Growing in Grace Pt.2
EPHESIANS 3:1-7
1 ¶ For this cause I Paul, the prisoner of Jesus Christ for you Gentiles,
2 If ye have heard of the dispensation of the grace of God which is given me to you-ward: (a dispensation is a period of time allotted to something)
3 How that by revelation he made known unto me the mystery; (as I wrote afore in few words, (Paul was the angel messenger to the first gentile church age of the Ephesian age, and he was also a prophet that the revelation of the word came to)
4 Whereby, when ye read, ye may understand my knowledge in the mystery of Christ )
5 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; (things that had never been revealed before were now being revealed by God through Paul’s ministry – and we have seen this same revealing of the mysteries of God in these last days also)
6 That the Gentiles should be fellowheirs, and of the same body, and partakers of his promise in Christ by the gospel:
7 Whereof I was made a minister, according to the gift of the grace of God given unto me by the effectual working of his power.
I CORINTHIANS 15:10 But by the grace of God I am what I am,
II PETER 3:18a
18 But grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.
Growing in Grace Pt.2
*True grace was one of the mysteries that would be straightened out and understood in this last age. And so we are to grow in our revelation and understanding of what true grace is.
*Paul in his youthful zeal had persecuted the Christians, he had beaten them and imprisoned them, and he was an assistant to Stephen’s murder, yet with all this history in his life, God chose him to be the messenger of the first gentile church age.
And great revelations would be shown to Paul by God later on in his life after his conversion - like the mystery of marriage in Ephesians 5:32 that “This is a great mystery: but I speak concerning Christ and the church.”
**God revealed to Paul this great mystery of marriage of how that Eve was bone of Adam’s bone and flesh of Adam’s flesh, and how that she was taken out of Adam, and God formed her from the feet to the head (just like the bride of Christ would be formed through the process of seven gentile church ages). Then after Eve was taken out of Adam, then came the marriage, and then they went and had dominion over the creation of God in a faith civilisation where all things were possible.
**And so the marriage of the Lamb in this day has also followed the forming of the second Eve throughout seven gentile church ages, and so we can see the outworking of this mystery of the same pattern that was in Eden to take us back into the Faith civilization in the millennium.
**Adam and Eve were in a faith civilisation at the beginning, and Christ and His bride will be in a faith civilisation in the millennium in the restored kingdom and at the end, so the story of Adam and Eve in Eden was really the marriage mystery of Christ and the bride from Christ’s death all the way to the millennium – this is the revelation of what was revealed to Paul in the first church age.
**Yet with all of these great revelations that God had given to Paul, God had to balance Paul’s ministry with a strong experience and revelation of the grace of God in his life, and so God had to designed certain events in Paul’s early life, and then later on in his life allow him to struggle with other weaknesses and afflictions so that he could continue to make His Grace known to Paul, and so that Paul would not only grow in the knowledge of the Lord, but also in the experience of the grace of God – and so this is also an example of how God deals with our lives also.
**And so if we study the ways of how God deals with a person’s life in the bible, then we will know the way that He deals with our lives also, because God doesn’t change His ways of how he deals with people, because God always acts perfect the first time and every time, and so he must always keep acting that same way of the first time he acted.
**So God had to allow Paul to persecute the saints and do all those terrible things, and so God place that in his life at the beginning of his life in order to keep Paul in humility throughout the rest of his life. It kept him humble against the greatness of the things that God was going to reveal to Paul.
*So God knows how to plan your life in such a way in order to reveal his grace to you.
Paul always remembered what he was before, and how he had treated the saints, and that by this he considered himself to be the chiefest of sinners.
I TIMOTHY 1:15
15 This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners; of whom I am chief.
**So as Paul was growing in these great revelations of the mysteries of the word, God had already designed his life and had place certain experiences in his life like the persecuting of the church and the stoning of Stephen before he even became a believer, because it was going to be those experiences that kept him from becoming exalted and proud because of these great truths that God would revealed to him.
*And we see how that God did similar things for Brother Branham before he became a Christian (He would have been a murderer, he would have been a drinker, he would have been a smoker), and so Brother Branham knew that it was the grace of God that kept him from those things also.
**And so God placed these things in Paul’s life and in Brother Branham’s life, and in our lives also, so that when the revelation of the word came, then we would all grow in knowledge of the grace of God and not just in the knowledge of the mysteries of God, because knowledge on its own without the balance of humility will puff a person up into a “stuffed shirt”.
II CORINTHIANS 12:3-9
3 And I knew such a man, (whether in the body, or out of the body, I cannot tell: God knoweth;)
4 How that he was caught up into paradise, and heard unspeakable words, which it is not lawful for a man to utter. (this was Paul himself being taken beyond the curtain of time)
5 Of such an one will I glory: yet of myself I will not glory, but in mine infirmities.
6 For though I would desire to glory, I shall not be a fool; for I will say the truth: but now I forbear, lest any man should think of me above that which he seeth me to be, or that he heareth of me.
7 And lest I should be exalted above measure through the abundance of the revelations, there was given to me a thorn in the flesh, the messenger of Satan to buffet me, lest I should be exalted above measure. (This word exalted = to carry one's self haughtily - you think that you are better than others)
8 For this thing I besought the Lord thrice, that it might depart from me.
9 And he said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness. Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me.
Pulpit Commentary on Paul’s “thorn” in the flesh…
There have been endless conjectures as to the exact nature of this painful and most humbling physical affliction. It is only by placing side by side a great many separate passages that we are almost irresistibly led to the conclusion which is now most generally adopted, namely, that it was acute and disfiguring ophthalmia.
