Why was this Gospel kept secret from the world?

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 see everybody back, and again, you can be turning to Ephesians chapter 3. We'll pick right up where we left off, but again, we'd like to welcome any new listeners who may be completely unaware of what we are, who we are, you know, every once in a while somebody will write and say, who in the world are you anyway? Well, my stock answer is, I'm a nobody. And, but anyway, that's what the Lord has seen fit to use. So we are not connected with anybody, we are just strictly dependent on the gifts of God's people. And everybody knows me well enough, I never like to talk about money, so that's a given. But anyway, we're just an informal Bible study, and we use the same format as we teach in all of our classes night by night here in Oklahoma. And the Lord has seen fit to bless it. The letters and the phone calls are so rewarding. And nothing thrills us more than we have somebody call and say, well, you just opened my eyes. Well, I didn't do it, the Lord did. And they know enough to say, well, no, but the Lord used you. Well, that's all right. The Lord does have to use human instruments, but He's the one who has to open the hearts. He's the one who has to reveal the truth of Scripture. And this is all we like to do, is just help people to see what the Bible really says, and if nothing else, teach people how to read. Because this is what we have found over the years, that most people read their Bible without reading it. So anyway, all our past programs are available from Genesis all the way up to where we are now in Ephesians. I guess we've got 35, 36 of these, which are 12 programs all put together on one 6 hour video, 6 hour audio, and then the same 6 hours are transcribed into print. And if you're interested in any of that, you give us a call or write to us, and we'll get the information to you. Okay, enough for that. Now let's get right back into where we were in Ephesians chapter 3. And as I said in my first half hour this afternoon, remember that Ephesians is a doctrinal book, so far as depth and content is concerned, even from Romans and Galatians and the Corinthian letters. And now we get into that area that just the lackadaisical Christian won't get interested. But for those who really love the Word and love the Lord and love to study, of course Ephesians is a tremendous little book, only 6 chapters long, but the whole idea is for us to understand who we are in Christ. And whether we're rich or poor, whether we're west or east, or black or white, that is not the point. Jew or Gentile, we are all one when we become members of the Body of Christ, which we'll be seeing later, even in chapter 3. But alright, we've only gotten down to verse 3, where Paul again is taking credit for having the revelation of the mystery or the secret that has been held in the mind of God ever since the world began, which you pick up down in verse 9. In fact let's just read verse 9 so that you'll see why I'm spending so much time on this up here in the first 2-3 verses. In verse 9 Paul says, "...that it is his prerogative to make all men see what is the fellowship of the mystery, or the secrets, which from the beginning of the world have been hid in God." Now that goes right back to our first program this afternoon, the very name of God that spoke of Him being everlasting to everlasting. He was the God who hides things, but He's also the God who is sovereign over time, and so this whole concept of just that one name of deity, El Olam, is what brings Paul's teachings of the mystery so Biblical. When I use the word Biblical, I always have to think of a dear pastor up in Minnesota who's retired, and from a denomination far different from mine. But he told me himself one time, a lot of his fellow denominational people up there will call him, and they'll say, "...well now brother, what about this Les Feldick?" And he says, "...never mind, he's Biblical." I always have to think of that when I use the term, that we try to be Biblical. It isn't just my idea, or some denominations idea, but what does the Word of God really say? And so these things have been hid in the mind of God ever since the very onset of human history, but now are revealed particularly through this Apostle. Now always remember that when we speak of the Apostle Paul as having the revelations, there were other men that followed in his footsteps. We know that Barnabas started out with his ministry, and then came Silas, and then you have Apollos who comes into the picture, and then of course Timothy, and Titus, and then there were probably others. But they were all walking in Paul's footsteps, and they were proclaiming Paul's Gospel, and Paul makes that so plain in his 2nd letter to Timothy, that he is now ready to be offered, and Paul is going to be taken off the scene. But he is charging the young man Timothy to continue with these mysteries that have been revealed to this unique individual. So now back to verse 3, where he says, Ephesians 2, and those were our closing remarks in the last program. How that by revealing these mysteries, these things that have been kept secret, as I wrote before, going back again into chapters 1 and 2, whereby when