Seeking for the help of the Lord,
I direct your prayer for attention to the first passage we read,
Paul's second epistle to the Thessalonians, and chapter 3,
reading from our text, verse 5. 2 Thessalonians, chapter 3
and verse 5. and the Lord direct your hearts
into the love of God and into the patient waiting for Christ. 2 Thessalonians 3 and verse 5. There are three things that the
Apostle brings before the Thessalonians in this chapter that concern
us as well as them. The first is he speaks of those
that are wicked and unreasonable men. The reason is for all men
have not faith. The Church of God is placed in
the midst of a world that is against our Lord and Saviour
Jesus Christ. It is in a world that is a godless
world, a world that knows not God, and yet is under the power
and control of God. God is above all men and devils
and nations. They are not in control. God
is in control. But nevertheless, the Church
is surrounded with adversaries from without. Wicked men without,
men of which, looking at them alone, we can expect no mercy. In other parts of the world,
we have them described as being implacable, as being those that
you cannot calm down, you cannot bring them to be reconciled.
Those even incontinent, they cannot help themselves. They're
just full of rage and hatred, against the people of God. And Paul, he makes the prayer
here that we may be the Thessalonians and all the Church of God delivered
from wicked men, unreasonable and wicked men. The second is the adversaries
within, not without, but within the Church of God. And He sets
them before us as those that are walking disorderly. They're not being governed by
the Word. They're not following the Church
of God. They're not following the Apostle
here. He says, in verse 7, yourselves
know how you ought to follow us. And in another place, He
says, be ye followers of Me, as I also am of Christ. The Word of God is a lamp unto
our feet, light to our path. That shows us how we are to walk. And yet here he sets forth in
the church, and the same as Jude does in his epistle, that there
shall arise those amongst you that are walking contrary, that
are not walking in the ways of the Lord. And specifically with
this Thessalonian church, They were a church that was expecting
the Lord really to come at any moment. In the first epistle,
those are saying, well, the resurrection is past. Those that have died,
they've perished, and the Lord hath forsaken his people. But the apostle writes to them
and says, no, no, they're not perished. Those that have died,
they're with the Lord. The Lord shall come again. They
shall come with him. And we which are alive and remain,
we shall be caught up with them in the air. And he makes that
clear. But then in this epistle, the
second one, they appear to think the Lord is coming at any moment.
So they're not bothering to work or do any work or not bothering
to occupy their busy bodies and not working at all. And this
is what he says and lays to their charge that they are walking.
disorderly in this way, not giving heed to the directions and instruction
that they'd been given. So that's two. But the third
is that of our own hearts. And this is where our text is
speaking of our own hearts. We might not be wicked like those
without. We might say, well, we are not
walking disorderly or think that we're not. But we each have a
heart that is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked,
and from our hearts that is what flows our works and all that
we do. And the Apostle here has a prayer,
a prayer for the hearts of the Thessalonians, and really it's
a good prayer for the hearts of all the people of God, that
the Lord would direct our hearts. He says, direct your hearts.
into the love of God and into the patient waiting for Christ. And really, those two things
are so central. It is the love of Christ that
constrains us to follow Him and to walk in His ways. And it is
the church's privilege, and it was the calling of this Thessalonian
church in the first epistle to wait for His Son from heaven. Paul says to the Corinthian church,
if in this life only we have hope in Christ with all men,
most miserable. So there is an expectation in
our text of the Lord hearing prayer, of the Lord working upon
our hearts, directing our hearts. And it is this petition that
I desire to look at. this morning, directed into the
love of God. The Lord direct your hearts into
the love of God and into the patient waiting for Christ. So there's three things. Firstly,
we have the Lord. Our text begins, and the Lord
I want to look at the Lord as the director of the hearts of
all men. And secondly, what it is to be
directed into something. If he is asking here the prayer,
direct your hearts, what is he meaning? Especially when he says
into, directed into something. And then thirdly, the two points,
the two things that Paul prays that the Thessalonians be directed
into, and maybe it'd be our prayer too, that is the love of God
and into the patient waiting for Christ. But firstly, we have the Lord,
the director of the hearts of men. This belongs to the Lord alone. Although the words tell us that
as in water, face unto face, so the heart of man to man, we
know that we are all equally fallen, and the things that go
on in our hearts, they go on in others' hearts as well, don't
