Transcript
“Greetings to you all in Jesus’ name,
It’s good to be here with you. I hope and pray you are all doing well. It’s time to begin our service this afternoon.
In case this is your first time joining us, and you wonder who I am and what we are up to, my name is Charles Paisley. I and most of our listeners here are formerly members of the cult following of William Branham, known as The Message. The doomsday cult started here in Jeffersonville, Indiana, in the 1950s. I am formerly the associated pastor of the second oldest Message church in the world, right here in the Jeffersonville area where it all started. And this is a little mission we run to offer support and encouragement to those who are exiting the message. Together, we are seeking to take a look at the plain reading of scripture.
We are picking up our study of the book of Ephesians, and we are in chapter 4. Today, we will be looking at verses 4, 5, and 6. But I will read down from the start of the chapter, starting at verse 1. I invite you to open your Bibles and follow along.
Paul writes:
1 I therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called, 2 with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, 3 eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. 4 There is one body and one Spirit—just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call— 5 one Lord, one faith, one baptism, 6 one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.
Ephesians 4 English Standard Version
Let us pray
Lord God, we thank you for the Bible, we thank you for your Holy Spirit who is our teacher. Grant us understanding of what we read today. Lord, we pray, what we have not, give us; what we know not, teach us; what we are not, make us. For Christ’s sake and for your glory. Amen.”
Introduction
“Well, brothers and sisters, we are back to where we left off in the last lesson. And if you recall from our last lesson, when we looked at these first three verses, Paul called on the Ephesians to walk worthy of their call. And the theme of the first three verses was that walking worthy of their calling meant getting along with each other, being respectful of each other, in spite of the fact that some people may have different views or different ways of doing things or different personalities. And we saw in verse two how Paul asked the Ephesians to bear with each other, to show love, patience, humility, and gentleness towards each other, and to let that define their relationships.
And in verse 3, Paul speaks of the Unity of the Spirit. And this unity of the spirit is the basis on which we should be willing to bear with others. We are all united with Christ from the moment we are saved. That is the unity of the spirit. And since we are all connected with Christ, it also means we are connected to each other, through Christ.
And those connections we all share in Christ have been the number one theme of the first three chapters of Ephesians. Paul has mentioned, I count, 29 times since chapter 1, that we are in Christ, and that all the promises we have are because we are in him. And that is unity, being united with Christ.
And there in verse 3, Paul calls on us to maintain that unity in the bond of peace. And that part is up to us. It’s up to us to keep peace with each other. Christ created the unity, and, if we went back to chapter 2, we would see he was himself the peace offering. He should be the peace offering between you and I. He created the union by joining with us, and he made a peace offering through his sacrifice on the cross. And on that basis, we should endeavor to keep peace with each other. That is the chief point of the first three verses.
So, we could say in verse 2 and three, Paul is calling on us to bear with each other, to respect each other, in spite of our differences, and to keep peace.
And as we come to verse 4, Paul is going to explain to us a sort of minimum threshold to all this. While we should keep peace with each other and respect each other, it doesn’t mean we accept anything and everything. It doesn’t mean we tolerate everything. There are certain things, both in our conduct and in our beliefs, which are outside what we should tolerate. And that is what Paul shares with us starting in verse 4.
In verses four through six, Paul begins to list some beliefs that all true Christians share in common, things which are part of the basis of our unity. And that is what we will be looking at in our lesson today.
We could say it like this: we should endeavor to get along with each other and keep peace, but there are some things we don’t compromise on. And as we go through this list, I think we will see that these things are so basic that if someone didn’t believe these things, it would be pretty hard to call them a Christian. These are things which you really could not even come to saving faith in Jesus without having believed. And, in a sense, we could say everything on this list Paul gives is embedded in the gospel message.
Now, before we start looking at this list of things that all Christians believe in common, let me just consider the phrase in verse 3, and the phrase is the title of our lesson today: ‘The unity of the spirit.’ Let’s just break that phrase down, each word.
And first, we see Paul calls it ‘THE unity.’ ‘THE unity.’ And you will notice, wherever Paul speaks of unity, he always talks about it in the singular. It is ‘THE unity,’ the one and only unity. There are not five, six, seven different unities. There is just one single unity, ‘THE unity.’ And it is that way throughout the New Testament. There is only one unity, and whenever it speaks of unity, it is always speaking of that one same, single unity. And our understanding of what that Unity Is begins with Jesus Christ, because he is the first one who actually explained what this unity is, and what Paul is saying here is part and parcel of what Jesus Christ taught himself.
