Address—C. Hendricks
DISCLAIMER: The following has been auto-transcribed. We hope it will help you to find the section of this audio file you are looking for.
Lord Jesus, come and let us launder, roam apart from thee in that right place where we shall see thee face to face.
Lord Jesus, come.
To raise that too 3/24.
Oh Jesus.
First Thessalonians chapter one.
First Thessalonians chapter one verse one, Paul and Sylvanus and Timotheus under the Church of the Thessalonians, which is in God the Father and in the Lord Jesus Christ grace.
From God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ We give thanks to God always for you all making mention of you in our prayers, remembering without ceasing your work of faith and labor, of love and patience, of hope. In our Lord Jesus Christ, in the sight of God is our Father.
Knowing, brethren, without your election, go for our gospel came not unto you in Word only.
But also in power, and in the Holy Ghost, and in much assurance, as you know what matter of men, We were among you for your sake, and you became followers of us and of the Lord, having received the word in much affliction with joy, the Holy Ghost, so that we were in samples to you, to all that believe in Macedonia, that you were in samples, rather believe in Macedonia and Makai, but from you sounded out the word of the Lord, not only in Macedonia and Akaya, but also in every place your faith to God were to spread abroad.
So that we need not to speak anything, but they themselves show us what manner of entering in we had unto you, and how you turn to God from idols, to serve the living and true God, and to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead, even Jesus, which delivered us from Iraq to college.
Power had only been at Thessalonica 2 weeks.
And this was the first epistle that he wrote.
We were looking the other day at the last epistle that he rode, which was Timothy, and here we're looking at the first epistle that he wrote.
Everyone of these chapters, we have the Lord's Coming presented either the rapture or the Appearing, but they're both called the Coming.
Let's say the the two are two different phases or stages of his coming. First for us and then with us to this world. You will appear and establish his rights down here.
I was.
Thinking of going through the entire New Testament, just touching upon the the number of the pistols, Almost every epistle, with very few exceptions, we have the Lords coming.
Or our hope mentioned, but rather than that, I thought we would concentrate a little bit more upon these two epistles to the Thessalonians.
We're going to look at each epistle and the battle, the line of the of the bottom of the epistle and how that the the teaching revolves around the truth of the Lord's coming. It's a very, it's a very, it's probably the the most often spoken of theme in the New Testament because as I said a moment ago, nearly every epistle.
00:05:02
Contains some reference to the Lord's coming or to our hope.
We had it several times in this chapter that we've read. Notice, he says. I'm not going to go into each verse in detail. Time will not allow that. But we're going to look at just follow through the line of truth that the apostle brings to these young believers. Very young in the faith. But it's amazing how much he had imparted to them in just a short while, two weeks that he had been there.
He says he thanks God, always spoiled them.
In verse 2, taking that with you in our prayers that remember you without ceasing, remembering without ceasing, we mustn't, we mustn't neglect to get the the tone of the apostles, of language being the delicacy with which he writes, the affection of his heart, how he handled, how he ministered to these beloved.
Young, women, young in the past.
Not necessarily young in years, but young in the favor and the tenderness with which he deals with with them. Remembering, he says, without ceasing your work of faith and labor. Flowers and patience of hope. New translation reads that your enduring constancy of hope. There we have the first mention and Alan Charles epistles.
I would suggest that you are very, very profitable study is go throughout his epistles and trace out and tell you hope and love. It's not always in that same order. Sometimes it's faith, love and hope as it is here. But we have those three mentioned over and over again and where one of them is missing. Is that the key to see that in the second edition it's a key to what was defective there or what needed to be corrected?
Or what what ministry needed to be supplied to, to fill up the full measure of the truth that he would bring the Saints into?
A man without a fault is most miserable.
We were once without God and without hope in this world. We have nothing to look forward to.
I can't call. 3 moments in time is nothing really, and that's all we're going to have. He has no hope outside Christ, nothing permanent, nothing abiding, nothing lasting. Just a few sleeping moments for what is our life. It's a vapor that appears and then finish it away, just like a puff of smoke that's gone and without a hope, without something which is future.
And sure and certain and steadfast, and which enters into that will in the veil where Christ is entered, without that most miserable, most miserable, That's what we once were when we were lost in our sins. Outside of Christ, we had no God, and we had no huddle, no hope.
And so he so when hope is missing.
In the life, in the in the epistles, and we'll see it in an instant in the second.
In the second epistle or hope is missing because there was something drastically wrong in that official. But it's not so here. Here, always in order. But they needed more instruction, and the soul needing more instruction is not necessarily the solo which is in error. They simply need to be further enlightened. That is where faith needs to be further instructed in the truth. And this is this is the case in the first epistle.
