Our maker, defender, redeemer,
and friend. Please be seated. Man, it's good to be back, isn't
it? Missed being here Sunday. Missed seeing you all. Thankful
everybody. Is everybody's power back on?
Anybody that doesn't have power now? We don't either. So I guess
it's just the two of us. Sarah said this is our first
hurricane, and she wasn't impressed. And I'm glad you weren't, Sarah.
I'm glad you weren't. They're never as bad as the weather
guessers want you to think it's going to be, and that's a good
thing. But I'm thankful that everybody's well. Let's open
our Bibles together to Ephesians chapter six. Ephesians chapter
six. Let's hope the Lord spares us
of anything that would impress us. We'll begin reading in verse
10. Finally, my brethren, be strong
in the Lord. Depend on Him for your strength.
Look to Christ. And in the power of His might,
put on the whole armor of God that you may be able to stand
against the wiles of the devil. For we wrestle not against flesh
and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers
of darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high
places. Wherefore, take unto you the
whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the
evil day, and having done all, to stand." Stand. Where do we stand? We stand in
the same place Moses stood. When Moses was on Mount Sinai,
he would have been destroyed by the law had God not said,
there's a place near unto me. It's a rock. You stand right
there. I'm gonna cover you up. You'll
be safe. The only place to stand. Stand,
therefore, having your loins gird about with truth and having
on the breastplate of righteousness. Truth comes from God's Word. Righteousness is all found in
Christ. Your feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of
peace. This gospel gives us peace with
God. Above all, taking the shield
of faith wherewith you shall be able to quench all the fiery
darts of the wicked and take the helmet of salvation and the
sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. praying always
with all prayer and supplication in the spirit and watching there
unto with all perseverance and supplication for all saints. Let's pray. Our heavenly father, how grateful
we are for your protection. We thank you, Lord, that you
were merciful as you always are merciful, but we thank you for
the care that you gave to your children this week and continue
to. We thank you especially for your
mercy in the sacrifice of thy dear son, the putting away of
our sin, the satisfying of thy law, the establishment of justice,
the hope of salvation, Oh Lord, we pray now in this hour that
you would enable us by your spirit to put on the breastplate of
righteousness, to have the shield of faith, to have the helmet
of salvation, to have our feet shod with the preparation of
the gospel. Lord, that you would enable us to look to Christ and
find all that armor in him and in his finished work of salvation. We ask it in Christ's name. Amen. Let's stand once again. We'll
sing the hymn that's on the back of the bulletin. My Father's house on high, Home
of my soul, how near! At times, to faiths foreseeing
eye, Thy golden gates appear. Ah, then my spirit fades to reach
the land I love, the bright inheritance of saints, Jerusalem above. Forever with the Lord, Father,
if tis Thy will, The promise of that faithful word, Be near
to me fulfilled. So when my latest breath shall
rend the veil entwined, by death I shall escape from death and
life eternal gain. Please be seated. Last Wednesday night we looked
at the third chapter of 2 Thessalonians, the first couple of verses, and
considered the subject of prayer. Tonight I'd like for us to go
back to that same passage and we'll deal with those verses
briefly and then go further into the chapter considering the subject
of being established in God's Word. Being established in God's
Word. Standing firm in the truth. Having the shield of faith which
is the sword of the Spirit which is the Word of God. We know that
God's Word is a sword. It's sharper than any two-edged
sword. It is able to divide and to discern
the thoughts and the intents of the heart. And that's what
we hope every time we go to God's word, Lord, speak to my heart,
reveal to me my need for Christ and give to me faith to have
hope in Christ. We know that all scripture, all
scripture is given by inspiration of God. It's all profitable. for doctrine, for reproof, for
correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of
God may be thoroughly furnished unto all good works." Paul concludes
this letter to the church at Thessalonica by admonishing them
to hear what God has said and stand firm in the truth that
God has spoken. And that's the admonishment for
us now. It hasn't changed, has it? Where
else are we going to stand? What else is sure? What else
is certain? What else gives us hope and light
and truth? What else reveals to us the glory
of Christ and the hope of salvation? Nothing. Nothing. No place else
to go. Nobody else has got any answers.
Oh, but the Word of God didn't come by private interpretation.
Holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Spirit. So this is the inspired Word
of God and it's given to us in order to, in order to reveal
the glory of Christ and give to us the hope of salvation.