And in John 17, Jesus prayed a prayer for the entire church, the whole church, past, present, and future – he prayed the prayer for every single person who would ever believe on him as savior. And in that prayer he prayed: ‘Father, let us all be one. I in them, and thou in me, that we may all be made perfect in one.’ Jesus prayed that prayer, and that is the prayer of unity. When Jesus prayed that prayer – he united himself with the church. He became one with the church when he prayed that prayer. That was the whole point of the prayer. And then, he went to the cross, and he died to atone for the sins of the entire world. And that prayer is how he took on our sins. He became sin. How did he become sin? He became sin when he prayed that prayer. He became one with us, the sinners. And then he took our sins with him to die on the cross. It was us in him, so we could be made perfect. And when he died on the cross, our sins were punished on the cross, in him. And Paul explains this in the book of Romans. We died on the cross with Christ because we are united with him. As in Christ, so in us. And this union with Christ is how our sins were punished on the cross. He bore our iniquity – through his union with us. Our sins were punished with him. Our old man was crucified with him. We died with him. And then we also resurrected with him, to new life. And we walked through all this when we studied the book of Romans.
That is THE UNITY. Christ created the unity in his prayer in John 17, and if we went back to Ephesians chapter 2 – that is what Paul was speaking of, and you can go back and listen to those lessons again if you want to be reminded.
But this one and only unity was created by Jesus Christ, and we have union with him from the moment we are saved.
And so as Paul comes here to verse 3, and he says THE unity, he is still talking about that one and single unity. He is not talking about a new unity or a different unity. He is talking about the same unity he has been talking about all along. And we can know that very clearly because he says THE UNITY.
And he describes this unity as being of the spirit. It’s The Unity of The Spirit. And that last part lets us know it’s spiritual. It is not a physical unity. It’s not a form of unity we can touch or see. It is spiritual, it is invisible. And whether or not you can see any evidence of it, it exists. In fact, all five of our natural senses may not be able to perceive this unity. We may not be able to perceive this unity in any natural way whatsoever because it is spiritual and it is invisible. And regardless of what our eyes and ears may tell us – we are united with Christ
One body, One Spirit, One Hope
And Paul starts out the list in verse four by saying there is one body and one spirit. And this one body is the one body of Jesus Christ, which is the church. There is a church – there is a body of Christ, and we all believe that to be true. Paul explained back in chapter 2 how this body was created and how you and I were added to it. And the body of Christ is not divisible. It cannot be divided into separate parts. The union of the body is something that is spiritual. We saw that in verse 3 – our union is spiritual. Because, obviously, we are not all together – we are not literally connected, and we are not even near each other. Some of us listening here are in Canada, some are in America, some are in Africa, some are in Europe. Some of you listening here I might not even know you. But our unity is not based on us holding hands, or sitting in the same room, or even knowing each other’s names. Our unity as a church is not based on that. It is based on our common connections to Christ. It is based on us having the one spirit within us. And that puts us in the one body.
And our union with Christ was created when we were joined to Christ – when he took our sins on himself when we believed on him as our savior. Not by anything else. This unity is not an advanced level of salvation. It is part and parcel of salvation itself. And we enter into this unity from the moment we are saved.
So there is one body, and one spirit, and we’re called to the one hope of our calling. And Paul has already told us what this one hope is – he did so back in chapter 1. This one hope of our calling. And that hope is that we will be glorified with Christ in the world to come. And every single one of us has that waiting for us at the end of our journey. Every one of us has the hope of the resurrection, the hope of glory to come. One body, one spirit, one hope of our calling.
Now as we review these verses, make sure that you catch what Paul is doing here. He is giving us a list of things which are true of all Christians. All Christians believe these things. On one hand, this is sort of a minimum set of beliefs we can expect every Christian to hold to. But it is more than just that. Every one of these things is also proof that we have unity already. Paul is not making a case here for us to create unity. He is making a case that we already have unity, and therefore should live in peace with each other.