you read, you may understand my knowledge in the mystery, or the secret of Christ. Now what in the world can he be talking about, unless it's something that had never before been revealed? And this is the idea then of the revelation of the mysteries. All right, let's go back so we can put some other Scripture verses with this. Go back to Romans. The foundational book of Paul's letters so far as doctrine is concerned, and yet Romans does not relay some of these deeper things that we're already seeing in Ephesians, but he does make one reference to all this in his closing remarks in Romans 16, and dropping down to verse 25. Romans 16, verse 25, a verse that I'll refer to time and time again, because it says so much that most of Christendom hears nothing of, and why they avoid it, I'll never know. But I would just love for people to just call me if they hear a sermon on Romans 16. I'd like to know about it, and for those of you out there who are pastors and are listening to me, goodness sakes preach a sermon now and then on Romans 16, verse 25, because this is what people have to hear. Now to Him that is of power to establish you according to my gospel, and the preaching of Jesus Christ according to the revelation of the mystery. We have to be proclaiming a message that had been kept secret, but now here it is, front and center, in the spotlight, the revelation of the mystery which was kept secret since Christ's earthly ministry, since Pentecost, no since the age began. Now you know I've had people ridiculously try to tell me that Adam was saved by believing the gospel, ridiculous, see, ridiculous, the gospel hadn't been revealed, Adam did what God instructed him to do, Abel did what God instructed him to do, but they certainly knew nothing of the death, burial, and resurrection, and a crucifixion they couldn't have. Number one, crucifixion wasn't invented until the Romans thought it up, sovereignly of course, and secondly, if you understand Paul's writings, it was kept secret, nobody had a concept of the gospel as we now know it. In fact, oh let's see, I guess we're through with this verse, yeah, the revelation of the mystery which was kept secret since the world began. Now this is a good time to go all the way back to Peter's little epistles. First Peter, and of course this is written at the end of Peter's ministry, just as well as Second Timothy is written at the end of Paul's ministry, and I think they're both martyred within a year or so of each other, and so we're at about 65 -66 A.D., and Peter writes, starting in verse 10 of First Peter chapter 1, "...of which salvation," as we now know in the age of grace, and I'm sure he is alluding to Paul's gospel at least somewhat, "...of which salvation the prophets," that is the Old Testament writers, "...have inquired and searched diligently, and they prophesied of the grace that should come," but now look at the verse 11, "...searching," what does that mean? They were looking, and looking, and looking, but for something that they couldn't find, and they never did find it. "...searching what or what manner of time the Spirit of Christ who was in them did signify, when it testified beforehand the sufferings of Christ and the glory which should follow." Now when I teach my classes here in Oklahoma, and we've got time for questions and discussion of course, these things come up, and we can cover them in detail. Now all the way through the Old Testament, in fact I've usually put it this way on the board, I think I can leave this up there. All the way through the Old Testament you've got two parallel lines of thought, just like two railroad tracks, all the way up, especially from Genesis 12, and the one is the coming of a suffering Savior, and the other one is of a ruling King, and scattered throughout the Old Testament there are verses that that allude to either that or this. I remember reading many, many years ago where some of the ancient rabbis were all hung up on the situation around Rachel and the birth of Benjamin. And those of you who know your Old Testament, you remember as Rachel was dying, she said his name is Ben-Oni, which was the son of my suffering. But Jacob says, no his name is going to be Benjamin, which was the son of my strength. Well the rabbis could deduct that this was either the name of a suffering Savior, which would be Ben-Oni, but Jacob comes and says, no it's going to be the name of the son of my strength, or depicting a ruling King. And so the rabbis for centuries were hung up about this. Well how can this be, unless they would have two messiahs? That was even advanced. Maybe there's two messiahs instead of one. And so then when the Messiah came, He had to be first the suffering Savior. You all know that. He couldn't be the King until He had redeemed Israel. And so for most Jewish people today, bless their hearts, they still can't reconcile the fact that He has already fulfilled this part, the Ben-Oni, but we're now waiting for the soon return, His Second Coming, to be the ruling King. It's the same person, but fulfilling both roles 2,000 years apart. And this is exactly what Peter is talking about. Now read it again. Verse 11. "...searching what, or what manner of time, the Spirit of Christ which was in them," that