If you will, turn back with me
now to 1 Thessalonians chapter 1. With a heart full of love and
a good report, a good report concerning the
church at Thessalonica, the Apostle Paul gives thanks unto God for
what he'd heard and what he felt in his heart toward these people.
What did he hear? What did he hear that stirred
him so to give thanks unto God for this people? Well, the first thing he mentions
is their work of faith. Isn't that an unusual term for
faith? The work of faith. But you know that's how it's
declared in the Scripture. Faith is a work. It's not of
you, it's not of your works, but it's a work. Faith is something
God accomplishes in you, but it's sure enough a work. It's
not a creed, it's not a feeling, it's not a decision. Faith is
a work. And it's a work of God in men. He said, it is God that worketh
in you. Isn't that what the Scripture
says? Both to will and to do of His good pleasure. Faith is
a work. What does faith do? Faith understands. We know. Boy, all the way through,
I love the book of 1 John. All the way through, he just
keeps saying, we know, we know, we know. How did he know? Because
God gave him faith. Faith understands. Faith loves. Faith believes. Faith repents. Faith rejoices. And faith strives
for perfection. He said, remembering without
ceasing your work of faith. Paul listened to the reports
that Timotheus and Silvanus brought to him of that church of the
Thessalonians. That word that he heard from
them or those people, and he saw in what he heard, he saw
by faith, he saw the work of faith. A real work. The work of God in them. Remembering without ceasing your
work of faith. And then secondly, he says, he
remembered their labor of love. Now the experience and understanding
of faith leaves the believer loving the Lord and loving those
who are born of Him. That's how he tells us in 1 John
5 that we know we've passed from death unto life. We love the
brethren. He that loveth Him that begat
loveth Him also that's begotten of Him. Why? Because you're all
in the same boat. You're all in the same mess.
You all discovered the same remedy. We all look to Him. We're all
heirs. We're all sons. We've got no
reason. I mean, brethren, if you let
men's sins and offenses keep you from loving one another,
you've got a real problem. You've got a real problem. Because
your sins and crimes don't keep you from God, do they? Why not? because of the grace of God and
His forgiveness. That's right. And we can't let
those same things stand between us because we're in the same
boat. We look to the same Lord, the same grace, the same... That's
why we love one another and we overlook one another's faults.
My soul, I'd hate to think God didn't overlook my faults. Wouldn't
you? I mean, I'm one big fault. And He loves me, so I'll be able
to love you. If God could love me, I'll be
able to love anybody. It's the experience and understanding
of faith that leaves the believer loving the Lord and loving one
another. I don't need to talk about my
faith and my assurance if I have no love for Christ. Paul said,
if I believe all things, and have not charity, profiteth me
nothing. No need to talk about my strong
faith and my solid faith and all this stuff and faith, and
then despise my brother. He said, how can you love God
whom you haven't seen, and you can't love your brother whom
you have seen? How is that possible? He that loveth not knoweth not
God. That's the truth of it. Everything that faith does, it
does out of gratitude and love. And then thirdly, he said this,
he remembered them in their prayers because he heard of them, their
patience of hope in the Lord Jesus Christ. Hope is a patient
grace. It's patient. It's learned to
wait. It waits upon the Lord. Oh, we're
anxious and hard. What we want, we want it now,
don't we? What we pray for, we want it
now. We want it now. But you know, after a while,
when that believer's grounded and settled, and the Lord's done
that work in him and matured him a little bit, you know what
he does? He waits patiently upon the Lord. He still brings his
petitions, but he don't get upset if they don't appear before his
eyes while he's praying. He'll keep on praying. It's a
patient grace. It waits for the Lord. It waits
for His message because there is no other message. How shall
they preach except they be sent? I have to wait on the Lord, John.
I can't just go out here and look it up in the phone book.
We live in the age of instant information. Get on the internet,
hit a button, boom, there it is. Now I know that's not the
way grace operates. God may just leave you in your
ignorance for a while. He might leave you in that bad
situation for a while. If you're His son, He'll make
you sick of whatever it is that you spent your life getting into
so you don't get into it anymore. You learn patience. There's patience.
Hope is a patient grace. And it waits for His message.
It waits for His minister. It waits for His gospel. His
providence. His spirit. His season. His season. And only God can
do this work. Salvation is a miraculous work. It requires the presence and
power of God. You know, we talk about that.