He is laying down a list of things which proves that all Christians are united already. And he is doing that by laying down things that we each and every one hold in common – from the moment we are saved. We are all part of the one body from the moment we are saved. We are all partakers of the one holy spirit from the moment we are saved. And we are all holding the same one hope in our hearts for the glory to come from the moment we are saved.
One Lord
Now what comes next is verse 5, and there Paul says one Lord. We as Christians have just one single Lord, and that is the Lord Jesus Christ. We all share that in common. He is our king. He is the lord of our lives. And there is not a multitude of Lords, just one Lord. And that speaks to who we answer to and who we are responsible to. Jesus Christ is our one and only Lord. He is the one and only that you and I must answer to. In terms of our life, in terms of who we must obey and serve, it’s just Jesus. The preachers should not be lording over you. Your Christian neighbors should not be lording over you. And you should not be lording over anyone else either. There is just one Lord.
There is one head to which we all look, and from whom we all take instruction. There is one Lord.
Now, we know that here in this life, there are things like landlords, and there are people who have temporal power in this world. And I am not suggesting that we should not respect them or that we should not obey the powers that be in the world because we certainly should respect people in this world. But Jesus said, “Render to Caesar what is Caesar’s, but render to God what is God’s.” And in matters of our faith, and in matters of our Christian life, there is just one Lord. In matters of our faith, in matters of our salvation, Jesus is the one and only Lord we need to be concerned about serving.
And we believe in Jesus as our Lord from the moment we are saved. He said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life,” and his Lordship is contained within that. Jesus is our Lord and savior, and those are two words that mean different things. But when it comes to Jesus, you can’t have one without the other. And every single Christian recognizes Jesus as their Lord from the moment they are saved. You think of the thief on the cross next to Jesus. He said, “Lord, when you come into your kingdom, remember me.” He recognized Jesus was a king with a kingdom. He recognized he was Lord of that kingdom. And when we come to Christ, we all do the same. We recognize he is the Lord of glory.
And Paul is drawing our attention to that truth here. As Christians, we all serve the one and same Lord.
There is another thing here about having one lord I want to point out to you, and it is this: It lets us know we can’t divide Jesus up into disunited pieces. He is one single Lord. And we are not going to go into anything deep on the Godhead here. We will just stick with what we see here in the plain reading of this text. But this lets us know there is just one Lord Jesus Christ, and he is indivisible. And whatever we land on, it has to have an indivisible Lord Jesus Christ.
One Faith
So we see, one body, one spirit, one hope of our calling, and one lord. These are things all Christians hold in common.
And the next thing Paul mentions in his list is One Faith. We all share the same common faith.
And there is only one faith. There are not two or three or four different faiths. There is just one single faith.
But what does that mean? One faith. I know, in the places we come from, they would tell you the word faith here means a body of beliefs. They would say our faith is our comprehensive and exhaustive set of doctrines and understanding of the bible. And if that is what this means, this is a very big word. If that is what the word faith means here, then that would encompass pretty much our entirety of our doctrines and beliefs.
And if we read it that way, it would mean that anyone who does not share our total understanding of scripture is not part of this unity. And that is exactly the way this verse would be used in the places we come from.
But that is actually a really good example of how the places we come from have a fundamental misunderstanding of scripture. Not only have they misdefined what this unity actually is, they have misdefined the word faith in this verse too. And they tend to want to get all in the weeds and argue about the red horse and the white horse and the seven thunders and all that sort of stuff. But they don’t even have the basics right. They are off in the basics. They don’t even read these basic words the right way. Because faith here is not our comprehensive body of doctrines and beliefs. In the bible – the word faith is never used to mean a body of beliefs. Never once. Not in any single place does the word faith mean that. And anywhere you think that would be the case, I would suggest to you that you are misreading the bible.
Now, in our world today, the English word faith – it can mean a body of beliefs. That is true. There is the Muslim faith. There is the Hindu faith. There is the Buddhist faith. In the English language, we could use the word faith like that – to basically mean an entire body of religious beliefs. But that is never how the word faith is used in the bible. The original Greek and Hebrew words for faith do not mean a body of beliefs.