To the Thessalonians.
2nd Epistle. They had believed a lie and so they had to have their false belief corrected and that resulted in their giving up of their hope down here. And the enemy would have us in these last days to believe a lie. He doesn't care what the lie is, but if that if that thing that we believe that doctrine or falsehood that we believe.
Robs us of a daily present expectation of the Lord's coming.
00:10:03
As follows. I very much enjoyed reading Forever Dallas Treatise On the Lord's Coming and he made this comment. I thought it was excellent. He said If an argument or a discussion arose as to when the Lord would come, he said I wouldn't engage in it, but if one arose as to whether he was coming or not, I would immediately come to.
The defense of the truth that he.
Is coming, he is coming. The important, the importance.
Of the doctrine of the Lord's coming. The truth of the Lord's coming is that he is coming. We do not know when he is coming, and all those that have set dates have been disappointed thus far. I liked what the newscaster. I didn't hear him say it, but a brother reported it to me. I'm sure many of you have heard him call Harvey.
He was commenting on a prediction made by someone that the Lord would come on such and such a date and this was the day after and the Lord hadn't come and he made some comments, I don't know what they were that connected with that. And then then he came back after some advertisements in that and he made a few more comments, but his last word is but keep watching, keep watching. I believe he's a Christian. I've been told that he is and the point he was making is.
So this prediction has failed.
He is coming. He is coming. That's the important thing, that we should be pressing on souls, not when he's coming. The enemy would get us occupied as to setting a date, which the Lord has told us not to do, and He has gotten us off the fundamental issue and that is that he is coming. He is coming and we can say he's coming soon because everything points to it that has to establishing a precise time that is not for us to do. I believe, remember I made a statement once.
Publicly, that I believe the Lord would come this year.
And ever since I've made it, I've regretted having made it. But I can't take the roots back that I can certainly say I think it's a mistake. Not that he, I don't expect him to come. I like what one brother said, he said any date setting that is farther off than today, I'm not interested in. And I like that because that's the expectation. That's the present hope that the Christian today, perhaps today, perhaps today, anything beyond that we're not interested in because.
We're to live our lives as though he were coming today, tomorrow. But today, well, he's coming. That's the important truth of the New Testament.
Your patience of hope you're you're in constancy of hope that is going on pursuing. You know all the activities that the Lord lays upon us down here with that hope before us, and that hope is to be such a power over our souls.
That it it causes us to hell loosely to things down here. This is not our home. This is not our hope. Our expectation of things is not here. It's it's in the glory. And so it's a heavenly hope. We could trace it all through the New Testament, all the wonderful terms applied to our hope. Not an earthly hope, but a heavenly hope.
Then he goes down to verse nine. He says, For they themselves shall have us what manner of entering in we had unto you, and how you turn to God from idols. Now that's what he refers to in verse three as the work of faith. The work of faith seems like a sort of a contradiction, doesn't it? Because of its faith, it's not worse. And if it's works, which is the thing that we do, it's not safe. But here he's talking about the Word of Faith.
That is, this is a work which flows from faith, which is begotten by faith, which is the outcome of faith. It's it's what James talks about. Faith without works is dead. And this kind of work, this work of faith, is turning to God from idols. When one believes the gospel, he does something if there isn't some response on his part, if there's not some change in his life.
This profession of faith is meaningless, is worthless, and that's what James says. He says faith without works is dead. So if there's not a response, if there's not a change, if there's not some difference, if there's not the laying aside of the old order of living and the old habits of sin, if there's not a real marked change, there's no work of faith. There's no work which follows true living, abiding faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.
00:15:24
They turned to God from idols. They turned to an object worthy of their faith as found objects unworthy. Their faith was There was something that happened, actually. It wasn't just something that took place in their hearts. It was that. Of course, that's what faith means of bleeding in the heart. But then there was something that outwardly changed. And if there's no outward change, one could well question.
Whether it's that there's any reality in the soul.
Work and faith, how you turn to God from idols. And then there's the labor of love to serve the living and true God. They have been serving idols. They have been serving what is false. They have been serving vanities and vain things, and now that they had in the work of faith, turned to the true God from all those idols, now they have the privilege, that labor of love.
To serve the living through God. What a labor of love that is. And it's one which goes on while our lifetime all our pathway here labor of love. And then he talks about patience or enduring constancy of hope. And so it is and verse 10 says, And to wait for his Son from heaven. To wait for his Son from heaven. There you have it, the patience of hope, the waiting for him.
The daily expectation.