I've talked about that since I was a kid. I listen to men
stand up and talk about this thing. Then go and act some different
way. The work of salvation is a miraculous
work. It's a work that only God can
do. Only God can do it. You can't
do it. Religion runs around. It's portrayed in the scripture.
It's just running around and it's been my experience with
it and all the years that I've dealt with it. Like a bunch of
ants, scurrying here and there, going about. Just going about.
Going about. Where you going? Well, we got...
Going about. It's going about like a bunch
of ants, what they remind me of. Paul said they're going about
trying to produce a righteousness. Now he said going about, busying
about, encompassing, our Lord said, sea and land to make one
proselyte. Searching. He said, you search
the Scriptures. You're busy with it. You have
Bible studies. You have all these things. You
search the Scriptures. For in that searching, you think
you have eternal life. And they are they that testify
of me, but you won't come to me that you might have life. Ever learning, the Scripture
said, but never able to come to the knowledge of the truth. When God does the work, He says,
stand still. What an unusual commandment.
Stand still and see the salvation of the Lord. My son, that's where
it's at. Stand still. Quit busying about. Quit scurrying about. Quit chasing
this and chasing that. Just stand still and listen.
Listen and look with eyes of faith and see the salvation.
of the Lord. Tribulation, he said, worketh
patience. O men and women chosen of God,
and in whom God begins the work, know they're in trouble. They
have nothing, no ability, no free will, no righteousness,
no affection, no interest. They live in a cursed world,
a world full of deceit and vanity and lies. When God begins His
work in them, they begin to realize that only God can do the work.
They can't do it. Preacher down there where they're
going, he couldn't do it. That board of deacons down there
in that church that was so strict and so friendly when they first
went down, they couldn't do nothing for him. His poor old grandmother
that loves him, she can't do nothing for him. He can't do
anything for himself. He's in trouble. He's in trouble. And they begin to realize that
only God can do this work. And the more any man experiences
the saving operations of God, the more patiently he learns
to wait and hope in the Lord. It's only the Lord can do this
work. Paul looked at those Galatians and those legalists that had
come into that church and turned them around. And now all of a
sudden, now they're being circumcised and beginning to keep this old
ceremony and that old ceremony and beginning to give honor to
days and stuff. And he said, Whoa! He said, What's
going on? Who hath bewitched you? Who has bewitched you? Who comes
preaching this kind of garbage to you? Who snuck in the back
door when I wasn't here? He said, you began in the Spirit.
Ain't that how you began? Didn't the Spirit of God come
to that helpless sinner and call him into light out of darkness?
Didn't He give him light? Didn't He give you understanding?
Didn't He point you to His Word and unlock the mysteries? Ain't
that how it began? Then why do you want to go over
here to the law? Won't you stay right here? Won't
you stay right here? It's a miraculous work and only
God can do it. And the more any man experiences
those saving operations of God, the more patient he becomes and
he waits. He waits upon the Lord. And in
light of the report given to him of this church and his own
experience with them, Paul says to these Thessalonians, he said,
I know your election of God. My soul, what a statement. What
a statement. Now there's five marks of a true
believer given in this text and I want us to look at them this
morning. Now I know and I realize that I preached from this text
not too long ago, but I'm not going the same direction today,
so don't just fold your notes up and go to sleep. And I want
us, as we go through these things, to examine our own calling and
election of God. Now, the first mark of a true
believer, and I believe it's stated here, even though it may
not be stated plainly, it's still stated, is confidence in the
Word of God. Confidence in the Word of God.
