2nd Thessalonians

First Baptist Church Leominster

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The ABC’s of the Christian Life (3): Following Jesus unto Salvation (1)

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The last couple of Lord's Days we've been addressing this second chapter of 2nd

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Thessalonians 2. And we addressed three major points toward the end of this chapter.

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First, giving thanks to God for our salvation, verses 13 and 14. And secondly, rendering faithful obedience to God's Word in response to our salvation by His grace.

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His grace leads us to obedience, motivates us to that end, requires our obedience, produces our obedience, all by His grace.

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And then thirdly, prayer to God that He would comfort and establish our hearts. And we, although read this a couple times, we haven't really addressed it and we want to do so this morning, but only briefly because we want to move into the third chapter.

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And so verses 16 and 17, prayer to God that He would comfort and establish our hearts.

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And so Paul wrote to this church, now may our Lord Jesus Christ Himself and God our

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Father who loved us and gave us eternal comfort and good hope through grace, comfort your hearts and establish them in every good work and word.

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He discloses He's praying for them and He expresses it in a way, may the Lord Jesus truly do this, even

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God our Father, may He give you comfort. He has secured eternal comfort for you by His grace, now may

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He grant you that eternal covenant in your souls. He's asking the

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Lord to basically give them the comfort that has already been secured to them and for them by Christ.

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Paul wrote of his prayer to God on behalf of these Christians, although Paul in chapter 2 had written of the perilous times that lie before them with regard to the men of lawlessness and the great apostasy that was to come.

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He prayed that the Lord would enable them to experience His comfort in spite of all the difficulties that were before them, that they could experience comfort, a sense of well -being, peace, through the knowledge of eternal life that He had freely given them by His grace, through His grace.

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So this confident hope that was there should move them to order their lives in a manner that would please

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God. Assurance of salvation does not lead to loose living, it actually leads to obedient living, and our confession makes that quite clear too.

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Paul desired that the work of God's grace on their behalf would be shown forth by them through their words and through their actions.

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They were to demonstrate that they were true Christians by how they spoke and how they lived.

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We see that God the Father and the Lord Jesus may impart this sense of well -being to the soul, and He wanted

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Jesus, He wanted the Father to do so. For God loves His people and He has designed their good and glorious future.

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It's been obtained for them, and now it's theirs to experience and to enjoy.

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He's given them the ground to experience this comfort, and He has established the ability, the condition, the basis for receiving comfort and establishing them in every good work and word.

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Again, for He loved us and gave us eternal comfort and good hope through grace, all of grace, not because of anything we did, had done, do, will do, but solely through His grace.

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Now, it's important for us to see the larger context in which verses 16 and 17 are placed.

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In verse 13, the Apostle wrote that Christians ought always to thank God, for He had elected them from eternity to be saved unto

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Him from their sin. Election is a wonderful and beautiful teaching of Holy Scripture.

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He wrote, we ought always to give thanks to God for you, brothers beloved of the Lord, because God chose you from the beginning to be saved.

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And we corrected that, I think, a mistake in translation in the ESV. It's not

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God had chosen them to be first fruits, but rather God had chosen them from the beginning, from before creation,

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God chose the ones who would be recipients of His salvation. And then we read in verse 15 that in response to this blessed grace of God bestowed upon them, the

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Apostle commanded these Christians to be obedient to the word of the Lord. God's grace necessitates, leads to, places a responsibility upon us to be obedient to our

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Lord. And so he wrote, so then brothers stand firm and hold to the traditions that you are taught by us, either by our spoken word or by our letter.

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And again, as we addressed last Lord's Day, that he was referring to that which was being conveyed as authoritative doctrine teaching that hadn't yet been penned fully in the

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New Testament. There were traditions, witnesses, witnessing the

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Apostles that conveyed what they had remembered as the Holy Spirit enabled them. And then you had letters that Paul had written, not many, probably first Thessalonians, maybe

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Galatians, maybe the Gospel of Mark had been written. And so there were traditions, already

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Christian traditions being passed on. And he's saying that these should govern you, these teach you.

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And Paul says either through my word to you or by our letter. And you cleave to these. And the application for us is that we're to cleave to the scriptures, both the

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Old and New Testament. Then in verses 16 and 17, Paul informed them that the

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Lord would enable them to obey the things that God commanded of them. God commands you to obey and thankfully

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God enables you to obey. If he didn't, we'd be in a world of hurt, wouldn't we?