And Paul says, finally, brethren, pray for us. Pray that the Word
of God might have free course, that the gospel that we preach
might run its course and accomplish its purpose. If this is going
to happen, it'll happen because God did it and God will do it
as his people pray for him to do it. Lord, would you do that? Now, for God to make the gospel
to run freely and to be glorified, it must be declared faithful
to its meaning. It must be declared faithful
to its meaning. Wicked men will twist the Word
of God. They will take verses out of
context. They will build whole doctrines
off of one word or one idea. And if this prayer is to be answered,
then we must declare God's Word according as it is written. We can't make things up. If you go to the Word of God
wanting to prove a position, you can find a verse to prove
it. I don't care what position it
is. I don't care what position it is. You can find a verse or
a part of a verse or if nothing else, you can find one word somewhere
in the Word of God to defend your position. You know that
passage over there in 1 Corinthians chapter 15, where Paul's talking
about the resurrection of the dead, and he said, if there is
no resurrection, then why are you baptized for the dead? Now, there's been a lot of discussion
about what all that means, but one thing I'm sure that it doesn't
mean is the conclusion that the Mormons have come to and built
their entire doctrine, their entire doctrine from that one
verse of scripture. It's just incredible. If the
word of God is to have free course, then it must be preached according
to its meaning. It's not up to us to, you know,
I love what Paul said about the Bereans. He said they were more
noble. And he was talking about the Jews in Berea because it
was the Jews in Thessalonica that heard the gospel and they
didn't like it and they ran them out of town. And he got to Berea
and he said the Bereans were more noble. They received the
word of God with gladness and they searched the scriptures
daily to see if what we said was true. Is this really what
God's word means? Yeah, it's really what God's
word means. But men will pervert the scriptures.
They'll twist it. They'll rest it. That's what
the scripture says. They rest it to their own destruction. And that word, I've described,
explained this to you before. I'll do it again because some
may don't remember or hadn't heard this. But that word rest
was a word used to describe what would happen when you put a person
on a rack, stretched them out on a rack. And why would you
use that torture method? What you were trying to do was
get that person to say something that they wouldn't say otherwise.
You were torturing them to get them to make a confession that
they otherwise would not make. And that's what Paul said, that's
what men do with the Word of God. They put it on a rack, they
stretch it, they rest it, they cause it to say something that
it otherwise would not say. Lord, give us light, give us
understanding, enable us to declare your word faithfully. How many
people have taken John 3.16 and used that to defend free will,
used that to defend universal atonement for God so loved the
world and they take one word, world, and they take it out of
its context from everywhere else where that word is used and say,
well, see there, God loves everybody, God wants everybody to be saved,
and everybody's got a free will, whosoever will, and they completely
ignore everything else that the scripture says. There's a passage
in 2 Peter 3, verse 9, where the Lord says that he is not
willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. And of course, people, that's
part of the verse, but that's not the whole verse. Turn with
me to that passage of scripture, 2 Peter, 2 Peter chapter 3. See, people say, well, you know, God
won't save everybody. If God willed to save everybody,
everybody would be saved. God sovereignly chose a particular
people according to his own will and purpose before time ever
began. And Christ actually accomplished the salvation of those whom God
chose in the covenant of grace. And none of those will perish.
You can be sure of it. He's not gonna lose one of his
sheep. Every single one for whom Christ died, every single one
that God elected in grace will be saved and will be brought
to repentance. And that's what this verse means.
But people will take the second half of that verse, not willing
that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.
And they'll ignore the first part of it. The Lord is not slack
concerning His promise. His promise is in the covenant.
