The Mystery Part 2 of 3

I want to welcome you to "Part 2", concerning and continuing our theme of;  'The Mystery.' Numerous times, I've seen that when a person starts to learn their Bible, they discover that there is a bushel full of mysteries contained in it.  The one I hear people talk about the most is "When is the end of the world coming? Really? Who knows?
Now I am talking about me, Pastor Paul, of Suburban Community Church here, when I say that I think the second mystery people try to decipher the most is 'Who is the Anti-Christ and when will he appear?' I get that one a lot.
 Then last but not least (not to be out done by biblical mysteries) is the question that alot of America's mom's ask anybody who might be able to help them, 'How can I get my kids to eat broccoli? Now that is a great mystery.
All kidding aside, none of the above questions concern the great mystery that I am referring too. The mystery I am eluding to is a mystery that the prophets tried to see, tried to figure out and tried to understand, but could never enter into it. 
In 1 Peter 1:10-12, Peter wrote, "This salvation was something even the prophets wanted to know more about when they prophesied about this gracious salvation prepared for you. They wondered what time or situation the Spirit of Christ within them was talking about when he told them in advance about Christ's suffering and His great glory afterward.
There was still something God was planning....there was something else hidden in the heart of the counsels of the Almighty that the prophets looked ahead to, yet couldn't seize, they couldn't understand it, they couldn't grasp it; it escaped them. There was still something more and they couldn't reach it.
Let's continue on in the reading, They were told that their messages were not for themselves, but for you (those of us ahead of them), And now this Good News has been announced to you by those who preached in the power of the Holy Spirit sent from heaven.  Now look at this, it is so awesome...It is all so wonderful that even the angels are eagerly watching these things happen! The angels knew there was something yet in the counsels of God, and they couldn't understand it,  this 'mystery.'
Look at Acts 1:11, "Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into heaven? This same Jesus, which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have seen Him go into heaven"  Do you see it there? The angels says, "This Jesus ascending into glory shall descend back to earth in the same way that you saw Him go away." There in that tremendous verse you can see two very powerful works of God. 
The one is: THIS SAME JESUS: the life of Christ here on earth, His incarnation, His miracles, death, resurrection and ascension. Then following that great statement is the second powerful work, "shall so come in like manner as ye have seen Him go into heaven."  The angel speaks in one breadth, side by side in almost the same clause about these two works.  But that is all they knew. And what they saw was all they could know. God gave them only a glimpse. The prophets saw this as well. They understood these two works, but that was all they could see: the one, the life of Jesus on earth, His sufferings and death - -  and the second His coming back, the consummation of the ages, His descending from the clouds. These were great revelations to them but they were just glimpses. And to some of the prophets it was so far away, so vague, so much in the distant future, they could see nothing else. To them they stood together, side by side, one taking place after the other or both taking place at the same time.  It was a mystery to them.
But those events are not the mystery I am talking about. Go ahead you can ask. ?Well what is the mystery then? (let's do that in our concluding part 3)

The Mystery, Part 1

For this cause I Paul, the prisoner of Jesus Christ for you Gentiles, if ye have heard of the dispensation of the grace of God which is given me to you-ward:
How that by revelation He made known unto me the mystery; (as I wrote afore in few words,
Whereby, when ye read, ye may understand my knowledge in the mystery of Christ)
Which in other ages was not made known unto the sons of men, as it is now revealed unto His holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit;That the Gentiles should be fellow heirs, and of the same body, and partakers of His promise in Christ by the gospel: Whereof I was made a minister, according to the gift of the grace of God given unto me by the effectual working of His power. Unto me, who am less than the least of all saints, is this grace given, that I should preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ; And to make all men see what is the fellowship of the mystery, which from the beginning of the world hath been hid in God, who created all things by Jesus Christ:
To the intent that now unto the principalities and powers in heavenly places might be made known by the church the manifold wisdom of God, According to the eternal purpose which He purposed in Christ Jesus our Lord: In whom we have boldness and access with confidence by the faith of Him.
                                                                                                                             Ephesians 3:1-12

He says in the third (3^rd)verse, “That by revelation God hath made known unto me the mystery…which is that in other ages it was not known unto the sons of men, but it is now revealed that the Gentiles shall be fellow heirs, and of the same body, and partakers of His promise in Christ by the gospel” [Ephesians 3:3-6].