In Luke 12 it was the wicked servant that said my Lord Delayeth his coming, And then he began to beat the men servants and the maidservants, and to eat and to drink, and to get broken, and saw it allow the mischief that has come into the Christian testimony has flowed from putting off the Lord's coming to some future day.
Not expecting him momentarily each day.
That's the way our lives should be built. That would that would correct many of many a thing in our lives. Now one of the things that it shouldn't do, and evidently it it had this effect in many. I'm not sure how it was this doctrine or if it was other motives, but he he addresses it in the first epistle and in the second epistle, and that is that they should work with their own hands. Notice in the 4th chapter of this epistle verse 12.
That she may walk honestly toward them that are without.
Verse 11 and she's starting to be quiet and to do your own business and to work with your own hands as we commanded you. That she may walk honestly towards them that are without, and that she may have lack of nothing.
That was the tendency in verse 14 of chapter 5 not to work. Now when you exhort your brethren, you want them that are unruly.
Faint hearted, sustained, weak. Now what does he mean when he says unruly? Well, it's the word for disorderly. Not terribly. The 2nd Epistle, Chapter 3.
Verse 6 Now we command you, brethren, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you withdraw yourselves from every brother that walketh disorderly.
And not after the tradition or the instruction. That word tradition in the New Testament simply means instruction or directions that you gave them, whether by word or by by a letter. It's not referring to the tradition that's the Royal Catholic Church talks about.
But it's just referring to instructions that he had verbally given to them from the apostle and.
Or, or in writing verse 7 for yourself, know how you ought to follow us, for we behave not ourselves disorderly among you, neither did we eat any man's bread or not, but brought with labor, and travel night and day that we might not be chargeable to any of you. I'll have you cut me off that power, and that is he had the right.
Not to work and to be supported by the Saints. He establishes that principle in First Corinthians Chapter 9 that the servant is worthy of his hire. But he didn't do it at Corinth. He did not take from the Corinthians. He didn't take from the Thessalonians. There were different reasons. The Corinthians we saw, we were talking about that in Bible study in Sunday school this morning. There were those at current that were saying that the Apostle Paul and he said that for what you had Corinthians had a lot of money. They were wealthy assembly and he just out for what he can get out of it. And so he refused to take anything from the Saints at current so that he would take away the handle that they were trying to get on him the the occasion they were trying to get on him.
00:20:32
He did not take anything from the Corinthians. He didn't take anything from the Thessalonians, but for another reason. There was a tendency to be busy bodies and working not at all, and so he gave the example by working. He said in verse eight of Second Thessalonians 3. Neither did we eat any man's bread for nought that brought with labor and travail night and day, that we might not be chargeable to any of you, not because we have not power.
Not the right, but to make ourselves an example on you to follow us, or even when we were with you this we commanded you that if any would not work, neither should he eat. Are we here that there are some which walk among you disorderly, working not at all, but are busy bodies. Now that there are such, we command and exhort by our Lord Jesus Christ that requirements they work and eat their own bread, which he'd rather be not really in well doing, if any man. OK, not our words by this epistle.
Note that man have no company with him, and he may be ashamed about him not as an enemy, but admonish him as a brother.
So where was this, this, this habit that they had, some among them had gotten into, but not working Now that couldn't have come out of the doctrine of the Lord's coming. The Lord is coming very, very soon, and he's coming tomorrow, he'll say. What's the point in working? Let's just.
Let's just go out and wait for the Lord to come. There have been many on these false predictions that have been made. Many. They're sold their properties, they've sold their businesses, and they've even gone out to some mountain where the Lord was supposed to come to meet them. And the mountain disappointed. I think there might have been something like that here at this night that we don't know what the reason was, but there was a tendency possibly to use the Lord's coming as an excuse not to pursue honest industry.
And legitimate work until he came.
We find that especially addressed in both of these epistles. Now let's go back to First Thessalonians 1.
Verse 9. But they themselves show us what manner of entering in we have unto you, and how you turn to God from idols to the work of faith, to serve only in true God their label of love, and to wait for his Son from heaven, patience of hope, whom he raised from the dead, even Jesus, which delivered us or.
I think more literally our deliverer from the last to come, It's coming awful judgment and wrath upon this scene, and the Lord is our delivered from that wrath. We're not expecting to go through the wrath through the tribulation, but to be delivered out from it. So there is a, there's an expression there which is broad enough to embrace that thought. Now in this first chapter, the first testimony, first Thessalonians we have.
Established that the proper.
Attitude of the Christian is to wait for God's Son from heaven. This is Christian ground, you might say. It's the proper attitude of the Christian to wait God's Son from heaven. Now we go to the second chapter for yourselves rather than our entrance in unto you that was not in vain, or even after that we had suffered before and were shamefully intrigued. As you know in Philippi, we were born in our God to speak of you the gospel of God with much.