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And so now may our Lord Jesus Christ Himself and God our Father comfort your hearts and establish them.

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I think that's a little awkward in this translation. What he means by them is your hearts.

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All right? Comfort your hearts and establish your hearts is what he's saying in every good work and word.

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And so God the Father and His Son would enable them to be obedient to His Word, thankfully so. And their obedience to their

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God was the appropriate response of God's election of them. Their obedience of God was also proof to themselves that they were indeed the elect of God.

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Obedience to God's Word is a wonderful evidence of someone who is saved by God's grace alone.

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Greg Beal, he's a professor down at Westminster Seminary in Philadelphia at this time, past Bolton Conference speaker.

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We've had him several times. He wrote of this emphasis in his commentary. It is our

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Lord Jesus Christ Himself and God our Father who will encourage your hearts and strengthen you in every good deed and word.

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God and His Messiah give believers the ability to obey what they command them to do.

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You know, God doesn't command you to do certain things and then leave it to you to do them. He commands you to do them and then

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He enables you to do them. And so you must be informed about the way, of course, that He enables

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His people to do the things He commands. And this reiterates Paul's similar teaching earlier.

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May the Lord make your love increase and overflow and strengthen your heart so that you will be blameless and holy.

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That was in 1 Thessalonians 3. Especially similar is Paul's command to hold on to the good, which is followed by the means to obey the command.

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May God Himself sanctify you through and through. And so God commands but God enables also.

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And it's extremely vital that we understand that. Because God commands but we're not able, apart from His grace, to do the things

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He commands us. When one knows that God is going to give the strength to obey, such knowledge does not lead to inaction but creates a desire to do what

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God wants. Paul knew this from his own experience of God's grace and he applied the same notion to other

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Christians. Knowing we have the moral power to obey instills in us a desire to comply with God's precepts, in other words,

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God's laws. Those who have never embraced the gospel, however, have no desire to obey

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God because they have no moral ability to do so. They have no compulsion to rise up from their spiritual coffins to please and obey

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God. They are spiritually dead in their transgressions and are inspired not by God for good but by this world and the ruler of the kingdom of the air,

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Satan, the spirit who is now at work and those who are disobedient. Consequently they are dominated by their sinful nature and follow its desires.

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And Beale captures fully the apostles' meaning and intent.

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Now there are some true Christians, in fact I might even change that adjective or pronoun, not some but there are many probably, true

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Christians who needlessly trouble themselves respecting their souls. They focus solely upon the sin of their own souls while they fail to look at what

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God has promised them and has secured for them in Jesus Christ. As we've said many times in the past, there are some

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Christians who will tend to take to heart the warnings of scripture but assume the promises of scripture apply to somebody else.

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And they go through life in a rather morose condition and are not characterized by a great deal of joy or optimism because they are focusing on their sin rather than the new life that they have in Christ.

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For we are to be as Paul by praying that the Lord would bring comfort to the souls of those troubled brethren.

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That's what he said, I pray that God the Father, I pray that the Lord Jesus would comfort your hearts to enable you to come to experience the comfort he's already secured for you through Jesus Christ.

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He's wanting these people, he's wanting God to illuminate them to the truth of the reality of their life that they have in Christ already.

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The Lord needed to illuminate them to this. And so we are to pray for the souls of our troubled brethren as well in the same manner.

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This is a wonderful model of prayer for us, isn't it? We're praying for those about us who may be troubled in this fashion.

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Well after we read that almost conclusion, it's almost like a concluding word from Paul, we come into chapter 3 and we see clearly

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Paul is trying to conclude his epistle, I'm speaking humanly speaking. And this was his nature, we find this same pattern in some of his other epistles too.

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He began to conclude his epistle by asking prayer for him and his brethren. He said, I'm praying to God the

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Father, to the Lord Jesus for you and now if you will pray for me, he says.

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And as well as him but the others also who were in the ministry, of the Word along with him.

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And so he asked that the Lord, they would pray that the Lord would bless the Word of God that Paul and his friends were promoting and were proclaiming.

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And so after the Apostle told these Christians he was prayed for them, he asked that they would pray for him. And so let's read verses 1 through 5.

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We're not going to get through them all today, but we'll begin to work through them. Finally, brothers, pray for us that the

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Word of the Lord may speed ahead and be honored as happened among you, and that we may be delivered from wicked and evil men.

