Latest / The Immutable Word / EP048 The 7 New Testament Mysteries Every Christian Must Know - Part 1
Transcript
- 0:00If there was no New Testament, if there was no resurrection of Christ,
- 0:03if there was no church, then the New Testament almost would have been unnecessary.
- 0:08Essentially, when it comes to these mysteries, the reason why the New Testament
- 0:13had to be written is so that these mysteries could be revealed. And it'll make sense.
- 0:17It'll make sense. That statement will make sense as we go through the mysteries
- 0:20themselves. Because I know some people are thinking like, oh,
- 0:22heresy, the New Testament, that's part of the Bible.
- 0:25And I agree. The point I'm trying to make is that the New Testament is the vehicle
- 0:31that gives us these mysteries.
- 0:33Otherwise, these mysteries would have never been revealed if all we had was
- 0:37Genesis through Malachi.
- 0:39Hey, welcome back to The Immutable Word. We are back for another session,
- 0:43and we did miss a week, and we apologize about that.
- 0:48We had gone this far without having to do that.
- 0:51We've had a pretty interesting week, which is why we weren't able to record
- 0:56and drop an episode for you.
- 0:59You're probably wondering where we had gone, but just certain things in life popped up.
- 1:05I had something going on in the same week. So did Robert.
- 1:08In fact, I was dealing with a major water leak in my yard, and I took up a lot
- 1:17of time and a little bit of stress trying to figure out where all that was.
- 1:21And of course, the great thing about having brothers in church,
- 1:24I just wanted to mention this, not sure if they listen or not,
- 1:29but having brothers in church coming over and helping me out with this stuff
- 1:32is just a huge blessing and just really thankful.
- 1:36So, Pastor Jeremy and Daniel, if you guys are out there, I really do appreciate
- 1:40you guys coming out during that week of chaos and stress.
- 1:44And I know, Robert, you too, you've had some events going on this week as well
- 1:49that involve the surgery, not with you, but with your wife.
- 1:53But it's one of the things of life, and it all just happened at the same time.
- 1:57And so, unfortunately, we missed an episode for the first time.
- 2:01But I think we've done pretty good, almost 46 or 47 episodes without really missing one.
- 2:08So we're going to try not to do that anymore, of course. And I guess the other
- 2:11lessons learned, too, is that nobody knew that we're missing a week.
- 2:16And maybe posting some messages out there or something like that would be quite
- 2:20helpful. So that one's on me. And just sorry about that.
- 2:23But we're back. Well, I mean, it's good that people go, oh, hey.
- 2:26You guys haven't posted anything in a while. We're missing it.
- 2:29It's like 11 days from your last episode. It's like somebody's listening.
- 2:33It is further validation that we actually have some listeners,
- 2:37which is nice. It's a good problem to have.
- 2:40So we always appreciate the listens and everything. So how's everything going
- 2:43in your life? I know you've got some events that went on around the same time as mine.
- 2:47Yep, yep, yep. I mean, everything, sometimes it's like I call it BAU.
- 2:53But, you know, here's the way I look at it. My wife had a shoulder surgery.
- 2:58Her rotator cuff was torn.
- 3:01Most of it, like the doctor said, only like 20% of her tendon was still hanging
- 3:06on. So it was a pretty major surgery.
- 3:09I mean, it was a day surgery, but the recovery part is probably the hardest.
- 3:12But, you know, the thing is, is it went well. She went through it pretty well.
- 3:17She's actually not dealing with major pain right now.
- 3:21Yeah, that's good. I mean, it is painful. But the way I look at it is,
- 3:24I mean, we're still alive, you know, there's no deaths in the family, nothing like that.
- 3:30I mean, it's like the Lord's still good and still blessing us,
- 3:33even though life is a little difficult.
- 3:34And we had some, like, for example, with your water leak, I mean,
- 3:37thank God it wasn't in the middle of the summer, you know.
- 3:40Oh, man, yeah. Yeah, you're having to dig in your yard.
- 3:45Yeah, I mean, I can't, you know, I really can, I could complain,
- 3:48but it wouldn't do any good.
- 3:50But no, I think it was the timing was good. And it was really scary at first.
- 3:54I told you the story, but, you know, I had somebody come in and—,
- 3:58They're like, yeah, that leak is under the house, under your foundation,
- 4:01and you're going to have to dig down through the concrete and everything, get it fixed.
- 4:05But hey, you know, I've got two solutions for you.
- 4:07Two words a house, a homeowner never wants to hear is, it's under the foundation.
- 4:12I died inside when I heard that and wanted to curl up into a ball and start crying.
- 4:17So he told me that And he also told me He's like well you know You could dig
- 4:21down into the concrete Or into
- 4:24the foundation Try to find the leak and fix it And patch it all up again,
- 4:29Or I could just re-pipe your entire house You know easy peasy.
- 4:34Easy as that Yeah $15,000 later or something To the fact it's like you know
- 4:38what This is why you get second opinions,
- 4:41Get other people looking at it And thank the
- 4:44lord That it was outside not inside is
- 4:47out in the yard somewhere and like i said it's it's
- 4:50just huge relief so it's huge answer
- 4:53answer to prayer but yeah those are the scary things that homeowners have to
- 4:57go through sometimes you know but it all worked out in the end i'm glad it worked
- 5:01out for a bond too with the surgery i mean pretty crazy stuff yeah absolutely
- 5:06so but we're back in the saddle we'll hopefully we can try to make up,
- 5:12You know, we still have a lot of content to cover for sure.
- 5:15But, hey, real quick, like before we go into it, we've been talking about the
- 5:22Expositing Scripture series.
- 5:27And I've mentioned it before. It's something that we've been wanting to do.
- 5:30And so we're thinking about releasing just short 10-15 minute episodes of Scripture
- 5:37Exposited where you would go through and take a verse or verses of Scripture
- 5:42where you'd walk through it.
- 5:44So something that we're going to start dropping here pretty soon,
- 5:48something to look forward to.
- 5:49That way we've got other content that's going to come out outside of our usual
- 5:54episodes that we record every week.
- 5:57So, just something more to look forward to as we begin releasing more content
- 6:03out there. Yep, yep. A little bit of a commercial.
- 6:06But what are we talking about today? We're going to be covering something called the mysteries, right?
- 6:10Yeah, it's actually probably going to be two episodes worth.
- 6:14But when I was doing discipleship, I covered the seven mysteries that are found in the New Testament.
- 6:21And they're primarily in the New Testament.
- 6:24And as I was studying it, the more you kind of understand or grasp the mysteries,
- 6:28one of the things that is really important is that, you know,
- 6:32Paul says that we're supposed to be stewards of the mystery of God.
- 6:36And that understanding these mysteries is really, it's really important for the believer.
- 6:41It's a way for the New Testament believer to avoid false doctrine.
- 6:46You know, to understand, like, New Testament doctrinal Pauline truth, to identify heresy.
- 6:52And a lot of the misunderstanding around these mysteries, and as we kind of
- 6:56go through them, people start to understand why, you know, we run into other
- 7:01false doctrine, heresies, or false religions.
- 7:05And it's because in one way or another, they've either twisted or,
- 7:09you know, they've misunderstood or misapplied or misrepresented one of these
- 7:15mysteries or didn't understand it, you know, at all.
- 7:18So we wanted to kind of just do a two-episode series on the seven mysteries
- 7:24in the New Testament and talk about why they're important and kind of go through them briefly.
