Let us look this morning to 2
Thessalonians chapter 2. 2 Thessalonians chapter 2. 2
Thessalonians chapter 2. Now we beseech you, brethren,
by the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and by our gathering together
unto him that you be not soon shaken in mind or be troubled
neither by spirit nor by word nor by letter as from us as at
the day of Christ is at hand. Let no man deceive you by any
means. For that day shall not come,
except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be
revealed the son of perdition, who opposeth and exalteth himself
above all that is called God, or that is worshiped, so that
he, as God, sitteth in the temple of God, showing himself that
he is God. Remember you not that when I
was yet with you, I told you these things? And now you know
what withholdeth that he might be revealed in his time. For
the mystery of iniquity doth already work. Only he who now
letteth will let until he be taken out of the way. And then
shall that wicked be revealed, whom the Lord shall consume with
the spirit of his mouth and shall destroy with the brightness of
his coming. Even him whose coming is after
the working of Satan with all power and signs and lying wonders
and with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that
perish because they receive not the love of the truth that they
might be saved. And for this cause God shall
send them strong delusion that they should believe a lie, that
they all might be damned who believe not the truth, but had
pleasure in unrighteousness. 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 you 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 and establish you in every good word and work. My message this morning will
be from verses 12 and 13, but I do want to make a few comments
upon the verses which precede these verses, verses 13 and 14,
I should say. The chapter you see begins with
Paul correcting an error, an error that troubled the believers
in this church, the church in Thessalonica. The era had to
do with the Lord's second coming, as though the Lord's coming was
at hand. And this era had come among this
church either by them misunderstanding something that Paul had taught
them or said, or they had received a letter with his name attached
to it. Notice the apostle tells us that. that you be not soon shaken in
mind, verse two, or be troubled neither by spirit nor by word
nor by letter as from us as that the day of Christ is at hand. Now, it's easy, I should say,
to be misunderstood when we speak, when we preach. I know over the
years I've been misunderstood and sometimes I've wondered how
in the world a person could have got that out of what I said. But in speaking, sometimes we
misspeak and sometimes people mishear. And we do not know for
sure how this era came among the Church of the Thessalonians,
but it did. And they believed that the Lord's
coming was right at hand. He was coming just then in that
early first century of the Christian church. And Paul is writing now
to straighten them out about this. One of the problems in
the early church was that a person would write a letter, not an
apostle, but he would attach the name of an apostle to his
letter to give give it weight so that people would clout, as
they say today. Give it clout because it would
be signed by an apostle. And Paul, he dealt with this. And if you notice in the last
chapter of this second letter of Thessalonians, he tells them,
while he never wrote any of these letters himself, he dictated
the words. But at the end of every one of
his letters, he gave this sign. If you notice in verse 16, now
the Lord of peace himself give you peace always. By all means,
the Lord be with you all. The salutation of Paul, now notice,
with mine own hand. In other words, he would sign
off on this letter, which is the token in every epistle, so
I write, and now here's the token. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ
be with you all. Amen. If a church received a
letter, supposedly coming from the Apostle Paul, without his
signature and without this token that he attached to every one
of his epistles, and you can go through, beginning with Romans
and 1st and 2nd Corinthians, go through all of them, and you
will see at the end of every letter that we know the Apostle
Paul wrote, he mentions the grace of God. And why not, right? Why not? He had experienced the
grace of God in such a wonderful, great degree as every child of
God does. His salvation began with the
grace of God, and it was continued by the grace of God, and it would
be completed by the grace of God. For by grace are you saved
through faith, and that not of yourselves. It is a gift of God. Why do we talk about grace so
much? Because salvation is by grace. It's by grace so that God gets
all the glory. Someone said, how do you know
if your preacher's preaching the truth? Well, listen to his
message and who gets the glory? Who gets the glory from his message? Does God get all the glory or
does man share in the glory if a person believes the message
that you're hearing? God gets all the glory. That's
the way it must be. Now, Paul tells these believers
that there are two things that had to happen to correct this
view. They thought Christ was coming
back soon, immediately. And to correct this, Paul tells
them in verse three, there's two things that must happen first. First of all, there must be a
great falling away. Notice that, let no man deceive
you, verse three, by any means, for that day shall not come.
