The following message was delivered
on Sunday morning, October 30th, 1994, at the Trinity Baptist
Church in Montville, New Jersey. Now may I invite you to turn
with me to Paul's first letter to the Thessalonian Church, 1
Thessalonians, and the last chapter, chapter 5. And I shall read in
your hearing verses 23 and 24. 1 Thessalonians chapter 5 verses
23 and 24. And the God of peace himself
sanctify you wholly, and may your spirit and soul and body
be preserved entire without blame at the coming of our Lord Jesus
Christ. Faithful is he that calls you
who will also do it. Now let us again seek the face
of God in prayer that he would be our helper that as he drew
near to those disciples on the road to Emmaus and caused their
hearts to burn within them while he opened unto them the Scriptures.
So Christ by the Spirit will be present, not only to inflame
our hearts, as I trust he has for many of us as we have praised
him, sought his face, and heard his word read, but even more
so now as his word is preached. Let us seek his face together. Our Father, we thank you for
your gracious presence promised to your gathered people. We thank
you even more for that presence experienced in our own hearts
in this hour. And now we come to plead that
we may know even greater measures of that presence in the ministry
of your Holy Word. May our Lord Jesus, by the Spirit
drawn nigh to us and by his own ministry as our great prophet,
so instruct us that our hearts will burn within us while he
opens unto us the scriptures. Hear our cry and meet with us,
we plead, bind every influence of the enemy of our souls so
that your word may run and have free course and be glorified
amongst us today, we plead through Christ our Lord. Amen. Now, according to the Spirit-inspired
historical record, Found in Acts 17, verses 1-9, Paul and his
companions arrived in the city of Thessalonica during the apostles'
second missionary journey. As Paul and his companions preached
the gospel, God was pleased to attend their efforts with great
power. A fact recorded in Acts 17, verse
4, but also attested by the apostle himself in the opening paragraphs
of this letter to the church there at Thessalonica. For he could write, as he does
in verse 4 of chapter 1, knowing, brethren, your election of God,
how that our gospel came not unto you in word only, but also
in power, and in the Holy Spirit, and in much assurance. And the indications that the
gospel had come not in word only, but in power, and in the Holy
Ghost, and in much assurance, did not rest upon some subjective
ability of the apostle to discern that the gospel was coming in
power, but by the fruits which that gospel produced in those
to whom it came in power. So he goes on to say of them,
and you became, verse 6, you became imitators of us and of
the Lord, having received the word. You became an example,
verse 7, verse 8, from you has sounded forth the word of the
Lord. And then that description of
their conversion as given in verses 9 and 10 to which reference
was made in the previous hour. It was very evident then to Paul
that there were many there at Thessalonica who were the true
children of God. who, if they had sat through
the recent lengthy series of sermons under the heading, Are
You For Real?, would have concluded, justly so, that they were indeed
for real. that the initial and continuing
manifestations of the grace of God in their lives gave them
every reason to conclude that they were indeed the children
of God. However, as is true of all who
enter the narrow gate and begin their journey upon the restricted
or that compressed way, These Christians at Thessalonica were
struggling with such things as the discouraging influence of
opposition from the unconverted, particularly the unconverted
Jews. They were struggling with the
polluting influence of a pagan society with its low moral standards
so that Paul has to take more than half a chapter in his letter
to address the subject of sexual purity. They were afflicted with
the confusing influence of pagan philosophy seeping into their
ideas of the place of the body in God's redemptive purposes. And it was Paul's awareness of
these pressures and difficulties and their potentially soul-damaging
influence that so intensified in his own heart that he had
to do what he describes in chapter 3 of this letter. Verse 1, Wherefore,
when we could no longer forbear, we thought it good to be left
behind at Athens alone, and sent Timothy, our brother, and God's
minister in the gospel of Christ, to establish you, and to comfort
you concerning your faith, that no man be moved by these afflictions. For yourselves know that hereunto
we were appointed For verily, when we were with you, we told
you beforehand that we are to suffer affliction, even as it
came to pass, and you know. For this cause I also, when I
could no longer forbear, sent that I might know your faith,
lest by any means the tempter had tempted you, and our labor
should be in vain. You see, for Paul, the awareness
of these pressures and dangers, even though he was confident
that the Word had come, not in word only, but in power and in
the Holy Ghost, these were not mock dangers to Paul. He recognized
the very real possibility that all of his labors could come
to naught if these Thessalonians succumbed to these pressures
to the point where their faith was abandoned. And so anxious
was he over their spiritual state, that he sends his true son in
the faith, Timothy, to go and to search out the matter. And
having done so, we read in verse 6, But when Timothy came even
now unto us from you, and brought us glad tidings of your faith
and love, and that you have good remembrance of us, always longing
to see us, even as we also to see you. For this cause, brethren,
we were comforted over you in all our distress and affliction
through your faith, for now we live if you stand fast in the
Lord. And so, his anxiety being so
great, he sends Timothy. Timothy comes back and says,
Paul, your anxiety can be laid to rest. In spite of the discouraging
influence of the opposition from the unconverted, the polluting
influence of a pagan society, the confusing influence of pagan
philosophy and other pressures, they are standing fast in their
faith. And having received that news,
Paul says, my heart was made glad. But you see, he didn't
become complacent. No sooner does he record his