- 7:29It's not going to be a super deep dive, but hopefully it's enough to kind of
- 7:32whet people's appetites to study them and mark them down your Bible,
- 7:37highlight them, you know, and maybe start your own independent study that you
- 7:41can kind of dig into the nuances of each one of these mysteries, what they reveal.
- 7:47Because in the Bible, when we talk about mystery, sometimes people think,
- 7:51oh, you know, like some kind of hidden Ouija board thing, you know, and it's not that at all.
- 7:55What a mystery means in the Bible is just literally something that was previously
- 8:00hidden and then now it's revealed.
- 8:03So it was a mystery, but as soon as it's entitled or labeled a mystery in Scripture,
- 8:10it's because there's a revelation about it. God is, you know.
- 8:15And it's primarily through Paul that we see these mysteries.
- 8:18But anyway, that's what we want to try to talk about, and we'll get into them
- 8:22a little bit more as we go through.
- 8:23But this first episode, we'll probably go for the first maybe two or three of,
- 8:29and then kind of talk about what the mysteries are, and then we'll finish up
- 8:33with the rest of the mysteries in the next episode.
- 8:35Yeah, great. Let's go ahead and dig into it.
- 8:38Yep. So, it just is, you know, kind of to reiterate what I just said,
- 8:42you know, understanding these mysteries, it's really important to understanding
- 8:47major New Testament doctrines.
- 8:48So, just to kind of give people kind of like the landscape, you know,
- 8:53paint the picture here a little bit is, you know, we're Bible-believing dispensationalists, okay?
- 8:58Which means that we believe that God, through the ages.
- 9:03From the creation all the way through to the tribulation and then the second
- 9:09advent and the millennial kingdom, we believe that God has stepped into history,
- 9:15human history, and he has operated in mankind's timeline.
- 9:20And he's given man certain responsibilities.
- 9:24He's given them certain revelation. He's given them certain things that were
- 9:28pertained to his will for at least one of three groups in scripture,
- 9:34which is either the Jew, the Gentile, or the church of God.
- 9:38So as dispensationalists, we understand that God, like he says it in Hebrews
- 9:431, that he operates and he's operated through different times,
- 9:47but in these last days, spoken to us unto a son, showing that God,
- 9:50there's a distinction in God's revelation.
- 9:52Well, when it comes to these mysteries, it plays kind of a vital part in the
- 9:59revelation that God gives to the New Testament church.
- 10:02So what we find out is these mysteries apply primarily to the church,
- 10:06not to the Jews, not to the Gentiles.
- 10:09Now, it doesn't mean that the Jew or the Gentile is not somehow,
- 10:12you know, implicated in some of these mysteries, but they're primarily,
- 10:18they were a mystery, but they were revealed primarily to the church.
- 10:21So it's a core requirement for ministries of truth. So this is what I think is important.
- 10:26You know, like we've, you know, some churches they have stewardship month, right?
- 10:30So, when they talk about stewardship month, what do they primarily mean by stewardship?
- 10:38Probably just Christian performance generally.
- 10:41That's traditional. Well, when they say stewardship, like you need to be a good
- 10:44steward of what specifically?
- 10:46Like what they usually target one particular area of people's lives.
- 10:50Maybe, I don't know, I'm just throwing this out there, so let me know if I'm
- 10:53wrong, but like God's money, giving. Yeah, that's it.
- 10:56Yeah. It's almost 99.9% of the time it's always about money.
- 11:01What's interesting is that in 1 Corinthians 4, verses 1 and 2, this is what Paul says.
- 11:06He says, let a man so account of us, so he's including himself in this group,
- 11:13as of the ministers of Christ and the stewards of the mysteries of God.
- 11:21So when he says, let a man so account of us. So, he says that there's a special
- 11:27accountability that's tied to stewarding the mysteries of God.
- 11:33At the end of the day, that's what he's talking about. And then he says in verse 2,
- 11:39So.
- 11:45There's an accountability that Paul lays out here in 1 Corinthians 4,
- 11:48that, number one, as ministers of Christ—and he's including the church members at Corinth there, okay?
- 11:57So every Christian, including the pastors, the missionaries,
- 12:02the associate pastors, the Bible teachers, the Sunday school teachers,
- 12:06and the person sitting in the pew—.
- 12:09Every single one of us is accountable to be faithful to the stewardship that
- 12:16God has given us concerning the mysteries of God, not the money of God.
- 12:21Okay? And I'm talking about in this particular verse.
- 12:25I'm not trying to say that there's no requirement for money or obligation for money.
- 12:29What I'm saying is, in this particular verse, it has nothing to do with money.
- 12:34It has to do with the mysteries of God. He explicitly says, stewards of the mysteries of God.
- 12:41So what is Paul basically saying? He said, look, I need you to—you're going
- 12:45to hold us accountable. How are you going to hold us accountable as mysteries of Christ?
- 12:48You're going to hold us accountable in whether we have been faithful stewards
- 12:54of the mysteries of God, period. It's that simple.
- 12:57So those mysteries, they entail doctrine. They entail heresy.
- 13:03They entail our faith. They entail what is considered New Testament truth.
- 13:09So at the end of the day, that is what we have to understand. So think of it this way.
- 13:14Somebody once said that, you know, the Old Testament is the New Testament concealed
- 13:19and the New Testament is the Old Testament revealed.
- 13:22So, God has a secret plan for our church age, right? Things like the rapture,
- 13:26the body of Christ, like the definition of what the body of Christ is,
- 13:30and those things were never mentioned in the Old Testament.
- 13:33And he chose the Apostle Paul to reveal them.
- 13:36And this is brand new information, okay?
- 13:40A New Testament was absolutely necessary to explain God's new program.
- 13:45If you did not have the New Testament, these mysteries would have never been
- 13:50revealed, okay? So these mysteries are the very reason, at least foundationally,
- 13:57why the New Testament had to be written.
- 13:59They prove its authority, and they're key to understanding what it means to
- 14:04be a Christian, a Bible believer today.
- 14:06So that's a heavy indictment for believers.
- 14:11I don't think people maybe don't look at it that way. They go,
- 14:14oh, well, the New Testament was to tell us about Christ dying on the cross.
- 14:17Yeah, but that's not the theme of the Bible.
- 14:20Redemption is not the primary theme from Genesis to Revelation.
- 14:25It's about a kingdom as a kingdom. Right. What was the percentage of that as
- 14:29far as what the Bible is about, the theme?
- 14:31We know it's about a king and a kingdom, but when it comes to redemption— Oh,
- 14:34yeah. You're talking about the redemption of Christ.
- 14:37You know, the gospel is in a handful—I mean, just the New Testament books, you have 27 books.
- 14:42But even in the New Testament, 27 books, Christ dying on the cross specifically
- 14:46for the church, You can almost narrow them down to the Paulian epistles,
- 14:50which is 13 books, 13 out of 66 books in the Bible.
- 14:54So, it's not the primary theme of Scripture. The primary theme of Scripture
- 14:59is a king and his kingdom.
- 15:01Just an interesting observation there that where a lot of people just focus
- 15:05on that aspect, but you then miss out on the rest of the word of God,
- 15:10which is, there's a lot to the kingdom and the king.
- 15:13Well, Genesis chapter 1, verse 27, 28, I think it's 20, it's like 26,
- 15:2127, 28, where he says that he put man, he created man, and he gave him dominion.
- 15:26So he starts off with dominion in chapter 1 of your Bible.
- 15:30Right. That dominion carries through all the way through to the end.
- 15:35You have a throne and a kingdom that's restored and resurrected by the millennium
- 15:41at the thousand-year reign of Christ.
