Good morning. Let's open this
morning's service with the hymn that's found in the Gospel Hymns
spiral notebook, or spiral hymn book, number 18, number 18, The
Bible is a Book of Christ. And let's all stand together,
number 18. God gave his holy inspired word
for only one great end, the prophets and apostles to reveal the sinner's
friend. The Bible is a book of Christ,
it only speaks of Him. On every page it shows us Christ,
it only speaks of Him. The prophecies of old record
God's wondrous mighty deeds. Those deeds of power and of grace
set forth the woman see. The Bible is a book of Christ. It only speaks of Him. On every page it shows us Christ,
it wholly speaks of Him. The prophets all reveal our Lord
as prophet, priest, and king. The types the great redemptions
show, His blood and grace now bring. The Bible is a book of
Christ, it only speaks of Him. On every page it shows us Christ,
it only speaks of Him. Behold the Lamb, the Baptist
said, the sin-atoning One. As it was promised long before,
God's Son as man has come. The Bible is a book of Christ,
it only speaks of Him. On every page it shows us Christ,
it only speaks of Him. Our substitute obeyed the law,
then died and rose again. And in his word our Savior said,
Rejoice, I come again. ? The Bible is a book of Christ
? It only speaks of him ? On every page it shows us Christ
? It only speaks of him Please be seated. Oh, how we hope that the Lord
would reveal Christ to us from his word this morning. That's
our whole purpose of being here. To know him, to worship him.
Well, good morning. Everybody have power? I know
John Glorgrace doesn't. And Michael Etheridge doesn't. You guys don't. Okay. Well, we
got a little taste this week of how Solomon and all of his
glory lived. No electricity, no water. Take those things for granted,
don't we? I'm very thankful that Lord spared everybody's life
and only damage that I've heard about with property was pretty
minor compared to what it could be, so thankful. Good to have the Hardmans with
us, Daryl and Joyce, And Brad and Pam, Pam's going to sing
for us in the second hour. So look forward to that. We're going to be in 2 Thessalonians
chapter 3. I had to move back up here because
the wireless mic that we now have with the new sound system
doesn't work. from down there. It'll work up here, but it won't
work if it's near those speakers. So we'll just go back to the
way we did it before, first hour. All right. Second Thessalonians
chapter three. Let's ask the Lord's blessings
together on our time. Our merciful heavenly father,
Oh, how we hope and pray that you would be pleased now to send
your spirit in power. To open what no man can shut.
We pray that you would open our hearts. We pray that you would
open your word. Pray that you would open the
eyes of our understanding. Pray that you would enable us
now in this time. To look to Christ, to rest in
Christ, to find him to be our all in all and to to know the
hope of our salvation. We do thank you for your providence. We know that you do all things
well, and we know that everything happens for your glory and for
the good of your children. We thank you for your mercies.
Thank you for your protection. We thank you for your provisions. We ask, Lord, that you would
cause our hearts to be content and grateful in all the things
that you've given to us. We ask it in Christ's name, amen. I forgot to mention that Armida
is in the hospital and saw her yesterday or Friday, Friday. And I thought she would be going
home, but I found out this morning she's still there. So she's in
Altamont. Is that right, Rinaldo? She's still there, right? Okay. Is she still improving? Do you
think she'll go home? Maybe today or tomorrow. Okay.