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For not all have faith, but the Lord is faithful. He will establish you and guard you against the evil one.

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And we have confidence in the Lord about you, that you are doing and will do the things that we command.

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May the Lord direct your hearts to the love of God and to the steadfastness of Christ. That is a rich statement, paragraph that we have, and it's going to take us through next

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Lord's Day. Lord willing to address some of these important matters. Let's try and understand precisely what

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Paul was writing here. First we read of the command to pray for Paul and his companions.

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Finally, brothers, pray for us. The word finally, he's he's wrapping it up, isn't he?

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He's coming toward the end of his epistle. So although Paul had asserted very clearly and strongly the sovereignty of God in bringing salvation to his chosen people, those who are elect,

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Paul desired and Paul required the prayer of God's people on his behalf.

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I think that's important. I was converted in January 1972.

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I entered the ministry as a young man at the age of 21 in 1974, summer of 1974, and came to the

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Doctrines of Grace in December of 1979. And for a couple years

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I was rather paralyzed, I have to admit, after coming to the Doctrines of Grace. Fully convinced and confident in the sovereignty of God, I became all too passive.

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God's going to accomplish his purposes without the likes of me or with me. But I didn't put forth great intentional effort in the ministry because I thought, you know, that I was passive and that the

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Lord was active in his sovereign work. And clearly he was and is active in his sovereign work.

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But God has appointed means to accomplish his ends, hasn't he? And coming to the sovereignty of God, understanding the sovereignty of God and his purposes in grace, he will accomplish his purposes in Christ in no way whatsoever should lead us to passivity or an absence of intention and action.

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He calls us to act and we are to do so with confidence because God is sovereign.

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And so he did not regard the sovereignty of God to dismiss or discredit the use of means in accomplishing

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God's work in the world. And I fear that there are some that are that way.

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They don't seem to have a great deal of motivation or a sense of the responsibility they have, the importance they have of putting forth the hand of the plow.

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But that's what God would have us do, because the field's not going to get plowed unless somebody does it, right?

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And so God accomplishes purposes, but he uses means to do so. God has decreed he'll accomplish his work of salvation in history, but that he would do so through the means of prayer.

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And I wonder how many people hold to the doctrines of grace, the sovereignty of God and salvation, but they've laid off prayer, presuming upon God's sovereignty he's going to accomplish his will.

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And therefore, what's the sense? What's the use of prayer? He's going to do it whether I pray or not. And what results is there's a there's a tendency to to be passive and inactive and not aggressive in the means that God has appointed.

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And those people will not experience the power of God in their lives and in their service and in their ministry in the world, because God has appointed not only the end, but he's appointed the means.

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And he's chosen people through whom he will work. And so God indeed must act in order that his word would be advanced.

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But we must petition him. The people of God must petition him in order for him to act in our behalf.

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And so Paul knew that. Pray for me. Pray for us, including himself and Silas and Timothy, probably, that the word of the

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Lord might run swiftly or spread swiftly. And so they were to pray and they were to pray for the ministry of the word of God.

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I hope that's something that each one of us are always praying for. It's essential, absolutely important that we do so throughout each week.

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I try and do so every day with view to our radio ministry. When 11 o 'clock approaches, you know,

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I think about WVNE in Worcester. I think of WDR in Deary, Manchester.

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And at 1130, I think of WBCI up in Portland and ask the Lord to bless his word, cause people who need and will respond to his word to tune in providentially and bless that word.

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And of course, Raymond saw the need and asked. He was lamenting the other day, you know, how he saw that as such an important thing.

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And he couldn't get but a few people to commit to pray for the radio ministry. That doesn't bode well for us folks.

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Now, God blesses, you know, and it's a wonderful thing. We're seeing fruit, but I think that we'd probably see a lot more fruit if a lot more of us were faithful in the matter of praying.

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Don't you think? It's the means that God has appointed. Let's be faithful in this matter. Lord, help us.

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So they were to pray for the ministry of the word. Again, verse one reads,

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Finally, brothers, pray for us that the word of the Lord may speed ahead and be honored as happened among you. Now, Paul desired that the word would speed ahead, or perhaps understood better and simply that the word of the

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Lord runs. Pray that the word of the Lord runs. And that's what the Greek word is, how it's translated in many places.