- 15:43That is the primary function and theme of the entire Bible. So,
- 15:49but here's the point about the mysteries.
- 15:52The Old Testament, if there was no New Testament, if there was no resurrection
- 15:57of Christ, if there was no church, then the New Testament almost would have been unnecessary.
- 16:04So, you know, essentially when it comes to these mysteries, the reason why the
- 16:10New Testament had to be written is so that these mysteries could be revealed. And it'll make sense.
- 16:14It'll make sense. That statement will make sense as we go through the mysteries themselves.
- 16:18Because I know some people are thinking like, oh, heresy, the New Testament,
- 16:21that's part of the Bible. And I agree.
- 16:23But the point I'm trying to make is that the New Testament is the vehicle that
- 16:30gives us these mysteries.
- 16:32Otherwise, these mysteries would have never been revealed if all we had was
- 16:36Genesis through Malachi.
- 16:37So, it's an important distinction. So, anyway, we have to define what a mystery is.
- 16:45So, like I said before earlier, a biblical mystery is a truth that was previously
- 16:50unknown, but it's now revealed by God.
- 16:53And it still may contain, you know, unexplainable elements.
- 16:56That's always going to be the case with the mystery. But these mysteries were
- 17:00revealed exclusively to New Testament believers.
- 17:04They weren't revealed to the general public. They weren't revealed to Gentiles.
- 17:08They weren't, you know, revealed to pagan nations.
- 17:11They were revealed primarily through, you know, either Jesus Christ or Paul
- 17:16or one of the apostles to, and, you know, the application is to the church.
- 17:22So, like, for example, in Romans chapter 16, you know, verses 25 through 26,
- 17:27Paul, you know, he shows and demonstrates that the gospel reveals a long-kept
- 17:32mystery that's now openly shared with all the nations to bring about faith and obedience.
- 17:39Matthew 13 verses 10 to 11, Jesus reveals a lot of the kingdom secrets to the
- 17:44disciples through parables, okay, while intentionally absolutely obscuring and
- 17:48understanding, you know, that understanding from others.
- 17:52He didn't want everybody to understand that. He says that in Matthew 13.
- 17:55He says, I tell you these parables so that you can understand,
- 17:58but so they won't or can't understand these other people.
- 18:01Luke 8, verses 9 through 10, you know, the disciples are granted to know God's kingdom mysteries.
- 18:09The others hear the parables and they, you know, and they see,
- 18:12they can hear them and they see some of the miracles, but they don't have full
- 18:17understanding of what these things mean.
- 18:191 Corinthians 2, verses 9 through 14, and, you know, we did an exposition of
- 18:24that chapter about, you know, we did revelatory epistemology. Right.
- 18:27But, you know, God's profound truths are beyond human grasp.
- 18:31They had to be revealed by spirit.
- 18:33So only the spiritual person, the Christian, the saved believer that has the
- 18:38indwelling spirit inside of them can discern or understand those things.
- 18:42So, the point about the mystery in the Bible is that they were hidden for a
- 18:48particular reason, but then God revealed them for another particular reason,
- 18:53and he chooses when to reveal those things.
- 18:57But those mysteries, again, a biblical mystery is simply a truth that was previously
- 19:02known, but it's now revealed by God.
- 19:05Okay? So, one of the things that—here's—.
- 19:10The main person that these mysteries revealed to you was Paul.
- 19:15Ephesians 3, verses 8 through 10, the Bible says, This is Paul speaking,
- 19:24Watch.
- 19:37He defines it. which from the beginning of the world hath been hidden God,
- 19:41who created all things by Jesus Christ. So that mystery was previously hidden.
- 19:45Then he says, verse 10, to the intent that now unto the principalities and powers
- 19:50in heavenly places might be known by the church, the manifold wisdom of God.
- 19:57So Paul is revealing in Ephesians 3, he says, listen, it was unto me that these things were revealed.
- 20:03So he's saying that Peter didn't receive it, you know, The other apostles,
- 20:10you know, Matthew, John, James, none of them received this revelation that was given to Paul.
- 20:15And what was the intent? Verse 10 says, to the intent that now unto the principalities
- 20:21and powers and heavenly places, that those things that were,
- 20:24you know, these were unsituable riches might be known by the church,
- 20:27the manifold wisdom of God.
- 20:30So the church was given this privilege. That's why back in 1 Corinthians 4,
- 20:34Paul is saying, look, man, we're stewards of this.
- 20:37You were supposed to be a faithful steward of these mysteries.
- 20:40That means if a person, a Christian,
- 20:42a preacher, a pastor, a missionary fails to expound and teach and maintain faithfulness
- 20:50on the topic and the doctrine of the mysteries,
- 20:53they are not being good stewards of what God has given them.
- 20:57That's what it boils down to.
- 21:00So what are the mysteries? What are the seven mysteries? Well,
- 21:03the seven primary mysteries that are pretty, basically pretty evident in scripture
- 21:09is number one is the mystery of godliness. That's in 1 Timothy 3.16.
- 21:13And we'll, I'll just list them first and then we'll kind of go through the first couple.
- 21:17So the mystery of godliness in 1 Timothy 3.16.
- 21:21Number two in Ephesians 1 verses 26 and 27 is the mystery of Christ within us, inside of us.
- 21:29Okay? And then Ephesians 5, verses 32 is the mystery of the body of Christ,
- 21:36because a lot of people, they misunderstand the church, and they go,
- 21:41oh, they think it's a building.
- 21:43It's a Baptist church on the corner of my neighborhood.
- 21:48No, that's the physical local church. That's the manifestation of the spiritual
- 21:55heavenly church, which is the body of Christ.
- 21:57Well, that's revealed in Ephesians 5.32. That was also a mystery.
- 22:01Then in 1 Corinthians 15.51, the mystery of the rapture of the saints or the
- 22:08catching up of the saints, that's the more biblical term.
- 22:11And that's in 1 Corinthians 15.51. He says this is a mystery about our body
- 22:16being changed and being converted like unto Christ's body.
- 22:20Then the fifth mystery is the temporary blindness that has been given to Israel in Romans 11, 25.
- 22:29So they were temporarily blown out. Here's the thing. We've talked about Israel before.
- 22:34Israel is in a state of apostasy. They are in a state of unbelief.
- 22:38Matter of fact, in 1 Corinthians and 2 Corinthians, Paul talks about that there's a veil over their heart.
- 22:44When they read the Old Testament, they cannot see Christ. Okay?
- 22:48So that's why it's a mystery. There's temporary blindness that has been given
- 22:52to Israel. They don't have full light.
- 22:54That full light won't be given to them until they go through the tribulation.
- 22:58So that's Romans 11.25. So the mystery of temporary blindness of Israel.
- 23:03Then the mystery of iniquity in 2 Thessalonians 2.7.
- 23:09Well, that's the exact counter-opposite of the mystery of godliness in 1 Timothy 3.16.
- 23:16So we'll see that when we go through it, but that's going to be the Antichrist.
- 23:18And then in Revelation 17, verse 5, is the mystery of Babylon,
- 23:25the great, the one-world universal globalist church that has had its hooks into
- 23:33every religion and every twisted form of Christianity that's existed.
- 23:39So, you know, there's a doctrine called synecretism, I can't say it right,
- 23:46but syncretism, syncretism, there it is.
- 23:49So syncretism is where, and I argue that this is probably more likely the Catholic
- 23:56Church or the form or the pagan form, and it says it's called Babylon the Great,
- 24:01and this is all started with Babylon in Genesis 11,
- 24:05with the tower that Nimrod was trying to build.