let Satan deceive you and say that you are the only one that
feels temptations in this particular way or manner, or the only one
that is corrupt or fallen or whatever is felt from the heart,
because in the very beginning God fashioned our hearts alike
and we have fallen alike. But we do not have that ability
to really know what is going on in another's heart, what they
are exercised with, what they are burdened with, what is driving
them, what is the motive, force, and we certainly can't change
a heart. We might change a man's thinking,
but a man convinced against his will is of the same opinion still. And to actually change the real
driving force or what that person actually is, we have no power
over. Satan, though he might observe
our frames and he can see what we do in our lives, he as well,
he cannot read the heart. And you say, well, how come the
temptations come from Satan? interjected those thoughts and
so exact, well, you know, if, to use perhaps a worthy saying,
if we were a fly on the wall and to actually be able to observe
ourselves, you'd learn a lot about ourselves, a lot about
what we do, a lot about how we react to certain things. And Satan has 6,000 years experience
of observing men and women. And he is able to put temptations
and things in their path. If he were to put a temptation
in the path of a child of God, he knows whether that is a grief
to them, whether it results in them immediately going to prayer,
crying out to the Lord for help under him, or he can adjust to
by observing. He can see whether they are meditating
upon it, taking the bait, thinking on it, going in that way. He can actually see. Is it bringing
them to prayer or they, when they get that temptation, closing
their Bible and going off to that temptation, he can see that. And he knows then to follow up
with further temptations in that way. But to the Lord alone belongs
that ability to change the heart, renew the will and turn the feet
to Zion's hill, as the hymn writer says. The Lord is the director
of hearts. What a blessing it is that through
our Lord's sufferings and death at Calvary, He may justly, righteously
take a sinner, a sinner deserving eternal hell and destruction,
and change that person's heart. I have in the prophecy of Ezekiel,
chapter 36, Those things that the Lord says that he will do
for his people, to cleanse them, to give them a new heart, a softened
heart. Those things you do for them,
for his honour and his glory. He says, I will yet for this
be inquired of by the house of Israel to do it for them. And
this is what Paul is appealing to the director of hearts. that
He'll give a heart work. What a solemn thing if all of
our devotions never touched our hearts. All of our worship, all
of our gathering in His name, it never actually touched our
heart. We don't mean, of course, the
fleshy pumping the blood round our bodies, but in a spiritual
way, It is the heart that makes us what we are. If we have an
animal, say a dog that barks, you say, well it barks because
it is a dog. That is its heart. That is its
nature. That is what it actually does. You can go in Australia and you
could go into the bush and you could hear a dog bark and you
could park the lease and look and find the dog and it wouldn't
be a dog, it'd be a lyrebird. And it'd be a bird and it imitates
the dog exactly. It imitates a fire engine, it
could imitate a chainsaw. But it doesn't make it to be
a dog. The heart is not changed, it's
not changed into that, it's imitating it. But what the Lord does is
to make His people and directs their hearts so that they really
are what they are. You know, when the Lord saw Nathaniel
coming to Him, He said, Behold, an Israelite indeed in whom is
no guile. There's no attempt in this man
to deceive. He doesn't want to deceive me.
He doesn't want to deceive the brethren. He is exactly what
you see is what you get. He is a true follower of the
Lord. He loves the Lord, he loves his
word. He's waiting for the salvation
of the Lord. That was really evidence because
as soon as Nathaniel had even one token, one evidence that
the Lord saw him under that fig tree, he knew he couldn't see
him there otherwise, unless he were God, because that fig tree
would have hidden him completely. Immediately he believed, Rabbi
thou art the Son of God. Now he was wanting to believe,
he was expecting so, he didn't need great many evidences, one
was enough as it were. But the Lord is a director of
hearts. I felt in looking at this word,
what an encouragement for us. Now we can't manage our own hearts. He may feel our hearts a sink
of sin, but He is One, is greater than our heart, able to change
us, able to do this for us in answer to prayer, that has power,
that is able to affect what man cannot. And yet I say, dear friends,
He uses means Our text is surrounded by two
verses that give an indication of what those means are. He says
in verse 4, We have confidence in the Lord touching you, that
ye both do and will do the things which we command you. Then comes
the word of our text. And immediately after the text,
we have again, he's going back to the command. Now we command
you, brethren, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you
withdraw yourselves from every brother that walketh disorderly.
