Alright brethren, 2 Thessalonians
chapter 3. Now this morning we saw the vain
confidence Babylon has. We are worshippers who have a
vain confidence in self. Our subject this time is our
confidence in the Lord. And God's people, those sanctified
by our Lord, have all our confidence in God our Father and our Lord
Jesus Christ through the Spirit of our Lord. Our confidence is
in the Lord. The three things that are in
our text right here are the three things that we need. These are
the three things that we really need, all we really need right
here. And our confidence is in the Lord to give us all three. Here's the first thing. We pray
to the Lord to bless His gospel. And the reason we ask Him to
bless His gospel is because He's all our confidence. He said in
verse 1, finally brethren, pray for us. Ask the Lord. that the word of the Lord, the
gospel, may have free course and be glorified even as it is
with you, and that we may be delivered from unreasonable and
wicked men, for all men have not faith. Here's the second
thing. We need the Lord to establish
us and keep us from evil. And he's our confidence to do
it. He said, but the Lord is faithful who shall establish
you and keep you from evil. And the third thing, the Lord
is our confidence touching our obedience. He's our confidence
for obedience, to make us obedient. Verse four, and we have confidence
in the Lord touching you that you both do and will do the things
which we command you and the Lord direct your hearts into
the love of God and to the patient waiting for Christ. Do you see
here the confidence is all in the Lord? All our confidence
is in the Lord for these three things. Now, first of all, God's
people pray to the Lord because our confidence is in the Lord.
We depend on the Lord. That's why we pray to the Lord.
And so it is with Christ's preacher. The Lord's preacher is dependent
upon the Lord. And so Paul here asked the brethren,
pray to the Lord for us. Pray to the Lord for us. He said
there, pray for us. Brethren, pray for us. When you
read of prayer in the scripture, always connect it with God our
Father and our Lord Jesus Christ. Always connect it with the one
to whom prayer is made. You see, it's not just the act
of praying. That's not what Paul's talking
about here. Not just the act of praying. We depend upon the
Lord to whom we pray. We depend upon Him. Our Lord promised His people
what He shall do. He purposed from eternity what
He will do. And He promised us what He will
do. He said He would put a new spirit in His people. He promised
that He would write the covenant of grace on our hearts so that
we'll obey Him, we'll believe Him, We'll love him, we'll love
one another, we'll trust him, we'll follow him, we'll persevere
in faith to the end. He promised to provide all the
needs of his church. He promised to add to the church
and to multiply us. He promised that. And then he
did all this in Ezekiel 36, and then he said this, he said, Thus
saith the Lord God, I will yet for this be inquired of by the
house of Israel to do it for them. I will increase them with
men like a flock. But he said, but you're going
to ask me. See, prayer It does not change God. It doesn't change
His purpose. It doesn't change what He purposed
already to do. He will do what He promised to
do. What's the point of prayer then?
It makes you and me come and submit to Him. and cast all our
care into His hand and have all our confidence in Him, asking
Him to do what He promised to do. It's for our benefit. It's
to bring us to Him, to change us, to bring us to His feet,
to trust Him alone, to do everything for us. That's the purpose of
prayer. Now two things God's preacher depends upon the Lord
to do. These are two things right here
Paul asked for that every true preacher depends upon the Lord
to do for us. And this is what we ask you to
pray for us. Ask the Lord to do this. First
of all, Paul said that the word of the Lord may have free course.
that the gospel may go forth freely. He said, and be glorified. Every time God works affectionately
in the heart of one of his chosen, God's glorified, the gospel's
glorified. And he said, even as it is with
you, Thessalonians, the Lord had sent Paul to these brethren
and he blessed the word in their hearts. They faced a lot of opposition,
but the Lord made the gospel have free course and he blessed
it to the heart of these brethren. at Thessalonica. Look back at
1 Thessalonians 1.5. Paul said, For our gospel came
not unto you in word only, but also in power, and in the Holy
Ghost, and in much assurance. That's how the gospel came to
them. How come? The Lord did that. Look over
at chapter 2, 1 Thessalonians 2, and look at verse 13. I'm sorry, I think it's... Yeah, 1 Thessalonians 2, 13. For this cause also we thank
God without ceasing, because when you received the word of
God which you heard of us, you received it not as the word of
men, but as it is in truth, the word of God which effectually
worketh also in you that believe. For you, brethren, became followers
of the churches of God which in Judea are in Christ Jesus.
