Christ is the Mystery of God Revealed Part 6 “A Predestined Bride”
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1 Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God, to the saints which are at Ephesus, and to the faithful in Christ Jesus:
2 Grace be to you, and peace, from God our Father, and from the Lord Jesus Christ.
3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ:
4 According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love:
5 Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will,
Introduction
Introduction
One of the Mysteries that the Seventh Angel cleared up was Predestination.
Illustrate: Two groups of theologians.
Calvinists and Arminians were both mixed up.
Illustrate: Calvinist father with money, bible and whiskey
Einstein did not believe in a personal God because he could not reconcile free will and predestination.
People struggle with this because they cannot comprehend the sovereignty of God.
18 Therefore hath he mercy on whom he will have mercy, and whom he will he hardeneth.
19 Thou wilt say then unto me, Why doth he yet find fault? For who hath resisted his will?
20 Nay but, O man, who art thou that repliest against God? Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it, Why hast thou made me thus?
21 Hath not the potter power over the clay, of the same lump to make one vessel unto honour, and another unto dishonour?
We like to maintain the illusion of power in our lives.
Illustrate: Airplane - back seat drivers.
Since this portion of the Word is hard for the human mind to grasp, it must be accepted and believed by faith. An Exposition Of The Seven Church Ages (7 - The Sardisean Church Age)
We are not our own.
7 For none of us liveth to himself, and no man dieth to himself.
8 For whether we live, we live unto the Lord; and whether we die, we die unto the Lord: whether we live therefore, or die, we are the Lord’s.
9 For to this end Christ both died, and rose, and revived, that he might be Lord both of the dead and living.
He bought us with a price. We belong to Him.
He had a right to choose His family. If He is God, He had to choose.
Salvation is open to everyone, but we were chosen to believe and be saved.
13 But we are bound to give thanks alway to God for you, brethren beloved of the Lord, because God hath from the beginning chosen you to salvation through sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth:
I would be a discouraged man, this morning, if I didn’t believe in the election and calling of God.
If I thought that this world was left to the outcome of it, by the power of man, and by the wisdom of man, and by “the big four’s,” and the U.N.’s, and who never even mention God’s Name, I’d be a discouraged person. But I’m not looking to that for the outcome.
I look down in the pages of this old Book here, where God wrote It out, and everything will come just exactly the way He said it, and that’s all.
So, the only thing for me to do is not line up with them, but line up with Calvary. Line up with God, line up with His Word, stay in His Word.
No matter how much it looks like it’s going to be that way; it’s going to be the way God intends it to be. It can’t be nothing else. For, Him being infinite, knowed the end from the beginning, and He makes everything come to His praises. 56-1125M - "A Secondhanded Robe"
(Resume “Christ is the Mystery”)
184 “Predestinated!” There’s the mystery. He, before Christ or anything else was ever on earth, you see His great mystery, that He chose the Bride.
Knowing Eve would fall, from disbelieving the Word, knowing that she would fall; but He would choose a Bride that would not fall, that would hold to that Word regardless of what all the rest of the world had to say about It.
24 Now unto him that is able to keep you from falling, and to present you faultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy,
He provided the Message of the Hour, the Opening of the Word so we would not fall.
They would hold to that Word! They are predestinated to stand there, “the adoption of children by Jesus Christ,” predestinated the Church to that great, glorious stand!
(Stand on the Word)
If your idea of the Message is that we are failing as the Bride, you are wrong. If you believe that revival is over and we’re just going in by the skin of our teeth, you do not believe what a prophet taught.
7 Let us be glad and rejoice, and give honour to him: for the marriage of the Lamb is come, and his wife hath made herself ready.
185 Now you see His secret? What to? To restore fallen Eve, as she was a prefigure of the Church.
And now notice, as God opened up the side of Adam and took out Eve, by his own flesh and blood; and divided his spirit from masculine and feminish, to feminish, and put it in Eve.
Took the rib from under his side, and made Eve out of it; so God did the same thing, taking out of the side of Christ, the Blood and the water.
And Christ is the Word, and taking the Word and making up His Church, Eve; see, back to Himself again, redeemed by the Blood that was come from His Body. You see it now? [Congregation says, “Amen.”—Ed.]
30 When Jesus therefore had received the vinegar, he said, It is finished: and he bowed his head, and gave up the ghost.
31 The Jews therefore, because it was the preparation, that the bodies should not remain upon the cross on the sabbath day, (for that sabbath day was an high day,) besought Pilate that their legs might be broken, and that they might be taken away.
