The Mysteries Paul Revealed — Secrets Hidden Since the World Began

Hello and welcome to Through the Bible with Les Feldick. An Oklahoma rancher and farmer, Les Feldick has been teaching homestyle Bible classes for 20 years in Iowa, Oklahoma, and Texas. Les Feldick's unique style of Bible teaching has made the books of the Bible come to life. When Les is teaching, it's so interesting that people say time just seems to fly by. And now, here is Les Feldick. Okay, good to have everybody still with us. We're in program number four for today, and now I'm going to have you turn with me again to 1 Corinthians chapter four. And we're going to be looking at the mysteries. I've put them on the board now, according to my concordance, these were all the times that the word is used in Paul's epistles, Romans through Hebrews. And we're going to chase them down in this half hour and see just how often Paul makes reference to the mysteries. Now it's a unique term. We have the word used in Matthew 13 when Jesus spoke of the mysteries of the kingdom, but that was a totally different setting. But throughout Paul's epistles, he is constantly coming back to this term, the mystery. Now then for those of you joining us on television, we're just an informal Bible study, we have no axe to grind, I don't think I can ever be accused of attacking anyone, that's not my premise. We're just going to teach the word as we see it. And if you can't agree with it, that's fine, you know, it's a free country, like an old pastor of mine used to put it, it's a free country, you can be wrong if you want to be. And that's a blithe way of putting it, but whatever, we don't get adamant if someone disagrees, I don't get all upset if someone writes or calls and says, well I don't agree with you on that, that's fine, I've got no problem. I teach it the way I feel the Lord has revealed it to me, and as I found the Bible to be so exciting and so interesting, and I know that we're getting a lot of listeners across the country who are finding out what I'm talking about. Alright, now then, always remember that all the programs are available, if you've missed any, call us and we can send you the video or the little books are available. We try to keep the cost as reasonable as we can, we don't hope to make anything on them, but we know a lot of people are using these little books, a lot of the fellows in prison are using them, and we know the Lord is blessing them richly. I Corinthians chapter 4, beginning of verse 1. Now remember what Paul has been talking about throughout these first three chapters. Now he says, "...let a man so account of us as of the ministers of Christ, and stewards of the mysteries." Now underline that word stewards and the mysteries. Now the first thing you have to do is define. You remember when back in the Old Testament God was telling Abraham that He was going to be the Father of a nation and many people, and what was Abraham's answer? Well how can I be? I don't have a son, and all I have is this steward, Eleazar of Damascus. Now what in the world was he talking about? Well he was a manager. Now our word economy really comes from the same root word that we get steward, and all it is, is someone who is a manager of a household, or someone who is in control of something. And then he says in verse 2, that if you're going to be the right kind of a steward, or if you're going to be a good manager, then what do you have to be? Faithful. In other words in my classes here in Oklahoma again, this is where I do most of my teaching of course, and I've always put it this way. If you owned a business and you were going to move to another state, and you leave your business in the care and the management of a manager or steward, what would you expect him to be? Faithful. He's going to have to be honest, he's going to have to keep good books, he's not going to be stealing from you. He has to be a good, faithful steward of what belongs to you. Now the amazing thing is that Paul has given to every true believer an understanding of the mysteries. But the problem is most of them don't. And so I've just almost made it a priority to try to help believers understand what are these mysteries that Paul is always referring to. Well I'll sometimes put it on the board. I've got the verses up there today, so I'm not going to do that. I'll just put it like a great big wagon wheel with all the spokes, and within this wagon wheel are all the various mysteries that make up what I call this Body of Truth that Paul calls the dispensation of the grace of God. And within this dispensation or this period of management we have all these Pauline doctrines that you won't find anywhere else in your Bible. Now we're going to take a run through Scripture in this next 30 minutes, and we're just going to look at them. I'll start back in Romans where the first one is found, and we'll just come right up through Paul's letters. So