You see, that's what he's talking about. He gave the gospel free
course. It came in like a river, preaching
freely. And the Lord glorified the gospel
by glorifying Himself by working affectionately in the heart of
His people. The Lord promised that's what He would accomplish
through preaching. And that's what He shall accomplish through
preaching. But He's going to have us ask Him. Look here at
Isaiah 55.10. This is what He's going to do. He promised it. Look here at
Isaiah 55.10. He said, as the rain cometh down, and the snow
from heaven, and returneth not thither, but watereth the earth,
and maketh it bring forth in bud, that it may give seed to
the sower, and bread to the eater, so shall my word be that goeth
forth out of my mouth. It shall not return unto me,
Lord, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall
prosper in the thing whereinto I have sent it. What's it gonna
do? How's it gonna be glorified?
He said, for you shall go out with joy, and be led forth with
peace. The mountains and the hills shall
break forth before you into singing, and all the trees of the field
shall clap their hands. Instead of the thorns shall come
up the fir tree, instead of the brow shall come up the myrtle
tree, and it shall be to the Lord for a name. It's gonna be
glorified in his name for an everlasting sign that shall not
be cut off. Every time the Lord sends his
gospel, to a people and He blesses it and calls out His people or
blesses His people and grows us in grace through His gospel.
It's glorifying to His name. It's a sign of the Lord's work
and glorifies His name. But God's preacher knows we can't
do this. Every true preacher knows that
we can't make this happen. We can't make the gospel go forth
into all the world with free course and we can't make it effectual
in anybody's heart. But our confidence is in Christ
our prophet. Our confidence is that Christ
can and He shall. He can and He shall. Paul said
in 2 Corinthians, look at 2 Corinthians chapter 2. I mean 2 Corinthians
chapter 3. Look here. This is what he said
of the saints at Corinth. 2 Corinthians 3. He said, you are manifestly declared
to be the epistle of Christ. ministered by us, written not
with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God, not in tables
of stone, but in fleshly tables of the heart, and such trust
have we through Christ to God. Not that we're sufficient of
ourselves to think anything as of ourselves, our sufficiency
is of God. He said He's the one that's going
to do this in the heart of His people. Look at 2 Corinthians
4.7. He said, we have this treasure
in earthen vessels that the excellency of the power may be of God and
not of us. I want you to go to Jeremiah
1. We're going to look at some scripture. I just want you to
see some things here. God promised this. Here's the
second thing Paul asked for. Pray for us to the Lord, not
only that he has sent the gospel forth and blessed it to the hearts
of his people, but also he said, and pray that we may be delivered
from unreasonable and wicked men, for all men have not faith. He's talking about men who profess
to believe, men who preach and claim to preach the gospel. We
all know that that immoral wicked men don't have faith, but he's
talking there about men that he has to tell them they don't
all have faith. We're talking about unreasonable
and wicked men who claim to believe and preach. But look at what
Jeremiah said, what God told Jeremiah. God promised to do
this for his messenger. Jeremiah 1.8, he said, Be not
afraid of their faces, for I'm with thee to deliver thee, saith
the Lord. Then the Lord put forth his hand
and touched my mouth, and the Lord said to me, Behold, I put
my words in thy mouth. See, I have this day set thee
over the nations and over the kingdoms to root out and to pull
down and to destroy and to throw down, to build and to plant.
Do you know that's what God's doing today with his preachers?
Nobody recognizes them and nobody realizes what they're in this
world for. But that's what the Lord's doing
with his preachers today. He has sent thee over the nations
and over the kingdoms to root out and to pull down and to destroy
and to throw down and to build and to plant. Verse 17. Thou
therefore gird up thy loins, and arise, and speak unto them
all that I command thee. Be not dismayed at their faces,
lest I confound thee before them. For behold, I have made thee
this day a defenced city, and an iron pillar, and brazen walls
against the whole land, against the kings of Judah, against the
princes thereof, against the priests thereof, and against
the people of the land. And they shall fight against
thee, but they shall not prevail against thee, for I am with thee,
saith the Lord. to deliver thee. Now those are
the two things God's promised his messenger he's going to do.