Then in the ninth verse, God committed to him this gospel message”
To make all men see what is the fellowship of the mystery, which from the beginning of the world hath been hid in God, who created all things by Jesus Christ: To the intent that now unto principalities and powers in heavenly places might be known through the church this mystery, this manifold wisdom of God, According to the eternal purpose which He purposed in Christ Jesus our Lord.    [Ephesians 3:9-11]

Paul says there is a divine purpose, which he calls “a mystery,” that God hid in His own infinite counsels, and no one knew it; not the principalities and powers in heavenly places, least of all the prophets and the saints of the earth.

This great mystery was only made known when the day of Paul came and his fellow holy apostles. That’s a strange and unusual thing; because back in the Old Testament are prophecies, lots of prophecies, many prophecies of the purposes of God in the ages that were and are to come.

Yet Paul says that this thing that has been revealed unto him is a mystery that no one in heaven and no one in earth knew, until it was revealed at the time appointed.
That word “mystery,” a musterion, is not the kind of a thing that we describe or define as a “mystery.” To us a mystery is an unfathomable, inexplicable secret; nobody knows what it is. You can’t understand it. 
That word musterion in the Greek language, translated “mystery” here, isn't used the way we know it; its not even close. The word is taken by Paul from the mystery religions. In the day that Paul lived, the whole Grecian-Roman world was filled with mystery religions. They were all over the regions Paul labored in, rooted in darkness and evil, designed to keep men in bondage and oppression to false idol gods.
And the word musterion, the word mystery, that our apostle is using here, refers to a secret that was known but only to the initiators. And when a man was initiated into those mystery religions, the secret of the religion was revealed to him. And that revelation, that secret, that thing know to them but unknown to the others, they called a musterion. It was something that was hid until it was revealed to certain people. Now that is the exact meaning of the word of Paul here in the third chapter of Ephesians. He uses the word musterion to refer to a great secret that was hidden in the counsels of God, and a secret that no man could learn by reason, by rational study, by scientific probing. It was a thing that no man could ever have known except were it revealed by God Himself. Now what is this great mystery that Paul refers to as having been kept in the secret counsels of God from the beginning of the creation? (Sept. 6th,2014, the rest will be continued in Part 2) (Reminds me of the teasers they do during the evening news!!)

A thought on Adam

When God made man and brought him into fellowship with Himself, everything was for the Lord. Adam and Eve had no other object in view for which to live and work, even among all the creatures in the Garden, then the Lord. It was the Lord and His two affectionate stars all glorously walking in the cool of the night. Wow! The Lord had great pleasure in that. And if you look throughout your bible you will see that the Lord has pleasure in, and draws near to, those who are in a state of worship.
What I mean to say is that the Lord's drawing near is on the grounds that those he is drawing near to have a heart that is out to himself.
You never find the Lord drawing near when it is otherwise, unless it be in judgment.  But when the Lord comes in blessing, in fellowship, companionship, it is because there are hearts out to Himself, and if the Lord came there into the garden, as He is shown to have done, it was because there were hearts toward Him. Loving Him, worshipping Him. When the Lord Jesus was here it was like that as well.  He loved to be where He found a heart open to Him, ready to receive Him, ready to answer to His desires.  I suppose that is why he went to Lazarus's house to visit so much.  He found that there where hearts there for Him, friendship and warmth.  There was a spirit of worship.
But then there came the terrible break, and the devil came into the garden to divert from God, to redirect to himself. But how, you may ask?-and this is a terrible thing to recognize. He brought man's own personal interests into view, man's own personal interests first, and showed him that he could have something-he could get something.  In other words Adam and Eve found that there was something in it for themselves. Up until we read where they took the fruit and ate, it was all the Lord could get, and now the situation is that man can have something for himself.
The enemy was working in a deep and subtle way to draw Adam away from God to himself; and so, getting man into alliance with himself; he deceived man into thinking that he was going to have the benefit, when all the time it was the devil who was going to have the benefit.  That is the deception of mankind. He was turned from God to get something, a good time, this world, great pleasure, fame, and all that, and in the end he finds he has been duped, and the devil has got it all-and him in the bargain. That is the tragedy and the deception.
But this is the point: It was in order to draw away from God by this self-interest, this selfishness- and break the worship, and the fellowship.  From that time it has been like that.  The world is a selfish world, a world that draws to itself, that does not give God His place, does not let God have everthing, first and last.  That is how things are, and we as Christians are to change that.

