Let's turn in the Scriptures
to 2 Thessalonians. Paul finishes 1 Thessalonians
by calling on the brethren to pray for us. He prays for them. He says to
pray without ceasing, 5.17, and he says pray for us. But here
in chapter 3 of 2 Thessalonians he actually has another request
for prayer. And he says in chapter 3 verse
1, but finally, brethren, pray for us that the word of the Lord
may have free course and be glorified, even as it is with you, and that
we may be delivered from unreasonable and wicked men. For all men have
not faith, but the Lord is faithful. In fact, in the original it's
the other way around. But faithful is the Lord, who
shall establish you and keep you from evil. And we have confidence
in the Lord touching you that you both do and will do the things
which we command you. And the Lord direct your hearts
into the love of God and into the patient waiting for Christ. As we've seen in 2 Thessalonians,
Paul has outlined with gravity, with clarity, with certainty, the nature of this
world that we live in, this world in which the Lord has given reign,
given free reign under his absolute sovereignty for this world to
lie in the hands of the wicked one and for his church to be,
as Isaiah speaks of their church, as like a cottage in a field
of cucumbers. Like the Thessalonians, like
Nehemiah and the Jews in those days, like the church throughout
history, they have been but a small remnant and the enemies seem
insurmountable and huge and not only are they on the outside
but so many are on the inside. It is a monumental thing that
Paul's talking about, isn't it? The return of the Lord Jesus
Christ, the wrapping up of all history, the finality of all
the things that we see and touch and know about in this world
are coming to an end. And the Lord will be glorified. The Lord who is faithful will
be glorified. and he'll be glorified especially
in the way that he protects and he preserves his little flock. I love what the Lord Jesus says,
he says, fear not a little flock. It's the Lord's pleasure to give
you the kingdom, to give you the king, and to bring you into
that kingdom, and to protect and to preserve you. He says,
finally, chapter 3, verse 1, he says, finally, pray for us. And it's a simple prayer, isn't
it? That the word of the Lord may have free course, may flow,
may run like a river in parched ground and wherever it goes,
when it runs freely, when God the Holy Spirit blesses His word
to the hearts of His people, There is freedom. There is joy. There is a fresh
and a refreshing view of the Lord Jesus Christ. I love the
way Ezekiel in chapter 47 speaks of that river, the water that
flows from the throne of God. He brought me again to the door
of the house and behold waters issued out from under the threshold
of the house eastward to the forefront of the house, stood
towards the east, and the waters came down from under the right
side of the house and to the south side of the altar. Then brought he me out of the
way of the gate northward, and led me about without it to the
other gate by the way that looks eastward, and behold, there ran
waters on the right side. And when the man that had the
line, God who holds the line in his hand, the line of his
righteousness, the line of his sovereignty, went forth eastward,
he measured a thousand cubits, he brought me through the waters,
and the waters were to the ankles. Again he measured a thousand
and brought me through the waters and the waters were to the knees.
Again he measured a thousand and brought me through and the
waters were to the loin, to the waist. Afterwards he measured
a thousand and it was a river. that I could not pass over, for
the waters were risen, waters to swim in, a river that could
not be passed over. Such is the grace of our God. May He cause us to be refreshed
in that river, that river that runs with free course through
the preaching of the Gospel, that river that runs with free
course as the Holy Spirit blesses His Word to His people. That
the Word of the Lord may have free course and be glorified
even as it is with you. The Word of the Lord is glorified
when the object of the Word of the Lord, the precious Lord Jesus,
is seen, again seen in His glory, seen high and lifted up and reigning. And then he says in this petition,
he first prays about the Word of the Lord having free course
and then he prays for himself as the Lord's servant. that we
may be delivered from unreasonable and wicked men, for all men have
not faith." What a great description of those who are without the
faith of God's elect, the faith of the Lord, the faith of God's
people. Unreasonable and wicked. Paul
prays for deliverance. He met with these people in Acts
chapter 17, as we've read several times. He came... He came there
to Thessalonica having had troubles before and when he came to Thessalonica
the Gospel stirred up this division and the Jews were so unreasonable. As I've often pictured it to
you, there they were preaching in their synagogue about morality
and about righteousness and about faithfulness and about love for
God and all the things that religious moral people have. and the ones that didn't believe.
But the Jews which believed not moved with envy, took unto them
certain lewd fellows of the base sort. They went down to the marketplace
and found the most rebellious and wicked people they could
find, having preached morality and preached all those things.
