What Are the Unsearchable Riches of Christ?

Hello, and welcome to Through the Bible with Les Feldick, an Oklahoma rancher and farmer. Les Feldick has been teaching homestyle Bible classes for over 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 in again this afternoon, and we'll be ready to produce four programs for those of you out in television. I guess you know by now we've produced four in a row, and consequently everybody is sitting in the same place and wearing the same clothes, and I for sure am. But we always like to invite folks, if you're traveling through Tulsa on the first Wednesday of the month, give us a call and we'll give you instructions on how to find the studio, and we just love to have you come in and do this with us. Now again, for those of you out in television, we have all the past programs are available on videotape and audiotapes, and as well the little printed books, wherein we've put twelve successive programs on each one of these, and we are now up to number 37, and we'll just keep on going, I guess, until the Lord comes or He takes me home, whatever the case may be. But we hope we can just keep on teaching the book until we either finish it or whatever. All right, now again, I always like to emphasize we are just an informal, and we are certainly not tied to any one group. I make a special effort not to attack anyone, and we know it's a free country, and we're not going to deride anyone. I've had people call and say, well, why don't you make a point of this or make that? And I said, no, all I'm going to do is teach the book, and over and over we've had people see it so clearly that they've been wrong. I know I had one fellow call and tell me over and over, he said, twenty years, he said, I was going down the wrong road, and he said it was so hard to admit that I had been wrong and that I had been led wrong, but he said the Word is what convinced me. And so that's what we'll just continue to do, is just teach the book and help you to see what it says as well as what it does not say. I think a lot of times this is what we have to realize. What does it not say that everybody thinks it should? All right, now we're ready to go back where we picked up at the end of our last program, and that would be in Ephesians 3, now dropping down to verse 8, where Paul continues on now, whereof, that is, this gospel of grace concerning the body of Christ. And so he says, unto me, who am less than the least of all saints, is this grace given, that I should preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ. Now here again, what's he emphasizing? Gentiles. And I want you to realize that Paul is always emphasizing his message was to the Gentiles, although some Jews were certainly responding to it. But for the most part, they didn't. In fact, if you remember when we were studying back in the Corinthians and Galatians, who were the people that were opposing Paul's preaching to the Gentiles? Well, the Jewish people, because of course they thought that Christ was an imposter, and they thought certainly Paul was, and so they were doing everything they could to disrupt his ministry. But nevertheless, he still had a fair amount of Jews, I think, in his early congregations. But I think archaeology has sort of come to our rescue. Archaeologists definitely confirmed that a good number of the early church believers were Jews, and they found, of course, proof of that away from Jerusalem, especially up in the area of the east of Galilee and the area of Pella, for example. That may ring a bell with some of you, that there was evidence that the early Christians were mostly Jewish. But by the end of the first century, of course, the Jewish people had just totally dropped out of the picture, and with exceptions here and there, most of Paul's converts were Gentiles. All right, now then in this verse 8 he says that he was the least of all the saints. Now you know, how many people stop to think what a direct opposite that is of the twelve? Because what were the twelve always debating? Who's going to be the greatest, see? Who's going to sit next to the Lord? Who is the greatest? But this man says, I am the least. Never claimed to be the greatest, except by inspiration again back in 1 Corinthians when he had to prove to those people that his apostleship had become the most superior of the apostles. That he was not one step behind Peter and the others, but now he was a step ahead by virtue of his revelations. But as an egotist, he had none. He had absolutely no pride in himself other than the fact that he was the apostle of Gentiles. All right, now whenever I read this verse I have to think of a statement by the old Bible teacher William Newell, and many of you have heard of him, many of you haven't, but he's the one who authored the words to your well-known hymn at Calvary. In fact, the next time you're in church and you sing that hymn at Calvary, you just look at the top and you'll see that the author of the words of that hymn was William R. Newell. Well, William R. Newell made the statement, and when I read it I just smiled from ear to ear. He said, I can envision the day that when the bride is introduced to Christ, Paul is going to be the honored one, and he will be the one to actually introduce the bride to her bridegroom Christ, because, and this was his reasoning, when the disciples were debating who is to be the greatest, what was Jesus' answer? He that is the least. And then when Paul comes back and says all the time, he's the least, well that must have been what the Lord was referring to, that the one who is the least will