And so you could almost take out the text, you finish reading
verse four, we'll do the things which we command you. Now we
command you, brethren, in the name of the Lord, And you see,
it flows even with taking out that verse. And when you put the verse in,
it is highlighting this. Here are the commands. The apostle is thinking, I have
no power to change. I might give the commands, but
the Lord must give the willingness, and the Lord must give the obedience. And yes, they are exhorted to
obedience, they are exhorted to walk in the commands of the
Lord. But their eye is upon the Lord
that worketh in you to will and to do of His own good pleasure. It is the honour and glory of
the Lord to work through these means. We are not to think, It
doesn't matter how we live and how we walk or what ministers
say or what the word says, we want the power. Let that change
us and then we'll be different. No, we're to recognize that the
Lord uses his word, uses his servants, he speaks through that
means, but to recognize that the power is needed. There are
many, many that hear the commands of the Lord. has no effect on
them. Many that are shown the right
way, but they do not walk in that way. Many that were preached to in
the New Testament church. As many as were ordained unto
eternal life believed. Some believed the word spoken,
some believed not. Some obeyed the word, some did
not obey. What makes the difference? The
director of the heart. The one that uses and makes the
means effectual. The disciples had to tarry at
Jerusalem until they were endued with power from on high. That power that was to make the
word effectual. My word shall not return unto
me void. It shall accomplish the thing
whereto I sent it. So this is encouragement, is
encouragement for us to seek to obey the word set before us,
to walk in the Lord's ways, but to look to the Lord for power,
look for that help, that he would perform and work in us, that
he would move our hearts, that this be a real incentive in prayer,
that we ask the Lord to do this for us. We're very used to in
our daily lives, in things in which we put our little, weak
effort in. And in that effort and in what
we do, then there is power. When we put our brakes on in
the car, I can remember days when we had no power-assisted
brakes. And you had to press your foot
on that brake really hard. It all relied upon what you could
press on. And nowadays we have the power-assisted
brakes. You've only got to put it lightly
on the brake and the engine does the rest. You know what it is. In Holland with their bikes,
if someone is seen going along the road and they're not pedalling
and the bike is going along nice and fast, and they haven't got
registration or a helmet on, then they can get fine, because
the bike is designed, unless you start pedalling, the battery
power doesn't come in. It doesn't give you any power. And we're used to that. In things
we use a lot, there is that expectancy of a working, but looking for
power to come in that way. Our Lord healed those and He
asked them to stretch forth their hand. They would say, look, it's
withered. I cannot. Or ask those to rise
up. How can I? I am not able to do
that. But as they sought to do it,
sought to obey, then they found that strength. They were given
that strength. And so we are to be of those
that seek that obedient walk, and strength be given in that
walk, and day by day, and hour by hour, and this is the context
here, directions, commands, instructions, but the Lord being the one that
is directing the hearts, opening the ears, opening the hearts,
making the willing, my people shall be willing in the day of
my power. This is the power that directs
the heart. And that's where the honor and
glory is then due to the Lord. Then I want to think secondly
of what it is to be directed into something. into something. It implies that
there is more than just a simple knowledge or a superficial exterior. There's a deep that couches beneath. There's something more to it
than just meets the eye. like perhaps a walled city that
is shut up, you see the city, but to get inside that city,
then you see what's in that city and the secrets of it are opened
up, you can see what is there. It implies also personal involvement,
we are used to hearing where someone is into cars, or into
classical music, and immediately in our mind you think, that person
is involved with that, they are investigating these things, someone
into history, and they're reading history, and they're studying
it, and they're getting into some depths with it, or if they're
into sailing, they're following all of these contests and boat
races and the different types of ships or boats that there
are because they're into it. They're actually, their whole
heart is in it. They like it. When I was young,
I was into cars and changing my own car and changing it from
an automatic to a manual and working on this or that, much
work on the car. And that was what in my youth
I was into. And you find the young in many
different things in that way. It's what is taking possession
of the heart, what we're really looking into and wanting to know
more about. And we read of the angels, which
things the angels desire to look into. And this is what the Apostle
says with the Thessalonians, the Lord direct your hearts,
not just to the love of God, but into, into the love of God. So I want to look then, thinking
of this way, at those two things that the Apostle Paul prays that
they might be directed into, their hearts directed into. The first thing is the love of
God. The Lord direct your hearts into
the love of God. Today the world has a very simplistic
view of the love of God. They say well God is love and
he is love. But that is all that is really
considered. is not actually looked into that
love. Sometimes it is. I remember just
not recently, it was a year or so ago, I went to a school to
give out Bibles. And before I went, I checked
on the curriculum for the religious education. And they had a question
there, how can you reconcile the love of God with his holiness. And when I came to the school,
I asked the children, well, what answer did you come up with?