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The word of God is described as a runner, and the need is for this runner to run fast. And so you have, for example, in Psalm 147 .15,

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perhaps he had this in mind. He sends out his command to the earth. His word runs very swiftly.

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Pray that the word of God would run swiftly. It won't unless we pray to that end.

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And so the word of God is personified. You see that, don't you? As though it were a person running.

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And we help it to run faster. In other words, go wider and disseminate farther through prayer.

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And we want this message to go forward, to take, you know, to go widely. The app that we're producing has this potential.

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The notes we send out now every Sunday is about 175 or so, and we hear word.

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It's amazing. You hear word that once it gets somewhere, pastors are taking them, duplicating them, and send them out to other pastors.

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I think I might have mentioned to you a couple weeks ago, Pastor Andrew in western Kenya. He's only been listening to us a couple months, and he had a couple men come from Mozambique.

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This is church. And the common language, second language of East Africans is

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Swahili. And so he said he's going to start translating those notes, these notes, into Swahili, of all things.

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And he distributes them. And Pastor Andrew has about six churches he oversees in an area probably about 100 square miles in western

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Kenya. And he's distributing these. It's incredible. But it's, I have to think that's because there are some of you that are praying to the

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Lord that the word of God would run swiftly. That's what that is, isn't it? And may that be done even much more so.

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Let's be faithful in this, aggressive in this, as the people of God. And then not only that the word of God might run, you know, be disseminated widely and broadly, but they were to pray that God's word would be honored.

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The word of God isn't always honored, is it? Speaks of people hearing and receiving the word of God with great regard with much appreciation.

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So it's not just that we want the word spread, but we want the word to be effective wherever it goes, that the word of God would be honored, and perceived, and appreciated, valued.

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And it's wonderful to read the testimonies of some that write to me and whatnot, of the word of God, not just what we send, but of their own perception of the word of God and their value of it.

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I've got a man and he's not very far advanced, it would seem, in things of the

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Lord. He calls himself Pastor Good Luck Ojo, if you can imagine that. And it makes my skin crawl every time

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I read that. But, you know, he has a church that he began, and he has, you know, probably nearly a hundred people.

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And he wrote me a note the other day about a young man that he witnessed to, and was gloriously converted.

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And then two weeks ago, he was murdered by Muslims, because they refused to deny the faith.

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And he was talking about how he's got these new converts in his church, and he doesn't have Bibles for them. We sent him 25

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Bibles, probably back in January or February. I want to send him some more. But he speaks of the value of the word of God, and then the notes we send, and greatly appreciative.

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And this guy's a simple fellow. He doesn't have a lot of comprehension and understanding, but he honors the word of God, has high regard for it.

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And we're to pray, not only that the word get to them, get to him, but that when it does arrive, that it'll be honored by them.

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We need to pray that among us, that we would have a high regard for the scriptures, for the word of God.

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How can we let the Bible sit there week after week, and not being read, and studied, and appreciated, thought upon?

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There's something deficient about us, if this is the only occasion during the week when you hear the word of God read or proclaimed.

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There's something deficient, seriously deficient, about one's Christian life. We ought to pray that the word would be honored among us, as it should.

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Isaiah 59 14, justice is turned back, righteousness stands far off, for truth has fallen in the streets.

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There's no value of the truth there, but God would have his word highly regarded.

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He brings people to honor his word, when he uses his word, to transform powerfully the hardened rebellious sinner into a humble, compliant, obedient Christian.

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Honor the word. Leon Morris, in his commentary wrote, it's clear that when

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Paul first preached at Thessalonica, there were spectacular results. Remember the context,

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Paul wrote 2 Thessalonians in Corinth, probably at the beginning of the ministry at Corinth, and he wasn't having the great results that he had up there in Thessalonica, or Philippi.

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When he left there after a few weeks, he went to Berea, and he had to, you know, the people received there, but he had to flee from there.

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He came to Athens, he preached in the synagogue, preached on Mars Hill, but he left shortly thereafter. And he came to Corinth, wholly given over to idolatry.

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And he was longing for the days when the word of God was going out gloriously, back in Thessalonica.

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Pray that the word of God would run swiftly. Pray that the word of God would be honored, just as it was, by you.

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And there's times and there's places when the word of God is wonderfully received, and there's other places and times when the word of God is not received.

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And so Leon Morris is pointing this out. The time in Thessalonica, many were speedily converted.