And when we read this passage, we need to use the right meaning of the word faith. When Paul talks about the one faith, that is exactly what he means. Faith. We all share one faith – one saving faith. He is not talking about a body of beliefs. He is talking about faith itself. The faith God gives us as a gift. The faith we use to believe on Christ and be saved. You and I and all Christian have a common saving faith in Jesus Christ. The faith by which we are justified. When it comes to salvation, that is the one and only faith that counts. The one faith brings with it total salvation all by itself. The just shall live by faith. That is the one faith Paul is speaking of here.
And there are, of course, non-negotiable things we expect everyone to believe in. I am not suggesting that is not the case. But I am telling you, that list of non-negotiable beliefs is much smaller than we were led to believe in the places we come from. And what I would suggest to you – is that Paul here in his way, is laying down the essentials beliefs of Christianity. These things he speaking of here are the non-negotiables. These are the things upon which we must all be united. But this list is not nearly as vast as we were led to believe it was in the doomsday cult we have escaped from. It is one body, one spirit, one hope of our calling, one Lord, and one faith – one common saving faith in Jesus. And there are a few more things, which we will see as we read on. But this list is not what the doomsday cult told us it is. It does not touch literally everything. In fact, it is just a list of the essentials. And that is all it is. Nothing more than a list of the essentials.
There is one last point I would like to make on this. One faith. There is only saving faith. There is just one single faith – and that is saving faith in Jesus. There is not ten different faiths. And there is no such thing as rapturing faith. There is only one faith – and it is saving faith in Jesus. The bible rules out there being such a thing as rapturing faith – and this verse right here is one of those verses.
And if you are in the doomsday cult – your belief in rapturing faith – that is enough for us to break fellowship over. There is only one faith. And it is saving faith in Jesus. And you are preaching another gospel. And it is you who are outside the bounds of biblical unity when you teach another faith, besides this one and only faith which Paul is speaking of.
There is no such thing as rapturing faith. That idea was just a trick from the mind of a false teacher and a false prophet. Paul said in Romans that, the same holy spirit which dwells in us from the moment we believe. That same holy spirit will transform our bodies on the day that Jesus comes for us. There is not a special extra rapturing faith you need for that. There is only one faith. And that one faith is all we need. That one faith – saving faith – is all you need to make it. And when false preachers try to tell you there is another faith you need, besides this one faith Paul is talking about. They are just tricking you. They are contradicting the bible.
One Baptism
Now the next thing Paul places on this list of essentials, this list of things all Christians hold in common, he says one baptism.
One Baptism.
And Baptism is pretty straightforward, I think. It’s not something we need to dwell on at length, but we should consider the context of it. Paul is writing to believers, to people who have experienced the new birth, to people who have the one spirit.
And so, when he says baptism here, I believe that he is talking about something beyond water baptism. Because water baptism doesn’t save you. Water baptism doesn’t place you into Union with Christ. And of course, I’m not suggesting we should skip water baptism. That is an ordinance that we should and must observe. But it’s not the water baptism that saves you or brings you into union with Christ. It’s the Holy Ghost baptism that does that. It’s baptism of the Holy Ghost that saves you. It is baptism of the Holy Ghost that brings you into union with Christ. And so, in the context of Paul’s list here, it makes the most sense to me that Paul’s emphasis here is on Holy Ghost baptism, more so than water baptism. And you may have a different thought on that. But I want you to understand why I would suggest Paul has Holy Ghost baptism in mind.
And it is because Paul is talking about our unity here, he is pointing to the things which bring us into union with Christ. And it is Holy Ghost baptism which does that. Not water baptism. And that is why I would say the emphasis here is on Holy Ghost baptism.
It’s not the water baptism that saves you and gives you eternal life. It’s the indwelling of the Holy Spirit that gives you life eternal. Remember, it’s the unity of the spirit. And the spirit that is actually connecting us together, in Christ.
It wasn’t the water that put you into union with Christ. It wasn’t the water that gave you eternal life. It was the indwelling of the Holy Spirit that put you into union with Christ. It was the indwelling of the Holy Spirit that gave you life eternal.
And that indwelling of the Holy Spirit – that was the baptism of the Holy Spirit. And I believe that is where Paul’s emphasis is when he says One Baptism.
Because we know there are people who are saved, who did have union with Christ, but they were never baptized at all in water. Like the thief on the cross next to Jesus. It was a deathbed conversion. And there just was simply not time to do a water baptism.