They're covenant promises. They're covenant promises. They're
promises in Christ. As some men count slackness,
but is long suffering to us-ward to us-ward not willing that any
of us-ward would perish but that all of us-ward would come to
repentance that's the meaning of the verse and that's consistent
with everything else in scripture 1st Timothy chapter 2 see whole doctrines, denominations, whole heresies have been preached,
have been believed based on verses of scripture pulled out of context
and used to defend a position that they had that they wanted
to prove. And here's another one. First Timothy Chapter 2 verse
1, I exhort therefore that first of all supplications, prayers,
intercession, and giving of thanks be made for all men. Now, there
were Roman governors and kings that were arresting and persecuting
believers. If you had a, if we lived in
such an environment, you might come to the conclusion, well
there's not any way that that person's gonna be saved. They're beyond God's grace. I
said this last Wednesday night, I'll say it again. If you think
that there's anybody that's beyond the grace of God, and you don't
pray for them because you think that they're beyond the grace
of God, now we don't pray for anybody as we ought to. You know why
you don't pray for me more than you do? Same reason I don't pray
for you more than I do. We're all so consumed with ourselves
we can't think much about anybody else, can we? Isn't that the
truth? But if you fail to pray for somebody because you believe
that they are beyond salvation, at that point you cease to become
the chief of all sinners. And that's what this passage
is teaching, that yes, those men that are leading the persecution
against the church can even be saved. And what the Lord's saying,
if God can save you, He can save anybody. And so He said, pray
for them. For kings and for all that are
in authority, that we may live quiet and peaceable lives in
all godliness and honesty, for this is good and acceptable in
the sight of God our Savior, who will have all men to be saved
and to come to the knowledge of the truth." Now if God would
have all men to be saved and come to the knowledge of the
truth, all men would be saved. What's he talking about? He said all
kinds of men. There's no exception. There's
no, there's no, he's saying that, you know, just because a person
is in this, is in this situation doesn't mean that they're beyond
salvation. If there's breath, there's hope. Pray for them. God's not, God's willing to,
God's going to save all kinds of men. Some noble, some not
noble. Some rich, some poor. You know,
most of these churches that Paul's writing to, half the congregation
was made up of slaves. Slaves. So how do you know that? Well, the Lord speaks to them,
encourages them, and we know historically that most of these
cities were at least half slaves. Half the population of every
one of these cities were men and women in bondage. And so
the Lord said, you know, he can save a slave, he can save a king. Don't set in your mind that there
are certain kinds of people that God's going to save and there's
other kinds of people He's not going to save. He's going to
save all kinds of men. But you see how people will take
these verses because they're going to the Word of God with
these preconceived ideas that God loves everybody, Christ died
for everybody, God won't save everybody, and man's got a free
will. And so they find verses to support their position. And
none of it's true. and it's contrary to what the
rest of Scripture teaches. Now I want you to turn with me,
if you will, to Isaiah Chapter 40. Look at verse 21. Have you not known Have you not
heard? Hath it not been told you from
the beginning? Have you not understood from
the foundations of the earth? Now, it's beyond my comprehension,
but there are actually people who take that one verse of scripture
and conclude that the earth is not a spinning ball in space,
that it actually is built on pillars, that it's a flat stationary
earth that's built on stationary pillars because God said it has
foundations. It's amazing. Now look at the
next verse, verse 22. It is He that sitteth upon the
circle of the earth. And they will say, the earth
is like a tortilla. It's like a flying saucer. It's
like a Frisbee. And it's built on pillars because
that's what God says. I'm not kidding you. I mean,
there are people who will die for that, that believe that with
all their heart. and that have said, that have
confessed, I will die for this truth because this is what God's
Word said and I'm going to remain faithful and loyal to the Word
of God and completely ignore the rest of the scripture. I
mean look at the rest of verse 21, and the inhabitants thereof
as grasshoppers. So if you're going to say, they
say, well see the Bible says the earth is a circle, not a
globe, and it says it's on foundations, Well, it also says that the inhabitants
are grasshoppers. So what's that make us all grasshoppers?
And the heaven is like a curtain and a tent. Does that mean that
the heaven's like a tent as a tent? You see, the Bible's written
in symbolic language that has to be understood in the context
of what God's saying. If our prayer is going to be
answered, if the word of God is going to have free course
and be glorified. It must be taught. It must be
preached. It must be believed according
to what it means, not what we want it to mean, what it actually
does mean. Secondly, if the word of God
is going to be blessed if the gospel is going to run its race
and have free course and glorify God then what we preach must
point to Christ. It must point to Christ. In the volume of the book it is written of me. Lo, I have come to do thy will,
O God." Now, we know, what did the Lord
say to the Pharisees? He said the same thing that needs
to be said to a lot of religious folks today. You know, you're
very proud of your scholarship. You think that you understand
the Bible. You study it diligently. You do your word studies and
you've got your theological departments all figured out. But, the Lord said, these are
they which testify of me. You missed the meaning of the
Bible if you haven't seen Christ. Paul said, We preach Christ and
Him crucified. From all the counsel of God's
Word, we keep coming back to the Lord Jesus Christ, who He
is and what He accomplished. He's the successful Savior of
sinners. He's the sovereign Son of God. He's the one who's holy and undefiled
and separate from sinners. He's higher than the heavens.