is as they wrote by inspiration, "...which was in them did sanctify, when it testified beforehand the sufferings of Christ, the Ben-Oni, and the glory which would follow, which was His ruling and reigning as King." See that? But did they ever figure it out? No. Was it their fault? No, they weren't supposed to, because that was all kept secret in the mind of God. Now after reading Romans 16 where Paul says that it's the preaching of Jesus Christ according to the revelation of the mysteries, now let's just come on through to I Corinthians chapter 4. Long, long time ago we did this, but I always kind of feel guilty when I do this for the people that have bought the tapes, and maybe they don't like to hear it twice. For the television audience of course I don't apologize, because most of them write all the time, keep repeating, keep repeating. Well now here in I Corinthians chapter 4, beginning at verse 1, Paul writes to the Gentiles at Corinth, so he's writing more or less to us, "...let a man so account of us as of the ministers of Christ, and stewards of the mysteries of God." Now I told you a program or two back that a part of the administration of the grace of God, or a part of a dispensation of God, was that there had to be an administrator. Now that follows doesn't it? Abraham spoke of it way back when he was promised a son, and he said, Lord all I have is this Eliezer of Damascus, who is the steward of my property. He was the administrator, a perfect analogy. Now let's come back to what we used earlier. Here we have a corporation, and we've got a gentleman at the very top, he's the chief executive officer, and he has gotten his education, he's probably got a degree in business administration, he goes and gets an MBA from Harvard, and he works his way up through the ranks, and all of a sudden he's the chief executive officer of this great corporation. Now he's worked hard to get to that position, he's being paid well for it. What is expected of him? To be a good administrator, that's his job. That's exactly what Paul is telling every one of us, that as soon as you get a good grasp on these mysteries, these revelations that have been given to the apostle Paul, what are we to do with it? Pass them on, administer it, dispense it. But all Christendom is so slow to react, and I keep thinking all the time of some of the great Bible teachers of generations back who saw the apostasy that was coming, and they were almost pleading then already that the average Christian would get skilled in the Word of God, so that when the apostasy would come, that we could still by person to person pass these things on. And so this is what the apostle is saying, that we are to be stewards of these secrets that are now revealed. Now verse 2, we covered this when we were in the Corinthian letter. Verse 2. "...moreover it is required in stewards," or managers or CEOs if you want to call them that, that we're faithful. We're not to be sloppy, we're not to be careless. We are to be constantly passing the Word on, and showing folks what does it say. Not what you think it says, not what I say, or what some preacher says. Show them what does the Word say. I were to be faithful stewards of the mysteries. Well let's come on over to another favorite one of mine, and that of course is 1 Corinthians 15 verse 51. And we're getting closer and closer. I think it's closer than most people like to think. 1 Corinthians 15 verse 51. And oh, the Word just jumps off the page I think. "...behold I show you a..." what? "...mystery." See, a secret. Now what does that mean? He's going to tell us now in the next few verses something that has never even been hinted at anywhere else in the Bible. The Old Testament knew nothing of it, Jesus never referred to it. Now He knew about it, but He never referred to it. He too kept it secret, and the mystery is that we shall not all sleep or die physically, but everybody's going to be what? Changed. We can't go to glory in this old body of flesh, so we're going to have to be changed. Now read on, verse 52. "...in a moment..." Now that word moment in the Greek is a split, finely split particle of time, less than a second, less than a millisecond, "...instantaneously in the twinkling of an eye at the last trump. For the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised..." That is the dead, not the unbelieving, "...but the believing dead shall be raised incorruptible..." See that's why I know it's referring to believers and not unbelievers. "...they'll be raised incorruptible with a body like Christ's resurrected body, and we..." We're alive, we can't go to glory in this body, so in that split second what happens to us? We're changed. That's what the Scripture says, this isn't my idea, it's what the Book says. "...and we will be changed, and we're going to be made incorruptible." Because this corruptible body can't go into glory, so it has to be changed, and it will be in that split second. Well that's all part of what Paul calls the mystery, and then let's go back to those first four verses of chapter 15. We use them over and over and over because they are so paramount to our being ready for the mystery of what we just read, and that is the Gospel of the Grace of God. Here it