We're not talking about a creed, a church creed now. We're not
talking about what the Baptists believed, or what the Methodists
believed, or what your grandma believed, or what your daddy
believed. We're talking about the Word of God. God opening a man's heart and impressing
upon him that this is His book, this is His Word. This is the
only information I have on these things. Opinions vary. Denominational beliefs vary. You look across this world and
there's just an infinite amount of things that men and women
believe. The one thing common to all God's
elect is that He shuts them up to this book. And they begin
to see in this book The truth, they begin to see the mysteries
as they are unraveled right before their eyes. Now, they are preached
to, but there is no preaching apart from the Word. There is no preaching apart from
the Word. Look over here. Let me show you something over
here in chapter 2. Look at verse 13. 1 Thessalonians 2 verse 13. He said, For this cause also
thank we God without ceasing, because when you received the
word of God which you heard of us, you received it not as the
word of men, but as it is in truth the word of God, which
effectually worketh also in you that believe. Paul would take
a text like out of Isaiah, and he would read the text, but he
wouldn't leave it there. He preached the gospel from that
text. That's what he's talking about
over here. That's what preaching is. It's a declaration of the
Word of God and also a pointing of men to Christ. It's teaching
you Christ in that text. That's what it is. And Paul said,
when you received it, you received it as it truly is, the Word of
God. Now you'll find the same thing
over there in 1 Peter where he talks about being born again
of incorruptible seed by the word
of God. And then two verses later he
said, this is the word which by the gospel we preached unto
you. You see? And you can find it
in several places through the scripture. That's the first mark of a true
believer, is his confidence in the Word of God. And Paul was
an apostle. And he would, in time, under
the inspiration of God, pen nearly half the New Testament. Turn
with me to 2 Corinthians chapter 4. But Paul was also a preacher,
and preachers are not entertainers or socialites, they're not comedians
or philosophers. Preachers are men who are gifted
in the sin of God to preach and teach Christ in the Word of God. And I've got nothing to say to
any man who will not submit himself to the Word of God. I have plenty
to say to men if they'll listen. If they'll listen, if God will
shut them up to this book, I can sit down, I can turn over here
and I can show you some things. But boy, if he don't shut you
up with this book, I've got nothing to say. I'm not going to stand
around there and we're not going to bandy back and forth on our
opinions. I mean, if you enjoy doing that, go on. But I wouldn't
walk across the street to do it. Now watch this here in 2 Corinthians
4, verse 1. Therefore, seeing we have this
ministry, as we have received mercy, we faint not, but have
renounced the hidden things of dishonesty. not walking in craftiness,
nor handling the Word of God deceitfully, but by manifestation
of the truth, commending ourselves to every man's conscience in
the sight of God." It's handling the Word of God deceitfully to
take little portions out of it and try to build a doctrine on
it. I've heard preachers and different
men come and talk to me and they say, well, whoa, now wait a minute,
wait a minute, you're saying there that God reprobated men. He said, the Scripture said,
God not willing for any to perish. Is that what that Scripture says?
I don't think so. Peter said, it was God who flooded
this earth and killed every man, woman, and child except for a
handful that He put in an ark. And He said He kept that world
in store by His Word until that day came. And then He caused
a flood to take it away. And by that same word, He said,
is this earth being preserved today unto fire? And judgment
and perdition of ungodly men. He's holding His word. Why is
He doing it? But He said, God is not slack concerning His promises
to usward. Talking about His elect. He's not slack concerning those
promises which He promised to us. Not willing that any should
perish, but that all should come to repentance. That's what that
Scripture says. You see the difference? One uses
the Word of God deceitfully. One goes in with some kind of
preconceived notion, and it takes bits and pieces here and there
to try to preach a doctrine, to try to build a doctrine, and
sell it to men. And Paul said God delivered him
from that. Men say, God loves the whole
world. It says right here, God so loved the world, He gave His
only begotten Son. Well, you need to stand that
scripture up on the fence post and come over here and get you
about eight or ten more over here where it talks about it
and see if you can knock it off the fence post. If you can knock
it off, then that's not what that's teaching. And really and truly, if you'd
read the Word of God, you'd find out that there was a With the Jews, there was such
a belief that nobody else was going to be saved that that word
world referred to the Gentiles. It referred to God's Israel taken
out of every nation, tribe, kindred, and tongue under heaven. I'm not talking about every individual.
What's another form of this deception? The men use the word of God deceitfully. I'll give you one. You're going
to reap what you sow. Oh, I hope not. I'm a goner if
I reap what I sow. You go over and read that Scripture
and you'll find out that's talking about offerings. And if you give
freely and generously to your spiritual welfare and try to
maintain a church like we've got here, a congregation, and
make a place where we can come and worship, you're going to
benefit from that. But if you take your money and you go home
and you build your big fine mansion and you buy your chairs and boats
and cars and all this other kind of stuff and you go out there
and you're all engaged in that, you'll benefit from that. You'll
reap what you sow. Or you'll reap what you sow.
You see what I'm saying? But this is not talking about
every action that you do. My soul, if we're going to reap
what we sow, where's the grace of God? Where's forgiveness?
Where's salvation? And so on. Men use the Word of
God purgatory, the priesthood, denominationalism, and a thousand
other lies preached by men and women who use the Word of God
deceitfully. They rest the Scriptures, that's
what it says, to their own destruction. Paul said to Timothy, preach
the Word. Don't preach bits and pieces
of it. Preach the Word. I try in here
to maintain twice a week. Now, we haven't had our Wednesday
night meetings in a few weeks, but I try to maintain in here
two nights a week where we go verse by verse through the Bible.