turn back with me if you will, and I've got them on the board in the same order. Turn back to Romans chapter 11 verse 25, and it's a verse that we have alluded to more than once on the program. Romans 11 verse 25, and of course this is the great chapter where Paul makes it so certain that God is not through with the nation of Israel. Now I know there's a lot of literature out there that tries to say that He is, but the book says He is still going to return one day, and we think it's getting soon, and He's yet going to fulfill everything that He has promised to the nation of Israel. Now that's what chapter 11 was all about when we were back in Romans, how that He is yet going to come back to Israel. Now then verse 25, one of the mysteries that was revealed to this apostle that no one else had ever dreamed of. Here it is. Romans 11 verse 25, "...for I would not rather that ye should be ignorant of this mystery." Now remember the other word for mystery is secret, and it's been held in the mind of God until we come to this apostle. Romans 11 verse 25, "...I would not that ye should be ignorant of this secret, lest ye should be wise in your own conceit, that blindness in part, not forever, but it has been now for 1900 and some years, that blindness in part has happened to Israel until the fullness of the Gentile be brought in." A secret. Why? The Old Testament understood that God would one day save Gentiles, but they had no idea that it would be without Israel. The whole idea in Isaiah and other prophecies was that once Israel became the obedient vehicle, that kingdom of priests, then Israel would evangelize the Gentiles. But kept in the mind of God a total secret was that God would go with salvation to the Gentiles without Israel, even though they rejected Him, and He displaced them from Jerusalem and dispersed them into the nations of the world. Now He has gone to the Gentiles with the Gospel of the grace of God. A mystery, a secret, kept in the mind of God, but now revealed. Our next one is Romans 16 verse 25, and whenever you see this word mystery, it's the same identical Greek word meaning secret. Romans 16 verse 25, "...now to him that is of power to establish you according to my gospel, the preaching of Jesus Christ according to the revelation of the secret, and this secret has been kept secret since the age began." Now the word world here is aion in the Greek, so it also means the age of the ages. So ever since the creation of man, this had never been revealed that God would take salvation to the Gentiles by faith, and faith alone. All the Old Testament was by way of Israel. The next one now is in I Corinthians chapter 2 verse 7, and here is where He's been dealing with wisdom. We looked at this a while back. I Corinthians chapter 2 verse 7, "...now we speak the wisdom of God in a secret, a mystery, even the hidden wisdom which God ordained before the world unto my glory." Now what was it? That Jesus was the Christ, and that secret the princes of this world did not know. They didn't know who He was. For Paul says, "...had they known Him, they would have never crucified Him." But they didn't know. I've told my classes for years and years, Israel should have known who Jesus was. The Old Testament was full of Him. They could have known if they had just simply studied the Old Testament, but Israel did not know. Now don't jump all over the Jew for their ignorance. America has had the Gospel preached, America has the Bible I trust in almost every home, in every library, and everywhere you want to go there are copies of the Scriptures. Yet how much of America today knows that we are approaching the end time? Very few, except some lady told me the other night that one of the magazines in the supermarket had across the whole front page, "...repent, the end of the age is coming next week." Leave it to a tabloid, but see they know nothing. They know nothing of biblical prophecy. They know nothing of all the details that God has already laid out for us. But see even in here in America with all of our Bibles, very few people know or understand that we're getting close, that the Lord is about to intervene in human history. So this is what he's talking about. They didn't know, and we're no different today. It was a secret that had been kept in the mind of God until He revealed it to the Apostle Paul. Now we've already looked at the Word as He used it in chapter 4 in I Corinthians. Now let's go to chapter 13 and verse 2. Here's the love chapter, and it sits right between the two chapters where Paul is dealing with the gifts of the Spirit. And he says in verse 2, And though I have the gift of prophecy, which was a gift that was needed at that time before the Word came into print, and it was a gift. Men had the gift of speaking forth the Word of God, even though it was not yet in print. I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries. Now of course he's taking