As a child and teenager, I can remember the images on the nightly news of American young men fighting in Vietnam, coming back in body bags. Later, during the presidency of George Bush, I remember the images of the fighting in Iraq, the burning oil fields, the tanks in the desert. And then, just three years ago, the images of the botched withdrawal of our forces from Afghanistan that seemed to be a fitting conclusion to that debacle. More recently, things on the international scene seem even worse, worse than they have been since the Vietnam War. The war between Russia and Ukraine drags on and on. It doesn't seem that either can win, and it seems to be drawing more and more. of Eastern Europe into the fray. And of course, we're sending billions of dollars of aid to Ukraine, including weapons. And then the Middle East has burst anew into flames. Israel's war against Hamas in Gaza surpasses any violence that the world has seen in that region for decades. And Iran is now ramping up arms to Hezbollah, and Israel may soon be fighting on two fronts. On the other side of the world, China continues to circle Taiwan and rattle its sabers. And we have to wonder when American soldiers are going to be dying again on foreign battlefields. Some perhaps wonder if one of these flashpoints will be the start of World War And it is precisely at such times that Christians have resources that no one else has. In Christ, God has given us what we need to remain calm and focused. And we read of this wonderful gift that God has given the believer here in Ephesians 1 in verses 8 through 10. I'm going to be reading those verses here in a moment, and you'll recall that these verses are part of a very long sentence that begins with verse 3 and ends in verse 14. These verses comprise the Apostle Paul's hymn of praise for what God has given us in Christ. Those are the key words, in Christ, in Him, in the Beloved. So I'm going to start my reading in verse 7 so that I get the entire thought. Ephesians 1, beginning in verse 7. In Him, in Christ, we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace which He made to abound toward us in all wisdom and prudence, having made known to us the mystery of His will according to His good pleasure. which He purposed in Himself, that in the dispensation of the fullness of times He might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven and which are on earth, in Him." Verse 8 tells us that the riches of God's grace abound toward us in wisdom and prudence. Those two words introduce us to a fifth gift that God gives us in Christ. He gives us the gift of revelation. And He gives that revelation here in the form of wisdom and prudence. Now most of us are familiar with the concept of wisdom from the book of Proverbs. Wisdom is not the same as knowledge. Rather, wisdom is the ability to apply knowledge in a practical way. I think the easiest definition for wisdom is simply to call it skill for living. Wisdom is often found hand in hand with prudence. in the literature of the New Testament era. Prudence is the mindset that accompanies wisdom, that appreciates wisdom, values wisdom, and therefore seeks wisdom and applies wisdom. Now we live in a day when many simply throw wisdom on the trash heap of history in favor of the latest viral tweet or hashtag or video. What our culture values, what our youth in particular value, is whatever the latest is. And wisdom just sounds too old-fashioned, right? And prudence? I mean, we all know who prudence is. Prudence is a name for some old woman who lived during the Victorian era, right? Nobody wants to talk about wisdom and prudence today. But prudence is exactly what this day calls for. Prudence looks at wisdom and says, yes, that is what we need. Prudence looks at wisdom and seeks wisdom and then applies wisdom. God give us wisdom and prudence in 2024. Now, the Book of Proverbs has much to say about how we come to have wisdom and prudence. Wisdom is based on a willingness to look at the world from God's perspective. Let me repeat that. Wisdom is based on a willingness to look at the world from God's perspective. And I repeat that because you won't get the rest of what I have to say this morning if you don't get this. We cannot gain wisdom without a willingness to structure our lives based on how God looks at the world. And that observation brings us right back here to Ephesians 1 verses 8 through 10. Because what does our text promise? Verse 9 tells us that God has revealed to us His will, His good pleasure, His purpose for human history. We have a revelation that others do not have. We can see the big picture. We can see how God looks at the world. I can remember as a child having a toy. It was a clock made of large, colorful plastic pieces. And all the gears and the moving parts, they were all different colors so that you could see how they interlocked. But the housing of the clock was clear. And so when you played with the hands of the clock, you could see how all the gears interacted. That is the view of the world that God has given to his children. God has taken the top off the world, as it were, and allowed us as his people to look inside and see how things work. So we can look at the kind of current events that I talked about a few moments ago, and we know why the world is the way that it is, and we know where it all is going to lead, and we have a basis for evaluating those kinds of events. This revelation that God has given us