Back to 2 Thessalonians now. Read with me verses 13 and 14
again. After talking about some who
did not love the truth, he says, Oh, we're bound to give thanks
always to God for you, brethren. Beloved of the Lord, because
God has from the beginning chosen you to salvation through the
sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth, whereunto
He called you by our gospel to the obtaining of the glory of the Lord Jesus
Christ. Some of us went to a funeral
yesterday, and we were forced to sit and listen to a man and
a woman butcher the Word of God, lie on God, lie to a room full
of men and women and children, brag on the flesh. talk about
a Jesus like He was a mere man, just like us, no different, who
could do nothing for anyone but cry. And I jotted some things down,
began to think about some things while I was listening to that
false preacher. And a man used just enough Scripture
just enough Bible words and phrases to make him appear or seem to
know something about the Scriptures to them that didn't know anything
about the Scriptures. And those who do, those in here who were
there who know something about God's Word, could call his hand
on it because he was butchering them. But to those who didn't,
he appeared to use just enough, and this is what they do. Like
Satan used the Scripture. And that man didn't get within
a mile of the truth. There wasn't an ounce of gospel
in it. Not an ounce of truth in it. And it was both, to me,
it was maddening. It made me angry at him. It's tragic. And it's sad. It's sad. That's as far as I'm going to
go with that. I've learned now, years later, not to spend too
much time denouncing error, but get to the truth. As my pastor
used to say, you show a stick to be crooked by setting forth
a straight one. However, I was reminded of what
Paul told Titus. He said, He said there are men
who, he said, they are vain talkers and deceivers whose mouths must
be stopped. They subvert whole houses, teaching
things they ought not. And so since that man publicly
spoke all his lies, he makes himself fair game, doesn't he? So I can talk about him. for
what he is and needs to be exposed. I wish all of those people were
here to hear this. I got in the car after that, as fast as I
could, and I put in a CD. I had a tape
there. I was listening to one on the
way up by Brother David Edmondson. He's a preacher there, a true
preacher. And I listened to my joy and rejoicing As a man began
to proclaim one more time the sovereign reign and rule and
control of our sovereign God, His sovereign mercy and grace
to sinners by the blood and the righteousness of the Lord Jesus
Christ. I heard the truth and I just rejoiced. I rejoiced that
I love it. I rejoiced that we have it. We're not left, like some, to
listen to lies and to believe lies. Many are. Sovereignty. I love the sound of the word.
We got it from scriptures like this. You know, we got it from
scriptures that say, Thy God reigneth. The Lord reigneth. Let all the people tremble. Sovereignty, our sovereign God. This is the theme of Scripture.
This is the theme of all true preaching, isn't it? Sovereign
God. Peter at Pentecost. This is where he preached of
a sovereign Christ on the throne who came and did a sovereign
work, a work of sovereign mercy, sovereign grace according to
the sovereign will and purpose and covenant of our God. Sovereign
love. Sovereign grace. Don't you love
the sound of it? Sovereign will. God who worketh
all things after the counsel of His will. This is our comfort.
When Paul told the people, comfort one another with these words,
what he was talking about was, you're God reigneth. You're God's
not a bystander in the affairs of men. You're God's doing these
things. Your God's not standing by, and
bad things happen to you, and you wish they didn't, and wish
He could do something for you. Your God's working all things
according to the counsel of His will. God will work, and who is going
to stop it? That's our God. Does that give
you comfort? What makes the world mad makes
God's people glad? Thy God reigneth. Aren't you
glad? Whatever takes place, God did
it. Remember? Whatever was done there,
He was the doer of it. Remember that? Our sovereign
Lord, His will, His purpose, His covenant, ordered in all
things and sure, nothing can change it. If you're in His covenant, in
His purpose, everything is working together for your good. Life
and death. Bondage freedom. Sickness and
health. Poverty and wealth. Everything
is working together for your good. For God's people, that
is. It's all mercy. Sovereign mercy. Love the sound
of it. Sovereign mercy. The Lord saves by His sovereign
mercy. Go over to Romans 9. Romans chapter 9. Did we turn
over there a while ago? Yeah, I think we did. Go there
again. Romans chapter 9. Some people wish this wasn't
in the Bible, don't they? Oh, my. Sovereign mercy. Sovereign mercy. Sinners are sure thankful. Salvation is by sovereign mercy. Look at this, Romans 9, verse
15. He said to Moses, God said to Moses, I will have mercy. Thank God he said, I will have
mercy. Mercy is not getting what we
deserve. Mercy is sparing a guilty person. Mercy is showing kindness
to those that don't deserve it. God is merciful. Thank God he
said, I will show mercy. Brother Barnard used to say,
better be glad I'm not God. God is merciful. And he said,
I will show mercy. Thank the Lord. He is merciful. Thankfully, he said, I will show
mercy. And whatever God wills, it's
going to be done. He's going to show mercy. He's
going to be merciful. That's glorious. If you know anything about yourself,
you're sure thankful the Lord said, I'm going to be merciful
to their transgression, their sins. I'm going to be merciful."
