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amen Ephesians chapter number three the Bible starts out there in verse number one saying for this cause I Paul the prisoner of Jesus Christ for you Gentiles if you have heard of the dispensation of the grace of God which is given me to you word and the title of the sermon this morning is the dispensation of the grace of God the dispensation of the grace of God now this word dispensation is often misunderstood in the Bible because there's this false teaching out there this wrong doctrine called dispensationalism and they've got all of these elaborate ideas about how the Bible all works together and it's just a lot of false doctrine that's contrary to Scripture and so because of this system that's so famous called dispensationalism this causes a lot of people to become confused about what this word means what they think it means is that it's like this certain period of time and that there are these seven dispensations and things like that but if you just look at the word dispensation the way it's used in Scripture and just according to the basic dictionary definition of this word a dispensation is a giving out or a dispensing you know if you think about a PEZ dispenser what does it do right it gives you PEZ and so a dispensation is a distribution or another word that could be used for dispense could be like when something is used up you could say that you know we could dispense with the formalities or something we can kind of do away with something something could be used up given out distributed but what it's saying here in this verse when it says the dispensation of the grace of God which is given me to you word if you want to know what that means let's compare Scripture to Scripture go down to verse 9 and you'll see that actually or I'm sorry go back to verse 7 and see that if we compare Scripture with Scripture we can see exactly what this means because it says in verse 7 where 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 so the Apostle Paul says I was made a minister according to this gift of the grace of God given unto me compare that with verse 2 where he says if you've heard of the dispensation of the grace of God which has given me to you word it's talking about God giving Paul grace to distribute unto others right there's a distribution or dispensation of the grace of God given to Paul to you word meaning to the Ephesians because Paul has been ordained to be a minister to be a preacher to be an apostle that's going to preach the grace of God to all of the Gentiles including the Ephesians so it says for this cause I Paul the prisoner of Jesus Christ for you Gentiles if you've heard of the dispensation of the grace of God which has given me to you word it makes perfect sense when you put these theological ideas out of your head and just understand what he's saying that God wanted to impart grace to the Gentiles he wanted to be a grace dispenser and he's using the Apostle Paul as his instrument to distribute this preaching of the grace of God throughout the world to all nations now the context of this chapter is that in chapter 2 we just finished up with the famous part about how salvation is by grace through faith and it's not of works lest any man should boast so that's what's discussed in chapter 2 how salvation is by grace it's through faith it's not by our works but then the latter half of chapter 2 is all about how there used to be a distinction between the Jews and the Gentiles and the Gentiles were far off and Israel were the people of God but now those strangers and foreigners of the Gentiles who were once far off have been brought nigh by the blood of Christ and that now there's just one body there's just one sheepfold one shepherd and that we as Gentiles are now fellow citizens of the Commonwealth of Israel according to chapter of course that totally goes against what dispensationalism teaches we are fellow citizens fellow heirs and the Bible teaches that in the New Testament there is no difference between the Jew and the Greek there is neither Jew nor Gentile there is neither bond nor free we're all one in Christ Jesus and so that's what chapter 2 is about and then in chapter 3 he says I Paul the prisoner of Jesus Christ now why is he talking about himself being a prisoner well he's literally in jail while he's writing this and these epistles Galatians Ephesians Philippians Colossians are known as the prison epistles of Paul and of course even in the pastoral epistles he talks about being in prison and if you think about it in 2 Timothy he says therefore I endure all things for the elect's sakes that they may also obtain the salvation which is in Christ Jesus with eternal glory so the Apostle Paul says hey the reason I'm going through all this the reason that I'm willing to go to prison and be beaten and deal with all of these trials and tribulations I do it for the elect's sakes that they may also obtain the salvation which is in Christ Jesus with eternal glory what does he mean by the elect the elect is referring to the saved and he's saying I do it for the people that are going to get saved the ones that are gonna get saved that's what makes it worth it for me to endure whatever trials that I have to go through to dispense the gospel to get the gospel out to as many people as possible and that's perfectly consistent with what we see here where it says I'm the prisoner of Jesus Christ for you Gentiles right I'm doing it for you guys I'm doing it for you Ephesians the church at Ephesus those that get saved make all the trials and the prison and everything else they make it worth it and so he says if you've heard of the dispensation of the grace of God which has given me to you word verse 3 how that by revelation he meaning God made known unto me the mystery as I wrote a four in a few words whereby