Book of 2 Thessalonians - Ch. 2, Vs. 14-17 (02/17/2002)

Election, Sanctification, and the Belief of the Truth

I believe we find ourselves this afternoon in 2 Thessalonians chapter 2 verse approximately 14, right? I think I'm going to start with verse 13 to make the paragraph read right. So let's read, follow along with me and we'll read from verse 13 through the end of the chapter.

But we are bound to give thanks always to God for you, brethren, beloved of the Lord, because God hath from the beginning chosen you to salvation through sanctification of the spirit and belief of the truth, whereunto he called you by our gospel to the obtaining of the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Therefore, brethren, stand fast and hold the traditions which you have been taught, whether by word or our epistle. Now our Lord Jesus Christ himself and God, even our Father, which hath loved us and hath given us everlasting consolation and good hope through grace, comfort your hearts and establish you in every good word and work.

So let's stop there. That's what we'll cover this afternoon. Let's go back to verse 13 just because it's such a glorious verse. But we are bound to give thanks always to God for you, brethren, beloved of the Lord, because God hath from the beginning chosen you to salvation.

How could anybody take a verse like that and not understand the sovereignty of God, and not believe in election? The very word chosen is used, and they will come up with all kind of manner of strange definitions of that word to try to get around it.

And you can't get around it. It's found in too many places in the Bible. This is one of the stronger places, but this verse goes back, if you notice, to the love of God for his children, where it says, brethren, beloved of the Lord.

And I'm convinced after years of study of this topic from all different directions that the basis of election and the sovereign election is the love of God, first for himself and then later for you and me, or along with that, for you and me, his children, in other words.

And so that love is eternal and goes back to what we call eternity past, before anything was made, before any angels existed. There was just God, and he existed. The eternal son was there. God is a spirit, so the Holy Spirit is there.

And there is love in the Godhead, and it existed before anything was made. But what's marvelous to contemplate is that you were in that very heart of God at that time, before there was time, before there was anything.

You were there in his heart and mind. And he loved you with eternal love. We talked about it in Deuteronomy chapter 7 in the sermon this morning, where he said, I didn't choose you because you were a great nation.

You were the least of the least, is what the Hebrew says. You were the very least of the least of the nations, but he said, I loved you because I loved you. Isn't that strange language, but it's the only way you can explain it.

So that sovereign election, where God chooses who will be saved, is not, I love the way Otis has said it before, he says it's not really a choice. It's not a choice that was ever made, because you were always in his heart.

He didn't have to make a choice to save you and not save someone else. That kind of choice was never made. We talk about that in human terms, that's how it may seem or look. You may say, well, if he chose them to salvation, then obviously he chose the others to go to hell.

Well, you can say that if you want to, but that's not how it happened. Because I don't choose other children not to get to live in my house. I don't make that choice. I just chose my wife and I together, chose to have these children, and they're in our house because they're our children.

It makes sense. God is very similar in that way. So it has to go back to the eternal love that God had for his own before the foundation of the world, which is where you see Paul addressing brethren beloved of the Lord.

That word beloved is an eternal word. It goes back before anything was except God, and he already loved you. Now, when you understand that, the next phrase makes perfect sense, because God has from the beginning, in other words, you can go back to wherever you think the beginning is and drop off behind that, before that, he had already chosen you to salvation.

Now, that tells the fact, the next phrase in this sentence gives the method, or part of the method, the part he wants us to see anyway, through sanctification of the spirit and belief of the truth. So there is a truth here that he has chosen you to salvation, but there's also a truth that there will be a point in time when you will recognize your salvation, and in earth time we call that being saved.

It's your moment of salvation from our point of view, and that happens through a work that God does, whereby he sanctifies your spirit, or sets your spirit apart from the world, the spirit of the world, and also it is accompanied by belief of the truth.

So you notice that you see sanctification of the spirit first, and belief of the truth second, and yet the modern gospel is that if you'll just accept Jesus, you'll be saved. Anybody just believe in him, they'll be saved.