Thoughts on suffering

In Shakespeare's hamlet, Claudius a character in the play says, "When sorrows come, they come not single spies, but in battalions."  This was certainly true of  Job's experience, one messenger after another came bringing him news of devastating loss.
Rapid-fire reports of devastating loss ripped into Job's heart.  Servants practically fell all over each other as they brought fresh reports of further disaster. 
In Job's era wealth was determined by the number of servants and the amount of property that you owned.  Both were weapons in the assault on Job's heart.  First, it was the loss of donkeys and oxen and then the death of servants, (1:14-15).  Soon after that came word that the "fire of God fell from heaven," consuming Job's sheep and some of his much loved servants (1:16).  Not long after this came the message that the Chaldean raiders had stolen the camels and killed even more of his loyal ranch hands(1:17).  With every announcement, the stakes rose as the losses were staggering. But the greatest losses came when the messenger arrived with the heart-wrenching news that Job's sons and daughters had been killed (1:18-19). 
When waves of heartache wash over us, whether single spies or whole battalions, their sheer weight and relentless nature can be suffocating.  Suffering simply overwhelms us.
Satan's final assault was on Job's health (2:1-8).  After that, Job sat in the dust scratching painful sores, bewildered by the turn his life had taken.  Job's wife and friends were with him, but in reality he was alone in his pain, alone but for the presence of his God.
The sense of isolation in seasons of suffering was given voice in the grief-stricken wail that left the lips of Christ on the cross: "Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani?.....My God, my God, why have You forsaken Me? I believe that would have been the cry of Job's heart, as he sat in the dust, suffering from his circumstances.
Over the thousands of years of human kind,, neither the nature nor the causes of suffering have changed. For some, suffering will never approach the horrors of Job's experience. For others, it may actually surpass them. But in every case, our suffering is uniquely our own and we feel the weight of that suffering because it is mysterious, overwhelming, and ultimately experienced alone.

A Little too Close

I was talking to a bus driver friend of mine who related to me about a tension-filled couple of minutes in Pittsburgh while he was driving his bus. He was telling how he was coming across the Roberto Clemente bridge, side by side with a big rig to his left. Coming to a traffic light there was an accident up ahead. This forced both the bus and the truck to slide over to the right to avoid oncoming traffic which was cheating by coming across the truck and bus lanes to also avoid the accident. Well the driver told me when he moved over to avoid either a close call or an accident the bus mirror hit the main post on the bridge and - "Bam!" the mirror was gone. The driver was telling me he couldn't understand how he could hit the mirror on the bridge in the first place so they went back to the scene to find that the bridge actually left little room for bus, truck or big rigs. The posts were too close to the road, thus the mirrors would hit the bridge.  The bridge beams had the markings to prove it was done regularly and often.
So what we had were responsible drivers caught in a bad situation because the bridge itself was not really built properly for todays vehicles.
I got to thinking how much life was similar to the close call for that bus.  How many times have we,  as human beings, come too close to something.  We're doing regular life, we're not up to something wrong or troublesome but then, "Bam!" a temptation, a sexual sin, a vulgar moment, a time when something bad is easy and is there right in front of us. But where did it come from, and what course of action would you take?  Would you go with it or deflect it? Would it be a close call where you just hit a mirror or would you have a full collision?
There are many factors and all of them are waiting for your response. How many near misses have we had in life when we were not doing anything wrong or looking for trouble, like the bus driver moving over just a little to avoid a potentially bad situation and "Bam!" he hits something that shouldn't be there. We are going about our careers, negotiating life in the corporate world, or daily punching the time clock and, "Bam!" there in front of us is a close encounter with an inter-office relationship, or a chance to embezzle some money or maybe an opportunity to fix someone's wagon who has hurt us on the job. That's when it hits us that we have come too close to a very bad human experience. It hit our mirror because we felt the encounter, we didn't  have a full blown collision but when we sit back and think about it, it was a really close call.

Ps 84:11-12; For the LORD God is a sun and shield: the LORD will give grace and glory: no good thing will he withhold from them that walk uprightly.  O LORD of hosts, blessed is the man that trusteth in Thee. (KJV)

 

