It’s a very lovely thing the Apostle Paul is saying in Ephesians 3:17-19, “that Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith, that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth, and length and depth and height of the love of God.”
This is really beautiful, it’s Paul being very expressive and very explicit. We’re so familiar with two dimensions, flat, and with three dimensions where there is some depth and perspective. But Paul’s description of the love of God is higher and greater, more enlightening, it’s wide, it’s long, it’s deep, and it’s high – four dimensions – the height AND the depth! I’m intrigued! God’s love is not just the length which encompasses the world, it’s not just the width, but it has a height – and it has a depth – it’s an almost unfathomable mystery of God.
And yet Paul wants us to understand it. Everything we understand about the Bible, about the Gospel – everything is contained in this one thing – the love of God! The Bible is presenting us with love in a greater dimension than normal love. You can’t compare the love of God with human love. You can’t compare it even with the love of a mother for her child, or husband and wife – the love of God is something beyond human comprehension! Here we’re not talking about His Power, but about His Love! Paul wants us to KNOW the love of Christ – which passes all understanding – that we might be filled with ALL THE FULLNESS of God!
In v20 Paul goes on, “Now unto Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above ALL that we can ask or think, according to the Power that works in us…” People sometimes think they are limited in what they can ask of God. But here it is so clear, He is able to do EXCEEDING ABUDANTLY ABOVE ALL you can ask. People have difficulty grasping that we can ask – and God will give MORE than we are asking! More than we can think or imagine! Sometimes it’s good to let imagination run riot!!! Sometimes I do that – I let my imagination run wild…
I remember in the early days of my ministry, in the difficult years following the war, I was pastor in a very small, recently founded church, and I was limited in my thinking. And I remember the first crusade I held, it’s laughable now, but I had only been in the Bible College 3 months, and pastor of the church for 1 month, and it came to the summer vacation… I thought, what do I do? I don’t have the college to go to, I’ve only got the church, how can I fill my time? My reaction was, let’s evangelise! I borrowed a tent from a businessman, put it up in a field, did a bit of advertising, got people together and I began! But in those days, I was only dreaming, dreaming of the bigger evangelists, and wouldn’t it be wonderful to have a big choir and worship group… I was dreaming…
Yet in recent years, as I look back, I see that God has given me something BEYOND my wildest dreams! I’ve preached to tens of thousands, to ninety thousand in Poland, and next time I go there, the Catholics are promising me up to a quarter of a million people, we’ll be able to bring in famous musicians and choirs… But it’s already happened, BEYOND my wildest dreams. When I was evangelising in Russia, in Siberia, after the fall of communism, one pastor, a great friend of mine, lent me his choir – they loved to work with me and their singing used to move me to tears – and wherever I went in Russia, they would come, one time they travelled 2000 km on broken Russian roads in order to be with me and to share in the evangelism! I turned to the leader of the choir and said, “It’s so wonderful you have come so far!” And I saw the look on his face as he replied, “But David, we love your ministry, we love the evangelism, we just want to be a part of it!”
When I look back over my 70 years in ministry, God has done EXCEEDING ABUNDANTLY! Recently I was preaching for two Sunday services in one church in Germany, but on Zoom, from my home here in England, because of the lockdown. At the end of it I was very unhappy. I didn’t feel I had conveyed what was in my heart. You see, when I speak about Christ, I’m not just using words, I convey, by my expression, by my body language, what is in my heart. I was so discouraged, I vowed I would never preach on Zoom again. But two days later, I got a message from Germany, “Oh David it was great! We love your energy and enthusiasm, it was such an encouragement to hear from you – we were deeply moved by your revelation from the Word…” You see, that’s what I want to do, I want to express by my words, by my actions, by my life the Power of God and the Love of God!