- 24:08Anyway, this church has, syncretism is, it's basically assimilated every pagan
- 24:16belief into its religious system, its theology.
- 24:21So, and the best example of that today is Roman Catholic Church.
- 24:24I was going to say, yeah, it sounds like it's leading to one thing.
- 24:27Yeah, yeah. So, that's mystery. So, the seven mysteries, the mystery of godliness,
- 24:31the mystery of Christ within us,
- 24:33the mystery of the body of Christ, the mystery of the rapture,
- 24:36the mystery of the temporary blindness of Israel, the mystery of iniquity,
- 24:40and the mystery of Babylon the Great. Now, here's what I'll say about this.
- 24:44I mean, you should be able just to look at that list alone and go, you know what?
- 24:47I can see why if you do not exposit and expound these mysteries properly,
- 24:54you can literally launch yourself into every known heresy that we deal with today.
- 24:59Whether it's Calvinism, whether it's the post-tribulation rapture,
- 25:04whether it's the rejection of physical and ethnic Israel, right?
- 25:09Whether it's who the Antichrist is, whether it's the deity of Jesus Christ,
- 25:15the identification of the church.
- 25:19You know, the assimilation of a globalist, multicultural church that's going
- 25:24to eventually create a one-world church, and on and on.
- 25:27So, just by not understanding these mysteries, you can literally,
- 25:31you know, drown yourself in all kinds of false doctrine and heresy.
- 25:36I mean, all seven of these, these are all core doctrines that are tied to it, right?
- 25:40Like doctrine of godliness, doctrine of the body of Christ, doctrine of the rapture, and so forth.
- 25:45Yeah, one can argue that if you have a full grasp of these seven mysteries and
- 25:51you understand these mysteries and you faithfully teach them,
- 25:55according to what Paul commanded,
- 25:57that you can have a—I believe this is spiritual growth in a Christian.
- 26:02The better you understand these mysteries, the more mature spiritually and doctrinally
- 26:08you become in the New Testament, especially New Testament doctrines that a Bible-believing
- 26:14Christian today in 2026 should understand.
- 26:17And by understanding these correctly and rightly dividing these mysteries, guess what?
- 26:23It's going to prevent you from falling into apostasy and heresy.
- 26:28So this is why it's essential. I mean, it's almost starting to become clear
- 26:33why Paul said, hey, if a man's going to count of us, if you're going to hold us accountable,
- 26:38hold us accountable to one primary thing, and that is being good stewards of the mysteries of God.
- 26:44Now, listen, if you're a bad steward of your money, you're going to reap what you sow, right? Right.
- 26:49If you're a bad steward with your walk with the Lord, with your sanctification,
- 26:56with holiness in your life, if you're a bad steward of those things,
- 27:02there's obviously going to be consequences at the judgment seat of Christ,
- 27:05but you're also going to reap what you sow.
- 27:08But if we're not a good steward of these mysteries, we are liable for launching
- 27:15people and new believers and baby Christians directly into false doctrine and heresy.
- 27:21These seven mysteries should be the key pillars in one's Christian's life.
- 27:27Yeah. I mean, if you're bad with your money, it doesn't mean somebody's going
- 27:31to start believing Calvinism.
- 27:33You see what I'm saying? That there's a direct link with understanding and being
- 27:39a good steward of these mysteries.
- 27:40So now you could kind of see why it was so important that Paul said that.
- 27:43Hey, if you want to hold us accountable to something, hold us accountable to
- 27:48being a good steward of the mysteries of God.
- 27:50That means if a pastor fails, listen,
- 27:54if you're under a ministry where you've been in a church for 15,
- 28:0020, 30 years and you've never been taught the mysteries of Christ or the mysteries of God,
- 28:07then either one—I mean, listen, I'm not telling you to leave your church.
- 28:10I'm just saying you need to recognize that that is an accountability factor that Paul identified.
- 28:17And if you're not getting it
- 28:19at your church, you better start studying it individually, independently.
- 28:23You better start trying to learn as much as you can about these mysteries.
- 28:27Yeah, I know. So let's start with the first one, the mystery of godliness.
- 28:32I mean, this one is the most evident, obviously, because most people,
- 28:36this falls into one of the core doctrines that we understand.
- 28:38That we believe that Jesus Christ is fully God and fully man, okay?
- 28:45And we believe that he's 100% God and he was 100% man.
- 28:50It's important to understand that he wasn't 50% God, 50% man, right?
- 28:55He's not 30%, 33.3333% of the Trinity and God is 33.3.
- 29:01No, they're all 100% God,
- 29:04And this is mystery. They go, well, Brother Robert, I don't understand it.
- 29:08Exactly. That's why it's called a mystery.
- 29:11But this mystery highlights that profound truth.
- 29:15And there's a technical term for it when we say that he was 100% fully divine and fully human.
- 29:21It's called hypostatic union. Okay.
- 29:24That's the central Christian doctrine that Jesus Christ is. one person with
- 29:29two distinct inseparable natures, fully divine, he was fully God, and he was fully man.
- 29:38These natures are united without confusion, change, division,
- 29:42or separation, allowing Jesus Christ to bridge the gap between God and humanity.
- 29:48There is no way that Christ could have paid for our sins if he was not 100% God.
- 29:53If he was 100% man, then you and I are on our way to hell, and everybody listening
- 29:58to this podcast, if you accepted Christ.
- 30:01But the Bible says this, here's the verses, 1 Timothy 3, verse 16,
- 30:06the Bible says, without controversy, great is the mystery of godliness, colon,
- 30:13God was manifest in the flesh, justified in the spirit, seen of angels,
- 30:20preached unto the Gentiles, believed on in the world, received up into glory.
- 30:24So why is that so important?
- 30:26Well, if you have anything else but a King James Bible, then it's not God that
- 30:31was manifest in the flesh.
- 30:32Only a King James Bible reveals to you what the mystery of godliness is.
- 30:36It wasn't a man became flesh. That's ridiculous.
- 30:38Every man becomes flesh, right?
- 30:42But the key here is that the mystery of godliness, why is it such a great mystery?
- 30:47Because God, who is a spirit, and they that worship him must be,
- 30:52must worship him in spirit and truth, John 4, 24, right? God is not a man that he should lie.
- 30:58He became a man.
- 31:00That's a great mystery. But that wasn't understood completely and fully until
- 31:06Paul was revealed that. Now, obviously, the apostles started believing that
- 31:10through the ministry while Christ was here on earth.
- 31:13Paul was the only one that articulated it this way, okay? He's explaining this
- 31:18to Timothy. This is his disciple.
- 31:20But in John 1 and verse 14, John chapter 1, verse 1 and verse 14,
- 31:26the Bible says, in the beginning was the Word.
- 31:28The Word was with God. The Word was God.
- 31:32And the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld his glory,
- 31:37the glory as of the only begotten, of the Father, full of grace and truth.
- 31:42Okay? And then Colossians chapter 2, verse 9, the Bible says,
- 31:45for in him, speaking of Christ, dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily.
- 31:51Why are these three verses so important?
- 31:53Because they show you that the hypostatic union is absolutely 100% true.
- 31:58There is no implicit understanding, there's no implication in those verses that
- 32:05suggest that Christ was partially human and partially God.
- 32:10Okay? The Bible, like, for example, in John 1, verse 14, he was God and the
- 32:15word was made flesh, full of grace and truth, right?