**An intellectual knowledge of the grace of God is different to an experience knowledge of the grace of God, so the events of Paul’s life were designed by God so that the grace of God would be made known to him by the experiences of his weaknesses and his failures throughout his life so that he would grow in the grace of God along with the with the great revelations that were revealed to him – So if this was God’s way with Paul, then we can be sure that it is God’s way with us also.
*The word “grace” means “unmerited favour”.
**And we know that in these last days, there has been a mighty revelation come forth to a people just like the revelation that came to Paul in his day.
*And so by the example of Paul’s life, we know that God will also keep us humble along with the great truths that he has given to us in this day, because He wants us to grow in the knowledge of His grace along with the revelation of this hour.
II PETER 3:18a
18 But grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.
**So God knows how to design your life with all the troubles that you go through in life in order to reveal His grace to you – and so this is often why God will leave certain struggles and problems in your life in order to keep you from becoming a stuffed shirted person because of the revelation of this hour.
**We must not forget that if we want to get close to God and stay close to Him, then there is a minimum level of spiritual exercise that is necessary to maintain spiritual health in your relationship with the Lord.
*In your natural life, if you just stayed in bed all the time and never did any bodily exercise, then you would become very weak in your body – so this is the same with our spiritual walk and growth with the Lord.
*We must exercise ourselves in the discipline of the word and prayer – this is spiritual life, and this is a part of what we must do as believers and as professing Christians, and it is a discipline because our flesh doesn’t always like it but the benefits are huge, so we have to set aside time for that just as you would with your work or for other activities of importance.
The first time we find the word “grace” in the bible is in:
GENESIS 6:8
8 ¶ But Noah found grace in the eyes of the LORD.
And the first time in the New Testament that the word grace is used is in:
LUKE 1:30
30 And the angel said unto her, Fear not, Mary: for thou hast found favour with God. This word favour is the word grace.
*The angel came to Mary at the first coming of Christ because of the grace of God to her, and this same grace has been shown to us in this day by an angel appearing to us also with the message of his second coming.
*If you have seen an angel in this day, and you can recognise these things in this hour, then you can only see that and recognise that by the grace of God that has been given to you.
ZECHARIAH 4:7
7 Who art thou, O great mountain? before Zerubbabel thou shalt become a plain: and he shall bring forth the headstone thereof with shoutings, crying, Grace, grace unto it.
**The headstone is Christ in bride form at the end of the seven church ages, and this headstone comes with the shoutings of a message with a double portion of grace – it is the message of grace to a people because our revelation of the grace of God has to grow with the revelation of the word.
***So we know that this headstone crying grace, grace, is connected to a people just like it was the grace of God that came to Noah in his day that brought the revelation of the word to him, and the grace of God that came by an angel to Mary in her day that brought the message of the first coming of Christ to her.
***And so it can only be the grace of God that has come to an elected people and revealed a message to those people in this day – a people whose lives like Paul have problems that won’t go away no matter how much you pray, because God has a purpose in designing your life like that to keep you humble.
- Look at brother Branham’s stomach sickness that he had all his life and how he asked God to take it away and yet it kept coming back every 7 years.
**So as we explained last week, the appearing of Christ the second time at this end time age is revealing to us a double portion of grace because we know that the appearing of Christ the second time in this last age is showing us by the Old Testament type that the blood of Christ has been fully accepted by God on our behalf and that we are now completely sinless.
**God doesn’t even remember your sin anymore to the point that we are just the same as if we had never sinned in the first place – this was the mystery of Justification fully revealed in this day by God through a prophetic ministry.
THE.MARK.OF.THE.BEAST_ JEFF.IN V-26 N-3 THURSDAY_ 54-0513
163 Notice, when, King Nebuchadnezzar, in the beginning back yonder, when the Gentile age was issued in, let's watch how it come in. And the way it come in, you'll find out it goes out the same way. We know that there is a beginning of time of grace for the Gentiles, and an ending of time. Is that right?
*This is the greatest time now of the revelation of God’s grace, so there must be a people who are able to comprehend that grace.
JEHOVAH.JIREH_ LONG.BEACH.CA THURSDAY_ 61-0209
E-34 …God's Church is back in grace again. Not under the law and legalism, it's under grace and the promise of God, the true Seed of Abraham. He taken the law upon Himself and the law nailed Him to the cross--of what we must do, and must not do, and must do, and must not do.
You know the thing of it today, when a sinner comes to the Lord, we don't treat them like Paul did when the Philippian jailer said, "What must I do to be saved?"
Now, what would we say today? "You got to quit smoking; you got to quit drinking; you got to quit doing this." (In other words, there is a tendency for our human minds to lean toward the side of legalism and not grace. If we are not careful, then as we go along, we can begin to judge ourselves by comparing ourselves with the holiness of God and see by our mistakes that we fall short, and so begin to subconsciously look more to that then knowing that the grace of God is more than sufficient for us – The Bible says that, “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from ALL unrighteousness” – that is the unfailing word of God, and that is how we are to walk as Christians.)
That wasn't what he asked. He said, "What must I do to be saved?"
And Paul told him, "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ."
**We know that Ruth had to struggle her way through the stages of legalism by her works in the field of Boaz before she finally came into the spiritual field of resting in the revelation of Boaz’s grace.
YE.MUST.BE.BORN.AGAIN_ GREENVILLE.SC THURSDAY_ 58-0619B
E-14 What you are, what Calvinism is, what grace is, is what God did for you. But what works is, is what you do for God in appreciation of what He did for you through grace. That's the whole answer.
***So we need to grow equally in our revelation of the grace of God along with our revelation of the word of God in order to keep the right balance.
*We must know that His grace is sufficient for us even in all of the struggles and problems that the Lord by his grace leaves in our lives for the purpose of mounding us and revealing Himself to us.