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It is this kind of free movement of the word of God that he has in mind. With this he couples the idea of the words being glorified or honored.

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Men are led to glorify the word when they see what it does. There may also be a glance at the idea that when the word is operative in the way spoken of, it displays its glory before men.

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Both verbs are in the present subjunctive. That's a mood of verb. We speak in subjunctives, although you might not realize it.

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And the significance of this continuous tense should not be overlooked. Paul is not looking for a single striking manifestation of the word, but for continuous swift advance and for its continual arousing of admiration.

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Amen. That should be our longing and desire. But again, Paul had left that region up north, and he hadn't seen the word running swiftly as he had formally, or being honored as he had formally.

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And so he wrote it to them. Finally, brothers, pray for us that the word of the Lord may speed ahead and be honored, as happened among you.

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You see that comparison clause there? Comparative clause? He wanted it to work in the same manner in Corinth that it had done in Thessalonica.

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And of course we read that the word of God is powerful and an effectual means of bringing people to salvation.

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For the word of God is living and powerful, and it's really speaking of Christ, but the scripture too, word of God, living and powerful, sharper than any two -edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, not of dividing two separate things, or distinguishing two separate things, but taking a single thing and dividing it, emphasizing the soul aspect, or the spirit aspect of the soul.

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It is that kind of precision, the joints and marrow, and it's a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart, and there's no creature hidden from his sight, but all things are naked or open to the eyes of him to whom we must give account.

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But the word of God is a sword, and the sword has to be wielded, doesn't it? A sword's no good rusted in the scabbard.

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I was watching the Revolutionary War series yesterday, a few episodes, and talked about one of the leader of the

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Continental Army. He was a great leader and whatnot, but his sword was rusted in its scabbard. And the sword is no good, and the scriptures are no good unless it's wielded rightly.

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And the only one who can wield that sword rightly, the word of God rightly, is the Holy Spirit, isn't that right?

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Now you and I use the sword of the Spirit, and we are too, but it is the Spirit that must wield the word as a sword, or it's not going to be effectual.

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It's the letter that killeth, but it's the Spirit that gives life. And so we have to pray and rely upon the

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Holy Spirit to use the word of God to be effectual to the salvation of sinners. The word of God is the sword of the

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Spirit. Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God, is what

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Paul wrote. And so we must pray that the Lord summons the

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Holy Spirit to wield His word. And then secondly, Paul asks that they pray that we be delivered from wicked and evil men.

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The word translated as wicked is translated by the other major English translations as unreasonable.

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Because wicked and evil, those are adjectives, they sound quite a bit the same, don't they, to our ear?

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What's the difference between wicked and evil? The first word probably carries the idea of being improper, unreasonable, or unrighteous.

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They had a bad temper toward the servants of the Lord. They were opposing Paul and the ministry of the word.

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And apparently Paul was not requesting prayer to be delivered from evil men in general, but he's suggesting the need of deliverance from a particular situation he was enduring.

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He's probably alluding here to Jewish leaders in Corinth who rejected the gospel.

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And he's describing them as unreasonable and evil men. Sometimes Christians find themselves being opposed directly by unreasonable and evil men.

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What are we to do when that happens? Well, we're to pray that the Lord would deliver us from such men, because they can cause difficulty.

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Pray that the Lord intervene. Paul told them to pray for deliverance from these evil men.

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And then he reasons in verse 2, for not all have faith. Not all men have faith.

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These men have no true faith in the Lord. Again, suggesting maybe the

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Jewish men who refused the gospel. Some in Corinth in the synagogue received the gospel, didn't they?

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Wasn't it there in Corinth where the Jewish synagogue leader embraced the gospel, became a

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Christian, wasn't it, Vita? And didn't they start meeting as a church right next door to the synagogue?

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You can imagine the kind of interaction they were having between Jewish unbelievers and Jewish believers in the gospel.

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Now when Paul was saying that all men have not faith, the

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Greek construction there has the definite article, the. He's not talking about not all men believe the gospel necessarily, but he's saying not all men have the faith.

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They don't have the Christian faith as governing them and guiding them. And so it seems further evidence that the wicked and evil men were

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Jewish men in Corinth who rejected the Christian faith. Not all men have the faith. But in contrast to those men who do not have faith or the faith, we see in verse 3 that the

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Lord is faithful. And so in contrast to those who are not faithful or who do not have the faith, the

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Lord is faithful. And this is a very important foundational matter. We might just read that clause or that sentence and think little of it.