Okay. The last two Wednesday nights
I've dealt with the first four verses of this chapter. And just
by way of review, I want to go back quickly and read them and
then deal with the conclusion of this epistle as we try to
cover the rest of these verses as the Lord enables us. Paul
concludes his letter by saying, finally, brethren, pray for us. I titled a message the other
Wednesday night. Last but not least, he says,
finally, pray But in fact, prayer is something that we do first,
middle, and last. Prayer is what faith does. Prayer
is to faith what breathing is to life. And so the Lord's admonishing
us to pray. Prayer is an expression of dependence
and humility, which is the evidence of grace, isn't it? People who don't pray have no
need, but the poor and the needy find themselves always in prayer,
praying without ceasing. Do we pray as we ought? No, because
we don't have the faith that we ought to have. And so we find
ourselves ashamed of how little we pray. I mentioned this past
Wednesday night, why don't I pray for you more than I do? Why don't
you pray for me more than you do? And the answer to that question
is very simple. It's because we're so consumed
with ourselves that we forget, don't we? It's just the way we
are. But hear the Lord's admonishing
His children. Make this a matter of prayer,
particularly when it comes to the free course of the gospel. that pray for the word to be
effectual. Pray for God to bless the gospel
to the salvation of your soul first. Lord, bless the word to
my heart and then give it free course. Let it run freely that
it might glorify you. And I love this last phrase in
verse 1 where Paul says, even as it has with you, If you don't pray for somebody
because you think that they're beyond salvation, at that point,
and we don't pray for a lot of people as we ought, but if our
motivation for not praying is because we think they're beyond
salvation, at that point, we cease to become the chief of
all sinners. Here's what Paul's saying to the church. If God
made the gospel to have free course with you, he can do it
with anybody. and that your experience if God
saved me he can save anybody if he had mercy upon me so he says be amazed that the
Lord was pleased and merciful and gracious to save you and
then pray that he'll do the same thing for others verse 2 and
that he may be delivered that we may be delivered from unreasonable
and wicked men for all men have not faith uh... some of the absurd that word
unreasonable is the word absurd and some of the absurdities that
men come up with that satan gives men as a distraction from the
gospel is amazing You think you've heard it all
until something else comes out. And you think, wow, where'd that
come from? Where did that come from? Unreasonable absurdities. What are they? They're distractions
from the gospel. And the Lord will use anyone
to do that. So, Lord, deliver us. Deliver
us that we not be deceived by the absurdities of men, that
we maintain the simplicity of the gospel. Now what Paul said,
he said, I fear lest you, as Satan deceived Eve, that you
should be drawn away from the simplicity that is in Christ. And it hasn't changed. Satan's
still trying to confuse the issue, muddy the waters, and distract
us away from Christ. Verse three, but the Lord is
faithful, and there's our hope. There's our hope. I would be
deceived, you would be deceived. We would be drawn away with the
most absurd doctrines if it wasn't for the faithfulness of the Lord.
Paul didn't say, I'm trusting your faithfulness to not be deceived
and not be drawn away. No, I'm trusting the Lord to
be faithful. When I'm not faithful, he remaineth
faithful. His faithfulness is the hope
of our salvation, the faithfulness of the Lord Jesus Christ. Paul
said, I am crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live yet, not
I, but Christ liveth in me, the life that I now live, I live
by the faith of the Son of God. My faith is so wavering, so up
and down, so weak, but he was faithful. God requires perfect
faith. Perfect faith. The Lord Jesus
Christ was faithful to the Father, to his dying breath, wasn't he?
Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit. It's finished. The
work that you sent me to do, I was faithful to do it all.
And so the Lord, there's our hope. There's our hope that the
Lord is faithful and he shall establish you and he shall keep
you from evil, from all unbelief. He'll keep you. If you're a child
of God, can you be deceived? Can you go astray? No doubt. You know you can. You do it frequent enough, don't
you? But here's our hope. The Lord's
got His sheep on a leash, and He never lets them fall over
the precipice. He always brings them back. And
that's what he says in the next verse, we have confidence in
the Lord touching you. Our confidence is not in you,
our confidence is in the Lord concerning you. That you will
both do and will do the things which we command you.