32 Then came the soldiers, and brake the legs of the first, and of the other which was crucified with him.
33 But when they came to Jesus, and saw that he was dead already, they brake not his legs:
34 But one of the soldiers with a spear pierced his side, and forthwith came there out blood and water.
171 When they killed Jesus at the cross, the substance come from His body, to make up the new…to make up the Birth. They struck His side, Blood and water came out, and, “Into Thy hands I commend My Spirit.” What came from His body was water, Blood, Spirit. 63-0320 - "The Third Seal"
Eve was born from Adam’s pierced side.
And when Jesus died at Calvary…Remember, the Bride was not taken from the body until the body was dead. He had already died, and they was going to break His legs. And the prophet said, “There’ll not be one bone broken.”
So they done drawed back the hammer to break a leg, and a man went up with a spear and pushed it through His heart; and water and Blood came forth; He was already dead.
She was already redeemed in the body by His death, so there’s no more suffering Tribulation Period for the Bride. See? She goes in. 64-0823M - "Questions And Answers #1"
(Resume “Christ is the Mystery”)
186 God’s great mystery now being unfolded, that’s been hid since the foundation of the world, but prefigured it all the way down through.
Now, down through the ages, He has been slowly unfolding this mystery. Can you see now?
What happened in the prefigure now? He opened Adam’s side and took part of his flesh, which was Adam, to make Eve. The Bride has to be the Word, for He is the Word.
She cannot stand on creeds. She cannot stand on denomination. She cannot stand on good behavior. She has to stand alone on the Word, because She is part of It. She was taken from Christ.
(That’s where legalists get so confused, they’re looking at behavior, not the promise.)
188 And to be sure, that, the whole Rapture now: Luther was a part, Wesley was a part, the prophets was a part.
Just in the revelation that they was making up, the body, feet, toes, arms, and so forth, until the Head (which we get to that in a few minutes), see, that makes the entire Rapture. It’s the Body of the Word, which is Christ. Amen!
189 Outside of That, you’re lost. I don’t care how good you are, or what your relationship is, or what your fellowship is, or what your organization is, you’re lost, outside of that Word being in you.
190 “If ye abide in Me, the Word, My Word abide in you, then you ask what you will,” because you and the Word are the same. He has the preeminences. He’s got the rulership.
You’re a prisoner to Him. The world is dead. You have nothing more…You see the rest of the people living the way they do, but yet you do not do it. You’re a prisoner. You’re yoked with Him.
“My yoke is easy.” Yoked with Christ, with His Word. “I do that only which the…pleases the Father. And if you can’t believe that I am He, then believe the Word.” So perfect! 63-0728 - "Christ Is The Mystery Of God Revealed"
That Word can only live by the True Baptism of the Holy Ghost, the Token.
3 Wherefore I give you to understand, that no man speaking by the Spirit of God calleth Jesus accursed: and that no man can say that Jesus is the Lord, but by the Holy Ghost.
The Token for the believer today is the Holy Ghost; not a blood, a chemistry, but It is the Holy Spirit of God. That is the Token that God requires of the Church today. God must see this Token. He must see It in every one of us. 63-0901M - "Token"
We have been predestined to this. To be sealed by the Token, to have it on display.
In Moses time there was a predestined group that came under the Token. He predestined Moses with a Message to deliver the people, and He predestined a people to be delivered by that Message.
Under the Token they were seated in Heavenly places. Nothing could harm them, not even death itself.
3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ:
The Word was made flesh. Therefore, you walked with Him, when you were in Him, when He was on earth. You suffered with Him, and you died with Him. You was buried with Him.
And now you are risen with Him, and manifested attributes of God, setting in Heavenly places; already raised, resurrected to new Life, and setting in Heavenly places in Christ Jesus. 65-1205 - "Things That Are To Be"
How could you fall? You were in Him then.
He has blessed us in Christ.
You are blessed.
28 And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.
29 For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren.
30 Moreover whom he did predestinate, them he also called: and whom he called, them he also justified: and whom he justified, them he also glorified.
31 What shall we then say to these things? If God be for us, who can be against us?
32 He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things?
33 Who shall lay any thing to the charge of God’s elect? It is God that justifieth.
34 Who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died, yea rather, that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us.
35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?
36 As it is written, For thy sake we are killed all the day long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter.
37 Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us.
38 For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come,
39 Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Conclusion
Conclusion
I was in Him that day on Calvary. I am that Predestined Bride. I cannot be judged, my sins were judged in His body. The Token in Me is proof of that.
Sing “He knew Me Yet He Loved Me”