They gathered a company and set the whole city on uproar. And
as we've seen earlier, they followed these people, they followed Paul
having kicked him out of Thessalonica, they followed him down to Berea,
and they went back into Thessalonica, and they continued their course. Unreasonable and wicked men. Again, I remind you that Paul
is talking about events, as we are always as Christians, we're
always involved in events where we are too weak. We have no strength and we have
no ability in ourselves. There is, as Paul says in Ephesians
6, there is a fight, isn't there? There is a war going on. And
it's not against things that we can see. The battle is not
about things we can see. It's about spiritual forces in
heavenly places. Our fight is not against flesh
and blood, he says. We don't wage this war with carnal
weapons, because carnal weapons achieve nothing. For we wrestle
not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against
powers, against rules of the darkness of this world, against
spiritual wickedness. in high places. Therefore take
unto you the whole armour of God that you may be able to withstand
the evil day." We stand by grace. We stand in the power of God
to deliver and to rescue. See, to be delivered is not something
that you can do yourselves. It means to be rescued by a stronger
power. We continually need someone much
stronger and mightier than us, waging our battles, protecting
us and preserving us. As Paul would remind us in so
many places, it's an honourable thing to suffer for the Gospel. But here Paul prays that he wouldn't
be hindered by those who oppose the Gospel. He'd be delivered
from unreasonable men. It means men out of place, perverse. He's not talking about the people
of this world. He's talking about religious
people who claim to be the ones who have the truth and know the
truth. He's talking about those who
have turned from the faith which was once delivered to the saints.
Unreasonable men. True faith, true faith in faith
is perfectly reasonable. And it's perfectly rational,
isn't it? God has given his testimony about
his dear son in such clear words of prophecy, in such clear demonstration
of history. He has revealed himself in his
son, our great God. He has revealed himself with
such clarity that unbelief is unreasonable. Unbelief is irrational. He is the light. Our God lives
in unapproachable light. To turn from that light, as these
people had done, they had turned and rejected Paul and in rejecting
Paul they had rejected the one who sent Paul, they had rejected
God himself and rejected the Lord Jesus. When people turn
from the light, all they have is darkness and it doesn't matter
what area of darkness they move into, it's always darkness. It's always darkness. It's unreasonable. It's irrational. It means out
of place. They've wandered from the path
of righteousness. There is a way that seemeth right
unto a man. And the end thereof is the ways
of death. Unreasonable men. Unreasonable and wicked. The essence in the original word
here is one of labour, of working. You see, people who are unreasonable
and wicked with regard to the Gospel are continually at work. They are very busy. You have
to be extraordinarily busy to maintain unbelief with the Bible
in your hand and a Gospel witness in your town. They are labouring
in their wickedness. And in their wickedness they
create labour and trouble for God's people. They are serious
pests, aren't they, when they come along. They come along with
silly, fanciful notions of men in direct opposition, in clever
and direct opposition to the very Word of God. Jeremiah spoke
of them. In Jeremiah 6.16, it's a passage
of scripture which is extraordinary in its beauty for the believers
and extraordinary when you think of who Jeremiah was writing to,
people that had 1,500 years of direct testimony from God Himself. It's interesting how the Holy
Spirit has brought these words to us. He says, Thus saith the
Lord, stand ye in the ways, there are many ways, you stand in the
midst of all of these ways, and ask for the old paths Where is
the good way? The good way of the good shepherd,
the good way of Christ, the good way of faith, the good way of
Abraham, the good way of Abel and Noah and Enoch. I walked with God and I'm friends
with God and I please God. Where is the good way? And walk
therein. walk in that way and you shall
find rest." Rest for your souls. And what's the response? What's
the response of those who are unreasonable and wicked? But
they said, we will not walk therein. We won't walk in that way. And
what does God do? Also I set watchmen over you,
saying, Hearken to the sound of the trumpet. But they said,
We will not hearken. Therefore hear, you nations,
and know, O congregation, what is among them. Hear, O earth! Behold, I will bring evil upon
this people, even the fruit of their thoughts, because they
have not hearkened unto my words, nor to my law, but rejected it. So they had done all of those
things but they had not ceased to be religious. To what purpose
cometh there to me incense from Sheba and the sweet cane from
a far country? Your bird offerings are not acceptable. nor your sacrifices, sweet unto
me. It was in Jeremiah's day, as
it was in the days of Nah, as it was in the days of Paul, as
it is in 2015, as it will be until the Lord Jesus returns. Paul asks a simple request of
the Thessalonians that we be delivered from them. You see, we who have the truth
just have to proclaim the truth and allow for God to do what
he has promised to do. That is faith, isn't it? God
has promised. God will achieve his promises. is faithful, just be delivered from them.
I get tired of the battles. I get tired of having to do battle
with religious people. See, what Paul longed for, as
you read these letters of his loans, he longed, he longed to
be with them again. He longed to go back there and
just have fellowship with them. just to be amongst the Lord's
people and to talk about the Lord Jesus. He longed to be there
so that He would be encouraged and that they would find encouragement
in being with Him. It's about the fellowship, isn't
it? The wonderful fellowship of God's
people. There is something precious.