We don't take bits and pieces. We go verse by verse by verse. We went all the way through the
book of John. We went all the way through the book of Ephesians,
and we're going through the book of Matthew. Went all the way
through the book of Genesis. We're halfway through the book
of Exodus. You see what I'm saying? We're not pulling bits and pieces
here and now. I'm trying to show you where
this thing has a continuity that flows from one end to the other.
That's what God reveals to that man. This is the Word of God. These are the mysteries. This
is the message. And you see it unfold before
your eyes as it's preached to you in the Word of God. That's
the first mark of a true believer, Russell. He shuts him up to this
book. He's not going to go back and tell you what the priest
said, or the preacher said, or the denomination believes. He's
going to say, wow, that's what God said. That's what God said. Preach the Word, he said. And
to preach the Word is to preach the sovereign grace of God in
Christ. So the first mark of a true believer
is for the Lord to shut us up to and give us submission to
the Word of God. Paul said, let every man be a
liar, and God be true. And all through the book of Proverbs,
you'll find he said, my thoughts are not your thoughts. So what's a thought? My thoughts
are not his. I can pretty much guarantee you
anything I thought was wrong, is wrong. Alright, here's the second mark
of a true believer. It's confidence and satisfaction
in the Lord Jesus Christ. If God ever shuts you up to His
Word, you'll find out you're a lost man, dead in trespasses
and sin, poor and wretched and naked and blind. He said, you
thought you were rich, but you're not rich. You're poor and naked
and wretched and blind. Your sins are gross and visible
to God. They look to Him like the rotten
flesh of a leper that He shows us in the cleansing of the leper.
That's how we appear before God. You know, a lot of times, you
get these vain imaginations in your mind, and like you see a
person, you think that's how God sees that person. Or like
you see yourself in the mirror, John, you think that's the way
God sees you. Boy, you better hope He looks at you in Christ.
Because if he don't, he's looking at a filthy, rotten leper. We're sinners by birth and sinners
by practice and sinners by choice and sinners because we love to
sin. And when a man finds this out
and convinced of his sins by the Holy Ghost, he'll lose all
confidence in the flesh. That's what Paul said. We are
the circumcision which rejoiced in Christ Jesus and have no confidence
in the flesh. You know, you get a little windfall
in your life, and you think about that room you can build on and
all them things, and then you get a little convicted. Well,
maybe I'll show you give a little bit more than normal. Man, you
sit back. If you had them bib overhauls
on, you'd put them thumbs back here, you know. Like, I picture
Nebuchadnezzar looking down there at that city. He said, it's not
this great Babylon that I built. We do that over every little
thing we do. Pray a good prayer. Boy, then you start to get some
confidence. No. No confidence in the flesh. None. None. We're sinners. And there's only
one source of confidence that can cheer the heart of a sinner,
and that's the Lord Jesus Christ. I can find happiness there. I
can rejoice there. Boy, I can rest there in Christ. Jesus Christ the Lord is everything
the believer wants and needs. What do you need? I need a righteousness. I don't have any. All in Him. He's the end of the law. What
do you need? I need my sins put away. He's
the sin bearer. He's the substitute. What do you need? I need God's
presence and power. He sends the Spirit. If I go
not away, the Spirit of God is not going to come. I need leadership. He reigns. He reigns. He's everything the
believer wants and needs. He's the righteousness we can't
produce. He's the propitiation for our
God. He's the only man ever to be
born of a woman to satisfy the Holy God in everything He thought,
said, and did. And in Him is manifested the
holy character of God and especially the glory of His grace And in
him is manifested the will of God to save a people for His
glory. Christ is all. That's what the
sinner discovers. Christ is all. And you can always
tell a man who's been shut up to the Word of God because he's
convinced of his sins and finds a full satisfaction for his sins
in the person and work of Jesus Christ. I've had so many tell
me over the years, You know, I go there and I go here, and
I don't even know the difference. I just know there is a difference.
The difference is Christ. That's the difference. He said,
I'll come there and rejoice. I'll go there. He said, they
seem to be preaching the right doctrine, but there's no rejoicing.