- 32:19And then we beheld his glory, the glory is of the only begotten of the Father.
- 32:23Colossians 2, 9, for in him dwelleth all the fullness, not part of the fullness
- 32:27of the Godhead, but all the fullness of the Godhead bodily.
- 32:30So, the mystery of godliness is key an understanding that Jesus Christ was 100% God and 100% man.
- 32:39Any deviation from this doctrine, okay?
- 32:43Anybody that denies the mystery of godliness or anybody that attacks the deity
- 32:47of Christ cannot be a true Bible-believing Christian.
- 32:51And I would even question somebody's salvation if somebody says they got saved,
- 32:56but they didn't believe that Jesus Christ was fully God. But just really quickly,
- 32:59so if somebody were to deviate from this, where do we typically see this in?
- 33:05Well, obviously, the most obvious would be like JWs.
- 33:09Mormons don't believe that Jesus Christ was God. Muslims reject that Jesus Christ is God.
- 33:15You know, there's oneness Pentecostals out there.
- 33:19I think there's some Seventh-day Adventists, some offshoots.
- 33:22There's a lot of pseudo-Christian groups out there that, you know,
- 33:26they're either modalists, like they believe that Jesus, God,
- 33:30and the Holy Spirit are all modes of God.
- 33:34But they're not three separate persons. Jesus had his own will.
- 33:38Remember when he was praying in the garden, he says, you know,
- 33:41father, let this cup pass from me. Nevertheless, not my will, but thy will be done.
- 33:45And he says, I do the will of the father. What is he implying through all those
- 33:50statements is that he has his own separate independent will, right?
- 33:56He could obviously feel pain. He obviously hungered. He obviously grew tired,
- 34:00which means he had a human nature,
- 34:03but he was also fully divine because, you know, like in Mark,
- 34:08you know, he forgave somebody's sins and they said, well, who can forgive sins but God only?
- 34:13And he says, so that you know that the son of man has the power to forgive.
- 34:17What did he do? He forgave and then he healed the person.
- 34:20So he did his signs to the Jews because they required signs to prove those miracles
- 34:27were true. And of course, you know, he claimed things that only God can claim.
- 34:33He received worship when a man shouldn't receive worship if he's trying to honor
- 34:38God, right? I mean, there's all kinds of things that could be said about rejecting that.
- 34:44But yeah, JWs, one is Pentecostals, Mormons, Muslims, other groups,
- 34:50you know, deny the Trinity or deny that it is a basic attack on the Trinity,
- 34:55but in particular that Jesus Christ was fully God and fully man.
- 34:59And looking at it this way into God's word, it's, there's no argument here.
- 35:04Yeah, it's pretty clear. I mean, you can say, oh, it's your interpretation.
- 35:07Well, there's a problem with that. If your interpretation violates scriptural
- 35:12comparison and scriptural interpretation, and that's the only correct interpretation,
- 35:17by the way, is the one that allows the Bible to define and interpret and,
- 35:21you know, and to explain itself.
- 35:24Any other interpretation that does not allow scripture to interpret scripture
- 35:28is a false interpretation, period. Yeah.
- 35:31So the mystery of godliness is Christ is God in the flesh.
- 35:37The second one is the mystery of Christ in the believer.
- 35:41So this mystery describes the indwelling presence of the Lord Jesus Christ within every believer.
- 35:47Now, this is a crazy doctrine. But like Colossians 1.26, verse 27,
- 35:53the Bible says, Even the mystery, which has been hid from the ages and from generations,
- 35:59but has now made manifest to his saints, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.
- 36:07Galatians 2.20, the Bible says, I am crucified with Christ.
- 36:10Nevertheless, I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me.
- 36:15In the life which I now live, I live by the faith of the Son of God who loved
- 36:18me and gave himself for me. 2 Corinthians 13.5, examine yourselves.
- 36:23Whether you be in the faith, prove your own selves, know ye not your own selves,
- 36:28how that Jesus Christ is in you, except you be reprobates.
- 36:33If Christ isn't in you, then you're a reprobate.
- 36:36We covered that verse in another episode, but the point is, is that Christ is inside the believer.
- 36:43And how did that happen? That happened at the point of salvation when the Holy
- 36:47Spirit baptized us into Christ, Romans chapter 6.
- 36:51So the mystery of Christ and the believer is exceedingly important because you
- 36:56know what happens when you deviate from that doctrine?
- 36:58You believe that eternal security is not true. You believe you can lose your salvation.
- 37:04You don't believe that you have the power. Basically, you have Christ today,
- 37:07you don't have Christ in you.
- 37:08Or there's a misinterpretation of Christ in you, which like the Roman Catholic
- 37:12Church says, well, I receive Christ every Saturday when I take the wafer.
- 37:17So by deviating or from navigating away from the mystery of Christ and the believer,
- 37:24you're going to fall into those types of heresies.
- 37:27Christ is in you. And then of course, the other side of it is like the New Ageism.
- 37:31Like, oh, oh, well, God is in everybody.
- 37:32Yeah, but there's a condition of being in Christ, and that's belief.
- 37:37If you didn't choose to believe on Christ, and once you heard the gospel and
- 37:42you trusted it, the Bible says in Ephesians chapter 1, you're sealed with that
- 37:47Holy Spirit of promise until the day of redemption, Ephesians 4.
- 37:50So, Christ is a condition that is conditioned upon, Christ in every believer
- 37:57is conditioned upon believing the gospel.
- 38:00Well, that's not what a Roman Catholic teaches.
- 38:04There's a lot of other religions and stuff that reject that,
- 38:07or they don't believe that Christ is in you.
- 38:10They believe it might be just a spirit or an influence. But the point is,
- 38:15is the better you understand that Christ is in every believer,
- 38:18you'll understand eternal security better.
- 38:20You'll understand, especially spiritual circumcision, the fact that you are
- 38:24in Christ and what God sees. He doesn't see Robert anymore. He sees Jesus Christ in me.
- 38:30Because if you deviate from this, and this is what really drives the works salvation that you see.
- 38:37Yeah, works, a misunderstanding of the indwelling of Jesus Christ.
- 38:43But, you know, that's also paired with the indwelling Holy Spirit,
- 38:46you know? Yeah. And so, but it's just, again, it's called the mystery.
- 38:50It's the mystery of Christ, which is Christ in you.
- 38:54Okay? So that's a very important mystery to understand.
- 38:58The next one is the mystery of the body of Christ.
- 39:01So this mystery reveals that all Christians, this is the organism,
- 39:06the church is an organism, not as an organization.
- 39:08So the church, just like Jesus Christ has a divine nature and a human nature,
- 39:14the church also has a heavenly nature. That's the organism.
- 39:20That's the church that's in the body of Christ that we'll talk about in just
- 39:23a second. But then you also have physical local churches. Now we're Baptists. Okay?
- 39:28By historical conviction. Because we believe the Baptist church represents the
- 39:33closest model of the New Testament church that exists today, is the Baptist.
- 39:39Because of the Baptist distinctive, some of the things that we believe,
- 39:42because of the two ordinances, the two offices, the bishop and the deacon,
- 39:48you know, the autonomy of the church, the Bible is our sole authority, things like that.
- 39:52We believe that as, you know, historical conviction—.
- 39:56That the Baptist church physically, locally, is necessary for the growth of
- 40:03a believer and for the operation of preaching the gospel and propagating it and so forth and so on.
- 40:09But the church is not just a physical, local organization.
- 40:14It is also a spiritual, heavenly body in Jesus Christ.