He actually accomplished the work of redemption on behalf
of His people. He put away their sins, put them
away once and for all by the sacrifice of Himself. And from
in the beginning God to come Lord Jesus even now come. Now
that's the first and last verse of the Bible. It's all about
Him. It's all about the Lord Jesus
Christ. If we want to compartmentalize
history and doctrine and theology and all these other things in
order to promote ourselves, that's all it is. It's just self-righteousness.
It always comes back to self-righteousness. You say, why would somebody pervert
the scriptures? Well, there's a couple of reasons.
Number one, they're looking to gain a following to themselves
and some particular view, or they are believing that God has
revealed something to them that he hadn't revealed to anybody
else. They're special in the sight
of God. They've got a special access to God and they promote
themselves as being more virtuous and more dedicated and more committed
to the Bible than anybody else. It's always self-righteousness.
It's always self-promotion. Lord, we pray that the word of
the Lord would have free course and that it would be glorified. We want Christ to be glorified.
We're not interested in glorifying a man. We're not interested in
glorifying a doctrine. We're interested in glorifying
the Lord Jesus Christ. Father, I have..." Turn with
me to John chapter 17. I'm just going to read a few verses. Verse 1, John chapter 17, these
words spake Jesus and lifted up His eyes to heaven and said,
Father, the hour has come, glorify Thy Son. If the word of God has
free course, If God answers our prayer to bless the preaching
of His Word according to what it means, then Christ will be
glorified. Father, glorify Thy Son. That's
what the Lord's praying for. He's praying, Lord, glorify me
that the Son also may glorify Thee. as thou hast given him
power over all flesh, that he should give eternal life to as
many as thou hast given him." I've got the power to give eternal
life and I'm going to give it to everyone that you gave to
me. And this is life eternal that
they might know thee the only true God and Jesus Christ whom
thou hast sent. I know whom I have believed and
I am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I've committed
unto Him against that day." This is the purpose of the Scripture.
This is the purpose of preaching. Not to discover some deep, dark
secret that no one else knows. It's to know Him. This is life
eternal, that they might know Thee, the only true God in Jesus
Christ whom Thou... I have glorified Thee on the
earth. I have finished the work which Thou has given me to do. What was the Lord's first words
recorded in scripture? Woman speaking to his mother. She's looking for him for three
days. I'm sure she was frantic. You knew. You of all people know who I
am. You know that I was conceived
in your womb without you ever being with a man. If anybody
else ever doubted that, you never did. You watched me for 12 years.
You know who I am. You know that I must be about
my father's business. Where was his father's business?
It was in the house of prayer, wasn't it? Why didn't you come
here first? You knew this is where I'd be. And what was his father's business?
The redemption of his people. Christ came to save sinners. And what was the last thing he
said from Calvary's cross? It is finished. Father, now I
commend my spirit to thy hands. I'm finished the work. I finished
the work that you gave me to do. I've glorified you, glorified
myself. I've saved your people. This
is pray that the Word of God would have free course and be
glorified. If it's going to be glorified,
it's got to be preached according to what it means. We can't twist
it. We can't pervert it. We can't
take out a verse or a word or a phrase and create some kind
of weird doctrine for our own promotion. We go to the Word of God and
we preach Christ. Preach the Lord Jesus Christ.
And God's pleased to glorify the Son in the hearts of his
people and to cause them to know him, to know him. I have manifested thy name unto
them which thou gavest me out of the world. Thine they were
and thou gavest them unto me. They have kept thy word. Look at verse 22. and the glory which thou gavest
me, I have given them that they may be one even as we are one. What is his glory? What is his
glory? His glory is sinless perfection.
That's his glory. And he said the glory that I've
given it to them. In the new nature, they have
sinless perfection before God. Verse 24, Father, I will that
they also whom Thou hast given me. And now that's the sixth
time in this one prayer that the Lord Jesus Christ spoke to
the Father saying, I'm praying for those that Thou hast given
me. I pray not for the world, I pray
for them which Thou hast given me out of the world. I pray that they be with me where
I am and that they may behold my glory, which thou has given
me. Christ is the glory of God. And it's all for his glory. It's
all for his glory. This is all about the glory of
God. All right, go back with me to the second Thessalonians.
