You'll turn back with me now
to 1 Thessalonians chapter five. Paul's first letter to the Thessalonians, he wrote to assure them of their
election of God. He said, brethren beloved, knowing
your election of God. What a thing to write to a church.
I know your election of God. And all the benefits incurred
by that election. We don't think on that too much,
do we? If God chose us, he chose us to salvation. And he appropriated
everything needful, start to finish. He's the author and finisher
of our faith in him. All things, from the foundation
of the world, God purposed for his elect, and not one of them
gonna fail. I know your election of God,
and he assures them of that, and all the benefits that's incurred
by that election. The chief of which was the Lord
himself. The Lord himself. He chose us
in Christ. It's not just God sitting up
there and just got a book and I think I'll choose Tom, Benny,
and maybe Todd. No, he chose us in Christ. Why? that we should be holy,
that we should be without blank, and always be before him in love,
that is, being loved. God sees us in Christ, William,
that's how he sees us. If we could just see ourselves
that way, how much heartache would go to the wayside if we
could just see ourselves as God sees us in Christ. He reconciled us to God, it says,
in the body of his flesh through death to present us holy, unblameable,
and listen, unreprovable. There's nothing in the believer
to make him better. That's hard for you to imagine,
ain't it? But that's what it means. He's unreprovable in Christ. He's perfect. He's perfect. When Paul came to them preaching
the gospel, he said, my message came in power. It didn't come
in word only. It wasn't just arguments. It
wasn't just statements that I made, shocking or otherwise. My message
came in power and in the Holy Ghost. The Holy Ghost himself
accompanied Paul's message and made it effectual in the hearts
of his people. He said, I thank God for you
because they received him and his message not as the words
of a man, but as the very message of God to them. How different
men treat a man when God enables them to know that he's God's
ambassador. How differently you think on
a man. when you begin to understand this is God's messenger to me. Paul's heart was joined together
with theirs, and he loved them, he prayed for them, and he ministered
to them. Do you know that Paul was run
out of town by a lynch mob? A lynch mob. In the book of Acts,
it calls them men of the baser sort. We all know who they are. men who followed him all the
way to Berea trying to kill him. But he was warned of God. God
made a way for him to escape out of their hands. And he also sent Timothy back
to Thessalonica to minister to them, get them established, grounded. And over the past 40 years, I've
come to know folks all over the world. I talked to one recently
in Australia. Got some communication from another
church south of him about three hours. Clear over on the other
side of the world. No folks over in England. Every
now and then I'll get a text from one of them. And I've come
to love these people. And when permitted to have some
small part in their ministry, And so having said these things,
Paul moves on to exhort these people to walk in this world
as he had taught them in a way pleasing to God. What is that? Well, that's the
walk of faith. I don't walk in my self-righteousness. I don't walk and go around reminding
everybody, now I go to church every Sunday morning. I'd be
embarrassed. If that's all the recommendation
I had, I'd be embarrassed to open my mouth. We walk by faith. What's that
mean? With the mind of Christ. I'm
complete in Him. He's my righteousness. He's my
hope. He's my glory. I glory in Him. That's the walk of faith in the
mind of Christ and a heart filled with gratitude and love for Him. Why would He choose me? Huh? My soul, there are people out
there that live lives ten times better than mine. Why would He
choose me? Why would He in power come and
arrest this sinner, say enough's enough, and begin to turn you
around. Why would he do that? Sovereign
grace. That's what's on sign out there.
Sovereign grace. This is Grace Baptist Church.
We preach sovereign grace. Why do I do that? Because it's
the grace of a sovereign. It's his. He can show it or withhold
it. Or why does he reveal it to some
and not to others? Because it's his. Because it's
his. Won't somebody come in your house
and say, I found this out in the yard.