in Christ enables us to see things as they really are, enables us to see the big picture. We have wisdom that the world does not have because God has revealed it to us in Christ. Now, the remainder of our text in verses 9 and 10 Details for us the how, when, what, and who of this revelation that God has given us. In our second service, we have been discussing inductive Bible study, and particularly how to observe, how to do the observation of Scripture. And we've talked a great deal about asking who, what, when, where, why, and how. And answering those questions is a good way to look at this text. So first of all, Paul outlines how. How did God reveal this to us? God revealed His purpose and His plan according to the mystery of His will. That's what verse 9 says. God has made known to us the mystery of His will. The mystery of His plan. Now, throughout my adult life, I have drawn a great deal of pleasure from reading mystery novels. Some of you like to read fantasies. Some of you probably like to read biographies. I like to read mysteries. I have read all of the Sherlock Holmes stories so many times that I can't read them anymore. I basically have them memorized. Another series of books that I have read more than once are about a big, fat detective named Nero Wolfe. Nero Wolfe lived in the 1930s and 40s and never went outside a brownstone in New York City if he could help it. Now, Nero Wolfe was not really a nice person. But from the very first novel in that series, and that author, Rex Stout, he wrote for decades. From the very first novel, the one thing you knew was that Nero Wolfe was a genius. Nero Wolfe could put details and clues and facts together that nobody else could. in order to solve a crime that often baffled the police and baffled even his own employees. But I can tell you without hesitation that when Paul uses the word mystery here in this verse, when he uses the word mystery in the New Testament, he is talking about something that not even Nero, Wulf, or Sherlock Holmes could figure out. You see, the word mystery, as it's used throughout the New Testament by the Apostle Paul, does not refer to something that's difficult to figure out, like the clues in a mystery novel. Rather, it refers to something that no amount of human genius could ever figure out. Something that is altogether beyond us as human beings to discover by any means whatsoever. In fact, I think a better translation of this word would be the word secret. In Christ, God has revealed a secret to his people. I'm going to try to turn this on. This comes out a little bit clearer in this passage here in Romans 16. Now to him who is able to establish you according to my gospel and the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery kept secret since the world began, but now made manifest, but now revealed, and how is it revealed? by the prophetic scriptures made known to all nations according to the commandment of the everlasting God for obedience to the faith. God's great redemptive plan for human history He kept secret since the world began but now it has been revealed to us in Christ and it has been documented in the scriptures in the Bible And these couple of verses here in Romans make another truth about this mystery, about this secret clear, and that's that we're not supposed to keep the secret. We're supposed to share it with the whole world, with all nations, it says. Now, there's a reason why Paul uses this word mystery rather than the word secret. In the cities where the Apostle Paul was preaching, there were religions, false religions, cults, who had secret initiation rites. They had secret words and secret signs, and those who were initiated into these mystery religions swore on pain of death not to reveal their secrets to anyone outside of their ranks. Kind of sounds like the Freemasons today, if you know anything about the Masons. But what Paul is claiming here is that the ultimate mystery has not been revealed to any of these in these cults. The ultimate mystery has been revealed to us as Christians. And we as Christians, we don't guard the mystery. We don't guard that secret on pain of death. Rather, we believe that what God is doing through Christ is an open secret. God has revealed it to His people, and we share it with whoever will listen. We have a secret, but we tell it to the whole world. Have you ever been in a situation where you wanted to start a gospel conversation with somebody and you didn't know how to start? I've got the perfect way to start a gospel conversation with anybody. That's just simply to ask, would you like to know a secret? I mean, you talk about a question that immediately perks people's ears up, immediately causes them curiosity. Here's the question. Would you like to know a secret? Because God has revealed a secret to us that was kept from the foundation of the world until it was finally revealed in Jesus Christ. As we return to our text here in Ephesians 1, we see a second truth about this revelation. We see when it is revealed. According to verse 10, in the dispensation of the fullness of times. Now, whenever you come across that word dispensation, it's always kind of tough. Because some of you know enough to know about something called dispensationalism. And you're wondering, what in the world does that word dispensation mean? Others of us, let me ask you, when was the last time that you used the word dispensation in passing conversation? Is that a word