You'll find your seat and a spiral-bound
hymnal, please. We'll sing number 28 and we'll
stand together to sing. God has mercy on whom He will,
and whom He will, He hardens still. To whom He will, He gives
His grace, and when He will, He hides His face. Let none despise God's sovereign
throne, He does what He will with His own. It is His right
to save or kill, According to His sovereign will. Yes, God saves some and others'
lives to reap the fruit of their own ways. In the eternal ages
past, God made His choice and it stands fast. Aware that I'm
a guilty man, and that I'm in God's sovereign hand. Prostrate I fall before His throne,
a wretched, helpless, guilty one. Lord, if you will, you can,
I say, take all my guilt and sin away. A guilty sinner at
your throne, I beg for mercy through your Son. Now trusting
Jesus Christ, God's son, I know that I'm his chosen one. And God's eternal sovereign choice
makes this poor sinner's heart rejoice. Be seated, please. Good morning. That hymn reminds
me of what the leper said to our Lord when he said, Lord,
I know that you can heal me if thou will. Our Lord is able and our dependence
is on his willingness. We're going to be in 2 Thessalonians
chapter 3. If you think about it, the false
gospel declares just the opposite. They would say that God is willing,
but he's not able. His ability is limited by our
willingness, and we know that's not true. Let's go before the Lord and
ask his blessings on his word. Our merciful heavenly father,
we ask that you would be pleased this morning to send your spirit
and power to fulfill your precious promises, to meet with your people,
to lift up Christ, to give free course to thy word, cause it
to be effectual and powerful, cause it to enlighten the eyes
of our understanding, cause it to give faith to our hearts,
cause it to to enable us to rest the hope
of our salvation in the glorious person and accomplished work
of thy dear son. For it's in his name we pray,
amen. 2 Thessalonians chapter three
at verse one, Finally, brethren, pray for us that the word of
the Lord may have free course and be glorified even as it is
with you. Now in the next few verses, the
Lord's gonna tell us what happens when he gives his word free course. Whenever we come together, that
is always our hope and our prayer, that the Lord would cause his
word to run, that's what free course means, unhindered. What
is it that hinders God's word? Well, it's our unbelief. Hebrews chapter 12, verse one
says, seeing also that we are compassed about with a great
cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside the weight and the sin
which doth so easily beset us and let us run with endurance,
with patience. This race of faith is a marathon,
it's not a sprint. And we bear in our bodies and
in our old man a spirit of unbelief. That's the sin that doth so easily
beset us. That's the root cause of all
of our other sins. It's our unwillingness and inability
to believe God. We are always, as believers,
crying, Lord I believe, help thou mine unbelief. Lord, Lord,
keep my old man from causing me to not believe you. Lord, enable me by your Spirit.
Give your Word free course. Let it run without any weights. He goes on to say, let us run
with patience the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus,
the author and the finisher of our faith, who for the joy that
was set before him endured the cross and despised its shame. He goes on in that Hebrews chapter
12 passage to tell us that we've not yet resisted unto blood,
which means that this life of faith is a fight, it's a race
and there's encumbering weights that would keep us. And so Paul
finishes this epistle by saying, pray for us that the word of
the Lord may have free course, that it may run without hindrance. I want you to notice that if
this is to be, if God's word is to have free course among
us and in us, it'll be because God made it so. That's why Paul said, pray. What is prayer? Is it not our? dependence on the Lord that not
hours crying out to the Lord, Lord there I've got all sorts
of weights that would hinder me I've got all sorts of things
that would cause me to look away from Christ rather than looking
unto Jesus Lord there's there's so much unbelief in my in my
heart Lord help me help me Lord, if you don't do it, if you don't
cause your Word to be effectual, if you don't cause it to be powerful,
if you don't cause it to reveal Christ and to help me, it'll
fall on deaf ears. The best sermon will not cause
the Word of God to be effectual. It is right and proper that we
prepare and that we do all things, as the scripture says, decently
and in order when we come together for worship. And we try to prepare
for this hour, but all the preparations that we make will be of no avail,
except Psalm 127, except the Lord build the house, they labor
in vain, which build it. Except the Lord watch over the
city, the watchman watcheth in vain. All that we
do and all that we prepare for and all that we plan for will
be of no profit, it'll be of no benefit if the Lord doesn't
bless it. So we're first and foremost, reminded of the importance and
the necessity of God blessing this. What did Moses say when
the Lord was about to lead the children of Israel away from
Mount Sinai out into the wilderness? Moses went before the Lord and
said, Lord, if you don't go with us, don't let us take another
step or don't let us leave this place unless you're going to
be with us. And so Here's our prayer. Lord, if you don't bless your
word, if you don't cause it to be alive, if you don't send your spirit
and power, it'll fall on deaf ears. It'll
have no effect in my life. David prayed, to the Lord to
forgive him of his presumptuous sins. Whenever we expect something
from God without prayer, we're being presumptuous. It is prayer
that expresses our dependence and need on him. How presumptuous
we can be. We live most of our lives in
presumption, don't we? Drawing our next breath, never
giving thought as to where it comes from. Waking up and seeing
the sunrise and just assuming that we'll enjoy the sunset of
that day and live another day. We live our lives in presumption.
