Tonight we're wrapping up our
time in First Thessalonians, and it's been a journey. Lord
willing, when I come back we will begin in Second Thessalonians,
just continue on. It's been wonderful. I love the way
Paul finishes. He says in verse 16 of chapter
5, he says, Rejoice evermore, pray without ceasing, in everything
give thanks, for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning
you. Quench not the spirit, despise
not prophesying, prove, test all things, hold fast to that
which is good, abstain from all appearance of evil. And the very
God of peace, sanctify you wholly. And I pray God, your whole spirit,
soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus
Christ. Faithful is he that calleth you,
who also will do it. Brethren, pray for us. Greet
all the brethren with a holy kiss. I charge you by the Lord
Jesus that this epistle be read unto all the holy brethren. The
grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you. Amen. We have in the last couple of
messages, last Thursday, we looked at the God of peace, the very
God of peace, and we looked at the way he brings peace, the
way the Prince of Peace and the author of peace brings peace.
and the peace of God rules in the hearts of God's people. God
is at peace with his people and he brings his people into a place
of peace with him. And on Sunday we looked at the
faithfulness of God. Faithful is he. Great is thy faithfulness, a
faithfulness that's unchanging, unchangeable, He won't allow
his faithfulness to fail. He remains faithful. He cannot
deny himself. He's faithful to his promises.
He's faithful to his covenant. He's faithful to his son. His son is faithful to him. He's
faithful to his people. And he reminds us again and again
that he is trustworthy. And this letter of 1 Thessalonians
is remarkable. It's really Paul writing to these
people, bringing them to remembrance. If you just go back in your Bibles
to chapter 1, it's just remarkable. I went through it this afternoon
and I was stunned at how many times he's just reminding these
people and he says, you know, He says, you know, in verse 5,
you know what manner of men we were among you. You know the
gospel came. You became followers of us. You
were examples. You sounded out the word. Your
faith is spread, faith to God, but is spread abroad. These people
have heard of the Thessalonians, they show us what manner of entering
we had into you. You know, in chapter 2 verse
1, you know You know, you know our entrance
was not in vain. Chapter 2, verse 5, Paul describes
his actions as a man before them. He wasn't using flattering words,
he wasn't using guile, he wasn't a man of covetousness in any
way at all. He didn't seek to please men,
he just came as a servant of God to speak God's words to these
people. And he's calling them again and
again to remember us, isn't it? 2 verse 9, you remember. 2 verse
11, you know. Again and again, right through
this letter, you know, you know, you know. You've actually been
reminded of things that you know. Verse 3 of chapter 3, you know
that we're appointed to afflictions. You know that you're going to
suffer tribulation in verse 4 of chapter 3. You know, verse 2
of chapter 4, you know the commandments we gave you. You do love each
other. You know, as God has taught you,
4 verse 9 and 10, you're taught of God to love one another. You
yourselves, 5 verse 2, you know perfectly the day of the Lord
comes of his thief. And 5 verse 12, you know your
leaders. You are encouraged to know them."
And so he's not writing to give them new instructions. Again
and again he has references to the second coming of the Lord
Jesus. And 2 Thessalonians shows us that there was trouble amongst
them and maybe it was brewing at the time of this letter and
it reached some fullness by the time he needed to write the second
letter. They know. God's children are people who
know things. They have experienced things.
They have experienced the truth of the Gospel and they know it. They know it intellectually,
they know it experientially, they know it in a saving way. They are chosen of God, the elect
of God. What an amazing medicine the
Gospel is to sinners. What an amazing comfort it is
to know that God knows all things and He causes us to have a need
which He alone can satisfy. protected and preserved. And 5 verse 23 is a really fascinating
verse and we've looked at it a bit. And I just want to look
tonight at the last part of it. It's really interesting in Greek.