Intention of much earnest, earnest, burning earnestness, is the thought. But our for exhortation was not a deceit, nor of uncleanness, nor unguide. But as we were allowed and approved of God to be put in trust with the gospel, Even so we speak not as pleasing men, but God, which by our hearts for neither at any time usually flattering words. These are all things which are used by those who are.
Deceivers.
Flattering words.
Flattery is a mean that is used to the enemy. Like we were reading that this morning our brothers home and prowlers. One that flatters with his lips spread the neck to the feet. And there are other. There are other things that are mentioned in in proverbs against a warning against poverty of the apostle didn't use that kind of thing either at any time. Used to be flattering words, as you know, nor a cloak of covetousness.
00:25:23
God is witness one of the greatest.
Snares of the Saints is covetousness. The desire to get, the desire to get it looked well, if you look at it and move. 12 That's one of the things that is used of the enemy covetousness. It's used of the enemy to to keep our thoughts earthward, and they're not to be ready for the Lord's coming. If I'm, if I'm covetous in my heart.
And I have a lust for things here. I've set my heart upon getting some earthly object. I don't want the Lord to come. That would spoil my plans. So a covetous man is one who has in his heart something going on which would put off the Lords coming.
I want this. I want this thing, and I'm going to have it. It's going to make me happy. And that's false. And covetousness is most destructive and it robs one of the blessing hope of the Lord coming. So he said he mentions this, especially every time the apostle mentions terms like this, there's a specific reason for it. He's he's using, he's giving ministry that addresses the need in this particular assembly that he's writing to.
Nor have men sought with glory neither of you nor yet of others.
When we might have been burdensome as the apostles of Christ, he did not take from them. As I said before, he worked and supplied his own physical needs, so that as to set an example before them of what they should do.
But we were gentle among you, even as a nurse Cherish it her own children to breathe. Her own children, her own children. How gentle the nurse would care for their own children. So being affectionately desires of you, we were willing to have imparted into you not the gospel of God only, but also our own souls, because you were dear unto us, the affection of the apostle for these young believers, and how he said, we would have parted to you.
Not just the gospel, but our very selves and very selves.
But you and other brethren in our labor and travail the labeling night and day, because we would not be chargeable unto any of you. We preach them through the gospel of God, your witnesses, and God also. How fully and justly and unblameably we behaved ourselves among you, I believe.
How important it is, as he emphasizes here, the conduct of the one that bears the precious truth of God, that that conduct be consistent with it, and that that he he conduct himself in a way which would be for the for the help of the of the Saints that he's seeking to help. Verse 11. As you know, how we exhorted and comforted and charged every one of you as a father, dealt his, again own children enough to read his own children.
That he would not worthy of God, who hath called you unto his Kingdom and glory.
And there you have a reference made to something still future. God has called us to His Kingdom and glory. And the Kingdom speaks at that time of manifestation when when the world will see us. The Saints in Christ, in glory of Christ, and we're going to reign with him, we're going to have part with him. Just public reign over this scene God has called us to that the the keeping that before vividly, before the soul ought to keep us holy very loosely.
Things down here. We're not Carlton earthly greatness. We're not called to earthly glory. We're called to His Kingdom. And that would enable us to walk through this scene as strangers and pilgrims who who do not have a portion here, but we just pass them through. We've been crawled into His Kingdom and glory that He would walk worthy of the God who has called you to His Kingdom and glory. Not the world's Kingdom, not the world's glory.
What to his for this 'cause we thank also thank we God without ceasing because.
When you receive the word of God, which he heard of us, he received it not as the word of men, but as it is in truth the word of God, which effectually worketh also when you live. For ye brethren became followers of the churches of God, which in Judea are in Christ Jesus. For you also have suffered like things with your own countrymen, even as they have of the Jews, who both killed the Lord Jesus. And their own prophets have persecuted us, and they please not God, and are contrary to all men.
00:30:27
So when they were called, they were proud to God's Kingdom and glory and they embraced that message. They were not called to expect a place of ease and and.
Getting along easily and well down here in this world that they were called to another world and to expect opposition, persecution and suffering, that's exactly what.
And.
Getting along easily and well down here in this world that they were called to another world and to expect opposition, persecution and suffering, that's exactly what they received. And so he said, you become followers of the churches of God, which in Judea are in Christ Jesus. They suffered. And these Saints at Thessalonica also suffered from their own country.
