The church is presented as a glorious mystery revealed in the New Testament, distinct from Israel, with heavenly promises and a spiritual birthright. The sermon draws parallels between Christ and the church, mirroring the relationship between a husband and wife, and highlights the church's origin from Christ's wounded side, likening it to a pearl of great price formed through suffering. This divine union, established by God, is intended to be the perfect counterpart to Christ, completing him and reflecting his glory eternally. Belonging to this redeemed company, the church, is a profound privilege and a testament to God's redemptive plan.
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Church and of the churches. And I'm not just using that word glory myself. I think we'll see that that's what God's word gives to the church, that it's a glorious thing. Shall we read from Ephesians chapter five? Ephesians chapter five. We are beginning at verse twenty-three. For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church, and he is the savior of the body. Therefore, as the church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in everything.
Husbands love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it. that he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word, that he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that it should be holy and without blemish. So ought men to love their wives as their own bodies. He that loveth his wife loveth himself. For no man ever yet hated his own flesh, but nourisheth and cherishes it, even as the Lord the Church.
For we are members of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones. For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall be joined unto his wife, and they too shall be one flesh. This is a great mystery, but I speak concerning Christ and the Church. This is a great mystery. The church. What is a mystery? Well, I guess some of you did like I did before I got saved and figured my time was worth more than that.
I used to read mysteries. I enjoyed a mystery. Something that you didn't understand. You didn't know how this thing was going to work out. You'd read and read, and then finally there was the solution to it, and the mystery was solved. A mystery in the Word of God has that element of something hidden, but it has this added element, and that is, it has now been revealed. Every mystery mentioned in the Scriptures also is something hidden. now revealed.
I counted about twenty times I saw the word mystery in the New Testament. And there must be at least eleven different mysteries. But each one of them is explained. For example, the mystery of iniquity. He says the mystery of iniquity does already work. and he explains that that's the way in which humanity is operating today, the spirit of self-will, of lawlessness, self-will, and tells us how it will culminate.
You have the mystery of Babylon in Revelation, and obviously it's the great false church of the last days. and will go on into the tribulation and finally be destroyed by Antichrist those are mysteries things that were hidden but have now been revealed and here is a mystery the mystery of the church now when was it hidden well he tells us in this same book in Ephesians let's look over to Ephesians chapter three and verse four.
Notice verse three, he uses the word mystery again there. How that by revelation he made known unto me the mystery. So obviously it was something that was not known at one time, but now has been revealed, for he says so, that by revelation he made known unto me the mystery. as I wrote afore in few words, whereby when you read you may understand my knowledge in the mystery 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 by the Spirit.
Now the fact that he puts those words in that order, apostles and prophets, and not prophets and apostles, which show that he's speaking of New Testament prophets. The apostles and prophets. So this mystery had not been revealed in ages past, he says, as it is now revealed to his holy apostles and prophets by the Holy Spirit. That the Gentiles should be fellow heirs and of the same body. He's speaking of the church, isn't he? And partakers of his promise in Christ by the gospel.
Look at verse nine. And to make all men see what is the administration, the word is not fellowship here, but the administration of the mystery which from the beginning of the world hath been hid in God who created all things by Jesus Christ to the intent that now unto the principalities and powers in the heavenlies might be made known through the church the manifold wisdom of God. So obviously this was a mystery for it was hidden in times past. You don't find the church in the Old Testament.
The church is only in the New Testament and it does not occur The church does not begin until after Calvary, after the resurrection and ascension of the Lord Jesus. The church is in absolute contrast to Israel. Some people read the Old Testament and the New, and they don't make these distinctions. And therefore, they get into utter confusion. So many have done this just in utter confusion about the church and Israel.
That's why some people think that today that a Christian should get all involved in politics. They have to go back to the Old Testament and quote verses there and show how these prophets got involved in the politics of the country. They always had to do with the kings and they had to do with what was going on nationally. And so people will take that over into the New Testament and say that we should get all involved in politics. But this is only one of the errors that follows if you don't distinguish between Israel and the church.