There are people who can believe in him in the flesh, and it doesn't save them, I promise you that. I've seen them come and go, Jesus called them the hard path type seed, where the seed falls on the soil, I'm sorry, not the hard path, but the rocky soil, the seed falls on the rocky soil, there's thinness of soil, they spring up quickly and joyfully until the sun comes out, which represents the word of God and the persecution and so forth, and then they wither away for they have no root.

So anytime you try to put the belief first, and the spirit second, it's not real salvation. Fact is, a person is already saved before you and I say, hey, he just came down the island and got saved, they're already saved, it happened in their heart, it's a spiritual thing, and God did a work of sanctifying their spirit and then they were able to believe for the first time.

So belief does not cause salvation, it's a result of it, just like good works and everything else, if you really want to be technical about what God reveals to us. Now, he says, brethren, be loved because God hath from the beginning chosen you.

This word beginning in the Greek language literally means the origin. So God has from the origin chosen you to salvation, from the extremity of a thing is what the word means. So if you can picture time and you go to the far extreme of it to the beginning, it happened before that.

That's when you were chosen. And this word chosen is a word that means to take for one's self. To take for one's self, it means to prefer. Now that doesn't fit today's feelings of how God is, does it, that he might prefer some people over others?

Well, he says he's no respecter of men and I understand that concept, if you put all of his children in a big room, he loves them all the same, that makes sense, doesn't it? Just like you do with your children, only better than you do with your children.

So but if you put the sheep in with the goats and you put them all in a big pile and God looks at them, guess whose head sticks up above the crowd and he sees? The sheep. So there is a preference there.

So when you look at this word choose, the very definition of it means to prefer or to choose over and above someone else, to choose by vote, to elect to office, etc. We know those meanings, but to take for one's self is the meaning of it.

And so God not only has already taken you for himself by love before the foundation of the world, but there is a point in time in history when he reaches out and chooses you, elects you, and calls you to himself.

This word choose where it says he has from the beginning chosen you is in the aorist tense, which is interesting because English doesn't have the aorist, but the Greek has it and what it means is, is that the emphasis is on the action, not on, it deemphasizes time, which is exactly what you would do if it's something that happened in eternity.

The emphasis on the choosing is not on what happened to you in time, like you say, when did you get saved? Well, I got saved in my car driving to work one day. The emphasis is not there. The emphasis is on the fact that before that you were chosen, back before time started and the aorist tense can give that feeling, whereas English has no such tense to use.

The voice of this, he hath chosen you to salvation, is in the middle voice, which indicates the subject performing the action upon, or either upon himself or for his own benefit. Now in this case, it doesn't mean that God performed this upon himself, but it does carry the connotation that he did it for his own benefit.

In the very grammar, in the very language of this word, this phrase where it says he has from the beginning chosen you, in the Greek language, the middle voice indicates that he did it for himself. He chose you for himself.

Isn't that why parents have children? You don't initially have children for the sake of the children, you have them because you want children. He did it for you, it was a selfish thing. You wanted to have some children for yourself.

God did the same thing, and so therefore he chose you. It's also in the indicative mood, which means it's a simple statement of fact. It's pure fact, there's no way to change it. That's why some of us believe once saved, always saved, because if he chose you before the foundation of the world, and he did it for himself, and he did it before anything was created, before you did either good or evil, and he did this for himself in the first place, then it's a fact that you can't change.

You can't change it by doing bad or good. What a comfort that is, because if we were in control of our salvation, it would be up and down as a yo-yo, or back and forth like a ping-pong ball, and it would not be stable at all.

The Necessity of Hearing the Gospel

All right, so now let's go to the next verse, verse 14. Well we didn't quite finish. You see where it says belief of the truth? There are such people in the world as hyper-Calvinists. The sure mark of a hyper-Calvinist is a Calvinist who believes you can get saved without even hearing the gospel, or that you can get saved without Jesus.