About the Jews in verse 16, verse 15 we both killed the Lord Jesus and their own prophets and have persecuted us, and they please not God and are contrary to all men, forbidding us to speak to the Gentiles that they might be saved, to throw up their sins always, for the wrath has come upon them to the uttermost. But we brethren, being taken from you for a short time, in presence, not in heart, he says, I'm not with you, I'm not present with you and body, but I haven't been taken from you in my heart's infections. You're you're in my heart's infections, you're in my prayers.
You're in my thoughts, and I'm not really battling it physically, but I'm certainly with you in spirit. That's what he's saying here. We'd rather have been taken from you for a short time in presence, not in heart, and endeavored the more abundantly to see your face with great desire. He wanted to return there, have to see their face again, wherefore we would have come unto you. Even I fall once and again. But Satan hinded us. He didn't. He hadn't come because he didn't want to.
Humanity cut. He lets him know that that he wanted to see them and to be there, but he was hindered by Satan and then he has this chapter. What is our hope?
Or joy or crown of rejoicing, are not even ye in the presence of our Lord Jesus Christ that is coming, for ye are our glory and joy.
They the Saints, those who, those who live his children in the faith, those who had come to Christ through him. They were his joy, they were his glory. And he looks at them in that way. And so it's very important to him how they got on, how they, how they went on in the truth. He mentions the same thing. Let's look at the other passages in Philippians chapter 4, writing to the Philippians Saints, verse one. Therefore my brethren, dearly beloved.
For my joy and crown, so stand fast in the Lord, my dearly beloved. The Philippian Saints were his joy and crown, and that's exactly what he says of the Thessalonians Saints, where he are our glory and joy. And in Second Corinthians chapter one he mentions it again.
So we haven't haven't mentioned to the Thessalonians Saints, we haven't mentioned to the Philippians Saints, we have it mentioned here.
2nd Thessalonians, 2 Corinthians, chapter one and verse 14. As also ye have acknowledged us in part, that we are your rejoicing, even as you also are ours in the day of the Lord Jesus and the day coming when.
All that our service that has been done for the Lord will be evaluated in the presence of the Lord. And he says in that day ye are our rejoicing in the day of the Lord Jesus.
What a wonderful thing to have those there that are in the glory, because we have been faithful in the service in bringing the gospel to souls and that they're going to be there because of our efforts, our efforts. So Paul looks at the Saints as his glory and his joy again. First Thessalonians chapter 3, verse eight. He says. For now we live if he stands.
00:35:09
Fast in the world. It was impermanent to him. They were his children. In the faith we know what it is as parents. We know what it is as parents, what a joy it is to us when our children go on well, and what a sorrow and grief and distress it is to us when our children do not go on well. And so Paul says now we did he stand fast in the Lord.
There's two other mentions of this in First John.
Here's another writer, now chapter two. First John, Chapter 2.
Verse 28, John says, and now little children abide in him.
That when he shall appear, that when he shall be manifested, we may have confidence and not be ashamed before him, it is coming.
If his if his children in the faith of gold in Christ, and went on in the Lord.
And in the truth then, in that day of manifestation, he said, we will have confidence, we won't be put to shame. But if those who were his children turned aside and went astray and went into a path of error and sin, that would be for the shame of the one who was their spiritual father.
Second, John mentions that also.
In verse 8, the second John the Apostle John says, look to yourselves that we lose not those things which we have brought, but that we receive a full reward. Clearly the indication in these verses is that if the Saints went on well.
The one who is instrumental in bringing them to the Lord and in instructing them in the in the truth it would be for their credit. And if they did not go on well, it would be lost that we lose, not our reward, John says. Full reward.
So how important that the Saints go on? Well, not just for their own good, but also for the one who has brought them the truth. Now let's go back to First Thessalonians chapter 2, verse 19. What is our health or joy or crown of rejoicing? Are not even ye in the presence of our Lord Jesus Christ? He doesn't say here it's to be with Christ.
Which is far better than he says that elsewhere, which is a wonderful truth. But here he says our hope and joy and crown of Rejoicing is to have you there too, to have you there in the Lords presence. Are not even ye in the presence of our Lord Jesus Christ and his coming, for ye are our glory.
Joy wonderful to to be in that in that public manifestation day the day of Christ, and be surrounded by those who are who have been brought to the Lord through some effort of our own. Wonderful that will be.
That ought to stir us. That's a powerful relative to serve the Lord. I I've written down here in the second chapter, verses 19 and 20, the bearing of the Lord's coming on service.
How many am I going to have? How many are you going to have that will be in the glory because we have been faithful in bringing the truth to silver? How many? Power will have many, and there are others that will have many, But how many will I have? How many will you have that you can rejoice in, that are there because you thankfully gave them a gospel tract, spoke a word to them?
