Book of 1 Thessalonians - Ch. 4, Vs. 1-5 (08/29/1999)

1 Thessalonians 4:2 and the Assignment on Human Origins

Thessalonians 4 and 2. Today is the day that you turn in your short paragraph concerning the assignment that you have and I have received one. Are there any others? Bring it up if you will or give it to Greg.

Get his for me. Where did you formerly work? Well the rest of you have failed the course. Then I left you with another statement that I wanted you to think about. It is a true statement and it is this.

God did not make the entire human race from the first couple. I'm sure all of you have studied that over and have come up with some kind of an answer. Let me hear one. That's not, well you're back in the right area.

That's right. Before he answers, because I feel like he's gonna say it, turn to Genesis 2. Richard I'd like for you to read verses 21 and 22. Was Eve a descendant of Adam? Dennis? What? She was a descendant of Adam.

All right. Then did God make the human race from the first couple? I get one no, another no, you got a no. What? Who said that? He made the whole human race from the first couple. But Eve was a descendant of Adam.

So the whole human race come from Adam. He didn't create Eve. He didn't create Adam. God did not create Adam. He made Adam. The only creation that took place was in verse 1 of chapter 1. All the rest is made even though in places it uses the word create.

All right, does everybody understand the little tricky question? It was designed to get you to think and to remember. All right, come with me now to our lesson today. Rather unpleasant subject, but we take things as they come.

Commandments, Sanctification, and Abstaining from Fornication

1st Thessalonians chapter 4 verse 2. For you know what commandments we gave you by the Lord Jesus. This is Paul speaking to the church at Thessalonica. There are commandments for believers, believe it or not.

We are not without laws. We must be disciplined and obedient to Christ. In John 14 5 we find these words, if you love me keep my commandments. Fred, what is his main commandment? Well let's get your son to help you.

Don't mumble. And thy neighbor as thyself. All right, verse 3 now of chapter 4. For this is the will of God, even your sanctification. For ye that you should abstain from fornication. Fornication, sexual intercourse between partners who are not married to each other.

The word fornication has a very lowly beginning and it's suitable to what has long been the low moral status of the word. Comes from a Latin word fornix, which gives us fornis, the ancestor of fornication.

And it is derived from the first meaning of it which meant a vault or an arch. And the term also referred to a vaulted cellar or similar place where the prostitutes plied their trade. And it has later been connected with that activity.

Our word was first recorded in Middle English about 1303. Sanctification of the believer. What is sanctification? Set apart. Who does the sanctifying? Who does the work of setting apart? The Holy Spirit.

It has a threefold aspect to it. First is positional. Now, Greg, what does it mean? Positional sanctification. It's the place where we are. Poor English, but good theology. We are placed into Christ and we have scripture for that.

John, you remember where it's found? Romans what? Somebody turn to it. The word baptized really, there's no water in that scripture. Don't read water into it. It's talking about being placed into. That's what the word baptized means.

Again, let me go over it. The word baptized is a transliteration of the Greek word baptizo. Now, there's a difference between transliteration and translation. Who can tell me the difference? Dennis? John?

You're getting close. David? Translation has the opposite effect because it's related at all to the new language, so it has no meaning in the new language. Baptized is a good heat zone, which means nothing in English.

That's right. So no one knows what baptized means now that there's water. That's right. And it just was not done that way. I cannot answer why, but I want to be sure you understand. Does anyone have the long definition written down someplace of baptism or baptized?

Well, let me give it to you again, and I'd encourage all of you to write it. Not that you'll ever use it, but I want you to have it in your computer. I want you to know it. Baptized means the placing of a person or thing from one environment into another environment and doing it in such a way that it changes the state of the person or thing in relation to its previous environment.

I'm watching June's pencil wiggle and when it stops. Now, did anybody miss any part of it? Let me give you an example, and it's an old-time example, but you're at a blacksmith shop, and I am assuming everybody knows what a blacksmith shop is, and you know about shoeing horses.

The blacksmith has a horseshoe in the forge. It gets red-hot. Now, that's the first environment. He takes the tongs and he lifts it out of the forge, and he places it into a bucket of water. That's the second environment.