And that is an unscriptural position, and that's a heretical position. That's called hyper-Calvinism. I had a man, there was a man like that in the hay, he used to have a little TV store where he repaired TV sets, and he sat in there with this old Bible, and you've heard me tell the story, so I won't tell it again, but anyway, he told me that natives over in Africa, if they were of the elect, that they could get saved even if they never heard the gospel.

That's false, because look what God says at the end of verse 13. He tells us the truth, that he has chosen us before the beginning of the world, but he also says to be saved through sanctification of the spirit and belief of the truth.

Those two things have to be there, or it's not God's salvation. It's ridiculous to say that God is powerful enough to choose who's going to be saved, but not powerful enough to get the word to that person if they need to hear it.

He is absolutely, and every missionary that's ever died or lost a loved one or a child or a wife or a husband on the field, they would hate the doctrine that you can be saved without hearing the gospel, because they died to get it over there, but God used them.

He used them to get it to maybe one person. I know some of the missionary stories are incredible to stay over there and translate languages for 15 years without one convert that they can see with their eyes.

Well, you know, it may just be one person. God may have taken them over there for one single, one of his children that had to be saved, but you know what? That child had to hear the gospel clearly, because that's part of God's means.

It's just as much a part of the plan as the actual salvation. So the end of verse 13 kills the hyper-Calvinist. It destroys his doctrine. Verse 14, whereunto he called you by our gospel to the obtaining of the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ.

There once again, the fact that it says by our gospel shows very clearly that you cannot be called without the good news being a part of the calling. Whereunto he called you by our gospel. This word called means to be named, to call aloud, to utter with a loud voice, to invite, to give a name to, and so this happens in time as God knows from the beginning that you're his.

You don't know that. Even from the beginning of your life, you don't know that, because when you're lost, you're lost. You may be a lost sheep, but you're just as lost as a lost goat, at least from our viewpoint.

You don't know God. You don't love God. You hate God, and so forth. You're his enemy, and all of that, just like a lost, any lost person, and all of a sudden, there is a calling, just like when Paul was on the road to Damascus, and the light comes on, and you look up, and the first thing you say is, Lord, what would you have me to do?

Or something along those lines, and that is the calling that this refers to, where he actually calls out your name. He calls you by name, and for the first moment in your life, you're aware that there's a difference, and you're saved now, and everything is different.

You just want a pleasing from that moment on, and it is good if you can remember such a moment. For those of us who are saved later in life, that's much easier than those who might have been saved as a young person, so sometimes you don't remember it as easily.

If you got saved at 5, or 6, 7, 8, or even 9, or 10, it won't be as vivid in your mind sometimes as it would be those of us saved at the age of 24, or whatever, but it's very vivid with you, usually, when you're saved later in life.

You know when the calling was, and even the young people, if you'll help your child through the years to have him tell the story of his salvation to you many times, you know, at least once a year, once or twice a year, get him to tell you the testimony, then as they grow older, they can remember it better.

Alright, verse 14, so we're talking about the calling here, that word, if it weren't enough to prove it, when we talk about the being chosen, when we look at this word called, where unto he called you by our gospel, it's in the aorist tense, so even though it happens in time, it was initiated outside of time, God had already determined that it would take place on a specific day, in a certain place, at a certain time, and boy, praise his name as you think about that time in your life, because where were you before that happened?

You were in darkness, total darkness. The voice here is active, which means that the subject is the doer of the action, so when you see here where it says, he called you, it shows it's not something you can do to yourself, salvation is of God, so we know that, but isn't it amazing how it's even embedded within the grammar?

The mood is indicative, which means it's a simple statement of fact. And fact with God can't be changed. You can't improve perfection. So the fact that you were chosen and called, and it was planned in the aorist tense, before time began, or outside of time, and it happened in time, in the indicative mood, which means by fact, in the active voice, which means he did it to you, you didn't do it, he did it to you, all of these things are found in the grammar.