- 40:20This is what this mystery entails.
- 40:23So it reveals that all Christians are united as one spiritual body with Christ
- 40:30as the head, transcending all earthly divisions.
- 40:34There is no division or schism within the spiritual body. Now,
- 40:38you can have a schism or a split in a local church.
- 40:41In a local church, you have lost people and you have saved people, right?
- 40:45But in the church, which is the body of Christ, there are no lost.
- 40:50Every single person is in Jesus Christ spiritually.
- 40:54So there's a, yeah, there's a key distinction here. And by the way,
- 40:58local church is not a podcast.
- 41:00Yeah, yeah. I mean, don't replace your local church with a podcast.
- 41:05We'd never, and I do want to do an episode on the importance of local church at some point.
- 41:11Yeah, for sure. Because it's key. It's vital. Yeah. You will die spiritually as a Christian.
- 41:15You'll get to a point where you won't have any spiritual growth.
- 41:19You may think you're a church in and of yourself, but anyway,
- 41:21that's a different topic for a different day.
- 41:24Okay, Ephesians chapter 5, verse 30 and verse 32. The Bible says this,
- 41:28For we are members of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones.
- 41:34Now, you either take that literally or you try to spiritualize it.
- 41:37That's the only two ways you could take it.
- 41:39And we're biblical literalists, which means our first approach to the Bible
- 41:45is that we take everything literally, unless we can't.
- 41:49But here's where Paul validates this. He says, for we are members of his body,
- 41:53of his flesh, and of his bones.
- 41:56And then he says in verse 32, this is a great mystery.
- 42:02Why? Because how do you conceive of that? How do you conceive of the fact that we are in Jesus Christ?
- 42:08Matter of fact, it says that in Ephesians chapter 2, we're seated in heavenly places in Christ Jesus.
- 42:15You remember when Jesus Christ was talking to Nicodemus in John chapter 3?
- 42:20And he was telling Marvel not that I say you must be born again.
- 42:24In that same chapter, you know, he tells Nicodemus, he says,
- 42:27hey, Nicodemus, by the way, you know, the son of man, which is in heaven.
- 42:33He's talking to Nicodemus face to face, but then he tells Nicodemus the son
- 42:38of man is in heaven at the same time.
- 42:41Part of Christ was talking to him physically.
- 42:43Another part of Christ is in heaven.
- 42:45We have that same divine nature, according to Ephesians 2.
- 42:49Part of us is right here on earth. We're talking. but another part of us is
- 42:54seated in heavenly places in Christ Jesus.
- 42:58Now, when you think of it that way, you tell me that's not a mystery.
- 43:02Yeah. Right? It's a little bit of a mystery. But he says this, this is a great mystery.
- 43:07And he says in verse 32, Ephesians 5, 32, but I speak concerning Christ and
- 43:13the church, Christ and the church. That's the topic.
- 43:17So Romans chapter 2, 12 verses 4 and 5, Romans 12, 4 and 5, it says this,
- 43:23For as we have many members in one body, and all members have not the same office.
- 43:27So we, being many, are one body in Christ, and every one member is one of another.
- 43:36And then 1 Corinthians 12, verses 12 through 13, the Bible says,
- 43:39For as the body is one, and hath many members, and all the members of that one
- 43:44body, being many are one body, so also is Christ.
- 43:48For by one spirit, we're all baptized into one body, whether we be Jews or Gentiles,
- 43:55whether we be bond or free, and we have been all made to drink into one spirit.
- 44:01Now, people say and argue, well, that's physical water baptism.
- 44:05Water isn't even mentioned in that entire chapter.
- 44:08And again, being biblical literalists, we say, if the spirit is the one that
- 44:14baptizes us into the body, then it's the spirit that baptizes us,
- 44:18not a local pastor baptizing us into a body of water.
- 44:21You have to rip that passage out of its context to try to make it mean water.
- 44:26Water is not the context, has nothing to do with it.
- 44:30But he says that we're members of the body of Christ through the spiritual baptism.
- 44:36Now, that's also backed up in Colossians 2, when we talked about the spiritual baptism.
- 44:41We talked about that before, but that's the mystery of the body of Christ,
- 44:45is that we have been placed into the body of Christ, this church,
- 44:49which is called the church.
- 44:51When we talk about the body of Christ, we're talking about the heavenly church.
- 44:55I know some people, they don't like the word universal church,
- 44:59right? Invisible, universal church. That's what it is.
- 45:02But I think the nomenclature, it's just the Roman Catholics have basically.
- 45:07It's the whole hierarchy, yeah.
- 45:09So I think the better term is the heavenly church.
- 45:12There's a heavenly church that's in Jesus Christ right now.
- 45:16And so Ephesians 5.30 verses 32, Romans 12 verses 4 and 5, and 1 Corinthians 12 verses 12 and 13.
- 45:24And there's other passages that also point to that as well. So,
- 45:27so, so, so far we have the body, the mystery of godliness, which is Christ is
- 45:32God that manifests in the flesh, the mystery of Christ in the believer.
- 45:37And then the third one is the mystery of the body of Christ,
- 45:40which is the heavenly church.
- 45:42Now, the fourth one, and this is the last one we'll cover in this episode,
- 45:45is the mystery of the rapture.
- 45:47And what that basically entails is that the rapture, both the living and deceased
- 45:54church-age believers will receive instantaneously new spiritual intangible bodies.
- 46:00They'll be transformed to be like Jesus Christ's resurrected body as they meet him in the air.
- 46:07So the Bible says in 1 Corinthians 15, verses 51 and 53, Behold, I show you a mystery.
- 46:14We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, for this corruptible must
- 46:19put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality. So.
- 46:24And so he says that our mortal bodies are going to put on immortal bodies.
- 46:31Our corruptible bodies are going to put on incorruptible bodies.
- 46:34They're going to be changed.
- 46:35So that changed in a moment in a twinkling of an eye, it doesn't mean we're
- 46:39going to be caught up in a moment in a twinkling of an eye.
- 46:41It says we'll be changed in a moment in a twinkling of an eye.
- 46:45I don't know how fast the rapture is going to be. Some people said,
- 46:49what if it's like Jesus Christ ascending in Acts chapter one,
- 46:52that they slowly saw him ascending up into heaven?
- 46:55What if you saw thousands and thousands of believers in Christ ascending up into heaven slowly?
- 47:02That would fit people out. But the Bible never says that we go up instantaneously.
- 47:07Okay. It just says that we're changed instantaneously.
- 47:11In Philippians chapter three, verses 20 through 21, the Bible says,
- 47:14for our conversation is in heaven.
- 47:16Our living, that's the conversation, our lifestyle is in heaven.
- 47:20From whence also we look for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ,
- 47:25watch what he says, who shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned
- 47:29like unto his glorious body, according to the working whereby he is able even
- 47:35to subdue all things unto himself.
- 47:37So 1 Corinthians 15 tells us that we're going to have an immortal body,
- 47:42that we're going to be changed, right, in a twinkling of an eye.
- 47:46Philippians 3 says that we're going to be changed. Our vile body is going to
- 47:50be, that's that corruptible body that's put away.
- 47:53And we put on the incorruptible body, the immortal body. It says it's fashioned
- 47:58like unto his glorious body.
- 48:00So what do you do? You start to study, well, what was the resurrected body of Christ like?
- 48:06Remember in Luke 24, he shows up walking on the road to Emmaus.
- 48:11But he appears and he disappears.
- 48:14But he goes home to eat with them and sup with them and fellowship with them.
