We're looking in the book of
Second Thessalonians again, if you'd like to turn there. Second Thessalonians, chapter
two. Before Paul's final farewell
to Thessalonica, he gives them sweet comfort. He gives them
hope. I hope we can look at this morning. Let's look at his words in 2
Thessalonians 2, verse 13. But we are bound to give thanks
always to God for you, brethren, beloved of the Lord, because
God hath from the beginning chosen you to salvation through sanctification
of the spirit and belief of the truth, whereunto He called you
by our gospel to the obtaining of the glory of our Lord Jesus
Christ. Therefore, brethren, stand fast
and hold the traditions which he have been taught, whether
by word or our epistle. Now, our Lord Jesus Christ himself
And God, even our father, which hath loved us and hath given
us everlasting consolation and good hope through grace, comfort
your hearts, establish you in every good word and work. That word everlasting consolation
is our title this morning. And this is the only place throughout
all of scripture that that is written, everlasting consolation. Everlasting means it never had
a beginning and it will never have an end. The word consolation
is the comfort received by a person after a loss or a disappointment. The comfort received by a person
after a loss or disappointment. So what is our everlasting consolation? Well, more accurately, it would
be who, who is our everlasting consolation? It's the Lord Jesus
Christ, an everlasting comfort to his people. Verse 16 tells
us clearly the Lord Jesus Christ himself and God, even our father,
which hath loved us, hath given us everlasting consolation and
good hope through grace. what sweet comfort there is knowing
Him. Paul said that I may know Him.
And that is every believer's hope is that we don't know about
Him. We don't know details of knowledge
that's gave us a doctrine. We know a person, we know Him,
that's our hope. Where else can we find consolation
outside of Him? Can we look at ourself for consolation? You find comfort whenever you
examine yourself? I can't. Can you find consolation
when you look in the world around you? We can't, can we? There's no consolation in ourself
or in this world except the Lord Jesus Christ who is in the world.
The Lord Jesus Christ is our consolation. He's our rest. There's
no work to be done. Where else can we find peace
with God? He is our peace. There's no peace in looking to
the world. We so often We look for something
in ourself that only the Lord Jesus Christ can supply and we
look in the world for peace and hope that only comes through
and by him. There's no peace and hope in this world except
the Lord Jesus Christ himself. He is our hope and he is our
peace. He is our rest. I like the wording
here. It doesn't just say consolation,
but it says everlasting. He's always been his people's
comfort. He's always been his people's hope. He's always been
his people's peace. He's the only source of hope
and peace and joy. And he always has been the only
source and always will be. Because of what we lost in Adam,
Because of dying in our father, Adam, Christ has become our consolation. He has become the comfort received
by himself after we had lost everything in Adam, but we have
gained it back infinitely more in the person of the Lord Jesus
Christ. Turn with me to 1 Corinthians 15. Paul is dealing with the resurrection
of the Lord Jesus Christ from the dead. And some were opposing
this truth, this gospel. They were opposing the, that's
our hope. That's the only sign that we
look to, as we mentioned in the first hour. And some were opposing
this idea of resurrection from the dead. They said it's impossible,
but aren't you glad when the Lord They looked at him and said,
well, who then can be saved? He said, it's easier for a camel
to go through the eye of the needle than it is for a rich
man to enter into heaven. And they said, who then can be
saved? And he said, with God, with man, this is impossible.
With man, this is impossible. With God, all things are possible. The resurrection of Jesus Christ
was not something man did. It was something that God did.
Paul is letting them know if Christ did not rise from the
dead our faith is in vain. We have no justification. Our justification was because
the evidence was because He was resurrected. He showed us that
we were justified by His resurrection. His resurrection is literally
the proof that we have been justified. Therefore, if he's not risen,
that means God is not satisfied with him. God was not pleased
with his sacrifice. The blood was not sufficient.
Everything that we believe hinges upon his resurrection. Literally,
if there's no resurrection, we're believing in vain. That's what
Paul's addressing here to these that are not believing in the
resurrection. Paul corrects this foolish thinking
by saying this, 1 Corinthians 15 verse 19, If in this life only we have
hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable. But now is Christ risen from
the dead and become the firstfruits of them that slept. For since
by man came death, by man came also the resurrection
of the dead. For as in Adam all die, even
so in Christ shall all be made alive. I've heard this statement
from multiple preachers. I know Henry Mahan used to say
it, and I believe he preached a message on it, but he said,
if you're wrong on the fall, then you're wrong on it all.
