We
shock people when we tell them that here humanity had come from Adam all the
way up for 1600 years to Noah’s flood. There were just as many
people on the planet then as there are now, and how many believers
were spared? Eight! Isn’t that something. That’s all
God had left after 1600 years. With an estimated population of 6-7 million. Then we come to the time of Elijah,
and Elijah thought he was the only righteous one left at that time. But of
course God knew better, because he told Elijah that He still had 7000
left that had not bowed their knee to Baal. Let’s say there was
7-8,000,000 Israelites at that time, but only 7000 were believers, counted as righteous, what
percentage is that? 1/10 of 1 percent. The tithes, or remnant. All of this
to show us the "unsearchable riches of Christ." We can go the other way using Abraham and Sarah remember they were in the later years of age when Isaac was received and the word tells us that their bodies were as new or like Adam and woman's in Genesis 2. Now is that a stretch? Don't think so for with God all, ALL! things are possible.
Let’s
go on a little further to what Paul has been teaching here in
Ephesians, and that is the moment we believe God, God does something
else that’s beyond human understanding or comprehension. 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, who have become receptive ones, and we are all
made One within Christ. Hey that’s beyond most human
understanding, why? because they rely upon mans intellectualism, the external, material realization. Not realizing that faith, simply trusting Him is all that is required of us. but
again that’s all part of the "unsearchable riches of
Christ."
How
can He take a Hell-bound sinner, and by just the virtue of his
trusting, make him a heaven-bound saint. Not that we become sinless,
but oh listen, we completely have a change of appetite, a change of character, a change in natures. We have had
so many say in the past how they fell into sin. I mean gross sin, and
their argument always was, the individual with whom they experienced
this fall was a professing believer, and this professing believer
said, "Well after all, I’m saved, and didn’t have anything
to worry about." To which we said, "That’s not what my
Bible tells me." We don’t have that kind of license. You have
heard me say it over and over that Grace is not license. Being able
to do anything is not the unsearchable riches of Christ. It is just the opposite! If fact the taking of the Lord's Supper over and over again has the same effect, why? Because to do so in counted as unbelief! I mean just how many times can He be crucified any way? Or how many times can He be reborn? Ever think on those things?
Our
Bible does not tell us that just because the Grace of God abounds, we
can go out and do an immoral thing, and God’s going to wink at it. NO!
The Scripture definitely warns us against those things. We have been
trying to come up with an illustration of how can we put it that a
true believer will never find themselves in that kind of a situation
unless it is just a momentary lapse, a weakness of the flesh, which can happen. But to just
deliberately walk into something like that and practice it over and over for a sustained
period of time, we just can’t believe it. So we came up with this
illustration, going back to the book of Romans chapter 3, and let’s
look at verses 23 and 24.
Romans 3:23-26
"For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God; Being justified freely by His grace through the Redemption that is in Christ Jesus: Whom God has set forth to be a propitiation through faith in His blood, to declare His righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God; To declare, I say, at this time His righteousness: that He might be just, and the justifier of him which believes into Jesus."
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