when you read you may understand my knowledge in the mystery of Christ so there are certain things that to the Old Testament believer or to the believer who doesn't have a written copy of the New Testament in their hand like we do are pretty mysterious because in the Old Testament they really saw through a glass darkly they couldn't really see like the big picture of everything that God was doing and where everything was headed they knew a little bit but they didn't know as much as we do because we have the entire Bible the whole written word and it's so easy for us to see a big picture when we read from Genesis to Revelation but it was mysterious at that time and so these things are being repeated revealed to the Apostle Paul so that he can preach them to others so that he can write these epistles that will end up making up a huge portion of the New Testament you know these mysteries being revealed the revelation it says in verse 3 how that by revelation he made known unto me the mystery right because what's the opposite of a mystery it's like a reveal if you were reading a mystery novel at some point in the novel what's coming the reveal is coming right and so things that were once mysterious in the past are made manifest in the New Testament they're revealed through apostles like the Apostle Paul and so by me it says you know the mystery is made known whereby when you read verse 4 you may understand my knowledge in the mystery of Christ he's sharing that knowledge about that mystery so that they can understand so we can understand because the book is written to us it says in verse 5 which in other ages was not made known unto the sons of men right there are things that we can learn from reading the New Testament the epistles of Paul that weren't revealed in the Old Testament isn't that just kind of common sense that obviously if you're living in the time of King David you don't have as much scripture you don't have as much information about God's big picture plan whereas now we do so in other ages these things were not made known unto the sons of men that's just referring to the fact that they had less scripture they had less revelation from God in those time but then it says but now it says they were not made known unto the sons of men as it is now revealed unto his holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit then he's gonna get specific about something that was a mystery to those in the Old Testament but that now is clear and obvious it says in verse 6 that the Gentiles should be fellow heirs and of the same body and partakers of his promise in Christ by the gospel a lot of people in the Old Testament didn't see this coming that in the New Testament there wasn't going to be a difference between Jews and Gentiles that everyone was gonna come together into one body and that we wouldn't have a separate messianic Jewish Church over here and then a Christian Church for Gentiles over here but that there would be one body and that we would be one in Christ Jesus and that we'd be fellow heirs and of the same body really just reiterating what he taught back in chapter 2 and he says in verse 7 whereof I was made a minister according to the gift of the grace of God unto me by the effectual working of his power unto me who I'm less than the least of all saints is this grace given that I should preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ and what he's saying here is that going and preaching to the Gentiles is a privilege because the Gentiles are not second-class citizens okay it's not like oh well you know I'm kind of the black sheep of the Apostles so I got exiled into Siberia to go preach the gospel there whereas the the main Apostles Peter James John people like that you know they get to stay and preach in Jerusalem and Israel and and whatever I'm exiled to Timbuktu to preach the gospel that's not what happened first of all number one Jesus Christ commanded all of his Apostles to go teach all nations in Matthew 28 when he met with the 11 Apostles before he sent up he said go ye therefore and teach all nations now unfortunately many of the 11 Apostles stayed in Jerusalem way too long they stayed in Israel way too long they should have gone into all the world sooner eventually they do get out there and Peter gets out and and you know legend has it that Thomas went to India but even from the Bible we know that Peter eventually left and went to Babylon and and so forth so here we see that the Apostle Paul is magnifying his office and saying hey you know it's it's a blessing it's a privilege it's exciting to go and preach the unsearchable riches of Christ among the Gentiles you see it doesn't matter who were preaching the gospel to the gospel is a privilege to preach it doesn't matter who were preaching it to red yellow black and white a soul is a soul it doesn't matter if they're rich poor what ethnicity what nationality it's just about preaching the gospel and getting people saved and so he says it's it's it he says unto me who I'm less than the least of all Saints is this grace given he's saying you know this is grace that I've received to be able to preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ verse 9 and to make all man 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 and now again we have this idea that this was not known in the past it was hidden in the past it was mysterious in the past whereas now it is made manifest and so it says to make all men see what is the fellowship of the mystery you know it's time for everybody to know the truth about this whereas in the past this was hidden by God who created all things by Jesus Christ verse 10 to the intent that now under the principalities and powers in heavenly places might be known by the church the manifold wisdom of God according to the eternal purpose which he purposed in Christ Jesus our Lord now don't miss this because what he's saying is that even though this is just now being understood or made known or being preached to every single person this was always God's eternal purpose and eternal plan he hid this from us you know that's an active term of saying that God hid this that means that God knew exactly what he was going to do but he chose not to reveal it until later but you hear so much goofed up teaching from these dispensationalists where they'll say things along the lines of well you know his his plan his goal was to do it through Israel but then because they didn't pan out he had to move on to plan B which is the Gentiles folks the Gentiles are not plan B the Gentiles are plan a he just did not explicitly reveal that he always knew that the plan was to redeem mankind and to bring everybody under the same canopy where a Christian is a Christian is a Christian it doesn't matter their ethnicity it doesn't matter their genealogy we're told in the New Testament to avoid genealogies that was always the plan God worked through Israel in the Old Testament he had a chosen nation in the Old Testament that was the plan for that time and we could go into all the reasons for that but the point is that God always always loved and cared about the world everybody the Gentiles God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son he didn't just love Israel then they rejected the gift and he's like well who am I gonna give this gift to oh the Gentiles no it was always planned that he would lighten the Gentiles now once you know that it's easy for us in the New Testament once we have the New Testament explaining all this we can go back to the Old Testament and find all the foreshadowings of this and we could find all the prophecies about how Jesus would be a light to lighten the Gentiles and about how through Abraham all the nations of the earth would be blessed and then the New Testament explains hey that's because Jesus is going to be saving people of all nations and people are going to be saved all over the world hindsight's 20 20 they didn't necessarily understand these things back then because these things were hidden by God the Bible says and now they're revealed in the New Testament they're made clear they're made open and they're made explicit but it's according to the eternal purpose verse 11 that means it was always God's plan it's in it's an eternal purpose it says which he purposed in Christ Jesus our Lord in whom we have boldness and access with confidence by the faith of him wherefore I desire that you faint not at my tribulations for you which is your glory for this cause I bow my knees unto the father of our Lord Jesus Christ of whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named and then he kind of moves on to another subject that we're gonna get to in a moment but the point that I really want to drive in here is that the error of dispensationalism is to break things down into this dispensation of innocence dispensation of conscience dispensation of human government they have all these made-up dispensations that are never mentioned in the Bible because the Bible only used the word dispensation four times yet they have seven dispensations and the four times are all talking about the same dispensation and so how does that work okay but they've made up the system and here's the problem with it is that if you're gonna say that the dispensation of the grace of God is a period of time here's the problem with that that would imply that the time before that is not the dispensation of the grace of God and that the time after that is not the dispensation of the grace of God and you'll get this false teaching that says oh well people were saved by their works in the Old Testament or they had to keep the law to be saved or they had to do animal sacrifices to be saved or what have you and that maybe sometime in the future salvation will again be by works or that it was by works back then or it's gonna be by works the future here's what's so stupid about that how could anyone works ever save them when we've all sinned and come short of the glory of God and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags how could that ever save you well filthy rag used to save you but then Jesus died on the cross now you gotta be saved through Jesus for now and then in the future a filthy rag will once again come into play it's absurd and in fact if you could be saved by works in the Old Testament why not just stay with that program why would Jesus even have to die on the cross just stay with that program of being saved by works folks because no one has ever been saved by works from Genesis to Revelation from Adam until the last person who was ever born no one has been or ever will be saved by their works because the only way to be saved is through Jesus anybody on the Old Testament had to be saved through Jesus now you say well Jesus hadn't died yet Jesus is the lamb slain from the foundation of the world God knows the end from the beginning God dwells outside of time so from God's perspective Jesus had always died and been buried and risen again that's why he can talk about it in the Old Testament like it already happened that's why you can read Isaiah 53 and it says he was wounded for our transgressions he was bruised for our iniquities the chastisement of our peace was upon him and by his stripes we are healed how could Isaiah preach that 700 years before Christ died we are healed by his stripes well Jesus hadn't died yet yes he had from God's perspective he's the lamb slain from the foundation of the world and so Isaiah can say in 700 BC and by the way BC stands for before Christ in case you didn't know all right so if before Christ and yet he says by his stripes we are healed we are healed why because people in the Old Testament are saved by