And think about that day, that day. What a day that's going
to be. What a day that's going to be,
and I couldn't help but look in verse one, where he said,
brethren, by the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our gathering
together unto him. What a day that's going to be
when Christ comes again and all of His people, we will be gathered
unto Him. You know, that's, Christ is Christianity. Christianity is Christ. It's
knowing Christ, that's eternal life. And one day we're going
to be with Him, gathered together unto Him. It's not so much we're
going to heaven, Although I thank God we are, but we're going to
be with Christ. And where Christ is, that's going
to be heaven for God's people. I think it was Samuel Rutherford
who suffered, a Presbyterian Scottish preacher, suffered greatly
in his day and wrote many letters from prison. But he said hell
would be heaven if Christ is there. It's being with Christ,
gathered together unto him. But Paul tells these believers,
before the Lord comes again, two things are going to happen.
And the first thing he mentions is, there's going to be a falling
away first. Now you might say, has that happened?
Absolutely, absolutely. When in the fourth century AD,
Constantine, the emperor of Rome, when he embraced Christianity
as a religion and made Christianity the state religion, recognized
it as a state religion, then many people flocked into the
church and became professors, not necessarily possessors, but
professors of Christianity, of Christ. of the gospel. And of course, many of them did
fall away. Now, a true believer cannot fall
away. You know that. A true child of
God is in the hand of Christ. He said, my sheep are in my hand
and no man is able to pluck them out of my hand. You say, what
about people who do fall away? Well, John the Apostle tells
us about them in 1 John chapter 2, when he said, they went out
from us, but they were not of us. For, and here's the thing,
for if they had been of us, they would have no doubt continued
with us. But they went out that they might
be made manifest that they were not all of us. There's a truth
revealed in the gospel of Jesus Christ called Perseverance, some
speak of it as preservation, two sides of the same coin. But everyone that the Lord saves
by his wonderful grace through the blood of Jesus Christ will
persevere and will be preserved, will be kept by the power of
God. But Paul said, there's going
to be a falling away first before the Lord comes again. And we
know that has taken place. But secondly, he says that the
man of sin will also be revealed before the Lord comes again.
Now this antichrist, the spirit that was already at work in the
days of the apostles. The apostle John was the last
apostle to die. And all of the apostles, according
to tradition, died a violent death. They were persecuted and
put to death. But John, the apostle, the one
who wrote the Apocalypse, the book of Revelation, was the last
to die. But before he died, in his first
letter, 1 John, he tells us that the spirit of Antichrist was
already at work. He said this, every spirit that
confesseth not that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is not
of God. And this is that spirit of Antichrist,
whereof you have heard that it should come and even now already
is in the world. In the book of Revelation, which
covers the period, the time period, and it covers it over and over
and over again, seven times over. The same period from the first
coming of Christ to his second coming. And what we learn as
we go through that book is that the church will have four main
enemies during this time. The first enemy, of course, is
Satan. who will always be at the bottom
of these other three enemies of the church, persecuting the
church in one way or the other. The second enemy is the beast
that comes out of the sea, which we believe is the governments
that persecute the church. And there have been many governments.
They lived under a government. Those early Christians, the government
of Rome that persecuted the church of the Lord Jesus Christ. And
then the second beast comes out of the land of the false prophet.
We have religion. Religion, how it intermingles
and deceives people with the true gospel. There's churches
all over our land and all around the world today that claim to
be Christian churches, and there's no more Christianity about them
than you can find in a thimble. Why? Because they do not know
Christ. They do not preach Christ and
him crucified, the gospel of Jesus Christ. And many people
are deceived by that. Well, it's a church. Well, they
sing the same hymns that we sing. Yeah. They preach or they use the same
Bible. I don't know if they preach from
it, but they use the same Bible or they used to. Many of them
now have their own Bible, their new Bibles. But then also there
is Babylon, that last enemy, which is the world, the flesh,
lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, the pride of life that
is an enemy to God's people, always drawing, always drawing. You and I, we face this enemy
all the time. The world is always, love not
the world, nor the things of the world. And it's always pulling
upon believers. But we know that when the Lord
comes again, notice in verse eight, Some believe that this
Antichrist will be an individual person, but we know this, and
then shall that wicked be revealed, whom the Lord shall consume with
the spirit of his mouth and shall destroy with the brightness of
his coming. The one thing that we learn from
the book of Revelation is Christ conquers, Christ reigns, Christ
rules at all times. He's on the throne today. Now,
he hasn't always been on the throne. As God, he's always been
on the throne, but the person, Jesus Christ, the God-man, the
mediator between God and man, he is now upon the throne and
when they had that book there and nobody could open it, remember?