Now, he did it in such a way that it actually changed the state of that horseshoe from red-hot to cold, from soft to hard. You perhaps cannot see any difference, but it is there internally. Now, that's what's happened in Romans 6 and 3.

We were baptized into Jesus Christ. The short definition is simply placed into, so we were placed into Jesus Christ at his death on the cross. Now, it is a passive verb, meaning that you have to be acted upon.

You cannot do it yourself, so the Holy Spirit is the blacksmith with the tongs that removed you from where you once were and put you into Jesus Christ, which actually changed the state of you from being a servant of Satan to being a child of God.

It was done to us, not by us, but to us. It was not done because we wanted it done. It was done because we were a child of God and didn't know it, and when he chose to reveal his Son in you, he did, exactly as Paul tells us.

So, the work of sanctification began right then, and it is the Holy Spirit that is sanctifying you. This is a progressive thing, so we have our first aspect of it is position. We're in Christ. The second is practice, the practice of our sanctification.

What does this mean? It's living Christ-like, but can we do that in and of ourselves? No. So, again, it involves some other agent. David, who is the other agent? The Holy Spirit. Where is the Holy Spirit at this time that we're talking about?

Within us. Right. So, it means the practice of the sanctification means that the Holy Spirit is working in our lives to produce a holiness in our walk. Now, will it ever be finished? It won't. What? That's right.

Absolutely. But it will be finished in the next life, but not in this life. Then, the third position or third aspect of it is total sanctification. Now, what does this mean, Greg? That's right. When will this occur?

Exactly. This will occur in the future when we are conformed to the very image of Christ Jesus. At that time, both the positional and practice of sanctification will be perfect. Now, let me be sure you understand this word, perfect, because we run into it quite often.

It says, be ye perfect as I am perfect, Jesus speaking. Dennis, can we be as perfect as Jesus? No, not in this life. So, when it tells us to be perfect, what in the world could that mean? Anything? Yes.

You've used both terms, the Lord and God. There is a difference in our understanding, even though they are one. Don't let me confuse you, but when the Father looks at us, Fred, He looks through the filter of the blood.

And to the Father, we are perfect because the filter has strained out everything that is imperfect. But to Jesus Christ, our Lord, we're not perfect as He is perfect, but we are perfect. And let me explain that term.

I use the example of the peach tree, that we had several peach trees when I was growing up at home during the Depression. And my father would always check on the peaches when it become the season for them.

They would begin to grow. And first, it was just a little knot, a little green thing that followed the bloom. And I can remember he'd come in, and he might not say these exact words, but what he meant was, they looked perfect.

That means for the time of the season, they were perfect. And then as they begin to grow more and more, he could say the same thing because they were still perfect for that period of time in their growth.

When they reach maturity, he could still say they were perfect. So for us to be perfect in that sense means we're right where we're supposed to be doing exactly what we're supposed to be doing, and that's growing in Christ.

And we are willingly submitting ourself to the influence of the Holy Spirit all of the time, every day, every moment of our life. That makes us perfect for where we are right now. But it is a moving scale.

We become not more perfect, but we become more mature until finally at the, on the other side of the rapture, we will be perfect. And it depends upon our growth here, our willingness here. I don't think that we're all going to be the same when we reach heaven because it depends upon our works.

There are rewards for his people, just like there are degrees of punishment for Satan's people. So we have the total sanctification. The literal meaning, as Fred told us in the beginning, is set apart.

Holiness, the Body as the Temple, and the Inner Man

And every child of God is set apart. Don't think that it was only in the Roman times that the church members were involved in sexual sins. We must get back to that. Sex is a part of all religions except Christianity.

Unfortunately, as we all know, there are churches that will defend a minister that's guilty of sexual sins. We've had examples this past year. The Holy Word says that you cannot, not may not or might or if you desire, but you cannot be involved in such sins and at the same time be used of a God in a worshipful manner.

Did you hear me? You cannot be involved in that to any, the very slightest degree, and be and worship God. One cannot live in sin and be a preacher, nor a song leader, nor a deacon, nor a teacher, or just an active member of the church, or a good member of the church.