They're not pointing you to Christ. They're not pointing you to Christ. First of all, the believer shut
up to the Word of God and then secondly, finds confidence and
satisfaction in the Lord Jesus Christ. And the third mark of
a true believer is an experiential knowledge of the resurrection
of Christ. The Gospel message comes to God's
elect in power and in the Holy Ghost. What does that mean? That's
what Paul said, I know your election of God. Because when our gospel
came to you, you didn't receive it like the word of men. But
you received it as it is indeed the word of God. And it came
to you in power, he said back here in chapter 1. And in much
assurance and in the Holy Ghost. What's that mean? That means
that God the Holy Spirit accompanies the word with a power to raise
dead sinners to life everlasting. That's what that means. You'll never understand the first
thing until God raises you from the dead. We're dead. It doesn't excite us. A truth
might, you know, something you've never heard before in your life,
election, predestination, whatever it is. Somebody religious comes
and hears it and they're fascinated with it. Fascinated with it.
For a week or two. And then it gets old. And they're gone. They didn't
find Christ. They didn't find Christ. Paul
prayed in Ephesians 1 for the saints of God to know, now listen,
the exceeding greatness of His power to us who believe according
to the working of His mighty power which He wrought in Christ
when He raised Him from the dead and set Him at His own right
hand in heavenly places far above all principality and power and
might and dimension and every name that is named not only in
this world but in the world to come. The Lord Jesus Christ,
as a representative man, came into the world, this cursed,
deceived world, this present evil world, he calls it, this
fallen, depraved world, and wrought out a righteousness acceptable
to God, satisfied divine justice, honored, honored God in all that
He did. faithfully performed all he was
sent to do, and he went to the tomb dead. And on the third day,
having offered up himself to God for chosen sinners, God raised
him from the dead, set him on a cloud with his holy angels,
and carried him back into glory, and seated him at his own right
hand. And you know what it says in Ephesians 2? He has raised
us up together with Him. That's what faith grasps. That's
what faith sees. That's what faith lays hold of.
It not only raised Him up, it raised me up. And He set me with
Him on that cloud with His holy angels ministering unto me. And
raised me up and seated me with Him at His own right hand. Victorious. victorious. But that's not the
end of it. That in the ages to come, He
might show that to you. How's He going to do it? He's
going to raise you from the dead. That's how He's going to do it.
There's a spiritual resurrection. A spiritual. The Lord became that One, declared
to John on the Isle of Patmos, the first begotten from the dead. And by virtue of God's satisfaction
with Him, He is satisfied with all those represented in Him. We are, as Paul told the Colossians,
risen with Him through the faith of the operation of God. What a statement! Risen with
him through the faith of the operation of God who hath raised
him from the dead. Actually, baptism is a confession
of the resurrected saint. That's what that is. One saved
by the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ. And the new birth
is the dead sinner being born again and raised to walk in newness
of life. And the Thessalonians gave evidence
of a resurrected life. That's what they did. They confessed
and preached Christ. They hoped in Christ even under
persecution. They received the Word in much
affliction. They received the Word with joy
of the Holy Ghost. Became examples to all that believed. Sounded out that same Gospel.
Sounded it out everywhere they went. And turned to God from
their idols. Alright? Here's the fourth mark
of a true believer. It's the assurance of Christ's
present reign. The assurance Paul speaks of
here in this letter is not a confidence in your confidence, but an assurance
in the person and work of Christ, our Redeemer. Now my friend,
religion's taken up with and obsessed with this thing of what
God wants to do and men won't let Him do. Listen to him talk. He has no feet but your feet,
no mouth but your mouth, no hands but your hands, no eyes but your
eyes. He wants to come into men's hearts, but they won't let him.
He wants to give you an inheritance, but you don't want it. He wants
you to follow him, but you're going a different direction.
He's got a wonderful plan for your life if you just listen. You mean to tell me that the
living God who spoke the universe into existence can't do what
He wants to do? Is that what men are saying?
Is that what's exciting the crowd and are all out doing this? What kind of God do men have?
I can't find a single example of the Lord Jesus Christ begging
anybody to do anything. Can you? Not us. I can't find
one of the apostles begging anybody to do anything. Jesus Christ
came into this world, He said, to do all the redemptive will
of God. That's why He came. What did
He do? He did all the will, all that
redemptive will of God. He did it. And having accomplished
that will and the redemption of his elect, he sat down at
the right hand of the Father, expecting until his enemies be
made his footstool. Do you know why he expects it? Why does God expect that? Here is this man. God took to
himself human flesh. He did all these things. God
raised him up. Now he sits at the right hand
of God. The Scripture said, expect him till his enemies be made
his foots to. Do you know why he expects that? Because he's
got all power in heaven and earth. That's right. By virtue of his
accomplishments, our representative in heaven, God's mediator, has
been given all power over all flesh. to give eternal life to
as many as the Father has given Him. He's Lord. I'm listening to people talking
about making Jesus your Lord. He's Lord whether you believe
on Him or whether you don't. He's Lord whether you go to hell
or heaven. He's Lord. Nothing you can do is going to
change that. But by virtue of His Lordship, He can change you.