Over and over throughout the Scripture, he tells what Israel,
they were an ungrateful, unworthy people, which is us. What all
they did against sin and against God's goodness, and the things
that came upon them were their fault. But God said, I will be
merciful. In spite of them, I'm going to
show them mercy. And they kept sinning, but he
kept showing mercy. They kept sinning, but he kept
showing mercy. Because he's full of it. He said,
I will be merciful. That's the glory of it. That's
the wonder of it. Sinners know this. He said, read on, I will have
mercy on whom I will have mercy. That's just reasonable that if
it's mercy, That is, you're getting what you don't deserve, or not
getting what you do deserve. It has to be sovereign. If you
don't deserve it, then it's up to the one showing it better.
On whom I will have mercy. Read on. And I will have compassion. That man was talking about Jesus,
Jesus, Jesus, Jesus. Didn't he get tired of hearing
that name? He talked about, it's a blessed name. God named him
that. But men use it in such a way,
they bring him down to make him just a common man like us, that
all he is good for is just feeling some sympathy for us. Right? That's how that fellow was talking
about Jesus. Jesus said, Jesus wept. Jesus,
Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus. And I started thinking, please
call him Lord Jesus. But you can't unless you know
Him. You can't except by the Holy Spirit. No man can. No man
will. This is how every one of God's
people, he reveals himself, not first as Jesus, but as the Lord
Jesus. At any rate, when he says, I
will have compassion, that doesn't just mean feel your pain. That doesn't just mean I feel
sympathetic toward you and I became a man so that I know what you're
going through. He knew that before he became a man. He knew what
we were going through. He's the Heavenly Father before
he became a man. Thank God he became a man. Thank
God he came down here and was touched with the feeling of our
infirmity. Thank God he was tempted in all points like as we are,
yet without sin. And he did it willingly. But
he did it to be a substitute. Not to just feel our pain, but
to endure our pain, to suffer our pain, to suffer our judgment,
to suffer the wrath of God against us. A substitute. That's why he came. He didn't
come for us to feel sorry for him. When he was bearing his
cross toward Calvary Tree one day, The women were weeping. What did he say? He stopped.
Under all that pain, he stopped. He said, don't weep for me. For this cause he came into the world.
This is why he came, not just to feel our pain. Thank God he
did. But he didn't come for that.
He came to take our sins away. by going to the cross, by burying
Him at the cross, by being made sin for us. He said, don't weep
for me, weep for yourselves and for your children. Weep, pray,
cry out to God that I'm doing this for you. Cry out to God
that I'm going to the cross to bear your sins, not just to feel
your pain. He said, I will have compassion. That means so much more than
just feeling our feelings. I will have compassion. On whom I will have compassion.
Christ didn't die for everybody. Christ didn't endure that for
everybody. He did it for his people. He did it for his people. Now read on, verse 16. So then,
it is not of him that willeth. He just said, I will, I will,
I will. It's not of him that willeth.
Free will is a lie. Man doesn't have a free will.
God has the free will. Whoever says, I will, and it
comes to pass, has free will. God says, I will. And so then
it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but
of God that showeth mercy. Read on. Scripture said to Pharaoh,
I love how Scripture says it. God speaks to men through His
Word, through His preachers of the Word. Even for this same
purpose have I raised thee up. The King's heart. Talk about
sovereignty. Scripture says the King's heart
is in the hands of the Lord. Aren't you glad? Aren't you glad? We've got an election coming
up. You know, it's already been determined. I worry about my grandchildren.