you use all the time? Is that a word that you find at work? Is that a word that you find on a document that you might see at work? Is that a word that you see online any time? This is one of those $64,000 words. We don't have a clue what it means. Well, the word dispensation has to do with managing a household. It comes from two root words, the same two root words as the New Testament word steward. So the word steward is used often in the New Testament. And who was a steward? A steward was one who managed a household. And so a dispensation is a plan for managing a household. Can you say that with me? A dispensation is a plan for managing a household. Now, I won't make Joshua and Stacey give testimony this morning. But they can tell you that any time that I give a couple premarital counseling, I ask them to do a five year plan for me. And they have to say, where are we gonna be in five years? We're gonna have children, we're gonna buy a house, we're gonna pay off debts, blah, blah, blah, whatever that five year plan is. That five year plan is what this verse calls a dispensation. Many of us remember the story of Joseph from our Sunday school days when Joseph was able to tell Pharaoh the meaning of his dreams. Pharaoh appointed him steward over all of Egypt. And so he developed a plan, a dispensation for how to gather crops during the seven years of plenty so that they would have grain to eat during the seven years of drought. That plan was a dispensation not for a household, it was a dispensation for an entire country. And verse 10 tells us about a dispensation that God has developed. See, there's a sense in which God is pictured here in this verse as a steward. And God has developed a plan, not just for a household, not just for a country, God has developed a dispensation, a plan for managing all of it. the entire universe. And that plan is connected in some way with the fullness of times. You see that in verse 10? In the dispensation of the fullness of times. Now, some of you are aware that in the New Testament there are two different words for time. There is a word that means clock time kind of time. That's the word chronos. When you ask what time is it, you're using the word chronos, my how time flies. That's chronos time. And that's why we call a watch, what's another word for a watch? A chronometer. because it tells clock kind of time. But there's an entirely different word for time in the New Testament, and it's the word that's used here in verse 10 that speaks of periods of time, of seasons, of ages, of epochs. That's not E-P-I-C, that's E-P-O-C-H, epochs of time. God has a plan for the ages of time. The way that we would probably say this today is that God has a plan for managing all of human history, all of the ages of human history. And God's revelation of that secret that I talked about a minute ago, That's part of God's plan for managing the ages. And this phrase tells us that as part of that plan, God revealed this secret in the fullness of times. Now what is the fullness of time? What is the fullness of the ages of human history? Some of you have Memorize this verse perhaps that says but when the fullness of time had come God sent forth his son born of a woman born under the law When was that mystery revealed? When was the secret revealed? It was revealed in the fullness of time on the first Christmas morn We don't often talk about this when we're celebrating Christmas, but that's the truth. On Christmas Day, when Jesus was born, God finally revealed the secret of how He was going to manage history. It's all been there since the beginning of the New Testament era, since the day that Jesus Christ was born. Now, some of you are wondering, because I haven't really said it yet, and you're wishing that I would get to it, you know, okay, okay preacher, what is this big secret that you keep talking about that was revealed on the day that Jesus Christ was born? Tell us already! Okay. God's plan is to sum up all things in one head. God's plan for the ages is revealed in the next phrase there in verse 10. That he, that God might gather together in one all things. Now in the original language, most of that phrase is just one word. One very long word. And to illustrate the meaning of that word, I need to take you back to your school days. How many of you remember learning to add? How many of you never learned to add? If you can remember learning to add, if you can remember those math problems that were in your math book. I know my daughter Lauren remembers this because she can remember going over it with me and her mother. You know, and they would have three or four numbers in a column, right? And they would have three or four digits in them. And when you add that column of numbers, you add it going down, right? And you put the total at the bottom. Are you with me? You really don't remember this far back? So, Column of numbers, when you add it up, you add down and you put the total at the bottom. But that's not how Greek children did it. I think they probably had columns of numbers, but they didn't add down. Have you ever wondered why we say add it up? The Greeks didn't add down, they added up. And they put the total at the top. at the head. And so when this word talks about summing things up, gathering together in one all things, it's talking about adding it up and putting the sum at the top, at the head. And this is an illustration of God's plan for the ages. God's plan for the