If we are wrong on what happened in the Garden of Eden, if we're
wrong on the fall of man, we're wrong on everything else. He
said that we all died in Adam. Now, what does it mean that all
died? Adam was not born spiritually dead. Adam was born spiritually
alive. He was the only man, other than
the Lord Jesus Christ, of course, he was the only man born spiritually
alive. To remain alive spiritually was
contingent upon him not taking the fruit. The Lord said, in
the day that you eat of the fruit, ye shall surely die. There was
no option there. There was no, understand it wasn't a choice. Men say, I have a choice. The
only one that offered a choice in the garden was Satan himself.
And he's the one that's offering choices to men today. The Lord
said, You shall not eat of the tree thereof. That's not a choice,
is it? Don't do it. That's what he said. Don't touch
it. He didn't say don't touch it. He said don't eat it. Actually,
Adam was the one that added those words to Eve. To remain alive,
it was contingent based upon obedience. And many religion
are preaching the same thing now. Free will religion is just
that. Don't do this or do this and live. And it's not true.
It's not true. He was the only one born spiritually
alive. Everyone else is born spiritually
dead because we died in our father, Adam. Adam was the only one who ever
had this command, don't eat the fruit and ye shall not die. But in the day that you eat of
that fruit, ye shall surely die. Not just physically, but spiritually. It was not an option. It was
a command, wasn't it? But what happened? Well, Eve took the
fruit, but the command didn't come to Eve. It came to Adam.
The command did not come to Eve by the Lord. It came to Adam
and Adam gave the command unto Eve. So whenever Eve took of
the fruit and Eve ate of the fruit, we did not all die. Man
was not doomed at that point. We didn't all die in our mother
Eve. Scripture says we died in Adam.
We didn't die when Eve took the fruit. The fall was the result of Adam
taking the fruit. Now there's an allegory here
that it's a beautiful picture I've never seen before. What would have happened to Eve
if Adam would have refused the fruit? Eve, you've ate the fruit.
I'm just gonna give an analogy as best I can here. Eve, you
ate the fruit. I'm not gonna eat that. God said don't eat
that. What happens to Eve? You know what's going to happen.
Is she going to die? He's going to live. She's going to die.
And what would the Lord would have gave Adam? Theoretically,
would have gave him another wife. But there's something that we're
missing in that. She was bone of his bone and
flesh of his flesh. That changes everything, doesn't
it? He loved her. He loved her. And in that love,
he chose to take that fruit that he knew would kill him. I don't know how much understanding
they had of death. They had not been around death.
They'd never seen death. Death had not entered into the
world at that point. But you know that it would have
had to been, the Lord would have explained something to them.
Don't do it or you'll die. There had to be some understanding
of what death would have been. He chose to take the fruit and
die. Eve would have just died and
he would have got another wife. I mean, theoretically speaking,
but he loved her. He loved her. She was bone of
his bone and flesh of his flesh. He chose to die with her. He
chose to die for her mistake, for her sin. He chose to become
one with her in that. He chose to die because of her,
because of her choice. In taking the fruit, he damned
the entire human race. If the Lord doesn't do anything
after this point, he has damned the entire human race. Not only physical death because
of sin, but eternal death. Eternal death because of sin.
And because of this sin, death passed upon all. Sin passed upon
all and death by sin. All have died in Adam. And this
isn't a partial death. This isn't a kind of having cardiac
arrhythmia. A lot of people have that issue
where their heart kind of flutters and flickers and they need to
have, that ain't death. What we're talking about here
is never being alive ever. We're talking about corpse that's
way beyond hope of being brought back to life. What do they say
you have two minutes, I think when your heart stops beating
or you get possible and I'm sure there's exceptions to everything.
But we're talking about a never being alive once how is something
going to be made alive then? This is utter lifeless death,
complete and total devoid of life, devoid of existence, no
hope of being made alive in anything we can do internally or anything
that can be done to us externally by any other source besides one,
God. He's the only one that can bring
life. He's the only, now if we're wrong on what happened in the
garden, and I've spent time on talking about how dead we are
for a reason, we have to make certain that we understand what
dead means. I mean, there is no hope of life outside of God
doing something. Men say, well, I have a will.
I can choose to be made alive. Now, that's silly, isn't it?
That's just silly to think a dead man or woman can choose to come
back to life. That's something in a fairy tale.
That's something in a superhero movie, isn't it? It doesn't exist.
It's puffery. It's silly. It doesn't exist.