gladness at the good report of Timothy, but that he says in
verse 10, he is now praying night and day that he might see their
face and perfect that which is lacking in their faith. He longs
to impart, part, more knowledge of the ways and of the truth
of God that they might be more firmly established in their faith
as the children of God. And though his heart is comforted
that they are pressing on, and though he is addressing concerns
that he is aware of, he's a realist and knows that in that church
of what we would call relatively good spiritual health, there
is the full range of Christian experience. So that by the time
he comes to chapter 5, verse 14, he says, And we exhort you,
brethren, Admonish the disorderly, assuming such were present. Encourage
the faint-hearted, assuming such were also present. He goes on
to say, not only to admonish the disorderly and encourage
the faint-hearted, but support the weak, be long-suffering to
all, see that none render unto anyone evil for evil, and then
gives further exhortations with respect to pastoral concerns
relative to the church there at Thessalonica. Now, after giving
these several large doses of instruction on some of the major
issues, and a host of small doses of instruction on a broad range
of other issues, as he's about to conclude the letter, he writes
the words that I've read in your hearing, verses 23 and 24, and
the God of peace himself sanctify you wholly, and may
your spirit and soul and body be preserved entire without blame
at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. Faithful is he that calls
you who will also do it." And in these words we have what some
have described as Paul's sanctified wish. His holy longing for the
Thessalonians, but as could easily be demonstrated from parallel
passages, one of them right here in this epistle, chapter 3, verses
11 and following, what we really have is Paul's prayer on behalf
of the Thessalonians. And the words that are here found
in these two verses that express Paul's prayer on behalf of the
Thessalonians were calculated to raise their vision to stabilize
their souls, to put, as it were, spiritual ballast in the deepest
bowels of the hull of their hearts, that as they continued to face
affliction, continued to face the polluting influences of a
pagan society, continued to interact with people in the church of
various degrees of spiritual weakness, they would, by the
grace of God, have fixed in their eye the truths contained in this
parting prayer of the Apostle on their behalf. And God helping
me, I want to open up these two verses to you this morning under
these two very simple headings. First, the prayer recorded, verse
23, and the promise imparted, verse 24. First of all, then, the prayer
recorded. And I would have you note with
me three things about this prayer. And the first is the object of
the prayer. Paul writes, and the God of peace
himself. The object of this prayer, in
the original text, this becomes very clear, has two strands of
emphasis. The object is God Himself, and
it is God particularly conceived of as the God of peace. The very first word in the prayer
is the reflexive pronoun Himself. The first words are not, and
the God of peace, but Himself. the God of peace, sanctify you
wholly." Now, why did the apostle give this stroke of emphasis
that would immediately direct all of the attention to God himself? Well, I believe the answer is
obvious. He has written an entire epistle in which there is commendation,
words of encouragement, but primarily words of instruction, words of
exhortation, words in which he has been directing relatively
young Christians as to how they are to conduct themselves so
as to live to the glory of God. Those instructions that we would
call delineations of gospel duty are suffused with gospel motives. They are not mere moralizings. They are indeed gospel duties. They are gospel instructions. But nonetheless, there are manifold
responsibilities laid upon these Thessalonian believers, take
just the last paragraph before this prayer. They are commanded
to know them that labor among them and are over them in the
Lord, to esteem them exceeding highly in love for their work's
sake. They are commanded to be at peace
among themselves. They are exhorted to admonish
the disorderly, encourage the faint-hearted, support the weak.
They are exhorted not to render unto anyone evil for evil. They are commanded, verse 16,
to rejoice always, to pray without ceasing, in everything give thanks,
for this is the will of God. They are commanded not to quench
the spirit, not to despise prophesying, to put everything to the test,
to hold fast that which is good, and then the culminating command,
abstain from every single form of evil. My friends, that is
quite a carload of duty in just the final paragraph. And he expects
that every Thessalonian believer will lay those duties to heart
and will bend his shoulder to the yoke of Christ, which yoke
is easy and whose burden is light. But now in his concluding prayer,
it's as though he has said, now, my little children, for remember,
he regarded them as his spiritual children, and he tenderly describes
how he manifested this while among them. In chapter two, he
says, I've laid upon you as your spiritual father, many responsibilities
I could do no less. For this is my solemn obligation
before the Lord, who has saved me by His grace and commissioned
me by His sovereign will and purpose. But now, my children,
having laid before you this broad spectrum of duty, let me now
direct your attention to that which has to do solely with what
God is committed to do in you and for you. Without canceling
anything that I have told you you are to do, and you are to
do out of gospel motives and independence upon gospel provisions,
I've still been telling you what you are to do. Now I conclude
with a prayer that draws all of your attention to what I'm
praying God Himself and God alone will do. And so the object of
the prayer is underscored first of all in terms of it being God
Himself, but then God as the God of peace. Now this is a designation of
God found five other times in the New Testament. It's found
twice in Romans, Romans 15, 13 and 16, 33. It's found in 2 Corinthians
13, 11, Philippians 4, 9, and in Hebrews 13 and verse 20. And while it would be a fascinating
digression to trace out all of the possible things underscored
