although both of these aspects are, of course, true. "Hath" is a settled condition; it refers to that which has already taken place. Do you see that other little word "all"? Cod has already given us His spiritual blessings in time past. They are there, on deposit for us. Some of us seem to live as though certain blessings are reserved for the preacher, the Bible teacher, or for the godly saint. That is certainly not true. In actuality, every single one of God's spiritual blessings are available to each of us. This is what makes the difference between ma turity and mediocrity; victory or defeat. Our responsibility is to pos sess our possessions which God desires us to have by faith. Without question, one of the most important words in Ephesians, recurring through the book, is the little two letter word "in ." It is gen erally connected with the name of the Saviour such as "in Christ." It appears 93 times in the book (ac tually only 89 in the Greek), sym bolizing the repository, the resting place, the relationship between the thing of which is spoken and our selves. "In God," "in Christ," "in Him," and our treasures, of course, are "in heavenly places." Verse four of Ephesians 1 con tinues the story, "According as he (that is God) hath chosen us in him (that is, Christ) before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love." Charles Haddon Spurgeon right ly pointed out, "God must have chosen me before I came into the world because I'm quite sure He never would have afterward!" This is not a case of self-deprecation. We simply must all realize that we
are all sinners in the sight of God. There is just no other adequate way to diagnose the problem. In an effort to be brief, perhaps we can use this illustration. D. L. Moody preached on this subject and asked his hearers to envision a door which, as they looked at it, over the top would carry the fa miliar words, "Whosoever will may come." "This," he would say, "is the door to salvation, and we enter through it by faith to find eternal life. Then," he said, "as we go through the door and look back over the other side, we read the words, 'Chosen in him before the foundation of the world.' " Do you see the picture? Before, looking at the pre-salvation side, we only see, "Whosoever will may come." But coming into the fold by faith, we find out that we have been in the very center of God's love and grace. He has had us in mind for an un told period of time and space, pre dating this earth's creation. Never think that the Bible indi cates, in any way whatsoever, that some individuals are elected to hell while others are chosen to enjoy eternal life. The clear teaching of Scripture is that God is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. The actual truth of the matter is that man condemns himself to hell by his willful rejection of Jesus Christ. This is what is meant by John 3:18 as we find the reminder that the individual who does not believe on or in the name of the only be gotten Son of God will not have eternal life, but rather literally con demns himself. Thereby, the wrath of God must abide upon him. Keep in mind that the Lord did not save us to make us happy. A
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