that this sentence goes, and the very God of peace, sanctify
you wholly, sanctify you completely, sanctify you through and through,
make you holy through and through, is what's being said. And I pray
God, your Holy Spirit, soul and body, be blameless unto the coming
of our Lord Jesus Christ preserved. How does all this happen? Preserved
I would just like for us to contemplate for a little while What are these
to be preserved? perseverance is described as
the believer continuing in faith, and the believer holding on to
Christ by the hand of faith. Preservation is defined as God
keeping his people in faith, holding the believer in the hand
of grace, holding them faithful. And here we have this remarkable
promise of God, isn't it? That God of peace is going to
sanctify, is going to make His people completely holy and that
He'll sanctify you and your whole spirit, soul and body be blameless
unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. These people know what
it is. to be servants of idolatry, whether
they are in Jewish idolatry or pagan idolatry. In verse 9 of
chapter 1 he says that the entering they had, how they turned to
God from idols to serve the living and true God. There was a real
and genuine repentance. There was a real entry into their
lives of light from God. And it's interesting, at the
end of the letter he says that the God of peace sanctify you
wholly in spirit, soul and body. You see, when we fell, when we
fell in our Father Adam, every aspect of our nature, no matter
how it's defined, every aspect of our nature is fallen. As the Lord Jesus says to Nicodemus,
flesh gives birth to flesh. If only the Lord, only the Lord
can open our eyes for us to see what we did in the Garden, what
we did in our representative head, Adam in the Garden. Romans 3 gives us a summary,
doesn't it, and Paul has described the state of the Gentile world
and the Jewish world. And he comes in Romans 3 before
he proclaims the extraordinary antidote and starts to outline
the power of God unto salvation. There's no difference. There's
no difference. As it is written, verse 10, there
is none righteous, no, not one. There is none that understands. There is none that seeks after
God. They are all gone out of the
way. They are together become unprofitable. There is none that
does good. No, not one. Their throat is
an open sepulchre. With their tongues they have
used deceit. And the poison of asps is under their lips. Their mouth is full of cursing
and bitterness. Their feet are swift to shed
blood. Destruction and misery are in their way. And the way of peace they have
not known. And there is no fear of God before
their eyes. So the fool, says the psalmist,
says David, the fool says in his heart, there is no God. In fact, the fool says in his
heart, no to God. They've all gone aside, Psalm
14. They all together have become
filthy. There's no one that does good.
No, not one. I was very struck by that comment
that I've repeated to you before that Luther makes in his commentary
on Galatians, that when man is at his very, very best, in human
terms, man is then at his worst. We think man is at his worst
when he's doing horrible, evil and wicked things. But man is
at his worst when he's doing remarkably good things and doing
them without any acknowledgement of God at all. All human beings
are by nature rebellious. Rebellion, the whole human race
is corrupt. It's abominable and it's filthy
beyond imagining. It's only in light of the Gospel
that we have any idea. The fool says in his heart, no
God, because the fool believes that there really is a righteousness
in him, that he's not as bad as Hitler and he's not as evil
as Pol Pot. We all, we all like sheep have
gone astray and each one has turned to his own way. And because of Adam's sin, and
our sin in Adam, the whole human race has become totally ignorant
of all things spiritual. We just read it in Romans 3,
there is none that understands, and everyone left to themselves
will not seek after God. There's no one in the eyes of
the Lord who does good. No, not one. You see, the measure
of goodness is not a human measure. It's God's measure. It's only God, our Creator. What did Job say of us? That
we drink iniquity like water. David in Psalm 51, the Psalm
of Repentance, he says, Behold I was shapen in iniquity and
in sin did my mother conceive me. He wasn't talking about the
physical act of being conceived. It was just that he is an inheritor
of Adam's sin. The wicked are estranged from
the womb, they go astray. As soon as they are born, speaking
lies." Jeremiah. It says of us, the heart is deceitful
above all things and desperately wicked. Who can understand it? Who can know it? Can the Ethiopian,
Jeremiah says, can the Ethiopian change his skin or the leopard
his spots? Then may you also do good that
are accustomed to evil. The Lord Jesus in that conversation
with Nicodemus or maybe just after it, He says, this is the
condemnation, the condemnation that light is coming to the world
and men loved darkness rather than light. They loved darkness
because their deeds were evil. See, sin is not a social disease. It's not something you have to
learn. It's not something you have to be taught. Little tiny
children. I remember someone talking about
watching a child crawling across. His first sort of crawling and
a parent turned to it and asked it to do something. And this
little baby, six or eight months old, looked around in defiance.