How can God be a loving God and yet also a holy God? And they
said, well, because he chastens, he corrects for sin, corrects
for evil. And they could see how where
there is love, like a father that loves his children, then
he will correct those children. And this is just one of the aspects
of looking into the love of God. We would say this, the love of
God is an eternal love. the love for his people, and
it is a particular love. I've loved thee with an everlasting
love, and therefore with loving kindness have I drawn thee, and
thee is in the singular, and is pointed to the people of God,
the individual people of God, that particular love. I lay down
my life for the sheep, the other sheep I have which are not of
this fold, them also, must I bring? And it is that of which we read
in John 4, which speaks of the love of God. We love Him because
He first loved us. It's a love that begins in God,
eternal in God, and if we are directed into that, what a depth
of that love. The hymn writer says, he saw
me lost and ruined in the fall, and loved me notwithstanding
all. That beginning of that love is
then in God. It's also a sacrificial love,
because it was the love of God to his people that brought him
to suffer for them. The Lord says in John 10, Thine
they were, and Thou gavest them Me. They were given to the Son
to redeem, that He would pay their debt, that He would be
a surety, that He would suffer in their place, that He would
endure the wrath of God for them, that He would bear their curse. Cursed is everyone that hangeth
upon a tree, and that it should be the love of God that brings
that about God commendeth his love toward us in that while
we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. And it is to be directed
into that love of God, to know something of the mystery of that
Godliness, God manifest in the flesh, that of which Philip in
preaching to the Yuna was able to, beginning at that same scripture
as Isaiah 53, really bring that Yuna into the love of God. Whom speaketh the prophet this
of himself or some other man? And there is all the sufferings
of Christ, the death of Christ, laying upon him the iniquity
of us all. And that dear man then had an
opening into that love. And we may say with this that
where this is so, where the hearts are directed into the love of
God, it is a clear token of being a child of God, of having faith,
It is the Holy Spirit that shall receive, says the Lord of mine,
and shall reveal it unto you. And this is what is happening
here. Things are being revealed unto
the people of God. Now, you might say, how is it
that this prayer would be answered? The Lord direct your hearts into
the love of God. Is it just by mentally understanding
the things that we could speak this morning? Or is it by actually
partaking of them and experiencing them? To know what it is to have
the love of God drawing us. The love of Christ constraineth
us. When we feel that constraining
love of Christ to walk in His ways, to be drawn to Him, to
be attracted to that love, we feel that, that touches our hearts. When it is shed abroad in the
heart by the Holy Ghost, then we know what that love of God
is because we actually feel it in our hearts. is actually to be understood. We think of the end of Psalm
107. Many things are set forth then
of the Lord's dealings with his people. Many times they fell
down, there was none to help. Then they cried unto the Lord
in their trouble, and he saved them out of their distresses.
But at the end of that Psalm, we read, Whoso is wise and will
observe these things, even they shall understand the lovingkindness
of the Lord. It is a lovingkindness that is
to be understood. Certainly the chastening and
correction of the Lord with His people is to be understood, not
in anger, but by His dear covenant love. So when the Apostle is
praying that the Lord would direct the hearts of these Thessalonians
into the love of God, is into a partaking of it, to knowing
it by experience, to having it shed abroad in their hearts,
to realize that depth of love, the greatness of love, the unchanging
love of God, that which remains the same, Jesus Christ, the same
yesterday, and today, and forever. Our Lord speaks of that same
love wherewith the Father loved him, of which he loves his people,
and his people are to love him. It is also the token of being a
child of God. We know that we pass from death
unto life because we love the brethren, And it is with that
same love, wherewith God hath loved us, that we actually love
the brethren. In verse 7 of the chapter we
read, John 1, 4. In verse 7, Beloved, let us love
one another, for love is of God. And every one that loveth is
born of God and knoweth God. He that knoweth not God, for
God is love. Beloved, he says in verse 11,
if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another. The whole chapter really is dwelling
on this, bringing the soul into the knowledge of the love of
God. A God who loves his people, and
he loves them through all the scenes of time. loves them for
eternity and will always love. So may the Lord direct us in
this respect into, into the love of God. And may it be something
in this way as well. that is directing us into it
to want to know more about it. We use the illustration of those
taken up with cars or history or something like that. May we
be taken up with the love of God. If the angels desire to
look into these things, may we desire to know more and more
of these things, to understand the love of God. I remember reading
of the Reverend Kirsten when the Lord was first beginning
to work in his heart. And his mother caught him up