But the Lord's going to have us ask him to do it. He's going
to have us ask him to do it. Paul had that promise from the
Lord. Paul's sitting here asking the
brethren, but you pray for us that the Lord will do this for
us. Now unregenerate sinners hate the gospel. That's why we
need God to work this for us, because unregenerate sinners
hate the gospel. They hate God, the head of gospel,
and therefore they hate God's messenger. Almost everywhere
I preach, since I began traveling and preaching, almost everywhere
I preach, you usually run into somebody that hates the gospel
you preach, and they make you know they hate it in some way
or another. The gospel we preach declares
everybody's a sinner. It declares that everybody that's
born of Adam, coming to this world without Christ, aliens
from the commonwealth of Israel, strangers from the covenants
of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. It
declares that of men who are in religion trusting themselves.
The gospel we preach declares salvations of the Lord that a
sinner can't even contribute. It's all of the Lord. God the
Father chose whom he would in eternity in Christ, and he passes
by whom he will. He hardens whom he will. That
makes us be at the mercy of God. This gospel declares that Christ
Jesus came into this world and accomplished the salvation of
His people by redeeming us, by purging our sins. It declares
that we must be born again of the Spirit of God or we cannot
even know God. See, the gospel says salvation
is of the Lord. It's His prerogative, it's His
grace, it's His dying. Every bit of it, A to Z. And
so unregenerate sinners who hate that message, they'll shoot the
messenger because they hate the one who sent the message and
who the message is concerning. And so our Lord, He's promised,
I'm going to make my gospel go forth. It's not going to turn
void. I'm going to glorify it. I'm going to save my people.
And I'm going to deliver my messengers from unreasonable and wicked
men. But the Lord said, but you go ask me to do it for you. And
so our confidence is in the Lord. So we pray to Him and ask Him.
And I ask you, brother, pray for me and pray for all God's
preachers in this world today that the Lord would make the
gospel go forth far and wide, that He'd bless it, glorify it
in the hearts of His people, and that He'd save His messengers
from unreasonable and wicked men. Pray for us. So you see, first of all, his
preacher has confidence in the Lord. That's why we ask you to
pray for us. Only the Lord can do this. Secondly,
our confidence is in our Lord because our Lord is faithful.
We need to be established. Only He can do it. We need to
be kept from evil. Only He can do it. He said, all
men have not faith. He said, verse three, but the
Lord is faithful. who shall establish you and keep
you from evil. Deuteronomy 7.9 says, The Lord
thy God, He is God, thee faithful God. Numbers 23.19 said, God's not
a man that he should lie, neither the son of man that he should
repent, hath he said, and shall he not do it? Or hath he spoken,
and shall he not make it good? The Lord's faithful. Now, I got
to thinking about this because of some photos that Brother Ian
sent me from Niagara Falls. Y'all probably saw them. They
had some of them posted online. You think about the Lord's faithfulness.
He made creation. He made the moon, the stars,
and He's been faithful ever since the beginning to hold it all
in place. He's the Lord of hosts. He calls
them all by name, and He upholds all things by the word of His
power. He's been doing that, making seasons come and seasons
go from the beginning. And he does that to illustrate
his faithfulness in his covenant promise to his people. First and foremost, his covenant
promise to his son, and the son's covenant promise to the father,
and his covenant promise to his people. That's what he's illustrating
by his faithfulness in preserving this earth and causing the moon
to shine and the stars and the sun and the seasons to come and
go to preserve the water that he created in the beginning.
He's showing us his covenant faithfulness. And the way I got
to thinking on this again, I know not too long ago I talked about
this with you, but Ian had a picture of Niagara Falls, and there you
see all this water coming up in there. You know, it's just
a mighty, mighty waterfall. You gotta really see it in person.
But all this water coming over those falls, all this just mighty
flow of water, and there in the middle of it, in all the mist,
is this beautiful rainbow, right in the middle. And how ironic
is this? That there's this rainbow and
the reprobate world who the Lord has turned over to blindness,
spiritual reprobation, they see that rainbow and that's a celebration
of sodomy to them. And sodomy in scripture is is
what God does when he has turned the people over to reprobation.
He turns them over to sodomy. Read Romans. chapter 1, because
they would not, when they knew God, they didn't glorify him
as God, and therefore he turned them over to a reprobate mind.
Men with men, women with women, that's an indication of reprobation.