be the one who will be the greatest. Well, so be that as it may, we're not going to make a big deal of it, but nevertheless, this man is now again by inspiration, even though he puts his own person down, yet he lets us know that the grace of God has made it possible for him to be the minister and the revealer of all these secrets, by virtue of his being commissioned to go to the Gentile world. Now as you come on to the last part of verse 8, I think maybe I could just about shoot a whole half hour on this, I'm not saying I will, but look what it says, that I should preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ. Do you know what that means? That means that you and I could spend almost the rest of our lives digging through Scripture and literally bringing up the riches of Christ, and we could never exhaust it. What are the unsearchable riches of Christ? Well as I was mulling this over in my own mind over the last several days, I just had to go all the way back to eternity past. When the triune God first came together in what the book of Acts calls a consul, and at that consul meeting of the triune God, they literally laid out the blueprint for the whole universe and the appearance of the planet earth to be inhabited, and mankind, and the whole 6,000 years of human history, this was all blueprinted way back there in eternity past. Now, as you follow all that, even with whatever knowledge you have of the Scriptures, you've got enough, then you begin to think how that God in His foreknowledge formulated not only the appearance of man, Adam and Eve, but knowing that they would sin, set in motion immediately afterward the plan of redemption, and then that plan of redemption would demand that the Creator Himself, the One who called everything into being in the first place, would become flesh. Not created instantly as Adam was, which is the way I would have done it had I been God, but instead He starts through the whole human process of the nine months in the womb, born as a babe in a manger in Bethlehem, comes through the normal growing up process of a young man in Nazareth, and until the age of 30 hardly anybody caught on as to who He was except that one instance when He was 12 and He was left behind at the temple. Other than that, in Scripture at least, there's no record that anybody had any idea, not just who He was, but what He was. Here He is walking in those little dusty roads of Nazareth and the Galilee, and who was He? The Creator God Himself. Now listen, you start mulling that over, and we can sort of just, yeah, I can believe that, but listen, to really comprehend how that God accomplished it all without a hitch, without any detours, and the day came when He came to the nation of Israel, for three years presented Himself to the nation, miracle after miracle after miracle, His love and His compassion for those people in spite of their unbelief, He didn't give up on them. Never once does the scripture say that He left in disgust and thought, so what, they'll never listen anyway. No, He never gave up on them, and then finally as Philippians tells us, He so graphically died the death of the cross, the most awful death ever invented. Now listen, that's all part of these unsearchable riches of Christ, and that it was all foreordained, it was all blueprinted, and that through His death and the shed of His blood, again the eternal triune God could now reckon all men's sin as on Him. Now we can't comprehend that, I can't. When you think, even today, in any one 24-hour period today, when we look at the mayhem that's going on around the world, now of course Yugoslavia's in the headlines, but don't forget, there are places in Africa where it's still just as bad, the little island that we as we grew up known as Ceylon is now Sri Lanka, it's in constant bloodshed, China under terrible persecution, areas of Russia where they are under horrible pressure. The whole planet tonight, it's not at peace, it's at war. And yet, in spite of all the suffering and all the sin, I can stand here and tell you that every last jot and tittle of all that sin was laid on Christ. The past, the present, and the future was all laid on Him. Hey, I can't comprehend that. I don't think anyone in this room can. I don't think anybody out in television can. That is beyond human comprehension. That's the unsearchable riches of Christ, that He was able by being the Creator God Himself to take upon Himself all the sins of this world. And we're just getting a little glimpse of it. I still maintain without apology, having just come back again from overseas, listen, morality in America is still head and shoulders above the rest of the world. As bad as we're getting, and we're getting worse by the day, but yet I still maintain America is a long ways from catching up with the rest of the world when it comes to immoral practices. But God in His grace continues to look down on sinful men and is willing to save to the uttermost anyone that would just simply believe all this. But they won't. But don't get discouraged. They never have. You know, I always shock people. Here we come from Adam all the way up for 1,600 years to the Flood. Just as many people on the planet then, I think, as there are now, and how many believers were spared? Eight. Now isn't that something? That's all God had left was eight. And then we come to the time of Elijah, and Elijah thought he was the only one. But of course God knew better, but even so, God says, I've got 7,000 that have not bowed their knee to Baal. Now, I've always put Israel somewhere between 5 and 10 million people, so let's say there were 7 million people in the nation of Israel. 