You must have dropped it out of your mail. And I'm looking
here at your checking account. You're spending, you bought some
watermelon, and you bought this, and you bought that, and you
bought this. Why didn't you buy something? And he starts questioning you
about what you bought. Huh? You'd run him off, wouldn't
you? Sure you would. What business is it of yours
what I buy and what I don't buy? It's mine. If I want to buy a
watermelon, I'll buy a watermelon. If I want to buy a pork chop,
I'll buy a pork chop. Nothing to you. Huh? It's his. I don't know when we're
going to realize that. It's His to give to whom He will. That's sovereign grace. Oh. And then he tells them this.
He said, you're children of the day. You're not walking around
in darkness anymore. God gives you light. God is light,
John said. In Him is no darkness at all.
He's all light. And if you say you have fellowship
with him and walk in darkness, you're a liar. That's what John
said. I don't even know why I'm saying it's what John said, it's
what the Holy Ghost said. Well, what does that mean? It
means the day star has risen in your heart and you can see
what you could never see before in the darkness. A blind man. Think about this,
he could be standing in a nest of deadly serpents and never
know it. Be as happy and comfortable,
secure, as he could be, and snakes all around him. He wouldn't know. And I'm gonna tell you, most
of us didn't. Most of us didn't. We were blind. I didn't realize
I was in a snake pit. I found that out afterward. You can be one step from a precipice. Think about that. Here you go.
There's a place I used to love to go. It's called The Breaks.
It's up on the Kentucky-Virginia border up in the mountains. And
there's no guardrails, no nothing. You can walk right out on the
cliff just like this and hang your feet over and look 2,700
feet straight down. A whole freight train down there
is about that long when you're looking down there. You could
be standing right on the edge of that, blind, and the next
step you take, right into eternity. But you'd never know it. You'd
be so comfortable and secure, because you didn't know it. You
were blind. We don't walk in darkness anymore. We don't walk
in darkness. We walk in light. We walk in light. When light
fills the head and the heart, how different men are from the
rest of the world. They don't think the same way.
You know, you talk to sinners about these things and they look
at you and they say, yeah, but, and they start on and on. They
don't see what you see. They don't reason the same way
you reason. We see things now as they really
are, not how we supposed them to be. And so he says, let us who are
of the day be sober, clear thinking, alert to the truth, putting on
the breastplate of faith and love. Boy, that's a word. I look around at myself, my own
life, and how absent it is of this love. and how much our Lord makes of
it. He said whether it's prophesying, they can fail. And these other things, they
can fail. But he said charity don't fail, not ever. I never forget what Henry told
Gabe when he sent him down there to preach. He said, when you
get down there, love them to Christ. Love them to Christ. We're alert to the truth, putting
on the breastplate of faith and love and for him at the hope
of salvation. And then to this end, he gives
us two basic reasons. Two basic reasons. This just
jumped off the page at me when I read it. First of all, in 1
Thessalonians 5, 9, he says for God, that for means because. because God hath not appointed
us to wrath. You dwell on that for a minute.
He could have. He should have. We're deserving
of it. Every one of us are deserving
of it. We didn't deserve salvation. We didn't deserve grace. We're
deserving of it, but God didn't appoint you to it. Oh, my soul. God has not appointed us to rest. I want you to let that wonderful,
gracious, glorious truth sink in. If you're here today and you
believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, he is your rest. That's what
I'm talking about. He is your life, your hope of
glory. Know this, God has not appointed
you to rest. That's the only fear we really
got, ain't it? Boy, what if I miss Christ? If you could, you would. I'll
tell you that. But he ain't gonna let you. He
ain't gonna let you. Hell is not your destination.
God knows we all deserve it. We're all sinners. Our flesh
is the same as this world's flesh. Ain't any difference in it. I'm
the chief of sinners, Paul said, old wretched man that I am. He
wasn't talking about who he used to be, he was talking about who
he was. And this is down the road for Paul. This wasn't the
young Paul, freshly converted, this was the old Paul. Been on
the way for a while. And he's still looking at himself
as wretched. Wretched. By nature, children of wrath,
even as others. By one man, the scripture said,
sin entered into the world and death by sin, spiritual death
by sin, as well as physical death and eternal death to some. And so death passed upon who?