- 48:17So he could eat physical food.
- 48:20Then at the end of that chapter, and even John chapter 21, same thing,
- 48:24Jesus Christ appears in a closed room where the disciples are.
- 48:29He just appears out of nowhere.
- 48:32And the disciples freak out because they think he's a spirit. They think he's a ghost.
- 48:35And he tells them, well, does a spirit have flesh and bones,
- 48:38as you see me have? So he had flesh and bones.
- 48:40He had a tangible body. He says, give me a piece of fish.
- 48:44He was able to eat food in front of them. But the only things he retained from
- 48:49his previous body were the nail scars in his hand and the wound in his side.
- 48:54So he can instantaneously appear, he could eat food, he could physically,
- 49:00because remember he told Mary not to touch him until he ascended to his father,
- 49:03and then later on he tells Thomas to touch him.
- 49:07So he has a body that you can tangibly feel, you can embrace him,
- 49:11you can talk to him, you can communicate, you can sit there and fellowship and eat with him.
- 49:17And the Bible tells us in Philippians chapter 3 that our body is going to be
- 49:21fashioned like unto his glorious body.
- 49:24So all of the miraculous supernatural features of Jesus Christ's body is going to be given to us.
- 49:31And that's what Philippians 3 tells us. But 1 Corinthians 15 says this is a mystery.
- 49:36He goes, this mystery, this changing, this transfiguration of us from corruptible
- 49:43to incorruptible, from mortal to immortal, right?
- 49:47From this normal body that was full of diseases and pain and all this other
- 49:53stuff, we're going to be putting on a body that will never feel pain again.
- 49:57We'll be putting on a body that'll never feel hurt.
- 50:00All the things that are trapped in this sinful, wicked body.
- 50:04Even Paul talked about it in Romans 6 or 7. He says, who shall deliver me from
- 50:09this body of this death, from the body of this death?
- 50:12Because he talks about like, hey, I have this physical body that can still feel
- 50:17pain. It can still feel temptation.
- 50:19It could still sin against my Savior.
- 50:23Well, that's all going to change at the rapture. So we have the mystery of godliness.
- 50:29And if you reject that, then you're going to fall into Mormon heresy, JW heresy.
- 50:37Then you have the mystery of Christ and the believer.
- 50:40That's where you're going to misunderstand eternal security.
- 50:43You're going to misunderstand receiving Christ.
- 50:45And then, of course, the body of Christ, you're going to misunderstand the purpose
- 50:49of the dual nature church.
- 50:52You'll fall into heresy, not going to church to a local organization,
- 50:56and misunderstanding and misapplying it, and then misunderstanding that you
- 51:00as a believer are in Christ. This is also another extension of the eternal security doctrine.
- 51:06And then, of course, the mystery of the rapture is not just the timing of the rapture.
- 51:10Again, we didn't go through the timing of it, the pre-tribulation rapture,
- 51:14and the dispensational viewpoint of it.
- 51:16In this particular case, it's just the fact that we're going to receive the body of Christ.
- 51:21And so some people may think, well, if I'm still sinning, then I must have lost
- 51:26my salvation when they don't understand that, hey, you have a dual nature and
- 51:30your body is the only thing that hasn't been sanctified.
- 51:33I was sanctified, placed into Christ at the moment of salvation, right?
- 51:39So that means I was saved and I was permanently sealed until the day of redemption.
- 51:45Okay. People don't understand that. I was made perfect. That spiritual circumcision
- 51:50cut away my soul and it made my soul reborn. My spirit is renewed.
- 51:54And now I am perfect in Christ. That was the sanctification of the past.
- 52:01Current sanctification is the fact that I am now walking in fellowship with
- 52:06my Savior and I'm becoming more holy. I'm becoming more like Christ.
- 52:10And of course, Christ is working in me and he's going to perform it until the
- 52:14day of redemption. Okay.
- 52:16Then future sanctification is the rapture where my body will be then made perfect.
- 52:23That's the only thing that is unsaved in me is my body.
- 52:27My soul and my spirit have been redeemed and born again and sealed at salvation.
- 52:33So not understanding the mystery
- 52:35of the rapture can also lead to a misunderstanding of eternal security.
- 52:40So those are the first four, you know, mysteries of the seven that we'll cover.
- 52:48Okay. So the other seven, you know, the other three will be the,
- 52:52obviously Israel, that's going to be pretty important, the mystery of iniquity,
- 52:56the Antichrist, and of course, the mystery of Babylon.
- 52:59So we understand that, you know, when, especially, and here's just a kind of
- 53:04a real quick, just so people understand that there's a difference between the
- 53:07rapture versus the revelation.
- 53:09The rapture in 1 Thessalonians 4 that the believers are caught up,
- 53:14you have to look at some features.
- 53:17There's five particular features. And if you look at them from the rapture versus
- 53:22revelation point, you'll see they're not the same thing because people will
- 53:25run to Matthew 24, for example, and go, oh, that's the rapture of the church.
- 53:30But we have a problem here because that doesn't describe the raptures in 1 Thessalonians 4.
- 53:35So number one, Christ's location is that we're raptured and we meet Christ in the air.
- 53:41Well, in Revelation chapter 19, he's descending upon the earth.
- 53:46Matter of fact, he comes down to the earth in Zechariah 12.10,
- 53:49and he splits the mountain open.
- 53:51But here's another problem. And then, of course, the direction of the movement,
- 53:54the believers are going up to meet the Lord in the rapture.
- 53:58But in Revelation 19, he comes with 10,000 of his saints on white horses with him, an army.
- 54:06So believers are coming down with the Lord, two different directions.
- 54:09Well, who's involved? In the rapture, it's just the church.
- 54:13It's just Christ and the church, the believers only, right?
- 54:17Well, in the revelation, it's Christ, his saints, and the armies of heaven,
- 54:21which I believe is everyone from all other dispensations of the Old Testament that come back.
- 54:28Well, what's the purpose of the rapture? It's to remove the church from the
- 54:31earth. Well, what's the purpose of the revelation?
- 54:33To judge the nations that establishes kingdom here on earth.
- 54:36And of course, the visibility, the rapture, it's a primary, it's event primarily
- 54:40for the believers. Nobody else is going to see it. It's a mystery.
- 54:43And then the revelation, every eye will see it.
- 54:48It's a public event. So, you know, that's why it's important to understand the
- 54:51mystery of the, you know, the mystery of the rapture that you can get yourself
- 54:56messed up on the timing of the rapture and the purpose of the church today.
- 55:00So here's the, here's the summary. So understanding the mysteries is not secondary. right?
- 55:08It's deep theology for advanced scholars. That's what it comes down to.
- 55:13It is a fundamental—well, it's a deeper as you go. You have to learn it as a baby Christian.
- 55:20That's the core foundation, but it's a fundamental necessity for every believer
- 55:25who desires to correctly interpret
- 55:27Scripture, understand their identity in Christ, avoid doctrinal error.
- 55:32And stand in awe of the perfect, glorious God,
- 55:37dispensational plan of God. It's the key that unlocks the unique truths of this dispensation of grace.
- 55:44So if you fail to understand the mysteries, then you're failing in your accountability.
- 55:51One brother, he's a missionary in Africa, Brother Mike Flick,
- 55:55he said this, he says, the unfortunate truth is that these mysteries are rarely
- 56:00emphasized or taught in modern churches.
- 56:02Not to know these mysteries is to be ignorant of what the New Testament calls the faith.
- 56:08Every believer is supposed to be rooted and grounded in the faith.