7,000 of those 7 million were still true believers. But now those of you who are real math brains, what percentage is that? That's one-tenth of one percent. One-tenth of one percent is all that was left in Israel at the time of Elijah. He thought he was the only one, but all right, all of this to show you the unsearchable riches of Christ. All right, now let's go on a little further, what Paul has been teaching here in Ephesians all the time, that the moment we believe God does something else that's beyond human understanding, he places us into the Body of Christ, in which we all become members around the world, this invisible and yet visible consortium of believers, and we are all made one with Christ. Hey, that's beyond human understanding, but that's all part of the unsearchable riches of Christ. How does he do it? All right, the next one. We're all looking forward very, very soon, I think, the rapture, the outcalling of the church. How in the world is it going to happen? Have you ever stopped to think? You want to remember half the people are on the bottom side of the ball. Are they going to come zooming up around? I had one try to expound the idea that the rapture would take place segmentally, so that every section of the globe would have its own rapture. Well, I don't think that's going to work, but nevertheless, God is going to take every believer off the planet in a split second. How is he going to do it? Well, we can't begin to comprehend it. Oh, again, it's all part of the unsearchable riches of Christ. How can he take a hell-bound sinner and just by virtue of his faith make him a heaven-bound saint? Not that we become sinless, but oh, listen, we completely have a change of appetite. In fact, I've been trying to think, I've had so many calls just in the last couple weeks from people who fell into sin, gross sin, and their argument always was that the individual with whom they experienced this fall was a professing believer, and this professing believer said, well, after all, they were saved, they didn't have anything to worry about. That's not what my Bible tells me. We don't have that kind of license. Now you've heard me say it over and over on this program, grace is not license. The unsearchable riches of Christ do not tell us that just because the grace of God abounds, I can go out and do an immoral thing and God's going to wink at it. No way, because the Scripture defiantly warns us against those things. And so I've been trying to think of an illustration. How can I put it that a true believer will never find themselves in that kind of a situation unless it is just a momentary lapse, which can happen, but to just deliberately walk into something like this and practice it over a period of time, I just can't believe it. And so I came up with my own illustration, going back to what I've used before, and in fact I'm going to take you back to it a minute. And those of you who are with us in Romans, you'll probably remember, when we were back in Romans chapter 3, go back with me to Romans chapter 3, Romans chapter 3, 23 and 24. "...for all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God." That's every one of us. But look at the next verse, "...being justified freely by His grace, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus." Now you all know what redemption means. That's the process of God buying us back, and when I teach Romans chapter 3, I always use the analogy of the Roman slave market, and I think it's an appropriate one. It was very real, and as the Romans would go out with their legions and they would conquer other people, they would bring, especially the younger people who were capable of slave duty, they would bring them back to Rome, and they would end up in the slave market. And you remember I drew the analogy, here we have a young, blonde, blue-eyed fellow from northern Europe, and the Roman legions brought him back to Europe, and all of a sudden this strapping young man finds himself in the slave market. Now the Roman slave market was awful, because if you were bought out as a common slave, you could end up doing any kind of horrible slave labor, where usually I think, the worst I think of, is being in the bottom end of a boat, rowing the oars. It was awful, it was hot, and when they died, they just pitched them overboard. But anyway, that was all part and parcel of the end result of being in a slave market, or if they would live and not be bought out, they could end up in the Colosseum as meat for the wild animals. So that was the prospects in a Roman slave market. But there was also the good side. They could have a benefactor come and buy them out, and being a benevolent slave owner, and that's the example I would use, this benevolent, wealthy Roman would take this young man home and clean him up, give him a whole new set of clothes, and give him light duty around his estate, maybe just taking care of the flowers and trimming the lawns, and so on and so forth. Now don't think that's beyond the Roman lifestyle. They lived sumptuously. And so here's this young slave now, who has been bought out of that horrible slave market, and he's given this beautiful place of work, with all the best food, and then one day this benevolent Roman comes and he says, "...young man, I'm going to go one step further. I'm going to give you your freedom. I have bought your citizenship. You are free to go and do whatever you want to do." Now the analogy I've always used before is, what's this young man going to say? Listen, you've done so much for me. I have