It was all sealed outside, sealed inside. The Lamb, the Lamb of
God, the Lord Jesus Christ, He prevailed to open the seals of
that book and all of history, providence, the Lord Jesus Christ
is upon the throne and he's reigning. And that's one thing as believers
that should give us peace. There's many things that you
go through, that we go through in this life that are troubling,
disappointing, discouraging. But one thing we know for sure
is Christ is on the throne, that he reigns. Someone said, I've
already read the end of the story. I have too, haven't you? I've
read the end of the story. And I know that he's coming again. And he's going to receive, as
the scripture here says, he's going to receive all of us unto
himself and present us unto his father. And there's not going
to be one, of His chosen people that's not going to be there,
not one. Father, here am I, and the children
which Thou hast given me. Yes, what a, he's a victorious
Savior. But I've been drawn this past
week to these verses, verses 13 and 14, and especially the
first words of verse 13. but we are bound to give thanks
always to God for you. All my life I've heard a saying,
duty bound. Have you ever heard that saying,
duty bound? Well, I looked up the meaning
of that and it meant what I thought it meant. It means It emphasizes
a strong sense of responsibility or feeling that one must act
in a particular way because it is the right course of action. I just felt duty bound to do
this, whatever it may be. Duty bound to do it because I
feel like it is the right thing to do. And I believe the Apostle
Paul had this same feeling. He felt a strong responsibility
that the right course for him, and as a pastor, this is how
it came down to me, as a pastor, the right thing for me to do
is to be bound to give thanks for you, you brethren, believers
in this church. Paul felt this duty. If you look
back in chapter one, I noticed this in chapter one and verse
three, he had already said he felt bound to do this. In chapter
one and verse three, he said, we are bound to thank God always
for you, brethren. And now he says it again in our
text, but we are bound to give thanks always to God for you,
brethren. Oh, we're bound to give thanks.
As a pastor, I'm bound to give thanks, and I do. I give thanks
for those that God has added to this church. And I told a
person on the phone the other day, he lives in another city,
I'm a strong believer that God adds to the church. We've had
people come here and they ask me, well, I want to be a part
of this church. And I said, well, just keep coming.
They usually tell you that on the first or second visit. Well,
just keep coming, make sure you understand, you believe, and
some of them are offended, and they don't come back. Well, God
didn't have them. I believe God, as the scripture
says, God added daily to the church, such as are being saved
in the book of Acts. And the reason I told this man
what I told him is, just because you see there's a sovereign grace
church in a city, and you're thinking about moving there,
that doesn't mean, as far as I'm concerned, God's going to
add you to that church. God adds to his church. And I feel like God has added
to this church, and I'm duty bound. I'm thankful for each
and every one of you. And I pray the Lord adds many,
many more. But I looked at these verses
and I see that Paul mentions three reasons, three reasons
that he gave thanks for these people. And that's what we'll
look at. First of all, he felt bound to
give God thanks for they were brethren beloved of God. You see that in verse 13? We, but we are bound to give
thanks always to God for you, brethren, beloved of the Lord. The Apostle John tells us that
God is love. There are some truths that we
know about God's love just because it is his love. God is love,
and here are three truths about His love that have to be true
because of who He is. First of all, God's love for
these brethren. Paul gave thanks unto God for
these brethren because they were beloved of God. God's love for
these brethren is eternal love. Eternal love. He's eternal. And his love is eternal, and
he's infinite. And I understand that when we
think along these lines, if you're like me, it just gets too big
before long. Something is eternal. Because
all that we've ever experienced, that I've ever experienced in
this life, it had a beginning. a middle and an end. And it's
hard to fully get a hold of the fact that God is eternal, had
no beginning, has no ending. and His love for you, His love
for His people. We're bound to give thanks to
God for you. Brethren, beloved of God, God's
loved you from eternity. Before there was ever a star
in the sky, God set His love upon you. What an amazing, amazing
truth. He is the eternal one. Remember
in the book of Exodus, he revealed himself to Moses at the burning
bush as, I am, not I was or I shall be, but I am the eternal, everlasting,
ever living one. In the book of Daniel, he's spoken
of as the ancient of days. Ancient of days, we see a person
a hundred years old and we say, boy, that's an old fella. Not
really. Not in comparison to God. There
is no beginning with him. And in Revelation, the Lord Jesus
Christ confessed, I'm alpha and omega. Those are the two letters,
right? The beginning and the ending
letter of the Greek alphabet. He's the beginning and the ending
of all things. I'm Alpha and Omega, the beginning
and the ending, says the Lord, which is and which was and which
is to come, the Almighty. And don't you love this verse
from Psalm 90? Before the mountains were brought
forth, wherever you had farmed the earth and the world, even
from everlasting to everlasting, Thou art God. That's the God who loves you.