by and connected with this particular designation of God, It would
be detrimental to the purpose of our meditation, so I'm not
going to take even what would be a holy digression, and thankfully,
we had part of the digression in the previous hour. And Dr. Bob laid before us from Peter's
sermon before Cornelius and his household that the gospel is
a gospel of peace. And as Paul says in Ephesians
2, he came and preached peace to you that are afar off and
peace to those who are nigh. That first announcement on the
night of his birth, glory to God in the highest and on earth,
peace. to men of God's good pleasure,
suffice it to say that it's clear from the various usages of this
designation that it highlights God's gracious, redemptive work
in the Lord Jesus Christ, in which His own righteous enmity
to us is resolved, and in which our unrighteous, wicked enmity
to Him is overcome. And this designation of God as
the God of peace is a designation, if I may say it reverently, reminding
us He's the Gospel God. He's the God of gospel grace. He is the God of redemptive mercy. And as the Apostle expresses
this final capstone prayer for the Thessalonians, the object
of his prayer, uniquely focused in his own mind, is not God as
God of wisdom, though he is that, God of power, though he is that,
God of holiness, though He is that, but He says Himself the
God of peace. And it is the concerns that flow
out of His designation as the God of peace that are brought
into unique focus in the prayer as it unfolds. So then the sole
object of Paul's prayer is God, God himself, but God especially
viewed as the God of peace, the God who has taken the initiative
to deal with all of the disruption and alienation brought between
God and the creature on account of sin. And let me say, by way
of a brief application of that principle, we must learn, as
did Paul, to shape our prayers and to focus our faith in prayer
upon those particular aspects of God's multifaceted being,
His ways and works, which most peculiarly meet the need which
is in focus when we pray. For example, when the psalmist
says, For thou, Lord, art good, and ready to forgive, and plenteous
in mercy unto all that call upon him. Obviously, the thing in
focus as he prays is a felt sense of his own sin. And when you
have a felt sense of your own sin, the attribute of God that
you bring into focus is not primarily his burning holiness. It is not
His inflexible justice, but His kindness and mercy in the Lord
Jesus Christ. And that's precisely what Paul
is doing here. He's been a realist about the
spiritual state of the Thessalonians. He's convinced, they are for
real, that the gospel had come initially, not in word only,
but in power and in the Holy Ghost. He had witnessed its transforming
effect upon their lives. And now that he's away from them,
having sent Timothy to see whether all of the buffeting and all
of the pressures and all of the tumult coming from without and
within had shattered their faith, he's received the good news.
No, they continue to stand firm in faith. They continue to express
their passionate attachment to the apostle in love. For Paul
recognized that great principle, that when people grow cold to
Christ, They grow cold to the primary instruments that have
brought Christ to them. Never forget that, members of
Trinity. Paul put those two things together
when he says, oh, Timothy's come back with a good report, told
us of your faith and of your love, that you have good remembrance
of us. He didn't say of the Lord, he
said of us. But he was again the realist that knew when people
draw back from Christ, they draw back from the instruments that
have brought Christ to them. And if their attachment to Christ
remains firm, their appreciation of the servant of Christ who
brought the word of Christ to them remains firm and intense. But in spite of that, he's a
realist. He knows there are some fainthearted, there are some
disorderly ones. He's written large blocks of
instruction seeking to deal with areas of thinking that are not
right about the state of the bodies of believers. He's had
to write a large block of instruction about moral and ethical purity.
He's had to give this whole shopping list of exhortations in the concluding
paragraph And lest they all be overwhelmed, lest He be overwhelmed,
what does He do as He now turns to pray for them? He fixes the
gaze of His soul upon God Himself in all the plenitude of His power
and glory as God, but particularly God. as the God of peace, the
God of gospel grace, who has set out in His free, sovereign
love and mercy to rectify every single thing that has caused
a disruption between the living God and man the sinner. committed to overturn all that
the serpent has done in order to steal away man's heart for
himself. And so as we look at the prayer
recorded, we notice first the object of the prayer, God himself. God is the God of peace. But
then the second thing we notice about the prayer recorded is
the specific concern of the prayer. The specific concern of the prayer. A mere cursory reading of the
words in any English version make it evident that the great
and dominant concern of the prayer is the entire sanctification
of the Thessalonians. Look at the language. And the
God of peace himself sanctify you wholly or entirely. And may your spirit and soul
and body be preserved entire without blame at the coming of
the Lord Jesus. Surely the focal burden of his
prayer is patent Unless we are three quarters asleep as it's
read in our hearing, anyone should be able to nudge us and say,
what's the burden of Paul's prayer there? And we ought to be able
to answer whatever it means. It has to do with a sanctifying
work in the Thessalonians that is pervasive, extensive. It has
to do with their entire sanctification. Now let's spend a few minutes
to unpack the significant words. The specific concern of his prayer,
yes, is the entire sanctification of the Thessalonians. When he
says, the God of peace himself sanctify you, to the apostle's
mind, what did the word, the verb, sanctify mean? Well, fundamentally and basically
it means to be separated from sin unto God and His service. And if we are to pack into that
word the full range of biblical teaching on the sanctification
that God is committed to effect in His people, it results in
nothing less than that work of God in which He not only separates
us from the dominion of sin, from the fundamental practice
