What Happens the Moment You Believe the Gospel?

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, it's good to have everybody in again this afternoon, and for those of you out in television, I think most of you realize by now we produce four programs in succession here in Tulsa, and we always like to leave the welcome mat out. If you're ever coming through Tulsa on the way south or whatever, that you would check with us and come in and be a part of this afternoon of production. And again, we always like to remind our audience that we are just an informal Bible study, and we don't try to attack anybody or refute anybody, but we're just going to teach the Word, and hopefully as the Word is opened up, the Holy Spirit convicts and corrects and reproves as Paul said it was given. And so we just welcome you, and again we like to always remind folks that all the past programs are available on video and audio and the printed page, and also if you would like to receive our quarterly newsletter, kindly get us an address and a name and we'll get you on the list. Okay, I think for those of you now in the studio, you've already turned to Ephesians chapter 1. Roy has it on the board, and again I could remind our viewing audience, if you ever want to call with respect to a particular program, try to get the book number, book 36, first hour and the first lesson, and then we can always just pinpoint what program you are referring to. So be aware of that. We've lived and learned in this business. When we first started, my goodness, Iris and I were just talking yesterday how ignorant we were. I mean, we didn't know anything about television or any of these technicalities, but hopefully we're learning as we go. So take that to heart that if you want to let us in on what program you have, just check the number on the board. All right, back to Ephesians and we'll pick up where we left off in our last program, and remember the book of Ephesians is a doctrinal book that is just a step up even from Paul's earlier letters of Romans and Galatians and Corinthians, and it comes into that deeper area of our position in Christ. My, how few believers realize where we are positionally, and how we can rest on it, that it's not just for this life, but for all eternity. And the prepositional phrase that I'm always referring to throughout the book of Ephesians, 90-some times is, in Christ, or in whom, in Him, and it's always in reference again to our position. So as we've been coming through these first 10, 11, 12 verses, this is what Paul has been showing, how that as a result of our glorious salvation by faith and faith alone, God has not only placed us into the body of Christ, but He has also positioned us in the heavenlies. Now I think I made reference to it a week or two ago, my oldest son made the question one day, we were having coffee and he said, well how do we know that that's where we are? Well it's by faith. I mean we don't have a diploma on the wall, and we don't have anything we can put our hands on, but we go by what the Word says, and the Word tells us that this is where we are. And so by faith we understand our position is now in the heavenlies, and we're just pilgrims passing through, where this world, as the songwriter has put it, this world is not our home. It's just a passing experience, because for eternity our position is in the heavenlies. All right, so now then just for a little bit of review of reading the verses, and then we'll come in at verse 13. I'd like to just start at verse 11. In whom, also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestinated, in other words in God's sovereign way of doing things, we've been predestinated according to the purpose of Him who worketh all things after the counsel of His own will. And of course we digressed on that quite a bit in one of our previous programs. Now verse 12, all of this has been done on our behalf, that we should be to the praise of His glory. In other words, none of this is really for our benefit is it? None of this has all been done just to glorify us. This has all been done that we in turn might glorify Him. In fact I would like to go back, I'm not much of a catechism expert, but I always whenever I say that, I always have to remember one of the questions of one of the old catechisms, I think it was the Heidelberg, which started out with a question, what is the chief end of man? And the answer to that question was, to glorify God and enjoy Him forever. See a lot of heads are nodding, you've all been through that, you learned it whether you understood it or not. What is the chief end of man? To glorify God and to enjoy Him forever. And I like that, absolutely that's the whole purpose. And so Paul puts it in verse 12 then, that we should be to the praise of His glory. We, I'm going to put the pronoun in there so we don't lose the context, we who first trusted or believed or placed our faith and our hope in Christ. Not anything else, not a denomination, not a ritual, not a religion, but in Christ. Oh and now we'll start with new ground, in whom? In Christ see, in whom you also, now if you have most of your newer translation, the word trusted is italicized, which means it's been added. And I checked it with the original and sure enough, the original does not have that word in there, neither does it have the two words after. And so from the original, we'll just read like it says, and then we'll come back again and look