Yes, He can. By virtue of His accomplished
redemption, God gave Him power over all flesh. He made Him mediatorial
king, the Lord of the dead and the living. He's Lord over providence. He can give or withhold opportunities. That's right. It's in His hands. It's in His
hands. We think it's in ours. We think
we can arrange this and arrange that. Well, you know, I don't
want to meet today. I got a basketball game or bass
season's in or bear hunting or something, whatever. You know,
we don't want to meet today. Let's meet on... He gives the
opportunities. You want men to hear? Pray to
Him. He arranges providence. No problem
for Him to arrange providence. He's the Lord over providence.
He can give or withhold opportunity. He's the Lord over the thoughts
of men. Listen to this, Proverbs 16, verse 1. The preparations
of the heart in man and the answer of the tongue is of the Lord. We've been begging the wrong
person. We've been pleading with the wrong person. We're all here
pleading with a sinner when we ought to be pleading with God
for the sinner. That's right. We're looking for that confession
from that tongue. You better ask Him who controls
the preparations of the tongue and the mind. We better be talking
to Him. We'll still talk to the sinner,
but we're going to talk to God on his behalf first. Proverbs 16.1, the preparations
of the heart in man. And the Scripture says of the
reprobates of Antichrist, that the Lord sent them strong delusion
to believe a lie. Who did? The Lord. The Lord. Believers have nothing to despair
of, no reason for anxious thought, no reason for worry and fear.
Why? Christ reigns. He reigns. What's He reign over? All things. You're complete in Him, Paul
said, which is the head of all principality and power. Our hope
holds deception. Holds the scepter. What do you
think about that? Esther found that out, didn't
she? He holds the scepter. He can
stretch it out or he can withhold it. Our hope holds the scepter. He reigns. And because he reigns,
neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor
powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor
depth, nor any other creature shall be able to separate us
from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus the Lord." Ain't
that what that says? You better believe it. It's His
present reign that gives comfort to the believer. Oh, it's comfort. He reigns. Was it Gideon that got ready
to go into battle, and he bent down there to the creek, and
the Lord told him, said, you got too many men. We didn't have
a handful to start with. And the Lord whittled some of
them down. He said, you still got too many. We got down to
a handful. He said, now, you want glory
in the battle now. Now you're going to go to war.
And sent them out there, and they defeated them. Now that's
the same thing he does with us. Paul said this, he said, I'm
persuaded that he's able to keep that which I've committed unto
him against that day. That's assurance. It's in the
king who sits on the throne. You find that assurance, you'll
have assurance. And then the last mark of a true believer
is the patient anticipation of his return. Somebody calls me on the phone
and says, one of my kids or somebody I've ministered to way off somewhere
that comes down here to visit, or somebody from one of the other
churches, one of these preachers, and they say, I'm coming to visit
you, I'll be there on the 4th. Boy, I can forget doing anything
on the 4th. Because in anticipation of their
coming, I'm pacing the floor, I'm making arrangements, I'm
trying to get rooms for them, trying to get food ready for
them, trying to get the house cleaned up, and trying to notify
you people and arrange meetings. That's all my whole time. I can
forget trying to study. It ain't going to happen. Because
in anticipation, I'm looking. And then I find myself on the
day they're coming, I'm pacing the floor and looking. Every
time I hear a door shut, I keep looking out the door to see if
that's them. How we look for Christ? Do we even look for Him at all?
Have we made any kind of preparation? You see what I'm talking about?
Oh, Paul said, I know your election of God. Patiently, patiently,
with faith, Love in your heart. You're waiting for His Son to
return from Heaven. Waiting. With anticipation. Do you anticipate His presence? Paul said he did. He said, it'd
be better for me to die. He said, I'll stay here because
God put me here for your good. But he said, if I had my way,
I'd just go and be with the Lord. Because that, he said, is far
better. Far better. Our Father, take these words and apply them to our hearts
this morning. And we'll give you the praise and the honor
and the glory. We ask you for Christ's sake. Amen.