at two o'clock in the morning, his light on, reading. And she
said to him, why are you up? Why are you reading your Bible
like this? He said, well, he said, I must
know how the Lord saves his people. And that is what he was so earnestly
seeking, and seeking to know personally for himself. And of
course, he was greatly blessed and the founder of the church
there in Holland. But there's a second thing that
is asked here, and that is the patient waiting for Christ. And again, it is the Lord direct
our hearts into it, into it. Well, the context here, firstly,
is the Lord coming the second time. The Lord said very clearly
that he shall come again, the angels testified when he was
set up into heaven, that he shall come in like manner with power
and great glory. The Apostle at the close of the
first epistle, he tells them that the Lord shall come, the
trumpet shall sound, and the Lord shall come with power in
the clouds of heaven. It was to be expected and waited
for. Now we know, of course, that
2,000 years or so has gone by since this time. The Lord still
has not yet come, but he will come. The same as the Old Testament
church waited for 4,000 years till the Lord came, the Lord
will come. I often think of how it's spoken
of that the Lord hath appeared in the end of the world. Well,
if it was in the end of the world, and 4,000 years and then 2,000
years, it cannot be long that the Lord comes. But we're not to be like the
Thessalonians that, and there have been those even in recent
years that have believed false prophets, they've sold all their
goods, they've been in cults, they've waited for the Lord to
come, the Lord has never come. Many, many prophecies, but the
word of God tells us very clear that no man knoweth the day nor
the hour, but it shall come as a thief in the night, And we
are told to be in expectancy of that day by day. And though
it might not be at the end of the world, we might not be those
on the earth when the Lord returns, to be caught up with him in the
clouds. But we will most certainly die. We will most certainly stand
before God. The Lord said, I will come again
and receive you unto myself, that where I am, there ye may
be also. And whether in death or whether
at the end of the world, the Lord shall come. And the church
of God is to be an expectant church. The Lord spoke of the
five wise and five foolish virgins as those that were waiting, those
that did not know the time, occupied till I come, redeeming the time,
for the days are evil. And so we are to have our hearts
directed into that patient waiting for Christ. And sometimes it
might be hard. You hear dear Job in all his
afflictions and sorrows, he says, all the appointed days of my
time will I wait till my change come. And some of the Lord's
dear people have great afflictions at the end of their lives, a
good hope beyond the grave, and they've longed, they've longed
and desired to depart and to be with Christ, which is far
better. But they have had to wait, patiently
wait. We read in the margin, all patience
of Christ. We can say with patience as well,
that endurance unto the end. How vital that it is. that we
be led into the patient waiting for Christ. Because apart from
the end, there are those appearances of our Lord before the end. Those that are brought to seek
the Lord, those that are brought to come to his word, read his
word, attend the preaching of the gospel, there is a waiting
for Christ in that way, to come and to bless their souls. There
is a time to favor Zion, a set time that the Lord will come. There was a set time that the
Lord came the first time, a set time that he would bring the
children of Israel out of captivity in Babylon. And so with the blessings
of the Lord, there is a waiting, a patient waiting for him to
come and to bless. Sometimes it is in a path of
providence. We may be waiting upon the Lord
in prayer, desiring the Lord to appear for us and help for
us, whether it is in the sale of a property, or the employment,
or partner in life, or whatever it is. We're waiting on the Lord
as the governor of all things to appear and to help us and
to answer our prayers. And in that way there is to be
a patient waiting for Christ, and we're to be directed into
that, into that frame of mind, into that spirit, into that attitude. Not fretful, not kicking, not
rebellious, but patient waiting. You wonder at those like dear
Joseph in the prison, The butler forgot him, and yet he had this
word from the Lord, an expectation. We read in Psalm 105, until his
time came, the word of the Lord tried him. It must have been
a hard time to wait, that time when the prison door was open,
and when he was brought before Pharaoh. But we are to wait upon
the Lord in this way, And may our prayer be that the Lord would
direct our hearts, not only into the love of God, but into the
patient waiting for Christ. It is the Lord's coming that
sets everything right, that does what we cannot do when He appears,
when He answers our petitions, when He works for us. For may
the Lord grant us the Desire and petition here may be our
prayer as well. It may also be that which we
reflect on. How much has the Lord already
directed our hearts into these things? How much do we already
know something of the love of God? Know something of patiently
waiting for Christ? Be able to say, perhaps like
dear Hannah, For this child I prayed, and the Lord hath given me my
petition that I've asked of him. And there's that waiting, those
that wait upon the Lord, how much is spoken in the word of
God are the blessing of those that wait upon the Lord. Lord,
grant us that blessing. The Lord direct our hearts into
him. Amen.