It's a matter of the heart, isn't it? It is such an extraordinary problem,
isn't it? We're unable to help ourselves. We are spiritually dead. We might have the intellect and
the morality of Nicodemus, but we are dead. We are dead to things
spiritually. And it's impossible for man to
come to Christ unless the Lord has drawn them. That's what these
Thessalonians are celebrating. That's what Paul is celebrating
with them, isn't he? The fact that the Gospel came
and the fact that the Gospel took root. And as the Lord says,
I'll have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I'll have compassion
on whom I will have compassion. So then it's not of him that
willeth. He has no will. He has no will to come after
God, nor of him that runneth. but of God that shows mercy. We sing it, don't we? Could my
tears forever flow? Could my zeal no longer know? All for sin could not atone. Thou must save and thou alone. and we're sinners by nature,
but sin is what we do, isn't it? You read about it in Romans
7, and I've taken you to 1 John on several occasions. 1 John
8 says, and if we say we have no sin, and sin there is a noun,
it's a being word. We deceive ourselves. We might
deceive others. We certainly don't deceive God.
and we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we
confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins
and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say we have not sinned,
and there the word sin is a verb, it's a doing word. If we say
we have not sinned and we're not participating in sin, read
Romans 7, when I wish to do good, what's he say? sin is there with
me all of the time. All of the time. If we say we
have not sinned, we make him a liar and his word is not in
us. God's children like Paul, as
they grow in grace, they grow in their awareness of the depth
of their sin, the power of it in them. It just rises up in
extraordinary ways and we are sometimes shocked by how sinful
we are. Never as shocked as we would
be if we saw it so clearly. Which is why Paul, a sinner knowing
These men here in Thessalonica are going to continue struggling,
not just with the enmity all around them, but continue struggling
with what is in their flesh. What is born of flesh is flesh. And that's the thing that is
so remarkable about the Gospel, isn't it? The Gospel is God's,
the power of God unto salvation. It comes at God's appointed time. It comes in God's appointed way. It has God's appointed and promised
effects on His people. And Paul is rejoicing at these
people because they have been kept, they have been preserved. That word preserved means to
attend to carefully, to take care of, to guard. to keep, the Lord Jesus says,
that I have kept them. I have kept the ones you gave
me. And it means to cause to continue. We sing, don't we, at the end
of every service here, now unto him who is able to keep you from
falling and to present you faultless before the presence of His glory
with exceeding joy. To the only wise God, our Saviour,
be glory and majesty, dominion and power, both now and forever."
And he begins that letter in exactly the similar way, doesn't
he? Judas, servant of Jesus Christ, and brother of James, to them
that are sanctified by God the Father, and preserved in Jesus
Christ and called. We are, if we are going to continue
in the faith, brothers and sisters, we are going to do it exactly
as we came in. We are saved by grace, we are
sanctified by grace, we are preserved by grace. All those who are born
of God must and shall persevere. They must and they shall persevere
because they are preserved. Preserved by God. I'll just remind
you of the difference between the two. Perseverance is the
believer continuing in faith. It's the believer holding on
to Christ by the hand of faith. Preservation is God keeping his
people in faith. the believer holding on to Christ. Christ holding on to the believer
by the hand of grace. I love what Psalm 37, 28 says,
for the Lord loves judgment and forsaketh not his saints. They are preserved, how long? You know the word, they are preserved
forever. but the seed of the wicked shall
be cut off. Paul rejoices that they have
remained faithful to the faith. They have been
called by God, they have been protected by God, they have been
caused to be afflicted by God, that their faith would be strengthened,
that they would have a faith that was tried and tested. True
faith never gives up. True faith can look very, very
ordinary a whole lot of the time. I don't know about you, but so
often I look at what I'd like to call faith, and it's an embarrassment
to call it that. But God's people are kept by
the faithfulness of someone who was faithful. When was I faithful
to God as a believer? 2,000 years ago I walked this earth,
before God and before men, and before God's holy law, perfectly
faithful. See it's our faith in the faithfulness
of someone who was faithful. You see, Paul says, I'm through
the law, I'm dead to the law, that I might live under God.