looking forward to the cross we are saved by looking backward to the cross but that's the defining moment in time it's Christ's death on the cross that made salvation possible for anyone and teaching that people were saved some other way before the cross is basically teaching that there's some other way to be saved besides the cross besides Christ besides Jesus that there somehow your works or your deeds could somehow earn your way into heaven let me ask this if that worked in the Old Testament why couldn't it work now it could never work because your works are garbage in the sight of God even my best even your best compared to a holy God is just chump change compared to the price of the precious blood of Jesus Christ and so that's what this passage is just explaining that you know in the past people didn't realize how the Gentiles are gonna be fellow heirs with Christ now we see that now it's all making sense now it's all coming together how God's ultimate goal was to offer salvation to all of humanity and even the Old Testament we see heathen people getting saved and hearing the Word of God preached and you see prophets like Jeremiah preaching all over the world and so forth people have always gotten saved even from other nations even in the Old Testament but the difference in the New Testament is that there is no physical nation that's a chosen people but rather we as Christians are all God's chosen people and we're not part of a specific nationality or nation there's no hierarchy of like well these are the Jews and then these are the heathen now we're all brought together but what he's not saying in this chapter is hey salvation used to be by works now it's by grace that's not what this is teaching at all and not only that but sometimes you'll hear them say the age of grace which is again misleading because Noah is saved by grace Abraham saved by grace Isaac saved by grace Jacob say David saved by grace Romans chapter 4 talks about Abraham and David both being saved by faith without works crystal-clear Romans 4 1 through 8 but not only were these people always saved by grace in the past they all people will always be saved by grace in the future there's not going to be some other mode of salvation in the future but then you also hear them sometimes say the church age which again the problem with this term the church age is an implication that it's going to come to an end and that there's going to be some other age that's going to replace it we'll jump down to the end look at verse 21 of this chapter and and so we're using the actual chapter itself that says the dispensation of the grace of God to debunk these wrong-headed ideas from so called dispensationalism but look at verse 21 it says unto him be glory in the church talking about God unto him be glory in the church by Jesus Christ throughout all ages world without end amen so it doesn't sound like there's going to be an end to the church age because the Bible says that glory will be given to God through Jesus Christ and it says in the church throughout all ages world without end so so ages and ages from now it's still going to be Christ being glorified in the church so there's no end of the church age but again why does this dispensationalism teach this because this is what they teach they say well you know in the Old Testament God's dealing with Israel which obviously for a large part is true a lot of the Old Testament is God dealing with the nation of Israel and then they say but now he has pulled back from dealing with Israel and now he's dealing with the church you know and now it's just all about the Gentiles and Christians of all nationalities so it's like okay that makes it but this is what they teach they teach that in the end times God is gonna go back to dealing with Israel and this is false the only thing that we read about God doing with Israel in the end times is destroying them pouring out his wrath on them punishing them avenging them okay that's what the Bible actually teaches if you read in the book of Revelation that's what you're gonna find you're gonna find God actually just judging and punishing and that's what so you say is God through with Israel he's not through kicking their buts but is he through with them being his chosen people absolutely done finished over permanently because there aren't seven dispensations there are two Testaments Old Testament and New Testament and guess what we're not going back to the Old Testament it's New Testament is eternal never ends so the phase that we're in right now which is called the New Covenant the New Testament never ends it never gets replaced we don't need the Book of Mormon to come along give us another Testament of Jesus Christ there's two Old Covenant New Covenant and the New Covenant never gets replaced the Old Covenant is replaced by the New Covenant but the New Covenant never gets replaced that's what the Bible actually teaches okay and so when you read verses like for example when Jesus says that the twelve apostles are gonna sit on twelve thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel you got to remember this one little prepositional phrase in the regeneration in the regeneration the twelve apostles will sit on twelve thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel what's the regeneration the resurrection so what's gonna happen is that one day in the future second coming of Christ there is going to be a resurrection all of the saved from all ages will rise again bodily from the dead a bodily resurrection and when that happens then the twelve apostles are gonna sit on twelve thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel okay now how does that work well think about it this is referred to as the millennial reign of Christ right where Christ is ruling and reigning on this earth well when Christ is ruling and reigning on