So now, moving on to Ephesians Chapter 4, I want again to express more fully what I see as the unfathomable breadth, and length and depth and height of the love of God! Because Paul begins in v1, “I therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you that you walk worthy of the calling…” You can look at this in so many ways! Previously he has described himself as a ‘prisoner of the Lord for the Gentiles’, Ephesians 3:1. But here, he’s simply saying, he’s a ‘prisoner of the Lord’. I see this as part of the breadth, and length and depth and height of the love of God – Paul was held captive by Love! It was not just a ‘vocation’, and certainly not because someone had chosen him for it. His whole life was based on this fact, that he was a prisoner of God’s love, he was bound to the Lord by God’s love for him, and his love for God!
So often in the Scripture we read about ‘fearing’ God. As a youngster I used to ask my father, what does it mean to ‘fear’ God? It’s not so much being ‘afraid’ of God, but that we love Him so much, we’re afraid to displease Him! This ‘fear’ is just an expression of love! When we love someone, we don’t want to displease them, or cause them hurt or harm, because of the love we have for them! So Paul was held captive to the Lord simply through love, but continues, “I beseech you that you walk worthy of the calling with which you are called!” We have to be responsible! As Paul says in v2, we do this through lowliness, meekness, with long suffering, forbearing one another in love! In other words, we have to walk in humility!
Every time I preach, always the devil comes to me afterwards, always telling me, “Well, you should have said this, you should have done that, why did you say this…” So often I’m concerned I haven’t fulfilled what the Lord really wanted me to do. But we have to be constrained by this sense of needing to ‘walk worthy’.
People don’t know this, that though I had been evangelising in the former Soviet Union, behind the Iron Curtain, for so many years, when I began to hold big conferences in the West, I didn’t think anyone would want to listen to me. 1988, just before the collapse of the Iron Curtain, was the first big meeting I had ever held in the West, we got 4000 delegates – it was to prophesy the Curtain would fall and that there would be a mighty move of the Holy Spirit sweeping across Europe from East to West – but I was so concerned, I never even booked myself to speak, I only saw myself as the organiser. I felt so much that we needed the other preachers – I had invited Reinhard Bonnke, and Brother John Osteen from America, the father of Joel – I never saw myself as worthy. And I remember turning to Brother John Osteen in that conference and saying, “I feel I need to speak.” He laughed and said, “It’s your conference! If you want to, then speak!” And I did. Twice people came to me after that, saying, “These people are coming from the Iron Curtain countries because they want to hear you, David, because you have been there, ministering there. These others from the West don’t understand us as you do!”
It happened again in 1990, I had organised a big East/West Conference in Hungary, it was a powerful miracle, because I had so offended the communists by openly evangelising there before the collapse of communism, I had actually been banned from the country! But yet the Lord had said to me, “I have set before you an open door and no man can shut it!” And the government contacted me- and asked me to go back in! The condition was that I could hold a crusade – if I brought every single denomination together – and we did! But I was still so nervous, so hesitant, I brought in all these other great preachers from South Africa and from around the world to preach. But a man came up to me, I didn’t know him, I had never seen him before and I’ve never seen him since, and he said to me, “David, I didn’t plan to come this conference. But God told me to come, simply to give you a message: all these people have come to this conference because you are the one with the vision, they want to hear you. Why do you call these other preachers in? You are the one they want to hear.” I needed to hear that. Until then, I had not seen myself as worthy enough.
And in v3, Paul goes on, “Endeavouring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace…” Paul is again saying, there is One Body, One Spirit, One Hope, One Faith… We know this… One Lord, One Baptism, One God and Father of all… There is such a sense of Oneness in Christ! One of the greatest miracles in my ministry is what has happened in Ukraine! In 2014 the Russians had taken Crimea, and invaded East Ukraine. When I saw that the Ukraine military and government couldn’t solve the issues, couldn’t solve the war, I turned to the Church leaders and challenged them, “What the military and the politicians can’t do, God can!” I called the pastors and leaders to prayer. It became so much of a miracle that every single denomination in the country, without exception, pleaded to be a part. I met with the Heads of every Church group – Bishops, Archbishops, Metropolitans – whatever they were – Orthodox, Catholic, Pentecostal, Charismatic, Seventh Day Adventist – I spoke personally with every leader. I said, “If we are to have this National Day of Prayer, we absolutely have to stand in unity. To take part you have to declare, firstly that the Bible is the Word of God and the only Authority in the Church, and secondly that Salvation is only in the Name of Jesus.” I was amazed how in Ukraine, every Church leader of whatever tradition, respected and honoured the Word of God.