All men. How do I know that? All of sin. All of sin. He tells us in Romans 3.23, all
have sinned and come short of the glory of God. Spiritual death has to do with
the nature of man. He is by nature a child of wrath. He walks the course of this world.
He walks just like all other fleshly men walk. He walks according to the prince
of the power of the air, the spirit, which now worketh in
the children of disobedience. His mind is enmity against God,
not subject to God. He's a born rebel. Stephen said, as your fathers
do, so do you. You always resist the Holy Ghost. You resist his word, his means,
God's son, the gospel of his grace. None righteous, none that
understandeth, none that seeketh after God, and none good. That's
the sinner. And God hates sin. He's not gonna
tolerate sin, He's not gonna excuse sin, He's not gonna compromise
His justice to save you from sin. He said, the soul that sinneth
shall surely die. Isn't that what He said? I will
by no means, Moses, clear the guilty. Not gonna do it. Every sinner shall receive a
just recompense of reward. And so he tells us in Romans
5.18, therefore as by the offense of one judgment came upon all
men. Now listen to condemnation, condemned
of God. He's appointed unto men, wants
to die, and after this the judgment. But God has chosen some of whom
he says he hath not appointed unto wrath. He hath not. They're here for
a different reason. They have a being in this world
and are truly sons of Adam, but not for the same end as other
men. This is amazing if you can get
a hold of it. Paul tells us in Romans 9.21 that the potter hath
power over the clay. He's the creator. He has power
over the clay. He can, of the same lump, he
gets one lump of clay in his hand, and he goes like that,
and he tears off one piece, and he makes a vessel under honor,
and he takes the other piece, and he makes it a vessel under
dishonor. And he has power to do that. He's God. He's God. Vessels of dishonor, he endures. They're formed for a purpose,
they have a purpose. But he endures as he carries
out his redemptive purpose. He keeps them around and uses
them. He uses them just like he used Pharaoh. You remember
what Pharaoh did? Pharaoh hated Israel. He couldn't
stand Israel. He put out a decree to kill all
their male children. You know what God did? He put
it in the heart of Moses' mama, and she went down to the bulrushes
and made her a little raft and pitched it, laid that little
baby in, pushed him out in the river. God floated him right
down to Pharaoh's house, caused Pharaoh's daughter to fall in
love with that baby, and made Pharaoh raise him. He's the deliverer. He's gonna be the cause of his
death. but God made him raise him in
his own house. And he uses condemned men in
this world, vessels of dishonor. He endures them, and he uses
them to accomplish his redemptive will. And let me say this while
I'm on this subject. Being non-elect, now you hear
me, I want you to pay attention to what I'm telling you. Being
non-elect is not the reason why sinners will perish. If you perish,
it's gonna be because of your sin. Your sin. This is the, listen to what our
Lord said, this is the condemnation. Light has come into the world
and men love darkness rather than light because their deeds
are evil. Huh? God showed those old Gentiles,
those old idol-worshipping Gentiles, he showed them to some degree,
he gave them some light. You know what they did with it?
They changed the glory of God into an image made like unto
man, and four-footed beasts, and birds, and creeping things. They changed the glory of God.
It's your sins that'll, if you perish, it'll be because of our
sins. Not because of God's election.
Election has to do with salvation. Salvation. Those who utterly perish will
perish by their own sins. Unto them that are perishing
the gospel's foolishness. Foolishness. Listen to this. Cursed is every man who continueth
not in all things written in the book of the law to do this. No man should be sentenced to
hell because of Adam's sin, but rather because of his own sin. But the potter has vessels of
honor, too. They're called vessels of mercy.
Vessels of mercy. And these, he says, he aforeprepared
unto glory. Now I preach to a world of lost
sinners, not because I see any potential in them. I don't preach
to you because I see some potential in you. And I don't preach to
you because I see some quality in you worth preserving. I don't
see anything in you that I don't see in me. We're just sinners. But I preach knowing this, God
has not appointed all to wrath. He's appointed some to obtain
salvation. God's will, if you look at it
carefully in the scripture, you'll find out it's a redemptive will. Everything's governed by that,
His redemptive will. And His will is to save some
for the glory of His name. And because He will, because
He will. Did He say He would? He did.