Now verse 15, therefore brethren stand fast, well what's the therefore mean? Well it's saying look back at what God has, look at what's happened. God knew you and loved you before the foundation of the world.

He chose you and called you with a calling that happened in his mind before time even began, and yet it happened in time at the first spark of light that you saw when you received Jesus as your personal Lord and Savior.

And all of this is done by the act, the willful act of God who was your father, who loved you, and he called you to himself and said you're my child. Now because of all that, verse 15 says knowing all that, then stand fast and hold the traditions which you have been taught, whether by word or epistle.

Now I think this word traditions bears looking at because there is a tradition given in the Bible in the bad sense such as the vain tradition of our fathers or the traditions of the Pharisees that have no biblical basis.

Now when Paul says here to hold fast the traditions which you have been taught, it is the same Greek word, paradosis, which literally means tradition, it has an underlying meaning of giving up or giving over, so it literally carries the connotation of giving over to this truth.

I give up, this truth overwhelms me, the truth of this particular doctrine just, I give up to it, it's true, therefore I give in, that kind of idea is what this word means. But notice how he ties this in not just with some fable or wives tale, old wives tale, he ties it in with his epistle or by a word which means a word given by inspiration of the Lord, a word that an apostle taught you or a prophet taught you from God.

So hang on tightly to the teachings that Paul has given us, that John and Peter and Jesus and the apostles, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John and those things, those teachings that God has given us by these epistles hold fast to these traditions, these ordinances, these truths.

And that exhortation is given here, much of 1st and 2nd Thessalonians is given to end time believers, believers who are on the earth in the end times which we know we're in the end times, we've been in the end times since Paul began to write because he spoke of these as the end times.

So we're in the end of the ages, the only difference is we're at the end of the end of the ages, we're perhaps in the last paragraph of this age right now and above all people this is written to us to comfort us but to cause us to stand fast, holding the teachings that are given in this Bible.

Use no other standard, don't use your commentaries, listen, read them, read them all but you've got to understand this that I've got probably the biggest library of anybody in this church, probably anybody in the state of Texas because I've inherited Brother Rocky's library so I had a big one already and I've got all his books now but I have taken topics out of the Bible and read five different theological works on it and each one of those men can convince me that their way is right and then all of a sudden you look and you realize they're not saying the same thing, they're disagreeing on certain things but if you took any one of those and it's the only one you read and you hadn't studied the whole Bible a lot, you would believe it because they're so persuasive.

So as you study, yes, read the commentaries if you want, read the theological works if you want but realize for that one, for every one you read there are a hundred more you could read, literally a hundred more going back in time where one taught the other who taught the other going all the way back to Martin Luther in many cases.

Some of our writings can go back to the Anabaptists but very few because they burned nearly all of their works and killed nearly all of them. So most of our writings go back to the Protestant reformers that used to be Catholics but God turned the light on with those people during the Renaissance.

All of a sudden when Calvin came along it's as if God turned the light on the whole world with the Renaissance but he turned the light on his children with the Protestant movement of that era and so much of what they write is awesome to read but you've just got to realize there's so much out there that you've got to read more than one because any one of them can convince you.

So what does that tell you as a new Christian or someone who's really starting to study theology for the first time, you've got to get a grasp of the whole Bible, you've got to read and study on your own.

The first stage you'll go through is you'll read several books and you'll just receive what they say word for word, you'll even make your own outlines as if they're yours but they really were that person's and you'll have, it will begin to help you build structure in your theology which is a good thing, that's what we mean when we say systematic theology, it's a structure to it where you begin to be able to put several portions of the Bible together without them contradicting each other, that's a system.

The thing you've got to be wary of is that some of the things that men will tell you, even Mr. Schofield who you've got, many of you have in your Bible, I myself do, after years of study you're going to find some things he says you just don't see that in the Bible.