- 56:13So that's why those understanding, those mysteries is so important.
- 56:18And that's why Paul said, hey, if you're going to hold us accountable to anything,
- 56:22hold us accountable to how faithful we've been as stewards of the mysteries
- 56:27of God. Probably a good way to look at it is to use an analogy of food, right?
- 56:33The Bible talks about sustenance, and spiritually, it's part of a balanced,
- 56:39nutritious way of growing spiritually.
- 56:42You've got to have all these key pillars.
- 56:44And if you don't have the right starting place, you're not going to have the
- 56:47right ending place. And I can tell you—.
- 56:51That if you run into a shallow believer, a Christian that's essentially a spiritual baby,
- 56:58I guarantee you, if you were to lay any of these mysteries out and ask them
- 57:03to expound on it or explain it, they couldn't. Yeah, unfortunately.
- 57:07The problem is that the emphasis is not on these core things,
- 57:11the meat that a Christian needs to grow.
- 57:15It's always emphasis on one thing, maybe it's the milk, and then that's all they have.
- 57:20And that results in a weak Christian, just like if you only eat cereal like
- 57:25I do every day, you'll be a weak and unhealthy. But, you know,
- 57:28I mean, think about the perspective here.
- 57:31I mean, how many Christians listening to this podcast have actually thought
- 57:35about, well, man, if I don't know the mysteries of God, I'm not being a good steward before God.
- 57:41Because in their minds, they're thinking, well, I give my tithe,
- 57:43I give my missions, you know, I go to soul winning on Saturday,
- 57:47I dress right, I listen to the right music.
- 57:50I fellowship, I read my Bible, and they couldn't explain one single mystery
- 57:54if their life depended on it. Yeah.
- 57:57Again, it creates weak Christians, spiritually.
- 58:02And here's the thing, I know a lot of churches and pastors, they want to emphasize
- 58:07the character and performance of a Christian and the four main things in fundamentalism,
- 58:13which is soul winning and giving and attendance and standards.
- 58:18Those are focused on something that a non-Christian can do, right?
- 58:24A JW or a Mormon or somebody that's just of good character can do all those things.
- 58:29When you know the mysteries and when you study and learn these doctrines,
- 58:35it drives the right Christian behavior in the end.
- 58:39And it's a defense. It's a defense for new believers. Can you imagine a baby
- 58:43Christian being grounded in these seven mysteries and understanding them fully
- 58:48to the point where they can disciple and teach and train others?
- 58:52That Christian is less likely to be deceived by a heretic. And I think that's important.
- 59:01I think people need to understand why that is so critical for the believer today,
- 59:04because so many Christians today are getting sucked up into the social media
- 59:10Christianity, the Charlie Kirk Christianity, right?
- 59:13They're getting so sucked up into this modern liberal Christianity that has,
- 59:17you know, a Bible buffet of the month, you know, pick whatever translation,
- 59:21you know, makes sense to you type of thing.
- 59:24And the reason why is literally, you can trace all of that back to ignorance of these mysteries.
- 59:33Why would Paul say, man, let a man so account of us.
- 59:39We want people to hold us accountable. For what?
- 59:43For being good, faithful stewards of the mysteries of God.
- 59:48I wonder how many of us can sit there and say, man, I fully understand these seven mysteries.
- 59:54I can defend these before heretics. I can go before a Seventh-day Adventist,
- 59:59a Mormon, a Calvinist, and I can sit there and defend each one of these mysteries
- 1:00:04biblically and scripturally.
- 1:00:06How many people can do that? And if you can't,
- 1:00:10then that's our challenge is you need to pick up that Bible and you need to
- 1:00:14start trying to dig in and understanding these because that is the one thing
- 1:00:18Paul said we were supposed to be good stewards of.
- 1:00:21He never says that we're supposed to be stewards of our money. He never says that.
- 1:00:26He says that we're supposed to be stewards of the mysteries of God.
- 1:00:30You know, so again, I'm not trying to say, don't be faithful to God with your money.
- 1:00:34I'm not trying to say, don't give in the offering plate, don't support missions. I'm not saying that.
- 1:00:39I'm just saying that, okay, do those things, but why do you do those things
- 1:00:44to the neglect of being a good steward of the mysteries of God?
- 1:00:47And not to misread it either. I mean, this is where Paul talks about the mysteries, right?
- 1:00:52People think that it is misinterpreted or the definition means stewardship in
- 1:00:59these other things other than the mysteries of God. Yep, that's right.
- 1:01:03Yeah, so four out of seven. We got the other three, which will be,
- 1:01:07I know you just recapped them, which will be, we just covered the rapture.
- 1:01:09So it's going to be temporary blindness, which is going to be Israel,
- 1:01:12six, iniquity, and then the seventh, Babylon the Great.
- 1:01:16That's it. Cool. Not too deep. It's not too difficult, right?
- 1:01:21No, I mean, it's a starting point. Yeah. Each of those mysteries in and of themselves,
- 1:01:27you can literally spend weeks and months studying.
- 1:01:31But we just want to list them, and that's what I would recommend is,
- 1:01:35you know, if you have some blank space in the beginning or end of your Bible
- 1:01:39or, you know, take that first, you know, in that Corinthian passage where Paul
- 1:01:43says we're supposed to be stewards, write those seven mysteries down.
- 1:01:46Start to learn them. Start to study them. Make an effort.
- 1:01:49Say, you know what? I don't know anything about the mystery of godliness.
- 1:01:54Let me study the deity of Christ out.
- 1:01:55Let me be able to identify and clearly articulate the doctrine.
- 1:01:59I don't know anything about the mystery of Christ in me.
- 1:02:03I don't know the mystery of the body of Christ. Let me start studying these
- 1:02:06things out. the rapture, the timing of the rapture, the difference,
- 1:02:10the distinctions that God makes between the rapture and the revelation.
- 1:02:13Start studying those things out. You should be able to develop and outline your
- 1:02:18own doctrine, your own teachings and scriptural evidence that supports each
- 1:02:25one of those mysteries. You should be able to do that.
- 1:02:28And if you don't know it today, don't worry. Don't beat yourself up because you don't know it today.
- 1:02:33The point is, is we're trying going to show you this is what the Bible says,
- 1:02:37then do what the Bible says.
- 1:02:39Be a good steward of these mysteries.
- 1:02:43And now you're going to be armed, and that's why it's a challenge for anybody
- 1:02:46who's listening or basically to any Christian who's growing.
- 1:02:50But think of it this way. You've got other baby Christians around you.
- 1:02:54People get saved, and you need to be able to answer their questions and help
- 1:02:57guide them and disciple them. You should know these things because you're going
- 1:02:59to ask questions like this. That's right.
- 1:03:01So, it is key and critically important. Critically important.
- 1:03:07All right. I guess that'll be it. That's four. We'll do another episode.
- 1:03:12Lord willing next week if there's no other surgeries or water pipes breaking.
- 1:03:18But we'll cover the rest of these in next week's episode. So thanks.
- 1:03:24Thanks for listening. Thank you for being patient with us.
- 1:03:27And we do apologize for missing a week. We're going to try not to do that anymore.
- 1:03:31If it does happen again, we'll make sure to message it out to everyone that
- 1:03:35we might have to just for various things.
- 1:03:37But we're going to do our best not to do that as much as possible.
- 1:03:41And we're always going to have some content to push out as well.
- 1:03:45So thanks for sticking with us.
- 1:03:47As always, if you have any questions, reach out to us. And we'll see you next week.