You cannot live in sin. Our knowing to use our bodies in a sanctificational honor implies that we know to avoid all incentives to lust. Now there are some things in every field of our life that in and with themselves, they may not be wrong, but if you should get involved in them, they could possibly lead you into sin.

Just be very, very careful, if you'll permit me, or even if you won't. The stage was mine. I always thought that I would like to have been an actor and was very successful at it in high school and college, but it run crossways to my very being, and even though there might not be anything wrong with the art of acting, I could see in my life where it could lead into an area that I didn't want to go, and that's what I'm talking about.

So we should know to avoid all incentives or to be in the company of wrong kinds of people. Now I know in this world we're put into the company of the wrong kinds of people, but what I mean here is you don't have to stand around with them or walk with them or sit down with them.

It is wrong to have obscene pictures, lewd songs, bad books, jokes, drunkenness, idleness, and effeminacy, commonly known as what? Used to be known as something else. Yes. Well, that's the world in which we live, and it's not going to get any better.

We're not going to change it. All we can do is just do what we know to do. John, did you realize that that is enough for John Karpiak? If he just does what John knows to do, and if we pursue that and work diligently at what we know to do, Greg, then we will begin to be sensitive to the Holy Spirit, and he will open areas in which we were completely ignorant before, things we did not know.

So don't worry about what you do not know. Just do what you know to do, because that that you know to do, one time you didn't know it, and that's just the way it works. Verse 4, that every one of you should know how to possess his vessel in sanctification and honor.

It's talking about your body. Not in the lust of concupiscence, even as the Gentiles which know not God. Concupiscence, there's an $85 word. What does it mean exactly? A strong desire, especially sexual desire or lust, comes from the Middle English of Old French.

Concupiscence. Everyone should know by now how to care for his body. Go to 1st Corinthians, if you will, please, to the sixth chapter, verse 19. John, will you read that verse so I can hear you? 1st Corinthians 6 19.

Now folks, we could close class right here and just dwell on that one verse. When he says what, he's astounded, because everybody knows. Know you not that your body, no problem with understanding body, is there Greg?

Is, not maybe, but it is the temple of the Holy Ghost, Holy Spirit, the triune God. Now Greg, what does it mean it is the temple? All right, but it's it's a little more than that. Right, he didn't say it was the house.

He said it is the temple of the Holy Spirit, the very most holy thing. Now if you decide to go visit some honky-tonk someplace, can you tell the Holy Spirit to just sit down and wait? Now I'll be back in a little bit.

This Holy Spirit is in you. David, where is he in you? In your foot? Well, they're spiritual, all right. What is the soul? What's the difference between soul and spirit? Everybody has a spirit. No, that's different now.

We are a, we are a triune person, a trichotomy. We have a body, soul, and spirit. The spirit is what makes us different than an animal. The spirit is the image of God that is in every human being. If it were not so, he could not judge that person.

When we are saved, what happens to our soul? But first, what is the soul? The soul and life are exactly the same word in the New Testament. So the soul is our life, which includes what you've just said.

Everything. Now, what happens to our soul when we're saved? It's what? What is it that's, what is it that's changed? Does God take your life and work it over to where it's holy? He gives us a new life, people.

He is not in the refurbishing business. He does not take our old life. The old life dies in Jesus Christ at his death. That's the reason we were placed into him at his death, not at his resurrection. There had to be a death.

You remember the old bond-servant relationship? It requires a death to break that relationship. And we were a servant of Satan, totally. And the death of Christ broke that relationship. But we have a new life, a new soul.

And the spirit which was given of God, Ecclesiastes, I'm gonna say 12 7 and I probably wrong. Somebody look that up. What? Yes. That's, the inward man is that new, new man as far as Christians concerned.

The inward man of the seed of Satan is wicked. The inward man of the Christian is holy. That's the, that's exactly what we're talking about, Arthur. You're right. Yes. Read it to me. A very short verse, but boy is it full.

The dust shall return. That means the body. It'll go back to when it dies. It goes back dirt. But the spirit, the image of God that is in every human being, that spirit returns to God out of every human being that dies.