I don't worry about myself. You don't worry about yourself,
do you? Especially the older folks. It's almost over. Who
cares? It's almost over, isn't it? Then
you worry about your grandchildren, what this place is going to be
like under a Manassah. That's who we've got. I'm sorry,
that's who we've got. No, I'm not sorry. It's so. We've got a Manassah. opened the floodgate of iniquity
in Israel, and it never was the same. That's who we've got in
power right now. Well, who put him there? God. The king's heart is in the
hands of the Lord, like the rivers of water. He turneth it with
us, whoever he will. Now, that's sovereignty. That's
power. That's our God. Aren't you glad?
Down in Pikeville, Kentucky, there was a river that went through
that city years ago, remember? And it flooded. It just destroyed
that city year after year after year. You know, it was still
called one of the most remarkable engineering feats known to man.
And they rerouted that river around that town where it wouldn't
flood it again. It's one of the wonders of the world they call
it. Pikeville, Kentucky, of all places. Man rerouted the river. Well, God says, I turn men's
hearts. Aren't you glad he turns hearts?
Because our heart by nature is deceitful and desperately wicked.
Who can know it? And God says, I will give you
a new heart. I'll take away that stony heart
and give you a heart of lead. You won't hear me for nothing.
for anybody, for any message at all. But God, one day said,
now's the time, the day of salvation, and you will hear me. I'm going
to break your heart. Thank God! He's the turner of
hearts, the breaker of hearts. Sovereign mercy. Sovereign mercy. You want to keep reading in Romans
9? Verse 18, it says, I raised you up, verse 17, to show my
power. He raised up Pharaoh to dump
him in the river. The show who is in control. Verse
18, "...therefore hath he mercy on whom he will have mercy, and
whom he will, he hardeneth." What shall we say to these things?
Amen. Let the redeemed of the Lord
say so. Amen. Sovereign love. Oh my, only a sinner. saved by
sovereign mercy and grace, loves and appreciates the sovereign
love of our God. We love those that are our own. That's just nature. We love our
own at the exclusion, usually, of most everybody else. We love
those, our Lord said, that love ourselves. And our Lord said,
that's not thankful. No thanks in that. Even the heathen
do that. But God. You can't preach the
gospel without saying, but God. But God. For His great love,
wherewith He loved us. Who? Even when we were dead in
sin. You know, it says in Romans 5,
that scarcely for a righteous man will one die, yet for a good
man some would even dare. But God. commendeth his love
toward us in that while we were yet sinners, he loved the unlovely."
And it's sovereign love. He chose whom he would love.
He said in Jeremiah 31, I have loved thee with an everlasting
love. It's a sovereign love. He chose whom he would love.
It has to be so because none are lovely. The child in the
field in Ezekiel. It says she was cast out to the
loathing of her person. And none eye pitted her, did
it? There's nothing lovely about her. Right? They say, when I
passed by, it was a time of love. And I set my love on you. That's
one that only the Father could love. I covered you, made you
beautiful, and so on and so forth. Oh my, what a picture that is.
Sovereign love. Only a sinner loves sovereign
love. Sovereign love. Jacob have I
loved. And you know what that means?
Sovereign love? Whom the Lord loves? It's forever. His love
never failing. Whoever He loves, He saves, buddy. This is why I'm getting mad at
men that talk about God loving everybody and some of them perishing.
That's dishonoring to the love of our God, isn't it? If God
loves everybody and some go to hell, what's the love of God
got to do with anything? If Jesus Christ died for every
single person and some of them go to hell anyway, if Christ
supposedly paid for their sin and they have to pay for them
anyway, what did the blood of Jesus Christ have to do with
their salvation? Nothing. But here's the truth.
That's a lie. God loves everybody and Christ
died for everybody. That's a lie. And people believe
that lie to the damnation of their soul. Now here's the truth. God loves a people whom he chose
before the foundation of the world. He set his sovereign love
on them. They are loved and they will
be loved and never will cease to be loved. And he sent his
son with them in mind, nobody else, with them in his heart,
with them engraved on the palms of his hand to purchase their
redemption on Calvary's tree, to pay for their sins on Calvary's
tree, to shed his precious life-giving, sin-cleansing blood on Calvary's
tree for those people, and he paid for every single sin of
every one of God's people for now and eternity. And they will
never perish. Who shall lay anything to the
charge of God's elect? It is God that justifies. Whoever
he loves, he foreknew, he did predestinate, he predestinated,
he called whom he called, he justified whom he justified,
he glorified. What do you say to these things?