He did. I will be gracious on my soul. On everybody? No. To whom I will
be gracious. I'll be merciful to whom I will
be merciful. And whom I will, I'll harden. Because he will, some are appointed
to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ. And this appointment
is an act of God's sovereign grace. Now I'm going to tell
you something. They were about to crucify the
Lord and Pilate was scrambling for answers. He just didn't know
what to, he didn't want, he knew this was all Jewish politics,
this had nothing to do with this man Jesus Christ. He had examined
this man and sent men out to listen to him and learn about
him and investigate him and he couldn't find any fault in this
just man. That's what he said. If he could
have found any fault in him, he'd been clear conscience about
it, but he couldn't. Because there wasn't any fault
in him. There wasn't any fault in him. And so he said, now wait a minute.
I got a way out. It's a tradition on this day
that the crowd can pick somebody and we'll set him free. And I'll do this, and that'll
be the way out. And this man, we can set him
free. So he said that to the people. People said, give us
Barabbas. Give us Barabbas. Was Barabbas seeking the Lord?
He was a rebel. He was a murderer. He was a thief. He'd spend his life in rebellion. He wasn't seeking God. He wasn't
doing any such thing. And now he's caught and condemned
to die, and he's down there in that prison with leg irons on. And all he can hear out there
is when they raise their voice, and then he can hear it. And
he heard them say, give us Barabbas. And man, he's sitting there thinking,
they're hungry for my blood. The next thing he hears, crucify
him, crucify him! And he's sitting there and he
hears them soldiers come down that aisle. And they come in
there and they unlock them chains. I don't care how tough you are,
that man's shaking in his boots. He knows what's coming. They're
gonna take him out and nail him to a cross. Let him hang out
there and laugh at him till he dies. Make a public example out
of him. And they march him up through
there, and when they come into that light, they turn him loose,
said, Ravish, you're free to go. What? Another's been chosen to
die in your stead. Huh? That's sovereign grace,
isn't it? Sovereign grace. He was appointed
to obtain salvation. That thief on the cross, There
was three thieves that day. There was Barabbas and two more. God saved two of them. He saved
Barabbas and he saved that old thief on the cross. Hanging next
to him. Only one died. Was destroyed. Only one. He saves men because he will. And because he will, some are
appointed to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ. Scripture
said, except the Lord of Sabaoth had left us a seed, we'd been
like Sodom and Gomorrah. We'd be ashes, we'd be history. They didn't know destruction
was coming on them. Objects of God's righteous wrath,
reprobates given over to practice their vile imaginations. foam out their shame. And in
Romans 11, five, the Holy Ghost said even so at this present
time also there is a remnant according to the election of
grace. Now listen, and if it's by grace, it's no more work. Otherwise, grace is no more grace.
You can't mix grace and work. It's like water and oil. You
can stir all day long. As soon as you quit stirring,
they separate. They ain't gonna miss. And wonder, wonders, the eternal
God chose a people in Christ, not to an opportunity to live,
not to a chance to be saved, but to salvation. God saved them to be sons and
heirs with Christ, predestinated them unto the adoption of children
by Jesus Christ to himself. according to the good pleasure
of his will. And my friend, in all the death
and chaos around us, there's one thing that will never change,
one constant, one eternal comfort. God has a people that he appointed
to salvation. And he's gonna save every one
of them. I don't care what's going on, he's gonna save every
one of them. Didn't look like it when old
Nebuchadnezzar swept down and destroyed everything that was
anything in their eyes. He burned it to ashes, took all
their precious temple furniture, took it up there and stuck it
in a house full of idols. Thing didn't look good. God went
right on saving people. And in my opinion, he saved Nebuchadnezzar. My soul. Nothing hinders God. He's appointed a people to save
and he's gonna save them. He's gonna save them. And he chose them through sanctification
of the spirit and belief of the truth and called them by his
gospel. I don't know who they are in
particular. I don't know. I don't know. But I've told some things about
them in general. I know this, God's elect are
a cross-section of all society. Every tribe, kindred, nation,
people, and tongue under heaven is elect. I can go anywhere and
preach the gospel. I know God's got some elect.