May God make his word right now effectual? Might he give it free
course in our hearts and remind us of our dependence upon him
for everything? Why would the Lord have us to
pray Well, look at our text. Finally, brethren pray for us
that the word of the Lord may have free course and be glorified. Well, apart from prayer, we'll
credit ourselves with having come to some understanding. We'll
credit ourselves with having seen something that other men
can't see. If the Lord's to be glorified,
he will set the heart first to pray so that when the blessing
comes, we'll be mindful as to where it came from. I'm reminded often of what David
said in Psalm 115 when he said, Oh Lord, not unto us, not unto
us, but unto thy name be glory for thy mercy and for thy truth's
sake. Lord, you're the one to be glorified.
And the Lord knows. He knows that we're made of dust.
He knows how vain we are. He knows that man at his very
best state is altogether vanity. He knows that a man at his best
is a man at best. That we're glory hogs. He knows that. And so he, He
first sets the heart to pray so that we'll be reminded when
the blessing comes. We experienced this this morning
in the men's study before the service. The Lord had directed
our conversation to talk about the brevity of life. And the
old men were saying to the young men just this morning, just a
few minutes ago, about how fast our lives have gone by. Not knowing
that Daniel, who was to read the scriptures and lead us in
prayer this morning, was going to be reading from Psalm 90. which speaks of the brevity of
life and the man being three score and ten, being the age
of our lives. I mean, everything in Psalm 90
just reaffirmed the very conversation that the Lord had put on our
hearts to have. And it was obvious that God was
giving His Word free course. He was confirming His Word By the things that he had put
on our hearts. And how many times you've had
that experience in worship where the Lord took something from
his word and spoke to a specific need that you had, that you've
been thinking about and struggling with. And I had a brother ask
me recently, for an appointment. Can we get together for lunch?
I've got something I want to discuss with you. And I said,
sure. And then within a couple of days
before we had had a chance to organize a time together, he
came back to me and he said, oh, I listened to a message just
the other day. It answered all my questions. We don't need to meet. And that's wonderful. That's
wonderful. That's how God That's how God
prayed that the Lord would give his word free course that it
might be glorified. And the word of God is glorified
when Christ is glorified. In the volume of the book it
is written of me. And so when God's word, when God gives his
word free course, when he makes it unhindered, when that race
is run without the weight that would so easily beset us and
the sin that would be easily, when God gives faith and faith
comes by hearing, we know that. And hearing comes by the word
of God. So the necessity of God's word and the necessity of prayer,
when When the church first came together in Jerusalem and 3,000
souls were saved and already there was contention among the
believers as to some distribution of food and different problems
that they were having, the apostles got together and said, it's not
right for us to leave prayer and the preparation of God's
word. in order to wait on tables and they appointed men to take
care of that problem. And I think it's interesting
that Peter mentioned prayer before he mentioned the preparation
of God's Word. He said, what God has called us to is to pray,
to seek God's face, to ask for his favor, to ask for his grace
and his mercy, and then to seek in God's word, a word of truth
and hope that would point men to Christ. Pray that the word
of God might have free course and be glorified. When God's
word has free course, it's glorified. We're, our mouths are shut. We're
caused to believe God and to say truth, Lord. Truth, Lord,
that's what I needed. I needed a word from God. Nothing
else was going to help me. But God gave his word free course. We ask him to do it. The Lord,
and you know, speaking of David's presumptuous sin, the Lord Jesus
himself said, you have not because you ask not. You know, we, how
important it is. The Lord's not gonna glorify
his word and glorify Christ and give his word free course until
he humbles us. He gives grace to the humble. He resists the proud. Is there
anything more proud in that our unwillingness to pray? Our lack