So for the, For the Word of the Lord to have free course, for
the Word of the Lord to be glorified, it's got to be preached and believed
according to what it means. And it means what it says. And
how do we determine what it means? Well, we compare Scripture by
Scripture. If you come to a conclusion on one verse of Scripture that's
not consistent with the rest of Scripture, then that conclusion
is wrong. It's just that simple. We compare the spiritual to the
spiritual. This book does not contradict itself. It teaches itself. Scripture
teaches scripture. I've given you several examples
of people who have taken verses that and come to conclusions
that are contrary to everything else that the Bible says. And
then secondly, if the Lord is going to answer this prayer then
Christ has to be preached. He has to be lifted up. As Moses
lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of
Man be lifted up. And I, if I be lifted up, will draw men to me.
So that's what we're doing. We're preaching Christ. Wherever
we go in the Bible, we find a revelation of the Lord Jesus Christ. Look
at verse 2. And that you may be delivered
from unreasonable. You know what that word unreasonable,
I've got it in the margin of my Bible, it says absurd. And there are some absurd ideas
out there that men conclude from the Bible. I just gave you one
of them, flat earth. That's absurd. That's unreasonable. Lord, deliver me from anything
like that. Don't let me be deceived by some
unreasonable absurdity. And wicked men, for all men,
have not faith. Now, can a person be deceived
for a period of time? Yeah. A believer, yeah. But if they're the Lord's, they
won't stay deceived. They won't remain in that error.
The Lord, and Paul deals with that in this very chapter. I
want to get to those verses. Look what he says. But the Lord
is faithful. The Lord is faithful. Oh, there's our hope. Let God
be true in every man a liar. When we're not faithful, He remaineth
faithful. He's faithful to His covenant
promises. He's faithful to His children.
He's not going to lose one. I fear sometimes when I see someone
going astray into a heresy or an error that they get from the
Bible. But the only comfort that I have is I know if that person's
a child of God, They'll be back. They'll be back. The Lord is faithful. Turn with
me to Psalm 106. This is my hope because we read that passage in Ephesians
chapter 5, the wiles of the devil. Oh, he's He's deceitful. And the heart is wicked and deceitful
beyond anything that we know. And no man can know his own heart.
Are you capable of being deceived? Am I capable of being deceived?
Led astray? Yeah. If it were possible, even the
elect would be deceived. Why is it not possible? Because
they're smarter? No, because God is faithful. He's faithful to his children.
He's not gonna let them be deceived. Look at Psalm 106 and we'll begin
reading at verse 42. Their enemies also oppressed
them and they were brought into subjection unto their hand. Have
you ever been, you know you've been deceived. You've been deceived
by sin, haven't you? You're deceived by it all the
time, aren't you? And that's your biggest enemy. Many times did he deliver them.
How many times has he delivered you out of the snares of the
devil? But they provoked him with their
counsel and were brought low for their iniquity. Nevertheless,
he regarded their affliction when he heard their cry, and
he remembered them for his covenant. He remembered for them, he remembered
for them his covenant. God is faithful. He made a covenant
promise to himself before time ever began. The Father promised
the Son a bride. The Son promised the Father redemption. The Holy Spirit promised the
Son and the Father regeneration. That's the covenant. And God says, when you're not
faithful and you let your enemies overtake you and you fall to
them, I'm going to let you be afflicted by them. I'm going
to let you be afflicted by your sin until you cry out. And then
I'm going to answer that cry, but I'm not going to answer the
cry because you cried. I'm going to answer the cry because
I remember my covenant. That's why I'm going to answer
it. You see, if God had to answer our prayers to deliver us because
of our cry, then we're left with wondering, how sincere was my
cry? Did I really mean it? Was I broken
enough? Was I repentant enough? Was I
sorrowful enough? No, I'm going to let you get
afflicted by your enemy until you cry. And when you cry, I'm
going to answer. But I'm not answering you because
you cried or how hard you cried or how loud you cried. I'm answering
you because I remembered my covenant. I'm faithful to my promises. It's impossible for me to lie.