this earth the twelve apostles they're gonna get resurrected too okay and you know obviously we're not talking about Judas Iscariot obviously Judas is replaced by either Matthias or the Apostle Paul or whatever but depending on what you believe about that but the point is those guys are getting resurrected because all believers are getting resurrected at the second coming of Christ right the dead in Christ shall rise first and that's talking about obviously the future coming of the Lord Jesus Christ in the clouds his second coming he's gonna rule and reign on this earth and so there's gonna be a resurrection of the twelve apostles along with all the other saved Christians again Judas being swapped out Judas is in hell forever but he says judging the twelve tribes of Israel now here's the thing if every saved person who's ever lived is gonna be resurrected wouldn't that include all the saved Israelites from you know 1,500 years of that Old Testament period from you know the time that Moses is at Mount Sinai sometime in the sixteenth century BC all the way up until the New Covenant in the first century AD right over the course of that fifteen sixteen hundred year period right you have a lot of Israelites there and even from the 400 years in Egypt let's bring that in and say hey saved Israelites from the twelve tribes during that period in Egypt so you know you got like two thousand years approximately of twelve tribes of Israel people to be saved to be that crowd so when the Bible says that the twelve fathers are gonna sit on twelve thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel we're not talking about a bunch of people today that are just called Israelis or Jews because let me ask you something are Jews or Israelis are they twelve tribes absolutely not there is no such thing in 2023 it does not exist in this world the tribe of Reuben doesn't exist GAD doesn't exist Asher doesn't exist there is no one on this planet right now that is of the tribe of Issachar of the tribe of Zebulun those tribes have ceased to exist many many centuries ago long time ago now at the time that the New Testament was first written in the first century AD there were remnants of people from those tribes that still kind of maintained their identity as being of Asher or Simeon or Gad or Reuben or whatever but guess what it's two thousand years later and those tribes have long long ceased existing which is why in Israel today nobody talks about their tribe we went we went and interviewed a whole bunch of rabbis and experts about this they said no one no one can show what tribe they're from he said the only people who make a claim to be from a certain tribe are pretty much some people will say oh I'm a Levite or I'm a priest or something and it's dubious because they have no genealogy to prove that but that's the claim that's made nobody's walking around saying that they're of the tribe of Gad and Asher unless they're just some one of these like black Hebrew Israelites that say that like Puerto Ricans are the tribe of whatever they can anybody help me out what the Puerto Ricans are supposed to be you know you don't have their bizarre doctrine memorized but they'll be like oh Puerto Rico you know and I'm just making this up because I'm not gonna get it right but they'll be like Puerto Rico is the Bulan and you know Africa and they have all these weird it's just made up craziness but the so-called Jews today or Israelis today they're not 12 tribes they're just they're the tribe of white people is but you know is what 90% of them belong to okay the tribe of whitey is 90% and then 10% of them are Sephardic or something else but 90% of the Israelis or Jews or whatever that you run into are Ashkenazis which the Ashkenazi look up in your Bible who Ashkenaz is he's a white dude it's Europe they're Europeans that's why they have red hair and freckles half the time they have blonde hair and blue eyes and they're you know they're they're claiming to be you know from Palestine or something it doesn't make any sense so anyway I don't want to get off too far on that but the point being that when you read these future prophecies about Israel it's always 12 tribes like if you're reading a revelation and it talks about the 144,000 notice it's 12 tribes 12,000 for master 12,000 again why because those are people that are going to be resurrected in the end times because all believers are going to be resurrected at the end of the world that's what that's talking about okay and so it's not you say is God done with the physical nation of Israel yes it's so done it you know it's over that's why there's this fake Israel over there that's just a bunch of white people saying that there is real but again that's not the real Israel it's a counterfeit and just as in the end times there's going to be an Antichrist which means in the place of Christ or in instead of Christ well there's an anti Israel too there's a fake Israel but the Bible says that we're the circumcision which worship God in the spirit and rejoice in Christ Jesus and have no confidence in the flesh he's not a Jew which is one outwardly neither is that circumcision which is outward in the flesh he's a Jew which one inwardly and circumcision is that of the heart and of the spirit and not of letter we are the true spiritual Israel Christians are the spiritual people of God people who don't believe in Jesus they're nothing let me tell you something let me say that again people don't believe in Jesus have nothing are nothing all they are is a mission field you know and as soon as they get saved as soon as they believe in Jesus now they are important now they are somebody now they are ambassadors for Christ now they are kings and priests unto God and our father but until then what are they they're lost they're lost people they're doomed and obviously we want to