A faithful word.
Minister Christ to them, whatever it was. We have hundreds of opportunities every day that we often let slip through our fingers. Well, to to be here in the conscious sense. The Lord is coming, and am I going to be there empty handed, as it were, with no trophies of His grace that I can show are there because I have been faithful in speaking to service of Christ and getting the word out in visiting and speaking to the last my neighbors, those next door.
00:40:00
Wherever they might be, the school, you children, you have an opportunity in school to talk to your schoolmates. And we all do in connection with our workplaces, Whatever it might be with with whom we ever come in contact, we have the opportunity to speak to them, to Christ, and to seek to bring them to Christ and.
This is the one of the powerful results of the daily expectation of Lord's coming. It produces service if I really believe the Lord's coming.
And they're going to be rewards leaked out for faithful service down here that it ought to stir me to be faithful in reaching out in the gospel to the lost, not keeping these truths for myself and for ourselves by reaching out, seeking to bring others in.
Chapter 3. Wherefore, When we were when we could no longer for bear, he thought it good to be left at Athens alone. He says we would have come unto you once and again. But Satan hindered us. Now he continues that thought. He says, when we could no longer for bear, we couldn't wait any longer. We we we wanted to be with you. We wanted to see you so badly that we thought it would be good to be left alone to Athens, and couldn't be evidently the work that the Lord had given him there. So he said, Timothy, and he saw, he says, I sent Timotheus, our brother and minister of God, and our fellow laborer, in the gospel of Christ.
To establish you and to comfort you concerning your faith. You realize the only thing there a very short time. You don't have been there two weeks, and how much can you accomplish in that short period of time?
Very concerned did the enemy come in and use all these tribulations and persecutions and troubles in which they were passing, and turn them aside? Had the work come to nought as a result of the effort of the Enemy? You had to know he couldn't go himself, so he sent Timothy.
Verse three, that no man should be moved by these afflictions. For yourselves know that we are appointed thereunto. Or verily, when we were with you, we told you before that we should suffer tribulation even as it came to pass. And you know for this cause what I could no longer prepare, I said to know your faith.
Lest by some means the tempter hath tempted you, and a laborer be in a.
But now when Timotheus came from you unto us, and brought us good tidings of your faith and charity, and that you have good remembrance of us always desiring greatly to see us, as we often to see you.
Therefore, brethren, we were comforted over you and all our affliction, affliction and distress by your faith. They were going on. They hadn't become discouraged. They haven't turned aside. They were going on. They were going up. And that was a great joy for the apostle Paul. For now we live, he says. Did he stand fast in the morning?
That verse. But what thanks can we render to God again for you? For all the joy wherewith we joy for your sakes before our God, night and day, praying exceedingly that we might see your face and might perfect that which is lacking in your faith. Now that's really what's characteristic of the first epistle to the Thessalonians. Your faith was lacking. They needed to have it perfected. They needed to be brought to full growth. They were not inviting error at this point.
They did in the second because somebody has to correct that, but here they simply needed to be LED further into a a fuller, more mature understanding of the truth. So it talks about perfecting their faith and supplying what is lacking in your faith.
Now God himself, verse 11 And our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ direct our way unto you. That was still his desire. He lets them know this. I know this other chapter ends.
Here we have the bearing of the Lord's coming on our spiritual life. The first chapter is the Christian ground to wait for God's Son from heaven. That's the normal attitude of a Christian to wait for God's son from hell. If you find a Christian who is not waiting for God's Son from heaven, that's not normal. That's not normal for the Christian. Normal Christianity is to be daily expecting the Lord to come to await that song from heaven.
And then you ought to have such a bearing in our lives. On our service. There's a day coming. The Lords coming involves not only the rapture, but his return to earth to set up the Kingdom. And rewards are going to be given manifestation and manifestation. Seat of the judgment. Seat of Christ is connected with that. And and then we're going to be rewarded for faithful service. And are we going to have any that we have helped in in the truth? Any that we have brought to the Lord or any that we have delivered from error, from a false path that they were the worst? A sheep that gets strayed? Have we grown to them? Have we ministered to them? Have we restored them? Brother said to me the other day.
00:45:30
He said. You know.
We hear so often of cells being put away from the Lord's cable. We don't hear very often the souls being restored to the Lord's table. And I said to him, yes, but every time we talk, talk on discipline, we always say that you for discipline is the restoration of the Lord is placed under discipline, never to leave them outside, but always to bring them back.
That is, it's always with a view to restoration. Restoration. Not leaving them out in the cold where they won't get any nourishment, where they won't get any care, where they.