at the King James. But it says, in whom, having heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, in whom having believed, you were sealed with that Holy Spirit of promise. Now that's the way the original, out of the original Greek, that's the way it reads. But now in the King James, they're not destroying the concept by any means, but when they say then, in whom you also trusted, or as it was implied in the original, having heard. See, so in whom you also trusted. Now always remember these words that are synonymous in Scripture. Trust is usually used in the Old Testament, isn't it? But it's the same thing as believing. And then you also have of course faith, which is believing. And so I always make the point that trust and faith and believe, all three basically mean the same thing, and so you can use them synonymously. So in Christ, the Christ that you believed in, or you placed your faith in, after or having heard the word of what? Truth. Now you see, we're living in a day and age where truth is almost being stomped into the ground as irrelevant, and that there are no absolutes, and we're more or less living in a society of instant gratification, and the whole concept that as long as you don't kill somebody in the process, why go ahead and enjoy it. But that's not what truth declares. Truth of course is manifested by the Word of God, and it's to that Word that we always have to fly when we see these things coming upon us. So having heard the Word of truth, not from some TV preacher, not from me, not from somebody else, but having heard God's Word. Now that reminds me, I didn't even intend to do this, and I tell somebody, you know, I never know where I'm going to go from one minute to the next. I just sort of depend on the Spirit to lead. Come back to Romans chapter 10. Romans chapter 10. It'd be nice if I could go all over this with Iris before we got here, and she could have all her little tabs in the book, but that doesn't work that way, and that's why I can't use professional graphics on the screen, because I never know what verse we're going to use. But Romans chapter 10, in the light of having heard the Word of truth, and here Paul puts it so explicitly. Verse 14, I think we may have even looked at it in our last program. So for those of you watching it daily on television, you'll probably think, well can't he remember 24 hours? But you won't even remember for us now, it's been a month. Okay, verse 14, "...how then shall they call on Him in whom they have not believed? How shall they believe in Him of whom they have not heard?" Now you see the connection? Flip back to Ephesians again. This is Bible study. We're not trying to cover a whole bunch of ground. I'm not trying to preach at you. We're going to see what the Word says. Come back to Ephesians again. "...in whom you also trusted having heard the word of truth." Alright, come back to Romans. "...and then how shall they believe in Him of whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a..." Remember I made the comment, a better word is proclaimer. Yeah, you remember. Alright, so how shall they hear without someone who proclaims? "...and how shall they proclaim except they be sent? And how beautiful are the feet of them who proclaim the gospel of peace, and bring glad tidings of good things." And then verse 17, "...so then faith..." This is what we're talking about now. "...faith, trust, believing, cometh by hearing." You know, and I always make the comment, can you believe something you've never heard? Can you hear something that's never been said? I mean this seems mundane, but listen, this is foundational. God did not say everything back in Genesis, and you have to realize that as these Old Testament patriarchs were coming up, they never heard some of these things that we're hearing, because God hadn't spoken it yet. He had kept it secret, Paul says. And so always be reminded of that, that you cannot believe something that God hasn't said, and you once hear it, He expects us to believe it. And so this is the whole concept of all this. Alright, back to Romans in a minute for 17, "...so then faith, or believing, cometh by hearing, and hearing comes..." Well, "...by the Word of God, or in simpler terms, when God speaks it." See? Alright, now we know that God speaks through the printed page, through the writers, and in this case through the Apostle Paul. And since Paul is the Apostle of the Gentiles, He's the one we better be listening to. Why? You know, we're getting a lot of people that are seeing it, and we've got a lot of people that are still a little bit confused. Why do I constantly emphasize Paul? Because Paul is the Apostle of the Gentiles. While you're in Romans, you might as well go on over into chapter 11, verse 13. And some of these verses I use because, well here's one of the guilty party, Jerry Poole will just tell me, no less until I start listening to you. I never heard these things repeated, and repeated, and repeated, because I'm not the only one. Alright, chapter 11, verse 13. Here's the basis for my constantly emphasizing that for you and I today, we have to go by what Paul writes. Not what Peter says, not what Jesus said in His earthly ministry, but what does Paul write. Alright, verse 13, Romans 11, "...for I speak to you..." Who? Gentiles. "...inasmuch as I am the Apostle of the Gentiles." Now if he's the Apostle of the Gentiles, and Peter and the rest were the Apostle of Israel, and Israel was under the Law, two and two makes four. This and this makes that, so we better understand that we don't go by what Peter said, and James and John necessarily, to Israel under the Law. We better go by what this man says to us under grace, see. And that's where the difference comes in. Alright, now then if you'll come back to Ephesians, so he says, "...after you heard the word of truth," or having heard the word of truth, and what is the word of truth? The Gospel, see. The Gospel. The Gospel of your salvation. Alright, now then, here's where we've got to go back to an old portion that we just almost sometimes run into the ground, because it is so basic. 