Paul: 'I want ALL lost people to SEE'

Paul writes in Ephesians 3: [8] Unto me, who am less than the least of all saints, is this grace given, that I should preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ.

It’s unsearchable because you can’t go search it out in Scripture anywhere else except in Paul’s epistles, explains Richard Jordan.

“Search the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me,” Jesus told the leaders of Israel, and they can go find Him in the Old Testament. Paul couldn’t say that.

You go back in Old Testament Scriptures and try and look for Paul’s message and there’s just a hole; an empty place where it’s not.

So, if I’m going to go out and preach this unprophesied message; dispensationally it’s unsearchable (it’s hid with God), but doctrinally that word unsearchable means it’s "past finding out."

There’s some things about it, they’re so far ahead of where you are it would crack your skull to try and understand it. That’s verse 10: [10] To the intent that now unto the principalities and powers in heavenly places might be known by the church the manifold wisdom of God,

So there’s a sense in which the unsearchable is this manifold, multi-faceted wisdom of God. That’s Romans 11:33’s use of the word: [33] O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! how unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out!
[34] For who hath known the mind of the Lord? or who hath been his counseller?

Paul says, “I want to go preach that among the Gentiles. I want to go tell everybody that God wants you to participate in this message AND, my second purpose is to make all men SEE the fellowship of the mystery”, which is back in verse 6:

[6] That the Gentiles should be fellowheirs, and of the same body, and partakers of his promise in Christ by the gospel:

When he uses that word “see,” Paul’s not talking so much about making people understand it because he says “all men.” What does I Corinthians 2:14 say? [14] But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.

Paul knows that lost people aren’t going to see this stuff. He says, “I want all lost people out there to see. I want them to have a visible representation laid in front of them of what that doctrine represents and is.”

What he’s talking about there is the local church. He’s talking about I Timothy 3:16: [16] And without controversy great is the mystery of godliness: God was manifest in the flesh, justified in the Spirit, seen of angels, preached unto the Gentiles, believed on in the world, received up into glory.

You see, so often people forget the imperative in Paul’s epistles about the local church. Paul wrote 13 epistles and nine of them he wrote to local churches, or clusters of local churches.

He wrote four epistles to individuals who are leaders in local churches. God’s design in the dispensation of grace is that the work of the ministry be done through gatherings of Believers in communities that organize themselves for the purpose of doing the work of the ministry.

We’re not called to be Lone Rangers with our Tontos, just running around . . .  We’re called to be the church, the pillar and the ground of the truth, to hold up a testimony that says, “Truth is available, here it is, and whatever cost it is, we’re going to make it known.”

You see, what happens is people think church is the building down there. So, to have a church, we’ve got to have a building, and to build the church means you run the programs in the building and you get all that religious hoodiley-doo going on. That’s the church of the dead god.