I hope you'll turn back with
me now to 2 Thessalonians 2. It is the way of fallen man to
live out his days believing in chance and circumstance that
these things dictate his course. He walks and he reacts to things. He learns. He avoids things. He goes through these things.
And these things, he believes, dictates his course. He believes that by thought or
precaution, by certain diets and exercises, he can lengthen
his days upon the earth and prevent certain things from happening
in his life. He believes that. That's how
he walks. That's how he walks. And while
there might be some truth mixed in with his thoughts, the reality
is that God has determined our days and set the bounds that
we cannot pass. He told his disciples, he said,
there was an old sparrow over there on a fence post. And the
Lord pointed to that sparrow, that old useless bird that nobody
paid any attention to, and He said, not a sparrow can fall
to the ground without your Father. Not even that sparrow can die
apart from the purpose of God. Do you think He cares less about
your death than He does the death of a sparrow? You see what I'm
saying? God has set the bounds. And we're
not going past them not one minute. Not one minute. Not even the sparrow. If, I believe,
is the theology of fallen man. I sat in the waiting room over
at the hospital and I listened to their conversations. And they
talked like this, if, if. I just kept hearing that word,
if, if, if. If I'd only eaten more wisely. this wouldn't happen. If I'd
had more regular checkups, if I'd not drank so much, if I hadn't
went out that night in the rain, if I'd not taken foolish chances,
if I'd exercised more, if I'd never started smoking. If, if,
if. I sat and listened to the conversation. Now, my friend, I don't encourage
you to live ignorant and uncaring in your life. That's not what
I'm doing. But neither do I want you to be fooled into believing
that these things is what determines the end. These things are determined
by God. They're determined by God. I've
known people who have exercised and lived in perfect health,
lived to be about 32 years old and died. Died of the most unusual
things. I know a man who was driving
down Route 52 on the Ohio River on the Ohio side across from
Ashland where we used to live. And they called that area Hanging
Rock. And you look up on those big
cliffs above where they blasted through for the highway and there
was huge, big, I mean rocks way bigger than a house hanging out
over top of the road. And been there for years and
years and who knows how long it's been there. Been there forever.
And this fellow is driving down the road, 55 miles an hour, and
a rock breaks loose. And that rock comes down and
he is dead on top of that car. Now he was in perfect health,
lived a good life. He exercised. He didn't smoke. He went to the doctor regularly.
He probably could have lived to be 100, what folks say. He
would have lived to be 100. No, he lived to be about 35. And I tell you, when you see
things like that, you see the hand of God in them. I remember
down in Lexington, between Danville and Lexington, there was an old
road. And it winded down the mountains and crossed the river
and winded back up. And there was a young lady on
that road. We'd had an ice storm a few years before and had killed
a tree. And this tree just laid there
dying slowly. She's driving up the hill. A
little bit of wind hit the tree. The tree went over, come down
around the top of the car, right where she was driving, killed
her instantly. And you could go on and on and
on. Here's what it says in the Scriptures.
None of us liveth to himself, and no man dieth to himself. For whether we live, we live
unto the Lord, and whether we die, we die unto the Lord. Whether
we live, therefore, or die, we are the Lord's. Now, he's not
talking about saved people. He's talking about everybody.
Everybody. He's the Lord of the dead and
the living. That's what he goes on to say.
To this end did he die, was raised, and seated at the right hand
of God, that he might be Lord of both the dead and the living.