He's got some elect. I know that all his elect have
provisions ordained for their salvation. What am I talking about? Oh,
well, I'm talking about he appointed for them a representative man,
the Lord Jesus Christ. He wasn't appointed for this
world. He was appointed for his elect. He's the surety of the everlasting
covenant of grace. He's the federal head. As Adam
was the federal head of all mankind, Christ is the federal head of
his elect. And by the offense of one, judgment
came upon all men to condemnation. Even so, by the righteousness
of one, the free gift came upon all men to justification of life.
What's this all men he's talking about? All that were represented
in him. And Adam all die, even so in
Christ shall all be made alive. Who's the all? All represented
by him. They have appointed for them
a representative and they have arranged for them a favorable
providence. That old union, he was wealthy. He was wealthy. And people had
been talking to him about salvation, but they didn't understand what
they were talking about, and it didn't satisfy him. And he
said, I know what I'm going to do. I'm going to go to Jerusalem.
I'm going to go down there during the feast days, and I'm going
to stay there, and I'm going to watch all that goes on, all
the way through the feast days. So he did. And they went through
all these various feasts over the weeks. He come away as ignorant
as he was when he got there. But he had some scrolls with
him. I don't know where he got them, but he had Isaiah. And
he opened those scrolls, and he was sitting in there reading.
Meanwhile, God has a preacher over here, and he's in the middle
of a revival, and he stops that preacher, and he said, come here.
He said, I want you to go out here in the wilderness. In the wilderness?
Out there in the wilderness. There's nobody out there. There
will be. You go out there where I tell you to go. OK. He goes out there. Here's this
big caravan. He ain't got a clue who God sent
him out to preach to. And he's looking all up and down
this caravan, wandering and walking around. And finally he walks
upside this chariot and he looks up and here's a man reading the
book of Isaiah on a scroll. He said, hey. He said, you know
what you're reading? He said, how can I? He said,
somebody tell me. He said, it's good over. He got
up and preached to him. God has arranged for his people,
these people that he's appointed to salvation, he's arranged a
favorable providence. Be careful how you treat your
days. Be careful. God has arranged
for his people a precious, precious providence. And that providence
looks like chance when it happens, but it ain't. You look back on
it all my soul, I can see God's hand all the way back. I couldn't
see it then, but boy, I see it now. Who can tell how many times you
were rescued by God's providence? Listen to this. He didn't know
it then, but he does now. He said, and we know that all
things work together for good to them that love God, to them
who are the called according to his purpose. How do I know
that? Because he's arranged for us
a favorable providence. That's why. And then he's appointed for them
certain men, ordained by God, certain men. When our Lord ascended
up into glory, he gave to his church apostles, prophets, evangelists,
and pastor teachers. Paul said unto me, who am less
than the least of all saints is this grace given. that I should
preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ.
He was appointed to do that. God ordained him to go do that. And he doesn't do any less for
any pastor, for any evangelist. He does that
very thing. He appointed them. And he has
the people for him. They're out here. Listen to this, he said, who
then is Paul and who is Apollos? They're ministers by whom ye
believed. But he don't quit there. Even
as God, even as the Lord gave to every man. His ascension gifts provides
for you a man ordained of God whose eyes have been opened,
whose heart's been opened, and he sends you the message of grace. How's he gonna speak to you?