There is someone precious in it because He's there in their
midst. He says he wants to be delivered.
For all men have not faith. And again I remind you it's really
fascinating how often in the Thessalonian, both these Thessalonian
letters, the word faith is a noun. It's not a doing thing, it's
a being thing. It's holding, as he says in verse 6, he says, the tradition
which you have received of us. It's just the declaration of
who the Lord Jesus Christ is and what He has done. It is the
faith that was once for all delivered unto the saints. For all men
have not faith. They have all sorts of other
things. As Jeremiah said, they have all sorts of ways. But I
don't have faith. It's a great gift of God, isn't
it? See, true faith... is a gift
from God. He is both the author and the
perfecter, the finisher of faith. He authored it, he wrote it,
he prescribed it, he wrote out and prescribed in that eternal
covenant of grace all the circumstances which he would work in the lives
of all his people to grow their faith and to strengthen their
faith. And in the lives of Thessalonians, as in the lives of God's people
throughout time, In nearly all circumstances it's taking his
people to places where they have no ability themselves and they
are like Nehemiah surrounded. They are like that wonderful
event at the Red Sea, they are taken to a place where there's
no way forward and there are enemies behind, they're in a
situation where as Moses said to them, stand still. What can you do when you've got
an Egyptian army behind you and you've got nine miles of water
in front of you and you can't swim? Stand still, wait, and
see the salvation of the Lord. He will act. True faith is a
gift from God. True faith has just one object. True faith looks to the Lord
Jesus Christ and finds in Him all that is needed for life and
for godliness. As Peter so wonderfully proclaimed
in Acts 15, true faith purifies the heart. I look with these
fleshly eyes at this fleshly heart of mine. There's just absolutely
nothing pure in it and the longer I have lived the less pure it
becomes and the more frustrating it is to walk in this body of
flesh. Purify your heart by faith brothers
and sisters, a perfectly pure heart. It's not my heart. It's someone
else's heart, isn't it? It's His life in us, purified. No sin left before God. True faith worketh by love. It's extraordinary isn't it how
Paul is so besmirched in the eyes of so many people and especially
in the eyes of theological people often. And yet you read his letters
and you find that this is a guy who just loved. He loved with
passion. He loved in the truth and he
loved. He loved the people of God. He loves much because he's been
forgiven much. And true faith He finds rest for the soul in
the character of God as revealed in His Word and in His works. I love what the next verse says,
isn't it? But He wants to be delivered from
unreasonable and wicked men, for all men have not faith, but
the Lord is faith. but faithful is the Lord. I love the fact that he promises,
doesn't he, in 2nd Timothy. But if we are unfaithful, he
remains faithful because he cannot deny himself. He's faithful to
his promises. He's faithful to his people. Faithful is the Lord. He's faithful to his threatenings. He's faithful to those words
that we read in chapter 2 that cause us so much reason to think
with dread seriousness about this world we live in and about
the religion of this world. He is faithful, faithful to his
people. They are established by him. He shall establish you. He will
establish you. He will make you constant. He will confirm you. He will
make you firm. It means, as he said of himself,
he set his face like a flint. He sets himself to establish
you, to make you stand. He's faithful to keep you. It's a reference to a guard,
as a soldier on guard. He's faithful to keep you. It
means to be sleepless. Isn't that amazing? One of the
children I taught at school used to recite Psalm 121 all the time. I love Psalm 121. He says, Our God says, I will lift up
mine eyes unto the hills from whence cometh my help. My help
cometh from the Lord which made heaven and earth. He will not
suffer thy foot to be moved. He that keepeth thee will not
slumber. Behold, he that keepeth Israel
shall neither slumber nor sleep. The Lord is thy keeper. The Lord is thy shade upon thy
right hand. The sun shall not smite thee
by day, nor the moon by night. The Lord shall preserve thee
from all evil. He shall preserve thy soul. The Lord shall preserve thy going
out and thy coming in." For how long? from this time forth and
even forevermore." He's doing it right now, brothers and sisters.
