Preservation of the saints, amazed at the grace of God and His forgiveness, all of these things. In the first chapter of the book of Ephesians, and we're studying the book of Ephesians from the original language, from Greek, it is so astounding what is in that first chapter. It's just, man could not have written this. This comes right directly from the heavens, right? Certainly from heaven, from God. We're on verse number one and seven now. In ho ecumen tein apolithrosen dea tu haematos auto tein aphasen ton parapatomaton carato plutos teis caritas Alto. In whom, a little preposition there, in, our English word came right out of that word in, page 137 in the analytical lexicon. And then whom, that little relative pronoun, locative singular masculine. In whom, and of course that is Jesus, Echolman, first person plural present indicative active from echo. In whom we continually have. We have it. It's always there. We have it. The apolitrucine. The redemption. The redemption. The liberation. The attainment. The payment. The ransom. That's what all this means. to release on the payment of a ransom, to release from danger, to release from sin, to release from horror, torment, in whom we have the ransom money, the ransom money, because of the blood Dia to haematos. That word dia there, that's a little preposition. By the agency of the blood, haematos. We get a word hematology from that word there, the blood of him. A lot of people say, and I've heard them say in the past, that they wouldn't have anything to do with religion. It's a bloody religion. A bloody religion. It is a bloody religion, all right. In the Old Testament, I'll walk around here and show you the tabernacle here. Here's the tabernacle. This was a bloody religion. They brought in animals here and they slaughtered them. They took them, sacrificed them on that grazing altar. They took and the priests were first of all dipped and baptized in that big laver. Then they washed their hands and feet and they went in there. And they sprinkled the blood once a year, the high priesthood, high prayer on this altar. They had Lost Moses, they had Kethar, they lost Terion. Blood, blood, blood. Because they were all telling us about something. All of those slaughtered sheep, from times past, all look forward to the one sheep. John said, Behold the Lamb of God which takes away the sin of the world. Behold the Lamb of God which takes away the sin of man, of the world. But the free gift of God is the eternal life of Jesus Christ our Lord. For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. These are all statements by the same writer. Here. In whom we continually have the redemption. Because of the blood of him. Because of his blood. Isaiah the 53rd chapter. Let's see if I can find it over there. Isaiah 53. Who has believed our message? To whom is the arm of the Lord revealed? for he grew up before him like a tender shoot." They're talking about Jesus. "...like a root out of dry ground. He has no stately form or majesty that we should look upon him, no appearance that we should be attracted to him. He was despised, he was forsaken of men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief and like one from whom men hide their face. He was despised and we did not esteem him. Surely our griefs he himself bore, our sorrows he carried, for yet we ourselves esteem him stricken, smitten of God. He was pierced through for our transgressions. He was crushed for our iniquities, and chastened for our well-being fell upon him. And by his scourging we are healed. All of us like sheep have gone astray. Each one of us turned his own way. But the Lord has caused the iniquity of all of us to fall upon Him. He was oppressed. He was afflicted. He did not open His mouth. Like a lamb He's led to slaughter. Like a sheep that is silent before her shearers. He didn't open His mouth by oppression and judgment. He was taken away. Psalm 22. Psalm 22 tells the same thing. Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani? My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? Far from my deliverance are the words of my mouth, my groaning. O my God, I cry by day and by night. You do not answer. By night, but I have no rest. Verse number 16, for the dogs have surrounded me, a band of evildoers has encompassed me, and they were most of them religious. They pierced my hands and my feet. Talking about the crucifixion, blood, blood, blood. I count all my bones, they stare at me. They divide my garments among them, for my clothing they cast lots. These are some of the things that the Bible said would happen to Messiah, Hamashiach, the Lord Jesus Christ. The redemption, the Ransom money because of the blood of him Tane off a son The sending away of the para pato motto Genitive plural no that means that that means the stumbling out of bound ways that's stumbling out of the pathway Our trespasses when we walk to the side of the revealed pathways of God according to the abundancy, Plutus. That means the overflowing riches, the wealth, unrestricted wealth, uncountable wealth of the mercy of him. The mercy, the grace, the unmerited favor. We don't merit it. You know, we think about, sometimes I think about my sins in the past, and I just thank God for forgiving me. You think about it. Now, a man that thinks about his sins and doesn't ask the Lord to forgive him, the sin is still there. You know that? The man that knows his sins and has never repented and never asked the Lord to save him, so the sin is still upon him. There is no redemption price paid. You have to come to Jesus Christ and ask him to save you. In Romans, we have the Roman road to salvation. In Romans. Let's go over there in the book of Romans. Same writer. If I can find it in here. Romans the third chapter. Now we know that whatever the law says it speaks to those who are under the law and every mouth may be closed and all the world may become accountable to God. We all are. Because by the works of the law no flesh shall be justified in his sight