5 Steps to a Effective Christian Life

Every Christian is responsible to live a life that glorifies God (1 Cor10:31) and to be a true ambassador (2 Cor.5:20) for Him.  Most Christians want to be used of God.  For them it's not enough just to know they are on the Christian pathway, they want to be faithful and effective. The question is, "How"? Where do we start? What is involved?" We can find some answers in the Bible where God uses Philip's encounter with the Ethiopian official to get some insight on how to do this.
First, God SOVEREIGNLY worked out all the details involved in Philip's effective witness to the Ethiopian.  He will do the same for you and me.
Second, Philip's LIFE witnessed to Jesus Christ.  He was chosen as a worker in the early church because of his character (Acts 6:3-5). A good life not only glorifies God but is a powerful witness to the world.  Our lives should demonstrate that we know Him.
Third, we find the HOLY SPIRIT vitally involved in Philip's life and ministry. "The Spirit told Philip, 'Go to that chariot and stay near it'"(Acts8:29) The Holy Spirit is the One who makes our lives attractive (Gal 5.22-23). He is our Teacher and Guide.  He gives us boldness and courage to witness.  Our responsibility is to be yielded fully to all the wonderful resources of the Holy Spirit. Philip was led to someone already "pre"pared.
Fourth, you will note the important part the SCRIPTURES play in telling another person about Jesus Christ. The Ethiopian was reading Isaiah 53 and asked Philip to explain the passage.  Philip took the same passage, which deals prophetically with the crucifixion, and "told him the good news about Jesus" (Acts8:35). Philip knew the Scriptures and was prepared to explain the good news of the Gospel.  If we are going to be effective Christians, we too must gain a working knowledge of the Scriptures to help others.
Last, the Bible is a record of God working mightily in and through the lives of ORDINARY people (just like us!)  Our responsibility is to step out in FAITH and trust God to use us.
This article is an exerpt from BGEA, Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, Christian Life and Witness course.

A Roman Confession

He had never seen a day like this. It was darker then any night he had ever experienced and it was just mid-afternoon.  Something different was taking place, something strangely ominous.  Whatever it was, he was sure it had nothing to do with him.  He was just doing his job, which was to execute people, serving Caesar with loyalty and without question. And Caesar had ordered this execution. His occupation was to execute outlaws in Palestine.  The breastplate that covered his heart bore the seal of his allegiance to the Emperor of Rome. He would gladly slice the throat of anyone who stood against the Emperor, for Caesar was like God to him.  There was honor in being a centurion, a mighty warrior in charge of 100 brave "fight till you die" soldiers trained to defend the Roman Empire. He knew how to make his heart like a stone as he watched foreign soldiers die by his hand.  It was his profession.
Today it seemed as if everyone was screaming.  The prisoners, the temple officials, even the centurion's own men were jeering at one of the criminals unmercifully.  An immense crowd had turned out to witness the execution of a man whose crime was written on the notice above His head. He was not a thief or a murderer but a "King of the Jews". This man was a Galilean and like no one the centurion had ever seen.  Stripped, whipped, bleeding, and with a crown of thorns gouging his skull, actually puncturing one eye, this Galilean didn't fight as the others. Neither did he mouth off and cuss as the others did, nor shout endless threats. Soldiers tried to steal his dignity but they couldn't. Even after they had cast lots for his cloak and had coated his dry tongue with vinegar, the Man wasn't condemning and he never pleaded for mercy.  Not once. That was unusual and noteworthy to him.
The prisoner was a Galilean man called Christ.
Something took place that tore at the soldiers stone-cold heart.  He was forgiving.  In all the years of executing prisoners and watching them die on these crosses, this Jesus was the only One who ever offered mercy to him, the killer. Now the centurion watched as the Galilean labored painfully for breath.  How he wanted to call out to accept that forgiveness.  But to call out would mean challenging Caesar.  To speak in favor of the King of the Jews would mark him as a traitor. To ask this prisoneer for life would mean his own death. Then, finally, the One being crucified cried out, "Father, into your hands I commit My spirit". And it was over.  He no longer labored.
 His Spirit's moment of release led to chaos as the earth began to quake and tombs burst open.  It was true.  Everything the centurion had heard about Jesus' preaching, healing, and miracles, was all true. Regardless of Caesar, regardless of the centurion's own fate, Jesus truly was the Messiah. In that moment, the centurion could utter only one confession. He couldn't hold it back. He couldn't quench that truth. He couldn't restrain himself. Suddenly, as though something inside of him wouldn't hold its silience any longer, he burst forth with little regard for self or safety, "Surely this was the Son of God'.  (Mark 15:39).
To be mighty in spirit is to recognize who Jesus really is.  That soldier did.  He viewed the criminals on crosses as you might look upon a convict on death row.  Yet when he saw Jesus, he knew something was different.  When he looked upon the Savior, neither his past nor his situation mattered.  He simply could not deny the truth.  The  testimony of that warrior was that he had seen the Savior.  He confessed that he had witnessed the Christ. Two thousand years later it is still possible to look upon Jesus the resurrected Son of God. 
I wonder......
What will your confession be?