And that's how old his love is for these brethren. We are bound
to give thanks unto God for you, brethren, beloved of the Lord. Because God has loved you from
everlasting. And not only is God's love eternal,
but God's love for these brethren and all the elect of God is sovereign. It's sovereign, he is sovereign.
And so his works are sovereign works. This means that his love must
also be sovereign. He's sovereign, then his love
must be sovereign. He sovereignly loves fallen sinful
men and doesn't love fallen angels. People say, well, that's not
fair. Take it up with God. I'm just here as his spokesman.
And I'm gonna tell you the truth. That's what the Bible declares.
There's a third, we believe a third of the angels fail when Satan
fail, and God has consigned each and every one of them to everlasting
damnation. But those who didn't fall are
called the elect angels. That's God's sovereignty, right?
Of choosing some and letting others pass and condemning them
for their actions. He loved Jacob and hated his
twin brother Esau. I pray to you all not to say
that. That's what the Bible says. I didn't make that up. The fact that his love is sovereign
means that it is also free. In the prophet Hosea, he said,
I will love them freely. And I guarantee you, if you could
have gone among these people here that Paul wrote this letter
to, and you could have asked each and every one of them the
same question, What was there in you that caused God to love
you? I could go through this congregation
and I could ask you, I could ask myself that question. What
is there in you that caused God to love you? And every one of
those truly safe people in that congregation would have responded
the same way you do. I don't see anything in me. I
see a whole lot of demerit, but I see nothing in me to merit
God's love. No. God, His love is sovereign. It's free. And that's the reason
we love to hear about grace, isn't it? That's what grace is. That's what grace is. It's sovereign
grace. God's love for these brethren
and all the elect is past finding out. Paul says, but we are bound
to give thanks always to God for you, brethren beloved of
the Lord. We're bound to give thanks for
our brothers and sisters in Christ. Why? Because God loved them. God loves them, I should say.
God has always loved them. And oh, what a sin it is for
us to be judgmental and critical of our brothers and sisters that
God loves. that God loves. Notice the second thing he says,
he felt bound to give God thanks for them for they were from the
beginning chosen to salvation. The date of this election, he
says, is from the beginning. Now that doesn't mean from the
beginning of the world. The first verse of our Bible
says, in the beginning. But this election goes back before
that. In Ephesians 1 and verse 4, Paul
wrote, according as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation
of the world. God hath from the beginning Paul
says, chosen to salvation. We're bound to give thanks for
you, brethren. Why? Because God from the beginning
has chosen you to salvation. God chose you. God loved you. I better be thankful for you.
I better give thanks for you. Many years ago, there was a preacher
from, he was either from South Carolina or North Carolina, I
forget which. His name was B.B. Caldwell. And
when I heard him, he was an old man. And I heard him preach at
one time, and he told about this Armenian lie that some people
say about God's election. He said, some people will tell
you, well, that just means God voted for you, the devil voted
against you, and you cast the deciding vote. He said, there's
one problem with that. What is it? When this election
took place, you were underage. You couldn't vote in this election. Amen. You were underage. Oh yeah. This is from the beginning. It's not from the beginning.
Some people say, well, that means from the beginning when you first
heard the gospel. From the beginning of the time
when you heard the gospel and you made your decision and then
God chose you based upon your choosing Him. That's a lie. That's not what the Bible says.