And this deceived world looks at that rainbow and they see
a celebration of sodomy. And that's the very opposite
of what God gave that rainbow to represent. God's child looks
at those seven colors, the number of perfection, and we're reminded
of God's faithfulness. We're reminded of His covenant
promise to us, that covenant that He first made with Noah,
but which was a picture of His covenant with the Lord Jesus
and the covenant with His people, the everlasting covenant of grace. That's what it reminds us of. Unregenerate sinners are so brazen
to boast that they can establish the earth. That's what men and
women are boasting about today. And worse than that, and the
reason they boast in that, the reason they're so deceived to
think they can preserve the earth and the seasons is because man
boasts he can establish himself in righteousness by his works. Look at Jeremiah 5 and verse
22. Jeremiah 5, 22. We need the Lord
to establish us. Only He can establish His people. This is the vain confidence of
a man that trusts in himself. Look at Jeremiah 5, 22. Fear ye not me, saith the Lord?
Will you not tremble at my presence which have placed the sand for
the bound of the sea by a perpetual decree that it cannot pass it? Everybody's worried about the
sea rising. God said, I have set the bounds
of the sea by perpetual decree. It can't rise above it. He said,
and though the ways there have tossed themselves, yet they cannot
prevail. Though they roar, yet they cannot
pass over it. Look at verse 20. But this people
have a revolting and a rebellious heart. They are revolted and
gone. Neither say they in their heart,
let us now fear the Lord our God that giveth rain, both the
former and the latter, in his season. He reserveth unto us
the appointed weeks of the harvest. But he said, your iniquities
have turned away these things, and your sins are withholding
good things from you. For among my people are found
wicked men. They lay wait, as he that setteth
snares. They set a trap, they catch men. Look now at verse 30. A wonderful
and horrible thing is committed in the land. The prophets prophesy
falsely, and the priests bear rule by their means, and my people
love to have it so. And what will you do in the end
thereof? But to God's saints, Look at
Jeremiah, look at Jeremiah 31, to God's saints. You see that
rainbow and you think of God's faithfulness, His covenant promise
to establish us and keep us from evil, Jeremiah 31, 35. He says
here, thus saith the Lord, which giveth the sun for a light by
day and the ordinances of the moon and of the stars for a light
by night, which divided the sea when the waves thereof o'er,
the Lord of hosts is his name, if those ordinances depart from
before me, saith the Lord, then the seed of Israel shall also
cease from being a nation before me forever." You know, when Noah
When Noah, see the covenant, God's covenant with night and
day and the season, that's a picture of God's covenant with Christ
and His covenant with His people in Christ. When Noah came out
of that ark, I'm talking about the Lord's faithfulness to establish
us and keep us. When Noah came out of that ark,
into His new world, He made an offering, and that offering typified
Christ's one offering on behalf of His people to God to make
us righteous, to establish us in His faithfulness, in the everlasting
covenant of grace. And when Noah made that offering,
That's a picture of Christ, of Christ's offering, and it says,
and the Lord smelled a sweet savor. That's what it says about
Christ's offering. The Lord smelled a sweet savor,
and the Lord said in his heart, I will not again curse the ground
anymore for man's sake, for the imagination of a man's heart's
evil from his youth. Neither will I again spite any
more the living as I have done. While the earth remaineth, sea,
time, and harvest, cold, and heat, and summer, and winter,
and day, and night, shall not cease." So he put the rainbow
in the sky. And when we see it, that's what we remember, his
covenant, his faithfulness. He said to you, but we don't
just think of His covenant that He won't destroy the earth with
water. We think of His faithfulness in that He has established us
by Christ's faithfulness in the everlasting covenant of grace
so that He shall save us forever. He'll keep us from evil. He said
in Isaiah 54, this is as the waters of Noah to me. He said,
as I've sworn that the waters of Noah shall no more go over
the earth, so have I sworn that I will not be wroth with thee
nor rebuke thee. The mountains shall depart, the
hills be removed, but my kindness shall not depart from thee, neither
shall the covenant of my peace be removed, saith the Lord that
hath mercy on thee. You see, the Lord is faithful.