But if we are going to talk about the will of man, then I can certainly
agree that we do have a will, but it's bound in our human sinful
nature, and we will always choose self. We will always choose that
which is contrary to the Lord. We will always choose the fruit
if we're given an option. If we're given an option, we'll
always choose the fruit. The reason is is that we're in
a body that's corrupt, and we have a will that's corrupt. It's
bound by our nature. It's bound by our sin and our
self. We have the will of pride, the will of self-righteousness.
That's the description of our will. We have so much pride,
and you'll agree with me in this. We have so much pride that we
would march into the presence of God and say, I've done this
for you, and I've done that for you, and I've cast out demons
in thy name. I have done many marvelous works
in your name. That's what we would do by nature.
And that's what men and women all do by nature. We know the reply that the Lord
gives to such thoughts. Depart from me. You're spiritually
dead. You don't understand. You've
never existed. Think about that. I don't know
you. For God to say that, that means
that they've never had a spiritual existence of life. They've always
been dead. They've always been dead. They
that are in the flesh cannot please God. Nothing we do or
don't do can ever change that. No prayer that we pray, no work
that we work, no keeping of the law, the law does not produce
life, the law produces death. Nothing we can do in our dead
state can cause us to be resurrected or to find favor before the Lord. Because Adam sinned, nothing
we do can produce life. We have no hope unless we have
been given the everlasting consolation. The everlasting consolation.
There is one who has the power to make those whom he loves alive. Alive. We're talking about changing
a dead dog's center into an eternally glorified being. He calls them
sheep. He's the only one that can do
that, isn't he? He's the only one that can do, he's the only
one that has the power, the ability. Scripture says, and I love this
verse, our world and men's religion throw this verse around flippantly
and don't understand what it means, but for God so loved the
world that he gave his only begotten son that whosoever believeth
in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. So all
I have to do is believe, right? Yes, that's all you have to do. How can a dead man believe? We
just talked about how dead we were, how dead we were and trespasses
and sin before the Lord came to us, how dead we are, unless
he does something. See, that's the love of the Lord
that accomplished something here. That's what's missed. That's
what's missed so often. We're dead in Adam, we must have
life given first to believe. What comes first, faith or life?
What comes first, the saving or the calling? See, these are
things that are so simple, when we look through the eyes of faith,
we realize that I'm laying there dead, and the Lord has to do
something, or I'm gonna stay dead. I'm dead in Adam, we're
all dead in our father Adam, and unless the Lord passes by
and says, live. Lord, can these, Lord said, can
these bones live? Can these bones live? Lord, you
know, if they're gonna live, you're the one that's gonna have
to do it. You're gonna have to blow upon them. It ain't gonna
do me any good to blow on them. I don't have anything but hot air coming
out that's CO2, it's poison. You're gonna have to breathe
life into these bones and cause them to stand up, and he did,
didn't he? The whole valley was very dry. Ezekiel said, Lord,
you're gonna have to do it, and the Lord did. How did he do it?
He prophesied of the wind, preached the gospel to them, that's what
he was saying, preached the gospel, and the Lord blew upon them and
they lived, and that's what he does now for his people, the same
thing. hear the gospel and he breathes upon his people the
breath of life and they become a living soul. Just as we see
whenever the Lord made Adam, that breath that he breathed
in him, that was the breath of life, the same life that he gives
to all of his people that are in the Lord Jesus Christ in his
time. He does it by his gospel. We must receive life first to
believe and that life is bestowed. It's not accepted or rejected.
That life is given. It's the free gift of God by
grace to his people alone. In the moment we are given life,
we are given repentance to see everything about us is sinful.
We are made to see that we deserve death. We don't deserve life.
We deserve hell. We don't deserve heaven. We deserve
to be left to ourself. We don't deserve the Lord Jesus
Christ. We don't deserve anything, anything good. That's what repentance
shows, isn't it? We're utterly sinful. And then
he gives us faith to see him. That's why he's our everlasting
consolation. As soon as we receive the faith that sees him, that
life, that's like taking a breath of air for the first time. If
you've been, a poor example would be if you're held underwater
to the point of passing out and then you're able to come up,
you go, you take that breath. That's what that first time you
see him, oh, it's a glorious breath, isn't it? We're alive
unto him. I'm alive. He's not left me dead and trespasses
in sin. I see him. Oh, and he's glorious
and marvelous and beautiful. He is the comfort to his people.