of need for God? That's what prayer is. He gives
grace. He humbles the heart and then
he gives grace to the humble. And the proud and self-righteous,
the arrogant, the independent, Those who don't seek his face
know nothing of the free course of his word. It's all of the Lord. It's not
that we set our hearts right and then God will reward us for
our humility. No, God sets the heart right
and God humbles the heart. and God gets all the glory. His
word is glorified because we know that it was he that caused
us. Turn with me to 2 Corinthians
chapter four. 2 Corinthians chapter four. You know, in 1 Corinthians, Paul
said, when I came to you, I came to you in weakness and in fear
and in much trembling and my speech and my preaching was not
with enticing words of the wisdom of man. So Paul is in this first
letter to the church at Corinth, says to them, I didn't come to
you with eloquence of speech. It wasn't my ability to convince
you. I came to you with the word of
God, and God got all the glory. And now look what he says in
2 Corinthians 4 at verse 5. For we preach not ourselves,
but Christ Jesus the Lord, and ourselves your servants for Jesus'
sake. For God, who commanded the light
to shine out of darkness, And that's a reference that goes
all the way back to Genesis chapter 1. The earth was without form
and void and darkness was upon the face of the deep. That was
the condition of the world. And God said, let there be light. And the light shined. And now
there's no more darkness. And that's a picture of our spiritual
condition. We're without form and void and
empty and darkness is upon it. And God has to say, let there
be light. He has to shine that light from
heaven in our hearts. God who commanded the light to
shine out of darkness hath shined in our hearts to give the light
of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. Moses prayed, Lord, show me thy
glory. Show me thy glory in Exodus chapter
33. And the Lord said, I'll show
you my glory by causing my goodness to pass before thee. And, but
I'm gonna have to hide you in the cleft of a rock and put my
hand over you and cause my backside to be seen by you. And what a
picture of our salvation. Lord, if the Lord is gonna show
us his glory, he's gonna hide us in a rock. That rock is Christ. He's gonna have to put his handle
on us. Our hands are unclean. His hand
is the only hand that's clean before God. And, and he's gonna
have to cause us to see where he's been, his backside, what
he has done. We don't, we can't. Faith is
not believing that God's gonna do something in the future apart
from what he's promised to do. Faith is looking back and believing
that God was faithful in doing exactly what he said he would
do. Looking back to the cross. believing
that the Lord Jesus Christ was successful in accomplishing the
salvation of his people by bearing their sins and making himself
an offering to the Father. We look there, Moses said, God
said, I'll cause you to see my backside and that'll be my glory. The glory of God will be in the
face of Jesus Christ. to see him for who he is and
what he accomplished is the glory of God. Now look at verse seven. But we have this treasure in
earthen vessels that the excellency of the power might be of God
and not of us. There's our old man. There's
that body of death. There's that man of sin, that
wicked man, that man that Paul said he called a wretched man,
O wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body
of this death? We have this treasure in an earthen
vessel, a clay vessel. And we're troubled on every side,
yet not dismayed. We are perplexed, yet not in
despair. We're not without hope. We're
persecuted but not forsaken, cast down but not destroyed,
always bearing in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus Christ. So this matter of dying continually
to self, we're taking up our cross, crucifying
the old man, believing that he died. on Calvary's cross, wrecking
ourselves, reckoning ourselves to be dead, indeed, unto sin. Why? Because we are. Christ died,
we died. We're dying men. All the hope that we have is
in the life of the Lord Jesus Christ, the life that he gives
us. In another place, the scripture
tells us that Christ in you is your hope of glory. You have
no hope of glory apart from the life of Christ. That's why we
say that Christ is not the most important thing in my life. Christ
doesn't show me what life is. Christ is my life. He is my life. Outside of him, I have no life.
