Made Alive

This is the famous priestly benediction from Numbers 6: 24-26. In Israel some years ago, a house suddenly collapsed in ruins.  And, of course, there was an inquiry: Why is it that the house collapsed?  Well, the reason was, one of the young men was getting married and, according to the custom, he was to bring his bride to his father's house.  So they built another level on the house.  But the foundation hadn't been laid to take that extra weight, so it gave way, and the house collapsed.

Believe me, in the Father's house in heaven, the foundation is so solid, so secure, there is no question about it giving way!  But YESHUA is coming to take us to His Father's house.  He says, 'I go to prepare a place for you.  And if I go, I will come again and receive you to myself, that where I am, there you may be also.'  We complete Him!  Can you imagine, the grace of our Messiah!  He regards us as His fullness!  He, Himself fills all in all.  He fills His people in a minor sense; He fills us with all spiritual good things, but when the Bible speaks about Him filling 'all in all' It's referring to Him as the 'Mighty GOD Who fills heaven and earth.'

GOD says in the Prophet, Jeremiah, ''Do I not fill heaven and earth?'says the LORD.' When Solomon dedicated the Temple, he said, ''Behold, the heaven and the heaven of heavens cannot contain Thee.  How much less this house which I have built?'' Will GOD indeed, in very deed, dwell on the earth?

To ask the question is to answer it.  'Yes, GOD has come to dwell.  He came to dwell in the Person of His Son, YESHUA, our Messiah.  He's coming back to reign on this earth!  Oh, there are some people who feel very upset about that.  Bless their hearts!  They want to make sure that GOD suffers no dishonour, and they feel it's a great dishonour that when YESHUA has been risen; ascended; glorified; seated at the right hand of the Father, how can He lower Himself to come back to earth?  But David says, 'Who is like the LORD our GOD, Who humbles Himself, to behold the things that are done on the earth?'

Yes, it is true!  Messiah is coming back - physically, really, corporally, with us - to reign on this earth!  And when the Bible says, He fills all in all, He supplies whatever is lacking.  So you can take this in several senses.  He said, ''I am not come to destroy the law or the prophets; I have come to fulfill, not to destroy.'' In that sense, He fills 'all in all'.  He also fills in another way.  He fills us with all spiritual good.

John 1, verse 16: 'Of His fullness, have all we received, and grace for grace.' That means, grace upon grace, always being replaced, always being replenished, always increasing.  Do you know what that tells us?  It tells us that our life as Believers ought never to be static: you are either going forwards, or you are going backwards.  Be sure that you're growing, because if you're not, you're shrinking spiritually.

That was Shaul's prayer.  'I am praying that you might realize all this.  That you might revel in it.  Not as a figment of the imagination, but a reality which you can prove in your experience.'  And then he goes on in Chapter 2 to say, 'But you know, to a certain extent you have already proved it in your experience.'  We come to Chapter 2, where he shows that indeed, this is something we already know about in our experience.  'And you, He made alive, who were dead in trespasses and sins in which you once walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience.'

Let's pause there.  He says you already know this resurrection power. You have been raised from spiritual death to spiritual life.  You're not what you once were.  What has made the difference?  Who has made the change in you?  And the answer is: GOD has!  So that all these things that I am telling you about, you already know.  You have been born-again; you are now very conscious that you are a child of GOD; you are very aware of the Spirit's leading in your life; the thought that is always checked; the word that is stopped at the very mouth.  And you are so glad that the Spirit of GOD stopped you from saying something, which you would afterwards have regretted, because we can never take back our words once they are written, they are spoken.  GOD has given us a double fence, of course, for our tongue:  we have our lips, and we have our teeth.  And the Bible says we are to be swift to hear, and slow to speak; so He gives us a double fence for that unruly tongue of ours!  Keep it behind bars.  Think before you speak.  First make sure that your brain is engaged before you put your tongue in gear!  That kind of saying, you know that saying!

He is writing to the Ephesians here, in particular.  But, of course, with them he includes all those Gentiles to whom he had been sent as an apostle, as a shaliach.  'You, He made alive.'  So already we have begun to experience what he has prayed for.  That there ought to be in every child of GOD, a holy dissatisfaction with our progress.  In every one of us, there should be the longing, 'Oh, I wish I was further along the road.' 

GOD's treasures lie deep, and we have to dig for them.  If you want to grow, you have to apply yourself.  I have said this before: when I was a boy I used to ask my mother how I would ever become a big strong man?  Do you know what she told me?  'Eat your porridge.'  It's true.  Day by day as you eat your porridge, as you eat your meals; as you take adequate exercise and rest, you're getting stronger.  And it applies spiritually as well.  Now he says, 'You, He made alive.  You, He has raised to spiritual life!'  He says, 'You weren't always spiritually alive.  You were dead in trespasses and sins.'  And by that he doesn't mean physically dead, but spiritually so.  And as spiritual helpless as one physically dead.  Can a dead man do anything?  Nothing at all.