Amen. If God be for us, that's right,
if He's for us, who can be against us? Sovereign love. God loves His people. Christ
died for His people. That's the truth. Do you love
that? You've received the love of the truth. Sovereign grace. By grace are you saved. Everything about salvation is
a gift. Grace means a gift bestowed.
Grace doesn't mean an offer from God and you do something with
it. It's an act of God. Grace is not an offer of God.
It's the power of God that He exerts upon us. Something He
does for us and to us and in us through Jesus Christ. The
gift of God. The grace of God poured out on
His people. The gifts of Christ's righteousness. The gift of Christ's bloodshed. The gifts. Grace, by grace you
say. Free justification. Being justified freely by His
grace through the redemption that's in Christ Jesus. You know,
some people never hear these verses. We cut our teeth on them. Our children hear them from the
womb. by grace, grace, grace, grace,
the gift, the gift of repentance. We wouldn't repent like Cain.
We wouldn't repent. We'd get mad at God. But God,
the goodness of God leads the people to repent. The gift of
faith. We wouldn't believe. It's the
gift of faith. The gift of the Holy Spirit to
convince us of sin once and all our days, to keep convincing
us of sin. If He didn't, If you ever thought, if I could
just get over this sin or that sin, if I could just quit sinning,
I'd be alright. No, you wouldn't. You'd be self-righteous. See, this is the leadership of
the Holy Spirit who convinces us of sin because only sinners
need Jesus Christ. Only sinners need to hear this
gospel. And there are people all over the world who made their
decision and go through some little thing, and God sends them
strong delusions. It actually makes them think
they quit sinning. It actually makes them think
they're keeping the law. And they're alright and saved
and sure for heaven is that they're already there. Our God's people. broken over
sin all the time. But blessed are those that mourn. Blessed are the poor. Blessed
are those who hunger and thirst. You don't have to cry. I remember reading years ago
as a young believer something by, I think it was William Gurnall.
He wrote a book called Christian in Complete Armor from Ephesians
6. And I loved that book as a young
man. And I think it was him, if not, it was William Romaine
or John Bunyan or one of those guys. What difference does it
make? Anyway, I remember he was talking about Satan and his wiles. It was, it was, because that's
Ephesians 6, the wiles of the devil. And he said, what's Satan
going to do? And he's not all wiles, but he knows some things.
He knows when God takes somebody out from under his captivity.
He knows that. He knows that. Because he doesn't
have absolute sway over that person. He knows that. When the Lord takes captivity
captive from the God of this world and begins to hedge him
about. Remember, Joe? Remember? He hedged
him about. That's right. Same with all these
people. But anyway, Grinnell said this, he said, what Satan will do is
he'll take someone who is trusting in their own righteousness, someone
who believes they are keeping the law, someone who believes
they are saved, they made some decision or whatever, trusting
in their own righteousness. And he said he'll leave them
alone. He won't send them... See, He has them deluded. He
won't send them temptations. He won't send them things to
tempt them to fall into sin and all that. He'll leave them alone.
He's got them right where He wants them. So much so that that
person thinks, I'm so good, I have to be saved. And then He said what He'll do
is He knows that one that Christ is taken from him. And he'll bombard them with temptation
after temptation after temptation. And they fall to some of it,
according to God's will. They fall to some of it. And
they are so assaulted, so much so, that they think, I'm too
bad to be saved. I remember reading that as a young
believer and thinking, yes! That's me! That's me! That's
me! And all that person that's assaulted
can do is call on the Lord Jesus Christ. That's all they can do.
They can't plead. Well, look at what I've done.
Look what I had done. All they can do, Wesley, is, Lord, save
me. Right? And whosoever calleth
on the name of the Lord shall be saved. Our Lord said, as people
draw near with their lips, they call me, Lord, Lord. They're
not calling on me for forgiveness of sin. They're not calling on
me for help or salvation. They're just calling. Just calling
a name like you do anybody else's name. But my people that fear
my name, that know my name, that know themselves, they call on
the Lord. Did that touch anybody? It did
me. Oh, my. By grace, do you say,
the gift of the Holy Spirit to convince of sin, to lead God
into all truth, the truth as it is in the Lord Jesus Christ.