I am crucified with Christ. Nevertheless I live, yet not
I. But Christ lives in me in the
life which I now live in the flesh. I live by the faith. I live by the faith of the Son
of God who loved me and gave himself for me. Blessed is the
man whom you choose and cause to approach unto you, that he
may dwell in your courts, and we will be satisfied with the
goodness of your house, even your holy temple. Job says, under
all those trials that he was suffering, those enormous trials,
physical and spiritual, emotional, losing all of his family, says,
the righteous also shall hold on his way. And he that has clean
hands, not clean by anything he has done, clean hands in the
eyes of the Lord, shall be stronger and stronger." Paul, like Peter,
in his dying hours, looked to God. Paul looked around, deserted
by men. And he says, And but the Lord
stood by my side, the chief of sinners now protected. And the Lord shall deliver me
from every evil work and will preserve me unto his heavenly
kingdom, to whom be glory forever and ever and ever. called, like all the saints of
old, was kept by God. I love how Moses finished his
life and he says, the eternal God is my refuge and underneath
are everlasting arms. He shall thrust out the enemy
from before thee and shall say, destroy them. preserved blameless
until the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. Paul, like the
Thessalonians, like God's people throughout this world and throughout
history have always looked ahead. They've looked around and they
want to see the circumstances of their life in light of the
future. There is one issue, isn't there? The coming of our Lord Jesus
Christ. He's on His way. He says He is
coming. He's coming to gather His own. The Lord will not cast off His
people. He says, they are my jewels and
they shall be mine. We are kept, we are preserved
by the power of God unto salvation. And they shall never perish.
The Lord Jesus says, I give unto them eternal life and they shall
never perish. They are kept by God. Paul has great confidence, he
says, knowing brethren, your election of God, you're going
to be kept. You sons, you see what he says
in verse 27, he says, I charge you by the Lord that this epistle
be read unto all the holy brethren. Greet them all with the holy
kiss and pray for us, pray for each other. Read and study the
word of God and how they're going to be kept. Verse 28, the grace
of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you. God will protect his people. What about those who fall away? The apostles had to deal with
that, didn't they? Paul had to deal with Demas who fell away. The apostles had to live in the
presence of three years with Judas without knowing and even
having an inkling that he was a false apostle. He preached,
cast out demons, proclaimed the Word of God faithfully, and they
never suspected, right up until the upper room, they never suspected. As we read so many promises of
God, those who fall away, those who forsake Christ with finality,
they never knew Him. They never knew Him. Those who
depart from the Gospel, they never knew the Gospel. Those who fall from the doctrines
of grace, never knew grace. Salvation is knowing two things,
isn't it? Salvation is knowing the Lord
Jesus Christ. Knowing God the Father is knowing
Him, knowing Him in His character as revealed in the scriptures,
knowing Him in His character as revealed in both the Old Testament
and the New Testament. But knowing Him in a saving way
means that we come to know ourselves. We really do know ourselves. I remember something Henry Mahan
said and he didn't ever want it to be taken out of context,
but he said, I read the Bible and I can understand God's people
falling into terrible, terrible sin. Shocking sin. But he says, I can't understand
the people of God ever leaving the gospel of sovereign, free,
eternal grace. Those who fall from the doctrines
of grace have never known what grace is, never known that they
needed to be a recipient of grace, and never experienced the grace
of God as these Thessalonians did. Those who fall away never
knew the way. Believers are brought to hold
on to Christ because He holds on to them. That's what Paul
is saying, isn't it? You Thessalonians are going to
persevere, you saints in Thessalonica. That's what he calls them at
the beginning, that church of saints, that church that is in
God the Father, that church which is in God, the Son, a church
which is in intimate union with Him. It can never, ever fall
away. I love what Romans 11.29 says,
the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable. What does God say? I change not. I change not. Therefore you,
sons of Jacob, shall be preserved. Believers are brought by the
power of the Holy Spirit to have Christ revealed to them, have
Christ revealed in them, and He holds them. How does he hold
them? Why does he hold them? Let's
just look at some of the reasons. They are held because of an eternal
covenant of grace and it cannot be disannulled. It was signed
and sealed in eternity and it determines all things. all things that ever are coming
to pass. I will gather them out of the
countries, and whether I have driven them in my anger or my
fury in my great wrath, and I will bring them again into this place,
and I will cause them to dwell safely. And they shall be my
people, and I will be their God. And I will give them one heart
and one way, that they may fear me forever for the good of them
and their children after them. And I will make an everlasting
covenant with them, And I will not turn away from them to do
them good, but I will put my fear in their hearts, and they
shall not depart. I will and they shall, says the
Eternal Covenant. We are the believers joined intimately
to Him. You will not abandon me to the
grave, nor will you let your Holy One see decay. God's children will suffer extraordinary
things, but because they're united to the Lord Jesus, they can never
fall away. The blood of Christ will never
and can never be shed in vain. It must, and it will, and it
has through our time. These people are a living testimony
to the truth of the Gospel, and so is every living human being
on this planet. Every living human being has
their history written in this book, outlined with clarity. They are walking, talking, living
fulfillments of prophecy all the days of their lives. If we
knew this book, we would know the history around us. They are kept by a covenant.