Everything I've ever promised you, All the promises of God
are yay and amen in Christ. What hope? There's our hope. It's not on how sorrowful you
are. You can't be sorrowful enough. You're going to be sorrowful.
If you're a child of God, you disobey the Lord. He knows how
to chastise His children. If you're not chastised, you're
not a child of God. And you will be afflicted. We
all know what that means. But when God answers our prayer,
it's not because we prayed with such great earnest or sincerity. It's because right here, let's
look at it again. Verse 45, and he remembered for
them his covenant and repented according to the multitude of
his mercies. He made them also to be pitied
of all those that carried them captive. Save us, O Lord our
God, save us. Alright, go back with me to 2
Thessalonians chapter 3. Established by the
Word. The Word that is preached and
believed according to what it means. The Word that points to
the Lord Jesus Christ. The word that although unreasonable
and wicked men would pervert it. And a lot of times they'll
pervert it with just wanting you to compromise. You remember
when Darius sent Nebuchadnezzar, not Nebuchadnezzar, Nehemiah. Thank you. Nehemiah
back to rebuild the wall. And there were two men, Tobiah
and Sanballat, thank you, Tobiah and Sanballat, who tried to get
Nehemiah to stop the work. And they kept sending him letters,
you know, come down, come down. And what did Nehemiah say? He
said, we've got a great work God's given us, we're not going
to stop this work. And what did the letters say
from Sanballat and Tobiah? come down to the valley of Ono
and let's talk about it. Now, you can look it up in your
Bible. The word Ono in that verse means common. Let's find some
common ground. Let's just agree to disagree
on the non-essentials and let's just all get along. And we all
worship the same God and we all believe the same thing. No, we
don't. No, we don't. We're not coming down to the
valley of Ono. We've got a trowel in one hand and a sword in the
other hand. And we're going to keep putting the brocks down
and we're going to protect us against our enemy. And we're
not going to quit working. But nothing's changed, has it?
The perverse, absurd, unreasonable, unbelieving men still would have
you to say, well, let's just agree to disagree. Let's just
compromise. No, we can't compromise the truth.
We want to be at peace with all men whenever possible, but it's
not possible to be at peace with anyone if it means compromising
the gospel. But the Lord is faithful. Look
at, look at verse three. The Lord is faithful. He will
stablish you. He will stablish. He's going
to, he's going to put your feet on that rock. He's going to give
you a place to stand. You're going to trip and fall
many times, and He's going to pick you back up, just like you
teach a child to walk. Every time they fall, you're
right there to pick them up and put them back on their feet, aren't you?
And that's the way the Lord is. He just, I'm going to establish
you. I'm going to teach you how to walk. You're going to walk
after me. I'm going to keep you from evil.
Oh, Lord, deliver us from evil. Deliver us from evil. This world is full of evil. Our own old nature is full of
evil, isn't it? Lord, deliver me. Deliver me
from myself. Deliver me from the wrath of
God. Deliver me from the wiles of the devil. Deliver me from
the deceitfulness of this world. This world just... You know what
I've been thinking about lately? You know what the secret to being
happy is? Being content. Being content. Content with whatever
you've got. Now first and foremost that means
being content with Christ. I'm content with what the Lord
Jesus Christ did to satisfy the demands of God's law. I don't
want to add to it or take away from it. I'm content with what
the Lord Jesus Christ did in shedding His precious blood as
a covering for my sin. I don't want to add anything
to it or take anything away from it. I don't want to add my sorrow,
my repentance, my faith, anything. I'm content with what the Lord
Jesus Christ has done all by Himself for all my righteousness
and all of my justification before God. I'm content with that. And faith is content with that. We have to be brought back to
that contentment, don't we? We lose sight of it and we lose
our joy because we become discontent. Every time you try to add to
or take something away from the Lord Jesus Christ, you become
discontent, don't you? You lose your joy. And that's the world. Everything that advertisement
is designed to do is make you discontent. Every advertisement you see on
TV, that's its design. If I can make you discontent,
then I can force you to pull some money out of your pocket
and buy my product because you're not going to be happy unless
you have it. And we just live in a world of
discontent, don't we, and unhappy people. What does the scripture
say? If you have food and shelter,
be content. Paul said, I'm content in whatever
state I'm in. Lord, deliver me. Deliver me from the evils of
this world that would cause me to be discontent with Christ