it beyond the mysteries revealed to him, because all of the pagan religions of the world, what do they speak of when they speak of the very inner sanctum of that religion? The mysteries, the secret things that the common initiate, I call them, never are aware of. But the wheels, the guys who are really at the head of everything, the guys who get all the wealth accumulated, they understand those mysteries, and they're satanic every time. They're always satanic. You know that's why if you ever have any opportunity to visit with missionaries that come back from these still rather dark areas of the world, where they're still in pagan practices, you ask them, is there power in those pagan religions? You bet there's power. Not God's power of course, but it's that whole idea of the mysteries of those religions. But Paul is I think including both when he has this hypothetical, see he says, even if I could, it doesn't say that he does. All right, let's go on to the next one. 1 Corinthians 15, oh this is a glorious one. This is the one I was just referring to. 1 Corinthians 15 verse 51. Did I miss 14? Okay, that's what you have to do, let me know. 14 verse 2, for he that speaketh in an unknown, now that's added by the translators, I prefer to leave it out. For he that speaketh in a tongue speaketh not unto men, but unto God. For no man understandeth, how be it in the spirit, he speaketh what? Secrets that not everybody can understand. All right, still means the same thing. Those things that were kept secret in the mind of God. All right, now chapter 15 verse 51. Here again is a truth that has never been revealed in Scripture. There is no hint of this in the Old Testament. Jesus never referred to it. What are we talking about? The rapture, the rapture. Now it's not called that here, but in languages such that you know that's what it is. Behold, I show you a secret. I like the word secret according to our English understanding. Behold, I show you a secret. This is something that's never been revealed before. And what's this secret? That there's going to be a group of believers who will not die physically. And how does He go on to explain it? We'll be all changed. We're not going to go up to heaven in this old body. We're not going to die so we can be resurrected and get a new body, but we're going to be changed, a metamorphosis if you please. And then He goes on to explain in that moment in the twinkling of an eye. The dead are raised incorruptible, but we who are alive and remain shall be changed in a moment, in an instant. It was a mystery that no one had ever understood until the Lord revealed it to this apostle. Ephesians chapter 1. Ephesians chapter 1. Remember I always stress when I teach Paul's letters that he had a progressive revelation even as the Bible as a whole does. And so some of these things come out in greater detail in his later prison epistles than they do in the first one. And this is obvious. See just look here. Romans and Corinthians. Those were the pre-prison epistles. These are the revelations that Paul got early on. But when you get over here into Ephesians and Colossians and Timothy, this is toward the end of his writing career, and he has a greater revelation than he had back here. Never lose sight of that when you study Paul. Now then in Ephesians 1 verse 9. He says, "...having made known unto us the secret of his will, according to his good pleasure which he hath purposed in himself, that in the dispensation of the fullness of time..." In other words when everything is complete. Ephesians 1.9 "...that we might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven, and which are on the earth, even in him." In other words Paul says, here is a secret now revealed, but this is the hope of the believer. That when God brings everything to its culmination, and we go into eternity, there we are. There we are. The objects of His eternal purpose. And what was His eternal purpose? Oh, His mercy and grace in saving lost sinners. Now we are going to have to move quickly. I didn't think the half hour would go that fast. Ephesians 3.1 Ephesians 3.1 In other words everything that he has been giving out in the first two chapters. Ephesians 3.1 "...