swear to me as of this day." So he swore to him, and sold his birthright to Jacob. 34 And Jacob gave Esau bread and stew of lentils; then he ate and drank, arose, and went his way. Thus Esau despised his birthright. We have seen from our study of these verses that Esau ‘despised his birthright’, he considered it to be of no value to him in what was then his present situation, as the birthright remained something yet future and therefore, intangible. And this incident with Esau is important for us because of what is written in Hebrews Chapter 12 about it - Heb 12:16 lest there be any fornicator or profane person like Esau, who for one morsel of food sold his birthright. 17 For you know that afterward, when he wanted to inherit the blessing, he was rejected, for he found no place for repentance [in his father], though he sought it diligently with tears. And as we read these two verses, we will understand a profane person to be like Esau in the sense of being wicked as Esau was in despising his birthright, but why the use of the word ‘fornicator’ in this context? Clearly, this must be dealing with something beyond the obvious. The primary use of this word is with regard to a man who prostitutes his body to another’s lust for hire. And again, we must look beyond the letter in this to the Spirit. a). For someone who has heard the Word of the Kingdom to prostitute himself from a spiritual perspective can be explained for us in – Jas 4:4 Adulterers and adulteresses! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Whoever therefore wants to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. The words adulterers and adulteresses are used in this verse in a metaphorical sense to describe those who have apostatized, those who have entered into the forbidden relationship with the kingdom of this world and the god of this age, having thereby stepped away from their high calling. b). This is much the same idea that Paul wrote about to Timothy – 2 Ti 2:4 No one engaged in warfare entangles himself with the affairs of this life, that he may please him who enlisted him as a soldier. The ‘one engaged in warfare’ is the one who has heard the Word of the Kingdom and therefore knows that his citizenship, his hope, his inheritance, and his blessing is to be found in the heavenly realm of the kingdom, the heavenlies, presently occupied by Satan and his angels. And if the one who has heard the Word of the Kingdom is to realize his hope, receive his inheritance and his blessing, then he must be engaged wholeheartedly in the spiritual warfare, looking to take the land that his enemy presently possesses, with a resolve and determination such as we have seen with Caleb and Joshua. c). What he cannot do if his inheritance is to be realized, is to entangle himself with the operation of the present world system, with those things that pertain only to his physical existence. He cannot become a friend of the world, he cannot sell himself to the service of the wicked one by focusing his attention on the cares of this world, the deceitfulness of riches and the pleasures of this life. And should he do so, he becomes in a metaphorical sense, a fornicator and profane person like Esau, he becomes the friend of the world, and taken to its end, he becomes an apostate. d). And to take that pictured through Esau to is conclusion, there comes a point in the present, to be realized at the Judgment Seat yet future, when the realization that the birthright that had been despised, was in fact the greatest possession anyone could attain to, and the loss of it will produce weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth on the part of the one who has lost it but no change of mind by the Judge whose glorious offer was betrayed for a ‘morsel of food’, for a forbidden relationship with the god of this age. e). And there is more than a touch of irony to Esau’s words at the beginning of Genesis 25:32, And Esau said, "Look, I am about to die. Are we not all about to die? Which one of us has the guarantee of being here next week? None of us do, but we think we do, which could open the door to despising our birthright because in pursuit of next week we can take our eyes off of that which really matters. And if we repeat this often enough over the course of time, then we know what would come next. f). If our physical life should end in the next moment and there is no more time for us to seek first His Kingdom and His righteousness, just the certainty of our appearance at the Judgment Seat. What then, from our time on the earth, would be most important to us? 2). De 6:23 Then He brought us out from there, that He might bring us in, to give us the land of which He swore to our fathers. The primary application for this verse is for national Israel, but the truth of that stated in it can certainly be applied to ourselves. And firstly, let’s note the purpose, ‘He brought us out from there, that He might bring us in’. When looking at Israel, this is their deliverance from Egypt to be brought into the land of Canaan. And for ourselves, we have been delivered from the kingdom of this world to be brought into the heavenly land. And both the bringing out and the bringing in are actions of the Divine will for the purpose of rulership. The fulfillment of the promise given to Abraham – Ge 22:15 Then the Angel of the LORD called to Abraham a second time out of heaven, 16 and said: “By Myself I have sworn, says the LORD, because you have done this thing, and have not withheld your son, your only son— 17 blessing I will bless you, and multiplying I will multiply your descendants as the stars of the heaven and as the sand which is on the seashore; and your descendants shall possess the gate of their enemies. 18 In your seed all the nations of the earth shall be blessed, because you have obeyed My voice.”’ Here then, in Deuteronomy 6, is the same foundational principle that we had seen in the command to Abraham to get out from his country, from his family and his father’s house. The command was never just about the leaving but also about the arrival at the land that God would show him. He was to leave the land of his birth to go to the land that God would show him, so that his descendants, both earthly and heavenly, would possess the gate of their enemy. And through those same descendants, all the nations of the earth would be blessed. And the fulfillment of this promise is to be realized solely in relation to the present heavens and earth and the seven-thousand-years of time that God had established from the beginning. There is nothing here that has to do with the endless ages beyond the seven-thousand-years of time. a). And as we consider this it should cause us to be a little more circumspect about how we address our deliverance from the kingdom of this world within this same context. We have been saved by grace through faith for a purpose to be realized in the Seventh Day. But when we talk about the salvation we presently possess, we commonly give it the name ‘eternal salvation’. b). Now, before we go any further let’s be quite clear. The salvation that we presently possess, the salvation of our spirit, because it has been bought through the finished work of Christ at Calvary, the death and shed blood of God Himself, makes absolutely certain that it continues into the endless ages. The Scripture makes this clear – Ro 11:29 For the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable. And for all those who have believed on the Lord Jesus Christ, irrespective of what they do next, this remains a certainty – Re 20:5 But the rest of the dead did not live again until the thousand years were finished…… The ‘rest of the dead’ in this verse refers to all those who had been redeemed from the kingdom of this world but were separated from the purpose for that redemption because of unfaithfulness, unbelief. The unfaithful Christian then, but they will ‘live again’ at the end of the thousand-years, during the endless ages. However, for us to say that as we believed on the Lord Jesus Christ, God saved us for the purpose of eternity is not correct at all. c). We were saved by grace through faith in order to receive spiritual life, with a view to attaining the salvation of our soul, to realize God’s purpose for us in the Seventh Day. Or to say this another way, we have been saved, we are being saved and we will be saved, for the purpose of rulership in the Millennial Kingdom. d). And this should be easy enough for us to see as we look at two types that show the redemption of the spirit – Ge 1:3 Then God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light. 4 And God saw the light, that it was good; and God divided the light from the darkness. 5 God called the light Day, and the darkness He called Night. So the evening and the morning were the first day. As we know, the light that came on Day One marks the beginning of the redemption of the ruined creation, and God said ‘let there be light’ for a single purpose, to make rulership in the Seventh Day possible. And as we look at the skeletal framework for the whole of Scripture laid out in the first thirty-four verses of Genesis, we see that nothing there moves beyond the Seventh Day – Ge 2:1 Thus the heavens and the earth, and all the host of them, were finished. 2 And on the seventh day God ended His work which He had done, and He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had done. 3 Then God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because in it He rested from all His work which God had created and made. So, let’s ask the question. The light that God caused to be present on Day One, the light that existed before the sun and the moon, the light of His glory, will it continue into the endless ages? Absolutely. The Scripture says so – Re 22:5 There shall be no night there: They need no lamp nor light of the sun, for the Lord God gives them light. And they shall reign forever and ever. But did God bring His light into the darkness on that first Day in Genesis for the purpose of illuminating the endless ages? No. As we have already seen the purpose was specifically for the present heavens and earth, mankind, and rulership in the Seventh Day. e). We can also look to the events surrounding Israel’s deliverance from Egypt – Ex 3:16 Go and gather the elders of Israel together, and say to them, ‘The LORD God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob, appeared to me, saying, “I have surely visited you and seen what is done to you in Egypt; 17 and I have said I will bring you up out of the affliction of Egypt to the land of the Canaanites and the Hittites and the Amorites and the Perizzites and the Hivites and the Jebusites, to a land flowing with milk and honey.” ’ Again, it is as clear as it was in Deuteronomy 6, that God delivered Israel from Egypt to take them to a land flowing with milk and honey within the timeframe of seven-thousand-years. And, as we know, the means by which the Jews were delivered was the death and shed blood of the Passover lambs – Ex 12:12 “For I will pass through the land of Egypt on that night, and will strike all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both man and beast; and against all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgment: I am the LORD. 13 Now the blood shall be a sign for you on the houses where you are. And when I see the blood, I will pass over you; and the plague shall not be on you to destroy you when I strike the land of Egypt. And for those Jews delivered that night and indeed for all Jews before the crucifixion who were saved by the death and shed blood of the Passover lambs, does this salvation, this deliverance, extend into the endless ages? It must. As it finds its efficacy in the death and shed blood of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world, the same death and shed blood upon which our own deliverance is based. But in God’s dealings with Israel throughout their history, He deals with nothing beyond the land of promise and the Seventh Day. f). So, why is the name we give to our presently possessed redemption important? Because of where the phrase ‘eternal salvation’ has come from. It has come out of the leavened teaching that sees the Christian only in relation to heaven and hell and eternity, an ideology that either denies the coming Seventh Day, or if that Day is acknowledged, it is seen as the first of the endless ages, which it is not. And hopefully this doesn’t need further explanation. g). But out of this phrase and implicit in its use is the idea that God saved us for the eternal ages and once that was wrapped up and settled, He could then deal with us and the Kingdom. h). And this is where we can get into trouble. Just as we know that once received, salvation by grace through faith never has to be dealt with again, so its outcome for the endless ages never has to be addressed either, because this is NOT God’s focus. i). We have been saved by grace through faith for the purpose of receiving our inheritance in the Kingdom. This is God’s purpose for our presently possessed salvation, and it MUST be ours also. We have been delivered from the kingdom of this world, that we might be established in the Kingdom of the Age to come. j). And this as always must be our goal and focus. 