Some people are led back to the law. That's not the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit leads and guides
unto all truth. And here's the truth. Let's hear
the conclusion of the matter Paul said. If righteousness come
by the law, Christ died in vain. Here's the conclusion. Christ
died. God justified. Who is he that
condemned it? Not Euclid the law, but Christ
died. There is therefore now no condemnation
to them that are in crime. This is the best news a sinner
ever heard. You can't get enough of it. Keep hearing it. Our text
is 2 Thessalonians 2. Look at it again. Now, it says
here that some receive not the love of the truth. I just preached
to you the truth of who God is, what man is, who Christ is, what
He came to do, who He came to do it for, and why. God in mercy gives some people
a love for that truth, while others, they don't receive the
love of truth, but rather grow angry. As we said, only a self-righteous
person could hate this. No sinner could possibly hate
the truth. That Canaanite woman, when the
Lord ignored her, Well, he didn't ignore it. He didn't answer it.
And then when he wouldn't speak to her, he spoke to her through
somebody else. And he told her, I've come only to save the elect.
And then he called her a dog. What'd she say? Truth. That's the truth. Just give me
crumbs. You see, every one of God's people
have great faith like that. That's great faith. Great faith
doesn't climb high mountains and do great exploits, necessarily. Great faith is believing and
trusting the great Christ. Believing and trusting in His
so great salvation for so great a sinner. It takes great faith. And it's a great gift, an unspeakable
gift, faith. So he says, that we are bound
to give thanks always to God for you, brethren. We, you know, we acknowledge
our brethren that come to visit us, Craig and his family, don't
we? They're our brethren. We love
to see them. But we don't thank men ever for coming to worship
God. That's blasphemy. That's blasphemy. We're bound to thank God always,
at all times, for all things, especially for you, brethren. If you're a brother, you've got
the spirit of adoption. Brethren, beloved of the Lord,
we're bound to give thanks to God, not that you love God. Oh,
so and so loves the Lord. Oh, how he loves the Lord. Away
with that. Let's talk about how He loved
us. We love Him. Yeah. Why? Because He first loved
us. So we're bound to always thank
God for His who first loved us, foreknew us. Brethren, beloved
Lord, because God hath from the beginning chosen you. Before
the world began, God chose a people. And if you believe the truth,
if you trust Christ, that was you. You're one of them. And
put your name in the Lamb's Book of Life. My, my. And sealed it with His precious
blood, and nobody can take that name out there. And come hell
or high water, you're one of the Lords. Now who? Who wouldn't
love that? And when it's all over, the Lamb
is going to take the book and open the seal, and everybody
is going to be in there whose name is written in that book. Boy, oh boy, I love that, don't
you? He said, thank God it shows you
the salvation through, how do you do it? What's the means?
Sanctification of the Spirit. A set apart and belief of the
truth. What the Holy Spirit does, sets
apart how He makes us to differ. How He makes one to differ from
another. When our Lord said, they are
not of the world, even as I am not of the world. What it is
that sets them apart is the Holy Spirit through the truth. The
truth. The truth as it is in Christ.
Because He said, He called you by our gospel. He called you by our gospel.
My, my. You've got two people sitting. here in the gospel,
they might be brothers, they might be sisters, or a brother
and a sister, or a husband and wife, or a son and his father,
a daughter and her mother, sitting there here in the gospel, and
they both hear the same thing, this truth, the truth. One of
them didn't hear a thing, and what they did hear, they didn't
like, and they got up in the huff and they left, while the
other one, Their heart broke. Their heart was pierced. They
received it. They loved what they heard. And
they just hoped and prayed that it was for them. Who made the
difference? The Spirit of God that bloweth
where He listens. He came. And God said, that's
one of Mine. And He bypasses the one and deals
with that one. Sovereign Spirit. Sanctification
of the Spirit. That's what that means. how you
may know that God doth put a difference between you and the Egyptians. I'm bound to give thanks to God.