The Ukraine and Orthodox Churches take a stronger stand on biblical principles than some evangelical churches in the West. Certainly, in America and Britain they are compromising biblical Truth. I will not go into detail here, but you must surely know what I mean. But that’s why Putin – whatever you think of him – could say, “We, the Orthodox Church, not you in the West, are the defenders of the true faith!” But we must have that Spirit of Unity that Paul talks about – One Spirit, One Faith, One Lord, One God and Father of all – based on the Authority of Word of God and Salvation only in the Name of Jesus.
And now in vv7-8, Paul says that “to everyone of us is given grace according to the measure of the gift of Jesus Christ, wherefore it says: When He ascended up on high, He led captivity captive and gave gifts to men.” Paul emphasises in v9, that before Christ ascended, He first descended “into the lower parts of the earth”. This is extremely interesting, because we’re seeing something here not really expounded on, I’ve not heard preachers dealing with this. But the saints who died before Christ, in the Old Testament dispensation, died looking forward to the Coming of Christ. Those of us who live in the New Testament dispensation and die today, in faith, we look back to the Resurrection of Christ, but forward to the resurrection of the saints!
Jesus is the link! When He died, the veil of the Temple was ripped in two, opening the way through His torn flesh – into the Holy Place, into Heaven itself. But here it says, when He died, before He ascended, He ‘led captives’ captive! Captives free from captivity in death, but captive to the love of Christ! But look also at Matthew 27:50-53: when Christ died – before His Resurrection – when He died, many of the graves were opened and people came out of the graves! But they were not seen in the city until after He ascended. I believe that Christ literally had to go down into the depths in order to rescue those who were held captive, unable to enter into the Glory of God until Christ first opened the door and went in. They could only follow – after He went in! He had to release some, held down there – but where did they go after they died, if not hell? Sometimes it is referred to as being in ‘Abraham’s bosom’.
But the whole of the future of the Church, of us as Christians – is linked into the miracle that Jesus not only died, but became the firstfruits and the very first one to actually enter Heaven! So Christ was the only One who could enter Heaven, and when He did, the Door was opened and others could go in. In v10, Paul says, “He that descended (that is into the lower parts of the earth) is the same also that ascended up far above all Heavens, that He might FILL ALL things.” Only in Christ is the Promise of God and the Promise of Salvation finally fulfilled!
And it is Christ who, when He ascended, gave ‘gifts to men’, v8, and in v11, ‘gave some to be apostles, and some to be prophets, and some to be evangelists, and some pastors and teachers’. I must say here that I am a firm believer in the fivefold ministry, that it is not just pastors, but the ministries that God has given as ‘gifts’ to the Church – apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers! And the purpose of these great gifts is, vv12-13, ‘for the perfecting of the saints for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the Body of Christ – until we come into Unity in the Faith!’ The ministry gifts are to bring that Unity into the Body!
The Church is not just a place where Christians gather together, the Church is fellowship, it’s unity, the place where we get our strength, our power, it’s like a school, it’s where we get our education… The purpose of the Church is to strengthen the work of the ministry. So many pastors and leaders get injured, wounded, and even leave the ministry for different reasons. No, the Church should be the hospital to restore the weak and make them strong. The Church is essential to the Unity of the Body, and essential to support the fivefold ministry to the world.
Father, let us be part of this fivefold ministry, that we might be strengthened in the Church, and that the Church will send us out, empower us! O God grant it is Jesus Name. Amen.