1 Corinthians chapter 15, the first four verses. And I'm constantly using this to people who call, the Gospel. You have to know that this is what God has now said. This is the Word that has been proclaimed, and we better believe it or we're in trouble. And you can't go around it, you can't go over it or under it, you've got to face it head on. This is the Gospel. The Word of Truth. Alright, you got it? 1 Corinthians 15, beginning at verse 1. "...moreover, brethren," well, I'll make comment about this a little later. Remember Paul always writes to the believer. Alright, so he says, "...moreover, brethren, I declare unto you the Gospel, which I preached unto you, which also you have received, and wherein you..." What? Now what does that word stand for, and again involve? Position, see? Position. You're not out there floating around from one doctrine to another. You're not out there like a ship without a rudder. We are positioned by virtue of our having believed the Gospel. Alright? Verse 2. "...by which," that is by the Gospel, "...by which you are saved, if," now it's conditional of course, "...that you keep in memory," or that you understand, "...what I preached unto you, unless you believe in vain." Now there again, you have to understand what the Word of Truth is all about. Now here it comes. Here is the Gospel of Truth. "...for I delivered unto you, first of all, that which I also received." Now we understand from Galatians 1, where did Paul receive it from? Now you're not supposed to answer the preposition, but I'm going to. Where did he receive it from? Well, from Heaven, from the Ascended Lord in glory. He received by revelation these basic truths. Alright? Reading on. "...that I had received, how that," and here it is, "...how that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures." That's the Gospel. That's the truth, and anything that compromises that, or shunts it aside one way or the other, is no longer truth. Then it becomes what Paul says in Galatians chapter 1, what? Perverted, that's right Sharon, a perverted Gospel. But we stick to the truth, and let the chips fall where they may. Alright, now then if you'll come back to Ephesians chapter 1, and this verse, oh my, what a powerful verse, in the light of so much that's out there across Christendom today. This just blows so much of it right out of the saddle. Why? Not because so much of what it says, as what it doesn't say. Now as you read this verse, constantly ask yourself, many of you have even been brought up in some of these other thoughts. Is it in here? No, no there's nothing else in here, but after you, what? Believe. Now I'm not going to mention the other things, otherwise somebody will say, well now you're doing what you said you weren't going to do, you don't attack. No, I'm not going to point it out, I'll let you do it. How much of what you have been taught is not in here? Well if it's in here, if it isn't in here, then it's superfluous, and you better just blow it away. But here is the basic truth, that after we heard the Gospel of Salvation, and of which Christ of course is the center, He's the epitome of it, He's the One who died, He's the One who was buried, He's the One who rose from the dead. So it was in Him then that you believed, you placed your trust, your faith, and that was it. Everybody complicates it, and I think that's a satanic ploy. Oh there's nothing the devil likes better than to just make people think, well it's so difficult. I remember reviewing one of my older programs, dubbing a tape or something, and I rehearsed when I was teaching down in San Antonio. A lady I knew was having a lot of problems. She wanted the assurance of salvation, but her religion was just so, what shall I say, had so put her in bondage that she just couldn't see it. And so after one of the classes she came up and talked with me all along, and I'll never forget, I said, now look, all you have to do is believe that as a sinner Christ died for you and rose from the dead. And when you believe that, God does everything else. And she looked at me with a most exasperated look, and she said, but Les, that's too simple. And isn't that exactly what most people think? Hey, it's got to be tougher than that, but it isn't. It is so simple that yes, a five -year-old can understand it, ninety-year-old people can understand it, and everybody in between. But all you see, the religionists and the theologians and the powers that be have just loaded it all down with all these other requirements. You've got to come this way, you've got to come that way. But listen, this verse exposes all that. This verse says that it's just as simple as A-B-C, that when you come as a lost sinner and you believe the truth of the gospel, then God does everything else. We don't. All