Remember the church is a new thing. It did not exist in the Old Testament. Let's notice the difference between the church and Israel. Some of the differences, in fact, contrast between Israel and the church. First of all, the promises to Israel were earthly promises. You remember Genesis, twelve and fifteen and chapter seventeen of Genesis? God promises to Abraham a land, a piece of real estate, my friend, right here on this earth.
And he put the boundaries on it. He told him how far that way, how far that way. He put the boundaries around it, the promised land. And he kept repeating, I have given this to you and to your seed forever. Now, God hasn't given us any such promise. The church isn't promised any piece of land, a piece of real estate, but we are told that we're going to heaven and we are heavenly people. In fact, it says we're already there. As we were just quoting together a while ago from Ephesians two, he has raised us up together and made us to sit together in the heavenlies in Christ.
The church has been given Heavenly promises. Yes, we're going to reign over the earth, but I don't think we're going to reign on the earth. I believe we are going to be that heavenly company, and we superintend everything. But we are not promised a piece of this earth. Israel were promised the earth. So that's one great contrast between Israel and the church. Israel was given earthly promise. a land on the earth, and we have promised heaven. In fact, if you claim to be saved and somebody asks you if you're going to heaven, you might as well answer them.
Why, certainly, I'm already there, because you have already arrived, according to Ephesians. He has raised us up together and made us to sit together in the heavenlies, in Christ, and that's not a state of mind. like somebody goes to a meeting and they hear beautiful singing and the Christian seem happy and the preacher preaches a good message and they said, Oh, we were in the heavenlies this morning. Well, that's not what God means when he says we're in the heavenlies. Ephesians one says he raised Christ up from the dead and made him to sit at his own right hand in the heavenlies.
So that's where the heavenlies are. They're the very presence of God in heaven. That's where Christ is. And he goes right on and says, He raised us up together with Him and has seated us with Him in the heavenlies. You know, there's a fellow back home in Augusta, Georgia, and I guess you can already tell that's where I'm from. like those disciples, they said to them, Your speech betrayeth you. I guess mine does me. Well, this brother in Georgia named Edgar Murrah, you really haven't been fully educated if you haven't met Edgar Murrah.
He is something else. He was saved off the bottom of the barrel. He'll tell you that himself. All he knew as even a child, he was brought up in gambling dens. and waited on these gamblers. His father was a gambler. Then he went on a carnival lot, you know, and had one of these crooked tables there in which he just literally stole the people blind, you know. And that's the way he lived. And his wife the same way. And he was a very rough character. And then God saved him when he was about fifty years of age. and he has been, he and his wife have just been a tremendous witness to the whole city of Augusta, about eighty-five thousand people, not a big place, but many people.
And I tell you, all over that town they're known, the Edgar Murras, for their witness. Well, Edgar still has some of his rough edges, you know, even though he is saved. One day somebody was kidding him, you know, and saw out on the streets that say, Edgar, Are you saved? And he answered, Saved? Well, man, I could swing over hell on a rotten pea vine and sing amazing grace. Well, he knows, and he knows that he knows that he's saved, and he's as good as in heaven already. And we are.
The church is a heavenly people. and Israel is an earthly people. Another contrast between Israel and the church. You became an Israelite by physical birth. If you were born of a Jew, that made you a Jew. If you are physical descendant from Abraham, then you belong to that nation of Israel. But that isn't the case with us at all. My father was a preacher and my mother, one of the most godly women and a real soul winner that you ever saw.
But I didn't belong to the church because I was a child of Christians. If you were born in a Jewish family, you automatically part of Israel. But being born of Christian parents doesn't make you part of the church at all. I had to be born again by spiritual birth in order to be put by the Holy Spirit into the church. So you see, all the way down as you compare Israel and the church, they're two totally different things. They are by no means identical. But then also in Israel, they had one father, and he was Abraham, their physical father.
He was called a father. Paul says that, doesn't he? In Romans chapter five, rather, he says, What shall we say that Abraham our father, as pertaining to the flesh, has found? Abraham was the father of Paul, according to the flesh because Paul was a Jew. He was born in the Jewish race. And so he calls Abraham his father for that reason. Israel then had as their father Abraham. But an Israelite didn't know God as his father. It's only through Calvary, through grace, since the cross that this is possible.