Our days, our future, and everything in it are arranged of God. Brought
to pass for our good and His glory if we're believers. Everything
in it. Everything in it. And as I sat
there in that waiting room at LSU and listened to men and women
whose loved ones were on the brink of eternity, I learned
a lot. I just sat and listened. Sat
and listened. Those without hope mourn like
those without hope. No comfort. They couldn't be
comforted. Couldn't be comforted. Several
occasions I saw the doctor come out and go over by them and kneel
down and you could just tell the bad news. And they just bawled
and said there was no comforting them. There was no peace. There
was no consolation. And those with a false hope attempted
to console one another talking about all kinds of things. things
that I haven't been around in a while. I'm not accustomed to
hearing, talking about prayer walls and praying over certain
articles of clothing and, I don't know, vials of oil. There was
no end to the stuff that I heard and saw while I was sitting there
in that room. And to me, this kind of talk
is no more than whistling in a cemetery. You remember when
you was a kid, you'd go past You didn't whistle coming down
the road, but you get around that cemetery and you start whistling
because you're scared. You think that whistling is going
to keep whatever from happening. Whistling ain't going to keep
anything away. And neither does foolish gestures. Neither does
foolish gestures. And they sat there and there
was no real comfort in that. And I'm not attempting to mock
them or make fun of them and their suffering. Their suffering
was real. It was as real as mine. And their hurting was real. But
what I saw as I sat there is that there was no real comfort
to give them because there was no hope. What will you say to
a man who has no hope? How will you comfort him? How
will you ease his burden? I can put my arm around him.
I can talk to him. I can say things. But I can't
ease his suffering because he has no hope. What can I say about
a man? I don't want to preach an unbeliever's
funeral because I've got nothing to offer the living. I've got
nothing to say to them. What will I say? I'm not going
to lie to them. What will I say? How will I comfort
them? I'm telling you this, this thing
is real. And every so often, I remember
walking to school one morning, we lived in a little town called
Crestline. It got its name because the New
York Central Railroad and the Pennsylvania Railroad crisscrossed
right in, dead in the middle of this town. And so no matter
where you went, you had to cross the railroad track. And so I
was walking to school about 10, 11 years old. A man wandering
on a thousand things, you know, and walking along. And there
was a train on the main thoroughfare there. There was a train, and
he was right on the tracks, the big engine. He was sitting there.
If you've ever heard a train, they just kind of chug along
when they're sitting there, you know. And I'd pay no attention
to him. The cars was going out around
the gate, and people walking and so on. And I walked there
around the gate. And just about the time I got
in front of that train, that engineer blew the whistle. And
I'm telling you, I come clear out of my shoes. And when I turn
around and look, there's this huge big steel monster sitting
there with one light shining right on me. And he was revving
that engine up, grinning from ear to ear. I know he did it
on purpose. But that's just how sobering
things when they happen to us in this life, that's just how
they are. That's how quick they come and how sobering it is when
they when they happen. And I tell you this, if you don't
have a hope, you're not going to generate one. If you don't
have a hope, it's too late for you. You sit there, and there's
just nothing to cling to, nothing to hold on to, nothing to fall
back on, no consolation, nothing whatsoever. And if you're expecting
sympathy from the doctor, you can forget that. They just come
in doing this. Well, I got some bad news, you
know, your head full of cancer. I'll see you in a minute. And
they walk out the door. Ain't no sympathy there. And they just
leave you sitting there. I do. It's sobering. It's sobering. Those without
hope mourn like those without hope. And I tell you, as I sat and
listened to them, My thought was how thankful I was to have
a hope and how thankful I was that she had one, a hope, a good
hope. That's what Paul's talking about
in this verse. These people were upset. Somebody had come along
in the name of the apostles and wrote them a letter and said
Christ was coming back almost immediately. And they were shook
up. They had unbelieving relatives
and children, and they had all these things going on. And Christ
was coming back, and they were in a panic. And Paul wrote to
them, and he said, now wait a minute. Wait a minute. Christ ain't coming
back right now. Christ just now ascended up into
glory. There's some things that have
to take place. Scriptures that must be fulfilled.
There's a work that must be accomplished. He's not coming back right now. And then he begins to describe
this whole gospel age and what must take place and how that
Antichrist, that spirit of Antichrist. And he tells them, as this age
progresses, so shall that religion of Antichrist. It was prevalent
even then. Even then, think about it, that's
just a few years after the death of Christ. A few years after
the death of Christ, and yet already, already there were those
who despised the gospel of God's sovereign grace and who had mixed
their vain traditions of ceremonialism and legalism with the gospel.