We have to leave a door open to those sorts of things because scripture leaves a door open to those sorts of things. Water baptism is not a 100% requirement. There can be exceptions to it in some cases, like a deathbed conversion. But not the baptism of the Holy Ghost. There is no exception to that.
So, as Paul is writing down this list of the most essential elements of our common beliefs, things that are at the bedrock of this unity, things that every last one of us have in common, as it relates to baptism, that is going to be the baptism of the Holy Ghost, not water baptism. Because we will all have Holy Ghost baptism. But some small part of us will not have water baptism – because there was just never an opportunity for it.
And so, I could say a whole more about baptism, but I am going to move on to the next thing on this list of essential non-negotiables, things that all Christians hold in common.
One body, One Spirit, One Hope, One Lord, One Faith, One Baptism.
One God and Father of all
And that takes us to verse 6, which says:
“One God and Father of all.”
And I think this is easy for us all to understand. Every single one of us, as Christians, we have one Father. If we went back to chapter one, Paul already mentioned how we are all adopted by God as our father when we come to saving faith in Christ. We are adopted as children of God through Jesus Christ. And when we are united with God’s son, that makes us children of God too. And so, God is our Father.
Let me read verse 6 again:
“One God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.”
So, we recognize God is over all things, and he is through all things, and he is in all of us as a dwelling place. And today, this may not seem so remarkable to us. The idea that there is one all-powerful and all-knowing God might not seem very outstanding to us because we grew up in a Christian society. But in pagan Rome, the idea of saying one God was very controversial because the Romans believed there were many, many gods, and each god had their own sphere of influence. There was a god of the ocean, a god of the sky, a god of the harvest, and on and on. Many gods, each with their own unique powers. None of them was all-powerful, none of them knew everything, and there was certainly more than one.
So, back 2000 years ago, this verse 6 was a very controversial thing to say. In fact, the early Christians were called atheists by the Romans because the early Christians didn’t believe in all the Roman gods. And to the Romans, the Christian religion was atheism because the Christians denied that all of their gods even existed. And if you go back to the ancient Roman records and read them, you will find that the Romans called the Christians atheists because they only believed in one God. And that is just what Paul is saying here, something that to you and I is not very controversial, but something that to the pagan Romans was enough to make them stir up an angry mob to come lynch somebody.
And this is something that is essential to our Christian beliefs. We must acknowledge and know that there is only One God, there is only one Father. He is over all, that means he is all-powerful, he is omnipotent, there is none greater, there is nothing he cannot do, his power has no limits. He is not just a god of the ocean, he is not just a god of the sky, he is not just a god of the harvest, he is God of everything. And he is through all and in all, that means he is everywhere, all at once, he is all-knowing, he is omnipresent. If a tree falls in the forest and nobody is there to see it, did it make a noise on its way down? I don’t know, but God knows because he was there. God is everywhere, he sees all, and he is even in all, to the extent that he knows our very thoughts, he knows what is happening in our minds.
And because he is in all, that doesn’t make everything God. God is in the forest, but the forest is not God. God is in you and I, but that doesn’t make us God. But he is everywhere, and it gives him a total and perfect knowledge of everything and everyone. He is with you and me right now, he knows what is in our very hearts and minds.
And this verse six is the end of Paul’s list here, and these things Paul has given are essential elements of unity.
Essential Elements of Unity
These are the things that we must insist upon. These are things we cannot negotiate away. Every single Christian has these things, and if they don’t have these things, they are not a Christian.
There are times when we should break fellowship with people over their beliefs. If someone believes there are five different faiths or invents a faith called “rapturing faith,” that is something to break fellowship over because Paul said there is one faith – not two. When we find things like that which don’t align with the list that Paul has given us, we have a legitimate basis to break fellowship. If someone wants to believe something that does not align with this list, we cannot accept it, promote it, and we have a right to question whether or not those people are even in Christ because they surely have something that is not compatible with unity with Christ.
One Body
Christ has just one single body. There is not a wise church and a foolish church, there is just one church, one body.
One Spirit.
One Hope.
One Lord.
That Jesus Christ, He is the one and only Lord we look to.
One Faith.
Saving faith. There is no such thing as “rapturing faith,” there is only one faith.