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 to me to you were, how that by revelation made known unto me the mystery." See how this word just keeps popping up? Well what's this particular mystery? Let's read on down. Ephesians 3.1 "...when ye read, ye may understand my knowledge in the secrets of Christ, which in other ages was not made known unto the sons of men, as it is now revealed unto his holy apostles and prophets." Now remember Paul wasn't the last of the apostles, there were others that followed in his footsteps during the apostolic age. Now here is basically what this mystery amounts to. That the Gentiles were of all things going to become fellow heirs with Christ. Israel never had a promise like that. Israel never had a promise that they would be joint heirs with Christ. Now you know what that means? You know I've got some lawyers in my classes, and about that time I said, what does this mean in lawyer term? Hey what's one belongs to everybody, and that's what we're going to have. Everything that is Christ is now going to be the rightful property of the believer, as we are joint heirs as Gentiles in this Body of Christ. Now let's come on over to chapter 6. Verse 9. Now this is just a summarization, and this is certainly not detailed like I'd like to teach them. But now Ephesians chapter 6 verse 9. No I got the wrong one there for some reason rather, there's no mystery in that word. Ephesians 3.9 Okay let's go down to Colossians 1.26. Ephesians 1 .26 I'm glad you corrected me. Come back to Ephesians chapter 3 verse 9. And I hope they're starting to make a collective sense now. Well let's almost have to read verse 8. "...Unto me, who am less than the least of all saints, is this grace given, that I should preach among the Gentiles..." Now remember this is a whole new concept in Scripture. Ephesians 3.9 Ephesians 3.9 "...and to make all see what is the fellowship of the secret, which from the beginning of the age..." The King James says world. Ephesians 3.9 "...which from the beginning of the age has been..." What's the next word? Ephesians 3.9 "...hid..." Where? Ephesians 3.9 "...in God, who created all things by Jesus Christ." Now what's he saying? Now remember he's talking earlier in this chapter that the Gentiles are going to be joint heirs with Christ. And like I said that was something a Jew had never even heard of in their covenant promises. But you and I as Gentile believers have this prospect that when we go into the eternal abode, we're going to be joint heirs with Christ. Now then he comes down in verse 9, and he wants this mystery to be seen by all believers. Not just the spiritual, not just the pastors, not just the theologians, but everyone. Ephesians 3.9 "...so that all will see the fellowship..." Now you all know what the word fellowship means, it's a meeting of the minds. In other words when believers get together we speak of fellowship, and it's having like-minded thinking about things. "...and so to help all men see what is the fellowship of this secret, which has been kept secret." Now see here's where I get a little uptight. Why can't people understand that this was not yet revealed during Christ's earthly ministry? Jesus never indicated that there would be this kind of a consort between Himself and Gentiles. He only talked about Himself and Israel. But it was kept secret in the mind of God until it was revealed to this man. And now it comes out to the whole Gentile world. Look at this glorious prospect of having a joint heirship with Jesus Christ, even though it has been hid. Ephesians 3.9 Ephesians 3.9 Ephesians 6.19 Ephesians 6.20 That's what it says. And you can't twist it to mean something else. That Paul is now proclaiming something that had never been revealed before. And that is that Gentiles, as well as Jews, can be saved by believing on the finished work of the cross, enter into this glorious relationship with Christ, that makes us a joint heir with Him, not just for this life, but for all eternity. What a glorious prospect. I mean it should just make the hair on the back of our necks stand on end to think that this is what's facing us. Not some great doom and judgment, not some I hope so and I think maybe, but we have this assurance that this mystery is this fellowship that we as Gentiles are going to enjoy and already do. Colossians 1.26 Where have I made a minister, according to the dispensation of God, which is given to me for you Gentiles, to fulfill the word of God? Even the mystery, or the secret, which has been hid from ages and generations, but now is made manifest to his saints. Plain language, I don�t see how you can get it any plainer. Chapter 1, verse 27. 1. To whom God would make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery, this secret, among the Gentiles. What is the secret? That Christ is in a Gentile. Now you see this is something a Jew could never comprehend. That Christ is dwelling in Gentiles, you better believe it, because that�s what the book says. Let�s go on hurriedly to chapter 2, verse 2. 2. That their hearts might be coveted, being knit together in love, and to all riches of the full assurance of understanding, to the acknowledgment of the mystery. And how few people understand it, and if they do, they won�t recognize it, they won�t acknowledge it. Alright now chapter 4, verse 3. That�s probably as far as we�re going to get, only had two left, you can look them up when you get home. But now in Colossians chapter 4, verse 3. 3. With all praying for us, that I might speak the secret of Christ, for which I also am in love. 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