And Paul said, he described it this way, he said, the mystery
of iniquity doth already work. Its machinery was already being
put into place. Its foundations were being laid
and put into practice. And it's not just that they denied
His coming altogether, but they denied the necessity of it. Nobody, you won't find anybody,
nearly, I don't think you will, that denies the death of Christ.
But they will deny the necessity of it. They'll deny the necessity
of it. They denied the sufficiency of
it. The sufficiency of it. And they denied His fulfillment
of the law in God's satisfaction with that work, the righteousness
of it. They denied that. They denied
His resurrection and the end for which He was raised. He was
delivered for our offenses and raised again for our justification. Brothers, you're justified in
Christ. You're justified. You might not know it yet, but
you're justified. That's what the gospel does is
inform. It enlightens. It brings that
good news to you. And they denied his kingship
and his priesthood and therefore his right to rule and to intercede. Why? You preach election. That's not fair. It's not fair
to you. Huh? Really? It's not fair to you? All of us condemned? All of us
sentenced to die? All of us sinners by practice,
by birth? Huh? We're all judged. We're all guilty before God.
And God comes over here and He said, well, I'm going to save
five out of that hundred. What are you going to plead?
It's not fair? Huh? You see what I'm saying?
When men and women start talking about the election of God not
being fair, what they're saying is they have a right to be saved.
And you don't have any rights. You forfeited those rights and
that. They denied His resurrection
and the end of it, and they denied His kingship and His priesthood
and His right to rule and intercede. He's just another saint. They
knew he was a great teacher. They were willing to put him
right up there with Moses and right up there with Abraham and
all these other patriarchs. But in the end, he was just another
saint. He was just another prophet,
another ornament to hang up in the church and hang on the wall
or wear around their neck. They didn't see him alive. They
didn't see him in person. They didn't see him seated at
the right hand of God, a person, a man in glory. They didn't see
that. They didn't see that. Sometimes
I think that's why we can't pray. We don't really believe there's
a person, a person seated at the right hand of God. Huh? I
tell you, when you're hurting and you know there's somebody
seated at the right hand of God to do something about it, I think
you'll call on Him, don't you? Sure you will. Sure you will. They didn't see Him alive in
glory and seated at the right hand of God. They didn't see
Him or see in Him the glory of the Father, that express image
of His person. They didn't see in Him the salvation
of sinners accomplished and guaranteed. He is the guarantor. He is. It's not things that guarantee. It's He. He is the guarantor. Antichrist religion deceives
through its subtlety, and it leaves men clinging to superstitions
and relics and experiences, decisions, and self-righteousness. And like
an ocean, Paul said, in these last days, it'll permeate the
earth. And it has. And it's swept into
its grip. All they just covered them, buried
them like Pharaoh of old in an ocean of antichrist spirit. And he looks at those around
him, and even in that day when that mystery of iniquity does
already work, he said, I'm bound to give thanks for you, brethren.
Why? Why? Because God chose to save
your soul. That's why. From the beginning,
determined, before ever he put light and declared, caused
His light to shine out of darkness before ever He separated the
waters from the earth, before ever He put a tree or an herb
or made man or any of those things. From the beginning, God hath
chosen you unto salvation. Huh? Oh, I tell you, that's the
first stone in a good hope of grace right there. That's the
first stone. Oh, God has from the beginning
chosen you to salvation. A good hope, an unspeakable hope
always begins with God. You had an experience of grace
or an experience of religion or whatever it is and you want
to trace it back to see if this thing is truly of God, trace
it back and find its beginning. Where did it come from? Where
did it come from? How did this thing come to be?