One Baptism
The baptism of the Holy Ghost.
One God and Father, who is all-powerful and all-knowing.
Those are the requirements for unity and fellowship. These are the commonly held beliefs that Paul goes to for explaining how all Christians are united.
And if we are trying to work out what are the essential things that every Christian needs to believe, this list would be the place to start. And as you can see, it’s not very long, and it’s very small compared to what we thought in the doomsday cult.
But there is enough right here in this list, and we can see the Message of William Branham does not line up with it. The Message of William Branham does not line up with these essential and required elements, and it can let us know – there is something wrong with The Message.
Now, when you read this passage, you might have a question. Are the things on this list the only things in the Bible? Are these the only things we can understand? Or is there more?
And, of course, we know there is more. There are many other things in the Bible besides what is on this list, which are also true and valuable for us to understand. And we would make a mistake if we thought that we will just take this list here and that is all there is to learn and we will stop here. That would be a big mistake.
But I believe it is important for us to recognize that Paul did not go into the weeds here. The number of leaves that were on the tree of knowledge – that did not make the list. The color of Balaam’s donkey – that did not make the list. The number of bricks in David’s palace – that did not make the list.
And more things did not make the list. An understanding of predestination and election is not on the list. Understanding all the details of prophecy around the second coming – did not make the list. All manner of things which are in the realm of Christian liberty – did not make the list.
There are lots of things which are in the Bible that did not make the list here. And you can be a Christian, and you can be saved, you can be in complete unity, and you can still receive the hope of your calling – without any of those things.
We can be in unity and receive glory in heaven with Christ without knowing the color of Balaam’s donkey or what was the apostle Peter’s shoe size and a great many other things. We can even have a wrong understanding of those things – and still make it because none of that has anything to do with it.
And the things on Paul’s list here, I would suggest to you that every single Christian has every one of these things from the moment they are saved. Paul is not talking about an advanced level here. Paul is talking about the most basic elementary things here.
Someone who is saved is part of the one body. Someone who is saved is filled with the one spirit. Someone who is saved has the one hope of the resurrection and glory. Someone who is saved recognizes their one Lord. They have the one saving faith. They have had the one baptism of the Holy Spirit. And they believe in the One God and Father of all.
If you are saved, you have all these things, and if someone was missing any of these things, then really, they would not even be saved. But anyone who is genuinely saved has all of those things already – from the very moment they were saved. And that really is the point here that Paul is making. We are united from the moment we are saved, and that is why we should be desiring to live in peace with each other, which is what he said in verse 3.
Story of the man at the gates of heaven
I think this story is a good illustration, so I will share it with you. It might help you think about these things. I heard this story told a few times, you may have heard it too. And it’s just an illustration is all it is. This is not a story that would actually really happen. But there is a lesson to it. And the story goes like this:
There was once there was a particular man. He had died and gone to heaven. And as he arrived at the gate of the heavenly city, there was a certain Branhamite standing at the gate. And as the man approached the gate of heaven, the Branhamite asked him, “He said, I need to check your credentials. Not just anyone can come in here you know.” And the man looked at him and said, “Well what do I need to show you?” And the Branhamite said, “Well, if you want to get in here, there are things you have to know. Have you ever heard of a man named William Branham?” And the man said, “I can’t say that I have.” And he said, “Well you must have heard the revelation of the seven seals, right?” And the man said no, I never heard of that. The Branhamite said, “Well… did you at least live a clean life? Kept all the ten commandments?” And the man said no, I did quite a few bad things, I robbed some people, I even killed a man. The Branhamite stepped back, looked him up and down. He said, “Well, maybe we can fit you in somewhere down in B level.” He said, “Well, you were at least baptized weren’t you? Someone took you down into the water they dunked you Jesus name. You at least had that, right?”
And that man said, “No, I never did get baptized.”
The Branhamite said, “Well, maybe you was baptized in the trinity then?”
The man said, “No I never heard of the Trinity – what’s that?”
So the Branhamite was really confused. Never heard of William Branham. He was not even baptized in water.
So the Branhamite said, “Well, let me call in someone else. Maybe they can help me figure out if we got a place you could stay.” So the Branhamite calls up the big guys. You know, Lee Vayle, and Joseph Coleman, Raymond Jackson and those kind of guys.