Won't be instructed where they will be in the assembly the the thought. But the best way to get ahold of that is just look at your family. You're you're a parent, you have some children. You you have to discipline one of your children and send them to their room. The thought is sending them to to their room and not to keep them.
Never. Not to keep them. Never just to teach them a lesson for a short period of time. And then they're to be restored to their place in the family and sitting again happily at the table to enjoy the company and the fellowship of the family. That's what the assembly is. The assembly is not a court of law, and when we administer discipline as though we're dealing with criminals.
And we are magistrates meeting up judgment against a criminal. We're totally off the ground of Christianity. This is not Christian. This is not Christian. It's more the thought of a father disciplining his child. That was with the thought of the restoration of the erring 1, correcting them, that they don't do it again, but that they be brought back into happy fellowship. Well.
Sad to say, there are those out.
It has been out for years in places and they shouldn't, shouldn't out.
34 You don't have time this afternoon reading secret before? Read Jeremiah 23 and you'll see what Jehovah the Lord says about the pastors, the shepherds of Israel, how they have fed themselves.
And they hadn't sought after the strain. They hadn't bound up the wounded. They hadn't cared for them and brought them back. And the Lord has the controversy with them over that. And I dare say there's a controversy with us.
Connection with those matters to Not that I'm saying it as to this assembly at all, but I'm saying in connection with the Church of God, the Church of God.
For Thessalonians 3 now.
Verse 11 Now God himself in our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ direct our way unto you over the heart of the apostles. Hands you can just feel it.
Beating for the sinks here and the Lord make you increase and abound in love one toward another and toward all men, even as we do toward you to the end, and establish your hearts unblameable.
In holiness before God, even our Father at the coming. Notice how He connects it now at the end of the frogs, at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ with all His Saints. This is not the rapture, this is his coming with the Saints to establish his rights down in the scene. But He prays that love might abound among them. Lord, make you to increase and abound in love, one toward another and toward our men.
Even as we do toward you, the same kind of love that abounded in the heart of the great apostle Paul, towards the same stair of Thessalonica, that he wishes that that it might abound in their hearts towards one another, towards all men. And what would be the result of this abounding of love to the end? He may establish your hearts unblameable in holiness. I've often said it this way. There is nothing so holy as love. I mean real love now, the kind of love first harmed off as love in Christendom.
00:50:04
Is the ignoring of evil?
And that's not true love.
If you see someone in a wrong path and you encourage them and express fellowship with them, and by so doing encourage them in a wrong path.
I've often used the illustration as a as a car going down the road, right up the road, a mile down the road, you know the bridge is out and as the car goes by.
You wave at them and say have a nice trip.
Is that loud? Would not love. Get out there and say stop. The bridge is out. Don't go ahead. Stop. They upset their plans. They may not like you for stopping them. They may not like you for telling them don't go ahead. There's danger ahead. But after they find out the bridge is out, they'll thank you for it. They'll thank you for it. They certainly wouldn't even live. Like to say anything to the one that had wished them well and set them on their journey.
To their own destruction. And now it isn't the way of love to wink at evil. Love is faithful love. Faithful are the wounds of a friend, kisses of an enemy out of abuse. And so if we really love, I really love you, If you really love me, and you see I'm in a wrong path, you will love my soul to tell me about it. You will not neglect that, and I will not neglect that with you.
That's not being critical. I'm not talking about just a critical, hard, censorious type of spirit. We're not talking about that. We're talking about the kind of love that we see.
Just emanating from the heart of the agreed to possibly fall, who? Who would just lay himself up for the good of the states blessing of the Saints. But he faithfully warns them, he faithfully corrects them. He doesn't ignore what is necessary for correction. And so he says the Lord make you increase and abound in loved one toward another. Love always seeks the good of its object. Love always seeks the good of its object. And so if.
If I have love for one.
Who is in need of correction? And I go to them and rebuke them and give them corrective ministry. That's where they're good and if they heat it, they will thank me for it. Our member of brother in Oak Park.
I was a young man and he was basically heats them up to me and he put his arm around baby, what have I done now? And I knew when he did that I knew I was going to get it and he always felt very gently with me but.
That there was something coming that needed to have corrected. I may not have liked it too well at the time, but I value that as I look back, I value very much and those that have given me warnings in my young life. I was on a path once with a young lady that was not really the will of the Lord at all.
And a brother came to me and solemnly warned me, and I looked back to his thankfulness for that morning, because that would not have been a job if that had gone on. And so we need to be listened to. The the faithful warnings of those that really love you and that really care for your good. Don't turn a deaf ear to those things that will, that will issue in holiness of life.
