812 - Les Feldick Bible Study - Lesson 2 Part 4 Book 68 - But When - The Fullness of Time - Part 4

https://lesfeldickbiblestudy.com Through the Bible with Les Feldick LESSON 2 * PART 4 * BOOK 68 BUT WHEN - THE FULLNESS OF THE TIME – BOOK 68 Galatians 4:4; Galatians 4:9; Ephesians 2:4 Again, we would like to welcome our television audience. For those of you who may be catching us for the first time, we’re an informal Bible study. I do not pastor a church, so please don’t write and address me as pastor or reverend. I’m a layman. I prefer to just call this a, probably a little different kind of a Sunday School class. But anyway, that’s what we are. We appreciate your prayers, your financial help, and the response of all your good letters. My, it’s rare that we get a letter that is less than exhilarating. So, we praise the Lord for all that. Okay, we’re on another one of our “But God’s.” We’re going to move now to Ephesians chapter 2 verse 4. Now again, you’ve got to realize that the Ephesian church was a far cry from the Corinthian or the Galatian. Ephesians was - what should I say - probably up a few steps in their understanding. It is one of the prison epistles toward the end of Paul’s ministry, so he deals with things in Ephesians and Philippians and Colossians that are not so much indicated in Romans and Corinthians and so forth. He certainly does not have the problem with the Ephesians that he did with the Galatians. There’s not a single mention of them following false teachers. So, take all those things into play when you study the Word. But now Paul is dealing with some of these deeper elements of Scripture, or on a higher plain, however you prefer to put it. In Ephesians chapter 2 verse 1, right off the bat, if I may use that expression, you have a word that indicates something that Paul doesn’t refer to all the time. It’s the word “quickened.” Ephesians 2:1a “And you hath he quickened,…” Or made alive, spiritually. Now, what does that mean? Well, it’s really the same act of God that Jesus spoke of in John’s Gospel chapter 3 as “born again.” Paul never uses the term, and I don’t know why. But it’s the same act of God that brings the lost person into spiritual life. Here he uses it as being quickened or made alive – spiritually. Now, back up with me to Romans 8 so that we get a little better understanding of how he uses it in the Romans epistle. Chapter 8 verse 15 and this is what he’s talking about when he tells the Ephesians, “And you hath he quickened.” Romans 8:15a “For ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear;…” Now, what was that word from? Our last program. We’re not under bondage. We’re not under any of the effects of the Law. We’ve been set free from all that. All right, but instead of being under bondage, we have now received: Romans 8:15b “…but ye have received the Spirit of adoption, (That placing as a son, as we saw it in the first program this afternoon.) whereby we cry, Abba, Father.” That’s how we can now approach God. We can call Him our father. All right, verse 16 and now the Spirit comes into play. The third person of the Trinity as we many times refer to Him. Romans 8:16 “The Spirit himself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children (or the born ones) of God: 17. And if children (born ones of God), then heirs; (Just like a child is an heir of the father and the mother.) heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ; (The same terminology that we associate with husband and wife. We’re joint-heirs.) if so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified together. (That is with Him.)” All right, back to Ephesians then. We have the concept throughout all of Paul’s writings of the necessity to be born from above or to receive spiritual life. We looked at it, I think, in our last taping. When you have the resurrection of the just as against the resurrection of the unjust, what’s the basic difference? Well the just have been made spiritually alive for all eternity, never to have that spiritual life brought to an end. So, all through Paul’s teachings we have this concept that the moment we’re saved we have imputed to us eternal life. We’re going to live for eternity in God’s presence. But the unbeliever has never been spiritually reborn, so he’s going to spend his eternity separated from God. All right, back to Ephesians chapter 2. He’s writing to these believing Gentiles, now, way at the western end of Turkey, at Ephesus. Galatia was up in the central high land. Ephesus is clear out on the Aegean Sea. He says to these Ephesians: #LesFeldick #BibleStudy #Bible