get as many of them saved as we can whether Jew or Gentile I want to get the Jews saved we want to get the Gentiles say we want to get everybody we possibly can't save because if you don't have Jesus Christ you have nothing and you are nothing okay the pasta Paul said in me that is in my flesh dwelled no good thing you know and without Christ everyone is doomed the only way to be saved is through believing in Jesus Christ no man cometh unto the Father but by him Israelis praying to God they're not doing it in Jesus name the prayers are hitting the ceiling because no man cometh unto the Father but by Christ is it well unless he's Jewish it's like it's some backdoor loophole or something oh look at this Israeli soldier praying on the battlefield isn't it wonderful is he praying in Jesus name because when I pray I say in Jesus name amen and it's just like a guaranteed it's like a stamp on my letter that says hey this is guaranteed to reach the desk priority mail it's gonna get there Jesus name versus this thing of oh you know God of Abraham God of Isaac it's like I'm waiting if you're not gonna acknowledge the son you don't have the father that's what the Bible says you but he that acknowledges the son listen that word acknowledges he that acknowledges the son hath the Father you can't ignore Jesus you must acknowledge him in order to reach God and so that's what this chapter is is actually talking about that that basically the the Jews and the Gentiles are all one in Christ Jesus and what's funny is you preach this people say like oh you're you're anti-semitic you're you're negative toward the Jews no all I'm saying is that they're the same as everybody else with Christ they're saved without Christ they're nothing that's all right it doesn't matter what nationality you are isn't it funny how saying that everyone's equal is anti-semitism saying that the Jews aren't special as anti-semitism they're not special I'm not special you're not special Jesus is what makes anybody special and it doesn't matter what color we are we're all the same and so that's what this chapter is actually teaching is that God has now revealed and made it crystal clear somehow the dispensationalist didn't get the memo but he's made it crystal clear that actually the Gentiles are fellow heirs fellow citizens of the Commonwealth of Israel according to Ephesians chapter 2 this shouldn't be a mystery anymore you know people are still apparently confused but yet it's not supposed to be a mystery it's supposed to be crystal clear and then he says in verse 14 for this cause because of all that that we've seen in chapters 2 and 3 of Ephesians for this cause I bow my knees unto the father of our Lord Jesus Christ of whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named that he would grant you according to the riches of his glory to be strengthened with might by the spirit and the inner man that Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith that is that interesting he says I bow my knees unto the father of our Lord Jesus Christ you know again emphasizing that there's a father and the son it's not just oh we're all worshiping the same God it's a no you better be talking father son Holy Ghost that's the God of the Bible but isn't it interesting of whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named now think about the whole family is named what Christians not guardians not Abraham Isaac Jacobians it is the whole family is named Christians Jesus Christ is the name that we claim Jesus Christ the name that's above all names and so the whole family whether Jew or Gentile is knit we don't go right even though we are the spiritual Israel even though God says that spiritually we're the true Jews we don't go around calling ourselves Israelites or Jews or Israeli you know how is this family named when everybody is one in Christ Jesus we're named as Christians that's the name and it has Christ in it okay and so he says that the whole family in heaven and earth is named that he would grant you according to the riches of his glory to be strengthened with might by his spirit in the inner man that Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith that you being rooted and grounded in love may be able to comprehend with all Saints what is the breadth and length and depth and height and to know the love of Christ which passeth knowledge that ye might be filled with all the fullness of God now what is the length what is the breadth length depth and height of the love of God what is that well here's let me tell you the breadth of the love of God is not just Israel it's broader than that you see he's saying look isn't this exciting he's preaching to the Ephesians and we didn't have time to go through chapter 2 I kind of just gave you a synopsis but you know go home and read chapter 2 and chapter 3 even chapter 1 for crying out loud already starts bringing this up but these first three chapters of Ephesians it's talking about how God has extended this privilege of being the chosen people the elect being special he's extended that to the Gentiles see God's love is broader than just well I love Abraham Isaac and Jacob and I love the nation of Israel no God so loved the world God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son so when we think about the breadth and length and depth and height it's something that's universal in the sense that it reaches out to every corner of the world and all nationalities are invited to come and be saved through Jesus and so that shows us this amazing breadth and length and depth and height of God's love of the love of Christ that passes knowledge right it is Christ's love is beyond our comprehension and it says in verse 20 now to him that is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think according to the power that worketh in us unto him be glory in the