Outside of him, I'm dead. Outside of the righteousness
of Christ, I have nothing but sin. So we have this treasure in earthen
vessels that the excellency of the power might be of God and
not of us. He gets all the glory. He gets all the glory. The only
message of salvation that has ever been told and ever been
heard that gives to God all the glory is the saving power of
God in the accomplished work and glorious person of the Lord
Jesus Christ. Every other message of salvation
that's being told out there strips from God his glory and gives
man something to do, something to glory in. Well, you know,
I did this or I did that or I made a decision or I prayed this prayer
and God No, no. When God's word has free course,
he gets the glory. Look back with me to our text,
2 Thessalonians 3. Pray for us that the word of
the Lord may have free course. Oh, how we need God's word to
have free course to be unhindered by our unbelief, to arrest us
and cause us to believe God in spite of this old man that we
carry about with us, to put to death the old man, to make us
alive in Christ, to shine the light of the glory of God in
the face of the Lord Jesus Christ in this darkened heart of unbelief. Lord, you've got to do it. Pray
that God's word would have unhindered, unweighted race, free course
in our hearts. If it does, he'll be glorified.
And look at verse two. And that we may be delivered
from unreasonable and wicked men. When God's word has free
course, it delivers us from the, this word unreasonable is the
word absurdity. That's the word. It delivers
us from the absurdity of lies. It delivers us from the absurdity
of free will, man-made, works religion that would rob from
Christ his glory and give us something to be proud of, something
to do in order to obligate God to save us. When God's word has
free course, it delivers us from that absurdity. But it not only
delivers us from the absurdity of a works religion, but it delivers
us from the absurdity of the wicked man that's in me. For
it's that man that says, I need to be afraid. It's that man that causes me
to be afraid. When God says, fear not. Who
am I gonna believe? You see, when God's word has
free course, when the spirit of God blesses his word and glorifies
Christ, all of a sudden, all of a sudden by the power of God, my fear begins to fade away.
By the power of God, I find myself looking unto Jesus. By the power
of God, I begin to believe that He is working all things together
for good and for His glory, for them that love Him and those
that are called according to His purpose. All of a sudden,
the absurdities of my unbelief are exposed for what they are. unreasonable. He delivers me
from the unreasonable man that I am and his Word begins to have
preeminence and power and deliverance. Why should I be discouraged when
I have a clear promise from God? that he reigns, why should I
be dismayed? Where do discouragement and dismay
and doubt and fear, where do they come from? They come from
the absurdity and the unreasonableness of the wicked man. They're the
evidences of sin. And it's only when God gives
his word free course when he empowers his word that I'm able
to believe God by faith over believing that which I would
otherwise be caught up with in sight. You see that, don't you? You have that experience, don't
you? We're always looking somewhere else. We're always being given
circumstances and evidences that would confirm our unbelief. Those things are sent by God to try our faith. What are you
gonna believe? You believe what you see or you
can believe what I said? Oh, Lord. You see, if you heard what I just said, if
God's word has free course right now, you're saying in your heart,
Lord, how oftentimes I doubt what you said because I believe
what I see. And it's because your word has
not had free course in my heart. Oh, Lord, make it so. Make it
so. Give your word free course. Lord,
increase my faith. Cause me to believe you. When God's word has free course,
it is glorified because Christ is glorified. We are delivered
from the absurdity the unreasonableness of wicked men, not just the men
outside, but the man inside. Look at, for all men have not
faith. They have no faith. And there's
a man that I live with every day that doesn't have faith.
You know who that man is? By experience, you know who that
man is? Yeah. I know you do. Lord, I believe. Help thou mine unbelief. For all men have not faith. That
man doesn't have any faith. God makes you alive in Christ
and gives you faith to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. That
old man hasn't changed. He didn't get improved. He didn't
get a portion of that faith. He's still as dead and unbelieving
and sinful as he's ever been. And you bear him about in your
bodies constantly. And here's our prayer. Pray that
the Lord would give his word free course. When he gives his word free course,
look at the next verse. But the Lord is faithful who
will establish you and keep you from evil. Oh, if we believe not, yet he
abideth faithful for he cannot deny himself. Lord, in all of my unbelief and
all of my fears and all of my doubts, I know that the Lord
Jesus Christ is faithful. He never had any of those, any
of that unbelief. He didn't have an old nature.