Faith believes God's word. It just does. It can help it. it just it doesn't it doesn't
pick and choose what it believes it doesn't take part of God's
word out this book concludes with the admonition if any man
adds to the words of the prophecy of this book that the the curses
of this book of added unto him we don't do that any man takes
away from the prophecies of this book then his name will be taken
away out of the book of life In other words, he'll have no
hope of salvation. Faith believes everything God
says. And Paul says, we're confident. We're confident that the Lord's
going to establish you in his word. We're confident that you're
going to believe everything that God says. Why? Because he's faithful to make
you. He's faithful to make you. And the Lord direct your hearts
to the love of God and to the patient waiting of Christ. Now,
Paul said in 1 Corinthians, I think chapter 5, if any man be in Christ,
he is a new creature. Old things are passed away, yea,
all things have become new. And all things are of God. all things are of God. All these
new things that God has given to the new heart. Now what does
the new heart do? The new nature. We're not interested
in God changing our old heart. We're interested in God taking
out the old heart and giving us a new heart. What does the
new heart do that the old heart could not do? Well, two things
according to this verse. Loves God and is patiently awaiting,
hopeful anticipation of the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. The
Spirit of God reminding us every day that this world is not our
home, that we are but pilgrims passing through, that the Lord
has gone before us as the forerunner and he has prepared a place for
us. It's already prepared. and he's
coming again to receive us unto himself so that where he is there
we shall be also." You know what the Lord said? Let not your heart
be troubled. You believe in God, believe also
in me. For in my Father's house are
many mansions. If it were not so, I would have told you. But
I go and prepare a place. And that place has been prepared.
When the Lord Jesus Christ entered back into glory, The Word of
God did not return unto God void. He brought with Him the names
of those for whom He lived and died, and He now lives at the
right hand of God, interceding for those He redeemed. Everything's prepared. We have
an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the Righteous One.
And He ever lives to make intercession for us. And there's our hope,
isn't it? If God's given you a new heart,
you have a heart now that loves God. Loves the things of God. Loves the Word of God. Loves
God's people. Now, before the new heart, we're not
in love for God. We didn't have any interest in
the things of God. Now, is that love Perfect? No, no more than our faith is
perfect. Yeah, we do have faith and we do have love. I love thinking
about when the Lord rebuked Peter. Peter, that shameful denial that
Peter made on that fateful night when our Lord was arrested, cursing
that he even knew the Lord. Had you asked Peter after that,
Peter, are you saved? Peter would have said, absolutely
not. I've lost all hope of my salvation. I'm shamed. And he crawled into a hole and
he lost his joy. He lost his peace. He lost his
assurance. He lost his comfort. He lost
all fellowship with God. Did he lose his salvation? No.
No. If you had asked Peter, Peter,
do you believe that Jesus is the Christ, the son of the living
God? He would have said with all my heart. with all my heart,
I believe that. So the Lord had to come get him,
didn't he? And that's the same way. What is the means by which
God disciplines his children? We know from the book of Hebrews
that if you're not disciplined, you're not a child of God. He
chastises his children. What is the means of his chastisement? Sickness? financial difficulties, troubles
in this world? No. No. Those are not the means
that the Lord uses to discipline his children. Matter of fact,
some of the greatest blessings that the child of God will ever
experience in this life will come on their deathbed, will
come in the midst of the hardest trials and troubles that they
experience in this life. The means by which the Lord disciplines
His children is to just leave them to themselves for a little
while, withdraw His peace, withdraw the hope of their salvation,
quench His Holy Spirit, leave them in fear and doubt and uncertainty
of of whether or not they're even saved. And that will cause them to cry
out, Oh Lord, save me. Don't leave me to myself. Don't
leave me to myself. Now that's where Peter was. Peter
was the same place where David was after David did what he did
with Bathsheba. It took him nine months before
the Lord sent Nathan to confront David and say, David, thou art
the man. You think David was a happy man
during those nine months? He was absolutely miserable.