It came from God. It came from God. That's its beginning. The beginning
of all true conversion is God. In the beginning, God. That's
how this Book of Enlightenment begins. God. Oh, he looked at that remnant
who heard and believed and gave thanks unto God. I thank God. He knew something about the power
and deceit of Antichrist. He knew something about the power
of Satan in this world and the effect and influence of religious
men on it because at one time he was one of them. Paul knew
that. And he said, I'm thankful. I'm
thankful that God has from the beginning. It always begins. God is the beginning of life
and light and hope. It's God Himself who chose us
unto salvation. Now this doesn't say He chose
you to be savable. That ain't what that says, is
it? Huh? This doesn't say that He chose
you to have the option to be saved or to give an opportunity
to be saved. This says that from the beginning
He chose us unto salvation, before creation, before the fall. for the casting out of Satan
into the world from the beginning. And I don't pretend to understand
that. You can't comprehend eternity. I don't fully comprehend that.
But God loved the people and He chose them unto salvation. And the election of grace is
the first stone in this good hope of grace. God is not up
for election. Did you know that? God is not
up for election. He's not running. He's already
seated. He's already there. He's not up for like... He holds
his office by his own merit and power, and the whole idea of
making Jesus your Lord, or making Jesus your Savior, or accepting
and rejecting Him is totally ridiculous. Nothing you do, believe,
don't believe, get mad, get happy, get... Whatever you do, you are
not going to change Him one bit. Not one bit. He is what He is. It's you that has to change,
not Him. He's the same. Paul said, we
look unto Him, the author and finisher of our faith. He's the
same yesterday, today, and forever. He's the same. You can't take
away from the effects of working of His accomplishments. You can't
take one thing away from Him. What you do is not going to make
His blood any more powerful than what it actually was. He redeemed
all that He came to redeem. You can't add to Him or take
away from Him. And it's God that does the choosing.
Our Lord looked at His disciples, and He said, You have not chosen
Me. But they did choose Him. He said,
You have not chosen Me, but I have chosen you. Eternal election is the basis
of all true blessings. No blessing apart from election.
You won't throw election out the window, you just threw the
blessings right along with you. That's right. Ephesians 1, 3,
and 4 tells us that we're blessed with all spiritual blessings.
Now listen, according... Oh, there's an according with
that, yeah. According as He hath chosen us in Him before the foundation
of the world. Throw away elections, you threw
away the blessings. Huh? No blessings for you. And this election is not salvation. It's unto salvation. Jesus Christ
came into this world 2,000 years ago to represent His elect. That's why He came. One with
His elect. He become a man. He suffered
as they suffered. He become flesh of their flesh
and bone of their bone. He suffered every trial. He suffered
every feeling. He suffered every temptation. He was tempted in all things
like as we are yet without sin. He was tired. He was hot. He
was cold. He was tempted. And he was made
of a woman, made under the law, subject to its demands, accountable
to God for his obedience. And all that he did, he did as
our representative and substitute. He bore our sins in His own body
on the tree. He was delivered for our offenses,
raised for our justification. Christ is our righteousness.
He's our atonement. And He and He alone is the propitiation
for our sins. God has from the beginning chosen
you to salvation. And then secondly, through sanctification
of the spirit and belief of the truth, as a result of our Lord's
accomplishments and his ascension to the throne of heaven, the
Holy Ghost himself, on the basis of this, is sent to effectually
call out all for whom Christ suffered and died. That's who
he's calling. Wilt thou be the Christ? Tell
us plainly. I told you. I told you plainly. But you don't hear because you're
not of my sheep. The Holy Spirit is going to call
out every man effectually. Somebody comes in here and they're
almost, boy, like the old king, they're trembling, they're almost,
but not quite. They go out the door and they
don't come back. Not of my sheep. They went out promised because
they were not all of us. Had they been of us, they no
doubt would have continued with us. There's no doubt there. There's nothing like Him. No
obstacles to prevent it. No ifs, ands, or buts. The Holy
Ghost is God Himself. Who's going to prevent Him? Huh? Who's going to resist Him? You
can't resist God. There's nothing like Him here.