He only bore that, he bore that sin on the cross and he experienced
the fullness of it, the blackness of it, the shame of it, the penalty
of it when he bore the sins of his people in his body on Calvary's
cross. But he did that in faith. Because the very last thing that
the Lord Jesus said when he bowed his mighty head on Calvary's
cross is, Father, into thy hands, I commend my spirit. And he gave
up the ghost. He died a perfect death. Believing
God perfectly. Believing His Father perfectly. And so, when God's Word has free
course, He's glorified. We're caused to say, Lord deliver
me from this evil man. And we know that all the hope
of our salvation is in His faithfulness. That's why Paul said, oh, that
I might be found in him, in him. God requires perfect faith. That new man is looking as sinful
and unchanged as the old man is. The new man given to us in
Christ is perfect without blame. Unblameable and unreprovable
in God's sight. He's the fullness of the Godhead
bodily and you are complete in Him. So it's Christ in you that's
the hope of your glory. We have the perfect faith of
the Lord Jesus Christ if we have Christ. We have all of Him. And He's all of our hope in salvation
before God. Oh Lord, give your word free
course. Glorify yourself. Deliver me from the unreasonableness
of this, the absurdity of this wicked man that would doubt God. And cause me, this is what happens
when God's word has free course, cause me to rest all my salvation
in the faithfulness of the Lord Jesus Christ. Lord, I've not
been faithful, but he is, he is. I want you to notice one little
verb in this verse three, the word shall. That verb is in the future tense
as it is expressed in our English language, shall. He shall establish you. He's
talking about the hope of our salvation in eternal glory. In
all the stammering and stumbling of our walk here in this world,
the promise here is that he's going to be faithful to bring
you to glory and to establish you eternally in Christ. He's gonna present you faultless
before the throne of God. He's not gonna lose a single
one of his sheep. When God's word has free course,
not only do we look in faith to the faithfulness of the Lord
Jesus Christ, not only do we give to him the glory for all
of our salvation not only do we see the wicked man that's
within us and the unreasonableness of that wicked man but our hope
is that he's going to be faithful to his promise in bringing us
into glory. He shall establish you, give
you an unshaken hope, reveal him in the fullness of his glory. Look at verse, he'll be faithful
to keep you, look at verse three, but the Lord is faithful who
shall establish you and keep you from evil. Now, I know as well as you do
that Satan is cunning. He is deceiving. The scripture
calls him a roaring lion who walketh about seeking whom he
may devour. He's the prince of the power
of the air, the scripture calls him. He's everywhere. Just as
air is everywhere, he's everywhere. But here's the promise that we
have. When the spirit of God comes and makes the word of God
have free course in our hearts and gives us faith in Christ, we're caused to see three things.
Number one, that we're sinners and that that sin is rooted in
our unbelief. Number two, we have no righteousness
and all of our righteousness is in the Lord Jesus Christ who's
seated at the right hand of God Almighty. And number three, the
prince of this world has been judged. The Lord Jesus Christ, the scripture
says, destroyed the works of the devil. Child of God, the
devil is God's devil and he's on a chain and he cannot devour
you. He cannot devour you. He cannot destroy you eternally. The Lord will deliver you from
evil. We're taught to pray that, are
we not? Lord, keep us from temptation
and deliver us from evil. In the model prayer, that was
the last thing the Lord said to pray. And we know ourselves
well enough to know that when we're tempted, that temptation
alone is associated with sin. Lord, don't let me be tempted.