He prayed in Psalm 51, Lord, take not thy Holy Spirit from
me. Lord, you've broken the bones
of my heart. You see, it's the, I don't know any other way to
put it than just the withdrawal of the awareness of His presence. Now He said I'll never leave
you nor forsake you. But when you lose the awareness
of His presence, you lose your peace, you lose your hope. a prophet to Nathan the Lord
Jesus Christ himself went to Peter didn't he? Peter lovest
thou me? Lovest thou me? Now you can look up these words
I've mentioned this before but maybe you maybe didn't hear it
or maybe there's somebody new here but There's two, there's
three different words in the Greek language for love. One
of them is agape and one of them is phileo. Now you can remember
phileo because that's the word from which the city of Philadelphia
is named after. Delphos is brother and phileo
is brotherly love. And so what do we call the city
of Philadelphia? The city of brotherly love. I've been to
Philadelphia. There's not a lot of brotherly
love going on up there. But that's the Word. That's the
Word. And you look up that passage in John chapter 21 where the
Lord talks to Peter and reconciles Peter to himself. Peter, agape
thou me? Simon, son of Jonah, agape thou
me? Now that's God's love. And you
know what Peter said? Lord, I phileo you. And the second time, the Lord
says, Simon, son of Jonas, agape thou me? And Peter said, Lord,
I phileo you. And the third time, the Lord
said, Simon, son of Jonah, phileo thou me? And the Lord said, Lord, you
know all things. You know my heart, Peter said. What's the message? What's the
message there for us? Peter was saying, Lord, I love
you best I can, but I don't love you near like you love me. And
if I put the hope of my salvation on how much I love you, I'm in
trouble. But if I look to your love for
me, for the hope of my salvation, now I have peace, now I have
comfort, now I have hope. Yes, you've put in my heart a
love for Christ." And that's what the Lord's saying here.
The Lord direct your hearts into the love of God and into the
patient waiting of Christ. There's the new heart. The new
heart loves God and patiently waits for the Lord Jesus Christ.
Now, the Lord's going to tell us in the next few verses on,
you know, One of the problems that husbands
and wives have in disciplining their children is sometimes they're
not on the same page. That's always a bad thing for
the children. It's always a bad thing. So husbands and wives,
get together and decide on what you think needs to be done with
the kids. You know, don't show a divided
front before your children. That's never going to be good
for them. And now the Lord's telling us
in the rest of this passage how we ought to act towards a brother
who falls away and doesn't heed the initial rebuke. Galatians
Chapter 6 says, if a brother fall into a fault, you which
are spiritual restore such a one in the spirit of meekness considering
thyself lest you be tempted. So, you know, we are to help
a brother or sister who falls into an error, into some absurdity. What if they dig in their heels? What if they continue in that
spirit of rebellion? Well, we're to be in agreement
with our Heavenly Father and treat them the same way He does. Treat them the same way he does.
How does he treat you? He withdraws himself, doesn't
he? Isn't that the means by which
the Lord shames and convicts and brings you to repentance? Withdrawing himself? Well, look
what he says. Now we commend you, brethren,
in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, that you withdraw yourself
from every brother that walketh disorderly and not after the
traditions which he received of us. Warn them, pray for them, and
then withdraw yourself. Don't you hate it when there's
an offense between you and somebody else and they act like nothing's
wrong? Now, wait a minute. This is, we have a problem here. We need to, you know, and they
just want to act like, well, you know, everything's fine.
Nothing's wrong. And that's what the Lord's saying. No, something's
wrong here. Withdraw yourself. For you yourselves know how you
ought to follow us, for we behave not ourselves disorderly among
you. Neither did we eat any man's bread for naught, but wrought
with labor and travail night and day that we might not be
chargeable to any of you, not because we have not the power."
And what Paul's saying is when we came to preach the gospel
to you, we didn't come with our hand out. You ever known a preacher
that's always got his hand out? I hate those kind of guys. I
mean, I despise it. I've known some preachers over
the years, you know, that walk around with their hand out all
the time, expecting everybody to take care of them. And that's
what Paul's saying. I didn't do that. If I made the
biggest sacrifice, and that, you know, this is a principle
that's true to all forms of leadership, isn't it? If you want somebody
to follow, you've got to be the one to make the biggest sacrifice.