for the law comes to the knowledge of sin we know what wrong is wrong is wrong because of the law of God for all have sinned for all have gone astray for all have gone astray that's the word hamartia there that word comes from a marrow it means to break out of the Out-of-bounds like a river overflowing his banks for all herself and and then there's another word of Stokio here now brethren out there Thayer was wrong Hamartia does not mean to go to miss the mark Stokio does For all of us have fallen short Of the glory of God now, that's an archer term right there. We have fallen short. We missed the mark But that's a Stokio not a Martia being justified as a gift by his grace through redemption, that word redemption again now, which is in Christ Jesus, whom God displayed publicly as a helosterion, a propitiation in his blood through faith. This was to demonstrate the righteousness because in the forbearance of God has passed over the sins previously committed. The sixth chapter I had to memorize all this stuff when I was going to the seminary. 623, for the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life to Jesus Christ our Lord. Romans the 10th chapter. Verse number six. But the righteousness based on faith speaks thusly. Do not say in your heart who will ascend into heaven, that is to bring Christ down, or who will descend into the abyss, that is to bring Christ up from the dead ones. But what does it say? The word is near you and in your mouth and in your heart. That is the word of faith which we are preaching. that if you confess with your mouth Jesus Christ as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you shall be saved. For with the heart man believes, ace effacing. He believes, resulting in righteousness. And with the mouth confession is made, resulting unto salvation. For the scripture says, whoever believes in him shall not be disappointed, ashamed, but ashamed. For there is no distinction between Jew or Greek, because the name of the Lord is Lord of all, abounding in riches for all who call upon him. For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. That's a done thing, people. That's done. It's done and over with. For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. We talked about Calvinism earlier, and we're still there. The superlapsarian, the infralapsarian, the sublapsarian. Basically, the Bible teaches this, that Jesus Christ died for all man, 1 John 2 and 2. Not only for the elect, but for all man. He died for them all, but the blood of Jesus Christ No one will go to hell because of sin in his life. He'll go to hell because he rejected the redemption price paid by Jesus Christ because of that sin. The efficaciousness, the effectiveness of that atonement is not good and valid, but only to those that call and repent and beg for forgiveness. and whom we have the redemption. We have the payment for ransom of Him because the sending away of our trespasses and stumbling and sins according to the abundance of the mercies of Him. We ought to be amazed at the grace of God. Amazed at it. 1 and verse 8 now. Haste at Paris says so said ace him off and posse Sophia hi phone a say of which he made this is a beautiful work their person singer first there's a big give active come from free so you overflowing riches to overflow and above his lavished Lavish riches. You know, I have to put things up on Facebook and Twitter, and now it's X. Since Elon Musk bought it, boy, what a change that was. I've been on these what we might call through the world, you can make yourself known on Facebook and X and all of these different forms of communication that people communicate with each other. I have been castigated many times on there. But since Elon Musk took over Twitter and X now. The world changed almost. We have freedom of speech again. Isn't that something? You never miss it until you don't have it anymore. Boy, do you miss it when you don't have it anymore. The wisdom. He has made to abound and lavished upon us. Elon Musk on He'll put a thing, what would you do if I gave you a million dollars or two million dollars or $20,000 or something? I wish he'd do that. That sure could help me a lot. That would be really wonderful. What would you do if I gave you a million dollars? Lavish the million dollars upon you. Boy, that would be something, wouldn't it? Somebody give you a million dollars, just give you a million dollars. Tax free, whatever. He's one of the richest men in the world, a multi, multi, multi-billionaire. And to him, to give a million dollars away would be just like public service or just being beneficial, being a philanthropist. But no way could you get that on your own, just given to you. Now I'm going to tell you something about the grace of God. The grace of God is worth more than many millions of dollars. If a billionaire, a multi-billionaire, if the richest man in the world tried to buy his way into heaven it wouldn't be enough. You know that? It wouldn't be enough. You couldn't buy your way into heaven. If the grace of God was for sale You could go up to the church meter and say, I want to buy a ticket to heaven. How much is it going to cost me? And the guy says, $40 million. Now, the Catholic Church has been doing that for a long time, and their indulgences and your purgatory and all that. It's really been doing that. But it doesn't work. It's not valid, OK? But if you could come up there and you had $400 million or $400 billion in your account, it wouldn't be enough. But you know, God owns all the grace of God. He owns it all. And he said he loves all mankind. And he doesn't want any to perish, but all come to the knowledge of God. That's what he wants. But if you refuse the grace of God, you will go to hell. And hell is real. You will never have forgiveness of sins. You will wear those sins forevermore. Forevermore, forevermore. You know, I think a lot of people out there have suffered. I've suffered a lot with illnesses and damages from different things that happened to me in my life. And