Sermon Breakdown

1. The chief end, intent and object of salvation is the glory of God. God has done all this in order that he can present a spectacle to all future ages, not only in this world, but also in that which is to come.
2. Salvation does this. In other words, it vindicates the greatness and the character of God in a special way and manner in which nothing else does so. We learn certain things about God in this whole movement of salvation and of redemption, which we would never have known otherwise.
3. All this display and vindication of the character and the being and the greatness and the glory of God comes to pass through the church. God does this tremendous thing by means of us and through us.
4. God is using the church, and is going to use the church in the future ages in order to give a demonstration and an exhibition to the principalities and the powers in the heavenly places.
5. God is vindicating himself and his character by you and by me, by people such as ourselves, by the whole of the church gathered out of the world in Christ.
6. He's going to put us on display as it where there's going to be a glorious exhibition. He's already doing it, but it's going to continue in the ages to come.
7. And at the final end, God is going to open his last great exhibition, and all these heavenly powers and principalities will be invited to attend, and the curtain will draw back, and God will say, look at them.
8. To the intent that now unto the principalities and powers in the heavenly places might be known by the church. The manifold wisdom of God.
9. And you and I have been prepared for that. You read of the artists preparing their paintings and their drawings for the exhibition, don't you? The final touches. The frame must be right, must be put in the right position. The light must be in the right position.
10. We all know about it. You've seen people preparing animals to show them in horse shows or fruit and vegetables for a horticultural show. The picking out, the preparing. Well, that's what's happening to you and to me.
11. That's the meaning of a service like this. It's just a part of it. The exhibition, the show, the display, it's coming. And the astounding and amazing thing is that it's through people like ourselves.
12. And as the result of what he's doing to us and has done to us and will do to us, that God is going to vindicate his own eternal wisdom and his majesty and his glory and all the attributes of his holy person to the principalities and the heavenly powers.
13. The first thing is that he's ever looked upon us at all, such as we were dead in trespasses and sins, walking according to the course of this world.
14. The spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience, amongst whom we all had our conversation in times past, in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and where the children of wrath, even as others, how could he ever have looked upon us?
15. We deserve nothing but retribution and punishment and hell. If you feel that you deserve anything better, you don't know what you are as a sinner, and you'd know nothing. I'm afraid about the grace of God. Miserable, vile, foul wretches and rebels.