I don't have any strength over it. I don't have any power. Lord,
you're gonna have to deliver me from the evil one. You're
gonna have to keep me. God's word has free course. We're
caused to believe that. Submit yourself therefore to
God and resist the devil and he shall flee from thee. It doesn't
say pull yourselves up by your bootstraps and resist the devil
and grit your teeth and show your determination and pick up
your spiritual activity and you can overcome the devil. No, submit
yourself unto God. There's what comes first and
then Resist them, the scripture says, resist him in the faith. What is that? It's looking unto
Jesus, the author and the finisher of our faith. He was the one
who suffered the contradiction of sinners. He's the one who
knew the power and temptation of sin like
you and I have never known it and yet He said not. And so in these times where it
seems like God's word is not having free course, the Lord's
telling us to look to Christ. Notice in verse four, when God's
word has free course and we have confidence in the Lord touching
you, that you both do and will do the things which we command
you. Our confidence is in him. We are the true circumcision,
the scripture says, who worship God in the spirit, rejoicing
Christ Jesus and have no confidence in the flesh. He increases, we
decrease. Our confidence is in him, not
in ourselves. Paul said, being confident of
this very thing, that he which hath begun a good work in you
will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ. He's gonna be
faithful and he's gonna perform his word. We're confident of
that. Our confidence is in him. God's
word has free course. Our confidence is no longer in
ourselves, it's in him. And notice what he says, that
you will do the things which we command you. That when God's
word has free course, It causes a willing obedience from a heart
of love. God's commandments are not burdensome. When God's word has free course
in our hearts, there's a desire to obey him. We've never been
able to keep any of, we're not talking about being under the
law, we've never been able to keep any of God's laws perfectly.
But God puts into the heart when he gives his word free course,
Lord, I love thy law. Lord, keep me from the evil one.
Cause me to walk in faith and cause me to walk after Christ.
In closing, turn with me to Hebrews, Hebrews chapter four. Look at verse 12. For the word
of God is quick and powerful and sharper than any two-edged
sword. When God's word has free course, that word quick means
alive. It's a living word. It's not
just some intellectual concept. It's not a precept. It's a living
word. When it has free course, it becomes
alive and it becomes alive to me and comes to my heart. And it's powerful. It's effectual. And it's sharper than any two-edged
sword. It pierces even to the dividing asunder of soul and
spirit and joints and marrow and a discerner of the thoughts
and intents of the heart. God's Word exposes my thoughts
and my intents for what they are. Neither is there any creature
that is not manifest in his sight. Lord, you know me throughly. You know everything there is
to know about me. But all things are naked and
open unto the eyes of him with whom we have to do. Lord, there's no hiding anything
from you. Seeing then, if that's true,
if God's word has had free course, if it's been like a sword that
is exposed to you, the thoughts and intents of your heart, and
that there is a God with whom you must do, and there is a God
that knows every thought you've ever had. David said in Psalm
139, you know my thoughts before I think them. If that's true,
seeing then, that we have a great high priest that is passed into
the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God. Let us hold our profession. What is our profession? It is
finished. Christ is my life. He's my righteousness. He's my salvation. He's my hope. If God judges me on what he sees
in my heart, I'm in trouble. I need a priest. I need an intercessor. I need one who's able to stand
in my stead and present himself on my behalf before God. Here's
what happens when the word of God has free course. It leads
us to Christ. And we have not a high priest
which cannot be touched with the feelings of our infirmities.
but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin. Now the real problem with sin
is the separation that it causes between us and God, the shame
that it causes, and the sorrow that it causes. Now, if the Lord Jesus Christ
never sinned, how could he experience those things? When God made him
who knew no sin to be made sin, that we might be made the righteousness
of God in Christ, in him? When he bore our sins in his
body, that wasn't just, oh, I'm just gonna take the penalty of
sin. He experienced there on Calvary's cross. What's the reason
for the three hours of total darkness on the earth? From 12
to three o'clock, the sun was blackened. What's the reason
for the Lord Jesus crying out from the cross, my God, my God,
why hast thou forsaken me? What's the reason for him saying,
I thirst? He was experiencing separation,
Shame and sorrow like you and I have never known. We have not a high priest who's
unable to be touched by the feelings of our infirmities, but was in
all ways tempted even as we are, yet he himself was without sin. Look at the last verse. Let us
therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace that we may obtain
mercy. Mercy. What is mercy? Bible talks about mercy and grace.
What's the difference between the two? Grace is God giving
to us something we don't deserve. Mercy is God withholding from
us what we do deserve. That we may obtain mercy. Lord,
withhold from me what I deserve. Let the sacrifice that Christ
made on Calvary's cross be sufficient to satisfy your justice for the
penalty of what I deserve. And give me help. For I'm in
need. I'm in need. Oh, brethren, let
us pray that God's word would have free course. Amen. All right, let's take a break.