No, from the beginning, which means from even eternity past. Notice this election was to salvation. You know, salvation is a big
word, isn't it? It's a big word. It actually
means deliverance, of course. And when a person is delivered,
if you were in a pit, and you couldn't call your way outside
of it, and someone came along and saved you, they would deliver
you from something to something. They would deliver you from the
pit in which you were found, and they would deliver you to
something, that is to firm ground. And salvation is a deliverance
from, from what? From, first of all, sin. Thou shalt call his name Jesus,
for he shall save his people from their sins. From the penalty
of sin, yes. And from the power of sin, yes. And thank God one day from the
very presence of sin, yes. Delivered from, delivered from
a burning hell. When you think about what the
scriptures say about hell, everlasting destruction, we've been delivered
from hell, we've been delivered from everlasting destruction,
we've been delivered from a burning hell, from darkness. And do you
know the scriptures, here's another thing about punishment of the
wicked that some people maybe don't think about. But the lost
are going to be put into a place that's full of demons and other
lost people. And what are they going to be
doing? They're going to be cursing God. Can you imagine that? Just being in a place, put into
a place, and everything you heard in utter darkness, a bottomless
pit with eternal hellfire, and hearing cursing, cursing, cursing. We can't even begin to imagine the punishment that we've been
saved from. Saved. God hath chosen you unto
salvation to be delivered from that. And what are we delivered
to? to have our sins forgiven, to
have peace with God, to be adopted into the family of God, to know
God, to enjoy God forever and ever. Yes. And number three,
this election, it includes the means to the ends. Notice that.
Look at your Bible again with me, if you will. 2nd Thessalonians
2 and verse 13. Because you know, there's always
some people say, well, if I believe that, I just wouldn't. Why preach? Why send missionaries? Why give
out tracts? Why do any evangelistic type
of work? If some are ordained, chosen
to salvation, why do any of that? Because, listen, the same God
who has ordained the end That is the salvation of his chosen
has also ordained the means to that end. What is it? Well, what does he say here?
Through sanctification of the spirit and belief of the truth. Sanctification of the spirit.
The word sanctify in the scripture is used in two different ways,
two different senses. One sense means to set apart. In the Old Testament, in the
temple, in the tabernacle, there was dishes that were sanctified,
a snuff dish or a snuffer. It was set apart, set apart. It wasn't for common use. It
was to be used in the tabernacle. The Lord Jesus Christ said, I
sanctify myself. for their sake. He set himself
apart for suffering, for bleeding, for dying. That's one meaning
of the word sanctify. But another meaning, of course,
is to make holy, to make holy. And this meaning here, of course,
is to purify, to cleanse. In our text here, Through sanctification
of the Spirit, it is speaking about the work of God the Holy
Spirit in the new birth. The new birth. Let me show you. Look with me in 1 Corinthians
6. This is what this word sanctify
means here. It means to purify or cleanse. Beginning with verse nine, Paul
said, know you not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom
of God. Now, what does he mean by that?
That's what we all are. By nature, that's what we all
are. Unrighteous, ungodly, evil, wicked. The unrighteous shall not inherit
the kingdom of God. What's he talking about here?
Well, read on. Be not deceived, neither fornicators,
nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of
themselves with mankind, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards,
nor revilers, nor extortioners shall inherit the kingdom of
God. And such were. Past tense, right? Past tense. Such were some of you, but God's
done something for you. You didn't do this for yourself.
You didn't do this by going through the baptismal pit. No. God's done something for you.
What has he done? You're washed. You're sanctified. There it is. You're sanctified.
You're sanctified. You're set apart. You're cleansed
by the blood of Jesus Christ. But you're justified. in the
name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God. That's
what he's talking about here. And notice back in the text. Belief of the truth. Belief of
the truth. Who is the truth? Christ, the
gospel. through sanctification of the
spirit and belief of the truth. Yes, a person who is quickened,
who's made alive by the spirit of God in the new birth believes,
trusts in Christ, and their life is changed. Their life is changed. Such were some of you. God saves
the worst of the worst. I know he does. Paul said he
saved the chief of sinners. Here I am, Paul said. This is
a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ
Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am chief. He didn't say, I was chief, I
am chief. Yes, he came to save the worst
of the worst. But thank God, we don't continue
in that lifestyle. We're changed by the grace of,
we're sanctified by the spirit. Got a new heart, which produces
a new walk. Doesn't mean we're perfect by
any means. And we believe the truth, we
believe the gospel. Notice in closing this last thing
Paul said, but we are bound to give thanks always to God for
you, brethren, whereunto he called you by our gospel. To the obtaining of the glory
of our Lord Jesus Christ. Paul felt duty bound to give
God thanks for they were called to grace and glory. You know
the scripture says, what God has bound together, let not man
put asunder. Speaking about marriage, of course,
but the same is true of truths in the word of God. And here's
a truth that should never be put asunder, grace and glory. Grace and glory. Grace here and
glory to come. If you experience God's grace
here, His saving grace here, you're going to experience His
glory. They should never be separated.
They were called to experience this saving grace of God. And
everyone who does will obtain the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ. I pray God would bless this word.