and devotion to a life of sin, and by degrees purifies us from
the polluting influence of sin, But it means to utterly, totally
remove from us all that can be called sin. To remove us from
the sin and the sin from us, and removing us from the sin
and the sin from us, that we might be utterly and totally
devoted unto God and to His service. so that all of the faculties
of the mind and of the soul are wholly and without rival engaged
in the service of God, the very purpose for which God created
us in the first place. Now, with reference to this sanctification
in its entirety, we have both what I'm calling an abbreviated
statement and then an expanded statement. Look at them. The
God of peace himself, here's the abbreviated statement, sanctify
you wholly. Now this word wholly, w-h-o-l-l-y,
not h-o-l-y, is found only here in the New Testament. It's a
compound word made up of two Greek words, holos, for whole,
and telos, which means end, termination, or fully. So as one has rendered
it, the God of peace sanctify you quite completely, or as Hendrickson
renders it, through and through, or in the whole of each of you
and in every part of you. That's the abbreviated statement
of the central burden of Paul's prayer. Now think of the letter. He's been writing about this
area of necessary sanctification. He has commended them for this
area in which their sanctification is manifesting growth and progress
and development. He has had to admonish them with
respect, particularly to the sanctification of the body in
this present life in terms of abstaining from fornication,
for he had said, this is the will of God, even your sanctification,
4.3, that you abstain from sexual impurity. He's had to address
the subject. In chapter 4, the latter part
of it, he speaks of the ultimate sanctification of the body when
it is glorified at the second coming of the Lord Jesus. But
now, now something grander, something more glorious than any one of
the parts or combination of the parts fills his vision and he
says, and may God Himself God, the God of peace, the God of
gospel design and purpose and redemptive power and grace, may
this God sanctify you through and through. May He sanctify
you quite completely. May the whole of each of you,
in every part of you, be sanctified. That's the abbreviated statement.
But then you have the expanded statement, and may your spirit
and soul and body be preserved entire without blame. This is an expanded statement
of the abbreviated words, sanctify you wholly, that is, this is
what I mean by my prayer. that God Himself, peculiarly
and particularly conceived of as God of peace, would Himself
sanctify you wholly. By that I mean that your spirit,
soul, and body be preserved entire and without blame. The best thing
I believe I can do for your ratification in just commenting briefly upon
this expanded statement is to read several paragraphs of B.B. Warfield's marvelous exposition
of these verses in the book, Faith in Life, entitles the sermon,
Entire Scientification. You see, Warfield lived at a
time when the higher life movement was just cresting in many parts
of Christendom. And Warfield wrote a large tome
exposing the errors of the higher life movement in his classic
work entitled Perfectionism. And he's constantly interacting
with that error as he opens up these verses. But I will read
only the part that is positive in its exposition. He writes,
Not content with this succinct, this summarizing statement, he
adds, by way of explanation, and may your spirit and your
soul and your body be preserved entire, perfect, and not that
merely, but blamelessly entire, perfect, blamelessly, that is,
in a manner which is incapable of being accused of not coming
up. to its divine ideal. Observe further the distribution
of the personality which is to be perfected into its component
parts, of each of which, in turn, perfection is desired. Not only are we to be sanctified
wholly, but every part of us, our spirit, our soul, our body
itself, is to be kept blamelessly perfect. The apostle is not content,
in other words, with the general, but descends into the specific
elements of our being. And for each of these elements,
in turn, he seeks a blameless perfection, that the sum of them
all, the we at large, may indeed be complete and entire, lacking
nothing. Now this enumeration of the parts,
when he says body, soul, and spirit, is rhetorical and not
scientific. Paul is not teaching man is a
tripartite being, body, soul, and spirit. There are some who
have taught this throughout the history of the church. It simply
will not stand up to the scrutiny of careful exegesis. If we're
going to say that because Paul says body, soul, and spirit,
we have three parts to us, then what do we do when Jesus said,
Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, mind,
soul, and strength. Now we're quadripartite, or whatever
we call it. No, this is not a scientific
description of the various departments of our humanity. It's a rhetorical
device to say, when I tell you that my prayer for you is that
God Himself, the God of peace, would sanctify you wholly, this
is what I mean. May the entirety of your redeemed
humanity, spirit, soul, and body, be preserved entire without blame. His meaning is that there is
no department of our being into which he would not have this
perfection penetrate, where he would not have it reign, and
through which he would not have it operate to the perfecting
of the whole. A perfect perfection for a perfect
man, an entire sanctification for the entire man, surely here
is a perfection worth longing for. Now, at this point, some are
wondering, did Pastor Martin's few days away turn him into a
heretic? He's talking about sinless perfection. And you're right, I am. And the
reason I am is because the text is. I'm only going where the
text takes me. And as the Apostle concludes
his letter to the Thessalonians, his prayer for them is this,
May God Himself, the God of peace, sanctify you wholly through and
through. By that I mean that every part
of you, body, soul, and spirit, may be preserved entire and without
blame. This is a prayer. address to
God of prayer, the focus concern of which is the entire sanctification
of the Thessalonians. But now the third thing we need
to note about the prayer and your fears that I've become a
heretic during five days of vacation, I hope will be laid to rest.