church by Jesus Christ through all ages world without end amen so at the end of this passage you can just see Paul is just excited about this phenomenon that God's Word is going all over the world and people are being saved and that that you know the whole world has access to the Word of God and the gospel and they're getting saved they're hearing the truth and he bows his knee to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ and and he is praying that this will continue to abound and and and he's just talking about just how unsearchable and how wonderful God's love is and the extent of his grace and and all these things and in the end he just ends up by glorifying God and just saying wow isn't God amazing isn't this great what's interesting here when he talks about this is that one of the things that makes it so exciting for the Gentiles to be brought near and to be actually part of the group and to be part of the in crowd and to be fellow citizens and fellow heirs is that they once were not you know that's what makes it a privilege and you know I talked about this back when I was preaching on the Exodus series about the fact that you have all these chapters in the Mosaic law where God just goes on and on about how holy he is and how unapproachable he is and how they've got basically the most holy place and the holy place and they've got the courtyard and there are like these concentric circles of holiness where you know only certain people are allowed in the camp of Israel and then certain people are allowed in the courtyard of the tabernacle and then other certain people are allowed in the temple proper the holy place but then when it comes to the most holy place one man once per year the high priest goes in there only one time per year and there are all these rules about exactly how he has to approach the presence of God in that most holy place and you wonder like why go on and on about that for chapter after chapter but it's because God is showing how holy he is and how unapproachable he is to sinful man so that then when Jesus Christ comes along and opens the door wide and tears that veil in twain and just reveals the most holy place I mean when Jesus died on the cross what happened at the temple the veil to the most holy place was just ripped in half there's an earthquake and just rips in half it tears apart the curtain and obviously that was God showing we now have direct access to God through Jesus Christ you know if you think about it it's it's such a privilege for the Gentiles to be fellow heirs and for all of us of all nationalities to be first-class citizens of the kingdom of God because that was once not the case in the Old Testament that's what makes it a privilege in the New Testament it's what makes it special the fact that these things were not revealed in the Old Testament makes it so much cooler to know about them in the New Testament and to have direct access and to be first-class citizens in the kingdom of God and so that's what he's getting across here in this passage showing look isn't it amazing isn't it exciting and maybe part of the reason for sending this letter of the Ephesians is there are probably Judaizers trying to make them feel like a second-class citizen or that they were somehow secondary that you know really Christianity's for Jews you know like like silly rabbit tricks are for kids you know and it's really for the Jews like well I mean I guess if you Gentiles want to get saved I guess you know I guess we could have one Gentile in the church or whatever but it's mainly us and and it's our culture and so you know God's making it clear no you Ephesians are just as Christian you're just as saved you're just as much the chosen elect people of God as the Jews as the Israelites there's no difference you guys are in the family and we all claim the name of Christ that's what makes it special and so don't fall for this dispensational teaching that somehow claims that there were other modes of salvation in the past or that there will be in the future or you'll have some people that are like a halfway dispensation was it well it's not it's not different modes of salvation it's just you know it's just that God was was dealing with Israel now he's dealing with the church he's gonna deal with Israel that's not what the Bible teaches okay God's program doesn't move backwards it moves forward and you say well is there any hope for Israel is there any hope for the Jews I mean are they just done is it really over for them hey let me tell you something any Jew anytime they want to all they have to do is confess with our mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in their heart that God is raising from the dead and they shall be saved but if they don't do that they're done it's over for them so no God is not going to go back to dealing with that nation except just to judge them and punish them for hating and rejecting the Lord Jesus Christ but when it comes to the individual of course every Jew every Israelite has the opportunity whenever they want to to get in on the party you know oh they're being excluded yeah of course they're excluded everybody who rejects Jesus is excluded but they can come to the party whenever they want by believing in Jesus that's it and if you think that there's going to be some mass conversion of Ashkenazi white people pretending to be Jews in the Middle East if you think that they're all just gonna get saved in the end times that's a false doctrine that is not gonna happen it isn't true it isn't real they're you know who they're gonna love they're gonna love the Antichrist when the Antichrist shows up they're gonna love it they're gonna they're gonna accept and people say well when they see Jesus come in the clouds that's when they're all gonna get saved folks that's not how you get saved you get saved by faith in