ages is to sum up everything in Jesus Christ. That is the culmination of human history. The day when everything will be summed up in one person, Jesus Christ. But there's one more piece to this very long word here in verse 10. It's not ever translated in any of our English versions, even though it's very important to understanding what Paul is trying to say here, because tacked onto the front of this word is a prefix that means again. Let that sink in. This one word really gives us the outline from beginning to end of God's plan for the ages. In the beginning, all things were summed up under the headship of the Son of God. A few months ago I preached through the opening chapters of Genesis and we talked about the perfection of God's creation. Every day God created and He would say it was good. And at the end of it all He said it was very good. And we talked about the fact that God the Father created through God the Son. John 1 says that He created all things through Him, through the Word. And that's why day after day it was, let there be, let there be. God created through the Word, created through the Son. But I never talked about this element of creation, and that is that In the entire created order, there was perfect unity and harmony under the headship of the Son of God. All the angels All of creation. Think about this. All of it in perfect unity and harmony under the headship of the Son of God. That's how things stood at the beginning. What a thought! But we all know that that unity and that harmony did not last. And what we see today in human history, what we see reflected in current events is that very fact. Now, that harmony was first of all destroyed by a revolt in heaven led by Satan and those angels that followed him and fell with him. There's a most significant statement in Revelation chapter 12 and verse 7, and war broke out in heaven. Wow! War in heaven! And of course, that discord was not confined to heaven. Because God would not tolerate that discord and what did he do? He cast Satan out of heaven and the angels that followed him. And now Satan deceives the whole world. He was cast to earth and his angels were cast out with him. And when Satan got here to the earth, what did he do? You know, Genesis chapter three, he tempted Eve, ultimately led Adam to sin, and discord and disunity invaded human history. In fact, that is the story of the book of Genesis. I mean, think about it. When Adam and Eve sinned, the unity, the perfect unity of that original marriage relationship went in the trash can. And Eve began to shift blame to Adam. And Adam began to shift blame to Eve. And then they had two sons, Cain and Abel. And the warfare that had been in heaven came to earth. And Cain slew his brother Abel. And then Eve had another son, Seth. And those two lines, the line of Seth and the line of Cain, have been plagued by conflict and controversy ever since, down to this very day on the spiritual level. And then you remember, Genesis chapters 10, chapter 11, God confused the languages And the people divided into people groups, and ever since then, we see it every night in the news, those people groups, what are they doing? There's warfare between them. That's what I talked about when I introduced things today. And then in Genesis 12, God calls out a people, starting with Father Abraham, a special people, a people set apart. And what's happened with those people? We have a big label for it today, anti-Semitism. What it boils down to is again that discord, that disharmony, that hatred. This is the story of the book of Genesis after Satan was cast out of heaven. But with the birth and the death and the resurrection of Jesus Christ, history has now refocused on its ultimate goal. And those of us who know the mystery, those of us who know the secret, we understand that history is now moving toward this goal. We understand that someday Jesus Christ will return and every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord of those in heaven and those under the heaven Those that are regenerate and those that are unregenerate? Elect angels and fallen angels? Somehow it will all be put right. It will all be summed up in Christ. And that brings us to the final point. Who? And of course the answer to that is in Christ, in Him. God's plan for human history shall find its resolution in Christ. As I just indicated to you, God's plan began with the Son of God as the head and it shall end with the Son of God as the head. Human history pivots on Jesus Christ. I have always found it interesting that millions and millions of people who reject Jesus Christ, who reject the proposition that the God of Scripture controls human history, who reject the place of Christ in human history, use a dating system that witnesses to what I just said. That all of human history turns on the birth, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Every time they put a date on a check, every time they put a date on a document, every book that's ever published, what do you find in the front cover of every book that's published? It's a date that witnesses to the fact that all history turns on Jesus Christ. So what's the solution to the events that I talked about in the Middle East, the intractable problems recurring on the international scene? Is it more diplomacy? Is it a stronger military role for the US? Is it the United Nations? I don't know if any of those will ever be a success, but the one thing I can tell you