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But it's a very important foundational matter in our understanding of our God, who he is, and how we relate to him.

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And how he relates to the world he created. God is faithful. And what attribute does that suggest to you?

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What comes to mind when you think of the faithfulness of God? It means he's consistent, of course, and it means that he doesn't deviate.

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He doesn't change. And so really the attribute of God that is being suggested by this expression, but the

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Lord is faithful, is really God's immutability. Mutable means changeable.

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And oftentimes God's attributes are set forth in a negative way.

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And so M -I -M would have been the way, say in Latin, that you would negate mutability.

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So mutability means changeable. Immutable means unchanging. Same thing with the attribute of the infinity of God.

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You and I are finite, but God is not finite. He's infinite.

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And so a lot of times the attributes of God are set forth in these negative ways. We can't comprehend what he's really like.

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We know what we're like, and he's not like us. He's infinite, not finite.

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And he's immutable. He's not mutable. He's not changeable like you and I are.

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And so stated positively, the Lord is faithful. And consider, you know, the

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God of Islam. You hear a lot of people arguing the God of Islam is the same God as Christianity. No. And one of the attributes that the true

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God has that Allah does not possess, Allah is a fabrication of course, but one attribute that they claim

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Allah has is that he is mutable. He changes.

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And so Allah can have favor upon you today, but he can change his mind next month. Now think of what that does to the sense of security or assurance that thoughtful people have within that Islamic religion.

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In contrast to their understanding of God, the Bible of course reveals the true nature of God as immutable.

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And therefore we can say God is faithful. Isn't that right? God is faithful.

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He's unchangeable. He's unchanging. And the scriptures declare this quite clearly and fully.

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Malachi 3 .6, I am the Lord, I do not change, and therefore you're not consumed.

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See, if God did change, you would be consumed. But God doesn't change. And so, in addition, consider these verses.

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Psalm 102 verse 25, top page 5. Of old you laid the foundation of the earth, the heavens are the work of your hands.

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They will perish, but you will endure. Yes, they will all grow old like a garment, like a cloak.

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You will change them, they will be changed. And I am the Lord, I do not change, and therefore you're not consumed. See, if God did change, you would be consumed. But God doesn't change. And so, in addition, consider these verses, Psalm 102 verse 25, top page 5. But you are the same, and your years will have no end."

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Think about the universe. It just seems to be in place, and doesn't seem to ever change, but it's growing older.

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And it's like a garment that grows old, and it will be replaced with a new heaven and a new earth.

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But God is the same. Everything changes in creation, but God does not change.

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He only is immutable. And therefore, God is absolutely faithful.

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He's unchanging. Numbers 23 .19, God is not a man that he should line, or a son of man that he should repent.

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In other words, change. As he said, and will he not do, or as he's spoken, and will he not make it good?

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God is faithful, because God is immutable. For Samuel 15 .29,

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in the New American Standard Version, he who is the glory of Israel, that's an appellation of God, the glory of Israel, does not lie or change his mind, for he's not a man that he should change his mind.

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He's immutable. He is faithful. And so we are saying that because God is immutable, that he never changes, whatever.

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He's always the same. And this means God does not change in his essential being,

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God does not change in his purposes or commitments. God is faithful to his covenantal commitments to the human race, because God is immutable.

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That's why we understand the Bible to be authoritative today. Because God is unchangeable.

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And therefore, when he spoke the word, in Hebrews 9, that word is just as true today.

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And that's why in the book of Hebrews, the Holy Spirit, the writer continually speaks about the

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Holy Spirit says, and then quotes the Old Testament. He doesn't say in the

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Holy Spirit said to Moses so much, but when he quotes scripture, he says the

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Holy Spirit says. And so the writer was telling Christians in the first century, the

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Holy Spirit is saying to you. And then he'd quote from Moses. And so we would say the same thing today.

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People argue, you know, the Bible is a record of God, what God said 2000 years ago, we need a fresh word today.

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God gives a fresh word today in the scriptures, because what he spoke then he's speaking today, because he's immutable.

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He's unchangeable. And so our very understanding of the abiding authority of scripture is contingent upon this attribute of God as well.

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Immutability is one of God's incommunicable attributes. When we think about the attributes of God, you know, his holiness, his love, his wisdom, his power, go down the list.