the Word of God faith comes by hearing hearing by the Word of God it's not like well you know Jews have been going to hell for the last 2,000 years but since you were lucky enough to be the Jews who were alive when Jesus came you're gonna see him in the clouds and automatically get saved isn't it lucky for you that you're not gonna go to hell like your dad did and your grandpa did and your great-grandpa did you get to go to heaven because you just happen to be at the right place at the right time when Jesus that's not how salvation works okay the way that salvation works is that first of all Jesus Christ died for the whole world Jesus Christ loved the whole world God the Father loved the entire world and he gave his only begotten Son that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have eternal life how does that happen why does one man get saved another doesn't here's what happens the Word of God is preached okay and that Word of God either falls on good ground or poor ground and whatever it has to do with the heart of the person who's hearing the Word of God preached and so when the Word of God is preached some people are gonna believe some people are not gonna believe and at the end of the day it's a choice that every person has between life and death choose life the Bible says and it's made available to all salvation is offered unto all and it's up for the person who's hearing the Word of God to make that choice to choose life to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and be saved it's that simple it's not that well if I see a miracle then I'll believe if I see a sign I'll believe but otherwise you know I'm just gonna refuse to believe you know I have to see evidence here's the there are all kinds of people in the Bible who saw all kinds of evidence and still didn't get saved there are people who watch Lazarus rise from the dead and didn't get saved you know because if they are not persuaded this is what Jesus said actually it was Jesus saying that Abraham said if they are not persuaded by Moses and the prophets what's Moses and the prophets the Bible the Word of God he said if they won't be persuaded by Moses and the prophets neither will they be persuaded though one rose from the dead you could you know you could show Jesus coming in the clouds is not gonna make people automatically believe on him okay people will just find some way to not believe in that or just to reject that and so that's a fantasy this this idea of and then every once in a while you'll hear these reports about how like millions of people millions of Jews are getting saved and millions it's like it's always a hoax go there and talk to those people and see how receptive they are in fact don't even go there just go to southern Tempe just go to neighborhoods in in in Phoenix that are rife with Jews and hey we do it all the time I knocked the door of a Jewish person within the last couple weeks and guess how far I got with the gospel I didn't even get to Romans 3 23 because there's some of the most unreceptive people on the planet and they're not gonna magically become receptive in the end times and you know what I'm not a Calvinist I don't believe in this garbage that says well God just picks who gets saved and it's all up to him what no no it's up to God would have all men to be saved it's up to the listener it's up to that person to choose life and to receive the Lord Jesus Christ as their Savior and so God's not just gonna magically snap his fingers and all Israel gets saved in the end times that is a false dog it's a twisting of Scripture if if Jews want to get saved they better do it today if Israelites want to get saved they better do it today because eventually it's gonna be eternally too late for them to get saved and when they have that mark of the beast in their right hand or in their forehead I don't care what they see coming in the clouds they're reprobate they're doomed and it'll be too late for them at that point and so they need to seek the Lord while he may be found and so isn't it exciting and a blessing for us as God's people to know that we are saved that we're going to heaven that God loves us the hairs of our head are numbered he has all kinds of thoughts toward us he's able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think his love for us is beyond comprehension think about the person that you've loved more than anyone else that you've ever loved in your whole life God loves you more than you've loved that person God's love surpasses anything that we could ever imagine God loves us he has brought us into the inner circle we're in the in crowd we are the chosen people of God and it's our job just as Paul was given that dispensation of the grace of God we've been given that same dispensation of the grace of God toward unsaved people now it's time for us to go out there into this world instead of whining about how oh it isn't fair to poor little Jews or something you know hey it's our job to go out there and offer this grace to everybody Jew and Gentile included everybody let's let's go out there and be a grace dispenser a gospel dispenser a salvation dispenser that's our job as Christians just as it was Paul's job let's borrow words of prayer father we thank you so much for this great chapter Lord and I pray that the study of this chapter and and hearing it preached Lord would help to cut through some of the the wrong teachings that are out there Lord that somehow would teach that unsaved people are the chosen people that that people who reject Jesus are somehow elect or chosen Lord help us to understand this chapter and realize that we are the elect we are the circumcision we are your people and Lord help us to invite as many people as we can to also join in on this grace and join in on this blessing that we have as your children and in Jesus name we pray