3). Eph 1:3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, 4 just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love, 5 having predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will, 6 to the praise of the glory of His grace, by which He made us accepted in the Beloved. 7 In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace 8 which He made to abound toward us in all wisdom and prudence, 9 having made known to us the mystery of His will, according to His good pleasure which He purposed in Himself, 10 that in the dispensation of the fullness of the times He might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven and which are on earth—in Him. 11 In Him also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestined according to the purpose of Him who works all things according to the counsel of His will, 12 that we who first trusted in Christ should be to the praise of His glory. 13 In Him you also trusted, after you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation; in whom also, having believed, you were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise, 14 who is the guarantee of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession, to the praise of His glory. In Paul’s letter to the Ephesians, we can clearly see that Christians have blessings awaiting them in heavenly places, in the heavenlies, the same heavenly places where Satan and his angels are to be found. And as we see, these blessings have to do with ‘adoption as sons’, ‘the dispensation of the fullness of the times’, and the ‘inheritance’. All is connected to the land of our calling, and all have to do with the age to come, the final one-thousand-years of God’s seven-thousand-year timeframe. a). It was with a view to the Ephesians having a mature knowledge of these same things that Paul had prayed for them, a prayer with which we are familiar – Eph 1:17 that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give to you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him, 18 the eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that you may know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints, 19 and what is the exceeding greatness of His power toward us who believe, according to the working of His mighty power 20 which He worked in Christ when He raised Him from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly places, 21 far above all principality and power and might and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this age but also in that which is to come. 22 And He put all things under His feet, and gave Him to be head over all things to the church, 23 which is His body, the fullness of Him who fills all in all. So, why did Paul determine to pray for the Ephesians in this way? Well, it wasn’t for the accumulation of ‘epignosis’ knowledge for its own sake on their part, but because of what his letter to them had to finally address – Eph 6:10 Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord and in the power of His might. 11 Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. 12 For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places. The heavenly places, the heavenlies, where the Christian’s blessings are to be found are presently occupied by the enemy of our soul and those with him. And if we, individually, are to enter that land and receive our inheritance in the Seventh Day, then we must engage our enemy in the spiritual warfare during the Sixth Day and have victory over him. And to be properly prepared, that we might gain this victory, we need to have that for which Paul prayed for the Ephesians. b). The whole armor of God is founded upon that for which Paul prayed and only through receiving and implementing it will the victory be ours. This is in effect the same thing that Paul told Timothy in – 1 Ti 6:12 Fight the good fight of faith, lay hold on life for the age, to which you were also called and have confessed the good confession in the presence of many witnesses. It is also the instruction given through Jude – Jude 1:3 Beloved, while I was very diligent to write to you concerning our common salvation, I found it necessary to write to you exhorting you to contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints. 4 For certain men have crept in unnoticed, who long ago were marked out for this condemnation, ungodly men, who turn the grace of our God into lewdness and deny the only Lord God and our Lord Jesus Christ. We might find it interesting that the Lord would not let Jude write to his audience about salvation by grace through faith but instructed him instead to exhort them ‘to contend earnestly for the faith’, faith to the saving of the soul. The word ‘fight’ in Timothy and ‘contend earnestly’ in Jude are the same word in the original language, with an intensified form of the word used by Jude. c). In essence then, the verses from 1 Timothy and Jude, exhort the believer to strain every fiber of his being in this fight of the faith. To take nothing for granted and leave nothing to chance. Hence, Paul’s prayer for the Ephesians. And this is the exact position Paul found himself in at the end of his life – 2 Ti 4:7 I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. And in doing this, Paul had had victory in the spiritual warfare. He was a victor to whom the spoils of war belonged – 2 Ti 4:8 Finally, there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will give to me on that Day, and not to me only but also to all who have loved His appearing. And if we return to Jude for a moment, we see this good fight of the faith is given a specific context, For certain men have crept in unnoticed, who long ago were marked out for this condemnation, ungodly men, who turn the grace of our God into lewdness and deny the only Lord God and our Lord Jesus Christ. These ‘certain men’ are the false teachers, with false doctrines, and we know where these false doctrines came from – 1 Ti 4:1 Now the Spirit expressly says that in latter times some will depart from the faith, giving heed to deceiving spirits and doctrines of demons….. Let us be in no doubt, the false teaching, the Laodicean leftovers that stick to the side of our earthen vessel, are part and parcel with the spiritual warfare, and are described as the fiery darts of the wicked one. And they are there to attempt to stop those who would enter the heavenly land from doing so. And perhaps here is where we can find the necessity for understanding the redemption we presently possess, the salvation of our spirit in the correct scriptural way, laying aside the traditions of men. Right here is a victory in the spiritual warfare if we do so. We will continue with this next time if we remain and the Lord is willing, and we have prayed.