Notice the anticipated occasion of the complete answer to this
prayer. the anticipated occasion of the
complete answer to this prayer. Look at the text. May God himself,
the God of peace himself, sanctify you wholly, and may your spirit
and soul and body be preserved entire without blame at the coming, the parousia, of
our Lord Jesus Christ. In other words, the Apostle anticipates
the answer to this prayer in its fullest realization in conjunction
with the second coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. He is already referred to that
coming with this terminology in chapter 2 and verse 19. What is our hope or joy or crown
of glorying are not you before our Lord Jesus at his coming
where there he assumes that they with him anticipate that the
parousia is the period when their redemptive work, the redemptive
work of Christ, will be consummated and his servants receive their
reward for their labors. He referred to it again in chapter
3 and verse 13. He is here again praying that
they would increase and abound in love one to another to the
end, that he may establish your hearts unblameable in holiness
before our God and Father at the coming of our Lord Jesus
Christ with all his saints. And then in the well-known passage,
chapter four, verses 13 and following and verse 15, he uses this terminology,
they that are left unto the coming of the Lord. So there is no mistake
in the minds of the Thessalonians or in the mind of the Apostle
as to the precise occasion when this prayer will have its complete
and literal fulfillment. It will be in conjunction with
the day of the Lord, in conjunction with the coming of the Lord Jesus
Christ. And we know that this prayer
cannot have a complete fulfillment regardless of the claims of some. Until that day, because notice,
it includes the body. He says, may the God of peace
Himself sanctify you wholly, and may your spirit and soul
and body be preserved entire without blame. And according
to the universal teaching of Scripture, no one receives a
glorified body. free of those infirmities and
passions and lusts which are the groaning burden of the child
of God until the day of the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, when
preferential treatment will be given to the bodies of those
who have gone before us and passed through the door of death For
Paul had taught them in chapter 4, we who are alive and remain
unto his coming will not go before and have preferential treatment
over those who have died in Christ. But just the opposite is true.
The dead in Christ shall rise first, then we who are alive
and remain unto the coming of the Lord shall be caught up together
with them. And according to 1 Corinthians
chapter 15, then and only then does this mortal make an exchange
for immortality. The body sewn in dishonor is
raised in honor. And it is then and only then
when these bodies in the language of Philippians chapter 3, these
bodies of our humiliation, shall be fashioned like unto his own
glorious body. And so the anticipated occasion
of the complete answer to this prayer is the second coming of
the Lord Jesus Christ. Well, in summary, surely we can
say what a glorious state of the Thessalonians fills the vision
of the apostle as he prays. Here he's been anxious about
them. Have their pressures. Have their
temptations. Have their trials. Cause them
to abandon their faith. And Timothy comes back and says,
No, Paul. Their faith is strong. Their
love for you is strong. But he also gave information
that there were among them some who were faint-hearted, some
who were disorderly, some who were weak, some who still had
the grave cause of their previous pagan moral practices clinging
to them. And as Paul is sought to correct
and admonish and instruct, it's as though his own heart can find
no relief in its pastoral passion until he sees the Thessalonian
church beyond its present state. Real Christians, yes! The Gospels
come in power, yes! They've turned to God from their
idols, yes! They're continuing in the faith,
yes! But they're afflicted by their
enemies. They are caused to stumble by
their own sins. The influences from without and
within render them so much less than what Jesus died to have
them. And so in his closing prayer,
he wings, as it were, his way in his own mind to that moment
when the Lord Jesus will come again and he sees the Thessalonians
utterly without blame. totally, through and through,
holy, sanctified body, soul, and spirit at the coming of the
Lord Jesus Christ. No wonder he had courage to go
on when he got his eyes upward to what the Thessalonians would
be when the God of peace had accomplished all the designs
of His saving mercy towards them." Well, that's the prayer recorded.
Now, much more briefly, notice verse 24, the promise imparted. The promise imparted. Faithful
is He that calls you, who will also do it, more literally rendered,
who will also do. No, it is there in the original. And what do we say about this
promise imparted by the Apostle? Well, again, three things. Number
one, note it focuses on the infallible certainty of the performance
of God. The promise focuses upon the
infallible certainty of the performance of God. Faithful is he that calls
you who also will do. who also will do." The God of
peace is the God who will do. Well, who will do what? Nothing
less than that for which Paul prayed. Nothing less than that
to which He directs their hopes and longings, that is, their
entire sanctification, body, soul, and spirit, the whole of
their redeemed humanity, actually, truly, completely, irrevocably
made entire and blameless in sanctification. We often say
talk is cheap. Put up or shut up. Paul says,
God can put up with what I pray that he do in you. This God is the one who also
will do. My prayer does not exceed not
only his ability, but his purpose and his power for the entire
sanctification of the Thessalonian believers. The promise then focuses
on the infallible certainty of the performance of God, but then
secondly, it rests upon the unchanging trustworthiness of the character
of God. It rests upon the unchanging
trustworthiness of the character of God. Look at the text. Faithful
is he that calls you. God is not only A doing God,
He is a being God. Faithful, pistous, trustworthy
is the one who will do it. Now why does he introduce this
aspect of the character of God as trustworthy? Well, think with
me for a minute. According to Romans chapter 8,
when God marked out His people, those who were discovered at
Thessalonica when the gospel came in power, knowing, brethren,
your election of God, how that our gospel came to you in power.