To the end verse 13.
And establish your hearts unblameable in holiness. When love is inactivity. In an assembly there you see a holy assembly. There you see an assembly that's not covering up evil. But when I was in activity is exposing it and judging it in the light of the sanctuary. And then the end result of that kind of activity as well is true openness through separation from evil.
So he says to the end, God may establish your hearts and blamable before him in holiness. Even our Father has the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ with all his Saints. He connects it with the Lord's coming, because then the full results, the firm conformity to the image of the sun, will will be affected. We will be like him. We will be fully and unblameable before him in love. Well, let's hurry on.
00:55:03
We don't have much time left. I just want to go into the 4th chapter a little bit.
Furthermore, then, we beseech you rather, and exhort you by the Lord Jesus, that as you have received of us how you ought to walk, and to please God so you would abound more and more, For you know what commandments we gave you by the Lord Jesus. For this is the will of God, even your sanctification, that you should abstain from fornication to see His His.
The love that operated in falls apart didn't didn't allow him to withdraw or to withhold. I should say that need administrative they needed this ministry that is different. Right here in the 4th chapter he says God has this is the will of God. Within your sanctification you're you're keeping yourselves holy for the Lord that that you should abstain from fornication, that everyone of you should know how to possess his vessel, his body.
In sanctification and honor, not in the lust of contupacence, even as the Gentiles which know not God, that no man go beyond and defraud his brother in any manner, because that the Lord is the avenger of all, such as we also have forewarned human testified. So when he was there with them, tell them, he warned them about this sin association, this sin which was so common among those Gentiles unborn them. And now he tells them yes, because essential it was necessary to set back before them God has.
It's God's will to be sent to fight, that we be holy, that we keep our vessels in sanctification and in honor that we do not allow.
The familiarity that is being practiced nowadays to characterize us, but that rather we we keep ourselves in a very seemingly way and abstain from these things which are so loosely allowed in the world system through which we're passing. It was so in those days that that kind of thing was commonplace and so Paul had to warn against it very faithfully. And he brings the words coming at the end of the chapter.
We used to read 1St Thessalonians 4. We used to read the end of the chapter. We don't read the first part, but the first part is expectation to holiness.
To sanctification, To keeping our bodies in the in sanctification and possessing our vessels and sanctification in honor, because this is the will of God.
Verse seven God has not called us unto uncleanness, but unto holiness, unto holiness.
They needed that we needed and it's it's not well to avoid it is he therefore that despise it and reject it. This word despise it. Not man but God. You get one that makes light of this instruction and says you know you're wrong, you can do whatever you want with your body. God says no, you can't. It belongs to me.
Especially so if you're a Christian, You are not your own. Your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost, which you have of God. You're not your own. You belong to Him. He has brought you, you're his, and you're to hold that body as holy for him. And there is a relationship, and that's America's relationship, where those inner desires and drives which God has planted there for the propagation of the race, can be fulfilled outside of that sphere. It is wickedness and fear.
And it's never approved of God outside of that sphere. It is condemned of God, and those that practice it would be judged for mongers and fornicators God will judge, God will judge. He therefore that despise him, despises not man, but God, who hath also given unto us His Holy Spirit.
Everyone of us has the Spirit of God, the Holy Spirit of God, and dwelling us and making these bodies his terrorist sex. Probably enough that your bodies are the temporal of the Holy Ghost.
Which is in you, which you have of God and you're not your own. So there we have healthiness brought out in the first part of chapter 4 and now we have the subject of love. Verse 9 as touching brotherly love you have you need not that I write unto you, for ye yourselves are taught of God to love one another. We saw in chapter three that love operating issue in holiness. Now we have in chapter 4. He's he's ended chapter 3 with.
01:00:06
Holiness and the Lord's coming with his Saints. And now he continues that thought in the first part, and then he reverts back to brotherly love, his touching breath of evolve. You need not that I write unto you, for ye yourselves are taught about to love one another. And indeed you do it towards all the brethren which are in all Macedonia. But we we beseech you, brethren, that you increase more and more, and that she's studying to be quiet and to do your own business. Mind your own affairs. Don't be busy bodies.
To work with your own hands, as we commanded you, and that you may walk honestly or reputably toward them that are without, that you may have lack of nothing. Then he comes to that proportion which we don't have time for. This afternoon the Lord's coming for his home, The Lord's coming for his own. A very important subject. Maybe we'll be able to look at that tonight.
Let's go Same 208 in closing, in hope we lift our wishful longing eyes waiting to see the morning star rise up right now, Gladstone Hills, Advent be before the sun shines forth and majesty.
280.