And every person who knows the Lord Jesus as Savior has been born of God. And therefore knows God as his real Father. And the church, every person in the church, makes that claim. God is our Father. Abraham is our Father in a sense. That is that he was the man known for faith. And He's the very example of faith and therefore he's our father in a sense if we believe. Galatians chapter six tells us that he's the father of all them that believe.
But Israel could not call God their father. They didn't address him as father. It's only through the Lord Jesus and the members of the church, of the body of Christ, called God Father. We have two different covenants. Israel had a legal covenant. The letter of the law, the Chile, Second Corinthians chapter three. He not compares, he contrasts the two covenants. Law and the Spirit. We walk by the Spirit. Now, this doesn't mean we disdain the law.
It means that we fulfill the law, but we are not under it. Romans eight says that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit. So by the Holy Spirit we fulfill the righteousness of the law. But the covenant we are under, thank God, is not the legal covenant of Israel. law of the spirit of life the spirit who gives life Israel was a nation and again and again God speaks of that he says to Abraham in Genesis twelve verse two I will make thee a great nation and in Deuteronomy chapter Exodus thirty three verse thirteen He says, this nation is thy people.
Israel were a nation like America, like France, like Germany, and so on. It was a nation. But the church is composed of all nations. It's not a nation. It's just composed of people from all nations, even from the Jewish nations. So you see everything is different when you look at the church and Israel. As to the Lord's coming, the Lord's coming to the church is a blessed hope. There's nothing frightening to you and me about the Lord Jesus coming again.
Instead it's our happy hope and we're expectantly looking for him to come again. But for Israel they must See him whom they have pierced, and they will mourn for him. When he comes again, Israel will be in their great day of atonement, and it will be a dreadful time, and they will fall before him and say, Where did you get these wounds? And he said, They are the wounds I received in the house of my friends, and there will be a great day of mourning for Israel. as well as that horrible day of Jacob's trouble which just precedes his coming for Israel so you see even his coming again is so different for the church it's that happy hope expectancy we're looking for his coming he says in first Thessalonians chapter one and verse ten.
You turn to God from idols to serve the true and living God and to wait for his Son from heaven. You know that word wait is very significant. It is used only one time in the New Testament. It's the Greek word anameno. And it's wait and it has that anna in front of it which means up. So it really says to wait up for his son from heaven. When I was dating the girls, about sixteen years of age, I remember my folks said, now listen, Liddon, if you're going to take the car and date, you're going to have to be in by eleven o'clock.
And if you're late, if it's past eleven, then you don't get the car next week. So you know, I would figure it just as close as I could. And sometime I'd step in that door just a wee bit past eleven. And if the house was dark, everybody asleep, and I'd turn the knob, you know, and I'd step in so quietly, I'd get in and I'd turn around and close it, and hardly closed it before I would hear, is that you lidden, honey? It was mother waiting up for her boy. You know, I took mother, she's eighty-eight years old now, I took mother to Spanish Wells in the Bahamas.
I just wanted her to meet those dear saints. So she went with me and one night the brethren wanted to discuss something and So I took mother to the apartment where we were staying, and I told her to go ahead and go to bed that I might be late, that these brethren wanted to discuss some matter. So I went and met with these brethren, and we talked and talked, and it was late when I got back to the apartment. And so I didn't want to wake mother up, so I opened the door very quietly, you know, and was just about in, and I heard, is that you Lidden, honey? Here I am sixty years old and mother still waiting up for her boy.