So just remember these men are not inspired, they're just students like we are, they may have had doctor before their name but they were just students like we are. So continue to study, continue to keep your mind open and never let a theologian close your mind to the Bible.

Gary Plumlee taught me that when I first got saved, when he was discipling me, he said David never let your theology make you become unscriptural where you will change the meaning of a verse to make it fit what you've been taught by others.

So just learn what you can but always keep an open mind to the actual word of God in the scriptures and the meanings and study the grammar, get in and study the grammar, study the context, see what it says plainly.

Always remember that you should always use the plain text to interpret the difficult text rather than vice versa. Don't go to some obscure passage somewhere and base your belief on that, go to the plain passages first, use them to shed light on the obscure passages.

And if you'll use those rules, you'll just do great and God will reveal to you what he wants you to know at exactly the time he wants you to know it. And you don't have to be a quote, a PhD in theology to get it.

You just need to have an open heart to God. So stick with the traditions but only if they're biblical traditions, only if they're borne out by the scriptures without contradicting any number of other scriptures.

The Comforter, Good Hope, and Stability in the Last Days

Okay, now let's look at verse 16. So the key is that the word epistle is the standard in that sentence. All right, look at verse 16. Now our Lord Jesus Christ himself and God, even our father, which hath loved us, see it goes back to the love that was spoken of in verse 13, he hath loved us in the past, in eternity past, the one who hath loved us, and hath given us everlasting consolation and good hope through grace.

Now, this particular sentence, it says he hath loved us. Once again, that's the errorist tense. He loved us without respect to time. He loved us outside of time, loved us before time began. It's active, which in English, you could put ing after it.

It means he is still, it's an ongoing love. He didn't just love us, but he is loving us. It's an ongoing word. It's past tense love, but it's also present tense love. He's loving you right now while you're sitting here today and he'll be loving you on the way home in a few minutes.

So it's active, participle, and so forth, a continual type love. Well, what about this word consolation? What does this mean? He has loved us and has given us everlasting consolation. Well, that's a beautiful word in the Greek because it's the word paraclete, the same word that's used for the Holy Spirit.

It means the comforter. So this is not a thing he has given us. It's God himself. It's God's own presence. When he says that he has given us an everlasting consolation and good hope through grace, it's not a thing he's given us.

It means he has given us the everlasting comforter. It's the same word, it's paraclete. He's given us the Holy Spirit. What higher degree of consolation or comfort could we have than to have the one who is our comfort living in our hearts?

What a blessed thing. He's given us everlasting consolation. There is no thing he could have given us that's everlasting other than he himself. So this is his spirit, his paraclete, his comforter. It means to come along beside is what the word paraclete means, to come along beside.

One who comes along beside. He's your friend. He's your protector. He's your comforter when you're down. He's your builder up when you're down. He's the one who brings you into balance when maybe you're on the mountaintop to keep you from being prideful.

He brings you into balance and helps you see, well, this is all from the Lord. And he's there working with you every step of the way as we grow. So he's given unto us the everlasting paraclete and good hope through grace.

That's all I got for you today, so let's stand and pray together. You know what? I missed one, didn't I? Miss B, you do him. You tell him he missed one. You didn't tell me. Verse 17 says, comfort your hearts and establish you in every good word and work.

I didn't skip a line, so I didn't see it. That word establish means to make stable, make you stable. Remember how he said stand fast at the beginning of this thing? Be stable, especially in the last days.

Now we can finish. Lord, thank you for your word. Thank you for every small little bitty word, for every phrase, for all of it, for preserving it for us to this day, for giving us light that we might learn of you and that we might be warned of how we must live, especially in these last days.

Let us be full of remembrance of the fact that you chose us, not because we were the greatest, but because you loved us and that you then called us to yourself and that you have given us the comforter to walk with us in this life to make us stable and to make us stand.

And so, Lord, thank you for establishing our hearts with the truth and we ask you to be salt and light as we go out from this place and we ask it in Jesus' name. Amen.