He'll do it forevermore. He'll establish you. He'll keep
you from the evil. It means to keep you from the
evil one. He will protect you. We have
seen in Chapter 2 the awesome power, the remarkable power of
Satan to hold this world in his hands and to hold this religious
world in deceitfulness and unrighteousness. He holds his own when God sends
others a strong He protects and preserves his
own. And he goes on in his prayer, doesn't
he? We have, and the Lord direct
your hearts. We'll do verse 4 later on. And
the Lord direct your hearts. 5. Into the love of God and into
the patient waiting for Christ. The Lord keep you straight. The Lord keep you walking on
that straight path. The Lord direct your hearts into
the love of God for you and it may be in the original, the Lord
direct your hearts into your love for God. One necessarily
flows from the other. We love Him. We love Him because
He first loved us. And into the patient waiting
for Christ. Patient waiting. We wait patiently. We have in this situation that
we live in now, So much anxiety and so much wanting to do and
do and do. And the Lord will have work for
us to do. There's so much of Christian
life. in the graciousness and the love
of our God towards us is to take us to a place where we have to
wait. And we have to wait patiently. It also means to endure. It might mean the patience, the
endurance of Christ, because Christ's endurance is a great
encouragement. But Christ's endurance in us
brings us to endure all these things. There's this group of
Thessalonians. They are surrounded by a pagan
world. They are surrounded by a religious,
Jewish religious world. They are infected by false teaching
of all sorts. They have people writing counterfeit
letters to them claiming it's Paul. Just think of the endurance
that God worked in the hearts of these people. They are like
us. Protected by God. I love what John Trapp
says, he says, they always go under a double guard, God's children
in this world. They have the peace of God within
them, Philippians 4, 7, and they have the power of God watching
over them and protecting them. When that God of Psalm 121 keeps
you, When that God, who has promised
to establish you, He will not suffer your foot to be moved,
and He that keepeth you will not slumber. I just want to finish
briefly by reading commentary of Robert Hawker's
often when I've been studying and I find my cumbersome commentaries,
I find that Robert Hawker has said far more insight, far more
beautifully than I can ever imagine. So if you'll just allow me a
minute, I'll just finish with a few thoughts from him. Enfolding
this beautiful epistle, the Apostle makes an earnest and an affectionate
request to be remembered by the Church at the throne in prayer,
together with Silvanus and Timotheus, whom he joined with himself in
this letter. I beg the reader to remark with
me the great burden of his request, namely, that the word of the
Lord might be blessed among the Lord's people. of the figure
of a free course which, like an unobstructed river, runs on
and washes and makes fruitful every place where the Lord sends
it. And observe, it is the Lord's
glory when His people are made blessed by the free course of
His Word. Every child of God should remember
this. He becomes a great strengthener
to faith when the Lord enables any of His to consider that when
our soul is being made blessed in Christ, Christ is glorified
in us. We not only bless Him with our
hearts when we give Him praise for His mercies, but we glorify
Him also when our wants give Him occasion to fill our emptiness. Isn't that a beautiful statement?
We glorify Him also when our wants give Him occasion to fill
our emptiness. Let the reader further observe
the drift of Paul's prayer, that he and his faithful companions
who preach the truth as it is in Jesus might be delivered from
the opposers of those precious doctrines Paul and his brethren
in the ministry taught. Not openly profane, but the false
teachers. Paul could not mean the openly
profane when he said all men have not faith. This was too
notorious a truth to need a remark, but the all men the apostle here
alluded to which had not faith were plainly those who preached
unsent, men who had not the faith of God's elect. May the Lord
deliver all His faithful, both ministers and congregations,
from such men in all ages of His church. The reader will not
overlook, I hope, the very blessed prayer Paul closed up this paragraph
with. He opened the first part of it
with calling upon the Church to pray for him and his companions,
and here in the close of it, after assuring the Church of
God's faithfulness to establish them and keep them from evil,
he recompenses their kindness in praying for them. What a sweet
and comprehensive prayer it is. Surely none but God the Spirit
could have taught it. And the Lord, He said, direct
your hearts into the love of God and into the patient waiting
for, or the patience of Christ. Reader, do observe how all the
persons of the Godhead are here included in this short but blessed
prayer. The Lord the Spirit direct your
hearts, and we're directed, into the love of God. And how is this
to be attained in a patient waiting on and through Christ As short
as this direction is, if the reader be taught of the same
God who directs the heart to make the Lord's leadings, he
will discover that this is the direct way and the only way to
comfort. The child of God that goes to
the throne in anything of his own, such as his experiences
or his enlargements as men call them, call them, or the exercises
of his own graces, is going a roundabout way and wearying himself for
very vanity, whereas direct acts of faith upon Christ's person
and the pleadings of Christ's blood and righteousness and God's
faithful covenant promises in Christ The precious soul that
does so is truly directed by the Lord, the Holy Ghost, and
led by the hand to the mercy seat of God in Christ. Such a
soul must feed well, thus led, thus fed, thus taught, and thus
enabled to plea. I warrant you on the authority
of God's yes and amen promises that he shall prove a wrestling
seed of the stock of Jacob and come off a prevailing descendant
of the true Israel. To all such whom I met at any
time going to the pardon office of Jesus Christ, I would say,
oh, remember me when you see the King, for sure I am, you
will get near to him. Yes, I would beg of God the Holy
Spirit to direct my heart to go with them. And what might
not a company of Christ's redeemed ones expect, when going together
to the heavenly court, whose hearts were all directed? by
the same almighty Lord into the love of God and into the patient
waiting for Jesus Christ. Let's pray.