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Oftentimes, in history, systematic theologians have sought to classify them.

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And there are different classifications. But the one that's probably best is separating the attributes of God into the two categories of communicable and incommunicable.

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And so God has certain communicable attributes. In other words, you can be like God in these ways.

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But he has certain incommunicable attributes. There's no way you can be like God like he is in this way.

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And immutability is an incommunicable attribute of God.

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God is immutable. You cannot be. You're always changing. You're mutable.

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It's an incommunicable attribute of God. And therefore, it abides with him.

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It's essential to him. We are changeable.

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We cannot be immutable. But God is unchanging. He cannot become mutable.

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And therefore, the creator -creature distinction is sharply set forth in this matter.

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And the creator -creature distinction is foundational to a right understanding of who

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God is and how we relate to him. Arthur Pink said it so well, and we're going to wrap this up because we've got other things to deal with here in closing.

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This is one of the divine perfections which is not sufficiently pondered. It is one of the excellencies of the creator that distinguishes him from all his creatures.

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God is faithful. God is perpetually the same, subject to no change in his being, attributes, or determinations.

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Therefore, God is compared to a rock. Do you think of the immutability of God when you see that metaphor of the rock?

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It remains immovable when the entire ocean surrounding it is continually in a fluctuating state.

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And even so, though all creatures are subject to change, God is immutable. Because God has no beginning and no ending, he can know no change.

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He is everlastingly the father of lights, with whom is no variableness. There you have it.

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Neither shadow of turning. And therefore, God is faithful.

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And Arthur Pink is absolutely right. We need to stop there because of the time, and our clock is still wrong.

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We need to fix that, folks, before next Lord's Day, Lord willing. But I set forth this matter of God's immutability, and there's misunderstanding about this.

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God's nature doesn't change, but he may change in his dealings with mankind. And I used the example of the diet that God approves of, or restricts, that's set forth in the

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Bible. Adam and Eve were created, they were to be vegetarians. And then that changed, however, with the flood.

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God didn't change, but his dealings with mankind changed, and he told Noah that Noah could eat flesh as long as the blood was drained out of it.

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And then God changed once again at Mount Sinai. He distinguished food between clean and unclean. Things permitted, things not.

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And then through the ministry of the Lord Jesus, Jesus declared all foods clean. There is no clean and unclean food, religiously, ceremonially, today, according to the

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Lord Jesus. And so when we speak about God's immutability, we're not saying that God doesn't change in the way he manifests his works among people.

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He does change with regard to that, but his essence, his purposes do not change.

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He is immutable. And I mentioned in our notes, and I think it's important that some of our

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Pentecostal friends, I think, fall or fail in this way. They argue for the permanence of the revelatory spiritual gifts, speaking in tongues, a word of wisdom, a word of knowledge, because they argue the immutability of God.

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Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever. And they're failing to understand that although God is immutable in his essence, he certainly changes in his dealings with people.

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And that is not inconsistent with his immutability. But they fail to distinguish between God's purposes and God's actions within history.

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And I set that for us also in our notes. Important matter. I'm thinking that maybe we ought to return to it next week, or we might proceed further.

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I don't know. Let's pray. Father, we thank you that you are a faithful God, and that we can therefore depend upon you.

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And just as Paul, Lord, depended upon you, and he asked those Thessalonians to pray to you in the same way, in the same manner, our

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God, we pray to you today. With the same confidence and assurance, you will accomplish your good purposes in Christ.

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We do pray, our God, that you would help your people, particularly those who are very disturbed and distressed about their standing before you.

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They see their sin. The Word of God reveals it to them, and they're plagued by it.

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We pray that you would help them see the wonderful grace that's in Jesus Christ to deal with their sin.

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And the satisfaction the Lord Jesus provided before you with regard to their sin when he died upon the cross.

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And so help them, our God, to see the grace that you provide in Jesus Christ so that it would encourage them to experience the comfort that you have available to your people.

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And Father, we do pray that you would in this day cause your Word to run swiftly, broadly, widely, and that as it goes, we pray also in addition that your

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Word would be honored. In other words, received rightly and properly as it is in truth.

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Your Word, Lord, your holy Word. And may you accomplish your good work of salvation wherever it goes, our

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God, calling people out of sin, darkness, into light and life in the Lord Jesus.