Jesus Christ is our everlasting consolation. What we lost in
Adam, we gain back so much more in him. Turn with me to Romans
chapter five, a few pages back. Look at verse 12. Wherefore, as by one man, sin
entered into the world, and death by sin. And so death passed upon
all, death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned. Death passed, don't miss this,
death passed from Adam to the next one, and to the next one,
and to the next one, all the way to me and you. Every person
that's in here was from Adam. If that's not true, the Bible's
not true. And we believe scripture. We
believe what the Lord said. God created heaven and earth.
He created Adam. Adam was the first man. Everybody after him
was by Adam's loins, if I can put it that way. Therefore, death
passed because sin passed. That's all sin can produce is
death and death and death. All have sinned. Somebody was asking me, what
do I mean whenever I say that you and I are sin? What do you
mean we are sin? Yeah, I know I sin, but what
do you mean we are sin? And I think I've been pretty
clear on what I mean by that. But when Bethany asked me about
that one time, I told her that a dog doesn't bark to become
a dog. It barks because it is a dog.
Cat doesn't meow to become a cat, it meows because it is a cat.
Can the Ethiopian change his skin or the leper his spot, scripture
tells us. These are the things that we compare to to say, what
are we? We're sinners by nature, by practice,
by pleasure. We're sin completely, full up
of it. We are sin. We are the essence
of sin. There's none good, no not one.
Everything we produce, everything we think, everything we do is
filthy rags. And when the scripture talks
about filthy rags, those are disgusting rags. Those are not
just that word filthy we use whenever there's dust on the
windowsill. No, he's not even what he's talking about. He's
talking about far worse things than that. It's the most filthy
thing, the most disgusting thing you can think of. That's our
righteousness in the sight of God. But here's the good news
in verse 17. Look at verse 17. For if, by
one man's offense, death reign by one, much more they which
receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness
shall reign in life by one, Jesus Christ. Therefore. As by the
offense of one, judgment came upon all men to condemnation. Even so, by the righteousness
of one, the free gift came upon all men and to justification
of life. For as by one man's disobedience,
many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many
be made righteous. Moreover, the law entered that
the offense might abound, but where sin abounded, grace did
much more abound. That as sin hath reigned unto
death, even so might grace reign through righteousness unto eternal
life by Jesus Christ our Lord. Death passed from Adam to the
next one, to the next one, to the next one because of his disobedience,
but And well, because of this sin, judgment came and the law
came and showed men that they were completely condemned and
could not have any hope of having salvation or righteousness outside
of substitution, outside of substitution. But because of Christ's righteousness
by him. We've been given justification
to eternal life, is what he just told us. See, this is why he's
our everlasting consolation. He's the only one that could
have done this. Nothing that we could have done could have
gotten us out of our dead state. Nothing that we could have done
could have changed our standing with God. You can't we can't
take a dead corpse and expect it to be made alive by something
we do. And it's the same spiritually.
It's the same spiritually that there's nothing we can do to
become alive unto the Lord unless he does it. He is our life. And
he put away the condemnation, do us, the law's demands of death,
the law's demands of condemnation. He put away those demands of
condemnation. How? By being condemned. And to death himself, bearing
our sin in his own body, becoming the center substitute, being
made the very sin of his people and by his blood, putting away
all of those sins, all of those sins. Second Corinthians 517,
I'm going to quote this a couple of times, but it says, therefore,
if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature. I like that.
We're no longer a, an Adam creature. We've been born from above. We
no longer are of the earth earthly, but we are of the heavenly. We're
no longer of the carnal, but we're spiritually, we're a completely
new creature in the Lord Jesus Christ. If any man be in Christ,
he is a new creature. Old things are passed away. Behold,
all things are become new. What is he saying? He's saying
when he looks at us, he no longer sees that there is a list of
sin that is unnumberable by us. He knows the number. He no longer
sees that we are in sin, that we are shapen in iniquity, that
we're born in sin. He no longer sees that. He sees
the blood and he sees his son. And he says, I am well pleased,
well pleased. He justly declares the covered
sinner as righteous. Justly. He's just and the justifier
because on the cross of Calvary, he poured out his wrath in judgment
upon all the sin of all of his people. Therefore putting away
those sin now he is justice has been served that which condemned
us is put away. It's gone We've died unto sin. We've died unto the law and therefore
we are now Because of what Christ did we are now made the righteousness
of God in him There is now therefore no condemnation to them which
are in Christ Jesus who walked not after the flesh, but after
the spirit and I need to walk after the flesh and not after
the spirit. If you're in Christ, you're walking after the spirit
in everything you're doing. Isn't that glorious that you
can't not get out? We can't get out of him. We're
walking in the spirit all the time because we are in the Lord
Jesus Christ. That's how he views it. Those that Christ died for made
perfect in his death. Adam just had to die with Eve. He couldn't do anything to help
her, could he? When he died, when Adam died with Eve, what
good did that do Eve? Not a bit. She got a mate for
life. She got a husband for life. But
it didn't do her any good spiritually, did it? Didn't bring about life
eternal. Didn't put away her sin. He just
died with her. Couldn't do anything. Whenever
our Adam died, the Lord Jesus Christ, when he died in our stead,
he didn't just die with us. He died for us. He died in our
stead so that we no longer have death upon us. We no longer have
the sentence of death. He took it away. He traded places. Adam couldn't do this, but Christ
did. Christ gave his people life and he took all their death.