And Joseph Coleman said – “Sir, have you received the capstone?” And the man said – “the what?” Joseph Coleman shook his head. Raymond Jackson said – “Sir have you received the message of the five fold ministry?” The man said, “No – I never heard of that either.” And Raymond Jackson shook his head. And Doctor Lee Vayle thought about for it awhile. And he said, “I think I have an idea,” he said. “Tell me sir – have you ever been nice to the bride of Christ?”
And the man said no, I can’t say that I ever was nice to the bride of Christ.
And so then at last, all the Branhamites looked at the poor man. And they said to him, “You have not answered a single question the right way. You wasn’t even nice to the bride of Christ. What in the world ever made you think you could come in here?”
And the man looked down at his feet. And he wasn’t sure just what to say. He thought about it a second. And then he said, “Well, the man on that middle cross told me I could I come here. I called him my lord. And I had faith in him. Because I knew his father was God. And he gave me this one hope, that I could come in there with you fine people.”
And finally the apostle Paul came by the gate. And Paul said, “Who in the world let these crazy Branhamites watch the gate?” And he ran them off. And he took the man, and he gave him a hug. And he said, “Welcome to heaven. Jesus has been waiting for you.”
One Lord, One faith, One Baptism, One God and Father of all. Even that man on the cross next Jesus had all of that. And if you invent a so called unity that the very least one in the kingdom cannot fit into. Then you have invented a unity that is just in your imagination.
One Lord, One faith, One Baptism, One God and Father of all. And that story is just an illustration. Jesus will take a new convert on their death bed. And they will be in glory, just the same as you and I. And when you make something so strict or so complicated that there is no room for the thief on the cross. You have done lost sight of what this is all about.
As Paul said at the end of chapter 3. It takes love to actually be able to comprehend the breadth, and the depth, and length, and the height of what God is doing in Christ. It takes love – which surpasses knowledge – to understand these things. If you don’t have the love Paul talked about at the end of chapter 3. You might as well not bother reading chapter 4. Because you won’t be able to understand it. And people from the Message of William Branham. You have no business reading chapter 4. Because you haven’t got the first three chapters of Ephesians yet.
Encouragement
Brothers and sisters,
As we come to the end of this lesson, I want to say I do believe the church is bigger than we thought in The Message. How much bigger you ask? I am not sure. But definitely much bigger. There are Christians all over the world. They may not look like us, they may have different views than us, they may have different ways of doing things than us. But if we can fit them into verse four and five and six, then we need to obey what Paul said in verse 3. And we need to bear with them. And they need to bear with us.
Just because someone is not perfectly like us, it does not mean they are not united with us by the spirit. They may not be living like they should. They may not believe everything just right. They may not understand, or even care to understand, things that interest you or I. But if they are in Christ, if they have found saving faith in him, they will be with us on that bright tomorrow. And today – there is unity that exists between us in Jesus Christ.
One body, one spirit, one hope, one lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all. Those are seven things Paul has chosen to highlight here as being part of our unity.
And if I can place someone into those seven things, I am going to seek to obey Paul and bear with them. And if you are out there – and you can’t bear with people who only meet these seven things, then I would suggest to you that you are not walking worthy of your calling. Because that is exactly Paul’s chief point here. He is telling us, keeping peace with people who are united with Christ, who share these seven common beliefs, keeping peace with them IS walking worthy of our calling. And failing to keep peace with them, that is not walking worthy of our calling.
And you can preach a hundred sermons on your idea of holiness. But if you can’t live up the very first thing on Paul’s list here, which is keeping peace with your Christian neighbors, you are coming up short.
And brothers and sisters, on this side of things, I see a lot of people who do obey the bible, who are keeping peace with their Christian neighbors, who are maintaining the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace. And I commend you. And I thank God for you. And I say be encouraged. For blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called the sons of God.
Amen.
Let me close in prayer.
Prayer
Lord God, thank you for the love of Christ you have put in our hearts, that we might love each other, as Christ has loved us, that we might bear with each other, that we might respect the liberty you have given to our neighbors, that we might recognize their need for grace, by first knowing our own need for grace. Lord, thank you for the bible, for the Holy Spirit to give us understanding. Let these few words spoken today be helpful I pray, in Jesus’ name. Amen.