Now if while on this earth you are saved, then you have a new life. That new life is a holy life that is welded, if you please, to your spirit. And when the spirit goes home, so does that new life. So do you.

If you are not saved, you remember in the garden our Lord told Adam, in the day that you eat of it you shall die. Well that was a spiritual death. His, his soul was separated from his spirit. And that's all death is, it's just separation.

So everybody in that state of unsaved-ness, their soul is still the old wicked soul that is a servant or seed, either one, of Satan. And if that person dies in the unsaved condition, he does not accompany the spirit that returns to God.

His soul goes in the hell. Only those that are saved have this new life, and the new life and the image of God are as one. And we're told in Ecclesiastes that the spirit out of every human being returns to God because it's his.

He gave it. And he put it into every human. Without that, we would never be able to be judged. We could never be saved, either. Do you understand what I'm saying? Death before you were saved was separation of body and soul, and death after it is.

That's right. So before you're saved, it's the separation of the soul from the body. The soul never dies. After you're saved, the body still goes where it always went. But the soul and spirit now, it's a new soul, a new life, and the spirit returned to the one that gave it.

See, God's going to claim everything that is his. Just remember it like that. Everything that is God's, he will reclaim, including the creation, all of the universe. We get a new body, just like the creation is going to get a new body.

We get a new body at the moment of our resurrection or at the moment of being caught up into the air with him. Now, I don't know which way I'll be. I have a good idea. But the big party in heaven, the feast, the supper of the bride, is not going to start until everybody is there.

So don't you think because you're alive, you'll get to eat before I do, because you won't. Where does God dwell? Are you talking about God the Father? Where is the Holy Spirit? The Holy Spirit is living in the part of the Spirit.

The Holy Spirit has taken over the throne of your life. Before, it was Satan that was on the throne. Now, it is the Holy Spirit. Now, if we can find the room of the throne, we'll know where he is. It would have to be in the subconscious, because that's where we get all of our answers.

That's where everything dwells that controls our life is in the subconscious. And as a side note, we're told in Revelation that the books will be opened and will be judged according to our deeds out of the books.

You're carrying that book with you right now. It's not a book someplace that he's keeping a record. It's your subconscious mind. You cannot, right now, have control of your subconscious. Yet, every answer that you have to any question that you have comes from your subconscious mind.

This is why Paul said on whatsoever things are good, pure, holy, think on these things, because we have an input to the subconscious. God has an input to it, and it gets this information that way. If you put junk food in, you're going to get junk food out.

So, if you put Holy Scripture in as you study the Word, that's where your answers are going to arrive when you need an answer. So, the Holy Spirit dwells in that area. I cannot tell you exactly where it is.

I know it's not in my foot. It'd have to be in my head. It'd have to be in the very innermost part, as Arthur said, the inner man. That part. Any other questions? What? Well, I don't expect you all to answer every question I ask.

The question is not designed to get an answer. The question is designed to get you to think and study. That's far more important than the answer. There was a time in this country that there were separate schools for boys and girls.

Anybody remember that? Oh, you're much older than the rest of us. But then the next move was that they put them all at one school, but with separate dormitories. Then they moved them all in the same dormitory on separate floors.

That didn't last long. Now they're all on the same floor living in the same rooms. These young people know everything there is to know about sex and nothing about love. That's the work of Satan, and we're not going to change it.

That brings up a good question. Joy, why is it that you do not have to go to school and learn how to be wrong? You don't have to learn that. A child of the very smallest age, when they first get here and got nothing but an appetite and a blanket and things don't go their way, check the back of their neck.

It'll get just as red as fire. That's the old sin nature. I watched KK. Let me give you a truth. In the world, remember when you were in school, you had to understand the problem before you could believe it.

In the spiritual world, it's not like that. You have to believe it before you'll ever understand it, and you can believe things you don't understand. All right, we'll stop and we'll begin with verse 6 next time, and what will next time's date be?

What? Christmas is almost here. Greg, would you dismiss us today, please? All right, you have one more week to get your papers in, and then we'll discuss it next week.