You look at this world and how he's held it in store all this
time. It keeps going on just as it
has from the beginning. The reprobate looks at that and
says, everything just continues like it is. God's a liar. We
look at it and say, no, everything continues as it is. God's faithful. It's doing just what he said
it would do. And it's a picture of his faithfulness to establish
us like he's established this earth. It's an illustration that
He will keep you from the evil. God the Father was faithful to
fulfill every covenant promise He made to His Son. He said,
I'll uphold you with the right hand of my righteousness. I'll
strengthen thee. I'll give you aid. He said, I'll give you my
spirit. I'll raise you from the grave
when you have accomplished the redemption of my people. Everything,
I'll sit you at my right hand. And when he accomplished it all,
God the Father said, sit there at my right hand till I make
thine enemies thy footstool. And our Lord Jesus Christ, the
Son of God, fulfilled every covenant promise in perfect faithfulness
that He promised the Father. The Father trusted all things
into His hand. He gave Him all His elect people. And Christ, as a Son over His
own house, was faithful. He came and He laid down His
life and He's keeping His people, calling His people, gathering
the lambs with His arms, saving His people, and one day He's
going to present us to the Father and say, I and the children whom
Thou gavest Me, not one of them is lost. That's His faithfulness. So He's going to, He has established
us and He's going to keep us from the evil and the Spirit
of God. This is our triune God doing
this. We know this because the Spirit of God takes the things
of Christ and reveals them to us because He's faithful. He's
faithful. And He'll keep us from the evil.
So our confidence is not in us at all. Where's our confidence? The Lord is faithful. The Lord
is faithful. Now lastly, Our confidence that our brethren
will continue in love, waiting on the Lord, is the Lord. Our confidence for one another,
that we'll obey the gospel, that we'll continue in love toward
the Lord and toward one another, and patiently wait for the Lord.
Our confidence is the Lord himself. Paul said in 2 Thessalonians
3 and 4, And we have confidence in the Lord touching you, that
you both do and will do the things which we command you. What does
the Lord make His child do? Here it is in verse 5. The Lord
directs your hearts into the love of God, and into the patient
waiting for Christ. Our confidence is in the Lord.
Only God is able to direct the heart of His people. Only He
can do it. You can't change another person's
heart. You can't do it. There's no point blaming somebody
because they can't change another person's heart. You can't change
another person's heart. Only the Lord can do that. Only
He can direct your heart. But He does it for His people.
And He directs us into the love of God. That's what He does for
His elect people. It's not that we love God. We
hated God. But it's that He loved us. And
He had to come and direct our hearts to know this love. And
here's how He loved us. When we were ungodly sinners
with no strength, He sent His Son to be the propitiation for
our sin. And His Son propitiated God for
us. He atoned for our sins and made
God receive us. And the love of God is shed abroad
in our hearts by the Holy Spirit that Christ gives us. And He
directs our hearts into the love of God. He makes us see God's
great love for His people. And then in turn, He makes you
love God. And He makes you love those that
are begotten of God. And this is not a matter of if,
this is a certainty. Everyone that is born of God
loves God, and you love them that are begotten of God. Because
it's one Spirit of God directing our hearts into the love of God. And so, when our brethren suffer,
or when they fall, or when they're in some sort of a need, the Lord
directs our hearts into the love of God. You know what He does?
He directs your heart to speak to your brethren the love of
the truth. That's what Paul's doing. Isn't
that what Paul's doing in this letter? He's speaking the love
of the truth. He's speaking of the gospel,
reminding these brethren the good news that Christ has and
shall establish us and keep us from the evil. And the Lord directs
our hearts to the throne of grace. where we go there and we pour
out our heart to our Lord Jesus. We do it for our preachers, we
do it for our brethren, we do it for our brethren that are
fallen or in need. This is the Lord directing your
heart into the love of God to pray to God who alone can establish
and save His people and make the gospel affectionate in their
heart. You go there and you pray to the Lord. That's just what
Paul's doing in this letter in 2 Thessalonians. And the Lord
directs our hearts to patiently wait for the Lord Jesus. We're
waiting for Him to return in the last day. But not only that,
when a brother's fallen, or when a brother is in need, or when
the church has a need, or when you have a need, the Lord directs
our heart After we've spoken the truth of the Gospel to them,
He directs our heart to pray for the Lord to give it free
course and to glorify the Gospel in their heart. And then the
Lord directs your heart to patiently wait on the Lord to do that.
And so you wait on Him. And you wait on Him. Just like
we're waiting now for the Lord to return one day in every single
Time of need. We're waiting on the Lord. We're
praying for mercy and grace to help in time of need and waiting
on Him to work that. That's what Paul's doing. Paul
can't be with these brethren. He said, I have confidence in
the Lord that you do the things I commanded you to do. My confidence
is in the Lord. He's making you do the things
I commanded you when I was with you. And I have confidence in
the Lord. He will make you do the things. He's going to keep
directing your heart into the love of the truth, and He's going
to keep directing your heart to patiently wait on the Lord
to work all these things. See, the Lord's going to keep
our confidence being in Him alone. He said, we have confidence in
the Lord touching you. Paul said, I have confidence
in you through the Lord that you'll be none otherwise minded.