right, now let's finish the verse, and we'll see the first thing that God does when He sees us believe the gospel, He then sealed us with that Holy Spirit of promise. Now this word sealed again, now I'm not a language expert, I'm not a Greek scholar, but I know this much from my little feeble attempts of studying language, that this word sealed goes all the way back into antiquity, and it was a mark of ownership. If a king put his seal on something, it meant it belonged to the empire. If someone bought a piece of land or something, and they would put their seal on that title deed, it denoted ownership. And it never lost its meaning all the way back through Scripture or ahead through Scripture. In fact, when I speak of ahead, let's turn over to Jude a moment, where you have almost the same word, it comes out of the same root if I'm not mistaken, in the little book of Jude, just in front of Revelation remember, chapter or verse 1, there is only one chapter, but verse 1. Now I guess I'm going to have to slow down a little bit, because I've been having a few complaints that I'm not giving people in their living room time to look up these Scriptures. So I'm going to make sure that you've all found it, and then I trust they will have as well. But the little book of Jude, verse 1, Jude the servant of Jesus Christ, brother James, to them that are sanctified by God the Father, and what's the next word? Preserved. See now nobody but women who can fruit and vegetables know what that word means better than they, and that means that once that jar or that can is sealed, my that food is good for who knows how long. See it's preserved, it's sealed, and it's also then that mark of ownership but the whole concept is that once God has sealed us, we are not just His for a week or two, but for how long? Forever. Oh now some people don't like that, and I can't help that. The Bible teaches it that we are sealed forever, but we've got to make sure we're in where we could be sealed. That's the problem. So here we are, having heard the Word of Truth, the Gospel, and when we believe we were sealed. I always like to use the word being a cattle man, branded. My when that critter is branded, there's a mark of ownership that you cannot take away. Oh you might be able to mark it up a little bit, but you can't take it away. It's there forever, so far as that animal is concerned. Oh it's the same thing, the moment we believe the Person of the Godhead, the Holy Spirit made us a mark of God's ownership. Now it's interesting again that in the Greek the word here Spirit is simply the Pneuma. That's the Spirit, and the moment we believe we receive the Pneuma, the Holy Spirit, now we'll put that up there just for identification. It's not in the original, but nevertheless it's a indication that the Holy Spirit is the one who has become our brand. He is the one who denotes ownership that we belong to God. All right now then let's go down for the next minute or two into verse 14. Ephesians 4, verse 14 "...once the Holy Spirit has been placed within us as God's mark of ownership, then it goes into the other part of the Spirit's work, and that is He becomes the earnest money, or the down payment of our inheritance." Now let's be a Bible student, let's go back again to verse 11. Then we just have to keep comparing Scripture with Scripture, line upon line. Verse 11, in this same chapter, "...in whom we have obtained an inheritance." Well what's the inheritance? Oh, now let's go back to Romans, chapter 8, and dropping down to verse 14. It says the same thing, only in a little different way. Romans 8, verse 14, "...for as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God." It doesn't say they might be, it says they are. Now then verse 15, "...for you have not received the Spirit of bondage again to fear, but we have received the Spirit of adoption, or that placing as a full son, whereby we can cry, Abba, Father." Now here comes verse 16, "...the Spirit himself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are..." That's a definite article, isn't it? We are, no ifs, ands, buts about it. "...and we are the children, or the born ones of God." And then verse 17, "...and if children, then heirs, heirs of God, and joint heirs with Christ." Now come back to Ephesians in these closing seconds, back to Ephesians. So what is our inheritance? Well that which is a part of the One who has purchased us, and has made us His own. In other words, everything that belongs to Christ, is now belonging to us, and that's our inheritance. And it's all because we believe the Gospel. That's where it starts. We believe the Gospel, God moves in and He seals us with that Holy Spirit of promise. And then as a gift of that Holy Spirit, He gives us the what? The inheritance. Now I hope I don't have to turn my back when it's time to quit. Now then the next word for that next verse is the Numah Hagion. Many of you have heard me teach this in our Oklahoma classes. The Numah Hagion now to be translated over into the English. You know what the Numah Hagion is? Remember? The power from on high. Time to stop, wasn't it? Thank you for watching Through the Bible with Les Feldick. If you would like more information about the Les Feldick Ministries, or about this program, write to Les Feldick Ministries, Route 1, Box 760, Kenta, OK 74552. That's Route 1, Box 760, Kenta, OK 74552. Through the Bible 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.