you suffer from it. People suffer with cancer. They suffer with diabetes. They suffer with losing limbs from diabetes. You suffer from neuropathy in your fingers and your feet and hands. When I was poisoned with propane, I started having that problem. And it's still there. But all these pains and things to a lost man, you get to carry that forever. You're never going to quit hurting, except you don't have any painkillers in hell. People dope themselves up on all kinds of painkillers today. But you're not going to have any painkiller in hell. You're going to be there with that forever and ever and ever and ever. I've heard people talk about the rotting flesh of mankind, that when you're resurrected in a corruptible body, that you feel that rotting flesh for eternity and eternity and eternity, and it never goes away. And no painkillers there. But the wisdom of God, the Sophia. There's a lot of word for wisdom in mine. The Sophia is the highest form, I think. The godly wisdom, and all godly wisdom, and all intelligence from nation. There's two words right there. Brain and Sophia. Sophia means the ability to use everything to the end result. bring glory to God. And the word phronation there just means a practical insight, it means horse sense. Horse sense. Horse sense, something that just is natural. Horse sense, like the fear of falling, the fear of getting killed. That's a natural thing that God gives to you. Try to avoid it, you know. You do everything in your ability to try to keep from getting cut in two sometimes. I was working in the oil fields. Boy, that was a dangerous job. It's like being on the front lines in a war, sometimes without much protection. Back in the way it used to be, there was no OSHA back then. I was working on an oil field in a rig. I think it was rig five. We were running casing. We had 12 or 15 inch casing. We were pulling these big, like 40, 50, 60 foot long casing. They were real long. Go all the way up to the derrick with one length of it. And they have thread protectors on the bottom so threads don't get tore up when they're pulling them up. And my driller was not paying attention to what he's doing. My mother was out there in the car, but she wasn't looking at me. Because my stepdad was the drilling superintendent. They were in a hurry, as always. Always in a hurry. Hurry up before the hole caves in, you know. These old oil field charms. They pulled this length of, about 50 foot length of pipe, or whatever it was. It was pretty long. 60 feet, maybe. Because it went all the way up into there. They had elevators on it. They clamped onto it and they pulled it up with the blocks. And it caught on the end of the catwalk. And it got way up in the air. And it was still holding out there. That thing came loose. I was standing on that rig. I jumped back as hard as I could jump against that rail. And that thing ripped my shirt off. This is a gigantic collar. 15-inch collar, thousands and thousands of pounds. It would have cut me in half and it cut me right across my stomach and ripped my shirt half off of me. My arms were behind me. I could have torn my arm off, whatever, and it hit a solid piece of iron right there, the derrick. That was scary, but I jumped from it. It's your natural ability to try to save your life. I've worked many times at Derrick in the oil fields and I had to work over, you know. These are old, hard times. Hot and cold. Horribly hot and horribly cold. And you come up there and you see the other hands coming in, the other crew coming in, and you're looking out there and see if there's that many men so you can go home. You don't have to work another shift. I've worked 36 hours in a row sometimes. Anyway, this one guy was out there, and I really liked him. He was a good driller. And I had worked 16 hours already. And I was climbing that derrick every few minutes, all the way up, climbing, climbing, climbing. He said, Jim, he said, ride the blocks up, and then jump off. He said, ride the blocks up and jump off. And I was getting really, really tired, so I decided to do that. I got up there in the derrick and jumped on the blocks and going up. And then the hole was tight and he started sputting the thing. And he slammed me against the derrick up there just almost up to the monkey board, which is 60 feet, and knocked me off of the blocks. And I fell. And I grabbed the derrick as I was falling and I broke a rib. He didn't even know it. He was just watching the weight indicator. as he was spudding this thing up and down, he didn't know I was riding the blocks. I came down, and my side was hurting, couldn't hardly breathe because I broke a rib. And I said, I was riding the blocks. He said, what? I said, I was riding the blocks. He said, man. He said, this water, I didn't kill you. I said, well, you almost did. He said, I didn't know you were riding the blocks. I said, well, I was tired, and I ride blocks. I said, I'm not riding the blocks anymore, no matter what. I'm going to walk up there. That's safer. They didn't have angel lifts or anything like that. The sheer horse sense to stay alive. Of which he made to abound and lavished upon us in all wisdom, in all godly wisdom, and even horse sense. The faculty of perceiving. The midriff. Number verse number nine now. This is another beautiful verse. Now, risos, hymen, to, misterio, tu, thelematos, auto, cara, tein, eudokion, auto, hein, proseto, en, auto. Having made known, having made known, that's nomine singular masculine, first aorist participle like that. First aorist is punctiliar action. I mean, really, point time action. punctiliar, knife blade, pinpoint action. To us, the Mysterium, the secret. And it's a secret to the uninitiated. You know, people out there, when you talk about being saved, they're the uninitiated sometimes. They can't understand salvation like that. They just don't understand how God is gonna take you to heaven because of what He did. The Mystery, of the spiritual activating force of God. You know, you've got Mormons, you've