Through that man. Now, there's only two of these
offices out of the four that are still active, evangelists
and pastor teachers. But all the words of the apostles
and prophets have been preserved in this book. They're still here. They're right here. Paul said to Timothy, who was
acting as a pastor at the time, he sent him back to the Thessalonians,
sent him back to Thessalonica to pastor those people. And Paul
said to Timothy, do the work of an evangelist. Here you are, you're in this
church, just like I'm sitting here. I'm in this church, I'm
the pastor. But God opens the door over in
Virginia. You know what he tells you? You go do the work of an
evangelist. When you do, that whole church
is going with you. That whole church. If it wasn't
for the church, that pastor couldn't exist. He couldn't live, he couldn't
preach, he couldn't study, he'd have to work. He wouldn't be
no evangelist, but because he is, the ministry of this church
goes out. And I've shown one of you the
other day, I've got a thing on the internet that you can track
the messages from here, and it's unbelievable where all they go. 50, 60 downloads in Australia,
Spain, Norway, into Russia, into Vietnam, all over the place. One couple came over to this
church. Some of you probably don't even remember this. They
came from over in West Texas. He works on a ship that goes
out and core drills on the plates so they can study the continental
plates. He got nothing to do out there
so he got on the internet and he found my name on there and
he started listening. And he said, I've been listening
to you now for about two years. He said, I thought it was time
you knew who I was. And he drove all the way over here to come
to service, him and his wife and children. Do the work of an evangelist.
And from time to time I leave this pulpit and I preach in other
places. God's providence has opened these
doors and I feel it necessary to go. I'm compelled to go. Because it pleases God through
the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe. And
these are ascension gifts of Christ. And then lastly, he's
given to you in this place the privilege of being his church. Now, I want you to think on this
for a minute. This is a great privilege. He
don't have churches everywhere. He'll have a church here, and
he'll have one over here, and he'll have one over here. His
churches are not everywhere. There are buildings everywhere.
There are false prophets everywhere. But his church is just here and
there. And there are few and far between. I drove 30 hours
the other day preaching two churches, three churches. 30 hours. What a gift. What a gift we have. And what a responsibility he's
laid on us here. A local assembly is also a place
or gathering of the saints. And he talks here why they gather. They're to comfort one another.
1 Thessalonians 5.11, wherefore, comfort yourselves. Now listen,
together. Don't want me to call you on
the phone and comfort you. He wants us together to gather in
an assembly. Comfort yourselves together and
edify one another, even as also you do. And my point here is
that salvation is a common work. It's a common work. We all share
the same thing. In Peter's second epistle, he
addresses those of like precious faith. We're all called, Paul said,
in one hope of our calling. That is, what we hope for is
the same. It's the same. What's reserved for us in heaven
is the same. No degrees in it, equally possessed
by all, chosen in the same head, secured in the same covenant,
bought by the same blood. justified by the same righteousness,
all on the same footings, all heirs and joint heirs. We say, that man's a preacher,
I'm not a preacher, so I don't have the same thing. Oh yeah,
you do. Oh yeah, you do. You same. There are no degrees
in this thing. You got it all or you don't have
anything. One body, one spirit, one Lord,
one baptism, one God, Father of all, who is above all, through
all, and in you all. And so John said, truly our fellowship
is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ. And nobody
can truly comfort another believer except one who feels what he
feels and knows what he knows. I've had worldly men, when I
lost my wife, I had worldly relatives and they'd call me and they'd
try to comfort me and the stuff they were comforting me with
was just, I don't even know how to illustrate it. It's like bringing
you a green persimmon and say, here, you'll like this, this
will sweeten up the pot. No it won't, it'll pull your
jaws together. Giving me things totally contrary
to my hope and things and trying to, I appreciate what they were
doing, but it's how they were doing it. Only a true believer
can comfort another believer. Listen to this, Paul told the
Corinthians, the God of all comfort, that's what he is, who comforteth
us in all our tribulation, all our trouble. that we may be able
to comfort them which are in any trouble by the comfort wherewith
we ourselves are comforted of God. Only believers can comfort
another believer. And so he says, comfort yourselves
together. You're not gonna find this anywhere
else except with the children of God. God hath not appointed
us to wrath, but to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ, who
died for us, that whether we wake or sleep, we should live
together with him. With him. Wherefore, based on
this common hope, comfort yourselves together. Comfort yourselves
together. When somebody gets out of sorts,
Comfort them. Comfort them with this hope.
Bring them back. Bring them back. Look here. You're looking over
here. You need to be looking over here. I need it. You need
it. Everybody in here needs it. And we will if we love one another
and if God has appointed us to salvation. Thank you.