What was God's purpose when he marked out a people and gave
them to his Son before the world's had any being? According to Romans
8.29, it was this, whom he did foreknow, those upon whom he
set his love beforehand. with a purpose to save them,
those whom he foreknew he also predestinated to be conformed
to the image of his Son. He foreordained them to entire
sanctification. that when He was done with them,
as surely as sin had soaked into every pore and cell of their
humanity, body, soul, and spirit, when God is done with them, sin
will be utterly, totally removed into every atom of their being,
and all that they are will perfectly reflect the moral lifeness of
Jesus Christ from the inside out. whom he foreknew he predestined
to be conformed to the image of his son. Well, if that's what
he purposed, is he a God faithful to fulfill his purpose? When
Jesus died, what was the purpose of his death? Well, that question
could be answered in a whole series of sermons. But in terms
of our text this morning, remember Ephesians 5, 25. Husbands, love
your wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for
it, that he might cleanse it, having washed it with the water
of the word, that he might present it to himself, a glorious church. not having spot or wrinkle or
any such thing, but that it should be what? Holy and without blemish
before Him. God, when He marked the south's
head, when I'm done with them, I want them to be perfect replicas
of my son. And when the Son went to the
cross and there absorbed in the totality of His humanity all
of the unleashed fury of the wrath of God against human sin,
the sins of His people, what was the intent of His dying love
that one day He'd have a bride? Some of the parts of her made
up of these Thessalonians in whom his eye of omniscience could
not find one little speck, not one little wrinkle, but a bride
presented to him perfect, confirmed in holiness. And has not the Spirit explicitly
promised in the word, 1 John 3, 3, Beloved, does not yet appear
what we shall be, but we know that when He shall appear, we
shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is. The Father
marked us out for total conformity to His Son. Christ died that
we might be presented a spotless, unwrinkled bride before Him. And the Holy Spirit who has come
to indwell us and has by his presence sealed us unto the day
of redemption. Himself has spoken through the
apostolic writings and said, this is what you are marked out
for. Well, all of that would just
be pie in the sky, by and by, if. That's all it would be. And you know, I actually read
some commentators. I had to resist the temptation
to tear the pages out of the book. I read Ellicott on these
verses and on parallel passages. I'd read one or two other classic
Arminian commentators on these passages, and I could hardly
believe that they'd have the temerity to write what they wrote.
They said, faithful is he who calls you, who will also do it,
parenthesis, if we let him. God have mercy. on a salvation
that rests ultimately on whether or not I'll let God effect it. It was His thought in eternity. It was His purpose in eternity. It was His grace in time that
sent His Son. It was His grace and power in
time that laid hold of us and brought us within the orbit of
His grace. And this promise is a promise
that focuses on the infallible certainty of God's performance,
who will also do, and that God is a God of unchanging trustworthiness
in his character. The third thing about the promise
imparted is this, it not only focuses on the infallible certainty
of the performance of God, Rest upon the unchanging trustworthiness
of the character of God. But notice, it is validated by
the already experienced saving activity of God. It's validated
by the already experienced saving activity of God. You say, Pastor,
where do you find that? Look at the text. Faithful is
he that calls. Now we would think that he would
have written, Faithful is he who called, past tense. And there are verses where God's
people are described as those who have been called. First Corinthians
1.9, God is faithful by whom you were called into the fellowship
of his Son. But here you have a present participle.
Faithful is the one calling you. Well, do we have an overturning
of the whole concept that calling is that work of God done on the
threshold when God says it's time to get that sinner for whom
my son died? I've had him in my heart for
all eternity. My son had him in his heart when
he became incarnate, lived and died, has him in his heart at
the right hand of the Father, for he prays, Father, I pray
not only for those who are already mine, but for those who shall
believe on me through their word. And God says, well, it's now
time to let the sinner know what I've known from all eternity
with the Son and with the Spirit. what the Son had upon his heart
and has upon his heart. And in various ways, as we were
reminded in the previous hour, God goes forth on that charger
of gospel grace and triumph. And with the sword in his mouth,
not a sword to slay in judgment, but a sword by which to bring
sinners unto himself. a sword to conquer them in grace. He calls us out of darkness into
His marvelous light. That once-for-all work of God
with all that complex of biblical terminology of regeneration,
the Bible terminology of giving a new heart, taking out the heart
of stone, conversion, repentance, and faith, all of that comes
within the complex of calling And it is a once-for-all act
of God on the threshold by which we are brought out of a state
of condemnation and nature and into a state of acceptance and
grace. Why does Paul say, faithlessly,
who is calling you? Well, the Greek students would
call this a timeless present participle by which he's seeking
to point us not so much to the act of calling but to God as
the caller of his people. He's the caller God. Whenever
you think of God, think of him as the God who calls. And the moment the Thessalonians
would stop and think of that, what would happen? What were
we? When you read Acts 17, what were
we when you read 1 Thessalonians 1, 9 and 10? We were bending
our knees to objects that we made with our own hands, and
we were praying prayers to these things, and we called them gods. And in the name of those gods,
we were consorting with temple prostitutes as acts of worship. And for those gods, we would
sacrifice our sons and our daughters and our substance. What were
we when Paul and his companions came? We were idol worshippers,
ignorant of and indifferent to the claims of the living and
the true God. And what happened? Why, when
Paul and Silas and Timothy began to preach the Word of God, what
happened to us? As we listened to their words,
we were conscious that something was going on in us that had no
explanation in terms of human philosophy, human opinions, human
eloquence, the influence of one human over another by means of
words. We were conscious of a divine
intrusion of power. Our eyes were opened. We saw
ourselves as under the wrath of the living and the true God.