They cannot be abandoned. The blood of Christ will not
be shed in vain. The seal of the Holy Spirit,
they are guaranteed. It cannot be broken. God is absolutely
sovereign. They are kept They are kept,
says 1 Peter, by the power of God through faith. They are kept
by the promises of God, the Word of God. The love of God can never
cease and never be thwarted in any way at all. Those He loves,
He loved them to the end. He loved them completely. A love that's an eternal love,
a love that's an unchanging love. because God is absolutely sovereign. As we read earlier in Malachi
3.6, he says, I change not. Believers are kept because God
changes not. Believers are kept because God
has put away their sin. There's nothing between my Saviour
and me. There is no sin. God sees no
sin. There is none for Him to remember. My Saviour picked it up and He
bore it, He suffered it and He took it away and it's gone forever. There is nothing between a holy
God and a holy believer. A sovereign protector I have,
Unseen yet forever at hand, Unchangeable, faithful to save, Almighty to
rule and command. His smiles are my comforts abound,
His grace as due shall descend, And the walls of salvation surround
The soul he delights to defend. those that you gave me, says
the Lord Jesus. That night he died. He says,
I have kept. I have kept them. I have kept
all eleven of them. He never did keep Judas. He says,
I have kept them, but the son of perdition. He's kept them
all. I love how this letter It's not the little bit in smaller
writing at the bottom, that was never there originally and it's
wrong. It was written from Corinth. The last word of the letter is
Amen. It's a wonderful word, Amen,
isn't it? These little words mean so much. It actually means
to be faithful. It means most assuredly. 25 times in John's Gospel, he
actually says, Amen, Amen. Most assuredly, most assuredly. So it is, so be it. May it be fulfilled is what we're
saying. Paul knew his God. He knew his God had sent him
purposefully and specifically. and individually to these Thessalonican
believers. He went into that synagogue and
just for those three short weeks, maybe two Sabbath days, just
that short time, he went there and he preached a gospel, a gospel
of sovereign grace, a gospel of eternal love. He preached
Jesus Christ and Him crucified to those people and out of that
synagogue, out of that mixed multitude of Jewish believers
in Judaism and Gentile believers who'd come to some sort of Jewish
legalism and come under the influence of them. He came into that place.
He comes like the Lord Jesus. We've heard about and read it
in Ephesians 2 that the Lord Jesus Himself came and He preached
the Gospel and He came and out of that multitude in that city,
that capital city of Macedonia, Out of that city, he drew a people
to himself. And Paul, under intense persecution,
persecuted when he arrived, persecuted when he was there, persecuted
when he was left. And he leaves this little bunch
of believers there in Thessalonica. And he hears that they've been
preserved. Preserved not because they're
brighter and wiser and better taught than any others. They
are preserved by the power of God. And that's why He can have
great confidence in them, isn't it? They have heard the faith,
they have heard the Gospel, they have been drawn out, they have
suffered afflictions, suffered intense afflictions. And the
God of peace, the God of peace has come to them and he's preached
peace to them. They were kept. They were preserved. They had a faithful God who must
remain faithful. He cannot deny Himself. He was
faithful to them. He is faithful to them for 2,000
years. He's been remarkably faithful
to them. He's been remarkably faithful
to His Gospel throughout this time. May he create faith where there
is no faith. May he work in such a way that
we actually are caused to know, to know the power of his promises,
to know that we are preserved. See, spiritual life is a life
from above. It doesn't come from this earth,
and ultimately it doesn't come from things in us at all. It comes from God. It's sustained
by God. It ebbs and flows in our thoughts
and our feelings and our sins and our struggles, but it's kept
It's kept because it's preserved by God. True saving faith is
like a little candle, one of those little floating candles
in a hurricane at sea. Little faith, kept. A faith that comes from God is
kept and preserved by God. Let's pray.