learned to love you so much. I don't want my freedom. I just want to stay here and serve you the rest of my life. And that's where I've always left it. But you know what a lot of Christians are doing now? What if this same young man would say, "...I want to stay right here and serve you, but once a week can I go back into the slave market?" Isn't that ridiculous? Isn't that as ridiculous as you can get? Here he had been spared the horrors of the slave market. And that's where every lost person is. They're in Satan's slave market. Christ paid the price of redemption. He brought us out of it. And then we have the audacity to say, "...but can't I just go back and get a taste of it once in a while?" Listen that's what Christians are doing when they go back into the world. And to me it just does not fit. I'm not saying we're going to be perfect. Of course we're not. We all fail. We all sin. But to go back into gross sin and just glibly say, "...oh well, I'm saved and I don't have to worry." I don't think a true believer can look at it that way. When a true believer sins, they are going to be convicted as David was. And when David saw his sin, all you have to do is read his cry back there in Psalms. And what does he do? He wept tears of repentance. And oh how he bemoaned the fact that not only had he sinned against whoever the world, the humans were involved, but against God. And this is what we have to come back and realize. Well all of this, I just sort of lob into the unsearchable riches of Christ. And it's beyond human comprehension. I can't understand it, and I don't think anyone else can. But oh, does that mean we just close our eyes and say, "...well forget it, I can't understand it anymore." No, you just keep digging and you just keep learning. And you just keep getting more and more excited about what Christ has done for us. And not only just for the here and the now, but what? Eternity to come. Now, I know a few weeks ago I was talking about it, and I had a mental block, and I couldn't think of the verses referenced. And Sharon was sitting here with a great big sign, 1 Corinthians 2.9, and I wasn't seeing it. And I don't know how many letters I've now had, lest that verse was 1 Corinthians 2.9. But anyway, you all know now what it says, "...for I have not seen nor hear heard the things which God hath prepared for those of us who love him." And that's about as much as it tells us about what we're going to enjoy in eternity. We don't know. The Bible doesn't tell us. But we know it's going to be fabulous. You know, a lot of times guys who love to fish and say, well, now, I love to fish. What am I going to have in place of that when we get to eternity? You know what I tell them? I don't know what, but I know one thing. It's going to be a million times better. It's going to be a million times better, because whatever we enjoy on this earth, God's got something that's going to be multitudinously enlarged. And all because of the unsearchable riches of Christ. Prayer. Oh, to have the knowledge that we can come into the very throne room of heaven with our prayers and our petitions. Now listen, that's uncomprehensible, isn't it? That we can just immediately come into the very throne room without having to go through any ritual. We don't have to go in some prescribed place or some prescribed time of the day. Otherwise, God doesn't hear us. No. As you sit there and as I speak, you can be in an attitude of prayer, and you're right in the throne room. Now that's all part of the unsearchable riches of Christ. But I think the crowning act of all of it is that he could take a sinner, save him by grace, and make him a new person. Totally new, totally different. Changed appetites, a changed lifestyle. And the kind of a change that even the world around them can't miss. You know, so many times husbands who have lost wives will ask, well, what can I do to convince my wife that she needs God's saving grace? Or wives will call and write, what can I do to convince my husband that he needs God's saving grace? Well, invariably, I'll take them back to the little letter of Peter. And what does he say? Don't preach at them. Don't try to drag them to church or someplace else. Don't drag them in front of the television and say, no, you've got to watch less. But what do you do? You just live such an outpouring of God's love in front of that person. And it may take a long time. But sooner or later, they're finally going to get the drift. You've got something that I need. And like I've said before, it may take some six months, may take a year, may take years. But you can rest assured that when you've done what God expects you to do, that lost person is going to be faced with the reality of the love of God. All part of the unsearchable riches of Christ. And I don't want to go on into verse 9, because I want a full 30 minutes for that one. But listen, as you contemplate these things, don't take my word for it. Get into the book. Get into the book and just start comprehending a little bit of what all of this means to you, the individual believer. And God will bless you for it. Thank you for watching Through the Bible with Les Feldick, a weekly Bible study. If you would like more information about the Les Feldick Ministries, a Bible study in your area, or about this program, write to Les Feldick Ministries, Route 1, Box 760, Kenta, Oklahoma, 74552. That's Route 1, Box 760, Kenta, Oklahoma, 74552. Through the Bible with Les Feldick is viewer supported and your gift is appreciated. Thank you and be sure to tune in next time for Through the Bible with Les Feldick.