and discontent with your providence and your blessings in my life. Deliver me from evil. It's all evil, isn't it? Every
bit of it. It's more evil than we think it is. Make me content with what you've
given me in Christ, in your word, in providence, in blessings or
make me content. And we have confidence in the
Lord touching you. Look at verse 4. We have confidence
in the Lord concerning you. Our confidence is not in you,
and your confidence doesn't need to be in me. Not ultimately,
but we ought to be confident with one another. We ought to
be faithful to each other, and to that sense we are. Paul is
saying when it comes to being delivered from evil, when it
comes to the salvation of men's souls, our confidence is not
in one another, our confidence is in the Lord. In another place
he said we are the true circumcision which worship God in the Spirit
rejoicing Christ Jesus and have no confidence in the flesh. That is why he is saying if somebody
is deceived and led astray Is our confidence in their ability
to figure it out and come back? No. Our confidence is in the
Lord's faithfulness. That's what he's saying. And
we have confidence in the Lord touching you, concerning you. Our confidence is in the Lord
that you both do and will do the things which we command you. And the Lord direct your hearts
unto the love of God. That's where the issue is, isn't
it? It's in the heart. This is a heart matter. What the Lord does in the heart
can't be changed. Out of the abundance of the heart,
the mouth speaketh. If you want to know what somebody
believes, listen to what they say. A good tree cannot bring
back bad fruit and a bad tree can't bring back good fruit.
Yeah, I know the religious take that and they said, well, we
need to do some fruit inspection and make sure you've got good
things going on in your life. Make sure you don't have bad
things going on in your life. That very passage of scripture talks
about the fruit of the lips. Turn with me to Matthew chapter
12. Let's look at that before we close. Matthew Chapter 12 verse 33,
either make a tree good and the fruit good or either make a tree
corrupt and its fruit corrupt for the tree is known by its
fruit. Oh generation of vipers, how
can you being evil speak good things for out of the abundance
of the heart the mouth speaketh. A good man out of the good treasure
in his heart bringing forth good things, and an evil man out of
the evil treasure of his heart bringing forth evil things. But
I say unto you that every idle word that men shall speak they
shall give an account thereof in the day of judgment. For by
thy words thou shalt be justified and by thy words thou shalt be
condemned." Now that doesn't mean that you get angry and you
say things you shouldn't say. He's talking about what you say
about the gospel, what you say about God's word, what you say
about Christ. Because what you say is what
you believe. Out of the abundance of the heart, a good tree brings
forth good fruit. What do you say about Christ?
What do you say about the Word of God? Does it mean what it says? Is
it all about Him? Do you need to be delivered from
evil? Is God faithful? Is He faithful? Yeah, He is. John said, they went out from
us because they were not others. For had they been others, they
would have remained. But they went out that those
which are true might be made manifest. That's the faithfulness
of God. If a man's able to leave and
follow after some foolish heresy and not come back, then he's
only proving himself to be not of the Lord. Lord, keep us, keep
us. Make your word to have free course
in my heart and then let it run. Let's pray. Our Heavenly Father,
we're so very thankful for your word and we're thankful
for your spirit. We thank you especially, Lord
Jesus, for the work of redemption that you have accomplished and
how we pray that you would keep us from evil and cause us to
keep looking to Christ, resting in him. and believing what you
have declared in your word. We ask it in Christ's name, amen. 175, let's stand together, 175. Standing on the promises of Christ
my King Through eternal ages let his praises ring Glory in
the highest I will shout and sing Standing on the promises
of God Standing, standing, standing
on the promises of God, my Savior. Standing, standing, I'm standing
on the promises of God. Standing on the promises that
cannot fail, When the howling storms of doubt and fear assail,
By the living Word of God I shall prevail, Standing on the promises
of God. Standing, standing, standing
on the promises of God my Savior. Standing, standing, I'm standing
on the promises of God. Standing on the promises of Christ
the Lord, Bound to Him eternally by love's strong cord, Overcoming
daily with the Spirit's sword, Standing on the promises of God. Standing, standing, standing
on the promises of God my Savior. Standing, standing, I'm standing
on the promises of God Standing on the promises I cannot
fall, Listening every moment to the Spirit's call, Resting
in my Savior as my all in all, Standing on the promises of God. Standing, standing, standing
on the promises of God my Savior. Standing, standing, I'm standing
on the promises of God Okay.