And called you by our gospel to the obtaining of the glory
of our Lord Jesus Christ. Called you by our gospel, what
you heard this morning, our gospel, God's gospel, to the obtaining
of the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ. Called you to the to
behold His glory. Our Lord said that in His prayer
in John 17. He says, Father, I will that
those You have given Me may be with Me where I am, that they
might behold My glory. And that starts now. This is
the Father's will, that everyone that seeeth the Son sees His
glory. Like James and Peter and John,
He took up on that mountain one day. And He peeled back that
robe of flesh to show them who He was, who He really was, Jesus,
light, God, Peter, Thel, my Lord and my God, Thomas, my Lord and
my God, my Savior, my everything, my all in all. Whom He foreknew,
He did predestinate. Whom He predestinated, He called
by the gospel. Whom He called, He justified,
gave them faith. Whom He justified, What? Glorified. We've already been glorified.
Somewhat. If we see His glory. If we repent to give Him glory.
God's glorified us. We're a glorified people. But I keep thinking about this
verse. Over in Revelation 19 it says,
are they who are called to the marriage supper of the Lamb. That's by call only. Sarah Groover, that was William,
just got married to Austin. I watched the whole thing on
TV. It was on the website there. Mindy called me and said, on
if you want to watch it. So, I did. You know, we got a marriage paper down
there, didn't we? That called everybody here. Come, welcome. Our Lord said
many are called. Many are called. There's a general
call with this Scripture. God commandeth all men everywhere
to repent. God says come to Christ, but
some don't. Some do. But everybody's heard
it. It's not an imitation. I didn't
say that. Nowhere in the Bible does it
say that. But a pronouncement. There's a wedding. There's a
marriage supper. There's a bridegroom. Well, you
think about it. What think ye of Christ? The
bridegroom. Most people don't have any interest in it. I'll
tell you who does. The bride. And when they hear about it,
They want to come, and bless God, He's given them oil for
their lamps. But when the time comes, they're going to go in.
They will call. Our Lord said, many are called,
but few are chosen. I sat there and watched that
wedding, and I thought to myself, I'd like to be there. I saw many
walk in. I saw Luke and Tracy walk in. I saw Sammy and Hannah walk in.
I saw brothers and sisters walking in. What are they all doing?
They're there for that wedding. Everybody's smiling and laughing. And I'm sitting at home. You
know what I'm thinking? No, seriously. I'm thinking, man, I don't want
to miss the marriage supper of the Lamb. I don't want to miss
that. I thought, this must be what
it feels like. I don't know what people in hell
see. Maybe everything. Well, the folks
in heaven don't. They don't need to see that.
But maybe everything, like the rich man in hell looked up and
saw Lazarus and saw Abraham. Maybe. Sitting on the outside
looking in. I thought, this must be what
it's like. I don't want to miss that. Do you? Some of you wish you'd been there,
don't you? You love Sarah, you love Austin, you love the parents,
you love the people. It's a marriage supper. Is there
any wonder the Lord calls it the marriage supper of the Lamb?
There's nothing more joyful, nothing more glorious. Big reception
afterward. Food and rejoice. Those that
hear the bridegroom's voice, they rejoice. They want to be
there. You know how we're going to be
there? Called. And bless God, it's not an invitation,
because if it's just an invitation, I'll turn it down. Blessed is
the man whom Thou choosest and causes to approach unto Thee. You're coming. You're not going
to miss it for the world. I thought, Lord, don't let me
miss that great supper. Please, come to this highway
and this hedge Compel me to come in. Reach way down for this old
sinner and lay hold of him like my Phoebus hip and fetch him
and sit me down at that supper and tell me how you chose me
and loved me and did all this for me and I will rejoice. Don't
let me miss it. Don't let me miss it. Most people
don't care. You know that? Most people don't
care. It's obvious. Look, there aren't many people
here this morning. People know what we preach. One thing. Christ. Who's interested? Those that
love Christ. I'll tell you what, I can bless
God that I'm here. That I'm here. And I'm bound
to give thanks to God always. For me. Because God from the
beginning. Now that's the truth. Thank God,
thank God. All right, I wish I had a song
leader to call on. So many times I feel like, well,
if you don't mind me saying Moses, he had Aaron and Hur to hold
his arms up. Number 33. I'm sorry, number
17. Let's turn to number 17. Stand with me.