with the full authority of scripture is that the ultimate solution for all of these things is the return of Jesus Christ, the Prince of Peace. In the end, there's only one way that harmony and unity will be restored to the universe. When Christ returns, then all, and I mean all, will be summed up, unified under his leadership. But what will that final summing up of all things look like? I mean, remember, we're talking now about all things. We're not just talking about elect angels. We're talking about the fallen angels who are the minions of Satan. We're not just talking about regenerate human beings who will be in the new heaven and the new earth. We're talking about unregenerate human beings who have rejected Jesus Christ and want nothing to do with Him. How is Jesus going to sum up all of these things in Himself? What is that going to look like? And I've meditated on that quite a bit this week. Much of that summing up will take the form of judgment. See, this is a glorious thing. We're talking about Jesus summing up everything in Himself, and He will be the head. And we want to think about that only in the glorious terms. But I'm sorry, when you study the full Word of God and you study the final acts of human history, what do you find? What are the final acts of human history? Jesus is judge at the end. A great deal of this summing up is judgment. First of all, Jesus Christ is going to return for his church, right? He's going to catch us away. And after he catches us away, there will be judgment, the judgment of God's people at the Bema seat. But we will not be judged for our sins, praise God, because our sins have already been judged. Our sins were judged once and for all when Jesus hung on the cross as our sin bearer and our substitute. God poured out the full wrath and judgment that our sins were due when he poured it out on Jesus until it was exhausted, until there was not a drop left. So there is therefore now no condemnation to them who are in Christ Jesus. So we will not be judged for our sins if we have trusted Jesus Christ. If we have followed Jesus Christ, we will be judged for our works. And I think particularly if we have done those works with the right attitude with the right motive. We've done them out of a heart of love and gratitude for Jesus. And then at the end of the thousand-year reign of Jesus Christ on earth, Satan will lead a final rebellion and Christ will utterly and finally defeat him and his angels who follow him and any other human beings that follow him. And at that point, God, through Christ, will finally judge Satan and the fallen angels and they will be cast forever into the lake of fire. That is their final judgment. And then following that will be the great white throne judgment. And those who have rejected Jesus Christ, who have refused to accept his sacrifice for their sins, they will be judged by Jesus. They will be judged by Him whom they have rejected. And they will be cast forever into the lake of fire. And then finally, the entire creation will be destroyed in one great cleansing conflagration that you've heard me call the Big Bang. The Big Bang doesn't come at the beginning, it comes at the end. And finally, sin will be cleansed from this entire creation and there will be a new creation. There will be a new heaven and a new earth. And that's where the glorious future begins for those of us who are in Christ. Those of us who have trusted what Jesus Christ did on the cross for the forgiveness of our sins. Those of us who have turned from our sin in our own way to follow Jesus Christ. So that's the big secret. That's the big picture. That's where all things are headed. The question is, what part will you play in the summing up? So this week, I went out to Google and I Googled this question. What would you do if you could tell the future? And here's the first answer that I found on a site. First, I would pick the winning lottery numbers. This would allow me to address any of my financial needs and desires, as well as put me in a position to help others. On a different site, somebody put that question out there. And here was the first answer on that site. Refuse it, because life would be boring. If I already knew what was going to happen to me, life will no longer be fun to me. It will be like rewatching a movie. What would you do if you knew the future? You do know the future. So what are you going to do with that? Are you going to play the lottery? Are you going to gamble your life away? Are you going to stick your head in the sand and say, I refuse? Are you going to look to your own soul? Jesus Christ died in your place as the sacrifice to bear the punishment for your sin. And if you will trust Jesus Christ and you will turn and follow Jesus Christ, that is, you will repent and believe then that future that I've talked about in the new heaven and the new earth, that glorious future is yours. But if you do not, if you simply do nothing, then that summing up at the end will be a summing up of eternal torment and eternal hell. You now know the big secret. What will you do with that secret? Would you close your eyes for just a minute? What's your answer? You know the future. You know how it all ends. You know the big secret that God revealed when Jesus Christ came. What is your answer? Have you trusted Jesus Christ to bear the punishment of your sins? Have you turned from your sin to follow Him? If you have not, do that right now, I beg of you.