That's what he said to the Galatians. Paul's confidence was not in
their grace, or their strength, or their wisdom, or their conduct,
or their good behavior. His confidence was in the Lord,
in the Lord's faithfulness, in the Lord's grace, in the Lord's
strength, in the Lord's power. That's our confidence. You can't
feel that way toward another believer unless you really have
all your confidence in the Lord and trust the Lord is going to
work it. That's the only way. Our Redeemer has taught us not
to trust in ourselves. He's taught us not to lean to
our own understanding. He's taught us not to confide
in our own strength. He told Israel, He said, your
strength is to sit still, to have your confidence in Me and
to wait on Me. That's your strength. That's
what He told them. And when they went and waited
on Him, He said, therefore will the Lord wait. I'm gonna wait,
the Lord said, till I've broken all your branches off, till I've
just made you like a mast on a sailboat, and a beautiful big
mast and wind full of its sail. He said, I'm gonna put a hole
in every one of your, in all your sails, and I'm gonna break
your mast down. And he said, I'm gonna wait till
I've accomplished that and brought you to the end of your sail. And he said, here's why, that
I might be gracious to you. and that I might be exalted in
your heart. And he said, I'm going to do
it because I'm a God of judgment. And all my people are going to
dwell in Zion. And I'm not going to lose any
of them. But every one of them that dwell there, they're going
to glory in me. And he said, so blessed are all
they that wait on the Lord. And that's how the Lord's going
to do this, brethren. He said it's better to trust in the Lord
than to put confidence in man. And when you experience this
by His grace in your heart, and He's made the gospel, He glorified
the gospel in your heart, and He's directed your heart into
the love of God, into the patience waiting on Christ, then you're
the circumcision. And this is the circumcision.
We worship God in the Spirit. We have all our confidence in
Christ. We rejoice in Christ, and we
have no confidence in our flesh. God's saints live right now every
day by Christ living in us. I'm crucified with Christ, nevertheless
I live, yet not I, but I live by the faith of the Son of God
who loved me and gave himself for me. I want to show you two
scriptures. Go with me to 1 Corinthians 1,
two scriptures and we'll be done. I want to show you this right
here. God's saints are going to sin. It's a foolish, foolish, arrogant
thing to act like God's people don't have a problem with sin.
You're going to sin. I'm not saying do sin. God's
people do obey the Lord by Him directing our hearts. We have
every confidence in the Lord that's so. But you will have
sin and troubles. But brethren, when you do, The
Lord is going to make you wait on the Lord. He's going to make
you preach the gospel and pray to Him to bless it. And despite
all the sin at Corinth, despite all the division at Corinth,
here was Paul's confidence. 1 Corinthians 1. He said, in
everything you're enriched by Him. In all utterance and all
knowledge, even as the testimony of Christ was confirmed in you,
so that you come behind in no gift, waiting for the coming
of the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall also confirm you to the
end that you may be blameless in the day of our Lord Jesus
Christ. God is faithful. by whom you were called unto
the fellowship of His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. Paul, how can
you say that about the Corinthians with all that trouble they had
going on? Because his confidence wasn't
in them, his confidence was in the Lord, the Savior. Look, one
more place, 1 Thessalonians chapter 5. Here's our confidence right
here. God is faithful. Here's our confidence,
right here. 1 Thessalonians 5, verse 23. The very God of peace sanctify
you wholly. And I pray God your whole spirit,
soul, and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus
Christ. That's what he means when he says the very God of
peace sanctify ye wholly. He means I pray God your whole
spirit, soul, and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of
our Lord Jesus Christ. How's that going to happen? is
He that calleth you who also will do it." You see? You see where our confidence
is? That's a lot different than Babylon's confidence, is it not?
Anybody that didn't get to hear that first message this morning,
that hears this now, I encourage them, go listen to Babylon's
vain confidence in Isaiah 57. This is our confidence. The Lord
is faithful. He will do it. Trust Him, brethren. Pray for one another. Pray for
one another. Pray for me and all His preachers.
Pray for one another. Trust He is faithful. He'll establish
you and He'll keep you from the evil. And pray for one another
that He'll direct our hearts into the love of God and to the
patient waiting for Christ. And do that. Do it. You pray
and you wait and you speak this truth and you wait on the Lord.
He's all our confidence. Amen. Brother Greg,