got your Jehovah Witnesses, you've got your Buddhists, you've got a lot of these cults out there and isms. The problem with these people is they don't understand God. They don't understand how God loves you. He paid the cost for your salvation. You don't have to sit there and starve yourself to death. You don't have to go out and serve God like a Jehovah's Witness and go door to door constantly, constantly working your way into the kingdom, as they say now. God placed you in the kingdom because of the blood of his own son. They don't understand the mystery of the spiritual activating force of God, what makes God tick. This is God right here. This is what makes God tick. God is love, he says. God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son to die on the cross of Calvary that we might have redemption through his blood, as it says here. Mata. Colossians 2, 1-3, Colossians 1, 26-8, Colossians all over is like a repeat of this. It all portrays the grace of God that Jesus Christ is the God of the ages. El Ollam. El Ollam. The mystery of the spiritual activating force of him. What makes him tick? According to the Good Pleasure Coda, preposition 213, Taine accused this singular definite article Eudokia, what he judged to be good, his merciful intentions. You don't have to work your way to heaven. God already did it. The good pleasure belonging to him, which, a little accusative singular relative pronoun, which he purposed, protheto, third person singular, second person indicative, middle voice, which he purposed and masterminded in himself. He laid out his blueprint of the ages. It means the place before and to set, to set forth, to be looked at, to be exposed to view, to set before oneself the intentions. What were the intentions of God when He created man? What were the intentions of God when He created man? Genesis 1.26. God said that He created man in His image, His shadow-casting image, and His blood-flowing likeness, and in His sovereign will. His sovereignty. We are sovereign over us. That's a very dangerous thing. That He purposed for Himself in Himself. That He planned. He laid out the blueprints. God's eternal purpose and unpreventable progress. You look back here. Eternity passed when God created the heavens and the earth and that He wrote our names in the Lamb's Book of Life. In the Age of Sin is when He put man upon the earth, Genesis 1-26. The third chapter, when man sinned, and a curse and death was placed upon him, he placed it upon himself, actually. The age of conscience, when they were supposed to do good and offer blood sacrifice, and they dwelt in wickedness. And then God set the great flood. Then God set up human government in that field. Then man was so wicked upon face of the earth that he divided the earth and confused the languages. God is progressively revealing Himself to man. God is progressively revealing Himself to man. When we get down here, we can see what makes God tick. And that's what this verse is here for. The God of eternity, El Alam, the God of the ages, looking at what makes Himself tick and what makes Him want to do what He does. which he purposed in himself, for himself. Verse number 10 now, that's it for this one. Eis oikonomion tu pleromatos ton chiron anakephalesoste ta ponta ento Christo ta epi tois, ranois, kai, ta, epi, teis, geis. In reference to, or for the purpose of, extension or limitation of thought or verbal action, that word eis there, the equivalent in Hebrew is eth. For the house law, the stewardship, the dispensation of the fullness, of times, of seasons, for the dispensation of the fullness of seasons. Of the times, of seasons, to head up, look at that word, to head up, 1st Cyrus infinity, middle voice, to head up for himself, to consummate, All the things in Christ Jesus. He's going to consummate everything in Him. The whole purpose of God is to send forth His Son in Genesis 3.15. He promised that the seed of the woman would redeem mankind. Way back yonder. And all things in Christ Jesus, the things upon the heavens, in heavens, and the things upon the earth, in Him, as a unit. For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him shall not perish, but have everlasting life." God's Son died to redeem the whole world back to himself. Cosmos. The whole world owes Lord Cosmos. And that he would redeem mankind. Not all mankind, because some won't come. If you don't come to God, it's your own fault you go to hell. That simple as that. God is not going to represent you and create you for hell. As your super lapsarian brethren say, you were not created for hell, you were created for hell fellowship with God. But there's only one way you can have fellowship with God, and that's His way. Not the Jehovah Weapons today, not the Mormon way. The Mormon way is, you know, they're going to do real good, they're going to get married, they're going to have a real good family, And if they follow all the rules of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, then they get to go start their own world, because they're a little god. Just like Adam, God, started this world. That's not the God of the Bible. The God of the Bible said, we're going to be married and given in marriage in heaven. We have no universe God created at all. We don't create our own universes. What makes God tick? the stewardship, the dispensation of the fullness of times. Galatians 4 and 4, Paul wrote there, when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law, that he might redeem those that were under the curse of the law. God gives us shalom. He gives us a reign. He gives us peace. The atonement is in Christ. And nothing under the heavens and nothing upon the heavens, above the heavens, will be redeemed except one way, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Our Father, we send this wonderful message out from your Word, that you might use it to lift up hearts, to save souls, that they might know you better. Father, please forgive me where I fail you. In Jesus' name I pray, amen.