He took all their sin. He gave his people righteousness
and he gave them life eternal. He gave them life eternal. That's
why he's our everlasting consolation. He took all the bad that we are
and gave us all of his goodness, all of his grace, all of his
mercy. We no longer live unto death, but we die unto life in
him. We die unto life in him. Death,
whenever we do take our last breath, that death is the revelation
of eternal life. When we take our last breath,
that death is the revelation of eternal life. We've always
been alive in him. We've never had to die because he died in
our stead. We died in him. This is the work of our everlasting
consolation. Scripture says, when he shall
appear, we shall be made like him, for we shall see him as
he is. Whether it be by the trumpet or by the grave, when he shall
appear, we shall be made like him, for we shall see him as
he is. He is the everlasting consolation of his people. He
is our only comfort. Turn back with me to 2 Thessalonians
chapter two. Verse 16, now our Lord Jesus
Christ himself and God, even our father, which hath loved
us and hath, that's past tense, isn't it? Hath given us everlasting
consolation and good hope through grace. Here's our comfort brethren. Comfort your hearts, establish
you in every good word and work. The Lord said in John 5 verse
24, Verily, verily, I say unto you, he that heareth my word
and believeth on him that sent me hath everlasting life, and
he shall not come into condemnation, but is passed from death unto
life. Passed. When are we passed from
death unto life? If you're in Christ right now.
You've passed from death unto life. I don't understand it,
but I believe it. That's what he said. What a consolation,
what comfort that we no longer have to die. We no longer have
to die because he died. The penalty is no longer there.
It's been taken away because the offense is gone. The offense
is our sin. And he put it away by his own
blood. There's no longer an offense.
When the Lord sees us, he sees his people as perfectly righteous.
Now we've passed from death unto life. We died in him. What a
consolation. He doesn't see his people as
anything less than the very righteousness of God in him. The very righteousness
of God. Therefore, if any man be in Christ,
he's a new creature. Old things are passed away. Behold,
all things are become new. A new creature. Well, I don't
see a new creature. Well, who are you looking to?
We don't see it, who are we looking to? We're looking to self, aren't
we? We look to Christ. See, that's what the new creature
does, it looks to Christ. That's all that it can do, because
it lives by faith. We live by the faith of the Son
of God who loved us and gave himself for us. By the finished
work of Christ on the cross, every single one of his elected
people have been made new creatures, holy creatures, sanctified creatures,
set apart creatures, perfect creatures, righteous creatures. I love that. We can't, you can't,
Everything that he is has been given to his people. Every person
that he loves, every person that he dies for. He has made them
accepted in the beloved. He has made them accepted in
him before God. This is why the world was created.
This is why all things consist. This is why he is our everlasting
comfort. In closing, I want to turn to
second Corinthians one. He's our only comfort. Second Corinthians one three. Blessed be God, even the Father
of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and the God
of all comfort, who comforted us in all our tribulation, that
we may be able to comfort them which are in any trouble by the
comfort wherewith we ourselves are comforted of God. What is
our comfort? More importantly, who is our comfort? He is. He
is our comfort. Does it comfort you to know,
does it comfort you to know that whenever he died, He accomplished
something. See, when Adam died, it didn't
do anything. Adam couldn't help Eve. But whenever our Adam died
for his bride, she died in him. She died unto death and unto
the law and unto sin. And therefore, death, hell, and
the grave says nothing against the child of God. So whenever
we cross the river, whenever we close our eyes in death or
by the trumpet, Death cannot hold the Lord's people. Death
has nothing to say. They must be released. The law
has nothing to say because the Lord fulfilled the demands of
the law. God's justice has been satisfied for his bride. God
is the comfort of his people. He always has been, he always
will be. He's all we have, but more than that, he's all we need.
He's all we need. He's been made into us, our everlasting
consolation. Let us pray.