But Christian, are you waiting up for the Lord from heaven? You turn to God from idols to serve the living and true God and to wait up for his son from heaven. Ah, to the church, the Lord's coming is that happy hope and we are waiting up. for him. Not so for Israel. Don't you see, all the way through, Israel and the church are two entirely different things. And so this was a mystery. The church, a truth that God has had in his mind from before the foundation of the world, but he has only revealed it in New Testament days after the Lord Jesus rose from the dead and the church only began at that time as you notice as we read in Ephesians chapter five that he compares the church and Christ with a bride or the wife and her husband or the other way
around he compares a husband and wife with Christ and the church. In fact, as you read that portion we read, sometimes you just don't know where you are exactly. Is he talking about Christ and the church? Is he talking about the husband and the wife? That they're so intertwined. By the way, a young person, if you really want to see how to have a perfect marriage, There is the secret right there. And I mean that with all my heart. In America we have gotten the idea of, you know, it's a fifty-fifty proposition.
If she does her part, I'll do my part. And my friend, that is not what we see here in the Scriptures. I found out one day that marriage is one hundred percent me. It doesn't matter whether my wife does her part or not. It doesn't matter whether she loves me or not. I have got to love her. I have no way out. If I'm going to obey God, if I'm going to walk pleasing to him, I have got to love my wife. There's no way out. He doesn't give you any way out at all. Husbands love your wives. If they're lovable, no.
Love your wives as Christ loved the church. Was the church lovable when he first set his heart on her? No, she wasn't. And we are to love our wives. In other words, as I said, it's a hundred percent you in your marriage. And walking with God, filling our own responsibility, whether our mate does or not. But I believe if we do, God will give us our mate. I believe that will have such power that a mate can hardly resist it. But anyway, that's the pattern for marriage.
But the pattern is Christ and His church. And the husband is to picture Christ toward His church. And the bride or the wife is to present to express the church toward Christ. Now that's something, isn't it? And that elevates marriage to a level this world knows nothing about. America knows nothing about Christian marriage. It's completely foreign to this country in which we live, and if you and I are going to have a marriage that's pleasing to God, we've got to be willing to go completely contrary to the society in which we live.
For they despise what's taught here in this scripture. Christ and his church. You know, he quotes a verse all the way back from Genesis chapter two. Verse thirty one. For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother and shall be joined unto his wife and they too shall be one flesh. Well, we know he's talking about a husband and wife, and then he immediately says, verse thirty-two, this is a great mystery, but I'm speaking about Christ and the church. So he's taking us back to Adam and Eve all the way back and quoting that scripture back yonder in Genesis chapter two.
You see, Adam is a type of Christ. Romans seven and or rather chapter six and verse fourteen says, Adam who is a type of the one that was to come, or in other words, of Christ. You know, that shocked me the first time I read that, that Adam is a type of the Lord Jesus. I thought to myself, how could that rascal who sold us out to sin ever be a type of my Lord? But here is one of the ways in which he's a type. Let's go back to Genesis two and see this.
Yes, it was hidden, but it was certainly pictured all the way from the very beginning of the human race, Christ and his church. Genesis chapter two, verse eighteen. And the Lord God said, It is not good. It is not good. God's been creating, making these things and he keeps saying, and it was good. And it was good. In fact, one time he says, and it was very good. And now suddenly he says, it is not good. What? This perfect creation God has made and something's not good?
Yes, it is not good that the man should be alone. That's what wasn't good. I will make on help meat for him. Darby, who's so accurate, translates this, I will make on help his counterpart. Oh my, what God is saying there. His counterpart, his complement. In other words, I'm going to make a creature that won't be like these animals. But I'm going to make a creature that's going to answer to him, that will correspond to him, his counterpart, his complement.
Now that really is amazing. Now Adam was head over his whole creation, and he called the animals all by names, and everything was peace and harmony. No tiger ever turned on Adam. Everything was peaceful and the animals obeyed. It was a perfect creation. But then God felt that it wasn't good for man to be alone. That is, he had no real fellowship with any of this creation. He was just over it, had dominion over it. You know, God is speaking of his own son.
It says in Ephesians chapter one, the church, which is his body, the fullness of him, or that which completes him, who completes all things in all. Do you hear that? He says that Christ needed something to complete him. The church, which is his body, that which completes him. you mean to tell me the Lord Jesus wasn't complete oh yes he was complete in himself mighty God almighty all-knowing the creator as scripture credits him with this creation he was complete and yet in a sense he was not complete because he didn't have that which could really share his glory with him, that could answer to him, correspond to him.