is, this is the Gospel of the Grace of God. "...Moreover brethren, I declare unto you the gospel, which I preached unto you, and which also you have received, and wherein you stand, by which..." Now here you've got to be a stickler for language. What's the by which? The Gospel. "...by which also you are saved." That's as plain as you can get it. "...if you keep in memory what I preached unto you, lest you believe in vain." And now here it is, here's the Gospel where Paul says, "...I delivered unto you first of all." How could that egotistical man say that? See that's what people say. Now there's his egotism coming up. He's the one. He was. Let's face it, he was the first one to reveal the Gospel of Grace, and so the Holy Spirit is absolutely true in having him right, that I delivered it unto you first of all. Why? Because he was the one to whom it was first revealed, and oh that's hard for people to swallow. Oh they say, well what did Jesus preach? Oh He preached the Gospel of the Kingdom, a whole different message, and Jesus preached that which was still under the law. Now you've heard me say that for the last ever many years. Every word that Jesus taught and preached in His earthly ministry was to the nation of Israel under the law. Never once did Jesus tell someone, well now you don't have to go to the temple, you don't have to take sacrifices, you don't have to keep the law, you're under grace. No, Jesus never did that, and that's where Paul got in trouble, because that's the first thing he told people. You're not under the law, you're not under any commitment to the temple, you don't have to do this and have to do that, you're under grace. Why? Because over here he received all these mysteries that these folk over here never had an inkling of. So this is what he's constantly talking about, the mysteries and the Gospel of Grace of God. Now reading on in chapter 15, verse 3. Ephesians 1.3-4 I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, and this was the revelation, 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. Now that's the Gospel, and when we believe that, then God does everything else. God has already forgiven us, and so He appropriates it on our behalf, He imputes it, He sanctifies us, He glorifies us, He does all those good things when we believe this Gospel. It was all part of the mystery, something that had never been revealed before, and I beg people constantly, just go back. I don't care how far you want to go back, are you going to find anything like this for salvation? No, I'll save you the time. You won't find it, it's not back there. But this is now what he calls the Gospel of the Grace of God, or as he says in another place, we preach Christ crucified, and he's always emphasizing the resurrection power, and so on and so forth. Well anyway, I guess that's about enough for now, and I don't want to belabor the point, but if we can just get folks to understand that these mysteries were secrets that God never revealed until He revealed them to this Chosen Vessel, to take it to the Gentile world. Now let's get back to Ephesians 3, and we'll get maybe part of another verse in a moment or two that's left. Ephesians 3.5 "...which in other ages," or generations, some commentaries would probably squeeze the word dispensation in there again, which is all right, but the true translation of the word aion is generations. "...which in other generations was not made known to the sons of men," they didn't know this, they weren't supposed to, "...and that it was now revealed unto his holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit." Well I've already alluded unto them, who were they? In Paul's footsteps came Barnabas, and Silas, and here comes Apollos, and then Titus, and Timothy, and then there were other great men that followed even after that. But it all began with this man and his commitment to take the gospel to the Gentile world, and you know I had such a refreshing letter the other day. This person rehearsed all the suffering that they had been through, and it was awful. I mean almost more than what one person you think should have, but I think it was a man that was writing. But he says, "...until I started hearing you teach Paul," he said, "...I would get so bitter, and I would blame God for all my troubles and all my suffering." But he said, "...now whenever pain comes," he said, "...I just say, Thank you Lord, because if Paul could do it, I can do it. And if he was sold out to serve you, then I can be." And this is all I'm trying to get people to see, is that this is what Paul tried to get across. That his suffering for the sake of the gospel was to encourage us, because otherwise we could say, well all I have to do is be a true servant like Paul was, and then everything will go smooth. No, it doesn't work that way. And so no matter how loyal he was to his Lord, yet he suffered, and he suffered, and he suffered some more, until finally he died the martyr's death. See, and so this is a lesson for us, that this is why he says, "...be ye followers of me as I follow Christ." And so always use these points as encouragement to us, that if Paul could suffer, he was just as human as you and I. 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. Thanks.