Whom He did predestinate, them He also called. And whom He called,
He also did justify and glorify. called from spiritual death to
life everlasting, called from darkness unto light, called them
to justification of grace, being freely justified by His grace. Old Brabus was a free man, and
he didn't know it. You ever think about that? Old
Brabus down in that cell, all that going on out there. He was
a free man and didn't know it. You hear them soldiers coming
down that aisle and hear that crowd out there yelling, you
know, their voices would go up in a frenzy and they could be
heard, the mulch or two could be heard down there, but he wasn't
hearing all this stuff in between. He was just hearing those loud
voices. All he could hear is, crucify
him, crucify him! Give us Barabbas! Oh, man. You hear them soldiers coming
down that aisle. But they weren't there to crucify
him, they were there to set him free, John. They came with the
good news. When was he free? Not when they
told him. When another was chosen to die
in his stead. The salvation in Christ is made
known to the soul through the effectual working of the Holy
Spirit. And the presence and power of the Holy Spirit can
only be known by the work he's sent to do. He makes no physical
appearances. No man has seen God at any time.
That's what the scripture says. Can't see God. God is staring. And neither can you see the Holy
Spirit unless he takes to himself some image, unless he takes like
the dove descending to fulfill the scriptures. No man has seen
God at any time. God is spirit. He don't make
any kind of a physical appearance, nor does He give us any of those
old apostolic gifts, the raising. You notice when men mock those
things, they only mock what they can do in pretense. If apostolic
gifts is true, I want to see the dead raised. Raise a dead
man. I'll walk out to the cemetery
with you right down here at this next little church. There's a
cemetery. I'll go out there. If you can raise one of them,
I'll believe in apostolic gifts. But this gibberish and speaking
in tongues is a mockery. Take that leper and cleanse him.
Let me see that. Cause the dumb to speak. Do something. Why do you just... It's only
tongues they want to try to mimic because they can do it through
deceit and trickery. Apostolic gifts included the
raising of the dead. I ain't seen none of that, have
you? I ain't seen none of them even trying to do it. None of
them curing lepers. They'll cure somebody with a
headache. Ain't nobody cleansing lepers. That's not how the Holy
Spirit reveals Himself. He reveals Himself in the convention
of sin. He reveals Himself in the enlightenment
of Christ. the accomplishments of Christ.
He convinces us of righteousness. And He convinces us of judgment. What does He do? Some of you in here are being
convinced of sin. So you're going to understand
what I'm saying. But it is something to see a man convinced of sin. It's something. Those of you
who have experience, you know it when you see it, don't you?
Huh? All of a sudden he's not doing
this. He's not looking to see how many ceiling tiles or how
many rows and counting them all. He don't do that anymore. All
of a sudden he's listening like this. Huh? He's serious now, John. Now he
remembers where that pen and paper was and he's taking notes.
What did he say? What chapter was that? Did you
hear what that book was? Write that down. Huh? He hears from the heart. God
preaches Him in the heart. What a miracle of grace to see
a man or woman convinced of sin, to see them begin to be absolutely
repulsed by themselves. Huh? They used to thank good
when they'd pray, and thank good when they did this, and now they
just, they can't find anything in there. They can't find any
sincerity in there. All of a sudden, there's no sincerity.
It's gone. All that self-righteousness begins
to just whelm up inside the heart. They find nothing good in their
devotions. They despise what they once hoped
in and trash what they once gloryed in. And then the Holy Spirit
convinces of righteousness. If God ever convinces you of
sin, He'll have to convince you of righteousness because you
know you can't produce one. Our Lord said, except your righteousness
exceed that of the most holy men that's ever been on this
earth outwardly, except it exceed them, you're not going to enter
into the kingdom of God. That's right. And the only one who can produce
that righteousness is Christ. Christ. You've got to be convinced
of that. You're not going to turn loose
of this until you're convinced of this. Because eternity hangs
in the balance. That's why you're not going to
turn it over. You're still going to find a little bit of something
in them prayers. Still going to find a little
bit of something in that coming to church. Still going to find
a little bit of something in that visitation at the hospital. Once he convinces you of sin
and he convinces you of that righteousness, you'll turn it
close. You'll turn it. And you'll lay hold of this.