And so God created the church. That which completes him, who completes all in all. Adam was not complete without his wife. And so God caused this deep sleep to come upon Adam. What a picture of the death of the Lord Jesus. And he took from his side a rib. Why didn't God just make the woman like he did the man? Just take some dust. Oh, surely he's picturing how this church would come into existence from the wounded side.
of the Son of God, the Church of God which he purchased with his own blood. The pearl of great price. A pearl comes into being by the suffering of that oyster. A bit of grit gets inside the shell and begins to aggravate the muscle of the oyster. and the oyster secretes this mother of pearl a coat of it and then another coat of it around that substance that's irritating and it lays another coat and another coat hundreds of coats of mother of pearl and the result is that beautiful pearl which was produced through suffering and the pearl in its oneness you remember the man saw one pearl of great price and he sold all that he had to purchase that one pearl.
So the church is this pearl of great price brought into being by the suffering of our Savior. One pearl of great price. The pearl is out of the sea. Israel were out of the land, the earth. But the church is primarily out of the sea. That is, the sea, speaking of multitudes and nations and tongues, as Revelation describes the many waters. And so the pearl is out of the sea. The church is out of the multitudes, the nations, the tribes, the tongues of this earth.
How perfect the picture. And so Adam had this deep sleep. You know, God was the first anesthetist he put Adam to sleep. And God was the first surgeon. He did that operation. He opened the side of Adam and took that rib out and made the woman out of it. And can't you imagine that wedding day? Can you imagine it? It's just hard to imagine Adam's great delight. when he'd been walking this earth and seeing all these animals and he really couldn't have fellowship with them. And then God was the best man at the wedding.
Because it says he built a woman of that rib and he brought her to the man. Can't you imagine Adam as he turns and he sees God coming with that beautiful creature? and she was like him she wasn't an animal she walked on two feet she stood upright like he did and look she had a eyes and ears and nose and mouth and hands just like he did beautiful beyond words she was of him and lo she was made from himself and therefore he called her woman which simply is the feminine of the word man.
It's the same word, just the feminine. He calls her woman. And all the delight that was his. And God is speaking of the church. Adam is a type of the coming one. And the Lord Jesus has a bride. the church. And God is forming this bride for his son. You remember in Genesis twenty-four, the father, Abraham, sends out the servant, and it doesn't even call his name.
Fourteen times in Genesis twenty-four, he's called the servant. This man he sent to get a bride for Isaac. And not one time does he call his name. And you know, God has sent the Holy Spirit. Really, that's not his name. Holy Spirit, God is a spirit. God is a Holy Spirit. And so the Holy Spirit really, he doesn't have a name. It really is just sort of describing who this person of the Godhead is. And he's a great mystery to us.
and God has sent forth the Holy Spirit to take out from this world a bride for his son. Abraham the Father sent the servant to get a bride for Isaac. And when this servant went there he found this bride and he gave her all these bracelets and rings and jewels, the riches of Isaac, and she heard the announcement that she was to be the bride for Isaac, and they asked her, Will you go with this man? And she answered, I will go.
And today God is calling out this church, this bride, this company that it will be the complement of the Son of God throughout all eternity. He's calling it out, and you are part of it. when you say, I will go. Oh, what a privilege to be in the church. This new fame, this company that form the counterpart of the Lord of Glory. And what a privilege for you and me to belong to the church. No wonder he says that he might present it to himself a glorious church not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing.
And one day we are going to see the display of glory in the company that he is gathering to himself here and now. And during this week we expect to study further Christ and his church. And may God richly bless our hearts as we do so. Shall we close in just a word of prayer? Our Father, we thank thee again for our precious Savior. Oh, Father, we wonder that He would come so low and that He would go to such lengths to redeem us and to make us His own.
And yes, to lift us so high. Oh, God, we realize that in eternity a dazzled universe will look upon us and see thy glory and see that company that complete the Son of God in whom all fullness dwells. We pray thou will help us to appreciate the church, Father, and the churches as we study them further during these days. We ask it in our precious Savior's name. Amen.