And you've got to be the one to have the biggest commitment.
And if you do, that's what Paul's saying. We had the right to expect
you to support us while we were there preaching the gospel to
you, but we didn't do it. Because we wanted you to see
by example our commitment to the gospel. And so we worked
night and day to provide for ourselves while we preached the
gospel to you. For even when we were with you, this we commanded
you, that if any would not work, neither should he eat. Now there's
God's welfare system. There's people in our society
that are disabled and not able and we should help, we should
provide for them. But how many are on the take?
How many are on the welfare system that could work and don't? And here's what God says, if
man doesn't work, he ought not to eat. Now, when Paul was in
Thessalonica, The truth is, that's why God makes you hungry three
times a day, to inspire you to work, inspire you to be responsible,
provide for yourself, provide for your family. A man that doesn't
provide for his family, the scripture says, is worse than an infidel.
But there was some people in the church in Thessalonica that
had taken this declaration that Paul had made about the second
coming of Christ, and they thought, well, you know, we'll just We'll
just sit around and wait for him. We won't worry about taking
care of anything, taking care of our responsibilities. And Paul said, well, if they're not
going to work, just don't give them any food. They'll get hungry
and they'll go to work. For we hear that there are some
which walk among you disorderly, not working at all, but are busybodies. There's the problem when you're
not working. You know, I was telling Laura
Grace the other day, she's got two jobs and going to school
full time. And I said, that's good. Keep you out of trouble. And that's, you know, my mother used to say to me that
idle mind is the devil's workshop. You know, isn't that true? You
know, just becoming busybodies, getting involved in other people's
business. because you don't have enough to take care of yourself. Now, them that are such, we command
and exhort you by the Lord Jesus Christ that with quietness they
work and eat their own bread. But ye brethren, be not weary
in well-doing. Don't be weary in well-doing.
Remain faithful. But if any man obey not our word
by this epistle, note that man, and have no company with him,
that he may be ashamed. Yet count him not as an enemy,
but admonish him as a brother." So just withdraw yourself. Don't
act like somebody's not obeying the Lord. Don't act like there's
nothing wrong. That just encourages and comforts
them, don't they? Doesn't it? Withdraw yourself. And if they're a brother, the
Lord will shame them and cause them to... You see, what you're
doing is you're taking sides with God. Because that's what
the Lord does when he disciplines his children. He withdraws himself. Now the Lord of peace himself
give you peace always by all means. We have peace with God
through the Lord Jesus Christ. There's our peace. The shed blood of the Lord Jesus
Christ, the faithful obedience of the Lord Jesus Christ, his
righteousness, we have peace with God. We can come before
the throne of grace with boldness, with confidence, not confidence
in ourselves, but confidence in the Lord. Paul said we are the true circumcision
which worship God in the Spirit and rejoice in Christ Jesus. We rejoice in Him. He's our hope. And have no confidence in the
flesh. Lord, I don't have any confidence
to come before you based on anything I've done or haven't done. My
confidence is in Christ. He's my peace. Verse 17, the
salutations of Paul with my own hand, which is the token of every
epistle, so I write. Now, there were men writing letters
and sending them to the churches in the name of the Apostle Paul. These are the wicked men. These
are the deceivers. This is Satan's, this is Satan's,
it's his profession. He's the father of lies. his
profession is to be a counterfeiter, a counterfeiter. You look at
all the counterfeit Gospels that are in the world, that's the
devil's behind all that. Some of the counterfeits are
real close to the real thing. Paul said, I know there's letters
going on out there that are coming to you and they've got my name
on them. And that's the reason that I sign every letter that
I send with my own handwriting so that you'll know that this
is from me. This is a legitimate word from
God. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ
be with you all. Oh Lord, grace, grace, be gracious
to me. Be gracious to me. Amen.