And when you do, Christ becomes the end of the law for righteousness
to everyone that believes in Him. The end of it. He don't
need that anymore. He don't need those Ten Commandments
hanging on His bedroom wall. He don't need them anymore. They're
right here. They're right here. Fulfilled
in Christ. Honored and exalted in Christ.
That's my righteousness. That's my righteousness. And
He's convinced of judgment. What a comfort, Nathan. I know they just tell you take
a deep breath, and that's the last thing you remember until
you wake up in the waiting room. But what a comfort when you take
that breath, to know if you wake up, you're not going to wake
up in the presence of an angry God. You're going to wake up
in the presence, arms of the Father welcoming you. The old
prodigal welcoming me home. Well done, thy good and faithful
servant, enter thou into the kingdom. What's that worth? What's
that worth? Oh, you've got to be convinced
of these things now. I'm telling you, judgment's over.
The only one who can apply that blood to the conscience is the
Holy Spirit of God. And when He does, the guilt is
gone. Judgment's passed. Judgment's passed. or to be convinced
that such a one as yourself can be blameless and without fault
in the presence of God's glory. I tell you, that's more precious
than gold. He finds a satisfaction of God
in those things. And then this is how the Holy
Spirit of God makes Himself known. through the preaching of the
gospel. It's not just a ceremony anymore. Not just a ceremony
anymore. But we go listening. I want to
hear some news. Speak to my heart. Tell me something
about God. Tell me something about a good
host. Tell me something. I'm dying. I can't do what I'm
not what I want to be. Tell me something. Give me a
word from God. All of a sudden, you have an
appetite for it. All of a sudden, you've got a reason to pray for
the preacher. Lord, give him a message for
me. Speak to me. Huh? Well, you never did that
before. You never did that before. You
wasn't hungry. You wasn't hungry. Oh, he makes himself known through
the preaching of the gospel. He called you, that's what Paul
said, by our gospel to the obtaining of the glory of the Lord Jesus
Christ. You know, Paul told this very
people, these Thessalonians, he said, I know your election
of God. Because when my gospel came, it came not in word only.
It came in power and in the Holy Ghost, demonstrating how God
saves sinners. There's an appetite generated,
an interest in the Word of God. The fear of God comes in their
eyes and heart. That's what it means to be sanctified.
He said we're sanctified up here. He said He's chosen us to salvation
through sanctification of the Spirit. That's what He's talking
about there. The work of the Holy Spirit in
our hearts. And to be sanctified means to be set apart by God,
to be declared holy and to actually be made holy. What a thing! All the work of God. And then
the result of this work is to obtain the glory of the Lord
Jesus Christ. What's that word? What's that word? His glory. Things of this world taken away
from you? Does that bother you? Not if you have the glory of
Christ. I've got the treasure and it's laid up in heaven where
moth and rust can't prevail. It can't get to it. That's my
treasure. That's my hope. It's seated. It's guaranteed. It's alive. It's raised. It's seated. It's
ruling at the right hand of God. That's my hope. If I have this,
I enjoy it. If you take it away, that's okay,
too. I've still got that. That's your hope. I believe that's
why God takes it away every now and then, don't you? To let you
know this is your real hope. This is your real hope. And how
much more precious do the days become here when he does these
things? That's what Paul's talking about
here in this chapter. In spite of all that the spirit of Antichrist,
in spite of all the influence of this world and the religion
in it, and the evil things that goes on in this world and trials
and suffering and all of these things, we have a good hope,
he said through Christ, a good hope. And no matter what comes
your way, it doesn't affect that hope. That hope's good. It's good. May God be pleased
to give you that hope this morning. Our Father, we thank you. Thank you for another day. One day we'll sit in the presence
of our God by His grace, and we'll look back on these things
and wonder in amazement that we see even more of the work
of God accomplished in these things. Our Father, teach us and we'll
be taught. Instruct us, ground us, settle
us in the truth. Help us to do that which you've
called us to do for Christ's sake.