our dead idols whom we could make and discharge and discard
and burn and trample on at will. The true God was no God to be
manipulated by us. We stood exposed, liable to His
wrath and judgment. That God so loved the world of
sinners as to give His only begotten Son, and our eyes were opened
to behold the glory of God in the face of Christ, and we actually
joyfully abandoned the very things to which we were selling our
souls. We repented! We believed! What
did that? It was God's call. He's the God
who's the caller of His people. That pointed them to their own
present felt acknowledged experience of the saving activity of God.
Now, look at the promise in the light of that. Faithful is he
that calls you. Now, if he brought you in to
the orbit of the first installments of his saving work, And if He
has purposed that bringing you in, He will take you safely all
along the way, no matter how restricted, how difficult, how
buffeted and oppressed you may be in it, in order that at last
He might present you, without blame, sanctified holy body,
soul, and spirit, the God who is the calling God of His people. the only God whose mighty power
explained the existence of a church at Thessalonica. You Thessalonians,
does my prayer for you seem to be beyond reach, the thought
that one day you would actually be utterly, totally, and forever
free of every last stain and influence of sin in body, soul,
and spirit? Does it seem too far off to grasp? Then can you grasp the fact that
you're sitting there in a Christian church listening to my letter,
Paul says? How did that come about? Well,
God called. What did he do to call you? Well,
he opened my blind eyes. He unstopped my deaf ears. He
took out my heart of stone. He gave me a heart of flesh.
Well, dear Thessalonians, that God is trustworthy. That God
is trustworthy. And having called you, go back
to Romans 8, 29 and 30. If he calls, Paul says, moreover
whom he predestinated them, he also called. And whom he called,
he justified, and whom he justified without losing a one between
calling justification, them he also, what, glorified. Once God is committed to save
the sinner, his commitment is for the total accomplishment
of the totality of the salvation purposed and purchased in the
blood of Christ. And so this promise, then, is
validated by the already experienced saving activity of God. He says
to the Thessalonians, are you living examples of the first
dimensions of the call? The very experiences of your
struggles and concerns, are they not the result of being called
out of darkness into light? You never had these concerns
when you were blind and spiritually dead. Well, be assured that God,
who is the caller, will perfect everything to which he's called. Well, that's the promise that
the Apostle imparts. Now, in closing, may I give,
first of all, a word of comfort and consolation to the struggling,
warring, groaning, and oftentimes weary saints of God. Am I describing
you? Maybe I was just describing the
preacher when I wrote the words, struggling, warring, groaning,
and oftentimes weary. Writing those very words in the
early hours of this morning when I wait often for my final application
to the early hours of Sunday morning. I said, Lord, Is my
dullness the result of physical and mental weariness? Or is it
a cold heart? Lord, how can I separate the
actings of my heart from a head full of mucus from allergies
and itching eyes? And Lord, I can't separate them. God, should I be confessing a
cold heart? Or should I be longing for a
resurrection body? I still didn't sort it out, so
I figured it would be safer to confess a cold heart as well
as long for a resurrection body. We that are in this tabernacle
do groan, being burdened, Paul said. That's normal Christian
experience. And when the apostle says we
do not wrestle, we do not agonize, we do not struggle against flesh
and blood, every true Christian is a struggling saint. He's a
groaning saint. He's a warring saint. He's waging
warfare against his own sin and his own remaining corruption. And there are times he becomes
weary. You just go through that preceding
paragraph, and it's enough to make you throw up your hands
and say, Oh, God, I can't even do what Paul gives us, his closing
words. In everything, give thanks. Rejoice
always. Don't despise the Word of God
when it comes to you. Despise not prophesying. Lord,
when will I be done with what I am? Well, child of God, look
at this verse. suck sweetness out of it. The
God of peace Himself is committed to sanctify me wholly, and a
moment in time is coming when my spirit, soul, and body will
be found preserved entire without blame, even at the coming of
the Lord Jesus Christ. This is why Peter said in 1 Peter
1, 13, to struggling, suffering, weary saints, wherefore, girding
up the loins of your mind, be sober. Set your hope perfectly
on the grace that is to be brought unto you at the revelation of
Jesus Christ. Ah, yes, we're to remember the
grace that has already come to us But we're to set our hope
perfectly on the grace that is yet to be brought to us. Grace that will bring with it
entire sanctification. Listen to the language of the
hymn we often sing most frequently at a prayer meeting. Two stanzas
of 481. Sure I must fight if I would
reign. Increase my courage, Lord. I'll bear the toil, endure the
pain, supported by thy word. Thy saints in all this glorious
war shall conquer, though they die. They view the triumph from
afar and seize it with their eye." Isn't that beautiful imagery? How can your eyes seize anything?
When the eye of the soul is the avenue or conduit of the faith
of the heart, you've seized what you're going to be, and you have
it in the pledge and promise of God. You've set your hope
perfectly on the grace that is to be brought at the coming of
the Lord Jesus. Child of God, When you're tired
and weary and you say, God, you know, if only I had more strength,
I'd pray for an hour, and you'd say from your heart, Lord, you
know I'm not fooling myself. But this body. And other times
when you've got enough strength to go out and build a house single-handedly
in half a day, and you've got such a dullness you couldn't
pray for ten minutes if you had a gun at your head. And you say,
O Lord, this horrible, wretched, indwelling sin that dulls me
to communion and fellowship with You, this soul and spirit that
become a haunted house of unclean thoughts, of unloving thoughts,
of jealous thoughts. O Lord, thank You for the day
coming when I will be sanctified wholly, body, soul and spirit,
preserved blameless. That's seizing it with your eye.
And I trust that every warring, struggling, groaning and oft
times weary saint will find encouragement from Paul's prayer and from the
promise attached. And then the word of instruction
and exhortation to the well instructed, well insured, confident saints
of God. And I believe we have some of
you Well instructed, well assured, confident saints of God. Dr. Bob touched on this principle
in the previous hour. If Paul is so confident that
God will perfect the sanctification of the Thessalonians, why does
he pray for it? And why has he spent a whole
epistle laboring for it? And why does he lose sleep anxious
over their spiritual state? I mean, why didn't he just roll
over to sleep and say, Lord, if they're your elect, you're
going to perfect them. Amen. Hallelujah. Go to sleep. He said, I got so
restless and so concerned. I had no peace of heart. I couldn't
stand it anymore. I had to send Timothy. Well,
because Paul wasn't a hyper Calvinist, that's why. He believed that what God was committed
to do and what God had promised to do, God would bring to pass
by the means he has ordained. And one of those means was genuine
pastoral concern and the prayers of the people of God. And so
for you who are confident that, yes, I am the real thing and
by the grace of God, I shall endure in that restricted way. I shall know the blessing of
complete and entire sanctification. My dear, well instructed, well
assured, confident saint, follow the pattern of Paul. earnestly
pray for and passionately strive after the very thing you know
God is going to accomplish in you. And isn't that what the
scripture says will be the experience of everyone who has this hope
brought in him? Every man that hath this hope
in him goes on purifying himself even as he is pure. And finally,
a word of interrogation and self-examination. Some of you sat here this morning
And you've looked at your watch a dozen times and said, when
in God's name is this fool going to be done? Getting all excited
about being entirely sanctified body, soul, and spirit, I could
care less. My friend, listen. Boy or girl,
man or woman, teenager, listen. If what I've preached this morning
has been boring to your soul, there'll come a day when you
will yearn. You will yearn that you have
been excited at the prospect of being entirely sanctified.
Because my Bible says concerning heaven, nothing unclean shall
enter it. Without are the dogs, and the
whoremongers, and the liars, and the fornicators, and the
fearful, and the unbelieving. If sitting here this morning
your heart is not leaped within you at the prospect of being
entirely sanctified, I sincerely question whether you have a gram
of saving grace in your soul. I didn't say excited at the way
I preached it. I preached it poorly. Words can't
begin to do justice to the glory of it. Surely, if there's any
grace, your heart has burned within you and said, Oh, Lord
Jesus, come and finish the work. If that's not your yearning,
my friend, you better give yourself no rest and give God no rest
until it is, because if you don't, you're going to a place where
they rest not day or night, and where the smoke of their torment
ascends up forever and forever. And the one thing you'll wish
in hell that you had on earth that you never had will not be
a Cadillac or a Mercedes-Benz or a Lexus. there will be the
sanctifying grace of God. Seek it. Seek it now. Seek it at the only place where
it can be found, and that is at the feet of a pierced, immolated,
crucified, buried, risen, exalted, almighty Savior, through whom
the God of peace conveys all of His saving grace to sinners. to that Savior and go to Him
now. Let us pray. Our Father, how we thank You
for this precious portion of Your Word. Thank You that You
moved the Apostle to write those words to the Thessalonians that
they come down to us over the very centuries as your word to
us in our need. May the Holy Spirit seal them
to our prophet, to sinner and saint alike. And, O Lord Jesus,
hasten the day of your appearing, when we shall know in our experience
what we can now only seize with our eye, to be perfected body,
soul, and spirit. blameless in your sight. Oh Lord Jesus, keep us, preserve
us, hasten the day of your appearing and make others ready for that
day we plead. Amen.